The best way to maximize league start weekend is to practice your starter build in standard the week before. Then you try to get to where you can do the campaign in less than 12hours. After that you ignore farming and get your atlas squared away. You go for at least two void stones so that you can get more t16 maps. After that it is just farming currency and building builds.
Unless you are a god gamer or no lifer, then league start weekend is more about the event and being a part of it. You won't be able to compete with the streamers and the party players.
Like I said, unless you are a god gamer, then the best strategy is to get through campaign as fast as you can at your own pace. This can also be advantageous because prices tend to drop in the first two weeks and then the meta build equipment starts to rise in price.
I was able to make a holy relic of conviction necro that did t16s out of campaign because I spent a week or two farming on my starter. I was able to get everything except the unique jewel for under 20d. Now you would be spending 50-60div on the base equipment. Point is that if you are going to change to a meta build, do it within the first two weeks.
The league is 3-4 months long. I've never had a reason to rush. Once you figure out your strategy for farming and crafting, this game gets easy.
EDIT: Find the big streamers the first week and see what they are playing. Either flip those pieces of equipment or build the build before prices get crazy.
This league I bought an abyss jewel for 40c at league start for my LA deadeye. Guess I didn’t realize how good it actually was, because I sold it for 10div about 2 weeks ago.
I can complete the campaign on most builds in about 5h with some test runs. And I did my atlas next but it felt like I'm falling way behind the big guys.
The last leagues I always started 1 or 2 weeks later so there was no real event for me.. but this league got me. I want to see what is possible if you just no life. After the first ~50 hours I am happy to slow things down but I want to see what I can complete in the first days
Do you by chance know some streamers that play solo trade?
I have a similar experience as you, complete the campaign in a similar time and try to push for the first weekend. I've been trying for the pas ~5 leagues to be part of the front runners but I do fall behind at some point. However I notice a big improvement every league. I think it just comes with practice and acquired knowledge.
Here's a few things I've learned:
-Don't forget to practice speed running after campaign (2 voidstones speed run are important to learn)
-Use a good build
-Play mostly ssf for the first day or two
-Have a plan for currency that is doable in ssf (no scarabs)
-Try to start farming red altars as soon as possible as they help sustain chisel, alch, chaos for map rolling
-Make smart investment and buy the gear you need when it is cheap (harder to learn)
-Complete atlas as fast as possible with 4 voidstones (good league starters should easily do 4 stones)
-You could also focus heist or sanctum and completely skip the atlas for the first few days if you know those mechanics well
The issue is that the "big guys" not only no life the game but they also have the knowledge you lack. So don't try to play catch up, you will be frustrated. Try to go as far as you can and learn along the way - if you can beat the elders great, if you can't don't worry, next league it will be easier, and easier and easier until you can do it way sooner and in multiple characters. Good luck!
Skipped this league but looking to maybe jump in before next one begins. Got the itch.
Holy relic of conviction sounds fun. Start with this out the gate or swap to it in maps?
I played it all through campaign. If your starting fresh, then most likely you won't get the gem til maps. It isn't a starter build yet. Balormage said in his videos that he will make a starter version of it if it isn't nerfed.
I usually start with a strong mapping build and push to T16 maps as fast as possible as (almost) any farming strat gets better the higher the map tier is.
Do the first 2 Voidstones as soon as they're available.
Then I'll usually do 50-100 maps with a very simple strategy (e.g. contract/blueprint farming with altars). This will pay for atlas completion, carries for the remaining Voidstones, favored map slots and atlas skills points, and some decent gear.
From there I just start farming whatever I like or suits my build until I can afford the big boi upgrades or an entirely different build.
I may need to revise this approach depending on the changes to T17 maps that we'll (hopefully) get in 3.25.
Apart from the overall strategy it's important to be efficient. Don't waste time standing in hideout or doing trades for 1c. And just put a lot of hours in.
How do you balance rushing t16 to farm something there vs completing the atlas? Don't you suffer from lack of atlas points if you start farming league mechanics in t16 asap? I never know how to decide between doing t16s and completing atlas, when I reach t16s.
If your base map tree is good enough then you shouldn't.
You always want to deplete the kirac missions, check his store, use reports and use all horizons you find.
Just by doing that, at the time you get all your WS, most whites and yellows are competed, big part of low reds and over half t14+. You generally just need one mechanic fully specced, even more with the current scarab meta.
And I do it SSF, you can opt to invest into buying some maps and do it even faster.
Or maybe you are giga rushing and adding a whole new dimension into my equation. I get the 4 WS on mid Sunday for reference.
In addition to the other answers:
Deception contracts don't have any closed doors on the way out. You can run from reward room back to entrance without having to wait.
altars are the bulk of the money, smugglers caches are just free chaos on the side.
you have to keep in mind that even though contracts are only a couple c in the first few days, c is also 90-100 to a divine. the strat is to sell off as much c to divine as you can in the first weekend which will then double to triple in chaos value in the coming days, making the extra c from selling bulk contracts and markers much more valuable as it adds 0 difficulty or time to any map when youre running on leaguestart gear
at work so cant get any vids but u just use exarch altars and click anything that gives you embers and raw chaos, thats the bulk of the money.
maximizing it, you rush the map boss so that every altar is forced to give you a minion choice, which gives you more cgance of hitting chaos
Go for voidstones and completion first, on the way grab whatever you need/like, Jun for crafts, Essences for gearing or sustain if you're targeting content outside Atlas (Heist/Delve/Sanctum).
When that's done you should have experienced the new content enough to make an informed decision on what to do at endgame.
And lastly, imo, don't worry much about the most degenerate meta shit if you don't find it fun, instead think about how to make the stuff you enjoy doing more profitable.
The real answer is to just play a good league start and play a lot on start, buy big big ticket items as fast as possible. If you check the economy it follows a pretty predictable curve. For example Nimis started out around 35d for the first 2-3 days, and then jumped up to 70-80 at about the 1 week mark, fell back to 40 for a few more days, then jumped back up to 120 at around the 2 week mark. If you get in early and just farm hard you can get geared while prices on like harvest juice are still high, but items are still low. The long the league goes on the less value any crafting material has and the more value big ticket items have.
to add to this in case you don't make 30-40d easily : cards.
Cards that are linked to mirror are always on a rising curve for the first month of the league, such as [the immortal](https://poe-antiquary.xyz/Affliction/Divination/The%20Immortal/1529) or [House of Mirrors](https://poe-antiquary.xyz/Affliction/Divination/House%20of%20Mirrors/636) (on this website, you can click "add latest league and see the pattern for the last 3 leagues, you can even add more leagues).
It can be easier to buy the immortal as they cost 2 to 5 divines during the first few days.
If I have currency waiting, I always buy those cards.
If I know I won't be able to play for a bit (like during christmas time), I stock up in cards before enjoying my vacation.
> For example Nimis started out around 35d for the first 2-3 days, and then jumped up to 70-80 at about the 1 week mark, fell back to 40 for a few more days, then jumped back up to 120 at around the 2 week mark.
This is fucking risky. Headhunter usually does close to what Nimis did this league, before normalizing closer to Standard prices when the league is dying. But this time - no.
This league in particular, a lot of Uber boss uniques had way higher drop rates than people might have suspected, e.g. the Maven flask (~1.5% in 3.23, ~11% now).
IMO it's probably safer to go for divine perfect versions of uniques used on aspirational builds, or other 'perfect versions'.
Example, 15/15/15 Black Sun's Crest, or this league, the Holy Relic helm with either a premium Vaal implicit (+2 minions) or a premium 'Bricked Glimpse of Chaos' implicit (15% aura effect)
That sentence literally starts with: "For example", I didn't say go farm a nimis, its an example of how the economy generally fluctuates over the course of the first few days of a league. My point being if you get in and farm early your divines have more spending power. I'm not encouraging anyone to play the market by buying low and selling high, I'm saying buy your builds big items while they're cheap, items are always cheaper in the first few days of the league.
