News Tag: Path Of Exile 2

It has been confirmed that Path of Exile 2 Early Access will release the latest Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt on April 4, which will bring a lot of new game content to players, and the most exciting one may be the addition of an Ascendancy class to the existing 3 classes.

It is worth introducing you to the new Warrior Ascendancy class, Smith of Kitava, which brings some truly fascinating abilities and functions to this character with super survivability and damage capabilities, such as you can create a custom powerful armor for yourself based on the position you choose this class, but the premise is that you already have a Normal body armor with a white description in your build.

This is very beneficial for players who want to use super survivability to challenge and succeed in a onetime challenge in a more difficult encounter. If you are one of these players, you will be very interested in this guide to the passive skills in Smith of Kitava Ascendancy, as this will determine what kind of play style you will explore in POE 2.

Smith Of Kitava Ascendancy Overview

Compared to Warrior’s two existing Ascendancy classes, Warbringer and Titan, Smith of Kitava is overall more powerful because of his passive skills that can provide you with additional resistances based on the resistances you stack for him in your build.

For example, Coal Stoke can modify your build’s fire resistance on the one hand, and on the other hand provide you with 50% of its value of cold or lightning resistance. With Forged in Flame activated, your maximum resistance will also have the same buff.

So without worrying about defensive capabilities, you can buy POE 2 Currency as much as you want to upgrade gear that can provide you with super high damage capabilities, so as to create a build with excellent offensive and defensive capabilities.

In addition, Smith of Kitava Ascendancy also has the ability to summon weapons, cause huge fire damage explosions, and increase the damage of minions, which can only be seen with Raging Spirits Gem in the previous Warrior build.

Passive Skills

From the current trailer of the passive skill tree of Smith of Kitava Ascendancy, its shape is unique and seems to be only biased to one side. As its name suggests, all of its passive skills can enhance weapons with its own craftsmanship and make an armor that increases all resistances, making it an excellent character for single-player exploration missions.

Currently, POE 2 has only released unlockable passive skill points on 4 branches. Here are their names and specific effects. You can activate them according to your play style. We will also continue to pay attention to any information released by the developers and update them in time.

Branch 1

• Fire Damage - Increases fire damage by 20%.
• Heat of the Forge - Grants the skill called Fire Spell on Hit.

Branch 2

• Fire Resistance - Increases fire resistance by 15%.
• Coal Stoker - A modifier to Fire Resistance also grants Cold Resistance and Lightning Resistance at 50% of its value.
• Forged in Flame - A modifier to maximum fire resistance also grants maximum cold and lightning resistance.

Branch 3

• Melee Damage - Increases melee damage by 20%.
• Against the Anvil - Grants the skill called Temper Weapon.

Branch 4

• Minion Damage - Minions deal 20% increased damage.
• Living Weapon - Grants the skill called Manifest Weapon.

Among the above passive skills, you may pay attention to the three additional skills granted by Fire Spell on Hit, Temper Weapon, and Manifest Weapon, which are also passive skills that you can activate when using Smith of Kitava.

Unfortunately, the specific effect of Fire Spell on Hit has not been announced yet. We can only know from its name that it should be a skill that can cast fire damage. As for Temper Weapon, it can make your attacks explode on impact, causing devastating AOE impact. Manifest Weapon can make an animated copy of your weapon to fight alongside you.

It is worth mentioning that after you choose this Ascendancy Class you will get a new skill for free, Smith’s Masterwork, which you can insert into your build at will. This skill will allow you to spend Ascendancy points on additional body armor passive skills, but it should be noted that you can only use Normal Body Armor when using this skill.

Below are some of the passive skill options you can equip Smith’s Masterwork with and some benefits it can provide to your armor. These skill nodes are not related to each other, so they cannot be considered a branch. You can choose the corresponding skill node based on your defense requirements.

• Flowing Metal - Body Armor increases 5% maximum fire resistance.
• Molten Symbol - Body Armor grants 25% of physical damage from attacks received as fire damage.
• Internal Layer - Body Armor grants a 50% reduced critical damage bonus to hits against you.
• Leather Bindings - Body Armor restores 5% life per second.
• Lead Lining - Body Armor increases 75% Lightning Resistance.
• Support Straps - Body Armor increases Strength by 20%.
• Kitavan Engraving - Body Armor increases maximum life by 15%.
• Tantalum Alloy - Body Armor increases 75% Fire Resistance.
• Heatproofing - Body Armor grants Immune to Ignite effect.
• Heavy Bracing - Body Armor increases stun threshold by 100%.
• Padded Plates - Body Armor increases 75% cold resistance.
• Dedication to Kitava - Body Armor grants armor that also applies to Chaos damage taken from hits.

The above is all the information we know about Smith of Kitava Ascendancy added in Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt, which was released on April 4th. There are still many specific character skills and functions in POE 2 that have not been announced. We can look forward to what new gaming experience GGG will bring to players in this major patch!

In a livestream hosted by GGG late last month about Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt update, the developers announced that five Ascendancies will be added on April 4th to allow players to create more builds and play styles. The most exciting for players who are used to hitting enemies with spells and dealing tremendous damage is the addition of a Lich Ascendancy Class with increased spell damage for Witch.

If you are very curious about this new playable character, this guide will introduce you to all the passive skills used by Lich from all the current trailers and developer statements, so that you can master the use of this class as soon as possible after the patch is released.

About Lich Ascendancy

In POE 2, Lich Ascendancy will turn your character into a powerful undead with a lot of magical passive skills, such as Crystalline Phylactery, Eternal Life, and Rupture the Soul. And it will provide you with higher spell damage capabilities based on your mana.

Similar to Witch, Lich is also a class based on non-channeled spells, so when making and building it, you need to buy POE 2 Currency as much as possible and invest on gear that can provide more Energy Shield, so that you can use Curses to create higher damage capabilities.

According to some informed players, Lich will also have the ability to gain an additional Energy Shield in battle to apply an explosion to the enemy. If this can be achieved, it will have a significant advantage in dealing with group enemies, because it can both increase its own defense and successfully kill those groups of enemies.

