Everyone Loves Path Of Exile 2's New Act 4, But How Do I Actually Start Playing?

Path of Exile 2 absolutely popped off earlier this week. Its free weekend alongside the new Rise of the Abyssals League update sent the player numbers on Steam to the stratosphere, upwards of 400,000 players. I haven’t played PoE2 since launch and have missed out on a lot of content in-between, but seeing the community’s positive response to the new changes - particularly to trading - and the excitement around the new Act 4 storyline, has finally got me interested in Path Of Exile again.

There’s only one issue. The game is so daunting to start playing. Not only is it an enormous game with dozens of builds and items and new features I’ve missed in the past year, but it’s also a huge timesink. I’m actually a little bit nervous about jumping in again after it dominated my life back when it launched in December 2024.

Creating My Own Build

This time around, there's something I really have to work on. I must resist the urge to just read build guides. I need to use my brain and take it slowly. Try to actually enjoy the game for what it is: an excellent ARPG, rather than skipping everything to try and get to endgame mapping - the process of grinding out new items - as quickly as possible.

Coming up with your own build is part of the experience. Even if it doesn’t seem to be working super well, by the time it really starts to matter, you can look at some endgame build guides if you want. Path of Exile 2 allows a lot more creative freedom with a low cost to respec your build around specific drops you get as you play, so this time I’m not going to blindly follow a guide.

Now it's time to find out whether I’m hooked for the next two months or I bounce off some of its more impenetrable systems and menus like I did last time. There’s no real way of knowing how it’s going to turn out, but I do have some ideas up my sleeve about how I can properly enjoy the game this time around.

I’m Not Going To Rush This Time

I simply rushed myself too fast at launch. Path of Exile 2 is a very pretty game with a stellar storyline, although I can’t tell you much about it now. I succumbed to a classic error: I just blasted through the story, skipping everything, barely stopping to read. As a result, by the time I got to the endgame and saw the game properly unfurl in front of me, I didn’t really have any clue what I was doing.

Thankfully, there were a few Path of Exile veterans in my guild, and they helped me get to grips with some of the fundamentals. I learned how to run maps and theorycraft my build properly. I spent over 100 hours doing so before burning out pretty hard. Other games arrived, and I largely forgot about Path of Exile 2, swearing that I’d return whenever the game left early access.

I thought that was going to be the case, but I’ve just been caught up in the hype around the new league. It has streamlined trading, which is always one of my favourite parts of games where you grind for loot. If I get that awesome drop, I want to be able to flog it to another player for a massive reward. Likewise, I want to realistically be able to get my hands on the best items for my build.

What am I even going to play? I guess I’m just going to stick to my guns of ‘no guides’ and pick purely on vibes. Probably Sorceress. Then I’m just going to calmly play through the game, taking notes as I go about what sort of items I find. I’m not going to follow a meta build guide or pick the class with the most broken abilities. I’m going to attempt to do the unthinkable: sit back and actually enjoy a game.

We’ll see how long that lasts until I’m getting one-shotted on difficult maps and turn to the wisdom of those who’ve already played the game for 2,000 hours, but for now, it’s all on me. Let’s see how far I can persevere.

Path of Exile II

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