Path of Exile: Necropolis 3.24 - Atlas Strategies: Essence

It can be difficult to decide how you want to proceed at the endgame in Path of Exile. Depending on your build, and what type of gameplay you like, you will have a huge amount of choices to make. We’ll be looking at the Essence mechanic in this article, and gauging how easy it is to get into, how cheap it is to get started, and how much currency you can start making with a small investment.

How Does 'Essence' Work in Path of Exile?

In Path of Exile, monsters trapped in Essence Crystals can occasionally be encountered in most areas. Activating the center Essence Crystal three times will break the Crystals, freeing the trapped monsters. The Essence item can be obtained by killing these monsters, which are also enhanced by special monster modifiers on the Essence.

Path of Exile: How to Farm Essence

The ideal way to farm Essence in Path of Exile is to have a ‘% increased number of rare monsters’ rolled on your maps. This, paired with Essence Scarab of Calcification makes it so you have a lot more monsters trapped in Essence Crystals. You’ll also want to use an Essence Scarab of Stability, as it makes using a Remnant of Corruption in the area only have good outcomes.

Another good Scarab to use is the Scarab of Adversaries since it adds 4 additional packs with rare monsters. Last but not least, an Essence Scarab of Ascent upgrades all Essences found in the area by a tier. You can skip putting on additional modifiers through your map device. This strategy will cost you around 35 Chaos Orbs per map.

Path of Exile: Tips for Essence:

1. Some types of Essences only exist at higher tiers. This forms a progression in which more types of Essences become available in areas with higher monster levels.

2. Tier 6, Shrieking Essences can be obtained by upgrading lower tier Essences through the vendor recipe system or by corrupting tier 5 essences using a Remnant of Corruption.

3. Tier 7, Deafening Essences can be obtained by upgrading lower-tier Essences through the vendor recipe system.

4. Remnant of Corruption monsters have an aura that deals physical damage over time as well as slows your character.

5. Characters cannot leech life from the Remnant of Corruption monsters.

How to Set Up Your Atlas for Essence in Path of Exile

One of the best ways to set up your Atlas for Essence in Path of Exile is to grab most available Essence nodes. With the points left, you should go for lots of Scarab nodes and some increased effect of map modifiers. Make sure to avoid Crystal Resonance, as that makes corrupting Essences a lot worse.

Here is a good example of an Atlas set up for Essence by Empyriangaming, who’s been testing different league mechanics. If you want to see the results of farming 50 maps with the strategy, you can check out his video: