A beginner's complete guide to 3.9 Atlas : Conquerors spawning, and dropping maps.
Guide
1) The story of the Atlas so far.

For anyone not aware of the story of the endgame, we've had, since the Atlas appeared, some iterations of endgame. The first one got us starting from the corners, and make our way to the center, where we could fight the four Shaper Guardians, and gain access to Fragments (Minotaur, Hydra, Chimera and Phoenix) to put in the map device to enter the Shaper's Realm. This enabled the Shaper fight. The Shaper is Zana's father, rendered mad within the Atlas. Then, starting Abyss league (3.1) and the War for the Atlas expansion, came along the Elder and his own personnal Guardians, the Constrictor, the Enslaver, the Eradicator and the Purifier. This marks the appearance of influenced items, they could drop from influenced maps and could have either Shaper or Elder influence. The Elder influence appeared on maps and you could expand it by doing adjacent Shaper influenced maps to get rid of Shaper and taunt the Elder himself into appearing on maps. He appeared along with his four Guardians, and only when they were defeated could you challenge the boss. The Elder is an unknown entity that feeds on memories of people in the Atlas, and is feeding from the Shaper and the worlds created in the Atlas. You could make three tiers of Elder, based on the maps he appeared on. White, yellow, or red. You had the relative choice of getting a white, yellow or red Elder, by doing influenced maps and moving influence to choose the spawn. Bestiary league (3.2) introduced Uber Elder, the result of getting influence onto the four Shaper Guardians, thus allowing the Shaper's Realm, then located at the center of the Atlas, to be influenced by Elder. This was the highest level boss we could fight at the time and was considered the end of the storyline of the War for the Atlas. The Elder was defeated. Shaper was consumed by the entity. Flash forward to now.

2) The story of 3.9 : Conquerors of the Atlas.

The new endgame starts with Kirac asking us to find his brother Baran, gone to fight with Ceaserius Zana, a known exile and terrorist. We find the map device together, and rebuild it to navigate the maps once again, but this time without Zana. When we find her, she tells us of what she did, trapping the Exiles she once fought alongside as well as herself inside the map device, preventing them to go back to their reality. Thanks to our intervention and the recreation of the map device, she now has to prevent them escaping, and asks for our help, because she believes they have found another way. But since she doesn't know where they are, we have to track them. We find a Citadel, that could be used to escape. And we have to find the rest, and the other Conquerors of the Atlas. There are four of them, Baran, Veritania, Drox and Al Hezmin. The last one of the team she used to run with is called Sirus, but he sacrificed himself to banish the Elder and is now dead. The Atlas now is separated by Regions, eight of them, and we start from the center to go to the edges. Each Region possesses a Citadel. When we find Baran and defeat him the first time, we learn that Sirus is still alive, through what he says, and through a journal on the floor detailing the story as seen by Sirus. When defeating Veritania, Al Hezmin and Drox, we have the full story of what happened to Sirus. He didn't die and is filled with resentment toward the other Conquerors he feels abandonned him to his fate. Fighting them again, we learn about their personal individual stories and learn more about their time in the Atlas, and how it changed them. When we finally learn of Sirus' location, we fight him in Oriath, that is destroyed in the fight.

3) Now, let's play : Presentation of the new Atlas and getting maps to drop.

The Atlas is now revealed. We start at the center of it and move towards the edges. It is now separated by regions, and we have eight of them. Haewark Hamlet, Tirn's End, Lex Proxima, Lex Ejoris, New Vastir, Glennach Cairns, Valdo's Rest, and Lira Arthain. Each region possesses its own maps, gaining in tiers as we near the edges of the Atlas. So, tier 1 at the center and we go towards the outer circle of regions and get to tier 5. Let's talk about map drops. The usual dropping rules still apply and you can start dropping tier 1 maps starting area level 60. We can drop the same tiers of map we're running, with a chance to get a +1 tier from a magic or rare monster, a +2 from a unique monster and any map tiers below the one we're doing. A map can drop connected maps. Those can be seen by simply looking at the Atlas, a series of roads link some maps. Once completed, any map can drop even if unconnected. That being said, some mechanics bypass those drops and we can see some Metamorphs dropping maps that aren't completed or connected. A map boss can drop a map connected to the one you're running. You can vendor three similar maps (they have to be the same name and the same tier) to get one map from one tier higher from the same region. Swap maps around to get different results. Exemple : 3 Jungle Valley tier 1 = Any Lex Proxima tier 2. Change one of those maps to another Jungle Valley tier 1 and you can get a different Lex Proxima tier 2. Zana sells maps for chance orbs and alchemy orbs and much later for chaos orbs. You can reset her store by doing one mission from the pool of missions you have on the right side of your Atlas. Upon one activation of a map containing one of her mission, she will have another store entirely. You can use this to reliably get more maps, provided you have the necessary currency. You encounter Zana on doing your first tier 3 map and she then joins you in your hideout. You can use Horizon Orbs to change a map within the same tiers, but these seem bugged at the moment and you can get a smaller pool of maps than what should be possible using these orbs. With those informations, you should be able to complete the maps you want.

