My Path of Exile 2 review after 450+ hours

Summary: I love the game - much more than the first one. However, I’d love GGG to keep each game distinct from one another, i.e. let me “zoom” in POE and slowly & methodically kill monsters in POE2. Not a big fan of bosses’ one-shot skills and on-death explosions (especially when other minions explode corpses, like Faridun Plaguebringer). Balance does need tweaking - quite a few characters and a good number of skills feel quite weak in the first 20-30 character levels.
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Who Am I?

I’m but a mortal who discovered Path of Exile around 2018. I remember seeing the game nominated for the best-supported games on Steam (I could be wrong about the nomination). So, I thought, I’d download and try out the game! Five acts later, as a Marauder, I got one-shot by white mobs. Over and over. I couldn’t understand what I was doing wrong. In the heat of passion, I uninstalled the game and went on with my life.

About a year later, I heard about POE from one of my colleagues (who praised the game a lot). So, I decided to hop back into the game around 2019.

It was then that I decided to spend more time watching videos explaining the game, what to upgrade first on the passive skill tree, etc. I didn’t follow any guides at the time - I just spent time trying to learn how to play the game. And so, I played POE on-and-off until Settlers of Kalguur league. That’s when I realised that GGG got my soul. I spent a couple hundred hours building characters, studying guides, learning about the game mechanics, defence layers, and so much more. I had so much fun that I decided to push other games aside to dedicate myself more to POE. My quest for power and discovery began.

I played POE for about 650 hours (roughly ⅔ of the time was spent in Settlers of Kalguur). I was very excited about the POE2 as I wanted to be that “early adopter” and learn the game from scratch with everyone else rather than catching up on a decade worth of content and builds of the original game.

As for the POE2 - I like the game quite a lot and wanted to share my feedback after having played the game for over 450+ hours (495, to be precise) and having tried playing all characters and most ascendancies.

From here on out, I’ll give scores to each part of the game from 1-10.
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Campaign (9/10)

Summary: Solid campaign experience - I’d remove chaos-based attacks for the first 2 acts, and reduce the number of AOEs mob attacks in Act 1; widen the corridors in maps in Act 2; and reduce the size of the maps (by a bit) in Act 3. I also like that there are fewer monsters and almost every monster is distinguishable from the other, i.e. every monster has their own personality.

Act 1 (9/10)

Act 1 is almost perfect. Playing it for the first time felt like I was in a new Diablo universe: haunting and moody atmosphere, eerie soundtrack, gore and blood. The length of the campaign was at a sweet spot.

I’d improve / iterate the following:

Freythorn
* I feel like the introduction of chaos damage dealt by mobs was too early. When I first started playing, I was folding like a chair to chaos spells.
Mob density felt a bit too high as the fight areas were small.

Ogham Manor
* The AOE attacks (Corrupted blood) from enemies were devastating and slowed down the pace of the game quite a lot (especially for a melee character).
* I’d keep the AOE attacks but reduce the number of enemies that deal AOE as rolling through the Corrupted blood still deals damage. Iron Enforcer, the enemy, also inflicts too long of a stun.

Book of Specialisation
* I’d space out receiving a Book of Specialisation in this act as the other two space it out way more.

Very solid first act and the fight with Count Geonor was awesome.

Act 2 (9/10)

I liked Act 2 a little bit less mainly due more maps having narrower passes and smaller fight areas compared to the first Act.

My jaw dropped when Jamanra sliced off the caravan. What an epic!

Also, Asala stole my Fatality on Jamanra. Very sad.

Act 3 (8/10)

At first, I felt happy with Act 3 but having played more of it, I started to feel like the maps were too big and had to backtrack a lot. I’d reduce the size of the maps here by a little bit and / or add more checkpoints.

When playing as a melee character (Warrior), river hags were a bit too much of a menace, one-shotting with the water ball.
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Soundtrack + sound design (10/10)

Cannot wait to listen to more of what’s to come.

