What To Look Out For When Challenging Zalmarath Which Is The Last Boss In Act 2 Of POE 2? - Location & Attacks
The current Path of Exile 2 Early Access, which has been in development for nearly a decade, has three acts of game content for you to explore, and each act has a completely different game experience. In Act 2, you will explore a vast desert area and need to find and reassemble the fragments of Horn of the Vastiri in three different missions.
Of these three missions, A Crown of Stone is arguably the most noteworthy. Not only will it lead you to the scenic Valley of Titans and Titan Grotto, but you can also challenge the very profitable boss called Colossus Zalmarath here.
At this powerful ultimate boss, you can learn some combat strategies that can be used when facing this boss who mainly uses physical damage, and more importantly, you can find the very important Flame Ruby from its loot. So this guide will introduce you to the location of Zalmarath and what kind of combat moves you will face in the battle.
Colossus Zalmarath’s Location
As mentioned above, Colossus Zalmarath is the last boss in your quest A Crown of Stone, so it is located at the end of Titan Grotto, and you need to go through Valley of the Titans to get there.
As you travel through Valley of the Titans, you need to find and activate three Ancient Seals, which will unlock the path to Titan Grotto. Since the entire area is very large, you should use as many Checkpoints and Waypoints as possible to mark your progress while exploring.
Otherwise, if you die while challenging the ultimate boss, you will need to explore again, and at the same time, POE 2 Currency and experience points you previously earned will be lost. When you see Dais of Reckoning at the end of Titan Grotto, it means that you are about to enter the arena between you and Zalmarath. Here you can check whether the damage and survivability of your build are at their best.
How To Defeat Zalmarath?
The arena you fight Zalmarath in is actually quite small compared to other final bosses, and it will get smaller as the fight progresses. In this case, most of Zalmarath’s attacks will easily cover a large area of the arena, so having a clear sense of positioning is very important in this fight.
Zalmarath will mainly deal physical damage to you during the fight, with some fire and lightning damage as well. So when preparing for this challenge, you should spend as much POE 2 Regal Orbs on your armor as possible to make it higher in rarity and more defensive, which will greatly reduce all the damage cast by this powerful boss.
As the old saying goes, knowing yourself and the enemy is the key to success, and only by knowing all of Zalmarath’s attacks can you respond correctly. Here are Zalmarath’s specific attacks and the strategies you can use.
Sword Stab
Zalmarath will thrust his sword straight into the arena and then drag it back along the path it had just taken. You can clearly see him raise his sword to stab you, so you can avoid this attack by dodging or moving at the beginning of this move.
This attack is relatively easy to dodge compared to the ones that follow, but it will still cause you to take heavy damage if you are unlucky enough to get hit.
Lightning Bolt
During this attack, you will see Zalmarath move around the edge of the arena in a quarter circle, and then fire a wave of projectiles from his vicinity. At this time, you should turn to the opposite side of the arena where Zalmarath is standing and move in the same direction as him, which will block some projectiles.
Arm Sweep
At this point, Zalmarath will abandon his sword and use his arms to sweep across the arena. If you are caught, you will be dragged across the floor, causing heavy physical damage. As mentioned above, the arena is small, but the range of this attack is large. So if you can’t avoid Zalmarath’s arm, you can try to run in the opposite direction to avoid being hit by other damaging skills.
Falling Debris
In addition to the above physical damage, Zalmarath will also shoot lasers at the ceiling and cause some debris to fall into the arena. It should be noted that one debris is larger than the others and can even destroy the floor of the arena that supports it.
You can tell where the debris will fall by the spinning dust circles on the arena floor. Just avoid stepping on these dust circles to avoid these debris that can cause heavy damage to you.
Stone Wave
Here, Zalmarath will slam his arm and launch a wave of rocks that can cause damage to you. Similar to Sword Stab, you can tell the direction of its attack by its hand raising, which makes it easier to avoid this attack in time. However, it is worth noting that Zalmarath may use this attack twice in a short period, so you need to be prepared to dodge twice for a long time.
