[outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+)

@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.

@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.

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!

@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.

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grimjack68 wrote:

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!

I posted the following reply to this same question on reddit, after someone remarked about Atlas crafting.

"

Serleth wrote:

What's more likely than exalts devaluing, is chaos increasing in valuation.

As you point out, Atlas crafting is pretty big this league. With the combined nature of more and more people purchasing Sextants, chisels, more Strand (or other Shaped) maps, all for chaos, the value of chaos orbs has spiked, meaning you can get more other non-map related currencies for the same chaos.

You can see this in the fluctuation of other currency, such as chrome ratios (13-14 --> 15:1), Blessings (3.5 --> 4.5:1), and other currencies, same as with fuses (3-3.5 --> 4.2/4.5:1).

"

Serleth wrote:

"

grimjack68 wrote:

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!

I posted the following reply to this same question on reddit, after someone remarked about Atlas crafting.

"

Serleth wrote:

What's more likely than exalts devaluing, is chaos increasing in valuation.

As you point out, Atlas crafting is pretty big this league. With the combined nature of more and more people purchasing Sextants, chisels, more Strand (or other Shaped) maps, all for chaos, the value of chaos orbs has spiked, meaning you can get more other non-map related currencies for the same chaos.

You can see this in the fluctuation of other currency, such as chrome ratios (13-14 --> 15:1), Blessings (3.5 --> 4.5:1), and other currencies, same as with fuses (3-3.5 --> 4.2/4.5:1).

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.

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.

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grimjack68 wrote:

...

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.

...

Just to add to this, I use the breach rings from the elemental breach lord domains to make what would be a regal recipe into a chaos. Reduces the number of rings I need to find in higher maps as well. Usually 3+ rings drop on the way to the lords and then I can clean out some of my stored regal/chaos sets. I'm still going for the 100 breachlord kills, so it helps me in two ways.

"

Serleth wrote:

What's more likely than exalts devaluing, is chaos increasing in valuation.

As you point out, Atlas crafting is pretty big this league. With the combined nature of more and more people purchasing Sextants, chisels, more Strand (or other Shaped) maps, all for chaos, the value of chaos orbs has spiked, meaning you can get more other non-map related currencies for the same chaos.

You can see this in the fluctuation of other currency, such as chrome ratios (13-14 --> 15:1), Blessings (3.5 --> 4.5:1), and other currencies, same as with fuses (3-3.5 --> 4.2/4.5:1).

I see different prices, probably because I'm on at different times, but yeah, a chaos buys 20-35% more of most other currencies than it did earlier in the league. That's not the weird part. What got many people worried was chaos suddenly buying 70% more exalts than it could earlier, when ratio was 1:70.

Ex already climbed back up to 49c since Grimjack's post. Perhaps normal fluctuation within the day. IF the insanity is finally done and 1:41 ex to c was a temporary result of people panic-selling their exalts all at once when the new cards arrived, now is still a good time to buy. I'm going to assume the proposed explanations about card botting and GGG increasing the ex drop rate are false, and take a gamble converting everything to ex today. Didn't have the balls when they were 41. I thought they'd reach hardcore prices or lower very soon.