How To Use Energy Shield In Path Of Exile 2 To Enhance Your Survivability? - Mechanics Explained & Potential Changes

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• Come Choose The Best Equipment And Skill For Witch In Path Of Exile 2 Early Access!

  Path of Exile 2, a sequel that players have been waiting for a long time, has made great changes to most of the classes in the original game, including Witch. As the outstanding single-player exploration class in POE 2 Early Access, it mainly relies on its minions to deal with continuous damage and curses. In addition, as you continue to deepen the game content, Witch will also benefit from the new dodgeball mechanic, making it more mobile.

  Thanks to the power of this class itself, choosing some suitable items for its construction is a top priority in the game. So this guide will give you a specific introduction to Witch build based on the 3 aspects of the game’s regular construction that are most concerned about: equipment, skill gems, and passive skill.

  Best Equipment

  Although POE 2 has made all classes more flexible, the characteristics of each class are still very distinct. For example, Witch needs to use enough energy shields and a large maximum health value to ensure a stable output of damage. It is important to note that the items you have in the early game are not high-level, so before you get into some difficult challenges or battles, you can use POE 2 Regal Orb to upgrade them and add a new affix to make them more effective.

  Energy shields are a new type of health in the current game. You can think of it as an auxiliary health bar with a super fast recharge speed, which is used to prevent the real health from being too damaged. So when choosing equipment for the Witch build, you can focus on those POE 2 Items with energy shields or that can enhance them, such as some robes, sandals, or lighter equipment.

  For the weapons used by Witch, the specific type will depend entirely on your play style, which is very free. But here is a suggestion for you that Scepters may be a must-have weapon as the only way to summon minions. You can also remove this weapon according to your needs, but your build will be missing some core.

  At the same time, you can also use Wands and Scepters together, so that your build will be more aggressive. If you are an Exile who focuses on defensive capabilities, you can also use Scepters and various lighter or more concentrated shields, which will greatly enhance the mana and energy shields of this Class.

  Best Skill Gems

  Since the release of POE 2 Early Access, there are two main Witch builds that players prefer: Burning Minions and Chaos Damage. We also look forward to more interesting and powerful Witch builds in subsequent official versions. For Burning Minions build, the skill gems you can choose for it are Skeleton Arsonists, Pain Offering, Flame Wall, Flammability, and Detonate Dead.

  Among them, Flammability can quickly reduce the resistance of enemies in the target area to fire damage, which makes Skeleton Arsonists and Flame Wall more likely to cause more damage to the enemy. At the same time, Pain Offering will rapidly increase the number of minions around the enemy, especially when used on Skeleton Warriors summoned by Scepters. The effect will be more obvious. Detonate Dead is a skill that makes earning your POE 2 Currency bonus simple, as it detonates all the corpses of your remaining minions and deals with explosion damage to enemies.

  Since there are so many fire resistance shreds in Burning Minions build, you can make this build’s elemental damage stronger and have no worries. Simple fire skills like Solar Orb or Fireball can be used to increase damage, and the damage output of the minions will not be reduced.

  Although Chaos Damage’s damage capacity has been reduced a bit in the sequel, it still remains one of the best Witch builds. However, using this as your main damage type will have a negative impact on Witch’s damage over time. Fortunately, you can make up for this with some properties in Contagion, Profane Ritual, Despair, and Dark Effigy.

  Contagion is a very simple spell in POE 2 that causes enemies to suffer some light damage over time. However, if an enemy dies in the process, the damage carried by Contagion will be spread to nearby enemies at a higher capacity until all enemies are gone. And Profane Ritual will also turn those dead enemies into circles that can deal Chaos Damage to other enemies over time, so that Dark Effigy, as a turret or totem that can be placed at will, will make it easier to target all enemies that are debuffed by Chaos Damage.

  When you reach the late game content of POE 2, you can continue to develop your Chaos Damage build around Despair curse, as it will greatly reduce the enemy’s resistance to this damage type, indirectly making those continuous damage more effective. Or you can use all the above skills with Essence Drain, which can have an initial impact and continuous damage, which will make your build more deterrent.

  Best Passive Skills

  While the skill tree in POE 2 is very large and complex, the skill tree path used by Witch is relatively simple. For builds that focus on minions, especially Burning Minions just introduced, you need to focus on getting more minion damage, health, critical hit attributes, elemental resistance, attack speed, and resurrection speed from passive skills. This way, your minions will have very strong natural forces and can clear most enemies in battle without you having to do it yourself.

