NEWS GUIDE

The new mercenary mechanism is introduced in Path Of Exile 3.26 Mercenaries of Trarthus league, allowing players to challenge and recruit mercenaries as their allies to start a new challenge journey together.

These mercenaries will join you when you play the game and help you kill enemies and collect loot. Therefore, in your exploration process, please do not underestimate the power of these mercenaries. Proper equipment can greatly speed up your game progress.

Here, we are going to introduce a completely support build, but please note that the power of this build itself is not the point at all, because our purpose is to use it to enhance the mercenaries in POE 3.26! This is Defiance Banner Champion.

The highlight of this build is that we do not output damage ourselves, but fully support the mercenaries and make them the main output. In this way, we can see a large number of enemies turn into ashes in front of our eyes while ensuring our own survivability, and enjoy the fun of POE currency falling like raindrops.

Skills

For this build setting, let’s take a look at its core skills first.

Destructive Link

Let’s start with Destructive Link. This is a skill gem that allows the player to link with a mercenary ally, giving the ally the critical strike chance of our main-hand attacks. But using this gem also has certain risks, if the linked mercenary dies, we personally will die. And this skill is usually used in support characters to enable a build based on critical strikes.

So, Destructive Link skill will connect us to the mercenary, transferring our critical strike chance to them. For example, when we use Trypanon Two Hand Mace, it can provide 100% critical strike chance, and the mercenary will inherit this critical strike chance.

In addition, we can also combine it with Marylene’s Fallacy Lapis Amulet, which can greatly increase the critical strike multiplier, but reduce the critical strike chance.

Since our mercenary gains our critical strike chance instead of their own critical strike chance, this not only allows them to avoid disadvantages, but also gain all the benefits!

Defiance Banner

The next skill is Defiance Banner. This is a defensive aura skill that increases movement speed and spell suppression, and reduces all incoming damage. We also gain elemental resistance through Rallying Icon passive skill.

What’s special about this skill is that it consumes all accumulated Valour stacks to enhance the effect, and its effectiveness scales with Valour consumed. So, even if the stats of Defiance Banner skill look mediocre, the more Valour you consume, the stronger its effect becomes.

So, how do you get Valour Normally, Valour is obtained through melee attacks, but since we don’t attack actively, we can make up for it by using Banner Mastery, which provides 5 Valour every time Warcries are used.

Secondly, I also automatically use General’s Cry, a Warcry skill that summons Mirage Warriors from nearby corpses to attack enemies. These Mirages will imitate the player’s attacks, making it a powerful skill for map exploration and boss battles. Because it has a short cooldown, it allows us to obtain a stable Valour.

We also use Bannerman passive, which keeps the banner effect for 3 seconds after leaving the banner area. Combined with Champion’s Inspirational passive, we can recover some Valour when leaving the banner area.

Finally, with Perfidy body armor, we get 50% more Valour, and it only takes 3 seconds to fully recover, so it lasts.

Pyroclast Mines

The last major skill is Pyroclast Mines. This mine grants an aura when it lands, causing enemies to take additional fire damage. So, if you are willing to invest more in the gem level and aura effect of Pyroclast Mines, it can even deal an additional 4,000-5,000 fire damage.

Gear

For our weapon equipment selection, in the early game, we will use Trypanon Mace because it has a 100% critical strike rate. After that, you can switch to a high crit wand, and with Ungil’s Harmony Amulet, you can maintain 100% crit rate.

March of the Legion unique boots are also a good choice, focusing on mods that increase the aura gem level by +5, which can enhance the effects of Defiance Banner and Pyroclast Mines.

Finally, the chest armor, as we said before, Perfidy can provide continuous Valour generation when mapping, so it is definitely our best choice. And the rest of the equipment just needs to use some rare items.

Mercenary Settings

Now let’s talk about the mercenary settings. My mercenaries use Ice-based bows because they not only have a long range and clear the field quickly, but also don’t cast strange spells to disrupt your plans.

But since mercenaries don’t have a passive skill tree, they seriously lack the ability to increase damage and penetration, so we can only solve this problem through equipment.

And the best source of damage is The Taming Prismatic Ring, which can increase the enemy’s elemental damage for each ailment effect, which is a huge multiplier.

For armor, we use Shroud of the Lightless, which provides elemental penetration for each Abyss Jewel.

It is worth noting that since this armor only has 2 jewel sockets, for gloves and boots, we need to look for items with multiple Abyss jewel sockets. When we stack more Abyss Jewels, they will increase more damage and penetration. More importantly, Abyss Jewel can also increase some life and mana for the mercenary.

In short, this Defiance Banner Champion may not have much highlights on its own, which is why it has been forgotten in the previous challenge league, but in POE 3.26, with the support of the mercenary allies, this will become your best support build choice!

As players progress through the current leagues in Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion, the extremely rare crafting materials available to them will become increasingly rare, increasing the cost of acquiring these items through player-to-player trading and trading websites.

Fracturing Orbs are a good example of this, which can be used on rare items with more than 4 modifiers to destroy a random explicit modifier and lock it in place so that it cannot be affected by other POE currencies.

Once you have a rare item with a high-quality modifier, you can use this orb to fix it so that you can always enjoy the high-quality benefits or powerful effects it brings, thus achieving a better game experience.

In the current game content, the only place and method to farm large amounts of Fracturing Orbs is Harbinger. In view of this, this guide will introduce you to how to effectively farm Harbinger in POE 3.26, including Scarabs, Atlas passive skill nodes and map settings that can be used in your build.

Strategy Overview

First of all, since it is farming Harbinger, the strategy theme provided here is to maximize the number of Harbinger you have on the map you explore.

However, it should be noted that Harbinger, as the monster you need to fight, is not affected by the affixes on Waystones you use when activating the map that increases the quality or quantity of the monster.

