News Tag: Path Of Exile 2

In a Diablo-like game like Path of Exile 2, players often feel that their level or equipment is a bit weak to deal with enemies after a while. In the previous map, you were still facing the enemy like cutting melons and vegetables, but in the new area, your attacks are like hitting a stone. At this time, you should know that it is time to farm the map and improve yourself.

In Path of Exile 2, players can farm monsters by creating new areas. The operation method of console players and PC players is slightly different. Console players need to hold down the button to move to the new map, while PC players need to hold down shift and click.

Of course, for players, farming monsters is actually not as efficient as farming bosses, because the drop rate of bosses is much higher than that of ordinary monsters, and secondly, bosses sometimes drop some special items. When players first face certain bosses, they are still a bit tricky, but when the player’s skill level and equipment level are improved, dealing with an early boss is not much more difficult than dealing with an elite monster.

How To Choose Boss?

However, not all bosses are suitable for farming. They must at least meet the following conditions.

• 1. Players can kill them stably.
• 2. The boss’s drops are good enough and will not delay the player’s leveling.
• 3. The speed of killing a boss should be as fast as possible.

These conditions are the criteria for judging whether a boss is suitable for repeated farming. In any case, at least the first condition must be met. You must ensure that you are farming the boss instead of being farmed by the boss. The death penalty in Path of Exile 2 is still very painful for players.

Here are some recommended bosses for farming:

Minor Bosses

• Location: Most Maps
• Potential Rewards: Skill gems, Support gems, Gear, Currency

Players should be most familiar with various mini bosses. I believe that many players have more or less dealt with these small bosses. The rewards provided by these bosses are decent, and the difficulty is not very high. The experience rewards provided are also better than those of ordinary monsters. It is really the best choice for early leveling.

But note that some rewards can only be obtained when you kill these monsters for the first time, such as POE 2 Exalted Orb, Divine Orb or Skill gems. This is a special drop mechanism to prevent you from not getting key items and being unable to pass the next boss due to RNG item drops in the early stage. Normally, the drop rate of currency is still very low.

Executioner in Ogham Village, Kabala Constrictor Queen in Keth, and Mighty Silverfist in Jungle Ruins are all very suitable for farming, but Minor Bosses are only suitable for farming in the early stage. In the later stage, it is recommended that you look for the boss in the endgame.

Act Bosses

• Location: Ogham Manor &Dreadnought Vanguard & The Black Chambers
• Potential Rewards: Skill Gem, Gear, Currency

The rewards of Act Bosses are much higher than those of Minor Bosses, but they are also more difficult to deal with. At the same time, they do not drop any unique items. If you can kill these Act Bosses reliably, these bosses will be a slightly more difficult Minor Bosses for you.

You need to judge whether you can kill these bosses quickly enough to determine whether they can be used for farming. If you want equipment and other items, it is recommended that you deal with pinnacle bosses after the endgame.

Learn More: How To Defeat The Rust King In Path Of Exile 2 Act 1?

Pinnacle Bosses

The King In The Mists

Location:

Obtain Audience With The King (Ritual Altars) and use in Realmgate

Potential Rewards:

• Beetlebite, unique boots
• Ingenuity, unique belt
• The Burden of Shadows, unique staff
• Pragmatism, unique body armor (difficulty 2 and above)
• From Nothing, unique jewel (difficulty 4 only)

Pinnacle Bosses are much more difficult than Act Bosses, but their rewards are also really generous. The King In The Mists drops a lot of useful unique items, and the difficulty of The King In The Mists increases, and its drops are also different.

The King In The Mists is the most suitable boss for farming in the endgame. Why? Because players can encounter a weaker version of it in ACT 1, and the moves of the two are similar. As long as you are familiar with the moves of a boss in advance, it will not be that difficult to deal with it.

Olroth, Origin Of The Fall

Location:

Find Dannig on Expeditions, open an Expedition with a level 79+ logbook for a chance to spawn

Potential Rewards:

• Keeper of the Ark, unique helm
• Olrovasara, unique mace (1H)
• Svalinn, unique shield
• Heroic Tragedy, Timeless jewel
• Olroth’s Resolve, unique life flask

If you plan to farm Currency, then Expeditions is a good choice. You can open chests in this event, and special enemies will also drop a lot of goodies. Olroth, Origin Of The Fall is the pushover of all Pinnacle Bosses. Olroth has only 8 million health and is only resistant to cold and physical damage, which means you can damage it with Fire, Lightning and Chaos. This is much better than other super strong Pinnacle Bosses that have almost all resistances.

Olroth is very good at freezing, so if you plan to hunt it, you should bring Silver or Thawing Charm to counteract its freezing effect on you.

There are other Pinnacle Bosses that can be farmed, but either they are too rewarding but too difficult, or the challenges to unlock them are very complicated. Killing these Pinnacle Bosses repeatedly is time-consuming and laborious, and there is always the possibility of being killed. If you are not looking for any special unique items, the bosses above are enough to meet your farming experience or currency requirements.

POE series has always been famous for its high difficulty in APRG, and POE 2 also continues this feature. Therefore, if you want to earn enough POE 2 Currency, you not only need to complete daily campaigns or tasks of varying sizes but also need to win various boss battles.

There are currently 3 acts in the playable Path of Exile 2 early access, and there are many bosses in each act. Although the boss’ difficulty increases as you go to the later stages, this does not mean that you can take the bosses of the first two acts lightly at least Tor Gul, The Defiler in the second act is worthy of your attention.

Based on this, we will introduce you to the location and combat mode of this boss to help you defeat it smoothly.

Where Does Tor Gul Appear?

After you complete the assembly of Horn of the Vastiri and blow it, you can enter Deshar. After exploring this area for a while, you will eventually find Jamanra and Beast of Corruption, but before you find them, Jamanra will summon Tor Gul, The Defiler, a giant skeleton monster, as another boss in the quest.

Tor Gul is located at the end of Spires of Deshar, after you pass Deshar and Path of Mourning. To ensure that you can respond correctly the first time you encounter it, we will introduce its attack skills and how to deal with it.

How To Defeat Tor Gul?

When you trigger the battle with this boss, you will enter an octagonal arena. Tor Gul will initially be stationary in a hole in the center of the arena. Once you enter, he will begin to attack.

