News Tag: Poe Currency

In December of last year, the beloved Path of Exile released its sequel, becoming one of the most concurrently played games on Steam. Although the player base churn in POE was not too severe at the time, the number of daily active players and total players was declining.

But now, nearly three months after the release of POE 2, a new event has brought numerous players back to the game: during the Legacy of Phrecia event, the number of concurrent players reached a peak of 91,948, while POE 2 was only 80,879 at its peak, which is far more than the sequel!

But strangely, the number of concurrent players of the sequel was not greatly affected during the event, so where did all these players come from? And although POE may never break the heights set by POE 2, what are the reasons behind this phenomenal popularity? Will we see this again in the future?

These questions are the topics that are currently being focused on in the player community and social platforms, and this guide will answer these questions for you one by one based on the existing information and leaks. Whether you are a loyal fan of the original game or a player who is exploring the sequel and hesitating whether to enter POE to try it, the answers here may give you a correct direction.

Reasons For The Popularity Of POE

First of all, let’s take a look at why the original POE has set off such a phenomenal popularity, that is, because its game content has not been updated or improved for a very long time. Previously, Path of Exile would update four leagues every year, and each one would bring a lot of game content updates to players, such as new mechanisms, new bosses, and new POE 2 Items.

Before the early access release of POE 2 last year, in order to ensure the normal operation of the sequel, the developer used all the work teams that originally worked on POE 1 to develop POE 2, which led to the delay of the league that should have been updated in the original game. Although POE 3.25 Settlers Of Kalguur League was highly praised by players before, players lost interest in it during this long period of repeated grinding and exploration.

When this Path of Exile 2 was released in advance, it was thought that Grinding Gear Games would return the staff of the original game, but they did not. They have been solving some minor problems that POE 2 players have been struggling with, and officially announced that they will continue to use this team to develop the sequel until the release of Patch 0.2.0.

This caused some players who were loyal to the original game to protest because the developer broke the promise to treat both games equally to all players. After that, the players in the original game had no hope for new leagues or new patches, and jokingly called this the longest drought period in POE.

But fortunately, after announcing this news, the developer released a notice about the Legacy of Phrecia event to be held in POE, which will last for a month. And announced that it would destroy all existing classes and replace them with new game-changing ascendancies, which means that all 19 ascendancies will be redesigned, and those gear that could only be upgraded with POE Currency have also received some upgrades and improvements.

This was unexpected for all players, and made players feel that they had wrongly blamed Grinding Gear Games before, because this kind of experimental design also requires a very long time to study and explore. So many players who had given up the original game before began to return, and some players who were used to the old design also wanted to try these new game rules and gameplay, which gave this long-dormant game a new lease on life.

Why Hasn’t The Number Of Concurrent Players In POE 2 Decreased?

Although POE and POE 2 are both games of the same genre and have the same unique systems, they are fundamentally different because the original Path of Exile has decades of updates and quality of life upgrades, with the depth and level design that most pleases players, and it is difficult for new games to catch up with this depth of game content in a short period.

Especially the endgame of POE 2, although it uses a lot of data from the original to determine what players want in it. For players who have only tried this sequel, this exciting and difficult battle makes it a different game experience, but for fans of the original, the endgame here is not pleasing to them.

So the explosion of POE has little impact on the player group of POE 2, because the two groups essentially like completely different things, and there will be a steady stream of new players during the current POE 2 Early Access period, because they all want to try the extremely difficult gaming experience of farming POE 2 Currency.

Most importantly, one of POE’s most impressive feats is that it can retain players longer than other games. On July 1 last year, Settlers Of Kalguur League was able to reach 228,398 concurrent online players, which is the highest record for the game. At the end of July, the number remained at 163,118, which is a very outstanding number for a game that has existed for more than ten years.

The last question is, can POE maintain this super high popularity and move forward steadily? The answer is yes, because the sequel is currently only released in Early Access, and the official release time and game content are not completely determined, which leads to the players becoming bored again after the experience time is over. At this time, a POE with a better game experience and similar gameplay may become their next prey.

As you all know, after more than 6 months of POE 3.25, the developers finally responded to the subsequent league update of POE 1, but we did not get any news about the 3.26 expansion, but instead announced that POE 3.26 would be postponed indefinitely. This news has caused a lot of anger among fans of the original game. Perhaps in order to calm the anger of the players, GGG recently chose to launch a new event, Legacy of Phrecia Event, to divert the attention of the players.

The event starts at 12 pm PST on February 20, 2025 and lasts until 1 pm PST on March 23, 2025. Players will face a series of unique challenges and experience major changes in the class system.

To perform better in this event, you must prepare an excellent build. Here we’re sharing our event starter build, Pyroclast Mine Polytheist, to help you get a head start in Legacy of Phrecia Event!

Build Overview

Recently, seeing the rise of Polytheist ascendancy class, we wanted to use it to make a build that uses skills with both Projectiles and Nova tags. The only skill that meets this requirement is Pyroclast Mine.

With Pyroclast Mine, we can hit the same enemy multiple times with a single explosion. First the initial explosion of Mine, then the projectile AoE for each explosion, and finally these fireworks-like explosions. If you like flashy builds, this one is for you.

What we’re showing here is mapping with Pyroclast Mine using a 4-Link setup, so how far can this setup take us?

In reality, since we need to stick to a budget and make sure we can complete Legacy of Phrecia Event with the least amount of POE Currency cost, our equipment is pretty crappy, focusing mainly on life, resistance, and a few attributes. Tremor Rod in particular is definitely the most cost-effective choice for this build, and should at least get you into red maps.

In addition, we only use 2 Auras, Grace and Summon Skitterbots. Since Flammability is tied to Arcanist Brand and Detonate Mines is tied to Automation, it will trigger automatically.

It is recommended that you can get Detonate Mines Skill Gem as early as possible to save extra clicks. If you don’t want to invest in it, there is a Mine Mastery that also allows you to detonate mines while moving. You can unassign it when you don’t need it.

Although we don’t use Astral Projector in this build, so sometimes the explosion won’t fall on the boss, the overall damage feels good, especially when we get Ascendancy, which will be more powerful.

Ascendancy

For Ascendancy, we would grab Devout of Lunaris first. The quality of life brought by this node is unparalleled. However, if you want more defense, then you can get Devout of Garukhan or Devout of Solaris first, and finally Devout of Ralakesh, mainly because we are already using Charged Mines Support.

