Before we release the full patch notes for Path of Exile: Blight tomorrow, we wanted to take a moment and talk about some of the major changes we've planned for this expansion. The team has written a Development Manifesto to outline these changes.

For a while, we've wanted to include modifiers on caster weapons that provide a multiplicative damage increase to spells, similar to how physical weapon modifiers affect the base damage of attacks. Previously this took the form of elemental penetration and modifiers that add a portion of elements as Chaos damage, but this patch we'll be pushing this further in the form of global modifiers to gem levels.

Staves were previously the go-to weapon for increasing gem levels, but their modifiers only applied to gems within the staff.

Caster oriented one-handed weapons will now be able to roll some new modifiers that grant +1 to all Fire, Cold, Lightning, Physical or Chaos Spell Skill Gems, not just ones socketed in the item (Sceptres will not have the Chaos Spell Gem mod available). Staves will able to roll a modifier that grants +1 to 2 instead, and have a rarer higher tier +3 modifier available. One handed caster weapons will be able to roll a very rare additional mod that grants +1 to all Spell Gems, and the Staff version of the modifier will grant +1 to 2 to all Spell Gems. These weapons will no longer be able to roll equivalent modifiers that only applied to socketed gems.

It's worth noting that these new modifiers don't apply to Support Gems.

Daggers and Warstaves that can't roll caster modifiers will still be able to roll the old local elemental gem modifiers, and all non-caster weapon types will still be able to roll any existing local gem modifiers like +1 to socketed Bow gems.

There are a number of consequences of these changes. Because the global gem modifiers are much more powerful than the previous local modifiers, we've removed the low level crafting recipe that added +1 to level of socketed Fire/Cold/Lightning/Chaos gems. This recipe has been replaced with a similar one that applies added fire/cold/lightning damage to spells and takes the rarity of the item into account to determine the mod's tier. There is currently no replacement for the Chaos recipe.

Essence of Rage, Sorrow and Spite now apply Fire/Cold/Lightning Penetration respectively to weapons.

Some uniques have been changed to apply modifiers to global gem levels. This is mostly the case on caster weapons, but some specific minion items like Bones of Ullr have also received this treatment. Bones of Ullr now grants +1 to all Raise Zombie gems and all Raise Spectre gems, instead of affecting the maximum minion count, as the additional maximum spectres modifier was too much power from a single item. Now, raising the level of these minion gems to a high enough level will grant additional maximum minions, so these modifiers are still useful. All of the changes will be shown in the patch notes.

We've made a whole host of changes to Mines that completely change how they behave and how you interact with them. As such, many systems that interacted with Mines and by extension Traps have been changed.

You can read more about Mine changes and new mine mechanics here.

The Shaper/Elder modifiers that granted +1 to Traps Thrown or Mines Placed will no longer appear. They provided too much of a damage increase for a single mod. To compensate, some traps have had their damage and area growth improved. We're also introducing changes to the Trap Support which now grants a higher value of Trap Throw speed and an increase to Trap Damage as the gem levels.

We've included a couple of new modifiers from various kinds of crafting to improve trap and mine itemisation. As an example, the Essence of Zeal now rolls a Trap and Mine Throw Speed modifier on Belts. Two Handed Incursion weapons with Trap Damage modifiers now have values higher than One Handed Incursion weapons, and the bonuses apply to Mine Damage as well.

We've also buffed some underutilised trap supports like the Charged Traps Support and Advanced Traps Support.

We've made a number of changes to improve the itemisation and passive tree power for builds that use Ailments to deal damage, as well as damage multipliers for Burning skills.

We've replaced all non-ailment Chaos Damage over Time Multipliers with Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier, so they'll now apply to Poison as well. This is partially so that Poison builds have a few interesting new options, but mostly to make those passives and items less painful to read.

Perfect Agony has been changed significantly, and as a result, so have Ailments from Critical Strikes. Previously, Ailments from Critical Strikes dealt 50% more damage by default, similar to unmodified critical hit damage. The only way to modify this value was to take Perfect Agony. Now, Ailments from Critical Strikes have +50% to Damage over Time multiplier by default, which will be additive with Damage over Time multipliers from other sources.

Now Perfect Agony lets Critical Strike Multiplier also apply to Ailment Damage over Time Multiplier at 50% of their value, which is more potent than the previous value of 30%. This means that investing in Critical Multiplier is more rewarding for Ailment builds, unless you've already invested heavily in other sources of Damage over Time Multiplier. The intent of this change is to allow Critical Poison builds to have more potential for damage growth and make the keystone a worthwhile investment for any critical bleed or ignite build.

Many passives that increased Burning Damage, Poison Damage or Bleeding Damage now have equivalent Damage over Time Multiplier bonuses. They've all been rebalanced as a result. We've also added a new small cluster that gives some potent bonuses to ignites from Critical Strikes, and another that gives bonuses to all ailments from Critical Strikes.

There are also new item modifiers and crafting modifiers that apply to Fire Damage over Time Multiplier or Ignite Damage over Time Multiplier, to give Burning builds options closer to Cold Damage over Time and Chaos Damage over Time builds.

