NEWS GUIDE

Path of Exile 2 has been the center of discussion among loyal players of the action role-playing game since its early access release last year. Although the developers have added many new game elements to this sequel that were not in the original game, the player community and players on many social platforms have been negative about it.

Even after POE 2 released its first major update and the first league Dawn of the Hunt some time ago, players’ complaints about the low drop rate and drastic nerfs of in-game loot have not changed at all. According to some relevant information leaks, the developers are taking some actions, such as releasing some hot fixes and additional changes in patch 0.2.0.

But in order to ensure that POE 2 can be in the best state before the official version is released and can provide players with a best exploration experience, it may also need to add an important feature - death review. At this stage, players are very demanding for this feature, so this guide organizes players’ views on it so that developers can create corresponding strategies according to players’ requirements more quickly.

Developer’s Thoughts

In the production process of POE 2, developers have always wanted players to explore the huge game world in a slow-paced gameplay, and make the best build that suits them best according to the different exploration contents, until they reach the end of all battles.

However, in this game with slow and methodical gameplay, once the player dies in it, the cost invested before drawing, such as currency, gear, and one-way available Waystones will disappear, which is a very sad thing for all players, especially in the extremely challenging endgame stage.

Most importantly, players must learn from the corresponding experience from the failure just now, and then buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade their own builds accordingly, such as enhancing the overall defense ability or elemental resistance of the build to obtain better survivability. Or re-roll the affixes of the potions that can restore health or mana that they carry to obtain higher combat durability.

Players’ Thoughts

The developers thought this style might resonate with players, but in fact they didn’t buy it. Because the one-way available Waystones used in POE 2, on the one hand, the cost of drawing in the more difficult maps will also increase. On the other hand, if there is no death review screen in the game, it is difficult for players to find the real reason for death from the failure just now, which will make players more frustrated.

Because in most cases, the death of players in battle is not only caused by the ineffectiveness of the build they used, but also by mistakes in skill rotation or network jams, or even because of the excessive visual effects presented by the game, which makes players use wrong operations.

After these deaths caused by non-game mistakes, players may not need to make large-scale adjustments to their builds, and they want to clearly understand where they made mistakes and modify them in time, but unfortunately there is no such educational function in POE 2.

Although Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt has made some adjustments to reduce the degree of punishment for players’ death in the endgame, such as being able to create a new instance map after death and use Waystones with the same modifiers to enter it for a new round of exploration. But this cannot solve the genuine dilemma of players.

In fact, there are already many calls for the death review function in the popular action role-playing games in the current game world. Even Diablo 4, a powerful rival of POE 2, has been called by players to add this function, but they are indifferent.

So after Last Epoch, a common rival of POE 2 and D4, released Season 2 Tombs of the Erased, some disappointed players began to enter this more interesting game, because there are many features that players dream of, such as death review.

Even some players who have tried these two games called for POE 2 to learn from these features in Last Epoch in the next version to make themselves more competitive. Although the developers have not explicitly stated that they will consider adding this feature, players are still looking forward to it, because its popularity has become a trend just like couch co-op.

In general, because the difficulty of building and endgame in Path of Exile 2 is very high compared to similar games, the learning difficulty of players will also become higher. Therefore, if a death review screen is added, it may make it easier for them to learn from the experience of this battle and complete subsequent challenges faster.

Because the addition of this feature will improve the accessibility of the entire game, it is very useful for both novice exiles and high-level exiles. This will also indirectly lead to more new players pouring into POE 2, thereby expanding their influence. Like the players, I will also wait and see whether the developers can implement this new feature that can greatly improve the player's experience in the official version.

Path of Exile 2 was well received after its early access release in December last year, because it added a lot of new game content and mechanics compared to the original game. This positive momentum continued until early April this year, when the first major patch 0.2.0, and a new league Dawn of the Hunt were released.

Although the developers also spent a lot of time in this major update to bring players a variety of new content, such as new classes, new enemies and new maps, players did not buy it. Even though the developers subsequently launched nearly 5 patches to make up for the losses of players, players still complained about it.

Since Path of Exile 2 is still in the early access stage, there is still a lot of room for developers to modify. In view of this, this guide will summarize some of the key changes that POE 2 needs to make in the next update that are currently discussed the most in the player community and social platforms, and they may all make the player’s gaming experience better.

1. Drop Rate Needs To Be Increased

Although the quality and drop rate of Path of Exile 2 loot have been greatly improved compared to the original game, only a small number of gear and currency have enjoyed this preferential treatment, while the drop rate of other POE 2 Regal Orbs, Orb of Annulment, and Chaos Orbs that can greatly improve production efficiency is still very low in the game.

This makes it a very long and tedious process for players to make a high-rarity and high-quality affixed gear in the game. More importantly, in order to obtain those rarer Uniques directly through the campaign, players need to complete the running tasks of those more challenging maps.

In this case, the shortage of currency and the lack of gear effectiveness will make this challenge full of great risks. Therefore, players are very much hoping that the drop rate of these key items will become a little higher, making some high-tier maps more profitable, so that the entire game can be more explorable.

2. Add A Gem Supplier

The gem cutting system in POE 2 is recognized by players as a great addition to this sequel, because it allows players to customize their skills according to the needs of the current exploration. And when you enter a higher-level explorable area, you will get more Uncut Gems, which means you can use them to upgrade your current skills or unlock new skills.

But when you over-upgrade a skill and change an exploration style, you will find that your build urgently needs to be modified in terms of skills. But when you remove this skill gem, you need to use a lower-level Uncut Gem to fill this gap.

In order to obtain this Uncut Gem, you need to return to the low-level map to do boring farming again, and expect these randomly dropped items to be picked up by you as soon as possible, which will consume a lot of time and energy.

