Actual Best Class/Build

Hello Everyone!

I am new here. I have been a lifetime Diablo player, and as the ladder market has all but collapsed I am giving POE a shot.

I have read so much information everywhere about classes/builds, and I keep getting these generic "every class can be good" responses. I sometimes find lists, but none of the lists seem to match up with any commonality.

I just want to know what the ACTUAL best class/build is.

For instance, it is obviously the hammerdin in diablo. What is it in POE?

There isnt one, because this game gets balance adjustments every 3 months instead of NEVER.


and if this is your first time playing POE, it doesnt matter what you start at, you are going to mess it up and it will be bad.

that makes sense.

so, if it is bad, are there respecs? or is my time/character just wasted?

also is there at least a tier list of some sort? or no, everyone is just sticking to this "every class is good" slogan

there are respecs within a base class, and you can respec your giant passive tree, For A Cost.

For Example: My current character is a necromancer (one of the 3 witch ascendancies). If i wanted to change to an Elementalist or Occultist, i COULD. but it would cost me 40 orbs of regret and some time. And after that, i would still have my current passive tree to change, which would probably cost another 100 some regrets to reset. Not something you want to do on a whim.

But, as a witch, i can NEVER be anything other than an elementalist, occultist, or necromancer. Each base class has 3 different ascendancies, and you can only ever be 1 of those 3 (other than scion, which is a special case)

and there are a few ascendancies that are not very good right now. As your first character, i would suggest staying away from Witch right now. occultist and elementalist arent very good imo, and Necromancer is highly specialized into being a minion lord.

each ascendancy has strengths, so knowing what you want to end up as should influence where you start. Some ascendancies are VERY specialized (sabatuer, necromancer, couple others)

They do a pretty good job with ballance in this game, but I still find a few things to be over powered. The Starforge Infernal Sword is very strong and only cost about 100 chaos. Any build with the Scion I find is stronger because you get another five skill points which you don't get with any of the other classes. The best build I ever did was with a Scion, Starforge, and Cyclone. I was clearing the tier 11 maps at a level 74 deathless.

"

th13f wrote:

that makes sense.

so, if it is bad, are there respecs? or is my time/character just wasted?

also is there at least a tier list of some sort? or no, everyone is just sticking to this "every class is good" slogan

It´s usually more about skill and gear combinations than classes.
There is full free passive respec after every major patch (usually per 3 months now once new challenge league becomes available)

You can see popular classes / builds here (Necromancer seems the most popular class this season)
https://poe.ninja/challenge/builds

Thror2k5 is right about your first time character. It doesn´t really matter much what class you choose.
You can see Ascendancy classes (subclasses of basic characters) here:
https://www.pathofexile.com/ascendancy/classes
Pick up whatever you think you might enjoy:)

This game will kill you too much unless you have a build with good defences. It is also a 'kill or be killed' type of setup. Therefore, the 'best builds' have at least 2 or 3 excellent defensive mechanics, plus enough damage to kill things quickly.

This is very achievable with a lot of builds/classes, but not common to find on a cheap build.

You will therefore see a lot of players avoid the 'best builds' because they require weeks of grinding before you can afford to play them.

This is also why a lot of the build guides list DPS, defences and cost as their key features.

My advice is to find a really tanky, cheap build. This will make learning about the game less frustrating.

Therefore, play a Herald of Agony Juggernaut: here's an expensive version: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2277556

A solid beginner guide will help you considerably through the steep initial learning curve. This means picking one that's targeted at beginners, with a lot of information that's useful to beginners. What the build is doesn't really matter.