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Path of Exile 3.29.3 Patch Notes Buffs and Nerfs Overview | Cursed Ducats, Essence and More Changes

Category: Path Of Exile Posted: Aug 14, 2026 Views: 28

Path of Exile released Patch 3.29.3 on August 12. This is a relatively small update that improves the underwater content while introducing a large number of incremental quality-of-life improvements.

The six newly added Cursed Ducats also make drops from Curse of the Allflame mechanic more rewarding. However, not every change in this update is necessarily positive. Some adjustments have sparked controversy and may be viewed as nerfs. Let's take a closer look.

Path of Exile 3.29.3 Patch Notes Buffs and Nerfs Overview | Cursed Ducats, Essence and More Changes

Essence of Desolation

The most controversial change in this patch concerns Essence of Desolation. These items were originally available only in PoE 3.28 and later became legacy items in Standard, meaning they could no longer normally be obtained in the current League.

However, in 3.29, there was a specific way to generate items with Essence of Desolation modifiers, so many players had been actively acquiring these items through the market.

The official team has now completely removed the source of these items, while existing items already held by players will remain intact. This means that if you want to obtain one of these items now, the only option is to acquire a duplicated version from another player through trading.

You need a Mirror of Kalandra along with a considerable amount of PoE currency. Since these items can no longer be produced, service fees are likely to continue rising.

This is excellent news for players who had already accumulated these items, as they can potentially generate a large amount of currency with very little effort. However, it is obviously unfair to other players.

If you forgo Essence of Desolation, you can still craft powerful items. You can buy PoE currency from IGGM.com and use various currencies to roll for the affixes you want, or directly trade top-tier rare items.

If you've signed in and accumulate enough points on IGGM, you can also redeem IGGM Coupons with your points to get discount codes or cash coupons to save money.

Cursed Ducats

PoE New Cursed Ducats

Setting the controversy aside, this patch does introduce a substantial amount of positive content, with the changes to Voyages and Charts systems being among the most notable.

Six new Cursed Ducats have been added. Their design is partially reminiscent of Voidstones, although there are significant differences. Voidstones require all four to be socketed into Atlas, with each one occupying a fixed slot.

Cursed Ducats, on the other hand, allow you to socket up to three of them in Voyage Planner at the same time. Each provides the same core bonuses while imposing a different negative effect.

  • Toughness: Increases effective monster life by granting monsters damage reduction rather than simply increasing their health.
  • Quantity: Increases the number of items dropped by monsters in Voyages and Charts.
  • Rarity: Increases the rarity of dropped items.

A monster with 7 million life and no Toughness and a monster with 1 million life but 600% Toughness both require 7 million damage to defeat. However, their interactions with mechanics such as Leech and the DoT Cap are completely different.

You should choose a combination of Cursed Ducats based on your character build and select the negative effects that have the smallest impact on your build.

New Cursed Ducats

The currently known information about Cursed Ducats is as follows:

  • Ducat of Tsoatha's Gift: Obtained by defeating Velka during the Kishara's Rest Voyage. Its effect increases monster damage by 50%.
  • Ducat of the Undead Sea: Obtained from The Changeling's Ducat. Its effect allows monsters to penetrate 10% of elemental resistance.
  • Ducat of the Eucarid Isle: Obtained from Captainsbane. It increases monster Critical Strike Chance by 500% and Critical Strike Multiplier by 50%.
  • Ducat of the Fallen Stars: It may drop from Brine King-touched Rare Monsters or Sea Star monsters. It causes monsters to gain 100% of Physical Damage as Extra Elemental Damage.
  • Ducat of the Grasping Deep: Obtained from Filthscrabble. It increases monster AoE by 40% and grants them +2 Projectiles.
  • Ducat of the Foul Kin: Source unknown. It increases monster Attack, Cast, and Movement Speed by 50%.

Ducat of the Foul Kin and Ducat of the Eucarid Isle may be particularly dangerous, while the remaining options are relatively manageable.

Each Cursed Ducat provides 50% increased monster Toughness. With three socketed at the same time, this results in a total of 150% increased Toughness, which is roughly equivalent to a 60% damage reduction for players against most monsters.

At the same time, three Cursed Ducats provide a total of 60% increased Item Quantity and 60% increased Item Rarity, which is roughly equivalent to adding the benefits of another map modifier, resulting in more PoE currency drops.

A risk-free way to obtain PoE currency is to participate in PoE 1+2 free currency giveaway on IGGM Facebook, where you share 1,000 Divine Orbs, 20,000 Chaos Orbs and 20,000 Chromatic Orbs with other winners.

Other Important Changes and Improvements

Border Modifiers

You can now view all 12 Border Modifiers at the same time in Voyage Planning interface. This allows you to quickly determine whether any valuable modifiers are present and plan your strategy accordingly. The keyboard shortcut is Alt key.

Mercenaries Adjustments

Several enemy Mercenary skills that posed too much of a threat to players have had their damage reduced:

  • Frostbolt
  • Ice Nova
  • Ice Nova of Projection
  • Flameblast
  • Fireball
  • Fireball of Impact
  • Rolling Magma

Friendly Mercenary damage is unaffected. A bug where friendly Mercenary Wither on Hit supports applied Withered for only one frame instead of the intended 2 seconds has also been fixed.

A bug that prevented players from hiring a third Permanent Mercenary when they already had two Permanent Mercenaries and one Temporary Mercenary has also been fixed.

In addition, a bug involving Wild Mercenaries from Trarthan Scarab of Infamy has been fixed, preventing them from dropping loot without being defeated.

Essences

Monsters trapped in Essences can now be interacted with from a greater distance to break them free. However, combined with the removal of Essence of Desolation modifiers, this change may mean that players become significantly less interested in interacting with Essence system.

Ultimately, PoE 3.29.3 contains a large number of valuable positive changes. Aside from the somewhat rough handling of Essence of Desolation, the other adjustments are worthy of praise. The impact of Essence of Desolation change should also remain relatively limited, although it may be frustrating for players pursuing the highest-end item crafting.

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