Twister Amazon

The Twister is easily the best and most popular Starter Build in Patch 0.5. It is a perfect example of combo gameplay done right. It releases multiple Projectiles that deal massive damage, but you have to use Whirling Slash a few times before each release. It has more scaling vectors than most other Skills in the game, since Projectile Speed, Skill Effect Duration, Elemental Ground effects, and even Area of Effect all affect your potential DPS on top of the regular modifiers. It is also one of the first few Skills you can unlock for Spears during the Campaign, and it is immediately very effective even without any good Gear equipped, which is very important for a Leage start. 

There are multiple valid Ascendency choices for this Skill, including the niche ones like the Abyssal Lich. However, the best pick for early progression is the Amazon due to amazing Critical Strike scaling and stronger Leech, which is now weaker, but still mandatory for good sustain. The Accuracy-stacking approach allows you to get your main Weapon for a much lower price, which is an important factor for the popular Builds. 

Keep in mind, it is a combo Skill after all. Without any Whirlwinds around, the Twister creates only one Projectile without any additional Damage bonuses, which is hardly capable of dealing with even weaker Enemies. If you are not willing to commit fully to this playstyle, we recommend checking out more Builds on this list below. 

Plants Blood Mage

In Patch 0.5, the Plants Blood Mage stands out as one of the most potent and accessible caster archetypes available. It blends exceptional early-game Damage with minimal equipment requirements. Centred on recently introduced Plant Spells, this setup offers a smooth progression through the Campaign and transitions seamlessly into end-game Maps without relying on costly items or convoluted scaling mechanics. The build achieves high Damage output early on, has no problems with Mana Costs even at high Spell Level investments, and scales very well with the investments as you progress through the Endgame.

The Plant Archetype is fresh, but quite limited in diversity. The Entangle is your main Skill that offers great and consistent AoE coverage, supplemented by the Thrashing Vines for better Damage against Bosses. The final touch comes from the Thunderstorm, which can Drench your Plants, greatly increasing their Damage for a duration. It is a Hit-based Build, but the gameplay feels like Damage over Time effects, since your Plants deal tons of small Hits at short intervals over their limited duration.  

The Build remains mostly untouched compared to the previous Patch, with the only real difference being the loss of Shock Conduction support for free Damage amplification. To compensate for that, you will need an Extra Lightning Damage on your Weapon, which was one of the highest-value modifiers after the additional Spell Levels anyway. 

The dominant Ascendency choices for this archetype are Blood Mage and Oracle. There is no clear winner for which option is better, but the Blood Mage remains the superior option for the League-start scenario, thanks to its powerful sustain and defensive capabilities. 

Toxic Growth Pathfinder

The Toxic Growth Pathfinder seemingly received a substantial amount of nerfs in Patch 0.5,  but it still remains at the top of League-starting Builds. Reducing the Duration of your Poisons does not affect your total DPS if you can sustain the maximum amount of Poison stacks applied to an Enemy, which you can still do very easily. 

The Toxic Growth is a Bow Skill that creates 6 overlapping Pustules, which can be immediately detonated by Poisoning them with any ability, in this case, the Poisonburst Arrow. The early detonation also causes the explosion to deal 300% More Damage, making it one of the deadliest Bow abilities. The Patchfinder Ascendency allows you to inflict twice the amount of Poison stacks, but lowers their Duration by half. Considering the amount of explosions you will cause, applying all 10 stacks will be trivially easy anyway. You also need this combo only for tougher enemies. The Poisonburst creates a poisoning burst upon contact with every monster it passes through, making it extremely deadly against dense packs of enemies. 

The Pathfinder Ascendency also offers one of the strongest utilities in the game: Speed. You will have a lower penalty for using Skills during moving, your Sprint won't be interrupted by taking Damage, and you will be Immune to Slows. While it does not directly mitigate incoming Damage, it allows you to avoid deadly situations, such as getting Chilled and Cursed with Temporal Chains at the same time. 

