Path of Exile News

Metamorph Ends Soon
The Metamorph League on PC ends on Monday March 9th at 2PM PDT. This means you have only a few days left to complete your unfinished challenges!

Thank you to everyone who played in Metamorph! We're not saying goodbye to Tane and his dangerous experiments, and hope they'll keep challenging you as part of Path of Exile's core in 3.10.0.

50 Point Sale
We've just started a 50 Point Sale with a huge variety of cosmetic effects available for only 50 points or less, including Skill Effects, Pets, Hideout Decorations and many more. Check out the full list of specials by pressing M in game.

The 50 Point Sale will run from the time of this post until Mar 9, 2020 8:00 PM (PDT).

In case you need points for this sale, we recommend checking out our new Delirium Supporter Packs!

The Past Mystery Boxes Return
For a limited time we're bringing back some of the past Mystery Boxes to the store, so you've got another chance to get the community-popular cosmetic effects, such as the Sin and Innocence or Glimmerwood microtransactions for only 30 points! Here is a list of the Mystery Boxes available:

• Stormcaller Mystery Box
  
• Chaos and Order Mystery Box
  
• Fire and Ice Mystery Box
  
• Sin and Innocence Mystery Box
  
• Apocalypse Mystery Box
  
• Oriath Mystery Box
  
• Fairgraves Mystery Box
  
• Glimmerwood Mystery Box
  
• Frontier Mystery Box
  

All the Mystery Boxes listed above will be available all weekend until Mar 9, 2020 8:00 PM (PDT).

Get a Free Polaris Mystery Box When You Spend Points
In addition, until the launch of Delirium we're offering one free Polaris Mystery Box when you spend any amount of points in the store. This means you can purchase a discounted cosmetic effect on the 50 Point Sale, one of the returned Mystery Boxes or any other microtransaction and receive one Polaris Mystery Box as a gift from us.

Please note: it's only possible to get one free Polaris Mystery Box from this promotion. Making additional microtransaction purchases will not grant additional mystery boxes. Purchasing a supporter pack will not grant a free Mystery Box but spending points from a supporter pack can grant a free Mystery Box.

What to Expect Next Week
The Delirium expansion launches in just seven days, so the upcoming week will be packed with useful information. This time our usual pre-launch news schedule has been slightly changed: the Balance Manifesto which would normally be posted on Tuesday (NZT) will be replaced with a full list of the new notables available from the Cluster Jewels system. Other than that we don't expect any changes to our news schedule, so here it is (this schedule follows New Zealand's Monday to Friday work days, but in other countries might be Sunday to Thursday):

• Mon: Delirium Challenge Rewards.
  
• Tue: Notables from the Cluster Jewels System.
  
• Wed: 3.10.0 Patch Notes, Passive Tree and Item Filter Information.
  
• Thu: Showcase of the new and reworked gems (at Level 20 with 20% Quality).
  
• Fri: What to expect when Delirium launches and possibly a torrent pre-download for the patch.
  

By the way, our game designers Neon and Rory will appear on the Baeclast podcast this Sunday March 8th at 12AM (PDT) to discuss the Delirium expansion and to answer some of your questions. Click here, if you'd like to submit your question for this podcast. Check it out live at https://www.twitch.tv/tarkecat!

Thank you so much for your support! See you next week!

In Path of Exile: Delirium we've made a variety of adjustments to some movement skills and introduced hundreds of new monster types to the pool of spectre possibilities.

Movement Skills
In the interest of giving players more competitive choices when picking a movement skill, we've made various improvements to some skills and have introduced a new Support Gem called Second Wind. Flame Dash was by far the most popular movement skill because of its versatility but with these changes we've given the other skills more niche uses that should make them more compelling choices.

The new Second Wind support adds an additional cooldown count to skills that already have a cooldown (excluding instant or triggered skills). This means you can use them one extra time before the cooldown prevents their use. This allows two uses in rapid succession for skills that usually only have one use like Blink Arrow or Dash, or four uses on Flame Dash or Smoke Mine.

The intention of its design is to improve travel skills and encourage investment into them but it also has some other interesting uses on certain skills like Frost Bomb. It also gives supported skills a small amount of Cooldown Recovery Speed as the gem levels, which is great for skills that usually have very little access to this bonus.

