Path of Exile 2: Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire Build Guide

Ben Author

Created - 16.02.2025 Updated - 04.03.2025

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Do you want to play arguably the best build in Path of Exile 2? If so, you're going to want to read this article to completion!

Today, we will talk about everything there is to know about the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire. Are you interested? Then come and join us!

Before anything, keep in mind that this build is extremely expensive and likely out of reach for those who do not have the budget. Fortunately, you can head to our PoE 2 Currency Store if you run into problems with Divine Orbs, unique items, etc.

Why Play the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire?

As you can probably tell by the name of this PoE 2 Build, the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire raises all of the base attributes, namely strength (STR), dexterity (DEX), and intelligence (INT), as high as possible. This is because you'll be using the unique quarterstaff—Pillar of the Caged God—to deal the most damage possible!

The Pillar of the Caged God might look simple on the surface, but make no mistake because this thing slaps hard! By stacking STR, DEX, and INT, you gain increases in weapon damage, attack speed, and area of effect, respectively.

Sometimes, people who have deep pockets will purchase a corrupted Pillar of the Caged God that deals 12% increased weapon damage instead of the usual 10%. When you have copious amounts of STR, you're going to see why people love this melee Path of Exile 2 build!

Another important part of the build is the Hand of Wisdom and Action. It also takes attributes into account, where you gain a boost in attack speed by stacking DEX, and some added lightning damage when you raise your INT.

Astramentis is pretty much the endgame amulet for this build. This thing can roll up to 100 points to all attributes, not to mention the 7-point boost on the amulet's implicit modifier. Make sure to use PoE 2 Divine Orbs to maximize the numerical values of the explicit modifiers on the Astramentis.

Because of the price of the items just mentioned, you have to spend boatloads of PoE 2 currency to even get a hold of them. That is why the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire should only be attempted as a second character and not your first. You can refer to our best beginner builds in Path of Exile 2 guide to learn which builds are good as a starter.

Despite the investment needed for the build to work, the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire can easily melt bosses without a problem. This makes every currency you sink into this build worth it.

Furthermore, due to the lack of movement abilities in the game, this build attacks so fast that you can replace the default run with your primary skill if you wish to move about!

The ascendancy class that you should choose for this build is, of course, the Gemling Legionnaire. His "Enhanced Effectiveness" ascendancy node is what makes this build rise to the top of the charts! This essentially doubles the bonuses provided by each of the core attributes, which means that you get more HP from strength, more accuracy from dexterity, and more mana from intelligence.

Next, you have Advanced Thaumaturgy. Using Tempest Flurry constantly can eat up your mana in a matter of seconds. This ascendancy node takes care of that, making the mana consumption of your skills a lot more bearable.

Crystalline Potential and Adaptive Capability are really just stepping stones to the aforementioned nodes, with the former having more use due to the 10% increase in the quality of your skills.

Here is the ideal order of ascendancy nodes for the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire:

1. Adaptive Capability
2. Enhanced Effectiveness
3. Crystalline Potential
4. Advanced Thaumaturgy

Aside from that, here are the ideal modifiers to look for on your pieces of gear, jewels, and accessories for the PoE 2 Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire build:

• Increased Lightning Damage
• Increased Damage with Quarterstaves
• Increased Attack Speed with Quarterstaves
• Increased Attack Speed
• Increased Critical Hit Chance
• Increased Critical Damage Bonus
• Increased Elemental Damage
• Recover 2% of Mana on Kill
• 4% of Damage is Taken from Mana Before Life

Playstyle

Your primary damage dealer on this build is Tempest Flurry. Holding the button for this skill down will prompt your character to initiate a four-hit combo that deals more damage on the third and fourth hits.

If you want to use Charged Staff early on, you can employ Siphoning Strike as well. This ability can only be utilized on enemies affected by Shock. For this reason, keep an eye out for Shock's icon before using Siphoning Strike.

The Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire pretty much plays exactly like a lightning-based Monk build. You combo enemies with Tempest Flurry and then drop a Tempest Bell on tougher monsters and bosses.

