Path of Exile News

Last week we announced the upcoming improvements and fixes to Blight. The majority of them are planned to be released in the 3.8.1 update which is scheduled for this week. The 3.8.1 patch on consoles will be deployed as soon as possible after its release on PC. While you're waiting for its deployment, check out a preview of its patch notes.

Please note that these patch notes may not be final and are still subject to change before the patch.

• Increased the amount of reward chests from each lane in Blighted Maps.
  
• Reduced the amount of monsters that spawn during Blighted Maps. The intention is to reduce the impact on performance while still retaining difficulty.
  
• Blighted monsters can no longer have the Cannot Die, Shroud Walker, Soul Conduit, Fractured or Group Frenzy on Death modifiers.
  
• Blighted monsters that cast Proximity Shield can no longer cast the skill if they are already inside of a Proximity Shield. Blighted monsters that have active Proximity Shields will now disable them if they become affected by another shield. This should result in far less overlap.
  
• Reduced the Life of Minions spawned by Summoning Towers. Increased the amount of delay before new minions are summoned after an existing set of minions has died.
  
• Increased the life of Minions spawned by Sentinel Towers but added a short delay before they can be summoned again after dying.
  
• Substantially increased the damage of minions summoned by a Scout Tower.
  
• Added telegraphing effects to Knucklegnaw's Slam skill.
  
• The split-versions of Sporeplume now deal less damage, take more damage, and have a shorter attack range.
  
• Prophecies can no longer trigger when entering Blighted Maps.
  
• Added a warning and prevented Blighted Maps from being opened by talking to a Master. This has no effect as Masters were unable to spawn in Blighted Maps and no Atlas Missions would be consumed.
  
• Added information to the tower building hover UI that refers to the fact that it is "Ineffective against Blighted Monsters of the same type".
  
• Updated the names of some ring enchantments so that their name matches their effect. This doesn't affect the functionality of existing items at all.
  
• The Ball Lightning skill used by Ephrexis, Blight Strider now releases additional smaller Ball Lightning projectiles as it travels.
  
• Ystral, Winter Stalker now uses a more dangerous version of his Sunder skill.
  
• Fixed a bug where Rattleback, Hollow Matriarch could become immune to damage if it died while Petrified.
  
• Fixed a bug where Blight Towers were benefiting from Map Modifiers.
  
• Fixed a bug where an open tower building UI element would close if you had gained enough resources to upgrade a different tower.
  
• Fixed a bug where Blighted monsters spawned by a Minion Portal did not ignore minions spawned a Summoning Tower.
  
• Fixed a bug where Blighted Frozen Titans were not removed when failing a Blight Encounter.
  
• Fixed a bug where, in Blighted Maps, Cassia did not warn that your monsters were close to the pump.
  
• Fixed a bug where Blighted Maps would begin spawning monsters immediately after you had built your first tower if you had not yet completed the "Strange Growths" Blight quest.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Start Blight Encounter" button lingered for a short duration after being clicked.
  
• Fixed a bug where transforming an Amulet into a Talisman removed its Anointed Notable passive.

• Made further updates to the Shatter sound effect.
  
• Updated the Atlas Missions information panel to correctly refer to the fact that five Atlas Missions will accumulate daily, rather than two at random.
  
• Updated the description text underneath Vagan, Victory's Herald on the Betrayal Board to match his new rewards.
  
• Smoke Mine can no longer be re-armed.
  
• Smoke Mine now has a 0.15 second delay before it can be thrown again to prevent accidentally throwing multiple in a row when you have very high mine throwing speed.
  
• Burning Damage Support and Elemental Focus Support can now support Summon Skitterbots while it is also supported by Infernal Legion Support.
  
• Improved performance when large amounts of corpses are nearby when using the Essence Glutton ascendancy passive.
  
• Improved the performance of spell projectiles cast by Skeleton Mages.
  
• Fixed a bug where some Atlas Missions were sometimes generated based on the percentage of monsters slain in a map, rather than when the map boss was slain. Daily missions are not affected by this fix.
  
