How To Earn Tons Of Divine Orbs By Farming Heist In POE 3.23? - Currency Farming Guide
It’s no secret that the new Heist is a currency printer that is underutilized by most endgame players and streamers. But after the best gem farming and Affliction League mechanic farming out there, it still lingers in the background as a decent and reliable currency farming strategy.
The Profit Per Hour
In about 24 hours of farming with my Caustic Arrow Pathfinder build, I made a profit of about 85 Divine Orbs at a rate of over 3 Divine Orbs per hour. Especially considering that Divine Orb’s ratio is currently at an all-time high.
In this guide, I’ll cover everything you need to know about farming currency in Heist. If you’re new, you’ll learn how to get started and maximize your efficiency with the redesigned nuances of Heist to earn as much currency as possible.
Most of your chest currency comes in the form of stacked decks, catalysts and raw currency drops. And Heist’s rewards are a variety of items that can be sold to earn Divine Orbs.
I will say that unlike the good old days of farming Heist, you shouldn’t expect Divine Orb to drop from most currency chests.
With Regrading Lens removed, Blueprint’s profits are less certain, but running costs are much cheaper.
During your heist, you’ll get tons of stacked decks, Screaming Essence, Catalysts, and base currency items. All from regular level 80+ contracts and Blueprints.
For the sake of this guide, I also ran the full Deception Contracts tab to get more revelations from Gianna.
Each regular Contract costs 2-5 Chaos Orbs. Most traders will ask you if you want to buy in bulk. If they offer it, then I highly recommend you make a deal with them. The premise is that you check their contract for bulk sales.
I also bought a few Blueprints for less than 10 Chaos Orbs each. All Contracts including Blueprints, are level 80 or above. If you still have a lot of reveals, I recommend just buying Rogue’s Marker instead of running a regular contract.
What Has Changed Since POE 3.23?
So what are the changes in POE 3.23? While much of the reward system has changed, what bothers me the most is that previously most gem-based Grand Heists guaranteed each contract to be worth a ton of profit. With Regrading Lens and Alternate Gems gone, it’s now more of a matter of luck.
But on the bright side, these contracts are much cheaper now. So I highly recommend buying them on the deal. Even with all Atlas nodes for Heist, it’s still hard to find Blueprints in Solo Self-Found game. This means you should actually do more Heist and only focus on those high-level contracts that can be revealed with Gianna or Niles.
Another thing I noticed is that even if you pay 10 Chaos Orbs for Blueprint and have 4 revealed wings, you can easily earn more raw currency from the chests and main reward room.
Grand Heist Blueprints no longer have reward categories, but a mix of different reward types. This is currently annoying because we can see sometimes 2 or more rewards for the same item behind glass.
Even though you might find a bunch of Chaos Orbs or Vaal Orbs, you can only get 1 Divine Orb or any higher level rarity base currency item.
The number of drops increases by 10%, and the base currency is converted, making it much easier to get good jewelry. Although these aren’t as impactful as the gear, you equip for Rogue.
Another reason to run the level 83 blueprint is that sometimes you’ll come across rare items that are exclusive to Heist reward room. Some of these basic types are worth far more than a bunch of Chaos Orbs.
I wish the developers kept the reward types unique to their own league mechanics instead of mixing everything in here and there. And Heist is one of the few areas in Path of Exile where you can get almost every item.
How To Get Started?
If you’re new to Path of Exile, or you’re not familiar with Heist, I’m going to explain how simple this really is, and how a few slight changes you make can make a vast difference in better loot.
When you reach the final stage in a POE game, there is no doubt that it will award you a contract. Most players will sell them because they are worth some Chaos Orbs.
However, if you consume a Rogue’s Marker, you can travel to Rogue Harbor. Here you can run these contracts. Each contract requires a specific Rogue skill, such as Deception or Lockpicking. So you can choose a Rogue with this level of skills to sign a contract with you.
In Contracts, you can have your Rogue unlock large chests behind doors and manually open smaller chests scattered around the map. This will raise the alert level when you target items locked at the end of Heist.
