PoE 2 Dawn the Hunt Reveal

The PoE 2 Dawn the Hunt Reveal introduced some of the most impactful changes to the game’s core systems and endgame design so far. From a thematic and mechanical perspective, this update redefines what players can expect from both class identity and long-term content.

Grinding Gear Games has officially revealed the 0.2.0 update for Path of Exile 2, titled Dawn of the Hunt. This massive update delivers fresh endgame content, new gameplay systems, and a host of mechanical upgrades that enhance combat fluidity and build complexity. The patch marks a major step forward in the game’s development and promises a lot for both returning players and newcomers.

This overview walks you through everything added in the update — from core class changes to new systems like Azmerian Wisps and Unique Strongboxes. Let’s dive into the wild heart of Wraeclast and break down what’s new in Patch 0.2.0: Dawn of the Hunt.

The Huntress and Spears

Among the standout features of the PoE 2 Dawn the Hunt Reveal was the debut of spear combat, brought to life through the Huntress archetype. Her arrival sets a new benchmark for melee design and thematic integration in Path of Exile 2. At the center of the Dawn of the Hunt expansion is the introduction of The Huntress, a fierce new archetype that wields spears — a brand-new weapon class in Path of Exile 2. The Huntress brings a wild, primal combat style that emphasizes high mobility, precision strikes, and bestial synergy. Her connection to the natural world and the beastcaller factions plays a major thematic and mechanical role in the patch.

Spears are designed as dynamic, melee-focused weapons that allow players to perform gap-closing thrusts, sweeping arcs, and counter-based parries. Their animations and fluidity set a new standard for melee combat in the game. Notably, spear skills often include built-in repositioning tools, allowing players to weave through enemies mid-combo.

The Huntress is deeply integrated into the new content, being the narrative and mechanical foil to the Apex Predator — the patch’s new pinnacle boss. Players interested in fast-paced melee playstyles, rich class identity, and skill-expression builds will find The Huntress to be a standout addition to PoE 2.

New Ascendancies

Patch 0.2.0 introduces five brand-new ascendancy classes, each of which completely transforms the core identity of its base archetype. These aren't just passive stat upgrades — they are fully realized gameplay fantasies with mechanics, skills, and themes that enable entirely new builds.

Ritualist (Huntress)

The Ritualist taps into the primal forces of Wraeclast, drawing on blood magic, beast spirits, and Azmerian rites. She focuses on delayed rituals, area control, and offering mechanics — sacrificing her own health or that of her allies to activate powerful effects. Totems, linked companions, and environmental interactions lie at the core of her gameplay.

• Ritual Link – allows her to connect to allies or enemies, sharing buffs or spreading damage.
• Bloodbound Surge – increases spell effect based on lost life.
• Echoes of the Wild – amplifies the effects of Azmerian shrines or beasts within range.

Ritualist’s strength lies in her ability to set the stage — creating powerful effects that build up and detonate with perfect timing. She’s ideal for players who enjoy preparation-heavy builds and summoner/control hybrids. Many of her effects are delayed but devastating, making her especially strong in boss encounters or fights with clear phases.

Amazon (Huntress)

The Amazon is the embodiment of speed and precision, refining the Huntress archetype into a graceful, high-agility combatant who thrives on mobility and momentum. Her weapon of choice is the javelin, and she excels at weaving ranged spear attacks with evasive maneuvers.

Amazon builds revolve around stacking momentum, a new mechanic that increases power as you move and strike fluidly. Her passives reward chaining abilities in motion, granting increased attack speed, projectile return, and movement burst. Several nodes introduce rebound javelins, which bounce between enemies or return like boomerangs, creating dynamic AoE potential.

• Flurry Vault – dash through enemies while throwing returning javelins.
• Momentum Overload – gain stacking crit chance and speed with consecutive movement skills.
• Javelin Surge – javelin skills apply a temporary movement speed and dodge buff on hit.

