12-09-2025, 04:11 AM
For anyone following Path of Exile 2, this week has felt a bit like getting crit and lucky-dodging at the same time, especially if you care about builds, balance and even things like PoE 2 Items you are planning around already. Jonathan Rogers has floated 2026 as the target for the 1.0 launch, and on paper that sounds fine, but there is a catch: the game probably will not ship with all twelve classes. He has made it pretty clear that if they have to choose, they will cut a few classes rather than rush the campaign or mess up core balance. It stings a bit if you were already dreaming up a specific archetype, but he did say he cannot see a version of launch that does not include swords, so the melee striker style characters seem fairly safe for now.
Parry Push And Passive Tweaks
On the actual beta side, patch 0.4.0 is trying hard to sell parrying as a real playstyle instead of a meme you ignore while you spin or dash across the map. When you land a parry now, you hit every enemy in front of you instead of just one unlucky target, and the enemy you parried takes damage even if they get knocked halfway across the arena. There are also some extra passives that lean into this mechanic, so if you want to stand your ground and punish hits, the tools are there. Whether people will drop the classic zoom set‑ups for a more planted, reactive style is another question; players used to face-tanking or perma-dashing are not going to swap overnight.
Movement, Stuns And Staying Alive
There is a smaller line in the notes that might matter way more than it looks at first glance. Sprinting no longer pauses the decay of the strong stun effect, which basically means you are less likely to get chained in place while you are frantically trying to move. Before this change, you could hit sprint and still feel like you are trapped in treacle, then just watch your character fold. Now, if you react fast, you actually have a better shot at slipping out instead of eating the whole combo. It is the kind of mechanical tweak you only really notice once you go back to an older character and wonder why escape suddenly feels worse.
Nerfed Toys And Shifting Builds
The painful part of the patch hits anyone abusing that Lich build with The Last Lament crossbow. That interaction is gone. Not toned down, not slightly adjusted, just removed; the whole set‑up is basically dead in 0.4. Some skill gems have been cleaned up too: Greatwood II has been folded into a Lineage gem instead of living as its own skill, and Ambrosia has had its damage pulled back so it will not be doing quite the same number‑crunching. Crafting took a small hit with two Omens getting removed, which makes smoothing out gear a bit more fiddly, and weapon tuning has shifted things again, with Quarterstaves picking up buffs while Bows lose a bit of their shine. It is the usual GGG rhythm where something broken gets hammered, some underused stuff gets nudged up, and everyone heads back into the beta to see what can replace their old setup, maybe even looking again at parry builds or different PoE 2 Items cheap to rebuild their favourite characters.
Parry Push And Passive Tweaks
On the actual beta side, patch 0.4.0 is trying hard to sell parrying as a real playstyle instead of a meme you ignore while you spin or dash across the map. When you land a parry now, you hit every enemy in front of you instead of just one unlucky target, and the enemy you parried takes damage even if they get knocked halfway across the arena. There are also some extra passives that lean into this mechanic, so if you want to stand your ground and punish hits, the tools are there. Whether people will drop the classic zoom set‑ups for a more planted, reactive style is another question; players used to face-tanking or perma-dashing are not going to swap overnight.
Movement, Stuns And Staying Alive
There is a smaller line in the notes that might matter way more than it looks at first glance. Sprinting no longer pauses the decay of the strong stun effect, which basically means you are less likely to get chained in place while you are frantically trying to move. Before this change, you could hit sprint and still feel like you are trapped in treacle, then just watch your character fold. Now, if you react fast, you actually have a better shot at slipping out instead of eating the whole combo. It is the kind of mechanical tweak you only really notice once you go back to an older character and wonder why escape suddenly feels worse.
Nerfed Toys And Shifting Builds
The painful part of the patch hits anyone abusing that Lich build with The Last Lament crossbow. That interaction is gone. Not toned down, not slightly adjusted, just removed; the whole set‑up is basically dead in 0.4. Some skill gems have been cleaned up too: Greatwood II has been folded into a Lineage gem instead of living as its own skill, and Ambrosia has had its damage pulled back so it will not be doing quite the same number‑crunching. Crafting took a small hit with two Omens getting removed, which makes smoothing out gear a bit more fiddly, and weapon tuning has shifted things again, with Quarterstaves picking up buffs while Bows lose a bit of their shine. It is the usual GGG rhythm where something broken gets hammered, some underused stuff gets nudged up, and everyone heads back into the beta to see what can replace their old setup, maybe even looking again at parry builds or different PoE 2 Items cheap to rebuild their favourite characters.