Passive Tree

Now, let’s move on to the passive tree for this build. We have different levels of the tree, so if you don’t know which nodes to choose, you can follow the upgrade tree here. We usually start with some damage and life nodes here, and then go to Shadow. Also, get all Mine nodes, Life nodes, and Reservation nodes here, and then finish the build at level 95.

Gem Setup

Next, we have different gems set for endgame and early/mid game. You can re-check them when you are ready to lower your health.

If you are using Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage, you can change it here. However, it is not recommended that you switch to it before getting Mana Reservation node and equipment.

Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage does much more damage than normal Mine, but it also reserves much more mana than normal Mine. So, until you can switch to Transfigured Mine, just use the normal Mine. They function the same, the only difference is the amount of damage.

In addition to Grace and Summon Skitterbots, this build also uses Discipline. It is connected to Arrogance to preserve life instead of mana, so that we can do Pain Attunement when life is low, giving us 30% more spell damage.

Once you get Whispers of Doom anoint on your Amulet, you can use another curse, which is Assassin’s Mark. Before getting Pyroclast Mine, you can upgrade as you usually do with Templars, that is, use Rolling Magma, Holy Flame Totem and Flame Wall.

Gear Setup

Now, to the most important part, the gear.

The gear for this build is very simple, you just need to focus on getting life, resistance and attributes. Among them, Mine Throwing Speed ​​should be made on your weapons and helmets, which will make a huge difference and provide you with a smoother map experience.

You can also try to get a belt with Mine Throwing Speed, or make your own using Essence of Zeal. Once you get enough POE currency, you can slowly upgrade your gear.

Since this is an evasion character, it has low health, so getting energy shields is also important. So we use Evasion Base or ES Base as our armor, combined with Grace and our Ascendancy, our evasion chance should be pretty high.

Another important stat is spell suppression chance. Although there are some on the passive tree, it should be easy to limit spell suppression if your gear is all rare. What’s more, you should also have your Eldritch Mods at this point.

Note that the endgame setup of this build is expensive. It’s only for those who really want to invest in the build and try some of the hardest content in the game. If you’re just using this build to accumulate some Divine Orbs and move on to the next build, then I think you can stop at the mid-game setup.

Victario’s Influence is a great body armor for this build. You can even get up to +4 gem levels with Corruption alone. Additionally, it provides higher reservation efficiency, which is very necessary for Pyroclast Mine of Sabotage, and the increased AoE and aura effects are obviously nice to have as well.

Finally, Replica Dragonfang’s Flight is great for boosting our damage, as it provides 3 additional gem levels. This reservation mod is great, as it also reduces life reservations for Discipline.

Anyway, that’s all for this Pyroclast Mine Polytheist build. Hopefully, the servers will be stable during Legacy of Phrecia Event, and we’ll see you there!

During the period of Path of Exile 2 Early Access, do players still remember POE 3.25, which was released in July last year? Yes, Settlers of Kalguur league lasted for over 6 months, but we still had no news about the next league.

However, recently GGG finally responded to this issue. Unfortunately, they did not specify the release time of POE 3.26, but brought the bad news that the next league will be postponed indefinitely. Yes, this league postponement is indefinite, and it may last for a long time.

Therefore, here we are mainly to help you understand the actual future of POE 1, and why I think you should be prepared for POE 1 to be completely closed after patch 3.26.

The Player Group Split Between POE 1 And 2

Two weeks after the release of POE 2, there are a few things that you should be able to see clearly. On the one hand, there is a clear split in the players, and on the other hand, there is a rather large difference between POE 1 subreddit and POE 2.

Looking at the data from the past few years, the number of players in POE 2 Early Access is on average higher than any POE 1 league. There are more than 1 million people registered for Early Access on Steam alone, which is at least $30 million in revenue, and that’s considering people pre-ordered the minimum $30 Supporter Pack.

However, for GGG, it’s not just about money, they have to keep players happy to retain them. Of course, they can also afford to lose players, because these people will still participate in POE 1.

What we want to emphasize here is that there are actually two types of players who have diametrically opposed views on the game. Some POE 1 players like the fast-paced endgame experience, with wide explosions appearing on the screen, blowing up the map one after another, and they only need to wait a moment to click on POE Currency and rare items dropped by the boss. But there is another group of people coming from games like Elden Ring who want the endgame to be like POE 2 campaign. These are completely different audiences.

POE 2 Bugs Appear Frequently

At the same time, there are some serious issues with POE 2 that affect the gaming experience and need to be resolved urgently. I mean some of these issues may even make your computer explode, turn your GPU into a smoke screen, or you will wake up to find that your account has been hacked.

The most serious problems are not game balance, but bugs and crashes. One of the things is the careless Windows 11 24H2 update, which caused a lot of CPU problems in the game, especially a serious crash on our loading screen. When players open portals between maps, we have to enable and disable multi-threading, or sacrifice half of the CPU capacity to run this game.

We must understand that it will take Microsoft a few years to replace the useless DEI to solve these problems. Anyway, we can only hope that GGG will be able to fix their game after this bad Windows update. After all, it is just one of the serious problems they are currently solving.

1.5 months have passed since Early Access release, and POE 2 players are still eagerly waiting for a ton of fixes and endgame issues that need to be changed.

POE 1 Might Be Ready To Terminate?

Meanwhile, POE 1 subreddit is on the verge of a nuclear explosion, because more than 6 months have passed since GGG released POE 3.25 update, and we have never seen such a crisis.

Before, the developer was crucified for testing a new idea in a few leagues, but now suddenly everyone wants to see him resurrected. To be honest, we do live in the age of prophecy, and maybe we may see it soon.

But what’s worse is that more people suspect that this may be their farewell to Path of Exile 1 development. Because unless the two development teams are completely separated, you can’t maintain league updates for 2 games every 3 to 4 months. Chris Wilson himself admitted this as early as 2019.

Developers May Be Stretched Thin

You can feel the pressure from embedding the core content of the old game into the new one. They had less than a few weeks to make the endgame, which they have been working on for years.

I mean, it’s probably been 5 or 6 years since we saw a snippet of POE 2 Act at ExileCon 2019. And the carefully polished 3 Acts we see today took 6-7 years. Rumor has it that there will be more details on these contents after the official release.