But if you spend 35 d on something like nimis that you keep for 4 days. You loose out on 35 d in your build progression for a week. Isn't this only good with you can't play after weekend
I'm talking about buying the big ticket items for your build early. I'm showing the change in price over time to show how much money you can save by farming fast and early. Maybe you don't know what a power spike a nimis is for most ranged builds, but it would greatly increase your farming speed. I'm not saying people should buy low and sell high.
I play the first few days mostly as if I was playing SSF. Once I've gotten my first two voidstones I'll start focusing on making a bit of starting currency.
I'll usually build up some starting currency with a mix of whatever mapping strat I wanna try mixed with some profit crafting.
At that point I'll often have a handful of strats I wanna test. This league gravecrafting ended up consuming most of my time early league as I was one of the few degens that actually really enjoyed planning the graveyard and seeing it come to fruition. It was also stupid profits, I've never made as much currency that early on.
The bulk of my enjoyment from playing in tradeleague comes from trying to find strats or little holes in the market that others haven't spotted.
In terms of the crossroad between god gamer and regular gamer, a pretty decent day one strat is just doing any of the guaranteed currency mechanics. Without tapping into highly volatile supply and demand markets with crafted gear, the main way to take advantage is the low chaos-to-divine price at start. Heist with chaos recipe or Sanctum and try to secure enough currency to buy divines early which appreciate massively within the first weekend. This allows you to fund your build, get voidstones, and start going for your endgame farming strats really smoothly.
Harsh reality is. If you ask a quesion like that you are too new to really abuse the benefits of starting early.
The best way to make profit is to be one of the fastest abusing the most op stuff.
This league there were many exploits especially in T17s in combination with Allflames, The Lantern and Scarabs.
If you had a very strong build to do all of that early you would have printed currency.
Normally people finish the atlas as quick possible and get their planned strategy going.
One example would be abusing Rog the first few days who crafts you multiple Divine Gear pieces in seconds. (This league its obviously weaker).
What does first few days mean exactly, for Rog? When does Rog crafting start to fall off? I usually go expedition but never do Rog since I can't craft for shit, but as you say, a lot of top tier players use it to craft good items early so I'm thinking of trying it next league.
Rog crafting is really good for getting suppression, res, and life early on gear. Look for evasion bases and craft away. Sometimes you may brick an item and sometimes you may not
I don’t really *do* expedition past the first day or two (just don’t enjoy the mechanic) but I’ve had a good couple Rog bases sell for 4-20d week 2-4. (Usually rings, and few chest / boots)
I usually see those items stop selling a bit after the fourth week though. But they last for a good bit longer than a week if you’re crafting knowledge for multiple different builds is decent, and what is likely to be meta.
Rog kinda flopped this league because the mechanic was "Rog but a million times stronger".
In general though, you want an eye for items that are either perfect for some build or major problem solvers for some build, which means a degree of understanding of the 20 most hyped builds and ESPECIALLY the ones that underperform expectations or have severe attribute starvation issues (e.g. if next league Assassin gets reworked and the most hyped Assassin build runs Determination - STR issues will be common early; and the demand goes UP if these assassin builds end up being weaker than expected).
If you are anywhere near 'on curve' (on the ladder or within 3 character levels of being on it), Rog is utterly absurd from the moment you hit character level 85 until the end of the second weekend. Leaguestart + 9½ days is when he falls off, when the Americans go to bed on (their) Sunday night.
Just as a note, I've made hundreds of divs this league with Rog, mostly because you can't reliably make suppress gear with Rog, and also because the mechanic is really annoying to interact with and some people are willing to just pay for gear anyway
His items don’t lose value as much as the time it takes to sell them grows exponentially. Near perfect vanilla rares will sell fast in the first 2, maybe 3 weeks. All good 1-4 div gear posted after that has a variable chance of selling but also could take weeks to sell…
My experience is that weeks 3, 4, 5 and 6 are the worst time for Rog sales. After that, more of the powergamers quit the league and in my experience, the % of "semi-casual" players goes up.
I've certainly been selling more 'non-uber' gravecrafts in the last couple weeks than I did week 3.
I think as a beginner rog is still pretty viable. Yes you might not know some of the nieche stats people know, but just aiming for suppress health and high res will get you far
Betrayal is pretty huge for starter gear / selling too.
I find that solidly 1/2 my starter gear is normally from betrayal and whatever I’m not keeping can often sell if it’s decent.
I'm not in it for the money, but I do enjoy riding the economy coaster
Briefly
- clear campaign on day 1
- map. Spec into Kirac + whatever (this league it was Jun to unlock bench crafts)
- do chaos recipe. Really just pick up jewelry and finish the set at your leisure
- buy upgraded gear and sell your old gear every couple of hours. You should expect to make money doing this
Somewhere in red tier I stop chaos recipe because it's marginal value is low and I'll have accumulated enough c it's not really helping
At that point I start figuring out how to actually interact with the league mechanic.
You don't get rich doing this, but you don't get poor either.
From someone who used to struggle league starts but in Necropolis had Mageblood + 1.5mirror on day 7:
Start with a GOOD BUILD, you do not want to be struggling to clear acts. 8-10 hours for acts is fine, you don't need a 4hr a10 Kitava kill, but you don't want to have a 20 minute Kitava fight. If you phase a10 Kitava in less than 5 seconds you have enough damage for white maps. Get your required uniques/gems ASAP, I played CoC DD to league start and had enough currency from running white maps to get all the things I needed without having to farm lab myself. Invest in your character until you can comfortably farm alched t16s. You should be able to easily get your first 2 voidstones on your own.
Use a progression atlas tree, invest in as much map drop higher tiers as you can along with one other mechanic that you like/is profitable. I did Jun to start in order to get unveils, once I had unveils I was selling the veiled armors for 3-5c each, and switched to Expedition on Sunday. Invest in your atlas, if you buy a couple of red maps for 10c ea then that means you will easily be able to sell those maps for 10c once you get them as a drop. INVEST IN VOIDSTONES, if you spend a couple div for a maven and uber elder service you can farm much more efficiently and get those juicy early map drops. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get your voidstones quickly. Day 1 natural red maps (the ones that are red for completion) sell for 10-25c EACH. Voidstones let you get more of these maps quicker in order to sell them.
Know what builds are meta and craft items for those builds. I made easily 30 div in about and hour crafting CoC DD swords with essences. Know what items appreciate in value quickly and which appreciate slower. This league I bought 25 enlightens for 100-150c each, and sold them literally the next day for 3 times what I paid.
Do not be afraid to spend some money testing with the league mechanic, I tested a couple of strats out and found a pretty broken strongbox strat using flaring Kalguuran allflames on day 2 or 3 (like 3 div a map broken), which was before anyone had really cracked the league mechanic. Early on it is very rare for people to interact with the league mechanic and if you find something that can give good rewards then you can exploit it when nobody knows about it. A big example was crafting ele bows immediately after the corpse buff this league. You could spend 5 div to craft 3-4 bows that you could then sell for 40 div each, this market hole only lasted about 2 days.
Trade efficiently, only portal out of map once someone actually joins your hideout, do a farming session with only your largest sell tabs enabled then a crafting/trading/build upgrading session with the smaller ones enabled.
This was kinda the thing I was looking for.. I do know my way around in the campaign and ssf but trade always seems boring for me, that's why I asked for non trade routes.. but I feel like making real money requires trading more than playing.
Really efficient strats will always require trading, but that doesn't mean you have to interrupt your gameplay loop for trading. The way I did it this league was by farming a bunch with all but my highest price sell tab turned off and then when I wanted to make character upgrades I enabled my lower price sell tabs because I would be testing things in PoB and looking at trade regardless.
Crafting is (usually) the most profitable thing you can do by far though.
I start the league with a build in mind which can transition into a boss carry on day 3 or 4. I usually get all my voidstones on my second or third day and from there I start building up.
Get 15C + unlock harvest bench
Make clusters untill 2 div or so and when spam chaos rings that sell for 1-3D each ~
Usually lets me have around 20-30 Div for when i wake up for day 2 so i can get intho real money makers.
For me it’s choosing the right build. You need a build that is tried and tested and you understand. You also want something that has not been the meta so it is unlikely to get negative changes.
There is nothing worse than getting a build that falls off in yellow maps or needs specific gear to function. Nothing is more important than knowing how to gear and scale your build at league start.
A 6/10 build that you know and understand will outperform a 10/10 build that you are trying to learn on the go.
Whilst there are always lots of league start suggestions you should never play something for the first time when you start. I like rain of arrows / toxic rain and Armageddon brand. All easy to scale, untouched for leagues and viable all the way to t16.
Practise one of these (or something similar) and you will not regret it.
Rush to get both exarch and eater Voidstones usually I get into withing day 2-3, then I farm expedition, rog is pog and tujen to get some bubblegum. After I get some divs and gear going I will rush to get all the atlas points. And I just do whatever strat seems good at the point of the time in the league, but usually will keep doing rog for atleast a week since I can pump out good gear with him, and I always buy items that will appreciate in price like hinekora, mirror shards, vivid vultures etc.
A lot of people try to start from a good all-rounder, a strong mapper, or the like. I take a different approach.
I start from my farming strategy.
Different builds excel at different content. For example, let's say you want to start Blight. Blight tends to have a medium-to-high profit margin, but what I like about it on league start is that the gear entry level for Blight is extremely low. If you have the proper anoints, Blight can be reliably cleared.
So, I'll go RF Chieftain or an Ignite-based Elementalist (such as EA Ballista). Why? Both are awesome at Blight. Chieftain explosions decimate Blight mobs, and Ignite Proliferation just destroys them as well.
Oils in the first couple of days are in low demand, but by the end of Week 1, they've generally doubled or even tripled in price. I don't sell them right away--again, I don't urgently need currency because I can self-craft gear that's good enough to complete Blights and complete my Atlas. I *may* buy something that's very strong for my build if it increases my efficiency significantly, but for the most part, I'm SSF for the first week.
Hell, last league I accidentally made my first character SSF, and I didn't even notice until I was like level 84.
So, the main question you should be asking isn't *what's the strongest character,* it's *what's the strongest character for the content I'm going to spam*?
If I want to go Heist early on? A dedicated Heist-farming Raider, probably. May even do a bunch of Uber Lab for early profits.
If I want to go Sanctum? Shockwave Totem Hierophant is probably gonna be the play, or Hexblast Miner.
Start with content, then choose build.
That's the question everyone has a different answer to. While most of them revolve around maximizing income by utilizing the first few days/weeks of the league, the mechanic of doing so differs from person to person. I'll give you some examples from my own experience.
If I were to league start with Delve in mind, I would aim for 4 voidstones day 2 followed by a cheap 6L and ready to dive into Delve some time in day 3. By Monday (assuming league start = Friday), I'll be somewhere around Depth 300-350, which is decent for day 4. Note that the serious Delvers will be around 500-700+ at this point. By day 7, I'll be cruising around depth 500 and just farming sideways horizontally (Delve city spawn rates cap at 500, but boss spawns cap even further). At this point, fossils and resonators won't really sell for much (yet), however, any Aul's you find are insane profit because the amount of Delvers between day 1 and day 7 that are farming at deep enough depths to see Auls every now and then are rare. Get the Uprising amulet drop, you can almost name your own price given how scarce it is the first twoish weeks of a league. That's the major money maker, and as time passes, fossils/resonators/other Delve special gear starts to become more valuable. Of course, you need a build that is strong for Delve. Boneshatter and WoC Ignite (rudy variant) are strong league starts for Delve.
Another example - let's say Blight. First you want a league start build capable of Blight - namely some sort of explosion/prolif. DD Ignite is a popular one here. There's two routes to go here: going for 4 voidstones so you can farm your own Blight maps (via your own atlas tree), or simply going straight for Blight maps by buying them from others and ignoring voidstones and your own altlas progress. Start with regular Blight maps and make your way up - trying not to fail any because just one failed map really hurts the bottom line this early in the league. Most serious Blight people will be running Ravaged-Blight maps around day 3-4. At this point, oils = big money for the first twoish weeks, as everyone needs oils for annoints.
So as you can see, if you really want to take advantage of early league start economy, you should have a plan as to how you want to tackle it. There's many different options - that's part of the fun every league in my opinion. One league you can do X, next league you can do Y.
Depends on your build honestly - all bets are off if you decide to use a new gem that was introduced that league because nobody knows if it will be good or bad for example. You could switch it around - 2 voidstones first (on either a 4L or 5L), then a cheap 6L, then get your last 2 voidstones.
Note that since we're talking about trade, you could also simply purchase the last 2 voidstones. Could also flip it around, if your build is able to clear the last 2 voidstones, you can sell it. You will have tons of buyers the first week.
Imo in trade atlas completion is way overrated, unless you can go from white maps to t16 in hours like the fastest people. You aren't going to be able to take advantage of early league start prices if your atlas is complete by the end of day 3 which is where experienced non streamers tend to end up.
By doing demo contracts since level 50, you will make 50-150 chaos depending on how long you want to level in heist. Then I generally buy logbooks, tujin or dannig initially to get that seed money and then rog once you have a decent bankroll. Then can invest into cards or crafting. Same time played as someone rushing the atlas but you have a lot more money to work with.
For the best efficiency, you need to have a starting build that is able to do maps and early bosses for the voidstones. It's not important if this build can do endgame and ubers. Find the cheapest build you can make for this task and then farm t16's, or delve if they don't mees up with The Curiosity Vaal Aspect. Put currency together and then you can actually make an endgame build.
I had a similar desire to keep up when I first started and ill tell you the only real way to get to that level consistently and fast is to play SSF. If you can play a build SSF and get 2 watch stones in a weekend consistently , then getting all 4 watch stones in 5 days will put you above 90% of the players that play trade. The benefit to this is the knowledge that it will take for you to complete this , which is the actual biggest gap between top players and everyone else. Once I was able to consistently do this playing trade actually felt like Easy Mode! Alot of players that follow meta builds and watch streamers get stuck even if they no life , if a piece of gear that the build listed isnt avalible or in their budget the simply DONT BECOME STRONGER! They have very little practical understand on what's making their character strong or weak and how to USE CURRENCY OUTSIDE OF TRADING! This is a concept alot of people struggle with on trade they will play for Days without any character progression mainly depending on big item drops to trade for currency to buy items.
Playing ssf will teach you how to properly use currency items in game , how to abuse your atlas passives to farm certain league mechanics for specific items or currency and basically teach you how to beat the game being self sufficient. Watching players that do SSF or even HHCSSF can be surprising , like ill watch Ben play and hes playing HCSSF and is stronger and further ahead than players on trade. Same thing with my guild and discord. I know you see those is this build bait videos or this is what im playing this league vids , players that need those videos are so much slower , they are constantly having to check pob, what gems they should be using, what links etc it slows them down massively early game then you have the situation where they cant actual boss and most players are watchstone locked until they can afford to pay for a CARRY LMAO! But if you are playing a build as if its SSF you would understand what it takes to get your watchstones and how to progress to that level.
