Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur – Everything You Need to Know About 3.25

With the Necropolis League nearing its 3-month mark, the question that is on everyone’s mind is: when is the next expansion of Path of Exile going to be released?

That is indeed an interesting question and one that we will answer in this article. So sit back and read ahead. We will provide you with the information that you need to know about PoE’s next major content update.

Path of Exile Patch 3.25 Release Date

It is no surprise that Path of Exile: 3.24 Necropolis League is nearly three months old, which is actually quite a long time as far as the game’s major expansions are concerned. Thus, Grinding Gear Games (aka GGG) made an announcement to give the community some info about the next content update.

The company announced that the next expansion called Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur will launch on Friday, July 26, at 1 P.M. PST (or 4 P.M. EST).

PoE Necropolis League: What Went Wrong?

If you look at the game’s forum, subreddits, and various community platforms, you will find that Patch 3.24 Necropolis League is deemed the worst Path of Exile expansion to date. In fact, some would argue that it has surpassed the Kalandra League in terms of being that bad. So, what went wrong? In the next sections, we will explore the possible reasons why.

League Mechanic is Meh

For those who are new to the game, GGG always introduces a new league mechanic every time they release a major expansion. That said, the league mechanic for the current expansion involves getting a bunch of corpses, storing these corpses in the morgue, and then burying them to create a new item with some desired modifiers.

On the surface, you might think that the league mechanic is fine, right? In Necropolis’ early days, not exactly. You see, there were just so many problems with it that it forced GGG to make drastic changes just a couple of weeks into the league.

While it is certainly much better now than it was when Patch 3.24 launched, graveyard crafting is still pretty mediocre compared to the previous league for sure.

Too Much Clutter

Have you been mapping in PoE lately? If so, you have probably been bombarded with just a ton of stuff on screen, which has resulted in a severely diminished quality of life.

Requires Heavy Investment

The best way to illustrate how bad the current expansion is in terms of player retention is to compare it to the previous one, the Affliction League.

One of the major downsides of the Necropolis League is that it requires much heavier investment if you want to earn plenty of PoE currency.

For instance, you’d have to spend multiple Divine Orbs in order to juice up your maps and get the most out of them. If you do not do this, you will just be wasting your time.

Now, compare that to Patch 3.23 where you only had to defeat monsters that have been buffed by the wisps from the Viridian Wildwood and you would have a plethora of incredible loot. This is true even with a minimal amount of currency invested in maps, by the way. The only problem you had to worry about was if your build was capable of eliminating the buffed-up monsters, but other than that, it was certainly a blast!

Content So Boring

Aside from bombarding you with corpses and items, the Necropolis League is so boring from a content standpoint, so much so that the vast majority of players would just ignore graveyard crafting completely.

What’s worse is that the PoE community is united in saying that they would much rather tackle the old content as opposed to what is being offered right now.

Very Tedious

While it is true that some players are able to make boatloads of PoE currency just by selling crafted items from the league mechanic, graveyard crafting, in itself, is very tedious for the vast majority of the game’s population.

Just look at the number of corpses you’d have to bury in order to get the highly-coveted modifiers:

Constant Crashes and Server Issues

There is always some level of excitement when it comes to new content and this applies to every Path of Exile expansion as well. The only problem is that to actually retain players, the content has to be enjoyed without issues that are beyond the community’s control.

Players had been complaining about constant crashing issues and server problems on Reddit and in the game’s official forums ever since the Necropolis League was launched. In fact, even alt+tabbing in and out of the game would cause the client to crash. Yes, it was that bad!

GGG was able to rectify the situation, but it was too little, and too late. The player count saw a massive decrease because of those issues. There is only so much a person can take, which may have contributed heavily to PoE’s decline in population in the Necropolis League.

