The beast is out at last and Path of Exile 2 patch 0.4.0 is shaping up to be the kind of launch where you either jump in fast or spend the weekend playing catch‑up, especially with everyone scrambling for PoE 2 Currency while the new economy is still all over the place. The Last of the Druids release plus the Fate of the Vaal league has turned day one into a complete rush. If you are still logging into your old characters, you will feel it straight away: the new Druid class is where the real fun is. The STR/INT hybrid setup is not just a gimmick, and the shapeshifting is way smoother than any trailer made it look. You are swapping these new two‑handed martial weapons, the Talismans, and the game just snaps you between forms. One moment you are a chunky Bear soaking hits, the next you are a Wyvern spitting fire down a corridor. It is messy, fast, and it works.
Early Game Power Spikes
Once you hit Act 1, your first job is not to stare at the passive tree. You want to check vendors or the Mud Borrow for a Bear or Wolf Talisman base as soon as you can. A lot of people skip this and then wonder why Druid feels weak. Without a solid Talisman, you are basically a fragile caster in bad armour; with one, the build suddenly wakes up. If you want something that feels safe and still hits hard, the Bear Slam Shaman style setup is a good shout. You stack armour so you do not fold the second you take a hit, then start scaling Rage. When you push Rage past around 55, your damage really takes off and it feels like you are playing on an easier difficulty. It might eat a nerf later, so if you like strong starters, now is the time to lean into it.
Playing Around Vaal Remnants
The Fate of the Vaal league mechanic is where most players are going to either print value or wreck their gear. You are basically laying out these temple paths, picking which rooms you want to unlock on the way to Atziri’s stash. Early on, it is worth prioritising Sacrifice‑style rooms because they drop uniques and can kick‑start your build before the campaign is even done. Corruption rooms look tempting, but that is where people are already bricking their best items going for double corrupts on day one. If you hit a good corrupt, the payout in currency and trade value is huge, no doubt. You just have to be honest about what you can afford to lose, especially when you are still wearing half of your levelling gear.
Currency, Gear and Sanity
This league is not shy about the grind. If you cannot no‑life ten hours a day, you are probably going to feel that gap once mapping starts. A lot of players are already looking for ways to dodge endless low‑tier map farming just to cap resists or grab basic life leech. Whether you stick to pure self‑found or you dip into trading, the early goals are the same: fix your resists, get a bit of sustain, pick up a ring like a Polcirkeln‑tier upgrade, and make sure your main form actually hits hard enough to clear. Once those pieces are in place, Druids in particular start to feel smooth in red maps rather than like they are constantly a tier behind the content.
Levelling, Flasks and Smooth Mapping
While you level, do not sleep on your flasks. In PoE 2, that early 300‑life recovery is not a rounding error; it is the reason you do not fall over to the first rare that crits you. Try rolling them with mods that help when you are on low life so they bail you out when things go wrong. Keep an eye on cold resistance too, because Act 1 and 2 monsters are throwing out enough chill and cold snap effects this patch to catch people off guard. Whether you end up as a Frost Wolf Oracle zipping around the screen or a Wyvern nuking packs from range, keep moving and use the forms aggressively. The new engine’s 25% FPS bump makes the game feel a lot smoother, which means there is no real excuse for standing still in obvious danger zones when you could be kiting, shifting forms, and pushing towards higher maps with help from smart gearing and the occasional poe2 gold buy if you want to speed things up.
