1.2.1b Patch Notes

Version 1.2.1b

• The Cast on Death support gem has been changed to only provide area of effect and damage bonuses while the character is dead.
• Fixed a bug where Devourers would spawn as rare monsters too frequently.
• Fixed a bug where Zana would not deduct the Vaal Orb component of costs when modifying a corrupted map.

1.2.1 Patch Notes

Version 1.2.1
Content/Features:

• Added three new cosmetic microtransactions: Formosan Bear Pet, Hussar Wings Back Attachment and the Steam-powered Portal Effect.
• Added five new crafting mods for level eight masters. These are meta-crafting mods. They affect the rules of what mods can be added or changed on an item.
• Added new Mastery icons for themed clusters in the passive skill tree.

General Balance:

• Detonate Dead: We have corrected the cast time to 800ms, as originally stated in the 1.2.0 patch notes.
• Cyclone: We no longer treat Cyclone as a movement skill for the cases of Karui Spirits or flags in Capture the Flag. Using Cyclone will not cause these attachments to drop.
• Blackguard soldiers are again too scared to be found in the Sceptre of God in any difficulty.
• Vaal skills can now trigger other skills. Like before, they can not be triggered themselves.
• Necromancer Map Bosses now have Map Boss resistances.
• Devourers no longer spawn in large packs outside of Maps.

Missions:

• The spawn chance of Masters has been reduced in The Fetid Pool, The Flooded Depths, The Ship Graveyard Cave and The Tidal Island.
• Monsters spawned by the spirit in Haku missions are now further spread out.
• We have added eight new friendly aura effects to Elreon's missions.
• Fixed a variety of issues with Elreon's missions, mostly related to the timing of waves of monsters.
• We have added a new unique boss to Tora's missions.
• Replaced Spinesnap in Tora's missions with a new unique boss.
• The Vorici mission hostage no longer counts for the remaining monster count in an area, but the assassination target does.

Hideouts/Crafting:

• We have added a Physical Damage mod for rings and amulets at the Blessing Font.

Beyond:

• We have added three additional variations of Beyond Demons that can appear from the first tier of portals.
• The Hound of Tzteosh Beyond Demon now uses blue flame instead of red flame.
• The Hound of Tzteosh Beyond Demon now has a triggerable cast-on-hit Flame Call.

Bug Fixes:

• Clarissa will now offer the Sewer Keys again if you accidentally lose them.
• Corrected the names of two decorations - the wooden log doorway is now called 'Palisade Gate' and the stone doorway is now called 'Fortification Door'.
• Fixed a bug where arrow pierce would not apply to Tornado Shot.
• Changed back attachments to always hide the default quiver.
• Fixed a bug where characters could fail to spawn in hideouts in cases where they would have been trapped within a hideout decoration. This will lead to more cases of characters being trapped, but fewer cases of failing to enter a hideout.
• Fixed a bug where the Secret Library daily mission area would crash in Cruel and Merciless.
• Fixed a bug with Cyrillic characters in chat.
• Fixed a client crash when a skill purchased from a master was put directly into an item.
• Fixed a bug where Righteous Fire could continue to burn enemies after death.
• Fixed the displayed realm name in the instance management window.
• Fixed a bug where Animate Guardian would not work in PVP.
• Fixed a bug where Vagan could become hostile after a Bandit Lord fight was started in the area.
• Fixed a bug where portals could not be used in Corrupted Side Areas opened with the Hideout Map Device.
• Fixed a rare instance crash related to mass revive.
• Fixed a bug where the respawn options did not appear in hideouts.

1.2.0c Patch Notes

Version 1.2.0c
General Changes:

• Vaal Burning Arrow now does 160% of attack damage, up from 130%. This fixes an accidental reduction of skill damage that occurred during the Burning Arrow change in 1.2.0.
• Fixed an issue where some breeds of Sand Spitters were in the wrong areas.
• Removed packs of statues and replaced them with other monsters. Statues should now only appear on plinths.
• Undying Incinerators, Undying Alchemists, Hulking Titans and Ruined Titans now appear in smaller numbers.
• Added support for Japanese Yen via Steam.

Missions:

• Fixed an issue where Daily missions did not have the same level and area restrictions as missions in the wild.
• Various fixes and changes have been made to Haku rockfall missions.
• Various changes have been made to Haku missions involving shocked ground.
• Added a cooldown to the corpse devour used by Twisted Chimeral in a Tora mission.
• Rotting Mummies in the Catarina mission will now correctly use their Chaos Damage Over Time aura.
• Fixed an issue with Caterina's missions impacting the remaining monster count.
• Fixed an issue where Vagan gave the wrong dialogue for missions.
• We have added more time to be able to defeat Vagan in timed duels.
• Vagan's companions now only occur as a mission variation at higher levels.
• Fixed an issue where Vagan's allies would count towards the monster count of an area.
• Reduced the damage of Raging Spirits used by Necromancers in Elreon missions.
• Increased the variety of Elreon missions used in daily missions when Elreon is level 2.
• Corrected the temporary name of the chest in a Vorici mission.
• Reduced the damage of the hostage in Vorici hostage missions.
• Fixed various issues with blocking terrain in missions.
• Various other small changes and corrections have been made to missions.

Hideouts and Crafting:

• Players can now sell items to the vendors in other players' Hideouts.
• Players can now only enter Map Device portals in a Hideout if they're in the owner's party.
• Various changes have been made to crafting costs. They have mostly been lowered.
• Fixed an issue where percentage defences mods could be doubled up on crafted items. Existing items with this issue have had their invalid crafted mod removed.
• Fixed an issue where Elreon would sell the wrong types of armour when he was in a Hideout.
• When you move a master with open portals, the portals now move with the master.
• Fixed an issue with crafting tables not updating when items were left in them.

Beyond Balance:

• We have removed speed and resistance auras from Beyond demons.
• We have slightly reduced the chance of Beyond portals spawning in Cruel, Merciless and end-game Maps.
• Fixed an issue where Worshipper of Bameth and Hand of Na'em did not use the skills that they were intended to have (Flicker Strike and Tornado Shot).

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed an issue where sounds could become very loud.
• Fixed a bug where double clicking to enter a Hideout would cause a client crash.
• Fixed a bug where returning projectiles could not be seen by other players.
• Fixed an issue where the corrupted side area in the crossroads would not spawn.
• Fixed an issue where Stormcloud Arctic Armour would not appear.
• Fixed a large gap in the world in The Broken Bridge.
• Fixed an instance crash related to hideout vendors.
• Fixed an instance crash with Vagan.
• Fixed an instance crash related to Haku and Tora side areas.

1.2.0b Patch Notes

Version 1.2.0b
General Improvements:

• Added visual effects to the Assassin’s Mark, Poacher’s Mark and Warlord’s Mark curses.
• Changed the effects of Fireball’s area of effect.
• Fixed an issue with Poacher’s Mark where killing blows would not grant on-kill bonuses.
• Corrected the tags on Shockwave totem to include Spell instead of Cast.
• Fixed a crash related to corrupted areas that were spawned in the map device.
• Fixed a bug where stream status did not show on the Twitch panel.
• Fixed various issues with PvP queue UI.
• Fixed a full-realm crash.

Missions:

• Added audio notifications to mission failures.
• Fixed an issue where Vagan would want to fight again after you had already completed an Arena mission for him.
• Changed the number of Necromancers and City Stalkers in specific Elreon quests.
• Changed mission completion rules so that mission completion is granted to anyone who left a sub-area less than 10 seconds before the mission was completed.
• Fixed some cases where Tora and Catarina could spawn in doorways.
• Prevented the Fracturing mod from occurring on several mission types.
• Fixed an issue where Zana would not award mission completion for multi-area missions from other masters she asked you to do.
• Fixed an issue where you could not exit Vagan’s Arena after failing the mission.
• Fixed a crash that occurred at the end of Elreon’s mission where you have to feed the relic.
• Fixed a bug where Catarina would give you the mission that required feeding souls to the minion when where there were not enough monsters left in the area to complete it.
• Fixed some instance crashes related to Catarina.
• Fixed an issue where you could run out of the totem boss Rua’s range.
• Fixed an issue with Vorici target and guards spawning in inaccessible sewers locations.
• Fixed various terrain issues in missions.

Hideouts/Crafting:

• Made various corrections to crafting bench mods.
• Removed the warning message for dropping items with gems in them in Hideouts.
• Fixed an issue with crafting corrupted maps.
• Fixed an issue where crafting bench text would change font size when turning red.
• Made various improvements to the hideout object UI.
• Hideout stash tabs are no longer erroneously shown as normal tabs on the website.

Beyond League:

• Added extra drop rewards for top-tier Beyond demons.
• Removed the life regeneration aura from the Blood of Haast.
• Removed "Monster Cleaves" display text from a bow-wielding Beyond demon.

1.2.0 Launch Day Serverside Hotfix

The following changes will apply automatically to new areas you enter. You don’t need to restart your client.

• Improved Merveil’s AI.
• Fixed a crash related to Vagan in hideouts.
• Fixed a crash related to Elreon missions.
• Fixed the ability to craft an invalid item.
• Fixed numerous small problems with masters and their missions.

