With Path of Exile 2 0.3.0 patch, The Third Edict, the minion and spectre ecosystem has received a substantial overhaul. For summoner players, these changes impact not only how spectres are chosen, but also how endgame builds are structured. In this PoE 2 Spectre Tier List for 0.3 The Third Edict, we are going to take a close look at the current state of spectres based on 0.3.0 path notes and sort out the best melee and ranged options available for leveling, mapping and boss content.
PoE 2 0.3 Spectres Changes & State
In Path of Exile 2 0.3 The Third Edict, the state of spectres is more promising and dynamic than ever before. The patch introduced sweeping changes that lowered the spirit cost of high-end spectres while raising it for some cheaper options, making powerful choices like Death Knights and Vile Vultures more accessible. Spectres now benefit from a 25% damage boost at all gem levels and can be further empowered by new support gem flexibility, improved reservation efficiency from unique items and passives, and the removal of accuracy as a required stat. Despite these improvements, spectres still face some challenges, like reliance on weapon swap mechanics for optimal ability use, cooldown limitations, AI quirks, and scaling for true endgame content, but the overall viability and diversity of spectre builds have expanded. With over 100 new monsters added to the pool and more quality-of-life features, spectres are set for a resurgence, offering summoners a richer and more rewarding experience in both mapping and boss encounters.
Spectre Changes Noted in Path of Exile 2 Update 0.3.0: The Third Edict:
You can still have multiple copies of Spectres or Tamed Beasts, but only one of each kind of monster.
The Spirit Cost of Spectres has been adjusted such that Spectres with high Spirit Costs are generally cheaper, while some of the cheaper Spectres are now more costly.
Spectres and Tamed Beasts now deal 25% more Damage at all Gem levels.
Bind Spectre: Quality now provides Minions deal 0-20% more Damage, instead of 0-10% reduced Reservation for summoning Spectres.
Treant Foulspawn can once again be Bound as a Spectre.
UPDATE! Changes To Spectres in the PoE 2 0.3.0b Patch:
In the 0.3.0b patch for Path of Exile 2, some changes were made to spectres: Abyssal monsters can now be used as spectres, greatly expanding minion build options and variety. However, one-time rare monsters found in the campaign no longer retain their fixed hidden modifiers when used as tame beasts or spectres, which notably removes access to powerful auras like the much-loved haste aura. This results in a substantial loss of movement speed for minion-focused builds, forcing players to seek alternative sources of mobility or adjust their playstyle, with the overall impact being both an exciting expansion of spectre choices and a major nerf to movement speed utility.
PoE 2 0.3 Best Abyssal Spectres (Melee/Ranged/Caster)
With the spirit cost adjustments, damage buffs, and quality-of-life improvements, the following melee, ranged, caster spectres would still have meta potential for 0.3 league, each bringing their own strengths to the table:
Update: we've updated the following list by covering the new abyssal spectres!
1. Cocaine Ants (Frozen Mandibles)
After the 0.3.0b patch, the Frozen Mandible spectre has been referred to as Cocaine ants and now behaves insane manner, with extremely high movement speed, aggressive behavior, high attack speed, and outstanding damage output. Their performance surpasses previous top picks like Vaal Guards and Powered Zealots, especially when running three or more of them with the right support setup. The Frozen Mandibles are praised for their ability to quickly clear packs and stun bosses, making them the new top-tier choice for Abyssal Spectres in Path of Exile 2.
2. Vaal Guards
Type: Melee DPS
Monster Type: Humanoid
Location: Aggorat/Utzaal Act 3
Spirit Cost: 53
Damage: Physical, Fire Hit, Fire Dot
Vaal Guards are described as the best specters out there that we've seen so far at least, and they are still going to be the top dog for Spectre builds. Their performance is unmatched, as they outperform other spectres even with fewer support gems, providing very high damage and efficiency, which makes them the ideal choice for progressing through endgame content. However, the main downside is their heavy impact on computer performance, often causing FPS drops and lag, especially during abyss encounters or when many are summoned at once. Despite this drawback, their raw power and reliability in clearing high-tier content make them the go-to option for those with strong enough hardware to handle them.
3. Powered Zealots
Powered zealots, found in the etched ravine in the interludes, are a practical replacement for setups that can't handle the resource demands of Vaal Guards. These spectres come with a spark ability, allowing them to attack from range with projectiles, which offers a different visual experience and slightly better clarity compared to Vaal Guards. While their damage isn't quite on the same level as vulgars, they are still effective, and most importantly, they don't strain your computer's performance nearly as much. These spectres are working out pretty fine actually for tier 15, tier 16 content, and they enable more players to access high-tier maps without hardware bottlenecks. They do have some weaknesses, such as being a bit squishy and having a base crit chance that doesn't scale well, but they provide a stable, visually manageable, and accessible option for a wide range of players.
