Path of Exile uses three main attributes – strength, dexterity, and intelligence – and its seven playable character classes (also called core classes) are each associated with one or more attributes. The player chooses a class for his character in the character creation screen. A newly created character starts its journey through Wraeclast at Twilight Strand. Each character class has a different starting location on the passive skill tree, starting attributes and statistics and quest rewards. Later, upon completing the Labyrinth, players can specialize their character by choosing an Ascendancy subclass. The subclasses available depend on the character class chosen.
Trickster:
Trickster is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Trickster Ascendancy class.
This skill grants a chance to generate both a power charge and a frenzy charge on kill, a chance to deal extra chaos damage based on non-chaos damage on hit, flat mana regeneration if you have used a movement skill in the past 4 seconds, and stun immunity if you were not hit in the past 4 seconds. Additionally, it grants increased recovery if you killed an enemy that was affected by your damage over time in the past 4 seconds.
Trickster is the most versatile Ascendancy in the game. Nearly every build in the game can benefit from what Trickster brings to the table. Damage-over-time builds particularly love Trickster's Harness the Void and Patient Reaper nodes, although virtually any build can benefit from these.
Every node on Trickster is good, contributing a solid chunk of offense and defense. From league starters to endgame builds, Trickster is one of the best Ascendancies a player can choose.
Necromancer:
Necromancer is a notable Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Necromancer Ascendancy Class.
This passive skill grants increased minion damage, causes each of the user's auras to grant increased attack speed and cast speed, grants increased area of effect to you and your minions if you consumed a corpse recently, and causes Offering skills to also apply to the user, at a reduced effect.
Necromancers can do virtually anything in Path of Exile. Minions? Nearly every node buffs them. Support? Commander of Darkness and corpse nodes make for a solid support build that can be played as a minion/support hybrid as well. Melee? Surprisingly viable due to offerings, corpse buffs, and cluster jewels. No matter the build, Necromancer brings something to the table.
Assassin:
Assassin is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Assassin Ascendancy Class.
This passive grants additional base critical strike chance, a chance to poison on hit, a chance to generate a power charge on critical strike, and causes critical strikes to unable to be reflected. It also grants a chance to gain Elusive on kill.
Champion:
Champion is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Champion Ascendancy Class.
This passive grants a chance to impale on attack hit, a chance to gain Fortify on melee hit, a chance to taunt on hit, and grants increased movement speed to you and nearby allies. Additionally, your hits Intimidate enemies at full life permanently, causing them to take increased attack damage, and causes enemies taunted by you to take increased damage.
Impale is incredibly strong for any attack build, which is exactly what the Champion specializes in. League-start characters are typically Champions due to this excellent blend of offense and defense.
Juggernaut:
Juggernaut is a notable passive skill that grants increased armour rating, maximum life, and amount of life recovered by flasks.
Survivability is the main focus of Juggernauts, although that high defense does provide a surprising amount of offensive capabilities depending on the build.
Amazing Endurance Charge generation and copious amounts of accuracy allow Juggernauts to become critically striking monsters with the right gear. For hardcore players, Juggernauts are still a great choice due to their incredible armor rating, Endurance Charges, and ability to ignore some of the worst slowing effects in the game.
Occultist:
Occultist is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Occultist Ascendancy class.
This passive grants additional curse limit, increased curse effect, energy shield regeneration, and stun immunity while you have any amount of energy shield.
Damage-over-time builds should seriously consider choosing Occultist as their Ascendancy. Chaos and Cold DoT damage is massively amplified by Occultists thanks to Void Beacon and either Withering Presence or Frigid Wake.
Pathfinder:
Pathfinder is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Pathfinder Ascendancy class.
This passive skill grants elemental penetration, increased movement speed and attack speed while using a flask. Additionally, your flasks gain 3 charges every 3 seconds and has a chance to not consume any charges when using a flask.