Claw Rake

When using this skill, Tor Gul will drag his arms from the right to the left to cross half of the arena, and you will be damaged if you are touched by him. So when you see Tor Gul start to retract his arms, quickly move behind him to avoid being damaged. If your movement speed is not enough, it would be better to exchange some gear that can increase movement speed through POE 2 Divine Orbs in advance.

Skeleton Vomit

As the name suggests, this skill allows Tor Gul to vomit several skeleton enemies, causing damage by having them attack you. The annoying thing is that these skeletons will remain in the arena and continue to cause damage over time, so you must kill them in time and stay as far away from the boss’s “vomit” range as possible.

Fire Strike

While the skill is in effect, Tor Gul will open his chest and release fireballs, which will randomly fly forward to hit you. But before using this skill, Tor Gul will stand up and use his arms to pry open his chest after using the back attack. So you need to observe the boss carefully and move to his back in time after discovering these signs to avoid being attacked.

Head Smash

Tor Gul will deal heavy damage to you by slamming his head after standing up, but the signal before this attack is similar to Fire Strike, so you can still avoid Head Smash by moving close to the boss’s back.

Hand Crush

This skill is similar to the previous one, except that Hand Crush makes Tor Gul deal high damage by slamming his hands, and the attack speed of this skill is faster, so it is difficult to avoid. So if you want to dodge it successfully, you need to keep an eye on Tor Gul’s hands.

Flamethrower

This skill manifests as Tor Gul slowly turning around while breathing fire, covering half of the arena with flames, and the flames will always be there to damage you. So when you see Tor Gul start breathing fire, you must run to the other side of the arena to avoid it, and avoid Tor Gul’s other attacks while moving. If you have the energy to spare, you can also deal some damage while moving.

Bombs

Tor Gul will crouch and create bombs around the arena, which can be identified by orange marks. Since the actual blast radius is a bit larger than the marks indicate, you need to take this into account when moving.

Flame Tornados

Sometimes, after using a bomb attack, the boss will create a fire tornado on some marks that lasts for a few seconds. However, it is easy to avoid these because you should have already avoided the tornado when you were dodging the bomb.

Other Things To Note During The Battle

The key to fighting Tor Gul is actually to keep moving and stay behind him as much as possible, because this will make it easier to avoid almost all attacks. Because when you are behind Tor Gul, he will keep trying to turn towards you, which will give you a few extra seconds to react and successfully avoid his attacks.

In addition, the boss will deal a lot of chip damage and damage over time in this battle, so you need to use your potions effectively. For example, if you are in the range of Tor Gul’s Skeleton Vomit or fire skills while busy dodging other attacks from the boss, your health will be depleted unknowingly, which is when the health potion equipped in advance will come in handy. Or having a Life Flask that recharges over time can also be helpful.

Since Tor Gul mainly uses fire and physical attacks, having gear that increases resistance will greatly increase your chances of survival, such as Ruby Ring and the fire resistance charm. This way you don’t even have to change your usual builds for this fight, but can just consume some Exalted Orbs or other orbs.

Also Read: How To Avoid Mistakes In Path Of Exile 2 Side Quest?

Finally, if you still feel like defeating Tor Gul is tough, you might as well go to a nearby area and do some simple upgrades to gain extra skill points. While this may not seem like much, it can make a vast difference in the fight against Tor Gul.

Hopefully, the guide we provided will help you defeat Tor Gul, The Defiler in Path of Exile 2 as quickly as possible, so that you can complete the second act of the game. Wish you success!

As one of the most valuable hard currencies in Path of Exile 2, Divine Orb’s scarcity and functionality make it a core resource for players to reach the endgame content. Although some bosses in the game will drop a fixed Divine Orb when they are killed for the first time, this currency is generally in short supply.

What Is Divine Orbs Used For?

The core function of Divine Orb is to reset the equipment affix value to a random range without changing the affix type, and is often used to optimize high-value equipment. Its scarcity comes from its extremely low basic drop rate, which is about 0.055% in normal maps, and it is only significantly increased in high-level content such as T14+ maps and endgame boss drops. The preciousness of Divine Orb is also reflected in the exchange ratio with other currencies. The exchange ratio between Divine Orb and Exalted Orb is between 1:86 and 1:118.

How To Get Divine Orbs?

Ritual

The core logic of Ritual Altar is simple but full of depth: kill enemies to accumulate Tribute Points and redeem items in the reward pool. But unlike the random drops that are purely based on luck, the reward pool here will continue to accumulate as Altar is activated layer by layer. You can continue to obtain POE 2 Divine Orbs and Omens from it. Some Omens may not be useful for the time being, but maybe after a while, someone will be willing to exchange it with you, and good Omens are also very popular.

In order to be able to improve your efficiency in obtaining Divine Orbs, it is recommended that you use these affixes: +30% Tribute Points and Region contains additional Ritual Altar.

How To Match Atlas?

The following Atlas passives are must-haves:

• 50% increased chance for Omens
• An Audience with the King’s appearance chance increased by 50%
• Guaranteed 4 ritual altars
• Faster monster spawning

If the first altar does not have a Divine Orb, only redeems low-value items to clear the prize pool, and subsequent altars share the cumulative pool to increase the chance of high-value items refreshing. If the item you want to redeem does not appear in 3 consecutive altars, you can deliberately not redeem any items to trigger the system to force a refresh. You can also get An Audience with the King in Ritual. This item is very popular, and other players are willing to exchange it with you for 6 to 7 Divine Orbs.

Breach

Each rift battle can get 20-30 Breach Splinters. After 300 fragments are synthesized into a Breachstone, challenging the rift boss can drop 2-3 Divine Orbs. One Breachstone can be exchanged for 60 Divine Orbs.

High-Level Maps

If you’re tired of the pace of Ritual, there’s another path to wealth hidden deep in the high-level maps. The key word here is “monster density” - more enemies mean more opportunities.

Required Affixes:

• Monster Group Size +20%
• Item Rarity +150%
• Areas include Breach + Delirium

In some narrower maps, with the Local Knowledge talent node, you can increase the drop rate of currency items in the grass area. Then you just need to use powerful AOE skills to clear monsters efficiently, and you can quickly get a lot of currency.

Atlas Tree Key Nodes

• Deadly Evolution: Rare Monster Drop Rate +30%, effective globally.
• Rising Danger: Rare Monster Spawn Rate +15%. Rare monsters have a higher chance of dropping currency.
• Constant Crossroads: Increases your chance of getting Waystone by 20%, allowing you to farm monsters continuously.

Exchange

If you have some items you don’t need, you can find out if there are other players who need them at the Currency Exchange. There are many valuable items that can be exchanged for many Divine Orbs. For example, there is a great demand for Soul Core of Azcapa among players. One can be exchanged for 200-300 Divine Orbs, and another Deadly Fate Fragment can be exchanged for about 30 Divine Orbs. You need to check your warehouse from time to time, and don’t let high-value items gather dust in the warehouse.

In addition, the exchange quantity in Currency Exchange is not inevitable. If you want to get Divine Orbs to a large extent, it is recommended that you check the following Currency Exchange from time to time.

In addition, in Cruel Difficulty, town NPCs will exchange with you for currency at a fixed ratio, such as 100 Chaos Orbs can be exchanged for one Divine Orbs. If you have a large amount of other currencies, you can find them to exchange.

Learn More: What Can Path Of Exile 2 Players Do In Endgame?

The low drop rate of Divine Orbs has always been criticized by players, but this is undoubtedly one of the official means to extend the player’s game time. Currently, the game only has the first three acts of game content, and the official will release update 0.2.0 soon. It is still a long way from the official version. Maybe we have to wait until 2026 for players to play the full 6 acts. Before that, we may have to endure the current currency drop rate.

In Path of Exile 2, Ascendancy classes are almost the final stage of each class build. However, in order to make Ascendancy classes more powerful, players must constantly challenge trials of various difficulties.

The Trialmaster is the final boss of Trial of Chaos. Its mechanism is complex and the combat intensity is extremely high. He is ruthless and his attacks are like a storm. He is a very difficult boss. The following will introduce how to unlock this boss and attack it.

How To Unlock The Trialmaster?

The Trialmaster’s lair is located at the end of Trial of Chaos. You need to complete 10 rounds of Chaos Trial and defeat the boss of the 10th round to obtain three Fate Fragments. The following are the bosses you need to face in The Trialmaster and Fate Fragments, which they drop.

• Cowardly Fate: Dropped by Uxmal, The Beastlord.
• Deadly Fate: Dropped by Bahlak, The Sky Seer.
• Victorious Fate: Dropped by Chetza, The Feathered Plague.

Since the appearance of the three bosses is random, the fragments are also dropped randomly. Players usually need to challenge them multiple times or exchange them with other players using POE 2 currency. After you get the three fragments, you need to go to the end room of the 10th round of the trial and insert the three Fate Fragments into the door to enter The Trialmaster’s arena.

How To Prepare Equipment?

The Trialmaster has about 11 million health points and has the following resistances:

• Light Fire Resistance
• Light Cold Resistance
• Light Lightning Resistance
• Heavy Armor

Since The Trialmaster has high armor and high damage, both defense and output need to be the best.

Make sure the elemental resistance is full of 75%, and the health or shield is at least 5000 or more to withstand combo damage. Then strengthen the armor or dodge. It is recommended to use Stone Charm to be immune to the stun effect to deal with the restrictions imposed on you after The Trialmaster summons the heart. It is best to have high movement speed and displacement skills, which can effectively avoid area damage.

The Trialmaster has no resistance to chaos damage, so chaos damage is prioritized. Chaos damage over time (DOT) is very effective against The Trialmaster. If using other attributes, you need to equip equipment that can penetrate resistance or have skills that can reduce The Trialmaster’s resistance. Try to use high-burst skills to reduce its health quickly to avoid a protracted battle.

How To Deal With The Trialmaster’s Skills?

The Trialmaster’s skills are divided into two forms: melee (spear) and ranged (no spear), which need to be based on voice prompts and action prediction mechanisms.

Here are some voices when using skills:

Be Still!

Mechanism: Summons a beating heart. Players who enter its range will be slowed down and take physical damage, and those who leave the range will be stunned.

Countermeasures: Prioritize staying away from the heart area. If forced to enter, use displacement skills to leave quickly.

Chaos Aid Me!

Mechanism: Throwing a spear generates a continuously expanding physical damage area

Countermeasures: Fighting against the wall can force the spear to fall on the edge, reducing the pressure on the field.

Ultimatum!/Entropy!

Mechanism: After the time is paused, three consecutive ground slashes will generate a blood cone area.

Countermeasures: Observe the initial slash position and dodge to the sides or back.

Embrace Chaos/Surge Of Chaos!

Mechanism: Shoot blood balls, which will split and rebound after hitting the wall.

Countermeasures: Get close to the gap in the wall, and the blood balls will fly out of the field; or use circular movement to avoid.

Rip And Tear!

Mechanism: Quickly spin to attack and release shock waves.

Countermeasures: Keep moving and avoid staying on its attack path.

Most skills (such as blood balls and spears) are released with the player’s current position as the center. Sticking to the wall can limit the skill coverage. When The Trialmaster loses the spear, he switches to long-range attack mode. You need to pay attention to his phase switching and be careful to avoid his attacks.

If you don’t have enough equipment to defeat The Trialmaster, you can hire other players to help you defeat this boss with a few POE 2 Divine Orbs. The drops, after defeating it are very rich and will definitely make up for your efforts.

Read More: How To Find And Defeat Azarian, The Forsaken Son In Path Of Exile 2?

Rewards

After defeating The Trialmaster, players will receive the following rare drops:

Fixed drops:

Inscribed Ultimatum: Used to sacrifice Vaal Orbs to double the rewards of the next trial.

Unique equipment (one of them is dropped randomly):

• The Adorned: Improves the socket effect of corrupted jewels (very low probability).
• Glimpse of Chaos: Provides high health/mana, but chaos resistance is zero.
• Hateforge: Rage mechanism gloves, suitable for burst styles.
• Mahuxotl’s Machination: Strengthens the defensive shield of Energy Shield and Soul Core.
• Zerphi’s Genesis: A belt that is immune to Corrupted Blood and optimizes potion recharge.

