PoE Harvest New Skills, Skills Changes

1. New Slam Skills and Slam Changes

In Path of Exile: Harvest, GGG has created a new category of skills called ‘Slams’. Harvest has introduced one new support and one new slam skill while several existing skills have been recategorised as Slams. The following post reveals which skills are now considered slams, how they’ve been improved and information about the new Slam called Earthshatter Earthshatter!

In general, GGG is looking to provide more support for two-handed playstyles and builds that hit slower but hit harder. These changes come alongside improvements to two-handed base types, more passive skill tree support, improvements to Warcries and more.

1.1 The Fist of War Support

Alongside our announcement of Harvest, we revealed the new Fist of War Support Fist of War Support that works with all slams except Vaal Slams and Ancestral Warchief Ancestral Warchief. Every few seconds an ancestor appears above your character and performs your slam in unison with you, creating a supercharged slam dealing much more damage with an increased Area of Effect.

The following slam skills can be used with the Fist of War support.

1.2 Earthshatter

Earthshatter Earthshatter is a new level 12 slam attack that sends out five damaging fissures in all directions when you slam the ground. At the end of each fissure, a spike bursts from the ground and remains for a short time. If these spikes are in the area of another Slam or Warcry used by you or an allied player, the spikes will explode, dealing damage in an area around them. The range of the fissures combined with the area of the exploding spikes ends up spreading damage over a large area, with explosions overlapping near the location you slammed.

You can alternate between slamming with Earthshatter Earthshatter and using a Warcry, letting you kill enemies around you by detonating your spikes while simultaneously preparing to exert your next use of the skill. You can also easily Leap Slam Leap Slam onto your spikes to trigger them while you move. Any exploding spike can detonate other spikes near it, so you can leave a trail of spikes with repeated slams then set them off by leaping onto one of them.

1.3 Tectonic Slam

Tectonic Slam Tectonic Slam has received an impressive new visual effect and no longer uses ‘charged slams’; it instead counts Endurance Charges to grant more Area of Effect and additional damaging cracks in the ground. This improves the reward for investing in Endurance Charges by providing both a larger and more consistent Area of Effect. It now consumes an Endurance Charge every three Slams, rather than at a random 35% chance. The additional cracks that Endurance Charges generate can spread out further from the base impact and are more deterministic.

Enchantments that previously granted a chance for a Charged Slam now grant an additional chance for cracks.

1.4 Perforate

Perforate Perforate now provides flat physical damage that scales as the gem levels. The distribution of its spikes in Blood Stance has been made more consistent. A higher percentage of its spikes should hit a small target and investment in Area of Effect and/or the number of spikes should keep this percentage of spikes hitting consistent.

Sand Stance’s base area starts off slightly smaller but increases as the gem levels. Perforate Perforate also provides one additional spike at all levels and also grants two additional spikes if you’ve changed stance recently.

The issue with Perforate Perforate in the past was that in Sand Stance, there were large gaps between Spikes which meant that enemies within those gaps would be missed. The extra spikes it now provides and additional Area of Effect vastly improve the number of targets that can be hit by a single Slam.

In Blood Stance, increased Area of Effect used to result in a loss to single target damage and the extra Spikes from the Perforate Perforate enchantment would be placed outside of the range of most small enemies and therefore wouldn’t contribute any damage to single targets.

These changes to Perforate Perforate improve its ability to hit enemies more reliably and with a better spread of damage.

1.5 Sunder

As part of our effort to encourage slower and heavier-hitting Slams, Sunder Sunder has become a much wider and longer but slower cascade. Using Sunder Sunder while one cascade is still in motion will cause the existing cascade to end prematurely. These cascades will always travel a minimum length, so you can still use Sunder Sunder effectively with Multistrike and fast hitting weapons when close to enemies.

It still releases Shockwaves which can overlap when they hit enemies. Leveling the gem no longer scales its radius but instead scales its Area of Effect. Overall it now provides a better Area of Effect for slower hitting weapons.

1.6 Earthquake, Ground Slam and Ice Crash

These skills are receiving numerical changes which will be revealed closer to launch. In general, the idea is to make them generally stronger.

