Since the launch of the Blight expansion we've introduced three new microtransaction themes to the store: Miracle, Havenwood and Void Emperor. Each of these themes were created by different artists, and today we'd like to share their work on these cosmetic effects by showcasing several pieces of concept art.

It's been four weeks since the Blight League launched and today we want to take a look at how / which Blight Oils are being used. What are the most popular Notables and Ring Enchantments? Let's take a look at statistics from the past week.

Top 20 Notable Anointments

• Alacrity
  
• Ravenous Horde
  
• Diamond Skin
  
• Beef
  
• Thief's Craft
  
• Freedom of Movement
  
• Expertise
  
• Utmost Might
  
• Aligned Spirits
  
• Death Attunement
  
• Grave Intentions
  
• Wisdom of the Glade
  
• Agility
  
• Weathered Hunter
  
• Path of the Savant
  
• Gravepact
  
• Spirit Void
  
• Depth Perception
  
• Divine Judgement
  
• Prodigal Perfection

First, let's look at what the most popular Notables are, based on what has been anointed. Among the top 20, we can see that +30 Stat Notables are chosen quite often. Since we're not accounting for the rarity of Oils, this is fairly expected. It's quite common to stick on a cheap Notable while leveling characters.

Ravenous Horde takes the number two slot. This Notable is a powerhouse for Minion builds, giving Minion Movement Speed and giving your Minions the ability to gain Onslaught on Kill, something not acquirable ordinarily.

Unsurprisingly, Diamond Skin makes a showing at the number 3 spot. This gives a good chunk of resists while leveling and only requires common oils, so this makes sense.

Continuing down the list, we can see some Movement Speed options being taken (Freedom of Movement), more Minion-related Notables (Aligned Spirits, Death Attunement, Grave Intentions) and some other Resistance options (Weathered Hunter).

This mostly falls in line with what one would expect in a league dominated by Necromancers: quite a few Minion Notables, things that smooth out stat requirements while leveling, and for those that aren't having stat problems, things to increase either their movement speed or resistances.

Top 20 Notable Anointments Normalised by Oil Rarity

• Ravenous Horde
  
• Death Attunement
  
• Whispers of Doom
  
• Gravepact
  
• Corruption
  
• Vengeant Cascade
  
• Tribal Fury
  
• Fatal Blade
  
• Heart of Ice
  
• Utmost Might
  
• Constitution
  
• Ambidexterity
  
• Tranquility
  
• Arcane Potency
  
• Discipline and Training
  
• Divine Judgement
  
• Disciple of the Unyielding
  
• Piercing Shots
  
• Grave Intentions
  
• Righteous Army

Next up, let's factor in the rarity of oils. The following notables are still based on the number of times they've been anointed, but are also then multiplied by a factor of their rarity. The most rare oils have a higher rarity factor. One would expect that, assuming all notables had perfect balance and demand, they would be anointed at the same rate as one another. Obviously, that isn't the case, but it serves to give a guideline on how to interpret this information.

Topping out the charts is Ravenous Horde. You'll note this notable is almost topping the chart when we don't account for "cost" as well. It means that this notable is very powerful, players generally are willing to pay the cost, and it could suggest that we've undercosted the notable (in terms of what oils are required to anoint it).

Following that up, Death Attunement makes a leap up to the top. This notable was near the #10 spot based on Count, but when you factor in the cost, you're looking at some expensive Oils to anoint this notable. Even still, players are willing to pay the price!

Taking a sidestep from Minion notables, we see Whispers of Doom in the number 3 spot. Interestingly, this is one of the most expensive notables to anoint, requiring two Golden Oils and a Black Oil. Even with the high cost, many players were interested, which makes sense given how powerful an additional curse is.

As we go down this list further, we see more Minion notables, some Chaos Damage notables (perhaps taken by Poison builds) and Life notables (Constitution as well as Discipline and Training).

We can also see a few of the notables that aren't naturally able to be allocated on the passive tree in Vengeant Cascade and Tribal Fury.

Finally, let's take a look at the breakdown of Oils consumed to anoint Notables.



As expected, since this data set isn't normalised, Clear Oils are seeing the most use. Most oil use follows the natural rarity scale. Where we start to see a divergence from this is when we get to Crimson, Opalescent and Black Oils. Given that by count they aren't following their rarity scale, this suggests that players are largely anointing notables that require either larger amounts of these oils, that many of the notables anointed require these oils, or some combination of both.

Let's now take a look at Ring Enchantments. Which Towers do people generally care most about? Do people prefer Damage, Range, Utility, or something else?

