Breach
Last Updated:December 28, 2024|Changelog
This Breach Farming Guide covers the basics of farming Breach, it's rewards and how to challenge the pinnacle boss, Xesht.
Whilst completing Waystones on your Atlas you encounter maps with Breach encounters on them. This means that the map contains a Breach hand, after stepping through it you open a gate way to the Breach world and you have to defeats hordes of Breach monsters. Slaying more enemies increasing the duration of the encounter and cause more monsters to spawn. As well as Monsters, Breach Hands can spawn which drop additional loot when you run over them.
The exclusive rewards from Breach include Catalysts; used to improve the Quality of your Rings and Amulet, or Breach Splinters; used to create a Breachstone.
How to Run
Breach is a very simple mechanic, run over the hand to begin the encounter and defeat the enemies before they defeat you. Monsters always spawn at the edges so focus on clearing the Breach out from the centre to give yourself space. It's easy to be overwhelmed as monsters spawn in when you stand near the edge of the Breach. As you move out from the centre look for any Clasped Hands that have spawned, running over them opens them and drops loot such as Catalysts or Breach Splinters.
To guarantee a Breach encounter on some of your Waystones, use a Breach Precursor Tablet on a Watchtower. This adds a Breach encounter to the number of Waystones stated on the implicit modifier of the item. Any explicit modifiers apply to all uncompleted maps within the towers radius.
Pinnacle Boss
Breach, like all of the Atlas Mechanics in Path of Exile 2's early access has a Pinnacle Boss encounter. After gathering 300 Breach Splinters and combing them together, you receive a Breachstone. Place this into the Realmgate at the centre of your Atlas to open a Portal to the Breach realm where you face Xesht, We That Are One.
To reach Xesht, open the Breach Hand at the start of the encounter and fight your way through the hordes of enemies until reaching the end of the stage. You know it's the end of the stage as any loot dropped by the monsters up to this point drops at the end instead.
The boss has 4 levels of difficulty that can be increased by the Breach specific Atlas Passive Tree up to difficulty level 4. Increasing the difficulty of the bosses has multiple effects, including;
- Enhanced Abilities
- Higher Health Pool and Damage
- Better Unique Item Drops
Abilities
Xesht raises his arms and summons a hand that hovers above you. After a short duration the hand will slam down dealing massive damage. The hand casts a shadow on the ground, use this to dodge.
Xesht invokes the power of the Breachlords;
- Xoph
- Hurls a fire meteor on your location after a short delay. Dodge by going to the opposite side of Xesht after it starts to fall.
- Esh
- Emits a shockwave of Lightning damage from a targeted location. Simply run out of the area.
- Tul
- Fires many cold projectiles that can freeze you. These don't deal much damage, but being frozen leaves you vulnerable to other abilities.
Xesht ready's a volley of Chaos attacks. Indicated by 2 purple orbs on either side of them. Dodge with well timed dodge rolls or stay close to the boss and take of advantage of it's slow turning speed.
A long wind up ability that deals a massive amount of physical damage. Dodge with a well timed dodge roll or move behind the boss as it's about to fire.
Xesht burrows and tracks the player. If Xesht reaches you, it claps 2 hands together on your location dealing substantial damage. To dodge this attacks, run away until it expires, or use a well timed dodge roll after triggering the final attack.
This is the most dangerous attack of the encounter. After reducing Xesht to 50% HP they start casting this. Breach hands rise from the ground and after a short duration slam down dealing a large amount of damage. There are typically 5 Breach hands summoned to slam down on you.
To dodge this, you can outrange the attack or a very well timed dodge roll does the trick. Do not spam your dodge roll as you have multiple of these to dodge in sequence. This ability very frequently overlaps with other mechanics as well, focus solely on dodging during this attack and ignore the boss until it completes.
Atlas Passives
| Grasping Hands | Increases the number of Clasped Hands as well as granting a chance for each of them to be guarded by a pack of additional Magic Monsters. |
| Waking Nightmare | Doubles the number of Breach Splinters that drop from Clasped Hands. |
| Frantic Invasion | A kiss, curse passive that massively boosts the number of Breach Splinters you drop in Breaches. It also causes you to take 20% additional damage whilst inside a Breach. |
| Rising Pyre | Grants 40% additional Monster Density inside Breaches. |
| Crumbling Walls | Grants a scaling chance for your map to contain additional Breaches. |
| Xesht's Madness | Increases the number of Catalysts you drop during a Breach, but massively increases the difficulty by giving every Rare Monster the Soul Eater modifier. |
| Interdimensional Assault | Raises the density of Breaches but causes them to close much faster. |
| Sustained Siege | Causes Breaches to close 30% slower. |
Recommended Atlas Nodes
Allocate these Nodes in order of importance;
- Crumbling Walls
- This gives your maps a chance to have additional Breaches. This is especially good if you're using Breach Tablets with powerful modifiers as you can clear more Breaches with the Tablet modifiers active.
- Grasping Hands
- Take this 2nd for additional loot, but respec when receiving your 3rd set of passives.
- Rising Pyre
- This massively increases the number of monsters within your breach. Respec Grasping Hands to Frantic Invasion.
- The 4th option depends heavily on your builds strength. If you have a powerful build that reliably clears the whole Breach, take Interdimensional Assault.
- If you struggle to clear a lot of the Breach, Sustained Siege.
- For a middle ground, re-allocate Grasping Hands.
Loot
Catalysts
Breach Splinters
Pinnacle Boss
Credits
Written by: Milkybk_
Reviewed by: Tenkiei