Will Hinekora’s Lock Go Core In POE 3.23 Affliction League?
Here, I will briefly talk about a few Trial of the Ancestors exclusive items and how they’ve seemingly found themselves as part of the POE 3.23 Affliction League loot table.
You may remember a few weeks ago we received a post from GGG discussing the future of the Trial of the Ancestors League mechanic and all of the content relating to that mechanic.
In that post, they talked about the exclusive unique items that you could be rewarded with from the various Chieftains at the end of the tournament. Most of the Hinekora’s specific tournament victory uniques that appeared on the plins at the very end, such as Defiance of Destiny. All of those except for the ones that are tied to tattoos have gone into the core drop pole of uniques in POE 3.23 Affliction League.
And in that post, they also talked about Tattoos, Omens, and Hinekora’s Locks. On this topic, they said that these POE Items wouldn’t be deleted at the end of POE 3.22, but any remaining ones would persist in Standard League and get progressively more scarce. This was a pretty obvious indicator to me that Tattoos, Omen, and Hinekora’s Locks weren’t going core, at least not in POE 3.23.
However, something has changed in the time between this post and the launch of the Affliction League. Because in the Affliction League, you can actually find Omens and very rarely Hinekora’s Locks as well.
Now, I’m not 100% sure if these drops are tied to the Wisp in power mechanic from Affliction, but in the case of Hinekora’s Lock, it appears that these are now part of the core drop pool, which is crazy to me.
There was a patch note that changed Hinekora’s Locks from being able to foresee the result of corrupting an item using the Altar of Corruption in the incursion Temple. And perhaps GGG are happy enough for this very rare and powerful POE Currency to go core now that this change is in place, as it did seem like this is kind of one of the more broken and abusable ways to make use of it.
And as for the Omens, I was a little out of the loop it seems in the time leading up to the launch of POE 3.23, because this information was actually in the item filter data that they released.
But really surprising to me here is the Omen of Fortune making a return. I thought that we would never see that again, as it does kind of limit design space for unique items and their power level.
In the past, if you may remember, with the Trash to Treasure prophecy, GGG just had to flood the unique item pool with essentially trash uniques to prevent Trash to Treasure from always providing the unique that you wanted to get. It will be interesting to see if these stay around in the long run. As I said before, I’m not 100% sure that these are core drop pool items or if they’re tied to the empowered Wisp mechanic.
Hinekora’s Locks, based on what I’ve seen, I think they are likely just in the core drop pool of the game.
Have you found an Omen or Hinekora’s Lock? And how is your league start going?
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Have you noticed that a new in-game jewel called Reclaimed Malignance was released alongside Path of Exile 3.29? This amazing jewel doesn't affect your Passive Skill Tree; instead, it directly alters your Ascendancy passives, preventing you from running out of mana during high-damage output.
Acquisition and Crafting
To obtain Reclaimed Malignance in PoE 3.29, players can't rely on in-game drops. You must first collect four smaller Abyss jewels: Baleful Dominion, Destructive Aspiration, Festering Vengeance, and Extinguishing Grasp.
Sacrifice these four jewels on an altar to craft Reclaimed Malignance.
Many players are already using this jewel, but its high price reflects its effectiveness.
Below, we'll explain how to use Reclaimed Malignance and why it's so useful.
Ascendancy Notable Replacement Mechanism
The biggest difference between Reclaimed Malignance and regular Timeless Jewel is that while regular Timeless Jewels affect core Keystones within a certain range on Passive Skill Tree, this one is different.
After inserting a Reclaimed Malignance into a jewel slot, the core Keystones on Passive Skill Tree remain unchanged.
For example, if you already have Eternal Youth keystone passive skill selected, it won't change at all.
However, if you open Ascendancy panel, you'll find that one of Ascendancy Notables has been replaced. Reclaimed Malignance directly affects your Ascendancy Notable, not Passive Skill Tree.
Available Replacement Options
In Patch 3.29, depending on the jewel's seed number and your class, Reclaimed Malignance will replace one of four Ascendancy Notables with one of the following: Sanguine Bargain, Spiteful Allies, Ephemeral Bolts, or From Below.
Ephemeral Bolts are quite interesting; they limit the maximum flight distance of your projectiles to five meters, stopping once it reaches that distance.