Top 10 Ring Enchantments

• Chilling Tower Damage
  
• Meteor Tower Damage
  
• Fireball Tower Damage
  
• Scout Tower Damage
  
• Summoning Tower Damage
  
• Freezebolt Tower Damage
  
• Flamethrower Tower Damage
  
• Glacial Cage Tower Duration
  
• Scout Tower Range
  
• Meteor Tower Additional Meteor

Again, we'll start by looking at the sheer quantity of enchantments. This does not account for Oil rarity at all, so we should expect to see the cheaper enchantments at the top here.

In general, we see Damage enchantments for the basic towers, though there are some exceptions here. Scout Tower Range takes the #9 position. This is likely related to recent buffs to the Scout Tower. Interesting to see!

In the #10 position, we can see Meteor Tower Additional Meteor. This is one of the more expensive enchantments, so it's nice to see it make a showing in the top 10 list. This speaks to its enormous popularity, as it is especially useful for taking down tough bosses!

Next, we'll again look at ring enchantments, but normalised by oil rarity. As above, we've factored in how rare each oil is to this list, meaning that enchantments that require rarer oils will have that rarity reflected here.

Top 10 Ring Enchantments Normalised by Oil Rarity

• Meteor Tower Additional Meteor
  
• Meteor Tower Stun
  
• Scout Tower Range
  
• Meteor Tower Damage
  
• Scout Tower Damage
  
• Summoning Tower Damage
  
• Freezebolt Tower Additional Projectile
  
• Chilling Tower Special
  
• Chilling Tower Range
  
• Flamethrower Tower Full Damage

Topping out the charts, we see Meteor Tower Additional Meteor. This was the 10th most common enchantment by count, but when you factor in the rarity of oils required for this, it's the most common enchantment by a factor of 3 when compared to the second closest enchantment (Meteor Tower Stun). This demonstrates how much players value a small area of effect but high damage tower, relying on their other towers and their own damage to deal with regular packs of monsters.

Looking at the full list, we see 4 Fire-based enchantments, 3 Minion-based enchantments and 3 Cold-based enchantments. It seems we have some clear crowd favourites, with Lightning, Physical and Buff Towers being notably absent.



Again, we'll look at how many oils have been used on Ring enchantments in the past week. Clear Oils are once again leading the "most-consumed" category relative to anything else. We can actually see that more Clear Oils (by percentage) are being used on Ring Enchantments than Notables. Speculating on why this may be, perhaps ring enchantments aren't seen as being as absolutely necessary for success, and therefore players opt to use whatever is cheapest?

We see that Sepia Oil, though it is the second most common oil, is actually the 4th most used. This suggests that players are looking for a comfortable middle-ground between the value of the oils used for their ring enchantments and the power those enchantments provide. Most players, understandably, want to use their oils for Amulet anointments.

The four most common oils are being used on more than 80% of all Ring enchantments.. This is a large increase from the 57% that the top four make up when looking at Notable anointments.

Notably, Golden Oil makes up only 0.13% of all Oils used on Ring enchantments, but makes up 1.67% of all Oils used for Notable enchantments.

That's it for today! Next week we'll talk more about Oil statistics, including the overall breakdown of Oil use on Blighted Maps.

In Path of Exile: Blight we introduced a new NPC, Sister Cassia, whose hummings and divine power have quickly found their admirers among our community. Our narrative designer Nick has written an article about the process behind creating Cassia, which we'd like to share with you today. We hope you enjoy reading it!
_____________________________________________
Whenever we introduce a new NPC alongside a league, I am filled with a confusing blend of excitement and dread. Sister Cassia, the NPC introduced alongside Blight, was no exception.

NPCs like Cassia have to do a lot of heavy lifting. They are often your first point of contact with the league, and are thus responsible for helping teach the league's mechanics and intricacies. But on top of that, they also have to provide a lot of context for the mechanic. It's one thing to add tower defence into Path of Exile. It's another to make it fit within the world, and to give the player a purpose to interact with it beyond the juicy rewards.

A personal goal of mine, however, is to ensure that even if you don't enjoy the specific mechanics of a league, you'll still enjoy the presence of the NPC. That means each new NPC needs to feel distinct from those already present -- not just the masters in your hideout, but the dozens of other characters you interact with throughout the campaign.

Cassia was an interesting character to work on. Quite early on we decided she'd be a nun, as Elreon's betrayal meant we didn't have much of a Templar presence anymore, and given the society all the Exiles hail from, having a technical background meant likely having a close relationship with the Templar (the group, not the player class). Internally, she was referred to as "Technonun" for a while as her final name was nailed down. Fun Fact: Cassia is another name for Cinnamon, a plant with natural fungicidal properties!

