How I Got to Level 100

Thought I'd make a post to clear some confusion/controversy and provide some background knowledge on the journey. This might be a big wall of text, sorry if it is :P, if you believe I missed anything let me know. Going to also link this to the POE Reddit, not sure if I will answer questions in both places, I believe it might be easier to use Reddit for questions. Reddit Post
If you missed it you can check out it here: http://www.twitch.tv/havoc616/c/2311140 . Skip to the 15 Minute mark if you don't wish to watch the whole piety fight.

Stats
Character Age: 2802.933 Hours or 116 Days 18 Hours 56minutes
XP time: 1,426.25 Hours or 59.427 Days (Using XP time since On time includes AFK time and when I leave my computer logged in) Taken from POE Statistics by summing up the XP time for each month.

43 Total Deaths
1-70: 38 Deaths - First death was at level 30 HC in A3 Norm, thought I was a boss but ended up dying because I ran into 50 mobs :D. Knew I would die again since I didn't know what to expect in the upcoming act/difficulties so continued on softcore.
74: Desync Dungeon Map Brutus #1
85: Got stunlocked by Rhoas and Chaos snakes after quicksilvering into a large pack, immediately got unwavering stance after. (No Kaoms)
-Chanced a Kaoms at 86 on my second chance orb-
90: Offscreening a -Max Res temple Piety with frenzy, suddenly I had a resurrect screen and my character had moved a quarter screen forward.
94: Lagged out of a torture chamber, log back in -15%. (Had around 8k hp, respecced to 9k)
96: Vuln, Monster Damage Necropolis, shooting blackguards to the right of me (no thorns mobs) and suddenly I just lose all my HP with no mobs around me. /oos Moves me too a doorway on bottom left with a bunch of blackguards in the entrance, assuming I got hit by multiple full length charges at the same time. Respeced into full tank mode, 9k to 11k HP and +4 End Charges.

Background Info

I'm a University Student enrolled in Physics, wasn't enjoying my program but couldn't decide what new direction I wanted to go in so I took the year off. Was your average D3/LoL player, bought the $10 pack for PoE and got a groundslammer to level 30 but that was it. Decided to really give PoE a chance when the game came out.

Levels 1-87: Solo/Duoing content with a friend, no clue what I'm doing. Around high 60s to 70+ had met a couple people who I Sarn/Dock farmed with and started mapping. I had a basic idea of what to do but had never done maps before so each map was exciting since it was unknown content. Progress and efficiency was pretty slow due to non-optimized builds and lack of mapping knowledge. We farmed 66-69 maps for the first week or two because of constant disconnections in maps and not knowing the most effective way to build a map pool/climb to higher maps. It took around 2-3 weeks of constant experimenting, disconnecting from maps, and luck to finally make it to 72-75 maps. At level 85 my friend Malthrus finally took the #1 spot from another group which was good motivation for us to keep going. I passed Malthrus during 85 but died so he claimed first 86 as well. Passed him again, chanced a Kaoms on my second chance orb (2 Hours before I was asking what type of armour Kaoms was), and claimed first 87.

Levels 87-94: Everyone in the group we had essentially quit the game or rerolled new characters due to deaths or boredom. It was just me and my friend Yuof left (Sorry if I forgot someone) but it wasn't the end of the world since we were only running my maps since I was the only one with a map pool at the time. Met some new people and continued mapping, however, our luck turned for the worst and the 40-50+ 70-75 maps all evaporated. All I had left were around 90+ 69 Maps which we chained for ~3 weeks with the occasional jump to 70/71 that always yielded no upgrade. This was also around the same time that Kerkrom on HC passed me for #1 Overall, apparently there was a bug with the Shipyard map and barrels + chests at the time which allowed you to create a superb map base. He created a 350m+ lead after I had given up on catching him and had started playing less. We were taken down to 15 69 Maps left before our dry spell finally ended and eventually climbed back up to 73-77 maps. There were ups and downs with the map base which was expected so we just tread on as usual. I had reignited the flame to go for #1 Overall and got within 120mil before Kerkrom died (I mean Etup pk'd him) so I was never able to truly surpass him as I intended to. My map base had depleted again and we were in the same situation as before but chaining 70 maps that never seemed to upgrade despite chisel, alch and chaosing them well. One positive was that I had found a Kaoms and chanced my second one a week later for a total of 3.

Levels 94-97: Lagged out of a torture chamber at 94 and logged back in with -15%. Did ~10 more maps after the incident and logged off for the night. The next day I was invited to join and merge with group right under me, I was unsure why I received the invitation since there was some form of competition and they clearly had the better maps at the time. My group for 87-94 was no more than 5-8 people big and people were quitting as well. So, after talking to the few remaining members in my group we decided to join them. Their group was usually filled with 10-20+ people where multiple parties would be running at the same time. It was usually first come first serve to get into a group unless you had high level maps of your own so my playtime spiked from an average of approximately ~7h-10h a Day to an average of ~12h-15h+ a day. XP was overflowing and things were looking great, my own map pool had upgraded itself once again and I set what I would consider record breaking speeds such as 95-96 in 6 days. As the weeks went on the the new group died down as more and more users quit due to dying at high levels. Eventually there were some disputes so I left the group along with my friends and some new people that I had met who were not part of that specific group.

