Diablo-like Path Of Exile 2 is finally out in Early Access and taking over the charts, breaking records on Steam even as its servers buckle under the weight of its long-anticipated debut. And the team behind the action-RPG has wasted no time bringing some of its more OP builds to heel with a series of hotfixes aimed at nerfing skills that were becoming quick favorites among new players.
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“Well we’ve finally hit that point where a skill with unacceptable balance has been discovered!” Path of Exile 2 developers Grinding Gear Games posted over the weekend. “Supercharged Slam is unfortunately dealing far too much damage than was intended given the short channel window required to hit maximum stages.”
The ability is exactly what it sounds like, with players charging up a swing to deal massive damage that increases in successive hits. Many were already building into this skill as an easy way to clear mobs before the change. Now it’s peak damage will go down by 60 percent. But it’s not the only one that got nerfed in Path of Exile 2's first few days of Early Access.
“We’ve found another skill in an unacceptable balance state,” the devs shared on December 8. “Following the same ideals as earlier, we’re also going to be reducing the damage of Magnetic Salvo in the next hotfix.” The result is a 40 percent hit to damage. Gas Cloud explosions were also deemed OP when easily ignited with skills like Flame Wall. “We’ll be adjusting the explosion damage of both Gas Grenade and Gas Arrow for now in an upcoming hotfix,” the team announced overnight. “Fuck,” reads one of the top responses.
Currently, some early players are calling for nerfs to early bosses or the introduction of invincibility frames mid-dodge to make the game less punishing. It seems like some people might be gravitating to whatever broken build they can find currently popping off online in part because they’re struggling with the early game in a way they didn’t in Path of Exile 1 or similar games like Diablo IV.
This exploratory phase is part of the fun of diving into a big new action-RPG though. Path of Exile is a game all about deep character customization that lets players experiment with all sorts of builds until they find something that really suits their playstyle or overperforms in unexpected ways. It’s still the earliest days for Path of Exile 2, which came out in preview mode on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on December 6 alongside its Steam Early Access release (the game is currently $30 but will be free-to-play at its 1.0 launch).
And dealing with unexpected difficulty curves or build nerfs is better than battling down servers or long queue times. “For those still in queue, what we are doing right now is letting in players in batches so that we can make sure to monitor the backend and not overload it,” the studio revealed late on Friday. “Thanks once again for your patience and hopefully it won’t be too much longer.”
Things seem to have improved as of Monday. The concurrent player count recently dipped to 330,000 on PC, down from its weekend peak of 578,562. The record launch came despite equally big debuts last weekend from the likes of Marvel Rivals and Infinity Nikki. December has been anything but a quiet month for games so far.
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