Over the last couple of patches, Path of Exile 2 has started to play in a way that feels a lot more open, and you notice it as soon as you log in and start spending your PoE 2 Currency. The Last of the Druids is not just a small content pack; it changes how you think about building a character day to day. Patch 0.4.0 drops more than 20 new active skills and 35 support gems into the pool, and it is the Lineage Supports that really twist combat in new directions. You are no longer locked into the old “one main skill, a couple of decent links” pattern. People are already experimenting with weird chains of buffs and conditional effects, and it feels like we will be arguing about the best setups for a long time.

Druid Builds And The Passive Tree
Once you dive into the new Druid stuff, the passive tree almost feels like a separate game. The devs have pushed in more than 250 passives that lean into shapeshifting, hybrid casting and physical brawling. You do not just tick a “Druid build” box anymore. One player might lean hard into Werebear mitigation and never leave melee range, while another stacks spell scaling and uses shapeshift forms just for windows of burst damage. You quickly realise you cannot grab everything, so the path you choose across those nodes really changes how the class feels. Talismans sit on top of that and shake up gearing even more, because they are strong enough that you sometimes plan your whole build around a single piece that bends your stats or mechanics in a specific direction.

Abyss As Core Content
Abyss shifting from a seasonal extra into core mapping content changes levelling more than you would expect. You are running through the campaign, you open a new zone, and suddenly there is an Abyss crack pulling you off the main line, dropping mobs on your head. The pace gets faster, but also riskier, especially if you are undergeared. Cutting Preserved Vertebrae from the drop pool helps more than it sounds like on paper; the screen is less clogged, and the loot filter feels cleaner, so you can actually see the stuff you care about. The Well of Souls quest also fits the story better now, not just a random detour for some odd item. Endgame Abyss Tablets are probably the biggest win though, because they let you decide when those big, messy encounters happen instead of praying the right spawn shows up.

Planning Around The Fate Of The Vaal League
The Fate of the Vaal league adds a different kind of pressure. You are not just blasting through maps; you are planning routes. You get six temple rooms to place, and the order matters almost as much as the rooms themselves. Put a Corruption Chamber too early and you might brick an item before you have the gear to replace it, but hold it too long and you lose value. Flesh Surgeon and Royal Architect rooms pull you in opposite directions, and you catch yourself thinking a few steps ahead like you would in a strategy game rather than an ARPG. Temporal Gateways and Sacrificial Chambers add extra knobs to turn, especially for players who like squeezing every bit of value out of a run. When you stack all that on top of the performance upgrades, it feels like the game is leaning harder into deliberate choices, giving you more control and more to lose with each click, especially once you start investing serious amounts of u4gm PoE 2 Currency into these systems.