Path of Exile will release 3.17.4 patch soon

Path of Exile 2 uses Tablets in place of PoE 1's Scarabs to make maps more rewarding, but this system does not work as well as Scarabs did and has several issues.

These problems have become even more noticeable in PoE 2 Patch 0.5.0. Although the official team wants PoE 2 to have more differences from PoE 1, addressing these issues and providing players with a better experience should be more important.

Tablet Problems

Tablet Power

The gap between high-quality Tablets and low-quality Tablets is enormous. Maps using high-quality Tablets can generate PoE 2 currency roughly 20 to 30 times more efficiently than maps using ordinary Tablets.

Unfriendly to New Players

This is particularly unfriendly to new players, as they may not understand the differences between Tablets and simply place three Magic Tablets into Atlas. As a result, they can run 30 to 40 maps and get almost nothing in return, effectively wasting their time.

In addition, players must first defeat Arbiter of Ash to craft Rare Tablets. Rare Tablets have four modifiers, making them at least twice as powerful as Magic Tablets.

This means new players are already at a significant disadvantage the moment they enter Atlas. That is harmful to the game's long-term health as well as the stability of its economy.

High-Quality Tablets Are Difficult to Obtain

Another issue is that top-tier Tablets are extremely powerful, while their best modifiers are exceptionally rare. This pushes the entry requirements for high-end farming strategies to an astonishing level. Once a particular farming strategy becomes popular, the value of Tablets required for it quickly rises.

If you are facing a shortage of high-quality Tablets, you can actually buy PoE 2 Currency at PoEcurrency.com to skip the accumulation phase and start farming directly with high-value Tablets.

Because Tablet modifier pool contains a large number of useless modifiers, while the weights for desirable modifiers are set too low, supply and demand inevitably become unbalanced. Players either cannot obtain enough Divine Orbs to acquire good Tablets, or they decide that the investment simply is not worthwhile.

City Maps

The advantage of City Maps is that they provide a fourth Tablet slot, which roughly translates into 33% more map drops. They are far more rewarding than other ordinary maps, to the point that players have little incentive to run regular maps.

Difficulty Finding High-Quality Tablets

As mentioned above, Tablet modifier pool contains many useless modifiers, which keeps the supply of high-quality Tablets extremely limited.

To pursue efficient farming, players have to spend a great deal of time filtering through and acquiring high-quality Tablets on trading websites before they can even begin mapping. Sometimes, finding suitable Tablets takes longer than the actual farming itself.

If you choose not to acquire Tablets in pursuit of maximum returns, you are effectively wasting your time running maps with inferior rewards.

The chance of finding a Tablet with four excellent modifiers is comparable to finding an item with six Tier 1 modifiers. It is almost impossible to have one sitting in your stash. Either way, the system disrupts your farming rhythm and wastes your time.

Tablet Modifiers

Obtaining the best combinations of Tablet modifiers is extremely difficult, and they cannot be crafted through targeted methods. This directly causes high-quality Tablets to be worth several or even dozens of Divine Orbs. In some cases, this can make certain high-yield farming strategies completely impractical because Tablets required to start the strategy cost more than the potential returns.

On the other hand, because Tablets can be reused multiple times, using an average Tablet means losing out on the enormous returns that the same map could have generated with a high-quality Tablet. This makes the system less flexible than Scarabs.

Solutions

Increase Weight of Desirable Modifiers

The biggest problem with Tablets is that desirable modifiers appear too infrequently, while there are too many useless ones. The official team could increase the weights of desirable modifiers while removing most of the unnecessary modifiers.

Alternatively, some low-value modifiers could be moved to Tablet implicits. Examples include increased Gold Find, Increased Experience, and a higher chance for Shrines to appear.

If these were turned into base implicits and Divine Orbs could be used on Tablets to reroll their implicit modifiers, this could directly increase the supply of high-quality Tablets on the market while also creating a new way to consume Divine Orbs.

Add More Tablet Crafting Options

In PoE 2 Patch 0.5.0, with Jewel system already receiving support from more crafting currencies, Tablets are essentially the only part of the game still stuck with the primitive crafting process of throwing an Exalted Orb or a Transmutation Orb at them and using an Orb of Scouring when the modifiers are poor.

If some PoE 2 currencies specifically designed for Tablets could be introduced, they could not only increase the supply of high-quality Tablets on trading websites but might also create entirely new farming strategies.

