Introduction. Detailed will be the method I've used to sustain maps for a few leagues, specific here to Elder Underground Sea. As of 3.3, I'm sustaining them with a consistently upward trend, but I also believe it's pretty close to optimal for maximizing item returns from any map.



To disclaim this guide: whether or not you sustain maps is RNG-based. To abridge the math, the factors that influence this are:



how many maps you start with;

the average number of map returns per map.

As long as the average return per map is greater than or equal to 1 and your starting map pool is large enough to smooth out the randomness of the drops, you will sustain maps. Obviously, the focus of this guide will be on how to maximize the rate of map returns, but no method of rolling maps is immune to bad luck. Sometimes you'll get ten map returns from a single map; sometimes you'll go for ten maps without seeing any returns.



This is a trade league strategy. You will not be able to organically sustain the sextants and fragments you need to reliably have a positive map return, although you might run into a few lucky streaks should you want to try anyway.



tl; dr. Chisel, roll until 85+/25+, keep maps above 100/30, Vaal maps between 85/25 and 98/29 to hedge the losses from Vaaling in mediocre maps, use sextants good.



Atlas preparation. First, choose a map or set of maps to run. The easier it is to set up an Elder containment zone (see "





For maps T15 and below, you want to prepare your atlas by ensuring that the map(s) you want to run is the only one of its tier and its (tier + 1). If you were running Shaped Underground Seas, you'd scour all other T11 and T12 maps. This ensures that all of the T11 and T12 maps that drop in Shaped Underground Sea are also Shaped Underground Sea.



To maximize T16 Elder map returns, at least starting out, you should also choose a T15 map(s) to shape, and scour the natural T15 maps. This way, all of the T16 returns from your T15 maps will be the Elder map of your choice. I chose to shape Belfry and Pier. You can recomplete your T15 maps once you have a large enough supply for T16s to sustain themselves, but I like selling the Shaped Belfry and Pier maps in bulk.



In sum,



SCOUR THE FOLLOWING:

Forge of the Phoenix

Lair of the Hydra

Maze of the Minotaur

Pit of the Chimera

Basilica

Carcass

Lava Lake

Reef

Sunken City

SHAPE THE FOLLOWING:

Belfry

or whichever T10 maps you want, really



Required materials.





These are what you'll need a constant supply of. Budget permitting, buy in bulk, as it makes mapping feel really bad if you have to keep buying materials every few maps. You also want a whole stash tab dedicated to the map of your choice for organizational purposes.



[3.3] Run all maps with 3 fragments. Run non-corrupted maps with Warbands or Beyond -- Warbands is better for sustaining maps; I like Beyond because it yields good Shaper and Elder bases. Run corrupted maps without a mod or with Invasion or Warbands. For some sextant cases, you'll want to run corrupt double Beyond maps.



Make sure your prophecies are always loaded up too; some of them synergize extremely well with sextant mods e.g. Monstrous Treasure/Bountiful Traps and the Strongbox sextants. Remember to re-seal the good prophecies that don't end up triggering on map activation.



Rolling and organizing the maps. This is probably the most important part of the guide.



Zeroth, you need a starting pool of maps. Run some Shaped Belfries or Shaped Waste Pools or whatever for a while until you build up your starting pool of T16s. If you're impatient, you can gamble with your first few. Sometimes you get lucky; most of the time, you don't.



First, do the obvious: chisel all your maps to 20% quality and alch/chaos them until they're all above 25% pack size.



Set aside the maps that rolled 30% or higher pack size. We are going to run them:





The remaining should for the most part be between 85/25 (IIQ%/PS%) and 98/29; these are the ones we are going to Vaal.



Of these remaining maps, set aside and take note of the maps with the following mods in case they unidentified by the Vaal Orb:



% more Rare Monsters (Nemesis)

% more Magic Monsters (Bloodlines)

Slaying Enemies close together can attract monsters from Beyond

any dangerous mods that you can't run, e.g. reflect, no regen, etc.

You want to know which mods you're dealing with when you're handling unidentified maps, as the IIQ% bonus in conjunction with the sextant will yield some of the best possible returns. Remember that there's a sextant that nullifies reflect!



After the 25-29% pack size maps are organized in a way that makes sense to you, Vaal away.



There are four possible outcomes.



ONE: NOTHING



"the blackest present for the most brutal of all bass players"



TWO: 8 MOD



This is one of the outcomes we want. If your build can't run it, you can probably sell it at a premium.



