Grinding Gear Games has unveiled Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt, a huge free expansion to its acclaimed action RPG title currently in early access. The expansion launches next week on all platforms; don’t forget to also check out the press roundtable Q&A with Game Director Jonathan Rogers, who revealed even more details about the expansion and the game’s future.
Dawn of the Hunt introduces the first new class since the early access of Path of Exile 2: the huntress. She is a spear-wielding warrior born into a society with strict traditions. She was exiled from her homeland after using her powers to defend her. She specializes in both melee and ranged combat, dashing into and out of battle. Spears have extended range and a short dash, but unlike other melee weapons, you can also throw them. In order to make a hybrid ranged/melee character work, the developers had to think about ways to make it fun to both enter and exit the melee range. The first skill players will get as a Huntress is Whirling Slash.
As well as striking in a circle the player, the skill creates a whirlwind that blinds enemies. Leaving the whirlwind will make it explode, and the more Whirling Slash is used, the bigger the explosion gets. Once out of melee, the Huntress can follow up with something ranged. She can whip the spear around to shoot twisters towards foes. These twisters bounce off walls and can hit enemies multiple times. Twisters can also be thrown inside a whirlwind to shoot out extra tornadoes that do way more damage. In her off-hand, the Huntress will hold a buckler which allows her to Parry.
While holding that down, the character will counterattack any incoming attack from nearby monsters, stunning them. Additionally, the monsters will take extra attack damage from your follow-up strike. Some of the specific class skills have been designed to be used after a Parry.
Disengage is a skill that does a quick jump back, damaging enemies in front of you. It can be used to interrupt other actions like dodge roll. If you use it against a parried enemy, it causes an explosion and gives you a frenzy charge. However, the Huntress cannot Parry too much, lest they get stunned and possibly killed.
The Huntress also has a variety of elemental spear throw attacks. Lightning Spear bounces lightning between your foes. Explosive Spears can be thrown into the ground and detonate after a while, incinerating anyone caught in the blast. All spear throws can also be empowered by frenzy charges. For example, Explosive Spears will cause an even larger explosion and leave fire on the ground. These empowered versions can activate even more combos. Using Whirling Slash off a ground fire will suck it into the whirlwind, adding fire to the explosion. Using Twisters inside a fire whirlwind will shoot out fire tornadoes as well, and you can do similar combos with ice and lightning, too.
A key aspect of hunting is exhausting your foes by causing blood loss. Rake dashes towards your target and unleashes a deadly slash opening up wounds on your enemies. You can follow up with Disengage and watch them bleed out as they run towards you. On the monsters health bar, you can see how much blood loss the enemy has experienced. The Huntress has skills to take advantage of this: for example, using Blood Hunt will thrust forward and cause a bloody explosion. the more blood loss, the bigger the explosion. Thunderous Leap will allow you to jump onto and explode any Spears either in the ground or in your enemies.
As well as hunting animals, the Huntress also has the ability to work with them. While fighting any beast, you have the ability to tame it and use it as a companion. You can only have one companion at a time, but it will keep the mods that were on it. Try to find a rare beast with good mods to take full advantage of your ability to tame. There’s a huge amount of synergy between ranged and melee options. There are a total of 22 new skills available for the Huntress.
The first Ascension class you could choose is the Ritualist, which has embraced the darker side and harnessed the power of animal sacrifice and plague. The Corrupted Life Force skill causes all enemies around you to grow volatile blood boils on their skin. When those enemies are slain, the boils will burst, spreading corrupted blood to all enemies around them. The Ritualist also excels in taking advantage of magical trinkets. The Unfurled Finger skill allows you to equip an additional ring on a finger. Taking Mystic Attunement increases the bonuses of all the rings and Amulets you have equipped. You can even cut your own hand sacrificing some of your own blood to empower yourself.
The Amazon Ascension is for those looking to hunt more than just beasts. Trained as a guard to the most important Elders, the Amazon will use more traditional fighting techniques mastered to perfection. The Predatory Instinct skill will cause you to reveal weaknesses in the defenses of rare and unique enemies, allowing you to deal more damage. You can see those weak spots represented on their life bars. While using Elemental Infusion, any charges you consume will infuse your weapon with elemental power, causing any projectile attacks to explode on impact. The Critical Strike skill is as simple as it sounds: it takes your accuracy and gives it to you as Critical Strike chance.
Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt also brings three new Ascendancy classes for other classes:
- Lich (Witch) – The Lich tears their own soul apart, becoming a master of undeath and chaos. The Lich is a master of Chaos and Curses who can use her own life to enhance her Energy.
