Content Update 3.21.0 -- Path of Exile: Crucible

I ain't even going to play this league.
This is nothing but bait.

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Downward_Spiral wrote:

I feel like the determination and grace efficiency masteries going away is not being talked about. I mean, I like the idea of it not being a requirement to have 57 defensive auras to do anything but I don't have the wherewithal to understand the long-term impacts.

It's not just that. Skitterbots, they nerfed reservation huge. Also changed catirina drops. Devouring diadem meta yet again.

Instead of focusing on Ruthless please consider making a "Trade" optional league where you add an auction house so people don't feel miserable playing the game. Thanks.

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Dreaderlord wrote:

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hyyyben wrote:

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impulze3 wrote:

interesting patch notes, its almost exclusively nerfs and feels bad

Doubt you understood the notes then :)

No, I think you don't understand the patchnotes. The buffs are to many inconsequential and niche things. While the nerfs are to universally used things, making it overall a MASSIVE downgrade for quality of life for a huge chunk of builds, while buffing a few, barely used builds into semi viability, but also hurting them in turn with the general nerfs. So if you try to be smug, at least be right.

Why all the anger?
I guess you an adult, but youre writing to me like i just grounded you...youre acting like i wronged you in some way.
So - Fix your attitude young man, or else you will be grounded !

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FalkenRaiding wrote:

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Miradae wrote:

Poe elitism in a nutshell:
"Poe is great because it's a difficult game, it's not for the weak minded"
Also Poe players: "omg, they made the game more difficult in minor aspects and now i can't blindfolded beat endgame content anymore!!! I'm gonna leave forever!"

Every league start a blast to watch :D

THIS!! 😁😁

Bunch of doomers here and on reddit.

I suspect things will get better when the worst of the "waaah, they changed something I liked, and the world revolves around me, waaaah"-people have gone to D4, so the rest of us can enjoy the best ARPG ever to exist.

I'm so hyped for the league, and already swiped the credit card in support of GGG. Keep up the good work! ❤

Why are you with 10 challenges done last league and two characters in it: one level 68 and one level 10 if you are loving the game so much?

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Gubert wrote:

Why are you with 10 challenges done last league and two characters in it: one level 68 and one level 10 if you are loving the game so much?

Don't gatekeep bro. People can play the game at whatever rate they want to.

Shame it very unlikely for any developer with the ability to change things will go past page 2 of pog bots, a lot of good points, removing onslaught, a gem that not one soul uses past getting through the act slog was a strange and not well thought out choice.

Link gems, my personal interest for builds still has duration and low duration at that, so who's the 5 people going to be using that, one mastery, infinite duration.. it's already got the downside of you die if they die and in poe that's a big enough one than to be spammed by the equivalent of a eula every 10 seconds to confirm if you want to die too.

I am very interested in the absolution and dominating blow vaal types, provided they don't do more of the nerf that is a buff work sort of nonsense, it worries me because they didn't even mention minions past the nerf to animated weapons.

Removing the mana efficiency nodes is going to suck for determination/grace aura's, that might be a big issue, that added 12% is a it's a nerf wrapped in a buff wrapper.

I like the better low/full life nodes, a little easier to consider things with petrified blood and damage on full life, the wording on the 15% mastery if you have 6 other life masteries is misleading as I think you mean notables.

10% leech is instant, mandatory melee node, I see a few buffs for melee but the claw node is a poor choice, no one uses two claws, it's always a shield since blocking hits is far better than well.. dying to a oneshot.

Marked target cannot crit makes me consider traveling just to get that, stopping a rare or boss from being able to consistently oneshot you seems so needed since molten shell gets another nerf.

The 25% caster chest opening mod has been meme'd enough I think...

Good day now with the breach changes being implemented any chance that the rare breach body armoure that is aqquiered by selling 60 rare breach rings can recive some upgrades on its afixes?

new "Profane" modifiers: Yikes. More "wtf why am I dead, where did my health go?" moments I guess. I do try to get some chaos res on gear, guess I'll have to get more.

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Replica Unique Item rewards in Grand Heists no longer have a higher chance than normal to spawn with a high number of sockets and/or links.

SadFace. That was always nice when none of the items were really good for you, at least they were worth something for their slots/links.

Masteries: (clever to omit the ones that were removed :p)
Accuracy

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(New) +500 to Accuracy Rating, -2 to Accuracy per Level

Yes! I was salty that you straight up removed the Peregrine which was the perfect leveling item for my Glacial Hammer Templar. Especially since you also removed the Accuracy/Attack Speed wheel near Templar a few years ago. This will be a nice leveling stop gap until I get gear with good amounts of Acc.

