Path of Exile fans, how hyped have you been lately? If this game wasn’t already the best ARPG around, how about six additional acts in a single new expansion? PoE is coming to Xbox One, too! Grinding Gear is doing some fantastic stuff lately that’s really impressing and taking the community by surprise.
Another bright spot is that they’re doing pretty well with balance as they progress through patches lately. That being said, many changes have come with recent patches 2.4, 2.5, and 2.6. In this post, let me introduce you to five of the best builds that you can get started with right now in patch 2.6.
Norse’s Earthquake Slayer
This build is one of the best in the game right now at putting out incredible damage on a low budget. A lot of players have been turning away from Earthquake due to the nerfs to it in the last patch, but it wasn’t put into the ground (no pun intended). This build is still viable and some will even tell you that it’s the top build to start with as a new player in 2.6.
Norse’s forum guide is simple and straightforward, laying out the gear, links, and passives you’ll need to run this build at the optimal level. He’s spent a lot of time fine-tuning this build, so I highly recommend you follow his guide as closely as possible.
Norse also shows off this build’s ability to breeze through Uber Atziri and gives some great advice along the way. If Earthquake is the way you want to go, this is the guy to listen to.
Pohx’s Blight Occultist
If you don’t believe in Blight builds, just know that Pohx recently reached level 100 in a hardcore league running this. That being said, running it in softcore means you’ll be able to be a little less cautious and spec more heavily into offense (which is always more fun). This build provides a well-rounded mix of AoE clearing, overall damage, and survivability.
In his guide, Pohx lays out a day-by-day rundown of how the build is progressing. It’s a great series to watch before trying out this build, as you’ll be able to see exactly what you’re getting yourself into.
If there’s any downside to this build, it wasn’t built with The Shaper in mind.
Yoji’s Flameblast Elementalist
The first thing that stands out about this build is how well the guide for it is laid out on YouTube.
Yoji does a fantastic job of explaining everything you’d want to know about how and why to play this guild in just five minutes of video.
As stated in the video, Elementalists were nerfed, but (just like Earthquake) you shouldn’t think it’s unplayable. This guide proves it’s far from that. Although designed for 2.4, this build plays perfectly fine on 2.6 and it’s really easy to get started with as a novice player. Flameblast builds are extremely popular in this patch and I’d rank this as one of the top two builds of this kind.
Varcarian’s Warchief Totem Chieftain
While it is a build that I recommend for starting players, to really cap off this build you will need a pair of Facebreakers. What I see a lot of people doing, until they get their hands on those, is speccing into some of the weapon nodes in their tree. Then, when you finally get your Facebreakers, you can free up those points and put them elsewhere for a smooth transition and nice boost elsewhere.
Vacarian himself hasn’t made any YouTube videos showing off his thoughts and input on the build, but you can find many others giving their spin on it. This build is capable of doing all content in the game comfortably, and when played correctly you can pull off a deathless Shaper.
Lifting’s Blade Vortex Occultist
Blade Vortex’s radius was increased in 2.6 and that inspired a lot of people to give it a second look. Lifting’s build focuses on scaling up physical, chaos, and poison damage rather than worrying about critical strikes and damage. Doing so allows the build to feel a lot stronger earlier because you don’t have to rely on the inconsistency that crit-based builds experience.
The build is fairly cheap and Lifting lays out the gems, gear, and overall thought process behind it in the video above. It was designed entirely around the ability to effectively farm currency, so if you’re a big grinder then this is a build you want to try out.
If you’ve got any questions or would like to share some advice or other builds for 2.6, drop a comment below. Always remember that the number one reason Path of Exile is so much fun is because of the freedom and choices that it provides the player! Try as many builds as you can and put your own spin on them for the truest PoE experience.
