We're just under one week from the launch of Path of Exile: Scourge and have been closely monitoring feedback ever since. We've deployed a number of hotfixes including the most recent 3.16.0b patch and wanted to let you know what else was on our radar.
Here are the patches so far:
3.16.0 Hotfix 1
Fixed a bug with Energy Blade where it could delete the player's weapon if they logged out in town after activating it.
Fixed a bug with Nightgrip unique gloves causing the player to take more damage than intended.
Fixed a bug introduced in 3.16.0 where the Duskdawn unique staff granted "Critical Strikes deal no damage" instead of "120-150% increased Spell damage if you've dealt a Critical Strike recently". This fix affects existing items.
Fixed a crash that could occur when loading hideout templates containing pets.
Fixed a client crash that could occur when entering Vaal Side Areas.
3.16.0 Hotfix 2
Fixed a bug where remaining portals for Zana missions were closing earlier than they should.
Fixed a common client crash occurring with Scorching Ray.
The Scorching Ray fix is client-side, you will need to restart your client for it to apply.
3.16.0 Hotfix 3
Fixed a bug where players were sometimes unable to return from side areas or missions within maps.
Fixed an instance crash.
3.16.0 Hotfix 4
Fixed a bug where Merveil, the Siren was not spawning Golden Statues.
Fixed the Scholar's Mod on Flasks from being able to incorrectly roll % Increased Charges per use instead of Reduced.
3.16.0 Hotfix 5
Fixed a bug in Scourge League where the Blood Crucible could mistakenly upgrade an explicit mod on unique items. We also plan to fix existing items that were affected by this.
Our 3.16.0b patch was released yesterday and it includes a variety of improvements to Scourge monster damage as well as fixes to a variety of bugs.
Scourge Improvements
Upon encountering a Boss in Nightmare, the drain of blood from the Crucible is now paused for 5 seconds.
The Tainted Mythic Orb can now unpredictably upgrade Corrupted items to Unique items even if their item level is lower than when it would normally be able to drop. Prior to this change, the orb would fail to apply to the item if there were no valid Unique items to upgrade to.
The damage of Ravenous Bloodshaper's Blood Orb and Spike Barrage skills has been decreased.
The damage of Demon Herder's Vomit and Beam skill has been decreased.
Reduced the number of Monsters with Proximity Shield that can spawn in some Scourge encounters.
The Corruption Absorbed progress bar now displays underneath items stored in the Blood Crucible, without you having to hover over them.
Other Improvements
The damage of Baranite Thaumaturge's ground explosions has been decreased. This change does not affect Baranite Thaumaturge Spectres.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a bug where Item Filters would incorrectly assign Weapons and Jewellery a BaseDefencePercentile value of 0 rather than 100.
Fixed a bug where the colour of sockets on the Skin of the Loyal Unique could be modified.
Fixed a bug where Zana's Fortune Favours the Brave Map Device option would fail to open a Map.
Fixed a bug where Watchstones could sometimes fail to drop from a Conqueror's Citadel.
Fixed a bug where it was not possible to open portals to a Betrayal Safehouse or the Temple of Atzoatl from within a Guild Hideout.
Fixed a bug where the "20% chance to Avoid being Stunned" Resistance and Ailment Protection Mastery was not granting Stun Avoidance.
Fixed a bug where some Redeemer Influence Amulet Modifiers were providing reduced Mana Reservation Efficiency instead of increased. This fix applies to existing items.
Fixed a bug where the Guardian's Challenge Divination Card sold by Zana did not have a price.
Fixed a bug where Mansion Contracts sold by Whakano did not have a price.
Fixed a client crash that occur when using Spectral Shield Throw with Vanishing Dyeapplied to an equipped Shield.
Fixed a client crash that could occur with the Automaton Divine Ire Skill Effect Microtransaction.
Fixed a common client crash.
Fixed two instance crashes.
There are a variety of other topics that we would like to talk about that we have listed below.
Standard Map conversion Currently, if you have maps in your old tab that, upon upgrading, turn into another map that you don't have enough room for, the entire tab upgrade fails. We will improve this system so that overflowed maps are given to you in a remove-only tab. This will mean the rest of the conversion will work as intended. We can't give a specific timeline on this just yet but it's a priority to resolve this before 3.17 launches and hopefully much sooner than that.
Ballista Totems There is a bug where Ballistas used via Totem Support only have -45% damage taken instead of -80%. This will be fixed in an upcoming patch.
