Unlocking Xesht: How to Farm and Use Breachstones Efficiently
What Are Breachstones and How to Obtain Them?
Breachstones are special currency items crafted by combining 300 Breach Splinters. These splinters drop from Breach encounters, which are accessed by stepping through Breach Hands found on certain maps during your Atlas progression. When you enter a Breach, waves of Breach monsters spawn, and slaying them extends the encounter and increases monster spawns, allowing you to farm more loot.
Breach Hands and Clasped Hands spawn throughout the encounter, and running over them yields additional loot such as Catalysts (used to improve ring and amulet quality) and more Breach Splinters. Efficient clearing and map control maximize the number of these hands you can interact with, increasing your splinter haul.
Farming Breach Efficiently
Map Selection and Atlas Passives: Look for maps with the Breach Hand icon to ensure Breach encounters. Invest in Atlas Passive Tree nodes that boost Breach Splinter drop rates and monster density, especially in biomes like Grass, which synergize with the Local Knowledge node to increase currency drops.
Build and Playstyle: Use builds with strong area-of-effect damage and crowd control to quickly clear waves of Breach monsters. Skills like Lightning Arrow, Spark, or other AoE abilities paired with supports like Pierce, Chain, and Fork are highly effective. Defensive layers such as capped resistances, chaos inoculation, evasion, or armor help survive the swarm.
Positioning: Clear from the center of the Breach outward to avoid being overwhelmed by monsters spawning at the edges. Keep moving to collect Clasped Hands and avoid getting cornered.
Buffs: Use buffs like Sigil of Power immediately after entering the Breach to boost your damage output, helping you clear faster and extend the encounter duration.
Using Breachstones to Challenge Xesht
Once you have 300 Breach Splinters and craft a Breachstone, place it into the Realmgate near your Atlas starting point. This opens a portal to the Breach realm, where you face Xesht, We That Are One, the pinnacle Breach boss.
Xesht has four difficulty levels, which you can set via the Breach Atlas Passive Tree. Higher difficulties mean more health, tougher mechanics, and better loot. Xesht resists Fire, Cold, and Lightning damage, deals Physical and Chaos damage, and can inflict Chill and Shock, so a balanced build with good defenses is essential.
Defeating Xesht: Tips and Strategy
Mechanics: Xesht telegraphs attacks clearly but hits hard. Dodge his abilities and avoid standing in damaging ground effects.
Prioritize Speed: Clear adds quickly to avoid being overwhelmed. The fight rewards fast kills with better loot.
Consumables: Bring healing flasks and buffs to sustain through the fight.
Loot: Defeating Xesht rewards valuable items such as unique gloves (Hand of Wisdom and Action), Controlled Metamorphosis jewels, Reliquary Keys, and Otherworldly Books of Knowledge that grant Breach Atlas passive points.
Is Breach Farming Profitable?
Breach farming is considered a strong currency farming strategy, especially at higher tiers. You can farm valuable crafting materials like Catalysts and high-demand uniques, alongside currency drops such as Divine and Exalted Orbs. Efficient Breach farming combined with Xesht boss runs can yield substantial profits.
In summary, to farm and use Breachstones efficiently:
Focus on maps with Breach encounters and optimize your Atlas for splinter drops.
Use AoE builds with good defenses to clear Breaches quickly and safely.
Collect 300 Breach Splinters to craft a Breachstone and challenge Xesht.
Prepare for the fight by balancing damage types and survivability.
Defeat Xesht for exclusive rewards and currency gains.