The Path of Exile 2 Early Access receives another colossal content patch with the 0.4.0 Update. Nicknamed “The Last of the Druids,” this patch is a blend of massive new content and crucial technical overhauls, although it arrives with the controversial news of delayed Endgame features.
A new class joins POE2: The Druid
The Druid, a Strength/Intelligence hybrid class, breaks the mold with a fluid, no-cooldown shapeshifting mechanic, starting on the north-western side of the Passive Skill Tree.
- Animal Talismans: The class’s core revolves around the new Talisman weapon type. Equipping one allows the player to instantly choose and access a basic attack for one of three animal forms:
- Werewolf Form: Focuses on cold damage, speed, and agility. Skills like Lunar Assault can freeze enemies, and Pounce applies a mark that summons smaller wolf minions when the target is killed.
- Werebear Form: A tankier, heavy-hitting powerhouse that generates Rage to fuel powerful slams and ground stomps, such as Rampage.
- Wyvern Form: Utilizes elemental breath attacks (fire and lightning) and can Devour corpses to gain charges for powerful skills like Rolling Magma.
- Human Form & Synergy: In human form, the Druid casts nature-based duration spells like Volcano and Thunderstorm that persist and synergize with the animal forms. The goal is a seamless “human cast, beast attack” rotation.
- Ascendancies: The Druid launches with two sub-classes:
- The Shaman: Focuses on channeling Rage into elemental spell power, becoming a walking natural disaster of fire, ice, and lightning.
- The Oracle: A master of foresight, allowing players to peer into the future to gain bonuses. It unlocks the Unseen Path on the passive tree, revealing over 130 unique, timeline-manipulating passive nodes only accessible to this sub-class.
One thing to mention is that the animal talismans can be equiped by any class so everyone can transform into a warewolf, bear or wyvern and get access to a basic attack skill in that form, a mechanic very familiar to POE players.
The New League: The Fate of the Vaal
This new challenge league introduces a strategic, high-risk, high-reward modular dungeon system reminiscent of the original Path of Exile’s Incursion League.
- Temple Construction (Incursion 2.0): Players encounter Vaal Remnants in zones, which are powered up by sacrificing nearby monsters. This energy is used to open a portal to the Temple of Atziri (Lira Vaal). Inside, you choose the placement of six rooms to construct your custom dungeon path.
- Strategic Upgrades: Placing compatible rooms next to each other allows them to level up to Tier 3, increasing both the challenge (e.g., global monster buffs) and the rewards.
- Exclusive Rewards: Tier 3 rooms offer powerful, unique crafting services, such as:
- Level 3 Corruption Chamber: Allows a second corruption on an already corrupted item, with a high risk of destruction but a chance for an ultra-powerful, exclusive modifier.
- Vaal Flesh Surgeon: Grants temporary, powerful buffs that are removed upon death, creating a high-stakes, life-sensitive reward loop.
- Pinnacle Boss: The final goal is to strategically route your temple to reach the Royal Architect, which opens the path to fight Atziri, the Red Queen, at the height of her power, a new pinnacle boss encounter.
Technical & Core Game Overhaul
The patch delivers sweeping changes to the game’s foundation, affecting every single character.
- Massive Performance Boost: The most critical QoL feature is a significant overhaul of CPU utilization. The developers have optimized key operations and improved multi-core processing, promising an average frame rate increase of at least 25% and a substantial reduction in frame spikes and stuttering, especially noticeable in heavy combat and on consoles.
- New Endgame Monster Scaling: To further improve performance and gameplay, the endgame monster design is adjusted: zones will now contain fewer enemies, but each monster will have 40% more health, drop 40% more experience, and 40% more loot, making combat more deliberate and less overwhelming for the CPU. This was a subject for debate, as many players like monster density and don’t see this as a very good change. GGG mentioned that they will think of this in teh future, to have a system so everyone would be able to switch between the 2 modes.
- Abyss Integration: The Abyss mechanic moves from a league into a core endgame feature, complete with its own dedicated Atlas Passive Tree for specialization and Abyss Tablets that can be crafted and corrupted for highly rewarding, risk-based mapping.
- Balance and Diversity: Over 90 existing Active Skills and almost all Ascendancy Classes have been reviewed and adjusted. The Passive Skill Tree expands with over 250 new passives and the addition of 8+ new Lineage Support Gems (Endgame-only powerful supports) to drastically increase build variety.
Player Controversy: The Delayed Endgame
Despite the abundance of new content, the update has caused a degree of frustration among the dedicated player base.
The 0.4.0 patch was widely anticipated to be the major patch that would introduce the foundational reworks for the entire Endgame loop (the mapping and Waystone system). The developers announced that many of these ambitious, core Endgame updates have been postponed to the 0.5.0 patch. This delay means the community will have to wait longer for the planned restructuring of the post-campaign experience, overshadowing some of the genuinely exciting new additions like the Druid and the performance improvements.
Why 0.4 Might Be the Best Time to Jump Back In
If you’ve been on the fence about playing or returning to Path of Exile 2, 0.4 offers a strong incentive. The Druid brings a completely new playstyle and let’s say it straight: it looks gorgeous, the patch improves many core mechanics and balancing. For longtime fans it’s an opportunity to experiment anew; for new players, there’s a good chance to find a sweet, “fresh-meta” class to settle in with. There will also be a free weekend between December 12 (11 AM, PST) to December 15 (11 AM, PST) so everyone can play for free during this period. Right now, until the 1.0 release which will make the game Free to Play, you need to purchase a supporter pack to be able to play
Sources:
