Since the release of Path Of Exile 2 trailer on May 30, 2024, PoE has been a darling of ARPG community, often compared to games like Diablo 4, but widely praised for its unique gameplay, rich features, and depth. Path Of Exile 2’s planned improvements combine with the series’ already excellent foundation to make it a genuine contender for any aspiring to be the best ARPG in the genre.

Path Of Exile Continues To Innovate

Some fans have compared Path Of Exile 2 to Diablo 4. Despite being nearly a decade old, Path of Exile still has a huge player base. The free-to-play game is known for its massive skill trees and rich boss mechanics, and it also has the advantage of six-player co-op compared to Diablo 4’s four-player co-op mode.

Path Of Exile 2 will also introduce multiple new class options, and the first work offers more possibilities for diversity because of its team size. Path Of Exile 2 will continue to be fully supported with new updates.

In an experimental attempt at a live service game, the developer promised to add expansions to both games at the same time and support micro-transactions between the two games using Path Of Exile 2 Currency. Free-to-play games like Path Of Exile 2 are more attractive to gather a large group of friends for cooperation and expanding the action role-playing game market.

PoE 2 Will Feature Couch Co-Op

PoE 2 will introduce a couch co-op option for all versions of the game. This mode requires two controllers and allows players to play together under the same account using separate accounts or guest accounts. The redesigned controller scheme uses dual stick controls to simplify the operation of using controllers.

The developers said that this feature was initially introduced as an experiment. They first introduced a new HUD to accommodate two people playing followed by other optimizations that make it easier to manage inventory on the same screen. This feature is designed to provide a more fun experience in playing with friends and family.

PoE 2 Will Debut On Consoles

Path Of Exile 2 will support PS5, Xbox Series X/S and PC platforms at launch, and will enable cross-platform play and progress sharing. The development team has optimized the control scheme, providing more movement options and a brand new interface design. The left stick is responsible for character movement, and the right stick adjusts the direction, allowing players to flexibly retreat when casting spells or using skills.

Hype Of PoE 2 Reflects The Status Of Diablo 4

It is rumored that the development of Diablo 4 was too hasty, resulting in the game failing to meet the expected standards. Its online requirements have also caused some controversy.

Developer Grinding Gear Games pointed out that Diablo 4 may have encountered some problems, and the developer feedback has begun to solve these problems, but the essence of ARPG games is still to develop over time and get better through continuous updates.

Features such as allowing more players to participate in battles, as well as the continued maintenance of the first Path of Exile, have obviously stimulated discussions about the future direction of the series. Path of Exile 2 plans to introduce more career options, and support for up to six players to play together may further demonstrate the diversity of the game build.

PoE 2 Has More Features Than Diablo 4

Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 both offer couch co-op options, which are relatively rare in similar ARPGs. With its fascinating storyline and narrative, Diablo series has always occupied an unshakable position in the field.

However, over time, some ARPG enthusiasts began to notice the subtle differences between Diablo 4 and PoE and games like Last Epoch. These games have successfully attracted a part of the player base that originally belonged to Diablo series by increasing complexity, deeper skill trees, higher customization, and richer and more attractive end-game activities.

Diablo 4 was initially praised for its excellent storytelling and compact gameplay, but was later criticized by some players for not having a sufficiently attractive endgame.

More Games Should Have A Couch Co-Op Option

Over time, many games have moved to online-only multiplayer modes, making the once-mainstream couch co-op option fade into obscurity. However, there are still some standout games like It Takes Two, Cuphead, Stardew Valley, and others that use couch co-op as part of the main gameplay and competitive advantage, giving players the option to play games in their living room with friends or family.

These games are often inspired by early action RPGs, such as Gauntlet, where players can choose from four different classes, which were originally experienced in arcades. Hopefully, Path of Exile 2’s inclusion of a couch co-op option is just the beginning of other games incorporating it into future gaming trends.

As the gaming industry continues to grow, so does the demand for diverse and deeper gaming experiences. Path of Exile 2 shows its unwavering commitment to meeting these needs by introducing couch co-op, cross-platform support, and more class options. It also challenges competitors like Diablo 4 to push the industry toward more inclusion and innovation.

Hopefully, Path of Exile 2’s success will encourage more developers to explore and implement similar features, enriching player choice and raising the bar for the entire gaming space.

If Path of Exile 2 can bring new innovations and improvements, it is likely to become the next big live-service hit after Helldivers 2. Judging from the new classes and mechanisms revealed by Grinding Gear Games, Poe 2 exactly goes beyond what the original had offered.

It is surprised to see the new contents like Alpha and Mercenary. Of course, there are a lot of things waiting to be discovered, such as Ascendancies and the addition of powerful skills.

