Today we're showcasing some of the entries from our ongoing Fan Art Competition for the last time before announcing the winners next week. For all of those who'd like to participate - you have just under a week left to submit your artwork, inspired by Path of Exile content! The competition concludes on Tuesday the 29th of October at 9am (NZT).

Fan Art by BellenaErs


The Insatiable by deynarde


Kitava and Thief by disolin


Rest in Pieces by johnq1e


Darkest Blight by Kardalak_IX


Sister Cassia by Kassiopea_M


Malachai, the Nightmare by Leucoma


Aul, The Crystal King by Qque


Necromancer by StellaTheSlaya


Winter Orb Witch by zxdrrtolkin13

Last week we posted an article with a list of issues we've been working on. This week we're planning to release the 3.8.2 patch which includes fixes for some of the issues mentioned in that article, as well as a number of various improvements. To give you an idea of what to expect from this update, we'd like to share a preview of its patch notes today.

As usual, please note that the patch notes listed below may not be final and are still subject to change before the patch.

Blight Improvements

• Updated the description on Breathstealer unique gloves to reflect the fact that a Blighted Spore can be created when your Minions kill a rare monster. This change does not affect functionality.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where you could be placed on the upper level when entering a Blighted Ramparts Map, making it impossible to reach the Ichor Pump.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Deal Full Damage" ring enchantments did not correctly bypass Blight monster resistances.
  
• Fixed a bug where the "Your Temporal Towers also grant you 20% increased action speed" ring enchantment did not work.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where kill credit was not properly awarded to players when killing a monster through the use of damage over time skills. This affected awarding of the Defeat Rogue Exiles challenge.
  
• Fixed a bug where Blighted Spores created by the Breathstealer unique gloves counted towards the /remaining monster count in an area.

General Improvements

• Reduced the impact on performance when using Multistrike, Spell Echo, Unleash, Blastchain Mine Support and High-Impact Mine Support.
  
• Corrupted Blood now plays audio each time it is applied to a player.
  
• Imprinted Beasts and Bestiary Orbs can no longer have skin transfers applied to them.
  
• Updated the description of the Inspiration Support gem to clarify that Minions, Totems, Traps and Mines cannot gain Inspiration Charges.
  
• Durations modifiers can now affect the Flicker Strike buff which grants movement speed.
  
• The remains of destroyed Delve Walls can no longer be consumed or destroyed like corpses, because they aren't.
  
• The buff timer for stolen Headhunter, Inspired Learning and Hunter's Lesson buffs is no longer obscured when you have multiple instances of the buff.
  
• Updated the Vendor Recipes page of the Help Panel to reflect changes made in 3.8.0.
  
• Fixed a rare bug that prevented various bosses from using skills or transitioning correctly after being Frozen or Stunned.
  
• Fixed a bug where you would respawn in town after dying in the Uber Elder encounter. You will now respawn in your hideout if you opened the portals from your hideout.
  
• Fixed a bug where, when maps whose tiers were changed through the use of a Shaper's Orb or Elder Orb were corrupted into a different rare map (or had its modifiers rerolled), the new map would have mods of the original map's base tier, rather than of the original map's new tier.
  
• Fixed a bug where your Auras could be disabled when a summoned Carrion Golem died.
  
• Fixed a bug where desync would occur if you were using Cyclone while it was socketed in an item as an Incubator attached to that item reached its kill threshold.
  
• Fixed a bug where Spectral Shield Throw could sometimes not create secondary projectiles if it chained.
  
• Fixed a bug where Fog of War on the Subterranean Chart could sometimes restrict view of connected nodes if they were very far away.
  
• Fixed a bug introduced in 3.8.0 where Augmented Synthete's large projectile nova skill did not deal damage.
  
• Fixed a bug where Burning applied by Herald of Ash was not able to be removed.
  
• Fixed a rare bug where objects could sometimes have the wrong model. For example, a monster using a tree as its weapon.
  
• Fixed a bug where some buildings in the Lava Lake Map did not fade their roofs correctly when you were inside of them.
  
• Fixed a bug where the microtransaction versions of Ice Nova looked different when cast on a Frostbolt than if they were cast under any other condition.
  