1.2.0 Patch Notes

Version 1.2.0: Forsaken Masters
Notes:

• Due to substantial balance changes, every existing character has been granted an optional full passive reset. To use this, click the "Reset all Passives" button on the passive skill screen. Note that you must use this before allocating or refunding any other points otherwise the option will go away.

New Three-Month Challenge Leagues:

• Challenge leagues are a great opportunity for a fresh start. All your old characters and items are still present in the Standard and Hardcore leagues, but you're encouraged to join the new economies, complete challenges and climb the ladder!
• This pair of challenge leagues will run for three months - from August 20 to November 20, US time.
• The new challenge leagues include a set of eight new challenges! Players who complete five or eight of the challenges receive an exclusive microtransaction helmet skin. The first 50 players to complete all eight challenges will receive an exclusive Rampage/Beyond challenge shirt.
• Rampage: Rampage is a standard league where kill streaks cause devastating effects to occur. Each kill causes you to become slightly faster and deal more damage. The kill streak wears off after five seconds of no kills.
• Beyond: Beyond is a Hardcore league (characters who die are converted to Standard characters). In the Beyond league, demons from another realm are attempting to invade Wraeclast. Monster kills have a chance to cause small portals to appear. If enough portals spawn close together, a larger portal opens and demons flow forth. Several of those larger portals close together can open a third tier that results in one of several truly terrifying entities to emerge.
• Out of the 15 total Unique items added in this update, there are three new Unique items that can only drop in in the Rampage challenge league, and three that can only drop in the Beyond challenge league.

Core Forsaken Masters Features:

Seven men and women, masters in their fields, stood against Dominus' tyranny. Some with words, others with steel. Seven masters forsaken, sent to die in a corrupted land. Seven masters who lived, learned, and now thrive in Wraeclast. Seven Forsaken Masters who can train you... if you choose to help them.

• The seven Forsaken Masters each have their own style of mission and each of these missions has many variations. As you explore deeper into Wraeclast, the pool of available variations increases to challenge you in new ways. All of the missions and their variations can occur anywhere in the game, including within end-game Maps. Once you've helped a master with their mission once, they appear in regular towns to talk to.
• Completing missions earns you reputation (which contributes to the level of that master) and favour (used for purchasing decorations for your hideout).
• Each master acts as a vendor for items. The range of items increases with each master level (up to a chance at being offered a Unique item at level 8). Their inventory refreshes after you start each daily mission with them.
• Each master has one special build-enabling crafting mod that is only available on a magic item sold by them. It's up to you whether you use it as-is, augment it to add one more mod or use Regal/Exalted orbs to try to create an amazing rare.
• You can claim a personalised hideout for free from any level 3 or higher master. Once you have a hideout, you can travel there using the waypoint panel. Hideouts are shared among all your characters in that league. Each master has their own distinctive hideout tileset on offer.
• You can allow access to friends, party members and guild members from within your hideout (on the Hideout Stash screen). Hideouts can hold up to 32 players at once.
• Once masters are at level 2, they can be invited to your hideout. While in your hideout, they offer you daily missions which provide 250% reputation and favour. If your friends help you with a daily mission, they receive normal reputation and favour.
• The size of your hideout affects how many masters it can hold. It starts with a capacity of two, but can be upgraded to three or four when your master reaches levels six and eight respectively. This also modifies the amount of space in your hideout.
• Dismissing a master from your hideout removes any reputation they have on their current level.
• Talking to a master in your hideout allows you to receive a Crafting Bench that can be placed in your hideout. The bench levels up with the master and has more options with each level. You can still use a crafting bench even after you've dismissed that master from your hideout. Visitors can't use your crafting benches.
• Vorici allows you to modify an item's sockets and links with his crafting bench.
• Zana allows you to open end-game Maps at a personal Map Device in your hideout. Mods can be purchased that affect the Map as it is opened.
• The other five masters allow you to craft an mod onto an item. To craft an item, click on the bench, place an item in the window and select a mod. Mods purchased in this way appear in a slightly different colour than normal. They can be removed by level 8 crafting benches.
• Note that these mods obey normal rules. You can't have more than three prefixes, three suffixes or six mods in total. You can't craft a mod onto a magic item that has both a prefix and a suffix. It must be upgraded to a rare item with a Regal Orb first.
• Hideout decorations can be purchased from masters in exchange for favour. Each master has a separate favour total. These decorations appear in your Hideout Stash. You can place them in the world by right clicking on them and clicking somewhere in your hideout. They can then be dragged around, rotated (use the radial slider or R/Shift+R keys) or reclaimed (Delete key). The arrow keys can also be used to move the selected decoration. The mousewheel (or PageUp/PageDown keys) cycles between different variations of the decoration.
• Forsaken Masters supporter packs include hideout banners. These appear in your microtransaction stash and can also be placed in the world as decorations. When reclaimed, these will go to your microtransaction stash. We will later sell some other cosmetic hideout decorations/environments/tilesets in our microtransaction shop.
• When the new challenge leagues end, your hideout stashes will be merged with the destination leagues (Rampage with Standard, Beyond with Hardcore). Your favour totals will be added together. The highest reputation value with each master will be used.

Major Features/Content:

• We've added an optional Quest Tracker, which displays your current quest objectives on the right side of the screen. This is also used to display the current objective of the Master Mission you're in at the time.
• We've added various Tutorials to the start of the game. They're designed to be non-intrusive and can be disabled or reset in the options.
• Added a new Dexterity skill - Tornado Shot: Fire a piercing shot that travels until it reaches the targeted location. It will then fire projectiles out in all directions from that point.
• Added a new Strength/Intelligence skill - Herald of Ash: Channel fire through your hands, adding fire to your physical damage. If you kill an enemy with an attack, other enemies near them will be ignited for the overkill damage.
• Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence skill - Herald of Ice: Channel ice through your hands, adding cold damage to spells and attacks. If you shatter an enemy, they explode and deal cold damage to enemies near them.
• Added a new Dexterity skill - Poacher's Mark: A curse that reduces enemy evasion, grants you life and mana when you hit them, increases your flask charge gain and has a chance to grant you a Frenzy Charge when you kill them.
• Added a new Strength/Intelligence support gem - Generosity: Auras linked to Generosity have increased Aura effect for your allies, but do not affect you.
• Many boss fights (including Brutus and Merveil) have been improved. See the notes below for specific changes.
• Added 15 new Unique items. Seven of these were designed by supporters.

Minor Features/Content:

• We've added a new Duelist Rogue Exile called Zacharie Desmarais. This exile uses Molten Strike and Lightning Strike.
• We've added a new Marauder Rogue Exile called Vickas Giantbone. This exile uses Ethereal Knives totems and Bear Trap as well as Vulnerability curse and Enfeeble on Damage Taken.
• We've added a new Shadow Rogue Exile called Wilorin Demontamer. He uses Ball Lightning, Storm Call and specialises in Critical Strikes.
• Added PvP Spectator mode. Use the new /spectate (character name) command or right-click someone on your friends list and choose the Spectate option. The specified character must be a mutual friend currently in a PvP area. You must also meet the quest and level requirements for that area yourself. You can use /town to return to your most recent town. You can use the arrow keys to change the perspective of which character you're spectating.
• We've substantially improved the detail of error messages for various activities. For example, when a currency item fails to apply to another item, it now gives a detailed error message explaining why.
• We've improved the user interface and moved many commonly used elements to a menu to make feature discovery easier for new players.
• When respecialising bandit quests, if the use of the book would fail, you now receive an error message explaining why. If it would succeed, you now see a confirmation prompt that explains what will change.
• Flasks now refill when entering a PvP area, unless you're in a Famine league.
• The mouse-over tooltip for skills now has comma delimitation for thousands of DPS.
• Chickens have been added to the Forest Encampment.
• Added an effect for long-duration stuns.
• Added a new Frenzy effect.
• 3D art has been added for the following items: Prismatic Eclipse, Storm Cloud, Alternate Art Brightbeak and The Three Dragons.
• Continued to incrementally improve the sound, art, effects and environments.

Content from the Ambush/Invasion Leagues:

• After the last two challenge leagues ended, we've folded their content into the core Path of Exile experience in the following ways:
• Strongboxes can now spawn in all leagues, starting from the Submerged Passage in Normal difficulty. The weightings of each Strongbox type has been adjusted with ordinary Strongboxes being much more common than other variants. Mods for these Strongboxes have been adjusted. Cartographer's Boxes now have lower values of some Strongbox mods.
• The new quiver progression added in Ambush and Invasion has now been introduced to all leagues. The old Standard and Hardcore quivers will no longer drop. The unique Blackgleam will drop on the Fire Arrow Quiver basetype. The unique Broadstroke will no longer drop.
• The Voideye and Vaal Caress Unique items will no longer drop, as they are homed to the Ambush and Invasion leagues.
• The Invasion monster pack and guest-monster system has been made standard for the entire game. Early areas have some new monster varieties as a result, and there's more monster diversity in later difficulties.
• Some Invasion bosses have been reintroduced as regular unique monsters:
• The Guardian of the Mound has been rebalanced and added to The Prisoner's Gate.
• Spinesnap has been rebalanced and added to the Slums Sewers.
• The Revenant has been rebalanced and added to The Docks.
• Tailsinger has been rebalanced and added to The Riverways.
• Kall Foxfly has been rebalanced and added to The Blackwood.

