Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt - A Comprehensive Content Reveal

Path of Exile 2's first major content update since Early Access is set to arrive on April 4th. Dawn of the Hunt introduces a wealth of new content including the Huntress class, five new Ascendancy classes, over one hundred new support gems and unique items, and significant expansions to character systems. The update represents a substantial evolution of the game, offering players numerous new ways to build and play their characters while expanding the game's endgame content.

The Huntress: A New Playable Class

The Huntress represents the first new playable class since the Early Access launch of Path of Exile 2. She is a spear-wielding Azmeri warrior with a complex backstory involving exile from her homeland after using a forbidden skill gem to defend her village. This dexterous fighter specializes in a hybrid combat style that combines both melee and ranged attacks, allowing players to dynamically move in and out of combat.

Core Combat Mechanics

The Huntress employs spears as her primary weapons, which offer unique functionality in that they can be used for both melee attacks with extended range and as thrown projectiles. This dual-purpose design creates a dynamic flow to combat, requiring tactical decisions about when to engage directly and when to attack from a distance.

Her combat style is built around a series of interconnected skills that create satisfying combo opportunities. Many of her abilities have additional effects when used in specific sequences or situations, rewarding players who master the rhythm of her combat style.

Signature Skills

The Huntress brings 22 new skills to Path of Exile 2, with several highlighted abilities showcasing her versatile combat style:

Whirling Slash and Twisters

Whirling Slash is the first skill Huntress players will acquire, striking in a circle while creating a whirlwind that blinds enemies. When the player moves away from the whirlwind, it explodes with damage proportional to how many slashes were performed. This pairs perfectly with Twisters, a ranged attack where the Huntress shoots tornados that bounce off walls and can hit enemies multiple times. Throwing twisters inside a whirlwind creates additional tornados with increased damage.

Parry and Counterattack System

When wielding a Buckler in her off-hand, the Huntress can Parry incoming attacks, counterattacking and stunning nearby monsters. Parried enemies take extra damage from follow-up strikes, creating opportunities for devastating combos. However, excessive parrying carries risk, as the Huntress herself can become stunned if she attempts to parry too much.

Blood Loss Mechanics

The Huntress can inflict and capitalize on bleeding effects through skills like Rake, which dashes toward targets and opens wounds, and Blood Hunt, which causes bloody explosions scaled by how much blood loss enemies have suffered[1]. Monsters display a visible blood loss meter, allowing players to track this resource and time their explosive follow-up attacks accordingly.

Spear Management

Many Huntress skills leave spears either in the ground or embedded in enemies. These spears aren't just visual effects; they can be interacted with using skills like Thunderous Leap, which allows her to jump onto and detonate spears for additional damage effects.

Beast Taming

A unique mechanic available to the Huntress is her ability to tame beasts during combat. While fighting any beast, she can capture it to use as a companion. Though limited to one companion at a time, these tamed creatures retain the modifiers they had as enemies, making rare monsters particularly valuable to acquire as allies.

New Ascendancy Classes

Dawn of the Hunt introduces a total of five new Ascendancy classes - two for the Huntress and three for existing character classes.

Huntress Ascendancies

The Ritualist

The Ritualist embraces darker Azmeri traditions focused on animal sacrifice and plague powers. Key abilities include:

• Corrupted Lifeforce: Creates volatile blood boils on enemies that burst when slain, spreading Corrupted Blood

• Unfurled Finger: Allows equipping an additional Ring on a finger worn around the neck

• Mystic Attunement: Increases bonuses from all equipped rings and amulets

• As the Whispers Ask: Grants the Ritual Sacrifice skill to absorb power from slain Rare Monsters

• As the Whispers Demand: Enables self-sacrifice, cutting one's own hand to empower abilities

The Amazon

Trained as an elite guard for important Azmeri Elders, the Amazon focuses on traditional fighting techniques perfected to their highest form:

• Predatory Instinct: Reveals weaknesses in Rare and Unique enemies' defenses

• Elemental Infusion: Causes consumed charges to infuse weapons with elemental power, making projectile attacks explode on impact

