When Fate of the Vaal launched, most of us bounced off the mechanic pretty hard. It looked cool in the story, then crashed and burned the moment you hit maps, with miserable returns for a ton of effort, so a lot of people just ignored it. That changed when players started sharing a Holten Act 6 setup that prints currency so fast it feels fake, to the point where people talk about it as the new poe2 cheap divine jackpot, and for once the hype actually lines up with what you see on screen.
Why Holten Act 6 Took Over
The entire thing revolves around the Holten zone right after the Act 6 interlude. Instead of rolling high-juice T16s and praying for a handful of crystals, you make a fresh, fast character and beeline the campaign. Most folks go for a speedy Ranger or anything that can sprint and delete packs without much gear. The key detail is keeping your level below 74. As long as you do not ding past that, the Vaal pack spawns right by the waypoint nearly every time, so you zone in, erase the pack, scoop the crystals, then run straight into the temple to intentionally die and bleed off experience.
The Temple Suicide Loop
This death loop sounds dumb on paper, but once you try it, it clicks. You are basically using the temple as an XP sink, so your character stays in that sweet spot where the Holten spawn rules never change. After a few runs, the rhythm becomes brainless: log in, tag the pack, grab crystals, faceplant in the temple, repeat. You can put together a full temple in a couple of minutes, which ends up feeling like the old Quarry farming meta, just cranked way up and actually worth your time for once.
Building The Snake Layout
The real difference between "nice little side farm" and "what is this loot explosion" is how you shape your temples. Random rooms are a huge waste. Players who took the time to test stuff out ended up with what everyone now calls the Snake: one long, continuous chain from the entrance that you push as hard as possible. You usually grab Spymasters first to lock things in with medallions, then stack Garrisons and Armories to juice the effectiveness. Once monster effectiveness climbs past 1000 percent, the temples start dumping raw Divines, Exalts, and high item level bases so fast your filter struggles to keep up, and the floor looks like someone turned on a loot fountain.
Meta Impact And A Different Way To Play
Some players call this an exploit, others shrug and say it is just the natural endpoint of min-max culture in an ARPG, but either way the league economy is already warped around it. Crystals tank in price, Divine value gets weird, and anyone not doing some version of this feels like they are running uphill. Still, not everyone wants to babysit a twink and chain-suicide for hours when they just want to play their main and slam maps after work, which is why people drift toward services like u4gm when they would rather spend cash than time, especially if they are mainly interested in buying game currency or items instead of wrestling with Temple layouts.