[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)
"90x8 hours is multiple level 100 chars. 10k tiers is early to mid 90s on one char if you start T ~10 early and stay there. You can still do 40 as CA, just need to buy Shaper and Chayula cheap as hell, and that's no different from buying some of the CA-unfriendly clears in prior leagues. Then there's always the option of using a secondary single target skill or bringing a friend. As for MF, this is a great time to be MFing low maps for chaos recipes because of breach loot and the exalt/chaos price shenanigans (interesting POELAB video discussion and reddit thread there), and CA has a lot of hidden potential. At least for super fast T10-12 clearing, breaches included, I wouldn't dare say it's worse than EA, LA or TS. "40 is not the game. Almost no one cares about it. People are enjoying the suspense of not knowing whether they are about to be racing for more rewards hunting bunnies or be forced to struggle for survival as they are overwhelmed by zerglings. Breachlords appearing have elements of both, adding paranoia about having noticed those badass wings in the crowd just a half second too late. This is fresh/new and unless you're either a good player or you're using a meta build properly, it's technically challenging. Maybe my experience is the exception, but my guild and Flist have many people who are getting destroyed by some of the content despite watching Mathil and playing meta and despite some of these veterans who have been around for years giving them gear and tuning up their chars. Also, we are 2 months into a league and I noticed only one single person "missing". You're just being a Grinch because you're in the tiny minority not loving the new system. It's a matter of taste. As for shaping maps, I'm not sure tier 10 is the right place to not be clearing things. Seems to me like the best maps in the game are concentrated there and it was not bad exp compared to Strand cheese. Quay, River and Colonnade are perfect linear maps, Courtyard and Arsenal can be just as good if you mess around and figure out a system that works for you. Only Malformation flat out sucks shit and Terrace makes you backtrack a lot. I just shaped them to get them out of my easy exping pool without sacrificing clears, and I guess not clearing them is an option. How much of your atlas is cleared? I'm puzzled by how many stories I hear of people not being able to maintain t10 since 11 was not a big problem for me even before I had the highest tiers and uniques cleared, and I'm an alc-and-go cheapskate. Maybe I am just lucky all the time or GGG are giving me free shit because of all the suckup fanboy white knighting I do. |
|
|
After I spent an hour last night rushing through a dozen Shaped Strand maps with minimal setup to try and start pushing the 10k challenge... it didn't go too well... my pool of t11s dwindled when I changed my strat to basically sacrifice loot/profit for speed... and then I had a breakthrough: Shaped Mesa
Spoiler
I realized Shaped Mesa has the perfect layout for boss rushing... and costs much less, making me willing to skip the outer perimeter and only do the inner circle if the boss entrance is opposite of the start...
I tested this out first with 18 Mesas I bought from my guildies for 18c... just alt/aug and go... got 3 Mesas and 4 Strands back including 2 from a Twinned map... didnt track other loot but I guesstimated some of it later on from my dump tab (some currency will be missing from my numbers at the end) This is basically a 100 half-finished Shaped Mesas summary, like all them Reddit threads: I bought 87 more Shaped Mesas for about 87c from poe.trade... some were 2 chisel, some 3 chisel or fuse, a lot for 1c, and a slight discount from a guy with 50 listed at 4 chisel because we were having math problems converting to chaos... Maps - 105c + rolling 40c (1c trans/aug + 39c alt/aug trying to force twinned... gave up with 35 Twinned maps... think this was a waste of currency... didn't help 10k, and was about the same cost as buying 35 more maps, but with the added cost of an hour doing all that rolling) When I was just rushing in a straight line to the boss, sometimes I could do it in as little as 15 seconds... but I started worrying this would cost me out of pocket, so I started clearing the initial circle and the chunk of middle I passed heading to the boss to try and at least cut even on the whole thing, so 105 maps took me 3hrs instead of 90 minutes or so. I looted currency, t9-11 maps, splinters, div cards, white leather belts, RGB and 6s recipes, uniques, rare jewelry, magic/rare jewels, and fought essences of spite (since theyre worth 1-3c depending on wailing/screaming)... I skipped about a dozen Trials and Zana mission each for time... Results: 50 chaos currency according to poe.ninja (116 jew, 108 chrome, 21 alch, 15 chisel, 5 chaos, 29 chance, 6 scour, 3 vaal, 3 regret, 39 alt, 8 fuse, 1 journeyman sextant, 2gcp, and 7 silver coins) 1 chaos div cards: (2 mask sets and 1 gambler... just basing on cheapness of frags and maybe getting a Midnight) 5c leather belts (6:1c) 4c Essences (1 wailing, 1 screaming) 20c splinters (55 esh, 27 xoph, 9 tul, 18 uul netol, and 8 chayula from 3 breaches) 92c maps (25 Strand x 3c, 15 Mesa x 1c, 7 T9 = 2c) This totals 172c (50c + 1c + 5c + 4c + 20c + 92c) Not included in this total are the 100 rare/magic items I picked up (avg 1/map): 30 belts, 10 amulets, 30 unID rings, 20 breach rings, and 18 jewels. Also not included were the lucky uniques I didn't just vendor: Maelstrom of Chaos (1c), Energy From Within (3c) and Putrid Cloister (43c). All-in-all, I considered this a success... 