Having said that, this PoE 2 build actually uses two different Tempest Bells, which you can use one after the other. One of the bells is enhanced by support gems that deal insane amounts of elemental damage, while the other one has support gems that allow you to land critical hits more consistently.

From there, you have the complete freedom of what other gems you wish to use. For example, if you're playing the crit version of the build, you can utilize a Cast on Shock setup to automatically proc Eye of Winter just by attacking enemies with Tempest Flurry.

On the other hand, you have the option of using the Hand of Chayula with Conductivity to reduce the lightning resistance of your enemies. Once you have the core skills set up, just choose whichever skill gems and support gems that fit your style of play.

Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire Gear Recommendations

It is important to note that the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire requires some very expensive items. Besides the three main attributes, you want to make sure that your elemental and chaos resistance are taken care of by your gear.

You'll need to juggle your item modifiers just to hit the resistance cap of 75%. Once you have achieved this, focus on improving your core attributes as much as possible. Don't worry, we will provide you with other gear choices as well so you can have a feel for this build without spending boatloads of PoE 2 Currency.

Weapon

There is really only one weapon for the PoE 2 Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire and that is the Pillar of the Caged God. To unlock this weapon's full potential, you have to stack your core attributes (STR, DEX, and INT) as high as possible. Just so you know, the Pillar of the Caged God can be equipped at level 1, though you'll get the most out of it once you reach level 50+.

While you can certainly utilize a non-corrupted version of this weapon, we recommend that you get one that has a corrupted STR modifier for that 12% increased weapon damage (instead of 10%). You can try and use a PoE 2 Vaal Orb on it yourself and hope that you get the desired outcome.

Body Armor

Before you get the Morior Invictus, wear a well-rolled Expert Waxed Jacket, particularly one that has all of the elemental resistance modifiers in the game. The Expert Waxed Jacket is a hybrid evasion and energy shield-based body armor that works perfectly with the build, making it a solid choice pre-Morior Invictus.

In the endgame, you have to replace the rare body armor with the Morior Invictus that has increased attributes and added elemental resistance per socketed rune or soul core. You can read our Path of Exile 2 trading guide if you need help with putting specific filters on the trade website.

Helmet

You can wear a rare helmet with three elemental resistance modifiers to address any deficiency in defense you may have. However, there are a few unique items that you could invest in as well.

First of all, Greymake is an awesome helmet that you can wear starting at level 5. This can roll up to 50 points on STR, DEX, and INT, when you equip it at the said level, though the attribute bonuses it provides falls off as your character level increases. Still, it is a very useful helmet for a budding Attribute Stacking Gemling Legionnaire.

Once you reach level 30, you have to replace Greymake with the Black Sun Crest. Unlike the previous unique helmet, the Black Sun Crest provides percentage increases to the core attributes, giving you a ton of value. You can pretty much make Black Sun Crest your endgame helmet if you want.

Now, if you are wondering why only switch to the Black Sun Crest at level 30 instead of level 16, that is because you will more likely have access to better-rolled accessories at that point. Also, you'll still get a ton of value from Greymake pre-30s.

The Black Sun Crest is your endgame helmet for the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire. However, if you are already doing a ton of damage to the enemy, you can switch to Atziri's Disdain to improve your survivability instead.

If you have 3,000 HP (which is quite doable on this build), you can get an extra 2,000 or even 3,000 with Atziri's Disdain equipped. If you are going to purchase this off the trade website, get one that says "Gain 30% of Maximum Life as Extra Maximum Energy Shield" to get the most out of it.

Gloves

When playing this build, you want to rush to level 52 so that you can wear the Hand of Wisdom and Action. These gloves are widely known in Path of Exile 2 for providing increased attack speed and added lightning damage by raising your DEX and INT exponentially.

At this point of PoE 2 Early Access, you can snag the HoWA for about a few Divine Orbs off the trade website. However, we suggest that you go for a corrupted one, specifically for the INT modifier for even more added lightning damage.

