Path of Exile

Byr

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RF is fine in sanctum. You just need to realize its not your RF doing damage, its your fire traps. I didn't have much trouble clearing sanctums, killing bosses, running invocations, etc in Ruthless with less than 1 mil dps. If I can do it there, you'll be just fine in normal leagues. It's just not going to do a no hit run.
 

Khane

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What maps does everyone have as favorites? What's kind of the defacto consensus on which are the best for currency?

This is gonna depend on your build. I farmed up a mageblood as a cold dot ascendent running almost nothing but Toxic Sewers and Grotto because both of those maps are great for cold dot and are connected for over sustain with Singular Focus.
 

Penance

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What maps does everyone have as favorites? What's kind of the defacto consensus on which are the best for currency?
For alch n go I've been doing atoll. For super 8mod juicing I've been doing crimson temple.

For my slower build I like town square for the triple bosses. Was doing meta and ritual there making like 8 to 10 an hour.
 

Deathwing

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Play game, get loot. It's really hard not to make money in just about any mapping strategy. They've kinda gone overboard with how rewarding the game is. That said, I find I make the most money when I'm playing towards a goal. If I focus specifically on making money, PoE gets boring quite fast.

Don't farm bosses though. Uber variants, sharing key access with regular variant, and really low drop rate jackpots make it difficult to turn a profit unless you sink a ton of starter cash.
 
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Khane

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Play game, get loot. It's really hard not to make money in just about any mapping strategy. They've kinda gone overboard with how rewarding the game is. That said, I find I make the most money when I'm playing towards a goal. If I focus specifically on making money, PoE gets boring quite fast.

Don't farm bosses though. Uber variants, sharing key access with regular variant, and really low drop rate jackpots make it difficult to turn a profit unless you sink a ton of starter cash.

So, not to be an ass but this is the single worst advice/statement that I have heard since I started playing PoE. People were saying this same thing last league, and I'm sure they've said it every league for years.

The problem is players who know... completely discount the knowledge involved in knowing what they know. Alch and go sounds simple to someone who understands all the league mechanics and knows what to expect from their mapping strategy. Alch and go means literally fucking nothing to a new player.

It took me so much time and effort to understand exactly how to farm somewhat efficiently in this game as someone who barely played last league and only really started putting effort into farming this league.

PoE is by far, without a doubt, the worst ARPG I have ever played in relation to generating and understanding even a simple farming strategy. And it's exacerbated by the playerbase that thinks its obvious and easy to understand. I honestly cannot comprehend how anyone, regardless of how veteran they are, can open up their atlas tree and think "yea, just tell the people who ask to alch and go". Just read any of the nodes on the tree. Do most of them mean anything to you if you have no idea what that league mechanic was because you never played it? How the fuck would a new player ever understand an atlas tree that involved Incursion from a video they watched that said "alch and go" that included that mechanic? Youtube is full of that shit
 
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Deathwing

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I didn't say alch and go. I'm advocating to play what you find fun, the money(and knowledge) will come from that. Forcing yourself to play efficient, unless that's what you find enjoyable, will lead to burnout.

Kurin, in this case, should favorite maps he finds fun to run.
 

OU Ariakas

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I am actually shocked at how much choice they have given players in how to limit the content you see in your maps Khane Khane 's blocking strategy mentioned a few pages back has allowed me to farm Expedition with a scarab and passively farm harvest because it shows up in 90%+ of my maps. Khane Khane is right about the game being opaque to newer players; but if you are a returning player this is about as good a state the "base" game has been in a long time. I am an RF Jugg and hate how slow Sanctum is so I just never did it....and I am still having a blast. They only complaint I have (and this is going to get an eye roll from people that seen me say this about 10 times over) is that gathering the scours/alchs/chisels/maps/charged compass/scarbs for my planning is a fucking chore with trade. Any sort of automation of even currency trading would make this game just about fucking perfect at this point.
 

Khane

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I didn't say alch and go. I'm advocating to play what you find fun, the money(and knowledge) will come from that. Forcing yourself to play efficient, unless that's what you find enjoyable, will lead to burnout.

Kurin, in this case, should favorite maps he finds fun to run.

Here's the problem though, you have to unlock enough favorite slots AND you have to use the atlas to force it to obey it to the point you can sustain. And you need an understanding of how that works to make it function.

