Path of Exile: Betrayal

[Hercanic]

Path of Exile is a free-to-play Action RPG, supported entirely (and extremely successfully) off of cosmetics and stash tab sales. You can find the game on Steam, Xbox, or download the client directly from GGG's website.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8Cpi4dFjm8

I have played PoE for well over 5 years now, since beta. ARPG is my favorite genre, and this is my go-to game. I adore the sheer depth and creativity you have over your character builds. For example, the designers have been fundamentally against hard caps, so you can push movement speed, attack speed, number of projectiles, and more to absolutely absurd levels. To the point of crashing the game. And the developers, GGG, are totally cool with that. Some of the more infamous builds could even crash a server in the early days. So if you want, you can literally make a game-breaking build. There are many lolz and memes to be had in this game.

Every 3 to 4 months, GGG releases a new league. Everyone starts out fresh, like a Diablo 3 season. But the key difference is there is always a brand new league mechanic that significantly affects the game. Every year, the developers have gone bigger and bolder. They treat leagues as a way to field test wildly new and experimental ideas, and the successful ideas go on to be added to the base game.

In Bestiary League, you hunted exotic animals to capture and add to your personal menagerie. Using the Blood Altar, you could then battle a group of those animals to imbue your items with new and potent properties.

In Incursion League, you time-traveled to an ancient Vaal temple when it was still under construction, slaughtering one of two architects to shape how the temple ended up being built. Once you'd altered the temple's timeline 11 times, you could explore it in the present day and reap its lost wealth.

In Delve League, which just ended, you plunged into an infinitely scaling dungeon called the Azurite Mine. The very darkness of the mine could devour you, so to keep it at bay you had to light the way as you went deeper and deeper, uncovering outposts of lost civilizations that long succumbed to the darkness.

In the new Betrayal League, all three of the above league mechanics are coming back in the form of new masters, along with an entirely new league mechanic and master to go with it. You investigate a criminal organization called the Immortal Syndicate, and piece together who is at its helm through interrogating, bargaining, or executing its lieutenants. Your choices affect the rankings and power of its leaders, which ultimately determines what loot you can pry out of their cold, dead hands.

This new league starts today, in just a few hours. Want to join me?

If you're interested, I have also written a build and leveling guide for a Necromancer character. It pushes minion count and damage to levels beyond most other summoner builds. Path of Exile is one of the few games to get it right when it comes to pets, in my opinion, not treating them as some weak extra but an actual, legitimate source of damage to base your entire build around, and allowing you to create dozens upon dozens of minions, even into the hundreds. If you love the idea of leading a massive army of undead as much as I do, check it out:

{3.5} Speaker for the Dead | 74 minion Summoner | League Starter, Leveling Guide | 4.7M Shaper DPS

[Hercanic]

Betrayal league has started!