Path of Exile 2

Path of Exile 2 (also known as PoE2) is a sequel to Path of Exile, currently in development by Grinding Gear Games.. It was first announced on November 15, 2019, during ExileCon 2019 as a major "Version 4.0" update to the first game with a new act campaign and major overhauls to core game mechanics and graphics. In ExileCon 2023, it was announced Path of Exile 2 will now be its own separate game that will be supported alongside PoE1. A Closed Beta was announced for June 7, 2024, but has since been delayed to late 2024, and is expected to last approximately 3 to 6 months. A launch date for the game's release has not yet been announced.

Path of Exile 2 will introduce a completely new game, although microtransactions will be shared with both games whenever applicable. The game features a six-Act campaign with twelve classes and a major overhaul to many of the game's core systems. The skill gem system is drastically changed, removing gem sockets from equipment and moving them to active skill gems instead. Combat has received a large overhaul, which includes a new dodge roll mechanic. Other additions and changes include a major visual rework with physics-based rendering, an overhaul to itemization and crafting, 18 new Ascendancy classes, and an unannounced rework of the passive skill tree and endgame.

System changes

Gameplay mechanics

Dodge roll: Players will have access to a dodge roll at all times, using the spacebar button by default. It has no cooldown or other limitations and can be further modified via the passive tree. The start of the roll animation avoids projectiles and attacks, and can be used to cancel almost any animation except another roll. Rolling covers more initial distance but overall travels the same distance as walking. Roll speed is affected by movement speed. Rolling while transformed will morph you out of the transformation, though there will be ways to prevent that.

Spirit: A new resource called Spirit is added in addition to Life and Mana. Spirit is used to reserve skills with persistent effects like buffs and auras, upkeep permanent minions, and enable trigger meta gems. Spirit can be increased through story boss rewards, modifiers, and sceptres.

Crowd control: Crowd control effects like freeze, stun, immobilize, and electrocute now "build up" if not immediately applied, allowing them to affect bosses at a certain threshold. Bosses become resistant to crowd control for a period after it wears off.

Traps and Mines: Traps have been completely overhauled and are no longer considered attacks or spells, dealing a separate damage type - "trap damage". Additionally, traps now require a "trap" weapon type, which determines Trap Trigger Delay and Detonation Type (e.g. Proximity (trap playstyle) or Manual (mine playstyle)).

Death:

• Reservations do not deactivate on death.
• Dying in the campaign does not lose experience.
• Dying and reviving in the Acts will return you to the start of the zone and respawn monsters.
• Bosses are typically preceded by checkpoints. Dying to a boss resets it, preventing corpse rushing.
• Logging out returns you to the save state you logged out from, preventing the use of logout macros to avoid death.
• Party members that die to a boss will be locked out of the instance, unless they are revived by another party member still in the instance.

Combat:

• Accuracy/chance to hit now is dependent on enemy distance, with melee builds requiring less accuracy than ranged ones.
• Projectiles are affected by gravity. Projectiles lose vertical height as they travel further, reducing off-screening from projectiles.
• You can move while using ranged attacks or casting certain spells at reduced speed.
• Culling strike kills normal, magic, rare, and unique enemies at 30%, 20%, 10%, and 5% life respectively.
• Conversion now only scales by the final damage type, and does not remember converted damage types. (e.g. 100% Physical to Cold no longer scales with Physical).
• Dual wielding is more restrictive and most skills will not allow you to use it while wielding two different weapon types.
• Transfigured gems will return in PoE2.
• Vaal skill gems are planned to only give the Vaal version of the skill.
• Charges do not grant inherent bonuses and instead are used to empower skills which spend them. Skills that spend charges cannot grant charges.
• Light radius modifiers extend the range of the minimap's fog of war.
• A new stat called Deflection is added, which functions like Spell Suppression, but for attack damage. Chance to Deflect appears as an implicit on dexterity shields.
• Leech is simplified without having various caps, simply leeching a percentage of damage dealt, and instead enemies have leech reduction based on monster level.
• New status condition: "Immobilised". Effect of immobilised scales off of the damage of the hit that inflicted it. The Impale skill can be used to inflict this condition. While an enemy is immobilised, they perform no actions and a circle effect appears over their head, giving the appearance of an enemy that is stunned in PoE 1.
• Lightning damage can Electrocute enemies. Once the threshold to electrocute an enemy is reached, they will be unable to act for a short time.
• Hits can now "Break" armour, weakening its effect. The armour broken is a flat amount.
• Opening a portal to town does not require any Portal ScrollPortal ScrollStack Size: 40Creates a portal to townRight click on this item to use it.s. There is a 2.5 second cast time for opening portals mid-combat during boss fights. Taking damage during the cast time will interrupt it. Entering a portal during a boss fight won't reset their life.
• Larger bosses are more mobile because they can have multiple hitboxes, unlike the limit of 1 in PoE1.

