Path of Exile: Lake of Kalandra contains a number of balance changes. Ahead of the official announcement livestream next week, we have prepared a preview of our planned character balance changes and our thoughts behind them so that you'll have plenty of time to think about them and provide feedback before the expansion launches. These are not the full patch notes — they only contain direct changes to character balance and are still subject to change.

Defence Balance

The substantial changes to character defences contained in the 3.16 expansion had the desired effect of encouraging players to invest more heavily in character defences besides life stacking. We're happy with this direction, but will be making further changes aimed at making some of the most powerful defensive layers require more investment and improving diversity in defensive options. We are making a set of changes with this goal in 3.19, but are also considering further changes for future expansions and will be refining these plans based on discussion and your feedback.

Problem: Spell Suppression is intended to be mostly accessible to characters on the right side of the passive skill tree. However, spell suppression values on item modifiers are high enough that any character can reasonably reach 100% spell suppression chance through items alone, and passive skills that grant suppression are relatively weak in comparison. This results in capped spell suppression feeling like a mandatory pickup for most characters that want strong defences, rather than mostly an option to complement evasion-focused builds.

Solution: Reduce the values of spell suppression granted by item modifiers. Increase the amount of spell suppression granted by passive skills and a few other sources.

Details:

Spoiler
  • Chance to Suppress Spell Damage modifiers on Dexterity Body Armours and Shields can now roll with values of +8–10% at the lowest tier (previously +17–20%), up to +20–22% at the highest tier (previously +32–34%). Crafted versions of these modifiers now have values of +5–7% (previously +8–10%) and +8–10% (previously +11–13%).
  • Chance to Suppress Spell Damage modifiers on Dexterity Helmets, Boots and Gloves can now roll with values of +5–6% at the lowest tier (previously +8–10%), up to +13–14% at the highest tier (previously +20–22%). Crafted versions of these modifiers now have values of +3–4% (previously 5–6%) and +5–6% (previously 7–8%).
  • The Eater of Worlds Implicit modifier on Gloves that grants a chance to Suppress Spell Damage can now roll with values of +5–10% (previously +7–12%).
  • The Eater of Worlds Implicit modifier on Gloves that grants a chance to Suppress Spell Damage while a Unique Enemy is in your Presence can now roll with values of +7–12% (previously +10–15%).
  • The Eater of Worlds Implicit modifier on Gloves that grants a chance to Suppress Spell Damage while a Pinnacle Atlas Boss in your Presence can now roll with values of +10–15% (previously +13–18%).
  • The Corrupted Implicit Boots modifier that grants a +6–9% chance to Suppress Spell Damage now has a level requirement of 45 (previously 1).
  • The Corrupted Implicit Boots modifier that grants a chance to Suppress Spell Damage while moving can no longer roll.


  • The small Passive Skills in the Evasion and Spell Suppression wheel at the centre of the Passive Skill Tree now grant +4% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously 3%).
  • The Inveterate Notable Passive Skill now grants +15% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +12%). The small Passive Skills in this cluster now grant +8% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +6%).
  • The Entrench Notable Passive Skill now grants +12% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +10%). The small Passive Skills in this cluster now grant +5% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +4%).
  • The Instinct Notable Passive Skill now grants +12% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +10%). The small Passive Skills in this cluster now grant +5% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +4%).
  • The Quickstep Notable Passive Skill now grants +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +6%).
  • The Intuition Notable Passive Skill now grants +8% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +5%).
  • The Resourcefulness Notable Passive Skill now grants +8% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +5%).
  • The Courage Notable Passive Skill now grants +15% chance to Suppress Spell Damage if you've Hit an Enemy Recently (previously +10%).


  • The Dagger Mastery that provides a chance to Suppress Spell Damage for each Dagger you're Wielding now has a value of +10% (previously +8%).
  • The Spell Suppression Mastery that provides a chance to Suppress Spell Damage if your Boots, Helmet and Gloves have Evasion now has a value of +12% (previously +10%).
  • The Spell Suppression Mastery that prevents a percentage of Suppressed Spell Damage now has a value of +3% (previously +2%).


  • The Aerialist Cluster Jewel Notable Passive now grants +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +6%).
  • The Darting Movements Cluster Jewel Notable Passive now grants +12% chance to Suppress Spell Damage while moving (previously +8%).
  • The Elegant Form Cluster Jewel Notable Passive now grants +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +6%).
  • The Hit and Run Cluster Jewel Notable Passive now grants +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage if you've Hit an Enemy Recently (previously +6%).
  • The Untouchable Cluster Jewel Notable Passive now grants +10% chance to Suppress Spell Damage (previously +6%).

Problem: Arctic Armour does not grant enough defensive power to compete with other defensive reservation skills, particularly since the majority of its protection is only granted when the player is standing still.

Solution: Substantially increase the amount of damage reduction while stationary provided by Arctic Armour. We will likely continue to explore more efficient defensive options for characters that spend a lot of time standing still in future content updates.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Arctic Armour now grants 11–21% less Physical Damage taken from Hits while stationary at gem levels 1–20 (previously 8–13%), and 11–20% less Fire Damage taken from Hits while stationary at gem levels 1–20 (previously 8–12%).
  • Labyrinth Helmet Enchantments that grant increased Arctic Armour Buff Effect can no longer be obtained.

Problem: Flesh and Stone is not powerful enough to warrant 25% mana reservation. Slight improvements to Blind investment outlined below will naturally help it to some extent, but just a little more power is needed to make it a competitive option.

