TL;DR
- Synthesis League introduces memory-based gameplay with Cavas and the Memory Nexus system
- Seven new skill gems and three support gems expand build diversity significantly
- Energy Shield leech mechanics and critical strike caps fundamentally change defense strategies
- Fractured items enable powerful implicit crafting through the Synthesiser
- Complete 40 challenges for exclusive microtransactions and hideout decorations
Grinding Gear Games has unleashed the comprehensive patch notes for Path of Exile: Synthesis, marking the arrival of update 3.6.0. This substantial content drop delivers Standard, Hardcore, and Solo Self-Found iterations of the Synthesis challenge league, all featuring identical core mechanics and item pools. Adventurers can also establish private league variants incorporating difficulty-enhancing modifications.
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Understanding the Synthesis Ecosystem
Challenge leagues represent the perfect opportunity for veterans and newcomers alike to experience Path of Exile with a clean slate. While your established characters and collected items remain accessible in Standard and Hardcore leagues, we strongly recommend diving into the fresh economy of Synthesis. Complete specialized objectives and showcase your mastery of Wraeclast’s ever-evolving landscape!
Update 3.6.0 introduces three distinct versions of the Synthesis challenge league: Standard, Hardcore, and Solo Self-Found. Each iteration maintains identical gameplay systems and itemization. For those seeking additional challenge, private league creation enables customized difficulty through various modifiers.
Within the Synthesis Challenge League, you’ll encounter Cavas, a tormented spirit suffering from profound memory loss. He desperately requires your assistance to reconstruct his fragmented past and uncover secrets trapped within his consciousness.
Assist Cavas by venturing into these decaying memories and activating the memory stabilizers contained within each fragment. Exercise caution though—memories deteriorate rapidly, and lingering excessively or choosing incorrect pathways will cause you to deteriorate alongside them! Successfully securing a memory permits Cavas to archive it within the Memory Nexus.
By accessing the Memory Nexus, you can utilize accumulated memories to construct pathways toward distant memory fragments. These remote memories harbor formidable encounters and lucrative rewards. You might discover Fractured Items featuring permanently locked modifiers that cannot be altered through conventional crafting methods.
Employ Fractured Items within the Synthesiser (located in the Memory Nexus) to manufacture base item types endowed with potent new implicit modifiers! The resulting modifiers depend specifically on the attributes selected by the Synthesiser from the sacrificed items. What extraordinary creations will you engineer?
The new challenge leagues incorporate 40 distinct trials. Upon completing 12 challenges, you’ll obtain the Synthesis Crown and Synthesis Crown Attachment. Achieving 24 challenges rewards you with the Synthesis Pet companion. At 36 completed challenges, you’ll receive the magnificent Synthesis Wings. These cosmetic enhancements remain exclusively available during this league period.
Starting from the 19th challenge milestone and continuing for every third challenge thereafter, you’ll acquire components of the Synthesis Totem Pole decoration for your hideout. This monument permanently documents your Synthesis challenge completion tally throughout the league.

Expanded Arsenal: New Skill and Support Gems
Introducing a new Intelligence/Strength Skill Gem – Purifying Flame: This divine technique projects a wave of sacred fire dealing damage along a linear path, subsequently generating Consecrated Ground and inflicting area damage around the target location. A more substantial shockwave then radiates outward, striking adversaries positioned on Consecrated Ground that avoided the initial impact.
Added a new Intelligence Skill Gem – Soulrend: Unleash a projectile that travels through enemies, dealing chaos damage upon contact while converting a percentage of that damage into Energy Shield. The projectile additionally applies a brief damage-over-time effect to creatures near its trajectory.
Implemented a new Intelligence Skill Gem – Bane: This hex applies a debilitating effect causing Chaos damage over time, along with any linked curse effects, to enemies within an area. The affliction inflicts progressively more damage and persists longer for each curse Bane activates.
Deployed a new Intelligence/Strength Skill Gem – Wave of Conviction: This ability emits an expanding cone of energy that travels forward for a duration, dealing physical, fire and lightning damage to struck enemies, while applying a vulnerability that reduces enemy resistances to the element dealing the highest damage for an extended duration. Reactivating the skill while a wave remains active terminates the previous wave. Only one wave may exist simultaneously.
Incorporated a new Intelligence Skill Gem – Zealotry: This aura enhances spell damage for you and allies while boosting critical strike chance with spells. You and your companions may also generate Consecrated Ground when striking powerful enemies.
Established a new Intelligence/Strength Skill Gem – Divine Ire: This channelled ability deals physical and lightning damage to nearby foes and accumulates stages during channeling, with additional stages granted based on enemies damaged nearby. When you cease channeling, release a devastating energy beam forward, dealing amplified damage corresponding to each accumulated stage.
Introduced a new Intelligence/Dexterity Skill Gem – Malevolence: This aura provides increased skill duration for you and allies, while enhancing damage over time effects.
Added a new Intelligence Support Gem – Energy Leech Support: Augmented skills siphon a percentage of damage dealt on hit as Energy Shield. These skills additionally inflict increased damage during Energy Shield leeching and while at maximum Energy Shield capacity.
Included a new Intelligence Support Gem – Intensify Support: Enhanced skills exhibit reduced Area of Effect but deliver greater Area damage per Intensity level. These skills gain Intensity upon activation and shed Intensity during movement or teleportation.
Provided a new Intelligence Support Gem – Unleash Support: Empowered spells accumulate seals gradually, unleashing these seals upon casting, causing their effects to repeat for each expended seal.
Enhanced the auditory experience with substantial musical additions throughout early campaign acts.
Unlocked five additional hideouts obtainable through gameplay progression.
Revealed 17 novel Unique Items with distinctive properties.
Presented 15 fresh Divination Cards, crafted by dedicated Supporters.
Introduced innovative item categories: Fractured Items and Synthesised Items.
Path of Exile has discontinued support for Windows XP and Windows Vista operating systems. The 32-bit client remains available for users of 32-bit Windows versions, though we strongly advocate utilizing the 64-bit client where feasible. With Windows XP and Vista support termination, we’re finally retiring DirectX 9 rendering mode, as DirectX 11 delivers comprehensive support in modern Windows iterations with significantly improved performance. Eliminating dual DirectX version maintenance enables substantial code simplification and performance optimization.

