What’s happening, y’all? It’s Librarian Husky, and welcome back to another Path of Exile 2 guide.

Understanding the Path of Exile 2 Endgame

Today, we’re diving into everything you need to know about the endgame in Path of Exile 2. Where to begin, what to expect, and what activities are available once the campaign ends. Bear in mind that this guide covers only the content currently available in the game and does not account for any major future updates or changes. So whether you’re a brand new player who just wrapped up the campaign or someone who’s still unsure about what to do next, this article will walk you through all the essentials.

Okay, so you’ve now finished the campaign and you’re staring into the void of what comes next. What is mapping? What is juicing? What content is considered as endgame? And what should you do next? Well, let’s begin by saying that even though there are some other pieces of content that can be considered endgame, such as the Trial of Smas and Trial of Chaos, which you probably already did for your Ascendancy points, the primary endgame content is mapping.

After finishing Act Three on Cruel difficulty, you will unlock the Atlas of Worlds or the World Atlas, a gateway system to an infinity of maps. To open the World Atlas, you can click on the map device right here, which is where you end up after you finish the campaign in your hideout, or you can simply press U on the keyboard for the map key binding.

By doing these maps, you will be able to level up, get better items and currency, fight different mechanics and bosses, and even unlock further content within the endgame. As we mentioned before, apart from Trial of Ascendancy and Trial of Chaos, everything else is tied to mapping through this World Atlas.

Exploring the World Atlas and Mapping System

Now, the way that we do this mapping or these maps is with the waypoints. Waypoints start from tier one and go all the way to tier 16. From tier one to tier 15, you can find it on the ground while you’re progressing through the mapping, and tier 16 can be crafted with Val orbs. You simply need to click on the map of your choice and add a waypoint that you can handle. This will create a portal to that specific map, and once you complete all objectives within the map, it will complete it and only then will you be able to path to the next maps that are connected to that one that you just completed.

If you die within the map, then you will simply be able to revive and rejoin the map as long as you have the portal still open. The ones that turn green are the ones that you’ve completed. The ones that are light blue are the ones that you are connected to, and the plain ones are the ones that you’re not connected to at the moment.

Each waypoint you add in your maps will decide the level of the zone, as well as the positives and negatives of that map. Tier one starts at zone level 65 and goes all the way to level 79 for tier 15. Just like you’ve been using Orb of Augmentation, Transmutation, Regal Orbs, and Exalted Orbs to craft some pieces throughout the campaign, you can do the exact same thing for your waypoints.

Some modifiers can be positive, which are usually what we call the prefixes, which are the modifiers at the top, but you can also add negative modifiers, which we call suffixes. We will cover the best and most efficient ways to juice up your maps in another article. But bear in mind that the more modifiers that you add on a waypoint, the less portals you will open at the start, which means that the less times you’re going to be able to re-enter that map if you die. These portals are only consumed if you’ve died in the maps. They don’t get consumed if you want to travel in and out of the map intentionally.

Now, the fun part about all of this pathing from map to map is that you can encounter multiple different things in here. For example, one of the first things that you should be focusing on doing once you finish the campaign is finding the Nexus of Corruption. These nexuses are the main way that we will be getting our points for our Atlas tree.

Understanding the Atlas Tree and Nexus Quests

Before it gets too complicated, imagine it like this. Your character has its own talent tree, and the endgame content has its own talent tree. This tree will empower your endgame maps, making them more beneficial. Each Nexus you complete based on the quest requirements will give you five points. The first 30 points of the Atlas tree come from These nexuses. If you need help unlocking all 90 points and how to spend them, these will guide you.

Doriani, the boss you defeated, will give you the first of six quests to find and cleanse the nexuses. These are located in corrupted areas. When you defeat the Nexus boss, you’ll get points, and it will become cleansed. The quest requirement is to find these nexuses throughout the World Atlas and complete them in higher tiers. You can spot these nexuses as red circles within the fog of war, guiding your path. Completing all Nexuses to unlock the first 30 points in the Atlas tree is crucial after finishing the campaign.

