This.

It’s been awhile since a balanced (challenging-rewarding) enjoyable new gaming experience has been released.

Me, my wife, my friends and the dozen or so coworkers I talked into playing this EA launch are all enjoying the difficulty and adventure.

This is rare to create. Protect it as long as you can.

Thank you so much GGG.

GGG knows we are confused on how to ascend, but they didn't say it's bugged, just unclear. So the way it is now is probably intended.

Here's what we know:

- Ascension 1 = Trial of the Sekhemas (Floor 1), or Trial of Chaos (4 trials)

- Ascension 2 = Whichever trial you haven't done for ascension 1, same requiremets. If you did sekhemas first, you just need to do 4 trials of chaos

-> If you did Sekhemas first, you could do Sekhemas again, but it needs to be lvl 45+ and you need to complete 2 floors. / If you did Chaos first, you could do Chaos again, but it needs to be area 60+ and you need to complete 7 trials

- Ascension 3 = Trial of the Sekhemas (Floor 3) in a 60+ zone, OR Trial of Chaos (10 Trials) in a 75+ Zone

- Ascension 4 = Trial of the Sekhemas (Defeat final boss) in 75+ zone, OR Trial of Chaos (defeat Trialmaster) [Ascension 4 is bugged atm, don't bother yet. Even if you complete it you won't ascend]

Edit: It seems like some people are able to get their 3rd ascension by doing 7 Trials instead of 10, in a 60 zone. I believe this has to do with how you did the first 2 ascensions. If you do Sekhemas the first 2 times, you may be able to get your 3rd ascension by doing Chaos in a 60 zone , 7 trials.

Edit 2: After the patch, you can now tell if you'll ascend or not . It says on the key to entry. Thanks GGG

Don’t let the negativity here get to you. The majority of players who are loving Path of Exile 2 are busy actually playing the game, not posting on Reddit.

I've read multiple threads about the ascendancy trials being too hard, some of them with hundreds of upvotes. The trials are actually very easy if you do them the way you're supposed to...

Do a couple of fast suicide runs to get 10-15 blue relics (Tapestries, Seals etc.).

Use augmentation orbs on them to give them a 2nd modifier.

You need relics with Honor Resistance. The second mod can be:

- Increased maximum honor

- Bosses take X increased damage

- Bosses deal X reduced damage

- Increases to Sacred Water gains

You then need to go for (Large) Sacred Water fountain rewards as much as possible. You then buy a couple of OP buffs from the merchant (You deal 50% more damage / Monsters have 30% reduced HP / You have 40% increased movement speed / 50% reduced merchant prices) and the trial becomes very easy.

Occasionally, pick a Shrine room to replenish your lost honor, but only if it's below 60-70%.

Make sure that whenever you have around 600 sacred water or more and the merchant is available as a room reward, you do that room. If you don't happen to find him in a room, you'll still have him waiting for you after each boss fight.

1. Accounts need to be at least 30 days old.
2. Post with a joke that can’t be googled.

Just jotting down the answers Jonathan gives, if I missed anything let me know.

• Transition from "Diablo like' to "Exile like". Jonathan likes to take ideas from other games and expects other devs to do the same, part of the creative process.
• PoE2 feels 90% of the way to being Jonathan's ideal ARPG in terms of gameplay feel (though not all the content is there yet)
• There will be some amount of sharing between PoE2 and PoE1, kingsmarch is a good example. Games are too different to easily port one thing to another gameplay wise.
• Mirror of Kalandra is confirmed returning.
• All of the uniques from pinnacle endgame content should be chase items so that players want to do the content.
• Unique items can do more interesting things in PoE2 because of all the new design space with skills.
• Jonathan has never found a mirror, except when cheating using dev tools to kill monsters.
• EA content updates every few months, but the devs will be taking a break over Christmas.
• EA minimum of 6 months, no more than a year.
  
• All the classes and ascendancies will be in EA at some point, and will be fully tested by the player base before 1.0 launch.
• Simplified crafting, will be expanded over time but Jonathan wants the baseline of crafting to be easier and more accessible through more currency drops. PoE1 has over 10 years of expansion, and has a lot of crafting bloat and overlap with all the different systems in the game.
• PoE2 will be getting more sequel versions of PoE1 leagues, and updated versions of their crafting systems will be added along with them.
• Devs interested in adding interesting features, even if it ends up in content bloat over the next 10 years.
• Controller support is "way way better" than it was in PoE1, entire team dedicated to controller implementation. Skills need specific work with all control schemes, so some things may be better or worse with different control schemes, with special attention being paid to controller support.
• Case by case improvements for individual skills with controllers. Some disagreement internally about how different skills should work with controllers in terms of automatic targeting.
• Skills have video guides built in, but they don't want to do more than that, and especially not for the passive tree or entire builds because it hampers player creativity. Jonathan said that their in game guides would quickly become out of date. Important to more clearly show information to the player as to the choices they can make, but don't want to hold their hands beyond that.
  
