Path of Exile is a MAJESTIC incline

[Yeesh]

Basically don't kill any white mobs, and skip all side areas not needed for getting to the next act. Also be a korean and do all your inventory/gear management IDing etc. while walking from place to place, and get a Quicksilver flask ASAP (the exception to the 'don't do side areas' rule- theres a guaranteed one from the medicine chest) and spam it all the time. Thats the main points. You can do some other stuff, like learn map layouts, learn good timings to use the flask, count kills to see if it's worth killing a few white mobs to get another dose of green meth, but those are the main points.

J/K just find some OP low level items and boots and maybe some accel shrines along the way and win by pure RNG.

Thanks. In the end I did a race, showed up 20 minutes late and managed not to die, got two points. I decided it's not for me.

 

[GrainWetski]

The new league will be announced in around 3h.

http://www.pathofexile.com/atlasofworlds

 

[Hyperion]

Atlas of Worlds - A map for your maps, essentially. In one interview, Chris hinted towards you picking one of the 4 corners to start in, and working your way towards each of the endpoints in the center. For each endpoint of each corner, you get 1 key. Collect all 4, and you, presumably, have a showdown with the Shaper. There are 'pictures' inscribed into certain spots of the Atlas, intended to give hints as to certain drop locations for items. An example given was the new base helm, the "Bone Helm," which has an implicit Increased Minion Damage on it.

2 new currencies - Shaper's Orb, Cartographer's Sextant. A Shaper's Orb will upgrade a map's tier once it's set inside the Atlas. For example, using it on a Gorge inside your Atlas will up its tier. This is important to note because those new bases will be restricted to certain tiers. In order to get higher ilvls of said bases, you need to utilize this currency. The Sextant will randomly add another map mod to the map you use it on within your Atlas. The difference from normal modding is that it creates a red circle (similar to Threshold Jewels in your skill tree) which will affect any other nearby maps with the same mod. Any overlapping circles will apply both extra mods for some nasty shit.

2 new skills. Both of which have been hinted at utilizing the new 'channeling' system they added.

Very little skill nerfs, for better or for worse.

New uniques, of course.

Essence league. 20 different essences - some can only be obtained by corrupting your existing essences using the essence equivalent to a Vaal Orb. There are 7 tiers of Essences, with growing efficacy per tier. 3 of a lower tier can upgraded to 1 of a higher tier when vendored. Essences are found randomly in the world as a group of frozen enemies. These essences then modify the group of enemies to do nasty shit. Kill them, and get your essences. Essences revolve around crafting. Using one on a white item will grant you a rare item with a single guaranteed affix as specified by the essence. Some of the mods shown were high tiered life roll on an item of your choice, +15% chance to gain a charge on kill if used on a weapon, 15% increased fortify effect on an amulet, or % spell damage on a weapon.

Zana shows up after completing your first map.

30 new maps. Most of which seem to be focused on higher tiers.

Clearing each spot on the Atlas will provide a "100% increased special item drop rate" on that particular map in the future. Not sure if it means 100% rarity bonus, or something in particular.

Performance improvements. Multi-threading now actually works, it seems.

There will be another wave of press interviews coming shortly with even more information.

 

[Saark]

Well, let's get to the point. The Atlas... how exactly does it work?

When you return from your first map run in the Eternal Lab, you now meet Zana. She introduces you to the Atlas of Worlds, which shows your progress through the 100 maps available in this expansion.

There are four quadrants to the Atlas, each with their own entry point (a Tier 1 map that can drop in late Merciless difficulty). Maps with thematic similarities are near each other on the Atlas. Unique Maps are also represented on the Atlas and now only drop in the area they are attached to, which corresponds to their base type.

Now, rather than receiving random maps of a specific tier, you receive random maps from that tier from the set of ones that you have previous completed as well as the maps that are connected on the Atlas to the map you’re playing. This allows you to progress through the Atlas rather than jumping from one unrelated arbitrary map to another. There is no penalty for completing (and unlocking) low-tier maps, because the tier is decided before the specific map is. Having more maps available just increases the variety on that tier.

For each different type of map that you complete, you receive a cumulative 1% bonus to map drop rates. This encourages lateral exploration of the Atlas.

Special new base types of items drop in specific areas of the Atlas.

As you complete maps on the Atlas, you are occasionally rewarded with a Shaper’s Orb, which allows you to upgrade a map of a specific tier. This lets you find “Shaped” versions of that map, which are five tiers higher than their regular counterpart.

You’ll also occasionally find a Cartographer’s Sextant, which lets you apply a special random mod to a circular area of the Atlas. This mod affects all maps within that area, and is consumed over five uses. You can stack multiple mods by overlapping these areas. Some of these mods are very dangerous, and others are very valuable, such as adding guaranteed unique item drops to map bosses!

