On April 4, POE 2 early access finally ushered in patch 0.2.0, which is also the first league, Dawn of the Hunt. This update brings a lot of new content to POE 2, including new gems and unique items, encounter enemies, endgame content, and classes.
As early as before the launch of POE 2 early access, there was news that the official version would launch 12 classes, and GGG also confirmed this at some subsequent press conferences, but there are only 6 classes in the early access. How can we ensure that the other part of the new class after the official version is launched will not disappoint you? Pre-release of a part through patches is obviously a good way.
In this update brought by Dawn of the Hunt, the class change includes a basic class and 5 Ascendancy classes. Among them, the basic class Huntress combines the characteristics of melee and ranged advantages, making her particularly attractive. Based on this, we will introduce you to some information you must know to play this class.
Huntress Overview
For this new class, POE 2 officials describe it as having multiple play styles of “dash in, strike, and retreat” at the same time. By combining melee and ranged abilities, your character will be able to adapt to most combat situations when playing Huntress, and benefit from two combat skills with different advantages.
This is an unprecedented innovation for the classes in the previous POE series, which emphasizes the importance of using mobile skills in combat while introducing new game possibilities.
On the other hand, Huntress is also a class with very prominent dexterity characteristics, which can be seen from her passive skill path being very similar to another class Ranger, which is also known for its dexterity.
The main passive nodes suitable for Huntress include evasion, cold damage, critical strike chance, spell suppression, attack speed, and more, which are enough to allow Huntress to output enough damage in combat, to POE2 Currency farming faster in the early game.
On this basis, when you are playing Huntress, the preferred weapon is the spear. Spears can be used for both melee and ranged combat, which is something that has never appeared in Path of Exile series before.
It is worth noting that when you use spears or related class skills to fight in close combat as a Huntress, because of the weak survivability of this class, there will be certain risks, so you’d better use POE 2 Divine Orbs to optimize your gear stats in time, so that they can provide more defense or healing effects.
What Skills Can Huntress Use?
In POE 2, skills are acquired by equipping skill gems. In order to fully demonstrate the charm of the new class in this 0.2.0 patch, 20 of the more than 100 new skill gems belong to Huntress, which are:
- Disengage
- Whirling Slash
- Twister
- Explosive Spear
- Spearfield
- Lightning Spear
- Fangs of Frost
- Rake
- Barrage
- Rapid Assault
- Storm Lance
- Sniper’s Mark
- Blood Hunt
- Glacial Lance
- Primal Strikes
- Thunderous Leap
- Bloodhound’s Mark
- Tame Beast
- Whirlwind Lance
- Elemental Sundering
The large number of available skills also means that you can effectively combine them according to the characteristics of different skills, or build your own Huntress builds with one of them as the core. For example, Whirling Slash skill allows you to create a circular whirlwind by swinging your weapon. The longer the channeling time, the larger the whirlwind. When you leave the whirlwind, it explodes and deals damage to enemies. Spearfield skill can summon a rain of spears in the target area to slow down the movement speed of enemies in the area.
If you later find that you have these skills but can’t use them well, it may be because you haven’t combined them with other skills that have synergy with each other. On the other hand, it may mean that it’s time to buy POE 2 Currency to upgrade your gear or items – they can also expand the lethality of skills when they become better.
2 Available Ascendancy Classes
The 5 new Ascendancy classes brought by Dawn of the Hunt are Ritualist, Amazon, Smith of Kitava, Tactician and Lich. The first two belong to Huntress, and they have different advantages and development methods.
1. Amazon
This Ascendancy class can deal critical strike damage to enemies by combining elemental-infused spear throws with powerful projectile explosions. It has the characteristics of fast-paced and high-burst ranged combat. If you like this style, you can give it priority. In addition, Amazon can also help you create builds with both speed and damage output through synergy with flasks. The most suitable Ascendancy paths for it are:
- Elemental Infusion: Converts charge into elemental projectile explosions.
- Predatory Instinct: Attacks bosses by finding weaknesses.
- Mystic Harvest: Output elemental attacks while absorbing life and mana.
- Critical Scaling: Converts excess accuracy into critical strike chance.
2. Ritualist
Compared to Amazon, the combat style of Ritualist is darker and more brutal. It mainly draws power from blood magic, sacrifice, and corrupted energy. It can cause continuous damage to enemies and turn their corpses into your combat tools. Ascendancy paths for this sub-class are as follows:
- Corrupted Life Force: Enemies burst into blood bubbles when they die.
- As the Whispers Ask: Modifiers for absorbing rare monsters.
- Mystic Attunement: Increases the scaling of your rings and amulets.
- Unfurled Finger: Grants you more ring slots.
That’s all you need to know before playing the new class Huntress after the release of patch 0.2.0. I hope you can get the best Huntress experience in the game! Good luck!
