Last updated: 12 July 2026

Path of Exile 2 Delirium & Simulacrum Farming Guide

Delirium is Path of Exile 2's highest-density loot mechanic — a spreading fog that makes monsters hit harder and take less damage in exchange for dramatically better drops, currency you can't get anywhere else, and a path into one of the game's eight pinnacle bosses. Patch 0.5 rebuilt the mechanic almost top to bottom, cutting the endgame Simulacrum from Path of Exile 1's 15-wave slog down to a tighter 7 waves and reworking the reward structure around a new currency called Liquid Emotions. This guide covers how the fog itself works, how to build toward and clear the Simulacrum, and how to farm and spend Liquid Emotions without wasting them.

01What Delirium Is: The Mirror, the Fog, and the Trade-off

Some maps roll with the modifier "Area contains a Mirror of Delirium" — an interactable mirror placed near your spawn point. Walking through it fills the map with a grey fog that spreads outward from the mirror and slowly advances as you explore. Enemies inside the fog hit harder, take less damage, and can roll extra abilities the further you push from the mirror's origin point — but they also drop noticeably better loot, including Delirium-exclusive currency you cannot get any other way.

The fog is not optional scenery. A progress bar at the bottom of the screen tracks how deep into the encounter you are, and if you step outside the mist for more than 4 seconds, the encounter ends immediately with no grace period. Staying inside the advancing fog — rather than clearing at your own pace and letting it catch up — is the core skill of running Delirium efficiently.

Scattered through the fog you'll also find Fracturing Mirrors — reflective pools that spawn additional packs of Delirium monsters when you approach and shatter. Popping these deliberately increases the danger and the loot on offer in that specific pocket of the encounter, making them a risk-reward lever you can pull manually rather than a passive hazard.

02Building Deliriousness Toward the Simulacrum

Every map you clear while under a Delirium Mirror's influence pushes a regional Deliriousness meter upward. Keep completing Delirium maps in the same Atlas region and the meter climbs toward 100%; hit that cap and access to the Simulacrum of Delusion unlocks for that region. Defeating a map boss while the mirror is still active also has a chance to spawn a Grand Mirror on a nearby Atlas map, which duplicates that map's boss into a double fight and lets you pick a fresh location to keep building Deliriousness rather than starting over from scratch.

This is the main reason Delirium rewards consistency over one-off dives: running isolated Delirium maps here and there barely moves the meter, while committing to a string of them in the same region is what actually gets you to a Simulacrum key.

03Liquid Emotions: Farming and Spending Them

Liquid Emotions (still widely called Distilled Emotions in older guides) are Delirium's signature currency — ten named types (Ire, Guilt, Greed, Paranoia, Envy, Disgust, Despair, Fear, Suffering, Isolation) that drop from completed Delirium encounters. Each has two uses:

• Instill a Waystone at the crafting bench with one to three Liquid Emotions to force that map to spawn Delirium fog automatically, with every selected emotion's bonus modifier stacking on top of the others.
• Anoint an amulet with three Liquid Emotions in a specific order (not simply three of the same type) to permanently grant the matching Notable passive skill — hover any Notable on the passive tree to see which three-emotion sequence it needs. This is a separate, permanent use that has nothing to do with maps.

Three emotions are worth calling out specifically because their effects are well documented and directly useful for farming: Liquid Greed (10% Deliriousness, 8% increased Rarity of items found in the area), Liquid Envy (15% Deliriousness, 30% increased Waystones found), and Liquid Despair (20% Deliriousness, 30% increased Simulacrum Splinter stack size). A Waystone instilled with all three — a popular combination often described as a rarity-and-splinter feeder — pushes both currency drops and your Simulacrum access at the same time.

The one rule that trips up new players: a Waystone instilled with Liquid Emotions will not itself drop more Liquid Emotions, because the fog it creates never dissipates the way a natural mirror's does. Farm your emotions on natural Delirium Mirrors you find on unmodified maps, then spend them on separate maps you've deliberately instilled for rarity, splinters, or whatever else you're chasing that session.

04The Simulacrum: 7 Waves and the Tangmazu Pinnacle

Delirium encounters also drop Simulacrum Splinters; a full stack combines into a Simulacrum item, which you place in the Realmgate at your Hideout to start the fight. As of patch 0.5, the Simulacrum runs 7 waves (cut down from 15 in the Path of Exile 1 version many veteran guides still describe), with Deliriousness climbing from 100% at the start of wave 1 to 200% by wave 7. Omniphobia, Fear Manifest and Kosis, the Revelation remain dangerous mid-run encounters as you push through the waves.

Completing wave 7 hands you 2 Atlas Passive Points for the Delirium tree and a boss key to Tangmazu, the Raven Trickster — the Delirium pinnacle boss, fought as a standalone multi-phase encounter in his own arena. See the Pinnacle Bosses Guide for the full access chain and fight breakdown across all eight of the game's pinnacle encounters, and the Currency Farming Guide for how Simulacrum profit compares to the game's other major farming loops.

05Practical Tips for Efficient Delirium Farming

• Prioritize clear speed and mobility over raw single-target damage for regular Delirium maps — you're racing to stay inside an advancing fog, not standing still to burst down tanky rares.
• Pop Fracturing Mirrors deliberately when your build can handle the extra pressure; skipping them on a map you're already struggling with is a completely reasonable way to survive to the reward tiles you've already earned.
• Keep a stock of unmodified Waystones specifically for natural-mirror farming, separate from the ones you instill with Liquid Emotions — mixing the two purposes on the same map is how players accidentally starve their own emotion income.
• Treat Deliriousness progression as a regional project across several maps in a row rather than a single-map goal; jumping between regions resets the momentum you're building toward a Simulacrum key.
• Path of Exile 2 is in Early Access and receives frequent balance passes to Delirium specifically — patch 0.5.2 and 0.5.3 both changed monster toughness and Simulacrum difficulty within the same season. Cross-check current patch notes before assuming a specific number in this guide still applies exactly.