As soon as you pick up the locked item, the alert level will reach maximum. Heist will go into lockdown, and you will need to escape immediately. If you die, you lose everything you picked up and have no chance of recovering it.
Rogue skill required to open the contract determines the type of large treasure chest that exists. For example, Brute Force Contract contains weapons, uniques, and fossil chests. Lockpicking Contract contains rings, currency and fragment chests.
Why Deception Contracts Are The Best?
This subtle difference in loot is largely why there are price differences between different contracts. Because some contracts offer better loot than others. This is an important point about contracts and where the real money comes from.
Every time you complete a contract, you’ll receive a revelation from Whakano. If you use Gianna or Niles as a Rogue to execute contracts, you’ll receive additional rewards from them.
You can give Whakano a Blueprint and use reveals and Rogue’s Markers to unlock more bonus rooms from Blueprint. There’s no denying that Blueprint is where the real money is.
Deception is an extremely powerful force for a number of reasons. First, you can use Gianna as a Rogue so you can get her bonus reveals. Also, she gives a large Rogue’s Marker discount when revealing rooms.
Deception has nice locked boxes with Divination card types. These drop a lot of stacked decks, which make up the majority of POE Currency profits.
Best of all, Deception Contract is the fastest to complete so far. When you open a door with Gianna, you just open the big box. Whereas in some other contracts, you need to open the door and wait, then open the box and wait, and that takes a lot of time.
Also, when you grab the locked item at the end of Heist and everything goes into lock, there’s no door blocking your exit. So you can just quickly run to the end and leave. This allows you to get a lot of blueprints reveals in a short amount of time.
Maximizing Profit With Optimized Rogues
Now let’s dive into the nuances of Heist farming and how to maximize your profits.
Perhaps the most important part when it comes to farming currency in Heist is Rogue. Namely, their level and the gear you equip them with.
So before you delve into the farming blueprint, you need to upgrade your Rogue to the highest level. This allows you to farm Heist with higher-level requirements.
Higher-level requirements increase the inherent heist perks each Rogue provides and allow them to get the job done faster. Luckily, with their upgrades, this is really easy to do.
After getting them to max level, you need to equip them with heist gear that contains excellent bonuses. Equipping your rogues is very important, as they can provide valuable rewards, such as the chance to copy the currency contained or a lowered alert level for opening chests.
Optimizing Reveals
Now remember, Blueprint is where the real money is. Because you want to reveal as much as possible. So no matter who you farm with or who you contract with, you want their gear to have a modifier that gives you more Whakano bonuses.
Remember, each Rogue has a reveal cap of 255. My personal approach is to use Gianna and her discount to reveal the large wings, and then to use Whakano to reveal the smaller rooms. I usually reveal all currencies, Divination cards and Harbinger rooms as they provide consistently great returns.
Ideal Way To Assign Rogues
After the room is revealed, you can assign Rogue to each wing on the large table. Each Rogue has its own heist perk, which increases based on the level of its primary job.
When assigning a Rogue, I follow general rules. If every wing is available, I always choose Venderi, as he is the only Rogue that has a chance of copying the contents of the chest, which can lead to a lot of profit.
It added all other Rogues to lower the alert level of chests so you can open more chests. This means you can choose Karst, Nenet or Tullina if you can. All other Rogues are mostly irrelevant.
Assigning the same Rogue twice in the same wing does not stack their benefits and is actually a bad thing.
Also, when you enter blueprint wing, every Rogues present will receive bonuses from their equipment. However, if you select the same member twice, that member will not be duplicated, and you will actually lose the additional heist bonus granted by the third member.
So when assigning rogues, make sure you don’t duplicate them as much as possible, and try some variety when scrolling the blueprint.
I personally don’t worry too much about it, knowing that a large portion of the profit comes from the reward room, and volume does not affect the reward room. Anyway, that’s all I have for today. I hope it’s useful for you!
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In Path of Exile Patch 3.27 Keepers of the Flame update that will arrive on October 31st, the most notable change was undoubtedly the complete rework of Shadow's Assassin Ascendancy.
