I am revisiting some lower maps while I try and build up my map pool a little bit more. Which makes it a great opportunity to showcase just what a wide range of options players have in this game for finding zone(s) they enjoy farming or in our case maps. With tier IV maps out of the way, it was time to look into tier 5.

Tier V is the last of the white maps and the mobs you will encounter are level 72. Like before I’ll be upgrading each map with an Orb of Alchemy into rare rarity for more mods and chance at better loot. More times than not you break even if not make more with such a low cost invested into a map. These maps are not very hard at all at my level and I had zero deaths while running them.

Ancient City Map

It is like an abandoned city with a bunch of ruined buildings scattered around the map. Some of them just have pillars remaining. Others are just a wall or two that have remained. The main part of this map it’s best to go around the outside in a circle first and then clear out the middle. It has a river running through a portion of it that has a bridge you have to find to be able to cross. It also has along with that quite a number of stairs restricting movement and progression towards the boss.

At least it is outdoors. The level design is not too bad once you learn the best way to clear it. It can be rather fast since its compact and in a smaller area, unlike other maps where they have long stretches of paths going one direction.

Like any map, you always have a chance in finding a forsaken master. This one, in particular, had Zana Master Cartographer. She gave me a mission to enter a map called Atoll to kill 52 corrupted monsters within a time limit. She can play a decent roll in your progress early on in maps as she sells different tiers depending on her reputation level. As you find and do the mission from her you get more reputation. I have her currently at level 6 and she has eight different maps up to tier VIII. The downside is her map pool only replaces itself every so many reputation experiences gained. Other than leveling her up to get more maps to buy. Sometimes she has one you are missing and others times it could be cheaper to buy them form another player.

I ended up finding a tier V and VI maps during my run. At least for me trying to progress deeper and deeper into the maps, I like getting a higher tier than what I’m running. Saves me from having to try and find a seller. I also looted one amulet and some lower end currency. Least I got some maps back and made a little bit of profit from this run.

Barrows Map

A free run as I had looted a rare version of this map the other day. I find it to be a delightful forest setting. You can run around the edges of the map than clear out the center. It has three separate areas on the map from the arena to two tombs you can visit. I find the two tomb side area to be unnecessary and they don’t hold a lot of monsters in them anyways.

Nothing particular happened on this map. Did not find anything interesting and the RNG gods so far have not been as kind as my tier IV map runs had been. Just some lower end currency that at least covered the cost if it was not already a free run.

Channel Map

One of my favorite maps for this tier. While it has a massive drawback of dead ends that require a fair amount of backtracking it has long and decent sized wide lanes thought out it that just makes it a joy to speed run in. You can just run down one lane then switch to another and so forth as you make your way down sometimes backtracking if you want clear it all. You do need to understand the overall map layout to be effective and it is sometimes wasted. So while not the most effective map to run I enjoy it.

When I’m lower levels I tend to skip the end boss called Winged Death. It makes these swooping motions downward and cause substantial damage when it lands. Making it a bit annoying to deal damage to and you could find yourself getting killed. Since this map is also rather long not leaving yourself a portal before trying to take on the boss results in either a very long run back or simply moving onto another map. Once you are higher levels the boss is an easy take down sometimes killing it before he lands his second large attack.

While running this map I ran into another forsaken master called Elreon Loremaster. The mission he had for me was to protect a relic for an unknown amount of time from the attacking waves of monsters. If you invite him into your hideout he often sells once high enough reputation a better deal for buying Jeweler’s Orbs than normal vendors. He also lets you add a crafting bench called Blessing Font. This allows you to add on stats to rings and amulets such as life, dexterity, cold resistance and so on if it has the correct mod open on the item and it's not a unique item.

A tier VI map drop but nothing else that notable. I seem to be getting the short end of the loot table this time around!

Conservatory Map

I’ll be honest I could not even recall what this map was until running it and for good reason. It is inside a temple looking place with a bunch of different passageways, small open little areas with plants growing, and statues littering the walkways. While at least the overall map was compact and dead-end rooms were not very deep. You also had a bunch of doors you had to pass through which for anyone trying to speed run can slow you down.

I had a random spawn of the trial Burning Rage which I skipped. My incursion run this time around allowed me to upgrade my vault (currency drops) to a level two room for the temple. That in it should make up for the ack of loot I found during this run.

Overall for an indoor map, it’s not that bad. I would be willing to take this over a few others. It is at least fast to run if you’re not running into door opening, and other objects lining the pathways. I would prefer to run Haunted Mansion over this one as I just like the flow of that one better.

Haunted Mansion Map

This map has indoor and outdoor parts. What I really like for the most part is most of the indoor area is connected with a bunch of doorways. Leaving you many options to go and choose from as you move around the map. The rooms also have some size to them for a couple packs of monsters. Overall the map has some good density to it and it was not too long to clear out.

Along with the zone dropping a few cards, I found a Diviner’s Strongbox that spewed a few on the floor as well. I ended up looting 19 cards. The ones worth the most would have been The cartographer where it’s a one of one card granting ten chisels (worth around 5 Chaos Orbs). Three faces in the dark that grants three chaos orbs if you collect all seven cards. The reaming other cards were worth around four Chaos Orbs in total. Making that find of the Diviner’s Strongbox worth over nine chaos orbs. if I can find buyers for everything if I don’t save them for myself.

