Affliction League has been in full swing for about a month, so it's time to catch up with all the new and updated guides we've released over the past few weeks.
Build Updates
We've updated many of our League Starters and Endgame Builds to include new tech discovered over the course of Affliction League. New Spectres and ways to build are featured in many of the guides. We've also fully updated the Twink leveling guides to our new format. In the future we plan to release more builds including some which utilize brand new Transfigured gems.
As a reminder, all of the up to date guides have the 3.23 Affliction tag, but older guides can still be accessed through the Archive. Just be aware that archived guides haven't been updated for the current league, some of these builds are no longer playable whereas others require some adaptation to thrive in the current league.
The Meta Report
Our Meta Report looks at community events, popular builds, interesting mechanics and the state of the economy. This league, Transfigured Gems and Magic Find have absolutely dominated the meta. In this league, more so than any in recent history, there are dozens of builds just waiting to be discovered.
League Starters
The Week 1 Meta Report took a look at League Starters, comparing the builds which found success in Affliction to the top builds from Trial of the Ancestors. Bow builds came out on top, with many popular builds exploding in popularity.
Even early in the league, it was clear that the effects of Wisps and Wildwood Ascendancies would have a huge impact on builds and the economy. Many of the top builds from Affliction will be unique to this league, so be sure to play them before they disappear forever.
Transfigured Gems Part 1
For the second Meta Report of Affliction league, the focus was on exploring new Transfigured skills in a bit more depth. Righteous Fire of Arcane Devotion allows your Righteous Fire to scale off of Mana and with modifiers to Spell Damage. Ball Lightning of Static deals massive damage in exchange for having a cooldown, but clever Exiles found a way to bypass this using totems. Last but not least, Penance Brand of Dissipation is absolutely taking over the meta by dealing near infinite damage.
SSF & HC
In week 3, the Meta Report focused on builds in Solo Self-Found and Hardcore. Softcore Trade is by far the largest population group in Path of Exile, but there are interesting lessons to be learned from these alternative game modes as well.
In Solo-Self found you only use the items you found yourself making it a great source of budget builds that thrive within scarcity. Hardcore builds on the other hand need additional layers of defense. Therefore, they often sacrifice speed and damage in the name of survival.
Transfigured Gems Part 2
To wrap up the Affliction Meta Report we took a look at 4 more Transfigured gems. The new Lancing Steel of Spraying is a great trigger for Cast On Critical Strike builds. Lightning Conduit of the Heavens is still being explored, but has great potential when triggered. If you like Wand skills, Kinetic Bolt of Fragmentation is incredibly powerful offering great coverage and easy damage scaling. Finally, Ethereal Knives of the Massacre brings all the projectiles you need to wipe out entire screens in a single click.
Affliction League Guides
The Viridian Wildwood has been a huge part of farming currency this league. The wisps are a multiplier for loot bonuses from your map, atlas, or gear. We've released 3 new guides to help you navigate the mechanics brought by Affliction League.
Check out our Affliction Farming Guide to learn how Vivid Wisps, Wild Wisps or Primal Wisps affect the monsters in your map and their loot. We also go over strategies for running the Viridian Wildwood and synergistic league mechanics.
Here's a few things to look out for:
- Manage your Light correctly to explore as much of the Wildwood as you can.
- Collect Wisps by finding events.
- Check the vendors for valuable Tinctures, Charms and Corpses.
- Drop Divine Orbs from Wisp empowered monsters in your map!
Magic Find
To maximize your loot from the Viridian Wildwood, you need to start Magic Finding. This gives you another multiplier to the quantity and rarity of items dropped by slain enemies. Our Affliction Magic Find Strategy teaches you everything you need to know about trying Magic Find for the first time in this league.
Magic Find builds use specialized items to increase the Quantity and Rarity of items dropped in exchange for lower damage and weaker defenses. In exchange, monsters become explosions of loot, even in lower tier Maps!
Magic Finding has had a massive impact on the Affliction League economy as your chances of dropping a Mirror of Kalandra have never been higher.
New Spectres
The Breaker of Oaths is a brand new vendor in Affliction League who offers you the corpses of special monsters. These include enemies which normally can't be raised as Spectres including some of Path of Exile's most iconic bosses.
These Corpses come in different quality levels. The higher your Corpse's quality the more abilities it has access to. Perfect Corpses give you a wide variety of powerful Auras. This has lead to their inclusion in many builds. To learn more about how to incorporate new Spectres into your build be sure to check out our Affliction Spectre Guide!
New Crafting & Farming Guides
As part of our Affliction League guide updates, we've added new farming & crafting guides. Our farming guides help you understand the core mechanics behind Path of Exile's Leagues, whereas our crafting guides help you make the items you need for your perfect build.
Logbook Farming Guide
Expedition has a chance to drop special Expedition Logbooks, a standalone endgame activity. Farming Logbooks can be extremely lucrative especially early in a league. Learn about the best Logbook layouts and most efficient way to complete them to maximize your profits!
- Learn how to profit craft with Rog.
- Farm Dannig and Tujen Logbooks.
Essence Crafting Guide
Essences are a core part of Path of Exile's crafting system. They're a great way to make starter items and one of the best ways to make endgame gear as well. We've overhauled our existing Essence League Guide and turned it into a comprehensive crafting resource. Many of our crafting guides leverage Essences due to their efficiency, so understanding this crafting system is a crucial part of the Path of Exile experience. Check out our newly updated Essence Crafting guide now and use the knowledge to progress along your Affliction league journey.
Upcoming Content
If you enjoy the Ethereal Knives playstyle, keep your eyes peeled for our upcoming revamp of the EK Ignite Elementalist build. It's getting a full rework including an update to our new Build Progression Tool, stay tuned for that release!
Harvest Crafting Guide
Harvest Crafting mechanics are one of the best ways to make an endgame item. When combined with other crafting methods like Essence, Aisling and Fossils you can make some incredible things. Our upcoming Harvest Crafting Guide will take you through how each craft functions and the best way to combine them to achieve your desired outcomes.
Builder Improvement
We've gotten a ton of great feedback on our new Build Progression Tool released for the start of Affliction League. If you've enjoyed the more streamlined build experience keep an eye out for when we roll out a few more updates such as Cluster and Radius jewel support on our passive trees.
Stay Up to Date
We hope you find the new and updated guides useful in your Affliction league journey. With so many transfigured gems, you can expect new League starters on the horizon for 3.24. Based on what GGG said in a recent interview, we can expect Affliction to last around 4 months so there's plenty of time to progress your character. There's a few guides still in the works which didn't quite make it in time for the update, so stay tuned for those.
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
Reviewed by: Dredscythe