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Summary: Path of Exile 3.29.3 improves the current league with six new Cursed Ducats, better Voyage Planner tools, Mercenary damage nerfs, and numerous fixes across Atlas, Harvest, Essence, Heist POE currency, and other mechanics.
Path of Exile 3.29.3 Overview
Path of Exile 3.29.3 is mainly a league refinement and quality-of-life update rather than a major content expansion. The patch focuses on making Voyages more rewarding, reducing dangerous Mercenary encounters, and fixing bugs affecting Atlas progression and several league mechanics.
Six New Cursed Ducats
The biggest addition is six new Cursed Ducats, which can be socketed into the Voyage Planner. Players can equip up to three at once. Each Ducat increases monster Toughness while also improving Item Quantity and Item Rarity, but adds a unique negative modifier.
This creates a new risk-versus-reward system. Players must choose drawbacks that their builds can handle while maximizing Voyage rewards.
The first Ducat becomes available after defeating Velka. Players who already completed the encounter can speak with Valerie on The Sovereign to receive it. Additional Ducats can be found from certain monsters and objects during Voyages and Charts, but at least one Ducat must already be socketed.
Genteel’s Ducat also receives an improvement, allowing certain single-attribute modifiers on Small Cluster Jewels to be swapped.
Voyage Planner and Mercenary Changes
The Voyage Planner now has a convenient keybind for viewing all 12 Border Modifiers at once. Keyboard players can press Alt, while controllers can use Left Trigger, making Voyage planning faster and easier.
Several dangerous Mercenary skills have also been nerfed, including Frostbolt, Ice Nova, Ice Nova of Projection, Flameblast, Fireball, Fireball of Impact, and Rolling Magma. The update also fixes Wither on Hit support and an issue preventing players from hiring a third Permanent Mercenary.
Essence, Heist and Atlas Fixes
Essence encounters are now easier to interact with because trapped monsters can be targeted from a greater distance. Heist reward chest icons should also display correctly on the minimap.
The patch fixes multiple Atlas and Harvest problems, including Harvest encounters failing to start when the map owner was absent. Issues involving Astrolabes, Essence modifiers, Spectres disappearing after unequipping Pearl of Tsoatha, and Eldritch Altar charge protection have also been addressed.
Conflagration and Other Bug Fixes
A major Conflagration bug has been corrected. Level-one Conflagration previously dealt no damage while firing too many projectiles. The update restores its intended behavior.
Additional fixes improve crafting recipe descriptions, advanced modifier displays POE currency buy, challenge descriptions, the Currency Exchange Market, Harvest Tier icons, Settlers of Kalguur interfaces, and client stability.
What 3.29.3 Means for Players
Overall, Path of Exile 3.29.3 strengthens the current league without dramatically changing its core gameplay. Cursed Ducats are the standout feature, giving experienced players another way to customize Voyage difficulty and increase rewards.
For players focused on Voyage and Chart farming, finding the right combination of three Ducats could become an important optimization strategy. Combined with Mercenary nerfs and extensive bug fixes, the patch makes the 3.29 experience smoother, more consistent, and potentially more profitable.