PoE 3.12 Release Date, Build Guide

Path of Exile: Heist launches on September 18, 2020 on PC, and September 23 on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.

Starting levels for the new skill gems in Heist

Level New Skill
Level 1 Splitting Steel Splitting Steel
Level 4 Flame Wall Flame Wall
Level 12 Blazing Salvo Blazing Salvo
Level 12 Shattering Steel Shattering Steel
Level 28 Lancing Steel Lancing Steel
Level 28 Firestorm Firestorm
Level 28 Glacial Cascade Glacial Cascade
Level 28 Crackling Lance Crackling Lance
Level 28 Hexblast Hexblast
Level 31 Impending Doom Support Impending Doom Support
Level 31 Pinpoint Support Pinpoint Support
Level 34 Void Sphere Void Sphere

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The Heist Challenge League

  • Challenge leagues are a great opportunity for a fresh start in a new economy. All of your old characters and items are still present in the Standard and Hardcore leagues, but you’re encouraged to join the new leagues, complete challenges and demonstrate your mastery of Path of Exile!
  • In the Heist Challenge League, you’ll travel to The Rogue Harbour to hire skilled thieves in order to pull off elaborate and risky Heists. With their help, you’ll infiltrate secure facilities, work to bypass security systems and steal valuable Artifacts. You’ll need to be careful not to trigger the alarm or the facility will go into lockdown and you’ll be swarmed by its guards. When this happens, you’ll need to make a mad dash to the extraction point or you’ll lose everything you stole along the way.
  • Successfully completing Heists lays the foundation to pull off a thief’s ultimate goal – a Grand Heist. For these, you’ll need to accumulate Heist markers, gather intel and train and equip your crew. Intel and markers can be used to reveal the details of Blueprints which contain the secrets of elaborate facilities which will allow you to find more reward rooms and plan which Rogue expertise you’ll need to bypass security. Grand Heists offer exclusive rewards like Trinkets Trinkets, Alternate Quality Gems, Replica Unique Items, Experimented Base Types, Weapon and Body Armour enchantments and much more.
  • Each Rogue has one main specialty and several secondary abilities. These skills are essential for completing Heists by allowing you to demolish walls, pick locks and much more. You can equip them with specialised rogue gear to make them more effective in Heists. Each successful Heist will help improve their skills.
  • With 3.12.0, there are Standard, Hardcore and Solo Self-Found variations of the Heist challenge league available. They have the same core mechanics and items. You can create private league versions of these leagues, with mods that make the game harder.
  • The new challenge leagues include a set of 40 new challenges. When you complete 12 challenges, you will receive the Nenet’s Hood, Huck’s Helmet and Vinderi’s Helmet Effects. When you reach 24 challenges, you will receive the Heist Cat Pet. At 36 challenges completed you’ll receive the Heist Portal Effect. These microtransactions are only obtainable in this league.
  • From the 19th challenge onwards and for every third challenge after that, you will receive pieces of the Heist Totem Pole decoration to display in your hideout. The Totem Pole permanently showcases how many of the Heist challenges you completed during the league.

Path of Exile 3.12: Heist

GGG will launche the 3.12 September expansion 13 weeks after the launch of Harvest(3.11). The release date of PoE 3.12 is September 18, 2020. The name of PoE 3.12 is Heist.

Server PoE 3.12 Release Date PoE 3.11 Harvest End Time
PC September 18, 2020 September 14th at 3PM PDT, 2020
Xbox One September 23, 2020 September 23rd at 3PM PDT, 2020
PlayStation 4 September 23, 2020 September 23rd at 3PM PDT, 2020

Harvest will not become a core Path of Exile mechanic. Any progress from the 3.11 version of Harvest will definitely not be compatible with future plans for the league. When the Harvest league ends next week, all Harvest data (groves, seeds, infrastructure, unused crafts, etc) will be removed. Consider using any saved up crafts beforehand!

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PoE Heist 3.12 Builds Guide

The ultimate goal is execute a Grand Heist which will offer exclusive new rewards such as Weapon and Body Armour Enchantments, Experimented Base Types, Heist Trinkets, Alternate Quality Gems and Replica Unique Items.

Heist New Skills Builds:

The PoE 3.12 contains the Heist challenge league, nine new Heist Skills and Support Gems, revamps of Curses, Steel Skills, and some Spells.

