The upcoming update, Dawn of The Hunt, for Path of Exile 2, is set to launch on April 4. This highly anticipated update marks the inaugural “League”for the game, introducing an array of balance adjustments across all character classes, alongside a revitalized economic framework. Additionally, players can expect an impressive new lineup of over one hundred Skill Gems, the introduction of a new class, five distinct Ascendancies, and a variety of innovative Endgame systems to explore.
Given the extensive nature of this update, the streamlined content reveal runs for more than thirty minutes. In this article, we’ll summarize the essential features and enhancements featured in the Dawn of The Hunt update for Path of Exile 2.
Key Features of Path of Exile 2: Dawn of The Hunt
Players can eagerly anticipate several substantial additions in the Dawn of The Hunt update, including:
- The Huntress Class
- Introduction of Spears and Bucklers
- Five new Ascendancies
- Rhoa Mount for enhanced mobility
- Revamped Endgame mechanics and systems
- New crafting currencies and mechanics
- Over 100 new Support Gems
- More than 100 new Unique items
- Wide-ranging class balance adjustments
Below is a detailed breakdown of each new feature.
The Huntress Class, Spears, and Bucklers
The Huntress class emerges as a versatile melee-ranged hybrid, utilizing a combination of Spear and Buckler. Players can expect a dynamic gameplay style that emphasizes blending melee attacks with ranged skills. Additionally, you can tame defeated foes to summon temporary spirit companions to aid you in battle.
The update introduces Spear weapons, which are effective for both ranged throws and melee combat, accompanied by Bucklers that excel at parrying rather than blocking. To kick things off, the game will also feature 20 distinct Spear Skills.
New Ascendancies
The Dawn of The Hunt update introduces five fresh Ascendancies to Path of Exile 2:
- Ritualist (Huntress): Master blood plague dynamics, gain an additional Ring slot, and sacrifice corpses for enhanced monster modifiers.
- Amazon (Huntress): Transform into a damage powerhouse, convert Accuracy into Critical Hits, and imbue your Spear with elemental power.
- Tactician (Mercenary): Create effective crowd-control strategies and deploy double the banners for cooperative gameplay.
- Lich (Witch): Delve into necromancy, enhance your abilities with emotional bottling, and unleash chaos through curses.
- Smith of Kitava (Warrior): Shape your destiny with customizable body armor modifiers, animate weapons as allies, and fortify your combat skills.
Introducing the Rhoa Mount
Path of Exile 2 finally adds a Mount feature: the Rhoa. While riding, players can utilize most projectile attacks and Skills, although they remain susceptible to Stun attacks.
Endgame System Revamp
The Endgame experience was one of the more criticized aspects of the initial Path of Exile 2 Early Access release. GGG is taking steps to enhance this area by adding new features to enrich the gameplay:
- Rogue Exiles: The beloved invader mechanic from Path of Exile 1 returns with enhanced AI that adapts to players’ combat skills—utilizing dodging strategies, making them formidable foes.
- Azmeri Wisps: Follow these entities to witness their possession of enemies, granting unique combat mechanics. Defeating affected foes rewards players with Talismans and other riches.
- Significantly improved Towers offer exclusive bosses and mechanics while allowing players to slot up to four Precursor Tablets.
- Cleansing and Corruption Mechanic on Endgame Atlas: Track down corruption sources to unlock unique bosses and map mechanics.
- Unique Strongboxes introduce fresh features exclusive to them.
- Seven new Endgame map types, each with their mechanics to enhance player strategy.
- A more accessible Endgame experience due to retries on maps without penalties; the number of retries decreases with increased map affixes.
- Waystones are guaranteed to drop items that are equivalent to at least the current map tier, easing the sustainability of Waystones.
New Crafting Currencies and Mechanics
In conjunction with the new Endgame mechanics, a host of new crafting currencies and systems enhance the viability of deterministic crafting. Key additions include:
- Talismans: New socketable items providing significant build-defining bonuses.
- Improved Item Recombining from PoE1, now with a more balanced approach to avoid exploitation.
- New Runes and Tiers: All Runes will now have Greater variants, with special Runes dropping from a new boss-rush challenge in the Phaaryl Megaliths map.
- New Essence Types: Essence Crystals can be corrupted with Vaal Orbs, introducing four new Ultimate Essence categories.
- Fracturing Orb: A crafting tool that locks a chosen modifier to maintain its effects during further crafting.
- New Bases for Rings and Amulets: Obtain new modifiers at a loss of others, available from the new Fractured Lake map.
- Increased drop rates for Omens in the Ritual inventory.
Additionally, players can look forward to discovering over 100 new Unique items, many of which will serve as coveted rewards in later Acts and Endgame scenarios.