Path of Exile 2 – Day 3: A Beautiful Adventure Full of X-Input Woes

Platform: PC
Controls: X-Input Controller
Class: Titan
Level: 25

Skills:
Rolling Slam L6 with Overpower and Fist of War
Boneshatter L6 with Execute and Impact Shockwave
Earthshatter L7 with Jagged Ground
Shield Charge L6
Armour Breaker L6 with Martial Tempo and Unbreakable
Infernal Cry L6 with Premeditation and Second Wind
Magma Barrier L6 with Magnified Effect
Perfect Strike L6 with Eternal Flame
Molten Blast L6 with Ignition

Content: Start of Act 2 through Ascension and Titan Grotto

I'm gonna try and format this in a more useful manner. Trying to remember I'm writing for GGG and not for myself.


What's Working:
Honestly, it's a lot! I'm still having an absolute blast. I failed the Trial of the Sekhemas three times, and each time I immediately wanted to go again. Even when I said, “This'll be my last run for tonight,” I immediately rolled again. And that's with a bug that forced me to exit to Character Selection!

Environments are jaw dropping in this act. The caravan is everything I hoped it would be. The Valley of the Titans and the Titan Grotto were particularly incredible. I also love the amount of environmental storytelling that's going on. From the feeling you walked onto some long forgotten battlefield out of myth with the Titan areas, to the way the corruption starts to slowly appear as you fight on the Halani Gates. Incredible work here.

The story is starting to grow on me too. Maybe it's the epic nature of what's going on, but I also think this Act is feeling more like Path of Exile. Ogham felt like it could have been in any dark fantasy world. Yeah, the references to things from PoE lore were there, but the main story thread was very cut and dry and familiar. The Maraketh carry that sense from the first game that there are greater forces at play here, and you're kind of caught between them. They also carry that vibe that at best you're caught between hard and awful choices, while at worst you're definitely not the good guys. Also the hooded one talking about his past and triggering guesses to his identity is fun.

Gold and itemization are much better in this Act. I no longer feel like I can't try to look for new gear upgrades at vendors. Further, I'm finding it easy to keep a few crafting projects moving along. I'm now keeping them in my new rucksack. If you're reading this as an EA player, and you haven't played around with crafting, I highly recommend it. This is what I wanted PoE1 crafting to feel like.


What I'm Struggling With:
At this point I've tried to play around with a few skills now. But it feels like many of them require a lot of investment and setup for skills at this level. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I do find it hard to justify experimenting when my current Rolling Slam into Boneshatter feels so good. Armour Breaker, for example, seems to take forever to really pay off. I'm honestly not sure I would be better trying to get more Rolling Slams in. I mostly use it during boss fights because it's fast enough to use while waiting for openings for bigger attacks.

I also played around with Earthshatter into Infernal Cry. It seems like this is powerful, but it also feels like I'm not doing much of anything while I'm trying to stack the Earthshatters, and the combo eats a ton of mana. I found I couldn't really follow up to take advantage of the Empower I'd gained.


What's Not Working:
There's a reason it's in the title. X-Input has lots of UI/UX issues and bugs. This time all the issues I had were already reported, so I know I'm not the only one struggling here. At this point the only reason I'm still using a controller is to provide this feedback.

Also, while the environment was gorgeous, the Titan Grotto was a real slog. It's such a large and winding area, and the enemies tend to be in small packs and are either spongy or have self destruct attacks. The only fun enemies were the bats. I feel like the encounters could use some work here.
Small note, not sure if it's an actual bug, but there seemed to be some pathing issues in the Trial of the Sekhemas. I kept finding my character getting hung up in some of the narrow areas while using skills, at the worst times of course, with nothing visibly blocking my path. Maybe there was something else going on, but it just felt like my character hit an invisible wall blocking my Rolling Slam, Shield Charge, or Dodge.

Finally a small note for the boss of the Trial's first floor. The area on the basic slams is hard to read. It's not that the game isn't showing it, but the effects that depict how far the slams reach blends in with the arena floor. Had quite a few, “How did that hit me?” moments before I noticed what was going on.

That's it for tonight! Keep up the good work!