Tier 17 Maps

This league introduced a new tier of maps that are quite difficult to accomplish, but that is with a promise of good loot. Well, that was what the community thought at first. However, this was short-lived because players found out that the modifiers that show up on a T17 map are either too hard to deal with or can completely brick certain builds that players are using. If you don’t believe us, just check out this Fortress map:

Unlike T1-T16 maps, Tier 17 maps can only be re-rolled by using Chaos Orbs. So, not only do you have to use a competent build that can destroy monsters on these maps, but you also have to have a ton of currency to get the set of modifiers that are acceptable for your character.

Lacks Build Diversity

The 3.24 Necropolis League focused heavily on crafting, which only caters to a very small portion of the PoE community.

Contrast that to the Affliction League, where players had access to That Which Was Taken and Charms that basically encouraged them to try out many different and very unorthodox builds.

What Can You Expect in Patch 3.25?

The current league certainly has a fair share of problems, but that is not to say that GGG has given up. If anything, the company has done its very best to entice the community to play Path of Exile again. 

Plenty of awesome things have been revealed recently and all we can say is that Patch 3.25 has a lot to offer. So, without further ado, here are the new content, changes, and improvements you can expect in Patch of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur:

New Content

As with every new expansion, Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur will bring some unique content never before seen in the game.

Welcome to Kingsmarch

This league is all about implementing as many experimental features as GGG could. The main highlight of the upcoming league is to give you a way to build a bustling town for trade.

Kingsmarch

Familiar NPCs from the Expedition League, including Gwennen, Dannig, Rog, and Tujen, want you to begin constructing a base of operations that will be named Kingsmarch. Here, you are going to hire workers for smelting, mining, disenchanting, farming, atlas-running, and many more.

The resources you can gain can be traded to other routes. After some time has passed, your ships will return with valuable rewards, such as various currencies, equipment, and items.

Resources

Shipment Rewards

New Currency

Path of Exile is a complicated game because you have various currencies used to trade items with other players. For a long time, GGG did not want to use Gold as a resource for anything until now.

In the Settlers of Kalguur expansion, you can gain Gold by fighting the monsters that you encounter on your journey. This new currency can be used for a lot of different things, including recruitment of skilled workers, upgrading various aspects of Kingsmarch, and the ability to respec your passive skill points.

That’s right! GGG is experimenting with Gold being used as the currency for taking back your passive points. If all goes well, this new currency can “easily” be implemented to Core, but that still remains to be seen.

New Currency: Gold

Recruitment and Delegation

The core premise of managing a town is to hire workers and delegate tasks to ensure that everything is up and running.

To hire workers, head to the Tavern, speak to Raulf, and then select “Town Recruitment.” Doing so brings up a special UI where you can choose people to work for you for a price, of course.

Raulf, the Recruiter

When looking at each worker, you will notice that they each have certain specialties. Take a look at the various sections of Kingsmarch to find out which ones need more workers and then hire people accordingly.

Recruitment UI

As you gain more gold, you can purchase upgrades for Recruitment to gain additional benefits, such as better job specialties and more competent workers.

Ores for Mining

While mapping, you will occasionally come across new resources, such as Crimson Iron, Orichalcum, Petrified Amber, Bismuth, and Verisium. Once you’ve taken some of these resources, they will become available for mining in Kingsmarch.

Of course, you are going to hire miners to harvest these ores, so you will need to make upgrades along the way to make them more efficient.

It is worth noting that these resources are heavily guarded by monsters and demons. For instance, ore deposits that contain Petrified Amber can attract Blighted Enemies that have no problem attacking you.

Bismuth Deposit

Trade Routes and Shipments

Why do you need to farm all of those resources, you ask? Well, they can be shipped to the different trade routes that you can interact with.

The trade routes are not created equally because there are those that only require your ships to travel a short distance, while there are some that are located really far away.

The longer routes provide more rewards, but the arduous journey could be a lot riskier than the shorter routes.

Trade Routes

You have to weigh the risk vs. the reward to ensure that you get what you want from the trade.

