The focus of balance passes in Path of Exile 3.11 has been revealed. The biggest areas being focused on in the new patch are on two-handed weapons, as well as a few overpowered skill classes. GGG previously teased a few other changes coming in POE 3.11, but we finally have more concrete info. The patch notes will shed more light tomorrow though, but that won’t stop us from trying to glean some details.
Check out our other Path of Exile 3.11 Guides:
- Path of Exile: Harvest Seeds Guide
- Path of Exile: Harvest All Reworked Skills
- Path of Exile: Harvest Starter Builds
- Path of Exile: Harvest Loot Filter Guide
- POE Atlas Strategies
- Catalysts Guide
- Vendor Recipes Guide
The Broad Strokes
We’ve already seen that Brand skills are getting major attention as well. In Path of Exile: Harvest GGG is planning to completely retool this particular skill category. Not only are we getting some new tools in the toolbox for Brands, but the way many of them work is being shuffled. Brand Recall got a very clear shift towards a less insanely OP skill.
Here are the details on that:
Brand Recall no longer refreshes the duration of Brands. We very much appreciate the utility of Brand Recall, but it has played a significant part in making Brand skills feel very passive. We want to move in the direction of players having to re-cast their Brands more often, with the option to invest in Brand Duration to reduce how often one must re-cast Brands. Brand Recall has a longer cooldown and a lower value of cooldown recovery per level. We’ve added Brand Recall cooldown recovery to a number of places on the passive tree to give new avenues for investing in this rather than receiving the full bonus just for leveling the gem.
Various item classes are also getting some attention. All high-level Two Handed Melee Weapons have been rebalanced, with a goal of creating more unique feels. GGG clearly wants more defined playstyles when it comes to two-handed weapons, and that seems to be a major goal in POE 3.11. To bring this weapon class more into balance with one-handed playstyles, the developer has also added more scaling damage types, like area of effect sources. There’s new Notable nodes on the Passive Tree for example. As for what skills have changed on this front, Sunder, Static Strike and Tectonic Slam have all been named. And with the incoming reworks to Slam skills, these melee-focused styles are about to get really interesting. Details will have to wait for the patch notes tomorrow.
Dual Wielding weapons is getting more attention in Path of Exile 3.11 as well. The Path of Exile 3.11 Balance Manifesto goes into more details, it’s a good idea to read that linked at the bottom of the post if you want more info.
Warcries can be stacked, making it much more viable as a support mechanic. Various new Warcry passive clusters have been added to the tree to aid with this. In general, they are slower but offer a much greater impact than before this patch.
Ascendancy and General Passive Changes
Hierophant, Chieftain and Berserker have all gotten targeted changes. Some new keystones to the Marauder-Duelist section of the tree should make for more build variety too.
Notables and related mechanics for Rage, Unleash, Corpse manipulation, Warcries, Heralds and Banners have all been tweaked to some degree. Also, new Notables have been added to allow better access to buffs that were locked to Timeless Jewels previously. Expect a much more varied Passive Tree this league. And yes, Cluster Jewels will remain in the game, although be much rarer. Some Cluster Jewel Brand notables have also been rebalanced.
Life Leech is another area that got some attention. Changes to the overall layout of the tree mean that longer paths equate to more Life Leech per hit, with a pretty big buff of 6.4% of total life possible.
Critical Strikes have likely been nerfed into the floor. Critical Strike Multiplier values have been lowered from almost every passive, and some items too. Builds relying on this will likely have a tougher time in Harvest. And speaking of nerfs Vaal Molten Shell and Cyclone have been nerfed again. Cyclone loses its stun immunity, and Vaal Molten Shell has a lot less damage mitigation potential. Numbers depend on patch notes, but it has been heavily nerfed. It’s also no longer possible to stack Guard skills with Vaal Molten Shell. Archmage support also got nerfed.
Specific Item Nerfs
On the item side of things, Starforge got nerfed. After the melee-dominated meta in previous leagues, this was inevitable though. Other two handed unique weapons also got shuffled around. Rare variants should have rolls more in line with where GGG wants the metagame to be for this base type. Along with the Starforge nerf, Disintegrator and Hegemony’s Era also got hit.
The Unique Threshold Jewels for Dual Strike, Magma Orb, Molten Strike and Fireball have been changed to make them a lot less “must-have” by scaling them into specific areas of the way skills play. In general this makes these skills much less OP, but at least these skills have been given increases to damage, area or utility to compensate.
Keep in mind that this is just a portion of the changes Path of Exile: Harvest has in store. The patch notes for the new patch drop tomorrow We will once again be providing a more comprehensive rundown of the buffed and nerfed skills like we have in previous leagues.
Source: POE Site
