Welcome to the Path of Exile Uber Elder Guide. The Uber Elder is one of the most difficult boss fights in the game. In this encounter, we are going to fight both Elder and Shaper at the same time which makes it more challenging and harder to beat.

Uber Elder Spawn Mechanics

The Elder can be found on the Atlas by expanding his influence on the maps by completing within the surrounding Shaper influenced maps. In order to spawn Uber Elder, it will require that to influence the Shaper’s Realm with the Elders Influence by getting it on each of the Shaper’s Guardian maps.

You are needed to obtain all Memory Fragments for Zana to get Elder’s influence on the Shaper’s Guardian maps, which includes defeating the Shaper for the finaly memory fragment that gives the Elder Orb. Once this has been done, and you have opened the locked door within the Templar Laboratory, you will be able to have Shaper and Elder influence on your Shaper’s Guardian maps.

Encountering Uber Elder

The Uber Elder can be fought by progressing through the Epilogue quests by collecting all 15 Memory Fragments and defeating the Shaper at least once. Afterwards, when a Tier 15 map is Elder-influenced, it will cause all Tier 16 maps to become Shaper-influenced. Clear all four maps and the Elder will occupy The Shaper’s Realm. Then as usual, you need to take out all 4 of the Elder’s Guardians to summon Uber Elder.

Unlike the Shaper, there will be no mini-bosses to fight before you can encounter the Uber Elder.

Absence of Value and Meaning

The Absence of Value and Meaning is the name of the arena that the Uber Elder spawns. This arena does not have any special environmental effects like the Elder Guardians and will always have the same size and layout every time.

Fighting Mechanics and Strategy

In this Uber Elder fight, you are going to fight both Shaper and Elder at the same time. This is a very mechanical fight, which requires you to move  a lot and it will take some practice. One of the bosses will be invulnerable, alternating between the two for every 25% health lost. The invulnerable boss will use less attacks than normal. When both bosses are at 25% health, both bosses will be vulnerable.

There are no special phases from either boss. At each 1/4 health lost, the Elder or Shaper will spawn adds. The Elder will summon multiple Null Portals and the Shaper channels a portal like in his regular fight. Both are invulnerable during this phase. The Elder will not use his Petrifying Arc attack and the Shaper will not use his Shadow Clone or Bullet Hell attack.

Here is the order for which Boss you fight:

• Shaper → Elder → Elder Open Portals → Shaper → Elder → Shaper Open Portals→ Shaper → Elder → Elder Open Portals → Elder & Shaper

Arena Mechanics

During the fight, there will be arena events that will occur with their effects staying for the entire boss fights.

Vortex Balls

These vortex balls will spawn and follow you until they touch you. When it does, it will spawn a vortex on the ground that deals initial cold damage and cold damage degeneration when stepping it. Always remember to keep the vortex on the side of the arena to keep the boss fight easier.

Eldritch Tentacle Adds

Floating Eldritch Tentacle adds will spawn around the arena. These attack with lightning projectiles that deal minimal damage, but can apply a shock. The main concern with these adds, is that they can drop Eldritch Decay Ground if left alive. This ground effect is dark gray and deals physical damage over time. Make sure to kill these as soon as you see them before they can drop this ground effect.

Part 1: Shaper

To start, Elder is immune and you will first fight Shaper, bringing him down to 75% life.

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears

Strategy

Always stay mobile and dodge attacks while dealing damage on the Shaper, especially when he cast Shaper Beam or melee attacks. Shaper will only cast Golden Projectiles when you are not in melee range. Ignore Elder and dodge his attacks, pay attention to the Ice Spears attack.

Part 2: Elder

After you bring Shaper to 75% life, he will then become immune, and Elder will become vulnerable. Now you must bring Elder to 75% life.

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears
• Ring of Death

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles

Strategy

Ignore Shaper as he does not take damage anymore in this part but sidestep the Golden Projectiles just like in the GIF above. Stay in the middle when Elder begins to cast Ring of Death to prevent from taking massive damage. Also, try to keep the middle of the arena away from the vortex that spawns from the Vortex Balls.

Part 3: Elder Open Portal

Once they both reach 75% life, they will both become immune and Elder will perform an Open Portals move.

Elder

• Open Portals – The Elder will move to the center of the arena, open 4 portals that spawn tentacle adds for 25 seconds. During this time, the Elder and Shaper are immune. The adds are variants of the Tentacle style adds that attack with lightning projectiles that can apply shock; However, these adds do not drop Eldritch Decay. The portals can be destroyed, but they will respawn.

Shaper

The Shaper will continue to use the same attack from Part 1 and 2 which are the Melee Attack, Shaper Beam and Golden Projectiles.

Strategy

You will want to stay mobile to avoid Shaper’s move. You can destroy the portals to slow down the spawns but it will re-appear again in a moment. Focus on dodging Shaper’s attack but try to kill the adds as well so you don’t get overwhelmed by the adds.

Part 4: Shaper

After Elder’s Open Portals, you will return to fighting Shaper, bringing him to 50% life. During this part, Shaper will have a new move.

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles
• Teleport Slam –  The Shaper spins and disappears in a blanket of void, and then teleports to the player’s location, followed by a powerful slam with a large area of effect.

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears
• Ring of Death

Strategy

Same strategy as the first Shaper fight but use your movement ability to avoid getting hit from Teleport Slam.

Part 5: Elder

When the Shaper reaches 50% life, he will be invulnerable again. Now it’s time to bring Elder to 50% life. During this part, Elder will have a new move.

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears
• Ring of Death
• Siphon – The Elder will disappear into the ground and reappear behind your character, applying sprouting madness. This ability slows down your action speed greatly, he will then create a white outlined semi-circle where he will drain the life from you, dealing physical damage over time.

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles

Strategy

Siphon skill is a physical damage over time that can be avoided by standing outside of the targeted area. Other than that, everything is same as the previous part. Always stay mobile to avoid from getting hit by heavy attacks.

Part 6: Shaper Open Portal

Once they both reach 50% life, they will both become immune and Shaper will perform an Open Portal move.

Shaper

• Open Portal – The Shaper will move to the upper left or right portions of the arena and open a portal, spawning monsters for 25 seconds. During this time, the Shaper & Elder are immune.

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears
• Ring of Death

Strategy

This portal phase is much easier than the Elder’s portal, as there is only one portal source and easy monsters within it. You will just have to try and keep out of point blank range of the Elder, so you don’t get slammed by his spear projectiles. Unlike in the Shaper fight, these adds from the portal will not damage Zana, so you can take your time killing them and kiting Elder around.

Part 7: Shaper

After Shaper’s Portal, you will be back to fight Shaper to 25% life.

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles
• Teleport Slam

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears
• Ring of Death

Strategy

Same strategy but there will be more vortex around the map, stay safe and be aware.

Part 8: Elder

Now, you are going to need to bring Elder to 25% life. Elder will gain two new abilities in this part.

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears
• Ring of Death
• Siphon
• Slamming Tentacle Whip – The Elder will ascend into the air and summon multiple conjoined tentacles that slams the ground around them, dealing physical damage in a small area of effect.
• Rising Slam – The Elder spins around, launching multiple cold damage projectiles that impact in a ring around him, then teleports away. He will then teleport to your location and do a slam that deals heavy physical damage.

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles

Strategy

This is when Elder gets the remainder of his moves and the fight gets even more chaotic. You will have to pay close attention to the moves that Elder is casting to not take unnecessary damage. Do your best to get damage in on the Elder when he is performing his basic moves, and get out of the way when he goes for a Siphon, Slamming Tentacles or Rising Slam.

Part 9: Elder Open Portal

Once both Shaper and Elder reaches 25% life, they will both become invulnerable and Elder will open portal for the one last time.

Elder

• Open Portal

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles

Strategy

Same exact part as the previous Elder open portal but more dangerous because of the arena mechanics, Vortex Balls and Eldritch Tentacle Adds.

Part 10: Elder and Shaper

After Elder’s open portal part, both bosses will be vulnerable but allowing them to use their full skill sets.

Shaper

• Melee Attack
• Shaper Beam
• Golden Projectiles
• Teleport Slam

Elder

• Melee Attack
• Ice Spears
• Ring of Death
• Siphon
• Slamming Tentacle Whip
• Rising Slam

Strategy

This is the most difficult part among the rest, with both Shaper and Elder using their full skill sets. You can attack both Shaper and Elder but you will want to take down Shaper first. The Elder will not be removed from the arena when he falls to 0% life if the Shaper is still alive. You will always want to kill Shaper first, then Elder.

Keep staying mobile and avoid all the heavy attacks and attack whenever you can.

Preparing Against the Uber Elder

Life Sustain

(Flask, HP Regeneration, Life Leech) – The Elder has many moves that degenerates your HP and it is unavoidable, you are going to need some sort of defensive life sustain.

