Path of Exile

Similar question line - I didn't understand the value of Druidic Rites, so will snag that immediately. Also had a Stibnite Surgeon of Dousing flask in the bank, so equipped that, and yeah, can keep that running darn near constantly it seems already.

I was planning on making my way on the skill tree up to the Scion area for Sentinel, the three +18% resistances above it, and Arcane Chemistry. However, last night I got some +betterer gear that has me at 75% elemental resistances in Merciless. So, are the 28% resistances and 24% evasion from Sentinel (and the three above it) valuable to allow me to reforge that gear to other stats? Or is it best on the gear and spend those passive points elsewhere? And is Arcane Chemistry worth going up there alone for if I'm not getting Sentinel?

Thanks in advance! I'm level 64 now, have something like 23 respec points available at the moment, so I can make some changes if need be.

Caliane has more experience than me, so listen to him

Do all the changes you feel alright making, try to tinker with your gear a bit and when you get bored, reroll something else entirely and use what you learned when building that character. You want 4k+ HP at the least, 5K is much better, but even then endgame Izaro can 1shot you

For a solo self-found playstyle, whats the fastest way to unlock maps on the atlas that have been "left behind". Like, I've got some holes in there. I'm not sure how the map drops are calculated now.

I may just say fuck-it and buy them but I'm curious if there is any way to "target" my missing maps.

Ancallagon said:

Similar question line - I didn't understand the value of Druidic Rites, so will snag that immediately. Also had a Stibnite Surgeon of Dousing flask in the bank, so equipped that, and yeah, can keep that running darn near constantly it seems already.

I was planning on making my way on the skill tree up to the Scion area for Sentinel, the three +18% resistances above it, and Arcane Chemistry. However, last night I got some +betterer gear that has me at 75% elemental resistances in Merciless. So, are the 28% resistances and 24% evasion from Sentinel (and the three above it) valuable to allow me to reforge that gear to other stats? Or is it best on the gear and spend those passive points elsewhere? And is Arcane Chemistry worth going up there alone for if I'm not getting Sentinel?

Thanks in advance! I'm level 64 now, have something like 23 respec points available at the moment, so I can make some changes if need be.

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Resists are generally not worth it on skills, since all rares will overcap you easily. However, they might be useful if you are wearing 4+ uniques, but that's a question of very late game.

Eidal said:

For a solo self-found playstyle, whats the fastest way to unlock maps on the atlas that have been "left behind". Like, I've got some holes in there. I'm not sure how the map drops are calculated now.

I may just say fuck-it and buy them but I'm curious if there is any way to "target" my missing maps.

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Generally look into Zana's inventory, she sells 1-6 at lvl 5 and supposedly mostly stuff you haven't unlocked yet. 7+ I have no bloody clue, since I can't seem to get them to drop at all.

Caliane said:

Quickstep is a trap, yeah. I skip it all the time nowadays....

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Caliane, what are your thoughts on Phase Acrobatics?

Acrobatics and phase acro is also something that I find very overrated, since pathfinder. Even others... granite flasks are so good. Acrobatics breaks them. Acrobatics also breaks CI builds.
Champion gets 90armor/eva in ascendancy. also, acrobatics kills it.

Dodge only works as until it doesn't. so it will reduce DPS, but will not mitigate the hit that finally gets through. So whats the point?
This is especially true for melee, shield/dw. Bow users at least don't have block, so only have dodge.
But frankly, I like armor, eva, block combined. Physical spells kill my acrobatics rangers.

My iceblades pathfinder has, enfeeble aura, fortify ON iceblades. end cry.. 12k armor with granite of iron skin, 4k eva(low yes.), 28%block atm, 11%dodge/spell dodge from quartz flask, 100% elem status immune, high uptime on curse immune.(on diamond flask atm.) 8% elem dr.

Physical is the only real danger for rangers imho, so killing armor is a bad idea.
That said, there are uniques made for this. Taste of hate, lightning coil. But I do not like limiting my builds to require these items.


