With the release of the Heist update coming on September 18 to Path of Exile, there will be some core changes to the game along with the addition of heists. Some of the changes coming with Heist are:
- Curses
- Steel Skills
- Flame Wall Skills
- Void Spere
- Over 25 new unique items
- and MacOS support
There are reworked and new skills with Heist that are going to change the way you play. Curses are on of the skills that have gotten an overhaul in Heist. The noticeable difference with curses is how a player will need to be more active in applying them to a target. Generally, in the past players have used curses automatically by using support gems that would trigger or link the curses to near by enemies. A player would just need to have the right support gems and the curses would be like a passive ability.
In Heist the change to curses will reward players for self-casting them. If a player casts a curse instead of letting it automatically apply, the curse grows in intensity over time. Not to mention that there are several new support gems like Impending Doom, that work with the new active casting of curses. What is Impending Doom? Impending Doom is a support gem that only works on self-cast curses. When you curse an enemy, the enemy will explode when the curse ends. This can happen in two ways. First, a self-cast curse can run out and the enemy will explode. The second way is by removing or consuming the curse.
Either way, stuff’s gonna explode all over the place!
Steel skills changes has me thinking about changing up my normal builds for Leagues. Normally I play casters and stay away from the melee builds, but with the rework to Shattering Steel and Lancing Steel along with the addition of the new Splitting Steel skill, I think it is a time to change my ways. First of all, to make Lancing Steel and Shattering Steel more interesting a new mechanic was implemented called Shards.
Shards are used when any Steel Skill is used. By equipping a Steel Skill a new skill is available called Call of Steel. Call of Steel uses the Shard mechanic to conjure swords from the ground and then they explode behind you to create the Shards. The Shards are your ammo for Steel Skills. The best part is, if an enemy near you has Shards impaling them the Call of Steel skill will retrieve the Shards doing damage on the way in and the way out. That is not all folks! The Call of Steel skill creates the Shards, you throw the Shards into and enemy, when it hits the enemy it explodes on impact into more, smaller Shards to nearby enemies. It is an awesome chain reaction of Shards stabbing and unstabbing over and over again. ALL HAIL STABBY SHARDS!
Two new skills that will be added with Heist are Flame Wall and Void Sphere. Flame Wall is interesting because it rewards players for standing their ground and staying in one spot. I assume this skill will work great when in a heist and guards are swarming you and your party members. Flame Wall is exactly as it sounds, it is a wall of flames. A player and party members can shoot projectiles through the wall to add fire damage to the projectiles. If you have a lot of enemies coming at you the wall will burn enemies and your projectiles will burn them over time before they even get to the wall. As I said, this appears to be a great skill for holding off a bunch of enemies in a pinch.
Just like Flame Wall, Void Sphere stays where you cast it, but instead of shooting projectiles in it to kill enemies, Void Sphere sucks them in like a black hole. Again, this new skill is going to work great with heist when the guards are alerted. Just drop a Void Sphere and let your troubles get sucked away. I wish this worked in real life for school work, wife aggro, and COVID.
With the addition of 100 replica unique items in Heist, there is going to be over 25 new unique items in the game. I just got a glimpse of two of them, but from the looks of Corpsewalker Carnal Boots and Chains of Emancipation Chain Belt, these new unique look like a lot of fun. Normally, I run a Witch/Necromancer build and the Corpsewalker Carnal Boots will be awesome for my damage. On the other hand, I want to run a melee build in Heist and the thought of having Chains of Emancipation Chain Belt in my build is a must. I can’t wait to see what other unique items will be added to Path of Exile with Heists.
Finally, when Heists releases on September 18th, Grinding Gear Games will be bringing Path of Exile to Mac. The great thing about the Mac addition is that it will be fully integrated into the PC Path of Exile. That means you can play on your PC and Mac without starting over with a new account or character. This will be great for people that use both Macs and PCs. You can now go to your favorite coffee shop on your Mac and play Path of Exile while everyone around you thinks you are writing your blockbuster screenplay.
The worst thing about Heist is waiting until September 18th to start the new League. As much as I loved Harvest, Heist seems to be more of an expansion to move closer to Path of Exile 2 and less of a minor League update.
