Later today, we're planning to deploy the 3.17.3 patch which introduces several improvements alongside a beta for PC Controller Support. Check out a preview of its patch notes below.

The following patch notes are still subject to change prior to the patch's deployment. We'll deploy the 3.17.3 update on consoles as soon as possible after its release on PC.

3.17.3 Patch Notes

PC Controller Support Beta

• This patch adds the Beta for PC Controller Support to Path of Exile.
  
• To access this feature, connect a game controller to your PC, launch Path of Exile and go to the Input Options panel. Change the Input Method option to "Controller (Beta)". It should take effect without you having to relaunch Path of Exile. Please report any bugs related to controller support in the Bug Reports forum.

Fixes and Improvements

• Using the Highlight Key when hovering dropped items now displays minimum and maximum defensive values again.
  
• The overkill explosion from the Punishment Curse no longer occurs if the curse is owned by the defender or one of their allies.
  
• Fixed the arena mechanic in The Infinite Hunger boss fight so it now stops once the boss is killed.
  
• Fixed a problem with Scourge Arrow where projectiles that were forked or split were not placing pods.
  
• Fixed the Increased Minion Cast Speed quality modifier on Bone Offering so it can now apply to the player when having Mistress of Sacrifice allocated.
  
• Fixed the Tempest Shield quality description as it incorrectly said the Chance to Shock was granted by the buff when it's only local to the skill.
  
• Fixed a bug with the Heist NPCs in Grand Heists displaying wrong values in their buff descriptions.
  
• Fixed a bug with applying Footprint Microtransactions where they did not show until changing area.
  
• Fixed a bug where Shrines could fail to spawn with a pack of monsters.
  
• Fixed a bug where the 'Show All' option on the Character Selection screen was not saving.
  
• Fixed various dialogue audio problems.
  
• Fixed a client crash related to Scorching Ray.
  
• Fixed a client crash related to Stygian Firestorm.

Inspired by Zana's journey through the Atlas, the Heritage themed cosmetics in the Harmony Mystery Box bring a touch of golden elegance to Wraeclast. Today, we'd like to share some of the concept art from that set with you! Check out the concept art below.

Since Path of Exile was launched on Xbox and PlayStation several years ago, we've been keen to bring controller support to the PC version. In the near future, we'll deploy the 3.17.3 Patch which introduces a Beta version of controller support.

To access this feature, connect a game controller to your PC, launch Path of Exile and go to the Input Options panel. Change the Input Method option to "Gamepad (Beta)". It should take effect without you having to relaunch Path of Exile. Please note that the feature is currently unavailable on Epic and macOS clients.

This controller support feature will stay in Beta until the launch of the 3.18 expansion, and there may be issues in the meantime. Please report any bugs related to the controller support in the Bug Reports forum.

Also, if you have a Steam Deck console, please test out Path of Exile after 3.17.3 has been released and let us know how well it works!

Earlier this week, we partnered with Twitch Rivals to host another Path of Exile: Royale Tournament filled with some of Path of Exile's community streamers! Through a close, nail biting finish, Goratha managed to take the trophy and title of champion! We've gathered some clips of some intense moments from the tournament to check out in today's news post. Check them out on our forum here!

You might remember that last year, community member lowkeyripper purchased a Divination Card design and left it to the community to vote on a series of polls to determine the final result. The community decided that the card should redeem for a Unique Watchstone. Since Watchstones were removed in the Siege of the Atlas update, we're returning to the community to pick its new reward!

As the name, art and description have already been decided from previous polls, we're only looking for your suggestions for what the new reward type should be. We'll collect your responses and will create polls in subsequent weeks for you to vote on what you think it should be.



We're excited to see how this card will transform with the community's input. Thanks again to lowkeyripper for setting this up!

Our Talent Competition has only just started but we have already seen so many incredible entries that we wanted to share some with you today! We’ll be publishing even more highlights over the coming weeks so be sure to check them out.