So, like we mentioned before, GGG made millions of dollars from POE 2 Early Access, but their only ongoing income comes from POE 1 League, which also requires development and maintenance costs. It’s a gray area to draw the line between which one must take priority now.

After the release, the developers have clearly shown less enthusiasm for completing the remaining 3 Acts of POE 2. Honestly, ask yourself which is more important? POE 2 endgame or POE 2 Acts 4, 5, and 6?

I believe most people want to fix the endgame and continue its development. But this is where I am deeply critical. If you want to make a brand new game, then why bring back the endgame mechanics from the old game that require you to kill and clear quickly? Many POE 2 players want the endgame to be slowed down, but these mechanics are the same requirements of the old game. So, GGG must decide which group of players they must cater to. If they want to separate the game, then they should completely avoid the content from POE 1 in POE 2.

My point is that if GGG pushes hard now, both games have quite strong momentum, they will succeed in winning over both player bases. This is an opportunity that cannot be missed, and this has been proven many times.

The Success Of POE 2 Sacrificed The Development Of The Previous Game

There are many people who are deeply concerned about POE 1. Because Settlers of Kalguur is the best state of POE 1 league update so far, many players returned because of the update of patch 3.25.

But the thing is, currently GGG is still using developers from POE 1 team to develop POE 2. These developers are literally the best developers in any action RPG.

Nevertheless, GGG has good reasons to allocate more resources to POE 2 at the expense of the expansion of POE 1. Like I mentioned before, POE 2 currently has more players and everyone is a paying customer. Second, POE 2 has been a tremendous success at the beginning. Despite the criticism, once they start adding crafting, endgame mechanics, and challenge leagues, the scope of success of POE 2 will be much larger.

Final Thoughts

However, this is not a priority at the moment, GGG can always balance the game, but for a large group of POE 1 players say, 6 months without any content, it’s really hard! So it is recommended that GGG first put all resources into fixing the major issues in patch 0.2.0, and once that is done as soon as possible, they can save the rest for the release of POE 3.26. In this way, Path of Exile can keep the momentum and effectively complete both without losing more players.

In short, prioritize the right things and let the right people do the right job to improve efficiency. This may help the two games run at the same time. GGG must decide and plan the overall strategy to usher in a better future. Looking forward to seeing the early arrival of POE 3.26!

Hello Exiles, we are in the season of spoilers for Path of Exile 2 recently, and a lot of content about this new sequel has been revealed, but our topic today is related to POE 1, namely the possible release date of patch 3.26, the end time of the current POE 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur expansion, the recently announced new Settlers of Kalguur Event, and how we can prepare for it.

To be honest, this event may not bring any exciting new content, but with POE 3.25 league cycle already more than halfway through, it may be an interesting new event to attract many players to return. Here, let’s take a closer look.

Why POE 3.26 May Be Released Next Year?

Let’s first take a look at the possible update time of POE 3.26. Before Grinding Gear Games pushed back the release date of Path of Exile 2 Early Access from November 15th to December 6th, many players had been speculating that patch 3.26 would not be released this year.

The reason for this is simply because of its commercial reality. Because GGG wants to launch their biggest release ever in POE 2 Early Access, they don’t want to release a minor 4 weeks later to steal their limelight. With this factor in mind, it will be difficult for you to see the news that POE 3.26 will be released on December 13th if it follows the previous update cycle.

And because of Christmas holiday, you will also most likely not see them release it around December 20th or 27th. So it is also expected by many people that Path of Exile 3.26 will be released next year. And GGG’s recent post has proved that this speculation is correct, but not just next year.

But honestly, next year is late enough that even a decline in player interest in POE 3.26 is unlikely to be a factor in delaying it to next year. So we’re going to hazard a guess that they never planned to launch Path of Exile 3.26 this year.

We think the developers originally planned to launch it in the 1st or 2nd week of January, but now it will be the 4th or 5th week of January instead. It’s worth noting that they haven’t locked in specific numbers yet. They hope to achieve it in late January, but this is by no means a firm promise. This means that POE 3.26 may also be delayed until February. And depending on the progress of Path of Exile 2 Early Access, maybe it will be brought forward to mid-January. We just know that it won’t be this year.

New Settlers Of Kalguur Event

In any case, this means that Settlers of Kalguur League will be extended until 2025. But one thing GGG knows is that once players get everything they want in this league, these people tend to stop playing, which is part of the reason why Standard League is not as popular as Temporary leagues. Of course, although not everyone who plays Settlers of Kalguur league gets everything they want, many people do.

In Temporary leagues, it is more realistic for players to get the next upgrade, while in Standard, few people reach that point in Settlers of Kalguur, which makes them feel that the next upgrade is out of reach and they are just waiting for something new to do. So, in order to bridge the gap and give players a brand new experience, the developers also took the opportunity to launch the new Settlers of Kalguur Event.

This is a fresh start with a twist, and it will bring some content that differs slightly from the base game. This Settlers of Kalguur Event will start soon. If you are in a similar time zone in United States, it will start on November 7th, but if you are in Australian time zone, it will start on November 8th.

What Are The Features Of The New Event?

This new-look event offers a brand new economy and ladder reset that functions very similarly to the base version of Settlers of Kalguur. On top of that, it also includes enemy modifiers for each zone, which was a key feature of the previous Necropolis league. However, unlike Necropolis, these modifiers only grant rewards, including bonuses to aspects such as POE Currency or item drop chance and enemy pack size.

The addition of this Necropolis mechanic will be a positive change, and their main impact will be for more casual players, as they will make gear drops faster. Especially if you’re the type of player who still wants to get a lot of Chaos Orbs while advancing Atlas, running this event will definitely make you earn a lot of money.

This new league event will run in parallel with the existing Settlers of Kalguur league, so you can continue to play with your current character if you wish. However, if you choose to participate in the new event league and reach level 50 on any character, you will receive a mandatory Settlers Mystery Box, which includes a random cosmetic selected from the new additions in POE 3.25. If you already own all of them, you will receive two Polaris Mystery Boxes instead.

As for the available game modes for this event, when it was originally announced, there were only two versions, namely Softcore Trade and Solo Self-Found Hardcore modes. But later, GGG changed the announcement and added Hardcore and Solo Self-Found versions.

It is worth noting that it does not look like there will be any support for Ruthless mode. Of course, there will not be much demand from the player community for this, so this is unlikely to change, and it looks like there will only be four different versions running.

