Best Strategies To Collect Mirror Of Kalandra Fastest At The Beginning Of POE 3.25 League
In this guide, I will share one of my favorite farming strategies that only a few people focus on in every league, which is farming Mirror of Kalandra.
The goal is to make at least one Mirror in the next few days after entering the league. It is not impossible to achieve! The basics of this strategy come down to one thing, that is investment, including how to obtain capital to invest. Without further ado, let’s take a look at how this strategy works.
Why Farm Mirror Of Kalandra?
If you are a new player who just entered POE 3.25, you may want to ask why farm Mirror of Kalandra? What’s the fuss about it?
There is a good reason Mirror of Kalandra is considered the most valuable currency item in Path of Exile. With this basic currency item, you can actually get a copy of the best rare items in POE. This is also part of the reason experienced players invest their early funds into Mirror Shards instead of doing other things.
And as you progress through Settlers of Kalguur league, the price of this item will increase significantly. This is all the more reason to spend more time farming with the right build early in the league, rather than creating more characters.
How To Get Started?
So where do we start? At the beginning of the league, hopefully you’ll have picked a good build to start your journey.
Chaos Orbs are very important at this stage. And the best way to get them early is through raw drops or chaos vendor recipes. Once you pass the level 60 zone, you’ll have to start selling unidentified item level 60 to 74 sets of gears.
But to get enough unidentified jewelry items, you just need to run regular Lockpicking, Perception or Counter-Thaumaturgy contracts. To prevent upgrading too quickly, you don’t need to complete quests. But remember, don’t waste too much time on chaos vendor recipes, as these things will depreciate quickly. Whatever you get from here will lay the foundation for your glorious 4-month journey.
The point is, you can use these Chaos Orbs to start the first set of investments or upgrade your build. It depends on whether you are confident enough to jump right into the last step, or if you want to get enough Atlas points first.
If you are going to run a league mechanic, you will need a basic gear setup. If you focus on becoming a Hideout Warrior before you enter the map, you must understand what will increase in price and when. If you are not familiar with this, you will end up losing POE Currency, time, and valuable opportunities.
Flask Crafting
Flasks are one of the most worthwhile items to acquire in the first few weeks of a league. Among them, Magic Flask only requires a Glassblower’s Bauble to start crafting. These currency items are very common in Path of Exile. However, at the beginning of a league, Glassblower’s Bauble is more expensive than Chaos Orbs, which is very profitable. And you haven’t even killed a monster for it!
Master Missions
Except for Niko, Master of the Depths, all the master NPC league mechanics are very profitable at the beginning of a league. Here, I highly recommend Einhar and Jun.
Bestiary is OP mainly because they move a lot of valuable beasts to the core drop pool. Especially Black Mórrigan, which forces 6-links into your items. So don’t miss this one.
Double Corrupting
Another method that only a few people pay attention to is Double Corrupting mediocre items, making them extremely valuable. This includes Gems and Unique Body Armours. The reason why Double Corrupting Gems is better than Vaaling them is: one, because the success chance is higher, and two, you can get +1 and 23% quality versions.
But I have to say that most Gems are not worth your effort to Double Corrupt, unless it is Awakened Enlighten, certain Transfigured Gems, and skills with Vaal versions.
Some of these Gems have a big difference between level 20 and 21, especially the 23% quality gems. This means that the price difference between them is also very large, but it’s only a matter of time before you achieve a higher price.
All in all, this is a big time saver for a small investment. In large-scale situations, you can make a huge profit just by upgrading and selling.
Einhar’s Memory Of Harvest Beasts
Now, with the enhancements to the bestiary core drop pool, our Einhar’s Memory costs may become lower than ever. It will still have some beasts that you can’t get by default, and they are all very useful in one way or another.
Einhar’s Memory of Harvest Beasts has a high deterministic profit rate. And these Memory maps do not require you to make any progress in Atlas Passives. The only thing you need is a real build that can run these maps with 6 portals in White Maps.
While some Memories benefit from map tier, rarity and quality, these maps have no effect on the level of the area and the level of the captured beasts. Difficulty does not change their quantity or the unique crafts they provide.