As a result of all of these Burning changes, we've reviewed all Burning Damage skills, and adjusted values. Righteous Fire in particular has received some mechanical changes. It now deals a smaller portion of your health as fire damage to enemies around you, but has an additional burning damage value that increases as the gem levels. The goal of this change is to provide more power for builds that don't invest as heavily in maximum life, and slightly less power in builds that invested the majority of their resources into getting large values of maximum life.

We've also rebalanced some supports that affect Damage over Time, like the Unbound Ailments Support, Poison Support and the Vicious Projectiles Support.

We've made a large number of additions and changes to Minions to improve build diversity and give players the option of having more control over their armies. You can read about some of these here.

Almost every system in the game that touches Minions has been reviewed and rebalanced or changed. Here are some of the more notable changes:

All minions have had their Accuracy increased. The result of this is that a level 20 Raise Zombie, Summoned Skeleton or Raging Spirit will have an 80% chance to hit a level 84 enemy, if you have no minion accuracy modifiers.

Golems have all been reviewed and adjusted, to make more varieties of golems have competitive levels of power. Chaos, Lightning and Stone Golems have been improved in various ways to make them more competitive with Flame and Ice Golems, as well as the new Carrion Golem. As an example, Chaos Golem has more Area of Effect on its Cascade, has 100% Physical Damage converted to Chaos, and its ongoing chaos storm now has "Spell Damage modifiers apply to this skill's damage over time", in addition to damage adjustments.

If you're targeting a monster when you cast Summon Raging Spirit, the Raging Spirit created will attempt to attack that enemy first. If it can't reach the enemy or the enemy dies, it returns to its standard behaviour. This is still overridden by the Deathmark Support.

The Minion and Totem Elemental Resistance Support has been changed to Elemental Army Support. It no longer applies to Totems, but lets supported minions apply a -10% Exposure based on their highest elemental damage dealt, and grants them More Elemental Damage. At higher levels it also grants more maximum elemental resistances.

Convocation's cooldown has been shortened, now that the Necromancer no longer has a notable that grants cooldown recovery to it. Its life recovery is now a percentage of maximum life, rather than a flat value, letting it scale to higher levels a little better.

Desecrate has had its cooldown removed, and now has a shorter cast time. It has a shorter duration and a lower corpse limit now, but this will make it a much more reliable tool for both Minion builds and builds that explode corpses.

Offerings are now more reliable and easier to manage. They now have a higher base duration, gain an additional second for each corpse consumed, consume half as many corpses, and they have an ongoing marker over the player rather than on the ground, so you'll always know when they expire.

The Dead Reckoning Unique Jewel can now turn up to 15 skeleton warriors into mages, up from 5 and is now limited to 1. Using multiple copies of the jewel was an unnecessary cost for the power provided, and this should make the build more accessible as well.

There have been many changes to crafting modifiers that affect minions, including:

• A new Atlas-specific base type, the Convoking Wand, which has an implicit that lets it roll new Minion modifiers.
  
• Essence of Fear has been changed to match other minion bonuses, which means it grants higher values of increased minion damage on weapons.
  
• Incursion item Minion modifiers have been changed and improved.
  
• A new Elemental Resistance and Minion Elemental Resistance crafted modifier has been added.
  
• A new craftable Minion Movement Speed modifier has been added.

In 3.7.0, we changed Warlord's Mark to only apply its leech effects to Attacks, as Mana Leech was one of the easiest ways to recover mana for Intelligence characters, outclassing most other mana recovery mechanics with very little cost. In 3.8.0 we've changed all remaining sources of Mana Leech, either replacing the stats or changing them to only leech from Attacks. This includes Enchantments, the Mana Leech Support, and unique items.

The general philosophy is that mana sustain for spellcasters should be something a player has to think about and find some way to manage, similar to Accuracy for Attack characters. However, we don't want the solution to be a huge investment, and we've tried to provide a few different and interesting ways to sustain mana recovery.

Mana Flasks have received a major review. Values have been adjusted, recovering more mana and having more uses available, so they're more reliable for longer encounters. We've introduced a selection of new modifiers for mana flasks, including a new "Enduring" modifier that lets the mana flask remain after reaching full mana at the cost of duration.

Passives that affect mana flasks have been added or improved, including the new Essence Extraction notable that grants Mana Flasks 1 charge every 3 seconds, as well as Mana Regeneration, increased Flask Charges gained, and removing 1 random Elemental Ailment when you use a Mana Flask.

Stats that subtracted from the final mana costs of skills made managing mana for certain channelled skills far too simple. We've split these mods into a channelled and a non-channelled skill version, with the channelled skill version granting a much smaller reduction.

The Reduced Mana Support has been reworked, and is now the Inspiration Support. In addition to reducing mana cost, it now grants an Inspiration Charge each time you spend mana with the supported skill, up to 5 charges. The supported skill gains more Elemental Damage and Critical Chance for each Inspiration charge. After spending more than a specified amount of mana, the Inspiration Charges are removed. This rewards you for investing in reducing the mana cost of your skills as much as possible to maximise the uptime of your Inspiration.

