After Grinding Gear's whirlwind media tour to introduce the next big update to Path of Exile, the team took a slight breather yet still managed to show off some pretty cool stuff. In this week's Exiled Tribune, we'll take a look at the PoE site updates and the most intriguing factoids found in each.
ASCENDANCY CHANGES
The latest 'development manifesto' on the Path of Exile site deals with Ascendancy Classes. These were first introduced in 2016 and, though tweaked from time to time, they have not been properly balanced since. In the upcoming 3.2.0 update, this will change as the team has gone through each Ascendancy Class to ensure it is balanced for power level with others and that those seemingly less-used are being redesigned to provide more versatility than they currently do.
Classes that will be tuned in 3.2.0:
- Assassin - over time, it's dropped out of "serious consideration". With its updates, GGG is confident it will be restored "to its initial glory, giving it some extremely strong options for assassinating enemies".
- Guardian - much will remain the same, but GGG has re-tuned and added buffs to "better achieve their goals". Three of the five existing branches are unchanged, but the other two "promote a more active playstyle for support characters".
- Hierophant - several of its branches have been buffed and seven notable passives have been added to its tree.
Over the coming week, you can expect to see more revealed about changes coming to each of the 19 Ascendancy classes. At the current time, you can see videos and information about Champion, Pathfinder, Raider, Chieftain, Berserker, Elementalist, Deadeye, Slayer, Occulist, Trickster, Necromancer, Gladiator, Saboteur, and Inquisitor. All of these are at your fingertips by visiting the Path of Exile site.
BESTIARY LEAGUE FAQ & DIVINATION CARDS
The Path of Exile team introduced the Bestiary League during its media sweep last week (read Bill Murphy's preview here), but admits that it was light on content and detail. After culling through community questions, a handy FAQ has been released that should answer many of the most common questions and provide new information for those interested in what's coming with 3.2.0. As expected, questions cover a number of topics including Beastcrafting, how long the gameplay loop takes, capture mechanics and much more.
What kinds of Beasts can I encounter?
In addition to the hundreds of regular Beasts in Path of Exile that can be captured, there are several tiers of new Beasts you'll encounter as you play in the Bestiary League:
- Rare beasts with a Bestiary mod. These occur relatively often (every area or so) and are harder than normal rare monsters. You'll want to capture these if you see them, because these Beasts are often needed in crafting recipes.
- Legendary Beasts, which are exotic variants of other Beasts you may recognise. These occur periodically and are substantially rarer and harder fights. They're worth attempting to capture because most of the powerful Beastcrafting recipes require one or more of them.
- Spirit Beasts. There are four of these, and they're available in the end-game by Beastcrafting a portal to access them. They drop guaranteed unique items and can be captured to craft properties that synergise with those uniques.
As an attendant side note, nine new Divination Cards were revealed. "Among other things, many of these cards redeem for Breach-related items!" You can preview them all here.
SPECTRAL SHIELD THROW
Lastly, and maybe most excitingly for defense-oriented players, GGG is introducing the Spectral Shield Throw ability in 3.2.0. As the name implies, shield bearing players will fling out a ghostly copy of their shield that shatters on impact. This damages all enemies within a certain radius of the shield. To make using the ability more flexible, a number of special stats have been applied:
You can focus entirely on Armour or Evasion for maximising its physical damage with the 2-3 physical damage per 15 Armour or Evasion, which is good for Tower shields, Round Shields, and Bucklers. The skill has additional critical chance from the Energy Shield of your shield, so you can increase its critical chance while also boosting damage by using high level Kite Shields or Spiked Shields. You can focus entirely on critical chance by using a Spirit Shield, and rely entirely on added damage. The skill has a large amount of Added Damage that grows as the skill gem levels, providing a decent boost that makes the skill still do damage even if your shield's armour or evasion is a little low. It's worth noting the skill doesn't benefit from Unarmed bonuses or effects that benefit weapons.
Read the full details on the PoE site.
What do you think of everything coming with 3.2.0? What are you most excited about? Leave us your thoughts in the comments!
