Path of Exile Update 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors - release date, new skills, what to expect, and more

As ExileCon 2023 teases the upcoming Path of Exile 2, the next expansion for the original game drops this week with its fresh season. The update patch notes were released recently to enable the theorycrafting of newer build ideas with a changing late game meta. The update also ships with the all-new league mechanics with the arena of the Karui afterlife.

As evident from one of the shortest lists of patch notes, Overused skills from the stagnating league meta have been largely left untouched. This will result in the common league starters retaining roughly the same power from the last patch, but the end-game meta is likely to shift thanks to the new Support Gems.

---

Path of Exile 3.22 Trial of The Ancestors release date

Path of Exile: Trial of The Ancestors launches on August 18, 2023, on Windows/Mac (Steam). The consoles, on the other hand, will receive their update a week later, on August 23. You can go to the official page for the 3.22 update page anytime for live countdown timers.

---

Path of Exile 3.22 Trial of the Ancestors - all new Skill Gems added to the game

The Trial of The Ancestors expansion adds 13 new Support Gems to the core game to service fresh build ideas. Some of these have hybrid scaling between two attributes more fitting for dual classes like Spellblades.

• Strength Gems - Controlled Blaze, Corrupting Cry, Trauma, Volatility
• Dexterity Gem - Returning Projectiles
• Intelligence Gems - Frigid Bond, Sacrifice, Fresh Meat
• Hybrid Gems - Flamewood (Str/Int), Guardian's Blessing (Str/Int), Sadism (Str/Dex), Locus Mine (Dex/Int), Spellblade (Int/Str), Devour (Int/Dex)

---

Path of Exile 3.22 Balance changes

The new patch comes with a host of changes to the Ruthless game mode, which are listed under its own section on the patch notes page.

Outside of Ruthless-specific Ascendancy changes, the other important overall monster balance change is the removal of stun immunity from bosses, including Atziri, Argus, The Vaal Omnitect and Betrayal Targets.

Arguably, there is only one other major skill balance change that affects character builds significantly in the standard Path of Exile patch 3.22 experience:

"The Temporal Chains skill gem now has "Other effects on Cursed enemies expire 25% slower" at all gem levels."

Previously, Temporal Chains used to make debuffs last 40% longer, which has now been dialed back to 25%. Essentially, this nerfs a number of builds that thrive on stacking poison damage and other damage-over-time effects.

---

Path of Exile 3.22 - Trial of the Ancestors' new league mechanics

First and foremost, the new update switches things up even for Standard League players. The Forbidden Sanctum league mechanics have been integrated into the core game, with tradable Forbidden Tomes that essentially function as a save state of your next Sanctum Floor.

While the base difficulty of Sanctum has been increased, the returning Relics have been rebalanced to be more worth the effort.

There have also been a few balance changes to the Legion, Delirium, and Torment leagues. Most notably, a full Legion rework makes the risk of cheap Legion duels much higher.

Most importantly, the update also comes with its all-new Trial of the Ancestors expansion. The new content is bound to the lore of the Karui tribe, wherein the Exiled will visit the Karui afterlife to partake in an incrementally challenging series of tournaments to defeat the ten tribes.

Players in the new Trial of the Ancestors league will be rewarded by the tattoo mechanic to 'adorn their soul.' The finer details remain to be disclosed till the release of the league, but the gist is that these provide new sockets to further diversify your character with new buffs, similar to Jewels.