This update aims to fundamentally reshape Assassin, replacing most of the existing passives with new nodes that offer different or more powerful effects. Even the nodes that are retained have undergone balance adjustments to improve their usability.
Preliminary analysis suggests that these changes are expected to elevate Ascendancy from a niche pick to a top choice, boasting both exceptional DPS and robust survivability. Let's take a look at the changes.
Critical Strike And Poison
Assassin's core role has always revolved around critical hits and poison. This rework strengthens this feature while also making its builds smoother and more powerful.
Critical Strike
The brand-new Assassination Style Notable is the cornerstone of this new power system, providing massive Critical Hit Chance and Damage Bonus bonuses, and allowing players to make meaningful choices between two powerful child nodes:
1. Knife In The Back
This option enhances your initial attack, granting 100% additional Critical Strike Chance against enemies that are not at low health. More importantly, it provides an amazing 100% additional Critical Strike Multiplier against low-health enemies.
This is essentially equivalent to having a built-in finishing move, allowing you to eliminate tough enemies at an astonishing speed, further enhancing efficiency.
2. For The Jugular
This option reverses the logic above, providing 100% extra Critical Strike Chance against low-health enemies, ensuring you can land consistent critical hits on dangerous, dying enemies.
Meanwhile, the 100% bonus Critical Strike Multiplier applies to enemies that are not low on health, allowing you to unleash devastating opening attacks and quickly reduce enemies to low health.
This flexibility allows players to make relative adjustments according to their needs – whether it's quickly cultivating the map or focusing on boss battles.
Poison
The poison build has also received a revolutionary update. Although Toxic Delivery node's poison damage from critical hits has been reduced from 25% to 20%, it has gained extremely valuable utility.
The previous conditional critical strike chance bonus has been replaced by a new mechanic: each 4-second poison effect you apply will grant you an extension of the poison duration, up to a maximum of 100%. This significantly increases damage uptime, especially against bosses with long phases.
In addition, the new effect of restoring 0.5% health for each poisoned enemy killed provides players with a stable and considerable health recovery in dense groups of monsters.
Crucially, the new node Infused Toxins, located after Toxic Delivery, now allows all attack damage to inflict poison. This design makes poison builds smoother than ever before.
Survival And Functionality Enhancements
The main weakness of Assassins lies in their relatively weak defenses compared to other Ascendancy instances. Path of Exile Patch 3.27 updates directly addresses this issue by adding several powerful survival-oriented nodes.
Shadowed Blood
This is a landmark defensive node that converts 40% of Physical Damage into Recouped as Life, a capability that fundamentally changes Assassin's resilience against physical damage.
Unaffected by Damaging Ailments is also a great advantage. For example, it grants immunity to Bleeding, Poison, and Ignite effects. This single point provides significant recovery and damage reduction, allowing Assassins to confront enemies who unleash these effects head-on.
Opportunistic
This node has been significantly enhanced and now provides 35% damage reduction when there are at least two Rare or Unique Enemies nearby. This is an extremely powerful defensive bonus, making Assassins surprisingly resilient in the most dangerous situations.
Deathmarked
This new node is a top-tier, practical damage-boosting tool that automatically triggers a level 30 Assassin's Mark when dealing critical hits to Rare or Unique Enemies, a huge improvement to the experience.
It eliminates the need for manual mark application, simplifying the process and ensuring key bosses are always marked. Its additional benefit - making your mark ability mana-free and preventing marked enemies from dodging attacks - further enhances accuracy against highly evasive opponents.
Other Mechanics
This rework also introduced some mechanisms, opening up entirely new build possibilities:
Unstable Infusion
Its chance of gaining energy charges on non-critical hits is increased to 30%, and the chance of gaining energy charges on critical hits is increased to 15%, making it more stable to maintain critical hit charges. This, in turn, leads to more stable Critical Hit Chance and Damage Bonus.
Mystical Infusion
This node is revolutionary for hybrid playstyles. It makes Base Spell Critical Strike Chance of spells equivalent to the critical strike chance of Main Hand Weapon, which means that some critical strike-dependent playstyles are no longer entirely reliant on specific high-critical-strike spells or daggers.
