NEWS GUIDE

Your experience in this extremely challenging game officially begins when you complete all the main campaigns of Path of Exile 2 and enter the endgame stage. In this extremely difficult endgame, the build you use must also be nearly perfect, such as having fast map clearing capabilities or super combat capabilities.

Among the many excellent POE 2 endgame builds, Grenade Mercenary has become a choice for many players with its unique play style and unstoppable capabilities. But it is worth considering that entering the endgame means that there are more build options to choose from, so who is the best Grenade Mercenary endgame build?

In order to save you time and energy in trying various build options, this guide will introduce you to the current options that can make Grenade Mercenary endgame build play its best effect, including skills and gear. Without further ado, let’s start our exploration!

Skill Gems

When you enter the endgame with Grenade Mercenary build, you are no longer just considering your damage output, but also your defense, because as you go deeper into Atlas map, the enemies you face will become stronger and stronger. So you need to start looking for skill gems that allow you to rotate between controlling and weakening enemies.

In view of this, you can use Explosive Grenade and Explosive Shot as your main means of damage output, and then use Flash Grenade as a tool to reduce the threat of group enemies to you periodically. With the help of these three skill gems, you can effectively fight most enemies, except for those bosses with anti-stun abilities.

But here I need to remind you that although you are likely to be flashed by the large area of ​​light generated by Flash Grenade, it is very suitable for you to use when you are forced into the corner of the arena, because you don’t have to have a high degree of accuracy to detonate the grenade on the ground, which is very friendly to some players with lower operation skills.

Additionally, you can rely on Gas Grenade and Oil Grenade to slow and poison enemies, just ignite them with your Explosive Shot. On top of that, these two grenades that deal area damage will also make enemies more vulnerable to fire damage or reduce their fire resistance after you choose the right support gems for them.

Coupled with the fact that Explosive Grenade can deal a lot of fire damage to them, this rotation combination can help you defeat most of the enemies you encounter during exploration. And in some trials or challenges with Rituals mechanics, you can try to distract the enemy with Ripwire Ballista.

Although Glacial Bolt is not a required skill gem in this build, if you put Fortress and Glacier in its support gem slot, it will give you more room for damage output in the arena because it will gather all enemies together.

Passive Skills

In the vast POE 2 passive skill tree, the best choices for Grenade Mercenary endgame build should be those passive skills that have strong buffs to your area of ​​effect and skill damage. Here are Notable Nodes that are worth your attention and what they do.

• Devastation: Increases area damage and area of ​​​​effect size by 15%.
• Overwhelm: Your attack speed is reduced by 5%, but your stun buildup is increased by 20% and your damage from two-handed weapons (includes crossbows) is increased by 40%.
• Cluster Bombs: Grenades take 50% longer to explode, but all grenade skills fire another round.
• Authority: Increases area of ​​​​effect size by 20% and cooldown recovery by 10%.
• Crushing Judgment: Armor Break duration and area damage are increased by 25%.
• Smoke Inhalation: All damage penetrates 15% of enemy fire resistance and all damaging conditions last 15% longer.
• Repeating Explosives: Increases the chance of a grenade exploding twice by 15%.

In addition to the above options, there are several Notable nodes that are also worth your attention, such as the group of Evasion and Armor nodes located at the bottom of the entire passive skill tree and to the left of Crossbow and Grenade constellation.

But if you have trouble exploring the maps unlocked by higher-tier Waystones, you can try increasing the elemental resistance in your build and respeccing those more defensive passive skills.

Best Gear Modifiers

There isn’t a specific piece of gear to recommend for Grenade Mercenary endgame build, but there are a few modifiers you should be aware of. But there is one weapon that will be key to the entire build - Bombard Crossbow, which always adds an extra projectile to your grenade attacks.

And when you have Cluster Bombs passive skill activated, each of your grenade skills can fire at least three grenades, which means your area damage and single target damage will be tripled!

Given the power of this weapon, my advice is to buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade Bombard Crossbow to a weapon with Magic or Rare attributes once you get it, so that your physical and elemental damage will be greatly increased.

Once your Bombard Crossbow has very high physical and elemental damage modifiers, you can use two Artificer’s Orbs to create two rune slots on the gear and add two Iron Runes to them, which will increase your physical damage by 40%, and this is additive with the modifiers on the weapon itself.

It is also worth mentioning that you should try to farm belts that can provide you with additional amulet slots so that you can take less damage from fights that can cause you status damage, to enhance your endgame survivability directly.

These are some of the skills and gear options you can use for Grenade Mercenary endgame build in POE 2. With POE 2 Patch 0.2.0 will be released on April 4th, Mercenary will have a new Ascendancy Class, so this kind of ranged enemy health depletion build may set off a wave. Hopefully, you can make such a powerful build that can easily explore the endgame as soon as possible with the help of this guide. Have fun!

Hello, Exiles, the biggest update since Early Access release of Path of Exile 2 is coming! Recently, GGG released a trailer for this patch 0.2.0, revealing some of the main contents of this update, including new seasons, Ascendancy classes, endgame balance overhaul, etc., but here, let’s focus on the two new unique items introduced in this patch.

It is well known that the current unique items in POE 2 are not good enough, or to put it bluntly, most of them are not worth the player’s investment currency. This is not only because most of them are mediocre in the early campaign, but more importantly, they will soon be surpassed by some medium-rare equipment, which means that all the efforts you put into this equipment may become a waste.

Therefore, players are eager to hope that the new unique items brought by this patch 0.2.0 will have a different effect and can remain powerful until the endgame. Without further ado, let’s take a look!

Prism Guardian

First up, we have Prism Guardian, a unique shield returning from POE 1, and as such, it unfortunately continues the trend of unique items having very low base defense values, minimal armor and energy shield counts, and no life scaling either.

