Hardest Bosses In Path Of Exile 2

Path of Exile 2 is proving popular among fans in its early access period. At the same time, players have been quick to acknowledge the games’ often punishing level of difficulty. Path of Exile 2 has some brutal bosses, especially for players running through the game for the first time. While it might be more punishing than the average ARPG, the bosses being challenging to learn also makes them fun to beat.

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Players in the community have been quick to share builds and strategies for overcoming the games’ toughest bosses, so there’s plenty of help out there for new players. Some bosses require more than just strategy, though, and the bosses on this list often feature attacks or mechanics that force perfect execution to deal with during the fight. These are the hardest bosses in Path of Exile 2.

10

Geonor, The Putrid Wolf

Farewell To Act One

• Location: Ogham Manor
• Resistances: Cold
• Weaknesses: None
• Strongest attacks: Red Blood Slam, Requiem on High

As the final boss of Act 1, Count Geonor is a true test for new players, who will likely get to the fight under-geared and unprepared for the long and grueling multi-phase battle. His initial human form isn’t too tough to deal with, as long as the player can avoid his larger ice attacks, but once his wolf form emerges, the fight starts to get progressively harder.

The Red Blood Slam, signified by the boss disappearing into the air and then forming a large red AoE on the ground before slamming down, is a high-damage attack that can one-shot low-health builds. It’s easy enough to avoid once players recognize the telegraph unless they get slowed by the boss’s many ice effects. It’s highly useful to build up cold resistance before this fight, but early-game players have limited ways to do so. A cold resistance ring will normally be available from the Clearfell encampment merchants at some point throughout the player’s Act 1 journey, though.

Requiem on High is the deadliest cold attack to watch out for, as getting hit can quickly freeze the player, trapping them in place for multiple hits. This will easily kill players with low cold resistance. As well as grabbing a cold resistance ring, take the cold resistance charm as the reward for Finn’s side quest in Freythorn, too, and this will help greatly in the fight.

9

Jamanra, The Abomination

Abominably Hard

• Location: Dreadnaught Vanguard
• Resistances: Fire, Lightning, Armor
• Weaknesses: Cold
• Strongest attacks: Sandstorm, Tornadoes, Portals

The first fight against Jamanra in Act 2 is nothing compared to his appearance as Jamanra, the Abomination at the end of the act. It does clue players into the fact that they’re going to need some lightning resistance to deal with him, though. Like with Geonor, some of the difficulty for players here comes from actually being able to get the relevant elemental resistance, with limited ways of doing so.

With a decent amount of lightning resistance, most of Jamanra’s attacks aren’t the biggest threat to the player in this fight. The biggest damage moves the boss has are stationary effects, and learning to see when these are coming and moving appropriately is key. In the first phase, this just means moving behind Asala when the boss summons the Sandstorm. In the second phase, this gets more complex.

The boss summons more tornadoes that can drain the player’s health and summons stationary portals that fire shards and do high, repeated damage to anyone in front of them. These moves act as area-denial as well as damaging attacks and can make it awkward for players to deal with Jamanra’s other abilities like his lightning pylons. It’s a tough fight, but the visuals and the phase shift from the Dreadnought to the sands also make Jamanra stand out.

8

Blackjaw, The Remnant

Burn, Heretic

• Location: Jiquani’s Machinarium
• Resistances: Fire, Armor
• Weaknesses: Cold
• Strongest attacks: Slam/Jump Slam, Fire Breath, Fire Projectiles

Blackjaw, the Remnant is an optional boss in Act 3 that players may well have trouble with, especially with a melee-based build. His simple melee slam attack does a huge amount of physical damage, and he’ll follow it up more often with two additional attacks as the fight progresses. This can easily catch players out, and its large AoE means that it can be difficult to dodge for players who are staying in melee range.

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High fire resistance is essential for this fight, even then, taking a full Fire Breath attack at point-blank range can easily drain a player’s full health bar. Blackjaw’s fire moves only get more dangerous as the fight goes on. His Flaming Projectiles attack forces players to move back with the initial ring of fire and dodge the follow-up projectiles, further interrupting a melee build’s damage output. Even if players stay at range, their Leap Slam and Fire projectiles still have to be dodged carefully.