Shipment Risk

Another Set of Shipment Rewards

While you’ve set out a shipment, it will take some time for your crew to return to the base. Don’t worry, you’ll be notified via an in-game notification when they have returned from their voyage successfully.

Shipment Has Returned

Map Running

One of the most exciting features of the upcoming league is that you can hire “Atlas Runners” who will run a bunch of maps for you. The Kalguurans have hired Isla from the Heist League to establish Kalguuran-modified Map Devices in Kingsmarch.

Just like trade routes and shipment, these runners are going to need some time before they return to base. The maps you’ve placed on the Kalguuran-modified Map Devices are run one after another, so if you’ve populated all of the slots, you can do other things while your Atlas Runners are busy.

Atlas Runners

Always keep an eye on the risks that are involved when using maps that have dangerous modifiers. That’s because it may result in one (or more) of your Atlas Runners dying while they’re out there.

Atlas Running Risks

Craft Amazing Items via Runesmithing

Once the new expansion goes live, Dannig will operate the new Runesmithing Table, which allows you to add modifiers on a rare item similar to the current Crafting Bench. To add mods to your gear, you have to have the appropriate runes with you.

Runesmithing Enchantments

The runes that you need for Runesmithing can be acquired by defeating powerful bosses or via shipments that have returned from the various trade routes.

Runes and Runesmithing

Currency Trade and the Black Market

Ever get frustrated when you want to buy certain stuff from other players only for them to give you a cold shoulder and not reply? GGG finds this frustrating too! That’s why the company is going to introduce a new feature called the Currency Trade Market.

Faustus from the Heist League is also recruited by the Kalguurans. He is known for making shady deals and is adept at trading in the Black Market. He is your guy if you want to barter different currencies with other players.

Currency Exchange Market

If you have plenty of Gold at your disposal, Faustus also lets you gamble some items from the Black Market. This is akin to gambling with Gheed in D2R. Who knows, you might be able to snag some godlike stuff from him!

Black Market

Seeing how useful Faustus can potentially be, GGG has made it so that you can put the esteemed Financer in your hideout. This alleviates the need to visit Kingsmarch every time you want to interact with him.

Faustus, the Financier in a Hideout

The wealth of new content that will be introduced in the Settlers of Kalguur expansion is definitely quite interesting, most notably the various mechanics.

According to Mark Roberts, Game Director for Path of Exile, if the new mechanics are received well by the community, the developers could easily implement and bring them to Core (possibly in the next league).

New Unique Items

There are about 15 new unique items that will be added in Patch 3.25, though only a handful have been revealed thus far.

Ynda’s Stand is a new unique belt that allows you to gain Ward as an added defensive layer from your equipped body armor. This might be useful for builds that utilize Ward in more ways than one. Perhaps you can try it with the Wardloop Ascendant? That still remains to be seen.

Another unique item that still has something to do with Ward is Svalinn. This is a unique shield that reduces your maximum attack and spell block chance by 10%. However, this is compensated by making your block chance lucky.

To put it simply, wearing this shield would enable you to block attacks or spells more frequently because the higher of two outcomes is always chosen. Besides that, Svalinn can trigger a socketed elemental spell on block, which might make this shield a popular choice for many spellcaster builds in PoE 3.25.

Three new unique rings that you can get from Ritual Altars will be available once Patch 3.25 goes live. These rings provide you with the means of applying powerful curses on your foes, which were first introduced in the Affliction League. 

The Queller of Minds grants you the ability to apply Pacify on your enemies. This is a hex curse that makes enemies deal no damage for a brief period of time.

The Selfish Shepherd gives you the power to put a curse called Affliction on your minions. Basically, what Affliction does is it deals physical damage over time to your minions, while giving you some life regeneration in the process. Once their HP dips below 20%, they explode, dealing physical damage to nearby monsters.