Clarity has also been changed to grant higher values of mana regeneration at higher gem levels.

A variety of new passive tree clusters have been added, including one that improves mana and Arcane Surge, one that gives curse bonuses and a way to recover mana after hitting or killing cursed enemies, and one that grants Spell Damage based on your maximum mana, up to a limit.

3.7.0 introduced a whole host of changes and improvements to a variety of melee skills. This resulted in a lot of people playing Cyclone.

Cyclone benefited from a combination of melee range and area modifiers in a way that let it surpass the area of effect of almost any other skill, alongside all of the other benefits that Cyclone has. Rather than punishing other skills that use melee range, we've changed how Cyclone calculates its area, making the increase granted additive with other area increases.

This has meant that we've been able to provide more melee range on the passive tree. Master of the Arena, Brinkmanship, Bone Breaker and Splitting Strikes now grant +2 melee range, up from +1. Cleaving, Flaying and Claws of the Pride now grant +1 melee range. This will improve the area of Strike attacks, making them easier to use and more effective at taking on packs of enemies.

Ancestral Call Support has had its damage penalty lowered, resulting in no damage penalty at level 20 of the gem. This is to further help the clearing capacity of Strike attacks.

We've increased the base damage of Multistrike, while lowering the bonuses for the second and third swing, so the skill is much less punitive if you only perform one or two attacks. Multistrike being cancelable is something we've decided to stick with, to keep melee characters more mobile. Multiplicative attack speed is very dangerous from both clear capacity and performance, so we're reticent to give a single support gem any more.

We've lowered the added physical damage on retaliation attacks, because of how high their damage output could be when used with Facebreakers. Their base damage has been increased to compensate.

Pulverise Support now provides Increased Area of Effect instead of More Area of Effect. The skill provided too much area of effect for heavily invested characters, so we've changed the values to be additive with other area increases. The support now grants more damage than before to make up for the loss of area.

Tornado Shot has been outperforming other bow attack skills, while also having potent single target damage. This is partially due to the power of the Additional Secondary Projectiles enchantment. We've changed the enchantment to be from the Eternal Labyrinth only, and to grant +1 secondary projectiles, down from +2.

We've fixed a bug that meant that secondary projectiles from Fork could hit the target that they forked from with certain skills. For players, this only applied to Tornado Shot and Barrage. This provided a huge unintended damage bonus to these skills.

We've given added Lightning damage to Lightning Arrow and added Cold damage to Ice shot to help them scale better throughout the game, and improved damage and projectile scaling on Split Arrow.

We've also made some improvements to how all projectiles select targets when chaining. Previously, two projectiles from a single attack could attempt to chain to the same target, but only one would be able to hit. Now chaining projectiles won't attempt to chain to the same target unless no other targets are available, which significantly improves the clearing capabilities of Chaining projectiles when used with additional projectiles.

Contagion no longer gains radius as the gem levels. The skill provided too much clearing capacity over a large area at high levels.

Bodyswap has been significantly reworked. The most notable change is that you can target a living enemy to warp to their location, though the skill benefits from more area of effect and a corpse explosion when destroying a corpse. There are other mechanical damage changes that make it a more flexible and powerful spell, especially when teleporting around a single target.

We've made a large number of changes to the passive tree in relation to mana, mines, bonuses for Damage over Time, Poison and more.

The Mine passives have been almost completely reworked, the Damage over Time and Poison clusters now have different stats and values, and there are a number of new Mana clusters found on the passive tree.

We've split the Flask Effect cluster that was near the Witch into four different passive clusters granting Flask Effect alongside other effects. These are spread over the passive tree, with a preference towards the Dexterity area of the tree, as the Ranger has the strongest flask association. Each cluster has less Flask Effect than the old cluster, but in total there is now more flask effect on the passive tree than before.

We've raised the base radius of all traditional aura skills, and lowered the bonus from "increased Area of Effect of Aura Skills" on the tree. This is because these passive stats will also apply to Mine skills, as they count as Aura skills. The passives are still great choices for Mine characters, being more powerful than other generic Area of Effect increases, but don't have values more than twice the numbers seen elsewhere. We've also giving Smite more radius as the gem levels, as its area of effect was balanced around the aura area of effect passives.

We've added a new Power Charge cluster similar to the Endurance and Frenzy charge ones added in 3.7.0.

Clusters introduced in 3.7.0 that gave increased attributes have been moved so they are no longer in radius of any jewel sockets, as these clusters skewed the power level of certain unique jewels too heavily. As a result, Tempered Flesh and Transcendent Flesh now have 7% Critical Strike Multiplier per unallocated Strength in radius, up from 5%. Tempered Mind and Transcendent Mind now have 125 Accuracy Rating per unallocated Intelligence in radius, up from 100. This should make them a tempting choice in more locations on the tree.

