Path of Exile 2’s New Class Lets You Tame Beasts And Fling Tornadoes Next Week
The thrill of the hunt.
Path of Exile won players over with its extremely customizable character builds, and its sequel in early access is already poised to outdo it. Path of Exile 2 launched into early access in late 2024, giving players their first taste of the potential Diablo 4 killer. Since then, it’s gotten a series of smaller patches, but its most important update yet is about launch, and it could be a game-changer.
On April 4, Path of Exile 2 gets the Dawn of the Hunt update, bringing new character upgrade options and mechanics, but the headline feature is a whole new class that can fight at any range and even turn roaming enemies into allies. The new addition offers a more flexible playstyle than anything already in the game, plus some wild new mechanics that no other class even approaches.
The namesake of the Dawn of the Hunt update is the Huntress, a new class that can use throwable spears in both close and long-range combat. Moving in and out of melee range is actually a core part of the Huntress’ toolkit, with skills that reward dashing between ranges. Some of the Huntress’ melee abilities leave lingering effects that only detonate when you disengage from combat, like a new parry that leaves melee enemies vulnerable to damage that triggers when you jump to long range.
Grinding Gear Games revealed the Huntress and more coming in the new update in a livestream.
The Huntress also uses nature-based magic with elemental effects to deal direct damage and modify other abilities. For instance, one Huntress skill lets her unleash damaging tornadoes on enemies, and another imbues thrown spears with fire. Combining those abilities lets her unleash fire tornadoes for even more destructive potential — though the effect is cool enough that it would still probably be fun to use regardless of how effective it is. Other abilities shown off in the Dawn of the Hunt reveal include calling a beam of fire from the sky and summoning animal spirits to fight for you.
But the thing that really sets the Huntress apart from the rest of Path of Exile 2’s classes is her ability to work with flesh-and-blood beasts side by side. In addition to summoning spirits, the Huntress can tame beast enemies that appear in the game to fight alongside her. Any beast in the game can be tamed, and when they are, they’ll keep any mods already attached to them. That means that you can come across rare beasts with effects like buffing allies or dealing extra damage, and turn that into an advantage by bringing them over to your side. Only one beast can be tamed at a time, so choosing when to swap out your companion for a better one could be an important part of the Huntress’ strategy.
Overall, the Huntress looks like it will be one of the most versatile classes in Path of Exile 2, not to mention one of the coolest. That could very well lead Path of Exile 2 seeing something like Diablo 4 being overrun by Spiritborn when the extremely powerful new class was introduced in Vessel of Hatred.
The Warrior’s Smith of Kitava ascendancy class lets players customize their own armor.
Dawn of the Hunt also introduces new advanced ascendancy classes, which are unlocked by completing late-game trials. The Huntress herself gets the Ritualist and Amazon ascendancies. The Ritualist can absorb powers from slain rare enemies and spread plague among foes, while the Amazon gives more straightforward boosts to her fighting ability. The Mercenary and Witch classes also get new ascendancies that enhance their abilities, but one of the most interesting ascendancy classes introduced in Path of Exile 2 yet is the Warrior’s Smith of Kitava. This class lets the Warrior reforge weapons on the fly to grant them new powers and elemental attributes. The Smith can optionally turn on an ability that makes them only able to wear basic body armor, in exchange for the ability to grant themselves custom defensive bonuses. The effect is akin to crafting new armor for yourself using the Smith’s skill tree.
Path of Exile 2 is still a long way from its 1.0 release (Dawn of the Hunt is technically version 0.2.0), but developer Grinding Gear Games says it’s more likely than not that the full launch will happen this year. Seeing a class that’s as big of a leap as the Huntress this early on certainly bodes well for players hoping for a meaningful update to the original game.