Since The Trialmaster is very difficult, its drops are also very valuable, and you can use them in your build. If you don’t need them, you can also go to Currency Exchange and exchange them with other players for POE 2 currency.

In the vast world of Path of Exile 2, equipment collection and character construction are always the core experience. Among them, Unique Jewels can bring various benefits to the player’s skill tree, and are undoubtedly one of the important components of the player’s character’s final construction. These jewels can not only provide subversive attribute bonuses to the character but also can be exchanged for currency in POE 2 economic system.

What Are Unique Jewels Used For?

Unique Jewels play a dual role in PoE 2. From a construction perspective, they can often completely change the skill mechanism or break the attribute limit, such as converting physical damage into elemental damage, giving specific skills additional effects, or providing rare affixes. From an economic perspective, due to the low drop rate of high-difficulty bosses, Unique Jewels are very popular among players. You can even use a rare jewel to exchange for dozens of POE 2 Divine Orbs from other players.

However, obtaining these jewels is not an easy task. All unique jewels need to defeat the peak boss of difficulty 4, and the drop is completely random. Even if you succeed in killing the boss with great effort, even if you do not return empty-handed, you may not necessarily get these Unique Jewels. Therefore, you need not only hard work and patience but also some luck.

How To Get Unique Jewels?

The following are the specific ways to obtain 10 Unique Jewels in the current version and the corresponding boss challenge strategies:

1. Against The Darkness Time-Lost Diamond

Source: After using the unique relic of The Desperate Alliance, defeat the 4th level boss Zarokh, the Temporal in Sekhemas Trial, and it will definitely drop.

Trigger condition: The character level must be ≥75, and you must enter the trial through Djinn Barya map.

Countermeasures: Zarokh, the Temporal will summon a clock to limit the player's activity space. Players need to plan their movements in advance. You should pass through the sphere it summons as soon as possible, otherwise you will die immediately.

2. Controlled Metamorphosis Diamond

Source: Defeat Breach pinnacle Boss Xesht, We Who Are One (difficulty 4), and it will drop randomly.

Trigger condition: Use Breachstone at Realmgate to start Breach event. After defeating 10 waves of Breach monsters, summon Boss Xesht, We Who Are One.

Countermeasures: Xesht has high chaos damage, it is recommended to prepare medicine and equipment that can resist chaos equipment. At the same time, be careful to deal with its high-damage skills in the second stage.

3. From Nothing Diamond

Source: Randomly dropped by defeating Ritual pinnacle Boss The King in the Mists (Difficulty 4).

Trigger condition: Start the ritual by using An Audience with the King function at Realmgate.

Countermeasures: The boss has high health and its movement speed after transformation is not fast. You need to destroy the totems in the arena as soon as possible to avoid the powerful debuffs imposed on you by The King in the Mists.

4. Heroic Tragedy Timeless Jewel

Source: Randomly dropped by defeating Expeditions pinnacle Boss Olroth, Origin of the Fall (Difficulty 4).

Trigger condition: Talk to NPC Dannig in Hideout and use Logbooks of level ≥79 to open Expeditions.

Countermeasures: Olroth’s corrupted realm will continuously reduce the player’s resistance. It is necessary to stack chaos resistance to more than 80% in advance and carry appropriate potions.

5. Megalomaniac Diamond

Source: Randomly dropped by defeating Delirium pinnacle Boss Kosis, The Revelation (Difficulty 4).

Trigger condition: Use Simulacrum props at Realmgate to open Delirium, and fight the boss after completing 30 waves of challenges.

Countermeasures: The key to survival in Simulacrum is AOE and high defense. At the same time, dodging will also be particularly useful here, and many attacks can be avoided by dodging.

6. Prism Of Belief Diamond

Source: Defeat Arbiter of Ash (Difficulty 4).

Trigger condition: The following three fragments are simultaneously at Burning Monolith:

• Activate Ancient Crisis Fragment
• Faded Crisis Fragment
• Weathered Crisis Fragment

Countermeasures: The boss will burst out with powerful fire damage. In addition to armor, it is recommended to prepare more fire resistance. Arbiter of Ash can be said to be the most difficult boss in the endgame, so players have multiple challenges. If you can’t deal with it alone, you can use 2 to 3 Divine Orbs to hire some expert players to help you deal with it.

7. The Adorned Diamond

Source: The Trialmaster (Trails of Chaos boss), random drop.

Trigger conditions: Character level ≥ 75. and you need to engrave these three Ultimatums: Cowardly Fate, Deadly Fate, Victorious Fate. Because You usually get these fates randomly, and you may need to pass more trials, or look for these items in Currency Exchange.

Countermeasures: Trialmaster is a hero with about 11 million health and enough resistance, but he has no resistance to chaos damage. You need to have high armor to resist its fierce attacks, and use chaos damage to wear down his health.

learn more: How To Complete Trial Of Chaos In Path Of Exile 2?

8-10. Grand Spectrum Emerald/Ruby/Sapphire

Source: It is also randomly dropped after defeating the 4th floor boss Zarokh, the Temporal (difficulty 4) of Sekhemas Trial.

All unique jewelry must be obtained by defeating the boss of difficulty 4, and the difficulty level depends on the operation of Atlas point system:

• After defeating a boss for the first time, you will get +2 Atlas points.
• Unlock “Difficulty +1” by allocating points to the corresponding boss type in Atlas interface.
• Defeat the boss again at the new difficulty and repeat the allocating points until Difficulty 4 is unlocked.

Also, note that although Trialmaster and Zarokh, the Temporal each have only one difficulty level, Zarokh can be made more difficult by using unique relics.

Unique Jewels are very useful, but they are also very difficult to obtain. Difficulty 4 pinnacle bosses are arguably the most difficult challenges in POE 2. However, once you defeat them, you will be rewarded with many POE 2 currency and one or two unique items. Even if they are not the unique items you need, you can still trade them with other players for currency.

If you can’t defeat the above bosses yet, you will have to trade currency with other players for Unique Jewels.

It has been more than two months since the official release of POE 2 early access. How is your game’s progress? Have you successfully entered the endgame stage? If you are still stuck in the first three acts because of insufficient level or too powerful bosses, don’t worry, we will provide you with some help!

