Path Of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 Bow And Quiver Crafting Guide | Maximize Damage And Critical Hits

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• Path Of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0c Review | Can Vaal Temple Improvements Save A Weak Endgame?

  While Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 and Diablo 4 Season 11 were released almost simultaneously, both introducing new classes, Diablo 4 was exciting, while Path of Exile 2 felt tedious.

  Whether it's Druid class or the new mechanics, Fate of the Vaal league experience felt very immature. So, can Patch 0.4.0c salvage the endgame experience for players?

  

  The Core Problems Of Patch 0.4.0

  Druid

  Druid is the biggest highlight of Patch 0.4.0, with fantastic skill animations and sound effects. However, the lack of skill diversity means that without new skills or forms, players will quickly become bored.

  Furthermore, Druid players have encountered numerous bugs affecting the experience, including getting stuck in terrain, Rampage unexpectedly ending before Rage is full, and skills failing to be cast.

  Temple

  The new mechanics in Fate of the Vaal League are the primary reason for player boredom. In the early stages of the campaign, Vaal Temple mechanic offered decent rewards, providing PoE 2 currencies like Exalted Orb and Regal Orb.

  However, after Act 3, Temple rewards rapidly diminish, ruining the experience. Clearing rooms often yields no rewards, causing players to completely ignore Temples.

  Furthermore, the game provides absolutely no explanation of Temples, leaving players clueless about how to build temples, place rooms, or connect to Atziri. This forces players to search for guides outside the game, a failed design for a core mechanic.

  Building a temple requires activating multiple beacons and six different maps, a huge waste of time, while the rewards are utterly uninteresting. Most Temple Console rewards involve corruption, which carries risks and offers no direct benefit to character progression.

  Comparison With Abyss

  POE 2 Patch 0.3.0 Abyss mechanic primarily rewards crafting and adding Desecrated Modifiers to equipment, significantly improving or enhancing gear.

  In contrast, the core rewards in Fate of the Vaal are mainly for final-stage upgrades, with a high risk of destroying equipment. This leads players to avoid using it for fear of loss, making the mechanic seem worthless for character progression.

  Furthermore, Abyss process is fast and seamless, easily completed during map progression. In Fate of the Vaal, entering Temple feels fragmented and cumbersome. You need to leave the current map, access the console to plan and build Temple, and then complete a separate instance where monsters may be scattered and require clearing corners, resulting in a less smooth experience.

  Patch 0.4.0c Content

  The above feedback on Vaal Temple comes from players, and Patch 0.4.0c primarily addresses these feedback with various adjustments to Vaal Temple.

  Comprehensive Enhancement Of Vaal Temple Modifiers

  The effects of existing modifiers applied to the temple by all room levels will be doubled. This means more monsters and more loot. Additionally, Spymaster, Golem Works, and Thaumaturge rooms will provide bonuses to other specific room types within the temple when active.

  After successfully connecting a Treasure Vault room, the rarity of items dropped within the temple is increased by 25%.

  Boss Battles

  Upon reaching Tier 3, the following rooms will now include the bosses that previously ambushed players when opening Vaal Temple Circles:

  • Corruption Chamber room: Corrupted Abomination
  • Spymaster room: Unchained Beast
  • Golem Works room: Royal Sentinel
  • Generator room: Royal Colossus
  • Sacrificial Chamber room: High Priest
  • Thaumaturge room: Quadrilla Sergeant

  Crafting Benches

  Previously, crafting benches used for Exalting, Vaaling, and Alchemy Orb could not extract their PoE 2 currency after crafting, rendering the rooms useless in the late game. Now, after completing Act 3, these crafting benches will allow players to collect their corresponding currency.

  New Medallions

  • Added affixes Medallion: It adds random Waystone Modifiers that run 10 times consecutively to Temple, making it more challenging and rewarding.
  • New Medallions for Rerolling Rooms: Allows players to reroll rooms waiting to be placed in Temple Console, making it easier to obtain desired room combinations.

