The Best Currency Farming Strategy in Path of Exile: A Comprehensive Guide to Breach Farming
Why Breach is the Best Farming Method
At its core, Breach farming revolves around unlocking and completing Breach encounters in maps. These encounters provide a high number of monster spawns, a rich array of loot, and opportunities to earn valuable items like Head Hunter, Mageblood, and other Tier-0 uniques. The key reasons why Breach farming stands out are:
High Currency Per Hour: With a well-optimized Breach farming setup, you can expect to earn between 55-60 divines per hour long-term, and potentially even more with certain rarer drops like mirrors.
Great Experience (XP) Gains: Breach farming is one of the best experience farming methods in the game, especially for those looking to level up fast while farming.
Lucrative Item Drops: From unique items like Head Hunter to currency items like Sacred Orbs and Chaos Orbs, Breach farming consistently provides high-value drops.
Gold Farming Potential: In addition to divine drops, you can also rack up gold with the constant drops of items that can be sold to NPC vendors or traded with other players.
The sheer volume of items and currency that you accumulate with this strategy far outweighs other farming techniques.
What You Need for High-Level Breach Farming
To make the most of Breach farming, you need a few things: the right build, the right map, the right scarabs, and a good understanding of what works and what doesn't. Let's go through each of these in detail.
1. Optimal Build for Breach Farming
The Breach mechanic is fast-paced and requires your build to be equally efficient and fast. If you're aiming to farm 10 maps an hour (as some top players do), you'll need a build that excels at clearing large groups of enemies quickly. Here are the best build types for Breach farming:
Explode-based Builds: Builds that focus on explosions (e.g., Explosive Arrow, Detonate Dead) are perfect for Breach farming. These builds have high AoE (Area of Effect) damage, which is ideal for clearing the hordes of monsters spawned during Breach encounters.
Wander-based Builds: Wand-based builds, particularly those using Rain of Arrows or similar skills, are great for efficient clearing.
Bow-based Builds: Builds utilizing bows, especially those that use high-speed attacks and multi-target abilities, also perform well in Breach farming.
If your build isn't fast or efficient enough, don't expect to hit the 50-60 divines per hour mark. However, even slower builds can still generate solid profits from Breach farming.
2. Map Setup and Layouts
The key to success in Breach farming is selecting the right maps and ensuring that your setup is optimized for speed and efficiency.
Best Maps to Run: Dunes
By far, the best map layout for Breach farming is Dunes. The reason Dunes is ideal for this type of farming is that it spawns the highest number of monsters and is quick to clear. This allows you to farm faster, which translates into more Breach encounters, more loot, and ultimately more profit.
Jungle Valley, another popular map, is not as efficient as Dunes. It doesn't spawn as many mobs, and you also lose some efficiency because you need to rush bosses. In contrast, Dunes allows for faster completion, making it the top choice for any high-level Breach farming setup.
Avoiding 8-mods and Full Mirage Maps
While some players opt to farm 8-mod maps or Full Mirage Tier 16.5 maps, they are not the most efficient choice. These maps are expensive to run, and while the potential rewards can be high, the investment cost does not justify the returns.
8-mod maps, especially with mods that increase pack size or map quant, double your investment but only offer marginally better loot. Full Mirage maps also increase map time significantly, which lowers your overall currency per hour rate. Stick with 6-mod maps, which offer the best currency per map cost.3. Scarabs to Use
To ensure your Breach farming is as profitable as possible, the right scarabs are essential. Based on testing and my personal experience, here are the optimal scarabs for Breach farming:
Two Instability Scarabs: Instability scarabs increase the number of Breach monsters, making it an essential for maximizing Breach loot.
One Bloodlines Scarab: This scarab enhances the drop rates of rare items, which is important for getting high-value items like Head Hunter and Mageblood.
One Wisp Scarab: This increases the chance of rare drops and is especially useful for obtaining high-value uniques.
One Cascade, Risk, or Sin Scarab: The final scarab is where things get a little bit more flexible. From my testing, Cascade and Risk scarabs performed the best, with Sin falling slightly behind.
Cascade Scarabs: These increase the number of unique item drops, which is invaluable for builds that rely on high rarity.
Risk Scarabs: Risk is cheaper to use and gives a good return in terms of currency drop rates. If you're looking to maximize your profit while keeping costs down, Risk is the way to go.
Sin Scarabs: While useful for increasing the number of divination cards dropped, Sin doesn't perform as well as Cascade or Risk.
4. Delirium Orbs and Map Modifications
When rolling your maps, you'll want to maximize your currency and quant (quantity of loot). Here's how to do that:
Delirium Orbs: Use anywhere between 2 to 5 Delirium Orbs on your maps. Delirium increases the quant (quantity) of loot dropped from monsters. Running 80-100% Delirium will give you a significant boost in currency, especially if you're already using scarabs like Cascade to increase item rarity.
Chisel and Splitting: Always use currency chisels and split maps using Arachnid Beast to double the effects of your chisels. This makes your map rolling process more efficient and saves you a significant amount of currency.
5. Map Costs and Investment
The cost of running these high-end Breach maps can be steep, but the profits more than make up for it. Here's a quick breakdown of map costs:
Bloodlines Scarab: 1.2 divines
Cascade Scarab: 0.6 divines (often more expensive than Risk, but worth it for rare builds)
Risk Scarab: 0.2 divines
Instability Scarab: 0.35 divines
Breach Ashelope: 2 divines for 6 maps
Map Rolling Costs: 0.1-0.3 divines per map, depending on the setup (use Chisel, Scour, and Alk for the best efficiency)
Overall, expect a cost of around 2-2.6 divines per map, depending on which scarabs and setups you use.
6. Optimizing Currency Gains
The most important thing to keep track of while Breach farming is your currency per hour (cph). According to my own testing, I averaged around 35-40 divines per hour while farming with a very efficient setup. However, if you're playing a bit slower or using a less powerful build, you can still expect to make 18-20 divines per hour.
Conclusion: Breach Farming is the Top Currency Farm in PoE
Breach farming is, hands down, the best currency-making strategy in Path of Exile. With its potential to earn you 55-60 divines an hour and its ability to scale with both XP and POE orbs drops, it's the go-to farm for players looking to maximize their profit. By using the right build, scarabs, map layouts, and optimizations, you can ensure that your Breach farming experience is as profitable as possible.