Miscellaneous:

• Defeating optional story Bosses can grant items that grant permanent attributes and Spirit bonuses. These upgrades are character-specific.
• The Hooded One can identify all items in your inventory in town.
• Dialogue and quest states will differ if you skip lore from NPCs and interactibles.
• The game can be paused while playing solo. You can hover the mouse over enemies and status icons to check their infos while paused. Other players in the party can unpause the game.
• The amount of flask charges gained by killing a monster depends on "monster effectiveness". Normal monsters only have a small chance to give a flask charge, while larger and higher rarity monsters have a higher chance to give more.
• There are Wells in towns that restore you to full life and mana and recharge your flasks. It's no longer done automatically upon entering a town.
• Support for optional WASD movement.
• The total amount of damage an enemy took within a certain time frame will be displayed as a number next to their health bars.
• Crossplay between PC and console versions.

Characters

Character selection screen

The character models have been reworked for higher resolution and dynamic movement. Character models also have a new rigging system that improves the physics of equipment and MTX. Characters now have new dynamic walking/running/sprinting animation based on movement speed.

Classes

Path of Exile 2 has twelve base classes, with each single or hybrid attribute combinations being represented by two classes. They share the same starting location in the skill tree, but have different Ascendancy classes and skill gems associated with them. The Scion will not be playable Path of Exile 2.

The available classes are as follows:

• Strength: Marauder - axes
• Strength: Warrior - maces
• Dexterity: Ranger - bows
• Dexterity: Huntress - spears
• Intelligence: Witch - minions and occult spells
• Intelligence: Sorceress - elemental spells
• Str/Dex: Duelist - swords
• Str/Dex: Mercenary - crossbows
• Int/Dex: Shadow - daggers and traps
• Int/Dex: Monk - unarmed and quarterstaves
• Str/Int: Templar - flails
• Str/Int: Druid - shapeshift spells

Ascendancies

Each base class has three Ascendancy classes to choose from, resulting in 36 Ascendancy classes. The new ascendancy classes will not be available through the labyrinths, but through other means in the new campaign in Acts 2, 3, and 4. Some Ascendancy classes will be moved to another base class, such as Elementalist now being a Ascendancy class for the Sorceress.

Passive skill tree

Path of Exile 2 has a Dual Specialization system which enables two different passive skill tree setups that update dynamically when you weapon swap. Shapeshift forms also have a separate specialization. Only a limited amount of passive points can be allocated this way, earned by using quest Skill Books.

Masteries are not found on the new skill tree, but passive skills are numerous than the base game. Passives tend to be less weapon-specific and are more likely to grant generic modifiers. Increased life nodes will not be on the passive skill tree.

The player can choose which attribute points you receive from minor attribute nodes.

Skills

Skills now can inherently turn mid-animation, with a wider angle of turning for skills with longer animation times. Additionally, many skills now dynamically move the player forward if targeting far away or have other in-built mobility. Certain skills also allow movement during the skill animation.

The majority of skills now have unique animations. Moreover, each skill has a set of faster animations played when a character reaches certain thresholds of attack or cast speed. These animations cut out portions of the animation's start and end.

Mana cost is spent throughout the skill instead of on use; cancelling the skill or getting stunned will not consume mana. Most skills can be cancelled, with dodge roll forcibly cancelling most skills.

Most attack skills are now weapon specific, sometimes with added distinction between one and two-handed versions or dual wielding.

Skills can also be assigned to use a specific or any weapon set, dynamically weapon swapping based on your Dual Specialization settings. Weapon swapping has a slight delay based on the weapon's size.

Skills granted by ascendancy classes or items will now scale with skill levels based on the character's progression rather than be granted at an arbitrary specific level.

Wand skills like Kinetic BlastKinetic BlastAttack, Projectile, AoE
Level: (1-20)
Cost: (15-16) Mana
Attack Damage: (140-155)% of base
Effectiveness of Added Damage: (140-155)%
AoE Radius: 14Requires Level 28Fires a projectile from a Wand that causes a series of area explosions in a secondary radius around its point of impact, each damaging enemies.Kinetic Blast creates 4 additional explosions
35% less Area Damage
Base explosion radius is 1.4 metres
Base secondary radius is 2 metres

Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality:
Kinetic Blast creates (0.05-1) additional explosionsPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket. are spells. Brands have been merged in totem skills.

Skills now have independently selectable advanced settings, such as Attack in Place and targeting options like minion/totem aggression.

Certain minions can be mounted, allowing you to ride them and attack while moving at faster speeds, but taking heavy damage while mounting will leave your character stunned.