  For builds that need to cause Chaos Damage, the path to unlock and upgrade passive skill points will no longer be fixed, because at this time, all attributes except physical damage in the Witch build need to be further enhanced to promote the overall development of the build. Here you can focus on the two attributes of Chaos Damage and status duration gain. But in this build, you also need to pay attention to your minions. You can increase their resistance and health, so that your pressure as a rear commander will also be reduced.

  The above are the equipment and some skills selected for the Witch build in POE 2. I hope you can use them to make this powerful class easier and smoother in your single-player exploration. I wish you have fun in this brand new sequel, and look forward to the appearance of the subsequent official of POE 2!

• How To Give New Life To Items You Earn In Path Of Exile 2 Early Access? - With Reforging Bench

  As you explore the critically acclaimed Path of Exile 2 Early Access, you’ll often receive gear from rewards that just aren’t meant for your character. You can sell it, disassemble it with Salvage Bench or an NPC merchant, or if you have multiple characters on the same account, you can stash these currently useless items to characters that can use them, making them more useful.

  But when a piece of gear comes along that works for your character, but is a little less effective than what’s currently in your build, what do you do with it? You can sell it, disassemble it, or disassemble it as usual, but that’s a bit of a waste. So this guide will show you another way to deal with these items: using Reforging Bench to make them better. Without further ado, let’s get started!

  How To Unlock Reforging Bench?

  Here we need to remind you that in the current POE 2 Early Access, you can only unlock this method of reforging items after reaching Act 3, so if you are just starting to explore this new game, you can use other methods to enhance your item attributes, such as using some POE 2 Regal Orbs to upgrade your Magic items to Rare items and add an affix.

  When you enter Act 3, you will receive a quest called Legacy of the Vaal, which will require you to go to Drowned City and complete some interactive quests assigned to you. After you complete the overall quest, you need to return to Ziggurat Encampment, and then there is an NPC called Oswald to the northwest of your standing position.

  After interacting with him, it will give you another Treasures of Utzaal quest, which is a prerequisite for unlocking Reforging Bench. In this quest, you are required to clear Molten Vault and defeat Mektul. Here, we need to remind you that your character level can only complete this challenge if it reaches level 40 or above.

  In Drowned City, you can follow the markers in the quest log to a dungeon called Molten Vault. There will be a group of enemies that focus on dealing fire damage to you, so this is one of the best dungeons for honing your build to resist fire damage and freeze magic. It is also one of the best places to farm your experience points and POE 2 Currency because of the large number of enemies.

  As you fight deeper, you will find Forgemaster Mektul at the end of the dungeon, which will deal with a lot of fire damage to you. But fortunately, its attack speed and movement speed are very slow, and the cooldown of its attack moves is also very long. So during the battle, you can focus one finger on dodging, and use the rest of your fingers to release all your attack skills during its downtime so that you can kill it as soon as possible.

  It should be noted here that this battle will have a four-minute countdown. Once the countdown ends, but Mektul is not killed by you, the arena will be filled with lava and completely engulf you. So, the advice for you in your build is to focus on some skills or items that can output cold damage, so that you can easily kill it after you understand its attack methods.

  After you successfully kill Mektul, you will get the Hammer of Kamasa, which can be used to open a teleportation gate back to town and meet Oswald again and interact with him. After talking, the Reforging Bench that can re-roll the attributes of your loot is unlocked. In addition, it will also reward you with an Uncut Skill Gem, which can be converted into any skill that is applicable to your build.

  How To Use Reforging Bench?

  After you unlock it, you’ll find a Reforging Bench in every town you can explore. In fact, you can also place one in your hideout, which makes your crafting process even more convenient. To use it, walk up to the bench like you would any other crafting station, and you’ll start interacting with it.

  Next, we’ll take a look at how Reforging Bench works and what it requires. You can place three POE 2 Items of the same type and rarity on this bench, and they will combine into a single piece of gear of the same type but with completely different properties. So the items you can get from Reforging Bench will depend entirely on what you put in. For example, the same weapon will not be reforged into a Soul Core. Currently, the items you can place here are the following.

  • Gear (weapons, armor or accessories)
  • Unique
  • Catalyst
  • Essence
  • Soul Core
  • Precursor Tablets
  • Distilled Emotion
  • Runes
  • Relics
  • same level Waystones

  Here you need to be reminded that although most of the items obtained in Reforging Bench are random and may be better or worse than the original items, Waystones and Distilled Emotions will more often reward you with higher-level items. In addition, you cannot place those corrupted items on Reforging Bench here, which is prohibited.

