The Devstream for Path of Exile 2’s 0.2.0 update, Dawn of the Hunt, concluded recently. Here’s everything we know to be coming with this new update.
Table of contents
New Class: Huntress
While the Huntress has been known for a while, having covered her in our 0.2.0 Teaser Coverage, we finally have more details on what to expect out of her and, more importantly, her Ascendancies.
The Huntress will be coming with a total of 20 new skills tied to the Spear. Some of these have been shown in their teaser trailer and the stream, but rarely ever by name. Below is an image with the full list of her Skills; there are a total of 22 listed, but Sniper’s Mark and Barrage are also present on the Ranger.
The few skills that have been shown by name as part of demonstrating her combo potential were her Tier 1 Skills. These all have a lot of combo potential which we’ll talk about later in an upcoming post for the class.
Amazon Ascendancy
One of the Huntress’ Ascendancy options is the Amazon. This unique Ascendancy leans into her Elemental damage found in many of her Spear Throwing Skill, like Explosive Spear.
As shown by this image of the Ascendancy Tree, it’s very heavily focused on boosting the output of her weapon, either through Elemental Infusion or Penetrate. With the other half of this Ascendnacy dedicated to her survival, the Amazon is looking to be very well rounded.
Ritualist Ascendancy
By comparison, the Ritualist heavily leans to a Sacrifical theme. Whether it us as the Huntress sacrificing stats to boost the effectiveness of Rings and Amulets, while gaining a Ring Slot, or Sacrificing a Rare Monster to claim one of its bonuses.
While some of the Ritualist Ascendancy may be gimmicky, the bonuses that include boosting our Jewelry are well worth it. Paired with the Ingenuity Belt, the Ritualist will be a strong contender for clearing endgame content. The other options here just don’t have the same appeal to them.
New Ascendancies
The Mercenary, Warrior, and Witch all get a new Ascendancy option with this update, bringing them to three Ascendancy Classes each. We briefly gave our hopes for what the Mercenary and Warrior Ascendnacies would offer, and it’s safe to say they’re different than we anticipated.
Mercenary – Tactician
Tactician we were the closest on, speculating that it’d be a form of Minion Build. Not only is it a Minion build, a lot of the bonuses would also fare well as a support class for party play.
Supporting Fire seems to be the star of this Ascendancy, though it’s not fully clear if they’re proper minions that follow us and only attack with their Command Skill, or if they passively attack like other minions. Either way, with built-in access to scaling, they have the potential to be a strong build within the Minion Archetype.
Warrior – Smith of Kitava
The Smith of Kitava we were quite far off on. While the Ascendancy does offer the ability to enhance our weapons, it’s not quite the Weapon Specialist we thought. However being able to Forge, Empower, and even bolster their defences, there are a lot of interesting options here.
The standout option here comes free initially, Smith’s Masterwork. This allows us to essentially craft a Body Armour from a Normal Armour. Ascendancy points can be spent taking the bonuses listed on the right, all the way up to a full 8 of them if that’s what we choose to do. There are a ton of powerful options here, and it is by far one of the most customizable Ascendancies thus far.
Witch – Lich
A newcomer to the Dawn of the Hunt News, is the Lich. This Witch Ascendancy is perfect for those a number of builds which didn’t quite have a solid home yet. She also have a lost of bonuses geared toward Energy Shield, which assuming that isn;t forced out of meta means she’ll be quite strong.
There are three nodes here that are very likely to see heavy use for what they can provide: Crystalline Phylactery, Rupture the Soul, and Eternal Life.
Crystalline Phylactery allows us to double the strength of a Rare Jewel, with the only downside being a heavy cost to Mana if we have no Energy Shield. Jewels are insanely powerful and Flexible, and this alone can open this class to a ton of unique and interesting build potential.
Rupture the Soul grants a very powerful 33% chance for Cursed Enemies to explode on death and deal 25% of their Life as Chaos Damage. This provides a ton of raw clearing power, especially when combined with any means of scaling Chaos Damage.
Eternal Life is very interesting and will likely lead to a ton of builds focused around Low Life effects like Pain Attunement. This essentially locks our Life In place so long as we have Energy Shield, meaning effects that would normally damage us through Energy Shield won’t be able to. There’s a strong chance it will likely outright prevent being one-shot by high damage enemies as well, which has the potential to create some broken layers of defense.
New League: Azmeri Spirits
As with most Leagues within Path of Exile in the past, a New League means a new server and economy. However, this time GGG is being a bit more cautious, and will be adding the new League Mechanic to both Standard and the new League.
As we complete the Campaign and Explore the Endgame, we’ll come across Azmeri Spirits. These spirits will lead us to a Rare or Unique Enemy, possessing it to increase its rewards alongside unique rewards of its own. These Spirit will also infuse all nearby enemies as it travels to makes the encounters on the way there tougher but also more rewarding.
