-
Ever wanted an RSS feed of all your favorite gaming news sites? Go check out our new Gaming Headlines feed! Read more about it here.
Path of Exile 3.0+ |OT| To Oriath, Xbox Live, and Beyond
- Thread starter Dozer1003
- Start date
Just got a Monstrous Treasure prophecy. I don't really know what it does but I saw it's being sold for 75 chaos so I sealed it and put it for sale at that price. That's almost as much Chaos as I have right now lol
It basically puts every monster in a map inside a lockbox. It's good to maximize drops in high tier maps.
Depends on the progress bar of your safe house and how many members in each faction. But research is less frequent than the rest.
Is there a way to make them betray or want to remove each other less?
It gets really annoying and slows my progress by a lot.
Just dropping by to say i got a Headhunter off of Cameria.
But it's Xbox so i havent sold it yet lol.
But it's Xbox so i havent sold it yet lol.
You have to always take option for Trust. If there are options that make them turn into rivals, dont pick that. And always take option that removes rivalries.
Even if gaining trust means swapping members around its still worth it in long run. You want your full board to be filled with green lines.
I play on the box hit me up to play some time Loggjaw is the tag.
What Shugga said. Keep in mind sextants, as well. A yellow map you like that is close to three white maps can be preferrable to one that's only in range of two, as you can use more sextants on the former.
Is it me, or have many of the marquee items gotten really expensive this league? Like Inpulsa 6-L being around 10 ex, or 2 abyssal slot tombfists being 6 ex. It was never that expensive in the past, was it? I don't really remember these items being so out of reach in past leagues. Granted, I only played casually with Incursion and Delve so maybe my memory is a bit fuzzy, but I thought I remembered these items used to be much cheaper.
They nuked the drop rates of many BIS items, including those two (and grelwood, poets pens).
This is perfect. And exactly how I view them.Syndicate encounters at high level red maps:
They have increased their rarity to tier 1 in the case of Inpulsa, Poet Pens, Yoke of Suffering and Grelwood. Probably a few more but these ones are noticeable meta uniques.
I don't think Tombfists got increased in rarity, 2 slotted Abyssals Tombfists were always expensive. It's just that we are seeing a trickle down effect where Tombfist has seeped into the public conscience into this essentially mandatory item for attack based skills so that has hiked up their price.
This is the optimum Syndicate set up minus doing stuff like having It the Fled in Research as 3 star general, having Jorgin in the area where you get Talisman lvl3 and Hillock in the area where you get quality on pieces (It the Fled in Research is very lucrative if you want to go for the double farm):
The intervention safehouse I am about to run soon is going to net me like 120+ Chaos guaranteed.
The intervention safehouse I am about to run soon is going to net me like 120+ Chaos guaranteed.
I had no idea they had their rarity increased. That sucks too because I wanted to play a Scion Elemental Hit, but when I was grocery shopping her list of end game gear, I was blown away by how expensive everything was. I need at least 18-20 exalts to fully load up, and that's far more than any amount I've ever been able to get.
I did see your guide right above, so maybe I'll dedicate a week or so to Intervention scarab farming...
For manipulating the syndicate, are you just not choosing options when they appear and aren't good? I always feel compelled to choose something but is it best to leave them if the option would demote someone out of the ranks, enable a rivalry or something else negative?
It's really pathetic that once again the optimal way to play the league mechanic is quarry farming. Third time in a row.
Yeah, they really need to figure their shit out. Scale the rewards based on difficulty. Give much more intelligence at higher maps, allow us to pick an extra option at high maps, increase the rate of good reward options (currency, scarabs, etc) at higher maps.
Safe houses need bonuses at higher difficulties as well. Give us chances at additional chests/benches, guarantee high ilvl bases from shit masters (looking at you, Vagan).
Not a complete newb to PoE but this is the first league where I'm looking at getting serious about red maps/Shaper etc.
Red maps are doable for me but syndicate encounters can range from drawn-out to nigh-impossible, is it more worth my time farming high yellow tier maps? Feels like the fact I can blitz through them and not struggle with the syndicate would be more profitable overall. Right now I'm mostly focusing on atlas completion with red maps.
Red maps are doable for me but syndicate encounters can range from drawn-out to nigh-impossible, is it more worth my time farming high yellow tier maps? Feels like the fact I can blitz through them and not struggle with the syndicate would be more profitable overall. Right now I'm mostly focusing on atlas completion with red maps.
I actually stopped Quarry farming and just did yellow maps. My character is at a level where it can do rank 3 multiple syndicate members with ease on yellow maps. I still avoid farming them on red maps though for potential one shots. I just do the yellow maps that I can clear fast like Ashen Wood, Toxic Sewer etc. Get some loot and currency while doing Syndicate stuff.
But yeah rewards need to be higher for higher monster level. Right now to syndicate farm you just do it at the level where you can just smash them as soon as they appear from their portals. Which reminds me of another issue.
