What solo mapping from 95-96 looks like

Ever wonder what it takes to do real endgame leveling if you play solo and have a life? Read on to find out!

NOTE: Anytime I mention "onslaught" in this thread, I mean the 8 chaos Zana map mod (formerly 6 chaos when I was running these).

Me in PoE:
*My current build and gear is in the 3rd post on this page. One of the best builds that uses no mirror-level gear IMO.
*I only play solo (but I have a shop where I sell good stuff I find)
*I have a life - wife/kids/job/etc but have spent most of my free time for the past two years in PoE
*Having a life means I just play Standard; my playtime is erratic and so temporary leagues don't appeal to me

My mapping approach:
*I do not buy maps, ever
*75 maps are run as transmute & go
*76 maps are transmute/alt for pack mod [rare/magic/pack size] & go
*77/78 maps are chisel/transmute/alt for pack mod/regal/Onslaught & go
*I avoided the following to be super safe and guarantee no deaths: blood magic, -max resist, no regen, elemental reflect, Haku missions, Catarina missions
*All maps were cleared to <20 remaining
*All bosses were killed
*I try and save shop income for item upgrades (I was saving for level 21 gems), and rely only on my map income (alt/jew/fuse, chroms, regal recipe) to roll my maps. At times I had to use shop income to buy chisels or chaos to roll maps but this was uncommon (I only did it when I was sick of 75/76 maps).

The results:
Real time: 20 days (Oct. 8 - 27)
Game time: ~21-23 hours
Total Maps: 209
Map breakdown by level (sub-75 maps were Zana missions and some Gorges)...
70: 3
71: 2
72: 3
73: 6
74: 16
75: 50
76: 50
77: 53
78: 29

Notable loot/finds: 1x Exalted Orb, 1x Divine Orb, Devoto's Devotion, 145% Abyssus, 1x lvl 77 Cartographer's Strongbox

Estimated total expense not counting the value of the maps themselves (using 1c = 2.5 chisels and 1 regal = 1.5 chaos, onslaught = 6c): 878 chaos

My conclusions:
Mapping at this level solo is just an incredible chore, and clearly you're not really supposed to do it. It's impossible to build enough wealth (at least, with zero MF) to stay in 77/78 maps and you have to run a TON of 75/76 maps to build the currency to roll your 77/78 maps well enough to sustain the pool. The playtime needed isn't so bad, but the gigantic wealth drain is just depressing. It requires 100% of your income to keep mapping, which means when you are done - unless you win the lotto with a drop - you are flat broke. I've got 300 ex ish of gear/gems on my build and less than 3 exalts worth of currency in my stash right now. Ugh.

It definitely burned me out for a while. Gonna take a break from endgame until Act 4, I think.

i cant maintain either solo. i only play solo you know how it goes when you have to 'pause' all the time due to rl demands just doesnt work for group play.. i just buy maps until i run out of money. I get some lucky streaks as rng will give but always run out.:(

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Aim_Deep wrote:

i cant maintain either solo. i only play solo you know how it goes when you have to 'pause' all the time due to rl demands just doesnt work for group play.. i just buy maps until i run out of money. I get some lucky streaks as rng will give but always run out.:(

What level maps do you buy? I don't think I would have been able to get 200 ish maps out of a ~30 exalt bulk map purchase and just transmute/alt-ing the maps, but I'm not sure. Maybe if I ever decide to go for 97, I'll try that approach for science.


I guess I should mention that I don't think solo leveling is too bad until 93+. Up till 93, you still get good XP from 75 maps and don't really need to spend a lot of time in 77+. But by level 94-95+, the XP you get from 75 maps is dog poo, and you really have to work as hard as you can to stay in 77+.

I think 97 would be doable without too much insanity solo, since your XP penalties are the same at level 96 as level 95, but I really don't see how 97-100 would be possible solo if you have a life. Those levels are a grind even when you can stay in 77+ maps, so I cannot imagine attempting them solo when you have to run so many 75-76 maps.