Solution: Increase the damage reduction from distant enemies that Flesh and Stone provides when in Sand Stance.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Flesh and Stone now causes you to take 11–15% less Damage from Attacks from Enemies that aren't nearby while in Sand Stance at gem levels 1–20 (previously 9–11%)

Problem: Defiance Banner provides a substantial percentage increase to armour and evasion, on top of other benefits for a low investment. It therefore grants all characters a way to further scale the large amounts of armour and evasion granted by the Determination and Grace skills. It also disproportionately benefits characters that do not have easy access to armour and evasion scaling on the passive skill tree, and when combined with Determination and Grace allows these characters to use aura effect to scale armour and evasion almost as effectively as characters directly investing into armour and evasion bonuses. This has led to the combination of Defiance Banner, Determination and Grace feeling near mandatory for characters in hardcore leagues, and very attractive elsewhere.

Solution: Substantially reduce the armour and evasion granted by Defiance Banner.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Defiance Banner now grants you and nearby allies 15–24% increased Armour and Evasion Rating at gem levels 1–20 (previously 30–49%)
  • Defiance Banner now grants nearby enemies 30–40% reduced Critical Strike Chance at gem levels 1–20 (previously 20–29%)
  • Anomalous Defiance Banner quality grants you and nearby allies 0.25% increased Armour and Evasion Rating per quality (previously 0.5%)

Problem: The Wind Dancer keystone's drawback of taking 20% more attack damage if you've been hit by an attack recently is too risky to make the keystone feel like a worthwhile trade, even for characters with substantial investment in evasion, as it is too likely that you will be hit again during that time.

Solution: Change Wind Dancer to be less risky for characters with large amounts of evasion by allowing a high evasion rating to more effectively mitigate its drawback.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Wind Dancer Keystone Passive Skill no longer provides 40% more Evasion Rating if you have been Hit by an Attack Recently. Instead, it now provides 10% more chance to Evade Attacks if you have been Hit by an Attack Recently.

Problem: The Arrow Dancing keystone's penalty to melee evasion chance feels too punishing, even for characters with substantial investment in evasion.

Solution: Change Arrow Dancing to provide a less extreme penalty to melee evasion but a less extreme bonus to projectile evasion.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Arrow Dancing Keystone Passive Skill no longer provides 40% more chance to Evade Projectile Attacks, or 20% less chance to Evade Melee Attacks. Instead, it now provides "Evasion Rating is Doubled against Projectile Attacks", and "25% less Evasion Rating against Melee Attacks".

Problem: Ward is a relatively niche defensive mechanic, but currently is mainly strong when paired with the Olroth's Resolve unique flask, and not worth investing in otherwise.

Solution: Reduce the base ward restoration time, which is already bypassed by Olroth's Resolve but a limiting factor for ward's usefulness in other cases. Allow builds to invest further in faster ward restoration if they so desire.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Ward is now instantly restored after 4 seconds (previously 5 seconds).
  • Added 5 tiers of a new Suffix modifier that can roll on Ward base types, granting up to 58% faster Restoration of Ward.
  • The Faithguard Unique Helmet now has 40–60% faster Restoration of Ward (previously 20–30%). Existing versions of this item can be updated to the new values with a Divine Orb.

Problem: The Grasping Mail modifier that provides 100% increased global defences provides too much value to a build heavily investing in defences for a single mod slot.

Solution: The prefix modifier that can roll on Grasping Mails which provides increased Global Defences now has a value of 50% (previously 100%). Existing items can be made worse with a Divine Orb.

Problem: The Gravicius Veiled Modifier on body armour that grants a percentage of your maximum life as energy shield adds a huge amount of survivability to many builds for the low investment of a single bench-crafted modifier. Granting energy shield to life-based builds was often not valuable in the past as those builds would not have a sensible way to recover energy shield in combat, but the recent addition of Ghost Dance and Divine Shield, among other changes, have made obtaining a relatively small amount of energy shield on a life-based build very valuable. The Gravicius modifier trivialises this.

Solution: Rework the Gravicius' Veiled Modifier to instead grant a percentage of Physical Damage taken as Fire and Lightning Damage.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Gravicius' Veiled modifier on Body Armours that grants 12–14% of your maximum Life as Energy Shield has been replaced by a modifier that grants a 8–9% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Fire Damage, and 8–9% of Physical Damage from Hits taken as Lightning Damage. Crafting bench versions of the modifier provide values of 3–4% and 5–6%. Existing items are unaffected by these changes.

Problem: Passive skills that grant blind effect do not adequately reward investment in them.

Solution: Increase the values of blind effect found on the passive tree.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Silent Steps Notable Passive Skill now grants 40% increased Blind Effect (previously 30%). The small Passive Skills in this cluster that provide Evasion Rating and Blind Effect now grant 15% Blind Effect (previously 10%).
  • The Blind Mastery that grants increased Blind Effect now has a value of 40% (previously 30%).

Problem: Mind over Matter, and builds that heavily invest in mana in general, have been left in an underpowered state by various balance changes and the increased power of investing in reservation skills.