That once you are at a level where you just insta gib syndicate members, you run into the issue where they stack on top of each other preventing you from accessing the other member. This is a HUGE nuisance when you are target farming them and just wastes your procs. They really need to fix this.
But yeah rewards need to be higher for higher monster level. Right now to syndicate farm you just do it at the level where you can just smash them as soon as they appear from their portals. Which reminds me of another issue.
That once you are at a level where you just insta gib syndicate members, you run into the issue where they stack on top of each other preventing you from accessing the other member. This is a HUGE nuisance when you are target farming them and just wastes your procs. They really need to fix this.
If you are talking about members in the Intervention branch then I never derank them unless its an extreme case (like I need to pull someone out of the general spot or do some extreme swapping). Sometimes one of the members is just very uncooperative and gives only bad options, so I derank them temporarily but only if they are rank 2 or 3. I never derank someone who is 1 rank unless I need them in another division. So yeah there are many times where I just leave them on the ground if the two choices arent good.
I think people are still confused so I am going to make a written guide for it. Its not hard or confusing, just tedious and sometimes you do get dicked by RNG.
Because its a small map where the syndicate proc happens in a square area around the way point so you just do an outer lap to proc the syndicate (except Fortifications, they proc on 3 locations in Quarry, top right, bottom left and bottom right). There is no loot from quarry that you care about but thats not the point, the point is to trigger as many syndicate procs in as little time as possible to set up the board optimally. Its also safe because the members are so underleveled, you can gib multiple 3 rank members with item in Quarry with just about any build. The rewards you get from the Safehouse are the ones you are after and they are not restricted by levels. I have run level 81 Intervention safehouse and lvl 63 safe house, you get identical Scarab rewards. And Scarab rewards are what you want, except for It The Fled on research for Breachstone upgrades.
To farm Syndicate, not for anything else. In higher level zones you don't get anything extra from them, they just become more dangerous.
How much better are shaper items? I got a shaper's ruby ring but it had crummy rolls, so I put it for sale for 1 Alch and I got a whisper in like, two minutes, made me wonder if I was doing something wrong. The ring really didn't seem good.
Most BiS rare items are shaper or elder because of the extra rolls. RF is unplayable without an elder helmet for instance
High ilvl rings/amulet, certain armor bases amd certain weapon bases are worth quite a bit if they are Shaper or Elder because of the bases.
Generally speaking:
*Body Armors can get some crazy stats like plus % to attack crit chance.
*Elder Helmets are godlike for Molten Strike, RF and Consecrated Path as they can provide a 6 link and allow you to use Koams Heart.
*Shaper rings can get Assassins Mark while Elder Rings can Warlords Mark. These synergize super well with the unique Mark of the Elder ring and Mark of the Shaper ring. In fact for many builds this is like near best in slot damage set up.
*Shaper Amulets can get %phys as extra which is very strong obviously and Elder Amulets can get max % life leech stat which is essential for Slayer leech.
*Shaper Scepters are still meta with Blade Vortex for the stat stick phys to ele affixes same as on Amulets.
*Shaper Quiver can get plus to projectiles.
*Shaper Bow especially the Imperial bows that have implicit elemental damage are excellent Ele Hit crafting bases where as Elder Bows are excellent Caustic Arrow Toxic Rain bows.
*Elder Belts and Boots are noteworthy because they can get increased cooldown recovery affix, great for CoC, Poet Pen and Vaal skill build.
*Gloves can get some weird affixes to boost stuff like traps and certain projectile based skills though generally not that sought after... attack builds go Tombfists and spell based builds go Essence of Insanity gloves.
Generally if you get these bases at ilvl80 or higher they can be worth currency even just as whites. Despite these bases being more common, they have been more in demand due to new crafting system and Fossil stuff allowing anyone to create good items with stuff like multi mods. My favorite is to get an Elder ring good base, alteration spam until you get Warlords Mark, Regal then Annul until only Warlords Mark remains. Then Multi mod 5 good affixes on it, you can sell back for like 5 exalts easy for profit of 2-3 exalts or use yourself.
Tons of recovery available in this league. New flask craft gives 3% life recovery during Flask effect. Then another 1.5% life recovery on belts as a syndicate craft. And then a large amount available as a Focus mode.
People still sleeping on Focus mods. They are basically like customizable Vaal skills. I think a lot of people just dont have all the top crafts yet, it takes a while to get most of them.
I found two in the span of 3 hours a week back. Luckiest I've ever been in PoE lol
Probably means I'm done finding them
3 Ex drops for me this league, above average.
I'm sitting on 12 Ex and 2300c now. Still haven't seen a consensus on the best iteration of CoC that can do all content, so I'm not quite sure what to build. I imagine Cospris ice nova / frost bolt, but I haven't decided between Assassin or Scion.
I'm sitting on 12 Ex and 2300c now. Still haven't seen a consensus on the best iteration of CoC that can do all content, so I'm not quite sure what to build. I imagine Cospris ice nova / frost bolt, but I haven't decided between Assassin or Scion.