Physical Damage Mitigations

Arctic Armour is a very good buff to reduce both physical damage and fire damage taken. It can reduce up to 13% physical damage and 12% fire damage taken at Level 20 skill gem.

Basalt Flask can reduce up to 15% physical damage taken while on use. One of the best and cheap defensive flasks in the game against physical damages.

Fortify is one of the best defensive buffs in game which reduce damage taken by 20%. If you are a melee build, feel free to remove one of your melee attack supports with a Fortify Support.

Cold Damage Mitigations

Sapphire Flask is a very cheap option while being really effective to mitigates cold damage. Gain a total of +50% cold resistance with +6% to max cold resistance. Taste of Hate is an unique version of the Sapphire Flask and it is very powerful for attack-based builds. Taste of Hate has the physical damage taken as elemental property. With Taste of Hate active, a portion of physical damage is taken as cold damage.

Purity of Ice is a defensive cold resistance aura that gives a bunch of cold resistance and most importantly, maximum cold resistance %. Total of 4% maximum cold resistance at skill gem Level 20.

Movement Speed

Since there are a lot of movement needed in this boss fight, a Quicksilver Flask will come in handy. Find one that is enchanted with a bonus movement speed mod and more charges mod. They should not be hard to obtain.

Item Loot and Reward

These item can be only found from Uber Elder encounter.

• Disintegrator
• Indigon
• Voidfletcher
• Mark of the Elder
• Mark of the Shaper
• Voidforge
• Watcher’s Eye (3 aura mods)

Welcome back to another Path of Exile guide. This time, we will learn more about one of the four elder guardians, the Enslaver. Here, you can find all about the boss mechanics and arena.

The Enslaver is one of the four elder guardians that is required to beat before facing the Elder.

Fighting Mechanics

The Enslaver, much like the Constrictor is a hybrid range and melee elder guardian. The Enslaver deal physical and fire damage with strong deadly ignites that can burn down your health really quickly. Unfortunately, this elder guardian is not easy as the previous one, the Purifier.

Just like the Constrictor, it is one of the most difficult ones. You can be killed easily if you are not carefully avoiding the abilities and removing the burning ailments.

Each Elder Guardians is fought in one of three stages, each with different hazards. At higher tiers, the boss will change phases, teleporting you to a new area with different stage hazards. On yellow maps, this occurs at 1/2 health, and in red maps, this occurs at 2/3 and 1/3 health.

Basic Melee Attack

The Enslaver attacks with basic melee attack and deals moderate physical damage to his target.

Knife Toss

The Enslaver throws a barrage of knives forward that fan out left or right to the target location. These knives deal both physical and fire damage.

Backstep Knife Toss

The Enslaver quickly dashes behind and throws multiple knives at a short distance on the ground, which then explode to deal damage. These knives deal physical and fire damage but the explosions from the knives deal pure fire damage. These explosions can stack or overlap which deal tons of damage, be aware.

Sidestep Knife Toss

Same as the Backstep Knife Toss, but instead dashes sideways. Deals both fire and physical damage.

Knife Barrage

The Enslaver immediately jumps up into the air and throws many knives at the ground in a cone pattern, then slams down to deal heavy physical damage, which is immediately followed by the knives detonating. The Enslaver will only can this ability when his health falls below 90%.

The knives and the slam deals heavy physical damage and the explosions that follow deals pure fire damage.

Add Spawn

The Enslaver can cast add spawn at 50% health. The Enslaver perform this ability and summon six molten spiraling balls. The summoned monster deal minimal damage and can be killed to refill flask charges. These molten spiraling balls will disappear after 25 seconds if not killed by the players.

Arenas

Elder Guardians replace the map boss of the map it is occupying. A portal will appear in the boss arena leading to a side zone which contains the Elder Guardian. Their monster level matches the base map of where the Elder is occupying.

The Enslaver can randomly spawns in one of the three arenas. All three arenas has different mechanics that players are required to dodge the attacks. In Tiers 6 to 11 maps, at 1/2 health you will be teleported to another arena with different stage hazards, and the same applies for Tier 11+ maps at 2/3 and 1/3.

River of Hysteria

• Has fireball projectiles that deals fire damage.
• Randomly placed mini-volcano around the arena.

Desert of Dementia

• The arena spawns tornadoes that slowly move across the arena, dealing damage over time while standing near them.
• Larger, stationary tornadoes spawn in the arena that degenerates your health, dealing physical damage.
• Smaller, faster tornadoes move around the arena.

Wastes of Lunacy

• Pillars of flame spawn in the arena, dealing fire damage over time.
• Volatile orbs of fire spawn in the arena.
• The arena contains four rotating pillars of flame.

Preparing against the Enslaver

The Enslaver deals both heavy physical and high burning fire damage. You would want both physical and fire mitigations along with burning debuff removal flask.

Arctic Armour

Arctic Armour is a very good buff to reduce both physical damage and fire damage taken. It can reduce up to 13% physical damage and 12% fire damage taken at Level 20 skill gem.

Basalt Flask

Basalt Flask can reduce up to 15% physical damage taken while on use. One of the best and cheap defensive flasks in the game against physical damages.

Fortify

One of the best defensive buffs in game which reduce damage taken by 20%. If you are a melee build, feel free to remove one of your melee attack supports with a Fortify Support.

Ruby Flask

Gain a total of +50% fire resistance with +6% to max fire resistance. Very cheap and easy to obtain. Very effective and powerful to mitigate damage against fire damage. Dying Sun is an unique version of Ruby Flask, one of the best flask in game but also expensive and hard to obtain.

Purity of Fire

A defensive fire resistance aura that gives a bunch of fire resistance and most importantly, maximum fire resistance %. Total of 4% maximum fire resistance at skill gem Level 20.

Burning Removal Flask “of Dousing”

Use your Orb of Alterations to re-roll one of your flask until you get “of Dousing”. Getting a flask with burning removal is very important to counter against the Enslaver. The burning damage can stack up and deal tons of damage if not removed.

Fighting Against The Enslaver

To dodge these attacks or abilities from the Enslaver easier, use a fast movement skill such as Whirling Blades, Shield Charge, Leap Slam or any movement skill. The explosions from the knives can be deadly but you can avoid if by stepping away.

If you are a melee build, whenever the Enslaver casts Backstep or Sidestep Knife Toss, do not follow the boss. You would step into the explosions that the dagger forms. Stay far away until the explosions are over and continue hitting the boss. If you are a ranged build, simply kite away from the explosions and keep firing.

Knife Barrage is a strong ability and should be avoided at all times. The Enslaver will only cast this ability in front of him in a cone. You can avoid getting hit by sidestepping whenever he jumps into the air.

Always remember to use your flasks and remove burning debuff as soon as possible with your “of Dousing” flask.

Item Drops and Rewards

Memory Vault, Praetor Crown

Tier 6 and up only.

Vulconus, Demon Dagger

Tier 11 and up only.

Welcome to the Path of Exile Elder guide, exile. The Elder has one of the hardest boss fights in game that requires a lot of knowledge to beat it. You should be proud of yourself if you have already beat the Elder. Otherwise, this is where you should be, to learn more about the boss fights, abilities and mechanics.

The Elder

The Elder is a boss that is invading the Atlas of Worlds. He is the main antagonist of the War for the Atlas expansion. The Elder randomly spawns and fights the Shaper via influencing. The Elder will spawn on the player’s Atlas once at least 20 maps are influenced.

Completing 20 maps while the Elder and its guardians are on the player’s Atlas without actually defeating any of them gives them a chance to disappear and remove the Elder-influence from the maps they were on.

The Elder Spawn Mechanics

The Level and Tier of all the encounters (Elder and Guardians) is determined by the map base which the Elder spawns. All of the encounters (Elder and Guardians) will be the level of the map zone on which the Elder spawns.

For example, Elder spawns on a Tier 5 map, which is zone Level 72. All encounters will be level 72 regardless of map base that the Guardians spawn on. The Elder will also ignore shaped map levels and based on the original level of the map base.

The tier in drops of the encounters will be determined by the major tier coloring systems of the maps which is the White, Yellow and Red maps.

Encountering The Elder

To encounter the Elder, you must first defeat all four of his Elder Guardians that spawns alongside with him, which are the Enslaver, Constrictor, Purifier and Eradicator. Once they are defeated and removed from the Atlas, simply enter the map base of the Elder spawns and make your way to the end to face the boss.

The map can be any rarity or any modifiers as they do not apply to the arena where you must face the Elder. Once at the boss, the Elder will emerge from a void portal. Defeat the boss and a portal will appear. This portal will lead you to the Elder’s arena.

The Elder will always spawn in the Absence of Value and Meaning.

Absence of Value and Meaning

The Absence of Value and Meaning is the name of the arena that the Elder spawns. This arena does not have any special environmental effects like the Elder Guardians and will always have the same size and layout every time.

