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Good Morning Folks! I’m in a bit of a holding pattern waiting on the Path of Exile Trial of the Ancestors league’s start tomorrow. In this downtime I find myself doing a ton of research designed to help make my start a bit smoother. Currently, my intention is to attempt to solve my own problems in a very solo-self-found manner, without actually flagging myself as part of that challenge league. This means there will be several phases that my build will go through… namely finding my first five-link gear, attempting to solve my resistance, and eventually finding comfortable six-link items to help with that process. The challenge is that it is very hard to brute force your way into a six-link weapon or piece of armor, and it will be a long time before I find 1500 Bindings Orbs which is what the guaranteed recipe requires.

White Tier Maps

As you migrate out of the campaign, you will find yourself moving into what is colloquially referred to as “White Maps” largely because the border of the icon has a white color, as compared to the later yellow, and red versions. Essentially this pool of 36 “white” maps is divided up into difficulty tiers one through five and are realistically not that far from the general difficulty level of the campaigns. Recently we got a big information dump for the Item Filter creators to update their filters, and with it came a full list of which maps are associated with which tiers. For the sake of this exercise, we are only going to focus on those first five tiers of maps because you should be getting quite a few of these as you progress through the Atlas of Worlds.

Divination Cards

It is extremely difficult to predict what maps might drop what pieces of gear, because for the most part armor drops are a complete crapshoot. However, there is a thing in Path of Exile called a Divination Card, and these drop from specific zones. If you collect a full set of a given card, you can turn them in for a specific item or pool of items. So as a result one of the most “deterministic” ways of farming six-linked gear is to set your focus on a specific zone that drops a specific set of cards. This morning I thought I would talk a bit about what is available in the white tier of maps. Quite frankly… there is a heck of a lot of useful cards available.

Six-Link Body Armor

[EDIT] – My fact-checker-in-chief Ashgar, pointed out that some of these cards namely Imperial Legacy, Dapper Prodigy, and Bowyer’s Dream cannot drop in the minimum tier versions of these maps. Item level 100 drops have a minimum drop level of 80. This means you will be able to run these maps once you get some void stones… but sadly not before that.

For guaranteed Six-Link body armor, we have four different cards to choose from. It should be noted, that all of these will reward a normal quality item, meaning you are going to need to craft it into something useable usually by throwing some essences at it. However, you can usually brute force your way into something that will work for your build. Of these probably the worst one is Emperor of Purty, which gives you an Item Level 60 Holy Chainmail which has fairly low stats but would be easier to get green sockets on for example if you needed that in an Armor/Energy Shield base. The best option is probably The Dapper Prodigy which will drop item level 100 armor, which makes it easier to get higher-tier crafting rolls on it. Celestial Justicar is specifically good for anyone needing a pure armor base as Astral Plate has extremely high armor and comes with an implicit bonus to all elemental resistances. The Chains that Bind is fairly commonly farmed though because it drops fairly frequently and can realistically be farmed while doing the campaign as it can drop off level 38 content, and all of the maps associated with Shavron’s Tower in Act 6.

• Emperor of Purity
  • T3 – Overgrown Shrine
• The Celestial Justicar
  • T1- Bone Crypt
• The Chains That Bind
  • T4 – Cage
  • T5 – Cells
• The Dapper Prodigy
  • T3 – Residence

Six-Link Weapons

[EDIT] – My fact-checker-in-chief Ashgar, pointed out that some of these cards namely Imperial Legacy, Dapper Prodigy, and Bowyer’s Dream cannot drop in the minimum tier versions of these maps. Item level 100 drops have a minimum drop level of 80. This means you will be able to run these maps once you get some void stones… but sadly not before that.

Weapons are largely only a concern for folks needing to use two-handers. Unfortunately for anyone needing a two-handed melee weapon that is not a staff… you are sorta screwed with the white maps this time. However, if you are a bow user… life is pretty peachy. The Porcupine is infamous because it is the most common crafting base for anyone trying to build a bow for Toxic Rain or Explosive Arrow, both of which want fast attack speed. I however will be going for Imperial Legacy for my Lightning Arrow build, which while not the best base is at least item level 100. I threw Bowyer’s Dream in mostly because it exists, but this only drops from the boss of that map so it is likely out of reach unless you boss rush Leyline. For staves, your best option would be The Dark Mage or if you can survive from a 5-Link the lesser Flora’s Gift also exists.