4. Strider of the Pit
Strider of the Pits stands out among Abyssal Spectres for its impressive slam ability, which operates on a 20-second cooldown and delivers solid damage output. Its performance is comparable to the Haran spectre from Act 4, matching in attack speed and damage while offering a visually distinct presence. Although Strider of the Pits doesn't utilize a leap slam like Haran, it compensates with rapid movement that helps it keep pace and avoid common issues like body blocking. This makes it a reliable and effective choice, especially for players who prioritize both aesthetics and performance in their spectre selection, placing it firmly among the top three Abyssal Spectres to consider.
5. Harano, the Meat Carver
Type: Humanoid
Location: ACT 4, Ngakanu (after quests on other island)
Spirit Cost: 99
Damage: Hybrid, Phys hit, Phys dot/bleed
Harano, the Meat Carver is a spectre that was once considered a strong replacement option when Vaal Guards became impractical for many players due to performance issues. Harano stands out with a leap slam ability, allowing it to quickly close gaps and avoid body blocking, which can be a significant advantage in crowded fights. While it served as a solid alternative and offered reliable damage and mobility, later testing revealed that Harano still falls short compared to top-tier options like frozen mandibles and even the powered zealots. Despite not having the raw power or aggressive AI of the new meta spectres, Harano remains a dependable pick for those who value speed and gap-closing in their spectre lineup, but it no longer holds the top spot in the current endgame ranking.
6. Fleshpierce
Fleshpierce provides a haste aura to your minions, granting 25% increased attack, cast, and movement speed. Like Blood Gulp, it is extremely fast and gets into combat quickly. The haste aura is highly sought after, and the overall effect on a summoner build is described as absolutely crazy, boosting the army’s speed more than any other minion available. This spectre is now considered the best accessible haste aura for summoners.
7. Lightless Moray
Lightless Mor offers decent HP and movement speed, but suffers from an inconsistent AI that spreads its focus across too many abilities. As a result, they rarely use their best attack, making them unreliable overall.
8. Blood Gulp
Blood Gulp is drawing a lot of attention for its physical damage aura, granting 40% increased physical damage to your entire minion army. This spectre is described as super fast, leaping to targets quickly, though it doesn’t deal much direct damage itself. The most valuable aspect is its buff, which summoners would usually need a tamed beast for, but now get for a much lower spirit reservation. It’s considered absolutely ridiculous for buffing your whole army and is expected to be a staple in physical minion setups.
9. Quill Crab
Quill Crab stands out as a ranged carry spectre. It is recommended to bring both the big and small versions, as testing shows the big one has more HP while the small one may have more DPS. The spectre is praised for its good clear, good projectile speed, and the ability to freeze enemies. It also offers solid single target damage. Community notes highlight its really promising ranged carry potential and versatility for both mapping and bossing.
10. Frost Wraith
Frost Wraith brings a combination of big freeze hits, multiple projectiles, and an AOE frost nova when close. They look like a better version of frost mages but are more spirit expensive. This spectre is highly valued for crowd control and scaling up with supported projectiles, making it very effective in both clear and boss situations.
11. Priest of the Sun
Priest of the Sun is known for throwing out a fire bubble or laser, both of which deal very high and consistent damage. Its fire laser channel stays active even while in wispform, providing a reliable source of fire damage. This spectre is a top pick for fire-based summoners looking for high and consistent output.
12. Filthy Crone
Type: Humanoid, Ranged DPS/Utility
Location: Apex of Filth A3
Spirit Cost: 120
Damage: Physical/Chaos, Multi-curse
Filthy Crone applies multiple curses (Despair, Vulnerability, Temporal Chains) and uses Hexblast. Several of these spectres can overlap their curses for substantial debuffing. Its ability to alternate between curses and deal chaos damage makes it especially strong for utility and curse stacking in summoner builds.
13. Bloodrite Priest
Type: Humanoid, Ranged DPS
Location: Temple of Kopec A3 / Trial of Chaos
Spirit Cost: 90
Damage: Phys hit, Phys dot/bleed
Bloodrite Priest uses a ranged three-projectile physical attack and Exsanguinate at close range. The spectre’s auto attack and spell combination, along with a promising bleed effect, give it a strong place in meta builds, especially with proper investment in support gems.
