PoE 2 Path of Building Guides

Start with the thing that catches most people: this is a different application, not the Path of Exile version with a toggle. After that, the interesting problem is that both the game and the tool are still moving.

Path of Building for Path of Exile 2

A separate community project with its own repository, its own releases and its own calculation engine. This is the one that opens a Path of Exile 2 export code.

Free · open source · community maintained

Path of Building for Path of Exile

The long-established version for the original game. Excellent, mature, and it will not do anything useful with a Path of Exile 2 character. Different game, different maths.

Also free · also community · wrong one here

Both are community projects rather than official tools, and neither is hosted here. Download from the project's own repository, not from a mirror.

The method is the same in both games. How the export handoff works, why a damage figure is a calculation rather than a measurement, and how to configure two files identically before comparing them — that is covered once in the Path of Building guide. This page covers what changes here.

The tool is modelling a moving target

This is the difference that matters most, and it inverts the usual troubleshooting advice. In the original game, the calculator has had many years to converge on the rules. When a number looks wrong there, the tool is very rarely the reason.

Path of Exile

A stable game and a mature tool. Mechanics change occasionally and the calculator catches up quickly, because most of what it models has been settled for years.

A discrepancy is nearly always your configuration.

Path of Exile 2

A game still being balanced and a tool still being written against it. Newer mechanics may be partially implemented, approximated, or not yet handled at all.

A discrepancy might genuinely be the tool, and assuming otherwise wastes an hour.

In the older game, distrust your configuration first. Here, the tool is a legitimate suspect, and that changes the order you check things in.

None of which is a criticism of the project. Volunteers reverse-engineering a game that changes under them are doing something genuinely difficult, and they are usually explicit about what is not yet modelled. Reading the release notes for what is unimplemented is worth more here than in any other version of this software.

Config, tool, or game?

Given a figure that looks wrong, there are three possible sources and they need different responses. Working out which before you start fixing saves most of the frustration.

What you are seeing Probable source What to do

The number is lower than the site showed, by a plausible margin Your config Buffs, flasks, charges and the enemy preset. The ordinary explanation, covered in why the figures differ.

A specific modifier appears to do nothing at all The tool Likely unimplemented or partially handled. Check the project's known issues before rebuilding your character around it.

Everything was fine, then a patch landed and nothing adds up The game The rules moved and the tool has not caught up. Wait for the next release rather than reconfiguring around a temporary gap.

The figure is wildly wrong rather than moderately off Your config Almost always the wrong main skill selected on import. Check the skill selector first, before anything else.

Two people get different numbers from the same import code The tool Different versions calculating differently. Compare inside one installation or the comparison is meaningless.

Your figure is higher than the site's, not lower Your config You have enabled something the standard setup deliberately does not assume. Yours is the optimistic number.

Your configuration The tool The game moved

What to configure differently here

Most of the configuration discipline transfers directly. Four things behave differently enough to be worth naming.

Before trusting any figure Path of Exile 2 specifics

Check the skill gem's own supportsSupports socket into the skill gem rather than into gear here. If a support did not carry across the import, the damage figure drops without any gear looking wrong.

Confirm which weapon configuration is activeCharacters using more than one weapon setup can be read against the wrong one, which produces a figure that is technically correct for a set you never attack with.

Do not budget for gear linksThere is no six-link line in this game. If you are carrying a costing habit over from the older one, it inflates every estimate. The build cost calculator handles both.

Note your version before sharing a numberMore useful here than anywhere else. Two versions model the game differently while it is still being written, so a figure without a version attached is only half a claim.

Reading a damage figure in a young game

All the usual caution applies — a figure describes a configuration, not a fight — plus one more that is specific to this situation.

Treat the absolute number as provisional and the comparison as reliable. Even where the tool has not fully caught up with a mechanic, it is usually applying the same incomplete model to both sides of a comparison, which means the difference between two configurations survives an error that would ruin either figure on its own.

That is why comparing is the right use of this software here, and quoting a headline number is the wrong one. The build comparison guide covers doing that properly, and the DPS difference calculator tells you whether a gap is large enough to act on.

A note on where the site's figures come from

Damage numbers shown on build overviews are produced by running exported characters through a calculator under a standard configuration. So the figures you see there inherit whatever the tool currently models, including the parts still being worked out.

Which means a site figure and your own file can disagree for a reason that is neither's fault: they were generated by different versions of the same evolving model. Worth remembering before assuming either is authoritative. The pipeline page covers where in the chain that calculation sits.

Guides that apply here

Method · applies to both Path of Building The full handoff from export code to a damage figure, and the three places it goes wrong. Method · applies to both Why the DPS Figures Differ The gap broken into five contributors, with a waterfall showing how ordinary settings compound. Method · applies to both Comparing Two Builds Control the configuration, then compare five axes rather than one, at your budget rather than theirs. Same game PoE 2 Build Guides What a filter costs on a thousand-character sample, and why gem setups tell you more than gear here. Tool PoB Configuration Checklist Every setting worth verifying before a figure means anything, in the order that matters. Tool DPS Difference Calculator Percentage, multiplier, and whether a gap is big enough to be a real gain or a config mismatch.

The short version

Get the right application, expect the tool to lag the game occasionally rather than assuming you have misconfigured something, and use it to compare rather than to quote.

Everything else is the same discipline as the older game — identical settings on both sides, the same damage row read in both places, and the understanding that a figure assuming perfect uptime describes a fight you will rarely have. That last point matters more here than anywhere, because there is less accumulated community consensus about which assumptions are reasonable.

Back to Path of Exile 2 The thousand-character ladder, information shelf life, and where thin data still holds up. Same game PoE 2 Build Guides Reading a thin sample honestly, and the roster effect that bends every popularity share. The other game Path of Exile 1 A mature tool against a stable game, and what that lets you trust that this cannot. Avoid these Common Mistakes Eleven misreadings ranked by how often they happen and how much they cost.