Hilda is one of three Atlas Masters available in Path of Exile 2. Learn how to unlock her passives and the best ways to use them.
What are Atlas Masters
Upon completion of the campaign in Path of Exile 2, you’ll move into the Atlas. Once there, as you complete Waystones you’ll be able to unlock each of the three Atlas Masters, who act as a pseudo-ascendancy for the endgame Atlas content.
Hilda is one of three Atlas Masters, alongside Doryani and Jado, that are able to influence your Atlas. Hilda in particular specializes in making stronger foes, particularly Rare and Unique ones, show up more often as well as making them more rewarding.
Unlocking and Upgrading Hilda’s Hunting
Hilda can be found in her camp to the southwest of the Atlas Starting Location. Speaking to her here will intiate the Hilda’s Hunting Questline.
The Questline for Hilda’s Hunting will send you to defeat four Great Beasts, in the form of Powerful Map Bosses, to unlock each set of Passives as well as a Atlas Master Point for each.
Upon completion of one Great Beast Hunt, the next will be automatically marked on your Atlas. However, this will require a Waystone of increasing tiers as you hunt each one, with the final one requiring Tier 14.
Hilda’s Hunting Passives
Below are the 12 Passives available for Hilda, going left to right across each row.
Breeding Season
15% increased Rare Monsters
Rare Monsters have 25% increased chance of Monster Modifiers
Breeding Season isn’t all too strong by itself. Alongside multiple Tablets as well as the Atlas Passive Tree making Rare more rewarding and even more plentiful, it’s worth taking though. Add in Patient Battue and you have the makings of a fairly powerful strategy.
Mighty Prey
25% chance to upgrade Map Bosses to Powerful Map Bosses
Mighty Prey is excellent for the early game, letting you climb Waystone Tiers quicker without having to always run an Overseer Tablet. Even in late game, it can also help make sustaining your higher tier Waystones more consistent as Powerful Bosses are more likely to drop Waystones.
Scarred Lands
15% increased number of Runic Monster Markers
20% increased number of Rare Expedition Monsters
There are rare cases where this could be used, particularly with Expeditions on Lush Island map, which roll totem with increased Monster Experience, allowing you to get more monsters to benefit from those totems.
Though in general, Jado’s Eastern Knowledge passive will outperform this for general Expedition use.
Soul Eaters
Map Bosses have 2% increased Effectiveness per 100 Power of Monsters slain in the Area
Once you reach a point you’re comfortable taking on bosses with high Effectiveness, you can combine this with other mechanics to feed the Map Boss a large chunk of Effectiveness.
Since this relies on Monster Power it won’t scale too high unless you’re also stacking bonuses to Rare and Magic Monsters. Without those bonuses, you’re only likely to get around 200-400 Monster power at the high end, but varies with the map and content in it.
Dangerous Game
Rogue Exiles have 20% chance to Flee to an adjacent Map and upgrade their Equipment
Dangerous Game is great paired with the other available bonuses to Rogue Exiles, in particularly the node that turns Forests into Rogue Exile Hunting Grounds, as well as the one that spawn additional Rogue Exile when a Powerful Map Boss is present.
Will of the Draíocht
Azmeri Spirits cannot Possess Rare Monsters
Combined with the Passive that allow Azmerian Spirits to possess Unique monsters, this means you can herd all of them that spawn into Rogue Exiles and the Map Boss to maximize their rewards.
Lethal Adaptation
40% increased Effectiveness of Unique Monsters with Modifiers
Lethal Adaptation requires a lot of investment into forcing additional modifier onto Unique Monsters through Tablets and Atlas Tree Passives. However, doing so will provide a nice boost to the rewards of Rogue Exiles and Map Bosses.
Call of the Spirits
Possessed Unique Monsters release Spirits on death
Call of the Spirits pairs well with Will of the Draíocht, and of course Rogue Exiles. This prevents them from stopping at the first Rare enemy they reach and getting near zero value. Instead, they will path through everything on the way to the boss and charge up their effect to be more rewarding.
