{"id":1071677,"date":"2026-01-22T09:40:56","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T09:40:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.polygon.com\/?p=500692"},"modified":"2026-01-22T09:40:56","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T09:40:56","slug":"path-of-exile-2s-fastest-player-is-a-walking-lightning-storm-about-to-cross-the-finish-line","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/path-of-exile-2s-fastest-player-is-a-walking-lightning-storm-about-to-cross-the-finish-line\/","title":{"rendered":"Path of Exile 2’s fastest player is a walking lightning storm about to cross the finish line"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The fastest player in Path of Exile 2<\/a><\/em> looks like he\u2019s playing as a music visualizer. Lightning bolts ping-pong across the screen in sync with the breakneck beats he\u2019s been blasting for the past nine hours on Twitch<\/a>. He\u2019s racing to be the first player in the world to hit the action RPG\u2019s max level, and the competition is fierce.<\/p>\n

Andrew \u201cTidesofTime\u201d Biessener is level 98, just two levels shy of the finish line at level 100. And so are the eight other players right behind him, according to the official leaderboard<\/a>. Experience gains are glacial this far into the game, but he could take the crown over the weekend if he keeps going at this pace.<\/p>\n

A former professional Dota 2<\/em> and Hearthstone<\/em> player, Biessener is defining what professional PoE 2 <\/em>looks like at this stage in early access, and it seems to be a screen full of lightning bolts. His Stormweaver sorceress is a conduit for serious shock damage and speed. Where other classes have to risk getting hit while aiming arrows or charging into monsters, Biessener\u2019s build does the work for him so he can teleport through maps efficiently. All he does is spam the Spark skill and watch thousands of blue bolts clear the dungeon for him.<\/p>\n

Biessener took a short break on Thursday to run through his setup<\/a> on stream, but don\u2019t let his sprawling skill tree scare you. It\u2019s actually pretty simple: Everything runs on mana. One of PoE 2\u2019s <\/em>passive skills<\/a> overloads your shock damage based on how much mana you have, and the Mind Over Matter<\/a> node in the skill tree turns your mana into your life. With no need for regular life anymore, Biessener is also running with the node that reduces it to one<\/a> and makes you immune to chaos damage, the scariest damage type in the game. He\u2019s effectively more mana than sorceress.<\/p>\n

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