Path of Idle Outlands guide: plane levels, Void Stars and Astral Essence
Outlands is where Astral Essence comes from, and Astral Essence is what every town renovation eventually needs. Each Outlands boss pays 2 essence directly, and finishing all nine stages means killing 260 bosses, which comes to 520 essence. The six upgradeable town buildings need 509 between them, as the resource economy guide sets out.
Outlands opens after you clear chapter 12, Blightwood, and is the fourth of the five adventure modes.
How a plane works
A plane holds 5 sites in order: four Common sites, then one Boss site.
| Site | Enemy groups | Cost | Notable drops |
|---|---|---|---|
| Common | 4 | 1 Void Stars | equipment chest, gold, blood, soul |
| Boss | 1 | 2 Void Stars | Astral Essence, Set Chest, plus the above |
Beating the boss while the plane is below its level cap raises the plane level and generates a fresh set of sites. Once the plane is at its cap, beating the boss completes that plane. So a plane with a cap of 5 needs five boss kills, and each of those needs its four Common sites cleared first.
The next stage opens only when every plane in the current stage has reached the cap and finished its sites. There is no partial advance.
Each plane picks a random theme from the first ten chapters. The six official plane names, Oracle, Halo, Dawn, Glory, Order and Astral, do not map to particular chapters.
The nine stages
| Stage | Planes | Plane level cap | Enemy level | Attribute level |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 3 | 5 | 60 | 66 |
| 2 | 3 | 5 | 65 | 72 |
| 3 | 4 | 5 | 70 | 79 |
| 4 | 4 | 6 | 75 | 85 |
| 5 | 5 | 6 | 80 | 92 |
| 6 | 5 | 6 | 85 | 99 |
| 7 | 6 | 7 | 90 | 106 |
| 8 | 6 | 7 | 95 | 113 |
| 9 | 6 | 7 | 100 | 120 |
The attribute level runs well ahead of the enemy level in every stage, ending 20 higher in stage 9. Since crit, dodge and defense all resolve against a level threshold, those stats are worth less here than the enemy level suggests. Resistance does not have that problem, which makes it the better defensive investment in Outlands. The attributes guide has the formulas.
Plane level multiplies the enemies
The plane level applies a straight multiplier on top of everything else.
| Plane level | Attack | Health |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 0.994x | 1.007x |
| 3 | 1.066x | 1.123x |
| 5 | 1.170x | 1.295x |
| 7 | 1.306x | 1.523x |
Health climbs faster than attack. A plane at level 7 has enemies with about 52% more health and about 31% more attack than level 1. That skews Outlands toward damage over defense, since the fights get longer more than they get deadlier.
What a full clear costs
One site cycle is four Common sites and one Boss: 6 Void Stars. Boss kills needed per plane equal the plane’s level cap.
| Stage | Boss kills | Void Stars |
|---|---|---|
| 1 and 2 | 15 each | 90 each |
| 3 | 20 | 120 |
| 4 | 24 | 144 |
| 5 and 6 | 30 each | 180 each |
| 7, 8 and 9 | 42 each | 252 each |
All nine stages together: 260 boss kills and 1,560 Void Stars.
Void Stars drop from the campaign from chapter 12 onward at a base 0.10% to 0.15% per roll, and that rate is the same in every chapter that carries them. There is no faster place to farm them, which makes 1,560 the number that sets the pace of this whole mode.
Star slots
Stages 1 through 8 each open one star slot on the astrolabe, alternating attack and defense.
| Slot | Opens at stage | Rune slot | Rune quality |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | Attack | Fine |
| 2 | 2 | Defense | Fine |
| 3 | 3 | Attack | Rare |
| 4 | 4 | Defense | Rare |
| 5 | 5 | Attack | Legendary |
| 6 | 6 | Defense | Legendary |
| 7 | 7 | Attack | Mythic |
| 8 | 8 | Defense | Mythic |
The quality tier rises with the stage, so the later slots are the ones worth the wait. Which runes exist and what each quality rolls is on the runes pages.
Practical notes
Outlands boss sites drop Set Chests, which makes them one of the few repeatable set piece sources alongside the Sanctum tower’s Throne Halls.
Common sites are 4 enemy groups at power 80, the same power as an Explore island and higher than a campaign level’s 60. A team that walks through the campaign will not automatically walk through Outlands.
Because the mode gates on clearing every plane, being stuck on one plane stops the whole stage. When that happens, the fix is the usual list in boss walls, with resistance weighted higher than defense for the reason above.