How Atlas Mechanics Generate Money Part 1 [Legion, Incursion, Essence, Harbinger and Ambush]

Legion Rewards

The main reason to do Legion encounters in maps is to get Splinters (, , , , ). When you stack 100 of the same splinter, they will become Emblems (, , , , ) that are then used to do Timeless Conflicts. Templar and Maraketh splinters and emblems are the rarest and therefore most expensive. Very rarely, the Legion bosses may also drop their unique items, which can only come from Legion.
All forms of Legion encounters will drop Incubators (, , ). Items which can be applied to the player's equipment, including corrupted and mirrored gear. The level on the Incubator is the Minimum level of monster you must kill for the kill to count towards completing the incubation process. When complete, a golden glow will appear around you and the item will drop under your feet. Running incubators even if you're not doing legion is a fairly consistent money-making strategy, and they do tend to sell as long as they are being sold in bulk. Some low-level incubators should be avoided like ones that grant equipment as their item level depends on the incubator level.

Timeless Conflict

The emblems in the Legion Rewards section are used to run Timeless Conflicts. These Timeless Conflicts are one of the best sources of experience in the game when done optimally.

The main reward is dropped exclusively from Legion bosses. Very rarely in maps and a lot more commonly in Timeless Conflicts. These are Timeless Jewels (, , , , ). These jewels, when socketed into the tree, have a circular area in which they modify all nodes in the area. This is decided by where the jewel is placed and what the numeric seed present on the jewel is. Due to reverse engineering discoveries of the seeds, we are now able to check which seeds do what using the Path of Building tool or the Vilsol Calculator. These desirable seeds are often listed on the ''The Forbidden Trove'' Discord server and can be sold for extremely high prices if you manage to get the correct seed on the jewel. Each jewel also has a person to that it is dedicated to. Each jewel type has a different pool of 3 names that roll alongside the seed. These names change what Keystones in the jewel's area are transformed to and may change the price of the jewel.

A single 4 Emblem run will also reward players with a 5th slot on the Map Device where more fragments can be inserted. This means that many people will want Emblems throughout the league, just for the 5th slot on their Map Device.

Because Timeless Conflicts are such good sources of experience that are fairly safe, many people choose them as a way to level to 100. Services are created for group levelling. If you are looking to partake in a levelling service, they are commonly run in parties of 6 where a single "carry" does all the clearing to allow everyone else in the party to leech experience and leave the loot to the "carry", alongside a price paid to the "carry". These services can be found by typing ''/trade 820'' in the in-game chat or on the ''The Forbidden Trove'' discord server.


If you are to either partake in this carry service or host one, it is highly recommended to level as exceptional gems (Enhance , Enlighten , Empower ) with 20% quality on them to recuperate costs for the service. You will be receiving a high amount of experience, and uncorrupted versions of them at Level 3 sell for a high price.


Timeless Conflicts can also exclusively drop upgraded versions of Emblems called Unrelenting Emblems (, , , , ) which make the Timeless Conflict more difficult and provides more rewards in return.

Atlas

Monumental increases the chance of Legion encounters spawning in your maps. Maps can have more than one Legion encounter so it is very simple and very good.

Emblematic is a very large portion of income as it has a chance, combined with a node leading up to it, to drop an Emblem instead of Splinter, this is rolled individually per splinter and can occur multiple times per drop.

Face Off increases the chance of spawning in Legion bosses, which are a good source of Splinters. It also means that both armies will have a Legion boss which is extra guaranteed profit.

War Supplies provide an extra War Hoard chest from Legion encounters. War Hoards drop many splinters and extra loot, these are overall very strong and worth picking up.

Chain of Command spawns an extra two Sargeants, rare monsters, and increases the chance of ALL Sargeants, not just those added by the node, to have extra rewards. Very strong as it both adds more monsters and rewards.

Protracted Battle may not be needed on every build. It allows builds that may lack clear speed or bossing damage to manage to clear Legion encounters fully. As you play you will be able to figure out if it is something you need or not.