Special Biome Bonuses

The official team could add interesting Tablet-specific bonuses to different biomes. This could make other areas of Atlas just as appealing and exciting as City Maps, giving players more choices when farming.

Increase Tablet Charges

This change would have both advantages and disadvantages. It could increase the value of high-quality Tablets, but having to replenish Tablets every 10 maps is certainly somewhat annoying.

Increasing the number of charges would allow players to spend more time actually farming maps instead of constantly having their rhythm interrupted while searching for the next set of three high-quality Tablets.

Tablet Preset Slots

Map Device could add Tablet Rows, allowing players to switch between three different Tablet configurations.

This would allow players to prepare three or four different Tablet combinations based on the content they discover while exploring Atlas, helping maximize returns.

This would be a major Quality of Life improvement that would make the endgame mapping experience much smoother.

Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 can be considered quite successful, as different strategies offer solid returns and players have plenty of choices. However, Tablets have been a major source of frustration for a long time. If this issue can be addressed in Patch 0.5.5 or Version 1.0, the endgame experience could become much better.

Among the many classes in Path of Exile 2, Monk is one of the most popular melee classes due to its high degree of freedom and high damage output. Therefore, it also boasts many powerful builds.

Among these Monk builds, one particularly powerful one utilizes both Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder, and leverages Concussive Runes support gems added in Patch 0.5 Return of the Ancients. This build elevates Monk's map clearing efficiency and damage output to new heights.

This build has been named Whirling Assault Invoker Build by its creator. I will now explain the workings of this build in detail from four aspects.

Core Mechanics

As mentioned at the beginning, in POE 2 Patch 0.5, the core of this build is the utilization of Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder.

The effect of Herald of Ice is that when the player kills a frozen enemy, it triggers a frost explosion, causing area-of-effect cold damage to surrounding enemies.

However, the cold damage from the explosion itself cannot inflict the freezing effect, meaning Herald of Ice cannot create the conditions for its own activation.

Similarly, Herald of Thunder unleashes chain lightning upon killing an electrified enemy, but its Lightning Damag also cannot inflict the electrification effect.

On the surface, these two Herald abilities do not seem to synergize. However, players can combine their mechanics using Infusion Support Gems:

Players need to connect Lightning Infusion Support to Herald of Ice to convert some of the cold damage into lightning damage, allowing the frost explosion to inflict the electrification effect;

Simultaneously, connecting Cold Infusion to Herald of Thunder converts some of the lightning damage into cold damage, allowing the chain lightning to inflict the freezing effect.

After this modification, a perfect chain reaction is formed between Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder:

Herald of Ice explodes, killing enemies and inflicting electrocution; electrocution kills enemies, triggering Herald of Thunder, which releases lightning and inflicts freeze; freeze kills enemies, triggering Herald of Ice again, achieving a screen-clearing effect with a single explosion.

Activation Device

It's important to note that to activate this chain, the player still needs to kill a frozen or electrocuted enemy using other methods as a "activation device". Specifically:

Concussive Runes

POE 2 Patch 0.5 modified Herald abilities, making them untriggerable by kills from other Herald abilities.

Fortunately, we have the new support gems introduced in POE 2 Patch 0.5 - Concussive Runes. Its effect is: when the supported ability inflicts Heavy Stun on an enemy, it consumes Runic Ward and releases a Runic Shockwave.

This Runic Shockwave will be treated as an attack by system, not a Herald skill effect, thus fully meeting Herald skill's trigger rules.

However, to ensure Concussive Runes trigger reliably, this build requires players to invest significant resources in stacking Stun Buildup until the panel value reaches 940%.

Whirling Assault

There's an important, easily overlooked issue here: cold damage cannot cause Heavy Stun. Therefore, this "activation device" needs something that can deal lightning damage to complete Heavy Stun task.

This is where Whirling Assault comes in. It's Quarterstaff's exclusive Strike skill, its effect being: performing a series of spinning attacks on surrounding enemies while moving, and inflicting Heavy Stun on target.

Thus, we've met Heavy Stun condition and can successfully activate Concussive Runes to release Runic Shockwave.

Runic Ward

Besides stun accumulation, managing Runic Ward is equally crucial. As a new defensive resource introduced in PoE 2 Patch 0.5, it is an essential consumable for triggering Concussive Runes.