  Architect Adjustments

  • Reduced the number of rooms removed when defeating Architect.
  • Allows players to connect from a bonus room placed by Architect's Console to any adjacent room.
  • Architect's room itself can also connect to any adjacent room, not necessarily requiring a Road.

  Adjustments To Specific Room Mechanics

  • Crafting results from Tablet Research Vault room will no longer destroy Tablets.
  • The drops from Uniques Vault room will increase with Temple Level, and more common unique equipment will be excluded to improve drop quality.
  • Extraction Chamber will become rarer, and players will only receive one of these rooms at a time in Console Table.

  Inner Encounter Rewards Improved

  After completing a non-boss encounter in Fate of the Vaal map, a treasure chest will appear in the center of the map and drop items. In the campaign phase, it might be a magic chest; in the endgame, it might be a magic or rare chest.

  

  Endgame Problem

  Besides the failure of the new mechanic, both developers and players are aware that Path of Exile 2's endgame content is currently very thin.

  Players are stuck after entering the endgame due to the low drop rate of Support Gems and Skill Gems. Upgrades are almost impossible to obtain through looting or crafting.

  The solution to all these problems points to Trade Market. Players must farm enough currency to trade for gear, but with such a low currency drop rate, the leveling process feels unrewarding. The developers have promised a major overhaul in the upcoming patch 0.5.0.

  Patch 0.4.0c is undoubtedly a positive change for Exile, improving the current player experience. However, these changes are insufficient to fundamentally address the core issue of the endgame reward's lack of appeal, and therefore may still not be enough to prevent player attrition.

• Path Of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 Sand Djinn Disciple Of Varashta Build | Gameplay, Skills, And Ascendancy Node Selection

  Diablo 4 announced at 2025 TGA that Paladin class would be launched in season 11, which brought surprises to players, and Path of Exile 2 patch 0.4.0 was not to be outdone either. In addition to the previously announced new class Druid, the official also announced a new Ascendancy class, Disciple of Varashta, without any warning.

  Disciple of Varashta is a Sorceress Ascendancy class. Its gameplay is mainly summoning, and it may be the strongest summoning Ascendancy currently. It has many ways to play, and today we will mainly introduce the gameplay based on Sand Djinn.

  

  Disciple Of Varashta Overview

  Disciple of Varashta has three main summons that you can manipulate to cast spells. They are very powerful, but they play differently from a traditional summoning build, and it is more like a spellcaster build.

  • Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword: A pure output Djinn that can burst out with powerful damage.
  • Kelari, the Tainted Sands: It can not only release spells to cause damage, but also apply a shield to the character.
  • Navira, the Last Mirage: A support-oriented Djinn that provides health regeneration and freezes enemies.

  Players can choose which Djinn to fight together and order them to use specific skills. Each Ascension talent point grants a Command Skill.

  Djinn are invulnerable. Even if all the player's other summoned army dies, the monsters alone can easily clear the map and kill the boss.

  You need to increase the damage by stacking summon damage, command skill-related talents, critical strikes, and support gems (Support Gems). All skills of each monster share the same set of auxiliary gem links, and universal damage support gems work well.

  

  Sand Djinn Disciple Of Varashta Build

  Advantages And Disadvantages

  This build not only has powerful burst damage, but also has a huge energy shield pool. Its ability to regenerate energy shield builds is unparalleled, energy shield regeneration activates extremely quickly, and the farming map experience is smooth and enjoyable.

  However, if you pursue maximum damage, Boss battles require frequent button presses, high-intensity operations, and no particularly fast movement methods.

  Djinn Select

  This build mainly uses Flame Djinn and Sand Djinn to fight together to cause extremely high damage. Additional skill slots for each monster are unlocked at character levels 40, 65, and 90.

  Kelari, The Tainted Sands

  Its base can cause physical damage, has a high base critical hit rate and additional critical hit damage bonus, and can apply multi-layer critical hit vulnerability effect.

  Kelari's Brutality

  Djinn throws a row of blades at the cursor, which explodes after a short delay. Store 2 times of use. Both clear map and single target damage are good. It is recommended that you use it before bursting into a combo to apply the critical vulnerability debuff.

