PoE 3.12 – What’s Coming in Path of Exile’s Heist League?
As Harvest winds down, PoE 3.12 is right around the corner, bringing with it an all new league for us to discover. The initial announcement earlier this week has given us some insights into what the new Path of Exile league will be, although there is much left to discover through playing. Let’s jump right in.
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What is PoE 3.12, the New League?
The new league is aptly named Heist. In PoE 3.12 we will be bringing together a band of rogues and ruffians and planning a heist together. This will be one of the largest content leagues we’ve seen, and there is a ton of information we’re still missing, but I’ll do my best to go over what we know.
The heists will be set up in a similar manner to the Temple of Atzoatl, in the sense that you will do small contracts that can be found in every map. Once you’ve done enough contracts, you’ll have access to doing a Grand Heist, which will have far more loot, far more enemies, and many more complex traps and alarm systems.
Both the contracts and heists will be found from traveling to an external area called Rogue’s Harbour, meaning you will find the contract in the map, but not be forced to do it within that map or lose it. This is a step away from many past leagues in which maps were the hub for everything.
What Kind of Loot is in PoE 3.12?
Heist brings with it the regular set of new items and uniques, but rather than have hundreds of new items, Heist’s gimmick is that it offers new twists on existing items. For example, rather than finding a normal Abyssus with increased phys damage dealt and taken, you can find a Replica Abyssus which will give increased elemental damage dealt and taken. There will be many replicas that will change existing uniques, enabling dozens if not hundreds of new builds.
There will also be new implicits for rare items, offering huge damage boosts, or quality of life saying “this item’s sockets are fully linked.” This allows a Synthesis-style boost to our gear without the complexity of Synthesis or Harvest.
Perhaps most interesting, however, is the alternate skill gems. They have put out a set of alternate skill gems for active skill gems, which allow for new effects from quality. Some of these effects are different, some of them are straight buffs, and some of them totally change the skill. For example, alternate Reave’s quality gives it up to 100% of Physical damage converted to a random element. That’s right, the quality can convert the skill from phys to elemental, a full build change. Or Kinetic Bolt’s alternate quality which allows cast speed to apply to attack speed at a percentage of their value. So much potential with slight variations.
What if I Don’t Like Heists?
One of the most interesting change coming in PoE 3.12 is a design philosophy change. In previous leagues, nearly every new mechanic has been tied to your character. For example, you open a breach you have to clear the breach. You build a temple, only that character can complete it. Delve allows account-wide progression, but still only you that can do it. Heist changes this.
In Heist, all of the materials used to run contracts and heists can be traded. In addition, the heists themselves can be traded, so you can build a really nice heist and then sell it to other players. Imagine creating a great Temple and then having the ability to sell it to another player. This is a level of customization and player choice that we’ve never seen before. It is something we’ve been asking for, for many leagues, and hopefully heralds many good things to come.
What is Medium-Core?
If you’ve been listening to any PoE 3.12 news, you’ve likely heard the word ‘medium-core’ tossed around. This is meant to be a middle ground between soft and hard core. It’s a mechanic introduced in Heist that, for the first time ever, enables removing items from your inventory. Now, before you panic, you won’t lose anything that you entered the heist with, but the items that you pick up throughout the heist are ‘contraband’ items, and if the alarm level maxes out, or you die within the heist, you will lose them.
Functionally this isn’t any different from the way previous mechanics worked. Failing a blighted map will mean that you get no loot, and this will be no different. However, this time you’ll have seen the items, making it far worse if you have them taken away. It’s a level of psychological gameplay that we haven’t seen before in softcore, perhaps outside of the annoyance of Laboratory. However, on the same note, finding an item that you know you need can cause you to play safer and secure your item’s safety. This system has caused a lot of concern within the community, but we’ll have to see how it plays out.
Which Skills are Getting Reworked and Added in PoE 3.12?
As usual, several groups of skills will be undergoing reworks in PoE 3.12, as well as a host of new ones being added. This time around we’ll be looking at Curses, Steel skills, and new supporting style skills.
For a long time now, curses have been things that you fit in via Curse on Hit setups, or Blasphemys if you have ways to make them free, or are an aurabot. Outside of Bane, self-casting a curse is rather unheard of. This league is going to try and change that. Without hurting the existing on-hit setups, they are trying to make self-cast curses stronger by having them increase their effect over time, as well as several other changes. It could add a new style of supporting curse play, for sure.
Shattering Steel and Lancing Steel… suck. They just do, they’ve never been good. They are getting reworked this league to add a shard system, giving them bonuses to damage and explosiveness based on how you manage the ammunition system.
Lastly, the new set of skills that they are adding seem to be all based around supporting your active skills. There’s a wall of flames that lights projectiles that go through it on fire, dealing more damage and igniting. There’s also a really cool black hole that deals damage and sucks enemies inside of it, definitely going to be a crowd favourite to play with.
I’m sure there will be several other new skills as well, but we’ll have to wait and see!
Last Word
PoE 3.12 Heist league will be arriving on September 18, and it looks like it’s shaping up to be a huge and very interesting league. There will be so much to figure out and engage with, hopefully you’re as excited as I am to sink your hands into it!