Ancient inscriptions
8% increased effect of Explicit Modifiers on Tablets for each type of Tablet affecting Map area
Ancient Inscriptions is best used when you can comfortably handle 6-Mod Maps. This not only gives more Modifiers to scale with the effect, but access to the full 24% from using 3 tablets.
To get the most of this effect, it’s commonly paired with Ritual to boost the reduced Tribute Costs of Deferring and Rerolling. This allows you to search for the best rewards in Ritual, while also allowing you to quickly lower its costs.
Gutting and Skinning
Pinnacle Bosses may be scavenged for 5% chance to drop an additional Unique item
1% chance Unique Monsters may be scavenged for a Unique item
Gutting and Skinning has a clear niche when farming Pinnacle Bosses Primarily. Many Pinnacle Bosses have rare and powerful drops that can worth a fair bit.
It can also work well with Patient Battue, to get more opportunities for that 1% roll. This works even better when scaling Rare Monsters, as well as with Ritual also being able to spawn and respawn Rare monsters to trigger this effect.
Claimed Territories
Overlord’s Influence and Overlord’s Domain Atlas Passive Skills have 45% chance to add twice as much content
Claimed Territories is an excellent passive to use when focusing on specific Extra Content, frequently doubling the contant spaawns by the named passives. In particular, with Hilda’s other passive options, this often means more Rogue Exiles and Summoning Circles to take advantage of what she offers.
Patient Battue
5% chance 3 additional Rare Monsters are replaced by a random Map Boss
25% chance 1 Rare Monster is replaced by a random Map Boss
Patient Battue is exceptionally strong for leveraging Hilda’s many passives for Map Bosses and Unique Monsters in general. It allows for much more frequent usage and consistency out of them.
This effect is also great for Ritual as well, potentially adding additional bosses to Rituals and increasing the overall Tribute earned.
Hilda’s Hunting Point Allocations
Below are our recommendations to use at each stage of unlocking the passives for Hilda’s Hunting. Keep in mind that not all passives are available at all time, and are unlocked alongside each point.
Single Point
With just a single point available, Mighty Prey is the way to go. While less consistent than an Overseer Tablet, it allows you to still fight Powerful Map Bosses more often, while still running your preferred tablet to add content to your maps.
Even later into Maps, it’s still great for sustaining your highest tier of map, as Powerful Bosses are more likely to drop Waystones in general, besides just simply droppingg higher tiers.
Two Points
With the next set of passives unlocked and extra point to spend, Breeding Season is the best thing to add on top of Mighty Prey. Nothing else will really provide much early on, as it’s not until later points where Hilda really shines.
Three Points
Another point to spend and another set of passives. Ancient Inscriptions is a great addition to the existing combo of Mighty Prey and Breeding Season. Combined with other bonuses to Rare Monaster from the Atlas Passive Tree and Tablets, it’s a decent way to get extra value from your maps.
However, if you have enough Atlas Passive Points unlocked there is one other setup to consider here. Will of the Draíocht combined with Lethal Adaptations, Soul Eaters, and the Atlas Passive that allows Unique Monsters to be possessed by Azmeri Spirits can lead to fighting tougher, but more rewarding bosses.
Four Points
With the final point and set of passives, Hilda now has access to her best options, Patient Battue and Claimed Territory.
By Combining Patient Battue, Mighty Prey, Gutting and Skinning, and Breeding Season, this enables a boss farming strategy that can be quite strong. Breeding Seasons increases the number of Rare Monsters, Patient Battue can turn those into Map Bosses, Mighty Prey can upgrade them to Powerful Bosses, while Gutting and Skinning gives a chance for extra loot.
If Gutting and Skinning feels too inconsistent, Claimed Lands can be use alongside the Overlord’s Domain choice for Summoning Circles to simply add more Powerful, or even Deadly, Map Bosses. If you prefer to just run Overseer Precursor Tablets, Might Prey can also be dropped to have both Claimed Lands as well as Gutting and Skinning.