We've made a host of changes to a variety of ascendancies. Most notable are the Necromancer, Saboteur and Assassin to go alongside changes and additions to their standard skill archetypes. Other ascendancies have been touched to a lesser degree for a few different reasons. Below are some of the notable changes.

Our intent is to have fewer passives that take an underused skill or mechanic and give it the tools needed to see use. We're moving these effects onto the skills themselves as they level, and providing more generally useful bonuses that still keep the same theme. The Necromancer redesign is the most obvious example of this, and we've also changed the Guardian so he no longer grants specific bonuses to Herald of Purity and Dominating Blow minions, and have built the Crusade Slam effect into the minions themselves. We'll likely do this more as part of future reworks.

The Hierophant's mana path has changed as a result of a review of all Mana mechanics. It should be more offensively powerful for a character with heavy mana investment now, with its defensive power slightly reduced.

The Elementalist has had its Golem path adjusted, providing much more power to the player on an invested Golem character, while no longer being the only way for a character to get additional golems outside of unique items thanks to a new Golem cluster on the passive tree. It should be a more desirable path for builds that don't rely entirely on their minions as a result. Beacon of Ruin now grants increased effect of non-damaging ailments, to improve its overall power.

The Raider received some numerical improvements and one additional aura mechanic to make it more competitive, but will receive more changes in the future to give it more unique features.

The Occultist's Vile Bastion now also grants 40 energy shield regenerated per second at all times, granting more reliable recovery, especially at lower levels.

The Chieftain now provides +25% to Fire Damage Over Time Multiplier instead of 15% more Burning Damage, providing more power for Burning characters unless they're very heavily invested in Damage over Time Multiplier.

The Berserker and Slayer were a little too generically powerful for attack builds, so some nodes have had values adjusted. The Slayer's Bane of Legends node has had the value of attack and move speed granted reduced to 10%. Overwhelm has had its Base Critical Chance lowered to 7.5%. The Berserker's Crave the Slaughter no longer grants a chance to deal Double Damage, with this bonus being moved to War Bringer if you've used a Warcry in the past 8 seconds. Flawless Savagery now grants a lower value of Critical Strike Chance for Attacks, and slightly less critical multiplier.

The Trickster's Ghost Dance passive was providing a bit too much defense for a single notable, so the chance to evade, reduced damage taken and amount of Energy Shield recovered has been lowered.

The Ascendant has had passives related to many of the adjusted Ascendancies above changed. For example, the Saboteur notable now provides more Elemental Penetration than before, and the Necromancer node now penalises offerings on you less and grants additional area of effect if you've consumed a corpse recently.

We've made a number of changes to make unlocking Veiled modifiers easier.

Modifiers granted only by items from specific Syndicate members now require half as many unveils to learn to craft. They're also more likely to appear as one of the potential modifiers.

Modifiers only found on less common item types or that are limited to only one or two item types are much more likely to appear as unveiling options.

Flask modifiers unveiled only from the unique flask from the syndicate mastermind now only require a single unveil to unlock.

The intent is that it shouldn't be necessary for a character to learn every single crafting recipe each league, but we want to make it easier to get a specific modifier you'd like to craft. We'll continue to monitor the results of these changes.

Packs of monsters that spawn with Rare monsters now have a single shared modifier from the Rare, as well as more life, damage, experience and item rewards. This will make a Rare monster encounter more rewarding, and able to provide a greater challenge.

Monster Accuracy has been lowered, as 3.7.0's accuracy/evasion calculation change resulted in monsters being noticeably more likely to hit a character with medium investment in Evasion. This change brings an evasion focused character back to the previous evade chance against monsters, though characters with low evasion will still be more likely to be hit than prior to 3.7.0.

We've also reduced the chance for a league mechanic that drops a random unique to drop a league-specific unique. This ended up being the most common source of league-specific uniques in some leagues!

We've increased the speed that the breach expands in the end-game Breach Domains. This lets you clear through a breach domain faster than before. We've increased the amount of time that you start with in Elemental and Physical breaches in the end-game breach domains to compensate for this faster expansion, so you'll have just as much time total to complete the breach. The amount of time that you start with in a chaos breach domain has not changed and thus will be slightly more challenging. We've improved life scaling on the bosses to be more consistent across levels, increased density of monsters in the breach domains, removed the increased life mod from the breach domains and increased the life of the monsters in the breach domains to compensate. This will even out the challenge in Pure Breach Domains. Prior to this change, the bosses of the Physical and Chaos breaches had less life than the Elemental breach bosses in Pure Breach Domains.

We've made adjustments to a large variety of unique items based on their use. For example Poet's Pen's triggered spell now has a cooldown of 0.15 seconds, down from 0.25 seconds. It now only triggers on finishing an attack, rather than starting an attack, because of animation canceling. Blasphemer's Grasp now gives +4% to Damage over Time Multiplier for Ailments for each Elder Item Equipped, instead of 15% increased Damage with Ailments.

That concludes all of the major balance changes we're wanting to discuss today. There are many other smaller changes that you'll be able to read about in the patch notes tomorrow. Hopefully you've enjoyed this look at the upcoming balance changes, and we look forward to playing with you all in the upcoming Blight league!

