3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League Reveal!

Path of Exile 3.25 is one of the largest expansions ever. The reveal includes details on the new league Settlers of Kalguur, a new Ascendancy class, reworked melee, the return of old league mechanics, several balance passes and many quality of life updates. For more information on all the changes you'll want to stay awhile and listen, or you can check out the full Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League Patch Notes.

Overview

In Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur, you aid the Kalguurans in their quest to establish a city within Wraeclast. This is Kingsmarch, a port city and burgeoning center of commerce.

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Begin building the settlement by using Gold to recruit workers, then find rare resources for them to harvest. Then, use these resources to complete buildings and slowly watch as your new town attracts more Settlers who themselves contribute to its growth.

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Once you have a city, you need to ensure that it prospers and this is where trade comes in. Send your ships to nearby Kalguuran and Karui cities to sell your wares and receive valuable goods in return. But be warned, not all that glisters in the dark is gold; sometimes it's the weapon of a Pirate looking to claim his share.

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As you rebuild the city, you gain access to new features such as the Currency Market, where players spend their Gold to asynchronously exchange currency items. No longer do you need to whisper 20 people before breaking that divine! You can also use Gold to respec, making this much more accessible at lower levels before Regrets begin dropping frequently.

Base Game Changes

In addition to the exciting new League mechanic, the base game is getting one of the biggest balance passes in Path of Exile history. This begins with the long awaited Ascendancy reworks. Gladiator is now a counter-attack, Bleed and Attack specialist while Raider has been removed and replaced with the Warden Ascendancy, inspired by the Wildwood class from Affliction League.

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Then there's endgame revamps, including the return of League mechanics like Affliction and Sentinel, the removal of Item Quantity modifiers and numerous quality of life improvements.

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3.25 Settlers of Kalguur

Your favorite Kalguurans, Dannig, Rog, Tujen and Gwennen are back! This time they're establishing a new colony to trade with nearby cities and they need your help. Meet Johan, the King's Hand in Lioneye's Watch to begin building the settlement of Kingsmarch. Not only do you need to establish the town, but you are responsible for its development.

Collect various resources on your adventures to begin building Kingsmarch. Each resource has an affect on the environment. Demons worship Orichalcum and gather at its location, Petrified Amber attracts mindless blighted enemies whereas elemental Bismuth makes the area around itself highly unstable. There's also the extremely rare and valuable Verisium. Clear the monsters guarding each resource to flag it for collection.

Workers

Before you can harvest these resources, you need gold to hire workers with. Collect Gold by defeating enemies throughout Wraeclast before returning to the Tavern in Kingsmarch to begin recruiting some help. Raulf the Recruiter spends his time tracking down hardy folk looking to earn some coin. Throughout the league you need to recruit the best workers for each role then keep them paid and protected.

Your workers gather these resources in real time, including when you're offline. You can improve the gathering rate by hiring more workers or purchasing upgrades within Kingsmarch. For example, if you upgrade your miners' pickaxes they collect ore more efficiently. There are several buildings to upgrade around Kingsmarch including the Smelter which upgrades ores into bars, and the Disenchanter who converts unwanted Magic and Rare gear into Thaumaturgic Dust, a new resource used for crafting and shipping.

Planting and harvesting crops is also important; a well-fed city is a happy city. Luckily, you don't need to do this manually! Simply hire some workers, tell them what to plant and wait a bit to reap the bounties of a full harvest. There's a lot of automation in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur where you are able to delegate tasks to your workers then continue your killing spree in maps while waiting for their tasks to finish.

The Harbour

After you establish some basic buildings, construct a harbor to trade with other nearby ports. You can establish several shipping routes and hire traders to carry your goods. Each port returns different rewards based on what you send, and each have different resources they prefer.

Should your traders manage to return home safely, they bring bounties from other lands. This includes a variety of Rare and Unique items, currency or even Scarabs. But beware, the more resources you send the greater the risk to your traders. You can do this by sending smaller shipments or hiring workers who specialize in Shipping.

As your town grows, you may attract the wrong kind of attention. This comes in the form of 3 new bosses who sweep in to hold your workers for ransom and otherwise cause mayhem in your settlement. You can choose to pay them off with some Gold, fight your way out of your problems or simply write those captured workers off and ignore the problem.