Laser
As mentioned above, the boss will shoot lasers at the ceiling, so it may also shoot lasers at you and cause unpredictable damage to the current arena area. Normally, the movement path of this attack move is downward and will not move randomly, but Zalmarath may also turn around to guide the laser sweep, which is worth noting.
Generally speaking, the laser fired by Zalmarath will start from close to the body and gradually move outward. This time will be very long, and you have plenty of time to dodge. The most important thing here is that when the laser starts to move, you need to predict its movement path as soon as possible and avoid it.
Vril Apparition
Of course, as the ultimate boss, Zalmarath will also summon some Vril Apparitions to help it complete this battle. They usually appear from a corner of the arena and swarm around you. Although the damage of a single Vril Apparition to you will not have much impact on you, you still need to use some AOE damage skills as soon as possible to eliminate these large groups of enemies, otherwise you may be tortured to death by a large amount of damage.
Fire Tendrils
For the ultimate attack, Zalmarath will slam his fist to create flaming tendrils that will move randomly and deal a lot of fire damage to you in the process. Since their movement paths are random, it is difficult to avoid them. You can only try to observe their movement direction and move to a safe position in the opposite direction.
The above are all the attacks you will experience during the battle with Zalmarath. It will repeat this series of attacks until you defeat it. It is worth suggesting that the longer you fight it, the more difficult it will be to dodge its attacks in the arena, because the range of the arena will continue to decrease.
Whether you are using a character that focuses on melee or a character that emphasizes long-range attacks, the best strategy in this battle is to get as close to Zalmarath as possible or stand behind it, which will greatly increase your chance of dodge and put you in a safe state to cast all your attack skills.
The most difficult to avoid is the laser attack with a very large range. You can also hide behind its sword at this time to resist some damage. In general, as long as you are familiar with all the attacks of Zalmarath and try more, it is very easy for you to defeat it and get Flame Ruby from it. I wish you a happy game!
Recommended Article
View More
Temple mechanic in Path of Exile 2 Patch 0.4.0 initially caused player dissatisfaction due to its cumbersome mechanics and low rewards. Subsequent patches improved the mechanic significantly, and some players exploited a bug to farm large amounts of currency using this mechanic, even causing inflation.
However, since Temples do not produce Omens, farming Omens remains highly valuable even in an inflationary environment. If you don't want to study the seasonal mechanics but still want to farm currency, this strategy is much simpler.
Waystones
- Minimum requirements: Six affixes, corrupted T15 Maps.
Adding affixes to maps can significantly increase rewards, but using only T15 Maps from Orb of Alchemy is far from enough; you must use at least two Exalted Orbs to add affixes.
Vaal Orb is also recommended because it offers two good results: either corrupting the map to T16 while retaining all six affixes, or adding 1-2 additional affixes, resulting in up to 8 Modified Maps.
Since these maps are quite difficult, dying midway through renders the entire map useless. Therefore, it's recommended to use Regal Orb and Orb of Scouring to modify the difficulty affixes. You can filter out Waystones containing affixes that reduce maximum resistance and Penetration.
Table
Since the core of the entire farming strategy is to generate as many pits as possible on the map, it's absolutely essential to ensure your Table has Abyss affix.
Affixes like adding Abyss to the map, having a chance to add extra Abysses, and each closed pit increasing difficulty and reward are all highly desirable.
However, note that when using multiple Abyss Tablets, their inherent affix "Adds Abysses to a Map" effect does not stack. The only way to increase Abyss Pit is by including Additional Abyss chance affix, or the waystone affix "Map contains an additional Abyss guaranteed."
You don't always have to use three Abyss tablets. You can choose to enhance the map boss. Common non-Abyss affixes include "Monsters have increased Effectiveness," "Increased Rarity of Items found in your Map," or maps with Delirium affix, but using Abyss Tablets is probably the best and least expensive option.
Atlas Passive Tree
Abyss Atlas Passive Tree
Abyss Atlas Passive Tree at the bottom of the map is the node you should focus on most. You have 8 assignable nodes; it's recommended to assign them in the following order.