However, its unique modifiers will make up for Prism Guardian’s shortcomings and provide a nice bit of flexibility, which could be useful for gear or support gem requirements. Additionally, it also provides a minimum of 18% bonus to all elemental resistances, and it’s worth mentioning that this modifier can even roll to 20% or more if you’re willing to invest more. But if you’re currently strapped for funds, you can also buy POE 2 Currency to fully utilize this mod, which is definitely not a poor investment.

The most important modifier here, though, is that you can add one to your maximum Spirit for every 50 maximum life. As such, this item will provide a way to scale your Spirit, allowing you to retain more Spirit to maintain powerful persistent buffs or more minions by expanding your maximum life at all times. This is a very powerful tool, and it’s just right for balanced defense.

The interesting thing about this modifier is that we currently don’t know how GGG plans to address life in the upcoming patch, whether they will improve life scaling to compete with energy shield, or whether they will keep it as is and nerf energy shield remains to be seen. But at 3,000 max life, this shield will provide 60 max Spirit, which is enough to reserve one or two low-cost persistent buffs or enable some extra minions.

Interestingly, however, we already have a way to scale Spirit from max life in Path of Exile 2, and that’s a skill node for Infernalist, Beidat’s Will, which only reserves 25% of your max life, but in exchange increases your max spirit by 1 for every 25 max life.

Combine this node with Prism Guardian, and you can greatly expand your total Spirit purely through life scaling, which is going to be very powerful. Keep in mind that there may also be some new abilities in 0.2.0, so there may also be new Spirit reservations to use.

An important thing to note about Prism Guardian is that Spirit gained from life only counts towards your total maximum life, it does not include any excess life you have.

The Deepest Tower

Next up, we have a crazy new unique helmet, The Deepest Tower. Unlike the Prism Guardian and a bunch of other POE 2 unique items, this one actually has a decent life modifier, breaking the unspoken rule of GGG that good unique items have no life modifiers. On top of that, it also has a decent amount of armor and energy shield and very good chaos resistance.

Then it has a special modifier where enemies in front of you count as low life. Now it’s important to mention that low life in Path of Exile 2 is 35% of max life, not 50% like in POE 1. So it takes longer to get a monster to low life, which in turn makes this modifier very powerful when combined with some of the other mechanics.

First up, Witchhunter Ascendancy adds 35% more damage to hits against low life enemies on the small connected nodes on the skill tree, these damage increases will always be active because any monster in front of you counts as low life. More importantly, because any class or Ascendancy can use them, these skill nodes together with The Deepest Tower provide an insane damage increase, with each small node adding 30% more damage to hits against low life enemies.

To put these nodes in perspective, a 30% increase in damage is about 2.5 times more than a normal small damage node. For example, 12% more damage when you’re swinging, or 12% more damage when you’re using a two-handed weapon.

So, just the small nodes themselves are pretty good, but there are two Notable Passives worth looking at as well.

First up, Finishing Blows adds 60% more damage to hits against low life enemies, which makes your damage rolls against low life enemies lucky, meaning you’ll always have lucky damage hits that can give you about 20% more damage. For example, this could be stronger for damage properties that have a much wider rolling range like flat lightning damage.

Then here’s another node, Finality Passive, that gives you even more bonuses against low-level enemies. It significantly increases the damage of hits against low-level enemies by 120%, which is crazy.

But the downside is that when your life is low, you take 5% more damage, which can be bad. But remember, in POE 2, low life is 35% of max life, so it's recommended that you get your life down to that low before you really start taking increased damage.

At this point, these nodes in the tree are well worth going with this helmet, even though some builds can’t even get to that point in the tree, but The Deepest Tower will still be useful even without these nodes. Because there is an Execute Gem here that provides 40% more damage on hits against low-life enemies, which is crazy.

Overall, both of these unique items have their own overwhelming advantages, and their appearance is bound to bring a new build gameplay change! Let’s wait and see!

It has been three months since the release of Path of Exile 2 Early Access, and players have entered a mature and proficient stage in their exploration. Although this early access game only provides players with 6 playable classes, through players’ attempts and exploration, many classes build with different play styles and abilities have been created.

However, since there are so many build options for you to choose in POE 2, such as a huge passive skill tree, a lot of Skill Gems and matching Support Gems, it may make some players who are difficult to make decisions very confused.

But in fact, you don’t need to worry about this at all, because this guide will now introduce you to the best builds in the game so far. Whether you like an aggressive play style or prefer a relatively conservative defensive play style, I think you can find the most suitable build for you from here.

1. Leap Slam Titan Warrior

While Warrior may not be favored by POE 2 players at present, becoming one class with the smallest player base and low utilization rate in the game, this does not mean that it cannot have great power. As long as you solve the problem of its ineffective armor and lack of mobility in the current patch, you may get a very strong melee build.

The suggestion here is that in the early game content of POE 2, you can try to focus on using simple mace and shield combinations and use Leap Slam skills as your main skills, which will make your exploration process in the first 6 acts smoother, because your super survivability can make you easily get through this stage.

For the more challenging endgame stage, you can use warcries like Infernal Cry, which will enhance your attack power and increase the fire damage that many enemies cannot resist. Or you can combine it with Herald of Ash skill and passive skills like Burn Away and Burning Strikes, which will make your damage ability stronger.

Since Warrior build is very Strength focused, you should aim for gear that has a big buff to this stat when picking gear, with the best option probably being Giant’s Blood, so you can use a powerful two-handed weapon with one hand.

Titan is probably the best for this build in all Ascendancy Classes, as your strength stat will be higher and you’ll get a lot of other passives that can enhance your original passives. After you get this Ascendancy Class, you can then gradually transition this build to be centered around Hammer of the Gods skill, which will peak your damage and survivability.

2. Lightning Arrow Deadeye Ranger

Compared to melee classes like Warrior, Ranger, which focuses on killing enemies at a distance, may be more suitable for players who advocate a defensive play style, because you don’t have to dodge frequently and can pick up all POE 2 Currency and loot from a distance.