Steel Skills

Call of Steel causes all impaled enemies in a large radius to release all of their spikes at once, dealing area damage as the shards burst out of them.

Lancing Steel consumes Steel Shards by thrusting an Axe or Sword forward and create a group of impaling projectiles in the air which shoot projectiles forward one after another.

Splitting Steel consumes a Steel Shard to fire a single impaling projectile that splits on impact and creates an explosion of damage.

Shattering Steel swings an Axe or Sword, releasing projectiles in sequence. The projectiles shatter when colliding with an enemy or travelling a short distance.

Powerful Spells

Void Sphere creates an object that generates a pulse within a large radius. This pulse deals physical and chaos damage and pulls normal, magic and rare enemies toward its centre.

Frost Shield creates an icy dome on the ground at your location that protects the caster and their allies from enemies.

Sigil of Power creates a potent circle on the ground that grants additional lightning damage to you and allies standing within it, while also slightly increasing the cost of your skills.

Flame Wall creates an area of burning flame. Any enemies that pass through it will be inflicted with a secondary burning effect.

Blazing Salvo releases a volley of fiery mortars. Targeting enemies up close causes the mortars to land with overlapping impacts, while firing from further away causes the mortars to cover a large area.

Crackling Lance shoots out a wide beam of lightning that has secondary areas of lightning that split off it, striking enemies in a wide spread. Crackling Lance comes with built in Intensity, so each cast builds in damage, while the secondary areas angle in, until all the lightning fires in a single wider beam.

Lowering the base maximum Intensity from 4 to 3, while increasing all bonuses to compensate.

Pinpoint Support gives 3 additional projectiles, while each stack of Intensity will reduce the number of projectiles you fire by 1 while greatly increasing the skill’s damage.

Curses

Curses are now divided into Hexes and Marks. Hex Spells apply curse debuffs to each enemy in an area, while Marks apply the curse debuff on a single target and cannot be applied to more than one target.

Hexes are Flammability, Hexblast, Frostbite, Conductivity, Elemental Weakness, Vulnerability, Despair, Temporal Chains, Enfeeble and Punishment. Impending Doom is a support gem that can support hexes. The more Doom the supported hex built up before its expiration, the greater damage the explosion will deal.

Marks are Warlord’s Mark, Poacher’s Mark, Assassin’s Mark and Sniper’s Mark (which is the reworked Projectile Weakness).

Heist Guides

Heist location: The Rogue Harbour.

Marker is the currency in Heist. It creates a portal to the Rogue Harbour from a Town or Hideout. It is also used as currency for services in the Rogue Harbour.

What is Marker

In order to execute a Heist, you need a Contract. The Artifact you're seeking will be shown on the contract. Like maps, Contracts can be crafted to increase their difficulty and reward.

Heist Contract

Blueprints are needed to run Grand Heists. Blueprints show where the vaults are located inside sprawling facilities.

PoE Heist Blueprints

Intel is something that's gained automatically when you turn in Artifacts you've retrieved from Heists and is essential in the planning of Grand Heists. 

All the items in Heist are considered as Contraband items. When you reach the maximum Alert Level, you'll trigger the alarm. You'll have a brief window to steal as much as you can before the facility goes into lockdown and you're swarmed by guards. If you fail at a Heist, you will lose all your Contraband items.

Heist Alert Level

New Uniques

PoE Heist added 28 new Unique items, including one designed by a supporter.

Replica Unique items result from attempts to re-create unique items of legend, where the end product has a few crucial differences. They're often appropriate for entirely different character builds than the original item.

Artifact

Artifacts are the main objective from a (non-Grand) Heist. The Artifact you’re seeking will be shown on the contract before the Heist commences.

New Divination Cards

Added 12 new Divination Cards:

Experimented Base Type

Experimented Base Types are a variety of new item base types that have exotic properties that differ from their core-game counterparts.