In addition, Harbinger itself will provide you with other currency fragments in addition to Fracturing Orbs, such as Annulment Shard and Ancient Shard, which can provide you with higher profits. However, it is not recommended that you collect Chaos Shard, Transmutation Shard and Alteration Shard because they are a waste of time.

Scarab

For Harbinger farming, Scarabs you choose should be related to this type of monster, such as Harbinger Scarab of Warhoards, which will help you drop double the currency Shards, including Fracturing Orbs.

In addition, Harbinger Scarab of Regency is also a very good choice, which will make Harbinger in this area have a 50% chance of being replaced by a more powerful Harbinger Boss, thereby increasing the number of Fracturing Orbs dropped and the quality of other loot.

The last and most important option is Harbinger Scarab, which can bring you the buff of adding three additional Harbingers, which is very useful. However, it should be noted that more monsters to challenge means that your build requirements will increase, so please spend enough POE currency before farming to enhance your character’s offensive and defensive capabilities.

Or Harbinger Scarab of Obelisks, which can also provide you with additional currency Shards after your battle with Harbinger is over. Some players will focus on other loot in other battles, so Scarab of Monstrous Lineage, which increases the size of magic packs, is also an excellent choice.

Map Settings

While the spawn rate and rarity of Harbingers are not changed by the affixes on Waystones, you can still choose to farm maps with higher monster packs, such as Mesa Map, which can keep the pack size above 30.

However, please note that although Tier 17 maps have higher monster pack sizes and additional rewards, it is not recommended to farm Harbingers in them if your build is not enough to allow you to successfully complete the challenges and battles in these top maps.

Because many Tier 15/16 maps contain Harbingers that are already very profitable due to the influence of the build options you have equipped, you should do your best.

Atlas Passive Skill Tree

Similarly, in the huge POE passive skill tree, you also need to pay attention to those related to Harbinger. First and foremost are the ones that reduce Harbinger’s cooldown and spawn rate, such as Additional Harbinger Chance and Ominous Arrival.

Of course, your ultimate goal is to farm more Fracturing Orbs, so passive skill nodes that can increase your currency fragments are also very necessary, such as Additional Harbinger Shards, Unspeakable Offensive, etc.

Or Map Modifier Effect node is also worth activating. Although Harbinger cannot be affected by the display modifiers on the map, this node can greatly increase the quantity and quality of other loot you can obtain during exploration, such as items, crafting materials, and PoE currency.

Is This Strategy Cost Less?

In fact, the cost of entire builds option and the map you set are not that less, because Harbinger Scarab of Regency is worth 8 POE Chaos Orbs in the game, but it should be reminded that it can be used from the early stage of your game to the endgame stage, so it is relatively affordable overall.

If you don’t want to invest too much in the early game, you can remove Harbinger Scarab of Obelisks from your build and instead add Harbinger Scarab, which can increase the number of Harbinger spawns. This strategy will make your challenge more difficult, but more profitable.

These are the specific strategies for farming Harbinger to get more Fracturing Orbs that can be used to reduce crafting costs, based on the latest patch in the current Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion and some player feedback. Hopefully, you can complete farming this type of enemy and currency faster with the help of this build setup, and get more high-quality affixes for rare items to use. Have fun playing!

Exiles, in Path of Exile 3.26, the developers fixed a bug that only counted Ore Deposit Encounters completed in Delirium Maps, but now even encounters created by Delirium Mirrors are counted.

This means we can now fill up Delirium reward bar faster and win a ton of loot. So now is definitely the best time to farm Delirium!

What Are The Advantages Of Running This Strategy?

To help you maximize your gains, we’re going to introduce you to an affordable and easy-to-pickup Delirium farming strategy. My strategy is mainly for players who may only have an hour or two of game time at a time, because it’s easy to pick up and still profitable, and these strategies have a low investment cost in case the server keeps rolling back. After all, you don’t want to finish farming only to lose 3-4 POE Divine Orbs because of a direct loot price rollback.

We’ve actually tried a similar strategy in previous leagues, but the reason we’re sharing it with POE 3.26 expansion is entirely because the price of Delirium Orbs on Currency Exchanges has started to rise, and almost every mapping player needs them for the matches they want to play. So, farming Delirium is now completely profitable!

On top of that, Cluster Jewels also remain in high demand, and many common Clusters can still be sold for 10-20 Chaos Orbs.

So, this Delirium strategy is definitely worth a try, not only because it’s fast and simple, but also because the dropped loot is sold very quickly and conveniently on Exchange, which is again suitable for those who have limited game time or don’t want to interact with external websites.

Preparation

Now, you need a suitable character build to complete Delirium farming effectively. But in the early stages of the league, if you want to farm more and you already have four Voidstones, it’s important to find a speed build that allows you to quickly get in and out of the map, because our main profit comes from the loot at the end of the map. So, the more maps you run, the more POE Currency profit you make.

In fact, we averaged about 2-3 minutes per map, so in about an hour and fifteen minutes, we completed 30 maps, including rolling the map and storing the loot. Then, it took us about 10 minutes to sell all the loot. This means that in just an hour and a half, we can harvest more than ten Divines with this strategy!

We need to make a disclaimer, however, because of different prices on different servers and the fact that you are still subject to RNG during the farming process, the final profit may vary. But this strategy is definitely simple and profitable.

How To Run?

Now, let’s discuss how to effectively complete this strategy and why they can make good and sustained profits in Secrets of the Atlas expansion.

First, we’re going to run Strand map, because it’s both linear and long, which means you’ll get more Splinters and Delirium Orbs as you get to the end.

We’re only going to use one Scarab in this strategy, which is a Delirium Scarab of Mania, which costs about one Chaos Orb each, and they basically double the speed at which your Delirium reward meter fills up in the area.

But it does also make it harder to farm the map later on, so if you find it too tricky, just abandon Scarab, but you’ll probably lose a few Divine Orbs worth of loot per hour. But even if you abandon it completely, it’s still a profitable strategy.

So in this strategy, we’re going to pick the easiest Atlas tree to give us decent rewards and not slow down our mapping.

