Path of Exile 2 has had an astounding Early Access period. With more than 1 million players at launch, the Grinding Gear Games-published top-down ARPG has remained a much-played and much-explored game. Now, with POE 2 Season 2, titled Dawn of the Hunt, the critically acclaimed ARPG is adding five new Ascendancy Classes. Two Ascendancy Classes in POE2’s Dawn of the Hunt are outfitted for the new Huntress class. Still, GGG has also added three new Ascendancy Classes that are expanding existing classes in POE2 Early Access’ Season 2.
In our review, we said that “Path of Exile 2‘s difficulty, combat, art, and map designs keep pulling you in. No matter how many times you die or how many times you have to adjust your build, you just keep coming right back. This is a game that is firing on absolutely all cylinders and shows no signs of slowing down.”
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Ascedancy Classes are core to accelerating the end game in POE2, and with these new additions, a world of opportunity opens up. What builds will find themselves at the top of the tier list for Dawn of the Hunt?
Learn more about the new POE2 Huntress class and her Ascendancy Classes here.
What To Expect From The Ritualist Ascendancy Class – Huntress
The Ritualist sacrifices flesh and blood, unleashing corrupted lifeforce upon their foes. She delved into the forbidden depths of Azmeri traditions, wielding blood sacrifice and plague as weapons.
- Corrupted Life Force Skill: This skill causes all enemies around you to grow volatile blood boils on their skin. In return, when those enemies are slain, the boils burst, spreading a Corrupted Blood debuff to all enemies around them.
- Unfurled Finger Skill: The ritualist also excels in taking advantage of magical trinkets, with this skill allowing you to equip an additional ring on a finger around your neck. Taking mystic attunement increases the bonuses of all the rings and amulets you have equipped.
- Ritual Sacrifice Skill: Use the skill on the corpses of slain rare monsters to absorb the power in their blood, to give you one of their modifiers for a short time.
- Whispers Demand Skill: Allows the player to perform the Ritual Sacrifice skill on themselves instead of a corpse, sacrificing some of their own blood to empower themselves.
What To Expect From The Amazon Ascendancy Class – Huntress
By choosing Amazon, you will become a peerless hunter who thrives on precision and elemental fury. The Amazon Ascension forges warriors into elite hunters, sworn to protect Azmeri Elders with lethal precision.
- Predatory Instinct Skill: Using this skill will reveal weaknesses in the defenses of rare and unique enemies, causing you to deal more damage. You can see those weak spots represented on their life bars. While using elemental infusion, any charges you consume will infuse your weapon with elemental power, causing any projectile. To explode on impact.
- Critical Strike Skill: This skill takes your excess accuracy and gives it to you as a critical strike chance.
- Mystic Harvest Skill: This skill allows your elemental damage to leech life.
- Azmeri Brew: Allows you to use either flask to restore both life and mana.
What To Expect From The Lich Ascendancy Class – Witch
The Lich tears their own soul apart, becoming a master of undeath and chaos. The Lich is a master of Chaos and Curses who can use her own life to enhance her Energy Shield.
Crystalline Phylactery Skill: This skill allows you to nominate a jewel to contain a part of your soul, massively increasing your power. But like many of the Witch’s skills in her Ascendancy Classes, There’s one downside to splitting your soul this way: if you have no energy shield, your mana cost will increase drastically.
Necromantic Conduit Skill: This skill causes you and the allies in your presence to have Unholy Might, which grants extra damage as chaos damage. Rupture The Soul notable, which makes enemies you curse explode with chaos damage.
Dominion Over Flesh Skill: This skill allows you to apply an additional curse
In addition to the new Ascendancy class, the Witch is also seeing some changes to her general build. The Raise Specter Skill can be found in the occult skills on the skill gem crafting panel. Raise Specter is a skill that allows you to trap the soul of almost any monster in the game, which you can then summon in the skill panel. Specters cost spirit and will revive automatically if they die, but the Spirit cost varies based on the monster’s power.
What To Expect From The Smith of Kitava Ascendancy Class – Warrior
The Warrior is a blacksmith in origin, taught by his father, Renly. The Smith of Kitava forges weapons of destruction in fire and suffering. Embrace sheer power and elevate Smithing skills by resonating with the insatiable one – Kitava.
Anvil Against Skill: This allows Smiths of Kitava to be master blacksmiths and can forge their weapons. The Notable Skills attached here allow you to enhance your weapon with fiery destruction before any battle. After doing so, your attacks will release explosions on hit for maximum devastation.
Power of Kitava Skill: This allows you to summon an animated copy of your weapon to fight alongside you.
Ascendancy Tree Variant: The tree for this Ascendancy Class looks substantially different from others, but that is because it’s tied to your armor. Smiths of Kitava can also forge their own armor through the disconnected skills listed on the tree. When these skills are assigned, your character is unable to equip body armor with mods of any kind, so your body armor must be normal. These skills allow you to craft your own body armor by taking those disconnected notables with your points, which will enable them to grant life, resistance, and more.
What To Expect From The Tactician Ascendancy Class – Mercenary
The Mercenary Tactician brings military-grade brutality to the battlefield. As a former trained Blackguard Elite, the Tactician can decimate the monsters of Wraeclast while earning a healthy income at the same time.
Suppressing Fire Skill: This skill causes all projectiles to pin enemies, which not only stops your enemies from moving. When combined with another notable, this will prevent them from performing actions as well.
Soldiers Training Skill: This skill allows you to use the Whoever Pays Best notable, and you can place multiple banners at once.
Watch How We Do It Skill: This skill gives a portion of your weapons damage to your allies. But if that isn’t enough, you can command your army of off-screen archers to unleash hell and carpet an entire area with arrows.
Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt launches April 4, 2025 on PC.
