Farming the PoE Endgame
The PoE Endgame is one of the main reasons that many players stick around as long as they do. Sure, there’s an expansive story and quite a lot to do and learn before you get to the endgame, but Path of Exile is one of those games where you spend a vast majority of your time farming the endgame for currency. The company isn’t called Grinding Gear Games for nothing!
Table of Contents
What is the PoE Endgame?
The PoE Endgame has changed a lot over the years. Originally it was just farming the story. Then, maps came around, and it was farming those. Then maps got pushed further and further, and some endgame bosses were added. Then more endgame bosses were added. Then they added Delve, and some other league mechanics that changed the endgame significantly, for some players. Nowadays you have a veritable feast to choose from when it comes to the endgame. We’re going to go over some of the most common ways that people spend their time in PoE at this stage.
Path of Exile Mapping
After all these years, mapping is still the most common way players spend their time in the PoE Endgame. For those completely unaware of PoE, maps are actual items in the game. They are consumed when you open them, and you are given portals to traverse through that map – and hopefully find more maps. There are 16 tiers of maps, each harder than the next. Nowadays players fly through maps fairly quickly, and many hardcore players have made it to tier 16 maps within a few days of a new league. The question very quickly becomes: what’s the best way to farm maps, when you have all of them available to you? There are several different approaches.
Mapping Methods
First, simply farming the highest maps available. Farming tier 16 maps with enough investment to sustain them (chisels, alchemy orbs, vaal orbs, and sextants) is a very common and very profitable approach to mapping. It’s easy and doesn’t take a ton of thought, particularly if you find a way to run the same map over and over again. Personally I’ve ran around 1000 tier 16 Promenades in the last two leagues. Is it the best or easiest way to make money? No, but it’s a nice middle ground where it’s not too complicated, makes decent money, and gives you good exp to boot.
The second method is farming low tier maps, typically Burial Chambers. If you farm low tier maps they are incredibly easy to sustain, so you really only have to ‘alc and go’, meaning use an Orb of Alchemy and throw the map in the map device, nothing else needed. Because of the low investment into these maps, everything you get back is pure profit. You won’t get as much good loot as tier 16s, but your investment is so low that your profit margin ends up being very high. This is especially true if you farm maps like Burial Chambers that have good divination cards that can drop and give you large windfalls.
The third method is to run good layout tier 14s as fast as possible and farm the Conquerors and Sirus. These bosses drop loot that is very expensive, and they can be spawned by running an average of 40-50 red maps. As long as you are getting average drops from the bosses, you’ll make a ton of money doing this.
These are the main methods that people farm the endgame through mapping. This is a small step above simply putting any map you find into the map device and hoping for the best, which is itself not the worst for progressing. But these methods are the ones that will return the most money through typical maps.
PoE Endgame – What About Delve?
Delving is its own beast entirely. In order to Delve you must use Sulphite, which can be found in maps through the master Niko. You can force him to spawn by using a master mission, or a Sulphite Scarab. Once you’ve collected this Sulphite, you take it to the mine and use it to power the Mine Cart, taking you deeper and deeper into an infinite dungeon. Within Delve there are two ways that dedicated Delvers farm, in the current meta.
Delving Methods
First, target the zones that have good fossils dropping. Check the prices of all fossils, figure out where the profitable ones drop, and farm that location. Figure out how to maximize how many walls you can break for your Sulphite cost, and rake in the money. This league, Corroded Fossils and Perfect Fossils have both been selling well, so I targeted Fungal Caverns in my Delving. I made over ten Exalts in the first week just selling the fossils I farmed from these zones. Easy, although it takes some research to understand all the mechanics properly.
The second method is very niche, and only a handful of players do it. This method involves Delving to the lowest depths you can possibly Delve, and farming the expensive fossils that spawn down there. The rare fossils begin to spawn incredibly frequently after 1000-1500 depth, to the point where at 3000+ every other node is a rare fossil. In some leagues this meant that every other node would grant multiple exalts to the players who managed to get down there. But getting that deep required a ton of effort and specific builds. This is the most complicated method here. If you choose to go this route I advise quite a bit of research ahead of time. Check out CrouchingTuna on twitch if you really want to go this route, he deep Delves most leagues.
Conclusion
Most other methods involve target farming something that makes a lot of money, or interacting with the new league mechanic. For example, writing this in Delirium League, farming the Simulacrums introduced this league can be very profitable. Also, buying Shaper Guardian Maps and farming Shaper is a ton of profit if you don’t mind the trading. There are many ways to farm, if you just look for them.
But why bother? Well, Path of Exile is a game about customization, building the best character and trying out new things. But in order to do that, you need money. All of the methods to farm the PoE Endgame come down to one thing: making money. Play the game, make money, make a new character, and play the game better. It’s an endless cycle that brings many players a ton of enjoyment!
