What to Do After the Arbiter of Ash in PoE2: Endgame Progression Guide (0.5)

Quick answer: what to do after the Arbiter of Ash

Beating the Arbiter of Ash is not the end of Path of Exile 2 — it's the start of the real endgame. In the 0.5 "Return of the Ancients" update, the Arbiter of Ash was replaced as the top pinnacle by the Arbiter of Divinity, and the actual progression loop is juicing maps for currency to fund gear that lets you push the other pinnacle bosses. Here's the priority order:

• Chase the new top boss — Arbiter of Divinity (via the Origin Tower), the hardest fight in 0.5.
• Farm the four league-mechanic pinnacles you skipped: Xesht (Breach), Bodach (Ritual), Tangmazu (Delirium), Olroth (Expedition).
• Start juicing maps — stack Item Rarity, precursor tablets and Distilled Emotions to multiply currency income. This is where a Mirror of Kalandra (worth ~4,465 Divine Orbs right now) actually becomes reachable.
• Finish the Atlas — 311 passive points in 0.5; repeat-killing the Arbiter of Divinity is the fastest route.
• Pick a long-term goal: league challenges, chase uniques (Voices, Mageblood), or mud-maxing one build to millions of DPS.

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Is the Arbiter of Ash the last boss in PoE2?

No — and this trips up a lot of players. When you complete all three Citadels (Iron, Copper and Stone), each Citadel boss drops a Crisis Fragment (Ancient, Faded, Weathered). Insert all three into The Burning Monolith near the Atlas origin and you fight the Arbiter of Ash. For most of Early Access this was the summit.

That changed in 0.5 "Return of the Ancients." GGG added a brand-new top pinnacle — the Arbiter of Divinity — which now sits above the Arbiter of Ash as the single hardest fight in the game. The Arbiter of Ash is still a legitimate, carry-able target (its Reliquary Key can drop a foiled unique), but it is no longer the ceiling.

So "beat the Arbiter of Ash, now what?" has a clear answer: you've cleared the mid-tier pinnacle. There is harder content, more pinnacles, and an entire currency-generation loop still ahead of you.

All PoE2 endgame pinnacle bosses in 0.5 (Runes of Aldur)

Each league mechanic funnels into its own pinnacle. Here's the full current roster and how you access each one:

Pinnacle boss	Mechanic	How to unlock	Signature chase drop
Arbiter of Divinity	Origin Tower	Complete your first Tower → Origins of Divinity arc → Patriarch + Matriarch Halls → Origin Core	Decree of Loyalty (body armour)
Arbiter of Ash	Citadels	3 Crisis Fragments (Iron/Copper/Stone Citadels) → The Burning Monolith	The Arbiter's Reliquary Key
Xesht, We That Are One	Breach	Breachstone at the Genesis Tree → Hive Fortress → beat Tul & Esh for the key	Uul-Netol's Embrace (lineage support gem)
The Bodach	Ritual	Beat King in the Mists → 5× Call of the Shadows at the effigy at Caer Tarth	Vestige of Darkness (helmet)
Tangmazu, the Raven Trickster	Delirium	Combine 300 Simulacrum Splinters → clear all 7 Simulacrum waves for the key	Delirium pinnacle rewards
Olroth, Origin of the Fall	Expedition	Spawns inside Logbooks (area level ~79+)	Svalinn / Olroth's Resolve / Olrovasara

Two important notes: Xesht scales with investment — 50 / 100 / 150 splinters produce roughly 2.9M / 6.48M / 14.5M HP respectively, so you choose your difficulty. And the Simulacrum was cut from 15 waves to 7 in 0.5, making Tangmazu far more accessible than PoE1 veterans expect. The in-game splinter tooltip reads verbatim: "Combine 300 Splinters to create a Simulacrum." (poe2db) — its mid-run bosses are Omniphobia, Fear Manifest and the tougher Kosis, the Revelation.

How do you unlock the Arbiter of Divinity?

This is the "final boss" of 0.5, so it deserves its own roadmap. It's a paired-key system — both halves required:

• Complete your first Precursor Tower. This triggers the Origins of Divinity questline.
• Clear Patriarch Hall (boss: Phya) → drops the Origin Spark.
• Clear Matriarch Hall (boss: Phyx) → drops the Origin Cradle. Both halls use Tier 15 waystones with limited attempts, so bring a build that can actually clear them.
• Slot both into the Precursor Reactor to forge the Origin Core, then place the Core at the top of the Origin Tower and ascend.

The fight itself is a two-phase spear duelist. At roughly 40% HP it "becomes much faster and more aggressive" (Fextralife) and spawns mirror-clone Aspects of Divinity — grab the Divine Power orbs for temporary immunity, then destroy the aspects. It's lightning-heavy, so cap your resistances first. The boss-exclusive drop is the Decree of Loyalty body armour.

How do you make currency in the PoE2 endgame? (Juicing maps)

Here's the part most "what next" guides skip. The endgame is not about killing bosses over and over — it's about juicing maps so hard that every white monster drops like a rare, then converting that loot into Divine Orbs. As one r/PathOfExile2 player put it after clearing the Arbiter five times, the real challenge is making your maps harder so you farm currency faster and keep upgrading — until you one-shot everything and never die.