Penance Mark returns to Path of Exile and it can be yours by wearing the new ring, The Hateful Accuser. What this hex curse does is it makes affected enemies produce Phantasms that you can eliminate to proc on-kill effects. This is very useful when fighting pinnacle bosses, where you need monsters to recover life/mana or produce charges necessary to improve your damage.

The Perandus Pact is certainly one of the most useful unique items in the Necropolis League. As the current league winds down, you’re probably sad that The Perandus Pact is going away. Well, not quite! In Patch 3.25, the said unique jewel will remain in the game, albeit with a new name: The Light of Meaning. This unique jewel can only be dropped by the King of the Mists, which you can summon by putting the new “An Audience with the King” item in your Map Device.

Retaliation Skills

Grinding Gear Games is also set to release a new class of skill gems called Retaliation Skills. As you can tell, these skills would have you retaliate and hit enemies with something devastating after blocking an attack recently.

Eviscerate lets you initiate an Arcing Slash that unleashes two waves of force, which may hit enemies in front of you twice.

Unlike Eviscerate, this next Retaliation Skill does not require you to wear a shield and a one-handed sword or axe. Instead, you’ll be dual-wielding a couple of melee weapons to initiate a counterattack.

The skill gem in question is none other than Swordstorm. After blocking an attack, you rain down a hail of blades that damage any monster situated in front of you.

If you want to rain down deadly lightning bolts upon your enemies after getting hit by them, then you’d want to use Divine Retribution.

This new skill gem grants you the ability to retaliate with multiple waves of lightning that expand outward. Given that this has an “AoE” tag, you might be able to increase its coverage area by putting a bunch of “% Increased Area of Effect” modifiers on your gear.

Goodbye Raider, Hello Warden!

One of the Ranger’s ascendancy classes, the Raider, has been very lackluster for quite some time now. And, as GGG experiments with new and old mechanics, the company has decided to remove the Raider and replace it with a new ascendancy class, the Warden.

The Warden is heavily inspired by the Warden of the Maji secondary ascendancy class from the Affliction League, though it does have some unique abilities of its own. For example, Avatar of the Wilds is an ascendancy node that allows the Warden to become “Unbound,” empowering its attacks to always inflict Freeze, Shock, and Ignite, as well as dealing 80% more elemental damage.

You can see the inspiration from the Warden of the Maji by looking at Mother’s Teachings. This node grants the level 20 Barkskin skill, which covers the Warden with bark that gets gradually removed as the class receives damage. With the Barkskin active, the Warden gains a considerable amount of armor for physical damage mitigation. As the Barkskin whittles down, your evasion rating is affected inversely, increasing it high enough to allow you to evade attacks more often.

New Ranger Ascendancy Class: Warden

The Nameless Seer

When running Tier 16 and 17 maps, you will sometimes encounter an NPC called The Nameless Seer. When you interact with him, he will have an assortment of unique items on offer and you can choose one free of charge.

Additionally, the Nameless Seer allows you to scry a map, causing the divination cards that drop on the current map you’re running to transfer to another map of your choosing. This is actually a great feature since you are no longer forced to run maps that you do not want. For example, if you’re sick and tired of the Crimson Temple just to farm The Apothecary, you now have the option of transferring that to, say, the Strand map.

New Chisels to Improve Maps

Patch 3.25 introduces several new chisels to improve certain things when running maps. Here is a brief rundown:

• Maven’s Chisel of Divination: Improves the quality of a map to enhance the divination cards found in the area

• Maven’s Chisel of Avarice: Improves the quality of a map to enhance the type of currency found in the area. This likely improves the chance of Divine Orbs to drop

• Maven’s Chisel of Proliferation: Improves the quality of a map to enhance monster pack size

• Maven’s Chisel of Procurement: Improves the quality of a map to enhance item rarity (rather than item quality like the regular Cartographer’s Chisels)

• Maven’s Chisel of Scarabs: Improves the quality of a map to enhance the Scarabs found in the area. This possibly makes scarabs drop more frequently

Returning League Mechanics

Settlers of Kalguur is largely an experimental league in the sense that GGG wants to try out new mechanics and see which ones the community will like the most. Fortunately, it does not stop there because the company will also be bringing back old mechanics that many people surely loved.

