PoE Development Manifesto: Delve Balance Changes

The upcoming Delve expansion introduces comprehensive game balance modifications throughout Path of Exile. Complete expansion specifics will be detailed in official patch notes, accompanied by essential Item Filter and Passive Tree Data for build planning and guide creation. This development manifesto outlines the major balance adjustments players should anticipate. As a professional PoE Trade resource, we’re providing expanded analysis to help PoE enthusiasts prepare effectively.

Delve Balance Changes Analysis

Trap Throw Time, Multitrap, Cluster Trap, Minefield

Traps and, to a lesser degree, Mines had reached power levels beyond development comfort on specific skills, making alternative skill usage methods less viable. We’ve implemented increased trap deployment time alongside damage penalties for Multi Trap Support and Minefield Support, while reducing Cluster Trap’s thrown count by one. To offset these adjustments, trap and mine abilities such as Lightning Trap and Fire Nova Mine will receive compensatory damage enhancements.

Expert Tip: When building trap characters post-update, prioritize cast speed modifiers to counteract the extended throw times. Many players mistakenly ignore cast speed in favor of pure damage, but the new mechanics make this stat significantly more valuable for maintaining clear speed.

The definition of “instant” skills has been fundamentally revised to mean abilities that can be activated while performing other actions. However, these skills remain unusable during action-preventing conditions such as stun or freeze effects.

Numerous effects have been converted to instant status, predominantly buff-oriented abilities. Most instant conversions affect reservation skills to accelerate aura and herald application, with additional changes applied to Molten Shell, Phase Run, Blood Rage, Convocation and Righteous Fire.

The majority of these skills remain otherwise unmodified except for brief cooldown additions. Only Molten Shell received mana cost increases at lower level requirements. Development teams will continuously monitor these abilities and carefully consider future instant skill additions to ensure they require strategic timing rather than mindless cooldown spamming.

Advanced Strategy: Time your instant skill usage during animation locks from other abilities. For example, activate Molten Shell during the recovery frames of a primary attack to maximize defensive uptime without sacrificing damage output.

Spell Block acquisition has been completely restructured, now exclusively available from flat spell block sources. All previous attack block to spell block conversion mechanics have been replaced with flat spell block values, supplemented by expanded spell block availability throughout the passive skill tree with higher numerical values than previously accessible. The Gladiator ascendancy passive now converts your attack block value directly into spell block.

This systemic change addresses both design restriction removal and accessibility improvements. Spell block becomes available to all character types rather than being disproportionately powerful for high-block investment builds and comparatively weak for characters with minimal block specialization.

Common Mistake: Avoid stacking both old and new spell block sources simultaneously, as the conversion mechanics no longer function. Instead, focus on flat spell block from gear and the updated passive tree nodes for optimal defensive layering.

Movement abilities constitute fundamental gameplay components in Path of Exile, serving both survival and efficiency purposes. Development efforts have focused on reducing performance gaps between different movement skills, providing build diversity in mobility approach selection. These modifications represent initial steps, with further incremental changes planned to maintain the mastery sensation that movement speed provides.

Pro Tip: Test multiple movement skills during the early Delve league to identify which best complements your specific build mechanics. The reduced disparity means previously overlooked movement options may now offer superior synergy with your character’s specific needs.

The Physical Projectile Attack Damage Support gem has undergone significant rebranding to Vicious Projectiles Support, dramatically improving its clarity by 70%. This revamped support now provides substantial chaos and physical damage multipliers to linked attacks rather than enhancing Poison and Bleed effects. This strategic shift enables direct application to damage over time mechanics utilized by Caustic Arrow and Toxic Rain skills, opening new build possibilities for chaos-based ranged characters.

From a practical standpoint, this change means bow users focusing on damage-over-time effects can now achieve significantly higher damage output without relying on traditional poison mechanics. The gem’s transformation creates exciting synergies with chaos damage scaling on the passive tree and enables more diverse build archetypes beyond the typical poison-focused approaches that dominated previous metagames.

Many players make the mistake of still building around poison when using this support gem post-rework. Instead, focus on stacking chaos damage, damage over time multipliers, and projectile damage to maximize the effectiveness of skills like Caustic Arrow that benefit from both the chaos and physical damage components.