• Fixed a bug where some weapon effects could not be applied to a weapon that had the Harlequin Weapon applied to it.
  
• Fixed a bug where both the Void Emperor Body Armour and the Miracle Wings did not animate correctly while in town areas.
  
• Fixed a bug where part of the Arcane Tome Totem Skin remained visible after the totem submerged.

Crash Fixes

• Fixed a client crash that could occur when applying various weapon effects to a weapon that had Ringmaster Weapon applied to it.
  
• Fixed a client crash that would occur when changing your Display Adapter in the Graphics options menu.

Today we're looking at how many challenges have been completed in the Blight challenge league by player percentages, and how Ascendancy class use has panned out across the various league types and platforms. First of all, let's take a look at the Blight challenges.

The graph below shows what percentage of players have how many challenges and only includes accounts for those that have completed at least one challenge.

• 20% of players have completed 12 challenges and earned the Blight Helmet.
  
• 4.8% of players have completed 24 challenges and earned the Blight Portal Effect.
  
• 0.65% of players have completed 36 challenges and earned the Blight Wings.

Next, let's look at all the characters in all Blight leagues on PC. The following Ascendancy class stats were taken during the week of September 22nd - September 29th so as to be a fair comparison against data sets taken from the same point during Legion.


We see Necromancer at the top, which is an exception to the norm as most of the top spots are taken up by unascended characters. No class other than the Necromancer is more popular than the unascended class at this point. There are probably a number of contributing reasons, one of which is that a large portion of players had decided on that Ascendancy well in advance. Another is that Necromancer is a class that naturally appeals to newer and more casual players, and the buffs to summoner skills and passives had allowed them to progress characters more quickly and successfully this league.

Comparing back to Legion, Duelist topped out at 11.72% of all classes. You'll note that the highest ascendancy class was only 9.92% at the time. Which begs the question, why are there so many more ascended characters in Blight compared to Legion? Are players this league suddenly playing longer? Are they ascending sooner?

Now, let's restrict our focus to level 70+ characters in Blight League on PC.


We see that Necromancer is still leading the pack, and the gap between it and the second most popular ascendancy, which happens to be the Assassin, has increased. Given that 3.8.0's reworks focussed on Necromancer, Assassin and Saboteur (through the changes to Mines), it is reasonable to see these three at the top.

Comparing back to Legion league, the highest ascendancy class at the time was Slayer, coming in at 25.63%. There's a stark increase in Blight league, with Necromancer taking up 36.27% of characters at this level bracket. The gap between the most popular ascendancy and the second most popular ascendancy has widened from 9.51% during Legion league to 24.77% in Blight league.


Further restricting our focus to level 90+ characters in Blight League on PC, we see Necromancer climb to 42.36% of all characters, while Assassin and Saboteur both drop off slightly. During Legion, Slayer came in at 36.67% of all characters at level 90+, slightly below Blight's most popular ascendancy class.

There's a much larger gap between the most popular ascendancy and the second most popular ascendancy during Blight than there was during Legion. The gap was 16.63% during Legion, but during Blight league this gap has grown to 31.66%. The top two ascendancies during Legion comprised 56.71% of all characters, during Blight they comprise 53% of all characters, roughly the same percentage.




If we now look at just level 90+ characters in Hardcore Blight on PC, we continue to see Necromancer at the top, but Juggernaut takes a massive leap into second place, taking up 7.92% of all characters, whereas it makes up only 1.98% of all characters when Standard Blight is included. The Guardian has seen another notable increase, going from 1.76% to 6.51% in Blight HC. Notable decreases include the Deadeye and Ranger, seeing about half as much play in Hardcore Blight.

Next, we'll look at level 90+ characters in Blight Solo Self-Found on PC.


Necromancer continues to climb in popularity here, peaking at 58% of all characters (up from 42.36% in all Blight leagues). The Necromancer is traditionally not too reliant on specific items for power until endgame, and the buffs that came alongside Blight have amplified that, Saboteur and Assassin remain almost as popular as they are in trade-leagues. Deadeye sees significantly less play in SSF leagues than in trade-leagues, with a drop from 4.5% down to 1.24%.


