With Path of Exile 3.24 launching soon, here we’ll review everything we know so far about Necropolis League mechanics and rewards, as well as the implications of this League mechanic on what build and farming strategies you should be playing. If you want to get a head start when entering the league, be sure not to miss this guide. Let’s get started!

League Mechanics Explained

First, let's talk about everything we know so far about the league mechanics.

Lantern UI

Necropolis is a crafting league that has many similarities to Bestiary, Harvest and Delve.

Before entering each area, you’ll see a UI pop-up, Lantern of Arimor. This UI will show you some Spirits, their associated monster modifiers, and each monster pack that can be spawned locally in the area.

Using this UI, you can move spirits onto any monster you want and assign modifiers to parts of those monsters. Lantern UI also displays detailed information about monster packs in the area, including key information such as pack density. It allows you to assign modifiers to monsters to diminish or reduce effects, or maximize bonuses from high-tier or beneficial modifiers.

It is worth noting that this league mechanism affects all zones, including league zones such as Heist Contracts and sub-zones such as Abyssal Depths.

What I really want to emphasize about this mechanic is that it is mandatory. You cannot opt out of this mechanism. Every area you enter has Haunted Spirits, which make monsters stronger and more dangerous. But you do want to make sure your build can handle these difficult spikes.

Spirit

There are two types of Spirits you can find in Lantern: the more common Haunted Spirits and the rare Devoted Spirits.

Haunted Spirits come in various tiers. The higher the tier, the stronger the monster modifier, and provide better rewards for slain monsters haunted by those spirits. These better rewards come as increased chances for monsters to gain “Unresolved Anguish”.

This simply means that monsters will drop collectible corpses when slain, increasing the drop chance of Embers of The Allflame, and increasing the chance of getting Devoted Spirits for each haunted monster killed for future Lanterns.

It’s worth noting that all of this only applies to monsters that spawn locally in the area. Later, monsters spawned from the league mechanic will not be haunted, and in fact will not even appear on Lantern.

The second type is Devoted Spirits. Unlike Haunted Spirits, these Spirits grant modifiers with beneficial effects on the player. This can include Magic Find, increased XP, and monster spawning things like Lesser Shrines, Strongboxes, and Nameless Seers.

Your chance of gaining Devoted modifier increases based on the number and level of haunted spirits you killed in the previous area. This means that placing higher level, more difficult modifiers on a high density of monsters will result in more Devoted Spirits appearing in subsequent areas.

If you’re not interested in the crafting part of Necropolis, this could very well be a way to flesh out your map and get extra rewards. Not only are you likely to have highly profitable Devoted Spirits, but it’s worth noting that these modifiers may increase the monster’s item count and rarity. Whatever modifier you gain will allow you to expand your loot.

Ember Of The Allflame

Next up is Ember of The Allflame. These are consumable items that drop haunted monsters, and can be used with Lantern UI to replace monster packs with different special monster packs. Most of these special monsters have additional items to drop, including some very exciting ones that drop tattoos!

It’s worth noting that these special monster packs will inherit the density of the monsters they replace, so you may want to use them on the densest monster packs available to maximize the number on the map.

The important thing about Embers of The Allflame is that at least some of them can only be dropped from specific content or even specific monsters. It’s possible these items will be linked to specific maps or content types, but that’s unclear at the moment, and it’s something we’ll have to figure out once the league goes live.

The ultimate effect of Haunted Spirits is Unresolved Anguish. A certain percentage of haunted monsters will have this modifier, which makes them collectible corpses when killed.

These corpses have a crafting modifier and inherit the monster’s name, monster type, and monster level. In addition, the developers also stated that at least some monsters from Embers of The Allflame have exclusive crafts associated with them.

If this applies to all monsters, and popular crafts only come from specific monsters or maps, then much of the league’s strategy will revolve around trying to farm those specific crafts.

Exorcism Crafting

Finally, it’s time to talk about the crafting part of this crafting league, Exorcism Crafting.

The corpses you collect from slain, haunted monsters can be consumed in large quantities to create single items. Each corpse has a crafting modifier that affects the items created.

How it works is that you’ll travel to Necropolis Graveyard, bury any number of corpses, and then exorcise all of them, and the items you craft will gain all of their combined effects.

It is said that there are many graves, and if you are willing to invest more POE Currency, you can craft an incredibly powerful item.

However, this design is far from deterministic. You can’t even choose the item base of the item you’re crafting, only broad categories like “Shield” or “Boots.”

In order to get the item base you want, you will need to use corpse modifiers that affect the item base. One of the new corpse modifiers is called “Modifier Tier Rate”. This is a new way to make items have higher level affixes.

While this modifier allows you to gain higher-level affixes, it doesn’t actually ensure that you actually gain that affix. This means you need to combine Modifier Tier Rate with other modifiers to increase your chances of rolling that type of affix.

Another interesting use of Modifier Tier Rate is to use it on affix types you don’t want, to reduce the chance of getting that affix in your item. Using them in this way is like using a much weaker version of Fossil that prevents certain types of affixes from rolling on items.

Farming Tips

So what farming strategy is best for Necropolis? Since the endgame got a huge overhaul in POE 3.24, with the addition of tier 17 maps and a massive scarab rework. Compared to previous leagues, it feels difficult to make any reliable predictions this time around.

However, I do believe we can glean some important insights from all this.

For one, the rewards associated with crafting don’t match other league mechanics. Only monsters local to the map will be haunted, which means other league mechanics spawning in monsters not only won’t give you any corpses to craft, they’ll even just slow you down.

Embers, on the other hand, seem to be designed specifically for players who want to ignore crafting elements and focus solely on farming drops. Embers and their rewards will probably increase as the number of items increases. So if you decide to focus on corpse collecting, you’ll need to find ways to maximize the number of local monsters on the map.

As far as taking advantage of league mechanics, most will just slow you down. The only league mechanic that has the potential to increase the number of local monsters on a map is Shrine, but I’m not 100% sure it actually works. However, some of the new Scarabs will definitely come into play and can add additional haunted monsters to your map.

Embers farming has two parts: farming Embers themselves, or using embers to farm the monsters they spawn in the map. The details of Embers drops are currently unclear, so it’s difficult to assess whether players focused on farming Embers will do both, or just one or the other.

But the goal is to grow more Embers as you use them, and maybe even over-maintain to sell the excess Embers! Because you are replacing monster packs with Embers, you need to make sure to always replace high-density monster packs.

You may even want to consider running a map with a less efficient layout and more monster packs overall in order to maximize the value you get from your expensive Embers.

Which Build Type To Choose?

Finally, let’s talk about the factors you need to consider when creating Necropolis league builds.

What I really want to emphasize here is that this league will be more rigorous than the standard league. This league mechanic is mandatory. It makes monsters stronger, and you can’t opt out. On top of that, this patch introduces a lot of new and challenging endgame content. Therefore, I highly recommend you play with proven meta builds.

Because this is a crafting league focused on crafting powerful rare items, builds that use a lot of unique items will be at a disadvantage here. They won’t be able to take full advantage of the powerful crafting options Necropolis offers.

As for the specific type of build you should be playing, you have to take a bit of a gamble here. The fact that corpses don’t scale with the loot-increasing effect of increasing difficulty means that a clear speed build that clears the map as quickly as possible at the expense of high-end power is probably the right choice.

However, we still don’t know much about how the endgame will play out. If the best corpses come from side content like Heist or Delve, then clear speed may not be king. But a full build is probably a safe bet.

That’s all for this guide. I’d also love to hear your thoughts on Necropolis. Are you going to focus on corpses or embers? Any thoughts on all the new Scarabs we’re receiving? See you next time!