Also Read: How To Get A Head Start In POE 3.25 Settlers Of Kalguur? - Try These 8 Top League Starter Builds
Farming Farrul’s Fur
At the beginning of most leagues, many players like to restart with powerful builds such as Flicker Strike, Discharge and other Power Charge Stacking builds, which are much more interesting than their league starters.
And most of them, including my build, use some mandatory unique items like Farrul’s Fur, which is a unique item with limited drops.
Farrul’s Fur is one of the chase items for Charge Stacking builds like my Flicker Strike. It cannot be obtained randomly and can only drop from Farrul, First of the Plains in Farrul’s Den.
Because of its rarity on the map, I would not recommend you to farm this beast alone unless you are playing Solo Self-Found. Also, for this reason, Farrul’s Fur is very popular in the first few days after the league starts.
However, by defeating the boss, you can not only get Aspect of the Cat but also sell the loot separately. But if the investment is more than the return, you can completely skip this strategy because this strategy is popular.
Invest In Items That Are Still Useful In The Late Game
Some items are worth investing in, even if you can’t split everything. Besides Mirror Shards, there are several items in POE that increase in price exponentially. To avoid any risk, don’t invest in anything that is more than you can afford.
If something is abnormally expensive, it means that there is inflation because of many people investing in the same thing. So it is best to always aim for items that are very useful to most players in the later stages.
Forbidden Sanctum
Apart from Mirror of Kalandra, the most expensive items in POE are 1 to 3 Passive Voices and Original Sin. You can basically get Voices from the 15th wave simulation and get Original Sin from Forbidden Sanctum.
Original Sin does require a unique Relic called Original Scripture to run and get it. This item mostly has a steep curve as you progress through the league and is definitely worth the investment.
Original Scripture has a chance to drop from Lycia in areas above level 81, which is another reason why Forbidden Sanctum is worth farming. What you do with this relic depends on the price between Ring and Relic. But if you have the build and skills to run No Hit Sanctum, then by all means go for it!
Vendor Recipes
Now let’s talk about simple underrated Vendor Recipes. Here are some simple Vendor Recipes that can produce items that are valuable in the early stages of a league. Some unique items are priced based on their modifier values and can range from 1 Chaos Orb to several Divine Orbs.
Some examples of these items include Ventor’s Gamble, Forbidden Shako, Replica Dragonfang’s Flight, and Brass Dome. You can simply collect them as you play. By selling 3 copies of the same unique item, you will get another copy of the same item but with a re-rolled modifier value. This is literally what recycling or turning trash into treasure means!
While items like this are low investment and high return, it’s an absolute waste of money if you do this with tier 0 chase Uniques.
By the way, don’t overlook decent Divination Cards at the beginning of a league. Since Gemcutter’s Prism is now quite expensive, the best way to farm Transfigured Gems is to use the 20% quality gems from Divination Cards.
In short, no matter how much you invest early in the league, it will have a significant snowball effect as the league progresses. Things that are valuable at the beginning of the league are considered junk later, and when the demand is low, the price of items that are considered mirror tier will be much lower accordingly. This is always true at the beginning of the league.
Regardless, following these methods and tips, it is definitely not a pipe dream to earn a Mirror of Kalandra shortly after entering the league! Hope you stay safe and have fun in Settlers of Kalguur!
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The full contents of Path of Exile 2 0.4.0, The Last of the Druids, will be officially revealed at GGG Live on December 4th, but before then, are you already itching to know what major changes they've made to the new expansion? We are too!
Although there's very little information leaked so far, that doesn't stop us from making some predictions. Here, we'll discuss the possible buffs and nerfs in Patch 0.4.0 based on all the current teasers and developer announcements, which might have a significant impact on the core gameplay in the new league!
Possible Nerfs
First, let's talk about the potential nerf options in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0.
Deadeye Ascendancy
Regarding the most likely nerf, we must mention Deadeye, the most popular Ascendancy in the 0.3.0 Softcore Trade and SSF Softcore League.
In the first week after the 0.3.0 patch, Deadeye's usage rate for level 80 and above characters in Softcore Trade League reached a staggering 42%.
