Curse of the Allflame Challenge League
Following the teaser trailer announcing the new 3.29 update for Path of Exile, Grinding Gear Games (GGG) have given us all of the details we need to know about the new league, Curse of the Allflame, set to drop on July 24th.
At the heart of the new league lies a new mechanic and a new location with a ship called “The Sovereign” and it’s Captain, Valerie. Within your normal maps you will find special treasure chests guarded by a variety of monsters. The chest themselves contain Lost Charts. You can run these charts individually for smaller rewards using a system that returning players might view as a hybridization of Delve and Wildwood. You will navigate a smaller section of map to reveal areas but must place down Allflame Lanterns to create safe spaces in the form of pockets of air. In addition to standard items and currency, you will also find Dead Man’s Sulphur which is a new fuel source for a the Allflame crafting system within your ship.
In addition to running your charts individually, you can bring 9 charts to Valerie to start planning a Voyage. Voyages connect the nine maps together and modify one another for bigger rewards and greater challenges. At the center of every one of the 9 sections of the map, you will find an Allflame Capsule which you can use to send items back up to your ship to collect later or you can use to call a pod to take you back up and exfiltrate the voyage.
Below the deck of your ship you will find the Allflame Crafting Bench where you can spend your Dead Man’s Sulphur and your normal currencies (such as Exalted or Annulment orbs) to give yourself multiple copies of the roll outcomes, allowing you to select the desired result. Doing this, however, will add a new modifier called “Intangibility” which will make it more difficult to see multiple outcomes the more you craft them this way, effectively capping the number of times you can do this. In addition to crafting this way, you will also find another currency called “Ducats” which have unique special crafts like swapping attribute modifiers that would otherwise be impossible on a base or a random Pantheon Aspect skill.
Mercenaries in the Core Game
GGG has confirmed that Mercenaries will be returning as a part of the core gameplay with the 3.29 update but with a few major changes. The biggest being that for most characters (more on this later), they are now temporary and will only assist you through a limited number of areas.
Additionally, the mercenaries you do find can still be challenged for a piece of gear or currency in their inventory or you can choose a “Rematch” option which guarantees they will appear again in a future encounter. Doing so will also cause them to drop a new “Warrant” item which you can keep in your inventory to call on them for aid at a later time or trade them to other players.
Due to becoming integrated in the core game, Mercenaries now also have sections of passives in the Atlas tree as well to further customize your encounters. If you are looking to use the Mercenaries in a similar way to when they were first introduced, you can choose to build your character into it with the next addition to the 3.29 update.
New Scion Ascendancy – The Luminary
With the reintroduction of Mercenaries, GGG has created a new ascendancy class for the Scion. This focuses around Mercenaries and the way you equip them. The Luminary is able to keep Mercenaries permanently (if they are killed they can still be revived with gold) and equip them fully, based on the ascendancy passives you select in your build.
Abyss Rework
The Abyss that we all know and begrudgingly love is being changed at the surface level (Pun intended.) This update will bring the mechanic more in line with what players know from POE2 in that we no longer have to chase the fissure around the map, potentially backtracking through previously cleared areas. Now, the entire fissure will be present and corrupting the monsters already present in the map. Other monsters will also emerge until it is cleared and new monsters will emerge as you close off the fissures. Eye jewels and the Stygian Vise are still in the game but are now exclusive to Abyss. In addition, there is a new item that can drop from the trove at the end that will be needed to fight the new Pinnacle Boss.
Legion Rework
Legion sees a pretty decent overhaul with the 3.29 patch as well. Incubators are being completely removed from the game, as well as the Unrelenting Emblems though their effects are being moved to normal emblems. The Legion Generals now also have a chance to drop a new currency, Enshrouded Crystals.
This new currency is used to make a unique item “enshrouded” and then brought to the Domain of Timeless Conflict. Here you place the enshrouded unique into a crystal to begin combat. Once all of the monsters have been defeated, you will be rewarded with a completely different unique of the same slot but with an implicit modified that is a slightly watered down version of what was on the original unique item, creating a new Stygian Unique. Effectively slamming the two items together.
Item Socket Colors
Arguably the biggest change to this update, even larger than the new league mechanic itself is the change to item sockets for your skill and support gems. By default, all sockets will now be colorless (white) instead of red, green or blue (largely depending on the base item). This means that while leveling, it should be easier to find upgrades as you only need to find links and not specific colors in a new piece of gear with far better stats. This was done primarily to lower the bar to entry for new players but also does add another level in late game for veteran players.
Colored sockets do still exist but now will grant a quality bonus to gems of the corresponding color placed within. Chromatic orbs also still exist, though will now be a more rare drop, and will guarantee that the item gets at least one colored socket. Bench crafts will also continue to exist with recipes including a guaranteed one, two, or three sockets of a specific color with increasing costs.
While these are the major changes coming with the new league, there are a large number of other balance and gem changes lined up as well with the 3.29 update. You can check them all out on the Path of Exile website.
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