Every build in Path of Exile can benefit from Flask bonuses. Flasks are one of the strongest mechanics in the game, and Pathfinders have a major focus on improving them.
Should players find that too dull, they also have build-enabling synergies with poison builds thanks to their poison proliferation node Nature's Reprisal. Herald of Agony, Toxic Rain, and Scourge Arrow builds would not be nearly as potent if not for Pathfinder.
Slayer:
Slayer is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Slayer Ascendancy class.
This skill grants passive culling strike, increased area of effect if you have killed in the past 4 seconds, and grants immunity to reflected physical damage. It also causes life leech effects to not get removed at full life (functioning identically to Slayer's Brutal Fervour node), but reduces the total amount of life recovered from each Leech.
Leech and attack damage are the Slayer's strengths. Any melee build in the game can take advantage of the Slayer's incredible bonuses. Leeching while at full life is a great defensive mechanic as well. The Slayer's versatility is hard to match.
Hierophant:
Hierophant is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Hierophant Ascendancy class.
This skill grants increased maximum mana, additional totem limit, and causes a portion of damage to be taken from mana before life, like Mind Over Matter. Additionally, it grants level 1 Arcane Surge when you or your totems hit an enemy with a spell and grants increased spell damage while under the effects of Arcane Surge.
Totems, Archmage builds, Mind Over Matter spellcasters, and even Brand characters can get many benefits by picking Hierophant. Thanks to the Ascendancy's great mana scaling and inherit synergies with Mind Over Matter, this is a fantastic choice for most popular caster builds.
Saboteur:
Saboteur is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Saboteur Ascendancy class.
This skill grants increased area of effect, elemental penetration, a chance to blind on hit, and grants stacking life regeneration for each trap or mine you activated in the past 4 seconds.
When players want to carve through hordes using traps and mines, few Ascendancies can do it better than the Saboteur. Offensive buffs are in full display here with a few defensive measures such as blind and Life regeneration for triggering traps and mines.
As with Gladiators, their restriction to a certain archetype makes Saboteurs lackluster when it comes to versatility.
Gladiator:
Gladiator is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Gladiator Ascendancy class.
This passive grants increased maximum attack block chance, attack and spell block chance, a chance to blind enemies on hit, and more damage to bleed.
Every Duelist Ascendancy is a fantastic choice, and the Gladiator is no exception. Any bleed-based build or hardcore character will appreciate Gladiator's benefits. Reaching the block cap of 75% is incredibly easy as a Gladiator, but they can also pack a decent amount of damage in the form of bleed explosions with Gratuitous Violence.
That said, their limit to physical attack builds makes Gladiator less versatile than most of the top-tier choices.
Berserker:
Berserker is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Berserker Ascendancy class.
This passive grants more damage and life and mana leech to attacks if the user has killed in the past 4 seconds, at the cost of increased damage taken. It also grants Rage when hitting an enemy (with a short cooldown between gaining rage) and stun immunity while having at least 25 Rage.
Berserker excels at dealing absurd amounts of attack damage thanks to the Rage mechanic and Blitz Charges. They also excel at dying. Players that play risky are going to face more deaths than normal as a Berserker, but many softcore players will swear by Berserker's immense damage multipliers.
The better a player is at dodging attacks, the better this spec gets. But any player that actively plays PoE knows that avoiding damage isn't always possible. In those moments, Berserker becomes a detriment and, consequently, is a terrible choice in hardcore.
Raider:
Raider is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Raider Ascendancy Class.
This passive grants increased attack damage, movement speed, dodge chance, a chance to generate a frenzy charge when you hit a rare or unique enemy, and Onslaught at full frenzy charges.
While Raider might sound lackluster on paper, they end up being a solid generalist Ascendancy in practice. Virtually every attack build in PoE can benefit from increased attack speed, damage, and one or two extra defensive layers.
Inquisitor:
Inquisitor is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Inquisitor Ascendancy class.