To maintain continuous triggering of Runic Shockwave, this build requires a minimum Runic Ward cap of 300 points, continuously replenished through equipment such as Call of the Void.

Concussive Runes can only function stably as a "activation device" when both Heavy Stun triggering and Runic Ward resources are available.

Class Selection

Monk players using this build should choose Invoker as their Ascendancy Class.

This is because Invoker focuses on Elemental Damage and Elemental Ailments, and its Ascendancy skill tree contains several passive skills that highly synergize with this build:

First, I am the Thunder provides 10% Damage as Extra Lightning Damage and grants a 25% chance to create Shocked Ground when an enemy is electrocuted, directly enhancing Whirling Assault's lightning damage and electrocution capabilities.

Second, I am the Blizzard provides 10% Damage as Extra Cold Damage and creates Chilled Ground when an enemy is frozen, providing a stable source of freeze activation for Herald of Ice.

Gear Strategy

Finally, you'll need some gear or affixes to complete Whirling Assault Invoker Build. This build has no mandatory equipment. You only need to craft or exchange gear that meets the following conditions using POE 2 Currency:

First, because Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder consume a large amount of Spirit, players must solve the problem of Spirit resource sustainability.

Since players can activate Ascendancy Passive Skill Lead me through Grace to gain Spirit - which provides Spirit proportionally based on the chest armor's Energy Shield and Evasion Rating - players need to wear POE 2 Uniques chest armor, which offers high evasion and a high shield.

Regarding gear selection, Quarterstaff is undoubtedly the best choice, but pay attention to affixes: prioritize affixes with high base damage, attack speed, critical strike chance, and additional lightning or cold damage.

For the amulet and rings, stack critical strike damage, attack speed, and elemental damage percentage.

This concludes the detailed introduction to Whirling Assault Invoker Build in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5 Return of the Ancients. This is a build perfectly suited for clearing maps, and its capabilities will leave a lasting impression.

Players, Path of Exile 3.29.3 was updated on August 12th. This patch not only brings new gameplay depth but also contains crucial adjustments that will affect the course of the league.

For every Exile who has ventured into the endgame, the impact of Patch 3.29.3 is far more complex than the literal meaning of the announcement.

Essence of Desolation Source Completely Closed

The most notable negative change in Patch 3.29.3 is undoubtedly the complete closure of Essence of Desolation source.

This type of Essence existed in PoE 3.28, but after 3.29, players could only obtain it through a specific method. However, some players still hoarded them and used them to craft top-tier gear.

Therefore, with the release of these patch notes, the only remaining source of Essence of Desolation has been removed. However, existing finished Essences in the league and the mirror items they create are all retained and usable.

Therefore, the only way to obtain this type of Essence in PoE after this point is to acquire a mirror copy from an existing holder, which means you will need to prepare a lot of PoE currency.

However, the most criticized aspect of Essence of Desolation change is that it doesn't address a balance issue - this Essence didn't disrupt the overall crafting ecosystem or cause imbalance, yet it was treated as a bug and fixed, resulting in powerful resources being locked in the hands of a few early players.

This means new players have no chance to catch up with older players, directly undermining the sense of fairness in the catch-up process.

New Cursed Ducats

Cursed Ducats are one of the most important positive additions in Patch 3.29.3, designed to enhance the rewards and challenges of Voyages and Charts gameplay.

Basic Rules

Cursed Ducats are similar to Voidstones in the game. There are six types, but you can only socket a maximum of three into your Voyage Planner at a time.

Each Cursed Ducat provides the same type of positive bonus:

• Monster Drop Item Quantity +20%
• Item Rarity +20%
• Toughness +50%

So, stacking three Cursed Ducats will provide you with +60% Monster Drop Item Quantity, +60% Item Rarity, and +150% Toughness.

Players should note that Toughness doesn't simply increase Life; it's an effective Life increase achieved through Damage Reduction during Path of Exile.

For example, 1 million Life + 600% Toughness and 7 million Life but 0 Toughness, while requiring the same total damage to kill, interact differently with Damage over Time cap and Leech mechanic.

