In the next few weeks we will see the launch of Path of Exile’s newest league: Synthesis. Synthesis comes alongside PoE’s 3.6 patch, which will bring with it a myriad of balance changes and reworks. However, Synthesis itself brings with it an entirely new mechanic: memories. Now, let’s take a look at what players can expect from the PoE 3.6 Synthesis league.
Synthesis’ Memory Mechanic
Synthesis league will be introducing a new memory mechanic. This is an entirely new mechanic in which players travel into the memories of a spirit, called Cavas, who has forgotten his past. He will take us to the memory nexus, from which we can create our own paths to discovering his memories.
The paths themselves are to be created from what appears to be a board game-styled menu. You build a pathway using square blocks with different paths jutting from them, similar to popular pipe-building games. Once you build your pathway, you travel along it, killing monsters and encountering memory fragments.
The pathways themselves seem to emulate Delve in the way that they each have their own modifiers. However, there is also an overall global modifier that gives bonus loot and experience for every single step along the chain. This means that particularly long stretches give significantly more loot, and reward increased difficulty with increased loot, the way it should be!
Again, similarly to Delve, if you stray off the path you will be met with death. This system sounds like it mirrors Delve in many ways. You create your own adventure (more literally in this one!), you hit nodes along the way that reward you with special combats and loot, and it is essentially infinite, from what we can tell right now. Obviously I haven’t tried the system yet, but it’s very reminiscent of Delve so far. That’s not a bad thing though, as Delve is currently the part of the game with the most depth (literally and figuratively) and nuance. Having another infinite dungeon end-game is a good addition, even if it has parts that are derivative.
Memory Rewards
The memory system brings with it an entirely new type of item as well. The last few leagues have each brought with them a new way to craft or modify items, and Synthesis is no different, other than being the easiest one to craft with (at least from what we’ve seen so far).
In memories you will encounter ‘broken’ items. These items have stats that are stuck on the item and cannot be modified in any way. This can be both incredible and awful. Just like rolling a normal item, most of the broken items you find will have garbage stats stuck on them. However, if you find that one that has a tier one stat on it, it will be far easier to craft onto.
For example, in the video they showed a body armor with 100 life and 42 fire resistance as the broken stats on it, which is unchangeable. This can be easily chaos-spammed to find good stats without having to worry about the first two changing. You won’t be able to craft any other way, since the items will be stuck in their rare state, from what we’ve seen.
This leaves you with one in every few hundred items that is worth crafting. What about the rest? Well, they aren’t worthless. This is where the Synthesis aspect comes in.
Three of the same type of item can be synthesised together to create a new item of the same type. If you used three of the exact same item, it looks like the result will always be that type. The resulting item has bonus implicit stats. These are stats also can’t be changed, but they’re not counted as modifiers on the item, so you can have six other stats in addition to the implicit. This gives these items more potential than others we’ve seen in the past, particularly since they can be combined with other crafting methods, such as fossil crafting.
In addition, we have confirmation that these new implicit stats will not conflict with lab enchants, meaning you can have both on a single item. The implicit stats also seem to vary wildly based on the video, so it will be very interesting to see how strong these items will become. It was also heavily implied that there would be tips and tricks to combining items for your desired result, so that will be another layer for us to uncover!
Spells in Synthesis
For quite a while it has been evident that self-casting spells (now referred to by GGG as hand-casting) just wasn’t up to par. Players used Totems, Traps, Mines, Poet’s Pens, Cast When Channeling . . . you get the picture. Players wanted to use the spells, and found ways to, but none of them hand-casted because the damage and functionality just wasn’t there. GGG has acknowledged this, and they are doing a full overhaul of every single spell in the game.
This is a massive undertaking, but from the sounds of things they are confident that they have achieved this goal. They have also announced two new support gems specific to hand-casting that we can look forward to.
This will be one of the best changes that the game has seen in a long time, and I am excited to play around with it. I know that some of the teased items include leeching from spells as well, something that was lacking before, so with these changes I plan to start the league as a hand-casting character, details yet to come. This is very exciting, and will open up many archetypes.
They are also announcing two new archetypes: Chaos and Holy. Six new spells will accompany this change, which is something else to keep our eyes peeled for.
Recap
We’ve covered the memory system, memory rewards, and the spells revamp. The memory system allows players to make their way through the mind of a spirit who cannot recall his past.
You can create pathways that grant greater rewards the further you travel. The rewards include broken items, which have stats fixed to them, and can be combined to create items with all new implicit stats.
Lastly, they are fully revamping every single spell and adding new supports in order to make hand-casting viable again. These are only some of the many changes to come, so keep your eyes peeled to the Path of Exile site for more information!