PoE 2: Castway Unique Map

Castaway is a treasure and pirate themed new Unique map in Path of Exile 2 which replaces your loot with Gold. Thematically the map is on point; you are searching for literal buried treasure. If done correctly it can yield more than 3 million gold.

Castaway is a rare thing in Path of Exile as entirely new content solely in Path of Exile 2. A pirate lord named Torrek of the Drowned Fleet rules over an island containing spirits which will guide the way to substantial buried treasure. When played correctly it can yield millions of gold and help you fill out your Atlas.

Like all other unique maps, completing this one will grant 2 Atlas Passive Points if you haven't yet fully unlocked the 10 passive points available for completing Unique maps.

Finding Castaway

Castaway is a Water biome map and as that might suggest you'll find it primarily near Lakes on the Atlas. It's also one of the more common Unique maps and you'll come across many as you explore. The only known exception to Castaway's biome is when it spawns proximally close to a Citadel which can overwrite it with something Citadel specific, for example Vaal City near a Stone Citadel.

How To Maximize Gold

Getting the most gold out of this map starts before you enter it. The gold you receive is a result of all drops being converted directly to gold. Because of this we can manipulate how much gold we get by manipulating factors that lead to more drops. Improving Quantity of Items, Rarity of Items, Pack Size, Adding Rares, Delirium layers, and using party quant bonuses will lead to improved gold drops. Below are some factors ranked by how impactful they will be on your drops.

1. Waystone Affixes

• XX% Increased Gold Found in this Area - by far the most impactful way to influence gold outside of delirium and a full 6-person party
• X% Increased Magic Monsters / X% Increased Rare Monsters
• XX% Increased Pack Size
• X% Increased Quantity of Items Found in this Area
• X% Increased Rarity of Items Found in this Area

2. Delirium Layers

Adding Delirium Layers to your maps, and specifically ones that add Rare monsters, are a great way to boost the gold drops. Atlas passives like The mirrors... the mirrors! which add more Fracturing Mirrors add more monsters to your map, further improving your drops. Delirium also has a baseline improvement on rarity and quantity per delirium layer, which further increases the gold you'll receive.

3. Party Play

Grouping up with other players is a no-risk winner for this map. As you add players to your party the group as a whole will receive quantity bonuses that further scale drops. You can find groups on discords or through global chat if you aren't in a guild, and can even sell your portals for Castaway for considerable sums to other players who want the gold for re-spec or gambling jewelry from Alva.

4. Precursor Tablets

While annoying to set up, you can fairly heavily influence the amount of gold you receive through Precursor Tablets socketed into towers. I'd avoid investing heavily in this though as the return is fairly minimal for the effort involved, though you can stack up to 45% increased gold found per tower with this method by placing three Precursor Tablets into a 3-socket tower.

5. Atlas Nodes

• Item Quantity nodes (X% increased Quantity of Items found in your Maps)
• Waystone Modifier Effect (X% increased effect of Explicit Modifiers on your Waystones)
• Unstable Energies - Waystones have 25% more effect of Prefix or Suffix modifiers
• Item Rarity nodes (X% increased Rarity of Items found in your Maps)

Castaway is an island with four treasure-bound souls distributed around the edges you'll need to find and free. Littered about the island you'll find chests and piles of gold comingled with drowned pirates you'll need to fight off.

To get the most out of this map I'd recommend methodically exploring the perimeter, freeing the treasure-bound souls as you find them. They will be roughly on the North, West, East, and Southern edges of the map.

One of the areas on the exterior of the map will contain a yellow checkpoint and the boss, Torrek of the Drowned Fleet, who is unique to this map. You'll need the Rotten Satchel Charge he drops in order to complete the map.

Once you've acquired the Rotten Satchel Charge, finish clearing the map. Towards the middle of the island you'll find the four treasure-bound souls swirling around an area, marking where you should deposit the charge and where the buried treasure lies.

Click the circle and enjoy the spoils of your victory

Torrek of the Drowned Fleet is a fairly straight forward map boss with six abilities that are all well telegraphed. He has no enrage threshold and will be the same mechanically from start to finish. Torrek is armed with a cannon on one arm and an Anchor in the other, both of which he will use during this fight.

Pro-tip: This fight is extremely straight-forward if you continuously move in a circle counter-clockwise. Most of his abilities do not require active dodging, only that you are moving laterally from where he is targeting you.

Pro-tip: Torrek's life pool is affected by Atlas boss passives. If you are uncomfortable fighting him, remove some of your Atlas boss passives to reduce the dps you need. The rewards for the map are the same regardless.

Waves

One of Torrek's primary ranged attacks will be Waves that he thrusts towards you after pirouetting with his anchor. These are slow moving and don't hit particularly hard.

Arm Cannon

Another ranged attack he is fond of using. This projectile has a smaller hit box but can hit quite hard. Thankfully it's fairly well telegraphed and easy to side-step. Watch for his arm raising (red arrow below) to determine when to move -- you shouldn't need to dodge-roll, just strafe out of the way.

Anchor Chain

Torrek carries an Anchor in his other hand and will periodically slam it down. This attack hurts and can stun you, but thankfully it has a reasonably short range and can either be dodged by being far enough away -OR- simply side-stepping it. You have less time to react to this attack than some of his others.

Anchor Slam

This is Torrek's most dangerous attack. He will hold his anchor high in the air for a few seconds, letting you know it's coming from a mile away. Shortly before coming down a large green circle will appear on the ground indicating where the Anchor will fall from the sky. As soon as you see the circle you need to get out. The best strategy to avoid this attack is to keep moving the entire fight and it becomes mostly a non-issue, but if you are standing idle when it comes down it's going to be a big hit.

Summon Drowned Explorers

From time to time Torrek will summon adds to spice up the fight. These are very slow moving zombie-like mobs and shouldn't pose a problem for virtually any build.

Soul Mortar

This ability from Torrek can target you anywhere in the arena. He will channel for a few seconds and green souls will erupt from his body, targeting your position though they will take an erratic path to get to you. As long as you are moving constantly in one direction this ability is fairly easy to dodge.

Gold. It's all gold.