Path of Exile 2 News

Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt has been out for a while now, and we've gathered up some statistics from the first three weeks since release to share with you. Check them out below!

• The Arbiter of Ash has been slain 355,877 times.
  
• 3,406,779 Unique Maps have been cleared.
  
• 3.27 trillion gold has been dropped, which equates to 6.48 billion gold dropped per hour.
  
• 1.44 billion instances have been exited.
  
• 185,961,090 player character deaths in standard leagues.
  
• 291,112 player character deaths in hardcore leagues.
  

And here's the breakdown of classes played since the launch of Dawn of the Hunt:

• 23.78% Amazon
  
• 12.27% Lich
  
• 10.12% Deadeye
  
• 8.15% Smith of Kitava
  
• 7.87% Invoker
  
• 0.74% Acolyte of Chayula
  
• 1.32% Chronomancer
  
• 1.77% Tactician
  
• 1.77% Warbringer
  
• 1.82% Pathfinder
  

One of the things that we have had a lot of feedback about is item drops feeling unrewarding in various situations. Over the last two weeks we have done a major rework to item drops in order to try and address these issues. We are going to be deploying these changes in 0.2.0g later today.

[h3]Item Rarity[/h3]

In order to control the items that monsters drop, they primarily have two stats added to them. Monster Item Quantity is a stat that increases the number of items that are dropped. Monster Item Rarity on the other hand determines how good the items are that drop.

In order to prevent too much item spam, in Path of Exile 2 we want to rely on Item Rarity more, and Item Quantity less. This means that the effect that Monster Item Rarity has on your item needs to be powerful, and noticeable. Currently we believe that this stat is not affecting drops enough.

For example, when a Wisp has possessed a monster, it gives the monster +2 drops and 300% more Monster Item Rarity. The rarity is further increased by each monster that the wisp affected as you were chasing it. This should in theory result in noticeably better item drops, but in practice it doesn't feel meaningful enough.

This is just one example, but this problem affects drops game wide, from all monsters and chests.

We are making some very significant changes to the way that Item Rarity affects the items you get. Here are some of the highlights:

• We modified the rarity value at which Normal Items no longer drop. This means that Unique Bosses will never drop Normal items except for a select few early in the game.
  
• We have halved the amount of "Rare Gold" drops. This means that if you roll a Rare item you get more Rare Equipment or Rare currency instead of gold. Rare Gold piles are now twice as large so you still get the same amount of gold as before on average.
  
• Gold, Magic Currency, Quality Currency, Flasks, Charms, and Runes are now much less likely to drop from monsters with high Item Rarity. These three changes generally result in around 20-30% more Rare Currency (Exalt, Alch, Regal, etc).
  
• Tier 2 Rares now drop 4x more often. Tiers 3 to 5 now drop 30% more often. The mods of Tiered rares have also been improved by cutting out more low level mods making them better on average than before.
  
• Tier 2 and higher Magic items now drop around 5x more often. The low level mod culling of Tiered Magics has been significantly improved with Tier 2 now culling 50% of the mod range, and improving from there. Tier 5 magic items will usually only roll the highest mod available for a given type. This means that Tiered Magic items should be a much better starting point for crafting or Recombination.
  

These changes significantly improve the effect that Item Rarity has on the quality of the items you receive. Overall you should see significantly better items when killing more challenging content.

One side effect of this change would have been to make Player Item Rarity that you get on mods on your gear more valuable also, which is not our intention. In order to counter that, we have reduced the effect that these mods have.

We have also lowered the Map Item Rarity mods on Maps as these were having too large of an effect after these changes. The overall effect of these mods will still be similar to before, but the displayed number is lower.

[h3]Unique Boss Drop Protection[/h3]

Even if a monster has high Monster Item Rarity, sometimes you can still get a bad drop because you happened to get unlucky.

Drop protection involves adding an additional item in the case where you didn't get lucky with the items that naturally dropped. We already have some drop protection rules in place to prevent some of the worst cases, but we didn't think that they went far enough.