Then we’re basically going to do two things. The first is to stop the fog from disappearing any faster. This fog marks the beginning of the Delirium fight, and the player will fight waves of increasingly difficult monsters in the fog. So, running through the fog is essential to maximizing your rewards, because the monsters in the fog will drop Delirium-specific loot, including Simulacrum Splinters.

So, if the fog dissipates slowly, you will never have a problem running out of Delirium. I need to warn you though, if you do this as well, you may get extra rewards at the end, but it will get harder and harder as you get to the later stages of the map.

The second thing is to not interact with any of the main mechanics when you are doing this strategy, except for your mercenaries. Because for every Strongbox you open or every Breach or Legion you open, it will pause the timer and give you more chances to escape the fog. But we want to stay on these maps as much as possible to maximize our gains.

Of course, you can run any map you want, but Strand map is really suitable for running this strategy, not only is it simple but the loot you can get is also more.

At the beginning of the map, there will be a Delirium Mirror, you need to go through it to start your Strand mapping, and kill everything in your way.

Delirium Mists fight offers seven tiers of rewards that are tied to the number of Delirium Mists on the map and the number of monsters killed in the map. Each tier of rewards increases in difficulty and potentially leads to a bigger reward.

Once you have cleared the mist, you can get seven tiers of rewards. You can then choose to end Delirium at any time, collect your loot, leave and repeat the setup.

However, once you get seven tiers of rewards, it will be difficult to get more without investing in additional content. So if you have killed a lot of things on the map and still have no more loot, it is recommended that you run straight to the boss and kill him. Most of the remaining loot will come from the last Delirium explosion, except for some rewards you may get from the altar.

Finally, if you find that this strategy is too difficult, drop Delirium Scarab of Mania and see how things go. Doing this will make things much easier, especially as you get closer to the boss.

Final Thoughts

In conclusion, a simple and easy Delirium strategy that requires no thought, you just blast away for an hour and then sell your loot in 10 minutes for 10-20 POE Divine Orbs! It feels really good.

This strategy works really fast and requires very little input on the map, so even if it’s not the most exciting farming strategy in the game right now, it will give you satisfying gains in the shortest amount of time in the early stages of a league.

In the current Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion, there are a ton of bosses waiting to be challenged, but perhaps the most exciting is the endgame boss with Uber variant hidden in Atlas, as the rewards it offers are extremely valuable and generous.

On top of that, some of the endgame bosses are very important in the background of this expansion, and will be inextricably linked to the Zana you need to find, so fighting them and interacting with their corpses will also give you a deeper understanding of the mysterious story contained in the dark fantasy world of Wraeclast.

However, you need to be aware that the challenge difficulty of these endgame bosses and their Uber variant is much higher than that of the bosses in the main campaign, so it is very necessary to understand their specific locations and challenge precautions in the current POE 3.26 from this guide, which will allow you to prepare strategies in advance to easily and smoothly deal with these encounters.

Please note that since each player has a different fighting style and build focus in the game, specific methods for defeating these endgame bosses are not covered here. However, once the optimal solution for completing these encounters is found here, it will be compiled and provided to you in a timely manner. Please stay tuned!

Shaper/Uber Shaper

Shaper is one of the first pinnacle bosses you’ll encounter in the endgame, and to unlock this encounter you’ll need to collect pieces of four different maps that make up Key to the Crucible.

These four are scattered across your fights with the four Guardians of the Void: Phoenix, Hydra, Minotaur, and Chimera, who appear on Tier 16 maps.

It is important to note that each of these Guardians focuses on different elemental attacks, so if you want to take them all down at once and craft Key to the Crucible as quickly as possible, invest more POE Currency in your build to increase your resistance to each elemental damage.

After crafting a specific key and successfully defeating Shaper, you will pick up a Fragment of Shape or a Fragment of Knowledge from this arena, both of which are required to unlock the encounter with Uber Elder. Additionally, you can use Cosmic Fragments to enter a fight with Uber Shaper, which is more difficult but more rewarding.

Elder/Uber Elder

Elder is a boss of the same level as Shaper, but requires a Key to Decay and must be assembled using the map fragments dropped by defeating four Elder Guardians: an Eradicator, a Constrictor, a Purifier, and an Enslaver.

However, the difference is that these Elder Guardians do not have a dedicated map, and can only appear on a map with a specific modifier. Therefore, when choosing to activate Waystones for your maps, you should look out for those with affixes that increase the chances of these Guardians appearing, as well as those that increase the rarity of the monsters.

After successfully defeating Elder, you will be rewarded with a Fragment of Terror or a Fragment of Emptiness. They are combined with the fragments dropped by Shaper to allow you to open a portal to fight Uber Elder.

Maven/Uber Maven

You’ll have a chance to encounter Maven once you enter a Tier 6 map or higher, but there are certain requirements to start this encounter: you need to craft a Maven’s Writ using Crescent Splinters, which can be obtained from challenge invitations in Maven’s crucibles that you accept.

According to the developers, you only need 10 Crescent Splinters to start the fight with Maven, but to fight its super-morph form, you’ll need to prepare 5 Reality Fragments, which will appear in boss encounters in Tier 17 maps, with Abomination Map and Ziggurat Map having the highest probability of having them.

Eater Of Worlds/Uber Eater

Unlike the previous bosses, you need to complete Eater of Worlds quest to defeat Infinite Hunger before you can start the pinnacle encounter with Eater. This is a very important prerequisite.

In this quest, Maven will ask you to defeat all the bosses on the map you are currently in, and then you will have a certain probability of receiving a Writhing Invitation. After combining it with Screaming Invitation dropped by defeating Infinite Hunger, you can start the battle with Eater.

After you successfully defeat Eater, you will get a Screaming Invitation after completing the boss encounter in each Tier 14 and above map affected by it.

