Mercenary
Monk
Ranger
Sorceress
Warrior
Witch
Grinding Gear Games recently sat down for a Q&A (video at the bottom) about Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt, answering questions from ZiggyD in a detailed developer session. Ziggy has shared a full summary of the Q&A in image form over on his X/Twitter. The discussion covers a lot of ground, including new crafting systems, endgame updates, class mechanics, and technical improvements coming in patch 0.2. If you are looking to stay ahead of the upcoming changes, here is a full write-down of the shared Q&A image notes.
I. Crafting Overhaul
Recombinators Reworked:
- A significant change has been made to recombinators, focusing on increased player agency and accessibility.
- Players will now select specific mods they want to transfer from each item.
- The success chance of recombination is based on the number of mods selected: fewer mods = higher chance of success.
- This change makes recombinators useful earlier in progression, not just for ultra-endgame crafting.
- Picking all six mods is “practically impossible,” but selecting two mods will have a “relatively easy” ~35% success rate.
- “Increased player agency and visibility into the success result is just a win.”
- Failure results in destruction of both items.
- This may be a slight nerf to top-end crafting, depending on final tuning.
- Planned for 0.2.0, but could come shortly after if not ready.
Essences and Omens:
- Greater Essences will be “much more easy to get” from Vaals, random encounters, and unique maps.
- Omens will be much more common, “at least one omen in the window” of every Ritual encounter.
Runes:
- The rune crafting system has expanded with more runes and higher-tier mods.
- Goal: more niche and build-specific crafting options.
- Runes and socketables replace the traditional crafting bench, offering deterministic upgrades without invalidating drops.
Crafting Philosophy:
- GGG emphasizes the importance of ground-dropped items.
- Crafting should not fully replace finding good gear.
- Items can’t be turned back into white bases anymore: this stays as part of the philosophy.
Fractured Crafting:
- Fractured Orbs will drop from cleansed bosses in the new endgame system (guaranteed).
- They can also drop from cleansed monsters (roughly one per biome).
- No plans for pre-fractured item drops.
- GGG says this is a “huge leap forward” from the previous crafting system.
II. The Huntress Class and Combat
- Combo-Heavy Gameplay: The Huntress is designed to be very combo-focused, with the
- “deepest combo chains out of anyone so far,” even exceeding the Monk.
- Skill Reusability: Deeper combos are facilitated by reusing skills in multiple ways (e.g.,
Whirling Slash interacting with ground effects). - Balance with “Bonk” Builds: The goal is to make combos “matter” and feel rewarding,
with ongoing balance changes in “Dawn of the Hunt” aiming to ensure combo gameplay
remains viable and impactful in the endgame. - Parry Mechanic: The parry mechanic has been significantly iterated upon and now feels “really good.”
- It works by always parrying when the button is held, but timing it skillfully is incentivized.
- Successful parries are visually and audibly clear, providing a window for counter-attacks.
- There are two primary parry follow-ups shown: a frenzy charge-generating back dash and “Fangs of Frost,” which counters with freezing ice.
- A support gem allows any attack to generate a frenzy charge after a parry.
- Parry guarantees a light stun on the enemy.
- Ziggy: “I am one of those players who never parry right in any game ever because I can never do it… but it feels really good.”
- Parry highlighted the relative weakness of shields, leading to a last-minute attempt to improve them for 0.2.0.
- Heavy stuns can occur from mount charge, shield block, and parry, requiring players to manage their “stagger bar.” Evasion applies to stagger buildup when parrying.
- Not every skill can be parried (e.g., slams from above or below).
- Damage Type Variety: The Huntress has access to bleed, all elements, and physical damage (with poison present on the tree). The design aims to encourage synergies between these different damage types through combo interactions (e.g., Thunderous Leap detonating bleed spears).
- Weapon Swapping: The existing weapon swap system will further enhance build possibilities for the Huntress.
III. Endgame Systems
● Corruption and Cleansing:
A new core endgame mechanic involving corrupted areas and cleansing the Nexus.
- Cleansing the Nexus grants skill points for the Atlas tree, with each subsequent Nexus requiring a higher tier map.
- Players choose between fighting corrupted monsters for their rewards (including new boss uniques and modifiers) or cleansing to progress the system and earn Fractured Orbs.
- Cleansed monsters in cleansed maps do not drop equipment but have a higher chance of dropping waystones, tablets, and currency.
● Increased Endgame Content:
Over 40 (potentially approaching 50) new encounters have been added, many of which can overlap and combine to create unique scenarios. This aims to address the lack of “overlapping axes of randomness.”
- The goal is to create a more engaging endgame with constant new situations and a feeling of exploration.
- The minimum standard for new endgame content going forward will include elements that allow for this level of interaction and depth.
● Atlas Passive Tree:
The Atlas tree progression feels better, with points being earned earlier.
- Difficulty zero pinnacle bosses now have significantly lower life (half of what it was), making them more accessible for a wider range of builds.
- All pinnacle bosses can drop all uniques at all difficulties (though drop rates are much lower at difficulty zero).