Fighting Mechanics

Emerging from the depths of the twisted voids of the mapping system is the Elder. The Elder is an ancient being that twists and disturbs the mind of those who venture into his realm. During the Shaper’s ventures into map, he was challenged by the Elder for control of the Atlas and has now brought a war between them.

With this, we must now assist the Shaper and taking down the Elder. The Elder has a three phase fight with the first phase being the most difficult. If you end up failing defeating the Elder, you just have to simply run another map of that base which are always cheaper and more available compared with other boss fights such as the Shaper.

There will be three phases during the Elder encounter.

Phase One

Basic Melee Attack

The Elder attacks with a basic melee attack that deals moderate physical damage.

Ice Spears

The Elder launches ice spears projectiles in front of him and deal heavy cold damage. These projectiles can easily apply chill or freeze debuff on the target, resulting in failure of dodging the next ability. The Elder has different variations of the Ice Spears attack.

Ring of Death

The Elder casts a ring around him, creating a field that gradually grows larger over time. The ring will cover the entire arena and explodes, dealing high physical damage. The center of the ring is safe from the explosion.

Siphon

The Elder will disappear into the ground and reappear behind your character, applying sprouting madness. This ability slows down your action speed greatly, he will then create a white outlined semi-circle where he will drain the life from you, dealing physical damage over time. This is a physical damage over time that can be avoided by standing outside of the targeted area.

Once the Elder falls below 60% health, the Elder will now perform a new variation of Siphon, where he will freeze you in place within the white semi-circle. The Shaper will assist you by teleporting behind the Elder, hitting him and cancelling the Siphon attack.

Slamming Tentacle Whip

The Elder will ascend into the air and summon multiple conjoined tentacles that slams the ground around them, dealing physical damage in a small area of effect.

Rising Slam

The Elder spins around, launching multiple cold damage projectiles that impact in a ring around him, then teleports away. He will then teleport to your location and do a slam that deals heavy physical damage.

Add Spawn

Floating tentacle adds will spawn around the arena during the Elder boss fight. They attack with ranged lightning projectiles that deal minimal damage but can apply shock debuff. The main concern of the adds are the decaying ground that the adds apply if they are left alive.

This ground effect dark grey and deals physical damage over time.  This ground effect will also remain on the ground for the entire Elder fight throughout all phases.

Phase Two

Once you bring the Elder to 25% health, the Shaper will chain him down to the center of the arena and it will begin Phase Two. Phase Two is simply a timed add spawn phase. You have to protect the Shaper while he completes the four restraints that he has placed on the Elder.

Portals will appear and spawn adds, these portals can be temporarily destroyed but will reappear shortly after destruction. More portals will be added into the arena when the Shaper complete a restraint.

If you fail to protect the Shaper in this phase, the Elder will be released and you must fight him in his first phase again until you defeat him.  If you have successfully defended the Shaper, Phase Three will start.

Phase Three

In Phase Three, you just have to nuke down the Elder’s health pool while he remained restrained by the Shaper in the center of the arena. As easy as it sounds, the Elder can still perform many deadly moves.

He will continue to spawn Null Portals and attack with Tentacle Whip, Ice Spear novas, and Ring of Death, but will also periodically release a large dark pulse that deals physical damage and covers the entire arena.

When the Elder is killed in this phase, he will charge up a final lethal blast. Zana will appear at the bottom right side of the arena with a protective bubble. Retreat to Zana before he uses his last attack.

Preparing against the Elder

Health Pool

(Life, Energy Shield, MoM) – Minimal at least 5500 HP. You can do it with 5000 if you have good damage mitigation.

Life Sustain

(Flask, HP Regeneration, Life Leech) – The Elder has many moves that degenerates your HP and it is unavoidable, you are going to need some sort of defensive life sustain.

Physical Damage Mitigations

Arctic Armour is a very good buff to reduce both physical damage and fire damage taken. It can reduce up to 13% physical damage and 12% fire damage taken at Level 20 skill gem.

Basalt Flask can reduce up to 15% physical damage taken while on use. One of the best and cheap defensive flasks in the game against physical damages.

Fortify is one of the best defensive buffs in game which reduce damage taken by 20%. If you are a melee build, feel free to remove one of your melee attack supports with a Fortify Support.

Cold Damage Mitigations

Sapphire Flask is a very cheap option while being really effective to mitigates cold damage. Gain a total of +50% cold resistance with +6% to max cold resistance. Taste of Hate is an unique version of the Sapphire Flask and it is very powerful for attack-based builds. Taste of Hate has the physical damage taken as elemental property. With Taste of Hate active, a portion of physical damage is taken as cold damage.

Purity of Ice is a defensive cold resistance aura that gives a bunch of cold resistance and most importantly, maximum cold resistance %. Total of 4% maximum cold resistance at skill gem Level 20.

Fast Movement Skill

You need a fast movement skill to escape and avoid boss mechanics, such as Shield Charge, Whirling Blades, Leap Slam, etc.

Offensive Stats

The Elder has a lot of health pool and requires a strong single target skill, depending on your build. If you are unsure about your damage, here is how you can determine if you can beat the Elder.

If you are able to kill the highest level boss of that map tier color, your DPS should be enough for that tier Elder. Of course, it depends on the player as well, not just pure statistics.

The Encounter is not timed but requires to manage the spawned monsters before they drop patches of degeneration ground, it will just make the boss fight tougher as it goes on.

Fighting Strategy

Phase One is the phase where the Elder fights at his strongest form. First of all, it is very important to kill the adds as soon as they spawn into the arena. They will leave a patch of eldritch decay permanently if it is left alive long enough, which deals physical damage over time while standing over them. Killing them quickly is important so that the arena does not become overwhelmed by them.

Phase One

• Stay focus and pay attention to every each of the Elder attacks. Prepare to use flask if needed and movement skill to avoid getting bursted by the attacks.
• You can easily avoid taking damage from Ice Spears by sidestepping.
• When the Elder start casting Ring of Death, prepare to stand in the center to avoid taking damage whenever the explosion is about to go off. The Ring of Death covers the entire arena, you cannot miss it.
• Slamming Tentacle Whip can be very dangerous if not paying attention. There are a slight delay before they are spawn and starts slamming the ground, use that advantage to stay far enough from taking damage.
• Rising Slam can be difficult to dodge, especially the cold projectiles that the Elder launches when he spins. Make sure that your Sapphire Flask are ready as it deals cold damage. After that, he will teleport to your location and slam the ground that deal heavy damage. You can avoid simply by moving around the arena.

Phase Two

Protect the Shaper at all cost, focus the adds with your attacks. If possible, you can clear both portals and adds at the same time but you should always focus on adds first. Probably the easiest phase of all three. If you failed to protect the Shaper, you will skip Phase Three and back to Phase One and fight the Elder till it is defeated.

Phase Three

Similar with Phase One but with different variety of attacks.  They are a little different but does the same thing. The Shaper is vulnerable at the center of the arena and your objective is to kill it as fast as you can while dodging all the dead abilities that the Elder cast.

Once you burn down all his health, Zana will appear on the map and you need to stand in her protective bubble when the Elder explodes.

Item Loot and Reward

The Elder can drop Elder items. Elder items are powerful items with modifiers not found elsewhere, as well as higher-tier versions of some existing modifiers. He can also drop these exclusive unique items.

Tier 1 and up:

• Blasphemer’s Grasp
• Cyclopean Coil

Tier 6 and up:

• Nebuloch
• Shimmeron
• Hopeshredder
• Watcher’s Eye (2 aura mods)

Tier 11 and up:

• Impresence

Tier 17 (Uber Elder encounter):

• Disintegrator
• Indigon
• Voidfletcher
• Mark of the Elder
• Mark of the Shaper
• Voidforge
• Watcher’s Eye (3 aura mods)

Welcome to a Path of Exile guide! In here, you can learn more about the Purifier and its mechanics, abilities and more. The Purifier is one of the four elder guardians that is required to beat before facing the Elder.

Fighting Mechanics

The Purifier is a hybrid range and melee elder guardian that deals heavy physical damage with no ailments. This elder guardian is the easiest among the rest because all it does is pure flat damage, there will be no debuffs of any sorts.

Each Elder Guardians is fought in one of three stages, each with different hazards. At higher tiers, the boss will change phases, teleporting you to a new area with different stage hazards. On yellow maps, this occurs at 1/2 health, and in red maps, this occurs at 2/3 and 1/3 health.

The elder guardian is predictable and his abilities can be avoided easily, which makes this boss fight a lot easier. They are also many easy ways to gain physical damage reduction against this boss.

Basic Melee Attack

The Purifier attacks in a melee range dealing physical damage.

Double Slam

The Purifier performs a slam with both of his weapons, creating two overlapping explosions that deals heavy physical damage. Make sure you have Fortify buff up and flask ready to go whenever ready.

Mace Toss

The Purifier will take hold of both maces, jump high into the air and toss the mace into the target area twice, creating large area of effect explosions. These explosions large amount of physical damage.