Boots

Admittedly, this build may struggle to cap resistances to 75%, especially when you consider all the unique items it uses. The boots for the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire can help address some of your elemental resistance deficiencies. That is why you should get rare boots with fire, cold, and lightning resistance, as well as 30-35% increased movement speed.

Amulet

You have two options when it comes to the amulets you're going to wear for this attribute-stacking Path of Exile 2 build. The first is a rare amulet that has 40-50 Spirit, life, and elemental resistance. You can switch one of the elemental resistances with any of the core attributes to improve your damage output.

The second amulet is a chase item called the Astramentis. Consider obtaining this amulet as one of your main goals when playing this PoE 2 build. The reason why it's very valuable for the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire is that it can give you a 100-point boost on STR, DEX, and INT.

If you manage to get one via a rare drop or Orb of Chance, make sure to use PoE 2 Divine Orbs to get the maximum numerical values on the amulet's explicit modifiers.

Whatever amulet you use, anoint it with Blurred Motion for an increase in attack speed, accuracy rating, and dexterity. This requires a Distilled Despair, Distilled Paranoia, and Distilled Ire slotted in the exact order.

If you have the budget to get the more expensive Distilled Emotions, go for Spaghettification for that extra movement speed and increased attributes. This needs Distilled Isolation, Distilled Despair, and Distilled Fear.

Rings

One of the build's weaknesses is to maintain a 75% cap on all of its resistance modifiers. You can wear a Ruby Ring (fire resistance), Sapphire Ring (cold resistance), Topaz Ring (lightning resistance), and Amethyst Ring (chaos resistance) if you need a relatively huge boost in your resistance. You're only concerned with the resistance modifiers on the suffixes, but what about the prefixes?

For the prefixes of your rings, make sure to get added cold damage on one ring and added fire damage on the other. These modifiers greatly improve the damage of your Tempest Bell. The added fire damage also causes the bell to Ignite enemies that are hit by the shockwaves it emits, thus improving your overall DPS.

Once you have the budget, invest in a couple of Breach Rings with the same modifiers mentioned above. The reason why you ultimately want to go for Breach Rings is that their quality can be improved up to 50% rather than 20% on the other ring types. Use Xoph's Catalyst or Tul's Catalyst to enhance the fire or cold modifiers on the rings, respectively.

Belt

Rare pieces of gear in Path of Exile 2 help you address any problems you may have with your build. Since elemental resistance is hard to come by given the number of unique items that the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire build uses, you can address the resistance issue on a rare belt. The belt can also roll STR on it, so having a couple of resistance modifiers along with it is the most ideal.

Of course, your endgame belt is none other than Ingenuity. This is popular for improving the bonuses that you get from your equipped rings by 80%, though you can get a corrupted one that goes as high as 97%. That said, never settle for anything below 65% because they are pretty much useless.

Flasks

• Increased Amount Recovered
• Increased Charges
• Gain Charges per Second (Only go for this while you're still leveling up. Otherwise, go for increased charges)

Jewels

Jewels in Path of Exile 2 hold a lot of power, particularly for the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire. Refer to the first section of this build guide to get a glimpse of the modifiers that you need for each rare jewel.

Save one jewel socket for a Ruby that has “Gain 1 Rage on Melee Hit.” When you have this socketed into your passive tree, you can forgo Rage Support on Tempest Flurry in favor of another support gem of your choosing.

If you struggle to survive in the higher-tier maps, you can invest in Sapphire Jewels that have the following mods:

• Increased Maximum Energy Shield
• 4% of Damage is Taken from Mana Before Life
• Increased Energy Shield Recovery Rate
• Recover 2% of Mana on Kill

In terms of unique jewels, there are a lot of them that you can use here as well. For instance, Against the Darkness can roll with “% Increased Strength” and “% Increased Intelligence.” You can also opt for one attribute and some extra damage if you want.

