Been messing with the new 0.5 Return of the Ancients setup for a few nights now, and I think people are seriously underrating how hard Fate of the Vaal going core changes endgame routing. I had to reshuffle my whole Atlas plan, and while testing temple spam I ended up grabbing some stuff from PoE 2 Currency just to keep the maps rolling. Ngl, this isn't one of those side mechanics you skip anymore. If you're still treating it like old 0.4 league content, you're already behind.
Why this actually matters
I know everyone's been chasing whatever the cleanest map juice is after the patch, but the temple is pretty much a main lane now. That's the big shift. Before, if you hated Vaal stuff, you could ignore it and wait for the league to die. Now it's baked into Atlas progression, and the passive tree support is real. I tested a Vaal-focused setup last night and the extra Beacons showed up way more than I expected. Not sure on the exact proc rate because I wasn't hard tracking every map, but it felt obvious enough that I respecced into it fully. And if you're into corruption gambling, Doryani's Institute and Locus of Corruption are still the rooms that matter. Everything else is just filler unless your build is starving for side rewards.
What most people are doing wrong
Saw a lot of people saying the new pathing is free now. It isn't. It's easier, sure, but you can still brick your temple if you greed upgrades and ignore connections early. In my runs, getting a clean route first and then pushing room tiers after felt way better. The Apex access is more forgiving in 0.5, but "more forgiving" doesn't mean "idiot proof." If you don't link rooms while the incursions are happening, you'll spawn a half-dead temple and wonder why your boss access sucks.
The nerfs are real, but not dealbreakers
Look, the old snake-style optimization nonsense was never surviving the move to core. GGG clearly saw the hyper-optimized loot loops and hit them. The random room shifts when you try to force bad sequences feel annoying, but imo that's still healthier than one solved route printing value forever. The 15% bump to Architect life and damage is noticeable too. My mapper blasted them fine, but my more mid bossing setup definitely felt it. Corruption results also feel way more binary now. Fewer dead neutral hits, more "nice" or "welp, item's gone." Tbh I kinda prefer that. If I'm throwing a good item into the machine, I'd rather it be dramatic than boring.
Stuff I'm still not sure about
The only part that still feels scuffed is temple level scaling and party interaction. I haven't seen a clean answer on whether one Tier 16 incursion can carry a temple built from a bunch of Tier 1-5 maps, and the multiplayer Atlas sharing thing is still fuzzy afaik. If you're running with a group, I'd be careful until people test whether temple progress can get mixed up. I've been using U4GM here and there when I need to patch holes in a setup fast, but even with good gear I don't think you can brute force bad temple planning. Curious what everyone else thinks?
