In this Path of Exile 2 Ranger class guide, we’re going to be talking about the ins and outs of playing the Ranger in Path of Exile 2. This is a beginner guide aimed at newRangersout there or people that are looking into playing the Ranger class or might be having trouble with their Ranger. It’s not a more advanced build guide, it’s not an endgame guide or anything like that. It’s simply here to explain some of the mechanics of Ranger and help you get into the basics.
Path of Exile 2 Ranger Starter Guide - Mechanics, Passives, and Stats
So to start,Rangersfocus on obviously ranging down enemies withbowsand their skills, but because they usedexterityas their primary stat, you can also mix their gameplay in with a secondary weapon of acrossbowor quarterstaff if you put some points intostrengthorintelligence. And that allows for a little bit of varied playstyle. But I do also feel like Rangers are maybe a bit more gear-dependent than some other classes at the beginning of the game. I think this is true of classes in general that use dexterity primarily.
I would say probably the primary mechanic or one of the primary mechanics of Rangers is the use ofpoisons. Poisons are damage over time that can be applied through the use of both skills. And a lot of these poisons can be spread around to hit multiple targets. And what’s great about poisons is that they continue to damage enemies even when you’re no longer attacking. For instance, like maybe you’re in a tough boss fight and you put poison on the boss and then you have to dodge like four times in a row to keep dodging the attacks of the boss because it’s aggressive. All that time if poison is on the boss it’s still dealing damage even while you’re not attacking. This can be helpful for players who are just starting out.
Additionally, even though you may only have one stack of poison on an enemy by default, there are many ways to gain more stacks of poison allowing you to deal even more damage over time by continuing to apply poison on top of poison to enemies which can make things go even faster. You’ll do this by support skills, passive skills in your passive skill tree, and also by choosing a specific ascendancy class.
Another thing that Rangers use typically in some of their builds areFrenzy Charges. And frenzy charges is a more advanced thing in my opinion for Rangers. It’s not something that you’ll get into very early on in your Path of Exile 2 Ranger experience. Not going to cover them very heavily in this guide simply because I don’t think most new players are even going to need to get into them. And probably by the time you are experimenting around with frenzy charges you probably do not need this guide.
So Rangers start at the bottom right of the passive skill tree currently and they have immediate access to projectile damage and evasion. Projectile damage is obviously ideal here in order to kill enemies more quickly so I highly recommend going down the side that increases your projectile damage as much as possible. Once you’ve done that you may further specialize in marking enemies which allows you to debuff them in some way once you get those skills. You can focus more on projectile damage, you can focus on poison damage and poisons, and you can focus on elemental damage and some lightning damage.
Now I find either focusing on poison damage or elemental damage are the easiest near the beginning of the game when you have limited skill points. And that’s because Lightning Arrow and Poisonburst Arrow do a lot of the early lifting in the early game. And leaning into one or both of those can be really good. If you like to use both of those which I typically do at the beginning you can also just focus on projectile damage because that will actually boost the damage of both of those. So that’s not a bad way to do that if you’re not sure which direction you want to go yet.
Stat-wise Rangers focus ondexterityfor accuracy which allows them to hit enemies at longer distances and also get through evasion of enemies. And it’s also needed to meet the requirements for most bow skills. Additionally, they should have a few points in intelligence for a couple ofintelligenceskill gems notably like area of effect and stuff like that. And it’s not a bad idea to have around 25 to 40strengthwithin the first 30 levels of playing a Ranger and there are a few reasons for that.
Firstly by having points instrength, you’re going to gain health. Strength will give you health. Rangers are arguably the squishiest class in the game as it stands right now. And this is because they focus almost exclusively on dexterity by default and evasion their defensive stat is the worst protection type early on or on its own because it’s an all-or-none proposition. What this means is that the enemy is either going to miss because of your evasion or it’s going to hit you for tons of damage because you don’t have any way to mitigate it because it’s either going to miss or hit. Which is why Rangers get one shot so easily. Both armor and energy shields mitigate damage allowing players to take a hit or two and live.
