Delirium League Guide
Last Updated:May 18, 2023|Changelog
Introduction
Delirium was introduced in Patch 3.10 (March 2020) and remains an important cornerstone of PoE's endgame nowadays. This League Mechanic revolves around the Mirror of Delirium; when used, this triggers a zone-wide effect called Delirium Fog. The Fog empowers existing enemies and spawns new ones while granting extra rewards. Related drops include Delirium Orbs for Maps, Simulacrum Splinters to enter the Simulacrum and Cluster Jewels to extend the Passive Skill Tree.
Delirium Mirror
On entering a Map with the Delirium League Mechanic, you see a big Delirium Mirror right at the entrance of the Map. Walk through the Mirror to activate the mechanic. This triggers a Fog that starts spreading throughout the entire Map, buffing existing and spawning new monsters.
Delirium Fog
The map will be covered in Fog and a new icon appears in the bottom left of the window. Those are your reward icons, which include several items from League Mechanics or specific item groups such as Currency or Map Fragments. The reward icon fills up as you kill enemies in the Fog stacking up until there are no monsters left in the Fogor the Fog disappears.
After hitting 3 levels in a reward type, another reward icon pops up next to the first one starting with level 1. Icons progressively fill as you kill monsters in the Fog, so every 3 levels another type of reward pops up next to the latest one.
The Fog also spawns eggs on the ground in addition to the extra monsters, you can also find eggs on the ground. Stepping on the eggs results in even more monsters. There are two types: white and red. The former spawn Delirium monsters for more loot; the latter should be avoided as they chase you down but drop nothing.
Fog Timer
The Fog dissipates progressively from the Mirror at the beginning of the map towards the end of the Map, so your goal is to kill as many monsters as you can while inside. If you step out of the Fog or it outpaces you, a timer appears at the top of the screen. You have 5 seconds to get back into it before the Delirium ends completely.
To help you navigate through the Map without having to backtrack, certain League Mechanics either slow down or completely stop the Fog's movement for their duration.
- During an Immortal Syndicate Research encounter
- During an Incursion encounter
- During a Legion Timeless Monolith encounter
- During a Breach encounter
- Being within range of a Blight portal
- While in the Sacred Grove
- While within a radius of a Ritual Altar
- Opening a Strongbox
- Defeating a monster holding an Essence
- Capturing a red Beast
- Defeating an Immortal Syndicate group
- An Abyss crack starts moving in the next direction
- Completing a Blight encounter
- Defeating a Metamorph
- Defeating a Harbinger
At the end of the encounter, all the rewards you collected while you were in the Fog are dropped as a loot pinata.
Sources
There are three main ways to encounter the Delirium mechanic:
- Random Delirium Mirror spawn in your Maps (can be improved with Atlas Passives)
- Kirac Map Device craft
- Applying Delirium Orbs to a Map before opening
There is a distinction between Delirium created by a Mirror versus an Orb. Maps crafted with Layers of Delirium have a fixed Delirium effect rather than scaling with the distance. On the other hand, the Delirium Fog doesn't dissipate, so take as much time as you like to finish these Maps. In those cases, the special rewards are dropped whenever you fill the bar.
All Delirium Orbs function the same way, but there are different reward types indicated by an icon. Similar to crafting your Maps with Cartographer's Chisel or Orb of Alchemy, you can apply a Delirium Orb on top of the quality, quantity and rarity. The Orb turns a Map into a Delirium Map and shows the type of reward you get from the Delirium mechanic. Up to 5 Orbs can be applied to a single Map, each adding 20% Delirium Effect. The higher this effect, the harder the Map becomes.
You also have a higher chance to see Delirium Bosses by using more Orbs (there are 2 different Bosses). They drop additional Simulacrum Splinter or occasionally specific unique Cluster Jewels.
List of Delirium Orbs
Cluster Jewels
Large Cluster Jewel, Medium Cluster Jewel and Small Cluster Jewel are a class of Jewels in Path of Exile that drop from Delirium encounters. Those jewels are socketed in the outermost sockets only of the Passive Tree to extend it by basic Nodes, Notables, and even Keystones mod pool.
You can craft Cluster Jewels in the same way as normal Jewels. All Cluster Jewels can have a maximum of four Affixes - two Prefixes and two Suffixes. The mod granted by the small passives determine the explicit Mod Pool of the Jewel, as well as add effects to the small passives in the Cluster.
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There are also preferred sizes when it comes to the number of Passive Skills. In most cases, you prefer 8 Passive Skills for Large Cluster Jewels to spare Skill Points and some rarer Builds prefer up to 12 points because they stack the "Waypoints" instead of Notables!
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In this case, most Builds prefer 4-5 Passive Skills because as you can see in the picture above, you can spare exactly 1 Passive Skill point when you travel over Notables instead Waypoints!
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Boss Exclusive Unique Small Cluster Jewels
A unique Small Cluster Jewel can only be obtained by killing Omniphobia, Fear Manifest and Kosis, The Revelation in Maps affected by Delirium or in the Simulacrum.
