POE Build Tier Lists & Rankings - Best Path of Exile Builds For 3.18

How do you choose a build in Path of Exile? What is the best Path of Exile League starter build for 3.18? In this POE build tier list, we rank the best League starter build you can use for 3.18. 

Path of Exile Build Tier List 3.18 - Best League Starter Build In POE

Thanks to GhazzyTV, we have this POE best build tier list. The builds that are on the c tier and d tier, we would not recommend playing them personally in the way they are because we don't think that they're good enough in comparison to the other options these days. F tier is the worst build in Path of Exile. You can use this build unless you really love the playstyle and are masochistic enough to make it work. That's essentially what the f stands for.

S Tier

Absolution

The reason this is so good is because the build can be played with almost nothing, using that to level with from level 12 and forward. Obviously you use other abilities prior to that which is kind of up to you which one you prefer. The absolution kicks in one of the highest single target damage outputs that you can achieve in the game at the moment. This is something that can become very popular when it comes to end-game bosses. Especially with the uber bosses that is now going to be available in Path of Exile 3.18. With this in mind, another thing to mention is that absolution will actually be the to go-to choice to level with for most which builds. If you're using a minion build that is a witch, you are most likely going to level with absolution throughout the campaign or till you get that certain item that makes your build play.

Mage Skeleton

Mage skeleton is no surprise, it is a s-tier Path of Exile 3.18 build. Because many more people have now seen how strong and ridiculous this build actually is. The build will use absolution when you're leveling till you can either drop or afford the dead reckoning jewel which is required to make this build work. It's a small disclaimer on the League starting with the mage kelly build. The build itself kicks on and does end game content the regular pinnacle end game bosses in a mere tabula or a five link flush crafter. The gear progression for this is very smooth.

EA Ballista

The explosive arrow ballista totem build is also the best POE build for 3.18. This build is similar to many other ea builds going to have required pretty much nothing. The only thing you want to push up early is obviously the attack speed for this build. The main purpose of this is to basically require nothing as you're leveling and requiring nothing in the mid-game and nothing in the endgame essentially. Most things can be very easily found or purchased for a very low amount of POE currency making this a very solid League starter build in Path of Exile. It's very tanky as well and it does pretty decent damage as well as half as decent clearing.

Dark Pact

Dark pact is another s-tier build. This is a build that does require a little bit more to talk about when it comes to disclaimers. Now dark pact is a very niche playstyle. You have to summon your skeletons because this is a self-cast skeleton approach to dark packs. You summon your skeletons and then you cast your dark pact on them. The good thing with this build is that you can actually level with this when you get access to dark packs, making it pretty smooth as you can level with the build you're supposed to play in the end game. The disclaimer however is obviously that the introduction level of the gear would make this build more of an a tier build. But the upgrades for this build are super cheap. Since the build upgrades are so cheap, it's very quick to make this build go from low budget into the higher end of low budget. 

At which point the build suddenly goes from a tier build into an s tier build very quickly. The upgrades are very cheap, it's because the dark pack has a similar gearing scaling as that of a minion build. Dark pact benefits equally from spell damage as it does from mini damage and spell damage can actually roll with a higher numerical value. This means that since there are so few people actually playing dark pact, most of these great ones even a plus one one with spell damage cost way less than a plus one one with minion damage. Because the minion builds are so popular and so in demand, they are so much more expensive. So you can buy the cheaper variants for the dark pack which essentially is vastly superior for the dark pack build. This allows you to purchase Path of Exile items that are extremely good for this build for almost nothing.

A Tier

Animate Weapon

The animate weapon has a very niche playstyle. You will summon weapons on the ground by use a blade fall. Then you'll summon your enemy weapon on these lingering blades and blade leaves on the ground. This creates a bit of a re-summoning process where you want to start off the map with most of your weapons out if not all. Then as you're clearing and looting, you want to cast them a little here and there. So you don't suddenly lose your entire army of minions and that kind of creates a little bit of a new nuisance or annoying play style if you will. However people seem to really hate on this, but then at the same time they seem to love mage skeletons which is already having the play style of summoning skeletons all the time every now. Then basically every pack whereas the animate weapon has the approach of doing this. If you can get past that play style, anime weapon will be a very solid build for both clearings as well as single-target in-game capabilities.

