Today at ExileCon 2026, I had the amazing chance to demo Path of Exile 2‘s new Duelist class, set to come out alongside the game’s 1.0 patch. I got a sneak peek into the game’s fifth Act, too, which I can say is more grim and dark than most things you’ve seen in PoE 2 so far (and that’s saying a lot).
The version of the Duelist I played is of the Knight ascendancy, though I did not dabble in the implications and details of this ascendancy just yet (we did only have 30 minutes and that was with a pre-equipped level 54 character). What I did do, however, is carve through hundreds of mobs using two dual-wielded short swords which were empowered by a blood infusion allowing me to parry enemy attacks to gather blood and then unleash it upon them with ultra violence.
With the stances, I could use right-click to cut through the mob group and then take up a stance, which is a new mechanic tied to the duelist. Basically, if you hold right click and do the full attack, some of your next abilities can be empowered, which in this case I used to empower my blood slash and inflict copious amount of bleed stacks on the enemy. These particular stacks do not proc on their own or over time, but they can build up quite a lot, allowing you to use a quick blink-slash on an enemy with pent up crimson and chunk them for a lot of their HP.
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Of course, you can still inflict regular bleed on enemies, but softening them up for one crushing blow is basically the name of the game here. Utilizing parries you can gather blood to your sword, which you can then release on enemies to build up a lot of bleed and do great AOE blood damage if you are fighting groups. Do not let the word “parry” confuse you here, though: it’s not Sekiro where you need to perfectly time your blocks, that would be silly for a game of this kind. No, parrying simply requires you to hold block when enemies are attacking you, and that’s that, but its audio-visual cues still make each parry satisfying.
But this is not the only side of the Duelist that I got to see. The Knight ascendancy is all about honor and glory, meaning you can get your own standard and banner and place them down to give yourself a lot of cool effects, as well as to inflict enemies with all sorts of debuffs and damage effects. And a knight is simply incomplete without a squire, whom you can have following you around and fighting by your side. You are responsible for him, of course, and as such must give him weapons, armor, and skills, which you should choose carefully to make sure he synergizes with your own build.
The blood build up is a great combination shown by Jonathan Rogers himself yesterday during the keynote, since you could use your own blood-infused weapons to build up stacks on enemies and let your trusty sidekick chunk them for you.
I loved how the squire worked overall, but I must say I preferred the speed and the pure carnage caused by the solo dual-wielder. At any rate, both are amazing options and are just scratching the surface of what this class is going to be, since it is very obvious that GGG put in tremendous amounts of effort into making 1.0 as big and as good as it can possibly be.
Path of Exile 2 comes out on Dec. 11 and will introduce two new classes: the Duelist and the Shadow, alongside hundreds if not thousands of other changes and additions.
