TyrusDark's Basic Racing Guide Version 2 - More content and advice all moved to Page 1

Version 2: Includes more background on racing, better organized early tips about each class and some skill appraisals, more info on each mode and each class, and consolidates the location of by-area advice.

Also spoilers down the post to make it more organized by topic due to length. Please leave a bump if you appreciate the info or (useful) critiques if something here is off-base


Tyrus’s Guide to Being Decent At Races
Ok first off I’m essentially “decent” at racing. I place well, recently, mostly around 60-88th, and averaging around 6th in my preferred class, Templar, in atrocious lag due to 3rd world internet (my ping STARTS at around 300, I believe I’m placing as well as I can given the physical limitations of my connection). So maybe I’m borderline good, but not spectacular. Also notable, I don’t watch videos of top-placing racers or mimic their builds, though I do, from various sources, know some about what they do, but this is largely my own observations and learning, so if something is “off” from what the top placers do, just let me know.


In any case, I have enough knowledge to pass on some basic ideas. Racing is not nearly as much about RNG as people make it out to be. My finishes with a Limb split, crying my way through 3 hours without a single whetstone or alchemy drop, and everything in between didn’t substantially change my placements. RNG can help but it’s incremental, and racers are stratified mainly on skill in racing. The difference between 50th and 60th, or 1st and 4th, or 100th and 130th might be RNG, like a good drop from hillock speeding you through the early areas, but the difference between 60th and 160th is all STRATEGY.

What is a race? What am I supposed to do?
You are attempting to get the maximum possible experience in the time given. Most races are between 1 and 3 hours. Some races have special conditions (more on this later) or entirely different map layouts (more on this later too). No matter what though, in all formats, the only goal is to maximize experience. There are sometimes subgoals in races, such as being the first to clear certain areas or kill certain bosses, however generally getting these subgoals is very difficult as some people specialize in picking up these bonus points.

Why bother?
Each race that you meet certain conditions (usually advancing to a certain level and placing high within your class), you gain points, which are worth rewards of unique items, found here: www.pathofexile.com/seasons.


Isn’t everybody better than me already?
Surprisingly, no. Although you will probably not place in the top 50, especially in earlier attempts, there is substantial room to easily get in to the top 100 or and place within the top 20 in a class with only a modicum of experience. To put this in to perspective, my ping is usually around 300ms. Effectively, I lose 1/3rd of a second every time I: open a chest, pick up an item, replace equipment, stop and then order another move, open a shop, select a reward, etc. etc. … while it doesn’t sound too bad at first, after hundreds of these actions It’s like not playing for about 10 minutes of the race or MORE in a 2 hour race. I’ve even died 10 minutes in, restarted, played in this condition, and STILL finished above 150th overall ranking and placed 16th in class. Somebody playing identically to me in skill and strategy (i.e. following this guide, for example) ought to by definition crush me (and by extension people placing around me) just by virtue of literally being able to play the game faster than I do.

On to the advice:

GENERAL PLAYING ADVICE
If you read nothing else, read these tips. This will give you an idea of the essence of racing in terms of how to play differently from the main game.
Spoiler

#1: YOU ARE NOT PLAYING PATH OF EXILE: You are racing. There’s a huge difference. Things that would be totally unthinkable in the main game are normal course for races:

#2: Don’t bitch about it, Play the Lag: This is one of the toughest, but at least more familiar, rules. Don’t “wait” for the game to catch up to you. This takes several forms. The most normal for me is that if I know 2-3 hits will kill a majority of a pack I fire twice and move the hell on. Half the time I’m almost off screen and then 5 mobs fall dead behind me. You have to trust your game sense more than the screen. Other people get through the lag so if you’re dying to descync it’s because you’re dying and can’t handle it, not because you’re a special laggy snowflake. Some tips to help avoid that:

Learn what desync looks like: Running through tight corridors, hitting a chest and no reaction… obvious ones. There are more subtle indications though. If I’m using fire trap and the trap lands wildly far away (or explodes off the graphic) I’m descyned. Casting curses that fail to hit seemingly targeted mobs is a good one. Mobs dying off of where you’re using your primary damage skill (for example, behind me while I’m ground slamming). /OOS immediately once you sense a desync.

Hit potions early: I’m listing it under compensating for lag because it can be fatal to “wait” until you see damage to apply a potion. The primary issue here is staying at high life early in a fight against a pack, and not getting in to critical territory until most mobs are almost dead. I default to simply assuming I will need potions in many fights. You DO NOT want to run out of mana at a critical juncture. The main issue here is that compared to the main game you’re going to be fighting up levels and with much weaker equipment. Of course this doesn’t apply to famine races (more on this later).

Open chest, keep moving: If a chest seems within reach, it’s worth opening. Don’t go out of your way but if you run by it anyways, click it but keep moving . Chances are the drop will be awful, but chests and etc. often drop currency and sometimes decent items (heck I got a limbsplit and a wurm’s molt from chests)

Don’t correct for lag unless it is absolutely critical: For example, try to open a chest, pick up an item, whatever. But if you’ve already bypassed it, don’t go back. Except for flask drops that you need, currency that’s relevant, and obvious upgrades to your current equipment, it’s just not worth.

#3: Skip small packs, don’t “clean up” packs: For example, of a 10 monkey pack, if you kill 8, don’t chase the other 2 around the screen. This is especially applicable for fast enemies that are likely desynced and therefore more difficult to hit. Clean up BLUE packs, as the exp is virtually always worth it.

#4: Don’t go back to Town: In Act 1, you should go to town twice or MAYBE three times. Once after hillock, and twice IF NECESSARY to check for sapphire rings from Nessa and to collect quest rewards. There’s some leeway here for refilling flasks or if you desperately need an item upgrade, but if you’re in town more than three times you’d better have a good reason.

#5: Skip content: Don’t do tidal island, don’t even THINK about doing fetid pool. Don’t kill the crab. Don’t Kill Fairgraves. Don’t … anything. The goal here is to get to an area with higher monster level, faster. All of the “other” content is just not worth it in comparison to moving along the storyline path.