The main thing to avoid if you're doing a traditional Splinter/Emblem farming strategy, which new players should do if they're doing Legion, is the three of the five nodes leading up to Emblematic . They give: ''Legion Encounters in your Maps have 100% increased chance to include an Eternal Empire/Karui army'' and "Legion Encounters in your Maps have 80% increased chance to include a Vaal army". You want to avoid them as these reduce your chance of getting Templar and Maraketh armies which drop the most expensive Splinters/Emblems.

Further Investment
Legion has Scarabs and you should make use of at least Rusted Scarabs as Rusted Scarabs guarantee a Legion Encounter while the tiers above grant more things in your Legions. Higher-tier Scarabs will add up as you add more Legions into a single map.

Legions also have Sextants.
One sextant adds an extra Legion Encounter to your maps.

The second Sextant grants ''Legion Monsters in your Maps have 100% more Life, Splinters and Emblems dropped by Legion Monsters in your Maps are duplicated'', which ends up being a large profit over a few maps and may not be apparent instantly. If you were to use this sextant you might end up wanting to use better Scarabs and using the extra Sextant, alongside the Map Device Legion Encounter if it is available during the current league.

Incursion Rewards
Incursion is a mechanic that is used for creating Temples of Atzoatl. An itemisable and tradable zone that allows players to double corrupt uncorrupted items and gems, create upgraded versions of Incursion items and is a source of strong mods used for crafting. It is also used as a supplementary way to spawn more monsters in maps. There are two ways to make money with Incursion temples.

The first way of making money revolves around creating and selling itemised versions of a Level 3 Corrupting Chamber, named Locus Of Corruption, which allows uncorrupted non-gem items to be corrupted twice, the only way to do so in the game on an item of your choosing.

It also involves creating a Level 3 Gem Corrupting Chamber, named Doryani's institute, which allows uncorrupted gems to be corrupted twice, which has the possibility of creating level 21 Vaal gems and level 21 gems with 23% quality and is the only way to do so in the game on an item of your choosing.

A single Chronicle may have both of these rooms at Level 3 and this will sell for a higher price than just an individual room would, but getting both is too common.

The rooms must be Level 3 to perform their corruption function.
Both of these chambers are expensive forms of gambling that see a steady amount of buyers as people push their builds to the extreme endpoint or gamble for content.

The second way of making money is running the temples yourself. Getting a Locus of Corruption or a Doryani's Institute is not guaranteed and sometimes you will have to choose the less desirable room options that can still make money if you are willing to run the Temple.

A room that is always present is the Apex of Atzoatl which contains the boss of the area. This boss has a wide variety of drops.
The most notable items are Tempered Jewels (, , ). String of Servitude, which can drop double corrupted in areas that are level 80+. One of 9 Vials, which are used to upgrade items that are dropped in Temples of Atzoatl. Will of Chaos, a rare fragment used to create an Ultimatum encounter.

Vault and its upgrades will provide chests full of currency and is a safe pick for mild currency drops.

There are special rooms that will drop either items with a special mod, known as Incursion Modifiers, which are used for crafting. At Level 3 they might drop a unique item that can only drop from that room, the unique items are later upgradable using The Apex of Ascension. If you end up getting only this room it is usually better to look up which item upgrade gives the best profit margin and upgrade the item yourself rather than selling the itemised Temple of Atzoatl.
The rooms that drop unique items are:
• Sanctum of Immortality
• Defence Research Laboratory
• Crucible of Flame
• Toxic Grove
• Conduit of Lightning
• Hybridisation Chamber
Tempest Generator and its upgrades will drop items with Incursion modifiers but do not have a unique item associated with them.

While mapping, if there are no desirable options for a room it is best to upgrade it as it can later be used for a desirable outcome with the Atlas node Contested Development.

A room can only appear once per map, so if you are looking for a specific room to upgrade you will want to STOP doing rooms in that map after finding the room you are trying to upgrade.[/u]

Atlas
Incursion has a few types of Atlas nodes and you may not need to grab all Incursion nodes to do a certain strategy.

Nodes that fit all purposes:

The Perpetual Search and Archeology Tour provide more Alva missions which mean you get to profit off of Atzoatl more.

Atlas Passives for Selling or Running Temples of Atzoatl:

Resource Reallocation makes upgrading rooms easier and is very good for getting desired rooms more consistently.
Contested Development allows desirable rooms that pop up late in the temple cycle a viable option as they add the levels of the room that already was there to the level of the new room you are switching to.

