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Breach League Guide

Last Updated: May 18th 2023

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Introduction

Welcome to our Breach League Guide, Exile! In this article we cover everything you need to know about how to spawn Breaches, collect Splinters, create and upgrade Breachstones and defeat the Breach Bosses: Esh, Tul, Xoph, Uul-Netol and Chayula.

What is a Breach?

Breaches are timed monster-spawning Portals. This hand-like Construct has an 8% Chance to appear in any Map Area and has to be activated by walking into the Breach Portal.

Once activated, the purple circle around the Portal expands, spawning countless monsters within. The faster you kill the Breach monsters, the faster the circle expands, spawning more monsters. Once it approaches its maximum radius, it slows down before quickly collapsing again, consuming the remaining active monsters. The more monsters you are able to kill before that, the more loot you generate.

Breach monsters have increased Item Rarity and Quantity but only rare ones are able to drop Maps. On top of that, monsters inside can also drop Breach-specific unique items, Splinters as well as a Breach-exclusive Breach Ring.

In rare occasions, a Breachlord can spawn. They drop a number of Splinters based on how much damage you dealt to them, with the maximum number dropped when you defeat them before it collapses. These bosses have a special minimap icon to help you recognize them in the heat of battle.

While expanding, it can uncover a so called "Clasped Hand" which is a Breach Cache containing additional Splinters.

Breach Items

Breach has it's own form of currency: Splinters, Breachstones as well as Blessings.

Splinters

Splinters are dropped by monsters or Clasped Hands within Breaches. 100 Splinters of the same type transform into a Breachstone:

  • Splinter of Esh
  • Splinter of Tul
  • Splinter of Xoph
  • Splinter of Uul-Netol
  • Splinter of Chayula

Breachstones

Breachstones are obtained by combining 100 Splinters of the same type. They can be put into the Map Device to open their respective Breachlord Domains. These unique areas contain a single ever-expanding Breach and the domain's unique boss at the end. But beware, it remains active for a limited time that can only be extended by killing monsters. Once the boss portal is reached, the timer stops and the loot of defeated enemies drops next to it. Letting the timer run out before it reaches the end permanently collapses it for that instance, bricking the run:

  • Esh's Breachstone
  • Tul's Breachstone
  • Xoph's Breachstone
  • Uul-Netol's Breachstone
  • Chayula's Breachstone

Blessings

Blessings can be found from Breachlords. These Items can be used to upgrade Breachstones or boss-specific unique items to a more powerful version of its own:

  • Blessing of Esh
  • Blessing of Tul
  • Blessing of Xoph
  • Blessing of Uul-Netol
  • Blessing of Chayula

Breach Types

There are 5 different Breach types to encounter, each with a clear thematic connection. Each of them is based on a dedicated main damage type used by all present enemies:

  • Esh - Lightning
  • Tul - Cold
  • Xoph - Fire
  • Uul-Netol - Physical
  • Chayula - Chaos

Upgrade Path

Breachstones can be upgraded to a more challenging higher level version. To give an example: Collecting 100 Splinter of Esh forms Esh's Breachstone. This Breachstone can be upgraded with Blessing of Esh (dropped by the Breachlord) three times for:

  • Esh's Charged Breachstone
  • Esh's Enriched Breachstone
  • Esh's Pure Breachstone

Flawless Breachstones are the highest tier and can only be obtained from Maven's Invitation: The Hidden (Esh, Tul, Xoph, Uul-Netol) or Maven's Invitation: The Feared (Chayula's Flawless Breachstone). All Flawless Breachstones have Monster Level: 84 with 60% increased Pack Size and 200% increased Experience Gain, which makes them an excellent (but very expensive) source of Experience to boost a character's level. Regular, Charged, Enriched and Pure Breachstones have lower level and modifiers depending on which boss they belong to.

Another way of upgrading Breachstones (up to Pure) is through Betrayal Safehouses. If you are able to get It That Fled in the Research Safehouse, you are rewarded with one use of the Breach Upgrade Table, based on It That Fled's Rank. After completing the Mastermind encounter, you are offered two tables instead. In Trade Leagues you can typically get most value from using this upgrade on Chayula's Breachstone to create Chayula's Pure Breachstone.

Breach Items

Breach Rings

Breaches can drop a Breach-exclusive Breach Ring. These special Rings are always corrupted and have a special Implicit Modifier: Properties are doubled while in a Breach. If you have a very powerful Ring and want to use it without relying on a Breach to spawn, you can use a Vaal Breach next to a boss to obtain the doubled modifiers.

Grasping Mail

Since 3.14, the Grasping Mail can be acquired through a Vendor Recipe. It can only be acquired by vendoring 60 Breach Rings (resulting item level is determined by the lowest ring). The Grasping Mail is generated with 1 to 3 Unique Breach Modifiers. If all the rings are i86, one of the Breach Modifier generated will be Fractured. These Modifiers CANNOT be recrafted on the item by using Currency such as Chaos Orbs. This instead removes the mod and prevents any Breach modifiers from appearing, so further crafting has to be done more carefully. Take a look at our Crafting Guide to learn more!

