For an eternity, the darkness swelled within a ceaseless churn of its feeding, and then... silence. Such silence is deafening to those who listen for it. The abyss cast its gaze upon its source. The first lurching movement of boundaries drawn long before the dawn. A claimant has arrived. You may know who. You wish to know why. The Maven seeks new conflict. Bored, she is, with the realm she has given. She is not the only one. The silence is deafening to all.
The Maven is one of the Pinnacle-Bosses added to Path of Exile in Patch 3.13 (Ritual League). She is the main Antagonist of the Echoes of the Atlas Expansion. Inside the Maven's Crucible, an arena-style boss event, player's can collect Crescent Splinters and combine 10 of them to form The Maven's Writ which can be opened in the Map Device.
Defeating the Maven Encounter for the first time grants you an Atlas Passive Skill Tree Point and the Ceremonial Voidstone which can be socketed into your Atlas. This allows you to advance to higher tier Maps, making the Maven one of the most important milestones to reach during your endgame progression. There are a total of four Voidstones that can be collected:
- The Maven - Ceremonial Voidstone
- The Elder - Decayed Voidstone
- The Eater of Worlds - Grasping Voidstone
- The Searing Exarch - Omniscient Voidstone
Loot Table
In addition to regular loot, the Maven has the following boss-specific drops:
- Legacy of Fury
- Graven's Secret
- Arn's Anguish
- Olesya's Delight
- Doppelgänger Guise
- Echoforge
Additional Drops:
- Orb of Conflict
- Auspicious Ambitions
- The Void
- Awakened Support Gems
Skills Breakdown
Boss Mechanics
The Maven & the Nucleus
In Order to open the Portals to the Absence of Mercy and Empathy, you have to place a The Maven's Writ into your Map Device. The Maven's Writ is a combination of 10 Crescent Splinters that you can obtain in the Maven Crucible Encounters.
The Maven is a very scripted Encounter. Once you learn the Mechanics and the order of appearance, especially when it comes to the Memory Game, you are going to have an easy time defeating her. It's all about practice!
The Maven Fight has 7 Phases. 4 phases in which you fight against the Maven, 3 phases against the Nucleus. The fight always alternates between those two. In Phase 1, you want to bring Maven down to 0% health, at which point she teleports out of the arena and the Nucleus floats towards the center, initiating Phase 2.
Phases
Once you step closer to the Maven the Encounter starts and after a few seconds she teleports to the Arena. After Maven becomes targetable, she teleport herself to a random location on the platform and engages.
The Maven uses the following abilities in Phase 1:
The Maven Phase 1 abilities:
- Default Projectile Attack
- Cascade of Pain
- Tri-Beam Claws
The Nucleus Phase 1 abilities:
- Lightning Ball
- Gravity Well
- Volatile Orbs
When the Maven reaches 0% Health, she teleports out of the Arena and the Nucleus makes his way into the center of the Platform. On arrival, he starts channeling a massive blast that deals lethal damage to your Character. In order to avoid that, run to the outer rotating platforms that are available in this phase.
If you successfully manage to avoid the massive blast, walk back into the Arena, since the outer Platforms will become inactive again. The Nucleus spawns 2 Beams starting from the center, leading towards the outer platform you used to avoid the Brain Blast. Make sure to not stand anywhere close to the outer platforms in order to dodge this ability. If you touch the Beam, you get a 10-second debuff called "Maven's Punishment," that disables the ability to restore Health (besides Instant Recovery Life Flasks) and Energy Shield.
Things like Life Leech, Life Regeneration or the use of Life & Hybrid Flasks won't work, and you have to avoid every source of damage in order to survive the debuff. The beams also slowly rotate around the arena, effectively creating two moving safe zones for you.
While it's your turn to damage, 3 random Map Bosses will spawn. These can range from very easy to incredibly dangerous, depending on their abilities. Some may slow, stun or damage you from range, so be aware of which bosses are present. You don't have to kill the Map Bosses if you have enough damage, but it makes the Intermission Phases easier. Once the Nucleus hits 66% of his health, he floats to the orbit again and Phase 3 begins.
While you were fighting the Nucleus, the Maven replenished her health back to 100%. In Phase 3, the Maven uses all her previous abilities, as well as the famous Memory Game and Circle Slam. The Nucleus is now able to use the lethal Ion Cannon Ability.
