The further you get into Path of Exile 2, the harder the game gets, and the more you have to keep in mind to stay at the top of your game. By the endgame, PoE 2 players will likely have learned their build or gained enough familiarity with the game’s mechanics to take on just about any challenge – but mapping the Atlas of Worlds can be extremely tough if you aren’t prepared, or don’t have the game knowledge needed to succeed high-Waystone Tier maps.
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After beating Act 3 of the Cruel campaign players will be launched into the second half of Path of Exile 2 and have to learn new ways to navigate the game, new things to prioritize, and new features to learn and take advantage of. These advanced tips for Path of Exile 2 cover things you should know before taking on the Atlas of Worlds and the PoE 2 endgame – tips that just might save your life, or at least provide a more worthwhile endgame experience.
Loot Filters & PoE 2 Sidekick Provide Much-Needed QoL
By the time you get to the endgame of PoE 2, and start progressing deep into the Atlas of Worlds, enemies and bosses will start to drop an enormous amount of loot. But you don’t need to see every Magic-quality Flask or Normal weapon your character can’t equip.
There are a lot of Loot Filters available for Path of Exile 2, which highlight valuable or useful item drops and hide items that you can’t use or aren’t worth picking up. Loot Filters are practically required in high-tier Waystone maps where enemy drops will cover virtually your entire screen if not filtered.
Once you reach the endgame for PoE 2, you should also consider installing the Sidekick addon. This third-party program runs in the background, separate from the game, and enables a number of enhancements to the user experience, including map and price-checking capabilities, a way to search for items throughout all of your stashes, and much more.
Pick Up & Salvage All Socketed & Quality Gear
Though you don’t need to pick up everything that drops in Path of Exile 2, gear with Rune Sockets or Quality are extremely valuable. When you Salvage these items you will get Armorer’s Scrap, Blacksmith’s Whetstone, and Shards that build up to an Artificer’s Orb – an item that adds a Rune Socket to any piece of gear.
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Though these Currencies are useful on their own, they also serve as reliable Currencies to trade up for common bartering Currencies. About two to three Armorer’s Scrap, and about five to six Blacksmith’s Whetstone, can be traded for an Exalted Orb in the Currency Exchange.
Salvaging any item with Quality above 10% will reward two of the appropriate Quality Currency, which on its own is almost worth an entire Exalted Orb.
If you are using a Loot Filter, be sure to set an exception for items with Quality or Rune Sockets so you don’t miss out on these drops – Normal items can have Sockets and Quality, too. If you are playing the game without any addons, keep an eye out for a small white square next to the name of item drops and the exact wording of item names themselves.
The small white square indicates a Rune Slot on that piece of gear. If an item has the word “Superior” in its title (which doesn’t have to be identified), it means it has Quality. You can also hover over item drops to see if they have Rune Slots or Quality in the description.
You Get Six Portals For Every Map – Use ’em Or Lose ’em
In the endgame, when you activate a Waystone for a map on the Atlas, six portals will appear around you in the Ziggurat Refuge. Each portal represents one time you can use a Town Portal to return to the Refuge – a chance to refresh your Flasks and Charms, clean inventory space, and re-tool your build for the challenges of the map.
When you die in a map, the portals will all close, and you must use another Waystone to go back and try it again (if you haven’t bricked the map node). There’s no benefit to leaving Portals open at the end of a map, so don’t be afraid to head back to Town if you are low on resources. Even a quick stop back to Town could mean the difference between finishing and failing a map.
As you progress through the campaign, your Elemental Resistances will be penalized and compound across all Acts (and Cruel difficulty). By the time you reach the Atlas Elemental Resistances need to become a major priority for modifiers on your gear thanks to this creeping debuff and the sheer power of enemies in the endgame.
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Though you should normally try to normalize your Elemental Resistances to suit most situations, certain maps and enemy types can be countered with high, but specific, Resistances. An area with lots of Fire enemies is easy with high Fire Resistance, an area with lots of Poison enemies is easier with high Poison defense stats, and so on.
If you find a piece of gear with a high Resistance to a specific Element, keep it in your Stash. You never know when you’ll run into a map filled with enemies that inflict 200% Freeze and Cold damage, when a highly-tailored set of equipment with Cold resistance will do a lot more for your survivability than combat modifiers.
In Atlas Skills, Pick Waystone Rarity & Drop Chance First
Once you progress into the Atlas and complete your first 10 Tier 1 or higher Waystones, Doryani will give you a book that grants 2x Atlas Passive Skill Points. This Passive Skill Tree is separate from the regular PoE 2 Skill Tree, and only applies to maps in the Atlas.
The nodes on the Atlas Skill Tree affect mapping in a variety of ways, but there are two that should be prioritized first: Waystone Rarity, and Waystone Drop Chance. There are a few Passive Skill Nodes to the right and bottom-right of the starting point in the Atlas Passive tree that buff the Rarity and Drop Chance of Waystones.
Pick up as many of these Atlas Passive Skills as you can in the early stages of the endgame to make the process of acquiring more Waystones, and acquiring useful Waystones, much more rewarding. Later on, other Atlas Passive Skill nodes can be useful for different situations or preferences, but the Rarity and Drop Chance nodes are practically required to map efficiently.
Avoid Using High-Tier Waystones For Lost Towers
After getting through a few maps on the Atlas you will likely find your first Lost Tower. These special locations on the Atlas can be activated and slotted with an item called a Precursor Tablet to alter map nodes within its sphere of influence.
Every Lost Tower is essentially the same – a relatively short map featuring a set of Stairs that lead to a Precursor Beacon that blasts a beam of light into the sky when activated. After turning on this mechanism, the Tower will be marked as completed, and you can access its Precursor Tablet slot from the Atlas map screen.
Because you just need to rush past enemies and get to the tower to complete this event, don’t waste a high-tier Waystone on it. Save your high-tier Waystones for larger maps you can farm, and use Waystone Tier 1 (or at least, a low-tier Waystone) instead. You’ll speed past the weak enemies without many modifiers and quickly activate the Tower without worrying about bricking the location.
