How To Effectively Prepare For Patch 1.3

Since Winter Convergence Festival was extended up to January, 25, patch 1.3. is expected to go live on January, 25 – January, 26. You can check the patch notes known for today (Part 1 and Part 2), but what do they mean for a normal player? How to prepare for the Mutated Expeditions, Umbral Shards system, etc. in the most efficient way so you don’t waste your time and money?

Note: all these thoughts are based on information known for January, 14. There might be (and will be) changes. I did my best to sort the most useful things, but no one (even the developers) can guarantee this will work as intended, so follow my advice at your own risk. Better treat it as information to think about.

Most bloggers and streamers advise you to upgrade your Stonecutting up to 200 level so you could craft Mutated Orbs for Expeditions. It’s absolutely obvious.

And that’s the main reason why this is an arguable option:

1. Everybody upgrading their Stonecutting. The price for ingredients goes higher.
2. For today the price for a crafted orb is very high on PTR, on most servers it’ll cost about three-four times more expensive than the one you can buy from your Faction Representative.
3. But both crafting and buying orbs have a 7 days cooldown, and they will be extra expensive for the first two-three weeks.
4. Ingredients required to craft Mutated Orbs will also be extremely expensive, especially for the first weeks after patch.

These four statements make you think about such things as: are there enough hardcore players on your server who will buy orbs for any price, and if you’ll be able to play enough time for those first weeks after the patch. Or is it better to buy the ingredients (for example, Tier 5 uncutted Gems) now and sell them for a better price, taking into account you’re not the only one to do so?

Of course, if you’re going to minmax your character, you’ll have to upgrade your Stonecutting up to level 200 anyway.

Another hot discussion is around Umbral Shards. I cannot tell you if it is worth it to use a daily cooldown, craft a Gypsum orb and save it to use after the patch comes out to raise your Expertise level from 590 up to 600 because this is still not clear yet.

But the most widespread advice is to buy a nice GS 600 Legendary to upgrade it right after the patch comes out. But here are some thoughts about it.

1. Guess what’s going on with the prices on Best in Slots (BiS) GS 600 items? Well, I saw a 600 GS Great Axe with Thwarting Strikes, Keen and Angry Earth Bane for a price of 300.000 gold.
2. Drop rate for armor and weapons is pretty high in the Mutated Expeditions, so you might loot your Legendary item there.
3. New perks, like Flame Attunement (+15% Fire damage bonus), seem to become best in slot for PvP and PvE, which means you’ll have to craft a new gear. While armor perks can be useful mostly to complete the Mutated Expeditions, this will still make a lot of players craft items with this perk, which leads us to the next statement.
4. The price for 1-day-cooldown ingredients (say “hello” to Asmodeum) might be (or already is on some servers) insane on the patch start.

But I can give you a piece of advice, which will be useful with almost 100% chance. Stack Faction Tokens and raise your Faction Standing and Expertise level to the maximum so you could buy Mutated Orbs and upgrade your gear once these systems go live.

You can buy some Suspended Azoth Vials, but only if they are not raised in price on your server already. The number of Vials received from all chests will be decreased, though the fast travel cost will also be decreased.

Get yourself three weapons, one for each Mutated Expedition. Usually, these are the War Hammer (or Void Gauntlet, but it is usually being used as a supportive weapon) for Lazarus Instrumentality, Spear (or Musket, Bow) for Dynasty Shipyard, and Great Axe (because Hatchet doesn’t have enough AoE potential and Fire Staff fits for Eternal Mutation only) for Garden of Genesis.

Angry Earth, Corrupted, and Ancients Bane perks for weapons and Ward perks for armor will also be useful. The Bane perk on weapons gives a +14% damage bonus starting from 568 Gear Score, so you don’t really need an extra expensive 600 GS weapon.

Also, you need Combat Trophies. And this part is all about the gold you can spend. Placing three Tier 4 Major Combat Trophies in every house will give you a +15% damage bonus, but it comes for a huge price. Buying the three cheapest houses and using Basic Combat Trophies will save you a lot of money, while the bonus will be still 12%.

As for the consumables, they will also grow in price, so make sure you have enough.

1. First of all, you need Health Regeneration Food, Health Potions, Regeneration Potions; and Mana Regeneration Food, Mana Potions, Focus Potions for mana users.

2. As for the Attribute Food, you’ll probably use Roasted Rabbit with Seasoned Vegetables, to maximize your health. The reason is that it’s the only food with a maximum Attribute bonus that doesn’t require a legendary fish for crafting. If it’s too expensive on your server, you can use any cheap food to save your money.

3. Powerful Honing Stone will increase your damage. They can be bought or crafted at Smelter if you reach 170 Weaponsmithing level. You can use cheaper stones, like Strong Honing Stone, because the difference is not so big.

4. Powerful Gemstone Dust can be also bought or crafted at level 170 Jewelcrafting. But since they’ll be used in the Mutated Orb crafting, you can buy Strong Gemstone Dust much cheaper.

5. Powerful Oakflesh Balm can be bought or crafted at 170 Armoring level as well. It also has cheaper analogs, but usually, they don’t cost too much and you don’t use them too often.

6. Powerful Incense requires 170 Furnishing levels to craft. Otherwise, you can buy it or use Strong Incense, which usually costs much less.

7. Weapon Coatings give a 15% damage bonus against certain types of enemies. You need Ancients, Corrupted, and Angry Earth Coatings.

8. Ward Potions increase your damage absorption against certain enemy types. They can help you mitigate heavy incoming damage. Same as before, you need Ancients, Corrupted and Angry Earth Ward Potions.

9. Absorption Potions can also help you. They increase absorption by 15% against certain types of elemental damage, so you need Fire Potion for Hellfire Mutation and Void Potion for Eternal Mutation.

10. Corruption Tincture and Blight Tincture remove afflictions and give 97,5% resistance to these afflictions for 5 minutes.

Hope you have found some useful information. Feel free to share and comment.