Damn. Ive had 5 drop so far. Sold a Taste of Hate for 1 and a Grelwood for a couple too.
Im glad I started using Oni Goroshi when I did as I needed 2. They have gone way up in price.
Im glad I started using Oni Goroshi when I did as I needed 2. They have gone way up in price.
Someone has already done Uber Elder with Ice Nova Frostbolt CoC already. Also thats a lot of currency you got there damn son! Half way to affording a Headhunter.
Alright guys here is my Christmas present to the PoE Resetera community:
Here is my Syndicate farming guide.
Pros:
*Farm currency with 0 investment.
*Safe and guaranteed if doing lower tier content.
*Not build dependent, anyone can do it but faster builds have edge as they always do.
*Don't even need to be in maps to do it but its better with a character that is well geared.
*Decent returns per hour invested if you do it correctly.
Cons:
*Takes a while to set up, like 5-6 hours. Still faster than setting up a Shaped Elder map strat though.
*Some RNG is still in play with how Syndicate members spawn and their options.
*Needs to be at a level you are comfortable farming multiple rank 3 members or else you can get killed. I would not try this at high Red maps.
*Can be boring and tedious.
*If you don't do it correctly then you end up wasting a lot of time trying for perfect set up and that time could have been spent on farming maps or delves instead.
WHAT IS THE GOAL?
The goal is to farm Intervention Safehouses for maximum Scarab rewards. Scarabs are in very high demands and the best ones sell immediately, you don't even need to undercut prices aggressively. The best ones can go up to 30 Chaos as of this post.
The most optimal set up is:
Tier 1 (one of these MUST be the leader of the Intervention safehouse. You still want both of these in Intervention at rank 3) - These are worth 27-30C Gilded
Rin (Map Scarab)
Cameria (Sulphite Scarab)
Tier 2 - These are worth like 16-20C Gilded and you want both of these guys in.
Gravicius (Divination Scarab)
Haku (Strongbox Scarab)
Tier 3 (only choose one of these, preferably Tora) These are worth around 10-12 C Gilded
Tora (Harbinger Scarab)
It That Fled (Breach Scarab)
ALL MEMBERS OF INTERVENTION MUST BE RANK 3 FOR MAXIMUM REWARDS! ESPECIALLY THE LEADER WHICH HAS TO BE EITHER RIN OR CAMERIA (preferably Rin over Cameria, its a difference of a few Chaos)
You can skimp on Tora/It the Fled rank, maybe even Gravicius/Haku if you are impatient.
You can also have It the Fled in Research for the empowered Breachstone. You want It at rank 3 leader of Safehouse but this requires investment for returns as you need completed Breachstones on deck (20C minimum). Two minumum Breachstone that's like 40-50C and most people may not have that so for now I would say ignore this and focus only on Intervention.
The Leader of a Safehouse gets DOUBLE REWARDS so if you have Rin at rank 3 and Leader you will get GUARANTEED 2 Gilded Cartography Scarabs for around 27-30C each. Everyone else will drop one Scarab each depending on their ranks (rank 1 is rusted, rank 2 is polished, rank 3 is gilded). If you do the math then with optimal set up you can get around 100-120 Chaos per run.
And don't listen to that ZiggyD video that says ranks don't matter.. they absolutely do. They may have hotfixed after his video but you must have high ranks on members for maximum rewards which are the gilded scarabs.
HOW TO SET THIS UP
This is the complicated section but with a few rules in mind, it actually becomes pretty easy.
When setting up the Syndicate members, always apply these rule of thumbs:
*NEVER RUN ANY SAFEHOUSE THAT ISN'T INTERVENTION. Unlocked Safehouses means that division CANNOT spawn in a map. After a while the Safehouse progress bar does decay so you may encounter them again before they are blocked off. This is how you achieve "Division" blocking and is an essential part of this strategy. Exception to this rule is discussed below that is related to dislodging particular members.
*Anyone that is NOT someone you want in Intervention division, you want them associated with another division. That means no one should be an unranked "FREE AGENT". This is for two reasons:
1) Free agents will try to join divisions that spawn. Logically speaking, if you have 3 Safehouses blocked and are always spawning Interventions, then any free agents while appear in Intervention spawns hoping to join the branch. You don't want this UNLESS it's for members that you actually want in Intervention (more on this later).
2) Free agents can actually become Division leaders after you complete a Safehouse. This screwed me over two times before I realized what was happening. Everyone who was associated with the Safehouse gets demotes to 0 rank and at that point a free agent can actually takes priority over them. If there are no free agents then the leader is someone in that branch who was below the leader at time of Safehouse raid (you can look at portrait in case of situations where members are same ranks) and they default to rank 1 of course.
