The Elder

"A creature of malignant madness, born of that oblivion from before time itself began. Once only an abstract expression, the Elder was given physical form. The Elder came here out of hunger. Preferring victims of a younger flesh, it became the bogeyman, dragging our children off into the night, casting them into its realm of shadow and feasting upon their nightmares undisturbed, for it was imagination that truly satiated it."

- Valdo Caeserius

The Elder is a boss that is invading the Atlas of Worlds. He is the main antagonist of the War for the Atlas expansion. According to the lore of the Conquerors of the Atlas expansion, the Elder was slain by the Elderslayers led by Sirus, Awakener of Worlds, and was removed from the Atlas. Players can still fight the Elder using the map fragments set, and do not need to chase the Elder and Shaper across the Atlas anymore. These map fragments can be obtained by defeating the Elder Guardians.

The Elder is considered to be the easiest of the major Atlas bosses, and players with a high damage output can simply facetank the Elder and defeat him.

The Elder can drop a 2-mod that can be valued anywhere from a few  to dozens of  if it has 2 mods that work extremely well together. Such items are highly valuable because they are unique, cannot be duplicated or replicated, and cannot be crafted by players. A more valuable version can drop from The Uber Elder, which can drop a 3-mod version of the eye.

Defeating the Elder is guaranteed to drop a map fragment required for the Uber Elder encounter, either or. The other 2 fragments are dropped by The Shaper.

Items influenced by the Elder have a purple icon on its header and have unique Elder modifiers. Elder influenced items can drop from the Elder boss as well as from monsters killed in maps influenced by the Elder.

The "Elderslayers" during War for the Atlas and Betrayal expansions, were the players themselves. However, this was re-canon (i.e. the storyline was changed by the dev) due to the Conquerors of the Atlas expansion.

Entry
Players must use the following fragments in their map device to fight The Elder. These fragments drop from the Elder Guardians, and they can also be traded amongst players.



The arena is called Absence of Value and Meaning.

Recommendations
The following is recommended:
 * At least 1 million damage per second (rolling over your main attack ability should show 100K+, because Path of Exile cannot calculate DPS properly)
 * A method to increase damage against unique enemies (such as Assassin's Mark for critical strike-based builds)
 * Capped elemental resistances (fire, cold and lightning resistance at 75%)
 * At least 6,000 Effective hit points (Life pool)
 * At least 20% block or evade chance, or Mana before Life defenses

Phase 1
The Elder uses the following moves from the start:
 * Default Attack
 * Ice Spears
 * Expanding Nova / Ring of Death
 * Siphon

During the fight, Madness Propagators will spawn, which fires slow projectile shots and leaves a patch of eldritch decay permanently if it is left alive long enough, which deals physical damage over time while standing over them. Killing them quickly is important so that the arena does not become overwhelmed by them.

As the Elder's life gets lower, he will start using more attacks:
 * Tentacle Whip
 * Rising Slam
 * Super Siphon

Phase 2 - Captured Phase
When the Elder is brought down to 25% life, the Shaper will capture him and magically bind him at the center of the arena. He will be invulnerable and the Shaper must channel to fully form all four restraints. You must protect him while the Elder spawns Null Portals that spawn multiple Madness Propagators that can attack the Shaper. Each restraint takes 35 seconds to finish. The Elder will also attack with Tentacle Whip later in the phase. The Shaper performs his restraints in the following order: left side, right side, bottom, top so keep that in mind when the Shaper finishes his current restraint.

If the Shaper's life is brought down to 0, he will retreat and the Elder will be freed, and you must finish the rest of the fight in his first phase.

One recommendation for protecting the Shaper is to use in front of him to prevent attacks from reaching him. Another one is to not focus on the null portals because they simply spawn back so it is advisable to simply focus on the monsters conjured by the null portals instead. Sulphur flasks can also heal the Shaper. Make sure you have enough clear speed or it will be very hard to successfully do this phase of the fight.

Phase 3 - Unstable Phase
Once all four restraints have formed, the Shaper will leave and the Elder is vulnerable once again. He will continue to spawn Null Portals and attack with:
 * Ice Spear
 * Tentacle Whip
 * Expanding Nova / Ring of Death
 * Pulse Nova - The Elder will periodically release a large dark pulse that deals physical damage and covers the entire arena.

When the Elder is killed in this phase, he will charge up a final lethal blast. Zana will appear at the bottom right side of the arena with a protective bubble. Retreat to Zana before he uses his last attack.

The Elder must be killed in this phase in order for to possibly drop.



The dropped is a 2 mods variant. The Shaper must have survived throughout the entire boss fight in order to trigger the Unstable phase, and only successfully finishing the Unstable phase can have a chance to drop a Watcher's Eye.

It can also drop, even if The Maven is not present and observing the fight.

Version history

 * The Elder and Shaper were defeated and are no longer part of the atlas.
 * They can still be accessed with new Fragment sets.
 * White, Yellow and Red Elder are now a single encounter.


 * The Elder's Unstable phase is now more difficult, and can drop more Elder items if successfully completed. This is now the only way to obtain the unique jewel.


 * Introduced to the game.
 * }