Most importantly, you also need to buy POE 2 Currency to make corresponding modifications to your already nearly perfect and powerful build, which is a completely avoidable consumption.

So if developers add a gem vendor to the game, whether it’s skill gems, support gems, or spirit gems, it will greatly save players the cost of searching for the gems they want, thereby greatly improving the quality of life of players.

3. Change The Map Layout

Path of Exile 2 has several very large maps, and many players have complained about having to circle the map many times to find the corresponding exit. And because of the unique map refresh mechanism in the sequel, the location of the exit will change when you enter the map at different times.

In addition, there are very few checkpoints on each map, which makes it impossible for players to respawn nearby and challenge an enemy or boss again after failing. All these factors make it difficult for players to quickly draw maps and get more loot from them.

The improvement that developers can make is to set more checkpoints and reduce the scope of each map so that players can better backtrack and farm effectively.

Not only that, many players who want to complete all campaigns quickly suggest that the exit of each map should be permanently marked. However, from the perspective of some players who want to explore in detail, this may have some negative effects, because after completing the main battles and quests, they will be very eager to leave the map instead of looking for some optional quests or bosses.

Of course, in addition to the changes in the game mechanism, players also hope that developers can optimize the performance of the game. Because in many actual explorations, the player’s configuration is far beyond the recommended configuration, but the game’s frame rate is still not stable, so developers may need to put this type of optimization on the agenda.

The above are some suggestions from many players on the recent major update of POE 2 and what they want to see in the next update. Although there is no guarantee that POE 2 will return to its peak state after revising these problems, it is worth affirming that will undoubtedly be a relief to those exiles who criticized patch 0.2.0 and are loyal to the original. I wish you a happy game!

Since the early access release of Path of Exile 2, players have been very surprised by the performance of Mercenary class. This character, which seems to be out of tune with the game style, has become the first choice for many players who love strategic battles with its super damage output and super practicality.

In the latest Dawn of the Hunt league, the developer added a new Ascendancy class called Tactician, which is a class with vigorous support, survivability and damage capabilities. And some of the passive skills and effect gains it provides have significantly improved the practicality of Mercenary.

For Tactician, you can make it a purely auxiliary support class, or you can make it a part-time auxiliary class. If you have just unlocked this Ascendancy class, but don’t know how to use it correctly, this guide will provide you with the most commonly used and most powerful build tips for Tactician.

It should be noted that the builds provided here are all available for single-player exploration, which will focus more on self-leveling, and we will continue to pay attention to those builds that can benefit your allies in cooperation.

Tactician Build Overview

Before using Tactician, a class with multiple builds, you need to select Mercenary as your standard class before the exploration begins, and be familiar with some subsequent commonly used active skills, such as Fragmentation Rounds, High Velocity Rounds, Explosive Grenade and Gas Grenade.

Because being familiar with the rotation between these skills will make your early game and the campaign process in Cruel Mode very smooth. When you reach the endgame, you can modify your build according to your needs, because at this time you already have a lot of Uncut Spirit Gems to unlock some new spells, thereby enhancing the damageability of the entire build.

But it is worth mentioning that although the damage ability of Mercenary (or Tactician) is strong, its survivability is also very weak. In a boss encounter, the most powerful build of this character will be in serious danger of death after three consecutive attacks from the enemy.

Therefore, many players who use Tactician build often stun the enemy in combat, which will open up a window for them to deal super high damage and successfully complete all challenges. So here are some strategies and tips for using Tactician build during your exploration, including the leveling stage and the endgame stage.

Leveling Stage

Act 1

Since the skills you have in Act 1 are only some basic skills that can help you get through the early game, such as Fragmentation Rounds, which can effectively defend you from monsters. When you unlock Tier 2 and above Uncut Skills Gems, you can cut them into Velocity Rounds and Flash Grenade, two very effective damage skill gems, to have higher clearing and combat capabilities.

Although you don’t have a lot of support gems in Act 1, you still need to place Scattershot and Double Barrel in the support slot of High Velocity Rounds, and Overpower and Second Wind behind Flash Grenade.

In addition, your defensive gear is also very important in the early stages of the game, so you need to try to find some armor or helmets with high dodge ratings and elemental resistance, and then buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade their rarity or re-roll their affixes.

When you level up a little, you can unlock Galvanic Shards and add Lightning Infusion and Martial Tempo to it to expand the effectiveness of this powerful elemental damage skill. Finally, after you successfully defeat King of the Mists boss, you can cut the first Uncut Spirit Gem you get into Herald of Thunder to increase the lightning damage you can apply.

Act 2

In Act 2, you will need to upgrade your existing skills as much as possible and unlock some new skills. The first new skill you need to unlock is Gas Grenade, and place Scattershot and Magnified Effect support gems on it.

In the case of a group of enemies attacking you, you can use Explosive Grenade and equip it with Second Wind and Inspiration support gems. The other most needed new skill in this act is Explosive Shot, because it will work perfectly with Explosive Grenade skill, further increasing the explosion damage you inflict on the enemy, especially if you choose Martial Tempo as its support gem.

At this time, the support gem of Galvanic Shards should be changed from Martial Tempo to Conduction. With this powerful build, the exploration process of this act will be very smooth until you enter Trial of Sekhemas, which can provide you with a tough challenge with a strong Tactician Ascendancy class.

Act 3 And Above

In this more difficult challenge, focus on upgrading your skills as much as possible and unlock Oil Grenade and Ripwire Ballista, both of which make some high-health enemies more vulnerable to high projectile damage and provide you with some defensive capabilities.

For the support gems of these two skill gems, Encumbrance increases the enemy movement speed caused by Oil Grenade by 15%, while Lockdown and Persistence make the damage inflicted by Ripwire Ballista stronger and more persistent.