In the centre of the Atlas are four Tier 16 maps that contain special boss fights at the end. Each time you complete all of these, you are granted one attempt at a final encounter with the Shaper.

Source

 

[Damned Registrations]

I wonder if this will tank the prices of chaos orbs; depending on how common these essences are people might use them on jewelry to get a lot of extra sets for chaos recipes.

Also, this expansion seems pretty cool in general, looking forward to it. Though I predict the channeling skills will be a flop for endgame builds- gotta go fast.

 

[Zdzisiu]

Atlas of Worlds - A map for your maps, essentially. In one interview, Chris hinted towards you picking one of the 4 corners to start in, and working your way towards each of the endpoints in the center. For each endpoint of each corner, you get 1 key. Collect all 4, and you, presumably, have a showdown with the Shaper. There are 'pictures' inscribed into certain spots of the Atlas, intended to give hints as to certain drop locations for items. An example given was the new base helm, the "Bone Helm," which has an implicit Increased Minion Damage on it.

2 new currencies - Shaper's Orb, Cartographer's Sextant. A Shaper's Orb will upgrade a map's tier once it's set inside the Atlas. For example, using it on a Gorge inside your Atlas will up its tier. This is important to note because those new bases will be restricted to certain tiers. In order to get higher ilvls of said bases, you need to utilize this currency. The Sextant will randomly add another map mod to the map you use it on within your Atlas. The difference from normal modding is that it creates a red circle (similar to Threshold Jewels in your skill tree) which will affect any other nearby maps with the same mod. Any overlapping circles will apply both extra mods for some nasty shit.

2 new skills. Both of which have been hinted at utilizing the new 'channeling' system they added.

Very little skill nerfs, for better or for worse.

New uniques, of course.

Essence league. 20 different essences - some can only be obtained by corrupting your existing essences using the essence equivalent to a Vaal Orb. There are 7 tiers of Essences, with growing efficacy per tier. 3 of a lower tier can upgraded to 1 of a higher tier when vendored. Essences are found randomly in the world as a group of frozen enemies. These essences then modify the group of enemies to do nasty shit. Kill them, and get your essences. Essences revolve around crafting. Using one on a white item will grant you a rare item with a single guaranteed affix as specified by the essence. Some of the mods shown were high tiered life roll on an item of your choice, +15% chance to gain a charge on kill if used on a weapon, 15% increased fortify effect on an amulet, or % spell damage on a weapon.

Zana shows up after completing your first map.

30 new maps. Most of which seem to be focused on higher tiers.

Clearing each spot on the Atlas will provide a "100% increased special item drop rate" on that particular map in the future. Not sure if it means 100% rarity bonus, or something in particular.

Performance improvements. Multi-threading now actually works, it seems.

There will be another wave of press interviews coming shortly with even more information.

All true, but where did you get the info about there being "Very little skill nerfs"? I havent seen GGG say anything detailed about nerf/buffs recently.

 

[Carceri]

I have to admit, this shit really got me hyped. A redesign of the mapping system is more than welcomed, and this new thing that they're doing sounds good enough.

 

[T. Reich]

I'm really hyped, too.

However, this new xpac seemingly puts a lot of pressure on players to play really sturdy/universally good builds that can tackle a lot of stuff.
For starters, you gotta have a t15 map viable build. The you gotta make sure you can tackle core malachai and other tough t15 bosses.
Considering what we already know about the t16 guardian fights, you gotta be able to tank a good deal of damage while dealing lots of it as well.

I'm personally going to set a goal that I can beat the Shaper boss on my own + be able to farm uber LAb consistently in the meantime.

 

[Zdzisiu]

I'm really hyped, too.

However, this new xpac seemingly puts a lot of pressure on players to play really sturdy/universally good builds that can tackle a lot of stuff.
For starters, you gotta have a t15 map viable build. The you gotta make sure you can tackle core malachai and other tough t15 bosses.
Considering what we already know about the t16 guardian fights, you gotta be able to tank a good deal of damage while dealing lots of it as well.

I'm personally going to set a goal that I can beat the Shaper boss on my own + be able to farm uber LAb consistently in the meantime.

Yeah, putting the final 5 fights at tier 16 and more requires at least a good build to be successful.

But I think that is a good move my ggg. The recent changes introduced a lot of powercreep, and today many more character builds can deal with high level maps than it was possible a year ago.

Also, I like having something to "collect" and to work towards getting the full set of. In this case it will be collecting maps and having a full atlas, with the nice +100% to map drop chance.

