Path Of Exile: You Need To Make Some Preparations For The Scourge Expansion

I believe that when POE 2 patch 0.2.0 was first released, you must have been overwhelmed by the rich new content and didn’t know where to start to experience and familiarize yourself with it. Both the new class and the new endgame mechanism are attractive and complex.

Therefore, in order to ensure that you have enough POE 2 Currency in the game as a rich material basis for trying new classes or endgames, fighting new enemy types may be a better idea! At least according to the known information, the mechanism of these encounter enemies is not difficult to understand, and the loot they can provide is also precious. These enemies are Azmerian Wisps and Rogue Exiles.

Azmerian Wisps

In fact, strictly speaking, Azmerian Wisps cannot be regarded as an enemy you can fight directly with. They appear as small balls of light in the game. When you get close to them, they will start to run away. During this time, they will continue to attract nearby monsters. If the monsters touch Azmerian Wisps in a certain way, they will give the monsters a buff effect.

If Azmerian Wisps affect rare and unique monsters, they will also possess them, not only making the monsters more powerful, but also allowing the monsters to periodically summon spirit animals of the same type to attack you together.

The reason you are recommended to trigger Azmerian Wisps as much as possible to start related battles is that the monsters possessed by them will drop better loot than usual after death, including a small probability of amulets of the same type. However, these monsters will also be more difficult to deal with, so you’d better buy POE 2 Currency in advance to roll better affix effects for your gear.

How To Find Them?

Fortunately, you don’t need to farm specifically in a specific area to find these creatures. They will appear randomly in most maps throughout the campaign, and the relevant NPC Delwyn will also help you track them. If you want to increase the chance of Azmerian Wisps appearing so you can get more loot in a short period, here are some tips to help:

• Unlock Guiding Light node on Atlas Skill Tree, which will make Azmerian Wisps appear 100% of the time on the map.
• Go to Azmeri Ranges, one of the endgame maps.
• Specific modifiers that can be thrown by Precursor Tablets can increase the chance of Azmerian Wisps appearing.

What Are Sacred Wisps?

Sacred Wisps are actually special Azmerian Wisps that can apply more unique effects to the monsters they affect. For example, Sacred Wisp of the Cunning Fox can upgrade normal monsters to magic monsters, magic monsters to rare monsters, and rare monsters to unique bosses - of course, as the rarity of the monsters increases, the loot you can get from them will also be better.

Rogue Exiles

As the name of the game Path of Exile indicates, you, as a player, are actually an “exile”. After surviving the execution, you are always committed to using your own strength to defeat the evil forces and protect the justice and peace you cherish. So, have you ever thought that there may be a group of people with the same origin as you in the game? (Of course, this does not refer to other real players)

Whether you have thought about it or not, the development team of POE 2 has grasped this point and launched new endgame enemies Rogue Exiles in Dawn of the Hunt! They are the same as you, and even have the same skills, unique items and builds, but the only and dangerous difference is that they belong to your enemy camp.

Specific Combat Mode

Path of Exile 2 has a total of 12 Rogue Exiles, each with its own exclusive skills and items. When you encounter them and start a skirmish, the bottom of their health bar will show the unique items they are equipped with. You can decide whether to fight or avoid them based on your items and builds. After all, if the opponent is too strong, a rash challenge may cause losses.

But if you choose to fight, you will find that Rogue Exiles uses a very advanced and flexible movement mechanism, and can even dodge and roll while attacking you, just like you usually do in a skirmish. Considering that POE 2’s own PVP gameplay is not outstanding, you can completely think that the current Rogue Exiles skirmish is a better POE 2 PVP mode.

How To Find Them?

Unlike Azmerian Wisps, Rogue Exiles only appear in the endgame, so if you want to challenge them, you need to complete Act 1-3 first, and then complete them again in Cruel mode. After that, Rogue Exiles will be randomly generated in each endgame map. There is currently no way to increase the probability of their appearance. All you can do is walk around every corner of the map. As for the loot after killing Rogue Exiles, first of all, fortunately they will drop for sure, but you can’t be sure whether you will get magic gear or rare unique items in the end.

