The buff portion of Dawn of the Hunt patch cycle has begun with a ton of changes aimed at responding to player feedback.
Much of the 0.2.0e Patch is GGG reacting to community feedback. This is in addition to all the previous patches that have occurred as well, many of which also included changes from feedback.
For more information regarding the other patches since the Dawn of the Hunt Launch, check out our Dawn of the Hunt Hotfix Updates Overview. This summarizes all the previous patches and provides the significant changes.
Table of contents
Act 3 Zone Changes
Act 3 had some of the largest and most frustrating zones to navigate in POE2. They’re taking step to reduce this by changing some of these zones to have entirely new layouts.
Utzaal and the Drowned City have had their dead ends removed. This also includes the Treasure Vault in the Present version of Utzaal. In both cases, this should drastically cut down the zone as the lower half of the map contained barely anything, save for a couple of optional side quest items that sell for gold.
The Apex of Filth and the Azak Bog are both more linear and smaller, making it much quicker to travel through the zones. Both zones were notoriously large and often required winding our way through most of the zone to get where we needed to be, so simplifying it should go a long way.
The Zone transition from the Infested Barrens to the Matlan Waterways has been moved closer to the start of the zone, with the start of the zone leading toward it to reduce the number of locations we need to find in the area. Additionally, many of the lever sections of the Matlan Waterways have been combined to reduce the number of levers needed to traverse the area.
Jiquani’s Machinarium and Jiquani’s Sanctum now have additional Soul Cores to reduce the amount of time spent hunting them. Additionally, the final Checkpoint for Jiquani’s Sanctum has been moved near the Altar, rather than past the stone door, allowing us to easily return after finding a Soul Core.
Overall, these changes will heavily reduce the amount of time spent in Act 3, which is often the longest Act to get through as it is.
Balance Changes
A lot of these changes listed are buffs, or changes that are net neutral overall in most cases. It’s mostly buffs for things that were hit a little too hard in the update, unless its called Hexblast.
Bleed and Chaos Inoculation Changes
Bleeds can now be inflicted through Energy Shield and Mana. This is mainly a buff for Bleed builds that needed to remove a target’s Energy Shield before being capable of Bleeding. To compensate for this change, Chaos Inoculation grants immunity to Bleed to keep Bleed from being an instant death, as Bleeding bypasses Energy Shield.
To compensate for the Ailment Threshold changes in the initial Dawn of the Hunt patch, passives that grant a portion of Energy Shield as Stun Threshold now also grant Ailment Threshold as well. The Jewel modifiers that grant the same effect have been slightly reduced at the high end, dropping to 5-10% range, from 5-15%.
Sorceress Changes
Arc now creates an AoE damage pulse when hitting Shocked enemies, dealing 5-31 at Gem level 1, up to 49-277 at Gem level 20. This is a buff to compensate for the loss of its “More damage for each Remaining Chain” property with the initial patch.
Eye of Winter can now absorb elemental damage from Solar Orbs, Orb of Storms, and Frost Bombs. Additionally, Frost Bomb’s Cold Exposure has been increased to an 8-second duration, up from 5.
Mana Tempest now works for all Spells, and causes Projectiles to split towards additional targets instead of Chaining. While this can now empower more skills, not every skill will benefit from the Split mechanic.
Mana Remnants now spawn when defeating or Critically Striking enemies affected by any Elemental Ailment. This means it now works with Electrocute, Ignite, Freeze, and Chill, opening this skill to more builds.
Ice Nova’s Freeze Buildup is no longer halved when cast on a Frostbolt. Additionally, Frostbolts have a 50% larger explosion radius, going from 1.6m to 2.4m.
Ignite Proliferation, through the Wildfire Support or Cracklecreep Unique Ring, now occurs over 1 second instead of 2. However, Wildfire has been reduced to a 1.5m Radius, down from 2m.
Huntress Changes
Enemies that have been Parried can no longer Evade Attacks. This is mostly a fix targeted toward the early game, when we’re less likely to have 100% accuracy all the time. This also helps Huntresses who want to use Parry alongside skills that demand investment into Strength or Intelligence.
Rapid Assault’s explosion now inflicts Bleed on hit and had its base radius increased from 2m up to 2.4m. Additionally, the explosion damage is been increased from 85-187% Attack Damage at Gem Levels 5-20 up to 142-312%. This allows it to apply a stronger and more impactful Bleed.
Herald of Blood no longer destroys Rare and Unique Monster corpses, allowing them to more easily be used with the Ritualist’s Ritual Sacrifice skill. with there already being a fairly limited number of Rares in a Zone or map currently, this helps to make sure they’re not removed in a way we can’t control.
Warrior Changes
Smith of Kitava’s Temper Weapon skill has been adjusted to be faster and provide 3 stacks of the buff per anvil strike, up from 1. It can now empower up to 12 attacks, to keep four swings as the maximum. However, its damage has been lowered from 175-714%, down to 80-290%. This is more damage per swing, but it’s spread out over more attacks.
Armour Break on players now lasts 4 seconds and does not cause the 20% increased Physical Damage debuff for being Armour Broken. On monsters, the debuff remains and the duration is unchanged at 12 seconds. This alleviates issues where builds without Armour would get instantly Armour Broken and get hit harder by physical hits as a result.
