I trust that the new year is treating you all well!

Last night, Patch 1.05 was deployed, as well as the schedule, and rewards for Race Season 6.

I'm going to do something different with the patch notes this time. I'm copy pasting / the patch notes, and I'm going to add in what I have found out about the items in the notes, as well as some commentary. We'll give it a whirl.

The Patch
Major Features/Content:

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanakuh, Happy New Year, and all that stuff!

Even with the holiday season in full tilt, GGG didn't take a break from dropping patches. Patch 1.04 dropped this week, sorry it's taken me a few days to make a post up.

This patch, brought us:

DUELING
That's right folks, you can now duel single player, and groups.

FLAMEBLAST
A new, channeled AoE Fire Skill. Channel it to build it up, and then after a short time, or another spell is cast, it explodes. Seems like it is an interesting skill that could use some testing.

FIVE NEW UNIQUES
4 of which are known, the other seems to be associated with the new fishing pole that drops.

Fencoil - a new trap staff, that also seriously buffs your damage, life, and mana.

Wheel of the Rotten Stormsail - It's a very interesting IIR Low Level shield, that also buffs curse duration, both by, and on, you.

Bino's Kitchen Knife. Tailor made for the Poison Daggers passives, and Criticial Strikes.

Veil of the Night. I uh... Well... I'm sure there is a use for it. I'm just not sure what that use may be yet. Increased block and stun recovery, reduced light radius , lightning thorns, increased global defenses, but your resists are set to ZERO.

NEW COSMETIC TRANSACTIONS
A new totem skin
Tribal Storm Call
and the Bloody Holiday Present Sack

New Achievements
Full Clear Catacombs - I'm assuming these are coming for all the random zones.
And Specialist - Allocate a fourth keystone on a character.

Minor Updates
You can now see your uncapped resists in parenthesis. This, is my personal favorite "incremental" improvement.

Heavy Strike now looks different when you are using a 2h'd sword with a marauder

Scions have new block animations

And awesome new RMT protection for general and trade chat

Most of the "added X Damage" gems have been buffed.
Fire gems have been buffed.
A couple of map boss changes
A couple of new gems added to descent leagues.
and a few bug fixes.

All in all, another high quality patch for the game. I'm pleased.

Shoju here, I'll cover this patch while MonTy takes a breather. Patch 1.03 brings us several new things.

Barrage
A new Dex / Int based gem that fires a lot of projectiles in a very short amount of time, and is available for All but the Templar and Marauder after killing Brutus in normal.

Projectile Physicial Damage
A New Support, which will help out those playing Physical Bow, and Physical Spectral Throw Builds. You can find this gem in the Siren's Cadence in Cruel Difficulty. (If anyone happens across one, I know someone who'd be interested in not having to go back to cruel RIGHT NOW to get one )

Two New Microtransactions
You can have your own burning "fire fox" in the form of the Infernal Fox Pet, or Cover your dome in the all new Infernal Skull Helmet Skin

Two New Achievements
Full Clear Dread Thicket- obvious name is obvious
Beginner's Luck - I have not checked yet to see what this is.

As an aside
How many Lurkers care about the achievements? Personally, I'm a "sort of" achievement player. I will go after the ones that interest me, but the ones that don't, I don't even feel the slightest bit compelled to do.

Three new Recipes
I haven't found any information on what they are.

New Uniques
Oro's Sacrifice is a pretty hot new sword, with interesting drawbacks.
Daresso's Defiance Is an Armour/Evasion Chest, that gives you Onslaught in exchange for Endurance Charges.
Briskwrap is a new leveling unique Evasion Chest
http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/Marylene%27s_Fallacy - Marylene's Fallacy Probably the most hotly debated unique I've seen in a while. (pardon the exposed link, when embedded, it breaks)

Other Changes
The Blacksmith's (Dunes and Spider Forest Maps) Leap Slam has been given a cooldown and a new triggered effect has been added to it.
Shock and Horror, the boss of the Torture Chamber, has had her Arc skill replaced with a new skill.
The drop down stash tab list now shows the colours of the tabs.
All slashing impact sounds have been replaced.
Added a new category of sounds for bow impacts.
Video adapters with the same display name are now distinguishable in the options panel by an added adapter number.
Added a new buff icon for the Proximity Shield effect.
Pressing "tab" on the login screen now changes between Email, Password and Gateway, for non-Steam users.
Effects and/or 3D art have been added for the following items: Demigod's Touch, Lioneye's Glare, Geofri's Baptism, Taryn's Shiver, Rise of the Phoenix, Matua Tupuna, Atziri's Mirror and the alternate art Stormcloud.
Kuduku has been restored to its correct art.
Talking to Dialla on top of the Sceptre of God now gives the waypoint to the next difficulty.
Continued to incrementally improve the sound, art, effects and environments.