Understanding Map Mechanics and Bosses

Some maps have icons representing mechanics. For example, “Irradiated” makes the zone and map gain a level. This means monsters will be one level higher than the default. Boss icons signify a boss in the map. You can go directly to the boss or complete side objectives like Killing all rares. Bosses usually guarantee a waystone of a higher tier, aiding your progression.

One of the most rewarding mechanics is “Breach.” You’ll find a purple hand causing an expanding circle to spawn monsters. Killing monsters extends the duration. Collecting 300 breach splinters creates a breach stone to fight pinnacle bosses. Zest, the breach boss, is found in the twisted domain, accessed through a breach stone at the realm gate on the world atlas. Trigger the clasped hand and fight your way to Zest, defeating monsters to add time to the timer.

Understanding Path of Exile Endgame Mechanics

Reaching the end of the path will drop a lot of decent loot, including items like the catalyst, which are used for crafting, some gear pieces, currency, and most importantly, breach rings, which if you have some luck with your crafting, can potentially become some of the best rings in the game. Once you collect your loot, you can then step forward and challenge Zest to a fight.

The delirium mechanic is somewhat similar to the breach mechanic in the sense that you want to collect 300 splinters to form a simulacrum, which you will then use at the same realm gate to encounter the second pinnacle content called simulacrum. Instead of fighting a boss on this one, you will fight 15 waves of some very tough monsters, rares, and mini bosses. The goal here is to survive each wave all the way up to wave 15 without dying. In between each wave, you might get some good loot. And the higher you get, the better it becomes. To get yourself These splinters, you need to do the delirium mechanic, which looks like this on your maps.

Once you enter the mirror, it will create a thick fog and spawn random monsters through the glasses on the floor. The goal is to kill as many of these monsters as you can because this mechanic is also timed. You will also notice that on the bottom left side of your screen, you will be building up some items. These items are called distilled emotions, and they’re most commonly used for juicing up your maps, as well as being able to add a notable passive skill from our tree to our amulet. Just to simplify this, for example, overwhelming strike here is a really, really good node for a lot of builds, but it’s pretty far away from where most of those builds path to. By holding onto the alt key, we can see which emotions are needed to anoint this node onto our amulet.

When you have these emotions, you simply need to right-click on them and add them into your amulet in the same priority they are written under the passive node. These distilled emotions can be found by doing the delirium maps and can also drop from completing each of the 15 waves of the simulacrum that we saw before.

You will also encounter the ritual mechanic which looks like this. A map with this icon will contain three or four rituals randomly spread across the map. Upon clicking on a ritual, it will limit the entire map to that specific area until you defeat all the monsters that spawn. Each kill is going to reward you with tribute points. You can usually find out how much you have on the bottom of the screen. When you successfully kill everything that spawn from the ritual, you will then be able to click one more time on it. This time, it’s going to open a window with some goodies. Here you can find gear pieces, basic and valued currency, as well as omens, which can be used for combat and crafting.

Additionally to all of this, you can find a rare item called audience with a king, which you will again use at the realm gate to fight the king of the mist. All the items in the ritual window cost tribute. So the more rituals you clear within that one map, the more tribute you will accumulate. If there is nothing interesting in that window, you can always roll to test your luck again.

Now, the tribute you gain and the items you find through the ritual window are only relevant to that specific map. Running another ritual map after this one will reset the tribute to zero and will show you different items, unless you learn how to defer the items that are of interest to you. Deferring an item or multiple items at the time will cost you a small amount of tribute and will lock those items in place, which will guarantee that the items you locked in place will reappear again at some point. It could be the next roll or the next ritual map you run. Think of it as giving a small deposit up front so you can purchase the item at another time for less.

Understanding Map Mechanics

And here’s a nice tip. Even if you have enough tribute to purchase an item, it’s better to defer it first so you can be able to roll, potentially finding another valuable item, which you can also defer. Each time you roll will let you defer the same items, reducing their price further. Lastly, if an item you previously deferred becomes red, that means that you either need to purchase it now or defer it again because it’s going to expire.

