Summary
Path of Exile 2’s early access period has seen some incredible concurrent player numbers. While the game has plenty still to come, there’s already a great deal of content to experience and classes to play with. TheSorceressis arguably one of the better-faring classes in their early access form, with two useful Ascendancies and a lot of skills in their main (Elemental) skill tree that offer easy synergies, damage, and crowd control effects.
The trade-off for all that ability to kill enemies at range and keep them there is a relatively low health pool and lack of defensive stats, but this lack of survivability can be offset by keeping their energy shield high. Given the damage output of somePath of Exile 2enemies, that’s essential if Sorceress players want to avoid instant one-shots later in the game. With it beingan appealing class for new players, plenty might be wondering what the best Skill gems are for this class.
That depends somewhat on what build the player is going for, but some options work across multiple builds. This topic focuses on the best Skill gems for the Sorceress and while it will touch on good Spirit gems to combine with these, they won’t be included in the list. These are the best Skill gems for Sorceresses.
1Frost Bolt
Slow Ice Blast
Frost Bolt is available early on for the sorceress after the player has found their first level 3 uncut skill gem. It’s a slow-moving ice projectile that pierces enemies and leaves chilled ground as it moves. Apart from being able to deal lingering cold damage and freeze enemies, the skill has a couple of other notable effects.
First, the spell deals more damage after piercing an enemy, so firing it at a large group can spread some cold damage around. The spell can be used to good effect to freeze enemies and detonate with the Cold Snap skill for big damage.
2Hypothermia
Catching Cold
Hypothermia is a useful curse skill for any sorceress who wants to focus on cold damage. The curse lowers an enemy’s cold resistance by at least 30%, so it’s a significant debuff. Players don’t get access to this skill until they find a level 7 uncut skill gem, but it’s worth picking up for cold-focused builds.
This curse can be used with the spirit gem Blasphemy later on in the game to turn it into a permanent aura, but this requires a high Spirit reservation, so most sorceresses won’t be able to achieve this combo until the end game.
3Frost Wall
Icy Barrier
Frost Wall is a versatile ice ability that can be used for both offense and defense. The spell creates a wall of ice crystals that lasts for 8 seconds and explodes when destroyed. The Icy barrier it creates is treated as a physical object, so it can wall enemies and keep them away in tight confines.
The barrier deals cold damage when destroyed, so it can alsofreeze enemiestrying to pass through. This works well when combined with slow-moving projectiles that deal big damage but often miss faster enemies, like Frost Bolt or Frost Bomb.
4Ball Lightning
Slow Moving Shock
Sorceress players will need to get a level 11 uncut skill gem before they can get access to Ball Lightning. This slow-moving lightning projectile shoots bolts of lightning at nearby enemies along its path, with a high chance to shock.
This lets the sorceress add the shock ailment into their kit with high reliability, which can be useful for builds that want to synergize damage from multiple elemental sources. Ball Lightning also has an interesting interaction with the Lightning Warp skill, which lets players teleport to its location, instantly detonating the ball.
5Lightning Warp
Violent Teleportation
The explosive teleportation of Lightning Warp is a unique and deadly skill for the sorceress. This spell lets players teleport inside of any enemy that can be culled (low health), killing the enemy and causing them to explode with lightning damage and create shocking ground.
On its own, this would only be moderately useful, but the skill can also be used to teleport into Lightning Ball projectiles and detonate those instead. This gives the Sorceress high mobility at will, as well as the ability to inflict more shocking ailments on enemies in the area.
6Flame Wall
Burning Projectile Buffs
Flame Wall has become a popular skill inPath of Exile 2, andnot just for the sorceress. That’s not so much due to the wall of damaging fire that the skill creates, and more to do with its additional effects. The Flame Wall buffs the strength of projectiles that pass through it, giving them additional fire damage and the ability to ignite targets. This makes it great for any sorceress build that wants more damage from spell projectiles, or multiple elements.
Flame Wall can also be used effectively in conjunction with the Raging Spirits spirit gem, which creates summoned minions from the flames, though this tends to be more effective forminion-based Witch buildsthan the sorceress.
7Orb Of Storms
Chaining Projectile
Orb of Storms can be a great damage multiplier for Lightning-focused sorceress builds. The spell creates a persistent lightning orb that chains lightning bolts between nearby enemies. The bolts happen periodically but very slowly, but they also happen when other lightning skills are used near the orb.
That means it works well if players are using another lightning skill as their main damage output, as using it near the orb will cause repeated lightning chains that hit 3-5 enemies at once. It’s a good tool for spreading damage around large enemy mobs.
8Spark
Basic But Effective
Spark might be a first-level skill for the sorceress, but in the right build, its damage can scale up to stayrelevant in the end game. Spark creates multiple erratic lightning projectiles that travel along the ground until they hit an enemy or expire. The move is basic, and it’s not too strong on its own, but the sorceress has several ways to significantly boost the damage output.
Using the spirit gem Archmage is a good start, as this gives non-channeling skills extra lightning damage, and scales with maximum mana. Flame Wall’s projectile buff can help, as can curses like Conductivity, and spell buffs like Sigil of Power and Mana Tempest. Stacking all these buffs and additional passive powers can make Spark a very strong skill.
9Conductivity
Transferring Current
Like Hypothermia for cold damage, Conductivity is a curse spell that reduces an enemy’s lightning resistance. This is essential for lightning-focused builds in the later game, where enemy resistances can start to hurt single-element focused builds. The default debuff of 30% is good, but it can be boosted further with support gems like Heightened Curse, Hex Bloom, and other curse supports.
Lightning damage is highly effectivedue to its relatively high damage output combined with the shock debuff causing enemies to take more damage. That means Conductivity has a little more utility-damage usefulness across multiple builds than Hypothermia.
10Eye Of Winter
Icy Eyes
Eye of Winter is a high-level Elemental skill and needs a level 13 uncut skill gem to unlock. The spell fires a projectile of ice that spits out multiple cold projectiles in a spiral as it flies, and a final burst of projectiles when the spell ends. Only the projectiles it fires can hit enemies, but they inflict critical weakness as well as cold damage when they hit.
That means any enemy hit by the spell is more likely to take a critical hit from any additional damage. If the spiral projectiles hit an enemy as it flies, then it hits again with the final projectiles, this second hit will likely crit for big damage. This can be especially useful againstend-game bosses.
