Path of Exile 2's Dawn of the Hunt Brings Huntress, Five New Ascendancy Classes On April 4th

Path of Exile 2 is getting one of its first major updates since launching into early access three months ago, and the latest update packs a punch. Dawn of the Hunt hits digital shelves on April 4th and brings a bevy of new content, from the new Huntress class, five new Ascendency classes, a host of new skill gems, as well as new endgame encounters. Here's a quick rundown of what was announced on stream today.

The Huntress

It would be weird for the 0.2.0 update to be called Dawn of the Hunt and not feature something that plays into that theme, so a hunting we must go! Enter the Huntress, a class that is described by the team at Grinding Gear Games as a hybrid of both ranged and melee combat. Using her Spear, the Huntress can damage foes from afar with a well-placed spear throw and then close in for the kill with close combat attacks. 

One of the more unique aspects of the Huntress is her Parry ability, which can open up enemies to devastating counterattacks. During a press preview ahead of today’s stream, Grindind Gear Games' Jonathan Rogers adds that some skills are designed to be used against a recently parried enemy, such as Disengage. 

While normally Disengage does a quick jump back, damaging the enemies in front of you - but if the enemy had recently been parried, Disengage causes an explosion and gives the Huntress a frenzy charge. 

Because the Huntress can do both ranged and melee combat, Rogers states that the team had to find ways to make entering and exiting melee range exciting. As a result, the team has built a class that can weave in and out of close-quarters combat, mixing whirlwind attacks with spear throws that channel elemental attacks. As a result of all this, GGG states that the Huntress is capable of the longest combo chains they’ve ever created on any of PoE 2’s classes.

New Ascendancy Classes

Alongside the Huntress, Path of Exile 2 is getting five new ascendancy classes: The Ritualist and Amazon for the Huntress, the Witch’s Lich class, the Warrior’s Smith of Kitava, and the Mercenary’s Tactician class.

Each of these classes expands the toolkit and power of their base class, such as the Lich’s ability to sacrifice her life to enhance her energy shield. One of the more intriguing classes coming is the Smith of Kitava, who can reforge their weapons before a battle encounter to give them more power, such as causing explosive fire damage with each devastating swipe. However, it’s the way the Smith of Kitava handles armor that could potentially open up some incredible skill building. 

By unlocking a part of the skill tree that is actually free to assign, the Smith is unable to equip body armor with mods of any kind. Instead, being a master smith, you’ll forge armor notables which confer bonuses across your armor as a result. This could be an armor that gives life, resistances, etc. It’s going to be interesting to see how the builds play out.

The Ritualist ascension class for the Huntress also brings some cool gameplay ideas to Path of Exile 2. Effectively she can perform a ritualistic sacrifice on fallen enemies to absorb the power they hold to gain a boon for a short period of time. You can also sacrifice your own blood for bonuses to empower yourself. 

The Tactician is an ascension class for the Mercenary, bringing the power of a Blackguard Elite to the battlefield. Skills such as Suppressing Fire, which can pin all enemies hit in place and stop any action they might be doing, making them an easy target for the Tactician’s arsenal of immense firepower. He’s also able to call in an arrow volley from off-screen, peppering enemies with an AOE hail of arrows. 

The Amazon brings precision to the Huntress class, with skills like Predatory Instinct revealing weaknesses of enemies so you can easily whittle down their health. Critical strike takes your excess accuracy and translates it into upping your critical strike chance, while Elemental Infusion will take any charges you consume and confer elemental damage to your spear, which will now explode on impact when thrown.

Rhoa Mount, Spear Skills, New Maps and More

There will now be faster ways to get around Wraeclast as well, with the new Rhoa mount. You can summon this mount to fight alongside you, and when in a pinch, you can hop on its back and speed away. 

Additionally, the inclusion of the Spear as a weapon with the Huntress brings with it twenty new skills to build around, as well as the new Summon Rhoa Mount skill and a new one, Raise Spectre. This skill essentially traps the soul of a monster, allowing you to raise it to fight on your behalf in your very own undead army of…undead.

Players will also have over 100 new support gems to build around, new unique items and so much more.

Endgame is also getting some tweaks, with new endgame maps - 8 in total - with their own unique challenges and encounters to overcome. Endgame is also being spiced up with new Rogue Exiles, AI exiles that move and react much like human players. These twelve roaming Exiles are designed to provide an interesting endgame challenge. These Rogue Exiles use the same skills players do, and even will have some of the same items equipped - items that will drop as loot if you’re skilled enough to kill them in combat. 

Related:

Path of Exile 2 Early Access Review

Endgame is obviously a massive point of contention right now in Path of Exile 2’s path to 1.0, and Dawn of the Hunt will bring with it massive rebalances to that endgame, from reducing the number of towers to doubling the area that Tablets affect. As a result of all these balance changes, the team does recommend starting a new Exile from scratch when the new league launches next week. 

There will be two versions launching - one where players can take existing Exiles into the new content and a fresh start league with a fresh economy. As mentioned, the team does recommend starting from scratch as everything from class balance to a reconfigured skill tree could make existing builds less effective than they were in the past, and so on. 

Either way, Dawn of the Hunt is set to release on April 4th on PC, Xbox Series S|X, and PlayStation 5.