Love all other in-game sounds.

Nitpick: it is a bit odd to hear quite a few of the NPCs in Act 2 and 3 have accents and I never hear them speak their native language (with the exception of the third act, where, I believe, it was Doryani who spoke in his mother tongue in Aggorat level).
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Ascendancies & Characters (7/10)

Summary: I liked playing most of the characters. Monk was the best to play as whereas Warrior felt very sluggish in comparison.

Ascendancies in POE2, compared to POE1 are quite tame. However, I believe that’s for the best as the ascendancies in POE2 won’t spike up the game massively, i.e. not stir the balance of the game too much and introduce power creep. Hence, I’d keep them as they are (for the most part).

Although, the description of each ascendancy is quite timid. Reading each Ascendancy in POE2 doesn’t make me feel as badass as in POE1. Let’s take a look at some examples of the first three characters in POE1.

Slayer: No judge. No jury. Just the executioner.
Me thinking: Oh man…I cannot wait to ascend to Slayer!

Assassin: Death is a banquet. It's up to the murderer to write the menu
Me thinking: Oh wow, maybe I should check out this Ascendancy later!

Juggernaut: What divides the conqueror from the conquered? Perseverance.
Me thinking: Yep, this is going to be one unrelenting, indestructible machine of vengeance!

And so on. Whereas, I do not feel the same when I read Ascendancy descriptions in POE2. I don’t get the “Oh man, this sounds so thrilling that I cannot wait to ascend to that!”

Here are some example that I’d tweak to based on a few ascendancies in POE2:

Bloodmage: Your search for power took you on a journey inwards.
Suggestion 1: Coagulated masses of blood befall your enemies.
Suggestion 2: From here on out, your destiny is spelled in blood.
Suggestion 3: Your destiny is written in the blood of your foes.

Gremlin Legionnaire: The more you embrace virtue of gems, the more power they offer.
Suggestion: The essence of divine power lies within the virtue of gems.

Deadeye: A woman can change the world with a single well-placed arrow.
Suggestion: A steadfast aim will split any foe in half.

My suggestions may not sound as awesome and thought-provoking as the ones in POE but hey, I’m happy to sit down and think more if anyone from the GGG team is interested in checking out my suggestions.

Also, the character sheet with stats (including the skills stats) is awesome! A much better overview of the character compared to the first game.

Now, onto the characters!

Sorceress (8/10)

With Sorceress, I mained Quarterstaff (Charged Staff + Ice strike + Tempest Bell). It felt very good. I tried to play the game with spells until about level 20 but felt like nothing was working for me, damage-wise and I didn’t feel like trying out the very popular Spark build. That’s why I switched to Quarterstaff, which was much more fun. Otherwise, I would have wanted to try out more spell skills.

Stormweaver ascendancy seems to be quite strong!

I didn’t try out the Chronomancer ascendancy - so, no comments.

Warrior (5/10)

Warrior, at the beginning, felt very awkward and slow to play as. As I progressed into the endgame, I started feeling like the Armour was not making it any better. The mace skills felt a little bit too slow, compared to other characters.
It’s fine to have slower-casted skills but I didn’t feel any trade-off with Warrior. Also, a lot of the monsters felt a bit too fast for the Warrior, so, by the time I’d slam the spikes (Earthshatter) and Warcry, my health bar would be at about 70%, if not more. It would get a little bit too spicy a bit too quickly for my liking.

I last finished playing as a Warbringer at around level 83 or so and was tired of dying to AOEs (my armour was at 78% and life regeneration at about 416 health per second). Hence, I decided to take a break from Warbringer.

As a Titan, I only completed two trials and moved on to Warbringer. What stopped me was the fact that I wanted to get more health but also - Colossal Capacity, which was locked behind the “Hulking Form”. I definitely didn’t want or need the pouch and felt like that was, by far, the worst ascendancy point of all Ascendancies.