Redin sighed and tapped the side of his notebook against the stone block floor, yet again running everything back and forth through his head. Some time back he had decided to deliberately stop himself from doing work outside of his appointed hours, but still – he was an archaeologist, a scholar, and he lived for the pursuit and gathering of knowledge. And what he had found there in that ancient tomb today… quite possibly, it predated everything else he knew.

The mechanism did not match the surrounding architecture or motifs. The scholar sat up, opened his journal, and flipped through the pages, seeing all the clean, concise sketches of friezes, busts, cartouches, stained glass windows pieced together from fragments… gods both current and ancient, temples standing and ruined. Notes on thaumaturgy, its workings and fundamentals; ideas and information about this new civilization he had found; and then, abruptly, seven pages of scribbles and mistakes, a sketch that he just couldn’t get right.

It waited for him just here in the same room, apparently set into a divot in the center of the otherwise smooth floor, glistening black stone streaked through with whitish-green. Each of his failed sketches looked so much like it yet missed some vital, central portion, and every time he tried he felt no closer to discovering what it was. It felt almost as though it changed when he wasn’t looking, or that depending on the angle, its very structure seemed to shift… the scholar peered close at the thing, glimmering golden metal like burnished zinc, and for a moment reached out to fetch his quill and ink.

But then he stopped himself. It wasn’t going to help, and he had already had some of the soldiers drag his accommodations down here into the ruins so that he could get right back to it come morning. He sighed again, snapped the journal closed, and leaned far enough away to that it would be a hassle if he wanted to pick it back up, then tugged the blankets up.

The heat from the sun naturally did not reach this deep through solid stone, yet still another heat simmered undeniably up from the earth underneath. Redin hadn’t noticed it before, but as he lay there, organizing and shelving his thoughts and discoveries from the day, he became aware of a slow, ponderous rhythm echoing from somewhere within the ruins, gentle and faint, like the heartbeat of some great sleeping beast. It was this that lulled him to sleep, this low, plodding beat – and it was this that drew him into the world of dreams.

And what great, fantastic, terrible dreams they were. At once they played out in full yet felt as only small, insignificant fragments: massive structures, works of architectural and societal hubris that he recognized yet couldn’t say he had seen before. Names and deeds that sounded familiar, yet not from his own waking world. Redin stepped through the halls of these ruins, yet the civilization that built them was in its prime. The people here had skin like smooth, sweet molten bronze, and when they spoke their words and syllables swung and swam together, lyrical without even trying. They spoke to him, welcoming him forward, beaming and grinning as though they had been awaiting his presence for a long time.

They beckoned him forward, and there in the center of the room before the golden device with its strange angles and nonsense concavo-convex mechanics, stood a hooded figure. He lifted his head, and Redin could still see no face beneath the twisting, swirling fabric, sheer yet solid as though it were woven from cold, shaded water. It looked at him though it had no eyes to see; it tilted its head, appraised him up and down, then spread its arms – then spread a second pair, and a third, the crux of each along the same pair of shoulders.

Redin felt no fear. In awe the scholar stepped forward, only now aware that the figure, the priest, the deity, perhaps, stood a full arm’s breadth above his head. One of those arms came forward and the seven-fingered hand spread out, reaching for his, beckoning him forward. So the scholar looked from the hand, to the figure’s blank face, to the device behind it, the inner mechanism – in the physical, waking world missing – spinning slowly.

He took the hand, and each of those seven fingers wrapped gently yet firmly about his palm. The device spun faster. A low hum issued; the arms of the device creaked and spun and shifted, and…

And Redin woke up, mind already working far beyond his body. He scrabbled for his journal, remembered he had placed it away, fetched it – and then without even dressing in his robe, stepped over to the dismantled device, the vital center portion, the engine, so to say, missing. And he sketched the frame, the exterior, the binding arms, the gear workings, technology inspired and otherworldly. There in the center waited a gap, noticeable to him now yet unidentifiable before.