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(New) 50% increased Accuracy Rating at Close Range

Juggernaut buff? Anything somewhat melee specific gets a thumbs up from me.
Minion Accuracy and crit stuff though, can we please get a UI option to gauge those stats on our minions? It always feels weird to invest in something this invisible. Sure, there's PoB but I never know how accurate that is on some interactions.

Armour

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20% chance to Defend with 200% of Armour

Do people actually take this one?? I really don't like stuff like every 5th hit will hurt less if it's of a certain damage type and not too high. There are other sources of this now I think and maybe it can be something similar to spell suppression, especially with ways to have armour help with non phys too but I feel like armour is being turned into something entirely different and provide defense that a lot of average players will probably not be aware of and hopefully not feel mandatory. Well I guess everybody is supposed to have at least one layer of max spell block/suppression/85+% res/take damage as.
While I'm not mad at the Determination mana res nerf because I don't like it to feel so mandatory and witches with no investment into armour having more of that than actual armour using characters (Determination had some wild and weird pendulum swings between can't have flat armour to ALL the flat armour), I would rather see the aura changed in a different way and probably sadly nerfed on the flat part and more synergy for characters with investment into armour.

Armour and Energy Shield Masteries

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(New) 2% chance per 5% missing Energy Shield to Defend with 150% of Armour

Since this isn't the same as the 200% one I guess these are two separate rolls that can both happen? Will these add to 350% if both succeed or multiply?

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(New) 100% increased Armour and Energy Shield from Equipped Body Armour if Equipped Gloves, Helmet and Boots all have Armour and Energy Shield

Not exactly exciting but might actually use that one on my Inquisitor.

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(New) 10% of Armour also applies to Chaos Damage taken from Hits

It's usually the DoTs that kill though. Probably still even with the Profane map mod. Still a nice set it and forget it node since actual chaos hits were usually not that big to begin with.

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Increases and Reductions to Armour also apply to Energy Shield Recharge Rate at 20% of their value

Another one of these "Does anyone actually use this?". Recharge is already quite a niche and not many if any of them actually invest into armour, a stat that works better against multiple smaller hits.

Armour and Evasion Masteries

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(New) Defend with 120% of Armour against Projectile Attacks, 5% more chance to Evade Melee Attacks

I like the hybrid style of this but again the question is how all of these "with x% armour" stack.

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(New) 40% increased Evasion Rating if you have been Hit Recently, 40% increased Armour if you haven't been Hit Recently

I don't know how effective this will be in practice but kudos for embracing the hybrid nature again with getting hit less hard and then being more evasive afterwards.

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(New) Immune to Poison if Equipped Helmet has higher Evasion Rating than Armour, Immune to Bleeding if Equipped Helmet has higher Armour than Evasion Rating

Always nice to have options like this.

Attack Masteries

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(New) Non-Vaal Strike Skills target 1 additional nearby Enemy

Well "new" sounds better than "nerf" I guess. Sad to see Vaal targets go though.

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(New) Gain Adrenaline for 1 second when you change Stance

Please don't try to make stance dancing a thing. It's about as fun in practice as smoke mine shenanigans were for racers.

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(New) 5% increased Attack Speed per Enemy in Close Range

Huh, will have to give that one a try. I always need more attack speed. (my build struggles to get over 2 APS), shame how little it will do on bosses but hey, there are other nodes that only give 5% AS. Sounds nutty strong for clearing though.

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(New) Monsters cannot Block your Attacks

Probably too situational and honestly I usually don't notice why my attack just didn't do damage and usually everything dies while normal clearing anyway (can splash damage be blocked?). If it were obvious that you were just blocked and a somewhat common occurrence, fine.

Caster

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(New) 25% more Spell Damage if you've been Stunned while Casting Recently

RIP to all the casters making getting hit a part of their DPS rotation. It's probably more about some weird self hit/stun I guess? At least it should work with the "ignore interruption from stuns" since that doesn't avoid the stun itself.

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(New) 25% chance to open nearby Chests when you Cast a Spell

Love this one :D
At least if it works on more than just traditional chests but also destructibles like barrels and urns. Otherwise people will soon realize that it isn't as cool and profitable as they thought. I think it would be fair if it worked on destructibles since it has to go through them one by one, or does this mean about every 4 casts everything around you opens? The plural is a bit ambiguous in this case. And it's already only useful for a subset of casters like SRS spammers or non spread projectile spam.
Will this work with triggered spells?