  Kelari's Deception

  Creates an area-of-effect explosion at the cursor, leaving a short-lived clone behind. Store 3 times of use. Continuous use will cause 50% more damage each time, and each surviving clone will copy the explosion effect. Casting 3 times in a row can produce up to 5 explosions. This is one of the most damaging skills in the build and can significantly reduce the boss's health.

  Ruzhan, The Blazing Sword

  Whenever the player uses a damaging skill, Ruzhan will automatically attack near the cursor, causing moderate damage and applying a basic Exposure effect.

  Ruzhan's Brand

  The brand is attached to the enemy. Up to 3 of them can exist at the same time and can be stacked on the same target. They will automatically explode after 3 seconds. The damage is acceptable but the priority is low. It is only recommended for players who like extreme active play. It can be cast three times quickly between skills to supplement the damage or clear out dense monster groups.

  Ruzhan's Trap

  Throws a sword at the cursor, then generates 8 randomly located runes on the ground. If an enemy steps on the rune, a static flame whirlwind will rise that lasts for 4 seconds. The damage of multiple cyclones can be stacked. By casting it close to a wall or in an enclosed area, you can narrow the rune generation area and make the whirlwind more concentrated. This is an excellent map-clearing skill and the single-target damage is also good.

  Skill Gems And Gear

  • Ruzhan, the Blazing Sword: Bidding II, Muster, Long Fuse II, Hulking Minions. Magnified Area II.
  • Kelari, the Tainted Sands: Bidding II, Brutality III, Muster, Hulking Minions, Heft.
  • Skeletal Reaver: Fire Attunement, Muster, Feeding Frenzy II, Heft, Immolate.
  • Skeletal Storm Mage: Shock, Overcharge, Muster, Feeding Frenzy II, Rapid Casting II.
  • Skeletal Sniper: Fire Attunement, Muster, Feeding Frenzy II, Heft, Immolate.
  • Skeletal Frost Mage: Rapid Casting II, Muster, Minion Mastery, Multishot II, Projectile Acceleration III.
  • Skeletal Arsonist: Fire Attunement, Muster, Multishot II, Feeding Frenzy II, Heft.
  • Skeletal Cleric: Meat Shield II, Last Gasp, Rapid Casting II, Minion Mastery.
  • Skeletal Brute: Muster, Fire Attunement, Feeding Frenzy II, Heft, Immolate.
  • Elemental Weakness: Heightened Curse, Efficiency II, Focused Curse, Magnified Area II, Rapid Casting II.
  • Frost Bomb: Potent Exposure, Overabundance I, Spell Echo, Cooldown Recovery II, Short Fuse II.
  • Skeletal Warriors: Culling Strike II, Hulking Minions, Muster, Fire Attunement.

  Since Ascendancy cannot be performed until the second act, you still need to upgrade in the normal way in the early stage. After obtaining Disciple of Varashta class, the talent tree requires more options to increase the life of the summoned object.

  There are no special requirements for equipment. You can even choose all rare equipment, as long as their affixes include increasing the damage of the summons or the level of the summons. However, you can prepare a set of weapons with talent gems that increase the minion area of effect to obtain a larger clearing range. Djinn are very powerful on their own, but the more POE 2 currency you invest in them, the more damage they do.

  How To Farm The Map?

  Ruzhan's Trap, keep moving and let the enemy trigger the rune. Even if there may be fish that slip through the net, your army of summons will clean them up.

  In the boss battle, the exposure effects of Elemental Weakness and Frost Bomb are maintained. If Kelari's Deception has 3 charges, cast it three times in a row to cause a huge burst. Ruzhan's Trap and Kelari's Brutality are both served after cooling.

  If you have a lot of Spirit, you can use it to summon Skeletal Reavers and occasionally press Enrage to get a damage boost.

  This is just one way to play Disciple of Varashta. You can also play it without playing a pure summoning build and combine it with other spells, as long as they give you a comfortable experience in the campaign.

• Path Of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 Raging Fissure Bear Build | How To Craft It? - Skills & Gear

  Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 introduces the new Druid class, which features three transformation forms, each with its own unique skills and combat style. You can switch between these forms at any time during combat.

  Of these three forms, the bear form excels at utilizing Rage resource to increase damage output and create synergistic effects between multiple skills. This form also possesses tank-like characteristics, allowing it to withstand damage.

  Based on this, we will introduce a build that focuses on transforming into a bear and creating fissures to damage enemies in combat - Raging Fissure Bear Build.

  

  Raging Fissure Bear Build Overview

  The bear form of Druid is characterized by its slow speed but extremely high defense and survivability, making it suitable for melee combat. Although it's not as fast as the wolf or wyvern forms, with the right build, it can clear groups of enemies with AoE damage.

  For example, Raging Fissure Bear Build is crafted based on one of the key bear form skills, Fury of the Mountain.

  Fissure Warrior playstyle has always been quite powerful in PoE 2, but now the bear form combined with this skill can achieve similar, or even better, results.

  This skill unlocks at Tier 5 and requires equipping Animal Talismans. You will transform into a bear and repeatedly pound the ground to create lava fissures.

  These fissures convert 80 physical damage into fire damage, granting 3 Rage for each enemy hit and creating another fissure, with a maximum of 12 fissures active simultaneously.

  Due to the accumulation of Rage, this makes your attacks much more powerful than normal attacks in bear form, as the multiple fissures allow you to create three branching fissures with each ground pound, and Rage generated by the fissures triggers totems.

  Other Bear Form Skills

  While Fury of the Mountain is the foundation, it needs to be used in conjunction with other bear form skills to meet your damage output needs. These mainly include:

  • Maul: As the main attack method in bear form, it performs a powerful sweeping attack, accumulating Rage with each enemy hit.
  • Furious Slam: Creates a shockwave by slamming the ground, and can consume Rage to increase the shockwave's power, leaving behind jagged ground. This ground can interact with other skills to deal additional damage.
  • Rampage: This skill guides you forward, continuously slamming the ground, suitable for clearing groups of enemies and for quick movement. Consuming Rage can also extend its duration.
  • Ferocious Roar: As a Warcry skill, it instantly generates Rage when there are enemies nearby and empowers subsequent attacks to break through enemy armor. It can also be triggered in human form by equipping a supporting gem.
  • Walking Calamity: As the ultimate skill in bear form, it triggers when your Rage reaches its maximum, summoning a meteor shower that deals fire damage to enemies and restores Rage over its duration.

  Overall, Raging Fissure Bear Build relies on slam and fissure damage. Therefore, in each battle, you should use Fury of the Mountain at least once or twice, then sequentially cast Maul and Furious Slam as a combo.

  Properly Combining Human Form Skills

  After transforming into a bear, you can still use your human form Druid skills, and they are an important part of crafting any Druid build. For Raging Fissure Bear Build, the essential human skill is Volcano.

  The skill's damage itself isn't impressive, but after using Fury of the Mountain or Rampage, Volcano can help accumulate damage and ignite enemies, making them more susceptible to your sustained damage.

  More importantly, if you later unlock Invigorating Hate passive node, it transforms Volcano into a healing skill, restoring your health by consuming Rage, 1% for every point of Rage consumed.

  Considering that you will constantly accumulate Rage, either actively or passively, while using this build, this passive node will significantly enhance your survivability and self-healing capabilities as a bear, allowing you to survive even in boss battles.

  

  How To Choose Your Ascendancy Class?

  Druid has two Ascendancy Classes: Shaman and Oracle. Here, we recommend unlocking the former, because Shaman has two passive abilities that are very important for accumulating and using Rage: Druidic Champion and Furious Wellspring.

  As we've emphasized multiple times in the previous sections, Raging Fissure Bear Build is a build that relies on Rage. Druidic Champion can increase your spell damage by accumulating Rage, and Furious Wellspring helps restore the consumed Rage.

  It's worth noting that to fully utilize the advantage of increased spell damage, we recommend equipping Tornado skill gem.

  This skill creates a tornado that continuously damages surrounding enemies. You can also utilize projectiles to collide with the tornado as it moves forward to deal even more damage.

