Since Path of Exile 2 released its first league, Dawn of the Hunt, players have been complaining more and more about the lack of depth in the endgame content, and even the player community and social platforms are full of negative comments.

In view of this, the developers focused on improving the player experience in the endgame content in April and May, and are expected to launch a 0.2.1 patch this month to further improve the problems in the endgame. In this case, where the endgame content is becoming more and more important, it is becoming more and more important for players to farm more loot or specified materials in it.

For example, Expedition Logbooks are a key helper in the endgame content of POE 2 to help you unlock important encounters and obtain higher-level loot. So this guide will show you how to effectively farm Expedition Logbooks in the endgame content of POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt and how to use them so that you can get the best experience in the subsequent game progress.

Farming Method

Before farming Expedition Logbooks, make sure you have reached the endgame stage and can unlock Expedition encounters in Atlas. Maps containing this encounter will be displayed with a black and white spiral symbol on the map.

After you unlock the map containing this type of encounter with the corresponding Waystones, find an NPC that can give you explosives that can be used to dig around the area, and use the explosives it gives you to find loot and treasure chests hidden by the developers after the story or missions, including Expedition Logbooks.

However, you are not always lucky, and you may find more enemies with the help of explosives, and they all need you to defeat. After completing some battles, you can also find some Expedition Logbooks and other loot through the treasure chests left by these monsters.

Or if you think the above grinding is too cumbersome, you can also directly obtain the specified Expedition Logbooks through the in-game trading market and spend some POE 2 Currency. Although this is more expensive, it is convenient.

Some Tips

By the way, the generation rate of Expedition Logbooks in these treasure chests is actually not very high, but you can buy POE 2 currency to modify the affixes on the Waystones required to unlock the map to increase the quantity and quality of the drops contained in this map, so as to achieve the purpose of efficient farming.

Or you can increase your chances of encountering more profitable enemies by picking up more debris that can increase the loot drop rate or generate more rare monsters, thereby increasing the probability of Expedition Logbooks appearing.

Additionally, you can improve your Expedition Logbooks collection progress by modifying some of the options in your build. For example, Detailed Records Passive gives it a 50% drop rate bonus and guarantees it has three implicit modifiers.

Usage

Once you have gone through all the trouble to collect some Expedition Logbooks, you need to think about how to maximize their effectiveness.

If you don’t have a strong enough build to deal with a high-challenging encounter or the modifiers contained in it are not useful for you, you can trade them with other players in exchange for more POE 2 game currency.

If you can’t wait to earn more loot for your character through Expedition Logbooks, you can also take them to Dannig, a very important NPC in the game. It will take you to a special map area with an encounter larger than the normal battle scale.

Here, the combat strategy you need to use is actually no different from the normal one, but you need to rotate your skills a few more times. Of course, the loot you are rewarded with is also more and higher-level.

Alternatively, you can use it to unlock your encounter with Olroth, Origin of the Fall, but it’s worth noting that you can only unlock this encounter with Expedition Logbooks at level 80 and above.

Also, not every map that contains an Expedition encounter will contain this encounter, and you can tell if this boss will appear by whether a skull icon appears on the map.

After you successfully defeat Olroth, you will obtain a lot of loot, such as Olroth’s Resolve Ultimate Life Flask, which can greatly increase your health, and Heroic Tragedy Timeless Jewel, which can convert notable passive skills into other skills.

There is also a Book of Knowledge that gives you 2 passive skill points, which can be used to unlock passive skill nodes that can have a high buff to your build to increase the overall effectiveness.

The above is the current method for effectively farming Expedition Logbooks and maximizing their use in the current POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt league. Hopefully, you can use them to get a better gaming experience in the increasingly important endgame content with the introduction of this guide, and look forward to some updates brought by the 0.2.1 patch. I wish you a happy game!

Since the early access of Path of Exile 2 was released, it has received many reviews from the player community and social platforms, with mixed reviews. But when POE 2 released its first major patch and first league in April, a large number of negative reviews came, and the number was more than the very poor Lake of Kalandra League released in the original game.