We have made the following change:

• Except for a few Unique Bosses at the start of Act 1, all Unique Bosses will always drop a Rare item.
  
• In the campaign, you only get the guaranteed Rare item the first time you kill the boss. In maps you always get it.
  

[h3]Azmerian Wisps[/h3]

Azmerian Wisps were a great example of content that wasn't feeling rewarding enough because Item Rarity was not having enough of an effect.


Wisps now feel much better from those changes alone, but we also made the following changes:

• Rare monsters possessed by Azmerian Wisps now always drop a Rare item.
  
• Fixed a bug where the first Wisp in the Grelwood didn't have its Item Rarity or Quantity stats.
  

[h3]Rare and Magic Chests[/h3]

We didn't feel that Rare and Magic chests were exciting enough to find. Ideally each time you see one, you feel excited to open it.

In order to fix this, we made the following changes:

• Magic chests have drastically increased Item Rarity and Quantity, and also guarantee at least a Magic item. They are approximately as rewarding as Rare chests were before.
  
• Rare chests also have drastically increased Item Rarity and Quantity, and guarantee at least a Rare item.
  
• In Cruel Difficulty chests get a further +50% more Item Quantity and Item Rarity, and +100% more in Endgame making them very powerful there.
  
• We have changed the Map mods that increased the chance of finding Magic and Rare chests to instead add a fixed number of Magic or Rare chests.
  

We did need to lower the chance of these spawning, but you will still get a lot better items overall. This is especially true in Endgame where the number of rare / magic chests was lowered substantially, but the major increases in results from these chests more than make up for that.

[h3]Strongboxes[/h3]

Strongboxes, as a baseline, have been increased to be equivalent to the new balance for Rare Chests. Specifically:

• Strongboxes have increased Item Quantity and Item Rarity, guarantee a Rare item as well as getting a further +50% more Item Quantity and Item Rarity in Cruel, and +100% more in Endgame.
  
• Researcher's Strongboxes will now have a much higher chance to drop Rare currency instead of Magic currency.
  
• Reduced the variance in the number of items Strongboxes dropped. They should more consistently drop a good number of items.
  

Of course strongboxes also have mods that allow for further increasing Item Rarity. These mods were adjusted down for the same reason as the Map Item Rarity mods, they were having too much of an effect relative to other mods after the changes to Item Rarity more generally. They have the same effect as before, but show a lower value.

[h3]Trial of the Sekhemas[/h3]

Sekhema Trial chests were very underwhelming considering the amount of work you need to do to earn them. We have made significant changes here:

• Regular Bronze chests now have the same base balance as Rare chests do in the Normal Difficulty campaign, including guaranteeing a Rare Item.
  
• Silver and Gold chests increase Item Rarity and Item Quantity by values significantly higher than before.
  
• Arcanist's Chests have had the same improvements to drop composition as Researcher's Strongboxes
  
• Arcanist's Chests (Currency) and Royal Chests (Jewels) are much more common
  
• The chance of getting Silver and Gold keys as room rewards instead of Bronze keys has been significantly increased.
  

[h3]Trial of Chaos[/h3]

In the Trial of Chaos, we were finding that Corrupted Item rewards were no longer valuable in Endgame.

In order to improve the rewards, we have made the following changes:

• As you continue to increase the level you play the Trial of Chaos, corrupted Rares are phased out from the rewards, and Rare Currency stacks are phased in.
  
• Items that drop from monsters in the Trial no longer have a chance to be Corrupted
  

[h3]Expedition[/h3]

Expeditions also received some improvements:

• Expedition Magic and Rare chests now have the same base balance as other endgame Magic and Rare chests.
  
• Normal expedition chests have also been improved.
  
• We also fixed a bug where Increased Chest Item Rarity from Expedition Remnants was not multiplying correctly with the Chest Item Rarity the chest already had. These Remnants will now have a greater effect.
  
