September 7, 2022

Lake of Kalandra League Expansion Overview

The long awaited 3.19 PoE is finally out and the new league is in full swing. There were a lot of hopes and fears associated with the Path of Exile update – Grinding Gear Games’ manifesto released at the very beginning of August promised big changes in the old meta.
Looking at PoE 3.19 builds, we can clearly see that many builds – for example, various necromancers – are really not popular anymore. In addition, players are very active in using PoE new skills that have been added in this league.
By the way, if you feel like being a little behind the game – on our portal you will find many useful Path of exile guides. In addition, you can always buy PoE boost to enjoy the game without wasting time on a long and tedious grind.
However, before making the Lake of Kalandra overview, we will take a look at the important changes and at the same time remind you which skills and items they affected.

Manifesto — summary and main important changes

Before introducing us to the Path of Exile new season, the developers released a very large manifesto – Lake of Kalandra changes that affected the balance of the characters.
Let’s quickly go selectively through some of the major changes:

Spell suppression

Spell suppression gained from items has been reduced by 1.5 – 2 times. This change means that now you won’t be able to stack a spell suppress cap only with the help of items — now you will have to reach special nodes from the right branch of the skill tree.
However, in order to compensate for this nerf, GGG threw a few extra percentages of spell suppress on the nodes — both in the tree and on the nodes of the cluster jewels.

Defiance banner

Quite a significant nerf of the banner — the percentages were cut in half. It now grants 15% increased Evasion and Armor Rating at level 1, up to 24% at level 20. Previously, these values were 30% and 49%, respectively. The nerf is connected with the fact that the combination of the banner with determination and grace gave a very large boost to defense.

Grasping mail

Grasping mail now grants a maximum of 50% increased Global Defenses.
This body armor was one of the most popular and expensive in the last league — thanks to the 100% increased Global Defenses mod. The reason was that with the help of recombinators it was possible to transfer this mod to a more suitable base.

The Gravicius Veiled Modifier

This bench-crafted modifier has been completely revamped — you now receive 8 – 9% of your physical hits as lightning or fire damage. This mod gave you 12-14% of your health as an energy shield before.

Fortify

Fortification duration has been increased by 1 second, and you can now pick up two additional nodes for 80% increased duration (each for 40%).

Traps

Additional sources of cooldown reduction and duration for traps have been removed, but the developers have increased the damage of these skills. First of all, this affected the Advanced Traps support gem, which no longer increases the duration of the skill, and the notable passive skill that was previously called The Hasty Reconstruction, which was completely reworked.
Fire trap, that has been extremely popular in RF builds, now has reduced damage for burning ground.

Explosive Arrow

A small rework of the explosive arrow, which now deals split damage with hits and ailments for each arrow on the enemy. Hits deal 6% more damage and ailments deal 3% more damage per arrow.

Cast on Death

Quite a strange nerf of the skill, that no longer grants 100% critical strike chance for its anomalous quality.
The support gem for this skill has also been changed — damage at level 20 has been reduced by 2 times (from 304% to 152%).

Crystallised Omniscience

Small but nasty nerf to the amulet that most builds in the last league were based on — now requires 15 omnisciense (was 10) per % of elemental penetration and resistance.

Minions

Quite a lot of news for fans of summoner builds, let’s highlight the main ones:

Minions have had their health and damage cut, but now builds are more dependent on items – with good investments, minion stats will be higher than before.
Now minion mods are available on most equipment, in addition, two new wand bases and one ring base with minion mods have been added. Minion mods can now also be rolled on Spirit shields.
Indomitable Army no longer grants 15% HP increase, but instead small 8% HP increase nodes have been added to the Grave Intentions cluster jewel.
Helmets now give 2 levels to ALL minion gems, not only socketed ones.
Unnatural Strength from the Necromancer’s Ascendancy now gives minions Unholy Might instead of 2 levels to minion gems.
Minions now deal 7x Bleed Damage, 3.5x Ignite Damage, and 2x Poison Damage, however, they no longer receive elevated bonuses from Frenzy, Power and Endurance charges. As a result, additional sources of Critical Strike Multiplier have been added. For example, The Spirit Offering now grants 148% crit chance and 39% crit multiplier at level 20 instead of resistances.