This skill grants elemental penetration, critical strike multipliers against enemies affected by elemental ailments, and causes nearby enemies to take increased elemental damage. It also grants a chance to create Consecrated Ground when hitting a rare or unique enemy and grants elemental ailment immunity while standing on Consecrated Ground.
Inevitable Judgement is the main reason Inquisitor gets such a bad reputation amongst the community. Ignoring elemental resistances is a detriment in today's meta, yet Inquisitor has more to offer than that.
Constant Consecrated Ground generation with lingering effects makes Inquisitor a great pairing with channeling builds that stand still frequently. It also benefits critically-focused elemental builds, although it does a worse job of this than the Shadow's Assassin Ascendancy.
Holy Dominion is a notable passive skill that grants increased elemental resistances, increased global physical damage, increased elemental damage and additional chance to freeze, shock, and ignite.
Deadeye:
Deadeye is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Deadeye Ascendancy Class.
This passive grants increased accuracy rating, grants an additional projectile and pierce targets, and causes bleeding to not deal extra damage while moving. It also causes projectiles to deal increased damage the further it travels, like Far Shot (Unlike Far Shot, this grants Increased damage, not More damage).
What might be a shocking placement for some, Deadeye is a great example of how power creep can make a spec feel redundant. Deadeye's Tailwind mechanic is the spec's signature buff, and it's a great one at that. Multiplicative action speed is a serious buff, yet Tailwind has become more accessible outside of Deadeye in the past few leagues.
Nodes such as Fast and Deadly along with Powerful Precision just feel terrible to take when compared to Gathering Winds or Endless Munitions. Deadeye also lacks reliable defensive options, opting to rely on the entropy-based Evasion stat to survive attacks. It's certainly a fun choice for any bow of projectile-based builds, but its lack of survivability and various dead nodes make it subpar when compared to its competition.
Chieftan:
Chieftain is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Chieftain Ascendancy Class.
This passive grants life regeneration, life leech from totems, increased strength at a percentage, and grants a chance to apply Ash to rare or unique enemies on hit, slowing their movement speed and causing them to take increased fire damage.
Chieftan's usage is entirely based on the current skill meta. Whenever fire skills are a popular choice, Chieftan ups the ante by a significant amount. Since fire skills make up a small part of Path of Exile, this Ascendancy sees little use.
Chieftan's defensive capabilities are solid yet keep getting indirectly nerfed, the most recent hit being the Enduring Cry nerf in Heist.
Ascendant:
The Ascendant offers more flexibility than any other class by allowing the player to take passives based on other Ascendancy classes. These passives offer similar benefits representing the class's overall tree, but with mitigated effects. Only one Ascendancy class passive can be taken from each base class.
The Ascendant can allocate up to two Ascendancy class passives and can further invest onto one class's path to gain the ability to use that class's starting point on the passive skill tree as a second starting point.
Elementalist:
Elementalist is in the worst state it has been since Ascendancies first released. Unless players wish to play a Golemancer, which is a rather powerful minion build, there is virtually no reason to play one.
Most of their notables revolve around rotating buffs, something that players have no control over. Waiting for an Elemental Conflux to match a given element just feels terrible. Players are better off using an Inquisitor, Assassin, or Trickster.
Guardian:
Guardian is an Ascendancy passive skill for the Ascendant based on the Guardian Ascendancy class.
This passive grants curse effect reduction, Conduit to you and nearby party members, and causes each of your auras to grant additional physical damage reduction. It also grants Onslaught to you and nearby allies if there are at least five nearby allies, and grants a large amount of life regeneration for one second every 5 seconds.
No Ascendancy in Path of Exile has such mixed opinions amongst the player base. Guardians are one of the best Ascendancies for supporting other players, but how many players actually partake in group content?
Most of the Path of Exile player base enjoys the game solo, meaning that the Guardian's strong aura benefits are only useful on minion builds. Even then, Necromancers have them beat for damage output and survivability for minion builds.
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