Knowing she was a Templar with technical prowess, it wasn't a huge leap in logic to assume she probably knew Dominus and Piety. It's hard to make someone with those close associations 'good', which is fine, because few people in Wraeclast are truly good. I loved the idea of her being morally ambiguous, but broadly doing something healthy for Wraeclast (killing the blight). Her previously high-status among the Templar allowed her to be believably snobby and condescending, as a counterpoint to the broadly-helpful pool of Masters we currently have.

Often I'll sketch out a character's backstory (Templar engineer, exiled for misappropriating Templar resources, still somewhat brainwashed) and as I'm working on the script, the more important personality traits will emerge. Her habit of over-explaining, her hymn-singing and her strong disdain for Piety all developed across the first draft or two of her script.

Once we were happy with the script, we cast the wonderfully talented Jodie Rimmer to play her. I'd written out three goofy lines to be sung as hymns, and wanted her to also hum the league's theme. During recording, I suggested one tune be sung as if it were for a marching army (hence the upbeat tune about burning the unrighteous). I love that, on its surface, those songs are amusing and tell you a lot about Cassia, and on further reflection, tell you even more about the Templar themselves, and the story of Sin and Innocence.

Originally I'd planned for her to sing a lyric once and then go quiet -- essentially Cassia's equivalent of "Still sane, Exile?" -- but once it was implemented, it felt too weird for her singing to suddenly stop. We put the longer-form lines in and trimmed the "oh!" off of her greetings on a whim, and it just totally worked.

I was very pleased with how well she was received, though like many of you, I wish we'd recorded more lines for her. There's always a balance to be struck between good signalling, where you know she's telling you there's a new minion lane or that monsters are too close, and enough variety that you don't get sick of hearing those signals. In this case, I think we probably erred too much on the signalling side and not enough on the variety. Hopefully we'll get a chance in the future to expand her character a little more! I'd love for her to tell us what she thinks of all the masters.

Our players have always been surprising us with their artistic skills, and after receiving a lot of great artwork inspired by the recent Path of Exile content, we decided it's time for another fan art competition! As always, we're prepared a prize pool that includes microtransactions, T-shirts, art books and more!

Top Three Winners

• A custom forum avatar made from your submitted art
  
• A special forum badge
  
• Your choice of two Path of Exile T-shirts - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)
  
• Signed Path of Exile Art Book
  
• Chaos Orb Keychain
  
• Brutus Art Print
  
• Your choice of Weapon Effect from the list below
  
• Your choice of Helmet Effect from the list below
  
• Your choice of Armour Set from the list below

4th and 5th Place

• Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirt - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)
  
• Signed Path of Exile Art Book
  
• Your choice of Weapon Effect from the list below
  
• Your choice of Helmet Effect from the list below
  
• Your choice of Armour Set from the list below

6th-10th Place

• Your choice of one Path of Exile T-shirt - (Chaos Orb, Shaper or Untainted Paradise)
  
• Your choice of Helmet Effect from the list below
  
• Your choice of Armour Set from the list below

11th -20th Place

• Your choice of Armour Set from the list below

Runners-Up

• Your choice of Helmet Effect from the list below

The number of runners-up prizes awarded will depend on how many entries to the competition there are.

Microtransaction Prize Pool
List of Weapon Effects

• Acid Weapon Effect
  
• Arcane Weapon Effect
  
• Azure Seraph Weapon Effect
  
• Carnage Weapon Effect
  
• Ebony Weapon Effect
  
• Ghostflame Weapon Effect
  
• Kraken Weapon Effect
  
• Mystic Weapon Effect
  
• Pure Light Weapon Effect
  
• Purple Weapon Effect
  
• Radiant Weapon Effect
  
• Seraph Weapon Effect
  
• Vampiric Weapon Effect
  
• Verdant Weapon Effect
  
• Wasteland Weapon Effect

List of Helmet Effects

• Aquila Crest
  
• Automaton Halo
  
• Bent Horns
  
• Bleached Skull Helmet
  
• Brilliant Crown
  
• Coliseum Helmet Attachment
  
• Divine Sign
  
• Fiery Visage
  
• Iron Maiden
  
• Mark of the Phoenix
  
• Serrated Mohawk
  
• Skull Hood
  
• Spirit Charm
  
• Swan Crest
  
• Twisted Horns

List of Armour Sets

• Arcane Armour Set
  
• Carnage Armour Set
  
• Desert Armour Set
  
• Dragon Armour Set
  
• Elite Armour Set
  
• Fallen Angel Armour Set
  
• Ghostflame Armour Set
  
• Gore Armour Set
  
• Gryffon Armour Set
  
• Lightning Armour Set
  
• Lunaris Armour Set
  
• Mageguard Armour Set
  
• Malachai Armour Set
  
• Necrotic Armour Set
  
• Radiant Armour Set
  
• Raven Armour Set
  
• Seraph Armour Set
  
• Stormcaller Armour Set
  
• Vampiric Armour Set
  
• Verdant Armour Set

How to Enter
Create still art that is inspired by anything introduced in Path of Exile. This excludes video submissions but does include any painting, drawing or model creation. Then just submit your work in this forum thread.

