In thisPath of Exile 2article, we will be taking a look at how to put togetherthe Queen of Horrors buildfor you to use to get into the late-game or endgame of the game.Path of Exilehas become notorious for the sheer amount of skills and build possibilities available in the game, and the sequel follows suit with an extensive skill tree and a multitude of skill gems. This guide is here to help you get through all that and lay out a path for you to follow as you reach the end of the campaign and prepare for your Cruel playthroughs or endgame.
Introduction
The Queen of Horrorsis a spell-casting build that will allow you to summon armies of the undead to deal with your enemies while you handle bigger threats. With this build, we will be trying to maximize the effectiveness of our minions while ensuring we can also take down tougher enemies and bosses.
Starter Class
For this build, we will be starting withthe Witch class, which is one of the seven available for now.
On the expansive skill tree, the Witch will start on the northern side. This side of the skill tree consists mainly of passives related to spell damage, spell casting, and minions, which we will be taking advantage of to maximize our effectiveness with this build.
Passive Skill Tree
For ourQueen of Horrors build, we will be focusing on making our minions effective at dealing with mobs as early as possible by going for the more offensive route among the two main paths available.
We will be taking the nodes that increase our spell damage and minion damage throughthe Raw Destruction node.
Then we will proceed directly north, still focusing on the spell and minion damage nodes, and from the three different paths available, we will take the path containingthe Power of the Dead node, as this route will give us the most amount of damage early on.
From here, we will be moving toward a circle of passive skills that will amplify our minions significantly.
These nodes will give our minions increased attack and cast speed, increased damage, faster revive times, and increased health. Investing in the full circle of passive skill nodes will allow our minions to scale well into the late game.
After this circle, we will put our points into three nodes in the nearby branch that will increase our spirit value by going forthe Profane Commander node.
This will allow us to field more minions on the field simultaneously, making it possible to fight mobs with a mob of minions of our own.
We will work our way towards the outer ring of the skill tree and go to the minion branch that looks like the outline of a person.
Investing in this branch of nodes will improve the effectiveness of our minions even further, and the main aim isthe Lord of Horrors node.
This node will reduce the spirit reservation cost of our summons, allowing us to field more minions simultaneously, increasing the size of our army even more.
These passive skill groups form the core of our build, allowing us to field the most minions while giving them decent damage and survivability.
After these nodes, there are still multiple passive skill groups that will increase minion damage, and we can invest in them or invest in nodes that increase our own spell damage and cast speed to spread out our damage output between us and our horde of minions.
For the Ascendancy for this build, we will be going forthe Infernalist classfor the Witch and go for the maximum summons and spirit.
We will initially go forthe Loyal Hellhound,as it will allow us to summon an infernal hound that does not require spirit reservation, adding to our army.
After the Hellhound, we will be going forthe Beidat’s Will node, which will convert 25% of our life to spirit at the rate of 1 spirit per 25 maximum life.
This will allow us to have more minions on the field.
Active Skills Setup
For this build, we will be slotting in a few offensive skills paired with our summons to maximize our effectiveness when dealing with enemies.
The very first skill that becomes available to us when playing the Witch class,Unearth, remains a core part of the active skill setup throughout the whole playthrough.
In addition to dealing damage, this skill will also summon bone minions from the corpses of your enemies.
These minions are not revivable permanent minions and will die out once their duration runs out, but they are pretty great when dealing with mobs.
The number you can summon and the duration they last on the field will increase as the level of the skill increases, ensuring they don’t drop off in the endgame.
For our reviving summons, the first skill gem we will be using is theSkeletal Sniper.
These skeletons provide ranged attacks and can also release gas arrows on your command, allowing us to deal damage over time using their attacks.
The next summon we will be using is theSkeletal Arsonist.
Having these summons will allow us to explode our minions that are low on health, dealing massive damage as they go out with a bang.
For our third summon type, we will be usingthe Skeletal Frost Magesummon.
These magesfire off icy shards, dealing ice elemental damage with the ability to cause icy explosions on command.