Even a month after the update, with adjustments to some mechanics, new support gem changes, and improved balance, Deadeye still holds a 30% share of the overall Ascendancy class usage rankings. This is an unbelievable level of dominance.
Some argue that Amazon Ascendancy had similar dominance, or even higher, approaching 50%, in the previous 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt. However, considering that Huntress was a new class and a key feature introduced in 0.2.0, such a high percentage is understandable.
However, no new class was introduced in 0.3.0; Deadeye's dominance was simply a result of game imbalance. This class not only possessed one of the most versatile and powerful buffs in Path of Exile 2, Tailwind, but also gained even greater versatility through additional projectiles. These combinations even surpassed melee classes in damage scaling.
All of this should have served as a wake-up call for the developers, given Deadeye Ascendancy's complete dominance in 0.3.0. Of course, this update isn't just about Deadeye Ascendancy itself; a broader adjustment to game balance is expected in 0.4.0.
Lightning-Based Builds
The second predicted nerf is, of course, the completely unbalanced lightning damage type in POE 2. Especially for buffs like Herald of Thunder, they are too powerful, with too much damage potential, and when combined with Herald of Ice, they provide extremely high damage output, leading many players to rely on them for success.
For hit-based builds, lightning damage far outweighs any other damage type. This is because lightning damage has a very large scaling range, with very low minimum damage and very high maximum damage.
The original design intended to make lightning damage more unpredictable. However, the problem now lies in the fact that players can easily alter the damage calculation with two lucky damage rolls, making it more predictable and resulting in higher average damage.
Furthermore, lightning damage inherently has the advantage of applying a Shock, which increases the damage taken by the target by 20%, and this damage can be further amplified.
Meanwhile, other damage types have far fewer usable skills in the current game balance, especially mechanics like Freeze, which are practically useless.
All these factors combined ultimately result in lightning damage builds dealing significantly more damage than other damage types. In some cases, the damage can even double. This creates an awkward situation where even if you choose a non-lightning skill, you can still inflict lightning damage using a fixed lightning damage output, which feels somewhat incongruous.
Raising The Crafting Barrier
The last nerf prediction in 0.4.0 concerns crafting. However, we believe the crafting system should be weakened not in its functionality, but in its usability.
In 0.3.0, players typically jumped directly from basic health and resistance gear to ultimate gear, skipping any intermediate gear progression stages, because the power and availability of advanced crafting made this leap easy.
Therefore, I wouldn't be surprised if they increased PoE 2 currency cost of crafting endgame gear in The Last of the Druids update, as this aligns with the current crafting and gear progression mechanics. As you face increasingly difficult content, your character will experience a smoother overall progression across map tiers.
Possible Buffs
Next, let's look at our predictions for the buffs in PoE 2 patch 0.4.0 update.
New Druid-Specific Skill Nodes
Firstly, this update introduces Druids, the game's first Strength/Intelligence hybrid class. However, the current Strength/Intelligence skill trees are largely uninspired, either outdated and weak, or simply offering negligible damage boosts.
Therefore, 0.4.0 may introduce Druid-specific nodes to replace these generic ones, especially for areas like the armor and energy shield hybrid clusters.
New Vaal Ascendancies
Our second buff prediction relates to the 0.4.0 league's theme: Fate of the Vaal. The currently released trailers haven't revealed much, only mentioning the possible return of the once-destroyed Atziri, Queen of the Vaal.
It's worth noting that during Atziri's reign, Vaal races made numerous sacrifices, meaning a vast amount of blood was spilled across the land. Therefore, the concept of designing a Vaal variant Ascendancy class for Witch's Blood Mage fits perfectly here.
However, besides sacrifice and the pursuit of immortality, Atziri are also obsessed with gems. Historically, Vaal races were described as shimmering and studded with gems, which also perfectly aligns with Gemling Legionnaire's other Vaal version of Ascendancy.
Personally, we very much hope to see more similar special Ascendancy classes in the future, providing more possibilities for our builds.
Unique Items
It's time to reveal the final enhancement prediction: unique item optimization.
