Crispy Jackie 
Eight build videos a day, two channels, more than 4,300 uploads, and whichever game's meta is moving fastest that week. When a build tops the PoE 2 popularity charts, there is a fair chance the ranking passed through KaidGames' factory first. With developer Grinding Gear Games (GGG) preparing to stamp 1.0 on the game, we asked him to open that factory up: who actually makes the meta, what the OP titles hide, and what AI summaries are doing to the people who feed them.
KaidGames is based in Europe; the exact country he prefers to keep to himself. He started making YouTube videos about Fortnite while still in school and went full-time as soon as he finished it. When interest in his Fortnite niche declined, and MMOs pulled him in, he opened a second channel. For the past five or six years, he has covered almost any game he enjoys across both main channels, with a few side channels and other projects running alongside.
“Probably around 80% is spent producing the videos rather than playing the game”
Q: Across your two channels you've published more than 4,300 videos, and lately you've been putting out around eight a day. Take one specific day and break it into hours: how many hours are spent on actually playing, how many on Path of Building and spreadsheets, how many hours are spent on recording and editing? And of those eight, how many are built from scratch versus rebuilt from something you already had?
Kaid: In one day, I roughly work 12-14 hours. About an hour and a half went into actually playing and testing, another hour and a half into reviewing PoB setups, poe.ninja data, spreadsheets, notes and material sent to me by other friends, and the remaining ten hours went into scripting, recording, editing, thumbnails and publishing. Over many years of covering different games, I've built communities and made friends who are also playing the game, so they provide a lot of the build insights and gameplay showcases that you can see in my videos. I normally take one or two builds as far as possible myself during each update, but most of my time, probably around 80%, is spent producing the videos rather than playing the game. Out of eight videos in a day, six or seven will normally be completely new videos, while one or two might rebuild an existing guide or tier list after a balance change. If something changes slightly, I would rather update the important parts and get accurate information to viewers quickly than unnecessarily recreate everything from zero.
Q: So there is a whole machine behind the eight-a-day. Show us that machine from the inside: how many people feed you material in a league's first week, and how does it actually reach you day to day?
Kaid: There are several stages. A few weeks before a league launches, we start testing leveling builds and preparing guides. When the patch notes arrive, usually about a week before launch, we update anything that needs to change. Once the league starts, I play with 5 to 10 friends. Each of us picks a favorite class and tests its different ascendancies. I also use poe2.ninja and the leaderboards to find popular, efficient builds that we can improve and cover. At any given time, I may be working on 5 to 10 builds. Once I have checked the numbers and gameplay, I write the full script, review it with the player who created and tested the build in-game, and then we produce the video.
Q: When 0.5.4 landed on June 24 and added an entirely new Expedition Atlas passive tree overnight, roughly what share of your existing PoE 2 build videos were wrong by morning? And what's your policy - do you go back and correct or unlist them, or does the archive stay up as it is?
Kaid: Roughly zero percent of my existing PoE 2 build guides became wrong because of the new Atlas passive tree. This tree change went more to which monsters and content we farm and what rewards we get, but it didn't directly change how our character build functions. The main effect on my content was that I stopped including a separate recommended Atlas tree segment inside every build guide, but instead I just made a single dedicated guide about the Atlas itself. As for older videos, I generally do not unlist them just because a build has changed or fallen out of the meta. I publish an updated version and link it prominently in the description and pinned comment so viewers can immediately find the current information.
“I could probably have shown people twenty other builds”
Q: Take us through the pipeline. When a “top 10 best builds” list goes up four days into a league, how much of that ranking comes from builds you personally played into maps, and how much from reading where the community and the ladder have already landed?
Kaid: For a “top 10 build” video made during the first few days of a league, I would estimate that around 10% of the ranking comes from builds I have personally played and around 90% comes from community research. That includes recommendations and gameplay from friends, ladder results, poe.ninja statistics, build sites, streams, and wider player feedback. It is impossible for one person to take ten different builds deep into the endgame within four days while also producing several videos every day, so having a reliable network is essential. Ice Shot Deadeye is one recent example of a build I ranked without personally taking it all the way through maps. I based that recommendation on the results of people I trust, its ladder performance, and the amount of powerful gameplay that I saw.
