Spirit Guide
Last Updated:December 26, 2024|Changelog
Spirit is a Resource in Path of Exile 2, which you reserve to enable the effects of persistent Skills like Auras, Buffs, permanent Minions, and Meta Gems. While reserved, you cannot access the Spirit. Therefore, the stat acts as a limiter on how many of these permanent effects you can activate at a time. You increase your maximum Spirit as you progress through the campaign and defeat bosses or by equipping a few specific items such as Body Armours, Amulets and Sceptres. There are some exceptions when it comes to unique items for example the Oaksworn shield and Ventor's Gamble ring.
As we play the early access we'll update this with sources of Spirit and more details about how it works. Pin this post to be notified when we know more and something new is added during early access.
In Path of Exile 1, you reserved your Life and Mana to activate these effects instead of Spirit. GGG changed this for PoE 2 to prevent players from optimizing their Mana around reservations.
Obtaining Spirit
You start the game with 0 Spirit, but you can get a total of 100 Spirit from killing bosses and progressing through the Acts. If you want to run additional Auras or use extra Minions, consider using a Body Armour and an Amulet that grants you Spirit. You can also equip a Sceptre in your offhand or use one in your main hand together with a shield in the offhand. It is not possible to dual wield two Sceptres to increase your Spirit pool.
It is possible to gain an Aura or a Minion skill from a Sceptre, this Sceptre skill does not reserve any Spirit when it would have reserved Spirit if you used the skill gem yourself. It is also possible to link support gems to these Sceptre skills. The exception is if you link support gems to a Sceptre with an aura skill for example Discipline. While the aura itself does not cost Spirit to use, linking for example Clarity reserves 10 extra Spirit.
Reservations dynamically adjust as you swap weapons. However, if different weapon sets grant you different amounts of Spirit you may find yourself unable to use all of your reservations. Always test your setup by swapping weapons someplace safe before taking your build into a boss battle just to be safe.
Using Spirit
Spirit is used for the following:
- Buffs and Auras, replacing the Mana reservation of PoE1.
- Permanent Minions, while temporary Minions have no Spirit requirement, permanent Minions do reserve some of this limited resource.
- Activating Meta Gems, which trigger another linked Skill when their requirements are met.
The Spirit cost can vary a lot between different skills such as Arctic Armor requiring 30 and Cast on Shock requiring 60 Spirit. So far all the Spirit reservations we've seen are fixed amounts ranging from 30 to 120, with most Auras being 30 Spirit and the most expensive one we have seen being the Bind Spectre skill on a powerful enemy for 120 Spirit. This makes it advantageous to raise your maximum Spirit to fit extra Auras, Minions, or Meta Gems. You can reduce the Spirit your minions reserve by increasing the level of your minion skill gems and through the passive skill tree notable Lord of Horrors.
Buildcrafting Changes
These changes have a lot of implications for build crafting and archetype viability. For example, in Path of Exile 1 Minion builds tend to build around permanent Minions like Raise Spectre, Summon Fire Golem, or Summon Zombies. But each permanent Minion you add in Path of Exile 2 adds additional pressure to your Spirit. This not only heavily incentivizes builds that focus on temporary Minions but also limits the number of Auras available to permanent Minion builds.
Meta Gems in Path of Exile 2 offer players a lot of flexibility to trigger skills offensively or defensively. Even in the original Path of Exile, skills like Cast when Damage Taken and Cast on Critical Strike have been crucial in defining the meta for much of the game's history. But now these powerful gems compete with your Auras, Minions, or Buffs. To use the earlier example, you can use Cast on Shock to gain extra damage, but that might mean disabling your Arctic Armor and thus lowering your defenses.
Summary
Spirit is a new mechanic in Path of Exile 2 which is reserved and acts as a limiter for other permanent effects. Therefore, you reserve Spirit to activate Auras, Buffs, permanent Minions, and Meta Gems. Your Spirit pool expands as you progress your character and certain items like Sceptres specialize in providing the resource.
Written by: Tenkiei & Helm Breaker
Reviewed by: Havoc616, Palsteron