Skills like Fireball or Kinetic Blast, which explode upon stopping, essentially create a wall in front of your character, unleashing a burst of shotgun damage with considerable burst potential.
However, the skill most worthy of our attention is From Below, as it holds immense potential in Path of Exile.
From Below Mechanism and Application
This Ascendancy passive skill allows you to cast spells even when you don't have enough Mana, without getting stuck, but at the cost of completely preventing Mana Regeneration.
Your first reaction might be that this is awkward: without Mana, your character is doomed. But the brilliance of From Below lies in the fact that since you can cast spells even with insufficient Mana, you can simply use all your Mana to activate auras, allowing you to spam spells without saving Mana, maximizing the use of this mechanic.
Another advantage is that all map affixes related to Reduced Recovery are completely irrelevant to you, since there's no Mana Regeneration to begin with. Therefore, any affix won't affect your map selection, making it very easy.
Additionally, From Below can be used in conjunction with Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion to replace Righteous Fire.
The regular Righteous Fire adds 39% more Spell Damage, but this version adds 25% More Cast Speed, which can reach 27% with higher quality.
Previously, Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion would continuously consume Mana, but now even Mana is empty, so whether it consumes Mana or not makes no difference - it's like getting a huge amount of free Cast Speed.
Higher Cast Speed not only increases damage output but also significantly speeds up teleportation skills like Frost Blink, greatly improving your map movement in PoE 3.29.
Furthermore, players no longer need to agonize over whether to choose Eldritch Battery + Mind Over Matter strategy, saving many points and eliminating concerns about Energy Shield-related affixes.
Even more practically, if you're using Headhunter, with a large amount of Soul Eater buffs boosting Cast Speed, your character's Mana would inevitably be insufficient.
But now that Reclaimed Malignance has replaced From Below for you, you don't need to worry about it at all. You can keep casting skills no matter how many Soul Eater characters you stack.
Limitations of Reclaimed Malignance
However, besides the advantages mentioned above, this Reclaimed Malignance also has its inconveniences.
Only Effective for Spells
Firstly, it only works for spells; attack skills will still be blocked because of insufficient Mana. Therefore, players can basically no longer use Shield Charge and will mostly have to switch to Frostblink of Wintry Blast for movement.
Loss of Ascendancy Notable
Second, it occupies your only Timeless Jewel slot, preventing you from using other Timeless Jewels and sacrificing an Ascendancy Notable. While you retain small Passives, you lose class-specific traits, a significant cost.
Randomness of Replacement
Another frustrating aspect of this jewel is that its effect depends not only on the seed number but also on your class.
You might get From Below on a Chieftain, but a completely different Ascendancy Notable on a Hierophant.
In other words, the same seed number might not produce the desired effect on a new character. Many players spend considerable PoE currency trying to reroll for their desired From Below and free Cast Speed, only to find it wasted when switching characters.
Practical Advice
To reclaim Reclaimed Malignance while simultaneously satisfying the correct Ascendancy Notable and the correct slot (without overwriting a crucial Ascendancy Notable you don't want to lose), you may need to spend more currency on rerolls early on.
Therefore, before a new character is fully developed in PoE, we can test the configuration with an older character to ensure everything works correctly before officially creating a new character, saving some trouble.
In short, this Reclaimed Malignance has a lot of room for development in Patch 3.29, especially in casting builds based on From Below. We should see many interesting builds emerge in the future.
Players, when you're meticulously planning your map and adjusting affixes in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0, have you noticed that this time is far longer than the actual time you spend on the map and fighting? The optimal gameplay everyone's chasing in endgames - finding suitable cities, stacking Deliriousness, and combining four tablets - seems to have gradually become repetitive labor.
Frankly, can we really derive enjoyment from PoE 2 endgames now?
The Preparation Phase is Tedious
Compared to the map's inherent appeal, the problems with Path of Exile 2 endgame gameplay seem to lie more in the pre-game preparation phase.
The tablet system, in particular, is incredibly tiring. Players constantly need to spend a significant amount of time managing tablet affixes and searching for suitable tablets to trade with, while also repeatedly searching for suitable city locations and modifiers in Atlas.
Furthermore, the search tools are limited, only allowing searches of visible areas and restricting bookmarks to 20, which falls far short of players' needs.
This results in players spending more time on tablets, trading, searching the map, and planning than actually fighting on it, leading to a significant imbalance in time allocation across PoE 2 content.