Passive Skills

From GGG’s livestream, Lich Ascendancy’s passive skill tree looks very much like a spider web, spreading from the top to the left and right. So here we will not list all the passive skill points you can unlock in a branching path, but divide them into left and right branches so that you can distinguish them better.

Here we need to remind you that Unholy Might is a buff effect that Lich can obtain, which can cast 30% of all the damage you can cast as additional chaos damage, which makes up for the lack of direct chaos damage in the current POE 2. The following are all the passive skill points that Lich has.

Branch 1 - Left

• Necromantic Conduit: While you are not low on mana, you and your nearby allies have Unholy Might, losing 5% of your mana every second.
• Mana: Increases maximum mana by 3%.
• Dominion Over Flesh: You can cast additional curses, which can affect enemies with Hexproof resistance.

Branch 1 - Right

• Soulless Form: 10% of damage taken bypasses energy shields. No inherent mana regeneration, and regenerate mana equal to 6% of your maximum life every second.
• Life: Increases maximum life by 3%.
• Eternal Life: While you have the energy shield, your life remains unchanged.

Branch 2 - Left

• Rupture the Soul: Cursed enemies killed by you or your nearby allies have a 33% chance to explode, dealing chaos damage equal to 1/4 of their maximum life.
• Curse Area: Curse area of ​​effect is increased by 25%.
• Blackened Heart: Every 100 max mana grants an increased 4% Unholy Might strength buff.

Branch 2 - Right

• Energy Shield if Consumed Power Charge: If you have recently expended a power charge, your energy shield is increased by 30%.
• Price of Power: Non-channeled spells consume a power charge to deal 25% extra damage.

Branch 3

• Energy Shield: Maximum Energy Shield increased by 20%.
• Eldritch Empowerment: Non-channeled spells consume an additional 3% of your maximum Energy Shield. Non-channeled spells deal 30% more damage. Note that consuming Energy Shield does not interrupt its recharge.

Branch 4

• Energy Shield: Maximum Energy Shield increased by 20%.
• Crystalline Phylactery: You can socket one non-unique basic gem. The effect of the socketed gem is increased by 100%. If you don’t have energy shields, the mana cost is increased by 50%.

From the above passive skills, it can be concluded that before you choose Lich as your Ascendancy Class, you need to think about whether your mana and energy shield value can support you to complete all the campaigns and successfully challenge all the content in the endgame, because when your energy shield is insufficient, your mana will continue to deplete and it will be difficult to restore to a healthy level.

The above are some of the passive skill nodes of Lich Ascendancy that will be added to the current POE 2 Early Access Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt on April 4. At this stage, the beginning of this very strange passive skill tree has not revealed a bit, and we will continue to pay attention to it. Again, you need to really consider which passives are most important to their play style, and which passives will do the most damage to them so that you can have more fun with them.

Ever since the early access of Path of Exile 2, there have been numerous complaints about the endgame content, most notably that it lacks the depth of the original game. So on April 4, the developers will release the most significant patch since the release of POE 2, Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt, which aims to completely overhaul the endgame, introducing changes that are both substantive and meta-defining.

The changes we’ve seen so far include the introduction of some new endgame mechanics, the integration of campaign-related changes into the endgame, and major changes to existing mechanics in order to pursue deeper and more meaningful exploration. This guide will show you what new endgame mechanics will be available in patch 0.2.0 and how they work, so that you can explore further.

It’s worth mentioning here that in order to bridge the digital divide between the original and the sequel, there will be a lot of new endgame mechanics coming to POE 2 in Dawn of the Hunt, which indirectly prompted the developers to add 10 additional Atlas passive points for players to farm and grind.

Rogue Exiles

The first new mechanic we need to introduce is Rogue Exiles, which look very similar to you will appear in maps with a lot of POE 2 Divine Orbs that you want to farm, as well as some super-powered Unique gloves.

According to the developers, there will be 12 Rogue Exiles when the patch is officially released, each with different item combinations and unique encounters. Rogue Exiles will use the same skills as you. For example, they can also do evasive rolling and can use very advanced pathing and enemy targeting mechanics. The gear used in the build is no exception, so this encounter is very challenging when they are equipped with Temporalis or Hands of Wisdom and Action.

For this kind of battle, you may want to equip as many gears as possible with higher damage or defense capabilities or buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade the rarity and roll affixes of the same gear to ensure that your combat capabilities are higher than these Rogue Exiles. After you successfully defeat them, the Uniques they are equipped with will become your loot.

Azmerian Wisps

Wildwood Wisps in POE have also been added to the sequel to a new name, now called Azmerian Wisps. These little wisps have a very huge impact. They have already appeared in Grelwood in Act 1 of the original game, and become one of the monsters that players must defeat in the endgame.

In POE 2, Azmerian Wisps appear randomly in zones and Waystones, and will infuse monsters in the current zone with additional powers, such as offensive and defensive abilities. When you get close to them, Wisps will fly faster to normal monsters and turn them into rare or unique monsters.

These possessed monsters have additional attacks, such as summoning spectral animals to finish the fight, so you need to be flexible enough in these encounters to get the increased quantity and quality of loot and experience points.

Here are the names and specific effects of the four Azmerian Wisps that have been confirmed to appear in the game. In addition, as part of the endgame content, Azmerian Wisps will also have their own Precursor Tablets and Atlas Passive nodes, which may not be fully known until the official release.

• Wisp of the Great Bear: This is part of Wild Wisp family. It increases the health and stun level of the possessed monster. When possessing a rare or unique enemy, it adds an attack that uses spectral bear to slam the enemy.
• Wisp of the Winter Owl: This is part of Primal Wisp family. It provides additional cold damage and additional energy shield to monsters, and turns enemies killed by it (such as minions) into vortices. In addition, these possessed monsters will summon a large tornado to track the player.
• Wisp of Wild Cat: This is part of Vivid Wisp category. The affected monsters have a higher chance of dealing with critical hits and have increased evasion. Those possessed by rare or unique monsters can summon a group of feline spirits to track you down.
• Sacred Wisps: Unlike the first three, this is a general term for special types of elves, including Wisp of the Cunning Fox, which can turn ordinary monsters into magic monsters, magic monsters into rare monsters, and rare monsters into bosses. This is somewhat similar to how POE 2 Currency works.

