Gemling Legionnaire Grenadier Leveling Build

Build Introduction

Dive into Path of Exile II with the Mercenary! This league starter hammers enemies with multiple types of grenades, crushing foes with massive area-of-effect damage and punishing crowd control. Ascend to become the Gemling Legionnaire to amplify your skills through gem synergy, the Witchhunter to dominate magical threats and blast through chaos, or the Tactician to command the battlefield with pinpoint precision, pinning enemies and boosting allies with powerful banners to control the carnage.

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Ascendancy

At the end of Act II, you can select your first Ascendancy. We generally recommend you ascend around Level 20. However, this build went through the campaign and into mid-tier maps with no ascendancy so that it can be used for the Gemling Legionnaire, Witchhunter, or Tactician. Electing to take an ascendancy will enhance the leveling process. If you struggle to ascend on either your first or second ascendancy, complete more of the campaign and return to it once you have leveled up some or acquired better gear. If you need information about ascending, you can see PatrickHatTrick’s helpful guide here.

We highly suggest using the Gemling Legionnaire if you choose to use this league starter. If you opt for Witchhunter or Tactician, you may need to make small tweaks in order to get the same efficiency as Gemling does with what we outline in this guide.

Gemling Legionnarie

The Gemling Legionnaire is an incredibly powerful and versatile ascendancy, and also our suggested ascendancy to level with. Instead of getting new abilities, the Gemling takes your existing skills and attributes and massively increases their potency. If you want to ascend as a Gemling Legionnaire, we recommend you take the following nodes in the order listed while leveling.

1. Crystalline Potential—This will instantly give us 12% Quality (2% from the small passive), decreasing the cooldown of most of our grenade skills.
2. Bolstering Implants—Grants +2 Levels to all skills used in this build. This will slightly increase mana consumption in exchange for higher damage. We take Strength Levels specifically so that Herald of Ash is also effected.

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General Leveling Advice

We can not stress enough how important it is to check vendors for gear. Getting a good Crossbow will make all the difference in the world for your leveling experience. Vendors reset their inventory every time you level, so check back frequently to see if there’s an upgrade. Alternatively, use the gamble vendor to see if you can pull a good weapon that way, if you have spare gold.

Ensure you’re completing all important side quests. It’s very easy to pass up free passive points while running through campaign maps. In case you need a list of all permanent stat boosts during the campaign, you can find those on our guide using this link!

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Leveling Passive Tree

The Passive Tree below can be followed through to the end of the Interlude and into early maps. Beyond that point, you should swap to an endgame setup. Follow along as you level using the arrows on the left and the right of the progression slider at the top of the Passive Tree.

Important Nodes

Your most important pick ups will be early on. These enable smooth usage of your grenade skills and allow you to transition away from bolt skills almost entirely.

• Grenadier—Bumps your cooldown uses of your grenades from 3 to 4. This is paramount for uptime as you’re mapping. Even more importantly, it makes bossing faster, avoiding having to wait for the skill to come back off cooldown.
• Volatile Grenades—This notable will knock 25% of the detonation time off your grenades. This is a massive quality of life improvement for nearly any build planning to use grenades.
• Incendiary—Part of the reason this build is so good is the fact that Oil Grenade and Gas Grenade are capable of igniting enemies when they explode, which will cause them to ignite themselves. Getting easy-to-reach Flammability, coupled with added and extra fire damage, makes this possible as enemies gain more life.
• The Molten One’s Gift—Breaking Armour now also provides a damage boost to Fire Damage. This synergizes perfectly with Gas Grenade to break Armour, then Explosive Grenade to take advantage of the damage boost.
• Crystallised Immunities & Gem Enthusiast—These aren’t hard to understand, nor are they super important to your gameplay. However, it should be noted that they can and should be manipulated for your preferred buff. Our suggestion is always either Red or Green, never Blue. At least while leveling.
  • You can manipulate which buff you gain by adding a throwaway Skill Gem to your kit and adding in Support Gems of the coinciding color. You can also do this with Basic Bolt once you move away from using it. If you continue this build into the third and fourth ascendancy trials, this tech becomes even more important if you utilize Gem Studded as an ascendancy bonus.