As you know, POE series of games has always been known for its high difficulty, so in order to defeat each boss you encounter, you not only need to consume POE 2 Currency in advance to exchange for more powerful gear or armor for your character, but also need to understand the fighting style of these bosses.

Based on this, this time we will introduce you to the duo boss Ekbab And Iktab in the second act. By analyzing the different ways to deal with these two bosses, we can help you defeat them smoothly.

Introduction To Ekbab And Iktab

The full names of these two bosses are Ekbab, the Ancient Steed and Iktab, the Deathlord. You’ll encounter them in Act II because you’ll be asked to assemble Horn of the Vastiri as part of the pre-quest, and you’ll need to collect three items to do so. One of them, Mastodon Tusks, is part of A Theft of Ivory quest, and you’ll need to go to Mastodon Badlands, Bone Pits for this, where you’ll encounter this double boss.

Overall Battle Strategy

Once the battle is triggered, both bosses will attack you at the same time, so you’ll need to decide how to deal with them in advance to avoid being caught off guard. It’s worth noting that whichever boss you defeat first, the other boss will become more powerful afterwards, increasing the efficiency of each of its attacks.

So you can’t focus on taking down one of them like you would a normal Path of Exile 2 boss, it’s best to deal as much damage to them as possible, let their health drain at a similar rate, and then quickly kill them both during your attack turn.

If you find it too difficult to kill both bosses at the same time, you can also try to kill Iktab first, as he’s the more dangerous of the two. Because Ekbab’s enhanced attacks can be avoided by flexible dodging, and its attacks will not become stronger as the battle progresses, but Iktab’s attacks will be more difficult to deal with.

On this basis, it is recommended that you trade with others with POE 2 Chaos Orbs you obtain in exchange for some equipment with lightning resistance to improve your survivability in battle, because Iktab’s lightning attacks and lightning wand attacks will significantly reduce your health.

Ekbab, The Ancient Seed Attack Patterns & Skills

Since the skills and attack methods used by these two bosses in battle are different, they will be introduced to you separately.

1. Ground Slam

When using this skill, Ekbab will raise its front hooves and slam the area in front of it, causing a wave of cascading damage. When you see Ekbab standing up, move away from it immediately to avoid this attack.

2. Tusk Swipe

When Ekbab launches this skill, it will swing its head to the left to cause damage, so you can more easily avoid this attack by just staying on its right side. However, sometimes Ekbab may follow your movement trajectory and swing to the right, so always be vigilant.

3. Charge

This skill allows Ekbab to deal straight-line damage to you by charging forward, and Ekbab will retreat before charging forward. Your best bet is to keep your distance from the boss so that you can more easily avoid this attack.

In fact, most of Ekbab’s attacks can be avoided by moving to its sides, so when you see it preparing to attack, dodge to its sides in time according to the distance between you. While this is not difficult, avoiding Ekbab’s attacks while avoiding Iktab’s attacks is the real challenge.

If you kill Iktab first, Ekbab will gain more power, specifically it will create a smaller Ghost Nova of Iktab and then shoot projectiles at you, and also let one or two smaller ghost orbs follow you and explode when they get close to you, which you can detonate by dodging at the last second.

Iktab, The Dreadlord Attack Patterns & Skills

Iktab has more skills than Ekbab and is more difficult to deal with, so you have to focus on him.

1. Lightning Wand

This skill will fire small lightning projectiles at you that explode on impact. This attack is hard to avoid and hard to foresee, and the only way to avoid it is to either distance yourself from the boss as soon as you see the first set of lightning projectiles or time them to dodge.

2. Sigil Meteor

Three orange marks will appear on the ground after the boss uses this skill, and then a meteor will fall on them. Simply avoid the orange marks to avoid the meteor.

3. Lightning Strikes

With this skill, Iktab will randomly strike small areas of the arena with lightning. These lightning strikes are indicated by small light blue marks, just avoid them.

4. Ghost Nova

This skill will cause a nova to appear in the center of the arena, which will slowly rotate while firing projectiles at you at a regular interval. To avoid taking damage, you need to move to the edge of the arena and move with the nova to avoid the projectiles.

5. Bone Tendrils

After using this skill, the boss will summon five circular AOEs near your feet. After a moment, they will explode and can be avoided by keeping moving. However, Iktab will only use this attack after Ekbab dies.

When Iktab gains extra power due to Ekbab’s death, all of its attacks will become stronger. For example, Sigil Meteor will form more marks to cover a larger area of ​​the arena; Lightning Strikes will cover a higher density; Ghost Nova’s projectiles will be fired faster, and nova will rotate faster.

It is worth noting that walking too far when dodging Ghost Nova’s projectiles may put you in the path of another projectile. So it is better to walk with the projectiles as the nova rotates, rather than dodge every projectile.

Related: Path of Exile 2 Currency Free Giveaways & Promotions

After defeating these two bosses, you will not only get the loot drops but also successfully obtain Mastodon Tusks to complete the assembly of Horn of the Vastiri and continue your journey in Path of Exile 2. But if you are short of orbs to exchange for gear during the battle, you can try to participate in the seventh POE 2 giveaway event in IGGM Discord, which will give you a chance to win a lot of free orbs!

Although the early stages of Path of Exile 2 are easier to explore than the endgame, the endgame offers more loot. This is not only to match the high difficulty of the endgame, but also because the endgame will provide you with more mechanics to broaden your POE 2 Currency farming channels.

Among all the new content in POE 2 endgame, the most noteworthy are four main mechanics: Breach, Ritual, Delirium and Expedition. We have introduced several of them to you through other related information before, and this time we will introduce you to Ritual.

What Is Ritual?

As one of the endgame mechanics of Path of Exile 2, Ritual can help you get endgame gear and Divine Orbs through combat. In this way, you can not only enhance your game character but also exchange your Divine Orbs for more benefits through the currency exchange system.

Currency exchange is unlocked when you enter the endgame and reach the game’s Cruel difficulty, allowing you to trade currency items with other players, thus easing the intensity of your POE 2 item farming work. But before that, you need to master the operation of Ritual in order to earn enough orbs.

How Does Ritual Work?

