How To Build The Best POE 3.25 League Starter For Warden Ascendancy? (2024)

How To Deal With The Mechanic Of Blight In Path Of Exile 3.25?

In Path of Exile 3.25, Blight, one of the most anticipated and popular League Mechanics, has been tweaked and changed. And it has embraced a wave of hot discussion simultaneously.

In response to these changes, this article has written a Blight guide so that you can better understand the relevant mechanisms and make some adjustments to earn more currency.

Complete Blight In A Easy Way

Here we need to understand some fresh changes in Blight in leagues. For example, the changes to Blight mechanics in the map, the actual Blighted and Blight-Ravaged maps themselves. But these changes are not enough to change the overall strategy and measures.

First, players need to apply two special Oil Anoints on their Rings. In this process, you don’t need to worry about the character build, because Ring Annoints only work on Blight Towers. Below we will introduce the two Ring Anoints you need to prepare.

Best Blight Ring Anoints

When Your Meteor Towers Create Burning Ground For 3 Seconds On Hit:

Indigo Oil
Violet Oil

Players can further clear some obstacles in Blight’s lanes by using AoE ground damage fire to deal continuous damage to nearby enemies. However, this damage is not very effective in some lanes, such as Meteor Tower, and this does not work well for Burning Ground.

When Enemies Who Are Being Influenced By Chilling Beams Have Been Frozen For 0.2 Seconds By Your Chilling Towers:

Opalescent Oil
Silver Oil

This anoint freezes enemies in your lanes, and your towers will then damage them. This damage also works on bosses. Since the lanes are frozen, players can also use low-quality equipment to run the highest level Blight-Ravaged maps.

The Best Blight Strategy In Path Of Exile

The best strategy is actually simple, which means you just need to find the best Anoints for all Blight mechanics.

When lanes appear, find the choke points where lanes intersect. You can build many towers here. Among them, the following four towers need to be paid special attention when building.

Level 3 Empower Tower
Level 3 Ground Tower
Level 3 Chilling Tower
Level 4 Meteor Tower

Level 3 Empower Tower is a key point. To get the buff, you need to make sure that all the towers you build are covered by Level 3 Empower Tower. It is worth noting that the higher the level does not mean better effect, so don’t blindly upgrade the level. For example, Level 4 Empower Towers do not provide buffs, Level 4 Chilling Towers cannot effectively use your Ring Anoint, and Level 4 Ground Tower cannot block enemy attacks.

If new lanes are opened, be sure to use the combination of these towers to set at least one choke point for each lane.

Best Ways To Make Currency With Blight

Blight mechanic can also bring you a lot of benefits. Here are three ways to make POE Currency and their specific usage details.

Blight-Ravaged Maps

First, raise Chisel quality to 20%, use Alchemy Orb, make sure they have no modifiers which monsters can’t be stunned or slowed down. If there are, clean them and use Alchemy Orb again.

Next, you can Anoint 9 Oils in Blight-Ravaged Maps. Among them, Golden Oils are very expensive and you may not be able to use them continuously. According to the actual situation, here lies two combinations for your choices:

1 x Golden Oil
3 x Silver Oils
2 x Opalescent Oils
3 x Teal Oils

If the price of Golden Oils is high, this combination is actually more recommended:

2 x Black Oils
1 x Opalescent Oil
3 x Silver Oils
3 x Teal Oils

Blighted Maps

Compared with Blight-Ravaged Maps, Blighted Maps are relatively simple. Therefore, you need to make good use of this method. All you need to do is Chisel it, then use Alch Orb and Vaal Orb.

This method only requires three Oils, and you can choose based on your budget. For example, 3x Crimson Oils or 3x Teal Oils.

In-Map Blight

In-Map Blight is probably the best way to make Currency. It uses the new Templar Ingenuity node on Atlas Passive Tree. This node can help you recover some extra rewards which are obtained by completing Blight mechanic after building towers. The higher the level of tower the player builds, the better the rewards.

This means that the player needs to deal with Blight mechanic according to their character damage, and then build as high-level towers as possible. For example, Tier 4 Meteor Tower, Tier 4 Flamethrower Tower, etc. Similarly, the more towers are built, the more rewards they will recover.

