Strategy
This is an atlas completion route rather than a currency-farming method: the goal is to unlock every atlas passive point as fast as possible, so that real juicing can begin from a finished tree. The central argument is that the first stretch of maps is not where you make money, so anything that slows completion down — full-clearing, over-juicing, running tiers your build cannot handle comfortably — is a net loss.
Two 0.5.5 changes make this faster than the equivalent route earlier in the patch cycle. The Arbiter of Divinity now only needs to be killed twice, not six times, to fully unlock the atlas. And the reforging bench combined with Doryani’s vendor stock lets you skip most of the low-tier map ladder entirely instead of grinding upward one tier at a time.
The method suits any build that can hold a steady pace at a mid-to-high tier. It is explicitly not about pushing tier 15 as early as possible — the advice is to run the highest tier you clear comfortably, and to drop down a tier if the higher one costs 50 to 80% more time per map.
Atlas Tree & Setup
The reforging bench, unlocked from the Act 3 quest, converts three maps of the same tier into one map a tier higher, and this bypasses the normal upgrade requirement. Doryani always stocks maps one tier below your highest completion, and his stock refreshes on every level-up — so buy before you level, not after.
Three atlas passive nodes are called out as traps to avoid:
- Mantrap (essence monsters can be rogue exiles) — still buggy, exiles can spawn outside essence range
- Survival of the Fittest — merges rare packs into single stronger rares, which cuts your omen count if you plan to farm Abyss, since omens are capped per rare monster
- The breach-to-hideout node — hideouts are generally a waste of time unless you are deliberately farming them
The two small increased-gold nodes are optional; their interaction with raw currency drops is unclear and they are easy to path around.
Investment & Returns
- Investment: low. Maps are run magic rather than alchemised for most of the route; alch only red tiers, and only if you need sustain. Tablets are not worth slotting before you have league mechanic access.
- Returns: low during the route, high after. This is a setup phase — the payoff is a fully unlocked atlas tree that every later strategy is built on.
- Scaling: the higher the tier you can hold comfortably, the better the item-level bases you pick up along the way, which is often the real profit from this phase.
Step-by-step
- On entering maps, reforge three tier 1s into a tier 2 and keep reforging up to at least tier 3 — do not start at tier 1.
- Buy Doryani’s stock on every level-up and feed it into the reforging bench to jump tiers.
- Save your highest-tier map for a powerful map boss node — those are the only maps that drop a tier above their own, outside the reforging bench.
- Boss-rush rather than full-clear. Run maps magic unless you need sustain.
- Rush the first precursor tower, then the fortress: clear the Western and Eastern Enigma Chambers for the last two stones, and kill the Arbiter of Ash.
- Rush the middle origin tower, complete one Matriarch Hall and one Patriarch Hall (they spawn paired and within sight of each other), then kill the Arbiter of Divinity.
- Repeat one more Matriarch and Patriarch Hall outside the fortress, then fight the fully powered Arbiter of Divinity. The atlas is now fully unlocked.
- Complete the master questlines alongside this — Doryani needs three Corrupted Nexuses plus the Amir Fury boss; Zana needs an anomaly map then the four she lists; Hilda reveals three map bosses to hunt.
Risks
- Rushing tiers beyond what your build handles is the main way to lose time on this route — the whole method assumes a comfortable clear pace.
- Item-level breakpoints differ per build; you need to look up the base you actually want before deciding which tier to rush to.
- Atlas node advice reflects 0.5.5 as patched at the time of recording; the Mantrap bug in particular may be fixed later.
- Running everything magic means you will bank very little currency during this phase, which can feel bad if you are short on maps.
Credits & Source
Method credited to Fubgun. See the source video: How to Quickly Progress your Atlas in 0.5.5 Forbidden Rites.