Some players may be very interested in the classes in the game and want to know about creation sources and equipped skills. This article will introduce the changes that happen to PoE 2.

Classes In PoE 2 Have Pushed The Original To A High Level

The showcase for Ranger reveals to players a phenomenon that, when delving deeper into the gameplay loop, all the abilities of a class are interrelated. For example, Ranger can upgrade some effects to level 11 by advantage of the combination of poison and lightning builds.

Other classes also bear similarity with Ranger, which means they also rely on combination skills. Each class is available to use a plethora of skills of the same element or theme. These skills not only work well when cast individually but also become fatally offensive as players combine them.

However, in PoE 1, not only were there a limited number of skill slots available, but usually, even if these skills were combined, the damage caused could not reach extremely high levels.

Therefore, skills from the same element can be employed in tandem and can be counted as a significant innovation, which is aimed at enhancing the damage and creating new effects. For an instance, Ranger’s Lightning Rod and Lightning Arrow will invite AoE explosions, which is pretty effective when dealing with groups of enemies.

Ranger also can combine Support Gems, making the damage more overwhelming and powerful. Such as, combining Multiple Projectiles with Lightning Arrow will cause more explosions. Therefore, it is wise to get known of PoE 2 Items in the first place.

All 12 classes not only have their own unique skill set, but some skills are shared by all characters, which will undoubtedly expand the range of choices and create a variety of attack methods. For example, the “armor break” skill originally designed for Warrior has now become a universal skill.

Ascendancy Classes And Archetypes

Path of Exile 2 does not make major changes to Ascendancy classes. Because the Ascendancy class system in PoE 1 is undoubtably a success. In PoE 2, there are 18 Ascendancy classes on offer.

In the aspect of how it works, thanks to their ever-changing nature and successfully shift of a gameplay loop of their base classes dramatically, PoE 2 retains this feature and expands the possibilities of building and combining skills. This is undoubtedly a win-win choice for players and developers.

The above is about the mechanical changes of classes in Path of Exile 2, and all of them are positive. And we are desperate to kick off the game in the future. Thanks for reading.

Path of Exile 2 serves as the sequel of the highly anticipated Grinding Gear Games’ free-to-play ARPG. This sequel brings a host of improvements to PoE 1, and the addition of six brand-new classes remains the biggest enhancement.

Mercenary is one of the 6 new classes. According to what has been disclosed, the introduction of Mercenary makes mountains of players thrilled and excited. Because this class differs totally from anything Path of Exile has seen before, and it is pretty likely to become the new favorite of the vast majority of players in the future.

There are some new mechanism have been complemented for Mercenary class, so it is best to get known of them before the game kicks off, whether for rookies or veteran players.

Mercenary Overview

Mercenary Class is a Ranged class, who are equipped with STR/DEX attribute. That is to say, they start at the same location as Duelist class, getting close to Strength and Dexterity portions of The Passive Tree.

The representative weapon of Mercenary is Crossbow, a new POE 2 Item that is on offer. Moreover, a variety of new mechanics like Ammo and Attachments are also been added.

It is noticeable that Crossbow differs from the classic bow, because PoE 2 complements a fresh new system named WASD movement.

Mercenary Skill Gems

Here lies the conclusion of the skills that Crossbow is available.

• Explosive Grenade Launcher
• Fragmentation Rounds
• Permafrost Bolts
• Flash Grenade Launcher
• High Velocity Rounds
• Incendiary Shot
• Rapid Shot
• Ice Shards
• Explosive Shot
• Glacial Bolt

WASD Mechansim

Players are available to move their character with WASD rather than clicking with the mouse. Of course, WASD can be employed by all classes, and you can switch between WASD and click to move randomly if you are not familiar with this new mechanism. It may be a little strange to use WASD Movement for melee characters, but it is still worth trying.

The design of WASD keys for movement signals one of the original intentions while building Mercenary class, which is to ensure that players feel like they are playing a top-down shooter game.

Crossbow Skills

Each Crossbow promises a particular firing skill for your character to use. Here lies the summary of three firing skills that your Crossbow grants and you can switch between them.

• Rapid Shot Skill–Acts as automatic assault rifle, which can shoot while the player is moving.
• Power Shot Skill–Acts as a sniper rifle, and fire single high-damage projectiles.
• Brust Shot skill–Similar to shotgun, which is available to fire multiple projectiles simultaneously.

You are allowed to equip two Crossbows to combine two powerful skills together for combat. Switching between weapons is also seamless.

For groups of enemies, you need a weapon or skill that can scale. At this time, you can use a wide skill like Burst Shot. For a single powerful enemy, Power Shot will be more effective.