How To Prepare For The New Event?

If you plan to participate in Softcore Trade version of the event, then here are some tips that may help you.

You can try to play with your partners as a cooperative group, use the guild warehouse to trade resources between each other, and try to prepare each other to pass milestone encounters to obtain a large amount of wealth. At the end of a period after the group has run a few times, maybe 10 days, or maybe the end of the second weekend, you can go your separate ways and split the loot at that time. However, you have a lot of things to do to make this happen, because making it as fair as possible is key.

Anyway, that’s all we know about the possible release date of POE 3.26 and the upcoming Settlers of Kalguur Event. If you’re interested in being a part of the event, then grab your chance and prepare early!

Exiles, POE 3.25 league progress has passed more than halfway. Which one do you think is your best build in Settlers of Kalguur? If you haven’t chosen yet, then don’t miss this guide. Here, we will bring you a build that is definitely worth trying for melee enthusiasts, Ice Crash of Cadence Slayer, which will definitely exceed your expectations!

Build Overview

Ice Crash of Cadence build in Path of Exile 3.25 offers a unique play style that utilizes dual-wielding weapons for powerful AOE melee attacks. This build utilizes the unique mechanics of Ice Crash of Cadence Slayer to maximize cold damage, AoE, and overall damage effects, making it very effective in both single-target and group encounters.

By focusing on alternating slams with main-hand and off-hand weapons, players can deal significant damage and control large areas. Here we will talk about how to optimize Ice Crash of Cadence Slayer in POE 3.25 to ensure you maximize your damage output.

Defense

For this build, the defense not only looks good but also feels good, mainly because of the huge debuff caused by Chill, Frozen, and Maim, which reduces the enemy’s movement speed by 30%. Coupled with the fact that the bosses in Settlers of Kalguur league have low health and damage, they are still easy to deal with as long as you don’t roll some crazy or impossible map mods.

As a melee character, getting close to the enemy is inevitable. Especially for this build, you have to get very close to the enemy to fully play the role of melee support. But don’t worry, except for the occasional death when fighting Tier 17 Boss and Uber Boss, most of the time you are very safe.

This is all because this build has 23 Fortification, 7 Endurance Charges, and Spell Suppression. Although this build is not immortal, the defense is still very solid, and even if you make a few mistakes here and there, the punishment will not be that severe.

As you can see, not only can this build take some big hits, but Life Leech, Life Regen, and Life Flasks are all great for quickly restoring our lives. But be careful, sometimes it’s hard to notice the ground effect because of the visual effects of Ice Crash. So move carefully and avoid death.

Why Choose Slayer Ascendancy?

For Ascendancy, it is recommended that you choose Slayer because it provides more damage, AoE, and defense.

This build is built around Ascendancy passive skill, Masterful Form, which allows your maximum Endurance Charges to be equal to your maximum Frenzy Charges. What you need to do is stack as many Frenzy Charges as possible, then equip Ralakesh’s Impatience, and after waiting for the bang, you will have the maximum Charges permanently. In this case, you can get 7 Frenzy Charges and 7 Endurance Charges.

It is worth noting that Endurance Charges now also provide 4% elemental damage reduction on top of physical damage reduction, which is a tremendous boost for defense.

If you don’t play Slayer, you can also choose Juggernaut. This is a well-rounded Ascendancy that also provides a ton of damage, AoE, and defense. On top of that, the quality of life you get from its Unstoppable passive skill is unmatched.

And Juggernaut is especially good when you’re using Arn’s Anguish, as it can easily generate Endurance Charges, which are then converted into Brutal Charges, which have a 3% chance to deal triple damage each time. Therefore, if you’re playing Juggernaut, stacking Endurance Charges makes more sense.

If you don’t mind sacrificing some tankiness for higher DPS, then Berserker is also a viable choice. And if you have a lower POE Currency budget, it may perform better than Slayer. Because Slayer tends to require you to equip some rare equipment to reach its maximum potential.

Gear Choice

As mentioned before, this build stacks Frenzy Charges, so attack speed is one of the top priorities for damage scaling.

On top of that, you can also go for crit, with a crit multiplier of around 500%. Therefore, two One Hand Swords with good attack speed and crit are also important for this build.

You can get a triple damage bonus by using Arn’s Anguish. And keeping your Brutal Charges at max while mapping is not a problem either, because Endurance Charge on Melee Stun Support is linked to Leap Slam, so that you can very easily refresh the duration of your Brutal Charges while jumping from pack to pack.

However, when fighting bosses, you have to rely on Enduring Cry, because it provides 2 additional Brutal Charges each time. This can be a bit annoying though, because you have to press Enduring Cry every 5 seconds to refresh the duration.

Note that this build does not use Admiral’s Arrogance, so its Rage needs some boost to reach max. And Admiral’s Arrogance is a new gauntlet that is great for keeping your Rage at max. But because we don’t use it, we will have to give up some spell suppression. So, this build is more suitable for farming strategies that don’t require you to stop. For example, Strongboxes, Legions and Harbingers.

In addition, using explosions from Herald of Ice can give you a very satisfying clearing speed. And you can also get more AoE in Sand Stance, but if you feel that AoE is enough to clear, you can switch to Blood Stance for more DPS.

In short, this Ice Crash of Cadence Slayer build in POE 3.25 provides a powerful and unique play style for melee enthusiasts who like to deal heavy AOE damage and freeze enemies. With the right equipment selection, passive skill tree planning, and strategic use of Ascendancy passive skill, players can effectively dominate single-target and group encounters. So, hurry up and try it out and crush all enemies with overwhelming force!

Exiles, the league cycle of POE 3.25 is halfway through. Have you found the endgame build that suits you best? If you haven’t, take a look at our build guide today, which may bring new inspiration to your build creation.

Here, we will bring a Cold variant with Tornado of Elemental Turbulence as the core. This is a Low Life build, accompanied by extremely high clear speed and damage output, which can satisfy the player’s desire to win quickly in the boring endgame run. Without further ado, let’s get started!

Tornado Of Elemental Turbulence

Tornado of Elemental Turbulence is a Prismatic skill, so by using Combat Focus Unique Jewel, we can focus on a single element. In this case, you can use Combat Focus Cobalt Jewel and Combat Focus Viridian Jewel, so that your Prismatic skill cannot choose Fire and Lightning. This means that every time you cast Tornado, it will only be Cold Tornado.