Overall, playing as Warrior, compared to the rest of the classes, felt like I was debuffed the whole time. Carn, Twitch Streamer, put together a solid video elaborating on what the character felt playing like, so I’d recommend checking it out.

Ranger (9/10)

Ranger, overall, felt quite solid. I played as Deadeye and Pathfinder. Pathfinder (concoction builds) felt strong but the gameplay boiled down to pressing one-button, so I took a break from playing the character.

Deadeye felt quite good to play with Bow and Bonestorm skills. Nothing else to feedback on here!

Witch (9/10)

Great character, however - minions. They seem to be the biggest problem. I get that they’re skeletons and they don’t have brains but it is a bit too frustrating to have 2 minions attack and the other 12 stand behind because they cannot fit through the hallway (be it in the Endgame or campaign).

I tried out the Demon ascendancy node, as Infernalist - it was fun but realised that the weapon slot was deactivated. I remember watching the interview of DM and Ghazzy with Jonathan, who said Demon would be able to summon minions (I really hope this will be in the next big patch!).

Bloodmage, at first, felt very awkward to play as and I couldn’t work out how to play her. I tried out the physical damage skills (much earlier on as an Infernalist) and they seemed very undertuned, so I decided to ignore their existence. However, I didn’t realise that the Bonestorm skill had a base15% critical chance and that I should have specced more into Critical damage on my passive skill tree! That’s when I came across Mathil’s build and, well, fell in love with the character! It all clicked for me. Now I’m trying to make my own Bonestorm builds for other characters (like Demon Infernalist and Deadeye)! I love this ascendancy.

Update: I’m currently around level 85 and doing Tier 15 maps. Just walked out away from the Copper Citadel with my hat torn in pieces - Jamanra showed me who was the real boss in town.

Overall, I feel like Bloodmage is very good at clearing the waves but when it comes to bossing - that’s where the hero becomes quite tricky to play as. Once I’ve cleared a wave of mobs, I can pick up the blood orbs and continue with my health overflown. Goodie gumdrops. However, with bosses, I don’t usually dare to approach them close and pick up the blood orbs to refill and / or overflow my health. So I’d tiptoe around (using Bonestorm and Bonecage skills), shoot a bunch of projectiles, drop in health and next thing I know - I’m boned by the boss instead! With my ranged abilities (and no armour and evasion) I should be staying back as far as diving into the boss to get the orbs and back is a great trick. My preference here would be to re-design where the blood orbs drop during boss fights.

Mercenary (9/10)

I played as Mercenary quite early on and I liked him quite a bit. Both ascendancies seem very strong but that’s as much as I can share right now. I only had a good impression of playing as a Mercenary and haven’t played him in a while. Playing with a crossbow took some time getting used to but it was a lot of fun at first.

Monk (9/10)

Monk, by far, has been the most fun to play as and that’s mainly thanks to the Quarterstaff. That weapon feels amazing to play with and the character feels very agile to play as. However, the Ice Strike made the character zoom from one end of the screen to the other, which reminded of POE. My only fear here would be that all other characters would be adjusted to the speed of the Monk (at some point in the future) and that’s something that I do not want. If anything - I’d rather nerf the attack speed of the monk to keep the game slower and more deliberate. After all, we already have POE where one can zoom from one end of the screen to the other.

The Invoker ascendancy is quite strong. I hadn’t tried out the Acolyte of Chayula yet.

Reason why I’m subtracting one point is because I don’t want the rest of the characters to end up zooming like Monk.
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Passive skill tree (9/10)

What a breath of fresh air compared to POE1. Passive skill tree felt very jam-packed and overwhelming in POE1 (for me and, I’d like to believe, many other new players). The skill tree in POE2 feels straightforward and digestible.