Uber Eater requires you to use 5 Devouring Fragments to unlock them. They also appear in boss fights on Tier 17 maps, but are more likely to appear on Sanctuary and Ziggurat maps.

Searing Exarch/Uber Exarch

In fact, the encounter mechanism of Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds is very similar. Both require completing the quest and defeating the boss contained in the quest before they can be unlocked. In this boss, the quest you need to complete is Searing Exarch quest, and the boss you need to defeat is Black Star.

Before fighting Black Star, you need to have a Polaric Invitation, which will appear in the fourteenth Tier 14 and above maps affected by Searing Exarch. After defeating Black Star, it will reward you with an Incandescent Invitation, which is your key to fighting Searing Exarch.

Please note that the invitations required here, and the invitations required for Eater of Worlds are likely to appear in the map, so you may need to farm it multiple times, so please prepare enough POE currency to enhance your defense capabilities to facilitate smooth farming.

Likewise, Uber Exarch requires you to deliver 5 Blazing Fragments, which also appear in boss encounters in Tier 17 Maps, and are more likely to appear in Abomination Maps and Sanctuary Maps.

Atziri, Queen Of The Vaal/Uber Atziri

As the name suggests, Atziri is the queen of Vaal civilization and the boss of the endgame zone Apex of Sacrifice. In this zone, you need to defeat the boss encounters in the first two rooms and collect enough Sacrifice map fragments to start the encounter with Atziri in Room 3.

These fragments can be dropped by Vessel of the Vaal in Room 1 and A’alai, Q’ura, and Y’ara’az encounters in Room 2. However, to begin your battle against Uber Atziri, you’ll need to collect Mortal Grief, Mortal Ignorance, Mortal Rage, and Mortal Hope map fragments in Alluring Abyss.

These are the specific introductions and operating mechanisms of several endgame bosses with Uber variants in the current Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion. I hope you can complete the main campaign as soon as possible in the current new league and enter the endgame to challenge them, and finally get the best rewards and game experience. I wish you a happy game!

The developers have added a lot of new Uniques to the current Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion, with the goal of increasing the build possibilities for players to create and use in the game.

As expected, the new Uniques have been very popular since their release, such as Whispers of Infinity, which can increase your attack and defense attributes, and Coiling Whisper, which increases your curse and spell damage ability, are currently used by about 5% of the total player population.

Dark Monarch, which is only used by 3% of characters, is the focus of this guide, including its modifiers, affixes, and usage strategies. Not only that, here will introduce you to some gear options that work well with it to maximize its potential.

Where Do You Get Dark Monarch?

Dark Monarch is a new Unique Lich’s Circlet added to POE 3.26. You can only get it from the loot of a specific boss, Incarnation of Dread, which is a pinnacle boss with 4 combat phases.

Although the developer has not yet accurately stated the drop rate of this helmet, you can make this farming more effective by carrying some gear with affixes that increase the amount and quality of loot before entering the arena it has.

You can also reduce the number of deaths in encounters to achieve effective farming by enhancing your combat or defense capabilities. Although Incarnation of Dread has a certain resistance to all four elements, it only has 30% resistance to Chaos damage, which is 20% less than the others.

So you can buy POE Currency and stack as much chaos damage as possible in your build to achieve a smooth defeat. Or increase the character’s resistance to elemental damage such as fire, cold and lightning for the various types of damage cast by this boss, which are all very good farming strategies.

Item Overview

Dark Monarch is a rare minion-themed Unique Helmet in the game, and requires your character to reach level 84, which means that you may not be able to equip it on your build after the main campaign is over. You also need to find some profitable maps to farm a lot of experience points to achieve a quick level up.

As a defensive accessory, it can provide you with 167-234 energy shield, which is fixed and will not change due to the application of POE currency. Because there is no variable modifier, its protective effectiveness may not be as good as other crafted helmets.

In addition, Dark Monarch can provide you with 27%-37% chaos resistance, which is more effective for you to survive against some monsters or bosses that focus on this type of elemental damage. And increasing the maximum energy shield value by 50-100 is also effective.

But in fact, players who focus on farming Dark Monarch and want to learn how to use it effectively from this guide may pay more attention to the minion-related affixes rather than the defensive capabilities it provides.

The most popular addition is to increase the level of your minion skill gems, which is very important in endgame content where there are not a lot of experience points to upgrade these skill gems.

Not only that, it also doubles the maximum number of random minion types you have, which is the number of minion types you randomly choose from the following 14 different options when you first get Dark Monarch or you first apply a POE Divine Orb to it.

• Animated Weapons
• Raised Spectres
• Raised Spiders
• Raised Zombies
• Sentinels of Absolution
• Sentinels of Dominance
• Sentinels of Purity
• Summoned Golems
• Summoned Holy Relics
• Summoned Phantasms
• Summoned Raging Spirits
• Summoned Reapers
• Summoned Skeletons
• Summoned Spectral Wolves

Due to this affix, you will not be able to have minions other than the above minion types. Although this seems to limit the types of minions you can use, in fact, it gives you more opportunities to choose more powerful minions.

However, all current POE Items have two sides, and Dark Monarch will reduce the light radius you have by 50%, so you may need to be more careful during exploration.

Best Synergy

Once you get Dark Monarch from a very difficult boss encounter, you can start building around it, otherwise it’s nowhere near as effective as crafted helmets. First, you need to pick support gems that go with it.

For example, Summon Phantasm Support gives you a chance to summon a Phantasm minion after killing an enemy with a supported skill, which deals physical damage with a piercing projectile spell. When paired with Dark Monarch, this combination doubles your number of minions of that type and prevents you from summoning other types.

Or put a Soulwrest Ezomyte Staff on it, which is a new Unique added in patch 3.26. It gives you an additional Phantasmal Might for each Phantasm minion you summon, and your spell damage and casting speed are greatly increased.

Rigwald’s Crest Two-Stone Ring is also a very good choice, allowing you to summon twice as many Spectral Wolves that can kill enemies at super fast speed in some maps where you need to quickly farm loot or experience points, and providing you with 12%-16% additional fire and cold resistance.

