Against the Darkness Time-Lost Diamond is a Unique Jewel in Path of Exile 2, and it’s no exaggeration to say it’s one of the most impactful Jewels in the game if you’re lucky enough to get one with the right modifiers. This Jewel has a Large Radius, so it affects a big area around the Socket on your Passive Skills tree. It applies bonus effects to both Small Passive Nodes and Notable Passive Nodes within its range, turning even simple passives into serious stat boosters depending on your build.
The value of Against the Darkness lies in the two random modifiers it rolls on identification. These can range from elemental resistance buffs to ailment mitigation or attribute stacking—so the right rolls can fully enable or turbocharge a build. It’s the perfect blend of power and RNG that keeps players grinding for the right Jewel. But it’s not that easy to get Against the Darkness Time-Lost Diamond in Path of Exile 2 as there is a boos fight involved in a specific manner, so here’s everything you need to know.
How to Get Against the Darkness Time-Lost Diamond in PoE 2
You get this Jewel during Trial of the Sekhemas, a high-stakes Sanctum-style challenge that spans four floors. The boss you need to defeat during this Trial is Zarokh, the Temporal, who waits at the end of the fourth floor. However, simply beating him isn’t enough. To make Against the Darkness drop guaranteed, engage the boss with a special Unique Relic activated, named The Desperate Alliance Vase.
Here’s how to process through the Trail to get Against the Darkness:
- Complete a full 4-floor Trial of the Sekhemas using a Djinn Barya of level 80 or higher.
- Activate The Desperate Alliance before starting. This Relic significantly increases Zarokh’s abilities as he takes 75% less damage and deals 100% more, but with a guaranteed drop.
- Once defeated, head to the spawn Time-Lost Cache chest in the room. Open it, and your reward will be the Against the Darkness Time-Lost Diamond Jewel.
While caches also appear on the third floor after combat with Ashar, the Sand Mother, these won’t drop Against the Darkness but just elemental Time-Lost Jewels like Ruby, Emerald, and Sapphire.
How to Get The Desperate Alliance Vase Relic in PoE 2
The Desperate Alliance is one of six potential Unique Relics dropped by Zarokh, even if you’re not using any Relics during your run. You can’t use this item more than once, so plan your run carefully. To increase your chances of farming these Relics, you can stack Relics with the modifier “% Increased Quantity of Relics Dropped By Monsters” when using your Djinn Barya or engage in repeated Sekhemas runs and farm Zarokh, the Temporal until the boss drops it.
Note: The Relic goes for a high price in trade leagues—about 2 Divine Orbs, sometimes more—so weigh the cost carefully if you’re not planning on farming multiple copies of the Jewel.
How Against the Darkness Jewel Work in PoE 2?
Against the Darkness sets it apart from the usual flurry of Socket fodder you find while mapping. What makes it powerful, though, is how it interacts with the Passive Skill Tree through its Radius-based effects.
When you socket this Jewel into your Passive Tree, it creates a white radius around it. Everything within that circle, including Small Passive Nodes and Notable Passives, takes advantage of the Jewel’s modifiers. The Jewel comes with two random modifiers, and these can apply either to small passives, notables, or one of each. Interestingly, these aren’t just fluff stats—a few are downright build-defining such as +1% to maximum resistances, extra Elemental or Chaos damage, attribute stacking, or ailment mitigation.
So if you’re a cold res stacker, an ailment-immune bruiser, or a Mana-stacking MoM player, there is a great synergy to get. The Jewel’s effectiveness is about placement, you want it socketed in a tree area where as many relevant passives as possible fall inside the Radius. Although you can reroll its stats with Divine Orbs (though I wouldn’t recommend it in the normal scenario), you cannot change the Radius itself. It’s fixed. That means if you’re min-maxing your tree around it, you have to work within that boundary.
All Known Jewel Modifiers
The real strength of Against the Darkness comes from the pool of random modifiers it can roll. These are drawn from a shared pool of Time-Lost Jewel affixes, and as with any good ARPG RNG mechanic, some are gold while others are just average. You won’t know what you will get until you identify the Jewel.
For Small Passive Skills, the things you can get include:
- +X% to elemental resistances (Fire, Cold, Lightning, or Chaos)
- Reduced duration of ailments (Ignite, Shock, Freeze)
- Increased maximum life or mana, either percentage-based or flat, depending on the patch version
Regarding Notable Passives, the benefits are more rewarding:
- +1% to maximum elemental resistances—these are massive, especially for tanky builds
- Extra damage as Chaos, Fire, Cold, or Lightning
- Increased core attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence
- Abilities like increased ailment effect, energy generation, or ailment duration, though these were toned down in the latest patch
You’ll often hear players say, “Just buy it.” That’s because rolling the perfect combo yourself is nearly impossible unless you’ve got a ton of them to throw away. Smart players shop the trade site and sort by stats they specifically need for their PoE 2 build, like +Mana for MoM setups or +Max Res for tanky builds.
