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Problem:
Archnemesis monster mods each added a number of stats and buffs to monsters, causing them to feel overwhelming and confusing (especially when multiple mods were present on the same monster).
Solution:
Problem:
Keyworded, thematic monster mod names gave an impression of the overall effect of the mod on the monster but did not explain exactly what they granted, requiring players to memorise them.
Solution:
Problem:
The percentage of Archnemesis mods that significantly changed gameplay was high, and combinations of modifiers that required careful play arose too frequently, making content too complex.
Solution:
Since each mod now only does a single thing but monsters don't have more mods than they used to, the percentage of monsters with gameplay-altering effects is now much lower. Interesting and challenging emergent behaviour from overlapping mods can still happen, just less often.
Problem:
The way Archnemesis rewards were set up meant that many players felt like they couldn't just kill a monster, they had to consider if they wanted to bring a magic find character in to maximise rewards
Solution:
Conclusion:
Problem:
Eldritch Altars are currently too rewarding, so much so that they create a disincentive for any out-of-map gameplay unless it is comparably rewarding.
Solution:
We've lightly nerfed their total rewards and updated them in various other ways that we'll outline below. While it is fair to say that you can no longer min-max into rewards in such an extreme way, they will still be quite rewarding.
Specifics:
Problem:
Solution:
We are making a few numerical changes to Altar rewards so that choices that affect Boss Drops or Influenced Monster Drops are more comparably valuable, though Boss Drop rewards will be slightly better on average than Eldritch Minion rewards.
Problem:
Eldritch influence added a huge amount of extra monsters to maps. This is one of the main factors that makes it harder for players to justify doing Maven-witnessed maps or non-map content, as their rewards struggle to compete.
Solution:
Problem:
The Wrath of the Cosmos Keystone encouraged players to risk a level of danger that was outside their capability because of how valuable its rewards were. In some cases, it made more sense to die a few times per map than forgo the level of rewards this keystone offered. This is not ideal, to say the least.
Solution:
We have redesigned this keystone. It now has "Eldritch Altars Influenced by The Searing Exarch have 50% chance to have an additional Upside" and "Eldritch Altars Influenced by The Searing Exarch which have an additional Upside have 100% increased Effect of Downsides." It no longer has any of its former stats. The overall risk vs. reward nature of this keystone is still in place, it's just a lot less intense now.
Problem:
It shouldn't be necessary to travel to the opposite influence cluster in order to maximise your rewards from one specific influence altar.
Solution:
Conclusion:
Altar rewards are a bit more sensible now, through clearer reward types and by toning down the extreme levels of giftyness. We've worked towards making it so that players don't feel compelled to rush straight to map bosses in order to maximise their rewards. We've also updated the Wrath of the Cosmos keystone to be a bit less brutal and a bit less rewarding. The intent wasn't to gut these systems, just slightly reduce their overall potency. They should still be valuable sources of rewards.
Problem:
Currently, the Atlas Passive Tree creates pressure to only run pinnacle boss content when you're specced into Atlas Passives that will maximise your rewards, hoarding as much of a given type of content as you can before running it and speccing back out of it.
Solution:
The full Atlas Passive Tree will be revealed before the launch of 3.20.
Problem:
Jewels have modifiers that provide various forms of ailment avoidance or protection. However, because their current values are moderately low, you often need to stack several Jewels in order to have adequate levels of protection. We feel that this is an excessive amount of investment for how necessary ailment mitigation is to a character's build. This issue has been exacerbated by some of these mods being gated behind corruption, making them more expensive and difficult to acquire.
Solution:
Specifics:
Added 5 new Suffix modifiers that can roll on Regular Jewels:
Chance to Avoid being Ignited, Chilled, Frozen, Shocked, Poisoned, Bleeding and Stunned Jewel Corruption modifiers can no longer roll. These have been replaced with the following Jewel Corruption modifiers:
Problem:
Solution:
Specifics:
We've also rebalanced some Unique Jewels and compensated for the loss of specific jewels in the form of new modifiers or skill changes.
Specifics:
Summary:
Our goal is that finding a unique Jewel is an exciting experience. The unique Jewels that drop naturally should be those that are very valuable with broad appeal to the average player, either to use in your own build or trade to someone else. We've worked towards this goal by removing uninteresting unique Jewels, adding more chase unique Jewels, and moving Jewels that do appeal to a smaller subset of players to other places so that they can be pursued by choice.
Problem:
Many of the unique Jewels that are currently granted through quest rewards are not very desirable. Additionally, because they're offered to all players who make their way through the campaign, they're extremely common, which inhibits them from having value or being meaningful items to find. We have also come to feel that it's thematically incorrect to offer unique items as quest rewards, as it undermines their feeling of uniqueness and prestige.
Solution:
Unique Jewels will no longer be offered as quest rewards. Most of the Jewels that were previously offered have been removed entirely, though some important ones have had their effects preserved in the form of new unique items or by being added to the pool of rollable Jewel modifiers.
Specifics:
Problem:
Solution:
We have removed both of these penalties so that Hexes will be consistently effective against all monsters in the game.
Specifics:
Pinnacle bosses, Map bosses, Incursion architects, Betrayal targets, Breachlords and others no longer have 33% or 66% less effect of curses on them respectively.
Problem:
Another issue that we feel undermines Hex builds is the Doom mechanic. We designed Doom with the goal of making self-cast Hexes more effective than other more trivial applications of Hexes, such as the Blasphemy and Hextouch Support gems. The Doom mechanic was somewhat successful in its goal, but came at the cost of adding a lot of complexity to Hex-related mechanics.
Solution:
We are removing the Doom mechanic and as a consequence will be making several other changes to mechanics that previously interacted with Doom. For example, all stats that reference Doom have been replaced with other curse-themed stats.
Specifics:
The Whispers of Doom Notable Passive Skill continues to give "You can apply an additional Curse." It now has a much larger selection of small Passives Skills leading to this Notable, which provide:
The Malicious Intent Notable Passive Skill now gives "+2 to Level of all Curse Skill Gems." The cluster now has Small Passive Skills granting:
The Last Rites Notable Passive Skill now gives "Cursed Enemies you Kill are destroyed" and still provides "Enemies Cursed by you have 50% reduced Life Regeneration Rate." The cluster now has Small Passive Skills granting:
The Skittering Runes Notable Passive Skill now gives "50% increased Area of Effect of Hex Skills", "20% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Curse Aura Skills", and "20% reduced Mana Cost of Curse Skills." The cluster now has Small Passive Skills granting:
Hexblast has had its skill mechanics and damage adjusted to account for the loss of Doom's scaling. Broadly speaking, it does less damage at the very top end of gameplay but getting it to a fairly decent level of damage is easier than before. It now removes a Hex with the lowest remaining duration from an enemy after damaging. Its damage is also more consistent because you no longer need to wait for Doom to build up.
Specifics:
Hexblast no longer has any Doom related stats. It now has a cast time of 1 second (previously 0.6), and a Mana cost of 16 at gem level 1 (previously 10), scaling up to 30 at gem level 20 (previously 20). It now deals 111 to 166 Chaos Damage at gem level 1 (previously 102 to 153), scaling up to 1514 to 2271 at gem level 20 (previously 1397 to 2096). It now has "100% more Damage with Hits if Enemy is Hexed", "40% more Damage with Ailments if Enemy is Hexed", "This Spell's Cast Time is added to its Cooldown if Triggered", and "Removes a Hex after Damaging." It also now has 340% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 310%).
Impending Doom has also had its base damage roughly doubled to compensate for this loss. We have replaced the Doomsday keystone with a new Hex-themed keystone, and introduced the new Cursed Ground Support which was reworked from the Doomsday keystone.
Specifics:
We've buffed a bunch of Hex-related unique items and have reworked unique items that previously interacted with Doom such as the Fated End unique ring. We've also added some powerful new unique items that interact with Hexes.
Specifics:
In most cases, systems that facilitate somewhat automated gameplay, like Hextouch applying Hexes automatically, should either come at a much higher cost or be less effective. In some cases, both are needed to counterbalance the significant upside of automation. Otherwise, the option to automate will always be the obvious choice and eclipse other more interactive gameplay styles. The Doom mechanic was aimed at fulfilling this function for Hexes, and is being replaced by alternative, simpler solutions.
We have added penalties to both Blasphemy and Hextouch Supports which grant less curse effect at all gem levels. Additionally, item mods that inflict a specific Hex no longer do so with increased effect. This includes items where the Hex is meant to be a downside on the player, such as Coward's Chains, Coward's Legacy or Soul Mantle.
Specifics:
Problem:
Different Hex types are not evenly balanced when applied via Hex-on-hit modifiers. Some Hexes like Vulnerability and Despair are much more powerful than others. This is because Hex-on-hit modifiers apply a Hex equivalent to the level 1 version of the Hex skill gem. Some Hexes are very strong at Level 1, relative to their Level 20 power, because they scale in a more gradual way with gem level. This means that in some cases, using Hex-on-hit is too powerful alongside its benefit of also applying Hexes automatically.
Solution:
We are stabilising the gem scaling rates of Hexes. In general, they should be twice as powerful at gem level 20 than they are at gem level 1.
Specifics:
Further changes to some Hexes are listed below.
Problem:
We feel that there are currently too many sources of Curse Effect available. This has created a large power gap between players that have no investment in Curses and those that have heavy investment into Curses, which has continually caused us to have the baseline effect of curses to be lower than we'd like.
Solution:
We are regulating the number of sources of Curse Effect throughout the game. This will also rein in the power of players building Curse Support characters. These changes have been focused on less-accessible sources of Curse Effect, such as Eldritch Implicits on helmets, rather than accessible sources like the Passive Skill Tree. The curse effect notables on cluster jewels have been replaced with other appropriate ones. For example, the one that used to grant Flammability effect now allows your Flammability Hex to apply to hexproof enemies and also causes your ignites on cursed enemies to deal damage faster.
Specifics:
The following Curse Cluster Jewel Notables have been reworked:
Specifics:
Problem:
The current balance of Enfeeble and Temporal Chains makes them exceedingly strong against normal and magic monsters while being relatively ineffective against pinnacle bosses. For example, a level 20 Temporal Chains gem currently reduces a Pinnacle Boss' action speed by just 4%. You can get more than twice as much action speed reduction using any skill that chills. This is another case of Hexes being weakest where they matter most and strongest where they matter least.
Solution:
Because of the changes to Curse Effect, we're now able to make Temporal Chains and Enfeeble strong defensive options without requiring large investment into Curse Effect. In addition to changes to their overall gem levels and scaling, we are also planning to increase the "Cursed Rare and Unique Enemies have x% less Action Speed" modifier on Temporal Chains as well as increasing the "Cursed Rare and Unique Enemies deal x% less Damage" modifier on Enfeeble.
Specifics:
While working on the updates outlined above, we took the opportunity to make some stat changes to Vulnerability and Despair to help make these gems cleaner. They are now more focussed on making enemies vulnerable to Physical and Chaos damage in ways that are generically useful for any build dealing primarily Physical or Chaos damage.
Specifics:
Conclusion
In general, Hexes will be stronger against tough monsters and weaker against lesser monsters. We've removed Doom in order to simplify how Hexes work, introduced penalties to automated Hex application methods to keep them from outclassing self-casting, and made several other balance changes as a consequence of these overall changes.
Problem:
Many of Path of Exile's most iconic unique attack-based weapons have fallen out of use over the years. This is mainly because attack-based builds prioritise high base weapon damage over all else, and unique weapons are currently not able to compete with rare weapons in this regard. While a fundamental aspect of Path of Exile's itemisation is that unique items will be outclassed by rares, in the cases of these iconic weapons, they get outclassed before they can be reasonably acquired.
Solution:
We've increased the power of some existing endgame unique weapons, in some cases massively, in order to bring them in line with some of Path of Exile's most iconic unique items. In most cases these items have been made significantly rarer.
Specifics:
Problem:
Monster life regeneration is rarely a significant issue for players, but in cases where it does present an obstacle there are few solutions available to deal with it.
Solution:
Introduce some new sources to mitigate monster life regeneration that are able to be accessed easily.
Specifics:
Problem:
Most strike melee skills are currently reliant on ways to strike extra targets and/or deal splash damage in order to compete with other builds when clearing groups of enemies.
Solution:
Add Melee Splash access to the Passive Skill Tree and move the single Additional Strike there to the Attack Mastery instead of a specific node.
Specifics:
Problem:
The recovery provided by the "Consecrated Ground you create causes Life Regeneration to also Recover Energy Shield for you and Allies" on Pious Path is significant on its own, so having "50% increased Effect of Consecrated Ground you create" on top of this feels overboard.
Solution:
The Inquisitor’s Pious Path Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer provides "50% increased Effect of Consecrated Ground you create."
Problem:
Both Spectral Helix and Lightning Conduit are currently too strong at all stages of the game relative to other similar skills.
Solution:
We've lowered the damage of these two skills to bring them more in line with others.
Specifics:
Problem:
Lightning Strike is currently overperforming in comparison to other skills. It is very good at both clearing and dealing single-target damage.
Solution:
We've changed the number of additional projectiles fired by Lightning Strike. It now requires more investment in additional projectiles for improved clear speed.
Specifics:
Problem:
The life regeneration on skill use provided by Divergent Second Wind Support has irreconcilable bugs with a few other stats that interact with life regeneration.
Solution:
We've replaced the stat on Divergent Second Wind with generic life recovery instead of life regeneration.
Specifics:
Quality on the Divergent Second Wind Support no longer grants Regenerate 0-1% of Life over 1 second when you use Supported Skills. Instead, it now grants Recover 0-1% of Life when you use Supported Skills.
Problem:
Historically, Onslaught itself has never been a buff and cannot be scaled by modifiers to buff effect as its only effect is "You have Onslaught", which isn't very sensible.
Solution:
Onslaught is now a buff, and modifiers to buff effect now apply to Onslaught. This includes flask effect modifiers when Onslaught is provided through a Flask. As such, flask effect modifiers are now able to roll on Silver Flasks.
Problem:
Withering Step could be used to keep up a far stronger Elusive effect on average, especially in combination with the Nightblade Support. Normally you have to wait for Elusive to gradually lose effectiveness and fall off before you can gain Elusive again, but with Withering Step you could replace the existing Elusive buff with that of Withering Step's and then use any skill to lose Elusive again.
Solution:
Withering Step can no longer be used while already Elusive. This change shouldn't affect builds that don't have ways to gain Elusive outside of Withering Step.
Problem:
When reintroducing Tainted currency items, the chances for different outcomes were rebalanced to be appropriate for the core game. The new odds for Tainted Orbs of Fusing made it hard to justify using one on your gear as it could become an expensive venture.
Solution:
We've changed the outcome odds for Tainted Orbs of Fusing to be more favorable, to match where they were in Scourge League.
Problem:
Due to changes to Exalted and Divine Orbs in 3.19, Harbingers felt relatively unrewarding to farm, as Exalted Shards presented a significant portion of the value from their rewards.
Solution:
We've introduced Fracturing Orb and Fracturing Shards, and have removed the Harvest Craft that fractures a random modifier on an item.
Problem:
It's hard to tell where the edge of Sirus' arena is when environmental decorations are visually de-atomised.
Solution:
We've changed these visuals so you can still tell where the edge of the arena is after a Deatomization Storm has passed over the decorations.
Problem:
Wading through ooze in the Infinite Hunger fight subarea can be overly punishing if not using a movement skill.
Solution:
Reduced the rate at which players gain stacks of Corrosive Hunger in The Infinite Hunger boss fight.
Problem:
Bestiary in party-play currently awards a beast to every player when capturing beasts, causing party-play to be the best way to capture specific rare beasts many times over.
Solution:
Additional captures of a beast when playing in a party are now rolled on a per-player basis, with the chance being tied to the quantity bonus granted for playing in a party. The owner of the instance is still guaranteed to receive the captured beast.
Problem:
Kirac's "Complete the Map" Mission is a bit too generous in the Unique Maps offered, with some of the more rare Unique Maps being offered more frequently than they should.
Solution:
Kirac's giftyness for the maps offered for this mission has been reduced, the chances for him to offer a more rare Unique Map are now more reasonable.
Problem:
It was possible to use the Path of Exile: Trade website to determine the modifiers on Unidentified Atlas Memories.
Solution:
Atlas Memories now drop identified.
Problem:
Upon leaving town in Act 6 and killing your first set of monsters, you'd very quickly obtain Rogue's Markers and be told to go back to town and talk to Kurai. This disrupted the flow of the main questline, and you were then directed to do more and more things for the initial Heist quest.
Solution:
We've removed the guaranteed Rogue's Marker drop from Act 6.
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We really hope you enjoy Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum. Thanks for your support!
Wikis Content is available under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0 unless otherwise noted.
Content Update 3.20.0 -- Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum
Table of Contents
- Content Update 3.20.0 -- Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum
- New Three-month Challenge League
- New Content and Features
- Atlas Changes
- Monster Mods and Archnemesis
- Eldritch Altars
- Atlas Tree
- Jewels and Ailment Mitigation
- Curses
- Endgame Unique Weapons
- Mitigating Monster Life Regeneration
- Strike Skills and additional Enemies
- Pious Path
- Spectral Helix and Lightning Conduit
- Lightning Strike
- Divergent Second Wind
- Onslaught
- Withering Step and Elusive
- Ancestor Totem
- Tainted Orbs of Fusing
- Fracturing Orb
- Sirus' Arena
- Corrosive Hunger
- Bestiary party-play
- Kirac's ''Complete the Map'' Mission
- Identified Memory Lines
- Rogue's Markers
- Monster Balance
- Kirac League Mods Available During 3.20.0
- Quest Changes
- User Interface Changes
- Bug Fixes
Content Update 3.20.0 -- Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum
New Three-month Challenge League
- Challenge leagues are a great opportunity for a fresh start in a new economy. All of your old characters and items are still present in the Standard and Hardcore leagues, but you're encouraged to join the new leagues, complete challenges and demonstrate your mastery of Path of Exile!
- The Forbidden Sanctum is a roguelike that takes place within Path of Exile. You will explore the Templars' sanctum which is rumored to be hidden beneath the Fellshrine Ruins. Long abandoned, a malevolent presence has taken hold. In each area of Wraeclast you play through, you will have the opportunity to explore one room of the Sanctum as you search for its treasures.
- For more information about this expansion, check out pathofexile.com/sanctum
- With 3.20.0, there are Standard, Hardcore, Solo Self-Found and Ruthless variations of the Sanctum challenge league available. They have the same core mechanics and items. You can create private league versions of these leagues, with mods that make the game harder.
- The new challenge league includes a set of 40 new challenges, with microtransaction rewards for completing challenges. These rewards are only obtainable in this league, and will be revealed in an upcoming news post.
New Content and Features
- Added a new, optional game mode for Path of Exile: Ruthless. This is an additional character creation flag alongside Hardcore and Solo Self-Found that allows you to opt-in to extreme item scarcity and various other changes. Challenges will not be enabled in Ruthless versions of the Sanctum League.
- Added a new Strength/Intelligence Skill Gem - Frozen Legion: This spell consumes multiple cooldown uses to summon icy Statues in a ring. Each Statue uses your Frozen Sweep attack once before vanishing. Requires an Axe, Mace, Sceptre, or Staff. This skill cannot be triggered, supported by Spell Echo, or Unleash, or used by Totems, Traps, or Mines. Frozen Sweep is used by your Statues to deal damage in an area around them while stepping forward. This skill cannot repeat and can only be used by Statues from Frozen Legion.
- Added a new Strength Skill Gem - Volcanic Fissure: Slam the ground, creating a winding fissure that deals area damage while travelling outwards. When it reaches the target location it erupts, releasing a burst of molten projectiles. Requires an Axe, Mace, Sceptre, Staff or Unarmed.
- Added a new Intelligence Support Gem - Cursed Ground: Supported skills create cursed ground. Enemies on the cursed ground from a supported skill are cursed with that hex.
- Added a new Intelligence Support Gem - Hex Bloom: Hexes from Supported Skills are transferred to all enemies within a certain distance when Hexed Enemy dies.
- Introduced 8 new Vaal Skill Gems: Vaal Cleave, Vaal Flicker Strike, Vaal Blade Flurry, Vaal Venom Gyre, Vaal Molten Strike, Vaal Caustic Arrow, Vaal Volcanic Fissure, and Vaal Smite.
- Introduced the Fracturing Orb, which can be used to fracture a random modifier on a rare item with at least 4 modifiers, locking it in place. This can't be used on Influenced, Synthesised or Fractured items.
- Introduced Fracturing Shards, which cannot be used in their shard form, but automatically transform into the Fracturing Orb when they reach their maximum stack size.
- Added over 15 new Unique Items, including 1 designed by a supporter and 3 designed by winners of Boss Kill Events.
- Added 10 new Divination Cards, 5 of which were designed by our supporters, with 5 designed by winners of Boss Kill Events.
- Added two new Atlas Memories themed around Domination and Bestiary, which include nine new Beastcrafting recipes.
- The Kalandra's Touch Unique Ring has been added to the core drop pool.
- Grand and Exceptional Eldritch Ichors have received new art so they are more distinguishable.
- Continued to incrementally improve the sound, art, effects and environments.
Atlas Changes
- Maven-witnessed Map Bosses now have a chance to drop an Awakened Gem (inclusive of the Awakened Gems that are typically exclusive to Maven herself).
- The following Maps have been added back to the Atlas: Academy, Bazaar, Burial Chambers, Cage, Channel, City Square, Courthouse, Courtyard, Coves, Estuary, Forbidden Woods, Graveyard, Haunted Mansion, Iceberg, Infested Valley, Ivory Temple, Lookout, Mineral Pools, Primordial Blocks, Sepulchre, Shipyard, Spider Lair, Sunken City, Toxic Sewer, and Volcano.
- The following Maps have been removed from the Atlas: Arena, Arid Lake, Armoury, Barrows, Belfry, Bramble Valley, Cells, Chateau, Dig, Excavation, Fungal Hollow, Jungle Valley, Lava Chamber, Marshes, Mud Geyser, Park, Pen, Racecourse, Ramparts, Stagnation, Summit, Vault, Waste Pool, Waterways, and Wharf.
- Map tiers and locations have been shuffled (though the 'pin' locations for maps has not changed). Most maps are now initially found at a different tier.
- Some of the Map Bosses you are required to defeat to upgrade your Pantheon have changed as a result of these Atlas changes.
- Crafting Recipes that were previously unlocked in Maps that have been removed from the Atlas are now found within other Maps currently on the Atlas.
- Some Divination Cards have found new homes as a result of these Atlas Changes:
- Bijoux can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- Buried Treasure can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- Gift of Asenath can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- Gift of the Gemling Queen can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- The Aesthete can now be found in the Carcass Map.
- The Bear Woman can now be found in the Cemetery Map.
- The Endurance can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- The Mind's Eyes can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- The Mountain can now be found in the Volcano Map.
- The Nurse can now be found in the Carcass Map.
- The Offering can now be found in the Carcass Map.
- The Wolf can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- The Wolverine can now be found in the Lair Map.
- Time-Lost Relic can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- Volatile Power can now be found in the Grotto Map.
- The Vile Power Divination Card has been re-enabled, and now awards Doomfletch.
- The Akil's Prophecy Divination Card has been re-enabled, and now awards a Double Corrupted Unique Elegant Round Shield. This card can now be found in the Temple of Atzoatl.
- The Transformation Divination Card has been re-enabled, and now awards a Tainted Mythic Orb.
- The A Note in the Wind Divination Card has been re-enabled, and now awards Asenath's Mark.
- The Mad King Divination card has been re-enabled, and now awards an Ultimatum Aspect. This card can now be found in the Caldera, Colosseum, Dark Forest, and Reef Maps
Monster Mods and Archnemesis
Problem:
Archnemesis monster mods each added a number of stats and buffs to monsters, causing them to feel overwhelming and confusing (especially when multiple mods were present on the same monster).