Ascendancy Choices

For Ascendancy Class, you can choose Occultist, this is because the class gives you offensive and defensive bonuses to cold damage.

Frigid Wake can freeze nearby enemies once every 4 seconds, while providing more damage and some Quality of Life. You may be skeptical about this Ascendancy and not even consider it at first, because most people think it only has a 50% chance to freeze, and it only happens once every 4 seconds. But if you use it often, you will find that this is actually a misunderstanding.

Freezes actually happen frequently and are very useful for bosses. Combined with Hypothermia Support, you can reliably freeze bosses, which is great as a defensive layer. And with it, you have more flexibility in choosing Pantheon, because you no longer have to choose Soul of the Brine King to avoid freezes.

The core concept of this build is stacking Power Charges and using Inner Conviction Keystone. Therefore, Forbidden Power from Occultist is very powerful because it provides more damage and AOE for each Power Charge on top of +1 Maximum Power Charges. And Unholy Authority Ascendancy passive allows you to easily reach the 3 curse limit, and your curses can affect enemies with curse immunity.

Therefore, in my opinion, Occultist is the best Ascendancy for this build.

We chose to design this build as Low Life because Occultist is very suitable for Energy Shield build. It is also easier to deal higher damage because we can retain more than 90% of health and stack multiple Offensive Auras.

But as we all know, the standard Low Life build is not very popular now because it is difficult to get Spell Suppression with equipment. Therefore, this build is quite fragile.

As a Low Life build, Prism Guardian and Shavronne’s Wrappings are obvious equipment choices. Prism Guardian allows our Auras to reserve life instead of mana, and the reservation efficiency is increased by 30%. Shavronne’s Wrappings is a must-have to prevent yourself from being instantly killed by chaos damage. If you have more POE Currency, you can also go for Crown of the Inward Eye, which is the best slot because it provides a lot of Energy Shield and Damage.

Defense

We don’t usually invest too much in the defense of a build, as long as it does what it is supposed to do, it is completely sufficient.

Besides freezing, this build also has about 40% attack block and 60% spell block with Rumi’s Concoction turned on. However, the main form of defense is first not to get hit, and secondly to get high damage to kill enemies quickly. Offense is the best defense.

Degen can be dangerous because we have no Energy Shield regeneration, and it even prevents our ES from charging. But Lethe Shade is good because it will reduce Damage over Time you receive by 50% and increase the duration of your Ailments by 100% if you start receiving Damage over Time in the past second.

If you don’t have extra passive points, you can use Soul of Arakaali and Soul of Ralakesh, which are great for solving this problem.

This build is extremely vulnerable to physical damage, and Energy Shield Mastery, “10% less Physical Damage Taken while on Full Energy Shield” helps a little, but that’s it.

Build Gameplay

The playstyle of this Tornado Occultist build is simple. All you need to do is cast Tornado every few seconds, and they will chase the enemy for a while. Auto-targeting is also good, so you can cast this skill no matter where you are standing or where the enemy is.

You can also use Power Charge On Critical Support to generate Power Charges, so we have Maximum Power Charges most of the time, which greatly improves our critical chance.

Of course, as POE league continues to develop, and with the release of new patches, this build still has some room for improvement, and there are still some things that need to be upgraded. For example, you can also get +1 Power Charge on the helmet and Double Corruptions on Body Armor.

The above is the complete guide for Low Life Cold Tornado Occultist build in POE 3.25 that we shared today. What do you think of this build? Do you have any better suggestions for optimizing this build? I hope this build can bring you a smooth endgame journey. Wish you good luck!

As a melee fan, the most exciting changes in Path of Exile 3.25 are the melee skills that are received by major buffs. While many skills received buffs, we’re only going to highlight the ones with the most potential here, showcasing the skills that received the biggest buffs and the best Ascendancies and specific unique skills that may benefit certain builds. Without further ado, let’s jump right in!

1. Pestilent Strike

Overall, the skill that received the most buffs was Pestilent Strike, which saw its damage effect nearly tripled. But for a variety of reasons, it’s not very popular, and even now, there are probably more promising options. However, with such a big buff, there may be some pioneers who build around it.

2. Double Strike

Although Double Strike only received a small buff of 0.03, this can lead to a lot of nice builds around it. This skill was previously used mostly by Champions and Slayers, and made for super tanky builds based around Power Charge Stacking and Paradoxica.

3. Lacerate Of Haemorrhage

Another skill that has been widely loved is Lacerate of Haemorrhage, which loses its flat damage bonus, but the 226% bonus effect easily makes up for that.

It’s also worth noting that it was a solid early game choice before, and now with all the bleed buffs added, the skill should be more usable in some meta builds, builds like Lacerate Gladiator or Lacerate Gladiator with Olesya’s Delight and Usurper’s Penance are sure to shine.

4. Viper Strike Of The Mamba

Perforate, regular Lacerate, and Frenzy of Onslaught have also been buffed, but most of them will be overshadowed by better options, which brings us to another big winner of POE 3.25, Viper Strike of the Mamba, which has a 238% increase in effect, which will really increase your damage.

This is also a skill that is barely affected by the removal of Totems, as it never cared about the attack speed bonus from Ancestral Protector, plus now with builds like Viper Strike Of The Mamba Trickster and Pathfinder, it will only get stronger. Combine it with Olesya’s Delight Cloth Belt and Charge Stacking, and this build can also benefit greatly from early Covenant, making it easier and faster to get 6-links.

5. Sweep

Another great option is Sweep, which has received a 383% damage effect buff, which feels pretty good. Not only that, but if you have enough POE Currency to get a nice two-handed weapon, Sweep can almost reach almost full screen AOE and give you a pretty comfortable gameplay experience.

On top of that, you can also use a variety of Ascendancies, such as Slayer, Juggernaut, Berserker, and even Champion. In my opinion, Berserker Build has very strong synergy with all Rage variations and should be a good fit for this skill.

6. Glacial Hammer & Glacial Hammer Of Shattering

Next up is another niche skill that already has some fans, Glacial Hammer and Glacial Hammer of Shattering. This build has a splendid set of defensive abilities and can easily freeze everything around it without a lot of problems, and after the buff, it will have one of the highest damage effects of all melee skills, reaching 622%!

Combining it with Heatshiver and Frostbreath will make it even more popular, and even be able to replace newer skills like Warden Ascendancy, which has a lot of cool elemental buffs.

