A Guide to Path of Exile’s Atlas

Following the Path of Exile endgame, Atlas of Worlds, is definitely not easy. To help players out, here’s a guide.

So you’re new to Path of Exile, which means it’s also your first time in the endgame and your first time encountering the Atlas. As if the base game wasn’t complex enough, you now have to take on Path of Exile’s popular endgame theme, which has a rather confusing progression system. For that, here’s a basic guide on how the current endgame works.

What is the Atlas of Worlds

Before anything else, a bit of development history and lore related to the Master of the Atlas. First released in 2016, the Atlas of Worlds serves as the endgame map system, where players start at certain maps and farm there until they unlock succeeding maps of a higher tier as drops. This process goes on until you reach the endpoints of the Atlas and take down the four guardians.

The Atlas of Worlds is divided into eight regions, and these eight are divided into two: the inner regions and the outer regions. The former includes Lex Proxima, Thira’s End, Glenneth Cairns, and Valdo’s Rest, while the latter are Haewark Hamlet, Lex Ejoris, Lira Arthain, and New Vastir. The four guardians are in the outer regions, but more of that later on.

What makes this process take some time would be the fact that there are over 16 tiers, and that it becomes harder and harder to find higher tier maps as you go on. This means that by the time you are over a certain tier – around 8 and beyond – you’re more likely to find maps with the same or lower tier, making your current tier harder to sustain. There’s also the fact that higher tier maps have, obviously, tougher enemies. This is the endgame, so the enemies you’ll be facing will be progressively harder.

Map Rarity and Tiers

However, before a map can even drop other maps, you have to first complete that particular map. There are three kinds of completion, namely General Completion, which simply means killing the boss in that map, and Bonus Completion, which means you have to complete that map on a particular rarity. For tiers 1-5, they have to be completed at a Magic rarity. For tiers 6-10, they have to be completed at a Rare rarity. For tiers 11 and above, they have to be in a Rare and Corrupted state.

If you noticed that these maps have Rarity, it’s because you’ll have to use PoE Currency of the corresponding rarity on the maps. It should go without saying that you can use PoE Orbs on them, and they work on maps the same way they’d work on equipment, gems, and jewels. However, while it should be pretty straight-cut for maps that have to be either of Magic or Rare rarity, the same can’t be said with Red maps. This is because of the very unpredictable nature of Vaal Orbs.

With a Vaal Orb, any of the following can happen to a map:

· No Effect (but will still be corrupted and can no longer be used a Vaal Orb on)

· Increase the tier by one and change its base type according to the new tier it’s in

· Reroll into a Rare map with eight random modifiers

· Unidentified the PoE item but retain its affixes and quantity. This gives the item a 30% bonus quantity.

While it may seem like the first result is a waste, it’s not, as bosses from corrupted maps have a chance to drop Vaal Fragments or Vaal Skill Gems. Also, a Corrupted map whose tier has been increased by one and had its base type changed is the only way to create a Vaal Temple Map.

What is The Awakening Completion

The last way to complete a map is by an Awakening Completion. To do this, you’ll have to finish the map at its highest available tier while it is influenced by Watchstones. To obtain these items, you’ll need to explore the maps in the Outer Regions. Once you’ve seen one, they will reappear on the next map in the same region. After killing it, you’ll get a watchstone. To encounter the next one, you’ll need to explore maps in regions with the required number of watchstones, and its tier should be equal to or higher than that on the Master of the Atlas. Takedown all four Conquerors and finish their respective quests, then you’ll finally come face to face with Sirus, the Awakener, which will drop good PoE items, especially POE Uniques).

After beating The Awakener, you can now spawn a Conqueror at any region with Four Watchstones. At this point, you’ll have to beat the Conquerors again to fight The Awakener, but thankfully you no longer need to fight him again to get Watchstones.

Without a doubt, the Atlas is a very intricate system, but someone has to help newbies out. Hopefully, this Path of Exile Master of the Atlas guide did exactly just that. Don’t be daunted, just try it out for yourself. Who knows? Maybe you’ll write a better guide.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or the management of EconoTimes