And you might think "well, it's standard - so your XP won't ever go anywhere", but GGG is bad to just nerf builds completely down the trashcan every few months. IMO, if you can't ding to the next level between passive resets, you may not be able to do it at all.

I buy 75 - 78s. I honestly dont know best approach im new to high lvl..rolling like mad till you get max monsters or just buy maps and take them as they come. prolly equals out in long run. either way main reason i play league is i just run out cash and maps...usually around 85-90

im pretty surprised you can sustain a map pool at all with rolling 75/76 maps the way you do.
i solo map as well, and chisel+alch all 75-76 maps (this is cheaper than alting for decent pack/magic too imo). 77/78 i roll the same way you do.

but yeah, running 77+ maps is pretty expensive. it used to be way more expensive though, if you´ve been playing for 2 years you know this.

I can maintain it solo been doing it the entire league but yeah you really aren't suppose to do it solo lol

My law is that

77+ Are chisels and alchemy then chaos spam into High IQ or Pack size or magical mobs

Anything bellow is basic alchemies

I also corrupt a lot of 78s.

I didn't play that much this league, but wasn't able to sustain a pool
once I had 10* 75/76/77
Buts it's down to 10*75 again ^^
Shit happens ^^

The real problem is that the economy system is way too random. To get wealth, the only way is to get a good drop. Of course, you have to run a lot. But you can't sustain by accumulating wealth. The reason that you have to run a lot is to increase the chance to get a good drop. You can take the trade channel as a stock market, but you still need to get a good drop first to get the very first capital. Even if you go mapping 24/7, without a good drop, you can't even sustain yourself. Let alone buying good gear.

May be GGG should increase the reward of vendor and the drop rate of currencies a bit, especially those useful currencies likes Fusing, Chrome, Jew, Regal. At least, people can self-sustain themselves only by vendor or currency drop.

i only solo also, got about 10 chars 90+ with the highest being 98.
With beyond i find that rolling maps isnt that important, it's true that you can't run only 77/78 but adding a few 76 once in a while has been enough for me so far in this league.
Trans/alt for pack or magic size on 77+, chisels on 78. Pretty much anything non-threatening on 76- maps.
When i find cartos i often blow 30+ chaos on them, trying to roll +1/2 levels when needed, otherwise mirror with other good stats.

The biggest and i guess only real issue i have is getting chisels, i've done alot of 78's without chiseling which of course isn't optimal, but i just cba trading for chisels all the time.

Never bought a map, i do sell 74 and 75's when i get the opportunity though.

It IS a lot easier nowadays to solo play, back when you pretty much needed to roll maze on several maps (shipyard, shrine, crematorium and necro) it was way more expensive and close to impossible to sustain doing high level maps solo.

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jojo777 wrote:

im pretty surprised you can sustain a map pool at all with rolling 75/76 maps the way you do.
i solo map as well, and chisel+alch all 75-76 maps (this is cheaper than alting for decent pack/magic too imo). 77/78 i roll the same way you do.

but yeah, running 77+ maps is pretty expensive. it used to be way more expensive though, if you´ve been playing for 2 years you know this.

In my experience, chisel+alch winds up being a bit more expensive than just alting for any pack mod, and I have had a bit better experience with drops from this method than alch+go. I leveled from 93-->95 that way and the expense from chisels was just too much for the drops I was getting.

I maintain my map pool mainly because 75/76 maps drop like candy from the well rolled 77s/78s. I also keep a reserve of about 30 76 maps just in case my regular 76-78 pool runs out. It hasn't yet (though it's gotten close), but if that were to happen, I'd chisel/alch/chaos for pack mod/onslaught those maps to build the pool back up (that was how I built my map pool up originally).

And yeah... I would never have attempted mapping this high before they improved the mapping system and droprates last fall. I'm not sure it was even theoretically possible to solo sustain a 74+ pool back then, regardless of expense. The expense was silly rolling for maze/massive and the droprates were such poo that you could barely expect to solo sustain 72+ let alone run 77/78 maps all the time.