If you miss the opportunity to gain Tactician Ascendancy in Trial of Sekhemas, you can also unlock it by completing Trial of Chaos in this act. However, if you have already unlocked Ascendancy class, you can also gain more Ascendancy points by completing this trial.

Finally, once you defeat Ignagduk, Bog Witch, you can use Uncut Spirit Gem it rewards you with unlocking Ghost Dance, which can be used with the support gem Clarity, which increases mana regeneration in this build by 30%.

In Cruel Mode, your overall build doesn’t actually need to be changed much, because most of the skill damage capabilities have been maximized. You can unlock Wind Dancer to enhance your defense capabilities according to your play style.

In addition, at this stage, the support gem slots of Gas Grenades and Galvanic Shards are no longer enough. You need to use two POE 2 Lesser Jeweler’s Orbs to increase this slot and place Primal Armament and Pierce in it.

Endgame Stage

When you complete all the main campaigns provided by POE 2, you enter the more challenging endgame content. Although your overall build is complete at this stage, you still need to modify it for subsequent game content.

For some key passive skills and active skill gems, you don’t need to modify them because their maximum effectiveness has been demonstrated. But the weapons and gear you use may need a major change.

In the early game exploration, your farming effectiveness and clearing ability may not be so important, so most of them are weapons that can inflict a lot of physical damage. In the endgame, you not only need to pay attention to the physical damage you cast, but also need to add some lightning damage to make you more profitable in some group enemy encounters.

Although your defensive gear such as armor and helmets are of a higher level before, and can allow you to complete some exploration tasks safely, the challenges of the enemies and monsters you face in the endgame are more difficult, so you also need amulets that can increase your maximum health and mana to escort you.

Overall Tips

In fact, the operation and gameplay of Tactician build are very simple. You only need to use the correct skill rotation (from Oil Grenade to Explosive Shot to Gas Grenades) to have super high damage output. But it has to be admitted that the cooldown time of these skills is very long. After you use a set of rotations, all skills may enter the cooldown time.

But this does not mean that you can only dodge to ensure your safety during this time. You can also throw Explosive Grenades at the enemy to cause more explosive damage until all skills are restored. Or, during the skill rotation, throw Ripwire Ballista at the enemy, which will stop the enemy from moving forward under the damage of the powerful crossbow, so that it can withstand more damage.

Exiles, the arrival of Dawn Of The Hunt League has brought us some new classes and Ascendancies, which also gives us more options for endgame builds. And here, an excellent league starter build we want to recommend is the new Lich Ascendancy based on Witch class, which is Essence Drain Contagion Lich.

Essence Drain Contagion Lich Overview

Lich is a very interesting Ascendancy class. It not only brings a new gameplay, but also is extremely powerful, causing a lot of damage in both the early and late game.

And Lich has perfect synergy with Essence Drain, because it has powerful defense nodes like Soulless Form and Eternal Life. And Lich class is also one of the few Ascendancy skills that Essence Drain will have a strong damage multiplier when using Eldritch Empowerment.

Essence Drain deals damage on top of regular hits, as well as secondary damage over time debuff that lasts for a set amount of time. When combined with Contagion skill, the damage over time spreads between groups of monsters, turning our primary damage into a large-scale clearing skill, and you can see groups of monsters on the screen exploding in an instant!

So, as the name suggests, this build revolves around two core mechanics, Essence Drain and Contagion. Now, let’s break down its mechanics.

Core Skills

As we said before, the core damage skills of this build are Essence Drain and Contagion, a combination that has actually been widely used since the early days of Path of Exile 1.

First, let’s understand the mechanics of Contagion, which is to apply a debuff to a single enemy and deal chaos damage over time. When an enemy affected by Contagion dies, it spreads all debuffs, including Contagion, to nearby enemies, and increases damage by +100% per jump, stacking up to 300%. This is really crazy!

For Essence Drain, after you fire a projectile, it can apply a powerful Chaos Damage over Time debuff to enemies. Currently, in POE 2, Essence Drain is the only skill besides Contagion that can apply a high Chaos Damage over Time debuff. So when an enemy affected by Contagion is killed by Essence Drain, its powerful Chaos Damage over Time will also spread to nearby enemies along with Contagion debuff.

Ascendancy Nodes

In Path of Exile 2, this playstyle was initially adopted by a few Acolyte of Chayula Ascendancy players, making this class, which was not doing well in the early Early Access period, competitive.

However, after the release of Dawn Of The Hunt, Eternal Life mechanic of Lich class clearly proved that it was a better choice for this playstyle. Eternal Life Ascendancy node of Lich stipulates that life cannot be modified while having Energy Shield. At first glance, this seems to have two benefits, one is that as long as you have Energy Shield, you can prevent being killed instantly, and the other is that you are immune to chaos damage when Energy Shield is activated.

But the key is that when used in conjunction with Soulless Form passive skill, 10% of the damage will penetrate the energy shield. And after having Eternal Life, these penetration damage cannot modify life, which actually means that the penetration rate is converted into damage reduction.

Equipment

The core equipment of this build includes Atziri’s Disdain Gold Circlet, which makes 10% of the damage penetrate energy shield, and it also increases energy shield based on maximum life. In addition to this, you can also get Heavy Buffer, which increases maximum energy shield by 40% and makes 5% of the damage penetrate energy shield.

The combination of Soulless Form, Atziri’s Disdain and Heavy Buffer can get a total of 25% of the damage bypassing energy shield, which is equivalent to 25% flat damage reduction, which is extremely powerful.

Considering that the key equipment of this build is Atziri’s Disdain, we adjust its modifier priority to: Chaos Skill Gem Level > Chaos Damage > Spell Damage.

Currently, the price of Atziri’s Disdain on the market is very affordable, usually 1 Exalted Orb can be obtained, but the price of wands that provide chaos damage is relatively high, so if you want to get a continuous chaos damage debuff, then you may have to buy POE 2 Currency to get them.