Solution:
- Monster mods now only do one specific thing.
- Here's an example: The Magma Barrier Archnemesis mod did a whole lot of stuff. It started by putting a magma barrier around the monster, but it didn't stop there. It converted some of the monster's physical damage to fire damage, it added some extra fire damage on top, it granted fire resistance to the monster and it gave some physical damage reduction for good measure. It also spawned volatile flamebloods to follow you. The new equivalent modifier just puts a magma barrier around the monster and does nothing else.
Problem:
Keyworded, thematic monster mod names gave an impression of the overall effect of the mod on the monster but did not explain exactly what they granted, requiring players to memorise them.
Solution:
- Monster mods now say exactly what they do.
- For example, rather than "Incendiary", which broke down into six properties, you'd now see monsters with either "Ignites" or "Fire and Ignite Resistant". Instead of "Deadeye", which did five separate things, you'd now see "Applies Random Mark", "Extra Crits" or "Accurate" as separate unrelated mods.
Problem:
The percentage of Archnemesis mods that significantly changed gameplay was high, and combinations of modifiers that required careful play arose too frequently, making content too complex.
Solution:
Since each mod now only does a single thing but monsters don't have more mods than they used to, the percentage of monsters with gameplay-altering effects is now much lower. Interesting and challenging emergent behaviour from overlapping mods can still happen, just less often.
Problem:
The way Archnemesis rewards were set up meant that many players felt like they couldn't just kill a monster, they had to consider if they wanted to bring a magic find character in to maximise rewards
Solution:
- Players are no longer required to do annoying actions to maximise rewards
- In Archnemesis, rewards were associated with individual mods. This meant that you could tell what kind of rewards you would get in advance. In some cases, you were then effectively required to fetch a magic-find culling character to make sure that you maximised the value of the monster mod that you had found. In other cases, you would ignore a monster completely if you knew that it would only drop rewards that were of no value to you. In the new system, we have added a significant pool of new rewards to rares, but the reward that is on the monster is hidden (and not associated with a specific mod), so you don't know what kind of rewards you will get until you kill the monster. Rare monsters with more mods are more likely to have these special hidden reward mods. This new reward system smooths out the spikiness that the Archnemesis reward system had.
Conclusion:
- The original motivation for developing Archnemesis was that the previous monster mod system was very out of date. Many of the mods didn't have any appreciable effect under modern balance and there wasn't a lot of interesting gameplay possible. In our opinion, Archnemesis did succeed at adding a lot of interesting new mechanics to rares, but introduced the problems described above. While creating the new monster mods described, we were careful to retain most of the interesting mechanics that Archnemesis introduced, but in a way that doesn't include a grab-bag of other effects and is diluted by many other simpler mods.
- The result is a system that is very similar to what monster mods used to be like, but with much more up-to-date content and balance. Mods are simpler and say exactly what they do. While you can certainly still rarely encounter scary combinations of mods that really wake you up, it's a lot rarer than it was under the Archnemesis system. We feel that the new system is more modern and interesting than the old monster mod/nemesis system and is clearer and easier to understand in the heat of combat than Archnemesis was.
Eldritch Altars
Problem:
Eldritch Altars are currently too rewarding, so much so that they create a disincentive for any out-of-map gameplay unless it is comparably rewarding.
Solution:
We've lightly nerfed their total rewards and updated them in various other ways that we'll outline below. While it is fair to say that you can no longer min-max into rewards in such an extreme way, they will still be quite rewarding.
Specifics:
- We have removed some reward types from the choices available at Altars, such as duplicate gems, influenced items, unique items, gems and maps. This means that other reward types will take their place and naturally be more common.
- Altars no longer offer a choice for "Basic Currency" but instead offer choices for specific currency. For example, instead of seeing Altars that say "Map Boss Drops Three Basic Currency Items", you'll now see Altars that say things like "Map Boss Drops Three Vaal Orbs". Currency Rewards from Influenced Minions no longer drop in stacks larger than 1.
- Some of the more common but very low value rewards such as Orbs of Augmentation, Orbs of Transmutation, Blacksmith's Whetstones, Armourer Scraps, etc can no longer be offered as part of the Basic Currency reward.
- Similarly, instead of offering choices for Scarabs or Divination Cards as a category, they're now more specific. For example, rather than simply "Divination Cards", you'll now see things like "Divination Cards which reward Unique Jewellery".
- These specific Currency, Scarab and Divination Card rewards will be split so that they're exclusive to one Altar type. This means that if you're targeting a specific reward type, you'll be able to figure out which influence type to invest into in order to farm that reward.
- The rewards that still remain are Currency, Scarabs, Divination Cards, Duplicate (Currency, Uniques, Scarabs, Maps, Divination Cards) and Quantity / Rarity.
- To give you a specific example, if you run maps influenced by the Eater of Worlds, you'll see Divine Orbs from the 'Basic Currency Reward' more than twice as often as before.
- On the whole, Scarabs will be offered a lot less than before from Altars. However, we don't want them to be too scarce in general. As such, we're adding Rusted Scarabs to the core drop pool. We are also adding a vendor recipe that can be used to upgrade Scarabs between tiers using the usual 3:1 ratio (up to Gilded Scarabs). We are adding an 'Upgrade' button in the Fragment Stash Tab that can upgrade your Scarabs in this way, similar to the upgrade function in the Essence Stash Tab.
Problem:
- Players currently have an incentive to skip past all regular map monsters and kill the map boss first. The motivation for doing so is that Altars which offer rewards affecting the map boss are less desirable. By killing the boss first, you eliminate these options from your map altars, which makes them more rewarding.
- This is one of those cases where the most efficient and rewarding gameplay strategy undermines the expected gameplay loop and encourages players to do things that aren't really fun.
Solution:
We are making a few numerical changes to Altar rewards so that choices that affect Boss Drops or Influenced Monster Drops are more comparably valuable, though Boss Drop rewards will be slightly better on average than Eldritch Minion rewards.
Problem:
Eldritch influence added a huge amount of extra monsters to maps. This is one of the main factors that makes it harder for players to justify doing Maven-witnessed maps or non-map content, as their rewards struggle to compete.
Solution:
- The amount of Influence Packs spawned by Eldritch-Influenced Maps has been reduced by around a third but the chance of Influence Altars spawning has been increased by about half to somewhat offset this. Previously, Eldritch-Influenced Maps would always spawn exactly 60 packs within a map. They will now spawn somewhere between 20 and 60 packs per map. It's a large enough variance that the difference should be notable. It should also encourage more decision making around Altars. For example, if you intuit that it may be a 20 pack map, you might be more inclined to pick more Map Boss modifiers as there won't be as many Influence Monsters in the map to get other rewards from.
- While we were working on this, we took the opportunity to change the pack spawning behaviour from Influence so that a given area will only have three different types of monster packs. Previously, there were eight pack types that could be spawned per influence type and it randomly chose which pack type to spawn. This is a relatively small change that won't have a significant effect during gameplay. The goal was simply to give some identity to an area and give you a slightly better idea of what to expect during gameplay.
Problem:
The Wrath of the Cosmos Keystone encouraged players to risk a level of danger that was outside their capability because of how valuable its rewards were. In some cases, it made more sense to die a few times per map than forgo the level of rewards this keystone offered. This is not ideal, to say the least.
Solution:
We have redesigned this keystone. It now has "Eldritch Altars Influenced by The Searing Exarch have 50% chance to have an additional Upside" and "Eldritch Altars Influenced by The Searing Exarch which have an additional Upside have 100% increased Effect of Downsides." It no longer has any of its former stats. The overall risk vs. reward nature of this keystone is still in place, it's just a lot less intense now.
Problem:
It shouldn't be necessary to travel to the opposite influence cluster in order to maximise your rewards from one specific influence altar.
Solution:
- Alongside the change to Wrath of the Cosmos above, we have also changed the Eldritch Gaze keystone so it only affects Altars in maps influenced by the Eater of Worlds. The main reason for this is that we want you to invest Atlas Passives into the influence type that you're currently farming. The small passives near these keystones are already specific to influence types and it's nice and tidy to keep things consistent in this way.
- This is a nerf to how much you can scale your rewards from these keystones, if you were one of the subset of players who were taking both keystones in the past.
Conclusion:
Altar rewards are a bit more sensible now, through clearer reward types and by toning down the extreme levels of giftyness. We've worked towards making it so that players don't feel compelled to rush straight to map bosses in order to maximise their rewards. We've also updated the Wrath of the Cosmos keystone to be a bit less brutal and a bit less rewarding. The intent wasn't to gut these systems, just slightly reduce their overall potency. They should still be valuable sources of rewards.
Atlas Tree
Problem:
Currently, the Atlas Passive Tree creates pressure to only run pinnacle boss content when you're specced into Atlas Passives that will maximise your rewards, hoarding as much of a given type of content as you can before running it and speccing back out of it.
Solution:
- We've removed Atlas Passives that increase the amount of rewards from limited content such as Shaper, Elder, The Searing Exarch, The Eater of Worlds, and The Maven. The purpose of this is such that you should be able to engage with this content at any time.
- We want to improve on the concept that the Atlas Tree allows players to invest into leagues that they enjoy, and have added new clusters to the passive tree for league content that can be blocked through Atlas Passive Skills. We've also increased the chances for such league content to appear.
- Existing clusters have also been tweaked with the goal of making them more of an attractive option.
- In addition, we've added a new keystone passive, that causes Scarabs used in your map device to provide increased pack size rather than their usual modifiers.
The full Atlas Passive Tree will be revealed before the launch of 3.20.
Jewels and Ailment Mitigation
Problem:
Jewels have modifiers that provide various forms of ailment avoidance or protection. However, because their current values are moderately low, you often need to stack several Jewels in order to have adequate levels of protection. We feel that this is an excessive amount of investment for how necessary ailment mitigation is to a character's build. This issue has been exacerbated by some of these mods being gated behind corruption, making them more expensive and difficult to acquire.
Solution:
- We're expanding the pool of mods available on magic and rare Jewels and are making their modifier values more generous so that players have better access to sources of ailment mitigation, with less investment.
- Regular Jewels (i.e. Jewels that are not Abyss or Cluster Jewels) now have mods that provide Reduced Duration or Reduced Effect for a wider variety of ailments than before. Abyss Jewels now have mods that provide avoidance of various ailments.
- We've also changed Monster-inflicted sources of Chill and Shock effect to be multiplicative, rather than additive. This is to allow sources of reduced effect of ailments to be able to stack, and provide immunity.
Specifics:
Added 5 new Suffix modifiers that can roll on Regular Jewels:
- 30-35% reduced Ignite Duration on you.
- 30-35% reduced Effect of Chill on you.
- 30-35% reduced Effect of Shock on you.
- 30-35% reduced Poison Duration on you.
- 30-35% reduced Bleed Duration on you.
Chance to Avoid being Ignited, Chilled, Frozen, Shocked, Poisoned, Bleeding and Stunned Jewel Corruption modifiers can no longer roll. These have been replaced with the following Jewel Corruption modifiers:
- 20-25% reduced Ignite Duration on you.
- 20-25% reduced Effect of Chill on you.
- 20-25% reduced Effect of Shock on you.
- 20-25% reduced Poison Duration on you.
- 20-25% reduced Bleed Duration on you.
- 20-25% reduced Effect of Curses on you.
- Chance to Avoid being Ignited Abyss Jewel modifiers now have values of 31-40% and 41-50% (previously 21-24% and 25-30%).
- Chance to Avoid being Shocked Abyss Jewel modifiers now have values of 31-40% and 41-50% (previously 21-24% and 25-30%).
- Chance to Avoid being Poisoned Abyss Jewel modifiers now have values of 31-40% and 41-50% (previously 21-24% and 25-30%).
- Chance to Avoid being Bleeding Abyss Jewel modifiers now have values of 31-40% and 41-50% (previously 21-24% and 25-30%).
- The Abyss Jewel modifiers that provide a chance to Avoid being Frozen and Chilled now only provide a chance to Avoid being Frozen, with values of 31-40% and 41-50% (previously 21-24% and 25-30%).