Reservation Mastery

And the last, but very strong and unpleasant change: the 15% Mana Reservation Efficiency node has been removed. We were not offered any alternatives, so now we just have to make do with fewer auras.

New League Content — Lake of Kalandra

Now we will move on to discussing the Lake of Kalandra expansion itself. In addition to the new Lake of Kalandra activity and uniques – we were also expecting the main mechanics overhaul and new challenges with rewards.

League mechanic

The Lake of Kalandra league mechanic itself is a journey across the lake of the legendary Kalandra with mirrored locations of Wraeclast. In these locations, you will come across familiar bosses, as well as events from the Atlas – such as Harbingers, Breach, etc.
Periodically, you will come across special pedestals on the way, with which you can mirror jewelry. Mirrored jewelry will have extremely enhanced mods along with negative mods that will debuff you.
Players are given a Mirrored Table, with which you can choose the content you are interested in. It will be possible to change the size of the map and the upcoming encounters. The farther the player is from the portal, the more difficult the opponents and the higher the reward.

New spells

Lake of Kalandra 4 new gems were also introduced: Lightning Conduit, Overcharge, Galvanic Field and Alchemist’s Mark. As we can see in the league, Lightning Conduit is incredibly popular and builds based on it deal massive lightning damage.

New items

As promised by the developers, Lake of Kalandra 14 new uniques were added and more than 100 existing were reworked. Also, a new unique map called The Tower of Ordeals has been added to the game.
Atlas Memories – new items that invite you to immerse yourself in the memories of our friends — Einhar, Kirac, Niko or Alva. You can apply this item to the Atlas and go on a journey through several maps, the further you advance, the more difficult your encounters will be – it can be Breachs, Harbingers, etc. These items drop on high-level red maps and can be traded to other players.

Archnemesis mods rework

Another long-awaited change is the mob balance rework with Archnemesis mods. Now rare mobs with these mods spawn much less often, and some mods have been removed or changed. Also, the developers have increased the value of the rewards that drop from rare monsters.

Divine Orbs

Divine Orbs are now used to craft the most expensive mods on the workbench instead of Exalts. As we can judge from the league, this has led to the fact that Divines are now many times more expensive than Exalted Orbs. In addition, vendor recipes for Divine orbs have been removed from the game — selling 6-link now costs 20 Orbs of Fusing.

Beyond and Harvest overhaul

When opening a portal to Beyond, the player will now encounter Scourge demons. These Beyond demons now drop Tainted Currency. Portal opening chance is now permanently 15%, with no way to increase it. Spawning a large number of mobs is now enough for the boss to appear — the more monsters spawn in the location, the higher the chance that the next pack of mobs will be replaced by the boss. Only one boss can appear per instance.
A new currency has been added for Harvest called Lifeforce. It comes in three types — Wild, Vivid and Primal. By killing the monsters that spawn from the garden, players receive this currency in different colors for later use. Bosses now appear much more often and drop special keys. This key allows you to fight Oshabi to get a rare variety of currency — Crystallized Lifeforce — for more specific crafting. The Horticrafting Station can now be freely used like a normal crafting bench — select the desired mod and use Lifeforce to apply it.

Trickster Ascendancy Changes

Trickster finally got a big rework — his ascendancy nodes have been almost completely redone. Added three new passive skills to replace the old ones – Spellbreaker (Prolonged Pain), Polymath (Patient Reaper), One Step Ahead (Weave the Arcane). Spellbreaker requires Escape Artist notable and gives spell suppression with different useful bonuses. Polymath increases damage by 3% and restores 1% of health, energy shield and mana on kill for each mastery you have in your passive skill tree. One Step Ahead increases your action speed to 108% of base value and reduces enemy speed to 92% of base value. Their small passive skills have also been reworked.
An attempt to revive the Juggernaut — Unbreakable was divided into two stronger skills: Unbreakable itself and Untiring. Unbreakable now grants 8% armor as elemental hit damage, Untiring grants 40% increased health regen rate and 1.5% of physical damage taken in the last 10 seconds is regenerated as health per second as well.