This allows players to creatively use high critical strike rate weapons to drive spell critical strike effects.
In conclusion, Assassin rework in Path of Exile Patch 3.27 is not a simple numerical adjustment, but a complete overhaul of the concept. It retains the core characteristics of the class while solving its previous weaknesses.
The updates clearly show that Assassin is no longer a single-function class, but a versatile, powerful, and robust top-tier option. Get ready to shine in Keepers of the Flame release!
Since its stable release, nearly every league in Path of Exile 1 has had a unique theme and core league mechanics that complement it. Combined with old changes, all new leagues offer an upgraded gameplay experience based on the existing PoE experience.
After the livestream, the core gameplay of 3.27 Keepers of the Flame league, which launches on October 31, 2025, was finally revealed, along with all the new changes and content.
Interestingly, 3.27 Keepers challenge leagues not only introduce a new story but are also essentially an extension of the established Breach mechanic. Below, we'll provide a detailed introduction to the core mechanics and other key changes to 3.27 league.
What Is Breach?
To fully experience Keepers challenge leagues, you first need to have a detailed understanding of Breach mechanic itself, not just how to earn rewards from it.
Breach was introduced as early as 2016 with the eponymous PoE 1 league and has since been retained in the base game. After years of refinement and adjustments, it has now become a mature endgame feature.
Regular Breaches spawn randomly on the game map and can be identified by a hand icon within a purple circle. Approaching them triggers a Breach and begins clearing the monsters spawned within. Each Breach lasts for at least 30 seconds, extending up to 60 seconds.
Note that to claim PoE currency dropped, you must kill breach monsters. Furthermore, enemies spawned by Vaal Breach do not drop XP or other items.
Breach In Keepers Of The Flame Challenge League
In fact, not only are the mechanics closely related, but 3.27 league itself can be considered a sequel to 2.5.0 Breach League.
In this new league, the evil Breachlords plan to expand their influence in Wraeclast. To combat them, Ailith has created Order of Keepers of the Flame. Your goal is to join Ailith in destroying all Breach monsters.
Upon entering Mud Flats area, you'll find it overrun by Breach monsters attempting to establish their lair. Ailith's fire powers are effective against them, provided you can help her fend off their attacks.
If you encounter an Unstable Breach caused by the massive Breach Hand, more monsters will emerge, requiring you to quickly defeat them to ensure Ailith can safely clear them with her fire.
After Breach stabilizes, Vruun, Marshal of Xesht, will appear as a boss. You must defeat him to permanently seal Breach and claim your rewards.
What Is Genesis Tree?
As your collaboration with Ailith deepens, she will eventually lead you to Monastery of Keepers, where you can unlock Genesis Tree. Think of it as a specialized Mastery Tree, where you invest points to earn rewards and special Grafts.
Grafts are a new way of granting buffs. By fusing breach hands with your character, you gain access to a variety of new active and passive skills, with up to 16 Grafts to choose from.
Once these Breach hands are implanted, you can collect Graftblood from defeating Breach monsters in battle. This Graftblood can then be invested in Genesis Tree to accelerate its growth, unlocking more rewards.
Grafts not only grant additional skills, but also modify your gear. However, grafted gear cannot be modified or reset with standard currency. Fortunately, Genesis Tree itself offers a very good node investment.
How To Complete Keepers Challenge League?
Based on the core mechanics described above, you can choose to complete 3.27 league in standard, hardcore, or solo self-found modes, depending on your ability.
These three modes share the same core mechanics, but you can create private leagues and add mods to enrich the gameplay, customizing your own Keepers challenge league.
Keepers Challenge League includes 40 new challenges and 8 Ruthless Keepers Challenges. Completing a certain number of challenges in both challenge modes gives you a chance to receive pieces of Keeper of the Flame Armor Set, a 3.27 league-exclusive reward.
In addition, starting with Challenge 19, every three challenges you complete will earn you pieces of Keeper Totem Pole decoration.
The completed totem pole will then remain permanently in your hideout, representing the number of challenges you've completed during 3.27 league.