• Fixed a bug where Jun's missions granted less Favour than intended.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where The Elder was sometimes able to move despite being chained up during his Unstable phase.
  
• Fixed a bug where, when you had a Safehouse and Mastermind encounter ready to run, if you ran the Mastermind encounter first, your Safehouse area level would be reset. Safehouse area level is now maintained when your Betrayal board is reset.
  
• Fixed a bug where the Cursed Concoction passive skill would cause Blasphemied Curses to be removed from yourself after using a Mana Flask.
  
• Fixed a bug where Mine Auras, Plaguebearer, Infernal Legion and the Corpse Pact "Chilled and Shocked" Auras were unable to damage Totems.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.8.0 where the Primordial Might unique jewel did not make Golems Aggressive.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "+X to Level of all Minion Skill Gems" modifier did not apply to Minion Attack skills.
  
• Fixed a bug where projectiles that killed or destroyed a target would continue travelling (without having any behaviour modifiers that would allow them to do so).
  
• Fixed a bug where Banner Skills were not granting their associated buffs when placed.
  
• Fixed a bug where using Banners in specific ways in combination with a Hierophant ascendancy passive could cause an infinite loop.
  
• Fixed a bug where ground effects and some Auras were not being applied immediately, but after a short delay.
  
• Fixed a bug where, when a Minion was both Aggressive and Defensive, it was Defensive. The correct behaviour should be that the minion has default behaviour.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.8.0 where Volatile Dead's targeting was very indecisive.
  
• Fixed a bug where Cobra Lash could be supported by Mirage Archer Support. This change does not affect functionality as this interaction did not actually work.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Steelskin Buff can take x% increased amount of Damage" enchantment modifier also applied to Bone Armour.
  
• Fixed a bug where Blink and Mirror Arrow clones could only hit a single enemy per attack, even when firing multiple projectiles.
  
• Fixed a bug where Double Strike supported by Melee Splash did not play visual effects on hit.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.8.0 where some monsters that used Suicide skills did not play an effect.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.8.0 where the "Your Chaos Damage has 60% chance to Poison Enemies" modifier on The Consuming Dark unique Fiend Dagger did not work.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where Legion Generals could sometimes be invisible.
  
• Fixed a bug where Piety could create Burning or Chilling Portals in unwalkable locations.
  
• Fixed a bug where The Cursed King in the Dark Forest Map could sometimes cast his Wolf Transform skill immediately after finishing his Wolf Barrage skill.
  
• Fixed a bug where Plague Bearer's visual effect covered up the effects of Ringmaster Aura Effect.
  
• Fixed a bug where Celestial Raised Zombies did not submerge after dying.
  
• Fixed three instance crashes.
  

Last weekend we launched the Blight expansion, and we're happy that you've been enjoying it so far. Our team has been constantly monitoring your feedback and reports throughout this week and has outlined some things to improve as a result. Today we'd like to give you an update about the fixes and improvements to the Blight League that we're currently working on.

The following issues are currently being investigated and have high priority:

• Crashes with the exception 'Present' error.
  
• Blighted Map performance. Honestly, the most realistic way we're going to get this to acceptable levels is to slightly reduce the number of monsters being spawned. We're going to be very careful to make sure that the encounters are still hectic, fun and rewarding, but it'll probably involve slightly fewer entities being tracked and rendered.
  

The following issues have been resolved and are currently being tested:

• The tower building UI closes if you had gained enough resources to upgrade a different tower.
  
• The "Cursed Concoction" passive skill causes Blasphemy Curses to deactivate.
  
• The Consuming Dark unique dagger does not apply Chance to Poison correctly.
  
• Transforming an amulet into a talisman removes any anointments the amulet had.
  
• Killing Uber Elder does not grant completion towards the "Complete Endgame Grinds" challenge.
  
• Server lag with the Necromancer Ascendancy passive Essence Glutton and Discipline skill gem.
  
• The Blighted Rhoa boss can become immune to damage when revived if it died while Petrified.
  