An important mention; the notable Cluster Bombs may seem like a nice pickup for the extra grenade. This is a trap, at least while leveling and not manually detonating your grenades, and should be avoided. You’ll be picking up a crossbow that allows us to shoot an extra grenade in Act 3. That covers losing out on this notable.

Skill Gems

All of the Skill Gems that should be used during the leveling process are listed below. There may be a slight variation depending on which Act you’re currently progressing through. Notes for each Act will be listed below the Skill Gem tool.

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Act 1 Notes

Act 1 will be the hardest act you have to deal with. Which isn’t saying much, since Act 1 is a breeze. But this is the point in the game where you’ll have the most clunk in your kit to deal with, to the point where Basic Bolt is actually your best skill to use for a while. Explosive Grenade should be utilized for large group clearing and bossing, but you won’t get Gas Grenade until close to the end of the Act, with a chance to start dropping Level 5 Skill Gems around the time you kill The Executioner.

Killing the King of the Mists will grant you your first Spirit Gem along with 30 Spirit. There isn’t any great choices, but we’ve opted to list Herald of Ash as the go-to Spirit Gem. This will bolster your kill speed while running through maps. However, if you prefer a more defensive option, Wind Dancer may also be taken. It’s entirely up to you.

Once you gain access to Gas Grenade the playstyle of this build really starts to open up. These grenades will create a persistent cloud of poison that whittles down the life of mobs who stand inside of it. We augment this grenade to also break armour through Corrosion, allowing us to deal some extra damage to mobs. If an ignited enemies walks into the poison cloud, or you hit it with a detonator skill (Explosive Grenade), the cloud will erupt into flame, causing a ton of damage to all enemies within it. Furthermore, the initial explosion of the Gas Grenade is a hit, meaning it can apply ailments. If you’ve happened to acquire gear with added Fire Damage, Gas Grenade can ignite enemies and explode on its own.

Rotation

There is no real rotation for this build. You’ll have access to certain grenades while leveling, and those grenades will all serve a slightly different purpose. Use them as you deem necessary. The only non-grenade skill we place on the bar will be Incendiary Shot. This is only used when you need to force your Gas Grenade or Oil Grenade to explode and you can’t wait for a detonator reaction.

Act 2 Notes

Not much changes in Act 2 in regards to skill interactions. Ensure you’re leveling your Skill Gems, with a hard priority on Explosive Grenade. These will remain your heavy hitter for the remainder of the time you play this setup, so ensuring they’re doing a maximum amount of damage is paramount.

A good Crossbow will go a long way at this point. If you have the choice, go for full Physical Damage on the prefixes. Explosive Grenade converts 80% of your Physical to Fire, but scaling pure Physical will result in a higher number on your weapon. To further enhance your damage, Rings and Gloves can roll added Physical and Fire Damage, and specifically Rings can roll Increased Fire Damage.

We highly suggest completing the Trial of Sekhemas as soon as you possibly can. The 12% Quality you gain from Gemling makes an immediate improvement to the flow of your Grenades, as it lowers the cooldown on all of them. Typically this unlocks somewhere around Level 19 to Level 21, but there’s no reason to wait. The trial is simple and straight forward, and this build has zero issue completing it, even for new players.

Unlocking Oil Grenades

At Level 31, you’ll be able to cut your first Level 9 Skill Gem (provided you find one before fighting the final boss of the Act, Jamanra) and acquire Oil Grenade. Oil Grenades apply Exposure to enemies, reducing their Elemental Resistance, and slows all enemies that are covered by the oil. When the Oil Ground is ignited, the entire area becomes engulfed in flames, dealing 150% of it’s Fire Damage the the Ignite damage it deals.