Which leads me to the second reason which is that strength allows you to use armor that has the armor stat on it which will reduce the damage you take from hits and allow you to be one shot less often. Pure dexterity builds have access to armor that almost has just exclusively evasion on it but because you have some strength you can use armor that has evasion and armor on it or just fully armor which is great. And this can really help you a lot in the early game as you’re learning the class so I highly recommend looking for some equipment that has some strength on it so you don’t have to invest a lot of passive skill points into this and you can just wear some decent armor.
Thirdly it allows you to use strength support gems which you will want some of with yourRangerbuild. There are frankly a lot of good strength support gems for Rangers so by having some strength you can use pretty much as many of these as you want.
And the last reason is because it allows you to useHerald of Ashif you want when you get your spirit as your buff. And this is a really really strong buff that basically makes it so that when you kill an enemy if you overkill it by a certain amount then it will explode and ignite enemies around you for some of that damage. So this can be really really strong to spread around just damage in general when you’re fighting particularly if you’re leaning into Lightning Arrow or Snipe or something like that.
Path of Exile 2 Ranger Starter Guide - Skills
Now getting into the skills, first off isLightning Arrow. This is the first skill that you’ll get, and this is just a really great skill all around. I find that I basically use this skill all throughout the game. It deals okay damage—it’s not a ton of damage, but it does chain to nearby enemies. It can shock them. Shocked enemies take 20% increased damage by default, which is great, and this can be increased through passives. It can also triggerHerald of Thundereasily by shocking enemies and then, when you kill them, triggering the Herald of Thunder passive. So, if you’re using Herald of Thunder, this is a great skill to use with that as well. I like to putMartial Tempoon this for increased attack speed so I can just spam this as quickly as possible.
Poisonburst Arrowis another really solid skill that can spread poison around easily. Poison damage deals damage over time that also bypasses energy shields and is particularly great against enemies with large health pools like bosses and elites, as I mentioned earlier. And of course, those that have energy shields since it just goes right through it. Since you can only have one stack of poison by default, attacking repeatedly is not typically useful unless you take passives that increase stacks or use support gems that increase stacks. In which case, you almost have to fire constantly to keep the stacks at max stacks. So, in this case, you will be repeatedly firing with this skill a lot. I likeComorbidityfor increased stacks up to two, and I likePersistenceto increase the poison duration a bit longer to make it harder for those stacks to fall off and stay at max a lot longer.
Next isEscape Shot. I find I don’t use this skill basically ever as I typically kill things before they get to me, but it’s an early effective way of freezing enemies if you’re looking for freeze in your build.
After that isLightning Rod. This skill deals lightning damage in an area but isn’t completely accurate like Lightning Arrow. It kind of shoots the arrow up, and it lands kind of randomly within an area there. But it does allow for improved Lightning Arrows after using it, so you might consider leading off with this before firing in your Lightning Arrow, particularly if you went down the lightning elemental path in your passive skill tree. Otherwise, I just find that Lightning Arrow and Poisonburst Arrow are usually enough to deal with most enemies, and I don’t typically need this, especially early on in the game.
Next isStormcaller Arrow. This skill is excellent at applying shock to a single target with regularity. I use this on bosses to keep shock up most of the time because Lightning Arrow doesn’t have as high of a shock chance as Stormcaller Arrow does. This allows you to keep increased damage on the boss. It’s particularly good if you’re co-oping because the damage that other people deal will also be increased when you’re doing it. But one thing I want to note is it seems likePierce Chanceworks against you when using this skill because if the arrow pierces through the enemy (like the boss) and lands in the wall behind them, then it doesn’t shock them. So my recommendation is, if you plan on using this skill, try to keep your Pierce Chance low. And if you are leaning into Pierce Chance, probably don’t use this skill.