• Buffed the rewards from most Expedition Remnant mods
  
• Doubled the number of Expedition Artifacts that drop
  
• Increased the amount of Exotic Coinage that drops by +50%
  

[h3]Delirium[/h3]

The rewards you were getting from Delirium for going deeper into the fog were not high enough. We also thought that the maximum difficulty of Delirium was a bit too high, limiting which builds were able to play this content.

We have made some changes here too:

• Increased the amount of Item Rarity per depth in Delirium encounters. It increases to approximately 2.5 times what it was before.
  
• Reduced the max difficulty of Delirium from being a 5x total increase to a 3x total increase.
  

[h3]Accessibility to Pinnacle Content[/h3]

In order to find loot more easily, it helps to be able to gain access to being able to fight Pinnacle Content more easily. We have made the following changes here:

• Breach splinter drop rates have been increased by +50%
  
• Delirium splinter drop rates have been increased by +80%
  
• The chance of finding Audiences with the King in Ritual is increased by +50%
  

[h3]Other Changes in 0.2.0G[/h3]

We also made some changes to Corrupted Nexus':

• Reduced the number of Corrupted Nexus' you need to complete your Atlas Passive Tree. Each Corrupted Nexus now grants 5 skill points allowing you to complete this task much faster.
  
• Increased the visibility of Corrupted Nexus' so that you can see them from further away.
  

With Patch 0.2.0f deployed, we're already planning the next wave of improvements we want to be making.

Our current plan is to try to get 0.2.0g ready as soon as we can. We are of course remaining flexible around this because of the Easter Holidays and ANZAC Day (A New Zealand public holiday) next week.

The main focus of 0.2.0g will be to address two highly sought after improvements as well as a flurry of other minor to moderate changes.

The first improvement is around Loot drops. The three main changes you can expect around this is to first mitigate unlucky streaks from bosses in the campaign by raising the floor of the quality of their drops. The second is to increase the quality of drops from bosses overall, and the third is to improve the drops from monsters possessed by Azmerian Wisps.

The second improvement is around Corrupted Nexuses. They can be difficult and time consuming to find and often players progress in waystone tiers much faster than they can complete the Nexuses. We will be reducing the number of Nexuses needed to be completed to attain all your Atlas Passive Points and improving visibility of them into the Fog on the Atlas Map.

On top of that we're also going to improve accessibility to Pinnacle content further by reducing the difficulty of Simulacrums and also by increasing the rewards and lowering outlying difficulty spikes from Remnants in Expeditions.

These are just some of the changes we'll be working towards deploying over the next couple of weeks, we appreciate all of the feedback coming in and will keep an eye on it and keep addressing concerns as we can!

Thanks very much and we wish you all a happy Easter weekend.

We recently announced some improvements to Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt. Many of these improvements, including Ascendancy respeccing will be coming in patch 0.2.0f, which we're planning to release later today. The following patch notes are still subject to change prior to the patch’s deployment. This patch may take roughly 15 minutes to become available to download on PlayStation after it has been deployed.

[h3]0.2.0f Patch Notes[/h3]
This patch adds support for respeccing ascendancy classes, atlas bookmarks, new stash tab affinites, changes to charms and totems, as well as many other improvements and bug fixes.

Respeccing Ascendancy Classes

• Redoing an Ascendancy Trial now allows you to respec which Ascendancy Class you have chosen at the Ascension device, but only if the Trial would grant you the number of points you already have.
  
• In order to respec your Ascendancy class, you must have zero points allocated in it, but you can now talk to Balbala or The Trialmaster to Refund Passive Points.
  
• Trials of Chaos that have 7 chambers and thus grant up to 4 Ascendancy Passive Skill Points now can be attempted from level 55, down from 60.
  
• Trials of Chaos that have 10 chambers and thus grant up to 6 Ascendancy Passive Skill Points can now be attempted from level 65, down from 75.
  