Item Category Stats
Capricious Spiritblade One Hand Sword 100% of Physical damage from hits with this weapon is converted to a random element.
Impact Force Propagator Two Handed Mace Warcries Extra 1 Additional Attack
Oscillating Sceptre Sceptre Elemental Overload
Solarine Bow Bow Adds x to y Fire Damage

Misc

Path of Exile: Heist Release Date

Skill Balance

  • Lightning Trap, Glacial Hammer, Vaal Glacial Hammer, Ice Shot, Lightning Arrow, Arc, Vaal Arc, Storm Call, Vaal Storm Call and Stormblast Mine now each also affect the alternate versions of their corresponding elemental ailments.
  • Only gems which are Curses will now have the Curse gem tag (ie. all Hexes and Marks). Skills which interact with Hexes and/or Marks will have the Hex and/or Mark tag, but will not have the Curse tag. Bane, for example, has the Hex tag but not the Curse tag, as it is not a Curse. As a result, modifiers to Curse skill gems will not affect skill gems like Bane.

Vaal Skill Balance

Vaal Impurity of Fire, Ice and Lightning
  • No longer grant reduced damage taken of their respective damage types, and now instead grant +5% to their respective maximum resistances at all gem levels.

Support Gem Balance

Awakened Curse On Hit Support - now named Awakened Hextouch Support
  • Now only supports Hex Curse Skill Gems.
  • Now grants the supported Hex a chance for it to affect Hexproof enemies (rather than apply to them).

Curse On Hit Support - now named Hextouch Support
  • Now only supports Hex Curse Skill Gems.

Intensify Support
  • Supported skills now gain Intensity.
  • Supported skills now deal 14% more Area Damage per Intensity at gem level 1 (from 10%), up to 22% at gem level 20 (from 16%).
  • Supported skills now have 15% less Area of Effect per Intensity at all gem levels (from 12%).
  • You can now have 3 maximum Intensity by default (from 4). This is no longer tied to the support gem, as skills such as Crackling Lance can utilise Intensity.

Deathmark Support - now named Predator Support
  • Renamed to Predator Support to signify that it is not a Mark skill.
  • Now grants the Signal Prey skill (previously called Deathmark).

Spellslinger Support
  • Now has a cooldown of 0.6 seconds (from 0.5 seconds).
  • Now grants supported skills increased cooldown recovery rate as the gem levels, from 0% at gem level 1 (unchanged) to 38% at gem level 20 (from 19%).
  • Now has 30% Mana Reservation Override at gem level 1, down to 25% at gem level 20 (from 20% at all gem levels).

Passive Tree Balance

  • Added a new Keystone - Doomsday: Causes Hexes you cast to apply to an area, applying the Hex to all enemies in it for over its duration. The Hex area gains its maximum Doom after a short secondary duration.
  • The Glancing Blows Keystone now causes you to take 65% of Damage from Blocked Hits (from 50%). It has been moved so as to make it more difficult to acquire via a Thread of Hope jewel.
  • The Divine Flesh Keystone (obtainable via the Glorious Vanity unique Jewel) now grants +5% to maximum Chaos Resistance, down from +10%.
  • The Skittering Runes cluster has moved just below Heart of Thunder. The notable now grants +10 to maximum Doom and 10% increased Effect of your Curses (from 15% increased Effect of your Curses).
  • The Whispers of Doom cluster has moved next to Chaos Inoculation. The first passive in the cluster now grants 10% increased Cast Speed for Curses (from 15% increased Curse Duration). The small passive on the left path now grants 50% increased Doom gain rate (from 15% increased Cast Speed for Curses).
  • The Hex Master cluster has moved to the left side of the tree, next to Disciple of the Forbidden. It now has 3 small passives before the notable. The entry passive now grants 5% increased Effect of your Curses. The two passives before the notable each grant 50% increased Doom gain rate. The notable now exclusively applies to Hex skills.
  • The Corruption cluster has moved to where Whispers of Doom used to be. It now has 6 passives, with the original passives making up the entry and left path. The notable now grants 0.2% of Chaos damage leeched as Energy Shield. The right path grants 4% Chaos Resistance penetration on each passive.
  • The new Dark Intent cluster has been added where Skittering Runes used to be. It grants increases to the Effect of your Curses, reduced Mana Reservation of Curse Aura skills, increased damage with Hits and Ailments against Cursed Enemies, and additional starting Doom for all Hexes you apply.
  • The new Mark the Weak cluster has been added to the southeast of the Ranger, and grants increased Cast Speed for Curses, and causes hits against Marked Enemies to have increased Critical Strike Chance. It also causes Marked Enemies to have reduced accuracy, take increased damage, and grant additional flask charges when slain.
  • The new Marked for Death cluster has been added to the southeast of the Duelist. It grants increased Effect of your Curses, Culling Strike against Marked enemies, and increased damage with Hits and Ailments against Enemies Marked by you.