The last icon that’s considered as a map mechanic is the expedition. When you find the expedition in your map, you will notice that you have five explosives on you displayed at the bottom of the screen. You will want to place each explosive on top of the strong boxes that you see. The trick here is to try landing the green circle onto as many strong boxes as you can throughout that area. Each bomb has a specific range, and as you will notice, each strong box has a different modifier, so you will need to strategize accordingly. Once you’re happy with your placement, you can detonate all your bombs, which will spawn the monsters from each of the strong boxes that you just exploded.

The expedition mechanic will give you some very specific currency that you can use for the recombination feature or use at the expedition vendors. Additionally, it can also drop log books. You can give these books to Danic, the NPC, to take you to one of the expedition aisles. Within these aisles, you will repeat the same principle like before for a chance of getting some good loot, experience, and much more. Running log books above level 79, though has a chance of spawning the expedition boss, which when defeated can have some valuable loot and can provide you with the points that you need for your atlas tree.

Now, Apart from the mechanic icons that we just covered on your maps, you might see other stuff like the wandering trader icon, which is a plain map that you will simply find a vendor who might sell some valuable and rare items.

You can also find the Hideouts icon, which is how you unlock the hideouts in the game. To unlock one, you simply need to run that map with this icon and defeat all the monsters in it. You can then speak with Alva and choose your newly unlocked hideout. To access it, go to a waypoint and you can fast travel to your own hideout from There. Hideouts can be edited and decorated as much as you want.

The next icon is this one, which are the unique maps. These are rare maps that you definitely want to either bookmark for later or run them immediately. There are multiple different kinds of unique maps. Some provide you insane boost in XP. Others provide you a ton of gold. But just like the name suggests, they’re unique maps that are a ton of fun to run, but also pretty mandatory in the beginning, as they award you with 10 points for your Atlas tree progression.

And the last two icons are the corrupted and cleansed maps, which simply indicate what that area is affected by. Corrupted areas are usually the ones that have a nexus in them. And if a map is corrupted, it means the killing monsters in it has a chance to revive those monsters again and again, which provides you with extra loot and experience. Once you finish the nexus, then the corrupted area will become cleansed. This area doesn’t spawn extra monsters like the previous one, but has a chance of dropping a valuable currency for crafting called fracturing orb. Both of these icons are super important to look for as they might include the plus one to monster levels modifier, which is needed to run higher-end maps later on.

Apart from maps with different icons and nexuses that you can cleanse, there are two more very important things that you can find in the World Atlas. The towers and the citadels.

Understanding Towers and Citadels

Towers in the game serve as maps with varying mechanics. You initiate the encounter by placing a waypoint on a tower, aiming to locate the precursor and activate it at the tower’s conclusion. Post-completion, you can interact with the tower to insert up to three tablets, each altering surrounding maps based on their mechanics like rituals, breach, boss encounters, irradiated areas, expeditions, and delirium. These tablets may carry up to two modifiers and are commonly acquired from their respective mechanics.

The number of tablets you can add to towers post-completion correlates with the tower’s starting waypoint tier and the modifiers applied. Higher tiers and more modifiers result in unlocking additional tablet slots. Towers significantly impact map difficulty, loot quality, and experience gains.

Citadels, another crucial element, are located within the World Atlas, comprising three types: iron, copper, and stone. Each represents a campaign act, featuring the act’s final boss. For instance, the iron citadel corresponds to act one with Count Geonor as the primary boss. Discovering and conquering citadels can be challenging at first, as they are typically designed for the endgame phase.

To find citadels, explore various maps in your World Atlas to unveil the fog of war. Look for colored beams denoting citadels: white-blue for iron, orange for copper, and red for stone. Defeating a citadel’s final boss guarantees a fragment drop. Collecting all three fragments from each citadel enables you to confront the game’s toughest boss, the Arbiter, accessible through the burning monolith after providing it with all three citadel fragments.

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