- The Corrupted Abyss Jewel modifier that provides a 20-25% chance to Avoid being Frozen and Chilled now only provides a 20-25% chance to Avoid being Frozen.
- Reduced Effect of Curses Jewel Suffix modifiers now have values of 25-30% (previously 10%).
- The 15% Reduced Effect of Chill and Shock Jewel Suffix modifier can no longer roll.
- The increased Stun and Block Recovery Jewel Suffix modifier now has values of 25-35% (previously 10-14%).
Problem:
- Many unique Jewels are not exciting to find. There are a few reasons for this. In most cases they are simply underpowered, or apply to a too-narrow window of usage, or both. There are also many corruption-only Jewels that don't fulfill a good purpose.
- Previously, we were hesitant to revisit unique Jewels and improve them beyond their initial designs because many of their themes are somewhat rigid in nature, meaning there is little room to improve them without completely remaking them.
- An example of this is the Fireborn Crimson Jewel. It has no values that we could increase to make it more useful; it simply changes the damage type within a radius which has very limited opportunities for use. Any improvements we could make to this Jewel would have to fundamentally change its identity and would therefore essentially remove the Jewel in its current form from Path of Exile.
Solution:
- We're making it so that every unique jewel that drops is very rare and highly desirable. This means that many existing unique Jewels have been removed from the drop pool. The intention is that now when you find a unique Jewel, it should almost always be a very positive experience.
- To help make jewel drops special, we've designed a new set of unique Jewels that are powerful chase items. These can drop from the core pool.
- With that said, there were some unique Jewels that were still useful for a subset of players because they had build-enabling modifiers or other very niche uses (like the Brute Force Solution or other attribute-transformation Jewels). Instead of getting rid of these, we've made them corruption-only unique Jewels. We feel this has benefits for both players who want them and players who don't, as generally players who don't want them won't come across them as core drops and players who do want them can still actively pursue them.
- Some build-enabling unique Jewels can now be found from more deterministic sources throughout Path of Exile. One example is Combat Focus which can now be obtained through a vendor recipe.
- Some other build-enabling Jewels that affect Golems can no longer drop but can be found from another more deterministic source. While we want you to discover this new source on your own during gameplay, we will say for clarity that these Jewels do not come from vendor recipes.
Specifics:
- The availability of existing Unique Jewels has been reviewed, and many (including Replica versions) can no longer be obtained.
- The following existing Unique Jewels are able to be found as item drops:
- Inspired Learning, Intuitive Leap, Lioneye's Fall, Might of the Meek, Pure Talent, Unending Hunger and Unnatural Instinct.
- The following Unique Jewels can only be obtained as Corruption outcomes:
- Atziri's Reign, Brute Force Solution, Careful Planning, Chill of Corruption, Efficient Training, Energised Armour, Energy from Within, Fertile Mind, Fevered Mind, Fluid Motion, Fortress Covenant, Fragility, Healthy Mind, Hidden Potential, Inertia, Pacifism, Powerlessness, Quickening Covenant, Rain of Splinters, Reckless Defence, Seething Fury, Self-Flagellation, Soul's Wick, The Golden Rule and To Dust.
- Replica Primordial Might and Replica Reckless Defence are the only Replica Jewels that are able to be obtained.
- Primordial Might, Harmony and Eminence are no longer in the core drop pool, and are now found from another more deterministic source.
- Added 6 new vendor recipes for Dead Reckoning, Endless Misery, Spirit Guards and the three Combat Focus Unique Jewels. Happy hunting!
- Ancient Orbs and the Altar of Sacrifice in the Temple of Atzoatl can no longer be used on Unique Jewels, Flasks or Maps.
- The Bestiary recipe that creates a Unique Jewel has been changed. It now creates a Rare Talisman.
We've also rebalanced some Unique Jewels and compensated for the loss of specific jewels in the form of new modifiers or skill changes.
Specifics:
- Added Eternal Labyrinth Helmet Enchantments for Spark and Ethereal Knives that cause projectiles to fire in a circle. The Spark projectile speed Helmet Enchantments and the Ethereal Knives Pierce Helmet Enchantment have been removed.
- Frost Blades now has 110% Effectiveness of Added Damage at gem level 1 (previously 100%), scaling up to 225% at gem level 20 (previously 175%). It no longer has 0-19% increased Projectile Speed. Quality on Frost Blades no longer provides 0-20% increased Damage.
- Quality on Divergent Summon Skeletons now provides "+0-1 seconds to Cooldown" and "Summons 0-4 Skeleton Warriors" (previously "Minions' Attacks have 0-10% chance to Maim Enemies on Hit").
- The Spirit Guards Unique Jewel now has "With at least 40 Dexterity in Radius, Animate Weapon can Animate up to 20 Ranged Weapons" (previously up to 12 Ranged Weapons). Existing versions of this unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Pure Talent Unique Jewel now provides "Melee Skills have 25% increased Area of Effect" (previously 15%) when your Passive Skill Tree connects to the Marauder's starting location. Existing versions of this Unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- Added 2 new Prefix modifiers that can roll on Jewels:
- 2-3% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills.
- 6-10% increased Flask Effect Duration.
Summary:
Our goal is that finding a unique Jewel is an exciting experience. The unique Jewels that drop naturally should be those that are very valuable with broad appeal to the average player, either to use in your own build or trade to someone else. We've worked towards this goal by removing uninteresting unique Jewels, adding more chase unique Jewels, and moving Jewels that do appeal to a smaller subset of players to other places so that they can be pursued by choice.
Problem:
Many of the unique Jewels that are currently granted through quest rewards are not very desirable. Additionally, because they're offered to all players who make their way through the campaign, they're extremely common, which inhibits them from having value or being meaningful items to find. We have also come to feel that it's thematically incorrect to offer unique items as quest rewards, as it undermines their feeling of uniqueness and prestige.
Solution:
Unique Jewels will no longer be offered as quest rewards. Most of the Jewels that were previously offered have been removed entirely, though some important ones have had their effects preserved in the form of new unique items or by being added to the pool of rollable Jewel modifiers.
Specifics:
- Unique Jewels are no longer offered as a quest reward for completing "The King's Feast" in Act 5. Instead, you are now offered a choice of Rare Weapons.
- Unique Jewels are no longer offered as a quest reward for completing "The Wings of Vastiri" in Act 8. Instead, you are now offered a choice of a Rare Crimson, Cobalt, or Viridian Jewel.
- Unique Jewels are no longer offered as a quest reward for completing "Through Sacred Ground" in Act 3. The Book of Regrets is now the only reward offered for this quest.
- Because these rewards are not static like the unique Jewels were, they may have a better chance of being useful to the receiver or something that may be valuable to trade to others. At the very least, they should be less predictable.
Curses
Problem:
- Currently, Hex Builds are at their weakest against monsters where they matter the most and at their strongest where they matter the least. This is partly because Hexes have hidden penalties which reduce their effectiveness when fighting unique monsters and pinnacle bosses (currently 33% and 66% respectively).
- It's normal for these monsters to have various hidden penalties, as noting every single one would create a lot of clutter in their mod descriptions. Players can reasonably expect these monsters to be more difficult to fight, so in general, showing the entire list of penalties is not very necessary. However, the penalty against Hexes is an outlier because it's much more significant compared to other hidden penalties.
- Because it is so substantial while also being hidden from players, it is unlikely to be compensated for during build creation and creates a notable disadvantage for Hex builds.
Solution:
We have removed both of these penalties so that Hexes will be consistently effective against all monsters in the game.
Specifics:
Pinnacle bosses, Map bosses, Incursion architects, Betrayal targets, Breachlords and others no longer have 33% or 66% less effect of curses on them respectively.
Problem:
Another issue that we feel undermines Hex builds is the Doom mechanic. We designed Doom with the goal of making self-cast Hexes more effective than other more trivial applications of Hexes, such as the Blasphemy and Hextouch Support gems. The Doom mechanic was somewhat successful in its goal, but came at the cost of adding a lot of complexity to Hex-related mechanics.
Solution:
We are removing the Doom mechanic and as a consequence will be making several other changes to mechanics that previously interacted with Doom. For example, all stats that reference Doom have been replaced with other curse-themed stats.
Specifics:
- The Curse Mastery that grants "20% chance for Hexes you Cast which can gain Doom to be applied with Maximum Doom" and "30% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Curse Aura Skills" have been replaced. The Mana Reservation Efficiency mastery has been replaced as there is now a much larger amount of Mana Reservation Efficiency for Curse Auras on the passive tree.
- Two new Masteries have taken their place. The first provides "You take 40% reduced Extra Damage from Critical Strikes by Cursed Enemies", while the second provides "Recover 1% of Life when you Curse a Non-Cursed enemy" and "Recover 1% of Mana when you Curse a Non-Cursed enemy."
- Existing Curse Passive Skills have been fully reworked. There are now six Curse clusters on the Passive Tree.
- The Vampirism cluster has moved location on the Passive Tree to make space for a new Curse cluster, and to become more accessible to the Witch starting location.
The Whispers of Doom Notable Passive Skill continues to give "You can apply an additional Curse." It now has a much larger selection of small Passives Skills leading to this Notable, which provide:
- 5% increased Effect of your Curses.
- Curse Skills have 10% increased Cast Speed.
- 15% increased Area of Effect of Hex Skills.
- 10% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Curse Aura Skills.
- 15% increased Curse Duration.
The Malicious Intent Notable Passive Skill now gives "+2 to Level of all Curse Skill Gems." The cluster now has Small Passive Skills granting:
- 15% increased Curse Duration.
- 5% increased Effect of your Curses.
- The Defiled Forces Notable Passive Skill gives "Refresh Duration of Ignite, Chill and Shock on Non-Cursed enemies you Curse" and "100% chance to Remove Elemental Ailments when you Cast a Curse Spell", with small Passive Skills in the cluster now providing "Curse Skills have 10% increased Cast Speed."
The Last Rites Notable Passive Skill now gives "Cursed Enemies you Kill are destroyed" and still provides "Enemies Cursed by you have 50% reduced Life Regeneration Rate." The cluster now has Small Passive Skills granting:
- Recover 1% of Mana when you Kill a Cursed Enemy, and Recover 1% of Life when you Kill a Cursed Enemy
- Recover 2% of Mana when you Kill a Cursed Enemy
- Recover 2% of Life when you Kill a Cursed Enemy
The Skittering Runes Notable Passive Skill now gives "50% increased Area of Effect of Hex Skills", "20% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Curse Aura Skills", and "20% reduced Mana Cost of Curse Skills." The cluster now has Small Passive Skills granting:
- 15% increased Area of Effect of Hex Skills.
- 10% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Curse Aura Skills.
- 10% reduced Mana Cost of Curse Skills.
- The Steeped in the Profane Notable Passive Skill gives "15% reduced Effect of Curses on you" and "10% increased Effect of your Curses", with small Passive Skills in the cluster now providing "5% increased Effect of your Curses."
- Quality on the Divergent Impending Doom Support no longer has 0 to -25% more Damage with Hits per 5 Doom on Hex. Instead, it now has 0-40% reduced Cooldown Recovery Rate.
- Quality on the Anomalous Punishment Skill no longer has "Curse has 0-40% increased Doom gain rate." Instead, it now has 0-20% increased Curse Duration.
- Essences of Delirium now provide 6-7% chance to Block Spell Damage for Amulets (previously "Hexes you inflict have +10 to maximum Doom).
- The legacy "Hexes you inflict have +5 to maximum Doom" Essence modifier on existing Rings has been replaced with "5% increased Effect of your Curses."
- The "Hexes you inflict have +10 to maximum Doom" Essence modifier on existing Amulets has been replaced with "10% increased Effect of your Curses."
Hexblast has had its skill mechanics and damage adjusted to account for the loss of Doom's scaling. Broadly speaking, it does less damage at the very top end of gameplay but getting it to a fairly decent level of damage is easier than before. It now removes a Hex with the lowest remaining duration from an enemy after damaging. Its damage is also more consistent because you no longer need to wait for Doom to build up.
