This is exactly what is happening mid league

"

CTRL_ALT_DEFEAT#2601 wrote:

“I don’t think you can just nerf people in the middle of a league no matter what.”
— Jonathan Rogers, Game Director, Path of Exile 2

But this patch does exactly that.

These are nerfs:
• Trinity Support
Damage scaling reduced. Resonance drains faster.
(7–10% per 50 → 3–6% per 30. Lost 2 → now loses 3. Decay doubled.)
• Beira’s Anguish (Dousing Charm)
No longer guarantees a crit.
Crit + self-ignite builds are now unreliable.
Beira detonation and consistent ignite uptime are gone.
• Bursting Plague
Damage halved.
(200% from Poison → now 100%.)
Higher cap doesn’t make up for the loss.
• Starkonja’s Head
Damage redirection now only works with damageable companions.
Reduces the defensive value for minion builds.
• Impale (on players)
Now expires after 4 seconds.
While there’s no PvP, this still weakens interactions in group play or future content.
• Mana-less skill interactions
New hidden stat blocks scaling from things like Eldritch Empowerment.
Existing synergies are cut off without replacements.

⸻

Small buffs:
• Lightning Bolt radius increased.
• Flash Grenade no longer blinds you or allies.
• Battershout now counts as a Warcry.
• Hazards created by Rearming no longer count toward max cap.

⸻

These changes break the philosophy stated by GGG’s own director.
If players can’t trust that their builds will remain functional mid-league,
they won’t invest time — or money — into experimenting.

This isn’t balance. It’s instability.

"

TrunktenUK#3407 wrote:

GGG is over protecting early access atm.

"Open Beta" is a boon for both developers and customers, its simply not a negative like you're portraying.

By the time official release comes we'll have
- 3 more acts and the final act could be a very special finale experience.
- All weapons/classes (+5 weapons are yet to be released and skills "missing" in weapons that do exist), with fine tuning on skills to make balance "acceptable" (hello Lightning Spear, you will be nerfed).
- More maps and fine tuning of the End Game
- More passive nodes and fine tuning

And for all this to happen smoothly it should have a positive community and not with a certain demographic crying over insignificant time losses (server crashes, bugs, balance/loot/atlas adjustments etc) when the game has yet to witness its true player base potential yet from being largely incomplete.

You're very lucky to have Johnathan and you could of been with just POE1's old engine and mechanics for eternity, it could of been a sad Blizzard and World of Warcraft state.

"

sonemere#3406 wrote:

• Impale (on players)
Now expires after 4 seconds.
While there’s no PvP, this still weakens interactions in group play or future content.
• Mana-less skill interactions
New hidden stat blocks scaling from things like Eldritch Empowerment.
Existing synergies are cut off without replacements.