*Do not Interrogate members unless they are rank 2 or higher. At rank 1 an Interrogation not only yields less Intel but it also makes them into a free agent if you do it when they are at rank 1. This is especially true if you are dealing with Intervention members. So members without a rank are free agents and you generally don't want this.
*Remember that walking away is your hidden 3rd option. Sometimes you will get a rank 1 member asking to remove someone from the board who is someone you want in Intervention. You don't want them becoming a free agent and you definitely don't want to remove Intervention members so just walk away and try other members first.
*When there are 3 members, at least one of them almost always has a rank up option through Execute. When there are two members there can be Execute or Betray option. This means that you need to interact with Intervention members FIRST before any other division members to see if they have Rank up option (assuming they are already in Intervention, if not then you Interrogate them to derank them so they turn free agent and have option to be recruited under Intervention). If there is one member remaining then there is either a Betray or Bargain option usually Bargain which gives free intelligence or some items. Of course if an Intervention member is max rank then save them for last as that is logical (since they can't go up in rank so that's a wasted option).
*Always remove rivalries from the board. Always remove items from members. Always gain trust with as many members on the board as possible even across divisions. Unless the member is someone you want in Intervention but is in another division, in that case you interrogate them to dislodge them from that other division.
*There is no need to gain intelligence on Intervention until you have properly set up the board. That means that free intel is actually bad if that free intel unlocks the Safehouse because that blocks the Intervention division temporarily. Only start gain intel on Intervention until it's close to being set up.
*DO NOT insta gib members as they appear out of portals. This will result in them being clumped over each other forcing you into an order that may not be optimum. Imagine having 2 Intervention members, one rank 3 and one rank 2. Rank 3 stacks on top of rank 2 and you can't access the rank 2 one to Execute them for the rank up. That's horrible and you essentially wasted a precious syndicate proc. Let the members spread out after spawning before killing them. Hopefully they fix this because it's very annoying.
*Gain intelligence on other safehouse as a priority while not interrogating members that are rank 1 (again, unless they are members you want in Intervention). You want the other safehouses unlocked as soon as possible so that you maximize Intervention procs. Essentially non Intervention members are safe to interrogate if they are rank 2 or rank 3.
*There can be only 3 members in interrogation. If you add a 4th one, then the oldest one gets dislodged. This isn't too big of a deal you just lose out on some intel, nothing to fret yourself over when it comes to overloading your jail.
*Make sure every division has at least one subordinate. If there are no subordinates in that division then the game will not spawn that division if other safehouses are unlocked until the leader spawns which has a low occurence rate. This means you can potentially fully block yourself from spawning ANY Syndicate members. If this happens you can just run one of the safehouses but that's not optimum so just make sure this doesn't happen to you by making sure every division has at least one subordinate.
OK OK that's a lot of rules… now how do I apply these rules?
Lets use some example problems and see how we solve them.
1) A board is spawned. You locate 4 out of the 5 members that you want on Intervention but they are in other divisions. The 5th members isn't even on the board!!! What do we do?
Simple. You remove a different member (non Intervention member obviously) from the board until you get the member that you want (there is always a set number of members so removing one adds another one to the board). You may need to raid safehouses to identify or even dislodge Intervention members from other divisions. Remember that to remove someone from the board, they usually need to be rank 1 or lower so just start interrogating the unwanted people in order to get your Intervention members present on the board.
2) Ok you got all 5 members on the board but they are all in different divisions! And Gravicious is the leader of Transportation and he never appears!
This is also a simple issue to fix. First you just run the map until you encounter these potential Intervention members. Keep building up Trust and keep deranking them until eventually they get an option to move to Intervention. Just do not block off Intervention safehouse. Blocking other safehouses works here because if you have free agents and only Intervention is available to spawn then they are VERY likely to join Intervention as long as some Trust exists.
Once all the non leaders are in Intervention, then you need you start making sure that NO ONE ELSE IS A FREE AGENT. This includes non Intervention members. Once this is set up, focus on gaining Intel on Transportation to proc Gravicious. Division leader rarely spawn especially if they have low trust numbers but if they do great! Immediately interrogate Gravicious to dislodge him just make sure someone is available under Transport to replace him.
In my experience leaders very rarely spawn so usually you need to just raid the safehouse to dislodge them (yes yes I know this breaks one of the rules but I said there was on exception and this is it). It's usually faster this way unless you get lucky. The opposite is also true. You may get someone in Intervention as a leader that you don't want there. Same rules apply just make sure there are no free agents to take over in Intervention as leader when you run it otherwise you are going to waste more time as the free agent might become the new leader.
3) Alright alright, you dislodged Gravicious and have a few members in Intervention. How do youget all 5 in Intervention?
You run maps or zones for as many Syndicate procs as possible. Use the rules listed before. If they are non Intervention members, rank them up to 2 or above. if they are rank 1. If they are already high rank (2 or higher), then interrogate them to gain intel on that division in order to block off that division. Again to clarify, THIS is for NON INTERVENTION divisions.
