Last updated: 8 July 2026

Path of Exile 2 New Ascendancies Martial Artist & Spirit Walker

The Return of the Ancients update (Patch 0.5.0) added two new Ascendancy subclasses to Path of Exile 2: Martial Artist for the Monk and Spirit Walker for the Huntress. Both arrived alongside the Runes of Aldur league mechanic and an endgame overhaul, and both were immediately competitive picks in the post-launch meta. Here's what each Ascendancy actually does and how the new league mechanic feeds into them.

01Where These Fit: Return of the Ancients and Runes of Aldur

Return of the Ancients is Path of Exile 2's biggest content update since Early Access launched, and Grinding Gear Games has described it as the last major content milestone before the game's 1.0 release. Alongside the two new Ascendancies, it shipped an endgame rework with new Atlas regions and questlines, plus the Runes of Aldur league mechanic.

Runes of Aldur works around Remnants: every area contains an ancient Remnant partially covered in symbols. You choose a reward from it, which resurrects and empowers nearby monsters with the Runes tied to that reward — killing those empowered monsters grants what you chose. Individual Runes grant enemies distinct properties (a Fire Rune grants extra Fire Damage; a Moon Rune makes them conjure Moon Beams, for example), and the number of Rune slots available scales with area level, increasing monster density and risk alongside reward.

Any Rune combination you discover is permanently recorded in your Runebook for reuse in future Remnants, and the crafting side of the mechanic — Runeforging, using a material called Verisium — lets you add effects like Runic Ward to gear: an extra life pool on top of your normal Life and Energy Shield, consumed before your actual Life once it's depleted. A new category of Skill and Support Gems introduced alongside the update consumes Runic Ward instead of Mana and carries no attribute requirements, which is what makes both new Ascendancies below build around Ward rather than mana management.

02Martial Artist (Monk)

Martial Artist is the Monk's newest Ascendancy option — its third, alongside the existing Invoker and Acolyte of Chayula — built entirely around unarmed and close-quarters combat rather than the Monk's original ranged-focused kit.

• Core identity: a fist-fighting Ascendancy that leans into melee combo mechanics rather than the Monk's staff-and-projectile playstyle from launch.
• Hollow Form: Martial Artist nodes let you spawn illusory copies of yourself — temporary phantom clones that fight alongside you, multiplying your effective damage output in melee range.
• Bell mechanics: the Ascendancy expands on the Monk's existing Bell skills, letting you spawn more bells than the base kit allows, stacking their detonation effects.
• Way of the Stonefist: a signature new node for this Ascendancy that turns your gloves into Fists of Stone, a dedicated unarmed-combat weapon base, built to make punching a fully viable damage path rather than a novelty.

Because Martial Artist was released alongside the Runes of Aldur update, its kit was tuned with Runic Ward and the new Ward-consuming gems in mind — expect its strongest builds to lean on Ward sustain rather than pure Energy Shield or Life stacking.

03Spirit Walker (Huntress)

Spirit Walker is the Huntress's newest Ascendancy — its third, alongside the existing Deadeye and Warden — centered on companion-based combat rather than the Huntress's original spear-and-mobility kit.

• Core identity: summons animal companions that fight alongside you, turning the Huntress into a partial minion-caster hybrid rather than a pure self-cast class.
• Boss taming: the Ascendancy's signature mechanic lets you tame certain unique boss enemies, converting what would normally be a one-off encounter into a recruitable companion.
• Twister-based clear: Spirit Walker builds that lean on Twisters (a Huntress skill) were noted for being among the fastest-clearing 0.5-era Huntress builds, according to community build guides.
• Hybrid playstyle: the class rewards splitting your build's damage between your own attacks and your summoned companions, rather than committing fully to either.

Spirit Walker was one of the most immediately popular new Ascendancy picks after Return of the Ancients launched, in large part because its companion-taming identity was genuinely new to Path of Exile 2 rather than a variation on an existing minion archetype.

04Should You Pick One of the New Ascendancies?

Both Ascendancies are viable league-starter picks, but they suit different playstyles:

• Pick Martial Artist if you want to play the Monk in melee range rather than at a distance, and you're comfortable managing a Ward-based resource pool instead of leaning on Mana or Energy Shield alone.
• Pick Spirit Walker if you want a hybrid minion/self-cast playstyle on the Huntress, with the added novelty of recruiting tamed bosses as permanent companions.
• Stick with one of the Monk's or Huntress's launch-era Ascendancies (Invoker or Acolyte of Chayula; Deadeye or Warden) if you'd rather play a more established, heavily-guided build — both new Ascendancies are recent enough that community build knowledge is still developing by comparison.

As with any Path of Exile 2 Ascendancy, remember you still need to clear the Trial of the Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos to unlock and progress your points — see our ascendancy trials guide for that process, which is unchanged by this update.