Moreover, this strategy can also obtain a large amount of Gold, which serves as necessity in Settlers of Kalguur league mechanic.

The above is some information about Blight mechanic. I hope this guide can help you use Blight better and gain more Currency! Thank you for reading.

How About The Melee Ground Slam Of Earthshaking Berserker Build In Path Of Exile 3.25?

Hello, fellow exiles! Here, we will share Ground Slam of Earthshaking Berserker build in POE 3.25, which is an endgame melee slam build specifically for Marauder lovers.

It is a budget-friendly build that can be gradually scaled and upgraded as you upgrade Berserker build. However, I must remind you that while this build is suitable for new players, it is not suitable for players who like to farm Ubers. So you can decide whether you want to try this build based on your needs.

Pros And Cons

First, let’s talk about the pros and cons of this build.

For the pros, it can easily run T16 maps, clear speed is great, and has high DPS at the same time. This build is perfect for any juiced up farming strategy. Because of its excellent full-screen damage, it can even clear Breach and Legion.

In addition, its play style feels good, satisfying and addictive, and you can dodge most of the random hits in the game. And thanks to Berserker’s Ascendancy Notable, your attacks are pretty fast too.

Now let’s talk about the downsides. The biggest downside, I can say is that there isn’t a lot of damage scaling you can add to items. The only reasonable Unique item you can add to the build also has a terrible downside.

Rare items have almost the exact same generic mods like Resistances and Armor for most other builds. You also don’t get much power out of Eldritch Implicit.

While you can farm any Pinnacle Boss, the fights with Maven and Sirus are terrible because they teleport all the time. If you don’t have enough Armor and max Resistances, you’ll often find yourself dying from Self-damage and ground degens.

Build Setup

You can play this build with any non-elemental slam skill. Currently, Sunder, Ground Slam of Earthshaking, and Ice Crash have the highest DPS among the slam skills. However, Ice Crash is an elemental skill. Sunder has a huge off-screen range, and Ground Slam of Earthshaking is great for map clearing and is a tremendous hit!

For Warcry builds, average damage is more reliable than DPS. It’s basically a big bonk playstyle where you can only get a few Exerted Attacks in before all the massive bonus damage from Warcry runs out. Especially Intimidating Cry, which gives you double the damage! So don't scale your total attack speed above 2.5.

For weapons, a base attack speed of 1.7 is just about right to start. Flat Physical Damage is the most important part here. At levels 50 to 70, you can use an Axe with 500 Physical DPS, 80 to 95 with 700 Physical DPS is not bad, but after level 90 you should consider upgrading to an Axe with 1000+ Physical DPS. It’s definitely worth it!

Warcry Skills

A big mistake a lot of players make with this type of build is they think Warcry is worth manually casting. Manually casting Enduring Cry, Rallying Cry, and Intimidating Cry works much better. Enduring Cry doesn’t do any attacks, but Intimidating Cry basically does double the damage, however, it does much less damage than other Warcries. So you don’t need to press all those buttons to kill blue monsters.

You just need to time it well in difficult encounters like farming Essence and major boss fights. All of these Warcries are basically one-shot kills, especially against a lot of tanky monsters. So this build is basically timing your attacks while jumping and dodging stuff.

I think GGG should seriously consider rebalancing Autoexertion for the melee. At least for manual casting, you can use Urgent Orders Support with 20% quality for each Supported Warcries to make it less annoying to cast.

Mana Leech

So how does this build sustain mana? The main answer is Mana Leech. There are many ways to get it. The easiest way is to get physical damage as mana from any rare gem.

Another key is to reduce the mana cost of skills as much as possible, especially from Passive Skill Tree. In the later stages, you need at least 1 Non-Channeling Ring, which is very important for melee skills. Once you get Autoexertion, it is crucial to invest more POE Currency in your Mana Reservation Efficiency.

Gear

Next, let’s look at the gear required for this build.

First, equip Ventor’s Gamble not only for the increased Rarity and Gold drop rate but also for the extra Mana Reservation.

Choose Null and Void Gloves just for stacking Rampage and the fun of using it when mapping. What’s more, Rallying Cry can also treat minions in Rampage as allies, giving you more damage.