In addition, thanks to the unique mechanism of Lich’s Eternal Life, defensive equipment can use life and energy shield at the same time, avoiding dependence on a single attribute, which greatly reduces the difficulty of obtaining defensive equipment. Therefore, except for expensive weapons, other equipment is still affordable.

Pros And Cons

In the character panel statistics, we can see that the damage per second (DPS) of Essence Drain Contagion Lich is 52,000, and the effective health value is 28,000 under normal circumstances.

As a Contagion Lich build with Eternal Life, you can apply various curse debuffs, chaos resistance, or take advantage of low life bonuses to get additional damage bonuses. Therefore, you can use it to clear all non-chaos immune content.

For the advantages of this build, we will consider that Contagion’s spread mechanism makes it extremely fast to clear the field, and the continuous damage gameplay allows you to clear all enemies in just a few seconds!

Of course, the disadvantages are also obvious. First, Essence Drain and Contagion are both single-target skills, so you can only trigger the spread effect when attacking the same enemy, and missing this combo will make you vulnerable. Secondly, running this build requires at least 2 active skills, which greatly increases the complexity of the buttons.

According to the current statistics for the new league, Lich has a usage rate of 13% in the ladder class, ranking second. Atziri’s Disdain maintains a usage rate of about 6% in the entire ladder ranking, making it the seventh most used unique item. The combination of Essence Drain and Contagion currently has a usage rate of about 7%, ranking 15th among all active skills.

There is no doubt that the build is relatively popular, probably because Lich is currently too powerful, but you have to consider that if Lich is nerfed, the effectiveness of this build may be severely affected.

When you enter the endgame content provided by the very popular Path of Exile 2 Early Access, the first thing you need to focus on is how to earn corresponding skill points for your Atlas passive tree faster and easier.

Normally, you can get some Atlas passive skill points by defeating the final boss on the map or completing tasks, but in the latest Dawn of the Hunt League, you can also get additional skill points by finding and cleaning Corrupted Nexus.

The addition of this new endgame mechanism has gradually improved the shortcomings of the lack of depth in the endgame content of POE 2 that has been criticized by players before, and has increased the curiosity of many players who love challenges to explore it.

With the exception of the first Corrupted Nexus in the game, the locations of the Corrupted Nexus maps are completely random, So in this guide, we’ll show you a few ways to find and clean up Corrupted Nexus this difficult content and quickly earn Atlas passive skill points.

Corrupted Nexus Overview

In short, Corrupted Nexus is a special map in Atlas that contains some corrupted monsters and a Beyond boss that you need to defeat. This map only appears in zones and biomes affected by combined corruption, so you can identify it by the neon red corruption icon.

To enter Corrupted Nexus, you need to prepare a Waystone with at least 4 modifiers to unlock it. It is worth mentioning that the tier and modifier number of Waystones you have after entering the endgame is not high, so you really need to buy POE 2 Currency to increase and effectively roll the modifiers you have.

However, if you fail to complete this Corrupted Nexus, it will disappear, so make sure the modifiers of Waystones will not interfere with your exploration. In addition, the monsters and bosses in Corrupted Nexus are more challenging than those in the same level maps, so you also need to upgrade and reinforce your own build.

Location Of Corrupted Nexus

Although there is a very obvious red icon on Corrupted Nexus map, you cannot immediately see the location of this special map under the cover of Fog of War. Usually, you may need to unlock all the explorable maps on 2-3 screens to encounter a zone containing a Corrupted Nexus, which is very unfavorable for you who want to effectively farm Atlas passive skill points in it.

But fortunately, there are now two tricks to help you quickly determine the location of Corrupted Nexus and the direction you are heading on Atlas. First, you need to find a Corrupted Nexus, a black stone spire that is clearly corrupted. If you can’t find the exact location of the stone spire, you can keep shrinking the endgame map until it is the smallest, and then identify its location through a black miasma.

In addition, you can also expand the entire POE 2 endgame map to the maximum and check whether each tower is surrounded by red corruption, because in general, there is a prime chance of a Contaminated Nexus being present near a Contaminated Tower. Through these two methods, you can clearly determine the approximate location of this profitable map and start exploring it.

How To Complete Corrupted Nexus?

Once you have found the exact location of Corrupted Nexus, you can start to plan to farm Atlas passive skill points in it. In this process, you can get 2 Atlas skill points every time you unlock and complete a run with the required Waystone.

So you need to repeat the cycle 15 times to get the 30 Atlas skill points that Corrupted Nexus can provide you. The remaining 10 are hidden in other special maps and battles, such as you and Xesht, Kosis or Omniphobia, etc. However, keep in mind that you can’t use a Tier 15 Waystone to unlock Corrupted Nexus and gain 30 Atlas skill points all at once.

The sign of completing a Corrupted Nexus map is that you have cleared the map of Beyond Bosses. There are currently only 3 Beyond Bosses on this map - The Skittermind, The Eater of Flesh, and The Pale Angel. They all have over 10,000 health points, but are not very resistant to elemental damage.

So when fighting them, be sure to prioritize casting elemental attacks that can cause great damage to them, and upgrade your defensive gear in your build as soon as possible to ensure your own safety during longer encounters. After you defeat them, you have completed the task of cleansing Corrupted Nexus.

After cleaning, nearby corrupted maps will be transformed into cleansed maps, which contain multiple monsters and bosses to challenge. On top of that, these maps will also reward you with Fracturing Orbs, which is one of the most valuable currencies in the game.

Above is an overview of the new endgame mechanics called Corrupted Nexus in Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt League, and a look at how you can explore. Hopefully, with the help of this guide, you can find this special map more quickly and farm Atlas skill points more easily to make your build more powerful. I wish you a happy game.

