Steps to a successful League Start

Talking to some people on discord and the forums, I realized some people I know that play a ton of POE, are still skipping what I consider fundamental steps in currency generation during league.

This is focused around SC trade, and with the goal of having a fun, easy, profitable start to your league.

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1. Select a league starter that:

A) Patch notes indicate will be strong

B) That you either have a build guide for, or understand in-depth.

C) That fits a playstyle you enjoy

2. Push through the campaign.

A) Currency is made in maps. The campaign is a barrier to currency generation.

B) It doesnt have to be sub-4 hours, you dont have to do practice runs, or even do it all in 1 day. But you do need to understand that the market in the first 48 hours of a league is extremely dynamic and that to engage effectively you should be doing map content. (with exceptions, but outside scope of this guide)

3. Atlas progression.

A) You need some, not all, atlas points to start a currency strat

B) Build your first atlas tree for atlas progression. Kirac, map drops.

C) Work atlas progression until 2 voidstones.

4. Investing

A) The market is incredibly dynamic week 1. If you acquire chaos or divines while progressing your atlas, they should be either spent on upgrades or invested.

B) DO NOT hold on to chaos/divines in the early days of a league. Chaos and Divine prices will stabilize fairly quickly and remain roughly the same most of the league, while other currency's and the price of items will inflate dramatically.

D) Investing doesnt have to be complicated or risky, and with faustus is incredibly convenient now.

-Safe Investments: Things that always go up over time such as hinekoras locks, mirror shards, etc.

-Riskier Investments: New crafting currencies that league, meta items (cluster jewel bases, specific uniques)

5. Upgrades

A) If you are using a build guide with progression, follow it.

B) Do not spend time and currency on minor upgrades early on.

C) If you are completing content without dying much, you dont need to upgrade yet. Save for bigger upgrades (see item 4.)

6. Have a plan for early currency

A) Figure this out before league start

B) Swap to it when you have enough atlas points and are able to do it effectively

C) Don't be afraid to buy scarabs. Understand that it's about profit margin vs time. Sure you can rotate strats and try and self sustain, but your time spent to time earned is going to be much worse than just buying some scarabs and executing your plan.

D) Be flexible. If the strat you wanted got highlight yesterday by a streamer and scarabs are 10x today, shift gears. You don't need to sit down and calculate your div/hr and profit margin, but you should have a rough idea of what you are earning per map and if it still makes sense to do the same thing at new scarab prices.

7. Tools.

Love em, hate em, it doesn't matter. POE1 is heavily reliant on 3rd party tools and websites to succeed.

A) Path of Building - This is how many build guides will come, but also how you will check upgrades on your character as you go, after campaign.

B) Awakened POE, or any other price check tool - Invaluable, especially with Async a thing now.

C) Craft of Exile - You can skip crafting if you want, just understand you are paying a premium for others to do it for you. If you want the best gear at the best price, you will learn to craft. If you want to play off meta builds, you should learn to craft.

D) Filterblade - Use a loot filter. Come on.


E) POE Ninja - Used for lots of things, but valuable historic and near-real time price information to use for investing.

F) POE Regex - You dont need this to write a regex, but it makes creating them very user friendly. Use Regex for fast vendor purchases, for crafting, for map rolling, for organizing your stash.