How to Choose Your Favourite Build at League Start in POE 3.20: Theory and Recommendations

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!