Balance
Viper Strike: Damage progression has been increased. It is now around 15% better at level 15 than it was in 1.0.2.
Poison Arrow: Damage progression has been increased. It is now around 15% better at level 15 than it was in 1.0.2.
New groups of passives have been added for Chaos Damage and Damage over Time.
The move speed and attack speed groups to the right side of the Scion have been merged. The weaker Movement speed nodes were removed, with the 3% movespeed nodes increased to 4%.
Added two new map mods: "of Power" and "of Endurance". These give Endurance and Power charges respectively every 20 seconds.
The map mod Enraged has been changed to a suffix - "of Frenzy"
The "of Frenzy" map mod now triggers every 20 seconds instead of every 30.
The five of a kind recipe has been moved up to just below the same names recipe in priority.
Righteous Fire Totems will damage enemies based on their own life and ES, not their caster's life and ES.
Spiders have been made invulnerable when climbing into areas from scenery.

All in all the patch feels pretty good right now, though I'll admit, I haven't had enough time to test everything out.

The second major patch since release is now live. 1.0.2 comes with a host of changes. New skills, uniques, balance changes, microtransactions, supporter packs, and more.

The new uniques have already been discovered and are Olmec's Sanctum, Wings of Entropy, Belly of the Beast, and Lifesprig.

Also if you haven't already tried out the Descent Champions race, I highly encourage you to do so. I've had a lot of fun going up against tougher versions of the PoE bosses. Here's some information and the race schedule.

The first major patch since release is being implemented momentarily. 1.0.1 kicks off race season five which has a new race mode named "Champion Descent" that starts off your temporary characters with unique items. There's also a host of other gameplay changes and balance tweaks, and some new skill gems and unique items. I'll be sure to update this post with the unique items tomorrow, after they've been discovered by the community.

Be sure to stay on top of the changes and read the patch notes here. What's your favorite change? I would have to give a "Hooray!" for an increase to higher level map drops. It took me ages to get maps above 75 in Standard, after weeks of farming.

Remember to join us on the forums for general talk about Path of Exile!

*Update - The community has discovered the new Uniques. They are Crown of Eyes, Prismatic Eclipse, Doon Cuebiyari, and Doedre's Elixir.

Love the Prismatic Eclipse. Lots of people hinting towards a recipe to add white sockets to an item. That would be amazing!

A total of 11 new Uniques have been introduced with Release Patch 1.0. They've all been discovered and presented below for your viewing pleasure.

Dyadus is a powerhouse of a weapon for Elemental attack builds. Can spawn anywhere from 317 DPS to 403 DPS, so it's clearly an end-game item. Not to mention the nifty side-effect depending on which weapon slot you equip it in.

Talk about bittersweet. Immortal Flesh is a new leather belt that provides huge life and mana regen, at the cost of severe resistances penalty. Not sure this is usable in Hardcore, but I'd certainly want to give it a shot if I found one in the Softcore leagues.

Cloak of Defiance is a neat Energy Shield / Evasion chest-piece that has a massive bonus to mana, and grants you Mind over Matter.

Headhunter is a Nemesis only leather belt, and grants you decent stats along with a unique ability that gives you the Nemesis mods for 20 seconds after you kill the rare.

The Gull is the Domination only drop and is a mid-level ES/EVA helm that increases the effects that shrines have on you. I must to say, even if I was an Armor based character I'd want to give this helm a try. Sounds fun!

Pretty sure everyone says "Wow" when they see this new Prismatic Ring, The Taming. Very strong ring for Elemental-based builds. Imagine wearing two of these! It's important to note this is not obtainable through drops. You'll have to vendor three of the new two-stone unique rings.

The three new two-stone rings only drop in the new leagues, and each type has its own unique. Berek's Pass, Berek's Grip, and Berek's Respite. If I'm playing on an un-twinked character I'd be happy with finding any of them. In general I like the two-stone rings and feel they are a decent alternative to Prismatic rings.

The last two new Uniques are flasks. Blood of the Karui is the Health flask and Lavianga's Spirit for Mana. Can't say I would use the health one, but Lavianga's Spirit feels like it would find a home in my flask slots.

Patch 1.0 Release Notes have been posted, on the heels of tomorrow's official game launch.

In less than 24 hours from this post we'll have access to a host of new features, and in some ways a different game. The new character class, named the Scion, changes a lot of existing builds and opens up doors for others. You'll have a new Monsters and a Boss to fight, which will bring closure to Act Three. New Skill Gems, Passive Skills, Uniques, Items, and a re-balance of many of the existing features are part of this Release Patch.

Grinding Gear Games summarizes the new features at this post. I'd also keep an eye on the official site for any additional news and updates. Lastly, if you're interested in joining the Lurkers Lounge Guild or talk more about PoE, be sure to post at the forums.