7. Reave

Reave is probably the most popular Strength Stack Berserk and Juggernaut skill. Although Original Sin is already powerful enough, Reave’s effect is more than doubled in comparison, which is quite surprising. Therefore, this may add more popularity to Strength Stacker Builds based on Reave, but it will also be more demanding on your POE Currency budget.

8. Flicker Strike

Flicker Strike has been a very popular skill in many leagues, and it has also been buffed in POE 3.25, gaining an additional 192% effect while keeping the fixed damage bonus. Since using a totem with Flicker is always difficult, especially when mapping skills, it benefits greatly from the buff it has received.

For its Ascendancy Option, Slayer with Rakiata’s Dance is always very popular, and Ephemeral Edge is always a priority for Trickster builds. Finally, Warden can be an interesting choice compared to Raider with Paradoxica and Shako.

9. Cyclone Of Tumult

Another skill that is a fan favorite and finally getting a buff is Cyclone of Tumult. This is a very fluid and fun skill that can be used as a purely physical or Physical Shockwave version with Abyssus and Warstaff, or as a Chaos-based Strength Stacker build. The most popular Ascendancy for this skill is Slayer or Berserker.

10. Molten Strike & Molten Strike Of The Zenith

Molten Strike received a pretty nice buff in both the normal version and Molten Strike of the Zenith, increasing the effectiveness of both by about 1.8 times. This skill is already very popular for different types of builds, such as Rakiata’s Dance Champion or Pillar of the Caged God Juggernaut, and can lead to more interesting combinations, such as Poison Molten Strike Pathfinder with Nimis.

11. Ice Crash & Ice Crash Of Cadence

Ice Crash also received a very significant buff, increasing the effectiveness to 611%, making it one of the highest-effective skills in the entire series. It will definitely bring more popularity to this skill, as it is very convenient and fun. Therefore, both Hollow Palm Warden and Mace Berserker builds should get a boost.

12. Frost Blades

Frost Blades has long been a fan favorite starting skill in the league, and now it will be even more popular because the damage effectiveness of the skill has been increased by 184%. It also stacks well with the new Warden Ascendancy, and another option is Trickster or even Berserker to further increase the damage. Don’t forget to bring your Heatshiver, The Taming, and Yoke of Suffering to join the blasting party!

13. Smite

Armor Stacker will now be built differently because of the changes to Auras. On the bright side, Smite is getting a buff to gain 215% additional effectiveness, and it doesn’t lose inherent damage, so it will continue to be a sound choice for all Armor Stacking Champions and Ascendants with Doryani and Dreamfeather.

14. Splitting Steel

Splitting Steel was also a very popular skill in Necropolis League, so the buff to it isn’t that big, and it also loses its inherent damage bonus. But if it’s paired with a strong Ascendancy, such as the lightning damage version of Trickster with Ephemeral Edge or Champion with Paradoxica, it can also help further boost an already strong build.

15. Lightning Strike

Lightning Strike also got a buff in POE 3.25, but it’s the least changed with only 74% extra effect, and it also loses the fixed damage increase. Considering there are no totems, the overall damage should be close to pre-change levels, still playable, but with a little buff. If you still want to try it, Armor Stacking Champions or Ascendants should be your best choices.

16. Boneshatter

Boneshatter has long been one of POE fans’ favorite melee skills, and now it’s been buffed! 88% extra damage effect without losing fixed damage, that sounds great. So always get your Juggernaut or Slayer ready and go smash some bones!

17. Rage Vortex

The last skill on the list is Rage Vortex. In reality, it wasn’t popular in POE 3.25, but some people played it, so it can be considered a niche skill. With all the changes to Rage, it’s hard to predict how good it will be, however, considering it only gained 8% of its effect, the buff doesn’t seem to be huge. The main advantage of this skill will always be Berserk, so if Rage Vortex is your first choice, don’t hesitate to pick it.

Which Melee Skills Are Most Likely To Become Meta?

Finally, we talk about the skills that were popular in POE 3.25 and benefited the most from the patch. I think these skills are most likely to become Meta or close to Meta.

• Lacerate: Its buff effect is huge, and Aggravated Bleeds bonus and Gladiator together will push it quite far.
• Flicker Strike: This skill has always been popular, and its buff is enough to become mainstream.
• Frost Blades: It has a good clearing effect, single target stability, few melee plays, and has interesting interactions with different settings such as Nimis, so it will be strong and popular.
• Molten Strike: The biggest problem with this skill is the range, but the damage is great and Nimis can help boost it even higher.
• Splitting Steel: Again a great clearing effect, and the skill feels like a ranged skill instead of a true melee, a good middle ground for those who want to keep some distance.
• Reave: Will continue to be a good stacking skill. The biggest problem with Strength Stacking skills is the cost, but Reave still stands as one of the strongest choices.

All in all, the above is a list of melee skills that have received the most buffs in POE 3.25. Which one do you think is the best? What do you think of these buffs and changes? Hopefully, this guide can help you find the best melee skills to complete a strong build. Good luck!

In POE Series of games, players usually use various types of Builds to improve their Combat capabilities. Different types of Builds can be matched with different Skills and Weapons, so they have unique characteristics and Combat Effects.

Therefore, it is important to know when to use what kind of Build. For example, Melee Builds are usually more suitable for Melee situations rather than other situations. Compared with other Builds, Meta Builds are usually applicable to more scenarios.

So if you don’t waste too much time to Equip a corresponding Build for different occasions, it is better to try to find a good Meta Build that suits you, and you can also avoid using some extra POE Currency.

Based on this, will introduce you to 3 Meta Builds that have been popular among the player community in recent times.

1. Lightning Strike Trickster

Most players know how important it is to find a core Skill for your Build. It can be said that this determines how your Build will eventually Attack Enemy. Core Skill of Lightning Strike Trickster Build is Lightning Strike.

It is said that more than 25% of high-Level players are currently using this Skill and Lightning Strike Trickster Build that goes with it. In previous versions of the game, Lightning Strike was once a powerful presence in Meta, but after several generations of Nerfs, it was once forgotten by players.

However, in Path Of Exile 3.25, it was noticed again and effectively strengthened. Therefore, players began to notice it and started using it, and even created Lightning Strike Trickster Build for it.