Atlas Passives for Using Temples of Atzoatl for extra monsters in maps include:
Time Dilation has a chance to make all normal-tier monsters into magic-tier monsters, greatly increasing the loot they drop. It also doubles the time you gain from killing monsters in Incursion encounters and is generally good for slower builds and builds that add a lot of content like Delirium or Beyond to their maps.

Atlas Passives for Nothing Specific:

Vaal Oligarchs spawns a unique monster in every single Incursion encounter, 3 per map in total when the node is allocated, and these unique monsters will drop stacks of currency. This currency ranges widely and is most commonly cheap currency but it is possible to get very lucky. It can be picked up if there are points to be spared and your pathing takes you near there but otherwise, it is not worth going out of your way for.
Artefacts of the Vaal has seen use before during Sentinel League but it is hardly desirable as outside of special circumstance leagues these items are fairly abundant and usually do not have a high market value.

Further Investment
Incursion does not have any scarabs.
Incursion has one Sextant that adds Alva to your maps. This sextant is an option if you are low on Alva missions but does not add anything beyond that.

Essence Rewards
In addition to traditional loot, Essence monsters drop crafting currency items called "Essences" of varying tiers and types. These are easy-to-use crafting items that still have purposes in late-game crafting as they guarantee a single modifier. In ascending order they are:
Whispering < Muttering < Weeping <Wailing < Screaming < Shrieking < Deafening .

The list of Essences can be found on The Wiki.

Screaming Essences are the highest tier of Essence that can appear naturally and they can appear at any map tier. Because of this Essence is a very strong early League mechanic to pick. It is early on the Atlas Tree, Essence is Map Tier independent, and very desirable early on and even later on through the league for crafting.

You can vendor 3 of the same lower-tier Essence to upgrade to a single higher-tier Essence.

Remnants of Corruption
Remnants of Corruption are a special Essence currency that is not used for crafting but rather used on uncorrupted Essence Monsters in maps to get special rewards. They have multiple desirable and undesirable outcomes.
These outcomes are:
• The Essences are not modified and the monster is released with improved stats
• All imprisoned Essences are upgraded by a single tier (Example: is upgraded to )
• An Extra Essence is added to the imprisoned Essence
• Essences are transformed to other essences of a higher tier group randomly, this means all tiers of Essences of Scorn , Envy , Misery and Dread can be transformed to the most desirable and lucrative Essences which are Essences of Insanity , Horror , Delirium and Hysteria . These Corrupted Essences can only be obtained with Remnants of Corruption and getting the transformation outcome. They provide very powerful and unique crafting options.

You should avoid using Remnants of Corruption on Essences lower than Screaming as the most profitable outcomes come from Screaming and above-tier Essences. You should always have a stack of 9 Remnants of Corruption in your inventory.

Why do people Want Essences?/Crafting With Essences
• Essences guarantee a single mod that is stated on the Essence and these mods can be as good as the highest tier of modifier than can appear on items.
• Essences can add modifiers to an item that they normally cannot have. For example, Bows, normally, cannot have ''#% increased Spell Damage'', but Essences of Woe can bypass this boundary.
• Essences can be used on Influenced gear.
• Essences up to and including the Wailing tier can only be used on Normal (White named) items while Essences starting at and above the Screaming tier can be used on both Normal (White named) and Rare (Yellow Named) items.

These are used by new and experienced players alike as they guarantee good modifiers, where a new player can create an item with two highly desirable high-tier modifiers and finish off with a bench craft while experienced players may use these to create unique gear like Cast on Critical bows or create items that will later be used for crafting with other systems.

Atlas Tree
Prolific Essence is one of the first nodes on the tree and it provides a guaranteed Essence spawn per map. If you are going to make money through essences it is a no-brainer choice. The interesting part about Prolific Essence are the small nodes surrounding it. These have a 25% chance, stacking up to a 100% chance with all 4 of the small nodes allocated, to apply a random Essence to an item they drop. This ends up being strongest at higher tiers of maps and can create fairly uncommon items that might have a niche value and have a high chance of creating mid-tier jewellery or good jewellery for builds that use Omniscience (Rings with 3 Attribute suffixes).