During the operation of Ritual, corresponding altars will be generated. These altars will be scattered on specific Waystones on the map, or you can think any Waystone with a ritual symbol will have a series of altars distributed throughout the node.

At the location of these altars, there will be some enemies that must be defeated. They will be resurrected again after the altar is activated. It is worth noting that each altar will randomly come with one of 5 conditions, which will change the battle in a corresponding form and restrict your movement area. These conditions are:

• Contaminated - Blood waves will pass through the arena during the battle.
• Infested - Deadly tornadoes will always follow you.
• Sapping - Make the arena always full of purple clouds, and standing in it will reduce your elemental resistance, and enemies will gain elemental resistance.
• Smothered - Explosive pods form in the arena and follow you around.
• Tainted - Enemies spawn explosive pods when they die, which explode when you get close to them.

You’ll need to adjust your combat strategy to deal with different restrictions. In addition, when you kill an enemy with a Ritual Altar active, you’ll earn Tribute Points, which can be used to claim or delay items acquired through the altar. While these points will persist throughout the current map, they will be reset when you start running a Ritual on a new map.

Ritual Locations

First, you can find playable Rituals on randomly generated Waystones throughout the map. Second, you can find some Rituals by using Ritual Precursor Tablet on a Watchtower, which will make five to ten map nodes within range of Watchtower offer your Ritual altars. Often these tablets may drop from Ritual enemies on previous nodes.

How To Farm In Ritual?

Also Read: Player Feedback: The Endgame In Path Of Exile 2 Would Be Better With Some Changes!

If you want to get POE 2 Regal Orbs or more types of orbs through Ritual farming, then you need to get as many altars as possible. To do this, you first need to target map nodes with Ritual symbols, and get Omens and possible tablet drops by completing these Rituals, so that you can get more Ritual nodes with tablets.

How To Build Atlas Tree For Ritual?

There are some branches in POE 2 Atlas skill tree dedicated to enhancing the effects of Ritual, which is divided into two categories: rewarding you with more tributes, and making item farming more focused on enemy drops. The latter branch will have a greater effect, so it will be introduced to you in detail.

In this skill tree branch, the best skills are From The Mists, Spreading Darkness, and Ominous Portents. From The Mists adds two extra packs of monsters to each altar and increases the chance of slate drops; Spreading Darkness ensures that there are always four altars in all Ritual nodes; Ominous Portents gives you a 50% chance of Omens drops while making enemies appear faster.

If you can, you can also try to unlock He Approaches. This skill increases the rarity of monsters during Ritual and the drop rate of An Audience With The King. Due to the difficulty of this option is too high, you’d better choose it carefully unless your character is strong enough.

How To Defer Items?

Although deferring an item during a Ritual will consume a small amount of tribute, it can bring you more benefits by locking the item in place so that it will reappear in a future Ritual with a lower tribute tag. So you can repeat this process as many times as you can and unlock some related Atlas skill nodes for it.

In general, while Ritual may not be able to upgrade your builds, Omens you get when farming it can be exchanged for a variety of POE 2 orbs, giving you the opportunity to continue to exchange for more precious game items. Of course, you can also get some free orbs by participating in POE 2 giveaway event on IGGM Discord! Good luck!

To give you more benefits and help you defeat enemies more efficiently in battle, Path of Exile 2 brings many special mechanics. They usually work in different forms, but the common point is that you must understand how they work in advance to use them better.

The two POE 2 mechanics we are going to introduce to you this time are Acrobatics and meta skills. You can think of them as the skill, the difference is that the former is a Keystone passive skill, and the latter is a special skill gem.

What Is Acrobatics?

In POE 2, when facing attacks from enemies, you can only rely on three defensive attributes to protect yourself successfully, namely evasion, armor, and energy shield. And each build in the game will combine these three attributes based on consuming enough POE 2 Currency, to protect you from attacks and avoid death in different ways.

Based on this, you will find that Acrobatics, as a Keystone passive skill in the passive skill tree, can allow you to dodge almost all attacks, which is very useful.

Acrobatics Working Principle

By default, evasion protects you from Strikes and Projectiles from enemies. Strikes are direct hits to your character, and Projectiles are attacks or spells that cause effects on the target, such as a poison with a yellow trail. Evasion gives you a chance to dodge these attacks by a certain percentage.

But Acrobatics can take evasion a step further. For example, it can give your character a chance to dodge not only Strikes and Projectiles but also any damage that counts as a hit - in fact, hits account for 90% of all damage that can be dealt in POE 2, except for damage over time or DOT.

Another main reason to recommend you to choose Acrobatics is that it can prevent you from being killed by random slams or AOE attacks from bosses and monsters, which can sometimes be very deadly in the endgame because neither evasion nor armor can protect you from them. But with Acrobatics, you can do this with evasion.

The current evasion cap in the game is 95%, and if you have the right passive skills and high evasion gear, you can reach this cap with Acrobatics activated. However, this does not mean that you will evade 95% of the hits, it just means that you have a 95% chance of evading the first hit you receive, and then the chance of evading the second hit you receive will decrease slightly, and then decrease in sequence.

When To Use Acrobatics?

Acrobatics can only be used when you can make up for the 70% evasion loss and get at least 80% evasion score with Acrobatics activated. To do this, you not only need to increase the passive skill points of evasion but also have to exchange POE 2 Exalted Orbs for some high evasion gear.

What Are Meta Skills?

Meta Skills are actually special skill gems that can trigger the corresponding effects when you socket it with other skill gems in the support gem slot and meet its energy requirements.

It is worth noting that all meta gems need to be socketed with at least one skill gem to be triggered. Currently, you can identify if a gem is a meta gem by checking the “Meta” tag below the name of the skill gem.

Meta Skills Working Principle

Most meta gems require enough energy to trigger their special effects, and energy can only be generated by repeatedly performing specific actions. As a special Path of Exile 2 resource, energy is actually used specifically to trigger the effects of meta gems and activate their socketed skills.

You May Like: Path of Exile 2 Currency Free Giveaways & Promotions

For example, if you cast a meta skill while freezing an enemy, you will not only gain energy but also automatically trigger the corresponding socketed skill of the meta gem when you reach 100 energy. So if you want to make a basic build with this mechanic, you need to freeze as many times as possible to trigger the relevant skills constantly.

