Mastering PoE 2 Endgame: Pinnacle Bosses and Atlas Progression

PoE 2 Endgame Guide - Atlas, Maps, Waystones, & More

PoE 2 Endgame Explained

Path of Exile 2 is gearing up for a massive release, with the latest Livestream unveiling all the exciting content coming on December 6th.

Despite delays leading to speculation that Early Access might only include the campaign, the announcement shattered expectations with details about an extensive endgame system ready at launch.

This guide summarizes the key mechanics revealed during the Livestream, providing everything you need to know to navigate Path of Exile 2’s endgame content.

PoE 2 Campaign Overview

The Early Access release of Path of Exile 2 will include Acts 1, 2, and 3 instead of the full six-act campaign. This approach allows developers to focus their efforts on enhancing the game’s endgame content rather than completing the entire campaign during Early Access.

To complement the shorter campaign, Path of Exile 2 introduces "Cruel Mode", requiring players to replay Acts 1-3 before accessing the endgame. This design ensures players reach the appropriate level for endgame activities while also offering a nostalgic nod to the original Path of Exile.

Cruel Mode

If you’ve played Path of Exile before, you may recall that the game initially featured only three Acts, replayed three times across Normal, Cruel, and Merciless difficulties. Similarly, in PoE 2’s Early Access, players will need to complete Cruel Mode to progress into the endgame.

• Progression: Completing Cruel Mode ensures your character reaches the expected level for endgame content.
• Time Commitment: Normal difficulty is estimated to take around 25 hours, while Cruel Mode will take less time as your character grows stronger.
• Content Richness: With both Normal and Cruel difficulties, Early Access already offers substantial content for players to explore. For those seeking even more, the robust endgame system promises hours of progression and challenge.

Atlas & Maps in Path of Exile 2

Upon reaching the endgame in Path of Exile 2, you'll be introduced to the Atlas, an infinite map that expands in all directions. This dynamic system serves as the core of the endgame content you’ll explore.

Atlas Overview: Each small circle on the Atlas represents a portal to a Map.

• Blue Portals: Show Maps that are currently accessible.
• Grey Portals: Indicate Maps you can progress toward.
• Green Portals: Represent Maps you have already completed.

As you traverse these Maps, your objective will be to clear the corruption plaguing the world, battle powerful monsters, and acquire valuable loot.

Waystones

A significant change in PoE 2 compared to its predecessor is how Maps are accessed. Instead of finding Maps as droppable items like in PoE 1, Maps are now integrated directly into the Atlas, requiring you to progress continuously. This shift introduces a new mechanic: Waystones.

Entering Maps: To access a Map, you’ll need a Waystone.

• The tier of the Waystone determines the level and tier of monsters within the Map.
• Higher-tier monsters yield more experience and better loot.

Crafting on Waystones:

• Prefixes: Enhance the rewards from your Maps.
• Suffixes: Increase the danger level of the Maps.
• Higher danger levels lead to more frequent Waystone drops or higher-tier Waystones.

Crafting on your Waystones is vital to sustaining your supply and ensuring a steady progression toward higher-tier Maps and rewards. Balancing risk and reward through crafting is key to optimizing your Atlas exploration.

PoE 2 Map Mechanics: Artifacts, Strongboxes, Essences

In Path of Exile 2 maps, you’ll encounter a variety of monsters, bosses, and mechanics that enhance gameplay and reward exploration. Here’s a quick breakdown of three key mechanics you’ll find in maps by default:

Precursor Artifacts

Precursor Artifacts replace the Shrines from PoE 1. These are special locations where monsters gather. Clearing out the monsters and activating the Artifact grants your character a temporary buff, making it a valuable asset during challenging encounters.

Strongboxes

Strongboxes contain both loot and monsters. Each Strongbox comes with unique modifiers that can either buff the monsters it spawns or debuff your character upon opening.

Mechanics:

• Defeat all monsters spawned by the Strongbox to access the loot inside.
• Modifiers on Strongboxes can significantly increase difficulty but often result in better rewards.

Essences

Essences are a staple mechanic in maps, found within monsters encased in crystals. Releasing these monsters and defeating them yields Essences, essential crafting materials in PoE 2.

Crafting Utility:

• Essences guarantee a specific type of modifier on an item, making them powerful tools for targeted crafting.

