Path of Exile: War for the Atla
Major Features
A mysterious entity, known only as The Elder, haunts the Atlas of Worlds, spreading decay and battling The Shaper for control. For more information about the War for the Atlas, check out http://www.pathofexile.com/war
Added 32 new maps including two new Unique maps.
Added new boss fights with The Elder and his four Guardians.
Introduced Shaped and Elder items. These items can only be obtained in areas where the Shaper or the Elder holds influence, or by defeating the Shaper or Elder themselves. Shaped and Elder items can obtain mods not found elsewhere, as well as higher-tier versions of some existing mods.
Added a new quest: The Queen of the Sands. This quest can be obtained by talking to Petarus and Vanja in Act 9 after completing the prerequisite quest The Storm Blade. The Book of Skill quest reward for completing The Storm Blade has been moved to the Queen of the Sands. The Storm Blade now rewards players with their choice of several rare weapons.
Added 48 new Unique items.
Added 6 new Divination Cards designed by our supporters.
Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence Skill Gem - Unearth: Fires a projectile that will pierce through enemies to impact the ground at the targeted location, creating a Bone Archer corpse where it lands.
Added a new Dexterity Skill Gem - Cremation: A targeted corpse explodes, dealing area damage and turning into a volcanic geyser, which will repeatedly unleash projectiles sequentially over the surrounding area for a duration. The explosion of the corpse is not affected by modifiers to spell damage, and cannot be reflected.
Added a new Intelligence/Dexterity Skill Gem - Bodyswap: Your body explodes, dealing spell damage in an area around you, and a targeted corpse also explodes, dealing damage around it. Your body is recreated at the location of the corpse. The explosion of the corpse is not affected by modifiers to spell damage, and cannot be reflected. This spell cannot be repeated.
Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence Skill Gem - Volatile Dead: Corpses near the targeted location explode, dealing damage in a small area and creating an orb which moves towards nearby enemies before dealing spell damage in a larger area. The explosion of the corpse is not affected by modifiers to spell damage, and cannot be reflected.
Vulnerability has been split into two skill gems - Vulnerability and Despair. Vulnerability, a Strength Skill Gem, curses all targets in an area, causing them to take increased physical damage and increased physical damage over time. Attacks against cursed enemies have a chance to inflict bleeding and maim.
Despair, an Intelligence Skill Gem, curses all targets in an area, making them less resistant to chaos damage and causing them to take increased damage over time. Cursed enemies also take additional chaos damage when hit. Existing Vulnerability skill gems have become Despair.
Added a new Intelligence Support Gem - Storm Barrier Support: Creates a barrier around you while you channel a supported skill. The barrier reduces the physical and lightning damage you take from hits, and grants you a chance to gain a power charge when hit.
Added a new Dexterity Support Gem - Volley Support: Adds two projectiles to supported skills, and causes them to be fired from points to either side of you, in parallel. Projectiles Nova (found on Sire of Shards) will currently override the projectile source part of this support, however, this will change in a future patch.
Added a new Intelligence Support Gem - Spell Cascade Support: Supported area-targeting skills will also target an area in front of and behind your initial target.
Added a new Strength Support Gem - Ancestral Call Support: Supported single-target melee skills targets two additional nearby enemies.
Added a new Dexterity Support Gem - Mirage Archer Support: Hitting an enemy with a supported bow skill creates a Mirage Archer who continues to use that skill for a duration.
Added 3D art for: Malachai's Mark, Dialla's Malefaction, Dendrobate, Hiltless, Void Battery, Redblade Tramplers and Lightning Coil.
Added a new unique Strongbox designed by one of our supporters.
Added a new Rogue Exile based on the winner of the Best Dressed Exile competition.
The Abyss Challenge League
Challenge leagues are a great opportunity for a fresh start in a new economy. All of your old characters and items are still present in the Standard and Hardcore leagues, but you're encouraged to join the new leagues, complete challenges and demonstrate your mastery of Path of Exile!