Now that we know the primary goal of 0.4.0 is to address the current endgame content issues in Path of Exile 2, most changes are expected to revolve around Atlas, including map optimization, map layout improvements, and Pinnacle boss fight. However, we believe there's one very important issue to address: adding worthwhile and meaningful endgame unique items.
Frankly, one of the most disappointing aspects of Path of Exile 2 is the lack of excellent unique items. Because rare gear with significant affixes in the game is often excessively powerful, their presence significantly affects the usability of unique items lacking those affixes. This has been evident since the early access release a year ago.
If the power provided by gear is reduced, developers will have more design freedom to create interesting and unique items that players truly want to use. However, as things stand, it's highly unlikely they'll make any changes to crafted gear in the 0.4.0 update besides restricting crafting mechanics. Nevertheless, abandoning unique items focused on endgame content and adding new unique items specifically for endgame builds is a good idea.
In any case, these are our current predictions for some of the buffs and nerfs that might appear in the Path of Exile 2 0.4.0 update. We don't know how our intuition holds up. But we'll soon know the results, as the developers' livestream is coming soon. Let's wait and see!
A few days ago, PoE 2 released a 30-second trailer announcing that Patch 0.4.0 would feature Fate of the Vaal League. While the brief trailer didn't reveal any new gameplay, it still sent shockwaves through players.
The female appearing in the trailer has been almost universally confirmed by players as Queen Atziri of the Vaal, though unlike her appearance in Path of Exile 1, she remains uncorrupted. So, what new mechanics and storylines does Queen Atziri's appearance in PoE 2 foreshadow in Patch 0.4.0?
Trailer Analysis
Atziri is the core of Path of Exile 1 patch 1.1 Sacrifice of the Vaal expansion. She is a narcissistic queen obsessed with immortality, leading to the downfall of the ancient Vaal civilization. Wraeclast civilization was plunged into a dark age because of her, with millions perishing in her pursuit of eternal youth. She survived the destruction of Vaal civilization and gained immortality.
In PoE 1, players can fight the corrupted Atziri, who is entirely red and possesses four arms, clearly no longer human. The scene depicted in the trailer may be the moment at the end of Act 3 when she communes with The Beast (at which point she is still human). This commemoration led to the cataclysm, destroying Vaal civilization.
Although PoE 2's story takes place after the first game, Atziri may never have been truly defeated, remaining trapped in Alluring Abyss. The corrupted The Beast, whom players follow in the current version, may be connected to her, or she may have sensed an evil signal and is preparing to wreak havoc on Wraeclast once more.
Speculation On Game Content Connections
This trailer is related to the new league content. The official demonstration of this scene suggests that players are highly likely to directly encounter or fight Atziri in the game.
Most likely, it involves the new season's league mechanics. The new league mechanics will allow players to travel back in time to experience or intervene in events through some means, such as time travel or Pensieve. Atziri-related content may be merged with the Incursion league mechanic and introduced into Path of Exile 2.
In Path of Exile 1, players encountered Temple of Atzoatl through map travel, and needed to upgrade or modify rooms to ultimately challenge the boss at the top of the temple. Players could also directly confront Atziri within the temple.
The development team may follow the successful precedent of merging Abyss and Veil affixes, integrating Temple of Atzoatl with Atziri combat content. This would both introduce a large amount of content at once and align with the storyline, as the relevant NPC, Alva, Master Explorer, is already in the game. In addition, content from older leagues like Beyond may return.
There's a small possibility that this will involve new story content, meaning this scenario is part of Act 5 or Act 6. However, the fifth act's scenario, where players push the cart, should be set in Oriath from PoE 2 era, while Act 6 might involve time travel and The Beast.
Potential Classic Items Introduced
Defeating Atziri in PoE 1 would drop many unique items, which might be adjusted or reworked and return in patch 0.4.0.
- Atziri's Promise: Possibly changed to a trinket providing chaos resistance and damage.
- Atziri's Step: High evasion, possibly combined with a new dodge mechanic.
- Doryani's Catalyst: Widely used in elemental builds.
- Pledge of Hands: Provides a high-level Spell Echo skill, with great potential.
