Monster Changes 3.24 - Path of Exile

Monster Balance 3.23

The Foundry Map Boss fight has been adjusted now that it is a single-boss fight. The health of Ciergan, Shadow Alchemist has been increased. They can now use Corpse Rain skill when not on full life (instead of under 90%), and are able to use their Corpse Rain and Spawn Rat skills more often. The number of Molten Mortars spawned by the Cauldron has been increased, alongside the damage they deal.

Monster Balance 3.22

Stun Immunity has been removed from many Bosses in Path of Exile. This includes but is not limited to Atziri, Argus, The Vaal Omnitect and Betrayal Targets. Some Bosses now have specific skills that cannot be stunned, or cannot be interrupted. Kitava is still unable to be stunned.
Shaper Guardians, Elder Guardians, and Conquerors now drop far fewer Influenced items on death.
Slightly increased the outcome odds for Tainted Currency from Beyond Bosses, and slightly reduced the outcome odds for other Beyond Monsters.
Monsters that are unable to be damaged/targeted no longer Regenerate Life or Energy Shield, or Recharge Energy Shield.
Kitava Skeletons in the Belfry Boss Arena now spawn as Magic, instead of Rare.
The Temporal Chains skill used by Monsters also now causes other effects on Cursed enemies to expire 25% slower (previously 40%).

Monster Changes 3.21

The Unique Item drop chances for Catarina, Master of Undeath have been rebalanced.
The Powerful Minions Monster modifier has been split into two different modifiers. Powerful Minions, which buffs the life and damage of minions, and Constantly Revives Minions, which well, constantly revives minions.
Kitava's Heralds in the Lava Lake Boss Arena now spawn as Magic, instead of Rare.
The Rare Monster modifier that triggers purple crystals when the monster is hit now has larger crystals, and the crystals have a slightly longer delay before exploding after the monster dies. The crystals now deal Chaos Damage instead of Elemental Damage, and have had their damage lowered.
Curses applied by Necromancers are no longer removed upon their death.

Monster Balance 3.20

Boiling Ambushers found in Map areas now cast Frostbite instead of Elemental Weakness.
The Bone Prison skill used by the Necropolis Map Boss now has a small gap to run out through.
Magnus Stonethorn's Cast when Damage Taken Molten Shell now requires more damage to be triggered, and now absorbs more damage in Map areas, proportional to the life changes that Rogue Exiles received in 3.19. This skill also now has a 1 second cooldown (previously none).
The Vine Pod explosion skill used by Spriggans now has a cooldown of 3 seconds, and a portion of the damage dealt is now Chaos Damage. They now also use the skill when you are closer to them.

Monster Mods and Archnemesis 3.20

Problem:
Archnemesis monster mods each added a number of stats and buffs to monsters, causing them to feel overwhelming and confusing (especially when multiple mods were present on the same monster).

Solution:

Monster mods now only do one specific thing.
Here's an example: The Magma Barrier Archnemesis mod did a whole lot of stuff. It started by putting a magma barrier around the monster, but it didn't stop there. It converted some of the monster's physical damage to fire damage, it added some extra fire damage on top, it granted fire resistance to the monster and it gave some physical damage reduction for good measure. It also spawned volatile flamebloods to follow you. The new equivalent modifier just puts a magma barrier around the monster and does nothing else.

Problem:
Keyworded, thematic monster mod names gave an impression of the overall effect of the mod on the monster but did not explain exactly what they granted, requiring players to memorise them.

Solution:

Monster mods now say exactly what they do.
For example, rather than "Incendiary", which broke down into six properties, you'd now see monsters with either "Ignites" or "Fire and Ignite Resistant". Instead of "Deadeye", which did five separate things, you'd now see "Applies Random Mark", "Extra Crits" or "Accurate" as separate unrelated mods.

Problem:
The percentage of Archnemesis mods that significantly changed gameplay was high, and combinations of modifiers that required careful play arose too frequently, making content too complex.

Solution:
Since each mod now only does a single thing but monsters don't have more mods than they used to, the percentage of monsters with gameplay-altering effects is now much lower. Interesting and challenging emergent behaviour from overlapping mods can still happen, just less often.

Problem:
The way Archnemesis rewards were set up meant that many players felt like they couldn't just kill a monster, they had to consider if they wanted to bring a magic find character in to maximise rewards

Solution:

Players are no longer required to do annoying actions to maximise rewards
In Archnemesis, rewards were associated with individual mods. This meant that you could tell what kind of rewards you would get in advance. In some cases, you were then effectively required to fetch a magic-find culling character to make sure that you maximised the value of the monster mod that you had found. In other cases, you would ignore a monster completely if you knew that it would only drop rewards that were of no value to you. In the new system, we have added a significant pool of new rewards to rares, but the reward that is on the monster is hidden (and not associated with a specific mod), so you don't know what kind of rewards you will get until you kill the monster. Rare monsters with more mods are more likely to have these special hidden reward mods. This new reward system smooths out the spikiness that the Archnemesis reward system had.

