[3.3] Gilded Cage's Comprehensive Guide to Maps

I run out off maps.

Till tier 3 everything is fine. I make them blue and add one affixe. I have a massive pool on maps and get higher maps too tier 4. But when i run tier 4 maps. i run out off maps. I started to alch tier 4 maps but this not helped. I had about 8-9 tier 4 maps which i alched and now i have 0x tier4 and 3x tier5. I killed every monster maybe left 20 alive and opened every chest. I runned them alone, without party. Was i just unlucky? Maybe i should run in a group? I didnt find any map games in public. Everything i see are trade games.

I can buy some new maps and try it again. But i think the problmen is not solved than. Any idea what i can do?

Edit: i already cubed the lower maps higher.

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LeOsTyLe wrote:

I run out off maps.

Till tier 3 everything is fine. I make them blue and add one affixe. I have a massive pool on maps and get higher maps too tier 4. But when i run tier 4 maps. i run out off maps. I started to alch tier 4 maps but this not helped. I had about 8-9 tier 4 maps which i alched and now i have 0x tier4 and 3x tier5. I killed every monster maybe left 20 alive and opened every chest. I runned them alone, without party. Was i just unlucky? Maybe i should run in a group? I didnt find any map games in public. Everything i see are trade games.

I can buy some new maps and try it again. But i think the problmen is not solved than. Any idea what i can do?

Edit: i already cubed the lower maps higher.

Sounds like you're just unlucky. Buy more and try again. You really shouldn't need to waste alcs on white maps, maybe tier 6 to break into yellows but even then meh

Ok,

than i will try again. But i think even alc on tier 1 maps is worth it. Because you find more currency, more 6 sock items, more 3 link rainbow items and more stone hammers. You earn more than an alc in averange.


Edit:

When i blue something i have in averrange +30% Quantity. than i alc 60%

160/130 = 1,23 so i will get 23% more items and in blue maps. ~3 alc is 1 chaos. So if i find in one run 1,43 chaos in average it has earn the alc. ( 1,43*0,23 = 0,33 ).

From my testing 1,5 chaos per run in averrage is realstic. I think if you count everything you will be easy higher than 1,5 chaos.

And the benefit is you get faster higher maps.

How do you guys make money from mapping? I spent so much alching and chiseling my higher tier maps but I never get anything out of it, and more often than not I end up going back down some tiers..

It depends on which tiers you run. Tier 8 I just Transmute + Augment, so they are very inexpensive to run and by running enough of them you can easily make currency. Tier 9 I Alch + go so also inexpensive and good to make currency. I start using Chisels and rerolling yellow maps on Tier 10 (Vaal for Tier 11 Zana mod for Tier 12). I do this more in order to sustain a higher-level map pool than to make a bigger profit in terms of currency and gear to sell.

If you don't care about higher-level map pool you can just Alch + go any map your build can run and you will see a profit over time. Keep in mind running two blue tier 8 maps might be as fast as running one tier 12 map so you might get more profit out of that. Maintaining Tier 12+ is somewhat of a currency sink, so you're faced with the choice of making more profit (running lower-level maps) or getting a challenge for your build (maintaining harder maps). Personally I do both which keeps me from getting too bored.

Your guide is so nice, I've been thinking maybe you'd even like to include a short note for each unique map so people know what to roughly expect and how hard it is?

Either way, I love your guide!

I just started doing maps for the first time yesterday, wasted a few chisels (only 2-3) when I didn't know what I was doing before I found this guide. I've already got a decent tab of maps built up just from blindly tearing through them. I pretty much just tried every map I found, including two unique maps. The unique ledge was extremely easy and then there was a unique.. dungeon or something, with 4 pillar bosses in each corner and a final one in the middle. I couldn't finish it, resists were not nearly good enough. Normal maps however, I had to stop around T6. Great guide, now I know to stop wasting currency. Thank you.

Thanks for this great guide!!!
one small request: Please include unique maps, thanks!!!

today I got for a first time T>1 map (T7-Oba's) from non-Zana's 8 lvl master daily mission (Catarina)
until now, I thought only T1 maps can spawn there

This is a very well thought out and written guide. I like the way you give the rating system and explanation of such rating, makes it easy knowing what I can expect playing on a map I've never played on (HC). TY