Do not gain intel on Intervention division in this stage. Potential Intervention members that spawn, you either place them in Intervention, derank them to dislodge them from non Intervention division and if they are already in Intervention then rank them up to rank 3. All the while keep gaining Trust with all members to maximize procs. The more Trust you have the faster this will move along.
4) Fine fine… you got all 5 members in Intervention after some time. You have now also blocked or nearly blocked other branches. Your division leader isn't Rin or Cameria.. what the hell do you do now?
You are almost there. At this stage you need to pay more attention. You need to keep running maps until the Intervention leader procs. This may take a while but when they appear you must interrogate. Just make sure before you do this, Cameria and Rin are rank 3 while the other 2 are rank 2 or lower. As always never Interrogate an Intervention member that is rank 1 or they become free agent. Get Rin or Cam to rank 3, other two to rank 2 and keep proccing until leader appears. If there are no free agents then interrogating the leader will derank them one level and put Rin or Cam as leader. The previous leader will return to the division after a while you just need to rank them up again. Once the leader is set, start ranking them up to lvl3.
5) Ok you have finally set it up to what you want. No free agents, 5 Intervention members all rank 3, Rin or Cam as leader, every other division is blocked or close to it, every other division has at least one subordinate. You run the safehouse, get your loot. Now you come back to see everyone in Intervention is a free agent and someone else is a leader! Do you have to do this whole 6 hour set up again!!??
You have already done the set up, from now on it doesn't take more than a couple of hours to get the Intervention safehouse in order again. Remember that the remaining divisions are already blocked or close to blocked off. That means that now when you proc Interventions, you will have previous Intervention members (that you just beat in your safehouse) as free agents wanting to join back into Intervention. Repeat the previous step to rank them up and get the appropriate leader in place. Run safehouse again and profit. Repeat as many times as you want!
Potential Issues you may run into:
*I have Cameria and Tora Trusted with each other in Intervention at around rank 1 or rank 2 (or any other two combination of members). Whenever a Syndicate procs, these two appear but they want to betray each other. How do I fix it??
Ans: From my hours of testing, it seems that there are natural rivalries in the Syndicate. Tora and Cameria generally hate each other and hate working together. Even if there is a Trust line present, they are likely to betray each other. Remember that betrayal can occur even if trust exists (can't have betrayal without existing trust by definition of the word!). If this keeps occurring then I would say cut your loss and interrogate one of them that has the higher rank. It will set you back a bit but as long as the member is still in the division its fine. Much better than Betrayal option that leads to them being dislodged from Intervention or worse yet from the board.
*I have wasted many hours setting up my 5 members in Intervention but I can't get leader to spawn to dislodge them to replace with Cam or Rin.
Ans: This can happen with bad RNG or if the leader has few Trust lines. The last resort option is to rank up all of the remaining members and run the safehouse as is. You will lose some Chaos but you will save time in long run. Its not bad at all to have Gravicious or Haku to in leader as well, you generally lose bigger if its Tora/It that Fled in leader position.
*The zone or map I am running takes too long to find Syndicates. Whats a good place or map to do this?
Ans: I started this strat on Blood Aqueducts then tried on Quarry and then finally yellow maps with easy layouts. Blood Aqueducts you just run from one end to the other and encounter syndicates on your way. If you find a proc closer to beginning, just do it and head back or teleport to town. If its closer to end then just keep going forward to exit. Respawn zone with ctrl plus click. With Quarry its both faster and slower. Its faster when Fortification is blocked because then the syndicate spawns always happen in a square perimeter around way point that isn't too big or a perimeter so you just do a circle around. However, if Fortifications spawn then appear in 3 fixed corners of the area that take a while to get to. This greatly increases time where you first search for 3 divisions then you need to check corners. In the time it took me to check Forts, I realized I could do maps. I tried white maps first, Strand and Beach are amazing for this. I moved on to yellows maps after that and for me it was fine, can still kill members quick but not too quick where they might stack on top of each other from instant kills. Shaped Atoll, Toxic Sewer, Ashen Wood, Shaped ramparts, Canyon are all easy maps or any map you like to run that you can handle syndicates on. It will take longer with maps but you will get other rewards too while running so IMO it's better to run low tier maps. Less boring as well and you can make decent change while setting up the board.
I hope this was helpful, I tried to make this detail. You just keep doing this and this will start to make sense as you will notice patterns.
Here is my Syndicate farming guide.
Pros:
*Farm currency with 0 investment.
*Safe and guaranteed if doing lower tier content.
*Not build dependent, anyone can do it but faster builds have edge as they always do.
*Don't even need to be in maps to do it but its better with a character that is well geared.
*Decent returns per hour invested if you do it correctly.
Cons:
*Takes a while to set up, like 5-6 hours. Still faster than setting up a Shaped Elder map strat though.
*Some RNG is still in play with how Syndicate members spawn and their options.
