Map questions from a noob

Hello everyone,

I played this game during the closed beta, got bored with it at some point and now I'm trying to get back into it.

I have a level 76 marauder, my gear is probably bad. Since I had a mace and I did not know much about the game anymore I looked up a mace marauder build on the internet and so far it's working all right.

Now I feel that I'm quickly getting bored with the game again because there seems to be nothing to do other than farm the same areas over and over again.

I love the map system but there is one thing I do not understand: how do you find maps??? I mean I occasionally find one maybe every 2 hours of play and then I clear it in 15 minutes and I'm back to farming the same old areas over and over again.

Is there a point where you can find enough maps so you don't have to go back to the level 66-67 areas?

I tried to trade for maps but people ask for 1 or sometimes 2 chaos orbs for a map, I mean I only have 2 chaos orbs in my inventory and they seem even harder to find than maps. Also I don't know what the "right" price is and it seems that every time I try to trade, people will attempt to rip me off, I don't want to spend hours reading spam, bartering, so I'd rather avoid trading as much as I can, that's not why I want to play this game.

Am I doing anything wrong? Is it normal that endgame feels like farming the library and that maps are just one small occasionnal bonus on the side? I thought that maps were supposed to be the big thing for endgame, and that's what drove me to play PoE in the first place: randomly generated content. But it seems that I was mistaken? Are there good ways to find maps?

Thanks in advance

Maps have a higher base chance to drop in maps, than in quest areas. Forget about Library and Catacombs, those racks are garbage.

You can buy a starter pack of 66s maps, say 12 for no more than 2 chaos in Domination. Or you can grind Piety / Dom for a bit, who have a higher chance to drop maps.

Then you have to roll those maps. Only the map quantity affects map drops. At first make them magic and look for a decent quantity, say 30%+. Around 69 tier you will have to alc them and look for something like 60%+ quantity. At tier 71/72 you'll need to use chisel to raise quantity and pay attention to mods -> strive for one inhabitation mod (pack size, more magic monsters, more rare monsters) and 60% - 90% quantity.

Be prepared to get shafted and drop from a tier, because in the end progress still depends on luck. Be also prepared to grind a whole lot, if you want to reach higher tiers.

Refer to this nice resource for more in-depth info about maps.

Run Piety, she has a set % to drop a lvl66 map. Then trans/alt it to get a nice 30% quantity and hope that you get more maps from that one. Rince and repeat. Or if you can run to Piety fast it's better to first roll solaris 2 with stairs down next to the WP room and then farm Piety fast so you don't lose the WP.

Use currency to increase quantity of map - transmutation/augmentation/alteration for low levels, alch/chaos some chisels even for higher level, maybe more for even higher levels... Just get quantity up, 30-40% is pretty good for a blue..

Once in the map try to clear it or get as close to clearing it as possible - use /remaining to check monsters left - most maps will give you a map in return, some will give you multiple..

That's a start.

Thank you for your posts guys, that's very enlightning, I'll check out the Map Management Resource thread too.