Crystal Lattice is a node that has a varying pick rate on a league-to-league basis and it depends on the challenges present during the league. Getting an Essence within maps with 8 Essences is fairly uncommon, and only possible with this node. People trying to complete challenges will purchase the ability to unlock and kill an 8 Essence monster so they do not have to hunt it themselves, so it is worthwhile to check League Challenges when you are doing Essences to possibly sell this opportunity for a high price on The Forbidden Trove discord server or on the Trade/Global chats accessible by typing in "/trade 820'' and ''global 820''. Otherwise, Lattice is not worth pathing for unless you are in the area.

Crystal Resonance is the most important Atlas Passive to pick up if you are trying to make a profit off of Essence. It has two major parts. First, it removes one of four possible outcomes when using a Remnant of Corruption, this means you are more likely to get the good outcomes you want to see. Second, it almost duplicates your income as it spawns a copy of the Essence monster if they have a high enough tier of Essence imprisoned. Both monsters will have the same Essences, which doubles your Essence drops. This includes the special Essences only found by using Remnants of Corruption on imprisoned Essences.

Amplified Energies is the second most important Atlas Passive to pick up if you are trying to make a profit off of Essence. With this node, you are capable of spawning Shrieking tier Essences without using a Remnant of Corruption and it is the only way you can get Deafening tier Essences from imprisoned Essences. It synergises with Crystal Resonance and allows for very common Essence duplication.

Further Investment
Essence has no scarabs.

Essence has a single Sextant . The Sextant provides ''Your Maps contain an additional Essence'' and ''Monsters Imprisoned by Essences have a 50% chance to contain a Remnant of Corruption''. However, this is not very desirable to use as Essences with Remnants are Corrupted meaning Remnants of Corruption cannot be applied to them, meaning you are possibly missing out on upgrading and profiting off of these essences. It might be worth running this early on just to sell Remnants of Corruption at a high price.

Stream of Consciousness , an Atlas Keystone can be very strong when combined with Essences as there are no fragments that assist Essences so your best option is the volume of Essences in maps, which Stream of Consciousness provides.

Selling Essences
As with all things in the game, it is best to sell in Bulk because convenience increases the price, but it is even more true with Essences. You may be able to get double or even triple profit for Essences with a high enough supply. Most people will want higher tier Essences starting at Screaming but may buy cheaper ones. To check bulk prices compared to the normal ones, you can use the miscellaneous filter "Stack Size" on the PoE-trading site to see what other players selling large quantities of your essences list them for. The Forbidden Trove discord server has a Bulk Essence Selling Channel. Using a tool provided on Discord, you can list ALL tiers of Essences and find a buyer.

Harbinger Rewards
Harbinger is a very consistent money maker that is a steady supply of raw currency drops that gain value later on into leagues.
Harbinger is map-tier independent so it is a solid choice just starting off maps. It is one of the simplest League mechanics that exists but is also a steady supply of currency. When killed, Harbingers drop many stacks of currency shards, these shards can be stacked up to 20 to combine into a full and usable currency orb. These shards are:
• Ancient Shards that make up Ancient Orbs . This is one of the two staple high-value currencies that will drop from Harbinger. It is used to reroll Unique items into other Unique items of the same item type, mostly used on belts. This is a gambling method that does not see use until further into the league.
• Annulment Shards that make up Annulment Orbs . This is the other staple high-value currency drop from Harbinger. It is used to remove a random modifier from a magic or rare item. These have value earlier into leagues but reach a higher price in the first week as people start crafting gear.
• Binding Shards that make up Orbs of Binding . These are fairly low-use currency that works like Alchemy Orbs but also 4-link items. If the item has no links it will function identically to an Alchemy Orb and can be used on most things an Alchemy Orb can be used on, like Maps. These orbs rarely sell and most likely will remain in your stash.
• Chaos Shards that make up Chaos Orbs . Chances are you know what Chaos Orbs are and what their value is. Harbingers drop these consistently.
• Engineer's Shards that make up Engineer's Orbs . These orbs are used to increase the quality of Strongboxes. They hardly sell but are used on Arcanist Strongboxes and Diviner's Strongboxes, chances are you will be using them yourself instead of selling them or not even picking them up.
• Exalted Shards that make up Exalted Orbs . These orbs are used to add an Affix to an item. They are used commonly but are not too common as drops. They have decent value but you will see fewer of the compared to the two staple orbs.
• Harbinger Shard that make up Harbinger Orbs . These orbs are used to upgrade tiers of maps. However, there is a ~15% chance of the map becoming a Tier 5, 10 or 15 Beachhead Unique Map. Which tier the map will become depends on the tier of the map it is used on. You can either sell the orbs or use them depending on if you want to gamble or do the Beachhead maps yourself.
• Horizon Shard that make up Horizon Orbs . These orbs are used to reroll a map to another in the same naturally occurring tier. This means they are without any Watchstones inserted. These orbs have some value early on as people try to go for Atlas completion and these orbs are cheaper on average than just buying maps. Later on, they are used to reroll maps with Conqueror and Elder influences as well as used to reroll Shaper guardian maps. They retain some value at all times and will sell.
• Regal Shard that make up Regal Orbs . These orbs are used to add a modifier to a magic item and make it rare in the process. Used very commonly for many forms of crafting, used in high volume and will retain a decent price.
• Mirror Shard that make up Mirrors of Kalandra . To be honest, you're most likely never going to see this. It is one of the rarest items in the game. If you are ever lucky enough to see it, you hit it big.

