"Sirus is dead. Zana has chosen exile. But the Atlas of Worlds remains a beacon for Eldritch horrors. We imprisoned the Elder. We placated the Maven. We've been preparing for the arrival of another. But we never expected for. They embody insatiable hunger, crushing darkness, searing flame, merciless wrath. If we don't stop them, they will consume everything. This is a war for our very existence! They are here. Stand with us or we will all perish."
Dear exiles, Path of Exile: Siege of the Atlas will come next week. And GGG has released more details about the new expansion just now. Today MmoGah will share the details about Siege of the Atlas and the new league Archnemesis, and we will recommend some starter builds to you.
By the way, to meet exiles' needs, we have added the service of selling PoE Currency for Archnemesis. Come here and choose the currency to level up quickly. Now let's jump into Siege of the Atlas.
1. Siege of the Atlas Story Recap
In this expansion, you will join Kirac's militia and will be asked to scout the front lines of the Atlas for threats. After encountering the Maven, you will learn that two more Eldritch Horrors like her or The Elder are on their way to the Atlas. Unlike her, though, their intentions are driven by the need to consume absolutely everything they encounter. You must learn what you can do about these entities and attempt to prevent the existential threat they pose to Wraeclast.
2. New Pinnacle Content
In Siege of the Atlas, the two new Eldritch Horrors are The Searing Exarch and The Eater of Worlds that are the most powerful beings that Wraeclast has ever seen. The path to defeating them involves exploring many influenced maps and slaying their formidable subordinates, The Black Star and The Infinite Hunger, yielding valuable rewards.
3. Voidstones
In the last iteration of the Atlas, you needed to use Watchstones to both unlock new maps and raise the level of maps across your Atlas. In Siege of the Atlas, GGG have removed Watchstones and have restored the hidden maps back to the base Atlas so that they don't have to be unlocked over time. GGG have added much of the power from craftable Watchstones to Atlas Passives so that you can still access the benefits you're used to without the busywork of managing Watchstones. Despite the era of Watchstones being over, GGG really like the ability to raise the tier of maps on your Atlas so that they are eventually all Tier 16. To this end, GGG have introduced Voidstones. You can earn up to four of these, one each from the Uber Elder, The Maven, The Searing Exarch, and The Eater of Worlds. Placing Voidstones in your Atlas will raise the tier of all of its maps, eventually making them uniformly Tier 16.
4. The Atlas Passive Tree
In Siege of the Atlas, GGG have removed the concept of Atlas regions entirely. This means we're saying goodbye to Regional Atlas Passive Trees and hello to a single gigantic Atlas Passive Tree. This new tree has over 600 passives available to choose from, and you can earn 117 Atlas Passive Skill Points by completing your Atlas. Each different map you complete the bonus objective of grants you one skill point. In addition to the best skills from the regional trees, GGG have created many completely new ones that let you choose your own level of risk and reward for Atlas content.
5. Eldritch Implicit Modifiers
Every large Path of Exile expansion needs a new way to create the most powerful items in PoE. Siege of the Atlas introduces a new endgame item mechanic called Eldritch Implicit Modifiers. The Searing Exarch and The Eater of Worlds each have a powerful set of Eldritch Implicit Modifiers, which can be imbued onto items using Eldritch Embers and Eldritch Ichor, respectively. Although this process replaces existing implicit mods, it's possible to have both types of Eldritch Implicits on an item at the same time.
You can use an Orb of Conflict to manipulate the tiers of these modifiers on your item within the six tiers of modifiers available. When applied, the Orb randomly increases the tier of one modifier and lowers the tier of the other. The new Eldritch Chaos Orb, Eldritch Exalted Orb, and Eldritch Orb of Annulment can manipulate the prefixes or suffixes of an item depending on whether The Searing Exarch or The Eater of Worlds has a higher Eldritch modifier on it.
6. New Unique Items
The Siege of the Atlas expansion contains a whole roster of new unique items, which drop from the four new Atlas bosses we have introduced. All of these are powerful uniques named Ashes of the Stars Onyx Amulet, Dissolution of the Flesh Prismatic Jewel, Polaric Devastation Opal Ring and Ceaseless Feast Spiked Gloves.