#6 With very minor exceptions, don’t try to vendor for currency: Mostly I put this here to discourage newer racers from, say, collecting items and going back to town often (e.g. turning in superior armor for armorer’s scraps. see below for a section on useful vendor recipes

#7: Minimize skills to avoid socket-juggling and time in fights: Managing fewer skills is faster. Frankly, casting enduring cry, molten shield, etc., is time better spent killing the pack outright. Sure there are exceptions and good ways to use skills, but another hidden cost is trying to juggle gem slots in gear. Your gear is going to generally be bad, and having to stick with even worse gear because you “need” that last blue slot or that R-R link is going to gimp you.

#8: You’ll almost die. But you won’t: This is also a tricky experience based tip. You will get close to dying but you need to be able to anticipate whether you’ll kill more mobs than will kill you faster. Learn when to dodge run and when to just power through. In combination with hitting potions early in the fight, you can proc skills and then dodge around ranged attacks, or kill that melee pack before they get another shot off. In short, don’t be scared to fight.

#9: LEDGE AT LEVEL 4: This should set up your mentality for the early levels in terms of killing mobs. You want to hit ledge around Level 4. MAYBE level 5 if you get insanely lucky on pack size in submerged passage. Level 4 is the lowest level that gives you full experience at ledge.

#10 Choose equipment based on mods and availability: Don’t think because you are a marauder you HAVE to only equip STR based gear or because you’re a witch you can only use ES gear… I virtually always use AR/EV gear when I have the opportunity, especially early (Such as equipping a brigandine when approaching brutus). For example, gloves with damage mods (esp. rare mods with 2 damage mods) can be extremely valuable in races.

#11 don’t equip chest pieces or shields unless absolutely necessary: Really, you shouldn’t be using builds in standard races that use shields at all. The point of this tip, though, is that chest pieces and shields both have movement speed penalties. Since move speed is a critical aspect of race success, this is bad. Personally I think the -4% movespeed penalty from AR/EV, EV and EV/ES armor is acceptable especially for more novice racers who may find the additional survivability critical to not dying.

#12: Your weapon is the most important piece of equipment: Save crafting orbs, when possible, for the next weapon level. And/or see the next section on vendor recipes for information on crafting weapons reliably

#13 Don’t stop moving to optimize: If you’re standing still to decide on items, you’re probably doing it wrong. There’s a fine balance here, I admit, but you must ALWAYS PRIORITIZE MOVEMENT over decisions. Have a gameplan, and STICK TO IT.

#14 You can move while screens are open: If you’re stopped while ID’ing items, stopped while choosing passives, stopped while swapping gems, gear, whatever, you’re wrong. You can move and do a majority of things in the game, the most notable being passive allocation, which I will do in combat if necessary.

#15 If you stop to farm before your terminal location, you lost: "Old" race strategy involved farming ledge to level 8 or 9, farming at certain locations, whatever. it is ALWAYS preferable to move on rather than stay and farm until you are sure you no longer want to progress.

#16 Use “log out to char screen” instead of Town Portals at quest ends – See the area-specific walkthroughs for more information, but this method saves you portal scrolls and (can be) faster. After brutus this is effectively actually MUCH faster than running to the prisoner’s gate and gives you a “Free” trip to town.

Vendor recipes and prices that are useful
Spoiler
•Armorer’s Scrap – 2x ID scrolls – This is by far the best use of scraps in a race

•Blacksmith’s Whetstone – 4x ID scrolls – However I would only recommend selling them if you have a critical need for resist rings. There are better uses for them.

•base Totemic Maul/Equivalent weapons – 1x Blacksmith Whetstone

•Magical weapons at or above Tier 2 type weapons – 1x Transmutation – This can be useful because you can find a weapon with a guaranteed IPD or flat increase mod rather than transmuting with crossed fingers, however it also requires time spent at the shop

•IPD (Increased Physical Damage) Weapons – In other words, pick up sashes and whetstones, this is BY FAR one of the most useful recipes for mid-length (2-3hr) solo races for weapon-using builds

1x Blacksmith’s Whetstone
1x Weapon
1x Rustic Sash

*Note: If the sash is blue and iLevel is high enough, you can get a tier 2 increased physical damage mod. If the sash is yellow and weapon iLevel is high enough, you can get a tier 3 increased physical damage mod.

•Increased Move Speed boots – Difficult to pull off and personally, I find it controversial whether it's actually better than keeping the quicksilver. Note you can also IMPROVE boots with existing movespeed mods by using this recipe.

1x Quicksilver Flask
1x Boots (if they have MS already, it increases by 5% within iLevel limits)
1x Orb Of Augmentation

Resist Rings - Credit to Ryvr for reminding me to include this one.
1x Skill gem
1x Iron Ring

Resist ring will be based on the color of the skill gem. This is particularly useful for classes using a low number of skills, such as scion (who is virtually guaranteed to be using spectral throw). This gives you more options for getting the sapphire rings, as you can drop iron rings throughout the game and if no sapphires are for sale you can usually get an iron ring instead.



Gear guide – Good mods
Spoiler
Italic marked mods suggest mods that should override upgrading your equipment in some cases. Wool shoes with move speed are “better” than steel greaves with no MS, for example.

Boots:
Move Speed
+Life

Helmet:
+Life
+Life Regen

Gloves:
flat increased physical damage (for physical damage classes, of course)
Other damage increases
+Life
Life Leech
+Life/Mana gained on hit or on kill

Chest:Note: Never wear pure Str chests routinely (-10% move speed), don’t wear chests when it’s avoidable. See the area guides below for some guidance for newer players on when to equip chest pieces.
+Life
+AR/EV
+Life Regen

Rings: (Notably, resist rings, particularly sapphire and topaz, are critical items for racing. Check the vendor section above for a recipe to get needed resist rings - Credit to Ryvr for reminding me to include it) For general racing, iron or coral rings are recommended at all non-resist times. Coral for HP/Tank deficient classes, or spell users, iron rings for physical damage classes. Ideally, you find a +life iron ring or +damage coral ring (or a +damage iron ring). Also notable is that rare rings of ANY type can be better than iron/coral, as they may have both +life, +damage mods AND other effects (like leech or stats)
+Flat Physical Damage
Life Leech or Life on Hit
+Life
+Resists

Belts: I’d start with a rustic sash and generally use a leather belt later in the game if necessary for survival, but the damage increase on a high implicit rustic sash is quite nice

Amulet: I pray for a coral amulet early, but later, amber amulets or an amulet buffing a stat you might be deficient in are nice to have when HP is high enough to make the regen obsolete
+Flat Physical Damage
Life/Mana Leech
+Life
+Life Regen

Weapon:
Increased Physical Damage *2h (note that since you’re likely to have high +% physical damage nodes chosen, increasing physical damage is often significantly better than +elemental damage)
+Flat Physical Damage *1h (it’s usually a greater increase on 1h’s to have the flat bonus
+Flat Elem Damage (in races this is least preferable unless you have some specialized builds)
Increased Attack Speed Personally I don’t highly value attack speed in races as the ability to attack fewer times to kill is faster to clear than attacking many times, in addition to being more mana efficient)


A note on weapon mods: Although it’s possible to get increased damage mods on any weapon, staves and wands can also spawn non-physical spell damage mods. This makes using currency on a staff to get physical damage particularly risky, so it’s better to stay away from building around staff damage nodes UNLESS you happen to find one that has the physical mod OR you anticipate being able to reliably use the whetstone/rustic sash recipe.

Discussion of general passive tree builds – Path of Damage Nodes
Spoiler
Although PoE is often known as “Path of Life Nodes” this does not apply to the typical race strategy. Because short-duration races take place primarily in Normal and even previous to late-A3 where damage ramps up significantly, builds heavily favor damage nodes over defense nodes. Although some modicum of defense and life is of course necessary, building up the ability to quickly kill is far more important than building up an ability to absorb punishment. In A1-A2 particularly, your worst nightmares are elemental-specific damage that can and should be mitigated by resistance rings, not by tanking nodes. Flat +life nodes are good to grab over % increases. On the far left side of the tree, some combined Tank/Damage nodes have been added that are very useful to Templar and Marauder builds.

In general if you have access to a flexibility node, grab it. (e.g. Templar has +20 dex/accuracy, Marauder has +20 dex/int, Ranger has +Str/+int, duelist has Str,Dex,Int all in easy reach, Shadow has +dex/+int and a +str/+life node not too far away, and witch just kind of cries about the whole unfairness of it all because she’s got NOTHING).

General Skill-Gem Discussion – This isn’t exhaustive because it’d take WAY too long, just some observations I’ve made over time.
Spoiler

Movement Skills – Particularly leap slam, though whirling blades sort of counts too. Movement skills both do damage and move your character, and enable most current winning builds.

Leap Slam – This is the enabling skill of most winning 2h melee builds. In addition to allowing you to skip the obnoxious cliffs of Prisoner’s Gate (saving you literally minutes here alone), it does great damage and means you no longer have to choose between moving and fighting, which is insanely advantageous. This could legitimately need a look in terms of balance between classes with access to this skill and those without. If I recall correctly, this skill is also largely weapon-independent.

Whirling Blades – Problems with this skill include damage output, but it’s another way to move “faster” than you would otherwise, though primarily out of combat, unlike leap slam which allows you to fight with the same thing you’re moving with.



AoE Melee Damage Skills

Spectral Throw – Incredibly useful (also technically a ranged skill). ST does good damage, and is weapon-independent. You can use the highest damage weapon you find, period.

Ground Slam – Useful because it does base weapon damage by default (unlike sweep, see below). It’s readily accessible, does good damage, and has excellent range (able to hit archers at their default stopping distance. Most builds use this if not leap slam. NOTE though that this limits you to staves and mauls, which may be suboptimal.

Sweep – Although the 360 coverage is immensely useful, the lowered damage at low levels and reduced range compared to Ground Slam make this a questionable call. With few skill gems available, this can also conflict with useful supporting skills (i.e. templar can get this OR decoy totem). Not a bad choice, particularly for those playing in higher lag or intending to farm zones with fast-moving enemies.

Cleave – Used to be the go-to winning skill for duelists. Since then, it has been nerfed somewhat (particularly when duel-wielding elemental damage weapons), but as a duelist class, this is perfectly sufficient until you get leap slam. However, it suffers both the range problems of sweep and the narrow AoE of Ground Slam.

Reave – From the little I’ve used it, reave is very awkward to use successfully due to the hard to discern AoE and requirement to strike often to build it up.



AoE Direct Damage Ranged Skills - I admit to not being all that familiar with current ranger builds so my evaluation on the arrow skills is subject to some question / limited personal experience. Generally Ranged builds are weaker early due to the lack of easily scaled damage and skills early in the game.

Rain Of Arrows – I would only use this skill if you have excellent ping. In my ping environment I find it extremely difficult to properly target with the delay on this skill.

Split Arrow – Obvious the most readily availableskill, but the limit to three targets is a bit disconcerting until support gems become available.

Storm Call – From the experience with my witch builds, this does a pretty good job of being a great early clear tool, available right after opening the tidal passage.

Freezing Pulse – Excellent as a supporting skill for trap builds to soften up or finish up packs hit by Damage over Time. Higher DPS than most early spells at very close range.



Damage Over Time – These skills used to be the de facto method of winning early races. Since then a combination of nerfs and enhanced strategies have devalued them somewhat. However these skills are still excellent gear-independent methods of racing, and the introduction of trap and DoT nodes has made them more attractive again, especially to Shadow classes with easy access to the increased damage.

Fire Trap – Go-to trap skill, dropping a few of these on a hostile pack with a couple of hits from a ranged AoE can finish early packs extremely quickly.

Poison Arrow – Stacks with fire trap. Early winning builds (and current still-viable trap builds) combine the DoT of Poison Arrow with the DoT of Fire Trap to finish packs while moving ahead.



Non-Damage skills – Also known as the “Decoy totem” section

Decoy Totem –Available early to some melee builds, this can make boss fights significantly more survivable, as well as providing an interesting method to mitigate the issue of Ground Slam not being a 360 degree skill. Drop one in front of yourself and ground slam towards it as the pack runs to attack it.