Here are some of the changes we've made to some travel skills:

• Dash now gains travel distance as it levels, and works particularly well with Second Wind to be able to travel long distances in a short time.
  
• Frostblink now deals damage and places chilled ground at both the start and end of the movement, and counts enemies at both areas to reduce its cooldown. This makes it great for both moving into and out of a fight. It also travels further than before, and gains travel distance as it levels. It can't be supported by Second Wind because it is instant. To compensate for this, it has received more improvements than other skills mentioned here.
  
• Flame Dash has had its increased Cooldown Recovery Speed per level lowered slightly, as it was slightly above curve and does benefit from the Second Wind support.
  
• Lightning Warp has had its cast time lowered and has a higher value of reduced Skill Effect Duration than before. This makes it easier to invest in but still requires more character investment than other movement skills as a trade-off for having no cooldown.
  

It's worth noting that Blink Arrow hasn't received any changes but works well with the Second Wind support. Alongside Dash, you can have a very mobile bow-based character. Travel Attacks also haven't been changed at this time but we'd like to add more attack-movement diversity in the future.

Changes to Spectres
We've added over 350 new monster types to the pool of possible monsters which can be used for Spectres. These are monsters that were not previously usable as spectres for technical reasons, such as unusual spawning behaviour or skills that only function in a specific context. Among them are monsters from Abyss, Delve, Betrayal, Synthesis, Legion and Conquerors of the Atlas content. Some of these monsters utilise skills that are fairly new and different to skills that are used by existing spectres so should allow for some new options for spectre builds.

We've gone through these monsters to make the appropriate AI and skill mechanic changes to ensure that they're able to still use their skills as spectres. Outside of these small improvements they remain relatively unchanged from their delightfully monstrous states.

In addition to this, all monsters that can be used as spectres can now also have corpses spawned using Desecrate once you have a spectre of them. Monster corpses that were previously impossible to spawn with Desecrate still can’t be spawned unless you have a spectre of them (or entered the current area with a spectre of them), so you'll have to first find those monsters in the wild. Corpses that despawn shortly after death will still do so (unless created by Desecrate), as it's vital for performance in many cases. So you'll have to be quick off the mark with your spectre raising!

We plan to keep doing this in the future to ensure a steady supply of new spectres. If you happen to find a monster that you'd like to see as a spectre but isn't currently supported, please let us know!

Alongside Path of Exile: Delirium, we are introducing gems that allow you to translate mana investment into damage. This post shares more information about the new Stormbind and Arcane Cloak Skill Gems as well as the Archmage Support.

While there are some existing options in Path of Exile that facilitate using mana as a source of damage or defense, these usually come from quite niche sources. Since mana is such a fundamental mechanic, we felt that there could be more support for players who are interested in builds that fully invest in mana. Introducing new gems facilitates this desire while also having the bonus of allowing you to gain damage from your mana pool in a way that is distinct from reserving it for auras.

Arcane Cloak
Arcane Cloak is a Guard skill and, like other Guard skills, it is instant with a cooldown that does not expire during the skill's effect. The extent of your build's mana investment will scale both the offensive and defensive properties of Arcane Cloak.

It uses a percentage of your unreserved mana to grant a buff that absorbs 75% of all damage from hits before that damage affects your life or energy shield (similar to Steelskin and Molten Shell). The amount of damage Arcane Cloak's buff can absorb is determined by how much mana was used.

While the buff is active, you also gain additional lightning damage proportional to the mana used by the skill. The damage bonus relies on the buff being active so you'll need to ensure that you don't take more damage than your buff allows for or you'll lose the effect of both until the cooldown resets.

The flexible nature of this skill allows you to use it in different scenarios, perhaps as a burst of damage against bosses or as a quick layer of defense against incoming damage spikes - just make sure you have plenty of mana to spare!