1.7 Other Slam Skills

The other skills that are now categorised as slams are mostly unchanged but have had their visual effects improved and can be used with the Fist of War support.

Check out the new slams in action in this video here!

New and Changed Slam Skills in Path of Exile: Harvest

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2. New Brand Skills and Brand Changes

In Path of Exile: Harvest, GGG is introducing several new Brand skills and one Brand support gem. GGG has also reworked existing Brands and reviewed how their mechanics work. The following covers what changes to expect and provides a preview of the new Brand gems.

2.1 Changes to Brands

Brands were first introduced many leagues ago with Storm Brand Storm Brand and Armageddon Brand Armageddon Brand. Brands are all cast on a location and attach to nearby enemies, repeatedly activating to perform their unique effect. They detach if the enemy dies, ready to jump to another target.

We’ve finally added some new Brand skills: Arcanist Brand Arcanist Brand, Penance Brand Penance Brand and Wintertide Brand Wintertide Brand. These come alongside new options for how you can build and play Brands, like the new Swiftbrand Support Swiftbrand Support. These additions introduce a more aggressive, active play style.

2.2 Arcanist Brand

Arcanist Brand Arcanist Brand is a new Brand skill that also supports any triggerable spell linked with it. Each time the Brand activates, it triggers a supported spell, allowing you to build your own Brand setup, potentially even triggering multiple different spells in succession.

As Brand mechanics naturally have great clearing capacity, the supported skills have less area, projectile range and chain range. Triggered spells have a damage penalty, to balance their ability to activate multiple times. The triggered spells also deal more damage to the branded enemy.

Projectiles will hit the branded enemy, but will aim at another nearby enemy each activation, so they often take advantage of Pierce, Chain and Fork effects.

Arcanist Brand Arcanist Brand has a shorter duration than other Brands, so isn’t something you’d use on any build to passively trigger effects, but when building for Brands it can be very powerful. Like other Brands, Cast Speed affects activation rate, so it benefits from most spellcaster investment.

2.3 Penance Brand

Penance Brand Penance Brand builds up energy on the branded target with each activation, though at first the activations don’t deal any damage. Each activation also spreads energy to another enemy, and then that enemy can then spread it to another uncharged enemy the next activation, and so on. This means that with repeat activations it can rapidly spread through a group of enemies, energizing them all.

When the Brand is removed (for example, by its duration expiring, it being recalled, the target dying or being replaced), all of the energy is released. This releases an explosion around each enemy dealing physical damage with a portion converted to lightning. The more energy the enemy had on it, the greater the damage and area. You can pick and choose which mechanics to focus on to detonate your Penance Brands.

If the branded enemy becomes fully energised, they’ll start pulsing damage around them, so reaching full charge won’t waste any damage.

You can shorten the duration of the Brand to have them automatically go off after a brief time, or use Brand Recall Brand Recall to force detonations when you detach the Brand.

2.4 Wintertide Brand

Wintertide Brand Wintertide Brand applies Cold Damage over time to the branded enemy and chills them. Each activation, the Brand’s damage effect becomes more intense on that enemy.

When the Brand is removed (such as when its duration expires, it is recalled, the target dies or the Brand is replaced), the damage over time effect is released in an area. This affects both the branded enemy (if they’re still alive) and all other enemies around them. This means that if the damage effect has grown in intensity through many activations, it could apply a very potent damage over time effect in an area.

Unlike other Brands, Wintertide Brand Wintertide Brand has a base limit of two Brands per target. With the Runebinder keystone you could apply three Wintertide Brands to a single target for massive cold damage over time. This means that your character’s build will be quite different from other cold damage over time skills, but the duration based nature of Brands means you can easily cast a cold skill like Vortex Vortex, Cold Snap Cold Snap or Arctic Breath Arctic Breath in between refreshing your Brand effect.

2.5 Swiftbrand Support

The Swiftbrand Support Swiftbrand Support greatly lowers the active and inactive duration of a Brand, but increases its activation rate. For a single Brand being cast once, it’s not as good as other supports, but if you’re rapidly placing many Brands, it’s a huge damage increase. You can play a much more aggressive Brand playstyle with this support.