Yes, arcane chem is very good. profane chem is fairly well liked as well.
I wouldn't go scion life FOR sentinel.. but sentinel is ok, for points on the way. you generally go there for the skill effect duration, arcane chem, shaper maybe. going up to +aoe nodes or, dual curse. zerking node, or totem placement speed one.



But yeah, the primal spirit is GODmode, not for mana. who cares about mana. its godmode for 20str/20 int. AND 20% charges gained. Druidic rite the same. 20% charges gained, 20% flask duration.
combined 40% charges gained. Even a nonpathfinder. Surgeons is 20% on crit to gain a flask charge. With both these nodes.. its 1.44charges. with pathfinder 10%x2? 1.74 charges. with belt 20% charges gained, 2.09 charges.
"The amount of charges gained from any sources can be altered with modifiers #% increased/reduced Flask Charges gained (e.g. from equipment and passive skills) and #% increased/reduced Charge Recovery (e.g. from flask prefix or Poacher's Mark). These modifiers stack multiplicatively."

huh. Yeah, I found my TS ranger one of my strongest. shes my highest level char. Things could be improved. She is a bit softer, then my currently frostblades. which is a bit to be expected. Being melee, I am building the frostblades much tougher. blasph+enfeeble, and fortify.
And she went surgeons-> master bowyer, while frostblades went master alch, and will get surgeons last. probably. Alch status immunity is pretty crazy powerful.

if dying to dominus, clearly just lacking lit resists. which is not really a skill, or ascendancy issue. Its gear. no business getting hit by touch of god with blink arrow either.

Throw a decoy totem in for very easy dominus. he will even keep shooting it with lightning after it dies.

Duelist-Champion Bow is also very competitive with pathfinder.

If you're dying too much in normal/cruel, its probably just a symptom of not having enough life/resists on gear/tree, though normal and most of cruel can be done without capped resists. The other is just learning the mechanics/tricks for winning each fight. Obsidian, have you been using decoy totem? That single skill can mitigate a lot of issues you're having on bosses.

wait. he was melee duelist, and now ranged dying to dominus.

Were you standing in the blood rain?

My dodge/eva (with acro/phase acro) wild strike ranger was a beast last league, just saying... sure evasion might not be ideal for uber atziri/uber lab but not every char has to be built for every piece of content =)

Been keeping track of map drops/xp/deaths since 2.4, thought some others might be interested in it.

Here is yesterday evening's mappings (just had started a new SRS character, so was starting with a developed map pool)...

One Evening of Mapping in 2.4

For amusement, you can see that to start I had a really rough go of deaths. Was before I had switched to CI and just didn't have the raw buffer to survive. After I switched to CI I didn't die.

So overall I ran 22 maps, all but the Zana's were rared, with a quite a few quad chiseled. All maps were cleared to within 5 mobs left.

Average IIQ:79.28
Average IIR:35

Maps ran by tier:
1 11
5 9's
11 8's
1 7
1 6
2 5
1 4
Total: 22
Average Tier: 7.77

Maps dropped by tier:
5 9's
7 8's
3 7's
3 5's
6 4's
3 3's
3 2's
3 1's
Total: 33
Average of Map Tiers of all dropped: 5.42
Average of top 22 drops: 6.95

Started with Atlas at 52% bonus, ended with Atlas at 59%

At best these results could be said to have treaded water. I ran 22 maps of average tier of 7.77 and my top 22 drops (so assuming the ones to replenish my pool) the average was 7. This was with an almost full atlas at this level of mapping and with an average IIQ of 80. Is this reasonable at all as a short term result? To run 22 maps and not advance at all (actually fall back!?) when running all rare maps, even with an almost filled out atlas below it pretty much?