Skill gems & sockets

Items no longer contain sockets. Instead, the gem menu contains 9 slots for skill gems or meta gems.

• Socket number: Skill gems now drop with a variable amount of sockets, up to 5 (for a 6-linked skill). Skill gems have at minimum 2 sockets, and can be upgraded to 3, 4, or 5 sockets deterministically with three tiers of Jeweller's Orbs.
• Socket colour: Socket colours are randomized, by can be deterministically chosen using a Chromatic OrbChromatic OrbStack Size: 20Reforges the colour of sockets on an itemRight click this item then left click a socketed item to apply it..
• Links: Sockets are always linked, which is why Orb of FusingOrb of FusingStack Size: 20Reforges the links between sockets on an itemRight click this item then left click a socketed item to apply it. The item's quality increases the chances of obtaining more links. is not available POE2.

Meta gems: Meta gems are special types of skill gems that and can be supported by both support gems and other skill gems. Meta gems can trigger skills or provide more complex effects. Most trigger meta gems activate the supported gems when you fulfill the condition enough times.

Support gems: Support gems can be socketed into skill and meta gems. Support gems now no longer provide raw more damage modifiers, and instead are purely focused on utility. Support gems now add stat requirements to the skill gem's base attribute requirements.

Players can find "Uncut Skill Gems" which can be crafted into a skill gem in the Gemcutting menu. Skills in the Gemcutting menu are categorized by each of the 12 character classes, but are not class-locked; any skill of appropriate level can be crafted on any character. The resulting gem's level will be scaled relative to its item level. More skills become available as you level.

Items

Weapons and armour have stronger stat and visual identity within their archetypes. Base items are now consistently visually themed around their drop locations in the Acts, and can only be purchased from related themed vendors. Additionally, the name of base-type items are consistent between each attribute combination. Most weapon categories that have generic implicits on all base types no longer do, making room for more interesting implicit modifiers.

• Daggers are purely attack themed, and can roll around 15% base crit.
• Sceptres grant base Spirit and roll aura-like modifiers.
• Quarterstaves replace Warstaves and are completely separate from Staves.
• Staves provide a spell skill as an implicit, have no attack stats, and are 4x1 in size.
• Wands have no attack stats.
• Shields can be raised to block attacks from the front, limited by a "block meter" that will leave you stunned when depleted.

Introduced four new weapon types:

• Spears - hybrid melee/ranged attack weapons
• Crossbows - crossbow type (Burst Shot, Rapid Shot, Power Shot), and socketed Ammo skills (Piercing, Incendiary, Permafrost) dynamically change effects of skill. Can equip attachments in offhand which also grant skill (Oil Grenade Launcher, Flash Grenade Launcher)
• Traps - determines throw speed and detonation type for trap skills
• Flails - new melee strength/intelligence weapon with medium base crit chance (~10%)

Each base type will have a Unique version at release that closely ties with the base item's visual identity. Iconic POE1 uniques such as Shavronne's WrappingsShavronne's Wrappings
Occultist's VestmentEnergy Shield: (274-377)
Movement Speed: -3%Requires Level 62, 180 Int(3-10)% increased Spell Damage(100-150)% increased Energy Shield
10% faster start of Energy Shield Recharge
+(30-40)% to Lightning Resistance
Reflects 1 to 250 Lightning Damage to Melee Attackers
Chaos Damage taken does not bypass Energy ShieldShavronne's apparel became ever more extravagant
as her body and soul became ever more corrupted. or HeadhunterHeadhunter
Leather BeltRequires Level 40+(25-40) to maximum Life+(40-55) to Strength
+(40-55) to Dexterity
+(50-60) to maximum Life
(20-30)% increased Damage with Hits against Rare monsters
When you Kill a Rare monster, you gain its Modifiers for 60 seconds"A man's soul rules from a cavern of bone, learns and
judges through flesh-born windows. The heart is meat.
The head is where the Man is."
- Lavianga, Advisor to Kaom will be adapted for POE2 with new modifiers or base types.