It also works very well with Penance Brand Penance Brand to rapidly detonate, as well as Armageddon Brand Armageddon Brand to make the most of its short cast time.

2.6 Brand Recall and Brand Mechanic Adjustments

Brand Recall Brand Recall still instantly moves your Brands to you and activates them, but no longer refreshes the Brand’s duration. It now consumes mana based on the Brands recalled. This prevents Brands benefiting heavily from the Archmage Support Archmage Support without the same mana upkeep the Support usually requires.

We generally feel that if a common build has ongoing damage with very little input, it should deal below average damage or require massive investment. Certain Brand builds that instantly refreshed Brand duration indefinitely provided too much power for their opportunity cost. Rather than lowering the damage of these builds, we’ve changed the mechanics that let the build be played passively. The cooldown of Brand Recall Brand Recall has been lengthened, but we’ve also provided new avenues of investment so that you can still bring it down to a similar length.

As a small change to remove some more of the potential passivity of Brands, Brands now return to their original or recalled location when dropped by monsters, rather than the dropped monster’s location. This puts a greater focus on Brand Attachment Range, and prevents the Brand from disappearing into the distance while killing monsters you’ve yet to see.

Check out Brands in action by watching this video:

New Brand Skills and Brand Changes in Path of Exile: Harvest

3. New Warcry Skills and Warcry Changes

In Path of Exile: Harvest, GGG is adding four new Warcry skills, one new support and are reworking three existing ones. GGG has generally improved the options available for those who want to utilise Warcries in their builds. The following reveals new skills and what to expect in terms of changes.

3.1 Changes to Warcry Skills

Some time ago we decided that it would be good to do a balance pass that focused on two-handed weapons and the “slower but stronger” playstyle. While we were exploring how best to achieve this, it became clear that giving Warcry skills some long overdue improvements could be of great help.

Our first step in doing this was to define for ourselves what a Warcry should be and what function it fulfils. We found that Warcries should:

  • Release a shockwave that taunts enemies.
  • Apply either a buff or debuff where its power is based on nearby enemies.
  • Exert (or “power up”) your next few attacks with special properties.

These rules can be flexible but provide a base starting point of what Warcries should look like within the new system. We started by reworking existing Warcries to fit into this set of rules, and as we made new ones to fill in any gaps we felt were present.

We also changed the mechanics of ‘nearby enemies’ to care about the power of these enemies. In the old system, five small monsters would provide five times the Warcry benefit compared to a single unique boss. This felt wrong. The new system now counts magic, rare and unique enemies proportionate to their power so that your Warcry scales more effectively with the content you’re facing. Currently this works by counting normal monsters as one, magic monsters as two, rare as ten and unique as twenty.

3.2 Enduring Cry

Enduring Cry Enduring Cry received a relatively minimal rework but we wanted to see if we could improve various aspects of this skill while we were reworking the others.

It still generates endurance charges based on the power of nearby enemies, but also provides a short burst of very powerful healing. It also temporarily gives you additional resistance and physical damage reduction for a short duration.

Unlike other Warcries, Enduring Cry Enduring Cry does not exert your next few attacks; its benefits are purely defensive.

3.3 Intimidating Cry

Previously, Intimidating Cry Intimidating Cry was only obtainable through a unique item. In addition to it now being available as a skill gem, it has undergone a full rework to be a lot more punchy and exciting.

Its benefits are purely offensive. It achieves this by intimidating nearby enemies and exerting your next few attacks to deal double damage. It also provides a buff that lets you ignore some of your enemies’ physical damage reduction based on nearby enemy power. (Note: we’ll reveal what number of exerted attacks each Warcry creates closer to launch)

It’s intended to be the offensive counterpart to Enduring Cry Enduring Cry. It should work in a wide variety of builds to make your next few attacks feel really powerful.

3.4 Ancestral Cry

This is a new Warcry which was designed to work well specifically with strike skills. It causes your next few strikes to also target nearby enemies, similar to the Ancestral Call support.

It also provides a buff based on the power of nearby enemies which both increases your melee range as well as providing bonus armour.

It’s intended to be a well-rounded Warcry that generally provides benefit to anybody interested in playing strike skills.

