If you've been paying close attention to the competitive scene in Path of Exile, you may have already heard of tytykiller, a prominent racer from our community and one of the four finalists of the last year's ExileCon Grand Finale event. In continuation of our series of interviews with community streamers, we took a moment to chat with tytykiller to learn more about his life and background.

Hi, my name is Tyler and I am 21 years old living in the LAND OF THE FREE. Jokes aside, I am fortunate enough to have grown up in a modest home in the midwest of the United States. I grew up playing video games with a bit of an addiction, and now I play them for the world to see.

I first logged into Path of Exile on October 28, 2013 (A few days after the release). I stopped playing pretty quickly, as I struggled to grasp the economy, and the game was rather confusing. I later came back after watching the ZiggyD Reave Ranger Southpaw build guide but the game got extremely time consuming and I was incredibly slow at leveling, so I put the game down for a while.

It wasn’t until the weekend before Breach that I decided to give PoE another go. My friend Chris hyped the game up, talking about how much fun he had in Essence league. I told him that I would learn the entire game the week before Breach came out. He laughed at me, and said I was an idiot. He was right. I am still learning interesting things about the game to this very day. I played LiftingNerdBro’s BV Assassin build until end game, and I fell in love.

As someone who comes from playing Diablo III, I enjoy the content updates to Path of Exile. Breach league started during Diablo’s eighth season, with not many gameplay changes from the first season. The large changes every league continue to keep me and thousands of other players coming back.


Breach was the first time I played on league start, and I was pretty confident in my ability to level. That was, until I opened my friends list, and I saw that my friend Chris had completely lapped me. Before the 10 act campaign, every player would have to beat acts 1-4 on Normal, then on Cruel, then on Merciless. My friend had completely lapped me, being in Cruel Act II while I was in Normal Act II. I vowed to level faster, but I hated it, so I didn’t improve much.

Once the beta for The Fall of Oriath (3.0) came out, I didn’t really want to level through the campaign. Instead, I decided to learn vicariously through a DeadandDoom vod. I started taking notes on how to level a sunder slayer. It was so cool that I wanted to do a run for myself. I was entranced, every transmute, every alteration had meaning. It felt so good to get a boarding axe right at level 11 with a craft ready. That was when I knew that racing is what I wanted to do in the game.

I can still remember walking with the other three racers into the preparation room with confidence, chatting it up with them, while they were mostly quiet. I felt good going into the race, as I just had two pretty good runs that morning at one of the local net cafes. As soon as I sat down though, I started to feel slow. Everything was so terrifying at that moment. I asked myself “Did I practice enough for this? I’ve spent well over a hundred hours but… Is it enough?”

After some technical difficulties, we got started, and I could hear that Waggle died at Hillock. I thought that he was completely out, mentally shattered, and scared to play. Having watched the race a handful of times, I can say with confidence that is not how Waggle played. He recovered extremely well, and it showed.

I was the first to kill Brutus, but I wasn’t sure why because I felt so slow. It was because of a single upper prison read, but that wasn’t enough to push ahead of the competition. I was not able to get my wand craft, something I have been able to do in a majority of my runs at level 8. This was before the campaign buff back in Metamorph, so the wand craft was unnecessary but it still felt amazing to use. I was slower than everyone else from then on out, so I thought of only one thing: pushing ahead. This would ultimately lead to my downfall, as I skipped packs that I shouldn’t have, and some strongboxes that should not have been skipped. This inevitably led me to being underleveled by the time that I fought Weaver, so I told myself that I just need to recover in XP and then I will be okay. Until I dropped the Tabula.

I first wondered how I was going to use it, as a 6-link single target set up, 6-link clearing setup, or a 5-link of both. I settled on a 5-link of both, but it made my mana costs way higher than I was used to, and I also was not level 18, so it was hard to get the currency for everything. I had this sinking feeling of “Am I going to lose a race where I got a Tabula Rasa? I’m going to be remembered for losing with a Tabula Rasa.” That ultimately came true, and I was extremely disappointed in myself for it. I went back to the hotel room, took a nap, and watched the VOD of the race. I actually thought that Tabulast was a funny way to put it, so I embraced it.

