Will beast-trading be possible with Path of Exile 2's Huntress class?

Ever since Grinding Gear Games unveiled the Huntress class' unique ability to tame rare beasts in Path of Exile 2, players have been speculating about its effect on her power scaling and its potential to affect trade. The post-showcase interview has ended that speculation, and unfortunately for trade enthusiasts and future Huntress mains, you cannot trade your special beasts.

Path of Exile 2 players familiar with the prequel will recall the similarities between the Azmeri beasts of the first and second titles. These special animals are slated to have unique and powerful modifiers that make them formidable foes in combat. The Huntress' resourceful nature turns these foes into potential allies to be tamed, thanks to the Tame Beast Skill Gem.

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So what can you do with the beasts in Path of Exile 2?

Yes, you can summon rares to fight for you (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

According to Game Directors Mark Roberts and Jonathan Rogers, the developers initially started with a much broader scope regarding the beasts and companions. However, they slowly narrowed it down to where the beasts would be mechanically interesting but not affect a player's daily gameplay with additional work.

Grinding Gear Games provides a simple reasoning behind its decision to make beasts untradeable:

"Once you have tamed the beast, it is not tradable. And people might immediately be like, "Oh, that's sad."... I'm sure you don't want to be carrying around a whole bunch of tamed beasts in your inventory, all the time."

As per Mark, this step was taken to partially remove the inevitable inventory clutter from beast trading and reduce some of the extra busywork of measuring each beast, based on the modifiers and beast type, to find the ideal one for trade. This essentially removes the min-max aspect of extracting profit in favor of smoother gameplay.

"It's actually like this annoying...in order to make most money, I have to be constantly thinking about and carrying around tamed beasts."

The developers didn't stop at making beasts untradable. In true GGG fashion, they adeptly addressed the issue of using potential third-party options to "trade" beasts. Now, if you have a powerful beast in your Waystone or zone, your instance will be isolated once you tame it, so no one can join in and capture it. As Jonathan puts it:

"We also made it so that as soon as you activate a beast, no one who comes into the instance after that is allowed to tame it, so you can't just TFT the instance."

For context, TFT, also known as The Forbidden Trove, is the largest third-party trading environment that solely serves both Path of Exile titles. This has been a major driving force behind the active trading infrastructure of both games.

This comes as a blow to traders, who were likely excited for a new avenue of generating currency in Path of Exile 2, now that Breach is nerfed. This also indicates that PoE2 is developing into a distinct game, free from the prequel's shadow, where beast trading is a full-fledged and profitable league mechanic.

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Check out our other PoE2 features and guides:

• Path of Exile 2 patch 0.2.0 will add third Mercenary Ascendancy, likely with hirelings
• Path of Exile 2 Huntress class: Overview, Skills, and Ascendancies
• Path of Exile 2 Amazon Ascendancy overview and passives
• Path of Exile 2 Smith of Kitava Ascendancy overview and passives
• Path of Exile 2 Ritualist Ascendancy overview and passives
• GGG is doubling down on Towers in Path of Exile 2 patch 0.2.0, now with bosses and league mechanics
• Every new League mechanic in Path of Exile 2 Dawn of the Hunt (0.2.0)