Quest Stats /32 ⍟
ActNameReward
1The Dweller of the Deep1 Passive Skill Points
1The Marooned Mariner1 Passive Skill Points
1A Dirty Job2 Passive Respec Points
1The Way Forward1 Passive Skill Points
2The Bandit Lord Kraityn6% increased Movement Speed
10% chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments
6% increased Attack and Cast Speed
2The Bandit Lord Alira+20% to Global Critical Strike Multiplier
Regenerate 5 Mana per second
+15% to all Elemental Resistances
2The Bandit Lord Oak20% increased Global Physical Damage
Regenerate 1% of Life per second
2% additional Physical Damage Reduction
2Through Sacred Ground2 Passive Respec Points
2Deal with the Bandits2 Passive Skill Points
3Victario's Secrets1 Passive Skill Points
2 Passive Respec Points
3Piety's Pets1 Passive Skill Points
4An Indomitable Spirit1 Passive Skill Points
2 Passive Respec Points
5In Service to Science1 Passive Skill Points
5Kitava's Torments1 Passive Skill Points
2 Passive Respec Points
6The Father of War1 Passive Skill Points
6The Puppet Mistress1 Passive Skill Points
6Fallen from Grace2 Passive Respec Points
6The Cloven One1 Passive Skill Points
7The Master of a Million Faces1 Passive Skill Points
7Queen of Despair1 Passive Skill Points
7Kishara's Star1 Passive Skill Points
2 Passive Respec Points
8Love is Dead1 Passive Skill Points
2 Passive Respec Points
8Reflection of Terror1 Passive Skill Points
8The Gemling Legion1 Passive Skill Points
9Queen of the Sands1 Passive Skill Points
9The Ruler of Highgate1 Passive Skill Points
9Fastis Fortuna2 Passive Respec Points
10No Love for Old Ghosts2 Passive Respec Points
10Vilenta's Vengeance1 Passive Skill Points
10An End to Hunger2 Passive Skill Points
5The Ravenous God-30% to all Elemental Resistances
-30% to Chaos Resistance
10An End to Hunger-30% to all Elemental Resistances
-30% to Chaos Resistance
Passive Skill Tree The Help Panel

Passive Skill Tree The Help Panel

The Passive Skill Tree

Your character build is primarily composed of the items the character is wearing, the skill and support gems that are socketed within those items, and the passive skills you have chosen from the passive skill tree. Because the passive skill tree lays the groundwork for your items and gems, the passive skill tree is arguably the core of every character build. Whenever you level up, and upon completing certain quests, you'll get a passive skill point. Each point can be allocated on the passive skill tree to gain the benefits of the passive skill (often referred to as a 'passive') it is spent on. You can only allocate points on passives that are connected to your other allocated passives. There are far, far more passive skills on the tree than you can ever allocate, so you need to think carefully about what you want to choose. It is often worth planning ahead. There are three types of passive skill:

Many clusters on the passive tree have 'Masteries' at their centres which signify the type of passives that cluster grants. Allocating any Notable in a cluster with a Mastery grants access to the 'Mastery passive.' Mastery passives provide a selection of one of many special stats related to the Mastery theme (e.g. Fire or Bow). Like regular passives, Masteries require a passive point to allocate. Mastery passives are shared across the tree, so Fire Masteries everywhere give the same selection of special stats. Special stats cannot be allocated more than once.

Jewel Sockets:

The passive skill tree also contains jewel sockets. An allocated jewel socket can hold a jewel, but won't grant any sort of benefit by itself. Jewels cannot interact with Masteries. The edges of the passive skill tree are also home to Large jewel sockets, these can hold Cluster jewels as well as regular jewels.

Planning and Changing Your Build:

The tree is shared by all of the character classes, but each class begins in a different location. Learning what is near each starting location will help you plan out future characters. You can undo your choices with the passive refund points you get from certain quests and from using Orbs of Regret. You can only undo a single point per refund point, so if you plan on making changes later, make sure you can afford to do so.

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Passive skill

Every character in Path of Exile has access to the passive skill tree. The passive skill 'tree' is a large network of stats and raw attributes increases for the player's character. All classes use the same tree, but start in different places. When a character levels up or completes certain quests, he or she gains one skill point. A skill point allows the player to allocate a node on the skill tree, provided that it is already connected to an allocated node. This is how the character's passive 'path' is formed.

Mechanics

Characters can accrue 99 passive skill points from levels, 22 or 24 skill points from quests (depending on the choices a player makes in the quest Deal with the Bandits), and 20 skill refund points from quests.

Players that choose the Scion as their character may also gain up to 5 additional passive skill points, depending on the choices they make in their Ascendancy class.

While the passive tree (sometimes referred to in-game as the Skilldrasil or Skill Web) may seem complicated, it actually only has two parts. It can be thought of as a map, with suburbs and roads.

The clusters of related passive nodes that boost a specific area (swords, maces, archery, damage types, evasion, and so on) are like suburbs. These will form the bulk of a character's build. The pathways between these clusters, comprised entirely of nodes that give +10 to a certain attribute, are like roads. Some of these roads can cover a great distance much quicker than if the player detours through the suburbs: what may look like a short path with passive boosts could in fact be much longer than taking the +10 to attribute path.