Solution: As a first step, improve the base power of Mind over Matter and pull that power out of body armour mods. We're aware that this change does not solve all problems currently facing mana builds, and are considering exactly what further changes to make for future expansions.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Mind over Matter Keystone Passive Skill now causes 40% of Damage to be taken from Mana before Life (previously 30%).
  • Damage taken from Mana before Life can no longer roll as an Influence modifier, Synthesised Implicit modifier, or Eldritch Implicit modifier on Body Armour.
  • The Cloak of Defiance Unique Body Armour no longer has 10% of Damage is Taken from Mana before Life.
  • The Veiled modifier that grants Damage taken from Mana before Life while Focused now provides values of 18–22% (previously 28–32%). The crafted versions of this modifier now provide values of 11–15% (previously 21–25%).

Problem: Fortification is too difficult to gain for some melee builds, and too frustrating to use for many others.

Solution: Make fortification easier to gain and longer lasting.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Melee hits that can Fortify now generate roughly twice as many Fortification stacks as previously, based on damage dealt. Fortification generation against magic and rare monsters has been further increased.
  • The base duration of Fortification has been increased to 6 seconds (previously 5).
  • The entry small Passive Skill in the Steadfast cluster that provides increased Fortification for Fortifying Hits now has a value of 30% (previously 20%).
  • The top of the Steadfast cluster now consists of two small Passive Skills that each provide 40% increased Fortification Duration (previously one small Passive Skill that provided 20% increased Fortification for Fortifying Hits).

Minion Balance

Path of Exile is a game about finding items to improve your character. Minion builds historically got most of their power from their gems, and didn't have as many strong options to benefit from finding better items. The overall goal of these changes is to improve the variety of viable minion builds, but also make minion builds more reliant on items.

Problem: There are limited options to invest in minion-related stats on player gear, meaning that their base stats have to be inflated to compensate. This leads to most minion builds caring too little about itemisation, and also limits the potential to scale high-end minion builds with better items.

Solution: Lower minion base life and damage, but provide more ways for players to invest into minions on their own gear, allowing minion damage and survivability to each be higher than previously possible for a character with strong items.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The damage and life scaling values for minions have been adjusted. This affects all minions other than Raise Spectre, though the damage of Animate Guardian, Animate Weapon, Blink Arrow and Mirror Arrow minions is also unaffected as they gain base damage from items instead. Generally speaking, minion life and damage is unchanged in the very early game, roughly 30% lower in mid acts, roughly 20% lower at level 20 of the minion skill, and roughly 10% lower at level 30 of the minion skill. The base life and damage of minions that are not associated with skill gems have been adjusted to counteract these changes, except for Raised Spiders from Arakaali's Fang.
  • The level of monster created by the Raise Spectre Skill has been lowered, though remains unchanged at gem level 1. It now creates a level 70 monster at gem level 20 (previously 72), and level 76 monster at gem level 25 (previously 77).
  • Added a new Ring base item type: Bone Ring. This Ring has an Implicit Minion Elemental Resistances modifier, and can roll Minion-related modifiers.
  • Bone, Ivory and Fossilised Spirit Shields are now found with a Minions deal increased Damage Implicit modifier (previously increased Spell Damage), and can roll Minion-related modifiers.
  • As a result of these Implicit modifier changes, the Manastorm Unique Shield is now a Lacewood Spirit Shield, and the Kongming's Stratagem Shield is now an Ancient Spirit Shield.
  • Added two new Wand base item types: Calling Wand and Convening Wand. These base types are level 20 and 50 equivalents of the Convoking Wand and can roll Minion-related modifiers. Some of the new Minion-related modifiers have been added to the available pool for these Wands, and some existing modifiers have been adjusted and/or made more common.
  • Helmets can no longer roll +1–3 to Level of socketed Minion Gems. Instead, they can now roll +1–2 to Level of all Minion Skill Gems. The Vendor Recipe for a Helmet with a +1 to Level of socketed Minion Gems modifier has been replaced with a new recipe. Happy hunting!
  • It is now possible to obtain +2 to Level of socketed Minion Gems as a Corrupted Implicit modifier on Helmets, Body Armours, Gloves and Boots.
  • Ghastly Eye jewels have had their modifier pool updated.
  • The Indomitable Army Notable Passive Skill no longer has "Minions have 15% increased maximum Life".
  • The small Passive Skills in the Grave Intentions cluster now provide "Minions have 8% increased maximum Life" instead of "Minions have +10% to all Elemental Resistances".

Problem: Some minion skills are clear outliers in terms of inherent power, so become the default choice for many minion-focused builds.