- The issue of league mechanic Atlas points being tied to boss kills is acknowledged as something that needs further improvement in the future.
- The Atlas tree will continue to be expanded with new nodes as more league mechanics and content are added.
- Players no longer gain or lose experience from Pinnacle bosses, allowing them to be engaged at any time.
● Unique Maps:
Unique maps are becoming more integrated, with the distinction from normal maps largely removed (they can be modded with waystones). New unique maps are being added, some tied to specific biomes, offering targeted farming opportunities (e.g., desert for essence maps, water biome for specific unique maps). They should be common enough to provide consistent objectives.
● Rogue Exiles:
Rogue Exiles will populate maps with a base chance of 1 in 8% to 12.5% (modifiable by the Atlas tree).
- They have a chance to drop their unique items.
- Their other gear tends to be of higher tier rares.
- Players will not be warned of their presence beforehand, leading to ambushes.
- They will have dialogue, sometimes even insulting the player.
- The intention is for them to be relatively rare but highly exhilarating encounters.
● Map Drop Changes:
- Maps will no longer drop below the current map tier.
- Map drops are now less random. Killing the last rare in a map at tier one has a 100% chance to drop another map of the same tier. This sustain can be maintained at higher tiers using waystone chance.
- Upgrades to higher tiers are achieved through guaranteed +1 upgrades from map bosses, cubing 3-to-1, or running corrupted maps.
- The goal is a more intentional and less frustrating map progression system, preventing players from “dropping off the bottom.”
● Atlas Bookmarks:
A feature to add bookmarks to the Atlas tree is around 80% implemented and will be added as soon as possible.
● Loot Juicing and Trading with One Portal:
This is a recognized concern due to the new one-portal system, and the developers will be actively discussing potential solutions this week. A potential solution mentioned is tying it to death rather than just map entry/exit.
They want people to be able to trade even in “1 death” maps.
IV. Balance and Difficulty
- Overall Balance Philosophy:
The team is “constantly questioning everything” in terms of balance. - Nerf Approach:
When nerfing, the aim is to target the “ridiculously broken synergy thing” with minimal impact on the average player’s experience. - Damage Expectations:
A rough benchmark for a decent build is around 50k DPS, with anything up to 500k DPS being acceptable for faster pinnacle boss kills. DPS significantly exceeding this range is likely to be nerfed. - Pinnacle Boss Balance:
The life of pinnacle bosses has been lowered to better align with player power progression, and the difference between regular map bosses and pinnacle bosses has been reduced. - Energy Shield and Armor:
Energy Shield is currently considered too strong due to Grim Feast and mana stacking, and “pretty drastic changes” are expected.
Armor’s design is being re-evaluated with a fresh perspective (they are willing to fundamentally rethink Armour if needed, but that is a longer-term project). - Clear Speed:
While fast clear speed can be enjoyable, it should not come at the cost of ignoring all game mechanics. Challenges should still exist to prevent this.
V. Technical Improvements and Features
- Crash Fixes:
The engine team has been heavily focused on addressing crashes.- A significant workaround is being implemented for GPU driver crashes (primarily on newer Nvidia drivers). If a crash occurs, the game will attempt to recreate the GPU device and continue after a brief pause.
- The full system freeze issue related to a Windows update has been resolved.
- Overall game stability (excluding the Nvidia-specific crash) is now considered “incredibly good.”
- These crash investigations have, unfortunately, diverted resources from performance optimization.
- They are having difficulty getting Nvidia and Windows to work together reliably.
- Launch Stability:
Significant backend engineering work has been done to improve the stability and smoothness of the early access launch. - Keyboard/Mouse and Controller Switching:
Dynamic input switching is planned for a future update (aiming for version 0.3.0). - Stash Tab Expansions:
Rune storage is being actively considered. Adding affinity for existing tabs (without creating a new custom tab) was attempted for this patch but did not make it. It is likely to be added shortly after version 0.2.0.
VI. League Mechanic for 0.2.0
- The “Dawn of the Hunt” early access phase will not have a traditional, exclusive league mechanic with its own challenges and achievements.
- The focus is on launching:
- The new Act 1
- The Huntress class
- Updated crafting systems
- Core endgame mechanics (corruption and cleansing)
- Broad balance and stability improvements
- A proper challenge league with an exclusive mechanic is planned for a later update.
VII. Miscellaneous
- Campaign Pacing:
Future updates will likely include more events and varied monsters in zones (rather than just shrinking zone size).
Fast travel between checkpoints helps address the feeling of large, empty areas.
Shrines will also be added soon. - Ascendancy Respecs:
Not currently planned, but a system that allows respecs through effort or challenges is being explored. - No Challenges/Achievements:
There will be no specific league challenges or achievements during this early access phase. These are expected to return with the full release.
That wraps up all the key points from the latest PoE 2 developer Q&A. With Dawn of the Hunt launching on April 4, this is your best chance to get caught up before the update releases. And, of course, we will continue covering any last-minute announcements, patch notes, and gameplay updates, so keep an eye on the site for more!
Lastly, if you want to watch the full Q&A session, you can check out the video below: