New Boss Shakari and Adjustments to Existing Corpse Spells in POE 3.1 War for the Atlas

War for the Atlas includes four new spells, all of which interact in some way with corpses. To keep existing corpse-related skills relevant, we've made some adjustments to both of our existing corpse-aligned spells, the corpse-spawning Desecrate and the damaging Detonate Dead. Today's news post outlines what to expect from these changes.

Last week our trailer for Path of Exile: War for the Atlas teased many new aspects of the upcoming expansion. You may have noticed one new boss, Shakari who will appear in Act Nine! The team has been working hard on this fight and POE're eager to share a full reveal of this gameplay in action.

By the way, the Turmoil Events ended recently and your characters have been migrated to their parent leagues. POE'll be sending out the rewards throughout today and tomorrow. POE are aiming to have them awarded to the winners as soon as possible. POE hope you enjoyed the event as much as POE did and are getting prepared for the Mayhem Events later this week!

Previously, Desecrate was the only way to create new monster corpses with a skill but with the addition of the new Unearth Skill Gem, POE wanted to make sure the two had different roles when considering them for your characters.

Unearth has the advantage of not having a cooldown, but at the cost of requiring additional projectile support gems to make the most out of it. Desecrate will keep its cooldown count, but it has now been shortened from five seconds to three. Desecrate will still be the only way to spawn corpses of monsters from the area, which means you have the potential to create corpses with high life if the area has tougher monsters. This leaves Desecrate as requiring fewer support gems to reach maximum efficiency while having some unique tricks with spawning monsters from the area, while Unearth is the less efficient but more reliable alternative.

Detonate Dead was the original corpse-destroying spell, available from a very low level. It had its time in the sun during the height of the ignite proliferation and double dipping metagames, but has seen a major decline in use since those mechanics were changed. This is because its corpse requirement makes it less practical to activate than a regular fire spell and its secondary damage harder to specialise in and support.

To let it have more of the benefits of a damaging spell, POE've split the explosion into two parts, a corpse-based explosion that deals un-reflectable secondary damage like all other corpse explosions and a powerful spell explosion that has base fire damage that grows as the gem levels.This makes it something you can fully invest in, with a large base area that grows as the gem levels and destructive new visuals to match. Alongside the new Unearth or the improved Desecrate, it's now much easier to rely on this skill while leveling towards any of the new corpse-based skills or as a reliable area of effect skill that can carry you through the game.

POE have a few more adjustments in progress for 3.1.0. POE are currently considering how these changes will affect Vaal Detonate Dead as well as the enchantments that affect these skills. POE'll announce the specifics as part of a news post closer to release. Changes to attacks that interact with corpses are not possible for the 3.1.0 content update, but POE're going to keep an eye on them and make changes in future.