Last week, we revealed some of the Poison attack skills coming with Blight. Today we'll show the two remaining Poison gems, Venom Gyre and Plague Bearer.

Venom Gyre
Venom Gyre is a new level 12 Claw and Dagger skill. Fling out a poisonous shuriken blade that deals damage based on your weapon, with physical to chaos conversion and some added chaos damage. It returns to you when it hits an enemy, wall, or after a time. When returning, the blade folds up to pierce through enemies, but deals less damage.

Catch all blades that return to you, storing them around you like charges. You can have up to 30 of these blades floating around you.

If you use Whirling Blades, you'll fling out all stored blades over the length of the whirl, throwing them out in a spiral. Whirling straight through an enemy will cause lots of the blades to hit that foe.

The skill has many interesting interactions with projectile modifying supports; Pierce lets you deal damage to an enemy twice by hitting them once when you throw it through them and then again when it returns, Faster Projectiles lets you fling the blades much further before they return, Chain bounces the blades between enemies before it returns to you, and Fork splits the blades into two, so you get to catch twice as many blades as you threw out.

Plague Bearer
Cast Plague Bearer once to enable an ongoing effect on your character. While active, you'll deal less poison damage, but a portion of the remaining damage your poisons apply will be stored up in Plague Bearer's buff. The higher the level of Plague Bearer, the more damage it can store. It stops lessening your poison damage when the skill has stored its maximum amount.

At any point, you can activate Plague Bearer again. It will switch modes, become a damaging area around your character. This deals 12% of the stored damage per second as chaos damage over time to enemies around you. This lasts until it runs out of stored damage, or until the skill is activated again. This damage isn't affected by your character's damage modifiers. While in this damaging mode, you won't be able to store up any more poison damage, and your poisons will be full strength again. When you reactivate the skill or the stored damage runs out, the skill returns once again to storing damage.

The skill acts much like a temporary Righteous Fire, letting you run through packs of enemies to wipe them out, or giving you an additional damage boost against tougher foes when you need it most.

Check out these gems in action by watching the video below:



We hope you've enjoyed this look at the upcoming skills, and that you'll give them a go in the Blight league coming at the end of this week. You'll be able to find more details on these skills in the upcoming level 20 gem reveals.

In the Blight League you'll have the option to complete 40 new challenges and earn exclusive microtransaction rewards. At 12, 24 and 36 challenges you will earn the Blight Helmet, Blight Portal Effect and Blight Wings respectively. Completing challenges also grants you pieces of the Blight Totem Pole Hideout decoration.


You'll be able to check out the full list of challenges in game when Path of Exile: Blight launches on PC on September 6th.

The Legion League on PC ends on Monday September 2nd at 3PM (PDT), so it's your last weekend to finish your challenges. We're also running a 50 Point Sale with more than 200 microtransactions available for 50 points or less. To make this sale more satisfying, we're offering one free Frontier Mystery Box when you spend points!

Legion Ends Soon
The Legion League on PC ends on Monday September 2nd at 3PM (PDT), so it's your last weekend to finish your challenges.

Thank you to everyone who played in Legion. It's been a fun league and we hope it will become a great addition to Path of Exile's core in 3.8.0. If you've been enjoying the Legion league, check out the exclusive Legion Brimmed Hat before it leaves the store next week!

50 Point Sale
We've just started a 50 Point Sale where we're discounting a huge assortment of cosmetic effects. More than 200 microtransactions are available for 50 points or less, including Helmet Attachments, Pets, Skill Effects, Hideout Decorations and more. Check out the full list of this weekend's special by pressing M in game.

Get a Free Mystery Box When You Spend Points
As is tradition at the end of the league, we're offering a free Frontier Mystery Box when you spend any amount of points in the store. This means you can purchase another Weta for your in-game insectarium, or the Legion Brimmed Hat and get one free Frontier Mystery Box as a gift from us.

Please note: it's only possible to get one free Frontier Mystery Box from this promotion. Making additional microtransaction purchases will not grant additional mystery boxes. Purchasing a supporter pack will not grant a free Mystery Box but spending points from a supporter pack can grant a free Mystery Box.

This offer will end at 1pm on September 6th (PDT). Thank you for your support!

What to Expect Next Week
The Blight expansion launches in just 7 days, so you all know what to expect next week: more teasers, a development manifesto and of course, patch notes. Here is our news schedule for the upcoming week (this schedule follows New Zealand's Monday to Friday work days, but in other countries might be Sunday to Thursday):

• Mon: Blight Challenge Rewards and Part Two of New Gems for the Assassin Archetype.
  
• Tue: 3.8.0 Balance Development Manifesto.
  
• Wed: 3.8.0 Patch Notes, Passive Tree and Item Filter Information.
  
• Thu: Showcase of the new and reworked gems (at Level 20 with 20% Quality).
  
• Fri: What to expect when Blight launches and possibly a torrent pre-download for the patch.

