In case you couldn't tell, Path of Exile II was definitely the star of the show of ExileCon 2023, the majority of its time and panels dedicated to it. But it was not the only game getting coverage. As I said in the last blog, GGG still plans to support the original Path of Exile for the foreseeable future. And League Start is just a little over two weeks away.
PATH OF EXILE: TRIAL OF THE ANCESTORS
https://www.pathofexile.com/ancestor
In the new expansion, we'll be traveling with our old friend Navali to the Karui afterlife. There, under the gaze of Hinekora, we will join with the greatest warriors of the Karui tribes in a great Tournament!
Yeah, it's time for a DBZ afterlife tournament arc!
Yes, that's right, Navali returns alongside her Silver Coins. Only now, instead of prophecies, we'll be gaining entry into the tournament. There, we'll assemble a team, plot out our strategy, and try to defeat the enemy Chieftains for game changing rewards.
Path of Autobattle
GGG loves riffing on popular trends in gaming. From Pokemon to Battle Royal, many of their leagues, events, and April Fools jokes have been the devs trying to interpret something in their game. We've had an endless dungeon, tower defense, Rogue-like, and I'm sure we'll get more in the future. Some people are already saying Path of Exile II is a Souls-like!
In this new form of endgame content, we'll be putting together a team of legendary warriors and beasts, each with their own unique abilities, to defeat our enemies. The goal of each game is to destroy the enemy totems before they destroy yours. And if you die or fail, it's not game over. The tournament is double elimination, so you get a second chance at victory.
Yes, you heard right, dying doesn't count in the tournament! Since Hinekora is watching over you as her guest, you can't permanently die in this content. Hardcore characters can experiment and try different strategies without fear.
Sweet, Sweet Loot!
But of course, what do we get for fighting in this tournament? To start with, each Chieftain you can challenge has their own rewards you can earn if you defeat them. This means even if you don't win the tournament, you'll still be rewarded for your time. Additionally, challenging various Chieftains will be part of how we earn new heroes to join our team.
One of the new items you can get from these battles are Tattoos. These Tattoos are used on specific small notables on your passive tree to change their bonus. So you can turn a +10 Strength node into a Fire Resist node, or a +10 Int node into a Lightning Damage node.
If you win the Tournament, Hinekora will offer you special rewards. One of these can be special tattoos that can change one of your +30 Attribute passives into a new large passive. But that isn't the only new unique reward you can earn this way.
Probably the most common item you'll earn from winning the Tournament is an Omen. These are one use consumable items that are automatically spent when you obtain a certain trigger. It could open a Town Portal when you die or give you a huge damage boost when you level up. Chris immediately put the obvious fear to rest during this announcement. You can only use one Omen in any given area, so their won't be any benefit to filling your inventory with them.
But the chase item will almost certainly be Hinekora's Lock, a special currency item that let's you know the result of the next currency you use on an item. This is an extremely powerful effect, as it drastically improves your most valuable currencies, so I'm betting these will not be easy to get. The most obvious use would be to drop one of these on the item you're trying to perfect and then you might be able to check what each of your currency items will do to get the best effect.
Not So Forbidden Anymore
Like any expansion, the Trial of the Ancestors isn't the only content we're getting. The first big announcement is that Sanctum League has gone core. You will now be able to find Sanctums as tradeable items. Each Forbidden Tome you find will grant you access to the first floor of the Sanctum. After you complete that floor, you'll receive a new Tome that locks in your current Sanctum run. You can then use that Tome yourself to keep your run going, or trade it to other players if you don't think you can make it.
GGG has also made improvements to Sanctum. One complaint I had with the mode was that it completely nullifies your character's defenses. So if you're playing a melee bruiser that relies heavily on Damage Reduction and Life Gain to clear content, Sanctum was all but impossible. Now, your defenses will grant you a persistent passive effect within the Sanctum, allowing for builds that previously couldn't do well to possibly have a chance. The encounters have also been rebalanced, and new rooms and encounters have been added.
Guardian and Chieftain Changes
While Guardians were still played, they'd clearly fallen behind the other Ascendencies. And Chieftain has been struggling for a while now! So this League, GGG is trying to improve these two Ascendencies. Guardian is mostly an upgrade on what it could already do. The largest change is that two of the Guardian passives give you access to all new minions.
Chieftain has been reworked from the ground up. And while some of the passives are similar to what existed before, some are completely unrecognizable. The Chieftain still has lots of ways to build pure fire if you want to dive deep into the Avatar of Fire archetype. But Tukohama now gives your body armor Level 30 Ancestral Call and Level 20 Fist of War, allowing for 7-link Strikes and Slams before you add in Uniques. There might be some real potential here!