Among these negative reviews, the most important one is that POE 2 Dawn of The Hunt League has many restrictions on many skills, making them very poor in some regular battles, and even after investing a lot of POE 2 currency, they can’t play the maximum effect in the endgame.

In fact, the developers also realized their mistakes, so they used the whole of April and May to release nearly 10 small patches to make up for the negative effects of this patch 0.2.0. Not only that, the developers also promised to release a new 0.2.1 patch in the first week of June to increase the playability of endgame content to alleviate players’ negative emotions about this sequel.

In addition, POE 2’s Game Director Jonathan Rogers recently accepted a public interview. He said that the developer will provide a skill library that can better adapt to the endgame in the next league as the main goal of the update, which makes many players very excited.

The Origin Of The Infamy

In fact, POE2 received a lot of praise when it was first released, because it has a completely different game style from the original and adds new classes, which makes many players who like to complete high challenges want to try it.

At that time, the diversity of builds in the game was still very high, which was the most obvious criterion for measuring the success of the overall design of action role-playing games. Here, players can use Infernalist to summon skeletons that can cause burning damage for fearless exploration, or use Invoker’s Ice Strike and Cast on Freeze to cause very large cold damage to the enemy.

However, if the environment in the entire game has been stagnant and players can only use a few powerful builds to complete all explorations, its appeal to players who pursue multiple game styles and gameplay will be greatly weakened. In light of this, the developers nerfed Trigger-based Meta Gems a week into the new league to encourage players to create more new build possibilities.

However, the nerfs were so severe, and the developers did not plan to balance the patch in the middle of the league, which resulted in most builds being far less effective than before, and only having skills like Essence Drain and Contagion that were not destroyed could make a good build options at the time.

In this situation, players often died in battles due to the weakness of their builds. Over time, players became more and more resentful in POE 2, because no one wants to not have a smooth exploration experience in a game that they paid for.

Developer’s Reflection

For these negative reviews, Jonathan Rogers first expressed his apologies to all players, and said that the original intention of this update was to allow players to rely on their own creativity to create a variety of skill combinations, so as to form a sharp contrast with POE 1, which focuses on a single skill as your main skill.

The assumption that the complexity of multi-skill gameplay would make players who love high-challenging content more interested in it was completely wrong after fact testing. So the game director promised players in the interview that the developers would learn from this lesson and make improvements in the next major patch and the next league.

Some Promises

In order to reduce the number of negative comments from players in major player communities and social platforms, Jonathan promised that in the subsequent game content improvements, the developers will pay more attention to expanding the basic effectiveness of a single skill, so that players can experience their unique combat power in the endgame content that they have to go through a lot of hardships to break into.

In response, he revealed that the developers will take a different approach to the league reset window, which means that instead of waiting for a league to develop to the expected perfect state, the league update time for POE 1 and POE 2 will be fixed at about 4 months.

But it must be admitted that the developer announced last year that the early access time of this sequel is only 6 months, so according to this trend, the developer is likely to delay the experience time in order to let players see their determination to achieve this major goal.

This is great for some players who just want to enjoy the current situation, but it is also likely to cause those who want to explore for a long time to think, because the extension of the experience time means that the official version of POE 2 will be far away.

In any case, the idea that the developers of Path of Exile 2 are striving for change is good, but its trust index in the hearts of players is not high, because there are many precedents for not keeping promises. 

If you are a fan of both the original and the sequel, then you can verify its development results through the new POE 3.26; but if you only play the sequel, you can also see their determination in the 0.2.1 patch released next month. I wish you a happy game!

Since the early access release of Path of Exile 2 on December 6, 2024, its developers have been constantly improving this action role-playing game that has always been at the center of player discussion, such as the major patch 0.2.0 released in early April and the various small fixes that followed.

But in fact, except for the week after the release and the latest Dawn of the Hunt league, players’ evaluation of POE 2 has been negative for the rest of the time. In particular, some old exiles who returned from the original work agreed that the endgame in the sequel did not have enough depth, and players could only do some meaningless farming and challenges in it.

Although in previous patches, the developers intended to improve the player’s gaming experience in the endgame, such as increasing the drop rate of loot in it, adding more unique maps in the endgame, and adding some new mechanisms for players to challenge. But unfortunately, it didn’t help.