There are more reasons aside from altruism for defeating these bosses. Skilled workers are hard to come by and the new bosses offer Unique rewards.

Isla & Recombination

Isla oversees a series of modified Kalguuran map devices where you can queue maps for your Atlas Runners to complete. They complete the maps in order until the queue is empty and save the best rewards for you. Be warned, harder maps introduce a greater risk to your workers and they may perish while attempting to complete the task! Balance the risk vs. reward accordingly or you may find yourself in need of new Atlas Runners.

Another fan favorite is returning for 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur, Recombination! This allows you to combine 2 items together in an attempt to get the best mods. Recombination has been nerfed a bit from the original insane power level in Sentinel League but there's a lot of crazy stuff you can still do!

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Runesmithing

Dannig runs the Runesmithing Table, using Kalguuran Runic arts to enchant effects onto your weapons. Collect and combine different Runes to enhance your items. For example, you can craft a modifier previously exclusive to the Doomfletch's Prism! There are over 100 new enchantments you can add via the Runesmithing Table in 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur.

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Gold and Currency Exchange Market

The Gold you collect throughout Wraeclast has several uses. First and foremost is the new currency exchange! This enables asynchronous trading between Exiles. Speak to Faustus the Financier to place a buy order by selecting the currency you want, what you have and your ideal trade ratio. So long as there's stock available for your desired rate (or less), the trade completes automatically. In exchange, he charges a small service fee (paid in Gold). He also offers Exiles access to his Black Market where they can purchase valuable items during the campaign, or maybe for obtaining an endgame crafting base.

Gladiator Rework

The long awaited Gladiator rework is here! The Gladiator retains his Bleed-splode node and block synergies while expanding his toolkit to provide a better foundation to enable different builds.

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In addition to the above, the Gladiator has some spicy new nodes.

• War of Attrition provides 1% more damage with Hits and Ailments against Rare and Unique enemies for each second they've been in your Presence, up to 100%.
• Weapon Master gives the Gladiator bonuses for each weapon he wields, many of these bonuses are multiplicative making them especially potent while dual wielding!
• Measured Retaliation enhances the new Retaliation skills, extending the window you can use them in and giving you a 50% chance to use the skill a second time.
  • Retaliation skills require you to meet a specific condition before you can activate them.
  • Eviscerate requires you to use a Shield.
  • Swordstorm requires Dual Wielding and does significant single target damage.
  • Lastly, Divine Retribution is enabled on block and then activated to unleash divine lightning.

New Warden Ascendancy

As more and more items replaced functionality from the Raider Ascendancy, it slowly fell by the wayside. Instead of reworking the class, GGG removed Raider entirely, moving her Frenzy Charge stacking to Deadeye and adding the new Warden Ascendancy, inspired by the Wildwood Ascendancy of a similar name. This new Ranger Ascendancy focuses on Tinctures and Elemental Effects.

Balance Changes

Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur brings significant balance changes. Melee for example has been completely reworked, defenses are buffed, and defensive auras are nerfed to compensate. For a full list of changes you can read the Patch Notes, but here are a few highlights:

Melee Rework

• Melee totem skill gems have been removed.
  • As a compensation, almost every melee skill has gained a large amount of damage as they level. Eg: Heavy Strike 313% EAD (effectiveness of added dmg) -> 552% at gem level 20, and it no longer has knockback. Sweep 281% EAD -> 664.4% at level 20.
  • Flesh and Stone now gives a Melee damage bonus against nearby targets in Blood Stance and a damage reduction from nearby enemies in Sand Stance, making it much better for close range builds.
  • Rage, Impale, and Bleed got significantly easier to access across the tree. Rage now gives 1% additional Attack damage but no speed bonuses, and Bleed now has the "Aggravated" mechanic which causes enemies to take Bleed damage as if they were moving.
  • Banners no longer have a reservation, but no longer grant passive bonuses. Instead, place them for a larger bonus.