Revolutionary Defense Mechanics
Implemented Energy Shield Leech functionality. This system operates similarly to Life Leech mechanics, except it replenishes Energy Shield and faces constraints from your maximum Energy Shield Leech Rate. Multiple passive skill clusters have been integrated to facilitate this innovative recovery method.
Ghost Reaver now redirects leech to Energy Shield instead of Life, while doubling your maximum Energy Shield Leech Rate capacity.
Established a ceiling on resource leech per individual leech instance. By default, this limit stands at 10% of the resource’s maximum value. For example, a character possessing 4000 life will, under standard conditions, leech a maximum of 400 life from any single strike.
Eliminated the minimum and maximum Critical Strike Chance restrictions. Previously, characters maintained a 5% chance to critically strike with attacks and spells, even when spells indicated lower probabilities, and could achieve a 95% maximum critical strike chance. Practically, this limitation was bypassed by external critical strike sources affecting enemies, such as Assassin’s Mark. We’ve modified several of these external critical strike mechanisms, consequently removing the cap entirely.
Associated with the preceding adjustment, the Brittle ailment now provides up to +10% chance to critically strike afflicted enemies. This probability receives further amplification from sources of increased Critical Strike Chance, whereas previously, due to a technical glitch, it did not.
Introduced a Maximum Resistances cap. You can no longer elevate your Maximum Resistances (and consequently your Resistances) beyond 90% through any means.
Enhanced numerous scenarios where damage mitigation applied before impact registration, potentially causing characters who should receive reduced damage (or none whatsoever) to incur unexpected damage. For instance, when a monster initiates an attack and you activate Immortal Call after the attack launches but before it connects, you will now properly mitigate this damage. This functionality was previously absent.
Temporary minions, including Skeletons and Wolves summoned via The Scourge, now perish when the summoning character dies or respawns.
Consecrated Ground now influences both allies (granting life regeneration) and enemies (causing hits against them to exhibit 100% increased critical strike chance). Importantly, effects conferred while standing on Consecrated Ground from sources like Ascendancies activate regardless of whether the Consecrated Ground originated from you/an ally or an adversary.
Modifiers that previously influenced Cast Speed and Duration of Curses now instead affect Curse Skills (encompassing Curses and Bane).

Holy Flame Totem: Complete Transformation
Flame Totem has undergone official renaming, now designated as Holy Flame Totem.
This skill now generates Consecrated Ground at the totem’s position. This hallowed terrain provides complete Curse Immunity protection.
The ability now inflicts Physical Damage, while converting 50% of Physical Damage to Fire Damage.
Damage values now range from 3 to 5 Physical Damage at gem level 1 (previously 1 to 2 Fire Damage), progressing to 134 to 202 at gem level 20 (formerly 122 to 183).
Mana expenditure now stands at 11 mana for casting at gem level 1 (down from 12) advancing to 39 mana at gem level 20 (reduced from 42).
Added damage effectiveness now measures 30% (increased from 25%).
The skill now discharges 2 supplementary projectiles consistently across all levels (previously acquiring extra projectiles at gem levels 5 and 9). These projectiles travel within a broader cone pattern than before.
Totem Life now receives a 20% multiplicative increase.
Quality bonuses now provide 1% increased Projectile Speed per 1% quality (formerly granting 1% increased Totem Life per 1% quality).
This ability is now classified as ‘Channelling’, making it susceptible to modifiers affecting Channelled skills.
Storm Burst: Mechanical Evolution
The skill no longer launches conventional projectiles.
Mechanics now involve creating energy orbs during channeling that repeatedly leap toward the designated location until their duration concludes, dealing damage in a compact area after each jump. When you terminate channeling, all remaining orbs detonate, inflicting heightened damage across an expanded area. This explosive effect delivers amplified damage proportional to remaining duration when channeling ceases.
Cast time now registers at 0.25 seconds (down from 0.65).
Mana cost at gem level 1 now totals 2 (previously 4).
Mana cost at gem level 20 now amounts to 5 (formerly 10).
Damage type now consists of Physical Damage, with 50% of Physical Damage converted to Lightning Damage.
Level requirement now stands at 12 (reduced from level 28).
Base damage now measures 6 to 8 Physical Damage at gem level 1, escalating to 114 to 174 Physical Damage at gem level 20.
Added damage effectiveness now calculates at 25% (down from 40%).
The skill now acquires additional radius as the gem progresses through levels.

Action Checklist
- Complete early memory encounters to understand the decay mechanic timing
- Experiment with new skill gems like Divine Ire and Bane to find your preferred playstyle
- Build pathways in Memory Nexus to access distant memory rewards
- Collect Fractured Items for Synthesiser crafting experiments
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