Path of Exile 2 Guide: How to Import Builds with the Build Planner

The Return of the Ancients 0.5.0 patch finally added a native Build Planner to Path of Exile 2, letting you load custom setups directly into the client instead of squinting at a second monitor.

Grinding Gear Games fundamentally changed how you progress a character with this update. Instead of manually cross-referencing a web page every time you level up, the game now feeds that information directly into your user interface. There is a catch right up front. As of patch 0.5.0, this entire system is exclusively a PC feature. Anyone playing on a console is stuck looking at their phone for advice for the foreseeable future.

How the Overlay Actually Works

Once you load a file properly, the client draws a bright blue guided line right across your Passive Skill Tree. You just follow the path and click the next node. The system also hooks directly into other menus to keep your progression on track.

The tool injects data straight into the Gemcutting section, displaying the exact support gems your active setup requires. This stops you from accidentally leveling up a worthless gem and wasting your early currency. Your equipped gear slots receive stat priority icons that flag the specific affixes you need to look for. Having those icons visible changes how you approach trading and crafting, as you can instantly spot useful drops without constantly looking away from the game.

The integration is also smart enough to hide irrelevant details. Thanks to minimum level thresholds built into the tool, you won't see a massive wall of endgame requirements while you are still struggling in Act 1. The campaign notes appear while you level, and the complex endgame configurations pop up automatically once you reach maps.

Grabbing and Placing the Files

Before you can see any of those UI changes, you need to download the correct data. The game won't pull anything from the internet automatically.

Open up your web guide of choice and find the embedded planner widget. Click into it to open the full interface, then locate the Export Build Planner (GGG) button. Clicking that prompts your browser to download the file. If you have a file from an older setup and just want to look at it in a browser first, you can use the Import Build Planner (GGG) button to verify the contents.

Getting the file on your hard drive is only half the battle. The Path of Exile 2 client is incredibly picky about where it looks for data. You need to open your file explorer and move your downloaded file to Documents > My Games > Path of Exile 2 > BuildPlanner.

Don't try to get creative here. If you make subfolders inside that directory to organize your characters, the game acts like they don't exist. Burying files in extra folders leaves you staring at a blank in-game menu. Drop everything directly into the main directory.

Activating the Guided Path

With your files resting in the correct folder, boot up the game and log into your character. Open the massive Passive Skill Tree and look at the top-left corner of your screen.

You'll see a blue icon that houses the Build Planner dropdown menu. Click it, and you'll find a list of every file you dropped into the directory. Pick the one you want to follow, and the game instantly applies the blue path and UI tweaks. If you click the button and nothing happens, that means you placed the file in the wrong spot on your computer.

Creating and Sharing Your Own Setups

Anyone who wants to cook up a custom variant uses the exact same web-based layout. When you build a file for others to use, you have to configure the settings carefully.

You must manually set the minimum level requirements on your global variants, equipment steps, and skill gem configurations. If you skip this, anyone who imports your setup will see every single endgame data point the second they start a fresh character, entirely defeating the purpose of a guided path.

You can also use the eye icon inside the creator tool to hide confusing optional branches. This keeps the visual overlay clean for whoever downloads it. I highly recommend exporting your file and testing it on a fresh character first, just to make sure you didn't accidentally leave out an important build step or gem link.