Essence

This page is about the currency item. For the league, see Essence league.

An essence is a category of currency items used for crafting equipment. Essences can be used to upgrade a piece of normal rarity equipment to rare or reroll a rare item's modifiers with one guaranteed modifier.

Essences are primarily obtained from essence monoliths containing monsters trapped in crystals which can be released by clicking on them three times. (These monoliths are sometimes also referred to as "essences.") This encounter is considered Extra Content and has a baseline chance to appear in any map area, and can appear more than once in an area. The specific chance for essences to spawn has never been officially published.

Table of essences

See also: List of essences

The name of an essence consists of three parts: the tier of the essence as a prefix, the word 'Essence', and the type of the essence as a suffix. For example, has the prefix 'Whispering' and the suffix 'of Woe', which means that it is a tier 1 essence of the Woe type. An essence's type determines which guaranteed modifiers it can imbue to equipment, while its tier determines the magnitude of bonuses granted by those modifiers.

Natural essences

Groups A–E include all types of essences that can appear naturally on monsters trapped within essence crystals. These essences come in seven tiers, each distinguished by a prefix word. An essence's tier can also be recognized by the number of lines in its 2D art icon. Note that not all types of essences exist for every tier. Lower tiers include fewer types of essences.

Additionally, monsters trapped in corrupted essence crystals may appear naturally in areas with monster level 32 and above. In this case, the imprisoned rare monster will always be empowered by a and may also be empowered by other essences as well.

				Group A				Group B				Group C				Group D				Group E
	Tier	mLvl	Reforge	Greed	Contempt	Hatred	Woe	Fear	Anger	Torment	Sorrow	Rage	Suffering	Wrath	Doubt	Loathing	Zeal	Anguish	Spite	Scorn	Envy	Misery	Dread
Whispering	1	1–47						N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Muttering	2	12–67										N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Weeping	3	30+														N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Wailing	4	48+																		N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
Screaming	5	68+
Shrieking	6	74+
Deafening	7	N/A

Corrupted essences

Group F contains corrupted essences, which do not have a prefix as they only have a single tier. These essences do not naturally appear in essence monoliths, and can only be obtained by corrupting monsters that are affected by specific essences using a . (See § Corrupting essence monsters for additional details.)

			Group F
Tier	mLvl	Reforge	Insanity	Horror	Delirium	Hysteria
8	N/A

Mechanics

Obtaining essences

Monsters trapped in essence monoliths can occasionally be encountered in most areas starting from Act 1 in The Ledge. Clicking the essence monolith three times will break the crystals, freeing the trapped monsters. Essence items can be obtained by killing the trapped rare monster, which is also enhanced by essence monster modifiers.

Some types of essences only exist at higher tiers. This forms a progression in which more types of essences become available in areas with higher monster level. Essence Monoliths in White Maps can spawn up to a maximum tier of Screaming, while those in Yellow or Red Maps can spawn up to a maximum tier of Shrieking.

Tier 7, "Deafening" essences can be obtained by upgrading lower tier essences through the vendor recipe system or by corrupting tier 6 (Shrieking) essences using a .

Other ways of acquiring essence include:

• One of the Harvest crafting options changes a stack of essences into a different type of the same tier.
• The Frigid Recess node in the Azurite Mine.
• Hillock's reward chest in a Transportation safehouse.
• Guff's crafting bench in a Fortification safehouse contains use-only Essences.
• Through an .
• Various league mechanics as a random or Essence reward.
• Tujen's vendor shop.

Corrupting essence monsters

Main page: Remnant of Corruption

Essences can be corrupted by using a on an essence monolith before releasing the imprisoned monster.

This will result in one of the following outcomes chosen at random:

1. Imprisoned monsters are released with no changes to essences.
2. All essence tiers are increased by 1 (e.g. 'Screaming' upgraded to 'Shrieking').
3. Adds an additional essence type.
4. Transform each essence to a random essence type of the same tier in the next group of the same tier (e.g. "of Fear" (Group B) transformed to "of Wrath" (Group C)). Additional caveats:
   1. Note that this outcome can also increase the tier of the essence if the original essence is a lower tier than the minimum tier for the next group. (e.g. Muttering Essence of Fear will upgrade into a Weeping Tier C Essence).
   2. Essence of Hysteria, Insanity, Horror and Delirium can only be obtained by corrupting monsters with an essence of group E, which can be remembered using the mnemonic "Purple MEDS" (e.g. , , , ). The tier of essence does not matter.

Maps affected by an causes corruption results to always upgrade or transform essences.

The Crystal Resonance Atlas passive skill causes all other essences on the imprisoned monster to be replaced by one of them.

Crafting

All essences can be used to upgrade a piece of normal rarity equipment to rare, similar to an , and apply one guaranteed affix. Essences of tier 5 (Screaming) and above can also be used to reforge the affixes of rare equipment with a guaranteed affix.

WARNING: Essences cannot be used on an item if it has a meta-crafting mod (Ex. Prefixes Cannot Be Changed, Cannot roll Caster Modifiers). Using an Essence on these items will show an error message and do nothing.