Charm Changes

• Belts level 30 and above now have implicit modifiers with 1-2 Charm Slots, while Belts level 60 and above now have implicit modifiers with 1-3 Charm Slots. This only affects new Belts found after this patch has been deployed.
  
• The explicit modifiers for additional Charm Slots on Belts can no longer roll.
  
• The Zerphi's Genesis and Ingenuity Unique Belts no longer have additional Charm Slot Modifiers, though existing versions of these items are not affected.
  
• Bijouborne has intentionally kept its additional Charm Slots for now as in the future we will be expanding the maximum possible Charm slots to 6.
  
• Massively increased the values on the Prefixes that Restore Life, Mana or grant Guard when Charms are used. You can update existing items to the new values with a Divine Orb.
  
• All Charms but the Golden Charm have had their maximum Charges halved and their Charges per Use Halved, making them refill more quickly.
  
• The base duration of Stone Charm has also been increased from 2.5 seconds to 3 seconds.
  

New Stash Tab Affinities

Added Stash Tab Affinities for the following categories of items:

• Socketables
  
• Fragments (includes Tablets and Trial Keys)
  
• Breach
  
• Expedition
  
• Ritual
  

Atlas Bookmarks

• Added the ability to bookmark locations on your atlas to find them easily later.
  
• Right clicking a node will allow you create a bookmark by picking an icon and optionally adding a label you can type in.
  
• You can have up to 16 bookmarks at a time.
  
• They will appear as icons around the outside of the screen with a direction allowing you to scroll to them easily, or you can click on them to instantly take you there.
  
• You can also view a list of bookmarks under the legend and click them to go there.
  

Endgame Changes

• Pinnacle Bosses now have unlimited respawn attempts at Difficulty 0.
  
• Tower and Hideout Maps now have a higher minimum number of Rare monsters that can spawn. The final Rare monster defeated in Tower and Hideout Maps will now drop a Map of the same tier you are running (as long as you have enough Waystone Chance). Defeating the final Rare monster in Tower Maps is still not required to complete a Tower Map.
  
• Added UI tracking for Rare & Unique Monsters in Unique Maps, Tower Maps and Hideout Maps.
  

Crafting Changes

• As each new Rune Tier is unlocked we are removing the lower runes from the drop pool. This is to stop you getting spammed with lesser runes at high levels.
  
• Lesser Runes no longer drop past level 31.
  
• (Medium) Runes no longer drop past level 52.
  
• Overall past level 52 you will now drop more Greater Runes than currently, but Lesser Runes and Runes will no longer drop.
  
• Rogue Exiles will always have appropriate Tier Runes socketed into dropped items relative to their item levels.
  
• Sceptres can now have sockets, and we've added a new set of Talisman modifiers for Sceptres to allow upgrades to your Minions at mid to late game.
  

Totem Changes

• All Totem Skills now start gaining Elemental Resistances and Chaos Resistance, scaling up with Skill level, from around Gem level 13. At gem level 20 they have +75% to all Elemental Resistances and +35% to Chaos Resistances.
  
• Ironwood Support now also grants Totems summoned by supported skills +10% to all Maximum Elemental Resistance.
  

Light Stun Changes

• Moderately reduced the capacity for monsters to Light Stun you especially towards Cruel and Endgame by lowering the amount of Stun-Damage they deal, and increasing the minimum they must deal to Light Stun you. Additionally, Elemental, Chaos and Ranged stun-damage has been penalised even further so you're less likely to get stunned by random stray projectiles and other things of the sort. These changes don't affect Light Stuns dealt by players.
  
• We've added a cluster to the Passive Skill Tree near Chaos Inoculation that allows you to invest into a heavy amount of Stun and Ailment Threshold based on your Energy Shield. We will be adding more Stun mitigation later around the tree, notably in the Dextrous section.
  

Player Changes

• Shard Scavenger, in addition to its current effects, now also restores one cooldown use for all your Grenades and grants a buff for 2 seconds that prevents your Crossbow Attacks consuming bolts.
  