Stormbind
Stormbind is a level 28 channelling spell that works in a fashion that's similar to Mines but with a channelling component. The initial channeling aspect of Stormbind lays a grid of runes that Hinder enemies. As a second layer of offence, Stormbind also grants the Rune Blast ability, a channelling spell that upgrades the area of effect and damage of Stormbind's runes. The more mana you spend while channeling Rune Blast, the greater the area of effect and damage your upgraded runes will have. When you stop channelling, all of your Stormbind Runes will detonate in a sequence, dealing Lightning damage to an area. Your character will also be teleported to the location of the first rune that was detonated.

Because of its various components, Stormbind can be used in several ways - either as a single layer to Hinder enemies, a sizable blast for your foes or as an option for movement. Because of the way it scales, you'll be rewarded for having a high mana cost and fast cast speed as these allow the runes to be upgraded quickly and to a higher capacity.

Archmage Support
The Archmage Support can be used with any spell that deals damage with hits and has a mana cost. It converts the supported spell into one that scales with mana investment.

Instead of using the skill's inherent mana cost, the Archmage Support causes it to use a percentage of your unreserved maximum mana. The larger the size of your unreserved mana pool, the greater the cost of your supported spell. Mana multipliers from other support gems will further modify this cost.

As a trade-off for this higher mana cost, you'll gain lightning damage based on the new amount of mana your supported skill costs. The higher your skill's mana cost, the more damage you'll gain from the Archmage Support.

This support naturally increases in power as you level and gain a larger mana pool but further investment into mana on your Passive Skill Tree will greatly improve its damage.

Check out the new gems in action in the video below!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Earlier this week, we posted a news article describing some of the changes to the Atlas of Worlds in the upcoming 3.10.0 expansion. In response to community feedback, we have written a Development Manifesto entry to discuss the concerns you raised. As always, thanks for your timely and passionate feedback.

Sustaining Maps
In Conquerors of the Atlas, we dramatically and somewhat inadvertently increased the map drop rate, through the following mechanisms:

• Conqueror influence adding a large amount of monsters and content to Maps when spawned.
  
• Additional maps from Awakening Levels (including Shaper and Elder Guardian maps).
  
• Synthesis Unique Maps dropped by bosses.
  
• Unique Watchstones.
  
• Additional monsters spawned by higher-tier Sextants.
  
• Conqueror maps being opened for "free" by Zana.
  
• The map mod effect from Awakening Levels applying to Quantity and Pack Size modifiers.
  
• Blight going core.
  
• etc.
  

Even though we did remove Shaper and Elder influence, the number of maps added was a lot higher than the amount we removed. Some of our team members finished the league with a many hundreds of excess tier 14 maps in their stash. Players playing the league commented that Delve cities did not feel rewarding any more (because in the past they were a great source of Maps). Similar comments were made about the Temple of Atzoatl, which was also a good place to find maps in the past. The very easy access to maps in the Conquerors endgame diminished the relative reward earned by running other game content.

In addition to the above changes that made maps a lot easier to find, our plan for 3.10.0 was already going to take it even further:

• Improved Temple of Atzoatl
  
• Improved Vaal Side Areas (and they can now drop maps!)
  
• Metamorph going core
  
• Delirium being a high-reward league if you take risks
  
• Being able to tell when Conqueror Influence is about to occur so that you can roll your maps for it to maximise drops
  

We decided to tweak the Awakening Objectives to remove the bonus to map tiers because it felt unnecessary after replacing it with the Map Mod Effect, and it wasn't really an exciting bonus for most players to work towards.

Playing through the Atlas in 3.10.0 will still result in a flood of maps compared to pre-3.9.0 Path of Exile. If you're worried about not being able to sustain maps easily, you needn't be. It feels good in our testing so far, and we will be keeping a very close eye on this.

Target-farming Maps and Cartographer's Seals
This is a big topic that we're still discussing internally. Philosophically, we don't like that Cartographer's Seals go against the natural progression of your Atlas. Ideally we'd prefer that things were designed in a way where un-completing maps was not necessary. We want players to earn map completion and bonuses objectives and to feel good about having them. Cartographer's Seals worked directly against this.

We have some ideas that we're discussing that should help on this front, and we'll let you know as they progress through internal testing. To be clear, our solution will not involve Cartographer's Seals coming back in the same form they were before.