With 3.1.0, there are Standard and Hardcore variations of the Abyss challenge league available, as well as solo self-found variants of both. They have the same core mechanics and items. In the Abyss League, players will encounter cracks in the ground. Get too close, and these cracks widen and spread, allowing the terrible monsters to climb from their inky depths. Pursue these cracks, and you may discover a massive chasm from which dangerous packs of monsters emerge. Once you defeat these monsters, the Abyss continues to propagate, creating more chasms. Take too long, and the Abyss will seal shut, but if you're quick and deadly enough, a chest filled with valuable rewards will emerge from below.
As players progress through the Abyss League, some pits may offer access to the Abyssal Depths below. These Abyssal Depths are packed with monstrous creatures and valuable rewards, and culminate in an exciting boss encounter.
Exploring the Abyssal Depths in high-level areas might result in an encounter with a Lich boss. These difficult boss fights are quite rare, but very rewarding. Defeating a Lich is the only way to earn an exclusive Abyss Unique item.
Monsters and chests from the Abyss can drop Abyss Jewels. Like other Jewels, these can be placed in sockets in your passive tree to grant powerful bonuses. Unlike other Jewels, they have a set of exclusive new properties and can also be placed in Abyssal Sockets on your items! These sockets can be found on the new Abyss Uniques and a new base type of Abyss-socketed belt: the Stygian Vise.
The Abyss League includes a set of 40 new challenges. When you complete 12 challenges, you receive the Abyss Helmet skin. At 24, you receive the Abyss Wings. When you complete your 36th challenge, you receive the Abyss Portal effect. These microtransactions are exclusively available in the Abyss League.
From the 19th challenge onwards and for every third challenge after that, you receive pieces of an Abyss Totem Pole decoration to display in your hideout. The Totem Pole permanently showcases how many of the Abyss challenges you completed during this league.
Minor Features:
The targeting behaviour of many skills has been improved, especially against large targets such as Kitava and Arakaali.
Updated the item frames to fit the current user interface.
Updated the Stash chest model. So new! So shiny!
The tutorial has been slightly adjusted to better direct players who are having trouble very early on.
Added a tutorial element for using Portal scrolls, and improved the Waypoint tutorial.
Added a visible Tutorial barrier to the entry of Lioneye's Watch, which vanishes after a passive skill point is applied.
You can now open the Help Panel by pressing ';'. This can be changed in the Options menu.
You can now dismiss Help Panel notifications by right-clicking them. They will disappear by themselves after 6 seconds.
You can now turn Divination Cards in at Navali in the Epilogue town or in your hideout. The description of the Divination Card achievement "Soothsaying" has been updated to reflect this.
The Forsaken Masters have moved back to Oriath, and can now be found in the Epilogue town.
An effect is now played on corpses which disappear due to hitting the corpse-creation limit for skills like Desecrate and Unearth.
Values for ailments, such as Shock and Chill effectiveness, can now be viewed in the Character panel.
Added a system for scaling the visual effects of ailments based on the size of the monster.
Added voice acting for many NPCs and story glyphs which were missing them when they were added in The Fall of Oriath.
Added images to the map pin hovers for areas added in The Fall of Oriath.
Added an option to leave your current party to the character portrait drop-down menu.
The league selected on the drop-down menu on the Character Selection screen is now saved, and will be the selected league whenever you open your client.
Improved the quest reward selection user interface.
Added a timer below each flask icon which, while the flask is active, displays the remaining duration for that flask.
Debuffs are now displayed on a separate line to buffs, flask effects and charges.
Auras you have activated that are affecting you are no longer displayed in the buff bar as the skill icon shows which auras are active. Auras from other sources will still appear in your buff bar.
Skills with modified cooldowns now show their final cooldown rather than the cooldown modifier.
Monsters will now show their rarity as they're emerging.
The Challenges tab now displays the number of challenges you have completed at the top.
The default minimum for Dynamic Resolution Scaling is now set to 30 frames per second. You can change this in the Options menu.
Improved the effects for monster rarities and ailments.
Added support for subsurface scattering. Check out the ice and candles!