Everyone was really nice about the race though, with GGG and community members reaching out in support. This seriously is one of the best communities to be a part of, and it is because of this race that I do not want to disappoint myself in my performance in the next ExileCon.

I would like to see GGG-ran events, but outside of that I would like to see more tools for racing. Something I would like to see the most would be an option to reduce the cost for shorter races. Currently, races have to be limited to “Qualified Racers” because they would cost hundreds of dollars to invite everyone to a race that may only last for a few hours. This limits the pool of who can join, and inhibits the racing scene from growing.

Another tool that seems feasible to implement would be a boss kill ladder. Currently races can only be run with the goal of XP (Reach level __) or time (Reach the highest XP within ___ time). The only way that boss kills can be done is with streaming being a requirement. Even then, it is a hassle to sort through all the times, and to see if someone is a few seconds off on their timer if racers are within seconds of each other. Although there are races for Act V Kitava, there can only be one winner, as only one person can enter Lioneye’s Watch first. The announcement for boss kills exists in the game, as it has been used before in GGG held events, but we currently cannot use it.

There are a number of other features, such as Alternative Modes (Endless Ledge, Descent Champions, Etc.) that I could ask for, but these are a bit of a stretch. I just think they’re cool, and it would be fun to see them again.

My biggest top tip for beginner PoE racers is to focus on the big time savers, and not about extremely small time saves. For example, you should have a list of what to get in town, how much things cost, and when you can buy them. This will cause you to look for things while out in the world so that your next town trip can be better planned, thus reducing your time in town. You should not, for example, study layouts. Learning how to read upper prison in Act I is cool, but it can take well over an hour to study a complicated layout like that. Reading layouts also, for the most part, disappears in PoE 2.0, being replaced by what I assume will most likely be layout Tells. One of the most popular layout-tells in the current campaign is that in the Western Forest in Act II, Weaver’s Chambers will always be on the opposite side of the road from the waypoint, and Alira’s Camp will always be on the same side of the road as the waypoint.

My second tip is to just watch someone race in the format that you are trying to improve at. What I mean is that an act 5 world record is not realistic for a league start, since you wouldn’t skip over most skill points on a league start.

I never got into streaming to be a career streamer, I did it for fun. In high school, I would play Diablo III Reaper of Souls seasonal starts for 40+ hours, and my friends wanted to see how I progressed. I only really started to get into it a few years later, in my freshman year of college. I was inspired by CuteDog, so I streamed PoE while messing around and having fun.

People can expect to find me leveling through the acts, with a bigger focus on commentary in the early acts. This is because I believe most of the hard work in leveling comes from setting up a character properly in Acts 1-3. After that, I tend to make a lot more jokes, and talk about stories from my college and work life. I don’t currently follow a schedule, but I plan on eventually planning a plan to have a schedule at some point in the future.

I am very different from the person I was years ago, but I was a student back then, and I am a student now. I am finishing up my 4th and final year at an American University, and I look forward to streaming full time after finishing my degree in Accounting. I currently work as a Student Accountant at my University.

The entire thing started a while ago, where racer ImExile and I started going back and forth on the World Record Act 5 Kitava category. I would beat his time by a handful of seconds, he would beat my time by a handful of seconds. We kept going back and forth, thinking “this time is beatable - but a 1 hour 11 minute run is still really really good.” “this time can be better for sure - but a 1 hour 10 minute run is insanely good.” These thoughts are very common for speedrunners, and as such, I am almost never satisfied with my times.

Recently I submitted a 1 hour, 5 minute, and 45 second act 5 Kitava run to speedrun.com. While not perfect, I started bouncing up and down in my chair after the run was over.

There are many, many smaller streams that I enjoy talking to.
I like streamers that host private leagues because it gives me something to compete in. This Is Badger hosts a private league every 3 months where you get sorted into two teams - and you accumulate points for doing things such as leveling and delving.

Speedrunning and streaming are basically the entirety of my hobbies and interests. I enjoy playing video games, if that counts.

When I’m not playing video games, I am usually hanging out in various Twitch channels, typing away like an internet troll.

GGG is by far the best video game company out there, but the player base always has a never-ending hunger for more features, more things. Not everyone at GGG works in the field that people complain about. This company is full of amazing people, so please make sure to treat them as people.