Profit Gap
The huge profit gap in endgames further exacerbates the players' predicament.
Based on player experiences, a single currency reward on a normal map is approximately 1 Divine, while a 200% Delirious map can yield a staggering 38 PoE 2 Divine Orbs!
This vast profit disparity forces many players, even those who find the preparation process tedious, to persevere for higher profits or to keep up with the game's economic pace.
While other gameplay options like Expedition exist, their efficiency is significantly lower than Delirious strategy, effectively limiting players' strategic choices.
Poor Map Design
Furthermore, many players have been tolerating the visual effects of PoE 2 endgame maps. Because the maps are so large, players have to spend a significant amount of time aimlessly running around in open areas, leaving very little time for meaningful combat.
Not only is the endgame map layout terrible, but the colors of the monsters and background terrain are also highly similar, making it feel like they are wearing natural camouflage during combat, which greatly affects the player experience, not to mention if Delirious effect is turned on.
Whether it's the clarity of combat or the ease of player control, the visually chaotic map design can, to put it bluntly, lead to player failure, wasting all their hard work and preparation.
Moreover, the core endgame mechanic, Towers, is actually quite disconnected from the overall game flow. If this isn't addressed, it will probably further damage the endgame experience.
Improvement Directions and Suggestions
To address the current issue of gameplay fatigue in PoE 2 endgames, the focus should definitely be on simplifying unnecessary and complex steps.
Many players believe that removing the mandatory requirement of four tablets is crucial for improving endgame gameplay. They argue that city terrain can be improved through other bonuses in Atlas Skill Tree, rather than relying solely on the benefits of four tablets.
Another important suggestion is to include key items like Grand Mirror in the currency exchange market, making them easily tradable like Breachstones or Ritual materials, thus reducing the time players spend trading and searching.
Based on the issues we mentioned earlier, another direction for game improvement is to optimize and modify the search tools and the maximum number of bookmarks, allowing players to truly devote more energy to endgame combat and character building.
Different Player Preferences
We need to recognize that everyone's gaming experience is highly subjective, so naturally, everyone will have different preferences.
Therefore, some players choose to ignore this strategy, continuing to farm at their own pace, or even enjoying the process of meticulous planning and pursuing maximum efficiency, viewing the complex preparation as part of the fun in PoE 2 Patch 0.5.0.
However, the third type of player - those forced to follow - deserves our most attention, because being forced to execute strategies is the biggest source of fatigue in endgame gameplay.
Game design can certainly require players to put in effort for substantial rewards, but this effort itself should be attractive - it could be researching builds, challenging powerful bosses, but not repeatedly searching maps, mechanically placing tablets, or wasting excessive time on trading.
When players find themselves spending far more time planning how to play PoE 2 than actually playing the game, and this planning process is tedious, lacking interaction and a sense of accomplishment, the game essentially becomes just repetitive labor.
Therefore, the core goal of optimizing PoE 2 endgame gameplay should not be to reduce the rewards of high-end farming, but rather to make the preparation and execution of strategies more engaging and enjoyable.
Unnecessary and tedious actions in the endgame should be prioritized for reduction, allowing players more freedom to choose their playstyle based on personal preference. Every step in a high-yield strategy should be enjoyable, not a heavy burden.
Are you the kind of player who would go to great lengths to achieve the optimal economic strategy in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 endgame?
Path of Exile 3.29.0b has optimized and strengthened the League mechanic, allowing it to provide more rewards in the endgame. Because of this, you may be looking for a Farming strategy that can clear maps quickly, collect Charts as efficiently as possible, and still generate solid returns.
Without a doubt, Strongbox is one of the best choices. It offers explosive rewards, requires little investment, and has strong synergy with other mechanics, making it a highly profitable option during the early stage of Curse of the Allflame League.
Why Choose the Strongbox Strategy?
The value of Charts is currently very high, and the main way to obtain them is through Cursed Treasure in regular maps. Therefore, your goal is to farm maps quickly and collect as many Charts as possible.
This change has brought Strongbox farming back into the spotlight as a high-value mapping strategy. The core goal of this setup is very simple. You quickly complete maps, defeat bosses, collect Charts, and obtain PoE currency, Scarabs, Divination Cards, and various additional rewards from Strongboxes.
