League Mechanic tier list

Permanent League mechanics tier list - I listed mechanics gauging them by fun, profitability, scalability and viability in various endgame stages.

Tier rating legend:
S: Never block, always do. Spec your atlas tree for it. Worth every chaos orb if you decide to juice it.
A: Not recommended to block, these are well worth your time even without juice.
B: Block if you don't like it. If you like it, feel free to juice it and engage with it
C: Recommended to block, the mechanic is unrewarding and not worth the investment
D: Heavily recommended to block, these are nearly useless. Do not invest, do not spec the atlas.
F: Why is this even in the game?

How they are graded, what influences the grade?
1) How rewarding it is baseline
2) How good is the scalability
3) How good is the support on the atlas tree
4) How fun it is to engage with



Expedition: S tier
The newest permanent league mechanic is one of the best. Great profit, fun to do, good scalability. You have immunity nodes but it's up to the player to take them or leave them. Don't touch this, it's really good as is. This mechanic is even better in 3.19 because it's the only source of high item level gear that DOES NOT require you to grind high-tier maps. On leaguestart it's common to be level 90 and still do yellow maps, this mechanic will give you ilvl 84-86 bases without requiring you to grind T16 content. And with Harvest being a second crafting bench with generic currency you don't need high-end content at all to make T1 rolls.

Ritual: C tier
This mechanic sucks with archnemesis. Too many ground degens on very restricted play space. Rewards are meh most of the time. It has decent enough mechanic with ritual vessel, though the skill tree support for this is kinda crap. It's a skipper.

Heist: B tier
Mechanic is rewarding, perhaps even too rewarding with too many items that come exclusively from Heist. It's also fun to play. Why i placed it such low tier then? Because it resets every damn league and leveling the entire rogue squad + equipping them all with gear is too much micro-management. This is not a challenge league mechanic anymore, please cut down on this crap and it will be an excellent mechanic. Simply removing the leveling of rogues will be enough. Just set all of them to their max job level for everybody. Support on skill tree is kinda lackluster. Possibly the worst support on atlas tier, doesn't interact with Heists themselves at all, just gives you more coins and contracts to run.

Delirium: B tier
Kinda torn on this one. It's rewarding but I think it's a bit excessive. The grey dreary fog is not fun to look at. Simulacrums take too long even with a speedclearing build. We need "Uber Simulacrum" that starts on wave 21 and has increased rewards per wave. Delirious maps loot is way too scattered - why simulacrum splinters drop in singles? It's a chore to loot a 100% delirum map. Not to be confused with Delirum Mirror - that is good I think.

Harvest: A tier
Nothing wrong with it except the crafts should be itemized and tradeable. This mechanic makes TFT usage pretty much mandatory. And it opens you up for scams as there is no secure way of trading Harvest crafts. Please do not make challenges oriented around t4 seeds or certain crafting options because they are extremely rare.

Update: Harvest has indeed been reworked and it's a good contender for S tier mechanic. We'll see how it plays.

Blight: A+ tier
Tower defense game is fun, blighted maps are also fun. Great support on the passive skill tree. Very good mechanic, maybe not as good as Expedition but rock solid. Very well done GGG, these are mechanics that we want.

Synthesis: F tier
Is this a mechanic even? Maps that drop once in a blue moon and have a big cluster dedicated to them. Idk if i should even include that in this summary. Complete skipper, only allocate the nodes if you want to purchase bulk sets of synthesis maps and run maven invitations.

Betrayal: D tier
Convoluted mess of a mechanic that is barely explained to the player in game. Heavy reliance on third party tools to utilize it. Itemize the crafting benches plz. Skipper.

Legion: A tier
Great scalability, fun to do, 5-ways are fun, legion rewards are great. Too much loot clutter. Make all loot drop in one tidy stack at the end of Legion encounter in a map - that's it.

Breach: F tier
Why this has so many nodes on passive tree? It's a shit mechanic that has no rewards. It's only used to speed level your characters in pure chayulas and maybe farm for grasping mail vendor recipe. Very very very skipper.

