Path of Exile 2: How Do Endurance Charges Work

Path of Exile 2 is renowned for its complexity, offering players a rich array of mechanics that interact in deep and nuanced ways. Among these mechanics, charges-namely Power Charges, Frenzy Charges, and Endurance Charges-are essential buffs that significantly impact combat performance and build customization.

Understanding Endurance Charges is key for players focusing on tanky, melee, or warrior-style builds, as these charges provide defensive and offensive benefits unique to their class. This guide breaks down exactly how Endurance Charges function in PoE 2, how to gain and consume them, and how to optimize their use for maximum impact.

What Are Endurance Charges?

Endurance Charges are temporary buffs that enhance certain abilities by providing defensive bonuses such as increased physical damage reduction and elemental resistances. These charges act as a resource that can be generated and consumed to empower specific skills or effects.

While similar in concept to Power Charges (which typically boost critical strike chance) and Frenzy Charges (which boost attack and cast speed), Endurance Charges are distinct in both their source and application. They are mostly tied to the Warrior class and related passives, skills, and items.

How Do Endurance Charges Work?

The basic flow of Endurance Charges in PoE 2 follows a two-step process:

Gain Endurance Charges: Your character obtains one or more charges from certain skills, support gems, passive skills, or gear effects.

Consume Endurance Charges: You expend these charges through specific attacks, skills, or item activations that use the charges to grant enhanced effects, often making those skills more powerful, tanky, or both.

Key points to understand:

Endurance Charges are not interchangeable with Power or Frenzy Charges. You cannot use one type of charge in place of another; each charge type supports different skills.

You can hold a limited number of Endurance Charges at a time (by default, up to 3).

The charges can stack, and some skills or passives allow you to increase the maximum number.

Consuming Endurance Charges usually amplifies defensive capabilities, such as reducing incoming damage or increasing resistances, but may also grant offensive bonuses like increased damage or stun immunity.

How to Gain Endurance Charges in Path of Exile 2

Endurance Charges are primarily gained through the following means:

1. Warrior Class Skills and Passives

The Warrior class and its subclasses have numerous ways to generate Endurance Charges, often triggered by offensive or defensive actions:

Skills that grant charges on hit: Some melee skills grant an Endurance Charge every time you land an attack or block an incoming hit.

Passive skills: Tree nodes or ascendancy passives can provide automatic charge generation or increase charge gain rates.

2. Support Gems

Certain Support Gems can grant or increase Endurance Charges when linked to skills. For example, a support that grants a chance to gain a charge when hitting or being hit.

3. Items

Some unique or rare items have implicit or explicit modifiers that grant Endurance Charges or increase their maximum. These can include helmets, rings, or belts with charge generation or sustain mechanics.

How to Increase Maximum Endurance Charges

By default, players can hold up to 3 Endurance Charges simultaneously. However, increasing this cap can greatly enhance your survivability and the effectiveness of charge-consuming skills.

Ways to increase your maximum Endurance Charges include:

Passive Skill Tree: Specific nodes increase your max Endurance Charges.

Ascendancy Classes: Certain ascendancies in the Warrior or related classes provide increased charge caps.

Unique Items: Gear that specifically increases the number of charges you can hold.

Buffs or Auras: Temporary buffs might also increase your charge capacity under special conditions.

Increasing your charge cap is essential for builds designed to leverage Endurance Charges as a core mechanic, enabling longer sustained buffs or more powerful charge-consuming attacks.

How to Consume Endurance Charges

Endurance Charges only provide benefits when consumed by the right skills or items. Unlike Power or Frenzy Charges that tend to passively increase critical hit chance or speed, Endurance Charges must be actively spent.

Examples of ways to consume Endurance Charges include:

Warrior Class Skills: Many melee skills use Endurance Charges to boost damage or add defensive layers, such as damage reduction or stun immunity.

Support Gems: Some support gems cause linked skills to consume Endurance Charges to gain bonus effects.

Item Effects: Certain unique weapons or armor pieces consume Endurance Charges when activating special abilities.

When consumed, these charges typically offer:

Increased Damage Reduction: Making your character more durable against physical or elemental damage.

Temporary Buffs: Such as immunity to certain debuffs or increased resistances.

Offensive Bonuses: Like increased damage, attack speed, or area effects.

Because charges are limited and valuable, managing when and how you consume them is critical. Efficient consumption means using charges on impactful attacks or defensive moments to maximize survivability and damage output.

Tips for Using Endurance Charges Effectively

Build synergy: Design your skill tree and gear around generating and consuming Endurance Charges to maximize uptime and effectiveness.

Balance generation and consumption: Too few charges limit your buffs; too many charges sitting unused waste potential. Find the sweet spot for your playstyle.

Timing matters: Use charges during high-risk encounters, boss fights, or heavy damage phases to boost survivability.

Stack with defensive layers: Combine Endurance Charges with other defense mechanics like block chance, evasion, or life regeneration for a tanky build.

Use charge-related passives and gear: Prioritize nodes and items that boost charge generation rate, maximum charges, or empower charge consumption effects.

Final Thoughts

Endurance Charges in Path of Exile 2 offer a rewarding and strategic gameplay element that can define the survivability and offensive power of Warrior-style builds. Their interplay with skills, passives, and gear creates an engaging challenge in resource management and build optimization.

For players looking to dive deep into PoE 2, understanding and optimizing Endurance Charges alongside acquiring the right Path of Exile 2 currency and Path of Exile 2 items will set you apart from the rest. The interplay between skillful gameplay and smart crafting/trading decisions is what makes Path of Exile 2's endgame truly rewarding.