Path of Exile 2

This Boss VS Boss will be the first in a series where we run a 1V1 tournament for all the Rogue Exiles from Path of Exile 2 to see who comes out on top! Each of the 12 Rogue Exiles will face off in a Best of Three Single Elimination Tournament, with the final three duking it out in a First to Three Wins Free for All. Check out the bracket below:

Check out the first three fights in today's video!

Video: Path of Exile 2: Boss VS Boss - The Rogue Exile Tournament Part 1

Did you predict the winners correctly?

The Path of Exile 2 Boss Rush Event is coming to PAX West on August 29! Kill as many bosses as you can in 20 minutes, and win some cool prizes.

Choose between 7 preconstructed character builds, one for each class, then see how many bosses you can kill. Before each boss are a few packs of monsters so you can test out your skills, before getting to the main event. Then throw yourself at the boss for as many attempts as it takes to bring it down.

After you kill the boss, a portal will open up to the next arena, and the level of all subsequent bosses will increase. There are 15 bosses in all, we highly doubt you can kill them all!

Above the booth will be a live leaderboard featuring the top Exiles able to kill the most bosses in the shortest period of time.

If you're planning to visit the expo - in between playing the new content update for Path of Exile 2 launching the same weekend - make sure to check out our booth! All visitors will have the chance to earn Path of Exile 2 merchandise prizes depending on how many bosses you can kill.

PAX West

• When - August 29 - September 1
• Where - Booth#2309

Good luck, Exiles!

In this episode of our Developer Interviews series, Eben talked to Zaccie, a Game Designer at Grinding Gear Games whose work focuses on monster balance. Check out the interview below!

Video: Zaccie (Game Designer) on Volatiles, Monsters Balance and K-Pop!

This August, Path of Exile 2 will once again be going to Gamescom in Cologne, Germany! This time, we wanted to do something a bit special, so we are now introducing the Path of Exile 2 Boss Rush Event. Kill as many bosses as you can in 20 minutes, and win some cool prizes.

In the past all our demos at events have been playing slices of the game, but since we are in Early Access now, we knew we wanted to make something that existing players would also enjoy trying out, and that is where the idea for the Boss Rush was born.

Choose between 7 preconstructed character builds, one for each class, then see how many bosses you can kill. Before each boss are a few packs of monsters so you can test out your skills, before getting to the main event. Then throw yourself at the boss for as many attempts as it takes to bring it down.

After you kill the boss, a portal will open up to the next arena, and the level of all subsequent bosses will increase. There are 15 bosses in all, many of which have not appeared in the game yet. We highly doubt you can kill them all!

Above the booth will be a live leaderboard featuring the top Exiles able to kill the most bosses in the shortest period of time.

If you're planning to attend the exhibition, make sure to check out our booth! All visitors will have the chance to earn Path of Exile 2 merchandise prizes depending on how many bosses you can kill.

Gamescom

• When - 20th - 24th of August
• Where - Hall 6.1 C071 / A070

We hope you have lots of fun!

Xesht may be One, but is One enough to defeat Fear Manifest itself? What if Fear Manifested a hundred times? Find out in today's Boss VS Boss!

Video: Path of Exile 2: Boss VS Boss - Xesht, We That Are One Vs Omniphobia, Fear Manifest

Let us know who you'd like to see battle it out next!

0.2.1b Hotfix

• Incremental audio system improvements.
• Fixed client crashes introduced from the 0.2.1b Patch.

This fix is client-side and requires restarting your client to receive the fixes.

We've just released patch 0.2.1b for Path of Exile 2. With this update, all the microtransactions released in Path of Exile: Secrets of the Atlas will also be available in Path of Exile 2.

Microtransactions included in this patch are:

• Watcher's Wrath Armour Set
• Archon of the Atlas Armor Set
• Skull of Undeath
• Syndicate's Demise Unique Finisher Effect
• The Originator's Portal Effect
• Rose Charges

This patch also enables the Mercenaries Supporter Packs for Path of Exile 2. There are two series of Mercenaries Supporter Packs; the Phrecian Magistrate series and the Cryptkeeper series. Each of the two series has different exclusive cosmetic contents, like the armour sets shown below.

To see the full contents of these packs or to get yours now, visit the Path of Exile 2 shop page here.

If you have already purchased any pack from either of the Mercenaries Supporter Pack series in Path of Exile 1, these microtransactions will be immediately available to you in Path of Exile 2.

Thank you for your support!

0.2.1b Patch Notes

• Enabled the existing microtransaction contents of the Phrecian Magistrate and Cryptkeeper Series of Supporter Packs for use in Path of Exile 2.
• Enabled the existing Watcher's Wrath Armour Set, Archon of the Atlas Armor Set, Skull of Undeath, Syndicate's Demise Unique Finisher Effect, The Originator's Portal Effect, and Rose Charges microtransactions for use in Path of Exile 2.
• Fixed an instance crash.

Now that Path of Exile 1 has had its league, it's time to talk about our plans for when the next Path of Exile 2 Content Update will be released! Path of Exile 2 has a lot of new players, so we thought it would be a good idea to explain how our updates work.

