pathofbuilding.community

Path of Building Community (PoB) is a build planner for Path of Exile that lets you plan a character before or after you create it. You can map out your passive skill tree, test gem links, build and compare items, and see how each change affects your stats. It is most useful when you want to compare options without spending currency or respec points in-game. The planner is open source, and the site offers separate downloads for Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2.

Plan your passive skill tree

The passive tree planner shows which paths are more efficient and can advise you on which nodes are most beneficial to your current build. You can also observe how taking a notable passive point would change your stats before committing to it.

The site lists these tree-related features:

• Added oil combinations to notables on the passive skill tree.
• Highlight nodes by per-point power and opportunity cost.
• A Power Report that ranks all passive skills on the tree and cluster jewels so you can prioritise upgrades.

If you are deciding between two routes to a keystone, this is where you compare them. The Power Report is the fastest way to see which passives give the most for the points they cost.

Plan skill gems and links

You can prepare your skill gem links and watch the benefits of socketing them in different items. PoB also offers suggestions for the most powerful gems to add to your setup, which helps when you are unsure which support gems actually improve your damage.

Supported gem mechanics listed on the site include:

• Warcries and Brands
• Awakened Spell Echo
• Vaal Arc
• Carrion Golem
• Alternate Quality skill gems, with most effects already supported

This means you can test a link setup in the planner, move the gems between gear slots, and compare the results before buying anything.

Build and compare items

PoB understands most mods that can be found on items and lets you perform anointments, crafting, corruptions, and more. You can set up gear sets and compare the effects of your changes.

Item-related features include:

• Apply Catalysts to rare and unique items.
• Craft (double) influenced items.
• Filter mods by Prefix or Suffix.
• All uniques available, steadily updated, with most of their mods supported.
• A UI for anointing items: search notables, sort them by node power, and preview their effects.

A practical use case: if you are choosing between two amulets, you can enter both, anoint each one, and compare the stat changes side by side instead of guessing.

Plan defences and special mechanics

The planner covers defensive and mechanical systems that are hard to calculate by hand:

• Pantheon gods: pick your Pantheon powers to plan your defences better.
• Keystones: The Agnostic, Crimson Dance, Eternal Youth, Glancing Blows, Imbalanced Guard, and more.
• Mechanics: Impale, Exposure, Elusive, Warcries and Exerted Attacks, Bonechill, and more.
• Unique mechanics: Timeless Jewels, Perquil's Toe, Thread of Hope, Split Personality, and more.
• Alternative Ailments: Scorch, Brittle and Sap.
• Added many spectres: Redemption Sentry, Baranite Thaumaturge, Baranite Sister, and more.
• Configurable Shock value, with guaranteed sources of Shock applying automatically.
• Minimum and average calculation modes for Ailments, Regeneration, Armour, and effective health.

These options matter when your build depends on a specific interaction, such as a keystone that changes how your defences work or an ailment that scales your damage.

What it is best for

Use PoB when you want to:

• Compare two passive tree paths or two gear setups before spending currency.
• Check whether a gem link actually increases your damage.
• Plan anointments, crafts, or corruptions on an item.
• Rank your passive points by value so you know what to upgrade next.

It is a planning tool, not a replacement for playing the game. The value comes from testing changes in the planner first, then applying the ones that work.

Path of Building Community supports most of the mechanics that affect a Path of Exile build's numbers, including Pantheon powers, Impale, Exposure, Elusive, Warcries and Exerted Attacks, Bonechill, alternate ailments, and alternate Quality skill gems. It also covers all unique items with most of their mods, plus unique mechanics such as Timeless Jewels, Perquil's Toe, Thread of Hope, and Split Personality. Support means the planner can calculate the effect on your stats; it does not mean every edge case in the game is modelled perfectly.

Defensive and combat mechanics

The planner lets you pick Pantheon powers so you can plan defenses with the major and minor god bonuses included. Beyond that, the following mechanics are supported:

• Impale — stacks and their damage contribution
• Exposure — elemental resistance reduction applied to enemies
• Elusive — the avoidance and movement effect
• Warcries and Exerted Attacks — including how exerted attacks scale
• Bonechill — the cold damage taken increase
• Alternate ailments — Scorch, Brittle, and Sap

Shock is configurable, and guaranteed sources of Shock apply automatically, so you don't have to set the value by hand when the build always shocks.

Calculation modes

For ailments, regeneration, armour, and effective health, you can switch between minimum and average calculation modes. Use minimum when you want the worst-case number a fight can produce, and average when you want the typical value across a rotation.