THREE: UNIDENTIFIED



Another desirable outcome. Unidentified maps add 30% to the map's IIQ, and the sextant further adds 30/15 to the IIQ%/PS%.



FOUR: BRICK



The least desirable outcome. You can sell them or run them in between sets of sextants, as they can still yield T16 returns. Sometimes you'll get decently rolled Underground Rivers or Ramparts, but their density doesn't really compare to Underground Sea. If you choose to run them, run them while they're Elder/Shaper influenced.



Sorting the maps to match sextant mods. The reason you want to start with a decently sized map pool is so you can optimally run your good sextant mods. Sort your maps more or less within the following categories; there might be some overlap, in which case you can use your preference and judgment in choosing what to run:



Maps with Nemesis Rares (% more Rare Monsters)

Maps with Bloodline Mods (% more Magic Monsters)

Maps with Beyond (Slaying Enemies close together can attract monsters from Beyond)

Miscellaneous 8 Mod Corrupted Maps

Miscellaneous Unidentified Maps

Miscellaneous 30+% Pack Size Uncorrupted Maps

Miscellaneous 25-29% Pack Size Maps

Bricks

Dangerous Maps (sell the ones you can't run; keep the reflect ones)

If you get a map with Nemesis and Beyond, save it for the "Nemesis Monsters Drop 3 Additional Currency Items" sextant.



This is my T16 map tab as an example, where I've separated my maps into those rough categories (not quite in the listed order).







Desirable sextant mods and the maps you want to run. PSA: The rules for sextant blocking still apply, so if you want to save some sextants, use bad sextant rolls to block for the adjacent maps before rerolling them. If you get good sextant overlaps, see if you can match them to the same overlapping map mods.



30% increased Quantity of Items found in Unidentified Maps

Found Items drop Identified in Identified Maps

15% increased Pack Size in Unidentified Maps

Obviously, use your unidentified maps for these sextants. Their returns are wonderful.



Nemesis Monsters drop 3 additional Currency Items

This is one of the rarest and most profitable sextants. Ideally, run this mod with Nemesis and Beyond maps, using the Beyond Zana mod to double the Beyond spawns. Your other sextant mods should add more rare spawns to the map. Everyone who plays Path of Exile should have this experience at least once.



Areas contain additional Monsters that deal X Damage

Players and Monsters take 10% increased X Damage

Player's Life and Mana Recovery from Flasks are instant

Areas contain additional Monsters that Heal

Players deal 10% increased Damage for each Poison on them

Players have 5% increased Movement Speed for each Poison on them

Areas contain additional Poisonous Monsters

If you get multiple types of these sextants on one map, running them with miscellaneous 8-mod maps produces pretty consistent returns. The physical variation of the sextant mod adds mobs with proximity shield, which tends to slow a lot of builds down, so you might want to roll over it.



The instant life/mana recovery mod also borks with Divination Distillate's effect, so if your build relies on that, you should roll over it.



Unique Monsters drop Corrupted Items

Run this if you have maps that you can run double Beyond on. Ideally, this would land on an initially Elder-influenced target map, as the Null Portals count as unique monsters. If you don't have any double Beyond-able maps, roll over it.



Areas contain Zana

Strongboxes in Areas are Corrupted

Areas contain an extra Strongbox

Strongboxes in Areas are at least Rare Rarity

Unique Bosses of Corrupted Maps drop an additional Vaal Item

Found Items have a 5% chance to drop Corrupted in Areas

Strongbox Monsters have 500% increased Item Quantity

Strongbox Monsters are Enraged

Areas contain an extra Strongbox

Areas contain an additional Breach

Areas can contain Breaches

Areas can contain Abysses

Areas contain an additional Abyss

These are all mediocre-to-decent sextants when it comes to map returns -- match them to your mediocre-to-decent maps, e.g. the unchanged ones and bricks. Zana is useful for leveling and her sub-maps can drop T16s, but they're not dense enough to be particularly noteworthy.



30% increased Magic Pack Size

Run with your Bloodlines maps.



Magic Maps contain additional Magic Monsters

Rare Maps contain additional Rare Monsters

Normal Maps contain additional Normal Monsters

Players cannot take Reflected Damage

Areas contain additional Packs with Mirrored Rare Monsters

Make sure you roll these mods in addition to the "Nemesis Monsters drop..." mod if you're lucky enough to get it. Otherwise, they're decent, and the reflect-nullifying mod enables you to run some maps that you might not have been able to otherwise.



