POE2 Thread of Seasons SC more than casual but not uber tier player review log

Dear Exiles, GGG, web bot and whatnot,

Welcome to my humble honest review of each league/season that I have been through. I will try to go over most aspects of the game (that I have experienced myself) and provide my thoughts, the goods, the ewws and eventual suggestions/requests to GGG.

Obviously include story/content spoilers !

This thread is for myself and hopefully provide some valuable, not so valuable feedback and some rant probably, but all for the sake of getting PoE 2 better. Im not here to agree or disagree, this is just as said, my point of view, I do not specifically represent any organization, the community as a whole, nor any individual but myself. Feel free to participate in the thread. Please do help me correct whatever mistake I may have typed, help me refine some of the suggestions and contribute should you have more to say about some of those points.

Table of Content:
wip




To do :
- maybe fill League 1
- complete League 2 section once I stop for the season
- format text


Some context :
PoE 1 :
- played from its early days to 2024
- enjoyed most of it (some leagues less than others of course)
- some ubers down but not everything done depending on the league
- good understanding of crafting
- followed and made my own builds to success
- favorite 3 builds (good old Essence Drain, auto ward casting shennanigans, any Detonate Dead)
- favorite mechanics TLDR (harvest, ultimatum, crucible)
- Standard Trade, SSF, little HC

PoE 2 :
- played EA release and DotH
- currently doing t3-t4 of bosses
- t15-16 waystoning
- favorite 3 builds (05/06/25 a bit soon to say so far)
- Standard Trade only for now

League 1
Characters :
- Pathfinder Gas/Fire Crossbow something 50+
- Deadeye Shockburst pew pew something 70+
- Invoker Storm wave/Palm something 50+
- Infernalist Demonform Essence Drain/Hexblast 70+
Content :
- nothing much didnt have too much time
Thoughts :
Keeping league 1 clear for now, might come back to it, but not much to input.

League 2 Dawn of the Hunt
Characters :
- Lich Essence Drain 90+
- Deadeye Lightning Spear/ Windfury 90+
- Amazon Flicker Strike 80+
- Infernalist beire/aurasomething 80+
- Smith of Kitava lost somewhere in act 2
Content :
- Arbiter t3 going for t4
- King in the mist t2 going for t4
- Xesh t3 going for t4
- Orloth t2 going for t4
- Simulacrum none
- Zarohk/Sekhema done once
- Trialmaster none
- maps t15-16 simple juicing
Thoughts :
1/ CAMPAIGN, LEVELING 1~60
Did my first character Huntress Amazon self building up to t10 as a duo with a Warrior Smith of Kitava.
Regardless of the build which went from a parry/disengage bleed build (no grounding stomp, again I made my own way to discover the new huntress and spear), to a lightning spear, then spearfield something and tried to incorporate Spear of Lunaris at some point.

It was overall quite painful, league starting blind (my build wasnt complete nonsense either while obviously not being the perfect league starter), act monster scaling as a group is quite punitive (could swipe through by ourselves and as soon as we joined instances, it became doable but felt really bad).

Very little rare upgrades (some gear stayed for quite a dozens of levels with no upgrade). Bosses were extremely lame to kill, where final act boss would give us nothing to a single yellow item. Need to be very lucky to have a simple exciting unique which could bring some leveling nuisance (im not saying get free headhunters level kind of unique) but you know, a league that introduces a new weapon type with a few under lvl60 uniques but you dont get to see one even playing as a huntress ? Granted I dont have global player stats, so maybe i was just unlucky over 4 characters and so were some friends. Overall unique items point of view, I think too many of them are too niche for most realistic leveling options from which few may shine in specific conditions in mapping/endgame builds.

Currency wise, barely any alchemy (made pretty much all of them through simple leveling gear trading to actually get some of my own lucky usable rare gear or trade for some of the new uniques that I wanted to try). Top of my head maybe under a dozen exalts. A single raw chance if any ? No divine but heh lets just say those are just lucky premium drops in the campaign.

Pathing through each campaign node, some maps were too big and/or void of interesting stuff. Good thing is some of them were improved in the early patches, but too late for the initial days players I guess (also why wasnt this done in league 1).

Some offenders :
- Act1 Grelwood, map itself is okish but the quests steps are so convoluted. Get the runes in red vale, teleport to town, find and click on the 3 runes at the tree, speak to Una, teleport to town to speak to Una once again ?, go back again to Grelwood if you didnt already get the waypoint to Grim tangle or even found it yet, get inside and again speak to Una.
- Act1 Cemetary, oh my..., finding those 2 tombs.
- Act1 Ogham Farmlands, just under too big, but its slightly too uninteresting even with the Find the Lute POI and the Strange Crop optionnal. Big squarish farm areas, with maybe a small pack of white mobs fire and forget or just pass by.

