As with every Path of Exile update, Blight will bring with it a number of quality-of-life improvements. Today we're talking about one of the biggest ones -- changes to how your Master missions are handled in the Atlas.

If you've ever felt like you were missing out by taking a day off from mapping, this change is for you. Currently, Master missions are handed out daily on your Atlas, appearing as a symbol over certain maps. Opening a map with a symbol over it guarantees you'll encounter the associated Master. By running maps, you also have a chance to generate more Master missions in this style, in addition to each map having a small chance to randomly generate with a Master inside of it. Unfortunately, if you aren't actively pursuing those Master missions on your Atlas, or if you didn't log in for a day or more, you were missing out on Master mission opportunities.

In the Blight update, we're solving this issue by allowing your Master missions to accumulate. On the right-hand side of your Atlas, each Master has a little counter that tracks how many of their missions you've accumulated, and on which Map tiers they can be used (e.g. white/yellow/red). Each day you'll automatically earn a number of Master missions, but if you don't use them, they don't go anywhere -- they're still there on your tracker. Likewise, any missions earned while you're mapping are tracked and accumulated on your Atlas.

If you decide you want to run a bunch of maps with Einhar in them, all you need to do is talk to him in your Hideout and select 'Mission'. This brings up the map device UI, and you can simply add and run whichever map you want, including the opportunity to select a Zana mod to use. Some stupid beasts will be waiting for you within the map!

Because we want to make sure players have the opportunity to play what they want when they want, we're moving about half of the random chance for a Master to appear in a map into this Mission accumulation system. In other words, you'll see fewer masters by chance, but will have more opportunities to run missions earned through mapping, and you'll be able to choose when and how you use those missions.

For Master fanatics who were actively pursuing missions at every possible opportunity, you may see a very small reduction to the overall number of Master missions you encounter. For everyone else, it's very likely you'll see more.

These Master missions are account-wide for any characters in the same League. You'll accumulate missions on Standard if you have any valid characters there, as well as in whichever Blight league you decide to play when it launches on September 6 PDT on PC and September 9 on Console.