Path of Exile 2 News

Now that Dawn of the Hunt has been out for a while, it's time for some more Path of Exile 2 racing action starting from the 25th of May PDT! While the races are open to everyone, the purpose of them is to crown players that are willing to prove themselves against others. Will the best remain at the top? Are there new techniques for competitors to go faster? How will the Huntress fare? Tune in and find out!

In each of these events, players will compete to be the first to kill Doryani in Act 3 in a Standard Solo Self-Found fixed layout environment. While this is not a Hardcore Event, players will incur a penalty upon death where they will not be able to move until a one-minute period has lapsed.

We'll be posting the ladder links here so you'll be able to check who's leading in real-time during each race, or to check the best times after the race to see how you fare against the top.

In order to join, click the "Join" button for the race in the Character Select screen. You'll then be prompted to create a character. Once you've spawned in, you won't be able to move your character until the race starts.


These races will be open to PC and Console with a shared prize pool.

[h3]Event Times and Dates[/h3]

• Race 1: May 25 1PM PDT
  
• Race 2: June 1 1PM PDT
  
• Race 3: June 8 1PM PDT
  

We suggest that you join the races early, as each race will start at the same time for all players.

[h3]Prizes[/h3]
The Demigod's Virtue Unique item will be up for grabs for the top placement of each class:

• Ranger
  
• Sorceress
  
• Witch
  
• Monk
  
• Warrior
  
• Mercenary
  
• Huntress - NEW

This means in each race, seven Demigod's Virtues will be awarded. Future events will include other classes when they're added to Early Access.

As we do more race events in the future, we'll cycle through all the Demigod's items. They'll eventually represent an entire armour set including weaponry, so you might be able to collect the entire set if you're good enough!

Upon the conclusion of each race, a Remove-Only stash tab will be added in your core leagues where you can choose to remove the item from the tab to equip it, show it off, link it to others or keep it there as a trophy for the ages. Or you can trade it away if you don't care, your call!

If you want to use it as a cosmetic, you'll be able to convert it into a microtransaction using the /convertracereward command.

All future leagues will have this Remove-Only stash tab too, but they will only become available one month into the league.



We're also awarding more prizes in this set of races! The fastest times for each class across all three races will receive their choice of one of these Desk Pads:



Finally, a Divination Card design will be awarded to the fastest player out of all three races. Please note that the way the Grand Prize was awarded has changed from the last race, where it was awarded to the fastest player in the final race.

[h3]Rules[/h3]
These races are free to participate in and anyone is welcome to join. Streaming your POV will not be mandatory for this event. There are no limitations to how many races you can join, which means you will be able to win multiple Demigod's Virtues if you're skilled enough!

Please note that the use of inappropriate character names (i.e. those that breach our Terms of Use) during your run will result in you being disqualified from participating in that event or future race events in the series. If you plan to stream your run, these rules will also apply to throw-away stream names for those that are streaming on alternate channels. Please also note that any character names that appear to be attempting to subtly skirt the rules or get around them while still being generally appropriate will count as a breach in this instance. If you want to play it safe, just use your regular stream/race names that people regularly know you by. If you're using an alt to obscure your strategy, that's okay but please keep the above rules in mind.

Grinding Gear Games staff will be excluded from winning prizes in these events. Any participants that have engaged in Alpha Testing that includes relevant content will also be excluded.

[h3]Where to Watch[/h3]
Each of these races will be hosted live on twitch.tv/pathofexile with shoutcasting by ZiggyD and RaizQT. Co-streaming is welcome!

Good luck to everyone who is planning to participate! We can't wait to see how the racing strategies have developed!

We love seeing fan art from our community, so we've gathered up a bunch of Path of Exile 2 inspired art pieces created by artistic exiles to share with you! Check them out below.

[h2]Just in Time & Soul Core Envy by QueenNie[/h2]


[h2]The Hooded One Cosplay by HimboHusbando[/h2]


[h2]Crowbell by Nerva1[/h2]


[h2]Crustacean Character Portraits by Cowheap (1) (2)[/h2]


[h2]The Hooded One by nofearfeyishere[/h2]

We discussed our plans for 0.2.0h last week but wanted to give a more complete breakdown of what you can expect in this update.