Skill gems and skill interactions

You can prepare skill gem links and see the benefit of socketing them in different items, and the planner suggests the most powerful gems to add to a setup. Supported skill mechanics include:

• Warcries and Brands
• Awakened Spell Echo
• Vaal Arc
• Carrion Golem

Alternate Quality skill gems are supported for most of their effects, so a build using them can be planned without manually faking the stats.

Unique items and unique mechanics

All uniques are available and steadily updated, with most of their mods supported. Specific unique mechanics that are handled include:

Because "most mods" is the stated coverage rather than "all mods", check the item in the planner before you commit a build around an unusual modifier.

Item crafting and gear comparison

Path of Building understands most mods found on items and supports anointments, crafting, corruptions, and more. You can:

• Apply Catalysts to rare and unique items
• Craft (double) influenced items
• Filter mods by Prefix or Suffix
• Set up gear sets and compare the effects of your changes

There is also a UI for anointing items: search notables, sort them by node power, and preview their effects before you spend the oils.

Passive tree and upgrade planning

The skill tree tools go beyond simple allocation:

• Oil combinations are added to notables on the passive tree
• Nodes are highlighted by per-point power and opportunity cost
• The Power Report ranks all passive skills on the tree and on cluster jewels so you can prioritise upgrades
• You can see how taking a notable passive point would change your stats, and which paths are more efficient

Supported keystones include The Agnostic, Crimson Dance, Eternal Youth, Glancing Blows, and Imbalanced Guard.

Spectres

Many spectres are supported, including Redemption Sentry, Baranite Thaumaturge, Baranite Sister, and others. If you build around a summoner setup, confirm your specific spectre is in the supported list before relying on its damage in the planner.

What to check before you trust a number

• Confirm the specific unique mod you depend on is supported, since coverage is "most" mods, not all.
• Confirm your spectre is in the supported set.
• Decide whether minimum or average calculation mode matches the question you're asking.
• Re-check after patches, since unique and mechanic support is updated over time.

Path of Building Community is an open-source project, and its own site states that you do not have to be a programmer to contribute. The page lists three broad ways in: reporting issues, helping with documentation, and taking a look at the project's contribution information to see where your skills fit. If you want to help, the practical starting point is the project's GitHub presence and its contributor guidance rather than any in-app menu.

What the project says it needs

The site's own wording is direct: "This project is open source and needs your skills!" It then points readers to a page explaining how to help, with the reassurance that programming is not a requirement for contributing to issues or documentation.

That gives you two low-barrier tracks before any code:

• Issues — reporting bugs, incorrect behaviour, or missing support for mechanics and items.
• Documentation — improving or writing the explanatory material that surrounds the tool.

Where to start

The site's navigation includes a Contributors entry and a Report an issue entry, alongside a link to see the project on GitHub. Those are the entry points the project itself surfaces.

A sensible order of operations:

1. Open the project on GitHub and read the contribution information the site links to.
2. Check whether the problem or gap you noticed is already reported, so you add information rather than duplicate it.
3. If it is new, file an issue with enough detail to reproduce or understand it.
4. If it is documentation, propose the correction or addition through the same project channels.

The site does not spell out a separate sign-up flow or a non-GitHub submission form, so treat the GitHub project and its linked guidance as the canonical route.

What kinds of contributions are useful

Because Path of Building Community tracks a large and steadily updated surface area, useful reports tend to be specific. The site's own feature list shows the breadth of what is modelled, which is also the breadth of what can go wrong or be missing:

If a mod, interaction, or unique behaves differently in the tool than in the game, that is exactly the kind of observation the issue tracker exists for. Documentation contributions matter for the same reason: the tool supports a lot, and explaining it clearly is separate work from implementing it.

A realistic example

Say you notice that a particular unique's modifier is not being applied the way you expect when you equip it in a gear set. A useful contribution is not "this unique is broken" but a short report containing the item, the modifier, what you expected, what the tool showed, and the steps you took. That is reproducible, and it does not require you to read or write any code. The same applies to a passive-tree interaction or an ailment calculation that looks off.

What to expect

The site describes the project as open source and community-driven, with uniques "steadily updated" and most of their mods supported. That phrasing implies ongoing work rather than a finished product, which is precisely why reports and documentation help. It does not promise response times, a review process, or a list of accepted contribution types beyond issues and documentation, so do not assume a particular turnaround or a formal onboarding path.