- Balance of Power (From Out of the Pit)
- Depths Chance
- Unholy Influence
- Depths Chance
- Sprawling Ruptured
- Depths Chance
- Depths Chance
- Stir the Swarm
From Out of the Pit option in the upper right corner of Balance of Power is mandatory. It provides a "25% increased effectiveness of Abyssal monsters," increasing item quantity and thus the chance of Omens dropping.
Stir the Swarm node provides the "nearby maps are overrun by Abyssal" modifier. Although it only has a 5% chance, it means that once this map appears, there will definitely be a lot of Abyssal pits.
General Talent Tree
The general Atlas Passive Tree doesn't have any particularly noteworthy nodes. This talent tree mainly greatly increases Tablet Effect, while selecting some Shrines nodes can reduce the challenge pressure of high-difficulty maps.
It's recommended to read the node descriptions before running your Atlas Passive Tree and leave all Swamp and Water Biomes maps for last.
You can also replace some less important nodes like "2% Quantity" or "2-3% Rarity" with Local Knowledge node. This provides a 40% increase to the base currency drop rate for Swamp and Water Biomes maps, making it a very good choice.
How to Farm Omen?
If you're only aiming for Omen of Light and Omen of Abyssal Echoes, map type doesn't matter much. If you also want to harvest Divine Orbs, Cleansed Areas biomes are the best choice.
These map provide additional monster groups that tend to drop POE 2 currency and may have the +1 to monster level affix. Combined with T16 Maps, you'll obtain a large number of high-level Valuable Bases.
How to Obtain Omens?
Omen of Light and Omen of Abyssal Echoes are high-demand consumables used in top-tier crafting, and their demand typically increases with the season.
Abyss spawns specific Abyssal Rares, which may have special affixes. You need to look for monsters with the affix "Amanamu's Void." These monsters are easily identifiable by the large black cloud that spawns beneath their feet.
As long as the monster is within its own cloud, it is immune to damage unless you are also standing in the same cloud.
You must lure the monster out of the cloud and kill it as it emerges. If you kill the monster while it is still inside the cloud, it will drop the lowest-value Omens.
Waiting for it to emerge requires patience; you may need to kite the monster for 30 seconds to 1 minute. Using a build with Freeze or other controllable abilities will be more stable.
Using a loot filter that highlights different Omens is crucial. It provides instant feedback on whether your actions were correct. If you kill a monster but no Omens are highlighted on the ground, you'll know you made a mistake.
To run this strategy, you only need to prepare Atlas Passive Tree and Tables beforehand, and then you can focus on farming monsters. This might require some investment, but overall you'll profit.
Path of Exile 2's economic market is complex and a source of enjoyment for players, but this enjoyment is being destroyed by inflation. A bug allowed some players to amass large amounts of Divine Orbs, causing an abnormally high value for items in the market.
This has had a negative impact on ordinary players, but it's not so severe as to make the game unplayable. Let's see how you should deal with this.
What Happened?
Abyss
Inflation isn't unique to this League. In Patch 0.3.0, players discovered that rare monsters in Abyss could drop Divine Orbs. This bug, caused by Sprawling Rapture Atlas passive, allowed many players to easily earn hundreds of Divine Orbs, but the developers didn't address this, leading to severe inflation in the market.
This bug was fixed in Patch 0.4.0, but this fix only affected ordinary players. Teams with top-tier gear can still utilize Unforeseen Consequences Abyss Precursor Tablet to massively produce Divine Orbs.
Temple
Another exploit revolves around Atziri's Temple, a key mechanic of this league. Players need to collect Crystals on the map to build rooms in Temple. Completing these rooms in a snake pattern and unlocking them one by one yields substantial rewards.
This exploit allows you to reset the zone, re-enter the map, and repeatedly cultivate Crystals on the same map to unlock the temple. With a sufficiently powerful build, you can complete a temple in one minute. Players using this method can earn approximately 50 Divine Orbs per hour, a feat impossible for regular players.
Impact of Inflation
Before the exploit was patched, players using this method became extremely wealthy, while those who didn't do so fell into an inflationary trap. The relative value of their PoE 2 currency earned during playtime drastically decreased.