As you level up, you will find that it is hard to field all types of summons because of the limited amount of spirit reserve available, but it is generally efficient to have one of each type of summon when mapping. You can easily switch between the summons when fighting against bosses who are weak to a specific element.
Once we reach the higher levels, we gain access totheSkeletal Reaver,which is an aggressive close-ranged minion that can enrage on your command and is really great at whittling down rare enemies and bosses.
At the next tier of skills, we can start to summonthe Skeletal Storm Mage.
This ranged spellcasting summon deals lightning damage and can call down lightning bolts that create shocked ground around your fallen skeletons.
When we unlock the final tier of skills at level 52, we will be able to summonthe Skeletal Bruteandthe Skeletal Cleric.
The Skeletal Bruteis another close-ranged, hard-hitting minion with the ability to stun enemies, helping you with the stun buildup—especially against bosses.The Skeletal Clericis the supporting summon that can revive your fallen skeletons, shortening the downtime of your skeletal summons as well as healing them. These two are great additions to your army and really help with the versatility of your summons once they become available.
Although I went through all the skeletal summons available here, most of the time you will be able to fieldonly 3–4 different skeletons.
During my playthrough with this build, I usedthe Sniper, Arsonist, and Frost Magefor my early levels and eventually switched tothe Reaver, Storm Mage, Brute, and Clericfor my later levels, with three attacking skeletal summons and one support summon.
In addition to our summons, we can use support skills that will increase the effectiveness of our minions, and the first of these isthePain Offering.
This skill will skewer one of your minions on a bone spike, incapacitating it but buffing the rest of your minions by increasing their attack speed and casting speed while also increasing their damage.
The second support skill we will be using isthe Bone Offering skill.
This skill will also impale one of your minions on a spike, but will give bone shields that can absorb damage as long as the pillar is still on the field.
When these bone shields deplete, they will send out an explosion of bone shrapnel that will damage enemies in an area, helping with the clear speed when dealing with mobs.
With these two offering skills, it is generally better to use only one at a time, as each offering will take one of your minions out of commission before they respawn. However, it is feasible to use both simultaneously without much downside.
Lastly, we will also be using one offensive skill ourselves to fight bosses, and this isthe Bonestorm skill.
This is a channelling spell that allows us to conjure multiple bone projectiles that blow up on impact.
A fully channelled Bonestormcan take away chunks of a boss’s health and cause massive stun buildup on impact. Most bosses will quickly go down after taking a couple of hits from fully channelledBonestorm strikes, making this a very good tool for us to rely on for boss fights.
Support Gems
For our support gems with this build, we will be looking to maximize the effectiveness of our summons as much as possible.
For ourUnearth skill, which deals damage as well as summons bone constructs, we will be usingthePersistenceandMagnified Effectskill gems.
These increase the skill’s damage area while also prolonging the time our constructs will stay on the field, helping with mapping.
For ourSkeletal Snipers, we will be puttingthe Corrosionsupport gem on the skill.
This will allow the poison gas from the gas arrows shot by our snipers to strip away enemies’ armor.
We will also be putting onthe Comorbiditysupport gem since it allows the poison gas to stack on our target, which is especially helpful against bosses to increase damage over time from the poison.
For ourFrost Mage summons, we will be usingtheDeep FreezeandFrost Nexussupport gems.
Although these support gems do not affect the minion itself, they enhance the icy explosion the minion can be commanded to perform by creating chilled ground when it freezes an enemy and increasing the freeze duration caused by the ice buildup.
For our offering skills, we will be usingthe Expansesupport gem, which increases the area of effect by up to 50% but at the cost of increased cooldown.
This works well with the offering because we will not be spamming these spells, and the cooldown time is short enough—even with the increase—for the spell to be used whenever your minions revive after falling.
Another support gem tailored for the offering skills isthe Sacrificial Lamb gem.
This will make it so that the offering skills target minions within 6 meters, ensuring your pillars are not out of reach from your minions when you are mapping.
These two support gems work with both offering skills, so be sure to swap them out whenever you swap your offering skill.
Going back to our summons, for yourSkeletal Reavers, we will be slotting inthe Last GaspandElemental Armysupport gems.