- Smith of Kitava (Warrior) – The Smith of Kitava forges weapons of destruction in fire and suffering. Embrace sheer power and take Smithing skills to greater heights by resonating with the insatiable one – Kitava.
- Tactician (Mercenary) – The mercenary Tactician brings military-grade brutality to the battlefield. As a former trained Blackguard Elite, the Tactician is able to decimate the monsters of Wraeclast while earning a healthy income at the same time.
The expansion also adds two new skills:
- Raise Spectre – This skill lets you trap and summon the souls of almost any monster in the game. With hundreds of monster variants in Path of Exile 2, expect endless experimentation to find the perfect undead army.
- Summon Rhoa Mount – Call forth a Rhoa to fight by your side or mount it to move at full speed while attacking. But beware, taking too much damage can knock you off, leaving you vulnerable to a brutal fate.
This expansion also brings a massive overhaul to character development by adding over 100 new Support Gems to enhance build diversity. Support gems add a variety of interesting effects to your existing skills, modifying them in game-changing ways. For example, Haemocrystals turn bleed effects into explosive Vaal crystals, and Caltrops allow your existing skills to litter the battlefield with slowing hazards.
A big focus of the expansion is to expand on the endgame. There are over a hundred new unique items, ensuring high-level characters have more thrilling bounty to chase. New crafting tools have also been introduced as rewards across many areas of the game:
- Over 20 new runes have been added allowing you to craft new mods onto your gear
- Runes now scale with multiple tiers, allowing for stronger mods that remain viable in the endgame.
- We’re expanding crafting options further by introducing more specialized socketable mods, with the first wave arriving in an upcoming content update.
There’s more. The so-called Azmeri Spirit has made itself present in Wraeclast. When approached, these wisps will flee, and monsters coming into contact will be infused by it, making them more powerful. Wisps will also find and possess Rare or Unique monsters, granting them powerful new abilities, and powerful new rewards. There are twelve distinct types of wisp, each with their own mechanics and rewards.
Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt adds eight new Maps to the game, offering fresh challenges and rewards. In each case, players will have interesting new encounters to look forward to, such as being forced to fight mirrored Rare monsters in a shifting, warped reality in The Fractured Lake, or being thrust into the wild Ezomyte Forests of The Phaaryl Megaliths where rune-carved stones surge with energy. Survive the storm-fueled gauntlet of deadly boss waves, and you’ll earn full boss rewards and exclusive Runes.
The update introduces four new Unique Strongboxes, each with deadly mechanics and valuable rewards:
- Ogham’s Legacy features a rune-carved stone and a slain creature that, when activated, revives as a powerful Rare. Each defeat triggers another resurrection with added modifiers making the fight progressively more difficult, but also more rewarding.
- Ixchel’s Torment harnesses ancient Vaal thaumaturgy, unleashing Chaos-empowered guardians to protect a powerful artifact. Victors will be rewarded with a unique item featuring a specific Corrupted outcome.
Essences also received major upgrades, with four new Corrupted Essences – Hysteria, Delirium, Horror, and Insanity – offering new combat mechanics and powerful new crafting outcomes, such as guaranteed double Enchantments when using a Vaal Orb on belts.
Corruption has continued to spread throughout Wraeclast and has formed into larger and larger zones. In the center of each one lies a Corrupted Nexus, the home of three new terrifying bosses, amalgamations of Corruption itself. Upon defeating these bosses, any remaining areas within the zone of Corruption will become cleansed. Cleansed Maps have additional new monsters, a new boss, and their own set of Modifiers and rewards.
Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt also introduces Rogue Exiles – others like you who have been exiled and are openly hostile. They will challenge you in a fight to the death. These NPCs have the ability to Dodge Roll and avoid your abilities with smart pathfinding, smart targeting, and much more action-packed gameplay. Rogue Exiles use the same skills available to players, and even the same items. They aren’t just dressed up in those items; they know how to take advantage of the Uniques they are using, which, of course, will be available for players once they have prevailed.
Lastly, there’s a significant rebalance of the endgame. The number of towers has been drastically reduced, but they have been made much more powerful. Tablets now affect twice as many areas and running higher tier Maps in Towers increases this number further still. In addition, each Tower will be able to consume up to three Tablets at once. These changes greatly reduce the amount of busy work required in the endgame while improving the player’s ability to use them. On top of that, Towers can now spawn with all mechanics, and have their own new Bosses.
Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt will launch on Friday, April 4.
