Path of Exile 2 Huntress class: Overview, Skills, and Ascendancies

The Huntress class is coming to Path of Exile 2 on April 4, 2025, in the Dawn of the Hunt update — otherwise known as patch 0.2.0. A spear-wielding exile from the Azemeri tribe, Huntress is one of the more innovative martial classes in the game. On the main hand, she utilizes a Spear that can do both melee and ranged fighting, incentivizing a hybrid playstyle to bob and weave between enemy groups. On the off-hand, Huntress traditionally holds a Buckler, a shield specializing in a unique parry mechanic.

The Huntress is arguably the best example of a PoE2 class that thrives on combo-chaining Skills rather than spamming one individual move. Between an innate dash secondary to the dodge-roll, a parry to deflect enemy aggression, and a taming mechanic to get summons, Huntress really can do it all.

PoE 2 Huntress Class overview: Attributes and playstyle

Huntress has several nutty combos to pull (Image via GGG)

The Huntress in Path of Exile 2 is primarily a DEX class, fulfilling a class fantasy niche that neither the Ranger nor the unreleased Assassin class can provide.

Huntress has both melee and ranged combat options with the Spear. However, Spear's main potential is comboing Skills to gain unique mechanical synergies that bounce off each other. It's not a simple question of committing to either option between melee and ranged, but doing a bit of both.

On the Passive Skill tree, Huntress starts in the lower-right quadrant, the same place as the Ranger class in Path of Exile 2, although with access to some altered nodes. Huntress does share a number of similarities with PoE2 Ranger: Storm Lance, for example, is basically a refurbished Lightning Rod.

As expected of a DEX-based class, Huntress will naturally spec into Evasion as her defense of choice in Path of Exile 2, and you're not meant to facetank or absorb hits. To manage aggro in the late-game, Huntress can also use a unique summoning method: she can tame a slain monster.

Instead, the Spear Skills provide new dodge maneuvers and gap closers to get in and out of the fray quickly. Meanwhile, the Buckler will let you Parry enemies, which then enables some unique added benefits to some of your other Skills to follow up with.

This class also has particular affinity with Frenzy Charges, which empowers your elemental Spear Skills in unique ways, similar to how some Monk's Skills in Path of Exile 2 thrive on Power Charges.

Path of Exile 2 Huntress Gameplay and Skill synergies, explored

Path of Exile 2 developers shared brief glimpses into Huntress's Skills a while ago, but the most comprehensive gameplay reveal came at the recent GGG Live reveal for Dawn of The Hunt. Here are all the highlighted Spear and Buckler Skills, which should paint a complete picture of how the Huntress plays.

By default, the Spear weapons in Path of Exile 2 give you access to a basic physical melee strike, a ranged spear throw attack, and the Disengage Skill, which allows you to do a quick leap backward, damaging enemies ahead of you. Other than this, the Huntress has access to 22 new Spear Skills.

Without further ado, here are the highlighted Huntress Skills and how they synergize in PoE2.

Whirling Slash

Whirling Slash is the first Skill Gem the huntress obtains. This creates a whirlwind of spears circling you in a small AoE. It strikes at all enemies in its path, as well as all enemies caught within the circle.

Whirling Slash also blinds all enemies inside its circle.
Casting multiple Wihrling Slashes will enlarge its circle and damage.
When the Huntress herself leaves the Whirling Slash, it explodes, dealing damage based on how large the circle was.
Casting Whirling Slash on patches of elemental DoT left by empowered elemental Spear Skills will absorb it and infuse the Whirlwind with that element.

Twister

Throw a small tornado at your foes, which can bounce off walls to strike targets multiple times, similar to Spark.

Casting this skill from inside a Whirling Slash will produce multiple larger tornados that deal more damage.
Inherits the elemental properties of the Whirling Slash, so if it's fire-infused, you will shoot out Fire Tornadoes.

Parry (Innate Skill in Bucklers)

Instead of the usual Raised Shield, Bucklers have the innate Parry skill. Holding down Parry automatically interrupts and staggers all incoming monster attacks from ahead. However, this builds up Stun on you too, similar to how blocking works in Path of Exile 2.

Parried enemies take more damage from your follow-up strikes.
Striking a Parried enemy with Disengage will cause an explosion and grant you a Frenzy Charge.

Lightning Spear

Throw a lightning-infused Spear at a target. Furthermore, lightning projectiles chain from the target to damage additional targets.

Consumes available Frenzy charges to hit harder and chain the damage to additional targets. Also leaves crackling patches of elemental hazard on the ground that shocks enemies but not you.
The elemental patch of ground can infuse Whirling Slash with lightning.

Explosive Spear

Hurl a spear at any point in the ground. After four seconds, it detonates, dealing damage and igniting all enemies caught within the blast radius.

Consumes available Frenzy Charges to cause a larger explosion and leave a large patch of burning ground. This patch only Ignites enemies, not you.
The elemental patch of ground can infuse Whirling Slash with fire.
Before it explodes, the lodged spear can interact with the Thunderous Leap skill.