General Balance Changes:

• Player life per level has been increased from 8 to 12.
• Monster elemental resistances have been reworked. Many of the more common monsters types no longer have resistances in Normal difficulty. Some more challenging monster types will have resistances and Unique monsters will have a large amount of an appropriate resistance. All main questline, Map and corrupted area bosses have elemental and chaos resistance, though at a lower value.
• All cases of "snapshotting" have been fixed. If you change your items or support gems, then any persistent effects of skills (for example, minions or auras) will update to reflect the changes. You no longer gain benefit from items or gems that are not currently equipped.
• Shock and Shocked Ground have been changed so that they cause 50% increased damage taken (rather than 30%) but no longer stack. They do not stack with each other either. "Cannot Be Shocked" now prevents players being affected by either Shocked Ground or Shock itself.
• Higher level maps are now slightly harder than before.
• Corrupted secret areas offer greater a chance of fragments in later difficulties. The chance of corrupted secret areas spawning has been adjusted.
• Corrupted secret areas can no longer spawn in the first area of an act (the one before the town of the act).
• Blind now reduces hit chance by 50% rather than by 75%.
• Both physical and elemental damage reflection from monster auras have been reduced from 15% to 14% reflection.
• In 1v1 duels and 3v3 PvP, Conversion Trap no longer affects players.
• The Trap and Mine support gems now have multiplicative damage bonuses that are specific to traps and mines respectively. This means that you can't cast a skill through a trap and a mine for double bonuses. In addition, Trap and Mine damage bonuses now do not benefit minions cast through traps or mines.
• The Reduced Mana support gem is now available for all classes as a quest reward.
• Totem life increases have been increased to compensate for the fixing of a bug where they applied twice.

General Skill Balance:

• Early quest rewards have been reworked. The Shadow now gets Viper Strike as their first gem, while the Duelist gets Double Strike. Several other early rewards have been changed and adjusted.
• The mana cost of all skills has been revised. In general most skills have had their mana costs reduced. Much of the mana cost reduction is focused on skill levels that fall between player levels 20 and 40.
• Vaal skills can no longer be supported by Trigger Gems.

Skill Reworks:

• Arctic Breath: Cast time has been reduced from 1000ms to 800ms. The mana cost has been reduced further than other skills to account for the change in cast time. Its damage has been reduced by 20%. The same change was applied to monster versions of this skill, though to a lesser or no extent if they had a cooldown or mana cost.
• Burning Arrow: This skill now deals 130% of base damage, has 50% converted to fire, and has a fixed ignite chance. It gains increased burning damage and physical damage per level.
• Cold Snap: We changed the freeze chance to 30% at all levels. We increased the damage of Cold Snap by 50% at all levels.
• Critical Weakness: Life and mana on kill have been added. There's now a chance to gain a power charge when you kill an enemy. This curse has also been renamed to Assassin's Mark.
• Cyclone: This skill can no longer be supported by the Multistrike support gem.
• Detonate Dead: This now deals entirely fire damage. It deals 8% of corpse life as well as flat damage. The damage increase per level has been significantly increased. The base cast time has been decreased from 850ms to 800ms. Quality on this skill now offers substantially less cast speed, from 60% cast speed at 20 quality to 20% cast speed at 20 quality.
• Reave: The skill's base area has been increased by 17%. The area increase per stack has been reduced from 20% per stack to 15% per stack.
• Viper Strike: This skill now adds 10% of physical damage as Chaos Damage and has a 50% chance to deal 175% of the attack's damage as chaos damage over seven seconds. The effect duration won't be refreshed by new attacks, but there is no limit to how many Viper Strike debuffs an enemy can have.
• Shockwave Totem: This skill now counts as Spell Damage. Damage has been increased by 15%. Its duration has been reduced.
• Warlord's Mark: This curse now has Increased Chance to be Stunned and Reduced Enemy Stun Recovery. The life and mana leech are now not specific to physical damage. It now has a lower chance to grant Endurance Charges on enemy death.

Skill Buffs:

• We have increased the critical strike chance of most lightning spells.
• Ball Lightning: Damage has been increased by 30% at all levels.
• Cleave: This skill no longer has a damage effectiveness penalty. When dual wielding it now deals 65% of weapon damage.
• Flame Surge: We have increased the width of the Flame Surge area of effect.
• Freezing Pulse: We have increased its projectile speed. Damage is increased by 50% at level 1 (to 40% at level 20).
• Glacial Cascade: The area of effect of each ice section has been increased. This also increases the area of overlaps of sections.
• Glacial Hammer: We have increased its damage effectiveness from 125% to 130%.
• Ice Nova: We have increased the high-level damage of this skill (up to 15% by level 20).
• Ice Shot: The area and arc size has been increased. Additionally we have added damage effectiveness of 120%.
• Ice Spear: We have increased the damage by 33% at level one, to +87% at level 20.
• Lightning Strike: This skill now deals more base damage (up from 120% to 130%).
• Raise Spectre: The penalties this gives to monster life, damage and Energy Shield have been reduced by a flat 10% at all levels.
• Raise Zombie: Raised zombies now have 13% more life.
• Spark: Spark does 20% more damage at all levels. It now bounces off Frost Walls, regardless of whether they are cast by players or monsters.
• Sweep: Damage effectiveness increased from 75% to 85%.
• Summon Skeleton: Summoned Skeletons deal 50% more base damage than they did previously.

Skill Nerfs:

• All curse skills have had their power reduced so that available bonuses for them could be moved into the passive tree. Elemental resistance reduction curses have been further reduced to compensate for reduced monster resistances.
• Anger: The damage this aura provides has been reduced at higher levels (from no change at level one, to an 18% reduction in damage at level 20).
• Arc: We have reduced the damage by 15% at all levels.
• Clarity: The cast time of Clarity has been increased to 1.2 seconds to line up with other auras. The mana reservation of clarity has been increased and the mana regeneration rates adjusted.
• Elemental Weakness now gains -8% Enemy Resistances at 20% quality, instead of -10% at 20% quality.
• Enfeeble: In addition to the general curse reduction, the duration of Enfeeble has been reduced.
• Flameblast: We have reduced the critical strike chance from 6% to 5%. We have reduced the damage by 15% at all levels.
• Frenzy: This skill now has constant attack speed per frenzy charge of 5%, rather than increasing as the gem levels. Its quality bonus has been reduced from 7% attack speed to 4% attack speed per frenzy charge at 20 quality.
• Projectile Weakness: No longer reduces the enemy's chance to evade projectile attacks.
• Searing Bond: Damage at all levels has been reduced by 18%.
• Spectral Throw: We have reduced the damage effectiveness of this skill by a flat 8% at all levels.
• Summon Raging Spirit: The damage done by the summoned Raging Spirits has been reduced at higher levels, up to a 20% reduction in damage at level 20.
• Vulnerability: In addition to the general curse reduction, Vulnerability no longer affects Energy Shield. The Energy Shield Recharge Delay Increase and Energy Shield Recharge Rate Reduction stats have been removed. In addition, the Increased Chance to be Stunned and Reduced Enemy Stun Recovery stats have been removed as well. Vulnerability now only increases physical damage and degeneration damage.
• Wrath: We have reduced its damage at higher levels, from no change at level one to a 24% reduction in damage at level 20.

Support Gem Balance:

• Added Chaos Damage: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 150% to 140%.
• Added Cold Damage: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 140% to 130%.
• Added Fire Damage: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 130% to 120%.
• Added Lightning Damage: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 140% to 130%.
• Block Chance Reduction: The amount of penetration has been reduced by a flat 10% at all levels.
• Cold to Fire: This gem now converts 50% for cold damage to fire damage at all levels, and also adds a percentage of cold damage as fire damage, starting at 10% at level one.
• Curse on Hit: This trigger gem now has a 100% chance to cast socketed curses. It has 10% reduced curse effect at level 1, up to 9% increased curse effect at level 20 of the gem. The quality bonus has remained the same.
• Cast on Critical Strike: The chance to cast has been reduced by a flat 20% at all levels.
• Chain: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 200% to 175%.
• Fork: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 125% to 115%.
• Lesser Multiple Projectiles: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 150% to 140%.
• Greater Multiple Projectiles: The mana multiplier has been reduced from 200% to 165%.

Passive Skill Tree Balance:

• The Witch and Shadow passive tree starting area has been redesigned. The area surrounding the Witch, Shadow and Ranger has been redesigned. Many clusters throughout the tree now have new notables. Many values have been adjusted.
• There are now large Fire, Cold, Lightning, Wand, Dagger, Trap/Mine, Claw, Bow, Sword and Dual Wield clusters that have higher values than found in the rest of the tree.
• Percentage-based life increases have been reduced slightly and redistributed more evenly through the tree. Players receive more life per level now to compensate.
• There are now two Life and Energy Shield clusters.
• Increased Maximum Elemental Resistances have been removed and element specific bonuses are now available in smaller values on three specific defensive notables.
• Mortal Conviction has been changed to 60% less mana reservation (from 40% less).
• Curse Effect, Cast Speed, Curse Duration and Curse Area of Effect are now available in the tree. The Whispers of Doom keystone has been changed into a notable. Hex Master has changed to be 100% increased Curse Duration and is now a notable. There is a new Curse Effect notable called Skittering Runes.
• Aura Reservation Costs and Aura Effect bonuses have been reduced across the tree. A new Aura notable called Champion of the Cause has been added.
• Some special stats have been added to a few select notables. More similar stats will be coming in future patches.