Breach Modifiers List

Prefixes

Suffixes

Boss-Exclusive Unique Items

Each Breach type has its own exclusive Unique Items. They can drop from Breachlords within their domain and Breach monsters outside their domain. A Blessing can be used to upgrade them into a more powerful version of the base item.

Esh, Forked Thought

Tul, Creeping Avalanche

Xoph, Dark Embers

Uul-Netol, Unburdened Flesh

Chayula, Who Dreamt

Atlas Passive Tree

The Atlas Passive Tree has 4 separate passive wheels with a total of 5 notables dedicated to Breach. All of them are located on the right half of the tree.

Small Passives

  • Breach Chance
    • Your Maps have +1% chance to contain Breaches
  • Breach Boss Chance
    • Breaches in your Maps have 8% increased chance to contain a Boss
  • Breach Chest Splinter Quantity
    • 10% increased Quantity of Breach Splinters found in Breach Hands in your Maps
  • Magic Breach Monster Chance
    • Breaches in your Maps spawn 8% increased Magic Monsters
  • Tul Breach Chance
    • Your Maps have +1% chance to contain Breaches
    • Breaches in your Maps have 100% increased chance to belong to Tul
  • Xoph Breach Chance
    • Your Maps have +1% chance to contain Breaches
    • Breaches in your Maps have 100% increased chance to belong to Xoph
  • Esh Breach Chance
    • Your Maps have +1% chance to contain Breaches
    • Breaches in your Maps have 100% increased chance to belong to Esh
  • Uul-Netol Breach Chance
    • Your Maps have +1% chance to contain Breaches
    • Breaches in your Maps have 60% increased chance to belong to Uul-Netol
  • Chayula Breach Chance
    • Your Maps have +1% chance to contain Breaches
    • Breaches in your Maps have 30% increased chance to belong to Chayula

Notables

  • Probing for Weaknesses
    • Your Maps have +4% chance to contain Breaches
  • Call of Xesht-Ula
    • Breaches in your Maps have 2% chance to contain Xesht-Ula, the Open Hand
    • Breaches in your Maps have 20% chance to contain a Hand of Xesht-Ula
  • Gatekeepers
    • Breaches in your Maps have 70% increased chance to contain a Boss
    • Breach Bosses in your Maps drop double Breach Splinters
  • Flash Breach
    • Breaches in your Maps have 30% increased Area of Effect
    • Breaches in your Maps have 30% increased Monster density
    • Breaches in your Maps open and close 50% faster
  • Within Their Grasp
    • Breach Bosses Defeated in your Maps have 8% chance to drop a Breachstone
    • Breachstones dropped by Breach Bosses in your Maps have 9% chance to be Charged
    • Breachstones dropped by Breach Bosses in your Maps have 3% chance to be Enriched
    • Breachstones dropped by Breach Bosses in your Maps have 1% chance to be Pure

Xesht-Ula

Xesht-Ula is the combined form of all Breachlords at once (Xoph/Esh/Tul/Uul-Netol/Chayula). The boss and its Clasped Hands (which drops Splinters of any of the 5 types) can only appear when Call of Xesht-Ula has been allocated.

Breach Farming Strategy

With all the Atlas Passives allocated, you gain a sizeable base chance of spawning a Breach in a Map. In addition to the random chance of encountering a Breach, there are also further options to force a spawn:

  • Rusted Breach Scarab
  • Polished Breach Scarab
  • Gilded Breach Scarab
  • Winged Breach Scarab
  • Awakened Sextant modifiers
  • Atlas Passives
  • Map Device Mods (if available)
  • Implicit modifiers on Maps and Missions by Kirac
  • Maps dropped with Shadow Shaping allocated

These modifiers stack so you can have multiple Breaches (even 10 or more) within the same Map. A combination of high Pack Size from the Map itself, increased monster density from Flash Breach, higher chance to spawn a Boss from Gatekeepers and higher chance to drop (upgraded) Breachstones from Within Their Grasp makes for a powerful setup that generates tons of Splinters and Breachstones if you can clear them fast enough. Specializing in farming this League Mechanic may turn out extremely profitable depending on the market price of Breach-related Scarabs, Sextants, Compasses and of course the Breachstones themselves. The more Breaches you can stick into your juiced-up Maps, the better!

Summary

  • Breaches are short-lived portals into another dimension hosting one of the five different Breachlords. Charge in and slay as many of them as you can before it closes!
  • 100 Splinters turn into a Breachstone, an item that opens a portal to a Breachlord's domain in the Map Device.
  • Both Breachstones and Boss-related unique items can be upgraded with a Blessing.
  • Vendoring a full inventory of Breach Rings allows to create a Grasping Mail with unique mods.
  • Farming breaches can turn out very profitable through maximizing synergies with its dedicated Atlas Passive Points.

Credits

Written by mbXtreme & wudijo.
Reviewed by Enki & Chewingnom.

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