Beachheads
Beachheads are unique maps that are obtained by using Harbinger Orbs on maps. You can get 3 tiers of maps by using Harbinger Orbs. Tier 5 , Tier 10 , Tier 15 . They will have similar prices as the tiers do not change the currency drops, which are the primary wealth generator from Harbinger, but maps dropped in these will correspond to the map tier of the Beachhead. However, only the Tier 15 ones are able to drop Infused Beachheads , a Tier 16 version of the Beachhead.

The Non-Infused Beachheads will contain an equal amount of harbingers, independent of the tier, in a circular map layout. At the opposite side of where the map starts there will be an entrance that will start a Harbinger boss encounter. When the encounter finishes the player is rewarded with a large amount of currency shard drops and a unique Harbinger Item Fragment.
The Harbinger Item Fragments that drop depend on the tier of the Beachhead.
Tier 5 Beachheads can drop fragments for The Rippling Thoughts and Flow Untethered .
Tier 10 Beachheads can drop fragments from items obtained in Tier 5 Beachheads and additionally drop fragments for Enmity Divine and The Fracturing Spinner .
Tier 15 Beachheads can drop fragments for items obtained in both Tier 5 and Tier 10 Beachheads and additionally drop fragments for The Unshattered Will and The Tempest's Binding . Infused Beachheads may drop here too which is an upgraded version of regular Beachheads. These beachheads provide decent XP and are not too threatening.
Tier 16 Infused Beachheads will spawn a lot more harbingers and these are sometimes used for XP farming due to how many monsters there are in the Tier 16 map. Instead of dropping fragments, the encounter instead will drop one of many Scrolls (, , , , , ) that are used to upgrade Harbinger items to a stronger version.

Atlas Tree
Ominous Arrival simply adds a Harbinger to your maps. Very simple, and very worthwhile.
First Wave has a 25% chance to transform a Harbinger to a Harbinger boss. Harbinger map bosses spawn more monsters and drop more shards. This may happen to multiple Harbingers in one map.
Unspeakable Offence is the most important Atlas Passive to pick up if you are looking to profit off of Harbinger. It has two parts to it which are both important for currency per hour. First, it makes Harbingers spawn monsters faster meaning you can finish encounters faster and make more money per hour overall. Second, it gives a chance for a stack of currency shards dropped by the Harbinger to be transformed into a full currency orb. It happens fairly frequently. Because of both of these aspects, the node is a must-have.


Further Investment
Harbinger has Scarabs which add more Harbingers to maps. Try to make use of the best tier of Scarab you can afford.