You can use rare gloves with mods such as Life, Attack Speed, and Leech, as well as Implicits with buffs such as Maim and Herald of Purity. Unlike the elemental skills, we don’t have a lot of options here.

We also have Unwavering Stance in this build, mainly because if we get stunned in Warcry, it could mean there’s another chance.

Finally, Echoes of Creation gives us a massive damage bonus, but at the cost of taking heavy physical damage. That’s why we need to use Determination and Light of Meaning instead of the damage one.

Playstyle

Finally, the playstyle of this build also takes a little time to get used to. It maps well, and you have enough damage to map even without Warcry. But in boss fights, you need to hit the target a few times first to spawn Herald of Purity Minions.

Then, before you hit the big bonk into Oblivion, you can use Rallying Cry and Intimidating Cry. That’s why your damage is inconsistent on the first attack. This is not a problem in mapping, because you always have minions around you. You basically need a target and some allies around you. It works better if you use Warcry near the target, because you can get a total of 25 strength.

That’s it for the complete guide to this Ground Slam of Earthshaking Berserker build. Trying out this top melee build will give you an exciting gaming experience! See you next time!

As we all know, Path of Exile 3.25 has welcomed its new league, Settlers of Kalguur, and has added many map changes. In this game, the changes in new maps mean that you need to make some adjustments to your previous farming strategy, so it is very important to know some of the best maps for farming.

This guide will lead you to the best maps for farming in Settlers of Kalguur league, so that you can greatly increase your POE Currency, Div Cards and other important equipment in the game!

Map Changes

Before introducing the new maps, let’s first familiarize ourselves with the changes in the maps in this Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur.

New Item Levels and Improved Defenses

In this league, aura effects have been weakened, so you must increase your defense capabilities when you need to use aura effects. This will be achieved by introducing new item tiers, which will provide higher base stats, such as maximum health.

New Chisel Tools

In order to increase the efficiency of map utilization, a new set of chisel tools has been added for you. Among them, Maven’s chisel can increase the drop rate of maps according to the map type, such as POE Currency, Scarabs and other valuable drops.

Nameless Seer Map Scrying

In this new map mechanic, you can use Divination Scarab of Curation to merge the loot table of one map into another map. In simple terms, you will get more rare loot. For example, you can add loot from Crimson Temple to maps such as Strand or Beach, so that the loot in the former will also appear on the latter map.

Return Of Previous League Mechanics

Although Settlers of Kalguur League is a new one, a few popular features from previous leagues have also returned. Take Recombinators in Sentinel League, which allow you to add some certainty to the production process. There’s also Reflection Mechanic in Kalandra League, which lets you split some loot in two via Reflecting Mist item.

Best Maps For Farming

After understanding the recent changes, you can look at the ones that can make it easier for you to maximize your income.

Tropical Island

If you ask the player community which map is the easiest to explore, most people will answer your Tropical Island. This map is mainly designed linearly, so you can easily find where you want to go.

In this way, you can quickly clear the monsters on this map and collect loot. In addition, the density of monsters on Tropical Island is also very good. You can experience fast-paced farming here, which is very suitable for getting more POE Currency in the early stages of the league.

Burial Chambers

For Burial Chambers, what is more attractive to players is that it can drop Doctor divination cards for Headhunter. There will be several large rooms on this map, and the enemies inside are also very dense. Like Tropical Island, it is also very suitable for fast farming.

Strand

As a linear layout, Strand has also become a favorite choice for many players. The map’s wide open spaces and some obvious monster locations make it an ideal choice for players who focus on efficient clearing.

Glacier

Unlike the previous ones, Glacier provides players with a semi-linear path that mixes open areas with narrow corridors, which are very friendly to some melee builds. Additionally, shooting the entire map is a very simple process, ensuring both smooth farming and the easy accumulation of loot.

Atoll

Atoll’s circular layout is very rare in Path of Exile 3.25, and its central island makes it easier for players to clear and navigate. Atoll’s monster density is also very high, which you can use to farm currency.

Mesa

The plateau in the center of Mesa is a very open area, which provides you with plenty of space to clear monsters. Similarly, the design of Mesa is also very simple, and the bosses in it are not difficult to defeat, which is perfect for farming.