Controlled Metamorphosis allows you to allocate passive skills without wasting valuable skill points. Get one that affects a massive ring and then insert it into the jewel socket near “Necrotic Touch” on the passive tree. This enables you to take the following notable passive skills:

• Pure Power
• 2% Increased Lightning Damage per 10 Intelligence

• Lightning Quick
• 14% Increased Lightning Damage
• 8% Increased Attack and Cast Speed with Lightning Skills

• Drenched
• 40% Increased Chance to Shock
• Gain 5% of Lightning Damage as Extra Cold Damage

• Eldritch Will
• 3% Increased Maximum Life, Mana, and Energy Shield
• Gain 20% of Maximum Energy Shield as Additional Stun Threshold

In the endgame, if you still want to take things up a notch, obtain The Adorned jewel with at least a 90% increased effect of corrupted magic jewels. The magic jewels that you’re going to use here should be those that have “Increased Maximum Energy Shield” and “Increased Critical Damage Bonus.” If you decide to play the non-crit version, replace the crit damage bonus with “Recover 2% of Life on Kill.”

After wearing all of the items mentioned above and you are still struggling to cap your elemental resistance, you can socket three Grand Spectrum jewels, specifically those that have “+4% to All Elemental Resistance” each.

Skills

• Tempest Flurry
• Martial Tempo
• Primal Armament
• Inspiration
• Rage
• Bullseye OR Crescendo
• Note: You can swap Rage if you already have a Ruby that has "Gain 1 Rage on Melee Hit"
• Tempest Bell
• Overabundance
• Elemental Focus
• Lightning Penetration
• Concentrated Effect
• Close Combat
• Note: You have two Tempest Bell setups on this build. This particular setup is the one you drop first. Works great even for non-crit versions of the build
• Tempest Bell
• Hourglass
• Supercritical
• Rageforged
• Note: This is the second Tempest Bell you drop when fighting bosses. If you go for the non-crit version, you can switch Supercritical with Heavy Swing for damage or Electrocute to keep those enemies in place
• Charged Staff
• Persistence
• Lightning Exposure
• Cold Exposure
• Strip Away
• Culling Strike
• Note: You can generate consistent Power Charges with Resonance allocated on the passive tree. If you do not have enough skill points to get it, you can generate Power Charges via Siphoning Strike.
• Herald of Thunder
• Ice Bite
• Cold Infusion
• Glaciation
• Cold Penetration
• Ambush
• Herald of Ice
• Overcharge
• Conduction
• Magnified Effect
• Innervate
• Shock Siphon
• Cast on Shock
• Eye of Winter
• Impetus
• Energy Retention
• Combat Frenzy
• Profusion
• Precision
• Grim Feast
• Note: If you have extra Spirit left, you can add Clarity here
• Storm Wave
• Mobility
• Upheaval
• Lighting Infusion
• Note: This is not mandatory at all. However, it is pretty fun having a relatively ranged ability that you can use to kill enemies who are running away. You can use this before Cast on Shock. When your Cast on Shock setup is operational, remove Storm Wave to make way for it

Passive Skill Tree

The Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire has one of the simplest-looking passive skill trees for a PoE 2 build. For the most part, you'll be traversing a linear path, getting as many attribute nodes as possible.

Polymathy, which is a notable passive skill that you can find in the bottom-middle portion of the tree, provides you with 10% increased attributes. On the opposite side of that, you'll see Jack of All Trades. This particular node grants 2% increased damage for every five points of your lowest attribute. So, if your lowest attribute is at 300, you get a whopping 60% increased damage from Jack of All Trades!

Before you reach the aforementioned nodes, you have the option of allocating Colossal Weapon and Curved Weapon. The former increases the area of effect of your attacks and grants a 10-point boost in STR. The latter, on the other hand, increases your accuracy by 15% and DEX by 10.

After that, go all the way to the right until you get Falcon Dive. This gives you a 1% increased attack speed per 250 accuracy. Since you have plenty of DEX on this build, you'll gain a huge boost in attack speed, not to mention that you also get ASPD from Hand of Wisdom and Action! A similar node to this is Falcon Technique, which also increases attack speed by 1%, though from every 15 points of DEX on your character.

Once you have taken Enhanced Reflexes, Martial Artistry, and Resonance on the passive tree, you are free to do whatever you want with the remaining skill points. In our version of the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire build, we also took Unbound Forces, Storm Surge, and Storm Swell for percentage increases in strength and intelligence.

