Phrecia is fun but atlas is better than idols for casuals

I work full time can play 2-3 hours in the evening. The map atlas tree doesn’t gate-keep farming methods behind expensive idols. Anyone can grind their atlas and get the points. Idols simply gate-keep people’s ability to farm good currency because good idols are pricey. Without good idols it’s hard to o make good long term consistent currency. Might be done until new league need dopamine not irritation lol

I feel like you actually get more power early on from the idols. Not certain of this and there is RNG involved, but the atlas tree feels pretty slow to begin with. On my current character i've only done 10 maps, but I have a full board of idols and feels like I have way more benefits than I would have off the first 10 atlas passives.

Understand that this is at the cost of being able to plan out where the atlas tree is going, and if I now want to target farm something in the next 30 maps it will be more difficult.

I like the atlas too, its certainly more user friendly than all the idol items, but I think the idol system is working ok for an interesting change this event. It would be pretty bland if they just did the ascendancies without the idols I think. There's not a lot else to do without a full league to interact with.