Path of Exile 2 Brings Major Fate of the Vaal Improvements

It has been about a week since the launch of Fate of the Vaal, and Grinding Gear Games has rolled out another round of patches and hotfixes for Path of Exile 2. The early focus was on crashes and technical issues, but this update goes a step further by directly addressing player feedback, especially around rewards, temple progression, and endgame scaling.

Patch 0.4.0c, along with a few small hotfixes, brings a long list of improvements to the league, balance changes, quality-of-life adjustments, and a massive list of bug fixes.

Fate of the Vaal Rewards Get a Big Buff

One of the most common complaints since launch was that Temple rewards did not feel worth the effort, particularly in the endgame. GGG has now significantly boosted how temples scale by improving room modifiers.

• Room modifiers applied to the Temple have been approximately doubled at all tiers
• Several Tier III rooms now spawn additional powerful enemies, such as Corrupted Abominations, Royal Sentinels, and High Priests
• Treasure Vaults now add 25% increased item rarity to the Temple
• High-tier Alchemy Labs now also increase Gold Found

Overall, temples should now feel far more rewarding, especially once you start pushing higher-tier setups.

New Medallions

To improve the endgame even more, GGG introduced new Medallions that let you customize your Temple runs more directly.

• The new Medallion allows you to add random map modifiers to Atziri’s Temple for up to 10 runs, increasing both difficulty and rewards
• Another Medallion lets you reroll rooms waiting to be placed, making it easier to chase specific room combinations
• Drop rates and sources for Medallions have been rebalanced, with better clarity through new icons and updated descriptions

These changes make temple runs less frustrating and much more flexible.

Architect and Temple Progression

Another major point was how punishing the Architect encounter felt, often removing too much progress for too little reward. This patch fixes this directly.

• The number of rooms destabilized after defeating the Architect has been halved
• Room loss after defeating Atziri has been reduced by 25%
• The Architect can now connect to any adjacent room
• Reward rooms placed via the Architect’s Console can now connect better as well
• The Extraction Chamber is now much rarer and can only appear once per Temple

These changes should make pushing temples feel less risky and more consistent.

Better Rewards From Fate of the Vaal Encounters

Endgame Fate of the Vaal encounters now drop better and more satisfying rewards:

• Non-boss encounters now spawn a reward chest at the end
  • In the campaign, these chests are Magic
  • In the endgame, chests can be Magic or Rare

This makes those rewards more visible and avoids items being lost mid-fight because you didn’t see them.

Crafting Bench and Workbench Changes

A few crafting-related improvements also made it into this patch:

• After completing Act 3, Exalted, Vaal, and Alchemy benches now allow players to take their currency
• Temple workbenches in past versions of the Temple are now Pristine, usable on any item, and portable
• Spawn rates for high-value crafting benches have been increased at higher levels

These changes help smooth out progression and reduce unnecessary friction.

Skill Balance & Other Adjustments

On top of the previous modifications, this patch also includes the following changes:

• Improvements to Spell Totem compatibility for a few skills
• Buffs to Arctic Howl, Rolling Magma, Walking Calamity, and Lunar Blessing
• Reduced damage from multiple dangerous enemies and environmental hazards
• Improved AI and collision for Summoned Wolves
• Better targeting and behavior for several melee and Warcry skills

GGG also noted that Rolling Magma will get even more improvements in a future patch.

Bug Fixes and Stability Improvements

As expected, the patch also includes a very long list of bug fixes:

• Dozens of gameplay, UI, and controller-related fixes
• Multiple fixes for shapeshifting, Warcries, and minion behavior
• Numerous visual bug fixes
• Several client and instance crashes were resolved, including common Xbox crashes

Two follow-up hotfixes were deployed shortly after as well:

• Hotfix 2 resolved additional UI bugs, soft-locks, and a client crash
• Hotfix 3 fixed an issue where Lunar Blessing ignored manual weapon set disabling

The patch was deployed without server downtime, but you do need to restart your client to receive the fixes.

Patch 0.4.0c is a strong step forward for Fate of the Vaal. With better rewards, smarter temple scaling, less punishing progression, and a huge set of fixes, the league should now feel much closer to where players expected it to be at launch.

More improvements are still planned for future updates, but for now, this patch addresses many of the biggest early concerns.

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