Path of Exile 2 player beats final campaign boss bare-handed (on a Ranger build)

Modified Jan 12, 2025 17:05 IST

path of exile 2 player kills final boss with punches — Death by a thousand R1s (Image via GGG/Konami)

Path of Exile 2 prides itself on enabling eccentric builds that wouldn't seem like it should work. While the meta filtration toward ES-stacking Invokers and Sorceresses would say no to that, one player proved it with their "off-meta build." The build in question: punch things with your bare knuckles till they die.

Redditor llnesisll demonstrated their martial abilities by beating the Act 6 (Cruel Act 3 at the moment) boss Doryani with the power of fisticuff (singular, the off-hand held a Shield). From the fact that it's a Ranger (as confirmed by the player's comment) to the for-show mana flask, there's a lot to unpack here. In a break from the usual Skill-particle explosion visuals of Path of Exile 2 boss fight, this is the most apt recreation of the much-revered Raiden-vs-Armstrog setpiece.

How Path of Exile 2 rewarded the player's death-by-a-thousand-punches build in several ways

Path of Exile 2 makes it a point to introduce "some level of challenge" to melee by the Creative Director's admission. It's a well-known fact by this point that melee is supposed to be harder than caster builds, as you'll have to engage more often with boss mechanics and try desperately not to facetank hits.

Nesis' video, though, proves to be the perfect antithesis to that proclamation: they exclusively used regular melee strikes with a fist to lay waste to the final campaign boss (thus far). Even though they do have a Shield, they never active blocked, instead relying on pure reflexes and some moral encouragement from their token starter mana flask (the build doesn't use any mana).

To make it even funnier, the entire fight was done with a zoomed-in camera, almost invoking a retro God Hand vibe. Somehow, this narrative even has an accidentally compelling payoff. As the player walked toward the post-ceasefire Doryani to throw a few more ritualistic punches, the boss' loot drops rolled a Divine Orb.

All fun aside, it's viable to make builds based on the pure DPS of non-Skill melee strikes, as there's various ways to scale them. However, "viable" here doesn't, translate to a fun experience; as such, a build would leave you with no quick option to deal with monster packs other than individually punching them, God Hand-style.

As countless will praise the sheer grit of beating a two-phase final boss with just bare-fisted punches in Path of Exile 2, the Divine Orb sure sets the player up for an easy way to build-swap in the Atlas (provided they're in a trade league).

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Edited by Angad Sharma