Path of Exile 2 Ranger build: best skills, passives, and support gems to use

If you're playing Path of Exile 2 for the first time, especially if it's your first attempt to play a Path of Exile game, you might feel a tad overwhelmed when trying to create a powerful Ranger build. It's hard! There's a reason why the series has dedicated community experts who've spent years helping out newbies. In this article, we've written a Path of Exile 2 Ranger build that should get you started as you progress through the game.

In this guide we'll break down the focus of the build, which skills it uses, the best support gems, and the best passives for what we're aiming for. We've also broken down what you should be looking for when it comes to weapons and armour.

Path of Exile 2 ranger build

This ranger build is all about lightning damage, build up the shock ailment on enemies and using the electrocuted debuff effect it procs to maximize our damage. It works well against both AOE packs of random mobs and bosses, and isn't too wild a build so that new players get overwhelmed. Just stay at range, proc electrocute, and party.

Path of Exile 2 ranger best skills

Here are the skills we'll be using in this build. You'll notice a running theme here, as there are plenty of shock-based attacks (obviously). However, we've slotted in some others that compliment this build well.

• Bow shot - Your basic attack and filler skill. Doesn't do a huge amount of damage, but uses no mana!
• Lightning Arrow - This is your standard AOE shock attack. It naturally chains to enemies, so great for clearing out packs of mobs.
• Lightning Rod - A skill that provides an additional damage bonus alongside your shock attacks. Slap it down on top of a boss or pack of enemies and shoot Lightning Arrow at it to cause electric surges for more damage. Nice!
• Snipe - A situational but great single target damage skill for bosses. Charge it up and let it loose once you break an enemies stun gauge for a nice damage cash out.
• Escape shot - This is your primary escape skill, which is important to have on hand to avoid being surrounded. We're not really building this for damage, but rather as a nice defensive option.
• Voltaic Mark - A mark that provides an additional boost to both single target damage on the marked mob and AOE. it allows you to focus down a strong enemy like a rare or boss. It also has an on-death explosion so it's good to use in AOE too if you run into a nasty rare with minions.

Path of Exile 2 ranger best support gems

Okay so now we know what skills we're using, what about support gems? Here's what we picked up for this ranger shock build. (note, we've listed some tier 2 support gems here to use later on. If you're looking to fill up support slots in Act 1 and 2 for your skills, mix and match with recommended gems until then for a temporary boost to your skills. Who knows! It might inspire a build on your next character).

• Bow Shot - 1: Added lightning damage. It provides a nice elemental bonus that matches the build. 2: Additional Accuracy. It's a tier 2 support gem that provides a nice boost to accuracy, which Rangers can always use more of.
• Lightning Arrow - 1: Chain. Allows the built-in chain to chain even more, boosting the AOE clear a significant amount. 2: Electrocute. A tier 2 support gem that increases shock build up on enemies you hit, so just an overall boost to your damage, especially as proccing electrocute is key to this build.
• Lightning Rod - 1: Area of Effect. Increases the size of the rod AOE, which means it'll hit more enemies when triggered by attacks like Lightning Arrow. Good for AOE clearing. 2: Lightning Penetration. A tier 2 support gem that allows the skill's damage to break past shock resistances. This is a general-purpose damage boost that's good for all types of fight.
• Snipe - 1: Window of Opportunity, shoot it with perfect timing for more damage. Practice this a a bit as you play to get the timing right. You can do it! 2: Ranged Combat. A tier 2 support gem that provides more damage when used at long distances.
• Escape shot - 1: Unbreakable so you don't get stunned out of it, 2: Blind later on to reduce enemy accuracy.
• Voltaic Mark - 1: More Duration, makes the mark last longer.

Path of Exile 2 ranger best passives

This build is focused on ailments, specifically shock damage. So, we'll be building around some key passives in order to boost the damage of our character with this in mind. We'll also be boosting general purpose skills like projectile damage, accuracy, and evasion just to smooth out the edges.

The major passives we recommend building towards are:

• Honed Instincts
• Combat Alchemy
• Vile Wounds
• Master Fletching
• Surging Currents
• Death from Afar
• Rattled
• Frazzled
• Electrocution
• Freedom of Movement
• Exploit
• Wasting

Through building towards all these, your chances to shock enemies will be vastly increased and the damage you'll deal will be more impactful. You'll still be squishy, but stay at a long range and keep an eye on your health and you should be okay. As you go, take dex stat boosts through minor passive nodes for the most part. The only reason you'd want strength or intellect is if you want to slot in a support gem. In that case, hop to The Hooded One for a quick respec and swap the stats out.

Path of Exile 2 ranger best weapons and armour

Okay so, what should you equip on your Ranger. Well, Evasion is you core armour stat. So where possible, you should always be looking for armour that has that as its main defensive stat. In terms of weapons, you're looking for bows and quivers!

What about substats? Well, as this is a very shock-heavy build, any gear you get that boosts damage with ailments (and specifically shock if you can) is great. You'll also be blowing through mana like crazy, so increased mana regen is nice too where you can get it.

Improvements to your accuracy and your dexterity is brilliant, of course. Those two stats make pretty much everything about the Ranger better. If you can hunt down gear with these stats included, you should be A-OK. The important thing is not to hoard your upgrade material. You might be tempted to avoid common gear and weapons in favour of blues and yellows, but you never know if a cheeky upgrade could reveal a god roll on this otherwise junk loot. Remember, upgrade material sitting in your stash isn't doing anything to improve your character's power.

With that, we've reached the end of our entry-level Path of Exile 2 Ranger guide. From here, you can choose to keep the build going with the shock focus, or hey you can totally switch it up when you feel more confident doing so. Part of the joy of Path of Exile is trying out interesting new builds, so once you've played with this, give some other things a spin.

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