14. Gelid Zealot (Eye of Winter)
Type: Humanoid, Ranged DPS
Location: Utzaal A3, Aggorat A3
Spirit Cost: 60
Damage: Cold
Gelid Zealot uses Eye of Winter and, in high-spirit Infernalist builds, can handle t15-t16 and citadel bosses with ease. The damage is described as higher than quill crabs for some reason, and it has proven itself in high-end content and bossing scenarios.
15. Caustic Crab
Type: Beast, Hybrid DPS
Location: Untainted Paradise Unique Map
Spirit Cost: 60
Damage: Phys hit, Chaos hit, Poison
Caustic Crab features a chaos/poison flamethrower ability that hits multiple times per second. It’s noted for having great damage and could be very strong for single target, or for applying withering touch as a utility spectre. The spectre is recommended for chaos or poison stacking builds.
16. Brutal Transcendent
Brutal Transcendent is large and tanky, with three spells and one on a 10-second cooldown. While its damage is described as kind of lacking, it serves well as a durable frontline or lightning support spectre.
17. Slitherspitter
Type: Beast, Ranged DPS
Location: The Venom Crypts A3
Spirit Cost: 60
Damage: Phys hit, Poison, Chaos hit, Chaos dot
Slitherspitter is praised for being a good user of corrosion, offering decent damage, AI, and attack speed. Community notes suggest these are pretty good for chaos/poison summoner variants.
18. Bane Sapling
Type: Beast, Ranged DPS
Location: Jungle Ruins A3, Infested Barrens A3
Spirit Cost: 60
Damage: Phys hit, Poison, Chaos hit
Bane Sapling can be supported by Scattershot and Corrosion. The spectre is noted for good armor breaking and poison stacking, with its main drawback being slow projectile speed. It offers solid ranged and utility support for chaos/poison summoners.
19. Priest of the Chalice
Priest of the Chalice uses a cold cleave attack and moves quickly. In testing, a group of these could perma-freeze a rare in a T1 map and kill it in seconds, even without supports. This makes them surprisingly strong for melee-focused summoner builds.
20. Nameless Dweller
The only good skill is the blood spheres that spawn, explode, and deal good damage but with a 20s cooldown. Very high base damage on the blood spheres, and the basic attacks deal significant damage for 90 spirit cost.
21. Faridun Impaler
Type: Humanoid, Melee DPS
Location: The Spires of Deshar A2
Spirit Cost: 120
Damage: Phys hit, Phys dot/bleed
Faridun Impaler comes with many abilities and a 25% chance to bleed with attacks. These look really good and may be ideal for bleed builds, especially if the player can aggravate bleeding with new gems.
22. Venomous Crab Matriarch (Elite)
This elite variant leaves a chaos dot pool at the end of its projectile. They deal a decent amount of damage, and their projectiles have similar behavior to Quill Crab, making them great for armor breaking.
23. Ribrattle (Freythorn)
Type: Undead, Utility
Location: Freythorn A1
Spirit Cost: 40
Role: Curse Support
Ribrattle spectre applies one of three curses: Despair, Temporal Chains, or Enfeeble, around itself. Summoning more than one can allow for triple curse stacking, as the curse applied changes per zone and does not share the same curse limit per mob. Acts as a strong cursebot.
24. Bannerbearing Zealot
Bannerbearing Zealot plants a temporary banner that gives a flat or %life buff, then switches to melee with daggers. The gameplay is clunky, as you must resummon them to regain the banner, but banner uptime can be managed.
25. Ghoul Commander
These spectres are very fast for their cost and offer decent physical hits. Slightly expensive, but can fill a role for fast-moving melee minions.
26. Vaal Embalmed Archer
Type: Undead, Ranged DPS
Location: The Molten Vault A3
Spirit Cost: 80
Damage: Phys hit, Fire hit, Fire dot
Vaal Embalmed Archer specyre shoots fire arrows that pierce, and uses a small AOE explosive arrow burst. Decent single target and clear, with good AI targeting.
27. Lightning Wraith (0.2.0f Buffed)
Lightning Wraith is now much better after buffs. Projectiles have infinite pierce and strong ricochet, with great shock chance. Especially good in narrow maps or corridors.
28. Rasp Scavenger (Small)
Type: Beast, Ranged DPS
Location: Deshar A2
Spirit Cost: 40
Damage: Phys hit
Shotguns projectiles, shreds bosses and content with few minion nodes, even at low investment. Has good AOE and damage for the cost.
