Essence

An essence is part of a complex group of currency items used for crafting equipment. All essences can be used to upgrade a piece of normal rarity equipment to rare and apply one guaranteed affix. Some essences can also be used to reforge the affixes of rare equipment.

Table 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, Whispering Essence of Woe 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 with essence monsters. 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.

Corrupted essences

Group F includes the corrupted essences, which have no prefix word due to the fact that they exist in a tier unto themselves. These do not appear naturally with essence monsters, and can only be obtained by corrupting an essence monster with a Remnant of Corruption. (See § Corrupting essence monsters for details about this process.)

Mechanics

Obtaining essences

Monsters trapped in essence crystals can occasionally be encountered in most areas. Activating the center essence crystal three times will break the crystals, freeing the trapped monsters. The essence item can be obtained by killing these monsters, which are also enhanced by special monster modifiers on the essence.

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.

Tier 6, 'Shrieking' essences can be obtained by upgrading lower tier essences through the vendor recipe system or by corrupting tier 5 essences using a Remnant of Corruption.

Tier 7, 'Deafening' essences can be obtained by upgrading lower tier essences through the vendor recipe system.

###Harvest exchanges One of the random Harvest crafting options granted by Vivid Watcher upgrades an essence by one tier.

One of the random Harvest crafting options granted by Wild Homunculus changes a stack of essences into a different type of the same tier.

Corrupting essence monsters

Essences can be corrupted by using a Remnant of Corruption on a monster trapped by essence before releasing it.

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

• Mobs are broken free with empowered stats.
• All contained essences have their tiers increased by 1 (e.g. 'Screaming' upgraded to 'Shrieking'). Note that the base essence type won't change, and this can't occur with "Deafening" essences.
• Monster may gain one additional essence.
• Transform essence types to random ones from the next type group. E.g., 'of Fear' transformed to 'of Wrath'.
  • Note that this can also increase the tier of the essence if the original is at a lower tier than the minimum for the next tier.
  • Essence of Hysteria, Insanity, Horror and Delirium can only be obtained by corrupting monsters with an essence of tier 5 (MEDS: Misery, Envy, Dread, Scorn).

The "Remnant of Corruption"-possessed monster has a monster aura that deals physical damage over time as well as slow the player character.

The player character cannot leech life from the "Remnant of Corruption"-possessed monster.

On slaying the "Remnant of Corruption"-possessed monster, the remnant is dropped just like normal Essences. Additionally two Fleshmonsters spawn on the drop location.

These possessing effects were in fact due to the essence adding the mods RemnantOfCorruptionMonsterAura, Remnant of Corruption to the monster.

Crafting

All essences can be used to upgrade a piece of normal rarity equipment to rare, similar to an Orb of Alchemy, and apply one guaranteed affix. Essences of tier 5 (Screaming) and above can also be used to reforge the affixes of rare equipment, which is similar to a Chaos Orb; however, in addition to applying one guaranteed affix, using an essence this way will ignore and override any meta-crafting modifiers.1

WARNING: Despite the similar wording to Chaos Orbs, using an essence on an item with a meta-crafting mod (Prefixes Cannot Be Changed or Cannot roll Caster Modifiers) will ignore that mod and overwrite existing prefixes and suffixes ignoring any restrictions.

Vendor recipes

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

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.

Divination cards

The following divination cards can be exchanged for essences:

• Harmony of Souls
• The Cacophony
• Three Voices