In addition, you can receive a large number of Eldritch altar rewards and more maps. Completing maps also allows you to obtain items such as Astrolabes and a large number of map drops. These rewards are extremely valuable during the early stage of the league, making this one of the fastest and easiest ways to get started.
Your goal is Boss Rush. The purpose of Boss Rush is to obtain Eldritch altar rewards from map bosses. Along the way, you should click Strongboxes and Eldritch altars, collect Charts, and leave the map as quickly as possible.
Scarab Setup
Scarabs are an essential investment for this strategy. Some Scarabs may have higher value, but they can provide excellent returns.
Ambush Scarab ×2
Ambush Scarab is the core of any Strongbox strategy. Using 2 Ambush Scarabs adds 8 additional Strongboxes to the map. They are currently very affordable, and dozens of Ambush Scarabs can be exchanged for 1 Divine Orb.
Ambush Scarab of Potency ×1
It increases the effect of Strongbox explicit modifiers by 75%. This means the modifiers on Strongboxes will provide higher item quantity bonuses.
For example, a Strongbox that originally contains 4 additional Ambush Scarabs may now contain 7, while a 100% item quantity modifier can become 175%. The more Strongboxes you open and the more valuable their rewards are, the stronger this effect becomes. These Scarabs currently cost around 1 Chaos Orb.
Ambush Scarab of Hidden Compartments ×1
This Scarab gives each Strongbox a 15% chance to be opened again. If you have good luck, you can reopen Strongboxes multiple times. It is also worth around 1 Chaos Orb.
Ambush Scarab of Discernment ×1
It increases the chance for Strongboxes to appear as rarer variants, such as Arcanist's Strongbox and Diviner's Strongbox, which are the two main high-value Strongbox types in maps.
These are Scarabs you can use when your budget is limited. If you have enough Currency, you can replace one of the above Scarabs with Ambush Scarab of Containment. It converts a large amount of map content into Strongboxes. Its value is around half a Divine Orb.
Templar Astrolabe
Since this strategy requires Boss Rush, you can also use Templar Astrolabe.
Using Templar Astrolabe creates a Shaped Region on Atlas and enhances 6-9 nearby maps. These maps gain special influences.
Each completed map within the region grants additional enhanced modifiers to the remaining maps.
However, this is not mandatory. It only provides additional rewards, and you can obtain Astrolabes naturally while farming. Whether you use them depends entirely on your own choice.
It is also worth noting that you cannot obtain Astrolabes from maps that already have Astrolabe effects, so we choose not to use them. In fact, we collected almost every type of Astrolabe, along with a large number of regular Templar Astrolabes, within a single night. Therefore, whether you want to use Currency to acquire Astrolabes and gain their rewards is completely up to you.
Map Selection
Strongbox strategies usually require maps where you can quickly find and open as many Strongboxes as possible. Therefore, compact layouts, fast clears, and strong reward pools are the best choices.
Crimson Temple is a recommended option because its Divination Card pool is extremely attractive, although the layout can be somewhat complicated. Another choice is Defiled Cathedral. Its drops are slightly weaker, but the layout is simple, and you can usually clear it by running in a circle without missing much.
You can also choose Mesa map. It is a very open map with an extremely easy boss encounter. You can rush directly to the boss, defeat it, and then clear the remaining areas. The only downside is that its Divination Card pool is not as valuable. However, you can use a Scrying Orb to transfer good Divination Card pool from one map to Mesa.
Atlas Passive Tree Setup
All Strongbox-related passives are essential, including additional Strongboxes, increased monster count, rare and corrupted Strongboxes, and the ability to reopen Strongboxes.
Regular nodes that increase currency and Divination Card rewards are also necessary.
You should also obtain as many general Scarab bonuses as possible, including the small nodes in Shaping the World that increase additional map drops from bosses. Shrine-related passives are optional and can be skipped if you are short on passive points.
All available map modifier effect nodes are worth taking, especially when using Scarabs.
Strongbox remains a very fun and powerful strategy. In PoE 3.29, Scarab values are low, meaning the investment required is minimal, and the gameplay itself is also very straightforward.
If you took a break from Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 over the last few weeks due to shader loading issues and the device removed bug, congratulations, these annoyances have been eliminated. It's time to jump back into Runes of Aldur league!
While these fixes might not seem like massive overhauls, PoE 2 team prioritized player experience enough to release a dedicated video explaining them. We've summarized the details here to give you a deeper understanding of these bug fixes.