4) First Conquerors spawns.

When you first step foot on one of the corner regions (Haewark Hamlet, Lex Ejoris, New Vastir or Lira Arthain), you will be greeted by Baran, one of the four Conquerors of the Atlas. Upon doing more maps from this region, you'll encounter him again twice (runniong the same map will be a 1 in 3 chance of encountering him again, whereas doing 3 different maps will be a 100% chance to find him). After those encounters, you have to talk to Kirac and he will tell you that he's found the trail of his brother and he knows where to find him. He will then point out a Citadel on the region connected to a map chosen randomly from the region. Talk to Zana to have her draw a map (no mods) that will upon killing the map boss get you to your first Conqueror fight. Baran, the Crusader. He will drop a Crimson Watchstone upon death and a few influenced items. You then have to find the other three in other regions. Once you find them in a given region, you need to do two more maps in that same region to have Kirac able to find them the same way he found Baran. Kill Veritania to get a Cobalt Watchstone, Drox to get a Golden Watchstone and Al Hezmin to get a Viridian Watchstone. You've met and defeated each of the Conquerors. But they've escaped and hidden away deeper into the Atlas.

You can use a sextant on any Watchstone. Doing so will add mods to your Watchstones which will be added to any non-unique map you run inside the region affected by the Watchstone.

5) Watchstones and Conquerors spawns again.

You discovered Citadels in maps. There is one in every region. You've dropped Watchstones from the Conquerors. Now, it's becoming a little harder to progress. But worry not. You can socket any watchstone into any citadel. Though you can only have one colour of each in one given citadel. When you socket a stone into a citadel, it changes the tiers, the layout and unlocks new maps from the corresponding region. This means that you can now drop new tiers of maps as well as new maps. The maps you already have are not the same as the ones that uncovered with a watchstone. In order to do a tier 4 Jungle Valley – should you socket the Lex Proxima Citadel with a Watchstone of any colour – you have to drop a tier 4 Jungle Valley, or sell three tier 3 from the region (same maps, remember), to potentially get a Jungle Valley tier 4. This follows the rules of map drops described in the 3rd section.

The maps that are able to drop are the ones indicated on your Atlas at a given time.

If you unsocket the Watchstone allowing you to drop improved tiers, you won't be able to drop those maps. In order to drop the improved version of a given map, you first need to have completed the lower version or do a connected map. You then have to do maps in regions socketed by one watchstone. Do that and the cycle repeats, a Conqueror appears, and you have to do two maps after its first spawn to get Kirac to track his location (the maps have to be different in order for the spawn to be guaranteed). Same thing for the other three. You get a second round of Conquerors and they drop their Watchstones again. Now, it's the same but with regions socketed by two watchstones. Complete the cycle, drop more watchstones. Do the same on maps from regions socketed by three watchstones, then four. How to drop maps from higher tiers ? Easy, run high tiers maps from any region. While you have you watchstones socketed, and provided the maps can drop, they will drop at the tiers indicated on your Atlas. It's easier if you have completed lots of maps. So try to keep that number high. Don't forget Zana also sells tons of maps.

Now, things are gonna be a little different.

6) Sirus, the Awakener of Worlds.

When you complete the last Conqueror from the fights you got with four Watchstones, you have the opportunity to fight Sirus. Talk to Zana to have her open six portals to the boss fight. Whether you succeed or fail doesn't matter. Starting when you get the 20th Watchstone, Sirus will appear each and every time you fight the four Conquerors. Whether you beat him or not, he will be there. You can't progress and spawn new Conquerors without having run Sirus first. If you do not want to do the fight, you can just open the portals and do another map.

7) Conquerors again, but with a twist.