Your Atlas Your Way
As part of GGG's continued effort to allow us to craft the endgame experience we most enjoy, they've added 16 new Keystone Passives to the Atlas Tree. Most of these greatly overhaul an endgame mechanic in fun and interesting ways. I won't get into all of the ones Chris revealed, but by far my favorites were the two Keystones that let you set off one massive explosive for Expeditions and that let Tormented Spirits possess you respectively. Probably the one I was least enthused for is the one that lets us craft the Vaal Side Areas. Though I did perk up a the mention of a Unique Vaal Side Area . . .
The Build Ideas! They Won't Stop!
We're finally getting some meaningful meta shakeup in the form of 14 new Support Gems. Each of these looked really cool, and provide significant new ways to modify your skills. I'm sorry, but I am going to go through all of these!
Corrupting Cry supports War Cry skills and causes them to inflict Corrupted Blood on enemies in the radius. Your exerted attacks also inflict Corrupted Blood. Could a melee Bleed build finally be viable again?
With Returning Projectiles Support, Bow will probably still dominate the Bleed meta. This support skill does exactly what it says on the tin, piercing all enemies on the return flight. The most obvious use is to combine with any Projectile skill that does something on hit. Kinetic Blast sounds fun to me!
Minion builds are hurting, but the Fresh Meat Support might help with that. It gives an immediate buff whenever you summon the supported minion, granting Adrenaline, Increased Critical Strike Chance, and increased Critical Strike Damage. SRS is back!
Flame Wood might be a fun one to try with the new Chieftain. It causes supported totems to fight back with a mortar shot anytime they're attacked. What's that? They changed Arohongui so that your totems automatically taunt enemies? Well isn't that interesting!
And while we're talking Totems, Sacrifice Support causes the spell to use a portion of your life, or a totem's life, when cast. In exchange, the spell deals a portion of the sacrificed life as additional Chaos Damage. I wonder if there's a way to get that Exploding Totems mod from the last league . . .
And if you're interested in the changes to Guardian, Frigid Bond supports a Link skill to cause the Link between you and your target to deal a Cold DOT. Sounds like it goes great with the rework of Harmony of Purpose. Might wanna grab some of those Omens that have Cast on Death effects though.
Yet even with all of those, I think I'm most excited about Locus Mine. Locus Mine causes the supported Projectile Skill to shoot towards your location when detonated. I love Explosive Arrow, and this might be a fun new way to play that skill.
Yeah. I'm glad Baldur's Gate III is coming out soon, or this game would steal my life again.
PATH OF EXILE MOBILE
Being developed alongside PoE2, Path Mobile was completely overshadowed by its big brother's development. Honestly, probably as it should be, but I do want more real games on Mobile. Still, only one presentation was streamed to show how GGG's attempt at making a Hardcore game on the platform is going.
And it was without a doubt the worst presentation of the show! I feel really bad for the presenters, as the feed was a stuttering mess. Still, we did see a little of the game and how it's shaping up.
Path of Exile Mobile will take place around 20 years before the events of the original game. In it, you play a sentenced Exile that is intercepted by Dominus. The one day High Templar has discovered an Atlas Device and is looking for expendable recruits to explore it. From the looks of things, the story will heavily involve many of the villains of Path of Exiles lore and might possibly shed more light into the creation of The Shaper.
The game looks like Path of Exile through and through. Subtractem died multiple times during the hands on, and encountered some really hard enemies. There also appears to be some potentially meaningful narrative choice in this game too. Though telling Dominus you're not interested seems to result in your immediate death. But when finding one of Dominus's agents in the Atlas, Subtractem was able to kill him instead of helping him report back.
My greatest concern here is definitely the controls. I'm hoping you'll be able to use gear like the Backbone to play the game with a proper game controller.
FINAL THOUGHTS
Tempted as I am, I'm finally making progress on my game queue. I've only just started painting Leviathan! Slowly but surely I'm making meaningful progress towards many of the gamer goals put off so I could keep playing my favorite ARPG. And as I said earlier, Baldur's Gate III comes out Sunday! So I can't let Ancestors pull me back for another go. Additionally, I'm still not happy with where loot is in the game, and there was no word on fixes coming for it. Also weekend long marathons on League Start are definitely not good for my migraines.
This is the kind of logic I have to employ to not get sucked back into another month long binge!
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