Can you level to 100 without Kitava's death?

Traditionally it's been very, very, very painful and almost explicitly discouraged but not necessarily impossible to get to 100 without mapping due to the xp drop off for monsters at level. Even to delve you'd need sulphite which comes from mapping.

However, with Heist they have introduced an alternate mapping tool that so far as I know has no limitations based off your main questline. Thus allowing you to purchase contracts and level as far as you'd like to.

So if someone was motivated to do so could they, in theory, level to 100 without losing any XP? With the draw back being the lack of 6 ascendancy points.


Edited for Foreverhappychan:
Impossible ~~> very, very, very painful and almost explicitly discouraged but not necessarily impossible

That's a whole lot of suffering just to avoid a penalty to resistances.

If i'd do anything, I'd just skip act 10 kitava. Trade 2 points for -30 res

I think the main idea here is to avoid the exp penalty when dying, in order to reach Level 100 and finally finish the game, since death penalty would be irrelevant at that point.

Indeed, Delve opened up a possibility. Since Sulphite and Delve depth are shared, you can indeed use a second character to farm up some sulphite and use the other character stopped at Act5 to keep delving and rack up experience. As long as Heists are a thing you may even want to run them as an alternative (Though experience would be really little then).

You will still have to rely on another character that actually ended the game in order for this to work, anyway. And you don't just lose the 6 ascendancy point - you lose also a lot of Passive Skills you get from Act 5-10 AND all of the Pantheon powers

If such a shortcut ends up being too "comforable", GGG could simply block it by making the character unable to achieve potential endgame zones before reaching Act 10 Kitava, just like a character cannot enter maps until have dealt with Kirac first.

Definitively a "git cleva" over a "git gud" approach. I'd like to see where this will end

Unless you farm contracts with another character, you need lots of trades/donations to get those high level contracts without maps / delve.

But yeah, xp in lvl 83 contracts is decent, similar with T16 maps.

Interesting.

So if you have another character which unlocked all lab trial (including uber) and is able to access high level contracts via mapps, your second character would get all benefits without even beating A5 Kitava.

Labs + lab trials (which are account wide) only need a certain level or/and an offering to engage, while normal contracts mainly require dps and defense with no story relevant requirement.

Anyone tested this theory so far, and got lvl 95+ characters this way?

Wow... didn't even think of the death penalty. You guys die?

"

Hasunic wrote:

If i'd do anything, I'd just skip act 10 kitava. Trade 2 points for -30 res

True, I'd thought of that middle ground after I posted the concept. But yeah almost seems more worth it to have 3/4 of the ascendancies for 1/2 of the downside.

"

gandhar0 wrote:

So if you have another character which unlocked all lab trial (including uber) and is able to access high level contracts via mapps, your second character would get all benefits without even beating A5 Kitava.

Even better, don't know how I spaced and missed that idea either. You'd want the first character for the funds regardless, having access to the trials is certainly a huge plus. Now there isn't really even a downside to skipping the story other than your lack of ability to map. Thank you for pointing that out.

"

Shagsbeard wrote:

Wow... didn't even think of the death penalty. You guys die?

Seems to be a popular topic. Typically people complain at the XP loss after lvl 95, as your highest is 92, you may not understand that yet.

Nothing to add other than my undying support for anyone pushing the tedious grind envelope of PoE in creative, unorthodox ways, which I think is close to the totality of this game's longevity beyond the ham-fisted meta-shakeups.

Oh, and some vague memory of Chris once saying that they'd made it possible to hit level 100 doing Merciless Dried Lake runs, so I'd change 'traditionally impossible' to 'traditionally very, very, very painful and almost explicitly discouraged but not necessarily impossible'...but I'm a pedantic prick, which may or may not pertain to the matter at hand.

As for the ascendancy point loss, I recall seeing people on my Flist mapping seriously as base classes so it's definitely not a deal-breaker I think. And some of the entry-level ascendancy notables are pretty damn strong in and of themselves.

PS damn, username checks out. Good luck, you Mattlad you.

"

Foreverhappychan wrote:

PS damn, username checks out. Good luck, you Mattlad you.

Thank you :) Added an edit for 'impossible'

I'd really like to know if it's ever been accomplished prior to the Heist option that is now available. If not, the it may have to become a new goal of mine. Anyone beat me to it yet?