Major updates for Path of Exile 2 are released every 4 months. Since 0.2.0 was in April, that means the next one will be in August, and the one after that will be in December.

Our big updates, including the one coming in August include a new League. Leagues are a fresh economy for you to experience the new content update in, but they also have exclusive content that is only available in the league.

Leagues usually contain a new combat mechanic, new rewards, new crafting options and new bosses.

During the league, the new content will usually appear in every area, giving you a new experience while playing through the game. After the league ends, we then have a chance to work out how we will integrate the content from the league into the base game, meaning it's a great way to introduce new things while still giving us a chance to fix any problems before they are in the game forever.

After the league is finished, all your characters and items will transfer to the Standard leagues where you can continue to play them, but most players usually want to play in the next league.

Of course, our content updates always contain a lot of new stuff for the base game as well. As Path of Exile 2 is still in Early Access, we have a lot of content that we haven't finished yet, and there is certainly a lot of new stuff coming!

Now for the date. 0.3.0 will be released on August 29th (PDT). It's a little later in the month than we had hoped, but this is a big update, and there were a few other constraints we had to work around. We will be announcing the content of the release around one week beforehand. We look forward to showing you guys what we have been cooking up!

Something smells a little off in today's Build Showcase. DwaneDibbley shows us some creativity with his aptly named Fartmaster build where he marches across Wraeclast with his Ritualist and leaves foul gas and bodies of monsters in his wake. Check it out in the video below!

Video: Path of Exile 2 Build Showcase - DwaneDibbley's Fartmaster

For more information on this build, check out DwaneDibbley's write-up on the forum here.

Path of Exile 2 is filled with tons of Unique Items, each with intricate designs. Take a look through today's news post, where our 3D artists show off some closer looks at some of their Unique Item designs.

Unique Items designed by Dane Brennand

Unique Items designed by Harrison Wakeley

Unique Items designed by John Kenneth Canonoy

In today's news post, we'd like to feature a few hideouts we've found. Ranging from detailed to cozy, we hope today's showcase inspires you to make and share your hideouts! Check out the video below.

Video: Path of Exile 2: Hideout Showcase July 2025

Here's a list of the hideouts featured in the video:

• Riverside Marketplace by LinearKitsune
• Balbala's Retreat by Latomical
• The Withered Forest by 3xOhe
• Sanctuary of Demons by PottyOfExile

If you'd like to be featured in a future video, be sure to show it off in our Hideout Showcase forum.

In the first of our new series of interviews, Eben, one of our Video Producers, who you may recognise as the voice behind our Build Showcase Series, sat down with Kane, Audio and Narrative Director, to get a sneak peak into his work at Grinding Gear Games. Check it out below!

Video: Path of Exile Developer Interviews - Kane Bennett, Audio and Narrative Director

In addition to the recently released Mjölner Warp Titan Build Showcase we wanted to take a minute to showcase a few lesser known builds!

Puffettt is an Incinerate Lich! By making use of the Blackflame Amethyst Ring and a few jewels with Increased Magnitude of Ignite and Increased Magnitude of Ailments Puffettt is able to Incinerate anything they walk near!

Jorgen has combined the Occult Skill Gems Bone Cage and Bonestorm with the strengths of the Smith of Kitava! By using The Deepest Tower and Trampletoe Uniques in combination with increased damage on low life nodes on the passive tree Jorgen has created a simplistic yet destructive build!

うぉぉーくろくろのまんさぁ is playing a Support Chronomancer, while they wont be able to kill hordes of monsters themselves they will make sure their party members are nice and safe, not only by stopping time and cursing monsters with Temporal Chains and Enfeeble, they're also using the Merit of Service unique to increase their allies Block Chance!

MisoxShiru is playing a Glacial Lance Deadeye! The neat interaction between Voltaic Mark, Cast on Freeze and Herald of Thunder provide this build with more than enough map clearing capability! They've even included Wind Serpent's Fury for even more single-target damage.

Build Showcase is a series where we look at interesting builds from the Path of Exile 2 community that have caught our attention.

This Titan was put together by DeadRabbit and uses the latest in slam technology to warp around the map, blow up screens and chunk pinnacle bosses in seconds. Check out the video below.

For more information on this build, check out DeadRabbit's video guide here.

Patch 0.2.1 for Path of Exile 2 introduced several new Unique Items, including the Last Lament. This Unique Crossbow quickly caught players' attention---not just for its in-game power, but also for its distinctive visual design and unique sound. In this news post, our Senior Sound Designer Dominic dives into the process behind creating skill sound for the Last Lament.

Hi, I'm Dominic Downing, Senior Sound Designer at Grinding Gear Games. I joined the team at the start of 2020. Delirium was my first league I worked on, and I had to figure out joining the team mid-pandemic... it was a wild time! These days, I handle skill and combat audio for Path of Exile alongside another talented sound designer.

Dominic (left) and Roco (right) - Skill Sound Designers

In this post, I'll take you behind the scenes of skill audio design in Path of Exile 2, from concept to implementation.

Why Skill Audio Matters

Skills are part of the core of Path of Exile's gameplay, and sound plays a huge role in reinforcing what they do and how they feel. A well-designed skill sound can signal danger, enhance impact, or even invoke safety. For example, a player casting Detonate Dead shouldn't sound as threatening to the player as a monster with the Detonate Dead rare monster modifier; you need to feel the difference.

