Path of Exile 1 Mirage’s Economy Inflates Uncontrollably Over the Weekend
Time for some raw Divine farming.
Path of Exile 1’s 3.28 Mirage league is one of the most well-received leagues by the community. From crazy endgame changes to quality-of-life improvements, PoE 1 is arguably at its best state since its inception.
With the endgame farming changes shifting the meta back to T16 farming, players were excited to try more ways to farm currency apart from the T17 strongbox meta that has been around for several leagues. Veterans were already speculating on a big shift in Softcore’s economy because of the shift, but not to the extent of what happened over the weekend.
Divine Orbs Skyrockets in Price
At the time of writing, the current trade price for 1 Divine Orb is 335 Chaos Orbs. Just a couple of days before this, it was hovering at 1 Divine Orb to 170 Chaos Orbs. That’s almost twice as much just over the weekend.
To the uninitiated, Divine Orbs and Chaos Orbs are two of the main currencies used for trading – you get any item, and its value is based on Divine Orbs or Chaos Orbs.
When the Divine Orb and Chaos Orb rates change this drastically, it hurts mostly the casual players who are trying to improve their build to push further into the endgame. Being in the early- to mid-endgame usually means you are mostly holding Chaos Orbs because you can’t invest in difficult farming strategies yet. Chaos Orbs lose value, increasing the prices of most key unique items and some equipment.
It is going to be hard for players to catch up, but what exactly caused the Divine Orbs to soar and Chaos Orbs to crash?
What Happened to Softcore’s PoE 1 Economy in 3.28
Two of the main reasons were already predicted: the loss of the map device modifiers and the shift in farming strategies from T17 to T16.
The Chaos Orb sink from the map device is gone, which will eventually lower the value of Chaos Orbs. The same goes for rerolling T17 maps. If fewer players are farming Nightmare maps (the new T17s), there will be more Chaos Orbs flooding the market. All of these make sense even before the Mirage league started.
However, there’s one more catalyst to the inflation spike over the weekend: the lucrative Breach farming strategy. Breach has been the most popular farming strategy by far.
The Breach Scarab of Instability, Scarab of Monstrous Lineage, and Scarab of Wisps juice combination with a Breach and Beyond Atlas print so much currency. The farming strategy drops so many Chaos Orbs as well, further lowering the value of the Chaos Orb. Apart from farming in maps, Breach also allows players to open Lavish Wombgifts in the Genesis Tree, giving more and more currency like Chaos Orb.
The economy is slowly shifting to using Gemcutter’s Prism instead of Chaos Orbs, just because it holds more value and use. The Chaos Orb being replaced by another currency as a trade for Divine Orbs or other items rarely happens in leagues, with the last one being Awakened Sextants, which was already years ago.
PoE 1 Mirage’s economy is still finding a foothold, and some players can actually take advantage and earn more currency if they can guess it right. With the economy being in an awkward spot, Mirage League is still one of the most fun leagues in a long while.
