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Path of Exile 2 uses Tablets in place of PoE 1's Scarabs to make maps more rewarding, but this system does not work as well as Scarabs did and has several issues.

These problems have become even more noticeable in PoE 2 Patch 0.5.0. Although the official team wants PoE 2 to have more differences from PoE 1, addressing these issues and providing players with a better experience should be more important.

Tablet Problems

Tablet Power

The gap between high-quality Tablets and low-quality Tablets is enormous. Maps using high-quality Tablets can generate PoE 2 currency roughly 20 to 30 times more efficiently than maps using ordinary Tablets.

Unfriendly to New Players

This is particularly unfriendly to new players, as they may not understand the differences between Tablets and simply place three Magic Tablets into Atlas. As a result, they can run 30 to 40 maps and get almost nothing in return, effectively wasting their time.

In addition, players must first defeat Arbiter of Ash to craft Rare Tablets. Rare Tablets have four modifiers, making them at least twice as powerful as Magic Tablets.

This means new players are already at a significant disadvantage the moment they enter Atlas. That is harmful to the game's long-term health as well as the stability of its economy.

High-Quality Tablets Are Difficult to Obtain

Another issue is that top-tier Tablets are extremely powerful, while their best modifiers are exceptionally rare. This pushes the entry requirements for high-end farming strategies to an astonishing level. Once a particular farming strategy becomes popular, the value of Tablets required for it quickly rises.

If you are facing a shortage of high-quality Tablets, you can actually buy PoE 2 Currency at PoEcurrency.com to skip the accumulation phase and start farming directly with high-value Tablets.

Because Tablet modifier pool contains a large number of useless modifiers, while the weights for desirable modifiers are set too low, supply and demand inevitably become unbalanced. Players either cannot obtain enough Divine Orbs to acquire good Tablets, or they decide that the investment simply is not worthwhile.

City Maps

The advantage of City Maps is that they provide a fourth Tablet slot, which roughly translates into 33% more map drops. They are far more rewarding than other ordinary maps, to the point that players have little incentive to run regular maps.

Difficulty Finding High-Quality Tablets

As mentioned above, Tablet modifier pool contains many useless modifiers, which keeps the supply of high-quality Tablets extremely limited.

To pursue efficient farming, players have to spend a great deal of time filtering through and acquiring high-quality Tablets on trading websites before they can even begin mapping. Sometimes, finding suitable Tablets takes longer than the actual farming itself.

If you choose not to acquire Tablets in pursuit of maximum returns, you are effectively wasting your time running maps with inferior rewards.

The chance of finding a Tablet with four excellent modifiers is comparable to finding an item with six Tier 1 modifiers. It is almost impossible to have one sitting in your stash. Either way, the system disrupts your farming rhythm and wastes your time.

Tablet Modifiers

Obtaining the best combinations of Tablet modifiers is extremely difficult, and they cannot be crafted through targeted methods. This directly causes high-quality Tablets to be worth several or even dozens of Divine Orbs. In some cases, this can make certain high-yield farming strategies completely impractical because Tablets required to start the strategy cost more than the potential returns.

On the other hand, because Tablets can be reused multiple times, using an average Tablet means losing out on the enormous returns that the same map could have generated with a high-quality Tablet. This makes the system less flexible than Scarabs.

Solutions

Increase Weight of Desirable Modifiers

The biggest problem with Tablets is that desirable modifiers appear too infrequently, while there are too many useless ones. The official team could increase the weights of desirable modifiers while removing most of the unnecessary modifiers.

Alternatively, some low-value modifiers could be moved to Tablet implicits. Examples include increased Gold Find, Increased Experience, and a higher chance for Shrines to appear.

If these were turned into base implicits and Divine Orbs could be used on Tablets to reroll their implicit modifiers, this could directly increase the supply of high-quality Tablets on the market while also creating a new way to consume Divine Orbs.

Add More Tablet Crafting Options

In PoE 2 Patch 0.5.0, with Jewel system already receiving support from more crafting currencies, Tablets are essentially the only part of the game still stuck with the primitive crafting process of throwing an Exalted Orb or a Transmutation Orb at them and using an Orb of Scouring when the modifiers are poor.

If some PoE 2 currencies specifically designed for Tablets could be introduced, they could not only increase the supply of high-quality Tablets on trading websites but might also create entirely new farming strategies.

Special Biome Bonuses

The official team could add interesting Tablet-specific bonuses to different biomes. This could make other areas of Atlas just as appealing and exciting as City Maps, giving players more choices when farming.

Increase Tablet Charges

This change would have both advantages and disadvantages. It could increase the value of high-quality Tablets, but having to replenish Tablets every 10 maps is certainly somewhat annoying.

Increasing the number of charges would allow players to spend more time actually farming maps instead of constantly having their rhythm interrupted while searching for the next set of three high-quality Tablets.

Tablet Preset Slots

Map Device could add Tablet Rows, allowing players to switch between three different Tablet configurations.

This would allow players to prepare three or four different Tablet combinations based on the content they discover while exploring Atlas, helping maximize returns.