- Calamitous Visions
- Kitava's Teachings
- The Front Line
- The Interrogation
- The Siege
- Natural Affinity
- One With Nothing
Simulacrum
Simulacrum Splinter drops from Delirium encounters. A full stack of 300 completes a Simulacrum. Using the Simulacrum Map Fragment will opens 6 portals to an alternate version of one of the following Act 6-10 Campaign towns: Lunacy's Watch, The Bridge Enraptured, The Syndrome Encampment, Hysteriagate or Oriath Delusion. You encounter the Strangely Familiar Entity before every wave of the Simulacrum. You also notice the monster modifier and Delirium reward type, which increase with every wave.
There are a total of 30 Waves and each wave adds a 5% Delirious effect, up to 100% at Wave 20. Because of how Delirious scales monster damage reduction, there is a massive difficulty spike on Waves 19 and 20. From that point on the effect doesn't scale further but mods still become slightly harder every time:
- 20% Delirious effect
~7% increased damage & ~19% less damage taken - 40% Delirious effect
~13% increased damage & ~38% less damage taken - 60% Delirious effect
~18% increased damage & ~58% less damage taken - 80% Delirious effect
~24% increased damage & ~77% less damage taken - 100% Delirious effect
~30% increased damage & ~96% less damage taken
If you want to run Simulacrums for profit, you need to understand some points beforehand:
- Selling in bulk is a priority because you so much quantity (lots of loot) until Wave 30, but luckily we have an excellent Guide for you!
- ALWAYS MOVE otherwise you get blasted by projectiles and ground effects.
- Max out your Chaos Resistance because there are many modifiers f.e. Monsters deal (25–30)% extra Physical Damage as Chaos.
- Your Loot Filter doesn't have to be very strict, because loot only drops after each Wave is done. Check out the Maxroll Loot Filter Guides - Beginner or Advanced for more details.
- There is no need to push until Wave 30 if your build is not strong enough to get some profit. Wave 25 is plenty in terms of rewards!
Endgame Wave Mods
Delirium Bosses
Delirium offers two Unique bosses in Maps and Simulacrum. The chance to do so scales with the Delirious effect. The bosses also drop Unique Small Cluster Jewels in Maps and Medium or Large Unique Cluster Jewels exclusively in Simulacrum.
Omniphobia, Fear Manifest
He can start spawning at wave 10 with a guarantee to spawn at wave 15 if he doesn't spawn before. He can then spawn randomly on later waves. Both Bosses are guaranteed to spawn in waves 28, 29 and 30.
Attack Skills
Kosis, The Revelation
He can start spawning at wave 15 and is guaranteed to spawn at wave 20 if he doesn't spawn before. He can then spawn randomly on later waves. Both Bosses are guaranteed to spawn in waves 28, 29 and 30.
Attack Skills
Spell Skills
Simulacrum Unique Rewards
Voices
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Megalomaniac
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Split Personality
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Delirium Unique Items
The following unique items were added in Patch 3.10 as part of the mechanic. Since then, these items have been added to the core drop pool but are still thematically connected to Delirium:
- Algor Mortis
- Assailum
- Beacon of Madness
- Perfidy
Atlas Passive Tree
The Atlas Passive Tree contains few Passives and Notables related to Delirium spread in 4 wheels in the Atlas Passive Tree:
Small Passives
- Delirium Simulacrum Splinters
- 4% increased Stack size of Simulacrum Splinters found in your Maps
- Delirium Chance
- Your Maps have +1% chance to contain a Mirror of Delirium
- Delirium Fog Dissipation Speed
- Delirium Fog in your Maps dissipates 5% slower
- Cluster Jewel Chance
- Delirium Monsters in your Maps have a 500% increased chance to drop Cluster Jewels
- Additional Delirium Reward Chance
- Delirium Encounters in your Maps have a 4% chance to generate an additional Reward Type
Notables
- That Which You Seek
- Areas have +4% chance to contain a Mirror of Delirium
- Descent Into Madness
- Delirium in your Maps increases 50% faster with distance from the Mirror
- The Singular Eternity
- Delirium Fog in your Maps dissipates 25% slower
- Delirium Fog in Areas lasts 10 additional seconds before dissipating
- Delusions of Persecution
- Delirium Encounters in your Maps are 100% more likely to spawn Unique Bosses
- Delirium Bosses in your Maps drop 50% increased Simulacrum Splinters
- Delirium Bosses in your Maps have 50% increased chance to drop Unique Cluster Jewels
- Compulsive Hoarder
- Delirium Encounters in your Maps have 8% chance to generate three additional Reward types
- Pathological
- Maps found in your Maps have 3% chance to have layers of Delirium
Summary
- Each Map has a small chance to spawn with a Delirium Mirror. Walk through it to start the encounter and earn special rewards like Simulacrum Splinter or Cluster Jewels.
- Gather up to 300 Simulacrum Splinter within a timer for one Simulacrum.
- Certain League Mechanics either slow or completely halt the Fog's advance while they're active.
- Delirium drops Cluster Jewels, which can be used in your Passive Skill Tree.
- Delirium Orbs drop from these encounters. The Orbs augment a Map permanently with the Fog increasing both difficulty and rewards.
- The Simulacrum is an endgame wave-survival mode that pits your build against some of the toughest foes the game has to offer. Finishing it is a rewarding accomplishment!
- Delirious effect scales up monster difficulty (especially health) very slowly at first but more and more exponentially as you approach 100%.
Credits
Written by terence_.
Reviewed by wudijo & Liz.