With the exception of Hand of Chayula and Ancestral Warrior Totem, all meta gems require at least 60 Spirit Reservation to work, and this resource can be collected through permanent rewards in the campaign, amulets, body armor, and spirit modifiers on scepters.

How To Collect Energy For Meta Skills?

There are currently four ways to increase the rate at which your meta skills gain energy in POE 2, and they are as follows:

• Inlay Impetus Support Gem: This will give your meta skill gems a 40% energy gain, but you can only have one Impetus Support Gem at a time.
• Increase Gem Quality: When you use Gemcutter’s Prism on certain meta gems, you can increase their energy absorption rate by 20%, thereby improving the quality of the gem and its usability in combat.
• Unlock relevant Passive Skill Tree Points: There are some passive skill points in the skill tree that can increase the effectiveness of triggered meta skills, including energy gains, after being unlocked.
• Sapphire Jewels: This jewelry can give your meta skills better suffixes by rolling properties. If you don’t have Sapphire Jewels, you can exchange them by orbs on the trading website.

You should have discovered that in order for the above two mechanisms to work better, you need to have enough POE 2 orbs, so hurry up and join the sixth 2025 POE 2 giveaway in IGGM Discord, which has not yet ended! You will have a chance to receive 250 Orbs of Chance & 150 Orbs of Annulment & 25 Divine Orbs!

If you are an old player of Path of Exile, you know that GGG showed the relevant content of POE 2 as early as ExileCon 2023. Among them, Pushy Mechanic that debuted at the event attracted a lot of players’ attention. It looks very cool, but after playing for a while after Early Access release, you will find that the performance of this new mechanism is really unsatisfactory! We can even say that it is one of the worst systems in PoE 2 at present, because it makes melee worse than it is now.

Pushy Mechanic

Now, Pushy mechanic is a system in Path of Exile 2, which basically allows one entity to push another entity and change their position.

At ExileCon, when the developers talked about this issue, they basically described it as each of these entities. For example, your character and monsters will have different push values, and it’s usually based on the actual size of the entity, so bigger monsters will be able to roll or move towards you and push you out of the way, while smaller monsters shouldn’t have that effect on you. At the same time, the player character should also be able to push things that are smaller than them out of the way.

But we actually saw in a patch released right after Path of Exile 2 was released that GGG improved Dodge Roll so that you can push smaller monsters out of the way more easily, because Pushy mechanic is not working properly right now.

Screen Desync

In my opinion, Pushy mechanic is currently the worst mechanic in the game, especially it feels terrible to interact with it.

Honestly, it doesn’t feel like a specific mechanic that was deliberately positioned in the game to provide this Pushy system. On the contrary, it actually feels like a glitch, it feels like a bug. Because every time it happens, our character will be out of sync, you will even feel like you have a connection problem and completely lose control of your character. Then after a second or half a second, the screen will return to the center of the character, and then we will be in a different position.

From a player’s perspective, there’s no animation or feedback to indicate how the character is being pushed, or which direction they’re being pushed in, they’re just being thrown around. The out-of-sync screen makes them not only unable to deal with enemies normally and pick up POE 2 Currency, but they are even at risk of being killed by the boss. As a result, it feels terrible to interact with it, and it’s undoubtedly the worst mechanic in the game.

Pulls Down The Melee Experience

Now one thing that makes this problem worse is that it’s even worse when you’re playing a melee character, especially a mace character. Because mace swings very slowly, and you’re usually placed close to monsters to launch these slow swing attacks, which means you’re the most vulnerable to being pushed around. Imagine when you’re just standing there, casting Sunder or doing a Rolling Slam, and suddenly you’re pushed across the screen. It’s a bit awkward.

We all know that GGG is committed to making POE 2 the savior of melee combat, you know it’s destined to improve melee combat, and they’re aiming to be much better than POE 1. Because in POE 1, they didn’t have the systems and infrastructure to make melee combat really good, so in POE 2, all these new systems and new things were started from scratch.

And Pushy mechanic, as one of the systems they implemented, this forced mechanism completely deprives melee combat of its power. It doesn’t add anything to melee combat, it just makes you constantly pushed and bullied by monsters, which is terrible!

If you are also in this situation and want to seek a breakthrough, then it is recommended that you enter the giveaway channel in IGGM Discord. The large number of giveaways provided here will allow you to optimize your inventory as soon as possible and greatly improve your character's melee ability.

How To Fix This Mechanic?

So, at this point, I think this mechanic is in desperate need of fixing. Here we will outline a few things GGG can do to fix this mechanic.

1. Try To Remove It

First, we are going to remove it now. Of course, this is probably the worst idea on this list, and removing this mechanic may not even be possible. Maybe it is completely hard-coded in Path of Exile, including all the moving animations and things like that.

We don’t know how important this mechanic is to the system working in terms of game development or something like that, and whether it can be removed. But I can definitely say that if we read the 0.2.0 patch notes and found out that the entire Pushy mechanic has been completely removed from the game, many people wouldn’t care too much.

2. Improve Mechanic Bugs

But honestly, I think it’s unlikely that it will be completely removed, so the next step is to improve this mechanic. Pushy system actually has a lot of bugs and issues. It’s not just because the system itself doesn’t capture the entire area they’re after, but because it has many bugs in itself. For example, Rolling Slam completely breaks down when you’re being pushed.

What happens with Rolling Slam is that during the animation, if a monster pushes you, you’re pushed in the direction of that monster. But the game’s entire camera angle doesn’t capture the center of the character during the animation, so you move to one side of the screen. Then, once your animation is over, the game immediately repositions you to the center of the screen, which makes you feel like you’re tied up by a rubber band or disconnected from the outside world at that moment.

So if bugs like this were completely eliminated, it would be an enormous improvement and a good direction to go in to fix this mechanic.

3. Add A New Stat

Next, adding a stat for counter-pushing would also be a really good idea, and this could be something as simple as putting it in Strength area of ​​the skill tree. For example, it would make the most sense to put this stat in other places in the tree. As we mentioned before, Pushy system is a really big problem for characters that use mace. So it makes sense to put this stat around the mace part of the tree where Strength area is.

