December 12 is creeping up, and if you have even a passing interest in Path of Exile 2, you might want to clear some time, pick a build, and maybe stock up on PoE 2 Currency before things go crazy. Patch 0.4.0, "The Last of the Druids", lands on PC and console that day, and there is a free weekend from the 12th to the 15th, so you can just jump in and try it with friends. It does not feel like another small league bump either; the update leans hard into the more action-heavy style that PoE 2 has been teasing for a while, especially with the way combat flows when you are actually at the keyboard.
Druid In The Thick Of It
The new Druid is the big talking point, and once you see it in motion, it clicks why they took so long. It is the first real Strength/Intelligence mix, but it does not play like a clunky hybrid. You are swapping forms on the fly, not opening a menu or channeling some slow animation. One moment you are a caster dropping volcano-style spells from range, then you snap into a Bear form to stand in front of a boss slam, then you dart into Wolf to chew through packs with bleeds while everything explodes around you. There is even a Wyvern form that lets you dive in from above, so it is not just a ground-pound brute. Jonathan Rogers has already said this was the hardest class for them to get right, especially with WASD movement in the mix, and you can kind of see that in how clean the form swapping feels. It lets you play that fantasy of a robe-wearing mage who suddenly decides to punch something in the face.
Fate Of The Vaal For Tinkerers
If you are the sort of player who spends more time in Path of Building than actually mapping, the "Fate of the Vaal" mechanic is going to eat your evenings. The basic idea feels like Incursion grew up, grabbed a notebook, and started planning. You collect room cards and lay out your own version of Atziri’s temple, deciding what goes next to what and how far you want to push it. Adjacency actually matters here; getting two strong rooms next to each other can turn into that one run where currency just pours out and you wonder why the rest of the league does not look like this. Of course, this is PoE, so there is pain built in. Double-corrupt chambers can throw out mirror-level gear, but there is that brutal 50% brick chance hanging over your favourite item. People will go for it anyway. They always do, and you will see screenshots of both insane wins and completely destroyed gear within hours.
Performance And Clarity
Underneath all the flashy stuff, patch 0.4.0 is also doing some quieter work that a lot of players have been asking for. CPU load is down by about a quarter, which matters a lot if your PC already sounds like it is about to take off when you hit red maps. Visual clutter is toned down as well; Delirium fog in particular is thinner, so if you get one-shot, at least you can see what actually hit you. That alone will save a few keyboards. On top of that, there are more than 250 new passive nodes and a wide round of balance tweaks to existing skills, so the usual “copy last league’s meta build and hope” approach is not going to feel safe anymore. You will probably see all sorts of oddball setups doing real damage in the first week or two.
Why This Patch Matters
All of that together makes 0.4.0 feel less like a routine update and more like a fresh soft reset for anyone who bounced off earlier tests. You can league start as a shapeshifting monster and lean into the new forms, or roll a more traditional build and just enjoy smoother performance and a less cluttered screen while you experiment. Either way, the mix of mechanical depth in Fate of the Vaal and the sheer style of the Druid should give veteran players plenty to chew on, while new players get a much cleaner first impression of the game. If you are planning to min-max or trade heavily when the free weekend hits, getting your hands on some poe2 currency early will not hurt, because this looks like the kind of patch where the economy could flip fast once people figure out the strongest setups.