To achieve this goal, you need to aim for passive skills that can focus on enhancing your mobility and defense in POE 2 exploration, such as Acrobatics Notable, and bows with strong physical damage modifiers.

For the active skills selected for this build, you only need to focus on two: Lightning Arrow and Lightning Rod. You can refer to the rotation provided for you here - first put down some Lightning Rods in the arena, and then cast Lightning Arrow, so that it can cause chain and cumulative damage based on the number of Lightning Rods.

Of course, when dealing with some stronger bosses, you can use Herald of Thunder or Orb of Storms to amplify their damage. Deadeye Ascendancy fits in well with the overall style of this build, as it gives you a ton of bonus damage with Point Blank, and the new passive buff, Tailwind, makes you shoot faster and move faster.

3. Raging Spirits Infernalist Witch

The best build for beginners in the entire POE 2 Early Access is probably Witch build, which works well in all campaigns and later map-running stages, because you can use a lot of minions to help you take on a lot of responsibilities, and all you need to do is upgrade your minions’ skills with a lot of POE 2 Exalted Orbs.

Once you choose this build, you can use some basic minions and some Chaos skills such as Contagion and Essence Drain to keep your build running smoothly in the initial campaign. But after you defeat King in the Mists, you need to use your first Spirit Gem to unlock Raging Spirits.

With its help, this build will focus more on skills that can cast powerful fire damage, such as Fire Wall, which will give Raging Spirits some extra damage and all projectiles fired by Witch will also gain some buffs. Or Skeletal Arsonists, which can also help you strengthen your growing army of minions to facilitate some confrontations with groups of enemies.

Infernalist Ascendancy is your best choice here, as it’s a great buff to your fire damage focused build, and gives you the powerful damaging ability Infernal Hound, which tracks down your enemies and absorbs damage that would otherwise go to you.

4. Ice Strike Invoker Monk

Currently, Monk build has the most variety in POE 2 Early Access, as it performs very well at any stage, such as having a strong attack speed, which allows you to break enemies before they attack you, and stronger Evasion and Energy Shields, which are better defensive properties than armor.

At first, you can use skills like Glacial Cascade to deal a small amount of damage to enemies from a distance, and then combine them after unlocking Ice Strike, which may become your survival in the future.

In addition, try to find a stave with a good physical attack modifier and a priority dodge equipment, because when you use it with Tempest Bell, Ice Strike will deal a lot of damage to enemies, which is great for clearing maps or farming some important loot, such as POE 2 Currency and experience points. Or you can use it with Herald of Ice, which will let your cold damage hit enemies continuously and cause serious damage to enemies.

Invoker Ascendancy is the most effective in this build because it will get a lot of buffs from your elemental attacks, and by giving this build the ability of Unbound Avatar, you will become a real elemental damage powerhouse with its help. If you combine it with Elemental Invocation and Ball Lightning and cast it on Tempest Bell, it may give you a surprise.

5. Spark Stormweaver Sorceress

If you’re afraid of getting stuck in a small corridor with all your minions or getting bored with casting a bunch of spells when using Witch, then Sorceress is a better ranged damage class for you because you only need to use one spell - Spark.

Even in the early exploration of POE 2, Spark is a range damage skill with strong clearing ability, and when you combine it with skills like Fire Wall, this clearing ability will be greatly enhanced, and even some bosses will be easily killed by you.

Especially after you unlock Archmage and Mana Tempest, the damage ability of this build is maximized, because your mana pool is very large and you can continuously cause damage to the enemy. However, it must be introduced that the survivability of Sorceress build is slightly poor, but you can focus on gear that can provide you with Energy Shield, and then invest a lot of POE 2 Divine Orbs in it to get the strongest survivability.

If you want a more solid defense, you can stack it with Mind over Matter and Elritch battery. Or you can use some easier-to-farm Uniques like Lifesprig and Kitokos Current to help you through some challenging campaigns.

Judging from the name of Ascendancy Class, Stormweaver is more suitable for you, because Constant Gale will give your Spark skill two extra strikes, which is very important. What player doesn’t like this free damage buff?

6. Tempest Flurry Gemling Leggionaire Mercenary

Finally, for Mercenary build, this is probably the least of the lot, as it includes all the abilities of the previous classes. But here we will focus on its attribute stacking ability, which will make you very powerful at the beginning of the campaign.

First, you need to prepare yourself a Pillar of the Caged God, which will fit perfectly with your three main attributes. And when you switch to Tempest Flurry, you don’t need to add other offensive skills.

But when you enter the endgame stage, you may need to add Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder to your build, because the challenges you face are more difficult.

It is worth mentioning here that this build will become more powerful as you gain more strength nodes during exploration, and with a large amount of Energy Shield, your survivability can also be guaranteed.

The above are the best builds for each class that are worth trying in the current POE 2 Early Access. Of course, depending on the game style of each player, the best build here may not be suitable for all players. You can make appropriate adjustments to your build based on the build ideas provided here. I wish you a happy game!

As you explore Path of Exile 2 Early Access, you’ll have the opportunity to gain access to some Ascendancy Classes with more powerful abilities to help you take on more difficult battles or missions, but please note that you’ll need to complete some Trials before you can get them.

The first one you’ll encounter is Trial of Sekhemas in Act 2, where you’ll first unlock some Ascendancy Classes, and to unlock all of them, you’ll need to complete Trial of Chaos in Act 3. But this Trial isn’t that easy to unlock, you’ll need to complete a boss encounter with Xyclucian, The Chimera.

This is the boss you’ll encounter while searching for Jiquani’s Machinarium in Chimeral Wetlands. Since this three-headed enemy uses a variety of elemental attacks that are difficult to dodge, you’ll need the specific methods and strategies for finding and defeating Xyclucian in this guide to ensure that your subsequent Trials exploration is not affected.