Previously, you could obtain Exalted Orbs by farming dungeons, and approximately one hour's worth of Exalted Orbs could be exchanged for one Divine Orb. Now, due to the increased value of Divine Orbs, players need to farm for much longer to obtain even one.
Wealthy players, holding large quantities of Divine Orbs, have snapped up high-quality gear on the market, driving up their values.
A belt with good stats, crucial for a build, might have previously been worth 100 Exalted Orbs, but now it might only be worth 25. A truly exceptional belt could fetch as much as 25 Divine Orbs, and many essential base items for a build have also increased in value to dozens of Divine Orbs. This is unattainable for ordinary players.
Even if these bugs are fixed, wealthy players already possess top-tier builds, making their dungeon farming extremely efficient. Ordinary players with mid-tier builds will need 3 to 5 minutes per dungeon with lower rewards. The efficiency difference in acquiring Divine Orbs between the two is enormous, making it difficult for average players to close the gap.
Impact on Average Players
While the aforementioned cleanup sounds terrible, its actual impact on most average players is limited. In a normal league, there's already a significant gap between dedicated players who invest a lot of time and casual players who invest less.
Even under normal circumstances, most players struggle to break through this middle barrier. This inflation simply makes average players poorer, but it doesn't change the fact that you'll almost never reach the top tier of wealth.
Furthermore, all endgame content in the game doesn't require S-tier or unique items. You can use techniques like dodging, timing your attacks, and proper build construction to complete the game, but it certainly won't be as easy as it is for top-tier players.
This will also force average players to stop blindly copying top-tier builds and instead start researching equipment affixes, defensive mechanics, and how to adjust their builds to their own situation. This improves game understanding, allowing you to complete campaigns faster and more smoothly in the next league.
While Exalted Orbs have depreciated in value relative to Divine Orbs, many other crafting currencies and materials have also depreciated relative to Divine Orbs. This means you can trade for more crafting materials with fewer Divine Orbs, making it potentially more cost-effective for average players to craft their own gear in patch 0.4.0.
What Should You Do Now?
Don't forget that Path of Exile 2 is still in Early Access. This event exposed some mechanics issues, which will help the developers fix them in the next League.
If you don't have a Temporalis build, it's best not to choose the current best currency farming strategy, as this will actually reduce your farming efficiency.
You can analyze what content top-tier players are playing, what materials they need, and then supply those materials. Because they focus on a specific, efficient way to farm money, they can't play other content simultaneously.
On the other hand, you need to change your goals. Instead of focusing on how many Divine Orbs you can farm each day, use your developed build to defeat a Pinnacle Boss. This will also improve your overall strength.
While this economic collapse was triggered by bugs, diminishing the sense of reward for ordinary players grinding through levels, fundamentally, the strength of your build still depends on your time investment. If you haven't yet experienced all the content of this league, it's recommended that you adjust your mindset, change your strategy, and focus on learning and progressing within the game itself.
In Path of Exile 2, the simplest way to increase DPS is by leveling up to gain extra talent points and upgrading gear and skills.
However, upgrading to better gear means you need at least some currency, but the currency drop rate in Path of Exile 2 is extremely low, meaning you'll have to farm for a very long time before you can replace even one piece of gear. But this isn't the only method, and some overlooked mechanics can also significantly boost your DPS.
Weapon Sets
In Path of Exile 2, you can have two weapon sets: Weapon Set 1 and Weapon Set 2. Using different weapons allows you to allocate different talent points and specify different skills that only apply to a particular weapon set. This means 2 talent trees stack on one character.
If one set of gear provides critical strike chance while the other provides attack speed, switching between them during combat will result in a noticeable DPS increase.
Although there are two weapon sets, it doesn't mean you need two weapons. If your primary weapon is excellent, you can share it with the second weapon set.
Additionally, the main hand and off-hand can be shared independently. For example, you can share the scepter with two sets, but only equip a specific weapon in one set.
However, even with shared weapons, you still need to allocate weapon skill points independently for each weapon set. These skill points are not free, and they will consume your regular skill points.
