Path of Exile 2 is shaping up to be one of the most ambitious ARPGs ever made, but ambition comes with growing pains. As players dig into its new systems, classes, and moment-to-moment gameplay, a familiar tension emerges: the struggle between mechanical depth and meaningful choice. Few experiences highlight this better than experimenting with the Tactician,POE 2 Orbs, freeze mechanics, and the evolving support gem system.
This article explores what it feels like to theorycraft and play a freeze-focused Tactician in PoE 2—testing Permafrost Rounds, Frag Rounds, Herald synergies, weapon swapping tech, and the realities of combat feedback, aiming, and progression. Along the way, it reveals both what PoE 2 already does brilliantly and where it risks alienating players hungry for variety.
Choosing Tactician: Commitment Without Certainty
One of the defining traits of PoE players has always been a willingness to experiment—even if it means being wrong. That mindset carries straight into PoE 2. When approaching the Tactician, there’s rarely full confidence that it’s “the play.” Instead, the choice is more philosophical: let’s try this, and if it doesn’t work, we respec.
That freedom is powerful, but it also highlights uncertainty around class identity. The Tactician feels like a class still searching for its strongest expression. On paper, it promises control, tactical positioning, and ranged dominance. In practice, it often feels like you’re testing systems rather than mastering a clearly defined archetype.
This uncertainty drives experimentation—especially with cold-based builds that rely on freeze, chill, and shattering enemies before they can fight back.
Herald of Ice Dreams and Cold-Based Control
A Herald of Ice–inspired build naturally appeals to players who enjoy visual feedback and crowd control. Freeze pops, permanent chill, and shattering enemies mid-animation feel incredibly satisfying. When it works, it really works.
Cold builds in PoE 2 lean heavily into ailments, and freeze becomes more than just a defensive mechanic—it’s a damage multiplier, a control tool, and a safety net all rolled into one. The problem is that freeze is also fragile as a mechanic. Lose your freeze uptime, and suddenly your damage collapses.
This becomes painfully obvious when experimenting with heavy stun mechanics. Heavy stun sounds powerful, but it actively interferes with freeze-based scaling. You’re forced into a strange trade-off: control enemies with stun, or maximize damage through freeze—but rarely both at the same time.
Permafrost Rounds vs. Frag Rounds: Where Is the Variety?
At the core of the Tactician experience is the crossbow, and with it, skills like Permafrost Rounds and Frag Rounds. On paper, this looks like meaningful choice. In practice, it often feels like the variety exists more in gear than in skills.
Permafrost Rounds excel at building freeze and maintaining permanent chill. Frag Rounds deliver burst and clear. The issue isn’t that these skills are bad—it’s that they feel like mandatory complements rather than true alternatives. You don’t choose one over the other; you simply use both.
That lack of divergence feeds into a broader concern: skill variety feels shallow not because there aren’t enough skills, but because many of them feel unnecessary or overly niche.
Weapon Swap Tech: One of PoE 2’s Brightest Moments
One undeniably brilliant system is weapon swap tech. By locking the same weapon across both weapon sets and assigning Permafrost Rounds to one and Frag Rounds to the other, players can fluidly swap skills between left and right click.
This feels good. It feels tactical. It feels like PoE 2 at its best.
Weapon swapping turns combat into a rhythm: freeze buildup, burst detonation, reposition, repeat. When it clicks, it showcases exactly why PoE 2 has so much potential. Unfortunately, these highs are sometimes undermined by mechanical issues.
Combat Friction: Aiming, Targeting, and Feedback
Few things break immersion faster than fighting the controls. There are moments where aiming feels off—shots firing behind the character, hitting shoulders instead of targets, or simply refusing to connect despite clear mouse placement.
In a game that demands precision, these moments are brutal. When a freeze window matters and a shot goes wide for no discernible reason, it doesn’t feel challenging—it feels broken.
Add reflect mobs into the mix, and suddenly every attack carries anxiety. One misstep, one unexpected reflect interaction, and you’re nearly dead. The danger is exciting, but only when it feels fair.
Support Gems: Complexity Without Clarity
The support gem system is one of PoE’s defining features, but in PoE 2, it’s starting to feel bloated. There are many gems that appear redundant, overly specialized, or confusingly named.
Ailment-focused supports, tiered effects, and unclear interactions make it difficult to quickly understand what’s actually improving your build. The result is friction—not depth. When players aren’t sure why something works or doesn’t, experimentation turns into frustration.
This is where PoE 2 risks crossing a line. Complexity is only rewarding when it’s legible.
Gear Crafting: Highs, Lows, and Crossbow Roulette
Crafting remains classic PoE: thrilling, disappointing, and addictive.
Regaling a crossbow and hitting life on hit feels decent. Exalting and landing elemental damage with attacks feels great. But every crafting decision also exposes the fragility of the build. Accuracy issues creep in. Attack speed conflicts with consistency. Flat cold damage competes with physical scaling.
Freeze builds are especially gear-dependent. Without cold penetration, damage falls off sharply against resistant enemies. Bosses with high cold resistance turn fights into endurance tests rather than power fantasies.
Still, when the gear lines up, the results are absurd. Enemies freeze mid-animation. Bosses get deleted. Mobs die and remain frozen long after their HP hits zero. These moments are the payoff.
Boss Fights: From Panic to Deletion
Boss encounters in PoE 2 oscillate between chaos and comedy. Some enemies feel stronger than zone bosses. Others melt so fast it’s hard to believe they were meant to be threats.
Freeze trivializes many fights. Once you establish the rhythm—freeze, detonate, reposition—it becomes almost unfair. Some bosses barely get to stand up. Others break entirely, stuck in frozen loops or bugged states.
When it works, it feels disgusting in the best way. When it doesn’t, you’re asking questions like: How do you dodge this attack? Why is this enemy immune? Why isn’t my character aiming correctly?
The Trade Site Problem: Time vs. Fun
Perhaps the most telling moment isn’t in combat at all—it’s in the trade interface.
Many players would rather run 25 maps than spend 42 seconds trying to understand trade search parameters. That says everything. The system is powerful, but overwhelming. When acquiring gear feels like homework, players disengage.
PoE 2 needs to respect player time as much as it respects their intelligence.
Build Satisfaction and Personal Creativity
Despite all of this—the bugs, the friction, the confusion—there’s something undeniably compelling about creating a build that feels yours.
Permanent chill.
Freeze pops.
Controlled pacing.
Weapon swap mastery.
Even if basic attacks are viable, choosing a custom setup that applies freeze in a unique way feels better. It feels earned. It feels expressive.
That sense of ownership is PoE 2’s greatest strength.
Conclusion: A Game in a Rough Patch, but Full of Promise
Path of Exile 2 is not a finished masterpiece—it’s a work in progress, and sometimes a frustrating one. The Tactician and freeze-based crossbow builds expose many of its current weaknesses: limited skill variety, awkward support gems, aiming inconsistencies, and overcomplicated systems.
But they also showcase its potential.
When mechanics align, when weapon swap tech shines, when freeze turns chaos into control, PoE 2 delivers moments no other ARPG can match. The challenge for Grinding Gear Games is ensuring those moments become the norm rather than the exception cheap POE 2 Exalted Orbs.
For now, PoE 2 exists in a strange space—rough, confusing, occasionally broken, but still capable of brilliance. And for many players, that’s enough to keep experimenting, respeccing, and chasing the next disgusting freeze pop.
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