Xenowars | Defense, Dungeon, And Dung
Path Of Exile | Bosses And Achievement Hunting
It was time to make another round on some bosses. In the process, I decided to knock out some achievements I've been wanting to finish off for quite some time. It was a rather nice break from the delve grind I've been carrying out.
Naturally, this would not be entirely without anything related to delve. After some minor gear upgrades that I sniped at decent prices. I was out seeing how I would fair vs Kurgal, Ahuatotli, and Aul.
It was kind of funny that Kurgal who I have rarely fought took me four attempts. In the past, if I would have failed to kill a boss without getting killed the node in delve would be cleared. That used to be a tactic I'd even use in the past just opening a fight with a boss then ducking out and leaving the map. Getting a quick path to the next node. Such things no longer work. You now have to kill the bosses.
The loot was dreadful. So after knocking a few of them out and even getting killed a few in the process. I decided a break from Delve was in order. I had so many other things I wanted to take care of.
First, however, I needed some map fragments from the different influenced bosses you can fight. So, I ended up farming the four Elderslayers: Baran, Veritania, Al-Hezmin, and Drox. The four Elder Guardians: Enslaver, The Eradicator, The Constrictor, The Purifier. Finally, the four Guardians of the Void: Chimera, Hydra, Phoenix, and Minotaur. Each one of these dropped an item and with a full set of four from each type you could place it into the atlas device to spawn a portal for a harder fight.
Naturally, I did not do all of these back-to-back. As it would only take about four to get a full bar of sulfite. Also having the Maven witness four kills from the same group would get me an invitation to fight all four at once.
To try and get the best loot from running these different invitations I'd reroll each one of them trying to get at least 70 item quantity since that would give me a decent chance of at least getting some awakened gems to drop.
For the most part, up till this point, this was not any different than what I have been doing. This time however I was going to keep the map fragments instead of selling them.
Along with keeping the individual drops, I was getting from taking down each of the map bosses. I was also keeping any crescent splinter drops I was getting from the Maven Invitations as well. Then they make The Maven’s Writ that I can use to fight the Maven as well.
First up I decided to fight The Elder. He can drop some loot that still has some value. I ended up farming him a couple of times over before deciding to just go back to selling the items to make the map to fight him.
On one of my kills of him, I ended up looting a Prismatic Jewel. It was not a very good one so it ended up selling for not that much. The Fragment of Emptiness that always drops is worth a little less than all the map fragments used to start this encounter.
This fight itself is quite an easy and quick one. I ended up farming it a few times over and I did not get anything worth my time. It was time to move on to some other fights.
Next up I'd fight the shaper. His map fragments end up not being worth a lot. I find the fight to just be annoying with how much running around killing lesser map bosses to get the encounter to start and during different stages of the fight.
While I could easily farm him as well. I’ve never gotten loot that makes it even worth thinking about farming him again. While I'm sure there is something worthwhile, I could not even be bothered to run him again.
Next up I'd be fighting Sirus, Awakener of Worlds. Since I've had some experience with him in the past, I knew about his different phases from ensuring the giant death ball things he drops were not in the middle of the arena to how to escape his little maze where he kills you if you don’t get far enough away in time.
Next up I'd attempt The Maven again. I’ve tried a couple of other times in this league. Without much success. I’ve also failed to kill her in past leagues. This time around I took her out. Getting myself an achievement that only around 2% of the player base has.
She also drops a voidstone which you can place on the atlas to increase the lower map tiers. This increases my chances of getting tier 17 maps and more tier 16 maps in general. This was one of the many reasons I wanted to take her out.
Getting that achievement made me want to go on a bit of an achievement-hunting journey. While I would not be going after any that require PvP (I know who even is involved in PvP in POE?) or hardcore. I still had some left remaining that I could easily do.
One of them involved fully clearing a map called the Catacombs. I’m kind of embraced I've never done that before. I guess I've always seen it as some random side little area I run through during the main storyline. I never stopped to fully clear that zone as I had no reason to do so.
Another one involved using a remnant of corruption on an essence monster. Since I always avoid those, it was no shock I did not have that one done either.
One I found to be a little pointless yet interesting to do fully upgrading all god powers in the Parthenon. You do that by capturing different souls on the Atlas map. In each league, I usually just upgrade the god powers I'll be using and ignore the rest.
I had also never completed every bonus achievement of the Atlas itself. It turns out I already had every map I needed to have. Thankfully Grandmaster Hall is not one of them. As I even attempted to do that and melee damage can’t kill everything in there.
I had one final boss fight I wanted to get down. Well, you fight two bosses at once. It’s defeating the Elder in Shaper's Realm. Where you have to fight both Elder and Shaper at once.
Only one of them can be damaged at a time. While they both are doing their own thing. So you have to go back and forth between damaging the two. While I did get killed a couple of times. I managed to defeat them.
This got me the last voidstone I needed for the league. I also got super lucky and had a Prismatic Jewel drop. This one can roll three powerful modifiers instead of just two on the lower-level fight. I ended up selling it for 10 divine orbs.
Final Thoughts
It was great to get quite a few things accomplished. Between defeating some bosses I wanted to this league to ones I've failed to do so in past leagues. It was also rather fun to pick up some achievements that only 1-2% of the player base even has.
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Path Of Exile.