Ascendancy Balance

Assassin
  • Deadly Infusion Notable now grants +1.5% Critical Strike Chance while at maximum Power Charges (from +2%) and +5% to Critical Strike Multiplier per Power Charge (from +8%).
  • The small passives which grant Critical Strike Chance and Multiplier now grant +10% to Critical Strike Multiplier (from +15%).

Necromancer
  • Mistress of Sacrifice now causes your Offerings to have 50% reduced effect on you (from 25%).

Ascendant
  • The Necromancer path now causes your Offerings to have 50% reduced effect on you (from 25%).

Item Balance

  • Item modifier tags have been entirely reworked with a goal in mind of consistency and simplicity. These changes have negligible impacts to the odds of various modifiers appearing on rare items naturally, but may have impacts to the results of certain crafting methods. A list of all modifiers and their associated tags can be found here.
  • As a result of the above changes, several fossil descriptions have changed slightly.
  • Bound Fossils now also increase the likelihood of rolling Curse modifiers.
  • Faceted Fossils now increase the likelihood of rolling all gem-related modifiers (rather than only modifiers to socketed gem levels).
  • Items which apply a Curse to an enemy (such as the curse-on-hit Ring modifiers) no longer specify a level, and instead have a set magnitude for their values with a fixed amount of Doom, which is overwritten when another source applies a more potent version (similar to Arcane Surge).
  • Items which Trigger a Mark on hit now only do so when hitting Rare and Unique enemies.
  • Life regeneration modifiers are now less likely to roll on items. The values of life regeneration granted by these modifiers has been increased across all but the first tier, with the top tiers now granting twice as much life regeneration per second than before. Existing items with these modifiers can be updated to the new values with a Divine Orb.
  • Crusader-influenced items can no longer roll a Physical Damage conversion modifier if the item already has one.
  • The Labyrinth Enchantments which grant reduced Mana reservation for Vitality now grant 20% and 30% reduced mana Reservation (from 14% and 20%). Existing items with this enchantment are unaffected.
  • The "Lancing Steel's primary Projectile Pierces 3/5 additional Targets" Labyrinth Enchantment has been replaced with a new enchantment that grants an additional Projectile. Existing items with this enchantment are unaffected.
  • The "Lancing Steel's additional Projectiles have +20/30% chance to Impale Enemies" Labyrinth Enchantment has been replaced with a new enchantment granting a 20/30% chance not to consume Steel Shards. Existing items with this enchantment are unaffected.
  • The "Shattering Steel fires an additional Projectile" Labyrinth Enchantment has been replaced with a new enchantment granting a 20/30% chance not to consume Steel Shards. Existing items with this enchantment are unaffected.
  • The "30/40% of Glacial Cascade Physical Damage Converted to Cold Damage" Labyrinth Enchantment has been replaced with a new enchantment granting 6/10% of Physical Damage as Extra Cold Damage. Existing items with this enchantment are unaffected.
  • The "increased Discharge Radius" Labyrinth Enchantment has been replaced with a new enchantment granting Discharge +3/+5 to Radius. Existing items with this enchantment are unaffected.
  • Cat's Stealth, from Aspect of the Cat, now causes you to have 50% increased Stealth, and no longer grants 50% reduced Visibility to Enemies. This affects all items which grant Aspect of the Cat.

Cluster Jewel Balance

All changes to Cluster Jewels affect existing items and characters.
  • Eye of the Storm now increases the effect of non-Damaging Ailments you inflict with Critical Strikes (previously specified Chill and Shock, but it now also works with alternate elemental ailments).
  • Precise Commander now causes you and nearby allies to have 25% increased Critical Strike Chance (from 30%), and +10% to Critical Strike Multiplier (from 12%).
  • Vengeful Commander now grants 20% increased effect of Anger, Hatred and Wrath auras (from 30%).
  • Vicious Bite now grants your minions +15% to Critical Strike Multiplier (from 20%) and 30% increased Critical Strike Chance (from 50%).

