From his "ACTUAL" Path of Exile trailers to his awesome Path of Exile content on Youtube, you're sure to have come across some of the many types of content produced by ItsYoji! Continuing our series of interviews with community streamers, we took a moment to chat with him about his life inside and outside of streaming.

I'm Yoji, a 34 year old gamer, dad, RPG nerd and chemist from Germany who also happens to be a legacy content creator based around Path of Exile.

Shortly before Path of Exile released the 1.0 version a friend back during uni started bugging me to try this weird, deep, crazy difficult, complex Action RPG he recently started playing. He was relentless about it and insisted it was a game I would enjoy. Eventually I got around to try it. I started out in Hardcore, which was the predominant game mode back in the day. I created quite a few freezing pulse CI witches that somehow all died during the campaign. Apparently going for Chaos Inoculation straight away was not the most optimal way to build, who knew. I eventually gave up on the game for a while and returned in early October 2013 a few weeks before Nemesis league and haven't stopped playing since.

Unlike many people in the Path of Exile community I don't come from a Diablo background. I grew up mostly with JRPGs and ARPGs on console such as the Final Fantasy series, Champions of Norrath and Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance.

Those influences immediately made Path of Exile click for me. The passive tree reminded me of the Final Fantasy X sphere grid and the support gem system was familiar from playing around with Final Fantasy VII's materia system.

What keeps me coming back is the variety in playstyles and builds combined with the meaningful and deep character progression. PoE does that part better than any other game I have played.

I got a Headhunter from Gwennen in the Expedition league which was pretty neat. Since I was playing in a small group found private league in Expedition this made it possible for everyone in the league to try it out and have some fun with that crazy item.

Probably my Righteous Fire Mjölner Chieftain Tank from Harvest league. I have been wanting to make an RF Mjölner character for some time and when the insane crafting capability from Harvest became apparent I realized it was finally time.

Other than that I just really enjoy melee in general, from Slams to Strikes to Slashes, Bonks and Flickers. Melee is my jam.

Even though by current standards the league was very simplistic and had huge flaws, I have very fond memories of the Tempest league. The way players were always communicating and trying to find the best tempests in maps quickly after the change of Tempest areas each hour was a fun experience. Also some of the Tempests such as Corrupting loot or the Exiles and Ghosts everywhere ones were extremely crazy mods at the time and really stood out.

I always have so much fun making the trailers, coming up with jokes and memes that fit the current climate in the community and poke fun at the game and you developers, the players and some content creators at the same time. As for the writing part I had a really good time with the Ultimatum ACTUAL Trailer as I feel there was a good narrative I could tell with the some of the more obvious jokes while weaving in a few smaller points.



When it comes to the editing and production part I got a bit carried away with the Heist trailer. Following the theme of the league and experimenting with the theme in music and editing style led to me making the longest trailer yet. That was a ton of fun too.



Around six years ago during Tempest league I ended up with a lot of extra time on my hands when I was about to finish university. So I played a lot of PoE which I've been playing for 2 years by then. None of my friends played the game anymore however which means I had no one to talk to about my silly hipster meme builds.

When I finally made my Resolute Technique Elemental Split Arrow Totems build work and got it to endgame in Hardcore I needed to tell someone about it.So I booted up a Twitch stream and a few people came by who I could tell all about this silly character and my other build creations.Then I made a video guide for the Split Arrow totem build as my first PoE YouTube video and thousands of people watched it. My stream grew and shortly after I decided to go all in on content creation for a while. But eventually I went back to becoming a regular IRL Andy who has a stream and makes videos in his freetime. It just works way better than being a content creator who does chemistry in his freetime.

The schedule is an illusion, Exile.

That's what the !schedule command in my stream chat would give you. As a part time content creator, full-time dad and full-time chemist, it's quite tricky to maintain a regular schedule. So I recommend people to follow my stream on twitch and if you see me online, know that it might be a once in a lifetime event, so make sure to come and say hi while I am live.

From a PoE perspective I think it is important to find a way to enjoy the game while having less time to play than you previously had. I found a lot of people have trouble with that and sometimes get frustrated when they can't progress as much. But there is a lot of fun to be had even with the earlier progression of the game and especially if you have experience and a decent knowledge base and play a league over the whole 3 months you can get pretty far even with little playtime. And if not then permanent leagues are always a great option that shouldn't be discarded!

When I am not streaming, making videos or gaming in my freetime, I am probably in the gym, doing something tabletop RPG related (Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder) or playing with the kids. I recently started to learn digital drawing which is an awesome experience.

I'm always happy when I see collaborations happening between content creators so the more people get together to talk and meme about PoE the better in my eyes.

I am currently on a bit of a break content wise and the Scourge league announcement stream happens right in the middle of my upcoming vacation. But if at all possible, there will be a Scourge League Actual Trailer coming before the league launches with the usual memes, jokes and trolling.

Note: ItsYoji's Scourge League ACTUAL Trailer has been published since the writing of this interview. Check it out below!



Thank you so much for participating in the interview! If you'd like to follow ItsYoji, you can do so on Twitter, Youtube and Twitch. Also, don't forget that you can support both ItsYoji and the development of Path of Exile by buying microtransactions from his Nexus page!

We are in the second week of Path of Exile: Scourge and we are preparing to deploy Patch 3.16.0d which includes a variety of changes and bug fixes including a fix that will address the counteracting modifiers on Scourge Items. We will be releasing this patch tomorrow. In the meantime, we've prepared a preview of the patch notes for you.

Please note that this is a preview only and some patch notes may be added or removed before it is deployed.

3.16.0d Patch Notes

This patch contains improvements to Scourged items and maps, and fixes a variety of small- and medium-importance bugs.

