How To Handle Your Unique Encounter With Mektul In POE 2 Dawn Of The Hunt? - Preparation & Strategy

Although updates to Path of Exile 1 were delayed for nearly a year late last year due to the development of Path of Exile 2, 3.26 League launched in June of this year, returning the original game's league update schedule to normal.

With this in mind, Path of Exile development team recently announced that League 3.27 will launch on October 31st, culminating in the conclusion of Mercenaries of Trarthus League and the release of 3.27 livestream.

Building on 3.26's foundation, the new league is expected to further enhance Path of Exile 1's trading system, rebalance the meta, and bring additional improvements and changes to Atlas Tree and endgame content.

Below, we'll cover the known schedule and potential new changes for Path of Exile 3.27, focusing on these key areas.

Path Of Exile 3.27 Schedule

In addition to the confirmed release date for League 3.27, the development team is expected to hold a livestream on October 23rd PDT to announce more details about the new league. The official name of 3.27 will probably be announced even sooner.

It's important to note that the currently ongoing 3.26 expansion will not end immediately before 3.27, but will instead conclude on October 27th PDT. If you need to finish up work for that league, you'll need to plan ahead.

Will 3.27 Retain The Mechanics Of 3.26 League?

If you're a die-hard Path of Exile 1 fan, you know that nearly every league has its own unique mechanic, some of which are so popular that they're carried over to the new leagues. In League 3.26, that mechanic is undoubtedly the mercenaries system.

Unfortunately, while mercenaries are fun to play against and use as allies, their overall strength makes their integration into the core game unlikely.

Although the role of the mercenary system was previously reduced in 3.26.0c, it's likely to be nerfed or redesigned if it continues to be used in new leagues.

But honestly, even if you're a fan of the mercenary mechanic, there's no need to be disheartened, as 3.27 expansion will undoubtedly introduce new league gameplay, allowing you to earn more PoE currency in the new leagues.

Of course, the mechanics from older leagues that have been retained should still be available in 3.27, but adjustments are possible.

What Changes Might 3.27 Introduce?

Before getting into the new content, it's important to note that Merchant Tabs and offline buyouts have been implemented in PoE 2. However, if you convert a Premium Tab to a Merchant Tab, you won't be able to access them in PoE 1.

This makes it imperative that the same tab system be implemented in Path of Exile 1, as otherwise it would create further issues with the trading system.

However, it's impossible to say for sure whether this update will be implemented in League 3.27. To avoid trading difficulties in the new leagues, it's best to refrain from switching tabs in PoE 2 for now.

More QoL Changes About Trading

In expansion 3.26, the game improved the efficiency and experience of PoE currency farming by introducing QoL changes such as map level adjustments and quick-apply currency buttons. Similar changes are expected to continue in 3.27.

Building on these improvements, the game may release further trading optimizations to help you earn more income through efficient trading, such as:

• Making consumable items like fragments, essences, and fossils easier to sell at scale, reducing profit margins while increasing trading volume and boosting game vitality.
• If you're one of the first players to unlock Atlas, you'll be able to earn currency through trading without leaving the map, widening the gap between you and lower-level players.
• Reducing trading profit margins while ensuring that niche items still have high value will maintain a balanced trading market.

Additionally, the map device Rucksack, the quick currency use feature for interactable items, and the improved controller targeting introduced in expansion 3.26 are expected to remain available in 3.27.

How To Prepare For The New League?

Since the new gameplay and league system for League 3.27 have yet to be announced, the best you can do now is develop and familiarize yourself with a strategy that works with your regular farming plan to quickly acquire sufficient resources once the new league begins.

With this in mind, we offer the following specific recommendations:

• Enter the endgame as soon as possible and farm for currency.
• Gain early crafting fuel and currency by exploring Essence and chest nodes.
• Focus on farming mechanic paths like Harbinger or Expedition to quickly capture nodes.
• Update your loot filters promptly.
• Adjust your elemental resistance caps and spell suppression caps promptly.
• Plan your initial 15-20 Atlas passive points and adjust them accordingly once League 3.27 launches.
• Focus on unlocking bench crafts that grant elemental damage to spells and use essences for early weapon upgrades.
• Gain +1 skill level with skill gem modifiers through drops, Fossils, or advanced crafting.
• Try out more available builds to gain a combat advantage faster once the new league begins.

