Players, just when everyone was getting impatient, Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.5.0 brought another surprise: a preview of new Ascendancy changes and new Unique items. This new information could once again revolutionize the game. Gemling Legionnaire Ascendancy Gemling Legionnaire, previously at the bottom of PoE 2's pick rate, has finally received a substantial rework from the developers. The core idea behind this rework is to give each Skill Gem an additional quality effect. Specifically, each Skill Gem already has a base quality bonus, but choosing Gemling Legionnaire will grant you an additional, completely independent enhancement attribute specific to that Ascendancy. For example, with Fireball, the normal quality effect has a chance to fire two additional projectiles, while Gemling Legionnaire's exclusive effect adds another chance to fire projectiles simultaneously in eight surrounding directions, instantly transforming it into a visual effect similar to shotgun shells or a ring-shaped explosion, potentially significantly improving map clearing efficiency. For example, Explosive Shot's original reload mechanic has been reworked to load additional bolts, resulting in higher burst damage per hit. According to official sources, over 200 skill gems in the game now have this handcrafted variant. This means that almost every active skill can potentially lead to builds that differ from conventional playstyles. Furthermore, this ascendancy also has a passive buff tied to attributes. Depending on the proportions of Strength, Dexterity, and Intelligence, the character will periodically gain Motes, providing bonuses such as Energy Shield, Life Regeneration, or Mana regeneration. It's clear that the developers want Gemling Legionnaire to be a highly customizable ascension where the skills themselves determine the gameplay, while attribute allocation, in turn, enhances the skills. While optimizing these quality effects may require a significant investment of PoE 2 currency, this ascendancy rework has revived unpopular classes and added another dimension to the game's already vast skill combination system. Chronomancer Ascendancy The newly added Phased Form node for Chronomancer is the biggest surprise of this update. This node contains two independent descriptions: first, all incoming damage is reduced by 30%; second, after being hit by an enemy, there's a 4-second delay before you receive 30% of the damage from that hit. Many people's first reaction might be that 700 of the original 1000 damage is reduced immediately, and the remaining 300 is deducted after 4 seconds. However, these two effects are actually calculated independently. The correct calculation should be that after a 30% reduction in damage, you will immediately receive 700 points of damage from 1000 points of damage. After 4 seconds, you receive an additional 700 damage (30%), which is 210 damage, for a total of 910 damage received, equivalent to an overall 9% damage reduction. Compared to a simple 30% damage reduction, 9% may seem small, but its real value lies in the 4-second delay window. You can use Flask, activate armor, or rely on other defensive mechanisms within these 4 seconds to mitigate the upcoming 210 damage. More importantly, Chronomancer already possesses Temporal Rift skill. If used within these 4 seconds, the 210 points of delayed damage will be completely negated, as the system will determine that the damage has not yet occurred. This means the actual damage taken is only 700 points, equivalent to a direct 30% damage reduction with no subsequent costs. Additionally, this update also adjusts Chronomancer's node layout. Time Freeze and Time Snap now only require 4 nodes to unlock. A new Now and Again node has been added, giving Cascadable Spells a 20% chance to Echo and Repeatable Spells a 20% chance to Repeat. Chronomancer also has the potential to synergize with other defensive mechanisms. For example, passive skills like Sacrifice of Flesh can prevent 20% of your life loss when you take hit damage, with the prevented portion being converted into a slow drain at a rate of 150%. Combined with the 30% damage reduction from Phased Form and Defiance of Destiny, a three-tiered defense system can theoretically be built: damage reduction, delay, and rollback. This is particularly suitable for boss battles in hardcore modes. New Unique Items Facebreaker Facebreaker is a pair of gloves with no level requirement, meaning you can equip it from level 1. It provides an additional 1% unarmed damage for every 5% of Strength, and when attacking unarmed, if you would normally use a one-handed hammer skill, you now directly use the glove's base damage without needing any weapon. Let's assume the character has 1000 Strength, that's 200% more unarmed damage; 2000 Strength is 400% more unarmed damage. With this setup, combined with the attack speed advantage of unarmed attacks and hammer skills, it performs well for clearing maps and fighting bosses in the mid-game. But in the late game, it still struggles to surpass top-tier hammer weapons. However, for players exploring new content, leveling alts, or those who enjoy a strength-stacking playstyle, these gloves are definitely worth paying attention to. The Auspex Exquisite Vest This armor's effects include a chance to deflect when low on health and gain a level 20 Mist Raven. The Mist Raven will use your Culling Strike threshold to perform a cooperative attack, converting 70% of physical damage into chaos damage. It has a 12-second base cooldown but deals a whopping 1000% damage. Furthermore, it has a Companion tag, allowing us to synergize with Companion nodes in the summon skill tree for even more bonuses. So, these are the exciting new features just leaked in PoE 2 Patch 0.5.0, and these new features could make gameplay even more insane!