*Needs to be at a level you are comfortable farming multiple rank 3 members or else you can get killed. I would not try this at high Red maps.
*Can be boring and tedious.
*If you don't do it correctly then you end up wasting a lot of time trying for perfect set up and that time could have been spent on farming maps or delves instead.
WHAT IS THE GOAL?
The goal is to farm Intervention Safehouses for maximum Scarab rewards. Scarabs are in very high demands and the best ones sell immediately, you don't even need to undercut prices aggressively. The best ones can go up to 30 Chaos as of this post.
The most optimal set up is:
Tier 1 (one of these MUST be the leader of the Intervention safehouse. You still want both of these in Intervention at rank 3) - These are worth 27-30C Gilded
Rin (Map Scarab)
Cameria (Sulphite Scarab)
Tier 2 - These are worth like 16-20C Gilded and you want both of these guys in.
Gravicius (Divination Scarab)
Haku (Strongbox Scarab)
Tier 3 (only choose one of these, preferably Tora) These are worth around 10-12 C Gilded
Tora (Harbinger Scarab)
It That Fled (Breach Scarab)
ALL MEMBERS OF INTERVENTION MUST BE RANK 3 FOR MAXIMUM REWARDS! ESPECIALLY THE LEADER WHICH HAS TO BE EITHER RIN OR CAMERIA (preferably Rin over Cameria, its a difference of a few Chaos)
You can skimp on Tora/It the Fled rank, maybe even Gravicius/Haku if you are impatient.
You can also have It the Fled in Research for the empowered Breachstone. You want It at rank 3 leader of Safehouse but this requires investment for returns as you need completed Breachstones on deck (20C minimum). Two minumum Breachstone that's like 40-50C and most people may not have that so for now I would say ignore this and focus only on Intervention.
The Leader of a Safehouse gets DOUBLE REWARDS so if you have Rin at rank 3 and Leader you will get GUARANTEED 2 Gilded Cartography Scarabs for around 27-30C each. Everyone else will drop one Scarab each depending on their ranks (rank 1 is rusted, rank 2 is polished, rank 3 is gilded). If you do the math then with optimal set up you can get around 100-120 Chaos per run.
And don't listen to that ZiggyD video that says ranks don't matter.. they absolutely do. They may have hotfixed after his video but you must have high ranks on members for maximum rewards which are the gilded scarabs.
HOW TO SET THIS UP
This is the complicated section but with a few rules in mind, it actually becomes pretty easy.
When setting up the Syndicate members, always apply these rule of thumbs:
*NEVER RUN ANY SAFEHOUSE THAT ISN'T INTERVENTION. Unlocked Safehouses means that division CANNOT spawn in a map. After a while the Safehouse progress bar does decay so you may encounter them again before they are blocked off. This is how you achieve "Division" blocking and is an essential part of this strategy. Exception to this rule is discussed below that is related to dislodging particular members.
*Anyone that is NOT someone you want in Intervention division, you want them associated with another division. That means no one should be an unranked "FREE AGENT". This is for two reasons:
1) Free agents will try to join divisions that spawn. Logically speaking, if you have 3 Safehouses blocked and are always spawning Interventions, then any free agents while appear in Intervention spawns hoping to join the branch. You don't want this UNLESS it's for members that you actually want in Intervention (more on this later).
2) Free agents can actually become Division leaders after you complete a Safehouse. This screwed me over two times before I realized what was happening. Everyone who was associated with the Safehouse gets demotes to 0 rank and at that point a free agent can actually takes priority over them. If there are no free agents then the leader is someone in that branch who was below the leader at time of Safehouse raid (you can look at portrait in case of situations where members are same ranks) and they default to rank 1 of course.
*Do not Interrogate members unless they are rank 2 or higher. At rank 1 an Interrogation not only yields less Intel but it also makes them into a free agent if you do it when they are at rank 1. This is especially true if you are dealing with Intervention members. So members without a rank are free agents and you generally don't want this.
*Remember that walking away is your hidden 3rd option. Sometimes you will get a rank 1 member asking to remove someone from the board who is someone you want in Intervention. You don't want them becoming a free agent and you definitely don't want to remove Intervention members so just walk away and try other members first.
*When there are 3 members, at least one of them almost always has a rank up option through Execute. When there are two members there can be Execute or Betray option. This means that you need to interact with Intervention members FIRST before any other division members to see if they have Rank up option (assuming they are already in Intervention, if not then you Interrogate them to derank them so they turn free agent and have option to be recruited under Intervention). If there is one member remaining then there is either a Betray or Bargain option usually Bargain which gives free intelligence or some items. Of course if an Intervention member is max rank then save them for last as that is logical (since they can't go up in rank so that's a wasted option).
*Always remove rivalries from the board. Always remove items from members. Always gain trust with as many members on the board as possible even across divisions. Unless the member is someone you want in Intervention but is in another division, in that case you interrogate them to dislodge them from that other division.
