Path of Exile 2: How To Level Up Fast As Warrior

The Warrior in Path of Exile 2 is the quintessential Strength-based melee class, known for delivering powerful, calculated strikes. As a slow but devastating fighter, the Warrior thrives on timing and precision, offering a gameplay experience reminiscent of Soulslike combat that rewards strategic thinking and patience.

Leveling a Warrior in the early stages can feel challenging due to their slower attack speed and technical playstyle, but these obstacles can be overcome with the right mindset and build. By leaning into the Warrior’s natural strengths, players can turn this class into a powerhouse. In this guide, we’ll break down an optimized Warrior setup to help you efficiently navigate the leveling process and prepare for the challenges of Path of Exile 2’s endgame.

Best Warrior Leveling Skills in Path of Exile 2

This Warrior leveling setup focuses on stunning enemies, breaking armor, dealing area-of-effect damage to mobs, and inflicting fire damage on bosses. It’s an ideal starting build to carry you through the early stages of Path of Exile 2 before selecting your Ascendancy class.

Core Skills and Support Gems for Leveling

• Mace Strike (Primary Attack)
• Support Gems: Rage, Overpower
Mace Strike is a reliable basic attack for dealing consistent damage while generating Rage. The Rage support gem enhances your damage output as it builds up, and Overpower boosts critical strike chances, making it great for single-target damage.
• Rolling Slam
• Support Gems: Close Combat, Brutality
This skill is excellent for clearing groups of enemies while maintaining mobility. Close Combat increases damage the closer you are to enemies, and Brutality significantly amplifies your physical damage output.
• Boneshatter
• Support Gems: Execute, Impact Shockwave
Boneshatter deals high physical damage while applying stuns to your targets. Execute enhances its effectiveness against weakened enemies, while Impact Shockwave adds a damaging area-of-effect burst upon hitting.
• Perfect Strike
• Support Gems: Eternal Flame, Fire Infusion
Perfect Strike excels at targeting tougher enemies and bosses. Eternal Flame increases the skill’s overall power, and Fire Infusion adds fire damage to deal with enemies more effectively.
• Armor Breaker
• Support Gem: Martial Tempo
This skill excels at shredding enemy defenses, making them more vulnerable to your heavy-hitting attacks. Martial Tempo increases the speed and effectiveness of your armor-breaking capabilities.
• Leap Slam
• Support Gem: Stomping Ground
A versatile movement skill that allows you to traverse the battlefield quickly. Stomping Ground enhances its damage potential, making it great for both mobility and clearing smaller enemy groups.
• Herald of Ash
• Support Gems: None
Herald of Ash is an excellent utility skill that grants bonus fire damage to your attacks. It also causes enemies to explode on death, dealing fire damage to surrounding foes, making it an invaluable tool for clearing large packs.

This balanced setup provides a mix of mobility, area-of-effect damage, and single-target capabilities, ensuring a smooth leveling experience as you progress through the early stages of Path of Exile 2.

Best Active Skills for Warrior Leveling

Your core strategy revolves around combining Rolling Slam with Boneshatter to efficiently clear mobs and deal with tougher enemies. This combo utilizes stunning and area-of-effect damage to dominate the battlefield while leveraging utility skills to control and weaken tougher foes.

Mob Clearing Combo: Rolling Slam into Boneshatter
• Open with Rolling Slam, targeting clusters of enemies. Immediately cancel into Boneshatter if at least one enemy becomes Primed for Stun.
• The resulting Boneshatter will trigger an instant stun, often killing the target outright and creating a powerful shockwave. This shockwave damages surrounding enemies and can wipe out large groups in a single sequence.
• Activate Herald of Ash to enhance this combo further. The explosions caused by Herald of Ash will ignite defeated enemies, chaining damage across entire screens of mobs, making this combination highly efficient for mob farming.

Boss Strategy: Single-Target Destruction
• Against bosses, switch to Perfect Strike as your primary damage skill. Charge the skill until your weapon flashes, then release to guarantee an Ignite on your target. This adds consistent fire damage over time, helping to melt their health quickly.
• Use Leap Slam to apply stagger damage to build up the boss’s Heavy Stun meter. This allows you to interrupt their attacks and keep them vulnerable for follow-ups.
• Cast Armor Breaker frequently to reduce the boss’s Physical defenses. This ensures your hits deal maximum damage, allowing you to capitalize on their weakened state.