After allocating skills, you need to bind the skills to specific weapon sets. Right-clicking on a skill icon allows you to select which weapon set the skill applies to.
PC Setup Steps
First, prepare your weapon, or share a weapon with two sets by right-clicking the lock icon of the weapon slot.
Ensure you have available Skill Points and Weapon Set Skill Points. Then, in the skill tree interface, click the arrow icon to switch to allocating points for Weapon Set 1 or Weapon Set 2, select and apply. Finally, right-click the skill in the skill bar and select the weapon set to apply it to.
Controller Setup Steps
In the weapon talent skill tree interface, the host player needs to long-press the confirmation button to bring up a menu. At the top, you can choose to allocate points to all sets, or go to Weapon Set 1/2 for independent allocation.
Binding skills is slightly more complicated. You need to enter the skill key binding settings, then move the cursor to the target skill and long-press the confirmation button to open the skill options. In the options, find and set which weapon set the skill belongs to. You can also do this through the quick menu in the key binding settings interface.
How To Improve Skill Gems?
The higher your skill level, the higher your DPS will be. However, directly trading or corrupting a level 20 skill gem in PoE 2 is very valuable, requiring approximately 600 Exalted Orbs. Corruption also carries the risk of downgrading or rendering the gem unusable, costing around 3 Divine Orbs per attempt. However, there are some techniques to reduce PoE 2 currency consumption of this step.
First, you need to disable Gem Cutting Restrictions in the game options, as this prevents further actions on corrupted gems. You don't need level 19 skill gems, and start with level 17, as they are much less valuable. Then use Gemcutter's Prism to upgrade their quality to 20%.
Before corrupting them with Vaal Orbs, remember to socket them with Perfect Jeweller's Orbs, as you cannot modify them after corruption. You can directly corrupt skill gems with Vaal Orbs, or combine them with Omen for a better outcome. Vaal Orbs may increase or decrease your skill gem's level by one, leave it unchanged, or even cause it to lose a slot.
In PoE 1, a failed corruption might render a skill gem useless. However, in PoE 2, gem upgrades are based on your account's skill level cap, not the gem's current state. Therefore, once you have a level 19 gem, all lower-level corruption skill gems of the same name can be re-upgraded.
So, if the corruption result is unsatisfactory, keep these corrupted level 17 gems and continue corrupting them until you obtain a level 19 corruption skill gem.
Then, returning to the gem upgrade interface in your stash, you can upgrade the previously failed level 17 corruption skill gem to a level 19 gem.
Using this method, just approximately one Divine Orb is required to attempt to obtain a higher-level skill gem, and this method also applies to Spirit Gems.
Better Jewelry
Upgrade Jewellery With Catalysts
Rings and Amulets can be upgraded to 20% quality using Catalysts, enhancing their associated attributes.
Enchant Necklaces With Instilled Emotions
Right-clicking an Instilled Emotion opens the crafting interface, allowing you to combine it with the necklace to add powerful bonus effects.
In Passive Skill Tree, holding down the Alt key will highlight the desired emotion type and order. You can then use Forging Bench to reforge lower-tier emotions into higher-tier ones in a fixed order, thus obtaining rare emotions.
Megalomaniac
Searching for Enchant and Jewel in Market will reveal Megalomaniac Diamond. This jewel randomly grants two talents, and the better the talent combination, the higher its value.
If you feel your build's damage is insufficient, check if you've utilized these tips. They allow you to achieve significant DPS increases without relying on bonus gear.
After the release of Patch 0.4.0, the most popular class in POE 2 is undoubtedly the new Druid. Its three animal forms provide a wealth of gameplay options and styles, giving rise to multiple builds based on these forms.
However, have you noticed that animal skills aren't Druid's only option? At least in terms of skills, Druid can also attack enemies using the power of nature and plants. Unfortunately, this type of gameplay doesn't seem to be very popular so far.
Based on this, we will approach this from this perspective and introduce you to how a simple and effective Plant Druid build is crafted.