Changes from PoE 1

• In PoE 1, Essences were used to reroll rare items into new rare ones with a guaranteed modifier.
• In PoE 2, Essences appear to have more focused functionality:
  • You can only upgrade an item one tier and add one specific modifier.
  • Essences now allow upgrading Normal items into Magic items, enabling you to achieve two desired modifiers when transitioning to a Rare item.

These changes streamline crafting and offer new strategies for creating powerful gear in the early and mid-game.

PoE 2 Atlas Progression

Now that we’ve covered the basics of the Atlas, let’s dive into how to progress through it. Completing maps is your main way to advance, unlocking new regions and special encounters as you traverse further into the endgame.

How to Complete a Map

• To complete a map, you must defeat all Rare and Unique monsters present.
• If you die in a map, it becomes inaccessible, and you’ll need to reroute around its portal.

Atlas Skill Tree

As you progress through the Atlas and conquer higher-tier maps, you’ll earn Atlas Passive Skill Points, which can be allocated on the Atlas Skill Tree.

• Customization: Use these points to enhance your maps by increasing their danger and reward. Add mechanics like more monsters, rare enemies, strongboxes, and essences.
• Optimization: While some strategies for the Atlas Tree will become standard among players, it’s also a personal system. Allocate passives based on your playstyle or what your character can handle.

Towers

Towers are key mechanics in the Atlas, offering a way to scout further into the map.

• Clearing a Tower unveils a larger region of your Atlas, allowing you to plan your progression.
• Towers also serve as locations to insert Precursor Tablets, a feature tied to other endgame systems covered later in the guide.

Additional Atlas Features

• Biomes: The Atlas is divided into various biomes, with specific maps restricted to certain regions.
• Cities: Offer unique drops and rewards.
• Realmgates: Used to activate other endgame encounters.
• Reliquary Vaults: Contain shiny random items.
• Unique Maps: Found directly on the Atlas instead of dropping as items.
• The Seer: Occasionally appears in maps, granting a free Unique item.
• Hideouts: Clear the monsters inside to establish a new base.
• Corrupted Areas: Some maps are corrupted, introducing dangerous modifiers. Killing monsters in close proximity spawns additional demonic foes, reminiscent of the Beyond mechanic from PoE 1.

Map Bosses

While exploring the Atlas, you’ll encounter special markers indicating the presence of a Map Boss. These are enhanced versions of campaign bosses with increased difficulty and rewards.

• Rewards: Defeating a Map Boss grants special Atlas Tree points, usable in the "Boss" section of the tree.
• Frequency: Not all maps will have a boss. Approximately 1 in 4 maps contains a boss, and their difficulty has been significantly increased.
• Optional: You can avoid Map Bosses by rerouting on the Atlas, but skipping them means missing out on valuable loot and progression points.

PoE 2 Endgame Systems & Mechanics

If the Atlas wasn’t enough to satisfy your hunger for progression, Path of Exile 2 brings even more endgame systems to explore. These mechanics offer unique progression opportunities and exclusive loot. At the start of Early Access, players can dive into seven additional endgame systems, five of which have dedicated sections in the Atlas Skill Tree.

Below, we’ll provide a brief overview of each system, with detailed guides for each mechanic coming later. For these four mechanics, special sections on the Atlas Skill Tree allow for further customization and optimization.

Breach

In maps marked with the Breach icon, players will encounter portals to another dimension.

How it Works:

• Step on the purple hand icon to open a Breach, summoning waves of monsters from another realm.
• Quickly defeating these monsters will cause the Breach to expand, summoning even more enemies.

Rewards:

• Catalysts: A currency item that enhances the quality of rings, amplifying specific modifiers. Regular rings can reach up to 20% quality, but Breach Rings go up to 50%, making them among the most powerful rings in the game.
• Breach Rings: Exclusive to this mechanic, these rings are highly sought after for their potential to create powerful builds.

Be sure to prioritize Breach encounters in your maps if you’re aiming to collect Catalysts and Breach Rings to strengthen your build.

PoE 2 Endgame Systems: Ritual, Delirium, Expedition, and More

Path of Exile 2 introduces a variety of endgame mechanics, each offering unique challenges, rewards, and progression systems. Below, we explore Ritual, Delirium, Expedition, Precursor Tablets, and Realmgates.

Ritual

Maps with the Ritual marker contain Altars where you slay nearby monsters to charge the Altar. Once activated, these monsters are revived, and you must defeat them again to gain Tribute. Tribute can then be used at the Altar to exchange for rewards. Each map contains multiple Altars, and the final one combines all sacrifices from previous Altars, resulting in a massive fight for greater rewards. Special crafting items called Omens, purchasable with Tribute, allow players to bend crafting rules and create extremely powerful gear.

