POE2 Endgame Guide
Patch 0.5.0 — Return of the Ancients overhauls the entire endgame. The Atlas now has fixed points of interest, an immediate goal as soon as you finish the campaign, and pop-out progress bars for every active questline. "All league mechanics on the Atlas now have quests that introduce the mechanic and guide you through its various stages up to the Pinnacle Boss."
The new endgame breaks into three buckets:
- 5 new endgame storylines — Fortress (Origins of Divinity, also unlocks the Atlas passive tree), Delirium (Hare and Raven), Breach (Waking the Dreamer), Ritual (Rite of the Nameless), and Masters of the Atlas (endgame ascendancy-style progression).
- 2 core revamps — Abyss and Vaal Temple (Fate of the Vaal). Both were in the game already; both got Atlas placement, Atlas-tree treatment, and quest framing in 0.5.
- 1 new league — The Runes of Aldur (Explore the Uncharted Seas, with Farrow). The old Expedition mechanic is temporarily disabled on Standard for the league''s duration.
The Arbiter of Ash has been moved into the Fortress. The new top pinnacle is the Arbiter of Divinity, at the Fortress core.
Community names (Breach, Vaal Temple, Ritual, Delirium, Fortress) are kept as the primary heading for each section; the 0.5 storyline names appear as subtitles.
- Fortress — Origins of Divinity (also grants the Atlas passive tree)
- Delirium — Hare and Raven
- Breach — Waking the Dreamer · Genesis Tree
- Ritual — Rite of the Nameless
- Masters of the Atlas — endgame ascendancy-style progression
- Abyss — fixed eastern cracks, revamped Atlas tree
- Vaal Temple — Fate of the Vaal: now core campaign + endgame
- The Runes of Aldur — Explore the Uncharted Seas with Farrow
Breach — Waking the Dreamer (Keepers of the Flame)
Hub: The Monastery of the Keepers (South)
First endgame Breach introduces Alith, a Keeper of the Flame — an ancient order of monks dedicated to preventing the Hiveborn from entering the world. She recruits you and sends you south to the monastery. Along the way you encounter more breaches — and the first new mechanic.
New Breach mechanics
- Progress bar on starting a breach — shows time-to-close and how much each kill extends it. Reaching 100% creates a Stabilised Breach, which spawns new challenges at its start point.
- Stable breaches drop Hiveblood — the resource needed to feed the Genesis Tree.
- Sometimes you''ll attract a Vruun, Marshal of Xesht — drops Wombgifts.
- Completing nearby maps grants points for the (revamped) Breach Atlas Passive Tree.
Crafting — The Genesis Tree
The monastery houses the Genesis Tree, gifted to the Keepers by the Dreamer himself, currently withered. Restore it with Hive Blood and use Wombgifts to craft.
- Each Wombgift socket births a different jewellery type. Place an amulet wombgift, fertilise with Hive Blood, get a random rare amulet.
- Feeding the tree regrows branches — 15 allocation points across the tree control base type, mod selection, mod tier, even new exclusive base types (one with a free spirit skill, one with a built-in rune socket).
- Right branch → new caster mods on rings (extra spell elemental damage, niche options like unleash-seal generation rate).
- Left branch → new minion mods on rings — closes the long-standing gap between attack-only and caster/minion crafting density.
- Also covers belts and currency — e.g. a belt mod granting added lightning damage. New jewel catalysts (distinct from the existing jewellery catalysts that quality up rings and amulets) add quality to passive-tree jewels — letting you push attack-modifier jewels well past their normal ceiling.
- Free respec — toggle nodes on/off any time.
Breach Domains: Hives, Sky Hives, Sky Fortresses
Breachstone splinters stack into a special wombgift that turns in at the Genesis Tree for a Breachstone. Breach Domains spawn on the Atlas; the Breachstone reveals the maps inside. Encounters within a domain:
- Breach Hives — fuelled by the Keepers' flame; burn them by walking through. Each one destroyed pulls more Hiveborn; extra rewarding for Wombgifts.
- Sky Hives — a multi-wave encounter defending Ailith while she closes the domain.
- Sky Fortresses — a new pair of bosses, Tul & Esh. Defeating them drops the key to the Breach pinnacle.
Hiveborn Incursion + Pinnacle: Tul & Esh
Eventually you'll get a Wombgift that births a Breachstone. Use it on the hiveborn foothold:
- Outskirts — Breach Hives fuelled by the Keepers' flame; burn them by walking through. Each one destroyed pulls more Hiveborn. These encounters are extra rewarding for Wombgifts.
- Sky Hives — the deep objective. Inside the central sky hive: Tul and Esh, the Breach Lords.
- After the questline, breach domains spawn randomly on the Atlas. Each needs its own breachstone, sky-hive purge, and lord kill. Repeating these unlocks Xesht — fight him by communing with the Dreamer back at the monastery.
New Atlas-tree highlights
- Breach Hives spawn outside Hiveborn Domains.
- Alith gains hive-attack abilities (e.g. next wave forced Magic — way harder, way more loot).
- Marshal of Xesht gains a set of Lineage Supports.
- Xesht drops his head when killed → return to Genesis Tree, grow a grasping orchid. Putting rings on its fingers seems to make it happy.
The Runes of Aldur — New League · Ocean Exploration with Farrow
Hub: The Ruins of Kingsmarch (South-East)
The Atlas now has a south-eastern coastline with the open ocean beyond. The Ruins of Kingsmarch is the hub — the town from Act 4 in ruins after the cataclysm. You set out on an expedition with Farrow to explore the ocean, investigate the tombs of fallen Kalguurans, and seek the crater of a fallen star — a meteor of pure Verisium. Logbooks launch the journey.
Ocean Exploring (reworked from Logbooks)
The Logbook mechanic has been reworked into an Ocean Exploring mechanic — using a logbook now unveils a section of the ocean with a variety of islands to explore. Hop across them.
- Islands with expeditions, grand expeditions, new bosses, and unique encounters.
- Volcanic island example: Voltaxic Sulphite — blow up sulphite for extra waves; suspicious wall hides a giant ogre that gets bigger and more rewarding the more sulphite you've blown up.
- Bleached Shoals — siren eggs and treasure-filled clams scattered across the area; destroying eggs spawns sirens, and destroying enough summons the Siren herself to defend her brood.
- Craggy Peninsula — a camp of the Kin holed up in hovels (blow the hovels to flush them out), caged beasts you can free, and caged exiles pitted against each other.
- Inland Heath — a gigantic remnant ringed by smaller runestones; each runestone you detonate activates another slot on the master remnant, eventually opening up almost any recipe.
- Islands hide trapped wisps to free, root doors to open, ancient precursor tech to raise — and bosses, of course.
- Acquire more logbooks by killing runic monsters — marked by large flagpoles around each dig site. Each one extends how far into the ocean you can sail.
Faction Leaders & Boss chain
The patch notes confirm four Faction Leaders fought on new islands: Medved, Vorana, Uhtred, and Olroth. Defeating Olroth drops the key to the new pinnacle boss.
- Medved — his tomb has been cracked open. Turns out he''s not as dead as assumed.
- Vorana — Kalguuran faction leader fought on a new island (added in the released patch notes).
- After the first faction leaders, every new logbook lets you choose direction. The ocean is enormous — go as deep as you like.
- Uhtred, the Star Drinker — called down the Verisium meteors that powered Kalguuran magic. Killing him drops a truly gigantic meteor into the ocean.
- The meteor is shrouded by Verisium energy. To enter you need the Triskelion Flame, a Kalguuran artifact that cancels Verisium magic.
- Olroth, Leader of the Knights of the Sun — guards the Triskelion Flame. Defeat him to gain entry and obtain the key to the pinnacle.
Pinnacle name unverified
Accessed via the key dropped by Olroth. The reveal stream called it the "Eldritch Nightmare" / "Eldritch Meristem-bound" — described as the thing growing inside the meristem core of the meteor, with meristem "not available for millennia" that Farrow and Dannig can forge into lost-art artifacts. The released 0.5 patch notes do not name the pinnacle — the reveal-era name is preserved here for context but not asserted.
Remnants within Expeditions (league mechanic overlap)
Expedition encounters within the league now contain runic remnants. Crucial difference from the campaign remnant encounters: the rune empowerments apply to every monster down the explosive line and stack. Stack too many, you face a fight beyond your abilities — but each stacked mod also improves the items those monsters drop.
Artifact-spend workflow at Kingsmarch vendors
The four Kalguuran artifact types (Broken Circle, Order, Black Scythe, Sun) are each spent at a different Kingsmarch vendor. Beyond just buying a piece of gear for one artifact, you can spend additional artifacts on the same item to incrementally improve it without committing to the buy:
- Refresh the shop with exotic coinage for a fresh stock.
- Select an item with the right base. One artifact reserves it.
- Spend more artifacts to add a modifier, upgrade a modifier's tier, or change a modifier. Repeat until satisfied.
- Take the item only when the rolls are worth it. Walk away if not — you only lose the spend, not the artifact reserved up-front.
Abyss — Core revamp (already in PoE 2; got Atlas placement + tree in 0.5)
Hub: The Well of Souls (East)
First Abyss encounter in the endgame triggers a quest pointing east. There you'll find mega abyss cracks on the earth, leading away from the Well of Souls. This is the model GGG used for league mechanics that didn't get full redesigns — Atlas placement + questline + Atlas tree + a pinnacle, but no new mechanics or crafting system on top.
The crack chain
- All maps along the cracks contain abysses with special properties.
- Mapping along the cracks closes Atlas-scale abysses, granting points for the Abyss Atlas Tree.
- At the end of each Atlas Abyss is an Abyssal Depths with the boss fight for one of the three Abyssal factions — guaranteed boss access, no key RNG.
What changed in 0.5
- The Abyss Atlas Tree has been revamped with many new and changed nodes.
- Kulemak's Invitation is now always allocated to the map owner.
- Abyss Omens no longer drop below level 65.
Pinnacle name unverified
Defeat all three Abyssal faction bosses to receive the key to the Well of Souls, which unlocks the final fight. The reveal-era pinnacle name "Vessel of Kulemak" is not confirmed in the 0.5 patch notes — the section avoids asserting it.
Other note
The reveal stream described Abyss as the example for the "minor treatment" pattern. Mega-cracks and the pinnacle are the headline beats — no new crafting tree, no new currency, no new bosses beyond the three faction bosses + the pinnacle. The released 0.5 patch notes confirmed the Atlas-tree revamp, the Kulemak's Invitation change, and the Omen drop-level floor; the pinnacle name remains unconfirmed.
Ritual — Rite of the Nameless
Hub: Caer Tarth (West — the Wildwood)
First endgame Ritual summons Aoife, a lost spirit. Few words, a lot of pointing — she leads you west to Caer Tarth, where spirits take physical form. Aoife is bound by the King in the Mists; reclaim her body to free her, but you'll need an audience with the King. Completing maps along the way grants points for the revamped Ritual Atlas Passive Tree, and after each Ritual altar locusts point the way to the next altar.
Reworked Ritual mechanic
- Each Ritual area still triggers — kill bound monsters, earn Tribute.
- Stacking encounters — every Ritual you do in the area adds the previous Ritual's monsters on top. Encounters get progressively brutal.
- All items in the endgame Ritual reward screen are now Uniques or Omens — rewards just got significantly more valuable.
The Audience & the Effigy
Sacrifice unspent Tribute to the King to fill the audience bar. With enough Tribute, return to Caer Tarth and divine his location via the Nameless Shrine — kill him, take Aoife's body. That's when you learn the truth: Caer Tarth is built on top of an ancient prison, and the King's powers come from the Bodach, an ancient being of darkness whose escape is imminent.
To enter the prison you must surrender your name to the Effigy via the new Rite of the Nameless mechanic.
The Rite — A 5-map Ritual chain
- The first Ritual culminates in a map-boss kill, granting you a piece of the Effigy.
- Atlas opens — pick an adjacent map to continue. Each adjacent map has different rewards (more Tribute / unique-currency conversion / specific item offers like 5 Chaos Orbs vs a Mageblood).
- The next map's Rituals carry forward all monsters and bosses from the previous map. Final encounter requires defeating both map bosses.
- This continues for 5 maps in total. The last fight stacks five map bosses simultaneously.
The Head of the King
Killing the King in the Mists drops The Head of the King — the key used at Caer Tarth to begin the Rite. After the chain, each completed Rite yields one element of the final pinnacle key.
New boss: The Queen in the Mists
Available after allocating a specific Atlas-tree node. Drops three new corrupted Idols. Not the pinnacle — a side encounter inside the Ritual storyline.
Pinnacle name unverified (within the prison)
Reached at the end of the 5-map Rite of the Nameless. Complete the Rite, return to Caer Tarth, transfer your name to the Effigy, don the Crown of the Nameless King, and enter the prison. The reveal-era name "The Bodach" is not confirmed in the 0.5 patch notes — the section avoids asserting it.
After the questline
Continue feeding Tribute on Atlas Rituals to gain repeat audiences. Each repeat lets you choose a new forest and start the Rite again — harder pinnacle, new uniques.
New Atlas-tree highlights
- Extend Rite duration — fight 6 map bosses at once instead of 5.
- Maps during the Rite get two reward mods instead of one.
- Rituals can spawn inside Summoning Circles, adding random bosses.
- New encounter type: Audience with the Queen — the King's bride sometimes appears.
Delirium — The Hare and the Raven
Hub: The Withered Willow (South-West)
First Delirium encounter in the endgame finds Elder Maddox trapped in a Trickster trance. Free him; he sends you south-west to The Withered Willow, where the Raven Trickster first gained his power. Every map on the way features Delirium encounters.
New Delirium mechanic — Depth bar
- A depth bar at the bottom of the screen shows how deep into the delirium you are. The fog visually leans toward "deeper".
- Bar shows how long until the next Delirium ends, and previews the special encounters you'll hit.
- If you can reach the end of the bar, the map boss is always there.
- The bar also functions as a compass — it shows which direction your character is facing relative to the active fog. Turn away from the fog and it depletes faster, giving you a deliberate way to end Delirium early when you've collected what you wanted.
Mirror Shard encounters
- Purple shard — shatter to make all enemies more nightmarish: bigger, scarier Delirium demons with more rewards.
- Red shard — sent into the depths of your mind. Escape while fighting your worst fears. Rewards a powerful amulet with two Instilled notables.
Crafting — Liquid Emotions on Jewels
Liquid Emotions (the existing amulet-instil currency) now also add crafted mods to jewels — letting you force mods that are otherwise hard to roll.
- Liquid Despair → critical hit chance.
- Liquid Suffering → movement speed, area of effect.
- (Many more across the emotion set.)
Grand Mirrors → Trial of Madness → Simulacrum
Once you've done enough Delirium, the Grand Mirror appears. The Trickster reflects the map boss into a ridiculous empowered fight and shatters his entrance. To find him you must consume the strange fruit he leaves behind — fully embrace the madness.
- The fruit fogs an entire region of the Atlas. Every map within gets harder as you push deeper.
- Killing both duplicated map bosses unlocks the Trial of Madness: fog spreads from a chosen map containing a locked Simulacrum. The map is Delirious from 10%, raised by kills up to 200%; at 100% the Simulacrum unlocks.
- Simulacrum is now a 7-wave encounter (changed in 0.5). Completing it grants the key to the new Delirium pinnacle boss.
New sub-area: Loathsome Mire
Drops two new Amulet base types granting two instilled notables at the cost of -1 suffix or -1 prefix. Useful as the foundation for instil-heavy build crafting.
Pinnacle name unverified
The reveal stream named this boss "Tangmazu the Raven Trickster" — patch notes describe an "ancient Trickster God" but do not confirm the name. The section avoids asserting it. Accessed via the Simulacrum key after the Trial of Madness.
After the questline
Grand Mirrors start appearing on the Atlas after Delirium encounters. Each gives a key to re-fight the pinnacle — harder version, drops uniques exclusive to the post-quest fight. Where you spread the fog matters: some potent emotions only drop from specific map bosses afflicted by the fog, and these craft mods you cannot get any other way (e.g. Potent Liquid Melancholy from human bosses → on-hit effects).
New Atlas-tree highlights
- Pause Delirium briefly so you can push deeper.
- Add new Mirror Shard variants.
- Simulacra drop special liquid emotions for crafting time-lost jewels.
- Grand Mirror spreads fog over a larger Atlas area — potentially multiple simulacra.
Vaal Temple — Fate of the Vaal (now core campaign + endgame)
Hub: Lira Vaal · Atziri's Temple (North-East)
Fate of the Vaal has moved into the base game in 0.5.0 as a core campaign + endgame storyline. The endgame hub is Atziri's Temple in the city of Lira Vaal, on the north-east Atlas (not north, as the reveal originally placed it). Maps in Lira Vaal always have Energised Crystals and grant points for the Fate of the Vaal Atlas Passive Tree. Pinnacle is Atziri, Queen of the Vaal in Atziri's Vault.
Acquisition — Beacons, Ruins, Temple
- Act 3 — 6 Ancient Beacons appear for the first time. Energise them to obtain Energised Crystals and open the portal to the Vaal Ruins.
- Interludes — a second set of 6 Ancient Beacons continues the storyline. (The exact area name is not specified in the patch notes — the reveal referred to "Doryani's Contingency" but the mapping is unverified.)
- Endgame — Vaal Beacons can spawn in maps. Temple level = area level where the crystals were collected, so high-tier Temples require high-tier maps.