Solution: Reduce the power of a couple of overperforming minion skills, and increase the power of others, with the goal of providing more minion options that feel good to play. These changes are in addition to the global minion changes detailed above.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Absolution: Sentinels of Absolution now deal approximately 25% less damage at gem level 1, scaling to approximately 5% less damage at gem level 20. The player version of the skill now has +0 to radius at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to +6 at gem level 20 (previously +4). Both the player and minion versions of the skill now have 6% base Critical Strike Chance (previously 5%). The regular Minion skill now has 180% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 100%), and the empowered version now has 130% (previously 100%).
  • Animate Guardian: Minion's attacks now deal 32–47 additional Physical Damage at gem level 1 (previously 22–34), up to 126–184 at gem level 20 (previously 56–84).
  • Animate Weapon: Now costs 4 mana at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 16 at gem level 20 (previously 12).
  • Arakaali's Fang: The Viper Strike skill used by Raised Spiders now has a base Poison duration of 4 seconds (previously 8 seconds) and no longer has 25% of Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage. Player now gains 15% increased Poison Damage per Spider (previously 12%).
  • Herald of Agony: Agony Crawler now gains 2% increased Attack Speed per Virulence you have at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 4% at gem level 20 (previously 3%).
  • Herald of Purity: Sentinels of Purity now deal approximately 15% more Damage at all levels. Sentinels' Crusade Slam skill now has a 5 second cooldown (previously 6 seconds) and 100% more Area of Effect (previously 80%).
  • Summon Phantasm Support: Summoned Phantasms now deal approximately 20% more Damage at all gem levels. Supported Skills now have 20% chance to Summon a Phantasm when Supported Skills, or Non-Phantasm Minions from Supported Skills, Hit a Rare or Unique Enemy (previously 10%).
  • Raise Zombie: Gem quality no longer grants 0–20% increased Minion Movement Speed. Now costs 9 mana at gem level 1 (previously 10), up to 28 at gem level 20 (previously 38).
  • Summon Carrion Golem: Gem quality no longer grants 0–20% increased Minion Maximum Life. Now has 30% more base life at all levels. Now has 0% increased Minion Maximum Life at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 38% at gem level 20 (previously 68%).
  • Summon Chaos Golem: Gem quality no longer grants 0–20% increased Minion Maximum Life. Now has 20% more base life at all levels. Now has 0% increased Minion Maximum Life at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 38% at gem level 20 (previously 68%). The golem's Cascade spell now has an Added Damage Effectiveness of 100% (previously 60%), has a cooldown of 3 seconds (previously 3.5 seconds), has a base Critical Strike chance of 5% (previously 0%), and has approximately 10% higher base Area of Effect. The golem's chaos storm skill now deals up to 25% more damage at gem level 20.
  • Summon Flame Golem: Gem quality no longer grants 0–20% increased Minion Maximum Life. Now has 30% more base life at all levels. Now has 0% increased Minion Maximum Life at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 38% at gem level 20 (previously 68%). The golem will now be able to use its mortar spell against targets in close range. Its Mortar spell now has an Added Damage Effectiveness of 200% (previously 100%). Its Incinerate spell now has an Added Damage Effectiveness of 80% (previously 20%). Its Cone spell now deals approximately 30% more Damage at all levels, has an Added Damage Effectiveness of 200% (previously 100%), and has a base Critical Strike chance of 5% (previously 10%).
  • Summon Ice Golem: Gem quality no longer grants 0–20% increased Minion Maximum Life. Now has 20% more base life at all levels. Now has 0% increased Minion Maximum Life at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 38% at gem level 20 (previously 68%). The golem's Ice Spear spell now has an Added Damage Effectiveness of 150% (previously 100%).
  • Summon Lightning Golem: Gem quality no longer grants 0–20% increased Minion Maximum Life. Now has 30% more base life at all levels. Now has 0% increased Minion Maximum Life at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 38% at gem level 20 (previously 68%). Golem spells now have 6% base Critical Strike chance (previously 5%). The basic lightning projectile spell now has an Added Damage Effectiveness of 250% (previously 100%).
  • Summon Stone Golem: Gem quality no longer grants 0–20% increased Minion Maximum Life. Now has 20% more base life at all levels. Now has 0% increased Minion Maximum Life at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 38% at gem level 20 (previously 68%).
  • Summon Holy Relic: The Relic's nova Spell now has 250% Effectiveness of Added Damage at all gem levels (previously scaling from 70% at gem level 1 to 146% at gem level 20). It now grants approximately 50% more Life regenerated per second to Allies and Minions at all gem levels.
  • Summon Raging Spirit: No longer has Minions gain 15% less Added Damage. Now has Minions deal 0% more Damage at gem level 1, up to 38% more Damage at gem level 20 (previously 0%). Minion base life is now 20% higher at all levels. Now costs 4 mana at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 16 at gem level 20 (previously 12). The Helmet Enchantments that grant a chance to summon an extra Minion now grant a 16% chance from the Merciless Labyrinth (previously 12%) and a 24% chance from the Eternal Labyrinth (previously 18%).
  • Summon Reaper: The buff granted when consuming a Minion no longer grants 40% increased Damage. It now grants 40% increased Attack Speed (previously 20%), 40% increased Movement Speed (previously 20%) and also now grants 30% increased Area of Effect. The reaper's dash slash attack now has an Added Damage Effectiveness of 150% (previously 250%).
  • Summon Skeletons: No longer has Minions gain 50% more Added Damage. Skeletal Mages now deal approximately 5% less damage at gem level 1, scaling to approximately 25% less damage at gem level 20. Now costs 5 mana at gem level 1 (previously 4), up to 16 at gem level 20 (previously 12).
  • Vorana's March: Fixed a bug where summoned Arbalists had an effective accuracy rating that was approximately 70% lower than intended. Summoned Arbalists now deal approximately 50% more Damage. Almost every modifier that can randomly spawn on Vorana's March has either had its values increased or been disabled.

Problem: Because minions are monsters, they inherit some stats from monsters that can significantly affect build choices and power. As these stats are not detailed anywhere in-game, they are a cause of confusion for a lot of players (as well as rendering minion ailment builds near-impossible except for minions specifically designed around them). The large damage bonuses granted to minions by frenzy and power charges also crowd out alternative options, especially for shield itemisation with Necromantic Aegis and utility-focused spectres.

