Path of Exile News

In the Conquerors of the Atlas expansion we heavily revamped the endgame, adding five new bosses and drastically altering how players explore the Atlas. Today, we'd like to talk about some of the changes that are coming to the Atlas of Worlds in Path of Exile: Delirium.

One of the main pieces of feedback we saw was that spawning conquerors felt too random. Previously, you would randomly spawn Shaper and Elder influence on your Atlas and then were able to deterministically push the influence around to spawn the Elder Guardians and the Elder itself. We want to bring some of that determinism back into the Atlas. Here's our current plan:

Beginning after you're first able to fight the Awakener, you'll need to spawn influence in a region. This influence will spawn randomly but with a high chance. Once influence spawns in a region, you'll see a new icon and bar next to your Atlas Inventory (where your Watchstones can be stored on the left). This bar is segmented into either 5, 7 or 9 sections. The first, middle and last segment in the bar represent maps that contain influenced monsters and outcomes. In the following screenshot, the first map has been completed, with the 3rd and 5th map still to be.



Let's use a 5-segment bar as an example.
Map 1: You'll be met with the usual packs of monsters that you've become accustomed to.
Map 2: Will not contain any influence monsters, but will progress the bar.
Map 3: Will once again contain influence monsters and outcomes.
Map 4: Will not contain any influence monsters, but will progress the bar.
Map 5: Will once again contain influence monsters and outcomes.

After the fifth map, your bar will be filled and you'll be able to speak to Kirac and Zana in your hideout to open portals to the Conqueror itself.

The upsides of this approach are that long unlucky streaks are much less likely to occur, and you will know ahead of time when you're going to get the second and third influence outcomes. This means that you'll be able to plan ahead and run your best maps to maximise rewards.

Sextants
We are bringing back the Sextant vendor recipe. You will once again be able to trade three of a sextant for one of the next-best sextant. Three Simple Sextants will yield a Prime Sextant. Three Prime Sextants will yield an Awakened Sextant. Related to Sextants, we are adjusting the "Uses Remaining" counts for Unique Watchstones such that they will be divisible by 3, and where changes are being made, we're rounding up; no more Watchstone with a single use remaining and the unfun decision about whether to use a sextant on it or not.

Atlas Reshuffle
We are making very minimal changes to the Atlas in Path of Exile: Delirium League, though we'll be making minor adjustments to a few map tiers. This will result in Atlas map completion being reset on Standard league. You will retain your Unique Map completion. Completing a high-tier map will complete all maps one tier below the map that you completed. For example, completing a Tier 15 Map will complete all maps up to Tier 14.

Awakening Level and Awakening Bonus Objectives
We're making a few changes to Awakening Level bonuses. Your Awakening Level will be set per four Watchstones that you have socketed in your Atlas. This means that you can have four Watchstones socketed in four different regions and you'll have Awakening Level 1. This should result in players having an Awakening Level that gradually increases as they journey through the Atlas, rather than almost all of the levels coming much later.

One of our goals is to provide more incentive to complete Awakening Bonus Objectives. We'll be taking a few steps to achieve this. We'll be moving the "x% increased effect of Modifiers on non-unique Maps" bonus from the Awakening Level bonus to Awakening Bonus Objectives. This will result in the sought-after bonus still being available, but having a different means of acquisition. Otherwise, all of the bonuses that Awakening Levels grant remain as is. Secondly, you'll be able to increase your chance of getting an Atlas Mission on completing a map by completing Awakening Bonus Objectives. We will be reducing the base chance of receiving an Atlas Mission chance slightly, but the net result is that with 75 Awakening Bonus Objectives complete, you'll be back to a 40% chance. With 150 Awakening Bonus Objectives complete, you'll have a 45% chance to receive an Atlas Mission. We'll also be removing the "x% chance for Maps to drop one tier higher" bonus from Awakening Bonus Objectives.

