New expansion announcement: Delve
"In Path of Exile: Delve, you will delve into the Azurite Mine’s infinite depths to extract treasure and discover its subterranean secrets.
Our latest expansion features an infinite dungeon and socketable currency items, as well as a bunch of new unique items, skill gems, balance changes, graphics engine improvements and more!
[…]
The Azurite Mine is Path of Exile’s first infinite dungeon. The deeper you delve, the harder the game gets. In Delve, you’ll find encounters that are much harder than end-game Maps. Your progress is only limited by the power of your character build. The Depth Ladder tracks who has delved the deepest into the mine.
[…]
Path of Exile: Delve will launch on August 31st (PDT) on PC and September 3rd on Xbox One."
My first thought upon reading the first couple paragraphs was “really, they made a whole league around a repeating escort mission? no thanks.” But upon further research it looks like it might actually work, and I’m now at moderate hype level.
I switched to standard for the flashback because I hadn’t seen much endgame this league; currently level 91 Ascendant trying Elemental Hit for the first time. Last time I checked I had 22 deaths. The joys of standard, opening an abyss and a breach while in a beyond map and watching the carnage unfold.
I didn’t use EH at all during the league so that it would be fresh if they did another long race. Also in SSF so I can’t do the super overpowered conversion tricks so it just feels like a strong skill rather than stupidly broken.
They look to be adding a lot in Delve but I personally hate darkness-themed stuff like this. It’s hard enough for me to see stuff, why you gotta shove me in a mine with very low lighting.
I saw in a ZiggyD video that they improved the water effects and it’s now “fully physics based” or some such. My immediate thought was… why?
Anyway, I’m sure I’ll play, at least a little.
Currently not enough stuff in game that makes the engine chug?..I kid, I kid…
Romalar
4272
They confirmed the new water is optional.
35 challenges down. Guess it’s time to try Uber Elder again. Last couple times I tried I just didn’t understand the fight mechanics well enough to keep up. I’ve upgraded my dps significantly since then and gotten better at the Shaper solo fight, so hopefully I’ll have better luck. Other option would be to try to get the omnitect challenge, but I’ve only had the lightning room tier three twice, and I fat fingered the challenge for it both times (I really suck at bullet hell).
This has definitely been my best league for progression, by far. Really looking forward to the endless dungeon in Delve to push further.
It’s about that time again.
Going to wait a bit to start this one, myself, but I’m sure there’s plenty of folks beating up the servers.
Community announcement for peeps with lots of tabs!
- You can now right-click on a stash tab in the dropdown list to send it to the far left of your tab list.
OMG, thank fuck for that!
Holy duck. That is huiuuuugeeeeee.
Nice! I love that they pick that sort of low hanging ux fruit regularly.
Bleh. I can’t decide what to play. Sab was amazing last league but 3.4 nerfed arc traps pretty hard, so kinda looking for something different.
Leaderboards on poe.ninja and such look like there’s a fair bit of variety.
Grumble. I have this problem almost every league. I really need to figure out how to be more decisive on league start. :)
sharaleo
4279
Arc totem Heiro for me. Arc totems are ridonculous. 4L with only normal lab done and I creaming content into A9.
Hmmm. That’s an interesting thought. I played a frozen orb totem guy a while back that was pretty fun.
OK, why not. I’m probably over-thinking the end-game viability of things.
Thanks for the nudge to get off my butt and get to the playing!
They made new stuff that a summoner can use so I’m using it. Revamped Dominating Blow, Herald of Purity, Summon Holy Relic. Supported by the usual assortment of zombies and spectres. As a Scion, which I’m sure isn’t optimal since those are designed for Guardian, but I didn’t look too closely at the options before I started. I’m sure she’ll peter out around mid-tier maps, but thus far it’s been fun up into A7. Haven’t bothered shopping for anything so effectively SSF to this point, and she’s steamrolling everything despite crappy gear.
Only death so far was in the Delve when I was experimenting with flares. Not a fan of the flare and dynamite mechanics, but the “follow the cart around and kill things” part of the Delve is fine.
Bateau
4282
Was anything besides cluster traps nerfed?
Info I’m relying on is just the manifesto. I haven’t seen (or personally done) any math.
Throw time is increased as well.
I’m sure sab will still be solid, but that seems a pretty hefty nerf overall. No nerf to spire, though, which is good.
OTOH, Flame dash had some nice quality-of-life tweaks. Faster and longer range.
I’d be delighted if I’m over-reacting. I loved the playstyle in general.
My main problem with the league is that they’ve almost pre-built the builds for you. Here’s smite/dominating, with the new physical herald and guardian ascendancy changes. Here’s toxic arrow and improved caustic arrow, with a new poison herald and pathfinder ascendancy changes.
Just like last league I felt they made elemental hit and arc (esp arc traps) too strong. The builds just seem a little too obvious right now.
Still enjoying my delves, but I wish stuff were released a bit more piecemeal. It doesn’t seem like it takes much experimentation to make the new skills and ascendancies work.
Maybe I’ve just put too much time into the game and it all seems obvious and I should take a year off and come back to a bunch of new stuff at once, but I’m still enjoying this game more than any other.
That’s a fair point, as the last few leagues really have highlighted a few specific revamps. But to my thinking, it’s really not that much different from just reading the game forums for build posts. Which you’re welcome to ignore, just as you don’t have to play the FOTM build that jumps out from the patch notes. I’m doing a hybrid myself, using the new summoning gems but not with the Guardian and in conjunction with old-school summoning. I’m sure it won’t be as good as the “obvious” version but I’m having fun experimenting.