Tier	Prefix	Obtainable through	max. level of original item	Min. Level of reforged item	Item reforge
1	Whispering	Lv. 1+ zone drop	35	1	✗
2	Muttering	Lv. 12+ zone drop	45	8	✗
3	Weeping	Lv. 30+ zone drop	60	20	✗
4	Wailing	Lv. 48+ zone drop	75	33	✗
5	Screaming	Lv. 68+ zone drop	N/A	46	✓
6	Shrieking	Lv. 73+ zone drop	N/A	59	✓
7	Deafening	Upgrading tier 6 essences	N/A	65	✓

Essence possession effects

Essences are encountered in the wild as a monster 'possessed' by an Essence, mechanically similar to possession by a talisman or tormented spirit. Essence can only appear on a rare monster and the monster can have more than one essences possessed. When the monster is killed, the essences will drop as an item.

Essences	Possession effect
Hatred	Shoot out a nova of projectiles. Debuffs the player with -10% cold resistance.
Woe	Summon Energy Locus that cast .
Greed	Create a red bubble around the enemy and it explode into 3 projectile that does Corrupted Blood on hit, similarly to Malachai's TriBomb.
Contempt	Periodically cast an ice version of Ancestral WarchiefAncestral WarchiefAttack, Totem, AoE, Slam, Melee Level: (1-20) Cost: 10 Mana Attack Speed: 90% of base Attack Damage: (110-166)% of base Effectiveness of Added Damage: (110-166)%Requires Level 28Summons an Ancestor Totem which attacks enemies with a powerful slam while you're near it. Being near it grants you more melee damage. Requires a Melee Weapon or Unarmed.Totem lasts 12 seconds Summons a Totem which uses this Skill (8-18)% more Melee Damage while Totem is Active 50% increased Totem Placement speed +1 metre to Melee Strike Range Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality: (1.5-30)% increased Activation rangePlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket.. At 'Screaming', it will summon 3 spirits that look like ice version of Ancestral WarchiefAncestral WarchiefAttack, Totem, AoE, Slam, Melee Level: (1-20) Cost: 10 Mana Attack Speed: 90% of base Attack Damage: (110-166)% of base Effectiveness of Added Damage: (110-166)%Requires Level 28Summons an Ancestor Totem which attacks enemies with a powerful slam while you're near it. Being near it grants you more melee damage. Requires a Melee Weapon or Unarmed.Totem lasts 12 seconds Summons a Totem which uses this Skill (8-18)% more Melee Damage while Totem is Active 50% increased Totem Placement speed +1 metre to Melee Strike Range Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality: (1.5-30)% increased Activation rangePlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket. but without the totem which chase the player, apparently they are invulnerable.
Sorrow	Summon Totems that cast at player's location.
Anger	Shoot out a nova of fire version projectiles. Debuffs the player with -10% fire resistance.
Torment	Periodically cast Ball LightningBall LightningSpell, Projectile, AoE, Lightning Level: (1-20) Cost: (12-23) Mana Cast Time: 0.70 sec Critical Strike Chance: 5.00% Effectiveness of Added Damage: 60% Projectile Speed: 400 AoE Radius: 22Requires Level 28Fires a slow-moving projectile that damages each enemy in an area around it repeatedly with bolts of lightning.Deals (2-32) to (47-617) Lightning Damage Base radius is 1.8 metres Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality: Base radius is (0.01-0.2) metresPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket. at the player's location.
Fear	Summon 3 Charging Corsair, which is a unique Spectral Corsair.
Suffering	Periodically cast (applying -30% Cold Exposure), then summon Arctic Golem when died.
Rage	Create fire runes that trigger when stepped on, dealing fire damage, similar to Malachai's Fire Traps.
Wrath	Shoot out a nova of lightning projectiles that behave like 's projectiles. Debuffs the player with -10% lightning resistance.
Doubt	Summon Essence Tarantula that does and .
Anguish	Summon Fiery Rubble that fracture into smaller size on death, which is a unique Cinder Elemental.
Loathing	Enemy has a buff that alternates between 50% More Damage Dealt and 25% Less Damage Taken
Spite	Summon Totems that cast ArcArcSpell, Chaining, Lightning Level: (1-20) Cost: (8-23) Mana Cast Time: 0.70 sec Critical Strike Chance: 6.00% Effectiveness of Added Damage: 120%Requires Level 12An arc of lightning reaches from the caster to a targeted enemy and chains to other enemies, but not immediately back. Each time the arc chains, it will also chain a secondary arc to another enemy that the main arc has not already hit, which cannot chain further.Deals (6-198) to (32-1122) Lightning Damage Chains +(4-7) Times 15% more Damage with Hits and Ailments for each remaining Chain Additional Effects From 1-20% Quality: Chains +(0.05-1) TimesPlace into an item socket of the right colour to gain this skill. Right click to remove from a socket. and leave patches of Shocking Ground
Zeal	Enemy has a buff that grants 50% increased Attack, Cast, and Movement Speed and a 50% chance to Avoid Damage Taken.
Misery	Shoot out pulses that inflict a chaos damage over time debuff on the player.
Dread	Cast a chaos version of . Summon Guardian Golem, which is a unique Chaos Golem.
Scorn	Enemy always deals Critical Strikes and takes 75% Reduced Damage from Critical Strikes.
Envy	Summon a grasping hand (looks like ), that teleports the player to the monster's location. This can be evaded by moving.
Hysteria
Insanity	Cast and summon invulnerable Spectral Spirits that attack the player.
Horror	Monster cast a chain reaction of ice explosion, similar to one of the Mutewind Leader Warband skill.
Delirium	Summon monsters that looks like Carrion Minion, it casts chaos version of that uses MTX's.
Remnant of Corruption	Enemy has a physical damage over time and slow aura, cannot be leeched from. Summons 2 Fleshmonster when killed.