"Just do what you find fun" is generally good advice in any game because it will make the experience more enjoyable, however you probably aren't going to generate any kind of meaningful amount of currency to beef up your build unless you actually put effort into maximizing your Atlas. And maximizing your Atlas takes quite a bit of knowledge, understanding, and effort.

So the problem becomes "Well this would be fun, except I'm making like 1 div every 6 hours and can't really afford any upgrades in my limited playtime". And if you find a guide but don't fully understand all the points of the guide.... skipping even one step in the Atlas/Scarab/Sextant strategy can basically brick the strategy.

Its easy to find information on PoE. It's hard to find good information that is easy to digest if you aren't familiar with all the league mechanics.
 

Deathwing

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however you probably aren't going to generate any kind of meaningful amount of currency to beef up your build unless you actually put effort into maximizing your Atlas.
I disagree with this point. But I will admit I do not have any data points and I don't really care enough to science it myself.

There are people running white maps with wandering path to force connected map drop just so they can run sanctums faster. And they are making ridiculous currency from it. Now, obviously, that's a strategy you have to understand the atlas passive tree in order to do, so that doesn't help my argument directly. But it does show just how many rewards the game showers you with.

I think you have to be actively impeding yourself to make 1 div per 6 hours.
 

sakkath

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You can generate currency by picking all essence and harvest nodes in the atlas and just running whatever maps you have "alch & go".. It's obviously nowhere near as efficient as a more robust atlas strategy but having those mechanics in the maps whereby all the loot directly translates into currency is pretty handy for beginners.
 

Khane

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You can generate currency by picking all essence and harvest nodes in the atlas and just running whatever maps you have "alch & go".. It's obviously nowhere near as efficient as a more robust atlas strategy but having those mechanics in the maps whereby all the loot directly translates into currency is pretty handy for beginners.

See this is a perfect example of how someone can take advice that bricks their strategy. Harvest does not work unless you understand it. You need to understand how it interacts with pack size, you need to understand how it interacts with forcing it via blocking other base content, and you need to understand how it interacts with its own sextants.

You can actually lose money running a harvest strat if you do not understand it, and that's my point. The harvest sextants in particular are very expensive this league. So a new player might go to poe trade, and find the base harvest sextant and see it costs 60+ chaos and buy it anyway thinking harvest has great returns. Without realizing that you can force harvest in almost 100% of your maps without ever using a sextant. On top of that they can completely brick the harvest strategy by buying the cheaper, ~30 chaos purple/blue plant sextants. The blue/purple plant sextants don't simply force 1 of that color into the sacred grove, they force 1 of that color into every single plot within the sacred grove. Which means the blocking nodes that try to force yellow plants and all the points you spent on the Atlas doing that, are rendered useless. This is the point. And now you are wasting currency thinking you are helping your own strategy when in fact you are hampering it.

And if you simply put harvest in your atlas and run it without pack size and quant and all the small nodes that enhance map mods you get almost no lifeforce whatsoever.
 
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Khane

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I disagree with this point. But I will admit I do not have any data points and I don't really care enough to science it myself.

There are people running white maps with wandering path to force connected map drop just so they can run sanctums faster. And they are making ridiculous currency from it. Now, obviously, that's a strategy you have to understand the atlas passive tree in order to do, so that doesn't help my argument directly. But it does show just how many rewards the game showers you with.

I think you have to be actively impeding yourself to make 1 div per 6 hours.

Consider this. Someone came here asking for help about generating currency and your response was 'Well just do whatever you like, its hard to not generate currency".

You are a very logical, very intelligent person, so consider how ironic that response is. If they could generate currency simply by just walking into maps and killing, would they be asking for advice on how to generate currency? Is saying "Its hard not to generate currency" a meaningful, useful response? Does it actually work the way you expect given the possibility of difference in knowledge between you and a newer player?
 

Xevy

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The number one mistake people make is investing in maps. If you're doing it to make money to buy your upgrades you're probably inefficient and slow. I had 250k Harvest juice the 2nd week alch n going with 0 sextants. Thats high end, mageblood having, Empyrian/Grimro bullshit. All I did was pick up every Harvest node, block shit I didnt want, and voila. You're getting 1100 to 2000 juice per map at 1c per 30 juice. 30c in each map doing nothing special and 0 sextants and scarabs.

People who don't understand the min-max or aren't ready gear wise just waste so much fucking money on garbage. Alch N Go essence and Harvest every league and if you're "poor", it's you. Seriously, fuck the strat guides and the spreadsheets. 75% of these people trying to get rich quick are using THE EXACT SAME FUCKING GUIDES! Your profit margin is going to dive the second these content people publish this shit because its what everyone will be doing.