Q: Has that ever gone wrong - a build that went into a list of community results and turned out to be a trap once people played it deep?
Kaid: After covering hundreds of builds, there have naturally been a few that did not turn out as strong as expected, although it happens rarely. More often, an update or patch weakens or breaks a build, in which case I publish an updated build guide or tier list. No single example stands out, but if I had to name one, it would be the Raven Flock minion build. It has not fundamentally changed my process, because I focus on covering a high number of builds, so I accept that occasional misses are part of the work.
Q: There's a theory that the ARPG meta is no longer discovered by players - it's decided in the first 48 hours by a handful of guide channels and build sites, and everyone else follows. From the inside: is that true?
Kaid: I think that theory is partially true, especially for league starters. In a complicated game like PoE 2, creating and properly testing a build can take a huge amount of time, so most players naturally follow the creators and streamers who have already done that work. The initial league start meta can be established within the first 48 hours, but one of my favorite things about PoE is that the meta rarely stays the same. New discoveries, balance changes, and buffs or nerfs can change it almost every week, and with hundreds of skills available, there is always the possibility of another build appearing.
Ice Shot Deadeye in 0.5 is a good example of a build that became especially popular because a top streamer was playing it. It was absolutely a strong build, but I could probably have shown people twenty other builds performing at a similar level; Ice Shot simply received the most attention and therefore became the statistical meta. I don't necessarily think that is bad for the game. It's just a natural result of builds being so complicated.
Q: Name a few from that twenty - builds that were just as strong in 0.5 but never became meta because nobody big picked them up.
Kaid: Falling Thunder Martial Artist, Frost Darts Gemling Legionnaire, and Glacial Bolt Witchhunter. All three were extremely strong, but larger creators did not cover them as much, so they never became as popular within the PoE 2 community.
Q: What's the one build your audience reliably clicks on that you personally think is bad - and why do you keep making videos about it?
Kaid: If I had to choose one, it would be spell totems, in almost any variant. I don't necessarily think the build is mechanically bad, but I personally find it fairly boring to watch and play, and I can usually think of several alternatives that look more exciting while performing just as well. However, viewers really liked spell totem builds this league and consistently wanted more information about them. My job is not only to cover the builds I personally enjoy, but also to make useful videos about what the audience actually wants to play, so that's what I try to focus on.
Q: Every one of your recent titles says a build is OP, insanely OP, or got massively buffed. Is there room in this format to publish a guide that just says a build is fine? What happens to the numbers when you try?
Kaid: There is, of course, room to publish a guide that says a build is simply fine, but it is much harder to get people to click on it. After making videos for many years and covering many leagues, I naturally keep changing the language. From using only the build name, to “best,” then “S-tier,” and now words such as “buffed” or “OP.” I have tried more neutral packaging, and although I cannot give one consistent percentage across every game, those videos normally begin with a lower click-through rate and receive fewer initial views. A very large streamer can upload almost anything related to the game and still attract an audience, but smaller and mid-sized creators have to use every reasonable tool available to compete for attention. So this type of title gets the viewer through the door, and then the actual video still has to honestly explain the build's strengths and weaknesses.
“This type of title gets the viewer through the door, and then the actual video still has to honestly explain the build's strengths and weaknesses.”
“A delayed second part of the update”
Q: Runes of Aldur is a rework of Expedition: Ezomyte Remnants now spawn inside endgame Expeditions, and Verisium runeforging puts Runic Ward on armor. As someone who has to turn every new system into a working build within days: is that a genuinely new crafting layer, or Expedition with more steps?
Kaid: I see Runes of Aldur as meaningful new content stacked on top of Expedition rather than a completely separate thing for creating builds. The major complaint before this update was that the endgame did not have enough content, and this rework adds much more to do while giving existing characters additional crafting and defensive options. Runeforging can improve many builds through effects such as Runic Ward, but I cannot point to one major meta build that exists exclusively because Runeforging was added. It strengthens and expands existing builds more than it creates an entirely new one that is on the same level as other meta choices.
