Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath – Changes to The Labyrinth

With The Fall of Oriath expansion drastically changing Path of Exile’s progression, an obvious question is how this change will affect the Ascendancy perks. Previously, these perk points that allowed you to specialize your characters were tied to completing The Lord’s Labyrinth on each of the game’s three difficulty levels. Now that those are on their way out, such a system isn’t viable anymore. This Development Manifesto explains how exactly things will work in 3.0.0. Have a look:

The decision to remove the Cruel and Merciless difficulties with the launch of Path of Exile: The Fall of Oriath has a lot of tangentially-related changes associated with it. One of the largest is how the Labyrinth ties into gameplay and the new layout of the world.

Currently, there is one version of the Labyrinth per difficulty, each granting two ascendancy points, with a final Labyrinth found through maps that brings the total of ascendancy points to eight. The ascendancy trees were designed from the start to accommodate eight points, and specifically that those points be distributed in groups of two. Each time you gain ascendancy points you have the potential to reach a new major ascendancy passive.

We want to maintain this structure for The Fall of Oriath. There will still be four total Labyrinths, they’ll each award two ascendancy points, and they will each require you to complete a series of trials, though the total number of trials is being reduced.

You’ll still need to complete six trials to gain access to the Aspirants’ Plaza via the Sarn Encampment. From here you will be able to access all four versions of the Labyrinth, as long as you have fulfilled their requirements. The requirements for all of the Labyrinths as of The Fall of Oriath will be:

• Normal-equivalent Labyrinth: Six trials.
• Cruel-equivalent Labyrinth: Three trials, as well as completion of the previous Labyrinth.
• Merciless-equivalent Labyrinth: Three trials, as well as completion of both previous Labyrinths.
• Endgame Labyrinth: Six trials, as well as completion of all previous Labyrinths.

These requirements will all be displayed on a UI similar to the master-crafting benches. The UI will show the trials you still need to complete for each Labyrinth, including the Endgame one.

Because the point at which you may unlock the second and third labyrinths are going to differ (you won’t necessarily be anywhere near the Sarn Encampment), the Aspirants’ Plaza will have a Waypoint that, once activated, lets you return to it at any time.