The three multipliers you stack on every map:

• Precursor Tablets — slot them into Towers to buff every map in radius. Types include Irradiated (pure Item Rarity / Pack Size / Gold), Overseer (adds Map Bosses), and mechanic-specific tablets (Breach, Delirium, Expedition, Ritual, Abyss).
• Distilled Emotions — instil up to 3 on a single Waystone to layer Delirium loot. The "money emotions" that directly multiply income are:

Distilled Emotion	Deliriousness	Reward mod
Greed	10%	+8% Item Rarity
Envy	15%	+30% Waystones found
Disgust	18%	+30% Precursor Tablets
Despair	20%	+30% Simulacrum Splinter stack size
Isolation	50%	(pure — no reward mod, max danger)

• Item Rarity + Pack Size on the waystone itself (corrupted 6-mod waystones) plus your Atlas tree.

A proven high-end recipe players share right now: a 200% Delirium T16 "city" map with 4 tablets and heavy monster-rarity stacking — it's one of the densest currency farms in the game. One trap to avoid: a Waystone instilled with Delirium will not reward Distilled Emotions (the fog never dissipates), so farm emotions on natural Delirium mirrors and spend them on your juiced maps.

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How do you finish the PoE2 Atlas (311 points)?

In 0.5 there are 311 Atlas passive points to collect. You could grind them map-by-map (a completed great-city map gives +1, a Precursor Tower ~3–4), but the fastest route is a shortcut: repeat-killing the Arbiter of Divinity. Each kill is community-reported to auto-complete a whole Fortress region (~30–50 points), so roughly five kills can finish the entire Atlas. Do your general/"natural" nodes first — they buff every map — then specialise into the league-mechanic clusters (Breach, Delirium, Ritual) that match your farm.

What are the best long-term goals after the Arbiter?

Once you're juicing and pushing pinnacles, pick a north star so you don't burn out:

• League challenges — a concrete, attainable checklist that also unlocks hideout decorations. A lot of players treat finishing challenges as their "league complete" moment.
• Chase uniques — grind toward build-defining drops like Voices (jewel), Mageblood, or a good Megalomaniac. These are the items that separate a strong character from a monster.
• Mud-max one build — take a single character and min-max its gear to the absolute limit. Endgame is "there's always more to do" — pushing 1M+ DPS and deathless clears is its own reward.
• The Mirror goal — a Mirror of Kalandra is ~4,465 Divine Orbs in Runes of Aldur, the single most valuable item in the economy. It's the ultimate flex, and juicing is the only realistic way to fund it.

The PoE2 endgame difficulty ladder

If you want a simple sense of how much harder it gets after the Arbiter, this is the community-recognised ladder, easiest to hardest:

• T15 maps, 6 affixes — killing any boss. Baseline endgame.
• 200% Delirium T16 maps with 4 tablets — the currency-farming sweet spot.
• Juiced Expeditions (Aldur's Saga) with 3 tablets — rares here can be 10–100× stronger than the pinnacle bosses.
• Any of the above in a full party — maximum difficulty and reward.

That's the twist most new endgame players miss: the scariest monsters in PoE2 aren't the named pinnacles — they're the rares in a fully juiced map. Beating the Arbiter proves your build works; juicing proves it scales.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Arbiter of Ash the final boss in PoE2? No. In the 0.5 "Return of the Ancients" update, the Arbiter of Divinity replaced the Arbiter of Ash as the top pinnacle. The Arbiter of Ash is now a mid-tier pinnacle you access with three Crisis Fragments from the Citadels — still worth farming, but not the hardest fight anymore.

What should I do first after beating the Arbiter of Ash? Start juicing maps for currency (Item Rarity + precursor tablets + Distilled Emotions) and begin the Origins of Divinity questline from your first Precursor Tower to unlock the Arbiter of Divinity. Farming currency comes first because everything else — better gear, harder pinnacles — is funded by it.

How many pinnacle bosses are there in PoE2 0.5? The core endgame pinnacles are the Arbiter of Divinity, Arbiter of Ash, Xesht (Breach), Bodach (Ritual), Tangmazu (Delirium), and Olroth (Expedition), plus Simulacrum-tier bosses like Kosis and Omniphobia and Trial bosses like Zarokh. Each is gated behind its own mechanic's fragments or keys.

What's the fastest way to complete the Atlas after Arbiter? Repeat-kill the Arbiter of Divinity. Each kill is reported to auto-complete a whole Fortress region worth roughly 30–50 Atlas points, so about five kills can finish all 311 points — far faster than grinding maps individually.

How do I make good currency in the PoE2 endgame? Juice your maps: stack Item Rarity and Pack Size, slot Irradiated and mechanic tablets into Towers, and instil "money" Distilled Emotions (Greed, Envy, Disgust, Despair) on your Waystones. A 200% Delirium T16 with 4 tablets is one of the strongest farms. Remember: don't instil Delirium on a waystone if you want the emotions back.

Is the Arbiter of Divinity hard? Yes — it's the hardest fight in 0.5. It's a two-phase lightning-heavy spear duelist that becomes much faster at ~40% HP and spawns mirror clones (Aspects of Divinity). Cap your resistances, learn the Divine Power orb mechanic, and make sure your single-target DPS is high before attempting it.