Crash with Explosive Arrow Triggering Summon Phantasms We are aware of this and will fix it in an upcoming patch.
Elemental Overload There is an issue where Traps, Mines and Totems currently have no way to take advantage of Elemental Overload. Also, Cremation currently doesn't activate Elemental Overload. We have a change for this on the way. Separately, there is another issue where Elemental Overload is not reflected on the tooltip for DPS. This will also be fixed.
Scourge Feedback We've been monitoring all feedback related to Scourge and have a few improvements coming which we will outline below. We are aware that the bulk of players' feedback around Scourge revolves around the rewards it provides. We don't have any updates to provide regarding this but we are reviewing the feedback and discussing it.
Some players have reported that it's not obvious enough when the Blood Crucible is full. We're making both the sound effect and visual effect more obvious to help with this.
We're looking at updating two of the possible Scourge Map modifiers, specifically the "Only Shift into Nightmare on Killing a Rare or Unique Enemy" and "Shift on reaching Full Resource, Killing Enemies Drain Resource" modifiers. The former modifier implies that it is activated on every Rare or Unique kill, and will have its description updated as well as being changed to activate more frequently. The latter modifiers will be modified so that there is a slow Scourge Blood drain over time, so that there is still some time pressure for finding bosses while having a lower Blood drain from kills.
Missing Patch Notes In our 3.16.0 Patch Notes, we unfortunately missed two notes: one related to armour-based shields and one related to the Veiled Modifier Damage Over Time Multiplier Bow Craft.
Here is the missing patch note for armour-based shields.
Problem: Tower Shields provide significantly more armour than the armour/evasion of other shield types, making them a no-brainer for non-crit Shield builds.
Solutions: Reduced the armour provided by the top end shields, but raised the average defence of other shields so the difference in base defences isn't as extreme. Skills that scale off these stats will be rebalanced to account for these changes.
Here is the missing patch note for the bow craft.
Quivers now have additional tiers of Damage Over Time Multiplier. In order to be consistent with other item slots, bows now use one-hand Damage Over Time Multiplier values.
We apologise that these patch notes were missed. We'll continue monitoring feedback around Path of Exile: Scourge and making adjustments where appropriate. Thanks so much for all of your support and feedback!
We still have a limited number of ExileCon Mystery Bags available! We held the first ExileCon convention back in 2019, which gave us a great opportunity to experiment with new merchandise for Path of Exile. With the stock remaining from the event, we put together these Mystery Bags! We still have some left, so this may be your last chance to purchase merchandise from ExileCon if you were unable to attend in person!
The bags are priced at $100 USD + shipping (and sales tax if you're in New Zealand). If you want to buy one, contact merch@grindinggear.com and let them know your address and your desired shirt size (you can't pick which specific mystery bag outcome you'll get, only your shirt size). They'll calculate a total and will send you a payment link. If you pay within 24 hours, you'll be locked in.
You can view the potential items available in the bags below as well as the random outcomes possible.
Our latest expansion, Path of Exile: Scourge, launched last weekend and out the gates come some awesome clips from the Twitch community! From awesome cosplay to highlight reel clips, we've got you covered with snippets of the buzz from the league launch! Check out the clips here.
Over the weekend, we launched Path of Exile: Scourge and were thrilled by the number of people who joined us for launch day. In fact, we reached 254,570 peak player concurrency which is 96% of our previous highest record!
The actual deployment was fairly smooth. We had one issue in the first hour where our regional routers were crashing occasionally when routing chat packets containing linked items. Each of these crashes would disconnect about 10% of players. We temporarily disabled chat, which mitigated the issue, and were then able to restore chat functionality without item linking.
Item linking functionality will be restored in our next realm-restart patch, which also fixes another problem that is causing rarer partial-realm crashes (one so far). If all goes well, we expect to deploy this today at around 10pm PDT.
We are closely monitoring all feedback and will communicate about any patches and improvements later this week. We are planning to make the transformation progress bar on Scourged items visible at a glance on the Crucibles Panel without having to hover over each item. We are also reviewing whether to make the Blood Crucible's resource bar more obvious when it's full (currently there's an effect and a sound but they may be too easy to miss). We've also noted reports of a small number of balance changes that were missed in the patch notes, most notably changes to Veiled Modifiers relating to bows and changes to armour-based shields. Once we've reviewed these, we'll share the patch notes for these changes so that they're clearer.
Later this week, we'll launch Path of Exile: Scourge on Xbox and PlayStation at Oct 27, 2021 4:00PM PDT. Downtime will begin for deployment at approximately Oct 27, 2021 12:00PM PDT.
