Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt Reveal Megapost
GGG's reveal livestream for the upcoming Path of Exile 2 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt content patch just concluded and brings very exciting new additions and changes to the game. With 25 new skills, 100+ new Support Gems, 5 new Ascendancy Classes, 100+ new Uniques as well as massive Endgame improvements the upcoming Patch is looking extremely promising. Furthermore the Huntress who utilizes the new spear weapon type joins the roster of base classes, combining ranged and melee combat into one.
0.2.0 launches at 12pm on April 4th PDT on PC and Consoles and comes with the Dawn of the Hunt, a fresh start which allows players to start in a completely new economy. Old characters as well as all the new content of 0.2.0 remain playable on Standard. Check out the full write-up of the reveal trailer as well as the follow-up Q&A below.
The Huntress and Spears
The Dawn of the Hunt Patch 0.2.0 brings plenty of new content and system overhauls, including the highly anticipated Huntress class and two of her ascendancies. Specializing in Spears she gets access to both melee and ranged combat, with quick dashes allowing for smooth transitions between the two. The new weapon type brings 22 brand new skills that can be used with the Huntress or any pre-existing class. For example, "Whirling Slash", creates a whirlwind that blinds all enemies inside. Leaving the whirlwind causes it to explode, with multiple casts causing multiple explosions. You can combo most of the Huntress' skills, such as casting the "Twister" skill in a whirlwind to release more projectiles.
Utilize the new "Buckler" off-hand base type which grants the "Parry" skill. This works similar to Active Block but instead causes the enemy to be stunned and take extra damage from follow-up strikes. To keep on theme of agile ranged and melee combat, successfully parrying an attack allows you to use "Disengage" for a short moment, causing you to leap backwards. From here you may decide between utilizing skills from afar such as Lightning Spear Throw or immediately close the distance again with skills like "Rake" which causes you to dash to the target and bleed them. You may also tame slain beasts to cause them to fight for you afterwards.
5 New Ascendancies
With GGG's goal to release Path of Exile 2 1.0 with 36 Ascendancy classes, PoE2 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt receives 5 brand new exciting options with the Ritualist, Amazon, Smith of Kitava, the Lich and the Tactician.
Ritualist - Huntress
| Node Effect | What it Does |
|---|---|
| Pick between one of three downsides to reach Unfurled Finger: -15% to all Elemental Resistances -25% reduced Spirit 30% reduced maximum Mana | Pick whichever downside least impacts your build. |
| +1 Ring Slot | Rings can grant a lot of extra power so gaining an extra slot is strong. This equipped Ring gets scaled by the Ingenuity (assuming it does not get changed in 0.2.0). |
| 25% increased bonuses gained from Equipped Rings and Amulets | A "mini" Ingenuity, further leaning into the Ritualist's focus on Jewellery. Stacks additively with Ingenuity's effect. |
| 5% increased Life Recovery rate per 5% missing Life | Grants up to 95% increased Life Recovery at 5% missing health and under. This is a generic boost for every mechanic that changes the players HP such as Flasks, Leech, Regeneration or Recoup. Can be paired with Shavronne's Satchel on Low Life builds in order to increase the Energy Shield recovered. |
| +1 Charm Slot 20% more Charm Charges gained | Allows you to use another Charm and increases your Charm uptime. Straight forward. |
| Can instead consume 25% of maximum Mana to trigger Charms with insufficient charges | Allows for extremely high Charm uptime with sufficient mana recovery. Can be paired with sources of % reduced maximum Mana (such as on the small travel node towards Unfurled Finger) in order to increase the effectiveness of sources of flat mana gain. |
| Grants Skill: Ritual Sacrifice | Ritual Sacrifice can be used on the corpse of a slain rare monster to gain one of their modifiers for a short time. The strength of this node entirely depends how long the buff lasts. |
| Ritual Sacrifice can be used on yourself to remove 20% of maximum Life to grant a random Monster Modifier A maximum of one Modifier can be granted this way | A very RNG heavy bonus as a lot of Monster Modifiers are not desirable enough to justify an Ascendancy notable. |
| Grants Skill: Blood Boil | "Blood Boil" causes nearby enemies to grow volatile Bloodboils. Slaying the enemy causes them to burst and spread Corrupted Blood to surrounding enemies. |
Amazon - Huntress
| Node Effect | What it Does |
|---|---|