For one, the Reflected Items from the Kalandra League are making a comeback. While you are mapping, you are going to occasionally come across a Reflecting Mist that, when interacted, presents you with two pieces of jewelry that have randomly enhanced or inverted modifiers.

Reflected Items

Aside from presenting you with a couple of jewelry items you can choose from, the Reflecting Mist can sometimes transform into an item for later use.

Reflecting Mist (Item)

If you are into farming items, you will love the fact that the Sentinels from the aptly named Sentinel League are returning to PoE as well.

When you see Sentinels while running maps, they will juice up the monsters in the area, making them tougher to beat. However, the increased difficulty is without a promise of better rewards.

Sentinels (from the Sentinel League)

Tinctures from the Affliction League allowed many players to try out new and interesting builds. They are also returning to the game, albeit with some modifications.

One of the most notable is that using Tinctures will now apply Mana Burn on you. This is a debuff that gradually reduces your mana so long as the Tincture’s effect is active. Having said that, the Tincture will be deactivated when you run out of mana or if you manually turn it off yourself. 

New passive skills will be added that modify Tinctures in one way or another. For instance, the new “Perfect Formula” notable passive provides you with a 15% chance for Tinctures to not inflict Mana Burn when used. Additionally, Perfect Formula causes Tinctures applied to you to have a 10% reduced Mana Burn rate, assuming that its first effect did not occur.

Tincture

Changes and Quality of Life Features

The Path of Exile developers have really outdone themselves. They are going to implement a plethora of new QoL changes and improvements in Patch 3.25. There is a lot to unpack here, so let’s start with something you’ll definitely love.

Massive Melee Rebalance

Finally! After years of public clamor, GGG has given melee classes and builds the attention they deserve! Gone are the days when melee builds are considered niche as they are now quite viable even in the endgame!

For starters, almost all of the melee skill gems have been massively buffed. The “Sweep” skill gem is a good example of this. Previously, its attack damage was only set to 281% of your base damage. But now, it received a significant damage boost as it is now capable of dealing 664.4% damage!

Sweep Changes

Since the melee archetype would have you be up close and personal with the enemy, you need to have your defenses sorted out as well. Thankfully, GGG is introducing new high-level base types that provide even more armor, evasion, or energy shield. 

The Legion Plate is a new body armor that provides considerably more defense compared to the previous champ, the Glorious Plate.

While melee active skill gems have been buffed across the board, GGG has decided to remove melee totem skills altogether. This includes the Ancestral Protector, Ancestral Warchief, Vaal Ancestral Warchief, and the Earthbreaker Support. This is a bit of a bummer considering that Ancestral Protector and Ancestral Warchief gave you a boost in attack speed and attack damage, respectively.

But hey, the massive damage boost implemented to most of the melee skill gems should be sufficient enough to entice you. That said, will you play a melee build in Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur?

Gladiator Rework

The Gladiator has been quite a mediocre ascendancy class in Path of Exile since it was nerfed in Patch 3.16. Thankfully, that is about to change as the Gladiator has been completely rebalanced in the Settlers of Kalguur expansion!

If you like the new Retaliation Skills, the Gladiator has access to Measured Retaliation – a notable ascendancy passive that makes Retaliation Skills become usable for a couple more seconds before going on cooldown.

The new ascendancy nodes for the Gladiator look very promising. Weapon Master provides you with different effects based on the type of weapon you use. For instance, you gain 20% more critical strike chance if you wield a dagger. This opens up new avenues for experimentation, especially when you factor in the massive melee balancing changes that are implemented in Patch 3.25.

