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• What Will Be The Impact Of The Changes To Monster Damage Mechanic In Path Of Exile 2?

  Hello fellow Exiles, we’re here to continue talking about the changes to the mechanics between Path of Exile 2 and 1 to help you prepare for the launch of POE 2 Early Access on November 15th. In this guide, we’ll focus on discussing Monster Damage categories, such as the removal of the distinction between spells and attacks, and take a deep dive into the enormous changes in monster damage from POE 1 to POE 2 and how damage is categorized.

  Removal Of The Distinction Between Monster Spells And Attacks

  In Path of Exile 2, Monster Damage will no longer be categorized as a spell or attack with character mechanics that interact with these types. A great example of this in Path of Exile 1 was Spell Suppression, which reduced the damage of incoming spells but did not interact with incoming attacks in any way.

  Now, these distinctions will no longer exist, so players will no longer have to guess or learn about these types to know which mechanics interact with them. This means you can focus more on investing POE Currency in your armor to continually increase your damage reduction cap.

  Monster Damage Categories Still Exist

  There will still be categories for Monster Damage, similar to what already existed in POE 1. For example, if Monster Damage is an AOE ability, Monster Damage will still have tags attached to it, such as Area of ​​Effect. This is important for mechanics that still interact with Monster Damage to determine how they will interact.

  Since Monster Damage is no longer an attack or a spell, Evasion will work against any damage that is classified as a projectile or strike, but not against damage that is classified as an Area of ​​Effect. For example, Monster Area of ​​Effect abilities, especially those that deal significant damage during boss encounters, are usually well communicated, making it easier to understand that it is something the player should avoid getting hit by.

  Deflection Stat

  Since there is no longer a distinction between monster attacks and spells, and Evasion will still exist, what does this mean for Spell Suppression? At least in the current implementation of POE 1, Spell Suppression will not be present in POE 2, and this change to Monster Damage has already happened.

  In fact, just 3 months ago, GGG’s Console Event in Los Angeles revealed that Spell Suppression is in POE 2, but it’s not just Spell Suppression, because there is another new stat called Deflection. It is essentially the offensive counterpart of Spell Suppression, and it works exactly the same as Spell Suppression, just against attacks instead of spells.

  But since the distinction between monster attacks and spells is gone now, we can safely assume that both stats will disappear, and something else may replace them to help counter AOE abilities of those Evasion-based builds. But be aware that this is just speculation.

  Blocking Mechanic Changes

  Another important thing worth mentioning is that Blocking in Path of Exile 2 functions similarly to Evasion. In terms of the types of monster damage it will interact with, you will be able to block incoming Projectiles and Strikes, but larger damage effects, like Boss abilities, will be represented as unblockable.

  Monster Damage Is Key To Balanced Game

  Now, balancing Monster Damage is a very positive change for Path of Exile 2 from a developer’s perspective. Since Path of Exile 1 introduced Spell Suppression mechanic in patch 3.16, the core game has slowly been balanced around its presence.

  This is often very noticeable when you play a character with Spell Suppression investment versus one without. But since the distinction between attacks and spells will be removed in POE 2, the developers have the opportunity to normalize Monster Damage from the start. This will ensure that there will be less variation in situations where monster damage is very dramatic, with the exception of damage from large monster abilities that should be avoided.

  At the same time, mechanics like Evasion and Blocking will be easier to understand for players not only mechanically, but visually as well. If you see an incoming Arrow or Fireball, you know you can Evasion and Block it. But if you see a giant slam falling on your head, you know you should run away from the complexity of the game.

  Other Differences In Monster Damage Mechanics

  Of course, GGG still has many avenues to explore to create interesting mechanics and unique item modifiers without specific monster attacks or spells.

  Besides that, Monster Damage in POE 2 will still have many differences from POE 1, such as the actual damage type, including Chaos, Elemental or Physical, whether it is an AOE ability or melee or ranged, whether it is a Ground Effect and Ailments it can cause and so on. In Path of Exile 2, they still have many ways to create compelling defense options for players.

  In short, the above are the changes to Monster Damage mechanic that will happen in the upcoming Path of Exile 2. Knowing these new changes will help you to classify all the damage during the battle and avoid the damage as much as possible, and survive to the end! Anyway, let’s look forward to its arrival!