The Path of Exile's version of "Simon says" makes this fight pretty unique. The Maven teleports to the center of the Arena and becomes invulnerable. The Memory Game consists of splitting the Area into 3 different Zones (Left, Top, Right). After a short delay, the platforms randomly light up in a sequence (indicated with a purple flash), and you have to repeat her pattern by walking into the zones in the order they were lit up. While doing so, the Maven channels a massive blast ability that is lethal. If you repeat a wrong pattern, the channel will be sped up and your character receives reduced Action Speed. It's almost impossible to complete the Memory Game after making a mistake, and it's better to log out to save 10% Experience. It's very important to focus on the given patterns in order to successfully beat the Memory Game. In Phase 3, a pattern of 3 zones light up while in Phase 6 & 7, 6 zones light up, making the phase a lot harder to beat.
Since you can freely move your Character while she is lighting up the Zones, it's best to pre-position yourself in the first zone, so you only have to remember 2 more tiles.
This is a repeat of Phase 2: the Nucleus floats to the center of the Arena once the Maven has reached 0% health. Once again, you have to move to one of the outer platforms to survive the Brain Blast ability before you make your way to the Arena again. Don't get hit by the spawning Beams, defeat 3 Map Bosses and bring the Nucleus health to 33% in order to trigger Phase 5.
In Phase 5, the Maven uses all of her abilities used before and empowers the Memory Game to a 6 Stage Pattern. The easiest way to defeat the Memory Game is to pre-position yourself into the first zone. Dodge the Cascade of Pain ability, walk out of her Circle Blast Ability, rinse and repeat. Once you bring her Health down to 0%, she teleporst out of the Arena and the Nucleus makes his way into the center of the Arena for the last time.
In good old fashion, we have to move to the outer platforms of the Arena in order to avoid the Nucleus Brain Blast ability. This time around, we are able to kill the Nucleus and force the Maven into the Arena. The last phase begins.
In the final Phase of the Maven Encounter, 5 Beams spawn that have the same effect as the Nucleus Beam: making you unable to recover Life (besides Instant Recovery Life Flasks) or Energy Shield in any form. Each beam has an open space where you can safely walk through. Not only do the beams rotate around the arena for the rest of the encounter, but also the gaps move in random patterns, forcing you to reposition yourself all the time. To make things worse, the Maven uses an extra ability: the Sun Projectile, On Impact it explodes, dealing a ton of Fire Damage as well as leaving a nasty Ignite debuff. You can blink or outmaneuver this ability, but be aware of the Beams.
Since the Nucleus is dead, the puddles you left from the Gravity Well ability will not disappear. Make sure to stack them up in the center of the arena, especially during Phase 5, as you will have to deal with them for the rest of the encounter. Otherwise, you will have a hard time playing the Memory Game while dodging the Beams and getting slowed from the Void Zones.
The Maven uses her entire toolkit as well as a 6-Stage Memory Game. This is by far the hardest phase, so try to nuke her down before you get overwhelmed by her countless abilities.
Good Luck, Exile!
Uber Maven
In addition to the regular Maven encounter, there is also an Uber version available by opening 5 Reality Fragments in your Map Device. This makes the fight much harder in several ways:
In addition to her massively higher life and damage, the following changes also make the Uber version a much harder encounter:
- Both Maven and the Nucleus gain +4 Projectiles, making it harder to dodge abilities and triggering Collapse Volatiles much more frequently
- Void Zones from Volatile Orbs persist for the entire encounter.
- Tri-Beam Claws begin at a randomized location
- Extra bosses also spawn during the Memory Game
- 50% less Damage taken Area modifier
In addition to the regular Maven loot, the Uber Maven has the following boss-specific drops:
- Viridi's Veil
- Impossible Escape
- Progenesis
- Grace of the Goddess
- Awakened Empower Support
- Awakened Enlighten Support
- Awakened Enhance Support
- Shiny Reliquary Key
Additional Drops:
- Orb of Conflict
- Auspicious Ambitions
- The Void
- Awakened Support Gems
Summary
- Keep moving! Most of Maven's abilities can be outmanoeuvred, like the Tri-Beam Claws or the Cascade of Pain.
- Try to stack up the Gravity Well orbs in the centre of the arena, so they become less relevant in the fight.
- Don't touch any Brain Beams! The debuff you get makes it very hard to sustain incoming damage.
You can use skills like Flame Dash to blink over beams. - Stay focused on the Memory Game. If you are unable to do the Memory Game, logout and re-join the encounter.
Credits
Written by mbXtreme.
Reviewed by wudijo.