Looking at level 70+ characters in Blight on PS4, Necromancer (expectedly) is at the top. Interestingly, compared to PC, Necromancers make up almost the exact same proportion of the population on both platforms. However, more players are playing Assassins and Saboteurs on PC than on PS4. Slayer sees quite a bit more play on PS4 than on PC; one likely explanation for this is that a good chunk of these Slayers are playing Cyclone (which feels great on a controller).

Now let's look at level 70+ characters in Blight, but on Xbox.

How do the two consoles differ from one another? There isn't much change at the top, with Necromancer, Assassin and Hierophant being the most popular choices. Slayer, Trickster and Pathfinder are seeing slightly less play on Xbox than on PS4, but otherwise there doesn't appear to be many notable differences between the two platforms. An interesting evolution since the early days of the PS4 version!

That wraps up this batch of Ascendancy statistics. Are there any other statistics related to Ascendancy classes that you would be interested in knowing about? Let us know!

We've just released the Divine Arcane Wings. These weightless golden wings leave a beautiful trail behind and look great with many armour sets, such as the Seraph Armour Set, Innocence Armour Set and the Celestial Armour Set. Check out the Divine Arcane Wings by watching the video below or press M in game to get yours.



In addition, we're running a sale on a huge assortment of weapon skins, shields and weapon effects with more than a hundred microtransactions available at discounted prices. If you're looking for a weapon that would match your new Divine Arcane Wings - now is your chance! Press M in game to check out the discounted selection.

Please note that this sale excludes some of the weapon microtransactions introduced since the start of the Blight league.

This sale will run from the time of this post until Oct 22, 2019 8:00 PM (PDT).

Thank you for your support and have a nice weekend!

It's been a while since we've shown off hideouts created by our community. We've always been amazed by the time and dedication our players spend on decorating hideouts for their Exiles! To give you some inspiration, we've selected several standout hideouts recently submitted in the Hideout Showcase forum section. Check out the video below!

We're almost at the middle of the Blight League! The majority of the issues reported by our community were resolved and most of our developers are now working hard on the 3.9.0 and 4.0.0 expansions. However, we're still continuing to monitor your feedback and develop patches with fixes and improvements. Today we'd like to give you a small update about the fixes we've been working on recently.

Here are some of the issues we're planning to resolve soon:

• Changing the Display adapter when in-game sometimes causes a client crash.
  
• Rogue Exiles killed by Pestilent Strike do not grant credit for a Challenge.
  
• Carrion Golem can cause Auras to get deactivated.
  
• Respawn in town when dying in Uber Elder area.
  
• Bosses such as Malachai and Graveyard Map bosses sometimes failing to transition to the next stage of the fight after being frozen.
  
• Fog of war on the Delve Map sometimes hides distant connected nodes.

In terms of performance, we're planning to deploy changes that would improve the performance of water in-game, spectres of Flame Sentinels and several support gems, such as Multistrike Support, Unleash Support and Blastchain Mine Support.

The changes mentioned above as well as a variety of small fixes will go live in future updates (some of them will possibly be deployed next week).

Thank you for your continued feedback!

It's been two weeks since the start of our Fan Art competition, so we're continuing to showcase some of the entries submitted so far. As a reminder, you have two weeks left to send your submission in order to have a chance to win some of our great prizes!

Catarina by Arterton


Hand-painted Computer Case by ksandr227


The Monolith by lolozori


Kaom by Nathrall


Raging Spirit Necromancer by Omeness


Cassia by pamepam


Havenwood Deer Pet by prokat4eg


Hillock by zxdrrtolkin13

Last week we talked about the Blight Oils and their use for Notables and Ring Enchantments. Today we have more Blight-specific statistics to look at, including Oil use on Blighted Maps.

Oils used on Blighted Maps in the last week (from most popular to least popular)

• Teal Oil
  
• Clear Oil
  
• Amber Oil
  
• Sepia Oil
  
• Violet Oil
  
• Verdant Oil
  
• Crimson Oil
  
• Azure Oil
  
• Black Oil
  
• Opalescent Oil
  
• Golden Oil
  
• Silver Oil

Let's look at Oils used on Blighted Maps. Since maps are consumed on use and amulets and rings are not, this is, as expected, the highest consumer of Oils. Basically the Hummer of Wraeclast. The reason Blighted Maps are the highest consumer of Oils is almost certainly because they are consumable, and thus players will end up applying modifiers many times over.