Harbingers have a Sextant . This Sextant provides ''Map Bosses are accompanied by a mysterious Harbinger'', ''Map Bosses drop additional Currency Shards'' and ''Harbingers in your Maps drop additional Currency Shards''. Because of this Sextant, it is actually desirable to run maps that have multiple bosses in them, such as Precinct or City Square Maps as each boss will drop extra shards which add up but they will not be able to drop a full currency orb from Unspeakable Offence. You should have this Sextant on at all times while doing harbinger, even if not running a map with multiple bosses as they add a Harbinger and more currency drops.

Ambush Rewards
You can find a quick Cheat Sheet here.

Ambush, more commonly known as Strongboxes, is an interactable device that can be modified with currency and drops differing loot depending on what kind of Strongbox it is. They can be Chanced into unique Strongboxes using Orbs of Chance . Strongboxes have a unique currency associated with them called The Engineer's Orb that increases the quantity of items in Strongboxes. These Strongboxes and how to roll them:

• Arcanist's Strongbox. This Strongbox's rewards are currency .
You want to use Orbs of Transmutation , Orbs of Augmentation , Orbs of Alteration and Engineer's Orbs .
Your goal is to get ''Contains X to Y additional items'' or ''X% to Y% increased Quantity of Contained Items.''.

• Armourer's Strongboxes. This Strongbox's rewards are armour .
It is a common source of 6-linked corrupted gear that can be vendored for 20 Orbs of Fusing . Using Orbs of Transmutation , Orbs of Augmentation , Orbs of Alteration and Engineer's Orbs you want to get ''Contains X to Y additional items'' or ''Contains Mirrored Items'' and then use a Vaal Orb on the Strongbox to drop corrupted items. Doing so can generate 6-linked corrupted items, which is the only consistent and profitable drop you may see from these.

• Artisan's Strongbox.
This Strongbox's rewards are Quality Currency . Because the good rewards from this Strongbox are rare it is usually not worth aiming for anything and just using an Orb of Alchemy to make the Strongbox rare.

• Blacksmith's Strongbox.
This Strongbox's rewards are Weapons . It is similar to an Armourer's Strongbox and can drop 6-linked corrupted items. These 6-linked corrupted items are vendored for 20 Orbs of Fusing . Using Orbs of Transmutation , Orbs of Augmentation , Orbs of Alteration and Engineer's Orbs you want to get ''Contains X to Y additional items'' or ''Contains Mirrored Items'' and then use a Vaal Orb on the Strongbox to drop corrupted items. Doing so can generate 6-linked corrupted items, which is the only consistent and profitable drop you may see from these.

• Cartographer's Strongboxes.
This Strongbox's rewards are Maps . The maps dropped from these depend on the area level you are in and the chest level. Using either Orbs of Transmutation , Orbs of Augmentation , Orbs of Alteration or Orbs of Alchemy , Orbs of Scouring , Chaos Orbs and Engineer's Orbs in Tier 13 (Area level 79) and above Areas you are able to get ''+2-3 Chest Level'', which will increase the tiers of the maps dropped to Tier 15-16 maps, which may include Influenced Maps. If you were to make the chest rare, it may also get the desirable outcome of ''+2-3 Chest Level'' and ''Contains # additional items'' or ''#% increased Quantity of Contained Items''.

• Diviner's Strongboxes.
This Strongbox's rewards are Divination Cards . These Strongboxes are rare and may grant extremely good rewards. The Divination Cards dropped from here are selected randomly and ignore area restrictions. Using Orbs of Alchemy , Orbs of Scouring , Chaos Orbs and Engineer's Orbs you want to see a combination of at least two of these mods:
''Contains # additional Items'',
''#% increased Quantity of Contained Items'',
''Contains additional Divination Cards that give Corrupted Items'',
''Contains additional Divination Cards that give Currency'' or
''Contains additional Divination Cards that give Unique Items ''.

• Gemcutter's Strongboxes.
This Strongbox's rewards are Gems . The best loot you will be able to get from these are Gemcutter's Prisms and gems with Quality on them, therefore they are not really worth considering. Because the good rewards from this Strongbox are rare it is usually not worth aiming for anything and just using an Orb of Alchemy to make the Strongbox rare. Gems with 20% Quality or a combination of 40% quality between any amount of gems can be vendored for a Gemcutter's Prism . This is worth picking up and doing early on as Gemcutters are somewhat rare and sell fairly well at all points of a League.