Affliction Mechanic Goes Core

Many people in the PoE community loved the Affliction League (Patch 3.23) because the said expansion introduced things that improved drop density and build diversity.

For one, players could go into the Viridian Wildwood and collect as many wisps as they can. This influenced the monsters on the map after exiting the accursed forest, which made them a lot stronger. However, those who were able to defeat them successfully would enjoy massive loot. Because of this explosion of items, players had the means to purchase whatever they needed to not only improve the builds that they’ve used, but to also experiment and create new ones.

If you’ve played PoE in Patch 3.23 and you share the same sentiment as the others, then you’ll be ecstatic to know that the main mechanic in the Affliction League, specifically the Viridian Wildwood, is going Core!

What does that mean? It means that you can enter the Viridian Wildwood again and, therefore, collect as many wisps that can possess the monsters found on your map. Take note that they grow exponentially stronger depending on the number of wisps you’ve gathered from the accursed forest.

But, if your build is strong enough to defeat them successfully, it is safe to say that you will experience nearly the same loot explosions that were prevalent a couple of expansions ago!

It is worth noting that only the Viridian Wildwood and the wisps are coming back; not the NPCs. Hence, you will not be able to purchase corpses, tinctures, and charms.

Buffs Persist Through Death

Some builds in Path of Exile are almost indestructible and cannot die no matter what the enemy throws at them. However, the vast majority of builds can potentially get one-shot by map monsters and bosses. If you’ve played such builds for a long time, isn’t it frustrating to have to activate all of your buffs again and again every time your character dies?

Well, in Patch 3.25, all skills that reserve life or mana (which typically encompasses auras and herald skills) will no longer have to be reactivated upon death. In other words, they are always enabled unless you turn them off for some reason.

This is actually a pretty useful quality-of-life change, especially since your action bar can now be populated with other, more active skills.

More Accessible T17

In the Necropolis League, Tier 17 maps obliterated 80% of the builds in Path of Exile. The only ones capable of clearing such maps are players who had invested a ton of PoE currency into their characters.

We are happy to report that the company has dialed back the difficulty scale of this map tier, now fitting nicely between pinnacle and uber pinnacle content.

So, what has changed? The main complaints about monsters having a lot of HP and dealing huge amounts of damage have been addressed. This means that more builds are going to be capable of handling T17 maps now than ever before.

If your build originally had no problems running these maps prior to Patch 3.25, you’ll still be happy to know that T17 maps can be modified to make things more challenging. Aside from Chaos Orbs, you can now use Cartographer’s Chisels to increase map quality and Vaal Orbs to corrupt them (possibly, to get even more item quantity and rarity at the cost of highly difficult map modifiers).

Although not really common back then, the map mod that causes maps to contain clusters of highly volatile barrels that could explode in your face has been removed. Instead, it has been replaced with a new modifier that grants monsters the ability to fracture upon death.

With these adjustments, you can run almost any build in the game to complete Tier 17 maps, provided that you still give it enough investment.

Divination Cards on Atlas Hover

When you look at the map nodes on your Atlas, you can now see which Divination Cards drop there. This alleviates the need to look at the wiki just to know what Divination Card you can possibly get while farming in the area.

Increased Item Pickup Radius

Those who use a mouse and keyboard to play Path of Exile will now have an increased item pick-up range similar to what console users have enjoyed for so long. You still have to click on the item to pick it up, but you no longer have to be precisely on top of it just to place that in your inventory.

Aside from the quality of life improvement this provides, this addresses the issue of items being stuck in areas that your character cannot go through as well.

One-Click Harvest

It is certainly baffling why you have to click a Harvest Plot twice in order for monsters to appear. GGG thinks so too, which is why the company is implementing a change where you only have to click on the “Disperse Lifeforce” icon once to start the encounter.

Item Quality Adjustments

Certain PoE Currencies that increase item quality, such as Armourer’s scraps for defensive equipment, Blacksmith’s Whetstones for weapons, and Cartographer’s Chisels for maps, have received some tweaks in Patch 3.25.