• How Does Damage Conversion Mechanic Work In Path Of Exile 2?

  Path of Exile 2 Early Access will be officially launched on November 15th! So here, we will focus on the changes in the mechanics between Path of Exile 2 and 1 so that you are ready on the release day! This guide aims to introduce Damage Conversion mechanic in the game, such as converting to and gaining additional modifiers.

  In fact, this change is one of the biggest changes in the mechanic balance of POE 2, which not only has a great impact on a series of builds but also is equally important for GGG to balance the game in the future. So let’s get into Damage Conversion mechanic in Path of Exile 2.

  Different Forms Of Damage Conversion

  Typically, Damage Conversion has two forms: one is to convert a part of the damage of one type to another type, eliminating the source damage; the other is to add a part of the damage of one type to another type, keeping the source damage unchanged. These are defined as converting to modifiers and gaining as additional modifiers.

  Conversion Order

  Damage Conversion always follows the following conversion order: Physical → Lightning → Cold → Fire → Chaos.

  Although Damage Conversion only works in one direction, you can skip damage types to reach the next direction in Damage Conversion chain. For example, Physical Damage converts to Fire Damage, but you can’t go backwards. You can’t convert Chaos Damage to Lightning Damage.

  Therefore, you must invest in the correct equipment to ensure the successful and effective operation of Damage Conversion mechanism. Otherwise, you will not only waste your hard-earned POE Currency, but you may also be fatally hit by the enemy!

  In POE 1, however, damage always remembers its source damage type. For example, Physical Damage converted to Fire Damage will remember its physical source, meaning that modifiers applied to Physical Damage can still be applied to damage even if it’s processed as Fire Damage. Therefore, players can use modifiers for both Physical and Fire damage to scale this damage.

  Damage Conversion Priority

  Damage Conversions over 100% will now be scaled back to 100%. This only affects modifiers that are converted, not additional modifiers that are gained.

  However, there is a priority system for Damage Conversion, with the highest priority being any conversion that is considered a Skill Type Conversion. This is any conversion that exists on Skill Gems, such as the one on Smite Skill Gem.

  This also includes any conversions from Support Skill Gems, such as Physical to Lightning Support. These types of conversions have the highest priority and will not be scaled down if possible, and any other conversion modifiers, such as those from equipment modifiers or Passive Skill Tree, will be applied afterwards.

  As an example, let’s say a character is using Smite with Physical to Lightning Support, so 100% of their Physical Damage will be converted to Lightning Damage, which is all a Skill Type Conversion. If this character has Unique Gloves Hrimsorrow equipped, 100% of their Physical Damage will be converted to Cold Damage. But since 100% of the damage has already been converted via Skill Type Conversion, this modifier has no effect.

  Changes To Damage Conversion Mechanic

  Now in POE 2, there is a very important change to Damage Conversion mechanic, and that is that damage will no longer remember its source type.

  Using our previous example as a comparison, in POE 1, Physical Damage converted to Fire, and the player could scale this damage using modifiers for both Physical and Fire. But this is not the case in POE 2.

  The converted damage portion can only be scaled by the modifiers that apply to the final converted damage type, which is the damage being dealt. This is a vast change that will have a tremendous impact on build crafting. Because this will significantly change the way damage scales in a build that converts damage, and some of the vectors that were previously used to scale damage are gone in POE 2.

  Does The Change To Damage Conversion Mean A Nerf?

  Now the important thing to mention here is that this does not mean that Damage Conversion chains are necessarily useless in POE 2, because the modifiers that provide the additional damage are calculated before the conversion.

  For example, one modifier that is still very powerful in a Damage Conversion chain is that it provides additional Chaos Damage for each non-Chaos Damage type in the chain.

  Another interesting aspect of this change from a developer's perspective is balance. As mentioned before, the current Path of Exile has a strict Damage Conversion order. But we don’t know yet if this order will remain in POE 2, or how it will be enforced. They may keep the order, but simply to prevent looting in the presence of mirror conversions. They may also remove the order for general use, allowing for more possible conversions.