New Bloodlines System
In addition to utilizing Genesis Tree, Keepers of the Flame League introduces another new mechanic: Bloodlines. Think of them as secondary Ascendancy classes that can be enhanced by allocating Ascendancy passive skill points.
Reliably, there are no restrictions on the use of Bloodlines; as long as you earn a Bloodline by killing an endgame boss, you can pair it with any Ascendancy class you already own. A total of 10 Bloodlines are available.
It's important to note that Bloodlines and Ascendancy classes share the same passive skill points, so it's crucial to carefully consider your needs when allocating them to ensure each skill point is maximized.
Asynchronous Trade Finally Launches
Ever since the initial leaks of 3.27 league, many players have been eager for Path of Exile to implement asynchronous trade or other similar mechanisms in this league, aligning it with PoE 2 and making the game's trading system more convenient.
So, once 3.27 league launches, as long as you've unlocked Act 6, you can visit Faustus in Lioneye's Watch and have him manage your Merchant's Tabs. This way, other players can automatically trade with you even when you're offline.
If you acquired Premium Stash Tabs before 3.26 league launched, you can unlock asynchronous trade using Mercant's Tab Upgrade tool on the game's official website. If you already have Merchant's Tabs unlocked in PoE 2, you can use them directly in 3.27 league.
The new content we've introduced here focuses primarily on mechanics and gameplay, but Keepers of the Flame will also bring many more subtle changes, such as new gems. Once the league launches, you can explore it in depth!
As development on the second game stabilizes, Path of Exile 1 league updates have returned to their normal frequency. Previously announced to begin on October 31st, 3.27 league recently released a trailer and detailed a range of new features.
Named Keepers of the Flame, this league will feature both gameplay changes and new content, focusing on gameplay and other details that impact your gaming experience. We'll explain these changes below.
What Changes Will The Heist Mechanic Undergo?
As you know, Path of Exile 1 will continue to improve and enhance the well-received mechanics and gameplay of the previous leagues as it updates, ensuring they continue to serve you well. This is one of the main reasons the game's scale continues to grow.
The heist mechanic, introduced in 3.12 league, has undoubtedly become a core component of the game, featuring complex entry and completion mechanisms, and, of course, rich rewards.
Unfortunately, with the introduction of new mechanics, more and more players believe that the rewards are far less valuable than the effort required to complete the early Heist missions, ultimately leading to a decline in both participation and appreciation for the mechanic.
To address this, starting with 3.27 league, rogues available in heist missions will automatically start at the highest level, allowing you to farm loot directly in heist locations, eliminating the need to slowly level up rogues by completing contracts from scratch.
Of course, streamlining the system will lower the barrier to entry and difficulty of obtaining rare heist rewards. This may result in a reduction in the amount of PoE currency dropped and a lower drop rate for rare gear or gems to achieve balance.
But honestly, the impact of this balancing act is negligible compared to the redundant upfront work, as you can simply complete Heist missions more frequently to earn loot when you have the time.
At the same time, the improved efficiency of the heist system will also increase the circulation of currency in the game's trading market, making some rare items more accessible and making the trading system more meaningful.
It's worth noting that while the mercenary mechanic from 3.26 leaguewas very popular, it will not be carried over to the base game for now due to a slight imbalance in power and potential incompatibility with Path of Exile after the launch of 3.27 league.
However, the developers have stated that they are generally satisfied with the design of the mercenary mechanic in 3.26 league, so do not rule out the possibility of its return in a future League after a redesign.
Atlas Passive Tree Optimizations
As the primary way to enhance your character and builds in the game, Atlas Passive Tree has been undergoing continuous updates and adjustments.
You can earn a total of 132 passive points to invest in your Atlas Passive Tree, but it's inevitable that you'll need to reset part of your Atlas tree layout.
In League 3.26, which has yet to conclude, resetting your Atlas tree is only possible by consuming Orbs of Unmaking. While earning this currency isn't difficult, the flexibility you have in resetting it is very limited.
Keepers of the Flame League will implement changes to address this issue. In 3.27, you'll be able to directly refund all passive points you've invested using gold, and this mechanic will be applied to the rest of Path of Exile's regular passive tree.