Specifics:
Hexblast no longer has any Doom related stats. It now has a cast time of 1 second (previously 0.6), and a Mana cost of 16 at gem level 1 (previously 10), scaling up to 30 at gem level 20 (previously 20). It now deals 111 to 166 Chaos Damage at gem level 1 (previously 102 to 153), scaling up to 1514 to 2271 at gem level 20 (previously 1397 to 2096). It now has "100% more Damage with Hits if Enemy is Hexed", "40% more Damage with Ailments if Enemy is Hexed", "This Spell's Cast Time is added to its Cooldown if Triggered", and "Removes a Hex after Damaging." It also now has 340% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 310%).
Impending Doom has also had its base damage roughly doubled to compensate for this loss. We have replaced the Doomsday keystone with a new Hex-themed keystone, and introduced the new Cursed Ground Support which was reworked from the Doomsday keystone.
Specifics:
- Doom Blast, from the Impending Doom Support, now deals 102 to 154 Chaos Damage at gem level 1 (previously 54 to 81), up to 1654 to 2481 at gem level 20 (previously 868 to 1301). Now has 370% Effectiveness of Added Damage at all gem levels (previously 200%).
- The Doomsday Keystone Passive Skill has been replaced with the new Hex Master Keystone. This Keystone provides "Your Hexes have infinite Duration" and "20% less Effect of your Curses."
We've buffed a bunch of Hex-related unique items and have reworked unique items that previously interacted with Doom such as the Fated End unique ring. We've also added some powerful new unique items that interact with Hexes.
Specifics:
- The Heretic's Veil Unique Helmet now has +2 to Level of Socketed Curse Gems (previously +1), and "Socketed Curse Gems have 30% increased Reservation Efficiency" (previously 20%). The reservation efficiency change affects existing items, though a Divine Orb will need to be used to update the display, or receive the level of socketed curse gems change.
- The Cospri's Will Unique Body Armour now has 150-200% increased Evasion Rating (previously 120-160%), and "Always Poison on Hit against Cursed Enemies" (previously a 60% chance). It also now has +31-53% to Chaos Resistance (previously +17-29%). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Ylfeban's Trickery Unique Helmet no longer has "20% chance to Curse non-Cursed Enemies with a random Hex on Hit", existing versions of this Unique are unaffected. New versions of this Unique now have "Curse Enemies which Hit you with a random Hex, ignoring Curse Limit."
- The Felbog Fang Unique Amulet now causes Enemies Cursed by you to be Hindered with 30% reduced Movement Speed if 25% of Curse Duration expired (previously 25% reduced), and Enemies Cursed by you take 35% increased Damage if 75% of Curse Duration expired (previously 25% increased). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
In most cases, systems that facilitate somewhat automated gameplay, like Hextouch applying Hexes automatically, should either come at a much higher cost or be less effective. In some cases, both are needed to counterbalance the significant upside of automation. Otherwise, the option to automate will always be the obvious choice and eclipse other more interactive gameplay styles. The Doom mechanic was aimed at fulfilling this function for Hexes, and is being replaced by alternative, simpler solutions.
We have added penalties to both Blasphemy and Hextouch Supports which grant less curse effect at all gem levels. Additionally, item mods that inflict a specific Hex no longer do so with increased effect. This includes items where the Hex is meant to be a downside on the player, such as Coward's Chains, Coward's Legacy or Soul Mantle.
Specifics:
- Hextouch Support now has 35% less Effect of Supported Curses at all gem levels. Supported Skills now have 50% reduced Curse Duration at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 31% reduced at gem level 20 (previously 12%). Quality now provides "Supported Skills have 0-10% increased Curse Duration", instead of 0-10% increased Effect of Supported Curses.
- Awakened Hextouch Support now has 35% less Effect of Supported Curses at all gem levels. Supported Skills now have 30% reduced Curse Duration at gem level 1 (previously 10%), up to 26% reduced at gem level 5 (previously 2%). Quality now provides "Supported Skills have 0-10% increased Curse Duration", instead of 0-10% increased Effect of Supported Curses.
- Blasphemy Support now has 25% less Effect of Supported Curses at all gem levels. Quality now provides 0-20% increased Area of Effect of Supported Curse Skills, instead of 0-10% increased Effect of Supported Curses.
- Awakened Blasphemy Support now has 25% less Effect of Supported Curses at all gem levels. Quality now provides 0-20% increased Area of Effect of Supported Curse Skills, instead of 0-10% increased Effect of Supported Curses.
- Hexes applied by Bane now have 25% less Effect.
- Item modifiers that inflict a specific Hex no longer do so with increased effect. This includes instances where the Hex is a downside on the player, such as from Coward's Chains, Coward's Legacy, or Soul Mantle. This change affects existing items.
- Curse on Hit modifiers that appear on Influenced Rings now only have a single tier, as both tiers are now identical. The level 80 version of the modifier is the one that has been kept.
Problem:
Different Hex types are not evenly balanced when applied via Hex-on-hit modifiers. Some Hexes like Vulnerability and Despair are much more powerful than others. This is because Hex-on-hit modifiers apply a Hex equivalent to the level 1 version of the Hex skill gem. Some Hexes are very strong at Level 1, relative to their Level 20 power, because they scale in a more gradual way with gem level. This means that in some cases, using Hex-on-hit is too powerful alongside its benefit of also applying Hexes automatically.
Solution:
We are stabilising the gem scaling rates of Hexes. In general, they should be twice as powerful at gem level 20 than they are at gem level 1.
Specifics:
- Punishment now causes Cursed Enemies to take 30% increased Damage while on Low Life at gem level 1 (previously 40%), up to 58% at gem level 20 (previously 78%). It no longer has "10% of Overkill Damage from Killing Blows on Cursed Enemies is Reflected to other Enemies as Physical Damage".
- Quality on the Divergent Punishment Skill no longer provides 0-20% increased Area of Effect. Instead, it now provides "0-10% of Overkill Damage from Killing Blows on Cursed Enemies is Reflected to other Enemies as Physical damage."
- Elemental Weakness now causes Cursed Enemies to have -15% to Elemental Resistances at gem level 1 (previously -20%), up to -30% at gem level 20 (previously -39%). Quality on Elemental Weakness no longer causes Cursed Enemies to have 0 to -5% to Elemental Resistance. Instead, it now grants 0-10% increased Effect of Curse.
- Quality on Anomalous Elemental Weakness no longer grants 0-10% increased Effect of Curse. Instead, it now grants 0-20% increased Curse Duration.
- Flammability now causes Cursed Enemies to have -17% to Fire Resistance at gem level 1 (previously -25%), up to -36% at gem level 20 (previously -44%).
- Frostbite now causes Cursed Enemies to have -17% to Cold Resistance at gem level 1 (previously -25%), up to -36% at gem level 20 (previously -44%).
- Conductivity now causes Cursed Enemies to have -17% to Lightning Resistance at gem level 1 (previously -25%), up to -36% at gem level 20 (previously -44%).
- The following Skills now have a base duration of 8 seconds at gem level 1 (previously 9), up to 11.8 at gem level 20 (previously 10.9): Conductivity, Despair, Elemental Weakness, Enfeeble, Flammability, Frostbite, Punishment, and Vulnerability.
- Temporal Chains now has a base duration of 5 seconds at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 8 at gem level 20 (previously 5.95).
Further changes to some Hexes are listed below.
Problem:
We feel that there are currently too many sources of Curse Effect available. This has created a large power gap between players that have no investment in Curses and those that have heavy investment into Curses, which has continually caused us to have the baseline effect of curses to be lower than we'd like.
Solution:
We are regulating the number of sources of Curse Effect throughout the game. This will also rein in the power of players building Curse Support characters. These changes have been focused on less-accessible sources of Curse Effect, such as Eldritch Implicits on helmets, rather than accessible sources like the Passive Skill Tree. The curse effect notables on cluster jewels have been replaced with other appropriate ones. For example, the one that used to grant Flammability effect now allows your Flammability Hex to apply to hexproof enemies and also causes your ignites on cursed enemies to deal damage faster.
Specifics:
- The Eternal Labyrinth Helmet Enchantment that grants increased Effect of Curses applied by Bane now has a value of 10% (previously 15%). The Merciless version of this Enchantment can no longer be obtained, though existing versions are unaffected.
- Labyrinth Helmet Enchantments that provide increased Effect to a specific Hex now have values of 10% for the Merciless Enchantments (previously 15%), and 15% for the Eternal Enchantments (previously 30%).
- Eldritch Implicit modifiers on Helmets that provide increased Effect to a specific Hex now have values of up to 16% (previously 36%), up to 19% in the presence of a Unique Monster (previously 48%), and up to 22% in the presence of a Pinnacle Boss (previously 60%).
- Eldritch Implicit modifiers on Body Armours that provide increased Effect of your Curses now have values of up to 12% (previously 20%), up to 15% in the presence of a Unique Monster (previously 28%), and up to 18% in the presence of a Pinnacle Boss (previously 36%).
- The Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel Notable transformation now grants 4-6% increased Curse Effect (previously 7-10%).
- The Glorious Vanity Timeless Jewel small node transformation now grants 2% increased Curse Effect (previously 2-4%).
- Increased Effect of your Curses modifiers can no longer roll on Abyss Jewels.
- Small Cluster Jewel Passive Skills that grant increased Effect of your Curses now have values of 2% (previously 3%).
- The increased Effect of your Curses Redeemer-influence modifier on Shields now has values of 8-12% (previously 12-15%). The lower tier version of this modifier can no longer be obtained.
- The increased Effect of your Curses Veiled modifier on Shields now has values of 8-10% (previously 12-14%). Crafted versions of this modifier have been adjusted accordingly.
- The Replica Doedre's Damning Unique Ring now has 10-15% increased Curse Effect (previously 15-25%). Existing versions of this Unique can be made worse with a Divine Orb.
- The Jinxed Juju Unique Amulet no longer has 5-10% increased Curse Effect, existing versions of this Unique are unaffected. It also now has "10-15% increased effect of Non-Curse Auras from your Skills" (previously 5-10%). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated to the new values using a Divine Orb.
- The Delve-exclusive Body Armour modifier that grants 10-15% increased Effect of your Curses can no longer roll.
The following Curse Cluster Jewel Notables have been reworked:
- Lord of Drought now provides "Your Flammability Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "30% increased Ignite Damage against Cursed Enemies."
- Blizzard Caller now provides "Your Frostbite Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "30% increased Freeze Duration on Cursed Enemies."
- Tempt the Storm now provides "Your Conductivity Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "30% increased Shock Effect against Cursed Enemies."
- Master of the Maelstrom now provides "Your Elemental Weakness Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "+1% to maximum Elemental Resistances if you have killed a Cursed Enemy Recently."
- Misery Everlasting now provides "Your Despair Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "Recover 2% of Energy Shield on killing Cursed Enemies."
- Exploit Weakness now provides "Your Vulnerability Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "Recover 2% of Life on killing Cursed Enemies."
- Doedre's Gluttony now provides "Your Punishment Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "You have Culling Strike against Cursed Enemies."
- Doedre's Apathy now provides "Your Temporal Chains Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "Enemies you Curse are Unnerved."
- Doedre's Spite now provides "Your Enfeeble Curse can affect Hexproof Enemies" and "35% increased Critical Strike Chance against Cursed Enemies."
- The following Cluster Jewel Notables can no longer roll: Forbidden Words, Master of Fear, and Wish for Death.
- Existing Cluster Jewels that provided Inevitable Doom now provide Evil Eye.
- We have removed the '15% increased Effect of your Curses' and 'Enemies you Curse have Malediction' stats from the Malediction notable in the Occultist's Ascendancy. The 'Your Hexes can affect Hexproof Enemies' stat has been moved from Profane Bloom to the Malediction notable. We will be renaming this notable passive as it no longer causes you to apply Malediction to enemies you Curse.
- Due to the significant increase in the power of hexes against tougher monsters, the effects of this notable are still very strong, as the removal of the hex penalty cannot be understated. The massive buff to hexes especially applies to Occultists because they have access to more Hexes than other Ascendancies.