Last week, the developer announced that it would release another major patch 0.2.1 in the last week of this month, which will focus on the improvements in the loot drop rate, Atlas and Map Mechanics in the endgame. This news made all players excited. But recently, the developer announced that the release of this patch is expected to be delayed until June.

Guessing Reason

In fact, this is not the first time that the developer has played tricks on the players, because such tricks are everywhere in the development and release of POE 2.

But for this delay, I think the reason can be guessed by players who know the two trump games owned by this developer: to make POE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion released smoothly.

Some time ago, the developer announced that it was expected to officially release the latest league in the original game on June 13. This is the longest time to update the league since the league mechanism was added to the game in 2013.

Prior to this, although POE 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League was praised by many players, there was no new game content in nearly a year, which exhausted the players’ enthusiasm for it.

And most importantly, during the period when players were looking forward to the new league in POE 1, the developer announced that it would transfer all staff to the development of the first major patch of POE 2, which disappointed almost all old players who were loyal to the original.

So when the developers announced that they would continue to release POE 3.26, these players began to look forward to it again, expecting that there would be more fresh and interesting game content waiting to be explored.

To be honest, it’s not just the loyal old fans who are paying attention to this matter. Some novice exiles who have only been exposed to the sequel are also paying attention to it.

Because when POE 2’s early access is expected to end in early July, players are looking for a game with similar gameplay and the same exploration experience as a replacement. What could be more like a replacement than the original?

So they are waiting to see how much of an explosion this POE 1, which was released more than ten years ago, will bring. Judging from the comments about the two games in the player community or on social media, the developers seem to have realized that focusing on the original works in the current situation may help their reputation turn around.

So they announced that the release of POE 0.2.1 patch will be delayed, and some new game content in the patch will be announced as compensation. There has been speculation about the release date of this patch.

Since most of the patches for this game are released on weekdays, and there is a live focusing on POE 3.26 on June 5, June 6 is the most likely date.

Patch Content

To compensate, the developers also announced some of Socketables that will appear in POE 2 0.2.1 patch in this announcement, which can meet the requirements of those who no longer need the early socket bonus and want to start maximizing the effectiveness of their characters, and will probably provide more creative options for the endgame builds used by players.

Only 3 Runes, a Soul Core and a Talisman have been announced so far, and the remaining Socketables items may be announced one by one in subsequent patch notes. Next, here will be a detailed introduction to them and their possible impact on the subsequent game content.

Runes

Farrul’s Rune Of The Chase

It can be inserted into your unique boots to increase your movement speed by 5%. The only suggestion here is to add it to a boot that can provide you with high defensive capabilities, and buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade it, so that you have both high survivability and a certain degree of mobility.

The Greatwolf’s Rune Of Willpower

This rune can be placed in a slot on your Body Armour, and will increase your damage resistance by applying 10% of the damage done to mana instead of health. This is not very good for spell-focused classes, so you may want to equip some potions or gear that can restore mana.

Hedgewitch Assandra’s Rune Of Wisdom

This is perfect for a Wand or Staff used by a Sorceress or Witch, as it will increase the level of all your spells by one. Although it only gives a one-level bonus, it will make the build extremely effective if you have invested a lot of PoE 2 currency into the weapon you used to maximize the skill level affixes.

Soul Core

Tacati’s Soul Core Of Affliction

This can be placed in a slot on a unique helmet, and will reduce the resistance to chaos damage of enemies you curse by 8%. You can find it in Trial of Chaos Ultimatum encounters.

Talisman

Talisman Of Thruldana

This Talisman can be placed in your Martial weapon, which will reduce the duration of poisons you inflict by 25% and cause the targeted enemy to be affected by an additional poison at the same time.

Although the developers have once again promised to release more information in Path of Exile 2 0.2.1 patch before the end of this week, in fact, not many people are looking forward to it at the moment. I wish you a happy game!

With PoE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas League approaching, are you ready?

As we all know, the beginning stage is always the most critical moment in the game, just like building a house, the foundation is always the most important. A good starter build will always determine whether you can have a far superior advantage when you start the league and enter the endgame earlier, which is a vast difference between having to stagnate for a while because of using an inappropriate build.