Q: 0.5 was announced as the final early access update, and Jonathan Rogers said the next update would actually be 1.0. Then four weeks after 0.5 shipped, 0.5.4 added a brand-new 24-node Expedition Atlas passive tree and rewrote how skill-granting uniques scale. Is that a studio polishing, or a studio still designing its endgame months before 1.0?
Kaid: I think this was mostly a studio completing and polishing content it could not deliver on the first day of 0.5, although there was probably still some endgame design happening as well. The new Atlas tree is the clearest example because it feels like a complete part of the 0.5 package that simply was not ready for the original release date. It is difficult to determine a developer's intentions from one patch note, but it would also be difficult to design and implement something that large entirely from scratch in four weeks. GGG gave many interviews around 0.5, and listening to those interviews gave me the impression that they already knew which areas needed more work. To me, 0.5.4 looked more like a delayed second part of the update than a studio suddenly deciding what its endgame should be.
Q: In 0.5, Fate of the Vaal went core with its own Atlas tree, the Precursor Fortress was layered on top of the pinnacle path, and the main Atlas tree grew past 300 nodes. Which addition changed how you actually build more than anything else - and which one changed nothing at all?
Kaid: The addition that changed actual character building the most was Masters of the Atlas. Its Ascendancy bonuses are powerful enough to define how a build functions, and the ability to swap them between maps creates meaningful building decisions. The addition that changed almost nothing about how I construct a build was the expanded 300 plus node main Atlas tree. Because players can eventually allocate the entire tree, in the long term there is not much to show that is unique to a specific build.
“Another game running alongside the games that we actually cover”
Q: On July 24, Path of Exile 1 launched Curse of the Allflame while PoE 2 was eight weeks into 0.5. You track both metas for a living: which game lost players in that collision?
Kaid: PoE 1 was hit harder by this collision. Curse of the Allflame began with what looked like fairly normal league launch numbers, but it lost momentum much faster than I would normally expect over the following days and weeks. I do not have the specific numbers, but the decline was clearly more than a small fluctuation. This exact situation had never really happened before. PoE 2's 0.5 update was delayed by a month while PoE 1's 3.29 schedule stayed on target. So this, at least for me, created an impression that players had barely finished one league before being asked to begin another. I think launching them that close together was a bad decision, and PoE 1 suffered more because of it.
Q: Now 1.0 has a date: December 11. If PoE 1's next league lands anywhere near it, does GGG have the same problem again in December?
Kaid: I do not think PoE 2 will face the same problem this time, regardless of when the next PoE 1 league launches. The December 11 release is the 1.0 update and the move to free-to-play, so PoE 2 should attract a huge number of new players and likely break its current player count records. If the releases are close together, only PoE 1 may be affected once again, because players may not want to start a new league only two or three weeks before PoE 2 launches.
Q: When someone searches “best Path of Exile 2 build” today, an AI summary often answers before they click anything - and it's frequently assembled from guides like yours, without sending anyone to the video. Has it changed your traffic, and has it changed what you make? If build guides stop being something people watch and become something a machine reads and summarises, what's left of this job in two years?
Kaid: It is difficult to isolate one exact traffic change caused by AI, because Google, YouTube recommendations, and viewer behavior are all changing all the time. I think AI summaries may be taking away some search clicks, but players still need the build links, gameplay footage, detailed explanations, and current context before deciding what they actually want to play. So far, it has not fundamentally changed the videos I make, although it makes the parts that AI cannot easily replace, trust, gameplay evidence, community knowledge, and fast reactions to patches even more important.
In my opinion, the larger danger is that there may simply be less room for creators. If fifty reasonably popular creators could once cover a game and earn a living, AI summaries and algorithm changes might reduce that number significantly. I do not think the job disappears in two years, but it may become concentrated among fewer creators who have strong communities and can offer more than information that a machine can summarise. At this point, keeping up with AI, algorithms and the creator economy feels like another game running alongside the games that we actually cover.