This change will give you more choice and freedom when customizing your character's passive skill clusters, eliminating the need to worry about cumbersome resets that distract from building your passive skill system.
A More Balanced Class And Combat Experience
Maintaining a balanced experience across classes is a constant challenge in any ARPG with multiple classes. It's inherently impossible to make all classes play and power levels identical, requiring constant adjustments based on league content.
Thankfully, unlike PoE 2, PoE 1's class system has stabilized, making adjustments relatively easy and drastic. However, the likelihood of new classes being added is practically zero - at least not in 3.27 league.
On the other hand, combat experience is closely tied to systems like skill gems and support gems, and PoE frequently adds and updates these to fine-tune the overall combat experience.
We expect to reveal more about this update after 3.27 league livestream on October 23rd, as it will likely be related to the new gameplay features of the new league.
Will The Main Story Be Updated?
While storytelling isn't a hallmark of Path of Exile series, the game did generate significant buzz within the community around the release of 3.26 league, building on Secrets of the Atlas plot.
Based on the content released so far, Keepers of the Flame League doesn't appear to be planning to replicate this approach, but the possibility of updating the main story in a new expansion cannot be ruled out.
However, even if 3.27 releases a new story chapter, its primary purpose will likely be to set the stage for more significant plot twists later on, rather than bringing any major news, otherwise the development team would have already revealed it.
Changes To The Trading System
As one of the ways you acquire items and gear in PoE, the usability of the trading system significantly impacts the gameplay experience. A high-quality marketplace allows players to efficiently circulate currency and unused items, driving game development.
To this end, 3.27 league will feature adjustments to the trading system, including changes to the tabs and the loot drop rate adjustments we mentioned when introducing the heist mechanic.
The above is our overall prediction based on 3.27 league trailer and other information revealed by the development team. We expect a full reveal of the league's content after the livestream. So be sure to tune in! You'll have a chance to win Twitch Drops!
Patch 0.3.1 has been live for a few weeks now. As a beta update for patch 0.4.0, the main selling point of 0.3.1 was to test potential game changes before the next major update and, based on player feedback, to try to fix some bugs before the start of the new league.
Honestly, I think patch 0.3.1 was quite successful, but there are still many areas in the endgame that need to be fixed before the release of 0.4.0, which is what we will discuss here.
Patch 0.4.0 Release Date Speculation
The release date for Path of Exile 2 patch 0.4.0 has not yet been officially announced, but based on the developers' previously stated four-month league cycle, we can expect it to be released in late December 2025, with the possibility of it being pushed back to January 2026.
Since Patch 0.3.0, The Third Edict, was released on August 29, 2025, and given the developers' usual Friday release schedule, 0.4.0 will probably go live on January 2, 2026.
In any case, based on the updates in Patch 0.3.1 and player feedback, we'll discuss the much-needed changes to the endgame in the next League.
Delirium Mechanics
For this first section, we'll of course be discussing the changes to the endgame mechanics, especially the current Delirium, which absolutely destroys your FPS and turns the game into a complete mess.
For us, at least, the biggest positive change in Patch 0.3.1 was the removal of Delirium's incessant humming music. Honestly, I wish it had carried over to PoE 3.27.
Unfortunately, the visuals in Path of Exile 2's Delirium are just as terrible. The constant fog caused by Delirium Mirror turns the world into a gray haze and cuts our FPS in half or a third. However, the goal is to kill enemies in the fog, and there's a reward counter that determines the number of Distilled Emotions you'll receive after the fog clears.
These Emotions are currency for character enhancement and can also be used for crafting and upgrades. By killing monsters, especially those unique to Delirium encounters, you can increase the amount of Distilled Emotions dropped at the end of the encounter, and potentially even higher-level Simulacrum Splinters.
What's more, in PoE 2, Distilled Emotions, in addition to providing Delirium, also provide a significant bonus to the spawn rate of rare monsters in the map. This is effectively double dipping, meaning that if you don't use Distilled Emotions on every map, you're missing out on a very powerful loot multiplier. So, there's almost no reason not to use Emotions.