1050 map tiers completed in 3hrs (plus too much prep time I plan to cut out next time), for about the same price as what it would have cost me to buy 35 strand maps, and I gained most of those Strand maps in drops doing it... and would have spent more rolling Strands (discluding my twinned fiasco)... and I made my money back in the pure currency, belts, splinters, and essences and unique maps I am/will sell... and could possibly make more on the rares and if I ever start selling t10/11 maps once done with this... Thought I'd share this for anyone else here struggling with 10k tiers, but not somewhere as popular as reddit where I would probably be shooting myself in the foot... I already have my next 100 Mesas lined up... only 6400 tiers left to do... much better than 7600 yesterday and 8800 last week... Side note: I ran a couple unID rare maps while doing this and 2 of them had ele reflect (this is HoWA talk if anyone reads this out of context)... I just skipped EVERY mob and reached the boss alive... waited on regen... did my usualy piano-fingers... Ancestral Protector, Onslaught, Atziri Promise, Rumi Concoction, Vinktar Penetration, Vaal Haste (and my mana flask I still use especially on bosses like this)... killed the boss in seconds and between the chaos conversion and leech I outhealed the reflect and got credit and left the reflect map... I coulda been using Vaal Discipline too, but I rarely need it and so never remember... Last edited by Piros on Jan 26, 2017, 12:49:51 PM
| |
|
@chimurestaurat
Good post. I'll address some of your remarks below. >> 90x8 hours is multiple level 100 chars. 10k tiers is early to mid 90s on one char if you start T ~10 early and stay there. Yes, I agree - I was using hyperbole and maybe went overboard ;-). But the point is, I've never played POE so much in a single league and I've never had a single toon past level 93 - simply because it didn't interest me. I'd say on a single toon you're looking at level 96 or 97 for 10K maps. I have one level 90 toon and my HoWA is going to hit 95 in a bit - but I'll probably be at 8K to 8.5K maps at that point. >> You can still do 40 as CA, just need to buy Shaper and Chayula cheap as hell, and that's no different from buying some of the CA-unfriendly clears in prior leagues. Yes you could - but it would take you even longer. The point being that I don't want to be forced to play for such long periods for challenge completion and thus, whatever it takes to speed things up is a must. >> This is fresh/new and unless you're either a good player or you're using a meta build properly, it's technically challenging. Challenging I can handle, though I'm no expert player. If it took quite awhile to get 40/40 because the encounters required were technically challenging and because you couldn't buy them (i.e., make some of the challenges solo only - no grouping to complete them) - then I think this is a big improvement. If this were the case, 40/40 would mean that you personally achieved the difficult content; right now it mostly means that you've spent a large amount of time this league playing the game. >> You're just being a Grinch because you're in the tiny minority not loving the new system. It's a matter of taste Actually I love the new system - most fun I've had playing POE is this league. My complaint is that the time-sync stuff is about twice as long as it previously was - half the time commitment and this league would be perfect. >> As for shaping maps, I'm not sure tier 10 is the right place to not be clearing things. I'm trying to get to 95 and just don't want to die. Underground River boss does some wierd crap at times - haven't died to him this league but I just don't like that encounter. Quay is kind of scarry too depending on mods. Shaped Mesa is cake though; it has a nice layout and is outdoors which I prefer. Wanting to not ever die is why I reworked T10. >> How much of your atlas is cleared? I'm puzzled by how many stories I hear of people not being able to maintain t10 since 11 was not a big problem for me even before I had the highest tiers and uniques cleared, and I'm an alc-and-go cheapskate. Everything but a couple of the hard to get unique maps, T10, T11 and Shaper is cleared. I'm a bit over 100 on my atlas currently. I ping-pong back and forth between T10 and T11, chiseling and sometimes rerolling my T11's. I get some leakage when T13's drop which I just stockpile. I think I've done about 3K map levels without running out of T10/T11 - but I'm not building up reserves either - it's a finely poised thing where I think I'm just barely not running out of maps. My Zana is only 7 though, and as finely balanced as this is, bumping Zana from 7 to 8 would likely improve things so that I'd start to accumulate an excess of T10/T11 maps. Last edited by hankinsohl on Jan 26, 2017, 12:33:18 PM
|
|
|
@Piros RE Mesa
Good stuff - interesting take on boss rushing. 1050 map levels in 3 hours is moving along quite rapidly - nice! And at say, 1000 map levels in 3 hours, my complaint about the time-sync this league had seem to become is rendered invalid. Touche! I may actually have to slow down my pace, LOL. I want to turn in enough chaos recipies to get 100c which I'll then use to spam an iLevel 84 chest I purchased. I need to keep track of the chaos results to get a feel for how common 6-affix, 5-affix and 4-affix outcomes are and to see what the affix distribution of 4-affix outcomes is. This is for the chaos spam simulator I'm programming. Last edited by hankinsohl on Jan 26, 2017, 10:56:48 PM
|
|
|
grinding
If you look at the population graph for POE, you'll see that it peaks at the start of every league and then slowly falls until the start of the next league.
