Delve League Mechanics Path of Exile

Introduction to Delve League

Delve League was introduced into Path of Exile in 3.4, it introduced the NPC “Niko, Master of the Depths” along with a whole new endgame for POE, delving. Delve introduced a new dungeon called The Azurite Mine, this mine scales infinitely, granting greater rewards the further you delve whilst also substantially increasing the difficulty, Delve can be so rewarding that many players choose to focus on it rather than the Atlas itself.

The Basics of Delve

Sulphite and Azurite

In delving you will need to find Sulphite and Azurite, but what do they do? Sulphite is essentially your minecarts fuel, if you do not have any Sulphite you cannot delve, Sulphite can be found inside maps containing Niko, you can also use Sulphite Scarabs on maps to gain increased amounts of Sulphite than you’d usually get from a normal Niko mission.
Azurite is the currency you farm to upgrade your mine to take you to even further depths, it can also be used to buy resonators that you can craft items with, Azurite can predominately be found in nodes marked with “Azurite Cavity”, there are also veins you can open along paths when you’re delving that will give you small amounts of Azurite.

Dynamite & Flares

When you’re inside the mine you will have dynamite and flares that you can drop on the floor to help you. Flares will save you from the darkness damage for a brief period of time, they can be used when you’re searching the crevices around the mine cart.
Dynamite is used to destroy fractured walls to find hidden loot or hidden nodes, they can be used to damage enemies but you shouldn’t use them this way.

Upgrading your Azurite Mine

As you descend further into the mine you will need to upgrade certain things using your Azurite, usually, the first thing you’ll want to upgrade will be Sulphite capacity so you can do multiple maps with Niko missions before reaching your cap, the cost of upgrades will increase every time you make one.



Here’s a list of upgrades you should probably make in order:

1. Sulphite Capacity
2. Light Radius
3. Flare Maximum Quantity
4. Flare Light Radius
5. Darkness Resistance
6. Flare Duration
7. Dynamite Maximum Quantity
   

You don’t really need to upgrade the dynamite damage or radius.

Fractured Walls

Fractured walls can be found all over the Azurite Mine, they contain hidden loot chests or fossil remains. Fractured walls can be destroyed by dropping dynamite in front of them, it can be tricky to figure out the location of a wall if you don’t know what to look for so we’ve put an example below on how you can find that pesky fractured wall to reach the node you’re trying to reach.



As you can see from the image there’s a currency we’re trying to get to – if you’re new you won’t have a clue how to get it. Basically in the mine, you cannot have a node with only 2 paths its got to be 1, 3 or 4, remember this as it is very important – using the power of deduction this will be the node where you will find the wall to the currency:

Delve Biomes & Fossils

Delve contains many different biomes, these biomes can contain specific “fossil” rewards based on which biome you are in.

Fossil Types

Below are all the fossil types in Path of Exile and their uses:

Fossil Name	Fossil Effect
Aberrant Fossil	More Chaos Modifiers, No Lightning Modifiers
Aetheric Fossil	More Caster Modifiers, Fewer Attacks Modifiers
Bloodstained Fossil	Has a Vaal Modifier
Bound Fossil	More Minion, Aura or Curse Modifiers
Corroded Fossil	More Physical Ailment or Chaos Ailment modifiers, No Elemental modifiers
Dense Fossil	More Defence modifiers, No Life Modifiers
Enchanted Fossil	Has a Labyrinth Enchantment
Encrusted Fossil	More sockets, Can have white sockets
Faceted Fossil	More Gem modifiers
Fractured Fossil	Creates a mirrored copy
Frigid Fossil	More Cold modifiers, No Fire modifiers
Gilded Fossil	Item is overvalued by vendors
Glyphic Fossil	Has a corrupt essence modifier
Hollow Fossil	Has an Abyssal socket
Jagged Fossil	More Physical modifiers, No Chaos modifiers
Lucent Fossil	More Mana modifiers, No Speed modifiers
Metallic Fossil	More Lightning modifiers, No Physical modifiers
Perfect Fossil	Improved Quality
Prismatic Fossil	More Elemental modifiers, No Physical Ailment or Chaos Ailment modifiers
Pristine Fossil	More Life Modifiers
Sanctified Fossil	Numeric modifier values are lucky, High Level modifiers are more common
Scorched Fossil	More Fire modifiers, No Cold modifiers
Serrated Fossil	More Attack modifiers, Fewer Caster modifiers
Shuddering Fossil	More Speed modifiers, No Mana modifiers
Tangled Fossil	Can have any Fossil modifiers

Biome Fossil Locations

Below is a cheat sheet for all of the locations of fossils you can find in biomes.

Special Biomes

Delve contains 3 special biomes, The Vaal City, The Abyssal Depths & The Primeval Ruins these biomes are called “cities” & they have different layouts to the rest of the delve biomes, they can each contain a rare unique boss.

Delve Bosses

Delve contains 3 different unique bosses, they are:

City	Node Name	Boss Name	Minimum Depth	Chance to Encounter
Vaal	The Grand Architect’s Temple	Ahuatotli, The Blind	83	2%
Abyssal	The Lich’s Tomb	Kurgal, The Blackblooded	150	1.9%
Primeval	The Crystal King’s Throne	Aul, The Crystal King	220	0.83%

Next: League Mechanics: Betrayal League