Grinding Gear Games released Path of Exile 2 update 0.4.0 today alongside The Last of the Druids DLC; the mandatory download appears as patch 1.063 (full version 1.063.000) on consoles. The update adds a playable Druid class with Oracle and Shaman ascendancies, more than 20 new skills, 35+ new support gems and over 250 passive nodes on the tree to support the new mechanics. It also launches a new league, Fate of the Vaal, and folds Abyss content into the core campaign and endgame. Players who want to read the studio’s earlier breakdown of the class can check the site’s coverage of the druid class arrival for context on its abilities and transformations.
The Fate of the Vaal league introduces Vaal structures that activate and alter nearby creatures, a modular Lira Vaal temple players power up with sacrificed monsters, and private league options for Standard, Hardcore and Solo Self-Found rulesets. Grinding Gear Games says Early Access characters remain in their Early Access leagues, and offers a free passive tree refund because of layout changes. Core additions include a new weapon class, Talismans, which are two-handed martial weapons that trigger shapeshifting animal forms when equipped. Lineage supports and powerful endgame-only supports are also part of the package, alongside eight new augment items and more than ten new unique items.
The update reworks many systems across the game: Abyss encounters now appear as part of the campaign starting in Act 2 and in the Endgame, map tablets and Atlas mechanics were adjusted, and several Atlas passive and tablet modifiers were changed to alter endgame rewards and monster effectiveness. Quality-of-life and UI changes landed too: support-gem compatibility is shown in the gemcutting interface, a quick search was added to Stat Filters in the Trade Market, cursor size became a slider, and controller/keyboard behaviour on the character screen remembers WASD input. Couch coop interfaces were refactored so dual cursors and panelled UIs reduce disruption in towns.
Grinding Gear Games warned that such a large patch will likely need multiple hotfixes after release and said it will post follow-up fixes if issues appear.
Below is the main patch notes section included with the release; it reproduces the studio’s headings and many of the listed changes.
Patch Notes – Path of Exile 2 Update 0.4.0
The Fate of the Vaal League
- Start fresh in a new economy with The Fate of the Vaal league. All of your old characters from Early Access are still present in the Early Access leagues but a free passive tree refund has been granted due to the changes.
- In the Fate of the Vaal league you will find remnants of the ancient Vaal civilisation scattered throughout Wraeclast.
- Now that corruption has returned to the land, the long-dead Vaal structures throughout Wraeclast are activating and affecting nearby creatures. Sacrifice the afflicted monsters to power the devices, and travel to Lira Vaal, the ancient temple of Atziri. Gather enough power to modify the Temple and create your desired layout.
- There are Standard, Hardcore and Solo Self-Found variations of The Fate of the Vaal League available. They have the same core mechanics and items, and you can create private league versions of these leagues.
New Content and Features
- Added a new playable character class, the Druid.
- Added the new Oracle and Shaman Ascendancy Classes for the Druid.
- Added over 20 new Skills, primarily Primal Skills.
- Added over 35 new Supports.
- Also introduced over 8 new Lineage Supports, much more powerful Supports that are only available in Endgame.
- Added over 250 new passive skills to the passive tree.
- Added over 10 new Unique Items.
- Added a new weapon class: Talismans. Talismans are two-handed martial weapons that are used for shapeshifting attacks. Equipping a talisman shapeshifts you into an animal form and grants you a basic attack skill for that form. You can swap your chosen form at any time.
- Added 4 new Augment items with new modifiers that you can craft onto your items.
- Continued to incrementally improve the sound, art, effects and environments.
Abyss as a Core Mechanic
- Abyss has been added to the core game. You can find Abyss encounters in specific campaign areas, starting in Act 2. Abyss encounters have been added to the Endgame, as well as Abyss Tablets and related modifiers.
- Added an Atlas Passive Tree for the Rise of the Abyssal Content.
- Preserved Vertebrae no longer drop.
- Updated The Well of Souls quest to account for the fact that Abysses no longer spawn in all campaign areas.
Player Changes
- Tailwind now grants 1% increased movement speed, 2% increased Skill Speed (previously 3%), 10% increased Evasion Rating (previously 15%) and prevent 1% of Damage from Deflected Hits per stack.
- Base unarmed attack time is now 1.65 attacks per second (previously 1.4).
- Rage regeneration now pauses rage decay similarly to other means of gaining rage. This means that your rage will never decay while it is regenerating.
- All rage spending costs have been changed to 10 rage. Rage no longer causes a visual effect on your character until you have 10 or more Rage so that you know that you can use these abilities.
- Physical Damage Reduction from Armour can no longer cause a hit to deal 0 damage. In these cases, the hit will now deal 1 damage.
- When Parrying, you now hit all enemies in an area in front of you, in addition to the enemy who instigated the Parry.
- Parry now always hits the enemy you parried, regardless of distance.
- Sprinting no longer prevents heavy stun buildup decay.
- Totem Placement speed now also scales the speed at which Totems emerge.
Ascendancy Changes
All Skills granted by an Ascendency are now automatically activated when granted (some previously required the player to manually activate them).
Deadeye
- Wind Ward has been Removed.
- Bullseye now requires Called Shots. Bullseye now applies 10 Critical Weakness (previously 5).
- Added a new Mirage Deadeye Ascendancy Passive Skill which grants the Mirage Deadeye Meta Skill. Mirage Deadeye: While active, firing a Ranged Attack Projectile will create a Mirage that uses socketed Ranged Attacks for a short duration, then vanishes. You cannot create another Mirage for a short time after initially creating one.
Pathfinder
- Contagious Contamination has been Removed.
- Practical Remedies has been Removed.
- Running Assault now also grants Cannot be Heavy Stunned while Sprinting.
- Added a new Path Seeker multi-choice Ascendancy Passive Skill with the following choices: Path of the Warrior – Can Allocate Passives from the Warrior’s starting point, Path of the Sorceress – Can Allocate Passives from the Sorceress’s starting point. Each choice also Grants 4 Passive Skill Points.
- Traveller’s Wisdom now requires Path Seeker. Traveller’s Wisdom now instead grants Attribute Passive Skills offer additional Options: 5% increased Damage; 5% increased Global Defences; 5% increased Cost Efficiency.
Passive Skill Tree Changes
- Added more than 250 new Passive Skills to the Druid side of the passive tree.
- The values of Flammability Magnitude on the Passive Tree have been increased massively.
- All instances of gaining Flame, Ice and Lightning Archon have been changed to gain Elemental Archon, to better support builds using multiple Elements. Archon related passives on the tree have been adjusted accordingly and condensed.
- The Hollow Palm Technique Keystone now Grants 1% more Attack Speed per 75 Item Evasion Rating on Equipped Armour Items (previously 25). Base unarmed attack time is now 1.65 attacks per second (previously 1.4).
- The Walker of the Wilds Keystone has been removed from the passive tree and its effects have been moved onto a newly added Lineage Support.
- Added 3 new Attack Area of Effect Clusters to the Monk part of the Passive Tree.
- Added two projectile speed clusters to the Passive Tree in the Mercenary section.
- Added a new bow cluster and modified a projectile cluster in the ranger section of the tree, granting Surpassing chance to fire an additional Arrow.
Gem Changes
- Crescendo I, II, and III are now Intelligence Support gems (previously Dexterity).
- Perpetual Charge is now an Intelligence Support gem (previously Dexterity).
- Mark for Death is now a Strength Support gem (previously Dexterity).
- Gambleshot is now an Intelligence Support gem (previously Dexterity).
- Brambleslam is now a Strength Support gem (previously Dexterity).
- Disabled the Font of Rage Support Gem.
- Disabled the Ricochet III Support Gem.
- Disabled the Greatwood II support.
- Greatwood I is now a Lineage support, Cirel’s Cultivation.
- Ambrosia I is now a Tier II support (previously Tier III).