Item Balance:

• All bows have had their base damage increased by 11%. This affects ones that already existed including Unique items.
• The first two tiers of weapons (with bows it's the first and third tiers) now have higher attack speeds and lower damage to compensate.
• The second tier of bows (Short Bow) has a lower attack speed and increased damage to compensate.
• The Decimation Bow and Death Bow have been given the same Increased Critical Strike Chance implicit mod as the Harbinger Bow.
• The Recurve Bow and Sniper Bow have been given the same Weapon Elemental Damage implicit mod as the Maraketh Bow.
• New tiers of life and mana flasks (Divine and Eternal) have been added at levels 65 and 70.
• Mid to higher tiers of life flasks have been buffed substantially.
• The life portion of hybrid flasks has been buffed.
• The Sapping mod on flasks now only increases life recovered by 40% (down from 60%).
• Bandit respec books can now be sold back to the vendor for 20 Orbs of Regret.

Unique Item Balance:

• The rarity tiers of many uniques have been changed. Notably, two of the experience gain items have been made much more rare. The two "additional curse" items have been made rarer.
• The rarities of uniques dropped by the uber version of Atziri has changed. Atziri's Acuity is now the rarest drop from her.
• Chin Sol has had its Increased Physical Damage increased from 75-100% to 150-180% and its attack speed increased to 10-14%, from 5%. Rerolling values using a Divine Orb on this item will also update your item.
• Crown of Eyes now only applies increased and reduced spell damage to attack damage. Multiplicative damage bonuses are not converted. This affects existing versions of the item.
• Crown of Thorns now grants 60-80 flat energy shield. Existing versions of the item will change to a value in the new range if a Divine Orb is used on it.
• Darkscorn now has Additional Physical Damage of 6-10 to 10-14 damage. This mod cannot be caused to spawn on past versions of the item.
• Dying Breath now grants 18% increased Aura Effect, instead of 18% increased damage taken. Old copies of the item have been automatically updated.
• Infractem now has Additional Physical Damage of 25-35 to 36-45 damage. This mod cannot be caused to spawn on past versions of the item.
• Mon'tregul's Grasp now grants 2000 life to Zombies, up from 500. Rerolling values using a Divine Orb on this item will update your item.
• Shackles of the Wretched now gives "You cannot be Shocked for 3 seconds after being Shocked", up from 1 second. Old versions of the item can be rolled to the new value with a Divine Orb.
• Shavronne's Revelation: Energy Shield Regeneration has been reduced from 4% to 3% per second. Existing versions of the ring will only be updated if a Divine Orb is used on them.
• Soul Mantle now has +50% totem life. This has been increased as the result of fixing a bug with totem life - the change won't affect the power of the item. Existing versions of the item will have the smaller value, which will have less impact on totem life than it previously did. Older versions can be updated with a Divine Orb.

Specific Monster Balance:

• Gneiss has been reworked. He now has a new skill where he slams the ground, dealing area of effect damage and summoning miniature minions out of the rubble to assist him.
• The Deep Dweller has been reworked. He now has two new skills - in his first form he can disturb the ground, calling Sand Spitters to emerge and assist him. He also has an additional skill in his second form where he will fire a spray of projectiles at enemies. He no longer has the slowing aura.
• Fairgraves has been reworked. He now has his own version of Spectral Throw and Summon Raging Spirit.
• The Brutus and Merveil boss fights have been redesigned. These changes also affect their end-game Map equivalents. One of the Merveil encounters now only includes the first stage of the fight. All Map versions of these fights have enhanced versions of some of their skills.
• Brutus' hook now only pulls the target that he was aiming at.
• General Gravicius in Descent: Champions and the corrupted side area boss The Sunburst Queen have been given a new skill to replace their Incinerate Novas. This skill will repeatedly pulse out fire damage waves that increase in damage with every additional cast.
• Hatebeat in The Crematorium now uses Molten Strike.
• The water elementals summoned by The Goddess of Purity in Solaris Temple Level 2 or by Asphyxia in the Reef and Waste Pool Maps now cast Ice Nova when they are killed.
• The Vessel of the Vaal's Ball Lightning skill now ticks much more frequently and does slightly less damage. This brings it in line with other Ball Lightning skills.
• The Weaver's life has been increased, following changes to her resistances.
• Chatters in the Lower Prison will now trigger a cold version of Storm Call when he hits you. His Glacial Hammer can no longer freeze you on Normal Difficulty.

Bug Fixes:

• Improved preloading of game assets to remove some small stutters during gameplay.
• Fixed a bug where players could not be selected in towns until they move for the first time.
• Fixed a bug where holding an amulet from one bandit leader would prevent you from doing other bandit quests.
• Improved the mana reservation system so that multiple percentage reservations don't round separately. This means that a 60% aura can now never prevent a 40% aura from being reserved.
• Fixed a bug related to trade where the user interface could become unresponsive.
• Fixed a bug where Curse on Hit prevented Echo supporting a spell.
• Fixed a bug where totem life bonuses counted twice.
• If an Animated Guardian is unsummoned and resummoned when not on full life, it will now return with the same amount of life it had before.
• Fixed a rare bug that could cause the game server to freeze when corrupting an item.
• Fixed a bug where the three attribute totals on the Passive Skill Screen would not scale correctly when zooming in or out.
• Discharge now only deals damage if you had charges.
• Fixed a bug where you couldn't log into another account after clicking Cancel on the unlock code window.
• Fixed a bug where players could exceed their maximum Zombie counts with Mon'tregul's Grasp.
• Fixed a bug where auras could affect hidden monsters.
• Fixed a bug where Puncture did not benefit from Increased Item Rarity or Increased Item Quantity.
• Fixed a bug where Tempest Shield would not transition between areas if you didn't have enough mana to cast the skill again at the time you transitioned.
• Fixed a bug where life and energy shield bars rounded to the nearest whole percentage.
• Fixed bugs with positioning of small life bars.
• Fixed a bug where buff counts over 99 did not display correctly.
• Fixed problems that could lead to monsters spawning too close to waypoints in the Docks, Barracks and Gardens.
• Fixed a bug with Molten Shell and mitigated physical damage reflection.
• Fixed the Barracks tents that didn't cast shadows.
• Fixed a bug where Rogue Exiles and Invaders could spawn in inaccessible rooms.
• Fixed a bug where all of a minion's skills were treated as having been trapped if the minion came from a trap.
• Fixed a bug where Unique monsters in a pack would not spawn when the pack contained a rare monster.
• Fixed a bug where Goatman Shamans with auras didn't cast Molten Shell.
• Made webcam streaming (from in the client) more efficient.

It looks like the following note was missed in the preparation of the patch notes:

• Quality on armour is now additive with other bonuses. Previously armour quality was multiplicative with final values. This is now consistent with how weapons work.

1.1.5e Patch Notes

Version 1.1.5e

• Added new Forsaken Masters Supporter Packs! Check them out here.

Path of Exile: Forsaken Masters

Since releasing the Sacrifice of the Vaal expansion in March, we've been working hard on our next major update to Path of Exile. Today, we're proud to announce Path of Exile: Forsaken Masters.

Some say that Dominus exiled the dregs of Oriath to the shores of Wraeclast. No, he exiled anyone who was going to give him trouble, who was going to cause ripples in his progressive theocracy.

Seven men and women, masters in their fields, stood against Dominus' tyranny. Some with words, others with steel. Seven masters forsaken, sent to die in a corrupted land. Seven masters who lived, learned, and now thrive in Wraeclast. Seven Forsaken Masters who can train you... if you choose to help them.

We've announced two of the seven Masters and will be revealing the other five over the next few weeks. Along with many unique mission variations, each Master has its own specialised crafting options, a different Hideout tileset and tiers of Hideout decorations to unlock.

Train with the Masters

As you roam the wilderness of Wraeclast, you will sometimes cross paths with the Forsaken Masters. All seven of them have their own unique missions that they either need your help with, or want to train you to handle. Haku asks you to cleanse an ancestral area and recover a lost Karui spirit. Vorici will train you in the art of assassination.

Completing missions for the Masters will increase your reputation with them. As you progress through the eight levels of reputation with each Master, you gain access to more of what they can offer you.

Dozens of Mission Variations

The seven Masters each have their own style of mission and each of these missions has many variations. As you explore deeper into Wraeclast, the pool of available variations increases to challenge you in new ways.

The Master Assassin, Vorici, may task you with aiding him in an assassination against one of a number of well-guarded targets, leaving no survivors. The guards may have powerful mods, or be protected by traps or Rogue Exiles. Or he may want to simply send a message by grievously harming his mark, or incapacitating and robbing him, or leaving a witness to the bloodshed. Perhaps you'll have to free and rescue a helpless hostage.

All of the Missions and their variations can occur anywhere in the game, including within end-game Maps.

Customise Your Hideout

In their extensive travels throughout Wraeclast, the seven Masters have discovered ideal locations for an Exile to use as their own secret Hideout.

Once you've earned a Master's trust, you may be taken to a Hideout, where you can create your own personalised town. Masters residing in your Hideout offer you daily Missions and train you in advanced crafting options.

Use your Hideout as a quiet place to craft after battle, or expand it and use it as a personalised Guild Hall with hundreds of decorations.