This would be a major Quality of Life improvement that would make the endgame mapping experience much smoother.

Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 can be considered quite successful, as different strategies offer solid returns and players have plenty of choices. However, Tablets have been a major source of frustration for a long time. If this issue can be addressed in Patch 0.5.5 or Version 1.0, the endgame experience could become much better.

Among the many classes in Path of Exile 2, Monk is one of the most popular melee classes due to its high degree of freedom and high damage output. Therefore, it also boasts many powerful builds.

Among these Monk builds, one particularly powerful one utilizes both Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder, and leverages Concussive Runes support gems added in Patch 0.5 Return of the Ancients. This build elevates Monk's map clearing efficiency and damage output to new heights.

This build has been named Whirling Assault Invoker Build by its creator. I will now explain the workings of this build in detail from four aspects.

Core Mechanics

As mentioned at the beginning, in POE 2 Patch 0.5, the core of this build is the utilization of Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder.

The effect of Herald of Ice is that when the player kills a frozen enemy, it triggers a frost explosion, causing area-of-effect cold damage to surrounding enemies.

However, the cold damage from the explosion itself cannot inflict the freezing effect, meaning Herald of Ice cannot create the conditions for its own activation.

Similarly, Herald of Thunder unleashes chain lightning upon killing an electrified enemy, but its Lightning Damag also cannot inflict the electrification effect.

On the surface, these two Herald abilities do not seem to synergize. However, players can combine their mechanics using Infusion Support Gems:

Players need to connect Lightning Infusion Support to Herald of Ice to convert some of the cold damage into lightning damage, allowing the frost explosion to inflict the electrification effect;

Simultaneously, connecting Cold Infusion to Herald of Thunder converts some of the lightning damage into cold damage, allowing the chain lightning to inflict the freezing effect.

After this modification, a perfect chain reaction is formed between Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder:

Herald of Ice explodes, killing enemies and inflicting electrocution; electrocution kills enemies, triggering Herald of Thunder, which releases lightning and inflicts freeze; freeze kills enemies, triggering Herald of Ice again, achieving a screen-clearing effect with a single explosion.

Activation Device

It's important to note that to activate this chain, the player still needs to kill a frozen or electrocuted enemy using other methods as a "activation device". Specifically:

Concussive Runes

POE 2 Patch 0.5 modified Herald abilities, making them untriggerable by kills from other Herald abilities.

Fortunately, we have the new support gems introduced in POE 2 Patch 0.5 - Concussive Runes. Its effect is: when the supported ability inflicts Heavy Stun on an enemy, it consumes Runic Ward and releases a Runic Shockwave.

This Runic Shockwave will be treated as an attack by system, not a Herald skill effect, thus fully meeting Herald skill's trigger rules.

However, to ensure Concussive Runes trigger reliably, this build requires players to invest significant resources in stacking Stun Buildup until the panel value reaches 940%.

Whirling Assault

There's an important, easily overlooked issue here: cold damage cannot cause Heavy Stun. Therefore, this "activation device" needs something that can deal lightning damage to complete Heavy Stun task.

This is where Whirling Assault comes in. It's Quarterstaff's exclusive Strike skill, its effect being: performing a series of spinning attacks on surrounding enemies while moving, and inflicting Heavy Stun on target.

Thus, we've met Heavy Stun condition and can successfully activate Concussive Runes to release Runic Shockwave.

Runic Ward

Besides stun accumulation, managing Runic Ward is equally crucial. As a new defensive resource introduced in PoE 2 Patch 0.5, it is an essential consumable for triggering Concussive Runes.

To maintain continuous triggering of Runic Shockwave, this build requires a minimum Runic Ward cap of 300 points, continuously replenished through equipment such as Call of the Void.

Concussive Runes can only function stably as a "activation device" when both Heavy Stun triggering and Runic Ward resources are available.

Class Selection

Monk players using this build should choose Invoker as their Ascendancy Class.

This is because Invoker focuses on Elemental Damage and Elemental Ailments, and its Ascendancy skill tree contains several passive skills that highly synergize with this build:

First, I am the Thunder provides 10% Damage as Extra Lightning Damage and grants a 25% chance to create Shocked Ground when an enemy is electrocuted, directly enhancing Whirling Assault's lightning damage and electrocution capabilities.

Second, I am the Blizzard provides 10% Damage as Extra Cold Damage and creates Chilled Ground when an enemy is frozen, providing a stable source of freeze activation for Herald of Ice.

Gear Strategy

Finally, you'll need some gear or affixes to complete Whirling Assault Invoker Build. This build has no mandatory equipment. You only need to craft or exchange gear that meets the following conditions using POE 2 Currency:

First, because Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder consume a large amount of Spirit, players must solve the problem of Spirit resource sustainability.

Since players can activate Ascendancy Passive Skill Lead me through Grace to gain Spirit - which provides Spirit proportionally based on the chest armor's Energy Shield and Evasion Rating - players need to wear POE 2 Uniques chest armor, which offers high evasion and a high shield.

