Hey exiles, just got back into PoE and I had a question y'all might be able to answer. I'm playing on Xbox standard league running a raise Spectre build and just finished part 2. What's the best way to farm currency? So far I've been clearing some tier 1 and 2 maps as I come across them. I definitely don't get the master missions at all except einhar, his seem pretty easy to understand.
The Masters are various side endgame systems with usually an end game goal. Think of them as added value to your maps as doing them will give you additional rewards (small amount at first but the more you invest into them the more you get out of them).
Delve: A completely separate infinite dungeon that you trek through which is increasingly difficult. Requires Sulphite to progress which you get in maps when Niko spawns. Delve can be very rewarding at high monster levels. When your Sulphite levels are maxed out then it's usually time to go into the Delve and interact with it (upgrade your cart so that it can store more Sulphite, have higher light radius etc). The endgame goal of Delve is to beat a trio of very difficult bosses that can drop materials to craft very powerful rings (which give certain bonuses to the 3 charges in the game: Endurance, Frenzy and Power). Generally though people farm these as alternate to mapping.
Incursion: You enter a Temporal incursion and your goal is to create a pyramid that builds to an Apex boss at the top. You interconnect areas and you upgrade them so that they give better loot when you finally enter the pyramid. There are a set amount of incursions before the pyramid unlocks and after doing the pyramid it resets. The boss is generally pretty easy and unrewarding but the pyramid itself is very rewarding.... if you know what rooms can give what. There are cheat sheets online as to which rooms upgrade to what and what they can give so definitely read up on that. I would generally ignore Incursions until you have like a stack of 30+ you can chain in a row so that you can get the highest possible level of pyramid possible.
Bestiary: You defeat beasts in maps and they unlock certain recipes in the Menagerie. They can give some valuable stuff so be on the look out for what you unlock (especially look out for crafting ones that do stuff like split Magic items). You can even SELL the beasts by buying an item that stores beasts in your menagerie and you can sell that item (only do it for the super rare beasts, the item itself costs like a chaos). The end game of this is fighting 4 specific Aspect beast bosses that can drop powerful unique set items. The Furrul is the rarest and only accessible in high maps but can give a very powerful item, the Furrul's Fur chest unique.
Syndicate: This is the most complex of the Masters. Generally you are fighting these NPC rogue enemies in 4 different categories (Stronghold, Fortification, Research etc.). Each NPC gives certain rewards when they are part of a specific category (so Rin can give Cartographers scarab when in Intervention) when you unlock their Safehouses. This means each member has possible 4 reward possibilities depending on which branch they are in and there are like 16+ members total. Furthermore you can manipulate which branch they can be in by Executing, Interrogating, Betraying, Bargaining with them. The leader in each Safehouse drops double rewards and the higher level of the NPC the higher the rewards. There is a full chart that shows what character gives what reward in what Safehouse which you should look into similar to the Incursion chart. But this is extremely rewarding for certain combinations. The endgame of this is unlocking enough Safehouse to unlock the Mastermind fight which gives rewards from all the safehouses under it plus unique items specific to the fight. This is also another Master mission that I recommend interacting with after you have stocked up a large sum of these. Through Syndicate mainly you also get Veiled items that unlock new crafting options on your crafting bench which can be very useful and poweful.
There are end games to Legion, Abyss and Breach encounters as well but they are just straightforward boss fights. You build up splinters for Legion and Breach to tackle their end game boss encounters where as with Abyss you get the boss encounters randomly. You want to do these in every map because they just add more monsters and reward to the map and you can't stack up on these. Same for Essences but there is no endgame to that other than corrupting certain purple colored tier 5 essences to unique essences which really isnt that necessary to be honest (but can give you some nice free money).