The countdown for that Bestiary League and the next big one Path of Exile Update is running at full speed and the developers have today explained the new league feature in an FAQ. Including how the networks work and information about the menageries.

Path of Exile - Bestiary Questions and Answers

How does the core repeating feature of this Path of Exile League work in detail?

Einhar Frey teaches you how to catch beasts in Wraeclast and equips you with nets. You can also capture any beast you encounter by throwing a safety net at it. Once you've captured a beast, Einhar will take it to your menagerie (like a small zoo of your own) where the beasts are collected. You can see the beasts in the cages of your menagerie and fight them too. If you survive the fight, the beasts will be sacrificed at the blood altar and you will receive their components to make items. The beast crafting requires a certain combination of sacrificed beasts and can produce some very interesting results.

Your progress in this league is recorded in your bestiary. It is a book that is called up by pressing the [H] key (same interface as the challenges). The book records which beasts you have caught, how many are in your menagerie and which beast-made creations are available to you.

How challenging are the battles for beast crafting?

As soon as you want to try your hand at the higher-level designs, it can be quite challenging. Fighting multiple rare beasts at once, especially when the new bestiary modifiers are involved, can be nerve-wracking.

What kind of item is it worth making a beast?

There will be a variety of useful customizations for every type of character. It doesn't matter whether you are fighting your way through the story with another character or want to create powerful items for your endgame character. Here and here you can already get a first impression. We'll be devoting a separate news post next week to the results of beast-making.

How is the catch rate calculated? How is it influenced?

The chance of catching a beast with a net is random. However, the remaining life of the monster and its strength play an important role. Rare and unique monsters are of course more resilient. Stronger networks are therefore an advantage!

What if the catch fails?

The net used is consumed and the monster becomes angry. You can try to catch a single beast as many times as you want, but be aware that angry monsters are dangerous.

How do the networks work? Are they objects?

Catch nets are stackable items that consume one net with each catch attempt. At first you get some nets from Einhar. You can buy additional nets from him or find them randomly in the game world. There are 10 levels of nets that are introduced in the game as the game progresses.

There are only two types of nets in each area. Either a network that corresponds to the level of the area or sometimes one that exceeds the area in terms of level. The higher-level nets should preferably be kept for more challenging encounters with beasts.

Do I have to carry around ten different types of nets?

It is unlikely that you will need to have more than two types of nets with you at the same time. You cannot find nets that are lower than your current level, so either you will eventually run out of them or you will throw them away. In general, you will therefore carry the nets with you that correspond to your current level, and from time to time you will also find those that correspond to a higher level. You can stack up to 100 nets in your inventory and even up to 5000 in currency chest compartments.

What kind of beasts can I encounter?

In addition to the hundreds of common beasts that you can capture in Path of Exile, there are a number of new beasts that you can encounter during the Bestiary League:

• Rare beasts with a bestiary modifier. These occur relatively frequently (roughly in every area) and are a little more difficult than normal rare monsters. If you see these monsters, you should catch them, as these beasts are often used for recipes for making items.
• Legendary beasts that are an exotic variant of other beasts you know. These occur regularly, but less often, and are considerably more difficult. Either way, it's worth catching them, as most valuable beast recipes require one or more of these types.
• Spirit beasts. There are a total of four of these types that you can access in the endgame via a portal that you have to create beforehand with your bestiary workbench. These special beasts not only loot unique items, but they can also be captured to create items with special properties that complement the unique items very well.

How do I trap a beast when I cause so much damage that I kill it immediately?

While the creature is in a web, it cannot die. So if you are concerned that you will accidentally kill them too quickly, just cast a net first and only then attack them. Legendary beasts are easy to spot on the map before you encounter them, and they'll take you into a fair battle as they're very tough. They have significantly more lives than common rare monsters, so you can hardly kill them by mistake.

Can beasts be traded?

Yes. Once you've captured beasts, you can transfer them to an item that can be traded with other players through the secure trading window.

Will there be a legendary beast icon on the map?

Yes. These are easy to see from a certain distance, as are cracks and abysses.

Can I visit other players' menageries?

Yes. Within a group, you can enter the menagerie of another player and take part in the creation of beast items or in the fight against the spirit beasts.

Is there a / menagerie command for the chat console?

Yes.

Do the beasts apply to the entire league or are they related to a specific character?

Your beasts apply to the entire league. Like the Atlas and your masters, they are shared between all of your characters.

How do I know what beasts I have and what recipes are available? Do I always have to go back to the menagerie?

The bestiary, the book you carry with you, contains pages that hold this information for you. You can open your bestiary anywhere with the [H] key.

How many beasts can there be in the menagerie? What happens when the cage is full?

The menagerie is quite large - it spans several play areas. There is a cage for each type of animal with a limited capacity. When a cage is full and you catch another beast of that type, the “worst” of your beasts will be replaced with the newer one. We are currently still weighing the capacity for each animal type.

What happens if I die or leave the Blood Altar Battle?

If you die or leave the fight, the beasts you faced are lost (they escape). If you want to make another attempt at obtaining the beast recipe, you'll need to find replacements and find more beasts. The item that you put in the altar to make it remains there unchanged.

Should you die in hardcore mode during this encounter, your character will be moved to the standard league as usual.

Will I have to farm lots of white monsters for higher quality recipes?

Our intention is that the most difficult recipes will require you to find and capture the most difficult beasts instead of spending all day killing light monsters.

What happens to my beasts after the league ends?

The beasts will be migrated to the respective permanent league in the event that we permanently integrate content from the Bestiary League into the game at a later date. We won't make that decision until later in the league.

Will there be a challenge to capture all of the beasts?

Yes, one of the 40 challenges is to complete your bestiary.

Responding to Reddit feedback

This information is not yet set in stone, so it could change at the last second. On the Path of Exile Reddit there were already discussions about the networks and the possible problems of managing several tiers / levels of them. In a quick response, there was one Developer manifest, with details on the subject.

As a result, you will usually only carry around 2 types of nets and find monsters. The nets for the current tier / level of the zones that drop frequently and then the next higher tier that are rarely dropped by monsters.

So as soon as you get to act 3 you can only find act 3 and act 4 nets, the nets from acts 1 and 2 are then "replaced" by the higher version and can be sold or put in the box.

Likewise in the end game, when the players are on the move in the maps of the atlas. If you only play yellow and red cards, you will only find tier 9 and 10 nets. Catch Tier 9 for normal beasts and 10 for the special, rare beasts.

It is also explained that you do not have to choose between 4-5 different networks in the inventory and click extra in combat, but you use the globally available network capability. This can be assigned to a freely selectable key and thus does not block any slot in the hotkey bar.

You only have to click directly on a network if you want to change the type of network used.