If you opt for the non-crit version of the build, you can allocate Lightning Rod at the bottom of the tree, which makes your lightning damage with hits “Lucky.” This just means that between two rolls, the higher one is always taken as the final result. In the endgame, you can take Pure Power for increased lightning damage per 10 points of INT.

Tips and Strategies

Do you have any problems playing the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire in Path of Exile 2? Then perhaps these awesome tips will help:

How to Proc Herald of Ice Consistently

Your primary skill on this build deals lightning damage, so you don't have any issues making Herald of Thunder work. However, you may struggle with Herald of Ice procs, particularly if you are not dealing any cold damage whatsoever.

To rectify this, grab a pair of rings that have added cold damage. When enhanced by the Ingenuity belt, you should deal enough cold damage for HOI to proc more frequently. If you don't have Ingenuity yet, make sure to have added cold damage on both of your rings (and some good rolls as well).

Juggle Your Modifiers

Your aim is to achieve at least 75% fire, cold, and lightning resistance. Chaos resistance is kind of difficult to incorporate on this build unless you put the Soul Core of Tacati into your gear sockets.

Once you have capped your resistances, focus on improving your strength, dexterity, and intelligence. Your STR should be your lowest attribute because most of the damage of this build comes from the attack speed (from DEX) and added lightning damage (from INT).

Get More Spirit

With the unique items you will equip on this PoE 2 build, you may have a hard time getting enough Spirit. So, where do you actually acquire this resource, particularly on the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire?

Well, you can buy a corrupted Atziri’s Disdain or Black Sun Crest with up to 30 Spirit. If you are going to search for this on the trade website, make sure to use “[Enchant] # to Spirit” as the stat filter since this is a corrupted implicit modifier.

If you don't have the Morior Invictus and Astramentis yet, you can have a total of 100 additional Spirit if you wear a well-rolled rare body armor and amulet. You can get as much as 60 Spirit on the body armor and 40 on the amulet.

Once you have the Astramentis equipped, the only way to get more Spirit is either by getting a version of Morior Invictus that grants +10 Spirit for every socketed soul core or inserting the Soul Core of Azcapa (+15 Spirit) on every piece of gear that has sockets on them.

Should You Go Crit or Non-Crit?

We believe the decision of whether to go crit or non-crit depends largely on how many jewels you want to use on your build. For the non-crit version, you can take Lightning Rod on the passive tree to ensure that you deal the most amount of damage without landing a critical hit, and then use your passive skill points to allocate extra jewel sockets.

The crit version allows you to decimate foes without relying on so many jewels to gain power. However, whichever version of the build you are going to run, you can never go wrong with either of them.

Use Certain Soul Cores

After everything that has been said and done, if you still find yourself lacking elemental or chaos resistance, you can insert the Soul Core of Citaqualotl or Soul Core of Tacati to address them, respectively.

POB

Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire

Final Thoughts

Among the builds that you can play in Path of Exile 2, the Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire is one of the best in the game. In terms of sheer power, this build is unmatched. It can melt bosses easily, making such encounters trivial most of the time.

Despite its incredible prowess, we don’t recommend this build as a starter because it requires some very expensive items. Play any of the beginner builds to farm enough currency and then create a new character specifically to ascend to the Gemling Legionnaire at some point.

So, there you have it! We hope that you’ve found our Attribute Stacker Gemling Legionnaire build guide helpful! If you have any questions about the build, feel free to leave a comment below.

Also, with a build that needs so many unique items to flourish, you might want to go to our PoE 2 Store to deck your character out! We have well-rolled versions of the Morior Invictus, Ingenuity, and Astramentis waiting for you there!

PROS

• Extremely fast attacker due to the ASPD bonuses on gear and passive skills
• Quickly destroys pinnacle bosses when fully geared
• Fun to play, especially for those who like melee combat

CONS

• The required items for this build are sold at very high prices
• Sorting out elemental resistances can be a chore
• May struggle with survivability in the early- and mid-stages of the game