Strategy
This is the opening game plan for the endgame, aimed at the moment you finish the campaign and land in Ziggurat Refuge with a Tier 1 waystone and no idea which direction to walk. The core claim is that the order you do things in matters more than what you do: rush the Burning Monolith first, because everything downstream — waystone sustain, tablet quality, atlas point income — is gated behind it.
The reason it works this patch is waystone sustain. Waystones drop from anything, but the reliable source is map bosses, and the chance of getting one falls off sharply around Tier 11 unless you have specifically allocated the “quantity of waystones dropped by map bosses” nodes. Players who wander off to do league mechanics before finishing the Monolith run out of maps and end up buying Tier 14 stones from Doryani at roughly 20,000 gold each, which is not sustainable early in a league.
It is aimed at players reaching maps for the first time in the current league, or anyone who has bounced off the endgame because their map pool dried up. There is no build requirement beyond being able to survive the tier you are running.
Atlas Tree & Setup
Search “waystone” in the atlas search bar and take those nodes first. The route starts with quantity of waystones dropped by map bosses on the right, then goes left through the shrine cluster — increased shrine effect, shrine chance, and shrine duration, picking Enlightening (experience) or Gloom (power) as the shrine type. From there head up for the second waystone-quantity node, which unlocks after beating one of the gateways.
Next take increased magic monsters, then the node that duplicates one rare monster per area, then more rare monster nodes, then the final level-70-plus waystone quantity node at the top.
After Arbiter of Ash unlocks the tablet section, the tablet-modifier upgrades become the priority: a normal tablet takes one modifier, but with the unlock you can regal and exalt it to four. Unlike waystones, every tablet modifier is a pure bonus with no downside, so fully rolled tablets are strictly better maps.
Before leaving the citadel area, search “drop” in the atlas bar and take Distance Untold and Hidden Scars for the Fracturing Orb chance, plus the nodes on top granting a chance at extra Anomaly Map lineage supports.
Investment & Returns
- Investment: low — the entire plan runs on one waystone plus a single Overseer tablet; no currency sink required
- Returns: mid — steady waystone sustain, faster tier progression, and Fracturing Orb plus lineage support drop chances that most players never unlock
- Scaling: returns come from tablet modifiers stacking. Once Arbiter of Divinity is dead and tablets take four mods, the same maps produce meaningfully better loot for the same effort
Step-by-step
- Talk to the Hooded One and Doryani, collect your Tier 1 waystone, and open the map device from your hideout.
- Go straight to the Precursor Tower, then to the Ancient Gateway, and get inside the Fortress. Do not detour into league mechanics yet.
- Clear the eastern and western gateways for the two keys, then kill Arbiter of Ash. Deaths carry no experience penalty and attempts are unlimited on the quest version.
- Allocate the waystone-quantity and shrine nodes described above with your first atlas points.
- To climb tiers, avoid buying from Doryani. Instead run maps flagged with the powerful map boss icon — that boss drops a waystone one tier above the one you ran. If those maps are scarce, drop an Overseer tablet into any normal map to force the powerful boss.
- Kill Patriarch and Matriarch to open the Origin Tower, then Arbiter of Divinity, to unlock full four-modifier tablets.
- Take the Fracturing Orb and lineage support drop nodes before heading outside the walls.
- Pick a mechanic and finish its quest line. Breach and Abyss near the nexus are the recommended starting pair; ritual is on every map this event, so you either commit points to it or ignore it.
- Unlock the atlas masters. Jado (special map bosses) and Doryani (corrupted zones) are worth more than Hilda early. Doryani’s points also convert red maps into cleansed maps and let you add irradiation for an extra area level.
Risks
- Rushing waystone tiers past what your build can survive is one-way — Doryani only sells one tier below your highest completed map, so there is no walking it back.
- Every waystone modifier raises rewards but also reduces revive attempts; a three-mod stone left the creator with far fewer attempts than a clean one.
- Effectiveness nodes make monsters significantly beefier and should be delayed until the build can handle them; take rarity first.
- Patriarch and Matriarch outside the walls are the non-quest version and are meaningfully harder, so attempting them early to speed-run atlas points can stall you entirely.
Credits & Source
Method credited to Spud the King – Builds & Guides. See the source video: Reached ENDGAME in POE 2? DO THIS FIRST.