menu
MobalyticsUse your favourite features in-game with our Desktop App
PoE 2 Guide

PoE 2 Breach Boss Guide: Xesht, We Who Are One

Boss
Updated on Jan 27, 2025
Jan 27, 2025

How to Fight / Find Xesht

Guide written by FearlessDumb0

Xesht is the Breach pinnacle boss, and in order to face him you’ll need to do some legwork by collecting 300 Breach splinters in Breach encounters inside your maps.

Once you have a Breachstone, start the encounter by placing it in the Realmgate.

Your Realmgate will always be found next to The Ziggurat Refuge on the Atlas like below and you can quickly travel to it by locating the Home button.

When you click the Realmgate, you can use a Breachstone just like a Waystone

Running the Encounter

Once in the Twisted Domain you’ll start the encounter by touching the breach hand just inside the portal.  When you do, a countdown will start which signals the end of the breach. 

In order to face Xesht you’ll need to kill breach monsters fast enough to keep the breach open. Each mob you kill adds a small amount to the timer and will let you travel deeper into the Twisted Domain. It will take roughly two minutes of survival to get a shot at the pinnacle boss.

Touch the Breach Hand to start the encounter

As you kill breach monsters the loot you drop will be pooled at the end of the map. This gives you the opportunity to concentrate on what's ahead and keeping the timer and yourself alive. Along the way you’ll find Clasped Hands and Breachlord Clasped Hands. Walk over them just like you would in an Atlas Breach encounter to have their loot added to the pile at the end.

Walk over the Clasped Hand to add its loot to your pile at the end

At the end of the breach you’ll have a chance to loot before facing Xesht. Gear, skill gems, spirit gems, currency, catalysts, and breach rings can all drop from mobs in the breach. In higher tier difficulty Breachstones you can drop item level 82+ equipment which can roll higher tiers of modifiers than the loot you’d find in most places in the Atlas.

Facing Xesht

Things to Know Before You Enter

  1. Make sure you have a Freeze charm.  One of his attacks is a summon for Tul which shoots streaming icicles that deal Cold damage and can Freeze you, leaving you vulnerable to a second attack.
  2. Having 25% movement speed or more on your boots will make dodging some of the mechanics much easier.
  3. Pinnacle boss fights are a little different than other Boss fights you’ve encountered. You CANNOT pause them like you can a campaign boss or map boss. Doing so will also leave you vulnerable to attacks.
  4. You CAN log out and re-enter the fight if you get stuck. Leave a portal by the loot pile so you don’t have to walk all the way back. Xesht won’t recover HP and this is a safe way to exit but be quick in the menu or simply Alt-F4 the game as it won’t pause.
  5. The safest place for the majority of the fight will be as close as you can be to Xesht. Many of his attacks have long animations where he aims at you and if you are close to him you can quickly circle behind, forcing him to rotate 180° and allowing you to easily dodge it.

Phase 1

Xesht’s opening phase gives you a chance to see most of his mechanics before doubling them up on you. Here are his attacks and mitigation strategies for each of them:

Sonic Wave Finger Gun

Xesht will begin channeling a ball of sonic energy which deals significant Physical damage. There are two mitigation strategies:

The easiest is to circle behind him as he fires and is very low risk. 

The other is to dodge roll as he releases the projectile. The best direction to dodge is perpendicular to the projectile but you will be safe so long as you are tucked when the projectile passes over you.

Dodge left, right, or ideally dodge-roll behind Xesht when he channels the sonic finger gun

Triple Blast

Xesht telegraphs this attack by showing two glowing lights at the end of his hands. Be careful, this attack is much more dangerous than the Sonic Wave Finger Gun. He will fire three times, rotating quickly towards you again in between rounds. 

The best way to avoid this attack is to stay close and time your dodge rolls past Xesht to force him to spin around for the next shot. Roll back behind him again inbetween rounds. It will require multiple dodge rolls to successfully mitigate, though most characters can survive one hit. If you are far away from him you can still successfully dodge the attack by dodge-rolling perpendicular to the blasts.

A successful dodge roll ideally behind Xesht during the Triple Blast

Tul Icicles

Xesht will summon the other breach bosses to deal with you periodically.  Tul is telegraphed by a large gray hand with puppet strings rising through the floor. 

She will shoot freezing icicles at you, make sure you have a Freeze charm on. There are two ways to mitigate this attack and either could be easier depending on where you are relative to the hand. 

If the hand is close, its easiest to dodge behind the hand where the fan of projectiles cannot hit you. It rotates slowly so you are out of danger quickly. 

The other mitigation strategy is to run far away down a hallway where it will be easier to side-step the icicles.

Tul’s hand will shoot icicles towards you, duck behind the hand or distance yourself

Esh Summon

Xesht will summon a blue hand from the floor to deal lightning area damage to you and apply the Shock ailment. This is one of the easiest attacks to avoid. A small circle indicating where the lightning wave will spawn is shown on the ground. You can either step outside of it or dodge-roll through it.