Also, they could have added a stat that increases Stun Threshold. When you’re really getting pushed by a monster, the higher your threshold, the bigger the monster needs to be to push you away. With this, you could definitely increase your resistance by constantly rolling the stat with Chaos Orbs, instead of just being slammed into a wall like a rag doll!

So, something like this that can actually prevent you from getting pushed or at least limit the number of times you get pushed would be a really pleasant change.

4. Improve Character Pushing

The next thing is to improve character pushing. This is actually related to monsters, so now they’ve kind of changed this thing up.

As we mentioned before, when Path of Exile 2 was released, they put in a patch that improved the way to push small monsters with Dodge Roll. But there are actually some problems with this.

Because it’s not just about Dodge Roll, it’s very awkward to be physically blocked by these very small monsters when you’re moving around as a character. And when monsters are three or four times bigger than you, they can easily push you out of the way, but you should also be able to push them out of the way in other ways, which should be a reasonable feature in the game.

5. Improve Object Paths

Finally, for this mechanic, GGG needs to improve object pathing. There are often some terrain issues and things like that in the game that will immediately prevent you from using movement abilities, which results in you being immediately stuck on a small piece of terrain that you can’t even see.

What ends up happening? That’s when monsters are near you, especially when they’re right next to you when you try to use the skill. They may push you a little bit, and eventually you will be off from where you want to go, and then your Dodge Roll will be immediately blocked and stopped.

What’s more important is that once skills are used, if they have a cooldown, they will go on cooldown. This means you’re stuck with your hands tied.

So improving object pathing is a good idea, just remove some small objects so they don’t get in the way.

Since we’re on the subject, I think having more open map layouts actually improves this as well, because there’s nothing worse than being stuck in a corridor. Like a very narrow corridor where you’re completely trapped by monsters and they’re pushing you around and you can’t basically move and you’re just constantly getting tangled up.

These are just some of my thoughts on how I think they could fix the issues with Pushy system. I have to say, this Pushy mechanic is in desperate need of improvement. If you’ve played Path of Exile 2 for a while, you’ll have interacted with this mechanic. But it’s especially noticeable when you start playing as a Warrior and use mace early in the game, you’ll notice yourself getting pushed all over the place. So hopefully GGG hears player feedback soon, and let’s look forward to seeing changes in the next update!

While all the classes in Path of Exile 2 Early Access were originally designed for solo exploration, since the addition of couch co-op to this overhauled sequel, more players are exploring the benefits of teamwork and exploring the game more conveniently.

Because of the different ways in which different player abilities, buffs, and ailments interact, co-op makes exploration easier, even with increased enemy health or enhanced combat mechanics. Co-op currently supports up to 6 players, which allows for multiple different classes and builds to be combined for co-op play.

According to feedback from many current player communities and social media, the most popular combination is 2-player. So this guide will introduce you to some of the two-class combinations that are most suitable for co-op play based on the current properties and stats of the classes, so that you and your friends can have a very smooth and enjoyable exploration!

1. Witch & Warrior

When you explore in POE 2, you will definitely think about whether to choose a Class that focuses on very exciting melee combat or a Class that focuses on ranged attacks with spell damage, which will determine your exploration style in this game.

Now, in cooperative games, you can put it in a battle: Warrior can confront the enemy head-on, while Witch can provide very effective help by casting minions, enemy debuffs, and ally support skills.

Although it is often recommended to place some gear that can increase the spell damage or physical damage of minions in Witch build in regular single-player exploration, it is the opposite in this cooperative combination. You should invest more POE 2 Exalted Orbs in those Witch support skills, especially those skills that can bring ally buffs to your team.

2. Warrior & Sorceress

Since Sorceress and Witch are two classes that split from one class in the original game, it is also a highly complementary cooperation combination with Warrior, but the specific effectiveness still depends on the build used by Sorceress.

For example, a Sorceress build that focuses on lightning damage will cause shock in battle and make these enemies more vulnerable to all melee attacks cast by Warrior, while a Sorceress build that focuses on cold damage can freeze enemies in the arena, making it easier for Warrior to cause higher damage to these controlled enemies and gain some damage reduction from them. 

As for Warrior, it can use its melee ability to attract hatred from the boss or enemies to help all Sorceress skills be in effective range. At the same time, it can also cause high stun damage to the enemy, making the attacked enemy bear more elemental damage from Sorceress.

3. Monk & Ranger

This may surprise you when you see this Classes combination, because they should belong to the same play style in the player’s impression, but in fact they also have super synergy because they can both focus on lightning damage, cold damage, or both.

This means that if you and your friends use this highly similar build in exploration and release the same elemental effects in combat, the elemental ailments of this element will be triggered faster, making your builds have devastating crowd control and damage potential when combined.

In addition, Ranger, who is good at shooting skills such as Snipe, can also cooperate with Monk because it can use Tempest Bell Skill to trigger higher shooting accuracy and amplify the damage of such skills. Generally speaking, this cooperation combination will be very suitable for farming POE 2 Currency and Uniques because the casting speed of damaging skills will be very fast.

4. Mercenary & Sorceress

Similar to the previous combination, since both classes in POE 2 emphasize long-range attack capabilities and need to keep a certain distance from the enemy, players generally think that this combination is counterintuitive, but as long as you choose the right build for it, you will be very surprised.

Among the many choices, Sorceress build that focuses on cold damage can be perfectly combined with a Mercenary build that uses Fragmentation Rounds: the latter will consume the former’s freezing of the enemy and detonate ice crystals to cause more devastating damage.

What’s more, Mercenary’s Oil Grenade also greatly increases the ignite damage spread by Sorceress when using Flame Wall-boosted projectiles by causing fire exposure to the enemy. Not only that, Sorceress’s skills that can cause crowd control will also effectively help Mercenary easily hit the enemy with grenades in combat.

The above are some of the best Classes combinations for two-player cooperative exploration in the current POE 2 Early Access. It should be reminded that the recommendations here are for reference only, because this nearly perfect sequel provides players with a lot of freedom, in which you can try different builds or combinations so that you can find the one that suits you best.

If you encounter slow or stagnant situations in the exploration process of the game because of the lack of currency or items, it is strongly recommended that you enter the giveaway channel in IGGM Discord to enrich all your inventory and save you from this pain. I wish you a happy game!