0.5.5 Patch Notes · Path of Exile 2

The headline of 0.5.5 is the new Forbidden Rites event league. It’s a fresh-economy event, and its premise — the King in the Mists and his cultists spreading their influence across Wraeclast — puts a Ritual encounter in every area of the campaign. Unlike their Endgame counterparts, these reward levelling material: currency to craft your gear, plus the gear itself.

Two things change even if you never touch the event. Runes of Aldur’s Expedition content moves to core, Standard included, and the Trial of Chaos gets a full rework. The first deletes the assumption that Expedition disappears when its league ends; the second is where you’ll feel this patch most.

The Trial of Chaos can now be left at any point and resumed from the same room — no more being locked into a full run once you start. Each room ends with a reward chest, so dying no longer wipes everything you earned along the way. Run rewards are now Currency and Soul Cores only (Corrupted items are out), and 17 new Soul Cores arrive at once, with many existing ones rebalanced.

The Forbidden Rites event league

A fresh-economy event league. Every campaign area can host a Ritual encounter, and unlike Endgame Rituals these hand out levelling currency and equipment.
Twice within each Act and once within each Interlude, clusters of Ritual Effigies appear on the World Map. In these areas the effigies aren’t placed randomly as usual — they sit on top of that area’s boss fight.
Defeat these boss Rituals and the boss is carried forward into the next Ritual in the cluster, becoming an increasingly dangerous series of boss waves. Complete the series and you can spend your Tribute on Unique Items.
Sacred Blooms can drop as a Ritual reward, adding the Viridian Wildwood to a cluster of Maps on your Atlas. Inside, you follow and collect trails of Wisps; on leaving, monsters in the Map area are affected by the Wisps you collected, becoming more powerful and more rewarding. Sacred Blooms drop only in Forbidden Rites.
The league has its own challenge set. Completing 2, 4, 6, and 8 challenges earns the Locust Footprints, Locust Swarm Rare Finisher Effect, Wildwood Guardian Pet, and Wildwood Affliction Level-up effect. These are obtainable only in this league.
From the first challenge onward you receive pieces of the Forbidden Rites Totem hideout decoration, which permanently displays how many challenges you completed during the league.
Standard, Hardcore, and Solo Self-Found variations exist, and private league versions can be created. Dying in Hardcore Forbidden Rites drops you into Standard Forbidden Rites rather than ending your run.
Characters from the Early Access launch and the Runes of Aldur League remain, and Runes of Aldur continues to run if you’d rather keep playing there.

Ritual changes

Party members can now gain Ritual Tribute from completing Ritual encounters. They get their own limited reward selection to spend Tribute on, or can offer it to the King in the Mists. Rewards offered to party members cannot be rerolled.
The Viridian Wildwood Unique Map has been disabled; existing copies on your Atlas are rerolled into another Unique Map where possible. (The Wildwood is now reached through Sacred Blooms instead.)
Using more than one Ritual Tablet adds an extra Altar to a Map where possible, and increases the quantity of Azmeri Wisps collected inside the Viridian Wildwood.
New Notable Ritual Atlas Passive Royal Lenience — Tribute already offered to the King may be used to Defer items, but Deferring Favours with offered Tribute costs 500% more.
In party play, every player in the area must hear Aoife’s introduction before the Ritual encounter can start.

Trial of Chaos improvements

You can now leave at any point and resume later from the same room. Trading or stopping for the night no longer means abandoning a run.
The Trial now has inherent bonuses scaling with Area Level — chance and pack size of Magic/Rare monsters, the number of modifiers Rare monsters can roll, Quality and Quantity of boss drops, and whether the area can drop Exceptional items. This compensates for Atlas Passive bonuses not applying inside the Trial.
A reward chest now sits at the end of each room, so dying is far less punishing.
Run rewards now consist of Currency and Soul Cores only. Corrupted items are no longer a reward outcome.
The Trialmaster can no longer drop Magic rarity Inscribed Ultimatums.
Completing an Inscribed Ultimatum with 10 Trials lets you continue immediately without supplying another Inscribed Ultimatum. You can do this twice per Inscribed Ultimatum, and each successful continuation awards a different Trialmaster Fragment. Modifiers and reward quality carry over, so you can trade difficulty for better rewards. When offered the continuation you may also take an optional double-or-nothing currency wager.
Uxmal, the Beastlord’s arena has been redesigned entirely — it no longer flies around being annoying.
Encounter modifiers have been adjusted: more Modifier Tiers, significantly less added difficulty, and explicit descriptions showing actual values. Between-room difficulty modifiers now always also increase drop quality.
Turrets and Petrification Statues are no longer mutually exclusive, and their placement is more evenly spread. Burning/Shocking Turrets now fire a single projectile at a fixed frequency at all Tiers, starting at 3 per encounter; Petrification Statues start at 2, with higher Tiers adding more of each.
Escort the Statue, Sacrifice Monsters, and Implant the Soul Cores now appear less often than Slay all Monsters and Survive. Escort now grants a short grace period when you step outside the effect, and Survive spawns the next wave faster once cleared, with guaranteed Rare monsters on certain waves (killing them reduces the time required).
The Trialmaster only stops time at the very start of the run now, rather than in almost every room. He still appears to deliver dialogue.
Doors between rooms open sooner and can be walked through earlier; elevators are more responsive, ascend faster, and are large enough to fit more party members.