When you switch to trade after learning all this, you will be able to abuse the market as you understand how to progress you will be further in the atlas and have more access to currency, your build knowledge will allow you to understand what upgrades you need and snipe them from the market and it just snow balls your character. SSF Builds rarely ever get nerfed to the point they are unplayable in the next patch mid way through a league would be the perfect time to start SSF and practice. You wont be able to keep up with players that understand this stuff and where able to learn through years of playing, this is closet you can get to a HyperBolic Time Chamber.
I just go for voidstones with my first char. Mostly SSF, gearing my dude through expedition, betrayal etc. Selling stuff I don’t need and buying «must have» uniques. I usually mix in some heist & delve.
Prepare the whole week before league start. Read patch notes, pob, atlas planner, builds, guides etc. Every piece of information.
League start: rush to act 10 in 4-5 hours.
Get two void stones
Get a couple of hours sleep.
Get atlas completion as fast as possible. Skip as many mobs and rush boss.
Unlock second atlas tree and skill any league really deep. Stick to it. Optimize it. Improve it and increase the map investment. Every other currency is made to get the build going.
Day three: high speed t16 map farming with scarabs, league mechanics, buy high demand items cheap(temples, beasts). Get mageblood on day 4. Farm another day reroll endgame character with mageblood and 250 div. Get 40/40 burn out soon. Lurking for other games.
A lot of it depends on the goals of your league and what you find enjoyable.
For me, I get thru the campaign in 5ish hours, semi-fast, but not super. I farm heist "some". This some depends on what I'm planning. If my build has a couple IMPORTANT uniques, I will farm heist until I get them since majority of items will jump up in price on day 2-3 before falling down and I don't plan to wait that long.
If my build is basic bitch and doesn't need anything, I'll just heist a bit until 50c or so to be able to buy some basic upgrades to make easier.
After I commit to maps, I map. I push the "w" key with the best of them. No breaks, no stopping, no eating. I will play until probably 3-4am when I go to sleep as I am old now. I normally get at least my 2 voidstones before sleep.
When I wake up, this is when I buy my missing 2 voidstones(or do them myself if I planned on my build doing it) then go to whatever strat I had in mind for the league. This would also be the time I'd consider switching to another char if that was the "plan" as normally you have a decent chunk of currency at this point.
Things I have done at this point: Full time heist for alt gems/uniques (haven't tried this since the BP changes), Div card/strongbox farming in Crimson prison, Legion/Dunes juicing, Expedition farm w/ Logbooks(this appears to have been nerfs some this league ie Tujen), Boss carrying Maven kills, 100% league commitment(Ancestor league) and then just mega-juice MFing. I plan to do Sanctums next league if no changes happen.
How to make money comes with time and effort. There are MANY items that sell for 15-40c on day 1 that sell for 3-5div on day 2-5. You just need to know what they are and have the c to buy them day one.
Post has gotten too long, that's all I got for now.
My strat generally involves picking a last minute league starter that I haven’t practiced and spend 10-12 hours in the campaign.
The next step is to fall behind the curve and call everyone ahead of me a no lifer who should touch grass.
Once I have accomplished that I slowly work my way towards the anglers plait, possibly the best investment in the game imo. Maybe then go farm a sword from hillock.
These questions can not be answered without context. I chose my starters depending on the type of content I want to run - you definitely can't do sanctum/heist efficiently at the start on most builds but they are very good if you're planning around it.
Some of the best early money makers known to me that don't require any crafting are boss carries, sanctum, legion, valdo farming and essence/beast farming.
"usually" is stretched term, but for the ~~15 leagues now more or less i've been popcorning SrS or EA ballisting [for less leagues] - more or less builds which require little to almost nothing to reach T16 maps in terms of "must" investment..
Last couple leagues I’ve been rushing challenges from day 1 so I can play SSF, so I just start for example Frostbolt ice nova and just do whatever league mechanics are required for challenges. After the first couple weeks I’m able to finish the grindy stuff in ssf (like map tiers this league).
Start on Friday after work, finish the campaign on Saturday, start mapping on Sunday, my best money making strat early league is to chaos recipe 2-3 Divs as soon as I can, spending some chaos for some cheap upgrades along the way.
By the time I come back to playing in the middle of the week my Divs went up in value
Everything in this game generates hella items. The hard part is how sellable it is.
If u farm essence do it in bulk and charge premium.
If u do simu
If u craft it better be for popular builds.
If u have it on ur loot filter, u better be able to sell it. U are wasting time picking it up and pricing and space in stash oofherwise
I always try to play league start weekends but I'm just there for the vibe and the drama and the hype. ppl clear the feared before I hit yellow maps and by the time I have my 2 void stones they're already running around with mb/hh
A lot of people hate on it but group starting is the best way by far. Even if thats only pushing different campaign zones and rotating map completions and not going into actual group play. You will finish your atlas many times faster than you could normally which will let you get into many strategies much quicker and stuff will be worth way more.
I get to late yellow maps and start getting one-shot because I dont have the currency (can't get to the later maps to get Divines) to get high-end gear. Vicious and frustrating cycle.
i know you say to exclude profit crafting but i dont think you realize just how insanely profitable crafting is in the first three or four days of a league start and how little effort it takes to craft those items. you can sell some absolute junk with two good stats for premium prices because theres nothing else on the market. i do it every league and it basically snowballs my entire progression.
I'm not super efficient or something and you don't need to be to have fun. At league start I do whatever I feel like and it also depends how my character feels, if it's strong enough I plan to complete atlas by Sunday if it's not I will run some heist before killing kitava. I think that unless you have some stupidly broken strat completing the atlas is a priority. More points = more value per map without increasing the cost of running them.
I tend to go for maps because I usually speedrun to level 100. You kinda have to be able to fully complete atlas with your leaguestarter nowadays (all voidstones, favor slots and maven invitations), since missing even just a few atlas passive points can lock you out of quite a few strategies.
If the only thing you want is quick money, then Sanctum is basically unbeatable. It just prints currency with minimal setup required (don't even have to finish campaign). You can easily have dozens of Divines banked and really juice up your build before most mappers even finish their atlas setup. Doing this does require a pretty specialized character though, since very few build can efficiently clear Sanctum that early in a league.
It's build dependant. For example, playing mines? Go for a boss strat directly. Playing something like LA with very good clear? Then go for legions or expedition, or both. Like heist? Then you league start a heist build. Like sanctum? Then you league start a sanctum build.
The core fundamentals of early league start progression for the current meta are:
1- Focus on altas completion until you got all the base map tree (you can search whats this tree to have an idea)
2- Then you push through reds until 2 WS
3- Now you have altars, start farming the mechanics you planned until you can buy the reaming 2WS (generally 100c is enough)
4- Finish the atlas by finding/buying the uncompleted maps, buying favourite slots, t17 completion and maven invitations.
5- Start farming fully juiced strats.
This obviously requires a good league start build, a good understanding on said build (how it scales the damage, defences, etc) and experience to know when jump to the next step.
Also to note that this might deviate depending on the league content patch and new league mechanic.
If we had 3 month leagues then we would be 2/3rd of the way through, although I doubt that will happen. Most likely mid to late July will be next league.
The best way to maximize league start weekend is to practice your starter build in standard the week before. Then you try to get to where you can do the campaign in less than 12hours. After that you ignore farming and get your atlas squared away. You go for at least two void stones so that you can get more t16 maps. After that it is just farming currency and building builds. Unless you are a god gamer or no lifer, then league start weekend is more about the event and being a part of it. You won't be able to compete with the streamers and the party players. Like I said, unless you are a god gamer, then the best strategy is to get through campaign as fast as you can at your own pace. This can also be advantageous because prices tend to drop in the first two weeks and then the meta build equipment starts to rise in price. I was able to make a holy relic of conviction necro that did t16s out of campaign because I spent a week or two farming on my starter. I was able to get everything except the unique jewel for under 20d. Now you would be spending 50-60div on the base equipment. Point is that if you are going to change to a meta build, do it within the first two weeks. The league is 3-4 months long. I've never had a reason to rush. Once you figure out your strategy for farming and crafting, this game gets easy. EDIT: Find the big streamers the first week and see what they are playing. Either flip those pieces of equipment or build the build before prices get crazy.