Solution: Split potentially-confusing monster stats into minion and non-minion versions so that minions can behave in the manner players would naturally expect.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Minions no longer have hidden penalties to Bleeding, Ignite, and Poison damage. Summon Reaper no longer has a hidden bonus to Bleeding damage that counteracted this penalty. As a result, minions now deal approximately twice as much Poison damage, three and a half times as much Ignite damage, and seven times as much Bleeding damage.
  • Minions now gain the same bonuses from Endurance, Frenzy and Power Charges as players do, rather than the significantly elevated bonuses that other Monsters gain.

Problem: Investing in minion critical strikes has been possible in a very niche manner for some time now, but has never been a fully-supported build option. Additionally, the removal of a large amount of potential critical strike chance from power charges in the above change would render critical minion builds near-impossible without further changes.

Solution: Add more sources of minion critical strike investment. These changes are not intended to fully compensate for the lost critical strike chance from power charges, but instead to more than make up for the lost damage via the addition of multiple sources of minion critical strike multiplier.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Spirit Offering Skill gem no longer grants Elemental or Chaos Resistance to Minions, and no longer causes Minions to gain a percentage of their Physical Damage as Extra Chaos Damage. It instead now grants Minions 110% increased Critical Strike Chance at gem level 1, up to 148% at gem level 20. It also grants Minions +30% to Critical Strike Multiplier at gem level 1, up to +39% at gem level 20.
  • The Fearsome Force Passive Skill Tree cluster no longer grants minion area of effect. It is now a larger cluster that grants minion critical strike chance and multiplier.
  • The "Minions have 100% increased Critical Strike Chance" Minion Offence Mastery has been replaced with an option that provides "Minions have 30% increased Area of Effect".
  • The new minion modifiers mentioned above include a family of minion critical strike chance modifiers available on wands and shields, and a family of minion critical strike multiplier modifiers on wands.

Problem: The Necromancer's Unnatural Strength notable passive skill is extremely strong for almost all minion builds due to how well minion skills scale with gem level. This skill makes it hard to justify using other ascendancy classes for minion builds.

Solution: Change Unnatural Strength to provide a less universally applicable stat, and allow more access to minion gem levels on items instead (as detailed above).

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Necromancer's Unnatural Strength Notable Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer provides +2 to Level of all Minion Skill Gems. Instead, it now grants Minions Unholy Might.

Miscellaneous Skill and Support Gem Balance

Problem: Skills that cause corpse explosions (especially those that scale ignite damage) are currently able to deal significantly more damage than intended, due to an oversight that caused Auric Champion and Auric Colossus corpses to have approximately 60% more life than any other corpse that can be spawned by the Desecrate skill.

Solution: Reduce the life of Auric Champion and Auric Colossus corpses to be equal to that of other high life corpses, such as Kitava's Heralds.

Problem: Skills that cause corpse explosions derive much of their damage scaling from increased maximum corpse life, mostly from skills on the passive skill tree. This pressures builds utilising these skills to choose the Necromancer ascendancy class as it provides a large value of this stat, and means that corpses of enemies you kill are not useful for damage compared to corpses you spawn yourself. Additionally, since the percentage of corpse life dealt as damage by these skills does not scale with skill levels, there is not sufficient incentive to level them up (especially for builds scaling ignite damage).

Solution: Remove the increased maximum corpse life stat from the Necromancer ascendancy and reduce the values available elsewhere. Increase the percentage of corpse life dealt as damage for all corpse explosion skills to offset this substantial damage loss, and have this percentage scale with the level of the skill.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Corpse Pact Necromancer Ascendancy Passive no longer has "Corpses you Spawn have 50% increased maximum Life".
  • The small Corpse Life Passive Skills in the Undertaker cluster now grant "Corpses you Spawn have 5% increased maximum Life" (previously 10%).
  • Phantasmal Unearth: Quality now grants "Corpses spawned have 0–20% increased maximum Life" (previously 0–40%).
  • Detonate Dead: Now has "Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to 6% of the corpse's maximum Life" at gem level 1, up to 7.9% at gem level 20 (previously 6% at all gem levels).
  • Vaal Detonate Dead: Now has "Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to 6% of the corpse's maximum Life" at gem level 1, up to 7.9% at gem level 20 (previously 9% at all gem levels).
  • Cremation: Now has "Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to 4% of the corpse's maximum Life" at gem level 1, up to 5% at gem level 20 (previously 4% at all gem levels).
  • Volatile Dead: Now has "Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to 3% of the corpse's maximum Life" at gem level 1, up to 4% at gem level 20 (previously 3% at all gem levels).
  • Bodyswap: Now has "Explosion deals base Fire Damage equal to 6% of the corpse's maximum Life" at gem level 1, up to 7.9% at gem level 20 (previously 6% at all gem levels). Now deals Fire Spell Damage equal to 4% of your maximum Life as base Fire Damage at all gem levels (previously 3%). Now has an added damage effectiveness of 100% (previously 85%), and now gains additional radius as the gem levels, up to +2 at gem level 20.

Problem: When Fire Trap's hit damage was buffed in 3.17.0, the damage over time of its burning ground was also unintentionally buffed.

Solution: Reduce the damage of Fire Trap's burning ground to pre-3.17.0 levels.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Fire Trap now deals 32.5 Base Fire Damage per second at gem level 1 (previously 30.9), up to 3018.8 Base Fire Damage per second at gem level 20 (previously 4170.7).

Problem: Cooldown-based traps are balanced around being mostly a single target damage supplement, with potential to use them more frequently for builds heavily invested in doing so. However, trap builds currently have extremely efficient access to increased trap cooldown recovery rate and increased trap duration, making it easier than intended to rely on these traps as a main source of damage and making their damage uptime over a long-duration fight very high. This issue is most obvious with Seismic Trap in the current state of the game, but also applies to other cooldown trap skills.