Ice Strike Martial Artist/Invoker

The Monk Builds are among the fan favourites every League, and for a good reason. They offer extreme levels of versatility, power, and enjoyment. You can easily adjust every aspect of the Build for your liking without any drastic changes to your whole Itemization or Passive Tree. Our recommendation for the Patch 0.5 is the Ice Strike due to its smooth gameplay, built-in close gap teleportation, and simply massive amount of Damage. Thanks to the Hollow Palm Technique Keystone, you don't need a Weapon, which is a massive advantage during the Campaign, especialy on a start of the new league. It also offers more Attack Speed now, thanks to the higher Evasion Rating values on all Gear pieces, which mitigates the Quality changes on the Ice Strike itself.  

The new Martial Artist is one of the craziest Ascendencies in the game so far. The full scope of its power is yet impossible to gauge, as we don't know all the new Runes and special Glove modifiers it offers. However, the limited information revealed so far is enough to rank it very highly in terms of potential Damage, survivability, and utility, which is all a good Ascendency should provide. The Hollow Form enables a completely new Build Archetype that relies on creating Mirages that use Skill for you. However, it relies heavily on Power Charges, so its League start capability might be rather low without easy access to Ailith's Chimes Lineage gem. Our recommendation is to follow the usual Ice Strike Guide and pivot to experimental aspects once you accumulate enough Currency. 

If you are doubtful of the new Ascendency, the Invoker is still a great choice as well. It offers very potent bonuses for Elemental Damage Skills, and can ignore enemy Elemental Resistance without the use of Rakiata's Flow, which is usually extremely expensive. It also offers lots of free Spirit, which is also one of the most expensive aspects of endgame Itemization.

Oil Barrage Wyvern Oracle

The previous expansion brought us the Druid and Talisman Skills. There are many strong Builds one can create with such a combination, but the Oil Barrage Wyvern with the Oracle Class is clearly the strongest of them at a shoestring budget and during the campaign. For this reason, it received mild adjustments to its Damage potential, but it is still clearly on top due to its mechanics. 

The default Oil Barrage simply fires Damaging Projectiles; however, by spending Power Charges, you can Channel this ability for a longer stream of Projectiles that also deal much more Damage. The Power Charges are consumed 30% faster now, but a single full Channel will still be enough to defeat most Bosses in the Campaign, even with mediocre Gear. You will never use this Skill without Charges - for clearing, the Rend is a much better tool. It is a simple swing with your wings in front of you. It costs no Mana, so the early sustain is not a problem. It can also consume Power Charges to gain more AoE and add Extra Lightning Damage to all your Skills for a Duration. During the early game, you will rely a lot on the Wing Blast and Devour to generate Power Charges, but later on, it is streamlined by Ailith's Chimes Gem. 

The Oracle Ascendency is not mandatory here, but it is simply hard to find a better alternative. The Forced Outcome grant you tons of Damage with guaranteed Critical Hits, while the Entwined Realities saves you a massive amount of Passive Skills, which you can also spend on the Oracle-specific Notables. 

Spell Totem Oracle/Shaman

The Spell Totem Archetype received two huge Buffs in Patch 0.5. The first is the rework for the Ancestral Bond Keystone, which now removes the Charge requirement for placing Totems and doubles their maximum summon limit. It still causes your Totems to Reserve 75 Spirit. The second important change is that Totems can now be used on the move. 

The Ancestral Bond Keystone is now a go-to enabler for the Totem Builds in the early game. You will be able to summon 6 Totems by default, and this amount can be easily increased with your Items. However, the main limitation will be Spirit. For this reason, the Shaman Ascendency is an ideal pick, as the Sacred Flow alone grants you 120 Spirit. By wielding any Sceptre, you will be able to summon 4 Totems during the Campaign, all casting powerful Spells for you. You will also be able to convert Rage bonuses into Spell Damage bonuses for an easy DPS boost.

In the endgame, you will probably want to switch back to the Oracle and use Vaal Cultivated Redflare Conduit Armour for passive generation of Power Charges. This approach allows you to summon just 5 Totems, but empower their Damage with valuable Persistent Buffs such as Archmage reaching 100% Extra Lightning Damage. The Oracle Ascendency also massively improves your Critical Strikes, which is still the best way of scaling your Damage in the Endgame.

