Path of Exile: Blight - New Assassin and Mine Skills
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In less than a week, Grinding Gear Games will be launching the Blight expansion for their free to play action-RPG Path of Exile. Among all the other changes and improvements, the expansion will be introducing and revamping skills related to the game's Assassin and Saboteur classes. So, if you'd like to read up on the new Assassin skill gems and the upcoming changes to Path of Exile's mines (of the exploding kind), you can now do so.
There's also this video that shows off the new Assassin gems:
And this one dedicated to the new mine functionality:
Here's more on the latter:
The Blight expansion will come alongside major changes to the Mine system, as well as three new Mines, a new reservation skill for trappers and miners, three new supports and reworks to existing mine supports and unique items.
Mine Mechanic ChangesStormblast Mine
- Mines are now thrown, letting you deploy them at long range.
- Mines take less of your time to place now, taking 0.25 seconds for each throw.
- Mine Detonation is now always Instant.
- Mines detonate in sequence. Each mine detonation starts a detonation timer on one or more mines in an area around it, with the detonation time getting faster each time. This also means that you can continue to throw mines while a detonation sequence is occurring, and they'll be detonated by the sequence. This works particularly well for mines which have additional effects for each detonation in sequence.
- Mine skills each have unique, stacking auras that affect enemies. The more mines you deploy, the more auras affecting enemies around them. These mines are considered aura skills, allowing many Aura stats from passives and items to apply to them.
- Mines reserve mana while they're active, but have much lower mana costs.
- Mines can be detonated much earlier when deployed, including detonating in the air.
- The base mine limit is now 15, up from 5. You can get up to 23 mines at once by combining passives and the Minefield Support.
- The base mine duration is now 5 seconds, except for Smoke Mine which has an 8 second duration.
Stormblast Mine is a new skill available at level 1. When placed, it has a stacking aura that increases the damage nearby enemies take by 3%. This means that it provides 45% increased damage taken when you've got a full set of mines placed, even more if you have additional mines from passives and items.
When you detonate Stormblast Mines, they release a lightning nova around them, with a high chance to shock and increased shock effect.
Icicle Mine
Icicle Mine is a new skill available at level 12. When placed, it has a stacking aura that increases critical chance for hits against enemies around it by 10%. When you detonate Icicle Mine, it releases a nova of projectiles, firing five projectiles from the first mine, then an additional projectile for each two mines in the detonation sequence.
Icicle Mine replaces existing copies of Freeze Mine.
Pyroclast Mine
Pyroclast Mine is the level 28 Mine skill. When placed, it has a stacking aura that adds fire damage to hits against enemies near it, which grows as the gem levels. When detonated, the mine releases a fire nova and a salvo of mortar projectiles that fly up before raining down on enemies around the mine. As with Icicle Mine, for each two detonations in the sequence, an additional mortar is fired.
Pyroclast Mine replaces existing copies of Fire Nova Mine.
Summon Skitterbots
Summon Skitterbots is a reservation skill that summons two fast moving, invulnerable minions. One has a shock aura while the other has a chilling aura. While they're active, they'll grant you more Trap and Mine damage. They'll each also look for and activate traps and mines near enemies. On Mines, they'll activate and then re-arm the mine, which won't set off a detonation sequence. On Traps, they'll trigger a number of traps at once.
Blastchain Mine Support & High-Impact Mine Support
Existing Remote Mine Supports have been changed into the Blastchain Mine Support, a level 8 gem that turns supported spells, bow attacks or wand attacks into mines. It now grants less damage as a result of the much shorter mine throw time, and 5% more damage for each mine detonated in sequence.
We've also added a new support at level 31, the High-Impact Mine Support that also turns supported spells, bow attacks or wand attacks into mines. The supported skills deal less damage, but have an aura that gives hits against nearby enemies a chance to deal Double Damage.
These two supports let you choose to specialize in creating long cascades or creating powerful auras when turning a skill into a mine.
Swift Assembly Support
Swift Assembly Support is a new level 4 Support Gem for traps and mines. It grants a chance on throwing a trap or mine to throw an additional trap or mine, a smaller chance to throw two additional, and a very small chance to throw 3 additional. This is particularly useful for Mines, letting you get higher stacks of auras and longer detonation sequences without greatly extending your throw time.
Charged Mines Support
Similar to the Charged Traps Support, the new Charged Mines Support allows you to generate Power and Frenzy charges when detonating supported mines near enemies, with additional mine throwing speed per frenzy charge and critical chance per power charge.
Changes to Existing Gems and Items
- Minefield Support now places 4 mines rapidly, but with a slower total throw time. It allows 4 additional mines to be placed. It is now a level 38 gem.
- Smoke Mine doesn't start a sequence when detonated, grants more movement speed than before, and modifiers to mine duration will apply to the speed buff's duration.
- We've made changes to the Curtain Call and Tremor Rod unique items.
- The +1 Mine Placed shaper helmet mod will no longer appear on items, but existing modifiers will still remain. This is because placing additional mines is now more powerful as a result of various mine changes and Minefield changes.