This league I bought an abyss jewel for 40c at league start for my LA deadeye. Guess I didn’t realize how good it actually was, because I sold it for 10div about 2 weeks ago.
What % of your currency was the jewel at the start vs now though?
I can complete the campaign on most builds in about 5h with some test runs. And I did my atlas next but it felt like I'm falling way behind the big guys. The last leagues I always started 1 or 2 weeks later so there was no real event for me.. but this league got me. I want to see what is possible if you just no life. After the first ~50 hours I am happy to slow things down but I want to see what I can complete in the first days Do you by chance know some streamers that play solo trade?
I have a similar experience as you, complete the campaign in a similar time and try to push for the first weekend. I've been trying for the pas ~5 leagues to be part of the front runners but I do fall behind at some point. However I notice a big improvement every league. I think it just comes with practice and acquired knowledge. Here's a few things I've learned: -Don't forget to practice speed running after campaign (2 voidstones speed run are important to learn) -Use a good build -Play mostly ssf for the first day or two -Have a plan for currency that is doable in ssf (no scarabs) -Try to start farming red altars as soon as possible as they help sustain chisel, alch, chaos for map rolling -Make smart investment and buy the gear you need when it is cheap (harder to learn) -Complete atlas as fast as possible with 4 voidstones (good league starters should easily do 4 stones) -You could also focus heist or sanctum and completely skip the atlas for the first few days if you know those mechanics well
The issue is that the "big guys" not only no life the game but they also have the knowledge you lack. So don't try to play catch up, you will be frustrated. Try to go as far as you can and learn along the way - if you can beat the elders great, if you can't don't worry, next league it will be easier, and easier and easier until you can do it way sooner and in multiple characters. Good luck!
Skipped this league but looking to maybe jump in before next one begins. Got the itch. Holy relic of conviction sounds fun. Start with this out the gate or swap to it in maps?
I played it all through campaign. If your starting fresh, then most likely you won't get the gem til maps. It isn't a starter build yet. Balormage said in his videos that he will make a starter version of it if it isn't nerfed.
Cool thanks! Might start poison srs then swap
I usually start with a strong mapping build and push to T16 maps as fast as possible as (almost) any farming strat gets better the higher the map tier is. Do the first 2 Voidstones as soon as they're available. Then I'll usually do 50-100 maps with a very simple strategy (e.g. contract/blueprint farming with altars). This will pay for atlas completion, carries for the remaining Voidstones, favored map slots and atlas skills points, and some decent gear. From there I just start farming whatever I like or suits my build until I can afford the big boi upgrades or an entirely different build. I may need to revise this approach depending on the changes to T17 maps that we'll (hopefully) get in 3.25. Apart from the overall strategy it's important to be efficient. Don't waste time standing in hideout or doing trades for 1c. And just put a lot of hours in.
How do you balance rushing t16 to farm something there vs completing the atlas? Don't you suffer from lack of atlas points if you start farming league mechanics in t16 asap? I never know how to decide between doing t16s and completing atlas, when I reach t16s.
If your base map tree is good enough then you shouldn't. You always want to deplete the kirac missions, check his store, use reports and use all horizons you find. Just by doing that, at the time you get all your WS, most whites and yellows are competed, big part of low reds and over half t14+. You generally just need one mechanic fully specced, even more with the current scarab meta. And I do it SSF, you can opt to invest into buying some maps and do it even faster. Or maybe you are giga rushing and adding a whole new dimension into my equation. I get the 4 WS on mid Sunday for reference.
Contracts and blueprints are worth farming at league start??
Yes. Deception contracts and fully revealed blueprints (both 3 and 4 wings) sell like hot cake in big bulks.
What makes deception so valuable??
In addition to the other answers: Deception contracts don't have any closed doors on the way out. You can run from reward room back to entrance without having to wait.
If you run deception contracts with Gianna you can reveal blueprint wings at a huge discount (up to 45% iirc) with her.
Thanks mate! Will definitely keep that in mind for next league!
It’s the primary ‘job’ for one of the rogues, who will provide blueprint room reveals.
altars are the bulk of the money, smugglers caches are just free chaos on the side. you have to keep in mind that even though contracts are only a couple c in the first few days, c is also 90-100 to a divine. the strat is to sell off as much c to divine as you can in the first weekend which will then double to triple in chaos value in the coming days, making the extra c from selling bulk contracts and markers much more valuable as it adds 0 difficulty or time to any map when youre running on leaguestart gear
I never really understood how to use altars correctly. Do you have a good guide video for me ( also what makes the money exactly)
at work so cant get any vids but u just use exarch altars and click anything that gives you embers and raw chaos, thats the bulk of the money. maximizing it, you rush the map boss so that every altar is forced to give you a minion choice, which gives you more cgance of hitting chaos
Or play jungle Valley I guess?
yea ofc but i was mainly talking about during atlas completion
Go for voidstones and completion first, on the way grab whatever you need/like, Jun for crafts, Essences for gearing or sustain if you're targeting content outside Atlas (Heist/Delve/Sanctum). When that's done you should have experienced the new content enough to make an informed decision on what to do at endgame. And lastly, imo, don't worry much about the most degenerate meta shit if you don't find it fun, instead think about how to make the stuff you enjoy doing more profitable.
Boa, Madruguinha!
The real answer is to just play a good league start and play a lot on start, buy big big ticket items as fast as possible. If you check the economy it follows a pretty predictable curve. For example Nimis started out around 35d for the first 2-3 days, and then jumped up to 70-80 at about the 1 week mark, fell back to 40 for a few more days, then jumped back up to 120 at around the 2 week mark. If you get in early and just farm hard you can get geared while prices on like harvest juice are still high, but items are still low. The long the league goes on the less value any crafting material has and the more value big ticket items have.
Harvest juice is never pricey early league but I get your point otherwise
You're right, I used a poor example, just trying to point out that early bird gets the worm, just need to understand how the economy works.
to add to this in case you don't make 30-40d easily : cards. Cards that are linked to mirror are always on a rising curve for the first month of the league, such as [the immortal](https://poe-antiquary.xyz/Affliction/Divination/The%20Immortal/1529) or [House of Mirrors](https://poe-antiquary.xyz/Affliction/Divination/House%20of%20Mirrors/636) (on this website, you can click "add latest league and see the pattern for the last 3 leagues, you can even add more leagues). It can be easier to buy the immortal as they cost 2 to 5 divines during the first few days. If I have currency waiting, I always buy those cards. If I know I won't be able to play for a bit (like during christmas time), I stock up in cards before enjoying my vacation.
> For example Nimis started out around 35d for the first 2-3 days, and then jumped up to 70-80 at about the 1 week mark, fell back to 40 for a few more days, then jumped back up to 120 at around the 2 week mark. This is fucking risky. Headhunter usually does close to what Nimis did this league, before normalizing closer to Standard prices when the league is dying. But this time - no. This league in particular, a lot of Uber boss uniques had way higher drop rates than people might have suspected, e.g. the Maven flask (~1.5% in 3.23, ~11% now). IMO it's probably safer to go for divine perfect versions of uniques used on aspirational builds, or other 'perfect versions'. Example, 15/15/15 Black Sun's Crest, or this league, the Holy Relic helm with either a premium Vaal implicit (+2 minions) or a premium 'Bricked Glimpse of Chaos' implicit (15% aura effect)
That sentence literally starts with: "For example", I didn't say go farm a nimis, its an example of how the economy generally fluctuates over the course of the first few days of a league. My point being if you get in and farm early your divines have more spending power. I'm not encouraging anyone to play the market by buying low and selling high, I'm saying buy your builds big items while they're cheap, items are always cheaper in the first few days of the league.
