Spectre Druid Leveling Guide

Build Introduction

If you are looking to harness the power of nature to breeze through the campaign with a safe and reliable strategy, this Druid leveling guide is for you!

This guide is a collaborative effort from Ghazzy and Lollash. If you have any questions or want to check out some live gameplay, you can find Ghazzy here and Lollash here.

This Path of Exile 2 leveling guide is viable for league starters and new characters requiring minimal to no gear and no budget whatsoever.

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Strengths and Weaknesses

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Video Guide – COMING SOON!

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Ascendancy

Select your first Ascendancy after completing the Trial of the Sekhemas in Act 2. The trial is not difficult, so complete it within the level range of 20-30. During the early access of Path of Exile 2, the Druid can ascend as either a Shaman or Oracle. For this leveling strategy you will be ascending as a Shaman:

Trial 1: Sacred Flow – This will allow you to get up to 120 bonus spirit, allowing you to summon additional minions to help with passive damage.
Trial 2: Reactive Growth – Provides a solid defensive buff, especially against enemies that deal focused elemental damage.
Trial 3: Avatar of Evolution – More Defensive power.
Trial 4: Wisdom of the Maji – Boosts the power granted by Idols and Runes, providing some additional powerful modifiers.

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General Leveling Advice

Path of Exile II’s campaign can be quite difficult starting out, but with this build it will be a breeze. The most important thing by far in the early campaign is to CHECK VENDORS FOR GOOD EARLY GEAR.

This strategy starts with spellcasting, and transitions into a powerful minion build at the end of Act 3. This means that your ideal gear will change based on where you are in the campaign.

Early Game Gear

Look for the following gear from vendors:

1. Wands or Staves with either
   – + Level of All Spell Skills
   – + Level of Physical Spell Skills
   and either
   – % increased Spell Damage
   – % increased Spell Physical Damage
2. Scepters with a priority on stats in order of:
   – + Level of all Minion Skills
   – % increased Spirit
3. Any Amulet or Helm with +# to Level of All Minion Skills
4. Any Body Armour with +# Spirit
5. Boots with #% increased movement speed
6. Any gear with Maximum Life, Resistances, or good energy Shield.

Regal Orbs or Orbs of Augmentation can be used on these items that you find as magic. If you can’t find pieces from bullets 1 or 2, buy them off the trade site using Exalted Orbs.

Vendor bad magic or rare items you don’t need for gold, do NOT disenchant anything besides white items with sockets or quality. It is always worth Identifying rare items, even if you have to buy a Scroll of Wisdom during Act 1, as Rare items will always gain more value from being identified than a Scroll of Wisdom costs.

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Leveling Passive Tree

The Passive Trees below can be followed all the way through the campaign and into the endgame. The first tree shows how to level with spellcasting until you get access to Vaal Guard spectres in the Utzaal zone in Act 3.

This second tree is used after getting access to your Vaal Guard spectres. This will require a significant respec of the tree, but should be quite affordable during the campaign. You can respec your passive tree by talking to The Hooded One in any town.

Skill Gems

Listed below are all Skill Gems that should be used during the leveling process. There are significant changes that happen during your respec to the full minion approach in Act 3. Notes for each Act will be listed below the Skill Gem tool.

During the early acts you will need to use whatever weapon you can find, either a staff or wand with
+ Skill Levels and % Spell damage, and as such its difficult to provide guidance on potential support gems for those skills. Using the recommended supports should be fine, as this is your filler when not casting other spells

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Act I Notes

During Act 1 you will be focusing on utilising Entangle in combination with Orb of Storms and whatever Basic Spell you get from your staff or wand to deal your damage. If you have a Wand and Sceptre combo with + Level of Skills, you will also add in some Skeletal Sniper Minions. You can add Unearth as well, casting it over fallen enemies to increase your clear speed and safety, particularly if you have that Wand and Sceptre combo.

Towards the end of Act 1 after defeating The Executioner in The Manor Ramparts you can return to town for a Level 5 Uncut Skill gem and add Thunderstorm to your rotation

While clearing simply cast Entangle towards enemies as you approach them, and then Thunderstorm on top of your entangle casts to overgrow them.

Boss Rotation:

• Cast Orb of Storms twice
• Cast Entangle 4 times
• Cast Thunderstorm over your field of plants
• Cast your Basic Spell (such as Lightning Bolt or Freezing Shards) inside the Orb of Storms

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Act 2 Notes

In Act 2 you will continue to follow through with the same plan. Keep an eye out for new Staves, Wands or Scepters with better affixes. After allocating the Wildsurge Incantation Keystone passive your Plant tagged skills will be SIGNIFICANTLY stronger, but have much lower duration. Make sure you keep your vines active.

• Upon completing the Trial of the Sekhemas, you will ascend as a Shaman and assign the
  Sacred Flow ascendancy passive, granting a very large amount of spirit at the cost of not equipping charms. For now, add more Skeletal Sniper Minions for passive damage.

After you reach The Dreadnought you can gamble for item level 30+ belts from the gambler. To get the most value from your Ascendancy you will want to find a belt with 2 Charm slots, which combined with the quest reward from Valley of the Titans will give you the maximum 3 slots for a total 120 Spirit.

