It’s finally that time of the year again. That time when players are giving away their headhunters to newbies and prepping their next set of builds. Yes – the new league is just a hair’s length away!
And with how amazing Delirium league went for many players, GGG seems hell-bent to keep revolutionize the way we farm and make currency in PoE.
So, to help you stay up to date on what’s coming in PoE’s new Harvest league (a.k.a. Patch 3.11), we’ve put together this primer. Keep reading to learn when the league is coming, what updates it contains, and even get a few helpful tips to start off on a stronger footing.
When Is PoE Harvest League 3.11 Starting?
If you’re excited to get started with Harvest League in PoE – it’s starting on June 19, 2020, for PC players. At the same time, Xbox One and PS4 players are going to have access on June 22, 2020.
However, GGG’s Chris Wilson noted that due to the ongoing global pandemic, these dates are somewhat fluid and may be shifted closer to the release.
An Overview Of The New Harvest League Mechanic
Have you ever played Stardew Valley? In case you’re not that familiar, Stardew Valley is the ultimate cross between an RPG and a true farming simulator.
But, what do you get when you combine the age-old Diablo-esque slaughter-fest of an ARPG with the crop farming mechanics of a game like Stardew Valley?
Simple – you get the PoE Harvest League!
Here’s the scoop. In this league, the new mechanic revolves around you growing your own monsters. These monsters will have particular crafting modifiers, kind of like in the Bestiary League. However, the modifiers will not be league-exclusive or limited. So, effectively, you get all of the available crafting mods ranging from currency crafting to master-crafts all under one roof (or farm plot than is).
There are three tiers of seeds that you’ll find throughout Wraeclast. And once grown, you can harvest up to 48 batches at the same time, creating for some incredible fights.
But that’s not all – you can actually grow specific endgame bosses too!
When it comes to seeds, you’ll find three distinct types – Vivid, Primal, and Wild seeds. And once you open a seed cache, you don’t just get seeds. Your growing crops advance one point whenever you open a seed cache.
Now, how are the seeds actually grown? Well, it depends on the tier of seed you’ve got.
For Tier 1 seeds, you just need to plant them into the ground somewhere around a collector that corresponds to the type of seed. On the other hand, for Tier 2 seeds, you’ll need to have them planted close to other specific seeds, with several particular collectors in their proximity along with other similar requirements. Tier 3 seeds obviously offer the best rewards, however, the growing requirements are actually more or less the same as the Tier 2 seeds.
But, where do you get the seeds in the first place?
There are two main ways that players will get seeds. First, you’ll be able to open seed caches as you travel across Wraeclast. In addition to this, the monsters you’ll spawn once the seeds are grown also have a relatively small chance of dropping new seeds.
PoE Harvest League Updates Coming In Patch 3.11
Now that we’ve covered when the league is coming and what the new mechanic will look like, let’s take a look at some of the major updates that the game is bringing with it.
Crafting Revamp
What do most PoE players do with the rares they drop? They leave them on the ground 99% of the time.
GGG realizes that getting good end-game gear is a brutal struggle in today’s META. And if you go after the mirror-tier crafted rares, you’ll know just how insanely expensive decent gear can be. So, this league GGG decided to give the player base a helping hand by revamping how we all approach crafting.
The three types of seeds provide a range of different crafting modifiers, granted randomly. Each time you drop a modifier, you get an additional charge in the league mechanic’s interface.
This allows you to effectively control the loot you get, and gradually craft your way up towards mirror-tier gear without any of the insane expenses associated with gearing up in the past.
New Unique Items Unveiled
Alongside the new PoE Harvest League mechanic, the player base is getting 12 new unique items. And to freshen up the roster of Unique Items, GGG is updating a whopping 50 uniques that were previously branded as useless by the players.
Some of the rebalanced uniques are Moonbender’s Wing, which grants up to 100% of your physical damage as added cold damage or lightning damage, and Wake of Destruction which now leaves a trail of shocked ground as you move past mob packs.
Now, among the 12 new items, there’s little to be said for many of them. However, two items stand out far and tall as something that will likely drive the new META forward by leaps and bounds.
First and foremost, we’ve got the Doryani’s Prototype. This unique armor removes your Lightning Resistance from the equation, applying it to the mobs around you. However, to keep you alive, it uses your armor stat and applies it to the lightning damage you take from hits.