Upgrade Your Crafting Benches

Each master specialises in crafting different types of items. As you gain reputation with your chosen Masters, they train you in their various specialisations. At a Crafting Bench in your Hideout, you can manipulate items in new ways, such as modifying their sockets or crafting special mods.

As you level up your Masters, you gain access to more crafting options and special abilities such as being able to modify the sockets of corrupted items.

New Items and Mods

Not only can the Masters help you craft new mods onto your items, but they also function as vendors that sell you items ranging from Skill Gems to Unique items.

Mods added by Crafting Benches appear in a brighter blue on items (pictured to the right) so that it's clear which mod will be replaced if you craft another mod onto the item.

At higher levels, each Master also sells Magic items with a specific, new, build-defining mod. These can be used as-is or crafted further with either the new Hideout Crafting Benches or the traditional Orb system to create powerful items based around these mods.

The expansion also includes 16 new Unique Items, some of which are exclusive and may only be found in one or the other of the new Challenge Leagues.

New Support and Skill Gems

Tornado Shot fires a piercing arrow that fires arrows in all directions upon impact.

Herald of Ice and Herald of Ash are self-buff skills that reserve some of your mana pool to add elemental bonuses to your attacks.

We've also overhauled many of Path of Exile's Curses and added some new ones such as Poacher's Mark.

The new Support Gem, Generosity, increases the effect of your auras on party members but prevents them affecting you.

New Challenge Leagues

With the release of Forsaken Masters, we're starting a pair of new Challenge Leagues - Rampage and Beyond. These leagues are self-contained economies and provide an opportunity for players to demonstrate their mastery of Path of Exile.

The new leagues contain eight difficult challenges. Players who complete five of these challenges will be rewarded with an exclusive microtransaction effect. Completing all eight challenges rewards you with another, different, exclusive microtransaction effect. The first 50 players to complete all of the challenges will receive a Rampage/Beyond t-shirt.

These challenge leagues last for three months. We'll be starting a second set of challenge leagues in December.

Rampage Challenge League

Rampage is the upcoming standard Challenge League. Full details of the Rampage League will be unveiled in the news update on August 8!

Beyond Challenge League

Beyond is the upcoming hardcore Challenge League. Full details of the Beyond League will be unveiled in the news update on August 15!

Updated Passive Skill Tree

We've redesigned large portions of the Passive Skill Tree - mostly focusing on the Witch, Shadow and outer Ranger areas.

We've also made extensive balance improvements to the core game that are supported by these changes.

All players will receive an optional one-off passive tree reset so that they can adjust their characters to these changes.

Revamped Existing Content

During the development of Forsaken Masters, we've revamped many of the existing boss fights in Path of Exile. Encounters with Merveil, Brutus, Captain Fairgraves and other bosses have been made more intense and surprising.

We've also added more lore for you to discover as you explore Wraeclast. Snippets of Wraeclast's history can be unveiled as you discover lore scattered around the existing acts.

Coming on August 20!

Path of Exile: Forsaken Masters will be released at 3pm on August 20 (US Pacific Time). This is midnight in the CEST timezone and 10am on August 21 in New Zealand.

This article is not the full patch notes for Path of Exile: Forsaken Masters. We'll be releasing those patch notes a day or two before the expansion is released. There are dozens of other changes included such as a new Quest Tracker, Tutorials and PvP Spectator Mode.

We're so proud of this expansion and can't wait to share it with you. There are so many interesting mission variations to explore and powerful new possibilities with crafting. Half of our development team is addicted to building custom Hideouts! Over the next three weeks we'll be updating this article with reveals of unannounced Masters and other content. Enjoy!

1.1.5d Patch Notes

Version 1.1.5d

• Enabled a timer that counts down until the release of our August mini-expansion.
• Added microtransactions for an upcoming promotion related to the Path of Exile comic.
• Fixed a bug where the Curse on Hit support gem would prevent Spell Echo from working.

1.1.5c Patch Notes

Version 1.1.5c

• We've added some new cosmetic microtransactions: Vampiric Body Armour Skin, Vampiric Helmet Skin, Vampiric Boots Skin and Vampiric Gloves Skin, Badge of Anguish Shield Skin and Badge of Mirth Shield Skin. There's also a bundle that contains all four Vampiric skins.
• We have prevented league and map mods from being displayed in towns. This is to prevent confusion in leagues that change mods over time while old towns are still open.
• Fixed a bug where minions dominated by Dominating Blow did not have their spells echoed by the Spell Echo support.
• Fixed a bug where the 40% quality total recipe was treated as higher priority than the single 20% quality item recipe.
• Fixed a bug where occasionally Fairgraves, Neverdying never dies.
• Fixed a bug where Dominating Blow minions persisted past the character's death when the player opted to return to a checkpoint.
• Fixed a bug with the interaction of the death of Shield Crabs and the Pyre unique ring.

The One-Month Leagues Have Started!

The two one-month league events have started! For more information, the ladder threads for the Regular and Hardcore events contain the rules, prizes and current standings of players. Best of luck, everyone!

1.1.5b Patch Notes

Version 1.1.5b

• Fixed issues with scroll bars in the in-game shop.
• Fixed a bug where Lightning Warp would not trigger with Trigger Gems.
• Fixed a bug with the life display when using Vaal Righteous Fire with leech and Vaal Pact.

1.1.5 Patch Notes

Version 1.1.5:
Content and Features:

• Added a new Intelligence skill - Ball Lightning: Fires a slow-moving projectile that periodically damages enemies in an area around it with bolts of lightning.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Lightning Trap: Throws a trap that launches a ring of projectiles through the enemy that set it off, dealing lightning damage to them and subsequent targets and leaving a trail of shocking ground.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Righteous Fire: A fiery blast removes your energy shield and all but 1 life, exploding outwards to deal fire damage to nearby enemies based on the life and energy shield lost.
• Added a new Intelligence Support Gem - Spell Echo: Supported spells repeat an additional time. This only works for spells manually cast by the caster or by a spell-casting spectre.
• Ball Lightning is a quest reward for the Witch, Templar, Shadow and Scion from the "Enemy at the Gate" quest in Cruel difficulty.
• Spell Echo is a quest reward from the "A Fixture of Fate" quest in Merciless difficulty.
• Added eight new cosmetic microtransactions: Arcane Helmet, Arcane Gloves, Arcane Boots, Arcane Body Armour, Ghostflame Skull, Ghostflame Weapon Effect, Ghostflame Footprints Effect and Black Hole Portal Effect. There's also a bundle that contains all four Arcane skins.
• Added four new unique items, two of which are designed by our supporters.
• Added two new achievements: Identity Corruption and Full Clear: Apex of Sacrifice.
• Added 3D art for the following items: Jaws of Agony, Saffell's Frame, Spring Leaf, Kaltenhalt, Titucius' Span, Voidhome and the Race Season Eight alternate art rewards.
• We updated and improved the appearance of Chatters.

Balance:

• Due to the slow cast speed of Ethereal Knives, we have made it cast 25% faster. Its damage has been reduced by 20% to compensate. We have reduced its mana cost so that it costs the same per second as before. The Rogue Exile Ash Lessard and the Corrupted Area boss Haviri, Vaal Metalsmith are also affected by this change.
• Most monsters now hit more frequently for less damage with Ball Lightning. Multiple projectiles from the same Ball Lightning volley use cannot simultaneously hit. Vessel of the Vaal has not been affected by these changes.
• We have reduced the Dodge and Spell Dodge from Vaal Grace. The duration has been increased.
• We have increased the damage of Raging Spirits. At gem level 1 it is 21% higher, which scales down to no increase at gem level 8 and 9. The damage then scales up at higher levels to 66% more damage at gem level 20.
• We have increased the spawn speed of the Stream of Monsters mod on ambush chests.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where Cast Times on skills were not on the Skill Gem display.
• Fixed a bug where Reave dealt main-hand damage, even on off-hand hits.
• Fixed a bug in the Sarn Arena where the shrine, exits and environmental doodads could disappear after a long period of the instance being open.
• Fixed a case where the Vaal Oversoul could get out of sync when doing a Vaal Smash.
• Fixed the buffs on Doryani's Invitation to display an appropriate icon.
• Fixed how the vanishing Fairgraves held his weapons in the Mao Kun unique map.
• Fixed a rare crash with the Headhunter unique.
• Improved the performance of the environment for the Palace Dominus Fight.
• Fixed a crash that could occur when Vaal Cyclone was used on the Ossecati, Boneshaper unique boss.
• Fixed a crash with Arcing spells being used on Piety, when she used Lightning Warp.
• Fixed a crash when using Vaal Lightning Strike on Piety, when she uses Lightning Warp.
• Fixed an issue where Piety could be in both Fire and Ice Form simultaneously.
• Fixed a bug with checkpoints and the bandit fights.
• Fixed a bug where the original Atziri would still block movement after she had split into mirror forms and she was no longer there.

1.1.4c Patch Notes

Version 1.1.4c

• We've added some new cosmetic microtransactions: Verdant Footprint Effect, Verdant Body Armour Skin, Verdant Helmet Skin, Verdant Boots Skin and Verdant Gloves Skin. There's also a bundle that contains all four Verdant skins.

