Another three months have gone by for Path of Exile, signaling the end of one league and the rise of a new one. Players will harvest the Lifeforce of enemies to craft powerful items in the new Harvest league.
As with all new leagues, players who participate in the new mechanic will obtain new powerful gear. In Harvest, a much larger focus has been put on crafting modifiers onto items or reforging Uniques. Out of any league added, Harvest seems to be giving the largest boost in power out of any Path of Exile league released thus far. Here are 10 things players need to know about the upcoming Harvest expansion for Path of Exile.
10 The Sacred Grove
Instead of finding packs of new enemies to fight, players will instead manage a garden named the Sacred Grove.
Each zone will have a cache of seeds for players to obtain and plant at the Sacred Grove. As one completes maps or the story, the plants will mature and be able to be harvested. Spawn the enemies, take them down, and obtain new items and Lifeforce to craft modifiers on gear.
9 Gardening
For plants to grow, the player’s garden will need to have proper irrigation and a solid design. Grinding Gear Games has made it clear that players won’t need to be a “Factorio” master to play this league, but optimizing your garden isn’t a wasted effort.
In typical ARPG fashion, players use the Lifeforce of enemies to grow plants instead of water. Monsters slain in this garden have a chance of dropping higher-tier seeds which require certain conditions to grow, ranging from specific seeds surrounding it to more Lifeforce. Leftover Lifeforce can be stored for growing future seeds.
8 Crafting
Crafting is the big push for the Harvest league. Slaying monsters grants players their Lifeforce to grow plants and, more importantly, craft modifiers on their gear.
The developers have stated that these crafting mods can mimick attribute-specific Exalted Orbs that anyone can use, which should make early-game leveling and gearing much smoother. Furthermore, there are hundreds of new modifiers available through this league that might rival Synthesis league’s modifiers. If someone ever wanted to create an overpowered character, this might be the best league to do so.
7 Passive Tree Changes
Path of Exile’s passive tree is one of the game’s most iconic features. Its myriad of choices allows for virtually infinite builds, and it’s about to get even more options.
Many of the keystones from Legion’s Jewels are being added to the core passive tree to allow for more build variety. On top of new keystones, there will be new passive nodes relating to two-handed weapons, Warcries, and the Rage mechanic to name a few.
6 Delirium Going Core
Delirium league was successful in making the endgame of Path of Exile much more difficult. Players who loved this league’s brutal encounters will be pleased to hear that it is going to be added to the core game once Harvest launches.
Players will have a small chance of finding a Delirium mirror on a map. Unlike most league mechanics that have gone core, Delirium’s chance of spawning exponentially increases as more league mechanics appear on the map. For example, if players have a map with Beyond, Incursion, Breach, and Legion all on the same map, their chances of finding a Delirium mirror is incredibly high.
5 Brand Changes
Brands are a unique type of spell in Path of Exile that attaches to monsters and detonate, activating a powerful effect. This category of spell is seeing some major changes and some new types of Brands to try out.
Recalling Brands can be done less frequently and Brands drop at their original location when a monster dies instead of below them. While these are undoubtedly large nerfs, GGG has added two new Brand types to keep the playstyle interesting. Penance Brands act like traps, building up damage for a short time before detonating. Arcanist Brands activate supported spells, which should allow for some powerful spell synergies otherwise impossible.
4 New Uniques
It wouldn’t be a Path of Exile league without new Uniques to experiment with. On top of 12 new Uniques to use, GGG is also overhauling over 50 subpar uniques.
One of the new Uniques shown so far is Doryani’s Prototype. This Unique makes armor mitigate lightning damage taken from hits while applying lightning resistance to enemies near the user. Players will want to run with negative lightning resistance to maximize their damage, but building up enough armor to mitigate this major downside should result in some unorthodox builds that would otherwise be impractical.
3 Warcry Overhaul
Warcries have been in a strange place since their inception in Path of Exile. Their support buffs are lackluster most of the time, excluding Rallying Cry, so this league will introduce some major changes to Warcries.
Now, Warcries scale off enemy power rather than numbers. This means Warcries should be much stronger in most cases. Better yet, most Warcries grant the new exerted mechanic, making a player’s next few attacks deal much more damage in a larger radius.
2 Slam Additions
While Path of Exile allows for tens of thousands of builds, a meta always sets in every league. Most players gravitate to spells or automated builds that require little input, leaving most melee characters in the dust.
Harvest league will grant two-handed weapons and slam skills some love. Now, skills such as Earthquake and Tectonic Slam count as slam skills and can use new support gems to enhance the playstyle. These skills should now have screen-wide AoEs when built properly while also dealing ludicrous levels of damage per slam.
1 Vulkan Renderer
For those who haven’t played Path of Exile recently due to performance issues, Harvest league might be the time to come back. GGG’s new Vulkan Renderer has dramatically improved game performance on nearly all machines.
Most maps in the endgame are filled with hundreds of monsters on the screen and dozens of effects firing off at once. This results in major hitches and low framerates on most machines, but many players using the Vulkan Renderer are reporting solid framerates even during the most intense of Map encounters. Once this feature leaves beta when Harvest launches, the game should run better for most people.
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