GGG has swung yet another mid-League patch at Path of Exile 2 RoTA, and with 0.5.3, their good favors have finally reached Delirium. It turns out “pure” emotion monsters spawning from purple mirror shards were always bugged to not be above normal rarity. Now (with some balance tuning to offset it), they can be elite Rares with the the highest baseline Effectiveness.
Delirium got some difficulty nerfs to be actually survivable after PoE2 patch 0.5.2. Today’s patch, however, nerfs the lower-end Delirium monsters yet again.
This is because of a series of changes and bugfixes that now lets you (for example) spawn even more elite variants of Rares when breaking multiple purple shards in quick succession, have Grand Mirrors actually scale correctly with higher Delirious levels, and finally, Simulacrums start at 100% Delirious from the get-go.
That’s not to say it’s just a Delirium patch, though. To name a few other major changes:
- Abyssal Troves at the end of the sub-level now guarantees one Desecrated Currency,
- Kulemak’s unique Ring has been buffed significantly with a full revamp on the possible mods,
- Breach Hives are bigger,
- Expeditions now have currency chests and better baseline juicing capability,
- And most importantly, Runeforging gear now strip far less of their base Defenses.
There’s many more little changes that may arrest your attention, so the full official patch notes for Path of Exile 2 0.5.3 are worth a read-through. Here they are.
Path of Exile 2 patch 0.5.3 notes: Everything new and all balance changes
Runes of Aldur Changes
- “The maximum number of Remnants in a Grand Expedition now increases per Waystone Tier, with the highest number of Remnants possible to be found in Tier 15+ Maps.
- Grand Expedition chests have been greatly improved:
- All the basic Weapon and Armour chests have been removed. Now you should find an abundance of Chests which drop Currency, Unique Items and Waystones. Additonally there are now mysterious chests that drop regular items and trinket chests both of which drop items with a very high Rarity bonus.
- You can now place 15 Explosives (from 20) in a Grand Expedition to reduce the length of the encounter, combined with the higher value chests and increased number of Remnants your decisions will also be more important.
- Styrn, Fallen Knight of Aldur in the Tomb of the Fallen Knight now always drops an Expedition Logbook.
- The Runic Modifiers on Monsters granted by Runic Inscriptions now improve the rewards of the Monsters more significantly. These have in most cases been doubled, in some cases significantly more.
- Transcendent Alloy can once again be applied to Foci and Wands, granting the same effects as when applied to Staves but at lower values.
- Lowered the amount of defences lost when Runeforging high level non-Unique Armour base types by approximately 20%, the amount of Runic Ward gained remains the same. Existing items will be automatically updated to the new higher values.
- Improved the performance of Fragments of the Past’s mortar explosion effect and reduced the amount of blur used by the effect.
Endgame Changes
- Previously attempted Maps now additionally have 50% reduced Experience earned on top of the already penalised Item Rewards.
- Followers of the King in the Mists have taken up residence within the maze in the Crux of Nothingness, and aim to kill you as you try to escape the maze.
Delirium Changes
- Simulacrums now start at 100% Delirious, scaling up to 200%. This was previously intended to be 0% scaling up to 100%, but was actually not working at all.
- Simulacrum Maps are no longer spawned immediately when spreading Delirium fog on the Atlas. Instead, they are now spawned when reaching 100% Deliriousness in the fog bank.
- Maps with Fog on the Atlas now have their special Mirror Shards shown on the Delirium Progress bar, with a player distance indicator and slight visual changes to indicate the player is in fog anywhere in the map. This is purely a visual change.
- The You can’t just wake up from this one Notable Delirium Passive Skill now also provides Simulacrums now spawn Shards between Waves, allowing a single selection:
- Escalating Threats: Adds an additional Modifier to the area. These modifiers generally add danger and reward.
- Apex Predators: Adds an additional Boss to the Encounter.
- Pure Emotions: Adds additional monster packs to the encounter.
- The Are you sure you want to do that? Notable Delirium Atlas Passive Skill no longer grants Tablets have double Effect in areas with a Grand Mirror, instead now granting Areas with Grand Mirrors also have a Delirium Mirror. It also now provides 20% chance Shards within Simulacrums allow multiple selections.
- The You thought you were free? Notable Delirium Passive Skill has had its wording updated to 25% chance an additional Simulacrum is transformed when Delirium Fog reaches 100% Deliriousness. This change is just to reflect the overall changed functionality and will result in the same number of Simulacrums.
- The scaling of Delirium Fog has been halved to make Delirium not as difficult when encountering it early in the Endgame. To make up for this, Delirium Tablets now scale the effect of the Delirium Fog when using multiple Tablets, including Maps with Grand Mirrors or those within Fog Banks. When using three Delirium Tablets the scaling will be at its previous value.
- Improved Delirium Pure Escalation shards, these will now enhance all normal shards to release Pure Emotion Delirium Monster packs, as opposed to just the special Shards that were on the Bar. You can now also see when these shards are enhanced as they are imbued with a purple glassy energy.
- Added additional Monsters to the Loathsome Mire.
- Summoning Circle encounters now pause Delirium Fog. It is paused when starting the encounter, and paused again when defeating the boss spawned by the Summoning Circle.
- Further reduced the toughness scaling on specifically Normal and Magic Monsters in Delirium to be identical to Rares.
- Fixed a bug preventing normal Shards spawning above 150% Delirious depth. This accounted for at least thirty packs of monsters.
