Path of Exile News

Alongside the Blight expansion, we're making some improvements to the Assassin Ascendancy and introducing a new set of Poison attacks. This also includes two new gems utilising a new buff type called 'Elusive'.

Cobra Lash
Cobra Lash is a new low-level attack skill for Daggers and Claws. You fling out a copy of your weapon, creating a projectile that chains multiple times. The skill chains between more enemies at higher levels. The skill grants additional added chaos damage and some chaos conversion, with a chance to poison.

Any critical strikes will have +50% to Poison Damage Multiplier, making the skill quite powerful later in the game if you specialise in critical hits. This is one of many sources of Damage over Time Multiplier for Poison. We've also added Poison Damage over Time Multiplier to many passives, and changed many sources of Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier so they aren't restricted to non-ailments.

Pestilent Strike
This high level Dagger and Claw skill applies poison on hit, as well as a debuff that lasts a short duration. If the target dies while this debuff is active, they explode, releasing a nova that applies a damage over time effect to all enemies in range. The damage of this debuff is based on the total poison damage remaining on the enemy, and this damage is dealt over a short duration.

The Poisons you spread don't have to be from Pestilent Strike, so you can use it alongside Viper Strike or other poisonous skills. This lets you turn a long duration stack of poisons on a single enemy into a fast acting wave of death over a large area. The damage over time effect applied by the nova isn't modified by any of your damage bonuses, as it was already based on a modified poison, but any of your modifiers to skill effect duration will change how long it lasts without influencing its damage per second.

Elusive
The new Elusive buff grants 40% increased movement speed as well as 20% attack and spell dodge. Unlike other buffs, Elusive doesn't have a duration, but instead loses buff over time, until it is removed on reaching 0% effect. This means that increasing your buff effect also increases how long the effect on you lasts. Most sources of Elusive won't overwrite an existing Elusive buff on you.

A new notable on the Assassin Ascendancy will have a chance to grant Elusive, and the buff can also be gained from the following two gems:

Withering Step
Withering Step is an instant spell that removes any existing Elusive effects on you, and grants a new full strength Elusive buff. Withering Step applies multiple stacks of Withered to any enemy when they first enter an area around you, but only once per skill use. Withered increases damage taken from Chaos, which includes Poison effects. While the Elusive from Withering Step is active, you'll be granted Phasing and the cooldown will be paused. Any skills you perform will remove Elusive, which will start the cooldown. At higher levels, the skill has increased Elusive effect.

You can use the skill as an instant way to apply Wither to enemies around you, as a way to quickly avoid attacks with a sudden burst of speed and dodge chance or as a sustained speed increase that also lets you apply Wither to large paths of enemies as you move.

Nightblade Support
The Nightblade Support is exclusive to Daggers and Claws, just as Close Combat and Shockwave Supports are exclusive to other melee weapon types. Nightblade grants base critical strike chance, and supported skills will also grant Elusive on Critical Hit. Elusive granted by attacks supported by Nightblade also grants Critical Multiplier to Nightblade supported skills, and because the multiplier is part of Elusive, it scales with Elusive Effect, granting over +100% to Critical Strike Multiplier at level 20 when first applied.

This means the supported skill will give you sudden bursts of speed and critical multiplier when you first critically hit, and any Elusive effect gained from other sources like the Assassin ascendancy will further enhance the power of the buff.

Check out all the new gems in action in the video below:

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We still have the reworked Mine system and skills to talk about later this week, and more Poison skills next week, so stay tuned!

As with every Path of Exile update, Blight will bring with it a number of quality-of-life improvements. Today we're talking about one of the biggest ones -- changes to how your Master missions are handled in the Atlas.

If you've ever felt like you were missing out by taking a day off from mapping, this change is for you. Currently, Master missions are handed out daily on your Atlas, appearing as a symbol over certain maps. Opening a map with a symbol over it guarantees you'll encounter the associated Master. By running maps, you also have a chance to generate more Master missions in this style, in addition to each map having a small chance to randomly generate with a Master inside of it. Unfortunately, if you aren't actively pursuing those Master missions on your Atlas, or if you didn't log in for a day or more, you were missing out on Master mission opportunities.

In the Blight update, we're solving this issue by allowing your Master missions to accumulate. On the right-hand side of your Atlas, each Master has a little counter that tracks how many of their missions you've accumulated, and on which Map tiers they can be used (e.g. white/yellow/red). Each day you'll automatically earn a number of Master missions, but if you don't use them, they don't go anywhere -- they're still there on your tracker. Likewise, any missions earned while you're mapping are tracked and accumulated on your Atlas.

If you decide you want to run a bunch of maps with Einhar in them, all you need to do is talk to him in your Hideout and select 'Mission'. This brings up the map device UI, and you can simply add and run whichever map you want, including the opportunity to select a Zana mod to use. Some stupid beasts will be waiting for you to within the map!

Because we want to make sure players have the opportunity to play what they want when they want, we're moving about half of the random chance for a Master to appear in a map into this Mission accumulation system. In other words, you'll see fewer masters by chance, but will have more opportunities to run missions earned through mapping, and you'll be able to choose when and how you use those missions.