The Design Process

Understanding the Skill

We work closely with designers and animators to understand what a skill does, its damage type, area of effect, whether it does damage over time, offers utility, and so on. Since we use our own engine, we are easily able to work with programmers to build or improve systems for audio integration. It's a very collaborative process. Some examples: being able to tell if a grenade is in the air, rolling, or bouncing, or if a skill is going to repeat in quick succession because of another in-game mechanic, like Barrage. It's also important to test each skill in-game with a variety of character builds to ensure the audio holds up in all kinds of scenarios.

Source Material

Most of our sounds are a blend of recorded Foley (sometimes even our voices), library assets, and synthesis. For things like vocal layers, cloth movement, or rocks, we can easily jump into the sound booth to record unique elements. It's a lot of fun and a great excuse to be a bit crazy without judgment!

Synthesis is a fun and powerful way to create sounds, and I often use my Eurorack setup for this. Eurorack is a form of modular synthesis that lets you build a synth or sound from the ground up. Using white noise and creative filtering, modulated with Erica Synths' Joystick 2, I can produce movement of the sound for each skill, creating some of the windy textures you'll hear in some of the wind skills. Modules like Schlappi Engineering's 100 Grit and Make Noise's Wogglebug are perfect for creating noisy, electrical textures, great for lightning-based skills. And for tonal, bell-like sounds, ideal for elemental magic, I often turn to the Rings module from Mutable Instruments. Recording weird, unexpected sounds like these is honestly one of the best parts of the job.

Prototyping & Testing

You don't know how a sound works until it's in the game. As I mentioned earlier, we test skills early on, across different builds, areas, and support gems. Randomisation and layering help keep sounds fresh and immersive. But getting sounds into the game as soon as possible during development is key. This way, we catch issues early and avoid spending too much time polishing something that doesn't fit with gameplay. It's better to create quick drafts, test them in-game, and make small tweaks than to perfect something upfront, only to discover major changes are needed later. We also have to manage technical limits like voice count (which is the maximum amount of sounds that can play at any time) and cooldowns (which is how soon a sound can play again after already playing). For example, if a skill fires multiple projectiles with the same sounds playing simultaneously, we need to make sure the audio doesn't overload or cut out. And when you're playing in a party, we consider how skill sounds affect other players; should your skill sound just as epic to them as it does to you?

Implementation

We use FMOD, plus internal tools bespoke to Path of Exile. Over time, these tools have evolved based on direct feedback. I'll think, "man, I wish I could just do X", and our programming teams will make it a reality. It's a dream!

Clarity in the Ruckus

Combat in Path of Exile can be a ruckus, so we always ask: what's most important for the player to hear? Audio needs to guide, not overwhelm. We balance sounds through mixing, making sure everything fits together without getting too loud or quiet. We use a technique called 'ducking' to lower less important sounds, so key sounds stand out. Distance attenuation makes sounds quieter as they get farther away, helping create a sense of space. And priority systems decide which sounds get played or heard first when many happen at once, so players don't miss critical cues like danger.

Deep Dive (The Last Lament Unique Crossbow)

The Last Lament, a unique crossbow we introduced in the 0.2.1 patch for Path of Exile 2, adds melodic tonal elements to combat, which is something we normally try to very explicitly avoid. Musical sounds can easily clash with the game's music or get tiring over time. But The Last Lament is a bit of an exception. The crossbow 3D model itself resembles a musical instrument, and based on the nature of the lore behind this item, we wanted to make this one special and create room within the soundscape to support it.

Design intent

There's a haunting, gothic, and musical theme baked into the core identity of The Last Lament. Its inherent skill, Compose Requiem, fires soul-like projectiles that explode on impact, accompanied by operatic voices and subtle musical layers. The goal was to make the shots feel sorrowful and haunting, reflecting the eternal anguish within the weapon, while keeping them musical to match the weapon's identity, without compromising gameplay clarity.

Layer choices & Processing

The base shot needed to feel familiar, like the other crossbows, so it wouldn't sound weaker or stronger than it actually is. I reused some of the usual crossbow layers like real crossbow recordings, gunshot tails, and cannon transients (they've got a nice pop to them). Then I layered in ghostly whispers, short screams, resonant metallic creaks, string-like hits, and some distant musical textures. I wanted it to feel musical, but not in a cheesy music box kind of way.

Michael Collier, one of our talented composers, helped here by sourcing some harpsichord notes, with subtle organ and kannel underneath. They play in a 3/4 rhythm, and the tempo shifts slightly based on your attack speed.

For the processing side of things, I kept it pretty simple in Reaper (my choice of digital audio workstation). Saturation was great for adding grit to the impacts, and I used pitch and frequency shifting to shape the tone and weight of each layer. Frequency shifting moves all frequencies by the same amount, ignoring their harmonic relationship, while pitch shifting preserves it. Saturation also adds harmonics, which gives sounds a textured, warm and often gritty feel. EQ was used to clean things up, cut unwanted frequencies, and boost the ones I wanted more of. A stereo imaging plugin helped widen the sound and make it feel a bit more epic, and some light compression kept the overall loudness balanced. That was pretty much it.

