It's going into the next round. We had the chance to take a look at the new Path of Exile Crucible League during a press event. And we are hyped!
When does the Crucible League start: The new Path of Exile League starts on Friday, April 7 on PC and one week later on PlayStation and X-Box. In addition to the new Crucible mechanic, there will once again be various end-game adjustments, new uniques, Vaal skills, and revamps to other mechanics like Breach and Abyss.
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The new league has a lot to offer for lore fans. For example, we learn that Wraeclast was formed by mighty Titans a very long time ago. With the Crucible mechanic, you can forge the ancient powers of these titans onto your weapons. In typical Path of Exile fashion, you can equip your weapons with their own skill tree, the so-called Crucible tree. This strengthens your weapon or shields with powerful modifiers, in addition to its regular properties.
As with almost all league mechanics, in Path of Exile Crucible, you will find an encounter to complete in each area. Before you start the encounter, you can decide which equipped weapon should be enchanted. This weapon will then be channeled, causing monsters to spawn everywhere.
The longer you keep channeling, the more numerous and stronger the monsters become, some of which even combine to create even stronger enemies. However, as the difficulty and monster count increases, you also gain more experience for your Crucible tree, which you unlock step by step.
You can only allocate one new skill per level, so you'll have to decide early on which path is right for you. You'll also need more and more experience to unlock the next modifier.
As you can guess, Crucible will bring us the most powerful weapons ever seen in Patch of Exile, which will also create entirely new builds due to their individual crafting options. And best of all: After the League ends, you can take your items and their Crucible tree with you to the Standard League. There, already valuable items should increase in value even more.
The Crucible Encounters in the endgame of Path of Exile 3.21 can occasionally bring you so-called Igneus Geodes. These currency items can be cracked open to get a Primeval Remnant, a map-like item that grants you access to an area, at the end of which you find the Forge of the Titans.
These areas are roughly comparable to endgame maps in terms of monster strength. Half of their mods are upsides, such as more loot or Divination Cards in that area, and half are downsides.
At the Forge of Titans, you can then fuse the Crucible trees of two items of the same class (i.e. two bows). One item is melted down and transferred to the other, which retains its normal modifiers. The passive Crucible trees of the two items are combined in unpredictable ways, although the process can be influenced to some degree. For instance, already-skilled points are more likely to be present in the result.
So GGG once again lets us test our luck. Because, of course, incredibly powerful skill trees can be created in this way, but two strong trees can also be destroyed.
Basically, only rare items can have a Crucible tree. However, with a rare mod on the Forge of Titans map, it is also possible to unlock the tree for unique items. To fuse a unique item, you need a second copy of the same item. So for special uniques that are already very valuable, their value can be multiplied by a successful fusion. There will also be uniques that can only be found in Crucible encounters, such as the "Visage of El' Abin" helmet.
Occasionally, Crucible trees will offer a modifier that allows to vendor the weapon for a specific item. We don't know anything specific about the price yet, but there should probably be mods that make selling very rewarding, such as the "Extra Divine Orb on Vendor" mod, which is confirmed.
As with every new league, GGG is introducing some adjustments to endgame mechanics in 3.21.
The new Atlas Gateways are designed to improve mobility in the Atlas Tree. A gateway consists of two nodes. You can allocate a total of three such gateways in the Atlas Tree and then conveniently jump between the two nodes. You have to invest one Atlas skill point for each node, but you save several "travel points".
In Path of Exile Crucible, the area levels of the Breachstones are brought to a much higher base level:
Pure, Charged, and Enriched Breachstones have been retired, or downgraded to regular Breachstones. Flawless Breachstones are no longer obtained through Maven invitations, but either through Blessings or a skill point in the Atlas Tree. The duration and monster density of Breaches has also been adjusted. An activated Breach is now shorter but spawns more monsters, which should make mapping more smooth.
You will now find an Abyss Lich in every Abyssal Depths, but Abyssal Depths will occur less frequently overall. When Abyssal Depths appears, you will also always get an Abyss with four holes. If the Abyss does not lead to Abyssal Depths, either an Abyssal Chest or a Stygian Spire awaits you at the end. This spire contains all the known jewels, and items as well as the "Stygian Vise".
In addition, the balance of the Lich encounters has been adjusted, meaning that they have been made “appropriately difficult”. The unique items that you can only get in the Abyss mechanic have also been reworked. You can read the exact details of all the revisions in the patch notes.
With Path of Exile Crucible, GGG says its goal is to create new possibilities for build design but also to breathe new life into older builds. For this purpose, numerous masteries in the passive skill tree have been reworked. For example, with the Life Mastery, you now have the option to increase your maximum life if you have no life on your body armor. The Armor and Energy Shield Mastery, the Leech Mastery, and the Spell Suppression Mastery have also received some new points.
In addition, a whole new Mastery has also been created, the Recovery Mastery. We won't be able to see the full extent of the Mastery adjustments until we can check out the new passive skill tree.
The Ascendancy Classes Saboteur and Pathfinder have been thoroughly reworked. While the Saboteur could previously be used almost only for mine and trap builds, the rework should now make it suitable for other builds as well. He even gets a brand-new specialization called "Triggers," which has two impressive passive skills:
A lot has been done with Pathfinder Ascendency as well:
Other improvements to the Pathfinder such as Nature's Reprisal will give this Ascendancy fresh power and new potential.
New Vaal skills are introduced again in 3.21. There are nine skills in total:
Of course, no new league is complete without at least a few new unique items. In Path of Exile Crucible, there are again more than ten new uniques, including:
The Ruthless mode introduced last year is available again in Path of Exile Crucible, also with slight adjustments. For example, Eternal Orbs can now drop again. This currency item was removed from Path of Exile seven years ago.
At the beginning of the Crucible League, there will once again be a special boss kill event. Participants must defeat the two Uber bosses Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds in Ruthless Hardcore Solo Self-found mode. The first three places will win a transferable Ultra VIP ticket to ExileCon in July. The winner will also have the opportunity to work with GGG's design team to create a new, unique item for Path of Exile.
On July 29 and 30 New Zealand time, which is July 28 and 29 for the rest of the world, ExileCon 2023 will take place in Auckland, New Zealand. There, the latest updates for Path of Exile 2, Path of Exile Mobile, and the next Path of Exile 1 expansion will be unveiled. The entire event will be streamed live.
Our conclusion: The Crucible League has great potential! With the new mechanics, there will be many more opportunities to craft weapons, which will also create a variety of new builds. Thus, Crucible may be able to rival the popular Sanctum League. And let's be honest: The forge also just looks awesome!
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