Optimised a lot of skills, areas, monsters and effects.
Continued to incrementally improve the sound, art, effects and environments.
Character Balance
Intimidate now causes enemies to take 10% increased Attack Damage (rather than 10% increased Damage).
The experience penalty at very high levels has been increased. This predominantly affects characters at level 95 and above.
Skill Balance
Existing Vulnerability Skill gems are now Despair gems. Despair curses all targets in an area, making them less resistant to chaos damage, and causing them to take increased damage over time. Cursed enemies also take additional chaos damage when hit. There is a new red skill gem called Vulnerability.
Your minions (and their minions) will no longer deal or take damage while you are dead.
Dark Pact no longer gains bonus radius when using your life. The damage bonus from using your life grows less quickly as the gem levels up, dealing 76% more damage at level 20 (down from 95%).
Detonate Dead now deals spell damage based on the level of the skill gem, in addition to damage based on the corpse's maximum life. The base fire damage dealt by the spell part of the explosion has been significantly increased. The skill now gains additional area of effect radius as it levels, and its base critical chance has been increased from 5% to 6%. The cast time has been lowered to 0.6 seconds (from 0.8).
Raise Spectre now grants additional accuracy to Spectres based on the level of the gem.
Bear Trap and Vaal Rain of Arrows now remove all movement speed, as opposed to reducing it by 300%.
Raging Spirits now have a 15% less Added Damage multiplier, up from 30%.
Summoned Skeletons now have a 50% more added damage multiplier, up from 30% less added damage.
Raging Spirits, Spiders created from Arakaali's Fang, and the spirit skulls from the Essence of Insanity can no longer taunt their enemies.
The amount of burning damage dealt by the burning ground created by a Burning Arrow on a character with the Pitch Darkness threshold jewel is now determined by the level of the Burning Arrow skill gem.
Orb of Storms can now trigger lightning strikes from channelled skills.
Desecrate: Now creates 5 corpses (up from 3). The cooldown has been reduced to 3 seconds per stack (down from 5), and the cast time has been reduced to 0.8 seconds (down from 1). Desecrate's maximum corpse level now grows more steadily as the skill gem levels up. It can now create higher level corpses at most levels, except level 19 of the gem, in which the maximum corpse level has been lowered from 100 to 81.
Lightning Tendrils has been reworked. It is now a channelled skill, and deals more damage on every 4th pulse. It has also received a visual overhaul. The new version hits slightly less frequently than previously, but has higher sustained damage overall.
Minion Life Support now affects Minion Life multiplicatively (it now provides 30% MORE Minion Life rather than 30% increased Minion Life) at level 1 of the gem (up to 49% more life at level 20).
Dark Pact now counts as being a Minion skill gem, and will thus interact with effects such as the one found on Cloak of Tawm'r Isley.
Ruthless Support can no longer support Channelled skills.
Cyclone can no longer be supported by Ruthless Support.
Iron Will can now support Summon Skeleton and will affect the damage dealt by Skeleton Mages if you are using the Dead Reckoning threshold jewel.
Arctic Armour's chilling effect now slows enemies by 30% when you are hit (up from 10%).
Melee attacks supported by Multistrike now more accurately take attack range (including area of effect modifiers) into account when checking for targets for subsequent attacks. This has negatively impacted some skills and positively impacted others, but in general melee skills supported by Multistrike will target monsters that better fit the behaviour of the attack.
Bladefall's area of effect was wider than intended close to the caster. The area of effect now better matches the area the blades visually land. The total width of Bladefall's area of effect has been increased slightly to compensate for the now-narrower early stages.
Storm Burst is now correctly modified by factors based on the state of the projectile (such as Powerful Precision's "Projectiles have 100% increase Critical Strike Chance against Targets they Pierce").
Charged Dash is now limited to a maximum of 15 strikes per skill use, as well as limited by distance travelled.
Static Strike's radius has been increased from 19 to 20, bringing its total radius to 24 at gem level 20. Static Strike's explosion now correctly applies ailments with 40% less effect. It was previously applying ailments without taking the less-damage modifier into account.