These are all the new endgame mechanics added to the current POE 2 Early Access Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt, which is expected to be released on April 4. Of course, as mentioned earlier, this patch also makes very significant improvements to the mechanics that already exist in the game, such as Towers, Strongbox, and Essence.

These improvements and additions are all designed to get players who once gave up on this over-marketed sequel back to the game, and to give all players a better endgame experience. In general, everything GGG has done this time seems to be based on the player’s perspective and carefully listens to the player’s opinions and suggestions, so we are very much looking forward to what surprises it will bring us this spring.

Five new Ascendancy Classes have been added in this Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt update, giving players more options for their builds. Mercenary has been one of the most popular classes in the game since its Early Access release, so naturally, the addition of a brand new Ascendancy to this class has been highly anticipated once it was leaked. Here, we discuss this Ascendancy and explain what its strengths are, and what builds you might see play on this Ascendancy. Let’s jump right in!

A Solid Plan

Let’s first take a look at the first skill node in Tactician dual-choice four-point branch, A Solid Plan.

First, note that it provides an 8% increase in Spirit, which is very solid for a small passive, especially considering the 50% reduction in Reserve modifiers for Persistent Buffs. Now this one is really powerful, you will be able to retain more buffs with this node, for example Combat Frenzy will only retain 15 Spirit baseline instead of 30. But you need to have gem socket links for these skills to fit.

Now one thing to mention about this node is that there are over 100 new Support Gems coming out in patch 0.2.0, so the chances of us getting new Persistent Buff Skill Gems, like Vitality and Clarity, are pretty high.

Keep in mind though, that even though they are Support Gems, something like Vitality is still a Persistent Buff that would normally retain 20 Spirit, whereas with this node it will only retain 10.

All of Herald Skills will also be marked as Persistent Buffs, and while they will most likely be severely nerfed in this patch, consider how powerful this notable node is. Especially since it allows you to retain a bunch of high-cost buffs for a very low investment.

For example, Blink will cost you 30 Spirits to keep, and Cast on Critical will be 50 Spirits instead of 100. And yes, all of these Trigger Gems count as Persistent Buffs as well. So they apply to this node as well.

Considering there are so many options for persistent and buffs, this is just a very versatile strong node that you can get with almost any build you want.

Watch How I Do It

Now there are two different notable nodes branching off from this A Solid Plan node, each with a more specific effect on the build you want to use.

For Watch How I Do It, this causes allies in front of you to gain bonus attack damage equal to 25% of your mainhand weapon damage. Now, this may have some interesting effects on Spectres that appear in this patch. I’m sure there will be some mob types who abuse these fixed damage like crazy.

I think this node is more of a party support playstyle than any other mode, that’s because if you’re playing minions you can’t drop your Spectres, Gem Levels and Spirits, so you can’t use two-handed weapons here. You can only use one-handed weapons with Sceptres for fixed damage, which would be ideal for fixed damage, but I don’t really think that would be that great.

Also, there are Totems, but since all Totems in the game currently deal fixed damage based on Gem Level, I don’t think that would be too useful either, but from a party support perspective in group play this node is fine.

Whoever Pays Best

Then we have another branch option, Whoever Pays Best. Now this can place multiple Banners, in addition to War Banner. Banners are generally a bit weak in Path of Exile 2. So hopefully this change will get them some attention in the upcoming patches, but as of now I don’t see many people picking this up.

Suppressing Fire

Let’s move on to the next four point branch, starting with Suppressing Fire. Pin is a debuff that essentially acts as a route, since projectile damage builds up Pin, which will bind the target in place, and while the target is pinned, they can’t move. Pin has a default base duration of 4 seconds.

It’s worth noting that Pin is pretty easy to build up compared to Freeze. When the target is pinned, they are also considered immobile, so you can take advantage of this, like with Leverage Support Gem, which increases critical chance by 50%. But perhaps more notable is Siege Cascade, which is a crossbow damage ability.

So, you’ll be able to use this to actually build up the pins for Suppressing Fire, and the skill itself has 50% more built-in damage to pinned enemies, so this is a nice secondary node.

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Right Where We Want Them

For the next node in Suppressing Fire branch, this makes it even more powerful, which is Right Where We Want Them. This node makes the pinned enemy unable to do anything, they can’t move, they can’t attack or cast spells, they just stand there for the entire pinning period, like a puppet.

You know, the crazy Freeze is already very powerful in POE 2, but Freeze is much harder to get compared to Pin. So this node essentially turns your Pin into a pseudo-Freeze, and when mapping, you can immobilize everything you hit with a projectile. So it’s a great option for when your character has very limited movement speed, so you can buy POE 2 Currency and make Pin easier to build. This will go up most of the time, and it’s a very good four-point branch.

Polish That Gear

Now moving on to the next four-point branch, Polish That Gear, this gives you 100% of your Armor as additional Stun Threshold, and 100% of your Evasion Rating as additional Ailment Threshold.

So how does this node generally work? Your Stun and Ailment Threshold are first based on your max life, so if your max life is 3,200, let’s say your Stun and Ailment Threshold are both 3,200, then those numbers are used to calculate whether a hit will stun you or cause an Ailment shock to you.

For example, for every 4% of Ailment Threshold, there’s a 1% chance of a Stun Threshold being struck, but Polish That Gear gives you the potential to increase those thresholds significantly. Of these, just having 5,000 Armour alone will more than double your Stun Threshold. Considering we can’t easily avoid Stun and Ailment completely in POE 2, I think this is an excellent investment, especially if Ailment becomes more dangerous in patch 0.2.0.

Stay Light, Use Cover

Now the next node off this branch is Stay Light, Use Cover, and this is where things get a little interesting. This node gives you 200% Armor Defense, and enemies have an Accuracy Penalty against you based on distance. Additionally, your maximum Evade chance against strikes is 50%, and your maximum physical damage is reduced by 50%.

What this node does for evasion is that it essentially makes monsters less accurate, which reduces the trade-off against your evasion, making a lower total Evasion Rating more effective. But the other half of this node is more interesting, because you can defend with 200% armor, which means that any hit that interacts with your armor will use twice your total armor to calculate the damage reduction it provides.

