It has been a long time since an ARPG genuinely hooked me, but Path of Exile 2’s 0.4.0 “The Last of the Druids” update is doing exactly that, and a big part of it is how easily the new Druid slots into your league plans, especially if you prep a bit of u4gm poe currency before launch. The Fate of the Vaal league goes live at 11 AM PST on December 12th, and if you are even slightly curious about shapeshifters, this class is worth locking in right away. I burned through Act 1 on a test run in under half an hour without really trying, and it never felt like I was fighting the controls or waiting for cooldowns to catch up.
Shapeshifting That Actually Flows
Older games often turned shapeshifting into a gimmick: long cooldowns, clumsy animations, or forms that only worked in weird, narrow situations. Here it just works. You slot a Talisman, and suddenly you are sliding between human and beast form mid-fight like it is second nature. My go-to setup was a human form stacking Intelligence for spell damage, then swapping to Bear for raw Strength hits. I would drop a Volcano in human form, watch those magma craters pop up everywhere, then flip into Bear and smash a Furious Slam right through a pack. Every slam triggers the Volcano craters, and the whole screen just detonates. Bosses like Draven do not last long when the ground itself is trying to delete them.
More Than Just A Tanky Bear
People will defo see “Bear Druid” and think basic tank, but there is more going on. Wolf runs on Moon Energy, and it feels built for speed. You dive into a pack, freeze half the screen, then zip to the next group before anything has time to react. When you get bored of that, you flick over to Wyvern form. That one leans on Power Charges, so you are gliding over the map, dropping fire from the sky like a budget airstrike. The fun bit is that you are not locked into one rhythm. You are constantly swapping forms to match what is in front of you: Bear when you need armour and stun, Wolf for map speed, Wyvern to set everything on fire from above. You really notice it on early bosses and league events where standing still is asking to die.
Why Bear Volcano Slammer Feels S-Tier Early
If you want a league starter that does not fall over in a bad map, the Bear Volcano setup is hard to ignore. Human form sets up the field with Volcano, pushing your INT scaling and spell damage. Bear form cashes in that prep with Furious Slam, using STR and melee damage to actually blow the craters. The result is huge overlapping explosions, reliable armour, and a simple rotation that does not punish mistakes. You are not juggling eight keybinds or some fragile combo; you are just setting the board and smashing it. For new players or anyone returning after a break, it feels comfy but still noisy and satisfying enough to keep you awake at 3 AM.
Temples, Passives And Early Economy
What really sells this update for me is how it all ties into the new modular Vaal temples and the extra 250+ passives. You can spec deep into specific beast forms, or keep things flexible so you are always able to pivot if the league meta shifts. The new temple layouts make every run feel a bit different, which pairs nicely with a class that wants to adapt on the fly. With servers spinning up in the morning for the US and later in the day for EU, plus a free weekend that runs to the 15th and keeps your progress, it is a pretty easy pitch to drag friends back in. If you want to hit the ground running, especially when crafting Talismans for your shapeshift setup, having a bit of extra poe2 cheap currency in your stash on day one makes the early grind a lot smoother.
