Here, I want to show you a sneak peek of POE 3.22 and all the relevant information that is available at the moment from the perspective of a minion player.
POE 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors is a league where you have to participate in a deadly tournament where you battle powerful champions from ray-class to prove yourself worthy.
League Mechanic Basics
This mortal combat plays like an auto battle where you assign different Champions to varying positions, utilizing their individual strengths. So, your team can push through and destroy all the enemy totems, ending the match.
And I said Champion’s totem is destroyed. They will respawn on death after a short period, which is also true for the player.
League Specific League Specific Rewards
Winning a match unlocks a range of generic rewards, including regular items and POE Currency, but also items that can be used to upgrade your Champions or recruit new ones.
There are also different types of consumables that increase your hours of winning a match. Consumable rewards that can be applied to passive points, transforming attributes into a variety of different stats. You can also see a type of reward called Omens, which you can put in your inventory and activate under specific conditions to grant you certain Boons.
New Atlas Keystones
In addition to the new POE Items feature before, there are also couple of new unique items and 16 new Atlas Keystones, like Extreme Archeology, which sets the number of available explosives to one while also supercharging it granting huge radius and placement distance to that singular charge.
The others we know about are Lucid Dreams, which allow you to buy POE Currency to manipulate wild side areas; Speaker of the Dead, which allows Tormented Spirits to possess you; Destructive Play, which also summons additional bosses when witnessing map bosses; and Cassia’s Pride, which increases the damage done by Towers but reduces the players’ damage to monsters during Blight encounters.
Sanctum Reintroduction & Itemization
Sanctum is one of my favorite lead mechanics of all time and it’s now a core mechanic of the game.
Beyond that, it has also been itemized. This means that you can trade your Sanctum after completing a flaw saving things, like Resolve, Inspiration, Boons, and Afflictions.
Relic Changes
Relics are now tradable as well, although Sanctified Relics have not made a return just yet.
The relics, including uniques, have been rebalanced and the Sanctum now requires Lycia to be killed in both forms to be completed.
Resolve Loss Mitigation
There’s one more important thing in regards to the Sanctum rework.
Your defenses now mitigate some of the Resolve loss by hits. 20% of Resolve loss is prevented, which is scaled by Armour. You have a 6% chance to avoid all Resolve loss, which is scaled by Evasion. And you now have a Resolve Aegis, which can absorb half of the Resolve damage taken and scales with Energy Shield but breaks on Impact.
14 New Support Gems
There are 14 new Support Gems being introduced in POE 3.22, of which at least two are relevant for minions.
Returning Projectile Support
Returning Projectile Support allows projectiles to return and pierce all targets while doing so. This includes a 70% less damage reduction for the Returning Projectiles, making it pretty unappealing for single target damage.
I’m also afraid that because of the introduction of Returning Projectile support anomalous Faster Projectiles Support will be changed, which would throwback projectile based minions to their 3.20 state.
Ascendancy Changes
The Chieftain and the Guardian Ascendancy will be reworked in POE 3.22 and I’m going to take a closer look at the latter because it’s one of the few ascendancies that are currently used by minion builds.
Guardian Specifics
In general, the focus of the Guardian has shifted from exclusively buffing allies and party members to buffing allies, enhancing link skills, and using wholly themed minions, which fits the general theme of the Guardian rather well.
Bastion of Hope grants your nearby allies 25% chance to block attack or spell damage if you’ve recently attacked or cast a spell, respectively.
Harmony of Purpose now grants allies between you and the link target Elemental Damage with hits being lucky and gives them plus five percent to Maximum Elemental Resistances, whereas enemies between the linked targets cannot apply Elemental Ailments.
Radiant Faith now grants allies armored Energy Shield exclusively based on Reserved Mana.
Unwavering Faith no longer grants additional Physical Damage Reduction but instead increases the Recovery Rate of Life, Mana, and Energy Shield by 5 per Aura.
Time of Need now removes Curses and Elemental Ailments as well as fully healing you every 4 seconds.
Radiant Crusade no longer gives more damage and Onslaught to allies and instead gives you access to the minion skill Sentinel of Radiance, which will also take 10% of damage from your hits for you.
Hopefully, this minion also gives some of the bonuses that were previously found on the notable. Because I have a hard time seeing this minion do a lot of damage since it cannot be scaled by Support Gems.
Unwavering Crusades now grants a 25% chance to trigger Summon Elemental Relic when you are nearby allies kill an enemy.
I’m not quite sure how that damage scaling on this minion works. I could see it being based on the damage of your main weapon, for example. But that’s mere speculation at this point.
A holy minion themed build, utilizing skills, like Holy Relic and Dominating Blow can be seen in the 3.22 sneak peek of the Sanctum rework. The Guardian exclusive minions are likely absent because they’re still being rebalanced or required to kill enemies to be summoned in the case of the Elemental Relics.
