At the in-house ExileCon, fans finally got a glimpse of Path of Exile 2. Although it was announced back in 2019, there had been a long silence since then. We explain how the successor of the biggest Diablo competitor aims to be easier for newcomers while also becoming more challenging.
What exactly is Path of Exile 2? The most important thing first, as Path of Exile 2 is no longer exactly what was promised at ExileCon 2019. At that time, it was said that the two games would share the endgame, and you could play them in the same client.
This statement has now been refuted, which simultaneously explains why PoE 2 did not release in 2021 as initially announced. The developers reveal that the game simply grew larger and larger and eventually differed so much from its predecessor that it had to be split into a standalone title.
You can see the brand new trailer from ExileCon here:
But no panic, all microtransactions you have made or will make can be used in both games. You can carry over additional stash tabs, skins, and more from the first part to Path of Exile 2, so you don’t feel completely lost.
What was shown? We saw a segment from the 3rd of a total of 6 chapters of the completely new campaign. In roughly 45 minutes of gameplay, we gained deep insights into the new monk class. It is one of 6 new classes in Path of Exile 2.
Of the remaining 5, we know the druid and the huntress. Their main attributes are already known, but exact skills are not. Instead, in addition to the monk, gameplay from the new sorceress was also shown. Unlike the witch, she focuses on elemental abilities and pure destruction.
In battle, everything is different now, and you can finally dodge
What’s new? A lot is new in Path of Exile 2, but one of the most significant changes is arguably the dodge roll. Every class gets this ability, and it can be used without any cooldowns. This applies to almost all active skills in the game as well. The developers generally want to avoid cooldowns.
With these dodge rolls, you won’t be invulnerable, but everything that was fired at you beforehand will miss. In fact, you can practically dodge everything except for AoE damage.
This is meant to make combat much more dynamic and challenging, while also ensuring that players can showcase their skills in battle.
Additionally, many skills have been granted movement properties. In the shown monk class, almost every attack moves you slightly, making combat generally much more action-packed and quicker.
But your enemies have also not remained the same. You can also expect them to react faster and possibly dodge your attacks. The battles themselves are said to be much more difficult than before, as Jonathan Rogers, Game Director of Path of Exile 2, explained in a conversation afterward.
Old features get strong updates: However, not everything is new in the combat system; existing features change drastically. For example, the weapon switch will be elaborated on later. The way crowd control effects, like freezing and stuns, work is also changing.
While in Path of Exile 1, you had a small chance of freezing an opponent with every hit of frost, they now freeze every time. But let’s go into detail. Every enemy, and now even bosses, have an internal meter with frost that you need to fill until the enemy finally freezes.
This meter is of course larger for bosses than for regular enemies, but it ensures that especially strong opponents are no longer completely immune to control effects, allowing for new builds.
Speaking of bosses, there are supposed to be over 100 different ones at the launch, as Jonathan Rogers said.
Death will be punished harder: These bosses are also supposed to become more difficult due to another mechanic. However, normal fights could also become nastier because of this. In Path of Exile 2, your death will annoy you much more than in its predecessor.
Because while you lost a bit of experience through pixel death in the first part, you could simply stand up and continue. That is no longer the case. When you die, you will respawn at a checkpoint a bit further away, and the monsters and bosses you were fighting are fully healed again.
You still lose experience, of course. To summarize briefly, this means that your death will be more annoying in the game and also happen much more frequently than in Path of Exile 1. Something that doesn’t sound very beginner-friendly at first.
All skills can now be equally strong – This is how Path of Exile 2 aims to be easier for newcomers
What changes in the skill system? The combat system is also supposed to be loosened up by the new skill system. Previously, you could only equip a so-called 6-Link skill on your torso and a two-handed weapon. A skill that is enhanced by 5 support gems.
However, the skill stones are now moving from the equipment into a separate menu. This not only makes it easier to understand but also loosens up the meta. In this menu, you can assign the same amount of support gems to each skill. This way, every attack skill in Path of Exile 2 is potentially equally powerful.
In return, however, the active abilities are now more binding to specific equipment. While you could still perform an ability in PoE 1 with a sword, axe, and dagger, in the successor you can now perform it specifically only with the sword.
This limits build diversity on one side again, but on the other hand, it makes it more understandable for new players.
What changes regarding builds? The new, unrefined stones also bring a big step toward beginner-friendliness. These are gems onto which you can assign any skill you have unlocked so far.
This allows you to rely less on random drops and build faster towards the builds you want to achieve. But not only that changes regarding the build possibilities in Path of Exile 2.
In the predecessor, for example, when focusing on an elemental build, you had to concentrate on one element; that’s now a thing of the past. You can now earn flexible points for your passive abilities, which you can cleverly switch at any time.
If you distribute these points over a tree with lightning damage and a tree with ice damage, you can easily pick skills from both elements. The completely revised weapon switch in Path of Exile 2 plays a key role in this.
Automation when switching weapons: While the weapon switch already existed in Path of Exile 1, it was cumbersome and rarely used. Therefore, it has been fundamentally overhauled and simplified and offers enormous possibilities for automation.
Let’s continue with the above example and imagine we have a staff with lightning and a staff with ice damage. Now you can assign each skill individually to a weapon in the skill menu. Subsequently, you can also assign your two flexible passive trees to each of the staffs.
In practice, it looks like this: You press your ice skill. Your weapon automatically switches to the staff with ice damage, which also switches your passive skill tree to the one with ice damage. You extract the maximum damage. If you press a lightning skill next, the same thing happens, all automatically.
However, with the weapon switch, there is a slight delay in your skills, taking about half a second. Despite this very minor drawback, it is an incredibly good way for newcomers to step into the system more easily. At the same time, it gives pros more tools to perfect their builds.
In this way, and through further changes such as gold as currency, Path of Exile 2 is indeed more challenging in combat, but generally easier and especially friendlier to beginners and newcomers.
In the future, both games are supposed to remain relevant
How will leagues work in the future? When Path of Exile 2 arrives, the first part is still supposed to remain active. In PoE 2, developer Grinding Gear Games is also counting on the already known leagues. These are meant to take place approximately every 3 months.
However, there will be a slight overlap between parts 1 and 2. Because in the long term, the developers want both Path of Exile and Path of Exile 2 to remain relevant and played. The support for PoE 1 will therefore not be discontinued; on the contrary.
You keep everything, maybe just not in the beta: To ensure that this works, you will not only share all current microtransactions but also all that will come. Even though the games will not come in the same client as originally planned, switching between titles should work quickly, according to Chris Wilson.
They are working on enabling you to use all past skins in the Path of Exile 2 beta as well. This beta is set to start in June 2024. Whether that works, Grinding Gear Games isn’t sure yet either. However, there is a small consolation.
Since 2019, the developers have been creating all skins for Path of Exile 1 and 2. This means that players will at least have immediate access to all skins they have purchased since the announcement of PoE 2 in the beta.
So how about you? Are you an active player of Path of Exile? And if so, what do you think about what you have seen? And if you are not playing yet, are you interested in Path of Exile 2 now? Are you worried that it may be too hard or do you like the changes? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments here on MeinMMO.
It also remains exciting whether anything will change before the release. Because Grinding Gear Games is in constant exchange with fans. And sometimes you also have to admit mistakes. Path of Exile was really too hard – developers admit: ‘We completely failed’
