Grinding Gear Games officially unveiled the mystery of Path of Exile The Forbidden Sanctum on December 1st at 11:00 AM PST live on Twitch.
In general, the new expansion mainly includes the following points. First, several large systems like the Atlas Tree and Eldritch altars were overhauled. Second, the much-debated Archnemesis system will be replaced by new Path of Exile monster mods. Third, many previously underutilized unique weapons received significant buffs. The new expansion pack also introduces the Ruthless mode aimed at hardcore specially designed for Diablo 2 veterans.
A Roguelike Dungeon
Path of Exile The Forbidden Sanctum was designed mainly around the titular roguelike dungeon. However, the dungeon is designed to be very similar to many of the previous PoE expansions in that it enhances the Path of Exile leveling experience.
Since leveling up is a priority for unlocking RPGs, the introduction of this dungeon actually means you can dive into its deadly depths early on in your adventure. Specifically, you need to run like crazy in this four-story dungeon while ensuring your survival. At the same time, there is a boss waiting for you to challenge on each floor. Therefore, it may take several attempts before you can successfully run this dungeon.
Resolve
With every new area or map you explore in the game, you’ll be able to enter the Sanctum. But once you enter the Forbidden Sanctum, the difficulty of the journey you’re about to face will be constrainted by a new resource called Resolve.
You may feel very unfamiliar with this resource. In response to this problem, Chris Wilson, the producer of Resolve, also explained in the livestream. He stated that he designed it this way to separate player progress from player health. Specifically, if your character is hit by a monster or environmental hazard while running the dungeon, their Resolve level will be lowered. If your character’s Resolve level keeps fluctuating, it means their health will suffer greatly. This will lead to a phenomenon. That is, it’s possible to lose a run in the Sanctum without actually dying. This can be a welcome relief for players of hardcore buxic roles.
Rooms With Different Effects
Since you’ll come across different types of rooms, you’ll feel that each time you walk through Sanctum is different. And each type of room will have a different effect on how you run the dungeon. Some rooms will bring you afflictions. And as you progress through the dungeon, these Afflictions will gradually increase. From time to time, you’ll encounter Major Afflictions in certain rooms. This requires you to keep an eye on your Resolve level and find some Boons and Major Boons to offset this damage. Otherwise, to a certain extent, your ability to Resolve recovery will stop completely.
Sometimes, you will come across some Fountain rooms. Here you can supplement your Resolve. Sometimes, you’ll also enter rooms with Afflicted Fountains. Here you can restore more Resolve, but you also need to pay a certain price. As you run the dungeon, you can also accumulate a new PoE Currency called Aureus coins. However, these currencies can only be used at merchants, but aren’t carried over between runs.
What You Can Get From Forbidden Sanctum
In the process of exploring the Forbidden Sanctum, you will receive the following three kinds of rewards.
First of all, according to the practice of each expansion, when you defeat the monsters in the Sanctum, you can pick up regular item drops from them. With these items, you can get some nice upgrades.
Secondly, you will find some POE Currency in some rooms. At this time, you can choose according to the situation. You can choose to claim the reward immediately. You can choose to clear the floor you’re on and take a gamble to see if you can get a higher payout. You can also choose to complete all the dungeon content in one go to get even bigger rewards.
Finally, when you’re running a dungeon, you’ll find a lot of Relics. Each Relic can be placed in a specific altar. The role of these Relics is to act as a variety of meta-progression, which can make your future Sanctum runs stronger. When your dungeon run is nearing the end, you will encounter a special Sanctified Relic. This Relic comes with mods that directly affect your characters’ build. The peculiarity of such mods is that they cannot be crafted or modified in traditional ways. They can only be changed when you explore certain rooms in the Sanctum. The purpose of this design is to encourage players to take on difficult challenges.
New Content And Features
*The Forbidden Sanctum is easily the most exciting new feature in the Path of Exile 3.20 expansion. But in fact, this new expansion also includes many new changes. For example, in order to allow players to be more professional, Atlas Tree has been transformed. Eldritch Altars has also made some adjustments to give players more clarity on the rewards they may receive.
*In the new expansion, the ever-controversial Archnemesis mods have also been replaced by the newly introduced monster mods system. In this new system, each mod has a specific, clearly stated effect rather than a vaguely complex mix of effects. This way players can quickly identify what a monster mod can do and what might make it dangerous.
*Path of Exile 3.20 also introduces several new skill gems, such as Volcanic Fissure and Frozen Legion. Volcanic Fissure is a fiery slam attack that can chase enemies around corners before erupting. If you use Frozen Legion, it will summon a ring of icy statues around your character that all attack in a big sweeping cleave with your currently equipped weapon.
*This update will also introduce some new Vaal melee skills. Actually, these skills are still a continuation of the trend of Vaal skill gems. You only need to collect souls when killing enemies to unlock a special Vaal variant of the skill. At the same time, as long as the soul reaches a certain amount, you can use this skill. In addition, you will find that Vaal Flicker Strike will flicker dozens of times during use. In fact, it’s a dangerous sign. Because you will become very vulnerable in the process. If you can make it to the end, though, anytime you hit an enemy, you’ll do a ton of damage to them.
*Meanwhile, Vaal Cleave has two unique buffs, but both require you to fulfill certain requirements to trigger them. When you kill a rare enemy, you trigger the first buff. This buff helps you temporarily steal the enemy’s mods and use them on your own mods. Whenever you kill a rare or unique enemy, you trigger the second buff. This buff can help you greatly enhance your regular Cleave.
*Curses actually got some balance changes as well. After the release of the new expansion, you can put curses to good use against unique monsters and pinnacle bosses. Meanwhile, Jewels has also received some tweaks. They will be a better source of ailment mitigation that players can take advantage of. Players can also expect some nice quality of life changes – energy shields now appear as a separate bar above your character, rather than overlaid on top of your health, and the Beastcrafting recipe for adding mods to flasks will now actually state the mod accurately role.
*Finally, the new content I want to mention is the Ruthless mode that has attracted much attention from players. This is a new mode introduced with POE The Forbidden Sanctum. The original intention of this mode is not to buff enemies to oblivion, but to reduce your power. Therefore, you will find that there are many more character banners in this mode, such as Solo Self-Found, Hardcore for you to challenge. In this mode, you will find that the item drop rates, especially magic, rare and unique items are extremely low. However, once you find a item, your character will be upgraded very quickly. In general, this new mode is more suitable for those who have been looking for a real hardcore experience to try.
