Welcome to the PoE 2 Mechanics Guide, your comprehensive source for understanding the intricate systems and mechanics of Path of Exile 2. Whether you're a seasoned veteran or a newcomer to the franchise, this guide will provide you with the insights and strategies you need to master the game's unique blend of action, strategy, and role-playing. Let's dive into the depths of PoE 2's mechanics and uncover the secrets to becoming a true master of the realm.

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Part 1. Path of Exile 2 Core Gameplay

Part 2. Path of Exile 2 Core Mechanics

Part 3. How to Enhance Your Gaming Experience in Path of Exile 2

Part 1. Path of Exile 2 Core Gameplay

Character Creation

Players can choose from various character classes, each with unique abilities and playstyles.

Skill System

Skills are acquired through the game's skill tree, which allows for extensive customization and build diversity. Players can allocate points to unlock and enhance skills.

Another important change going from Path of Exile 1 to 2 is that the resource cost of using an ability is no longer spend up front upon activating the skill. Instead, the cost is spend across the full animation time from start to finish, so cancelling an ability mid-animation is significantly less punishing.

Combat

• Attack & Defense: Players must manage their resources, such as mana and stamina, to effectively attack enemies and defend against their attacks.
• Damage Types: Enemies have different resistances and weaknesses to various damage types (e.g., physical, elemental, chaos). Understanding these is crucial for efficient combat.
• Leech & Regeneration: Some skills and items allow players to leech health and mana from enemies, or regenerate them over time.

Exploration & Interaction

• World Map: The game world is vast and filled with various zones to explore, each with its own unique enemies, loot, and challenges.
• Dynamic Events: The game features dynamic events that can change the landscape and challenges players face.
• NPC Interaction: Players can interact with NPCs to receive quests, trade items, or gain information.

Part 2. Path of Exile 2 Core Mechanics

1. Abilities

Path of Exile 2 focuses on visceral combat, especially smooth melee combat, a challenge for other ARPGs. Abilities allow retargeting during animation, enhancing movement freedom and correcting misses. Many abilities have built-in movement triggers, like Hand of Chayula's dash attack. Some skills, including bow, crossbow, Fireball, and melee attacks, allow movement during casting/attacking, albeit with a penalty. Dodge rolling cancels active animations freely and is vital in boss fights to avoid dangers and use powerful abilities effectively. In PoE2, ability costs are spread across the animation, reducing penalties for mid-animation cancels, enhancing combat fluidity.

2. Accuracy

Accuracy rating determines the hit chance of an attack, found on gear and passive skill tree (esp. lower-right third). Spells are unaffected. It's used in a formula against the defender's Evasion Rating. The hit chance can't be below 5% (95% evade cap), but can reach 100% to guarantee a hit. Monsters' evasion is based on level and modifiers. Specific modifiers like 'Always Hits' (on gear or Resolute Technique) or 'Cannot Evade' can bypass the accuracy requirement. In Path of Exile 2, more accuracy is needed for ranged attacks; distance penalties can be countered with support gems like Far Reach.

3. Active Block

Active blocking is when a character raises their shield to prevent incoming hits and associated effects. Accessed via the Raise Shield ability from strength-based shields, it can also be part of other abilities. While blocking, the character will stop projectiles and strikes from the front and some larger area of effect hits from above or below, but not from the sides or behind. Blocking slows movement and consumes an endurance bar; depletion stuns the character. Passive block, from the passive skill tree or equipment, still functions, offering additional protection from sides and back while actively blocking front hits.

4. Attributes

Attributes, including STR, DEX, and INT, determine a character's ability to equip items and socket skill gems in Path of Exile. Each attribute also provides unique stats: STR increases max Life, DEX boosts Accuracy Rating, and INT raises max Mana. These attributes shape character archetypes and align with class types based on the passive skill tree. The passive skill tree has attribute alignments where related mechanics are found. As you move towards where two alignments meet, you'll find nodes combining archetype stats.

POE2 will introduce a new attribute requirement related to support gems. Each gem adds +5 to an attribute based on its colour: red for Strength, green for Dexterity, and blue for Intelligence. Players can easily meet gem and gear attribute requirements using selectable attribute nodes on the passive skill tree, especially during levelling. The 'highway' nodes between skill tree clusters offer a choice of +5 STR, +5 DEX, or +5 INT, allowing easy gem swapping and respecification of allocated nodes.

5. Charges

Charges empower abilities and are linked to attributes: Endurance (strength), Frenzy (dexterity), and Power (intelligence).

• Endurance charges boost strength-related abilities.
• Frenzy charges enhance dexterity-related abilities.
• Power charges empower intelligence-related abilities, like Falling Thunder, which unlocks a projectile component.

Some abilities use charges to bypass restrictions, like Raise Zombie.

In Path of Exile 2, charges don't provide inherent stats, so their value depends on your build's abilities. Charges can be generated by abilities like Lingering Illusion and Magma Barrier.

6. Critical Strikes & Critical Damage Bonus

A CS is a hit based on the attacker's CS chance. A CS deals bonus CDB by default.

CS chance is determined by spells' base CS chance on gems, attacks' CS chance from weapons, and unarmed attacks' base CS chance from gems. Rarer modifiers can improve base CS chance, which is then scaled by modifiers to provide a final total.

A CS deals bonus damage, called CDB. The CDB system replaces the critical damage multiplier system in PoE 1. The base CDB is 100%, so a CS deals 200% of base damage by default. Modifiers to CDB can improve it. There are two types of modifiers: multipliers that scale the base CDB and rarer additions that add to the base CDB before multipliers.

