Passive Tree Basics & Using the Planner
The passive tree is the skeleton of your build. If skill gems decide what you hit with, the passive tree decides how hard and how tough you are. Each node is small, but the direction you path shapes your character’s identity. This page covers reading the tree, respeccing, and building, saving, and sharing with this site’s planner.
Reading the tree
The tree is one huge board shared by every class, and only the starting position differs per class. Around the central circle, the southwest leans Strength (fire, armour, melee), the southeast Dexterity (lightning, evasion, ranged), and the north Intelligence (cold, energy shield, spells), with hybrid zones between. Nodes suited to your class cluster near your start.
The node types:
| Node | What it is |
|---|---|
| Attribute node | +5 to a chosen Strength / Dexterity / Intelligence. Acts as the connective path between clusters. Changing its chosen stat later costs half a normal refund. |
| Small passive | Minor node adding a bit of damage, defence, or utility. |
| Notable | A named, larger node — usually reached by pathing through the small nodes of a cluster. |
| Keystone | A powerful special node that comes with a drawback. |
| Jewel socket | A slot to insert a Jewel for extra modifiers. Jewels can be swapped freely. |
One common misconception: the tree only has jewel sockets — there are no skill-gem sockets on it. Skill and support gems are a separate system, not part of the tree.
Notable nodes and keystones
As a beginner, the basic approach is to aim for notables and pick up resistances, life, and damage from the small nodes along the way. Set your direction to match the focus you chose in Defense Basics and Damage Types & Ailments.
Keystones are powerful, but always at a cost. A few examples:
| Keystone | Effect / cost |
|---|---|
| Chaos Inoculation | Immune to Chaos damage and Bleeding / but Maximum Life becomes 1 (you live on Energy Shield only) |
| Blood Magic | You have no Mana; skill costs are paid from Life |
| Eldritch Battery | Converts max Energy Shield into Mana / but Mana costs are doubled |
| Mind over Matter | Damage hits Mana before Life / but 50% less Mana recovery |
| Resolute Technique | Accuracy is doubled so you never miss / but you can’t deal critical hits |
Each of these reshapes an entire build. Don’t allocate one before you understand what you’re giving up.
Weapon-set points
Alongside normal passive points there are Weapon Set passive points. You earn them from rewards like the Book of Specialisation (up to 24 over the campaign), and they’re allocated separately per weapon set — the allocated nodes change with your equipped set (Set 1 / Set 2), which is handy for weapon-swap builds. Note that weapon-set points can’t be spent on keystones or jewel sockets.
Passive points come from one per level plus quest rewards, reaching a wiki-cited total of about 124 (99 from levels + 24 from quests + 1). Ascendancy points are a completely separate pool, earned from trials (see the Ascension Trials section of Pinnacle Bosses).
Respec (refunding)
If you dislike a node you allocated, you can refund it by paying Gold. You can refund individual nodes anytime, and the cost scales with your character level (hundreds of gold in the 20s, into the thousands by level 50, tens of thousands at max level). Changing just an attribute node’s chosen stat costs half.
Two things to know:
- There is no respec currency like PoE1’s Orb of Regret — it’s purely gold.
- There’s no standing free full respec. But when a patch changes the tree layout, points in the affected clusters are refunded for free.
So an early misclick is fixable with gold — set your direction first, don’t over-worry.
Saving and sharing with this site’s planner
The passive tree planner lets you draft a build without launching the game.
- Build it — pick a class and click nodes to allocate points. You can also set weapon sets (Common / Set 1 / Set 2) and your ascendancy, and the total stats update live. Use node search to find nodes by name or effect.
- Controls — scroll to zoom, drag to pan, click to allocate. The Reset button starts over.
- Share by URL — the Share button copies a link containing your current build. No login needed to show it to someone.
- Sign in to save — signing in with Google lets you store builds in My Plans (name up to 10 chars, description up to 30, up to 20 per game). Saved builds can be loaded, overwritten, or deleted, and making one public lets others find and view it.