Summary
Path of Exile 2may be the next big live-service hit after Helldivers 2 if it plays its card right, and so far Grinding Gear Games is doing a great job at showing just about what the game has to offer and how it goes above and beyond what the original had to offer. DespitePath of Exile 2’s Beta being delayeduntil later this year, players will still have an Alpha test coming up in June, and the reveals keep on coming as the Ranger has now been showcased after the Mercenary. There are still a lot of things to discover about the game, such as the remaining classes and the Ascendancies, but there are good things to expect from them considering the philosophy behind classes and their archetypes.
The recent showcase forPath of Exile 2’s Ranger is an interesting case because it highlights once more just how interconnected all of a class' abilities can be when delving deeper into the gameplay loop, and the Ranger can crank some effects up to eleven with poison and lightning builds. Game Rant was able to talk to Mark Roberts and Jonathan Rogers from Grinding Gear Games aboutPath of Exile 2’s classes, with them explaining the design philosophy for the standalone sequel.
Path of Exile 2’s Classes Take The Original’s to The Next Level
Why Path of Exile 2’s Classes Rely on Combinations
A unique aspect ofPath of Exile 2’s Rangerand other classes is how each of them has access to a plethora of skills from the same element or theme, with them working fine on their own, but then becoming increasingly more deadly as players combine them. This combination gameplay loop is quite different from that ofPath of Exile, where players have a limited number of skill slots at their disposal, and more often than not, combining skills together is just so to increase damage to incredibly high levels.
Path of Exile 2’s classesare different in this, as skills from the same element can be used in tandem to either improve their effects or create new ones, such as the Ranger’s Lightning Rod and Lightning Arrow creating AoE explosions that can easily deal with packs of monsters. One can combine Support Gems to make these effects even wilder, too, with an example coming from Multiple Projectiles producing more rods with the first skill so that future casts of Lightning Arrow will cause more explosions. While each class has its own set of skills and mechanics, some are shared among all classes, and combinations can be endless.
Rogers: A great example of that is “armor break,” which we initially conceived as something for the Warrior, but then we also added ways to access it and utilize it both across different skills and different classes, like the Mercenary and Ranger that we showed recently, but also by using things like Support Gems so that anyone can have access to this kind of mechanics. That Corrode Armour Support Gem that I showcased in the demo for example, that is a way to access armor break on a poison build, but then we also want to make sure that other builds access this kind of mechanics too.
How Path of Exile 2’s Ascendancy Classes and Archetypes Work
Path of Exile 2 is Smart Not to Change Ascendancy Classes' Philosophy
Archetypes like Lightning, Poison, Fire, and so on are all meant to be both a way to guide players and to create combinations that can be taken further with various effects, according to Rogers and Roberts. This is a good way to create a path for new players to follow - one that makes sense to them and builds on the familiar themes of the class they pick - and it is efficient in creating set pieces that can be moved around by more experienced players who are looking to shaking up what their class does. The Ranger is just the latest to show it, but it was visible withPath of Exile 2’s Mercenarytoo, as well as other classes like the Monk.
Roberts: The Ascendancy class system in PoE 1 is a success. We get to change them all the time, people are excited about them changing, it creates a lot of build diversity, and so on. There have obviously been times where balance was off and all of a sudden half of the players are playing a single class, but aside from those outliers, it’s just where we come to PoE 2 that is going to have an additional 18 Ascendancy classes […]
Similarly, the philosophy behindAscendancy classes inPath of Exile 2is to not change things too drastically from the first game, at least in the sense of how Ascendancy classes work. They were and still are very successful in the original thanks to their ever-shifting nature and how they change the gameplay loop of their base classes dramatically, potentially opening up new venues for builds and combos.Path of Exile 2will do more of the same here, and that’s likely a win-win scenario for players and devs alike.
Path of Exile II
WHERE TO PLAY
Path of Exile 2 is a next generation free-to-play Action RPG created by Grinding Gear Games. Journey across the deadly continent of Wraeclast, meeting multiple immersive cultures while facing off against evil in many forms. Path of Exile 2 features twelve character classes, 240 Skill Gems, hundreds of equipment base types, a six-act campaign, more than a hundred unique boss fights, a deep endgame system and so much more. Play with your friends without losing any progress with couch co-op, cross-play and cross-progression.