With the above items and no other modifiers, the character's CDB first applies the addition modifier from Corpse Smasher Holy Flail, increasing base CDB from 100% to 141%. Then, the multiplier modifier from Tempest Paw Spiral Wraps is applied, increasing CDB by 22% from 141% to 172%.

7. Culling Strike

Culling strike is a mechanic that instantly kills a target hit while below a life threshold based on monster rarity: normal/white ≤30%, magic/blue ≤20%, rare/yellow ≤10%, unique/boss ≤5%. It doesn't require damage; only the threshold must be met. Importantly, it's an on-hit property and unrelated to damage over time.

8. Curses & Marks

Curses are duration-based debuffs with a max limit of 1 per target, modifiable by certain items like Whispers of Doom in Path of Exile 2. Marks, no longer curses, don't count towards this limit and offer benefits with a duration, like Sniper's Mark granting a frenzy charge. Curses in PoE2 have an activation delay, adjustable via passive skills, but can be bypassed with methods like Blasphemy, which applies curses as auras.

9. Damage Conversion (DC)

DC refers to modifiers that either grant extra damage of a different type or convert damage from one type to another. In the first case, the base damage type remains; in the second, it is replaced. In Path of Exile 2, converted damage forgets its origin, meaning it only scales with modifiers for the new type. Achieving 100% conversion is crucial for efficient damage scaling. Notably, modifiers adding extra damage from one or multiple types remain valuable as they are calculated before conversion.

10. Control Effects & Status Effects

Control effects hinder or inhibit targets, often linked to specific damage types. Examples include stun, freeze, and electrocute.

Freeze

Freeze is a non-damaging effect caused by cold damage, slowing a target's action speed to 0%.

Electrocute

Electrocute is another non-damaging effect caused by lightning damage, rendering a target unable to perform actions.

Stun

Stun is a status effect triggered by damage, with melee hits having a +25% bonus and non-physical damage a -25% penalty. A stunned target is interrupted and unable to act.

Ailment Threshold

Non-damaging ailments like Freeze or Electrocute are inflicted based on this. It's typically equal to a monster's max life, except for endgame bosses where it's lower. For freeze, a larger cold damage hit inflicts a longer freeze, but if damage is too low, the freeze is discarded.

Ailment Buildup

In Path of Exile 2, control effects feature a 'build up' mechanism, allowing status effects to be inflicted even with smaller hits, unlike in Path of Exile 1. Certain abilities also build up to a heavy stun, which is more significant and takes longer to achieve. Heavy stuns on bosses are easily recognizable by unique animations and can last up to 6 seconds or more, offering a substantial window for damage.

11. Monster Damage Categorisation

In Path of Exile 2, monster damage is no longer categorized as attacks or spells for player defenses, unlike Path of Exile 1. Mechanics like Spell Suppression are removed. Blocking and evading work differently, applying to both projectiles and strikes regardless of their source. This simplifies player comprehension, enhanced by better visuals. However, larger area-of-effect abilities from above or below cannot be blocked or evaded by default, making dodge rolls crucial for evasion.

12. Spirit

Spirit is a new resource in PoE 2. By default, reservation skills reserve spirit. This is a big change from PoE 1, as all chars now have full mana regardless of skills used.

Arctic Armour

However, the usage of spirit in Path of Exile 2 is a lot deeper than just the existing pool of reservation abilities in Path of Exile 1. You'll also need spirit to maintain permanent minions such as Skeletal Brute or to make use of trigger-based meta gems, like Cast on Minion Death.

Skeletal Brute

Cast on Minion Death

Spirit mainly comes from equipment modifiers or the passive skill tree, with sceptres being a key source, reworked in PoE 2. This one-handed weapon lacks attack stats but can be equipped in either hand, not dual-wielded. It has aura-like modifiers affecting allies and boosting spirit.

13. Leech

Leech is a mechanic that recovers resources based on a percentage of hit damage dealt, excluding damage over time. Life leech is the most common type, but there are also modifiers for mana or energy shield leech. Path of Exile 1's leech system is complex, but Path of Exile 2 simplifies it with two modifiers: damage dealt percentage and leech resistance on monsters. Gear and passive skills can provide damage dealt percentage as X resource. Monster leech resistance increases with level to balance character damage growth. For example, a monster with 30% leech resistance reduces recovery from 40 to 28 life.

14. Dodge Roll

The dodge roll is a default action mechanic in Path of Exile 2 for all characters, costing no resources and having no cooldown. It doesn't increase movement speed but covers the same total distance as normal running, with a longer initial distance and a shorter subsequent one. It cancels current actions and animations. During the initial roll, the character avoids projectiles and strikes but not area of effect or ground effects. Dodge rolling doesn't allow escaping being surrounded. It can be modified by passive skill tree nodes, buff gems, or a unique item that turns it into an instant blink with a cooldown.

15. Energy Shield

Energy shield, a defensive stat in Path of Exile, absorbs damage before life. In PoE 2, it recovers via recharge at 33.3% per second only after 4 seconds of no damage. Natural recovery doesn't occur without additional investment. Poison and bleeding damage bypass energy shield, hitting life directly. Chaos damage, unlike in PoE 1, now removes double energy shield but won't cause bleeding unless it breaks through to life. Energy shield-based characters are naturally resistant to bleeding, and those using Chaos Inoculation Keystone are pseudo-immune.

Part 3. How to Enhance Your Gaming Experience in Path of Exile 2

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Conclusion

In conclusion, the PoE 2 Mechanics Guide serves as an invaluable resource for players looking to elevate their gameplay to new heights. By mastering the game's mechanics, you'll gain a competitive edge and unlock a deeper appreciation for Path of Exile 2's rich and complex world. Happy adventuring, and may your journey through the realm be filled with triumph and discovery!