After our introduction, you should already know how to find and deal with these new enemy types. If your character level is strong enough to deal with them, try it out!

While Path of Exile 2 launched its latest Dawn of the Hunt league in early access, it also released a major patch, which greatly weakened the capabilities of some classes in combat and exploration. Grinding Gear Games called it to ensure fairness and equity for players in the game.

But in fact, this cliff-like weakening made players very disgusted, and also caused this update to rapidly reduce the praise of POE 2 on game platforms such as Steam and PlayStation, and many players threatened to give up this sequel that has been tormenting players again.

Under this pressure, the developer announced two days ago that an update would be released to comprehensively enhance the existing classes, such as increasing the gain or effectiveness of some skills, and made some quality of life changes based on player feedback on POE 2, such as reducing the speed of monster group generation.

While there’s no guarantee that the feedback-driven changes will get the loot-driven game back to where it was when it was released late last year, they will improve some builds and gameplay that players are familiar with, and may win back some of the player base. If you want to give POE 2 another chance, the content of this update will be the most powerful reason to convince yourself.

Update Overview

Many of the changes to classes in this update of POE 2 are about the enhancement of the very popular Sorceress, which is one of the more Intelligence-focused classes in the game. But in this update, its power has been greatly improved, so that you will have a better overall sense of balance when making Sorceress builds.

In the subsequent game process, as long as you choose a better build for it, Sorceress can still maintain high survivability while dealing a lot of damage, because Frostbolt projectile spell can double the radius of damage here, which is very effective in clearing maps or farming important loot and POE 2 Currency.

In addition, the strength of the first classes Warrior and Ranger and the newly added Huntress has also been enhanced. For example, the damage to Ranger’s Lightning Rod skill has been increased by 30%; and Warrior’s Shield Wall can be detonated by Warcries.

Specific Updates

Next, we will introduce you to some changes you will feel in this update and what impact they will have on your exploration based on the announcement released by GGG.

Sorceress

Among the changes that Sorceress has, most of them are about skill enhancements. For example, Arc now causes a lightning explosion when you hit an enemy that has been affected by the shock status effect, instead of causing it to be affected by the shock status effect again. At the same time, this means that it no longer consumes the enemy’s shock status effect.

After this update, Eye of Winter will gain additional elemental damage when passing through other elemental spheres, such as Solar Orb, Orb of Storms or Frost Bomb, and the exposure time of Incinerate has been increased from 2 seconds to 8 seconds.

These are all enhancements to the fire element damage used by Sorceress, and the freezing element has also been greatly improved. In addition to the 50% increase in the explosion radius of Frostbolt, the cumulative freezing effect of Ice Nova has also been significantly improved, and the exposure time of Frost Bomb has also been increased from 5 seconds to 8 seconds.

Mana Tempest now works on all spells, splitting the improved spell across more targets instead of just chaining or branching. Mana remnants are also getting some changes, so you can now combine them with other elemental ailments, not just shock.

Huntress

Although Huntress is a new class in the new Dawn of the Hunt league, it has also received some changes in this update, the most notable of which is that the spear that pierces the enemy when using Rapid Assault will cause 67% more damage when it explodes, and the range has been increased by 20%. On top of that, this skill will now always cause Bleeding damage.

Of course, this is just the basic stats that this skill can provide you. If you buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade the rarity and affixes of the spear you use, I think all the damage values ​​or range radius here will become more deterrent. Combined with Parry’s ability to make enemies unable to avoid your attacks, your combat ability will be significantly improved.

Spearfield’s duration increased from 6 to 10 seconds, and now deals 30% more damage at level 20. You will no longer purge the bodies of Rares or Uniques enemies when using Herald of Blood, allowing you to use Ritual Sacrifice on them and gain more modifiers from them.

