Genre: Role-playing (RPG), Hack and slash/Beat 'em up, Adventure, Indie
Path of Exile
Watch the Forbidden Sanctum Livestream Soon
On December 1st at 11am PST we'll unveil the mysteries of the Forbidden Sanctum expansion via an exclusive livestream on Twitch! This post contains everything you need to know before the livestream starts.
In case you missed it, make sure you check out the teaser video below!
What time does it start?
The livestream will start at 11am PST on December 1st. If in doubt, check out the countdown on the front page of our website.
What can I expect?
We'll start the livestream by revealing the trailer for Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum, followed by a deep dive into all of the new content and features that are being introduced in the expansion.
Following the reveals, ZiggyD will join Chris Wilson live for a Q&A with questions from Twitch chat. The entire livestream, including the Q&A, will most likely be just over an hour long.
Will Twitch Drops be enabled?
Yes, Twitch Drops for the Blood Guard Wings will be enabled from the start of the livestream until 8pm PST for all channels streaming Path of Exile during that time.
You will get the Blood Guard Wings after 45 minutes of accumulated watch time on any channel streaming Path of Exile during the event. This means that the drop is guaranteed for everyone who has watched any Path of Exile stream for this amount of time. This promotion is available for all accounts.
To ensure you don't miss out on the drop, we recommend checking that your Twitch and Path of Exile accounts are linked. For more information on linking your Twitch and Path of Exile accounts, click here.
Where can I view the reveals if I miss the livestream?
Our regular announcement page will unlock once information has been revealed on the livestream. Keep an eye on the news forum as well for additional information following the livestream. The announcement will also be available on our YouTube channel following the livestream.
See you there!
We can't wait to share our next expansion with you!
In The Forbidden Sanctum, Beastcrafting on Flasks will now show their modifiers
Upcoming Livestream Twitch Drops
During the livestream reveal of our upcoming The Forbidden Sanctum expansion on December 1st PST, you'll be able to earn the Blood Guard Wings with Twitch Drops, so don't forget to link your Path of Exile account with your Twitch account!
How to Participate
Just simply link your Path of Exile account to Twitch (see below) and watch the Path of Exile: The Forbidden Sanctum Livestream at www.twitch.tv/pathofexile, or any Path of Exile stream* for 45 minutes on Thursday December 1st. Drops will be enabled from 11am PST until 8pm PST.
You will get the Blood Guard Wings after 45 minutes of accumulated watch time on any channel streaming Path of Exile during the event. This means that the drop is guaranteed for everyone who has watched any Path of Exile stream for this amount of time. This promotion is available for all accounts.
*If you're planning to stream Path of Exile during our livestream and want to enable Twitch Drops for your viewers, you can do it via your Twitch Creator Dashboard here.
Linking your Path of Exile Account to Twitch
Visit your Twitch Settings page while logged in. If your account isn't connected, click the "Connect" button for Twitch under "Other Connections". Complete the process on Twitch and you will be redirected back to your Twitch Settings page. If your account is already connected, this page should say "Your Path of Exile account is currently linked to your Twitch account."
After you've accumulated enough watch time to earn your Blood Guard Wings, you must redeem them from your Twitch Inventory before the promotional period ends. Then they will be available in your microtransactions list in Path of Exile.
We can't wait to share the details of our latest expansion with you! To stay up to date in the lead up to the livestream, make sure to check out our Twitter, Facebook and Forums. We'll see you at the reveal at www.twitch.tv/pathofexile!
Her smile melted the coldest of hearts
Curses FAQ
Yesterday, we released our final 3.20 balance manifesto that covered topics related to Curses. Today's post answers some of your questions about this manifesto.
Are you changing Bane?
Bane will also have a curse penalty similar to Hextouch and Blasphemy.
Will you make Vixen's Entrapment work with Bane?
No.
Will Delve keep its depth-scaling curse effect reduction?
Yes.
Will the ''Less Curse Effect on Players'' modifier be removed from Temporal Chains?
No.
Can you change Hexblast so that the Hex it removes isn't random?
Yes, instead of removing a random Hex, Hexblast will remove the Hex with the lowest remaining duration. (i.e. whichever one would naturally expire first.)
Do these changes now encourage weapon-swapping builds?
No. Your curses will be removed if you lose the skill that applied the curse. Additionally, your Curses will be removed if you die or leave the area.
Can you give us more of an idea of how Vulnerability has changed?
