Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.1.1: Here Are The Biggest Changes
15.01.2025 - 02:09:38
Game Guides , Path of Exile 2
The folks over at Grinding Gear Games have recharged themselves over the Holidays and are now back at work to deliver some exciting news to the community. In the next couple of days, GGG is going to release a new update, Patch 0.1.1, that addresses the issues that the community has raised since Path of Exile 2 Early Access launched in Early December.
Are you interested to know what the update has in store for you? You’re in luck because we will do just that! Here are the biggest changes in PoE 2 Patch 0.1.1:
Mapping Changes
Better Monster Density
When you’ve finished the PoE 2 campaign and you want to spend plenty of time mapping, you want there to be a relatively good amount of monsters to eliminate. This is not only for the sake of gaining EXP but also to get a higher chance of gaining more valuable loot.
The problem with the current version of Path of Exile 2 Early Access is that monster density is a bit hit or miss. There are certain maps where you don’t have any problem with monster density, and there are those that are a bit sparse in comparison.
Fortunately, part of the Patch 0.1.1 changes is the increase in monster density, including normal, magic, and rare monsters. This makes certain Atlas Passive nodes like Rising Danger and Bountiful Bloodlines more powerful because they increase rare and magic monsters, respectively.
Boss Maps Become More Rampant
GGG originally intended bosses to appear at a ratio of 1 in 4 maps. Unfortunately, that is not the case in PoE 2 Early Access at the moment. More specifically, boss maps are few and far between, which makes players who devote their characters to become bonafide boss killers unhappy as a result.
So, to rectify that, the company will increase the frequency of boss maps by 30%. This aligns with GGG’s vision of making such maps appear more consistently.
What if you still don’t see any boss map on your screen? Patch 0.1.1 will also introduce a new Precursor Tablet that specifically adds bosses to surrounding map nodes. This is a significant change that will make the majority of PoE 2 players happy, especially considering that bosses drop a huge amount of loot, such as unique items, and high-tier maps, among others.
Increased Frequency of Essences and Strongboxes
Both Strongboxes and Essences are relatively rare unless you take certain nodes on the Atlas Tree that can influence their spawn rate to some degree. But even with those allocated, you’re getting at most a couple of Essences per map, making any passive point investment into them worthless.
Strongboxes, if there are any, only spawn one time in a map. This is a far cry from how it is currently being implemented in Path of Exile 1, where you can get upwards of 10 Strongboxes in a map with a good investment into the content.
The good news is that these types of extra content will have increased frequency when Path of Exile Patch 0.1.1 drops sometime this week. It is possible that you will see at least two or three additional Essence Monsters and Strongboxes that spawn on a map even without allocating Atlas Passive Nodes like Crystalline Growths and “Likely Ambush.”
Reduced Visual Clutter
Have you encountered a situation where you could barely see anything while mapping, which made you more susceptible to deadly ground effects? That seems to be a common thing people have experienced in PoE 2 Early Access.
With so many monsters that have detrimental or outright deadly effects, it is important to be able to see those things without any impediments. It’s a good thing that GGG is a company that listens to its player base because visual clutter in maps will be severely reduced come Patch 0.1.1. If only the update could come a lot sooner!
Atlas Zoomed Out Even Further
With the way Atlas works on Path of Exile 2, particularly with how random the map nodes are, you want to zoom out the view as much as possible. Currently, you can only zoom the camera out a few steps, which is nearly not enough to know exactly where you’re going. This forces you to move the camera from left to right just to see where you can go in terms of Atlas Progression.
One of the things that the company did to resolve this is to increase the camera zoom out considerably, so you can see plenty of map nodes on the screen at once. This makes it easier for you to plot a course of action without having to move the camera often.
Map Biome on Hover
Did you allocate enough points to take “Local Knowledge” on the Atlas Tree? For those who don’t know, this is a node that increases the drop rate of certain items depending on the biome the map you’re running is on.
For instance, if you want to farm PoE 2 Currency, you can run Water and Swamp biome maps to have a 40% increased chance of getting basic currency items. Do you want Greater Jeweler’s Orb or the coveted Perfect Jeweler’s Orb to drop more often? You might want to invest time in completing Grass Biome maps, with Local Knowledge allocated, of course!
Anyway, the reason why we’re discussing the said Atlas Passive Skill is that GGG will implement a new feature in Patch 0.1.1 that allows you to know a map’s biome simply by hovering your cursor over it.
Lost Tower Changes
New Layouts
Are you bored of the design of Lost Towers presently in Path of Exile 2 Early Access? There is only one layout for Lost Towers and it’s pretty boring, so much so that you can make a beeline to the Precursor Room to clear the tower without wasting a lot of time.
Lost Towers should be more impactful given that you can make surrounding maps better by inserting Precursor Tablets into them. GGG agrees with this and intends to add four new layouts soon to make clearing Lost Towers provide a much better experience.
The new Lost Tower layouts include the Alpine Ridge, Bluff, Sinking Spire, and Mesa. You can see a glimpse of them in the images below:
It’s kind of nostalgic that developer Grinding Gear Games has found a way to repurpose one of the most popular maps in PoE 1. The seeming desert landscape may provide an experience that makes Lost Towers a lot more enjoyable to accomplish.
Improvements to the Current Lost Tower Map
The design of the current Lost Tower map will still be available once Patch 0.1.1 goes live. However, some improvements are in order to make it a lot more appealing. The thing that stands out the most is that the rooms in this area no longer have roofs that may hinder overall visibility.
Item Changes
Loot Filter for Consoles
Arguably the biggest change in Patch 0.1.1, Path of Exile 2 console players will finally be able to use a loot filter while playing the game on their favorite platforms. If you enjoy this ARPG on an Xbox Series X/S or PlayStation 5, you can subscribe to loot filters from the official website and they will show up in the settings menu in-game.
You cannot set a loot filter until Patch 0.1.1 drops soon, so you still need to wait at least a couple of days before it is implemented. However, it’s nice to see that GGG is finally giving console players a chance to declutter their screens while mapping with high-tier Waystones!
Overwrite Runes and Soul Cores
So you’re playing any of the best Mercenary builds in PoE 2 and over time, you think that the Iron Rune you’ve socketed into your crossbow has become obsolete in terms of improving damage output.
You want to replace it with something more useful like the Soul Core of Citaqualotl for increased elemental damage with attacks or a Soul Core of Ticaba for a 12% increase in critical damage bonus. Unfortunately, there is no way for you to replace whatever you have inserted into your gear. Well, that all changes in the upcoming patch!
Thanks to the said update, you can now overwrite runes and soul cores previously socketed into gear. Situations where the high-level body armor you have that you thought would never sell in PoE 2 Trade because of the awful runes socketed into it, for example, may finally be put up for sale for a profit due to this one change!
Active Charm Indicator
Utility Flasks from Path of Exile 1 have been completely replaced in PoE 2 by a completely new set of items called Charms.
Charms automatically activate whenever a certain condition is met. The Stone Charm, for example, makes you immune to stun if you have been stunned recently.
With so many things that can happen on the screen at once, it is nearly impossible to tell if the Charm you have equipped has done what it’s supposed to or not.
GGG thinks so too. Hence, a visual indicator is added to Patch 0.1.1 that will tell you how many Charm Charges you have, as well as how much time it has left before its effect wears off.
Improved Low-Level Uniques
During your first playthrough, you may have come across some low-level unique items that you can have your second and third characters use to breeze through the campaign. Although some are pretty handy like the Quill Rain, which significantly boosts the attack speed of a bow user, some uniques require a bit of a boost to become more appealing.
So, GGG made a balancing pass on some uniques, particularly those that can be utilized at an early level. Most of them are mediocre at best, though some truly stood out from the rest.
Poe 2 Bramblejack—a unique body armor that is mainly suited for builds that heavily invest in thorns damage to kill enemies—was pretty average back then. It only had a few modifiers and the only best feature it had was the ability to reflect 250% of melee physical damage taken.
The improved version still has that unique effect. However, the bonus to maximum life it provides has increased from 59 to 90. Besides that, you now regenerate 5% of your life per second when you are surrounded, which goes in line with what this unique body armor tries to achieve.
Edyrn’s Tusks is another standout among the newly improved unique items in PoE 2 Patch 0.1.1. At level 11, this body armor can give you 226 armor and reduces the effectiveness of slow debuffs on you, making you less afraid of Temporal Chains or Chilled Ground with this item equipped.
But more importantly, Edryn’s Tusks now significantly increases your chance to inflict enemies with bleeding on hit. Although bleed builds are not popular in the current meta, we’re confident in saying that it will be later down the line.
Gamblesprint is another unique item in Path of Exile 2 that’s worth checking out. The percentage increase in evasion rating these boots provide has dropped from 135% to 118%. However, this is pretty much compensated by getting nearly double the amount of added lightning resistance, as well as the addition of the mod that enhances your item rarity stat.
Increased item rarity is a sought-after modifier in PoE 2 right now because of the power it holds when farming items. If you don’t know, this particular mod alone helps you get more divine orb currency and valuable loot to drop by killing monsters.
11% IIR may not mean much but you have to consider that Gamblesprint can be used as early as level 16, so you’ll find more success in acquiring better upgrades as you complete the campaign a second time.
Do you want to create a Monk Build that specializes in either Ice Strike or Tempest Flurry? Matysa is an already incredible leveling unique item in Path of Exile 2 and it’s even more so when you see the vastly improved version!
So, what has changed? For starters, this unique crescent quarterstaff now boosts your critical hit chance from 3.05% to 3.15% on a perfect roll. Furthermore, Matysa now has added cold and lightning damage, which can be amplified by the mod, “% Increased Elemental Damage with Attacks.”
Get High-Tier Mods When Crafting
To be clear, Path of Exile 2’s crafting system post Patch 0.1.1 will still feel largely the same. However, using the typical currencies for crafting, such as the Transmutation, Augmentation, Regal, and Exalted Orbs generally gives better modifiers overall, especially when they’re spent on high ilvl base items.
For instance, if you have an ilvl 80+ Attuned Wand, you are more likely to get 105-119% increased spell damage than a low-tier version of this particular modifier when using the crafting currencies just mentioned.
The reason for this happening is that GGG has found the pesky bug that prevented high-tier items from getting the best rolls. With this in mind, if you have plans to craft some endgame gear, it is wise to hold off for now until the update goes live.
Armor Got Buffed
If you have been playing the Warrior and any of its ascendancy classes, you know that armor is in a rough state right now. In fact, some people in the community have taken it upon themselves to crunch some numbers. Their findings? Armor is terrible as a defensive layer in PoE 2.
There is this notable passive skill that is quite accessible to the Warrior called “Heatproofing.” This passive node basically gets 25% of your armor and uses that to mitigate the fire damage you have taken recently from hits. That is an awesome passive skill if it works great, that is.
Upon testing, it turns out that the said notable passive skill makes the damage mitigation from armor apply before resistances are taken into account. If armor could have been utilized after applying the elemental damage reduction provided by resistances, then Heatproofing would have become so much better.
Fast forward to Patch 0.1.1 and GGG will apply a sort of a band-aid measure to address this. The company will boost the damage mitigation of armor by 15%. On the surface, that is not nearly enough to address armor as a main defensive layer. However, it remains to be seen how this improvement feels in practice. Still, it’s worth pointing out, especially those who play Titan or Warbringer builds in Path of Exile 2.
Item Rarity Changes?
In the Tavern Talk with some popular figures in the PoE 2 community, game directors Jonathan Rogers and Mark Roberts discussed some important topics about the game. At some point, they talked about item rarity and how it affects Path of Exile 2 in terms of item drops.
According to the game directors, item rarity as it functions right now is actually intended. This is because they want players to have the option of leaning toward Magic Find rather than putting up a build solely focused on dealing huge amounts of damage.
It seems that item rarity is here to stay judging by that statement. What does this mean for the ordinary Path of Exile 2 player? Well, having some IIR mods on your gear certainly helps improve the frequency of item and currency drops.
However, unless you are going full for a full Magic Find character, it is not necessary to stack item rarity as high as you can because of diminishing returns. Somewhere around 100% to 150% should suffice.
Monster Changes
Better Telegraphing of Damaging Effects
It is common knowledge by now that there are a bunch of monsters in Path of Exile 2 that have something extra up their sleeve before they die. For instance, monsters might explode after a few seconds, leaving you a small window of opportunity to get out. If you’re still within their blast radius, you will most likely die due to the explosion.
Well, those effects are still present in Patch 0.1.1, albeit they are now better telegraphed. What this means is that on-kill effects will be much more pronounced, making them easier to spot.
Aside from that, the Volatile Plants that are cast by some enemies, which hurt a lot because they deal chaos damage, are bigger and brighter now. Because of this, you can better distinguish the Volatile Plants as they come close to you regardless of the visual clutter.
Reduced Field of View
Some enemies like the Plaguebearer can kill you off-screen. Apparently, they can cast spells even when they’re too far away from your current location.
To rectify that, GGG has reduced the field of view of those enemies so that it will require them to be a bit closer to you before they can cast their spells. So in the case of the Plaguebearer, they will no longer be able to cast Detonate Dead when they’re not visible on your screen.
Deal Less Damage
Zekoa, the Headcrusher is only a minor boss in Act 3 that you could skip in your first playthrough. He is very tough and some of his attacks deal too much damage for certain classes like the Sorceress and Ranger. However, you have to defeat him at some point because he drops a Book of Specialization that grants two additional passive skill points.
If you are playing any of the PoE 2 classes that don’t have a lot of physical damage mitigation, you’ll be happy to know that a change was made in Patch 0.1.1 that makes Zekoa’s “Silverfist Commander Roll” deal significantly less damage than before.
This is just one of the examples of campaign monsters getting rebalanced to make them more accessible to beginners. More will be revealed in the Path of Exile 2 patch notes that may come a day or two after this article is published, so stay tuned for more updates.
Changes to Pinnacle Boss Encounters
Six Revives for The Arbiter of Ash
The Arbiter of Ash is one of the pinnacle bosses that you encounter in the endgame. It is not easy to enter his lair because you need to farm the three “Citadel Maps” to get the necessary keys. Only after getting the three keys can you gain entry to The Burning Monolith, where he waits for your arrival.
GGG understands how difficult it is to farm the keys due to the seemingly low chance of Citadel Maps that can spawn on the Atlas. Spending so much time entering the monolith only for the boss to kill you easily puts a damper on your PoE 2 Early Access experience. So, what the company did to somehow alleviate this in Patch 01.1 is provide you with a means of reviving in case you try to challenge The Arbiter of Ash and lose during your first encounter.
By default, you have six chances to take down The Arbiter of Ash. It’s worth pointing out, however, that these respawns will gradually decrease as the difficulty of the boss fight increases. At Difficulty 4, it’s possible that you are only left with a single respawn, so you have to make sure that you’re well-prepared before the battle. When you’ve reached this point, your familiarity with the situation is key to your success!
The Path of Exile 2 game directors said that they will implement this with other pinnacle bosses as well. However, they were reluctant to do this for every single boss in the game because it would diminish the rewarding experience you may feel when downing a very difficult enemy.
Increased Citadel Spawn Rates
Some people dedicate their Path of Exile 2 characters to defeating The Arbiter of Ash in the hopes of getting certain highly-coveted unique items, such as the Morior Invictus and Prism of Belief.