| Chance to hit with Attacks can exceed 100% Gain additional Critical Hit Chance equal to 25% of excess chance to hit with Attacks | Sources of %increased Critical Hit Chance are rather scarce/numerically low while accuracy is more abundant, making this a potential strong choice to get high crit chance. |
| Attacks using your Weapons have Added Physical Damage equal to 25% of the Accuracy Rating on the Weapon | Further encourages stacking of Accuracy. |
| Reveal Weakness against Rare and Unique enemies 50% more damage against enemies with an Open Weakness | Highlights certain chunks of a monsters HP bar which take 50% more damage. A monster can have multiple chunks of Open Weakness throughout their HP bar. |
| 20% increased Movement Speed while an enemy with an Open Weakness is in your Presence 40% increased Skill Speed while an enemy with an Open Weakness is in your Presence | Effectively grants 20% increased Movement Speed and 40% Skill Speed when within 6 meters of a decently healthy Rare or Unique enemy. The 6 meter radius can be increased with sources of Presence Area modifiers. |
| Grants Skill: Infuse Weapon When you Consume a Power Charge Trigger Infuse Weapon to gain 2 Cold Infusion When you Consume an Endurance Charge Trigger Infuse Weapon to gain 2 Fire Infusion When you Consume a Frenzy Charge Trigger Infuse Weapon to gain 2 Lightning Infusion | Causes your projectiles to explode on impact after consuming the corresponding Charge. |
| 50% chance for Infusion to not be Consumed when Infusing a Projectile | Effectively grants 50% more infused projectiles unless charge generation is extremely high. |
| Life Leech recovers based on your Elemental damage as well as Physical damage | Allows elemental attack builds to achieve far better sustain as elemental leech is non-existent otherwise. |
| Evasion Rating from Equipped Helmet, Gloves and Boots is doubled Evasion Rating from Equipped Body Armour is halved | Synergizes with Unique Body Armours that grant low defensive stats/no evasion to begin with such as Cloak of Flame. Can also be used with a high Armour Body Armour or Blackbraid in conjunction with Iron Reflexes. |
| Life Flasks also recover Mana Mana Flasks also recover Life | An Ultimate Life Flask recovers 3 times more than an Ultimate Mana Flask, which results in a large increase in potential Mana recovery through Flasks. |
Smith of Kitava - Warrior
| Node Effect | What it Does |
|---|---|
| Grants Skill: Fire Spell on Hit | Sources of %increased Critical Hit Chance are rather scarce/numerically low while accuracy is more abundant, making this a potential strong choice to get high crit chance. |
| Modifiers to Fire Resistance also grant Cold and Lightning Resistance at 50% of their value | Reduces the strain on gear by lowering the need for high tier Resistance rolls massively. |
| Modifiers to Maximum Fire Resistance also grant Maximum Cold and Lightning Resistance | Makes it substantially easier to reach triple 90% maximum Resistances, making you extremely durable against elemental damage. |
| Grants Skill: Temper Weapon | Causes you to stand still and hit an anvil for 3 to 4 seconds. This buffs your weapon to cause its hits to deal AoE fire damage around the struck target. |
| Grants Skill: Manifest Weapon | Creates an animated copy of your currently equipped Weapon to fight alongside you. Has potential for interesting weapon swap mechanics should the weapon persist between weapon Sets. The small node leading up to this notable grants increased Minion damage, meaning Manifest Weapon counts as a minion. |
| Can only use a Normal Body Armour This Passive Skill is free to allocate | Tip: Corrupted Implicits, Runes and Soul Cores can be used on the Normal Body Armour for extra stat bonuses. |
You may pick as many of the following stats after allocating Smith's Masterwork, for 1 point each:
- Body Armour grants +5% to Maximum Fire Resistance
- Body Armour grants 25% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage
- Body Armour grants Hits against you have 50% reduced Critical Damage Bonus
- Body Armour grants regenerate 5% of Life per second
- Body Armour grants +75% to Lightning Resistance
- Body Armour grants 20% increased Strength
- Body Armour grants 15% increased maximum Life
- Body Armour grants +75% to Fire Resistance
- Body Armour grants Unaffected by Ignite
- Body Armour grants 100% increased Stun Threshold
- Body Armour grants +75% to Cold Resistance
- Body Armour grants Armour also applies to Chaos Damage taken from Hits
For the early game utilizing the +75% to Fire Resistance in conjunction with Coal Stoker makes gearing extremely comfortable. 25% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage and regenerate 5% of Life per second are solid mid-game options. Good rare chests outperform any of these bonuses in the Endgame however.
