How Lacerate Works
When you activate Lacerate, your character swings their weapon(s) in POE2 Currency a forward arc, damaging all enemies in the cone-shaped attack range. The stance you’re in affects how the skill behaves:

Blood Stance (Bleed-Focused AoE)
Wider attack range for better area coverage.
Higher bleed chance to deal damage over time.
Ideal for clearing packs of enemies quickly.
Sand Stance (Single-Target DPS)
Smaller AoE but increased attack speed.
Better at focusing damage on bosses.
Works well with critical strikes and life leech builds.
Switching between these stances allows players to adapt to different combat scenarios, making Lacerate one of the most versatile melee skills in PoE2.

How to Build Around Lacerate
To make the most of Lacerate, you need to focus on:

1. Physical Damage Scaling
Lacerate benefits most from high physical damage, so stacking melee physical damage and attack speed is key.

Recommended Passive Tree Focus:

Melee Physical Damage Nodes
Axe or Sword Damage Nodes
Bleed Chance and Bleed Multiplier Nodes
2. Bleed Mechanics (Blood Stance Builds)
In Blood Stance, Lacerate has an increased chance to apply bleed, making it great for bleed-based Gladiator or Slayer builds.

Recommended Bleed Support Gems:

Chance to Bleed Support (Increases the chance of inflicting bleed)
Brutality Support (Massively boosts physical damage but removes elemental scaling)
Deadly Ailments Support (Boosts DoT effects like bleed)
3. Attack Speed and Critical Strikes (Sand Stance Builds)
For Sand Stance builds, focusing on POE 2 Currencyattack speed and critical strike chance makes Lacerate a high DPS single-target skill.