Bestiary: B+ tier
Good mechanic, good support on the passive skill tree. Bestiary capacity is an issue if you spec into it and itemizing the crafts is clunky if your bestiary is full. Finding that dupe or imprint beast in that clusterfuck of monsters is nearly impossible. Please make us able to itemize beasts off the crafting menu.

Delve: A tier
After 3.15 changes it's actually decent and doesn't suffer from what Heist does. You start at formidable depth. Rewards mainly around trading azurite for 1-slot resonators and Aul.

Beyond: B tier
After the 3.19 rework this looks better. Tainted currency is very useful and this mechanic doesn't take that much to invest into on the atlas passive tree.

Harbinger: D tier
After the divine/exalt switcheroo I'm downgrading this heavily. Used to be a solid B, perhaps even an A. Right now all it does is to add some juice to your maps. It's not worth the points on atlas tree, as those have been nerfed as well.

Abyss: C tier
Good for exping, the rewards are lackluster though. It's not very intrusive in your mapping, I wouldn't recommend blocking it completely but investing into it ain't worth the points.

Incursion: personally - F tier
I hate this mechanic and always end the league with 200 uncompleted missions. That's just a personal grudge, perhaps it IS rewarding. But it does break mapping gameplay loop a lot.

Rogue Exiles - D tier
I don't know whether this is even a league mechanic but it does have a bunch of clusters on a passive tree. Complete skipper, just do the challenge and forget it exists.

Strongbox - A tier
Very cool mechanic. Rewarding, unintrusive. Investment into it pays off. You better develop a habit of running the fuck away from it once you activate it, because "detonates nearby corpses" doesn't care how many defensive layers you've got.

Metamorph - D tier
Skipper. Unrewarding, takes too long to collect enough fragments for Tane's lab. Catalysts can be obtained everywhere else.

Shaper/Elder/Conqueror maps - A tier
For bossing characters this content is great and rewarding. Well worth investing into those clusters and running the Maven Invitations. Conqueror maps with allocated cluster make up for some of the juiciest content in PoE thanks to 20% pack size and 20% quant node.

Torment - F tier
Just replace this with Sentinel already.

Vaal - B tier
Corrupted T16 Vaal Temple map is actually pretty good. Many double implicit jewels and uniques dropping from there. Vaal side areas are skippers though.

"

Esubane wrote:

Blight: A+ tier
Tower defense game is fun, blighted maps are also fun. Great support on the passive skill tree. Very good mechanic, maybe not as good as Expedition but rock solid. Very well done GGG, these are mechanics that we want.

Ugh, no. If I want to play a TD I'll play one. This is not the mechanics I want.

Should be in another section but I think it's a too opinionated list with profitability being largely ignored.

I make at least a mirror every first week every league, so here goes.

Ritual: C > A

Good money if you invest in tree and vessels.

Delirium: B > S

Top money every league

Heist: B tier > A

It's S tier early league and A- later, a lot of currency and starve leagues it still comes up ahead.

Harvest: A > B

Boring, low rewards.

Blight: A+ > B

Bad rewards after first week.

Synthesis: F tier > B

It's good money if you know the mechanic and can handle it, esp with bases - some go mirror+.

Betrayal: D tier > B

Very basic logic there, you make it complicated only for yourself and can make a lot with the passive tree.

Legion: A > B

5 ways are worth it for HH players only with hosting. Not fun.

Breach: F tier > B

If you invest in tree you can make a lot, especially early league.

Bestiary: B+ > C/D

Easy skip for most players as it's a slog and it's mostly used by people who use illegal tools.

Beyond: B > X

You can't rate something you haven't tried.

Harbinger: D > X

You can't rate something you haven't tried.

Abyss: C tier

Incursion: F > C

Even if it's boring, it's always useful for juicing - no matter who is playing what tree.

