I've played Path of Exile for over 8 years and spent well over 9000 hours playing the game. Path of Exile is undoubtedly the best ARPG ever made, the amount of content is staggering and the content cycle has been fast and consistent for years. However the game has had an identity crisis for a long time, I'd argue ever since the Ascendancy expansion where the game was heading in a direction of fast, full screen clearing gameplay and away from the more strategical Path of Exile of the past.

With this latest patch (Expedition, 3.15.) GGG has made it very clear that they have not been happy with the direction the game has been heading in and have now begun the process of reigning back player power and creating more meaningful moment to moment gameplay. Just like how the process of going from strategical, methodical gameplay to zoom zoom was gradual, so will this process. The game is currently in a rough state when it comes to balance, but GGG's vision of the game is for the first time in a long time clear and I like the direction it's heading in.

Play power has been significantly reduced through the form of support gem nerfs on top of a major flask rework. This is something that I like to see. Over the years support gems have gone from being about making interesting choices to simply socketing the largest damage multiplier. Removing a lot of the multiplicative damage from support gems have for the first time in years made gems such as Increased Critical Strikes, Increased Critical Strike Damage, Faster Casting and a bunch of other support gems viable options. On top of that mana cost has increased across the board which has unfortunately killed some builds(Such as Spellslinger) which will hopefully be addressed in a future update. While I like the mana cost changes overall, I do think some numbers need to be tweaked but so far it's making mana a much larger obstacle to overcome. Whether that's in the form of going BM, MoM or using a Mana flask and just dealing with it there are more viable options than before.

The game is in a rough state, and if you're looking to get in to the game for the first time I'd recommend holding off for now if you can. But I'd say revisit the game in 6 months to a year, or maybe even in a couple of years when Path of Exile 2 launches and hopefully many of the issues plauging the game will be gone.

I've played Path of Exile for over 8 years and spent well over 9000 hours playing the game. Path of Exile is undoubtedly the best ARPG ever made, the amount of content is staggering and the content cycle has been fast and consistent for years. However the game has had an identity crisis for a long time, I'd argue ever since the Ascendancy expansion where the game was heading in a direction of fast, full screen clearing gameplay and away from the more strategical Path of Exile of the past. With this latest patch (Expedition, 3.15.) GGG has made it very clear that they have not been happy with the direction the game has been heading in and have now begun the process of reigning back player power and creating more meaningful moment to moment gameplay. Just like how the process of going from strategical, methodical gameplay to zoom zoom was gradual, so will this process. The game is currently in a rough state when it comes to balance, but GGG's vision of the game is for the first time in a long time clear and I like the direction it's heading in. Play power has been significantly reduced through the form of support gem nerfs on top of a major flask rework. This is something that I like to see. Over the years support gems have gone from being about making interesting choices to simply socketing the largest damage multiplier. Removing a lot of the multiplicative damage from support gems have for the first time in years made gems such as Increased Critical Strikes, Increased Critical Strike Damage, Faster Casting and a bunch of other support gems viable options. On top of that mana cost has increased across the board which has unfortunately killed some builds(Such as Spellslinger) which will hopefully be addressed in a future update. While I like the mana cost changes overall, I do think some numbers need to be tweaked but so far it's making mana a much larger obstacle to overcome. Whether that's in the form of going BM, MoM or using a Mana flask and just dealing with it there are more viable options than before. The game is in a rough state, and if you're looking to get in to the game for the first time I'd recommend holding off for now if you can. But I'd say revisit the game in 6 months to a year, or maybe even in a couple of years when Path of Exile 2 launches and hopefully many of the issues plauging the game will be gone.