Hover

When the Purifier falls below 90% health, he will ascend into in the air while the maces hover behind his back. During the hover stance, the Purifier can perform new abilities.

Mace Attack and Spectral Throw

During the Hover Stance, the Purifier can use the animated mace to perform a long mace throw or melee attack that deals physical damage. This attack deals minimal damage and can be easily avoided. The thrown mace will only deal damage at its end point of the travel where it explodes and its usually at the edge or outside of the arena.

Circle Blast

The Purifier will call down divine light blast that deals physical damage in a small yellow circle.

Crossed Swords

The Purifier will spawn seven tentacled swords which surround the player, which each of them firing a shot towards the center of the circle. This attack can stack or overlap at the center of the spawned swords.

Bladestorm

The Purifier will call down sixteen sword storms on target location. Each storm of blades will explode once all the swords of that storm have reached their target location. Target locations have a shockwave graphic around the impaled sword that depict the area of effect that the final explosion will damage.

No damage is dealt while the swords fall, only once they explode at the end of the travel. These explosions deal heavy physical damage and can overlap or stack.

Spawn Adds

When the Purifier falls below 75% health, he can begin to cast spawn adds. The Purifier will cast a five projectile spell that will spawn animated swords that perform basic melee physical attacks. These animateds sword deal minimal damage and can be killed to refill flask charges quickly.

These animated swords will disappear after 20 seconds if not killed.

Arenas

Elder Guardians replace the map boss of the map it is occupying. A portal will appear in the boss arena leading to a side zone which contains the Elder Guardian. Their monster level matches the base map of where the Elder is occupying.

The Purifier can randomly spawns in one of the three arenas. All three arenas has different mechanics that players are required to dodge the attacks. In Tiers 6 to 11 maps, at 1/2 health you will be teleported to another arena with different stage hazards, and the same applies for Tier 11+ maps at 2/3 and 1/3.

Although the Purifier is full physical damage with no ailments, some of the arena has abilities that deals fire damage. Nothing much to be worry about but worth mentioning.

Vaults of Insanity

• Beams of light move across the stage, dealing fire damage over time.
• A totem at the center fires two rows of flame in random directions.
• Golden circles in the corner fire slow-moving Spark projectiles.

Halls of Delirium

• Small circular explosions occur periodically in random areas.
• Multiple golden orbs drop down from mid-air in random areas.
• Beams of light fire down which chase the player, dealing fire damage over time.

Pits of Sorrow

• Has randomly placed circular explosions around the arena which deals physical damage.

Preparing against the Purifier

The Purifier deals heavy physical damage and has no ailments which means you have to only mitigate against physical damage.

Arctic Armour

Arctic Armour is a very good buff to reduce physical damage taken. It can reduce up to 13% physical damage taken at Level 20 skill gem.

Basalt Flask

Basalt Flask can reduce up to 15% physical damage taken while on use. One of the best and cheap defensive flasks in the game against physical damages.

Fortify

One of the best defensive buffs in game which reduce damage taken by 20%. If you are a melee build, feel free to remove one of your melee attack supports with a Fortify Support.

Armour Rating

If your character is using a build with heavy armour, this boss fight should be very easy for you. You might even able to face-tank it without an issue, depending on your total armour and build.

Fighting Strategy

The fight against the Purifier should be very straight-forward. There is no special kind of mechanic that you have to learn. Make sure your Fortify buff is always up, use any sort of movement skill to dodge the attacks, especially the Bladestorm, Mace Toss and Circle Blast.

Kill the spawned animated sword to refill your flask charges whenever needed.

Item Drops and Rewards

These items are only dropped from the Purifier only and cannot be chanced or obtain from any other places. These items are unique and can be used for some certain builds.

Welcome to the guide for fighting against one of the Elder Guardians – The Constrictor.  All four must be defeated before you can fight The Elder.

Fighting Mechanics

The Constrictor is a hybrid melee and ranged elder guardian which deals physical damage that always poison. The Constrictor’s poison are very strong and can stack very quickly with certain moves. You should definitely watch out for this elder guardian, it is one of the most difficult ones.

There is a special debuff that is applied on your character when you have enter the Arena which is called Crippling Vines. While not moving, you will receive a stacking Crippling Vines debuff which slows movement speed. Vines are removed gradually while moving.

Basic Melee Attack

A physical basic melee attack by the Constrictor. There is nothing much you should worry about, it deals average damage but nothing that should be concern of.

Dash Attack

The Constrictor dashes forward towards to you, dealing physical damage. It looks very alike with Shield Charge but instead with his blades. Can be easily dodged, simply by moving around. It does not deal a lot of damage, you do not have to waste your flask charges for this.

Strafe Arrow

The Constrictor forms a bow with both of his blades and dashes sideways or sidesteps while firing multiple arrows. Does not deal a lot of damage, nothing much to be concern of. The projectiles are quick and you cannot dodge them if you are in a close range.

Charged Shot

The Constrictor stood still and starts charging to fire a very quick green beamed arrow in a straight line, focusing on your character. The arrow’s hit-box is quite small and it is very easy to avoid taking damage, simply by running when the Constrictor is charging.

Arrow Volley

When the Constrictor falls below 90% health, he begins to cast this ability. The Constrictor can begin to cast an Arrow Volley which is very similar to Blade Flurry skill but has longer and wider range. Fires multiple arrows several times, firing in varied patterns. This attack covers a large area in front of him.

When the Constrictor begins casting this ability, he does not change his direction, you can run behind him to avoid these attacks. This ability can stack poisons really quick if you decided to face-tank it.

Combo Rush

By 75% health, the Constrictor can begin to cast this ability. The Constrictor performs a melee attack twice and maims when hit. This maim reduces your movement speed by 30%. After the melee attacks, the Constrictor jump backwards in the air and fire multiple lines of arrows on the ground in quick succession. When the arrows hit the ground, they explode in a small area of affect that can stack or overlap.

Sundering Shot

The Constrictor will only cast this below when his health is below 50% health. The Constrictor jumps into the air, raises his bow down fire a large area of effect damage which split into eight projectiles that travel across the ground. There is an initial hit and projectiles which also hits. If you are standing in the center, you can be hit by both damage at the same time.

It can be very dangerous if you got yourself into a bad position.

Mirror Arrow

Once the boss reaches below 50% health, he can cast Mirror Arrow. The Constrictor disappeared for a short time and spawns four mirror cocoons which spawns four mirror of the Constrictor himself. These mirror monsters attack with melee blades, dealing minimal damage and gain flask charges if they are killed. These monsters will disappear after 10 seconds if they are not killed.

Arenas

Elder Guardians replace the map boss of the map it is occupying. A portal will appear in the boss arena leading to a side zone which contains the Elder Guardian. Their monster level matches the base map of where the Elder is occupying.

The Constrictor can randomly spawns in one of the three arenas. All three arenas has different mechanics that players are required to dodge the attacks. In Tiers 6 to 11 maps, at 1/2 health you will be teleported to another arena with different stage hazards, and the same applies for Tier 11+ maps at 2/3 and 1/3.

Ruins of Despair

• Pools of poison spawn on the ground at one corner, dealing poison damage.
• Summons frogs that chase the player and detonate for cold damage when touched.
• Summons Giant Gladiator Statues to the arena. They can be killed and do not respawn but have high damage and health.

Island of Devastation

• Spawns small green plants that explodes and deals damage
• Frozen flowers that explodes and deals cold damage

Sea of Isolation

• The hardest compared with Ruins of Despair and Island of Devastation
• Multiple frost bolts slowly chase the player, dealing cold damage over time while touching the player
• Pillars of water shoot from the ground, dealing cold damage
• Waves of water jump across the stage

Preparing against the Constrictor

Since the Constrictor deals physical damage and chaos damage (Poison), you would want physical damage mitigations. Here are some of the items you should prepare to further mitigates damage against him.

Arctic Armour

Arctic Armour is a very good buff to reduce physical damage taken. It can reduce up to 13% physical damage taken at Level 20 skill gem.

Basalt Flask

Basalt Flask can reduce up to 15% physical damage taken while on use. One of the best and cheap defensive flasks in the game against physical damages.

Fortify

One of the best defensive buffs in game which reduce damage taken by 20%. If you are a melee build, feel free to remove one of your melee attack supports with a Fortify Support.

Poison Removal Flask “of Curing”

You can get this mod on any of your flask, especially better on a health flask if you are HP-based build. It can quickly removes the poison stacks dealt by the Constrictor.

Fighting Strategy

Whenever the Constrictor begins to cast strong attacks like Sundering Shot, use your Basalt Flask. Remember to keep moving around the map so you do not get the Crippling Vines debuff. Most of his skills are manageable and easily avoided but you should also watch out for the arenas, especially the Sea of Isolation.

Do not stand in front of the Constrictor whenever he begins to cast Arrow Volley. You should be good to go by now.

