Summary

  • Wind Dancer provides passive CC with knockback, but lacks effectiveness against bosses.
  • Escape Shot offers freezing CC and backflip mobility for Rangers, with potential issues.
  • Herald of Thunder enhances lightning damage for mob clearing, best paired with other lightning skills.

Grinding Gear Games' early access ARPG Path of Exile 2 has been in players' hands for a couple of weeks now. That means that there are already a host of players reaching the endgame and sharing their favorite builds for each class. At this early stage, certain skills are more effective than others.

With that said, GGG has done a relatively good job of providing each class with several viable skill options to choose from. The Ranger has a number of options, though stacking lightning with cold damage for CC, or stacking big physical damage for moves like rain of arrows and spiral volley seem to be two of the most effective strategies so far. Here are the best skill gems for the Ranger.

This list covers skill gems and spirit gems only, as support gems and trigger gems are the same across all classes. Path of Exile 2 is still in early access, so these skills are likely to be rebalanced over time.

1 Wind Dancer

Passive Knockback Accumulation

Path of Exile 2 Wind Dancer
  • Requires: Level 10, 25 dex
  • Cost: 30 spirit (persistent)
  • Effects: 15% evasion rating every 1.5 seconds (up to 45%) until hit in melee

Wind Dancer is a passive buff that requires spirit to activate. The ability accumulates power over time, then expands the charge by knocking back and damaging enemies that hit the Ranger in melee.

It can be a useful ability for relentless melee mobs, if it's augmented with support gems that boost its CC potential, like stun support. That said, it's not much help against bosses and even elite enemies.

2 Escape Shot

Freezing Backflip

Path of Exile 2 Escape Shot
  • Requires: Level 1
  • Cost: 11 mana
  • Effects: 100% physical damage as cold, 300% freeze buildup

Escape Shot is a useful skill for two reasons. First, the CC offered by the freezing arrow is useful as it has a relatively high chance of freezing smaller enemies. Second, the move causes the Ranger to backflip away from enemies, potentially clearing some room to maneuver.

With that said, there are also two issues holding it back that make it appear a little further down the list. First, players will need to invest in freeze buildup or cold resistance penetration to keep the skill effective later in the game. Second, the backflip currently tends to get stuck against scenery easily, something that could be ironed out in further patches.

3 Herald Of Thunder

More Lightning AOE

Path of Exile 2 Herald of Thunder
  • Requires: Level 10, 25 dex
  • Cost: 30 spirit (persistent)
  • Effects: Bolts deal 92% attack damage as lightning in a 1.6 meter radius

Herald of Thunder is another passive buff skill that requires spirit to activate. This will likely be the first go-to buff skill for any Ranger speccing into lightning damage. When Herald of Thunder is active, killing a shocked enemy causes subsequent attacks to release lightning bolts that deal AOE damage.

On its own, it's not that effective, but combined with an array of lightning moves like stormcaller arrow, lightning arrow, and lightning rods, it will help considerably with mob clearing.

4 Freezing Salvo

Chilling Barrage

Path of Exile 2 Freezing Salvo
  • Requires: Level 14, 34 dex
  • Cost: 25 mana
  • Effects: 43% attack damage, additional projectile every 0.3 seconds, 50% additional freeze buildup

If players are speccing into freeze buildup for CC, they'll definitely want to slot in Freezing Salvo. This barrage of icy missiles deals enough cold damage to clear packs of fast melee mobs, and enough freeze buildup to CC any higher health mob enemies.

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It takes time to build up the maximum amount of projectiles, so it can't be spammed as a get-out-of-jail-free card, but it's a great panic button for Rangers that are being chased down by fast mobs. The slight downside is the high mana cost when upgraded, but since it's only used occasionally, it's not that much of a weakness.

5 Combat Frenzy

Frenzy Charge Builder

Path of Exile 2 Combat Frenzy
  • Requires: Level 26, 61 dex
  • Cost: 30 spirit (persistent)
  • Effects: Gain a frenzy charge when shocking, freezing, or pinning an enemy

As with the first Path of Exile, speccing into frenzy charges can be a great way to get more damage out of a build. There are plenty of ways to increase max frenzy charges in the Ranger side of the passive skill tree, and Combat Frenzy helps Rangers build charges automatically over time.