Xyclucian, The Chimera Location

You’ll find this boss in Deadly Nest on Chimeral Wetlands map in Act 3 of POE 2. In addition, since Xyclucian is the last challenge of Legacy of the Vaal main story quest, you won’t miss this encounter once you claim it.

How To Defeat Xyclucian?

Like most boss encounters in POE 2, only by knowing all of Xyclucian’s attacks in advance can you avoid them as effectively as possible and find opportunities to deal some lethal damage during the fight. Here are all of Xyclucian’s moves in this fight, as well as tips and strategies you can use.

Slam

This move is used in many boss encounters, but here Xyclucian doesn’t use his hands to do this, but instead slams his front legs, and the powerful shockwave is generated from this position.

Since Xyclucian will roar before slamming, you can use this time to move away from his front legs to avoid taking too much damage. The best place to cast damaging skills may be his back, because at this time, all his attention is on the front and he has no time to pay attention to the back area.

Ice Breath

As mentioned earlier, Xyclucian, The Chimera is a monster with three heads, and in Ice Breath you will see some ice spraying out of his right head, and it will cover some areas of the arena around where he is standing with this ice, which will cause continuous damage to you.

This attack has a large range of influence and the damage is also very deadly, so when you see his right head start to swing and prepare to spray some frost, please move away from where you are standing.

Not only that, but since this attack is homing, your character will need to be constantly on the move to avoid taking damage. You can try investing in some POE 2 Divine Orbs in gear that gives you a high buff to your movement speed or rolling dodge to increase their rarity and power.

Jump Slam

Here, the boss will jump into the air, then come down hard and deal massive damage where it lands. But be aware that it will not land in the same spot it took off from, so watch its path as you move to avoid damage.

Flamethrower

The right head of Xyclucian you just introduced will let you spit out some ice, while the middle head will spit out a wave of flames. Also note that the boss will swing his head back and forth during this attack, making the cone in front of him very dangerous.

When countering this move, in addition to ensuring your mobility, make sure your build is strong in fire resistance, as this elemental damage will be more powerful than the physical damage you have previously taken. While dodging, don’t forget to get behind the boss and do as much damage as possible.

Stone Pillar

When Xyclucian, The Chimera starts to go up, it means that it will fly to the top of a Stone Pillar in the arena and shoot some fireballs at you. In this case, the first thing you should do is definitely not to cause more damage to the boss itself, but to destroy the stone pillar it is standing on, because after the stone pillar collapses, Xyclucian will fall with it and will be very vulnerable for a few seconds, which is the best time to attack it.

Also Read: Lost Towers Sparked A Lot Of Controversy - Is Path Of Exile 2 0.2.0 Update Necessary?

Flying Flamethrower

In addition to Stone Pillar, Xyclucian will also perform Flying Flamethrower attack on you when it flies into the air: it will directly spray fire in a straight line towards the center of the arena, of course, this attack will also follow you.

So you can use the previous strategy and try to stay behind the boss, so that you can ensure that you are as little exposed to the fire with huge damage as possible.

Poison Lob

Xyclucian’s head can not only deal some damage to you but also his tail! You will see poison balls being fired from the boss’ tail in a cone-shaped pattern, causing poison damage in a small area when they land.

Due to the large number of poison balls fired and their high frequency, you will inevitably be hit by some of them, but make sure you don’t get hit by them continuously, because once the poison damage is stacked, the consequences will be unimaginable.

Lightning Breath

For Xyclucian’s left head, you can’t underestimate it either, because it will fire some lightning balls at you, which will explode after a while. The best way to avoid these lightning balls is to let them explode in the air as much as possible instead of on you, so pay attention to the trajectory of these small balls and avoid them strategically.

Flying Slam

Compared to the previous Slam and Jump Slam, the landing damage caused by Flying Slam here will be higher and because the boss will disappear in the air for a second, it is difficult to judge where it will appear, though where it disappears.

Note that Xyclucian is invincible whenever he jumps, flies, or leaps, so avoid attacking him during these times, and try to minimize weapons or gear that deal damage over time during this encounter, as the invincibility will interrupt those effects.

Best Strategy

Since Xyclucian can deal cold, fire, and lightning damage to you, be sure to balance your resistances when building a build to challenge him, and focus on the one you are least vulnerable to.

In most cases, the boss’s back area is the safest place to be during this fight, as attacks like Flamethrower, Poison Lob, and Lightning Breath cannot hit him from behind, so you may need to stay in this safe area for a long time.

Once you have passed the above tests, you will have completed your encounter with Xyclucian, The Chimera, and will receive a notification to unlock Chimeral Inscribed Ultimatum of Trial of Chaos and complete Legacy of the Vaal main quest.

The above are some specific methods and strategies for finding and fighting against Xyclucian in the current POE 2 Early Access. I hope that with the help of this guide, you can complete this encounter as soon as possible and unlock the more challenging Trial of Chaos to get more loot from it. I wish you a happy game!

Path of Exile 2 Early Access, which caused a significant response in December last year, has been explored by players for three months, and many of the game contents and mechanisms have caused heated discussions among new and old exiles. Although Grinding Gear Games stated at the beginning that this Early Access is expected to last for 6 months, now I think this time is likely to be extended.

Because according to some leaks during this period, this POE 2, which is only in Early Access, is about to start its first season! Yes, you heard it right: it is a season, not the same league as the original. In fact, many players and critics are speculating on the reason for the change of name, but in summary, the most reliable possibility is that GGG wants players to distinguish the original from the sequel.

There are also many opinions on the release time of this new season in the player community and social media, and the most recognized one is March 22. The reason given by the leaker is that according to the release cycle of the original game and pre-patch events, the largest patch 0.2.0 in POE 2 is expected to be released around March 17 to March 20, and the new season is likely to be officially released 2 days after this patch is accepted by players.