Delirium

In Delirium maps, interacting with a sinister mirror creates a mist, summoning monsters from your nightmares. The deeper you go into the mist, the harder the encounter becomes, but the rewards increase as well. The encounter ends when you stop moving or use a button near your mana bar. Rewards include "Distilled Emotions," which can be used to anoint your Amulet, granting access to a Passive Tree Notable. These emotions can also be applied to maps to make them Delirious, increasing difficulty and rewards.

Expedition

Expeditions involve Kalguuran settlers digging for treasure. Using explosives unearths loot and monsters. Defeating these monsters grants access to buried treasure and drops special currencies for trading with Kalguuran NPCs. Remnants in the dig site apply buffs to buried monsters, so reading their effects carefully is crucial to avoid overwhelming fights.

Precursor Tablets

These items enhance your Atlas progression by increasing encounter frequency in specific maps. Tablets can be inserted into Towers, boosting certain mechanics like Breach or Delirium. Overlapping Towers with multiple Tablets allows for even more lucrative rewards. Each Tablet can have up to two crafted modifiers for further customization.

Realmgates

Realmgates are special Atlas locations used to access final encounters. For example, completing Breaches yields Breach Splinters, which combine into Breachstones. These can be placed into a Realmgate to enter the Twisted Domain and fight the Breach Boss, Xesht, We Who Are One. Realmgate mechanics likely apply to other endgame activities, including Simulacrum for Delirium and Expedition Logbooks.

PoE 2 Endgame Trials

In addition to the previously mentioned endgame systems, Trials will play a significant role in Path of Exile 2’s endgame. These mechanics, which you first encounter to unlock Ascendancies, extend into the endgame with more challenging encounters and exclusive rewards. Below, we delve into two major Trials: the Trial of the Sekhemas and the Trial of Chaos.

Trial of the Sekhemas

This Trial draws inspiration from the "Sanctum" mechanic in PoE 1, offering roguelike dungeon exploration. Here, players must manage a special resource called Honour. Taking damage reduces Honour, and if it reaches zero, you fail the encounter.

Rewards in the Trial of the Sekhemas include Jewels, which are slotted into your Passive Skill Tree to grant powerful bonuses, often surpassing the value of standard passive nodes. These Jewels can also be crafted for even greater utility.

The Trial features its own progression system, allowing players to earn Relics, which can either ease or increase the difficulty of subsequent runs in exchange for better rewards. Completing a run may grant you a Unique Relic, which increases the challenge significantly but offers exclusive Unique items upon completion.

Trial of Chaos

The Trial of Chaos builds upon the Ultimatum mechanic from PoE 1, pushing players through escalating waves of Trials with increasing difficulty. Each Trial introduces buffed monsters, environmental hazards, and other dangerous effects.

Players choose the challenges they face as they progress, with successful completion granting rewards such as Vaal Orbs and Soul Cores.

• Vaal Orbs: A currency item used to corrupt items. Corruption prevents further crafting but offers the potential for powerful effects. However, there’s also a risk of ruining the item by altering or removing modifiers. Corruption can even be applied to Unique items, which are typically unmodifiable.
• Soul Cores: Special items that can be socketed into gear to provide additional modifiers.

Progressing deeper into the Trial of Chaos will eventually unlock the Trialmaster’s Tower, a final encounter shrouded in mystery. Players can expect a challenging fight with exceptional rewards waiting at the end.

Pinnacle Bosses

Pinnacle Bosses represent the ultimate challenge in Path of Exile 2. While details about these encounters remain scarce to avoid spoilers, they promise to test the limits of your build and skill.

Pinnacle Boss Fortress

Occasionally, you’ll discover a mysterious Pinnacle Boss Fortress on the Atlas. To gain entry, you must collect three keys by defeating faction bosses scattered across the Atlas.

Each faction boss is protected by two lieutenants, located in adjacent zones. If you fail any of these battles, the faction will relocate, forcing you to track them down again. Once you’ve defeated the lieutenants and their leader, you’ll secure the necessary keys to access the Pinnacle Boss Fortress.

Defeating the Pinnacle Boss will reward you with points for a specialized section of the Atlas Passive Tree, further enhancing your endgame progression.