- The curse effect removed from the notable previously known as Malediction has been moved to the passive skill tree, where it's available for everyone. This is important, because while the Occultist is still the strongest overall Ascendancy for someone who wants to specialise in applying many hexes, it's not mandatory to play for someone who merely wants to apply really strong hexes.
Specifics:
- The Occultist's Profane Bloom Notable Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer provides "Your Hexes can affect Hexproof Enemies." It now provides "Cursed Enemies you or your Minions Kill have a 50% chance to Explode, dealing a quarter of their maximum Life as Chaos Damage" (previously 40% chance).
- The Occultist's Malediction Notable Ascendancy Passive Skill has been renamed to Unholy Authority. It no longer provides 15% increased Effect of your Curses, or "Enemies you curse have Malediction." It now provides "Your Hexes can affect Hexproof Enemies."
Problem:
The current balance of Enfeeble and Temporal Chains makes them exceedingly strong against normal and magic monsters while being relatively ineffective against pinnacle bosses. For example, a level 20 Temporal Chains gem currently reduces a Pinnacle Boss' action speed by just 4%. You can get more than twice as much action speed reduction using any skill that chills. This is another case of Hexes being weakest where they matter most and strongest where they matter least.
Solution:
Because of the changes to Curse Effect, we're now able to make Temporal Chains and Enfeeble strong defensive options without requiring large investment into Curse Effect. In addition to changes to their overall gem levels and scaling, we are also planning to increase the "Cursed Rare and Unique Enemies have x% less Action Speed" modifier on Temporal Chains as well as increasing the "Cursed Rare and Unique Enemies deal x% less Damage" modifier on Enfeeble.
Specifics:
- Enfeeble now causes Cursed Normal or Magic Enemies to deal 15% less Damage at gem level 1 (previously 21%), up to 29% at gem level 20 (previously 30%). It also now causes Cursed Rare or Unique Enemies to deal 9% less Damage at gem level 1 (previously 10%), up to 18% less at gem level 20 (previously 15%). Quality no longer grants 0-10% increased Effect of Curse. Instead, it grants 0-20% increased Curse Duration.
- Quality on Anomalous Enfeeble no longer causes the Curse to have 0-40% increased Doom gain rate. Instead, it now grants 0-20% increased Area of Effect.
- Temporal Chains now causes Cursed Normal and Magic Enemies to have 15% less Action Speed at gem level 1 (previously 20%), up to 29% at gem level 20 (unchanged). It also now causes Cursed Rare and Unique Enemies to have 9% less Action Speed at gem level 1 (previously 10%), up to 18% at gem level 20 (previously 14%). Quality no longer grants 0-10% increased Effect of Curse. Instead, it now grants 0-20% increased Curse Duration.
- Quality on Anomalous Temporal Chains no longer causes the Curse to have 0-40% increased Doom gain rate. Instead, it now provides 0-20% increased Area of Effect.
While working on the updates outlined above, we took the opportunity to make some stat changes to Vulnerability and Despair to help make these gems cleaner. They are now more focussed on making enemies vulnerable to Physical and Chaos damage in ways that are generically useful for any build dealing primarily Physical or Chaos damage.
Specifics:
- Vulnerability no longer has "Ailments inflicted on Cursed Enemies deal Damage 20% Faster". Now has "Cursed Enemies take 15% increased Physical Damage at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 30% at gem level 20 (previously 39%). Now has "Attacks against Cursed Enemies have 25% chance to inflict Bleeding" (previously 20%). Quality now provides 0-10% increased Duration of Bleeding on Cursed Enemies, instead of "Attack Hits against Cursed Enemies have 0-10% chance to inflict Bleeding."
- Despair no longer causes Cursed enemies to take 15-25% increased Damage from Damage Over Time effects, and it no longer adds 9-46 to 12-76 Chaos Damage to Hits against Cursed Enemies. It now causes Cursed enemies to have -15% to Chaos Resistance at gem level 1 (previously -20%), up to -30% at gem level 20 (previously -29%). Quality no longer causes Cursed Enemies to take 0-10% increased Damage from Damage Over Time effects. Instead, it now provides 0-10% increased Effect of Curse.
- Quality on Anomalous Despair no longer provides 0-10% increased Effect of Curse. Instead, it now causes Cursed Enemies to take 0-10% increased Damage from Damage Over Time effects.
Conclusion
In general, Hexes will be stronger against tough monsters and weaker against lesser monsters. We've removed Doom in order to simplify how Hexes work, introduced penalties to automated Hex application methods to keep them from outclassing self-casting, and made several other balance changes as a consequence of these overall changes.
Endgame Unique Weapons
Problem:
Many of Path of Exile's most iconic unique attack-based weapons have fallen out of use over the years. This is mainly because attack-based builds prioritise high base weapon damage over all else, and unique weapons are currently not able to compete with rare weapons in this regard. While a fundamental aspect of Path of Exile's itemisation is that unique items will be outclassed by rares, in the cases of these iconic weapons, they get outclassed before they can be reasonably acquired.
Solution:
We've increased the power of some existing endgame unique weapons, in some cases massively, in order to bring them in line with some of Path of Exile's most iconic unique items. In most cases these items have been made significantly rarer.
Specifics:
- The Atziri's Disfavour Unique Axe no longer has +2 to Level of Socketed Support Gems, existing versions of this Unique are unaffected. It now has "Adds 310-330 to 370-390 Physical Damage" (previously 205-220 to 250-270), and +10 to Weapon Range (previously +2). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated to the new values using a Divine Orb. New versions of this Unique now have +30% to Quality of Socketed Support Gems.
- The Bino's Kitchen Knife Unique Dagger no longer has 30% increased Damage over Time. It now has "Adds 140-155 to 210-235 Physical Damage" (previously 50-60 to 120-140). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Bloodseeker Unique Claw now has 200-220% increased Physical Damage (previously 150-170%), and "Adds 25 to 30 Physical Damage" (previously 10 to 12). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Divinarius Unique Dagger now has 100-150% increased Spell Damage (previously 50-70%), "Gain 100-200 Life per Enemy Killed" (previously 30), and "Gain 50-100 Mana per Enemy Killed" (previously 10). It also now has 200-250% increased Critical Strike Chance for Spells if you've Killed Recently (previously 125-175%), and +60-100% to Critical Strike Multiplier for Spells if you haven't Killed Recently (previously +40-60%). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated with a Divine Orb.
- The Essentia Sanguis Unique Claw no longer has 140-180% increased Physical Damage, or 50% reduced Maximum Recovery per Energy Shield Leech. Existing versions of this Unique are unaffected by these changes. It also now has "Adds 1 to 500-600 Lightning Damage" (previously 1 to 200), and existing versions of this Unique can be updated to the new values using a Divine Orb.
- The Kingmaker Unique Axe now has 300-360% increased Physical Damage (previously 190-240%). Existing versions of this unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Kitava's Feast Unique Axe now has Socketed Gems are supported by Level 30 Melee Splash (previously level 25). This change affects existing items, though you will need to use a Divine Orb to fix the description on the item.
- The Lioneye's Glare Unique Bow now has 180-200% increased Physical Damage (previously 90-105%), and now adds 7-14 to 24-34 Physical Damage (previously 6-12 to 20-32). Existing versions of this unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Marohi Erqi Unique Mace now has 500-600% increased Physical Damage (previously 400-500%). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Saviour Unique Sword now has 130-150% increased Physical Damage (previously 40-50%). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated with a Divine Orb.
- The Soul Taker Unique Axe now has 140-180% increased Physical Damage (previously 100-140%), and Adds 30 to 40 Physical Damage (previously 10 to 20). Existing versions of this unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Replica Soul Taker Unique Axe can no longer be obtained.
- The Starforge Unique Sword now has 400-450% increased Physical Damage (previously 200-300%). Existing versions of this unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Varunastra Unique Sword now has 80-100% increased Physical Damage (previously 40-60%). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated using a Divine Orb.
- The Voidforge Unique Sword no longer has 30-60% increased Physical Damage, existing versions are unaffected. It now has "Gain 700% of Weapon Physical Damage as Extra Damage of a random Element" (previously 300%), existing versions of this unique can be updated to the new value using a Divine Orb.
- The Voltaxic Rift Unique Bow no longer has 10% chance to Shock, existing versions of this Unique are unaffected. It now has "Adds 1 to 600-750 Lightning Damage" (previously 1 to 275-325), and 100% of Lightning Damage Converted to Chaos Damage (previously 60%). Existing versions of this Unique can be updated to the new values using a Divine Orb.
Mitigating Monster Life Regeneration
Problem:
Monster life regeneration is rarely a significant issue for players, but in cases where it does present an obstacle there are few solutions available to deal with it.
Solution:
Introduce some new sources to mitigate monster life regeneration that are able to be accessed easily.
Specifics:
- 60% increased Life Recovery from Flasks used when on Low Life is now found on the base Soul of Ryslatha Pantheon (previously found on the upgraded version).
- The upgraded Soul of Ryslatha Pantheon now provides "Enemies you've Hit Recently have 50% reduced Life Regeneration Rate."
- The "50% increased Life Recovery from Flasks when used on Low Life" Life Mastery has been replaced with "Nearby Enemies have 50% reduced Life Regeneration Rate."
Strike Skills and additional Enemies
Problem:
Most strike melee skills are currently reliant on ways to strike extra targets and/or deal splash damage in order to compete with other builds when clearing groups of enemies.
Solution:
Add Melee Splash access to the Passive Skill Tree and move the single Additional Strike there to the Attack Mastery instead of a specific node.
Specifics:
- The Tribal Fury Notable Passive Skill no longer has "Strike Skills target 1 additional nearby Enemy". It now has "Melee Strike Skills deal Splash Damage to surrounding targets".
- The two small Passive Skills in the Tribal Fury cluster which provide "10% increased Melee Damage" and "15% increased Melee Splash Area of Effect" have been removed.
- Added a new Attack Mastery that provides "Strike Skills target 1 additional nearby Enemy", which replaces the "Strike Skills target additional Enemies can do so from 30% further away" Mastery.
Pious Path
Problem:
The recovery provided by the "Consecrated Ground you create causes Life Regeneration to also Recover Energy Shield for you and Allies" on Pious Path is significant on its own, so having "50% increased Effect of Consecrated Ground you create" on top of this feels overboard.
Solution:
The Inquisitor’s Pious Path Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer provides "50% increased Effect of Consecrated Ground you create."
Spectral Helix and Lightning Conduit
Problem:
Both Spectral Helix and Lightning Conduit are currently too strong at all stages of the game relative to other similar skills.
Solution:
We've lowered the damage of these two skills to bring them more in line with others.
Specifics:
- Spectral Helix now has 100% Effectiveness of Added Damage at gem level 1 (previously 160%), up to 150% at gem level 20 (previously 250%).
- Lightning Conduit now deals 33 to 98 Lightning Damage at gem level 1 (previously 43 to 130), up to 387 to 1161 at gem level 20 (previously 516 to 1548). It now has 140% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 190%).
Lightning Strike
Problem:
Lightning Strike is currently overperforming in comparison to other skills. It is very good at both clearing and dealing single-target damage.
Solution:
We've changed the number of additional projectiles fired by Lightning Strike. It now requires more investment in additional projectiles for improved clear speed.
Specifics:
- Lightning Strike now Fires 2 additional Projectiles at all gem levels (previously 4 at gem level 1, up to 7 at gem level 20). Quality on Lightning Strike no longer provides 0-20% increased Damage.
- Quality on Vaal Lightning Strike no longer provides 0-20% increased Damage.
- Quality on Divergent Lightning Strike no longer provides "Fire 0-2 additional Projectiles." Instead, it now provides 0-20% chance to Shock enemies.
- Labyrinth Helmet Enchantments that cause Lightning Strike to fire additional Projectiles now have values of 1 and 2 (previously 2 and 3).
Divergent Second Wind
Problem:
The life regeneration on skill use provided by Divergent Second Wind Support has irreconcilable bugs with a few other stats that interact with life regeneration.