• Shockwave Totem's base attack time is now 1.5 seconds (previously 3 seconds). Shockwave Totem's slam now deals 96-211% of Attack Damage at Gem levels 3-20 (previously 169-369%), while the Jagged Ground Eruption damage is unchanged. Quality now provides 0 to -0.2 seconds to Totem base attack time (previously 0 to -0.55 seconds).
  
• Frozen Locus can now be used while using other skills to interrupt what you're doing, similarly to dodge roll (though it does not allow you to dodge incoming hits).
  
• You will now Shield Bash if you release Raise Shield after blocking a hit from a faraway attacker, if there is a different enemy in Shield Bash range.
  
• Storm Lance is now able to be supported by ground effect-related Supports.
  
• Raise Shield is now able to be supported by Concentrated Effect.
  
• Fire Exposure and Lightning Exposure Supports have had their wording adjusted to make clear their effects apply to any target, not just Enemies. This is not a functional change, just a clarification of wording.
  
• Whirlwind Lance and The Whirlwind keyword hover now clarify that the Whirlwind's collapse deals melee damage.
  
• Improved the visual effects of Arc's explosions on hitting a shocked target.
  
• Glacial Lance is now able to chain off terrain.
  

Improvements and Other Changes

• Added an Equipped Gems section to the Gemcutting interface to make levelling up cross-class skill gems more convenient.
  
• Added rarity borders to items available to purchase from vendors.
  
• Greater Rune of Tithing now provides 1 to 100 Lightning Thorns Damage when socketed in Armour (previously 1 to 10).
  
• Attribute Runes now have a more appropriate gold value to vendors, and can be reforged into their higher tiers.
  
• Breach hands can now drop splinters at all levels. This amount starts low and increases with area level, similar to splinter drops from monsters.
  
• Shrines are now easier to click on.
  

Monster Changes

• Some Endgame Monsters can no longer interrupt their attacks if you move too far out of range during the attack to relentlessly chase you.
  
• Zarokh, the Temporal no longer aggressively targets player minions if any are present.
  
• The Immured Fury is now less likely to target minions, and their ground effects should now more reliably be removed after death.
  
• Azak Brutes, Azak Maulers, Azak Stalkers, and Undead Vaal Guards have had the frequency they use their skills such as ground slams reduced and the cooldowns increased.
  
• Adjusted the behaviour of the 180 degree cleave skill used by Geonor, the Putrid Wolf to prevent them using the skill multiple times sequentially.
  
• The composition of Monster packs in Jiquani's Sanctum, Aggorat, and Utzaal have been adjusted to reduce the amount of ranged skills being hurled at players in these areas. The same adjustment has been made for the versions of affected packs that can appear in Map areas.
  
• Adjusted the frequency and damage of the ice shard spiral volley from Shrines.
  
• Adjusted the behaviour of Venomous Crabs, Venomous Crab Matriarchs, and Constricted Spitters.
  
• Vaal Formshifter now has less damage reduction when in shapeshifted form.
  
• The Fettered Spider Cleansed monster now explodes on death less often.
  
• Adjusted the damage dealt by Goliath and Vaal Goliath Monsters.
  
• Adjusted the damage of Stone Sentinel's Slam skill.
  
• Reduced the damage of the Essence of the Infinite Monster modifier.
  
• Lowered the damage of Vaal Enforcer to be more appropriate for how many times it hits.
  
• Lowered the damage on Reconstructor's lightning burst skill.
  
• Slightly reduced the damage of Ravenous Misshapen's Arc skill.
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where players were gaining 1% of their Evasion Rating as Armour at all times. This also fixes a bug where the Iron Reflexes Keystone Passive Skill and General's Bindings Notable Passive Skill were not providing the correct amount of Armour.
  
• Fixed a bug where Ripwire Ballista and Dark Effigy were not displaying totem specific stats, such as totem life, in the skill panel.
  