Over the next two weeks or so, the development team will continue to announce more details about the new content and changes coming to Path of Exile 3.27 through various channels, so stay tuned!

When entering a new league, you may experience increased damage in combat due to the difficulty adjusting to the new mechanics. Therefore, it's best to buy PoE 2 currency on POECURRENCY.com in advance.

This will allow you to immediately add more defensive affixes to your new league gear roll, giving you greater survivability and allowing you to steadily progress in 3.27.

Exiles, today we're taking a look at the build that won Build of the Week on PoE 2 Forums this week: Grape Soda Power Washer by Toastji!

Actually, Grape Soda here is the purple chaos damage converted by Blackflame Covenant Passive after Acolyte of Chayula Monk uses Incinerate skill! This intriguing concept is perhaps one of the key reasons why this build was named Best of the Week. Here, we'll take a closer look at how this Powerwasher Acolyte of Chayula endgame build works.

How Does It Works?

First and foremost, Power Washer Acolyte of Chayula build relies heavily on collecting fuel to incinerate enemies, clearing everything in your path. Meanwhile, the purple flame beams stacked with Volatility boost your damage to the max.

Incinerate is quite simply a flamethrower. To use it, you first need to accumulate fuel, which is collected by spending mana.

We can spend mana on Living Bomb, which not only causes enemies to explode upon taking enough damage or dying, but more importantly, it also drops Fire Remnants, which empower Incinerate with Burning Ground buff, effectively killing two birds with one stone.

Furthermore, to maximize mana consumption and generate more Remnants, we can actually use two Living Bombs, one of which is automatically triggered by Casting on Elemental Ailment. Since Ignite is also a Damaging Elemental Ailment, using Incinerate allows us to continuously cast Living Bombs and generate Remnants.

And, as mentioned earlier, Blackflame Covenant Keystone converts 100% of the fire damage dealt by fire spells into chaos damage, turning its visual effect purple and causing it to scale based on the chaos damage modifier instead of the fire damage.

While the visual effect isn't essential, it's certainly a nice touch. More importantly, this conversion also means that any Ignite dealt by these spells will now deal Chaos damage and benefit from the increased Chaos damage modifier and spread.

Skill Tree Setup

This Grape Soda Acolyte of Chayula Monk build centers around the reworked Incinerate skill, paired with the new keystone passive, Blackflame Covenant, to convert fire spells into Chaos damage and apply Chaos damage over time.

This unique interaction allows for simultaneous adjustment of Ignite power and Chaos mechanics, creating a powerful and flexible build that, when combined with spells like Fireball, can create a trendsetting purple Monk build.

Additionally, this skill works in conjunction with the new Elemental Infusions mechanic, allowing Incinerate to ignite the ground and deal increased Ignition damage to enemies passing through it.

To enhance the effectiveness of our AoE attacks, we can also use Cast on Elemental Ailment Gem to apply Living Bomb to the target during mapping.

Additionally, Volatility mechanic of Acolyte of Chayula Ascendancy in PoE 2 grants you additional Volatility stacks, detonating every 4 seconds, damaging the player and dealing 1% Chaos damage over time, significantly increasing mapping efficiency.

To maintain mana consumption for long-lasting Incinerate spells, target enemies affected by Elemental Ailments, as killing them has a chance to spawn a Mana Remnant, instantly replenishing mana, even exceeding your current mana cap.

However, keep in mind that during Incinerate, movement is limited, which is where Ghost Dance comes in handy. This skill allows you to instantly consume energy upon being attacked, restoring energy shield based on your evasion value.

Finally, Despair and Ball Lightning synergize perfectly. While Ball Lightning's own damage output is low and not a powerful primary damage skill, it can be used to trigger Effigy of Cruelty, which curses enemies upon impact. Despair reduces Chaos Resistance of all targets in the area, allowing us to easily clear all enemies.