Like the other passive buff skills, this isn't much use unless players have specced into the relevant moves. But using this with high-level Ranger skills like Rain of Arrows and Spiral Volley, which both have frenzy charge damage synergies, can dish out huge amounts of burst damage.

6 Attrition

Scaling Damage Versus Rare Enemies

Path of Exile 2 Attrition
  • Requires: Level 58, 73 dex & 73 strength
  • Cost: 60 spirit (persistent)
  • Effects: 1% more damage to Rare monsters per second, up to 53%
  • Culling Strike activated after 34 seconds (instant kill on low life)

In a game with so many situational mechanics, statuses, and elements, sometimes a nice simple-to-understand damage buff is hard to come by. Unlike their other passive buff skills, Attrition is an appealing passive buff for any Ranger spec. It increases the damage that players deal to rare and unique monsters based on how long the player has been fighting them.

The buff is only 1% every 2 seconds, but it can stack up to a staggering 53% additional damage. This can help massively with single-target damage for a Ranger, which is a boon for almost any build.

7 Snipe

High Damage Skill Shot

Path of Exile 2 Snipe
  • Requires: Level 6, 16 dex
  • Cost: 7.6 mana per second
  • Effects: 133% attack damage, guaranteed crit with 200% crit damage if well-timed

Snipe is a powerful single-target damage move, but it takes some skill to pull off maximum damage reliably. It's a timed shot, and releasing the button at the right moment gives a guaranteed critical hit with a huge 200% critical damage boost.

It's not just timing the shot that players have to consider, though. There's also the fact that standing still at the wrong moment can be a death sentence in Path of Exile 2, meaning players have to work out when to take the shot as well as time it properly. With that said, it's a satisfying and highly effective move if mastered.

8 Detonating Arrow

Charged Explosive AOE

Path of Exile 2 Detonating Arrow
  • Requires: Level 31, 72 dex
  • Cost: 17.4 mana per second
  • Effects: 55% attack damage, 120% additional damage as fire per charge

For players who have the patience for using Snipe, Detonating Arrow is another powerful skill choice. The move takes a while to charge to full power but delivers a high-damage AOE explosion when fully charged. There are four stages of charge, each giving the shot an extra 120% of attack damage (base 55%) as fire damage.

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Only the final stage causes the explosion, so this has to be well-timed to execute at its full potential. It's over 200% base attack damage, even un-upgraded, at full charge though, making it one of the most powerful single-shot moves for the Ranger.

9 Lightning Arrow

Chain Lightning

Path of Exile 2 Lightning Arrow
  • Requires: Level 1
  • Cost: 6 mana
  • Effects: 85% attack damage, chains lightning to 2 nearby targets

Lightning Arrow is a basic move in the Rangers' skill kit, and it will likely be the first skill for many players. The basic damage of the move is average, but it also chains lightning between nearby enemies. This is good for spreading damage around mobs, but it really shows its full potential when combined with other moves in the Ranger's elemental kit like Lightning Rod.

Using this move in the right situations can cause huge amounts of lightning damage to multiple enemies, making it a move that stays relevant throughout the game. It does require some thought and setup to be truly effective though, so it will be underwhelming for players who don't use it with the rest of their elemental kit in mind.

10 Lightning Rod

Lightning Amplification

Path of Exile 2 Lightning Rod
  • Requires: Level 1
  • Cost: 5 mana
  • Effects: 20% attack damage, releases lightning bursts when hit with chain lightning

Lightning Rod is a skill that players might pass over due to its low base damage numbers. However, for builds speccing into lightning damage, this will be an essential part of players' kits. The move fires rods that stick into the ground while hitting the rods with chain lightning causes them to deal bursts of lightning damage in an AOE.

The easiest move to take advantage of this with is Lightning Arrow, and its multiple chains will cause multiple AOE bursts if players have several Lightning Rods in the ground. The damage of a single rod is small, but with multiple rods in an area, players can dish out good amounts of lightning damage to surrounding mobs. This works especially well with multi-projectile bonuses, letting players set up multiple rods quickly.