Granted it is only 22 maps, but my full data isn't any better. I just went with this sample as it was all my own maps and they were all around the same level of runs. A few leagues ago I ran 100 maps of tier 10 or something to gather statistics, might do that later on when I have more currency. Right now though, mapping is looking like an even worse grind than before.

yeah, I have never had this scenario where I run out of maps BEFORE I even hit red maps, before this league. I hit a wall at t5. Ended up having to buyout Zana blowing all my chance orbs.. got lucky on my last map from her, and actually got a same level drop. and then that one dropped a t6, and t7 iirc.

My frostblades ranger I am pretty sure could handle t11+ with ease. But, Im stuck farming t5, simple because no maps are dropping. I get a t8. celebrate, alch it, run it.. and get 1 t4, 2 t3, and if im lucky at t5..

I'm having the same problems, I made it to 88, but it's getting pretty tiring to keep running maps that give me 2-3% per level. I know in Ascendancy I made it to t10/11 no problem just alching and chiseling here and there. Overall I feel like I'm making slight progress, definitely the amount of yellow in my map tab is increasing, but getting t8+ to drop is really hard. Might also be just because I refuse to run t6 anymore unless they have at least double packsize. I'm sitting at like 60/125 atlas. I think I'll try some uber lab runs for 2-3 keys to see how I fare and hopefully to hit the map chest, need to upgrade my jewels first tho.

Copied this post to the PoE forums. The few responses so far are pretty much "lols, you should invasion/alt-regal everything". I ended with asking people for what strategies they use, but I think its somewhat silly to expect people to quad-chisel alt-regal for pack size and then invasion mid-tier yellows.

More importantly, where the fuck are people getting their currency to drop 3-4c on a mid tier map ?

On the other hand, I feel like I'm still making some progress even if slowly, since the t7s and below kind of keep piling up and well, you can always upgrade them through a vendor, especially since the only mod I flat out can't do is ele reflect and probably blood magic once I roll that.

I usually pick up interesting maps from Zana, always done that in the previous leagues too. Although this time I might buy more often then usual because of atlas unlock requirements. Can't say that mapping feels that different from old leagues so far but I'm still at those mid tier maps that seem to be your bottleneck.

Did they drastically lower iiq/iir on rare maps with 2.4 (haven't fired it up yet, been playing dota and whatnot)? In prophecy most of my chiseled/alch'd maps were 100+ iiq.

I still think it's all rng tho. I had nights in prophecy where i'd run 20 t10-13 maps and get nothing above t9 and other nights where i'd get a +1 or +2 map almost every run of t8-t10 (I never had a single t14 drop, and only 2 t13s).

As far as currency goes, i've never understood why people get so offended by the thought of using it to advance your character in the game instead of staring at your currency stash tab with 5000 chaos and 80 exalts so you can show off in global chat by linking stacks. Currency exists to be used whether it's on gear or maps or strongboxes etc., it's a part of the game.

zombiewizardhawk said:

Did they drastically lower iiq/iir on rare maps with 2.4 (haven't fired it up yet, been playing dota and whatnot)? In prophecy most of my chiseled/alch'd maps were 100+ iiq.

I still think it's all rng tho. I had nights in prophecy where i'd run 20 t10-13 maps and get nothing above t9 and other nights where i'd get a +1 or +2 map almost every run of t8-t10 (I never had a single t14 drop, and only 2 t13s).

As far as currency goes, i've never understood why people get so offended by the thought of using it to advance your character in the game instead of staring at your currency stash tab with 5000 chaos and 80 exalts so you can show off in global chat by linking stacks. Currency exists to be used whether it's on gear or maps or strongboxes etc., it's a part of the game.

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As far as currency goes, since they added endgame bosses that a lot of people want to beat and that require some pretty solid gear, many people would rather save up for gear upgrades than throw it on maps that may or may not end up dropping anything of value. I'm sitting on like 60c and 2ex with most upgrades for me sitting around 2ex+. If I could spend 1-2c to guarantee a map drops at least 1 same lvl map, I'd do it in a heartbeat. IIR/IIQ haven't been changed, but they rotate zana mods so not all of them may be active.