  When the reforged items appear in front of you, you cannot see all their functions at once, but need to use Hooded One or a Scroll of Wisdom to help you identify them. If you don’t have three items of the same level in your inventory, try to use items of similar level as much as possible, because the level of the items that will appear on Reforging Bench is based on the lowest level item you place, so you try to avoid spending too many high-level items here.

  That’s all you need to know about unlocking and using Reforging Bench in the current POE 2 Early Access. Since many of the items rewarded to you by this mechanic are random, you can only know its specific effectiveness by experimenting with it yourself. I wish you good play and a happy gaming experience in this brand new sequel!

• What To Look Out For When Challenging Zalmarath Which Is The Last Boss In Act 2 Of POE 2? - Location & Attacks

  The current Path of Exile 2 Early Access, which has been in development for nearly a decade, has three acts of game content for you to explore, and each act has a completely different game experience. In Act 2, you will explore a vast desert area and need to find and reassemble the fragments of Horn of the Vastiri in three different missions.

  Of these three missions, A Crown of Stone is arguably the most noteworthy. Not only will it lead you to the scenic Valley of Titans and Titan Grotto, but you can also challenge the very profitable boss called Colossus Zalmarath here.

  At this powerful ultimate boss, you can learn some combat strategies that can be used when facing this boss who mainly uses physical damage, and more importantly, you can find the very important Flame Ruby from its loot. So this guide will introduce you to the location of Zalmarath and what kind of combat moves you will face in the battle.

  Colossus Zalmarath’s Location

  As mentioned above, Colossus Zalmarath is the last boss in your quest A Crown of Stone, so it is located at the end of Titan Grotto, and you need to go through Valley of the Titans to get there.

  As you travel through Valley of the Titans, you need to find and activate three Ancient Seals, which will unlock the path to Titan Grotto. Since the entire area is very large, you should use as many Checkpoints and Waypoints as possible to mark your progress while exploring.

  Otherwise, if you die while challenging the ultimate boss, you will need to explore again, and at the same time, POE 2 Currency and experience points you previously earned will be lost. When you see Dais of Reckoning at the end of Titan Grotto, it means that you are about to enter the arena between you and Zalmarath. Here you can check whether the damage and survivability of your build are at their best.

  How To Defeat Zalmarath?

  The arena you fight Zalmarath in is actually quite small compared to other final bosses, and it will get smaller as the fight progresses. In this case, most of Zalmarath’s attacks will easily cover a large area of ​​the arena, so having a clear sense of positioning is very important in this fight.

  Zalmarath will mainly deal physical damage to you during the fight, with some fire and lightning damage as well. So when preparing for this challenge, you should spend as much POE 2 Regal Orbs on your armor as possible to make it higher in rarity and more defensive, which will greatly reduce all the damage cast by this powerful boss.

  As the old saying goes, knowing yourself and the enemy is the key to success, and only by knowing all of Zalmarath’s attacks can you respond correctly. Here are Zalmarath’s specific attacks and the strategies you can use.

  Sword Stab

  Zalmarath will thrust his sword straight into the arena and then drag it back along the path it had just taken. You can clearly see him raise his sword to stab you, so you can avoid this attack by dodging or moving at the beginning of this move.

  This attack is relatively easy to dodge compared to the ones that follow, but it will still cause you to take heavy damage if you are unlucky enough to get hit.

  Lightning Bolt

  During this attack, you will see Zalmarath move around the edge of the arena in a quarter circle, and then fire a wave of projectiles from his vicinity. At this time, you should turn to the opposite side of the arena where Zalmarath is standing and move in the same direction as him, which will block some projectiles.

  Arm Sweep

  At this point, Zalmarath will abandon his sword and use his arms to sweep across the arena. If you are caught, you will be dragged across the floor, causing heavy physical damage. As mentioned above, the arena is small, but the range of this attack is large. So if you can’t avoid Zalmarath’s arm, you can try to run in the opposite direction to avoid being hit by other damaging skills.

  Falling Debris

  In addition to the above physical damage, Zalmarath will also shoot lasers at the ceiling and cause some debris to fall into the arena. It should be noted that one debris is larger than the others and can even destroy the floor of the arena that supports it.

