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Path of Exile 2: Death Penalty, Explained

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3 days ago

January 1, 2025

Christoph Rediske

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What Happens If You Die In Path of Exile 2?

PoE 2 Death Penalty XP Loss Explained

In a lot of RPGs, and especially ARPGs like Path of Exile 2, Death penalties can be a real hindrance. When you die in Path of Exile 2, you can immediately respawn at the nearest Checkpoint if you are in the campaign, or return to the Ziggurat Refuge when mapping out the endgame Atlas.

Path of Exile 2: Hardest Classes To Master

Path of Exile 2’s early access version has six classes that come with their own strengths and weaknesses. Some PoE2 classes are harder than others.

Depending on where you are in the game, dying can either be a mild annoyance or a major setback. This is because during the campaign, dying just resets the map you are on, but in the endgame, dying means you must re-start the map from the beginning with a new Waystone, lose some hard-earned XP, and possibly brick that map if you’ve failed too many times.

What Happens If You Die In Path of Exile 2?

Depending On What You’re Doing, Death Can Be A Major Hindrance

Path of Exile 2 Death Penalty You Died Screen Item Loss

In Path of Exile 2, Dying has a few major effects. In the campaign and in Cruel Difficulty, dying will simply reset the enemies (and spawn new Rares) on the map without resetting the map layout itself. This means you will have to clear new packs of enemies to get back to where you died, but the map layout will not change between attempts.

However, with the map reset comes the removal of any items that dropped. If you die moments before a boss dies, for example, the boss will count as dead for any quests or for map objectives, but any items that drop while on the game over screen will disappear and become unrecoverable upon respawning.

This also happens with bosses that award permanent stat increases – if you kill the King in the Mists moments after your character dies, the Spiritbloom consumable will not be obtainable, and you will have to create a new Instance try again from the very beginning of that zone. Until you re-fight the boss, your character will no longer have that permanent Spirit boost.

You must be very careful to avoid on-death effects and enemies that spawn after a boss has been killed to avoid losing out on powerful items that may drop moments after your own demise. There’s nothing worse than seeing an Exalted Orb, a high-tier Waystone, a Unique, or (in the worst case scenario) a Divine Orb or Mirror of Kalandra drop after you have already died.

If you are playing Hardcore, of course, dying is a permanent death sentence for that character, who will be sent to the Standard realm and will no longer be able to participate in Hardcore mode.

Dying Usually Resets Any In-Progress Trials

Another effect of the map reset can be seen in Trials. If you are taking part in the Trial of the Sekhemas or the Trial of Chaos and die, you will have to restart the Trial from the beginning.

path-of-exile-2-golden-idol-guide-idols-act-3-what-to-do-quest-poe2-1

What To Do With Golden Idols In Path of Exile 2

In Path of Exile 2, Golden Idols are quest items that can be sold to a specific NPC for a small amount of Gold.

In the Trial of the Sekhemas you will get a second chance if you still have any Honor remaining, but enemies will respawn. In the Trial of Chaos, if you die, that’s it – back to square one, Trial Failed. It’s a bit more brutal, so be sure to stack extra resistances and consider re-speccing into more defensive Passives before taking on a Trial.

PoE 2 Death Penalty XP Loss Explained

Start Losing 10% XP Required To Level In Atlas & Endgame

After beating the campaign and moving onto the Atlas system in the PoE 2 endgame, a new negative effect occurs every time you die. While mapping in the Atlas, dying will remove 10% of the XP required to level up from your max XP bar – not 10% of your current XP, 10% of the whole bar. For example, if you are 9% of the way through the XP bar, you will lose all of it, not 0.9%.

Dying while inside of a Map will destroy the Waystone you used to get there and mark the Map as attempted. If you fail enough times, the Map will become bricked and you will have to find another path on the Atlas. If you want to try that map again, you will need to slot a new Waystone.

Throughout the campaign, dying isn’t much of a concern, but as you continue deeper into the endgame getting relevant Waystones becomes much more difficult, and failing a map can mean shelling out money or grinding out low-tier maps for more.

Dying in a Tier 15 map is like losing a handful of Exalted Orbs, when it comes to trade value. The higher the level of the map, the more difficult it becomes to try again if you die, and the more you stand to lose with death.

When the game leaves Early Access the on-death effects will likely be altered. But until changes come, be extra careful not to die at high levels while mapping and consider stacking extra elemental defenses to avoid off-screen deaths. At high levels, 10% can be an enormous amount of XP lost, equivalent to hours of grinding.