It’s been a while since action RPG Path of Exile 2 announced any new information. We’ve got some sneak peeks here and there, but today we finally get to see a little bit more details on the Ranger class!

The Ranger class is one of the 7 classes that has been revealed, so we’re hyped to get to know more about it. We also managed to score an exclusive interview with Game Directors Jonathan Rogers and Mark Roberts to talk a little more about Path of Exile 2.

Path of Exile 2 will also be following the philosophy behind its successful prequel. The difference is that the game will not have the same ten years of power creep which the original has, which will make it easier for them to experiment in Path of Exile 2. Not only are they introducing new leagues every 3 months, Path of Exile 2 will be reintroducing some of the old leagues from Path of Exile, but with full redesigns and making sure they are up to quality standards for the newer game.

Now with other ARPG’s on the rise, such as Last Epoch and Diablo 4 making constant update, how will Path of Exile 2 match up to it? Well, the game directors of Path of Exile 2 have no fear about the competition. They mentioned that Diablo’s ‘feel’ is more different since they rely a lot on ability cooldowns, which of course changes the flow of combat quite significantly. Path of Exile 2 has a very deep customization base, and not just the passive skill trees.

“Ultimately, what we’re trying to do is kind of, like, innovate in the genre in all areas. So ideally, we should be doing like, if we’re doing our job well, we should be doing better than all competitors in all areas.” – Jonathan Rogers

RANGER DANGER

When asked about the concept design behind creating a Ranger, the game directors had a lot to say about how they successfully experimented with moving while shooting as a Ranger. From then on, they followed their philosophy with all Path of Exile 2 characters, which was to always make sure their classes could and would use a variety of different skills, instead of just focusing on one skill.

“We have to make sure that there’s a lot of interesting interactions between the skills that will lead you to overall having a much higher damage if you combine them. But we don’t like to rely too much on cooldown skills because we feel like that slows the pace of combat down. So with the constraint of having no cooldowns, we somehow need to find a way to make it so you actually use a variety. And what you see with a lot of the different skills going on there that we’re trying to do.” – Jonathan Rogers.

The Ranger class in every ARPG is always known to be the zoomies one. They’re squishy, but they move fast and do a ton of damage. Most if not all Rangers use a bow. One of the movement abilities the Ranger has is called the Frost Escape. Now what it does is, it makes you jumps backwards and shoot a freezing arrow at the ground. This is a great ability to use if overwhelmed by enemies.

Some of the primary abilities the Ranger will have include the Lightning Rod: This makes you shoot an arrow into the air, which will then stick to the ground and attract lightning, causing explosions around an area. The best part about this ability is that you can stack rods on the ground for increased damage. Using this ability is one of the best ways to deal with packs.

However for bigger enemies, you can use Stormcaller Arrow inside: Now unlike Lightning Rod, this ability embeds an arrow right into an enemy, summoning a lightning bolt after a delay. This has a high chance of shocking enemies. Shocked enemies will take 30% more damage from all sources.

Now using our Support Gem System, we can enhance all these abilities for some big follow up combos. You get skills in Path of Exile from skill gems, and each skill gem will have colored sockets in them. These colored sockets are for support gems. We will then modify our skills using these support gems, and this is where a lot of character customization comes from. Here are some examples of what support gems can do to customize the Ranger’s kit:

Multiple Projectile on Lightning Rod: This will increase the number of lightning rods for a quicker setup.
Faster Projectiles on Lightning Rod: Speeds up lightning rod deployment.
Chain on Lightning Arrow: This causes the lightning arrow effects to strike multiple targets.
Less Duration on Stormcaller Arrow: This will obviously speeds up stormcaller arrow’s lightning strike.
Shock Proliferation: Anyone who has the Shock affliction will spread shock to nearby enemies. However, it doesn’t proc on every single pack, but when it does, a pack will go down mega quick.
Empowering: Triples the next attack’s output.

Other than being mobile, the Ranger also has tools which will help slow down enemies. We’ve got Electrocuting Rod which allows you to jump over the enemy and shoot it into them. Once they are in place, any lightning damage that they take will build up an electrocute gauge. Once full, the enemy will be suppressed and BOOM EZ KILL.

Neural Overload: Instantly triggers electrocution on enemies, since it puts enemies at over 50 percent of their electrocute bar.
Frozen Nexus & Deep Freeze on Frost Escape: It slows and freezes enemies when you use your Frost Escape on them, making other enemies nearby slowed as well.

Like every other Ranger kit, we also have the poison kit. The Ranger in Path of Exile 2 has a range poison as well as a plant based skill set. Let’s take a look at what we have:

Vine Arrow makes you shoot an arrow into the air, and it will create a small plant wherever it lands. This plant will then send out tendrils to nearby enemies. This will cause them to slow down and also get poisoned. If the plant gets further poisoned, it transfers that poison to the monsters it’s attached to.

Poison Bloom Arrow creates pustules on the ground which will explode after awhile. Like all the other plant based skills, they respond well to poison. If you shoot this skill at enemies nearby, your plant will grow more and more powerful. When the pustules are poisoned, they do more damage and explode even faster.

Pierce on Poison Burst Arrow: You will get multiple poison bursts as it gets through each monster.

Gas Cloud Arrow is a skill that creates a poisonous area to aid in poison stacking.

Plague Bearer is a Reservation Skill that uses Spirit. When it is enabled, it builds up poison damage to unleash a massive explosion. You will get a counter which you can see once you apply poison to a monster. The counter will show the skill increase as each new monster is poisoned. It takes awhile for the counter to get to 100%, but it is very worth.

Rain of Arrows is your classic Ranger skill. You rain down arrows over an area and do some decent AOE damage.

Corrode Armour on Rain of Arrows: Erodes enemy armor with poison, increasing damage from Reign of Arrows.
Exploit Weakness: Provides bonus damage to targets with broken armor.

With how expansive the Ranger Kit is, I’m excited to hop in and try out a different Ranger class than most are used to. Popping plants everywhere to make monsters’ lives miserable? Count me in! Path of Exile 2 has no official release date just yet, but Path of Exile’s Beta will unfortunately be delayed as they are not happy with the game being polished up enough for testing. The Alpha test will still run in June, so make sure to keep up to date!