  But we don’t know anything about this, so you can safely assume for now that it will work exactly as it did in POE 1 until further notice. That’s Damage Conversion mechanic in Path of Exile 2, and knowing more about how it works will help you deal with all the enemies in the upcoming Early Access with aplomb!

• Why Was The Unique Body Armor In Path Of Exile 3.25 Forgotten By Players? - Reasons & Effects

  As always, the arrival of a new league brings with it a number of new changes, but the most notable addition to POE 3.25 is the addition of 60 new Base Types, spread across Helmets, Armor, Boots, and Gloves slots. These new Base Types were introduced primarily to balance out the fact that characters previously had mostly basic defensive stats.

  The change nerfed Defensive Auras and indirectly nerfed a number of unique items and builds. This was especially true for Archetypes that lacked investment elsewhere to scale defensive stats, as these specific builds relied heavily on using Auras combined with a decent amount of Aura effect scaling to get reasonable defensive power. This meant that a lot of players would use important unique items in these situations, with a good example from previous patches being Lightning Coil.

  However, the addition of these new Base Types and the subsequent nerf to Defensive Auras ended up significantly nerfing the use of these unique items. Because these PoE items are not compensated in any way by the nerfs to Auras.

  It is very likely that GGG will move some unique items to the new Base Type without changing their stats, effectively buffing these items with updated base defense stats. After all, they have done this before for other unique items.

  Here, we will take a look at the impact of these changes to get a better understanding of what things will be stronger in Settlers of Kalguur League.

  Why Is There A Sharp Drop In The Usage Of Unique Body Armour?

  The usage of unique items has dropped sharply in PoE 3.25, especially Unique Body Armour. When comparing PoE 3.24 Necropolis and PoE 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur, we can see that the gap is staggering.

  In Softcore Trade League, the usage of Rare Body Armour has almost doubled, from 27% of all characters in PoE 3.24 to 48% of all characters in PoE 3.25 now. This is of course not 100% because of the new Base Types and Aura Nerfs, but is influenced by another important factor: what exactly is popular and what builds are being played?

  For example, Deadeye is the most popular class in Necropolis, and across all those Deadeye builds, over 80% of builds use Unique Body Armour. Whereas for the most popular class in Settlers of Kalguur, Slayer, only 26% of builds use Unique Body Armour.

  But if we isolate Deadeye for a moment, we can see that Unique Armour usage has dropped significantly across both leagues for builds with similar classes, down 26%.

  The core reason for these shifts is of course the increased power level of Rare Body Armour relative to these Unique choices. More importantly, using Unique Armour in POE 3.25 means you give up a lot of Defensive stats, which you could previously make up for by using Defensive Auras, but now these nerfs are not compensated. This trend can be seen across Unique Body Armours with only a few exceptions.

  Examples

  Here we’ll take two specific Unique Armours as examples. These two Body Armours have been a big part of the meta for many build Archetypes for a long time before this patch, Lightning Coil and Fourth Vow.

  Lightning Coil

  Lightning Coil usage has dropped from 8% of Necropolis characters to 2% of Settlers of Kalguur, a 75% reduction in characters using Lightning Coil.

  A big factor here is that there are half as many Pathfinder characters in Path of Exile 3.25 as there were in POE 3.24. But the reason for this is not the introduction of those new Base Types, but another change to Damage Taken As, which significantly nerfed Taste of Hate and other stats, making it impossible for characters to achieve 100% Physical Damage Taken As Elemental.

  This was a very popular way to deal physical damage before. In older leagues, this, combined with the nerf to the monster Overwhelm, made traditional ways of defending against physical damage like Armor and Endurance Charges much more reliable. This is why using Lightning Coil, while not mandatory for many builds, is still very useful and still very popular.

  But overall, the change in POE 3.25 from a purely damage-focused defense setup to a hybrid multi-layered defense setup has seen Lightning Coil usage decline somewhat.

  Fourth Vow

  This is an interesting unique for Fourth Vow. Fourth Vow has always been the go-to for defense setups, and by combining it with Divine Flesh and stacking a lot of armor, it can completely mitigate the upcoming Elemental Hit.

