Although it is said that POE 2 will launch up to 12 classes in its official version, the current early access version only includes half of them, namely Sorceress, Warrior, Monk, Witch, Ranger, and Mercenary – fortunately, the rich playability of these classes should be enough to support you to wait until the official version comes out.
Facing large-scale ARPGs such as Path of Exile 2, team battles may help you better solve those tough bosses and increase your chances of obtaining POE 2 Chaos Orbs. But if you are new to POE series or are a returning player, you may find it difficult to find suitable teammates for a while, and you cannot immediately adapt to the rhythm of team battles, so you will prefer to fight alone. At this time, what class you choose is very important.
Although POE 2 is more suitable for single-player novice players than its predecessor, the playing threshold of this series is always one of the higher ones in ARPG. For this reason, it is recommended that you give priority to the ranged types among the 6 playable classes, because they can keep you away from the enemy, so that they can not easily defeat and surround you at close range.
Based on this, we have selected 4 classes suitable for you to use in a solo premise, and ranked them from low to high according to their ability, and introduced their advantages and disadvantages to you.
4. Sorceress
- Pros: Possessing multiple elemental damage types; strong burst potential and crowd control ability.
- Cons: Squishy; average performance in close combat.
As a pure elemental magic user, Sorceress allows you to cast fire, frost and lightning magic on the enemy at the same time in battle – you can build a wall of fire or surround yourself with frost nova to form an effective defense, or cast chain lightning to cause damage among the enemy, or even use spells that manipulate time and space.
As long as you want, you can have countless spells to choose from to fight effectively while satisfying your personal preferences. In addition, you can also use the rich crowd control spells owned by Sorceress to knock down multiple enemies at once and get more POE 2 Currency as loot.
However, it should be noted that if the enemy does get close to you, you will have a limited time to attack them, because Sorceress itself has a relatively weak survivability. Of course, this is not just a shortcoming of Sorceress, but of most ranged classes, although it also means that their range makes them more suitable for solo play.
Fortunately, this shortcoming of Sorceress is not unimprovable. For example, you can use good crowd control to kill enemies on their way to you; or you can set up obstacles in front of you and surround yourself with shields to prevent enemies from getting close to you.
3. Ranger
- Pros: Has a lot of playable builds; has a long range; has crowd control abilities.
- Cons: Squishy.
Ranger is a class that can give you an advantage in the wild as a solo player. It can make you effectively hit enemies from a distance through poison, sniping and electrocution, and use natural force-related debuffs or crowd control effects to confuse and control enemies.
But like Sorceress, if the enemy manages to get close to you as a Ranger, you will be easily affected. Luckily, you still have plenty of ways to keep enemies at a distance, such as setting traps and vine growths, or applying poison to trapped creatures.
However, since no class is restricted in using weapons in Path of Exile 2, you can combine Ranger’s special abilities with weapons as a single player. It’s even better if you have Exalted Orb, which can add additional affixes to weapons to make them more powerful.
2. Witch
- Pros: Can use easy-to-make minions to take damage; use corpses to accumulate power.
- Cons: Too dependent on minions.
Witch is also a spellcaster, but unlike Sorceress, Witch relies on minions and the power of death to cast spells. For example, as a Witch, you can use your army of skeletons to keep enemies far away from you and prevent them from getting close to you to cause damage. And the more corpses you create during combat, the more minions you can use, allowing you to gain an advantage in combat and better control the battlefield.
In a way, minions are the key to Witch’s survivability, and you don’t have to worry about running out of minions, as Witch has a variety of options for summoning minions. From skeleton archers to bomb throwers to resurrecting corpses from freshly killed enemies, these are all ways to keep your minions alive, allowing you to get the help of these special “partners” when fighting alone.
In addition, you can also use classic Necromancer-like spells such as corpse bomb. This spell allows you to use corpses to attack enemies, blow them up before they die, and cause tremendous damage to more enemies.
1. Mercenary
- Pros: Fast movement speed; good range; a variety of builds are available.
- Cons: Focuses on attracting enemies, so if you are not prepared, it is easy to be outnumbered; more focused on group damage rather than single targets, not suitable for dealing with bosses.
Although a new class that came out not long ago in Path of Exile 2, Mercenary has already made a name for itself with its excellent performance. This class allows you to use some crossbow-based skills that work like guns, giving you the feeling of playing a top-down shooter game. The most important reason Mercenary ranks first among the classes suitable for solo players is that as a ranged class, its survivability is better than other classes.
Although Mercenary focuses on getting you close to enemies to hurt them at close range, you still have a lot of ranged skills available, such as different types of grenades and upgraded ammunition. This allows you to deal huge burst damage to a group of enemies while being able to move and shuttle flexibly on the battlefield. However, if you want to get rewards such as Regal Orb by killing bosses, Mercenary may not be a good choice, because its working mechanism is destined to cannot cope with single enemies.
After the introduction of the above 4 classes, I believe that as a solo player you have decided who to choose as your class. I wish you have fun in POE 2!