Warrior

In the previous exploration of POE 2, players have always felt that Warrior only has brute force and strong survivability, and is not suitable for challenges with extremely high requirements for flexibility and combat ability. POE 2 patch 0.2.0 released some time ago temporarily fixed these defects and became the first choice of most players recently, but it was pushed into hell again in this update.

Temper Weapon skill owned by Ascendancy class Smith of Kitava, which you can now choose for Warrior, will add 3 empowerments for each attack with the weapon and increase the attack speed by 25%, but this cannot completely make you ignore the slight reduction in the damage ability of this skill.

In addition, Armor break effect applied to you by the monsters you challenge will no longer have the ability to provide you with an additional 20% physical damage modifier, and its duration has been reduced from 12 seconds to 4 seconds. This means that to ensure a strong output, you may need to spend more POE 2 Currency on gear that provides high physical damage buffs to your build.

Ranger

Compared to the previous classes, Ranger has fewer changes, mainly focusing on skills that can cast lightning elemental damage, such as Stormcaller arrow’s ability to spread shock in a small area, and this radius increases by 50%.

At the same time, the arc attack radius of Lightning Arrow has been increased by 50% and the maximum shooting duration of Tornado Shots has been increased to 15 seconds. Based on this update, it is safe to assume that Ranger build focusing on Lightning Arrow and Lightning Rod skill set will definitely become the choice of many players in the future game progress.

Other Updates

In addition to these focused buffs to the classes, there are some other updates, such as a new support gem called Inhibitor, which prevents you from spending charges and increases the damage enemies take from this support skill by 4% for each charge you add.

Additionally, the duration of Delirium encounters has been extended by nearly 2.5 times, which may be stressful for some players. In terms of crafting within POE 2, you will find more Artificers Orbs in some locations during the completion of the campaign, as well as some attribute runes, so that you can solve some leveling requirements in early exploration.

In terms of quality of life, rare items will now be visible on your mini-map to help you farm them faster in the endgame, and Matlan Waterways have also received some improvements, with some waterways being merged together, reducing the average number of levers you encounter in them by 6.

The above is the specific information of the first major update launched by the current POE 2 Early Access after the release of the new Dawn of the Hunt League. In fact, these updates are the strongest evidence that GGG has listened carefully to the feedback of players about this major nerf and responded as quickly as possible, but it is unknown whether it can continue to stick to it. I wish you a happy game!

In the latest Dawn of The Hunt League released in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, the new Huntress class has become the center of discussion among players. This is a very powerful class that can use powerful projectile and melee skills to deal super damage, and has the opportunity to trigger effects, bleeding, and elemental ailments.

However, it is worth mentioning that Huntress is more difficult to get started with than the existing classes in POE 2, because the combination of buffs and attribute abilities you need to choose for it requires a lot of consideration, but the benefits it can bring you are worth spending some time and effort on it.

In order to maximize the maximum clearing and leveling effectiveness of this new Huntress class, this guide will introduce you to some skills that can be used in builds that can quickly clear maps or farm, as well as some usage tips during combat.

Best Leveling Skills

As mentioned above, Huntress relies on the 3 basic elemental ailments that can be triggered to cause super high damage in battle, so you should prioritize and upgrade these skills that can be triggered.

In addition, you should also pay special attention to those skills that can cast Blinding and Bleeding effects, which are very important to the core mechanism of the entire build. The following are some Huntress leveling skills that can be recommended to you.

Parry

This is the basic skill of Round Shields equipped by Huntress class. It can deflect the enemy’s next attack and change the direction of attack to ensure its own survivability.

But be careful, if you keep holding this skill, your character will be dizzy, which may be detrimental to the casting of other skills with offensive capabilities.

Spear Throw

As the name suggests, this skill is a skill that allows you to throw the spear weapon in the build. If Huntress has Frenzy charge, the thrown spear will have the ability to explode automatically.