7

Viper Napuatzi

So Much Poison

• Location: Utzaal
• Resistances: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Armor
• Weaknesses: None
• Strongest attacks: Comets, Poison Spears

Viper Napuatzi is a mandatory Act 3 boss that can destroy players who haven’t managed to stack any poison immunity or chaos resistance by this point. Napuatzi is the leader of a group of Vaal soldiers that form the arena in which the players fight her. As the fight advances, these soldiers deploy deadly poison attacks from the sidelines, while gradually closing the space the player has to work in. This makes dodging the Viper’s AoE attacks progressively more difficult, while the spear attacks can take huge chunks out of a player’s health bar and inflict poison.

Players do have the opportunity to pick up a charm that grants temporary poison immunity as a quest reward after killing Ignaduk, the Bog Witch earlier in Act 3, and this can help with survivability in this fight. Picking up some chaos resistance rings as drops or from vendors in Act 3 can also help reduce damage taken. Act 3 has some of the game’s toughest bosses, and Viper Napuatzi acts as a gatekeeper to the final stretch of the game.

6

Zicoatl, Warden Of The Core

Core Keeper

• Location: Jiquani’s Sanctum
• Resistances: Fire, Cold, Armor
• Weaknesses: Lightning
• Strongest attacks: Red Triangle Energy Wave, Lightning Beams

Zicoatl’s distinctive chaos-based energy wave, signified by a large red triangular glyph appearing around the boss, is a devastating one-shot move that will instantly kill the majority of builds that it touches. Figuring out the trick to this move is essential to surviving the fight. Players need to pick a point of the triangle and stand away from the boss, in line with the point. This will cause the energy waves to pass them by harmlessly.

Once this move is learned, the fight becomes much easier, but the boss can also move inconveniently during the fight, putting the player in awkward positions where it’s difficult to reach a safe spot. Trying to keep the boss in the center of the arena is the best option, then players only have to worry about avoiding the high-damage lightning beams that are fired by the boss’s snake heads.

5

Metkul, The Forgemaster

DPS Check

• Location: The Molten Forge
• Resistances: Fire
• Weaknesses: Cold
• Strongest attacks: Explosive Molten Rocks, Fire Waves, time limit

Metkul, the Forgemaster has stumped many players the first time they encounter this optional boss in Act 3. It’s not enough to have high fire resistance for the Forgemaster, though it can help. That’s because the fight starts with the boss unleashing an ever-encroaching flow of molten metal, which eventually traps and kills players who can’t end the fight fast enough. Metkul is essentially a DPS check for a player’s build, testing whether their damage output is keeping up with the stage of the game.

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Even without this caveat, the Forgemaster has plenty of ways to end the player’s life, spawning flowing waves of fire, and littering rocks across the arena that can explode and deal high damage. With good damage output and high fire resistance, Metkul becomes much less of a threat. Without these things, the boss is nearly impossible to get through.

4

Doryani, Royal Thaumaturge

The Final Boss

• Location: The Testing Pit
• Resistances: Fire, Lightning
• Weaknesses: None
• Strongest attacks: Rear Laser Barrage, Floating AoE Slam

As the final boss of Act 3, Doryani acts as the Gatekeeper for both Cruel difficulty and the end-game content of Path of Exile 2. Players encountering this fight for the first time will likely die multiple times as they work out how to avoid each of the boss’s most damaging attacks. Balanced resistances are essential for this fight, as the boss can deal all elemental types of damage. This will only go some of the way towards helping players survive the fight though, as a couple of specific attacks will blast through any amount of resistance.

When the rear of the construct that carries Doryani rises and lights up, it’s about to fire a barrage of lasers. Players need to get to the other side of the boss when this happens, as getting hit by multiple lasers is a certain death. The boss then spins around, so players need to stay tight and circle around to avoid being hit by the tail end of the attack, too.

