Path of Exile – Path of Building Guide & Overview
October 15, 2023
Path of Building is one of the most powerful Tools for Path of Exile players. It allows to import, configure and share a Class Build. Players use Path of Building to experiment with new Builds, but also to share it with other people.
Path of Building can precisely calculate the performance of a certain Build, optimizing it for various activities in the game.
There are currently two versions of Path of Building – the regular version and the Community Fork. We strongly recommend downloading the Community Fork, which is mostly used and also require whenever importing any Builds from other Path of Exile Content Creators. You can find the PoB Community Fork here.
Main Menu & User Interface
Upon launching Path of Building, you will be greeted by an empty list and an User Interface in top row.
This is your list of saved Path of Building Builds. You can create a Folder (for example for multiple Builds per Season), Copy, Rename, Delete and Sort all Builds in your list.
Whenever you create a Build, you will be sent to the Build Configurator of Path of Building. All Options will be explained below.
The Left Sidebar is displaying all current stats of your current character.
New created Build
Fully customized Build
- Main Skill has to be adjusted depending on your Skills used
- Average Hit, Cast Rate, …, Total DPS displays the exact damage the selected Main Skill is doing
- Strength, Dexterity and Intelligence shows the amount of Attributes on your Equipment. There will be a warning if you are missing Attributes to use a certain Item/Skill
- Effective Hit Pool displays an average of your overall Survivability (higher is better)
- Total Life/Total Mana/Energy Shield displays your available Defensives
- Armour, Block Chance, Spell Suppression are your Survivability Mechanics, depending on which ones a player focuses
- Resistances will also display all excessive Resistances over maximum
- Movement Speed Modifier is how fast you are moving
Import/Export Build
You are able to Import/Export your own character, or the ones of other players. With this window, you are also able to import the Path of Building configuration of our own League Starter Builds.
- To Import your own character, make sure that your Path of Exile profile is set to ‘public’.
- To Import a Path of Building profile from another player, use the Import Code or URL in the bottom field.
- To Export your created Path of Building profile, click the Generate Button which creates a code on Pastebin to share for other people.
Configuration
The Configuration menu allows to precisely calculate the current situtation players expect to find themself in. Applying the correct settings in this window can be very important to accurately display a player’s damage and defensives.
Most of the modifiers here are not automatically applied, and have to be set by the user.
The General category defines the modifiers affecting the player in general. This will also include basic modifiers achieved during the campaign.
- Resistance Penalty, which is obtained after killing Kitava in either Act 5/10
- How many Bandits someone killed during Act 2
- Which Major and Minor Pantheon the player chose
- Enemy Corpse Life is relevant if your Build uses Corpses (like Detonate Dead)
- Different Calculation modes, which should be left as default in most cases
When in Combat configuration describes all Buffs that are affecting the player during combat. Beware that most of them are not automatically enabled, and shall only be activated if used.
“If players dont gain Frenzy Charges during Combat (by either Talents or Skills), this option should be disabled”
Additional Options will be displayed whenever a certain buff might be achieved due to Talents, Skill or Items.
“Are you Leeching? will only be displayed if a specific Talent, Skill or Item modifier is offering this option. Enable it if you expect yourself to Leech whenever in combat”
Skill Options will only be displayed whenever a certain Skill Gem is used in the current Build.
These options allow to precisely calculate a specific outcome if modified. These Options can usually be disregarded, and Path of Building will use an average to calculate your current performance.
Enemy Stats are very important configuration for someone’s Damage output.
Enemies are using the same defensive modifiers as players, they will always have a certain amount of Lightning, Fire and Cold Resistance and more.
Depending on the chosen Enemy, your damage will change significantly.
We usually recommend to configure the “Is the Enemy a Boss?” option to a Guardian/Pinnacle Boss.
For Effective DPS configurates, similar to the player buffs, the enemies debuffs that you inflict on them.
Depending on what your Talents, Items and Skill inflict as a debuff to increase your damage, your Effective DPS can be significantly increased.
These options are not automatically enabled. More configurations are added whenever a certain Skill, Talent or Item is available on your current Build.
