In thisPath of Exile 2article, we will be taking a look at how to put togetherthe Bloodletter buildfor you to use to get into the late game or endgame.Path of Exilehas become notorious for the sheer amount of skills and build possibilities available, and the sequel follows suit with an extensive skill tree and a multitude of skill gems. This guide is here to help you get through all that and lay out a path for you to follow as you reach the end of the campaign and prepare for your Cruel playthroughs or endgame.
Introduction
The Bloodletteris a melee-focused build using the spear, and we will be focusing on inflicting bleed on our enemies, maximizing our damage output with strong damage over time.
This build is really great for bringing any type of enemy down, both regular mobs and bosses, by bleeding them out.
We will be starting withthe Huntress class, which is one of the seven available at the moment.
On the expansive skill tree, the Huntress starts on the southeast side. This side consists mainly of passives related to evasion, attack speed, and flat damage increases, which we will be taking advantage of to maximize our output—though our main focus will be on skill nodes that enhance bleeding and increase bleeding damage.
Passive Skill Tree
Progression for this build will focus mainly onenhancing our bleeding damage. We’ll be taking advantage of all the bleed attacks available when using the spear as a Huntress.
During early progression, you’re able to either go through the attack speed route or the movement speed route—whichever you prefer—as both branches will converge later. I generally prefer increasing movement speed since it allows better kiting.
The earliest skill group we’ll reach is theIncisiongroup.
This passive cluster ensures that if your attacks don’t inflict bleeding, the chance to inflict it increases with subsequent hits.
This guarantees that your target will eventually be inflicted with bleed and contributes to overall damage output.
From this node, head straight downward, selecting only the attribute axial nodes until we reach another key cluster:Crimson Assault.
This node converts all bleeds into aggravated bleeding without needing the target to move, boosting bleed damage by 100%. Nearby passive nodes also increase critical hit chance against bleeding enemies, further raising our damage ceiling.
Next, veer southward to reach theAggravationskill group.
Investing here increases bleed chance, duration, and magnitude. you may skipAggravationandDeep Woundsif you’ve takenCrimson Assault, but if you want longer duration instead of raw damage, you may skipCrimson Assaultand take these two instead.
Further south lies the final core group:Bleeding Out.
This node boosts damage to bleeding targets and increases the chance to inflict bleeding. These key clusters form the core of the build. Afterward, you can branch out into crit chance nodes or evasion groups for survivability.
For Ascendancy, we’ll choose theAmazonfor the Huntress.
This is mainly because of theCritical Strike Node, which scales our crit chance with Dexterity and Accuracy Rating. Combined with thePerfectly Placed Knifenode, we can push past 50% crit chance from passives and stats alone.
Active Skills Setups
This build will rely mainly on the melee skills of the spear weapon and will take full advantage of the bleeding inflicted by the skills.
The main skill we will be using when we are mapping and clearing out mobs of enemies istheRakeskill.
This skill will allow you to jump a short distance and slash in front of you, inflicting bleed on all the enemies hit. If the initial damage does not kill them, the bleeding will surely take care of most enemies before they reach you.
A good skill to combo into after using the Rake skill istheDisengageskill, as you can easily create space after attacking with Rake.
If you like to parry using small shields and bucklers, this skill has the added benefit of creating a shockwave and giving you a frenzy charge when youDisengageafter a parry.
The next skill that is really great for using in this build, especially against bosses and tougher enemies, isthe Rapid Assault skill.
Even though this skill does not inherently have the ability to cause bleeding on its initial strikes, the sixth attack inflicts bleeding by itself. But even before that, this skill has a high chance of inflicting bleed early on owing to the passive skill nodes we are using.
This skill has a secondary effect where it will leave behind spearheads that can be triggered to explode by using a detonating skill. For the spear, this can be eitherExplosive SpearorThunderous Leap.
It does not have to be a spear skill to cause this explosion, and you can use any detonator skill of your choosing, but for simplicity, I went with the Explosive Spear, causing massive damage from both sources of detonation.
Another skill that forms a crucial part of the skill rotation of this build is theBlood Huntskill.
This skill will lunge towards a target, and if it’s suffering from bleeding, Blood Hunt will cause an explosion, consuming the bleeding. The explosion is really good for dealing with mobs of enemies, as you can quickly take them out in rapid succession after inflicting bleeding using your other skills.
One final skill that increases the damage output and mob clearing of this build quite considerably isBloodhound’s Mark.
Although this skill only marks a target and does not deal damage by itself, it increases the effectiveness of skills such asBlood Huntby releasing a big explosion if the marked target is heavily stunned or killed after suffering from bleeding.
These two explosions from boththe Blood HuntandBloodhound’s Markskill can make quick work of most mobs of enemies, even if they take a little more time to set up compared to other builds.
These four skills form the core of this build and will allow you to deal with any kind of enemies, ranging from mobs to bosses, but there are also skills that can help with the efficiency of this build.
One such skill is theSpearfieldskill, which will cause spears to burst from the ground in a cone in front of you, maiming and slowing targets that get hit.
This allows a form of crowd control for this highly DPS-focused build and will make it easier for you to kite around some enemies.