[h3]Private Leagues[/h3]

We plan to enable Private Leagues when 0.2.0h releases using the Path of Exile 1 website for now. There will be no extra mods available for these Private Leagues but we'll be expanding the functionality of them soon. We wanted to get the ability to create Private Leagues released sooner rather than later for those that want to start over in a fresh economy by themselves or with their friends.

[h3]Quick-Use Currency Buttons on Strongboxes and Essences[/h3]

We've added Quick-Use buttons that appear below the labels of Strongboxes and Essences. For Strongboxes, the currency displayed is dynamic based on the state of the Strongbox and is only displayed if that currency is in your inventory. As an example, if the Strongbox is unidentified it will only display a Wisdom Scroll.

If it is Normal Rarity it will display an Orb of Transmutation, if it has one magic modifier it will display an Orb of Augmentation. It will also be able to have buttons for Orbs of Alchemy, Exalted Orbs, and Regal Orbs. We have intentionally not included currency like Divine Orbs as that would be a mistake to use.

Essences have also received the same change but with Vaal Orbs for corrupting them into the Corrupted Essences.

[h3]Breach Improvements[/h3]

Breach had significant issues with spawning monsters in very narrow or tight areas. It was expected to be worse in those areas because you can only fit so many monsters in a given space. This made Breach encounters worse than we wanted and resulted in a very boring experience where you felt like you failed even though there was little you could do about it.

We've made a change to how monsters spawn in Breaches to be more reliable. This drastically raises the minimum experience of a Breach encounter.

Additionally we have changed the minimum time of a Breach, assuming no monsters are killed, to 20 seconds from 12 seconds. We have also made the time extension granted by killing monsters account for Monster Power. This means if you kill Magic or Rare enemies during the Breach it will extend the time more than killing Normal monsters.

Previously we spoke about dropping fewer stacks of Splinters in larger quantities, but instead of that we're making a more drastic improvement. We will now vacuum up all the Breach Splinters dropped during a Breach encounter and drop them at your location when the Breach concludes. If you are in a party it will drop multiple stacks that are randomly allocated.

[h3]Azmerian Wisp Improvements[/h3]

Azmerian Wisps have received two changes. The first is that when you activate a second Wisp, while pursuing one already, that Wisp will now always target the same Rare monster as the one you were already chasing. This was uncommon during the Campaign and mostly presented itself in Endgame especially with Atlas Tree investment but when it did happen, you would lose one of those Wisps commonly which felt purely negative.

The other change is that the Spirit of the Spring Hare and Spirit of the Fox were far too rare, we've made these three times more common. They can create some pretty hectic and rewarding outcomes and we wanted to give more opportunities to encounter these and their rewards.

[h3]Rogue Exile Visibility Improvements[/h3]

Rogue Exiles had one main issue. Often you would be clearing through a Map and all of a sudden have a large life bar on the top of your screen with no connection to a boss or monster. This was because the Rogue Exiles had a very large aggro range. We've reduced this aggro range so they are far more commonly on-screen before it appears, that way you see them before the life bar presents itself. If you were to hit them off-screen using projectiles or other skills, they'll still aggro immediately though.

The second issue is that even when you did find one and they were on-screen, you could barely see them especially in darker maps. In order to alleviate this we have both added Minimap Icons to them once they've engaged combat, and we've made the light on them far brighter to help them stand out and be more obvious when surrounded by other enemies.

[h3]Further Item Drop Improvements[/h3]

We did a major patch to update overall loot drops but there are still some outliers we're working on improving. In 0.2.0h we're going to be making Perfect Jeweller's Orbs and Level 20 Uncut Skill and Spirit Gems significantly more common. These will still be relatively rare but it was often the case people would get very far into their Endgame and character progression before even finding one.

[h3]Item Labels Additions to Important Items[/h3]

For those not using custom Item Filters and were in Endgame you might have observed some more important items not being obvious enough. We have added outlines to the labels for Precursor Tablets, Expedition Logbooks and Expedition Chests to help them stand out when you have many other items on the ground around them.