- Fixed a bug that prevented Delirium Elites from spawning as Rares or Magic Monsters.
- Fixed an issue where Delirium fog would sometimes not spread to the correct number of Maps.
Breach Changes
- Increased the number of Maps that spawn in Breach Strongholds. The size of the Stronghold in the infinite Atlas should now be approximately the same size as the one encountered near the Ziggurat.
- Improved the user experience when consuming Breach Fruits in large quantities. You can now Ctrl+Click the button that normally births a Wombgift to activate the cursor into a mode where you can rapidly click all the Wombgifts in your inventory and drop the items.
- Adjusted the Modifiers that are applied to Maps in a Breach Stronghold when using an additional Breachstone with the Tear Open the Rift Breach Atlas Passive Skill:
- The Modifier to Ailith Skill Damage can no longer roll.
- Modifiers to the chance to find specific Wombgift types can no longer roll.
- Added the following new Modifiers:
- All Monsters spawned in Breach Hives are at least Magic.
- Ailith can create Dreamer’s Sight. A new skill which creates a zone that upgrades the Rarity of Monsters that enter it.
- Ailith can create Otherworldly Nemesis. A new skill which adds an additional Pack with a Rare Monster to the start of each wave.
- Ailith can create Xesht’s Fervour. A new skill which increases the Effectiveness of all monsters spawned in the Breach Hive.
- Additionally the Ailith Skill which previously spawned a small amount of Magic Monsters now adds 2 Packs of Magic Monsters to the start of each wave.
Abyss Changes
- Conquering the Vessel of Kulemak now has a chance to drop Ancient Jawbones, Ancient Ribs and Ancient Collarbones.
- Tasgul, Swallower of Light will now always drop Desecrated Currency.
- Vandroth, Blackblooded Enslaver will now always drop Desecrated Currency.
- The final Large Abyssal Trove in Abyssal Depths will now always contain Desecrated Currency.
- Improved the visuals of the Abyss Strongboxes.
- The Close to the Surface Abyss Atlas Passive Skill now additionally has Abyss Tablets also grant Abyssal Depths 25% increased chance for Monsters to have Abyssal Modifiers, 25% Abyss Tablets also grant Abyssal Depths increased chance for Monsters to have Lichborn Modifiers, and Abyss Tablets also grant Abyssal Depths 4% increased Pack Size.
- Added 13 new Abyssal Wasting Modifiers for the Grip of Kulemak Unique Ring.
- The ‘of Amanamu’ Staff Suffix Modifier granting +12-16% to Block Chance now grants +20-25% to Block Chance.
- Added a new ‘of Kurgal’ Staff Suffix Modifier granting +3-4 Maximum Stacks of Puppetmaster.
- Added a new ‘Amanamu’s’ Staff Prefix Modifier granting Gain 40-50% of Damage as Extra Chaos Damage.
- The His Grave Command Skill granted by The Unborn Lich Unique Staff no longer has a Spirit cost (previously a percentage based Spirit Reservation similar to Tame Beast). Quality on His Grave Command now grants 0-20% more Minion Life (previously 0-20% increased Reservation Efficiency).
- Many of the Grip of Kulemak Desecrated Modifiers have been combined into a single Modifier, increased numerically, or disabled. Existing items can be updated using a Divine Orb to receive the new values, however new Modifiers will only generate on new versions of the item.
- Fixed a bug where Abyssal Depths areas sometimes did not contain a Rare Monster with an Abyss modifier at the end of the area.
Temple Changes
- The Offerings to the Queen Notable Temple Atlas Passive Skill no longer provides 50% chance Rare Vaal Beacon chests contain an additional random Temple Currency Item, or 25% chance Vaal Beacon Unique Monsters drop an additional random Temple Currency. Instead, it now provides a Rare or Unique Monster in the Area is Corrupted when Vaal Beacons are activated. This change is to ensure the Temple is the source of Temple Currency, while providing a new mechanism for players to interact with Monsters outside of the Temple.
- Reduced the frequency of Atziri’s Temple Biome Restricted Rooms enabled by the Secrets of the Ancients Notable Temple Atlas Passive Skill. This combined with the Royal Prerogative Notable now always results in a net positive number of Restricted Room uses.
General Changes and Improvements
- Build Planner files can now contain a “link” field, which will present a button for users to click on the build description info. Currently only a subset of domains are whitelisted to appear in the client.
- When opening the “I Want” or “I Have” currency selectors in the Currency Exchange, the search box will now have immediate focus when using Mouse and Keyboard.
- The Staunch Deflection Notable Passive Skill now additionally grants Gain Deflection Rating equal to 8% of Evasion Rating.
- Rogue Exiles no longer drop Corrupted items.
- Reduced the damage, area of effect and freeze build-up of Geonor, The Putrid Wolf’s Moonbeam skill in all versions of this Boss Fight.
- Reduced the damage of Count Geonor’s Reverse Cleave skill in all versions of this Boss Fight.
- Reduced the damage of Geonor, The Putrid Wolf’s Reverse Cleave skill in all versions of this Boss Fight.
- When interacting with the Waypoint in Act 2, hovering over the icons used to navigate the Caravan now instruct you to go to the Desert Map near Asala to do so.
- Improved the behaviour of ground-targeted Skills when used against Zalmarath, the Colossus.
- Made various improvements to The Market UI when playing with a controller.”
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Edited by Sambit Pal