Now, armor is at the other end of the scale compared to evasion, and we hope to see buffs to this mechanic in an upcoming patch that will provide similar benefits to the other half of Evade node.

Unleash Hell!

The next node we want to mention is Unleash Hell! From the trailer we can see the actual effect of this skill, to be honest it looks terrible, but who knew it was a very interesting skill design.

As we all know, for some off-screen minions, they are not actually with you, but with this skill, you can shoot a bunch of arrows to a location, and the minions will scale their damage based on your Dexterity and Strength. So there is a bit of attribute stacking factor, but in fact without the base damage number, we really don’t know how good this skill will be.

Cannons, Ready!

The last node is Cannons, Ready! This makes your totems’ skills 30% faster, and the totems only use skills when you fire attack projectiles.

But honestly, it’s not great, because the biggest problem for us is that the totem playstyle usually allows your totems to do all the work, but this node prevents the totems from using their skills until you specifically use skills to shoot and attack projectiles.

But for single target damage, 30% skill speed increase is a lot. And this node does not specify Ballista Totem, which means that you can use Weapon Swap to summon Shockwave Totem or Ancestral Warrior Totem, and then you can switch to another set of weapons to fire attack projectiles, making them trigger damage faster than usual. So this can lead to a lot of burst damage. As I said, it’s good for boss fights, but it’s terrible for mapping.

Now in general, Tactician Ascendancy does bring some pleasant effects, especially Pin branch and Reservation node are very good, and for those who like group games, the existence of Tactician will also provide unlimited support for you! I believe we will see some pretty good bows and crossbows built on this Ascendancy in the future.

Path of Exile 2, which was released at the end of last year, has been in early access for about 4 months, which has led to a very monotonous exploration experience and stale exploration content for players with super-strong levels and who entered the endgame stage early.

Not only that, some loyal players from the original game have been criticizing it since they entered the endgame stage of this sequel in early 2025, such as lack of depth and cruel death mechanism. But on the upcoming April 4, these may all face a very big change, because POE 2 will bring a major patch and a new season Dawn of the Hunt.

In it, you will get a lot of new game content, such as new classes, Ascendancies and more than 100 Support Gems, but the most important thing is the improvement of the endgame content. This guide will outline some of the endgame changes we’ve seen so far from POE 2 trailer and recent livestreams, so you can explore the new season once it’s officially released.

New Maps And Ways To Explore

First of all, in response to previous criticisms that the endgame content in Path of Exile 2’s Early Access lacked depth, Dawn of the Hunt will introduce an expanded Atlas tree with 10 additional points. This will allow players to customize the way they explore the endgame Waystones more freely, making exploration more fun.

In addition, the developers announced that they would add 7 new unique maps to the new season of POE 2, each with its own unique mechanics and encounters, but only 3 new maps were shown in the livestreams that took place the past two days.

In Ezomyte Megaliths, you’ll enter a forest with some rune-carved stones. After you walk around these stones and activate them, an energy storm will break out in a centralized location, spawning 10 waves of bosses that you need to defeat.

From what game director Jonathan Rogers has said about this map, Ezomyte Megaliths are probably the most challenging of the new maps added, as waves of enemies have never appeared in previous game content. So if you want to run it smoothly in one go, you can buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade and improve the defensive gear in the build.

Another map called Fractured Lake looks very similar to the exploration area provided by the original Lake of Kalandra League from the existing trailers. It will send players to a broken lake full of mirror enemies. During the run, the terrain you can explore will gradually rise from the water as you approach and eventually lead you to Fragmented Mirror.

Like POE Lake of Kalandra League, this Mirror will give you the opportunity to craft customized gear such as rings and amulets, and the number of affixes they carry is very large, and may even give your build the ability to break the rules.

The last map announced is Silent Cave, which will have a group of monsters trapped by Essence and a boss. You can choose to release Essences around you to gain experience and loot from these low-level monsters before challenging the boss, but the boss will be stronger at this time.

Or you can choose to challenge the boss directly to complete the map, and then release the four Essences that can provide you with Hysteria, Delirium, Horror, and Insanity, which can add some unique modifiers to your gear.

New Opponents

Have you ever thought that the character you use becomes an NPC in the game and needs you to kill? POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt turns this seemingly ridiculous idea into reality: the game will introduce 12 different Rogue Exiles, which will bring their unique skills and personalities to your opposite side and will fight you to the death.

These Rogue Exiles fight in the same way and with the same moves as the character you use, with the same ability to dodge and roll, avoid skills through smart pathing, and even smart aiming, which will make players who challenge them feel like they are in PVP. On top of that, these very lifelike opponents will even carry and gain some buffs from the gear you pick up during your exploration.

And when your build outperform these enemies and you defeat them successfully, you’ll be able to earn all the powerful Uniques they carry. Given this mechanic, many players are excited to farm a lot of high-quality gear from these Rogue Exiles and use it to enhance their own builds.

New Mechanics

In the current POE 2 exploration, you only need to complete all the main campaigns to enter the endgame stage directly, and there is no inquiry system. Next, NPC in your hideout will give you a Complete 15 Maps task common to all players and ask you to explore on your own.

Although this process is very simple and easy to understand, it is very stale and cannot bring players the excitement of entering more challenging endgame content, which is one of the important reasons why many players are controversial about it.

Fortunately, Dawn of the Hunt will make some changes to this, which brings a new perspective on mapping: you need to clean up all Corrupted Nexus that appear in Atlas and defeat enemies and unique bosses in them. After you successfully complete this operation, you will get crystalized power, which can provide you with additional Atlas points.

New Towers

Previously, the towers you explored were scattered around your Atlas, but you couldn’t avoid them. This meant that you had to go through a tower before you could unlock a map with unique modifiers or mechanics, which could result in a lot of wasted in-game resources or lost builds.

To address player complaints about this, the developers have significantly reduced the number of towers in Dawn of the Hunt and greatly increased their impact, with bosses having more combat mechanics and loot.

In addition, running some higher-level maps with towers increases the number of mechanics contained in tablets and the number of surrounding maps affected by them, all in an effort to make towers feel like a worthwhile part of POE 2, rather than something you’d rather skip.