- Dedicated Atlas region with guaranteed Vaal Beacon encounters in every map. Clearing it grants points for the new Temple Atlas Tree.
- Temple Precursor Tablets — guarantee Vaal Beacons in your map for league focus.
Mechanic — Temple chaining
- Build out a giant Vaal temple by chaining rooms together.
- Starting room count increased in 0.5 — you reach Atziri faster.
- It is no longer possible to prevent a room being deleted from the temple — the old "snake" strategy is removed.
- Compounding difficulty and rewards as the layout expands — each room added makes the next harder and more valuable.
- Room-based reward specialisation — the choice of which room to chain next steers what kind of rewards the temple emphasises.
- Tier 4 rooms — newly added, unlocked via the Temple Atlas Tree. Encourages deeper specialisation and more interesting layouts.
- Reward Rooms (Architect console) — new varieties added in addition to the existing ones, all with upgraded payouts.
- Body-parts room — grants permanent character buffs, but they're lost on death. Worth chasing only on characters that already die rarely; otherwise the upkeep cost exceeds the benefit.
Crafting — Capstone corruption
- Capstone item crafting — corruption and double-corruption pathways for finishing endgame items.
- Vaal-unique affix manipulation — modify the special affixes that only roll on Vaal uniques.
- Socket-related manipulation — socket extraction and rearrangement.
- Vaal Infusers split into 4 named currencies (all require 20%+ Quality on the target item):
- Vaal Armourer's Infuser — Armour.
- Vaal Blacksmith's Infuser — Martial Weapons.
- Vaal Arcanist's Infuser — Wands / Staves / Sceptres.
- Vaal Catalysing Infuser — Jewellery.
Temple Atlas Tree — confirmed notable nodes
- Transcendent Progress — Temple Rooms may now be upgraded to Tier 4. (Keystone gating the new tier.)
- Efficient Arteries — 20% increased effect of Room Temple Modifiers from Rooms with 4 adjacent rooms. (Rewards dense, hub-style layouts.)
- Atziri's Assets — Atziri's Vault contains an additional reward. Choose 1 of: Vaal Unique Item / (2 TBC at launch).
- Default max 60 Energised Crystals and max 6 Medallions — the medallions that raised those caps are no longer necessary.
- Medallion drop rates rebalanced — buffed at smaller Temple sizes, slightly nerfed at larger Temple sizes.
- Snake-style room preservation is gone (see mechanic bullets above).
Fortress — Origins of Divinity (also unlocks the Atlas tree)
The Fortress
The first time you visit a tower in the new Atlas, the earth shakes and a gigantic Fortress rises — a remnant of the precursor civilisation. The corruption from the cataclysm has triggered an ancient protocol: scour and purge the world.
Your job is to enter the Fortress, activate its gates, gain the keys to its precursor weapons, and disarm them.
Inside the Fortress
The Fortress contains many sub-areas, each with unique mechanics or rewards:
- A map where every rare is sealed inside an essence crystal.
- A map where every monster pack is replaced with a strongbox.
- A map where rares always flee after one kill, letting you chase them across the entire layout.
You must defeat the map boss of each Fortress map. Maps inside the Fortress grant one or more passive points for the Atlas Passive Tree — this entirely replaces the previous method of gaining Atlas points.
Fortress structure (0.5 confirmed)
- 3 Gateway maps with 2 new bosses access different Fortress sections.
- New Precursor Tower Maps outside the Fortress.
- 2 new Citadel maps with 2 new bosses that drop keys to the new pinnacle.
- Arbiter of Ash and the Burning Monolith have been moved into the Fortress. Quest versions of the Crisis fragments are in two Enigma chambers inside the Fortress.
- 40+ Ancient Modifiers can appear on any map outside the Fortress; many Fortress maps have Ancient Modifiers built in.
Pinnacle: Arbiter of Divinity
At the centre of the Fortress sits the new top boss of Path of Exile 2 — the Arbiter of Divinity. The Arbiter of Ash is no longer the apex; it has been moved inside the Fortress as a quest boss alongside the Burning Monolith.
The Atlas Passive Tree (300+ nodes)
The Atlas Passive Tree has been significantly expanded — over 300 nodes. Points come exclusively from maps inside the Fortress. See the New Atlas Tree section for full detail on the fully-allocatable, no-respec model.
Quest hand-in: Arbiter of Ash (now inside the Fortress)
Every endgame boss is now reachable through a questline. To fight Arbiter of Ash for the first time you no longer need lucky key drops; the keys are at fixed locations inside the Fortress and the quest tells you where.