- Atziri's Reflection (Shield): Provides anti-curse effects and was once very popular.
- Atziri's Rule (Staff): Contains Queen's Demand skill and was a core component of some builds.
- Doryani's Invitation (Belt): A standard item for many early builds.
Furthermore, if the time travel mechanic returns, it may bring new PoE 2 currency and items like Sacrificial Heart, Vial of Fate, and String of Servitude. Given the new season's connection to Vaal, the return of Vaal Skill Gems should also be considered.
Vaal Skill Gems are skill gems that are charged by collecting monster souls, temporarily providing powerful mutation effects. Vaal Skills in PoE 2 may be powerful variants of existing skills, or they may be Vaalized through new mechanics.
Possible PoE 2 Patch 0.4.0 League Mechanics
Based on historical updates from PoE 1, Fate of the Vaal League may incorporate or modify the following classic mechanics:
Sacrifice Of The Vaal
Players discover corrupted Vaal Side Areas within chapters or maps, filled with enhanced Vaal monsters and mini-bosses. The final reward may be related to challenging Atziri.
Incursion
Players collaborate with the architect Alva to travel back in time to build and ultimately raid an ever-generating Temple of Atzoatl. The temple is filled with various themed rooms, treasures, and bosses, culminating in a challenge against the corrupted form of Atziri.
Furthermore, this league introduces Double Corruption mechanic. In Locus of Corruption, items can gain two corruption affixes, but like Vaal Orb, it also comes with risks.
Other Possibilities
The trailer title, "The Mirror Does Not Lie," might hint that Patch 0.4.0 will feature a Scourge league-like mechanism, transforming the current region into a mirrored, corrupted Vaal version. Of course, the possibility of the developers creating a completely new league system unique to Path of Exile 2 cannot be ruled out.
Path of Exile 2 Fate of the Vaal League will launch on December 12th, and the developers have recently poured more effort and detail into the league storyline. Even players who are not usually interested in Path of Exile 2 leagues are excited about the possible return of Atziri.
With Path of Exile 2 patch 0.4.0 fast approaching, we need to prepare for the start of a brand new league journey.
Generally, a new league starter build is crucial for every exile starting afresh, as it allows for rapid progression with minimal currency investment, lowers the learning curve for new players, and lays a solid foundation for your character before investing heavily in resources.
In summary, a good league starter build should be stable and reliable, require only a small initial investment to be effective, and be able to handle various game content, including campaign modes. Bone Cage Lich build is definitely one of the best in this regard.
This build features one-click operation, utilizing Cast on Critical to trigger Detonate Dead and Bone Cage for quick map clearing, making it extremely simple to use. Meanwhile, Lich Ascendancy provides skills like Unholy Might and Eternal Life, granting it strong survivability. Therefore, both its one-click map clearing settings and extremely high life regeneration make it a flexible and efficient build for early game progression.
Patch 0.4.0 Bone Cage Predictions
Currently, we haven't received any definitive information regarding PoE 2 Patch 0.4.0; everything will be confirmed during the developer livestream on December 4th. However, prior to the 0.4.0 update, Bone Cage's base critical strike chance was increased to 15%, and its damage per level was also improved, so this build can still perform well even in the late game.
More importantly, Bone Cage is unlikely to be nerfed in Path of Exile 2: The Last Of The Druids update because it's a meta-gem that requires significant investment and has specific limitations, making it less prone to abuse than other skills.
Unlike regular skill gems, meta-skill gems like Bone Cage can synergize with other skill gems to trigger specific effects, making them complex and powerful tools that require significant investment to use effectively.
Nerfing Bone Cage would require balancing many other synergistic abilities, which is far more complex than simply adjusting a single gem. This means it's less likely to be nerfed in future updates. Therefore, we believe the Bone Cage Lich build will maintain its current strength in 0.4.0.
Gear
Now, let's look at the gear choices for this build.
Rattling Sceptre
Our main-hand weapon is Rattling Sceptre, a basic sceptre type in the game that grants the player the Skeletal Warrior ability. Players can obtain it by opening chests, looting from enemies and bosses, and trading with vendors.