Additionally, our technical director Jonathan and game designer Mark (Neon) will appear on the Baeclast podcast at 12AM Sunday September 1st (PDT) to discuss the Blight expansion. Check it out live at https://www.twitch.tv/tarkecat!

Have a great weekend everyone! See you next week!

The Blight expansion will come alongside major changes to the Mine system, as well as three new Mines, a new reservation skill for trappers and miners, three new supports and reworks to existing mine supports and unique items.

Mine Mechanic Changes

• Mines are now thrown, letting you deploy them at long range.
  
• Mines take less of your time to place now, taking 0.25 seconds for each throw.
  
• Mine Detonation is now always Instant.
  
• Mines detonate in sequence. Each mine detonation starts a detonation timer on one or more mines in an area around it, with the detonation time getting faster each time. This also means that you can continue to throw mines while a detonation sequence is occurring, and they'll be detonated by the sequence. This works particularly well for mines which have additional effects for each detonation in sequence.
  
• Mine skills each have unique, stacking auras that affect enemies. The more mines you deploy, the more auras affecting enemies around them. These mines are considered aura skills, allowing many Aura stats from passives and items to apply to them.
  
• Mines reserve mana while they're active, but have much lower mana costs.
  
• Mines can be detonated much earlier when deployed, including detonating in the air.
  
• The base mine limit is now 15, up from 5. You can get up to 23 mines at once by combining passives and the Minefield Support.
  
• The base mine duration is now 5 seconds, except for Smoke Mine which has an 8 second duration.

Stormblast Mine
Stormblast Mine is a new skill available at level 1. When placed, it has a stacking aura that increases the damage nearby enemies take by 3%. This means that it provides 45% increased damage taken when you've got a full set of mines placed, even more if you have additional mines from passives and items.

When you detonate Stormblast Mines, they release a lightning nova around them, with a high chance to shock and increased shock effect.

Icicle Mine
Icicle Mine is a new skill available at level 12. When placed, it has a stacking aura that increases critical chance for hits against enemies around it by 10%. When you detonate Icicle Mine, it releases a nova of projectiles, firing five projectiles from the first mine, then an additional projectile for each two mines in the detonation sequence.

Icicle Mine replaces existing copies of Freeze Mine.

Pyroclast Mine
Pyroclast Mine is the level 28 Mine skill. When placed, it has a stacking aura that adds fire damage to hits against enemies near it, which grows as the gem levels. When detonated, the mine releases a fire nova and a salvo of mortar projectiles that fly up before raining down on enemies around the mine. As with Icicle Mine, for each two detonations in the sequence, an additional mortar is fired.

Pyroclast Mine replaces existing copies of Fire Nova Mine.

Summon Skitterbots
Summon Skitterbots is a reservation skill that summons two fast moving, invulnerable minions. One has a shock aura while the other has a chilling aura. While they're active, they'll grant you more Trap and Mine damage. They'll each also look for and activate traps and mines near enemies. On Mines, they'll activate and then re-arm the mine, which won't set off a detonation sequence. On Traps, they'll trigger a number of traps at once.

Blastchain Mine Support & High-Impact Mine Support
Existing Remote Mine Supports have been changed into the Blastchain Mine Support, a level 8 gem that turns supported spells, bow attacks or wand attacks into mines. It now grants less damage as a result of the much shorter mine throw time, and 5% more damage for each mine detonated in sequence.

We've also added a new support at level 31, the High-Impact Mine Support that also turns supported spells, bow attacks or wand attacks into mines. The supported skills deal less damage, but have an aura that gives hits against nearby enemies a chance to deal Double Damage.

These two supports let you choose to specialize in creating long cascades or creating powerful auras when turning a skill into a mine.

Swift Assembly Support
Swift Assembly Support is a new level 4 Support Gem for traps and mines. It grants a chance on throwing a trap or mine to throw an additional trap or mine, a smaller chance to throw two additional, and a very small chance to throw 3 additional. This is particularly useful for Mines, letting you get higher stacks of auras and longer detonation sequences without greatly extending your throw time.

Charged Mines Support
Similar to the Charged Traps Support, the new Charged Mines Support allows you to generate Power and Frenzy charges when detonating supported mines near enemies, with additional mine throwing speed per frenzy charge and critical chance per power charge.

Changes to Existing Gems and Items

• Minefield Support now places 4 mines rapidly, but with a slower total throw time. It allows 4 additional mines to be placed. It is now a level 38 gem.
  
• Smoke Mine doesn't start a sequence when detonated, grants more movement speed than before, and modifiers to mine duration will apply to the speed buff's duration.
  
• We've made changes to the Curtain Call and Tremor Rod unique items.
  
• The +1 Mine Placed shaper helmet mod will no longer appear on items, but existing modifiers will still remain. This is because placing additional mines is now more powerful as a result of various mine changes and Minefield changes.

We're going to be showing all of the mine passive changes, the Saboteur Ascendancy and more new Poison skills in the coming days. In the meantime, check out the video of the new Mine gems below:

In Path of Exile: Blight we're introducing 18 new Divination Cards, created by our supporters. You may have already seen some of those in our teasers and on the announcement page. Today we're revealing 10 more.