We can see that Teal Oils are the most commonly used Oil on Blighted Maps. This Oil makes 2 Blight Chests be Lucky. What this does is up to you to figure out, but the keyword isn't new, so that would be a good place to start! This has quickly become a community-favourite, with multiple videos popping up from content creators discussing how they think this oil modifier works and why they think it's a great choice to use on Blighted Maps.

Following Teal, we see some of the more common oils that follow. Things that reduce the difficulty of Blighted Maps (as well as adding Pack Size) are seeing active use, perhaps because of the relatively low rarity of the Oils they require.

Violet Oil is seeing fairly high use. This oil increases item quantity by 30%. This is a hefty increase and is especially useful when used on Maps that have high value divination cards.

Crimson Oil, which does the same thing as Teal Oil but at a slightly higher value, isn't seeing quite as much use relative to Teal Oils. Perhaps because it is being used elsewhere and the increased cost isn't worth the benefit.

Oils used on Blighted Maps in the last week (normalised by weight

• Teal Oil
  
• Crimson Oil
  
• Violet Oil
  
• Black Oil
  
• Golden Oil
  
• Amber Oil
  
• Azure Oil
  
• Silver Oil
  
• Verdant Oil
  
• Opalescent Oil
  
• Sepia Oil
  
• Clear Oil

If we normalise the oils based on their weights, we can get a better look at which oils are seeing use for their actual benefit, rather than just because of how common they are. We see that Teal Oil is once again the top oil used on Blighted Maps.



Crimson Oil follows closely behind Teal Oil, which makes sense given it does the same thing that Teal Oil does, but at a slightly higher value.

Let's again look at the breakdown of oil use over the past week, this time on Blighted Maps.

By count, the number of oils used is substantially higher on Blighted Maps than on Notables or Ring Enchantments. This makes sense, as Blighted Maps are consumable and thus demand frequent use of oils on them whereas the other options are more permanent. We still see the top 4 oils used taking up about 75% of the total oils used. Amongst the top 4, only one of the oils increases rewards. The other three (Clear, Amber and Sepia) all reduce the difficulty of the encounter (while slightly increasing Pack Size).

To conclude, let's look at where players are consuming most of their oils. We'll look at the frequency of each oil being consumed on Blighted Maps, Notables and Ring Enchantments.

Overall Oil Use broken down by where each is used


First of all, we're looking at count again (not normalised by rarity). We can see that almost 60% of all oils consumed are done so on Blighted Maps, whereas 26% are consumed for Notables, and only 14% on Ring Enchantments. The low percentage consumed on Ring Enchantments is unexpected, but can suggest something to us. Given that a Notable requires 3 Oils, and 2 Ring enchantments requires 4, one would expect that Ring Enchantments would be 1.33x higher than Notable Enchantments, but this isn't the case. This suggests that ring enchantments aren't deemed powerful enough or are too specialised to warrant caring too much about. One could interpret this as suggesting that players overwrite the notable on their amulet frequently or are willing to anoint an amulet that they know they'll eventually replace.

We can also look at the individual oils to see where each is being used and try to understand why. Golden Oils are primarily used on Notables, likely because the popular Notables frequently require them and because their use is permanent. The same holds true for Silver and Opalescent Oils, two of the rarer oils.

Unsurprisingly, we see that Teal and Crimson Oils are seeing the majority of their use on Blighted Maps, thanks to the Lucky Chests modifier that many players are using.

Overall Oil Use broken down by where each is used (normalised by weight)


When we normalise all oils by rarity, we see that anointing Amulets consumes a higher proportion of total oil rarity than Blighted Maps, though over time we expect this to swing towards Blighted Maps taking up a greater proportion as more players get a Notable on their amulet that they do not ever replace.

We're concluding the oils overview here, but we have more statistics to share with you! Next week we'll talk about Blight challenges and look at a breakdown of Ascendancy classes chosen by our players in this league.

During the livestreamed keynote announcement presentation at ExileCon on the morning of November 16th, we'll unveil December's 3.9.0 expansion. While it's too early to reveal the full details of this release, we wanted to give you an idea of what to expect from the upcoming expansion.