To use this Build, you first need to have about 80 Chaos Orbs and a relatively good Rare Elemental Claw. Since the latter is usually difficult to get, this is also considered one disadvantage of this Build. However, one benefit of this Build is that it is easy to assemble.

When clearing Enemies in Battle, this Build will bring you seven frenzy charges and a huge Effect of Elusive, which can effectively increase your Movement Speed and Fight more efficiently.

And Lightning Strike will create a lot of Projectiles for you on the ground, so that many Enemies will be killed by Explosion Effect formed by Projectiles before they get close to you. So you don’t even need to be afraid of Boss, using this Build will bring you Damage Buffs for Boss Battles, and Effect is considerable.

As for Life, you don’t have to worry about it when using this Build. It will provide more than 100,000 effective HP because it has High Armor, Evasion, Spell Suppression, Fortify, and even Trickster Buffs.

And these Effects that come with it can not only protect you from 40% of Enemy Damage but also make you Immune to Freeze and Stuns caused by Enemies.

2. Turbo Flicker Strike Slayer

This is also a powerful and efficient Build that can speed up Battle. It usually uses Terminus Est to maintain Frenzy Charges you need to Flickering. In comparison, it will be a Build suitable for novice players, and it is also more suitable for Duelist Class use.

To use it, you also need to have about 80 Chaos Orbs and a Mandatory Unique, Terminus Est sword. This Mandatory Unique can help you keep Frenzy Charges, because you need to keep Flickering in Battle.

This Build clears Enemies very quickly, even slightly higher than Lightning Strike Trickster. The specific Damage caused is also as high as millions per second, which can be said to be quite powerful, so you don’t have to worry even when facing a very dangerous Boss.

In terms of survivability, this Build can provide nearly 100,000 effective Life to the player using it because of its High Armor, Evasion, and Spell Suppression Effects.

But when using it, the player will always be in a relatively close position to Enemy, which is easy to be exposed in Enemy’s field of vision, which will make your Concealment worse overall. So overall, the Survivability Effect it brings is relatively general.

3. Venom Gyre Deadeye

This is an OP Venom Gyre Deadeye Build suitable for Ranger Class, and its core Skill is Venom Gyre.

This is a very interesting Skill. It will first Fire a Projectile, and after Hitting Enemy, it will return to you, causing Piercing and Damage to all Enemies it passes through during the return.

You can accumulate these Projectiles that return to you to form a stronger Damage, up to 30 times. When you activate Whirling Blades movement Skill, these Projectiles will be released at once, causing incredible Damage.

When used with a Build, you will need to use about 90 Chaos Orbs for this. After that, you can start Fighting with Build. In Combat, Venom Gyre Projectile itself will cause Damage quickly, not to mention that Deadeye further provides some Speed and Projectile Buffs. This Build will make you eliminate Enemies very quickly.

When facing a Boss, by using Whirling Blades, Vaal Venom Gyre will immediately gain 50 Stacked Projectiles and an amazing Shotgun Effect to Hit Boss. As for Survivability, through High Armor, High Evasion, Spell Suppression, and Block Chance, this Build can provide players with more than 80,000 Life.

Overall, these three Meta Builds have their own strengths and are applicable to different occasions. Therefore, they have potent power in their respective fields, so it is not surprising that they will be popular among players.

In Path Of Exile Series of games, learning to make and use Build is undoubtedly a compulsory course for all players. Because in various Battles in the game, effective Builds can usually help players cause more Damage to Enemy, and end Battle faster to get a lot of Rewards.

Of course, it is difficult to make a new Build by your own strength, and it may also require some additional POE Currency, which not all players are willing to do. Therefore, it is quite necessary to provide players with some information about existing Builds.

In fact, Builds are also divided into many types, and different types also mean that their main functions are different. Some Builds focus on improving the player’s Attack Ability, while others focus more on providing players with effective Defense to avoid being Hurt by Enemies and Bosses.

Among them, there is a Build called Melee Build by players. It usually requires players to use Melee Skills as the main way of Fighting, and it needs to be within Melee Range to exert the maximum Damage it can cause. It can be seen that Melee Builds have occasions specifically suitable for it, and in certain circumstances, it will bring unexpected gains to players.

Therefore, here is the information about Infernal Flicker Strike Ascendant Build, a good Melee Build for players in need.

Used Skills And Their Mechanics

This Build is centered on Flicker Strike Skill in terms of Attack. This Skill Teleports the player’s game character to the vicinity of Enemy for the subsequent Battle, and can quickly clear large groups of Enemies with Melee Attacks.

Disadvantage of this Skill is that it is not accurate enough when Aiming at Enemy, but this can be slightly improved by limited management of Frenzy Charges. And Frenzy Charges can be used every time Skill is used to avoid Cooldown.

And to maximize the power of Skill, this Build will convert Physical Damage caused by Skill into Fire Damage. Use Infernal Blow Support Gem to add Explosive Fire Effects to your Attacks.

This Explosive Effect is extremely lethal when combined with Teleportation feature of Flicker Strike. They will cause a series of reactions of Fiery Blasts to clear large groups of Enemies.

Passive Skill Tree And Ascendancy Points

Each Build has different points to focus on in Passive Skill Tree based on its own characteristics. Infernal Flicker Strike Ascendant Build focuses on the following aspects:

1. Physical Damage

By increasing Physical Damage in Passive Skill Tree, you can further increase your Base Damage and Converted Damage of Fire Damage.

2. Fire Damage

Adding Nodes to Fire Damage can further increase Damage Output of Infernal Blow and any Fire-based Support Gems.

3. Life Leech

In Melee situations, it is very important to use relevant Skills to gain Life through Leech. Therefore, adding Life Leech Nodes while using Slayer’s Overleech Mechanic can allow players to maintain a good Life even in difficult Encounters.

4. Frenzy Charges

Adding Frenzy Charges Nodes can effectively maintain Flow of Flicker Strike to better use Build.

Gear And Stat

1. Weapons

When using this Build, it is recommended that you choose Dual-wielding high Physical Damage Weapons. This will effectively increase your Fire Damage or Attack Speed.

Find Weapons with Modifiers that increase Physical Damage, or Weapons that can provide Fixed Fire Damage to your Attacks. Having them will make this Build more useful.

2. Armors

Prioritize Armors that provide you with Life, Resistances, and Evasion/Dodge. For example, Kaom’s Heart can provide an appreciable increase in player Life.