If you are unsure whether something counts as a bug or a documentation gap, the safest move is to check the project's contribution guidance first and then file it in whichever category fits best.

Path of Building Community offers separate downloads for Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2. Go to pathofbuilding.community, pick the download button that matches your game version, and follow the link to the releases page to get the installer. The two versions are not interchangeable, so confirm which game you play before downloading.

Download options on the site

The homepage presents two distinct entry points:

Each button sits next to a "See all releases" link, which takes you to the full list of published versions rather than a single fixed file. That matters if you want a specific release instead of the newest one.

Step-by-step

1. Open pathofbuilding.community.
2. Decide which game you are building for — Path of Exile or Path of Exile 2.
3. Click the matching download button for that game.
4. On the releases page, choose the release you want and download the file.
5. Run the downloaded file to install or launch the planner.

Expected result: you end up with the Path of Building Community build planner for the game version you selected.

Common sticking points

• Wrong game version. The site splits downloads by game. Grabbing the Path of Exile 2 build when you play Path of Exile (or the reverse) gives you a planner for the other game.
• Wanting an older release. The main buttons point toward the latest, but "See all releases" is there when you need a specific version.
• Assuming it's a web app. This is a downloadable build planner, not something you run in the browser.

What you get once it's installed

The planner is built around planning a Path of Exile character before or alongside playing it. According to the project, it lets you:

• Plan out your skill tree, see which paths are more efficient, and get advice on which nodes benefit your current build.
• Prepare skill gem links and see suggestions for the most powerful gems to add.
• Build items — including anointments, crafting, and corruptions — and set up gear sets to compare changes.
• Use community-added support such as Pantheon gods, many unique items and their mechanics, alternate quality skill gems, and a Power Report that ranks passive skills and cluster jewels to prioritise upgrades.

The project is open source, and the site notes you don't have to be a programmer to contribute to issues or documentation.

Path of Building Community is a free, open-source build planner for Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2, distributed through pathofbuilding.community. It is a standalone desktop tool that runs outside the game client — not a game itself, and not an official Grinding Gear Games product. Use it when you want to plan a character's passive tree, gem links, and gear before (or instead of) spending currency in-game, and when you want to see how a change affects your stats without logging in.

What the tool actually does

The site describes it as "a powerful build planner for Path of Exile," and its feature set breaks down into four planning areas:

Passive skill tree planning

• Map out tree paths and compare which routes are more efficient.
• Get suggestions on which nodes are most beneficial to your current build.
• See how taking a single notable passive changes your stats.
• A Power Report ranks all passive skills and cluster jewels so you can prioritise upgrades.
• Oil combinations for notables are shown directly on the tree, with nodes highlighted by per-point power and opportunity cost.

Skill gem and link planning

• Prepare gem links and observe the benefit of socketing them in different items.
• Get suggestions for the most powerful gems to add to a setup.
• Alternate Quality skill gems are largely supported.
• Skill mechanics covered include Warcries and Brands, Awakened Spell Echo, Vaal Arc, and Carrion Golem.

Item building and comparison

• Build "dream items" or input your current self-found gear.
• The tool understands most item mods and supports anointments, crafting, corruptions, and applying Catalysts to rare and unique items.
• Craft (double) influenced items and filter mods by Prefix or Suffix.
• Set up gear sets to compare the effects of your changes side by side.

Defensive and mechanic modelling

• Pick Pantheon powers to plan defenses.
• Supported mechanics include Impale, Exposure, Elusive, Warcries and Exerted Attacks, Bonechill, and more.
• Alternative Ailments: Scorch, Brittle, and Sap.
• Keystones such as The Agnostic, Crimson Dance, Eternal Youth, Glancing Blows, and Imbalanced Guard.
• Unique mechanics including Timeless Jewels, Perquil's Toe, Thread of Hope, and Split Personality.
• Configurable Shock value, with guaranteed Shock sources applying automatically.
• Minimum and average calculation modes for Ailments, Regeneration, Armour, and effective health.

How to get it

The site provides two separate downloads — one for Path of Exile and one for Path of Exile 2 — each with a "See all releases" link. Pick the download matching the game you play; the two versions are listed separately rather than as one universal build.

The project is open source and hosted on GitHub. The site notes that contributing doesn't require being a programmer — issues and documentation are also open to community help.

What it is not

When to use it

Reach for Path of Building Community when you are deciding between tree paths, testing whether a gem swap is worth it, or checking how a gear change shifts your effective health before you commit currency. If you only want to play the game, you don't need it — it's a planning layer, not a requirement.