Lich - Witch
Note: Blackened Heart and Dominion over Flesh are swapped in the graphic.
| Node Effect | What it Does |
|---|---|
| Can Socket one non-Unique Basic Jewel 100% increased Effect of Socketed Jewels 50% more Mana Cost if you have no Energy Shield | A solid node where the value heavily depends on the strongest jewel the player owns. |
| Non-Channelling Spells consume Power Charges to deal 25% more Damage | Requires rapid charge generation or very slow hitting spells to be worthwhile. |
| 10% of Damage taken bypasses Energy Shield No inherent Mana Regeneration Regenerate Mana equal to 6% of maximum Life per second | Inherent Mana Regeneration is 4% of maximum mana per second, making this a very effective way to solve mana issues for builds that do not wish to heavily invest into mana. |
| Your Life cannot change while you have Energy Shield | This effectively causes modifiers that grant #% of Damage taken bypasses Energy Shield (e.g. Atziri's Disdain) to act as reduced damage taken multipliers as your life cannot be modified in any way while you have Energy Shield. The Black Doubt causes you to be completely immune to damage over time, though at a high opportunity cost. |
| You and Allies in Presence have Unholy Might while you are not on Low Mana Lose 5% of Mana per Second | Unholy Might grants 30% of all damage as extra Chaos damage. |
| You can apply an additional Curse Your Curses can affect Hexproof Enemies | A generically strong node for most builds. |
| Cursed Enemies Killed by you or Allies in your Presence have a 33% chance to Explode, dealing a quarter of their maximum Life as Chaos Damage | Sources of explode are always a great boost to clear speed. Hex Bloom allows these explosions to chain. |
| 4% increased Magnitude of Unholy Might buffs you grant per 100 maximum Mana | Current Endgame builds can reach upwards of 10000 mana, which would increase the Unholy Might magnitude by 400%, causing it to grant 150% of all damage as extra Chaos damage. |
| Non-Channelling Spells cost an additional 3% of maximum Energy Shield Non-Channelling Spells deal 30% more Damage Spending Energy Shield does not interrupt Recharge | A very sizeable damage buff for a relatively low cost. |
Tactician - Mercenary
| Node Effect | What it Does |
|---|---|
| Persistent Buffs have 50% Less Reservation | 50% is an extremely generous multiplier, allowing builds to fit in twice as many persistent buffs. |
| Allies in your Presence gain added Attack Damage equal to a 25% of your main hand Weapon's Damage | Can be used for the player's own minions or party members in a more support oriented setup. |
| Can place multiple Banners | A good boost to any banner intensive build. |
| Projectile Damage builds Pin | Pin on its own is already a fairly strong mechanic but this mainly serves as a way to reach the node below it. |
| Pinned enemies cannot perform actions | A super strong defensive node as it prevents most monsters from ever fighting back in the first place. |
| Gain 100% of Armour as extra Stun Threshold Gain 100% of Evasion Rating as extra Ailment Threshold | Grants extreme resilience to stuns and ailments as 100% is a very generous value. |
| Defend with 200% of Armour Enemies have an Accuracy Penalty against you based on Distance Maximum Evade Chance is 50% Maximum Physical Damage Reduction is 50% | With how Armour works (Click here for an in-depth Armour formula explanation) it is unlikely to mitigate large hits for more than 50% in the first place. Assuming the distance based Accuracy Penalty is the same as it is for players, even low amounts of Evasion results in decent mitigation. |
| Grants Skill: Supporting Fire | Needs further information to assess its strength. |
| Totems have 30% more Skill Speed Totems only use skills when you fire an Attack Projectile | Grants up to 30% more Totem/Ballista DPS assuming the player has enough attack speed on his own. |
100+ New Uniques
The current selection of Uniques in the game are mainly low level bases or boss-only Uniques. The Uniques added in the 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt content update aim to fill out mid- to late game options by bringing various new effects that are sure to have a large effect on builds. Click the Image to zoom.
100+ New Support Gems
Support Gems can heavily shape how a skill feels to play so getting over a hundred new options at once is going to massively improve the potential choices each given build has. Click the Image to zoom.
New Skill Gems
GGG also revealed a few interesting Skill Gems that are coming with the 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt update. The Summon Rhoa Mount spawns a rideable minion that removes the movement speed penalties while attacking with ranged weapons, allowing for far more mobility during combat. Be careful however as getting damaged too much causes you to be knocked off and stunned!
Raise Spectre is an exciting addition for minion players. Raise any of the monsters you slay as an army of your own, with every single monster type in the game available to be turned into a permanent minion to fight alongside you. Spirit costs are adjusted based on the monster type for balancing purposes, meaning stronger Spectres tend to cost more Spirit to raise.