Molten Shell – Not as useful as you want it to be due to extremely long cast time

Enduring Cry – Much shorter cast time, but without significant endurance charge investment it’s not wonderfully useful, but better than nothing if you pick up that skill.

Class by Class briefs - Nothing in depth, just basic notes on early choices and builds
Spoiler
Duelist – The starting area redesign in late open beta made this class a distinct winner. Starts with Cleave/Doublestrike out of the gate, and gets leap slam after brutus, which is all the skill gems you need to be successful. Starting area offers +Life/+damage node early, and a large variety of damage nodes. Leather and Steel also makes wearing Str Armor viable by negating the movespeed debuff (in some harder modes shield-using builds become more viable as well). It is quite difficult to hit the top20 in the duelist class, but very easy to level

Marauder – High early str and life give the marauder a good survivability advantage. Heavy strike is weapon-independent but Ground Slam (early AoE) is not. Getting sweep may allow more flexibility early, but in any case after Leap Slam becomes available the restriction is moot. It’s moderately difficult to place in the top 20 in marauders, but easy to level nonetheless.

Ranger – My impression of current ranger builds is that they often rely on getting a Spec Throw gem from a scion mule to start or use cleave as their primary attack. I don’t have a lot of insight in to the ranger but the start does seem frustrating unless you get realllly lucky with a bow drop from Hillock.

Scion – Starts with spectral throw, so this class tends to have a significant advantage. Spectral throw is SO good, that some people start scions and then restart with their intended class after stashing the ST gem. Due to this, it’s extremely difficult to place top20 in class, but easy to make more points by level using the scion because you can use literally any gear and any 2h weapon you find in the game.

Shadow – Nearby move-speed nodes made this the winning class in the FireTrap/Poison Arrow winning build era. These days the shadow is still very viable in several configurations (primarily still trap-focused). Gets whirling blades, but this isn’t as good as leap slam). Low life and poor strength make early tanking somewhat more difficult. It is relatively easy to place in the mid-low top20s with the shadow, but there are enough dedicated shadow-users that the very upper reaches are difficult to crack.

Templar – The “worst” Str class, does not get access to leap slam. Glacial hammer is actually very good for defeating early bosses, particularly Chatters and Brutus in the prison, where the freezes give you MUCH needed respite from the onslaught. However, without any movement skills, or movement speed nodes, and typically with access to ground slam, limiting weapon usage, the Templar has a number of difficult problems to work with. That said, these problems make it hard to level high but somewhat easier to place in the top20 of class.

WitchEasily the worst class for racing. Virtually no survivability, and spells don’t scale by flat damage increases early in the game the way melee weapons do. Getting a high Increased damage totemic maul massively increases early damage, and even “good” wands add virtually nothing in comparison to spell damage. That said, dedicated witch users are very good, but after the first 5-6 witch placers, the class drops off. Recent buffs (particularly storm call) give some variety to the default spell using witch build but not a lot.
Last edited by TyrusDark on Feb 5, 2014, 10:51:37 AM
General Terminal Farming Locations by Race Length
•1 hour terminal farming location – Chamber of Sins or Western Forest or Caverns 1
•100m Terminal Farming location – Caverns 1 / City of Sarn / Docks
•2h solo – City of Sarn / Docks

Act 1 – Zone by Zone Race walkthrough – Note this is not always gospel truth. I don’t watch 1st place videos and place around 50-80th overall myself (partially the fault of 300+ping, to be fair)

Twilight Strand
Spoiler
Starting off, click the dying exile to open the convo, then get your weapon, which auto-closes the conversation and activates the zombie, it shaves a few seconds off of your start time compared to getting the weapon first. Get first skill gem, start moving up the beach and equip the gem as you move, instead of equipping and then moving. I now recommend ONLY killing hillock on the twilight strand. Open chests if you happen to run over them. If you want to get Level 2 on strand: Hillock gives 29% experience. The Crabs give more EXP than the zombies and are easier to kill IF you don't have to chase them. If you use your skill you should be able to reliably 1-shot the crabs. So basically, if you want to get L2 on beach: run up the beach killing crabs and a few zombies to hit 72% experience, then kill hillock. The duelist, witch, and scion at are at a distinct advantage when killing on strand due to starting AoE skills.




Lioneye’s Watch
Spoiler
Talk to Tarkleigh, get your skill. Check Tarkleigh’s shop QUICKLY for Movespeed boots (assuming you didn’t get L2 on strand). If there aren’t any, consider purchasing an iron ring from Nessa. However I find spending all of my ID scrolls isn’t necessarily optimal at this stage, especially if I am running a 2h physical build. (If you’re spell-dependent, you might want to consider a coral ring since you’ll probably be hurting for HP).

If you are realllly hurting for sockets you can buy a different armor piece. Sometimes you can find flat armor and +life gear with good sockets (e.g. +7 armor on iron gauntlets is equivalent to +100% armor). Especially if you are newer to racing, this can increase survivability significantly on coast and mud flats.




The Coast:
Spoiler
Run. Run until you have accumulated a good 8-12 enemies behind you, then launch AoE strikes, THEN RUN LIKE HELL AGAIN. If you are L1 on entry, get L2 here so you can pick up a 2h weapon from tarkleigh later if necessary. If you’re not gear dependent you can almost entirely skip this area. Only pick up currency and non-chest armor you don’t have. It’s not necessary to gain a level here. Killing Fire Fury is probably suboptimal, however, if you run smack in to her with a high dps character (2h weapon user, basically), it’s not totally a bad idea to kill her, since the drop can be very beneficial (early yellow weapon or ring/amulet, for example). I would NOT recommend looking for her or even so much as running around a corner to get to her, but if you accidently end up next to her, keep moving, blast her pack, which tends to be large, and finish her.




Tidal IslandDon’t go here, but some advice if you insist
Spoiler
Unless you’re going for the med chest reward, go hit the Mud Flats WP first and then come back for the island. Main reason for writing this section: if you really want to kill Hailrake, kite him in circles until he runs out of mana (he’ll actually stop casting ice spears after a while) and then kill him. AoE his pack down and try to aim to hit him with AoE in the process. Anticipate his ice spear casts and keep circle strafing until everything but he is dead. Only then should you close for the kill with your primary single-target skill.




