Path of Exile 2's latest patch is "build-destroying," and action RPG fans are now stuck with heavy nerfs thanks to astronomical respec costs

gamesradar.com:

Path of Exile 2 just got a significant new update with a veritable feast of bug fixes and improvements, but it's hard for action RPG players to see the positives when it's also deployed some "build-destroying" nerfs that some are now stuck using.

Amidst the many tweaks, crash fixes, and squashed bugs detailed in the patch notes for Path of Exile 2's version 0.1.0d update, there are significant changes to "trigger gems and energy gain." Developer Grinding Gear Games says: "Trigger gem energy gain was not in the right place and it was far too easy to use ailments to trigger spells. One problem with the previous system is that if we balanced it to make triggering happen in boss fights then the triggering would happen far too often during clearing."

To fix this, it's incorporating 'Monster Power' into the calculation used for energy gain so that it's "far easier to trigger skills from Unique Monsters than it is from normal monsters" overall. On top of that, the patch notes say there was an issue with players "using low-level skills with unconditional ailment applications such as Flame Wall to ignite enemies for triggering. In order to make the source of the ignite matter we are making the energy gain be dependent on the strength of the ignite. We have also rebalanced all energy gain across the board."

Over on Reddit, action RPG players haven't exactly been taking the news well. In particular, builds using Cast on Freeze have been severely impacted, with one saying its energy gain has been "absolutely gutted," and another unlucky player claiming that they "spent 170k on a respec and it was brutally nerfed within an hour."

Even before this latest round of nerfs, the game's massive respec costs had been raised as an issue, but even more people are bringing it up now, since some can't afford to change away from their newly weakened builds.

"The build-destroying patch notes have completely killed my will to play," one says. "Not only are 50+ hours of grinding gone, but how