Grinding Gear Games is set to release the most substantial update for Path of Exile 2 since its early access launch. The Dawn of the Hunt update arrives on April 4th, introducing a wealth of new content and significant changes to address player feedback about the game's endgame progression.
The Huntress: A New Hybrid Combat Class
The headline feature of the update is the introduction of the Huntress, the first new class since Path of Exile 2's early access launch. This spear-wielding warrior specializes in a unique hybrid of ranged and melee combat. Her signature starting skill, Whirling Slash, creates a whirlwind around the player that blinds enemies in melee range. When you leave the whirlwind, it explodes, damaging everything inside it. Using multiple Whirling Slashes expands the whirlwind, creating a bigger explosion when you exit.
The Huntress can also throw her spear to summon tornadoes that travel forward, bouncing off walls and hitting enemies multiple times. These tornadoes become more powerful when cast from within a whirlwind. The class can imbue these effects with elemental types, either by using skills on elemental ground effects or by spending frenzy charges to create those effects herself.
Perhaps most intriguingly, the Huntress can tame any beast she encounters in the world to fight alongside her as a companion. The tamed beast will retain any mods it had while you were fighting it, encouraging players to seek out powerful rare monsters to convert into allies.
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| The Huntress stands poised for battle in her mystical surroundings, ready to harness her unique hybrid combat skills |
New Ascendancy Options
Dawn of the Hunt introduces two ascendancy subclasses for the Huntress: the Ritualist, which embraces animal sacrifice and plague-based abilities, and the Amazon, a more martial-focused option that reveals enemy weaknesses and enhances elemental damage.
The update also adds three additional ascendancies for existing classes:
The Smith of Kitava (Warrior) can summon an anvil on the battlefield to enhance weapons with fiery explosions and summon animated copies of weapons. This ascendancy also features a unique approach to armor, restricting players to normal body armor without mods but providing access to powerful passive nodes that enhance that armor.
The Tactician (Mercenary) offers crowd control options that can pin enemies in place and prevent them from performing actions. It also includes cooperative abilities that benefit allies and can command off-screen archers to bombard enemies.
The Lich (Witch) can create a phylactery that provides a 100% bonus to any jewel placed in it, with the downside that mana costs increase by 50% when energy shield is depleted. This ascendancy focuses on chaos magic and curse effects.
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| Adventurers gather, equipped with new ascendancies, ready to face the challenges posed by the Dawn of the Hunt |
Expanded Skill System
Beyond the 20 skills being added for the Huntress, two significant new skills are coming to Path of Exile 2:
Raise Spectre allows players to trap the soul of almost any monster in the game, creating summon skills for hundreds of different creature types. The spirit cost scales with the monster's power, enabling players to summon either a small army of weaker monsters or a handful of more powerful ones.
Summon Rhoa brings forth a bird companion that can help in combat and also serve as a mount, letting players move at full speed while shooting bows or throwing spears. The Rhoa has a stagger bar that fills when attacked – if it fills completely, the player is knocked off and left vulnerable.
The update also introduces over 100 new support gems to modify skills in game-changing ways, such as Haemocrystals (which transform bleed effects into explosive crystals) and Caltrops (which cause ranged attacks to drop damaging obstacles).
Endgame Overhaul
Game Director Jonathan Rogers acknowledged that the endgame needed a lot of work, and Dawn of the Hunt aims to address this with two primary goals: smoothing progression and reducing annoying busy work, while also adding more interesting content.
One major change is the drastic reduction in the number of towers, making them more potent but less numerous. Tablets will now inherently apply their mechanic to twice as many maps, and players can further increase this by using higher tier waystones. At tier 15, a single tablet will apply its mechanic to four times as many map nodes as before. Players can also stack up to three tablets on a single tower, dramatically enhancing rewards with far less repetitive preparation.
The update also introduces the ability to respawn and reenter a map after death, with up to six total attempts per map by default. This number decreases with the number of modifiers added to a waystone, maintaining the risk/reward balance for more challenging content.
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| Warriors strategize amidst the chaotic battlefield, reflective of the enhanced endgame challenges in Dawn of the Hunt |
New Content and Mechanics
Azmerian Wisps are being added as a new event type throughout both the campaign and endgame. When approached, these wisps flee, infusing any monsters they pass with new bonuses based on the wisp type. The chase ends when the wisp possesses a rare monster, buffing it significantly. Defeating this enhanced foe grants rewards based on the number of enemies killed during the chase.
The update introduces eight new unique map biomes, four new unique strongboxes with challenging mechanics, and Rogue Exiles – hostile NPCs that use player skills and items, and can drop those items when defeated. There's also a new recombination crafting mechanic tied to expeditions that lets players merge two items in an attempt to get their best mods on a single new item.
Corruption has spread throughout Wraeclast, forming larger zones with a Corrupted Nexus at the center. These areas house three new bosses, and defeating them will cleanse the surrounding maps, transforming them into Cleansed Maps with additional monsters, new bosses, and unique modifiers and rewards.
Balance Changes and Future Plans
Dawn of the Hunt includes a comprehensive rebalance of the game, addressing many of the issues players have identified with overpowered builds. Rogers emphasized that while they always listen to player feedback to identify problems, they still maintain their own vision for how to solve those issues.
When asked about the timeline for Path of Exile 2's full release, Rogers expressed hope that they could complete development this year, though he acknowledged it wasn't guaranteed. He also confirmed that Path of Exile 1 will continue to receive updates, with the games likely alternating seasons once development is fully established.
The Dawn of the Hunt update launches on April 4th across all platforms, and will be accompanied by new leagues to allow players to start fresh alongside others, though all content will also be available to existing characters.