Since its Early Access release, Path of Exile 2 has been a focal point of discussion within the community and on social media. However, after the release of Patch 0.2.0 and Dawn of the Hunt League in April of this year, a series of significant nerfs caused its reputation to plummet, ultimately turning it into a widely criticized title.
In a previous Chinese interview, Game Director Jonathan Rogers apologized for the poor experience this patch had on players and clarified that the changes in POE 2 Patch 0.3.0 will focus on improving underpowered skill gems and passive abilities to provide players with more build options in subsequent game content.
However, as per the developer’s tradition of releasing patches and new leagues, in addition to buffing existing build options, new options will be added, and some currently powerful gear options will be weakened to let more balanced builds appear, especially for Huntress.
While the official patch notes have not yet been released, here gives you some Huntress options that may be nerfed based on in-game comments and feedback, so prepare yourself as soon as possible.
1. Beacon Of Azis Solar Amulet
The first item that may be nerfed is the currently popular defensive option, Beacon of Azis Solar Amulet. This allows your critical hits to ignore all elemental resistances of your enemies, effectively dealing damage with all your abilities, even if they have similar elemental damage types.
This effect makes this amulet an excellent choice for many current crit-based builds. Furthermore, it provides a large amount of consumable Spirit, allowing your Huntress to cast some skills continuously, so that you can clear all enemies and pick up tons of POE2 currency and loot.
These two unique effects combined can give some builds extremely burst damage, a rarity in PoE 2. Therefore, the developers are likely to adjust some of this amulet’s abilities in the next patch, such as adding a scale to the elemental resistances it ignores, to improve balance.
2. Tangletongue Forked Spear
Thanks to the introduction of Huntress in Dawn of the Hunt League, all spear-based weapons have received significant improvements, and Tangletongue Forked Spear is one, which has an exceptionally high critical hit chance allows Huntress builds to easily handle challenging bosses and elite monsters.
Furthermore, its Forks Critical Hits skill grants you a chance to deal triple damage to your enemies. Combined with Amazon Ascendancy passive node, which increases your spear’s accuracy, it’s easy to guarantee every attack will land a critical hit.
While this may provide players with a satisfying experience of killing and clearing enemies during exploration in the short term, it will negatively affect overall build diversity in the long term.
Most importantly, it will prevent players who favor physical damage and melee combat from reaching the top of the league, no matter how much POE 2 currency they spend on upgrading their weapons, which can lead to a loss of interest in the game.
3. Lightning Spear
As the most popular skill gem for Huntress builds, Lightning Spear’s powerful damage is undeniable. However, due to its extremely large damage range, even enemies off-screen will take some damage and can collect all in-game currency in short time after a battle, causing dissatisfaction among many melee players.
Therefore, it’s highly likely to receive a nerf in patch 0.3.0. However, the recommended replacement is Herald of Lightning. Previously, it was paired with Lightning Spear for exceptional damage, but after the nerf, Herald of Lightning is likely to replace it as the optimal Huntress skill gem.
In addition, Bleed Twister, which has the opposite damage type to Lightning Spear, is also likely to become another skill gem option in the optimal Huntress build, because its powerful single-target damage is very outstanding in some combat situations, and the flexibility of the entire build is also relatively strong.
If you’re looking for the best Skill Gem companions and support gem options for Bleed Twister after the release of Patch 0.3.0 and the new leagues, keep an eye on POECURRENCY.com for a follow-up guide to the best Huntress builds, including a variety of in-game currencies.
4. Amazon Ascendancy
Having discussed the available gear options, the next one to be nerfed is Amazon Ascendancy class. While this may sound absurd, Critical Strike passive, which it provided, grants players over 100% damage accuracy on some spear weapons, which is something that simply investing more Path of Exile 2 currency cannot achieve.
This will result in extremely high damage capabilities regardless of which skill gem options are chosen in the Huntress build, but since the developers have explicitly stated that some of the skills possessed by this class will be weakened, including the just-introduced Lightning Spear, this will make its effectiveness far less than before, so a weakening is inevitable.
Compared to Amazon, Ritualist Ascendancy’s effectiveness will probably remain unchanged, so Ascendancy class is likely to change hands in the next patch and the next league as the top Huntress build. Although the developers have announced plans to add a new Ascendancy class in 0.3.0, the poor reputation of the Huntress class makes it unlikely that a new one will be added.
The above is Huntress option that has been discussed most by players recently and may be weakened in Path of Exile 2 patch 0.3.0. Of course, some skills and gear options of other classes may also be weakened. The specific details may require waiting for the release of official patch notes.
Although the developers provided players with a very poor gaming experience in the previous 0.2.0 patch, it is precisely because of this that the developers have recently determined to use the 0.3.0 patch to reverse the reputation of this sequel. Therefore, this patch is very worth the anticipation of players and loyal fans who had previously given up on it. I wish you a happy game!