The other attack that will outright kill players is well telegraphed, but still tough to avoid. When the boss deconstructs and floats into the air, he’s preparing a very large AoE slam. It will track the player for a short time before stopping, so players need to get in a good position before it stops, then run to the edge of the AoE outline and dodge away. Even knowing both these attacks, the fight is tough to execute perfectly. Doryani is the toughest boss players will encounter before they get to the end game pinnacle bosses.

3

Kosis, The Revelation / Omniphobia, Fear Manifest

Delirious Duo

• Location: Complete Simulacrum waves during Delirium (Waystone maps)
• Resistances: Cold, Armor / Fire, Armor
• Weaknesses: Fire / Cold
• Strongest attacks: Delirium mechanics & modifiers, overwhelming adds

While Kosis and Omniphobia don’t really stand out as bosses themselves, facing them together, in combination with multiple simulacrum wave modifiers, and with stacked delirium debuffs on the player character, can be a challenge for even well-equipped end-game characters. The challenge here comes from the stacking buffs that enemies get like increased resistance, health, and damage as simulacrum waves progress.

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As well as being able to spawn both bosses at once, the latter waves will include huge numbers of adds that the player has to deal with as well. Certain combinations of buffs to the enemies combined with delirium debuffs to the player can take what were formally fodder enemies and make them overwhelming when they relentlessly rush the player in large numbers. Kosis and Omniphobia in the last wave of a simulacrum can be one of the hardest challenges in the game, depending on the modifiers in relation to the player’s build.

2

Xesht, We That Are One

Into The Breach

• Location: Breach Domains (Use Breachstone in Waystone Device)
• Resistances: Fire, Cold, Lightning
• Weaknesses: None
• Strongest attacks: Phantom Hand slams, Chaos Blast

Breaches are another end-game activity in Path of Exile 2, and Xesht is the final boss of the Breach Domain. Just farming enough currency to open the map is difficult. As with the simulacrum splinters for the Delirium activities, players need to collect 300 Breach Splinters to access a Breach Domain and fight their way to Xesht.

Elemental builds might have particular difficulty with Xesht, as the boss is resistant to fire, cold, and lightning. It doesn’t have physical armor like many of the tougher bosses, though. Interestingly, despite having some high-damage chaos attacks itself, the boss does not resist chaos damage, so builds focused on chaos or physical damage will have a slightly easier time.

The boss’s most dangerous attack is the blast of chaos energy that tracks the player while the boss builds up to firing it. After the boss stops, the blast fires directly in front of them. The players’ best bet is to stay close, circle, and dodge sideways at the last moment. The other big attacks to watch for are the hand slams, but these are well-telegraphed by the purple AoE markers. Xesht also has a huge HP pool, so players should prepare for a long fight.

1

Arbiter Of Ash

Reaching The Pinnacle

• Location: Defeat Pinnacle bosses for keys to use in Waystone Device
• Resistances: Fire, Cold, Lightning, Armor
• Weaknesses: None
• Strongest attacks: Firebombs, Fire Waves, Frosted Ground

The Arbiter of Ash is the ultimate end-game boss in Path of Exile 2, and the fight is certainly a suitable challenge. To even reach the boss, players will need to defeat the pinnacle versions of all three act bosses in the citadel maps found on the Atlas of Worlds, a long process that requires a decent amount of map grinding. Taking the keys from these fights, players can unlock the burning monolith on the Atlas, which is home to the Arbiter of Ash.

Getting the fight down will likely take a few attempts, which is fortunately possible since the latest patch, and gives players a few retry attempts if they die to this boss. Before this, dying to the boss meant instantly being kicked out of the map. Despite the harsh penalty, the worst of the Arbiter’s fire attacks are easily capable of one-hit-killing characters with maxed-out fire resistance. Learning the tight timings of dodging his combination of Firebombs, Fire Beam, and large Fire Waves is essential to survive the fight.

The other mechanic players need to watch out for happens when the boss summons two orbs to the field. He then pierces the blue orb to cover the arena in frost. The only way to get rid of it is for players to run over the purple orb, which should be a priority as soon as it appears, as the slowing effect of the frosted ground can lead to a quick death.

Systems

Early Access Release

December 6, 2024