In this Path of Exile 2 guide, we’re going to be taking a look at theSorceressclass, how the Sorceress plays, and what makes the Sorceress different from other classes. This is a guide for new players who are looking to play the Sorceress or struggling with their Sorceress. It is not an advanced build guide or a specific build guide or anything like that. The whole point of this guide is to help show you the ins and outs of what makes a Sorceress a Sorceress and how to be successful when using one.
Path of Exile 2 Sorceress Starter Guide - Stats and Equipment
So talking a little bit about the Sorceress, the main focus of this class iselemental damage: cold, fire, and lightning, and also the status effects related to those three damage types, namelyshock,ignite, andfrozenorfreeze.Igniteapplies a damage over time to a target that is based off the damage dealt by the hit done to that target. So the higher damage you hit an enemy with when you trigger ignite, the more damage over time they’re going to take. Additionally, the higher fire damage you do to an enemy with a chance to ignite is going to increase the chances to ignite that enemy. So you want to be doing very high fire damage in order to not only have a better chance to ignite but also to ignite more often.
Shockmakes it so that an enemy takes 20% increased damage, and it works kind of similarly to ignite in that when you have higher damage lightning or higher lightning damage, it’s going to increase the chance for shock to trigger on the enemy. It’s going to increase your chance of shocking. This means skills like Spark or something like that, which have a lower damage overall, are going to have a lower chance to shock than something that has higher lightning damage.
Lastly,freezemakes it so that an enemy is frozen in place and cannot move or do anything for four seconds. Unlike shock or ignite, which have a chance to trigger on enemies, freeze builds up on the enemy over time until they’re frozen. Freeze can be applied via various skills that deal cold damage. Mastering these status effects and these damage types is what playing a Sorceress is all about. you’re able to either use all three of these damage types, which you’ll see in some of my gameplay, or you can specialize in one damage type and focus on that—or maybe just use two damage types. Doing these things is what will really make your Sorceress unique to you.
The Sorceress class begins at the very top in the middle of the passive skill tree, and they can focus immediately on spell damage or energy shield, and also mana regen or cast speed. Sorceresses will need all of these to succeed, but I usually begin with spell damage to start. Energy shield and cast speed are good secondary pickups, especially if you just slide over and pick up pure energy after taking the practice signs and the other two nodes next to it. This can be really quick and get you a good energy shield node and also some cast speed.
From here, you’ll have options to improve specific damage types and ailments, and you can either pick one to focus on or take all three of these. I recommend, when you’re first starting out as a Sorceress, that you probably just fill out this little cluster and take all for fire, lightning, and cold damage simply because you’re going to want to play around with these skills at the beginning and see what you like. You can always respec later on if you find yourself not using a particular damage type.
If you head left from here, you’re able to take cast speed, or you can get energy shield and armor, and you can also getchaosdamage.Chaosdamage is useful early if you’ve picked up any occult spells from the occult skill gems. This is typically what a witch would use, but you can also use them on your Sorceress if you want. Above that, you can focus on different elements that bypass resistances, or you can focus on increasing your damage when you’ve set many ailments on enemies, which is great if you’re focusing on kind of a tri-damage Sorceress.
If you head right instead of left, you may pick up some more generally good nodes that benefit all different damage types. For instance, crit damage and spell damage, which benefit pretty much everything, as well as elemental damage in general, which again will benefit all three of these types. Beyond that, there’s also a node cluster for a chance for extra projectiles when cast, which is particularly good if you find yourself using projectile spells like Frostbolt, Firebolt, etc., or maybe some of the occult spells that do chaos damage. Additionally, there’s another chaos damage cluster here if you did take those occult spells, and to the left you can also increase your AoE size, which is great if you find yourself using AoE spells.
