Proper looting practices for mapping? Is grabbing all the rares a bad strategy?

I like to grab every rare item that drops and I've been told recently that it's a waste of time. I've never looked more into how to map and loot at the same time, so I could use some guidance as to proper looting practices.

What I do so far includes:

1. Grabbing every rare that drops.
I do this because it's the most straightforward thing to do. I know I can vendor low quality IDed rares for alt orbs or store rares for the chaos orb recipe. Between having someone tell me grabbing ALL rare drops isn't time effective and one of my guild members saying he grabs a fourth of what his item filter shows, I've found that this is probably one of my worst looting habits.

2. Using Neversink's loot filter.
Once I started using loot filters, I realized how essential they are. I haven't gotten familiar with the various "modes" of Neversink's filter (semi-strict, strict, etc.), but I know you shouldn't play PoE without a loot filter.

3. Other things I grab:
-Shiny things that show up on the loot filter like exalted orbs
-Transmute orbs to sell for wisdom scrolls
-Occasional portal scroll so I don't run out when I don't have a portal gem
-Hammers to turn into chisels
-Blacksmith whetstones to use on hammers
-Armorer's scraps to trade for whetstones
-Flasks with quality for the glassblower bauble recipe
-Drops that can be sold for a chromatic orb

So what I'm wondering is, what's the best way to runs maps in terms of what loot you grab? Are there any good guides out there?

Also, how do I tell if an item is worth trading rather than vendoring (certain amount of ES on an armor, lots of crit on a weapon, etc.)?

IT isn't considered efficient by current looting and mapping standards. Most people, especially high paced streamers you can see will forgo any looting of anything that isn't efficient translating to pretty much jewellery and currency outside of "abnormal drops" and decent uniques or meta items which until 3.0 are es based gear for high es roll potential.

You can certainly pick up what you want, I like to make sure I have a full inventory before I leave a map and potentially make two trips per map. Most would just suggest you make your vendor trips time efficient, master next to your map device, close to stash, knowing good rolls at a quick glance so you aren't iding your inventory then sitting there for 10 minutes debating if they are worth more than their vendor/worth selling at all.

As well, many would recommend that you can pick up what you want currency wise, but many will flat out ignore any lower end currency (anything that say Neversink's filter would not highlight tan bordered, yellow or higher) unless it is on your way to physically advancing through the map. That transmute 10 steps behind you? Is it really worth backtracking? Up to you. Worth sitting for 30 seconds after a breath collecting every scroll, transmute and such? Up to you. Many will say that you could easily make up that currency pile with faster kills with faster higher currency drops.

Collect all is not bad ,just not efficient. sure you can gather alts and augs faster, but the time used on collecting, iding, vendoring might as well do more farming, the dropped currency alone might make up that apartment. However this is totally your call, efficient or not, it's a game you play it for fun, do what you feel happy about, I don't see a reason why not, this is sort of min/maxing in tactics. If you want efficiency then, use a better more detailed filter, it takes a while to adapt but well worth doing so, best to build your own. Even with filters, most people will still ignore most rare drops except for those good base ones, or only pick rares up when they do chaos recipe.

I think a lot (most) longer term PoE players evolve their looting over time. Allow me, at the very least, to illustrate my own experience:

(1) Early-Life: Loot every single rare - Then as you penetrate deeper into the Atlas and have more success (and run higher quality/qualtity maps) you start to wonder how you will ever have enough portals to go back to the vendor to sell everything.

(2) Mid-Life: Loot every filter highlighted rare, as well as type specific armor/weapons (eg all ES armor, all daggers). Also, fill 4 tabs full of yellow items for Chaos/Regal recipes.

(3) Late-life: Loot only very specific items (highest roll potential bases like Vaal Regalia), most of the time not filling inventory before boss.

I also have some more specific strategies now, depending on the situation. If I am running a map I know I will die on at least once (I tend toward being a scrub, although I know my limits) I will pick up every rare that drops until my inventory is full and then continue to clear, just so I have something to sell once my death returns me to my hideout!!!

I don't consider myself a min-maxer, so I personally will probably never hit stage 3: Late-life :P

I have made it to stage 2: Mid-life, though. Picking up every rare takes a lot of time and the rewards are fairly minimal.

Grabbing all the rares is a bad strategy. However.

The player economy is driven by picking things up off the ground. It's actually quite good to bring back an inventory full of items each time you would have already been in town, and hock them for a few alters.

So, people who skip ALL the rares except ONLY the bases they personally find interesting are making another kind of error.

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So what I'm wondering is, what's the best way to runs maps in terms of what loot you grab? Are there any good guides out there?

This is a really complicated question. You can follow any kind of guide to the T, but the instant the rules of the game change your chosen strategy will be suboptimal again. You have to understand why.

In the current meta and economy (using HC legacy as an example), where you can get 10 alchemy orbs for 1 chaos and moderately decent rare items go for a few exalts, I always recommend religiously using the 2-chaos recipe. That is, vendoring unidentified items for chaos orbs. Even if you have to turn in 2 or 3 so-called "good bases" unidentified to do it, it's a long-run gain. The player economy overvalues chaos orbs and undervalues good rare items from an economist's perspective - but, for good reasons.

Now, go to standard, where you can only get about 2alc for 1c, and this is suddenly not as good an idea. Maybe it's worth it, maybe not. Except that "good items" are worth up to a mirror and moderately ok items are worth almost nothing. Those two facts play into it as well.

