Good Morning Folks. It’s been a bit of a weird league so far. I am slowly beginning to push down into Delve and going through the “breaking the depths” process that I ultimately do every league. There is this back and forth as you collect Azurite to spend on buffs… to go deeper… to get more Azurite… to spend more on buffs. My main Atlas tree is largely designed around trying to make sure I have Niko and Breach in every single map, in addition to having a bunch of map drops in order to sustain my forward momentum. This works pretty great, and I am focused largely on Unstable Breach since you can have more than one of them in a single map, instead of Hives, where you seem to only get the one. This is in large part to keep funding my building out of Delve and, at the same time, get me access to some of the nifty Foulborn Uniques. I’m also trying to slowly perfect my regeneration gloves that I am using the tree to craft.
The biggest problem that I am having with Delve is that it is a bit of a poverty league for me, and all of my normal instincts are busted. Traditionally, the bulk of your reliable currency from Delve comes in the form of selling Resonators. These can be found in the darkness and also purchased from Niko directly. However, something weird has happened, and it is different from what I thought would be the case. They removed Fossils from all of the league content except for Delve, and as a result, this has greatly lowered the demand for Resonators. I thought this might cause the price of Resonators to spike, but instead it turned Fossils into the expensive component of these crafts. Instead of going for the crates, I find myself targeting Fossil and Elemental nodes specifically because they tend to pay out the most Fossil drops. Maybe this all changes in a few weeks as we get into the late league economy, because usually delve merch spikes at some point. For the moment, I am holding onto every single Resonator that I have in the hopes that maybe the market flips. This, unfortunately, does not give me a lot of liquid currency to throw around on upgrades as I would normally have at this point.
I am still making upgrades, but they are just a bit more meager than they would normally be because I don’t have much in the way of divines to leverage. The biggest upgrade from yesterday is that I picked up a six-link cloak of flames, which allowed me to fully build out my Righteous Fire Links. I also made another attempt at a six-link helm and had to settle once again when I ran out of Essences, but did end up with a slightly better helm as a result. I also moved into the block-based setup with an absolute “settle” shield, which only has 3% life on block but does have +1 totems, which might be useful if I ever try the whole Searing Bond of Detonation structure at some point. I also picked up Annihilation’s Approach, which allowed me to swap over to Purity of Flames, and I picked up a cheap Nebulis, which I will hopefully upgrade at some point.
So the biggest improvement for my build overall is that thanks to the +2 aura gems on the boots, and +2 from a jewel on my tree… I have been able to hit 90% elemental resistance, which is a significant survival break point. Next up, as I hit the next few levels, is to go for the 6 Life Mastery bonuses, which should be a good chunk of life gained. The +2 gem levels on my boots have removed my reliance on an amulet to get +levels, so that I will hopefully be using the amulet and both rings to fix my chaos resistance problem. At some point, I would love to be able to solve my Chaos Resistance with just my ring slots and pick up a Defiance of Destiny for more tankyness, because it has been a few leagues since I have used one of those. The two biggest problems with my build at the moment are the fact that I have negative Chaos Resistance, and that I have not done anything to start adding on Endurance Charges, nor do I have the Amulet Anoint to gain them.
Before I can do anything about any of this, however, I really need to solve my cash flow problems. For the moment, I am making tiny bits of currency by selling random stuff. It is wild how well decent shield bases seem to sell, but my guess here is that people are using these as part of recombination nonsense. Initially, I would think these were being shifted to Shaper influence somehow and then turned into life on block shield projects, but I am not sure if that is currently cost-effective. I think the core problem is that I am just not far enough into league progression to start making reasonable currency. I think as I get down to t16 maps, and some voidstones, a lot of this is going to resolve itself. For the moment, I am trying ot build out as functional a character as I can with the resources I have access to.
Last night I finished up Tier 9 maps, and will be starting Tier 10s. I am spiraling out, finishing a tier at a time and then doing various witness and influence maps as I get access to them. The only problem with Mirages is that, effectively, you are doing two maps, so they take almost twice as long to complete. I’ve built out a second tree with focuses on Einhar, Ritual, and Beyond, and am going to start trying to farm some of the high-dollar items from each of those leagues. Mostly, I am in that place where I just need a lot more Atlas points to be able to do anything effectively. All of this just requires time spent in-game, and by this weekend, I should be in a pretty decent spot. Mirage is just a mechanic that takes longer than normal.
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