Path of the Exile 2 | Extended Gameplay Overview
Check out gameplay from Act 3, one of the six acts in Path of Exile 2's campaign. Act 3 is set in the ruins of the Vaal civilization which fell thousands of years ago. Watch as the developer explores Jungle, one of the former once-great cities using one of the six new character classes called the Monk.
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00:00 Welcome to Path of Exile 2. We'd like to start off by showing some of the gameplay of Act
00:05 3, one of the six acts in Pierwy 2's campaign. We're starting here in the jungle depths.
00:12 Act 3 is set in the ruins of the Vaal civilization, which fell thousands of years ago. The jungle
00:16 has taken over their former once great cities, and we'll be exploring it using one of our
00:20 six new character classes, called the Monk.
00:22 In Pierwy 1 we had one character class for each of the combinations of Strength, Dexterity
00:26 and Intelligence. When looking at the design of Pierwy 2 though, we realized that many
00:31 of the new skills that we were trying to design just didn't really fit thematically with the
00:34 existing classes that we have. Being a spellcaster with a bear form makes sense for Strength
00:38 Int, but it doesn't really sound like something that a Templar would do. We realized that
00:42 since we had new mechanics for every attribute combination, it actually made sense to design
00:46 new character classes to explore the new themes. In Pierwy 2, every attribute combination has
00:51 two classes associated with it. Strength Int has the Templar or the Druid, on Dexterity
00:55 you have the Ranger or the more spear-focused Huntress, and on Dex Int you have the Shadow
00:59 and the Monk. Which Monk is playing here? Each class has its own three assentancies
01:03 that let you further specialize the class in the way that only that class has access
01:06 to, but they both start at the same location in the passive tree. The quest rods you're
01:10 offered on the two variants are tailored to the class, but of course, this is Pierwy,
01:13 you can still mix and match anything to your heart's content.
01:21 Looks like we've come across the boss for this area. In Pierwy 2, every area of the
01:25 campaign contains a boss of at least this difficulty. That's over a hundred bosses
01:29 to fight as you make your way through the campaign, and they all have unique mechanics
01:32 to learn.
01:50 As you've seen from watching Mark fighting, melee combat in Pierwy 2 has a very different
01:54 feel than before. We've done a lot of things to add mobility to combat. Practically every
01:59 melee skill in Pierwy 2 has some kind of movement built into it. The Monk in particular is a
02:03 melee fighter who specializes in mobility over brute strength.
02:23 Stay still.
02:50 So, as Mark has been playing, you might have noticed these blue markers over enemies. Mark
02:57 has a skill equipped called Killing Palm. Whenever an enemy has a blue indicator over
03:01 it, it means that the monster has low enough life to cull with Killing Palm. Successfully
03:05 executing the cull will give you a power charge. This is an important skill for the Monk, since
03:10 many of his skills interact with power charges. One of the great things about this skill is
03:14 that it has a built-in dash forward, which makes it much easier to target the skill at
03:18 the right point when you need it. We've done a lot of work in Pierwy 2 to make using skills
03:22 like this feel satisfying. If you're accidentally targeting slightly off the monster, the skill
03:27 will automatically lock on to the cullable target, and will even do a small amount of
03:30 pathfinding around obstacles. We really want to make sure that when you've got an opportunity
03:34 to use the skill, nothing is going to get in your way.
03:39 Once you have some power charges, you need some skills to power up. A great follow-up
03:43 is Falling Thunder. Falling Thunder without a power charge just creates a relatively small
03:47 lightning AoE in front of you, but do it with some power charges and it turns into a pack
03:51 clear with a large number of extra projectiles. One thing you'll notice here is that like
03:56 almost every melee skill in Pierwy 2, Falling Thunder has a bit of extra movement built
03:59 in just in case you need it. Using the skill within range and you'll do a flip in place,
04:04 but use it at a larger range and your character will move forward while executing it, getting
04:07 you into position without any time permitting.
04:16 In Pierwy 2 you also get a short period to redirect your target. Notice how you can start
04:20 the skill facing one way, then whip the mouse sideways to land the skill in a different
04:23 direction? In order to get power charges, you're going to first need to get some lower
04:27 life monsters into a cullable range. You've got a few options. If you want to charge right
04:31 in, Whirling Assault is a good option. It doesn't do much damage per hit, but it covers
04:36 a lot of ground. Notice how you can turn as you do it? Generally speaking, you never lose
04:41 control of your character in Pierwy 2. If you make a turn at the right time, you can
04:44 get a couple of extra hits in on the monsters, getting them into range of your cull. Follow
04:48 up with a Killing Palm, then finish off the rest of the pack with your Crawling Thunder.
05:03 We've now entered the Vaal Mechanerium. This is the place where the Vaal built the various
05:07 constructs they relied on to power their civilization. One useful feature that we've added is the
05:19 ability to call in NPCs to where you are, to give you more information, help you with
05:23 quest objectives, and so that you don't have to always go back to town. In this case, we'll
05:27 call in Alva to find out what to do. As Alva said, we need to find a soul core to open
05:44 this door. Let's explore. If you want to shave off some life without getting too close to
05:48 some of the more dangerous monsters, a good option is Wind Blast. Wind Blast also doesn't
05:53 do too much damage, but it keeps the enemies back. The closer they are, the farther they're
05:57 pushed back, so it's a great option for keeping smaller, but high damage enemies at bay. Note
06:01 that the bigger the enemy is, the less they'll be pushed back, so trying to push back some
06:04 giants isn't going to be effective. And there's the soul core. Let's get back to the door.
06:10 Your fate is sealed!
