Low Level Incursion guide

Do not EVER "search" or expect a stone passage key drop. do not plan your temple around the key dropping.

always go for upgrading rooms if they're already connected to the entrance and will be available in the temple.
if you are in a room that isn't connected then ignore all architects and just kill mobs ***STARTING from as far away from the door you want to open as possible, and work/clear mobs towards it - if you luckily get a key then try to open a door.

reason why i say this is because keys seem to be pretty random, but more on the rare side. especially with how the spawns and mob packs are situated throughout the incursion, you just do NOT have enough time to search for them then make it back to the appropriate door.

So if you do need to connect a room, always go to the opposite end of the incursion and start clearing towards the room you want to open. this way you maximize the amount of mobs you can kill and potentially get a key drop from on your way to the door.
a good number of times i've wanted to open a specific door so i go there in order to kill all mobs surrounding it without any key drop, then i have to work my way away from the door. then even if i do get a key drop, there is no time left to run back to the door i need to open.

but keys in general are not consistent enough to rely on them. so - again for LOW LEVEL - focus on just upgrading rooms that are already attached and if you get lucky enough within a couple incursions through your 11 you can connect a couple more rooms.

Thank you..

So far for me, the temple has been nothing but frustration. Out of 10 incursions, I have only lived long enough to kill the architect once, found two keys, never made it out of the starting room & have received nothing more than the usual white & ridiculously weak blue items that make up the bulk of loot I always seem to get. Even with the keys, I couldn't open any doors.

The timer makes it so I can't even enjoy the temple. Who has time to look at it? You are bum-rushed immediately & you have to fight through whole packs just to earn one more second. So far for me, the timer counts down far faster than I could hope to replenish it.

Your first two or three temples are going to be pretty much what ever you can get out of them. Your character isn't strong enough yet to really run them with some strategy. Just run them and hope. Level up some. Kill some stuff.

Don't expect perfection on the first 20 tries... nor the next 20. But you'll get the hang of it.

A two-person party can make things easier.

If you're in a party, Alva will "belong" to one or the other of the two party members. Since the stone passage keys only drop for the incursion owner, the owner should concentrate on killing the mobs to get the key (as described in the OP) and open the desired passage. The other party member concentrates on taking out the appropriate architect.

Seems to have worked out pretty well the few times I've done it that way.

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XiliX wrote:

So far for me, the temple has been nothing but frustration. Out of 10 incursions, I have only lived long enough to kill the architect once, found two keys, never made it out of the starting room & have received nothing more than the usual white & ridiculously weak blue items that make up the bulk of loot I always seem to get. Even with the keys, I couldn't open any doors.

The timer makes it so I can't even enjoy the temple. Who has time to look at it? You are bum-rushed immediately & you have to fight through whole packs just to earn one more second. So far for me, the timer counts down far faster than I could hope to replenish it.

Just to clarify a bit: You are aware there are basically two phases to the Temple, correct? A single room in the Past that Alva can send you to, and the full temple in the Present that Alva will explore with you as an assist (with an AoE MagicFind buff, no less).

Individual rooms in the past have you under a timer. As the OP states, you need to go in with a plan and be ready to rock and roll the second you hit the portal. You do not have time to screw around, and it seems that the closer you get to locating the temple in the Present, the less time you have to mess around in the past. The OP's advice is solid - if you don't need to link a room, bumrush the Architect of your choice and clear out to any doors you think you might want to open on the off-chance you get a key. Movement skills and Quicksilvers are intregal. If there IS a room you want to link to, you might want to leave the Architects alone and work your way around that way killing as many mobs as you can. When you get the key, spam movement/Quicksilvers and go ham. Kill as you move, save at least one charge for the end.

When you clear 12 Incursions in the past, you immediately get the option on the spot to go to the Temple in the present. This is just a huge Map scaled to a level averaged out from the levels of each Incursion you did (based on the level of the zone you did that Incursion in). You have no time limit, but you have 6 portals the same as any other map. There will be a button above your Skill bar that tells you what room you're in once you get to the temple itself. Take all the time you need, be safe, pull/kite things, etc. Your only limit is portals.

Early on while leveling, you just want to work on a methodology for how to tackle the temple and to get an idea of what rooms you do NOT want to spawn (and which ones you do). Don't worry about making mega progress, and don't get discouraged if you don't meet a goal. You get twelve shots, and this is practice for the endgame versions where the loot might actually matter.

Or you can just skip them entirely - that's a valid strategy if you don't think you have the time or patience to deal with it at the moment (like when you're close to a boss with the final temple looming; catch Alva on the next pass and push progression instead). You're not required to talk to her until you want to.

This is good. Thanks. So when you start an incursion, are you always in the room in question and not in the entrance room?

what exactly is required to upgrade a room?

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ChanBalam wrote:

This is good. Thanks. So when you start an incursion, are you always in the room in question and not in the entrance room?

When You meet Alva she opens temple map and room that is currently "on workshop" is in this golden like frame.

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ChanBalam wrote:

This is good. Thanks. So when you start an incursion, are you always in the room in question and not in the entrance room?

You are always in the room that Alva has designated, yes.

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FrodoFraggins wrote:

what exactly is required to upgrade a room?

When Alva offers you the option to teleport, she'll show you a) the room and b) the 'rough' layout of the room. On that screen, you can see what direction from the center of the room every Architect and every Door that is in that room. You can also see the state of the doors (open/closed).

Every room has two architects, on opposite sides of the room (left and right for simplicity's sake). Except for empty rooms (Pit, Cellar, Tombs, etc. - Rooms that provide no modifiers themselves), every room will contain both a lead architect and a rival architect. Killing the lead architect (marked by crossing arrows) will change the layout of the room as their current rival gets control. Killing their rival (marked by the upward pointing triangle) will allow the lead architect to improve the room (upgrading it a tier). Empty rooms have two competing architects - whoever lives changes the room to suit their whims. If you do not kill an architect at all, they stalemate and no change occurs.

TLDR - Upward triangle mark on the map denotes the architect you need to kill to upgrade the room to the next tier.

(ADDENDUM: You are not always teleported into the center of the room. You can very quickly guesstimate your position by checking the minimap, however, and getting into the habit of doing so is very helpful to let you know which direction you need to move. Architects and doors are ALSO marked on your minimap with the same icons.)