  But from POE 3.24 to POE 3.25, the usage of Fourth Vow has dropped from 6% to 0.7%. There are some very important factors at play here that you may not immediately recognize just from the usage rate and the builds that use it.

  While the percentage of Necromancers using the item as a percentage of the class usage has increased, the number of Necromancers actually using it has decreased significantly because of the nerf to Detonate Dead. Meanwhile, the nerf to Champion Ascendancy didn’t help Fourth Vow much either.

  But those two factors only affected the number of builds that could use Fourth Vow. There were three other very big changes that had an enormous impact on the item.

  The first and probably the biggest change is that they removed Divine Blessing Support, which had incredible synergy with Fourth Vow. Since it combined with Divine Flesh would make Energy Shield almost useless since all damage would bypass it, these builds would use Eldritch Battery to solve the mana cost and grant it Energy Shield, allowing the use of the extra Aura with Divine Blessing. But Divine Blessing is gone now, and with it these builds lose a lot of power from the extra Aura.

  The second big change is of course the nerf to Determination. 99% of Fourth Vow builds in POE 3.24 used Determination, while only 91% did so in POE 3.25. While the percentage drop isn’t huge, the actual number of people using Fourth Vow is much lower. And this nerf to Determination is one of the key factors for this. It also means that these builds now need to invest more POE Currency to achieve the same level of armor as before.

  The third major change is about Juggernaut Unbreakable. Unbreakable Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer provides 8% armor applied to incoming Fire, Cold, and Lightning. Now it has 15% armor applied to incoming Chaos damage as well.

  Juggernaut Unbreakable has incredible synergy with Fourth Vow and Divine Flesh, allowing the character to split incoming elemental damage into multiple types to apply armor to each type to mitigate the damage. But the new Juggernaut relies more on Endurance Charges to mitigate elemental damage.

  While you could argue that the new Unbreakable simply provides a new option to run a crafted Rare Body Armour and Divine Flesh to achieve similar results, the fact is that you gain an enormous benefit against physical damage by doing so. You’ll have access to more base armor and an extra PDR Suffix, not to mention the powerful Eldritch Implicit. Because of this change, the use of Fourth Vow in Juggernaut builds has dropped dramatically by over 50%.

  Some Unique Body Armours Still Popular

  While Unique Body Armour usage has dropped overall, not all Unique Body Armour has dropped. In fact, some Body Armour remains just as popular as they were in previous leagues, while some have even increased in popularity.

  Cloak of Flame usage has remained around 8% in POE 3.25 leagues. This is thanks to the increased Chieftain play rate, which has increased the number of characters using Cloak.

  Surprisingly, despite Battlemage’s Cry nerf, Iron Fortress Strength Stacking Body Armour has remained popular among Settlers of Kalguur.

  One of the biggest winners, Cloak of Defiance, saw its usage increase by nearly 400% from POE 3.24 to POE 3.25.

  Outro

  Overall, Unique Body Armour usage has indeed dropped, which could change the focus of many players when creating builds. However, whether GGG makes any changes to these items in future leagues, whether it is buffing their unique stats, or simply moving them to a stronger Base Type, or perhaps they are also happy to make these items more niche, only time will tell.

• How To Make The Best Build Around Elemental Hit Of The Spectrum Skill In Path Of Exile 3.25? - Build Tips & Items

  With the melee buff in the Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League, the ranged Ascendancies represented by Deadeye have been neglected by players. But if you need a speed-mapper that can farm Tier-17 maps, run Maven Invitations, and even fight bosses during the game, then Deadeye’s build is definitely your best choice.

  Before making a build, we need to determine which skill you want to use mainly. Since Tornado Shot has been nerfed, you can choose the new Elemental Hit of the Spectrum skill. This guide will give you some suggestions around this build and introduce some items needed in this build so that you can complete this build as soon as possible.

  Recommendations For The Build

  As mentioned above, the most important skill for this build is Elemental Hit of the Spectrum, a new Transfigured gem added to this league that can cause three types of elemental damage to enemies - shock, ignite, and freeze, and also cause ailments to surrounding enemies.