3. Jewels

Find and use Abyssal Jewels, which can increase your Physical and Fire Damage and Damage of One-handed Weapons, and provide some Health.

4. Flasks

If you can get Life Flasks with Instant Recovery, a Utility Flask for Curse Immunity, and an Atziri’s Promise for Added Chaos and Elemental Damage, it will provide a very good additional benefit to your use of this Build.

Support Gems Help

Owning certain Gems actually helps you with this Build, such as Support Gems, which forms a holistic Link between multiple aspects of Build to improve the integrity and lethality of Attack Effects when using Build.

In this Link, various Skills and Effects have their own responsibilities, such as

• Flicker Strike: Core Skill.
• Multistrike: Increases the number of Flicker Strikes per Activation, increasing Speed of Clearing.
• Melee Splash: Increases the area Damage of each Hit, allowing for better Clearing of Enemies.
• Elemental Damage with Attacks: Increases Elemental Damage, which works in conjunction with Fire Damage.
• Fortify: Provides Defense to reduce Damage caused by Enemies.
• Infernal Blow: Increases Explosion Effect, triggering a chain reaction of Fire when killing Enemies.

Combat Style And Techniques

When you Fight in the game with this Build, remember to manage Frenzy Charges at all times to avoid interruptions when using Flicker Strike continuously, which Affects Damage Effect.

Players can use Blood Rage to Generate Frenzy Charges passively and combine it with Blood Dance Boots or a Frenzy Skill Setup to add more Charges.

Since Flicker Strike has Teleportation feature, it is not a very important detail to Locate Target. But when you are facing a Boss, pay attention to random Target.

However, Explosions from Infernal Blow can effectively reduce this randomness, because the chain reaction it forms can Clear all nearby Enemies.

From a stylistic point of view, this Build is mainly aimed at groups of large numbers of Enemies, emphasizing the use of fast Teleportation Attacks, supplemented by powerful Fire Explosions, to form a Combat style with shock Damage and Combat Effects.

The above is some information about Infernal Flicker Strike Ascendant Build, as well as detailed tips when using it. Hope players can enjoy POE 3.25 better with this Build.

In MMO game Path Of Exile 3.25, players need to Fight Enemies or Bosses frequently in order to Upgrade smoothly and effectively advance the game progress.

Because only in this way can players obtain various Items and POE Currency required for Upgrading, to ensure that their game experience is good. And in order to improve the efficiency of Battle and win as many times as possible, it is usually best to use Build reasonably during Battle.

In fact, there are many types of Builds that can be used in the game, among which Tanky Build is one of the more popular ones. Because after actual Combat in the game, it can be confirmed that it is indeed a powerful Build.

Based on this, all situations of using a Tanky Build, namely Smite Warden Build, are introduced to players in need.

Unique Items

In order to be better used, Build needs to be effectively matched with appropriate Class or Skill, as well as various related Items. Among them, Type and Rarity of Unique Items can be said to be quite important factors.

The same is true for Smite Warden Build. To use it well, you need to have at least the following three Unique Items:

1. Celestial Brace Goliath Gauntlets

This Item is a Glove Item in the game. It has 20% Quality and 382-540 Armor Effect, and this Effect can sometimes increase by another 100-150%. If you want to Equip it, you need to reach Level 53 and 77 Str.

Combat Effect it provides mainly includes 1% Attack Speed ​​for each additional Fortification, and a maximum of ten Defenses. In addition, it can grant you a certain amount of Defense based on your Damage of Hit.

When it is used with this Build, it can bring players more AS and a surprising 30 Consistent Fortify. There is no doubt that with its own Defensive power, Smite Warden Build will bring you a fairly reliable Force to Resist Enemy.

2. Ralakesh’s Impatience

Use this Item with this Build and you will get a 50% EHP and 70% DPS increase, respectively. It is actually a Riveted Boots Item, Stats that have the conditional, while at maximum Charges always have their conditions fulfilled regardless of the actual number of Charges you have.

With it, you will get a good Charging Effect when Fighting with this Build. This will undoubtedly make your Combat process more coherent and smooth, to achieve the final victory.

3. Doryani’s Prototype

Doryani’s Prototype is a unique Saint’s Hauberk Item. When you hold it in the game, it can only allow you to Deal Lightning Damage to Enemy.

However, it can bring you a special Armor Effect, reducing Lightning Damage you receive when you are Hit, but it cannot reduce Lightning Damage caused over time. When used with this Build, you will get up to 200% Lightning Res.

Required Equipment

In addition to the three important special Items mentioned above, in order to use this Build with ease, you also need to have the following Equipment:

1. Weapon

It is best to have a one-handed Weapon with high Physical Damage and added Lightning Damage. This can help you maintain a certain degree of flexibility in Combat while not being able to Output high Damage.

2. Shield

A Shield that can provide high Life, Resistances, and Block Chance. In this way, you can better build a defensive wall for yourself and reduce Damage caused by Boss to you.

3. Armor

In fact, the best Armor Equipment is Doryani’s Prototype. After all, its Lightning Damage Conversion and high Armor are quite unique, and Effect is also very good, and it is difficult to be replaced.

4. Accessories

It is best to have Accessories with Rings and Amulets with Life, Resistances, and added Lightning Damage. Although they may not be conspicuous from the Overall Appearance, the benefits they can provide to you cannot be ignored.

5. Flasks

Carry some Flasks for emergencies. You never know when they’ll come in handy. It’s best to bring a Life Flask, Utility Flasks for Resistances and Movement Speed, and a Flask for increased Armor.

Combat Effects

By combining the above Items and the benefits of your Gear, you can start using your Smite Warden Build in Combat.

It’s common to create 50 Shock Stacks in Combat, which is hard to do, but you can use Static Blows to provide Duration, which will help you get Ultimate Damage and kill Enemy.

You can also get 90% Fire Resistance with Purity Of Fire aura, or other Jewelry with +2 to max Fire Resistance. This is obviously a big help in Combat, especially if you’re facing a Fire-based Enemy.

Besides these, if you also have Watcher’s Eye, Critical Mastery, and Dawnbreaker, you can use Stack Crits to reduce Damage Taken. In the current version of the game, if you can use Crits to reduce 70-80% of Extra Damage taken, it will be of great help to your Battle.

The above is some relevant information on how to make better use of Smite Warden Build. Hope it can effectively help those players in need, so that they can get a good gaming experience and enjoy the game more happily.