So he paused, chewed on the end of his quill, and then sketched out that part, too. It just – made sense, and like so many times before, Redin felt like a fool in how he couldn’t see it before. He dressed, had a simple breakfast, and called for a basic shipment of parts from the surface portion of the camp: though the device’s workings were strange and intricate, built around dimensions of thinking and engineering that he could hardly try to conceptualize. But, still, it made sense. It wasn’t some special alloy, as it was still liable to rust, tarnish, breakage, and battering. So the things they had around the camp would still work, so long as he pass them through the smith first.

As Redin sat back down beside the device, getting a look at it from a lower vantage, he couldn’t help but smirk. His brother was a watchmaker; perhaps that discipline would help in the understanding of this device. Even though he had finally managed to sketch down the device and work a feasible blueprint of its setup, still the scholar had more to do. He set his inkwell beside him, unscrewed the top, laid out his other scrolls of study, and got to work.

~ ~ ~

Amala sighed as he scuttled down the hallway, all of these certainly fantastic carvings and remarkably intact structures dimly lit by the torches set up in their sconces along the walls. Master Redin had specifically ordered the freestanding holders, as he wanted to preserve the original beauty and integrity of the structure – which was fair. It was just that the standing sconces were much heavier to move and harder to swap out than the wall-mounted ones.

This would be Amala’s fifth venture today up and down from the surface, and as far as ancient ruins went, these were expansive. His calves and thighs burned just from yesterday’s work, and now the good scholar was sending him back and forth, back and forth, fetch these pieces, bring me this, bring me that, I need a new stick of charcoal, will you heat my tea? I need a gem. I need a hammer.

I need slate. Slates. Several. Ah… twenty, perhaps?

Absurd. He grumbled under his breath and shifted the pack over his shoulder one more time. Since then Master Redin had asked for two more batches of twenty, and wouldn’t let the poor scribe into the room each time he returned. Whatever it was he did in there with all of these slates – well, he might have to start paying out of his own pocket to recover the stores.

This was the last turn of the hall, though, and for a moment Amala considered dropping the bag and throwing it the rest of the way. Thinking about how Master Redin had yelled at him when he had just leaned against one of the walls, though… he heaved another sigh, continued forward, and rapped the back of his dagger against the solid stone of the door, knowing that his knuckle would make no audible noise. That, and it still ached from all the times he had done it before. So he knocked, and waited. And waited. And waited some more.

“Master Redin?”

Nothing. Amala frowned, put an ear to the crack in the threshold, listened for a moment… then shouldered the heavy, carved stone open, the bag of slates sliding on his shoulder. With a grunt he dropped it down right next to the door and was just about to turn to leave – his master often fell asleep on the job, then cited the instance as inspired meditation – when he saw the scholar himself leaning over that strange contraption in the middle, seeming to glow with a light all its own.

“Master Redin, is everything-”

Amala trailed off. Spread about the pedestal foot of the device were all of those slates from before, many of them shattered, broken, sheared apart; many more crudely carved and scribbled; and then, in a neat pile, a handful that seemed carefully, deliberately formed, reduced from their oblong rectangular nature into a clean circle, edges ridged with some indecipherable glyphs in the center. Redin held one of them now, fingers rolling over the edges with anticipation. The scholar licked his lips, looked down at the slate, then stepped around to the console of the device, with the slight indention that seemed, right there…

~ ~ ~

…to perfectly fit the stone he had carved. He couldn’t remember doing many of the others, but still the evidence littered the room around him, botched and failed, not quite right. Inspiration had a tendency to hit him like this, when everything all of a sudden made sense. The device worked similarly to thaumaturgy, in some ways, but the one way to see would be to run it. And he finally had the key. Redin swallowed, peered into the center of the device – his haphazardly assembled core would likely work only the once – then pressed the stone tablet into the console. At first, nothing happened.

And then, in a moment of powerful, dizzying vertigo, it started to spin. Or, really, it felt more like the world around the device spun and twisted, while the device itself held still. Redin found himself grabbing onto the console for support, while a shout from the back of the room alerted him that someone had broken his privacy against his express whim to be left alone. He cast his head over his shoulder to shout – it looked like Amala, his idiot scribe – before another noise from the device drew him back, the same low, constant whirring that it had issued in his dream.