For Master fanatics who were actively pursuing missions at every possible opportunity, you may see a very small reduction to the overall number of Master missions you encounter. For everyone else, it's very likely you'll see more.

These Master missions are account-wide for any characters in the same League. You'll accumulate missions on Standard if you have any valid characters there, as well as in whichever Blight league you decide to play when it launches on September 6 PDT on PC.

To celebrate the announcement of our upcoming expansion, we've just released two pairs of Blight Supporter Packs! By purchasing these you will receive cosmetic effects, such as an Armour Set, Weapon Effect, Aura Effect, a Pet and more! Press M in game to check them out!

There are two pairs of packs available with many exclusive microtransactions. Each of the two pairs has different contents, so you can choose whichever one (or both) you prefer. You can upgrade from the cheaper one in a pair to the more expensive later.


The Sentinel Supporter Pack contains a Weapon Effect, a Pet, a Portrait Frame, a Supporter Forum Title and 250 points. The Sentinel Overlord Supporter Pack contains everything from the Sentinel pack as well as an Armour Set, 550 points, a Portrait Frame and a Forum Title. Check out the preview of the Sentinel Overlord Supporter Pack below!

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The Lich Supporter Pack contains a Weapon Effect, an Aura Effect, a Portrait Frame, a Supporter Forum Title and 250 points. The Bane Lich has the same contents as the Lich pack, plus an Armour Set, an alternative Helmet Skin, a Portrait Frame, a Forum Title and 550 points. Check it out below:

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You can upgrade from one of these Supporter Packs to another in the same series by clicking "Upgrade" on the desired pack. The process will include any pure points packs purchased since the release of Blight. The maximum amount that upgrades can contribute is 80% of the value of a pack.

Note that the Core and Blight packs are in different series, so you can't upgrade from one of those to the other type. If you have any questions about this process, please contact [email protected]!

We hope you really enjoy these Supporter Packs! Thank you so much for your generous support!

Alongside the release of the Blight expansion, we're introducing the Carrion Golem and a handful of new Support Gems that let you customise your minions.

Summon Carrion Golem
The Carrion Golem is a well-rounded attacker, using a rapid melee attack, a leap slam to get into the thick of combat, and a powerful cooldown-restricted multi-cascade slam. As its passive Golem buff, it grants added physical damage to all non-golem minions, including their attacks and spells. It has a unique feature among golems, gaining more damage for each of your non-golem minions around it, up to 80% more damage.

A single Carrion Golem fits well into established Minion builds as an extra bonus to all of your necromantic minions. It can also be invested in more heavily by taking various sources of additional golems (including a new notable passive) and using multiple golems alongside a swarm of zombies or skeletons.

There are also four new support gems that you can place on minions to change their behaviour and function:

Feeding Frenzy Support
The Feeding Frenzy support gem makes supported minions aggressive, increasing the range that they'll seek out enemies. It also gives hits from the minions a chance to give you the Feeding Frenzy buff, granting more minion damage and increased minion attack, cast and movement speed. While you have the Feeding Frenzy buff, the supported minions deal even more damage.

Meat Shield Support
The Meat Shield support gem makes supported minions defensive, causing them to only attack enemies that get very close to you. It also gives the minions a chance to taunt on hit, reduces the damage they take, and causes them to deal more damage to enemies close to you.

If minions are both Aggressive and Defensive, those effects cancel out, returning the minions to their original behaviour. All other bonuses from the support gems still apply.

Deathmark Support
The Deathmark support gem grants supported minions more damage, and grants you the Deathmark skill. Casting Deathmark on an enemy causes all minions supported by a Deathmark support to prioritise attacking the target, and gives them a further damage multiplier against that enemy. Casting Deathmark on a new enemy removes any existing Deathmark.

You can Deathmark to have precise targeting for specific minions, and the Deathmark targeting will override Aggressive or Defensive behaviour while it is active. The minions will fall back on their regular targeting if no Deathmark is present.

Different combinations of these three support gems let you use different minions for different roles. An example might be using your Zombies with Meat Shield to protect you, your Carrion Golems with Feeding Frenzy to clear groups of enemies, and the Deathmark Support on both of them so you can send all of them in after bosses while you evade the bosses abilities from a distance.

Infernal Legion Support
The Infernal Legion support gem causes supported minions to take a large percent of their maximum life as fire damage over time. They all gain a burning damage aura, dealing fire damage over time to nearby enemies. The effect doesn't stack, but is modified by minion damage increases and other support gems.

This support can be used to deal damage to large groups of enemies, and is available at quite a low level, so is an alternative to Melee Splash for some minion types. It also works well alongside the Minion Instability keystone, letting you use your minions as walking time bombs.

We'll be revealing further minion changes, including the new wand base type, Necromancer ascendancy, and passive tree in the upcoming teasers and news. In the meantime, check out a video of the new gems:

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We're proud to announce Path of Exile: Blight! Help Sister Cassia stop the spread of the deadly Blight by building towers to defend against monsters held in its thrall. This expansion contains the Blight challenge league, three revamped archetypes with new skills and support gems, plenty of new items and much, much more. Please check out the announcement page and watch the trailer!

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