• Jeweller's Strongboxes.
This Strongbox's rewards are Jewellery . The only good rewards that may come from these strongboxes are high-item-level Jewellery, which is uncommon, so it is advisable to just make the item rare using an Orb of Alchemy and moving on.

• Large/Ornate/Regular Strongboxes.
These Strongboxes drop random items. Large Strongboxes have a higher quantity modifier. Ornate Strongboxes have a higher quantity modifier. At best, they are only worth making rare using an Orb of Alchemy and moving on.

• Operative's Strongboxes.
This Strongbox's rewards are Scarabs and can only appear if you have Secret Operations allocated on the Atlas tree. White Maps can only drop Rusted Scarabs (). Yellow Maps can drop Rusted Scarabs and Polished Scarabs (, ). Red maps can drop Rusted, Polished, Gilded and Winged Scarabs (, , , ). Using Orbs of Alchemy , Orbs of Scouring , Chaos Orbs and Engineer's Orbs you want to see a combination of ''#% increased Quantity of Contained Items'' and ''Contains # additional Rusted/Polished/Gilded'', depending on which area level you are in. The modifier ''All contained Scarabs are the same type'' can be beneficial as some Scarabs cost a lot more than others, but in the end, it is a gamble.

The safest bet in Red Maps for Operative's Strongboxes is to use Orbs of Transmutation , Orbs of Augmentation , Orbs of Alteration to get ''Contains 1 additional Winged Scarab''. The chance of rolling this mod with these is 1/72 for the suffix and rolling for this mod with more expensive currency may result in a loss of money.


Atlas Tree

Twice Tempted adds a Strongbox to your maps. The small nodes surrounding it can give up to a 60% chance to spawn an extra pack of monsters when interacted with. This can be very desirable when combined with a Sextant.

Secret Operations has a 6% to transform a Strongbox into an Operative's Strongbox. These drop Scarabs, and are a very consistent source of income. The nodes between it and Tamper-Proof give up to a 6% chance to make Strongboxes activatable again. This can happen multiple times per Strongbox.

Tamper-Proof makes all your Strongboxes in maps rare and corrupted. This means they are faster to interact with but are no longer modifiable with currency. Your mileage will depend on the speed at which you are going and what you choose to invest in alongside Strongboxes. I highly recommend that new players interact with mechanics and gouge if they are worth interacting with or not.

Backup Cache will duplicate the currency dropped from all Strongboxes. This a very good option and the nodes leading up to the notable give a higher chance to spawn Arcanist's Strongboxes which is very desirable.

Vault of Mysteries will duplicate the Divination Cards dropped from all Strongboxes. The nodes leading up to the notable give a higher chance to spawn Diviner's Strongboxes which is also very desirable.

Concealed Logistics will duplicate the Maps dropped from all Strongboxes. Unlike the other two options, this is not worth picking up as maps do not have high value and the nodes leading up to this Notable conflict with the chances of maximising the spawns of Arcanist's and Diviner's Strongboxes.

Further Investment
Ambush has Scarabs that spawn more Strongboxes into your maps. They are very often used for medium investment strategies and even the cheaper ones may cost above the average amount of other scarabs.

Ambush has two Sextant modifiers.

One sextant provides ''Your Maps contain # additional Strongboxes'', ''Strongboxes in your Maps are Corrupted'' and ''
Strongboxes in your Maps are at least Rare'', working the same way Tamper-Proof does and adding extra Strongboxes to the map.

The second Sextant modifier provides ''Strongbox Monsters are Enraged'', ''Strongbox Monsters have #00% increased Item Quantity'' and ''Your Maps contain an additional Strongbox''. This Sextant is the reason mid-late game farming uses Ambush. Strongbox spawns a lot of monsters and gives the monsters spawned through opening the Strongbox a large increase to Quantity which means they will drop a whole lot more items. This is primarily useful for Divination Card and Currency drops and a lot of Divination Cards are generated from these monsters. The nodes around Twice Tempted give the Scarab investment extra mileage. If you are to use this Sextant to farm Divination Cards I highly advise avoiding cards like ''Apothecary'' and ''The Doctor'' as they are very rare. Cards like ''The Patient'', ''Home'' and others are far more common and consistent.