And they are going to announce two new skills shortly, both of them use the new chanelling mechanic.

 

[Saark]

Only bad thing about this expansion is it coming out on september 2nd, which majorly clashes with my plans regarding Legion. I'll probably just stop sleeping.

 

[Night Goat]

I decided to give this game a try and rolled up a witch. I'm not sure witch way I want to go with it though: summoning or elemental. I can see how giving the enemy more targets would be an advantage, and having an army of the undead is just cool. It seems like letting my minions do the work could get boring though. Blasting might be more fun, but it seems like it'd run into problems with enemy resistances since it seems like the system encourages specializing in one element. Any advice?

 

[Padre]

You can actually do both. Get zombies or skellies as meatshields and use Summon Raging Spirits as main spell. They benefit from minion damage and speed nodes and scale very well into end game. Besides, playing a summoner requires you to cast almost as many spells as a normal caster. Keeping up an Offering of your choice, cursing enemies, teleporting them to you etc. I'm enjoying it very much.

 

[Damned Registrations]

The only part of a summoner build that is really less interesting is the lack of need to aim your shit. SRS will seek out anything nearby, so you can focus entirely on dodging and just cast blindly whenever you've got a free moment. It does have a pretty sharp dropoff in fights that summon minions though, if you can't outpace the enemy spawn rate, your skulls won't focus shit and you'll get bogged down. More traditional builds have the advantage that you can whittle things down by focus firing on certain enemies, and cluster them for more AoE efficiency.

Enemy resistances isn't that much of an issue, because enemy resists get capped much like player resists- shit is never immune to a particular element, so as long as you've got the resist penetration, you're good to go. The bigger issue with blasting is reflection, but it's honestly not that big a deal outside of hardcore.

 

[Saark]

It's really not that hard to have your minions focus a specific target. Usually they go for whatever your cursor is on, that's what their AI was programmed to do. If all else fails, walk next to whatever you want killed and cast Convocation, they will immediately go for the closest target they find.

Summoners are incredibly durable, not just because their minions soak a lof of projectiles that would otherwise hit you, but because you don't really need specific gear and very few nodes on the tree to increase your overall damage. That leaves you with more nodes to put into defensive options, and more gear-choices as well.

 

[TOME]

Just killed malachai on merciless with my first hardcore char. Played solo self found ice trapper with less than 4k life.

 

[T. Reich]

I decided to give this game a try and rolled up a witch. I'm not sure witch way I want to go with it though: summoning or elemental. I can see how giving the enemy more targets would be an advantage, and having an army of the undead is just cool. It seems like letting my minions do the work could get boring though. Blasting might be more fun, but it seems like it'd run into problems with enemy resistances since it seems like the system encourages specializing in one element. Any advice?

Playing a summoner can be a pretty active thing, as others mentioned.

Also, focusing on a single element is actually the preferred to go! First of all, there are specific supports that provide "penetration" of a specific element's resistances - a superior version of elemental resistance reduction that forcibly reduces the max res cap of an enemy target. Plus there are always up to 2x elemental resistance reducing curses to supplement it if you so desire. Finally, there are no element immune mobs in the game, unlike D2 on higher difficulties.

 

[Trias_Betrayed]

the camera is zoomed in far too much and the templar needs to learn what pants are

 

[Zdzisiu]

the templar needs to learn what pants are

 

[Night Goat]

I've made a terrible mistake. Been playing a cold-based Witch, only to realize at level 30 that my green support gems weren't leveling up because I'm not a DEX-based character. Should I just start over?

 

[Hyperion]

No. Experience in all things is on an extremely heavy exponential curve. Those supports will be caught up in no time. And the amount of xp they are behind will be insignificant at low levels. Level 30 is nothing.

 

[Kjaska]

I got so hyped for Atlas, I bought the Hydra pack

 

[e-mailio estevez]

A cold based witch is a lot of fun. My freezing pulse witch is by far my favorite character.

Although as far as beginner builds go, I think my favorite is righteous fire totem marauder. Righteous fire totems are free to cast, making mana management completely unnecessary. Marauders are naturally survivable, too, which always great for a beginner's build. The build I was running used blasphemy and three simultaneous curses, and the uniques that give +damage per curses afflicted on an enemy were really cheap.

 

[Drew]

I've made a terrible mistake. Been playing a cold-based Witch, only to realize at level 30 that my green support gems weren't leveling up because I'm not a DEX-based character. Should I just start over?

just buy level 20 gems
also stop playing now and come back on the second

 

[Kjaska]

He won't have enough DEX for lvl20 gems either. He is also playing standard, so the league doesn't matter to him.

 

[Drew]

well then he's having his fun incorrectly