Basically people will never be as rich as quick as they want. Too bad. You can play the game and as long as you're ACTUALLY PLAYING IT you'll make money. Once you start worrying about Div/Hour, honestly, you're not playing the game. You're playing your stash.
 

Khane

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The number one mistake people make is investing in maps. If you're doing it to make money to buy your upgrades you're probably inefficient and slow. I had 250k Harvest juice the 2nd week alch n going with 0 sextants. Thats high end, mageblood having, Empyrian/Grimro bullshit. All I did was pick up every Harvest node, block shit I didnt want, and voila. You're getting 1100 to 2000 juice per map at 1c per 30 juice. 30c in each map doing nothing special and 0 sextants and scarabs.

People who don't understand the min-max or aren't ready gear wise just waste so much fucking money on garbage. Alch N Go essence and Harvest every league and if you're "poor", it's you. Seriously, fuck the strat guides and the spreadsheets. 75% of these people trying to get rich quick are using THE EXACT SAME FUCKING GUIDES! Your profit margin is going to dive the second these content people publish this shit because its what everyone will be doing.

Basically people will never be as rich as quick as they want. Too bad. You can play the game and as long as you're ACTUALLY PLAYING IT you'll make money. Once you start worrying about Div/Hour, honestly, you're not playing the game. You're playing your stash.

Yes and no. I agree with some of the points you're making and disagree with others. Harvest can be done without sextants yes, it can't be done efficiently without understanding it and investing in pack size and quant on the atlas.

250k juice after 2 weeks is paltry. I was getting 150k juice per day when i was farming for my mageblood. And I was doing it with 3c Magic pack sextants and supplementing side strategies with 3c Niko sextants.

So play the game however you want, however, you're playing the game and leaving currency on the table while also thinking "currency is easy" and completely missing the point.
 
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Xevy

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Yes and no. I agree with some of the points you're making and disagree with others. Harvest can be done without sextants yes, it can't be done efficiently without understanding it and investing in pack size and quant on the atlas.

250k juice after 2 weeks is paltry. I was getting 150k juice per day when i was farming for my mageblood. And I was doing it with 3c Magic pack sextants and supplementing side strategies with 3c Niko sextants.

So play the game however you want, however, you're playing the game and leaving currency on the table while also thinking "currency is easy" and completely missing the point.
150k Juice the SECOND week. That means I had that much juice right as I was getting 100+ completion. That's just from white-red maps. When everything was fully built I was pulling in 1.5k juice per map for the cost of an alch. At the time that was something like 30c pure profit for nothing. Literally just choosing a few nodes. I have stream of conciousness on to ensure harvest (something like 84% chance actually, I don't know). But it never was about making money, I was just playing the game. I was just getting to 100 and gearing out my first character. All that juice and you know what I did with it? Used to to make gear. My scarab tab was worth 20-30 divines at one point and I just didn't sell them. My guildmates had a guided aurastacker sparker duo money making scheme and honestly in the first two weeks they probably made 10-20 more divines than me after all their investments for more playtime and more strategy.

You're always leaving money on the table. One way or the other. The key is doings hit you don't have to "focus" on to make money. Harvest is that. Essence is that. There's even more hilarious shit you'll never see in a guide that can make you 5+ divines an hour easily, EASILY but because it's not 'popular' no one does it. That's the best part, no one does it so the value of these items just skyrockets. Unlike every scarab farmer/essencer where the price hits a floor pretty quickly because every mouth-breather with a Grimro youtube pulled up is blasting the same shit as every other one. Then they go "HMMM HOW COME HE GOT 7 DIV/HOUR AND I ONLY GET 2 DIV/HOUR?!?!?" Because he did it before he posted the video.

It was quite interesting watching my guildmates power farm. They'd do shit like buy 15 Feared sets then run them and end up making like 7 divines profit for all of it. And they'd be like "oh that's really worthwhile."

I can almost gurantee you in 2 hours I make nearly 7 divines in bullshit. I say bullshit because I use my crafting mats, I don't sell it. In fact on a good lab day, making 7 divines in an hour is practically guaranteed. Unless you're a bigtime moron and try to do every darkshrine because that used to be the move fucking 4 years ago.

