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Learn the best tips and tricks for beginners in our Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt beginner guide, which will help you get through the campaign.
Path of Exile 2 is an action RPG that offers a vast world filled with deadly challenges and rewarding possibilities. With 12 classes in early access (seven to choose from in the beginning), over a thousand Skills to unlock, over two hundred Skill Gems to acquire, hundreds of equipment items, and more. Starting POE 2 as a fresh player who has not played the original game can most likely be overwhelming due to its complex systems and mechanics. Furthermore, the Dawn of the Hunt update expands character systems, makes various improvements to Endgame systems, and more.
That is why we have created this beginner guide for playing Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt. This guide will help you understand the game and have a better gameplay experience in your adventure.
What is Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt?
Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt is the first major content update introducing a brand-new class, Huntress. It is the official Seventh class in POE2. Moreover, the update includes two ascendancies for Huntress: Amazon and Ritualist. Furthermore, it also offers three new ascendancies, one for each older class in the game. These new ascendancies for older classes include Smith of Kitava (Warrior), Tactician (Mercenary), and Lich (Witch). In addition to the new class and ascendancies, the update offers over a hundred new Skill Gems and Unique Items. These new additions further enhance the Character Systems in the game, allowing players to modify Skill Gems in new ways and enhance their builds with new Unique equipment items.
Furthermore, the Dawn of the Hunt update adds new monsters and encounters to keep the adventure more exciting. Players will get to venture across seven new Endgame maps, each one with its own unique encounters. Last but not least, there are a few changes and improvements to Endgame Systems.
Path of Exile 2 takes place in the land of Wraeclast. Wraeclast is a large continent filled with ancient secrets, populated by unique cultures and monstrous dangers that have been revived by Corruption. The gameplay of Path of Exile 2 is similar to other action RPGs containing hack-and-slash, looting, and exploration mechanics. However, there are numerous other complex mechanics involved that you would have to understand to power up your character, enhance skills and equipment, strengthen your build, and more.
Best Beginner Tips and Tricks for POE 2: Dawn of the Hunt
To ease your journey in Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt, we have listed down the 10 best tips and tricks, especially for beginners, that will help them greatly. These tips and tricks will help you with Gems to enhance your skills, how to progress, farm essential resources and equipment, and various other gameplay features.
Here is a list of beginner tips and tricks for Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt.
- Aim for Movement Speed Boost Early On
- Look for Better Equipment at Vendors After Every Level Up
- Take advantage of Rolling mechanic to negate most of the damage
- Choose Ascendancy very carefully
- Use Currency Wisely
- Socket Runes Carefully
- Use Gold Sparingly
- Upgrade the Flasks for better replenishment
- Utilize the Skill and Support Gems to enhance your skills
- Read the Description of every item and Watch Videos of Skills for a better understanding
1. Aim for Movement Speed Boost Early On
During your early adventure and progression of the campaign, you will have to continuously change your equipment, especially weapons and armor. Although more damage and resistance will help you fight through enemies, it is essential that you get yourself a Movement Speed boost. It not only helps you with quick speed but also helps you with survivability. You need to check the Boots if they have any movement speed bonuses on them. Swap older boots with them to raise your chances of survival in a big swarm of enemies. Moreover, as the game offers the Rolling mechanic, it will help you greatly in dodging the enemy attacks. You will be able to move in and out of enemy range while connecting your hits. This quick movement bonus works well for almost all the initial builds in the game.
However, it is only for early-game prioritization. You can skip and move past the pieces with movement speed in Act 2 and start focusing on Damage, Utility, and Resistance bonuses at that point.
2. Look for Better Equipment at Vendors After Every Level Up
A great way to look for equipment pieces with better stats and bonuses is by browsing the wares at the vendors. Every time you level up, teleport back to the town and browse the vendors’ stores to see new equipment items. However, do not spend gold in buying everything. Only get the equipment pieces that you feel would be good for your playstyle and the build you are going for.
Not long into the progression that the vendors will start having equipment pieces with Rune Sockets. These usually have better stats, and you can further enhance them by socketing Runes. So, make sure that you don’t sleep on vendors, especially in the early Act.
3. Take Advantage of Rolling Mechanics to Negate Most of the Damage
In Path of Exile 2, we have a new movement mechanic: roll. Every player, either a beginner or a veteran, should learn about this mechanic as it allows you to dodge most enemy attacks. Dodge or Roll is a famous mechanic for most action RPGs. If you are familiar with Dark Souls or Souls-like games, then you might understand how this mechanic works and how useful it is.
Roll is a basic movement ability in Path of Exile 2, which you can trigger with the Space input (PC). Doing a roll action while an enemy is attacking will let your character dodge the attack. You can roll in all directions, giving you more flexibility and room to dodge the attacks.