Although this is just the guess of the leaker, it makes sense, because there are really significant changes in Patch 0.2.0. For example, a new Ascendancy Class is about to appear in POE 2. From the trailer and leaked pictures released by GGG, it is very likely to belong to Mercenary. This means that after the release of this patch, the level ranking of Mercenary builds are likely to face a very big change.

In addition, this Patch 0.2.0 also shows that there are more auxiliary gems and some expandable construction options entering POE 2, which is extremely beneficial for players to develop more and more interesting game styles, and even the current method of farming POE 2 Currency or experience points in the game will change accordingly.

With this patch that changes the gameplay and style that most players are familiar with, it is not impossible to launch a new season, because providing players with a strong sense of competition while they are still fresh to POE 2 will greatly increase the activity of the entire game. More importantly, the ongoing competition activities will end on March 16, 2025, which shows that Grinding Gear Games is using them to create anticipation for the release of the first season of POE 2.

But for players who have tried many similar types of games, they are not very optimistic about the upcoming new season. The most confusing thing for them is that POE 2 is still in the early access. Will the new season launched here continue to the official version? Can all the resources, loot and even currency obtained by players in it be transplanted to the official version intact? And will the gameplay and difficulty in the official version be different from those in the early access?

In fact, there are many players who are worried about such problems. But unfortunately, Grinding Gear Games has not made a positive and definite response to this, even though it has improved and adjusted many contents of the current game according to the requirements of players in order to win the favor of players. For example, the number and quality of loot obtained after running maps and Towers will be increased in the subsequent patches.

There are also many players with a strong sense of crisis who express their concerns about Grinding Gear Games’ attention to POE 2 at this stage, because this outstanding game developer not only needs to spend a lot of investment and energy on the sequel, but also has POE 1, which has been released for more than ten years, waiting for his attention. The fact that the original fans were dissatisfied with GGG’s excessive preference for the sequel some time ago made these players more cautious: POE 2 can now generate higher income for them, but when POE 1 has a higher popularity, will the sequel also be neglected?

Since the original game’s league update frequency is about 3-6 months, if Season 1 in POE 2’s early access ends in the summer of 2025 (preferably in June), and the official version of the game is released immediately with Season 2, I think it is very likely to cause another uproar, just like the grand opening of the early access release in December last year. But this is only the best state.

But in any case, at this stage, there is no definite information about the theme, release date, and specific gameplay of the first season in Path of Exile 2’s early access, which means that the developers may be preparing for it and are committed to bringing the best gaming experience to all players. We are also looking forward to what kind of surprises this game that has set many records will bring to players around the world in the future. I wish you a happy game!

Path Of Exile 2: Dawn Of The Hunt & Patch 0.2.0 Launch Date

After a long wait, the first season of POE 2 has finally come to light. GGG has publicly announced that it will release Patch 0.2.0 and the new season, Dawn of the Hunt, at 12 PM PDT/3 PM EDT on April 4! We are all looking forward to what surprises this new season and the subversive patch will bring next month.

As you explore Path of Exile 2 Early Access, your builds may rely heavily on Uniques, as they can provide you with more buffs to traverse the game’s stages and deal with all the combat. The Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring in particular will help builds that focus on mana-based damage with greater effectiveness. In the early stages of POE 2, farming and POE 2 Currency may make it difficult to obtain this higher value ring, even though its drop rate is higher than other Uniques.

To ease the hassle of focusing on both XP farming and Uniques in the early stages of the game, this guide will provide you with some more effective ways to obtain Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring and some strategies you can use, as well as the specific effectiveness of this ring.

Effective Farming Methods

Since the Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring is essentially a Unique, the most common way to farm it is to defeat enemies and find it in the screen-full of loot. For this, you need to fight enemies at level 26 and above, so this means that your worst-case scenario is to get it in Act 3 on normal difficulty.

Although you can’t directly affect the drop rate of this item, don’t forget that you can increase the probability of Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring by increasing the overall drop rate and rarity of loot. Generally, you can get the stats for increasing item rarity from the gear in your build.

The advice here is to invest some POE 2 Divine Orbs in this type of gear before placing it in Items slot in your build to increase its own rarity or affixes so that you have a greater chance of getting more loot with great buffs in battle.

Additionally, activating Precursor Tablets with buffs such as increased loot quantity and increased rarity on towers in Atlas will give you more and rarer loot during your map runs. The same is true for Waystones, but you can only use modifiers that increase the difficulty of running maps on them.

The skill nodes on Atlas skill tree with the same buffs are also worth your attention, but be careful to obtain those with increased monster rarity or combat difficulty, because once your build cannot withstand such a difficult battle, all your previous investments will be wasted, which is not worth it.

Back to Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring. Another way to get it is to invest an Orb of Chance in a Normal Emerald Ring for gambling. However, this method is somewhat risky because you can’t be sure whether your somewhat valuable ring will become the Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring you want, Death Rush Emerald Ring, or be destroyed directly.

Rather than using Orb of Chance to obtain this Unique, you may be safer trading it directly with other players. While its value fluctuates frequently, it generally settles in around 40-50 POE 2 Exalted Orbs.

Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring’s Effect

Once you’ve obtained the invaluable Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring through the above methods, you can consider inserting it into a slot in your build. However, it should be noted that due to the unique modifiers on this ring, after you put it into the build, the other ring slot will be grayed out and unavailable.

The effects of any ring in this slot will not be counted towards the player’s attributes. This effect also applies to itself, which means that you cannot place 2 Thief’s Torment Emerald Rings in a build.

This seems like a huge debuff, doesn’t it? But in fact, Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring is the only item in POE 2 that allows players to restore their own mana when hitting an enemy, with 15 mana each time. This is very important for classes such as Sorceress and Witch who rely heavily on mana to deal with more elemental damage.

Items that restore mana or health after a kill are everywhere in POE 2, but they have the obvious disadvantage of not being useful in boss encounters, since you only need to defeat one enemy, unless the boss summons some small minions with low attack damage. In this comparison, Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring is much more effective in restoring mana for just one hit.