Next, we haveSnipe. This is an incredibly fun skill to use but can be more challenging to master because you’ve got to get the charge timing down. It can take a little bit to learn how to use it, and if you’re under pressure by a lot of enemies and you’re trying to charge and you’re getting hit and your health is going down, it can make it even more difficult to get that timing right. However, if you do get the charge timing right and you fire off a perfectly timed charge shot, it’s a guaranteed critical hit in an AOE for increased critical damage, which is a ton of fun and does a ton of damage.
This makes it a really good lead-off skill, like if you want to just fire it before enemies get in range. Also, I typically find that it works really well withHerald of Ashif you’re using that, since the damage of the ignite from Herald of Ash is based on the overkill damage of the skill used. And since this skill has very high damage, especially when you crit AOE, it means that it’s going to be a lot of ignite on enemies, and they’ll die very quickly. You can use something likeScattershotto make this even deadlier orWindow of Opportunityto help reduce the charge time, making it so you don’t have to charge it as much.
Barrageis a skill that’s a great way to boost your damage further occasionally since it has a cooldown based on the skill you’re using. Fast skills make its cooldown faster, and long skills like Snipe make it have a much longer cooldown. What I would recommend doing with this skill is just slotting it into your bar and whenever it’s off cooldown, use it, and then you just get some periodically extra damage, which is great. Note that this skill is more effective when you haveFrenzy charges, andCombat Frenzy, one of the buffs you can get using Spirit, can make this a lot easier to get. But you will have to plan properly to do this, which frankly I don’t really recommend for a new player because it’s kind of more of an advanced playstyle for Ranger, and there are plenty of effective ways of playing Ranger that you don’t have to do exactly certain things to be successful.
And lastly isGas Arrow. This skill is a great way to apply poison in a large AOE without having to fire off multiple Poisonburst arrows, which saves not only time but also mana because Poisonburst Arrow is not cheap. So, what I recommend with this skill is trying to lead off combat with it in order to apply poison in a large area to enemies, and then either following up with Poisonburst if you want the poison route, or maybe just using Lightning Arrow if you are going the lightning route.Scatter Shotis also not bad with this skill because you don’t fire it back-to-back, so the decreased attack speed of it isn’t typically that bad, and that can allow you some more coverage with Gas Arrow but I think it’s probably a bit overkill. I also likeBursting Plaguefor this because it’s a nice way to get more damage that can be spread around.
Path of Exile 2 Ranger Starter Guide - Ascendancy and Final Tips
So forAscendanciesfor the Ranger class, you have two choices ofDeadeyeandPathfindercurrently. Deadeye specializes more in the use of Frenzy charges and getting the most out of them while also allowing you to mark additional enemies and fire an additional projectile with your attacks. I think this is the more advanced playstyle of the two Ascendancies, probably not as suited for new players unless you avoid taking the passives that have to do with Frenzy charges and just focus on the extra projectiles and stuff like that. Then you can probably play it, but I think it’s just more advanced overall than Pathfinder.
Pathfinder, on the other hand, focuses on improving your poisons and elixirs, which I find much easier to take advantage of as a new player. As a new player, you tend to lean on your poisons a little bit more than the average player, and also you tend to use elixirs a lot more, so having some passives that make it more effective to use them is also great. There are a lot of tough boss fights in PoE2 that I beat simply by just keeping poison on them, avoiding their attacks, and keeping the stacks up without even having to go all out on them. So I find this to be probably the easiest of the two, particularly if you’re new.
So that wraps up our Ranger guide for new players. I hope you found this one useful. Ranger is a pretty straightforward class, in my opinion, but it can be a little bit more challenging for new players because of the early-game gear dependencies and also because evasion is not a very good defensive stat early on in this game. A lot of new players aren’t going to be aware of that, and it’s going to get them one-shot a lot, which they might not be happy with. But as always, I hope you found this useful. If you have further tips for other Rangers out there, please leave them in the comments. If you have questions, leave them there as well, and I will try and answer them as soon as I can.