06:30 Consider me impressed. I'll keep investigating in here. Bring me in if you find anything
06:49 else. If you need to defeat tougher enemies, it might be time to break out some of the
06:53 ice skills in the Monk's Arsenal. Glacial Cascade creates a wave of ice that moves slowly
06:57 in front of the player. It's pretty ineffective against fast moving monsters, because most
07:01 of the damage occurs right at the end of the wave, and so a lot of monsters will just walk
07:05 right by it. But if you can find a way to make a monster stop at just the right place,
07:09 it can be very effective. In order to do that, you probably want to freeze monsters. The
07:14 Monk has a few different tools to do this. A fairly simple option is to get right in
07:17 the monster's face with Ice Strike. Ice Strike doesn't do too much damage on the first two
07:22 hits, but attack three times in sequence and you can get off a combo that has a much higher
07:26 chance to freeze. Get in there with that freeze, then roll back and finish the job with a Glacial
07:30 Cascade. Now, remember how Glacial Cascade had that extra damaging spike at the end?
07:35 If you've hit a frozen enemy with that spike, it shatters the ice on the enemy and does
07:39 a devastating amount of damage. Oh yeah, I just casually mentioned rolling back before.
07:46 Did I forget to mention that in Pier Wee 2 we added a dodge roll to every character?
07:51 Just press spacebar at any time to roll. There's no cooldown, no limitations. It even has a
07:55 bit of built-in pathfinding so you don't get stuck on things. When you dodge roll, you're
07:59 not invulnerable. If something hits you, you're going to feel it, but most things will not
08:03 hit you. That's because while rolling, projectiles and melee strikes will always miss. You'll
08:08 have to roll out of the way of a slam that has AoE, but anyone swinging a sword or throwing
08:12 a fireball is going to miss. Now, another really important function of the dodge roll
08:16 is that it lets you cancel out of almost any skill at any time. This makes it so you don't
08:20 feel like you're getting stuck doing a long animation when something is about to hit you.
08:24 It really changes how skills with longer attack and cast times play, and it makes dodge roll
08:27 feel like a very reliable way to avoid attacks. So, that's one way to get out of the way of
08:33 damage, but the monk specialises in mobility, so it makes sense that he would have a few
08:38 more. Wave of Frost is one of our new attacks, with a retreat built right in. You move backwards
08:42 and throw out a cold attack with a significant freeze. The great thing about this is it puts
08:46 you at a good distance to follow up with Glacial Cascade and do a whole pile of damage. Hey
08:51 look, another soul core. Another skill you can use to get some extra freeze is Shattering
09:02 Palm. Shattering Palm is another palm strike that does a small ice bomb on your target.
09:07 Kill or deal enough damage to the target and the bomb will explode, doing some damage and
09:11 a significant freeze. It's a great option against bosses where the wave of ice might
09:15 not be enough to get that freeze off, but you really want to get that Glacial Cascade
09:18 damage bonus. The final skill we're going to show you today is Flicker Strike. It's
09:40 a monk skill now, and another skill that consumes power charges. If you've played PoE 1, you'll
09:45 know what to expect. It's a great finisher for tough boss fights, and it looks pretty
09:52 impressive too. Hmm, another door. I wonder what could be in there?
10:17 In order to take down this boss, we're going to need all the tools in the monk's arsenal,
10:34 especially the combo of freeze and Glacial Cascade. If you're a PoE 1 player, you might
10:38 think that you can't really rely on freeze because there's so many bosses that are immune
10:41 to it, but in PoE 2 that's changing significantly. In PoE 1, freeze is a binary mechanic, an
10:47 attack freezes the target or it doesn't. What this basically means is that in PoE 1, we
10:51 were forced to add freeze immunity to many bosses, because freeze just trivialised them.
10:56 Because of that, freezing was something you only really used while pack clearing, and
10:59 not something you could rely on as a core part of your build for boss fights. In PoE
11:03 2 though, all crowd control mechanics now have internal meters that allow you to build
11:07 up to a freeze or stun, or whatever other CC mechanic you might be using. It's a little
11:12 bit like PoE's from games like Elden Ring, though the meters tend to be a lot smaller
11:15 than those games. When you freeze an enemy, it increases the amount of freeze you need
11:19 to do another freeze, but the increased difficulty bleeds away slowly. More freeze will always
11:24 let you freeze the boss more often, but this system means it will not get out of control
11:27 in party play or interact badly with other CC mechanics, allowing us to let these kinds
11:31 of mechanics actually work against all bosses.
11:33 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
11:40 without freeze.
11:47 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
11:55 without freeze.
12:03 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
12:11 without freeze.
12:19 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
12:26 without freeze.
12:35 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
13:03 Blackjaw has dropped a consumable quest item, the Flame Core. It's a permanent +10 to Spirit.
13:10 In PoE 2, we really want to make sure that you feel rewarded for exploration. It wouldn't
13:14 be much good if we made all these awesome optional bosses if we didn't have something
13:17 great to find for killing them. One of the things you might find for killing a boss is
13:21 a permanent stat bonus to your character.
13:26 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
13:33 without freeze.
13:39 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
13:46 without freeze.
13:51 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
13:56 without freeze.
14:01 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
14:06 without freeze.
14:11 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
14:16 without freeze.
14:21 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
14:26 without freeze.
14:31 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
14:36 without freeze.
14:41 In PoE 2, you can freeze the boss with freeze immunity, but it's not something you can do
14:46 without freeze.
14:51 In order to help us with this next area, we're going to call in a sorceress.
14:55 Mark's friend, Octavian, is going to send a friend byte, which we're going to accept,
14:59 and then they can play together.
15:03 The sorceress is the new intelligence-focused character in PoE 2.
15:07 While the witch focuses more on occult magic and summoning, the sorceress is themed around
15:11 pure elemental destruction. Let's have a look at how she plays.
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