The Amazon is ideal for players who prefer hit-and-run tactics, high crit builds, or movement-skill-driven combos. In group play, she acts as a frontline assassin who is hard to catch and devastating when in full flow.

Smith of Kitava (Warrior)

Forged in the inferno of Kitava’s wrath, the Smith ascendency transforms the Warrior into a forgeborn juggernaut. Blending brutal melee with fire magic, this class revolves around slams, ground effects, and molten weaponry.

His gameplay loops involve charging or slamming the ground with fiery weapons that infuse attacks with burn damage and leave residual magma fields. He can forge and wield temporary flaming blades, overheat enemies with stacking combustions, and create explosive zones that detonate under clustered foes.

• Forged Flame – enhances slams with lingering fire zones that burn over time.
• Molten Rage – converts physical damage to fire and scales with endurance charges.
• Kitava’s Wrath – empowered criticals explode enemies and spread burning ground.

The Smith excels at wave clearing, damage-over-time hybrid builds, and overwhelming enemy formations. He suits players who want screen-wide destruction with thematic, infernal visuals and AoE burst potential.

Lich (Witch)

The Lich delves into Wraeclast’s darkest energies, commanding power through corruption, souls, and death. She specializes in long-lasting damage-over-time effects and synergies with corpses, curses, and minions.

Her mechanics reward tactical corpse generation, consumption, and spreading pestilence across enemy packs. Her toolkit allows her to empower her energy shield through soul drain, curse enemies with escalating effects, and even trigger explosive chain reactions from the death of minions.

• Soul Rot – stacking poison/chaos DoT that grows stronger the longer it remains.
• Dark Communion – sacrifices minions to boost DoT output or grant healing.
• Corrupted Aura – passively increases power near corpses or cursed enemies.

The Lich is perfect for fans of DoT spellcasters, corpse-based combos, or curse-heavy hybrid builds. Her gameplay rewards setup, scaling, and battlefield awareness — thriving in content where enemies cluster or fights extend over time.

Tactician (Mercenary)

The Tactician elevates the Mercenary into a battlefield controller, using gadgets, traps, and turrets to dominate the arena. She excels at controlling space, punishing positioning mistakes, and amplifying team tactics through utility effects.

Her traps slow, mark, or zone enemies while turrets provide sustained suppression or burst fire. She can drop deployables that form energy walls, or create ally zones that buff critical strike or defense when standing inside.

• Tactical Deployment – reduces cooldowns and boosts deployable uptime.
• Suppressive Grid – grants AoE slow and vulnerability to enemies in trap radius.
• Field Commander – increases team bonuses when allies remain inside tactical zones.

The Tactician is perfect for support-oriented players, PvP-minded tacticians, or anyone who enjoys creating advantage through positioning. In solo or group content, she excels at manipulating the battlefield, forcing enemies into chokepoints, and enabling strategic dominance.

New Items – Uniques, Support Gems, and Active Skills

Patch 0.2.0 introduces a massive injection of new itemization and skill diversity through more than 100 new unique items, over 100 new support gems, and dozens of new skill gems. Together, these additions significantly expand build creativity and power potential across all playstyles.

New Unique Items

Over 100 new unique items have been added, many of which are tightly integrated with the Dawn of the Hunt’s bestial themes. Some drop exclusively from the Apex Predator and its associated encounters, while others are found across the campaign or as rewards from ritual-based systems.

These uniques are not just stat sticks — many introduce new mechanical hooks such as:

• Conditional scaling effects (e.g. power based on number of active summons or enemies afflicted with bleed).
• Transformation triggers (e.g. changing affix behavior mid-combat).
• Azmerian synergy with beast-themed builds and environments.

New Support Gems

The addition of over 100 new support gems completely reshapes how players interact with core skills. Some of the new categories include:

• Companion and Pet-based supports, empowering minions to mirror player behavior or share triggers.
• Momentum-focused supports, that reward sustained movement or chaining attacks.
• Environmentally reactive gems, which activate bonuses when near corpses, enemies, traps, or hazards.

