What is the fastest way to farm good essences? Is there hidden farming?

First thing that springs to mind is a quote from the patch notes...

"

Bex_GGG wrote:

Path of Exile: Version 2.4.0 (Atlas of Worlds) Patch Notes

The Essence Challenge Leagues:
Each additional player in your party adds a chance for an additional random essence to drop when the monster is killed.

Soo...
Join a 6 person party.
Pick your favourite 68+ area / map you can speed run solo
Everyone runs their own instance / map and gets extra drops due to the party bonus

i was thinking it was the Sarn City WP thing..

you go to Sarn City WP from town, there is likely a essence RIGHT by the WP, or within about 1 screen away, then WP back to town, then WP to Sarn City .. repeat

it works, there is big chance for an Essence to be there!

in flashback league, there was a challenge to touch a Divine Shrine, this is what people did to get that challenge.


it works, but it gets boring fast... if you can handle it, its like almost worth it??

So this thread fetched my curiosity and I ran some test. Here's the outcome:

For one hour I did merciless Kaom's Path runs. I'm quite certain that Kaom's path is the best level 68+ area to do these runs because of it's linear layout. I managed to do 50 runs (although you can be faster with a character that is built for it). Note that the highest tier of essences that can spawn outside of maps is 4 (wailing). Vaal Side areas and the Labyrinth don't spawn essences.

Number of gathered essences:


Assuming the spawnrate of the different essence typed is evenly distributed (I'm not quite sure if this is the case) you could craft up these essences to 9 Tier 5 (Screaming) essences.
Note: No remnants of corruptiom were used during these runs.


I then proceeded to run white maps from tier 1 to tier 5 (mostly with linear layouts). I only stopped for essences and killed nothing else (not even the map boss). I did this for 30 minutes and stopped at that point because it became very clear that it's far more efficient. I didn't count the number of maps but it should be between 20 and 25.

Number of gahtered essences:


Assuming the spawnrate of the different essence typed is evenly distributed (I'm not quite sure if this is the case) you could craft up these essences to 12 Tier 5 (Screaming) essences (Counting 3 Tier 5 essences for 1 Tier 6 Essence and not counting the Essence of Hysteria).
Note: Remnants of corruptiom were used during these runs (Approx. 4-6).



Conclusion: While running white low tier maps I have gathered more essences in half the time. Even without using Remnatns of Corruption maps should be far more efficient then non map areas. The only problem is that efficiency is somewhat gated behind a pool of low tier maps with good layout. But even bad layouts should be still better then Kaom's Path.

Alot of people suggest using Remnants of Corruption on every Screaming essence. I wouldn't do that as a RoC sells for roughly 1 chaos while unpopular shrieking essences only sell for a chisel. Here's what I would suggest:
Use Remnant of Curruption when:
- Screaming Essence of Misery, Dread, Scorn, Envy (Those have a chance to become Hysteria, Insanity, Horror, Delirium)
- Screaming Essence of Woe (Shrieking Essence of Woe sells for 10 Chaos)
- 2x or more Screaming Essences
ONLY IF YOU HAVE A DECENT AMOUNT OF ROCs
- Screaming Essence of Loathing, Zeal, Rage, Contempt