While I am really good at short races, I would like to get good at longer formats (such as Awakener 8, or the Gauntlet races). I will be practicing for these longer format races soon, and I might host small races further in the future.

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Thanks so much for the interview! If you'd like to follow tytykiller, you can do so on Twitch, YouTube and Twitter.

At noon December 11th (PST), we'll be running the long awaited Endless Delve event! In this one-week event, you'll play exclusively in the Azurite Mine and won't need sulphite for progress. To help you prepare for the event and to give you a further idea of what to expect from the Endless Delve, we've answered the most common questions from our community.

Yes.

40 wisdom scrolls, the skill and support gem your class normally gets on the Twilight Strand, two small life flasks and a small mana flask, and five starter unique items (all with 3 linked white sockets except for the quiver).

Marauder: Rust of Winter, Ashes of the Sun, Blood of Summer, Thunder of the Dawn, Remnant of Empires.

Templar: Splinter of the Moon, Remnant of Empires, Ashes of the Sun, Vestige of Divinity, Rust of Winter.

Witch: Splinter of the Moon, Fragment of Eternity, Vestige of Divinity, Scar of Fate, Remnant of Empires.

Shadow: Scar of Fate, Remnant of Empires, Splinter of the Moon, Fragment of Eternity, Blood of Summer.

Ranger: Relic of the Cycle, Slivers of Providence, Fragment of Eternity, Blood of Summer, Scar of Fate.

Duelist: Blood of Summer, Thunder of the Dawn, Relic of the Cycle, Slivers of Providence, Remnant of Empires.

Scion: Splinter of the Moon, Blood of Summer, Remnant of Empires, Scar of Fate, Ashes of the Sun.

Yes.

Passives: 3 each at levels 1, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70. Total of 24, same as normally gained from quest rewards assuming you kill all bandits.

Ascendancies: levels 33, 55, 68, 75.

The Altar of Ascendancy is available in the Mine Encampment.

The levels of monsters at lower depths have been decreased to make Delving from level 1 possible. Monster level is simply equal to depth up to depth 74, where it syncs back up with normal Delve scaling. Level, biome mod and damage/life scaling with depth are the same as normal Delve from depth 74 onwards. Other depth-scaling mechanics like darkness resistance, light radius, Azurite, and rewards will be the same as normal Delving at any depth.

2 points at level 10, then 3 at levels 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 and 70. Total of 20 free ones, same as gained from quests normally

You’ll have access to Niko’s normal shop, and Lilly Roth’s gem shop with some modifications. Lilly’s gems all cost 1 wisdom scroll each, and she also has an extra tab containing all the normal currency trades offered by vendors (except for portal scrolls).

Lilly Roth sells all purchasable gems from level 1, no matter which class you pick. She has the same gem selection as her normal shop.

Every time you complete a new Delve encounter (i.e. move the Crawler to an unexplored node on the map).

No.

They can potentially drop from specific reward chests in the mines, but you won’t have a way to use them or silver coins.

They will occasionally drop in the mines, but you won’t have anyone to turn them in to.

No. Doing this would require an enormous amount of work which would have inhibited us from being able to run the event at all.

Yes. Levels 40 and 70 grant Kitava’s curses, with the usual experience loss, resistance penalty, and Vaal skill soul cost increase.

Normally it’s shared between characters in the same league, but in this event it’s per character. This stops people getting very deep on one character, then quickly making other characters and completing a single encounter to collect multiple copies of Demigod’s Authority. Delve upgrades purchased with azurite are also not shared between characters. Your stash is shared as normal.

The free skill points you’re granted for levelling up include 2 points to match killing all the bandits. You’re unable to help a bandit, or change the skill points to another reward via the vendor recipe.

To party with other players, you would need access to towns or your Hideout which are not available due to the nature of the event.

At the character selection screen, there's a panel below your characters which will list the events available. You can join the event by clicking 'join'. This option becomes available 30 minutes before the event is set to begin. Your character won't be able to move until the event starts.

We're continuing to share backstories of Divination Cards' creation by our supporters. This time we spoke with nasaboy007 about the story behind the Tumbleweed, a Divination Card from the Harvest expansion.