  You can tell where the debris will fall by the spinning dust circles on the arena floor. Just avoid stepping on these dust circles to avoid these debris that can cause heavy damage to you.

  Stone Wave

  Here, Zalmarath will slam his arm and launch a wave of rocks that can cause damage to you. Similar to Sword Stab, you can tell the direction of its attack by its hand raising, which makes it easier to avoid this attack in time. However, it is worth noting that Zalmarath may use this attack twice in a short period, so you need to be prepared to dodge twice for a long time.

  Laser

  As mentioned above, the boss will shoot lasers at the ceiling, so it may also shoot lasers at you and cause unpredictable damage to the current arena area. Normally, the movement path of this attack move is downward and will not move randomly, but Zalmarath may also turn around to guide the laser sweep, which is worth noting.

  Generally speaking, the laser fired by Zalmarath will start from close to the body and gradually move outward. This time will be very long, and you have plenty of time to dodge. The most important thing here is that when the laser starts to move, you need to predict its movement path as soon as possible and avoid it.

  Vril Apparition

  Of course, as the ultimate boss, Zalmarath will also summon some Vril Apparitions to help it complete this battle. They usually appear from a corner of the arena and swarm around you. Although the damage of a single Vril Apparition to you will not have much impact on you, you still need to use some AOE damage skills as soon as possible to eliminate these large groups of enemies, otherwise you may be tortured to death by a large amount of damage.

  Fire Tendrils

  For the ultimate attack, Zalmarath will slam his fist to create flaming tendrils that will move randomly and deal a lot of fire damage to you in the process. Since their movement paths are random, it is difficult to avoid them. You can only try to observe their movement direction and move to a safe position in the opposite direction.

  The above are all the attacks you will experience during the battle with Zalmarath. It will repeat this series of attacks until you defeat it. It is worth suggesting that the longer you fight it, the more difficult it will be to dodge its attacks in the arena, because the range of the arena will continue to decrease.

  Whether you are using a character that focuses on melee or a character that emphasizes long-range attacks, the best strategy in this battle is to get as close to Zalmarath as possible or stand behind it, which will greatly increase your chance of dodge and put you in a safe state to cast all your attack skills.

  The most difficult to avoid is the laser attack with a very large range. You can also hide behind its sword at this time to resist some damage. In general, as long as you are familiar with all the attacks of Zalmarath and try more, it is very easy for you to defeat it and get Flame Ruby from it. I wish you a happy game!

• How To Deal With The Two-Form Doryani In Path Of Exile 2 Early Access?

  There are only three acts to explore in the much-loved Path of Exile 2 Early Access, but there are plenty of story quests and bosses to fight. Doryani in the last act is the final boss of the entire Early Access, as you can defeat it and then play the more challenging Cruel Difficulty game.

  Doryani is more difficult than all the bosses in the regular difficulty, even if you are a skilled Exile who has completed all three acts and has a very powerful build. If you are not ready to take on it, then read this guide to prepare for the battle and the in-fight strategy, which will make your challenge very fast and smooth.

  Doryani Location

  You can find Royal Thaumaturge Doryani and its second form, Doryani’s Triumph, in Testing Pit area of ​​Black Chambers. Before you explore this area, you’ll need to defeat Viper Napuatzi in Utzaal to unlock Aggorat and find the entrance to Black Chambers.

  In Black Chambers, keep an eye out for bridges that emerge from the water, which lead you to the arena where you and Doryani will fight. You can also take other routes to fight other enemies, which will make it easy to farm the experience points and POE 2 Currency you need to level up. Alternatively, you can add two passive skill points to your build by using Sacrificial Heart and Sacrificial Altar in Utzaal or Aggorat, which will be very useful.

  Pre-Battle Preparation

  Once you know where Doryani is, you can start preparing for him. First, Doryani has two battle phases: In the first phase, he is Royal Thaumaturge Doryani, and in the second phase, when his health reaches about 50%, he will jump into a mech called Doryani’s Triumph, which will destroy a very powerful tank character in an instant.

  Also, before you start the challenge, you need to make sure your character is at level 45 or above. If you haven’t reached this level yet in Act 3, my advice is to discard the level 8 gear you’ve been using since Act 1 and look for a gear with better resistance and higher Armor, Energy Shield, or Evasion.

