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While Path of Exile 2 Dawn Of The Hunt league is in full swing, do you remember that POE 1 has been suspended for almost a year?

Since we still haven’t received any news of extension, and we received the trailer of POE 3.26 just a few days ago, we reasonably guess that this should mean that the original release date of June should still be on schedule.

So what does this mean for Path of Exile 1? It will release a new league for the first time in more than 10 months, which is the longest absence from a major update since the league system was first launched onslaught league in 2013.

The Reason For The Success Of POE 1

I believe many old players know that since the release of the base game, the developers have been continuously releasing updates and reliable patches for POE 1. This reliable release cycle has become the core of their marketing strategy, allowing POE 1 to succeed and attract a wider range of players over time. And this is exactly what it has achieved.

In fact, in terms of peak player count, Settlers of Kalguur league are by far the most successful POE 1 league, attracting the most concurrent players on Steam. On top of that, two weeks after launch, the player retention rate for Settlers league is even higher than that of Affliction league, which is truly an amazing achievement.

Why Did The Original Work Stop Updating For So Long?

But the problem is that the latest league is still Settlers of Kalguur, which was launched in July 2024, and it will be July 2025 in two months. Even its rival Diablo 4 has released 3 new seasons, while POE has not made any progress. Are you really willing to buy POE currency to play those outdated content?

So, what went wrong? How can a live service game that has been growing continuously, a game that has been around for more than 10 years, suddenly stop updating? This is almost unheard of.

It’s hard to believe that two years ago, we all thought that POE 2 would be the 4.0 update for POE 1, but it ended up being split into two separate projects: a new game called Path of Exile 2 and a series of separate league updates for the existing game, with their own mechanics, balance, endgame, and leagues.

Now we all know what happened between then and now. POE 2 finally released into Early Access after several delays, and the original game also had its most exciting leagues ever - Trial of the Ancestors, Affliction and Settlers of Kalguur, and of course, let’s not mention Necropolis. Then, updates to POE 1 stopped as the developers put all their resources into the sequel.

How Did The Launch Of The Sequel Affect POE 1?

While this was the first big sign of POE 2’s influence on the original, looking back, we can see that this influence had been quietly going on behind the scenes for a long time.

You see, we used to release new leagues every 3 months, then after Sentinels League, the average league cycle went from 3 months to 4 months, so the developers went from releasing 4 leagues per year to 3.

But regular league updates weren’t the only thing that POE 1 released consistently in the past, as the developers used to release a major league every year. Not only were there Conquerors of Atlas expansion and Elder Slayers in 3.9, Maven and her Boss Gauntlet in 3.13, but there were also Eaters of Worlds and Searing Exarch Pinnacle fights in 3.17.

Since POE 3.21, there hasn’t been an Atlas expansion. But since it was close to ExileCon, many people speculated that the developers would definitely keep it for that. Then 3.22 was released, and there was still no Atlas expansion.

In fact, it’s incredible to think that we’ve played nearly 10 leagues in the latest Atlas expansion. This expansion was first introduced in POE 3.17 in February 2022, which means we’ve been using this Atlas for over three years now.

I can’t really complain about this, because the current Atlas system is really great. Many recent leagues, such as Sentinels, Forbidden Sanctum, Affliction, etc., are so memorable not only because the base game itself is great, but more importantly, the core mechanics of Atlas progression are also great.

Why 3.26 Might Be The New Atlas Expansion?

That being said, I still expect and think that PoE 1’s upcoming 3.26 update may finally be Atlas expansion that has been missing for the past few years.

POE 1 Is In Desperate Need Of A Resounding Victory

There are several good reasons for this. The first is that the status quo of PoE 1 is in desperate need of change. Let’s be honest, the developers have completely ignored PoE 1 at the moment, and that’s the harsh truth. But the game that made them famous, the game that funded the development of PoE 2 with its tremendous success, and the game that is still loved by so many players today, is now forgotten. Because of this, players’ confidence in the developers, Path of Exile 1 and its future has fallen to an all-time low.

Now the developers are bound to have a real win. If what they say is true and they really want to develop both games at the same time, now is the time to prove it. PoE 1 is now at a critical juncture, and a successful major league will go a long way to restore the excellent reputation that has been gradually eroding over the past year or so.

It’s Been A Long Time Coming

The second reason is that the best time to release an Atlas expansion was the last league, the league before that, and even the league before that, but those are all in the past, and the next best time is now.

I even think it’s very likely that the next Atlas expansion for PoE 1 has been planned for a long time, but there just weren’t enough resources to release the update in time. And before that, as the release of PoE 2 got closer, the resources were exhausted and couldn’t be put together.

But now it’s been six months since Path of Exile 2’s Early Access release. Early Access has always seemed more like a marathon than a sprint to a 1.0 release. So this will be the first time the developers really get a chance to put their focus back on the original and lay out their vision for developing both games simultaneously.

Many of us doubted they could do this, but deep down I believe they can, and POE 3.26 will be a major step towards that goal.

New Trailer Touches On The Origins Of Atlas

The third and final reason for me is that this latest POE 3.26 trailer focuses on Originator and Zana’s quest for the origins of Atlas.

There’s no way the developers didn’t expect people to immediately connect this trailer to Atlas expansion. So, let’s take a quick look at the details of this trailer.

The eye-catching text at the top of the trailer reads “I must follow it”. Now we don’t know who wrote it yet, but I think Shaper makes the most sense since we are reading his diary from long ago, but it could be the returning Zana, but the trailer itself doesn’t explicitly mention her name, it could also be an old diary written by Valdo, a new character, or even a more abstract narrative voice.

All we can guess is that in POE 3.26 we will most likely explore the birth of the atlas in the new Atlas of Worlds expansion and search for a man called The Originator.

This trailer is a trailer for this expansion for us. It is most likely related to Zana or Shaper. And I think if they are going to bring Zana back, they can’t do it in a random league.

Conclusion

I don’t know what you think of this trailer, to me it’s just made completely in the style of Atlas expansion, so they wouldn’t release this kind of a trailer at all if they didn’t have major plans. And, maybe the developers are planning to win back the trust of former fans with POE 3.26! But how exactly we don’t know yet, let’s wait and see!

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!