Areas contain 30 additional Clusters of Mysterious Barrels



There are five variants of barrels you can get with this sextant mod. The parasite barrels are, surprisingly, extremely good for map returns, and they all seem profitable except for the variant with the bearer-style explosions. If you find out that you rolled bad barrels, reroll the sextant and either deal with the desync or roll over it with the next round. If I guarantee good barrels with the first map, I run them with my 8-mod maps. The most T16 returns I ever got in a single map came from barrels -- 9 in total.



Areas contain hunted traitors

Very good, fairly rare sextant mod. It adds a lot of mobs that both fight with the default mobs on the map and drop a lot of loot. Run with 8-mods or 30+% pack size.



Incursion League-specific mechanics.



Prioritize Surveyor's Study and Storage Room. Sometimes, even the T1 Storage Room can have two sets of Dusty Charts, which is equivalent to the T2 Office of Cartography.



The Strongbox Chamber can also have Cartographer's Strongboxes in it, but they're not guaranteed.



Workshop and its upgrades increases the temple's overall item yield, which increases the number of maps you'll get as random drops.



My personal results. My map pool of Elder Underground Seas is growing slowly; anecdotally and unscientifically, every 12 maps yield an approximate return of 10-15. I sell T14 and Shaped T15 maps like hotcakes, and run the Shaped Belfries and Piers if I get bored of Underground Seas. I tend to roll T16's with the above method in batches of about 12 at a time.



Good luck with your maps!

