Fate of the Vaal: League Mechanic Overview

Patch 0.4 for Path of Exile 2, aka The Last of the Druids, will introduce a brand new league mechanic to the game: The Fate of the Vaal.

Fate of the Vaal is the new league mechanic being introduced in patch 0.4. It will come alongside a new league reset, allowing players to begin a new start in a fresh economy if they wish, and playing within this league will allow you to access the Fate of the Vaal mechanic in each area. Path of Exile 1 players will recognise many of the themes of this mechanic from the Incursion league.

Fate of the Vaal allows players to build their own Vaal temple, with the ability to move rooms and paths, positioning the layout exactly as you wish, before running the temple for exclusive rewards.

A Temple Console encountered in areas

In areas in the Fate of the Vaal league you'll encounter Temple Consoles which allow you to sacrifice nearby monsters to empower the console. Interacting with the console will allow you to enter the temple and place 6 of the rooms and path in any areas on the temple layout that you wish. Once you've placed your rooms, you can run the current temple.

Placing Rooms on the Temple layout

By linking rooms together you can level specific rooms up in tiers, and connect pathways to reach the Architect, which is a room that's visible from the beginning. Rooms will highlight in green when they can be placed to upgrade the tier of another room. You can also place specific rooms together to create combinations and boost their difficulty and rewards. Be careful however, as upgrading rooms will increase their difficulty, and some rooms will add global modifiers to the temple that will make the area harder to traverse, or make monsters stronger throughout.

The Architect of the Temple

Reaching the Architect is important to allow you to open portals to fight the final boss: Atziri, The Red Queen. Atziri was the final Queen of the Vaal before the fall of their civilisation as a result of a cataclysm.

Atziri before communing with The Beast

Travel back in time and face Atziri at the height of her power - defeating this new Pinnacle boss may yield powerful new rewards.

The Temple will offer brand new rewards that cannot be obtained elsewhere, such as the tier 3 room Locus of Corruption, which will allow you to corrupt a pre-corrupted item in an attempt to obtain an additional corruption enchantment modifier. But beware - powerful rewards come at a price. Double-corrupting an item may destroy it instead.

The Double-Corrupt Altar

The Locus of Corruption is just one of many rooms that can offer exclusive rewards. Another example is the Vaal Flesh Surgeon that can be found to apply modifiers to your limbs! But nothing comes for free - dying with active modifiers on your limbs will remove them and you'll need to book in a new trip to the surgeon for more work!

There are also other returning rewards from Path of Exile 1's Temple of Azoatl, such as a chamber that allows you to double-corrupt your Gems. Another room contains the Altar of Sacrifice, now known as Juatalotli's Triumph, allowing you to modify a Vaal unique item by replacing up to two of its modifiers with entirely new modifiers, somewhat similar to Foulborn unique items from Path of Exile 1's Keepers of the Flame league.

The New Altar of Sacrifice

There are many more exclusive rewards to be found in the Fate of the Vaal temple, and you'll want to build your temple to cater to the specific rewards you seek.

If you're able to reach the final chamber in the temple, you'll have the opportunity to face Atziri, the legendary Queen of the Vaal.

Atziri's Corrupted Transformation

Face the Red Queen in battle - defeating her may yield powerful new rewards, such as Atziri's Rule.

A New Exclusive Reward

The exclusive skill granted by Atziri's Rule is Mirror of Refraction, which will constantly create mirrors around you that you can fire projectiles into to cause a nova of projectiles to explode forth.