The main stat of Sorceresses is intelligence, which gives them mana, which is great for casting spells so they don’t run out. This also allows them to use elemental skill gems as well as occult skill gems so they can mix and match these if they want. They can even pick up minions if they want, or if you want to mix in chaos damage. Sorceresses, unlike witches, are a lot squishier, and that’s particularly because they don’t have minions by default, but they can get minions. The way you would do this if you’re playing a Sorceress would be to take some occult spells or skill gems that have minions and to use a scepter in your offhand and a wand in your main hand, kind of like a witch would use, and then cast your elemental skills or elemental spells while summoning.
Now, just because intelligence is your main stat doesn’t mean that some points in strength and dexterity are bad. This will allow you to use different skill gems from strength and dexterity, which you will need for some of your spells because strength typically has ones that benefit fire, while dexterity has ones that benefit lightning. So if you’re using fire, you’re going to find yourself using more strength gems, and if you’re using lightning, you’re going to find yourself using more dexterity gems.
I highly recommend having between 20 to 25 strength as well if you find yourself dying a lot because Sorceresses are so squishy. This would allow you to use some armor that also has armor and energy shield stats on it instead of just energy shield or energy shield and evasion, because when you are playing as a Sorceress and you have energy shield up, you’re fine, but once it goes down, you really don’t have any protection and are paper-thin. By taking some armor that has armor and energy shield on it, you’re going to be able to resist some of that damage after your energy shield goes down until it recharges, which will make you less squishy and help keep you alive.
Weapon-wise, you’ll either use a staff or you’ll use a wand and focus, or if you wanted the minions, you would use a wand and scepter. What you want to look for on these is spell damage. This is going to increase all your spells as a whole that deal damage, so that’s great. Cast speed is also very good to cast spells more quickly, so ideally you’d have both of those on your equipment. Beyond that, you’re going to want to look for things that further increase damage like plus percentage lightning damage or plus percentage fire damage or maybe plus two to fire skills or cold skills or something like this, because this will further impact your skills.
What you should consider doing is maybe you have one staff that has a lot of damage for fire skills and another staff that has a lot of damage for cold skills. you may slot one staff in one slot and one in the other, then map the corresponding skills to those, so that when you cast spells with those staves, they deal more damage because of their buffs.
Path of Exile 2 Sorceress Starter Guide - Skills
So next let’s take a look at the skills.
The first one isSpark. Spark is kind of your bread-and-butter skill early on, very early on in the game. It flies around the screen all over the place, hitting many enemies. It goes in all directions. You don’t have to really aim it, which makes it really great. However, the damage of it doesn’t scale really well, and you’ll start noticing over time that it’s not killing enemies as quickly.
Usually, what you need to do is start casting this either through Flame Wall or inside Orb of Storms to keep up with enemies. I like the projectile speed on this one so the little lightning things get across the screen more quickly. Shock chance is also not bad because, as I mentioned earlier, as you have more lightning damage, your shock chance increases. But Spark deals very low lightning damage, so by putting shock chance on it, you can increase your shock chance more often, which increases the damage that these enemies take.
Next isFlame Wall. Flame Wall casts a wall of flame at the target location that does fire damage and also ignites. On top of this, projectiles that you cast through the wall add fire damage and can also ignite from fire damage, making it a deadly combo with Spark and Frostbolt if you’re using either of these spells. I like to use increased duration on it, though, because it doesn’t last very long by default, and I like to throw up multiple fire walls sometimes. This is really good. It also has kind of a longer cast time, so you definitely don’t want to be spamming it too often, as that can reduce the time you’re spending casting other skills.
There’s also a skill gem that makes it so your Flame Wall casts in a circle, but it lowers the damage of the skill in general. What’s great about it is that it not only protects you if you’re standing inside of it—making enemies walk through that fire to get to you or stand inside of it—but if you cast Sparks from inside it, it will ensure fire damage is added to all your Sparks. Since Sparks go in every single direction, having a complete circle around you makes it very easy to add that fire damage.
Frost Bombis a great way to deal cold damage at range in an AoE. It has a very fast cast time in my opinion, and I like to throw this one out immediately when I spot enemies to get some damage into them and build up freeze. Sometimes, I’ll throw it on hard-to-kill enemies like bosses and elites that are right next to me, just to keep that freeze pressure and damage on them while I’m dancing around them. It’s really good. I like to add either AoE size to it so it hits more enemies or freeze buildup to increase its effectiveness.
