The Fate of the Vaal league for Path of Exile 2 0.4 introduced not only the Druid class, but a subset of spells specifically meant for wielding the power of plants. Players can grow vicious vines that stab and slam enemies, and when they come into contact with water conjured by magic, they become even stronger. This set of abilities falls under the Primal category, which is the Druid's main schtick, but that doesn't mean the Sorceress class can't take advantage of it too.
The following is a Plant Magic Sorceress build for PoE 2 0.4 that focuses on the Entanglement and Thrashing Vines skill, all while taking advantage of the Disciple of Varashta Ascendancy to supercharge its stats. It starts off a little slow, but once you get the right equipment, it'll be more than enough to tackle the endgame.
Path of Exile 2: All Ascendancy Classes & Notable Nodes
Every class can unlock Class Ascendancies in Path of Exile 2, which grant unique abilities that expand and empower each of the game's base classes.
PoE 2 Entanglement Sorcereress Leveling Build
|
Skill |
Support Gem |
|---|---|
|
Entanglement |
Branching Fissures Accelerated Growth
|
|
Thunderstorm |
Magnified Area
Living Lightning |
|
Thrashing Vines |
Armour Break Brutality Considered Casting |
Brutality
Coursing CurrentThe core of the build uses Entanglement, Thunderstorm, and Thrashing Vines skills as its main DPS tools. You'll be spamming these non-stop when clearing maps, ideally in the following sequence: Thunderstorm → Thrashing Vines → Entanglement (2-3x). This rotation is important because we'll be taking a passive node that decreases the duration of our skills by 75% in exchange for more upfront damage.
Support Gems
Early on, you can use whatever Support Gems you have to improve your abilities, but once you get Thunderstorm, use the following for Entanglement until you can get the Support Gem setup in the table above:
- Brutality greatly increases Entanglement's Physical damage at the cost of making it deal no Elemental or Chaos damage.
- Upheaval creates an additional Entanglement fissure at the cost of reduced cast speed and damage.
- When you get your first Lesser Jeweler's Orb, use Accelerated Growth. This synergizes extremely well with Upheaval (and later, Branching Fissures); more fissures, more explosions!
Early Leveling
Thunderstorm is a Level 22 skill that requires a Level 5 Skill Gem, while Thrashing Vines is a Level 31 skill that needs a Level 9 Skill Gem. This means that you won't be able to get the full build until you reach Act 3. Because of this, we recommend the following:
-
Use
Frost Bomb
and an Elemental skill of choice together with Entanglement until you get Thunderstorm.
- Once you get Thunderstorm, replace the Elemental skill with Essence Drain for stronger DPS against bosses.
In our case, the early skill progression looked like this:
- Entanglement at Level 1
-
Essence Drain
at Level 1
-
Frost Bomb
at Level 1
-
Arc
at Level 14
- Thunderstorm at Level 22
- Thrashing Vines at Level 31
We specifically went with Arc because of an early 
Earthbound drop. Also, Shock procs worked well for increasing the damage dealt by Entanglement. Meanwhile, Frost Bomb was mainly used for slowing enemies and increasing the damage dealt by Elemental skills.
Optional Skills
You'll have plenty of other spells to choose from, but not many have synergy with Plant magic. The three core skills mentioned above are more than enough for damage, and if you're looking for defensive options, consider the following:
- Frost Bomb + Frost Nova is great for chilling enemies around you.
- Navira's Last Embrace and Navira's Well from the Disciple of Vashta Ascendancy are good for blocking ranged damage and recharging your Energy Shield.
Plant Magic Passive Tree for PoE 2
Pictured above is a passive tree setup for a level 33 Disciple of Varashta Sorceress focusing on Plant Spells. We strongly recommend getting Open Mind and Pure Energy first for mana regen and Energy Shields respectively. Then, path toward the line of Plant skills to the left before getting Wild Surge Incantation and Spiral Into Mania. This will give you enough DPS and survivability to overcome bosses without breaking much of a sweat, provided you can scale your gear well as level up.
After this, take the Plant/Physical nodes in the image above for the following bonuses:
- Increased Damage with Plant Skills
- Overgrown Plant Skills Break 50% Increased Armour
- Gain 10% of Damage as Extra Physical Damage
- Fissure Skills have +1 Limit (optional)
From there, you're free to take nodes as you see fit. We recommend the following:
- Desensitisation for extra Crit Damage Bonus and crit resistance
- Erraticism for extra Cast Speed at the cost of 10% less crit chance
- Calibration for more Energy Shield and max Mana
Ascendancy
The Disciple of Varashta works well with Plant magic for three reasons:
- Instruments of Power lets us use a Focus together with a Staff, massively improving our stats
- Baryanic Leylines increases the radius of non-Unique Time-Lost Jewels by 40%, which can also massively improve our stats when used in the right sockets in the Passive Tree.
- Djinn companion Kelari has abilities that inflict Critical Weakness, increasing the crit chance of our spells against afflicted enemies.
For your first two Ascendancy points, grab Instruments of Power first for a big stat spike courtesy of Focuses, then get Kelari and Kelari's Malediction for Critical Weakness. Save Baryanic Leylines for the endgame.
Getting Kelari is going to extend your spell rotation by quite a bit. If you don't have the Casting Speed, the build will feel sluggish. If you'd rather not use Kelari, then take The Fourth Teaching instead for better Energy Shield management. Otherwise, take Varashta's Intuition if you're having trouble against elemental damage.
Gear
As far as gearing is concerned, you only need to worry about stacking damage and defense. Ideally, you should find equipment with the following affixes:
|
Staff |
Spell Damage Increased Physical Spell Damage Increased Cast Speed Increased Critical Hit Chance Increased Mana Regeneration |
|
Focus |
Spell Damage Increased Physical Spell Damage Increased Energy Shield Maximum Energy Shield Increased Elemental Resistance |
|
Armour |
Maximum Energy Shield Increased Energy Shield Increased Elemental Resistances Maximum Life Life/Mana Regeneration |
|
Amulet |
Spell Damage Elemental Resistances Mana Regeneration Increased Cast Speed Increases Critical Hit Chance |
|
Rings |
Elemental Resistances Life/Mana per Enemy Killed Maximum Life/Mana Increased Cast Speed |
Getting the right gear is going to take a long while, but thankfully, you can take advantage of the many league mechanics in PoE 2 as you're playing the campaign to get the right items for the build. Alternatively, you can also just trade with other players.
As you're going through the campaign, be very mindful about the gear you're wearing. Bad equipment can get you killed, especially against bosses. If you can't find any new items, try crafting one yourself using the many currency items available in the game.
The Fourth Teaching and Sacred Rituals nodes in the Disciple of Vashta tree allows for efficient use of Armour/ES gear pieces, and they open up quite a few opportunities for Passive Tree pathing as well.
Path of Exile II
- Released
- December 6, 2024
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Nudity, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Language, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)
- Developer(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
- Publisher(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
- Multiplayer
- Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Cross-Platform Play
- All platforms
- Cross Save
- All platforms
- Prequel(s)
- Path of Exile
- Franchise
- Path of Exile
- Number of Players
- Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
- Playable
- Early Access Release
- December 6, 2024
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash, MMORPG
- Platform(s)
- PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S, PC
- OpenCritic Rating
- Mighty
- How Long To Beat
- 35 hours
- File Size Xbox Series
- 100.32 GB
- Wiki