In total there are 12 different Spirits to encounter. These Spirits have a wide variety of buffs they can provide, including some rarer Spirits which can even alter a monster’s rarity.
New Endgame Changes and Additions
The Endgame of Path of Exile 2, often referred to as Mapping, is getting a slew of updates and revamps to existing content as well as brand new additions.
New Unique Maps
There are a total of 7 new Unique maps to find in endgame, three of which were showcased during the stream: The Fractured Lake, The Ezomyte Megaliths, and the Silent Cave.
The Fractured Lake has us traverse a map full of duplicated Rares and sees the return of what were previously referred to as Heist Jewelry Bases in Path of Exile 1.
These Rings and Amulets appear with an increase Prefix or Suffix count, at the cost of the opposite Affix type. These have a lot of potential to be very strong items when given the right Affixes, especially considering a lot of the desirable mods on these items tend to be one-sided.
The Ezomyte Megalith is an area filled with rune-carved stones that features a multi-wave Boss Rush encounter. Each wave is summoned by choice, up to a total of 10 waves.
These bosses will drop their normal Loot, but will also be the source of powerful Talismans that offer more powerful option than their lesser Rune counterparts found elsewhere. While these only work on specific gear slots, the effects can certainly be worth the effort.
The Silent Cave is a new Essence-focused zone featuring several monsters and a boss imprisoned by Essences. Each of the smaller monsters we defeat will add the Greater form of its essence to the Boss in the middle.
This opens the way forward to make Greater Essences more consistently available, as well as plays into their updated mechanics.
Essence Corruption
Essence was previously lacking anything making it interesting as a mechanic. In addition to the new map and bosses tied to it, All Essences can be corrupted with Vaal Orbs now.
This can add or remove an Essence, Upgrading existing essences, or in the case of Greater Essence turn them into more powerful Essences that can only be obtained this way.
These Essences have powerful crafting effects that can only be used on specific item types. For example the Essence of Insanity, which guarantees a belt will corrupt with two Enchantment (Corrupted Implicit Modifiers)
Towers and Tablets
Towers will not only serve as proper maps themselves by rolling extra content now, but they now make it even easier to enhance or “juice” the maps around them. While there will only be a third of the number of towers found previously, each Tower can be made to apply multiple Tablets as well and make them far more powerful based on the map tier used..
Tablets are being buffed alongside this, affecting roughly three times as many maps in addition to some direct buffs and those from the new Tower mechanics. There are even a handful of Unique Tablets with powerful effects. This means far less downtime in the endgame and hopefully, an overall better experience.
Rogue Exiles
Rogue Exiles can now appear in Maps, and these Exiles are geared up and can fight with the same abilities we can use, including doing our skills. They’re equipped with Uniques that they also benefit from, making them tough encounters.
Taking them down won’t be easy, but in addition to standard loot, they’ll drop the Uniques they had equipped. These Uniques will likely be weighted similarly to how they drop, meaning we’re likely to see them with common uniques, but they may end up having some of the more sought-after Uniques available.
Unique Strongboxes
Strongboxes are also seeing some love, getting four Unique Strongboxes to find as we explore Maps i addition to other changes. Each of these offers a unique encounter, with two being shown during the stream: Ogham’s Legacy and Ixchel’s Torment.
Ogham’s Legacy contains a single Rare Enemy, which the Strongbox can revive a number of times. It will drop full loot on each death, with each defeat being more difficult and more rewarding by adding additional modifiers to it.
Ixchel’s Torment is guarded by Vaal Enemies, and houses a powerful artefact. Completing this encounter will award a Unique Item that has been corrupted with a special outcome. While not specified, this likely means they will have one or multiple Enchantment Affixes, or some may appear with Increased Affix Magnitude.
Corrupted Nexus
As an update to the endgame progression quest, new, larger Corrupted zones will spawn on the map, each with a Corrupted Nexus. We’ll need to take on a Corrupted Nexus to cleanse to claim our Atlas Skill Points.
By cleansing the Corrupted Nexus, the surrounding areas also become cleansed, allowing the previously incomplete Corrupted Maps to be run for additional rewards, including its own set of bosses and modifiers.
While running a Cleansed Map, we may also find a Fracturing Orb, a rare and powerful currency that can lock a Modifier on a Rare Item, preventing it from being removed by any other crafting method.
New Unique Items and Support Gems
While not many have been shown, there is said to be 100+ Uniques and 100+ Support Gems being added this patch. We’ve covered some of these in our previous 0.2.0 Teaser Coverage, so here are the new ones that have been shown since the previous coverage.
New Uniques
New Supports