Jewels

For Jewels, you should focus on investing in Ailment Magnitude, Ignite Magnitude, Chaos Damage, and Critical Hit, as these directly impact the damage output of most of your skills. Notably, Ignite damage from Incinerate scales with critical hits, which is why it's so effective.

Alternatively, if you have enough PoE 2 currency, you can also equip a Heart of the Well Diamond with Ailment Magnitude stat.

Gear Selection

Weapon Set

In PoE 2 patch 0.3.0, weapon switching has no delay or time penalty, meaning we have even more gear options. To take advantage of weapon switching, this build uses two gear sets to stack powerful debuffs.

• Weapon Set 1: Non-Unique Wand and Focus
• Weapon Set 2: Wicked Quill Withered Wand and Effigy of Cruelty Antler Focus

Whichever weapon set you choose, remember to focus on stats that increase damage, particularly spell damage, spell skill level, and chaos damage.

Armor

For armor, you'll want to equip items with higher Evasion, Energy Shield, and Deflection stats. Since this build doesn't require unique armor pieces, you can easily craft or swap in items with your preferred stats.

Runes

For your runes, be sure to equip Fenumus' Rune of Agony on your wand and Greater Body Rune on your shield to help you gain more chaos damage and life leech, thereby improving your survivability.

Also, equip Greater Iron Rune on your helmet and armor to increase your weapon's physical damage by 20% and armor, evasion, and energy shield by 20%.

You can also place Farrul's Rune of Grace into an empty rune slot on your weapon or armor, reducing the movement speed penalty for using Incinerate by 6%.

Belts

If budget is of no concern, Headhunter Heavy Belt is definitely our best bet. This allows you to gain temporary strength after killing rare monsters, lasting 60 seconds, allowing your character to become temporarily stronger while clearing the map.

Charms

For Charms, prioritize defensive options to maintain Incinerate casting. Ideally, choose a charm with a defense chance modifier when activated to further enhance survivability while channeling skills.

In short, Grape Soda Power Washer build in Path of Exile 2 combines the power of Chaos-themed Acolyte of Chayula Ascendancy with the fire spell Incinerate, providing high-speed casting and potentially massive Chaos damage. This build, with its combination of damage and visuals, truly deserves its spot as the best build of the week!

If you're considering this build, I must warn you that while Incinerate Acolyte of Chayula has impressive damage output, it also comes at a considerable cost. However, you can also visit the cheap PoE 2 currency for sale page on POECURRENCY.com, which will allow you to complete the build at a much lower cost!

In Path of Exile 2, Evasion is a defensive stat that grants a chance to completely avoid physical attacks, making it crucial for characters who rely on this mechanic for survival. This is especially true for builds like Hollow Palm Monk and Lightning Arrow Deadeye, which typically maximize their defensive capabilities by stacking Evasion and Energy Shield.

Therefore, players using high-evasion builds can maximize their chances of dodging incoming attacks by crafting Pure Evasion Body Armor. Especially for new players, using Evasion Body Armor wisely can provide a more direct defense against one-shot attacks than stacking Energy Shield and Life.

So, how do you craft the best Evasion Body Armor in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.3.0 to effectively boost your build's overall defense? This guide will provide the answers!

Step-By-Step Guide

What do we need to start crafting this armor?

Slipstrike Vest Base

First, we need Slipstrike Vest Base Body Armor. Note that it must be Slipstrike Vest, as this is the base with the highest evasion rating; it should be at least level 79, preferably 80, as this is the most common level available.

Next, we need a chest with the prefix Tier 1 Flat Evasion Rating or Tier 1 % Increased Evasion Rating. Please note that the prefix cannot be hybrid.

For the suffix, we need at least 30% resistance or a deflection rating of around 20%.

Once you have these bases, you need a Greater Essence of Ruin. This essence grants chaos resistance to our body armor, which upgrades it to a rare item.

Infusing Chaos Essence

But what if you already have armor with both evasion and chaos resistance? In this case, you can choose one of Fire, Cold, and Lightning Resistance Essences. It really doesn't matter which one you choose - it's entirely up to you.

