This Ultimatum Farming Guide covers the basics of farming Ultimatum as well as how to maximize your rewards and profitability. Ultimatum is a mechanic that focuses on risk vs reward, it's Atlas Passives emphasize making the encounter more difficult in order to greatly increase the rewards.

Mechanics

Adding Ultimatum to your map spawns an altar in the area. When activated it beings a series of progressively more difficult waves where you must complete 1 of 4 objectives.

Defeat Waves of Enemies
Protect The Altar
Stand in Stone Circles
Survive

The objective present on the first round persists for all of the remaining waves. After completing the objective time freezes and you will be shown the reward for completing the next round, as well as 3 negative affixes, one of which you must choose in order to continue the encounter.

If you fail the encounter, or leave the circle for too long, all of your rewards are lost. It is essential to keep track of the negative affixes you add to the encounter as once you reach round 10 there are going to be a lot of them to contend with.

Atlas Passives

Atlas passives are a massive boost to Ultimatum and understanding which ones are worth taking is essential, refer to our review below. Ultimatum is very unique since most of the Atlas Passives that increase the loot, also significantly increase the difficulty.

Stand Your Ground	Gradually reduces the Radius of the encounter each round, but you receive rewards as though you have completed an additional round. The reduced radius makes later rounds much more difficult, as things like Stormcaller Runes become almost impossible to dodge.
Prove Yourself Worthy	Ultimatum Modifiers start at a higher tier, meaning the encounter is always more difficult. However, your rewards have a 25% chance to be duplicated.
Face The Ultimatum	Grants 15% chance for the area to contain an Ultimatum encounter. Whilst nice for early game strategies, you cannot have 2 encounters on your map so the Scarabs and Compass modifier to guarantee the encounter are a better alternative.
Conquer The Stones	Increases the chance that the encounter requires you to Stand In Stone Circles. It also grants them 25% increased radius. This is the worst encounter to receive in Ultimatum, avoid this Notable.
Survive The Assault	Increases the chance that the encounter requires you to Survive. It also reduces the duration required to Survive. Whilst you cannot speed up this encounter in any way, it is easy to run circles and avoid enemies for the duration.
Slaughter Them All	Increases the chance that the encounter requires you to Defeat Waves of Enemies. It also reduces the number of mobs you are required to defeat by 20%. On a strong build you can complete these encounters extremely quickly, always take this node.
Protect The Altar	Increases the chance that the encounter requires you to Protect The Altar. It also grants the Altar 50% increased Life. On a strong build you can complete these encounters extremely quickly.
Brave The Tower	Grants increased chance for your Final Round to be the Trial Master. It also guarantees that the Trial Master drops a full stack of Catalysts alongside any other loot.
Gruelling Gauntlet	Causes your Ultimatums to last for 3 additional rounds, but you cannot choose the modifier at the end of each round. It also prevents you from summoning the boss. This keystone drastically altars how you play Ultimatum, and can be a Farming Strategy all on its's own. It is much more difficult and in some cases impossible to complete all of these encounters.
Ruinous Wager	Causes monsters in the Ultimatum to apply ruin with their special abilities, but halves the amount of damage that Ultimatum monsters and modifiers deal. This puts a higher emphasis on dodging abilities as opposed to tanking damage, which makes it especially useful on fast, squishier characters.

Scaling Loot

Multipliers

Increased Item Quantity / Rarity - This modifier only effects the number of catalysts you drop from the encounter. This can be very powerful in combination with the Ultimatum Scarab of Catalysing.

Increased Pack Size - This modifier has no apparent impact on Ultimatum.

Map Tier - Higher map tiers does not have a significant impact on the rewards from Ultimatum, however The Trialmaster can only be encountered in Tier 14 and higher maps.

Scarabs

Ultimatum Scarab causes the area to contain an Ultimatum Encounter. It is possible to reach 100% via a small amount of investment on the Atlas Passive Tree, making this unnecessary in almost all strategies.

Ultimatum Scarab of Bribing causes to Ultimatum monsters to grant additional experience and grants rewards as though you had completed 2 additional rounds. Due to having a limit of 2 this substantially increases the overall quality of rewards you can expect to receive.

Ultimatum Scarab of Dueling causes Ultimatum encounters to always lead to a boss. There are some very powerful Uniques that come from this boss as well as Tainted Catalyst giving this a lot of potential as a strategy.

Ultimatum Scarab of Catalysing causes the encounter to only offer Catalyst rewards. The effectiveness of this scarab depends heavily on the price of Catalysts.

Ultimatum Scarab of Inscription causes rewards that offer Catalysts to instead offer Inscribed Ultimatums. In combination with the Ultimatum Scarab of Catalysing; every wave grants Inscribed Ultimatums.

Kirac Modifier

Maps Contain An Ultimatum Encounter - Identical to the Ultimatum Scarab However it costs a hefty 5 Chaos Orbs. Always use the alternatives unless you have a free Map Device craft available.

Map Choice

Ultimatum is not incredibly map reliant. Since the best strategy for running Ultimatum is to focus solely on the encounter in 0% quantity maps, it's good to select small, open layouts where you are easily able to find the Ultimatum altar.

Dunes Map
Jungle Valley Map

Selling Your Loot

Here are the drops you can expect to acquire with this strategy, follow our Bulk Selling guide to learn more about how to sell them or pick up some advanced sales tricks in our dedicated Ultimatum farming builds. Ultimatum grants a massive spread of loot and realizing the full profit of this farm requires a lot of trading.