GGG reveal the PoE 3.17 manifesto, showcase design changes for the upcoming season

Here is a summary of the changes we can see in the POE 3.17 Manfiesto.

Craig Robinson

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Grinding Gear Games, the developers behind the hit game, Path of Exile, has published a huge manifesto ahead of the upcoming Siege of the Atlas reveal. The PoE 3.17 developer manifesto is packed with information, referring to balance ideas, design philosophy and other content. We will go through and highlight some of the biggest changes and the purpose behind it all. Note that this information will get added to the official patch notes when they release in the next week.

While we are giving the most important snippets, we have linked to the full manifesto, which you can browse at your leisure on the POE forums, including the calculations GGG are using. If you are a huge build theory crafter, this will likely interest you more, as this is designed for digestible casual readers.

PoE 3.17 manifesto

The general themes throughout the PoE 3.17 manifesto contain references to certain gameplay styles they want to change. Moreso, there is plenty of ability reworks on the way. We had an idea that this content was coming, especially with the recently reworked Dervish and other uniques containing new gameplay mechanics.

PoE 3.17 manifesto direct hit spell balancing

Hit based spellcasting is by far one of the worst spell casting mechanics for builds. It is generally harder to maximize your damage output, along with other mechanics being generally more efficient, see minions, totems, mines and other mechanics along those lines. So, GGG is actively working on making direct spell hits better, especially on spells like Orb of Storms, Flameblast, Lightning Tendrils, Ice Spear new features. This is to compensate for the low defence, scaling the damage to make up for that. Moreso, most direct hit spells get better by 45% more damage at gem level 20, scaling to 60% at level 25.

Also, any skill requiring gems that rely on threshold gems is improving. GGG note that these skills need serious modifiers to be competitive, but they lose out on the defensiveness. Skills like Freezing Pulse, Frostbolt, Heavy Strike and Cleave are examples of this. And, to make them competitive, we will see nerfs to Totems, Trap, Mine and Trigger to make ensure direct hit skills are more attractive. All in all, the theory is all the modifiers should look more attractive and balanced. See the changes to Seismic Trap’s AOE efficiency, Toxic Rain, Detonate Dead and Change Desecration for example.

Bow balancing

Direct hit spells aren’t the only thing getting decent changes in the PoE 3.17 manifesto. Bows are coming under changes, largely down to their hit skills being underpowered in comparison too. The reason why is because you need a lot of build investment to make them work. Meanwhile, there are things like Toxic Rain working as the only really efficient building for bow users out there.

To address this issue, bows get the same elemental scaling as two-handed melee weapons, which improves the elemental scaling on bows greatly. In addition, bows are flat out stronger, while bow related masteries are improved. Meanwhile, quivers are now stronger, so it should make the general archer aesthetic feel much better. Not to mention these quivers add extra scaling to Chaos damage or physical meaning it even buffs builds like Toxic Rain Pathfinder even more. However, be aware there are intentions to nerf Toxic Rain’s high-level damage, but that is in line with the buffs to quivers. In other words, get chaos scaling quivers and this build still largely works the same.

Unique balancing

As we move into the Siege of the Atlas, GGG is making new uniques and reworking others. While we got a few previews courtesy of the game’s social media account, there are even more mechanical reworks.

Like the other sections, this is all about shifting power around since certain builds can overly benefit from these mechanics. If a build does benefit, the power has shifted around so they can still benefit from these mechanics, but it shouldn’t stack on other systems to make them overtly dominant in comparison to other builds.

The main ones in the POE 3.17 manifesto look at the Mach of the Legion rework. The idea behind the change is to nerf the number of blessings you can get, restricted to one. Certain builds could benefit from the multiple blessings, so it meant certain skills scaled a lot harder. Instead, you can expect to find additional blessings as support gems. That way, those builds that wanted those blessings can still use them if they wish. In addition, the aura level of March of the Legion uniques so those with blessings from the mechanic scale better. Once again, this section of the game means that players will get to use their builds largely the same, but it shifts the power around so that certain builds and items don’t overly benefit where others can’t.

Meanwhile, there are other changes, to Blood Magic keystones, with Shade Form, and Dancing Dervish reworks getting better explanations. If you want to see more on that content, remember to click the forum link and check the unique item balance. For convenience, we have linked again to it so you can get to the page easily.