While the upcoming Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 Return of the Ancients focuses on late-game content, this doesn’t mean the developers have neglected gameplay issues. This update includes a significant amount of new content, as well as some nerfs and buffs to existing content.
While Patch 0.5.0 doesn’t fix everything, it does address some prominent issues from previous leagues. This article, by POECurrency, will guide you through some of the key nerfs and buffs in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0.
Key Enhancements
Deflection Mechanism Improvements
Since the introduction of Deflect in Patch 0.3, we know that achieving a very high Deflect chance has been extremely difficult. However, the new Deflect formula introduced in Patch 0.5.0 makes achieving a 100% deflect chance much easier. At the same time, the chance of gaining a 40% damage reduction when using special skills like Blind and Glancing Blows is greater.
The downside is that the damage reduction cap is 95%, meaning that 5% of the reduction might depend on the random number generator. However, considering you no longer need to spend too many resources to improve Deflection, it’s definitely worth the investment.
Efficient Gear Crafting
Runes of Aldur league mechanism introduced more runes, many of which are used for meta crafting. They don’t directly modify items but allow you to randomly obtain specific affixes. Similarly, Genesis Tree allows you to assign passive skills to prevent certain outcomes, customize the rewards obtained through this mechanism, and craft items for specific builds.
If you’re going to use Genesis Tree, POECurrency recommends completing Breach encounters early in the game to obtain Hiveblood.
Grenade Skill Power Boost
In Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0, Trarthan Cannon significantly boosts the power of Grenades Skills through a unique mechanism. Trarthan Cannon can only fire grenades and can only randomly generate affixes related to grenades.
This makes grenade-based builds much more powerful than previous grenade builds. One of the pursuit-exclusive weapons, Redemption, ignores all skill cooldowns, continuously throwing grenades that detonate instantly upon hitting a target.
Chronomancer Skill Rework
The biggest change in Patch 0.5.0 is undoubtedly Chronomancer Ascendancy class. This class has gained a significant new skill, Phased Form, and several existing skills have been reworked. When Phased Form is activated, the first attack you receive reduces damage by 30%. After four seconds, your character will only receive 30% of that attack’s damage, providing ample time for health regeneration.
In addition, the rework of Sands of Time Buff increases skill speed – note that it’s skill speed, not casting speed – giving you greater freedom in skill selection. Therefore, theoretically, after this update, Chronomancer will gain greater flexibility in builds.
So, if you’re a loyal Chronomancer player, to gain an early advantage, you can start preparing for his build now, and buy Path of Exile 2 Currency from POECURRENCY.com to acquire the unique gear needed for your build. Here, we’ll provide the fastest and safest way to get the items you want.
Key Nerfs
Energy Shield Nerfed Across Board
Prior to PoE 2 patch 0.4, Energy Shield was the primary means of defense. Because Chaos Inoculation completely negated Chaos damage, players could focus on maximizing their Energy Shield.
However, since patch 0.5.0, all Energy Shield-related nodes in the talent tree have been significantly weakened. These changes are believed to be because of the impact of Runeward mechanic.
Survivability of Leech Builds
The number of Leech triggers and the maximum damage that can be counted have been limited. If you’re using a Leech build, whether it’s life, energy shield, or mana, the maximum percentage of damage recovered is limited to 40,000.
Furthermore, you can only activate one lifesteal effect at a time. This means that if two lifesteal effects trigger, the system will only select the higher recovery value and will not stack the two effects. Also, with the removal of Instant Leech affix, the survivability of pure lifesteal builds will significantly increase.
Poison stacking with Pathfinder
In the previous Path of Exile 2, Pathfinder’s Overwhelming Toxicity doubled the number of poison stacks you could apply to enemies. However, in PoE2 Patch 0.5.0, the duration of all these poison effects has been halved.
By default, the poison effect lasts 1.5 seconds instead of 3 seconds, making it more difficult to stack poison effects. However, considering that Poisonburst Arrow is one of the most popular early-game skills in Fate of the Vaal League, this nerf is not surprising.
No More Infinite Comet Showers
In PoE patch 0.4, Cast on Critical Comet was the mainstream build, mainly because triggering Cast on Critical was relatively easy, and Leech effect was quite good. However, after the update, two of these three factors were nerfed.
First, Comet itself saw its damage reduced by 5% at all levels. But what truly made this build almost unusable was the nerf to Leech effect. Since only one Leech effect can be activated in patch 0.5.0, it’s difficult for players to maintain enough life or mana leech to trigger Comet Showers like raindrops.
This concludes POECurrency’s analysis of the buffs and nerfs in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 Return of the Ancients. There are many changes, and players should spend some time understanding them to avoid falling behind at the start of the game.