Each Cursed Ducat Has a Unique Negative Effect

Besides the positive bonuses, each Cursed Ducat has a unique negative affix, so players should choose the three least affected affixes based on their build:

• Ducat of Tsoatha's Gift: Increases monster damage by 50%
• Ducat of the Undead Sea: Increases monster elemental resistance by 10%
• Ducat of the Eucarid Isle: Increases monster critical strike chance by 500% and critical strike damage by 50%
• Ducat of the Fallen Stars: Monsters deal 100% additional elemental damage as physical damage
• Ducat of the Grasping Deep: Monsters gain +2 projectiles and an increased area-of-effect by 40%
• Ducat of the Foul Kin: Increases monster attack, casting, and movement speed by 50%

The negative effects of Ducat of the Eucarid Isle and Ducat of the Foul Kin are considered the most threatening to most characters, while the negative effects of the other Cursed Ducats are relatively easier to handle.

How to unlock?

Most PoE players should have already defeated Velka, the Tide Witch in the game. Simply return to The Sovereign and talk to Valerie to obtain your first Ducat of Tsoatha's Gift.

After socketing it, certain monsters or objects in Voyages and Charts may drop the remaining five Cursed Ducats.

Interface and Operation Optimizations

To facilitate players' evaluation of affix value in Voyage Planner, Path of Exile 3.29.3 now allows you to hold down Alt (on keyboard) or Left Trigger (on controller) to view all 12 Border Modifiers at once, eliminating the need to check each one individually, greatly improving filtering efficiency.

Furthermore, previously only single-attribute affixes were available on Small Cluster Jewels, the update allows for in-game swapping using Genteel's Ducat, increasing flexibility in attribute adjustments.

Regarding Enemy Mercenary

To reduce the chances of players being accidentally killed by Mercenary, Patch 3.29.3 has reduced the damage of several high-damage abilities targeting enemy Mercenary. However, this only applies when Mercenary is an enemy; the damage remains unchanged when Mercenary is an ally.

Affected abilities include Fireball of Impact, Flameblast, Frostbolt, Ice Nova, Ice Nova of Projection, Rolling Magma, and Fireball - all will no longer be as powerful as before.

Other Bug Fixes

Other noteworthy bug fixes in PoE 3.29.3 include the ability to interact with Essence Monsters from a greater distance to break their seals.

However, considering the removal of Essence of Desolation source mentioned earlier, this improvement may not be used very frequently in the game.

Abyssal Crystals (from Abyss Scarab of Crystals) will now shatter when the final Pit of Abyss closes, but this is merely a visual improvement for players.

This update also includes two minor fixes for Mercenary: Wither on Hit support now takes effect for the correct 2 seconds instead of the incorrect 33 milliseconds; and third permanent Mercenary can now be hired even when you already have two permanent Mercenary and one temporary Mercenary (previously this was bugged).

Furthermore, there are numerous bug fixes primarily addressing skill effects, client stability, and UI display, so Patch 3.29.3 should make the overall gameplay experience smoother and more reliable.

For this update, it's recommended that casual players focus on mastering Cursed Ducats combinations and choosing which negative effects to avoid based on their own defensive mechanics.

Adapting to and learning to utilize the changes in PoE 3.29.3 will give you a significant advantage over other players!

In Path of Exile 3.29, the idea of ​​stacking Abyss Jewels has been revived. I will introduce a Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye build that utilizes three unique pieces of equipment: Spinesnatch, Lightpoacher, and Shroud of the Lightless, and then stacks a large number of Abyss Jewels to achieve extremely high health and damage output.

Three Core Unique Equipment Pieces

Spinesnatch

Spinesnatch is a unique two-handed axe that provides a fixed 50% increase to your critical strike chance, but its most crucial function is its six Abyssal Sockets, meaning you can insert six Abyss Jewels into this weapon.

It also provides different bonuses depending on the type of Jewel inserted:

• Each Murderous Eye Jewel: Increases Physical Damage by 25-50%
• Each Searching Eye Jewel: Increases Attack Speed ​​by 8-16%
• Each Hypnotic Eye Jewel: Increases Critical Strike Chance by 20-40%
• Each Ghastly Eye Jewel: Minions have a 20-40% chance to inflict Impale on hit

For this build, inserting all six Searching Eye Jewels can stack the weapon's attack speed to an extremely high level. Combined with the Tempering Orb affix effect, it can even become one of the fastest weapons in PoE.

Shroud of the Lightless

Shroud of the Lightless has 3 Abyssal Sockets. However, in  Abyss Jewel stacking build, its more important role is:

• Each Abyss Jewel affecting you: Increases maximum life by 3%
• Each Abyss Jewel affecting you: Increases maximum mana by 3%
• Each Abyss Jewel affecting you: Penetrates 4% Elemental Resistances

Abyss Jewel bonus is no longer limited to those inserted into Shroud of the Lightless socket; it's calculated as long as your character has an Abyss Jewel active.