Of course, the explosion damage it produces is related to the rarity and affixes of the spear you are equipped with, so you should buy POE 2 Currency as much as possible to upgrade and optimize the spear you are using before using this skill.

Whirling Slash

This skill gave many players a surprise when it first appeared in the livestream of the content about Dawn of The Hunt. It creates a rotating storm around Huntress, rendering enemies who enter the storm unable to discern their direction.

This Whirling Slash can be activated three times in a row. As long as your character does not move to the center of the storm, it will always exist to cause a larger storm with higher damage.

In addition, you can also add some elemental effects to this storm, such as fire, frost, or lightning, which will increase its own damage ability and cause corresponding elemental damage. So when casting this skill, it is best to combine it with the environment of the arena, enemy attack moves, projectiles and Twister Skill, which will give you a surprise.

Twister

After you cast this Twister skill, your Huntress swings her spear vigorously, creating a gust of wind that moves randomly and bounces off everything.

Upon hitting an enemy, it will blind them and take heavy damage, so you can cast it again in combat while inside a gust of wind, which will create two gusts of wind and deal double the damage.

Or you can cast it during a powered-up Whirling Slash, which will create more gusts of wind (up to five times). In this case, Twister can absorb some of the elemental damage from Whirling Slash, turning it into Ice, Fire, or Lightning Twisters.

Disengage

Since Huntress is a class that can attack both ranged and melee, Disengage is a must-have for those who need to clear complex maps with multiple types of enemies.

Not only that, it also launches a potential attack on enemies affected by Deflect, and gains you a Frenzy charge to increase the damage of Spear Throw skill.

Rake

After casting this skill, your character dashes forward a distance, dealing super high damage and causing bleeding to enemies in a semicircle, which is very useful for clearing maps with a lot of single-target, but low-level enemies.

Cull The Weak

While this skill also causes Huntress to dash forward, it can kill enemies within range that have a damage threshold below a certain value, which is increased by skill level, equipped support gems, etc., and gain Frenzy Charge, which increases the damage capacity of some spear skills.

These basic skill gems will be your main focus during the leveling phase. If you can combine them properly and practice skill rotation, you can create a Huntress build that is most suitable for leveling.

For the support gems needed for these skills, the best choice is Skill Duration, which will effectively extend Twister and Elemental attack effects, such as the continuous fire damage effect of Explosive Spear. In addition, Elemental Damage support gem that can provide an additional 25% elemental damage is also worth your attention.

Leveling Tips

In fact, there are a lot of tips on using these skills in the introduction of skills. The most important one is to use those basic elemental skills to cause higher damage. For example, maximizing the elemental interaction of Twister and Whirling Slash will create an enormous range elemental effect and clear groups of enemies very efficiently.

What’s more, you should also invest as much POE 2 Currency as possible in Elemental Damage and Ailment Threshold, which will significantly increase your total damage output and the ability to clear groups of enemies.

In the face of more challenging boss encounters, you may need to modify your build slightly before the battle to enhance its survivability and defense capabilities. Or you can also use the kiting combat technique in the battle so that you can flexibly resist some of their damage and enter the endgame safely.

The above are some of the most suitable skill selections and usage tips for Huntress leveling in the current POE 2 Early Access Dawn of The Hunt League. I hope you can cut these skill gems with great effectiveness through Uncut Skills Gems as soon as possible, and use them to smoothly and happily pass this stage and enter the more challenging endgame content. I wish you a happy game!

With Path of Exile 2’s comprehensive balance adjustment of all game content in the recent league Dawn of the Hunt, the mode and leveling experience of players in the endgame have been greatly changed, and some of the previously popular endgame builds have been greatly weakened.

Although the main purpose of this adjustment is to break the current unbalanced environment in the endgame and to improve the feasibility of other builds, many players are still unacceptable to this cliff-like weakening, and they want this trend to be a gentle trend.