Iteration & Feedback

One of Compose Requiem's earlier prototypes was a more note-heavy concept. We experimented with different musical approaches, but we realised the fire rate was just too fast, and gameplay is simply too chaotic for that kind of musical structure.

With the deadline creeping up, we pivoted. That's when the idea of operatic souls escaping with each shot came up, which later influenced the unique's lore too. We tried placeholder singing samples that triggered randomly. This was better, but still too much. In the end, with help from our gameplay programming team, we set up a system using a simple boolean parameter to only play a more finely crafted vocal while actively firing instead of it playing on each shot (which in the end does actually have subtle notes). That nailed it.

FMOD Implementation & Design

FMOD is the audio middleware we use to connect sound design to gameplay. It lets us control how and when sounds play, and adds variety, layering, and dynamics so things feel responsive and alive.

For Compose Requiem, the base shot and the musical notes are separate sounds. The shots have pitch and gain modulation to keep things varied and immersive, while the notes only have gain modulation since pitching the notes would throw them out of key with the music bed and vocals.

Early in development, to keep Compose Requiem's melody from feeling repetitive, I created 16 sound events in FMOD. Each event plays a unique six-note sequence forming its own melody that sits over the skill's music bed. When the crossbow fires, it triggers an event that uses a counter parameter with values from 1 to 16. Each value selects one of the 16 melodies to play in sequence. Within the event, command instruments trigger these melodies based on the counter's value. There's also a secret seventh instrument inside each melody's playlist, a multi-instrument that instantly changes the counter to a new random value (between 1 and 16, but excluding the current one). This setup keeps the music flowing smoothly and fresh by randomly switching between melodies without repeating.

Since the skill has a fixed 12-second duration, we didn't need to loop anything (a looping audio asset is an audio clip that seamlessly repeats). When it's active, the game mutes all other music except what's triggered by the crossbow. Often, skills are affected by various modifiers, and their duration can vary. This is when we would find ourselves using looping audio so it can start and stop whenever necessary.

Upon activating Compose Requiem, a visual soul-like burst with ghostly flames appears on the crossbow. I made a short activation sound to match, like the souls are trying to escape. This is followed by looping audio that lingers while the skill is active, sort of like the spirits are watching or peering through a door. At the end, it fades out with a subtle release sound. It's all handled in one FMOD event using a loop region and a transition region. When the visual effect is deleted in-game, the event starts stopping, which triggers the transition to an "end" marker where the fade-out plays.

The soul projectiles you fire are set up pretty simply. The initial shot has some soul-like layers, but I added looping audio while they're flying through the air, plus an impact explosion made up of vocal textures, debris, and various thick impacts. These have pitch and gain modulation, distance attenuation, and some Doppler on the loops.

Once everything's hooked up, I go in-game and do a mixing pass, mostly balancing loudness and tweaking how big or small things feel, as well as what is important to the player and maybe not so important to potential party members. Sometimes this means going back and editing the original assets. I make sure to test in all kinds of contexts like early-game, late-game, and stupidly juiced maps so it always feels right, no matter how you're playing. It's so important to understand the game you're working on in and out.

Deep Dive Wrap-up

Ultimately, the sound design for The Last Lament didn't need to happen, but the item itself was screaming for some special attention. The goal was to make it feel as special as possible without pulling the player out of the world. Throughout experimentation and design, we constantly focused on serving gameplay first. It doesn't matter how cool something sounds; if it gets in the way of a player winning at Path of Exile, then it's not actually that cool.

Most of my decisions are shaped by my experience playing the game. No matter how weird or musical it got, it still had to find its place in Path of Exile and, most importantly, serve the player. This is a philosophy that I see every day at Grinding Gear Games, and I'm proud to work on such an awesome game with amazing people.

Conclusion

Every sound in Path of Exile needs to have a clear purpose. If it doesn't, it just ends up as noise cluttering the experience. One big lesson I've learned is that instead of always trying to make the big sounds bigger, it's often more powerful to make the smaller sounds more subtle. That contrast is what really makes the impacts hit.

Working on Path of Exile is an honour. It's a game I've loved for years, and I still play it after work. Next time you're running a map, listen closely, there's a whole lot going on under the hood!

After taking many of our players' names, we put Viper in the ring against Ketzuli to see if she could take one more. Find out what happens in the aftermath of today's Boss VS Boss!

Let us know who you'd like to see battle it out next!

0.2.1 Hotfix 2

• Fixed a CPU performance issue affecting a wide range of players.

This fix is client-side and requires restarting your client to receive the fix. It's not yet deployed on consoles but will be later today.

0.2.1 Hotfix 1

• Fixed two instance crashes.
• Fixed a bug where "Zarohk, The Temporal" and "The Trialmaster" weren't dropping their unique items.
• Fixed a bug where world map navigation could break. Xbox and PlayStation clients will receieve this update as soon as their respective clients have finished Certification.

Coming from diablo and other games, I have trouble to grasp the loot/craft system of PoE2.

I end piling up a lot of currency with little use. In other games there always a salvaging that gives you a sink.

In PoE, it seems it's better to not even collect what you don't need and let it on the ground.