- Act2 Halani Gates, for the life of me, sure the end boss doesnt actually die, but NO LOOT ? When end act bosses werent even dropping a yellow item, I swear I feel cheated whenever I end Halani Gates. The actual loot boss of this zone is the optional rare on the way... I dont remember whats the NPC reward for this (probably some uncut gem) but as an alternative for the boss not dying they could hand us some rare as well (just like some other guaranteed quests in the game).
- Act2 Mastodons badlands/bone pits mid size but feels so empty, plus the bad requirement of the clan relic which eventually forces you to backtrack after killing the end boss. While the summoners and their big skeletons look cool, it feels too spread apart with a lot of terrain that we just walk by. There isnt even an optionnal rare here just a missable support gem.
- Act2 Deshar, Correct me if Im wrong but I believe that if you do not speak to the quest giver for the lost letter, the clickable body related doesnt spawn or isnt interactable, and this 2 passives points are not shown as a reward on the map UI ! Side note, we should have a way to know other than checking each quest and map icons nodes (which is bugged by the way, some icons are showing uncleared while it has been done, happened to multiple characters). /passives was great !
- Act2 Dreadnought and well Dreadnought Vanguard, while this is rather cool and more unique, in practice this is a minimap oblige to find the walkable bridge and bodyblocking fest.
Starting to think I have a beef with act2.

- Act3 Matlan Waterways, for Atziri's sake, please no more of this... Too long, too uninteresting serpent walkway. This probably needs to be shorter if kept as is.
- Act3 Azak Bog, thin bodyblocking pahtways like dreadnought and non ending circular layout. A loot buff event from the bonfires which you can miss for half of the map if not more even when you are aware of its existence, and, which is well, kinda useful, kinda not at all at this stage of the game ? Well at least we got a patch to make the layout better and it does, thanks for this.
- Act3 Apex of filth humongous... dead end simulator, rejoice! for the fix which makes it feels so much better !
- Act3 not a map node per se, but the gateway... oh boy do I hate this when I have to teleport. Waypoint should remain available in the town, going through the gate should allow us to choose to just go back to town/past or going back to act1, not forced ! Map UI is inconsistent due to the time travel, doesnt help to check what we may have missed and even if we do find it, the gateway can cause some headache.
Well Act3 got some love this league, but please oh please, may I mention Matlan Waterways again.

I have already approached some little suggestions for some map nodes.
As for getting gear, well we just had a patch, I did level up another character again as a a duo and we didnt feel much different, some end bosses still didnt drop a rare item. This already doesnt feel right solo, but as a group it doesnt make sense. Maybe overall players are getting a better feel out of this update but I dont have that data.
Update mentioned some kind of boss protection, well, I believe it needs one step further to boss guarantee minimum. Not getting a rare means whites which you could Alchemy, but again, on multiple characters I didnt get much raw orbs and we cant disenchant into alchemy... So transmute, augment and regal ? Sure but then you do need rares and well, when you dont get to see a rare on end act bosses its not sustainable either.
I like crafting in PoE a lot, and if the vision is about players to utilize their currency while leveling and beyond, then, I think it should be appropriate to have better access to it.

2/ Atlas progression, waystones
A lot to say but lets start with moving around the atlas.
Long story short, I think its in a bad shape. I like the overall concept of the randomly generated world map, but execution feels really wrong.
We currently need to invest quite a lot of time just to actually start utilizing it to progress our characters, and even then, we now need to spend a lot of time doing almost meaningless stuff to actually use the mechanics given to us to make our waystones great.
While we did get a patch for better corrupted zones visibility, and faster atlas points, it was too late for the bigger playerbase I guess.
Since I am part of the players that completed it before the patch my point of view is based on that.