Map Modifiers and Player Debuffs can be adjusted to precisely calculate a very unique situation.
These modifiers are rarely adjusted. It does not make sense to calculate a specific Build for a Map that is run only once in a while.
The list of available configurations is the same as the potential modifiers found on Maps which affect a player’s damage or survivability.
Tree
The Talent Tree in Path of Building is displaying the available Talent Tree in Path of Exile. As in the game, there is only 1 Talent Tree for every class, alternating only by their starting point on it depending on your current class. Additionally, all Ascendancies for every class in the game is surrounding the Talent Tree, becoming only available whenever selected.
First step a player should do whenever creating a new Build in Path of Building is choosing a Class, Level and the Ascendancy you are planning to use. You can find the menu for this above the top of the Talent Tree.
- A character has a maximum of 100 level, which will effect damage and survivability. A reasonable level that players could achieve easily is ~Level 90.
- A character has a maximum of 123 Talent Points available on Level 100, if all Bandits were killed. Otherwise there will only 121 Talent Points available. Beware that a Scion might have up to 127 Talent Points.
You will find an additional menu in the bottom row of the Talent Tree.
- The left Dropdown menu allows for different presets to be saved, which can also be renamed.
- You can also compare the selected preset with another one you created.
- Players can Reset, Import and Export the Talent Tree, and also Search for a specific Talent by typing a keyword into the Searchbar.
- Show Node Power will highlight unallocated Talents on the Talent Tree for either defensive or offensive gain.
Find Timeless Jewel allows everyone to look for a specific Jewel suiting their needs.
The Timeless Jewel is a Jewel which can be socketed into the Talent Tree, changing all Talents in its radius. This can lead to Talents having an unexpected outcome, depending on the Timeless Jewel socketed into it. This mechanic is very complex, and the algorithm has just been recently solved.
New Players should ignore this option due to its complexity and unusual outcome.
Skills
In the Skills category of Path of Building players can configure the Abilities used in their equipment, combined with all linked Support Gems. This category allows players to find the strongest Support Gems for their desired Skill Gem.
- Socket Groups define each individual Skill Gem with other linked Support Gems. This resembles a specific equipment item your Gems are socketed into. Putting multiple Skill Gems in the same Socket Group can cause unpredicted outcomes.
- You are able to rename the Socket Group by changing its Label
- The Socketed In option has to be correctly adjusted if the Item applies certain modifiers to the Gems (like Mana Reservation or +Level to Socketed Gems modifiers)
- Level, Quality and Variant can be adjusted. Skill Gems often are available in different Variants like Divergent or Phantasmal, causing their added Quality effect to change
- Gem Options can help to to quickly configure your Skill Set. Default Gem Quality is usually set to 0, but should in most cases be set to 20.
- Whenever you add a Support Gem in a Skill Gem Socket Group, it will be sorted by their potential value which is written in the bottom text whenever you mouse-over it. Beware that you have to enable the specific Skill in the Left User Interface as your main Active Skill to be able to see this.
Items
The Items category in Path of Building allows you to create specific Items and add them to your Build. Mouse-overing an item will show how much it affects your current Damage and Survivability.
You can click Craft Item on the right side to create your own customized item to add to your Build. You can refer to our Crafting Guide for more Details about Crafting and Crafting Restrictions.
Whenever you craft an Item, you can select the Type (Amulet, Body Armour, etc.) and its Base Item.
You can select all Modifiers like Prefix and Suffix, Crafted Modifiers (and Delve, Essence etc.), Corrupt the Item and all available Crafting Options for an Item
Refer to our Crafting Guide to learn more about the possibilities to Crafting.
Calcs
The Calculations (Calcs) display all available modifier to characters and their damage and survivability. Due to the nature of Path of Exile having hundreds of modifiers for either damage or defensives, this menu can become quickly overwhelming to look at.
- All windows outlined in blue are defensive modifiers, showcasing and precisely displaying all affecting modifiers.
- All windows outlined in red are offensive modifiers.
- Whenever you mouse-over a specific modifier, it will highlight in green exactly how it is achieved (by a combination of Talents, Skills, Items and more)
