Path of Exile 3.13 is being revealed, with the new expansion called Echoes of the Atlas completely revamping the endgame. The big new league mechanic alters the Atlas in entirely new ways.
The Maven and Ritual League
The new key part of the league, called Ritual League, is surrounding the Envoy. The Envoy brings ill tidings of the Maven. This new boss brings a new set of mechanics to map bosses. After the first time you fight her off, she will give you a relic you can use to trigger her effect and have her alter a map boss to fight. You will face a more challenging boss each time, up until she has judged you worthy. The Maven will then force you to fight four bosses all at once.
You will then be tasked with repeating this cycle. As the trailer says “the stars bear silent witness.” When you trigger the final challenge of the Maven issues, she will push you to fight more and more bosses all at once. You will perform the repetition of fighting Maven challenges to complete her requirements, giving you tons of work to do. You can repeat the fight up until you’re fighting a totally insane 10 bosses at once.
Ritual League
ties into the new altars you find in each area. The altars will surround you with a horde of monsters that you have to fight off. Each ritual will summon monsters that you’ve just slain. The altars will spawn monsters and apply various modifiers to them.
Tribute Points can be earned by completing a ritual can be spent to afford various items from the altars when you complete them. The game will be handing out some very powerful base items with new unique modifiers. One such example offers essentially zero mana cost for items bought with Tribute Points. Tribute Points can’t be transferred, but can be deferred to reduce the cost to items in reward tables. Tribute Point reards can also be rerolled.
Ritual Vessels
You can also itemize the ritual monsters when complete to place them is Map Devices as Ritual Vessels. Ritual Vessels can be traded, and will apply their modifiers and a bonus to mob density to maps.
Rewards from the Maven
Craftable Watchstones and new skill points can be earned. Skill Points, yes really. The Atlas now has it’s own Skill Tree for passives that impact maps.
10 Skill Points for each region of the Atlas can be earned by completing the Maven’s challenge. Each region has a total of 20 choices, which each one can have different Atlas effects. You can also use them to influence league mechanics, and can be used to make crafting much more fun. You can earn tons of six-links with this stuff.
This whole thing is design to all a ton more alterations and meta-game influence on the Atlas. As you play through the league, you will encounter more and more alterations that also power-up your character.
Check out the trailer for Echoes of the Atlas below.
Reworks all over the place
Path of Exile 3.13 and Echoes of the Atlas will rework all 19 of the Ascendancy classes. The Elementalist, the Inquisitor, the Deadeye, and the Slayer will all see improvements with Echoes of the Atlas. But even if your Ascendancy isn’t in that list, it’s getting new mechanics. Any class will likely have a much more focused role, with buffs being given to a variety of classes. Slayer effects are being equalized, while Deadeye passives are getting improve by focusing on better single-target damage. That’s just the beginning too.
Unique items and skill gems will be a big part as well, as is par for the course with these endgame expansions. Trinity is one example of a new support gem. The Trinity gem will build up Resonance with all three main elements—fire, lightning and cold—that will balance out and buff your damage with the unused element. You can even gain Elemental Proliferation to buff damage even more. There are also 10 new uniques as well.
Grinding Gear Games will launch Path of Exile: Echoes of the Atlas on January 15 for Windows PC, and January 20 for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