The above are some changes and additions to the endgame content in Patch 0.2.0 and Dawn of the Hunt, which will be released on April 4th. I hope you can have a better experience in this game content that has been changed based on player suggestions, and get an excellent ranking in the season rankings as soon as possible. I wish you a happy game!

More than three months have passed since the release of Path of Exile 2’s early access, and players’ enthusiasm for it has gradually begun to decrease, and even the number of active players is not as good as the original. In order to improve this situation, the developer Grinding Gear Games announced that it will release the first major patch of POE 2 and the first season Dawn of the Hunt on April 4, which means that there will be a lot of new content in this game which is not full of vitality.

Among the many updates and additions, the appearance of the new class Huntress may make more POE 2 players excited about it, and even make those old exiles who once gave up this sequel return. This is definitely not an exaggeration. After the end of GGG’s livestream on the new patch and the new season, many players expressed their great expectations for this new class and how many new game styles and build possibilities it can add to POE 2 on the player community and social platforms.

So in order to let you know more about her, this guide will introduce you to Huntress’s specific profile and skills, etc., to facilitate your subsequent exploration.

About Huntress

From the previously released new season trailer, it can be seen that Huntress is a very handsome female character, but in the livestream, game director Jonathan Rogers introduced us that she is also an outstanding woman with a very tragic background and strives to protect herself and her family.

In terms of role play, Huntress can be regarded as the first class in POE 2 that is good at both long-range combat and melee combat. It can quickly and freely enter and exit the combat area, and the spear it uses can be used as a melee weapon to deal super damage to the enemy, and can also be used as a throwing weapon to attack some enemies within the range.

The appearance of this highly agile Huntress fills the gap in the current POE 2 without a highly flexible character and brings more possibilities for gameplay to the game. I think this is also an important measure taken by the developers to retain the current active players and expand new player groups.

Huntress’ Skills

Although the specific skills used by Huntress have not been fully announced, GGG mentioned several very important skill names and specific effects in Livestream, for example, an initial skill Whirlwind Slash, gives her a huge advantage in the early stages of the game, allowing her to create a whirlwind around himself.

Once the enemy enters it, they will lose their direction and be more vulnerable to damage, and it will explode after you leave the whirlwind. And after you cast this skill multiple times, its damage effect and range will be further expanded.

In addition, casting Whirling Slash skill on the elemental DoT area left by skills that can enhance the elemental damage in the spear will absorb DoT and inject the element into the whirlwind, making it have super high elemental damage at the same time. So if you combine it with some crowd control skills, your efficiency in clearing and farming experience and POE 2 Currency in early exploration will be very high.

Another Huntress skill that has been revealed is Twister, which fires a tornado that bounces off walls and hits enemies multiple times, similar to the existing Spark skill. If you combine it with Whirling Slash, it’s even more powerful and creates an additional cyclone.

And when you use this skill in combination, Twister will also inherit the elemental properties of Whirling Slash, so if you inject it with fire, you will cast a fire tornado, and the same goes for cold and lightning elements. If you want Huntress to focus on one elemental damage, then Lightning Spear is the skill for you.

It allows Huntress to throw a lightning-infused spear at your enemy target, and then continuously fire lightning from the hit enemy to other nearby enemies for group damage. On top of that, this skill also leaves a thundering elemental area damage on the ground, which only works on enemies, so you don’t have to worry about hurting yourself.

But it should be noted that it will consume your Frenzy Charges very much, so in the build based on this Lightning Spear skill, you should buy POE 2 Currency as much as possible to keep this important charge within a safe range. By the way, the lightning area damage caused by Lightning Spear can also be combined with the whirlwind generated by Whirling Slash, and you can rely on them to cast more threatening elemental damage.

Other skills that also use spears to cause tremendous damage are Explosive Spear and Storm Lance. The former allows you to throw your spear anywhere and cause it to explode after four seconds, which will cause huge damage and ignite all enemies in its radius. The latter will allow you to stick your spear into the ground and continuously cause lightning damage to nearby enemies.

These two can work well with Thunderous Leap, because after casting this skill, you will jump into the air to grab any spears stuck in the ground or the target area, which means that the cooldown time of your spear throwing skills will be greatly reduced, and the frequency of your dealing more damage will also increase accordingly.

All the above skills focus on ranged attacks. As a class that takes into account both play styles, Huntress can also use Wreck, which will cause you to rush straight to the target enemy and swing your spear to cause blood loss. If you continue to use Blood Hunt, it will cause the blood of all enemies in the current range to explode, and the stronger the blood loss effect, the greater the explosion damage.

Complementing these skills that can cause super high damage is Parry that Huntress can use on the off-hand, which allows you to defend with a small round shield anytime and anywhere. Unlike the usual shield raised in battle, this small round shield has a natural blocking effect.

So when you cast Parry, it will automatically interrupt and block all attacks from the enemy, and those enemies will receive more damage from your subsequent attacks. But like the current blocking system, using it too frequently will cause you to be dizzy or even die.

There are also some new skill gems added specifically for Huntress in POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt, such as Bind Spectre, which allows you to summon small minions to fight alongside you in combat by absorbing the souls of the enemies you defeat.

There is also Summon Rhoa, which will allow you to summon a very friendly mount Rhoa, which you can use to speed up your progress through the large exploration area, and can also be used in combat to gain a movement speed buff.

Ascendancy Classes Of Huntress

Like the 6 classes that were first released in the early access of POE 2, Huntress also has 2 Ascendancy Classes, namely Ritualist and Amazon. Ritualist will allow Huntress to enhance her strength through animal sacrifice and corruption, while Amazon will make herself a strong person by increasing physical and elemental damage.

You can choose the corresponding Ascendancy Classes according to your play style in the new season Dawn of the Hunt. The above is the overall situation of the new class Huntress in POE 2 and the specific effectiveness of the skills that can be used, which are summarized from the trailer and leaks from various channels.

In fact, from GGG’s release of this major update and the new season, it can be seen that POE 2, this excellent sequel, is valued. I think there may be more active players in the game after April 4, including some exiles who once gave up on it. But whether this grand occasion can continue, the developers may still need to think about it.

