In the more than ten years of Path of Exile, many excellent league mechanics have been born, and they have brought different game experiences to players. Among them, Betrayal League, which entered the game with the 3.5 patch in December 2018, has become one of the top mechanics in the minds of players.
In the subsequent process, the developers introduced Immortal Syndicate mechanic to this league mechanic, making players face more challenges in it, but at the same time, they also get more rewards.
The current developers have made some improvements to this important league mechanic in POE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas, which is expected to be released on June 13, to meet the current players’ various requirements for game content and gameplay, such as increasing the drop rate of loot and improving the quality of life.
Since not all POE 1 players are old exiles with a lot of exploration experience, this guide will give a detailed introduction to Betrayal League mechanism and what changes will be made to it in 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas, so that players who have just entered this game can explore smoothly.
Betrayal League Mechanism Detailed
When you complete the main campaign brought to you by Path of Exile, you will meet an NPC called Jun Ortoi, a Veiled Master, who will ask you to assist her in investigating Immortal Syndicate and disrupt all their ongoing operations, which is also the ultimate goal you need to complete in this mechanism.
You will encounter members of Syndicate in four operations. They will be randomly generated on the map, and you need to fight some battles in them to complete the task. So it is recommended here to spend more POE currency before opening this quest line to make your build more capable of group damage or group control, so as to quickly complete the battle and cultivate loot.
Syndicate members often appear in these activities:
- Transportation: They will transport looted goods from one location to another. You need to defeat them before they reach their destination.
- Fortification: Some members are also hiding in some small fortifications. You need to destroy this outer structure before you can kill them. Please note that there are several turrets on the fortification that will damage you in the process of destroying them.
- Research: When you enter an underground hideout, you will find some members destroying some malicious research results. Please defeat them before they destroy everything.
- Intervention: Of course, Syndicate members will also have some revenge on you. They will ambush you on your regular exploration path, so you may need to be vigilant at all times.
After you defeat each syndicate member, you’ll see a screen offering you a few options: Interrogate, Bargain, Execute, or Betray, each of which leads to a different outcome. It’s worth noting, however, that not every option is always available.
- Interrogate: As the name suggests, you can learn and gather information about the syndicate from interacting with the members, and will prevent them from appearing in the next three encounters.
- Bargain: If you bargain with the defeated members, it will give you some rewards in exchange for the chance to be released. However, this option only works with a single member in the battle.
- Execute: After you choose this option, the member will be killed immediately, but it will increase their ranking on the investigation board you have. They can be as high as three-stars, which means they pose the highest combat challenge.
- Betrayal: This will cause one member of some syndicates to betray their own group and create competition among them.
Throughout your investigation you will meet different members who will help you complete the task of filling out Syndicate board, which will reveal each member’s connection to each other and to Safehouse, so that you can find those members you need to focus on through these clues.
- Green: Indicates that members on both ends trust each other.
- Red: Indicates that members on both ends have become rivals.
- Yellow: Indicates that this member is already a member in Safehouse.
After you defeat and investigate these members, in addition to the options available above, you can move them to certain locations to trigger some interactive dialogues to gather more intelligence about Safehouse.
When you have collected 100% of the clues about Safehouse and the location of the member on the panel is what you need, you can talk to Jun to receive the task of raiding Safehouse. After you are granted access to Safehouse by Jun, you will be teleported to a special area where all the hostile members of the faction are waiting for your challenge.
It should be noted here that when you enter the raid after reaching 100% in Fortification activity, you will encounter all the members in the area on the broad, including those who have betrayed their group.
After you have successfully completed all the battles, you can interrogate the person in charge of Safehouse to obtain Mastermind intelligence progress.
And you can also enter living quarters with a lot of loot, such as a lot of POE Currency, gear, and map fragments, etc. The amount and quality of the loot will depend on the size of the safe house and the ranking of the defeated members.
After you have farmed Betrayal League mechanic multiple times and have reached 100% of Mastermind intelligence, you can go to Mastermind’s Lair to challenge the final boss of this mechanic – Catarina, Master of Undeath.
However, it should be noted that the minimum level requirement to enter Mastermind’s Lair is 68, so you can choose some enemies or tasks with a lot of experience points to farm in regular encounters or maps to quickly reach the specified character level.
After you successfully defeat Catarina, you may receive the following POE items. Like each member of Syndicate, there will be mods that improve the quality and amount of loot Catarina provides you, but they will only work with the support gems in it.
- Cinderswallow Urn Silver Flask (45% Drop Rate)
- Bitterbind Point Titanium Spirit Shield (20% Drop Rate)
- Cane of Kulemak Serpentine Staff (15% Drop Rate)
- The Queen’s Hunger Vaal Regalia (15% Drop Rate)
- The Devouring Diadem Necromancer Circlet (5% Drop Rate)
- Veiled Orb
- Random veiled items
POE 3.26 Improvements
With players eagerly awaiting POE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas, the developers have made some optimizations to Betrayal League mechanics. In the currently released trailer, it can be learned that in the subsequent game process, players no longer need to return to Jun to reveal hidden items or gear. Just right-click to make the modifiers on the items appear.
In this quality of life improvement, players will no longer need to spend a lot of exploration time and energy in the process of revealing items and using them as crafting options. This will be very beneficial for players to have powerful build options before entering the endgame content, making it easier to complete combat missions.
In addition, in order to make up for the fact that the original game has not been updated with new game content for nearly a year, the developers have promised to increase the drop rates of high-rarity loot across all campaign and exploration missions in POE 1, including this Betrayal League mechanic.
But it is worth reminding you that judging from the controversial POE 2, the developer’s promises about rewards are generally discounted compared to what they say.
