Xenowars | Defense, Dungeon, And Dung
Path of Exile | Changing Up My Atlas Passives And Other Things
Since near the start of the league I’ve been making small changes to my Atlas passive tree. It is something new in this league that came with the expansion. Some things have been working out great for me. While other things I’ve changed.
Before the league started I sat down and went through each of the different kinds of passive that would be found on the new Atlas tree. The Atlas tree has enough room in it that you can pick a few different things based on how you plan to play.
Overall I feel the amount of points given has been quite generous. I planned for having 108 in total and I find myself at 116. I am just one short of finishing all the Atlas passive bonus objectives. The only thing left is a map I might end up buying at some point for 40 chaos or so which is not too bad.
Right now my tree is a bit of a mess. I’m sure I could do a little optimization to try and free up a point here or there to put into other things. With the low cost of consuming an Orb of Unmaking, it has made it affordable to swap in and out of different passive nodes within reason.
I have found myself maybe in the mood to do something different. Sometimes that cost might just be 15 Orbs of Unmaking. If I don’t change things up too often I am looting that many over time. I do wonder after this league if they will keep it so affordable to just swap as you like.
I started the league thinking I was going to go heavy into Delve. Along with that, I would be doing some Heist. I would also pick up passives for bossing, Kirac missions, and anything that increases my chances of getting higher-tier maps to drop.
A lot of this has since changed. I ended up only running in Delve mine once so far. The new Eater of the Worlds and Searing Exarch currencies have decimated the fossil market in Delve as people are just not using it as much. Pair that with a lot more fossils dropping from Archnemesis League and I’m glad I got out of those passives early on.
One thing I did keep a lot longer than I should have has been any Heist nodes. I ended up running for the night the last big batch of Heist contracts. While running them does bring in some money it also eats up a lot of extra time to do so. Most of the contracts sell for next to nothing on the open market.
I also got to learn a bit more about Easter of Worlds and Searing Exarch. Since you can only work on progress one at a time it became rather pointless to have both node clusters mostly selected on the tree.
I have discovered I personally like Eater of Worlds more over Searing Exarch. Eater of Worlds gets a passive that gives a 50% boost to alters appearing. They influence the map where you get to choose between two options. I also like fighting that boss more.
While a lot of things can and do overlap in Path of Exile. This has also shown that not everything will. Making you have to make a short-term choice instead of just everything. Since I’m only running Eater of Worlds at this time on the map and not boss running. I have also removed Maven passives till I switch back over into them at a later point in time.
Since I prefer to run with Eater of Worlds that also means Kirac Missions are off the table. Outside of keeping some of the nodes for scouting reports to sell or keep. I’m considering removing them as well.
Kirac missions were great for getting missing bonus objectives and maps I did not have. Since I’m one map short now of finishing the Atlas I don’t need him. I have also failed after rolling many scouting reports in getting what I’m missing.
One thing I thought I would have removed by now but have not have been passives for map drops. I’m kind of in this strange place where I’m not overflowing with maps but I don’t feel like I’ll be running out soon either. I’m just slowly getting more than I’m using.
Early on one of the changes I made was picking up strongbox passives on the Atlas tree. Getting more monsters on the map when opening them has been nice. Along with on occasion getting lots of scarabs out of a single chest. I’m however on the fence if I’ll end up keeping them long-term.
In this league, I’ve been trying many new things that I’ve missed or skipped over in the past. One of them has been expeditions which I’ve been known for skipping over in prevue’s leagues. While I have not fully explored them yet and got the full experience I do like the amount of time they take to run.
It has been fun so far in this league to watch over time how I make small adjustments to things and see their results. A lot of the time you can’t just do something once or even twice. Sometimes you want to see the results of doing something over days or even weeks.
Heists
Since I’m removing my Heist Atlas passive skills I thought I would go through my contracts and take the best I had. At this point in the league, I did not want to spend days grinding out the rest I had. So I went on a bit of a speed run.
This league Grand Heists have been a giant letdown. I had three currencies once left to run with disappointing rewards at the end. If I was lucky I would get eight chaos orbs. Some of them I was barely breaking even. For being “grand” they were anything but this league.
I went through my normal contacts and picked out all the ones that had high value or better for the target reward. Rogue’s Marker pieces have steadily been decreasing and I wanted to get the maximum I could for the least amount of runs.
The plan was to speed run as many as I could. I would load up my inventory with a bunch of contracts. Hit them with a single Alchemy each to make them all rare and just shotgun run them.
Instead of focusing on trying to get every ounce of alert level out of them, I was more focused on speed. I would be hitting the better in my eyes bigger chests on my route to the main target. If I so happened to be next to normal chests I’d loot them as well if could. I however was not going to go out of my way or backtrack to get them.
Since I was grabbing less I changes up how I managed my inventory as well. Instead of dumping everything into stash tabs at the end of each run, I wanted to do as many as possible before needing to do so. Any low-level bulk items that I tend to the vendor that is now near-worthless I did not bother picking up.
All in all, I might have looted four exalts worth of loot between all the heists I ran. I did not keep exact track of things since I was more going for quick runs. Not that bad for the amount of time spent in comparison to other things I tend to do. It is however extra time I have to take out of elsewhere. I’m also getting rather bored of them as well.
Expeditions
These are something I have been playing around with for about half a week now. I have only run the ones found within maps and I have not touched any logbooks yet. These were not what I was expecting.
Funny enough I’m not sure if I have ever looted a logbook before from Expeditions till this league. I was even questioning if I was doing something wrong since I did not even know what they were. With the expedition passives and ensuring I get any nodes when clearing the event for logbooks they finally started to drop on occasion.
After my first one dropped I was shocked to see how much a single logbook could sell for. Then an Expedition or two later I had three logbooks drop from a single event. One of them was worth almost 80 Chaos and the other two were 30 each. Clearing an exalt worth of loot that quickly was quite fun.
While I have sold the logbooks for now since I need currency. I have been saving a couple to run for myself. I could always buy back hopefully at a cheaper price more later on if I enjoy running them.
At the moment I don’t feel I have a character I want to attempt clearing logbooks with. There were instances where my necromancer had struggled not to get killed doing the basic Expeditions in maps. Meanwhile, my champion I had to be careful of what nodes I got running them or it would take him 10 mins to muster enough damage to clear it.
Hopefully, I’ll have more to say Expeditions shortly. I’m just getting gear for a new boss killer character that I might try running logbooks with as well. I’m wondering what kind of treasures awaits me inside.
Final Thoughts
I’ve made a few characters this league trying out different classes. It has been fun playing different builds trying to find something I enjoy that can do the content I want as well. While most things have not gone to plan I’m still having a blast.
Other Content
- Path of Exile | Strand, Expedition, And The Glass Cannon
- Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Playing With Harvest
- Path of Exile | Archnemesis League So Many Exalts So little Time
- Path of Exile | Archnemesis League Day 11-12 Skeleton Mage Necromancer
Information
Screenshots were taken and content was written by @Enjar. Screenshots are from Path of Exile.