  If the tornado covers elemental ground, it will absorb nearby debuffs for 4 seconds and apply that effect to enemies within the tornado. This is also expected to work very well in conjunction with the wyvern form.

  How To Choose Gear?

  Since the skill switching and usage suggestions are already quite complex and comprehensive, this build doesn't have very high gear requirements, especially in the early stages of the league.

  Of course, if you have the time to farm rarer gear, or any PoE 2 currency that allows you to modify gear affixes, we recommend choosing gear according to the following guidelines:

  • Weapons: Prioritize Talismans with fixed damage and attack speed bonuses.
  • Armor: While striving to stack defensive attributes, also consider your elemental weaknesses. Having energy shields would be even better.
  • Other: Anything that increases damage output or elemental resistance is good.

  That's all the information about Raging Fissure Bear Build that we have for you today. If the bear form is your preferred playstyle, then why not try Raging Fissure Bear Build using our guide? You're sure to gain something from it!

• Path Of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 Top 4 Druid Builds Guide: Which Is The Best Choice For You In The Endgame?

  Druid, a new class introduced in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0, boasts one of the most flexible and sustainable combat cycles in the game, encouraging players to be creative and experiment with new build layouts. However, as a new class, many players are not yet fully familiar with Druid, and blindly starting a league journey with an unfamiliar build carries considerable risk.

  If you want to know if Druid is advantageous in the late game and worth trying, this guide might provide the answers. We're sharing some unique Druid build playstyles here, hoping to bring you more exciting new inspiration in POE 2!

  

  Tornado Shaman Druid Build

  First, we'll mention Tornado Shaman build. This Shaman utilizes Advancing Storm Support and Ground Surfaces debuffs to transform tornadoes into devastating whirlwinds.

  Notably, tornadoes absorb any elemental Ground effects they encounter, enhancing the tornado's power and dealing extra damage. Since Druid's Wolf form can easily freeze enemies, this means we can use this support skill to create Chilled Ground, freezing enemies standing in it, reducing their movement speed for a default duration of 6 seconds.

  Furthermore, we've also set up a curse skill to create Burning Ground, and equipped a unique pair of boots that generate Shocked Ground, fully utilizing these Ground debuffs.

  For Shaman Ascendancy passive, we chose Wisdom of the Maji node, which unlocks new affixes for runes and idols, gaining additional bound affix bonuses. Additionally, it synergizes well with the new Idol item: Idol of Maxarius, increasing our storm cap for maximum damage.

  Flame Breath Wyvern Druid Build

  If you don't like the tornado playstyle, Wyvern's Flame Breath might offer you ideal damage and the most spectacular visual effects.

  Flame Breath, as the ultimate skill of Wyvern form, is incredibly powerful, especially for ignite builds. This is because it has a unique mechanism: each attack stacks the ignite effect, and the ignite damage increases rapidly over time. 

  Flame Breath boasts a base attack speed of 800% and a Magnitude of Ignite of 750%, making it a devastating DoT (Damage over Time) skill. Once Ignite is fully stacked, it can deal hundreds of times your attack damage per second.

  However, Flame Breath is a Rage-dependent skill, so we need sufficient Rage to sustain flight and unleash our fury.

  To accelerate Rage generation, we utilize the new Persistent Buff Skill Support Gem, Eternal Rage. When linked to a skill, it significantly increases Rage regeneration, allowing Druid players to continuously cast devastating skills such as shapeshifting and channeling.

  We also use Primal Hunger Passive, which restores one Rage per second for every four Rage consumed in the past 4 seconds, while also increasing our maximum Rage by 100%.

  Additionally, don't forget to unlock all Ignite and Rage nodes in the skill tree's Jewel area. With all of this, we can simply take to the skies, ready to unleash flames and destroy all enemies.

  

  Plants Spellcaster Druid Build

  The next build setup revolves around Oracle Ascendancy, utilizing plant power as the primary means of output, and using spell totems to generate automated plant explosion effects.

  The core of this build is Wildsurge Incantation keystone, which allows all storm and plant spells to deal higher damage and consume fewer resources, but at the cost of significantly shorter spell duration. However, since we are automating the process, duration isn't a major issue.

