With having red maps now on lockdown, it was time to make things a bit harder on myself. While I've done a little regarding Maven and the others. It was time to start putting some focus on them.

One of the fun aspects at least when you start running maps that are being influenced is getting opportunities to make things harder on yourself for an increase in some kind of reward.

It was hard to turn down a chance at getting duplicated maps to drop. One thing I have been shocked by is I'm not struggling with sustaining maps. Sure, there have been a couple of times when running red maps so far that I've come close to being out. Then I'll go run a map and get a bunch to drop at once.

For now, I'm staying away from parts of the atlas passive skills that involve things like maven or the eater of worlds. At some point, I might move some passives around and take a side by focusing on one of them.

It was only a matter of time before I started to engage with the different map bosses. I’ll admit I don’t recall at all how any of the fights go. I also find these higher-end boss fights in Path of Exile to be a bit nuts. Requiring some insane reflexes that I don’t have. Thankfully I do have some massive damage output.

I was able to take down the lower tier of The Infinite Hunger with only getting killed a couple of times. If I was smart, I'd have waited till I finished off my current level. Instead, I lost some progress on that side of things.

My berserker smashed his face in like the boss owed him money. Nothing that great dropped as far as sellable loot. Not that I was expecting any from the lower-tier fight.

Since I was running out of easy ways to get further atlas passive skill points. It was rather nice after the fight that I returned to my hideout for some further storyline and a little reward of another atlas skill point.

I then toggled on Maven and started to collect some bosses to fight in her arena. Since I've been slacking on this a bit, I only needed tier 8 and higher map bosses. She needed to watch me defeat four bosses and then I got an invitation to fight them all at once.

Just too easy myself into it. I did pick some lower-tier bosses to take on while I had Maven witness their deaths. I’d sometimes switch up to some higher-tier ones as well. I would however need to repeat this process for higher-tier maps. So I thought why make things harder on myself than I need to. Other than some better chances at rewards for doing so. Which to be fair was reason enough but I was being lazy.

When dealing with Maven the higher tier of map that is required the more bosses you have to fight as well. At least at the lower-tier maps, I had enough damage to kill most of them fast enough that the delay between boss spawns was long enough to get on one fight.

At higher tier fights that would not be the case. It was also not great that I have a two-handed axe that is a bit slow to swing. In the past, I'd just dart around the arena dealing a little damage to anything in my path as I run around the outer edge of the area. With a slower build, it is much harder to try and damage and run.

After a while, I wanted to a break from Maven encounters and switched over to using searing exarch as a map option. This gave those alerts where I was getting to choose different risk-to-reward options from time to time.

Once I had completed enough maps at a higher enough tier. It was time for me to face The Black Star. This was another fight I had all but forgotten about. Took me a couple of deaths but I managed to bag myself another kill before using my final portal back into the fight.

As expected not much dropped in terms of loot. The loot filter I had switched over more or less hid everything that had dropped from the fight once I took him down. This is why I was kind of ignoring working on these lower-tier boss fights for the time being.

While out working on some further progression to fight another boss. I got a Valdo’s Puzzle Box that I ended up selling for 104 chaos. Not a massive thing to loot. It was however the first time that I recall ever seeing one.

Two maps after that I ended up getting a divine orb to drop. I could not believe the luck I was having. While the boss kills were not giving me anything. Working on their requirements to engage in the next fight sure was.

With a decent amount of money stacked up, I grabbed myself quite a critical upgrade. You might be wondering why I bought a chest piece without any life on it. I have a passive skill node that gives me a nice boost in health for not having any life on my chest piece.

This chest piece had almost double the amount of armor over my last one. I needed to boost my armor as high as I could. I wanted to switch over to a powerful helm I had bought but could not wear. I take a decent amount of damage every time I attack. In return, I dish out quite a massive increase in damage myself.

Sadly, even with this new upgrade the helm was skill a death wish to wear. I’ve been half tempted to sell it to someone else and put that money elsewhere into my build. For whatever reason I hold onto it thinking at some point I'll be able to use it.

I then met my match as far as bosses go. When dealing with the Searing Exarch I can’t kill him fast enough before I run out of portals back into the arena. I have even attempted him a couple of times since then.

In one unlucky fight. I had him call this phase within rapped sessions of each other. I barely even got a couple of hits in on him between getting killed with these balls of fire. Perhaps there is some massive trick I do not know. I can just never seem to move fast enough to avoid getting hit by them and getting killed over and over again.

Final Thoughts

After some bossing, I just needed something a bit more chill and relaxing. I went into delve for a while and made some further progression downward. I knew soon I needed to go diving into the darkness and pick up some phat loot that had been waiting around for me to collect.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar about Path Of Exile.