Underground Sea

The biggest feature of Underground Sea is its winding tunnels, but don’t think it is very difficult to clear, because there are interconnected caves in each area for you to pass through. In addition, it can also provide you with a steady supply of loot and XP.

Tower

In previous leagues, players have always wanted developers to design a multi-story staircase for Tower. Now it has been realized in the Settlers of Kalguur League, and now you can explore up the stairs one level at a time.

Among all the loot in Tower, the most famous one is Nurse divination card, which can be used to exchange for Doctor card. If you want to get some valuable divination cards early in the league, you can come to Tower.

Haunted Mansion

If you have ever seen Haunted Mansion, you will find that it is a mansion in itself, with many interconnected rooms. The layout in Haunted Mansion is also very compact, and you can completely clear the monsters in Haunted Mansion without moving around too much.

These are some maps that can be used for efficient farming in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur. I hope you can have fun playing in the new league!

These 3 New Unique Rings Added In POE 3.25 Will Allow You To Revisit Warlock Skills!

With the end of Affliction league, Wildwood Ascendancy mechanic also disappeared. However, GGG has been working on slowly integrating these Ascendancy mechanics into the core game. We can see this in POE 3.24. They added Apostate and Veruso’s Ambition in Necropolis, both of which provide full or partial access to certain Wildwood Ascendancy abilities.

Now in the current POE 3.25, we have the new Warden Ascendancy, replacing Raider. In addition, Pacify, Affliction, and Penance Mark were three Warlock of the Mists exclusive skills in Path of Exile 3.23 Affliction league. In POE 3.25, they return as part of some new Unique Rings, which are now exclusive drops from Ritual content.

Unique Rings Base Types Explained

These three Unique Rings are exclusive drops for Ritual mechanic. Before we discuss the details of each ring, I should first mention the base type. Because this is a new Ritual exclusive base type.

For example, Nameless Ring can give you a 50% increase in Elemental Ailment duration and a 50% reduction in the effect of curses. This will usually be a double-edged sword unless you are doing some kind of Self-Chill build or similar.

Keep in mind that the full duration of using Reflected Ailments will not be increased with Ailment Duration modifier on these rings. Because Reflected Ailments Duration is only affected by offensive stats, such as the increased Ailments Duration you inflict on enemies.

However, modifiers that reduce the effects of your curses can also be very useful, especially when combined with flask modifiers or other same style modifiers to reduce the effects of curses on you by 100%.

Queller Of Minds

Let’s take a look at Queller of Minds first. This ring has some cast speed, maximum energy shield, and chaos resistance, but the reason you use these rings is that of the unique ability they provide, Pacify.

To be honest, this one is the weirdest of the three. It might even be the weirdest ability GGG has added to the game. It's really shocking that this skill would appear again after the Affliction league ended.

Pacify is a hex curse skill that initially does nothing, but if the curse duration has passed for at least 60%, the affected character will not deal damage. Then for the remaining 40% of the duration, Pacify prevents the target from dealing any damage.

This ability can only prevent entities from dealing damage directly. It does not have any effect on things that exist in the area. As a result, you won’t necessarily be directly harmed by the entity. For example, in Sirus boss fight, Storm Clouds will chase you. The damage caused by these Storm Clouds is not considered being caused by Sirus himself, so Pacify Curse will not prevent them from dealing additional damage to you.

More importantly, any effect that would kill the character directly without dealing any damage will still kill the character, such as Drowning Orbs in Eater of Worlds boss fight.

Note that whether Pacify is cast now or not, the duration of Pacify Curse can be altered by Curse Duration modifier, which will have an effect on the period when Curse has no effect and the period of time when the target cannot deal damage. For example, extending the Curse duration will make the target not deal damage for a longer period. But you will also have to wait longer until you actually reach the point where the target cannot deal damage.

And the effect cannot be altered, which means you can’t apply Temporal Chains or similar effects to the no-damage portion of the Curse to artificially extend its duration.

Pacify wasn’t used much during Affliction league, and this ring isn’t even used at all in POE 3.25 at the moment. Or maybe it’s just a really weird ability, as I said before.

