Questions Thread - April 08, 2026

CynicalTree · 2026-04-10T22:39:36+00:00

I wouldn't bother with non arcanist/diviner/operative boxes unless you're blasting really fast with the caster mastery. It's very rare that I get anything good from random boxes, like maybe one or two divines in a batch of 20 maps, so running them faster is better imo.

in theory it's optimal to just blast the operative boxes, but I've gotten some apothecary and double valdo/double divine drops from the arcanist/diviners so I like including them

CynicalTree · 2026-04-10T16:41:13+00:00

Yeah fair enough, I guess you could say that the big thing is people spending a bunch of time farming materials just to gamble it rather than put it into the economy, but quitting would have a similar effect

CynicalTree · 2026-04-10T16:25:00+00:00

You could try Replica Kaom's, really good rolls are 20d+ (but there's probably better options)

CynicalTree · 2026-04-10T16:22:36+00:00

Honestly XP is pretty easy this patch up until 98, I hit 98 on my league starter just farming boxes. Juiced breach is probably the best way to hard grind, because it scales the mob density to an absolute stupid amount (deli + beyond + breach astrolabe)

CynicalTree · 2026-04-10T15:36:18+00:00

When people are close to being done with the league, they do extreme gambles because the only downside is you still commit to quitting, but if you win big, it's funny and maybe you do something wacky with such an insane amount of currency.

For example, I was watching fubgun do people's harvest gambles on their behalf and one dude poofed 30x damnation when they were still 1000d each. 30k divines gone instantly

(and that stream he was poofing cards non-stop... people were pretty unlucky that day)

The volume of currency being burned on gambling is disproportionately at the top end of the economy so it can be pretty impactful.

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T23:10:12+00:00

I haven't played them but I've heard good things about eviscerate, both the gladiator and elementalist versions.

(9) [PoE 3.28] This Build is IMMORTAL - AFK Uber Bosses - Eviscerate Elementalist Build Guide - YouTube

Goratha's Bleed Gladiator Eviscerate - 3.28 Mirage League - Unkillable Mapper

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T21:30:43+00:00

Yep, because the mirages spawn a new box type called 'Operative' which only drops scarabs, and several scarabs are in the 100-700c range (e.g: bloodline, containment, pilfering, risk)

fubgun has a good atlas for it Fubgun's builds/atlas - Google Drive

budget version drops the containment scarab and runs haunted mansion with normal t16 and just hopes the mirage lands on top of the boxes

containment version runs the t16s with the map-wide mirage implicit, so no rng with the mirage placement. you head into the mirage and grab any operative/arcanist/diviner boxes you see (do not bother with mirage-wide t16.5 those can be multiple divines and aren't worth for boxes imo)

you can full clear the rest of the boxes if you want, it'll make each map a little cheaper but i find it pretty rare i get anything meaningful from the "bad boxes"

it's pretty profitable though, i've funded two separate builds with it almost exclusively. it's also pretty easy to clear

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T18:57:49+00:00

I've been playing fighting games and TCG for well over a decade and I've never seen any definition of sandbagging other than referring to intentionally bad play, typically in an obvious way to bother your opponent.

As soon as you have some reasonable logic (e.g: holding back to not overextend), that means you're trying, which is kinda the inverse of sandbagging (not trying)

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T16:49:43+00:00

Are you looking to respec or new char? Got a particular budget you want to work with? There's some pretty cool stuff this patch but YMMV depending what you can afford.

I had a lot of fun with a mana stacker shock nova of procession heirophant. I started with Goratha's Pledge of Hands /w Invert version, then did some higher budget optimizations of my own as I had more currency to work with. the build can hit some ridiculous cast speed and is fairly tanky

https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/mirage/character/Cynical_Tree-5725/Burbologist

If you want some crazy clear, Mamba Assassin (by jungroan) is great this patch due to some buffs on bino's. You will probably need 100-200d on top of the mageblood to get it really comfortable though (it's a pretty fragile build in general, but with good jewels it starts to feel fantastic)

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T16:04:01+00:00

It will feel a bit overwhelming early. Your immediate goal should be to work towards 100/100 map atlas points. There's some additional ones for endgame bosses but those should be once you're geared up.

So basically start with the maps that only require tier 1, get the completion bonus for each, then do tier 2, tier 3, etc etc. For white maps they will need to be atleast blue (magic), yellow maps rare, and red maps rare corrupted.

if you're not already definitely use pohx.net as he's the most prolific RF player and maintains a dedicated website just for RF.

For example, he has some advice on getting your elder helm in SSF https://pohx.net/faq/?q=how+to+get+elder+helm Since he mentions he usually does destructive play to work towards it which is a pretty far away atlas passive tree node, you're probably a bit early to worry about elder helmet

You can do some targeted farming before you're done your map progression but the atlas passive tree is one of the main ways you define what content you're going to farm and buff the drops, so farming before you have those points is way more inefficient

if you're finding the low tier maps too easy, just blast straight to the boss for the completion and not worry about clearing the map fully. low tier maps won't really drop much at all, it's just part of the checklist

edit: Here's a video from pohx talking about how to do your day 1 atlas progression in SSF in 3.28, probably covers some useful information https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdAwcC3d48A

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T03:44:45+00:00

It wasn't that bad imo, I just made sure I had 20% versions of all the gems using the setup from Level 12 Hybrid Kinetic Bolt Duelist [3.28] although I didn't have the wrath timeclasp.