The "trap patch" has been released for Path of Exile. 0.11.6 is planned to be the last major update before the game hits release version. This patch focuses on new trap based skills and uniques, so now would be the perfect time to try a trap based character.

Lightning Trap is a new skill that Shadows, Rangers, and Witches can receive once killing Brutus. As soon as your trap is triggered, it shoots out a ring of lightning damage projectiles. It's been reported to be very powerful once you link it with support gems, such as the new skill, Multiple Traps. Multiple Traps allows you to throw and set more of your trap skills. You can check out a video of Lightning Trap + Multiple Traps here. The Witch, Ranger, and Shadow can obtain the skill gem from Hailrake on Cruel difficulty.

There's also two other new skill gems introduced in this patch. Smoke Mine allows you to set a mine in place, and then teleport you back to its location once you detonate it. Certain skills such as Flicker Strike can leave you in grave danger after using it, so Smoke Mine would be a perfect way to escape that situation. Smoke Mine is available to the Shadow, Ranger and Duelist from Lost in Love on Normal Difficulty. The last new skill, Endurance Charge on Melee Stun, will be useful to those who don't want to be bothered with casting Enduring Cry, to obtain those ever important Endurance Charges. I know what you're thinking, "but I don't have enough links to afford another support gem", which unless you have a six links should be true. But if your main attack is Sweep, you'll be able to link Endurance Charge on Melee Stun to Leap Slam. Doing damage, getting you into combat, and gaining you Endurance Charges in one skill. Endurance Charge on Melee Stun is available to the Templar, Marauder and Duelist from Sever the Right Hand.

Deerstalker is the new unique boot that would be a perfect supplement to your trap build. It essentially allows for a five-link and turns any of your linked skill gems into traps. The other new Unique to boost traps is named Sunblast. It seems like something you'll surely want if you're focusing on traps. It has been confirmed that Traps trigger normally when wearing this Unique, as well as at the end of their duration.

The other two new Uniques seem a bit odd and require specialized builds. If you're able to stack Lightning Resistances, Lightning Coil will be a very big boost to your survivability against physical damage, which is a far more common source of damage than Lightning. Ming's Heart offers a significant boost to your Physical damage, but at the cost of reduced Life and ES. Others have suggested that it's a strong choice for a Low Life Ethereal Knives caster.

Will you be trying out any of these new skills before the big release patch version hits? Personally I'm not too interested in the play style. I've tried a trap based build in the past and it felt too slow, but I'd be interested in trying it if I ever find or trade for those Uniques.

From Blizzard's official somewhat-shocking announcement:

Blizzard Wrote:When we initially designed and implemented the auction houses, the driving goal was to provide a convenient and secure system for trades. But as we've mentioned on different occasions, it became increasingly clear that despite the benefits of the AH system and the fact that many players around the world use it, it ultimately undermines Diablo's core game play: kill monsters to get cool loot. With that in mind, we want to let everyone know that we've decided to remove the gold and real-money auction house system from Diablo III.

We feel that this move along with the Loot 2.0 system being developed concurrently with Reaper of Souls™ will result in a much more rewarding game experience for our players.

We're working out the details of how the auction house system will be shut down, but we wanted to share the news as soon as we made the decision in order to give everyone as much advance notice as possible. Please note that the shutdown will occur on March 18, 2014. We will keep everyone informed as we work through this process.

Patch 0.11.5 brings us a handful of new uniques and minor gameplay tweaks. I'm truly impressed at how frequent they add new items into the game. It makes these patches much more exciting when there's new uniques to be discovered!

The first new unique is a level 71 Temple Map that will induce a series of emotions. First pain from the dangerous modifiers, then amazement how potentially rewarding the map could be. Poorjoy's Asylum will certainly reward those who are daring enough to run it. Be sure to bring along your Topaz Flask for additional lightning resistances. Even normal Temple Piety can deal lethal blows to players with 5k+ life and maximum resistances. You might want to use your Divine Orbs here if the random item reward is not what you're interested in.

Cybil's Paw is certainly a unique item. Life on Hit usually does not work on spells, but this Claw will change that. Any spells that hit fast and hit multiple enemies will work well here, such as Incinerate.

Quecholli is the name of a new two-handed Maul, and is certainly meant to be used for low level characters. If you equip this at level 22, you're surely going to be clearing the screen quite fast.

Mon'tregul's Grasp is one of those build-defining uniques. If you like Zombies, this is your weapon. I personally can't wait to get my hands on one and have my hulk-like Zombies smash everything in sight.

The last new unique is a end-game two handed Mace, named Kongor's Undying Rage. While the base weapon DPS is not the highest, the Onslaught ability is extremely potent (Critical Strikes grant an additional 20% increased move, attack and cast speed).

The rest of the patch notes can be read here, which include some additions such as Item Skin Transfers, changes to how single skill cooldowns work, a new Skill Gem named Empower, and more.