[h3]Shrine Improvements[/h3]
We've made a few changes to Shrines.

Firstly, we've disabled the Greed Shrine and the Corrupting Shrine. These were just bad and often you right-clicked off the buff because converting good items into Gold, or Corrupting equipment is rarely beneficial.

On top of that we've made some of the rarer Shrines such as the Diamond Shrine and Divine Shrine appear far more often, and we've extended the duration of almost all Shrines. Some of the Shrines will now last 90 seconds (from 45 seconds) and some 60 seconds (from 45 seconds).

[h3]New Stash Tabs[/h3]

We're adding the Ritual Stash Tab which will be able to store your Omens and Audience with the King Fragments.

We’re also adding the Socketable Stash Tab which will hold all your Runes, Talismans and Soul Cores. This tab comes with a button that allows you to upgrade your Runes from one tier to the next, instead of having to use the Reforging Bench.

These will be for sale in the Microtransaction store shortly after the patch is deployed.

[h3]Misc Other Improvements[/h3]

Here's a quick-fire list of other changes we're also making for this patch.

• We've updated the visibility of the 'Corridor' skill for the Arbiter of Ash to be far more clear very quickly.
  
• We've added bindable actions for being able to quickly allocate Strength, Dexterity or Intelligence on your passive tree. You can bind these to keys and then hold those keys down when selecting attribute nodes to quickly allocate them to your desired attribute.
  
• We've added a new batch of submissions to the Twilight Reliquary Key. Thank you for your Support.
  
• We'll be allowing Charms to go into the Flask Stash, or any stash with the Flask Affinity set.
  
• We're adding a quick-travel button for Town on the right hand side of the Waypoint screen.
  
• We're adding the shortcut for Ctrl+Right-Click to bulk move currency items of the same type between inventories. This is common mostly when doing larger trades of currency using the Currency Exchange.
  
• We're adding a Filter property to be able to Filter Unidentified Items by their Item Tier.
  
• We have fixed fifteen separate Client or Instance crashes.
  

[h3]Estimated Deployment Timeline[/h3]

We're hoping to deploy this by the end of the week. We have many more changes and improvements to make and we'll immediately start on our next update bringing even more improvements to gameplay and quality of life.

We’re currently planning the 0.2.0h update for Path of Exile 2 which contains several quality of life features and will address certain aspects of Endgame content. We’re planning to release this patch by the end of next week.

The main focus of the patch is to improve certain aspects of the Endgame. This includes the minimum experience of Breaches where far too few monsters spawn and the Breach doesn't last long enough. We will also reduce the number of small Breach splinter stacks dropping and instead have fewer, larger stacks dropping. We'll also be adding improvements to the visibility of Rogue Exiles, and will improve the behaviour of Azmerian Wisps when you activate two at once.

Another big focus is to add in some Quality of Life features. One example is that we'll be adding some UI Icons for Strongboxes and Essences that will let you quickly use currency from your inventory without needing to open it. This feature will also work with Vaal Orbs for Essences.

Here's a preview:



We've got a few other Quality of Life changes planned, which we'll talk about more next week.

A big request that we've had is to make Unidentified Item Tiers filterable. This change will be coming in 0.2.0h so you'll be able to filter by and change how your Unidentified Tier 1-5 Magic and Rare items look when the patch is released.

We also plan to add two new Stash Tabs: the Ritual Tab and Socketable Tab. The Ritual Tab holds your Omens and Audiences with the King, while the Socketable Tab will hold your Runes, Talismans and Soul Cores. You'll be able to upgrade your Runes from within the Socketable Tab.

Lastly, we plan to enable Private Leagues when 0.2.0h releases using the Path of Exile 1 website for now. There will be no extra mods available for these Private Leagues but we'll be expanding the functionality of them soon. We wanted to get the ability to create Private Leagues released sooner rather than later for those that want to start over in a fresh economy by themselves or with their friends.

We'll have more information on what's to come early next week, keep an eye on the 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