Law of the Wilds Hellion’s Paw, which has similar effects, is more suitable for you in some battles that require super high mobility and damage ability, because the gains it provides to you in attack speed, critical strike chance, and global critical strike multiplier are all very considerable.

In fact, with the developers’ hot fixes and patches released during the current league for POE 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion, there will be more and more gear options that can effectively synergize with Dark Monarch and will be more suitable for different play styles.

The above is a detailed introduction to the new Dark Monarch in the current game and some precautions to pay attention to when assembling it. Hopefully, you can get it earlier in the exploration process, which will give you enough defensive capabilities from that time and enough time to choose other item options around it. I wish you a happy game!

Probably the biggest news in the gaming world this month is Path of Exile releasing a new expansion pack, Secrets of the Atlas, which adds some very interesting league mechanics and a variety of game content.

Among these additions, players may pay the most attention to the new Uniques, because they may bring more builds and diversity to the new leagues, which will enrich the experience of exploring in POE. Bound By Destiny Prismatic Jewel is a very obvious example.

When the developers revealed the picture and type of this unique item, many players commented that it was very similar to Watcher’s Eye Prismatic Jewel that has been in the game since the 3.1 patch. But in fact, the effectiveness they bring and the game style they adapt to are also completely different.

In addition, since the in-game descriptions of Bound By Destiny jewelry are very abstract and difficult to understand, this guide will not only explain the differences between the two jewelry, but also explain what specific benefits this new jewelry will provide you.

Bound By Destiny VS Watcher’s Eye

If you show the descriptions of these two unique items to a player who is somewhat familiar with massively multiplayer online role-playing games but not proficient in them, he/she will definitely say that Watcher’s Eye looks a little more useful.

Because its benefits are very obvious: maximum Energy Shield, Life, and Mana are all increased by 4%-6% (not active at the same time), and a buff that can provide you with 2-3 random aura effects was added in the previous POE 3.25 Settlers of Kalguur League.

On the other hand, Bound By Destiny, its effect description does not have a certain impact on specific properties, but only gives you a random 2, 4, and 6 times influence item bonus, which is very confusing and difficult to maximize its effectiveness without clear guidance.

Indeed, this is true. Watcher’s Eye’s improvement in specific attributes has very clear benefits for your exploration, especially when you are fighting the two bosses Searing Exarch and Eater of Worlds.

As for Bound By Destiny, it will be more suitable for you to use it in your leveling build, because you only need to link its three modifiers with clearing speed or crowd control (damage) effectiveness to achieve efficient farming of POE Currency and some high-quality loot.

However, I need to remind you that you cannot place two Watcher’s Eye in one build, so you can try to place Bound By Destiny jewelry as its substitute in your build to expand the effectiveness that Watcher’s Eye can provide.

What Are Effects Of Bound By Destiny?

First, Bound By Destiny jewelry has three modifiers: Random 2x influence item bonus, Random 4x influence item bonus, and Random 6x influence item bonus.

According to the developer, you can set 2 or 4 influences to different types, but you can only set 6 influences to the same type, which means you need to put items with the same effect in your 6 rare item slots to maximize the effect.

Or you can put some unique items you get through combat or completing quests. But it is important to note that the items you put in it are best to have dual influence, such as Emperor’s Vigilance.

This Steel Kite Shield allows you to add a certain amount of energy shield as defense, as well as allowing the damage you deal to bypass some of the enemy’s shields and directly cause a deadly attack, a super high Chaos Damage effect that usually requires investing a lot of POE Currency into your build to achieve.

Or Ravenous Passion, which is perfect for those builds that need to accumulate Rage to deal higher damage. Not only that, it will also change the damage you cause into spell damage instead of regular attack damage, which is a huge advantage when fighting against bosses with less elemental resistance.

Tips For Use

Among the modifiers currently available in Bound By Destiny, two times influence bonuses may be the most easily overlooked by players. Although the scale of the bonus it can bring you is small, if you focus on some bonuses, it will give you an unexpected surprise.

For example, after you equip two Hunter Items, you will not be harmed by poison in battle; after you equip two Elder Items, you will increase your maximum health by 10%-15%; and after you equip two Shaper Items, you will increase your maximum mana by 10%-15%, etc. These are all very necessary attributes in battle.

In the modifiers that increase 4 times and 6 times influence, your focus should not be on survival or defense, but on critical strikes and improving your damage ability. For example, equipping 4 Shaper Items will increase your spell critical strike chance by 1-15%, or equipping 6 Elder Items will increase your all Physical Skill Gems’ level by 1, etc.

The above is a specific introduction and usage strategy of Bound By Destiny Prismatic Jewel added by the developers in Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion. I hope you can maximize the effectiveness of this jewel in the game and use it to complete more challenges to get a better gaming experience. I wish you a happy game!

Exiles, time has passed quickly. From looking forward to the arrival of Path Of Exile 3.26, to now being released for nearly half a month, how have you performed during this period?

Is your bank still full of dust, or is it overflowing with Divine Orbs? If your current currency balance is very tight and you are in urgent need of earning a lot of money to continue to advance the game, then don’t miss this guide!

Here, we will share five effective Divines farming strategies in POE 3.26, so that you will no longer be troubled by the lack of currency. We will quickly introduce each strategy, and you can find a way that works for you and is more profitable to practice as soon as possible!

1. Blight

First, we have the Blight map. The Blight map is basically a battle centered on the tower defense mechanism, which can be generated in Fungal Growths in any area, and Sister Cassia NPC will appear with it.

It’s worth noting that this encounter is considered extra content, so there’s a greater than 8% chance that it will appear in any non-unique map zone. And the best part is that you almost never need higher DPS or rare gear to play Blight maps.

In a Blight encounter, stalling the minions is the first thing we need to do. If a lane is unguarded, you’ll have to defend the pump alone, which will waste your time taking down towers.