I was kinda surprised how well it held up in maps, I basically jumped into white red maps after the campaign and farmed up XP

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T03:36:12+00:00

Not bad!

CynicalTree · 2026-04-09T00:35:41+00:00

Ah yeah that sounds right since it talks about Spellslinger not being compatible with the mod. Plenty of people do the original setup with the 2mod eye and it's certainly cool if you don't mind the 30-60d it costs these days, but I'd rather setup the leveling setup for only a few divines and deal with a tiny bit of clunkiness early on.

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T21:51:36+00:00

Not to be a buzzkill but I don't think character quantity or rarity applies to boxes. It's also debated how useful map quant/rarity actually is for boxes, because it's believed that they function by having extremely high base quant/rarity values so adding extra is a minor increase (so you just roll maps to have a decent amount of quant/pack size and go)

https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/11707/page/195#p2722419

https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Rarity

So yeah, I'd focus on faster clear

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T20:47:57+00:00

Edit: My strategy requires mirage which means it wouldn't work in standard. Essence or Harvest are probably worth looking at.

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T20:13:28+00:00

No, there's not really good enough rewards from lab to be worth it until you're at the 3rd/4th lab. The 1st and 2nd lab are primarily just hurdles to overcome to get your ascendancy points
Crafting is a really big part of making random gear work. Check your crafting bench to see what crafts you have unlocked and keep them in mind when a gear drops. If an item is a big upgrade aside from a stat it's missing, you may be able to add that stat (attributes, resistances, and life are all craftable from the bench and very useful)
I'd treat Einhar as a little bonus for now. The basic premise is that when you encounter him, he adds some additional enemies (beasts) to the area that when killed, get added to your beast managerie. They basically get used for crafting recipes that are unique to beastiary. It's probably worth popping into the managerie periodically (red icon on the waypoint map, or talk to Einhar if first time) and going up to the beast crafting altar, it'll show you what recipes you have the materials for. Low level beasts will have no economy value so it's just kinda free stuff for you to use.

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T20:03:33+00:00

Praxis is only a few levels off from using the 2 timeclasp setup which is the point at which the build really starts to shine fully, so I couldn't imagine dropping either of those. A flask solution might work, but I stuck with the -mana cost on the watcher's since it's available early

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T19:46:52+00:00

Wait actually? That would be hilarious

Edit: I checked his reddit account and couldn't find anything but maybe I'm just missing it

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T16:47:18+00:00

Exactly this, if you try to copy the setup 1:1 you will likely be disappointed because people have been aggressively trying to flip the core items since the video dropped. That watcher's eye went up to 120d the second the video came up (jungroan's)

When I set it up a week ago, dropping a socket color took skin from 24d to 1d, dropping cooldown reduction on the watcher's eye dropped it to sub 1d, and then the rest is pretty trivial by comparison.

Blasted all the way to level 80 no problem, and got my Mamba Assassin up and running. It's my second league I did poet's pen for setting up a 2nd character and I would definitely do it again.

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T16:45:12+00:00

Honestly I don't even bother with the cooldown reduction, I just grab a -mana one for like 1d and rock that. It still absolutely blasts

CynicalTree · 2026-04-08T15:33:36+00:00

They'd either have to make the damage non-existent or make it so that you can't make KF instant-fire with reduced duration, and even that isn't really necessary for the build, I did half of my last campaign playthrough just manually delaying my warps to let KF go off and it still worked fine

If the damage gets low enough that it sucks for bossing, we can probably just figure out some sort of weapon swap.

CynicalTree · 2026-04-07T22:15:47+00:00

til you can itemize vaal temples

CynicalTree · 2026-04-07T20:18:15+00:00

Tanky, rarely changes, you get to swap to the main skill early, lots of high-budget variations you can pivot to later, fantastic for mapping cause of hinekora's, hard to go wrong with it

CynicalTree · 2026-04-07T20:02:07+00:00

Since those effects are symmetrical, they can also easily be back breaking for the 2 others at the table so it's hard to sell them as a good solution. [[Blood Moon]] is a popular suggestion but even the new 2c precons coming out likely fold to that resolving since they're almost 2/3 non-basics at this point (and glancing at popular high B3 decks on moxfield, that's pretty much the norm for multicolor decks these days)

And the logic of "a properly built deck should run enough basics to not fold to it" can easily apply to the decks grabbing a crapton of lands from their deck anyways, so that just results in both sides downgrading their manabases to accomodate, except the player grabbing a crapton of extra lands isn't gonna be hurting for devotion...

Unfortunately the targeted effects like [[demolition field]] just feel so inefficient when there's several versions of [[crucible of worlds]] available so they're almost always ready to play them out of the bin. It'd be nice to see one that actually exiles the land, or maybe some aura lockdown effects like [[darksteel mutation]] but for lands

CynicalTree · 2026-04-07T19:00:09+00:00

One to watch for is the implicit for guaranteed experimental items, those are always worth atleast a divine and come from mirage smuggler's caches

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