But it’s possible that in the future someone realizes the perfect alignment of this curse and somehow avoids a boss from dealing with tremendous damage. But it’s a bit weird overall.

Hateful Accuser

Next up, we have Hateful Accuser, which definitely gets more use than the former.

Hateful Accuser has a certain cast speed, life, and chaos resistance, and it allows the use of Penance Mark skill. This was also a favorite ability of many Warlock users during Affliction league, and for good reason.

Penance Mark is a mark curse skill that targets a single enemy and behaves the same as any other mark skill, meaning it lasts indefinitely. It scales with the mark effect, and only one mark can be active at a time.

Once the mark hits a target, Phantasms are spawned, up to three per second. They are essentially allies of that target, so by default, this gives you new targets to use.

These Phantasms are considered Common Rare enemies and do not drop loot when killed, and they do not leave any bodies behind. They do grant both Flask Charges and Vaal Souls, though, which is why Affliction league favors Mark.

The reason Hateful Accuser is being used a lot in POE 3.25 is because summoned Phantasms can be used to generate hit and kill effects. And since they also fire projectile spells, they can also be used to trigger hit effects and other similar stats, such as on blocking mechanics.

One of its major use cases right now is creating mobs on Chieftain, which has a chance to trigger Hinekora, Death’s Fury. When you kill them, Explosion and any subsequent Ignites will deal a ton of damage, which is particularly useful for Righteous Fire builds that struggle with single target damage.

But that’s not the only use that’s been getting a lot of attention. Because in POE 3.25, the newly added Retaliation skill gives Hateful Accuser another use case. These skills require specific conditions to be met, such as blocking before using them, and Phantasms formed by Penance Mark can help make these abilities more reliable. This way you can use them more often in boss scenarios.

As mentioned before, Penance Mark scales with Mark effect, and each breakpoint of 33.3% Mark effect provides additional summoned Phantasms when hitting.

Selfish Shepherd

Finally, we have Selfish Shepherd. This ring has some cast speed, maximum energy shield, and chaos resistance, and it allows the use of Affliction abilities, which is not Curse or Mark.

This is a skill that can only target your minions to have a permanent effect on them. This effect causes them to take physical damage over time, with the damage rate starting at 8% of your maximum life per second, increasing by 100% per second, and then your character regenerates life per second equal to 20% of this damage.

This is an effect that is inflicted on your minions, totaling all minions that have the same effect on them. So when a minion reaches 20% of their maximum life, they explode, dealing 50% of their maximum life as physical damage to surrounding enemies, which provides a pretty decent amount of healing for your character.

So this is actually a pretty powerful effect. And in terms of base damage, it’s much higher than minion instability, which causes a minion to explode after life drops to a low point ( 50% of life) dealing 33% of its maximum life as fire damage. So, essentially, you need to get your minions’ life down to a lower threshold to get a bigger payoff.

But remember that this is physical damage, and it will be affected by any relevant Conversion modifiers that the minion has. For example, Absolution Minion will convert 50% of physical damage to lightning damage, or inherent Conversion modifiers that don’t necessarily exist as Skill Gems, such as Summon Raging Spirit, which has a 100% conversion of physical to fire damage.

However, this skill offers a hands-on, proactive playstyle rather than the automated playstyle some might be hoping for.

Outro

Overall, we expect to see some use of Hateful Accuser and Selfish Shepherd, especially Hateful Accuser’s Penance Mark, as its undeniable synergy with Hinekora, Death’s Fury will make it even more useful. Which Unique Ring would you be more interested in trying? Do you have a better way to maximize their potential? Good luck!

Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur league launched some time ago has been praised by players as one of the best league mechanisms ever, because it introduced some cool features that many players like. In addition, an interesting city system has been added to this new league mechanism.

In this city system, you can manage your own town called Kingsmarch, and you can send various workers to run the affairs of the entire town for you. However, this town is definitely not smooth sailing, and Bandit King Sasan will mess it up.

But unfortunately, Bandit King Sasan is not like other NPCs that you need to fight in the game. There is no way to find him. If you want to build your Kingsmarch town into a prosperous town as soon as possible, you can follow some tips and strategies in this guide to help you find and defeat Sasan faster.

Who Is Bandit King Sasan?