Monster Changes

  • Raised Spectre versions of Redemption Sentries and Redemption Knights now have approximately 33% less Life and Damage than before.
  • Bosses throughout Path of Exile and monsters deep in the Azurite Mine no longer reduce the effect of Marks on them.
  • Hexproof monsters can now be cursed, but will ignore the effect of any Hexes applied to them (previously curses could not be applied). Hexproof in no way mitigates the effects of a Mark.
  • Monsters which previously used curses have had their behaviours updated in line with the new curse behaviour.
  • Monster packs in The Caverns and The Ancient Pyramid now spawn with the appropriate Necromancer (no more Ash Prophets with lightning skeletons).
  • Monsters now use their own version of the new (as of 3.11.0) Enduring Cry.
  • Dreadwheel monsters (as found in The Climb) no longer have Quick and Fast Attacks as implicit modifiers, and have had the effects of those modifiers moved into their base properties. As a result, external modifiers to their movement and attack speed (such as those from Maps) will have a greater effect.
  • Cannibals no longer have an extended wind-up before they throw their stones.

Atlas and Map Changes

  • Map tiers and locations have been shuffled (though the 'pin' locations for maps has not changed). Most maps are now initially found at a different tier. Unique maps have not moved or changed tiers.
  • Improved signalling for advancing the Atlas questline step in which Zana opens a portal after the map boss is slain.
  • Penitentiary Incarcerator (boss of the Dungeon Map) will no longer spawn infinite Skeletons if he's allowed to live indefinitely.
  • Ancient Architect (boss of the Pier Map) will no longer summon spiked ground on top of other spiked ground.

Blight Balance Changes

  • Blight Towers have been rebalanced to try to provide a better diversity of strategies for handling Blighted maps.
  • Arc Towers now cast 74% faster.
  • Shock Nova towers now cast 50% faster.
  • Chilling Towers now have 50% more Chill effect, and have a cooldown of 4 seconds (from 7).
  • Seismic Towers now 50% more skill effect duration and have a cooldown of 4 seconds (from 7).
  • Minion Towers now wait 3 seconds before resummoning their dead minions (from 8).
  • Freezebolt Towers now cast twice as fast and have half their previous cooldown. They now fire an additional projectile.
  • Stone Gaze Towers now reduce action speed by 20% (from 15%) and have a slightly reduced cooldown.
  • Scouts from Scout Towers now have 38% more Attack Speed and deal 50% more damage.

Incursion Changes

  • The Hall of Mettle, Hall of Heroes, and Hall of Legends are now only available in Incursion Temples whose temporal exploration began in level 68 and above areas.

Delve Changes

  • The Buried Monolith encounter (Legion) is now restricted to areas of level 68 and above.

User Interface Improvements

  • The /autoreply command now persists across area transitions.
  • When you use an in-area transition (such as the entrance to a boss room), a very short cooldown is now applied to the transition at the destination, to prevent accidentally bouncing back with some overzealous clicking.

PvP Changes

  • To ensure Heist and the new skills receive the necessary QA time, we will be providing PvP balance changes in a followup patch shortly after the launch of 3.12.0

Path of Exile 3.12 on macOS

GGG is releasing Path of Exile 3.12 for macOS alongside the Heist expansion! This version of the Path of Exile is fully integrated into the main worldwide PC realm so you can access your existing accounts and microtransactions.

Path of Exile 3.12 on macOS

13 Weeks per Expansion

Normally Path of Exile operates on a 13-week development cycle, launching one expansion per season. These expansions always occur in March, June, September, and December.

It took 14 weeks to develop Harvest(3.11) due to the limitations of working from home. This meant GGG would need one of their expansions to be developed in just 12 weeks to make up for that lost time.

Their intention was to develop 3.12 expansion on this 12-week timeline but due to the ambitious scope of the league, GGG feels it is a lot safer to consume the 13th week. So while this isn't technically a deviation from their normal timeline, it's slightly later than GGG originally indicated.

PoE 3.11 Release Date

Path of Exile 3.11: Harvest League.

Server 3.11 Release Date
PC June 19, 2020
Xbox One June 24, 2020
PlayStation 4 June 24, 2020

The release time of 3.13, and so on

GGG plans to start the development of 3.13 before 3.12 is finished so that they can comfortably meet their Christmas deadline for that one.

  • The release date of 3.13 is December, 2020. It is 13 weeks after the launch of 3.12.
  • And so on, with new expansions every 13 weeks until 4.0.0 is ready.

It’s important to understand that due to its scope, 4.0.0 is likely at least a year away from full release.

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