3.5 Seismic Cry

We’ve created a new category of skills known as ‘slam skills’ and wanted to make a Warcry that synergises well with these skills. It causes your next few slam skills to have an increased area of effect and more damage which both increase with each attack until you reset the Warcry or your exerted attacks run out.

It knocks enemies back and interrupts them when it taunts them. It then grants you a buff based on nearby enemy power which reduces enemy stun threshold, making it easier to stun enemies with your hits.

3.6 Rallying Cry

Rallying Cry Rallying Cry has been reworked and given a new identity. It has traditionally worked well with support-style builds and we designed it to provide a new way to support allies.

It causes nearby allies to gain a buff that grants them a percentage of your main-hand weapon’s damage based on the power of nearby enemies. It also exerts your next few attacks to deal more damage based on how many allies you have near you. Unlike most other Warcries, the power of the buff comes from both the power of both nearby enemies and allies.

This is a rework to an existing skill to give it a new identity. This obviously seemed to fit a very supportive-type of role, but we wanted to do a new way to support allies.

It works well with minions or to support a full party of allies.

3.7 Infernal Cry

This was previously known as Abyssal Cry Abyssal Cry and has received a full rework. We aimed to keep its old features while providing some new exciting ones to refresh its appeal.

It covers enemies in ash, a debuff that scales with the power of nearby enemies. It also causes enemies that are affected by this debuff to explode with fire damage when they are slain.

It also exerts your next few attacks to trigger Combust when hitting an enemy. Combust is a triggered Area of Effect attack skill granted by the Infernal Cry Infernal Cry gem. It scales with attack damage modifiers and can benefit from your supports.

3.8 General’s Cry

This is an intense new Warcry that has been designed to be very open-ended in how it can be used. It’s a Skill/Support hybrid which melee attack skills can be linked to. This Warcry summons ghostly mirage warriors from corpses near you. These ghosts use one of the linked skills once before dissipating.

The number of warriors you summon is based on the total power of nearby enemies as well as the power of nearby corpses.

General’s Cry General’s Cry lets you summon your own legion of warriors to destroy your enemies using a large selection of skills.

3.9 Urgent Orders Support

Urgent Orders is a warcry support skill gem. It increases the speed of the supported warcry at the cost of additional cooldown time.

It supports warcry skills.

Check out these Warcries in action in the video below!

New and Changed Warcries in Path of Exile: Harvest

4. Skill Reworks

Warcries

  • Greater support for Warcries has been added to the Passive Skill Tree in the form of new and changed clusters, and even a new keystone.
  • Warcries no longer share a cooldown by default. All Warcries now have a base use time of 0.8sec, and their effects tend to linger for a greater duration. Their base cooldowns are also now longer.
  • Each Warcry is enhanced by the proximity of enemies, and for some warcries, allies or corpses too. This is measured as ‘Power’, with Normal enemies providing 1 Power, Magic enemies providing 2, Rare enemies providing 10, Unique enemies providing 20, and players providing 5. All Warcries also taunt enemies in range.
  • Warcries all now cause a certain number of attacks to become Exerted after the Warcry is used (except Enduring Cry Enduring Cry and General’s Cry General’s Cry, however the attacks done by the General’s Cry General’s Cry Mirage Warriors are Exerted). Exerted attacks are enhanced in different ways depending on the Warcry. Your Exerted Attacks can benefit from the effects of multiple Warcries, if the type of attack is valid.

Abyssal Cry (now Infernal Cry)

  • Now taunts all nearby enemies to attack the user, and exerts the next 4 melee attacks. It also covers enemies in ash, slowing them and making them more vulnerable to fire damage. Causes enemies to explode when they die, dealing fire damage in an area.
  • Exerted attacks trigger Combust, which converts 60% of Physical Damage to Fire Damage, and deals 100% Attack Damage in an area at gem level 1, up to 158% at gem level 20.
  • Now has a base duration of 5 seconds at gem level 1, up to 5.9 seconds at gem level 20.
  • Explosions from slain enemies deal Fire Damage equal to 8% of the monster’s maximum life.
  • Enemies covered in ash take 3% increased Fire Damage per 5 Power, up to 20%.
  • Now gains 1% increased Area of Effect for Infernal Cry Infernal Cry (not Combust) per 1% gem quality.
  • Now has a new gem icon.

