PoE Leveling Guide to Speed Through

By Stephen Draper | January 24th, 2019 | Categories: Path of Exile

Path of Exile is a fairly complex game, but once you master the ins and outs it is one of the most enjoyable and long-lasting games out there. However, there’s one aspect that never becomes exciting: leveling. Leveling up characters is almost always a chore, and many people want to just rush through it as fast as possible. This is especially true considering you often have to level with a different skill than the one you plan to use on that character. In order to speed through the leveling process, we present to you our PoE Leveling Guide!

Table of Contents

How should I improve Leveling in general?

First off, there are a few ways to improve your general leveling process. The biggest improvement you can possibly make is to learn the many layouts that you’ll encounter. Each zone has multiple layouts so this can take a long time, but learning the general layouts will help. I personally challenged myself to speed up my leveling, and I did four characters to 70 back to back. My time from the first to the last character dropped from 5 hours to 3 hours 30 minutes. Now, I’m sure there were some other factors, but there was a clear progression between the four, and my understanding of the layouts was the biggest difference.

Apart from layouts the biggest thing you can do to speed up your leveling is having the right items. Leveling up your first character of the league will always take significantly longer than your second, simply due to the items you find during your first run.

Leveling Optimization

There are some items that are ‘optimal’ for leveling:

Body: Tabula Rasa. This is well known as the best leveling item in the game. A free six link at level one, with no coloring issues? Yes, please.
Helm: The second-best item, this will take you to maps with the massive amount of resistances it offers.
Boots: There are two options for boots. Seven-League Step is the best possible boots you can get, with a free 50% movement speed bonus. However, they are also very expensive in most leagues. Because of this, most players use Wanderlust, which only gives 20% but has the added bonus of Cannot be Frozen, which helps a lot in certain zones.
Gloves: There are a few gloves that can be good at different levels, but Lochtonial Caress are generically great for every build.
Rings: A pair of crafted rings with minus flat mana cost for skills can carry six links beautifully for early levels. However, once you hit level 32 there’s not much that will beat a Thief’s Torment for any on-hit build. It provides resists and a massive amount of life on hit, making you near invulnerable.
Amulet: This one is highly contested, but I personally believe the best amulet for most builds is an Atziri’s Foible. If you’re using leveling items then you probably don’t need damage, and Atziri’s Foible makes it so that you don’t need mana or stat requirements either! The big contenders here are Karui Ward and Sacrificial Heart.
Belt: This one could be tough to find in any particular league, but the best belt you can wear is a String of Servitude with 48% to all resistances. Unless, of course, you don’t need resists, in which case use whatever!

Your weapons will obviously vary based on the build, but Lifesprigs and Redbeaks are great starting items.

For more Path of Exile, check this out: PoE Maps Guide to Prevent Getting Stuck in a Rut

Is there a way to Cheese Leveling?

There is a way that you can basically ignore leveling and breeze through it fast. My personal record is just under 3 hours 30 minutes to level 70 with this strategy. Rather than using weapons and a skill that is suited to your eventual build, use Poet’s Pens.

Poet’s Pens are items that allow you to use a skill that is socketed in them every time you attack. They also provide levels to the gems, so it doesn’t matter that you’re on a 3-link. You use Frenzy to attack, since it gives frenzy charges, allowing you to attack faster. Socket Volatile Dead, Concentrated Effect, and Elemental Focus into one of the pens. Socket Unearth, Greater Multiple Projectiles (Lesser until 38), and Bodyswap into the other. One of your pens will be alternating between Unearth and Bodyswap, throwing you forward. The other will be turning the other corpses into heat-seeking bombs.

This method is so effective to level because you can fly through the levels spamming your skills. You are continuously moving and never have to stop to kill enemies. This is only compounded by the fact that Volatile Dead and Poet’s Pens are extremely high damage. I’ve done this build on a character that built zero bonus damage for spells and it was still very effective. Obviously, you’ll want to grab a few damage nodes if you’re close to them and respect later.

Is there a benefit to Fast Leveling?

There is absolutely no benefit to leveling fast. These methods are aimed at people who are tired of the leveling process and want to get through it quickly. If you enjoy leveling, or want to experience everything organically, ignore these tips and take everything at your own pace. In fact, I would highly recommend that for your first few characters. You’ll have plenty of time to breeze through leveling in the future, for now just enjoy Path of Exile for what it is: an incredible game.

Conclusion

Leveling is something that many players don’t enjoy. If you do, or if you’re new, by all means, take your time and experience everything. But if you’re a veteran, or trying to speed up something you find tedious, the tips in our PoE Leveling Guide should help you level faster than ever. If you’re really interested, there are a variety of community hosted and official races that go on, check out some of them, or the replays, to see how the fastest players in the world progress. Who knows, maybe they will inspire you to be the next competitor!

For more Path of Exile, check this out: Top PoE Builds for Patch 3.5 the Betrayal League