The problem is Delirium Mirror has always been criticized for its high difficulty, as it makes monsters more powerful while adding new, powerful monsters, and the challenge increases the further away from Mirror you are. Because of the extremely high difficulty and the fog's tendency to cause enemies to deal more damage and take less, players find these encounters frustrating and overly painful.
This would all be fine if Delirium Mirror itself provided some valuable PoE 2 currency, but since it only provides Distilled Emotions, why not just farm Simulacrum instead? It's not only easier to obtain, but also more cost-effective.
Simply put, in PoE 2, Delirium Mirror only provides Emotions and Simulacrum Splinters, but there have always been better ways to obtain both, making Delirium Mirror's existence essentially pointless.
Delirium Mirror is the only mechanic still wearing these special handcuffs. So, in Patch 0.4.0, either the Delirium Mirror reward needs to be buffed, or Emotions reward needs to be nerfed, or both.
Map Rolling Mechanics
On the other hand, Path of Exile 2's map rolling mechanics can be quite frustrating. The high-risk modifiers, the wide variance in map outcomes, and the poor layout of many maps make play throughs too long or too difficult, making them unpleasant.
Currently, map rolls in the game are polarized. Some map rolls with high-risk modifiers, such as a large number of monsters dealing increased damage, shock effects on hit, or a very high freeze chance, can make a map impossible to play, depending on the player's build.
Some map rolls may contain beneficial modifiers that are friendly to new players, but these offer little to no tangible benefit. Some of these junk items and minimal currency drops make the risk and effort seem meaningless.
Because of the wide variation in modifiers and the varying number of beneficial and harmful modifier effects, the differences between maps can be significant, often leading players to waste significant amounts of money and time trying to find a manageable map.
Furthermore, poor map layouts are a significant contributing factor to players' perceived endgame experience being so poor. Many maps not only feature narrow, winding paths and numerous obstacles, making navigation cumbersome but also increasing the chances of being cornered by monsters.
The combination of larger maps and slower movement speed modifiers means that even completing a single map can take a long time, which many players find tedious and uninspiring.
More importantly, the high-risk, low-reward nature of many maps, coupled with harsh death penalties, makes the game feel punishing rather than rewarding success. Some players feel that the current endgame map system is less rewarding and engaging than Path of Exile 1.
Atlas Passive Skill Tree
The next issue is the skill tree, which is currently quite confusing. This is because the new map system in patch 0.3.0 adds one to three additional items to each map. Unfortunately, these additional items can be anything: Essence, Breach, or other strongboxes.
This new randomized item system overrides the effects of many passive nodes, which in turn increases the chances of spawning the same item type. Furthermore, because of exploits and overwrite mechanics, numerous Atlas passive nodes, such as Essence, Strongboxes, and Rogue Exiles, appear to be bugged and not functioning as intended, rendering many nodes useless.
Furthermore, the cost of certain bosses required for Atlas progression and the single-portal nature of Atlas progression make Atlas Points prohibitively expensive for average players, leading to frustration.
To unlock new Atlas Points, players must defeat bosses like King in the Mists, which costs approximately six PoE 2 Divine Orbs per attempt.
Since these bosses only have a single portal, if the player dies, they lose the portal fee, Atlas progression, and the opportunity to unlock that specific point. This makes the process particularly challenging for average players who may not have the gear or skills to guarantee victory on their first try.
Thus, the 0.4.0 patch's changes to the passive tree are urgently needed. These are fundamental changes that will directly impact players' ability to earn loot, currency, and waystones, making the endgame more interesting and meaningful.
Regardless, as of update 0.3.1, Path of Exile 2's endgame setup in patch 0.4.0 still needs a major overhaul, but this also proves we're getting closer to the full game's release.
If you want to gain an advantage in patch 0.4.0, you need to prepare now. Not only will you need to learn new build strategies and explore Atlas settings, but having enough currency is essential for everything. However, there's a shortcut: you can buy cheap PoE 2 Currency on POECurrency.com platform for a better gaming experience! Good luck!