This card was for my two best friends' first wedding anniversary. I met them many years ago, back when they were still dating and lived separately. He lived in an apartment that was a stereotypical bachelor pad - no furniture and no decoration. Our group of friends, consisting of four bachelors, lovingly nicknamed that apartment "The Wasteland" because of how desolate and destitute it looked on the inside.

One day, my friend was walking home when he came across a tumbleweed on the side of the road. It was an unusual sight in the middle of a suburban area, and so he immediately decided to make it the new centerpiece of his living room to help reinforce the "wasteland" theme. Of course, this was appalling to his girlfriend (now wife), and it was sadly the first thing to go when they later moved in together. Now they own a lovely home together and have been happily married for over a year, but the tumbleweed will always live on in our memories.

The artwork and flavortext is a reference to her "saving" him from The Wasteland; most of the bachelors in the wasteland group would have continued their lifestyles if they hadn't met their current partners. The tumbleweed in the artwork of my divination card specifically has a few people wrapped up and trapped in its tendrils, representing how it keeps the bachelors, with my friend being closest to the outside as his wife saves him from it. I wanted the poses to draw inspiration from Michaelangelo's Creation of Adam since I felt it was appropriate for the overall motif of the card.

Since this was a surprise gift, I wanted to give them a physical representation of the card too, and so I decided to also take a shot at teaching myself vector graphics to design a card back. I was very happy with the result and so I got physical cards printed up with the front and back, framed them, and gave it as a physical token of the gift to my friends.

My friend was the one who introduced me to Path of Exile many years ago, and we still play every league together, taking the Friday off from work and blocking off our entire weekends from other commitments to play the new expansion. Being able to create a divination card that referenced the Wasteland Map and leave our mark on a game that has such personal significance to the both of us was too good an opportunity to pass up.

In less than a day we're kicking off our December events with the One-Week Mayhem starting at noon December 4th (PST) on PC and Consoles!

The Mayhem event takes classic Path of Exile league modifiers from Anarchy, Invasion, Breach, Ambush, Torment and Harbinger and pushes them to the extreme. In each area you'll encounter one of the following scenarios: 20 Rogue Exiles, 20 Strongboxes, 20 Invasion Bosses, 10 Breaches, 20 Tormented Spirits or 20 Harbingers. Each area in Wraeclast will have one of these mods. The mod that an area has will change every hour.

If you're interested in participating, you can find more information about these events and prizing here. If you're unable to play from the start, don't worry, the Mayhem events will be running for the whole week until 10am December 11th (PST), so you have plenty of time to join them and to win some awesome prizes.

Best of luck everyone! Don't forget to check out the action live on Twitch!

We're continuing to share the artwork of one of our artists, Yong Yi Lee who has created concept art for many popular Path of Exile microtransactions. Today we've gathered sketches of some of the Thaumaturgy, Temple and Twilight cosmetic effects.

Last week we announced the winners of our recent Hideout Competition. Due to a high amount of great submissions, we decided to reward more hideouts with a special prize, the Malachai Heart Decoration.

• Amongalen
  
• AzazeIIe
  
• CauldronGeal
  
• Christopher93
  
• Elpenor
  
• Fireflyxx
  
• LAGROSSESIMONE
  
• mel_976189
  
• MrMonkeyPlay
  
• Noooberino
  
• PickMyNose
  
• Rykozic
  
• thescarecrow
  
• unoF
  
• VengvesH
  
• woozel

Congratulations! We'll distribute the prizes in the next few days. A big thank you to everyone who submitted your hideout!

About a year ago we released a set of Core Supporter Packs inspired by five Conquerors of the Atlas. Before the end of this year, we're planning to replace them with new ones, this means the current Core Supporter Packs will leave the store forever!

Please note that while we're trying our best to release the new Supporter Packs this year, there is still a possibility that they will require more work and testing and might be delayed until the beginning of next year. These new 'Core' Supporter Packs will exist alongside the future league packs.

Each Core supporter pack contains points to spend in the store and exclusive in-game microtransactions which are only available in supporter packs and will not appear in the store. There are also physical items available, like a pack of signed Path of Exile prints, a cloth Atlas and "The Lord's Labyrinth" Gamebook. Check out the awesome cosmetic effects from these supporter packs by watching videos below!