Corrupted zones can be very far apart.
Past my first 2-3 nexuses, the next ones where first of all in the fog, so going blind, and most where in the range of 13-16 nodes away.
At 5min a map, this is 1h of low value random A to B progression. Which we had to do 15 times assuming you didnt fail one of the nexuses because you died from something you cant even see (lets just say this didnt happen). Now 5min a map might be slow for some (remember this is league start, everyone isnt playing that op/bugged build), but it is most likely quite fast for others. While speed isnt the point, I believe key progression shouldnt be that far apart. Why is the quest locked to the host ? This kills the game rythm if you like to play as a group. There is even less reasons to run most as a group until you have pretty much completed the game, since completing a node as a guest, doesnt make you progress your own atlas. So you have to run double, triple, more nodes... to get to each others nexuses. This doesnt make sense. Same for pinnacle content but more on that later.
While clearing the step for everyone involved in the map is rather simple. It obviously wont clear nodes in everyones atlases. Something to balance out, but a vague basic idea, we could get "jump" stack to skip up to a set number of nodes after X maps completed as guest ? Just like the Unique precursor tablet which allows X nodes in range to be traveled to without connected node.

Beacons.
Unless you didnt care much about your ressources, I dont believe beacons have ulity/value until you reach the later map tiers beside the surrounding map reveal. It almost feels like a trap where you waste tablets. Since our initial goal is to get to nexuses, we dont want to setup a beacon to "juice" maps and even if we did, it would probably be with a single tablet maybe 2, but I dont think you would run on purpose a 6 mod map while doing progression, at least not before the later tiers once again. These are dark times for what we call beacons heh ?
I was almost more happy to get a beacon because they were muuch faster to run than a regular node.

Corruption/Cleansed.
Cool, however, it doesnt come into play until after our initial goal completion ?

Uniques nodes.
So like I said, I did beat every pinnacle at least once if not up to t4. I can run t16s and stuff. I had to go far and wide for citadels and nexuses. Yet Im still missing 2 atlas points from unique maps...
Once again, I experienced t1-t10 map progression as a duo mostly, and clearing a unique node when you are not the host, doesnt reward atlas points. Now I know this is somewhat indicated in game but this is unexpected and simply doesnt sit right.
Simple very important request, please make it count toward everyone involved (now Im not saying, if you clear a t15 nexus, it will give you everything at once, no, but I did assume that if we were at the same nexus quest stage it would work which would make sense).

So I read somewhere that they are tied to biomes. Sure, first you need to know which one you did. Then you need to know from which biome they are related to. Then you need to find the rest of the information somewhere online. Then you need to blindly walk on the atlas only to find 2 of them, awesome! Unless those were 2 of the same one I did previously...
Could use some map "protection" and/or add a tablet which could have "make 1 map unique in range" of the corresponding biome ? Or just visibility in some way (even when having them out of the fog of war, a search node tool would be awesome please (even to just search a biome name, it does have a use with playing the atlas point "Local Knowledge" for example. But just like vendors we should be able to search for some key modifiers for a better map reading experience.

More on that key modifiers, I still need that corruption +1 level on this node, with irradiate, map boss, t16... which isnt clearly indicated by the game. We do have a tooltip, but just suggesting it to be written as a checklist maybe ? Or a progressing quest just like the nexuses. Even finding that information online wasnt straightforward somehow.

Atlas tree
Get rid of the small 3% increase in something. This could be a passive increase every X points invested into the tree so we would make slightly more involved node choices.

3/ Pinnacle content and league mechanics
- Ritual
I have yet to find a King in the mist invitation myself...
Convoluted methods to actually make use of them and be able to get favor, needs a slightly better integrations within maps.
Why even put transmutation and augmentation orbs in the rewards ? We already get truckloads of them even without doing any "map juicing".
This feels like a cheap placeholder in the middle of mostly skip rare items. Progression is odd, we need key points from the ritual tree to begin to get favor for pricier items including the invitation itself, but getting your first one yourself can be long. Why not offering splinters as well ? At least it makes the progression tangible and it integrates ritual into maps more naturally since it could cost slightly less favor per.

- Breach
Splinters amount are better since the patch, feels about right, thanks for the increased amount of drops although make them minimum of 2 or automatically gather, clicking on many many many x1 splinters is bad and I dare imagine with a rather loose filter.

- Delirium
Splinters amount are better since the patch. A simple web search clearly outlines the fact that we need to stay in the center of some not so visible circle, not outlined on the minimap which does mean its an unclear mechanic system.

- Expedition
Love the crafting process. Hate that its core mechanic makes you stop in your tracks in any map and then again when you run logbooks. Already mentioned that pathing through the altas feels really wrong, and then this is for some reasons in its own map layer (comparing to poe1 harvest, at least it was within the maps in a sub area). An idea, but could a logbook be a currency to use on a given map node, to make it an expedition map (consume any set other mechanic that would have been present on the node and converting them in expedition affixes/quantity rarity,size and whatnot ?) This would be a seamless integration !
As for the pinnacle boss, same suggestion as Rituals. Logbooks are already stopping me for progressing atlas, and getting the boss encounter is too rng to make it more meaningful. Some chests/flags/mobs could drop splinters toward the boss.

