Top 10 BIGGEST Changes in 0.5 Patch Notes - Path of Exile 2

2026-05-22By FubgunWatch videoDuration: PT8M52S

Summary

Pathfinder & Poison: Received significant nerfs, including reduced movement speed, halved poison duration, and the removal of elemental ailment infliction from Plague Fingers.
Energy Shield & Recovery: ES recovery rates and sources have been heavily reduced across the board; Ghost Dance now features a longer cooldown and no longer provides instant recovery.
Leech Changes: Instant leech has been removed entirely from the game, replaced by caps on leech rates, significantly impacting builds like Blood Mage.
Rune Updates: Basic runes received universal buffs to values (life, attributes, resistances), while ES recovery runes were nerfed.
Currency & Crafting: Sanctify and Vaal Orbs no longer pre-divine items, making the initial base roll critical. Perfect currency is rarer, while Divine Orbs are more common. Recombinators and the Omen of Corruption have been removed.
Weapon Balance: Martial weapon gem levels have been reduced (two-handers -2, one-handers -1), while spell gem levels remain unchanged.

The Pathfinder ascendancy and poison mechanics sustained multiple nerfs:

Movement Speed: The movement speed penalty reduction while using skills was changed from 50% to 30%.
Overwhelming Toxicity: The node now provides 50% less poison duration, increased from 35%.
Poison Burst Arrow: Lost 2 seconds of base poison duration (down to 1.5 seconds) and 10% poison magnitude (damage).
Plague Fingers: No longer allows for the infliction of elemental ailments, removing access to Chill and Shock.
Toxic Growth: The pod limit and count were reduced to 6, and additional arrows no longer scale with this node.

ES recovery has been substantially weakened across gear, the skill tree, and runes (50% to 66% reductions).

Ghost Dance: Now provides 2% of ES recovery based on evasion per second for 4 seconds after being hit. The cooldown was increased from 6 seconds to 10 seconds, and instant recovery was removed.

Instant leech has been completely removed from the game, including from unique items like the Valocudi gloves.

Leech Caps: Leech is now capped at 20% of life per second at base, with a maximum of 50% if specific tree notables are acquired.
Vile Pack: Now provides over-leech instead of instant leech.

While ES recovery runes were nerfed, most basic runes (Greater Glacier, Greater My, etc.) received significant buffs:

Life/Resists: Max life increased from 40 to 60; resistances increased from 14% to 18%.
Attributes: Increased from 10 to 12.
New Additions: 100+ new runes are being added, including a resistance-swapping rune similar to Harvest mechanics from Path of Exile 1.

Item Rolling: Sanctify and Vaal Orbs no longer “pre-divine” items. The initial stat roll now determines the outcome, making it necessary to use Divine Orbs on valuable items before applying these effects.
Rarity Changes: Greater and perfect currencies are now more rare. Divine Orbs are now more common.
Removed Items: Omen of Corruption and Recombinators have been removed.

Gem Levels: Martial weapon gem levels were reduced by 2 for two-handed weapons and 1 for one-handed weapons. Spell gem levels remain untouched.
Warrior: The Shield Wall build sustained a ~40% damage reduction.
Druid: Wyvern (Rand, Oil Barrage, Flame Breath) and Werewolf forms received nerfs.
Gathering Storm: The one-shot codex staff build was nerfed, though the skill itself received buffs for combo potential with bell skills.

Several builds remain viable for the next league start:

Grenades, Twisters, and Minion builds remain largely untouched.
Freeze/Snipe Ice Shot builds (late game) remain strong.
Rampage Bear and most staff builds (outside of the one-shot build) remain viable.