Scourge Improvements

• Scourged items are no longer be able to generate downsides that would directly counteract their upside. For example, an item with "Added Physical Damage" will not be able to generate "Deal no Physical Damage" as a downside.
• The description of the Scourged Map modifier that shifts into Nightmare on killing a Rare or Unique Enemy has been updated to more accurately reflect its functionality. The amount of Blood obtained from killing enemies in Maps with this modifier has also been increased.
• The Scourged Map modifier that causes you to shift into Nightmare on reaching maximum Blood now has a slight drain of Blood over time, though the amount of Blood lost on Killing a Scourge Monster has been reduced to 0.4% (previously 0.5%). It also now causes you to lose all Blood when you shift out of Nightmare.
• Scourged Maps that shift into Nightmare on reaching maximum Blood can no longer teleport you into an Incursion upon shifting out of Nightmare.

Other Improvements

• The damage of the Delve Spider Flicker Strike skill has been reduced.
• The damage of the exploding pods in the Stagnation Map boss fight has been reduced.
• The Rank 1 Defences Crafting Bench options now have a cost of 4 Orbs of Transmutation (previously 6 Orbs of Alteration).
• The Siren Weapon Microtransaction found in the shop has been renamed to Trident Weapon.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where Sentinels of Absolution summoned through Intuitive Link would not attack.
• Fixed a bug where Plague Bearer displayed the incorrect Maximum Plague Value on the Skill Bar tooltip if you had allocated the Passive Mastery that increases this Value.
• Fixed a bug where Tempest Shield would have to be reactivated after logging out.
• Fixed a bug where Raise Spectre could sometimes raise the wrong minion.
• Fixed a bug where Mirage Archer Support could support Power Siphon, causing the Skill to become unusable.
• Fixed a bug where the effects of the Wind Dancer Keystone Passive could be triggered from being hit by a spell.
• Fixed a bug where the Lethality Notable Passive was not affecting rain skills.
• Fixed a bug where the Blackflame Unique Ring was not granting kill credit for enemies killed by the Ignite.
• Fixed a bug where the Veiled Suffix modifier on Bows which grants a percentage to Fire Damage over Time Multiplier was using two-handed values.
• Fixed a bug where the Flask modifier which grants Immunity to Maim or Hinder for a duration if used while Maimed or Hindered was not functioning correctly.
• Fixed a bug where the Suffix modifier that provides reduced Flask Charges gained and Flasks applied to you have increased Effect was categorised as Prefix modifier in the Crafting Bench.
• Fixed a bug where the Stagnation Map boss could sometimes summon vines at their location, rather than their target's location.
• Fixed a bug where Jaesyn and Maker of Mires were unable to create clones in the Hallowed Ground Unique Map.
• Fixed a bug where the Reef Map boss could continue to spawn minions after dying.
• Fixed a bug where Delve darkness damage over time was slightly higher than intended at depths shallower than 1000.
• Fixed a bug where opening a Chronicle of Atzoatl did not grant credit toward the Assist the Forsaken Masters Challenge.
• Fixed a bug where party members could not interact with Zana mission portals after leaving the mission area.
• Fixed a bug where party members were sometimes unable to see the party leader's map portals in a Guild Hideout.
• Fixed a bug where Monsters in Nightmare could prevent discovered Hideouts from being fully cleared.
• Fixed two instance crashes.

The Scourge League is well and truly underway so we wanted to give you a behind the scenes look at the expansion's development! Check out some of the demonic concept art below.

It's that spooky time of year and our Community Director, Bex, managed to drop in on a zoom meeting with Path of Exile's senior team members in the middle of brainstorming future plans for Path of Exile. She managed to get a screenshot to leak to the community before the ghosts in her internet disconnected her.



If you want to take a trip down memory lane, check out our Halloween meetings from 2015 and 2018.

Don't forget, our seasonal Halloween Microtransactions are still available and leave the store on November 15th at 11:59pm NZT.

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.

Outcome A:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• ExileCon Cloth Map of Wraeclast
• ExileCon Lanyard
• ExileCon Black Bags

Outcome B:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• ExileCon Cloth Map of Wraeclast
• Path of Exile Foam Exalted Orb
• Path of Exile ExileCon Corrupted Vinyl Decal

Outcome C:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• Path of Exile Foam Exalted Orb
• Path of Exile ExileCon Corrupted Vinyl Decal
• Path of Exile Dye-Sub Patch (Premium)

Outcome D:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• Path of Exile Foam Exalted Orb
• Path of Exile ExileCon Corrupted Vinyl Decal
• Path of Exile Celestial Cat Socks

Outcome E:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• Path of Exile Foam Exalted Orb
• Path of Exile Iron-on Patch (Non-Premium)
• ExileCon Lanyard

Outcome F:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• Path of Exile Foam Exalted Orb
• Path of Exile Celestial Cat Socks
• Path of Exile Iron-on Patch (Non-Premium)

Outcome G:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• Path of Exile Iron-on Patch (Non-Premium)
• Path of Exile Exalted Orb Snapback Hat

Outcome H:

• 3x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie

Outcome I:

• 2x Path of Exile T-shirts of different types
• Random Plushie
• Path of Exile Foam Exalted Orb
• Path of Exile Exalted Orb Snapback Hat

• Path of Exile Lunaris Vs. Solaris Premium Tee
• Path of Exile Kitava Premium Tee
• Path of Exile Vaal Orb Premium Tee
• Path of Exile Exalted Orb Premium Tee
• Path of Exile Chaos Premium Tee
• Path of Exile Shaper Premium Tee
• Path of Exile Untainted Paradise Premium Tee
• Path of Exile ExileCon Logo Premium Tee

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!



Find out more and get yours here!

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!