Money value doesn't worth the inventory handling trouble.

Do you see the same?

Could experience PoE2 players share their endgame ssf loot/craft beginner tips?

The odds that a white object becomes better that a 6 mods yellow I wear needs a lot of luck !

0.2.1 Patch Notes

Features:

• Added 22 new Endgame Runes.
• Added 7 new Endgame Talismans.
• Added 15 new Endgame Soulcores.
• Significantly increased the number of "Mythic" unique items that drop
• Changed uniques item drop calculation to no longer consider an items class. This will make unique rings and amulets significantly more common.
• Reduced the number of "Common" unique items that drop as Rarity on areas increase allowing more of the better uniques to drop instead.
• The bonus to the number of uniques that you got while playing in a party was significantly higher than we intended and has been lowered significantly. With the other changes to unique rarity, you will still be getting a significant buff to the number of Rare and Mythic uniques you are finding, but the overall number of uniques in party play will be lower due to finding less Commons and Uncommons. This should fix the significant advantage that party play had over solo play for wealth acquisition.
• Item modifier tier numbering has been reversed so that smaller numbers represent stronger modifiers, with 1 being the best available modifier of that type.
• Adjusted the appearance of all Omens, the same number of Omens appear but which omens they are has been adjusted heavily to have the rare, and more powerful ones appear more frequently. The rarest ones should appear six-times more frequently in the Ritual Tribute Window as an example.
• Added a 'Refund all Passives' option in the Passive Skill Tree. This will only appear if you're able to afford refunding every allocated point.
• Massively increased the chance for Corrupting a monster trapped in essence to upgrade essences to greater, and greater to corrupted.
• Improved the Passive Skill Tree search functionality on Mouse and Keyboard. After typing within the search field, press ENTER to have the Passive Skill Tree move around the tree to show you nodes which match.

Monster Balance:

• The Smothered Ritual type that spawns Chaos Volatiles has had it's spawn frequency halved and the damage lowered.
• Fixed an issue where Volatile Plants were dealing a little over double their intended damage.
• Empowering Volatile Plants Mod on rare monsters has had it's damage reduced.
• Volatile Plants and Empowering Volatile Plants now spawn 2 volatiles at once instead of 3.
• Volatile Plants & Empowering Volatile Plants now disappear when the rare monster that spawned them dies.
• Forsaken Miner's death animation no longer leaves a primed grenade on their corpse.
• Rat Tornadoes from the Infested Ritual type have had their damage and move speed reduced slightly.
• Draven, the Eternal Praetor's melee damage has been reduced slightly, his projectile cleave has also been reduced.
• Improved the Visual Effects of Chaos Volatiles.
• The Lightning Storms Strongbox modifier now causes fewer lightning bolts, and its lightning bolts have improved visuals effects.
• Lowered the damage of the Unearthed Runecaster from expedition
  Unearthed Runecaster's projectile now correctly deals both fire and cold damage.

Endgame:

• Drastically increased the variety of endgame maps. Previously, some maps (like Hidden Grotto) spawned way more frequently than others. Now, each map type should spawn approximately as frequently as any other.
• Lessened the restrictions on which packs of monsters could appear in different atlas biomes, this will result in a significant increase to the variety of monsters appearing in Endgame Maps. The few monster pack types that were available in all biomes were appearing significantly more frequently than they should have, making endgame combat much less interesting than it should have been.
• The distance that you can see features in the atlas fog of war is now based on the distance to the nearest revealed map making this much more consistent. This means you no longer have to frequently check an unknown distance in the fog when searching for citadels. This did make citadels slightly harder to find, so we increased the spawn rate of them also.
• Cities on the Atlas now mostly spawn in loose clusters of three, with one of each city type per cluster.
• Endgame Waystone modifiers that applied curses to the area now instead periodically cast the respective curse on ground targeted areas, the same as the player casted skills.
• Disabled the ""of Giants"" map modifiers, Area of Effect modifier.
• The ""of Splitting"" map modifier now only appears in Tier 6+ maps ,additional projectiles modifier.
• The ""of Penetration"" map modifier no longer has tiers and has a value of 10% to 15%, reduced from 15% to 25%.
• Rogue Exiles in Endgame Areas have a much higher chance to spawn with Unique Items.
• The Ritual modifier that spawned Chaos Pustules now spawns them at a much lower frequency and have been increased in size slightly so they are more visible (this does not affect their damaging area of effect).
• The Viridian Wildwood unique map now contains more enemies and more rewarding encounters.
• Added visual indicators to Omen Altars inside the Viridian Wildwood Unique Map, these visuals can also be seen behind the darkness.
• Adjusted the frequency of Omen Altars inside the Viridian Wildwood to reduce variance and increase the average per map.
• The Twisted Domain now drops significantly more Catalysts on average.
• Breach Rings dropped from Clasped Hands in the Twisted Domain are now always Rare.
• Monsters in the Twisted Domain are now more rewarding.
• Lowered the number of ""It That Watches"" monster in the Twisted Domain.
• Increased rare and magic pack chance in the Twisted Domain.
• The base radius of explosives in Logbooks has been increased by 25%. Regular map encounters are unchanged.
• Additional Logbook content such as hidden caves are now guaranteed at all levels.
• The Frigid Bluffs Expedition Logbook area now spawns unique monsters encased in ice. These monsters can be broken out with explosives.
• The frequency of Special Remnants in each Expedition Logbook area have been more than doubled.
• The amount of Remnants in Expedition Logbooks has been slightly increased.
• Special destructibles in Expedition Logbook areas (such as the Crates of Gold in Barren Atoll) now spawn more frequently.
• Expedition Logbook areas spawn more monsters and a slightly higher proportion of rare monsters
• Many chests found in Expedition Logbook areas are now guaranteed to drop a rare item.
• Ezomyte Remnants in the Barren Atoll Expedition Logbook area drop larger amounts of Runes.
• Crates of Gold in the Barren Atoll Expedition Logbook area drop significantly more gold.
• Barren Atoll Expedition Logbook areas now have a much larger quantity and variety of buried Strongboxes, and these Strongboxes now have minimap icons.
• Replaced the functionality of Expedition Remnants unique to the Frigid Bluffs Expedition Logbook area.
• Added a new type of Expedition Remnant that can appear in Lush Isle Expedition Logbook areas.
• The minimap icon for Expedition Remnants that are specific to each type of Logbook now have their own unique icon.
• Various points of interest in Expedition Logbooks now have their own minimap icon.
• Inscribed Ultimatums that lead to a boss now indicate which boss will be found.
• The Immured Fury will no longer try to respawn in ritual encounters and prevent the encounter from completing.
• Improved the Visual Effects of Delirium Spite Monsters Lightning Ball skill.

