The patch notes for Path of Exile 3.12 have just dropped. Grinding Gear Games has fully detailed a bunch of changes coming to the APRG this round. There has been a big rework of the Mod Tag system from last league. The system is more condensed while also applying to more items. Path of Exile 3.12 Skills have once again been buffed or nerfed, depending on the skill.
We’re just going to go through the raw values and list which Path of Exile 3.12 Skills are “winners” and which ones are “losers”. Use this list to help determine which skills will be more popular this league. In general, the most powerful skills tend to get some pretty major bumps in popularity during a given patch cycle. This will be vital when trying to pick out your league starter build.
If you want to find out which Path of Exile 3.12 Skills got buffed and nerfed, here’s the guide for you. We’ve included all the notable skill changes in the review below.
The inclusion of Replica uniques is sure to have a profound impact on the metagame. The less deterministic values and increased variance to builds added should be pretty fun to experiment with. We’re probably going to try and make a guide for all the Unique changes, so keep an eye out for that. Anyway, onto the patch notes.
It’s harder to classify some of these Curse reworks as a buff/nerf as the skills are still a bit of a mystery. The Curse rework will likely mean a pretty big metagame shift overall. For the sake of simplicity, the buff/nerf classification is based on any pure numerical change. The Doom mechanic makes this even more difficult to parse. This won’t necessarily reveal how the new skills will play. Mark changes mean that all Mark skills apply less often, thus nerfed. The current Mark skills are Poacher’s Mark, Warlord’s Mark, Assassin’s Mark, and Sniper’s Mark (previously named Projectile Weakness). Making bosses vulnerable to Marks could help with boss clearing though, so there is that. Marks now generate charges per hit chance, up to 25% chance, rather than just on kill.
Other POE 3.12 Guides:
- Path of Exile 3.12 League Starter Builds
- Path of Exile 3.12 Loot Filter Guide
- Heist League Mechanics Guide
- Alternate Quality Gems Guide
Basic Changes to non-Skill mechanics:
- The Divine Flesh Keystone has had its defensive bonuse reduced to +5%, making it much harder to hit that cap to other defenses scaled from Chaos Resistance.
- Lightning Trap, Glacial Hammer, Vaal Glacial Hammer, Ice Shot, Lightning Arrow, Arc, Vaal Arc, Storm Call, Vaal Storm Call and Stormblast Mine now each also affect the alternate versions of their corresponding elemental ailments.
- Flat life regeneration mods have been given a buff.
- Ailments have now been scaled to apply to all ailments of the related type. Chill Effect, Shock Effect, Chill Duration and Freeze Duration will now apply to all Cold and Lightning Ailments.
- Various powerful Watcher’s Eye modifiers for the auras that reserve a flat amount of mana (Vitality, Precision, Clarity) have had their values lowered to reduce power.
- New Doom Mechanic applies to all Curses and support skills for Curses. Doom generation is a new key Curse mechanic that requires players to generate Doom to sustain Curses.
- Ascendant and Necromancer have been nerfed tdue to much worse effect of some notables.
- Assassin has been nerfed for Crit, as Deadly Infusion Notable has been nerfed, and small notables generate less too.
Main Attack Skill Reworks
Buffs:
- Conductivity – 25% chance to be Shocked at all gem levels now.
- Clarity – Requires 25% less Intelligence at all gem levels.
- Discharge – This skill has been completely reworked. Now possesses a more active playstyle with pretty solid clearspeed and some impressive damage. Check it out in action in this new trailer. Larger base AoE. 30% less ailment damage, but compensates with 450% added damage effectiveness. Now deals 56 to 203 base lightning damage per power charge removed at gem level 1, up to 394 to 1422 base lightning damage at gem level 20.
Now deals 99 to 148 base fire damage per endurance charge removed at gem level 1, up to 692 to 1037 base fire damage at gem level 20.
Now deals 81 to 121 base cold damage per frenzy charge removed at gem level 1, up to 566 to 849 base cold damage at gem level 20. - Flammability – Hexed enemies to have 25% chance to be Ignited at all gem levels.
