I have questions everyday and was hoping I could use JSP to my benefit. I youtube alot of stuff, but sometimes I cant soak everything in the video because its alot of information thrown at me at once. Was hoping I could use this thread to help me learn more about the game. This is my 2nd league in the game (Only played 3-4 weeks last league)

What is the best way to do map progression? I'm currently around 60/164. And I was wondering if I should buy some watchstones to up my awakened level before I go any further. I am currently clearing tier 7 maps with ease with an Ice Trap Sabateur.

And after i complete map completion. What is the best zone for a new player to focus on and upgrade to the max.

This post was edited by Riv3r8888 on Aug 2 2021 11:39pm

I'm also new, and don't know the best answer without seeing your current progress but I've had luck with the leapfrog method. https://m.imgur.com/gallery/hth7QsR

That looks like a good strat I am definitely gonna try that. Thanks for the info.

I've been using this strategy. Its a really good strat thanks again for sharing!!

I always play this game on and off. Its fun but i dont understand how to find good gear without risking support gems on skills. So hard to find gear haha

So mapping is more of a choice in which atlas region you want to focus on for the specific bonuses/what you want to accomplish fastest, there are many zones designed to help you gear out/find upgrades in a specific manner.
Getting full completion and then full awakener completion as well as full maven invitation completion is the primary goal to maximizing your time in for rewards out
PoE is a game of choices and which path you want to directly pursue at this given moment in time. With that being said there's also things outside of mapping like heist/delve/breachstones/simulacrum/etc that can also impact character progression.
If you feel like you're hitting a wall with getting map drops I find the most important part is being able to move your watchstones freely and in that regard just buying 4 of the cheapest blue ones from the market for each zone isn't a terrible idea as long as your build can handle the higher tier of content.

is there any advantage to getting full conqueror completion and getting all the base watchstones. Or should I just buy them and focus on one zone now. My current completion is somewhere around 100/164 and I have 21 watchstones. I kinda stopped doing conquerors after 20 when It took me more maps to get to each conqueror completion. My first conqueror after 20 watchstones was 9 maps to completion that was a little discouraging for me because I just want to farm in groups in public games or with friends. But I didnt want to waste friends time while I'm doing specific maps just to get my completion. I felt like I hit a wall when i seen 9 maps to get completion. I then went to TfT discord and asked in general help if they would all be 9 maps for completion and they said after 20 it was RNG and could be between 3 and 9 or something like that. So at that point I felt as if I was over half way done until I seen 9 maps for completion, which made me feel I wasnt even close to half way. The watchstones are cheap enough that I'm thinking I will just buy them and work on my map completion and awakening bonus completion. I just would like to be blasting through maps in a minute or 2 and focusing on one zone or bossing with my Ice trap build. I'd like to just do the bosses and uber/regular elder as a service and to farm.

after the first sirus spawn iirc it does not matter at all as long as you're capable of handling the t16 maps you could in theory fully fill your atlas with blue stones and get the rest of your completion on top tier.

there are a few maps in each tier that are only in that tier that you might have to go back to and get completion on.

and yea the conq spawn is fully rng based, you could need 40 maps to spawn sirus or 16.

Thank you for the cheat sheet you pm'd me and this useful information!!!

Map progression... Assuming you have a map stash tab, you can visually see which maps you have the atlas bonuses done for or not. Prioritize maps you haven't done the bonuses for, then if you're out of those just run some high tier maps you have extras of. You can also check Zana for maps and do Zana missions for a free map + restocking her shop if you get stuck, or worst comes to worst buy some maps off other players (You'll basically always make the currency back just from doing the league mechanic in the map you bought, so don't worry about "Oh but that's so expensive!".

I wouldn't buy watchstones personally. You'll unlock them naturally, and for the awakening bonuses you need to be in T14-16 anyway (by which point you should have a decent amount of watchstones, and you'll have more than you know what to do with eventually, so personally I wouldn't but I'm new as well so take it with a grain of salt).

Best zone? There isn't one, really. Pick a mechanic you enjoy, find a zone that specializes in that mechanic, and get watchstones that buff that mechanic. For example, personally I enjoy harvest crafting. Made a few really nice pieces of gear this league with my extra rolls, found 2 sacred blossoms (sell for 4 ex each), and sold some of the more valuable/rare harvests for a good amount in the TFT discord. Personally I went with Haewark Hamlet for it since I like the syndicate boss encounters as well, but had Lex Proxima set up as well for when I needed Sulphite. I set up my watchstones and uncharted realms for extra zana missions, since you can get a "complete the harvest" mission in the Zana maps for more harvests. But the key point is finding a mechanic you enjoy - It doesn't really matter if something is 2 or 3 times more profitable if you don't have fun while you do it. For the most part tho they're all pretty evenly matched, sometimes one or two mechanics spike in value with supply and demand but overall they're all pretty equal.

There are other ways to make currency which are significantly more efficient than running maps tho, but they require a great amount of experience/knowledge, investment, and/or both. There are a million youtube videos on how to make currency tho, so just watch a few and see if any of them look fun to you and try that.