Solution: Trim the availability of trap cooldown and duration. Compensate the damage of cooldown trap skills that are underperforming as a result.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Advanced Traps Support no longer has 10%–29% increased Skill Effect Duration.
  • The Hasty Reconstruction Notable Passive Skill has been renamed to Overprepared and no longer grants 30% increased Cooldown Recovery Rate for throwing Traps.
  • Flamethrower Trap now deals 6 to 9 Fire Damage at gem level 1 (previously 5 to 8), up to 243 to 366 Fire Damage at gem level 20 (previously 211 to 319).
  • Lightning Spire Trap now deals 15 to 45 Lightning Damage at gem level 1 (previously 15 to 46), up to 238 to 713 Lightning Damage at gem level 20 (previously 207 to 622). Now has 85% effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 75%).

Problem: Explosive Arrow currently has a single stat for hit and ailment damage per arrow stuck in the target, but this makes it impossible to reduce the damage of overperforming ignite builds without also affecting underperforming hit-based builds.

Solution: Split the hit and ailment damage bonus for stacking arrows on a target into two stats. Reduce ailment damage and slightly increase hit damage.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Explosive Arrow no longer has "Explosion deals 5% more Damage with Hits and Ailments per Explosive Arrow on Target. Instead, it now has "Explosion deals 6% more Damage with Hits per Explosive Arrow on Target" and "Explosion deals 3% more Damage with Ailments per Explosive Arrow on Target".

Problem: When spell base damage values were dramatically increased in 3.17.0 and methods of triggering spells had their power reduced in compensation, Cast when Damage Taken Support and Cast on Death Support were omitted.

Solution: Increase the damage penalty of Cast when Damage Taken Support and reduce the damage bonus of Cast on Death Support to match the changes made to other trigger mechanisms in 3.17.0.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Cast when Damage Taken Support now causes Supported Skills to deal 65% less Damage at gem level 1 (previously 70%), up to 27% less Damage at gem level 20 (previously 6% more Damage).
  • Cast on Death Support now has 0% more Damage while Dead at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 152% at gem level 20 (previously 304%).

Problem: The Anomalous alternate quality of Cast on Death Support makes it too easy to guarantee a critical strike for boss-killing builds using Cast on Death.

Solution: Quality on the Anomalous Cast on Death Support now grants "Supported Skills have +0–10% to Critical Strike Chance while Dead" (previously 0–100%).

Problem: Divine Blessing Support is intended to allow characters who do not wish to reserve much of their mana to still use an aura by casting the aura for a normal mana cost every few seconds. The cost of the supported aura is calculated based on that aura's original reservation requirement, and therefore usually requires spending a large portion of your maximum mana. However, due to technical limitations, the cost is still calculated based on the size of your mana pool if it paid using life. This allows players who are reserving most of their mana to support an aura with both Divine Blessing Support and Lifetap Support, and occasionally spend a few thousand life to gain an extra aura beyond the amount they would otherwise be able to run.

Solution: Prevent Lifetap Support from supporting Blessing skills, to match its counterpart Arrogance Support. Provide slight compensation for this change on Divine Blessing Support, and update Eternal Blessing Support to match.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Blessing Skills can no longer be supported by Lifetap.
  • Skills supported by Divine Blessing Support now have 10% increased Aura Effect at gem level 1 (previously 0%), up to 29% at gem level 20 (previously 19%).
  • Eternal Blessing Support now grants Supported Skills 0% increased Aura Effect at gem level 1 (previously 19% reduced), up to 19% increased at gem level 20 (previously 0% increased).

Problem: Sniper's Mark provides a large amount of power to projectile builds, but also provides powerful flask charge generation. Generating life flask charges in particular provides a lot of mostly hidden power for builds utilising Sniper's Mark, even though it is rarely a consideration when deciding whether or not to use the skill in a build. The combination of projectile stats and flask charge generation put the skill into a state that is too powerful compared to other mark skills.

Solution: Remove the life and mana flask charge generation from Sniper's Mark. You may see these stats appear again in the future...

Problem: Hydrosphere was previously commonly used to provide an extra target to hit, allowing many skills to benefit from extra damage splashing, projectile chain and so on against single targets. A cooldown was added to being able to hit Hydrosphere in patch 3.17.0, but this cooldown is necessarily per entity, meaning that Hydrosphere still provides an enormous damage bonus in cases where many different entities are hitting it (most notably minion builds).

Solution: Only allow Hydrosphere to be hit by the entity that cast it.

Problem: Due to Path of Exile's constant evolution, there are sometimes skill and support gems that are left feeling underwhelming to use.