Monster Changes 3.19

Monsters are now unable to evade reflected damage.
Chilled ground from the Permafrost Archnemesis modifier now counts as Vortex ground, and can no longer stack with other sources of Vortex ground.
Unstable Wetas now leave Vortex ground effect on death, instead of Cold Snap ground, and cannot stack with other sources of Vortex ground effect.
The Beachhead Boss Fight no longer drops normal rarity weapons throughout the fight, as Animate Weapon no longer requires them.
Fixed a bug where buffs that alternate to provide different stats, such as more and reduced damage taken buffs on monsters with the Loathing Essence modifier, were not working. As a result, the following changes have been made for Essence Monsters: Reduced the amount of Attack, Cast and Movement Speed granted by Zeal Essence modifiers on Monsters; reduced the amount of reduced Damage Taken granted by Loathing Essence modifiers on Monsters; Scorn Essence modifiers now grant 75% reduced extra Damage Taken from Critical Strikes to the affected Monster, instead of Cannot be Critically Struck.

Monster Balance Changes 3.18

Grasping Vines applied by the Bramble Valley Map Boss no longer take longer to break than other sources of Grasping Vines, and no longer disable Movement Skills.
Reduced the base Movement Speed reduction from almost all sources of the Grasping Vines debuff.

Monster Changes 3.17

Act 2 Improvements

Improve the behaviour of most Act 2 monsters, raise the life of some weaker Act 2 monsters and add new monster varieties to some Act 2 areas.

Adjusted the life and damage of various Monsters found throughout Act 2.
New Monster types have been added throughout Act 2: Spriggans, Wasps, Undead Vaal, Scuttlers, and Salvagers.

Tormented Martyrs

Change the damage dealt when Tormented Martyr-touched monsters explode to be based only on the monster's level, meaning that every monster in a given area will deal a similar amount of damage when it explodes.

Existing Monster modifiers

Update and add to monster modifiers. Add more options for Caster monsters to allow more diverse modifier outcomes, and new enhanced defence modifiers.

The Aura radius for "Allies Move and Attack Faster" has been increased to be the same as other Monster Auras.
Caster Monsters are now able to have Extra Damage as a modifier.
The Plated modifier now provides 30% additional Physical Damage Reduction instead of Armour. It still only appears on Monsters that have Armour.
Added new Magic and Rare Monster modifiers for Chaos Resistance for all Monsters.
Added new Magic and Rare Monster modifiers for Extra Lightning Damage for attack Monsters.
Added new Magic and Rare Monster modifiers for Cast Speed and Spell Damage for caster Monsters.
The "Allies Deal Substantial Extra Physical Damage" modifier no longer has the word "Substantial" in it, though the values of the modifier have not changed.
The Evasion Rating modifier for Monsters is now a prefix modifier instead of a suffix, to match the Armour and Energy Shield modifiers.

Mausoleum Map Boss

Reduce the number of corpses Tolman, The Exhumer, is able to explode at once and add a visual effect wind-up to the skill.

Monster Changes 3.15

Act Bosses throughout the campaign now drop fewer but significantly better items.
Rebalanced the Ailment Threshold for monsters, reducing this for particularly tough endgame Bosses.
Gamewide Poison now does 50% more damage (taking 30% of the combined Physical and Chaos Damage, up from 20%).
Al-Hezmin and his snakes deal less Poison Damage with their Skills that Poison, to counteract the gamewide buff to Poison.
Puncture Base Damage has been buffed by approximately 20%, and Bleeding Damage by approximately 25% for all monsters that use a puncture skill.
Improved audio and added dialogue for various Delve Boss fights.

Monster Changes 3.14

The final bosses of each Act have had their drops reworked. They now drop both more and better items, so that they can be profitably farmed if desired.
The base life of all Harvest monsters has been reduced by 30-50%, however Harvest machinery now grants monsters around 100% extra increased life on average. The intention here is to keep the Life values of Monsters spawned in Harvest encounters approximately the same as they were before, but significantly lower the life values on the Desecrated versions of these Monsters to bring them into line with other Desecratable Monsters. Please note that Primal Blisterlords and Primal Crushclaws have had their life reduced by a greater percentage as a result of this change.
The "Allies Cannot Die" aura has been removed. To replace this, a new "Benevolent Guardian" Nemesis modifier has been added which causes the Monster with this modifier to apply an Immunity buff to nearby allies for a short duration. If the original Monster is slain, affected allies lose the Immunity buff. Other Monsters that have this Nemesis modifier cannot be given the Immunity buff.
Rare monsters dominated by Sirus have had their Attack, Cast Speed and Movement Speed lowered.
Tzteosh, Hungering Flame no longer uses his Ultimate Molten Strike skill.
The Bull Thorns skill used by Lieutenant of Rage in The Labyrinth and the Crusher of Gladiators in the Racecourse Map has been visually updated and no longer has Damage Reflection.
The Vaal Pyramid and Arcade Map bosses have had their health increased to bring them closer into line with other Map bosses.

Monster Changes 3.13

Some bosses now ignore damage if the source of that damage has been a very long distance from it for a period of time (essentially, you can’t just shoot them from beyond their pathfinding radius any more).
Enduring Cry used by monsters has been given a cooldown and had its healing amount standardised. It’s less ridiculous now.