PoE Scourge: The Blood Crucible explained, all abilities
Click it, kill it, equip it, swap it, upgrade it
Updated: GGG has updated the league mechanic after only a week in. Many players have found the experience of the mechanic to be somewhat underwhelming, either because you cannot clear the corrupted maps, or that the gear it drops is somewhat underwhelming. Because of this, the Blood Crublie is now much more rewarding especially when you’re clearing your Atlas maps and transforming into the Scourge lands. You can read more on the seasonal mechanic changes here.
Path of Exile’s latest league is now underway and with it, an entirely new mechanic: the Blood Crucible. This unholy item sits adjacent to your inventory and you then offer it an item, which will then be slowly upgraded the more you venture into the other realm it teleports you into after killing enemies.
Yes, Path of Exile is now having you participate in the lovely act of blood sacrifices, which you’ll regularly do by simply playing the game and murdering the inhabitants of the island you seem destined to grind on.
Scourge runs from now until the next major update in about three months, so until then – unless you don’t participate – it’s time to get comfortable with gathering blood from your fallen foes to make those boots extra shiny.
You’ll be able to get the Blood Crucible from The Last to Die as soon as you leave The Lioneye’s Watch (the first ‘town’ after you beat the tutorial) and will then be able to equip it too.
Once you do, the entire game will then focus on the need for ‘corruption’, as you kill you’ll earn blood which can then be spent to enter another dimension where you’ll do more killing and all the murder that happens in this world will then result in you earning points that will go into levelling up your chosen item.
Blood Crucible Skills
PoE also introduces a new Skill system with Scourge which is entirely linked with the Blood Crucible. With it, you’ll be able to level up the Crucible itself to bring you more things in-game like being able to absorb more corruption to better level up your gear. There’s a total of 15 skills to level up, each taking additional points to make a total of 63 points needed to get these skills to their maximum. As well, you’ll only be able to unlock additional skills by dumping points into the other skills, so to unlock the bottom row, you’ll need to add 40 points spent before you can even reach them.
| Ability Name | What it does | Maximum Points | Points needed to unlock |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chaotic Adornment | Jewellery absorbs more corruption | 5 | 0 |
| Twisted Metal | Armour absorbs more corruption | 5 | 0 |
| Murderous Desecration | Weapons and quivers absorb more corruption | 5 | 0 |
| Alternate History | Transform unique equipment | 1 | 10 |
| Trypophobia | Chance to add more sockets | 5 | 10 |
| Stitched Wounds | Chance to add links to sockets | 5 | 10 |
| Golden Blood | Chance for the explicit modifier to rare or magic items | 5 | 20 |
| Anomalous Aura | Chance for beneficial modifiers one tier higher than usual | 5 | 20 |
| Stabilising Energy | Chance for detrimental modifiers one tier lower than usual | 5 | 20 |
| Crushed Organs | Add an additional slot to the Crucible | 1 | 30 |
| Warped Sluice | Additional absorbing from items for each time the map has been transformed | 5 | 30 |
| Fervent Dreams | Maps absorb more corruption | 5 | 30 |
| Restless Nightmares | Additional Dream Furnace slot | 1 | 40 |
| Strange Forces | Chance to gain beneficial modifier | 5 | 40 |
| Intensifying Emulsion | Chance to raise the tier of an explicit modifier | 5 | 40 |
Each map that you enter has a limited time on it for how long you can stay in the other dimension before it warps you back to where you entered, making it beneficial to not just immediately activate the Crucible until you’re both fully ready and the blood is completely topped out, allowing you to spend as much time as you can in the area.
Seeing as I’ve now become readdicted to Path of Exile, keep your eye out for any future guides to the game, especially once Path of Exile 2 launches sometime later… in 2024?! What?!
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