  In addition, this Transfigured gem can also be placed on Bows and Wands, so Elemental Hit of the Spectrum is the best skill in the Deadeye build. And this skill does not cause non-elemental damage, so you don’t have to use POE Currency in Physical Damage investment.

  At the same time, the build equipped with Elemental Hit of the Spectrum is an extremely fast mapper, which can even allow you to complete the task of running the map in some maps with Pinnacle Bosses and get the last reward quickly.

  However, the defense of this build is not very good. If you face some tanky bosses or bosses with high health, you need to pay attention to your position during the battle and avoid those boss telegraphs and deadly map modifiers, such as no leech and elemental reflect.

  So you need to try to increase your Evasion to the upper limit and Spell Suppression to 100% before the battle so that you can better protect yourself. Even if you have very high HP leech, Endurance Charges, and Movement Speed, you still have to be careful to avoid getting hit.

  Recommended Items

  Uniques

  While you can still be very powerful without Uniques in this build, your build will be even more powerful if you equip them! Here are Uniques you can choose from in each slot.

  Helmet: You can use Rat’s Nest early in the build, which is everywhere. Then switch to Black Sun Crest when you do Omniscience swap.

  Amulet: Similarly, you can use Hyrri’s Truth early in the build to get Culling Strike, free Precision, and a lot of Crit. Then at the endgame, you can swap it out for Crystallised Omniscience.

  Body Armor: This Unique called Hyrri’s Ire can be equipped all the time without switching, as it provides you with a lot of Dexterity, Spell Suppression, Evasion, and flat Cold Damage.

  Rings: This build doesn’t actually need the effects that Rings provide, but if you come across some nice and useful rings, you can use Kalandra’s Touch to copy them to the other hand. If you have a high attack speed and movement speed requirement in your build, you can choose Death Rush.

  Belt: You can choose Headhunter to help you easily farm everything on the map, but if you don’t have Headhunter yet, you can take Bisco’s Leash as a short-term substitute, which is also very good.

  Flasks: Here you can have two choices: Dying Sun can increase your clearing speed, and Progenesis can increase your survivability. The specific choice depends on your gaming habits and game ideas.

  Jewels: You can choose Interrogation, Thread of Hope, Watcher’s Eye or a Lethal Pride.

  If you get some Chaos Orbs during the leveling process, you can also use them to invest in Uniques in your build, this way your leveling process will be smoother and you will spend less. Here are Uniques you can choose from.

  • Helmet: Goldrim, Rat’s Nest, Thrillsteel
  • Body Armor: Tabula Rasa, Thousand Ribbons
  • Gloves: Shadows and Dust
  • Boots: Three-step Assault, Seven-league Step, Wanderlust
  • Amule: Karui Ward
  • Rings: Le Heup of All, Tasalio’s Sign
  • Belt: Prismweave, Bisco’s Leash
  • Weapon/Quiver: Hyrri’s Bite, Poised Prism, Silverbranch, Quill Rain

  Ascendancy Order

  To play this build, you need to ascend as Deadeye as it gives you a lot of fire speed, projectile damage and enhanced mark effect. But most importantly, it can fire two additional projectiles.

  If you want to try Tinctures, you can also choose to play as Warden. But considering the speed of running the map and the power of the build, Deadeye is undoubtedly a better choice. So the order of your Ascendancy Nodes should be Gathering Winds, Far Shot, Endless Munitions, and then Focal Point.

  The above is the build built around Elemental Hit of the Spectrum introduced in this guide. I hope it will be helpful for your exploration in this league. The items provided in this guide are for reference only. You can choose different items in specific situations. I wish you an auspicious time in the current Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League!

• You’ll Experience A Completely Unique Experience In Path Of Exile 2 Than In The First Game! - Differences Explained

  Path of Exile is a long-standing hack-and-slash MMO legend known for its detailed environments, engaging combat, and nearly endless content. Now, the developers want to take these famous aspects to the next level with the reimagined sequel Path of Exile 2. In this new game, you’ll experience a completely different game experience than the original game, such as changing some game mechanics to make the entire game more immersive.

  In addition, the official release time of Path of Exile 2 will be staggered with the update time of the first game, so you can enjoy exploring this new game! This guide will tell you exactly what the differences between the two games are, so that you can prepare.

