On Friday around 3 pm, patch 0.2.0 was released for Path of Exile 2. I played over 200 hours of the PoE2 after its release(I am an original Blood Mage enjoyer), and I have been eagerly awaiting the release of the next patch. I was hoping that they would be able to keep their promise of Huntress and Druid coming with it, but alas, only Huntress has been given to us. Needless to say, I locked in Huntress to become a Ritualist and eat rares for their modifiers. Here is my first experience with PoE2’s 0.2.0 patch over the weekend.
Path of Exile 2: Huntress
She’s an entertaining class to play. I initially wanted to play with Explosive Spear, but I discovered that it is a detonator skill and changed my mind very quickly. I switched to Lightning Spear and had a much better leveling experience. Lightning Spear has a solid clear but pretty terrible single target. Disengage was my MVP skill very quickly, allowing me to escape being surrounded with ease. I was speed-running toward the Trial of the Sekhemas so I could try out what I was really in the market for.
Ritualist
This is the ascendancy that I was most excited for when I saw the patch reveal discussion. I am a historian who has spent a lot of time studying ritual sacrifice. An entire ascendancy, in one of my favorite games, about sacrifice caught my attention immediately. I must say, however, that I was disappointed by the Sacrifice skill. First, you must stand still to use it. This leaves you vulnerable and is almost certainly a death sentence in maps. Rares are spaced out pretty far apart in the campaign, so you don’t get a lot of use out of the modifiers you steal.
Overall, I was disappointed with Sacrifice’s functionality. It was very cool to use and watch as I could now force my enemies to suffer in Temporal Bubbles, but it was not worth it. I quickly switched to having a 3rd ring slot. Significantly more useful in nearly every situation. Unfortunately, I bricked my Huntress when I tried to convert her into a Tame Beast Raise Spectre build. I will be re-rolling as an Infernalist to pursue the same build.
Gameplay Experience
I have heard a lot of issues people are having with staying alive and dealing damage. There has been a significant portion of players on the internet who are upset with the current state of the game and their progression. I do not see that much of an issue, however. I would agree that the campaign feels like it takes forever, but this was the same after the game was originally released. Players were nerfed, but monsters have also received nerfs in the many hotfixes since the patch. In my opinion, this is generally a non-issue.
This is a common approach from Grinding Gear Games. Skills that trivialized that campaign are nerfed, other options are buffed, and the meta is sent into a bit of chaos. Players almost always complain when they are nerfed because they are looking for their power fantasy. Save it for your endgame build, my friends. The campaign is where we suffer. I understand that the campaign takes forever, especially Act 3. I am sure(hoping) that this will be reduced when the rest of the campaign is published.
Overall Thoughts
I am completely in love with Tame Beast. It may be one of my favorite Path of Exile skills ever( I have over 1,000 hours in PoE1). Hunter was my first World of Warcraft class, and the primary reason was the ability to tame beasts. The introduction of a similar mechanic to PoE2 has made me ecstatic. It is a cool skill, and I tamed a rare Quadrilla, as I’m certain everyone is going to try and do. No patch of PoE has or will ever be perfect, but this is one of the better releases that I have lived through. There have been far worse league days than 0.2.0, and I look forward to continuing my journey with it.