Next, we need to choose a Blight map with good checkpoints, paint the appropriate anoints, and build towers. It’s recommended that you prioritize building stalling towers over damage towers, and use Empowering Towers for cover whenever possible.

An empowered Tier 3 Chilling or Seismic tower is usually enough to hold a lane. Note that Tier 4 stalling towers are not much more defensive than Tier 3 towers, and while other damage towers are not as damaging, they can still be useful in the right place. So if you have a delayed lane in a Blight encounter, wait until they spawn and see if you can find a suitable tower at the checkpoint.

After building your towers, you just sit back, hold your line, and wait for loot to drop. If you’ve never tried a Blight map, you’re missing out on an easy, low-effort, and profitable opportunity.

2. Essence

Straight into the second strategy, Essence farming, this one may require a small amount of DPS, and there may be a small learning curve to get the whole setup right. But you can expect to net around 50 Chaos Orbs per map after costs and Essence drops, and this seems to be true in almost every league.

In Path of Exile 3.26, farming Essence requires players to constantly run maps to find and defeat Essence monsters, and collect their drops.

To maximize your gains, you may want to consider using the Beyond atlas passive, which increases the amount and quality of Essence drops. Additionally, Scarabs can further improve the efficiency of Essence farming.

For this strategy, you’ll want to run on a well-laid, low-level Yellow map, especially one with two bosses. Note that this doesn’t work on the White map, as you can’t get high-level Essence.

Basically, you just need to kill the Essence monsters on the map, then defeat the boss and leave. In addition to this, we can also make some extra income by looting Smuggler’s Cache.

3. Abyss

The next way on the list is Abyss farming, which is a low-investment money-making strategy that can produce a lot of Divine Orbs, Scarabs and Divination Cards.

You will find that Abysses are usually marked with a green icon on the minimap. When we pass through an Abyss, a crack will appear on the ground and a lot of monsters will emerge from it. As the player advances, the crack will continue to expand and eventually generate an Abyss.

If the player follows the crack into the Abyss for too long, the crack will close, and then it will generate another crack, leading to another Abyss.

After clearing the last enemy, an Abyssal Trove will be generated, which can be opened to obtain a lot of loot. It is worth noting that in addition to the normal drops, this treasure chest will always provide at least one or more Abyss Jewels, which can be inserted into the passive skill tree or the Abyss slot on the equipment to scale the damage of bow builds and stack higher DPS.

Therefore, I recommend running Abyss with a spellcaster build, because when you cast spell mastery, there is a 25% chance to open Abyssal Trove.

4. Stacked Deck

Next, another low-investment Divines farming method is to collect Stacked Deck.

In POE 3.26, Stacked Deck is a currency item that can be used to obtain a random Divination card, and these Divinations can usually be exchanged for specific high-value items. Therefore, I think Stacked Deck is essentially a gamble to obtain a high-value card.

This farming strategy mainly relies on specific scarabs and map selection. We need to use 5 Divination Scarabs of The Cloister to summon a large number of monster hordes in your map, each of which has a chance to drop a Stacked Deck, making this an efficient and scalable farming strategy.

Note that you will need some layers of defense and focus on nodes in your chosen map that can increase the size and number of monster hordes, and while it is also more dangerous, the rewards are easily worth it.

5. Strongboxes

Last but not least is Strongboxes farming. Strongboxes are a special kind of treasure chest on the map that will release hordes of monsters to attack the player. We must kill all the ambush monsters before this loot chest will open. Of course, defeating these spawned monsters will also drop loot and gain XP, so this is a good way to level up in addition to farming currency.

In Path of Exile 3.26, farming T17 Strongboxes is still one of the most effective ways to get high currency returns, but there are more cost-effective ways to do it in T16 maps. And to reduce costs, it is recommended that you avoid using Containment-Scarab unless you are rich.

Honestly, this strategy requires some critical thinking, as the price of Scarab in each league tends to greatly affect the market cost of this strategy.

In short, the above farming methods are enough to help you get rich quickly in POE 3.26. Although the farming process is relatively long, please believe that the final result is worth your effort!

There are 19 Ascendancy classes across 7 base classes in Path of Exile, which has been out for over a decade. Many skill gems and Ascendancy passives have been reworked or changed over the years, making some classes better at combat or farming than others.

Especially with the current 3.26 patch, which is the largest update to POE in nearly a year, it has made major changes and additions to many build options. After you’ve gone through your first Trial, you’ll be faced with choosing Ascendancy class that corresponds to your base class, which will allow you to focus more on or directly change your current play style.

This guide will introduce the best and worst Ascendancy classes in Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of the Atlas expansion, so that you can more easily build stronger builds around them, choose more effective passive skills, and make them synergize perfectly with your active skill gems.

Best

1. Elementalist For Witch

Whether in Path of Exile 1 or its controversial sequel, spell-based classes seem to be favored by developers, such as Witch and its reworked Elementalist Ascendancy.

In the current game content, Elementalist can summon two additional golems and have reduced mana consumption during the casting process, making it better able to achieve the goal of continuous combat.

In addition, the triggering mechanism of Shaper of Flames, Shaper of Winter, Shaper of Storms passive nodes of this Ascendancy class has been reworked: now they will trigger simultaneously when the corresponding conditions are met, so that enemies will be hit by three elemental types at once and quickly die under their excellent synergy.

2. Deadeye For Ranger

In the first few leagues, Deadeye has become a popular choice for offensive players due to its high movement speed and deadly damage ability. And this new expansion has not changed the attributes or statistics of this class, so it is still very useful.

Although Deadeye is not as strong in damage resistance as Berserker or Chieftain, you only need to invest a small amount of POE Currency in it to use its continuous attack ability to kill enemies before they enter your melee range and effectively farm a lot of loot.