  1. New Local Couch Co-Op

  In a game this large, the simplest changes are often the most important, such as Local Couch Co-Op, which is a feature that Path of Exile players have dreamed of. It’s officially here in the much-anticipated Path of Exile 2, and it’s not a one-off add-on.

  You can explore the dangerous land of Wraeclast with your family or friends in this feature, without having to sign up for a new account. This means you don’t need an extra console or copy of the game to help you farm some POE Items or face powerful bosses with your friends during your exploration.

  In addition, Local Couch Co-Op will attract more new players to start paying attention to this game, making it a great addition to the staying power that the series strives to achieve.

  2. Cross-Platform Synchronization

  Although everyone has different needs for cross-platform games, it would be more popular if a game had this feature. So in POE 2, not only is the synchronization of game accounts on different platforms realized, but also the synchronization of progress across platforms!

  In this way, you can use the same character to explore the same progress on different devices, and no longer regret creating a new character or missing out on valuable experience points and items.

  This change is very useful for some players who want to play games anytime and anywhere, because it is very convenient to switch very smoothly between game consoles and mobile gaming devices such as Steam Deck. As the audience of these devices becomes wider and wider, I believe that more games will achieve such cross-platform synchronization.

  3. Currency System Has Changed

  Unlike the original, the sequel will use Gold, which was more important in Path Of Exile 3.25, as the core resource and POE Currency of the entire game. You can pick up the loot dropped by the monsters you defeat or trade with Vendors.

  In addition, the rarity of the loot you get from fighting bosses will also affect the value of the currency you get, so boss encounters in Path Of Exile 2 are your principal source of gold and other rare currencies.

  It is unpredictable that other currencies, such as Orb of Alteration and Orb of Scouring, may be replaced by gold-based mechanics. However, it is worth noting that Alchemy and Transmutation shards in the game can still be obtained by disenchanting items.

  This change in the currency system mainly changes the relationship between you and Vendors, making item trading a more general tool for farming gold. This will make it easier for new players who have never tried this kind of game to fall in love with this game, because this currency system is very easy to learn and does not require too much brainpower.

  4. Comprehensive Changes To Gem System

  Another big change in POE 2 is about the gem system-you will not find gem sockets in weapons. But don’t worry, this is not to remove all gems, but to move all gem sockets to the gem menu next to it, where there will be 9 slots for various skill gems.

  But the number of this slot is not fixed. It depends on the rarity of your gems and the skills you want to link. You need to find some uncut gems and apply the skills you want to this gem, instead of looking for gems that already have skills.

  In the new game, these gems can provide a lot of customization options for your character and build. For example, support gems will provide you with more unique mechanisms based on the differences between skills and Classes. This means that you have more freedom when creating your own build, and each build or item will be more in line with your usage habits.

  5. New Weapon Types Added

  In many trailers, you should have learned that there will be four new weapon types for you to use in Path of Exile 2, which also provides more options for different player play styles.

  The first two major weapons to be introduced are the hybrid spear, which can be used for both melee and ranged combat, and the strength and intelligence flail that focuses on critical attacks. The other two are crossbows, which have different types of crossbows to deal with different types of enemies.

  These weapons will appear in the official version along with the exciting new classes in the game. These changes will make players’ personal play styles more unique and have more choices in weapons and builds, rather than just focusing on buffs.

  These are the differences you will experience in Path of Exile 2 compared to the original. Do these changes make you more excited about this new sequel? We will follow up on any subsequent changes and look forward to meeting it with you in this new game!

• How Has Crowd Control Mechanic In Path Of Exile 2 Changed From Before? - Differences & Impacts

  Hello Exiles, Path of Exile 2 Early Access is finally confirmed to be released on November 15th! I believe you are already rubbing your hands and are ready to jump into the game. But don’t worry, here we will highlight the mechanic changes between PoE 2 and PoE 1 in the future so that you can be prepared before the release!

  In this guide, we will focus on introducing Crowd Control effects, such as Stun and Freeze, to see how exactly they work and how they differ from the same mechanics in Path of Exile 1.

  So this guide should be useful for anyone who is completely new to the series, and it will serve as a good resource for PoE 1 players to help them compare the mechanics of the two games and how they stack up against each other, whether they are new or old players.