Later this week on October 28th (PDT) we're teaming up with Twitch Rivals to host another Path of Exile: Royale tournament! This time around, competitors will compete alone, but we've added a unique twist. Towards the end of the match, surviving players may encounter a brutal but rewarding boss fight, which could have significant strategic implications for how they play the match. Twitch Drops will be enabled for viewers and there is $30,000 on the line for contestants alongside a slew of Path of Exile's best cosmetic effects. Tune in at 11am (PDT) at http://twitch.tv/twitchrivals to check out the action live!
Over the weekend, we also launched the Atlantis Mystery Box which contains 36 new ocean-themed microtransactions. Check out the contents in the trailer below or get yours here.
Thanks so much to everyone who joined us for Scourge! We can't wait to see the items you krangle during this league.
From the depths of the ocean comes the new Atlantis Mystery Box! It contains 38 new cosmetic effects, some of which can be combined to create a unique version for even deeper character customisation. Check out the full trailer to see what's available!
The ravenous hordes are waiting for you because there is just one day to go before the launch of Path of Exile: Scourge! In this news post, we've gathered all the information you need to know about what happens on launch day and how to start downloading early.
The realm goes down and patching begins at: Oct 23, 2021 9:00AM PDT The servers go live at: Oct 23, 2021 12:00PM PDT
You can also find a countdown timer on the front page of our website here. Three hours before the end of the countdown, the realm will go down and patching will begin shortly after. When the countdown ends, the servers will be live and you'll be able to join the Scourge League!
The patch size for the update will be around 5.6GB on the standalone client and Steam. We've also made a torrent available for this update which is around 27GB. Please keep in mind that this method, while available earlier, makes it a larger update as it includes all the existing client content. When patching begins for Path of Exile: Scourge you'll also have a few remaining files that you'll need to update as well.
This torrent only includes the GGPK file, so you'll need to copy it into your actual install folder once the patching server is up, no earlier than three hours before Path of Exile: Scourge launches. Please note that you can't use this GGPK file with the Steam client and macOS.
Path of Exile: Scourge will launch on consoles at Oct 27, 2021 4:00PM PDT. Downtime will begin for deployment at approximately Oct 27, 2021 12:00PM PDT.
If you're looking for some extra character slots for the launch, we're running a sale on these right now! This is also your last chance to get Midnight Pact Mystery Boxes! It will leave the store when our next Mystery Box becomes available! Keep in mind that if you haven't taken advantage of it yet, it's still possible to get one free Midnight Pact Mystery Box when you spend any amount of points in the store. NOTE: this is only possible once per account. Additional purchases do not grant additional mystery boxes. If you need some extra points, we recommend checking out the Scourge Supporter Packs.
In case you still haven't decided which build to play with, check out the Class subsections on the forum for suggestions from the community. Many of our community streamers are also providing build guides on YouTube.
If you want a new look to match your build, check out the Nexus stores of your favourite creators for their favourite Armour Sets to support them as well as the development of Path of Exile!
We can't wait to see your latest adventures through Wraeclast. We'll see you at launch!
We're introducing a range of new skills and making a variety of changes to existing Skill and Support Gems in Path of Exile: Scourge. As usual, we've prepared the gem data at level 20 with 20% quality for all new and changed gems to help you finalise your builds for the upcoming launch.
You can check out all the new and changed Gems in Path of Exile: Scourge here. We can't wait to see what you come up with!
In the Expedition League, we teamed up with Twitch Rivals to run our first ever Path of Exile: Royale live tournament. This event saw our favourite content creators teaming up in pairs to compete for awesome prizes. We're excited to announce that following the launch of Path of Exile: Scourge, we're doing it again!
This time around, competitors will compete alone, but we've added a unique twist. Towards the end of the match, surviving players may encounter a brutal but rewarding boss fight, which could have significant strategic implications for how they play the match.
Twitch Drops will be available for viewers on all participant channels. They will be enabled when the event starts and will be available for 5 hours. After 30 minutes of watch time, you'll be awarded with the Two-Legged Goat Pet and after 2 hours of watch time, you'll be awarded with the Divine Arcane Portal Effect. You can check them out below!
You must link your Path of Exile and Twitch accounts to be eligible for the drops. If you haven't already done so, follow these instructions so you don't miss out!
Step 3: Link your Twitch account or click 'update permissions' if you've linked your account previously. Once your account is linked or your permissions have been updated, this page should say 'Your account is eligible to participate in Twitch Drops'.