Map Mod Effect
A separate goal in 3.10.0 was to make Awakening Objectives more desirable. As we just discussed, map drops were at an all-time high so we didn't want to add more map drops to Awakening Objectives. Our plan was to move the popular Map Mod Effect increases to the Awakening Objectives in order to give them more of an incentive.

You're completely right that Map Mod Effect isn't always positive for every build. For example it can ruin Ignite builds by making it impossible for monsters to be ignited. While map mods are designed to hinder your character, the Map Mod Effect can sometimes push it over a reasonable limit. We will make adjustments to those cases.

If there are any other problematic mods other than ailments, please let us know and we'll look at those too.

Alongside Path of Exile: Delirium, we're introducing two new Wand skill gems, with some associated wand changes. Today we're going to look at Kinetic Bolt, Spellslinger and changes to the Wandslinger notable.

Kinetic Bolt
Kinetic Bolt is a new level 1 Wand skill. It fires a projectile a short distance before forking, splitting into a primary projectile and a limited range secondary projectile, each angling off at 45 degrees from the direction the skill was aimed. It then starts doing this at regular intervals or when hitting enemies, forking 5 times at gem level 1, creating an angular spread of projectiles over a wide area.

Increases and reductions to Spell Damage also apply to Kinetic Bolt's attack damage at 150% of their value, opening up new build paths and item choices right from when you get the skill, and taking advantage of increased Spell Damage on your wand.

The skill has unique interactions with a number of projectile modifiers. Adding "Projectiles Fork" causes the skill to fork an additional time. Adding additional projectiles causes the secondary projectiles to fire this many additional projectiles each time they're created by a fork. With the Barrage support, each shot fired still performs all forks, resulting in both high single target damage and extra side projectiles.

The skill is offered to the Witch after completing "Enemy at the Gate", but purchasable from the vendor for Witch, Ranger, Shadow and Scion.

Spellslinger
Spellslinger is a new Skill-Support that supports linked spells. Activating the skill causes all of these spells to reserve mana, and when you perform a wand attack, all of the skills are triggered. They have a 0.5 second cooldown and gain cooldown recovery speed as the gem gains levels, so you don't need to push your attack speed too high to get the most out of the support.

Spellslinger also provides a unique effect to supported spells: Your wand's base damage is added to the damage of the spell. Base damage includes all local added and increased damage modifiers, making attack wands powerful when you're focussed on Spellslinging.

Spellslinger sets the reservation cost of linked spells to 15% of your maximum mana, with support gem mana multipliers have a direct impact on this reservation cost. This makes it a cheap way to trigger unsupported spells, or lets you reserve larger values of mana for devastating fully supported spells.

You can have multiple skills reserved with Spellslinger, letting you perform combos like triggering Frostbolt and Ice Nova together, Desecrate and Volatile Dead, or Bladefall and Blade Blast. You could also use Spellslinger to activate secondary skills like Curses, Wave of Conviction or Lightning Warp.

The skill is offered to the Witch after completing "Lost in Love" from Clarissa, but purchasable from the vendor for Templar, Witch, Shadow and Scion.

Wand Skill Balance
Power Siphon and Kinetic Blast now deal a higher portion of base damage at lower levels, growing to slightly more damage at higher levels. This greatly improves leveling with Wands.

We've also adjusted damage on a couple of unique wands that were below the damage curve of other unique items around their level, making them better tools for leveling and early mapping.

Wandslinger Notable change
Wand passive skills were recently reviewed, so not many changes have been made here. We have made a major change to Wandslinger, granting a new effect that was previously only found on the Crown of Eyes unique item.



This means that if you want to use a wand skill other than Kinetic Bolt, but you've already invested in spell damage to take advantage of its special spell damage interaction, then Wandslinger has you covered. It also opens up new build possibilities for classic wand skills.

As a result of making this interaction more accessible, we've improved the Crown of Eyes unique item so it now grants attack damage from spell damage at a higher ratio, and Crown of Eyes is still the only way to get this effect on other weapon types.

Check out a preview of these changes in action.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We hope you've enjoyed this look at some of the new Wand mechanics available. Reality is an illusion. More teasers are coming soon, including an in-depth look at new mana based gems later this week.