Gaining entry to the Burning Monolith requires you to farm different keys. These keys only drop by clearing the so-called “Citadel Maps.” These include the Copper Citadel, Stone Citadel, and the Iron Citadel.
The thing is, these Citadel Maps are quite rare. In fact, some players claimed that they had never seen all three of them spawn on their Atlas. This is definitely not what GGG had intended, which is why they’re resolving the issue by increasing the frequency of these Citadel Maps come Patch 0.1.1.
Another noteworthy change is that the Citadel Maps now have a visual indicator that can be seen even when they are currently covered in fog. This enables you to plot a course so that you can get to these citadels as fast as possible.
Lastly, GGG has performed a restructuring of the Atlas so that the Citadels are located much closer to the center. If you’ve been itching to find the mythical Copper Citadel, wait a bit longer until the update drops!
Changes to Endgame Systems
Greatly Increased Omen Spawn Rate
The current crafting system in Path of Exile 2 does not even resemble the complex crafting system that its predecessor had. In PoE 1, there are numerous ways that you can deterministically add a modifier that you want. For instance, you can prevent attack modifiers from popping up so that you can force a socket onto a weapon. This was done by adding a particular metamod from the Crafting Bench.
Obviously, the Crafting Bench is no longer available in the sequel so metamods are out of the equation if you are to craft better endgame gear. GGG didn’t want to do away with the idea entirely, though, which is why they’ve left Omens in the game.
For those who don’t know, Omens are currency items that provide the only means of deterministic crafting in Path of Exile 2. To activate, place an Omen that you want to utilize in your inventory and right-click on it. Then, use the PoE 2 currency indicated on the Omen and it will do what it’s supposed to.
Let’s say you plan on crafting an endgame bow for your Lightning Arrow Deadeye. You’ve used an Orb of Alchemy and a couple of Exalts on it and the resulting weapon now contains several awesome modifiers. The problem is that one of the suffixes could be better and using the Chaos Orb to change it might remove one of the better mods instead.
In a situation like that, you can activate the Omen of Dextral Erasure so that the next time you use a Chaos Orb, it will remove only the suffix modifiers on the weapon, leaving the prefixes intact. This system is not perfect, though the odds of getting the result that you want become more achievable, isn’t it?
So, where do you get these Omens? Well, they are a random reward for completing Ritual Altars. At the moment, they are extremely rare and even when you invest in the Ritual nodes on the Atlas Tree, you’re still not getting that many to spawn.
Those who are dying to get their hands on Omens will be ecstatic to find out that GGG is greatly increasing their spawn rate by a whopping 60%!
Delirium Bug Fixed?
Have you completed some Delirium Maps in Path of Exile 2 recently? If so, you’ve probably noticed that monster density in this type of content leaves much to be desired. Apparently, the low monster spawn rate is due to a pesky bug that GGG has now fixed.
When the update drops, run a Delirium Map and let us know the difference before and after Patch 0.1.1 goes live.
Strongbox Improvements
Aside from increased Strongbox spawn rate, GGG has made other improvements related to the said content as well. As it stands, whenever you open a Strongbox, it takes a bit longer than it should to have all the monster packs spawn for you to kill.
As if that’s not annoying enough, the black cloud effect inherent in all Strongboxes in the game can conceal ground effects, which may leave you vulnerable. Thankfully, the company is doing something about these issues by making improvements to how quickly the enemies spawn, as well as making the black cloud less cumbersome to deal with.
Future Content
Patch 0.1.1 is shaping up to be one of the best Path of Exile 2 Early Access updates yet. However, despite the wealth of content, GGG acknowledges that there’s still more work to be done.
In the recent Tavern Talk, the esteemed game directors for PoE 2 disclosed some of the content that they planned for release a bit later after the aforementioned update goes live.