Mud Flats
Spoiler
Your primary reason for bothering to kill anything here is that it’s sometimes faster to eliminate several rhoas rather than get pinballed around them. Kill enough to not die, that is all. Rhoas will ruin your day if you are not careful. Anticipate their charges and AoE early, particularly with Ground Slam. You can actually intercept a charging rhoa and kill it. I tend to attack very large zombie packs here when it’s convenient. Avoid the unique Rhoa here, the fight is way harder than the XP you get out of it.




Sunken Passage:
Spoiler
You should get to L4 before leaving Upper sunken. This is the first area where you can be blessed by RNG for monster packs, so take advantage of kills on very large packs. In the fixed seed signature races of Season 7, upper sunken has a huge open area that contains a LOT of badguys. Collect agro and kill them all at once and you can get L4 easily. In narrow passages kill monster packs or you will desync/get stuck. If it looks like it might cut you off, just save yourself the trouble and kill them instead of finding out you got desynced 5 seconds later and rubberbanding. If you get L4 in lower, first you’re probably behind, and second, just run like hell through upper. Upper sunken can pose problems if you stop to kill the daughters of merveil, they will freeze you and you will die. Also their spawn give zero XP so make sure if you are killing anything, it is the actual enemies, not spawns. Avoid the Blood Princess, the spawns are difficult, the drop isn’t worthwhile, and the XP is low.




Ledge
Spoiler
Start blasting the packs. You will be very close to dying with bad gear and low level. Continually strafe and avoid fire, particularly against mass archers, and definitely against blue packs, which have the potential to kill you very quickly but are absolutely worth the EXP. You will get a lot of levels very fast here starting from 4. Remember to keep moving while adding skill points and do it fast enough that you don’t ever come to a halt. Tier-2 type items start dropping here (cone helmets, brigandines, totemic mauls, etc., especially from blues). Grab significant upgrades. Remember that “upgrade” takes a variety of forms: Goathide gloves might be better than iron gauntlets even if you “want” to armor tank. Don't screw with Kuduku, it's too risky, but do kill a majority of his pack.




The Climb
Spoiler
Tricky. You should aim to get through quickly but be careful as this is the first place where the rushed nature of the playthrough really makes it possible to RIP with very little warning, particularly against the fire shamans. Consider equipping a chest piece here, I often run a scale vest through the Climb to make it less likely I get killed suddenly, particularly if your ping is very high. DO NOT mess with molten-shielded fire shamans at melee range. I always kill the unique bone archer here because the iLevel of the area is enough that it’s extremely plausible to get significant upgrades from him, including ring/amulet or flask drops. He’s also standing right in the way, and surrounded by a relatively large pack. Keep moving constantly to avoid fire from the archers. Strafe/Attack, rinse, repeat, and then move in to finish IronPoint.




Prison
Spoiler
Lower prison is another great place to get gear upgrades. Don’t pause or run around excessively , though it’s easy to get lost / choose a wrong path.* Pay attention to drops and remember optimal does not always mean sticking to a particular tank or weapon type (e.g. 2-handers consider a primitive staff if you have the Intelligence). Personally kill Chatters, who due to iLevel tends to drop useful gear. Obviously if I find the stairs before I find chatters, I move on. I do caustion that chatters will RIP you if you aren’t prepared to handle him (high life, coral rings, to prevent long freezes, and a mixture of AoE to weaken and moving in for high-damage kill. Glacial Hammer is great for this) It’s acceptable to return to town right before brutus if you’re realllllllllllly hurting for a weapon or managed no medium flasks at this point (bring a blacksmith’s whetstone and/or ID scrolls). It’s also potentially useful to go back and get a skill like decoy totem. Level 9 is a “safe” level to fight brutus, though some do it at Level 8 and some conservative racers (going for level-based points) do so at Level 10.
*Unlike Act 2 areas, I haven’t been able to determine a reliable method to find the correct path.




Brutus
Spoiler
Oddly, the best strategy is simply to charge him and start hitting. Particularly if you are using Heavy Strike or Glacial Hammer, the stuns/freezes are a better bet than trying to kite or play fancy. Remember the tips about playing the lag. As soon as you THINK you got hit, hit flask, you might waste 1-2 charges out of the ones you have, but healing early will keep you alive. I’ve found combing AR/EV to maximize your chance of Brutus missing is a good strategy. Armor helps a bit, but a complete miss is a much more significant reduction in his DPS. For ranged classes, do NOT run close to the pillars as a kite strategy. The combination of the pillars and Brutus’ hook often causes significant desync, way more than you’d usually expect. Just kite back and forth in open areas or run in large circles. Assess his drop FAST, at this point between IronPoint and Chatters (and possibly Sawbones) you should be pretty set up. Look for rings, rares, and if you’re hurting, magical armor pieces. Keep in mind his level will be above yours for a while so you might not be able to use the drop immediately. Also if for some reason you desperately need a transmutation orb and brutus drops trash/irrelevant rares, pick up enough to cash them in for an orb.

Log to the character select screen as soon as you are done with the item drop, you get the Prisoner’s Gate WP automatically after defeating brutus. Log back in, get your quest reward, and shop for sapphire rings.. in place of running to the Prisoner’s gate, you can shop and pick up gems in the same amount of time it’d take you to walk to the next area anyways. Highly skilled racers are through brutus in approximately 15 minutes or less.




Prisoner’s Gate:
Spoiler
Pick up a level (level 10, usually) early before running down the cliffs. This is particularly critical if you have leap slam to use in this area. The Burning Menace is more like “THE INFINITE AGGRO RANGE MENACE”. Once he starts chasing you just get the hell out. He hits shockingly hard and never, ever stops chasing until you’re about 80% of the way through the level. Turn around… once or twice… to AoE large packs, but keep moving. The best time to tap the large pack is if you get through a narrow corridor first and the Menace is blocked off from pursuit temporarily. Do not fuck with the giant horde of death that will be following you around very swiftly. Only fight if you are 100% sure the Menace is not aggro’d on you anymore. You WILL RIP in the Prisoner’s Gate if you make a bad stand-and-fight decision. You can die EXTREMELY quickly to the Menace or sudden Shock-stacking if you’re unlucky. Blue goat shaman with a bad mod on them can make your day unpleasant very quickly also.