Azmerian Wisps
Azmerian Wisps are a new way to empower monsters in order to acquire additional loot. These wisps can spawn in the Campaign as well as maps and slowly float away from the player when approached. Any monsters the wisp touches on the way get empowered and grants them different effects and rewards when slain. For example, the Wild Cat Wisp grants monsters more Critical Hit Chance, makes them more evasive and causes them to summon felines when infused. Sacred Wisps upgrade any normal monsters they touch to become magic, Magic mobs become Rare and Rares turn into Boss encounters. Be careful however, as moving too far away from the Wisp causes it to dissipate, costing you potential valuable loot such as the new Talismans that they may drop.
Azmerian Wisps can also be further enhanced through Atlas Passive Tree points and Waystone Tablets.
Endgame Improvements
The 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt content update aims to make Endgame mapping more exciting. This is achieved by adding more random encounters, expand the Atlas Passive Tree, reduce annoying busywork, smooth out progression and adding new content in the form of Unique Maps, Rogue Exiles and Unique Strongboxes.
The quest granted by Doryani to clear 10 maps of X tier to unlock Atlas Passive Points is being changed to be more engaging. Now you must fight your way to the center of corruption and defeat the special Boss encounter in order to cleanse the surrounding area of corruption. Corrupted maps that you run in order to reach the final Boss are now more interesting, and all remaining corrupted maps turn into Cleansed Maps upon defeating the Corrupted Boss. These Cleansed Maps contain new monsters, a new Boss and their own set of modifiers and rewards.
One of these rewards are Fracturing Orbs, which can be used on a rare item to fracture one randomly selected modifier, causing the mod to always remain on the item even when using mod altering currency such as Chaos Orb. Think of it as "locking" a modifier in place permanently.
Another powerful crafting method that is coming with the 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt content patch are Recombinators, which allow players to merge two items into one, with varying degrees of success. Unlocked after your first Expedition encounter, Recombinating requires Artifacts with the cost dependent on the rarity of the mods.
Multiple Respawns And Pinnacle Encounters
In order to cut down on player frustration and help with Waystone sustain, the number of available respawns within a Map is getting changed to scale with the amount of modifiers on the Waystone. Meaning a normal Waystone grants 6 attempts, while a Rare Waystone with multiple mods may only grant 1. This allows for a smoother transition from the Campaign to the Endgame as dying is not nearly as punishing in the early Endgame.
Pinnacle Encounters in 0.2.0 no longer grant XP or causes the player to lose XP on death to alleviate the fear of losing precious XP on death just to attempt a pinnacle boss. Boss Uniques are also changed to be able to drop at any boss difficulty, but have lowered drop chances.
Towers and Tablets
Towers in 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt generate one third as often as they used to, but are much stronger. Tablets inherently add twice as many mechanics and affects more surrounding maps based on what Waystone tier you used to clear the Tower, up to 100% more. Towers also are able to consume up to 3 Tablets at once, depending how many mods the Tower Waystone had. It grants one slot by default, 2 for 3-mod Waystones and 3 for 6-mod Waystones. Additionally, Towers in 0.2.0 can now spawn all mechanics that can spawn in regular Maps and contain brand new Boss encounters.
The Dawn of the Hunt content patch also adds Unique Tablets that grant various special effects.
Unique Maps
0.2.0 adds 7 new Unique Maps that contain special encounters and unique rewards. Completing a Unique map grants 2 Atlas Passive Points, raising the maximum amount of points players can have to 40.
The Feral Megaliths Map
Progress through the Map and activate all the mysterious runecarved Stones in order to spawn the first boss. Defeating it allows you to spawn the next one. After defeating 10 separate Bosses which increase in difficulty you receive all their individual drops as well as exclusive runes.
All runes have also been adjusted to have different tiers in order to smooth out their power curve, as Runes that granted flat damage were quickly outscaled by other options previously.
The Fractured Lake
Fight mirrored Rares as you make your way to the end of the map where you receive a rare item on a new base type.
The Crystalline Cavern
This map has a powerful Unique trapped Essence in the center, with Rare Essence monsters scattered around it. Killing the Rares causes the Essences they hold to upgrade to greater Essences and adds them to the Unique Boss in the center. This rewards proper risk-reward assessment as you can quickly create a Boss that is too difficult to take down.