For a moment there was a flash of something else, of some great, three-meter figure with six arms, each capped by a seven-fingered hand. What was that? Where had he seen it before? It seemed familiar yet not, just a flash of imagination and fanaticism and – and then the machine shuddered and bucked, and a terrible, searing crackle filled his ears.

Redin took a step back just in time for a strange, shimmering door to open in front of the console, with five more opening in turn around the circumference of the device. Each one seemed to shear through and between the space around it, rather than conventionally opening – as though he had run a knife through a sheet of fabric, then dug his fingers in and tore the hole wider. Strange, dizzying portals, blue and black like water scrubbed from the depths of the ocean, swirled and shimmered before him. Amala called for him, then shouted for the guards – but Redin was captivated. He looked over his work, laughed softly, reached forward…

…felt another moment of intense vertigo and dizziness, spun, swirled…

…and stepped through onto smooth ground, the sound of crashing waves all around, the familiar taste of salt in the air. Still the whirring continued: he spun around and saw another device behind him, the same yet different, this one older, larger, clumsier. With another step back he realized that two of its siblings stood nearby as well, one of them shattered and broken as though the engine at its core had abruptly burst, astrolabe arms twisted and shattered. More of them? He patted at his cloak, hoping that he had taken his journal along, realizing he hadn’t, then saw the five remaining portals – the one he had come through sucked in on itself, shuddered, and winked out of existence, the space around it snapping back into place – and started to move for a second.

Then, though, the distinct noise of a sword slipping from its sheath behind him caught his attention, as sharply and suddenly as the point of that sword poking up between his shoulder blades. Redin gasped, froze, and slowly raised his hands.

“You are to turn around,” said a voice behind him, strong, confident, male. Immediately he clocked that voice as belonging to a soldier, or a commander, or… “and identify yourself, clearly and quickly. We have had too many mishaps with the map device to trust anyone or – anything that comes out of it.”

Redin swallowed, looked up to the sky, and then slowly turned. When he did so he couldn’t help but press his lips together and suppress a smirk: of course the owner of that voice wore an eyepatch, stone-tan hair slicked back across his head, mustache pointing downwards in a permanent frown. He held a sword in a hand quite obviously accustomed to wielding it, though his other arm hung down at his side beneath the weight of a vicious edged mace; the armor he wore looked to have been forged in proverbial fire, with great, vaulting shoulders and a frontpiece that arced down towards a glowing red central gem.

Around this commander arrayed a handful of other rough types, warriors and soldiers, rangers and, perhaps, other scholars. Redin’s heart thumped in his chest.

“I am – Master Redin,” he said, willing the nervousness in his voice to still. “Pray tell, where am I?”

Concern and distrust shone in the soldier’s single eye. He glanced over his shoulder, nodded to one of the other warriors, and stepped around to the side.

“Wraeclast,” the soldier finally answered. The word echoed and whispered in Redin’s head. “Why are you here?”

Wraeclast. Wraeclast. Beyond the golden gears… A shiver vibrated down the scholar’s back.

“I’m not sure,” he answered, truthfully. The image of the six-armed figure echoed through his mind again. “But I think this is where I am intended to be.










There is still plenty of time to enter the Talent Competition so if you would like to submit an entry, you can do so by posting in this thread.

To close out our series taking a look at the concept art from the 2022 Core Supporter Packs, we have a behind the scenes look at the Incinerator Core Supporter Pack for you! Check out the concept art below.

If you missed it, you can view the concept art from the Imperator, Nullifier, Annihilator and Ravager Core Supporter Packs by clicking the links on the pack name.

The BPL Command Team are organising a co-operative, team-based community event which takes place this coming weekend! This time, participants will be randomly split into six teams with class restrictions, where they'll compete for points which are awarded for achieving things such as collecting certain thematic sets of unique items, leveling up, killing specific bosses and more!


League Starts: Mar 11, 2022 11:00AM PST
League Ends: Mar 15, 2022 11:00AM PST (12:00PM PDT)

This event is open to everyone and this time there is a cap of 400 players per team (2400 spots in total). All you need to participate is a Path of Exile account and a Discord account.