Rogue Exiles - D tier

Strongbox - A tier

Metamorph - D tier

Shaper/Elder/Conqueror maps - A tier

Torment - F > C

You have to use tree for it and if you're smart you can earn a lot.

Vaal - B tier

"

Kiss_Me_Quick wrote:

Ritual: C > A

Good money if you invest in tree and vessels.

Agree with KSM's ratings a bit more on average.

Ritual is underrated. If you are playing SSF I feel like it's almost mandatory as it works like a vending machine where a wide variety of rewards are available. You can get fractured bases, smart rolled weapons (especially useful for wands/caster stuff), cluster jewels, corrupting blood jewels for early league...

Just a lot of random stuff.

In trade it does lose value quickly over time, but it's pretty good with investment.

Blight: It is one my favorites because blight maps require to invite friends. It is the only one that is cooperative. The problem is there are so many rewards that it is impossible to pick all. I would ask less rewards, but better rewards.

Delve is maybe my second favorite. Although it requires a build to handle or you cannot go deep enough to be rewarded and I would appreciate more variety of destinations.

Delirium: I like it. It is little touch to the normal map cleaning.

Abyss: The concept is interesting. It does not disrupt the game flow and adds some variety in the normal mapping.

Bestiary: It is interesting if you are looking for a more challenging map. At the end I have a huge collection of beast that I don't know what to do with. Maybe the crafting options are too limited.

Heist: I like the characters, the stories and rewards. But the mechanics is slow and repetitive. I do some, but I quickly get bored.

Incursion I don't like these races against time. Also the temple map is not particularly interesting and too long to complete. In the end I just collect tons of temple maps in the inventory.

Harvest: After the nerf now is useless for crafting. Although it still holds its ground, but only for changing the resistance element of the items. For higher tier recipes the cost is absurd.

Betrayal: Maybe I don't like it because they are too dangerous. They kill me in one hit too often. Maybe because of the map mods.

Breach: I think it as a better version of ritual. I always play it, although the hands should be open when the character moves on it and don't require a mouse click that in the middle of hundred of monsters attacking you it is very difficult.

Ritual: I always disable it. Maybe because it is too dangerous.

Essences: Good for farming in low maps and great for crafting. This is a top one, although sometimes are too difficult or impossible. I never do monsters trapped with more than three essences. Always do it the last after finishing the map. I would rather prefer they disappear if you leave the map.

Metamorph: I suppose some people might like it. But it is only for level 100 characters or those who don't have plans to level more. The mechanism is interesting but it is cripple by the death penalty.

Strongbox: I never found anything valuable. My complaint is it can't be disable.

Legion: I still don't know what is the purpose of these. What is the story? What are the objectives? What I suppose to look for? I always disable it.

Harbinger: Are still there? I though they were removed from the game.

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Frostride wrote:

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Esubane wrote:

Blight: A+ tier
Tower defense game is fun, blighted maps are also fun. Great support on the passive skill tree. Very good mechanic, maybe not as good as Expedition but rock solid. Very well done GGG, these are mechanics that we want.

Ugh, no. If I want to play a TD I'll play one. This is not the mechanics I want.

What do you want then bloodlines? Blight was one of their best releases and it offers a diversion from the standard playstyles.

If anything we need more content like blight that takes PoE outside of itself but still keeping us in an ARPG environment.

__________________

@OP I think you need to rate these by more than just currency or the data will be too subjective.

Was going to make a thread like this but still structuring it, If you update your OP to support some other data points i'd like to contribute here instead.

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SilentSymphony wrote:

@OP I think you need to rate these by more than just currency or the data will be too subjective.

Was going to make a thread like this but still structuring it, If you update your OP to support some other data points i'd like to contribute here instead.

Suppose you can feel free to do so :)

The thread is almost a year old, but I found it when looking for info like this, and bumped it, asking if anything has changed and how league mechanics would be ranked or compared now. Then got a message that my post was deleted, but suppose the thread still kept its place.

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Pangaearocks wrote:

"

SilentSymphony wrote:

@OP I think you need to rate these by more than just currency or the data will be too subjective.