  Or you can spend some POE 2 Regal Orbs to increase the rarity and add an affix to items with lower rarity to make them more effective. It’s important to remember that Doryani can deal multiple types of damage to you, but the main ones are Fire and Chaos. So you can put Charms or rings that can block Ignite in your build to increase your resistance to these two elemental damage greatly.

  In addition, the boots and passive skills you choose need to provide you with additional movement speed, because Doryani has multiple attacks that can be avoided by very fast dodges or movements, which will make your combat state more flexible.

  In-Battle Strategy

  Next, let’s take a closer look at what kind of attacks Doryani will launch against you in both forms and how to deal with them.

  Phase 1

  During Royal Thaumaturge Doryani phase, it will just attack you with a lot of spells and ancient equipment. Although Doryani’s movement speed is very slow at this time, his attacks are dazzling and can cause all kinds of damage to you. So generally speaking, you need to get as close to its back as possible and stay away from its front until Doryani’s skills that can cause AOE damage are about to reach you. Here are the specific attacks and how to deal with them.

  • Lightning Spray: Some lightning will shoot out of Doryani’s hands and can cause tracking damage to you. These damages actually don’t have a big impact on you. If your build can get some extra hitting power from it, you can try to take some of it, which is fine.
  • Fire Shot: Doryani will cast some fire at you, but the power is not too great. Likewise, if you have a decent fire resistance build, you can still use this small amount of damage to deal a few quick hits to this boss.
  • Charged Blast: When this skill is cast, you can clearly see Doryani charging up, and will send out a powerful Chaos damage after the charge ends. You can dodge to your left or right to avoid this powerful damage. A large cone appears to indicate the end of this skill.
  • Laser Altar: When Doryani’s health is reduced to about a quarter, the rotating altar in the middle of the arena will fire some laser beams that can cause huge Chaos damage to you. You can stand in the gaps between the laser beams at this time, but remember to move carefully to avoid rolling into other laser beams.
  • Overhead Bolts: Similarly, Doryani will charge up when casting this skill, and after the charging is completed, spinning bolts will fall from above it and cause tremendous damage to you. At this time, you need to retreat as much as possible and use some ranged attack skills to cause damage to it.

  Phase 2

  As mentioned above, Doryani enters Phase 2 when his health drops to 50%, where he summons some mech-like constructs. All his health and mana are restored to their original state, and he has new attacks that make the fight more challenging, whether you’re using a melee or ranged build. Here are Doryani’s specific moves for this phase.

  • Ground Slam: Doryani’s summoned mechs will alternately slam the ground with their arms, and if they hit you, you’ll take a lot of physical damage. So you’ll also need to stand behind him to avoid these slams completely.
  • Fire Shot: His mechs will fire a beam of fire in front of him, which is powerful enough to kill most powerful characters, even those with very strong fire resistance. So hiding behind him is the best solution at this time.
  • Fire Blast: In this attack, Doryani will slam the ground with one hand, and summon a powerful nova blast in a large circle with the other hand. Again, remember to stand behind him.
  • Cold Slam: During this phase, the only thing Doryani’s mech can do is slam its arms into the ground, creating a very large cone of cold damage to you. Keep in mind that you need to get as close to the boss as possible, as the damage from these cones increases as you get further away from the center.
  • Back Lasers: At this point, the back of Doryani’s mech will open up and emit a spinning laser. You need to turn around toward the laser’s rotation, and do it quickly.
  • Overhead Cannon: besides the mech, Doryani will summon a laser cannon that can fire lasers from above. Remember to keep it in your sights, otherwise you will most likely walk into the path of the laser.
  • Mech Explosion: In the second phase, when Doryani’s health is about half, he will escape from the mech in a small flying vehicle. The mech will then explode after a few seconds, and you need to roll back to the edge of the arena to avoid this.
  • Mech Slam: The mech does not completely disappear at this time, but spins in the air in pieces and crashes into the ground. The damage caused by this skill is huge, enough to destroy most builds completely. The best way to avoid this damage here is to stay as close to the left or right edge with the AOE indicator as possible, rather than in your back position.

  The above is the combat moves and strategies for Doryani, the last powerful boss in Path of Exile 2. I hope that with the help of this guide, you can successfully kill this very important boss in the exploration process and enter Cruel difficulty. I wish you a happy game!

• How Many Crowd Control Effects Can You Cast In Path Of Exile 2 Early Access?

  When you’re fighting powerful monsters in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, the damage you deal isn’t the only thing you have to worry about. When you’re facing a group of monsters rushing towards you, single-target damage is far from enough to keep you safe, so you need to use some skills that can cast Crowd Control Effects to maintain your character’s combat status.

