Yeah, I'm playing melee, it's rough, properly difficult. Some of the bosses are really hard, I lack movement to get out of AoE attacks, some of which proc things that slow or tick down health. I'm sticking with it though, I have a feeling that this class will shine further on (like Void builds in PoE, which were kind of pushovers during the first 3rd of the game).

Also, they just crossed the 500k mark for concurrent players. This is by far the most successful game release of 2024, all things considered (size of studio, budget, marketing, expectations etc.).

Edit: Jesus, these bosses are tough as hell, I'm getting my ass kicked all the time.

I'm interested... but the first one's still on my backlog, waiting for me to have time for it. Before that, I'll probably want to play even more of Grim Dawn and Titan Quest from the same genre, so... it's not looking great for the Path of Exile games on my part. Incidentally, the acronym PoE also happens to remind me of Pillars of Eternity, which I should finish some time (and play the second one as well). So many interesting games, so little time!

Normally in POE1 I can get through the campaign with no deaths, or maybe just 1-2 if I did something silly.
Here I think I died like 10 times before getting to act 2.  

Can you imagine playing this hardcore? death = character deleted...  I can't for the life of me.

I went for evasion/energy shield build, passive wise.
The "big" nodes for me are:
subterfuge mask (gain +2 evasion for each point of energy shield on helmet).
spectral ward ( +1 energy shield pr 12 evasion rating on body armor).

I went full defense... instead of damage.
As a result things take abit longer to kill.

Yeah it's quite hard. I'm currently playing as the mercenary and having a great time. In the ogham farm area at the moment

enjoy "the mad wolf of ogham"  :)

That f***er killed me like 15 times.
Almost quit right there and then, and re rolled.

Man this game is though, and again still haven't really found my grove with it, compared to poe1.

When you do the quest that lets you pick your first charm, I heavily suggest you take the one against freeze.
Even then, this fight man... jebus.

On monk, his heavy armor (which you cant break as monk) and his high cold resistance... make this fight so hard.
Probably easy on other classes but man, this was a struggle for me.

edit:

This guy is a much better player than me.
he made it look easy:



This fight almost broke me lol.
(he shows his passive tree..... he went like full damage.... maybe that is why he does it so much quicker and easier. I went full evasion/energyshield.... and I'm not happy with it (need to respec)).

Yeah just beat him on my 2nd turn, onto act 2 now

wow... only 2 tries? O_O then again playing ranged is so much easier, than melee.

Did you happen to have lots of gear with cold resistance on it?

I had a charm that grants immune to freezing. Was level 16 when i beat him

POE 1 expert here...finding POE2 very difficult!

Does anyone else find the new skill system less intuitive? When they first revealed it - it seemed to make so much sense, but now as I get into it I feel a bit lost if I don't want to play the recommended skills. But the recommended skills are feeling weak...playing as a Monk.