- Firestorm – Base DPS increased, while the number of storms reduced. Now has an equivalent DPS to other skills. Requires hitting with secondary projectiles to get full effect though. Kind of iffy on that one.
- Frostbite – Hexed enemies to have 25% chance to be Frozen at all gem levels.
- Glacial Cascade – Completely reworked to more reliably apply DPS. No longer affected be AoE changes directly. Now converts 100% of physical damage to cold damage.
- Precision – Now a Dexterity-based Gem, Requires 22 Dexterity at gem level 1, up to 119 Dexterity at gem level 20.
Nerfs:
- Ball Lightning – Nerfed DPS overall at all levels. 20% rough reduction to DPS, 70% reduced AoE.
- Enduring Cry – Nerfed due to overpowered interaction with Call to Arms keystone. 8 Second cooldown and positioning is more important thanks to in-range requirement. No longer grants a minimum of one Endurance Charge.
- Enfeeble – No longer causes cursed enemies to have reduced critical strike chance or critical strike multiplier. increased Radius at max gem level. Now gains 1% increased effect of curse per 2% gem quality
- Phase Run – Visibility reduction removed, replaced with Stealth mechanic, no longer possible to avoid detection totally.
- Spellslinger – Spellslinger has been given a longer cooldown to slow casting speed. The skill now starts with a reservation override of 30%, scaling down to 25% at gem level 20.
- Temporal Chains – Increased Radius at max Gem level, 1% increased effect of Curse per 2% gem quality. However, changes to Hexes and Marks make it less viable against Hexproof enemies for some builds.
- Vulnerability – No longer causes attack hits to have a chance to Maim cursed enemies or increased DoT effects. Now causes ailments inflicted on cursed enemies to deal damage 20% faster.
Support Skills Reworks
Buffs:
- Assassin’s Mark – Redone Power Charge generation, instead of grants on kill. Gains flat Life and Mana gain on hit. Adds base bonuses to Crit Chance and Crit Multi.
- Warlord’s Mark – Cursed enemies now grant 2% Life and Mana Leech when hit by attacks, along with Rage Regen. Less Endurance Charge generation overall with Quality. Now has 59% at gem level 20 to double Stun duration. Although the targeting restriction will feel pretty bad to some, if you can’t transfer Marks fast enough.
Nerfs:
- Awakened Curse On Hit Support (now named Awakened Hextouch Support) – Now grants the supported Hex a chance for it to affect Hexproof enemies (rather than apply to them). Only really a nerf because it can’t apply to some skills.
- Intensify – Now has 5% less Area of Effect per Intensity at all gem levels. More area damage overall at all levels. 3 maximum Intensity by default, down from four. However, it does ramp up faster to compensate.
- Projectile Weakness (now called Sniper’s Mark) – Reduced DPS, no longer causes Pierce, instead Splits projectiles into other enemies. Cursed enemies now take 16% increased damage from projectile hits, and enemies will generate Flask charges. Overall, reduced reliability for proccing some mechanics, has potential for other builds though.
- Poacher’s Mark – Redone Frenzy Charge generation, instead grants on kill. Flask Charge generation replaced with flat Life and Mana gain on hit. Adds more Physical DPS to compensate.
- Punishment – No longer has old Physical damage effects, Now causes 10% of Overkill damage to reflect to other enemies. Also 50% increased damage to enemies while on Low Life. This probably means much better clearspeed, but less utility against tougher enemies.
- Spellslinger – 30% Mana Reservation at all levels, and longer cooldown. Now grants supported skills increased cooldown recovery rate as the gem levels, from 0% at gem level 1 (unchanged) to 38% at gem level 20 (from 19%).
- Vaal Impurity Skills – These skills have been changed to grant maximum elemental resistances instead of less damage taken. Hard nerf to legacy items in Standard that enabled damage nullification.
- Vitality – Now has Flat Life Regen rather than percentage Life Regen. Has less Strength requirement. Some builds will be able to use this, but overall utility for high-live builds is much lower. It does get to be better for a lower-life pool though, which is nice.