Anytime there's a significant endgame update, league start just hits different. There's a real energy to the unknown: figuring out how systems interact, what the actual meta shakes out to be, and what sleeper strats people are sleeping on. On paper the meta might not look drastically different beyond some obvious nerfs, but the new exceptional gems and the coin system for adding supports are wild cards we genuinely can't predict yet. That's exciting.
Endgame: The New Map System
I'm vibing with the new atlas overhaul. Previously, rolling a juiced 8-mod map on a garbage layout felt like throwing money in the trash. Now you can bank that rolled map or solid scarab for whatever strategy you actually want to run, on a layout you actually enjoy. No more micromanaging favorites, I assume they will change the map tab to be like PoE2 for the waystones.
New bosses are always a draw. The last few felt a little flat to me, but the unique rewards at least kept things interesting and that trend continues here. Everyone seems really keen on the new belt, which I had on my bingo card, and rightfully so. If it works the way people are theorycrafting it could be genuinely insane.
The thing I'm most curious about is just how high the ceiling is for mapping. If you're running an astrolabe that boosts subsequent maps and you've got mirage doubling your farming strategy on top of that, things could get very stupid very fast. That's the kind of emergent interaction that makes early league exciting. Also hopefully nightmare maps hit the mark on layouts better than t17s or they are just boss rusher maps for fragments and not required for juice strats.
Farming Strategy Outlook
Blight
My favorite strat the last two leagues. Dropped a raw mirror in 3.27, which felt like peak blight, but it seems pretty tapped at this point since every axis seems to have been nerfed. I'm reserving judgment though, a blight astrolabe combined with the mirage giving you a second blight per map is at least intriguing. Not ready to crown it yet, but not writing it off either.
Hive / Breach
This one has real potential that people I think. When I was running blight for scarab farming last league, Hives were consistently rewarding for almost zero effort. Now if you can stack the breach tree, throw breach scarabs at it, enrage monsters, and then have the whole thing miraged in the same map? That could be quietly strong.
Harvest
Without awakening it just feels like a lot less fun for the big juice payoff moments. Mirage might save it but I'm not counting on it as a primary strat. With fossils now in delve, the tree and settlers nerfed maybe harvest crafting fractured items makes a comeback (outside of cluster jewels) and less juice will still be profitable.
Expedition
Potential sleeper. Full juice big bomb is terrifying to play around at the best of times, and scaled up inside mirage that gets even scarier. Would need a genuinely tanky build, but if you have that it might be worth exploring. Interested to test it.
Meta: Things I Have Played in the Past
Earthshatter Triple Tap
Nerfed. Probably still viable for people who really know the build, but I wouldn't league start it past day 1 at most.
Kinetic Blast of Clustering
The top-end Choir/intelligence/runegraft version took meaningful hits, but the skill itself seems untouched as far as I can tell. The hybrid versions should be relatively unaffected by the int nerfs, and the new coin system could partially offset the runegraft loss. If the skill gem itself isn't nerfed in the full notes, KBOC still looks very playable. The absolute ceiling is lower but the floor seems fine.
My Plan
Starting on the holy slam skills to see if they actually deliver. If they feel bad early I'll pivot to KBOC, the build is proven enough that it should still be a safe fallback once the full gem info is out.
More updates on league start once we have gem info and I have thought more on the holy slam. GL to everyone else at the start line.
-Stay Sane Exile