Path of Exile 2: The Executioner boss guide

Path of Exile 2’s The Executioner boss represents a real step-up in terms of difficulty in Act 1. While PoE 2 is harder than the original game in general, this boss really shows off what you can expect later on in the campaign. With waves of annoying minions, lots of AOE, and dangerous attacks that can one-shot you if you aren’t careful, this is easily one of the first Act’s toughest challenges.

While Path of Exile 2's campaign itself is pretty long, bosses like The Executioner could lead to longer play times, depending on how many times you have to refight it, or others as you go through the story. If you’re having trouble though, we’re here to help.

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How to beat The Executioner in Path of Exile 2

The Executioner awaits in Ogham Village in Path of Exile 2, before you head into Ogham Manor proper. While the maps are still quite random, once you see a large open area with a series of benches built into the dirt, you’ll find The Executioner. He beheads a woman begging for her life and jumps down to immediately begin the battle.

This fight is all about staying mobile, taking out adds, and striking the boss anytime you can. He's slow, so DOTs/ground-based AOEs, and multi-hit attacks work great on him.

This is the first major AOE you need to avoid from The Executioner (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

This boss moves fairly slowly and has a huge axe that he slowly swings in an arc in front of himself. He’ll do this a few times back to back, but it’s easy to get out of the way of, by either running away or using Path of Exile 2's new dodge mechanic.

While this is going on, you’ll see Decrepit Mercenary enemies start to jump down and join the fight. These come in two flavors - melee and ranged. The ranged units are the more annoying ones, and fire crossbow bolts that leave a trail of fire on the ground and create a fiery AOE. Thankfully, you’ll see the AOE circle trigger before the arrow hits, giving you time to move. The melee ones are less of a threat.

It’s important to not let the ranged ones build up too much, otherwise you’re going to have a fight like mine, where eight AOE zones keep popping up every few seconds. They don’t despawn after you beat The Executioner in Path of Exile 2, either.

Being in this blast radius is almost assuredly an instant death (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

Even if you beat the boss, they could still kill you - and if you die after a boss dies, your loot may be gone when you come back. This is likely a bug, but happened to me a few times. That’s what really makes this fight hard - juggling all the adds.

When his axe begins to glow and he yells “Be crushed!/Rend Asunder!”, get back as far as you can. He’s going to smash the ground and create a massive fiery explosion AOE. This will hurt a great deal, so try to stay out of its way.

However, his most dangerous attack one-shot me every single time I got hit with it, as a Witch. He’ll yell “Sever in half!” and you’ll see a large AOE circle on the ground, with wind gusting around it.

You don't want to leave too many archers alive for this reason (Image via Grinding Gear Games)

Make sure to get out of that circle, because if the axe head falls on you, you’re almost certainly going to get killed in one hit. It only didn’t get me one time, because I was on the very outer rim of the AOE. The boss doesn’t have any other extra attacks to be aware of, but the adds will continue to spawn for the whole fight.

Eventually, the AOE circles will just chase you around the map. You can still fight, if you have ranged/poison attacks that will whittle away at him, but it will take longer. I wound up leaving almost all the ranged enemies until the end, and I wish I hadn’t.

Once you’ve defeated The Executioner and all his cronies in Path of Exile 2, you can head inside Ogham Manor.

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Check out our other Path of Exile 2 guides and features:

• Jonathan Rogers on why Path of Exile 2 is harder than the first game
• Path of Exile 2: All returning League mechanics confirmed so far
• Path of Exile 2 Ascension Trials, explained