5.29.2014 Antagonists Dried Lake Map of Flames

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Rare monsters have a Nemesis mod, Patches of burning ground
Quantity: +23%

Currency Expended:
1 Transmutation
4 Alteration
1 Augmentation

Currency Gained:
3 Transmutation
1 Alteration
7 Jewelers
1 Fusing
5 Chromatic
1 Chaos
8 Scrap
1 Whetstone

Maps Gained:
Grotto (L66)
Orchard (L66)
Spider's Lair (L68)

This was the first time I had played on Servant of a Frozen Fire since my last post.  I started out poorly by not applying my auras.  I normally run determination and clarity.  My first thought was that I was being hit really hard, then I realized what was wrong once I had run out of mana.  It was a bit of a scramble to find a safe spot to get enough mana to get clarity up, but once that was done things went pretty well.  Either the grotto or orchard map dropped early, so it's always nice to get that early map drop so that you're at worst keeping the size of the map pool constant.

Many undead populated the map, and the monsters which go around resurrecting undead were annoying.  The normal ones weren't bad, as long as I made sure to take care of them quickly and not leave them free to undo my work in clearing the map.  The magic ones were genuinely troublesome in that I really couldn't kill them quickly enough to keep them from resurrecting about a half dozen mobs that I had already killed.  The worst were yellow ones.  With a Nemesis mod, they were often a real challenge on their own.  Throw in the fact that they were restoring a small army of undead around them, they were serious trouble.  I'm not sure how I lived through one fight, but I managed to squeak through.  Perhaps the rng rewarded me for my survival by having that monster drop a level 68 spider's lair map.  My first map of that level!

The boss of the zone is a large degeneration rhoa.  You have to manage the degeneration carefully, but as long as you're careful, the boss really isn't too bad.  I like this map boss much better than The Blacksmith from the dunes map.  I did have to leave one rare monster behind though, so I didn't get a full clear.  That one had corrupting blood and life regen.  I was picking up 3 and 4 corruption stacks at a time using GMP, so there was no way I could have tried to out damage the life regen without accumulating a fatal stack of corrupted blood DOTs.

Overall, I liked the dried lake map, and was really happy with the loot I got.  It's a wide open zone, so it was a bit disorienting no seeing the edges of the map when I first started out.  I also leveled on this map.  I took a casting speed node, and it's a nice boost to my DPS.  I think I'm going to take a brief break from mapping to kill Piety.  I can pick up two more casting speed nodes with the reward for killing her, which should help my clear speed quite a bit.

5.20.2014 Ceremonial Crypt Map of Enfeeblement

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Lots of Totems, Player cursed with Enfeeble
Quantity: +30%

Currency Expended:
Not Sure

Currency Gained:
3 Transmutation
4 Alteration
1 Augmentation
7 Jewlers
1 Fusing
2 Chromatic
1 Scrap
2 Whetstone

Maps Gained:
Arsenal Map of Vulnerability (L67)
Sewer Map (L67)

The extra totems weren't really a problem.  Sometimes the ones that make their allies immortal are a pain, but they really weren't bad on this map.  Enfeeblement turned the run into a slog though.  I'm not sure how I managed to keep enough reaction time to keep from RIPing at the end of this three hour slog.  A few times I wasn't sure I was going to be able to kill a rare monster with regen, but by cursing them and the help of a spectre to do extra damage I managed to kill then, eventually.

The other thing that caused me trouble was that there were Blackguards in this crypt, and the Elemental Thorns cast by the Blackguard magi is a difficult spell to deal with when your primary damage skill is elemental spell damage.  I've been using a remote mine gem, so that was a big help.  Nothing very interesting on the loot side with the exception of getting two level 67 maps out of the run.

I decided to run this map because it had a pretty decent increased quantity.  It also spawned with a lot of magic monsters even though it didn't have a mod that caused that.  It also seemed like enfeeble was less dangerous to deal with than extra monster damage or reduced resistances.  I'm pretty sure that is still the case despite the woefully slow clear speed enfeeble caused.  I dipped down under 10% health several times, so I'm pretty sure one of those maps would have managed to RIP me at least once.

This also ran me out of Crypt maps, and I hated the Blacksmith boss in Dunes, so I'll have to pick something new for my next adventure into The Eternal Laboratory.

5.14.14 Twinned Crypt Map of Hordes

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Two Bosses, 45% increased pack size
Quantity: +6%

Currency Expended:
1 Transmutation
2 Alteration
2 Augmentation

Currency Gained:
2 Alteration
2 Augmentation
4 Chromatic
1 Chance
1 Alchemy
1 Scrap
1 Whetstone

Maps Gained:
None

I was curious to see what two bosses would be like, and I have to admit, I was thinking that there would be two different bosses.  However, two Pagan Bishops did fit the twinned theme in the name of the map.  They almost RIPed me before I realized that I was taking boss attacks.  It was definitely tricky to fight them both at the same time, but fortunately they followed me back into a section of the map that I had already cleared, so I didn't have to face anything but them.  If they had regen or life leach I don't think I could have killed them, but I managed to whittle them down.

Other than that, it wasn't a bad run; cleared it pretty quickly.  However, I thought I would get more from the larger pack sizes and double bosses.  Other than the alch, nothing much dropped.  However, I scored on a Gemcutter's Stronbox with experienced gems.

Level 7 Life Gain on Hit ( +7% quality)

Level 8 Temporal Chains

Level 9 Detonate Dead

Level 10 Convocation

Level 11 Concentrated Effect

Level 11 Discharge

Level 13 Remote Mine

Level 18 Minion Speed!