• Bowyer’s Dream
  • T5 – Leyline (Boss Only – Mirage of Bones)
• Imperial Legacy
  • T2 – Dunes
• The Dark Mage
  • T3 – Overgrown Shrine
• The Porcupine
  • T5 – Courtyard

Currency Cards

One of my favorite videos on the subject of the “easiest way to get a six-link” basically just comes out and says that trade… trade is the easiest way. A lot of the suggestions here are for folks wanting to avoid trade, but even then… if you want to buy a six-link you are going to need some trade currency. That means Chaos Orbs, Exalted Orbs, and Divine Orbs. While there are still some weirdos trying to run the Awakened Sextant scam, for the most part, you need to have the three most common liquid currencies in order to buy anything. A lot of early league strategies for money-making involve farming a bunch of bulk items and then trading those on The Forbidden Trove, which is a bit too far for me personally. If we look at the maps that are available to us, for the purpose of farming Div Cards that reward raw currency… the clear winner is Brother’s Stash and Brother’s Gift as they both drop from the same locations. Alternatively, if you need Vaal Orbs, then The Inventor is well worth your time, and if you need Exalted Orbs then maybe The Scout is worth chasing. What we really benefit from this league is three separate locations within White Maps where we can farm the brother’s cards.

• Brother’s Gift
  • T2 – Grave Trough
  • T4 – Cemetary
  • T4 – Graveyard
• Brother’s Stash
  • T2 – Grave Trough
  • T4 – Cemetary
  • T4 – Graveyard
• The Inventor
  • T4 – Vaal Pyramid
• The Scout
  • T2 – Stagnation
  • T5 – Tropical Island

Chase Cards

So say you have a lot of expenses… and you need to target much bigger prey when it comes to farming currency cards. I guess at this point let’s talk a bit about some of the chase rare cards that are available in this league’s White Maps. Please note… you may go all-league and NEVER see one of these drops, but if you want to chase some “big game” there are some options. The biggest fish is definitely Unrequited Love, which is essentially a fraction of a fraction of a Mirror of Kalandra. At the time of writing this card is going for 42 Divine Orbs, and the price fluctuates wildly through the league. Next up you The Nurse which is a fraction of a fraction of a Headhunter belt and this usually goes for around a Divine Orb. Similarly priced is The Sephirot, but it is much harder to farm given that it only drops from a boss. Lastly, you have Divine Beauty which only goes for around half a Divine Orb, so you would probably be better off just farming the entire set of 12 and turning in for 7 Divine Orbs.

• Divine Beauty
  • T2 – Mineral Pools (Boss Only)
• The Nurse
  • T5 – Cells
• The Sephirot
  • T3 – Residence
• Unrequited Love
  • T4 – Vaal Pyramid

Kirac Farming

While I am spending all of this time talking about Divination Cards, I would be remiss if I did not at least mention Kirac farming. As you unlock your atlas you are likely to be leaning on missions from Kirac to help uncover new maps. One of the reward types that Kirac offers is a map that will drop a full stack of Divination cards. Most of the time these will be junk cards that give basic crafting currency, but there is always the rare chance of you getting a full stack of one of the most sought-after cards. When I farm Kirac missions for cards I rely heavily on Divcards.io, which allows you to input a map and it brings back quickly a list of cards that could drop.

So in this example, Kirac is offering me a Div Card mission for Defiled Cathedral. When I search on Divcards.io it returns the following results for that map. In this case… there is an exceedingly rare potential for dropping one of the most sought-after cards in the entire game… The Apothecary. Even though I know I am more likely to get a stack of a trash card like Her Mask, I am absolutely going to run this on the off chance that I get lucky. If there is absolutely nothing worth getting, then you can always use a Scouting Report to reroll Kirac’s Inventory. Getting a full stack of The Apothecary and then turning in for a Mageblood represents a potential 200+ Divine Orb payday. For me… if I ever got a Mageblood I would just use the damned thing.

Final Thoughts

For a league start, I feel like we have a shockingly good number of gear-farming maps available in those first five tiers. I think Div cards are fun because they give you a reason to farm a specific zone, and while doing that… you are going to be seeing a lot of other interesting things along the way. So if you set your mind on a set of Dapper Prodigy cards to get a six-link, you might actually see a raw six-link drop in the process. Not to mention getting likely several chaos orbs or higher crafting currency in the process of farming. Having farmed full sets of cards up many times, they don’t exactly drop quickly. What I like however is they set my focus on doing a specific thing that is going to likely improve my character, rather than just mindless random farming. In a game with an overwhelming wealth of options… having specific goals in mind can be extremely important. Even when I was spending hundreds of hours down in Delve, I had the specific goal of finding cities and more specifically Delve bosses.

Anyways, I hope this actually helps someone out there. I’m looking forward to the league starting on Friday, and I am hoping that I have a bit of luck when it comes to drops. I am not opposed to fixing problems through the trade market, but I am going to see how far I can get on my own.