Monsters in Path of Exile 2 hit hard, and they have all sorts of nefarious means to surround you. I had seen some streamers get absolutely ranched playing the demo, so at the beginning I took it very slowly POE currency trade , and I'm glad I did. Like in PoE's Ruthless mode, I didn't have juiced movement speed from gear, teleports, or spells that blew up the whole screen. What I did have was a dodge roll, and boy did I need it. A new feature in PoE2, all characters get an unlimited dodge roll that doesn't require a skill gem and can even animation cancel if you're stuck in a big attack and need to move immediately.

(Image credit: Grinding Gear Games)
All four playable characters in the demo had this dynamic: multiple skills to use, none of which were good all of the time, but all of which were great some of the time.

At first I crawled. I got stuck. I died. As I got acclimated, however, things started sliding into place. The regular staff attacks on the monk didn't do a ton of damage, but they did have a small AoE and a bit of stagger, so I could use them to stave things off. Falling Thunder did unreal damage, but I needed power charges to make it work. Killing Palm could get me those charges, but was sluggish to use and put me at risk.

Before long I was cruising through Act 1 with the Monk, darting in and out of combat, slowing monsters with waves of frost before lunging back in to finish a couple off, building some power charges, and then dodge rolling out and blowing everything else up with a huge finisher. All four playable characters in the demo had this dynamic: multiple skills to use, none of which were good all of the time, but all of which were great some of the time. As much as I love PoE 1, sometimes you just flip on your Righteous Fire and go walking simulator mode while mobs die around you, no buttons pressed. Combat in PoE 2 is a lot more dynamic POE buy currency .