A few things I’d comment on:

* Some people say that there aren’t enough meaningful passives
My understanding is that this is due to the game balance and to not introduce the power creep into the game. If my understanding here is correct, then, I’d love for GGG to keep the passive skill tree as it is (although, Warrior’s side of the skill tree could use fewer debuffs);

* Jewels
I was surprised to see the introduction of the Jewels into the Passive skill tree. I didn’t want them at the beginning and now I feel OK about them. However, I’d definitely not want to see the return of Cluster Jewels from POE1.

* Waypoints
Someone I was watching on Youtube suggested the idea of introducing Waypoints (just like in POE1 Atlas tree). That way, anyone who plays as a Witch, will be able to connect with some of the passives from down below. I’m not of the opinion that this is a “must-have” but perhaps, we could see it in a league some time to see how it plays out?
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Endgame (7/10)

Summary: So far so good, I’d say. Not a fan of one-shot skills from bosses and would re-design the Endgame atlas map.

I find the endgame so far - OK. I spend a lot of the time making new characters but I also dip into the Endgame here and there. Most of my feedback would be around the Endgame map itself - it’s too big and navigating through it is quite cumbersome. I’d break it down into hexagons - you finish one hexagon - it’s greyed out. Also, when you select a hexagon, you get the map to expand and give you a zoomed-in view of all available activities. Once you’ve completed all maps / activities in a hexagon, you can “refresh” the hexagon with some keystone and get new map areas in that hexagon.

Also, “Search” functionality would be amazing to have (to search for Citadels and other points of interest, like, highlight where all boss areas are on the map). However, if the map is broken down into hexagons (and the map is smaller), then perhaps the Search functionality wouldn’t be needed.

Arbiter of Ash - having six attempts to beat him was a good addition, however, not sure about most of his attacks being a one-shot attack. Some of his attacks would play out too quickly and felt very punishing. The dodge window felt too narrow.

Also, about the experience (exp) loss on death. It’s a fair take to get the player to lose their XP when they die. However, it doesn’t seem fair when I get 10% of exp upon completing one map and when I die in another map, where I only gained 2% of exp, for example, I’d be losing 10%. Why should I also the other 8% of exp I got from the previous map that I well deserved? I’d propose that the character loses up to 10% of exp gained in a map instead of flat 10%.

Rituals

Not a huge fan of Rituals but I didn’t mind them that much in POE1. However, in POE2 the circle was often obstructed by the terrain (sometimes half of the circle would be obstructed) and it wasn’t fun to play as a ranged character - I would be surrounded pretty quickly and wouldn’t have much space left to dodge away to.

Breach

Breach was fun - however, the terrain obstructed the expanding circle and it retracted a little bit too quickly for my liking. I wouldn’t manage to go back to kill more monsters on the other side. Also, an increased quantity of the breach stones would be nice to have.

Expedition

Seems to be quite the same as in POE1. I quite liked it in POE1 and was hoping for a “remix” version here. I’m neutral about the Expeditions here and would have preferred for more Loogbooks to drop.

Delirium

Delirium was fun as well but similarly to Breach it would end too quickly for me. Also, I would prefer to have more splinters to drop (they seem to be rarer than the Breach splinters).
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Game speed / Gameplay (10/10)

Summary: please keep it as slow as it is now and don’t let it anywhere near POE1 speed.

I really like how much slower the pace of the game was and is and I hope that it won’t turn into POE1, where one zooms through the maps at 200-300% speed.

I’ve recently seen boots that would give 35% increased movement speed and that got me worried..quite a bit, actually. I will officially start panicking when I see 40% increased movement speed on the boots as I do not want POE2 to come any closer to POE1.

Having multiple skills that would combo off each other is really awesome. Most of the POE1 builds that I saw would prioritise one skill gameplay, which didn't seem as fun.
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Defences (8/10)

Much more straightforward on defences here compared to POE1. I am still struggling to figure out if there’s any defence against larger AOE attacks (besides Acrobatics)? If it’s only a dodge, then, it’s not so bad for the ranged characters. Although, sometimes the AOE attacks are too large and too many. This is a much larger issue for melee characters though - Warrior, in particular.