In the current popular Path of Exile 2, the diversity of builds is one of the most important reasons why players love it crazily. Here, you can raise the combat ability of your character build to a super level by collecting gear, upgrading your spells, and unlocking more passive skills in the game.

At this stage, POE 2 has many classes with different game styles for you to choose. If you prefer to use spells and minions to cause super high damage, Blood Mage will be your best choice. Most importantly, this Class plus the magic skill Fireball will help you have extremely fast clearing capabilities in the early exploration, and you still have unlimited possibilities in the endgame stage.

But it should be reminded that you cannot directly obtain Fireball Blood Mage build with the ultimate powerful ability. You can only upgrade it accordingly in the three acts of the game content that can be explored currently. This guide will introduce you to what skill gems you should use for this pre-powerful build at different stages of the game.

Act 1

First of all, I need to remind you that Blood Mage you use is one of Ascendancy Classes of Witch in the available basic class, so if you want to use the subsequent build with super damage capabilities, you need to choose Witch as your initial Class in Act 1.

In Act 1, your skill gems and mana are very scarce, so the operation here is relatively limited. But you can still use Flame Wall to cause huge damage to enemies that can provide you with a lot of experience points and POE 2 Currency.

After you accumulate more Uncut skill gems, you can convert them into Spark, which will help you deal with early enemies and bosses more effectively. Then, after you have the ability to obtain auxiliary gems such as Fortress and Arcane Tempo, you can use them to support Flame Wall and make it work effectively with Spark.

Finally, to help you get through the final boss encounter of each act, you need to insert Frost Bomb into your skill gem slot and insert Magnified Effect into its auxiliary gem slot, which will increase the effective range of your area damage by 40%.

Act 2

In this stage of the game content, you need to focus on increasing the damage ability of your build and significantly improving the farming efficiency. To achieve this goal, you need to add Hypothermia to your build, which will help you increase the cold spell damage ability, and Persistence and Heightened Curse will make it more effective.

Since cold spell damage is very helpful for clearing maps and farming experience points, buy POE 2 Currency as much as possible after you put it in your build so that it can be upgraded to the highest level as soon as possible. Then, after your character reaches level 31, you can use the level 9 Uncut Skill Gem and cut it into Fireball and Frost Wall.

These two skill gems will be the most important part of your Fireball Blood Mage build, so slot them in once you get their high-powered support gems, such as Scattershot and Unleash (for Fireball) and Spell Cascade and Concentrated Effect (for Frost Wall) and upgrade them accordingly.

Act 3 And Beyond

After reaching Act 3, your Fireball Blood Mage build is more mature and your focus should shift to build sustainability. First, you need to unlock Comet and combine it with Cast on Freeze, which will greatly increase your speed in clearing maps.

Then place Spell Echo, Impetus, Concentrated Effect, and Inspiration in the support gem slots of this skill gem combination, they all provide high power to this skill combination to make your Fireball Blood Mage build more powerful.

In addition, you can replace Frost Bomb with Eye of Winter at this stage of the game content to ensure that your cold damage ability can easily defeat the higher-level enemies in this scene. It is worth noting that you need to unlock Grim Feast in time to ensure that the energy shield value you generate can support you through this stage.

Don’t forget to use a lot of POE 2 Currency to unlock more auxiliary gem slots in Fireball, Cast on Freeze, and Frost Wall, and place gems with corresponding benefits in them. For example, you need Fortress and Fire Mastery in Fireball, and Spell Cascade, Glaciation, Considered Casting, and Ingenuity in Frost Wall.

For Spark, you can give it up here because your fire damage is already strong enough and there is no corresponding skill gem that can work effectively with it.

The above are some of the main skill gems and auxiliary gems that can be selected for Fireball Blood Mage build in the three-act game content provided to you by POE 2 Early Access. However, it is necessary to remind you that because of the unique skill mechanism in this sequel, each player may find the corresponding gems at different times. So you can modify it by yourself as long as you can get a better gaming experience in it. I wish you a happy game!

After you have explored the easier gameplay of Act 1 in Path of Exile 2, you will enter the second half of the exploration phase where you can freely choose Ascendancy to further specialize your previous Class, probably starting from Act 2.

In the current Early Access, all 6 classes have 2 Ascendancy Classes to choose from. In Patch 0.2.0, which is expected to be released on April 4, the third Ascendancy Class for Mercenary will be launched, and the developers have also publicly stated that each Class will have three Ascendancy Classes in the official version of POE 2.

In Path of Exile 2 Act 2, you will gain points to unlock these Ascendancy Classes through some trials, and once unlocked, they will not be changed, but you can respec the nodes on the passive skill tree of your Ascendancy Class by talking to The Hooded one or Doryani and spend some POE 2 Gold in the in-game town.

Although this additional feature of character customization in the game may be a little difficult to understand, given that it is a necessary part of continuing to advance your character build to become powerful, this guide will give you an introduction to how Ascendancies in POE 2 work and how to unlock them, so that you can explore them.

How Do Ascendancies Work?

In fact, you can think of Ascendancy in POE 2 as a subclass of each Class: they have their own unique skills and perks, and you need to earn some Ascendancy Points by completing in-game trials to enjoy the benefits of these skills and perks for your build.

Although Ascendancy Points work very similarly to the nodes on the huge passive skill tree, they are a completely independent in-game resource that can only be used to obtain some of the most powerful skills offered to Class you are using.

Just introduced, in the current pre-experience, each Class has two of its own Ascendancy Classes, and the following list is their specific classification. Although the name is very fancy, you can treat it like a regular Role-Playing Game class and it will be easier to understand.

• Sorceress - Stormweaver & Chronomancer
• Warrior - Titan & Warbringer
• Ranger - Deadeye & Pathfinder
• Witch - Blood Mage & Infenalist
• Mercenary - Witchhunter & Gemling Legionnaire
• Monk - Invoker & Acolyte of Chayula

How To Get Ascendancy Class?

When you explore Act 2 of POE 2, you will encounter a dungeon called Trial of Sekhemas, which you need to successfully run in order to unlock your Ascendancy Classes and Ascendancy Tree. If you are too immersed in exploring it and miss it, it doesn’t matter. You can also unlock this important mechanism through Trial of Chaos in Act 3.