New Soul Cores

Seventeen were added.

Jiquani’s, 13 — Abundance, Automation, Malediction, Munitions, Quaking, Radiance, Rallying, Rippling, Severing, Snares, Squalls, Targeting, Thundering
Atziri’s, 4 — Devotion, Alacrity, Inoculation, Vitality

Many existing Soul Cores were rebalanced. Atmohua’s Soul Core of Retreat was reworked entirely onto Energy Shield from Focus/Body Armour, and a Limit of 1 was added to the Soul Cores of Jiquani, Opiloti, Puhuarte, Ticaba, Topotante, Tzamoto, Xopec, and Zalatl — with individual values generally raised in exchange (Topotante’s Elemental Resistance penetration 15% → 25%, Tzamoto’s Freeze Buildup 30% → 60%). The requirement-conversion cores (Atmohua, Cholotl, Zantipi) went from 20% to 40%.

Runes of Aldur moving to core — Expedition becomes permanent

Farrow, Dannig, and Expedition content are now core Atlas mechanics, Standard included. In game, Expeditions can be found from Act 4 onwards.
Expedition Tablets drop in Standard and in Forbidden Rites (not in Runes of Aldur). Stacking them works as follows.

Tablets	Effect
1	Adds a Kalguuran Expedition to a Map
2	Adds a Verisium Remnant, +35% Kalguuran Expedition density
3	Adds an additional Kalguuran Expedition
4	Adds another Verisium Remnant, +35% density again

Increased Expedition density raises the number of Chests, Monster Flags, and Verisium Remnants inside the site.
New Tablet modifiers include increased Expedition explosive area of effect, increased quantity of Logbooks from Runic Monsters, additional bosses encased in ice, and additional Verisium Sentries.
Aldur’s Saga cannot be obtained outside Runes of Aldur, though its special modifiers can appear naturally on Grand Expeditions when using a Logbook in Standard and Forbidden Rites.
The Verisium Anvil is unlocked outside Runes of Aldur by completing The Runeseeker quest in Act 4. Once unlocked, Farrow can be placed in your Hideout in all Leagues, and Expedition Uniques can go in the Unique Item Stash Tab.

Endgame

Large Abyssal Ravines can now appear throughout the Atlas; Maps found on them are guaranteed to contain Abysses.
Defeating the Arbiter of Divinity with the non-quest Origin Core now completes the entire Precursor Fortress for the Map owner, freeing you to allocate the Atlas Passive Tree as you like. The quest version no longer completes a section.
Corrupted Nexus Maps can be retried after failure, and previously failed-but-completed ones have been uncompleted. Dying to a Map Boss and respawning no longer prevents the Corrupted Boss from spawning.
The Arbiter of Ash now has Fire Resistance and Cold Vulnerability, the Arbiter of Divinity Lightning Resistance and Fire Vulnerability, instead of All Elemental Resistances. Omniphobia and the Raven Trickster also lost All Elemental Resistances.
The Trial of Sekhemas gains inherent bonuses from Area Level 65, on the same reasoning as the Trial of Chaos.
Doryani’s Refined Formula Atlas Master option has been removed, replaced by Archaic Corruption — monsters released from Essences become Corrupted.
Stabilising an Unstable Breach now spawns Rare monsters in waves of 5 instead of all at once. Delirium Fog from a Grand Mirror now spreads to a fixed 10 Maps, and Delirium monster pack count no longer scales past 100% Deliriousness.

Official patch notes

Official Korean patch notes (Kakao Games): Content Update 0.5.5 — Forbidden Rites
Official mirror (full): 0.5.5 Patch Notes