  But if you want to use this effect properly, it’s important to understand how Crowd Control Effects work and all the types that exist in the current POE 2 Early Access, especially if you want to have a very perfect build. So this guide will give you a detailed introduction to this very effective effect in combat, so that you can complete more exploration with the help of them.

  What Are Crowd Control Effects?

  Crowd Control Effects, also known as CC in the game, are tasks that can hinder or prevent enemies from performing harmful operations on you, which can be used in most builds. This effect is more effective against hard-to-beat enemies, especially those with POE 2 Exalted Orbs that can provide you with the ability to modify item modifiers and rarity, or Unique bosses similar to Mighty Silverfist.

  In addition, it is worth mentioning that each CC is not limited to being used alone, but can be used in conjunction with skills, passive skills, and other effects in your build to achieve your goal of having extremely extreme damage capabilities. Here is an overview of the various Crowd Control Effects in POE 2.

  Stun & Heavy Stun

  When an enemy is hit by a Stun or Heavy Stun, it interrupts all actions that could cause you a lot of damage. Although the effect of Stun is short-lived, you can use Items you place in your build to achieve the effect of hitting the enemy multiple times in a short period, or even eventually causing death. If your accuracy rating is not too high, you can add some physical hit damage to the stun effect, which will make this effect more threatening to the enemy.

  For Heavy Stun, the effect lasts longer and has an additional meter. Enemies only enter Heavy Stun once you’ve filled up Heavy Stun meter. It’s important to note that when an enemy recovers from this state, the cumulative stun you inflicted on them will be reduced for a short period. 

  Currently, Seismic Cry Mace Skill and Surprising Strength Titan passive in the game can both cause this powerful control effect, which will help you get POE 2 Currency and other loot from battle faster.

  Pin & Knockback

  When you pin an enemy, it can no longer move, but it will still be able to attack. While this may seem less effective than most other CC effects, the ability to lock an enemy in place is a great help for builds that have delayed damage, long cast times, or area-of-effect damage. Or you can use this control effect on enemies that are more mobile, which will greatly reduce the chances of being fooled by them in combat and make it easier to defeat them. 

  But Knockback does the opposite, moving the target of your spell away to create more space for you to damage. There are currently only a few combat mechanics in POE 2 that require you to use this effect to deal damage, but you can use it on enemies with area attacks that can cause critical hits.

  Freeze

  In POE 2, you may often see skills that can deal cold damage to enemies, but if you combine this elemental damage with Freeze effect that can slow down the enemy, the damage you can deal is very large.

  Similar to Heavy Stun, when an enemy takes Cold damage or Freeze, an icon will appear near their health bar to indicate the current Freeze level, and once it reaches 100%, the target has entered Frozen state.

  Enemies in this state are more susceptible to a variety of unique skills, such as Cold Snap in Elemental tree and Fragmentation Rounds in Crossbow tree, which are very important for Mercenary builds. Both skills can cause area damage with greater damage capabilities by consuming Frozen state.

  Electrocute

  In POE 2’s new skill gem system, some skills can generate Electrocute effect under the influence of their Support Gems, which can interrupt all enemy actions and freeze the enemy in place for 5 seconds. Since the main source of this effect is those Support Gems, please evaluate whether you have enough gem slots in your build before using this effect.

  The working principle of Electrocute is actually very similar to Stun CC, but its main damage type is lightning damage instead of physical damage, so if this effect is combined with Shock effect, it will increase the damage taken by the target by 20%!

  In addition, Ailments are also very important in POE 2’s combat, so Monk or Sorceress’s Dual Lightning Ailment Build that integrates these effects as a whole will give you more chances of winning when facing some powerful bosses.

  The above is the working principle of all Crowd Control effects in the current POE 2 Early Access and some tips to pay attention to. This effect plays a very important role in both the original and the sequel, so familiarizing yourself with them and using them skillfully can make your exploration easier and more enjoyable. I wish you a happy game!

• What To Do When You Encounter Draven In Path Of Exile 2 Early Access?

  The much-anticipated Path of Exile 2 Early Access features many unique gameplay features from the original, and one of the most exciting is the bosses with unique combat mechanics. For new Exiles who are new to this new game, Eternal Praetor Draven may be the first tough boss encountered in the game.