COC AW

Called chains of command are a variation of enemy weapons. This unique chess piece prevents you from having access to non-animated minions. This means that you'll have your animate guardian and ask your enemy guardian to kill things, making sure that any kill within close proximity of him counts as his kill. He will summon a higher-level enemy weapon or enemy guardian's weapon which is basically an enemy weapon. But that weapon is the weapon that the enemy guardian is wearing. This build is actually really good even on a low budget state using something cheap as a white wind which normally cost about a chaos. You can also use replica auros but they're not that easy or commonly accessible early on. 

The white wind is actually better and cheaper in more cases. And the upgrade version for this is actually a four-white triad which can be quite expensive. However the weapon upgrade which should be the expensive part is just in a serious favor which is very cheap. The low body chains of command is definitely an a tier build. It packs a good punch, it's an octal twist, it scales very well and it clears thanks to profane bloom effectively. It's just all-around a very comfortable build to play. And you don’t need to invest too much Path of Exile currency.

Cold Snap/Vortex

The cold snap/vortex is one of the Path of Exile meta build during 3.18. It can obviously replace the cold snap for something like winter tight. Because when you enable that you just run through enemies and everything dies. One of the best parts of this build is that this is a ci build. The build itself is very tanky inherently and it packs a good punch and it's one of the best POE League builds for generic cleaning.

Physical Golems

This is without a doubt a tier build. The reason for this is very simple. It's creating a meat shield of armies in front of you it's very comfortable to play. The upgrades are very cheap mostly, because the people rather play absolution or made skeletons in the current state of the game, so not that many people playing golem build which means making the jewels for it's rather cheap. So it's an easy game to get started with early on. It packs a good punch and has good survivability. There are multiple different variations you can run with and it's just really comfortable to play with. However leveling you want to run with absolution obviously early on until you get clay shapers and then you can opt in your golems. Once you start using golems, you have to remove your absolution, you can still have the absolution in this build as you're playing. Later when you get better and better gear for the golems, they can slowly transition out of the absolution playstyle.

Holy Relic

The holy relic is one of the best efficiency per currency invested builds you can get in the entire game at a low budget. This whole relic build is very good but it will use the absolution for leveling. However, you can switch to holy relic as soon as you have access to the unique helmet joffrey's crest which allows you to have two holy relic minions and it's just really comfortable. Due to the defensive scaling of the build. It packs a good defensive layer allowing you to basically be almost immortal.

B Tier

Summon Raging Spirit

Summon raging spirit can be used when you're leveling early on which makes the build feel comfortable to play the build you're supposed to play at the later stage of the game. It's just really comfortable, it's a nostalgic build for a lot of us old-school players. Summon raging spirit can go in a mirror-tier version up to 150 mils in shape with DPS which is crazy. But the build can be clunky when it comes to clearing, that's why it's a b tier. However with a little bit of investment that clunkiness gets more and more smoothened out. 

The interaction with the hydrosphere allows you to never need to remove the melee splash support chamber. So that you still have good damage output with a hydrosphere placed on the boss itself. This also allows for higher upgrades to actually get more damage out of the approach of never switching out the melee spice support gem from your srs. It packs a big army of minions to act as meat shields for you. You can do an offensive approach to it or a defensive approach, it's just a matter of what you prefer to play.

Dominating Blow

Dominating blow is going to be extremely enjoyable to play in 3.18 thanks to the arch-nemesis modifiers being moved over to the core mod pool of rare and magic monsters. The problem with dominating blow is the same as it always has, you don't get magical rare sentinels when you're hitting a unique enemy such as face bosses or even the uber bosses. So dominating glow will still be very lackluster when it comes to the end-game boss. But for the sake of clearing and starting which basically means you're going through the campaign and then doing map completion killing map bosses in which you most of the mass bosses will have magic or rare sentinels with you into the map boss will feel very good. It's very tanky and it's really comfortable. It doesn't require any specific gear to get this build up and running which is why it's such a good POE League starter build.

