The quickest participant in Path of Exile 2 appears like he’s taking part in as a music visualizer. Lightning bolts ping-pong throughout the display screen in sync with the breakneck beats he’s been blasting for the previous 9 hours on Twitch. He’s racing to be the primary participant on the planet to hit the motion RPG’s max degree, and the competitors is fierce.
Andrew “TidesofTime” Biessener is degree 98, simply two ranges shy of the end line at degree 100. And so are the eight different gamers proper behind him, in response to the official leaderboard. Expertise beneficial properties are glacial this far into the sport, however he may take the crown over the weekend if he retains going at this tempo.
A former skilled Dota 2 and Hearthstone participant, Biessener is defining what skilled PoE 2 appears like at this stage in early entry, and it appears to be a display screen stuffed with lightning bolts. His Stormweaver sorceress is a conduit for severe shock harm and velocity. The place different lessons need to danger getting hit whereas aiming arrows or charging into monsters, Biessener’s construct does the work for him so he can teleport by way of maps effectively. All he does is spam the Spark ability and watch hundreds of blue bolts clear the dungeon for him.
Biessener took a brief break on Thursday to run by way of his setup on stream, however don’t let his sprawling ability tree scare you. It’s truly fairly easy: Every thing runs on mana. Considered one of PoE 2’s passive expertise overloads your shock harm primarily based on how a lot mana you have got, and the Thoughts Over Matter node within the ability tree turns your mana into your life. Without having for normal life anymore, Biessener can be working with the node that reduces it to 1 and makes you resistant to chaos harm, the scariest harm sort within the sport. He’s successfully extra mana than sorceress.
There are 5 different sorceress gamers within the high 10 who’re utilizing an identical, if not equivalent, construct. Such is the facility of discovering a single attribute — in a sport overflowing with them — that does all of it. Fortunate loot drops aren’t even an element at this degree of play. Shopping for objects off different gamers is the one approach you’re going to seek out the right gear, which implies the race is essentially a marathon of clearing by way of dungeons as quick as attainable. One Reddit person tallied up all of the totally different lessons within the leaderboard of the highest 1,000 gamers and it’s overwhelmingly Stormreaver sorceress.
However second place is definitely an Invoker monk who’s round an hour behind Biessener, pushing him to maintain going. “I can’t cease as a result of the Invoker gained’t cease,” Biessener mentioned on his stream Friday.
If Biessener’s Steam profile is any indication, it’s taken him over 260 hours to get this far. I’m not fairly world document tempo 60 hours in with a degree 66 witch, however there’s at all times subsequent time.
Path of Exile 2 is accessible in early entry on PlayStation 5, Xbox Sequence X, and Home windows PC.