  You will encounter it during Sorrow Among Stones’ quest in Act 1, and it is also required to complete the current map and unlock Lachlann of Endless Lament. New Exiles can learn from this boss the tone of the game style set by POE 2 - it requires great patience to deal with any situation that may arise in the boss’ encounter.

  To prevent you from losing your confidence in exploring in this difficult first battle, this guide will introduce you to the specific attacks of Eternal Praetor Draven and what strategies you should use to deal with it. This is worth taking the time to learn, because it will be very useful for subsequent bosses with the same combat mechanism.

  Pre-Battle Preparation

  First, we need to understand that Draven will use Area Blocking actions in battle to prevent you from moving freely, so in terms of class selection, those that can provide ranged attacks will be higher than those that emphasize melee attacks, such as Mercenary or Sorceress.

  In addition, it is also very necessary to use some POE 2 Exalted Orbs to upgrade the rarity of your weapons and armor before the battle. This will greatly improve your character’s survivability and combat ability to achieve the ending of defeating it in one go.

  In-Battle Strategy

  After you have built your build to be almost perfect, you can enter the arena where you and Draven fight. It is important to note that you need to interact with the last checkpoint before entering the arena, so that if you die in the battle, you will be reborn here without having to start over.

  Now, let’s take a look at how Draven will attack you. In general, it mainly uses 6 attack modes, and the specific methods of each attack are as follows.

  • Basic Sword Combo: The boss will use its sword to hit you 4 times in a combo.
  • Necrotic Bolts: The boss will continue to swing its sword, but the swing range is very large, and it will shoot large cones of necrotic energy arrows at you.
  • Double Necrotic Bolts: Same as the previous attack method, but it will shoot two waves of necrotic energy arrows at you.
  • Necrotic Sword Wave: The boss will stomp on the ground before swinging the sword, which will create two necrotic energy lines, which can send out two shockwaves that can cause medium damage to you.
  • Summon Minions: The boss will summon some ghostly minions around the arena, which form a hole. Once you step into it, you will be attacked by Draven’s sidekick, the Eternal Knight, with powerful attacks.
  • Summon Asinia: The boss will shout out the name of this ghostly companion and Asinia will create 3-4 necrotic rune circles on the ground that will explode after a few seconds dealing moderate damage. In addition, the diameter of the last necrotic runic circle will be larger than the previous ones.

  As mentioned above, the key to defeating Draven is your patience and righteous judgment. If you know where Draven is standing and what direction he is moving when he casts each move, you will find that the above attacks are very easy to dodge. If you find it difficult to complete this battle while exploring alone, you can also take advantage of the game’s new multiplayer feature, which allows your friends to team up with you and teleport into Draven’s battle, which will greatly reduce the difficulty of the battle.

  For those moves that can fire arrows, the best solution is to move behind Draven when he starts or prepares to attack, or move away from him to increase the gap between each arrow. But it should be noted that this requires your build to be highly mobile, and you can achieve this effect by investing a lot of POE 2 Currency in key attributes such as movement speed.

  For attacks such as Necrotic Sword Wave that damage the entire arena, the safest place you can stand is next to Draven. Since there is no specific Item in POE 2 that can help you immunize against explosion damage, your only option is to avoid or block this type of damage.

  As for the spell damage caused by Summon Minions, you can completely avoid it as long as you stay away from the green ghosts around the arena. But if you are using a Class that needs to collect abilities and charge them during combat to launch powerful attacks, you can try it, but make sure you are safe.

  Of all the attacks, Summon Asinia is the most troublesome for players. The necrotic runic circles created by Asinia on the ground are difficult to avoid in this chaotic battle, but as long as your character is flexible enough, you can avoid the last circle in time. But note that the role of dodging here is not very obvious, so you can give up this method.

  After you learn these battle strategies, in fact, after a few failed attempts, it is easy to grasp the situation and recognize the attack patterns well enough to avoid any attack Draven throws at you.

  Post-Battle Rewards

  After you defeat Draven, besides the normal loot, you can also receive Draven’s Memorial Key Piece, which is one of the key fragments required in Sorrow Among Stones’ quest. Another fragment is in the hands of Draven’s wife Asinia, who can be found near another tomb on the same map.

  The above are the specific methods and strategies for you to defeat Draven, the first powerful boss that appears in front of players in the early access of POE 2. I hope that both old exiles who are familiar with the original and new exiles attracted by the new content can have fun in this game that has been honed for ten years and get more game fun from it!