We settled on the term expansions for recent releases like Legion and Blight, because they add new content like skills and items to Path of Exile as well as containing full challenge leagues. 3.9.0 not only contains the usual content you'd expect from a regular Path of Exile release, but also some game-wide expansion content that isn't tied to the league itself. It's a bit larger in size than any other Path of Exile release in 2019.

We have been really excited about a league idea that we wanted to do for a while but didn't have the technology or resources to pull off. While we can't share more information about the league just yet, we can tell you that it contains a good balance of risk vs reward, compelling endgame content and is a whole lot less server-melty.

Alongside the league and expansion content mentioned above, 3.9.0 contains some new item rewards that should provide interesting new character build options and a fresh metagame. We're also focusing some balance attention on bows, though this revamp isn't of the same scale as our spellcasting and melee changes earlier this year. The expansion also includes all the usual divination cards, unique items, new skills and so on that you're used to from Path of Exile releases.

We currently expect to release the PC version of 3.9.0 on Saturday December 7th, NZ time (with console versions the following week). We'll announce the final firm date at ExileCon alongside other information about the expansion. In addition, ExileCon attendees will be able to play a 3.9.0 demo at the convention.

As usual, 3.9.0 has its own set of league supporter packs, which will replace the Blight ones when released. We expect these to come out in the week following ExileCon. Last December's Core Supporter Packs (with physical goods) were really successful, so we plan to release another set this December also, which will of course contain new physical goods. This means that the current Core Supporter Packs will leave the store in a couple of months. We'll announce the exact date of their end in the following weeks, so you can plan your purchases appropriately.

We're really looking forward to next month, where we can show you what we have been working on!

On the morning of Saturday November 16th (New Zealand time), we're kicking off our ExileCon convention with a livestreamed keynote presentation that will announce several large expansions such as 3.9.0 (December 2019) and 4.0.0 (approximately December 2020). This livestream will be a must-watch event for Path of Exile fans, regardless of whether they're attending the convention or not. We'll update this news post with additional information as it becomes available.

When is the Livestream?
The presentation officially starts at 10am New Zealand time on Saturday November 16th. This is early afternoon in America on Friday November 15th, and late in the evening in Europe that day. We're likely to start a pre-show with streamer speculation around an hour before the presentation officially begins.

How long will it run for?
The main keynote presentation is around an hour in length, and will be followed with other content throughout the two days (see below).

How can I watch it?
We'll be streaming it on our official Twitch channel http://www.twitch.tv/pathofexile and are investigating other streaming platforms also.

What will be announced?
During the keynote presentation, we plan to announce several in-development projects such as the 3.9.0 expansion and 4.0.0 mega-expansion, with gameplay footage. We'll dive into the new content and systems being introduced by these two large expansions.

What else is being streamed from ExileCon?
Aside from the keynote announcement presentation, we have a busy streaming schedule across two days and are planning to stream content like:

• Dedicated talks that dive deeply into the contents of both 3.9.0 and 4.0.0, in more detail than the keynote.
  
• A live gameplay demo of some 4.0.0 content.
  
• Prominent community streamers hosting panels and interviewing developers (schedule to be announced in the coming weeks)
  
• The ExileCon racing finale, where four top racers from our community compete for prizes.

Will you be running Twitch Drops during the livestream?
We would like to and are working on setting this up. Once we have worked out the details, we will update this post. We expect it will work with PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 Path of Exile accounts.

What if I can't watch the livestream as it happens? Will a video of it be posted afterwards?
Yes. We'll post information about where to find it closer to the event.

Will announcement pages for the new expansions be released as usual?
Yes, as soon as they are announced on the stream.

Can I still get tickets to attend ExileCon in person?
Absolutely. There are still tickets available for purchase on http://www.pathofexile.com/exilecon if you want to fly to New Zealand to attend the convention.

Please note that New Zealand has just introduced a system where you must apply for an "NZeTA" online before arriving in the country. As far as we can see, almost all ExileCon visitors from overseas must apply for one. We recommend doing this as soon as possible. Thankfully, the process does not look difficult. Full details and the application form are on this page.

So, regardless of whether you're attending in person or watching from home, we look forward to showing you what we've been working on in just over five weeks!