Multiple submissions are welcome and encouraged. Please note that the submission needs to be your own work and needs to have been created after the launch of the competition.

Competition Times
The competition starts at the time of this post and will end on Tuesday the 29th of October at 9am (NZT). We'll announce the winners sometime in the following days.

Best of luck to our community artists!

We're now in the fourth week of the Blight League! To keep you in the loop of what the team has been working on recently, we wanted to share a preview of the upcoming 3.8.1d update that is scheduled for this week.

Please note that the patch notes listed below may not be final and are still subject to change before the patch.

Blight Improvements

• Improved the visibility of Blight Boss icons on the minimap.
  
• Progress towards the "Spend Blight Resources" challenge is now granted to all players in the area when any player builds or upgrades a Tower.
  
• You can now use the Anoint Items option when talking to Cassia without having completed the Blight Tutorial encounter. This allows players in Standard league to anoint items by talking to Cassia in a Blighted Map.
  
• Fixed a bug where you would be unable to build Towers if you had right-clicked on a Tower while holding left-click on it as well.
  
• Fixed a bug where monsters that spawned from Cold, Lightning and Physical lanes had the wrong description with regards to what type of Towers they were resistant to. This was a description issue only.
  
• Fixed a bug where Blight Towers could sometimes persist after an encounter ends if that Tower was being built or upgraded when the encounter ended.
  
• Fixed a bug where the additional meteors created by the "Your Meteor Towers drop an additional Meteor" ring enchantment modifier were too tightly clumped together, making it difficult to discern the additional meteors.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Your Flamethrower Towers deal full damage to Fire Enemies" and "Your Shock Nova Towers deal full damage to Lightning Enemies" ring enchantment modifiers did not work.
  
• Fixed a bug where Anointed Notables did not count towards the Inspired Learning unique jewel's allocated Notable requirement.
  
• Fixed a bug where Anointed Notables did not count towards Transcendent unique jewel modifiers.
  
• Fixed a bug where some of Cassia's dialogue did not respect the Dialogue Volume setting.

General Improvements

• Reduced the impact on performance of various buffs granted to you and allies affected by your auras.
  
• Reduced the impact on performance when using Multistrike, Spell Echo, Unleash, Blastchain Mine Support and High-Impact Mine Support.
  
• Summoned Minions are now re-summoned if the level of their skill gem changes. Monsters that are re-summoned in this way will be briefly stunned.
  
• Made further updates to the Shatter sound effect.
  
• Added two crafting slots to the Delve Stash Tab.
  
• Added audio that plays when flasks are equipped or placed in your inventory or stash.
  
• You can now use an "Exact Match" parameter in Item Filters. Simply use == to filter for exact matches. For example, BaseType == "The Demon" will show The Demon Divination Card but will not show The Demoness.
  
• Deforestation has occurred in the Lava Lake Map. There are now far fewer pesky trees blocking your view.
  
• Shattering Steel now creates all of its projectiles if its animation is cancelled after the first projectile has been fired.
  
• The Ngamahu, Flame's Advance Chieftain buff now displays a buff icon while its damage bonus is active.
  
• Updated the buff icon art for Master of Metal.
  
• The Eternal Life Flask can now be filled to the brim.
  
• Fixed a bug where you were unable to interrogate the Betrayal Mastermind on a character from the same account that was different to the one that opened portals to the Mastermind's Lair.
  
• Fixed a bug where Cobra Lash and Venom Gyre did not alternate hands for attacks while dual-wielding.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "8% more Damage per Non-Golem Minion near them" buff from Carrion Golems did not persist after changing areas. Fixed a bug where this buff was checking for Non-Golem Minions near the player, rather than the Carrion Golem. Fixed a bug where this buff was stacking for each Carrion Golem summoned (though this did not bypass the 80% cap).
  
• Fixed a bug where Celestial Raised Zombies had a longer Slam cooldown than default Raised Zombies.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Chaos Resistance is Doubled" notable passive did not double "Chaos Resistance against Damage Over Time" or Hybrid resistance modifiers (such as +X% to Cold and Chaos Resistances).
  