Here are the things that you can expect:
Map Stash Tab
A huge portion of your PoE 2 endgame experience revolves around completing high-tier Waystones. The problem is that hoarding these Waystones is difficult if you only rely on regular stash tabs to store them.
The community has been clamoring for GGG to release the Map Stash Tab, which is a dedicated storage space that will keep Waystones and possibly the Precursor Tablets you have lying around as well.
Although it will not be ready in time for Patch 0.1.1, the game directors did state that they will launch the Map Stash Tab very soon. Hopefully, this is only less than a couple of weeks away because stash space dedicated to Waystones is sorely needed!
The Rise of the Spectres
In Path of Exile 1, you could use the Raise Spectre skill to revive a particular monster, turning it into a subservient minion that will fight for you until the world’s end. You can then use this spectre to kill enemies, grant buffs, and provide some utility. For instance, the Pale Seraphim from PoE 1 can apply a powerful debuff that makes enemies take increased damage from all sources.
That said, Spectres will arrive in a future update. It’s still unknown if they will be included in an update that adds the Map Stash Tab to the game. However, this is good news nevertheless, especially for those who want to play a powerful minion build in PoE 2.
Salvage Flasks for Glassblower Baubles
The Glassblower’s Bauble is a type of PoE 2 currency that improves the quality of your flasks, making them restore more life or mana than usual. For an item that has a powerful effect, the Glassblower’s Bauble is unusually difficult to find. Its drop rate definitely needs some tweaking because it’s almost as rare as Divine Orbs in Path of Exile 2!
Roberts did not say that adjusting the drop rate for the Bauble is in the works. However, he and his team are not opposed to the idea of using the Salvage Bench to salvage these flasks and get some baubles in return.
When asked why this was not included in PoE 2 Early Access initially, Roberts said that it didn’t play into the fantasy of using a hammer to salvage items for scraps. Be that as it may, an option to get Glassblower’s Baubles from unused quality flasks must be added in the future, one way or another.
Option to Reroll Quest Rewards
Any PoE 2 build can benefit from having a high amount of chaos resistance. After all, enemies that deal chaos damage become increasingly prevalent as you reach the endgame.
That said, you may have completed a certain quest in Act 3 that presents you with a few options. One of those choices is a permanent 10% increase in your chaos resistance, which is typically the one that most people get after completing The Slithering Dead quest.
The 10% chaos resistance Venom Draught is useful without a doubt. However, when you get the Chaos Inoculation keystone passive, it becomes superfluous since you’ll be immune to chaos damage anyway.
Fortunately, adding an option to reroll quest rewards is a possibility, especially since the developers are fine with the idea of adding it into the game. Hopefully, this comes much sooner than later.
Change Ascendancy Classes?
Choosing your PoE 2 ascendancy class is one of the major decisions that you have to make when playing the game. Roberts thinks so too, which is why he is against the idea of rerolling ascendancy classes.
On the flip side, Rogers is not entirely against the concept. In fact, he said that he’s 55% in favor of the idea.
However, by the looks of it, the developers might not add an option to change ascendancy classes in the near future. Perhaps things will turn for the better in the full release? One can only hope!
Final Thoughts
We are extremely excited about the things that are coming in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.1.1. We really love the fact that monster density in maps is increased across the board. Citadel Maps are now much easier to find, and the increased zoom of the Atlas certainly helps with this.
The six revives when facing The Arbiter of Ash is a really nice way of introducing new players to the said pinnacle boss without being too unforgiving. Hopefully, the same system will be implemented on Xesht, Zarokh, and others.
In terms of items, the fact that you can now replace your old runes and soul cores that you’ve previously socketed into your gear is a godsend. Because of this change, you can freely experiment with different rune and soul core combinations to bring the best out of your build!
With that said, what are you most excited about in Patch 0.1.1? Please leave a comment and explain the things that stood out to you in the upcoming update.
If you have problems with gearing, we can help you address that! Simply visit our PoE 2 Store at your earliest convenience! We have it all for you!