If you look at its huge Ascendancy passive skill tree and don’t know where to start activating it, here I recommend you to focus on Elemental Hit of the Spectrum, which can fire a projectile that deals Fire, Cold, or Lightning damage, and also deals a certain amount of area damage on hitting an enemy.

3. Berserker For Marauder

Of course, there is also an optimal Ascendancy class for those players who want to rely on their own strong survival and defense capabilities to resist all attacks from monsters or bosses - Berserker.

Its main feature is that it accumulates Rage to increase the damage to the enemy and the movement speed. Typically, each point of rage increases damage by 1%, up to 30%. But you can use some Uniques, such as Kaom’s Primacy, to increase your Rage.

However, it should be reminded that Rage mechanism has a very obvious disadvantage: as the number of Rage stacking layers increases, the damage you receive from it will also increase.

If you normally equip some defensive gear such as armor or helmets, there is not much threat, but if you are really worried, you can spend some POE currency on upgrading them or gear that can increase your maximum health.

Worst

First of all, these worst Ascendancy classes don’t mean you can’t explore with them, but you need to spend twice as much time and effort on this build as other builds to make it stronger. So are you ready? Let’s get started!

1. Ascendant For Scion

In fact, Scion should have more build possibilities in previous game content, but because of its own complexity and developer neglect, it became a little transparent and even removed in POE 2.

Although the recent patch update has added higher mana retention efficiency for Ascendant, this is only effective for aura-stacking builds, which requires you to invest a lot of POE Divine Orbs in it to increase the buffs of auras with specific items, which is very expensive.

2. Assassin For Shadow

Similarly, Assassin, who originally focused on poison damage and critical strikes, has always been a favorite of players who are keen on challenges, but after Pathfinder remake, its weapons and the way specific damage interact have changed. And as the game content develops, Pathfinder also has poison damage.

This completely wiped out the advantages that Assassin had, and its defense ability is not as strong as other classes, especially in maps with Reflected Damage, it is completely like a piece of paper-cannot suffer a little damage.

3. Guardian For Templar

Before Chieftain appeared, Guardian has always been a healer class that supports life recovery, damage reduction and elemental resistance in teamwork. Now, Chieftain can not only do these, but also has considerable damage ability, which makes Guardian less visible to players.

Although POE 3.26 provides Guardian with an opportunity to generate a random shrine buff every ten seconds, its offensive and defensive capabilities are still not outstanding enough, unless the developers increase the chances of being blocked by Bastion of Hope and make it a noteworthy feature.

These are the best and worst Ascendancy classes you can choose and avoid in Path of Exile 3.26 Secrets of Atlas Expansion. Since POE is very concerned about build diversity, you are more than welcome to create a strong build that differs completely from the mainstream style during the exploration process. I wish you a happy game!

After entering the new Path of Exile league, in addition to getting familiar with all the new additions and changes, your first task is to earn enough POE currency and items to upgrade your character as soon as possible.

In Path of Exile series, the currency system includes multiple specific currency types with different functions. Among them, the more common ones include Divine Orb, Exalted Orb, Chaos Orb, etc., because in general, they can enhance your gear in a unique way.

For the entire POE 1, including 3.26 league, Divine Orb has a more friendly drop rate and effect, so it is also your key farming target. The maps in Atlas of Worlds are undoubtedly one of the best places for farming.

Based on this, we will introduce you to how to farm more Divine Orbs in these maps.

The Specific Role Of Divine Orb

As a high-value POE currency, Divine Orb plays a vital role in POE economic system, and most high-value transactions are also centered on it. Therefore, Divine Orbs are more suitable for exchanging other valuable equipment rather than consuming them directly.

Utilize Scarabs Properly

Atlas of Worlds’ map system is large and complex. Whether you want to unlock more maps or want maps to drop more Divine Orbs for you, you must carefully manage and arrange related props, such as scarabs.

A scarab is actually a map fragment that can enable or enhance additional content and masters, thereby enhancing various effects of non-unique maps. And most drop channels will provide you with this item.

There are many types of scarabs, and if you want to earn POE Divine Orbs by clearing maps, it is recommended that you utilize Divination Scarab of The Cloister and add the maximum number of available ones within the allowed range.

In fact, the higher the rarity of scarabs, the higher the monetary value you will eventually get. And you can unlock passive nodes such as Significant Troves and Skittering Swarm to get more scarab drops in battle.

Choose The Right Map

To increase the efficiency of the map dropping currency, it is recommended that you use a very small map while being close to all monster spawn points to increase the density of monsters spawning in Ritual, so that you can get more Divine Orbs in a short time.

At the same time, you should also try to ensure that the difficulty of the map you choose is not too high, because for the purpose of this guide, your goal is to earn specific currencies rather than challenge high-difficulty content, so there is no need to take a big risk.

There are currently 4 levels of Atlas maps in the game:

• Tiers 1 through 5, which are marked “White”.
• Tiers 6 through 10, which are marked “Yellow”.
• Tiers 11 through 16, which are marked “Red”.
• Tier 17, a special map tier.

Upgrade Your Gear In Time

As you know, the main currency types, including Divine Orbs, can be enhanced by adding/modifying modifiers to your gear, so that you can become more powerful to cope with more difficult maps.

Of course, you may be hesitant to do this because you don’t have enough currency, but if you are always too cautious and don’t invest in your gear, it will be difficult to earn more Divine Orbs through higher-level maps. Sometimes consumption is necessary.

Earn More Divination Cards

In Path of Exile, divination cards are items that can be collected and exchanged for other rewards. Different types of divination cards will drop at different stages of the game, and bring different rewards.

Or you can get stacked decks during exploration, which are a currency item that can provide you with a random divination card to help you complete the collection of a whole set of divination cards.

Only one divination card may not be very useful, but when you have a full set of divination cards, you can use it to exchange for specific items or currencies, such as Divine Orbs or weapons, but generally the exchange is highly random.

Not Just Any Player Can Utilize This Method

The whole Atlas of Worlds Divine Orbs farming strategy is all about scarab utilization, but one very annoying feature of scarab-spawned enemies on the map is that they form a melee shield around themselves.