As you explore in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, you will definitely have to deal with the topic of mapping correctly, whether you are in the leveling stage or the endgame stage, and mapping will require numerous Waystones of different levels.

Once your inventory is low, your exploration may be forced to slow down or stop, especially in high-level challenges. So players have been looking for some ways to store Waystones stably in POE 2.

It is worth celebrating that the process of obtaining Waystones in the endgame stage of Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt League has been greatly simplified and the drop rate is higher, making it easier to keep Waystones.

This means that the previous methods of obtaining Waystones in the game are no longer used, so this guide will introduce you to some effective strategies and steps to keep the number of Waystones within a stable range.

1. Prioritize Boss Maps

In the current POE 2 game content, the most effective way to maintain Waystones is to use some of the high-value Waystones on some more profitable endgame map nodes, such as Boss Maps, which will give you a 100% chance of picking up Waystones of a higher tier than Waystones used to enter the map.

For example, if you enter a Boss map node with a Tier 10 Waystone, after you defeat the boss in it, it will drop at least one Tier 11 Waystone. Although you may need to buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade the offensive and defensive capabilities of the build, this method is the best way to quickly increase your Waystones by one Tier because it has no drop rate.

In addition, even if you enter a map node without a final boss but with a final rare monster, you will at least get a Waystone of the same Tier as you unlocked the map. In short, as long as you complete any Boss Map, you will get at least one Waystone of the same Tier or higher.

You may also get some Waystones from chests or monsters while exploring, but be aware that this strategy does not work for Tier 16 and above Waystones.

2. Use Atlas Skill Nodes that Increase Waystone Drop Rates

Once you complete the quests given to you by Doryani in POE 2 endgame, you will unlock some nodes on Atlas skill tree, some of which will provide you with this buff for increasing the drop rate of Waystones. For example:

• Constant Crossroads: Increases the number of Waystones by 20%.
• Fortunate Path: Increases the rarity of Waystones by 100%.
• The High Road: Increases the chance of getting higher Tier Waystones by 20%.

Once you complete Tier 4 maps, you will be able to unlock all three nodes, and you will have a very efficient experience farming Waystones, as long as you can use them wisely. In addition, if you have previously unlocked other Atlas passive skill points, you can respec them using POE 2 Gold.

3. Perfect Your Endgame Build As Early As Possible

In the endgame exploration, one of the most common confusions among players is why Waystones are consumed so quickly? One of the key reasons is that the build you use is not the most perfect endgame build, which will cause you to die frequently in battles with bosses, rare monsters, or even ordinary monsters.

Once you experience death, all Waystones and POE 2 Currency you just invested in this map will be burned. So the advice here is to go to the player community or social platform as soon as possible to check the best endgame build that suits you best, so as to reduce the number of times you die in battle.

Similarly, some of the combat methods you used in the leveling stage may not be applicable in the endgame, so you also need to change your combat strategy and game style to expand your possibility of earning more and higher-tier Waystones in these maps.

4. Investing Currency In Waystones

Although in the current POE 2, many players have always been impressed by the currency such as Regal Orb and Exalted Orb, which can only be used for trading or crafting, but if you use it to upgrade Waystones, you may be surprised.

You can think of Waystones as a kind of craftable item in the game. The more currency you invest in it, the more rewards you get. This is a very beautiful, virtuous circle, but the premise is that you don’t die in the exploration.

For Tier 1-5 Waystones, you can invest in Orbs of Augmentation and Orbs of Transmutation, which allows you to upgrade your regular items into magical items. For tier 6-10 Waystones, you can invest in Regal Orbs, which turn them into rare items. Regal Orbs, POE 2 Exalted Orbs, Vaal Orbs, and Delirium Instills allow for maximum enhancement of tier 11-16 Waystones.

As you level up your Waystones, you may also roll over the modifiers on them. There are two main types of modifiers you should be looking at: modifiers that increase the drop rate of Waystones (by at least 200%) and modifiers that increase the rarity of items in the exploration area, both of which will make your mapping process very profitable.

In addition, modifiers that increase the number or rarity of monsters in the exploration area are also good results to roll, but this means that you will face a higher difficulty when you enter the map unlocked with this Waystone, so please do it according to your ability.

The above are some methods and strategies you can use to keep your Waystones in a stable range in POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt League. Hopefully, you can use this guide to farm Waystones more effectively and explore more interesting endgame stages with them. Have fun playing!

Since the early access release of Path of Exile 2, players have been discussing its complexity and high difficulty, because it is not easy to understand how the game’s level system interacts with each other, even those who have been exploring the original game for a long time cannot fully understand it.

After POE 2 launched the latest Dawn of the Hunt league a few weeks ago, the addition of many new mechanisms and new content has made players more confused about the game, especially the interaction effects of the three types of charges (Power Charges, Frenzy Charges, and Endurance Charges) and other game resources in Path of Exile 2.

Since the source and casting of Endurance Charges in POE 2 are all related to Warrior build, and with Dawn of the Hunt League bringing the new Smith of Kitava Ascendancy to this class with strong survivability and damage capabilities, this guide will provide an introduction to Endurance Charges for players who focus on this play style.

How Endurance Charges Works?

In fact, you can think of Endurance Charges as a kind of buff effect in POE 2, which will give some auxiliary attacks some buffs. The specific way it works is that you need to obtain some Endurance Charges through the skill gems, support gems, gear and activated passive skill nodes you place in your build, and then use the skills, support gems or gear that can consume this charge to achieve the effect of gaining buffs.

It should be noted here that only gear that clearly indicates that it can interact with Endurance Charges in the item description can participate in this operation. In addition, the three types of charges cannot be interchanged because the interaction effects they have are completely different.

