Remember the massive passive skill tree in Path of Exile? Well, it’s back in Path of Exile 2, offering over a thousand nodes for you to lose your mind over. If you’re a newcomer to Path of Exile, the passive skill tree has plenty of branching paths to choose from. Depending on which character class you pick, you’ll start at a different place of the tree. From there, you’re free to take whichever direction you want following the established paths, which adds to the experimentation element around builds.
As you might expect, it’s hard to commit to a path over others, especially if you feel like your current build is lacking on certain resistances or attributes halfway through the game. That’s when respeccing comes in. If you’re wondering how to respec passive skills in Path of Exile 2, there are a few steps and considerations to keep in mind, which we’ll detail below.
How to respec passive skills in Path of Exile 2
Don’t worry if you spend your first few hours in Path of Exile 2 without being able to respec passive skills, as that’s by design. In order to unlock the feature, you’ll need access to The Hooded One NPC in the main camp hub.
To unlock The Hooded One, you’ll have to tackle two lengthy questlines from Act 1, called The Mysterious Shade and Sorrow Among Stones. Since they’re part of the main objective, you don’t have to worry about missing them. That being said, I recommend prioritizing them over side missions in order to unlock respeccing as soon as possible.
After delivering Count Lachlann’s Ring to Una, The Hooded One will become available as an NPC. Interact with them to access the Refund Passives option. This will open up the passive skill tree, allowing you to pick any passive skills you’ve already unlocked and respeccing them–essentially recovering the skill point you spent for it.
In Path of Exile, respeccing involved using Orbs of Regret, which was a rare item. In Path of Exile 2, respeccing is paid with gold instead. This makes the process easier, at least on paper, since you can use gold in an array of ways (to purchase gear, for example.)
Figuring out how to spend your savings is key to not being empty-handed at the worst possible time. As such, I recommend looking for builds to get at least a sense of what works best with each class before committing to certain paths in the passive skill tree. Of course, Path of Exile 2 is all about experimentation, and there’s fun in it, too. You don’t need to be min-maxing everything, especially for your first character. At the very least, you no longer need to look for Orbs of Regret.
If you’re looking for more tips around Path of Exile 2, we have guides covering how to get into the village in Trail of Corruption, how to defeat The Executioner, and how to earn Twitch drops for early access.
