The Lord’s Labyrinth Guide

The Lord’s Labyrinth is a procedurally generated dungeon that plays a critical role in your Path of Exile progression. You will have to pass through it on several difficulties with every character in order to pick up and develop an Ascendancy subclass. In addition to powerleveling, running the dungeon will also yield a variety of rewards, including items and modifiers that you could not get anywhere else. However, all of those benefits are gated behind considerable dangers posed by monsters, traps, and a series of fights against the dungeon’s boss.

Labyrinth Basics

The Labyrinth is unlike any other piece of content in the game, which is recognized in the special challenges connected to it in challenge leagues. To benefit from a Labyrinth run, you must complete it without dying. You cannot use waypoints or portals except to abandon your current attempt. You may attempt the dungeon as many times as you want, alone or in a group.

Its exact layout and contents are randomly generated, changing every midnight (GMT), but there are also a few constants. To unlock the dungeon and its higher-difficulty variants, you must complete several Trials of Ascendancy – trap puzzle sections found throughout Wraeclast and the Atlas of Worlds. Those Trials also serve as previews for the traps you will encounter in the dungeon. The boss is an ancient emperor called Izaro, who will confront you in a series of three encounters with increasingly challenging mechanics. However, the exact traps and boss abilities may differ every day. You will also encounter the following room types:

Difficulty Levels

Higher-difficulty versions of the Labyrinth have greater requirements, more complex layouts, and stronger opposition. Just unlocking the Eternal Labyrinth can require extensive Watchstone farming to find the Trials. They also offer superior rewards in addition to the Ascendancy progress:

The Enchantments are implicit modifiers for items, meaning that they apply before any other modifiers. The ones acquired from this source tend to be aggressive, raising damage or adding new damage effects. They are acquired from the Divine Font at the end of the run.

The final room also contains Treasure Chests that may be unlocked with Treasure Keys dropped by Izaro or Argus or found in certain containers. The chests may include high-level gear, unique items like the Death’s Door boots, or currencies such as Exalted Orbs. There are other looting opportunities along the way, such as lucrative puzzles and gauntlets. You may also find four Mysterious Darkshrines that provide random boons for the rest of the run, either making it easier or increasing your rewards.

Getting Past Traps

There are several distinct kinds of traps in the dungeon:

While potentially deadly, their threat can be mitigated by paying attention, preparing physical protection, and moving quickly in response to their activation. You may even be able to use them against most monsters you encounter. Practice or coaching can help you master the tricks needed to negate this menace.

Overcoming the Boss

Although less threatening than the endgame bosses, Izaro nevertheless poses a formidable and complex challenge. He is mostly a physical damage dealer who may be armed with a two-handed mace, dual swords, or a shield and sword. However, he is assisted by the Goddess of Justice, who cannot be targeted and casts spells independently, bombarding characters with fiery projectiles, teleporting them around, and summoning skeletons.

Furthermore, he may be assisted by additional boss fight mechanics. He will receive one of them each in the first and second fight and will continue to benefit from them and their lingering effects like bonuses in later fights in that run unless they are deliberately disabled. Letting him continue to use them will make the final confrontation more challenging, but it will also let you earn additional Treasure Keys. The mechanics are chosen randomly from this pool:

Aside from determining which level of challenge your build can endure, defeating the emperor requires strong physical defenses and rapid repositioning to avoid his and the Goddess’ area of effect attacks (as well as traps on all higher difficulty versions). His threat level depends heavily on the difficulty and varies from day to day, so it can make sense to wait until the reset if you are having a hard time.

Conclusion

The Labyrinth is somewhat divisive among the player base. While some see it as an unfortunate necessity, others enjoy the varied challenges and the unique rewards it has to offer. As well as unlocking the subclass, it offers many opportunities for gearing and plenty of experience well into the beginning of the endgame. Whether you want to farm it repeatedly or just wish to get through it quickly before taking on higher-level content like the Awakened Atlas, it is definitely important to plan ahead for how you will deal with this progression milestone.