Pressing 'c' in-game and hovering over each of the three attributes will show what these do. Anything the attributes don't do, such as increase ranged damage or attack speed, will likely be handled by passive nodes on the skill 'tree'.

Layout

  • The tree can be divided into three primary sectors of equal size, one third of the relatively circular tree, surrounding a central wheel. - They are the north or blue sector, the southwest or red sector and the southeast or green sector.
  • The north or blue sector is also known as the magic sector; passives there boost intelligence, elemental damage, energy shield, wand damage, minion stats, etc. Everything related to magic, and the skills normally found on blue gems.
  • The southwest or red sector is also known as the melee sector; passives there boost strength, armor, physical damage and nearly every known aspect of melee combat, as well as all skills normally found on red gems.
  • The southeast or green sector is also known as the Ranged sector; passives there boost dexterity, ranged projectile damage, evasion, most known aspects of ranged combat and all skills normally found on green gems.
  • As the player moves to the borders between sectors the passive skills available there become more hybridized between the two.
  • When a new game is started, each character starts at the border of the inner wheel of the tree at a different location; the Witch for example starts at the due-north border of the inner wheel, smack in the middle of the blue sector showing her preference for magic. The wheel of character images (on the right) shows which position each class starts in and therefore their preferred method of combat; the Marauder starts in the middle of the red sector showing a preference for melee combat and the Ranger starts in the middle of the green sector for ranged combat, with the other characters starting in a position to put them in more of a hybrid role to start.
  • Although it takes some extra skill points to do this, there is nothing stopping the player from choosing passives to quickly get into a different sector than the character started out with to, for example, make a melee-combat Witch, given that there are no set equipment limits on which character can equip what, other than what their passive stats allow. However, keep in mind that the campaign quests that give skill gems as rewards, gives gems related to the natural preference of that character, i.e. the Witch will usually only see magic-type gems, and the Ascendancy classes available to a particular character are mainly designed to work with a build within the natural section of the skill tree. So it is highly not recommended to make an atypical build except for show/giggles

Passive nodes

There are several types of passive skills.

Basic passives

Basic passive skills only grants minor improvements to the character.

Notable passives

Main page: Notable

Some notables are only acquired via cluster jewels and anointment. Cluster jewels provide a unique set of notables, while every notable on the main skill tress can be anointed, plus an additional 11 notables that exclusive from anointment.

Notable passive skills grants notable improvements to the character.

Keystone passives

Main page: Keystone

Keystone passive skills significantly alters how the character functions. Some of them are granted exclusively from unique cluster jewel and unique Timeless Jewel.

Jewel sockets

Jewel sockets are passives that can be filled with Jewels. By default, they are empty and don't grant any bonuses. There are currently 21 sockets distributed around the tree. There is no cap on the amount of sockets the player can allocate.

Ascendancy passives

Main page: Ascendancy class

Every character has an opportunity to gain a subclass called Ascendancy class that grants access to an Ascendancy skill tree specific for the character class chosen.

Planning your build

With the number of nodes on the skill tree, the variety of starting positions, the number of passive skill points you can gain and the variety of available Jewels, the number of possible configurations of skill builds on the tree is so large it can for all intents and purposes be considered infinite. Planning a good build in this tree can be a daunting task for many players, but there are ways to make it much easier.

There is a VERY effective Search function at the top of the passive tree viewing window. If you put a word, or even part of a word, into this search function, every single passive node in the entire tree that has this word either within its name or its main effect description sentence will be highlighted by a pulsing glow, easily visible even with the tree view zoomed out to the maximum. You can then quickly hover your mouse over that node for more details on what it specifically does, and compare its position to the parts of the tree you have already allocated points to.

To then proceed with an effective build design, do the following:

  1. Think of an effect that you want, such as a specific Passive listed within another page on the Wiki that sounded attractive, or a more general concept such as passives that affect Shields.
  2. Type a corresponding key word into the search function, such as part of the name of the specific Passive you're looking for or a concept word like Shield.
  3. Zoom out the tree view and find the corresponding glowing nodes, and hover your mouse over them to check the corresponding direct effects
  4. Compare the positions of these passive clusters with the node path you've already unlocked, and determine the most efficient path that uses the lowest number of Passive points to get you to the desired nodes and/or puts you nearby/through other nodes with other effects that will also greatly help you in other ways later.
  5. Get the passive skill points through the normal means, and apply them according to plan.

With a bit of work you should be able to plan out an extremely effective character design using the above process.

Jewels

Some unique jewels grant the ability to allocate all passives in a limited radius, without them needing to be connected to your tree. In some cases, this can allow certain desired passives to be allocated without investing in a large number of undesired connected passives. Thread of Hope has the largest possible radius options for investing in passives unconnected to the rest of the tree.

Other jewels can alter passives on the tree. For example, Might of the Meek increases the effect of non-keystone passives in range, but makes notables in range grant nothing.

Unnatural Instinct can give all the bonuses of all small passives in range, without them being allocated.


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