Detailed will be the method I've used to sustain maps for a few leagues, specific here to Elder Underground Sea. As of 3.3, I'm sustaining them with a consistently upward trend, but I also believe it's pretty close to optimal for maximizing item returns from any map.To disclaim this guide: whether or not you sustain maps is RNG-based. To abridge the math, the factors that influence this are:As long as the average return per map is greater than or equal to 1 and your starting map pool is large enough to smooth out the randomness of the drops, you will sustain maps. Obviously, the focus of this guide will be on how to maximize the rate of map returns, butSometimes you'll get ten map returns from a single map; sometimes you'll go for ten maps without seeing any returns.You will not be able to organically sustain the sextants and fragments you need to reliably have a positive map return, although you might run into a few lucky streaks should you want to try anyway.Chisel, roll until 85+/25+, keep maps above 100/30, Vaal maps between 85/25 and 98/29 to hedge the losses from Vaaling in mediocre maps, use sextants good.First, choose a map or set of maps to run. The easier it is to set up an Elder containment zone (see " Elder Blob/Square/Thingy ", Windz) on your atlas, the better; the idea is to set up an indefinite Elder/Shaper influence flip-flop that you can maintain. In 3.3, Elder Underground Sea is all the rage, and will be the example of this guide.For maps T15 and below, you want to prepare your atlas by ensuring that the map(s) you want to run is the only one of its tier and its (tier + 1). If you were running Shaped Underground Seas, you'd scour all other T11 and T12 maps. This ensures that all of the T11 and T12 maps that drop in Shaped Underground Sea are also Shaped Underground Sea.To maximize T16 Elder map returns, at least starting out, you should also choose a T15 map(s) to shape, and scour the natural T15 maps. This way, all of the T16 returns from your T15 maps will be the Elder map of your choice. I chose to shape Belfry and Pier. You can recomplete your T15 maps once you have a large enough supply for T16s to sustain themselves, but I like selling the Shaped Belfry and Pier maps in bulk.In sum,These are what you'll need a constant supply of. Budget permitting, buy in bulk, as it makes mapping feel really bad if you have to keep buying materials every few maps. You also want a whole stash tab dedicated to the map of your choice for organizational purposes.Run all maps with 3 fragments. Run non-corrupted maps with Warbands or Beyond -- Warbands is better for sustaining maps; I like Beyond because it yields good Shaper and Elder bases. Run corrupted maps without a mod or with Invasion or Warbands. For some sextant cases, you'll want to run corrupt double Beyond maps.Make sure your prophecies are always loaded up too; some of them synergize extremely well with sextant mods e.g. Monstrous Treasure/Bountiful Traps and the Strongbox sextants. Remember to re-seal the good prophecies that don't end up triggering on map activation.Zeroth, you need a starting pool of maps. Run some Shaped Belfries or Shaped Waste Pools or whatever for a while until you build up your starting pool of T16s. If you're impatient, you can gamble with your first few. Sometimes you get lucky; most of the time, you don't.First, do the obvious: chisel all your maps to 20% quality and alch/chaos them until they're all above 25% pack size.Set aside the maps that rolled 30% or higher pack size. We are going to run them:The remaining should for the most part be between 85/25 (IIQ%/PS%) and 98/29; these are the ones we are going to Vaal.Of these remaining maps,You want to know which mods you're dealing with when you're handling unidentified maps, as the IIQ% bonus in conjunction with the sextant will yield some of the best possible returns. Remember that there's a sextant that nullifies reflect!After the 25-29% pack size maps are organized in a way that makes sense to you, Vaal away.There are four possible outcomes."the blackest present for the most brutal of all bass players"This is one of the outcomes we want. If your build can't run it, you can probably sell it at a premium.Another desirable outcome. Unidentified maps add 30% to the map's IIQ, and the sextant further adds 30/15 to the IIQ%/PS%.The least desirable outcome. You can sell them or run them in between sets of sextants, as they can still yield T16 returns. Sometimes you'll get decently rolled Underground Rivers or Ramparts, but their density doesn't really compare to Underground Sea. If you choose to run them, run them while they're Elder/Shaper influenced.The reason you want to start with a decently sized map pool is so you can optimally run your good sextant mods. Sort your maps more or less within the following categories; there might be some overlap, in which case you can use your preference and judgment in choosing what to run:This is my T16 map tab as an example, where I've separated my maps into those rough categories (not quite in the listed order).If you get good sextant overlaps, see if you can match them to the same overlapping map mods.Obviously, use your unidentified maps for these sextants. Their returns are wonderful.This is one of the rarest and most profitable sextants. Ideally, run this mod with Nemesis and Beyond maps, using the Beyond Zana mod to double the Beyond spawns. Your other sextant mods should add more rare spawns to the map. Everyone who plays Path of Exile should have this experience at least once.If you get multiple types of these sextants on one map, running them with miscellaneous 8-mod maps produces pretty consistent returns. The physical variation of the sextant mod adds mobs with proximity shield, which tends to slow a lot of builds down, so you might want to roll over it.The instant life/mana recovery mod also borks with Divination Distillate's effect, so if your build relies on that, you should roll over it.Run this if you have maps that you can run double Beyond on. Ideally, this would land on an initially Elder-influenced target map, as the Null Portals count as unique monsters. If you don't have any double Beyond-able maps, roll over it.These are all mediocre-to-decent sextants when it comes to map returns -- match them to your mediocre-to-decent maps, e.g. the unchanged ones and bricks. Zana is useful for leveling and her sub-maps can drop T16s, but they're not dense enough to be particularly noteworthy.Run with your Bloodlines maps.Make sure you roll these mods in addition to the "Nemesis Monsters drop..." mod if you're lucky enough to get it. Otherwise, they're decent, and the reflect-nullifying mod enables you to run some maps that you might not have been able to otherwise.There are five variants of barrels you can get with this sextant mod. The parasite barrels are, surprisingly, extremely good for map returns, and they all seem profitable except for the variant with the bearer-style explosions. If you find out that you rolled bad barrels, reroll the sextant and either deal with the desync or roll over it with the next round. If I guarantee good barrels with the first map, I run them with my 8-mod maps.Very good, fairly rare sextant mod. It adds a lot of mobs that both fight with the default mobs on the map and drop a lot of loot. Run with 8-mods or 30+% pack size.Prioritizeand. Sometimes, even the T1 Storage Room can have two sets of Dusty Charts, which is equivalent to the T2 Office of Cartography.Thecan also have Cartographer's Strongboxes in it, but they're not guaranteed.and its upgrades increases the temple's overall item yield, which increases the number of maps you'll get as random drops.My map pool of Elder Underground Seas is growing slowly; anecdotally and unscientifically, every 12 maps yield an approximate return of 10-15. I sell T14 and Shaped T15 maps like hotcakes, and run the Shaped Belfries and Piers if I get bored of Underground Seas. I tend to roll T16's with the above method in batches of about 12 at a time. Last edited by poeticEnnui on Jul 15, 2018, 5:57:14 PM Last bumped on Jan 25, 2019, 4:34:16 PM