Summary
- Path of Exile 2 endgame offers various ways to farm currency and items, with emphasis on Waystones, Atlas, and unique activities.
- Customizing builds and optimizing Waystones is essential for farming in PoE 2 endgame, except for Trials of Sekhemas and Chaos.
- Trial of Sekhemas in PoE 2 needs rebalancing due to unfair Afflictions, while Trial of Chaos provides fairer gameplay mechanics.
There are many different things to do in Path of Exile 2 to get more currency and items, and while most of them are related to the endgame section, there are a few notable exceptions. Path of Exile 2's endgame is rich in content, as players can farm Waystones as they come, juice the Atlas with Tablets in order to have great Maps, collect Breach Fragments and Simulacrum Splinters to attempt runs of the Twisted Realm or the Simulacrum, respectively, and even more. There are even other activities that don't require the Atlas at all, and one of them is in need of a major shake-up.
Farming in Path of Exile 2 may require some adjustments to builds, the Atlas Passive Tree Skills, or making sure Waystones are optimized in terms of Affixes and possibly even using Distilled Emotions on them. The process is almost entirely customizable, and depending on how strong a given build is and how much currency players can invest in the endgame, the results can vary and improve exponentially. However, this logic doesn't really apply to two activities - Trials of the Sekhemas and Trials of Chaos. The latter is often preferred and even has consistently good loot, but the former is lacking in multiple ways.
One Path of Exile 2 Combo is Bound to Be Nerfed in The Future
Path of Exile 2 has many great builds at the moment, but one interaction is destined to be nerfed in the future given its OP status.
Why PoE 2's Trial of the Sekhemas Needs Big Changes
The main problem with Path of Exile 2's Trial of the Sekhemas is that it not only acts as a roguelike mode with its layout, room selection mechanics, and traps, but it also uses Honour as an accompanying resource for Life, Mana, and Energy Shield. Normally, reaching 0 Life means the character is dead, but one can potentially lose a Trial of the Sekhemas run by staying alive the whole time, and that's if Honour gets to 0. Since any form of damage will reduce players' Honour, it can be quite annoying to run this activity at all levels of play.
On top of that, Trial of the Sekhemas includes multiple Afflictions. Many of these can severely hinder progression in the activity or make it outright impossible for some builds. For example, any Path of Exile 2 build that focuses on Armour, Evasion, or Energy Shield can run into the corresponding Affliction that makes that specific defense 0. These are considered Minor Afflictions too, whereas they would be much more balanced if they reduced that defense by 25% or 33% and were able to stack. In fact, any room that gives players a random Minor Affliction should be avoided because there is a chance their defenses will tank, and the run might fail.
How Path of Exile 2's Trial of Chaos Could Inspire Changes For Trial of the Sekhemas
Another example of Minor Affliction is one that reduces the damage players deal by 40%, which would be much fairer if it instead applied the effects of PoE 2's Enfeeble Curse. Generally speaking, all Afflictions and Boons are massively skewed, to the point that they can dramatically shift the course of a given run even if they are Minor Afflictions or Minor Boons. Rebalancing these would greatly improve the replayability of Trial of the Sekhemas, which only a handful of players use for farming.
By comparison, Trial of Chaos in Path of Exile 2 can be a fair activity even when players run into its worst modifiers. This is because not only do players choose which negative modifier to take among three different ones, but some of the worst ones are still manageable at one or two stacks. Trial of the Sekhemas should use a similar stack-based approach for its Afflictions and Boons, maybe even removing the distinction between Minor and Major.
This change alone could be great for farming Trial of the Sekhemas, as it would remain a punitive Path of Exile 2 activity, but with more player agency and less reliance on RNG, where some runs are doomed from the get-go and others are incredibly smooth. Making the activity more consistent might be exactly what it needs, but fans will have to wait and see if GGG does it or not.
Path of Exile II
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OpenCritic Reviews
- Top Critic Avg: 88 /100 Critics Rec: 100%
- Released
- December 6, 2024
- ESRB
- Mature 17+ / Blood and Gore, Nudity, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Language, Users Interact, In-Game Purchases (Includes Random Items)
- Developer(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
- Publisher(s)
- Grinding Gear Games
WHERE TO PLAY
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, Hack and Slash, MMORPG
