PoE Sanity

POE 2 Teasers Day 19 - Patch Notes Overview - Twister Not Nerfed? New Divine Sink - Path of Exile 2

By sirgogWatch videoDuration: PT57M43S

Summary

  • Gem Levels and Rarity: Major itemization issues regarding “Plus Gem Levels” and “Item Rarity” remain largely unaddressed, with rarity still seen as a core system flaw.
  • Comet and Poisonburst Arrow: The Comet meta faces a significant indirect nerf through massive leech reworks and mana/life cost adjustments. Poisonburst Arrow moves from S-tier to A-tier due to duration nerfs.
  • Defense Rebalance: Energy Shield (ES) recovery is gutted, making it less viable in long fights. Evasion and Armor receive buffs, including a boost to the Deflection formula for pure evasion builds.
  • Harvest Resistance Swap: A highly anticipated QoL feature from Path of Exile 1 arrives via fluxes that transform item resistances.
  • Leech Overhaul: Leech is now capped at a single instance per resource with a 40,000 damage cap per hit for calculation, effectively killing high-damage recovery scaling.
  • Endgame and Crafting: Recombination is deleted. High-end crafting is transformed by a new Divine Orb sink mechanism where modifiers are multiplied (0.78x to 1.22x) rather than randomized, requiring players to divine items before corrupting or sanctifying.

Major Lowlights: Unresolved System Issues

The most significant negative aspect of the 0.5.0 patch notes is the lack of fundamental fixes for itemization.

  • Gem Levels: While attack-based weapons received a slight nerf to maximum gem levels, the stat remains mandatory for spellcasters. Without “Plus Gem Levels” on weapons and amulets, items remain non-viable for endgame play.
  • Item Rarity: The core problem of item rarity remains. It continues to negatively impact the “feel” of loot systems and would ideally be removed entirely to improve game health.

Skill Meta Shifts: Comet and Poisonburst Arrow

  • Comet: The Cast-on-Critical Comet build is not explicitly killed, but its dominance is challenged. Damage is nerfed by 5% (uninfused) and ~24% (Fire-empowered). The real impact comes from the leech rework; since Comet can no longer stack multiple leech instances, fueling the high mana or life costs of spammed Comets will be extremely difficult.
  • Poisonburst Arrow: This remains a strong starter but drops from S-tier to A-tier. It suffers from two nerfs: a reduction in poison duration on the skill itself and a reduction in duration provided by the Pathfinder’s Overwhelming Toxicity notable (from 35% to 50% less duration).

Defense Rebalance: Energy Shield, Evasion, and Armor

  • Energy Shield: Burst recovery and recovery speed are significantly nerfed. The Faster Start of Energy Shield Recharge stat replaces many recharge rate bonuses, but at lower values (e.g., 6% instead of 15%). While Convalescence still functions, the overall recovery per second is much lower, making ES vulnerable in protracted encounters.
  • Evasion: Pure evasion builds receive a boost via the Deflection formula. It is more effective for high-investment builds but weaker for those using evasion as a secondary layer.
  • Armor: Armor receives moderate buffs. While Western players have historically favored ES/Evasion hybrids, Armor is increasingly seen as viable, especially when focused on as a primary defense.
  • Runic Ward: Low-level unique and rare armors (Level 55 or lower) can be boosted with Runes of Elder to gain base defenses and additional Runic Ward.

QoL and New Content

  • Harvest Resistance Swap: Fluxes crafted from remnants can now transform one elemental resistance into another. This mimics the Path of Exile 1 Harvest bench swap and is considered one of the best changes in the patch.
  • Deterministic Map Travel: Players can now travel in specific directions to find certain content. Traveling southwest from the start leads to Hilda’s campsite.
  • Hilda’s Hunting: Allocating the Mighty Prey node (25% chance for powerful map bosses) is a priority for veteran players looking to quickly advance through map tiers.
  • Ruins of Kingsmarch: A new hub area adding lore depth to the world.

Endgame Mechanic Changes

  • Ritual: All rewards are now exclusively Uniques or Omens. No currency or rare items will appear in the Ritual screen. A new boss, the Queen in the Mist, can drop corrupted idols.
  • Fate of the Vaal: The “Snake Temple” strategy is dead. Temple room counts are capped at approximately 60 points (compared to the previous ~240), though reaching Atziri is now faster and rooms can be upgraded to Tier 4.
  • Expedition: Recombination is deleted. The Omen of Recombination has been removed from the game. Expedition explosives now wait for monsters to be killed before the next blast triggers.
  • Campaign Replayability: Waterways levers are now pressure pads for faster operation. Monster density in the second half of the campaign and interludes has been reduced to speed up “blitzing,” though this results in less loot for newer players.

Leech and Bleed Reworks

  • Leech Mechanics:
    • Only one leech instance per resource (Life/Mana/ES) can be active at a time.
    • If multiple hits occur, only the highest recovery rate instance applies.
    • The 40,000 Cap: For leech calculation, hits are capped at 40,000 damage. A 15-million damage hit leeches the same amount as a 40,000 damage hit.
  • Bleed: Moving no longer increases bleed damage taken by players. This addresses the lack of reactive “cleanse” agency in Path of Exile 2 compared to the flask-cleansing system in the original game.

Notable Unique and Support Item Changes

  • The Vertex: Heavily nerfed from +2-4 level of all gems to +3-5 level of all curse gems.
  • Atziri Uniques: Generally nerfed (Atziri’s Rule, Splendour, and The Covenant all saw efficiency or stat reductions). Atziri’s Acuity had its instantaneous leech obliterated.
  • Hateforge: Buffed. It provides +30 Max Rage if a Glory skill was used in the last 20 seconds, a much more achievable condition than the previous iteration.
  • Ported Uniques: Berek’s Respite (ignite propagation), Mageblood (new effect for POE2), Loreweave, and Brutus’ Lead Sprinkler are confirmed.
  • Tempest Bell: Gigabuffed; players can now have three active bells simultaneously.
  • Shock Conduction 2: Deleted, significantly nerfing “plant watering” Druid builds.

Currency and Trade Economy

  • Rarity: Transmutations and Augmentations are significantly rarer. Greater Orbs now drop earlier (Level 44, Act 4).
  • Divine Orb Sink (Krangled Divining): This is a transformative change for high-end crafting.
    1. Divine Orbs are more common.
    2. Krangled Divining and Sanctifying no longer randomize values; they multiply current values by a range of 0.78 to 1.22.
    3. This forces players to use Divine Orbs to reach a high “base” roll before applying a Vaal Orb or Sanctification Omen.
  • Omen of Corruption: Deleted.

Key References