If you have more PoE 2 currency, you can also upgrade it to a unique version, Dark Defiler Rattling Sceptre. This enhances the summon-centric build, providing mana, intelligence, and chaos damage bonuses to each active summon, and increasing mana regeneration.
However, both the basic and unique versions of Rattling Sceptre can create extremely high attack and defense stats. Combined with the ring of bone spikes summoned by Bone Cage to immobilize enemies, you can easily clear out all enemies on the screen.
Sacramental Robe
For chest armor, we chose Sacramental Robe because it increases the initial recharge rate of the energy shield by 40%-50%. This is undoubtedly a powerful choice for Bone Cage build, which relies heavily on energy shields and rapid recharge for survival in the early game. Moreover, it is suitable for multiple characters and perfectly complements the high energy shield nodes on the talent tree.
Atziri's Disdain
In PoE 2, Atziri's Disdain Unique Helmet is generally considered a powerful late-game item because of its strong survivability. It's a worthwhile option for builds that effectively utilize its unique combination of attack, defense, and utility affixes.
Atziri's Disdain converts maximum health into an additional energy shield, distributes damage between health and the energy shield to increase health regeneration, provides a significant amount of mana and item rarity, and features a unique damage penetration mechanic that players can utilize to improve survivability in the early stages of the 0.4.0 league.
Breach Ring
Due to its improved quality, the well-crafted Breach ring is almost always the best ring choice for any build, even surpassing the inherent stats of a regular ring after enhancement.
While the highest quality regular rings are expensive, crafting a powerful Breach ring may be a more convenient way to obtain top-tier rings, especially after unlocking more Breach-related nodes through Atlas passive tree.
Other Items
There are no mandatory choices for other gear, but it's recommended to focus on survivability, such as energy shields and maximizing resistances. At the same time, stacking Spirit stats to increase damage and critical strike chance, and casting speed to improve damage and gameplay experience are crucial. Furthermore, Lich's unique damage derives from Spirit attributes, making Spirit stat stacking key to this build's success.
Skill Tree
In Path of Exile 2, the core gameplay of Bone Cage Lich build revolves around Bone Cage's critical strike casting mechanic. Therefore, the skill tree should focus on skills that support this mechanic, such as generating Power Charges and sufficient mana regeneration to sustain frequent spellcasting.
Additionally, in the early game, we should prioritize finding and enhancing passive skills that significantly increase Energy Shield or health to improve survivability, as the core of Lich build lies in Energy Shield.
As mentioned before, we also need to focus on mana regeneration, as this build requires the ability to continuously cast high-mana-cost spells. Therefore, having nodes that provide mana regeneration while moving is especially important, so be sure to keep moving to activate them. Simultaneously, increase casting speed, which allows you to cast spells more frequently and move more between casts, thus increasing damage and survivability.
However, be careful to avoid stacking Maximum Mana affix on equipment, as this will reduce your mana regeneration speed, especially in the early game.
Finally, after increasing critical strike chance and survivability, prioritize talent points that boost physical and spell damage. Once your critical strike chance reaches around 70%, you can shift your focus to critical strike damage.
Why Lich Ascendancy?
Ultimately, we chose Lich Ascendancy for Bone Cage build because it significantly increases damage through the chaos damage provided by Unholy Might, and maximum mana further amplifies this damage.
Furthermore, it allows for powerful skill combinations, such as Cast on Crit, quickly triggering multiple bone spikes using Bone Cage. This is often combined with Steward of Kulemak node to enhance its effect, making it highly efficient for clearing maps and killing bosses.
Lich build offers both strong damage output and good defensive capabilities, making it a flexible and efficient choice for various game content.
In short, compared to other Lich builds, Bone Cage Lich build is relatively inexpensive, making it a good choice in the early stages of a league where gear is scarce. Not to mention, this build allows you to easily switch between farming and boss-fighting setups, enabling you to quickly adapt to the new mechanics with simple settings after entering POE 2 0.4.0.
Path of Exile 2 0.4.0 The Last of the Druids has been confirmed for release on December 12th. This is a highly anticipated major update, introducing the much-anticipated Druids class, which had previously been delayed.