“Keeping up with AI, algorithms and the creator economy feels like another game running alongside the games that we actually cover.”
Q: What does playing that other game look like in practice - what have you concretely changed this year because of AI summaries?
Kaid: Honestly, it changes so often that whenever I think I have figured it out, the rules shift again. I do not think anyone has completely solved YouTube, and even if someone has, they know it could change at any moment.
“The shutdown announcement itself was the number”
Q: Your best-performing videos are still Albion Online, Lost Ark, New World, Throne and Liberty, and Black Desert, most of them two to four years old. You've been through several cycles of building an audience on a game and then watching that game go quiet. What actually happens to a build channel when its game stops being the game everyone plays - and what was the last game you dropped?
Kaid: When the game becomes less popular, some older guides can continue performing for years, which is why those older videos are still important, but you cannot build the future of the channel entirely around an audience that is shrinking. So, I have been doing YouTube since 2017 and have already gone through this cycle several times, so diversification has become a normal part of how I work.
After seeing competitors fall behind because they could not adapt, I started treating new releases as opportunities instead of committing permanently to one game. I will often cover a game heavily for its first one or two months, then look at player interest, views, and the future content schedule before deciding whether to stay or move to another release. The last major game I dropped was New World after it was announced that the game would shut down at the end of the year. There was no specific player count number that made the decision for me, but the shutdown announcement itself was the number that mattered, because it placed an unavoidable end date on the content.
“Most likely in December”
Q: Jonathan Rogers told press “I want to get this game finished, I really, really do”, and said 1.0 would land a little bit after ExileCon. From where you sit, inside every skill and every ascendancy, every day: does PoE 2 make 1.0 in 2026, or does it slip?
Kaid: Yes, I think PoE 2 reaches 1.0 in 2026, most likely in December. December has consistently been the strongest window for PoE 2 and the period when it attracts the most attention, so I believe GGG will do everything possible to release it then, even if every planned feature is not completely finished. The positive response to 0.5 also gives them a much stronger foundation than they had before. I do not think one isolated mechanic decides the date, but the deciding system is the overall endgame feedback loop. If players remain positive about Atlas progression, build variety, and long-term retention, then GGG will be confident enough to call the game 1.0 and continue adding content afterward.
Q: The Duelist made it - swords and all. Which classes or ascendancies do you expect to still be missing on launch day?
Kaid: My guess is that the Duelist will be the only new class released at launch. That would leave the Shadow, Marauder, and Templar missing, and we still do not know the names of their ascendancies.
Q: Name one thing that has to be fixed before 1.0 that GGG hasn't publicly said it's fixing.
Kaid: I honestly do not think there is one enormous hidden problem preventing PoE 2 from reaching 1.0. It is already a great game, and I have rarely seen another game add this much content with every major update. If I have to choose something outside the campaign, then it would be adding more classes and ascendancies, and maybe making some balance patch for builds. But that's it as far as fixing goes.
Q: Give Grinding Gear Games a list: what are the three things Path of Exile 2 has to get right before it can call itself 1.0?
Kaid: First, GGG needs to complete the campaign and release every intended act. A game cannot really call itself 1.0 while a major part of its central progression is still missing or being represented by repeated content.
Second, it needs the full class and ascendancy lineup. I am not convinced every planned class will be ready for release, but build variety is the heart of Path of Exile, and 1.0 should feel like the complete character-building game rather than another early access checkpoint.
And third, the combat. Balance and performance need to become consistently reliable. One-shots, awkward melee interactions, extreme balance swings, and technical problems are much easier to forgive during early access. However, once the game says 1.0, players will expect deaths to feel understandable, builds to survive balance patches without being completely deleted, and performance to remain stable during hard content. In my opinion, new features can continue growing after launch, but the foundation has to stop feeling like something GGG is still figuring out.
***
Path of Exile 2 goes free-to-play and leaves early access on December 11. KaidGames called it before GGG did. His next call - that the Duelist walks in alone, with the Shadow, Marauder, and Templar still waiting outside - gets checked at launch, along with the five to ten builds his factory will already have in production by then.