When used, the quality they provide now depends on item level rather than their rarity. You see, prior to this update, players traditionally used Orbs of Scouring first on a non-unique item to turn it into a normal item before using any of the quality currencies just mentioned.

But now, that is no longer the case. At earlier levels, these currencies will give more quality regardless of whether the item is a Normal, Magic, or Rare one. In the endgame, your equipment will only gain 2% item quality for every Armourer’s Scraps and Blacksmith Whetstones you use.

You definitely need to attain a 20% quality on your gear because bonuses that you can get from item quality are now multiplicative, meaning, they give better bonuses akin to “more” modifiers rather than “increased.”

For maps, Cartographer's Chisels will now provide a higher quality based on the map's tier. Here's a rundown:

• White Maps (T1-T5): 20% quality per chisel

• Yellow Maps (T6-T10): 10% quality per chisel

• Red Maps and above (T11 onwards): 5% quality per chisel on all Normal, Magic, and Rare Maps 

What these adjustments are trying to do is give you an easier time to raise the item quality on your pieces of gear and early maps while you’re still leveling up your character. And, since these currency items become abundant as you progress, it is justifiable to reduce the increase in quality they give to items that have a high item level.

Static Life Bars on Bosses

Endgame bosses in Path of Exile last long enough for most builds that they undergo different phases throughout the fight. In every phase, you have probably noticed that the life bars of bosses disappear along with them, which is quite frustrating since you do not know how much HP they have left.

Fortunately, this has been addressed by GGG. In the Settlers of Kalguur expansion, boss life bars will now remain prominently displayed on the screen regardless of the phase of the encounter.

Take note that the static life bars are only applicable to the final bosses in each Act of the campaign, as well as the pinnacle bosses like The Maven, Sirus, Searing Exarch, Eater of Worlds, The Elder, and The Shaper, at least, for the time being.

Given their usefulness, the company may implement them on all Path of Exile bosses, hopefully, in the near future.

More Slots on Map Device

The Map Device has received an upgrade in Patch 3.25 in that it now has six slots instead of five. This additional slot enables you to add another scarab or fragment of your choosing, thus improving certain outcomes. For instance, you can add five different scarabs on a single map to increase the number of Strongboxes that may appear within the area.

With that said, to unlock the fifth slot, you have to defeat the 10 bosses of a Maven Invitation once. For the sixth slot, you have to run a T17 map to completion. You probably do not need to wipe the area clean of monsters; you just have to defeat the map boss and that’s it. Finishing Tier 17 maps might no longer be a pain to do considering the adjustments that were made.

Activate Waypoints Easily

Although this might look simple on the surface, you can easily activate waypoints just by walking near them. In other words, you do not have to click on them just to make them usable.

Increased Valdo’s Puzzle Box Drops

In the previous league, have you received a good number of Valdo’s Puzzle Boxes? If you haven’t, you are not alone. A sizable portion of the PoE community rarely got any of these boxes to drop.

The good thing is that GGG has increased the drop rate of Valdo’s Puzzle Box in Patch 3.25. This adjustment will make the puzzle boxes drop more frequently, though the chance of getting a Mageblood and other Tier 0 uniques still remains the same to prevent such items from flooding the trade market.

Prismatic Oils

There is a new type of oil in the Settlers of Kalguur expansion called the Prismatic Oil. This oil can only drop from Blighted and Blight-ravaged maps, which means that you cannot get it from regular maps that have Blight encounters in them.

The Prismatic Oil is used to gain access to new anoint-only passive skills, such as:

• Incorporeal

• Elusive on you reduces in effect 50% slower

• Elusive is removed from you at 20% effect

• Mixed Munitions

• 5% increased cooldown recovery rate for throwing traps per mine detonated recently

• Selective Precision

• First and Final Shots of Barrage Sequences fire projectiles that return to you

Higher Base Critical Strike Chance on Weapons

Certain weapons, like the Crystal Sceptre and Opal Sceptre, now have a higher base critical strike chance. This makes the Sandstorm Visage unique item even more powerful! But, because of this change, the Sandstorm Visage will be a lot rarer than before.

