The Arbiter of Ash — Crisis Fragments and the Burning Monolith
The Arbiter of Ash is the best-known pinnacle boss in PoE2’s endgame. In 0.5 its entrance moved and the entire uber model was removed, so approaching it with older information means you won’t even find the location.
If you haven’t read it yet, Pinnacle Bosses covers the overall 0.5 structure and makes this page easier to follow.
The Burning Monolith moved into the Fortress
This is the first thing to correct. From the official 0.5.0 patch notes:
The Burning Monolith along with the Arbiter of Ash has been moved into the Fortress.
Any guide pointing you to its old Atlas location is out of date. The Fortress is the area that rises once you complete your first Tower, appearing at a fixed spot north of the Ziggurat Encampment.
Getting in
Opening the Monolith’s gate requires three Crisis Fragments.
First attempt — the quest version
On your first visit the game does most of the work for you.
- One fragment is already inserted when you arrive.
- The other two are found in the Western and Eastern Enigma Chambers inside the Fortress.
So you can take your first attempt without running Citadels at all. The quest version has unlimited revives, which makes it the ideal place to learn the fight. Area level is 74.
Repeat attempts
From the second run onward you gather all three fragments yourself. Getting these pairings wrong sends you to the wrong boss entirely.
| Crisis Fragment | Kill | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Ancient Crisis Fragment | Count Geonor | The Iron Citadel |
| Faded Crisis Fragment | Jamanra, the Abomination | The Copper Citadel |
| Weathered Crisis Fragment | Doryani, Royal Thaumaturge | The Stone Citadel |
The repeatable version is area level 82 with revives limited to 2. It plays noticeably differently from the quest version.
For reference, previous seasons’ Secondary Calamity Fragments were converted to Faded Crisis Fragments, and Tertiary Calamity Fragments to Weathered Crisis Fragments. If you had any stashed, they’ve already changed.
The uber (Calamity Fragment) model is gone
You used to add a Calamity Fragment to open an uber version. In 0.5, Calamity Fragments can no longer be obtained.
The official reasoning:
There are now two versions of each pinnacle boss, the Quest version and the Infinite Farm version. As such Primary, Secondary and Tertiary Calamity Fragments can no longer be obtained.
In other words, “add more fragments for an uber tier” was replaced by the quest/repeatable split. The repeatable version now occupies the role uber used to.
Preparation
The Arbiter of Ash is, as the name suggests, a fire-focused fight.
- Cap your fire resistance. Leave it short and a single pattern will flatten you. Resistance fundamentals are covered in The Basics.
- Bring a charm for ignite to smooth out the damage-over-time windows.
- Run the quest version first to learn the patterns. Unlimited revives means failure costs nothing. The repeatable version gives you only 2 revives, so going in blind just burns fragments.