Diving into the Path of Exile 2 campaign is an exciting journey filled with challenges and rewards. However, for those looking to speed through the campaign efficiently, having a solid strategy is key. Luckily, Kripparrian shared a guide on his YouTube channel to help us navigate the campaign swiftly, a 7-hour run, so we can focus more on what we want to do. So, let's explore what they are. If you are looking for shops to buy Path of Exile 2 currencies, MmoGah is a good option. We've been in the market for nearly 20 years, and we've got all your needs covered!
Basics
The first thing is the gameplay setup. Show life and mana values in the interface, and show mini life bar above NPCs (Allies and Enemies). It is also really important to highlight items so you can always see items on the ground. This also lets you see vendors and waypoints, making it a lot easier to click.
Equipment
Past the basics, get some leveling uniques, like Foxshade. Foxshade is the only armor with good stats in the game that will make you run faster. Evasion is incredibly good here for going through things quickly and helps you avoid getting hit and stunned. But one thing to notice is the fact that armor can slow you down. Things that have no armor on them slow you down the least. If Foxshade was just armor without Evasion, it would reduce your movement speed by 6% as a multiplier.
Next, get some damage by using Pillar of the Caged God, or you can also get Widowhail Crude Bow. Moreover, it's extremely important to have movement-speed boots. Wanderlust Wrapped Sandals gives you 20% movement speed, which is highly recommended. It's also important to get general gear that has skill levels. Honestly, resistance is not that important. Without it, it can be tricky as you might get one-shotted, but you can try again unless you're playing hardcore, of course. If you can afford it, try to get an amulet with an Anoint, which is a huge amount of power early on. One of the best Anoints in the game is Battle-Hardened, taking 20% less damage from crits, +20% Armor and Evasion Rating, +5% Strength and Dexterity.
Skills
In terms of skills, Heralds of Ice is a good option because, during the campaign, what you are mostly doing is killing trash mobs. Heralds are really good for killing trash mobs because they are like spell triggers for killing. It's also important to get some physical damage as the monsters in the campaign have less stun threshold than every single monster on a map. You can literally stun any monster by only doing physical damage to it. It's a huge defensive layer, especially when you're doing a proactive speed-based play style.
It's also important to get a weapon swap shield because of the shield charge movement skill, which is a skill that allows the player to charge at a location using their shield. Shield charge is available at a very low level. You can keep it at a low level. It works based on your attack speed and movement speed combined, helping you move a lot faster. When you use it, you can turn as you shield charge. You can also cancel it at any moment. It's a good movement skill.
Another standout skill is the basic skill for a weapon. The skill is free, which means you don't need to work with mana. You can put some of the strongest supports, which typically have mana cost multipliers. The quarterstaff strike and the mace strike are the highest damage abilities for single target in the entire game for those respective things that don't have a cooldown. It's nice to have a few extra skills, but using the free skill as your base is very powerful.
For passive skill trees, as you level, you might need some stats. Focus on damage first. In PoE, there's multiplier damage, which is rare, and additive damage, which is abundant. But when you're starting a character, you don't have any additive damage.
Another one is Resistance Penetration. In Kripparrian's case, his leveling character did cold damage, so he went with cold resist penetration. In endgame, these are bad nodes because it's more effective to use exposure and curse to more than double your damage with the said element. However, speed is the priority during the campaign. If you curse, you have to use the curse and a ton of mana, which takes cast time. Curses have a base 1-second delay before they trigger. If you're cursing and then killing in the campaign, it's slow.
Next up is movement speed. Movement speed is the most important. The reason it's not the top priority is that on the passive tree, it's in small amounts. It's unfortunate that movement speed is such a premium, but getting a little bit is nice. The other one is action speed, also called skill speed, which is a new stat in Path of Exile 2. Skill speed is cast speed or attack speed.
Do the Icons with a Plus
Press the U key, and you can see the map. Here, you can see where you are, along with a number of icons around the map. Do the icons with a plus on, as you can get important quest rewards that grant you permanent buffs to your character, which include skill points, percent HP, and resistances.
Manipulate Checkpoints
In terms of managing yourself when you are in a map, it's very important to know how to manipulate checkpoints. When you finish the quest in one certain area, you need to go to the next place to progress. Instead of walking over there, you can press escape and click "Respawn at Checkpoint."
When you do this, it respawns all the mobs in the entire map. Typically, you might think of this as slowing you down, but a lot of the time, if you're playing an efficient build, you can defeat mobs while traversing the map without slowing down, maintaining a pace similar to simply walking through it. So, it's free XP.
You can teleport between the checkpoints, and this function does not reset the map. It's a very powerful feature because if you combine it with Respawn at Checkpoint, you can save yourself a massive amount of time running around the map and get some extra experience on the way. It's really important that if you see a checkpoint on your map, run beside it to activate it. Almost all checkpoints have something to do, and pretty much every single quest in the game has a checkpoint.
Vendors
When it comes to being in town, you will find that sometimes you need a little bit more gear. The vendors in Path of Exile 2 might have good gear options for your level. Use the Ctrl to click and get the stuff instantly. You can also use the control left-click to instantly ID all of your items on The Hooded One. While trading, you can use the search box to look for the item type you want, like inputting rare to search for rare items.
For gambling vendors, one of the things you might consider gambling for is amulets and rings because you might not have full slots for them. If you have only one ring and an empty ring slot, any ring with anything on it is going to be the easiest way to upgrade your character.
Ascendancy
When it comes to the ascendancy points, do the Trial of the Sekhemas, which is the Sanctum. You have to do Sekhemas for your first ascendancy and the Ultimatum Trials for the second ascendancy. The relics are not shared between characters. You have to begin one of the Trial of the Sekhemas and mule the relics from your character to your new character. Generally speaking, you only need relics with resistance. If it's your first character or a character that you haven't fully gotten the most number of relics for, you can utilize the chest rewards. Use your bronze keys at the end to open the Relic Coffers to get some relics.
It's important to know the key levels involved. This also ties into what maps you might do once you finish the campaign. But the levels you get matter. The number of Trials four means you can get your fourth ascendancy point from it. Basically, the breakpoint for three is area level 70, and the breakpoint for four is area level 75. This is important because while you can do it at area level 80, the mobs will have less health and do less damage if you do it at the lowest level, where you can be rewarded with those trials.