These supports allow for highly specialized playstyles, letting players optimize for conditions like bleed uptime, positioning, or elemental layering.

New Skill Gems

The active skill roster continues to evolve with new entries such as:

• Piercing Fang – a spear-based thrust attack with built-in chaining and piercing.
• Savage Bloom – applies bleeding to enemies, then detonates all bleeds in a targeted radius.
• Bestial Uprising – summons Azmerian spirit beasts that fight in waves and can be empowered through rituals.

These skills synergize directly with new ascendancies like the Amazon, Ritualist, and Smith of Kitava, unlocking powerful new archetypes and build paths.

New Endgame Systems – Wisps, Encounters, and Progression

Patch 0.2.0 brings major transformations to Path of Exile 2’s endgame. These changes not only expand the types of content players can explore, but also refine progression, risk-versus-reward design, and long-term replayability.

Azmerian Wisps

Wisps, one of the most exciting mechanics from the PoE 2 Dawn the Hunt Reveal, add depth and agency to endgame progression. They reward map interaction, enable loot crafting, and reshape how players plan their builds and strategies. Azmerian Wisps are ethereal hunt-themed spirits introduced as a core system in Patch 0.2.0. They appear dynamically during endgame content and can be collected mid-map. Wisps are not just passive bonuses — they directly modify gameplay and progression.

When gathered, Wisps can be:

• Exchanged at Azmeri Shrines for powerful boons, buffs, or ritual effects.
• Used to empower endgame maps, increasing difficulty while unlocking new loot tiers.
• Stored in the player’s Wisp Cache for later usage in crafting or shrine-based upgrades.

Each Wisp also comes in elemental or thematic variants, such as Fire Wisps or Beast Wisps, which determine the type of benefit or transformation they provide. This allows players to curate their runs and optimize for their build.

Some endgame systems even track the number and types of Wisps collected to influence map generation, shrine behavior, or boss mutations. This gives the system incredible build interaction depth and long-term replayability, rewarding not just strength but preparation and planning.

Endgame Improvements

Endgame maps now offer more modular difficulty and deterministic progression systems designed to give players greater control over their runs. Instead of relying solely on random chance or fixed difficulty spikes, Patch 0.2.0 introduces a variety of dynamic modifiers that let players fine-tune challenge and reward levels to suit their builds.

Key improvements include:

• Crafting-enhanced map modifiers – Players can use new tools to imbue maps with modifiers that scale difficulty, boss health, enemy types, or shrine behavior.
• Scaling difficulty based on collected Wisps – The more Wisps you collect, the more dangerous (and rewarding) your map becomes. This encourages skillful and strategic play.
• Optional high-risk modifiers – Maps can be infused with Azmeri challenges that increase monster power, reduce player healing, or spawn environmental hazards — all in exchange for bonus loot or exotic materials.

The overall result is an endgame loop that feels customizable, engaging, and build-sensitive. Players are rewarded not just for raw power, but for crafting their own ideal challenge, pushing harder content when they’re ready, and minimizing friction when they’re not.

Multiple Respawns & Pinnacle Encounters

One of the most player-friendly changes in Patch 0.2.0 is the introduction of multiple respawns per map, particularly in high-difficulty endgame content. Previously, death in pinnacle encounters meant restarting entire zones — a frustrating experience that could discourage players from engaging with harder challenges. Now, you get additional chances per run, which encourages learning, experimentation, and adapting strategies on the fly.

Respawns are balanced based on map type, Wisp count, and optional challenge modifiers. The more you risk, the fewer respawns you may have — but the greater the potential reward. This system allows players to gradually push into higher difficulty tiers without a hard stop from single mistakes.