Mechanical Reworks

• New base types with higher defensive values now drop throughout the endgame from Yellow maps onward. These new base types have higher defensive values than the old highest base types.
  • To help Life builds keep up, Life modifiers have been buffed, resulting in up to 189 Maximum Life at tier 1 on a rare, or you can put on Kaom's Heart for +1000!
  • Ward saw some adjustments with more access to Ward Restoration and a nerf to Olroth's Resolve.
    • Mark assured everyone Ward Loop is still possible!
• In addition, quality was changed to be multiplicative rather than additive. This means on weapons it grants 20% more Physical Damage, and on armour it grants 20% more local defenses.
• Endurance charges no longer grant elemental resistance and instead grant 4% damage reduction for elemental damage.
  • In combination with this previous point, there are now new maximum elemental resistance nodes near Marauder, and maximum elemental resistance modifiers can now roll on Jewels.
  • Due to all the increases in elemental mitigation, values of Physical Damage taken as Elemental or Chaos Damage have been decreased.
• All block passives have had their values increased and are now stronger, making it possible to achieve block cap with just the passive tree.
• Life leech passives have also been buffed to more easily provide bonuses to maximum leech.
  • Vaal Pact yet again provides instant leech, but only for melee.
• Wands are another big winner, getting a major crit buff and an attack speed buff on Wand Skills.
  • To compensate, Sandstorm Visage is now rarer but no less powerful.

Item Quantity Removed

• The "Increased Item Quantity" stat has been removed in its entirety! Item Rarity still exists and is another axis to scale once you achieve power, but GGG wants to get away from specialized Magic Find builds.
  • Many MF Uniques have been modified to only give Rarity.
  • On Ventor's Gamble, Mana Reservation Efficiency replaces the Item Quantity.
  • Many other MF Uniques have been removed entirely.

Endgame Changes

There are also significant balance changes coming to the endgame, some of which are highly experimental and may not stick around for future leagues.

• Gain a 6th Map Device slot to further increase your loot and encounter difficulty.
• There are new special encounters in Tier 16+ maps, for example the Nameless Seer who offers you a Unique item from his inventory.
  • In addition he gives you the ability to Scry a map, swapping the Divination Cards it drops to a different map.
  • A map cannot have its divination cards swapped to multiple maps at a time.
  • Use an Orb of Scouring to reverse the effect.
• Several League Mechanics have been added to your maps or updated.
  • Blight has better Atlas Passives.
  • Ritual got new & reworked bases, the King in the Mists encounter and Affliction Spectres.
  • You can encounter the Wildwood in Tier 16 and 17 maps.
  • A random Sentinel may appear near the start of your map - activate it, then reap the rewards.
  • Interact with a Reflective Mist from Kalandra to obtain Reflected Jewelry, or a Reflecting Mist to use on an item of your choosing.
  • Several Harvest Beasts were added to the core pool, including the Black Morrigan.

Chisels

• There are now 6 Chisels available to increase map quality, though only 1 can be applied to a map at a time. They increase the following things:
  • Quantity
  • Rarity
  • Pack Size
  • Currency Item Drops
  • Divination Card Drops
  • Scarab Drops

T17s and Valdo's Puzzle Boxes

• Tier 17 Maps can be Chiseled and Vaaled.
• Valdo's Puzzle Box drops more frequently, but rewards chase items like Mageblood less frequently (keeping the overall amount of Magebloods unchanged).

QoL Changes

The 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League launches alongside several quality of life changes! Here's a few of our favorites:

• You no longer need to interact with waypoints to activate them; they simply activate when you walk by.
• When using keyboard and mouse, you are now be able to pick up items from further away.
• Some bosses now have static life bars that are displayed at the top of the screen. (Note: Not all bosses have them as of now, but more will be added in the future).
• Hovering a map inside your atlas now shows players what divination cards are available to drop inside that map.
• Players' reservation effects no longer deactivate upon death, meaning Auras and Heralds no longer require reactivation upon dying.
• Harvest encounters are started with a single button press, rather than multiple.
• Quality provided by items such as Blacksmith's Whetstones, Armourer's Scraps and Cartographer's Chisels are no longer based off of the item's rarity, and are instead based on the item's level. This starts off as applying 20% quality to low level items, reducing as the item level of the item increases.

Check out our teaser highlight post to read more!

3.25 On the Horizon!

That's everything we know so far about Path of Exile's 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League reveal and the upcoming balance changes. Are you looking for more news on Path of Exile builds, events, and upcoming patches? Then head over to our Discord and select the Path of Exile role in #roles to stay up to date with our content development. Stay sane, Exile!

Written by: Tenkiei

Contributions by: Void241

Reviewed by: snail