1.1.4b Patch Notes

Version 1.1.4b (hotfix):
Serverside Fixes:

• The following fixes will apply when you enter a new area:
• Animated Guardians now benefit from the dual wielding bonus that other dual wielders received in 1.1.4.
• The fifth unique item introduced in 1.1.4 is now enabled to drop.
• Fixed a bug where an Invasion boss in the Chamber of Sins could be inaccessible.

Clientside Fixes:

• The following fixes will apply when you restart and update the client:
• Added a buff icon for the new Forbidden Taste unique flask.
• Fixed an occasional crash related to audio changes in 1.1.4.

1.1.4 Patch Notes

Version 1.1.4:
Content and Features:

• Added a new Intelligence skill - Flame Surge: Strikes enemies in front of you with a surge of flame. Burning enemies are dealt more damage.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Flameblast: Targets an area and builds up a large explosion. The build-up speed is based on cast speed. The explosion occurs after it reaches 10 stacks.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Grace: Casts a temporary aura that grants you and your allies the ability to dodge attacks and spells.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Clarity: Casts a temporary aura that lets you and your allies cast skills without paying their mana costs.
• Flame Surge is a quest reward for the Witch, Templar and Shadow from the quest "Intruders in Black" in Normal.
• Added three new cosmetic microtransactions: Tentacle Wings Back Attachment, Soul Nexus Clarity Effect and Bandana Helmet Skin.
• Added five new unique items, four of which are designed by our supporters. One of the uniques is a unique map.
• Added two new achievements: Virtue Corruption and Dream Enrichment.
• Added one new vendor recipe involving common Vaal items.
• Added 3D art for the following items: Chernobog's Pillar, Fencoil, Shavronne's Wrappings and Skullhead.
• We have added armour and weapon racks to the Barracks area. These chests drop only armour or only weapons respectively.
• We changed the way longer audio files are loaded and played to reduce load times and memory use.
• We have added race rewards and the functionality required for Race Season Eight.
• Updated and improved several audio elements of the game.

Vaal Side Areas from Fragments:
To provide both the ability to run Vaal areas at will without re-spawning areas, and to use additional Fragments that players have accumulated, a new feature has been added to the map device.

• We have added the ability to spawn Vaal areas in The Eternal Laboratory using Vaal Fragments. If you use one Fragment, a Vaal side area will created as a map. If you use all four fragments, they must be in the correct arrangement for creating Atziri's area.

Map Mods:
We have made changes to how degeneration in map mods is handled. This change was made as the Suffering mod inhibited hybrid life/ES builds from being played. This is a style of defence we would like to see used as an option, however this one map mod was very punitive to this style of play. This map mod also overstressed the requirement for a base amount of life regeneration, which is not equally available to all classes.

• We removed the Suffering map mod and replaced it with two other mods filling the same role, "of Venom" and "of Desecration". The replacement mods keep the chaos damage over time flavour, but are not an always-on effect.
• "of Venom" has been added as a map mod, which gives all the monsters on the map Poison on Hit.
• "of Desecration" has been added as a map mod, which gives the map patches of Desecrated ground.

Dual Wielding Changes:
We have made changes to dual wielding to improve it. Dual wielding was weaker than the alternatives of using a shield or a two-handed weapon (which received improvements as part of 1.1.0). We want dual wielding builds to be as viable as other build types.

• Players now receive a +20% physical damage multiplier while dual wielding.
• We have reduced the damage of Dual Strike by 10%, but it's still higher than it was before because of the new dual wielding bonus. This particular skill was already very strong, and it benefited too greatly from the dual wielding buff. This change will make more skills viable to use while dual wielding, especially earlier in the game, and reward high physical damage one-handed weapons.
• A bug in monster dual wielding was also fixed. Their off hand weapon was doing no damage.
• In reaction to the off-hand damage of monsters being fixed, we have reduced the damage of most dual wielding monsters by 20%, and a further 10% less damage with Dual Strike.

Descent: Champions Changes:
Descent: Champions is the signature race of Season Eight. It will be run as 40 minute races. We have made several changes to Descent: Champions to make the race more suitable for this purpose:

• We removed many dead ends, and increased the linear nature of The Entrance Hall, The Chattering Halls, The Croaking Halls and The Rasping Halls.
• We moved the entrance to The Freezing Chamber to be more central in The Rasping Halls.
• We moved the entrance to The Obelisks of Faith to be more central in The Haunted Dungeon.
• We moved the entrance to The Chamber of Greed to be more central in The Burning Cave.
• Added a new Unique Claw (Scar of Fate) to one of the starting chests.
• Added a new Unique One Hand Sword (Blood of Summer) to both of the starting chests.
• Buffed Tear of Entropy (Unique Helmet), Relic of the Cycle (Unique Bow) and Remnant of Empires (Unique Shield).
• The Templar now receives the Flameblast Skill Gem.
• The Shadow now receives the Glacial Cascade Skill Gem.
• The Templar no longer receives the Summon Skeletons Skill Gem.
• The Templar's Lightning Strike skill gem has been moved to the opposing area's chest.
• The Marauder and Duelist now receive Molten Strike in the provisions chest.

General Balance:

• We have increased the rewards from Olmec's Sanctum and Acton's Nightmare, to help bring them in line with the rewards gained from other unique maps.
• We have reduced the movement penalty that armour types have as follows:
• Tower Shields now have a 3% movement speed penalty (the same as other shields) instead of 6%.
• Body Armour now has a 3% movement penalty, with Strength or Strength/Intelligence armour having a 5% penalty, instead of 4% and 8% respectively.
• Plate Vest only has a 3% movement speed penalty, rather than the 5% that other Strength armour has.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where areas with corrupted secret areas inside them would take noticeably longer to load.
• Fixed a bug where exploding strongboxes would not have a delay before they exploded.
• Fixed map bonus from fragments on The Alluring Abyss area to be consistent with the Fragment bonuses on The Apex of Sacrifice area.
• Fixed a bug where some skills could move monsters or players to inside terrain.
• Fixed a bug where spiralling projectiles could go into the ground or into the sky arbitrarily.
• Fixed some common cases where Strongboxes could block progress.
• Fixed a bug where character audio looped in character creation.
• Fixed a bug where the Anarchic prefix did not always spawn an Exile in low-level side areas.
• Fixed a bug where creating a new character on an account with no characters would not have a default league.
• Fixed a bug where the zombie on the opening beach could show model segments during his bite animation.
• Fixed an issue where corrupting some unique quivers could remove the level requirement.
• Fixed some issues with the Eternal Weapon Effect for some weapon types.
• Fixed some issues with Witch weapon animations.

1.1.3b Patch Notes

Version 1.1.3b (hotfix):
Serverside Fixes:

• The following fixes will apply when you enter a new area:
• Fixed a bug where Vaal Reave was not correctly identified as a Vaal Gem in some circumstances, such as recipes. The recipes affected won't update on town instances that were created before the hotfix.

Clientside Fixes:

• The following fixes will apply when you restart and update the client:
• Fixed a bug where Vaal Reave was not correctly identified as a Vaal Gem in some circumstances, such as recipes. On the client this will show as having the correct tags.
• Fixed a bug where Vaal Auras showed Skill Duration instead of Buff Duration.
• Fixed a minor bug where when swapping a skill bar slot from one disabled skill to another skill that is disabled for a different reason, the popup text saying why it was disabled would not change, and would thus be incorrect.

1.1.3 Patch Notes

Version 1.1.3:
Content and Features:

• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Reave: Repeatedly attacks a large area in different directions. Each Vaal Reave that hits an enemy increases the area of effect.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Haste: Casts a temporary aura that increases the movement speed, attack speed and cast speed of you and your allies.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Discipline: Casts a temporary aura that grants energy shield to you and your allies and prevents energy shield recharge being delayed by damage taken.
• Added a new Strength skill - Molten Strike: Attacks a target with physical and fire damage, causing balls of molten magma to launch forth from your weapon as you swing. These will explode, causing AoE attack damage to enemies where they land.
• Added a new Intelligence skill - Convocation: Recalls all minions that are following you to your location and grants them a temporary life regeneration effect.
• Molten Strike is a quest reward for "Enemy at the Gate" on Normal Difficulty for the Templar, Marauder, Duelist and Scion.
• Convocation is a quest reward for "Enemy at the Gate" on Cruel difficulty for the Witch, Templar and Scion.
• Added two new cosmetic microtransactions: Seraph Wings Back Attachment and Gore Glacial Cascade Effect.
• The character creation process has been streamlined so that you have to select a character class before you can type in a character name. Some new players were struggling to understand the flow of this UI before.
• Added four new Unique items, three of which were designed by supporters.
• Added three new unique chests that can appear in the Ambush league.
• Added two new achievements: Cut-throat and Dream Corruption.
• Added two new recipes to assist early game summoners.
• Changed the appearance of Kuduku, the False God to the Tiki Totem.
• Added an option to constrain the mouse pointer to the window.
• Added new versions of the Storm Call effect for monster usage of the skill.
• Added a Shrine symbol for the Static Shrine.
• Updated the loading screen for Map areas.

Sacrifice of the Vaal and Invasion Challenge League Balance:
These changes reinforce the positive and popular elements of the new content and make the content more generally accessible.