Solution:
We've replaced the stat on Divergent Second Wind with generic life recovery instead of life regeneration.
Specifics:
Quality on the Divergent Second Wind Support no longer grants Regenerate 0-1% of Life over 1 second when you use Supported Skills. Instead, it now grants Recover 0-1% of Life when you use Supported Skills.
Onslaught
Problem:
Historically, Onslaught itself has never been a buff and cannot be scaled by modifiers to buff effect as its only effect is "You have Onslaught", which isn't very sensible.
Solution:
Onslaught is now a buff, and modifiers to buff effect now apply to Onslaught. This includes flask effect modifiers when Onslaught is provided through a Flask. As such, flask effect modifiers are now able to roll on Silver Flasks.
Withering Step and Elusive
Problem:
Withering Step could be used to keep up a far stronger Elusive effect on average, especially in combination with the Nightblade Support. Normally you have to wait for Elusive to gradually lose effectiveness and fall off before you can gain Elusive again, but with Withering Step you could replace the existing Elusive buff with that of Withering Step's and then use any skill to lose Elusive again.
Solution:
Withering Step can no longer be used while already Elusive. This change shouldn't affect builds that don't have ways to gain Elusive outside of Withering Step.
Ancestor Totem
Added a new Totem Mastery that provides "Ancestor Totem Buff Effects Linger for 3 seconds", which replaces the "50% increased Totem Placement range" Mastery.Tainted Orbs of Fusing
Problem:
When reintroducing Tainted currency items, the chances for different outcomes were rebalanced to be appropriate for the core game. The new odds for Tainted Orbs of Fusing made it hard to justify using one on your gear as it could become an expensive venture.
Solution:
We've changed the outcome odds for Tainted Orbs of Fusing to be more favorable, to match where they were in Scourge League.
Fracturing Orb
Problem:
Due to changes to Exalted and Divine Orbs in 3.19, Harbingers felt relatively unrewarding to farm, as Exalted Shards presented a significant portion of the value from their rewards.
Solution:
We've introduced Fracturing Orb and Fracturing Shards, and have removed the Harvest Craft that fractures a random modifier on an item.
Sirus' Arena
Problem:
It's hard to tell where the edge of Sirus' arena is when environmental decorations are visually de-atomised.
Solution:
We've changed these visuals so you can still tell where the edge of the arena is after a Deatomization Storm has passed over the decorations.
Corrosive Hunger
Problem:
Wading through ooze in the Infinite Hunger fight subarea can be overly punishing if not using a movement skill.
Solution:
Reduced the rate at which players gain stacks of Corrosive Hunger in The Infinite Hunger boss fight.
Bestiary party-play
Problem:
Bestiary in party-play currently awards a beast to every player when capturing beasts, causing party-play to be the best way to capture specific rare beasts many times over.
Solution:
Additional captures of a beast when playing in a party are now rolled on a per-player basis, with the chance being tied to the quantity bonus granted for playing in a party. The owner of the instance is still guaranteed to receive the captured beast.
Kirac's ''Complete the Map'' Mission
Problem:
Kirac's "Complete the Map" Mission is a bit too generous in the Unique Maps offered, with some of the more rare Unique Maps being offered more frequently than they should.
Solution:
Kirac's giftyness for the maps offered for this mission has been reduced, the chances for him to offer a more rare Unique Map are now more reasonable.
Identified Memory Lines
Problem:
It was possible to use the Path of Exile: Trade website to determine the modifiers on Unidentified Atlas Memories.
Solution:
Atlas Memories now drop identified.
Rogue's Markers
Problem:
Upon leaving town in Act 6 and killing your first set of monsters, you'd very quickly obtain Rogue's Markers and be told to go back to town and talk to Kurai. This disrupted the flow of the main questline, and you were then directed to do more and more things for the initial Heist quest.
Solution:
We've removed the guaranteed Rogue's Marker drop from Act 6.
Monster Balance
- Boiling Ambushers found in Map areas now cast Frostbite instead of Elemental Weakness.
- The Bone Prison skill used by the Necropolis Map Boss now has a small gap to run out through.
- Magnus Stonethorn's Cast when Damage Taken Molten Shell now requires more damage to be triggered, and now absorbs more damage in Map areas, proportional to the life changes that Rogue Exiles received in 3.19. This skill also now has a 1 second cooldown (previously none).
- The Vine Pod explosion skill used by Spriggans now has a cooldown of 3 seconds, and a portion of the damage dealt is now Chaos Damage. They now also use the skill when you are closer to them.
Kirac League Mods Available During 3.20.0
- Fortune Favours the Brave (costs 3 Chaos Orbs): One of these options will be applied at random, including those you have not yet unlocked.
- Anarchy (costs 2 Chaos Orbs): Area is inhabited by 2 additional Rogue Exiles.
- Domination (costs 3 Chaos Orbs): Area contains 3 additional Shrines.
- Breach (costs 4 Chaos Orbs): Area contains 2 additional Breaches.
- Beyond (costs 5 Chaos Orbs): Slaying Enemies close together can attract monsters from Beyond this realm.
- Harbinger (costs 6 Chaos Orbs): Area contains 3 additional Harbingers.
- Delirium (costs 10 Chaos Orbs): Area contains a Mirror of Delirium.
- Ritual (costs 13 Chaos Orbs): Area contains Ritual Altars.
Quest Changes
- Shield Crush is now offered to the Marauder for completing Enemy at the Gate.
- Volcanic Fissure is now offered to the Marauder for completing The Siren's Cadence, and can be purchased from Nessa by the Marauder, Templar, Duelist and Scion.
- Cursed Ground Support is now able to be purchased from Clarissa by the Witch, Shadow, and Scion upon completing A Fixture of Fate.
- Multiple Totems Support is no longer offered to the Witch for completing The Eternal Nightmare.
- Frozen Legion is now offered to the Templar for completing Breaking the Seal, and can be purchased from Petarus and Vanja by the Templar, Marauder, Duelist and Scion.
- Hex Bloom Support is now offered to the Witch for completing The Eternal Nightmare, and can be purchased from Petarus and Vanja by the Witch, Shadow and Scion.
User Interface Changes
- Added a display that details the effects of all Eldritch Altars that have been selected in an area.
- Right-clicking on a Chronicle of Atzoatl now allows you to view the Temple of Atzoatl (previously Ctrl+Click). The text on Chronicle of Atzoatl items has also been updated to mention this.
- Updated the Atlas Mission information text on the Atlas to clarify accumulated Atlas Missions are based on the highest tier of Maps you have completed on your Atlas.
- Hovering over a recipe that adds a specific modifier in the Bestiary panel or at the Blood Altar now displays a preview of the modifier.
- Added slots for the newly introduced Fracturing Orb and Shard to the Currency Stash Tab.
- The League filter on the character selection screen now only lists Leagues you have a character in.
- The mini Energy Shield bar from the "show mini Life bar above you" UI Option will now display separately to the Life bar when you have a certain amount of Energy Shield at different level thresholds.
- It is now possible to right-click on a Divine Vessel that has captured a soul to upgrade a Pantheon Power, though you can still turn them in to Sin if you prefer.
- Improved the scrollspeed in the Friends and Guild sections of the Social Panel.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a bug where Rog would only offer base types that had unique versions. Rog can now offer items of any naturally droppable weapon, armour or jewellery base type.
- Fixed a bug that allowed the total value of minimum power, frenzy or endurance charges to go negative, which could cause skills to act as if players had more charges than they actually did.
- Fixed a bug where Auras supported by Divine Blessing socketed in a weapon slot could remain active after weapon swapping if you had another copy of the gem socketed in the same weapon slot.
- Fixed a bug where the area of effect of Hex Skills supported by Blasphemy Support were able to be negative, resulting in the Hex applying to yourself rather than enemies.
- Fixed a bug introduced in 3.12 where applying Temporal Chains in a way not from a Curse Skill, such as through Curse on Hit modifiers, was incorrectly applying Temporal Chains' "50% less effect on Players" to all targets.
- Fixed a bug where applying Punishment in a way not from a Curse Skill, such as through the Sentari's Answer Unique Shield, was causing Cursed Enemies to take 50% increased Damage while on Low Life, instead of 40%.
- Fixed a bug where fields created by Galvanic Field would remain after unequipping the skill.
- Fixed a bug where Nuro's Harp was able to create chilled ground when you had not frozen an enemy.
- Fixed an issue where the description of Icicle Burst, triggered by the Cameria's Avarice Unique, stated projectiles fired in a circle around enemies you kill, instead of enemies you hit.
- Fixed a bug where Temporal Rift resetting your Life, Mana and Energy Shield to the values they had when first cast could be incorrectly prevented by some recovery restrictions.
- Fixed a bug with Tempest Shield that could cause it to sometimes fail to deal damage until the skill was turned off and on again.
- Fixed a bug where modifiers to the expiry speed of buffs or debuffs on you applied to things they shouldn't, such as Vaal Cold Snap's chilling area.
- Fixed a bug where the modifier on the Ruptured debuff that caused Bleeding to expire 25% more quickly on the target would stack incorrectly with some other modifiers to expiry speed.
- Fixed a bug where the Flagellant Flask modifier was triggering from some types of reflected damage (which is usually prevented from triggering hit effects).
- Clarified various projectile damage-related stat descriptions to state whether the stat applies to ailments and/or other damage over time.
- Fixed a bug where some projectile-related damage modifiers applied to damage with ailments inflicted by attacks but not ailments inflicted by spells. They now apply in both cases.
- Fixed a bug where the curse effect reduction applied to monsters at very deep delve depths was not applying correctly.
- Fixed a bug where modifiers to the duration of bleeding or poison on you could not apply to bleeding or poison which was a skill duration (from enemy Puncture or Viper Strike skills).
- Fixed a bug where modifiers that make ailments deal damage faster incorrectly lowered the duration of poisons twice, resulting in lowering total damage dealt over the lifetime of the poison debuff. Also fixed this issue for bleeding from the Puncture Skill (non-Puncture bleeding and ignite were unaffected by this bug).
- Fixed a bug where Swift Affliction's "less Duration of Supported Skills and Damaging Ailments they inflict" did not apply correctly for bleeding from skills other than Puncture.
- Fixed a bug where having negative values of damage conversion would grant extra damage of the initial damage type.
- Fixed a bug where flat amounts of reflected damage were not being affected by PvP damage scaling.
- Fixed a bug where Kurgal, the Blackblooded could have incorrect life in their final phase at deep delve depths.
- Fixed a bug where new enemies that entered the range of a melee strike after the start of the damaging part of the strike but before it reached the angle to hit them would not be damaged.
- Fixed a bug with Malachai's Loop where "Shocks You when you reachg Maximum Power Charges" was processed before the state change enabled the mastery stat which prevents being shocked while at maximum power charges. This was particularly notable if also using Ralakesh's Impatience, which prevents the Loop from removing the charges.
- Fixed a bug where Energy Shield values were sometimes incorrect after area transitions if ongoing skills or buffs were modifying maximum Energy Shield.
- Fixed some inconsistent behaviour when triggering Lightning Conduit with Battlemages Cry.
- Fixed a bug where Gluttony of Elements was not causing healing from elemental damage over time taken.
- Fixed a bug where the Blood of the Karui's "Recover Full Life at the end of the Flask Effect" was not recovering Energy Shield when you had the Supreme Decadence Keystone Passive Skill allocated.
- Fixed a bug where players using Ichimonji were able to gain Onslaught from allies with Radiant Crusade allocated.
- Fixed a bug where skill effect duration modifiers from passives skills weren't affecting the duration of the Feeding Frenzy buff on players.
- Fixed a bug where the Snipe Skill, granted by the Assailum Unique Helmet, was missing the Physical tag.
- Fixed a bug where Battlemage's Cry was missing the Trigger tag.
- Fixed a bug where the description for the increased Map drop chance stat was incorrectly described as "more". It is now described as "increased Maps found in Area". This is not a functional change.
- Fixed a bug where Sirus, Awakener of Worlds would only fire projectiles on one side for his corridor skill.