• Critical Strike: Converts excess Accuracy into Critical Strike Chance

• Mystic Harvest: Allows Elemental Damage to Leech Life

• Azmeri Brew: Enables either Flask type to restore both Life and Mana

New Ascendancies for Existing Classes

Smith of Kitava (Warrior)

This Warrior Ascendancy embraces the power of Kitava to enhance smithing abilities. It features a unique skill tree structure where players cannot equip Body Armour with mods, but instead can craft their own effects through special notables. Key abilities include:

• Against the Anvil: Enhances weapons with fiery destruction before battle

• Animated Weapon: Summons a copy of your weapon to fight alongside you
• Custom Body Armour System: Players select from disconnected notables to craft personalized armor effects

Tactician (Mercenary)

A former Blackguard Elite with military training who excels at strategic combat:

• Suppressing Fire: Causes projectiles to Pin enemies

• Right Where We Want Them: Enhanced Pin effect that stops enemies from taking actions, similar to Freeze

• Whoever Pays Best: Allows placing multiple Banners simultaneously

• Watch How I do It: Grants a portion of weapon damage to Allies

• Unleash Hell: Commands off-screen archers to carpet an area with arrows

Lich (Witch)

The Lich masters Chaos and Curses, sacrificing life to enhance Energy Shield:

• Crystalline Phylactery: Nominates a Jewel to contain part of your soul, massively increasing its power

• Necromantic Conduit: Grants Unholy Might to you and nearby Allies

• Rupture the Soul: Makes cursed enemies explode with Chaos Damage when slain

• Dominion Over Flesh: Allows applying an additional Curse

Expanded Character Systems

New Skills

Raise Spectre

The long-awaited Raise Spectre skill is finally complete and will be available in Dawn of the Hunt. Found in the Occult Skills section of the Skill gem crafting panel, this ability allows players to trap the soul of almost any monster in the game. These captured monsters can then be summoned as Spectres that cost Spirit to maintain, with more powerful monsters requiring more Spirit. Players can choose between numerous weaker monsters or fewer powerful ones, creating countless possibilities for minion-based builds.

Summon Rhoa

This skill summons a friendly Rhoa that serves as both a combat minion and a mount. Players can ride the Rhoa to move at full speed while still attacking with arrows or thrown spears. However, taking too much damage while mounted can knock the player off, potentially leading to death if surrounded by enemies. A stagger bar indicates when dismounting might occur, adding a risk/reward element to this mobility skill.

Support Gems

Over one hundred new Support Gems are being added to provide more build customization options. Some highlights include:

• Haemocrystals: Transforms bleed damage over time into explosive Vaal crystals

• Alignment: Rewards skilled positioning for bow attacks

• Caltrops: Litters the battlefield with hazards that slow enemies

• Others include Enormity, Unsteady Tempo, Profanity, Retaliate, and Syzygy

Unique Items

Dawn of the Hunt introduces over one hundred new unique items with a focus on mid and endgame tiers to provide more exciting options for higher-level characters. Notable examples include:

• Chernobog's Pillar: Grants significant Fire Damage based on Block Chance
• The Coming Calamity: Provides all three Elemental Herald Skills without Spirit cost and penalizes enemy Resistances
• Waistgate: A belt that allows using two life flasks or two mana flasks, beneficial for specialized builds

The developers aim to eventually add at least one unique item for every base item type in the game, allowing players to chance any base.

Conclusion

Path of Exile 2: Dawn of the Hunt represents a substantial expansion to the game's content and mechanics just three months after the Early Access launch. The introduction of the Huntress class with its dynamic combat style provides a fresh gameplay experience, while the five new Ascendancy classes offer expanded build options for both new and existing characters.

The addition of over one hundred support gems and unique items, along with new skills like Raise Spectre and Summon Rhoa, dramatically increases the customization possibilities available to players. In order to get these props immediately after the new content is released, we can buy poe 2 currency in U4GM, which will help us save a lot of time.