A Short Guide to Path of Exile’s Blight League’s Tower Defense

Some tips and tricks to succeeding in Path of Exile's Blight League. Adventure and PoE orbs await in-game, so play now!

Path of Exile

Path of Exile‘s Blight League has been going on for a month now. Any Path of Exile player would know there are six towers to manage during Blight encounters. What they might not know, however, is how to maximize tower effects and how they play against each other.

Here they are, so you can collect more resources like PoE orbs or oils!

The Towers

Here’s a refresher of all the towers available during encounters.

  • Fireball Tower – Spits flames and may be upgraded into the Meteor Tower or Flamethrower Tower.
  • Chilling Tower – Chills enemies, slowing them down. Final upgrades are the Glacial Cage or Freezebolt Tower.
  • Shock Nova Tower – Shoots lightning, may also electrify areas on the ground. It upgrades to either the Lightning Storm Tower or Arc Tower.
  • Seismic Tower – Slows or stuns enemies through tremors. Upgrading them will result in the Temporal Tower or Stone Gaze Tower.
  • Summoning Tower – Creates minions to either block or damage enemies. Its final forms are Sentinel Tower and Scout Tower.
  • Empowering Tower – Boosts the power of your other towers. It turns into either the Smothering Tower or Imbuing Tower.

Place these towers along the tendrils enemies will follow toward the pump. Your goal is to keep them from destroying the device. Simple, right?

Pair a slowing tower (Chilling, Seismic, Summoning) with a damaging tower (Fireball, Shock Nova) for high damage. The Flamethrower and Freezebolt Towers are best aimed at narrow paths. Stone Gaze Tower has an effect like the Gorgon’s Gaze mask. It slows and sometimes petrifies enemies. That can buy you some time to defeat bosses and other strong blight creeps.

The Flamethrower Tower has a shorter range compared to its counterpart, but that’s the tradeoff for higher damage. For the Chilling Tower Freezebolt upgrade, it deals more damage at the cost of lessening its chilling effect. The Temporal Tower may not have petrification under its belt, but the consistent slow effect isn’t a bad tradeoff. The Lightning Tower’s electrifying traps can also be used with the Glacial Cage, especially on large clusters trapped near chokepoints. Try to experiment because there are many combinations you can create!

Path of Exile Dragon

Some Key Pointers

Find out where the chokepoints are. Sometimes, tendril lanes converge and make natural gatherings of blighted minions. Focus your towers there and you can sweep enemies with utmost ease!

When you start a Blight encounter, you’ll see gates in your interface. They correspond to the number of lanes that will appear. If there’s a symbol for an element inside, it means creatures from that lane resist that kind of damage. Many players think it symbolizes weakness, and that’s a fatal error to make.

Use less of the towers the enemies will resist. If you rely on only one kind and find out the creatures resist it, you’re likely to fail the encounter. Mix it up! Make different combinations of towers, and experiment, especially on easier encounters.

If the gate has a pustule-looking symbol on top, that means a boss will appear from that gate. If it’s gold, that means the boss is on the map. Defeating them gives more opportunities for better rewards. They also have a high damage output toward the pump, so make sure to prioritize them.

Outdoor Blighted Maps are actually harder than indoor ones. With wide areas, the tendril lanes might not converge much, meaning you have to spread your towers thinly. Indoor maps create natural choke points that are much easier to manage.

Oils, the league-specific PoE currency, can do more than enchant your equipment. They can also be used to ‘anoint’ Blighted maps, on top of other modifications. Take note, avoid increased movement speed and increased HP mods on these maps. These will make completing the encounter incredibly difficult.

Easier Blight encounters won’t really need the high-level towers. They’re also smaller in scale and scope, and sometimes won’t even need towers (if you’re strong enough).

Summing it up, you should experiment with the towers to find what works for you. Some builds work well with the slowing towers, others need the damaging towers more. There’s no single correct way to play the league. Mixing up types and elements is key, as well as positioning and holding chokepoints.

That said, enjoy Path of Exile!

1 Comment

  1. Avatar photo

    You should add some pictures to describe what you are talking about. E.g. “If the gate has a pustule-looking symbol on top”. Would be amazing to see a picture of this.
    (yes, i am new to PoE)

    Reply

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