What do you think of the new 0.2 patch?

I think it's fair amount, and i think the reason people feel like it isn't might be because they're subconsciously comparing the amount total of content in PoE2 to PoE1.

I'm also waiting to see how much re-balancing/re-structuring they've done to the skill tree. They said they were going to bulk most of the balancing changes in major patches, so I'm expecting things to be very different.
If they've made a lot of big, obvious changes in this regard, then no one should be calling this patch small or insignificant.

I think people are taking the amount of changes to be as much as discussed in the reveal stream. There is a good chance that patch notes might shock people in terms of how much has changed. They just didn't discuss it in details which is reasonable if there are way too many things that have changed. They also said the same thing in the stream- forget everything u know about poe2, everything has changed.

I urge everyone to wait for the patch notes before jumping to a conclusion, 0.2 has a very good chance of being good and refreshing.

I think the new witch ascendency should change where some of the passives are placed, the unholy might bonuses are on different branches for some reason according to the press release, this is also true of the curse bonuses - I hope this is just an error in the press release.

For the huntress, I think the node that allows leech of elemental damage is an issue - but not because it isn't good, but because LEECH SHOULD APPLY TO MELEE DAMAGE AND NOT BASED ON IF IT IS PHYSICAL. As in the existence of this node is a symptom of a bigger problem. Her skill on the other ascendency that allows an extra ring and that increase ring values are BUSTED, equivalent to one of the chase uniques(and if you get that chase unique it goes to the moon).

For the officer.... "watch how I do it" needs a MASSIVE buff. Because it will be better just to run a low grade sceptre in your main hand than to run any melee weapon with that ascendancy point, and that is just counting the damage, not even mentioning the extra spirit that you get to spend on more auras or minions. Also "stay light use cover" may be supobtimal due to its cap effect, also "cannons ready" is likely not as good because they wait until you fire projectiles, meaning the attack speed increase is actually LESS than 30% due to the wait.

I think I like everything they have changed and added.

However, XP Loss still present == must play boring content == endgame boring.

It doesn't matter that much to me how much they improve the rest of the game so long as they keep refusing to let us play a difficulty that's fun for us.

Sure, some players love grinding mindlessly easy stuff with no risk of dying. That's fine, their experience won't be diminished at all by getting rid of this stupid archaic anti-fun mechanic completely.

But at least they took a step in the right direction with Pinnacle bosses. Now they just need to realise this same issue applies to every piece of challenging content.