It's slowly moving towards the final spurt Path of Exile Update 3.3 and the new one Incursion League. Patch 3.3 also brings a lot of revised skills and in the meanwhile 6th update to the skill revisions, the developers show the new (Vaal) lightning ice, Vaal earthquake, Vaal atoning fire, charged sprint and energy discharge.

Here are the updates that have already been released Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5.

Until the Incursion Update is published on June 1st it's only about 3 days left, so the changes presented should be the last. Soon the fans will be able to try out the new skills in person.

Some of the skills featured have already been introduced, but have seen major changes since then.

Path of Exile - Changed Skills

Black ice and Vaal black ice

In the first version, black ice was too strong, the final version now damages a medium-sized area, which then spreads to twice the radius relatively quickly. Damage over time is done in this area.

The Vaal variant creates a growing aura around you. If opponents die in their area, you will receive frenzy charges, but you will also receive charges from bosses as long as an enemy is in the area of effect. With the jewel winter booty, you can also generate energy charges instead of frenzy.

Vaal atoning fire

When activated, it now costs 30% of maximum life and energy shield, according to this value you will then suffer fire damage per second. The skill itself now works like a larger and stronger variant of the basic version, and you also get additional spell damage.

Vaal earthquake

Since the first version resembled the Vaal smash too much, Vaal earthquake now had a different effect and, in addition to more severe damage in the aftershock, also created small cracks under your feet. These repeat the effect with your movements, the number of aftershocks is limited, so players don't have to run wild circles to get the most out of them.

Loaded sprint

Here you can influence the position of the illusions while channeling. This makes it easier to target specific damage where you want it.

The way and when damage is caused has also changed, here is the statement from the Path of Exile developers:

• While channeling and while the illusion is still moving, this skill gains a phase for each attack as before (and the skill has 60% more attack speed, so you will reach these phases relatively quickly).
• When you stop channeling, the skill now does 75% more damage for each phase after the first. There are no longer any overlapping areas of damage as only one large damage hit is inflicted.
• While channeling, the skill pulsates every other attack along the route, dealing damage in the process.
• Once the illusion persists because it has reached maximum range or has encountered an insurmountable object, you will no longer receive phases. Instead, each pulse does 150% more damage while channeling.

This is to ensure that the damage during channeling and when it is fully charged is similarly high, so you don't have to constantly recharge the skill when fighting a boss to get the most damage out of it. Your movement speed is important to move faster and cover a larger area, but it does not increase the damage of the skill.

Energy discharge

Energy discharge has also been heavily modified to bring it to a level comparable to Kinetic Explosion.

• The new effects not only look a lot more powerful, but also perform better when killing enemies. The old effect when killing a rare or unique enemy has been adjusted and a new effect when killing other enemies has been given to this skill.
• The skill now has a chance to generate energy charges when you encounter rare or unique enemies, which allows you to maintain your charges, especially in boss fights.
• This skill now has a powerful critical strike chance and a critical strike multiplier per energy charge, which mainly rewards builds that specialize in it and invest accordingly.
• Fires projectiles at enemies in front of you at an angle of 180 degrees. 4 additional projectiles fly at gem level 1 and 7 additional projectiles at gem level 20.
• We wanted to spark competition with the skill 'Kinetic Explosion' if possible, but after our changes so far we are not completely satisfied with the balance between 'Kinetic Explosion', 'Energy Discharge' and 'Elemental Hit'. It is very likely that we will continue to look at the balance of wand skills in the future, at which point we will want to improve the mechanics and refine the skill options available.

You can find the detailed comments of the devs on the individual skills on the official Path of Exile Homepage find.

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