Therefore, here we have sorted out the starter builds for various different play styles to ensure that everyone can find the most suitable one for you! Whether you have already chosen your initial equipment or you like to leave it until the last minute, it is always beneficial to get more information and know which builds are more popular. Let’s get started.

1. Volcanic Fissure Of Snaking Berserker

Let’s start with a build that is likely to become mainstream in the early stages of the league, which is Volcanic Fissure of Snaking Berserker.

While this isn’t a brand new build that just appeared in POE 3.26, it’s perfectly positioned in the meta as a strong successor to the severely nerfed Lightning Strike.

Volcanic Fissure of Snaking is a melee slam attack with great scaling and huge single target damage. When you slam the ground, you create a winding rift that deals area damage as it moves outward. Once it reaches the target location, the rift bursts, dealing damage to the target area, and the rift keeps moving towards enemies, dealing further damage.

Not only that, this build has great synergy with Warcries, and since it’s auto-cast, you don’t even need to press an extra button.

In addition, its spawning power is pretty strong thanks to Ascendancy rework and the use of Endurance Charges and other defensive layers. The explosive visual effects brought by this build will also bring you a feast for the eyes and ears!

2. Penance Brand Of Dissipation Inquisitor

Moving on to Penance Brand of Dissipation Inquisitor, which really shocked me by surviving 3.26 patch.

Despite being one of the most powerful skills in Path Of Exile in the past, it has not been nerfed at all in the latest update because of its mechanics and scaling to billions of DPS. And now, with updates to skills like Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion, it could be even more powerful.

This build is excellent at farming content like Ultimatum and Simulacrums, and can even handle endgame bosses if you’re willing to spend some POE currency to equip it with the right unique items.

While it’s not a fast clearer, it can be very efficient when you commit to the right farming strategy. Not only does it give you the thrill of a rain of Divine Orbs dropping, but the entry cost is fairly low and more importantly it scales impressively into the late game, which is why this build has always been at the top of the popular build charts over the past year.

3. Explosive Concoction

Next up is Explosive Concoction, a pure League starter that can be used as a temporary build while you prepare for a real endgame setup.

For this build’s Ascendancy, Slayer class is the first choice for most players, but in fact, any class on the right side of the passive tree is applicable, and its flexibility determines that it can be your excellent League starter. Even if you don’t choose Ascendancy class, it can still help you get to the endgame, which is exciting!

4. Poisonous Concoction Of Bouncing Pathfinder

Then there is Poisonous Concoction of Bouncing Pathfinder, which is also a strong starter build.

Poisonous Concoction causes projectiles to bounce randomly in a non-linear manner, and the damage of the explosion scales according to the area of ​​effect.

Note that choosing this build as a starter does not mean you have to use it for the entire League. It is perfect for fans who are eager to build a small army of soldiers, starting with the low-cost and reliable Archer Skeletons, and transitioning to Skeletal Mage on a small budget.

If you like to summon an army to help you, then this build is definitely for you, it is arguably the best minion build for early leagues. It has always been strong, and the latest patch has given it some indirect buffs.

5. Flameblast Of Celerity Totem

Also, there is a very interesting build, Flameblast of Celerity Totem, which is probably the most buffed skill in POE 3.26 update.

It now does 660% more damage at the maximum stage, and the new gem quality increases its damage by 40%. Since you can get a gem quality of up to 104 by using Ashes of the Stars and buffing it to level 4, it means that the quality alone can cause 208% additional damage.

Therefore, the damage effect brought by this spell totem is absolutely ridiculous, you don’t even need to worry about aiming or charging, the patch gave it a better cast speed and lower mana cost.

6. Lightning Arrow Deadeye

Finally, my personal favorite Lightning Arrow Deadeye build is a lot of fun, traversing the map at the speed of light, leaping over enemies and firing thousands of projectiles. Although Arrow has been nerfed in POE 3.26 and doesn’t perform well on a budget, this is also the right starter build for you if you want to have fun.