It is unknown which variant is definitely better than the other, but given that they are both Druid Ascendencies, it is still a very safe pick for a League start. The Totem proxy playstyle ensures high Damage output and natural safety, as you can easily dodge any incoming damage without interrupting your own DPS. 

Plasma Blast Blood Mage

The Bleeding is a Damaging Ailment that deals Physical Damage over time, cannot stack multiple times, and is usually inflicted only by Physical Damage. For this reason, the Blood Mage is the best Ascendency for this Archetype, as it allows Elemental Damage to contribute towards Bleed, unlocking entirely new Skills and Itemization. It also received almost no changes in Patch 0.5, making it a very safe pick for League start, as you don't need to account for the unknown factors. 

This feature allows you to use Plasma Blast, which is by far the strongest Skill in the game in terms of a single Hit instance, which is the only thing that matters for Bleeding. It fires a powerful long-ranged beam that also inflicts powerful Shock to increase your Damage further. As a counter-measure, it is very slow to fire off, which is why you should use a different Skill for clearing out regular Enemies, such as the Galvanic Shards. It fires multiple fragments that Chain and Fork to nearby enemies upon contact, which easily covers entire packs of enemies. Bleeding also involves the Blood Loss mechanic, which allows you to execute Bosses with Blood Hunt or Stun them with Bloodhound's Mark. 

The Blood Mage also offers automatic Aggravation and great survivability. While it lacks direct Damage Mitigation, you will have great sustain, delay incoming Damage by 25%, and can reach over 4 000 maximum Life, all while wearing very basic and cheap Items. 

Ice Shot Amazon

The Ice Shot is the second recommendation for the Bow users. Despite using the same weapon type, the gameplay is vastly different. In Patch 0.5, the Ice Shot received minor balance changes that barely affect this Build at all. It fires a single Projectile that shatters into multiple shards in a cone. You will have lots of upfront Cold Damage, which means higher Clear Speed and satisfying Shatter explosions, but the total DPS is harder to scale than Poison. For this reason, it is not recommended for new players.

The early progression is slower, and your Damage against Bosses during the campaign relies heavily on Perfectly Timing Snipe after inflicting Freeze. The Amazon Ascendency greatly helps with scaling Critical Strikes and improves your survivability, but you are still heavily reliant on your Gear and freezing enemies to stay alive. In return, once you overcome the sluggish early progression, you will have excellent Clear Speed and dominate the early League economy. You can also pick the Deadeye Ascendency for even faster Clear Speed thanks to the Tailwind Buff, but the early game is even more problematic. 

The nerfs to the Energy Shield hurt your survivability a bit, but the Buffs for the Evasion Rating and Deflection should make up for that. At first, you should opt for a hybrid approach with Life, Energy Shield, and Evasion. Once you acquire Essentia Sanguis to Leech Energy Shield, you can switch to the Chaos Innoculation variant, allowing you to pick extra Item Rarity modifiers instead of the Chaos Resistance. 

Tame Companion Boss Spirit Walker

The honorable mention goes to the completely new Spirit Walker Ascendency that attempts to revitalise the unique Companion archetype. It is not just a simple Minion Build like any other - instead of a small army, you will fight alongside your trusty companions in a similar fashion to the Mercenaries of Trarthus in PoE 1, empowering each other on the battlefield. The Notable feature is that you can even Tame Unique Bosses. Of course, later in the endgame, you will be able to customize the build to your liking.

You can focus more on your Minions to do all the work for you, or lean into selfish Buffs for your own Damage. Most likely, your main personal goal will be fast Clear Speed, while specialising your Tamed Companions into heavy single-target Damage to help fight their former Boss allies. The Inspiring Ally allows you to benefit from the Companion Damage bonuses yourself, so you don't really lose out on those investments. The Patch 0.5 introduces tons of improvements for your Companions, with over 19 new Notables, which will undoubtedly encourage this style even more. 

The non-Companion bonuses of this Ascendency make it a safe pick regardless of the Companion's performance. The aforementioned Twisters will greatly benefit from the Primal Bounty bonuses, which grant 6 additional Projectiles that move 200% faster, and might be even better than Amazon in the early progression, although it adds a Dodge Roll into your already complex core rotation.