Not only that, the effectiveness of the bonus Endurance Charges is related to the skill that consumes it and the rarity and level of the gear, so here it is recommended that you buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade the important items in your build as much as possible.

Sources Of Endurance Charges

As mentioned above, the main way to obtain Endurance Charges in Path of Exile 2 is from the skills of Warrior class, but that is not all. The following are all the specific sources of Endurance Charges and their specific effects.

• Magma Barrier (Warrior Skill): When you hold up a shield, it fills with magma for a short time. If you block during this time, magma will be sprayed at the attacker, granting them 1 Endurance Charge.
• Break Endurance (Support Gem): When a supported skill completely destroys an enemy’s armor, there is a 40% chance of gaining an Endurance Charge.
• Cranial Impact (Passive Notable): Stun buildup is increased by 30% and you gain an Endurance Charge when you apply a Heavy Stun to a rare or unique enemy.
• Grit (Passive Notable): When you gain an Endurance Charge, you have a 5% chance of gaining up to 1 maximum Endurance Charge instead.
• Resonance (Keystone): It will convert the types of charges you get on the map activated by this Keystone: Power Charges to Endurance Charges, Endurance Charges to Frenzy Charges, and Frenzy Charges to Power Charges.

What Consumes Endurance Charges?

Once you’ve earned some Endurance Charges, you need to choose the right skills or gear to use them, either for devastating damage or solid defense. Here are the main ways you spend Endurance Charges in POE 2.

• Infernal Cry (Warrior Skill): When casting this skill, your character will let out a warcry, and then consume all Endurance Charges to gain a strengthened, additional attack. And enemies in the warcry range will become more vulnerable and will burn when they die, causing super fire damage to remaining nearby enemies.
• Seismic Cry (Warrior Skill): It also causes your Warrior to let out a high-damaging warcry that knocks back nearby enemies, leaving the character in a safe standing position. If you hit an enemy that is already Heavy Stunned, your next Slam is empowered and you can land an additional attack per Endurance Charge spent. If you miss, the cooldown of this skill is reset.
• Shielding Cry (Warrior Skill): If there are enemies nearby when you cast this warcry, subsequent shield attack skill abilities will consume all Endurance Charges to gain an empowered additional attack.
• Charge Infusion (Skill): When activated, you gain powerful buffs based on the active charges, including 12% increased defense with Endurance Charges. However, maintaining this buff requires you to expend all your Endurance Charges every few seconds.
• Rally (Support Gem): Supports melee attacks used by the user. Supported skills consume all durability charges when used and restore a percentage of your maximum life for each Endurance Charge spent.
• Nebuloch Execratus Hammer (Unique Mace): This powerful weapon relies on Endurance Charges when used to deal a whopping 100 Chaos Critical Damage to enemies.
• Elemental Infusion (Amazon Ascendancy Passive): It gives Amazon build an active skill called Infuse Weapon, and when you cast this skill and consume an Endurance Charge, you gain 2 Fire Infusion.

How To Increase Maximum Endurance Charges?

Before you start to build the best build for your character, the default maximum number of Endurance Charges you have at a time is 3. However, in actual exploration, this number cannot provide effective benefits for skills or gear that consume high Endurance Charges, so you can try the following methods to increase your maximum Endurance Charges.

• Endurance (Passive Notable): Allows you to add two Maximum Endurance Charges.
• Guts & Grit (Passive Notable): Each one adds one Maximum Endurance Charge.
• Belt Enchantment (Vaal Orb Outcome): Can add 1 Maximum Endurance Charges.

The above is an overview of Endurance Charges in the current POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt League and how to use them. I hope you can use this charge that can greatly upgrade your survivability and damage ability to gain a better exploration experience in this new league and rank among the top. I wish you a happy game!

Path Of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt League released earlier this month saw a rework of the endgame content that players have been complaining about, such as the introduction of some new map types and rewards. With this major improvement, the best way for players to progress in the endgame and the best maps to use for farming have also changed.

In order to make your farming experience more comfortable and faster after entering the challenging endgame stage, this guide will introduce you to some of the most profitable endgame maps in POE 2 and their farming strategies.

However, it should be noted that the specific farming efficiency and loot quality you have in each map will largely depend on whether you place gear that can improve the quantity or quality of loot in your build, and whether you buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade their rarity and affixes.

1. Expedition

First of all, Expedition is the most popular one, as it rewards you with Artifacts and Exotic Coinage that can be traded with Expedition crews who can provide you with rare gear.

You can also use some Recombinators on Expedition NPCs to expand their effectiveness if you want to obtain some POE 2 Items that are more beneficial to your endgame exploration.

Expedition also rewards you with Expedition Logbooks, which can allow you to enter larger and more challenging endgame maps, where there will be some unique boss encounters. After these battles are completed, you will gain some Atlas passive skill points related to Expedition.

2. Breach

Before POE 2 Dawn of the Hunt League made major changes to the endgame, the endgame with Breach mechanic was the most profitable in the game. Although the difficulty and rewards of each endgame activity will be more balanced after the changes, making Breach not so prominent, the rewards it provides are still irreplaceable.

You can find Breach Rings, which are exclusive to Breach mechanic, and double the modifiers you can use when you re-enter Breach endgame map. In addition, Breach Catalysts dropped in this map are an important part of crafting rings and amulets that provide you with high buffs in this extremely difficult game content.

On top of that, you can also collect a lot of Breach Splinters in Breach. Once you have collected 300 fragments, you can place them on Realmgate to enter the encounter with Xesht, We That Are One, a boss who will give you two Breach Atlas Passive Points.

3. Delirium

Delirium mirrors, which you often encounter in the main campaign of POE 2 Early Access, contain a lot of monsters that can provide you with a lot of loot. So the maps with Delirium mirrors in the endgame content will be some of the most challenging for you, especially if you invest in some Keystones that can modify the quality or quantity of loot.