In addition to this most important buff, you also restore 25 health points per hit and increase resistance to all elemental damage by 10%-15%, which greatly enhances your survivability. On top of that, if a boss casts Curses on you, the ring also reduces the duration of the damage by 50%!

If you are using a build that specializes in ranged combat, Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring will also increase your accuracy rating by 120-160 during the cast of some ranged skills. With these powerful buffs, it’s not surprising to increase the effectiveness of the item rarity by 30%-40% during combat.

The above is the method to obtain Thief’s Torment Emerald Ring and its specific effectiveness in the current POE 2 Early Access. I hope that with the help of this guide, you can complete the farming of this item faster and more smoothly, and maximize its effectiveness in your construction. I wish you a happy game!

Path Of Exile 2 Early Access has received positive reviews from many players, including many loyal fans of the original game. In this game, the 6 basic classes provided to players all have their own play styles and advantages, and Warrior is a Strength-focused class that excels in dealing melee damage and relying on very high maximum health and armor for defense.

After you have selected the class you want to use in POE 2, you will start to make a build that best suits the current game situation. In Warrior build, you can easily get melee range damage, armor and Strength attribute gains from the huge passive skill tree, but if you want to more effectively play the advantages of this class in combat, then you have to choose some of the best skill gems for it.

Given the unique skill gems in the game that require you to find them during exploration, it’s hard to find the best skill gem for your Warrior build, as you need to make the right choice based on your current combat situation or farming requirements. But there are still many best skill gems for different situations waiting for you to use, and this guide will introduce them to you one by one.

1. Earthshatter (Level 7)

Requirements

• Character Level 22 And Above
• Character Strength Attribute Needs To Be 52 And Above
• Have A Mace Slot (One-Handed Or Two-Handed)

While Earthshatter itself is not an attack that can output super high damage, the ground spikes it generates can be combined with other heavy attack skills to make it explode, which causes damage that many enemies and even bosses cannot bear.

If you put an Upheaval in its auxiliary gem slot, although you see that the 98% base damage of this active skill is reduced, it will help Warrior create more spikes and provide another chance to hit, which will increase your overall damage by a lot!

When you combine these explosions with a higher-damaging slam skill like Leap Slam or Rolling Slam, your Warrior build will have a very strong clearing ability. You can also place this build equipped with this skill in some profitable maps to farm for POE 2 Currency or some special loot.

2. Rolling Slam (Level 1)

Requirement: Have A Mace Slot (One-Handed Or Two-Handed)

Rolling Slam is probably one of the most basic but effective active skills in Warrior - the initial slam will stun and knock back the enemy, and then you can slam it with higher damage, and this slam will move in the direction you control.

You can use it as a replacement for Leap Slam in the early exploration of POE 2, because it is also a very large buff to the mobility of the Warrior build, and the best part is that it is only a Level 1 skill gem that is very easy to get early on.

While the base damage of this Rolling Slam is strong, it’s best used in preparation for active skills like Boneshatter, which can deal extra damage to already stunned enemies with a heavy stun blast.

3. Sunder (Level 9)

Requirements

• Character Level 31 And Above
• Character Strength Attribute Needs To Be 72 And Above
• Have A Mace Slot (One-Handed Or Two-Handed)

Compared to the first two skills, Sunder is a more powerful melee slam skill that causes you to generate some rolling fissures, and then you hit these areas in sequence and deal prime area damage while moving. On top of that, enemies hit by the fissure will also release some shockwaves outwards, which will cause some damage to other enemies nearby.

Note that since the fissure rolls, the damage of this skill is not instantaneous, and you may have to wait a while before it hits distant enemies. While this may seem difficult to use against enemies that are moving and far away, you can maximize Sunder’s effectiveness by spending some POE 2 Divine Orbs on gear that greatly increases the accuracy or cooldown of this skill.

4. Boneshatter (Level 1)

Requirement: Have A Mace Slot (One-Handed Or Two-Handed)

As mentioned above, Boneshatter is the best helper for players who want a Warrior build that focuses on stun accumulation. It is very good at dealing an area damage and clearing monsters.

When Boneshatter hits an enemy that has accumulated enough stun from other skills that can cause stun effects, it will cause a heavy blow and release a shockwave that will deal 250% of the base damage in the area.

Because of this, builds using this skill can not only focus on stunning single targets but also be used to fight some difficult groups of enemies, which is very beneficial when you are farming POE 2 currency and the loot you need in some maps or battles with super rewards.

The above are the four best skill gems for Warrior builds in the current POE 2 Early Access. But again, each player’s exploration style and farming habits are different, so the time to obtain these skill gems will also be different. The best way is to use the most appropriate skill gems according to your current clearing or combat requirements, and then replace some no longer applicable skill gems when your currency is sufficient or the build is strong enough. I wish you a happy game!

As you explore the endgame of Path of Exile 2 Early Access, you may face many hard boss encounters, and Olroth, Origin of the Fall, is one of them. This boss is the undead commander in Kalguuran legends, and you can find him during this Expedition Logbook encounter in POE 2, and earn a lot of loot from the encounter with Olroth.

Given the difficulty of this encounter, this guide will provide you with specific methods for finding and defeating Olroth, Origin of the Fall, as well as some strategies for fighting it, so that you can complete this battle in the safest and fastest way.

Location

As you can see from the previous storyline, Olroth is trapped in a tomb. You can only unlock the tomb with Expedition Logbook maps at level 80 and above. You can obtain these logbooks through Expeditions encounters while exploring the Atlas of Worlds. Alternatively, you can obtain logbooks of a certain level from vendors or other players by spending some POE 2 currency.

Once you have an Expedition Logbook of the appropriate level, you need to bring it to Dannig, who can find it in your hideout. After making the delivery, you will find a skull icon on your map. Follow the path to find it. You will then find a tomb at the end of the path that you must use explosives to destroy.