*There is no need to gain intelligence on Intervention until you have properly set up the board. That means that free intel is actually bad if that free intel unlocks the Safehouse because that blocks the Intervention division temporarily. Only start gain intel on Intervention until it's close to being set up.
*DO NOT insta gib members as they appear out of portals. This will result in them being clumped over each other forcing you into an order that may not be optimum. Imagine having 2 Intervention members, one rank 3 and one rank 2. Rank 3 stacks on top of rank 2 and you can't access the rank 2 one to Execute them for the rank up. That's horrible and you essentially wasted a precious syndicate proc. Let the members spread out after spawning before killing them. Hopefully they fix this because it's very annoying.
*Gain intelligence on other safehouse as a priority while not interrogating members that are rank 1 (again, unless they are members you want in Intervention). You want the other safehouses unlocked as soon as possible so that you maximize Intervention procs. Essentially non Intervention members are safe to interrogate if they are rank 2 or rank 3.
*There can be only 3 members in interrogation. If you add a 4th one, then the oldest one gets dislodged. This isn't too big of a deal you just lose out on some intel, nothing to fret yourself over when it comes to overloading your jail.
*Make sure every division has at least one subordinate. If there are no subordinates in that division then the game will not spawn that division if other safehouses are unlocked until the leader spawns which has a low occurence rate. This means you can potentially fully block yourself from spawning ANY Syndicate members. If this happens you can just run one of the safehouses but that's not optimum so just make sure this doesn't happen to you by making sure every division has at least one subordinate.
OK OK that's a lot of rules… now how do I apply these rules?
Lets use some example problems and see how we solve them.
1) A board is spawned. You locate 4 out of the 5 members that you want on Intervention but they are in other divisions. The 5th members isn't even on the board!!! What do we do?
Simple. You remove a different member (non Intervention member obviously) from the board until you get the member that you want (there is always a set number of members so removing one adds another one to the board). You may need to raid safehouses to identify or even dislodge Intervention members from other divisions. Remember that to remove someone from the board, they usually need to be rank 1 or lower so just start interrogating the unwanted people in order to get your Intervention members present on the board.
2) Ok you got all 5 members on the board but they are all in different divisions! And Gravicious is the leader of Transportation and he never appears!
This is also a simple issue to fix. First you just run the map until you encounter these potential Intervention members. Keep building up Trust and keep deranking them until eventually they get an option to move to Intervention. Just do not block off Intervention safehouse. Blocking other safehouses works here because if you have free agents and only Intervention is available to spawn then they are VERY likely to join Intervention as long as some Trust exists.
Once all the non leaders are in Intervention, then you need you start making sure that NO ONE ELSE IS A FREE AGENT. This includes non Intervention members. Once this is set up, focus on gaining Intel on Transportation to proc Gravicious. Division leader rarely spawn especially if they have low trust numbers but if they do great! Immediately interrogate Gravicious to dislodge him just make sure someone is available under Transport to replace him.
In my experience leaders very rarely spawn so usually you need to just raid the safehouse to dislodge them (yes yes I know this breaks one of the rules but I said there was on exception and this is it). It's usually faster this way unless you get lucky. The opposite is also true. You may get someone in Intervention as a leader that you don't want there. Same rules apply just make sure there are no free agents to take over in Intervention as leader when you run it otherwise you are going to waste more time as the free agent might become the new leader.
3) Alright alright, you dislodged Gravicious and have a few members in Intervention. How do youget all 5 in Intervention?
You run maps or zones for as many Syndicate procs as possible. Use the rules listed before. If they are non Intervention members, rank them up to 2 or above. if they are rank 1. If they are already high rank (2 or higher), then interrogate them to gain intel on that division in order to block off that division. Again to clarify, THIS is for NON INTERVENTION divisions.
Do not gain intel on Intervention division in this stage. Potential Intervention members that spawn, you either place them in Intervention, derank them to dislodge them from non Intervention division and if they are already in Intervention then rank them up to rank 3. All the while keep gaining Trust with all members to maximize procs. The more Trust you have the faster this will move along.
4) Fine fine… you got all 5 members in Intervention after some time. You have now also blocked or nearly blocked other branches. Your division leader isn't Rin or Cameria.. what the hell do you do now?
You are almost there. At this stage you need to pay more attention. You need to keep running maps until the Intervention leader procs. This may take a while but when they appear you must interrogate. Just make sure before you do this, Cameria and Rin are rank 3 while the other 2 are rank 2 or lower. As always never Interrogate an Intervention member that is rank 1 or they become free agent. Get Rin or Cam to rank 3, other two to rank 2 and keep proccing until leader appears. If there are no free agents then interrogating the leader will derank them one level and put Rin or Cam as leader. The previous leader will return to the division after a while you just need to rank them up again. Once the leader is set, start ranking them up to lvl3.