But it should be reminded that before you can proceed with these two trials, you need to find the keys to unlock them: Djinn Barya and Inscribed Ultimatum. The former requires you to defeat Balbala, the Traitor in the optional dungeon Traitor’s Passage located in Ardura Caravan, and the latter also requires you to defeat Xyclucian, the Chimera in Chimeral Wetlands.

Although these two bosses are optional enemies in the game, you may want to pay special attention to these two encounters because they have an important impact on your character build. For example, if Balbala has super high mobility and damage ability, you need to buy POE 2 Currency to enhance the dodge level and defense ability of your current build.

Generally speaking, the difficulty of Trial of Sekhemas is much lower than that of Trial of Chaos, so it is recommended that you try to complete the trial in Act 2 first so that you can run it to completion more easily and unlock Ascendancy mechanism.

How To Get More Ascendancy Points?

After you unlock the Ascendancy Class, you’ll need to look for more Ascendancy Points to make your Ascendancy skill tree stronger. There are a total of 8 Ascendancy Points for you to collect in the current POE 2 Early Access, and here are their specific locations and conditions for obtaining them.

First Ascendancy Point

Your first batch of Ascendancy Points is earned by unlocking two important trials: you will find the first two points from the encounter between you and Balbala, the Traitor in Act 2’s Traitor’s Passage, and from your encounter with Xyclucian, the Chimera in Act 3’s Chimeral Wetlands.

Please note that this reward is guaranteed to appear in your available loot, but the key items used to unlock Trial of Sekhemas and Trial of Chaos are randomly found in the loot of a place, so you may need to farm these two optional bosses multiple times.

Second Ascendancy Point

The second batch of Ascendancy Points is earned from both trials, just by defeating certain monsters at a certain level. In Trial of Sekhemas you’ll find it in the trial unlocked by using 2 Djinn Baryas with Area Level 45 and above, while in Trial of Chaos you’ll need to use 7 Inscribed Ultimatums with Area Level 60 and above to unlock Trial Room that gives Ascendancy Points.

Third Ascendancy Point

The second way to get Ascendancy Points is actually the same as the third, only the level of Trial Room you unlock is different. For Trial of Sekhemas, you’ll find it in rooms with Area Level 60 and above that have been run 3 times, and for Trial of Chaos, you’ll find it in 10 Trials with Area Level 75 and above. But be aware that both of these ways of getting it are very random, and you may be farming them multiple times.

Fourth Ascendancy Point

The last batch of Ascendancy Points will be provided by the final bosses of both trials, so in order to get all the points to unlock more Ascendancy passive skills, you must be fully prepared for it, such as maximizing your damage and defense capabilities to successfully complete these difficult encounters.

The above is all the specific information about Ascendancy Class in the current POE 2 Early Access. I hope that you can unlock this important mechanism faster and more smoothly with the help of this guide, and most importantly, it can make your subsequent exploration smoother and more comfortable. I wish you a happy game!

Of the all classes currently available in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, Deadeye is the character with the fastest movement speed, so you can create a highly flexible character build around it.

You might choose a bow as a more practical weapon for this build, but it is worth mentioning that this class with extraordinary mobility can interact very interestingly with crossbows. Under this combination, Gas Grenade Deadeye build comes into being, which uses Explosive Shot to detonate groups of enemies while you throw Gas Grenades.

If you choose the right options for this Gas Grenade Deadeye build, you will have a very good tool for running maps and farming loot, and even completing some challenges in the endgame stage. But choosing the right and effective skills or gear for a build in POE 2 can be a very troublesome thing, but don’t worry, this guide will show you one by one.

About Gas Grenade Deadeye Build

While Witchhunter, which also uses a crossbow, has its own detonation effect, Deadeye’s additional skill speed, movement speed, and additional projectiles make it the best choice for quickly clearing maps.

When you first make this build, you may want to focus on Lightning Arrow, and then fully transition to Gas Grenade when you reach level 22. Although you need to press multiple buttons when you fight with this component, you may feel that it is very smooth and not hectic due to the powerful abilities of Deadeye itself.

Skill Gems

As mentioned above, you can use Lightning Arrow and Lightning Rod together at the beginning, so your basic skill rotation is to throw Lightning Rod near the enemy and then cast Lightning Arrow to deal heavy damage to the enemy.

You can use this skill combination until you unlock Orb of Storms. After this skill is available, you can cast it before Lightning Rod to lay a good foundation for all subsequent heavy damage.

If you have a Level 4 Uncut Spirit Gem, remember to cut it into Herald of Thunder, which can help you get a super buff to your clearing speed. During this skill rotation, you may encounter some mana problems. You can use Thief’s Torment to help you alleviate the impact of this problem on you.

However, its farming cost and trading cost are very high, and it is difficult to obtain for low-level characters. So the best way here is to buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade your current mana bottles or upgrade gear that can provide you with enough spirit to maximize the utilization of Herald of Thunder.

At around level 22, you can start using Gas Grenade, remember to change your weapon to Crossbow. Then focus on obtaining those nodes related to grenades and those unspecified grant Pierce, Chain, etc.

At this time, your skill rotation can become throwing Gas Grenade into the previously cast Flame Wall and firing some Gas Grenades at it. If you have a free skill gem slot, you can also add Flash Grenade to your build to easily stun bosses.

In addition, Oil Grenade can help you slow down the enemy’s advance and attack speed, which is also a very useful skill gem. If you want to deal more damage to the enemy, you can apply Fire Exposure to it, and remember to use Encumbrance and Strip Away to increase the effect of these two debuffs.

It is worth mentioning that after you unlock Explosive Shot, you can move the lower-level skill gem Flame Wall out of your build to deal with more challenging battles. If you find the multi-button play style troublesome, you can always use Radiant Grief or Birth of Fury to automate your Ignites, making it essentially a one-button build.

Best Passive Skills

When choosing passive skills, consider Blur, Eagle Eye, Clean Shot, Heavy Ammunition, and Careful Aim before you reach level 22, which will give your Lightning Arrow a higher Projectile Damage node to quickly farm POE 2 currency and experience points.