But this does not mean that many players have left the game because of this. On the contrary, they have begun to work hard to test out new builds that can help them quickly and efficiently pass the challenges of the endgame content and can quickly farm.

In order to reduce your time and energy cost in finding the best endgame build in POE 2, this guide will list several best builds that have been tested by many players in the endgame. You can make corresponding choices according to your favorite game style.

1. Shockwave Totem Warrior/Warbringer

This Warrior build is a great combination of Shockwave and Ancestral Warrior Totems that can deal huge and high range damage, making it perfect for fighting groups of enemies and farming loot and experience in some low-level maps.

In addition, most of the damage you deal when using this build comes from Rage accumulated by Mace Strike, so you only need to buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade the rarity and affixes of this one-handed weapon during the construction process, and you can gain super combat capabilities.

For the passive skills you can choose, Scavenged Plating and Time of Need are necessary. Hammer of the Gods can be used when you face some single enemies that can stun you, such as bosses, because you can provide some combat capabilities to your build while taking this kind of extra damage.

After you build Shockwave Totem Warrior, you will find that it is very easy to use in the later content of POE 2, because it does not require you to engage in very strong melee combat with the enemy, but relies on the range damage skills of Totems to clear the enemy at one time, so that you can quickly farm.

By the way, after the latest POE 2 Patch 0.2.0, Cultist Greathammer is actually a necessary condition for the effective use of the two combat skills Mace Strike and Armor Breaker, and Scavenged Plating plays other roles through this collaboration.

2. Explosive Shot Mercenary/Witchhunter

If you prefer to defeat groups or single enemies while moving, then the Explosive Shot Mercenary build will be one of your better choices. The core of this build is that you will trigger three Herald skills while using Explosive Shot, and cause enormous range elemental damage to monsters.

When you are facing a single target enemy, you can switch to using Shockburst Rounds to trigger Shock with Explosive Shot, which will make Shockburst Rounds consume the enemy’s remaining health more quickly.

But here you need to be reminded that in order to make this build have the best effect, The Three Dragons unique helm is necessary, which will make Explosive Shot accumulate shock effects instead of simply igniting.

However, the drop rate of this Unique in the campaign is very small. You can try to trade it with in-game vendors or other players by spending POE 2 Currency. In terms of Ascendancy class selection, Witchhunter is the first choice for this build because it can provide you with defense gains such as clearing strikes and magic wards.

Read More: Should You Start A New Character In Path Of Exile 2 Dawn Of The Hunt?

3. Bonestorm Witch/Blood Mage

Generally speaking, the classes with super farming and clearing capabilities in the endgame are mainly ranged combat classes, so the Witch build that can summon minions is also one of the best endgame builds you can try.

In this build, you will mainly rely on the high crit rate provided by all gear to deal huge damage to single-target enemies, while also having a very high maximum health to make full use of some buffs provided by Blood Mage after passing the trial.

In combat, you will first use Bonestorm and Bone Cage against lower-level monsters. If their health is high, you can try to put Bone Blast in the skill rotation, which will cause higher damage to elite monsters.

This Life Remnants skill provided by Blood Mage ascendancy requires you to constantly clear groups of enemies to ensure that you always have corpses or debris in front of you to maintain your survivability.

Here is a reminder that it is not recommended to choose this ascendancy too early, and if you need to offset the life consumption of the skill brought by it, you should wait until you have 4 ascendancy points before choosing it.

Since most of the damage of Bonestorm Witch build comes from the base damage provided by the skill gems you choose, the synergy of support gems and high critical strike rate in gear, you should invest as much POE 2 Currency as possible in it during the build process to get more output damage.

The above are some of the most worthwhile endgame builds that can help you farm and clear the level quickly in Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt league. I hope you can find the most suitable build for you among them. We will also keep track of other useful builds and their skills and gear choices. I wish you a happy game!