Item Drops and Rewards

Tier 6 and up:

Tier 11 and up:

Welcome to the guide for fighting against one of the Elder Guardians – The Eradicator.  All four must be defeated before you can fight The Elder.

Fighting Mechanics

The Eradicator is a range based guardian and deals pure lightning damage. The Eradicator’s damage can vary greatly because lightning damage has wide range. Along side with Shock being applied, it’s lightning attacks can be deadly and powerful especially when it critical strikes.

Lightning Blast

The Eradicator will cast blue circle explosions on the ground that deals lightning damage. There will be two or three lightning blast at the same time and the damage from each blast can overlap and stack. The positioning is randomly placed.

Lightning Tendrils

The Eradicator will channel the Lightning Tendrils skill for a few seconds that deals lightning damage. Lightning Tendrils will only be casted while in melee range.

Super Lightning Tendrils

The Eradicator goes airborne and fires many small blasts of lightning at you. Most of them will land underneath him, while several are aimed towards you. You are able to face-tank it if you have good lightning resistances and life leech or high HP regeneration, otherwise run around the area.

Storm Bolt

When the Eradicator is at 90% health, it will begin to cast the Storm Bolt attack. The Eradicator becomes enveloped in a storm cloud which deal constant damage while touched. He will then launch a storm bolt three times, followed by three storm bolts in rapid succession. Avoid standing in the clouds and run around the area to dodge the storm bolts. Can be deadly when the Eradicator crits and especially when you are affected with Shock.

Transform

When the Eradicator fall below 70% health, it will begin to transform. The Eradicator transforms into a ball of electric tentacles then moves randomly around the map firing lightning balls. These lightning balls deal damage when touched and at the end of their duration turn into additional monsters. The Eradicator cannot be targeted during this phase, focus on dodging the lightning balls and killing the monsters to refill your flask charges. The monsters will disappear after 20 seconds if you decided not to kill them.

After all, it is free flask recharges and the monsters that the lightning ball spawns are fairly easy to kill. It is recommended to kill the monsters.

Arenas

Elder Guardians replace the map boss of the map it is occupying. A portal will appear in the boss arena leading to a side zone which contains the Elder Guardian. Their monster level matches the base map of where the Elder is occupying.

The Eradicator can randomly spawns in one of the three arenas. All three arenas has different mechanics that players are required to dodge the attacks. In Tiers 6 to 11 maps, at 1/2 health you will be teleported to another arena with different stage hazards, and the same applies for Tier 11+ maps at 2/3 and 1/3.

Besides the Eradicator’s attacks, you should watch out for the arenas as well.

Manor of Madness

The Manor of Madness has lightning charged spires that connect via lightning and deal lightning damage hits.

Repository of Derision

The arena contains four side areas in the corners. These areas periodically fill with lightning.

Spires of Delusion

The Spires of Delusion has lightning fused beams and totems.

Preparing Against the Eradicator

To fight against the Eradicator, you will want to stack lightning resistance since it deals pure lightning damage. If you have skills such as Purity of Lightning or items that increases maximum lightning resistance, it will help by reducing damage taken from the Eradicator.

Loreweave, Elegant Ringmail

Loreweave can increased all your maximum elemental resistance which is a great armor to have.

Purity of Lightning

A great aura that gives lots of lightning resistance and most importantly, additional maximum lightning resistance.

Topaz Flask

A very good defensive flask against lightning damage. Recommended to have a “of Grounding” mod on it to remove Shock if needed.

Quicksilver Flask

Since there are a lot of movement needed in this boss fight, a Quicksilver Flask will come in handy. Find one that is enchanted with a bonus movement speed mod and more charges mod. They should not be hard to obtain.

Fortify

One of the best defensive buffs in game which reduce damage taken by 20%. If you are a melee build, feel free to remove one of your melee attack supports with a Fortify Support.

Map Affixes

Map mods have no affect on the Elder or Elder Guardians boss fights. You do not have to worry too much about the map affixes. Be aware that quantity% and rare% has no affect as well. If you fail the fight and use up all your portals, or open another map, you will not lose your chance to fight the Elder or Guardians! The Elder’s influence and the Guardians appearance only disappears when you complete a map by killing the boss.

All guardians replace the map boss when entering the boss arena or area. Running guardian occupied maps will remove Elder influence for that map on the atlas. The area you’ll find the guardians in aren’t predetermined before entering a map, meaning you can do a map several times to try to get the area you want as long as you don’t kill the guardian.

Unlike the normal Guardians, it is a lot cheaper to run Elder Guardians. Feel free to try running it a few times if needed to understand the fights.

Fighting Strategy

The Eradicator is pure lightning damage, only way to mitigate the damage is using Topaz Flask and other items or skills that increases maximum lightning resistances and reduce damage taken. Constant movement is required, the Eradicator has a lot of energy shield and recharges quickly, you would want to have a way to keep hitting the boss while constantly dodging it’s abilities.

Immediately used your flask that removes Shock whenever you are affected, it can be deadly.

Item Drops and Rewards

Tier 6 and above:

Tier 11 and above:

Video Gameplay

Here is a quick gameplay of the Tier 15 red map boss fight against the Eradicator.

These are the required items to open the portal to the Shaper’s Realm.

• Fragment of the Chimera
• Fragment of the Hydra
• Fragment of the Minotaur
• Fragment of the Phoenix.

Recommendations

The Shaper has one of the most difficult boss fights in game. Since it’s quite expensive to purchase/farm all the required items for the portal, it is recommended to at least learn the mechanics and boss fights before entering. One small mistake could lead to death, the Shaper could one-shot you.

• 6,000 HP (Minimum, but recommended 7000, more if Hardcore) or 8000 Energy Shield (9000 ES is ideal for Hardcore, but it can be done with 8000 if played well)
• Maxed resistances
• Additional damage mitigation (Fortify, Elemental Resistance Flasks that increases Maximum Elemental Resistance, Endurance Charges)
• Fast movement skill (Shield Charge, Whirling Blades, Leap Slam, etc.)
• Strong single target damage (The Shaper has a lot of health, way more than Guardians and you are going to need good single target damage)

Fortify

Fortify is a buff that grants the player 20% reduced damage taken from hits for 4 seconds. Fortify is always important no matter what build you have, either a caster or melee character. Fortify Support skill gem is a very good skill gem to link with your melee attack skills for melee characters, especially against Shaper. Otherwise, Vigilant Strike for any other build.

Endurance Charges

Endurance gives 4% physical damage reduction per charge. Using Enduring Cry is a good way to maintain the charges. They are even better if Endurance charges is core for your build, giving you tons of HP regeneration. For the most part, we will be dodging most of Shaper’s physical damage ability but safety comes first.

Purity of Ice

Most of Shaper’s abilities deals cold damage, which is why Purity of Ice is recommended. Purity of Ice gives additional maximum cold resistance which decreases the damage taken from Shaper. If are having trouble dodging Shaper’s abilities or surviving, feel free to drop a skill gem or aura to use Purity of Ice (Use a Lvl 20 Purity of Ice, where it gives a total of 4% additional maximum cold resistance).

Flasks

Basalt Flask has 15% additional physical damage reduction whenever on use. Basalt Flask will help by reducing damage taken from the Shaper’s melee hit which deals a lot of physical damage.

Sapphire Flask has additional maximum cold resistance on use which is really useful against Shaper’s cold attacks and mini-bosses. The unique version of Sapphire Flask, Taste of Hate is an expensive option and it can converts physical damage taken into cold damage which mitigates more damage against the Shaper. If you are on a budget, you will be just fine sticking with a rare Sapphire Flask.

Phases

Throughout the Shaper’s Realm, there are several phases a player must go through to defeat the Shaper, every phase has different mechanics. The Shaper himself has three phases. At the end of the first and second phases he sends Zana and the player to an area they must traverse with a boss waiting at the end. Killing that boss opens a portal to resume the Shaper fight. The Shaper recovers health slowly between phases.

The Shaper’s Realm (Nexus)

The Shaper’s Realm portal can be opened with the four fragments from the four Guardians of the Void. These fragments must be placed into the correct order to be activated, otherwise it won’t work. Before you can face the Shaper, you must defeat four mini-bosses. These mini-bosses are located at the ends of each wing of the Nexus, with each wing having decorations and landscapes of those respective bosses.

The four mini-bosses are randomly chosen and they have no special mods to them, aside from their normal skill sets. You should watch out for some certain bosses, which they are harder than the rest.

1. Daresso, King of Swords
2. Malachai, The Nightmare
3. Rigwald, the Wolven King

These bosses are a little tougher because you cannot simply kill them, they will phase out and players are required to dodge the deadly attacks. Make sure to learn the mechanics before entering, remember that the mini-bosses are randomly chosen, you may be unlucky and has to face all these 3 hard mini-bosses.

Once you have defeated all four mini-bosses, Zana will be at the center of the Nexus, awaiting your arrival at the portal to encounter the Shaper.