• Fixed a bug with terrain generation of various areas, including The Broken Bridge.
  
• Fixed a bug where older versions of Mineral Pools Map contained both forms of Merveil in the boss room.
  
• Fixed a bug where pressing Enter to confirm a listing price for an item in your Stash would open the chat, rather than confirm the price.
  
• Fixed a bug where monsters that were Fleeing would do so for a much shorter distance than intended.
  
• Fixed a bug where weapon effects were overwritten when the Avian's Flight and Avian's Might buffs cycled between one another.
  
• Fixed a bug where a Betrayal Encounter quest tracker could become out of date in older instances if you found other Betrayal encounters in a different instance while your original instance had a decision pending.
  
• Fixed clipping issues with the Havenwood Armour Set.
  
• Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Toxic Rain.

Microtransactions from the Frontier Mystery Box have been released in the store. It's also still possible to combine some of the individual Wild and Wrangler pieces into the corresponding alternate colour version of these designs. Please note that the Wild Gold and Silver Wrangler cosmetic effects are only available by combining the original sets and can't be purchased directly.

Watch the Frontier Mystery Box trailer below to see everything that's available or check them out in the store by pressing M.



Thank you for your support!

We're concluding this week by introducing the new Havenwood Armour Set and the accompanying Havenwood Cloak. This weekend we're also running a big sale for most of the Wings and Back Attachment microtransactions. In addition, we're offering one free Carnival Mystery Box when you spend points!

We've just released the Havenwood Armour Set. Inspired by the atmosphere of an autumn forest, this earth-coloured armour set is covered with glowing leaves. The accompanying Havenwood Cloak is also available in the store. Check out their videos below, or press M in game to get yours.





In addition, we're running a huge sale for the most of the Wings and Back Attachment microtransactions. There are over a hundred Wings and Back Attachments available at discounted prices, including community favourites such as the Dragon Hunter Wings and the Celestial Wings. Check out the full selection of discounts here. Please note that this sale excludes all the Wings and Back Attachment microtransactions which were released since the launch of the Blight expansion.

This weekend we're also offering a free Carnival Mystery Box when you spend any amount of points in the store! This means that you can get one free Mystery Box from us by purchasing discounted wings or any other cosmetic microtransaction.

Please note: it's only possible to get only one free Carnival 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.

The offer will end at Sept 30, 2019 8:00 PM (PDT).

Thank you so much for your support! Have a great weekend!

A couple of weeks ago we introduced the Delve Stash Tab that allows you to store all Fossils and Resonators at one place in your stash. We've received a lot of requests from the community asking for a crafting slot in this Tab. Based on your feedback, we're adding two crafting slots in the upcoming 3.8.1d update which is scheduled for next week. Alongside this small QoL feature, the 3.8.1d patch includes further improvements and fixes. We'll tell you more about this patch soon.

Thank you for your feedback and continued support!

Last week we posted an update about our work on improving Path of Exile's recent client and serverside performance problems. While working on these areas, we identified a much larger problem and have deployed a hotfix for it today.

Due to a subtle change made in 3.8.0, a bug was introduced where certain effects on the client would spawn more particles on long frames than short frames. This meant that when the game client slowed down for any reason, it would start to take exponentially longer for each subsequent frame. A fix for this has been deployed today.

This particular issue causes small performance issues to turn into gigantic client freezes, which can be seen in popular reddit/forum posts since this bug was introduced with 3.8.0. Other work is still ongoing on fixing the small performance issues that were exacerbated by this.

In addition, we have found several areas of server performance that we can immediately improve, which will prevent the stuttering and slowdown that can occur when the game server instance is consuming far too much CPU. We expect to have these deployed today also.

We will continue to work on performance. Thanks for your patience.

The third week of the Blight League just started and we wanted to give you a small update about what we're working on at the moment. While we don't have a big patch scheduled for this week, we're still planning to fix some of the remaining issues by deploying client-side hotfixes.

The following crash fixes are ready and will be deployed as soon as possible:

• Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Shield Charge if you leveled the gem up while it was being used.
  
• Fixed a client crash that could occur when using Leap Slam with the Harlequin Leap Slam Effect on Predictive Networking Mode.
  
• Fixed an instance crash that could occur when using Mines.
  
• Fixed an instance crash that could occur in the Act 6 and Tower Map Brutus and Shavronne encounters.

The common crash with Vorici Betrayal encounters is still being worked on, as well as the cases when the Blight portals spawn too close to the Ichor Pump.

Last Friday we talked about the current performance situation in Blight. The team has been actively investigating the high priority issues we listed in that news article. We'll give you more details about the changes we're planning to make in order to improve the performance by the end of this week.