• We have continued to adjust Invasion and Corrupted Secret Area bosses. In general this has involved reducing the quantity of summons and reducing high spike damage, while retaining the pace changes and different tactics that players have praised.
• Added new map mods to be used in Corrupted Secret Areas that are generally smaller versions of normal map mods. Some map mods have been removed from the Corrupted Secret Area pool.
• Increased the relative drop rates of rarer Vaal fragments.
• Increased the spawn chance of Vaal side areas by around 120% in the permanent leagues.

Early Game Difficulty and Act 1 Boss/Monster Balance:
These changes are intended to remove some of the higher-variance negative experiences that can occur to new players in the early game, while retaining the essence and general difficulty of Path of Exile.

• We have replaced Hailrake's Ice Spear with Glacial Cascade in all difficulties. His AI has been improved.
• Removed the critical strike chance from monster versions of Firestorm in Normal difficulty.
• Removed the critical strike chance from Blackguard and Rhoa Shield Charges in Normal Difficulty.
• Removed the invulnerability period from Hillock when he is drawing his sword in all difficulties.
• Reduced the damage, duration and radius of the zombie Poison Cloud on Death in all difficulties.

General Balance:

• Changed Reave stacks so they are shared between multiple versions of the skill, if a player uses multiple copies of the Reave gem.
• Added a cap for Dodge and Spell Dodge of 75%.
• Changed Life, Mana and Hybrid flasks to no longer be usable when they would have no function. That is, when there is no life and/or mana to recover and there is no on-use effect.
• It is now possible to evade Antalie Napora's Vaal Burning Arrow.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug with Ice Nova and Cast on Critical Strike, where Ice Nova would do no damage when triggered by a critical strike of a projectile attack skill.
• Fixed an issue where the Warrior Supporter Portal nameplate was shown in the wrong place.
• Solved a situation where Vaal Summon Skeletons summoned fewer skeletons if the summoner had summoned skeletons from a standard Summon Skeleton skill.
• Fixed a bug where an unset ring that was disabled by Thief's Torment would re-enable on having things socketed in or out of it.
• Fixed a bug where Offerings were not affected by buff duration increases.
• Fixed an issue where a momentary Grace Period buff was applied to users when using a teleporter.
• Fixed an issue with the unique item Voidbringer where its 3d art causing certain animations to appear incorrect.
• Fixed some bugs with items spawning from Strongboxes.
• Improved the Bandit Respecs so that Eramir's dialogue now correctly updates when you alter your bandit decisions.
• Fixed issues with environmental effects in the Scepter of God that commonly occured when re-entering the area after a death.
• Fixed an animation problem with the Ranger that would occur when throwing traps while also holding a bow.
• Fixed an issue with Torture Chamber boss room's exit teleporter not disabling once the boss had been engaged.
• Fixed a bug where effects on off-hand weapons would flicker under certain circumstances.

1.1.2b Patch Notes

Version 1.1.2b:
Content/Features:

• You can now report inappropriate posts on the forum by clicking "Report Post". Please use this feature responsibly.
• Added 3d art to the alternate art Thousand Ribbons and Starkonja's Head race rewards.
• Added some new cosmetic microtransaction skins: Elite Body Armour, Elite Helmet, Elite Boots and Elite Gloves. There's also a discounted bundle that contains all four.

Rogue Exile Balance:
We have always intended Rogue Exiles to feel like an encounter with a player. We have taken several steps to take them in this direction. Rogue Exile encounters should now feel shorter and more fair, while still providing excitement and danger.

• Reduced the life values of Rogue Exiles. We felt the encounters with Rogue Exiles were too grindy and continued past the point where the player felt they had mastered the Exile.
• We prevented Rogue Exiles from casting Vaal skills more times than their number of charges in most cases.
• Reduced the damage of Antalie Napora's Vaal Burning Arrow.
• Reduced the number of skeletons summoned by Minara Anemina's Vaal Summon Skeletons.
• Reduced the cast speed of Magnus Stonethorn's Flameblast.
• Changed the AI of several Rogue Exiles to provide a better and more fair experience.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where The Vertex (a Unique helmet) would reduce mana reservation by 50% in addition to its intended properties.
• Fixed a bug where Dominus could appear outside his arena after a player death.
• Fixed a bug where cosmetic pets would sometimes become stuck and not move upon being summoned.
• Fixed a bug in PVP where the winner of a round would not get their life, mana and energy shield restored.
• Fixed issues with players becoming blocked by booty chests in the Mao Kun unique map. These chests no longer block movement after they are opened.

1.1.2 Patch Notes

Version 1.1.2:
Content and Features:

• Added support for checkpointing. When you die in a non-hardcore league, you can choose between reviving in town or reviving at the last checkpoint. Checkpoints are made when you enter new areas or use internal teleporters within an area.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Storm Call: Sets a marker at a location. While the marker remains, lightning strikes random enemies near it, dealing damage to them. After a short duration, a large bolt of lightning strikes the marker, dealing damage around it. When this happens, it will also set off the lightning at any other markers from this skill.
• Added a new Intelligence skill - Glacial Cascade: Icicles emerge from the ground in a series of small bursts, each damaging enemies caught in their area.
• Glacial Cascade is first available to the Witch, Templar, Shadow and Scion from "The Caged Brute" in Normal difficulty.
• Added a new Dexterity/Intelligence Support Gem - Block Chance Reduction: This is a recipe-only support gem intended to have a PVP focus. It reduces the chance to block or spell block supported skills.
• Added five new Unique items, four of which were designed by our supporters. One of the new Uniques is a map.
• Added two new cosmetic microtransactions: Seraph Weapon Effect and Seraph Footprint Effect.
• New recipes have been added for the Block Chance Reduction Support Gem, and the new low level quiver unique. The recipe for Cartographer's Chisels has been extended.
• Ground Slam's visual effect has been updated.
• 3d art has been added for the following items: Atziri's Splendour, Rearguard, Drillneck and the alternate art Blackgleam.
• Added two new achievements: "Hostile Territory" and "Behold My Army".
• Introduced two new Rogue Exiles: a Templar and a Scion.
• Introduced two new Invasion Bosses into the pool of Invasion Bosses.
• Added a new Map Mod - Antagonist's: Rare Monsters each have a Nemesis mod.
• Several corrupted secret area bosses and Invasion bosses have new visual effects.
• Flamebearers in the Sceptre of God now have a new golden skin.

Balance:

• Substantially rebalanced Invasion bosses, including changing their abilities. Many of the more extreme ones are now easier. Corrupted secret area bosses and Rogue Exiles were also updated in this process.
• Arc and Vaal Arc have had their damage increased by 60%. Arc and Vaal Arc can now no longer chain back to the same target immediately, but must now bounce one more time. Arc now increases in chain counts as the gem increases in level.
• Poison Arrow's damage has been increased by 8% at level 1, scaling up to an increase of 75% at level 15 of the gem.
• Reduced Cleave penalty from -30% to -20%.
• Shockwave Totem's pulses have been sped up from 0.75 seconds to 0.60 seconds each.
• Arctic Breath's damage has been increased by 42% at level 1, up to an increase of 95% at level 15.
• Flesh Offering now grants 30% attack, movement and cast speed at level 1, up to 40% at level 21 of the gem.
• Glacial Hammer now has specific PvP raw scaling, so that it does 30% less damage in PvP situations. This is on top of existing PvP scaling.
• Smoke Mine no longer teleports your minions with you when detonated.
• Monster versions of Molten Shell now require more damage to set off at higher levels.
• The "of Fracturing" map mod now gives 30% additional quantity and has been made rarer.
• Undying Evangelists now appear less frequently within their packs.
• Undying Evangelists' Proximity Shields have a shorter duration, and they use it less often.
• Atziri now removes curses correctly when she enters her mirror phase.
• Increased the drop rate of rare Vaal Fragments.
• Reduced the drop rate of Vaal Orbs.
• Some Rogue Exiles now use Vaal skills.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where using Desecrate in the Eternal Laboratory in the Invasion League would generate different monster corpses than in other leagues.
• Fixed a bug where Chain and Fork did not work correctly with Vaal Power Siphon.
• Fixed a bug where Dominus in the Palace Map did not correctly trigger his monster spawners when entering his second phase.
• Fixed a bug where aura skills linked with totems and trigger gems could be cast manually in addition to being triggered.
• Fixed a bug where Demigod's Bounty had no vendor sell price.
• Fixed a bug with Strongbox monster spawning where some monsters would fail to be created.
• Claw Nodes in the Shadow and Ranger areas have had their art corrected.
• Fixed a bug where Exiles that were supposed to have the Resolute Technique Keystone were not always hitting.
• Fixed a bug in Capture the Flag where, if a player died while converted, he would resurrect on the wrong team.
• Unset Ring's 2D Art has been corrected to not be the same as that of the Voideye unique.
• Fixed a bug where you could not get to The Desecrated Shrine in Descent races.
• Fixed a bug where Sarn Arena announcements did not attribute minion kills correctly.
• Fixed various issues with the sync and functionality of Atziri's Flameblast.

1.1.1c Patch Notes

Version 1.1.1c:

• Added support for Race Season 7.
• Added the Vaal microtransactions for the first 50 Ambush and 50 Invasion Atziri kills.
• In cut-throat events, the exit to character screen option is now disabled.
• Fixed issues with blocked progress in the Breaking Some Eggs quest and The Root of the Problem quest related to deleted quest items. If you had quest items that were recently deleted, then you should be able to finish the relevant quests as though the quest items were still there.
• Fixed a bug with the Elemental Proliferation support on Doryani's Catalyst.
• Fixed a bug with the damage dealt by Bladeback Guardian.
• Fixed several issues with unreachable chests in areas based on The Docks.

