PoE 2 Patch 0.4: A Rollercoaster of Brilliant Design and Brutal Punishment

TL;DR
Patch 0.4 was the league where I had the most fun I’ve had in PoE 2 so far, but it also ended up being the most frustrating. The highs were extremely high: great class balance, an amazing Druid experience, and the Vaal Temple offering real, meaningful endgame progression that finally motivated me to push a character further than ever before. The lows, however, were devastating: overly punitive systems, poor holiday patch timing, unpunished exploit abuse, terrible crafting RNG, and an endgame that forces expensive trading just to play. One single irreversible mistake erased over 100 hours of progression, perfectly summarizing what is currently wrong with the game. There is something very special here, but it is buried under stress and punishment.

Table of Contents
1. A personal starting point
2. Extreme highs and extreme lows
3. Patch timing and exploit handling
4. Druid and class balance
5. Melee still falling behind
6. The Vaal Temple – what worked and what didn’t
7. Punitive systems killing fun
8. Crafting frustrations
9. Endgame sustainability and trading dependency
10. Build diversity and clear-speed bias
11. Streamers, FOMO, and player mindset
12. Closing thoughts


1. A personal starting point

This league started as the most fun I’ve had across all four PoE 2 patches. Unfortunately, it ended in the most crushing way possible. After investing hundreds of hours into building my Vaal Temple, I made a single tile placement mistake that created a loop. The result was catastrophic: my temple collapsed from 53 tiles to 19 tiles instantly. Over 100 hours of progression were erased in one moment, with no warning, no safety net, and no way to recover. That experience alone sums up Patch 0.4 perfectly: incredible ambition paired with brutal, unforgiving systems.


2. Extreme highs and extreme lows

Patch 0.4 was an emotional rollercoaster. When things worked, they worked amazingly well. When they didn’t, they failed in ways that felt unfair and demoralizing. I felt genuinely excited to log in, push content, and improve my character, but I also felt constant stress knowing that a single mistake could undo weeks of effort. That emotional whiplash is not healthy for a long-term endgame experience.


3. Patch timing and exploit handling

This was the second time GGG released a major update right before the holidays, leaving only a skeleton crew to handle serious issues. As expected, major exploits emerged, and the response was slow and incomplete. Worse, exploiters were not punished. This sends an extremely bad message to the community: exploiting is rewarded, playing fair is optional, and if you don’t abuse it in time, you just miss out. That feeling of forced FOMO poisons the experience even for players who never exploited anything.


4. Druid and class balance

Druid was phenomenal. I had an absolute blast playing Bear, Wyvern, Wolf (with mirror-tier investment), and eventually switching to CoC Comet in the very late endgame. The class felt versatile, expressive, and fun at every stage. The wolf build in particular was enjoyable because it rewarded combo execution and deep min-maxing. Overall class balance also seems very healthy; looking at PoE Ninja, there are plenty of viable builds. This is one of the strongest aspects of Patch 0.4.


5. Melee is still falling behind

Despite enjoying the wolf, melee as a whole is still in a very bad place compared to ranged builds. The risk versus reward simply doesn’t make sense. You invest more, play more carefully, and still get worse results. This has been an issue for years, and Patch 0.4 did little to address it in a meaningful way.


6. The Vaal Temple – what worked and what didn’t

Even after losing everything, I still believe the Vaal Temple is one of the best ideas introduced in PoE 2 so far. After hundreds of hours building it, I was running duos with my wife as a rarity bot and making around 5–15 divines per run. That is good, but not broken. The idea that the Temple was completely busted mostly comes from watching top-end streamers running hyper-optimized setups that most players will never reach.

What I loved about the Temple was the sense of linear progression. Difficulty increased, rewards increased, and I always felt like improving my build had a clear purpose. This league, I built the strongest character I’ve ever had in PoE because the endgame finally gave me a reason to do so. In previous leagues, I never felt that drive. This kind of meaningful, near-endless progression should be the cornerstone of the endgame redesign promised for Patch 0.5. The fatal flaw is how unforgiving the system is. Losing everything over one mistake is not hardcore; it’s just hostile.


7. Punitive systems killing fun

PoE 2 is still far too punitive in general. Many systems create stress and negative emotions far more often than excitement. The biggest offenders are the massive XP loss on death at high levels and the one-portal-per-map rule, which is completely unreasonable. These mechanics don’t reward mastery; they punish engagement and experimentation, and they actively kill fun.


8. Crafting frustrations

Crafting this league was terrible. With the removal of the Homogenization Omen, crafting became pure RNG spam with no meaningful progression path. Yes, god-tier items should be rare, but once you reach a decent level of gear, it feels like there is no way to improve other than blind luck. That completely kills motivation to engage with crafting systems. Having to chaos-spam 1000s of times to eventually get a T1 mod is just nonsense.


9. Endgame sustainability and trading dependency

The biggest endgame issue for me is the inability to self-sustain any strategy. At the uber endgame, every run costs 1–5 divines just in tablets and waystones. Paying that much just to attempt content feels awful. PoE 1 already solved this problem better. The scarab system allowed customization without forcing constant expensive trading.

Instead of reinventing the wheel, GGG should double down on that idea. A small set of scarab-like items, limited to one per map, each weaker but with interesting synergies, would reduce trading dependency, prevent single dominant strategies, and create a more dynamic economy with multiple viable farming options.


10. Build diversity and clear-speed bias

The game still heavily rewards move speed and clear speed above everything else. We need more farming strategies that don’t benefit from that. The Vaal Temple was a good example of content that rewarded preparation, tankiness, and investment rather than raw speed. More content like that would greatly improve build diversity.


11. Streamers, FOMO, and player mindset

This is not something GGG needs to fix, but it is something players should be aware of. Some streamers are massive FOMO drivers and can completely kill your enjoyment of the game by constantly showcasing unrealistic, ultra-optimized setups. I personally stopped watching several of them, and my enjoyment improved significantly. Players should be more mindful of who they watch and consider following more casual or grounded creators whose experiences align better with what they can realistically achieve.


12. Closing thoughts

Patch 0.4 showed that PoE 2 has the potential to be truly great. The fun is there, the systems can work, and the progression can be incredibly rewarding. But until the game becomes less punitive, more respectful of player time, and less dependent on extreme RNG and mandatory trading, that potential will keep collapsing. Sometimes, all it takes is one misplaced tile.