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First up is a detailed and fascinating perspective on the design philosophy behind the  path of exile currency Undying. Developers believed the Undying was a "relatively unremarkable monster type" and wished to do something more to help it stand out from the match. To this end, the group went through a series of planning stages to make something special to the race throughout the sport.

Our intention with the player's first encounter of Act Three was that the very first place would be very quiet, with no monsters to battle outside. Upon entering the shade, though, players could be billed by mortal City Stalkers and might have to retreat to the safety of the sun. Their experience with the rest of the Act will involve a game of caring very much that areas were shaded, while occasionally being forced to step out of the light to travel between buildings. Due to their early experiences with the City Stalkers, they'd fear every moment spent from sunlight, as it's one step away from being swarmed by the deadliest monsters in Path of Exile. We planned for City Stalkers to have immense life regeneration, preventing players from making reasonable progress past them.

Gems

Next upon the design docket is a discussion of the design and advancement of Gems. Most notably, the thought process behind the most recently-introduced stone is researched. As you might remember, nine new jewels were added "including four wrought stone that concentrated on Necromancy", one of the trademark features in War for the Atlas. Senior Game Designer Rory discusses moving from an overall discussion of abilities that would be added and how gems could fit in that design matrix. For instance, carrying the foundation ability of Detonate Dead and changing it with the addition of a stone was something the team actively explored. Of course, some abilities worked better than others in this regard, but, as Rory says, all that is a part and parcel of sport development. .

We had also prototyped a ability codenamed "Infernal Sweep" that was a  poe trade currency fiery subject of effect sweep attack that exploded nearby corpses. Early testing showed it felt awful to use, having to swing twice to kill several enemies then again to detonate their bodies to get bigger area harm. The ability was visually spectacular, but did not play well unless it had been fostered in both beginning area and damage to the point at which it invalidated the functions of Sweep and Infernal Blow. This ability went back to the drawing board and we'll likely see it in future with additional mechanisms or without the reliance on corpses.

The article further goes into specifics about Support Stone and how design iterates in concept to finished project. You can test it all out here.