Fossils are a special type of PoE currency, much like PoE Orb. They were introduced in the Delve league and can be socketed into resonators. Furthermore, they are considered to be a special type of crafting material. There is a wide variety of Fossils that can be found within the Delves—a randomly generated mine that you can explore between each checkpoint. With our Fossil Crafting Guide, we’ll be discussing where the optimal locations to find these fossils are and how you can craft them in the easiest manner possible.

Fossil Crafting

As earlier stated, Fossil crafting was introduced in Delve expansion league. While you’re delving down in the mine, you will find these fossils along with resonators. The fossils can be placed inside the resonators, and when they are full the resonators are used to apply to an item the same way as a chaos orb or essence. These resonators have between one to four sockets, allowing you to craft both mid-tier and even extremely powerful items in the process.

However, unlike essences, fossils do not guarantee anything. Although they can be used to block off stats you don’t want, or weight rolls towards stats that you do want. A prime example would a Pristine Fossil weight rolls on an item towards having a life roll, but it also guarantees that the item will not have an armor, energy shield, or evasion rating roll. By using multiple fossils at once, you can effectively block entire sections of modifiers, and guarantee certain results to some extent.

Besides that, there are also a few extremely rare and expensive fossils that roll the item with all new modifiers that can only be found from fossils. This includes Hollow Fossil and Bloodstained Fossil. Hollow Fossil guarantees one abyssal socket on a rare item, but it is added as a modifier which will be removed should the item be rolled again. The Bloodstained Fossil adds all-new vaal modifiers, which in turn affects how vaal skills are used. While these fossils are extremely expensive to try, they can altogether result in some of the strongest items in the game!

Fossil Locations

Fossils are mostly found within the short side areas in the darkness, though they sometimes even appear in areas in which your cart can move. Sometimes, Fossils can even spawn behind Fractured Walls, so you’ll have to destroy them with Dynamite before you can access the Fossil spawn location. Currently, there are a total of 30 different Fossils which spawn in certain Fossil locations aka Fossil biomes within the Delve mine. There are seven of these Fossil locations which are listed down below:

Mines Biome – Metallic Fossil, Serrated Fossil, Pristine Fossil, and Aetheric Fossil
Fungal Caverns Biome – Dense Fossil, Aberrant Fossil, Perfect Fossil, Corroded Fossil, and Gilded Fossil (Note: Gilded Fossil spawns rarer than the other Fossils in this location, making it more valuable and is hidden behind Fractured Walls.)
Petrified Forest Biome – Bound Fossil, Jagged Fossil, Corroded Fossil, and Sanctified Fossil (Note: Sanctified Fossil spawns rare than the other Fossils on this location, therefore it is worth more and can only be found behind Fractured Walls.)
Abyssal Depths Biome – Aberrant Fossil, Bound Fossil, Gilded Fossil, and Lucent Fossil (Note: Gilded and Lucent Fossils can only be found behind Fractured Walls.)
Frozen Hollow Biome – Frigid Fossil, Serrated Fossil, Prismatic Fossil, and Sanctified Fossil (Note: Sanctified Fossil is rare and can only be found behind Fractured Walls.)
Magma Fissure Biome – Scorched Fossil, Prismatic Fossil, Pristine Fossil, Enchanted Fossil, Encrusted Fossil, and Faceted Fossil (Note: Encrusted and Faceted Fossils are rare fossils, and therefore can only be found behind Fractured Walls.)
Sulfur Vents Biome – Metallic Fossil, Perfect Fossil, Aetheric Fossil, and Encrusted Fossil

Fossil farming and crafting is a rather common thing to do during new leagues, simply because Fossils can be quite expensive and can be considered a really good PoE currency and PoE orbs making method. But in order to be an efficient farmer, it’s critical to know the Fossil locations and spawn rates before crafting them.

Overseas, down memory lane, and even parallel universes – some of the few places Path of Exile has brought players. So this time, the game is bringing exiles to where they’ve never been before: underground. Next expansions going way down, literally: it’s no other than Path of Exile: Delve. Time to mine some POE items.

A Bit of Downtime

Path of Exile: Delve will be taking players to what seems like the bottomless Azurite Mine. There, they’ll be confronting dangers they’ll never find on the surface of Wraeclast and Oriath.

The Azurite Mine is deadly as it is mysterious because of the darkness that has consumed the place for two and a half centuries and cast the Eternal Empire out. The darkness also kills anyone who enters the mines, making exploration impossible. Inventor Niko, however, built the Crawler, a cart-like automaton that can light the mines up. Powered by Voltaxic Sulphite, it’s the only contraption that can perform this feat. Thus, with Niko’s work and your very own courage and readiness, be ready to venture into the deep unknown down below.

Darker, Longer, Better

But rather than the Crawler following you, it will be the other way around. You’ll have to go along with the Crawler, lest you be left behind in the darkness, which will deal damage over time. But don’t worry about not being able to keep up, as the Crawler’s movement speed is very much like yours.

The more you delve deeper, the more the mine becomes harder to explore. To get past these limitations, upgrading the Crawler and other mining gear is a must. For that, you’ll need azurite, which you’ll find in the mines. For example, if you want to stay longer in the mines, you need a higher carrying capacity of Voltaxic Sulphite. Like what’s been previously said, you’ll need azurite for that. Other than that, azurite is used to improve darkness resistance, light radius, as well as upgrade and buy flares and dynamites.

Can’t Stay Below

In true hack-and-slash dungeon crawler fashion, the deeper you reach in the Azurite Mine, the stronger the enemies will be. Also, true to the genre’s conventions, stronger enemies mean better POE items and more PoE currency. Aside from the positive feedback loop grinding, you can also find packets of hidden rewards simply by exploring. And if you’re into the lore, you’ll find ruins of ancient civilizations as an added bonus. The devs have even teased players that there’s a dragon somewhere down there. With so many surprises, it’s no surprise that players will want to keep going down and down.

How long? For as long as they can, because the Azurite Mine is Path of Exile’s first infinite dungeon. And because you can go and on and on while the mobs get stronger and stronger, you might even eventually come to a point where the encounters can be tougher to beat than some endgame content. So don’t just aimlessly go lower and lower; be prepared.

Also, don’t think that you can stay in Azurite Mines for as long as you can. This is because you’ll be consuming Votaxic Sulphate on a regular basis, and the stuff can only be found on regular maps. Think of it as playing Path of Exile, because you’ll have to go out from time to time in order to get food Don’t take it so hard, that’s just how the mining industry works.

Path of Exile: Delve is already online; that means a lot of us will be digging deeper and deeper in its rich content. So, what are you waiting for? Log in now and start getting down to business.