Once you reach level 22, you can focus on the effect of Gas Grenade. But before switching, you need to get Cluster Bombs, Volatile Catalyst, and Volatile Grenades to maximize the benefits of this important skill.

In addition, you can also invest in some defensive passive nodes in Gas Grenade Deadeye build, such as Leather Bound Gauntlets and Feel No Pain. Since Evasion is an important operation for you to defend in battle, Afterimage and Backup Plan, which are beneficial to it, are also your focus.

What’s more, passive nodes that increase Attack Speed, Accuracy Rating, Area of ​​Effect, Cooldown Recovery, and Damage to Two-Handed Weapons are also the key points you can unlock.

For some players who like to use super high damage capabilities to defeat enemies or bosses in one fell swoop, the three passive skill points of Jack of all Trades, Repeating Explosives, and Sand in the Eyes may give them the best gaming experience.

About Gear

Since DPS of Gas Grenade Deadeye build scales directly with the level of Crossbow, spend some POE 2 Divine Orbs to upgrade it after every 10-15 levels of your character, and regularly look for crossbows with higher physical damage and faster attack speed, such as Bombard Crossbow.

For the other gear slots, the attribute gains you focus on are similar to other builds, such as Max Life, Elemental Resistances, Attributes, and Mana Regen. You may also focus on Life Regen when facing bosses or enemies with high damage capabilities.

These are some of the skills and gear options that can be selected for Gas Grenade Deadeye build in the current POE 2 Early Access. I hope that with the help of this guide, you can quickly unleash the power of this build and use it for more fun exploration. I wish you a happy game!

The first major patch during Path of Exile 2 Early Access is finally coming, and the new season mechanism brought by this update will also be fully unveiled. We will be able to see the results of GGG’s busy work in the past 4 months, and see whether the new season mechanism can make POE 2 completely break through the limitations of the original and create a new myth.

There is no doubt that this patch 0.2.0 will bring a lot of new content, new classes, Ascendancy system expansion, new Skill and Support Gems, new weapon base types, new Passive Skill Tree and Keystones, as well as new maps and stories waiting to be explored. Many players who quit the game before because of the limited content in the early access can come back, and this update provides a lot of fresh content to play.

However, although the content of this update is exciting, I must say that these are not the most important part of this patch, because this will be the first time GGG really has the opportunity to solve the problem of the state of the game.

Original Update Plan Disrupted

The original plan was that GGG would release updates to Path of Exile 2 Early Access when they needed to address issues such as interaction bugs or over- and under-mechanics, and they did exactly that in the beginning.

They released several updates that fixed major bugs and toned down over-performance builds. However, the latter was not particularly well received, after all, many players follow creator builds. Therefore, when creators walk a fine line between expected interactions and bug abuse, it is bound to end badly, and a group of players are left with an empty shell of a build with no good way to rework them.

The solution here could be to temporarily reduce the cost of respec skill points. Although players may still be disappointed that their builds are crushed, these changes can save the character without having to launch a brand new one. After all, players should understand that it is only Early Access at the moment, and anything can change at any time.

But as time went on, these changes seemed to become less and less popular, so much so that GGG made a major decision. Instead of patching the game regularly during Early Access, they decided to go against their original plan and release larger league-style updates that bundled all the changes and new additions together. They are now starting to treat POE 2 Early Access as a complete product, just like they did with POE 1.

But this change in plan was not directly communicated to players, and the ridiculously unbalanced mechanics and economic systems were not controlled. Anyway, at the moment, we are on the verge of the next big update, so for us, the question is what exactly will Path of Exile 2 be after patch 0.2.0 is released on April 4th?

Endgame And Campaign Are Too Different

Now, the game basically feels like it has been divided into two parts. If you haven’t played Path of Exile before, you can even think that the campaign and endgame are two completely different games.

The campaign from Act 1 to Act 3 feels like the game they have been presenting for many years, with a slower and more methodical gameplay and a focus on engaging boss battles. However, once you start Cruel Difficulty, the pace of the game gets out of control.

Honestly, this isn’t actually a big problem, though, as replacing Cruel Acts with Act 4-6 in the future may solve this problem.

The focus of this problem is in the endgame. You get the exact opposite in the endgame, and the pace is completely lost. At this point, the characters are much faster, and the monster power is ridiculous, with white monsters doing more damage than even elite enemies. Hordes of monsters rampage through the endgame, and the balance is completely off.

We don’t know if this is really the intention of the endgame. Because if you want to survive in the endgame, your only way out seems to be to buy POE 2 Currency and achieve a rapid leap in character power. Is pay-to-win the ultimate destination of every game?

POE 2’s Subsequent Development Speculation

However, as of now, we simply don’t know whether Path of Exile 2 is intended to be just an upgraded version of the first game, with system updates such as a new gem and slot system, a more refined entry experience, and a fresh start to deal with the inevitable growth in power.

Or, as we speculate, POE 2 endgame should be more like what we have seen in all the previews and demos over the past 5 years or so, gradually shifting to slower gameplay, emphasizing skill combinations, and more meaningful combat.

Endgame Gameplay

At ExileCon 2023, developer Rory Rackham answered a question discussing character recovery in the endgame and how players should deal with dangerous moments when being hit by monsters.

Looking at POE 1, constant regeneration or other means of recovery means that enemies need to deal tremendous damage to kill you, and any changes to leech or recovery in POE 2 are designed to counter it. This is definitely a good thing, making your character pay a higher price to get high regeneration.

Additionally, they rebalanced around boss fights again, bringing all of this stuff to a window where the character is in great danger after getting hit hard. The presence of a danger window that allows players to react to getting hit is a good idea compared to POE 1, but it’s not what we have right now in POE 2’s endgame. So to be honest, we don’t really know if POE 2 will be as fast as the original in the endgame, or if it will be the slower, more methodical game we expect.

But even if they don’t immediately state their intentions in the reveal, the patch notes tell the story for us. It can be seen that at the moment, we are at a crossroads for POE 2, and patch 0.2.0 is about to take it in a direction. What can you expect to see in this Dawn of the Hunt update? Everything is waiting to be revealed in the live broadcast on March 27th. Stay tuned!