Next, we'll crush Chaos Essences. This is because by the end, you can roll anything from Tier 5 to Tier 1. These are the only mandatory requirements, and this makes the crafting cost of this Evasion Body Armor lower overall compared to other materials.

So, we've infused four Chaos Essences into each piece of armor.

Adding Prefixes And Suffixes

So, what's next? We'll add Desecrated Suffixes. To do this, we need Omen of Dextral Necromancy and Preserved Rib. You can select Omen of Dextral Necromancy and then hit each piece of armor with Preserved Rib to ensure it gets the suffix.

However, you don't have to reveal this mod right away. In fact, we even recommend not doing so, as you'll most likely want to use Omen of Abyssal Echoes later to achieve this. However, not every piece of armor is worth it.

Now that our body armor has a complete set of suffixes, we need to add our prefixes. So, what do we do with our prefixes?

If you already have flat evasion, we'll look for the highest% increased Evasion Rating and a hybrid evasion.

You can slam both hybrids, as you have a chance to hit all three mods. However, if you lose, you'll have to repeat the previous steps. However, the crafting cost is really low, so it's worth a try.

Also Read: Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.3.1 Update | All Maps Have Bosses, Orb Of Alchemy Rework & Major Atlas Changes

Omen Of Homogenising Exaltation

Next, we take Omen of Homogenising Exaltation, which grants us the evasion modifier. We can combine it with Greater Exalted Orb to add the desired higher-level modifiers, which share tags with the existing modifiers on your item.

A quick explanation for why we used Greater Exalted Orb instead of Perfect Exalted Orb is that the difference between the two Exalted Orbs is only one tier, which isn't worth it. Don't waste your PoE 2 currency; it's better to start over.

Now, let's bash through all of them. If you don't hit anything good, I recommend recombining them or throwing them away, then getting new bases and repeating the process again.

Desecrated Modifiers

So far, we've managed to achieve a 2400 evasion rating, which is pretty good. But we still need to further optimize this body armor with Desecrated Modifiers in Well of Souls.

Desecrated Modifier system allows you to improve items without risking them being ruined, giving you a lot of autonomy in your crafting. We can take this armor to Well of Souls in Mastodon Badlands to reveal three modifier options.

Note that the three modifier options you receive are random, but are designed to provide useful upgrades for your character. Finally, choose the modifier that best suits your build and select Confirm to add it to your armor.

Cost

Finally, for budget, this Pure Evasion Body Armor costs approximately 5 PoE 2 Divine Orbs, as we only used Omen of Homogenizing Exaltation + Greater Exalted Orb, and Omen of Abyssal Echoes. Aside from the base, the rest is completely affordable, requiring only around 20-30 Exalted Orbs, depending on when you acquire them.

These are the complete steps and cost breakdown for crafting this Evasion Body Armor. Overall, Evasion Body Armor is crucial in PoE 2 because it grants a chance to completely dodge incoming attacks, which is very effective for defending against multiple smaller attacks and reducing critical hit chance. If you're struggling with incoming physical damage, prioritizing crafting this unique armor is an excellent strategy.

If your budget is limited or you don't have the time to craft this armor, there's actually a great solution: visit Cheap PoE 2 Currency Items for sale page on POECURRENCY.com, where you can buy everything you need with lightning-fast delivery!

While Path of Exile 2 patch 0.3.0 only adds Act 4 campaign content, the developers, mindful of player complaints about the repetitive nature of the campaign experience from previous acts, have also introduced new mini-Acts, also known as Interludes, to balance the situation.

Currently, POE 2 has Interludes as a temporary transition between the campaign and the endgame, replacing the need to complete the campaign on Cruel difficulty. These Interludes include new areas, unique bosses, and storylines, providing new sources of POE 2 currency farming and adding depth to open-world exploration.

Here, we'll take a look at Recruit the Ezomytes Interlude quest, which opens after Act 4 in Path of Exile 2, and share how to tackle the final two-boss encounter in this questline Isolde of White Shroud and Heldra of the Black Pyre.