97-98: I had fallen down to the same situation for the third time where all my maps were depleted (Over 150+ 73-77s gone) and was left with 110+ 72 Maps. Eventually I got lucky again and started doing mostly 73-75 maps with occasional bursts of luck where we could do 76/77s or 75+ for a couple hours. Also got better internet and started streaming. My estimate at the time was 2 Weeks for 98-99 and 1 Month for 99-100, however I proved my estimates wrong.

98-99: Met more new people and saved our high level maps for each other, something I had started doing a couple levels ago. By running all our high level maps together we were able to obtain extraordinary XP gains per day. At level 98 is when I started to use the XP maces as much as possible to level even faster. My DPS was useless at times when we had players with 50-100k tooltip dps that could just obliterate everything on the screen.

99-100: I took a 2 day break right when I hit 99 and just chilled out. I than decided to come back and finish the level but was only playing 5-8 hours a day so experience gain was pretty slow. Eventually around 50% I decided to go as hard as I possibly could and finish the level.The list of people that wanted to run with us was quite large which created long queues to get in as we were chaining 75+ maps all the time with bursts of luck for hours of 76-77 maps. At one point during this level I had around 30 75 Maps, 10 76s and 5 77s of my own, they also depleted again where my highest map was only 74s for some time. I had few chances to attempt and upgrade these maps since my group members usually had 75-77 maps. The last day of level 99 I had the most amazing luck I had ever seen where in the 24H+ I was awake I probably did 40-50+ 77 maps in one day. The only other comparable times were when I did 18 77s in a row and the occasional streak of 5-10 in a row with a mix of 75/76 in between them.

The Final Fight: The map I rolled for my last bit of XP was a Shrine map where I decided to solo Phase 2 Piety. I placed the following conditions on myself: Six Player Piety HP, Elemental Equilibrium, Monster Damage, Ele Reflect. The 6 Player HP and EE made it take forever but monster damage meant I couldn't really tank her without enfeeble. So had to choose between enfeeble for safety or conductivity for "speed" as my second curse. I switched to conductivity a couple minutes into the fight as I knew it would take forever otherwise.

How Did you get the Currency to roll all those Maps?

There are a couple misconceptions here I would like to clear up. I'll start by explaining how *we* rolled maps and than how I got most of my wealth.

Rolling maps in the Beginning:

66-69: Just Transmuted/Alt'd most maps, occasionally alch'd 69s.
70+: Chisel + Alch every map and maybe throw some chaos at it. We would do whatever "good roll" we got to save money, high quantity, Maze/Area size/Pack Size/Magics/Rares or a combination of the two. The standards for our maps were not high.

Rolling maps after we had accumulated Wealth:

Essentially the richer we were the more we were willing to invest into maps. We exalted maps at one point since it was pretty cheap to split the cost between 6 people but stopped since it involved to much trading, large inflation of exalt prices where it was economically better to just use chaos, and the fact that even if you roll a godly map you can still get zero map drops where as the 50 quantity maze can drop 3 77s or 5-8+ maps (which has happened numerous times). As wealth accumulated we set higher and higher standards for maps and would also stop chiseling lower level maps since we had so many. This strategy payed off over the long run in building our map bases but I could argue it's not as effective for 75+ Maps since you needed one of the 3 highest maps levels to drop as opposed to the 8 you could possibly get.

Getting the Chisels and Currency to Roll the Maps:

First of all I'd like to start with a quote by aimlessgun:

"

I'm going to explain a little bit about how this 100 push worked.

First off, it's not HVR alone. It isn't even 6 people together. Over the course of the run, literally dozens of people have contributed maps and materials. HVR has been one of the prime contributors, obtained via luck and huge playtime, but this 100 represents the accumulated wealth of many, many people.

Second, there are plenty of wealthy people in the group, but the idea that you have to RMT to be wealthy is ludicrous. Either via lucky drops or shrewd trading, or just playing too damn much, wealth accumulates. (I'm not wealthy, but if I hadn't dumped wealth into two other characters and made some bad decisions, I'd have 70ex of liquid currency to be burning on maps. This is just from playing the game and selling the shit I find.)

On sustaining maps. Yes, you have to periodically buy high level maps, as average map level slowly degenerates towards 74 with the amount of chaos that was being put in. But this is not something you need to do every 3rd map or something ridiculous. Sometimes you get screwed, but with a large group you can assemble a base big enough map base to withstand runs of bad luck, with plenty of 74s to quickly run to get back to 75+ if necessary.

The fact that it was more than one person rolling the maps made rolling them much easier, this would be impossible in solo play. Aimless said he would probably have around 70 ex over the course of playing if he stuck to one character. Now take that sentiment and apply it to someone who has double-triple the amount of time played. That is just for general wealth, I'll now give some specific examples that only my map group was able to take advantage of.