Alongside the Blight expansion, we're making some improvements to the Assassin Ascendancy and introducing a new set of Poison attacks. This also includes two new gems utilising a new buff type called 'Elusive'.

Cobra Lash
Cobra Lash is a new low-level attack skill for Daggers and Claws. You fling out a copy of your weapon, creating a projectile that chains multiple times. The skill chains between more enemies at higher levels. The skill grants additional added chaos damage and some chaos conversion, with a chance to poison.

Any critical strikes will have +50% to Poison Damage Multiplier, making the skill quite powerful later in the game if you specialise in critical hits. This is one of many sources of Damage over Time Multiplier for Poison. We've also added Poison Damage over Time Multiplier to many passives, and changed many sources of Chaos Damage over Time Multiplier so they aren't restricted to non-ailments.

Pestilent Strike
This high level Dagger and Claw skill applies poison on hit, as well as a debuff that lasts a short duration. If the target dies while this debuff is active, they explode, releasing a nova that applies a damage over time effect to all enemies in range. The damage of this debuff is based on the total poison damage remaining on the enemy, and this damage is dealt over a short duration.

The Poisons you spread don't have to be from Pestilent Strike, so you can use it alongside Viper Strike or other poisonous skills. This lets you turn a long duration stack of poisons on a single enemy into a fast acting wave of death over a large area. The damage over time effect applied by the nova isn't modified by any of your damage bonuses, as it was already based on a modified poison, but any of your modifiers to skill effect duration will change how long it lasts without influencing its damage per second.

Elusive
The new Elusive buff grants 40% increased movement speed as well as 20% attack and spell dodge. Unlike other buffs, Elusive doesn't have a duration, but instead loses buff over time, until it is removed on reaching 0% effect. This means that increasing your buff effect also increases how long the effect on you lasts. Most sources of Elusive won't overwrite an existing Elusive buff on you.

A new notable on the Assassin Ascendancy will have a chance to grant Elusive, and the buff can also be gained from the following two gems:

Withering Step
Withering Step is an instant spell that removes any existing Elusive effects on you, and grants a new full strength Elusive buff. Withering Step applies multiple stacks of Withered to any enemy when they first enter an area around you, but only once per skill use. Withered increases damage taken from Chaos, which includes Poison effects. While the Elusive from Withering Step is active, you'll be granted Phasing and the cooldown will be paused. Any skills you perform will remove Elusive, which will start the cooldown. At higher levels, the skill has increased Elusive effect.

You can use the skill as an instant way to apply Wither to enemies around you, as a way to quickly avoid attacks with a sudden burst of speed and dodge chance or as a sustained speed increase that also lets you apply Wither to large paths of enemies as you move.

Nightblade Support
The Nightblade Support is exclusive to Daggers and Claws, just as Close Combat and Shockwave Supports are exclusive to other melee weapon types. Nightblade grants base critical strike chance, and supported skills will also grant Elusive on Critical Hit. Elusive granted by attacks supported by Nightblade also grants Critical Multiplier to Nightblade supported skills, and because the multiplier is part of Elusive, it scales with Elusive Effect, granting over +100% to Critical Strike Multiplier at level 20 when first applied.

This means the supported skill will give you sudden bursts of speed and critical multiplier when you first critically hit, and any Elusive effect gained from other sources like the Assassin ascendancy will further enhance the power of the buff.

Check out all the new gems in action in the video below:


We still have the reworked Mine system and skills to talk about later this week, and more Poison skills next week, so stay tuned!

As with every Path of Exile update, Blight will bring with it a number of quality-of-life improvements. Today we're talking about one of the biggest ones -- changes to how your Master missions are handled in the Atlas.

If you've ever felt like you were missing out by taking a day off from mapping, this change is for you. Currently, Master missions are handed out daily on your Atlas, appearing as a symbol over certain maps. Opening a map with a symbol over it guarantees you'll encounter the associated Master. By running maps, you also have a chance to generate more Master missions in this style, in addition to each map having a small chance to randomly generate with a Master inside of it. Unfortunately, if you aren't actively pursuing those Master missions on your Atlas, or if you didn't log in for a day or more, you were missing out on Master mission opportunities.

In the Blight update, we're solving this issue by allowing your Master missions to accumulate. On the right-hand side of your Atlas, each Master has a little counter that tracks how many of their missions you've accumulated, and on which Map tiers they can be used (e.g. white/yellow/red). Each day you'll automatically earn a number of Master missions, but if you don't use them, they don't go anywhere -- they're still there on your tracker. Likewise, any missions earned while you're mapping are tracked and accumulated on your Atlas.

If you decide you want to run a bunch of maps with Einhar in them, all you need to do is talk to him in your Hideout and select 'Mission'. This brings up the map device UI, and you can simply add and run whichever map you want, including the opportunity to select a Zana mod to use. Some stupid beasts will be waiting for you to within the map!