Essences can now also be corrupted with a Vaal Orb with the following potential outcomes:
- Increase number of Essences
- Reroll all Essences to the same type
- Upgrade them to Greater Essences
- Upgrade Greater Essences to Corrupted Essences: Hysteria, Delirium, Horror and Insanity
- Rares holding corrupted Essences have their fights altered substantially
- Each Essence grants a Unique effect when used on your items
Rogue Exiles
You may randomly encounter one of 12 Rogue Exiles, monsters which use a wide assortment of skills that exist for the player. They are also wearing real gear which boosts their stats accordingly - meaning a Rogue Exile that uses Kaom's Heart for example will have massively increased life. However, when killed, these Exiles drop whatever they're wearing, so get excited when you recognize your opponent wearing an expensive or rare Unique! But be careful: Dying to the Rogue Exile causes them to portal out of the map, costing you the chance to retrieve their gear.
With Rogue Exiles ability to dodge roll, avoid your abilities with smart pathfinding and smart targeting encountering one should feel similar to an actual PVP encounter.
Unique Strongboxes
Ixchel's Torment: Contains additional unique item with a corrupted outcome
Ogham's Legacy: Revives monsters which get stronger and grant more loot each time they are revived
...and two more for players to find when 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt releases.
Q&A Summary
- Recombinating items with 6 affixes has a very low success rate
- GGG is aware that the Summon Rhoa Mount might be overtuned but don't mind simply nerfing it later on
- Acts as a minion/companion when dismounted, can be made more durable with minion support gems
- They want every base type to have a Unique item that you can chance with an Orb of Chance
- Temporalis is getting nerfed but Jonathan and Mark claim it still is "crazy"
- Supposed to be a chase unique but was too common
- No-hit runs were too trivial to acquire it
- Omens are way more common now, with one guaranteed per Ritual window
- Jonathan is still weary to not invalidate ground loot
- Defeating a Cleansed Boss guarantees a Fracturing Orb drop
- Fractured items do not drop
- Cleansed monsters cannot drop equipment, but have higher chance to drop Waystones, Tablets, Currency etc.
- PoE2 previously lacked overlapping random occurrences (e.g. Uniques getting empowered by Wisps) to make Endgame more interesting
- Jonathan is not satisfied with it yet
- Looking to add a lot more content depth
- Endgame is a lot more Objective driven now
- Difficulty 0 Pinnacle bosses have their HP halved, Difficulty 4 is unchanged
- Waystones can only drop at the level of the Waystone or above (e.g. A tier 4 Waystone can never drop a tier 3 Waystone)
- Causes progression to be more consistent
- Removes frustration of dropping back down in tiers despite having a strong build
- Rogue Exiles are meant to be rare encounters, players should be excited to encounter one
- Herald of Ice no longer chains off itself
- Patch Notes release next week, expect a lot of nerfs
- Jonathan was disappointed that the server first Arbiter kill simply one-shot him
- Their goal is for people to not feel forced to play certain builds as they're perceived to be better than all the other options
- No skill will have the same damage as before, every skill is getting rebalanced
- Crossbows buffed across the board
- Two new notables for Pathfinder, one new notable for Chronomancer
- Most Ascendancies have been rebalanced
- Drastic changes planned for Grim Feast and Mana stacking
- Mark wants to revisit Armour/Strength based defenses eventually
- GGG is heavily reliant on community testing at this point due to the sheer amount of moving parts
- Broken builds and interactions are completely expected
- Path of Exile 2 pacing: Jonathan says it's about meaningful combat, not necessarily about the speed of the game
- It can have fast combat without invalidating the monsters
- Players should still be able to get ridiculously powerful, just not as quickly
- Fine tuning the power level curve is important
- Large areas are fine as long as they are interesting enough content wise
- People generally don't have problems with large layouts as long as there are enough interesting events in it
- GGG are still working on common crashes
- Extremely hard to fix
- Fixed a bunch of unrelated crashes, causing huge increase in overall stability
- Took away developer time that would improve performance
- Still no plans to allow Ascendancy respecs
- Dynamic controller/MnK switching hopefully ready in 0.3.0
Path of Exile Coverage
Patch 0.2.0 Dawn of the Hunt for PoE2 brings a huge breadth of new content in the form of Ascendancies, Skill Gems, Support Gems, Uniques and Endgame mechanics. Many player concerns seem to be getting addressed and we are looking forward to the full Patch Notes next week. Looking for more news on Path of Exile 2 Patches or Hotfixes? Then head over to our Discord and select the Path of Exile 2 role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Stay sane, Exile!
Written by: Cptn Garbage
Reviewed by: Tenkiei
