Expedition Farming in POE2: Complete Guide to the New Atlas Tree (Patch 0.5.4)
Summary
The latest patch has revolutionized Expedition farming with a dedicated Atlas tree that can dramatically boost your loot yields in POE2. This guide breaks down the optimal tree setup, new mechanics, and strategies to maximize your returns.
Understanding the New Expedition Atlas Tree
The new Atlas tree for Expedition fundamentally changes how you approach this content. Here's what you need to know before diving in:
⚠️ Important Warning: If you've been running Expedition with additional modifiers as per previous strategies, expect significantly harder content now. You'll need a strong character to clear these encounters.
Optimal Tree Setup
Cultivate the Sea – Choose Desert (Node 6)
Desert is the clear winner here, offering the best synergy with this strategy. While Forest and Grass present alternative options, Desert stacks exceptionally well because it provides increased item quantity in desert areas along with bonus effectiveness for desert monsters. These bonuses come directly from the top of the tree and deliver significantly improved loot compared to the alternatives.
Double or Nothing – Choose the First Option
This node determines how remnants with unique modifiers interact with future remnants. The first option gives you a 25% chance to add an additional unique modifier, which is the clear choice for maximum loot. However, keep in mind that these additional unique modifiers make your monsters significantly harder. If you're struggling with clear speed, you can swap to the second option, which prevents unique modifiers from being added at all. For pure loot optimization, always go with the first option.
Steady Development – Choose Remnants
The choice here is straightforward. Remnants provide significantly higher value than explosives, especially since some expeditions naturally roll with very few remnants. Getting that extra remnant feels incredibly rewarding in both basic maps and grand expeditions. While you could put a single point into explosives since you already have many explosions, the remnant node consistently delivers better returns.
Strategic Advantage – Choose Based on Your Clear Speed
This node presents two options with very different applications. The first option makes explosives only wait for 50% of monsters to be slain before counting, which speeds up your expeditions considerably. If you destroy expeditions in seconds, this is absolutely mandatory. However, if you tend to get overwhelmed or need more time to clear content, the second option—which makes runic monsters spawn with 20% missing life—is the safer choice. Your clear speed should ultimately determine which option you select.
Expanding Territory – Choose Based on Your Focus
The whole set of options here is fairly obvious. For basic mapping, getting additional Veridian Remnants feels pretty good. However, if you want to focus purely on farming Expedition in basic maps themselves, swapping to Expedition chance makes more sense. For Grand Expedition farming, Veridian Remnants are nice but don't proc very often. This node was mostly created for general mapping scenarios where you're just spawning basic Expeditions for yourself.
Calculated Investment – The Critical Choice
This is arguably the most impactful and interesting decision on the entire tree, with at least two viable options.
Option One gives you a 25% chance for Veridian Remnants to count as affected by Power Rune. The Power Rune upgrades all other runic modifiers on the Remnant to more powerful and rewarding variants. This can boost your loot pretty nicely when it procs, but it's definitely hit-or-miss and makes your monsters harder again since Power Rune essentially upgrades the runic modifiers.
Option Three provides increased quantity of items dropped by monsters per every runic modifier. This delivers significantly more consistent loot without the gamble. Personally, I prefer running this more stable version because it's reliable and doesn't spike your monster difficulty.
The Verdict: If you're into gambling and trying to hit something big, Option One might be better. But if you want consistent returns and don't want your monsters any harder than necessary, Option Three is the solid choice. We would need to run hundreds of maps to definitively compare which one wins out, but my initial testing suggests consistency often trumps the gambling approach.
Option Two provides experience bonuses, which simply aren't competitive for loot farming purposes.
The Remaining Passives
The rest of the passive nodes are taken automatically and don't present meaningful choices or variations.
New Mechanic: Liquid Veridium
How to Acquire
Purchase Liquid Veridium from Farrul in your hideout for 600 Veridium each. The liquid appears as a consumable item that you can apply to remnants.
Strategic Usage
Liquid Veridium is best used on Grand Expeditions where you've already invested expensive tablets to maximize your loot. There's a compelling case for clicking bad remnants with Liquid Veridium, especially when you're running high-value content.
The optimal approach is to reroll any remnant with three or four runes—the low rolls. With a random reroll, a three-rune remnant could become five or six runes or anything higher than normal. If you're aiming to get as much loot as possible from monsters, clicking all the low-roll remnants with Liquid Veridium is worth the investment.
Economic Considerations
Liquid Veridium costs only 600 Veridium, and you'll naturally loot plenty of Veridium while running expeditions anyway. The investment practically pays for itself. At the time of writing, nine Liquid Veridium trade for approximately one Divine Orb, though prices are likely to increase.
Selling Opportunity: You can also sell Liquid Veridium directly, creating a nice opportunity to make a few Divines here and there, especially if you've been stockpiling Veridium.
⚠️ Important: Make sure Veridium shows up in your loot filter, or manually click everything to collect it. You'll need a steady Veridium income to keep buying liquids for rerolls.
How to Use Liquid Veridium
In your inventory, Liquid Veridium appears on top of your basic Veridium. When you're looking at a remnant with three runes—a pretty poor roll—you can click the liquid and hope for better results. While this is still a significant RNG gamble, if your maps are good enough and there's a real chance of getting quality loot, it's definitely worth trying on the bad remnants.
In Grand Expeditions, you might find yourself looking at four one-rune remnants. Clicking Liquid Veridium on these can jump them to five runes or higher. I generally recommend clicking everything with three or four runes—everything lower than six—especially if you're already committed to running that expedition anyway.
Best Master Combination
Jado remains absolutely the best choice for Expedition farming, particularly with the Eastern Novice setup. When you're re-rolling with Eastern Novice and using Liquid Veridium on top of it, your chances of getting something nice from the remnants are significantly higher. Even if you can't properly farm Expedition with lots of modifiers and need to focus on monsters instead, you can pivot to focusing on remnants themselves and still make very decent profit.
Final Tips
Character Strength: Reassess your build if you're struggling with the new modifier difficulty. The current farm is significantly harder than before, and not every character can handle it.
Veridium Hoarding: Collect all Veridium you find to sustain your liquid purchases. You'll need a steady supply.
Liquid Pricing: Keep an eye on the market for Liquid Veridium prices. Selling can be a nice supplementary income stream.
Remnant Focus:If monsters become too difficult, shift your strategy to focus on remnants rather than clearing everything. This still produces solid profits, and for players looking to accelerate their progression without the grind,POE2 Build Boosting services can help you optimize your setup and push through tougher content with ease. For reliable and efficient boosting, I highly recommend MMOEXP—they offer professional support to get your build running smoothly so you can focus on maximizing your loot returns.