29. Doryani's Elite (Lightning)
High potential for lightning builds, needs further testing for support synergy. Might compete with Vaal Guard for best detonation effect if the orbs can be triggered quickly.
30. Faridun Spearwoman
Type: Humanoid, Melee DPS
Location: The Halani Gates A2, The Spires of Deshar A2, Dreadnought A2
Spirit Cost: 60
Damage: Phys hit
These ones seem to be one of the best melee candidates, good damage, good speed, good abilities, spamming skills, not getting bugged at all.
31. Vaal Skeletal Warrior
Extremely slow, sometimes they get stuck in wisp form bug and never recover unless you resummon.
32. Fungal Artillery
Type: Beast, Ranged DPS
Location: Grelwood, Grim Tangle A1
Spirit Cost: 60
Damage: Phys hit, Chaos hit, Poison
Good Damage. Probably best Artillery AI wise, it's actually fighting. Creates poison pools on impact. I've managed to make it to yellow maps with the fungal artillery. They have consistent attacks and damage, and have a few support options for clear vs bosses. Only issue is they are incredibly slow moving.
33. Faridun Heavy Infantry
They are really tanky, have block and their attacks seem really good and do AOE in front of them while seemingly attacking and blocking with raise shield.
34. Lost-Men Zealot (Lightning Variant)
Type: Humanoid, Ranged DPS
Location: Mastodon Badlands A2, Bone Pits A2
Spirit Cost: 70
Damage: Lightning hit
These are the more decent ones out of the 3 lost-men zealots,” providing a good ranged lightning option for summoner builds.
35. Nettle Ant
Very fast attack speed, very good movement speed and animations, a bit low HP.” Excellent for swarming tactics and fast melee pressure.
36. Risen Rattler (Fire/Lightning Variants)
Type: Undead, Ranged DPS
Location: Mausoleum of the Praetor A1, Tomb of the Consort A1
Spirit Cost: 50
Damage: Phys hit, Fire hit, Lightning hit
Generic ranged projectile, not enough info in their ingame info panel to figure out damage,” but easy to test for budget projectile builds.
37. Ancient Ezomyte (Bow)
They have lightning bolt on hit with their bow, could be interesting with more projectiles and overlaps as the lightning bolt seems to overlap and shotgun.
38. Serpent Shaman
Applies vulnerability for 4 seconds with a 5s cooldown, has decent damage with multiple projectiles and AOE overlaps.
39. Iron Guard
Surprisingly good, need more in depth testing. Shows potential as a physical bruiser with solid survivability.
40. Bramble Rhoa
Bramble Rhoa has a charge with no cooldown, and the charge deals no damage but makes them look silly, sometimes causing enemies to ignore them while charging. Decent damage, but needs better AI.
41. Fungal Wolf
These fungal wolf spectres are not bad for their cost, similar to other A1 wolves and rats. Fast moving, decent basic attackers.
42. Faridun Plaguebringer
Type: Humanoid, Ranged DPS/Utility
Location: The Dreadnought A2
Spirit Cost: 80
Damage: Phys hit, Fire hit
Summons PlagueSwarm and can be useful if you need reliable corpse generation. Auto-attacks do little damage, but the utility is there.
43. Faridun Swordsman
Type: Humanoid, Melee DPS
Location: The Halani Gates A2, The Spires of Deshar A2, Dreadnought A2, Dreadnought Vanguard A2
Spirit Cost: 60
Damage: Phys hit
Leap Slam user, with decent damage and speed. Responsive and has good aggro.
44. Mud Simulacrum
Slow movement and attacks but deals decent melee damage for the cost.
45. Foul Sage
Never uses her spell, only melee slow attacks, but high stun buildup. Noted for potentially strong crowd control.
Challenges and Considerations for Using Spectres in PoE 2 0.3
While the spirit cost changes and damage buffs are a step forward, there are still a few issues that summoners must contend with:
Weapon Swap Dependency: Many spectres are at their best when using weapon swap techniques to reset cooldowns or re-summon. This can be awkward and may not be intended as a long-term solution.
AI and Body Blocking: Some melee spectres struggle due to body blocking or limited attack range, reducing their effectiveness in larger armies.
Cooldowns: Several caster and ranged spectres have cooldowns on their best abilities, limiting their DPS unless cooldown reduction support is prioritized.
Endgame Scaling: While mapping spectres are plentiful and fun, many fall off for boss content, and the new damage multipliers may not be enough for true endgame scenarios until more balance passes are made.
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