  In addition, the new unique item Voll's Protector is an indispensable key element in this plant-based build, ensuring we always have enough energy charges to summon totems. Once we generate the initial charges, the totems can sustain themselves.

  If we place Entangle skill on a spell totem, we can also create roots to trap enemies in place. Combined with Accelerated Growth and Thrashing Vines, this can create a true plant-based catastrophe, allowing you to escape even the toughest monsters and bosses.

  Wolf Druid Build

  If you're not interested in plant power and prefer to destroy enemies with a pack of minion friends, then this Wolf Druid build is a good starting point. To support a large army of wolf minions, you can choose Lord of the Wilds keystone, allowing you to equip a scepter while using Animal Talismans. This will empower your minions and provide you with a powerful pack of eight wolves. As they leap across the map, they deal enough damage to shred enemies and attract even more wolves to join the pack.

  Additionally, Lunar Assault helps clear and freeze enemies, and empowers your wolves, resulting in higher damage.

  This build also utilizes rage in several ways. It uses Commanding Rage to allow your rage stacks to affect your wolf pack's damage. Rage also extends the duration of Lunar Blessing, a skill that provides more frost damage to the entire party and creates devastating moonlight beams with each attack.

  In short, these are all Druid endgame builds worth trying right now, with even more details waiting for you to explore. As you can see, Druid class in PoE 2 0.4.0 offers many options, whether you're sweeping across the map with storms, raining down deadly fire from the heavens, unleashing the destructive power of plants, or rampaging across the continent of Wraeclast with your loyal wolf companions, there's a build to suit your primal combat style.

  You can seamlessly switch between various playstyles such as tanking, burst damage, or ranged attacks, complemented by powerful elemental skills, allowing for deep customization and creating builds that could potentially disrupt the game balance, making it a highly anticipated and exciting build!

• Path Of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 Shaman Guide | How To Unlock And Play This Druid Ascendancy Class?

  The latest patch for Path of Exile 2, The Last of the Druids, has begun. Do you prefer a familiar class, or are you eager to experience Druid? If you choose the latter, you'll eventually have to choose between Shaman and Oracle again.

  Both are Druid Ascendancy classes, but you can only choose one at a time, and you can't change to experience the other one afterward unless you create a new character to continue playing.

  To ensure you can progress more smoothly in the game with an Ascendancy class that suits you better, this patch will provide a detailed introduction to the features and gameplay of Shaman.

  

  Shaman Overview

  This Ascendancy class further expands upon Druid's ability to deal spell and elemental damage. By combining unique skill sets, it gains more charges and buffs, increasing damage output and skill rotation efficiency.

  More specifically, Shaman can accumulate Rage during combat as a power source, then unleash it to amplify elemental damage, sometimes even creating powerful combos to quickly clear hordes of enemies within melee range.

  How To Unlock Shaman?

  Like other Ascendancy classes, unlocking Shaman requires completing Trial of the Sekhemas in Act 2 and Trial of Chaos in Act 3 to obtain enough points to unlock his unique ability. The specific process is as follows:

  Act 2:

  • 1. After arriving in hub town, find Traitor's Passage area and enter Trial of the Sekhemas.
  • 2. Defeat the boss Balbala the Traitor to obtain a special token.
  • 3. Place the token on Relic Altar at the trial entrance to officially begin the trial.
  • 4. Upon completion, Ascendancy class mechanic will be unlocked, allowing you to choose one and immediately gain two Ascendancy points 1&2.

  Act 3:

  • 1. Enter Vaal Jungle and find Temple of Chaos.
  • 2. Defeat the boss Xyclucian, the Chimera, to obtain the key item Chimeral Inscribed Ultimatum.
  • 3. Use this item to unlock and enter Trial of Chaos. Successfully completing it will grant Ascendancy points 3&4.

  While you can also unlock Ascendancy class by defeating the boss in Trial of Chaos, we recommend completing it as early as possible in Act 2. Both trials will also provide additional rewards, including gear, gems, and random types of PoE 2 currency.

