Against the Darkness Time-Lost Diamond is a Unique Jewel that is considered one of the most valuable uniques in Path of Exile 2 if rolled properly, allowing players to realize some of the most broken builds in the game with its help.

Understandably, obtaining it is quite hard, and requires defeating a certain boss in a very specific way. Special conditions need to be met for this Jewel to drop and they're not easy to meet. Here's the breakdown.

How to Get Against the Darkness Time-Lost Diamond in PoE 2

The Against the Darkness Jewel is a limited drop from Zarokh, the Temporal, the final boss of the fourth floor of the Trial of the Sekhemas. It is a reward for defeating him while using a Djinn Barya with The Desperate Alliance Vase Relic. Without this Unique Relic activated during a Trial, obtaining an Against the Darkness from Zarokh is impossible. The Desperate Alliance reduces the amount of damage Zarokh takes by 75% and increases his damage by 100%. Choosing the right option

After Zarokh is defeated with the correct Relic activated, head over to the final reward chest room and look for the Time-Lost Cache. Open it, and an Against the Darkness Jewel will drop.

Time-Lost Caches can spawn after the third-floor boss of the Trial of the Sekhemas is defeated (Ashar, the Sand Mother). However, it is not possible to obtain Against the Darkness from these caches, only regular Time-Lost Jewels (Ruby/Sapphire/Emerald).

How to Get The Desperate Alliance Vase Relic

The Desperate Alliance Unique Relic is a random drop from Zarokh, the Temporal, obtainable during any run, with or without a relic. Zarokh can drop six unique relics, each a means of increasing the difficulty of a Trial of the Sekhemas and guaranteeing a valuable unique one like Against the Darkness, Temporalis, and others. While players cannot influence which Relic Zarokh drops, they can increase the drop rate of relics in a trial by stacking the "#% Increased Quantity of Relics Dropped By Monsters" modifier on the relics activated with the Djinn Barya.

How Does Against the Darkness Work in PoE 2

Unlike most other Jewels in PoE 2, Against the Darkness (and other Time-Lost Jewels) have a special mechanic called Radius. Effects of a Jewel with Radius are applied to certain passive skill nodes in a circle around the Jewel socket in the passive tree. For other Jewels, the Radius ranges from Small to Medium to Large, but Against the Darkness Jewels always have a Large Radius.

Two types of passive buffs can appear on an Against the Darkness:

Ones that affect Small Passive Nodes.

Ones that affect Notable Passive Nodes.

Notable Passive skills are the ones with a larger-than-normal size on the passive tree, often providing large, build-defining buffs. All the rest are considered Small Passive skills. When an Against the Darkness Jewel is placed in a Jewel socket, a white circle will appear around its location, and all the passive skills that are inside this circle will be affected by it.

Against the Darkness has 21 possible modifiers it can roll into (full list of modifiers found here), and the only way to realistically obtain the perfect combination of two is by trading with other players. Rolling the perfect combination on your own is incredibly unlikely.

The Against the Darkness Jewel is a game-changer, especially with that large radius that affects both small and notable passive nodes. It's one of those Path of Exile 2 items that can elevate a build significantly, making it versatile across many different types of strategies. With 21 potential modifiers to roll, it does require patience, but having Path of Exile 2 currency and Path of Exile 2 items gives you a solid foundation for crafting or trading for those perfect mods.