It has been a while since we have heard anything significant about Path of Exile 2, but that changes today in a massive way. Grinding Gear Games has pulled back the curtain on the game’s next major update, The Last of the Druids, arriving December 12, 2025.
This expansion introduces sweeping gameplay changes, major rebalancing, deep performance optimizations, and the reveal of Path of Exile 2’s newest class, the Druid. Able to shapeshift into a wolf, bear, or a fire breathing wyvern, the Druid brings primal fury to Wraeclast and anchors an update that looks like one of the game’s biggest overhauls yet.
There is a lot to dive into, so let’s get to it.
A New Class Awakens: The Druid
With his homeland destroyed by the King in the Mists, the Druid relinquished the last memories of his humanity and wandered the forests of Ogham. Now reawakened, he sets out to reclaim his past, find his lost wife, and recover what remains of his spirit.
The Druid wields a new weapon type, the Talisman, which channels the ancient power of Draiocht. Each Talisman grants a unique animal form, allowing players to shift into one of three deadly beastly forms:
- Wolf: Can focus lunar energy into fast, cold infused attacks that overwhelm enemies, and also summon a pack of minions to attack alongside you.
- Bear: A relentless wrecking ball of flesh and rage. Build up Rage to deliver brutal crushing blows and unleash roars that increase offensive power.
- Wyvern: Take to the skies and feed on fallen foes to supercharge your abilities. The wyvern can unleash fire, lightning, and sweeping aerial destruction.
The Druid is just as dangerous in its human form, with the ability to control earth and storm through erupting volcanoes, binding roots, and lightning that tears through crowds. The new Spell Totem skill allows him to set totems that automatically cast any chosen spell using endurance or power charges gained by consuming Rage as a Bear or devouring corpses as a Wyvern.
Two New Ascendancies: Shaman and Oracle
Shaman
The Shaman channels catastrophic elemental magic by consuming Rage. Meteors, storms, and ancient magical force become overwhelming through powerful new Rune and Idol interactions. With the Wisdom of the Maji unlocked, these items gain Shaman only modifiers that open the door to advanced builds.
Investing into Bringer of the Apocalypse empowers the Shaman to trigger cascading multi elemental storms whenever sustained damage is dealt.
Oracle
The Druid’s second Ascendancy manipulates time and fate. Using Foresight, the Oracle receives visions of future skill use, and following those predictions grants enormous damage spikes. Converging Paths empowers attacks during specific enemy vulnerabilities like Freeze, Stun, or Electrocution, creating a devastating Moment of Vulnerability where two timelines collide.
More than 130 Oracle only passives expand the Druid tree. These include abilities like Self Sacrificing, which reduces minion Spirit costs to increase total summons at the cost of higher reservations, and Corruption Endures, which can occasionally prevent death entirely.
A Massive Rebalance: Skills, Uniques, and Support Gems
Along with the addition of the Druid, comes a number of gameplay changes.
- More than 30 new Support Gems
- Nine brand new Lineage Supports and 21 reworked versions
- 11 new Unique items
- Major adjustments across dozens of existing Uniques
- Over 90 active skills rebalanced across all classes
- More than 250 new passive skills added to the passive tree
The update also revises nearly every Ascendancy in the game. Some classes have been lightly tuned, while others, such as the Smith of Kitava, receive deeper redesigns.
Yeap, that’s a lot of updates.
Combat, Visual, and Performance Improvements
Monster density no longer increases at higher map tiers. Instead, difficulty is now scaled through enemy life, experience, and reward output. Monster speed modifiers have been reduced to help prevent swarms, and Delirium fog has been visually toned down for clearer combat readability. So, no more frustrations over the number of enemies being tossed at you. Instead, they’ll be tougher, just want we wanted in the first place.
Performance is also a major focus. Players can expect at least a 25% boost in frame rates and significantly fewer frame spikes, especially on consoles. More improvements are planned in future patches.
Confront the Past in Fate of the Vaal
The expansion returns players to the apocalyptic rise and downfall of Vaal civilization. Queen Atziri, consumed by her pursuit of eternal youth, prepares to sacrifice her empire. Players must resist this doomed past by confronting the Royal Architect and Atziri’s most loyal followers.
By destroying Vaal beacons erupting across Wraeclast and channeling their essence, players gain access to Lira Vaal, an ancient temple filled with secrets, dangers, and rewards.
Build Your Own Temple
Beacon encounters unlock temple rooms. Six rooms can be assembled into a layout of your choosing. As you run temples, some chambers survive while others collapse. Clearing more beacons unlocks additional rooms and increases potential rewards.
Placement matters, with dozens of room types offering unique mechanics and loot opportunities. Medallions can alter behaviors, expand corruption choices, and even introduce experimental Vaal enhancements.
New Vaal Crafting Options
Temple crafting features new corruption based upgrades, including:
- Juatalotli’s Triumph for reforging Vaal Uniques
- Precursor Machine for corrupting Tablets
- Jiquani’s Triumph for altering Soul Cores
- Kishara’s Acquisition for extracting socketables from gear
A New Pinnacle Boss: Atziri
Xipocado guards the inner chambers of the temple and must be defeated to advance deeper. The final challenge is Atziri herself, now introduced as a new Pinnacle Boss with updated mechanics and devastating new abilities.
One major item is Atziri’s Rule, a corrupted staff that elevates all corrupted gem levels and allows players to trade life for stronger damage output. Mirrors of Refraction appear throughout combat and multiply projectile damage through chained novas.
Abyssals Become Core
The Abyssals endgame mechanic is now permanent. Earlier Abyss crafting options have been removed to reduce clutter, but Tablet modifiers have been significantly strengthened. Tablets can also be upgraded to Rare quality after defeating the Arbiter of Ash.
A New Reason to Return
So, if you have been like me and have played just about everything Path of Exile 2 currently offers while waiting for something new to dive back into, December 12 is right around the corner. With the arrival of the Druid, two Ascendancies, massive system reworks, and a mountain of new content, there is finally a big reason to return to the game in a meaningful way.
Path of Exile 2: The Last of the Druids launches December 12 at 11 AM PST on PC, Steam, PlayStation, Xbox, and the Epic Games Store.