Was going to make a thread like this but still structuring it, If you update your OP to support some other data points i'd like to contribute here instead.

Suppose you can feel free to do so :)

The thread is almost a year old, but I found it when looking for info like this, and bumped it, asking if anything has changed and how league mechanics would be ranked or compared now. Then got a message that my post was deleted, but suppose the thread still kept its place.

Seems like an important discussion to have for a few reasons such as classifying the complexity of content and using that to structure feedback on what we need to flesh the game out to be more attractive and also refreshing way.

like Blight was pretty refreshing for me but not everyone, Having a diverse portfolio of content that covers a variety of energy levels and mental bandwith is something i want them to focus on to try and make sure there's content for whatever mood even if that mood is tending a farm for 200 hours lol.

Yeah, sad to say your opinion is largely lacking in experience and is unusable.

Delirium should be S alone by scalability, baseline and support on the atlas. You not being able to do it has nothing to do with it's absurd rewards.

Expedition: A tier
Good planning, fights have a good variety of creatures, endgame areas are “more” without being unmanageable (hi, Blight), plus some bosses. Don’t care about the vendor stuff.

Ritual: C tier
I like the idea and I play it a bit, but I end up skipping it a lot later because the lock-in is often too risky, especially if you don’t get any cover. The flip side of that is that it does at least have that interesting interaction with the environment, as opposed to something like Essence.

Heist: A tier
Long term progression, some planning and choice, great character work, solid rewards, a helper to follow me around in maps even.

Delirium: B tier
Theme works well, bit of campaign integration. Splinters, so I’ve never seen the simulacrum and probably won’t. But it’s a good addition.

Harvest: C tier
Wheee colours. Fun for a while, some monsters pack an absurd punch so I end up skipping it pretty often. Rewards entirely uninteresting to me, I never end up using them. Hunting the last few yellow worms is annoying.

Blight: D tier
I mean I’m glad it exists for people who are into it, but it scales into an absurd clusterfuck very quickly so I usually skip it past white maps.

Betrayal: A tier
Good fights, good character work. Don’t care about maximising rewards so the board is just a quick bit of superficial choice which is fine with me.

Legion: A tier
I love the plink-plink of unlocking crystalline monsters for some reason so I always build the atlas for this. Don’t think I’ve ever seen the domain, don’t care.

Breach: C tier
Used to hate it, but the monster flood feels a bit better these days. Splinter collecting mechanics always end up feeling pointless for me as I never complete them.

Bestiary: A tier
Don’t care about the crafting. A set of rare monsters and a ho ho ho funny guy to shoot things in maps, cool.

Delve: B tier
Good to drop into now and then, and then forget it exists again for a while. Never touch resonators, never see any bosses, still a great extra flavour for the game.

Beyond: C tier
I mean, it’s fine. Nothing particularly interesting. More monsters when you kill monsters; it’s always been fine.

Harbinger: C tier
Weird blue people doing a lot of blue stuff now and then? Okay. The illusion of big currency drops? Okay. The feeling that it was supposed to be the start of a story that never went anywhere? Okay.

Abyss: C tier
I still like the ‘chase the marker’ thing. Nice and simple; optional detour if you want it, no stress of you don’t. Occasionally hits an overly stacked rare with their self-healing but oh well.

Incursion: B tier
A good injection of simple choices. I like the incursions; the temple itself feels too big later so I usually skip over it to get back to incursions. Sucks when I have a slow character who feels useless in them though.

Rogue Exiles: B tier
Bit of variety, glad they exist, not something I’d invest atlas points into.

Strongbox - B tier
Sure, it works.

Metamorph - C tier
B early, F later; too risky. Might be better these days, not sure.

Shaper/Elder/Conqueror maps - not-for-me tier
Bit of a shame I’ll probably never get to play these fights again.

Torment - D tier
Don’t hate it, just don’t ever care about it.

Vaal - D tier
I mean it makes enough sense. Boring though.