Ship Graveyard:
Spoiler
Skip this shithole. Find the coast and run it until you hit the Coves. There is nothing good here. You will get frozen, charged, shocked, vulnerability cursed, and all manner of bad things if you hang out. If you get lucky, take an opportunity if you hit a blue pack of the spectral corsairs all alone for some XP, but mostly just run and pray you don’t lag yourself in to the middle of a pack and get alpha’d in to oblivion.




The Coves:
Spoiler
MUCH better territory. Although the Tar Spread sucks (unless you’re leap-slamming) I still recommend hitting some of the larger packs in this area. Being level 11 will enable immediate use of the support gem if it’s relevant to your build. You will be sorely underlevelled here by this point and rack up LOTS of experience for big packs. That said don’t dawdle either, the addition of the corpse-spitting bird-things made the area more dangerous, and the tar DOES suck, but you’re nearing Act boss and the Caverns aren’t wonderful EXP gathering areas.


Cavern of Wrath / Anger:
Spoiler
When you enter, WP back to town and pick up any remaining sapphire rings you need. If you have currency (at very least whetstones and/or transmutes) AND your weapon is awful, you can check tarkleigh for an upgrade.

Kill as necessary in the narrow corridors, I usually hit Merveil at least at Level 12, sometimes 13. Mallets for Ground Slam characters become available at level 12. For inexperienced racers it’s not a horrible idea to hit 14 and try to score a couple of large flasks to make the fight easier. If you want to do this you need to generally slow down a little compared to my strategies above (10-11 at Brutus, 12 out of coves, at the very least). Biggest thing here is to make sure you have BOTH sapphire rings. Don’t juggle gear too much to get the support gem unless it’s build-enabling, in which case you should be smart enough to have been planning for it since the beginning.




Merveil
Spoiler
Equip both rings. If you are underleveled, pop a TP scroll right after the bridge. Throw a decoy totem if applicable off to the side so you can approach without the LMP ice spears hitting you. Effectively, the strategy is to face tank her. Your flasks will roughly speaking half-fill when she dies the first time. For the second part of the fight back off and AoE the initial wave of spawns. I sometimes find using AoE to kill the minions as they spawn throughout the fight rather than using my single target is a better plan.
Last edited by TyrusDark on Feb 2, 2014, 8:09:39 AM
Act 2 - Zone by Zone Walkthrough – High skill racers will hit this around 35 minutes to 45 minutes. “Average” placing racers (i.e. mid top20s in class) might take as much as an hour and still place top 20 in their class.



There’s a number of ways to proceed through A2:

•If I’m very underlevelled and undergeared, I run Riverways->Blackwood WP (WP to town) -> Chamber of Sins -> Weaver -> Forest -> Kraityn. The Blackwood WP means you’ll never “backtrack” and have to run an area twice. (since your furthest point of advance is the WP, and you can come right back to it).

if I have at least one topaz ring already, a lot of ID scrolls, or very good DPS, I buy the remaining topaz I need, and kill enough in the Old Fields and Crossroads to get 15 or near it, and hit CoS immediately.

•Other people run the Weaver first. Personally with my build I find this difficult since the 1.0 buff to the Weaver fight. I feel like it’s fairly dangerous compared to the CoS given good lightning resists. (Granted Fidelatis is still dangerous).



time based ideas:

•1 hour Race – You might be best off hitting Chamber of Sins 1 as your terminal farming location, though for ranged characters particularly, Western Forest offers a higher monster-level. If you get in to A2 with a lot of time left, you can run Weaver->CoS, and get in to the Caverns at the end of A2 (ignore the bandits, as you won’t go to Vaal anyways) for the highest reachable monster level. Stay on level 1 of the caverns.

•100m or 2h Race – Even moderately skilled racers in a 2h race should be able to at the very least get through A2 to City of Sarn. It’s trickier in the 100m race, where the aforementioned bandit-ignoring strategy farming Caverns 1 might be your best bet. It’s worth noting that you can place Top20 in class using CoS 1 as your terminal farming location in a 100m and even 2h race (though it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so in a 2h race, particularly in competitive classes, though Witch, Templar, and possibly Shadow can probably pull it off).

•Anything longer – No excuse not to advance to Act 3.



Southern Forest
Spoiler
Kill liberally here. Gear tends to be drop liberally here (especially from rare and blue packs) but you might not be able to use it for a few levels. ID early and get rid of trash. Monkeys move and therefore desync quite often, if you have decoy totem consider throwing it at max range forward to consolidate the area apes in to a good single place to kill them.




Forest Encampment
Spoiler
Check Yeena for topaz rings, your other gear is likely not going to be upgraded compared to drops you’re encountering (unless you still need movespeed boots)


Riverways
Spoiler
If you’re severely underleveled (more or less, level 12 or very early 13), the Riverways offer really good pack sizes that converge on you quickly and a usually linear route to the BlackWood.

When you are looking for Vaal Ruins – There is a break in the path on one side (random) with two broken statue/stone pile looking things. Following this outwards you see a very faint pattern of rocks (a very ancient overgrown road) that leads to the vaal ruins.


Blackwood
Spoiler
The WP is early and basically impossible to miss, so one strategy for low-levels is to run through Riverways and out to the Blackwood WP before WPing back to town. Ignore devourers here. I don’t have a good strategy for navigating the Blackwood other than keep moving (and obviously Weaver den is in the spider part of the forest).


Old Fields
Spoiler
Much like coast and other transitionary areas in A2, just roll through killing anything that happens to be in range anyways. Ignore Gneiss, his HP is way too high, drop is unimpressive, and XP gain is not sufficient to warrant killing him.




