Strategy
The temple is one of the few endgame systems in 0.5.5 that pays out on a schedule rather than on luck. Once the layout is built correctly, each run hands over guaranteed currency from Smithy rooms, and the Atlas node that gives temple currency a 50% chance to duplicate turns those guaranteed drops into frequent double payouts. Hax reports roughly 110-120 divine worth of loot across nine runs on a properly built temple, versus a noticeably smaller haul from the same number of runs before the layout was finished.
The only rooms that matter financially are the ones that drop armourer’s and blacksmith infusers — catalysing infusers alone were price-checked at around two and a half divine each, and a full stack of the cheaper infusers still sells for double digits. The arcanist variant is the dud of the group. Because roughly two out of three Smithy visits produce something sellable, the run stops being a gamble and becomes, in the creator’s words, withdrawing from an ATM.
The entire skill of the strategy is fighting destabilisation. The temple destroys rooms every run, and the whole build order exists to make sure it destroys rooms you do not care about.
Atlas Tree & Setup
Take the Atlas node that gives temple currency a 50% chance to be duplicated — it is the single largest multiplier on this strategy and everything else is built around it.
The temple layout itself follows one repeating chain: Smithy, then a Golem Works, then another Smithy, then a Depot. The Golem Works sits in the chain deliberately, as the room the temple is allowed to eat. A Generator placed in range powers the chain and levels the Smithies; anything under level three is not worth running, and level four is the target. Extend the chain with a flag and a Commander, and protect the Generator by surrounding it with Tombstones and an Alchemy Lab.
Above the main chains, build a wide block of bait rooms — roughly eleven slots of filler that exist purely to absorb destabilisation. Never place a room directly adjacent to the Architect, since that breaks the chains. A finished temple ends up with around ten Smithies, one Generator powering them, and Commanders capping the ends.
Investment & Returns
- Investment: low — the cost is build-up time inside the temple, not currency spent up front
- Returns: high — roughly 100+ divine per ten runs on a finished layout, and the payout is mostly guaranteed rather than variance-driven
- Scaling: the more Smithies reach level three or four and the more bait rooms absorb destabilisation, the closer each run gets to the theoretical maximum
Step-by-step
- On a fresh temple, build a direct path toward the centre, then branch out to create around eleven filler slots for bait rooms.
- Lay the first Smithy - Golem Works - Smithy - Depot chain, keeping it clear of the Architect.
- Drop a Generator in range of the chain and upgrade Smithies to level three or four.
- Extend with flags and Commanders at the ends; wall the Generator in with Tombstones and an Alchemy Lab.
- Each run, visit only the Smithies for the guaranteed infusers, then the Commanders and Spymasters for room medallions.
- Spend medallion rooms on the bait block at the top so the temple targets those instead of the Smithy chains.
- Repeat up to ten runs per temple.
Risks
- Destabilisation scales with temple size — divide the room count by eight for the number of rooms the temple will try to destroy each run, and make sure medallions cover the gap
- A finished room at the end of a chain is the most likely target, so leaving dead-end rooms unfinished is deliberate, not laziness
- Early temples without Commander access struggle for medallions; level-three Commanders with Garrisons around them are the fix
- The adjacency theory (rooms with more neighbours are targeted more often) is credited to another player and is not fully tested
- The underlying strategy is credited to Milky VK; numbers here reflect one creator’s sample and will vary run to run
Credits & Source
Method credited to Hax. See the source video: Temple is Easy - How to make 100+ Divines Per Hour | Path of Exile 2.