This is actually the location of the arena where you fight Olroth, Origin of the Fall - Kalguuran Tomb, and after destroying the outer layer of rocks, you will see the entrance to this arena. Here is a reminder that you should not rush into the arena immediately. You should first check whether your build is strong enough at a safe checkpoint, or spend some POE 2 Divine Orbs to upgrade the rarity and affixes of the gear you have.

Combat Strategy

Among the many pinnacle bosses in POE 2, although Olroth has the lowest health (only about 8 million), his focus is the strongest, and all his skills rely on cold damage and freezing effects.

So bringing a Silver or Thawing Charm can effectively neutralize and reduce at least one cold or freezing effect caused by this boss to you, and those gears that can provide buffs to your movement speed are also worth your attention, because they will help you reduce some of the cold effects you cannot avoid.

In addition to these defensive gear, the best way to defeat it is to use its one-sided defense to fight it, such as Fire, Lightning, and Chaos damage that it cannot resist, which is easy for those Classes who are accustomed to using elemental damage.

However, for classes that focus on dealing physical damage with their own weapons, Olroth may have trouble dealing damage, as he has very solid armor that can only be broken to deal enough damage.

With Olroth’s strengths and weaknesses in mind, let’s break down the two phases of the fight. In the first phase, Olroth will use some melee attacks and cold effects to deal damage to you, with the artifact floating in the arena providing only very slight assistance.

During this phase, you should use evasive rolls as much as possible, which can effectively avoid his piercing attacks and quickly get rid of the cold ground effects he and his artifact leave on the ground. Also, try to stand on the opposite side of the arena from the artifact, which will give you more time to avoid Olroth’s attacks.

The first phase will end when you deal 5 million damage to Olroth, but he will stand up again and recover about 3 million health points, which will lead to the second phase. During this phase, the icy beams fired by the artifact become wider, and even cover large areas of the arena with frost after a single cast.

However, before the artifact casts this damaging skill, Olroth will shout Starfire!, so you can judge the direction in advance so that you have enough time to move away from the artifact and move to a safe location. At the same time, all of Olroth’s attacks in this phase are greatly enhanced, so be careful to dodge and roll.

In general, defeating Olroth, Origin of the Fall requires not only super damage capabilities in your build but also careful positioning: stay away from all the frozen ground effects brought by the artifact and the boss, which will greatly increase your combat experience.

Loot

After you successfully defeat Olroth, Origin of the Fall, you will receive a lot of loot, including a Book of Knowledge for Expedition passive tree and some random drops. Here are the specific names and functions of these drops.

• Heroic Tragedy Timeless Jewel: It converts the notable passive skills in its radius into other skills, depending on the number in the gem description.
• Keeper of the Arc Spiritbone Crown: It increases your armor and energy shield by 100%-150%, and you also receive 30% less damage.
• Olroth’s Resolve Ultimate Life Flask: It allows you to restore 920 health points over 3 seconds to keep you safe in battle.
• Olrovasara Torment Club: It increases your damage accuracy rating by 300-400, and when hitting an enemy, you gain maximum added lightning damage equal to the enemy’s strength, which lasts for 6 seconds, up to a total of 500.
• Svalinn Crucible Tower Shield: It will provide you with an increase of 100%-150% armor value, and the maximum block chance will also be reduced by 20%-10%.

The above is the specific method of unlocking and defeating Olroth, Origin of the Fall, an important pinnacle boss in the current endgame stage of POE 2. I hope you can complete this encounter smoothly and happily with the help of this guide and get all the final loot. I wish you a happy game!

There are a variety of builds made by players in the current Path of Exile 2 Early Access, and Lightning Arrow Deadeye is one of the most powerful builds because it has very stable single-target damage and full-range clearing capabilities. This also makes it possible to use this powerful build in all stages of exploration in POE 2, as long as you make some slight adjustments to it.

For Lightning Arrow Deadeye build, you can think of it as combining the raw damage of Lightning Arrow with Deadeye’s Ascendancy nodes, so that you can use Elemental barrage to damage enemies at a distance.

In view of this, this build has a certain forward-looking in terms of power and development. If you want to rely mainly on it in the next league or the later stages of POE 2, then this guide introduces this Lightning Arrow Deadeye Endgame build and the specific construction ideas and details for you. It is very important for you.

Pros And Cons

In fact, since Lightning Arrow skill is something you can find in your initial exploration of POE 2 and it is very easy to use, this build has no serious disadvantages in nature. It’s just that your mana maintenance may be an issue when you fight some bosses, but you can completely eliminate this disadvantage by using any Unique Ring or regular Ring in the game and investing some POE 2 Exalted Orbs into it.

Once you overcome this disadvantage, you will have a very simple rotation when clearing the map and a very easy to operate 2-button build when facing bosses, which will make your exploration process very easy and enjoyable. During mapping, the high flexibility of the Lightning Arrow Deadeye Endgame build allows you to have a high evasion ability in combat to ensure your safe exploration.

How To Control?

As just introduced, the control method of Lightning Arrow Deadeye Endgame build is actually very simple. You only need to hold down a button to deal damage to the enemy, and the rest can be done automatically by Spirit Gems. For tougher bosses, just add a step of throwing a few Lightning Rods around the boss, which will cause chain lightning strikes to the boss and cause Ball Lightning generated by Cast on Shock to do more damage to the boss when activated.

Best Skill Gems

After understanding some of the general information of this Lightning Arrow Deadeye Endgame build, it’s time to start making this powerful build. The first thing you need to consider is Skill Gems. Here will provide you with some Skill Gems you can use, but please note that because of the unique gem mechanism in POE 2, the order and level of each player’s collection during the game is uncertain, so you should strategically obtain and upgrade them according to POE 2 Currency you have.