Starting now, things are a bit more complicated. You will be able to encounter a Conqueror only on regions you run with four Watchstones, but you know how to do that already. The trick is they are not a guaranteed spawn anymore. Up to this stage, you could do any three different maps of a region and the encounter was 100% sure to happen. You now have a 1 in 3 chance of encountering a Conqueror. That puts the total number of maps needed to make a full cycle of Conqueror between 12 if you're the luckiest player there is, or much, much more. Around 35 is a good average. So before thinking your Atlas is bugged, be sure you're doing everything right. If you hover on the left side of your Atlas, you have boxes. They are storage for your Watchstones. They also tell you which stones you haven't dropped and from where. Your mission from here on out is to do maps in region where you need a Watchstone from a given Conqueror. Every four fights, go to the Eye of the Storm to potentially defeat Sirus and go again. With more and more stones available comes the next step of the new Atlas. There are 32 Watchstones to unlock. 4 from each region. Each one from a different Conqueror.

The easiest thing to do to drop them is to first try to get a Watchstone from every region. Then go again in order to have 2 in every region. Then 3 in each, and finish to get the last one.

Once you are able to socket 4 into a single Citadel, there's a new thing to account for.

8) Awakening your Atlas.

That's right, it's not done yet. There is now something called an Awakening Level. When you fully socket a Citadel it is considered Awakened. Check the center of your Atlas, there should be a number written on the center. It is indicating the number of Citadels Awakened. It is your Awakening Level. You can read what it does but in summary, better loot, more maps and the ability to drop Shaper and Elder Guardians maps. You can have an Awakening Level 8 at maximum. The Sirus fight associated with that number is the hardest Sirus you can possibly fight.

9) The Atlas after Sirus.

As usual, you can complete all the maps from a completion bonus. But now, you can complete maps with a required minimum Awakening Bonus to get an Awakening Completion bonus. Which is the same as the regular completion, but you can then get maps to drop up to 3 tiers higher.

Keep in mind that the maximum tiers of map you can get will ALWAYS be 2 tiers higher. If you're doing a Tier 10, you can only get a Tier 12 at max. But if a tier 3 were to drop, you have a chance to get it to tier 6. This will allow you to more reliably drop higher tier maps.

Having 154/154 completion bonus and 154/154 Awakening completion bonus would get you the most maps you could drop. The may not be the most effective strategy given the maps drops are plentiful already, but there you have it.

Miscellaneous

You have the ability to unlock the previous endgame fights. The Shaper, the Elder, the Uber Elder, and some fights from the Synthesis League, through Awakening Levels. The more citadels fully socketed you have, the more chance you have to drop those stuff on killing the map boss.

You can now drop :



Lair of the Hydra, Maze of the Minotaur, Pit of the Chimera and Forge of the Phoenix.

These were the original Guardians of the Shaper, and each one of those tier 16 bosses give you a fragment. When you get the four fragments, insert them into the map device to gain access to the Shaper's Realm, where you'll encounter the Shaper.



Maps (tier 14 to 16) influcenced by the Elder Guardians, Constrictor, Enslaver, Eradicator and Purifier.

These were the original Guardians of the Elder, and as for the Shaper, they drop fragments. Get them in the map device to gain access to the Elder fight.

The Shaper and the Elder each drop two fragments each. When you get four different fragments from them, you'll be able to try your build against the Uber Elder. It's a tough fight and it's either pretty expensive to set up, or if you're playing in SSF, pretty rare. So be advised.



Altered, Augmented, Rewritten, Twisted Distant Memories, and Cortex.

Those are the bosses from the Synthesis League. A challenge to be sure.

Be advised that any of those maps can drop from bosses under Awakening Level (the chances get higher the more AL you have), or can be sold from Zana.



When you're farming for Conquerors after Sirus fight, you need to get the spawn by running maps that are shown on the region when it is socketed by 4 Watchstones. But that is only true for the initial spawn. Let's say you've spawned Baran inside of the Lex Proxima region by doing a T16 Crystal Ore. You can get the next spawns by running ANY map inside the region. These subsequent encounters do not need to be the highest tier. You could run a T1 Jungle Valley and get the fight quicker.

My personnal strategy is making the four Conquerors spawn, then taking out the Watchstones from any influenced region to allow low level maps to drop. These make the mapping much faster and allow me to keep my low level map drops high. If I do this, I just have to resocket the region one encounter before the one that will spawn the Conqueror. This prevents me not being able to use my watchstones during that time. You should have more than enough maps by doing this method, even in SSF.







PS : There may be some mistakes, please feel free to mention them and I'll edit this to get the best guide we could have.

PS2 : I stream on Twitch during every weekday. If you have questions or remark or you're a new player that want some help and can't navigate the flow of information on PoE, I'll be happy to indulge :)