Path of Exile 2 - Thoughts after nearly 200 hours

After no-lifing the Path of Exile 2 early access for the past few weeks, I have some thoughts I'd like to babble about.

First of all, I'm absolutely loving it. Path of Exile 2 is a fantastic improvement over the first iteration of the game, not just in terms of Quality of Life but just... fun. I'm enjoying myself a lot more in this sequel.

Admittedly there are quite a few things I hope they improve upon, but overall it's a great successor to the first game. Keeping in mind that it's not meant to be a 'successor' as much as a different version of the first game, as they're running them simultaneously and keeping them both updated.

Path of Exile 2 is more... a more challenging version of the first game. You are required to dodge mechanics, you are required to take a little more care in what you do, and you are required to use the crafting materials in order to gear up and improve.

At first it irked me a little that when it came to loot, gear rarely drops in yellow rarity. But after embracing actually using the crafting system, I rather like stocking my inventory full of whites and blues and crossing my fingers the RNG Gods favour me as I apply various orbs to the items.

You get a lot of crafting currency. Maybe I'm just lucky but I have more exalted orbs, more regal orbs, and more chaos orbs than I can shake a stick at. In fact, I've had 3 Divine Orbs drop for me, too! Which has been really nice.

Speaking of drops though, I feel like there could be a few improvements. Such as Waystones. You could be in Tier 15 maps, and what waystones are dropping in that map you're doing? Tier 1's and 7's and maybe, if you're lucky, a tier 12.

On the Atlas Passive tree, there are nodes you can spec into that increase waystone drops and give them a chance to drop at a higher level... but an improved chance of 'fuck all' is still 'fuck all.'

This morning I bought ten tier 14 maps. No one was responding to my pleas for tier 15's and the ones who did actually wanted chaos orbs, not exalted orbs despite advertising otherwise.

Of those ten T14's - I fully completed nine of them, zero monsters remaining. How many T15's did you think I got for my efforts? I got three. And maybe thirty odd waystones of an irrelevant tier.

Thankfully you can combine them into higher tier stones, but you require a tonne of them to get them to Tier 15.

My next complaint is in regards to mobs.

For the most part, mobs are completely fine. They all have their little mechanics, some charge at you, some dive-bomb you, some shoot horrible projectiles, summon purple flowers of chaotic doom, and yeah. All pretty standard. But then... there are...

The Prowling Shades.

I hate them with a fiery vengance. And after googling "Path of Exile 2 I hate prowling shades!!!!!!" it is soon evident that the feeling is mutual across the board.

They do their utmost to freeze you, stun you, and go invisible/invulnerable every 2-3 seconds. I freeze them solid, and the damned things still fade out and become invulnerable. Heaven forbid you find an elite one! It'll take you a good 5 minutes to kill the thing. Longer than most bosses.

In one map, I HAD TWO FREAKIN' YELLOW SHADES and their coterie of SIX minions shades. It was the worst fight I've ever experienced in any game, and although I survived the encounter thanks to running back to town 2 or 3 times to refill my flasks, it pissed me the hell off. Should not exist. Thank Christ neither of them had life-regen or minion-revival perks.

Speaking of mob perks. They really need to refine their mixing-and-matching of mob perks. For example: several times now I've had to fight a mana sucking mob, with tangible proximity requiring me to fight them up close, and they're releasing explosions every 2 seconds. It's nasty. Things like this need to be fine-tuned a little.

And my last complaint... Ascension.

I understand that Path of Exile 2 is meant to be a harder game, but the trials you do in order to further your Ascension are awful. We have the Trial of the Sekhema which requires you to fight through several rooms and several bosses without losing your honour, and the Trial of Chaos which requires you to fight through several rooms and several bosses, choosing harder and harder modifiers to fight against, until you win or die.

As a melee-range build, I find it horribly difficult to retain honour in Trial of the Sekhema.
And the Trial of Chaos is so overtuned that even when I go into a level 75 version at level 86, I still can't complete the damned thing.

It seems that continued Ascension is only for the absolute top-tier of players. I'm probably... mid-tier. Thus, I'll never continue my Ascension unless I pay for someone to carry me through.

All in all, Path of Exile 2 is fantastic and I'm enjoying it immensely! But after 200 hours now and stuck progression, I think I'll check back in a couple of months and see how they progress through their early access.

 

Until next time!! ⚔️😊

 

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_{All screenshots in this post are courtesy of me, @kaelci and are from the game: Path of Exile 2.}