Combining Evasion with Energy Shield felt the best, whereas combining anything with Armour felt bad.
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Attribute requirements (8/10)

I’d decrease the equipment and skill gem attribute requirements by about 20% or so. Combining an Intelligence skill with Dexterity or Strength skills feels very expensive (maybe crafting would solve this by allowing to add attributes to equipment).
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Gem cutting + Gem system (10/10)

One of the best re-works of the original system. Finally, I don’t have to spam Orbs of Fusing and Chromatic Orbs the links and colours I need for the gem. Please keep it as it is - I love this new take on the gems in the POE2.
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Skills (7/10)

I expected for Skills to be more “innovative”. A lot of the skills (for example, most Spell skills and Bow skills) were something that I’d seen before in other ARPGs. Spark sparks and orb orbs, so to say.

However, I did like the Occult skills quite a bit (Bonestorm, Bonecage and Corpse Explosion, for example). It felt to me like those skills were either created and animated by another team or were the most recent additions to the game. Those three skills, for example, were not only animated much better than many others but also, felt very new - I hadn’t seen many of similar skills in other ARGPs.

In comparison to boss fights, quite a number of other skills feel somewhat aged. Sure, they look great but I expected to see more skills that I’d never seen before. I guess that more (new) support gems would “remix” a good portion of current skills.

I’ll however give credit to certain skills that work off each other across different classes. For instance, arrows and bonestorm shot through fire will ignite and enemies, hit by those projects, will be ignited too. Spark or ice orb that travels through fire will be ignited as well and hence, deal more damage. Poison clouds would be set on fire when you cast any fire skill on top of them. That’s really awesome.

Last but not least - mana cost for a good number of skills is too high. Similarly to the attribute requirements - I’d reduce the cost of mana for spell skills by about 20% (some skills would end up costing upwards of 300-400 mana in the late game!).
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Bosses (9/10)

No other ARPG has better bosses than POE2. The minus one point goes to bosses that one-shot you - looking at you, Arbiter of Ash.

Although, I don’t mind bosses one-shotting me. What I do mind is having a limited number of attempts, losing 10% of experience and grinding for hours to get back to trying to beat the boss.

While playing as Infernalist (using flame wall + minion skills), against Arbiter of Ash, I couldn’t see much of what he was casting or doing in my first few attempts. During my other attempts, I died in the second half where I didn’t realise that I had to go over the orbs that he cast. While the build I was running wasn’t the best - it certainly wasn’t bad, as I got my fourth ascendancy with it.
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Flasks + Charms (8/10)

Love the two-flask system. I’d however make charms more exciting though as they currently have too few charges / exciting mechanics.

Also, the vast majority of the belts come with one charm slot. Would love for the belts to come with more charm slots.
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Trials (5/10)

Summary: I’d like to see more trials and allow players to complete only one trial (across four different trials of the same type) to get all ascendancy points. Additionally, I would love for players to be able to do one trial of each different type to get ascendancy points.

Trial of Sekhema (6/10)

I did not like The Forbidden Sanctum in POE1 - tried it out a few times and quit shortly after (I wasn’t able to find more tomes anyway).

I was not very happy when the trial was introduced to POE2. However, it grew on me a little bit more over time but there are quite a few things that I still do not like:

* There are nerfs that are a bit too extreme (e.g. No evasion / armour / energy shield; You’re not always taken to the room you select → on one occasion I was never taken to the room I selected and I stacked too many curses, which ruined my run);
* End boss - while I like that he has unique mechanics, his “one-shot” ability felt very polarising. I’d spend about 30+ minutes getting to the boss only to get smacked with one-tap. I’d have liked to get more than one attempt to beat him. Or, at the very least, nerf the slow debuff. The current way to collect them all is to have 40% increased movement speed boon + use shield dash + have boots with increased movement speed.
**Speaking of the boots with movement speed modifier - the boss basically requires for a player to have those equipped. There was a conversation that asked the question about making “movement speed” implicit on the boots. While I agree with GGG that having that implicit on the boots isn’t the best idea, Zarokh boss is the reason for having either more boots with the movement speed or having that as implicit.
*Playing melee characters in Trials can be improved (I only played melee after the patch that improved the experience for the melee) - with Monk / Quarterstaff weapons, I get AOEd by mobs (especially, in the fourth trial) and lose a good amount of honour compared to ranged characters.