- I was personally only self found gear up to level 90 when I bought a Lioneyes and Chitus Apex, only bought a couple items along the road to 100. Bought my 6L Lioneyes at level 97.
- I/we played the most at the beginning when the game came out so almost anything could sell for a lot.
- We had forum shops up so the buyers would come to us and making selling ALOT easier since you didn't have to spam trade
- I'm also extremely lucky, chanced 2 Kaoms, found a Kaoms, found a Shavronne's, and sold multiple items for 5-10+ Exalts
- My group from 1-87 was the first to sell 70+ and 75-77 white crafting items, prices varied from 1-3 GCP (5GCP:1EX at the time). At 87-94 we were the first group to sustain 75-77 maps and sold 75-79 whites for very large profits. Prices were 1-5 GCP (Again 5GCP:1EX so we would take an exalt for a 79 Vaal Regalia for example). If one of us didn't have the specific item, they would just be referred to whoever had it since everyone contributed to Maps anyways. We sold crafting whites for a while until the prices for whites got too low and it was too much of a hassle to find buyers.
- One of the largest sources of income was selling my lower level maps which I wouldn't have farmed anyways. Prices at the very start were 66 = 1 Chaos, 66 = 2, 67 = 4, 68 = 8. These fell down to 66 = 0.5 Chaos, 67 = 1, 68 = 2, 69 = 3, 70 = 5, 71 = 8. The final prices on the homestretch to 100 were "! WTS 67-73 MAPS for Chaos. (0.5/1/2/4/6/10/15)". As you can see, selling lower level maps when you are in abundance of them is very profitable. I believe I have a recording on my stream where someone bought 33 73 maps from me, that's 495 Chaos worth of maps in a second. This alone allowed me to contribute a larger portion when it came down to rolling maps.
- Lastly, some of you may have already met my level 35 Templar HvT. It's just a second account that sits in A3 Merciless all day which I have running on a second computer which allows me to trade and map at the same time (Some of you may have noticed me randomly stand still and my mouse move to the left side of the screen, it's most likely me selling some maps or buying chisels). I would usually put 10-15 66-71 Maps of each level to sell on him along with some GCP everyday to acquire Chaos & Chisels.

Thoughts on the Current Map System

I don't have too many problems with the current map system. I believe one should have to invest into mapping but this also conflicts with the idea that you shouldn't be required to group. There should be some sort of changes for smaller groups and solo players to take advantage of. One of the idea's I've had is some sort of entropy system since the biggest problem with a RNG based system is that you can and eventually will have bad luck streaks of 20, 50, 100+ maps where you eventually downgrade. The streaks I'm describing are for players that have made the commitment to Chisel, Alch, and use multiple Chaos on each map for good rolls and still get nothing for it. The fear I have with such a system is that groups may abuse this mechanic and just do lower maps until they think they have built up some sort of entropy and than throw in the 77s to get rewarded.

Another problem is chisels. They are just downright stupid right now. You usually have Alchs, Scours, and Chaos for your maps but there were large portions of the time where we could do nothing but sit in town until we bought chisels or did a lower "non-chisel" map in which we would pray a chisel dropped. Either remove chisels from the game, make them extremely common, or add a real vendor recipe for them (Glassblower baubles are pretty useless right now). The current recipe makes zero sense. Sell a 20 Quality map worth 4 chisels to receive one chisel in return, what?

I believe the current maximum map level of 77 is fine. Increasing it would just make it enormously easier because when you get that one map that drops 8 other maps there is now a greater chance of it being 75+.

Lastly, I believe anyone that can achieve level 95 and higher should have their name announced in global, whether they are 1st, 2nd, or the 457th to reach it. If mapping becomes easier, possibly raise the bar to 97-100 if such an idea is implemented.

What is there to do now?

Chill out, relax. Going to reroll on HC once I finalize a build. I heard some rumours about a 4 Month league coming out, not sure if this is true or not but I may consider playing this. Most likely won't be making a hard push for a second level 100 which hopefully makes the game much more enjoyable.

Also I would like to give huge thanks to everyone along the way that has mapped with me, contributed, or invited me to their maps. There are just so many people to name I wouldn't even know where to start but I'm sure they know who they are.

Nice read, congratulations on being forever #1!

grats

So, do characters have a special quote when they reach level 100?

Congrats also, not just to you but to everyone who helped :)

Congratulations! And thanks for making this thread!

Congrats man, that was a great read and a solid accomplishment.

First to beat PoE!

That was a nice read.

Congrats on being #1.

I'd just like to ask you if you think it's possible for someone playing mostly solo to acquire enough wealth just to get great items (let alone maps)

Proof that with enough free time anyone can achieve lvl 100. Congratz.

Congrats, Nice Fucking Read. I'm a bit disappointed that GGG has not made some kind of announcement, and if they do for they first HC character to make 100 then that is pure bull shit... considering how difficult the game is early on, i.e. desynch and shit.