• Fixed a bug where Corruption modifiers to the level of Bind Spectre or Tame Beast Gems could be lost upon binding or taming.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Enemies chilled by your Hits increase damage taken by Chill Magnitude" modifier on the Asphyxia's Wrath Unique Quiver was instead causing enemies to take reduced damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where The Black Doubt Unique Body Armour would remove Mana if you were on full life with the Lich's Eternal Life Ascendancy Passive Skill allocated and were taking damage over time.
  
• Fixed a bug where Disengage could fail to trigger a shockwave from parried enemies in its area of effect if those enemies were hit by other shockwaves from the same use of the skill.
  
• Fixed a bug where Drain Ailments was not granting immunity to the consumed ailment, and was not triggering other consumption effects like Shard Scavenger.
  
• Fixed a bug where Drain Ailments Support would only consume a single copy of the chosen ailment in cases where the target had multiple copies applied to them.
  
• Fixed a bug where Embitter support didn't apply to damage that was gained as extra damage of the same type as it originally was.
  
• Fixed a bug where Firestorm was not triggering Shard Scavenger when consuming Ignites.
  
• Fixed a bug where Volcanic Fissures did not cause an aftershock when Shockwave Totem's Slam was used on it.
  
• Fixed a bug where Staggering Palm was not working with Impact Shockwave Support.
  
• Fixed an issue where Chaining and Returning Projectiles starting positions could desync.
  
• Fixed a bug where the last charge of the Smith of Kitava's Temper Weapon skill was able to cause multiple explosions when consumed by specific skills.
  
  
• Fixed a bug where Glacial Lance's explosions did not scale with area damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where Meditate could be interrupted by a non-damaging hit.
  
• Fixed a bug where Gathering Storm was not considered a Quarterstaff Skill.
  
• Fixed a bug where Refraction Support was not working correctly.
  
• Fixed a bug where Curses applied through Map modifiers were not being reapplied if you died and respawned at checkpoint.
  
• Fixed a bug where Attribute Runes could not be socketed in Wands and Staves.
  
• Fixed a bug where Unique Charms could not be chanced.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Spirit Of The Bear Azmeri Spirit was targetable and could be damaged. Don't hurt the bear :(
  
• Fixed a bug where the Azak Shaman monster would not use most of their skills when bound as a Spectre.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Smith's Masterwork Ascendancy Notable Passive Skill had a refund cost.
  
• Fixed a bug where modifiers provided by Runes were not being displayed on Wands and Staves.
  
• Fixed a bug that could prevent you from progressing the Power Awaits You quest if you respawned at checkpoint after The Arbiter of Ash died.
  
• Fixed a bug where monsters spawned by the Ogham's Legacy Unique Strongbox were required to be slain in order to fulfill the Kill all Rares Map objective.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Savannah Map Boss arena wasn't being sealed off when the fight began.
  
• Fixed a bug where the stairs to exit the Act 3 final boss arena wouldn't reappear after defeating the boss, this fix also applies to the Map Boss version.
  
• Fixed a bug where Storms created by Whirling Slash visually remained when the Gem was levelled up.
  
• Fixed a bug where Lightning Wraith monsters were dealing less damage than intended.
  
• Fixed an issue where one of Rafiq of the Frozen Spring's attacks was dealing significantly more damage than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where Skeleton Spriggans would just push you instead of actually using their melee attack.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Chimeral Wetlands could sometimes have a blocked path.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Map Pin for Ignagduk, the Bog Witch did not update properly on the World Map after using the Gemcrust Skull in Cruel Difficulty.
  
• Fixed a bug where Ball Lightning could not be supported by Chain support.
  
• Fixed a bug where Perpetual Charge was unable to support Whirlwind Lance.
  
• Fixed a bug where channelling Meditate would show an unrelated buff icon.
  
• Fixed a bug where Jagged Ground used the incorrect debuff icon.
  
• Fixed three client crashes.
  
• Fixed three instance crashes.