• Lightning Arrow
• Lightning Rod
• Cast on Shock
• Herald of Ice
• Herald of Thunder
• Orb of Storms
• Ghost Dance
• Wind Dancer

Also Read: Considerations And Choices About Path of Exile 2 Infernalist Witch Endgame Build

Best Items

This Lightning Arrow Deadeye Endgame build is more reliant on rare gear that you can craft or farm in-game than any other build in POE 2 Early Access. It also requires two very powerful Uniques that can cost you a lot of effort and POE 2 currency to farm in order to be on par with high-performance builds like HoWA-Pillar Gemling Legionnaire.

The most important item in this build is your bow, as having a bow with high physical and elemental damage is half the battle for a powerful build. However, if you’re using a more conventional bow like Widowhail Crude Bow, your quiver may need some upgrades and improvements.

You can choose an Expert Dualstring Bow for this build, as it provides very strong buffs to your physical damage, cold damage, and attack speed in all aspects, so that you have strong attack and clearing capabilities in the endgame.

For the quiver, the recommendation here is Primed Quiver, which also provides you with some physical damage and cold damage buffs that are very important for your exploration, and also allows you to gain some mana for each kill, which cleverly makes up for the biggest shortcoming of Lightning Arrow Deadeye Endgame build.

Speaking of defensive gear, Expert Waxed Garb and Expert Feathered Tiara are the best choices. They can greatly increase your maximum health, allowing you to meet all the challenges of the endgame in a healthy state. In addition, these two gears will also make some of your explorations more resistant to elements, such as Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Chaos.

The best choices in the glove slot are Hand of Wisdom and Action Unique Gloves, which will use the high agility in the build to provide you with extremely high damage bonuses. On top of that, the Dexterity and Intelligence bonuses of these two POE 2 Items will make your exploration in the later stages easier and smoother because your DPS output is increased.

The above is some specific information and options about Lightning Arrow Deadeye endgame build in the current POE 2 Early Access. I hope that with the help of this guide, you can quickly make an optimal build that suits your game style and use it for various explorations. I wish you a happy game!

In December of last year, the beloved Path of Exile released its sequel, becoming one of the most concurrently played games on Steam. Although the player base churn in POE was not too severe at the time, the number of daily active players and total players was declining.

But now, nearly three months after the release of POE 2, a new event has brought numerous players back to the game: during the Legacy of Phrecia event, the number of concurrent players reached a peak of 91,948, while POE 2 was only 80,879 at its peak, which is far more than the sequel!

But strangely, the number of concurrent players of the sequel was not greatly affected during the event, so where did all these players come from? And although POE may never break the heights set by POE 2, what are the reasons behind this phenomenal popularity? Will we see this again in the future?

These questions are the topics that are currently being focused on in the player community and social platforms, and this guide will answer these questions for you one by one based on the existing information and leaks. Whether you are a loyal fan of the original game or a player who is exploring the sequel and hesitating whether to enter POE to try it, the answers here may give you a correct direction.

Reasons For The Popularity Of POE

First of all, let’s take a look at why the original POE has set off such a phenomenal popularity, that is, because its game content has not been updated or improved for a very long time. Previously, Path of Exile would update four leagues every year, and each one would bring a lot of game content updates to players, such as new mechanisms, new bosses, and new POE 2 Items.

Before the early access release of POE 2 last year, in order to ensure the normal operation of the sequel, the developer used all the work teams that originally worked on POE 1 to develop POE 2, which led to the delay of the league that should have been updated in the original game. Although POE 3.25 Settlers Of Kalguur League was highly praised by players before, players lost interest in it during this long period of repeated grinding and exploration.

When this Path of Exile 2 was released in advance, it was thought that Grinding Gear Games would return the staff of the original game, but they did not. They have been solving some minor problems that POE 2 players have been struggling with, and officially announced that they will continue to use this team to develop the sequel until the release of Patch 0.2.0.

This caused some players who were loyal to the original game to protest because the developer broke the promise to treat both games equally to all players. After that, the players in the original game had no hope for new leagues or new patches, and jokingly called this the longest drought period in POE.

But fortunately, after announcing this news, the developer released a notice about the Legacy of Phrecia event to be held in POE, which will last for a month. And announced that it would destroy all existing classes and replace them with new game-changing ascendancies, which means that all 19 ascendancies will be redesigned, and those gear that could only be upgraded with POE Currency have also received some upgrades and improvements.

This was unexpected for all players, and made players feel that they had wrongly blamed Grinding Gear Games before, because this kind of experimental design also requires a very long time to study and explore. So many players who had given up the original game before began to return, and some players who were used to the old design also wanted to try these new game rules and gameplay, which gave this long-dormant game a new lease on life.

Why Hasn’t The Number Of Concurrent Players In POE 2 Decreased?

Although POE and POE 2 are both games of the same genre and have the same unique systems, they are fundamentally different because the original Path of Exile has decades of updates and quality of life upgrades, with the depth and level design that most pleases players, and it is difficult for new games to catch up with this depth of game content in a short period.

Especially the endgame of POE 2, although it uses a lot of data from the original to determine what players want in it. For players who have only tried this sequel, this exciting and difficult battle makes it a different game experience, but for fans of the original, the endgame here is not pleasing to them.

So the explosion of POE has little impact on the player group of POE 2, because the two groups essentially like completely different things, and there will be a steady stream of new players during the current POE 2 Early Access period, because they all want to try the extremely difficult gaming experience of farming POE 2 Currency.

Most importantly, one of POE’s most impressive feats is that it can retain players longer than other games. On July 1 last year, Settlers Of Kalguur League was able to reach 228,398 concurrent online players, which is the highest record for the game. At the end of July, the number remained at 163,118, which is a very outstanding number for a game that has existed for more than ten years.

The last question is, can POE maintain this super high popularity and move forward steadily? The answer is yes, because the sequel is currently only released in Early Access, and the official release time and game content are not completely determined, which leads to the players becoming bored again after the experience time is over. At this time, a POE with a better game experience and similar gameplay may become their next prey.