We have deployed a small hotfix to resolve the bug where the Endless Ledge would spawn with incorrect monsters. This includes a client-side update. We have not incremented the version number of the client.

1.1.1b Patch Notes

Version 1.1.1b:

• Fixed a bug where Desecrate would not choose from the full pool of available monsters in the current world area in Invasion League.
• Fixed a bug that caused the damage dealt by Detonate Dead to be delayed.
• Prevented mirrored items from being used in Vendor recipes that upgrade or improve existing items.
• Fixed a bug that caused the first level of Explosive Arrow to have a greater mana cost than intended.
• Fixed a bug with Vaal Summon Skeleton's placement of skeletons.
• Simplified the display text for implicit mods that grant active skills.
• Simplified the display text for the mods on the Three Dragons unique.

1.1.1 Patch Notes

Version 1.1.1:
Atziri's Influence Grows Stronger:
Piece by piece, Wraeclast bows to its new monarch. The lovely Atziri, Queen of Sacrifice. As Wraeclast bleeds, Atziri's thirst only grows.

• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Summon Skeletons: Summons an army of skeletal warriors, archers and mages, led by a powerful general.
• Added a new corrupted Skill Gem - Vaal Glacial Hammer: Hits the enemy, converting some of your physical damage to cold damage. It traps the enemy with you in a circle of ice so that it can't escape.
• Vaal Orbs can now generate more corrupted implicit mods than before.
• Players are now 20% more likely to encounter a Corrupted Secret Area.
• Rarer Vaal Fragments are now more likely to drop.

Content/Features:

• Added two new Unique items, both designed by our supporters.
• Added two new cosmetic microtransactions: Guardian Mask Helmet Skin and Arctic Ice Nova Spell Effect.
• Added two new achievements: Vaal Gemling (have a Vaal gem reach level 20) and Full Spectrum (corrupt an item to have a white socket).
• Added a new vendor recipe.
• Added a new Map Mod - Anarchic: Map contains two extra Rogue Exiles.
• When a player is slain in the Sarn Arena, the kill is now announced locally with both character names shown.
• Improved zombie dismemberment.
• More Invasion bosses have distinct visual indicators.

Balance Changes:

• Substantially rebalanced Invasion bosses, including changing their abilities. Many of the more extreme ones are now easier and some of the weaker ones are harder. We've changed the behaviour of bosses that used to be able to kill you before you saw them. Some Corrupted Secret Area bosses were updated in this process also.
• Increased the quantity and rarity of items dropped from Corrupted Secret Area and Invasion bosses.
• Invasion bosses which are harder than average now drop increased rewards in higher difficulties based on their level of challenge.
• Fixed a problem where Flameblast was accidentally buffed heavily in 1.1.0. Based on feedback on the insane version, we then buffed the pre-1.1.0 version by 48% on purpose in this patch.
• If you use a skill that causes a projectile spiral (like Vaal Fireball) from inside an enemy, then only the first projectile can collide with the enemy now.
• Increased the quantity bonus on the of Fracturing Map mod from 21% to 27% and reduced the chance of this mod spawning.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where monsters could spawn on small islands in the rivers inside caves.
• Fixed a bug where Orbs of Chance would be consumed without effect when used on Map Fragments.
• Fixed a bug related to Blood Elementals playing the emerge animation at the wrong time.
• Fixed a bug where the Imperial Gardens occasionally generated in an incompletable state.
• Fixed a bug where a player was able to walk to the edge of a level.
• Corrected the name of the Life and Mana node in the Witch starting area of the passive tree.
• Fixed a bug where it was possible for monsters to become stuck in the Neglected Cellar.
• Fixed a problem where Vaal Vessels in the Vaults of Atziri could drop items that were impossible to pick up.
• Removed an unfinished skill from an Invasion boss.
• Fixed a bug that could cause the Corrupted Secret Area attached to The Southern Forest to be inaccessible.
• Fixed a bug where monsters could spawn in bad locations in The Docks.
• Fixed a bug where the Strongbox mod that drops additional magic or rare items would have no effect on Maps.
• Fixed a bug that could cause monsters spawned by the Strongbox stream-of-monsters mod to behave strangely.
• Fixed a bug where Jeweller's Orbs would not prevent you rerolling an item that had more sockets than it naturally could have at that itemlevel, due to dropping from a Strongbox with the increased sockets mod.

1.1.0f Patch Notes

Version 1.1.0f (hotfix):
Serverside Fixes:

• The following fixes will apply when you enter a new area:
• Fixed a bug where the Strongbox mod that dropped additional magic or rare items would not always drop the correct number.
• Fixed a bug where some mod restrictions on Strongboxes would not work (for example, quality mods could erroneously spawn on Jeweler's Strongboxes).
• Fixed a bug where the level 78 tri-attribute hybrid defensive mod could spawn on lower-tier Sacrificial Garbs.
• Fixed some cases where atypically few or many Strongboxes could spawn in some areas.
• Fixed two more instance crashes.

1.1.0e Patch Notes

Version 1.1.0e (hotfix):
Serverside Fixes:

• The following fixes will apply when you enter a new area:
• Reduced the damage of Searing Bond (by 28% at gem level 1, tapering to no change at gem level 20). Because most support gems don't affect Searing Bond, it's still quite powerful, especially when socketed in items that grant additional gem levels.
• Reduced the number of Maps dropped from Cartographer's Strongboxes.
• Ossecati, Boneshaper now spawns skeletons on himself rather than on the player.
• Konu, Maker of Wind no longer leeches life.
• Fixed a bug where The Bolt Juggler would set Ice Nova traps when no players were nearby.
• Reduced the spike damage potential for Spinesnap and Kamaq, Soilmaker.
• Fixed two instance crashes.

1.1.0d Patch Notes

Version 1.1.0d:
Features:

• You can now see your body armour while wearing The Bringer of Rain. This includes cosmetic microtransactions such as Wings and the Seraph Armour skin.
• Added descriptions for Ambush and Invasion leagues that appear where map properties are shown.
• Made further improvements to the spawning of Strongboxes in narrow areas like caves.

Balance:

• Vaal Skill soul counts were initially balanced for Merciless difficulty, where there are more monsters. We want them to be easier to use in Normal and Cruel difficulty. We have halved the number of souls required for each skill. In Cruel difficulty, skills require 50% more souls to uses. In Merciless difficulty, they require 100% more (which is the same as before the patch).
• Corrected the properties displayed on Shivershell so that his Vaal Detonate Dead is documented.
• Rebalanced damage of Tailsinger's Frost Wall. It's now lower at low levels and higher and high levels.
• Reduced Bladeback Guardian's Flame Nova damage at early levels.
• Halved the spawn rate of Gemcutter's Strongboxes in the Ambush league.
• Corrected a passive skill in the Marauder armour section which incorrectly had an additional 6% life.

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug where alternate gem effect microtransactions would be destroyed if you corrupted the gem to a Vaal version. If this happened to you, please contact support@grindinggear.com to have the effect restored. They can see if you actually lost one, by the way.
• Fixed some problems with trap targeting. If a trap hits the targeted monster, it will now fall to the ground and explode immediately.
• Fixed a bug where your Animated Guardian could return from the dead during a PvP match.
• Fixed a bug where spirals (as used by some Vaal skills) didn't work with multiple projectiles.
• Fixed a bug in the Crypt Level 2 that could cause no boss room to spawn.
• Fixed a problem that would allow a 0% quality gem to reach 23% quality with one Vaal Orb.
• Fixed a bug where the Vaal Vessel would not drop items in some situations.
• Fixed a bug where no monster corpses would spawn in PvP areas in the Invasion league.
• Fixed a bug where monster packs in the Ancient Pyramid would have more than one totem in the Invasion league.
• Fixed another crash related to loading fonts.
• Fixed an instance crash that can occur in the Apex of Sacrifice and the Dominus fight.

1.1.0c Patch Notes

Version 1.1.0c:
Serverside Fixes:
The following fixes will apply when you enter a new area:

• Monsters and Rogue Exiles spawned by Strongboxes in the Ambush league now drop items and grant experience when killed.
• Fixed several of the cases where Strongboxes could block physical passage through a level.
• Fixed a bug where full clears in some areas wouldn't count correctly.

This patch was deployed as a hotfix with no downtime.

1.1.0b Patch Notes

Version 1.1.0b
Serverside Fixes:
The following fixes will apply when you enter a new area:

• Fixed a game instance crash.
• Fixed a bug where monsters' Righteous Fire was affected by player PvP scaling.
• Fixed a bug where curse-on-hit effects applied by items were always level 1.
• Fixed a bug where the Templar's Power Siphon was not working correctly. You will also need to restart your client to see this behave correctly.

Clientside Fixes:
The following fixes will apply when you restart your game client:

• Rime Gaze was incorrectly displaying that it provided Melee Splash support. The display has been fixed to show that it provides Concentrated Effect.
• Fixed a crash that would occur on startup related to certain fonts that some players had installed.
• Fixed a bug with damage feedback on Vaal Molten Shell.
• Fixed audio related to new bosses.