Phase 1 – Shaper

Once you enter the portal, you will be placed in the main arena where you face the Shaper. Before moving and starting the fight, you can charge skills, place totems or traps. Once you move forward, Zana will begin a conversation with the Shaper and the fight will be engaged in a short time.

Pop your offensive flasks in the beginning of the fight and try to deal as much damage as possible. Don’t just focus on dodging the Shaper’s abilities, you need to deal tons of damage to bring this boss down. Always keep yourself busy, dodging, using movement skill, attacking, focus on Shaper and learn what he is about to do next, plan your steps and move on.

• Melee Attack – A melee attack that deals physical damage. Shaper only uses it while in close range. Use Fortify to mitigate the damage, Basalt Flask if needed.

• Golden Projectiles – The Shaper fires three golden orbs that deal massive cold damage and penetrates 25% cold resistance, one after another. Start side-stepping whenever he casts the golden projectiles, avoid getting hit by it at all cost. Use Sapphire Flask if you are unable to dodge in time.

• Shaper Beam – The Shaper channels a huge golden beam that deals fire, cold and lightning damage over time. The beam only targets one location per skill usage. It may not one-shot you but you may take a ton of DOTs and your HP/ES will melt really quick. There is a brief channeling before the beam starts attacking, side-step towards the other direction as soon as you see the channeling animation. You can deal a lot of free damage by standing behind his back while he is using this ability.

• Teleport Slam – The Shaper spins and disappears in a blanket of void, and then teleports to the player’s location, followed by a powerful slam with a large area of effect. A movement skill is recommended to avoid taking damage from this move. Whenever Shaper disappears, start using your movement skill and move around. Never ever try to face-tank it, it would probably one-shot you.

• Portal – The Shaper teleports to the side of the arena and opens a portal while he becomes immune to damage. Powerful shaped monsters exit the portal one at a time and attempt to attack Zana and the player. Meanwhile, Zana stays in the middle and attempts to channel a beam that closes the portal. This is the only time in the fight when she is vulnerable to damage. If she loses all her health, she retreats and slowly recovers health. If she is successfully kept alive for several seconds during the portal phase, the portal is closed prematurely. Best you can do is, stand in front of the portal and kill the monsters as soon as possible, preventing them from getting close to Zana.

• Vortex Balls – Additionally, slow-moving cold balls spawn once every few seconds. They don’t do any direct damage, but once the player touches them, they create a vortex that permanently stains the arena until the phase ends. Stepping in such vortex chills the player and deals cold damage over time. Always try to proc the balls around the edge, try not to spawn them in the middle which may make the Shaper fights harder.

Do not face-tank any abilities.

You are prevented from opening portals while fighting the Shaper.

Once the Shaper has been reduced to 50% health, he banishes Zana and the player and slowly regenerates life until both return.

Banishment 1

Monster in Banishment 1 provides experience, flask charges and vaal skill charges but do not drop any items. You will have to travel through this zone as quickly as you can, as the Shaper recovers HP during this banishment stage. It is not required to kill any monsters in this phase, so just kill the ones in your path who are a threat to you. At the end of the zone, there is a mini-boss you must defeat before you can enter the 2nd phase of Shaper boss fight. This mini-boss is known as the Uncreated.

You should watch out for this charging ability called Ground Slam Vortex. It deals a massive amount of damage and it takes a long time to charge so it is pretty easy to avoid it. Other than that, just don’t stand in the vortex zone and try to dodge the frost bolts as much as possible. It’s a straight-forward fight.

After you have defeated him, a portal will open to the next phase of the Shaper encounter. Before you enter this portal, ensure that you have all of your flasks and vaal skills charged. If not, quickly kill some more monsters and move through the portal.

Phase 2 – Shaper

The Shaper has the same abilities as Phase 1 but has another new ability. The Shaper casts a bullet hell of cold projectiles that deal heavy damage and are incredibly difficult to dodge, while he is invulnerable. When he does it, Zana teleports to the middle and creates a protective bubble that entirely blocks these projectiles. She doesn’t do this, however, if she’s recovering from losing all her health in the portal phase, so it’s important to keep her alive.

It is not recommended to try to dodge the projectiles, it’s almost impossible. If Zana’s protective bubble isn’t available, you should log out and enters the portal again, the fight will continue.

Additionally, the vortex balls spawn more often than in phase 1.

Once the Shaper has been reduced to 25% health, he once again banishes Zana and the player and slowly regenerates life until both return.

Banishment 2

In the second banishment, it’s pretty much the same zone as the first banishment. Has same mechanics as the first banishment, so move quickly to the end of the zone to face another mini-boss, which is known as the Unshaped.

The Unshaped has the same exact skill set as the Uncreated but with a new skill. The Unshaped casts 6 Frostbolts in a half circle on either side of him. If you are a melee character, spread out and keep a safe distance. Being at close range could be really deadly. 

Like the first banishment, remember to keep your flask or vaal charges up after the mini-boss, before entering the portal. Once the Uncreated has been defeated, a portal opens up the last phase of the Shaper encounter. Prepare yourself exiles.

Phase 3 – Shaper

This is the last phase of Shaper, if you bring his health to 0%, you beat him. Shaper on this phase has the same abilities from phase 1 and 2 but has a new ability. He can summon an invulnerable spectral double that uses one of his skills, which disappears after several seconds. Additionally, the vortex balls appear significantly more often than in the previous phases, potentially making most of the arena unsafe and leaving very little room for maneuvering.

There is nothing much you can do to his clone other than avoiding his abilities.

Notable Drops

Dying Sun

One of the best flask in game to help clearing the map quicker. It increases up to 15-25% Area of Effect and skills fire 2 additional projectiles during flask effect. On top of that, it’s a Ruby Flask which is very useful against fire damage. It has a rare drop rate, most valuable drop from the Shaper.

Starforge

One of the highest physical DPS swords in game. It even has +90-100 to maximum life, which other regular weapon doesn’t has. Has increased area of effect and makes physical damage shocks. Downside is, you are not able to deal elemental damage ever. It has a slightly lower drop rate. You can make some really unique builds with this sword.

Shaper’s Touch

Most common drop from the Shaper. It doesn’t worth much in the market. Although, this glove is needed for some unique builds.

Voidwalker

Same as Shaper’s Touch, common drop and doesn’t worth much. It is still a really good boots overall, especially for budget builds.

Welcome to the ultimate guide for fighting against Phoenix. The Forge of the Phoenix is a tier 16 map and Phoenix is one of the four guardians that you need to defeat to open the portal and take on Shaper in Shaper’s Realm.

Fighting Mechanics

The Phoenix is the guardian that does a mix of physical and fire damage. He is immune to knockback and freeze. As the battle goes on, your fire resistance will go down.

Melee Attack → A basic melee attack that deals Fire Damage and can Ignite.

Recommendation: This move is not too deadly, and can be tanked. Ranged players can make an effort to keep distance between the Phoenix to avoid this attack.

Whirling Charge → Locks onto a target, charges up, and spins to the targets original location dealing Fire damage multiple times throughout its path.

Recommendation: If you are melee, move to the back of the Phoenix when you see this move charge up. If you are ranged, move left or right from your current location.

Fire Bomb → The Phoenix stops where he is and brings his swords down into the ground. He first emits a debuff that temporarily reduces the player’s Fire Resistance by -50% (from uncapped resistance). He then begins to charge for 4 seconds and releases a large discharge that deals Fire Damage and can Ignite.

Recommendation: Move as far as possible from the Phoenix to avoid taking damage from this attack as it is extremely deadly.

For every 10% of life that the Boss losses, the following happen:

Resistance Debuff → The player’s maximum Fire Resistance is reduced by 1%, until the boss is killed.

Add Spawn → A Phoenix that will shoot fire projectiles at the player. Phoenixes are revived a few seconds after they are killed.

Fire Spout → A Fire Spout that deals fire damage in a small AoE around it as it travels around the arena. Each spout lasts for a few seconds and is replaced by another spout. These can stun players with low stun thresholds very easily.

Preparing Against the Phoenix

To fight against the Phoenix, you will want to stack fire resistance and make sure its over 85%. If you have skills or items that increase max elemental resistance, it will further help reduce their damage.

Skills or Items for Defense

Rise of the Phoenix Shield – This shield raises your max fire resistance by 5%. At 80% max fire resistance, you will take considerably less damage, especially if you overcap your fire resistance to 90%. Not suitable for some builds that do not use shields.

Loreweave – A great armor that has the important maximum resistance up to 80%.

Purity of Fire – A great aura that gives 41% fire resistance and +4% max fire resistance at level 20.

Skills such as fortify and endurance also helps with some damage reduction. Some examples are:

• Shield Charge + Fortify + Faster Attacks
• Vigilant Strike

Movement skills like Whirling Blades, Leap Slam with Faster Attacks is also useful to avoid fire bomb and whirling charge attack.

Flasks

Quicksilver Flask – The prefixs don’t matter. However, if you can additional movement speed would really help as you can run quickly and avoid whirling charge attack.