Next isIce Nova. This is just not a great skill in my opinion. I rarely use it when I’m playing a sorcerer. It has a longer cast time, can be hard to aim properly, and by the time enemies have gotten that close to you, you should probably be dodging out of the way anyway.
Orb of Stormsis a great lightning damage AoE that sends out chains of lightning over time, as well as each time you cast a lightning skill inside its AoE. This pairs particularly nicely with Spark, which casts quickly. You can stand inside it and Flame Wall simultaneously and use Spark, which means you’ll be shooting out extra lightning while everything goes through the Flame Wall. I like AoE size for this one because if you’re not using Frost Bomb, this is a great choice to focus on.
Next isFrostbolt. This allows you to fire off frozen orbs at range that freeze enemies and deal damage, exploding when they hit terrain. This skill is excellent for freezing enemies, and it can deal extra damage if you cast it through the Flame Wall. This is another benefit of Flame Wall, even if you’re playing a frost build—it gives you an extra chance to deal more damage and ignite enemies. I like to use this with Scatter Shot to cast three orbs at the same time. Alternatively, you can use increased freeze buildup to freeze enemies more often or cast speed to fling out more orbs more quickly.
Solar Orbis a great fire AoE that works somewhat similarly to Frost Bomb, but it sets enemies on fire instead of freezing them. It can also be used at range and has a pretty fast cast time. Again, if you’re playing the fire route, I like leading off with this one. If elites or bosses get close to me, I’ll drop it on top of them so they’re taking damage while I’m dancing around them. AoE size is a good support gem for this skill, as it helps hit more enemies.
Next isCold Snap. This skill is used to detonate frozen enemies for cold damage. It pairs greatly with Frostbolt early on and Frost Bomb, but its radius is small. In my opinion, you should either try to make that radius large enough to hit lots of enemies by expanding it with support gems, or you should focus on increasing damage from support gems to kill your target outright. The skill casts very quickly, so you may spam it efficiently. A great strategy is to detonate Frostbolts mid-flight using this skill. Slowing down Frostbolt’s projectile speed is ideal for this, so consider adding that if you want to use this approach. However, it can be tricky, especially when lots of enemies are around, as targeting on a controller might prioritize enemies instead of the Frostbolt.
Finally, when it comes to buffs that use Spirit for the Sorceress, you really have two options early on:Arctic ArmourorRaging Spirits. The choice depends on your survivability. If enemies are getting through your spells and reaching you, Arctic Armour might be better because it freezes anything that gets close, allowing you to finish them off without taking damage. On the other hand, if you’re using fire spells regularly, Raging Spirits could be a better option, as it doesn’t work with non-fire spells. It will further increase your damage if you have many fire skills in your rotation.
Path of Exile 2 Sorceress Starter Guide - Ascendancy and Final Thoughts
When it comes toascendancy classesyou have a choice right now of eitherStormweaverorChronomancer. Stormweaver is probably the easiest of the two for new players. It simply buffs elemental damage, energy shields, elemental resistance, and status effects.
WhileChronomancergrants powerful buffs like increased cast speed and chance not to consume cooldowns every so often but they’re not always like it’s kind of like a high risk high reward playstyle where sometimes it’s buffing you really a lot and other times it’s doing nothing for you whereas the stormweaver is going to be doing something for you constantly which is why I recommend it more for a new player.
So that wraps up our guide on theSorceress class. I really enjoy this class. I think out of all the classes I’ve played which is all of them now I think it has the highest variety of rotation of skills and mixing and matching of skills together. So if you like pressing more than just a couple skills to do a lot of stuff on the screen this might be a good class for you. On the other hand, if you like just pressing like one or two buttons this might not be the one for you. As always if you have further tips for other sorceresses out there, things I didn’t mention in this guide, please leave them in the comments and if you have any questions yourself please post them there and I will try and answer them as soon as I can.