There is also an Ice Spear Skill that PoE2 Huntress has access to, which freezes enemies. However, this was not showcased in detail in the GGG Live.

Wreck

Dash at your target and swing your spear. All enemies caught in its conical zone will suffer Blood Loss.

Blood Hunt

Lunge and strike a target, causing an AoE explosion of blood if they're suffering from Blood Loss. The higher the Blood Loss magnitude, the higher the explosion damage.

Rapid Assault

Jab at a target repeatedly in a multi-hit combo. The final hit lodges a Spear into enemies caught by the Skill.

The lodged spear can interact with the Thunderous Leap skill.

Storm Lance

Stick a shockingly powerful spear into the ground, which constantly deals lightning damage that arcs between enemies nearby.

The lodged spear can interact with the Thunderous Leap skill.

Spear - Thunderous Leap

Leap into the air and reach for any spear lodged into the ground or enemies in the targeted zone. Explodes the spears for high lightning damage. Interacts with any skill that can stick a spear into the ground (Storm Lance) or enemies (Rapid Assault).

Spirit Animal

You can tame animals with the Huntress (Image via GGG)

Capture the Spirit of any slain enemy, picking up their soul to summon them at your side as a Spirit companion. This works on any non-boss enemy, including all Rare monsters in Path of Exile 2.

By default, you can only have up to one Spirit Animal at a time.
The Spirit Animal inherits all of its original monster modifiers.
Go to your Gem menu to right-click and enable the companion, similar to any Buff Skill Gem in Path of Exile 2. This allows you to basically hold a monster in your pocket, and summon it when the time is right.

Other PoE2 Huntress Skills as revealed before include:

Spearfield - Rain down Spears in a conical AoE, damaging and greatly slowing enemies.
Spear of Solaris - Call down a fiery beam of spear from the sky, dealing tremendos damage to the target.

All Huntress (Spear) Skill Gems in Path of Exile 2

Here are all the Huntress Skills you get to work with, as revealed with the Spear Skill Gem sheet so far:

Skill Gem lvl 1 and above:

Disengage
Whirling Slash
Twister
Explosive Spear

Skill Gem lvl 3 and above:

Spearfield
Lightning Spear
Fangs of Frost
Rake

Skill Gem lvl 5 and above:

Barrage
Rapid Assault
Storm Lance

Skill Gem lvl 7 and above:

Sniper's Mark
Blood Hunt
Glacial Lance
Primal Strikes

Skill Gem lvl 9 and above:

Thunderous Leap
Bloodhound's Mark
Tame Beast

Skill Gem lvl 11 and above:

Whirlwind Lance
Elemental Sundering

Skill Gem lvl 13 and above:

Wind Serpent's Fury
Spear of Solaris

The patch notes, coming next week (after March 30) should contain a more detailed breakdown of all her available Skills. For now, most of the Skill descriptions remain unknown.

All Huntress Ascendancies in Path of Exile 2

The Huntress class in Path of Exile 2 comes with two Ascendancies (i.e., subclasses): the Ritualist and the Amazon. She will receive a third Ascendancy at some point before Path of Exile 2 gets its full release.

Here's what the two available Ascendancies for the PoE2 huntress entail for now.

The Ritualist

The Rituralist as as macabre as the Huntress can get (Image via GGG)

Rituralist taps into the more occult side of Azmeri traditions, letting Huntress bolster herself with animal sacrifice and corruption. This Ascendancy has some unique itemization benefits. The Unfurled Finger node grants you a third Ring Slot. Mystic Attunement enhances all stats on Rings and Amulets by 25%, which stacks on top of Catalyst modifier boosts.

The Ritual Sacrifice skill (granted by As The Whispers Ask node on Ascendancy tree) allows you to sacrifice the corpse of a slain enemy to temporarily gain one of its monster modifiers. With another node, you can cast Ritual Sacrifice on yourself, giving up 20% of your Life to gain a random monster modifier.

The Amazon

Picking the Amazon Ascendancy turns the Huntress into an elemental powerhouse but also boosts her physical martial capabilities. For example, you can passively convert some of your Accuracy Rating overhead on an enemy into additional critical chance.

This Ascendancy has access to a unique Weakness mechanic on bosses and rares with the Predatory Instinct node. You can now reveal Weakness on bigger enemies, represented by altered chunks on their health-bar. You inflict 50% more damage to the exposed enemies when their health is at the highlighted threshold.

The Infuse Weapon skill adds elemental impact damage to your projectile skills based on the types of charges consumed. Power Charges add Cold damage, Frenzy Charges add Lightning Damage, and Endurance Charges add Fire damage.

This wraps up all the important things about the Huntress in Path of Exile 2. Meanwhile, here are some Path of Exile 2 guides you may be interested in:

About the author

Sambit Pal is an esports Journalist on Gaming and MMO at Sportskeeda. He has Master's degree in English Literature. In his spare time, he is an amateur sleuth trying to trace the Riven Mafia in Warframe, and a recovering Bethesda modding addict. He also secretly enjoys action Roguelites, a severe lack of gitting gud notwithstanding.

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Edited by Sijo Samuel Paul