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There is no single best bandit for every Path of Exile 1 character. Helping Alira gives 15% to all Elemental Resistances, helping Kraityn gives 8% increased Movement Speed, and helping Oak gives +40 to Maximum Life. Killing all three instead grants one Passive Skill Point. The right choice depends on which of those effects your build is missing, or on whether a flexible passive point is worth more to you than any single bonus.
The four outcomes at a glance
The bandit choice is part of the Act 2 quest Deal with the Bandits. You either help one bandit and kill the other two, or kill all three. The reward values below are the ones published in Grinding Gear Games’ 3.25.0 patch notes, which describe the reward rework.
| Choice | Reward | When it is most likely to help |
|---|---|---|
| Help Alira | 15% to all Elemental Resistances | Your build needs resistances, or is short of them in one or more elements. |
| Help Kraityn | 8% increased Movement Speed | Mobility is the bottleneck, such as getting around maps or reaching objectives faster. |
| Help Oak | +40 to Maximum Life | Your life pool is the gap, or you want a flat life buffer without spending passive points. |
| Kill all three | 1 Passive Skill Point | You want a flexible point you can place on any passive node your tree needs. |
The reward values come from the official notes. The “when it is most likely to help” column is editorial reasoning based on what each effect does, not a ranking Grinding Gear Games has published for any build.
How to choose
Work through the following questions in order. The first one that points clearly to an answer is usually the right choice.
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- Are your elemental resistances capped or close to it? If you are already at or near the cap in every element, 15% to all resistances is less useful than it sounds, and the other options may serve you better.
- Are you missing elemental resistances? If one or more elements sit well below the cap, Alira’s bonus is the most direct way to fix that without spending passive points.
- Does your character struggle with mobility? If you regularly feel slow in maps or during boss movement, Kraityn’s 8% increased Movement Speed is the listed bonus that addresses that directly.
- Is your life pool a weakness? If your maximum life is low relative to your damage intake, Oak’s +40 Maximum Life is a flat, immediate gain. It is small in absolute terms, so compare it against any life nodes you could take instead.
- Do you have a specific passive node you keep wanting? If your tree has a clear point you cannot reach, the single Passive Skill Point from killing all three may be worth more than any bandit bonus.
Weighing the passive point against a bandit bonus
Killing all three gives one Passive Skill Point, and that point can be spent on any node you can path to. The three bandit bonuses are fixed effects, so their value depends entirely on what your build lacks. A point’s value depends on what it unlocks. If the point is one step away from a notable or keystone you have planned, it can be worth more than a resistance or life bonus. If your tree has no obvious next step, the point may only be a small increase in your options.
Because the passive point is one point and the bandit bonuses are fixed amounts, the comparison is less about which number is larger and more about whether your character currently has a gap that a single bonus would close.
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Avoid confusing this with the Through Sacred Ground reward
The one Passive Skill Point from killing all three is the only passive point tied to this bandit choice. Do not count it as two points. Through Sacred Ground is a separate quest, and according to the same 3.25.0 patch notes it grants a Book of Skill that provides one Passive Skill Point and two Passive Skill Refund Points. If you are tallying points across quests, keep those rewards separate.
Is one choice the community favorite?
The sources checked for this article do not include any measured breakdown of how often players pick each bandit, and Grinding Gear Games has not named one option as the best for every build. Any claim that a particular bandit is the most popular or the universal winner would go beyond what is published. The practical answer remains the one above: match the reward to the gap in your character, and treat the passive point as the option to choose when your tree has a specific use for it.
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Check the current patch before deciding
The reward values in this article are those listed in the 3.25.0 patch notes. Path of Exile 1 receives regular updates, so confirm the values in the patch notes for your game version before you commit. The PoE Wiki page for Deal with the Bandits gives an overview of the quest structure and the choice options, and is a useful cross-check for how the quest flows.
Sources: Grinding Gear Games, 3.25.0 patch notes and PoE Wiki, Deal with the Bandits.
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