With 20 Abyss Jewels stacked, this chest piece can increase maximum life by 60% and elemental penetration by 80%. Additionally, it has a 20% chance to trigger Level 20 Shade Form when casting a socketed skill, providing an additional layer of defense.

Lightpoacher

Lightpoacher has 1 Abyssal Socket. Its core mechanics are:

• Each Abyss Jewel that affects you provides +1 maximum Spirit Charge
• Gain 1 stack of Spirit Charge on kill
• Using a skill while having Spirit Charge triggers a Level 20 Spirit Burst

Spirit Burst consumes one stack of Spirit Charge and fires 6 additional projectiles, dealing physical damage. Each stack of Spirit Charge also provides 5% physical damage as additional fire, frost, and lightning damage.

Three pieces of equipment together form the core of this build's damage output - stacked Abyss Jewels are converted into attack speed, life, and elemental penetration, and Spirit Charge and additional elemental damage, respectively.

Spirit Charge Sustainability

The core problem this build faces is that every skill use triggers Spirit Burst, consuming one stack of Spirit Charge. If Spirit Charge cannot be maintained, damage is significantly reduced.

The solution is to prevent Spirit Burst from being cast. By inserting a Frostblink into Lightpoacher and connecting it to Archmage Support, and then adjusting Unreserved Mana using auras like Precision, you can ensure that available mana is lower than the cost of Spirit Burst.

For example, if your character only has 80 mana, while Spirit Burst requires 100 mana, using Frostblink will prevent Spirit Burst from being cast due to insufficient mana, thus avoiding the consumption of Spirit Charge. This allows Spirit Charge to remain at full stacks for an extended period, continuously maximizing the extra elemental damage provided by Lightpoacher.

Abyss Jewel Configuration

The six jewels inserted into Spinesnatch must be Searching Eye Jewels, as they provide weapon attack speed bonuses. The highest priority prefix for these jewels is Life, while suffixes can be Attack Speed, Critical Hit Chance, Elemental Resistance, Critical Hit Chance, etc. It is recommended to roll one of them with the Phasing affix for increased kill chance to improve map clearing smoothness.

Other Abyssal Sockets on equipment primarily utilize Murderous Eye Jewels, as they provide Flat Damage related to axes.

Additionally, Tecrod's Gaze is a crucial unique Murderous Eye Jewel. It provides Main Hand Critical Strike Chance and Off Hand Critical Strike Multiplier based on the number of Murderous Eye Jewels affecting the character. Since this build heavily utilizes Murderous Eye Jewels, its stacking effect can be fully leveraged.

On the passive tree, Jewels can further amplify the effects of Corrupted Magic Jewels through The Adorned, allowing for significantly higher returns on desirable affixes such as Life and Critical Strike Multiplier.

Given the high stat requirements of this build for Abyss Jewels, players often need to invest considerable time farming resources for affix rerolling. If you want to save time farming currency, you can buy PoE currency at POECURRENCY.com and dedicate your valuable time to optimizing Abyss Jewel affixes.

Skill Links

Main Skill: Lightning Strike of Arcing

As a Transfigured Gem in Path of Exile, Lightning Strike of Arcing's mechanics perfectly complement this high attack speed Abyss Jewel build. Unlike the normal version, it fires only one projectile, but this projectile can chain up to 47 times, with each chain increasing damage by 10%.

Core Support Gems

• Greater Multiple Projectiles Support: +4 projectile count, core to damage and map clearing efficiency
• Bloodthirst Support: In Low Life state, adds bonus physical damage equal to 2% of maximum life
• Lifetap Support: Replaces mana consumption with life, solving mana management issues

Remaining support gems should be adjusted based on the situation. Use Trinity when single-target damage is needed, and switch to Greater Chain for maximum map clearing.

Overall, this Lightning Strike of Arcing Deadeye build maximizes the stacking benefits of Abyss Jewel, creating a seamless synergy between attack speed, life, elemental penetration, and additional elemental damage. While it's not cheap and requires careful tuning, its map clearing efficiency and burst damage are outstanding once fully built, making it one of the most distinctive Abyss Jewel builds in Path of Exile 3.29.