In addition to this, we also have the Storm Secret. This unique ring is hyper-synergic with the Herald of Thunder skill. Instead of having to kill enemies to proc it, the Herald of Thunder effect would now be procced each time you shock an enemy. However, as a tradeoff, you’ll be taking 250 lightning damage each time Herald of Thunder hits an enemy around you.
While this may seem scary in terms of the visually lacking survivability – this setup could be absolutely mindblowing on a build that revolves around a Cast On Crit Herald of Thunder setup.
Buffs For Two-Handed Weapons
Let’s face it, melee in PoE has been in a pretty sad state and shape for a long time now. However, GGG is making every effort to make melee characters just as viable, and powerful as their casting counterparts.
With the PoE Harvest League, GGG is making a solid attempt at bringing two-handed build back into the META with several stat increases and skill adjustments.
In 3.11, players will be able to enjoy:
- Several revamped passive skills buffing two-handed weapon damage.
- New slam melee skills that revolve around the two-handed playstyle.
- New support gems that synergize directly with slam skills.
A Host Of New Skills
In addition to the new slam skills and two-handed melee rework, GGG is releasing several new skills aimed at further rebalancing melee.
Warcry Skills
In addition to the three warcry skills that players are able to use today, PoE Harvest League is set to unveil four new war cry skills to bring the war-cry playstyle back into the META.
Among all of the war cry skills available in the upcoming patch, there are two skills that particularly stand out high and tall above the rest.
First, we’ve got the Seismic Cry. This skill will create a shockwave that rips through enemy packs, pushing them back and giving your slam skills far more damage with each attack while also increasing their area damage. And in addition to all that, you’re also going to be granted a duration-based buff that increases your chances of stunning an enemy.
Next, we have the Rallying Cry. The primary effect of this skill is the insanely increased mana regeneration for you and nearby allies. However, it also adds a solid damage buff that grants a percentage of your weapon damage to you and your allies based on the average “monster power” of the mobs around you. Lastly, this skill features the same “exertion” mechanic as Seismic Cry, giving you even more bonus damage.
Rebalanced Brand Skills
Over the last few leagues, Brand builds have been some of the most busted and broken across the entire META.
The new PoE Harvest League is set to address some of the long-standing balance issues while introducing three new Brand skills alongside a single new Brand support skill.
Here are two of the biggest changes in this department:
The Arcanists Brand skill is poised to be more or less of a skill-gem version of the old Poet’s Pen that we’ve all come to love and loathe over the history of Path of Exile. When an enemy mob approaches the Brand, the skill will trigger other linked skills, in the order that they’re linked in. This basically allows you to turn any compatible skill in the game into a Brand of its own.
On the other side of the board, we’ve also got the Penance Brand. This new skill spreads to all nearby enemies once it attaches. And once you recall it, or if the enemy the Brand attached to dies, it creates a big explosion around them using the built-up “energy” that the brand collects from each “infected” enemy.
New Vulkan Tech Rendering Released
Now, this has seen quite a bit of discussion among the PoE community. The new Vulkan renderer for Path of Exile is set to bring about some awesome performance increases.
This should help GGG address the insane optimization gaps and performance issues that players face in group play where the previous DirectX 11 renderer ended up throwing the shader processing data at the players’ GPUs.
In addition to the performance improvements, there are also several graphical updates coming. First and foremost, the new Bloom system that is going to be used extensively across the new PoE Harvest League content. And in addition to the Bloom system, players will be able to enjoy a whole host of new graphically revamped monsters designed by the team working on Path of Exile 2.
What’s Happening To The Delirium League Content?
As with most previous league releases, the Delirium league is going to be assimilated into the game’s core. As you wander across Wraeclast, you’ll have a 10% chance to encounter the Mirror of delirium and trigger the old league content.
But, that 10% chance goes up the more additional content an area features. This means that sextanting your maps and stacking them up with all sorts of beneficial mods (just as we’ve covered in our PoE strongbox guide) also increases the chance that a Delirium portal will be found inside.
Closing Thoughts
With a new league just around the corner, Path of Exile players are excited to see the wealth of improvements that PoE Harvest League Patch 3.11 is set to bring.
If you’ve followed along up until this point in the primer, you should now have a pretty good idea of what updates you’ll need to look out for.
We’ve covered the new league mechanic, provided you with a release date, and touched on all of the various updates that Path of Exile Harvest League brings with it.
With that, it’s our turn to hear from you. What build are you planning to play in Patch 3.11 once it’s live next week? Let us know in the comments below!