Summary
Awakening Level bonuses will give everything that they gave before, except x% increased effect of Modifiers on non-unique Maps.

Bonus Objective bonuses are unchanged.

Awakening Bonus Objectives will now give:

• x% increased effect of Modifiers on non-unique Maps (up to the 24% previously available)
  
• x% increased chance of receiving an Atlas Mission (10% total in addition to the base chance of 35%)
  

Path of Exile: Delirium introduces a skill called Blade Blast. Alongside this new skill, we're making some changes to some existing spells that it can interact with. Among these are Ethereal Knives, Bladefall, Blade Vortex and as a follow on effect, Animate Weapon.

Blade Blast
Casting Blade Blast deals damage in a medium sized area at your target. Enemies hit will be Unnerved, increasing their spell damage taken. If there are any blades from Ethereal Knives, Bladefall or your own Blade Vortex in the area of effect, Blade Blast will detonate those blades as well, creating a chain reaction. This way, you can set up and detonate a long sequence of explosions to finish off enemies in a large area, or deal high damage to targets in a cluster of blades.

Ethereal Knives
Ethereal Knives has received some visual improvements while also allowing one in every three knives to remain as a small blade in the ground. A blade in the ground will do nothing and fade away after a duration but these blades can be interacted with by other skills.

To make the most of Ethereal Knives with Blade Blast, using the Slower Projectiles Support lets you create a dense field of blades close to you, and adding the Unleash Support will result in easily setting up a huge damage burst for taking out bosses. Using the Ring of Blades unique jewel will let you spread out the blades in a ring around you, which results in a large circular area of Blade Blast explosions.

Blade Vortex
As Blade Vortex already has respectable single target damage, Blade Blast has a different purpose when interacting with it. Blade Blast can detonate blades as they spin around you and for each Blade Vortex blade detonated in sequence, the area of the Blade Blast is multiplied, gaining over three times the area on the tenth blade destroyed. This lets Blade Blast cover a large area around you in a burst of damage that can clear out a dangerous group of monsters (or your delusions) in one quick cast.

Blade Blast won't detonate Vaal Blade Vortex or other player's Blade Vortexes so you can't destroy your Vaal Skill or 'accidentally' end your party member's Blade Vortex.

Bladefall
Bladefall will leave one blade per volley, resulting in 6 blades per cast. The blades are placed relatively central in the volley, so with Concentrated Effect you can place them close enough to create a lot of overlapping Blade Blasts.

Combining the skill with the Unleash and Spell Cascade Supports, you can place a huge number of blades with one cast, actually going over the maximum of 50 blades. Use Awakened Spell Cascade instead to spread them over a wider area.

Having a setup where Blade Blast, Bladefall or both are triggered by a trigger support or cast by totems lets you create a devastating area of effect combo with ease.

Animate Weapon
Blades from Ethereal Knives, Blade Vortex and Bladefall can now be Animated by Animate Weapon, making the skill much easier to sustain.

Blades animated this way have base attack speed, crit and range similar to a Glass Shank, but Animate Weapon adds bonus physical damage to Ethereal Blades based on the level of the Animate weapon skill, on top of the added damage granted to all weapons by Animate Weapon. This also means that blades from a low level Bladefall can be used by a high level Animate Weapon as effectively as a high level Bladefall's blades.

We've rebalanced Animate Weapon to lower the maximum number of blades and lower the time taken to reach full power, which also improves server performance. To compensate for the minion count loss, we've significantly improved their speed and granted much more added damage. The skill now has a faster cast time, lower mana cost, and grants More Attack Speed. The skill grants increased minion movement speed as the gem levels and a higher minion limit as the gem levels.

Here is a preview of these mechanics in action.

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We hope you've enjoyed this preview of the blade spell changes. Next week we'll talk about the new Kinetic Bolt Wand skill and the Spellslinger gem. Stay sane, Exiles!