  It is rumored that a third trial will be added in Act 4, but details about the plan have only been revealed so far. For now, focus on the two existing trials.

  Shaman's Unique Abilities

  In Path of Exile 2, all basic class skills are used as skill gems (as was the case in the first game), resulting in cross-class skill equipping. However, Ascendancy class passive skills are unique to each class.

  Sacred Flow

  The passive effect of this skill is that it increases your Spirit by 40 for every empty Charm slot. Therefore, if your builds rely on Spirit consumption, you can selectively equip gear and utilize empty slots to keep your builds running.

  Wisdom Of The Maji

  Unlocking this node provides additional bonuses to your runes, such as increased damage or critical strike chance. This makes your overall strength even greater after equipping runes to gear.

  Druidic Champion And Furious Wellspring

  These two skills are discussed together because their effects are strongly correlated.

  Every 2 Rage points you accumulate, Druidic Champion increases your spell damage by 1%, while Furious Wellspring restores 6% of your Rage per second while it naturally decays.

  Combining these means that Rage is replenished as it is consumed, and the replenishment exceeds the consumption, allowing you to easily craft a Shaman build centered around Rage.

  Bringer Of The Apocalypse

  This skill, after you've dealt sufficient elemental damage through other attacks, will continue to inflict damage from different natural elements, such as fire or lightning, on enemies, culminating in a final burst to completely eliminate any remaining foes.

  How To Choose Gear As A Shaman?

  Based on Wisdom of the Maji skill effect, you should first add as many gears as possible that can be inlaid with runes to maximize their bonuses, ideally those with affixes that increase critical hit damage.

  Secondly, you can add weapons that utilize Spirit or Rage mechanics, allowing other skills to also function. Of course, don't forget you don't need to fill all your gear slots.

  How To Play It In Conjunction With Druid?

  While Druid and Shaman skills belong to two separate systems, they are closely intertwined in practice. In human form, Druid primarily deals damage through nature spells, while Shaman skills amplify these damage effects.

  If you want to diversify your gameplay, you can transform into an animal. For example, in bear form, you can ram enemies into a volcano created by Volcano skill, inflicting more fire damage; in wyvern form, you can launch aerial attacks.

  What Are The Advantages Compared To Oracle?

  Of course, each Ascendancy class is unique; none is inherently better than another. The key is how you utilize them.

  Shaman excels at providing direct damage bonuses, attacking enemies with instant bursts of elemental damage, while Oracle's gameplay requires prediction and strategic planning in the early stages of combat, but ultimately yields reliable benefits.

  Therefore, if you're an impatient player who enjoys a fast-paced, high-intensity playstyle, Shaman is a better fit.

  That concludes our introduction to Druid Ascendancy class, Shaman. Based on the information we've provided, you can craft your own Shaman builds to conquer the challenges of the new league! Good luck!

• Path Of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 Summoner Builds Tier List | Best Minions & Class Picks

  Path of Exile 2's class and skill combinations are incredibly complex, resulting in numerous playstyles. Unfortunately, summoner builds have consistently lacked a place among the top-tier builds.

  While it's unclear whether the new Druid class can change this, each league has a dedicated group of players researching minion builds. Below, we'll examine the performance of minion builds in Patch 0.3.0 and the adjustments in Patch 0.4.0 to see which ones will perform best in Fate of the Vaal league.

  

  Tier S

  Spectre Builds

  Since skills in Path of Exile 2 aren't tied to classes, you can choose either Spectre Infernalist build or Spectre Shaman build.

  Of all summoning skills, Spectre performed best in Patch 0.3.0, allowing you to enslave Spectres to fight for you. The strongest Spectre was Frozen Mandibles. Unfortunately, it was removed in Patch 0.4. As compensation, the developers stated they will buff some summon variants.

  Therefore, as long as Spectre builds aren't significantly nerfed, you can use Powered Zealot Spectre to clear monsters and single enemies, or Death Knight Spectres to deal with single enemies.