Uniques:

• Added 9 new Unique Items. Most of these are aimed at providing endgame chase uniques for a variety of builds.
• Increased the overall power of several existing endgame Unique Items:
• Headhunter now steals enemy modifiers for 60 seconds (previously 20 seconds). This change automatically affects existing items.
• The Hammer of Faith unique Two Handed Mace now has 250--300% increased Physical Damage (previously 200--250%). Existing items can be updated with a Divine Orb. It now also grants random Shrine Buffs for 20 seconds (previously 10 seconds). This change affects existing items automatically.
• The Guiding Palm Unique Sceptres have received significant updates. None of these changes affect existing versions of these items other than the flat damage changes, which can be updated using a Divine Orb:
• The Fire variant of Guiding Palm is now called Guiding Palm of the Heart. It now grants Allies in your Presence 15--23 to 28--35 Added Fire Damage to Attacks (previously 4--6 to 7--10). It now grants 20--30 Strength instead of 7--13 to all Attributes. It now grants you 25% of damage as extra Fire damage, and a permanent Guided Meteoric Shrine buff that causes meteors to rain down around you when in range of enemies.
• The Cold variant of Guiding Palm is now called Guiding Palm of the Eye. It now grants Allies in your Presence 15--23 to 28--35 Added Cold Damage to Attacks (previously 3--5 to 6--8). It now grants 20--30 Intelligence instead of 7--13 to all Attributes. It now grants you 25% of damage as extra Cold damage, and a permanent Guided Freezing Shrine buff that causes freezing shards to fire around you in a spiral when in range of enemies.
• The Lightning variant of Guiding Palm is now called Guiding Palm of the Mind. It now grants Allies in your Presence 1 to 56--70 Added Lightning Damage to Attacks (previously 1 to 10--15). It now grants 20--30 Dexterity instead of 7--13 to all Attributes. It now grants you 25% of damage as extra Lightning damage, and a permanent Guided Tempest Shrine buff that causes lightning bolts to strike the ground around you when in range of enemies.
• The Mjölner unique One Handed Mace now has 250--350% increased Physical Damage (previously 150--200%) and grants +2--4 to Level of Lightning Skills (previously +1). Existing items can be updated using a Divine Orb.
• The Lightning Spell on Melee Hit Meta Skill granted by Mjölner has been renamed to Thundergod's Wrath. It now causes Triggered Spells to cost no Mana and grants them a level-dependent amount of increased damage, up to 200% at Skill level 20.
• The Spire of Ire unique Spear now has 167--201 to 267--333 Chaos damage (previously 106--146 to 181--221) and 10--20% of Physical damage Leeched as Life (previously 6--10%). Existing items can be updated using a Divine Orb.
• Kaom's Heart now has +1500 to maximum Life (previously 1000). Existing items can be updated with a Divine Orb.
• Prism Guardian now grants 1 Spirit per 25 maximum Life (previously 1 per 50). Existing items can be updated with a Divine Orb.
• Defiance of Destiny now grants 10--20% of missing Life Recovered before being Hit (previously always 10%). Existing items can be updated with a Divine Orb.
• Yoke of Suffering now causes enemies to take 15--20% increased damage for each type of your Elemental Ailments on them (previously 5--10%), but also now reduces Ignite, Shock and Chill duration by 30--40% (previously 20--30%). Existing items can be updated with a Divine Orb.
• Bringer of Rain now has 100% increased Critical Hit chance in addition to its other modifiers. This change does not affect existing items.

