Path of Exile 3.29 Patch Notes Review: Winners and Losers in Curse of the Allflame

The Path of Exile 3.29 patch notes ran long enough that Maxroll labelled its copy a 91-minute read, and five numbered follow-up patches have landed since. This review was checked in October 2026 and covers everything from the 3.29.0 launch on July 24 to the current version, 3.29.3b, with a plain verdict on who gained and who lost in Curse of the Allflame.

New here? Start with this

A numbered patch like 3.29 does three things at once: it opens a new challenge league with a fresh economy, it rebalances skills and classes, and it reworks older parts of the game. You do not need to read all of it. For a new or returning player the short version is:

• Spells you cast yourself are strong. Almost every self-cast spell was buffed.
• Sockets are simple. Any gem fits any socket; colours only add a quality bonus.
• Mercenaries are back in the core game, and the Scion has a new ascendancy, the Luminary, built around hiring one permanently.
• The league mechanic is a dive to the sea floor for Charts and Voyages, run from Valerie's ship.
• The post-launch patches fixed most of the early complaints, so October is a better time to play the league than launch week was.

The patch timeline

Within days of launch GGG published a candid status post. It promised 20-40% more quantity and rarity on Chart modifiers, more loot objects, and earlier Ducat crafting. It said Abyss encounters "didn't land in terms of reward", and it acknowledged that many players felt permanent mercenaries were too weak in high-tier maps. Patches 3.29.1 to 3.29.3 delivered on that list.

Winners

• Self-cast spells. GGG's own example: Divine Ire deals 27% more damage at gem level 20 and 37% more at level 30, because damage growth per level went up too.
• Winter Orb. Two to three projectiles (from one), a 25% freeze chance and 7.5% critical strike chance. It is the most played skill on poe.ninja at 7.4% of characters.
• Fire spells. Lower mana costs and more added damage. Fireball went from 370% to 480% effectiveness of added damage with 20% lower cost.
• Physical spells. Ethereal Knives, Blade Vortex and Blade Blast went from 6% to 10% critical strike chance.
• Chaos damage over time. Essence Drain's base damage per second at level 20 rose from about 2,170 to 2,729.
• Minions. Non-spectre minions no longer pause between attacks, a large gain for zombies, golems, skeletons and Summon Raging Spirit.
• Caster weapons. Spell damage prefixes on staves now reach 200% (from 164%).
• Occultist and Inquisitor. Each gained a notable: Unhallowed Rite for channelled spells, and Instruments of Justice, which sets base spell critical strike chance to that of your main-hand weapon.
• The Luminary, eventually. A launch-week Reddit meta summary put it at 8-12% of players. After 3.29.1 removed the permanent-mercenary damage penalty below level 45 and made strong mercenaries more common, it grew to 23.8% of the poe.ninja ladder by October 12.
• Divination card and Legion farmers. The Scrying Orb replaced the hunt for the Nameless Seer, and Legion gained Enshrouding Crystals.

Losers

• Kinetic Fusillade. Attack speed fell from 200% to 125% of base and the mana cost rose.
• Totems. Spell Totem Support now deals 55-50% less damage (from 49-40%), Ballista Totem 36-30% less (from 32-24%), and Hierophant's Ritual of Awakening gives 3% more damage per totem instead of 5%.
• Mines. Blastchain and High-Impact Mine both deal 60-55% less and their cost multiplier went from 50% to 65%.
• Archmage. Added lightning damage is 8-14% of unreserved mana, down from 10-16%.
• Elemental Hit lost 17% of its added damage, and Kinetic Blast dropped from 200% to 150% Arcane Might.
• Energy Blade now requires every equipped weapon to be a sword.
• Spectres. Life was lowered so that no spectre has more than a Meatsack.
• Breach farmers. 15% fewer packs in Unstable Breaches, at most two open at once, and less pack size from the Atlas tree.
• Betrayal. Allflame Embers moved to the league mechanic; Maxroll now rates Betrayal C tier.
• Anyone who relied on Chromatic Orbs. Vendors no longer sell them and the colour recipes are gone.

Worth noting: several nerfed builds are still recommended. Maxroll kept Kinetic Fusillade Ballista and Storm Burst totems in the S tier of its starter list after these changes.

Did the league land?

On the evidence, it recovered. The launch problems were real and GGG named them. The fixes were concrete: Chart strongboxes no longer needed upgrades to appear, Offerings to the Deep altars went from a 4% to a 10% currency conversion chance, Abyss elites and chests were made more rewarding, and 3.29.3 added Cursed Ducats as an optional difficulty and loot dial. The last patch, 3.29.3b in early September, is bug fixes plus one quality-of-life change: trade site search links no longer expire.

Maxroll's verdict on the economy is that the ceiling of endgame farming is lower than in 3.28 while the floor for each mechanic is higher. For most players that is a good trade.

What comes next

GGG's official video dated October 6 confirms ExileCon 2026 for November 7 and 8 New Zealand time (November 6 and 7 in US Pacific time), with announcements and race finals for both games. When this article was checked, GGG's announcements forum had no release date for 3.30.

Zizaran's developer interview from early August is titled as covering both 3.29 and 3.30 and is the longest first-hand source available. Beyond that there is only speculation: in a September 23 video, sirgog argues that few launch dates remain open around ExileCon and the Path of Exile 2 schedule, and he describes his own reasoning as speculative. Plan your remaining league goals around ExileCon, not around a rumoured date.

For veterans

The lines most likely to change an existing build or habit:

• Avoidance is additive. Chance to avoid all damage from hits now adds to chance to avoid a specific damage type.
• Cost reduction on the tree became Cost Efficiency. A 3.29.1 fix also made Cost Efficiency apply before modifiers to total cost.
• Assassin's Mystical Infusion changed completely. Spell critical strike chance now Bifurcates (rolled twice; two successes double the bonus damage) with 30% less spell critical strike chance. Hits that always crit cannot Bifurcate.
• Three new keystones near the Witch: Bitter Frost, Roiling Tempest and Voracious Flame, each locking you to one element.
• Reflect modifiers became Thorns on rare monsters: 800 physical or 1,500 elemental damage per hit in red maps.
• Dagger implicits went up (for example 30% to 40-45% global critical strike chance) and existing daggers update with a Blessed Orb.
• Soul Eater decays faster on monsters: one soul every 0.2 seconds after 2 seconds without a kill.
• Unleash was buffed at high levels (45-26% less damage when reoccurring, from 45-36%).
• Non-unique Synthesised items are no longer obtainable, and Incubators were removed.

Sources

• GGG – Content Update 3.29.0 patch notes
• GGG – What We're Working On: Curse of the Allflame
• GGG – Curse of the Allflame Patch Notes 3.29.1 Preview
• GGG – 3.29.2 Patch Notes
• GGG – 3.29.3 Patch Notes
• GGG – 3.29.3b Patch Notes
• GGG – Patch Notes forum (thread dates)
• GGG – Announcements forum
• Maxroll – PoE 3.29 Curse of the Allflame League Branch Update
• Maxroll – Endgame Farming Tier List
• poe.ninja – Allflame builds ladder (snapshot 12 Oct 2026)
• Reddit r/PathOfExileBuilds – Day 4-5 Meta discussion, 3.29 Allflame
• Zizaran (YouTube) – Path of Exile Developer Interview: What's Coming in 3.29 and 3.30
• sirgog (YouTube) – When Is 3.30 Coming?
• Path of Exile (YouTube) – One Month until ExileCon 2026