Of all the rewards you get from maps that contain Delirium mechanic, Distilled Emotions are arguably the most worth farming, as they can imbue amulets with some powerful passive abilities and buff Keystones with Delirium modifiers, both of which can make your exploration of endgame content much smoother.

Also, like Breach, you can get a ton of Simulacrum Splinters on Delirium map. Once you’ve collected 300 Simulacrum Splinters, you can use them to enter an encounter with Kosis, Revelation boss, or Omniphobia, the Fear Manifest boss. Also, defeating them will earn you two Delirium Atlas Passive Points.

4. Rituals

Rituals endgame map contains some Ritual Altars, which are very similar to the altars you encountered in Freythorn during the main campaign of POE 2.

After you complete Ritual Altars, you’ll earn Tributes, which grant you important currency at those completed altars, such as Favors and Omens, which are used to obtain higher-quality loot.

These currencies are all rewards for running Rituals endgame map, and after completing this clearing mission, you’ll receive an Audience with the King, which is required to fight The King in the Mists boss in Crux of Nothingness.

However, it should be noted that this important key is not guaranteed to appear in the loot that appears after your first completion of Rituals endgame map, so you may need to farm it multiple times.

In addition, during your fight with The King in the Mists, since it is a two-stage boss, you may want to spend some POE 2 Currency in advance to make your build more defensive. After you successfully defeat it, you will receive two Rituals Atlas Passive Points in addition to the unique loot it provides you.

The above are the most worthwhile endgame maps to try in the current POE 2 Early Access Dawn of the Hunt League. As long as you have a strong enough build, you can get a lot of benefits from it, such as experience points, loot, and currency rewards, so as to get a better exploration experience. I wish you a happy game!

There are many boss encounters waiting for you in Path of Exile 2 Early Access, some of which you can defeat with just one try, without any special build modifications. But with others, you may need to pay special attention to the encounters you have to experience, such as Mektul, The Forgemaster.

In fact, Mektul, The Forgemaster is not a difficult enemy in the game, but the scenes you face in this arena require you to pay great attention, because you will be subjected to many restrictions. In view of this, many POE 2 builds that have powerful abilities in other exploration scenes need to be specially adjusted for this battle, such as changing support gems or re-selecting some passive and active skills.

However, such adjustments usually come with a lot of time, effort, and POE 2 Currency, so this guide will lighten your load by introducing the location of Mektul, some of the preparations and strategies you should make for him, and hopefully you’ll find the key to truly cracking this encounter.

Location Of Mektul, The Forgemaster

Mektul, The Forgemaster is located in Molten Vault, which is located in Drowned City, and you need to enter it through Treasures of Utzaal quest in Act 3. Molten Vault is located on the outer edge of the map you are exploring, and you can find it along the edge.

However, it should be noted that due to the unique map refresh mechanism in POE 2, the location of Molten Vault may change every day you explore Drowned City, for example, it may be in the northeast corner today, in the southwest corner tomorrow, etc. So please be patient in your search.

Preparing For Mektul Encounter

Once you have found the arena where you will fight Mektul, do not enter it yet, but instead interact with the nearest checkpoint. This will allow you to respawn as close to the arena as possible if you lose, and will also allow you to buy POE 2 Currency to increase your build’s defenses, as this encounter will be difficult.

While all of Mektul’s own attacks are not very damaging and are easy to dodge, the key to this encounter is that you need to keep an eye on the lava he releases from his molten furnace, which deals a lot of fire damage and shrinks the area in which you can stand in the arena.

This also means that your fight with Mektul has a time limit, and if you don’t defeat him before the lava consumes you, you will be burned alive by the very powerful lava. Here are a few different attacks that Mektul will currently use on you and some strategies to deal with them.

Hammer Slam

Mektul will swing one of his hands backwards and slam a small hammer into the ground. Since this move has a backward swing, you can easily tell when the damage will occur and dodge to the side in time to avoid it.

Axe Slash

This boss will swipe an axe across your body, but before swinging it, you will see it pull the axe back and hold it tightly in its hand. Again, you can use this prompt to dodge backwards or forwards behind Mektul to avoid this low-damage move. However, be aware that the boss will use this move multiple times in a short period.

Leap Slam

If you are in a ranged class and are far away from Mektul, he will jump towards you and slam the ground at the same time. All you need to do is jump in any direction to avoid his attack on you and look for opportunities to attack him from behind.

Magma Slam

Also in long-range combat, Mektul will charge one arm back and slam it into the ground. You can think of it as a slower Hammer Slam. However, the damage here is not just stun, but a line of physical damage is formed in front of it, so you need to dodge to the side.

Magma Slash

Very similar to Magma Slam, but this move will use Mektul’s axe to slash at you. Although its attack damage is not a high threat to you, the lava it brings will force you to dodge to the side.

Detonate

When you get tired of fighting Mektul at a distance and gradually walk forward, you will see a lot of scattered stalagmites on the ground. They are usually just used to hinder your movement, but when Mektul roars and flashes orange light, they will be detonated, causing serious damage to you.

If there are multiple stalagmites near you, they are likely to cause super damage to your health. So when Mektul starts roaring and glowing, gets away from the boss and the stalagmites as soon as possible.

Magma Circle

When the boss’s health is reduced to about half by you, it will occasionally place its hammer on the ground and you will see a glowing orange circle near it, which will explode after a second, causing moderate damage to you. So avoiding this, stay away from the edge of the circle closest to you.

Magma Walk

After being hit by you many times, Mektul may step back a few steps into the lava. Then, after a few seconds, it will slowly walk towards you and let the lava roll along the ground towards you. You can avoid this lava while avoiding the stalagmites that block your way, but at this time, some of its resistances will be strengthened, making it more difficult to defeat.