Starting The Battle

Interlude quest is played in no particular order; if this is your first time experiencing it, it'll take you back to Refuge in Ogham.

The first level you encounter here is Scorched Farmlands. Head along the map until you reach a checkpoint, where you must defeat two witches before you can advance.

Before you begin the battle, you'll notice a slight altercation between them, but they'll interrupt it and fight you first. This battle isn't easy, so we'll do our best to explain the attacks and what you need to do to win.

Boss Attacks

The first thing you need to make sure is that one witch deals fire damage and the other deals cold damage.

The first thing you need to do is defeat White Witch who deals cold damage, also known as Isolde of the White Shroud. This is because Isolde applies Cold debuff, which slows your movement speed and makes you vulnerable to attacks from both bosses.

Isolde Of The White Shroud

Now, let's look at Isolde's cold attacks.

Her basic attack occurs when she says, "Ice rends the earth!" Note that there are two versions of this attack if you're close to her, she throws cone-shaped ice shards; if you're far away, she uses her wolf's skull to hurl high-speed ice projectiles.

To dodge both attacks, you need to time your move perfectly. If these attacks hit you, you'll be slowed down. Even if these attacks aren't fatal, they can make you vulnerable to the other witch's more powerful attacks.

Next, let's look at her more powerful attacks. The first is when she says, "Frozen solid!" Several blue circles with runic symbols appear, and large ice spikes emerge from them. Be aware that she can combo twice, so be careful and dodge whenever you see circles appear.

Isolde's next powerful attack occurs when she summons Ice Tornado. A tornado explodes around her, creating several waves of icy spikes on the ground. You'll need to move away from her and avoid the icy spikes.

Her final attack occurs when she says, "Awaken!" Isolde will summon about six or seven wolves with her wolf's skull. At this point, it's important to use Frost Wall to contain them and prevent them from surrounding you.

Heldra Of The Black Pyre

Next, let's look at Fire Witch Heldra of the Black Pyre's attacks.

To attack Heldra, when you see several red circles appear on the ground, stop everything you're doing and move away from them, as they will explode and deal heavy area damage.

However, be aware that Heldra will often attack twice in a row, so you'll need to stay on the move until the attack is truly over.

Her second attack is quite bad. When she says "To Ashes," two walls of stone fangs appear, leaving you with only one exit. Heldra then summons fire from the other side of the wall, and if you're inside it, you're likely dead.

Her other attacks, like Incinerate or The Fire Feasts, aren't as scary as long as you dodge and keep moving.

Boss Battle Tips

Okay, now that we know all the attacks of both witches, let's look at how to survive the fight.

As we mentioned earlier, we can completely ignore Fire Witch here. Our strategy for attacking Ice Witch is to dance in a circle, attacking her at close range, then immediately backing away from her, then getting in close again, repeating this process. This way, we can dodge her attacks, continue attacking, and accumulate damage.

Another important reason for doing this is that if you notice, Isolde of the White Shroud rarely moves around; she stays in the same place, unlike Heldra, who jumps around all the time. This allows you to quickly defeat her, as long as you're constantly stacking damage.

Also, if you need some advice, try not to use your Mana Flask against White Witch, as you'll need it more when facing Fire Witch alone.

After defeating White Witch, you'll finally face Heldra one-on-one. The key to dealing with her attacks lies in dodging and surviving. Honestly, don't worry about stacking damage, as she's constantly moving and constantly casting spells that force you to dodge.

If you have damage-over-time attacks like bleeding, burning, or summoning minions, this fight might be easier, as the damage will stack over time. However, when she creates walls of stone fangs and red circles, her combos will make it difficult to sustain continuous attacks.

Aside from that, don't be afraid to use your flasks, especially life flasks. Be patient and pause when you need a breather. Victory is within reach.

In short, as long as you follow the tips to become adept at anticipating Isolde and Heldra's attacks and consistently deal boss damage, defeating them isn't difficult. But I still recommend that you buy cheap and safe POE 2 Currency at POECurrency.com before starting the boss battle to invest in your character's fire and cold resistance to help you easily deal with the boss's attacks during the battle!