Regarding gear selection, Quarterstaff is undoubtedly the best choice, but pay attention to affixes: prioritize affixes with high base damage, attack speed, critical strike chance, and additional lightning or cold damage.

For the amulet and rings, stack critical strike damage, attack speed, and elemental damage percentage.

This concludes the detailed introduction to Whirling Assault Invoker Build in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5 Return of the Ancients. This is a build perfectly suited for clearing maps, and its capabilities will leave a lasting impression.

After PoE 2 Patch 0.5 update, unique gear became one of the most discussed topics among players. The development team spent a significant amount of time designing these items, hoping they would bring gameplay changes distinct from regular gear.

In terms of actual results, many unique items have indeed successfully changed the game environment, with some even becoming core choices for multiple builds.

However, some items, after their release, performed significantly worse than players expected. Their design concepts were interesting, and their mechanics were unique enough, but they lacked certain key attributes in the current patch, resulting in them appearing powerful but ultimately falling short of actual gameplay.

With Patch 0.5.5 approaching, the development team has also revealed that they will focus on character building and unique gear adjustments, and these items are likely to be the focus of future buffs.

The Raven's Flock

The Raven's Flock was extremely popular in the early stages of PoE 2 Patch 0.5 because its gameplay demonstration was incredibly appealing. Spiraling Conspiracy mechanic provided by the item allows numerous ravens to fly around the character, leading many players to believe it could become a new and popular playstyle.

However, problems quickly surfaced in-game. The ravens' damage scaling was severely limited, primarily because the skill was treated as a minion rather than a spell.

Minion-based gameplay requires significant resource investment to scale, and The Raven's Flock didn't offer sufficient skill level upgrades, making it noticeably weak against high-health enemies in the late game.

Therefore, many players felt the biggest problem with this item was its restricted growth path. If Patch 0.5.5 had increased its minion skill level or reclassified the skill to benefit from spell-related bonuses, the staff's full potential would have been realized.

Facebreaker

Facebreaker is a classic item in PoE series, continuing the core concept of fighting with bare fists without weapons in PoE 2.

After equipping it, players must abandon traditional weapons and gain additional damage boosts by defeating special bosses in the story.

To build a character around this equipment, a significant investment of PoE 2 Currency is needed to compensate for attribute gaps in other equipment.

However, this cool factor hasn't translated into sufficient combat effectiveness in the latest Patch 0.5.4. Abandoning weapons means players lose many key attributes, especially the base damage and skill levels provided by weapons.

In PoE 2, Melee Skill Levels are crucial for character damage growth, but Facebreaker doesn't provide corresponding skill level bonuses.

If Patch 0.5.5 wants to revive the popularity of this equipment, increasing base physical damage, adding Melee Skill Levels, or enhancing related unarmed skills would be good directions.

The Bringer of Rain

The Bringer of Rain is a piece of equipment very familiar to veteran players. In PoE 1, it was extremely popular because it changed how players built their gear.

In PoE 2, it retains its unique characteristics. After equipping it, players must forgo a chest armor slot for a powerful helmet effect and a Giant's Blood-like ability to wield two-handed weapons with one hand. This design would be incredibly appealing in any patch.

However, the problem is that the benefits it provides don't fully compensate for the loss of the chest armor.

Giant's Blood is located near Strength zone, making it relatively easy for many Strength-based melee characters to obtain. Therefore, the unique value players gain from using The Bringer of Rain isn't as significant as one might expect.

Compared to the attributes and defense gained from losing the chest armor, The Bringer of Rain's benefits seem somewhat insufficient. Adding some classic elements would certainly boost its popularity.

Voltaxic Rift's

Voltaxic Rift's was once a star item in PoE 1. Its most distinctive feature was converting lightning damage into chaos damage, while also allowing chaos damage to inflict Electrocution effect.

However, in PoE 2, this seemingly powerful item suffered from issues with its scaling. Currently, bow builds rely on critical hits, but Voltaxic Rift performs poorly. It doesn't offer sufficient critical hit potential and lacks skill level upgrades, making it difficult to compete with top-tier rare bows.

Many players don't feel this bow is poorly designed; on the contrary, everyone agrees its mechanics are very appealing. It's just that in the late game, it lacks the crucial attributes to support its damage cap.

If future patches add critical hit-related attributes and some skill levels, it could very well become a core item in specialized bow builds.

The Last Lament Desolate Crossbow

The Last Lament was once a very popular item in PoE 2 Patch 0.3. The builds developed around it were very popular, especially when paired with a Lich, which allowed players to avoid life consumption through a special mechanic, giving them near-infinite ammo.

However, with patch adjustments, this build gradually disappeared, and The Last Lament lost its former popularity. Now it's more often used as a support item for certain skills, and few people build complete builds around it.

The problem with these five pieces of equipment isn't a design flaw, but the lack of conditions in Patch 0.5.4 to unleash their full potential.

If Patch 0.5.5 does indeed buff unique equipment, these are undoubtedly the items players most want to see changed. They already possess sufficiently interesting mechanics; all they lack is an opportunity to truly shine.