Skill Changes
- Palm Skill movement has been adjusted to reduce cases in which the player successfully uses the Skill but fails to Hit the enemy after dashing.
- Ice Fragments (created by skills such as from Escape Shot and Ice-Tipped Arrows) are now only able to hit each enemy once per group of Fragments created.
- The per-target hit limits on Firestorm, Icestorm, Rain of Arrows and Hailstorm Rounds are now displayed.
- Whirlwinds now take on elements from overlapping allied Elemental Ground for 8 seconds (previously 4).
- Added [Wind] type to the following Skills: Twister, Whirling Slash, Wind Blast, Wing Blast, Whirlwind Lance, Wind Serpent’s Fury, Tornado, Tornado Shot, the Projectiles created by Staggering Palm.
- Invocation skills now have 0.2 second cooldowns.
Unique Item Changes
- Grand Spectrums now roll “6% to all Elemental Resistances per socketed Grand Spectrum” on their Sapphire variant (previously 4%).
- Sandstorm Visage now has “Every Second, Inflicts Critical Weakness on enemies in your Presence for 15-20 seconds” (previously always 15 seconds).
- Mahuxotl’s Machination now has “66-333% Increased Effect of Socketed Soul Cores” (previously 100%). Existing versions of this item can be made better or worse with a Divine Orb.
- The Adorned now has “0-150% Increased Effect of Jewel Socket Passive Skills Containing Corrupted Magic Jewels” (previously 0-100%).
- Assailum now has “200-300% Increased Armour and Evasion” (previously 50-100%).
Item Changes
- Omen of Homogenising Exaltation and the Omen of Homogenising Coronation have been disabled from dropping. Existing items are still functional.
- Rune Sockets have been renamed to Augment Sockets.
- Non-jewel items that go into Augment Sockets have been renamed from Socketables to Augments.
- Existing Augment Talismans have been renamed to Idols.
- Various rune and idol limits have been adjusted, and many relic and augment modifiers were changed.
Endgame Changes
- Maps no longer scale pack size as you increase in tier, they instead increase non-unique monster Effectiveness. Effectiveness grants monsters increased life, increased experience granted and increased quantity of items dropped.
- Tablets now have a maximum of 4 modifiers. To unlock the ability to craft a tablet beyond 2 modifiers you need to have defeated the Arbiter of Ash.
- Added, removed and buffed many Tablet modifiers and Atlas Notables to change endgame rewards and challenge routes.
Monster Changes
Bosses now have an Anti-Burst damage mechanic: Once a boss has finished it’s emerge or becomes aggro the damage reduction period starts counting down. The damage reduction tapers down from full effect to no effect over the course of this duration. For every unit the boss moves from it’s starting location the damage reduction will fall off even faster. Bosses which cannot or barely move have a shorter damage reduction period.
- Improved the visibility of the explosive fungus encountered in The Grim Tangle.
- Improved the behaviour of multiple bosses and Rogue Exiles and adjusted many monster AI and spectre values.
User Interface Changes
- Support gem compatibility of all equipped skills is now shown when hovering a support gem in the gemcutting interface.
- On the waypoint world map, selecting underground locations featured on the overworld map will now immediately teleport you to the selected location, instead of toggling to the underground map view.
- Added a ‘quick search’ feature to the Stat Filters in the Trade Market.
- Optimised item search for the in-game market browser.
- Your current Rage is no longer displayed in your buff bar. Instead, there is now a Rage meter next to the mana globe.
- Refactored Couch Coop player interfaces to support dual cursors and panelled interfaces.
Microtransaction Changes
- Various legacy microtransactions and character/weapon effects have been enabled for Path of Exile 2.
- Added a stash tab affinity for Abyss items.
Follow the team and the site for updates on fixes and community response to the Druid and the new league. Stay in touch about Path of Exile 2 on X, Bluesky, YouTube, and Instagram for more coverage of the Druid, Fate of the Vaal and follow-up fixes.
Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids
Developed by Grinding Gear Games
