The Druid Class is so cool and fun it saved Path of Exile 2’s Fate of the Vaal League

While “saving” the league might be a stretch, it stems from Grinding Gear Games’ delay in fulfilling its promise to make endgame changes for the Fate of the Vaal or Last of the Druids league.

Even with several pages worth of additions and changes for the new league, most players were fixated on the endgame changes, as it isn’t rewarding and engaging enough.

However, there were actually two saving graces for the league: the amazing new Druid class and the Disciple of Varashta ascendancy from the Sorceress class.

Druids are out of this world

Out of all the league starter builds where I just “wing” it, the Druid wasn’t just decent, it was way stronger than I expected it to be.

Since a Druid is sort of a hybrid of a melee and caster class, you need to be more methodical in every situation, which I thought would be a way slower and grindier experience for the grueling campaign.

However, the Druid is incredibly strong throughout. You have several skills that allow you to shapeshift automatically to different forms – Werewolf, Bear, Human, and Wyvern (late game).

With skills like Pounce ready early on, the Druid’s mobility is insanely good. Bear Form gives excellent survivability buffs and can become powerful against bosses. There are even builds that let you just run around and rampage through using just one button for the whole build (Zizaran’s build).

Compared to the Amazon class’s release, the Druid is objectively better in terms of balancing, which is incredibly hard to do with a game of this depth.

Playing the Druid is fun to the point where making decisions during any situation in combat feels like you can do anything. Getting stuck or trying to round up a bunch of enemies? Play around and use Pounce when you get stuck until you can gather them all. There’s a bunch of clumped-up enemies ready to be cleaved? Throw a Volcano in and maybe smash through the middle with Rampage and start Furious Slamming those enemies. Boss fights? Throw in some Shockwave Totems and just Maul your way through.

There are so many alternatives, yet they all feel viable and strong. This is even just the build going to one of its ascendancies, the Shaman. Oracles are also a different animal altogether.

How the Druid made me stick longer for the Fate of the Vaal league

While I’ve always dreaded Path of Exile 2’s endgame from the beginning, they are slowly improving with every league in terms of depth and replayability. However, the endgame changes that were supposed to make the endgame grind more sustainable weren’t there.

The Tower system is more of a nuisance since it is something that players will be forced to with to make the experience more rewarding. With its current system, there are just too many outliers that make players interact with that system more, where they just want to go into Waystones and blast some enemies.

The grind isn’t appealing, but exploring the Druid somehow just made it worth it to see in the end. Trying to see how strong the Bear form build is enticing enough to grind through the endgame. There are even different builds you can switch to, like the Wyvern or Werewolf build, and you don’t really have to switch Ascendancies or make a drastic change that’ll take several hours to complete.

If only they had also added those endgame changes to the league, instead of that awesome and surprising Disciple of Varashta ascendancy for another cool minion build.