Because we want to make sure players have the opportunity to play what they want when they want, we're moving about half of the random chance for a Master to appear in a map into this Mission accumulation system. In other words, you'll see fewer masters by chance, but will have more opportunities to run missions earned through mapping, and you'll be able to choose when and how you use those missions.

For Master fanatics who were actively pursuing missions at every possible opportunity, you may see a very small reduction to the overall number of Master missions you encounter. For everyone else, it's very likely you'll see more.

These Master missions are account-wide for any characters in the same League. You'll accumulate missions on Standard if you have any valid characters there, as well as in whichever Blight league you decide to play when it launches on September 6 PDT on PC.

To celebrate the announcement of our upcoming expansion, we've just released two pairs of Blight Supporter Packs! By purchasing these you will receive cosmetic effects, such as an Armour Set, Weapon Effect, Aura Effect, a Pet and more! Press M in game to check them out!

There are two pairs of packs available with many exclusive microtransactions. Each of the two pairs has different contents, so you can choose whichever one (or both) you prefer. You can upgrade from the cheaper one in a pair to the more expensive later.

The Sentinel Supporter Pack contains a Weapon Effect, a Pet, a Portrait Frame, a Supporter Forum Title and 250 points. The Sentinel Overlord Supporter Pack contains everything from the Sentinel pack as well as an Armour Set, 550 points, a Portrait Frame and a Forum Title. Check out the preview of the Sentinel Overlord Supporter Pack below!


The Lich Supporter Pack contains a Weapon Effect, an Aura Effect, a Portrait Frame, a Supporter Forum Title and 250 points. The Bane Lich has the same contents as the Lich pack, plus an Armour Set, an alternative Helmet Skin, a Portrait Frame, a Forum Title and 550 points. Check it out below:


You can upgrade from one of these Supporter Packs to another in the same series by clicking "Upgrade" on the desired pack. The process will include any pure points packs purchased since the release of Blight. The maximum amount that upgrades can contribute is 80% of the value of a pack.

Note that the Core and Blight packs are in different series, so you can't upgrade from one of those to the other type. If you have any questions about this process, please contact support@grindinggear.com!

We hope you really enjoy these Supporter Packs! Thank you so much for your generous support!

Alongside the release of the Blight expansion, we're introducing the Carrion Golem and a handful of new Support Gems that let you customise your minions.

Summon Carrion Golem
The Carrion Golem is a well-rounded attacker, using a rapid melee attack, a leap slam to get into the thick of combat, and a powerful cooldown-restricted multi-cascade slam. As its passive Golem buff, it grants added physical damage to all non-golem minions, including their attacks and spells. It has a unique feature among golems, gaining more damage for each of your non-golem minions around it, up to 80% more damage.

A single Carrion Golem fits well into established Minion builds as an extra bonus to all of your necromantic minions. It can also be invested in more heavily by taking various sources of additional golems (including a new notable passive) and using multiple golems alongside a swarm of zombies or skeletons.

There are also four new support gems that you can place on minions to change their behaviour and function:

Feeding Frenzy Support
The Feeding Frenzy support gem makes supported minions aggressive, increasing the range that they'll seek out enemies. It also gives hits from the minions a chance to give you the Feeding Frenzy buff, granting more minion damage and increased minion attack, cast and movement speed. While you have the Feeding Frenzy buff, the supported minions deal even more damage.

Meat Shield Support
The Meat Shield support gem makes supported minions defensive, causing them to only attack enemies that get very close to you. It also gives the minions a chance to taunt on hit, reduces the damage they take, and causes them to deal more damage to enemies close to you.

If minions are both Aggressive and Defensive, those effects cancel out, returning the minions to their original behaviour. All other bonuses from the support gems still apply.

Deathmark Support
The Deathmark support gem grants supported minions more damage, and grants you the Deathmark skill. Casting Deathmark on an enemy causes all minions supported by a Deathmark support to prioritise attacking the target, and gives them a further damage multiplier against that enemy. Casting Deathmark on a new enemy removes any existing Deathmark.

You can Deathmark to have precise targeting for specific minions, and the Deathmark targeting will override Aggressive or Defensive behaviour while it is active. The minions will fall back on their regular targeting if no Deathmark is present.

Different combinations of these three support gems let you use different minions for different roles. An example might be using your Zombies with Meat Shield to protect you, your Carrion Golems with Feeding Frenzy to clear groups of enemies, and the Deathmark Support on both of them so you can send all of them in after bosses while you evade the bosses abilities from a distance.

Infernal Legion Support
The Infernal Legion support gem causes supported minions to take a large percent of their maximum life as fire damage over time. They all gain a burning damage aura, dealing fire damage over time to nearby enemies. The effect doesn't stack, but is modified by minion damage increases and other support gems.

This support can be used to deal damage to large groups of enemies, and is available at quite a low level, so is an alternative to Melee Splash for some minion types. It also works well alongside the Minion Instability keystone, letting you use your minions as walking time bombs.

We'll be revealing further minion changes, including the new wand base type, Necromancer ascendancy, and passive tree in the upcoming teasers and news. In the meantime, check out a video of the new gems: