One of Path of Exile 2’s toughest bosses gets patched to be less of a buzzkill
Do you ever find yourself in a gruelling boss encounter, usually several attempts in, only to be swatted by a move that you're sure didn't connect? Outraged, you blurt an expletive and look around for someone to validate your indignation, but there is no one there to respond to your "did you see that?!?" except for your cat—giving you the soft-eyes and blissfully unaware of your plight.
With or without the cat, that's what a fair few Path of Exile 2 players have been going through with Blackjaw, one of the game's more notorious bosses. Baffled by the stoney creature's impossible hitboxes that have been tormenting players since the game's launch, there was an outpouring of vindication on Reddit when patch 0.1.0e announced that it had "improved the hitboxes on a number of abilities used by Blackjaw, the Remnant."
"For once, my 'that's bullshit! That didn't fucking hit me!' was actually true," said one player, while another announced "I KNEW IT!" These comments were upvoted by hundreds of the restless spirits who had unfairly lost their lives to the overreaching triple swings and one-shots of the mace-wielding, fire-breathing boss. Hopefully with this patch, those who had outright abandoned their builds as a result of this encounter may finally find some peace.
Other highlights from the 0.1.0e update include a handy new shortcut that lets you right-click a skill to see its advanced information, and cheaper respecs (especially at higher levels), which players have been crying out for to counteract the game's drastic balancing updates that have been known to break certain builds.
Path of Exile 2 may only be a few weeks young, and is likely to transmog a fair bit as it marches through early access, but one thing is already pretty clear about it: it's not easy. The bosses are teak-tough, and we've even gone so far as to declare it the Dark Souls of isometric RPGs. But challenge shouldn't come at the cost of fairness, so it's good to see Grinding Gear Games patching the game up, one dodgy hitbox at a time.