Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 hits different, and you can tell within a couple of maps. It's not just numbers getting nudged up or down again. Systems are being re-wired, and the knock-on effect is that your old "safe" endgame plan might feel a bit off. I've seen people jump in, do one boss run, then start rethinking their whole setup while browsing U4GM on a second monitor for ideas and gear.

Curses Finally Feel Worth Building Around

The biggest practical change is how curse-focused Ascendancy choices behave, especially anything tied to Doomed Pain. Before, you'd try to play clever: layer a curse, keep your DoT rolling, maybe squeeze in something for res shred. Then the global curse limit would slap you back to reality. Stuff overwrote. Damage dipped. Party play got messy because nobody knew whose curse was going to stick. Now that Doomed Pain doesn't count toward the cap, stacking debuffs feels intentional instead of accidental. You can keep your core curse online and still add the extra pressure that makes bosses actually melt, not just "eventually die."

Melee Gets Breathing Room

Melee players have been living with a dumb problem for a while: you're in the moment, you've got an opening, and then your mana says "nope." Patch 0.4.0 takes a real swing at that with Hammered to Perfection making certain weapon skills cost zero mana. That's not a tiny convenience. It changes how you route passives, what you expect from flasks, and how risky you can be with your uptime. You stop playing around your resource bar and start playing around the fight. More stepping in, more committing to sequences, less awkward stutter between hits.

Faster Morph Loops, Cleaner Movement

The morphing skill cooldown drop, from ten seconds to six, sounds like patch-note filler until you try it in a dense pack. Six seconds means it's basically part of your rhythm now. Transform, dump damage, reposition, transform again. You're not waiting for the game to let you have fun. And the sprint-linked attack fix is a big deal too. That old "will my character actually swing or just glide in place" bug made sprint feel like a trap in high-tier content. With attacks firing properly, sprint goes back to being a legit defensive layer, not a coin flip.

What This Patch Pushes You Toward

If you're planning builds off old instincts, you'll probably overvalue burst and undervalue flow. 0.4.0 rewards steady pressure, clean rotations, and tools that stay online. Multi-curse setups have room to breathe, melee has fewer resource potholes, and movement feels reliable enough to play aggressive without feeling reckless. It's the kind of patch that makes you tweak one node, then three, then suddenly you're pricing out upgrades and thinking about where to PoE 2 currency sell fits into your next round of crafting and swaps.