  After the release of Path of Exile 2, it is very likely that league updates between the two games will be staggered, and some players will play both games at the same time and jump between the two leagues when new leagues are released. This inevitably makes it a bit jarring for some players to switch between two games with different mechanics, but this is where this guide comes into play. If you plan on jumping into POE 2, then don’t miss this guide!

  Crowd Control Effects & Differences

  Crowd Control effects in POE 2 include, but are not limited to, Stun and Freeze and a new effect that didn’t exist in POE 1, Electrocute. These effects prevent you from performing normal actions, but they can be implemented in different ways. For example, Freeze applies a 100% Action Speed Slow, preventing movement and the use of abilities, while Stun interrupts the action and then plays the stun animation, during which the stunned entity cannot perform any actions.

  Although the results of these Crowd Control effects are very similar, the major difference is how they are applied. For example, Freeze is inherently tied to Cold damage by default, and is inflicted by Cold damage that has a chance to Freeze or Critical Strike. With Stun, on the other hand, any type of damage can naturally cause Stun, but melee damage is more effective at causing Stun, while non-physical damage is less effective.

  Stun also has a new mechanic, Heavy Stun, which will build up over time and appear as another bar below the monster’s health bar. Heavy Stun will cause a significantly longer stagger animation, providing a larger opening for damage.

  Then we have Electrocute, which by default is caused by Lightning damage. But even if you have a 100% chance to do so, it doesn’t mean you will always cause this Crowd Control effect.

  Damage Threshold System

  This is because there is a Damage Threshold System that determines whether a strike will cause a Control effect on Freeze and Electrocute.

  This is an Ailment Threshold that is generally equivalent to the monster’s maximum life. You must have a chance to cause a Control effect or cast a Critical Strike, and must also cause enough damage for it to be effective.

  Using the monster’s Ailment Threshold as an example, for Freeze, a strike that causes 5% of the monster’s maximum life will have a base Freeze duration of 0.3 seconds, and any lower strike will not apply Freeze.

  However, you can re-roll modifiers to increase Freeze duration by spending POE Currency, which means you can go as low as 0.3 seconds. Freeze Threshold is smaller in damage relative to Ailment Threshold, though. For Stun, you can also adopt a similar system to set Stun Threshold.

  What Are The Affects Of The Changes To Control Effects?

  But the important thing is that Crowd Control effects have changed drastically in Path of Exile 2. Control effects that do not reach Threshold are not simply discarded like in POE 1, instead, they are added to a counter. This counter keeps track of all instances of Control effects of that type, and the counter adds the size of these instances together until they reach the required Threshold.

  Builds

  At this point, the effect will affect the entity, which means that some builds that were used to dealing multiple slight damages and could not reach Ailment Threshold of Control effect in POE 1 with a single hit can now finally shine in POE 2.

  This will also have a significant impact on build crafting, as you will be able to more reliably inflict these Control effects on enemies that were previously restricted from doing so.

  Bosses

  In addition, these settings will deal a lot of positive damage in a single hit. But the most notable impact of this change is on boss design. Because in POE 1, GGG was forced to make bosses immune to Freeze by limiting their minimum Action Speed, and they also needed to patch the ability for players to Stunlock bosses by making bosses immune to Stun for a long time after being stunned.

  But in POE 2, it will work very differently. Bosses will not have a minimum Action Speed ​​or Stun Immunity. Instead, when a boss is affected by a Control effect, the threshold that needs to be reached to inflict the same Control effect will increase, so players will need to wait longer and longer to apply these effects to the boss.

  However, this threshold scaling will also decay naturally over time in boss encounters, so you can take advantage of these Crowd Control effects even with low damage builds.

  This system with threshold scaling is largely to prevent over-application of Crowd Control effects to bosses, and to avoid situations in party games where players can stack a bunch of the same effects and keep stunning the boss.

  Overall, I have to say this is a great way to apply Crowd Control effects. When you apply these Control effects to a boss, you feel rewarded for really investing in them, which is really not that good in POE 1 at the moment. What do you think of this? Do you think there is room for improvement? See you in the game!