Crossroads
Spoiler
Decent EXP if you’re early in the act, otherwise transition. After turning north towards the Chamber of Sins you can pick up Level 15 here (for full XP in CoS) as there tends to be a LOT of spawns around Headstaver. I end up killing the unique here a lot sort of by accident. He’s not very impressive and tends to have a huge pack congregate around him (especially if you drop some decoy totems), but the drop usually isn’t significant.


Chamber of Sins 1
Spoiler
Easy EXP. Zombies are slow, and each of the false stairways is guaranteed to have a blue pack at it. The unique is kind of a pain at low levels but if you’re terminally farming there (e.g. in a 1h or slow 100m race) after you get L17 or so he should be very easy to kill for an extra XP boost without wasting too much time.


Chamber of Sins 2/3
Spoiler
Lightning damage everwherreeeee. Get the topaz rings on and be very careful. CoS 2 is actually still a good place to get kills in even when blitzing the act. do not mess with Black Widow That thing hits like a beast against underlevelled characters and with only medium potions the viper strike CAN kill you even while trying to heal. Just run from it. On 3, fire some AoE at each room but do not stick around. The key to surviving (in addition to the topaz rings themselves) is to avoid allowing shock stacks to last on you. You can run out of the room and in the transition between fights shake off the shock. Fidelatis can hit pretty hard, make sure to clear the pack quickly (kite away from Fidelatis while doing so to avoid taking early hits). After I clear the pack I can usually facetank with high lightning resist, though I also throw out a few decoy totems to give me some recovery time. Log to character select to return to town after killing him.


The Weaver’s Chambers
Spoiler
Unless you’re using sweep, another 360 degree attack, or you’re really clever with decoy totems, the leaping spiders can be a bit of a pain to deal with. I try to mostly run through this level only taking shots when I have a big pack available. That said, as with most narrow passages, I highly recommend killing things that are in doorways because you almost inevitably end up desyncing on them. The weaver does a surprising amount of damage. Make sure to use any supporting skills before triggering (e.g. have an active decoy totem out) and try to arrange the hostiles so you can AoE both the weaver and her pack at the same time. It’s seems a little safer to not have her fire her ranged attacks IMO, so consider closing early if you’re not using a directional AoE (Ground slam looking at you!) In any case keep moving to avoid some of the attacks. Re-support yourself when she goes to the ceiling and get ready to finish the fight. Log to character select to return to town after killing her.


Western Forest
Spoiler
Ideally, you complete the Weaver’s Chambers fast enough that Blackwood doesn’t reset during that time (this should not be difficult to accomplish!). WP back to Blackwood and use your knowledge of the terrain to find Western. When you are looking for Alira, stay on the road until you find a torch on the side of the road, and the side of the road looks broke. Look at the ground beyond the road you’re on and you will see a faint broken path that leads directly to her doorstep. If you have a ruby ring, wear it, due to the corpse explosions (also, try to ranged AoE her pack and then avoid the pile of corpses it leaves). Kill Alira and log to char screen to return to town.


Broken Bridge
Spoiler
Generally run through and kill bandits. The bears here have a lot of life, and even though I want to believe they give more EXP to compensate for the life total, don’t waste time killing them. Kill Kraityn’s pack first, the explosive arrows can stack in really unfortunate ways. Log to char select screen to return to town.


Vaal Ruins
Spoiler
As discussed in the Riverways paragraph, you can find Vaal Ruins by using the 2 broken stone markers/broken path method as with Alira. Vaal Ruins is another transitionary area, your main goal is to get through it very fast, rather than killing here. You will access much better farming territory very soon after exiting Vaal and frankly the combination of the constructs and snakes is a pain anyways.


Wetlands
Spoiler
Another area with a path to follow. Find the stream (usually NE of the exist, sometimes NW, but usually fairly obvious). Your first clue will be the steep hill/waterfall and WP. Continue to follow the stream, you’ll see either the entrance to Oak’s compound, a wagon near the entrance, or the fence. In any case, you should have no trouble locating it by following the primary stream from the WP. Help Oak to avoid the boss fight and a trip back to town . 40 Life is also really nice to have. Get the apex. I’m not 100% sure if the stream continues on to the Caverns or not, soo I usually lose time looking around for it like an idiot. If you’re lucky, Wetlands will spawn large packs of Oak’s Adherents, which are easy EXP in mass melee packs. If you’re unlucky you’ll get a haste aura rare venom snake with a blue pack of snakes along with it and cry.


Caverns
Spoiler
For 1h races and even 100m races for mid placing “top 20 in class” racers this is your last stop terminal farming location if you’re not going to challenge Vaal. If you want to farm caverns, stick to Level 1, the monsters are much easier to kill and reliably spawn decent packs (the vulnerability curse bears on Level 2 can be pretty nasty, especially with an unfortunate rare spawn or a swift blue pack). For those continuing, after you hit the WP things get ugly REALLY fast. Although only marginally problematic for normal characters, race characters suffer horribly in the late Caverns and Ancient pyramid. Take advantage of large melee packs that aren’t near totems for experience, but that’s about it. Totem combinations like enemy haste + player slow can be devastating.


Ancient Pyramid
Spoiler
More or less you want to just run through here. As with late caverns, avoid nasty totem combinations and take advantage of unbuffed melee packs to gain some EXP. Surprisingly, Vaal is in a lot of ways less dangerous than the pyramid itself, due to being predictable.


Vaal
Spoiler
Not as bad as people think, because it’s only normal mode. I can usually take a (one!) hit from his slam, even. Main thing to avoid is allowing the lightning beam to shock stack you. Wear a topaz ring if you’re newer to the fight just in case. The thing about Vaal is that it telegraphs nearly every move it does. Take advantage of Vaal firing frost or summoning aid to get your main attacks in. You can also sometimes trick it in to doing rock falls and get a lot of shots in then. When it summons it will always dive in to shadows after the summon so you can basically totally safely attack during this period.

