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What Can We Expect In Path Of Exile 3.25 Settlers Of Kalguur? - Potential Buffs & Nerfs

Jul 10, 2024

Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur is about two weeks away from release, so perhaps it’s time to take a look at some of the potential buffs and nerfs that could be coming soon. Buckle up and let’s go!

Possible Buffs

Let’s start with the buffs.

What Can We Expect In Path Of Exile 3.25 Settlers Of Kalguur? - Potential Buffs & Nerfs

Ancestor Totem

And Ancestor Totem is definitely at the top of our list of worthy buffs. Ancestor Totem creates an awkward playstyle for the melee. Since their inception, it’s been necessary for a normal melee build to maintain the buffs granted by Ancestral Warchief and Ancestral Protector to gain the increased melee damage and more attack speed buffs they each provide.

And you can’t ignore these buffs either, they usually make up about 50% of the damage of a melee build together, so you need to maintain these buffs when you need to deal maximum damage.

The problem is that these buffs are tied to Totem, and Totem can die very easily. There is a workaround for this with the constant buffs from Totem Mastery, but that’s just spending passive points to solve a problem that shouldn’t even exist. Even then, you’re just making the playstyle less annoying. That’s why I think Ancestor Totem is the first and most desperately needed buff in POE 3.25.

Ever since the developer interview about POE 2 in January this year, changes to this mechanic have seemed very likely in the near future. I thought changes might come to POE 3.24, but it seems that this realization came a little too late in the development cycle to be included in Necropolis League.

But in this interview, the developer group discussed the topic of Melee Totem in POE 2, and they seemed to finally realize that Ancestor Totem was a poor design and needed to be changed, even questioning why they were added in the first place.

Finally, the devs also said that marking Ancestor Totem should be changed in POE 1, and revealed that the melee is a tier 1 feature they are looking to address in POE 3.25. So, combining these two pieces of information, I think changes to Ancestor Totem are coming sooner or later.

POE 3.25 Ancestor Totem

Unique Items

For the second buff prediction, my guess is that it will be a balance, buff, or even a rework of some unique items.

The number of unique weapons that have completely fallen behind in terms of Power Creep over the past 10-15 leagues is incredible. While I do think that crafted weapons are better than unique weapons in most situations, the problem is that there are too many very interesting unique items in the game. It would be fun to build around these POE items if they weren’t completely crippling your build from the start.

Some examples of unique weapons that I think should receive numerical buffs or more significant changes are Razor of the Seventh Sun, Fate of the Vaal, Yielding Mortality, Hegemony’s Era, Kaom’s Primacy, and Brain Rattler. Of course, the list could go on and on.

The last unique weapon balancing was in POE 3.20 Forbidden Sanctum, but that one really only covered a few very rare or endgame weapons. Many of the more common and uncommon unique weapons have lost their place in the game and are in desperate need of balancing, and now is the time for that to happen.

Ascendancy

The last buff prediction in POE 3.25 is about Ascendancy changes. Once again, I think this will be melee-focused, with the obvious candidates here being Gladiator and Berserker. However, I think Raider and Assassin are also very realistic choices, especially if they decide to lean towards buffing Melee Dagger Archetype, which needs more support.

Of these, Gladiator is the most in need of a rework of the four Ascendancy Classes, as its dual-wielding melee skills are too weak.

We do know that GGG had a series of Ascendancy changes planned long before POE 3.21 Crucible league, but they felt that the changes were not polished enough at the time, so they withheld them. So I expect at least one Melee Ascendancy to be addressed in POE 3.25, and I’m betting on Gladiator.

POE 3.25 Gladiator Ascendancy Rework

Possibly Nerfs

Next, we have three nerf predictions.

Detonate Dead

Let’s start with Detonate Dead. DD’s popularity in Necropolis league has basically pushed this skill to its limit. As we all know, DD has been strong for a long time, but its play style has hindered its popularity in every league.

In CoC Detonate Dead Of Chain Reaction Inquisitor build in Necropolis, the skill went from a two-button build to a one-button setup enough to make many people pick this skill up for the first time.

Both Normal and Chain DD have very clear advantages over many other abilities, and can easily surpass other builds with minimal setup and equipment, which can save you a lot of POE Currency. Therefore, I expect Detonate Dead’s corpse explosion damage to be nerfed significantly.

POE 3.25 CoC Detonate Dead Of Chain Reaction Inquisitor

Overwhelm Modifiers

Overwhelm component on monsters is something that became very apparent as early as Archnemesis modifiers for Kalandra League in POE 3.19.

But even before that, the existence of something like 100% Overwhelm on Detonate Expedition Remnants simply didn’t make much sense when other offensive Monster modifiers included 15% Penetration on the same mechanic. The two modifiers were simply not equal in terms of power level.

But Expedition isn’t the only culprit, as even a Common or Rare monster that appears anywhere in Path of Exile may come with a modifier that Overwhelms 30% physical damage reduction.

Of course, more recently we have Lantern modifiers as part of the unskippable Necropolis League mechanic, which also includes Overwhelm modifiers on monsters, which stack.

In addition to the pre-existing modifiers on the monsters on this map, Monster Overwhelm has always had an additional buff compared to other modifiers for reasons no one knows. This has led to a wide range of characters taking damage taken and converting it to other types as the preferred method of dealing physical damage hits in many builds. So I feel that Monster Overwhelm is likely to change in numbers or mechanics.

Physical Damage Taken As

The third and final nerf prediction is part of the same problem, and that is Physical Damage Taken As.

As I just discussed, Physical Damage Taken As has long been an excellent way to deal physical damage hits, and this can be traced back to a few specific changes.

First, the addition of Eldritch Implicit in POE 3.17, including Physical Damage Taken As on helmets, this change increased the total amount of stacks you can get from this slot. Because you can stack it with existing Explicit modifiers.

In the same league, Dawnbreaker Unique Shield was introduced, providing more of this property from a gear slot that previously did not have any corrupted implicit.

Then in POE 3.19, Lightning Coil and Cloak of Flame Body Armour were significantly buffed, providing a large amount of Damage Taken As, as their access to Physical Damage Taken As Modifiers has quietly increased over time.

While the effectiveness of other methods of mitigating physical damage has waned or been left behind, I expect that either access to damage taken will be restricted by nerfing the values ​​of these modifiers, or the permissions to use these items will increase.

Outro

That’s my summary of some of the buffs and nerfs that may appear in the new league. What are your predictions for POE 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur? Are there any more notable changes that didn’t make this list? Let’s wait and see!

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