Rallying Cry

  • Now taunts all nearby enemies to attack the user, and exerts the next 5 melee attacks. Gives nearby allies a buff based on the damage of the user’s weapon.
  • Now has a base duration of 5 seconds at gem level 1, up to 5.9 seconds at gem level 20.
  • Buff grants added Attack Damage equal to 3% of the damage of your main hand weapon per 5 power, up to a maximum of 20%. Counts both allies and enemies in range for power. This buff has 100% more effect on your minions.
  • Exerted attacks deal 5% more Damage per affected ally, up to 25%.
  • Now gains 1% increased Area of Effect per 1% gem quality.

Enduring Cry

  • Now taunts all nearby enemies to attack the user, and grants endurance charges. Gives a brief burst of life regeneration, as well as a buff which grants resistances and physical damage reduction based on your endurance charges.
  • Now has a base duration of 2 seconds.
  • Now grants 1 endurance charge per 5 power, with a minium of 1 charge.
  • Buff grants +2% to all resistances and 2% additional Physical Damage reduction per endurance charge.
  • Now causes you to regenerate 120 life over 1 second at gem level 1, up to 1976 at gem level 20.

Sunder

  • Now slams the ground, creating a slow wave of churning terrain that damages enemies in a sequence of areas in front of you. Enemies hit by the wave will release a damaging shockwave in an area around them. Using the skill again will stop the previous wave. Requires a Mace, Sceptre, Axe, Staff or Unarmed.
  • The wave creates 5 areas, and cannot stop before creating 2 areas.
  • There is a delay between areas the wave creates. The gem gains reduced delay between areas as it levels, up to 25% reduced delay between areas at gem level 20.
  • The wave can cause a shockwave from up to 5 enemies.
  • The wave gains +2 to the radius of each area in the sequence.
  • Shockwaves now deal 40% less Damage (from 60%).
  • Now gains more area of effect as the gem levels, up to 19% at gem level 20.

Tectonic Slam

  • No longer has a chance to consume endurance charges per attack to create a Charged Slam.
  • Now consumes an endurance charge every third time you create a fissure, and gains 5% more area of effect and +5% branching fissure chance per endurance charge.
  • The spread of fissures has been partially-normalised, ensuring both sides of the main fissure will get at least one branching fissure.
  • Now deals base damage and has an added Damage effectiveness of 180% at gem level 1 (from 170%), up to 220% at gem level 20 (from 200%).

5. Skill Balance

Mana Costs

  • Skills whose costs are reduced to zero are now shown to have a mana cost of zero, to differentiate them from skills which do not have a mana cost (such as Vaal skills).

Brands

  • Brands have had their detached durations reduced, and these durations are no longer refreshed by Brand Recall Brand Recall. New Brand playstyles are now supported through new passive skill tree clusters, keystones and support gems, as well as a suite of new Brand skills.
  • When an enemy dies while a Brand is attached, the Brand will return to its original position (ie. wherever it appeared when it was first cast) or recalled position.

Slams

  • A number of existing skills are now tagged as ‘Slam’ skills, which determines whether or not they are affected by supports, passives and modifiers to Slam skills. The existing Skills which are now considered Slam skills are: Ground Slam Ground Slam, Vaal Ground Slam Vaal Ground Slam, Leap Slam Leap Slam, Ice Crash Ice Crash, Earthquake Earthquake, Vaal Earthquake Vaal Earthquake, Sunder Sunder, Ancestral Warchief Ancestral Warchief, Tectonic Slam Tectonic Slam, Perforate Perforate, Doryani’s Touch, and Consecrated Path Consecrated Path.

Totems

  • Made improvements to Totem AI for skills that have some sort of prerequisite for use (such as blades for Blade Blast Blade Blast, or corpses for Detonate Dead Detonate Dead).

Arcane Cloak

  • Now has a mana cost of 0 (rather than no mana cost).