Chaos

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(New) Recover 1% of Life per Withered Debuff on each Enemy you Kill

That seems to be a crap ton of live recovery while clearing? While obviously not good for bossing, this might be overpowered for situations like hectic breaches. Speaking of hectic Breaches, forgot to mention that I'm not looking forward to the monster density -> performance on my poor old PS4. Lake Breach could reduce me to a slideshow and death.

Claw
Can't really speak about the balance here but in general I like how close the new ones fit to the Claw theme to push their strengths. 30% instant Leech might be nutty.

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(New) 50% increased Stealth if you've Hit with a Claw Recently

Haven't played with that stat since it was introduced but I don't know if 50% will really make a difference compared to other sources. Seems like a stat for builds that lack DPS and very counterintuitive for PoEs usual pace. But I love the safety of Flicker Strike (until it's not) so going unnoticed might be a thing. Should try that out in something like a Ritual circle, if it's making a big difference.

Cold
I wish there was a Cold Mastery in reach for my Glacial Hammer Inquisitor. Unfortunately Cluster jewels/generic attack/Staff and survivability nodes all take precedence over elemental and even then, there's only elemental Mastery nearby. Although these options all look like "nice to have" tier or don't work for my build.

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(New) Enemies near targets you Shatter have 20% chance to be Covered in Frost for 5 seconds

Probably good for enclosed encounters with powerful rares like Ritual and Breach but too bad that it won#t work for most bosses most of the time. ...unless worms?

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(New) +1% to maximum Cold Resistance

These in general just never feel good or necessary to take (you usually don't notice when exactly this percent would have saved you) and I wish these kind of bonuses were folded in with offensive nodes instead of costing extra.

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(New) Chills from your Hits always reduce Action Speed by at least 10%

Unless the game UI lies to me, I'm already doing more even on bosses but I guess it's aimed at cold skills with smaller hits and/or no chill boosts.

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(New) Enemies permanently take 5% increased Damage for each second they've ever been Frozen by you, up to a maximum 50%

50% increased Damage is nothing to scoff at but getting Divine Judgement now is already debatable and that one doesn't need a ramp up and works against freeze immunes.

Dagger

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(New) 50% increased Projectile Speed while wielding a Dagger

It's been a while that I last played Ethereal Knives but this is such a cool and universal bonus it might see wide usage. Heck even something like a cold caster. Will we get a non attack/poison dagger wheel?

Elemental

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(New) 50% reduced effect of Exposure on you

Again with the hidden stats. But I guess some theorycrafters will tell us if this is worth anything. Let me use this to mention again that console ui has no way to check what the debuffs on us are and opening the character screen in mid fight is also way more dangerous than on PC. We just get the icons and are supposed to know every ability of every monster in the game by icon. At least I have "Save as Video" on Playstation to figure out what just happened.

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(New) Hits have 25% chance to treat Enemy Monster Elemental Resistance values as inverted

Whoah, this might be a new type of build. But all the math in my head seems to suggest it is actually not great. You need to first have an enemy that even has high resistances but lowering the resistance of all hits just seems a lot better than about every fourth hit being good and the rest weaksauce. Hmm, but how is this working with penetration? That might be the combo. Don't lower the enemy resistance outright but stack Penetration with this node. Will be interesting to see how and if people make this work.

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(New) Critical Strikes against you do not inherently inflict Elemental Ailments

Yikes, we don't want to be crit and if, at reduced damage and we want to be ailment resistant/immune/reactive on non crits too. I'd rather see another mastery that embraces using multiple elements.

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(New) 3% chance for Hits to deal 300% of Physical Damage as Extra Damage of a random Element

Now this is the kind of gamble I can get behind, sadly I usually play slow attack builds. In effect it's probably a nerf to the consistent 10% mastery we have now. I still might be tempted although I already shock and freeze quite well.


Fire

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(New) 50% chance to refresh Ignite Duration on Critical Strike

Interesting. I mean a crit should have been a good fresh ignite anyway but with this you could try to keep up an ignite from some extra super boosted source like a Vaal skill. I might actually try to build for this one.

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(New) Critical Strikes do not inherently Ignite, 100% increased Damage with Hits against Ignited Enemies

Nice synergy with the above! Vaal Burning Arrow here I come :D

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(New) Burning Enemies you kill have a 3% chance to Explode, dealing a tenth of their maximum Life as Fire Damage

While 10% is more than most skill based explodes I feel that this is too rarely happen and more of a fun novelty when it happens than actually helping in any situation.

So many changes made, I wonder what happens in the league with Crucible passives.
There are heavy nerfs like molten shell, diadem, but the majority of changes are buffs. Especially those newly added masteries looks interesting, not necessarily strong though.
I'm optimistic for meta changes. Waiting for next week!