Going forward, it’s very possible to map using only Oil Grenades for 90% of all enemies you encounter. Since we add Fire Damage to the base hit of Oil Grenade, they can ignite themselves. By dropping more Oil Ground near pre-existing fire patches, the flames will continue to spread from the original,. This allows you to essentially carpet bomb the entire screen. Additionally, throwing Gas Grenade into the Ignited Ground will make them instantly explode. Since both of these grenades have a lower cooldown and detonation time compared to Explosive Grenade, it makes them more suitable for mapping. You should still be using Explosive Grenades for Elites and Bosses.

Act 3 Notes

Nothing will change in Act 3 regarding active skills. You’ll be using Oil, Gas, and Explosive Grenades as your ordinances of choice until you drop this leveler for an endgame build. However, you will pick up a bit more Spirit. Once you’ve killed the Bog Witch, cut your Spirit Gem into Overwhelming Presence. Just like before, this isn’t a great option, but it works and does provide a benefit. The main gain here is for bosses, as you’ll stun and ignite them much easier.

The important thing for Act 3 is making sure you get a good Crossbow. Immediately upon entering Act 3 you’ll gain access to Cannonade Crossbows. These come with the implicit of firing an extra projectile. Gambling and/or crafting a good Crossbow in Act 3 can easily give you a weapon that can take you into maps. Just like before, aim for a pure Physical Crossbow. If you happen to get Fire Damage or Increased Elemental Damage, those are also good. You will want to avoid Lightning and Cold Damage, as those won’t scale your Oil Grenades properly.

Similarly to the Trial of Sekhemas, the Trial of Chaos should be completed immediately upon unlocking it. Once finished, this adds another 2% Quality and +2 Levels to all Strength-based Skills.

Act 4 and Beyond

Act 4 will see almost zero changes to anything. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a couple Greater Jeweller’s Orbs here and unlock a fourth link on your Skill Gems.

The main change will come during the Interludes when you get your final 40 Spirit. We’ll be dropping Herald of Ash and Overwhelming Presence in favor of Eternal Rage. Even before getting the extra Rage from the Passive Tree, this is a massive boost to our damage, and one of the only ways to gain Rage on a non-melee character.

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Gearing Progression

You’ll want to grab mixed Evasion/Armour gear for nearly every piece of gear you have, except gloves! We take the Leather Bound Gauntlet notable, which benefits the most from pure Evasion gloves. Other notable selections have been chosen to lessen gear reliance, such as Light on your Feet and Strong Chin/Tolerant Equipment. The former provides Movement Speed and Maim/Hinder immunity, while the latter provides Stun Threshold and Bleed Immunity. If you feel you don’t need these due to lucky gear drops, feel free to swap them out for anything else you might want.

Your Crossbow is by far the most important piece of gear. Who needs defenses when you one-shot everything? As previously discussed in the Act 3 Notes, you will need a Cannonade Crossbow for the extra projectile it provides.

Offensive Modifiers

• Increased Physical Damage
• Added Physical Damage
• Increased Elemental Damage
• Added Fire Damage
• Mana on Kill

Defensive Modifiers

• Armour and Evasion
• Resistances up to 75% cap
• Stun Threshold
• Maximum Life

Runes

The main priority for sockets will be to keep your resistances as close to, or above, the resistance cap as possible. For your weapon, prioritize Iron Runes for the extra Physical Damage. If those are unavailable, or if you currently have a low Physical Damage Crossbow, insert Desert Runes instead.

Campaign Buffs

• Valley of the Titans (Act 2)
  • 30% increased charm charges gained. You may swap this buff out later.
• Venom Draught (Act 3)
  • The Venom Draught selection should be made based on what you plan on playing for endgame. We chose Stun Threshold, however the decision is up to you.
• Halls of the Dead (Act 4)
  • Dependent on your endgame build selection. However, we suggest just taking all three Elemental Resistances.
• Qimah (Interlude 2: The Stolen Barya)
  • 5% Elemental Resistance, 3% Movement Speed, or 15% Global Defenses. You may swap this buff out later.

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.

• Health and Mana Flasks
  • Prefix: Increased Amount Recovered
  • Suffix: # Charges gained per second
• Charm
  • Antidote Charm
  • Stone Charm