By combining these skills strategically, you’ll be able to handle both large groups of enemies and high-health bosses with ease, creating a smooth leveling experience in Path of Exile 2.

Best Warrior Leveling Build

This passive skill setup is designed to enhance your damage, improve stun effectiveness, and maximize survivability early in the game. It primarily focuses on Strength-based nodes and Mace-specific passives, giving you a solid foundation for leveling while allowing flexibility for defensive or accuracy-related adjustments if needed.

Priority Passives: Levels 1–10
• Brutal: Increases your overall damage, making it easier to clear early content.
• Smash: Improves your stun duration and build-up, enhancing your control over enemies.
• Sturdy Metal: Boosts your physical damage output, perfect for Mace-focused builds.
• Relentless: Adds consistent offensive and defensive benefits by reducing the effects of debuffs and damage over time.

Priority Passives: Levels 11–28
• 6 Strength Nodes: Boosts your base Strength for increased damage and survivability.
• Jewel Socket: Opens up space for equipping a jewel that can further enhance your build.
• Skullcrusher: Increases your damage against Heavy Stunned enemies, making your stuns even more effective.
• Split the Earth: Grants a chance for Aftershock effects, adding extra AoE damage to your attacks.

Flexibility for Survivability and Accuracy

If you find yourself struggling to survive during leveling:
• Delay Skullcrusher and Split the Earth and instead invest in:
• Polished Iron: Provides a significant boost to your Armor, increasing your overall defense.
• Made to Last: Allows you to recover 15% of prevented Physical Damage as Life, greatly improving sustainability.

If your attacks are missing too often:
• Invest in Resolute Technique: Guarantees all your attacks hit, but removes the chance for critical strikes. This trade-off is excellent for builds focused on consistent damage output rather than crit scaling.

This passive skill setup provides a balanced approach to both offense and defense, allowing you to clear enemies efficiently while staying durable in the face of tougher encounters. Adjust the build as needed to match your playstyle and gear progression.

Recommended Gear for Warrior Leveling Build

When gearing up your Warrior, prioritize items with modifiers that enhance your damage, survivability, and accuracy. Here’s what to look for:
• Physical Damage Increases: Amplifies your primary damage output, ensuring harder hits with your Mace skills.
• Bonus Strength: Strength boosts not only improve damage but also increase your maximum life for better durability.
• Increased Armour: Reduces incoming physical damage, essential for surviving tough encounters.
• Accuracy Rating/Dexterity: Ensures your attacks consistently land, crucial for building stun and maintaining damage output.
• Maximum Life: Increases your health pool, providing more room for error in challenging fights.
• Elemental Resistances: Reduces damage from elemental attacks, especially important as you progress into higher-level zones.

Weapon Choices

For maximum damage, two-handed weapons are the optimal choice for this build, as they deliver powerful hits and excel in scaling damage with Mace passives. However, you can also opt for:
• Dual-Wield Maces: Grants faster attack speed and additional stats but sacrifices some raw damage per hit.
• Shield and Mace: Improves survivability, offering increased armor and block chance, at the cost of reduced offensive power.

Farming Tips

To find better gear:
• Reset Instances: Use the waypoint system to reset zones and refresh enemy spawns.
• Target Bosses: Focus on farming bosses for higher chances of obtaining rare gear drops.

Following these gearing guidelines will ensure your Warrior is well-equipped to handle Path of Exile 2’s tougher challenges. Choose weapons and armor that complement your build’s strengths while addressing its weaknesses, adapting as you progress.

Conclusion

Leveling a Warrior in Path of Exile 2 can be a rewarding but challenging experience. By focusing on a well-balanced skill setup, prioritizing stun mechanics, and optimizing your gear for strength, physical damage, and survivability, you can tackle the game’s tougher encounters with confidence. Don’t forget to adjust your passive skill tree and playstyle as needed, especially when progressing through harder acts or preparing for Ascendancy. With the right build and strategies, the Warrior becomes a powerful force capable of dominating both mobs and bosses alike. Prepare your gear, hone your skills, and embrace the path to becoming a true powerhouse in Path of Exile 2.