GGG are also introducing a pair of very rare aspirational unique jewels, Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh. Each of these jewels drops from one of the two new Pinnacle Atlas Bosses and are certainly unique in that they must work together to unlock their potential. These jewels open up many new build possibilities for very late endgame characters.
7. Favoured Maps
The Favoured Map System allows you to find more of the maps that you want to play. Favoured map slots can be unlocked by meeting various objectives like completing a Tier 16 Map or defeating an Elder Guardian. There are 12 Favoured Map Slots that can be unlocked.
8. Sextants
Sextants can be found from Tier 14 onward and are applied to Voidstones. When you use one on a Voidstone, it affects your whole Atlas. Because Voidstones come from the highest-tier content. Your existing Simple and Prime Sextants will be converted to Awakened Sextants at the launch of Siege of the Atlas. GGG like this strategic use of sextants, so they have reintroduced this behaviour with a new currency item called the Surveyor's Compass. This currency item drops periodically and is also sold by Kirac for 1 Chaos Orb.
9. Commander Kirac and Atlas Objectives
With Zana gone, you may be wondering what is happening to her Atlas missions. Well, Kirac is taking over from her. But it works a little differently now Kirac has assumed the position of a Commander and has important missions for you to carry out in the Atlas. You open these missions at your map device and can run them just like before. However, you won't encounter Kirac inside a map, and you won't be able to apply Kirac objectives to a map itself. Because of this, GGG have raised the chance that you receive a Kirac Atlas Objective when you defeat a map Boss. Instead of focusing on completion, Kirac missions now focus more on rewards, so their purpose is to provide you with additional league content or extra item drops. Kirac missions can now include additional content like Conquerors, Ritual Encounters, Expedition Encounters, and even Monstrous Treasure, the former prophecy that makes an area contain 24-36 additional strongboxes with no natural monster inhabitants.
10. The Archnemesis Challenge League
Archnemesis is a challenge league that reinvigorates fights with rare monsters. It introduces around 60 new monster mods and allows you to customize your rare boss fights to control your level of risk and reward. These mods can be combined in over 35 recipes to create new, more powerful and rewarding mods.
Recommended Builds:
11. Game Balance
In Siege of the Atlas, the balance goal is to take two very common gameplay archetypes that struggle with endgame content and to buff them so that they are in a much better place compared to other builds. The ones GGG are targeting are hit-damage bow characters and hand-casting spellcasters. To be clear, this expansion does have a few of the usual nerfs to the most overperforming builds, but for the most part, the majority of balance changes are buffs. The goal is that players who play hit-damage bow builds and hand-casting spellcasters are significantly more competitive.
12. New Stash Tabs
Alongside Siege of the Atlas, we're introducing two new types of stash tabs: one for Flasks and one for Gems. A side effect of this is that you're able to set your regular tabs to have an affinity for Flasks or Gems, regardless of whether you've purchased the new specialized tabs. The Gem Stash Tab allows you to easily store and sort your collection of up to 500 skill and support gems. By default, it displays all gems stored in the tab, but you can use one of the four categories at the top to filter between Red, Green, Blue, and White gems. There's a dropdown that allows you to pick your preferred sorting method, such as Current Gem Level, Required Level, or Quality, to easily find whatever gem you are looking for.
The Flask Stash Tab allows you to store 500 Flasks and can be filtered to show Life, Mana, Hybrid, Utility, and Unique flasks. You can use the dropdown to change the sort order between item level, base type, and quality. This allows you to quickly find flasks of a certain type, potential flasks to the vendor for glassblower's baubles, or high item level flasks for crafting. Remember that regardless of whether you've purchased these new tabs, you'll still be able to set up affinities for gems or flasks on your existing stash tabs.
13. Launch Boss Kill Event
Alongside the launch of Siege of the Atlas, GGG are hosting a competitive event where players will race to be the first to kill a trio of bosses: The Maven, The Searing Exarch and The Eater of Worlds. The event will take place in the hardcore solo self-found Archnemesis league. GGG have some interesting prizes in store for the winners. Keep an eye on the news next week for more details about how the event will work and what its prizes are.
That's all content about Siege of the Atlas. I hope you can rush your path fleetingly in the next week!
Reference:
Path of Exile: Siege of the Atlas Livestream (January 2022)
Announcing Path of Exile: Siege of the Atlas
[PoE 3.17] The Top League Starter Candidates For Siege Of The Atlas