In December we released the Metamorph League and Conquerors of the Atlas expansion. Both of these updates have been very well received by players, and as such, we've decided that when Metamorph League ends, we will be rolling it into the core game. Today's news post details how exactly that will happen and what you can expect when the next league begins.

We'll be giving Metamorph a 10% chance to affect Map areas. As Metamorph is the only way to get Catalysts, we'll be taking a similar approach to that of Blight league when it was added to the core game. Every Map area that contains Metamorph Monsters will always have a Catalyst reward available, providing consistent access to Catalysts should you so desire.

Metamorph Bosses will continue to drop Itemised Samples provided that you fill the bar. Tane's Laboratory will remain and will be the place to bring your Itemised Samples to, providing you the ability to continue creating unique encounters not ordinarily possible.

We'd like there to be some form of determinism for players that want to engage with Metamorph more often than the base 10% chance. For that reason, we will be adding a set of Scarabs for Metamorph encounters. Here is a preview of these Scarabs.



As you can see, a Rusted Metamorph Scarab will simply add Metamorph monsters to a Map area. The experience will be exactly what you've come to expect in Maps in the current Metamorph league. Polished Metamorph Scarabs will cause Metamorph Bosses which drop an Itemised Sample to drop an additional Itemised Sample. The rewards of the additional Itemised Sample will be rolled independently of the first sample. Finally, a Gilded Metamorph Scarab will cause all Metamorph monsters to have a reward. You'll still be limited to picking one reward per organ type, but you'll have many more rewards to choose from.



To make room for these Scarabs in Betrayal Rewards, we have combined Aisling's Veiled Jewellery rewards with her Veiled Weapon and Armour rewards. This means that you will get the regular amount of Veiled Weapons (or Armour) and in addition, you will get the Veiled Jewellery rewards that Intervention safehouses used to give. Defeating Aisling in Intervention safehouses will give Metamorph Scarabs, with the rank of Scarab (Rusted, Polished or Gilded) being dependent on Aisling's rank.

In addition to Aisling's Intervention rewards, we have also added Metamorph Scarabs to the pool of Scarabs that the Mastermind can drop when defeated. All other sources that give a random Scarab will also be able to give Metamorph Scarabs.

Oh, and yes, we have updated the Fragment Stash Tab to hold these new Metamorph Scarabs.



Finally, we have added a Sextant modifier which will add Metamorph monsters to a Map area. This works just as Metamorph does now. You'll be able to get this modifier by using Awakened Sextants on Watchstones.

Given historical precedence, it is probably a safe bet that you'll end up seeing Metamorph as a Zana modifier in future leagues (though not 3.10.0), providing even more control for those of you that want Metamorph monsters in every single Map that you run.

Hopefully this implementation hits a good balance between random encounters and providing determinism for those that want it. We look forward to seeing how this plays out and can't wait to share more information about what to expect next from Path of Exile very soon!

We're proud to announce Path of Exile: Delirium! Unravel your mind in the mists of delirium where reality turns to nightmare. Let greed drive you as you plunge deep into its horrors. This expansion contains the Delirium challenge league, the new Cluster Jewel system, new skills and support gems, powerful new items and further improvements to the Atlas endgame. Please check out the announcement page, watch the trailer and check out the new supporter packs!

We have finished our press tour, having shown our next expansion to 17 news outlets. The journalist embargo lifts at noon PST (9am NZ time) tomorrow, so we'll post the announcement/trailer simultaneously alongside the journalists posting their detailed information and interviews. Keep an eye on your favourite news sites tomorrow to see their coverage.

While the content remains shrouded in mystery, you should know the expansion introduces a new challenge league complete with terrifying new foes and tantalising rewards. You can also expect to see new skills, unique items, reworks to existing content and much more!

We will also be launching a new set of supporter packs at this time which means you have less than 24 hours to purchase the Sanctum and Damnation supporter packs before they leave the store forever!

We can't wait to unravel what we've been working on.