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It feels like we have been waiting for Path of Exile 2 forever, and the latest news does not exactly make the wait easier for players hoping to farm rare PoE 2 Items and try every single class on day one. Jonathan Rogers, the game director, has said they are still targeting a 2026 release for version 1.0, but even with that long runway, the team is struggling to get everything into shape. The plan now sounds more like a prioritised launch: campaign first, balance first, and some character classes probably pushed back so the game doesn’t ship as a half-broken mess.
Rogers has been pretty open about the problem. Getting the campaign to feel good, making sure the early game isn’t ridiculously spiky, and trying to tune all the skills around new systems is eating up way more time than they expected. So instead of cramming in every planned class and hoping nothing explodes, they are talking about trimming the launch roster. He did joke that he can’t imagine Path of Exile 2 without swords, so melee fans who want to swing steel and play something close to a duelist should be safe. Still, if you were dreaming of rolling a very specific off-meta class on day one, you might have to wait for a later patch.
While we wait, version 0.4.0 is trying to convince everyone that parrying is worth learning, even if most players have kinda ignored it so far. The new patch makes a successful parry hit all enemies in front of you, not just the one you timed it on, and the main target still takes the hit even if it has moved a bit. There are new passives tied into parry too, so if you like reactive, skill-based combat, you might finally get something that feels good instead of clunky. Alongside that, sprinting got a huge quality-of-life update: when you run, the strong stun effect no longer falls off so fast. In practice, it means you are not getting chain-stunned quite as often when you sprint out of a nasty pack, which should save a lot of characters that would otherwise just fall over.
Of course, no PoE-style patch lands without at least one build getting deleted. In 0.4.0, that unlucky victim is the Lich crossbow setup that abused The Last Lament. That combo was doing silly damage and completely warping balance, so GGG went in hard and the build is basically gone. Ambrosia also got hit; its power level was a bit too comfy, so if you relied on it to carry you, you are going to feel that nerf right away. Crafters are not thrilled either, since two Omens were removed, making some of the higher-end crafting routes more awkward and more expensive. On the brighter side, Quarterstaffs finally got some attention, so staff enjoyers get to experiment, while bow users are eating a few hits this time around.
Looking ahead, the 2026 window and the idea of missing classes at launch are not what long-time fans wanted to hear, but it is still better than a rushed release that breaks half the game. Players will probably spend the next few leagues poking at parry builds, checking if the new passives make it worth slotting into endgame setups, and figuring out what replaces the old Lich crossbow and Ambrosia combos. Crafters will adjust, they always do, and new metas will show up around the changes to Quarterstaffs and bows. If nothing else, there is still a lot of time to plan your next character, theorycraft new setups, and decide when you want to buy PoE 2 Items to support whatever build survives the next round of patches.
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