Death’s Oath

Death’s oath has a big disclaimer. It is a very niche approach and built to play. Because of the fact that it kind of requires you to understand how the build works and also requires some base currency. Because you need to get that six suckers on the death. So you need to color it which can in many cases be better done through early map harvest color changes. All of these requirements make this not such a good thing to do as a League starter. This is a proper League starter build unless you're very knowledgeable and experienced with League starting with such an approach to the game.

Ice Spear/FP Totems

This build can in some cases be a little bit squishy which is why it's not a tier. Damage-wise, it feels very comfortable. But with the removal of threshold jewels, you now have to do a gem swap with the gmp and remove the gmp to make sure that you have proper clearing coverage as well as a proper single target. The build is using freezing poles for clearing and ice pairs for single targets. The idea with this build is to place totems at a distance away from the bosses or the target that you want to hit. So that the iceberg enters their second form to therefore deal is significantly more damage versus bosses. 

It takes a couple of tries to get in to understand and see where this breaking point of distance is. Once you see that, it takes a few seconds for you to get adjusted to it and just play the build properly from there. It is a very comfortable build in terms of defense. Because it freezes and shatters the entire pack of enemies. However before you get up to the point where you're doing consistent crits, it can feel a bit squishy with the mind of a matter of approach. But definitely, something to look into if that's something you want to play.

Forbidden Rite Totems

The old-school forbidden rite totems got completely gutted, because it was absolutely disgustingly broken back in the days where we killed in-game bosses using a one-link soul mantle with forbidden rite totems. Though it's been nerfed, it still works. It's not the best Path of Exile build in the world that's why it's a b tier. It's a fun build to play but it definitely packs a good punch and hilarious amounts of damage.

Pure Spectres

The pure spectre build is in a situation where spectre ai has caused a lot of problems. There are a couple of different choices with spectres. The slave drivers are the best balance between decent clearing and proper end game single target DPS. However slave drivers can be a bit squishy, other variations of this would be to use primal crush claws which is a harvest spectre. The spectres will allow you to be in a position where they are really good with a single target, but not so good for clearing other spectres that are pretty well balanced and have a little bit better focus on clearing over a single target as the state divers have that would be furious watch spectres as well. 

So those are kind of the three go-to spectres that would people use mostly nowadays in perspective builds. The problem with pure spectre is that the efficiency on the lower-end budget has been made worse with recent changes. As soon as you start investing in the build, it gets rampantly very much better. This is why it's no longer an s-tier build like back in the days with syndicate operatives and it's now instead a b-tier build.

C Tier

Eye of Winter

This build is really good back in the days, but nowadays not so much. This is mostly because of the impact of something with the interaction, with the hydrosphere which is now a one second cooldown. It's still comfortable to clear. But when it comes to a single target, it's just fallen off the face of the earth and you would much rather play something like a seismic trap or any other approach. But there are still people who want to play the eye winter miners.

Chaos Dot

Chaos dot can be made in different variations. This used to be one of the meta builds many for a long time ago. Thanks to it being an occultist, it does very well in terms of the clearing. The single target is so bad these days. You can bring these builds up to be very decent with a higher budget investment.

F Tier

Lich Queen

Lich queen has been with us since seven or eight years back and has been updated every League ever since. It used to be the minion meta build and the build is played with a combination of skeletons as well as specters where the skeletons takes care of one part of your offense and the specter's the other part. Mostly it is melee skeletons for single targets and specters for clearing in this case syndicate operatives. You could mix it to have specters being more of a single target such as primal cross-cluster or other approaches and using main skeletons of clearing. 

The problem is that in today's state of Path of Exile. The approach is better to just focus hard on one of those minions rather than spreading the focus. The build is a bit squishy because of the focus on two different aspects of minions and it's not really that good anymore and hasn't been good for a while which is why it's been such a low tier.