Arctic Breath (now Creeping Frost)

  • There was an error which caused Arctic Breath Arctic Breath to not correctly inherit damage penalties from gems like Greater Multiple Projectiles Support Greater Multiple Projectiles Support after gem level 1. We have fixed this, and have compensated the damage accordingly.
  • Now deals 11 to 16 Cold Damage at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 383 to 572 Cold Damage at gem level 20 (from 301 to 450).
  • Now deals 16.7 base Cold Damage per second at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 1391.2 Cold Damage per second at gem level 20 (from 1383.5)

Armageddon Brand

  • Now activates every 0.75 seconds while attached (from 0.8 seconds).
  • Now deals 34 to 51 Fire Damage at gem level 1 (from 29 to 43), up to 398 to 597 Fire Damage at gem level 20 (from 332 to 498).
  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 85% (from 75%).
  • Now deals 120% more Damage with Ignite at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 250% more at gem level 20 (from 180%).
  • Now has a detached duration of 6 seconds (from 10).
  • Now has a base area of effect radius of 22 units (from 18).

Ball Lightning

  • Now deals 3 to 57 Lightning Damage at gem level 1 (from 3 to 48), to 28 to 533 Lightning Damage at gem level 20 (from 22 to 426).
  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 50% (from 40%).
  • Now costs 12 mana at gem level 1 (from 13), up to 23 mana at gem level 20 (from 25).
  • NEW: Now has a base cast time of 0.7 seconds (from 0.75).

Bear Trap

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 260% (from 200%).

Bodyswap

  • Improved the targeting behaviour of triggered Bodyswap Bodyswap when nothing was targeted. It now prioritises corpses if there are any near your targeted location.

Brand Recall

  • No longer refreshes the duration of recalled Brands.
  • Now spends 20% of each recalled brand’s mana cost to activate them when they are recalled.
  • Now has a cooldown of 4 seconds (from 3).
  • Now gains up to 40% increased cooldown recovery speed at gem level 6 (from 50%).

Cyclone

  • No longer makes you immune to Stun while channelling.

Dual Strike

  • Now deals base Damage and has an added damage effectiveness of 125% at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 190% at gem level 20 (from 170%).

Earthquake

  • Aftershocks no longer have added Attack Physical Damage.
  • Aftershocks now deal 150% more Damage with hits and ailments.
  • Can now be used while unarmed.
  • The base radius of the initial hit is now 14 units (from 18).

Fireball

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 240% (from 180%).
  • No longer gains additional explosion radius as the gem levels up.
  • Now gains additional explosion radius based on the distance the projectile has travelled as the gem levels up, up to +9 at gem level 20.
  • Now gains 1% increased Projectile Speed per 1% gem quality (previously 0.5% chance to ignite per 1% gem quality).

Firestorm

  • Now deals 7 to 11 Fire Damage at gem level 1 (from 4 to 11).
  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 45% (from 30%).

Freezing Pulse

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 200% (from 150%).

Frostbolt

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 220% (from 160%).

Ground Slam

  • No longer has added Attack Physical Damage.
  • Now deals base damage and has an added damage effectiveness of 115% at gem level 1 (from 95%), up to 150% at gem level 20 (from 125%).
  • No longer tagged as a Physical gem.

Herald of Purity

  • No longer grants added Physical Damage with Spells and Attacks.
  • Now grants 9% more Physical Damage at gem level 1, up to 12% more Physical Damage at gem level 20.

Herald of Thunder

  • No longer has a 0.4 second cooldown on the storm repeatedly striking the same enemy. Now favours striking enemies that have been struck fewer times.
  • Now deals 1 to 31 Lightning Damage at gem level 1 (from 1 to 34), up to 23 to 1108 Lightning Damage at gem level 20 (from 27 to 1303).
  • Now has an added damage Effectiveness of 100% (from 120%).

Ice Crash

  • No longer has added Cold Damage.
  • Now converts 100% of Physical Damage to Cold Damage (from 50%).
  • Now deals base Damage and has an added Damage effectiveness of 230% at gem level 1 (from 190%), up to 280% at gem level 20 (from 240%).
  • Second stage now deals 15% less damage (from 10%).
  • Third stage now deals 30% less damage (from 20%).

Ice Trap

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 200% (from 150%).