It no longer has the stat, 'Ailments inflicted on Cursed Enemies deal Damage 20% Faster." This stat previously didn't work so this doesn't functionally change anything to remove it. We've also buffed its chance to bleed and it still has its increased physical damage stat.
How will these changes affect Doedre's Skin?
Doedre’s Skin is unchanged.
Does the change ''item mods that inflict a specific Hex no longer doing so with increased effect'' apply to corrupted glove modifiers?
Yes.
Will Hexes from items with a ''Curse on Hit'' modifier be affected by the new Hex related Cluster Jewel notables?
Yes, unless any particular notables specify otherwise.
You didn't mention Curse on Hit rings, Corrupted Implicits or CWDT linked with Curses. Have any of those things been changed?
Curse on Hit Rings and Corrupted Implicits no longer come with increased effect. The Cast When Damage Taken gem hasn't been changed.
Does the removal of boss penalties benefit Mark skills?
No.
How common is the Anathema ring?
:)
Hex Master is a keystone that replaces Doomsday in The Forbidden Sanctum
Hidden monster penalties against curses have been removed.
Hexes are now stronger against unique monsters and at least twice as strong against pinnacle bosses, but are weaker against regular monsters.
The Doom mechanic has been removed, to simplify the Hex system. Anything related to Doom has been reworked so that it's comparable to before.
The Occultist ascendancy class has had some stats removed and moved around to counteract some of the power gain from the above changes.
Enfeeble and Temporal Chains have been buffed.
To aid the above changes, some less-accessible sources of Curse Effect have been removed. This also acts as a nerf to Hex Support builds.
Hex gems have been rebalanced with the goal of ensuring that self-cast remains relevant compared to automatic curse application.
We've buffed a bunch of Hex-related unique items and reworked unique items that previously interacted with Doom.
We've also added some powerful new unique items that interact with Hexes.
For more details, see below:
Hex Strength Against Different Monster Tiers 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
We have removed both of these penalties so that Hexes will be consistently effective against all monsters in the game.
The Doom Mechanic 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.
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.
Hexblast has had its skill mechanics and damage adjusted to account for the loss of Doom's scaling. 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.
Curse-Related Uniques 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.
This new ring lets you scale your curse limit in a completely different way, by tying it to your power charge count. Or you can simply not scale it and put this on to apply 3 curses!
Here is an example of one of the rebalanced curse uniques. The Reservation Efficiency mod has been buffed from 20% to 30%, and the level of socketed curse gems has gone up from +1 to +2.
Ensuring Self-Cast is Powerful 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.
Hex Skill Gem Scaling 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.
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.
Scaling Curse Effect 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.
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.
The Occultist Ascendancy Class 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.
Temporal Chains and Enfeeble 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.
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.
Vulnerability and Despair 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. We will confirm the specifics of these changes in the 3.20 expansion patch notes.
Hexblast 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 random Hex from an enemy and will deal more damage with hits and ailments if a Hex was removed in this way. Its damage is also more consistent because you no longer need to wait for Doom to build up.
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.
Please note that the above plans are still subject to change in the lead up to the launch of The Forbidden Sanctum expansion. We'll reveal the specifics of these changes in the patch notes.
Weekend Thanksgiving Sale!
This weekend, we're having a huge sale on classic microtransactions in our store! All items that are part of the sale are discounted by 50%, so make sure you look through the store for some great deals! Check out the sale by pressing the 'M' key to open the store in-game!
Not sure what to get? Check out the set below, which includes the Desert Helmet, Victorious Wings, Carnage Body Armour, Warlock Gloves and Boots, Crypt Sword, Radiant Weapon Effect and Seraph Shield, which are all part of the sale!
Short on points? Be sure to check out the Kalandra Supporter Packs, which will leave the store once the Kalandra League ends!
Our Core Supporter Packs also offer a great deal of points and will also leave the store soon to be replaced with new Core Packs! We'll give you more notice when they leave the store, but in the meantime you can check them out by pressing the 'M' key to open the store in-game.
Thanks for your support and Happy Thanksgiving!
Streamer Interview - ds_lily
From zany antics to hardcore racing, community streamer ds_lily's stream has it all to keep you entertained! We sat down with Lily to find out what their life is like outside of gaming, check it out!
Hi ds_lily, thank you for taking part in the interview! Please introduce yourself.