Miscellaneous Changes:

• Defeating Balbala in Normal difficulty Traitor's Passage will drop a quest version of Balbala's Barya if you do not currently have the quest item or if you haven't already gotten your Ascendancy Points from using the Balbala's Barya).
• Optimised the Physics of monsters found in Freythorn.
• Incremental Audio added for the Monk Character Class.
• Incremental Audio improvements for various monster abilities.
• Incremental Audio improvements for various player skills.
• Search Filters within the uncut Support and Skill Gem UI are now cleared when exiting the menu.
• The Affliction in Trial of the Sekhemas that caused you to have no Energy Shield now instead applies 50% less Energy Shield, so that it isn't immediately dead on arrival when you are Chaos Inoculation.
• Increased the trigger radius of Clasped Hands inside Breach Encounters.
• Firestorm can now consume Ignites from corpses in front of you in addition to living enemies.
• Quest rewards can now be quick-moved on Gamepad.
• Updated 'accept trade' to R1 on Gamepad for disenchant window and player to player trade on Gamepad to be more consistent with the rest of the game.
• Shrines are now much more reliably interacted with when using Gamepad.
• Added a new gem tag "Barrageable" to indicate Skills that can be made to repeat, to clarify which Skills Barrage and similar effects can and cannot affect.
• Added support for a new type of Microtransaction: Character Skin.
• Improved the audio of the Unique Item 'Wake of Destruction'.
• Improved Lachlann of Endless Lament's AI when fought in a party.
• Improved Rattlecage, the Earthbreaker's AI when fought in a party.
• Changed the classification of some chests so their labels are always shown.
• Added an option in the Game Tab to always priortise interacting over using skills. This options is on by default.
• Added popup text tips for Options, Exit and Patch Notes buttons on Gamepad.
• Purchasing an equippable microtransaction from the in-game store now displays an option to equip it to your current character immediately.
• The Socketable Stash Tab has been updated with spaces for the newly added socketables in this patch.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed many significant cases of players or monsters getting out of sync, especially in party play.
• Fixed 4 Instance Crashes.
• Fixed 3 Client Crashes.
• Fixed a bug where Delwyn could have no viable target for Azmerian Wisps to chase.
• Fixed a bug where Ice Shards could use incorrect values for determining critical hits, potentially resulting in long periods of the same outcome.
• Fixed a bug where Blink couldn't be used to dismount a Rhoa Mount.
• Fixed an issue where the Hungering Stalker monsters could fail to engage the player.
• Fixed a bug where the Tracking Scroll of Treasures microtransaction was not working correctly.
• Fixed Tactician's Cannons, Ready! notable not causing totems to use skill when you fired attack projectiles from some skills that fired projectiles upwards such as Hailstorm Rounds and Siege Cascade.
• Fixed desync that could occur when disabling your crossbow.
• Fixed a bug where Omens in Titan Inventory Expansion did not work.
• Fixed a bug where melee attacks and blood hunt did not correctly clear the culmination combo counter after use.
• Fixed a bug where some arrows could be invisible when fired.
• Fixed a bug where the Hexblast Curse indicator did not match when triggered by low duration curses.
• Stacks of blocks from Ancestral Aid Support are no longer consumed if supported skills are cancelled early.
• Fixed an issue preventing the Rare Monster in the Haunted Treasure Landmark room from dropping any items or granting any experience on death.
• Fixed a bug that allowed players to warp back to an empty arena with Temporal Rift at the start of the Trialmaster fight.
• Fixed Comet being de-sync for other clients when manually performed.
• Fixed a bug where Spectres could get stuck in their wisp form.
• Fixed an interaction that could cause Charge Infusion to grant the wrong amount of stats when weapon swapping.
• Fixed a bug that could cause valid Support Gems to be greyed out when crafting Support Gems.
• Fixed chance to not consume crossbow ammo causing desyncs for other party members.
• Fixed a bug in Utzaal that could cause the entranceway to the fight against Viper Napuatzi to not appear.
• Fixed an issue where 1 Affliction, 1 Pact, 2 Minor Boons and 1 Major Boon were all appearing fifty to one-hundred times more commonly than intended. This often resulted in the first two Minor Boons, first Major Boon of every Sanctum run to be these. These ones were also some of the least interesting, and least powerful, so overall you should now be getting more powerful boons as your first ones!
• Fixed a bug that could cause Attack Speed to be much slower than intended while dual wielding.
• Fixed a bug that caused monsters with inherent Energy Shield to have less Energy Shield than intended when summoned as Spectres or Tamed Beasts.
• Fixed a bug that could cause Halani, the Water Goddess to repeat her dialogue.
• Fixed a bug that could cause Expedition Logbook areas to fail to generate.
• Fixed a bug that allowed Sceptres dropped by Rogue Exiles to have invalid Runes socketed in them.
• Fixed a bug on gamepad where you could not enable more than one Tamed beast companion of a different monster type.
• Fixed a bug where hideout map devices stat interfaces could not be collapsed.
• Fixed cosmetics menu info popups for Gamepad.
• Fixed a bug where player 2 could be unable to enter a character name when creating a new character on Gamepad.
• Fixed a bug where Presence Raidus would not be displayed when playing on Gamepad.
• Fixed a bug on Gamepad where the Gemling Legionnaire's "Gem Studded" notable didn't work on gamepad.
• Added missing error message on Gamepad when trying to open a Corrupted Nexus without meeting it's requirements.
• Fixed the Atlas not removing visual corruption after cleansing a Corrupted Nexus map until after you changed areas.
• Fixed a bug where some Microtransaction combinations could cause weapons to have Black Squares surrounding them.