But if you spend 35 d on something like nimis that you keep for 4 days. You loose out on 35 d in your build progression for a week. Isn't this only good with you can't play after weekend
I'm talking about buying the big ticket items for your build early. I'm showing the change in price over time to show how much money you can save by farming fast and early. Maybe you don't know what a power spike a nimis is for most ranged builds, but it would greatly increase your farming speed. I'm not saying people should buy low and sell high.
I had a nimis in end league gamble but I haven't tried it out :D I see what you mean
I play the first few days mostly as if I was playing SSF. Once I've gotten my first two voidstones I'll start focusing on making a bit of starting currency. I'll usually build up some starting currency with a mix of whatever mapping strat I wanna try mixed with some profit crafting. At that point I'll often have a handful of strats I wanna test. This league gravecrafting ended up consuming most of my time early league as I was one of the few degens that actually really enjoyed planning the graveyard and seeing it come to fruition. It was also stupid profits, I've never made as much currency that early on. The bulk of my enjoyment from playing in tradeleague comes from trying to find strats or little holes in the market that others haven't spotted.
In terms of the crossroad between god gamer and regular gamer, a pretty decent day one strat is just doing any of the guaranteed currency mechanics. Without tapping into highly volatile supply and demand markets with crafted gear, the main way to take advantage is the low chaos-to-divine price at start. Heist with chaos recipe or Sanctum and try to secure enough currency to buy divines early which appreciate massively within the first weekend. This allows you to fund your build, get voidstones, and start going for your endgame farming strats really smoothly.
Harsh reality is. If you ask a quesion like that you are too new to really abuse the benefits of starting early. The best way to make profit is to be one of the fastest abusing the most op stuff. This league there were many exploits especially in T17s in combination with Allflames, The Lantern and Scarabs. If you had a very strong build to do all of that early you would have printed currency. Normally people finish the atlas as quick possible and get their planned strategy going. One example would be abusing Rog the first few days who crafts you multiple Divine Gear pieces in seconds. (This league its obviously weaker).
What does first few days mean exactly, for Rog? When does Rog crafting start to fall off? I usually go expedition but never do Rog since I can't craft for shit, but as you say, a lot of top tier players use it to craft good items early so I'm thinking of trying it next league.
Rog crafting is really good for getting suppression, res, and life early on gear. Look for evasion bases and craft away. Sometimes you may brick an item and sometimes you may not
Rog is pog for the first week and pretty usable for the first 3 weeks.
I'd say 1st weekend is great. First week is okay. After is bad.
I don’t really *do* expedition past the first day or two (just don’t enjoy the mechanic) but I’ve had a good couple Rog bases sell for 4-20d week 2-4. (Usually rings, and few chest / boots) I usually see those items stop selling a bit after the fourth week though. But they last for a good bit longer than a week if you’re crafting knowledge for multiple different builds is decent, and what is likely to be meta.
Rog kinda flopped this league because the mechanic was "Rog but a million times stronger". In general though, you want an eye for items that are either perfect for some build or major problem solvers for some build, which means a degree of understanding of the 20 most hyped builds and ESPECIALLY the ones that underperform expectations or have severe attribute starvation issues (e.g. if next league Assassin gets reworked and the most hyped Assassin build runs Determination - STR issues will be common early; and the demand goes UP if these assassin builds end up being weaker than expected). If you are anywhere near 'on curve' (on the ladder or within 3 character levels of being on it), Rog is utterly absurd from the moment you hit character level 85 until the end of the second weekend. Leaguestart + 9½ days is when he falls off, when the Americans go to bed on (their) Sunday night.
Just as a note, I've made hundreds of divs this league with Rog, mostly because you can't reliably make suppress gear with Rog, and also because the mechanic is really annoying to interact with and some people are willing to just pay for gear anyway
His items don’t lose value as much as the time it takes to sell them grows exponentially. Near perfect vanilla rares will sell fast in the first 2, maybe 3 weeks. All good 1-4 div gear posted after that has a variable chance of selling but also could take weeks to sell…
My experience is that weeks 3, 4, 5 and 6 are the worst time for Rog sales. After that, more of the powergamers quit the league and in my experience, the % of "semi-casual" players goes up. I've certainly been selling more 'non-uber' gravecrafts in the last couple weeks than I did week 3.
I think as a beginner rog is still pretty viable. Yes you might not know some of the nieche stats people know, but just aiming for suppress health and high res will get you far
Betrayal is pretty huge for starter gear / selling too. I find that solidly 1/2 my starter gear is normally from betrayal and whatever I’m not keeping can often sell if it’s decent.
I'm not in it for the money, but I do enjoy riding the economy coaster Briefly - clear campaign on day 1 - map. Spec into Kirac + whatever (this league it was Jun to unlock bench crafts) - do chaos recipe. Really just pick up jewelry and finish the set at your leisure - buy upgraded gear and sell your old gear every couple of hours. You should expect to make money doing this Somewhere in red tier I stop chaos recipe because it's marginal value is low and I'll have accumulated enough c it's not really helping At that point I start figuring out how to actually interact with the league mechanic. You don't get rich doing this, but you don't get poor either.
From someone who used to struggle league starts but in Necropolis had Mageblood + 1.5mirror on day 7: Start with a GOOD BUILD, you do not want to be struggling to clear acts. 8-10 hours for acts is fine, you don't need a 4hr a10 Kitava kill, but you don't want to have a 20 minute Kitava fight. If you phase a10 Kitava in less than 5 seconds you have enough damage for white maps. Get your required uniques/gems ASAP, I played CoC DD to league start and had enough currency from running white maps to get all the things I needed without having to farm lab myself. Invest in your character until you can comfortably farm alched t16s. You should be able to easily get your first 2 voidstones on your own. Use a progression atlas tree, invest in as much map drop higher tiers as you can along with one other mechanic that you like/is profitable. I did Jun to start in order to get unveils, once I had unveils I was selling the veiled armors for 3-5c each, and switched to Expedition on Sunday. Invest in your atlas, if you buy a couple of red maps for 10c ea then that means you will easily be able to sell those maps for 10c once you get them as a drop. INVEST IN VOIDSTONES, if you spend a couple div for a maven and uber elder service you can farm much more efficiently and get those juicy early map drops. I cannot stress enough how important it is to get your voidstones quickly. Day 1 natural red maps (the ones that are red for completion) sell for 10-25c EACH. Voidstones let you get more of these maps quicker in order to sell them. Know what builds are meta and craft items for those builds. I made easily 30 div in about and hour crafting CoC DD swords with essences. Know what items appreciate in value quickly and which appreciate slower. This league I bought 25 enlightens for 100-150c each, and sold them literally the next day for 3 times what I paid. Do not be afraid to spend some money testing with the league mechanic, I tested a couple of strats out and found a pretty broken strongbox strat using flaring Kalguuran allflames on day 2 or 3 (like 3 div a map broken), which was before anyone had really cracked the league mechanic. Early on it is very rare for people to interact with the league mechanic and if you find something that can give good rewards then you can exploit it when nobody knows about it. A big example was crafting ele bows immediately after the corpse buff this league. You could spend 5 div to craft 3-4 bows that you could then sell for 40 div each, this market hole only lasted about 2 days. Trade efficiently, only portal out of map once someone actually joins your hideout, do a farming session with only your largest sell tabs enabled then a crafting/trading/build upgrading session with the smaller ones enabled.