5) Ok you have finally set it up to what you want. No free agents, 5 Intervention members all rank 3, Rin or Cam as leader, every other division is blocked or close to it, every other division has at least one subordinate. You run the safehouse, get your loot. Now you come back to see everyone in Intervention is a free agent and someone else is a leader! Do you have to do this whole 6 hour set up again!!??
You have already done the set up, from now on it doesn't take more than a couple of hours to get the Intervention safehouse in order again. Remember that the remaining divisions are already blocked or close to blocked off. That means that now when you proc Interventions, you will have previous Intervention members (that you just beat in your safehouse) as free agents wanting to join back into Intervention. Repeat the previous step to rank them up and get the appropriate leader in place. Run safehouse again and profit. Repeat as many times as you want!
Potential Issues you may run into:
*I have Cameria and Tora Trusted with each other in Intervention at around rank 1 or rank 2 (or any other two combination of members). Whenever a Syndicate procs, these two appear but they want to betray each other. How do I fix it??
Ans: From my hours of testing, it seems that there are natural rivalries in the Syndicate. Tora and Cameria generally hate each other and hate working together. Even if there is a Trust line present, they are likely to betray each other. Remember that betrayal can occur even if trust exists (can't have betrayal without existing trust by definition of the word!). If this keeps occurring then I would say cut your loss and interrogate one of them that has the higher rank. It will set you back a bit but as long as the member is still in the division its fine. Much better than Betrayal option that leads to them being dislodged from Intervention or worse yet from the board.
*I have wasted many hours setting up my 5 members in Intervention but I can't get leader to spawn to dislodge them to replace with Cam or Rin.
Ans: This can happen with bad RNG or if the leader has few Trust lines. The last resort option is to rank up all of the remaining members and run the safehouse as is. You will lose some Chaos but you will save time in long run. Its not bad at all to have Gravicious or Haku to in leader as well, you generally lose bigger if its Tora/It that Fled in leader position.
*The zone or map I am running takes too long to find Syndicates. Whats a good place or map to do this?
Ans: I started this strat on Blood Aqueducts then tried on Quarry and then finally yellow maps with easy layouts. Blood Aqueducts you just run from one end to the other and encounter syndicates on your way. If you find a proc closer to beginning, just do it and head back or teleport to town. If its closer to end then just keep going forward to exit. Respawn zone with ctrl plus click. With Quarry its both faster and slower. Its faster when Fortification is blocked because then the syndicate spawns always happen in a square perimeter around way point that isn't too big or a perimeter so you just do a circle around. However, if Fortifications spawn then appear in 3 fixed corners of the area that take a while to get to. This greatly increases time where you first search for 3 divisions then you need to check corners. In the time it took me to check Forts, I realized I could do maps. I tried white maps first, Strand and Beach are amazing for this. I moved on to yellows maps after that and for me it was fine, can still kill members quick but not too quick where they might stack on top of each other from instant kills. Shaped Atoll, Toxic Sewer, Ashen Wood, Shaped ramparts, Canyon are all easy maps or any map you like to run that you can handle syndicates on. It will take longer with maps but you will get other rewards too while running so IMO it's better to run low tier maps. Less boring as well and you can make decent change while setting up the board.
I hope this was helpful, I tried to make this detail. You just keep doing this and this will start to make sense as you will notice patterns.
Thanks for the explanation.
Currently level 56 with my raider. Still fun to play, although I had some mana problems with Herald of Ice and Hatred. So I took a mana leeching passive and it is way smoother now. Playing last evening I had the feeling that my damage kinda fell off compared to my buddy who is playing arc trap, so I checked poe.trade for a new bow. Found a 'cheap' one and my Ice Shot damage went from 1700 to 3300 dps. yay. :)
Currently level 56 with my raider. Still fun to play, although I had some mana problems with Herald of Ice and Hatred. So I took a mana leeching passive and it is way smoother now. Playing last evening I had the feeling that my damage kinda fell off compared to my buddy who is playing arc trap, so I checked poe.trade for a new bow. Found a 'cheap' one and my Ice Shot damage went from 1700 to 3300 dps. yay. :)
Yes, I have both of them. Both wir Mirage Archer and other supports. Then Blink Arrow with extended duration, Ice Golem and a Ballista. Question: Does the Mana Leech gem works on Ballista and gives me mana? Or is it better on the golem/works on the golem? I really miss some kind of combat log or just some more numbers to get a clear image of what is happening.
No, your totems and minions are not you and won't leech to you (barring stuff like Chieftain that gets leech from its totems)
Do you have some mana leech on the tree? Usually you should be good to go with just the one mana leech node in the duelist area or Soul Raker if you're using a lioneye's fall for the claw nodes
Ok, thanks. Good to know.
Yeah, I got Spirit Void and one Mana Leech node before it.
Betrayal is now my favorite league. Mapped a little bit yesterday, and got the queen's sacrifice prophecy from Navali. So now I'm sitting on 25 exalts. Will definitely start a new build today. Anyone have any recommendations for builds that can destroy all content and map quickly?