Vendor recipes

It is possible to upgrade essences in tier through a vendor recipe.

Result	Recipe
1x essence of the same type one tier higher	3x essence of the same type and tier

The Essence Stash Tab provides the means to upgrade essences from within the tab itself. This has exactly the same outcome as the vendor recipe, but saves time spent moving items around.

Related items

Item		Stats

Divination cards

The following divination cards can be exchanged for essences:

Item	Stack Size	Effect(s)

Related Atlas passive skills

Name	Stats
Essence Chance	Your Maps have 5% chance to contain an additional Essence [1] [2] [3] [4]
Essence Rare Chance	Imprisoned Monsters in your Maps have 25% chance to drop an additional Rare Item with an Essence Modifier [1] [2] [3] [4]
Imprisoned Monster Additional Essence Chance	Imprisoned Monsters in your Maps have 5% chance to have an additional Essence [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]
Remnant of Corruption Essence Chance	Monsters Imprisoned by Essences have a 10% chance to contain a Remnant of Corruption [1] [2]
Amplified Energies	Imprisoned Monsters in your Maps have at least 1 Essence at the highest possible tier [1]
Crystal Lattice	Imprisoned Monsters in your Maps have 15% chance to have 3 additional Essences [1]
Crystal Resonance	Using Remnants of Corruption on Imprisoned Monsters in your Maps replaces all Essences with one of the Essences on the Imprisoned Monster A Map Boss is granted a random Essence Modifier from any Imprisoned Monsters slain in your Maps [1]
Prolific Essence	Your Maps contain an additional Essence [1]

Related Scarabs

Item	Effect(s)

Version history

Version	Changes
3.24.0	Essence Monoliths in White Maps can now spawn up to a maximum tier of Screaming, while those in Yellow or Red Maps can spawn up to a maximum tier of Shrieking.
3.19.0	Minion Damage modifiers on weapons from Essence of Fear (Wailing and above) have been increased as a result of minion modifier changes. [Undocumented This change was not documented by any official sources. It was discovered through player testing or datamining.] Fixed a bug where buffs that alternate to provide different stats, such as more and reduced damage taken buffs on monsters with the Loathing Essence modifier, were not working. As a result, the following changes have been made for Essence Monsters: Reduced the amount of Attack, Cast and Movement Speed granted by Zeal Essence modifiers on Monsters; reduced the amount of reduced Damage Taken granted by Loathing Essence modifiers on Monsters; Scorn Essence modifiers now grant 75% reduced extra Damage Taken from Critical Strikes to the affected Monster, instead of Cannot be Critically Struck.
3.18.1	The Trickster Monster modifier can no longer be found on Monsters imprisoned in Essence Monoliths. Essence Monoliths now display the modifiers and Tormented Spirits that are affecting or possessing the imprisoned Essence Monster.
3.16.0	Essences of Loathing now provides chance to Avoid Elemental Ailments for Boots (previously chance to Dodge Attack Hits). Essences of Scorn now provides increased Stun Threshold for Body Armour (previously chance to Dodge Spell Hits), and Chance to Avoid being Stunned for Boots, Gloves and Helmets (previously only Gloves and Helmets).
3.14.0	Reduced the chance for Map Areas to contain Abyss, Ambush, Blight, Breach, Domination, Essence, Heist, Legion, Metamorph and Torment encounters by 20%. The chance to encounter a Zana mission containing any of these mechanics has also been lowered by the same amount. Screaming Essences can now be used to reforge rare items, in addition to upgrading normal items to rare. This brings them into line with Shrieking and Deafening Essences. Extensive balance changes to essence modifiers. (See Version 3.14.0 § Essence Balance for a complete list of changes.)
2.5.0	Added the contents of the Essence League to the core game. You can now find monsters trapped in Essences throughout Wraeclast, but at a lower rate than when it was the current challenge league.
2.4.0g	All corruption only Essence mods (of Delirium, Horror, Hysteria and Insanity) now have a minimum level of 50.
2.4.0e	The Essence upgrade recipe now returns surplus Essences when you vendor four or more essences.
2.4.0c	The Essence of Hysteria boots mod now has a level 60 requirement. Fixed some prison rooms where Essences could spawn in bad locations. Fixed a bug where the Energy Locus summoned by Essence of Woe could be hit by skills such as Arc.
2.4.0	Introduced to the game in Essence leagues.