Ranger Changes
Stormcaller Arrow’s Bolt has increased Radius at 1.6-2.4m at Gem Levels 3-20, up from 1.1-1.9m. If an enemy Hit by the bolt is Shocked, it will now shock all enemies in a 1.7-3m radius, scaling from Gem Level 3-20. This is one of the only instances of Shock Proliferation outside of Supports and the Passive Tree.
Lightning Rod’s Damage has been increased to 26-94% from Gem Levels 1-20, up from 20-72%, and lasts for 20 seconds, up from 12. Additionally, Lightning Arrow’s beam targeting radius has been increased to 3.2m, up from 2.4.m. This likely doesn’t make up for the heavy nerfs it got, but it certainly helps.
Tornado Shot now has a duration of 15 Seconds at all Levels, up from 7-7.9 seconds at Gem Levels 11-20. This enables this skill to more easily be used as part of a Weapon Swap, as the previous duration, even with Persistence, was too short to make much use out of the skill.
Minion Changes
Minions now Start their revive timer at 7.5 seconds as before, but it’s no longer reset to 7.5 second each time a minion dies. Each successive minion death adds a bit of duration to the revive timer, but it remains capped at 7.5 seconds and reduces with each death.
Disenchanting Tamed Beasts or Bound Spectre Gems will now unbind them, allowing us to choose a new companion.
Other Changes
Rally, which consumes Endurance Charges to heal per charge consumed, now works for all melee skills. Relaxing the previous restriction could be highly beneficial for builds that could easily generate these charges, but have no way of spending them outside of Charge Infusion.
Inhibitor, a newly added support gem, allows us to disable a skill from consuming Power, Frenzy, or Endurance charges, instead granting increased damage per charge. This is great for keeping skills from accidentally consuming Changes when we don’t want them to.
Glory, the resource used for Hammer of the Gods and Spear of Solaris, is no longer consumed when interrupted while casting those skills. Given that this is a resource that can be harder to build up, not losing it to an interrupt is a nice quality of life change.
Monster Changes
As part of the ongoing Monster tuning, a large number of changes towards monsters were also included in this patch.
Many Humanoid monsters could interrupt their attacks when a player moves out of range, leaving us with little breathing room. They can no longer do this, making it easier to fight them and less likely for us to get swarmed by them. This includes the Act 1 and 3 Cultists as well as the Faridun in Act 2.
Act 1
The Haste Aura modifier no longer appears on fast enemies. It’s unclear whether this is only for Act 1, or extends beyond that. if it extends beyond Act 1, it’s an indirect nerf to Tame Beast, as this aura was a common reason to use them.
Werewolf and Tendril Prowlers now enter a walking state after attempting a melee attack until we’re a certain distance away from them. This helps similarly to the Humanoid changes mentioned above.
Reduced the numbers of Bloom Serpents in the Red Vale and halved the number of Venomous Crabs oin the Hunting Grounds. Both of these enemies were a huge problem in the early game, as they appear in large groups and meant a barrage of projectiles potentially hitting or even stun locking us in addition to the Poison they inflict.
Reduced enemy density in Freythorn and Ogham Manor. Normally, less monsters would be bad, but for these cramped maps it’s a good change. The tight spaces made it very easy to get swarmed if you weren’t careful.
Acts 2 & 3
In Act 2, Boulder Ants have been replaced by Risen Marketh for the Valley of Titans. The Density was also reduced here as well. Being a more open map, the density change here isn’t as good as there should be plenty of space to avoid enemies. At least this also comes with some nerfs to the necromancers here too.
In Act 3, Boars and Antlion Charges are now more likely to push us aside when charging instead of taking us for a ride. This is a nice change, as the resulting “ride” often ended with us being pinned against a wall and surrounded.
The Lost City and Azak Bog have had their enemy compositions changed to have fewer Ranged enemies. Similarly to reducing the number of certain enemies in Act 1, this keep us from getting barraged.
Bosses
Uxmal, the Beastlord, can no longer regenerate Energy Shield while in the air. This a good change for Trial of Chaos and the Maps like Augury where this appears as a boss. This keeps them from recovering to full ES during the Fire Breath skill.
Xyclucian, the Campaign version of this boss that appears in Act 3, also had foliage removed from its arena to allow its attacks to be more visible.
Viper Napuatzi ‘s Chaos Rain skill is now smaller and has less projectiles. This is by far the most annoying boss of early Campaign, as she comes before we get any solid Chaos Resistance, but making the Chaos damage she does here easier to avoid makes the fight far more tolerable.
Rathbreaker and his Map variation have had their damage reduced. This should help a ton to make early Act 2 less rough for most characters. We also have a guide for the Rathbeaker Boss Encounter, which includes strategies for defeating this boss.
Crafting Changes
Caster Weapons can now have Sockets, and have a pool of modifiers for the basic Runes. This excludes the special Greater Runes that appear at endgame, or at the very least were not listed.
Renly’s Abandoned Shop in Ogham Village now has a blank Rune alongside his Tools, which Renly can turn into an Elemental Rune of our choosing.
A total of 12 guaranteed Articifer’s Orbs have been added to the Campaign, allowing greater use of Sockets and Runes in the early stages of progression.
Titan’s Grotto now has a guaranteed Rune drop. Additionally, three new runes have been added to help alleviate Attribute requirements. These grant a small amount of flat attributes. Potentially a small, indirect buff for Stat Stacker builds too.