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Act 3 Notes

Continue the main questline until you reach the Temple of Chaos and complete its Trial for 2 additional Ascendancy points.

• Reactive Growth – Provides some powerful elemental damage mitigation.

In the Utzaal zone towards the end of Act 3 you will encounter Vaal Guards and will be swapping to a full minion focused approach. When binding your spectre it is VERY IMPORTANT that you look for a Vaal guard that costs EXACTLY 50 Spirit. These are the monsters that throw grenades, and the Spectre you are looking for.

After you have bound the correct Spectre you will need to go through a significant respec, including large changes to the passive tree and skill gems. You should theoretically have plenty of gold for this, though you may lack some Uncut gems. In this case, focus on cutting the gems for your Spectre.

Once you have swapped to Spectres, your rotation becomes VERY simple. Cast Pain Offering and
Vulnerability on tough targets, otherwise your Spectre: Vaal Guard will automatically clear everything for you!

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Act 4 and the Interludes

For most of Act 4 and the Interludes nothing much will change. Look to upgrade your gem levels, improve the quality of your gear, and swap to higher tier supports where relevant.

When you reach the interlude Acts, you should complete the 3rd Interlude first because Lythara the Wayward Spear in the Kriar Village rewards you with 40 additional Spirit as this is an important statistic for scaling your damage.

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Rotation

• Keep Pain Offering active
• Cast Vulnerability on the boss at the start of the fight to help break armour faster
• Cast Unearth over the corpses of your enemies (or your own Skeletons) to raise Bone Constructs

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Gearing Progression

This build equips item upgrades during the campaign according to a stat priority list. You will want to use a Scepter and Shield if possible, or a Wand and Scepter for higher damage at the cost of survivability. Make sure you regularly check the vendors for any Level of All Minion Skills, and utilize the gambling vendor to help look for potential upgrades if your gear falls behind.

Offensive Gear

Prioritize the following stats to improve your offensive power:

1. (Before Swapping to Minions) + Level of All/Physical Spell Skills, and % increased Spell/Physical Spell Damage
2. + Level of All Minion Skills on Scepter, Helm and Amulet
3. Increases to Spirit on Scepter, Amulet and Body Armour
4. Level of All Physical/Spell Skills if you choose to use a wand and sceptre after swapping to Spectres

Defensive Gear

After swapping to Spectres, you should swap to using a Sceptre and Shield. Prioritize the following stats on armor and jewelry pieces to improve your defensive power:

1. Maximum Life
2. Resistances
3. Armour and Energy Shield

Runes

Socket Runes into your gear to help bring your missing resistances to the base cap of 75%, or to help with meeting attribute requirements.

You can Salvage gear you would otherwise vendor that has sockets at the Salvage Bench to obtain Artificer’s Orbs to put extra sockets on your gear. This will allow you to frequently use these orbs to add sockets to your best gear pieces, and socket more resistances to make the campaign even easier!

With the addition of “Bonded” modifiers on some socketables, there are a lot of new affixes available to be socketed on to gear. If any of these prove to be very valuable, we will note them here for later character development.

Leveling Uniques

This build is entirely League-Start / no-budget viable. But if you do have extra currency, pick up these uniques for a twink leveling character:

Weapons and Offhands

• Carrion Call – A very powerful minion buffing shield, which comes at the cost of some personal defensive power
• Lifesprig – Some early Spell Skill levels and some recovery, if purchasing this make sure to get one with as many + Levels as possible, and with a “Required Level” as low as possible so you can make use of it early

Boots

• Bones of Ullr – Helps with getting extra minions earlier, comes with some movement speed. Also used right through to the endgame, so can be quite pricey.

Helm

• Goldrim – Tons of resistances usable from level 10. Likely worse than a decent rare with + level of all Minion Skills

Chest

• Enfolding Dawn – Tons of Spirit for extra minions much earlier, at the cost of slightly more difficult mana management
• Pariah’s Embrace – Less Spirit than an Enfolding Dawn, but comes with a Significant reduction in mana costs and some Attributes. A very solid chest piece until the end of campaign

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Campaign Buffs

Throughout the campaign, you will encounter several opportunities to gain permanent buffs for your character by completing side-quests. You should choose the following buffs for the Shaman:

• Valley of the Titans Altar (Act 2)
  1. 30% increased charm charges gained and +1 Charm
• Venom Draught (Act 3)
  1. 25% increased Mana Regeneration Rate
• Eye of Hinekora (Act 4)
  • Resistances from all 3 Tattoos
• Solitary Confinement (Act 4)
  • % increased recovery from Mana Flasks
• Qimah Pillars
  • These can be changed at will, so you can choose Resistances to help early and later swap to global defenses, movement speed, etc.

For more details, check the guide on Campaign Difficulties and Permanent Stat Bonuses.

Flasks and Charms

While leveling, you will find several flasks and Charms. Upgrade your flasks as you go along and if you fail to find flask upgrades, check vendors to buy them with gold.

Modifiers to look for on your flasks and charms:

• Health and Mana Flasks
  • Prefix: Increased Amount Recovered
  • Suffix: # Charges gained per second
• Charm: No Charms equipped (To Leverage Shaman)

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Changelog

December 14th, 2025: Guide published