Zana showed up during this run and spawned map Vault with a mission was to find a map item. I really love this mission as it has a guaranteed map drop which could be great or not so much. I ended up getting a tier IV map and was a little disappointed. At least I did not have to kill too many in that zone to get it and earned some reputation for her out of the process.

Ivory Temple Map

This map is just a beauty on the eyes and even the ears. It has water fountains on the outside giving off a very relaxing water sound and some very relaxing singing in the background. It has gold colored outlines on the walls, pillars, and even a fancy red carpet leading down different part inside the main building. It even has a bit of a garden. I sometimes leave the game running with this map open in the background.

The forsaken master Elreon has shown his face again and this time his mission was for me to kill three pillars within the time limit. They were dead before I even looked at how much time I had left. I prefer this mission the most from him as it is quick and easy. No waiting around for a minute or more killing waves of monsters.

My best loot yet for this tier V map run drop during clearing. An Impulse’s Broken Heart while it was not a 6-link chest these still hold some value. After what I could compare it with state wise that was already being sold on the market I’m going start asking for 14 Chaos Orbs and then every so often lowers it down to the base of 10 where most of the lower quality ones are. Outside of that, I looted an amulet and one tier V map.

Maze Map

If you can’t tell my now a map name “maze” is already on my “no thanks” list. This is another one I don’t recall very well before going into it. Needless to say, I have an extreme bias towards not wanting to run a map named “Maze.” Sorry about that map I’m sure you are a nice guy or gal I’m just not a fan of being lost for forever in a maze.

This indoor map has what everyone who wants to speed run dreads. Closed doors you have to open! It is the plague of killing speed. Not to mention if you check that screenshot it looks like a maze in there of small little rooms, corridors, and pockets.

We can safely put this on one of my lower liked maps for tier V. It did not even give me anything special as drops either.

Spider Lair Map

Like a good spider this map can lead you into a false hope and a dead end. Most parts are rather straightforward but the deeper you go the more you realize it was not going be such an easy going map after all. Not to mention it has cobwebs everywhere I get the owner of the place is not into a clean map is a happy map. I hope they don’t mind if I did some clearing out of this place. I’ll happily keep any loot I find as payment.

I got to say at least these runs so far have been filled with some forsaken master. Would you believe me I got Zana again and this time it was for a map called Alleways? The mission was to take out some corrupted monsters which happened to be the boss and his friends. They could not be here with us today—opps.

I seem to have been swindled on the payment for making it a cleaner place. Just an amulet, some low-level currencies, and one tier 5 map. Not the kind of payout I was looking for. No wonder the cleaning person skipped town years ago.

Sulphur Vents Map

Thankfully we do not have smell device yet as you might have guessed this map could smell like rotten eggs of Sulphur. I’m sure someone out there loves that kind of smell and would just sit there all day long running this map. I on the other hand really love the map layout. It has a giant area you can clear going one direction and then another.

I had two unique drops during this run. A worthless Shaper’s Seed that is an ok leveling item that comes with some base stats of strength and intelligence along with life regeneration. The other item I’ve never heard of before called an Eldritch Knowable it is a jewel socket item. I was hoping it would be worth some currency but sadly not much so off to the vendor these two go.

Finally, I looted a portal spell gem that I’ll be selling and three maps as well a tier II, IV, and VI. I really love it when you get a couple of maps drops on a run. Even better one of them was a higher tier then what I was running.

Toxic Sewer Map

It seems like tier 5 had all the wonderful maps at the start. Now that I have finally made it so something entirely unappetizing even worse than Sulphur questions starts to flow between my ears. A player like me often asked himself where things have gone so wrong I’m looking for loot down in a sewer. Even more so a toxic one I just hope I have high enough resistance for this!

There I was on the final map for the day. Crawling through winding dirty sewer pipes up to my ankles in waste. When my loot filter kept going off making all kinds of sounds like a ding or dong like it was at a party. It seems the loot RNG gods wanted to end things on a higher note. I’ll take a win when I can get it.

The final loot for this map was as follows: Four maps ranging from tier 2 up to tier 6. Three unique that where mostly junk around two Chaos Orbs in value. Two Chaos Orbs and four Orb of Alchemy. I also had collected a pile of other stuff worth around two chaos Orbs. Not a bad end for the night!

Final Thoughts

My favorite maps for tier V have been: Barrows and Channel for different reasons. One I love the layout and the other offers an amazing atmosphere. I am not a fan of Conservatory or Maze and while there where some others I’m more than happy to get them as long as it is not these two.

I ended up gaining extra Orb of Alchemy just as pure loot after all these ten runs. I could make around 32 Chaos Orbs when all is said and done. NO one as of yet has bought the Broken Heart body armor or portal gem. The cards themselves I’ve turned in what ones I could and will hang onto the rest for now.

Information

Screenshots were taken and content written by @enjar. Screenshots are from a game called Path of Exile.