The developers have been trying to patch their expedition system. After the third expedition, they added a new trader, Nomadic Envoys. This trader not only offers extra stash space but also sells a special expedition vault storage, allowing you to store up to 5 items that will carry over into your next expedition. However, now might not be the best time to trade with him. There are some flaws in both the goods he sells and the design of the expedition vault storage. Let's take a closer look at what Nomadic Envoys specifically offer and what their problems are. Nomadic Envoys Guide   To access this new trader, simply go to Traders interface in the main menu, then select Nomadic Envoys at the bottom right. All exchangeable items will be listed there. Note that you can only visit this trader after reaching level 25. Players who haven't hit that level yet should focus on leveling up first. Stash Expansion   One highly practical upgrade he provides is Stash Expansion. Using this feature permanently increases your backpack by 12 stash slots. You'll need to submit 200,000 ARC Raiders coins along with several high-quality materials: Queen Reactor   Matriarch Reactor   Bombardier Cell   Assessor Matrix   Turbine Compressor   Leaper Pulse Unit   Bastion Cell   Vaporizer Regulator   Rocketeer Driver   If you've gathered all the above items and coins, you can use the auto select function to quickly submit and complete the transaction. Expedition Vault   Another important upgrade is Expedition Vault. Redeeming this adds one extra slot to your expedition vault. Its function is that after you finish an expedition and return, any item placed in the vault will be available for your next raider to use. In other words, it lets you preserve ARC Raiders blueprints or items after an expedition reset - like a safe pocket. Each expedition vault slot carries the same value as Stash Expansion. Keep in mind that each submission unlocks only one expedition vault slot, whereas Stash Expansion unlocks all 12 slots at once. Weekly Rotating Items   Nomadic Envoys also brings unlockable cosmetic outfits, decorations, blueprints, and other items, each with different requirements: Mirage Outfit:  500,000 coins Same material requirements as Stash Expansion Backpack Charm / Emote:  5× Portable TV 5× Headphones 5× Projector Weapon Blueprint (Tempest):  Any Weapon 1,000,000 coins Same material requirements as Stash Expansion ARC Enemy Part (Turbine Compressors):   1× Alien Duck 1× Rubber Duck 1× Flashy Duck Legendary Project Item (Ship Model):   Any Weapon 100,000 coins Same material requirements as Stash Expansion Epic Project Item (Ship Model):   Any Weapon 30,000 coins Same material requirements as Stash Expansion Raider Tokens:   150,000 coins Same material requirements as Stash Expansion All of the above will be replaced when the weekly rotation happens. But don't worry too much about missing something important, because they will obviously cycle back sooner or later. What you really need to consider is how to gather all those materials and coins. You May Like: ARC Raiders Matchmaking System Updates Explained: How your Playstyle, Self-Defense, and Low Activity will affect Future Matches? Core Issues with The New Trader   The main problems with the new trader are already clear: most of the goods are overvalued. Even players who don't participate in expeditions might not have enough materials. For those who do take part in expeditions but currently lack coins and materials, Nomadic Envoys are basically out of reach. Take Tempest blueprint as an example. Even though it's an epic blueprint, you would need to invest a huge amount of time farming Queen and Matriarch - the toughest bosses. You have to cooperate with other players to take them down, and even then you might not get their Reactors, let alone all the other epic materials. Instead of exhausting yourself collecting materials, following a guide to directly find Tempest blueprint might actually be more efficient. That said, not everything is bad news. The developers have explicitly stated that during the first week, they will allow players to test one stash expansion and 5 expedition vault slots. The goal is to gather initial feedback and use that opportunity to adjust the costs before adding more slots later. Therefore, it's best not to acquire anything just yet. After the development team sees the community's response to this week's pricing, the costs are likely to go down next week. Another Mechanic Flaw    When upgrading a stash slot, you have to submit all the required ARC components at once, unlike with projects where you can contribute gradually over time. This means that to unlock the last vault slot, which demands a value as high as 1,000,000 coins' worth of materials, you would first need to free up 91 stash slots just to hold enough Queen Reactors. Even if you use Vaporizer Regulators to save space, you'd still need to stockpile 56 stacks of those cores to complete the transaction - making an already difficult situation even worse for players with limited stash space. The development team might lower the costs after receiving feedback and might also design a feature that allows us to submit ARC components one by one, instead of forcing a one-time transaction. But for now, that feature hasn't been implemented. So the only thing players can do at the moment is to unlock extra stash space first, then keep accumulating ARC components while waiting for the trader's costs to drop. Nomadic Envoys serve as a stable resource sink and a weekly goal. Whether you want to expand your stash, carry over expedition items, or collect limited-edition cosmetics, you can visit this new trader regularly. However, given that most exchanges offer poor value for what they cost, there's no need to rush into any trades. It's wiser to wait for the developers to make reasonable adjustments to the valuation.