Lastly, a great skill to have in your arsenal—even if it doesn’t form the core of this build—is theThunderous Leapskill, as it will allow you to leap away from situations where you find yourself surrounded by mobs of enemies quite easily, and it is also useful for detonating the spearheads left in enemies by the Rapid Assault skill.
Support Gems
Since we will be focusing on inflicting bleed on our enemies, we will be prioritizing support gems that work well with bleed in general.
To that effect, we will be putting theLacerategem on our regular spear stab or on our Thunderous Leap skill.
This will make it so that all of our attacks have a chance to inflict bleed, which will lead to greater damage output overall.
TheRakeskill is one of the most common skills we will be using with this build, and we will putBrutalityas one of the support gems.
This will increase the physical damage done by this skill, which will in turn increase the bleeding damage, as it scales off of physical damage.
The second support gem that is good to have on Rake is theAmbushgem, as it will make it so that the first attack against a full-health enemy is always a critical hit.
TheRapid Assaultskill, which is our main tool for dealing huge amounts of damage to bosses, will benefit fromBloodlustandMartial Tempogems.
The Bloodlustsupport gem will make it so that the skill will not cause bleeding by itself, but since we will not be relying on Rapid Assault to inflict bleed in our skill rotation, the gem is not interfering and will help with increasing our damage output.
Sincethe Rapid Assaultskill is a relatively long skill with its six attacks,the Martial Tempogem will increase its speed and will help us with landing all six attacks of the skill, allowing for more spearheads to be detonated.
For theBlood Huntskill, we will be using theBlood in the Eyessupport gem.
This is great as it will decrease the evasion stat of the targets inflicted by bleed from this skill by hobbling them. And although evasion is not a big issue early on, there are some evasive enemies that can be quite hard to hit, and this support gem will give us a reliable skill to use against such enemies by usingBlood Hunt.
Another support gem this skill greatly benefits from is theExecutesupport gem, which will increase the damage dealt by 50% against low-life enemies.
This is what we will be using this skill most for—to cause the blood explosions to clear the mobs.
These support gems help with the core of this build and are recommended to be prioritized when you are putting this build together, as they will greatly improve the efficiency when mapping and clearing mobs using this build.
For theSpirit Gem, theHerald of Bloodis the best choice for this build, and it will give us an additional source of area-of-effect damage in the form of an unavoidable explosion when killing enemies with blood loss, helping us immensely when clearing mobs during mapping.
Another spirit gem that is great to use with this build isWind Dancer, as this gives us increased evasion while there are charges, in addition to the knockback from theGaleforcewhen you are attacked.
Although it doesn’t seem significant, these wind charges really give added survivability when surrounded by a lot of enemies.
Gear and Equipment
This Bloodletter buildrelies heavily on melee spear attacks that inflict bleed and will benefit from evasion-based gear with increases in attack speed, movement speed, and dexterity.
This build does not require any specific Uniques to perform well and will scale reliably with equipment of other qualities as well.
Rare items with +1 to melee skills, increases to attack speed, and movement speed will really help when putting this build together.
And we will be focusing on gear that mainly increases our physical damage, as our bleeding scales with physical damage only.
Leveling Guide
The build is efficient at dealing with groups of multiple enemies, but you will feel like you have fewer area-of-effect attacks compared to other builds, as you have little means to deal damage in a huge area apart from the blood explosions.
But this problem quickly goes away as you become more accustomed to the combo of inflicting blood loss and then finishing off an enemy withBlood Hunt.
As you level up, it is beneficial to have some intelligence attribute nodes, since this will allow us to equip more intelligence support gems in addition to increasing the mana pool.
You can either start investing intoEvasionnodes for moresurvivability or Criticalnodes if you want to increase your damage output to the maximum, which will help when fighting bosses.
Mapping and Bossing
Although your mapping can feel slower compared to other builds when using the Bloodletter build, bossing is a major strength of this build. Your bleeding will deal consistent damage during the entire fight, and combined with the increased damage and critical chance against bleeding targets, you will be able to deal massive amounts of damage.
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In this article, we’ll be taking a look at how to put together The Culling Spear Build for getting into the endgame
But you do need to be more mindful of the boss’s attacks, as you will be in close most of the time and can be quite devastated if you get caught in one of the boss’s huge attacks.
In addition, efficient gameplay involves regularly alternating between inflicting bleed and then causing blood explosions when mapping to quickly take care of mobs.
Endgame Scaling and Optimization
Endgame scaling is enhanced through cluster jewels that increaseAccuracy, Critical Chance, and Attack Damage. The build has great options to scale by investing in either pure attack damage or critical hit chance and damage, while benefiting from high-dexterity gear to further boost damage from the increase in accuracy rating.
This build performs well inSSFandHardcore, thanks to its high damage and high mobility. It is not reliant on expensive uniques and offers great damage with fast-paced mobility and movement, leading to satisfying gameplay.
So, this wraps up my guide for the Bloodletter build guide forPath of Exile 2. I hope you found this guide helpful, and if you have any suggestions or tips, feel free to leave them in the comment section.
