Path of Exile: Delve Challenge League FAQ

The upcoming Delve challenge league for Path of Exile should be going live in a couple of weeks, on August 31, 2018. And in order to clarify some things about this new chunk of content and its less than obvious endless dungeon mechanics, the developers have put together a helpful FAQ on the game's website. Here's an excerpt:

When do you first encounter Delve content?
As early as the Coast.

How common is Voltaxic Sulphite?
It's in every area. Sometimes multiple deposits of it.

Is there a minimum amount of Voltaxic Sulphite needed to enter the mine?
There's a minimum amount of Voltaxic Sulphite required to get the Crawler to go to a new location, but it's quite small for short Delves.

Is there a capacity on how much Voltaxic Sulphite you can carry?
Yes, and you can upgrade this with Azurite if you feel it's too low.

How long can you spend in the mine assuming you have filled your Voltaxic Sulphite capacity?
This depends on a number of factors, but with reasonable capacity upgrades at a reasonable depth, you can chain a few longer Delves together if you want to consume all your Voltaxic Sulphite at once.

Do you have to wait for Niko to collect the sulphite once you encounter it?
No, you can click it and walk away (or click him and go do the Delve immediately).

Can I bypass leveling in other areas of the game and spend most of my time exclusively in the mine?
No. You have to play the regular game to get Voltaxic Sulphite so that you can play Delves.

Can you use Azurite for anything other than upgrading your mining equipment?
Azurite can be spent upgrading your mining equipment (Sulphite capacity, darkness resistance, light radius) to offset the growing difficulty of deeper levels, as well as upgrades for Flares (capacity, radius, duration) and Dynamite (capacity, damage, radius). You can also directly buy more Flares, Dynamite to help with your delves.

Niko also sells Resonators to craft with, for a price.

Can you trade azurite, sulphite, flares and dynamite? Do they take up inventory space?
They can not be traded and do not take up inventory space. These track your own Delve progress and are stored for your individual character.

And if you'd like to know what will happen to the Incursion league mechanics now that the game is moving on, you can check out this announcement:

Incursion was a successful league. We enjoyed developing it, and creating strong thematic and mechanical links to Sacrifice of the Vaal. Players enjoyed the content, the items and the corruption.

The main negative we heard was that players wanted it to progress more, or to have an advanced version or an even larger ultimate fight. The league was deliberately made to provide self-contained content that could be progressed through several times. While that worked very well, it is clear that Path of Exile players like having longer term progression and goals as well (see Delve).

Due to the league being such a success, we have worked out a plan to add it to the core game. This will be included in December's 3.5.0 update, not in the September Delve release.

The corruption mods introduced alongside Incursion will remain as Vaal Orb outcomes, but you may need to wait until 3.5.0 for a reliable way to double-corrupt items.

Thanks for playing Incursion. We really enjoyed both making and playing it. We look forward to seeing you in Delve.

You can also click here to see a preview of Path of Exile's improved water tech.