Of the many announcements made at ExileCon with Path of Exile 2 and Path of Exile Mobile, perhaps one of the biggest is that the current Path of Exile end-game is changing. Originally, players would seek to defeat the Elder and Shaper at the centre of the map-heavy Atlas of Worlds. With Conquerors of the Atlas, how players interact with the Shaper and Elder is changing significantly. Grinding Gear Games revealed many of these changes in new forum post.
For starters, players will now begin at the centre of the map and follow a new storyline. Completing maps will enable fights with Conquerors and open up new regions of maps. The new bosses will drop Watchstones which can be socketed into an Atlas region to upgrade all of its maps. If you defeat a Conqueror, then that region can be fully upgraded.
Unique maps will drop at higher tiers as a result. Also, Sextants no longer work on individual maps but on Watchstones instead and up to four sextants can be applied on a region. Apprentice, Journeyman and Master Cartographer’s Sextants will also have their own modifiers so the higher the sextant tier, the better the modifiers.
Of course, there’s plenty that’s being removed or changed in the Shaper and Elder department. You’ll no longer see Shaper or Elder influence on the map though items for both cans till be obtained from Divination Cards and drops from their encounters. Shaper’s Strongholds, Shaper’s Orbs and Elder’s Orbs are gone. Cartographer’s Seals and Unshaping Orbs will also be removed.
So how do you encounter the Shaper and his Guardians? Through missions with Zana, which is also the best way to fight the Elder Guardians and The Elder. Fragments from both can drop to reveal their respective encounters and can be combined to battle Uber Elder.
It’s a long list of changes to the end-game for sure. We’ll have to wait and see how it pans out when Conquerors of the Atlas goes live on December 13th for PC and December 20th for Xbox One and PS4.