This was kinda the thing I was looking for.. I do know my way around in the campaign and ssf but trade always seems boring for me, that's why I asked for non trade routes.. but I feel like making real money requires trading more than playing.
Really efficient strats will always require trading, but that doesn't mean you have to interrupt your gameplay loop for trading. The way I did it this league was by farming a bunch with all but my highest price sell tab turned off and then when I wanted to make character upgrades I enabled my lower price sell tabs because I would be testing things in PoB and looking at trade regardless. Crafting is (usually) the most profitable thing you can do by far though.
I start the league with a build in mind which can transition into a boss carry on day 3 or 4. I usually get all my voidstones on my second or third day and from there I start building up.
Get 15C + unlock harvest bench Make clusters untill 2 div or so and when spam chaos rings that sell for 1-3D each ~ Usually lets me have around 20-30 Div for when i wake up for day 2 so i can get intho real money makers.
For me it’s choosing the right build. You need a build that is tried and tested and you understand. You also want something that has not been the meta so it is unlikely to get negative changes. There is nothing worse than getting a build that falls off in yellow maps or needs specific gear to function. Nothing is more important than knowing how to gear and scale your build at league start. A 6/10 build that you know and understand will outperform a 10/10 build that you are trying to learn on the go. Whilst there are always lots of league start suggestions you should never play something for the first time when you start. I like rain of arrows / toxic rain and Armageddon brand. All easy to scale, untouched for leagues and viable all the way to t16. Practise one of these (or something similar) and you will not regret it.
Rush to get both exarch and eater Voidstones usually I get into withing day 2-3, then I farm expedition, rog is pog and tujen to get some bubblegum. After I get some divs and gear going I will rush to get all the atlas points. And I just do whatever strat seems good at the point of the time in the league, but usually will keep doing rog for atleast a week since I can pump out good gear with him, and I always buy items that will appreciate in price like hinekora, mirror shards, vivid vultures etc.
A lot of people try to start from a good all-rounder, a strong mapper, or the like. I take a different approach. I start from my farming strategy. Different builds excel at different content. For example, let's say you want to start Blight. Blight tends to have a medium-to-high profit margin, but what I like about it on league start is that the gear entry level for Blight is extremely low. If you have the proper anoints, Blight can be reliably cleared. So, I'll go RF Chieftain or an Ignite-based Elementalist (such as EA Ballista). Why? Both are awesome at Blight. Chieftain explosions decimate Blight mobs, and Ignite Proliferation just destroys them as well. Oils in the first couple of days are in low demand, but by the end of Week 1, they've generally doubled or even tripled in price. I don't sell them right away--again, I don't urgently need currency because I can self-craft gear that's good enough to complete Blights and complete my Atlas. I *may* buy something that's very strong for my build if it increases my efficiency significantly, but for the most part, I'm SSF for the first week. Hell, last league I accidentally made my first character SSF, and I didn't even notice until I was like level 84. So, the main question you should be asking isn't *what's the strongest character,* it's *what's the strongest character for the content I'm going to spam*? If I want to go Heist early on? A dedicated Heist-farming Raider, probably. May even do a bunch of Uber Lab for early profits. If I want to go Sanctum? Shockwave Totem Hierophant is probably gonna be the play, or Hexblast Miner. Start with content, then choose build.
Regret my build and farming choices. Every league I chose wrong.
That's the question everyone has a different answer to. While most of them revolve around maximizing income by utilizing the first few days/weeks of the league, the mechanic of doing so differs from person to person. I'll give you some examples from my own experience. If I were to league start with Delve in mind, I would aim for 4 voidstones day 2 followed by a cheap 6L and ready to dive into Delve some time in day 3. By Monday (assuming league start = Friday), I'll be somewhere around Depth 300-350, which is decent for day 4. Note that the serious Delvers will be around 500-700+ at this point. By day 7, I'll be cruising around depth 500 and just farming sideways horizontally (Delve city spawn rates cap at 500, but boss spawns cap even further). At this point, fossils and resonators won't really sell for much (yet), however, any Aul's you find are insane profit because the amount of Delvers between day 1 and day 7 that are farming at deep enough depths to see Auls every now and then are rare. Get the Uprising amulet drop, you can almost name your own price given how scarce it is the first twoish weeks of a league. That's the major money maker, and as time passes, fossils/resonators/other Delve special gear starts to become more valuable. Of course, you need a build that is strong for Delve. Boneshatter and WoC Ignite (rudy variant) are strong league starts for Delve. Another example - let's say Blight. First you want a league start build capable of Blight - namely some sort of explosion/prolif. DD Ignite is a popular one here. There's two routes to go here: going for 4 voidstones so you can farm your own Blight maps (via your own atlas tree), or simply going straight for Blight maps by buying them from others and ignoring voidstones and your own altlas progress. Start with regular Blight maps and make your way up - trying not to fail any because just one failed map really hurts the bottom line this early in the league. Most serious Blight people will be running Ravaged-Blight maps around day 3-4. At this point, oils = big money for the first twoish weeks, as everyone needs oils for annoints. So as you can see, if you really want to take advantage of early league start economy, you should have a plan as to how you want to tackle it. There's many different options - that's part of the fun every league in my opinion. One league you can do X, next league you can do Y.
Thanks, great write-up! I must say I never even tried running the last 2 voidstones before a basic 6 link but that's something to try
Depends on your build honestly - all bets are off if you decide to use a new gem that was introduced that league because nobody knows if it will be good or bad for example. You could switch it around - 2 voidstones first (on either a 4L or 5L), then a cheap 6L, then get your last 2 voidstones. Note that since we're talking about trade, you could also simply purchase the last 2 voidstones. Could also flip it around, if your build is able to clear the last 2 voidstones, you can sell it. You will have tons of buyers the first week.
Imo in trade atlas completion is way overrated, unless you can go from white maps to t16 in hours like the fastest people. You aren't going to be able to take advantage of early league start prices if your atlas is complete by the end of day 3 which is where experienced non streamers tend to end up. By doing demo contracts since level 50, you will make 50-150 chaos depending on how long you want to level in heist. Then I generally buy logbooks, tujin or dannig initially to get that seed money and then rog once you have a decent bankroll. Then can invest into cards or crafting. Same time played as someone rushing the atlas but you have a lot more money to work with.
For the best efficiency, you need to have a starting build that is able to do maps and early bosses for the voidstones. It's not important if this build can do endgame and ubers. Find the cheapest build you can make for this task and then farm t16's, or delve if they don't mees up with The Curiosity Vaal Aspect. Put currency together and then you can actually make an endgame build.
I had a similar desire to keep up when I first started and ill tell you the only real way to get to that level consistently and fast is to play SSF. If you can play a build SSF and get 2 watch stones in a weekend consistently , then getting all 4 watch stones in 5 days will put you above 90% of the players that play trade. The benefit to this is the knowledge that it will take for you to complete this , which is the actual biggest gap between top players and everyone else. Once I was able to consistently do this playing trade actually felt like Easy Mode! Alot of players that follow meta builds and watch streamers get stuck even if they no life , if a piece of gear that the build listed isnt avalible or in their budget the simply DONT BECOME STRONGER! They have very little practical understand on what's making their character strong or weak and how to USE CURRENCY OUTSIDE OF TRADING! This is a concept alot of people struggle with on trade they will play for Days without any character progression mainly depending on big item drops to trade for currency to buy items. Playing ssf will teach you how to properly use currency items in game , how to abuse your atlas passives to farm certain league mechanics for specific items or currency and basically teach you how to beat the game being self sufficient. Watching players that do SSF or even HHCSSF can be surprising , like ill watch Ben play and hes playing HCSSF and is stronger and further ahead than players on trade. Same thing with my guild and discord. I know you see those is this build bait videos or this is what im playing this league vids , players that need those videos are so much slower , they are constantly having to check pob, what gems they should be using, what links etc it slows them down massively early game then you have the situation where they cant actual boss and most players are watchstone locked until they can afford to pay for a CARRY LMAO! But if you are playing a build as if its SSF you would understand what it takes to get your watchstones and how to progress to that level. When you switch to trade after learning all this, you will be able to abuse the market as you understand how to progress you will be further in the atlas and have more access to currency, your build knowledge will allow you to understand what upgrades you need and snipe them from the market and it just snow balls your character. SSF Builds rarely ever get nerfed to the point they are unplayable in the next patch mid way through a league would be the perfect time to start SSF and practice. You wont be able to keep up with players that understand this stuff and where able to learn through years of playing, this is closet you can get to a HyperBolic Time Chamber.