If you'd like to reserve a supporter pack so you can purchase it after these Core supporter packs leave the store, you can set up a payment plan with our customer support team at support@grindinggear.com. Creating a payment plan can reserve a supporter pack for you for up to three months after the commencement of your plan. The payment amounts and times are totally flexible, you just have to pre-arrange this with the team before the sale of these supporter packs end.

Thank you so much for your continued support!

Last week, we announced that we will host the highly-requested Endless Delve Event starting on December 11. The gameplay of this event happens exclusively in the Azurite Mine, which means you're going to need a little help to get started. We've got you covered!


We will enable 11 starter items that will be available to new characters in the Endless Delve event. Characters will be given an appropriate selection of these items suited to their class, but you can share the items between characters via your stash. Veteran Path of Exile players may recognise these items from past Descent races.

Check them out here!

We've just commenced one of the biggest sales of all time! This Thanksgiving weekend, we'll host a rotation of tantalising microtransactions that have been discounted by 30-90%! Each hour will feature a batch of themed microtransactions. Everything featured in the sale will have at least a deeper discount

There are 24 themes that will be on sale four times each at an offset time throughout the weekend, so that no matter which time zone you're in, you'll have the opportunity to snatch an excellent deal! We've included the schedule below so that you know exactly when to be here to grab the deals you want.

If you're wondering just how immense the Thanksgiving discounts are, check out the following stats!

• 3 microtransactions discounted by more than 90%
  
• 32 microtransactions discounted by more than 80%
  
• 96 microtransactions discounted by more than 70%
  
• 221 microtransactions discounted by more than 60%
  
• 400 microtransactions discounted by more than 50%
  
• 564 microtransactions discounted by more than 40%
  
• Everything else that's included in this sale is discounted by at least 30%!

• Dark and Gloomy
  
• Glimmerwood
  
• Celestial
  
• Stygian
  
• Ice and Water
  
• Blood and Bone
  
• Hellfire
  
• Sin and Innocence
  
• Heralds, Auras, Golems, Movement Skills
  
• Hideout Decorations
  
• Violent Violets
  
• Necrotic
  
• The Devil Wears Red
  
• Ghosts and Pirates
  
• Thaumaturgy
  
• Sun and Light
  
• Random
  
• Apocalypse
  
• Chaos and Order
  
• Thunderous Blues
  
• Open Beta Micros
  
• Forest Dwellers
  
• Oriath's Elite
  
• Frontier

Some categories see larger discounts as a whole than others. For example, the microtransactions in the 'Random' theme have some of the largest discounts. Note that not every store item will be featured in the sale. Stash Tabs are not on sale this weekend.

Click here to view the full schedule.

Alongside the current Twilight Mystery Box, we've brought back a selection of past mystery boxes! These have the same odds and values as when they were originally released. None of these mystery boxes are ones that contained any completely exclusive microtransactions. If you're interested to find out more, check out their original posts.

• Chaos and Order Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Fire and Ice Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Sin and Innocence Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Apocalypse Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Oriath Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Fairgraves Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Glimmerwood Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Frontier Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Carnival Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Polaris Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Thaumaturgy Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer
  
• Angels and Demons Mystery Box - Original Post - Trailer

For the duration of this sale, we're offering one free Twilight Mystery Box when you spend any amount of points in the store. This means you could purchase any item from the sale, one of the past mystery boxes or anything your heart desires and receive one free mystery box.

NOTE: It's only possible to receive one free mystery box per account. Additional purchases will not grant additional mystery boxes.

If you're looking for some points to spend on the sale, be sure to check out our supporter packs. Now is the best time to grab them as the core supporter packs will be replaced in December and the Harvest Supporter Packs (Insatiable Malice and Divine Benevolence) will be replaced alongside our 3.13 Expansion Announcement on January 7.

Thank you so much for your support. We hope you enjoy the sale! There won't be another one quite like this any time soon.

Path of Exile has been nominated for 'A Labor of Love' in the upcoming Steam Awards! Show your support for Grinding Gear Games' commitment to Path of Exile by casting your vote. Heck, if you're feeling the love - ask your friends to vote too!