Judging from the trailers, this update focuses on endgame content and may adjust the season mechanics to improve the overall game experience, but specific details have not yet been released. However, before the full patch is released, we want to discuss several features and mechanics that urgently need to be added in the 0.4.0 update so far, hoping the developers will heed the long-standing demands of the players.
Trials of Ascendancy
First and foremost, we must mention Trials of Ascendancy in Path of Exile 2. Many players believe its design is poor, the penalties are too harsh, and it is inconsistent.
First, the Honor mechanic in Trial of the Sekhemas has been heavily criticized for its excessive penalties on builds that cannot avoid damage, leading to frustrating deaths for reasons unrelated to player skill. Dying in a Trial not only results in the loss of all PoE 2 currency and loot, but also forces players to restart the entire challenge from the beginning, a long-standing complaint of overly harsh punishment.
Furthermore, The Trial of Chaos introduced mechanics not found in other parts of PoE 2 in previous updates, such as Petrification Statue, movement skill lock, and weakening curses, making it a distinctly different and often unfair challenge.
More importantly, the difficulty of Trials often feels determined by random factors rather than player skill and character builds. This means that Trial mechanics can heavily favor certain character builds, such as high-evasion characters, while directly penalizing other builds, creating significant disparities in difficulty.
Therefore, many players believe these lengthy, tedious, and meaningless Trials do nothing to enhance the gameplay experience and urgently require a rework and adjustment.
Atlas System Overhaul
Furthermore, Atlas system in PoE 2 desperately needs a complete overhaul, as the current system suffers from numerous problems, including a restrictive and uninteresting Atlas tree, a lack of player autonomy, and an unsatisfactory reward system.
The limited 40 Atlas points force players to choose a single optimal path from powerful but often repetitive strategies, rendering other nodes useless and diminishing player satisfaction and freedom of choice. Players have little control over what they want to experience, often feeling trapped in repetitive mapping loops.
The 0.4.0 update urgently needs a major overhaul to address these issues, although some fixes were introduced in the previous 0.3.1 patch.
We hope to increase the number of choices in the Atlas tree and add more unique passive skills, making it more rewarding and strategic. The goal is to give players more control over their map experience, providing more choices rather than a one-size-fits-all approach.
Delve
Delve system in Path of Exile 2 also needs improvement because, compared to its counterpart in the original game, it currently lacks meaningful endgame progression and strategic decision-making. Players, aside from finding a few nodes, cannot meaningfully advance the game, making their choices seem random and meaningless.
It's worth noting that in Path of Exile 1, Delve provided a strategic element, requiring players to choose their exploration direction using limited resources. However, in Path of Exile 2, players feel this strategic depth is lacking because there's no clear distinction between spiral expansion and linear progression.
Furthermore, Delve is disconnected from the new Atlas system, which aims to link endgame mechanics to plot progression. Therefore, some players feel that Delve exploration progress is unrelated to their overall Atlas tree.
Therefore, Patch 0.4.0 needs to adjust Delve to establish a more direct connection with the Atlas system, allowing players to synchronize Delve character growth with Atlas progress.
Performance Optimization
Finally, performance optimization for Path of Exile 2 0.4.0 is urgently needed. Imagine constantly experiencing frame rate drops, stuttering, and crashes during tense moments like encountering large groups of enemies or participating in major events, severely impacting your gaming experience-wouldn't you want to smash your keyboard?
These issues directly affect the player's gaming experience, hindering quick and effective reactions in combat, which is at the heart of Path of Exile 2's action role-playing game.
Therefore, stable and smooth performance is crucial as Path of Exile 2 prepares for a major update and final release, ensuring positive feedback from players who have already encountered some issues.
While the 0.4.0 update has made significant progress, development is still ongoing. Developers need to continue working on further optimizations and bug fixes for future updates, especially for console versions that still suffer from stuttering issues.
In any case, nothing is certain until Path of Exile 2 0.4.0 is released. The above are just some adjustments we hope the developers can make to the game, which are also the necessary steps for POE 2 to extend its lifespan.
