[2020] Path of Exile: Harvest - Cultivating Your Garden & Crafting Outcomes

Path of Exile: Harvest launches this weekend and as you likely know, it introduces an extensive and uniquely powerful crafting system. We've prepared a how-to guide that outlines the steps needed in order to get the best yield from your grove. We've also prepared a full list of potential crafting options so that you know what to seek from your seeds. Be aware that this news post contains significant spoilers for the league's content and if you'd prefer to go in blind, this post is not for you!

How To Cultivate Your Sacred Grove In the Harvest League, you'll find seed caches in each area. Oshabi, a new NPC, can take you to The Sacred Grove, where your seeds can be planted, grown, and harvested for Raw Lifeforce. This Raw Lifeforce can later be converted to Condensed Lifeforce to irrigate your garden.

Raw Lifeforce is used to modify existing items in interesting and powerful ways. Each seed you find can offer a range of different crafting effects. They are usually tied to a certain theme or type of item or modifier (such as Fire modifiers), but the specific outcome won't always be the same. The most powerful effects are rarer and obtainable from higher-tier seeds. When you're done crafting with your Raw Lifeforce, you can Condense it, which stores it as Condensed Lifeforce that can be used to help grow higher-tier seeds. You should do this before you leave your Grove for an extended period of time (if the instance with Oshabi's portal expires, the Grove goes with it).

Higher-tier seeds can be found from slain monsters in the Sacred Grove and have special growth requirements: a minimum number of other seeds of a certain type planted next to them, as well as a certain amount of Condensed Lifeforce used for irrigation at each stage of its growth. That means that the layout of your seeds, and the infrastructure that enables their growth, is important.

Infrastructure There are four main types of infrastructure: Collectors (harvests your plants and lets you craft), Dispersers (uses Condensed Lifeforce to grow advanced plants), Storage Tanks (holds more Condensed Lifeforce for later use) and Pylons (used to connect pieces of your infrastructure). Oshabi will give you some infrastructure freely, but you can craft more later on.

There are three types of collectors which each correspond to a specific seed type and can only be used with seeds of that type.

When you plant seeds, you'll place them around Collectors. Tier 1 seeds do not have special requirements in order to grow, they'll simply tick over one growth cycle whenever you click a seed cache. When your seeds are fully grown, you'll use these Collectors to trigger the harvest, spawning monsters that must be slain in order to gather their Raw Lifeforce.

When the fight is over, you'll use the same Collector to gather that Raw Lifeforce and craft your items. Collectors can also store a limited amount of Condensed Lifeforce for later.

Be sure to use your Collector after a harvest to make the most of your Raw Lifeforce and to improve your items!

Higher tiers of seeds require Condensed Lifeforce in order to grow. You'll need to install a Disperser in order to spread the Condensed Lifeforce that you've stored. A Disperser must be connected to a Collector or Storage Tank to work.

Tier 2 seeds (and higher) have various requirements that need to be met in order for them to grow. Some need a certain amount of Condensed Lifeforce of a particular type (i.e. Lifeforce which has come from a particular type of seed). Some also need to be grown within close proximity to seeds of a particular type. This information is displayed on seeds before they're planted and still visible after they're planted.

A seed whose growth conditions are not met will not grow, and will flash red. As you climb the tiers of seeds, you may need access to more Condensed Lifeforce than your Collectors can store. That's where Storage Tanks come in!

Storage Tanks store Condensed Lifeforce. A Storage Tank must be connected to a Collector, and will store Condensed Lifeforce of that Collector's particular type. Dispersers can be connected to Storage Tanks to use the stored Condensed Lifeforce.

Finally, there are Pylons, which must be placed between each infrastructure element you wish to connect, and can be used to extend the distance at which each infrastructure element will function.

Changing Layouts The Sacred Grove is large, and growing high-tier seeds can be complex, so you may want to change your layout from time to time. You can pick up any placed infrastructure any time you want. It will break any connections leading to it but you can simply reconnect them when you're happy with the new placement. You can also pick up any seeds you have planted, but any growth will be lost. Don't be afraid to move things around to perfect your layout, or drastically change things to grow certain seeds!

Automation Each Collector has a button that will auto-plant any suitable seeds in your inventory around it. Take advantage of this for low-tier seeds! For higher-tier seeds, you will want to be more deliberate with what you plant and where you plant it.

Dispersers can also be automated, and will feed Condensed Lifeforce to seeds as needed, though you may choose to handle this manually when resources are running low.

Rewards Besides powerful crafting options, the highest tier seeds will also offer tough boss encounters with Unique item rewards that can only be obtained from them.

You may also eventually find a way to store crafting options for later use via a Horticrafting Station. This, like other infrastructure elements, will need to be connected to a Collector to function, but can store a limited number of crafting options indefinitely.

Harvest may seem complex initially, but just like gardening, a little patience and persistence will reap great rewards.

Click here to find out more about Harvest Crafting Possibilities [www.pathofexile.com]