Some Tips

You may have been told to be patient when fighting bosses in POE 2 Early Access, but your encounter with Mektul, The Forgemaster is the exact opposite. You need to deal as much damage as possible to knock him down as soon as possible, and you also need to have enough dodge or block to ensure your survival.

In addition, no matter which area of ​​the arena you choose to fight in, Mektul will stand in the lava to fight you. So you should retreat as much as possible during the fight to guide the boss away from the lava that is constantly eating you, which will allow you to complete your skill rotation more frequently and deal more damage.

Although your focus in this kind of fight should be to avoid all the attacks that Mektul casts, this will take up time for you to attack him, because each attack is uncertain and most of them are far away from the boss, which means you have to spend time approaching him again.

So the best way is to just avoid Mektul, so that you can deal more damage to him a second or two earlier. The principle of this strategy is mainly because most of the attacks used by Mektul are melee attacks. Avoiding where Mektul is standing is to avoid his attacks.

The above is the current POE 2 Early Access Dawn of the Hunt League’s countermeasures and some strategies for Mektul, The Forgemaster. I hope you can find the key you are missing in this encounter in this guide and complete this battle as quickly as possible to obtain high-quality loot and a lot of currency. I wish you a happy game!

Even the most experienced gamer or critic will not easily claim that he has figured out how to play POE series of games. Whether it is the first or the second part, POE series of games has always been known for its high difficulty and high complexity. To understand each mechanism, you need to invest a lot of time and effort.

Not long ago, Path of Exile 2 early access brought the game’s first league Dawn of the Hunt through the release of patch 0.2.0. This league brought a series of new content, making the already complex game even more difficult to master. But don’t worry, just follow your game rhythm to understand every content you encounter, and you will do your POE 2 work well.

For example, in POE 2, you will gradually encounter and unlock some special buffs, which can provide you with exclusive benefits and help you win battles more smoothly to earn POE 2 Currency, but you may not know how to unlock and use them at the beginning. Based on this, this time we will introduce you to the relevant information of the two buffs, Tailwind and Unholy Might.

Tailwind

Tailwind is a stackable buff that increases your character’s dodge rating, movement speed, and skill speed. Each stack increases movement speed by 1%, skill speed by 3%, and dodge rating by 15%, all of which last for 10 seconds, up to a maximum of 10 stacks.

How Does Tailwind Work?

If your character is a Ranger and Ascendancy class is Deadeye, Tailwind can be triggered by any skill you use, and you can activate Tailwind by using the skill without having to hit the enemy. When activated, Tailwind will visually appear as a strong wind around you.

Before combat begins, you can stack all 10 Tailwind buffs by using skills in succession, provided that you have used them no more than 10 seconds apart. It is worth noting that even weapon attacks that do not consume mana are considered skills in this context, and using them will also activate Tailwind.

In general, skills with low mana consumption and no cooldowns are the best choices for activating Tailwind, as they can be used in succession, such as Lightning Arrow. This type of skill not only outputs high damage, but can also be used infinitely with good mana regeneration and sufficient mana.

How To Get Tailwind?

In Path of Exile 2, in addition to playing as Deadeye as mentioned above, Tailwind can also be obtained through Black Insignia Corsair Helmet. As long as you are a Ranger and successfully pass the first Trial of the Sekhemas or Trial of chaos, you have a chance to be a Deadeye to unlock Tailwind.

As for Black Insignia, as long as you kill monsters of level 46 and above in the game, you have a chance to get the item drop. However, Tailwind obtained in this way will not be triggered when using skills, but only when you successfully cause a critical hit.

Unholy Might

Unholy Might, which is also a buff effect, converts 30% of all damage into additional chaos damage. While this number may seem high, it actually works differently than you think. For example, if you deal 100 lightning damage, 30% of that will be converted to chaos damage, which means you will deal 100 lightning damage and 30 chaos damage - the base damage value will not be converted directly to chaos damage.

This means that if you have an item that increases Lightning Damage by 50% and Unholy Might at the same time, the former will not increase the additional chaos damage from Unholy Might - you will still only deal 150 lightning damage and 30 chaos damage, because even though the lightning damage output is 150, the chaos damage is still calculated based on the base value of 100.

Of course, if you buy POE 2 Currency to add affixes that can increase chaos damage to your weapons or other item, the additional chaos damage will also be increased. So if your chaos damage is increased by 50% through affixes, then your final damage output will be 100 lightning damage + 30 chaos damage + 15 chaos damage.

However, if your base damage type is chaos damage, the scaling value will apply to both the base value and the additional chaos damage from Unholy Might. Given that the base damage type and the additional damage type scale differently, Unholy Might only really work when dealing with a single chaos damage.

What Is Presence?

Presence in POE 2 refers to the range of effect that Unholy Might takes effect in. Normally this range is 4 meters, but can be increased using range modifiers. These modifiers can be unlocked through Sceptres, Time-Lost Jewels, and certain skills in the passive skill tree, such as Enveloping Essence, Long Distance Relationship, and Profane Commander.

How To Get Unholy Might?

There are two ways to get Unholy Might. The first is to choose Lich as your Ascendancy class while playing as a Witch class. After that, Necromantic Conduit will allow you to gain Unholy Might for you and your teammates within Presence range by losing 5% of your maximum mana per second when you have enough mana.

The second way is to obtain Vis Mortis Plated Raiment Unique Body Armor dropped in battle. This armor will increase your energy shield and maximum mana by 70-100%, and allow your minions to gain Unholy Might - note, it is the minions, you cannot directly gain Unholy Might through this method.

I believe that through the introduction of these two buffs, you should be able to deduce how to obtain and use most other similar buffs, to use them to better complete your Path of Exile 2 missions and campaigns. Have fun!