There is no cooldown on the roll ability, and you can dodge the strikes and projectile attacks easily if timed right. However, the AOE attacks cannot be dodged simply by rolling. You have to get out of the range of the AOE to dodge the attack. Moreover, rolling in Path of Exile does not certainly provide eye frames like Souslike games. But it is essential to use in dodging most of the attacks of all enemy types.
Another thing that is worth mentioning is that rolling does not increase your speed. However, if you enhance the movement speed with passives, it will also affect the rolling speed. If you have increased rolling speed, it can help you greatly in staggering enemies/elites. Attacking the enemies and dodging away continuously will keep the pressure on enemies, allowing you to stagger them quickly. This technique works greatly against Elites and Bosses.
4. Choose Ascendancy Very Carefully
There are 12 classes in total with the early access launch of Path of Exile 2. You get to select one class permanently for your adventure out of six at the start of the game. Each class then offers two Ascendancies, which basically are specializations. However, unlike the original game, you cannot switch to the other ascendancy of the class after choosing one. For instance, choosing the Titan Ascendancy will not let you switch to the Warbringer Ascendancy of Warrior.
However, you can still respec the Ascendancy Points for Gold to test out the alternate nodes of the chosen Ascendancy. So, if you are a returning player or a new player, keep in mind that you cannot change the starting class or its Ascendancy once you choose it.
To unlock the Ascendancy in general, you have to progress through the main campaign until you unlock the Trial of the Sekhemas in Act Two. After that, complete the trial to get the option to unlock one of two/three ascendancies of your class. Moreover, these trials are not only for unlocking the Ascendancies, as completing them again will provide you with Ascendancy Skill Points. Use the Ascendancy Skill Points to unlock new skills for your Ascendancy.
5. Use Currency Wisely
During your campaign, you will find various types of Orbs. These orbs are essential for crafting gear pieces that will help you acquire better overall stats. However, these orbs are hard to come by, and their importance really shines during the mid/end-game. It is essential to use the orbs like Exalted, Alchemy, and Transmutation carefully to only get the pieces you really want. Spending them left and right might leave you hopeless, requiring you to grind lower-level zones to find more. So, wait for the right moment to get the big upgrades for the equipment. Only spend them to get past the hard points.
Furthermore, make use of Salvage Bench to gain the materials for the equipment. Salvage the gear pieces with qualities or sockets to get quality currencies and Artificer Shards. This will allow you to get rare currencies like Regal and Artificer Shards. Both of them are essential to craft better gear pieces that will help you strengthen your character during mid-game.
6. Socket Runes Carefully
As we mentioned above, you will get various equipment items with Rune slots throughout the campaign and its progression. These equipment items allow you to imbue Runes into the Sockets to further enhance the potential of a gear piece. Get various bonuses for attack, defense, resistance, and utility, all of which help greatly in the battle.
However, Runes are one-time use in Path of Exile 2. You can only socket a Rune once in any equipment piece. Once the Rune is socketed, it will always be imbued to that specific gear piece. Now, it is crucial for the early game progression to find a great weapon and armor with at least two Rune slots. Make the weapons and armor your primary ones, at least for a couple of Acts, so that you can upgrade them continuously to make them better. Imbue your favorite Runes into your primary equipment gear and use them until you feel stuck at some point.
7. Use Gold Sparingly
One of the best tips that we always give to new players in Path of Exile 2 is to always use Gold Sparingly. Despite it being one of the common currencies in the game, its importance will increase the further you progress. During the early hours of the game, we encourage you to purchase the best equipment items for your character. Equip the best ones according to your playstyle and upgrade them to progress through earlier Acts. Moreover, if you find yourself struggling or find your build boring, respec your character. Respec is cheaper on earlier levels than later in the game. It is all about finding the satisfaction about your character to have a better gameplay experience.
Now, we do not encourage you to gamble for rare gear, especially in mid/end-game. It can cost you a lot of Gold and might not be worth it for you. One of the main reasons to save Gold is for crafting and upgrading your equipment, and respec the passive skill tree. There is no doubt that playing a build for a long time might lower your interest. If that is the case, use the Gold and respec the passive skill tree and unlock new branches to try out a new build.
8. Upgrade the Flasks for Better Replenishment
Throughout your whole journey, you will rely on your Flasks of Health and Mana for replenishing Health and Mana. The number of uses and replenishment quantity of flasks will be lower initially, but you want to upgrade to a better one as soon as possible.
To get better flasks of Health and Mana, you need to either farm enemies or use Orbs of Augmentations on your current flasks to add modifiers to them. Moreover, if you have Gold, you can purchase better Flasks from the vendors. Out of all of these methods, finding the better flasks is more convenient as it is the cheapest way, especially in the early game.