Last edited by TyrusDark on Feb 6, 2014, 1:55:28 PM
Act 3 – Overview

Given that you got this far I don’t think you need much of a guide here but I’ll provide a brief overview:

In 100m races, unless you’re amongst the best, getting to actually farm docks with full XP and without dying horribly is very difficult. Terminal Farming at City of Sarn is probably your best bet, though you should generally avoid perpetus. To maximize farming time, get to the end, walk in to the town (get the WP, I think it’s automatic after entering the town), and then immediately spawn a new instance. When you get to the WP, WP to town, then spawn a new instance by WP’ing back to the City. This way no running distance is used to spawn new instances.

If you want to advance, I’ve had some success by equipping a topaz ring (especially if I got lucky and dropped a rare topaz ring with good mods!) and farming battlefront rather than docks when my level is too low or my gear too poor for docks farming. You can reliably get rare/blue spawns and the unique boss (caution: captain aurelius or whatever his name is does a LOT of damage but usually has a huge pack). You can run north to docks, and then spawn a new instance of battlefront. Lightning damage is high but not unbearable if you manage agro.

Once you are able to get full EXP from docks (I believe that’s Level 28, though farming it starting at 27 and maybe even 26 is probably fine) equip ruby rings if you’ve got them to prevent death-by-voidbearer. Docks will be your terminal farming location in normal. Remember that if you’re out of TP scrolls you can log to char select and then WP back in to a new instance.




Additional Modes guide
Generally, the mods make the game tougher, sometimes significantly so. That can make it worthwhile to pursue more tank both in passive build and gear build (e.g. wearing a chest piece at all times, using a shield-based build, etc.)

No-Projectile- player projectiles do zero damage
Obviously the ranger and witch will have … issues, getting off of twilight strand. Other than that, most modern race builds don’t change significantly. You can probably get some good points by purpose-building a no projectile witch or ranger. Spectral throw doesn’t work in this mode trollololol.

Multi-Projectile – monsters shoot 2 extra projectiles (3 total)
The biggest early issue here is the Upper Sunken passage, where the daughters become absolutely lethal. Hailrake also poses a significantly worse challenge since kite-dodging his ice spears becomes MUCH harder. Merveil is slightly harder (since she spits even more spears) but by the time you hit Act 2 at the latest, you’re not going to suffer from this too badly except in Ancient Pyramid and the end of Caverns. (And in docks)

Lethal – monsters do 60% more damage
Not much to say about this, other than that passive tree builds might favor tank/life more than they do in standard races. It becomes worthwhile to carry a shield in this mode, ESPECIALLY if your skills are gear independent. Keep in mind that monsters don’t have any more HP than they would usually, so killing things FAST is a good idea. Lethal emphasizes killing fast enemies (rhoas) that can become much dangerous

Famine - Flasks don't refill in towns
Personally I enjoy this one and tend to place high. Since I already tend to avoid relying on both visits to town and TP'ing out of boss fights, I don't lose a lot of ground. One of the primary tips here is to remember that flasks refill on level still, so you can grab a level and then run straight to a boss to begin with full flasks. Above in the main guide I discussed anticipating damage/mana by hitting flasks early. Obvious some caution is advised here because it can get pretty ugly if you run out of flasks at the wrong time. This is a great mode for middleground racers to improve by reducing your reliance on trips to town and TP escape strategies, it forces you to play through without a safe haven, teaching you to spend more time moving along the path and farming EXP.

Turbo – monsters have 60% IAS and move speed
As with lethal, it’s worthwhile to scale your killing with the increased danger of monsters. Pay more attention to gear and spend a bit longer getting ready. Some monsters (RHOAS) and some unique mobs (Burning Menace) become terrifying in this mode

Immolation – All physical damage becomes fire damage, enemies explode on death
The death fire isn’t that bad (it’s like the hellhounds already explode, but for everything). NOTE that armor is totally worthless in this mode as you will never be dealt physical damage. Fire resist mod, ruby rings, and evasion are the only relevant defensive stats. Also your physical damage converting to fire makes some alternate build paths available (for example the witch’s elemental damage node now applies to ethereal knives, which become fire damage)

Ancestral -Totems spawn everywhere
This can be extremely nasty if you get bad totem combinations. The always-crit totem combined with a few others can be ugly, and getting off strand with lightning warp totems chasing you can be kind of awful. However, this mode isn’t TOO bad most of the time.

Rogue – Exiles spawn in all zones
You can get reallllllllly unlucky here, for example if the flame witch spawns all over the place, or the multi-striking ground slam marauder. BASICALLY you want to avoid the exiles for the most part. If an “easy” exile spawns, though, killing them efficiently can get you really great gear, however, be careful not to spend so much time sorting through exile gear that you fail to advance. That said, merely surviving the onslaught usually ranks well. Special callout to Turbo Rogue, which is hilariously difficult because it’s virtually impossible to outrun the Rogues.
Last edited by TyrusDark on Feb 6, 2014, 2:00:58 PM
Awesome guide man. Thanks for the effort.
We tested it extensively
great guide i will try your way on next race :) thanks for the guide
Do not fuck with the giant horde of death
Ship Graveyard: Skip this shithole. Find the coast and run it until you hit the Coves. There is nothing good here. You will get frozen, charged, shocked, vulnerability cursed, and all manner of bad things if you hang out.


I LOL'D
It is pretty much completely true though. We clear large packs of those anyway in party races, but otherwise...yeah.
How to make a build: http://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/510084
Current guides: N/A
How are you at descent? I have the hardest time with these races because if I use strategy similar to what you described here, I will eventually end up in a level 22 zone at level 15 or something similar. I can't seem to find a good mix of speed + amount of stuff killed.
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Tempest/War Bands T shirt
I'm not the original poster, but I got something like 19/20/20 in the past three Descent: Champion races. So maybe I can provide some commentary on Descent.

Classic race strategy works fine for the first few areas, but then you can start lingering in areas to catch up(once you hit Cruel is when slowing down usually gets pretty beneficial.) Careful crafting is vitally important in Descent from my experience. Whenever I get ahold of a strong 2-hand weapon in vanilla Descent as Duelist, I can basically just steamroll everything up until level 17 (which is when I have to stop because I'm too casual and slow :( so maybe I'm not the best person to consult about Descent lol)

Lingering is more useful in Champions than in vanilla Descent.
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Last edited by adghar on Nov 26, 2013, 9:26:35 AM

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