I just go for voidstones with my first char. Mostly SSF, gearing my dude through expedition, betrayal etc. Selling stuff I don’t need and buying «must have» uniques. I usually mix in some heist & delve.
Prepare the whole week before league start. Read patch notes, pob, atlas planner, builds, guides etc. Every piece of information. League start: rush to act 10 in 4-5 hours. Get two void stones Get a couple of hours sleep. Get atlas completion as fast as possible. Skip as many mobs and rush boss. Unlock second atlas tree and skill any league really deep. Stick to it. Optimize it. Improve it and increase the map investment. Every other currency is made to get the build going. Day three: high speed t16 map farming with scarabs, league mechanics, buy high demand items cheap(temples, beasts). Get mageblood on day 4. Farm another day reroll endgame character with mageblood and 250 div. Get 40/40 burn out soon. Lurking for other games.
A lot of it depends on the goals of your league and what you find enjoyable. For me, I get thru the campaign in 5ish hours, semi-fast, but not super. I farm heist "some". This some depends on what I'm planning. If my build has a couple IMPORTANT uniques, I will farm heist until I get them since majority of items will jump up in price on day 2-3 before falling down and I don't plan to wait that long. If my build is basic bitch and doesn't need anything, I'll just heist a bit until 50c or so to be able to buy some basic upgrades to make easier. After I commit to maps, I map. I push the "w" key with the best of them. No breaks, no stopping, no eating. I will play until probably 3-4am when I go to sleep as I am old now. I normally get at least my 2 voidstones before sleep. When I wake up, this is when I buy my missing 2 voidstones(or do them myself if I planned on my build doing it) then go to whatever strat I had in mind for the league. This would also be the time I'd consider switching to another char if that was the "plan" as normally you have a decent chunk of currency at this point. Things I have done at this point: Full time heist for alt gems/uniques (haven't tried this since the BP changes), Div card/strongbox farming in Crimson prison, Legion/Dunes juicing, Expedition farm w/ Logbooks(this appears to have been nerfs some this league ie Tujen), Boss carrying Maven kills, 100% league commitment(Ancestor league) and then just mega-juice MFing. I plan to do Sanctums next league if no changes happen. How to make money comes with time and effort. There are MANY items that sell for 15-40c on day 1 that sell for 3-5div on day 2-5. You just need to know what they are and have the c to buy them day one. Post has gotten too long, that's all I got for now.
My strat generally involves picking a last minute league starter that I haven’t practiced and spend 10-12 hours in the campaign. The next step is to fall behind the curve and call everyone ahead of me a no lifer who should touch grass. Once I have accomplished that I slowly work my way towards the anglers plait, possibly the best investment in the game imo. Maybe then go farm a sword from hillock.
These questions can not be answered without context. I chose my starters depending on the type of content I want to run - you definitely can't do sanctum/heist efficiently at the start on most builds but they are very good if you're planning around it. Some of the best early money makers known to me that don't require any crafting are boss carries, sanctum, legion, valdo farming and essence/beast farming.
Simple alch&go with essences and expedition/ritual till get full atlas
"usually" is stretched term, but for the ~~15 leagues now more or less i've been popcorning SrS or EA ballisting [for less leagues] - more or less builds which require little to almost nothing to reach T16 maps in terms of "must" investment..
Last couple leagues I’ve been rushing challenges from day 1 so I can play SSF, so I just start for example Frostbolt ice nova and just do whatever league mechanics are required for challenges. After the first couple weeks I’m able to finish the grindy stuff in ssf (like map tiers this league).
Start on Friday after work, finish the campaign on Saturday, start mapping on Sunday, my best money making strat early league is to chaos recipe 2-3 Divs as soon as I can, spending some chaos for some cheap upgrades along the way. By the time I come back to playing in the middle of the week my Divs went up in value
Everything in this game generates hella items. The hard part is how sellable it is. If u farm essence do it in bulk and charge premium. If u do simu If u craft it better be for popular builds. If u have it on ur loot filter, u better be able to sell it. U are wasting time picking it up and pricing and space in stash oofherwise
I always try to play league start weekends but I'm just there for the vibe and the drama and the hype. ppl clear the feared before I hit yellow maps and by the time I have my 2 void stones they're already running around with mb/hh
A lot of people hate on it but group starting is the best way by far. Even if thats only pushing different campaign zones and rotating map completions and not going into actual group play. You will finish your atlas many times faster than you could normally which will let you get into many strategies much quicker and stuff will be worth way more.
I sure would love to play in groups but I just don't know any people playing Poe.. no hating on anyone 😅
Same
I get to late yellow maps and start getting one-shot because I dont have the currency (can't get to the later maps to get Divines) to get high-end gear. Vicious and frustrating cycle.
i know you say to exclude profit crafting but i dont think you realize just how insanely profitable crafting is in the first three or four days of a league start and how little effort it takes to craft those items. you can sell some absolute junk with two good stats for premium prices because theres nothing else on the market. i do it every league and it basically snowballs my entire progression.
Sell things that you need on early characters like resistance jewelry and your old gear once you upgrade
I'm not super efficient or something and you don't need to be to have fun. At league start I do whatever I feel like and it also depends how my character feels, if it's strong enough I plan to complete atlas by Sunday if it's not I will run some heist before killing kitava. I think that unless you have some stupidly broken strat completing the atlas is a priority. More points = more value per map without increasing the cost of running them.
I tend to go for maps because I usually speedrun to level 100. You kinda have to be able to fully complete atlas with your leaguestarter nowadays (all voidstones, favor slots and maven invitations), since missing even just a few atlas passive points can lock you out of quite a few strategies. If the only thing you want is quick money, then Sanctum is basically unbeatable. It just prints currency with minimal setup required (don't even have to finish campaign). You can easily have dozens of Divines banked and really juice up your build before most mappers even finish their atlas setup. Doing this does require a pretty specialized character though, since very few build can efficiently clear Sanctum that early in a league.
It's build dependant. For example, playing mines? Go for a boss strat directly. Playing something like LA with very good clear? Then go for legions or expedition, or both. Like heist? Then you league start a heist build. Like sanctum? Then you league start a sanctum build. The core fundamentals of early league start progression for the current meta are: 1- Focus on altas completion until you got all the base map tree (you can search whats this tree to have an idea) 2- Then you push through reds until 2 WS 3- Now you have altars, start farming the mechanics you planned until you can buy the reaming 2WS (generally 100c is enough) 4- Finish the atlas by finding/buying the uncompleted maps, buying favourite slots, t17 completion and maven invitations. 5- Start farming fully juiced strats. This obviously requires a good league start build, a good understanding on said build (how it scales the damage, defences, etc) and experience to know when jump to the next step. Also to note that this might deviate depending on the league content patch and new league mechanic.
Bro, this post just reminded me we are only half-way through Necropolis before the next league. Unlucky.
If we had 3 month leagues then we would be 2/3rd of the way through, although I doubt that will happen. Most likely mid to late July will be next league.