Moreover, if you come across Orbs of Augmentation, then use them without hesitation to add modifiers to your flasks. It will help you increase the number of uses or the replenishment amount, which is very helpful. All these upgrades are essential as they increase your survivability. As the difficulty increases drastically as you progress in the campaign, having these upgrades will help you greatly win these encounters.
9. Utilize the Skill and Support Gems to enhance your skills
If you are a returning player, one of the many new things that you will notice is the enhancement of Skills with gems. But if you are a new player, then you do not have to worry about it. Unlike the original PoE, the Gems are not socketed into the equipment items like armor and weapons. Instead, you allocate Gems separately into the Skills allowing you to engrave a skill on the gem or level up a skill.
During your encounters with enemies, especially Elite and Bosses, you have a high chance of finding the Skill Gems and Support Gems. Every Skill Gem you find will have five slots for the Support Gems. However, you will only be able to socket two Support Gems at the start. Every Support Gem adds certain bonuses to the active Skill Gem allowing you to enhance your Skill. Moreover, you can further enhance each Skill Gem as follows.
- Use the Jeweler’s Orbs to add additional support sockets to a Skill Gem.
- Use the Chromatic Orb to change the color support sockets on your Skill Gems.
NOTE: You can get Jeweler’s Orbs as a random drop from Act 3 of the main story.
Another thing that is worth mentioning for beginners is that you can increase the Support Gem Capacity by increasing the points in an attribute. For instance, if you wish to add more Support Gems for Strength, you must add more points in the STR attribute. To be exact, for every 5 points you add in an attribute, the Support Gem Capacity increases by 1.
10. Read the Description of every item and Watch Videos of Skills for a better understanding
Starting your adventure in Path of Exile 2 can feel very overwhelming for new players due to hundreds of equipment items and Skill Gems. For every equipment item you find, it is better that you read its description to see if it is worth it for your current build or not. Go through all of its bonuses and decide accordingly. However, for the starting hours of the game, we recommend choosing any weapon with more damage. Because you want to eliminate the threats as soon as possible. However, you may want to choose more wisely later in the game and get the essential bonuses for your build.
Moreover, progressing through the campaign and clearing out bosses will give you various Skill Gems and Support Gems. Before you allocate them, you can watch a brief video of each gem from the Gemcutting Menu. Instead of reading the bonuses of the gems, the video explains the bonuses more clearly. So, if you are ever confused among any Support Gems, it is better to watch their respective videos to make a better decision.
Bonus Tips and Tricks for POE 2: Dawn of the Hunt
In addition to the tips and tricks mentioned above, here are some additional ones that might be helpful in your overall progression, character building, and gameplay experience.
Turn on Damage Information
If you are someone who likes seeing damage numbers on enemies, then you might be a little disappointed, as there is no such option in Path of Exile 2. However, you can turn on the “Mini Life Bar Above NPCs” option under the Gameplay section of the Interface Tab (Options). Set the Mini Life Bar Above NPCs option to “Enemies only” or “Allies and Enemies” to start seeing a small HP above enemies.
It does not show the damage numbers, but it does show how much damage you inflict on an enemy with each hit. Similarly, you can also see how much your allies take from the enemies when they get attacked.
Identify Items for Free at the Hooded One NPC
Identifying items is one of the most important things that you have to do throughout your journey in Path of Exile 2. As you explore the areas and defeat the enemies, you will come across unidentified gear items. These items are useless until you identify them. You will not be able to see their stats and bonuses without identifying them. To identify the items, you have to use the Scroll of Wisdom item. You can purchase this item from a vendor for 25 Gold each.
However, if you progress through the main campaign and unlock the Hooded One NPC, you can start identifying items for free. You unlock this NPC after completing The Mysterious Shade quest and you can find him in the town. After unlocking him, interact with the Hooded One and select the Identify Items in the dialogue box option to select the unidentified item in your inventory to identify it for free.
For the unidentified items in your stash, move them to your inventory and then interact with the Hooded One to identify them as well. Identifying the items is very crucial as you never know which items you have in your inventory or stash. Identify them freely with The Hooded One to start using the one essential for your build and sell the rest of them for Gold.
FAQs about Beginner Guide in Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt?
What’s the best way to start in Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt?
If you are a new player to the series, start with the Standard game mode for all gameplay features. Explore each area as you progress through the campaign and complete any side quests/activities within those areas for better equipment. Do not spend Gold carelessly as it is scarce, and sell any equipment item you do not need.
What’s the best way to level up quickly in POE 2: Dawn of the Hunt?
The best and fastest way to level up in POE 2 is by completing the main story quests. The campaign is your best bet to level up quickly rather than killing anything that is in your way. However, it does not mean that you should not do any side activities.
What’s the best class and skills for beginners in POE 2?
Witch is the best class for beginners in POE 2. Skills like Unearth and Skeletal Warrior can help you greatly. Unearth will let you raise spikes of bone and raise nearby corpses that will fight alongside you.
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