Complete Guide to Breach Farming in Path of Exile 2: How to Defeat Xesht and Get Unique Loot

Breach Farming Guide

This guide provides the basics of Breach farming, its rewards, and how to challenge the pinnacle boss, Xesht.

While progressing through your Atlas by completing Waystones, you may encounter maps that feature Breach encounters. These maps contain a Breach Hand, which, when stepped through, opens a gateway to the Breach world. You must then defeat waves of Breach monsters. Slaying enemies increases the encounter's duration and spawns more monsters. Additionally, Breach Hands can appear and drop extra loot when interacted with.

The exclusive rewards from Breach encounters include Catalysts, which improve the quality of your Rings and Amulet, and Breach Splinters, which are used to craft Breachstones.

How to Run Breach

"Look for a map with the Breach hand icon to find Breach encounters!"

Breach is a simple mechanic. To begin the encounter, simply step onto the Breach Hand. Then, you must defeat the enemies before they overwhelm you. Monsters always spawn from the edges of the Breach, so focus on clearing the center first to give yourself more space. Standing near the edges will cause monsters to spawn rapidly, which can overwhelm you. As you clear out the center, keep an eye out for Clasped Hands. Interacting with these will open them and drop loot such as Catalysts or Breach Splinters.

To ensure a Breach encounter on some of your Waystones, use a Breach Precursor Tablet on a Watchtower. This will add a Breach encounter to the Waystones specified in the implicit modifier of the tablet. Any explicit modifiers will apply to all incomplete maps within the tower’s radius.

Pinnacle Boss

Breach, like all Atlas Mechanics in Path of Exile 2's early access, features a Pinnacle Boss encounter. After collecting 300 Breach Splinters and combining them, you will receive a Breachstone. Place this Breachstone into the Realmgate at the center of your Atlas to open a portal to the Breach realm, where you will face Xesht, We That Are One.

To reach Xesht, open the Breach Hand at the beginning of the encounter and fight your way through hordes of enemies until you reach the end of the stage. You'll know you're at the end when any loot dropped by monsters during the stage will instead be dropped at the end.

The boss has four difficulty levels that can be increased through the Breach-specific Atlas Passive Tree, up to difficulty level 4. Increasing the difficulty of the bosses has several effects, including:

• Enhanced Abilities
• Higher Health Pool and Damage
• Better Unique Item Drops

Abilities

Crushing Palm

Xesht raises his arms and summons a hand that hovers above you. After a short delay, the hand will slam down, dealing massive damage. The hand casts a shadow on the ground—use this to time your dodge.

Xoph/Esh/Tul

Xesht invokes the power of the Breachlords:

• Xoph
  Xesht hurls a fire meteor at your location after a short delay. Dodge by moving to the opposite side of Xesht once it starts falling.
• Esh
  Xesht emits a shockwave of Lightning damage from a targeted location. Simply run out of the area.
• Tul
  Xesht fires many cold projectiles that can freeze you. These projectiles don’t deal much damage, but being frozen leaves you vulnerable to other abilities.

Chaos Cannon

Xesht readies a volley of Chaos attacks, indicated by two purple orbs on either side of him. Dodge with well-timed rolls, or stay close to the boss and take advantage of his slow turning speed.

Physical Barrage

A long wind-up ability that deals massive physical damage. Dodge with a well-timed roll or move behind the boss as it is about to fire.

Crawling Hands

Xesht burrows underground and tracks the player. If Xesht reaches you, he slaps both hands together at your location, dealing substantial damage. To dodge this, run away until it expires, or use a well-timed dodge roll after triggering the final attack.

Crushing Fists

This is the most dangerous attack of the encounter. After reducing Xesht to 50% HP, he begins casting this. Breach Hands rise from the ground, and after a short delay, they slam down, dealing a large amount of damage. Typically, five Breach Hands will be summoned to slam down on you.

To dodge this, you can outrange the attack or perform a very well-timed dodge roll. Don’t spam your dodge roll, as you’ll need multiple dodges in succession. This ability often overlaps with other mechanics, so focus solely on dodging during this attack and ignore the boss until it completes.

Atlas Passives: Breach

Grasping Hands

Increases the number of Clasped Hands, and grants a chance for each of them to be guarded by a pack of additional Magic Monsters.

Waking Nightmare

Doubles the number of Breach Splinters that drop from Clasped Hands.

Frantic Invasion

A risky curse passive that greatly boosts the number of Breach Splinters you drop in Breaches. However, it also causes you to take 20% more damage while inside a Breach.

Rising Pyre

Grants 40% additional Monster Density inside Breaches.

Crumbling Walls

Gives a scaling chance for your map to contain additional Breaches.

Xesht's Madness

Increases the number of Catalysts you drop during a Breach, but significantly increases the difficulty by giving every Rare Monster the Soul Eater modifier.

Interdimensional Assault

Increases Breach density but causes them to close much faster.

Sustained Siege

Causes Breaches to close 30% slower.

Recommended Atlas Nodes

"Breach Atlas Tree"

Allocate these Nodes in order of importance:

Crumbling Walls

This node gives your maps a chance to contain additional Breaches. It’s especially beneficial if you're using Breach Tablets with powerful modifiers, as it allows you to clear more Breaches while the Tablet modifiers are active.

Grasping Hands

Take this second for additional loot. However, respec once you have your third set of passives.

Rising Pyre

This node significantly increases the number of monsters within your Breach. Respec Grasping Hands into Frantic Invasion after you allocate this.

The 4th option depends heavily on your build’s strength. If you have a powerful build that can reliably clear the entire Breach, take Interdimensional Assault.

If you struggle to clear a lot of the Breach, take Sustained Siege.

For a middle ground, consider reallocating Grasping Hands.

Loot

Catalysts

Defeating monsters and opening Clasped Hands has a chance to drop Catalysts. These are used to increase the quality of Rings and Amulets.

• Adaptive Catalyst
• Carapace Catalyst
• Chayula's Catalyst
• Esh's Catalyst
• Flesh Catalyst
• Neural Catalyst
• Reaver Catalyst
• Sibilant Catalyst
• Skittering Catalyst
• Tul's Catalyst
• Uul-Netol's Catalyst
• Xoph's Catalyst

Breach Splinters

Defeating monsters and opening Clasped Hands also has a chance to drop Breach Splinters. These can be combined once you reach 300 to create a Breachstone, which is used to challenge Xesht.

Pinnacle Boss

Xesht has a unique loot table that increases the number of items dropped as you increase the difficulty of the encounter. Here’s a non-comprehensive list of Unique Items that can drop:

• Skin of the Loyal
• Xoph's Blood
• Choir of the Storm
• The Pandemonius
• Hand of Wisdom and Action
• Beyond Reach