Path of Exile – Blight Guide

The Basics

Blights are tower defence-like encounters that can spawn from Fungal Growths in any regular map, which will always be accompanied by the NPC Sister Cassia.

Blight encounters are also found in Blighted maps, which are a modified type of map that do not have any monsters spawned, only a single special Blight encounter. Blight encounters in Blighted maps are far larger, have many more monsters and have much greater rewards.

Each spawn point may have a symbol above it, representing the resistance of the monsters that it will spawn. For example, if a spawn point has a minion tower symbol, all minions that it spawns will be resistant to your minion towers’ damage.

The Mechanics

In non-unique maps, Blight has a baseline 8% chance to appear. The Fungal Growth is initially inert, and the encounter will start once the player interacts with it.

When the encounter begins, Cassia will place a purification pump on the growth, causing it to spawn roots in random directions. At the end of each root is a portal that will spawn enemies that slowly move towards the core, only stopping to attack if something gets in their way.

Players will be given a short preparation period before the Blight starts spawning monsters. This can skipped by pressing a button that appears on the bottom right during this preparation period.

An icon corresponding to a tower type can appear over each root, indicating which tower it is resistant to. In specified spots along the roots, the player can construct their towers.

The purification pump is the Core, and it must be protected. It has 10 durability, and when any monster reaches the core, the durability will decrease.

The amount of durability lowered depends on the monster’s rarity:

• 1 for Normal monsters
• 2 for Magic monsters
• 5 for Rare monsters
• 10 for Unique monsters

If the pump’s durability reaches 0, the Blight encounter will fail, and monsters will stop spawning.

Once all enemies from each portal are defeated, reward chests will spawn at the locations of each portal. These chests persist even if the pump gets destroyed afterwards.

Blighted maps are alternate versions of existing map layouts that contain a more challenging Blight encounter than is normally found in regular maps. These maps have all the native monsters removed and are dedicated to the Blight encounter.

Inside a blighted map, the total area is usually smaller than a regular map, and there is a single Fungal Growth that will spawn dozens of roots.

The mechanic here is very similar to the normal one, but now the player must defend the Purification Pump for 5 minutes, and then defeat all remaining monsters to complete the map and loot the rewards.

The encounter inside a Blighted map will grant the player an extended preparation period, and the Pump’s durability is increased to 20 (up from 10).

Blighted maps can be modified in the same way as normal maps, but they can also be anointed (anointment will be explained later). Sextants have no effect on Blighted maps.

Blight-Ravaged Maps

There is a special type of Blighted map called Blight-ravaged map. They can be dropped by completing tier 14+ Blighted Maps.

This special Blighted map has more rewards, but it will also contain a more challenging Blight encounter. They can be anointed up to 9 times (with a maximum of 3 Oils of the same type).

By completing this special map, you can obtain special, exclusive rewards: the unique amulet Stranglegasp, Reflective Oil, and Tainted Oil.

Towers

During blight encounters, the player can build towers on specific, pre-determined spots along the roots to help fight the blight monsters.

Towers cost resources to build or upgrade, which are given at the start of the encounter and also acquired from killing blighted enemies during the encounter.

These are the basic types of towers that can be built:

Each tower can be upgraded twice, going from Tier 1 to Tier 3. Upgrades will make the tower more powerful.

When a tower reaches Tier 3, you can choose between two different options of further upgrades.

Rewards

After killing all monsters from the root, or after completing the Blighted map, reward chests will appear at the end of each root. The rewards can be generic or from a specific type.

Here is an example of chests with Currency Rewards:

Chests that have the Blight Reward type, can drop Blight-specific drops, such as Blighted Maps and Oils.

Here is an example of chests with Blight Rewards:

Oils and Anointments

Oils are currency items that can drop from Blight encounters. Oils can be applied to certain items to grant anointments, which can modify the item in various ways.

You can apply oils to items via the NPC Cassia, and she can also overwrite existing anointments. Items can have anointment include:

Blighted Maps: can be anointed up to three times with three different oils, three of the same oil, or a combination. This will increase the monster pack size of the encounter and will apply an effect depending on the oil.

Rings: can be anointed once with a combination of two oils. Each combination will grant a special effect. The order of the combination will not change the outcome (i.e. oil A + oil B is the same as oil B + oil A).

Amulets or Blight unique items: can be anointed with a combination of three oils. Each combination will allocate a notable passive skill from the passive skill tree. This will not spend a skill point, and the skill does not need to be connected to the rest of the allocated skill tree.

Below is a list of all Oils obtainable from Blight encounters. Note that Tainted Oils can only be obtained in corrupted Blighted maps.

Oil              Drop Level
————————————————————————————
Clear Oil        1
Tainted Oil      1
Reflective Oil   1
Sepia Oil        10
Amber Oil        19
Verdant Oil      27
Teal Oil         36
Azure Oil        44
Indigo Oil       48
Violet Oil       52
Crimson Oil      60
Black Oil        68
Opalescent Oil   73
Silver Oil       78
Golden Oil       80

All Blight uniques that can be anointed will receive the same bonus that the combination of oils would give to an amulet.

The unique amulet Stranglegasp is a special case: it has a unique modifier that permits the item to be anointed four times, instead of once.

Here is a full list of oils and their effects on each item.

Strategies

When doing Blight Encounters, you can use anointments on your rings to improve your towers. The most common way to make encounters much easier with ring anointments is by using a combination of two enchants and a specific tower placement.

On your rings, use:

• Your Meteor Towers create Burning Ground for 3 seconds on Hit (Indigo Oil + Violet Oil)
• Your Chilling Towers freeze enemies for 0.2 seconds while they are affected by chilling beams (Opalescent Oil + Silver Oil)

With both of these effects, you can find an intersection, bifurcation, or common area where the majority of monsters will congregate, and build four specific towers together:

A Meteor tower, an Empowering tower (level 3), a Chilling tower (level 3) and a Seismic tower (level 3).

Conclusions

Blight is one of the most popular league mechanics in Path of Exile. It is a good way to make currency at the start of a new league, and it remains very viable to make currency with bulk sales in the middle or end of a league.

If you want a new mechanic to get into, Blight can be very lucrative, and lots of fun, too!