In Path of Exile, GGG are keeping working to improve every aspect of the league they can. Recently, GGG Published an article that detailing what new playstyles will be enabled. I believe most players will be interested. Let us have a look.

One of the core goals of future skill development will be enabling new styles of gameplay. Similar to how Essence Drain and Contagion introduced an entirely new style of play, GGG want more skills to feel like a whole new playstyle. This will include taking existing skills that don’t see much use and giving them unique twists or mechanics that separate them from the rest.

Charged Dash was a skill intended to fill a primary attack role that has built in movement. Path of Exile only has a few skills in this category and only Cyclone and Flicker Strike see much use later in the game. Charged Dash was intended to fill a similar role for Elemental conversion attacks with a unique twist on the gameplay.

The skill was balanced toward having an enemy in a position of maximum overlap, while rapidly moving back and forth across them. Complex end-game boss encounters and the rapid precision targeting required in this situation made the skill a sub-par choice for many major boss fights. The damage output just didn’t feel worth the effort and risk.

GGG are trying out a new setup for this skill where the areas of damage don’t overlap so you don’t need to worry about getting enemies in the zone of greatest overlap. They can then also turn up the skill’s hit damage. They’re experimenting with having the skill pulse damage repeatedly when fully charged so that having a higher movement speed doesn’t result in you having to click repeatedly against enemies. This will come with major changes to how the damage output is modified by attack speed and movement speed, which they’re still working on fine-tuning.

These significant changes to the skill keep the fast-paced movement style when fighting regular enemies, while creating a combat style on bosses that lets you focus on avoiding boss abilities and making a few carefully timed moves rather than rapidly clicking and re-targeting. It’s a good example of how they’re trying to push interesting new ways to play Path of Exile.

It’s hard to estimate exactly how many skill revamps will be released in Content Update 3.3.0, but GGG’s goal is to revamp around nine skills in this update. It could be more if other prototypes pan out earlier than expected, or less if they run into difficulties. Over the coming weeks, they will talk more specifically about changes they’re experimenting with in these new skill prototypes and how the progress is going. And we will update the news for you.