Sasan is a new enemy NPC added to Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur league. Although it will not attack your Kingsmarch settlement directly, it will hinder the progress of the town by kidnapping your workers or Map Runners. Occasionally, it will also kidnap your Atlas runners and ask for ransom.

When this happens, you only have three options: pay the ransom, fight Sasan, or let your workers fend for themselves. The best option of the three is to fight Sasan, because at the end of your battle with it, one of the best unique swords in the game will drop.

However, defeating it is not a simple matter. It has a very high health value, so you need to be prepared for a long battle. In addition, Sasan’s level is as high as 83, so your character level needs to be 83 or above, otherwise this battle will be more difficult.

There are two main types of damage that Sasan can deal: Fire and Physical. Before the battle, remember to equip some armor or helmet that can protect against these two types of damage tightly on your body.

The tricky part is that it has 50% resistance to some common damages you can use, such as Fire, Cold, Lightning, and Chaos. So when choosing your build and weapons, remember to avoid these types, or add some Elemental Damage to your original build to increase your damage to Sasan.

It currently only has two abilities, Hail of Arrows and Circle of Flame, both of which are AOE attacks, and both can cause significant damage and DoTs. You need to use a little POE Currency before the battle to increase your flexibility so that you can avoid most AOE damage.

Bandit King Sasan’s Location

There is no way to find Sasan directly unless you interact with him passively. According to current player feedback, Sasan has a very low chance of appearing, and only appears after he kidnaps your workers.

If he does hold your people for ransom, you may find him in Abandoned Port zone. You can also use the current league mechanic to increase the chance of spawning if you don’t want to wait all the time.

How To Find Bandit King Sasan?

The only way to spawn Bandit King Sasan is to lure him into kidnapping your Atlas Runners. You can increase the chance of this elaborate kidnapping situation by constantly sending your workers to draw or do other activities.

But the rewards from this method are also very small, so you must let your workers do Atlas as much as possible and keep praying for it to appear quickly. As long as one of these workers is kidnapped by Sasan, you can have a “mandatory” interaction with Sasan.

Currently, this is the only way to spawn this boss. I hope you can find more ways to make it appear in subsequent games.

How To Unlock Kingsmarch Map Device?

Before you can send Atlas runners, you need to unlock Kingsmarch or Kingsmarch Map Device first, which only requires you to raise Town Level to Rank 7. You can use these resources to help your upgrade: 5760 Gold, 225 Verisium Ore, 125 Pumpkin and 250 Orgourd.

If you unlock Kingsmarch Map Device, you will find that you still cannot send Atlas Runners because you still need to increase Max Town Populations to 60 and Max Job Rank to 7. So you can start your lure plan.

Other Options

In addition to fighting Sasan, you can also pay his ransom or abandon your workers. Paying the ransom can be a bit more expensive, as Sasan will demand a lot of gold from you, but you won’t get any reward. If you choose to leave your workers to die, you’ll lose some potentially valuable workers and get nothing in return. You can decide based on your own POE Currency and Gold.

If you decide to fight Sasan, it’s not clear whether you’ll win or lose. Despite the challenges just presented, you’ll win most of the time if you’re prepared. If you have an Atlas Portal open, you can fight him multiple times.

What Are The Rewards For Defeating Bandit King Sasan?

At the end of your fight with Bandit King Sasan, you’ll get some pretty cool rewards, like some runes and gold. But in some cases, it’s possible to trade those runes for one of the best two-handed unique weapons in POE 3.25, Living Blade. If you’re determined to find Living Blade, you can try to fight him multiple times.

That’s all you need to know about Bandit King Sasan in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur. Hopefully, you can quickly make your Kingsmarch settlement a very prosperous commercial town, and have fun exploring the game!

How To Unlock The Full Potential Of The New Svalinn Unique Shield In Path Of Exile 3.25?

Svalinn is a new Unique Shield in Path of Exile 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur, and it will drop from Sasan, the Bandit Lord, as part of the new league mechanics. Svalinn has a very powerful modifier called “Chance to Block is Lucky”, which doubles your chance to block, allowing you to choose a favorable outcome.