The Minion Speed gem may be the highest level gem I've seen.  Not sure how useful it really is, but I think I'll try to keep leveling it in my offhand gear to see how long it takes to get it to L20.

Initial Explorations

Explorations of the Eternal Labratory

So, I've been playing a lot of Path of Exile.  I played a lot of Diablo III too, but this game seems to have grabbed the fun factor more than D3 did.  This winter, I decided that for as much time as I had played, I should really make a concerted effort to make it into maps.  If you haven't been playing this game, and somehow manage to stumble across this blog page, it probably won't make much sense to you.  Check out the game though, I really enjoy it.  

Path of Exile

The build I wanted to try for this was an Avatar of Fire templar that used Freezing Pulse and an Ice to Fire gem to get full conversion.  The character would also use Arctic Armor for protection.  It didn't really come together like I had wanted.  It's kind of coming together, but it just doesn't seem to be a powerful build, and I'm level 70 and I don't have AoF yet.  I also intended to get Eldrich Battery to power Arctic Armor.  I've kind of bypassed that by using lightning warp so that I can move without draining my mana, but it's kind of slow.  Nevertheless, I have managed to clear a few maps.  I'll link the build in.

Servant of a Frozen Fire Skill Tree

Now that I've started running maps, it seems like it would be fun to keep a journal of the maps run.  I wish I had kept better notes when I started, but we'll see how it goes.  I started with an initial stash of 17 L66 maps.  (9 of those came from a  cartographer's strongbox with the +8 items mod!)

5.8.14 - L66 Crypt Map 

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Shocking Ground, Enemies have bonus health
Quantity: +29%

I don't remember how much currency I used on the map to get the mods or what I hauled out.  I also didn't get a full clear on my first try, I left a Storm Herald behind, but I didn't die.  All and all a successful 1st outing into the Eternal Laboratory.

Maps Gained:
None
-1 overall

5.9.14 - L66 Crypt Map (of Commanders)

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Varied Monsters, More magic monsters
Quantity: +9%

I don't know what I spent on this one, but my gut feeling was that it was either 1 transmutation, or that plus 1 augmentation.  I wasn't thrilled with the quantity bonus, but I hoped the increased number of blue monsters would make up for it.  I don't know that it did, but I did get my first full clear for the Cartographer achievement, and I didn't die.

Currency Gained:
2 Transmutation
2 Alteration
2 Augmentation
15 Jewelers ( 2 six socket items dropped )
4 Chromatic
1 Scrap

Maps Gained:
None
Overal: -2

5.10.14 - L66 Crypt Map 

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Unwavering, Shocking Ground
Quantity: +23%

Currency Expended:
1 Transmutation
1 Augmentation

Currency Gained:
3 Transmutation
1 Alteration
2 Augmentation
1 Jewelers
2 Fusing
3 Chromatic
3 Chance
2 Scrap
1 Whetstone

Maps Gained:
Wish I had kept better track, but I do know there were 3 L66 and a L67 Arcade!  Maybe one or two of the L66s were additional crypt maps based on my inventory.
Overall: +1 / + 1

I didn't get nearly as many yellow items as my 1st two maps, but the RNG smiled on me this run with several map drops.  Once again I didn't die.  I'm probably going to need a better system of tracking my map pool once I start getting maps of different levels, but I'll try the slashes for now.

5.11.14 - L66 Armored Crypt Map of Lightning

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Armored Enemies, Shocking Ground
Quantity: +19%

Currency Expended:
1 Transmutation
1 Alteration

Currency Gained:
6 Transmutation
7 Alteration
5 Augmentation
14 Jewelers ( more six socket items )
3 Fusing
2 Chromatic
1 Alchemy
1 Regret
1 Scrap
1 Chisel

Maps Gained:
2 L66 Dunes
1 L67 Wharf
Overall: +2 / +2

This was not a great run in terms of deaths.  I got rubberbanded back into the line of fire of a multi projectile Undying Alchemist and I think I was standing on some shocking ground when a Colossal Vaal Fallen hit me, possibly a crit.  The latter was a combination of carelessness and cockiness.  I know how hard the things can hit, but I had killed a few quickly and didn't take precautions.  I had been hoping to hit level 70 with this character on this run, but the deaths nixed that idea.  It was a great haul in terms of currency.

5.11.14 - L66 Demonic Dunes Map of Commanders

Servant of a Frozen Fire - Ambush
Mods - Demons, More Magic Monsters, 10% Quality
Quantity: +28%

Currency Expended:
1 Transmutation
4 Alteration
1 Augmentation

Currency Gained:

2 Transmutation
2 Alteration
2 Augmentation
1 Jewelers ( more six socket items )
1 Fusing
1 Chance
1 Scrap
1 Whetstone

Maps Gained:
None
Overall: +1 / +2

I didn't chisel this map to get the quality.  I found it at +10%.  I found a few other innately superior maps.  For example, this and one other map came from a strongbox with +10% quality.  There were a lot of fire damage monsters on this map, which worked great with arctic armor, until I got to The Blacksmith.  This boss is like an insanely powerful version of Hillock from cruel / merciless difficulty.  He spawned so many zombies with his leap slam attack that I felt like I was on an episode of The Walking Dead.  It wasn't fun.  I also died to him by being rubberbanded back into his leap slam once.  Still, I did manage to ding L70 for the 1st time playing POE during this run.  Worst haul from a map ever though, and it had a decent quantity bonus, plus being full of blue monsters.  Tracking down the lot of them to do a full clear was a pain too.  Oh well.  I don't think I'll be running any more Dunes maps with this character.