Step outside the blue circle to avoid the lightning damage and shock

Chase

Xesht will periodically drop through the floor and chase you with hands. If he catches you he will slam his hands together doing physical damage. 

This attack is easy to run away from and he will tire of it after a few seconds. You can also attempt to dodge out of it if you don’t want to wait but getting the timing right can be tricky.

Luckily Xesht tires of the chase pretty quickly

Xoph Fireball

Xesht will occasionally materialize a fireball above his head which he drops in front of him. This attack is easy to dodge behind or just step out of the way. Once it explodes it will leave burning ground which can still damage you for several seconds, so make sure you don’t find yourself loitering.

This fireball is easy to dodge but deals a lot of fire damage.

Hand Slam

Xesht’s most dangerous attack is a Hand Slam.  He will summon a large pink hand through the floor and channel standing still. You will be able to see a faint shadow of the hand floating above your head as you move around. 

After a few seconds he will quickly close his hands and the floor will simultaneously light up with the outline of the hand. You only have a split second to dodge out of the way so be ready. 

The hand will be a different orientation each time and you’ll want to dodge away from the fingertips, perpendicular to the orientation of the fingers.  You won’t have enough dodge-roll distance to roll forward through them.  There are two important signals for this attack, numbered one and two in the image below.

Take note of how Xesht’s hands are OPEN here while he is channeling and the shadow following you.

Look for these two signals that the slam is coming; either mean its time to move

Phase 2

At the beginning of the second phase, Xesht will pause and open a portal above him. This is a safe time to deal damage as he won’t attack for a few seconds, however, the fight is about to get a lot more interesting. 

This happens once you’ve depleted 1/3rd of his health and will only happen one time. From here on out Xesht can perform all of the attacks from his first phase at the same time as Falling Arms.

Xesht entering phase two

Falling Arms

The biggest change between phase one and phase two is this attack. Xesht will summon between three and four arms which erupt through portals in the floor. 

They will linger for a second, then slam down dealing significant damage and can stun you. What makes it particularly dangerous is that Xesht can also be doing attacks from phase one at the same time. When dodging the falling arms, try to dodge laterally as dodging into or away from the hand will almost certainly mean you will be hit.

Dodge laterally to avoid getting hit

Dual Summon

In phase two, Xesht can summon both Tul and Esh at the same time.  I’d recommend focusing on staying out of Tul’s icicles as getting frozen is a death sentence. 

If you are close enough to Esh to dodge into the circle that’s an option, but escaping to a hallway and cutting off Tul’s angle for icicles is probably the easiest mitigation strategy.

Xesht can summon Tul and Esh at the same time, try to avoid getting frozen

Additional Boss Difficulty - Xesht 0/1/2/3/4

When you encounter Xesht and successfully defeat him you will receive two Atlas points. These points can be used to improve and modify the Atlas breach encounters to make them more rewarding.

The travel nodes (small passives) on the Breach Atlas give an additional difficultly level to Xesht (from 0 to 4) and will make the next encounter more challenging by buffing his health pool. Upon defeating Xesht at each difficulty level, you will gain 2 Breach Atlas Points (up to 8).

With your first two points, you could bump the difficulty up to +2 immediately (and then immdiately to +4 with 4 points). However, Xesht 0/1/2/3 reward a book for 2 Atlas points each, so you will need to fight each difficulty to get all 8 points.

There is no difference between Xesht+4 and anything higher.

Xesht Difficulty Health

  • 0 ≈ 6 Million HP
  • 1 ≈ 10 Million HP
  • 2 ≈ 14 Million HP
  • 3 ≈ 21 Million HP
  • 4 ≈ 32 Million HP

Xesht Loot Table

Xesht can drop regular loot in addition to these boss specific uniques:

  • Beyond Reach
  • Hand of Wisdom and Action
  • Xoph's Blood
  • Choir of the Storm
  • The Pandemonius
  • Skin of the Loyal (+2 or higher)
  • Controlled Metamorphosis (+4 only)
    • Only affects Passives in Medium-Large Ring
    • Passives in Radius can be Allocated without being connected to your tree
    • (-20–-5)% to all Elemental Resistances
    • (-23–-3)% to Chaos Resistance

For a more detailed Drop Rate Breakdown, check out our detailed
Xesht Drop Rate Guide.

Table of Contents

Latest Guides

PoE 2: Energy Shield Explained
By Dreamcore Updated on Feb 13, 2025
Beginner
Mechanics
Beginner
Mechanics
PoE2: Armour Explained
By Dreamcore Updated on Feb 13, 2025
Beginner
Mechanics
Beginner
Mechanics
PoE 2: Evasion Explained
By Dreamcore Updated on Feb 13, 2025
Beginner
Mechanics
Beginner
Mechanics
PoE 2 Expedition Crafting Guide with Tips and Tricks
By PaintMasterPoE Updated on Feb 12, 2025
Beginner
Crafting
Currency
Beginner
Crafting
Currency