Many Path of Exile 2 players want free respec in Early Access, here's why

Within the first week of Path of Exile 2 going live on Early Access, players have already seen over five Skills nerfed. While short-order balance tweaks are to be expected in this formative phase, all of these nerfs have been relatively big. The triggered Metagem nerfs from last week, in particular, have hit a few popular builds hard, with Cast on Freeze shenanigans rendered especially non-performant.

Finding their freshly nerfed character stuck between a rock and a hard place, many players are asking for a free respec.

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Nerfed builds are leading some players to ask for a free respec in Path of Exile 2

A few players are feeling stiffed by the Gold scarcity (Image via X, GGG)

As a time-honored tradition of ARPGs, build nerfs are an occupational hazard all Path of Exile players are familiar with. However, they are usually chalked up to fresh seasonal updates, which lets players complete their builds and enjoy the overturned stuff for a few months. With Path of Exile 2, the overturned stuff in question got nerfed a few days into its Early Access release.

The developers explained their reasoning behind this in an X post about a week ago, saying:

"As much as we are trying to avoid nerfing skills and builds, it is better to do this early before it feels obligatory to use the skill. It is important that a wide variety of skills feel viable and fun to play and it simply diminishes all other abilities when one is clearly outshining the others like this."

In this initial phase of the Early Access, Path of Exile 2 does not have any Challenge League yet. To utilize this phase, the developers are treating it as a calibration period to balance out skills so that it will have a more even base to build upon.

A formative phase somewhat justifies meting out nerfs at such an early point, but the problem is that it leaves a few players in a tricky spot.

Ironically, the most damning nerf was not to stamp out the raw damage of a Skill, but to overhaul a system interaction. We are specifically talking about the Path of Exile 2 Triggered Metagem nerfs explained here, which have rendered a once powerful build sluggish at best and unplayable at worst.

Even Cast on Crit builds were not unaffected (Image via Reddit)

It's possible to pivot the build and salvage the character to make use of another interaction. Swapping Gems is easy enough, and swapping gears will only set you back a few Exalts if you want something battle-ready. The problem with short-order build renovation lies in the Passive perk respec.

Path of Exile 2's respec system is more accessible than the Orb of Regrets shenanigans in the first game. However, the currency used for this is Gold, which is also in high demand elsewhere in the game.

With two different gear vendors and a gambling vendor in each town hub, the game highly incentivizes you to fish out useable gear to rapidly upscale your build, which leaves many players with little Gold reserves for contingency plans. A contingency, such as a point where your build gets nerfed mid-campaign, and you need to respec your Passive Skill tree completely.

It's possible for a player who hasn't beaten Act 3 yet to find their current build unfit for the task. Gold is an account-wide currency, so the choice at that point would be to go bankrupt trying to get a substantial respec, start a new character, or — for the enterprising few — find another stopgap build to get them across the finish line.

On the one hand, making respec free is a way for players to bounce back. On the other hand, that would lead to a Gold inflation that skews the data on how the developers should balance the vendor economy.

It's uncertain whether GGG will consider making Passive respect free temporarily or introduce one-time tokens like Scroll of Amnesia from Diablo 4. If the silence on the topic is any indication, it's none of the above.

If your Path of Exile 2 build got bricked, you should probably start anew, empowered with game knowledge and the intuition to avoid builds that seem too powerful at the moment.