What it comes down to is that picking up low-value items forms the foundation of the player economy. Picking up portal scrolls might not be the most absolutely efficient thing to do, but your rate of income will certainly be dependable. Same with picking up rare items/RGB items/6s items to vendor them. Same with picking up rare items items to complete chaos recipes. What matters the most is not which strategy you choose but how quickly you can execute that strategy. Train yourself to go faster and keep trying new things.

So, the advise I'm getting so far includes:

1. Spend as little time as possible not mapping (ex. at town/vendors) so you can spend more time leveling and looking for more/better loot.

2. Making 2 trips carrying good/great loot (jewelry for chaos recipe or better) and leveling more quickly from faster mapping speed can pay off more than making 4+ trips carrying only decent loot (for alt orbs).

3. The best rares to grab are of bases with some of the best stats, especially ES gear like Vaal Regalia (or whatever's meta and highly valued). Grabbing rares for the Chaos/Regal recipe is also good.

4. Always go back to town with a full inventory.

5. Pick a looting strategy that you can do well and work on mastering it.

6. Have fun while doing all of the above and and whatnot. You play PoE to have fun, right? ;)

I think I can use this to be a better mapper.

Questions though:

1. Does it matter much if I get regals instead of chaos, or can regals be traded 1:1 for chaos orbs most of the time? Or does that not matter?

2. I've known that buying jeweler's (socket) orbs from Elreon and buying fusing orbs from Vorici is a good idea, but does running low on alts to buy jeweler's orbs mean I should grab random rares more often? Just curious atm.

3. What are some good ways to stay up to date with the current meta so I know what items with high demand can be sold for a lot on poe.trade?

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Setho996 написал:

1. Does it matter much if I get regals instead of chaos, or can regals be traded 1:1 for chaos orbs most of the time? Or does that not matter?

It's situational at best. Early in any league regals are better because lots of people will be trying to craft their ideal jewels. And jewels are probably the most efficient use for regals (alt/regal crafting path) even if it's hard to know how efficient it is compared to chaos spam.

If you're trying to progress in setting up your atlas, regals can be useful for rolling easy mods on a few corrupted maps you want to complete the bonus objective for, but you're a little under-geared for.

Early in leagues, regals will be worth more. Later on in most leagues alt/regal loses a whole lot of steam and regals usually wind up priced less than chaos, something on the order of 5r:4c. Basically you'll want to force chaos orbs instead of regals unless you have personal reasons for wanting regals. (Which you could just buy from someone for a net gain instead)

All you have to do to force chaos orbs from the recipe is get a system going. Your bottleneck will be unid rare amulets if you ride out rng for a while. So all you need to do is every once in a while run 1 or 2 mesas and stash every ilvl 74- chest piece that drops. Then go back to farming red maps.

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Setho996 написал:

3. What are some good ways to stay up to date with the current meta so I know what items with high demand can be sold for a lot on poe.trade?

Watch videos from the most popular streamers. You don't have to follow their builds or strategies, just be aware that most people do. You can take advantage even if you don't want to play the way they are.


edit: one point of clarity. Early in leagues you'll want to be crafting jewelry because anything even partially decent is worth quite a lot. Most people will see vendoring rare jewelry unidentified as totally counter to that goal, until you start thinking about how much white jewelry you are probably leaving on the ground and how many alchs you can buy for your chaos orbs.

So there are situations where the 2c recipe is a loss. Again you have to understand why you're doing any particular thing.

It depends on how you want to play and what you are trying to accomplish. If your goal is to run maps and level up as fast as possible, that's been answered.

For myself, I don't want an endless grind running map after map as fast as I can. I seriously hate doing that. It's one of the reasons I don't party. Why is everyone is such a hurry? If they have that much energy, they shouldn't be playing games, they should be outside doing something physical to burn that excess hyper energy.

I'd be perfectly fine playing this game if maps didn't even exist in it. Picking stuff up, selling or doing recipes, messing with my stash, reading the forum and wiki, starting new characters - they all break up the action so it's not an endless hyperactive grind.

Usually I use 1-3 portals. But it's not unusual to use all six. If I had six more I'm sure I'd use those also in some maps. If I have portals left, I pick up all rares. I pick up all size 4 or less chrome recipes. I pick up all size 1 blues, and sometimes size 2 or 3 blues. I pick up small quality items for recipes. I pick up all currency, even if I have to backtrack to get an ID scroll. If I'm going back to town anyway, I fill unused inventory with whites.

An hour playing is an hour playing. Going back to sell stuff is part of playing. To me, that's just as much part of the game as running maps. Most days I don't run any maps at all. If I run maps it's usually not more than 1-3, then I'm done with maps for the day. In standard, I've leveled 90+ characters doing almost nothing but master missions every now and then. If it takes six months to level, that's fine.

Whether something is a waste of time is entirely up to you.

What to pick or not depends on one's personal play style and goals.

People who say picking rares is ineffective may appear to play a different game than you, mind it. What's ineffective for one, is quite effective for another. So stay sceptical unless you find out what you personally want and need.

Not picking things or playing with restrictive filter means:

1. you participate on market
2. you rely on sells (usually mid/high tier items) to meet your leveling/crafting expenses

This type of gameplay is most common to players aiming at high levels, with fast clear speed meta builds.

But the more you lean to self found/self sustain, the more items you should pick (if not everything).

So it's up to you to define your strategy.


I personally pick everything, as I rely mostly on myself, and rarely trade. But it's just me.