Trial of Chaos (4/10)

Even though I generally prefer the Trial of Chaos, there are TWO main reasons as to why I prefer the Trial of Sekhema over the Trial of Chaos:

* Stacking only debuffs is not fun. Some of those debuffs are very uncool, like:
* Stalking Shade (tried it once and the shade caught up to me too quickly);
* Impending Doom (this becomes very tricky in boss rooms as all bosses do AOE damage and the “safety circle” of the Impending Doom is too small to avoid attacks from both of the bird bosses);
* Petrification Statues (the petrification duration is too long and happens too quickly);
* Volatile Fiends (the stun is too long - if I have more than one volatile explode, I get chain-stunned and get swarmed by the pack of enemies and die).

Also, when grinding for a fragment to get to the final boss - Chaos, I kept getting the same two pieces of fragments over and over. Would love to be able to collect different pieces every time (or every other time).

Last but not least - I am unable to travel to Hideout from either of the Trials (I’m forced to return to the Ziggurat and go to the Hideout from there). Would be great if I could teleport directly to the Hideout from either of the Trials.
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Crafting (3/10)

There’s very little of it and I do miss the crafting bench from POE1. I heavily rely on trading at the moment to get good gear (that has 100+ to both life and mana and elemental resistances).

Looking forward to seeing more crafting options. Ideally, have the crafting system similar to POE1 in spirit - have some deterministic crafting (like bench) and RNG (essences, exalted orbs, etc.).

If the crafting bench were to be introduced - I’d not want to unlock more “bench crafting recipes” by doing betrayal encounters like in POE1. That felt very unfun.
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Trading (7/10)

Would be great to see in-game trading. Sending whispers to people and sitting around, waiting for them to accept the trade is tedious (trades don’t happen often when the item price is below 5 exalts + getting pulled out of playing the game to go to trade one item isn't a great experience). This is not an issue for players who main one or few more characters but it becomes a chore for those who play many or all characters (like myself).

In-game trading could be something like this:

* Trade would happen remotely, via stash tabs of each player. For example, a buyer goes to a trading website to find an item, then they request a trade. The item of the seller is then reserved. The currency of the buyer is reserved (in their stash tab - not currency tab). The seller gets a notification about the trade, goes to open the Stash and confirms the trade within the Stash tab. Once confirmed, the item is transferred to the buyer. No one needs to invite one another and the seller can confirm the trade within, say, 30-60 minutes. If the trade is not accepted by the seller, then the item is released and becomes available again on the trading website;

Probably not an ideal solution but that’s what I can think of at the moment.
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Item drops (9/10)

Right now - the item drops have been favourable to me. However, since I play multiple characters in the endgame, I’d want to see more perfect jewel drops and spirit gems to drop.
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Performance (6/10)

For the most part it’s been OK. I have an RTX 2080 with i7-8700K and I average at about 70-80 FPS. The FPS starts chugging in Endgame with minion builds the most.

Also, my first 10 seconds or so in-game are very choppy and laggy. Even if I wait in the Hideout for 5-10 minutes before starting a level - whether it’s in the Endgame or campaign. I tried playing both on the Frankfurt server or Amsterdam with no difference.
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Thank you!

I love the game and I truly cannot thank the GGG team for crafting such a masterpiece. I’m having a blast playing the game. I cannot wait for more updates, classes, ascendancies, bosses and so much more.