In short, no matter what your play style is, you can find the best starter build for you here. Maybe you can try something new, they may bring you unprecedented experience!

Last week, after the developers of Path of Exile held a live broadcast about 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas League, they released a full description of the entire update, and the introduction of some new and improved features made many players look forward to this new league.

However, the changes to Shaper of Winter passive skill of Elementalist, Ascendancy class that players have always loved, have caused opposition from some players who are keen to use elemental damage such as freezing and frost to complete all campaign content, because its effectiveness has been greatly weakened compared to the previous patch.

But in fact, it is not. This guide will compare the current description of Shaper of Winter in the game with its update notes, and analyze for you from multiple attributes and statistics presented to you whether this change is a sign of the developers giving up this style of play or an early attempt to find a different way.

Some Changes

This 3.26 patch notes originally released by the developers state that the changes to Shaper of Winter include increasing the maximum Cold Ailments Effect by 50%, increasing Chills inflicted by each hit, and removing the previous effect of reducing enemy movement speed by 15% - 40%.

Instead, this Notable will only cause enemies that are Chilled by you to deal 50% of your Chill Effect. For example, if you can deal 30% Chill, the damage dealt by Chilled enemies will be reduced by 15%. Not only that, these already Chilled enemies will be more vulnerable to this longer duration damage, and the damage they receive will be increased by the Chills effect.

With this change, builds with Shaper of Winter Notable activated can still rely on strong offensive gear with high POE Currency investment to have strong Chills damage even when taking any type of hit damage, which is very suitable for encounters with monsters with strong offensive capabilities or elite monsters.

However, the developers made another change to Shaper of Winter Ascendancy Passive Skill in the patch notes of June 9 update: the previous slow down debuff of up to 40% was returned to players, which means that your powerful Chills damage and action speed debuff can help you complete encounters with more flexible bosses more easily and smoothly.

Is It A Loss?

Judging from the comments in the player community and social media, the biggest complaint from players about the changes to Shaper of Winter is that the developers removed a lot of direct damage buffs that players saw and added new effects that did not directly make their builds more powerful.

Yes?

But if those players calm down and analyze rationally, they are likely to modify their negative comments. First, before determining how much actual damage you can get from the modifiers that Shaper of Winter provides to Chills. If you only have this one damage type in your build, then a 30% modifier means you can cast 30% more damage.

It has to be said that in the more than ten years of POE development, there is no optimal build that focuses on only one source of damage. So if you add gear that can cast Unnerve debuff to your build and buy POE currency to increase your spell damage by 10%, then the actual damage gain from the modifier provided by this passive skill may only be 27%.

Of course, when making a build, you must add some crowd control modifiers, such as Shock debuff that make enemies stand still and vulnerable to damage, which can generally be up to 50%. With these modifiers working together, the additional damage provided by the modifier of Chill damage buff may only be 18%-19%.

In addition to this, like chaos damage, vulnerability, and physical damage modifiers that can be added to a build will reduce Chill damage bonus that the original Shaper of Winter had, preventing it from being able to reach its maximum effect.

So it was a very correct decision for the developers to remove this passive skill effect that is not conducive to players’ exploration in the game and balance the offensive and defensive effects brought by Shaper of Winter.

No!

First of all, the up to 40% enemy speed debuff that players had before is still there, so your build defense ability has been greatly improved. And reducing the enemy’s damage ability by half will put you in an advantageous position in the battle from the beginning.

Secondly, on the offensive side, you can combine Chill effect of this passive skill with Bonechill Support, so that you have higher cold damage and can more easily deal with enemies and bosses that have no resistance to this element type.

Not only that, in POE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas League, the developers will bring some new Uniques to players, among which Ahuana’s Bite, a Unique Quiver, makes up for Chill Effect buff removed by Shaper of Winter in the build. And most importantly, it will not stack with other elemental damage affixes.

So in summary, Shaper of Winter changes are actually good news for builds that focus on cold damage, but builds with a variety of elemental damage may see some nerfs when using this passive skill, but it’s not a big deal.

Which builds are likely to be most affected by this change? Those builds with limited access to increased damage taken on the enemy are probably some of them. 