Complementing this change are Pinnacle Encounters, which act as the most demanding boss fights in Path of Exile 2 to date. These apex bosses are designed to:

• Feature multi-phase battles with escalating complexity.
• Present mechanics that test build efficiency, reaction time, and map control.
• Include scalable difficulty layers based on modifiers and Wisp infusions.
• Drop exclusive loot, including rare crafting components, boss-only uniques, and leaderboard rewards.

These encounters are a true endgame milestone — built for players who’ve refined their builds and want to prove themselves against the game’s toughest content.

New Mapping Mechanics – Towers, Tablets, and Unique Zones

Patch 0.2.0 also enhances exploration through new mapping systems. These mechanics offer greater control over combat pacing, loot paths, and battlefield structure.

Towers and Tablets

Towers and Tablets are two new dynamic mechanics introduced in Patch 0.2.0 that add tactical depth and modular gameplay to mapping encounters. These tools offer players more agency in how they approach challenges, whether through defense, control, or burst engagement.

Azmeri Hunting Towers are deployable structures that players can place at key points on the map. Once activated, they perform a variety of functions depending on their type:

• Offensive Towers target enemies within range with elemental or physical damage bursts.
• Support Towers boost player stats such as damage, defense, or resource regeneration.
• Control Towers create slow zones, traps, or debuffs that weaken incoming foes.

Strategic tower placement enables you to shape the battlefield, creating choke points, defensive zones, or kill corridors. Towers can also be upgraded or modified using Wisp energy to change their function mid-map.

Bestial Tablets, meanwhile, function as ritual-like relics that charge up over time. Once fully powered, they release a high-impact burst depending on their attunement:

• Crowd Control Tablets unleash knockbacks, roots, or AoE slows.
• Healing Tablets pulse restorative effects to nearby allies or minions.
• Summoning Tablets call forth Azmerian spirit beasts to assist in combat temporarily.

Both mechanics promote layered combat engagement, rewarding foresight and positioning. Players can mix and match towers and tablets to tailor each run to their build strengths — turning even randomized maps into carefully orchestrated hunts.

Unique Maps

Several new Unique Maps have been added in Patch 0.2.0, each offering distinctive mechanics, visual style, and narrative flavor. These maps are designed to test player adaptability, while delivering memorable boss encounters and loot potential.

• The Feral Megaliths Map – A brutal open-area map filled with beast dens and roaming alpha predators. The terrain is uneven and split by crumbling stone pillars. Players must fight off waves of wild creatures and survive a feral ritual event tied to the Apex Predator’s origins.
• The Fractured Lake – This eerie, partially flooded map features shifting terrain that opens or closes based on player interaction. It includes mirror-themed mechanics where enemies and even players are split into reflected doubles, creating strategic chaos. The boss encounter leverages water-based traps and clone mechanics.
• The Crystalline Cavern – A luminous, gem-filled cave where light plays a key role in combat. Enemies are empowered or weakened based on ambient crystal energy. Navigating this map requires activating or disabling luminous veins, which alters enemy behavior and loot modifiers. The final boss uses prism-based AoE effects that punish poor positioning.

Conclusion

Patch 0.2.0: Dawn of the Hunt is one of the most ambitious updates Path of Exile 2 has seen so far. With the addition of the Huntress, new ascendancy classes, and a slew of innovative item and skill mechanics, the game’s build diversity has reached new heights. The update doesn’t just offer more — it offers deeper, more interactive gameplay that rewards experimentation and tactical decision-making across all layers of progression.

Whether you're diving into the complexities of Azmerian Wisps, taking on newly reworked endgame systems, or battling through uniquely themed maps and encounters, this patch solidifies PoE 2’s direction as a bold and evolution-driven ARPG. It’s a powerful signal that the game is not only expanding, but doing so with a clear vision of challenge, creativity, and community-focused design. For longtime players and newcomers alike, Dawn of the Hunt is an exciting step forward into Wraeclast’s wildest frontier yet.

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Change Log

• 04.04.2025 - PoE 2 Dawn the Hunt Reveal published.