After you have accumulated enough watch time to earn your Two-Legged Goat Pet and Divine Arcane Portal Effect, you must redeem them from your Twitch Inventory before they will be available in your microtransactions list in Path of Exile.
There's $30,000 in prizes on the line, alongside a slew of Path of Exile's best cosmetic effects such as Armour Sets, Portals, Back Attachments, Pets and more from the Nightfall, Stygian, Dragon Hunter, Demonic, Darkwood and Revenant themes! The prize pool will be distributed as stated below:
1st place: $4,000 + Microtransactions from the list
In preparation for the Path of Exile: Scourge expansion, we've gathered up all the Item Filter information you need as well as the changes to the Ascendancy classes to help you get ready for the launch.
If you're not sure what to do with this information, don't worry too much! We'll update Path of Exile's built-in item filter alongside the launch of the Scourge expansion. We've posted the changes to Ascendancy classes in a separate news post which you can check out here.
While we have you here, we also wanted to clarify that Tornados are only affected by projectiles that can collide with enemies. Skills like Rolling Magma and Cremation can't use their projectiles to add to Tornado's damage.
New Item Filter Functionality
Added Item Filter support for Scourged Items
Added Item Filter support for Blight Ravaged Maps
Added capacity to filter for Base Defences on Base Item Types
New Items
Item Class: Active Skill Gem
Poisonous Concoction
Temporal Rift
Tornado
Energy Blade
Soul Link
Flame Link
Vampiric Link
Protective Link
Intuitive Link
Destructive Link
Item Class: Divination Card
Desperate Crusade
A Stone Perfected
Treasures of the Vaal
The Rabbit's Foot
Chasing Risk
The Prince of Darkness
The Catch
Eternal Bonds
Disdain
The Scout
Guardian's Challenge
The Forgotten Treasure
The Fox in the Brambles
The Aspirant
Item Class: Stackable Currency
Sacred Orb
Tainted Blessing
Tainted Chromatic Orb
Tainted Orb of Fusing
Tainted Jeweller's Orb
Kalguuran Delirium Orb
Deft Fossil
Fundamental Fossil
Tainted Exalted Orb
Please note that we will update this post as other Tainted Currency Items are revealed.
Item Class: Map Fragment
Xoph's Flawless Breachstone
Tul's Flawless Breachstone
Esh's Flawless Breachstone
Uul-Netol's Flawless Breachstone
Chayula's Flawless Breachstone
Unrelenting Timeless Karui Emblem
Unrelenting Timeless Maraketh Emblem
Unrelenting Timeless Eternal Emblem
Unrelenting Timeless Templar Emblem
Unrelenting Timeless Vaal Emblem
Rusted Expedition Scarab
Polished Expedition Scarab
Gilded Expedition Scarab
Winged Expedition Scarab
Kalguuran Incubator
New Base Types
Item Class: Amulet
Unset Amulet
Other changes
Pantheon Souls
Captured Soul of Otesha, the Giantslayer renamed to Captured Soul of Nassar, Lion of the Seas
Captured Soul of Corruptor Eedaiak renamed to Captured Soul of Litanius, the Black Prayer
Captured Soul of Nassar, Lion of the Seas renamed to Captured Soul of Poporo, the Highest Spire
Captured Soul of Queen of the Great Tangle renamed to Captured Soul of Murgeth Bogsong
Captured Soul of Gisale, Thought Thief renamed to Captured Soul of Arachnoxia
Captured Soul of Witch of the Cauldron renamed to Captured Soul of Spinner of False Hope
Captured Soul of Nightmare's Omen renamed to Captured Soul of Warmonger
Captured Soul of Pesquin, the Mad Baron renamed to Captured Soul of Kitava, The Destroyer
Captured Soul of The High Templar renamed to Captured Soul of Herald of Thunder
Captured Soul of Ciergan, Shadow Alchemist renamed to Captured Soul of The Sanguine Siren
Captured Soul of Terror of the Infinite Drifts renamed to Captured Soul of The Restless Shade
Captured Soul of Gorulis, Will-Thief renamed to Captured Soul of Suncaller Asha
In Path of Exile: Scourge, we've halved the number of regions in the Atlas and made each Atlas Passive Tree slightly larger to streamline the Atlas of Worlds endgame. Today, we've gathered up the Atlas Passive Trees for the 3.16 expansion to help you plan your endgame progress! Please note, you'll still receive the same amount of Atlas Passive skill points as before.
For a full written list of all Atlas Passives, please click here.