Hi I'm Lily. You can find me streaming at https://twitch.tv/ds_lily. I usually participate in races in HCSSF, typically placing in the top 10.
When did you first get into Path of Exile?
I first got into Path of Exile a little bit after its release in late 2013. Youtube recommended a video from Kripparrian, and I thought that it looked like a more modern version of games I played growing up that I enjoyed.
What one thing caught your attention in the beginning and what one thing kept you coming back?
Having a fresh start and new builds to play every few months is definitely what kept me coming back. I basically only play games that have a huge replayability value and the league systems / balance changes make the replayability value practically infinite.
Are there any highlights from your time playing Path of Exile that stand out in your memory?
The main highlight is probably my “brain lag” incident which was during the Awakener kill event during Metamorph league. I was probably about 4-5 hours away from getting to the fight and this was also before anyone had got there as well, so I was pretty close to being one of the first there (I was also rank 1 in XP at the time). However, I was awake for about 30 hours at this point and for some reason I decided it was time to do normal Elder. Well in my sleep-deprived brain I forgot to run to Zana bubble at the end and died.
Do you have a favourite build?
Not really, but I tend to like builds that stack a high number of projectiles (buff molten strike).
Which expansion has been your favourite so far?
Sentinel league was my favorite league that has come out so far. Primarily for the fact that it enabled a lot of builds without it just being a glorified item editor like harvest and it gave value back to a lot of special mods you could find on gear that are otherwise pretty much worthless.
What's one thing every Path of Exile player should hear?
Stop doing things you don’t want to do even if it isn’t maximum efficiency.
When did you first start streaming? How did you get into it?
I first started streaming in April 2019 when I noticed that PoE has really, really good growth opportunities for streamers compared to basically any other game. Basically be good at the game and you will have viewers. A great feature for streamer growth is also the in-game announcements, so I decided to start blasting on the XP ladder at league starts which will broadcast your name to everyone. Adding all those things together and I also noticed that there were no girl gamers doing this, so I decided it was time to git gud and there was a wide open market niche to become a popular streamer.
What can people expect from your stream and schedule?
I don’t really know how to describe my stream other than weird antics and lots of beef. My schedule is typically starting stream everyday around 9 AM PST, though I am trying to start a bit earlier.
What were you doing before you started streaming?
Sitting in my room playing video games, not much has changed.
What hobbies or interests do you have outside of streaming?
I don’t think most streamers do anything but stream. Cars are pretty cool though.
How has your life changed from before you were streaming until now? What role has streaming played in that transition?
Not much has really changed overall, except now I see video games as a job and I don’t enjoy them that much when not streaming. If I’m playing a game off stream I pretty much just feel like I should be streaming it.
Is there anything you'd like to see more of in the streaming community?
I think the PoE streamers are probably the best community on Twitch, so I feel like other gaming stream communities should take some notes from us. No real drama, everyone in the category is pretty well connected to each other, pretty much everyone is included, etc.
Do you have any advice for people who are looking to make their own career out of streaming?
You need to bring something different to the table than all the other creators if you really want to succeed, the opportunities for this are pretty slim though.
Thank you so much for participating in the interview! If you'd like to follow ds_lily, you can do so on Twitter, YouTube, and Twitch. Also, don't forget that you can support both ds_lily and the development of Path of Exile by buying microtransactions from her Nexus page!
3.20 Balance Manifesto: Monster Mods and Archnemesis
In our upcoming 3.20 expansion, Archnemesis will be replaced with a system that is more similar to the way monster mods worked in the past.
The issues that players often had with Archnemesis were:
The keyworded mod names were not fully descriptive of what they did
The mods often had multiple effects bundled which made them harder to understand
Due to how many effects were included in a single mod, it made too many encounters too complex
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
The goals of the new system are:
Mods do one specific thing
Mods say what they do rather than having a thematic name you must learn and remember
Encounters are simplified on average while retaining interesting fights
Players are no longer required to do annoying actions to maximise rewards
Let's examine those goals individually:
Mods 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.
Mods say what they do rather than having a thematic name you must learn and remember
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.
Encounters are simplified on average while retaining interesting fights
The pool of mods that involve complex interaction (like spawning volatiles or ground effects on death) have been heavily diluted by the presence of the simpler mods. This means that you encounter more complex fights less frequently. But interesting and challenging emergent behaviour from overlapping mods can still happen, just less often.
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 in this article, 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.