Gold

GoldGoldStack Size: 5000Can be spent at Vendors:

• Untradeable and auto-pickup similar to Azurite.
• Used to buy items from NPC vendors (which is intended to be much more important in the campaign than currently)
• A Gwennen-gambler NPC will accept gold
• Respeccing passives will cost gold instead of regrets, with the goal of it being more accessible to respec in the early game
• The current plan (not necessarily locked in) is that the new trade system will require paying a gold tax to the game to buy items. importantly you're not paying the gold to the player you're buying the item from, you're paying them other currencies like in the current system

Currency: Orb of FusingOrb of FusingStack Size: 20Reforges the links between sockets on an itemRight click this item then left click a socketed item to apply it. The item's quality increases the chances of obtaining more links., Orb of AlterationOrb of AlterationStack Size: 20Reforges a magic item with new random modifiersRight click this item then left click a magic item to apply it., and Orb of ScouringOrb of ScouringStack Size: 30Removes all modifiers from an itemRight click this item then left click on a magic or rare item to apply it. have been removed from the game. Chaos OrbChaos OrbStack Size: 20Reforges a rare item with new random modifiersRight click this item then left click a rare item to apply it. now removes one random modifier and then adds a new random modifier, similar to Harvest Craft behaviour. Items upgraded with an Orb of AlchemyOrb of AlchemyStack Size: 20Upgrades a normal item to a rare itemRight click this item then left click a normal item to apply it. will always have four affixes.

Vendors now sell significantly more magic and rare items, and the modifier pools on items have been updated to make relevant stats more common. Items can be either sold for Gold or disenchanted for Transmutation or Alchemy Shards.

Item rarity: Item Rarity now affects currency drops, making bosses and unique monsters a good source of rare currency.

Flasks: Flasks stats are more reactive in effect rather than granting constant buffs. Quicksilver FlaskQuicksilver FlaskLasts 6.00 Seconds
Consumes 30 of 60 Charges on use
40% increased Movement SpeedRequires Level 4Right click to drink. Can only hold charges while in belt. Refills as you kill monsters.s are removed. A "Guard Flask" provides effects similar to and replaces guard skills. A "Well" object can be found in towns. Clicking on on it will refill your flasks.

Storyline

SPOILER WARNING ▾ [Expand] ▾

• Act 1: The dark forests, bogs, and crypts of Ezomyr.
• Act 2: The deserts of the Plains of Vastiri, travelling via Maraketh caravan.
• Act 3: Ruins of the Vaal civilization near the flooded city of Utzaal, overgrown by tropical jungle.
• Act 4: The port city of Kingsmarch located on the coast of Forsaken Phrecia, and the surrounding Karui Archipelago
• Act 5: Unknown (likely a ruined Sarn)
• Act 6: Unknown

Endgame

Endgame will have different storyline from POE1. Map will contain revamped versions of story bosses. Map modifiers can roll league mechanics. No other details have been revealed.

Videos/Overview

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Lore

20 years have gone since the death of Kitava. Since his death, society has been slowly rebuilding, but Corruption has once again started to spread throughout Wraeclast. The people whisper of a ghastly living Seed that drives those around it to madness...

Trivia

The skill gem screen as seen in ExileCon 2019.

An item with a red/green hybrid socket.

When Path of Exile 2 was first revealed in ExileCon 2019, it was planned to be an update to the first game with a new campaign and overhauled gameplay mechanics. When in ExileCon 2023, it was announced PoE2 will be its own separate game, many of the plans from the original preview were altered.

• The campaign would have consisted of seven Acts, rather than six.
• No new base classes were planned. The game still used the seven classes from the first game. Each class would have received three new Ascendancy classes (one the Scion) for a total of 19 new Ascendancy classes. The PoE2 Ascendancy classes would had first have to be unlocked in PoE2 in order to be used in PoE1.
  • The following Ascendancies were teased in Exilecon 2019, though they may not be relevant in the current iteration:
    • Survivalist (Ranger) - Projectile effects, Spell Avoidance
    • Tactician (Ranger) - Spears, Flare Arrow (meta "arrow rain" skill), ballistas, melee bow attacks
    • Beastmaster (Ranger) - Shapeshift (Werecat (crit), Bear); Wild Cat Companion (Cheetah, Lion, Panther), Aspect buffs
    • Arcanist (Witch) - Lightning damage and Energy system
    • Defiler (Witch)
    • Reaver (Marauder) - Melee and ally buffer
    • Unnamed Marauder - Ancestral proxies and Ancestor Totems
• While support gems could be socketed to skill gems, skill gems still had to be socketed to equipment.
  • Each equipment could have 1 to 4 sockets (4 for 2h weapons, 2 for 1h weapons/shields and body armour, 1 for helmet, gloves, and boots).
  • Most equipment dropped with fixed socket colors based on the item base, but there would have been end-game currency items that changed it.
  • Some equipment had hybrid socket colors that could support two different gem colors.
  • Certain items like Tabula RasaTabula Rasa
    Simple RobeMovement Speed: -3%Item has no level requirement and Energy Shield (Hidden)
    Item has 6 White Sockets and is fully linked (Hidden) would have had additional gem sockets.
  • Abyss sockets would have been part of the gear.
• Both PoE1 and PoE2 would've shared the same endgame system.

External links

• Path of Exile 2 official website