Ruby Flask – Further increases your maximum fire resistance by 6% as well as 50% fire resistance. With the Rise of the Phoenix Shield and Purity of Fire, you can get to 85% max fire resistance. You can now tank the firebomb if you have more than 7k health or 9k ES.

For prefix, look for the following:

Ample – +(10 to 20) Maximum Charges. This allows you to get 1 more use if you can get max charges.

Experimenter’s – (30 to 40)% increased Duration. This actually is a life saver and improves your quality of life.

Chemist’s – (20 to 25)% reduced Charges used. Can sneak in another use on flasks like the Basalt Flask.

For suffix, look for the following:

of Dousing-> Removes ignite and immunity to ignite/burn.

of Iron Skin -> Increases 60-100% armor. Very useful in mitigating more physical damage when paired with the Basalt or Granite Flask.

of Reflexes -> Increases  60-100% evasion. Very useful with innate high evasion rating.

Dangerous Map Affixes

Since the Phoenix is physical damage/fire based, you will want to avoid stacking too much of the following affixes:

• -X% maximum player resistances (avoid this at all costs.)
• Players are cursed with vulnerability (increased chances of bleeding and more physical damage taken)
• Players are cursed with elemental weakness (avoid if you don’t have overcapped resistance)
• Monsters have X% increased area of effect (this makes Fire Bomb deadly with an increased AoE = not good)
• X% increased monster damage
• X% increased monster attack speed
• X% increased monster life (takes longer to kill and you get punished for making a mistake)
• Deal X% as extra fire/lightning/cold damage
• Unique bosses deal X% increased damage
• X% increased critical strike chance

As a good rule of thumb, avoid stacking 2 or more damage mods to ensure you can finish the map just fine.

Fighting Guide

Before you entire the arena, open a portal so you can always come back to the fight if you die.

You have roughly 8-10 steps before you will trigger the fight. As you approach the Phoenix, he will immediately start off with whirling charge attack. Dodge it. If you are melee, make use of your movement skills like whirling blades or leap slam.

Right after the whirling charge attack, he will proceed to use firebomb attack. You will have plenty of time to dodge it by moving as far away as possible. However, this can get tricky if the mod “monsters have 100% increased area of effect”. This effectively doubles that area of effect of firebomb and you will definitely want to be off screen and away from him to make sure you don’t get blasted in the face.

During the early stages of the fight, it will be manageable in terms of dodging. When he starts dropping 10% health, each subsequent drop will reduce your fire resistance by 1%. That is why it is important to overcap it to at least 85%. As he drops to 50% health, more fire spouts and fire phoenixes will start spawning. The fire phoenixes will keep respawning when it is destroyed. The key is to destroy them when the Phoenix is charging up his fire bomb attack. If you let too many phoenixes spawn and attack you, it may overwhelm you, especially if you are not a tank build.

The fire spouse can get very annoying when they converge together. Run around and make sure to position yourself by not standing at corners where it traps you while the Phoenix is charging fire bomb in the center of the map.

Life steal builds are also excellent at sustaining your health. For builds that don’t rely on life steal, you will need to dodge, evade and play accordingly.

This fight is all about endurance and doing enough damage to kill him. The longer the battle goes on, the easier it is for you to make a mistake. I recommend 7k health or 9k ES to take him on. Make sure to overcap fire resistance at 85%.

Drops and Rewards

Fragment of the Phoenix – This is a guaranteed drop upon Phoenixes death. This is used to help open Shaper’s Realm to take on Shaper.

Eye of the Innocence – An amulet provides fire leech. Useful for some fire based builds.

Razor of the Seventh Sun – A 1 handed sword that can be used for niche fire builds.

Useful Videos and Credit

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Engineering Eternity

Welcome to the detailed guide for the tier 16 map, Pit of the Chimera. He is one of the four guardians that you will need to take on to fight Shaper in the Shaper’s Realm. Keep in mind that the Chimera is immune to freeze and knockback.

Fighting Mechanics

The fight revolves around Chimera and his 3 minion phases. This fight will test your damage and survivability, especially against his minions that is spawned when his health reaches 75%/50%/25%. If you lack damage, you won’t be able to kill his minions in time and die to damage overload. Below are the moves and things that can happen when fighting him:

Melee Attack → A basic melee attack that deals Physical Damage.

Recommendation: This move is not too deadly, and can be tanked. Ranged players can make an effort to keep distance between the Chimera to delay and possibly avoid this attack.

Flicker Strike→ The Chimera picks a target and flickers to it, dealing Physical Damage.

Recommendation: This strike does not deal deadly damage and can be tanked. Make sure to have proper mitigations up.

Flicker Lance → The Chimera strikes the chosen target location inflicting it with Bleeding, that lasts for 5 seconds. This move can be side stepped.

Recommendation: Make sure to have a Bleed Immunity flask ready to dispel the bleeding effect.

Charge Attack→ The Chimera charges up and strikes 3 times, dealing 60% of the basic melee attack Physical Damage each hit. This move can be side stepped.

Recommendation: Sidestep this move once you see him begin to charge up the attack.

Combo Attack→ A Red Circle appears on the ground around the Chimera. Anything within this area will be struck by the Combo Attack that the Chimera performs a few seconds after it is placed. This attack strikes between 5 & 6 times and deals 125% of his base physical damage per attack. This move is very deadly.

Recommendation: Move out of the red circle once it appears to avoid taking any damage from this attack.

Hidden Attack → Numerous smoke clouds appear, shrouding the Chimera within one of them. The player must travel through the smoke clouds to try and find the Chimera. He can be within any of the clouds, and will deal 80% of his base melee attack to the player consistently while they are trying to discover his location. This attack can not be evaded or dodged, and can only be stopped by finding the Chimera. This attack can occur multiple times after each add phase.

Recommendation: This is the toughest move that the Chimera performs, with a high probability of death. Make use of a fast movement skill or Quicksilver flask to find the Chimera as fast as possible. Sometimes you can get lucky and find him in the first cloud or get unlucky and find him in the the last cloud. I also suggest opening a portal right when you enter the arena so you can reset your flasks in case RNG is against you.

Minion Phase → For every 25% of health that the Chimera losses, he will retreat outside of the arena and release very strong adds in waves from the 3 cages in the top left, top right and bottom right corners in the arena. These minions are much stronger than average map monsters. They occur in the following monster types:

1. Guardian’s Goatmen → Leap and deal Physical Damage
2. Guardian’s Snakes → Fire ranged projectiles that deal Chaos Damage
3. Guardian’s Hellion → Attack with melee and deal Fire Damage

Keep in mind that there is no particular order which minions will show up first and it is completely random. Also, the mini bosses will always spawn on the bottom right cage!

Preparing Against the Chimera

To fight against Chimera, you will want to prepare physical mitigation and bleeding. Elemental defense isn’t needed but a little bit of chaos resistance will help against the snakes in the minion phase.

Skills or Items for Defense

The Death’s Door is a great item to prevent the Chimera from inflicting bleed on you. However, it can be quite pricey and can fluctuate depending on the demand for it.

Skills such as fortify and endurance also helps with physical damage reduction. Some examples are:

• Shield Charge + Fortify + Faster Attacks
• Vigilant Strike

Movement skills like Whirling Blades, Leap Slam with Faster Attacks is also useful during the smoke screen (hidden attack) phase. Also, any sort of life leech and Vaal Pact passive will make it easier for you to tank his damage.

Flasks

Below are the flasks that will help you survive in this boss fight.

Flask (with staunching) – Bleed removal is important to avoid taking too much damage.

Quicksilver Flask – The prefixs don’t matter. However, if you can additional movement speed would really help as you can run quickly during the smoke screen phase to avoid taking too much damage.

Blood of the Karui – A very underrated life flask. You get healed to full health after 2.7 seconds. Very helpful during smoke screen phase and the hard hitting minions.

Basalt Flask – Helps reduce physical damage taken from the Chimera and some of the minions.

Amethyst Flask – If you have trouble with the snake minions, this flask will help.

For prefix, look for the following:

Ample – +(10 to 20) Maximum Charges. This allows you to get 1 more use if you can get max charges.

Experimenter’s – (30 to 40)% increased Duration. This actually is a life saver and improves your quality of life.

Chemist’s – (20 to 25)% reduced Charges used. Can sneak in another use on flasks like the Basalt Flask.

For suffix, look for the following:

of Staunching -> Removes bleeding!

of Iron Skin -> Increases 60-100% armor. Very useful in mitigating more physical damage when paired with the Basalt or Granite Flask.

of Reflexes -> Increases  60-100% evasion. Very useful with innate high evasion rating.