- Fixed a bug where The Infinite Hunger could sometimes use skills while they were submerged.
- Fixed a bug causing The Shaper's beam skill to be invisible if you had left the area and returned.
- Fixed a bug where some Bosses, most notably The Elder, could not be killed if the player had a stat that caused a percentage of damage dealt to be leeched by the enemy as life.
- Fixed a bug where areas opened from Chayula, Uul-Netol and Xoph Breachstones did not have the additional random Modifiers they should have.
- Fixed a bug where Innocence's Beam debuff could continue to affect you well beyond the skills range if you performed an in-area transition while being hit by the beam.
- Fixed a bug where the Meteor impact from the Altar modifer that creates a Meteor on Flask Use was dealing more damage than intended to minions.
- Fixed a bug where Bone Armour, when granted by the Bone Barrier Ascendancy Passive through Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh, could be unbound from your skill bar when bound to Left-Click upon entering an instance.
- Fixed a bug where Tailoring Orbs were able to modify fixed sockets on items, such as Skin of the Loyal. Tailoring Orbs can no longer be used on items with fixed sockets.
- Fixed a bug where Alluring Vaal Side Areas with an area level of 69 could not drop Mortal Fragments.
- Fixed a bug where Essences of Zeal still had a modifier listed under "Other Jewellery" despite having specific modifiers for each Jewellery class.
- Fixed a bug where Fundamental Fossils had a higher cost in Niko's shop than intended.
- Fixed an issue where an old version of Spike-Point Quiver was offered as a quest reward for The Storm Blade quest.
- Fixed a bug where changing the settings of the Unique section of the Map Stash Tab would also affect the Guardian section of the Map Stash Tab, and vice versa.
- Fixed a bug where some debuffs, such as The Infinite Hunger's and The Eater of Worlds' drowning debuffs, were using the same debuff art as common dispellable debuffs.
- Fixed a bug where the Barrows Map Boss was missing audio for their charge skill.
- Fixed a bug where Orb of Storms did not describe it would strike every 0.50 seconds while Channelling a Lightning Skill near the Orb. This is not a functional change.
- Fixed a bug where "strike skills target additional enemies" could be displayed in non-strike melee skill descriptions.
- Fixed a visual bug where using Lightning Strike while affected by the Cat's Stealth buff could cause blue flashes.
- Fixed a bug where it was possible to die in your hideout by being linked to a Minion when the Minion expired.
- Fixed a bug where some Boss dialogue and Heist enemy dialogue was failing to play or being cut off early.
- Fixed a bug where the Arcane Tome microtransaction did not have summon audio when applied to a Ballista Totem.
- Fixed a bug where large numbers of Spark projectiles with the Spark Spiders microtransaction applied could cause monsters to T-pose.
- Fixed a bug where it was possible to vendor 5 Inscribed Ultimatums for a new Inscribed Ultimatum in Standard Leagues.
- Fixed a bug where the Primeval Power Source hideout decoration could affect the environment state of hideouts other than the Primeval Hideout.
- Fixed a bug where Tempest Shield could be disabled when entering a Town or Hideout with an Arachnomorph Pet microtransaction equipped.
- Fixed a bug where the Revelation Blade microtransactions did not look correct when using low water detail.
- Fixed a bug where the Circling Vulture Pet could disappear when interrogating, releasing or bargaining with a Betrayal Syndicate member you had marked.
- Fixed a bug where the Divergence Character Effect was not functioning correctly when you had the Cat's Stealth buff.
- Fixed a wonky interaction between Madcap Phase Run and the Stormstrider Boots microtransactions.
- Fixed a wonky visual interaction between the Scourgelord Weapon Skin microtransaction and Mirage Archer.
- Fixed a bug where transforming from or into an Arachnomorph Pet while Molten Shell was active would leave lingering Molten Shell visuals.
- Fixed a bug where the Nexus Flask Effect microtransactions did not play their effect when applied to Instant Recovery Flasks.
- Fixed an issue where equipping the Vampiric Body Armour microtransaction could cause your character's forearms to be invisible.
- Fixed a bug where the alternate bleed effect applied by the Bloodsoaked Torturer's Gloves microtransaction did not appear correctly on very large monsters.
- Fixed a client crash that could occur on AMD integrated GPUs when using Vulkan.
- Fixed another client crash caused by having a footprint effect applied to the alternate-art Demigod's Stride boots.
- Fixed a client crash that could occur in DirectX12.
Changes since the original post was made:
Updated the following note:Old:
- The Vile Power Divination Card has been re-enabled.
- The Vile Power Divination Card has been re-enabled, and now awards Doomfletch.
Added the following note:
- Quality on the Anomalous Punishment Skill no longer has "Curse has 0-40% increased Doom gain rate." Instead, it now has 0-20% increased Curse Duration.
Added the following note:
- The Vine Pod explosion skill used by Spriggans now has a cooldown of 3 seconds, and a portion of the damage dealt is now Chaos Damage. They now also use the skill when you are closer to them.
Updated the following note:
Old:
- Hexblast no longer has any Doom related stats. It now has a cast time of 1 second (previously 0.6), and a Mana cost of 16 at gem level 1 (previously 10), scaling up to 30 at gem level 20 (previously 20). It now deals 92 to 138 Chaos Damage at gem level 1 (previously 102 to 153), scaling up to 1262 to 1893 at gem level 20 (previously 1397 to 2096). It now has "100% more Damage with Hits if Enemy is Hexed", "60% more Damage with Ailments if Enemy is Hexed", "This Spell's Cast Time is added to its Cooldown if Triggered", and "Removes a Hex after Damaging." It also now has 280% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 310%).
- Hexblast no longer has any Doom related stats. It now has a cast time of 1 second (previously 0.6), and a Mana cost of 16 at gem level 1 (previously 10), scaling up to 30 at gem level 20 (previously 20). It now deals 111 to 166 Chaos Damage at gem level 1 (previously 102 to 153), scaling up to 1514 to 2271 at gem level 20 (previously 1397 to 2096). It now has "100% more Damage with Hits if Enemy is Hexed", "40% more Damage with Ailments if Enemy is Hexed", "This Spell's Cast Time is added to its Cooldown if Triggered", and "Removes a Hex after Damaging." It also now has 340% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 310%).
We really hope you enjoy Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum. Thanks for your support!
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3.20Sanktum
Liga · Sanktum Liga · Patchnotes · Herausforderungen · Gemme · Einzigartig · Gegenstand · Relikte · Heilige Relikte · Divinia · Unterstützerpakete · Kiracs Schatzkammer-Pass · Universell 2023
Weissagungskarten · Mann mit Bär · Alivias Gnade · Vielversprechende Ambitionen · Göttliche Schönheit · Das Hochzeitsgeschenk · Die verrückte Katze · Immerwährende Veränderung · Eine verstaubte Erinnerung · Die Rückkehr der Ratte · Der letzte Schliff
Gegenstand · Urnen-Relikt · Buch-Relikt · Truhen-Relikt · Weihrauchfass-Relikt · Papyrus-Relikt · Kerzenständer-Relikt · Prozessionsbuch-Relikt · Heiliges Relikt · Schlüssel zur Leerengeborener-Reliquienkammer
Währung · 
Brüchige Sphäre · 
Brüchige Scherbe · 
Lycias Invokation: Instabile Kreaturen · Lycias Invokation: Leitung · Lycias Invokation: Akrobatik · Lycias Invokation: Eiserne Reflexe · Lycias Invokation: Resolute Technik · Lycias Invokation: Unerschütterliche Haltung · Lycias Invokation: Unheimlicher Transformator · Lycias Invokation: Blutmagie · Lycias Invokation: Schmerzvolle Einstimmung · Lycias Invokation: Elementargleichgewicht · Lycias Invokation: Eiserner Griff · Lycias Invokation: Aus nächster Nähe · Lycias Invokation: Pfeiltanz · Lycias Invokation: Band der Ahnen · Lycias Invokation: Geistplünderer · Lycias Invokation: Vaal-Pakt · Lycias Invokation: Schwur des Eiferers · Lycias Invokation: Inkarnation des Feuers · Lycias Invokation: Geist über Materie · Lycias Invokation: Elementarüberladung · Lycias Invokation: Quälerei in Perfektion · Lycias Invokation: Blutroter Tanz · Lycias Invokation: Runenmeister · Lycias Invokation: Erbitterte Abwehr · Lycias Invokation: Ruf zu den Waffen · Lycias Invokation: Ewige Jugend · Lycias Invokation: Streifhieb · Lycias Invokation: Windtänzer · Lycias Invokation: Agnostiker · Lycias Invokation: Überlegener Stolz · Lycias Invokation: Unausgewogene Rüstung · Lycias Invokation: Der Aufspießer · Lycias Invokation: Verhexungsmeister · Lycias Invokation: Zauberbann · Lycias Invokation: Eiserner Wille · Lycias Invokation: Solipsismus · Lycias Invokation: Geistertanz · Lycias Invokation: Göttlicher Schild · Lycias Invokation: Vielseitiger Kämpfer · Lycias Invokation: Vergessener Schatten · Lycias Invokation: Präzise Technik
Brüchige Sphäre · Brüchige Scherbe · Lycias Invokation: Instabile Kreaturen · Lycias Invokation: Leitung · Lycias Invokation: Akrobatik · Lycias Invokation: Eiserne Reflexe · Lycias Invokation: Resolute Technik · Lycias Invokation: Unerschütterliche Haltung · Lycias Invokation: Unheimlicher Transformator · Lycias Invokation: Blutmagie · Lycias Invokation: Schmerzvolle Einstimmung · Lycias Invokation: Elementargleichgewicht · Lycias Invokation: Eiserner Griff · Lycias Invokation: Aus nächster Nähe · Lycias Invokation: Pfeiltanz · Lycias Invokation: Band der Ahnen · Lycias Invokation: Geistplünderer · Lycias Invokation: Vaal-Pakt · Lycias Invokation: Schwur des Eiferers · Lycias Invokation: Inkarnation des Feuers · Lycias Invokation: Geist über Materie · Lycias Invokation: Elementarüberladung · Lycias Invokation: Quälerei in Perfektion · Lycias Invokation: Blutroter Tanz · Lycias Invokation: Runenmeister · Lycias Invokation: Erbitterte Abwehr · Lycias Invokation: Ruf zu den Waffen · Lycias Invokation: Ewige Jugend · Lycias Invokation: Streifhieb · Lycias Invokation: Windtänzer · Lycias Invokation: Agnostiker · Lycias Invokation: Überlegener Stolz · Lycias Invokation: Unausgewogene Rüstung · Lycias Invokation: Der Aufspießer · Lycias Invokation: Verhexungsmeister · Lycias Invokation: Zauberbann · Lycias Invokation: Eiserner Wille · Lycias Invokation: Solipsismus · Lycias Invokation: Geistertanz · Lycias Invokation: Göttlicher Schild · Lycias Invokation: Vielseitiger Kämpfer · Lycias Invokation: Vergessener Schatten · Lycias Invokation: Präzise TechnikGems · Gefrorene Legion · Vulkanische Spalte · Unterstützung: Verfluchter Boden · Unterstützung: Verhexte Blüte · Vaal-Spalten · Vaal-Flimmerschlag · Vaal-Klingentanz · Vaal-Giftwirbel · Vaal-Lavaschlag · Vaal-Ätzender Pfeil · Vaal-Vulkanische Spalte · Vaal-Zerschmettern
Einzigartig · Nahende Vernichtung · Anathema · Ewige Verdammnis · Progenesis · Hexenbann · Entropische Zerstörung · Rationale Doktrin · Lied des Feuers · Nimis · Vom Sturm umhüllt · Oriaths Ende · Dämmerungsläufer · Die Winde des Schicksals · Die Balance des Terrors · Antlitz des Sandsturms · Echoschmiede · Wilmas Vergeltung · Doedres Zunge · Unabänderliche Gewalt · Der goldene Kelch · Das zweite Sakrament · Die göttliche Stunde · Die Nachtleuchte · Das zerbrochene Räuchergefäß · Das erste Wappen · Die Urschrift · Ursünde