Infernal Blow

  • Now converts 60% of Physical Damage to Fire Damage (from 50%).

Lightning Trap

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 170% (from 135%).

Lightning Spire Trap

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 60% (from 70%).

Magma Orb

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 185% (from 140%).
  • Now chains +2 times at gem level 1 (from +1), up to +3 times at gem level 20 (from +2).
  • Now deals 9 to 12 Fire Damage at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 856 to 1284 Fire Damage at gem level 20 (from 716 to 1073).
  • Now gains base radius as the gem levels, up to +4 to radius at gem level 20 (previously did not gain radius).

Molten Strike

  • Now deals base Damage and has an added Damage effectiveness of 110% at gem level 1 (from 120%), up to 148% at gem level 20 (from 139%).
  • NEW: Projectiles now have a minimum travel distance of 2 units (from 6) and a maximum travel distance of 25 (from 20) by default. Modifiers to projectile speed, as well as modifiers to area of effect, now affect the distance projectiles can travel.

Orb of Storms

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 65% (from 70%).
  • An error which caused Orb of Storms Orb of Storms’ strike frequency to benefit doubly from increased cast speed was fixed, which has affected the balance of this skill, particularly for high cast-speed builds.

Perforate

  • Now deals base Damage and has an added Damage effectiveness of 125% at gem level 1 (from 140%), up to 170% at gem level 20 (from 196%).
  • Now has 2 to 3 added Attack Physical Damage at gem level 1, up to 75 to 113 at gem level 20 (previously had no added damage).
  • Now creates 7 spikes (from 6).
  • Now creates 2 additional spikes if you’ve changed stance recently.
  • Now deals 75% less Damage while in Blood stance (from 65%)
  • Now gains more area of effect while in Sand stance as the gem levels, up to 76% more at gem level 20.

Purifying Flame

  • Now has an added damage effectiveness of 180% (from 140%).

Storm Brand

  • Now has a base critical strike chance of 6% (from 5.5%).
  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 30% (from 40%).
  • Now activates every 0.5 seconds while attached (from 0.6 seconds)
  • Now has a detached duration of 6 seconds (from 10).

Summon Holy Relic

  • Now has a base critical strike chance of 5% on its Nova skill (previously erroniously had 0%).

Static Strike

  • Now deals base Damage and has an added Damage effectiveness of 110% at gem level 1 (from 107%), up to 150% at gem level 20 (from 160%).
  • Now has a base duration of 2 seconds (from 4).
  • Now converts 50% of Physical Damage to Lightning Damage (from 60%).
  • No longer causes beams to deal 60% less Damage while Stationary and 40% less Damage while Moving.
  • Beams now deal 40% less Damage at all gem levels.
  • No longer creates a stacking buff, and no longer gains 10% increased Beam frequency per Buff Stack.
  • Beams now hit enemies every 0.4 seconds at gem level 1, down to 0.32 seconds at gem level 20 (from 0.4 seconds at all gem levels).

Wave of Conviction

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 220% (from 160%).

Vaal Earthquake

  • Base attack speed is now 75% to match Earthquake Earthquake (from 100%).
  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 60% at gem level 1 (from 50%), up to 71% at gem level 20 (from 61%).

Vaal Fireball

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 240% (from 180%).
  • No longer gains additional explosion radius as the gem levels up.
  • Now gains additional explosion radius based on the distance the projectile has travelled as the gem levels up, up to +9 at gem level 20.
  • Now gains 1% increased Projectile Speed per 1% gem quality (previously 0.5% chance to ignite per 1% gem quality).

Vaal Ground Slam

  • No longer has added attack physical damage.
  • Now has an added damage effectiveness of 190% at gem level 1 (from 185%), up to 300% at gem level 20 (from 227%).
  • Base attack speed is now 90% to match Ground Slam Ground Slam (from 100%).

Vaal Lightning Trap

  • Now has an added Damage effectiveness of 170% (from 135%).