- Arbiter and citadels
Better since the update, we get to know where the citadels are, but same progress as above, pathing just to get to citadels which needs to be 3 different ones a set, and very far apart isnt great.

- Trialmaster and trial of chaos
I believe most players if not every, are choosing sekhema for their 4th ascendancy. Trials of chaos is simply too rng, with the best solution to most is for players to get high chaos resistance and/or immunity. Reaching that is either build specific, or requires later gearing goals which as it implies, happens well later...
Execution of some of the chosen afflictions are clunky and not adapted to some trials/arenas both. Id be interested in getting to know how many players did kill the trialmaster this season

- Zarokh
The trial concept is nice, I like the different types except gauntlet, which is fun the first few times and then falls off badly.
However some afflictions do ruin the fun at once (namely not being to view more that 1 room ahead, no armour/evasion/shield..., additional affliction). There is a reason why so many are offering ascendancy runs. While I understand getting ascendancies should be some challenge, it is too meaningful to be locked being quite a lot of rng.

- Azmeri spirits
Got patched, needs more patching. First issue, a spirit needs a rare to be alive. Sure I cant stop loving the fact that we now see all the rares on a map, we do not see azmeri spirits. And trying to find them defeats the points of us wanting to not have to search every nook and cranny of each map to complete them. Also means that you may have fully invested into azmeri and yet have a 0 value spirit every now and then.
Second they dont move at the right pace, nor they encompass enough area by default. Its even worse right now for Lightning spears for example where the point is to clear screen wide ahead, when a spirit wont even have touched mobs. While this particular very popular build is probably the worst for it, most build strive to be able to clear far and wide, meaning azmeri can only truly shine with much more modest builds.
Now even when assuming spirits can touch as much as possible and find a rare after a while its still very secret what each color does for some reasons ? And until then we would not even get a rare item drop from the mob. Even compared to a very straightforward strongbox, youd just click on it and you get multiple rares more often than not. And since strongboxes got buffed as well I still feel like azmeri are not in a good place. I even did fully invest into them and tried to purposedly run along them, letting them touch as many as they could, and kill before getting to the rare but nope.
Suggestion, well, it should at the very least create its own rare whatever happens so we could at least guarantee that. Some of the upgrades to it, should be native (speed, area of effect). Need an empowered status tracking (lets say some gauge like delirium stages ?). Its atlas tree should thus require some tweaks since just having chacne to contain a spirit is very uninspired and boring.

- Exiles
Do they exist now ? Probably saw 2-3 of them. Granted I didnt speciaze into it. But I have yet to hear of anyone saying they bring some food to the table. Still I assume youd get at least a rare and some regular unique using some of the atlas nodes which would be more consistent than azmeri but sitll.

4/ Builds, new weapon type and skills
Numbers officially released since 05/04/25, class balance is obviously very wrong. No strong suggestions unfortunately, while nerfing should be made carefully considering the time and investment players make in their limited number of characters each league, we still should have buff to less favored options much faster than the next league. Grain of salt of course, its tricky but Id have expected changes to some gems at least by now.

The tip of the spear.
New parry ability. The gameplay concept behind it seemed fun and was fitting of the more action vision. But then I tried it on the first boss and the next up to act3. Frustrated that I could only parry the basic attacks, some bosses would even and kept casting. Instead of making it some more button action gameplay for mobs, it was a walk stop, wait, parry, and hit which felt bad. Forcing its core usage, to interact only with a few other skills like disengage isnt sustainable as well.
Parry as is, could use something to indicate what is parry-able from bosses at least.

The other new skills are unfortunately overshadowed by an omnipresent lightning spear, which well, in essence is a reformatted lightning arrow that has seen its fair share of prime time as well. Rather cool animations overall though. Other spear skills like Twister could have been nice but while I understand and actually root for the more button synergies, the obvious and straightforward usage as written in the tooltip is quite clunky. Its a 3 stages whirling slash from which you cannot step out in the middle of projectiles, aoes, ground patches and fast moving mobs, a required elemental ground to make it shiny, the eventual empowering skill into finally twister not mentioning the parry consuming process beforehand for maximum profit. Hard to say what could free this up, but at least whirling slash should be complete at stage 2 and able to absorb an element it would come in contact with which would be carried over until the whirl is consumed. It would be much smoother and you wouldnt be so restricted in positioning which can already be quite a mess.


Still gathering thoughts... WIP