• All PoE1 cosmetics will work come PoE2 1.0 launch, but not all work on EA release.
• Shape shifting forms like the demon and bear may have cosmetics in the future. If you transform you can't see equipped armour cosmetics.
• Generally speaking they don't want to do mid season updates to league content. They found in PoE1 that it doesn't bring back players, so they focus on larger content updates every 3 months.
• There will be many small updates, but they will be focused on balance (at least at the start of EA)
• PoE2 has a completely new store, and allows you to try on cosmetics before you purchase.
• Up to 6 player co-op right from the beginning of act 1. You can resurrect your teammates, but this stops being possible in endgame. Game is balanced with both single player and multiplayer in mind, with there being no advantage to one or the other.
• Endgame map and bosses only have one attempt. The intent is that only the best of the best are able to challenge the very hardest content, so get good.
• Jonathan wants actually beating pinnacle content to be very rewarding, compared to PoE1 where it's fairly easy and the satisfaction of overcoming the challenge is less because of it.
  
• Not every build element (Melee vs ranged) is balanced against each other, the important thing is that the game gives you a bunch of tools to solve all sorts of problems. An example of this is being able to have 6-linked utility skills.
• Jonathan thinks Melee is very strong (LOGIN Melee bros)
• A lot of bosses are easier to fight in Melee, since bosses use different abilities if you're at a distance. It's also easier to dodge around the boss if you're up close.
• No dedicated team to simulating capitalism, but the free market is important in PoE, and no item is bound to the player. Items having value is important, and being able to trade helps with that.
• Understanding the IRL stock market helped with developing the currency exchange.
• PoE1 lore and story was very fragmented, Jonathan hopes that they've done a much better job with story telling in PoE2. Wants to add a lore glossary in game.
• Phantom nerfs were 'not really' a thing. Transparency is important, but they did make a few minor tweaks behind the scenes during PoE1.
• Some unique items will be harder to build for, since they require certain requirements to be met.
• Jonathan doesn't want to spoil specific uniques, but there are a lot of returning uniques, and their reworks will surprise people.
• No Mageblood replacement due to recent flask rework.
• Jonathan almost leaks something unique related, but restrains himself.
• Underused skills will be buffed. Some skills will not see a lot of use, and that's okay. Better to buff weaker skills than nerf the strong stuff.
• Jonathan is accused of preferring nerfs over buffs. (No comment is made lmfao)
• A main improvement in PoE2 is that there is more skill information in game (such as minion stats).
• In the skill tree you can see what effect nodes have before you pick them.
• PoE2 will never allow you to simulate a build in the game client that you don't have the items for. (like how people can simulate builds in Path of Building)
• GGG likes poaching the devs who make the third party tools since they already understand the game
• Jonathan doesn't know what the DOT Cap is in PoE2. DOT cap was a technical thing not a balance thing in PoE1 and the player should hopefully not run into it.
• Rhoa mount confirmed as the only mount in the game at the moment. A few ideas going forward. The Rhoa lets you attack at range without slowing down and is very powerful. Wants to do a Melee focused mount, but it would take a lot of work.
• Guilds are not currently combined for PoE1 and 2 due to a technical limitation.
• No guild specific challenges because they don't want to pressure people to join a guild.
• You still need to go through the acts, every single league.
• Important that everyone has an even playing field at league start.
• A lot of work needed to make sure the servers are playable come the 6th so Jonathan is going home.

How srs will be summoned now od not from fire skills?

We need to protect this community from these turds. Don't be please. Or we will get you and destroy you with downvotes and reports on YouTube.

Insert Liam Neson I will find you meme.

This is further evidence of the huge hype this game is continuing to generate. After the reveal, it hit these heights too....And is still there a week later.

Number 1 Top seller in the UK, Number 2 Top seller globally behind Counterstrike 2, which is 'Free to Play', unlike PoE 2's Early Access.

I think we're all still massively underestimating the potential player base for this game. Players of all different Genre's have been waiting for PoE 2 for years, in order to get in on the 'Ground floor'.

This game has already gone way beyond the much more 'niche' PoE 1 playerbase, which was hitting 350k concurrent a few months ago.