Sign ups for the event are open until Mar 10, 2022 11:00AM PST or as long as there are available slots. If you'd like to get involved or want more information, check out the BPL website here.

If you'd like to spectate, you can check out https://badgerleague.com/live to see a list of everyone that's streaming the event on Twitch! A closing ceremony will be broadcast at the end of the event on Badger's Twitch channel here.

Good luck to all those participating!

This weekend we are running a Stash Tab Sale! The new Gem and Flask Stash Tabs are included in this sale for PC and will be available at a discount for consoles in the next sale. You can view the full selection of discounted tabs by pressing M in game. The Stash Tab sale ends at 1pm on March 8th NZT.

Microtransactions from the Atlantis Mystery Box are now available in the store! It's also still possible to combine some of the individual Deepwater and Siren cosmetic effects into the Atlantis ones.

Check out the Atlantis microtransactions by watching the video below. You can also view the full range in the store by pressing M in game.



Thanks for your support!

Dates have now been confirmed for the rescheduled Path of Exile: Royale event with Twitch Rivals! Due to technical difficulties last time, we were not able to run the event but we're sure things will run smoothly after some testing and fixes!

Path of Exile's community streamers will face each other in a live tournament in order to win awesome prizes.

Like the last time, the competitors will compete alone but to spice things up the area will generate shrines that would grant various buffs. Brutus will also join the fray, so they'll need to weigh the risk and rewards for challenging him!

Twitch Drops will be available for viewers on all Path of Exile 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 Grasping Hands Pet and after 2 hours of watch time, you'll be awarded with the Hand Wings.



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 1: Log into Path of Exile website.
  
• Step 2: Click here to check your Twitch Settings.
  
• 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 Grasping Hands Pet and Hand Wings, you must redeem them from your Twitch Inventory before they will be available in your microtransactions list in Path of Exile.



There's $35,000 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 Vulcan, Darkshard, Elder, Oblivion, Dreadspire and Angelic themes. The prize pool will be distributed as stated below:

• Vulcan Armour Set
  
• Vulcan Weapon Skin
  
• Vulcan Shield
  
• Fire Footprints
  
• Brimstone Character Effect
  
• Vulcan Portal
  
• Dragon Hunter Herald
  
• Vulcan Cloak
  
• Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
  
• Dragon Hunter Pet
  
• Darkshard Armour Set
  
• Darkshard Weapon
  
• Darkshard Weapon Effect
  
• Darkshard Footprints
  
• Darkshard Aura
  
• Darkshard Portal
  
• Darkshard Cloak
  
• Darkshard Gryffon Pet
  
• Elder Armour Set
  
• Void Weapon Effect
  
• Void Weapon Skin
  
• Black Footprints
  
• Void Character Effect
  
• Void Portal
  
• Sin Herald
  
• Void Wings
  
• Smoking Hood
  
• Madness Propagator Pet
  
• Oblivion Armour Set
  
• Oblivion Weapon
  
• Oblivion Weapon Effect
  
• Stygian Footprints
  
• Stygian Herald
  
• Oblivion Portal
  
• Oblivion Wings
  
• Stygian Steed Pet
  
• Dreadspire Armour
  
• Dreadspire Weapon
  
• Dreadspire Weapon Effect
  
• Innocence Footprints
  
• Dreadspire Portal Effect
  
• Divine Herald Effect
  
• Dreadspire Cloak
  
• Havenwood Deer Pet
  
• Angelic Armour Set
  
• Angelic Bow and Quiver
  
• Angelic Weapon Effect
  
• Angelic Footprints
  
• Angelic Aura
  
• Angelic Portal
  
• Angelic Wings
  
• Pegasus Pet

• Vulcan Armour Set
  
• Vulcan Weapon Skin
  
• Vulcan Shield
  
• Fire Footprints
  
• Brimstone Character Effect
  
• Vulcan Portal
  
• Dragon Hunter Herald
  
• Vulcan Cloak
  
• Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
  
• Dragon Hunter Pet
  
• Darkshard Armour Set
  
• Darkshard Weapon
  
• Darkshard Weapon Effect
  
• Darkshard Footprints
  
• Darkshard Aura
  
• Darkshard Portal
  
• Darkshard Cloak
  
• Darkshard Gryffon Pet
  
• Elder Armour Set
  
• Void Weapon Effect
  
• Void Weapon Skin
  
• Black Footprints
  
• Void Character Effect
  
• Void Portal
  
• Sin Herald
  
• Void Wings
  
• Smoking Hood
  
• Madness Propagator Pet
  
• Oblivion Armour Set
  
• Oblivion Weapon
  
• Oblivion Weapon Effect
  
• Stygian Footprints
  
• Stygian Herald
  
• Oblivion Portal
  
• Oblivion Wings
  
• Stygian Steed Pet
  
• Dreadspire Armour
  
• Dreadspire Weapon
  
• Dreadspire Weapon Effect
  
• Innocence Footprints
  
• Dreadspire Portal Effect
  
• Divine Herald Effect
  
• Dreadspire Cloak
  
• Havenwood Deer Pet

• Vulcan Armour Set
  
• Vulcan Weapon Skin
  
• Vulcan Shield
  
• Fire Footprints
  
• Brimstone Character Effect
  
• Vulcan Portal
  
• Dragon Hunter Herald
  
• Vulcan Cloak
  
• Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
  
• Dragon Hunter Pet
  
• Darkshard Armour Set
  
• Darkshard Weapon
  
• Darkshard Weapon Effect
  
• Darkshard Footprints
  
• Darkshard Aura
  
• Darkshard Portal
  
• Darkshard Cloak
  
• Darkshard Gryffon Pet
  
• Elder Armour Set
  
• Void Weapon Effect
  
• Void Weapon Skin
  
• Black Footprints
  
• Void Character Effect
  
• Void Portal
  
• Sin Herald
  
• Void Wings
  
• Smoking Hood
  
• Madness Propagator Pet
  
• Oblivion Armour Set
  
• Oblivion Weapon
  
• Oblivion Weapon Effect
  
• Stygian Footprints
  
• Stygian Herald
  
• Oblivion Portal
  
• Oblivion Wings
  
• Stygian Steed Pet

• Vulcan Armour Set
  
• Vulcan Weapon Skin
  
• Vulcan Shield
  
• Fire Footprints
  
• Brimstone Character Effect
  
• Vulcan Portal
  
• Dragon Hunter Herald
  
• Vulcan Cloak
  
• Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
  
• Dragon Hunter Pet
  
• Darkshard Armour Set
  
• Darkshard Weapon
  
• Darkshard Weapon Effect
  
• Darkshard Footprints
  
• Darkshard Aura
  
• Darkshard Portal
  
• Darkshard Cloak
  
• Darkshard Gryffon Pet
  
• Elder Armour Set
  
• Void Weapon Effect
  
• Void Weapon Skin
  
• Black Footprints
  
• Void Character Effect
  
• Void Portal
  
• Sin Herald
  
• Void Wings
  
• Smoking Hood
  
• Madness Propagator Pet

• Vulcan Armour Set
  
• Vulcan Weapon Skin
  
• Vulcan Shield
  
• Fire Footprints
  
• Brimstone Character Effect
  
• Vulcan Portal
  
• Dragon Hunter Herald
  
• Vulcan Cloak
  
• Flaming Head Helmet Attachment
  
• Dragon Hunter Pet
  
• Darkshard Armour Set
  
• Darkshard Weapon
  
• Darkshard Weapon Effect
  
• Darkshard Footprints
  
• Darkshard Aura
  
• Darkshard Portal
  
• Darkshard Cloak
  
• Darkshard Gryffon Pet

• Vulcan Armour Set
  
• Vulcan Weapon Skin
  
• Vulcan Cloak

• Vulcan Armour Set
  
• Vulcan Cloak

Tune in on March 8th at 11 am PST at http://twitch.tv/twitchrivals to check out the action live!