What impact did the device removed bug have?
Before July 30th, you might have experienced moments where Path of Exile 2 suddenly froze. While such issues aren't uncommon, the freeze lasted an exceptionally long time on some players' systems.
To make matters worse, even after the freeze ended, you might have continued to experience poor performance for a short while. This was because shaders were still loading in the background, consuming significant CPU resources.
This bug tended to occur most frequently during mapping, and the frequency had increased over the last few weeks.
Undoubtedly, this had a major negative impact on your PoE 2 experience. It wasn't just the panic and frustration of having combat interrupted; it also meant potentially missing out on rare rewards, losses that couldn't be fully compensated for later.
The tricky part was that this bug had actually existed since Path of Exile 2 first launched. You might have encountered it before without realizing it, as it happened less frequently back then. However, it had recently escalated to the point of causing game crashes.
The root cause of the bug
Given the worsening impact, PoE 2 developers intensified their troubleshooting efforts. They discovered that the bug originated solely from the graphics card and affected only players using specific graphics cards or updated driver versions.
Typically, resolving such issues involves collaborating with the graphics card manufacturer. However, the challenge here was that such collaboration requires providing exact steps to reproduce the bug, something this particular issue didn't allow for.
How was the bug fixed?
Since the bug did not appear to be linked to any specific in-game state, Path of Exile 2 technical team had to invest significant time making random adjustments to the engine and manually playing the game to check if the specific stuttering bug recurred.
During this process, technicians also used the replay system to review lengthy gameplay sessions in an attempt to reproduce the device removed bug.
Fortunately, they eventually pinpointed the specific gameplay conditions that triggered the issue. PoE 2 team then handed the affected hardware over to the graphics card manufacturer, ultimately identifying the root cause as an internal parameter known as shader heap size.
Increasing this parameter eliminated the stuttering bug found in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0. Once a new driver incorporating this fix was released, crash rates dropped back to normal levels.
Shader loading bug
While graphics card issues were the primary culprit behind the recent frequent stuttering in PoE 2, excessively long shader compilation times pose a potential risk for future problems.
Simply put, most large-scale games involving frequent scene transitions do not compile shaders in real-time as you progress; instead, they spend a considerable amount of time compiling all shaders when you first launch the game.
These shaders subsequently occupy a large portion of your driver's cache. However, the older driver versions, the ones causing PoE 2 stuttering, failed to clear out old shaders.
Consequently, as you progressed through PoE 2, the relevant folders on your system would frequently fill up, requiring manual cleanup. Failure to do so resulted in excessively long loading times and potential display issues in new scenes.
Due to certain unchangeable limitations, the only solution available to PoE 2 team was to reduce the size of the shaders, thereby minimizing the likelihood of the cache filling up and causing issues.
What can you do now?
Generally, once the bug is fixed, you simply need to install the patch to resume normal gameplay. However, please be patient: because the old shaders are being cleared, the game will need to recompile them, resulting in longer-than-usual loading times.
With Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0, you can engage in mapping with greater peace of mind; even when rapidly switching maps or facing scenarios packed with enemies and loot, you no longer need to worry about losses caused by prolonged stuttering or lag.
Of course, this doesn't mean you'll never experience a crash again, but the frequency will certainly drop to an acceptable level, and issues won't linger unresolved for long, as the root cause has been eliminated.
What does the bug fix signify?
Bugs are a common occurrence in any game, but the difference lies in how quickly they are addressed. The speed of the response regarding Path of Exile 2 and the effort put into fixing these bugs have been evident to everyone.
Consequently, while short-term bugs might have caused some players to temporarily step away from PoE 2, the developers' serious commitment is likely to foster greater appreciation and anticipation for the game, a positive sign for the potential 1.0 launch at the end of the year.
More importantly, the fixes addressing the shader and device removed errors brought to light potential core issues within Path of Exile 2. Had these surfaced after the official launch rather than during Early Access, the impact would undoubtedly have been far more severe.
You might sometimes complain when bugs aren't fixed immediately, but PoE 2's actions demonstrate that the developers are constantly attentive to the player experience. If a problem persists, it is likely because it is exceptionally tricky to solve, not because of inaction.
In short, now is the time to return to, or invest more time in Return of the Ancients! Whether you are diving deep into the endgame or experimenting with new builds, the experience is sure to be better than ever!