Key to making money is killing fast. Period. You can min/max and shit but there are SO many people with DOGSHIT characters like RF juggs trying to do these money making strats which are an efficiency deal and then QQing. Play a Raider, get a good attack skill, fucking blast Red maps. That's it. Everything else is min-max bullshit most people can't handle and even at the highest end is NOT worth the TIME spent TRADING for the bullshit to set up everything.
 

Khane

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150k Juice the SECOND week. That means I had that much juice right as I was getting 100+ completion. That's just from white-red maps. When everything was fully built I was pulling in 1.5k juice per map for the cost of an alch. At the time that was something like 30c pure profit for nothing. Literally just choosing a few nodes. I have stream of conciousness on to ensure harvest (something like 84% chance actually, I don't know). But it never was about making money, I was just playing the game. I was just getting to 100 and gearing out my first character. All that juice and you know what I did with it? Used to to make gear. My scarab tab was worth 20-30 divines at one point and I just didn't sell them. My guildmates had a guided aurastacker sparker duo money making scheme and honestly in the first two weeks they probably made 10-20 more divines than me after all their investments for more playtime and more strategy.

You're always leaving money on the table. One way or the other. The key is doings hit you don't have to "focus" on to make money. Harvest is that. Essence is that. There's even more hilarious shit you'll never see in a guide that can make you 5+ divines an hour easily, EASILY but because it's not 'popular' no one does it. That's the best part, no one does it so the value of these items just skyrockets. Unlike every scarab farmer/essencer where the price hits a floor pretty quickly because every mouth-breather with a Grimro youtube pulled up is blasting the same shit as every other one. Then they go "HMMM HOW COME HE GOT 7 DIV/HOUR AND I ONLY GET 2 DIV/HOUR?!?!?" Because he did it before he posted the video.

It was quite interesting watching my guildmates power farm. They'd do shit like buy 15 Feared sets then run them and end up making like 7 divines profit for all of it. And they'd be like "oh that's really worthwhile."

I can almost gurantee you in 2 hours I make nearly 7 divines in bullshit. I say bullshit because I use my crafting mats, I don't sell it. In fact on a good lab day, making 7 divines in an hour is practically guaranteed. Unless you're a bigtime moron and try to do every darkshrine because that used to be the move fucking 4 years ago.

Key to making money is killing fast. Period. You can min/max and shit but there are SO many people with DOGSHIT characters like RF juggs trying to do these money making strats which are an efficiency deal and then QQing. Play a Raider, get a good attack skill, fucking blast Red maps. That's it. Everything else is min-max bullshit most people can't handle and even at the highest end is NOT worth the TIME spent TRADING for the bullshit to set up everything.

Okay, fair. Early on you can't optimize and Harvest is the best for all the reasons you mentioned. I concede the point.
 

sakkath

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And if you simply put harvest in your atlas and run it without pack size and quant and all the small nodes that enhance map mods you get almost no lifeforce whwhatsoever
Simply not true. Like any mechanic harvests output can be greatly improved but it is perfectly profitable with 0 sextant, just alch & go.
Obviously you block other mechanics in the atlas, that goes without saying.

Most people's lack of income I expect is more likely speed related. If you take 20 minutes to complete each map then you're making 10x less than if you're blowing through them in 2 minutes.
 

Khane

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Simply not true. Like any mechanic harvests output can be greatly improved but it is perfectly profitable with 0 sextant, just alch & go.
Obviously you block other mechanics in the atlas, that goes without saying.

Most people's lack of income I expect is more likely speed related. If you take 20 minutes to complete each map then you're making 10x less than if you're blowing through them in 2 minutes.

Lifeforce drop rate is abysmally bad without quant and pack size on your atlas as well. If you do not add to it via other methods only 1 mob per pack can even drop lifeforce. This is simply, very true. It has been tested, it is known. You have to modify pack size and quant if you want Harvest to output at a reasonable rate.

 

Khane

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The sextant portion of that video is out of date as its from a previous league when those sextants were cheap, now they are expensive and are not worth it in my own testing.

Growing hoards also beats Grand Design now and all the small passives that increase map mods by 2% + the 1% quant nodes are better than either Grand Design or Wandering path now.
 

Kirun

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Harvest does not work unless you understand it.
This is me. I initially invested into Harvest (haven't played since 2019), but then realized I had no fucking clue on what I was really supposed to be doing with the juice? Sell it, I guess? I find constantly having to sell shit like that a real annoyance, so I just took those points and put them into Metamorph instead, since Metamorph has always been one of my favorite mechanics even if it sucks balls for currency.