Path of Exile 2: Patch 0.2.1 Item Filter Information

Path of Exile 2: Patch 0.2.1 includes a bunch of new socketable items! We plan to release this patch in roughly two hours from the time of this post. In the meantime, we've prepared all the Item Filter Information you'll need in this news post.

New Items

Item Class: Socketable

• Craiceann's Rune of Warding
• Craiceann's Rune of Recovery
• Countess Seske's Rune of Archery
• Courtesan Mannan's Rune of Cruelty
• Farrul's Rune of Grace
• Farrul's Rune of the Hunt
• Farrul's Rune of the Chase
• Fenumus' Rune of Agony
• Fenumus' Rune of Spinning
• Fenumus' Rune of Draining
• Hedgewitch Assandra's Rune of Wisdom
• Lady Hestra's Rune of Winter
• Saqawal's Rune of Memory
• Saqawal's Rune of the Sky
• Saqawal's Rune of Erosion
• Thane Grannell's Rune of Mastery
• Thane Girt's Rune of Wildness
• Thane Leld's Rune of Spring
• Thane Myrk's Rune of Summer
• The Greatwolf's Rune of Claws
• The Greatwolf's Rune of Willpower
• Talisman of Eeshta
• Talisman of Egrin
• Talisman of Grold
• Talisman of Maxarius
• Talisman of Ralakesh
• Talisman of Sirrius
• Talisman of Thruldana
• Atmohua's Soul Core of Retreat
• Citaqualotl's Soul Core of Foulness
• Cholotl's Soul Core of War
• Estazunti's Soul Core of Convalescence
• Guatelitzi's Soul Core of Endurance
• Hayoxi's Soul Core of Heatproofing
• Opiloti's Soul Core of Assault
• Quipolatl's Soul Core of Flow
• Tacati's Soul Core of Affliction
• Topotante's Soul Core of Dampening
• Tzamoto's Soul Core of Ferocity
• Uromoti's Soul Core of Attenuation
• Xipocado's Soul Core of Dominion
• Xopec's Soul Core of Power
• Zalatl's Soul Core of Insulation

Note: Go to the forum post for videos.

In recent patches we have had the goal to make the experience of item drops a lot more satisfying, but an area that we didn't address yet is finding chase Uniques. It's time to change that! In 0.2.1 we are significantly changing the way uniques drop and adding some great new Chase Uniques as well!

Unique Item Drop Changes

When we design Uniques we classify them into a few different rarities depending on how powerful we think they are. These are called "Common", "Uncommon", "Rare" and "Mythic". Mythic Uniques are things like Headhunter, Mjolner or Astramentis. Mythic uniques are intended to be chase, but they were way too rare.

The first problem is that we balanced the relative number of Rare and Mythic uniques the same as it was in PoE1, but in PoE1 you get way more uniques. The second problem is that in PoE2, when you roll for uniques, the game first rolls what Item Class the unique will come from. This means that things like Amulets and Rings were significantly less common than other types of uniques. A mythic amulet like Astramentis was about 47,000x rarer than a divine orb.

When things are that rare they effectively don't exist for most players. There are some cool items to find, but you are not going to find them.

The first change we made to bring this in line was to remove the Item Class from the equation. Astramentis is now the same rarity as a weapon like Mjolner. The second change was to make it so Common uniques get less common as more Rarity is added to maps, meaning that there is more chance for Uncommon, Rare and Mythic uniques. And the last change was to just massively buff the number of Mythic Uniques that drop.

These changes together should significantly improve the feeling that a good unique could be round any corner.

We have also improved the power of a few uniques that were classified as mythic, but were not really holding up to a "Mythic" standard. You will have to wait for the patch to find out what those are! But in the mean time, here are a couple of examples of new Mythic uniques that we are adding in 0.2.1.

Unique Item Previews

The first item is a Unique Bow that might be familiar to seasoned players, Lioneye's Glare. Instead of our designers telling you about this item, Lioneye himself will, by recounting the battle of his Legion versus the fearsome Karui lead by Kaom. Check it out below:

If you're interested in our comics, you can purchase digital copies here.

The next item we'd like to showcase is The Last Lament, a Unique Crossbow that doesn't just pack a punch, but is also packed with lore. Check out the following video where Mark, one of the Game Directors will give you a run-down on its origins, its tragic tale and how it correlates to the modifiers it grants:

For all those spellcasters out there, here's another familiar Unique Staff, The Whispering Ice:

Here's a high resolution render of it, if you're interested in looking at its intricate details:

The Whispering Ice provides both the Heart of Ice aura, as well as the Icestorm Spell:

Lastly, we'd like to preview one of the new endgame Unique Quivers you can find, Cadiro's Gambit. This one will depend on the luck of your draw!

We hope you've enjoyed this taste of what's to come in 0.2.1, which we're currently expecting to deploy tomorrow.