The Last Gaspgem will allow yourReaversto stay for 4 seconds after their hit points reach zero, letting them deal more damage before they go down.The Elemental Armygem gives them 30% elemental resistances, making them a bit tankier and able to sustain longer before falling.
For ourStorm Magesummons, we will put inthe Conduction and Controlled Destructionsupport gems.
These gems increase the shock chance of the shocking ground created by the lightning bolt command, and Controlled Destruction increases the damage the command skill deals, making it a viable option to deal burst damage.
For ourSkeletal Brutes, we will be usingtheMeat ShieldandOverpowersupport gems.
The Meat Shieldgem reduces the damage the Brutes take by 35% while also lowering their damage dealt by 35%. Since we are not relying on the Brutes for the most damage but instead for stunning enemies and tanking, this trade-off is great.
The Overpowergem will cause the Brutes to build up more stun with each hit, making it easier to heavily stun enemies.
For our Infernal Hound, we will be usingMinion InstabilityandEssence Harvestsupport gems.
The Minion Instabilitygem makes it so that oncethe Hellhoundreaches low life, it will explode, dealing 15% of its max health as fire damage.
Essence Harvestallows us to regain mana whenever our minions go down, helping with mana management.
For our high damage offensive skill, Bonestorm, we will be usingtheBrutalityand Burgeonsupport gems.
Brutalityincreases the physical damage of the skill by 25%, andBurgeoncan increase the damage output of the channelling skill by up to 40%, depending on the time spent channeling.
These two gems significantly increase the damage output of an already high-damage skill, making it the best tool for boss fights.
Since we want to have as many minions on the field as possible, we will not be using spirit support gems with this build.
Gears and Equipment
For this build, we will be usingthe Sceptre and Focusgears in our weapon slots, and this build will benefit highly from usingthe Rattling Sceptre.
This sceptre type will allow us to summon two skeletons for free without the need for spirit as well as provide 100 additional spirit reserve, allowing us to summon more minions.
While this build does not require any Unique gear to function, it works well with gear providing bonuses to your spirit, such asthe Solar amulet.Gear that gives extra mana and energy shields also works really well when putting this build together and will help you scale into the late and endgame.
Leveling Guide
The build levels smoothly by using Unearth and letting your constructs and skeletal minions do the dirty work while you focus on the tougher rare enemies. Even when the minions go down, there is little downtime between revives owing to the passive skill nodes, and your minions will be back into the fray.Bone Offeringalso helps with leveling as the shield explosions really help with clearing out mobs of enemies.
Path of Exile 2 Lightning Huntress Build
In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how to put together The Lightning Huntress build for getting into the endgame
As you level up, it is beneficial to have some strength attribute nodes since this will allow us to equip more strength-based support gems in addition to increasing maximum life. Having more maximum life will translate to having more minions on the field as we will also receive more spirit reserve thanks to Beidat’s Will.
Mapping and Bossing
This build is efficient at both mapping and bossing, and its performance is greatly enhanced by utilizing the different types of offerings available to you. When fighting bosses, the main aim is to repeatedly attack the boss with your Bone Storm, but you will not be able to channel the spell to its full strength every time. It will help to remember the boss’s attack patterns and time your Bone Storm channels and releases accordingly to ensure your survival while dealing maximum damage.
Endgame Scaling and Optimization
Endgame scaling is enhanced through cluster jewels that increaseMovement Speed, Cast Speed, and Minion Damage. The build has great options to scale by investing into either pure minion damage or a more defensive route by investing in energy shield nodes as well after getting the core nodes on the passive skill tree.
This build performs well inSSFandHardcore, thanks to its high damage output fromBone Stormand high sustainability through all your minions tanking the hits for you. It is not reliant on expensive uniques and offers a unique gameplay by letting you watch as your minions destroy your enemies. You do need to be careful and efficient with your dodges and positioning, as the build has fewer hit points compared to other builds since we convert our life points into spirit reserve.
So, this wraps up my article for the Queen of Horrors build guide forPath of Exile 2.I hope you found this guide helpful, and if you have any suggestions or tips, feel free to leave them in the comment section.