Solution: Carry out a routine balance pass on a selection of underperforming skill and support gems, with the aim of making them more attractive options.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Artillery Ballista now has 50% Effectiveness of Added Damage at gem level 1 (previously 44%), up to 65% at gem level 20 (previously 57%). It now has a base explosion radius of 20 (previously 18). Arrows now take 250 ms to fall (previously 330 ms) and the delay between arrows is now 100 ms (previously 150 ms).
  • Blazing Salvo now deals 7–10 Fire Damage at gem level 1 (previously 6–9), up to 270–405 at gem level 20 (previously 241–361). Now has 60% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 55%).
  • Cleave now has +0 to Radius at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to +10 to Radius at gem level 20 (previously +8).
  • Crackling Lance now has a base Beam Width of 12 (previously 10) and gains +3 to Beam Width per Intensity (previously +2).
  • Decoy Totem now has 0% increased Totem Life at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 76% at gem level 20 (previously 38%).
  • Devouring Totem now has 20% more base life, and has 0% increased Totem Life at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 76% at gem level 20 (previously 0%).
  • Energy Blade now has "Two Handed Energy Blades have 70% more Lightning Damage" (previously 50%).
  • Firestorm now has one impact every 0.15 seconds (previously every 0.2 seconds).
  • Haste now grants 10% increased Movement Speed and 15% increased Attack and Cast Speed at gem level 1 (previously 4% and 9%), up to 15% and 24% at gem level 20 (previously 9% and 16%). Vaal Haste now grants 16% increased Movement Speed at gem level 1 (previously 10%), up to 20% at gem level 20 (previously 13%). The Attack and Cast Speed granted by Vaal Haste has not been changed.
  • Reave now has 170% Effectiveness of Added Damage at gem level 1 (previously 150%), up to 250% at gem level 20 (previously 225%). Vaal Reave now has 250% Effectiveness of Added Damage at gem level 1 (previously 200%), up to 350% at gem level 20 (previously 313%).
  • Rejuvenation Totem now has 20% more base life, and has 0% increased Totem Life at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 76% at gem level 20 (previously 0%). Its Aura now Regenerates 8.6 Life per second at gem level 1 (previously 6.3), up to 317.5 at gem level 20 (previously 162.2). Quality on Divergent Rejuvenation Totem now grants 0–20% increased Aura Effect (previously 0–60%).
  • Scorching Ray now deals 13.4 Base Fire Damage per second at gem level 1 (previously 12.8), up to 780.7 at gem level 20 (previously 696.3).
  • Scourge Arrow now has 30% Damage Effectiveness at gem level 1 (previously 28%), up to 40% at gem level 20 (previously 35%).
  • Shock Nova no longer has 20% chance to Shock Enemies, or increased Effect of Shock. Instead, it now has +10% to maximum Effect of Shock, and Ring always Shocks. Quality on Anomalous Shock Nova no longer provides "Ring has 0–40% chance to Shock".
  • Soulrend now deals 21–31 Chaos damage at gem level 1 (previously 19–28), up to 885–1327 at gem level 20 (previously 716–1074). Now has 170% Effectiveness of Added Damage (previously 150%). It now deals 180.9 Base Chaos Damage per second at gem level 1 (previously 164.9), up to 2642.5 at gem level 20 (previously 2138.5).
  • Spellslinger now grants Added Spell Damage equal to 60% of Damage of Equipped Wand at gem level 1 (previously 50%), up to 174% at gem level 20 (previously 100%).
  • Sunder now has 220% Effectiveness of Added Damage at gem level 1 (previously 175%), up to 325% at gem level 20 (previously 275%). Its damaging wave now travels 60% faster.
  • Vaal Flameblast now has 200% more Spell Damage for each stage (previously 140%).
  • Arrow Nova Support now causes Supported Skills to deal 30% less Projectile Damage at gem level 1 (previously 40%), up to 16% less at gem level 20 (previously 26%).
  • Urgent Orders Support now causes Supported Skills to have 50% increased Warcry Speed at gem level 1 (previously 30%), up to 69% at gem level 20 (previously 49%).
  • Critical Strike Affliction Support now causes Supported Skills to have +70% Damage over Time Multiplier for Ailments from Critical Strikes at gem level 1 (previously +55%), up to +98% at gem level 20 (previously +83%).

Miscellaneous Ascendancy Balance

Problem: The Trickster ascendancy class has caused multiple balance issues over the years, but changes to the class have increasingly left it lacking a compelling identity or sufficient power.

Solution: Rework the Trickster ascendancy, focusing more tightly on thematically appropriate defences and speed. Details will be shared in the 3.19 reveal livestream.

Problem: Juggernaut's Unbreakable skill is overly complicated and therefore requires each stat granted to be watered down, meaning that Juggernaut players aren't able to focus on the stats they want from the skill.

Solution: Split Unbreakable into two narrower but more powerful skills.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Juggernaut's Unbreakable Notable Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer grants Regenerate 2% of Life per second, 5% reduced Damage taken, or 1.5% of Physical Damage prevented from Hits in the past 10 seconds is Regenerated as Life per second. It now grants 8% of Armour applies to Elemental Damage from Hits.
  • Added a new Notable Ascendancy Passive Skill to Juggernaut: Untiring. It grants 40% increased Life Regeneration rate and 1.5% of Physical Damage prevented from Hits in the past 10 seconds is Regenerated as Life per second.

Problem: Chieftain's Tawhoa, Forest's Strength skill doesn't provide enough damage to be attractive to slam-based builds, especially when it has to compensate for not being exertable and not synergising with Fist of War Support.

Solution: Slams used by Tawhoa's Chosen now deal 100% more damage (previously 50%).

Problem: Pathfinder's Master Alchemist skill is quite weak, which also causes Pathfinder to be pushed mostly towards chaos-based builds as non-chaos builds do not have enough compelling ascendancy skills to choose from.

Solution: Add more power to Master Alchemist. Partially compensate by removing extraneous power from the much stronger Nature's Boon.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Pathfinder's Master Alchemist Notable Ascendancy passive Skill no longer grants 20% chance to Freeze, Shock and Ignite during any Flask Effect. Instead, it now causes Magic Utility Flasks applied to you to have 20% increased Effect.
  • Pathfinder's Nature's Boon Notable Ascendancy Passive Skill no longer grants 6% reduced Elemental Damage taken.