In addition, based on your feedback regarding Proximity Shields and the 'Cannot Die' aura on Blighted Monsters, we've made some changes. The 'Cannot Die' aura will no longer be able to spawn on Blight monsters now. Blight monsters that cast Proximity Shield will no longer be able to cast the skill if they're already standing in a Proximity Shield. In addition, Blight monsters that have an active Proximity Shield will now disable it if they become affected by another Proximity Shield. This should reduce the number of cases of overlapping shields. These changes (as well as the resolved issues listed above) are likely to be included into the 3.8.1 update which is currently scheduled for next week. We'll post a preview of its patch notes as soon as possible.

In 3.8.1 we're also planning to improve rewards from Blighted Maps by adding additional multipliers to the chests at the end of each lane.

It's also worth mentioning that the new Ice Shatter sound has received some changes, and we're planning to include them in 3.8.1 as well. While we're not going to restore the old sound (as it had some significant technical issues), the new one has been significantly improved from the version that shipped in 3.8.0.

Thank you for your continued feedback and support. We really appreciate it!

Ever since the launch of the Delve expansion a year ago and after its implementation as a Path of Exile core mechanic in 3.5.0, we have received a lot of requests from our community to make Fossils and Resonators stackable, as well as to add a special Stash Tab for storing them. With Fossils and Resonators being able to stack in Path of Exile: Blight, we're happy to introduce the Delve Stash Tab that allows you to store each type of Fossils and Resonators in stacks of up to 5000. You can also name your Delve Stash Tab and make it public for trading.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Press M in game to get your Delve Stash Tab!

Thank you so much for your support.

Ever since the launch of the Delve expansion a year ago and after its implementation as a Path of Exile core mechanic in 3.5.0, we have received a lot of requests from our community to make Fossils and Resonators stackable, as well as to add a special Stash Tab for storing them. With Fossils and Resonators being able to stack in Path of Exile: Blight, we're happy to introduce the Delve Stash Tab that allows you to store each type of Fossils and Resonators in stacks of up to 5000. You can also name your Delve Stash Tab and make it public for trading.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Press M in game to get your Delve Stash Tab!

Thank you so much for your support.

Our team have been hard at work on a variety of Blight improvements that are coming soon. Tomorrow's news post is a roundup of what we're improving. Today we wanted to take a moment to talk about our plans for the future expansions.

In the week following the release of a new expansion, many members of the development team shift their focus to designing and creating the next one (while others continue to improve the recently-released league). We have now begun this process with 3.9.0, which will be released in early December. This particular cycle is an interesting one because of the presence of ExileCon (November 16-17), so we wanted to explain how it'll work timing-wise.

As you know, we release new expansions (which contain challenge leagues, balance changes and new game features) every 13 weeks. We do not expect to vary this timeline in the near future, so over the next year we're roughly looking at:

• Early December 2019: 3.9.0 Expansion (announced at ExileCon in November)
  
• Early March 2020: 3.10.0 Expansion (announced in February)
  
• Early June 2020: 3.11.0 Expansion (announced in May)
  
• Early September 2020: 3.12.0 Expansion (announced in August)
  
• And so on, with new expansions every 13 weeks until 4.0.0 is ready
  

It's important to understand that due to its scope, 4.0.0 is likely at least a year away from full release. Despite it being quite far from completion, we will both announce it and have a playable demo at ExileCon this year.

In addition to the big 4.0.0 announcement, we'll also announce the 3.9.0 expansion and its challenge league at ExileCon, which is around three weeks before they launch. We expect to have this content playable on the demo machines at the event as well.

If you're not able to attend ExileCon, don't worry! We'll be streaming our keynote presentation full of announcements, trailers and gameplay of the new content from both expansions. There will be far more information on announcement day than we usually release for expansion announcements. We'll cover quite a lot of it in developer talks, which will be recorded and then released in the news over time.

It's going to be a very interesting development cycle for us, and we can't wait to show you what we've been working on. Both 3.9.0 and 4.0.0 are game-changing in their own ways.