Path of Exile’s new expansion, Atlas of Worlds, introduces a new area – The Domain of the Righteous – and a new challenge – The Obelisk of Menzies. The Domain of the Righteous is a new continent hidden beneath the world’s surface for centuries. It can be accessed by defeating powerful bosses in the new Areas of the Righteous, found throughout Atlas of Worlds.
Path of Exile’s new expansion
Path of Exile encourages you to define your pain more than any other action RPG. You can choose how to challenge yourself with a programmable endgame and quarterly events. Sentinel, the May edition, introduces consumable drones that boost adversaries and provide them bonuses. Also, you can take Poe boost service from Boosthive will make PoE more enjoyable.
Sentinels are common loot for new characters in PoE. Each drone has a color, power level, modifiers, and perks that change its behavior; these drones can be deployed during combat using hotkeys. With the new expansion, you can enjoy a short burst of hard mode or an embarrassing self-inflicted death if you’re cocky.
Red ‘Stalker’ Sentinels enhance any enemies they spot for a controllable rampage. Blue ‘Pandemonium’ Sentinels enhance every adversary on-screen and beyond. Finally, yellow’ Apex’ Sentinels act like red ones but target rare, unique, or boss enemies exclusively. Choose your battles carefully because each Sentinel type is deployed once per area.
There’s no easy way to recharge Sentinels’ batteries if they run out. A power core lets you combine two depleted Sentinels to produce a full battery and hybrid perks. Various core kinds affect Robo-splicing. Rare’recombinator’ goods allow you to splice undesirable same-type equipment.
The Sentinel Controller panel offers rich customization. It’s a grid of boosts and modifiers that apply to all your Sentinels if their color is connected. Killing Sentinel-buffed monsters gives you strength. You can remove or place Sentinel grid wires at will, but you won’t have enough power to max things out. Pick your PoE poison.
Atlas Buffed
Sentinel’s system is complicated but not as spectacular or ambitious as others. Instead, grinding Gear focuses on fresh content and the Atlas Of Worlds endgame. Last season, it was reworked to allow endgame skill grid customization of events and encounters. With the addition of 20 more “keystone” nodes in this update, players can delete their least favorite parts of Atlas and concentrate on monster-mashing.
These are the highlights of the new Keystone nodes:
- To adjust the challenge, you can make foes tankier and less harmful (or vice versa).
- Stream of Consciousness prohibits changing Maps with Fragments and increases the likelihood of getting through League content on every expedition by 50%. Good for the minimalist player.
Path of Exile wouldn’t be complete without more rocks to smash. Several new grids enable ‘ultra’ versions of six endgame enemies with new attack patterns and abilities. From what I’ve seen, they’re favoring ‘bullet hell’ encounters. You’ll spend much of your time dodging shots in these new fights.
These bosses offer new rewards. New Jewels can affect your passive skill grid. This league awards some endgame bosses with unique drops created by the champions of a boss-hunting competition held by Grinding Gear the previous season.
Getting decked
This upgrade isn’t all problem. A few quality-of-life changes (primarily in the Atlas Of Worlds UI) and gamepad support for PC is coming. Path of Exile should finally be playable on the Steam Deck, though I worry if Valve’s portable can handle PoE’s CPU-intensive endgame.
Path of Exile is getting a lot of new content, but in recent expansions, Grinding Gear has retired the game’s oldest and wonkiest aspects to reduce bloat. Nothing major is canceled this time. Instead, archnemesis league verbs have been replaced with simpler monster modifiers. It’s one of PoE’s new simplifications, but it should reduce health bar writing.
No buffs or nerfs are added in this league, and passive skill grids aren’t being reshuffled. No big new skills or class reworks. Path of Exile is known for upending the meta with every big release, but the adjustments to monster modifiers and Sentinel pandemonium should be plenty. The next league will likely see further balance reworks.
Path of Exile 2, the grandiose sequel expansion announced in 2019, is the buffed and the uber-ified elephant in the room. Between the epidemic and game development, we may not see it until late 2023 or 2024. These seasonal updates focus on preparing for the major release. Both PoE 1 & 2 campaigns will end in Atlas Of Worlds. I suspect the revamped monster modifiers will continue over to the sequel.
Sentinel is incremental compared to last season’s makeover. It’s free on May 13th. Renegade buff-bots require a new character, although current characters can use endgame content.
Verdict
Path of Exile’s new expansion, War for the Atlas, is set to release on October 13th. The expansion introduces a new hardcore league and three new acts, each with its own unique challenges and rewards. The map has also been revamped with new areas, bosses, and items.
