Path of Exile 2’s 0.5.4 patch adds an entirely new Atlas Passive tree built around the Expedition mechanic, the system tied most closely to the Runes of Aldur seasonal league. It gives you direct control over how Grand Expedition encounters play out, from the rewards you can roll to how dangerous each blast becomes. The update is live now.
Quick answer: Earn points for the new Expedition Atlas Passive tree by defeating the bosses along the Grand Expedition questline, then spend them on nodes. You can fully complete the tree, and many nodes let you switch between several modifiers at will.
How to earn Expedition Atlas Passive points
Points for this tree come from the Grand Expedition questline. As you defeat the bosses tied to that progression, you accumulate the points used to unlock nodes. Like the other Atlas trees since the latest update, you can eventually earn the whole thing, so the choices are less about what to give up and more about how you want each encounter to behave.
Several nodes are not permanent commitments. They present a choice between multiple modifiers that you can flip between whenever you like, letting you tune the difficulty and reward of Expedition runs to match your character’s strength on any given day.
Expedition nodes and what each one changes
The first standout node is ‘Feeling Lucky?’, which makes the seasonal NPC Farrow start selling a new item called Liquid Verisium. Using Liquid Verisium starts a Remnant encounter with a random roll of runes instead of the ones already on offer, so if none of the listed rewards appeal to you, you can gamble for a fresh set.
Other nodes adjust drop rates and add a new threat type. You can boost how often Logbooks drop, or introduce buried Sentinels that infuse nearby enemies with extra runic power when uncovered, raising both the danger and the potential payoff.
Most remaining options reshape the flow of an Expedition encounter itself. The table below breaks down the trade-offs you can pick between.
| Node effect | What it does |
|---|---|
| Extra explosive | Lets you plant one additional explosive when setting up each encounter. |
| Extra Remnant | Adds another Remnant to the encounter for more reward opportunities. |
| Faster chaining | Makes explosions chain more quickly so encounters resolve faster. |
| Health-stripping blasts | Each explosion removes 25% of every enemy’s health when it goes off. |
| Double-activation chance | Gives Remnant chains a one-in-four chance to activate twice for higher risk and reward. |
| No re-activation | Stops Remnant chains from ever activating twice, easing the difficulty. |
Unique skill items now scale to your character level
Beyond the Atlas tree, 0.5.4 changes how unique items that grant extra skills work. Any unique that gives you an additional skill when equipped now scales that skill down to match lower-level characters.
The practical result is that high-level unique drops with interesting skills are usable far earlier than before, rather than sitting unused until the late endgame. Game Director Jonathan Rogers said the goal is to open up builds that were previously locked behind end-game item levels.
Orbs of Sacrifice and corrupted enchantments
After defeating Atziri in the Temple, you can now collect four special Orbs of Sacrifice. Each one significantly upgrades a corrupted enchantment on an item, but the upgrade comes at a price. Using an orb strips away a randomly selected modifier from that item.
If you have double-corrupted an item, you can upgrade both of its enchantments by spending two of the new orbs on it.
The Master’s Reach gloves from the Vessel of Kulemak
The first of the promised Vessel of Kulemak uniques has arrived. The Master’s Reach are gloves that reveal weaknesses on enemies, working much like the Huntress’s ‘Predatory Instinct’ Ascendancy passive by displaying marked segments on a target’s health bar. While you hit an enemy inside one of those marked regions, every hit recovers all of its damage as life and consumes the target’s soul to grant you bonus skill speed.
The gloves also grant their own skill, Untether, which plants a seed of Abyssal Energy on an enemy’s heart. Deal enough damage after applying it, or kill the enemy outright, and the heart detonates for heavy physical damage to everything nearby. Rogers noted this is only the first of several Vessel of Kulemak uniques still to come.
The rest of the patch is filled with smaller bug fixes and tweaks, including the option to hide the ‘You Have Died’ message, which does nothing to change the outcome itself. The Runes of Aldur update keeps building toward Path of Exile 2’s planned 1.0 launch at the end of 2026.