Unique Item Balance

Problem: Crystallised Omniscience and Ashes of the Stars are powerful unique amulets that have both been adopted by a wide variety of builds since their introduction in Siege of the Atlas. However, while Ashes of the Stars is a relatively standalone item that enhances the individual strengths of a build, Crystallised Omniscience encourages players to devote a substantial portion of their build towards stacking attributes. It also makes it easy to do so by providing the elemental resistances which would otherwise compete for space with attributes on your items. This reduces the diversity of itemisation across a wide variety of elemental builds.

Solution: Lower the amount of elemental penetration and resistances granted by Crystallised Omniscience, with the aim of it still being powerful but not the ideal choice for such a large variety of builds.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Crystallised Omniscience Unique Amulet now grants +1% to All Elemental Resistances per 15 Omniscience (previously 10 Omniscience) and "Penetrate 1% Elemental Resistances per 15 Omniscience" (previously 10 Omniscience). This change affects existing items.

Problem: Melding of the Flesh is a unique jewel that transfers your highest maximum elemental resistance to your other elemental resistances. Though it comes with a substantial penalty to your base resistances, it is an extremely powerful item that has outcompeted other forms of elemental damage mitigation for well-itemised builds.

Solution: Add a penalty to maximum elemental resistances to Melding of the Flesh, forcing builds that want to reach 90% in all elemental resistances to commit more of their build to reaching it.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Melding of the Flesh Unique Jewel now has -4% to -6% to all Maximum Elemental Resistances. This change does not affect existing versions of this Unique.

Miscellaneous Character and Item Balance

Problem: The base critical strike chance provided by the Brittle ailment serves as an enormous effective damage boost to builds focused on it. As more and more methods of investing in alternate ailments are added to the game, Brittle has begun to overshadow other ailments.

Solution: Reduce the amount of critical strike chance provided by Brittle to make it more comparable to Scorch and Shock.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Brittle Ailment now grants up to +6% chance to critically strike afflicted enemies (previously +15%) and now has a default value of +2% (previously +5%).

Problem: The introduction of reservation efficiency has encouraged a much larger range of builds to invest in reservation skills to a small or moderate degree. This is not a problem in itself, but currently the options for doing so are similar for every build, and provide slightly too much generic power relative to the investment required. Reservation mastery options are the biggest outliers in power, as they provide larger amounts of power than entire notable passive skills.

Solution: Remove the mana reservation efficiency mastery and reduce the power of the aura effect and life reservation efficiency masteries.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Reservation Mastery that granted 15% increased Mana Reservation Efficiency of Skills has been removed from the Passive Skill Tree.
  • The Reservation Mastery that grants increased Life Reservation Efficiency of Skills now has a value of 20% (previously 30%).
  • The Reservation Mastery that causes Auras from your Skills to have an increased Effect on you now has a value of 10% (previously 15%).

Problem: The line of flask modifiers that grant flask charges when you are hit by an enemy make it too easy to keep your flasks active permanently for most non-boss content.

Solution: Lower the values of flask modifiers that grant charges when you are hit by an enemy.

Details:
Spoiler
  • The Delinquent's and Sinner's modifiers can no longer be rolled on Flasks. The Transgressor's, Masochist's and Flagellant's modifiers now provide 1, 2 and 3 charges when hit by an enemy respectively (previously 4, 6 and 7 charges). Existing items can be updated to these new values using a Divine Orb.

Problem: The Veiled and Crafted Modifiers that cause Skills to cost no Mana or Life while Focused undermine the importance of skill costs and constrain design space. As mentioned in the 3.17.0 Patch Notes, we originally planned to disable them in 3.18.0, but this was pushed back due to the freeze on character balance in 3.18.0.

Solution: Non-Aura Skills Cost no Mana or Life while Focused can no longer appear as a veiled modifier on Amulets, and the crafted version is no longer available.

Problem: The timeless jewel-exclusive Chainbreaker keystone is too difficult to properly use, while also limiting the potential to provide other sources of rage regeneration.

Solution: Rework Chainbreaker to lean into rage as a resource in a more extreme manner, and remove potentially unwanted interactions with other sources of rage regeneration.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Chainbreaker has been reworked. It now grants 1 Rage regenerated for every 25 Mana Regeneration per second, Mana Recovery from regeneration is not applied, and Skills cost +3 Rage.

Problem: Damage taken recouped as life is a relatively new recovery option, and there are not currently enough sources of it available for players who wish to invest heavily in it.

Solution: Incrementally improve the availability of this stat by adding it to the jewel modifier pool.

Details:
Spoiler
  • Crimson, Viridian and Cobalt Jewels can now roll 4–6% of damage taken recouped as life as a suffix modifier.

We'll include this list of changes (and potentially more, or updates to these) in the full patch notes before release. A bit more detail about some areas (such as the improvements to the Trickster Ascendancy Class) will be revealed in the Lake of Kalandra announcement livestream next week.
Posted by 
on
Grinding Gear Games
lets go!!! very excited!!!!
Last edited by ABVT on Aug 2, 2022, 5:01:05 PM
wokege
LETS GO
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Yes!
Sadge
Last edited by ldrufio on Aug 2, 2022, 7:36:34 PM
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