We’ve comprehensively overhauled numerous minion passive skills, introducing fresh minion starting paths for both Witch and Templar characters. A substantial new minion wheel now resides above the Templar’s elemental cluster, complemented by extensive reworks of minion clusters surrounding the Templar starting zone. These innovative passives feature groundbreaking mechanics where damage increases and reductions affecting your minions now directly apply to your character, with identical functionality for minion attack speed modifiers.

The Templar’s starting area received significant enhancements, improving both statistical bonuses and pathing efficiency while better facilitating minion/attack hybrid playstyles. This restructuring allows Templar players to seamlessly transition between direct combat and minion mastery without sacrificing efficiency in either domain.

Meanwhile, the Witch starting area now features a dedicated minion path that replaces the previous mana and mana regeneration route. The displaced mana skills have been relocated alongside the Energy Shield path, now featuring a new mana notable providing increased maximum mana, flat mana regeneration per second, and enhanced flask mana recovery rates.

Advanced players should note that the new minion damage application mechanics enable powerful hybrid builds where your character benefits directly from minion investment. This creates opportunities for builds that deal damage both through minions and personal attacks simultaneously, effectively doubling your damage scaling potential from passive tree investments.

The Guardian Ascendancy

The Guardian ascendancy class now incorporates two innovative notable abilities that reward maintaining minion presence while actively engaging in combat, simultaneously empowering the Herald of Purity skill. This redesign shifts the Guardian from a pure support role toward a more active combat hybrid that leverages minions for personal empowerment.

These changes fundamentally alter how Guardians approach combat, encouraging players to maintain minion armies while personally dealing damage rather than relying solely on minions or playing pure support. The Herald of Purity enhancements provide additional incentives for maintaining summoned entities during intense battles.

A common mistake among players adapting to the reworked Guardian is underestimating the importance of minion survival. Since the new notables require minion presence for full effect, investing in minion life and resistances becomes crucial rather than optional for maximizing your combat effectiveness.

The Pathfinder Ascendancy

The Pathfinder ascendancy now features a comprehensive four-skill pathway system replacing the previous two-skill poison specialization route. This expanded path incorporates more powerful poison bonuses, chaos attack damage enhancements, general chaos skill effects, and specific benefits for the new Herald of Agony skill. This redesign intentionally complements the fresh Chaos bow abilities while remaining effective for any character build focusing on poison attacks.

The four-path structure allows Pathfinders to specialize more precisely based on their chosen playstyle, whether focusing on pure poison damage, chaos attack specialization, or Herald of Agony-focused builds. Each path offers distinct advantages that can be mixed or matched according to your specific build requirements.

Optimization tip: When planning your Pathfinder build, carefully consider which of the four paths aligns best with your primary damage source. Mixing paths without clear focus often results in suboptimal damage output compared to specialized approaches that maximize specific damage types.

The Guardian class no longer possesses notable abilities affecting Warcries. We’ve transferred these bonuses to the passive skill tree proper. One cluster positioned between Templar and Marauder provides attack, cast, and movement speed bonuses to you and allies following recent Warcry usage, eliminates Warcry mana costs entirely, and includes various minor statistical improvements.

A secondary cluster located between Marauder and Duelist enables instant Warcry casting, moderately reduces their cooldown duration, and incorporates additional minor beneficial effects.

This redistribution means Warcry-focused builds are no longer tied specifically to the Guardian ascendancy, opening these mechanics to various character classes. However, this also means Guardian players must now invest passive points to access Warcry benefits they previously received through ascendancy notables.

Strategic consideration: The instant Warcry cluster is particularly valuable for builds relying on frequent Warcry usage since it eliminates animation interruptions during combat sequences. Plan your passive tree pathing accordingly if Warcries form a core component of your build strategy.

Bow Passives Now Affect Skill Damage Over Time

A crucial but often overlooked change involves bow passive skills now correctly applying to damage over time effects originating from bow abilities. This mechanical adjustment significantly impacts skills like Toxic Rain and Caustic Arrow, where passive nodes that previously only affected initial hit damage now properly scale their lingering damage components.

This correction means bow characters specializing in damage over time effects can now achieve substantially higher damage output through proper passive tree planning. This represents a major buff to these build archetypes that were previously limited by incorrect passive interactions.

Common pitfall: Many players continue to avoid bow damage nodes when playing damage-over-time builds, unaware that these now properly function. Ensure you’re taking advantage of this fix by incorporating relevant bow damage passives into your build planning for maximum effectiveness.

No reproduction without permission：OnLineGames Guides » PoE Development Manifesto: Delve Balance Changes