Vaal Molten Shell

  • Now grants 25 additional armour at gem level 1 (from 60), up to 429 additional armour at gem level 20 (from 1030).
  • Now grants 20% more armour at gem level 1, up to 29% more armour at gem level 20.
  • Now causes 30% of Damage taken from hits to be taken from the buff before your life or energy shield at gem level 1, up to 35% at gem level 20 (from 80% at all levels).
  • The buff can now take Damage equal to 30% of your armour (from 60%), up to a maximum of 30000.
  • Now reflects 300% of Damage taken from buff as Fire Damage each second or when the buff expires or is depleted at gem level 1 (from 100%), up to 9000% at gem level 20 (from 3000%).
  • Now removes and is removed by any other Guard skill.

Archmage Support

  • Supported skills now gain added lightning damage equal to 70% of Mana Cost at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 108% at gem level 20 (from 127%).

Shockwave Support

  • Now gains additional uses as the gem levels up, up to 4 at gem level 20.
  • Now deals 160% of base Damage at gem level 1 (unchanged), up to 260% at gem level 20 (from 210%).

Slower Projectiles Support

  • Supported skills now have 20% less projectile speed at gem level 1 (from 30%), up to 30% less at gem level 20 (from 49%).

6. Passive Tree Balance

GGG has taken the opportunity with this patch to review the passive skill tree as a whole, with a few specific goals in mind:
  • GGG wanted to add support for mechanics that have been added in the past few years that as of yet do not have adequate support on the passive tree. Some of these mechanics include Rage, Unleash, Corpse manipulation, Warcries, Heralds and Banners.
  • Many passive skill clusters offered the same thing as other clusters, with the only differences being the location on the tree and the number of passive skills in the cluster. In this patch, we have endeavoured to give each cluster its own identity and function.
  • Timeless Jewel Keystone passives have become a popular feature for many builds, but are prohibitively difficult to acquire (especially without trade). We've moved some of the most build-defining Keystones out of the Timeless Jewels and into the tree itself. These Keystones have been added to the tree: The Agnostic, Glancing Blows, Supreme Ego, Wind Dancer and Eternal Youth.
  • We've also added new Keystones as part of our effort to support newer mechanics. These Keystones are: The Impaler, Imbalanced Guard and Call to Arms.
  • We also wanted to reduce the power of some clusters that were overly efficient, and increase the power of clusters that were inefficient. Ultimately, the passive skill tree should provide more interesting choices regardless of your build.
  • Due to the volume of the changes to the passive skill tree, we won't be listing each change out. Instead, you can check out the new tree for yourself here.

7. Ascendancy Balance

Necromancer

  • Corpse Pact: Now has an upper limit on increases to cast speed per corpse consumed recently of 200%.

Chieftain

  • Tawhoa, Forest's Strength has moved and is no longer a prerequisite for Valako, Storm's Embrace. It has been redesigned, and now grants level 20 Tawhoa's Chosen skill, which is triggered when you use a slam attack, creating an image which mirrors your Slam attack. This skill has a short cooldown.
  • A new small passive leads to Tawhoa, Forest's Strength. It grants 10% increased Area of Effect and 0.5% Life Regeneration per Second.
  • Valako, Storm's Embrace no longer grants 3% more damage for each Endurance Charge lost recently, up to 15%. Instead, it now grants 15% more damage for 8 seconds when you lose or consume any Endurance Charges.
  • The small passive leading to Valako, Storm's Embrace no longer grants 15% increased Endurance Charge Duration. It now grants 5% chance to gain an Endurance Charge on Kill.
  • NEW: Hinekora, Death's Fury now grants 100% chance to Cover Rare or Unique Enemies in Ash for 10 Seconds on Hit (from 20%).

Berserker

  • War Bringer has been redesigned. It now causes Warcries to grant 10 Rage per 5 Power if you have less than 25 Rage, and causes them to sacrifice 10 Rage if you have at least 25 Rage. It also causes Exerted Attacks to deal 50% more Damage if a Warcry sacrificed Rage recently.
  • The small passive leading to War Bringer no longer grants 20% increased Warcry Duration. It now grants 20% increased Warcry Speed.

Hierophant

  • Sign of Purpose has been redesigned. It now causes Brands to have 100% more Activation Frequency in the final 25% of their Attached Duration. It also causes Brand Recall to have 100% increased Cooldown Recovery Speed.

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