Ammo Skills

Along with the new Crossbow Skills are new Ammo types, which are aimed at providing unique buffs. Choose the right ammo type to suit different scenarios.

• Armour Piercing Ammo–Pierces enemies for effective attacks.
• Incendiary Ammo–Ignites enemies and also synerize with other explosions.
• Permafrost Ammo–Chills and Freezes enemies.

Crossbow Skills and Ammo skills offer you a variety of combinations to attack. For example, use Incendiary Burst Shot to burn and clear a group of monsters, or use Permafrost Power Shot to slow down large enemies and further to perform tons of damage.

That’s main mechanism for Mercenary class in Path of Exile 2. We look forward to this unique class and play style. Thanks for reading.

Path of Exile 2 introduces 6 new classes in the original 6 classes, and Warrior remains one of them. It is believed that with the addition of new classes, PoE 2 will definitely progress in the aspects of build diversity and character fantasy.

The origin of Warrior is actually a variant that splits from Marauder, so it is undeniable that this class bears similarity with some Marauder builds in POE 1 to some degree. However, it is surprised to see its own speciality based on some reliable disclosure.

This guide will detail everything about Warrior class that has been revealed class and the way it works. Let’s start now!

Warrior Class Overview

Warrior is equipped with STR attribute, which makes them get started at the same location as Marauder, with proximity in Strength portion of the tree.

The iconic weapon of Warrior is Mace, which is carrying over from PoE 1. If you are interested in playing Mace builds, Warrior is your first class option.

This build typically gives much emphasis on “Slam” attacks and Warcries, which deals a ton of damage for enemies but with a comparatively slow speed. Together with new PoE 2 Items which can upgrade his speed, Warrior is sure to be very powerful.

Warrior Skill Gems

Below lies the conclusion of skills for Warrior, including the introduction of some important skills.

• Earthquake: Slams the ground for damage, followed by an aftershock attack.
• Boneshatter: Attacks the enemy while also damaging yourself.
• Armour Breaker: Strikes the enemy, reducing their Armour.
• Infernal Cry: Covers enemies in ash and deals fire damage.
• Leap Slam: Leaps to the wanted area and deals damage. Stun those enemies who are with broken Armour.
• Sunder: Shoots the ground with a shockwave. Aftershocks are triggered near the hit enemy.
• Supercharged Slam
• Rolling Slam
• Shield Charge
• Shockwave Totem
• Earthshatter
• Perfect Strike
• Resonating Shield
• Volcanic Fissure
• Spinning Inferno
• Shield Wall
• Seismic Cry
• Stampeded
• Ancestral Warrior Totem
• Hammer of the Gods
• Ground Slam
• Herald of Ash
• Magma Barrier

Stun Mechanism

In PoE 1, plenty of bosses are immune to Stun or Freeze, and it makes such mechanisms trivial and invaluable. Surprisingly, in PoE 2, this will change.

That is to say, bosses in PoE 2 will be affected by Stun. When the boss’s internal meter is filled, it will be stunned and disabled.

Stun mechanism serves as a core part of Mace attacks, because they have their own built-in mechanic that synergize with Stun. Considering the slow speed when launching attacks, it is wise to Stun an enemy and launch large-scale attacks to cause explosive damage.

How To Choose Proper Skills?

For all the attack skills mentioned above, players need to choose based on the situation.

For example, if you want to clear a group of weaker monsters at once, you can use skills with AoE effects, like Earthquake, Ground Slam, or Sunder. If you want to further expand the range of your attacks, it is recommended to use Infernal Cry or Herald of Ash skills. This is an important strategy when facing groups of enemies.

For a Rare monster who equips overwhelming powers, it is a good choice to combine some skills to maximize your damage and take upper hand.

Boneshatter is the best option to deal with single target damage as you are available to accumulate damage. When this skill causes indiscriminate attacks, it means that you need to invest a lot of defense to resist the damage caused by Boneshatter.

The combination of Armour Breaker and Leap Slam will stun enemies, and then you can use Supercharged Slam to perform enormous damage and save enough time to charge.

Conclusion

Overall, Warrior class may not be a completely innovative class for Path of Exile, and you can easily find the same place in PoE 1.

This class is the perfect choice for those players who are interested in being a big beefy character with a giant weapon in their hand and slam enemies with weighty attacks.

The above is the introduction of the new class- Warrior in Path of Exile 2. Thank you for reading.

As one of the 6 returning classes in PoE 1, Witch was officially released in Path of Exile 2. But we can find some obvious differences abound in the new look Witch and the old one.

PoE 2 promises players to bring many quality of life and balance changes, which will affect the entire gameplay, such as the introduction of a new resource named Spirit, which helps you to summon Minions. And Witch will continue the “elemental spellcaster” ability in PoE 1, but the focus will be on Chaos Damage and Summons.