Ice Crash's radius has been increased from 8 to 9 for the first stage, from 16 to 18 for the second stage, and from 24 to 26 for the third stage.
Earthquake's radius has been increased from 25 to 28 for the second stage.
Reave's radius has been increased from 17 to 20, bringing it up to 24 at gem level 20.
Wither now increases Chaos damage taken by 6% (down from 7%), and stacks up to 15 times (down from 20).
Vaal Power Siphon's radius has been reduced to 70 units (down from 120).
Item Balance
Divination Cards: The locations, drop rates and requirements for many Divination Cards have been reworked, in part due to the changes to the Atlas in this patch, and in part to better integrate Divination Cards into areas introduced in The Fall of Oriath.
Life regeneration mods have been slightly renamed and reordered as two higher tiers have been added.
Life regeneration mods on rare items have been buffed across the board, with the existing highest tier mod now granting up to 20 life per second. Existing items can be updated to these new values using Divine orbs.
When used on a belt, Essence of Insanity now grants 10% increased Movement Speed during any Flask effect, up from 5%.
Atlas-only item basetypes can no longer be found in Vaal Side Areas.
Unique Item Balance
Atziri's Acuity: No longer instantly leeches Life from critical strikes, and instead grants Vaal Pact if you have dealt a Critical Strike Recently. This does not affect existing versions of the item. See the Passive Tree Changes section for more information regarding changes to Vaal Pact.
Witchfire Brew: Now creates a Despair curse aura on use. This affects all versions of the item.
Doomfletch: Now adds 100% of Physical Damage as Damage of a random Element (down from 110%). No longer has increased Critical Strike Chance, and instead has (12-16) to (20-24) added Physical Damage. Divining an existing Doomfletch will change the added physical damage and the added damage of a random element, but will not remove the critical strike chance.
Doomfletch's Prism: Now adds 100% of Physical Damage as Damage of each Element (down from 110%). This change can be divined.
Kongming's Stratagem: No longer creates a smoke cloud when a socketed trap is triggered. Instead, grants the "Fog of War" skill, which creates a smoke cloud when any of your traps are triggered. This skill has a cooldown.
Lion's Roar: Now only grants knockback to melee attacks during flask effect.
Lycosidae: Chance to drop from monsters has been greatly reduced. This item was being used on a significant portion of melee characters across all levels as an extremely cheap way to get around accuracy requirements.
Bisco's Collar: Chance to drop from monsters has been greatly reduced.
Queen of the Forest: Now has 200 to 240% increased Evasion Rating (down from 240 to 380%). This change can be divined. The movement speed bonus this item can provide has been capped at 100% for all versions. Changes to evasion basetypes in The Fall of Oriath both pushed the evasion rating of this item too high, and took the movement speed this item granted to extremes.
Rise of the Phoenix: Maximum Fire Resistance granted has been reduced to 5% (from 8%). Life regeneration has been increased to 15 to 20 per second (from 6). These changes can be divined. New versions now also grant 40 to 60 Life (this cannot be divined).
Omen on the Winds: Now allows Ice Shot to pierce 3 additional targets (down from 5). This can be divined.
The Dancing Dervish: While Manifest Dancing Dervish is active, the Dancing Dervish now has a 25% chance to grant you a Rampage kill when it hits a unique enemy. The minion created by this unique can no longer cross unwalkable gaps. These changes affect all versions of the item.
The Pandemonius: The chilling effect now slows enemies by 30% when you are hit (up from 10%). These changes affect all versions of the item.
The Baron: Now adds half of your Strength to your Minions (rather than all of your strength). This affects all versions of the item.
Dead Reckoning: Now correctly replaces a number of Skeleton Warriors with Skeleton Mages when using Vaal Summon Skeletons.
Death's Oath: Now properly updates its behaviour when items, passives or skills change it in some way.
Auxium: Clarified that Freeze Duration (not Effect) is based on Energy Shield. The functionality has not changed.