Summary
Dawn of the Hunt was a massive update forPath of Exile 2, but it arguably failed to live up to players' expectations in several key areas. This doesn’t mean that the patch was a failure, as it did add a lot of meaningful features or made good changes to the foundations of the game, but some of the larger issues were either fixed too late or not at all. For example, the game’sslower combat inPath of Exile 2’s new patch was addressed with some hotfixes, but some major culprits still remain, like the Temporal Chains affix on Waystones. Even the “League” mechanic itself is in need of a rework, but it’s only getting a small part of the fixes it needs.
Dawn of the Hunt is not a full League in true GGG style, as its mechanic is added to the base game directly, and it can be used immediately even in non-fresh-economy Leagues where 0.1 characters were created. However, it is supposed to be a big part of the update, but it hasn’t stuck the landing due to how Azmeri Spirits work.Path of Exile 2’s 0.2.0g patch will partly address this, but not the main issue players have with the mechanic.
The biggest problems with Azmeri Spirits are that they need to be followed to a destination, which can be extremely dangerous in the endgame especially, and the fact that they award very little loot for the effort. The latter is a general issue with the game at the moment, to the point that many players can’tget Divine Orbs inPath of Exile 2, even with high Rarity, and patch 0.2.0g will improve the rewards of Azmeri Spirits. However, the way the mechanic works is something GGG is apparently not addressing, but it is as concerning as loot, if not more.
The current iteration ofAzmeri Spirits inPath of Exile 2makes them appear in random spots in a given zone, and when touched by players, they start fleeing at a rather slow speed until they reach a Rare monster they can possess, making it tougher and more powerful. The problem is that players have to devote their attention to following the wisp all the way to the Rare monster because if not, the spirit will disappear. This means going through packs of monsters that may end up killing the player character, or having to later backtrack to loot found on the way or other relevant parts of the zone the spirit is in.
How Path of Exile 2 Can Improve Azmeri Spirits in Dawn of the Hunt
This is not engaging, and it can be quite annoying, even in the campaign, so the fact that the loot is not there to support this mechanic is an added insult to the injury. Instead, Azmeri Spirits would be much more intuitive to tackle and provide a smoother experience throughoutPath of Exile 2’s campaignand in the endgame if they simply left a trail for players to follow. This could be at the very start of the area, too, so that there wouldn’t be “dead-end” Azmeri Spirits with no Rare monsters to possess if players kill them first.
Then, all monsters in the trail could still be empowered by the respective spirit that passed through them, allowing players to choose where and when they want to fight these monsters instead of drawing aggro from all of them while pursuing the wisp.Path of Exile 2’s new endgame changesalso make Rare monsters visible on the map from the get-go, so it wouldn’t go against design decisions to have the spirit be there already instead of chasing it. Thematically, it would fit perfectly fine, too, since a hunt can be about following a trail or chasing the prey. No mention of whether GGG will address this part of the Azmeri Spirits mechanic has been made so far, so fans will have to wait and see.