This article will introduce all the information about Witch and how this class works in detail.

Witch Class Overview

In fact, from a technical perspective, Witch does not have INT attribute. But Passive Skill Tree that features tons of INT nodes, such as Spell Damage, Minion Damage, Energy Shield, and more has offered her INT attribute.

Witch is excellent at performing occult magic and is equipped with some overwhelming skills like summoning undead army or deal chaos damage with poisons and contagion.

Weapon: Sceptres

Sceptre serves as the iconic weapon of Witch. Sceptre is not only a skill in the game, but grants the wielder more Spirit. In the early stages, Sceptre will naturally be your primary channel to get your army running.

With the game pushing forward, Sceptres are available to embrace more base Spirit amounts and higher-level summoning Skills. The improvement of weapon performance is also destined to make Witch more powerful.

Witch Skill Gems

Based on the latest game test results, we have summarized the skill gems that most Witch builds require and you can embrace them by investing some POE 2 Gold. Below are these skill gems and some important descriptions.

• Contagion: Infects the target until it dies and continues to spread to nearby enemies.
• Skeletal Sniper: Shoot a gas arrow to deal damage.
• Unearth: Launch spikes from the ground.
• Essence Drain: Helps Contagion spread to nearby enemies.
• Skeletal Arsonist: Detonate low health minions.
• Bone Cage
• Raise Zombie
• Skeletal Frost Mage
• Pain Offering
• Bonestorm
• Detonate Dead
• Vulnerability
• Profane Ritual
• Despair
• Skeletal Reaver
• Dark Effigy
• Bone Offering
• Skeletal Storm Mage
• Hexblast
• Skeletal Brute
• Skeletal Cleric
• Power Offering
• Skeletal Warrior

Conclusion

In conclusion, Witch has been greatly improved in PoE 2. Some quality of life changes and specific completion have made this class more charming.

Lastly, although it has not been confirmed, according to reliable information, the “self-cast” Witch build will also work as well. This build does not pay attention to summons, but deals massive damage by advantage of Contagion or Essence Drain.

Other Tweaks In PoE 2

Auto Revive

In PoE 2, most Summon Skills will revive automatically, which saves the time and energy to continuously resummons your minions. It should be noted that for those temporarily summoned minions, they will not be automatically resurrected.

Command Spells

PoE 2 introduces the function of Commands, offering you an opportunity to control AI of your summons. You can give them commands, for example, to move to a specific location, attack a specific enemy, or even open a door.

For some Summon Skills which own unique skill effects, you can command them to activate.

That’s it for Witch improvements and other updates in Path of Exile 2. Thanks for reading.

Path of Exile was originally launched as a spiritual successor to Diablo 2, coinciding with the poorly received Diablo 3. Since then, it has strengthened and finally received a brand new standalone sequel, Path of Exile 2. It promises to reinvent the format with major changes, especially the addition of 5 new classes to the existing number of classes. Path of Exile 2 will no longer include Scion.

Path of Exile’s Scion class was well received when it first launched, and it became even more popular when Grinding Gear Games introduced Ascendancy classes. Each Ascendancy class has its own unique identity and specific uses, suitable for a variety of players to choose to accord to their own play style.

However, in Path of Exile 2, Scion’s Ascendancy class does not seem to continue this design, which may mean that the new game will take a different approach to presenting character development.

Scion And Ascendant Trivialized Build Choices

Path of Exile 2’s skill tree design differs from the original Scion. The new class system offers two different class options for each attribute or combination of attributes. This allows each class to offer more diverse content, even those that focus on the same set of attributes. This design may affect players’ use and allocation strategies for Path Of Exile 2 Gold.

In Path of Exile 2’s skill tree, the absence of Scion means that no one class can cover all the attributes in the center of the skill tree. This position is considered optimal because it can more easily access any part of the skill tree.

Scion makes other classes less important to some extent because it makes it ideal for many builds by providing some of the best nodes of each Ascendancy with Ascendant and being able to easily access the entire skill tree at any point.

What Happens If There Is No Scion?

In Path of Exile, while some Ascendancy classes are still better than Ascendants in their respective fields, other classes often rank at the bottom of the usage charts throughout the season because of the presence of Ascendants.

Path of Exile 2’s gameplay is so different from the original, with Skill Gems drastically changing what players can do and what they’re limited in terms of builds, that dropping Scion feels like a calculated risk. It gives Path of Exile 2’s own classes more weight.

As a result, Path of Exile 2 promises to be a challenging and fun world to play in without relying on Scion, bringing a whole new experience to all players.