On top of that, as the map level increases, these enemies will have stronger shields and more dangerous enemies. So you have to make sure your class and build are strong enough to handle this.

You can usually keep your distance from the enemy and wait until their melee shield breaks before killing them, or you can wait until the enemy is out of the melee shield and kill them in a safer way. In general, you need to adjust your combat strategy at any time based on your build.

In general, this Divine Orbs farming plan is suitable for players who are good and familiar with the specific mechanisms of Atlas of Worlds, divination cards, etc. If you think you meet the requirements, you might as well give it a try!

As always, a large number of new unique items have been added to POE 3.26 expansion, many of which are exclusive drops from the new Pinnacle Bosses. But we all know that the 3.26 Mercenaries of Trarthus league introduce a new mercenary mechanism. These mercenaries can not only be hired for our use, but also have the opportunity to drop unique equipment.

Here, we want to share the exclusive drop of Mercenaries under the new league mechanism, Azadi Crest. The drop location and method of this shield are restricted, and it is almost only equipped on mercenaries encountered in a specific area. You can loot them from them after winning a duel with a mercenary equipped with this item.

About Azadi Crest Modifiers

Azadi Crest is a pure evasion unique shield. This item is a bit of a surprise because it has a modifier we haven’t seen before in Path of Exile, Lucky and Unlucky modifier, which has three random values ​​instead of two, which has a major impact on those modifiers and their power.

But before we get into that, let’s take a quick look at the other modifiers on this shield and you’ll see that they have a very wide roll range, which is the core of this item.

It’s mainly based around RNG, so either 1 or 100 max life is pretty common in SC Trade League because it only takes one lucky hit to get it. But in the past, even if you invested a lot of POE Divine Orbs in this, you would only average out to about 50 max life.

Block Chance

There’s now some additional block chance on this shield.

I think most builds using this item will probably take advantage of Gladiator Ascendancy, but since its key node, More Than Skill, provides a flat 50% block chance and brings powerful bleed and explosion synergies, the extra block hit is meaningless in this case.

However, if you take More Than Skill and use Forbidden Flame and Forbidden Flesh jewels on another Duelist Ascendancy, or you just use shields on another class, you should have no problem getting a decent block chance again in Trade League.

But if you run in Solo Self-Found, you’ll get an average of 5% extra block chance, which is pretty ordinary and nothing to write home about.

Chance To Avoid Projectiles

Then, for its chance to avoid Projectiles modifier, it rolls from 1% to 10%. This modifier is actually very powerful.

Generally, Avoidance is divided into two types: hit type avoidance and damage type avoidance. Although they look very similar, they are calculated at different stages of the damage calculation.

If a hit is avoided, then that hit will not be counted towards the damage calculation, it is discarded completely and treated similarly to an evasion.

However, if damage is avoided, it is a form of damage mitigation, the attack still occurs even if all damage is avoided, the avoided damage is treated as blocked damage, similar to a blocked attack.

This modifier is the first type of avoidance. This will give you a chance to completely avoid any projectile that comes into contact with your character, and this happens before you block.

Lucky & Unlucky

Now, let’s look at the key modifier of this item, the Lucky or Unlucky effect, which uses the best or worst result of three rolls instead of two.

Lucky and Unlucky mechanic works by rolling three times and then choosing the best of those results as Lucky roll, or the worst of those results as Unlucky roll.

Lucky is a very powerful effect in itself, and some mechanics take advantage of this. For example, Lucky Block from Gladiator tends to be better than Spell Block.

When we are using Versatile Combatant, this will limit your Spell Block chance to 65%. However, Lucky Block will roll Block chance of any incoming attack twice and automatically choose the favorable result, so Spell Block chance is 65% after rolling, and Effective Block chance is 87.75%.

This is the normal rolling result, but when you have Azadi Crest equipped, it will be determined by rolling three times instead of two, and your Effective Block chance will be increased again from 87.75% to 95.71%!

This means that for a Gladiator with Azadi Crest, when blocking with Versatile Combatant, you have about a 96% chance of successfully blocking any incoming attack that is blockable. This is very powerful, especially for mapping.

Lucky Damage

But Azadi Crest doesn’t just apply this modifier to lucky blocks, it also applies it to any lucky or unlucky effects that exist on your character.

The most interesting of these are, of course the lucky damage characters, especially when you equip Perquil’s Toe on your mercenaries to get lucky damage.

But right now, lucky damage isn’t that useful unless you have a high damage roll range. However, we can also force a larger damage roll range by adding additional equipment, such as Volatility Support or Ryslatha’s Coil. And having a large roll range is where lucky damage really shines.

However, because many builds that use it in the current league are Gladiator, there seems to be a lot of controversy about whether lucky damage affects damaging ailments.

But this is essentially the same as double or triple damage not affecting damaging ailments, because they are just hit modifiers. In Path Of Exile, hits and damaging ailments caused by hits are two separate things that apply different modifiers to their results.

What Options Will Azadi Crest Synergize With?

Finally, let’s list some options that can be used with this shield and create powerful synergies.

• Spell Suppression Mastery gives you a lucky chance to suppress spell damage. This skill is useful if your build only has a small amount of suppression chance or you can’t reach the suppression chance cap in the early game.
• Viridi’s Veil is unique to Uber Maven. When you equip the magic ring, it will turn the damage caused by the enemy to you into misfortune. Therefore, when paired with Azadi Crest, its defense will be very strong.
• In addition, Vaal Grace will also apply misfortune damage rolls to suppressed spell hits.
• There is also Vaal Arc, which grants you a buff that makes normal Arc gain lucky damage rolls for a period of time.

The above is all about this unique shield Azadi Crest. Knowing how to use this unique lucky roll mechanic correctly will help your build dodge most of the damage in battle and gain better survivability. Perhaps, this will lead a build trend in the future, so try it out!