You can already reroll shaper maps, it's the elder and conqueror ones that are new.
I've found the conqueror ones to be particularly annoying. It seems like it's easy to get mass amounts of elder and shaper maps from maven witness strats, but conq was always the one that lagged behind and got the most lopsided. In any case, it's a welcome change for someone like me who hates trading for maps.
I'm probably more keen on the map device add since it frees up a few columns of inventory space and helps mitigate the occasional mistake of putting in map you just picked up.
I did look pretty hard through the teaser to see if they had anything hidden in the background, but the only thing seems to be them porting over the outlining of valid targets for selected currencies.
On May 28 2025 11:52 BLinD-RawR wrote: its the little things like map inventory, I don't play SSF but I can imagine horizon being able to reroll elder and conqueror maps is huge for them.
Or semi ssf. I play trade but I usually don't buy maps. Horizons are huge for atlas completion and very good for guardian maps. Now they are good for elder and conquerer, which is great. For me elder maps were always the most annoying. Idk if I'm just unlucky but my distribution would always end up like 1-7-14-7 or something stupid.
I don't think slinger is gonna be much better this league than previous. Mark did touch on wanting to spend more time improving things like wand builds in an upcoming league and that next league will have more character-focused updates, so you might want to wait on that one.
No idea what I want to start as. Pretty much have to just play something standard and reroll later once all the unknowns come out (runegrafts, mercs, etc) that you'll be building around. There are a couple nice buffs for self-casting, but that's also already my most played archetype and usually a bad time at league start. Maybe something melee?
The Elementalist changes are kind of weird to me. Golems actually look appealing now, and depending on FF/F prices might be an even more appealing option for the other two ascendancies. Just the one ascendancy gets you to 3 golems with 100% increased effect, auto-revive, and ele immunity. 3 points on the tree for Golem Command gets you to 300% total effectiveness (w/ gem quality) and a 4th golem.
The golems also got buffed on top of that. Now (with 300% effectiveness) you can have some combination of 60% increased defenses and 300 flat life regen, 30% cast speed & 54 flat mana regen, 87% increased damage & 60% increased aoe, 51% chaos resist & 48 dot multi, or 120% crit chance and 1200+ flat accuracy, all of which presumably go up more with skill levels. Obviously they'll still die some so uptime isn't 100%, but those are pretty large numbers to work with.
The rest of the elementalist changes just feel like nerfs. Lots of lost damage for most setups in exchange for some inconsistent defenses. I think on an ignite build I wouldn't even take shaper of flames any more and probably opt for shaper of storms, golems, and heart of destruction.
Yeah the starcaller is kind of interesting. Need to see more about its numbers and damage types to see how best to build around it, but I could see a world where the golems make sense since increased aoe, big accuracy, crit, attack speed, etc. are all things that it probably wants.
I will likely play, although with a late start due to a vacation, but am not sure yet what to start with at all. Maybe I just look at the entire skill list and see if I have a spontaneous urge to play something I see.
I'm not as keen on the announcements from the stream as everyone seems to be. I dislike mechanics that ask for additional gearing. I really liked Heist but that was despite the gearing of all the NPCs, which I despised. Mercenaries seem to be just the gearing part but to gain power instead of utility. Imho, if PoE has a significant weakness in my eyes is that it is too gear dependent. We don't need more and more slots that need to be filled, making a single character more expensive - currency and/or time-wise - to deck out. Maybe it's not going to be so bad but it's certainly not something I'm looking forward to. The endgame things I will need to see in action. The memory strains seem cool but an update Sirus makes me fear I might not enjoy the boss cycle. I was already garbage at that boss fight so if it gets even harder now I may be forced to ignore it. I really like the changes to Kingsmarch. It's about what I imagined in my head when I thought about it going core. Betrayel changes seem fine. I like betrayel and hope they didn't destroy the Catarina fight, which was among my favourite boss fights in the game.
So yeah, I'm not really as excited to play. If it wasn't for all the quality of life and the fact it has been a year since the last league, this would likely be a skip for me.
I'm mixed on the mercs, too, but I've found that thinking of it as an extension of a build makes it something more appealing. We don't really have enough (any) details to do that yet, so it's just a thing tacked on for now. But, a lot of the meh uniques suddenly look interesting when considered for a merc (e.g. Kaom's Binding).
I think you'll be able to ignore gearing mercs until you're in the endgame and want to start synergizing with your build. You'll be replacing them constantly until max level and even then looking for ones with better skills/supports, so it probably won't be a focal point for awhile. Even then, there's good chance you just throw a couple utility uniques on them for a good chunk of time.
Probably the worst part of this league for me is that the core endgame farming is pretty much the same stuff - same old maps, same old league mechanics, same old atlas tree, same old fragments. Yeah there are some tweaks/new additions, but it's all pretty much the same. I'm definitely feeling the stale. Also I didn't want Kingsmarch back at all. That's at least a 5x stale multiplier.
On June 08 2025 01:27 Craton wrote: I'm mixed on the mercs, too, but I've found that thinking of it as an extension of a build makes it something more appealing. We don't really have enough (any) details to do that yet, so it's just a thing tacked on for now. But, a lot of the meh uniques suddenly look interesting when considered for a merc (e.g. Kaom's Binding).
I think you'll be able to ignore gearing mercs until you're in the endgame and want to start synergizing with your build. You'll be replacing them constantly until max level and even then looking for ones with better skills/supports, so it probably won't be a focal point for awhile. Even then, there's good chance you just throw a couple utility uniques on them for a good chunk of time.
Probably the worst part of this league for me is that the core endgame farming is pretty much the same stuff - same old maps, same old league mechanics, same old atlas tree, same old fragments. Yeah there are some tweaks/new additions, but it's all pretty much the same. I'm definitely feeling the stale. Also I didn't want Kingsmarch back at all. That's at least a 5x stale multiplier.
You make good points regarding the mercs. I guess we have to wait and see how it turns out in practice.
What did you expect them to change in the endgame? Or wished for? Maps have been the cornerstone since forever. Sure they changed quite a bit over the years but the core idea is still the same. Personally, if I get tired of mapping, I decide to go for a strategy that spends quite a bit of time outside maps (Heist, Blight, Delve, Sanctum). Regarding Kingsmarch, I think you can basically ignore it if you don't want to interact with it so I don't really see the downside? Unless your point is that they could have worked on something more exciting instead.
I'm rusty as heck wow died on mud flats trying to be fast.
Gona go zerk snek but the call of warden is hard to turn down. Theres a lot of drama atm between people who think bows are stronger than ever and the people who think zerk snek is out of control.
EPT