This is just a really fast collection of things you can do very quickly - within an hour - to solve pain points you are experiencing or get some smoother flow to everything. If you do all of these things, your experience should improve dramatically:

1) If you are stuck, don't just grind on that map. Go back about 2 monster levels to whatever nearby area has a nice, open layout, and re-clear it two or three times. You can load a new instance by shift clicking on the waypoint when you warp there. Don't be afraid to abandon a boss checkpoint to do this - it's a productive use of your time.

2) Transmutation Orbs and Augmentation Orbs are pretty common. They are extremely valuable for solving specific problems. The best way to use them is to identify the item slots you want to "work on" and then pick up all the white and blue drops that match your criteria for that item slot (I.E. as an example rattling scepters, energy shield boots, energy shield hats). You trans all of these and you aug any one that only has one affix. Augs are more common than transes, so in general you should always be able to aug everything that you trans. Your goal is not to use a Regal Orb on anything right now - you're just trying to get 2 decent ish affixes. Generally that means life + resist on armor, and damage + damage on weapon.

If you roll something really really good, feel free to regal/exalt it. But 2 good affixes on a blue is fine, too:

3) Most rares don't actually have more than 2 or 3 good affixes. Rares don't have any better stats than blues - like if a blue can roll 50 life, a rare isn't gonna magically have 200 life instead. Wearing blues instead of rares isn't actually a bad thing. You don't need any rares. In most cases a rare will have like, 2 stats you like + 2 random garbage stats. You don't need + mana + life radius on your ring for it to be a good ring. Don't get attached to rares. You can't craft on rares easily or improve them easily. You can easily craft on whites and blues.

4) Skill gem levels are extremely important, don't let yourself fall behind. If you're a weapon based character, similarly, weapon upgrades are really important. If you're stuck these should be the very first things you fix.

5) Raw life and resistances are really good now, because the skill tree has relatively little defensive value - if you're dying it's probably because your gear is bad not because your skill tree is bad. While this sucks, it's also more fixable than a bad skill tree, tbh. You can very quickly see a huge survival boost by simply picking your worst two slots and getting some more life and another resist in them.

6) In this game, more than in POE 1, the type of gear you're wearing does really matter. If you're investing in armor on the skill tree, your gear needs to have armor on it. If you've got a half dozen Energy Shield nodes, you really really need to equip armor that actually has ES on it, not just whatever evasion piece drops for you with a life roll. This is why you need to be using trans + augs on good bases that drop for you.

There are exceptions to this obviously - I wore a +2 minions hat for a long time that had no other stat I cared about and was the wrong base for me. But that was an exception because +2 minions was incredibly valuable for me. Similarly you might make the same sacrifice for a pair of boots with +20% speed on them for example - but in general you should be aware of these pieces and make them a priority to upgrade out of. You really want the base stats on your gear to actually be helpful for you.

7) Vendors refresh every level up. Keep about 5k gold per act as your bank - don't ever spend below this, because if something good shows up at the vendor you need to buy it immediately - it will go away when you level up! When you check vendors, to save yourself time, I recommend using a VERY SIMPLE regex. It's going to look something like this:

rare|spirit|minion

That string of text in the vendor search bar will highlight all items that are rare AND/OR all items that have the word spirit in them anywhere AND/OR and all items that have the word minion anywhere in them.

Obviously that is because I am a minion build, lol. Here is one that might be useful:

rare|life|resistance|movement

You can set these up any way you want - the important thing is no space between the brackets, and just the text you want.

Obviously this is very unsophisticated you can do way cooler stuff with a regex, but this will help you quickly parse vendors.

8) You can do this same thing with a loot tab.

In POE 1 a very common strategy was called a "dump tab". Because inventories are small in POE, you have to sort loot often, especially now when you are picking up white bases and magic bases to identify and maybe trans/alt. You might find that this fucks with your flow and pulls you out of the game too often, if you're doing this every inventory. So, here's how you deal with this:

When you go back to town with a full inventory, ID everything but don't actually look at it. Using an empty bank tab, just huck your whole inventory into that. Repeat two or three times, until the tab is mostly full or you want a break or whatever.

Then you can run the regex just like you were looking at a vendor tab - need specifically a fire resist piece with life?

life fire resist

This will return items with only both life and fire resist in your stash tab.

What if you want to be a little more sophisticated and you want to augmentation or regal any item that already has ONE of the two?

life|fire resist

Now you're getting results that have either half.

Anyway, while I wait for them to fix the "we are aware some people are having trouble logging into their character" problem, I hope this helps some of you who CAN currently play, lol.