  Ascendancy Recommends

  If you're only focusing on the early game, Spectre Shaman has a greater advantage because its Sacred Flow talent can provide a large amount of Spirit by sacrificing charm slots. Thanks to the changes in Act 2 quest Valley of Titans, Shaman can obtain a belt that grants +2 charm slots at lower levels, allowing for a large amount of Spirit early on.

  Later in the game, you can respec to Oracle, as Oracle talent tree contains many summon-related nodes, providing strong late-game defense or damage.

  Alternatively, you can choose the classic Infernalist build from patch 0.3.0, or Ritualist and Lich using Evergrasping Ring. Shaman and Infernalist may perform similarly with a moderate PoE 2 currency investment, but Lich and Oracle are likely the strongest with top-tier gear.

  Tame Beast Builds

  This build requires you to control Tamed Beast by switching weapons and using Infernal Legion auxiliary gem to deal area-of-effect fire damage.

  Patch 0.4.0 did not significantly nerf its damage, and while the reduction in high-density maps may diminish its value for clearing, Tamed Beast builds remain consistently strong in single-target damage and overall performance, its strength proportional to your PoE 2 currency investment.

  Ascendancy Recommends

  The energy shield nerf in patch 0.4.0 may make Titan Tamed Beast better, but you can also choose to start as Shaman and transition to Oracle later, again due to the summon life and defense nodes included in the talents, and the higher your summons‘ HP, the higher their damage.

  Tier A

  Skeleton Archer Ritualist Build

  This build requires Ritualist to equip Evergrasping Rings, granting summons additional Chaos that also affects enemies within range. It typically requires Chaos Inoculation to mitigate the additional Chaos damage taken.

  This build performs exceptionally well with high investment, but it's not a comfortable early-game choice. Upgrading with summons is not recommended without transitional gear; other skills are usually needed for early game progression, followed by a gear swap to reach full potential later.

  In Patch 0.4.0, any summoner build relying heavily on Spirits was affected by reduced reservation efficiency and weakened Relics. However, this build, primarily reliant on the ring's damage boost, was relatively less affected.

  Tier B

  Skeletal Reaver Builds

  Skeletal Reavers gain attack speed and damage by stacking rage. Patch 0.4.0 fixed this skill's description; now, its attack speed bonus only applies when they are enrage-enhanced.

  The challenge was ensuring Skeletal Reavers survived after enrage was active. Tecrod's Revenge support gem enhancement solved this problem. It allows summons to survive longer after their health reaches 0, increasing this time from 10 seconds to 20 seconds. Dialla's Desire support gem can improve skill quality, further increasing rage effects, which might potentially lead to higher damage.

  Ascendancy Recommends

  This skill gem can be used by Titans, Ritualists, Shamans, and Liches, but its effectiveness depends on which class allows Skeletal Reavers to stack rage more efficiently.

  Unearth Raise Zombie Builds

  This build primarily relies on summoned enhanced zombies that consume Power Charge. Its damage bonus has changed from a fixed 100% to a dynamic value that scales with skill level, meaning high-level zombies have significant damage potential.

  You can use Unearth to quickly generate summons for clearing maps. When single-target damage is needed, summon 10-12 enhanced zombies for burst damage. This build is completely unaffected by the reduction in reservation efficiency, but it heavily relies on Power Charge.

  The best method is to use new Lineage support gems, which generate one Power Charge every 4 seconds. Additionally, Profane Ritual can consume corpses to generate critical strike orbs.

  Sacrifice aura can treat permanently resurrectable summons as corpses, consume them with Profane Ritual, and then resurrect them with Skeletal Cleric, allowing you to continuously generate Power Charge.

  Ascendancy Recommends

  For this build, Ritualist is the best ascendancy choice because it doesn't rely on a lot of spirit and benefits from Evergrasping Rings and Uul-Netol's Embrace. The problem with this build is that it's relatively cumbersome to operate, and the summoned creatures are temporary and cannot exist indefinitely. Furthermore, using Raise Zombie is very mana-intensive, so you need to be mindful of your resource consumption.

  The above minion builds are just basic concepts. You can research how to increase minion damage in new leagues, and perhaps you can even create a stronger build.