Path of Exile is set to release its next League called Legion for the PC on June 7th as per usual it’s time to take a look at it.

The last league while they were trying to do some amazing stuff it just did not have the holding power for me personally. I felt rather burned out and did not play as long as I was thinking I would.

This time around they were more focused on trying to keep it simple and make a major change that melee combat really needed. They also added in some new skills and a bunch of items to go with their monoliths vibe. Some of it I just did not really care for as it makes the game look very grind heavy.

Legion Monolith

The legion themselves which is what the player will be fighting this league are frozen in the past. You find monoliths on the map and are able to activate them. This in return gives the player a small window to make a choice in which enemies they want to break out of the monolith to fight.

What I really like about this is they are giving the player a whole lot of choices to make. They also are not forcing you to attack monoliths if you just want to skip them. This as a player I prefer over getting chased by a creature far too powerful across an entire zone that kills you over and over with zero chances to survive as that is just annoying. Players need some time to get their gear sorted out while still being able to make some progress to speed that up. So any time you can avoid forcing the player's hand I see as a good thing.

I can only hope they have finally decided to stay away from how leagues in the past like Betrayal and the bigger offender Bestiary worked in that regards. I think it also makes it harder for them to try and merge a league’s mechanics into the core game when the map is just filled with too many active things that can crush the player at a moment’s notice. Forcing you sometimes to flat out just skip a map if it was just too deadly as it was not worth the experience loss to keep going.

You as the player also get the choice in which monsters you want to go after in these monoliths. There will be some new icons above the packs to learn as they indicate what kind of reward you could get. I’m really a big fan of this as it lets the player target farm within a set parameter. I’m sure you won’t always get the loot you want a target in each monolith. I could even see myself just skipping and moving on if I don’t see anything worth breaking open to fight.

While you can have the economic impact of players being able to target farm something. As long as they find the right balance it can still remain enjoyable for the player to seek rewards and have it be worth something to trade if it’s not what they want. They have in the past struggled with this part even as recent as last league Synthesis. Things last time lost valve quite quickly once players learned the best methods of farming. Even then for many it just was not great. I can only hope they get it right and right the first time. Often times during past leagues, they were still trying to find that balance during the middle of it. Which I at least got give them props for trying it just be nice for everyone if it was close to a touchdown at release.

There is also no shock to me more league specific shards called Incubators. I frankly am not a huge fan of more stash space being taken up by collecting stuff I can’t use right away. They are at least making them a bit different while you still need to collect a hundred of them they can b3e added to your gear. This provides a bonus drop every X amount of monster kills. I fear however this will make the game feel more like a grind then normal as now you will see you only killed 4k out of 5k monster you needed for a single item. While this is something different I wish they were more creative.

At least they are not making anything from what I can tell over complex. Some might even say it’s a little too simple. We will have to wait and see if just breaking open monoliths get boring right away or if they are able to keep them exciting enough for hundreds of hours of game time for the player.

Melee Changes

Yes, please with a side of thank you. As someone who enjoys playing melee a lot of the time, I can tell you it was harder than it should have been. You always had issues of getting out of the way of powerful hits due to being in your hit animation. As such you really had to plan your attacks carefully or build your character in such a way it was just a brink truck which required a lot of special items.

They went in and added some much-needed animation canceling. While also fixing damage not being applied to as many monsters as it should have been. Many are saying this shall bring forth a wave of whirlwind builds and everyone including myself will certainly be playing one.

Even movement skills are getting some rework making them instant. This is a very needed quality of life change for the melee. We just can’t sit back from a distance and rain death and disperse. You needed to get up close and personal without having the proper ways of moving around to avoid the giant hits bosses have. Which as a player was always frustrating to deal and I hope to make it more of an enjoyable experience to play melee.

Betrayal League

I think that is going be the three biggest challenge for them well to keep trying to merge these giant game changing leagues into the core game. In the early days, each league did not really add at a lot. So it was no big deal to merge it in. Such leagues like Torment that had ghosts power up monsters around it or even jump into them to make it even more powerful.

Them doing this, of course, sets them way apart from something like Diablo III where each league or in their case season changes every little. This also allows Path of Exile to keep expending the game and they use each league to help fund with support packs while keeping the game free to play. This just makes it an amazing experience with the way they have handled keeping this game enjoyable.

Final Thoughts

There are a bunches of other stuff these where just some things that personally stood out to me. With how time-consuming this game is I’m still not set on if I’ll be trying to create a lot of content around this league or giving it a pass.

I’m hoping the melee changes allow to finally finish off my Atlas in a league. I’ve always come close but short. I never wanted to spend the insane amount of time trying to farm for currency to buy the couple of clutch items I needed to get over the final hump. Which were always just insane prices to get from another player.

Other Content

• Path of Exile | 2019 Intention To Compete In Legion Hardcore Race

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about the game Path of Exile upcoming league Legion. Cover image is from Path of Exile website.