In Path of Exile 3.7 and the upcoming Legion expansion, the ARPG is set to change in a major way. Grinding Gear Games is not only introducing a fresh iteration on Breach league with the five legions and the Realm of Timeless Conflict, but the developer is also reworking the entirety of the melee combat system in patch 3.7 and Path of Exile Legion.
Path of Exile Legion will focus on making combat more intuitive by allowing a lot more flexibility in how players not only construct their builds, but how they actually fight enemies. Players will now be able to hit multiple targets with one swish, cancel out of animations at any point, instantly activate movement skills and much more. A major shift is the ability to actually dodge attacks based on animations, rather than flat dodge percentages.
Another major new change is the complete rework of the AI systems within the game. Not only will animations be much more noticeable and fluid to account for the dodge changes, but the AI is now a bit better about timing their attacks. Flat rushes of enemies running into your attack skills is a little less common. Part of this strategy is echoed in the boss changes planned for Path of Exile 3.7 as well.
The game’s backend has also been tweaked to clearly show attack ranges on all enemies, and you’ll automatically retarget new enemies after slaying the nearest target in 3.7. This makes spam-clicks completely pointless for melee now. And as someone who prefers this for the sake of not tiring out my fingers, thank god.
There’s even some potential for increasing the skill ceiling by making the early game more responsive but also a bit more challenging to master. Racing communities better get excited for these changes is all I’m saying.
All in all, it looks like every single melee skill is getting a massive buff this league. For an example, let’s look at the new version of Cyclone in Path of Exile Legion:
The gem tags are: Attack, AoE, Movement, Channeling, Melee.
- The mana cost is 2 (down from 12).
- Damage effectiveness starts at 45% (no change).
- Movement speed multiplier is negative 30% (no change).
- Attack speed has a 200% more multiplier (up from 50%)
- No change to requirements at gem level 1.
- First hit still deals 50% less damage
- The skill gains stages (?) (up to 6 has been seen thus far). They seem to subtly increase AoE as you keep channeling, and have a short decay timer upon interruption, akin to Worb and other channeling skills.
It’s that channeling part that has many POE players suspecting that the 3.7 patch will essentially “fix” melee skills by giving many of them channel effects which slowly increase their AoE size. And since all skills in the melee classes now hit multiple nearby targets, this could be game-changing to say the least. This is because there’s the potential for AoE skills to have screen-clearing potential. And with the increasing focus on faster and faster play, this seems like a plausible idea.
We’ll have to wait until the full patch notes drop later this month. Although with Path of Exile Legion due on June 7th on PC, it’s going to be a long few weeks as we wait.
