Path of Exile's Sentinel League is well underway; in fact, there's a little less than a month left as this League enters its final stages. However, there's more to come on the horizon with Path of Exile 3.19 coming pretty soon. So, what can we expect from the next Path of Exile League? In this article, we'll tell you everything you need to know about Path of Exile 3.19 and the next League.
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When Does Path of Exile 3.19 Release?
According to a blog post from GGG, the 3.19 expansion to Path of Exile is likely to launch on August 12th, which means that Sentinel is expected to end on about August 9th. These dates may slightly shift as we get closer to them, but expect the new League, at least, around this time.
As usual, we'll get more information about a week before the launch of the next expansion, so that's put the reveal somewhere around August 5th. That's only a few weeks away at the time of writing, so we won't have to wait very long to see what's coming.
Naturally, 3 months after the League begins, we can expect the 3.19 League to end, as is usual.
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Details on Path of Exile 3.19 League
According to GGG, and as is usually expected, we'll be getting lots of new content and balance changes coming in the new League, but beyond that, the 3.19 League is supposed to be bigger than Sentinel, so we'll be able to expect more major changes than we saw come during the current League.
What will those changes be? Well, we don't know yet. In the blog post announcing the above details about 3.19, an image of a boat was posted alongside the blog, and many are speculating this is some hint at what's to come, but, of course, this is complete speculation.
However, GGG has mentioned that 3.19 will have changes to Path of Exile's endgame, which wasn't changed much in Sentinel. This is all part of the larger push to overhaul many of the systems of Path of Exile, especially the endgame, in preparation for the release of Path of Exile 2.
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Character balance is also expected to be happening in a major way in 2.19 since there was relatively little change to the game's balance from 3.17 to 3.18. Many are excited about balancing, but many are also nervous, as the general trajectory of the game's balance seems to be nerf after nerf to combat the inevitable power creep of the game. Popular builds like the skeleton mage are expected to get major nerfs, while melee builds that have been fairly weak are generally expected to be buffed.
The Future of Path of Exile
We're halfway through 2022 at the time of writing, and Path of Exile 2 is coming in late 2023 or 2024, so it's that far out. However, big updates are expected to come to Path of Exile before the Path of Exile 2 update/release happens.
We say update/release because Path of Exile 2 is coming to the original PoE client as a new campaign and a new League, but Path of Exile 2 will funnel players into the same Atlas of Worlds endgame as original PoE characters.
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Accordingly, the endgame for PoE is likely to undergo big changes in preparation for the release of Path of Exile 2, as they will have the same endgame, so by then, the endgame should be in a good place, ready for the addition of the new campaign.
It's also entirely possible that in the lead-up to Path of Exile 2's release we'll see components of the PoE 2 release come to PoE. What does that mean? Well, PoE 2, from the gameplay we've seen, is a big graphical upgrade over the original game, so maybe these engine-level changes will also come to the original game if PoE 2 is coming to the original game's client.
GGG has also gone on the record to say that the level of loot spam in the game as well as how crafting works in the game are larger, existential problems the game has right now that need addressing, especially as we build up to Path of Exile 2, so these systems are likely to be addressed by Leagues in the coming months.
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