How does Armor Break work in Path of Exile 2

Path of Exile 2’s Armor Break debuff is one of the more important options if you want to go with a physical character. It’s not necessary to have it on every character, but there are certainly going to be builds where it will help you succeed much easier. Unlike elemental resistance curses like Flammability, you can repeatedly use Armor Break to get the result you’re looking for.

There are going to be bosses whose physical builds will almost require Armor Break in Path of Exile 2. For example, Mighty Silverfist has incredibly high armor, and if you aren’t using Elemental Attacks, you need to be able to shatter it to deal solid damage. Here’s how it works.

---

How does Path of Exile 2’s Armor Break work?

Each time you use Armor Break in Path of Exile 2, you reduce the target’s armor by a specific amount. That’s why you need to use it repeatedly, to completely shatter their defenses. You can tell when an enemy has high armor, by the White Armor icon under their health bar.

Classes that need Armor Break as a skill have at least one option each, thankfully. (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

You don’t always need to do this, but you might as well — reducing the target’s armor to zero means they are Fully Broken, which you can use on several classes to your advantage. You'll see a red debuff on their screen when this is in effect.

For example, you can use Armor Penetration Rounds on a Mercenary to Armor Break repeatedly, and once you see the appropriate debuff icon on the enemy, you swap to either High-Velocity Rounds or Fragmentation, depending on the need for AOE/Single-target. This will expend the debuff, deal way more damage, and then you’d swap back, rinse, and repeat.

While several classes have abilities that inflict Armor Break in Path of Exile 2, you also have a wide variety of abilities in the Passive Skill Tree that will grant you more Armor Break. This includes Witch builds, interestingly enough. There are passives like Shattering Blow, which inflicts a 50% Armor Break when you Heavy Stun a foe.

Just search for Armor Break options, and find the ones that fit your talent build. (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

There’s also Breakage, which breaks 60% more armor and has a 10% chance to Defend with 200% of Armor. You’ve got plenty of options available to you in Path of Exile 2. If you want to see what passive options you have, just type Armor Break in the search bar, and it will highlight all the available talents.

One of the most iconic options is on the Warrior though, with Armor Breaker, which does exactly what it says — starts to inflict Armor Break in Path of Exile 2. However, many of the most powerful meta builds in the game have a large assortment of elemental attacks built into the kit.

This means Armor Break isn’t always going to be 100% necessary. Whether you’re pushing high-tier maps in the endgame or just fighting through regular bosses, Armor Break isn’t 100% necessary. It’s sure nice to have, and there are situations where you’d like to have it rather than not. Of course, as this game is in Early Access, this could change down the line.

---

Check out our other game-related guides and features:

• Path of Exile 2 Salvaging and Disenchantment guide
• Path of Exile 2: All Buff Gems (and Metagems)
• Path of Exile 2 Frost Sorceress guide: The easiest starter build in Early Access