Dangerous Map Affixes

Since the Chimera is physical damage based, you will want to avoid stacking too much of the following affixes:

• Players are cursed with vulnerability (increased chances of bleeding and more physical damage taken)
• X% increased monster damage
• X% increased monster attack speed
• X% increased monster life (takes longer to kill and you get punished for making a mistake)
• Deal X% as extra fire/lightning/cold damage
• Unique bosses deal X% increased damage
• X% increased critical strike chance
• -X% maximum player resistances

As a good rule of thumb, avoid stacking 2 or more damage mods to ensure you can finish the map just fine.

Fighting Guide

It is recommended to have at least 5.5k health or 7k energy shield with sufficient damage to comfortably do this. Before you entire the arena, open a portal so you can always come back to the fight if you die. When you enter the arena, you have about half a screen to walk before the fight gets triggered. Alternatively, you can use the portal right at the gate when you enter the arena.

Upon entering, you have about 5-6 steps before the fight triggers. Most of Chimera’s attacks have a short delay, allow you to avoid his attacks. It is much easier avoid as a ranged character since you can use things like Decoy Totem to draw attention away from you. As a melee character, you will need to tank some of his attacks.

He will most likely use flicker strike as his first attack. Do a merry go round. It is quite easy to dodge it. As for his combo attack, you will need gauge whether you can tank it or not. It best to run outside of the red circle to avoid taking damage and continue to damage him when the circle goes away.

Upon taking away 25% of his health, he will disappear and start spawning the first minion phase. As mentioned above, the minions that come out of the cages (left, right and top) are random. The good thing is, the boss spawns on the right side of the cage. However, it only spawns after you have cleared 2 rounds of minions. A key tip to the minion phase is to stick to one side and try to kill 3 minions from a cage as fast as possible. Then head to the next one.

The last thing you want to do is to lure all of them to the center. These minions do a lot of damage. Unless you have a tanky build, you won’t be able to soak up all that damage. If you lack chaos resistance, watch out for the snake minions. They will do quite a bit of damage if your chaos resistance is -60%. Bring an amethyst flask with you. Evasion flasks work well here as you can avoid quite a bit of damage if your evasion is over 30%.

Upon killing the mini boss in the minion phase, the Chimera re-appears in the center. He will almost follow up with the smoke screen attack. This is where you want to quickly pop your quicksilver flask or any movement skill to find him in the smoke screens. Sometimes, you are unlucky and find him on the last one. To avoid dying, you can head back into your town portal if you actually had it just at the entrance. This phase is also very troublesome if your map has 2 or more damage mods and you don’t have enough life or energy shield to cope with it.

Keep pummeling him after you find him in one of his smoke screens. He will go into minion phase again at 50%/25% health respectively. The entire cycle will then repeat. Keep in mind that the smoke screen phase can be triggered multiple times if you don’t do enough damage to take his health down quickly. As a rule of thumb, if you take more than 1 minute to take his health from 100% to 75% during boss phase, you don’t have enough damage.

Drops and Rewards

Fragment of the chimera will drop upon death. This is required to unlock the Shaper’s realm to take on Shaper himself.

Obscurantis – An okay helmet for ranged attackers. Not very popular though.

The Scourge – A decent claw for Necromancers that would like a boost in minion damage. The spectral wolfs can also serve as distractions.

Useful Videos and Credit

Engineering Eternity

Incredible Witness

Welcome to the Lair of the Hydra tutorial! In this guide, we will go over how you can defeat the tier 16 guardian map. This boss is primarily physical and cold based with ranged attacks. Keep in mind that guardians have roughly 8 times more health than a tier 15 boss.

Fight Mechanics

The Hydra is a ranged attacker that deals a mix of physical and cold damage. Much of her damage comes from long distance. The key will be to stay as close to her as possible. However, due to the large ball cold frost bolt projectiles coming back and forth, it can be a bit tricky. The hydra has 4 moves that she will use:

Barrage → Fires a barrage attack of arrows that deal Physical and Cold Damage.

Recommendation: Move to the left, right or behind the Hydra to avoid this move.

Doom Arrow → Fires an arrow into the air and a progression of explosions will trigger in a straight line in front of her. This attack deals deadly Physical and Cold Damage, and can overlap.

Recommendation: Move to the back of the Hydra.

Fork Arrow → Charges up and fires a single arrow that forks multiple times at set distances. The charge up for this skill is depicted as a large blue sphere on top of the bow. This attack deals 300% of her base damage in the form of Physical and Cold Damage and is very deadly.

Recommendation: Move behind the Hydra or to its left or right side, as the projectile will always fire out straight from the Hydra and form heart like shape around her.

Teleport Shot → The Hydra disappears and summons minions one by one. These minions can drop cold damage Vortexes on death. Soon after the minions finish spawning, the Hydra will reappear in a random location in the arena.

Recommendation: Move to the center of the arena to kill minions as quick as possible.

In the arena, frost bolt projectiles will be fired once the battle begins.

Frost Bolts → Cold damage Frostbolts will continuously fire from the sides of the arena in a random pattern. These will begin to fire more frequently as the Hydra comes closer to death. They deal a lot of damage if you run into them.

Recommendation: These are tough to avoid, but try to shift around during the fight to avoid these from hitting you.

Preparing Against Hydra

Since the Hydra deals 50% physical and 50% cold damage, it is best to stack physical and try to stay close to the Hydra at all times. She is immune to poison, freeze, chill and knockback.

Skills and Items for Defense

If you have items that can boost max cold resistance, you will have a much easier time. Items like Loreweave or Ahn’s Heritage will be good here.

Skills such as fortify and endurance also helps with physical damage reduction. Some examples are:

• Shield Charge + Fortify + Faster Attacks
• Vigilant Strike

Flasks

Flasks are a great way to do so.

Quicksilver Flask of Heat – 40% movement speed + immunity to chill and freeze means you can quickly avoid cold vortex or any cold attacks that the Hydra does that slows you down. Over the long run, you avoid more damage taken for added mobility.

Basalt Flask – 15% physical damage reduction. It has a high charge usage, so it is only used for situations where you see Hydra’s projectile attacks coming and need that extra damage reduction.

Aquamarine Flask – This reduces the cold damage you take from the cold projectiles in the arena, allowing you tank them should you happen to be at a bad spot. Try to look for increased duration prefix.

Granite Flask – Provides flat 3000 armor that can be increased with % armor increase. Another form of mitigation.

For prefix, look for the following:

Ample – +(10 to 20) Maximum Charges. This allows you to get 1 more use if you can get max charges.

Experimenter’s – (30 to 40)% increased Duration. This actually is a life saver and improves your quality of life.

Chemist’s – (20 to 25)% reduced Charges used. Can sneak in another use on flasks like the Basalt Flask.

Dangerous Map Affixes

Since the Hydra is ranged, you want to avoid too many of these stacking together and her attacks can 1 shot you:

• Players are cursed with vulnerability (more physical damage dealt on you, fork arrows become more deadly)
• X% increased monster damage
• X% increased monster attack speed
• X% increased monster life (takes longer to kill and you get punished for making a mistake)
• Deal X% as extra fire/lightning/cold damage
• Unique bosses deal X% increased damage
• X% increased critical strike chance
• Skill chains 2 additional times
• Monsters fire 2 additional projectiles
• -X% maximum player resistances

To be on the safe side, it is best you take on this fight when you have 5500 life or 7000+ energy shield.

Fighting Guide

Before you entire the arena, open a portal so you can always come back to the fight if you die. When you enter the arena, you have about half a screen to walk before the fight gets triggered.

You will know the battle starts when cold ball projectiles start shooting from the sides. The key to taking as little damage as possible is to stay close to the hydra. The good thing is that the Hydra’s attacks have a short delay, allowing you to dodge a lot quicker if you are closer to her. The tricky part is to avoid the frost bolt projectiles while being close to her.

Upon damaging her to about 80% health, she will disappear and spawn some monsters. This is the time to recharge flask charges. She will then randomly appear anywhere in the arena. You will want to stay in the center and once you spot her appearing, quickly head over to avoid taking any ranged attacks. Even if you are a ranged character, it is still much more beneficial to be up close.

If you know you are going to get hit by the frost bolt projectiles, pop your Aquamarine flask to soak up some of the damage. Continue to run around her like a merry go round and deal damage when the opportunity presents itself.

As you take her to down to lower health, the frost bolt projectiles will start traveling quicker, making it more chaotic and harder to dodge. You will need to do enough damage to kill her before you start making mistakes and take more damage than you can handle.

Sometimes, she will also disappear again and you will need to look for her after killing the monsters that spawn in the center. Watch out for fork arrow if you can’t find her. It is the most deadly attack should you get caught at point blank range when the projectiles split.

Drops and Rewards

Fragment of the Hydra – You will always get this drop when you defeat the Hydra. It is one of the four fragments you need to open the portal to fight Shaper.

Snakepit Sapphire Ring – A decent ring if you are running builds which benefits from having more projectiles such as Magma Orb.

Silvertongue Harbinger Bow – Not a very popular bow and can be used in niche builds.

Useful Videos and Credit

Engineering Eternity

Incredible Witness