Despite the 500 hours of playtime I've accrued over the years, I've always been a pretty casual Path of Exile player. In PoE, 500 hours is rookie numbers: The infamous sprawl of its passive skill tree and labyrinthine gear crafting mechanics still border on the unfathomable to me. For players who aren't instinctively horrified by having to do any amount of math, PoE is an expansive canvas for buildmaking artistry; for me, it's the world's largest character build buffet. I've been standing comfortably on the shoulders of theorycrafting giants—until now.
Thanks to Path of Exile 2's revamped skill systems, I've finally been digging deeper into the fertile loam of buildcrafting with my own hands. As those systems have become more approachable, however, the rest of the sequel's only grown more demanding—and I've only felt glad that it hasn't replaced the original.