Of course, in the regular exploration process after the new Secrets of the Atlas League is released, we highly recommend heading over to the major communities and social platforms to find the build that works best for you. And here will continue to pay attention and introduce it to you. I wish you a happy game!

After the live hosted by the developers to introduce the new content contained in Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas, players are getting more and more excited about the arrival of this long-awaited new league, because some changes it has will greatly improve the game experience that players can get.

For example, the crafting mechanism. In all previous leagues, the crafting system can be said to be one of the most important game mechanisms in POE, because it allows all players to make a piece of gear that can be used to increase their own combat or defensive capabilities through some efforts, so as to explore more freely.

In Secrets of the Atlas, the developers have made comprehensive improvements to the crafting system, including the introduction of some new crafting mechanisms and improvements to some existing mechanisms, which will help you find Zana in Atlas more easily and complete all the campaigns in the game.

In order to let all exiles master it faster, here will be an in-depth discussion of the new crafting system in POE 3.26. However, it should be noted that since there is still some time before its official release, some properties or statistics introduced in it may change. Everything is subject to the official release.

New

In this League update, the developers have added two new crafting mechanics for players - Memory Strands and a new pinnacle crafting currency. Here are their specific effects.

Memory Strands

This new crafting mechanic is currently the highlight of PoE 3.26. You can find Memory Strands on the item description of high-tier loot picked up in Memory-influenced maps, and the value it has will affect the quality of the item after Scroll of Wisdom, up to 100.

Although the value of Memory Strands on the item is completely random, you can replace or add modifiers to it by applying POE Chaos Orb or Exalted Orb to make it more likely to generate a higher quality random affix for the item.

However, it should be noted here that Memory Strands cannot be used in other non-currency crafting methods, such as fossils or crafting benches.

Pinnacle Crafting Currency

Thanks to Zana, PoE 3.26 adds three new Pinnacle Bosses - The Incarnation of Dread, Neglect and Fear - who drop new loot with unique effects, such as Starcaller Axe, as well as some new exclusive crafting currencies:

• Orb of Remembrance: You can add random memory strands to normal items, or add memory strands to non-Memory-influenced Items.
• Orb of Unravelling: Consumes all remaining Memory Strands on an item to upgrade a random affix to a higher level.
• Orb of Intention: Adds an enchantment to Memory-influenced maps to reduce drop chances and increase the number of loot strands contained within the map.

Changes

In addition to the new crafting mechanics above, the developers have also improved existing systems in the game, such as Betrayal, Recombinator, and Syndicate crafting bench. Next, here will introduce them one by one.

Betrayal

In POE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas, Betrayal league mechanic, which has existed for more than 10 years, has undergone a major change: Veiled modifiers that were previously unique to it will no longer be obtained through uncovering items.

Now, they have become the core of the current game. When you find some Veiled Items in a boss encounter or some endgame maps, you can right-click at any time to open Unveil screen, which greatly facilitates the player’s exploration process.

Betrayal changes bring back Veiled Chaos Orb to the game, which can allow you to reforge rare items with random modifiers and add Veiled Modifier to them.

However, in the current game content, it has been renamed Veiled Exalted Orb, and its effectiveness has changed a bit: it can remove a random modifier from an item and add a Veiled modifier to it.

Recombinator

Introduced in 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur league, Recombinator was very popular with players when it was first launched because it allowed you to combine two non-unique items with the same base into an item with a random combination of modifiers.

However, due to the randomness of the modifiers that are included in the final items, many players have received completely useless or extremely bad modifiers after handing in some items, which has caused a lot of complaints.

So in this update, the developers have added an option for players to choose their desired modifiers to make this random event a fixed event that players can create.

Syndicate Crafting Bench

In previous game content, completing the raid of Syndicate safehouses and spending POE currency awarded to you to craft high-quality gear was a favorite among players. Previously, players only received crafting materials and currency, but now, the crafting bench will also have pre-generated craftable items and other rewards.

Above are some of the new additions and production changes that the developers have brought to players with Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas. In fact, judging from the live and update notes held by the developers, this new league must be a carnival for new and old exiles, and everyone can feel the sincerity and repentance of the developers in it. I wish you a happy game!