GGG wants to increase market penetration, which breaks down into 2 criteria. 1. Increase the peak player count during a league. 2. Increase the amount of time that customers play during the league. Chances are, they don't have a formula for either one of those - they just throw stuff at the wall, and see what sticks. It's pretty clear that they are doing something right, as their average player population is still on the rise, and POE isn't a new release by any stretch. Could they do better? Perhaps, and I'll bet they try a number of strategies to see if they can get more area under the curve on their chart. I'm one of the guys that looks at the 40/40 challenge and says, meh... to be honest, the only challenge reward that even vaguely appealed to me was the footprints this time around. I don't care for the portal at all, and the wings don't fit with the rest of my gear. Totems? Whatever. As a result, I haven't really been trying for challenges - yet I'm at 30, and have another ~4-5 that would be trivial to knock off. I'm at 5333/10k for the map tiers, so that may finish itself, and I managed the Chayula splinters before I'd put in 150 hours this league. So instead, I've been aiming for level 95, mixed with trying to fill in as much of the Atlas as I can. I'm seriously considering making a run for Shaper / Hall of the Grandmasters after I make 95, just to see if I can handle the toughest content in the game with this build. Honestly, I'm pretty happy with the direction they are taking. The Atlas was game changing - new, harder content. Breach makes up for most of the XP nerfs they added for level 90+ - and again, hard. Essences make crafting easier. Not by much, but still. Everything they have put in recently has expanded the game. Current league IGN: Teldra_Anc_LAD
Feel free to message me in game if I'm on. |
|
|
A couple more notes.
I'm having no problem maintaining a map pool in the reds, t11-13, with a slowly building pool of 14s - and I don't use sextants or alchs. I transmute, then alt/aug until I either get packsize, magic mobs mods, or beyond. Maps with only blue mods aren't dangerous for me - chances are I can do them yellow as well, but this way I don't risk death as much, and I can screw up and not lose 10% xp. Unless I'm trying to add them to the Atlas bonus, and I only do those after leveling to reduce the risk. I tend to full clear everything - mobs, breaches, boss, and essence, although I'll walk away with a bunch of normal mobs left alive if I get it under 50. I've pulled a few of the annoying maps off my Atlas, but most of them I've left. Even some of the ones that people seem to hate - Malformation I'll still run, I just scoot around the periphery, murder the boss, and by then I usually have less than 50 left anyway. Same with Precinct, Bazaar, any of those long and slender maps. I've only given up on maps where I have to do a lot of backtracking. Lastly, as I'm sure everyone is doing, every 5 maps or so I have to run a low level map to keep my recipes at the Chaos level instead of Regals. What's with the Chaos:Exalt ratio this league? It smells of price fixing, but I haven't seen any discussions about it until one of the regulars here mentioned it in passing. I might have to go dig through reddit looking for some info! Current league IGN: Teldra_Anc_LAD Feel free to message me in game if I'm on. Last edited by grimjack68 on Jan 27, 2017, 2:44:41 AM
|
|
|
@grimjack68 RE Grinding
Another good post - and I agree with everything you've posted. I really love this league (other than the time sync but Piros has a workaround for that) and I too think that GGG nailed it this time. |
|
" I posted the following reply to this same question on reddit, after someone remarked about Atlas crafting. " Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018. Last edited by Serleth on Jan 27, 2017, 2:54:50 AM
| |
" Another possible reason for chaos increasing in value is chaos spam. I simply cannot find upgrades for any of my HoWA gear for sale at anything approaching reasonable prices on poe.trade. Once you hit my gear point (not too difficult - my gear is OK but not spectacular), it's either start paying 10ex or more for stuff that's really not that great to be honest - or, make it yourself. 10ex = 460c or so at the moment - can you expect to spam a better item than you now have for 460c? Hence the motivation for my programming project, LOL. Last edited by hankinsohl on Jan 27, 2017, 3:52:18 AM
|
|
|
The thing about exalts I've noticed is huge fluctuations - and initially, they weren't mirrored on both ends of the deal.
Normally, say the ratio is about 50:1 - you'll get guys selling exalts for ~49, and people buying exalts for ~51. This is how the currency traders make profit. This league, ex ratios were pretty solid for over a month, then, suddenly, they started dropping - but not smoothly. So I saw them drop to 60, then 50, then back up to 65, the next day down to 40, then back up to 50, and so on. They are sitting at 46 as I type this. I've never seen Ex values fluctuate up and down by 25% in 48 hours until now. I was assuming that some group managed to put together a large stock of exalts, and were posting them for sale without actually selling them so as to pull down the price. On the positive side, I'll be able to buy one of those 15ex Rat's Nests if it keeps up! ;) Edit: No, no I won't. The folks selling +2 barrage projectiles rats nest have boosted the price to 20ex now. /me grumbles. Current league IGN: Teldra_Anc_LAD Feel free to message me in game if I'm on. Last edited by grimjack68 on Jan 27, 2017, 4:10:46 AM
|
|