Changes to Banner Skills

Banner skills have been reworked in Patch 3.25. They no longer reserve mana, but you now have to plant them in order to gain their bonuses. This means that you have to be within the area of effect of a banner to get its benefits. 

Aside from that, Banners now cause enemies to take 8% increased damage, allowing you to eliminate them more efficiently.

New notable passive skills have also been added to improve the effects of Banner skills. For instance, the new “Rallying Icon” notable passive causes Banners to have a 15% increased aura effect, while providing you with +5% to all elemental resistances as well.

Technical Improvements

The frequent crashing issues that players have experienced in the current league may be fully ironed out in Patch 3.25. At least, that is what we hope will happen.

The good news is that GGG is already making a lot of progress and has taken more strides to improve various aspects of the game.

For instance, just recently, the company released a 4GB patch that introduced Render Resolution and Upscale Modes to Path of Exile.

Render Resolution allows players to lower the resolution to vastly improve performance, though this comes at the cost of lower image quality. It is important to note that players who want to use this feature must play the game in Fullscreen Mode because it does not work when using Borderless Windowed Mode.

Upscale Mode, on the other hand, allows PoE players to improve both performance and image quality through the use of upscaling technologies. By default, Path of Exile uses NIS or Nvidia Image Scaling to do this. Despite the name, this technology is also available for those using AMD GPUs.

Hopefully, the company can come up with more technical changes that improve the experience of Path of Exile players.

Simultaneous Release on Consoles

For many years, GGG would release a new PoE expansion on PC first, then followed by the console versions a couple of weeks after. The company has changed that in the previous league. What does this mean?

Just like in the Necropolis expansion, Grinding Gear Games will launch Patch 3.25 simultaneously on all supported platforms. This means that Path of Exile players are going to enjoy new content together no matter what platform they choose to play this popular APRG.

In addition, Path of Exile now utilizes the power of next-gen consoles like the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5. If you are using any of these platforms, you will enjoy vastly improved loading times, better texture handling, and enhanced performance, among other things.

Conclusion

The Necropolis League was considered the worst expansion in Path of Exile history, but the good thing is that this didn’t deter GGG from making the game great again. And boy, the company has certainly redeemed itself with the Settlers of Kalguur Expansion!

There are so many things to be excited about in Patch 3.25. Grinding Gear Games is not shy of implementing new experimental features that could make their way to Core if they are positively received by the community.

The idea of creating a bustling town, hiring workers, and getting rewards from making successful trades with other places is certainly quite appealing and might entice players to spend more time with the game.

People who were clamoring for a melee rework finally have their wish granted. Certain skill gems, passive nodes, and items have received suitable adjustments to make melee builds on par with ranged attackers and magic users.

Some popular league mechanics from previous expansions are making a return, including “Reflected Items” from the Kalandra League, Sentinels from the Sentinel League, and even the wisps from the Affliction League. Juicing content has become even more insane in the Settlers of Kalguur!

On the improvement side of things, Tier 17 maps have become more accessible, truly bridging the gap between pinnacle and uber pinnacle content. The addition of a new slot on the Map Device will certainly make map runners very happy.

Console players can also enjoy vastly improved performance since the game now harnesses the power of next-gen consoles like the Xbox Series X/S and PlayStation 5.

With all of that said, are you excited for Path of Exile: Settlers of Kalguur? If so, you might want to get your hands on powerful items as soon as the league starts. Do not worry, we at RPGStash have you covered!

Our PoE Store offers a wide selection of items and currencies that will bring the best out of your character from day one! Visit our store today to learn more!