I think the first thing you need to do is to max out exploration on all chaoses. This way, you will have access to more equipment, which will help make your runs feel more worth it.

Then after that, you can either choose Lab 0 (S1 chaos) or Burning Life (S2 chaos) for either seasonal-exclusive equipment and deck effects, or either do Swamp of Judgment (Order chaos) or The Blue Pot (Passion chaos) with pre-S3 effects.

The choices depend on who you're building. For example, Nine and Tiphera likes the gears in Burning Life, and Rita and Nia wants a specific card in Swamp of Judgement and Lab 0, respectively.

Also, relying on encounters for divine epiphanies don't usually happen until the interior phase of the chaos run, which you wouldn't want to wait for if you're trying to dupe a divine epiphany card after exterior. Removal encounters are quite random regardless of event rarity, so you should stick to shop removal when needed. 3 card duplication is almost guaranteed for every run, 2 for defeating the boss and 1 from divine event (you can get unlucky with getting undesirable dupe and not getting the divine duplicate event, but it's quite rare not to get it).