Plant Druid Build Overview
Compared to builds with complex configurations and high requirements for gear and skill levels, crafting Plant Druid build is much simpler (not that complex builds are bad).
This is mainly because the build doesn't have many usable skills, but they are all very useful, including Entangle and Thrashing Vines, and the damage output is primarily skill-based.
These two vine skills were originally designed for sustained damage, but you can increase the damage of your storm and plant skills by obtaining the keystone passive Wildsurge Incantation early in the campaign, significantly reducing their mana consume and duration.
This transforms these originally support-oriented sustained damage skills into more direct damage skills.
On the other hand, Entangle itself can deal considerable damage and create fissures on the ground, and you can further enhance these fissures by adding the support gems Branching Fissures I & II to make them spread wider.
Then Entangle will cover the entire arena with vines, dealing significant direct damage and sustained damage to enemies upon casting, while also attaching to enemies to slow them down, making it difficult for them to hit you.
Skill Details
You can unlock Entangle skill at level one. Afterwards, you can choose to add Upheaval and Magnified Area to enhance the skill effect, or wait until a higher level to use Branching Fissures II with Entangle, which will be more effective.
It's worth mentioning that Volcano is also one of the skills you can quickly obtain in Druid's human form. Although it's not particularly outstanding in terms of synergy, you can cast Volcano first and then Entangle to quickly clear mobs.
If you want to further improve your clearing efficiency, you can acquire staff or wand-type weapons and then consume PoE 2 currency to roll or add affixes that increase weapons' spell damage.
Once you reach around level 14, you'll unlock Thunder Storm skill. This creates a great synergy, as all plant skills will cause plants to overgrow and produce additional effects when under the influence of Thunder Storm.
This way, Entangle will make the overgrown fissures last longer, and more vines will attach to enemies, dealing more damage and slowing them down more effectively. Thunder Storm, Entangle, and then repeat. It's simple.
The only tricky part is if you're facing a boss that moves around a lot in the arena; you'll need to frequently recast Thunder Storm. However, in the endgame, you can switch to crit-triggered casting for automatic activation.
Another important plant skill, Thrashing Vines, is level 9 and is expected to be unlocked after entering Act 3.
This skill causes giant vines to grow and randomly appear in the target area. After falling to the ground, the vines retract and attack nearby enemies. The attack range is generally small, and the number of vines depends on the cast duration.
For Thrashing Vines, slower casting speed results in higher damage, and each cast deals more damage. You just need to cast it occasionally and pay attention to its duration.
The last skill to add is Tornado, which is expected to be unlocked at the beginning of Act 4. Tornado isn't that crucial for Plant Druid Build, but it can be used to maintain buffs.
If there are any ground effects on the ground, Tornado will absorb them and deal a large amount of additional damage of the same element, and may also apply debuffs. You can use it with Thrashing Vines and Thunder Storm against a single target.
Best Ascendancy Class: Oracle
Of the two available Druid Ascendancy classes, Oracle is more suitable for Plant Druid Build because this Ascendancy increases damage by foreseeing the future and manipulating the surrounding environment while in human form.
Based on our analysis and description of the required skills, you should always be in human form when using this build, so Oracle can maximize the build's effectiveness by unlocking the following suitable Ascendancy abilities.
- The Unseen Path: Allows you to choose additional passive nodes that only Oracle can access.
- The Lesser Harm: Changes the critical hit chance and damage of enemies attacking you to Unlucky.
- Forced Outcome: You gain a critical hit when you meet the specific conditions displayed in Oracle's vision.
Gear Selection
For this build, gear selection isn't critical. Ideally, you should obtain a wand and maximize its spell skill level or physical spell skill level to deal more spell damage.
On top of that, ensuring your weapon or rings have cast speed bonuses is even better, as this is important for improving the build's efficiency. As for other gear, prioritize those with movement speed, health, and resistance bonuses.
Overall, Plant Druid Build is a gameplay style based on Druid's human form. Although it's not a mainstream build yet, its effectiveness shouldn't be underestimated, and it's likely to become popular later in the league. You can be ahead of the curve by trying it now!