I think this is a very cool POE item that is very powerful if used correctly, and it can enable some tanky builds that are centered on blocking. In this guide, we’ll talk about what this Svalinn Unique Shield is good for, and how to unlock its full potential.

Chance To Block Spell Damage

Let’s take a look at the modifier on Svalinn: 13% Chance to Block Spell Damage. This is a modifier that could potentially roll between 10%-15%. Considering the rest of the shield, this is a good start.

Ward

Next, let’s look at Ward. Ward is a defensive measure that blocks hit damage before Life or Energy Shield. I don’t mean you’ll get a lot of Ward from this shield, but you may hit the blocking cap while using this shield. And Ward has been buffed to refresh every 2 seconds instead of the old 4 seconds.

This is actually a fair amount of damage reduction, since it doesn’t deduct from your Life or Energy Shield, but is absorbed by this shield. So not a completely useless modifier.

Minus Max Chance To Block

Now we come to the important set of mods on this Svalinn Shield: minus 10% of the maximum chance to block attack and spell damage. These mods combined will reduce the maximum base block chance of attacks and spells from 75% to 65%.

Lucky Block Chance

But the next modifier, “Chance to Block is Lucky”, makes up for this. Lucky is a property that is rolled twice, and you can choose the more favorable result. So with Chance to Block is Lucky, you will roll twice for Chance to Block incoming hits, which means your effective block chance is higher than your actual block chance.

The benefit you get from a Lucky roll is largely dependent on the base properties of your roll. So you’re better off with maximum base block chance with Svalinn equipped (65%), which gives you an effective block chance of 88%, which is insane.

The new Gladiator has a new Skill Ascendency Notable, which grants you Lucky Block Chance whenever you’ve recently blocked. This is a great mapping node, but it’s much less reliable for boss scenarios.

Svalinn’s Lucky Block Chance is unconditional, though it’s always active. This is a very powerful start, and having it means investing in blocking is more rewarding.

Triggering Blocks

Svalinn also has one final modifier, which triggers a socketed elemental spell with a block time of 0.25 seconds. With such a high effective block chance, no matter what you put on this shield, you’ll be safe as you move through the map.

How To Maximize Block Chance?

In POE 3.25, investing in blocking has become more rewarding, as many of Block Wheels in the tree have received huge buffs.

For example, Safeguard Wheel near Templar starting position now provides 10% Chance to Block Spell Damage, and it also increases maximum spell block by 3%. What’s more, it also restores 50 Energy Shield when blocking. This sounds like a small amount, but with such a large effective block chance, it will make up for the recovery of most hits in a mapping environment.

There’s also a new Wheel here, located near Blood Magic Keystone, that’s similar to Safeguard. This doesn’t provide the 3% maximum block chance, but that’s for attack damage, and it also has a 12% block chance.

Another new Block Mastery Wheel, Wall of Steel, gives extra attack block chance and some flat armor if you’ve recently blocked.

There’s also a new Block Mastery that adds 1% chance to block spell damage for every 5% chance to block attack damage. So if you have 65% chance to block attacks, you’ll get 13% chance to block spell damage from spending that point.

Besides these options, many other Block or Shield Wheels that provide block chance have been buffed. This means it’s easier to cap attack and spell block chance with a lower POE Currency investment than before.

There’s also Tempest Shield, which provides a lot of spell blocking. If you’re playing a Scion or Necromancer, you might also want to consider Bone Offering.

Glancing Blows

Of course, there will still be Glancing Blows. But the real potential of this shield is having such a high effective true blocking ability that it can avoid the vast majority of incoming hits, especially considering that you can’t recover from blocking with the shield, so Glancing Blows with this setup aren’t too useful.

How To Build A Map Clearing Build?

When combined with something like Mjölner, this shield becomes a very interesting map clearing build. You’ll be able to easily use Mjölner and Svalinn’s triggered spells and Tempest Shield’s triggers to clear monster packs.

When you need a nuke to knock down a stronger target, you can use the new Divine Retribution spell to deal a lot of damage. It can be used by blocking, and it can overlap to hit the same target multiple times.

All in all, this new unique item is really fun. What do you think of it? Will you try to equip this Svalinn Unique Shield? Do you have a better way to make the most of all its mechanics? See you next time!