[Top 5] Path of Exile Farming Strategies in Trial of the Ancestors

Updated:

30 Sep 2023

New league, new mechanics to abuse, new content to explore. This opens up several new and old avenues for profit and for currency gathering if you’re in SSF. And though these can be done by most, they do require a fair bit of setting up or specific builds. Nevertheless, you’ll be filthy rich with them!

5. Mausoleum Alc and Go

This strategy is great to start with, because it really requires no investment in mapping currency, like sextants, scarabs, sac frags. All you need is enough Atlas passives, and Mausoleum Map at T14+ (2 Voidstones).

It’s one of the easiest and simplest farming in the game, because you can just blast through the maps without a bunch of micromanaging, and you are constantly getting new maps to keep on running through.

This strategy focuses on blasting Harvest, Expedition, and Eater of Worlds Altars, looking for the Divine Altar, and higher Quantity on maps, since Mausoleum doesn’t ‘have’ a boss. Packed with Energy Niko nodes, for extra speed and damage, as well as Azurite gains, for bulk selling Resonators.

How it Works:

Mausoleum’s boss isn’t active unless you enter the boss zone, so Altars are always aimed at either the player or Eldritch Mobs, which means you can get a lot of increases to Quantity and Rarity of the map.
This boosts both Expedition currency drops and artifacts, as well as Lifeforce from Harvest.
And with new Keystones, like Extreme Archeology, it makes Expedition is insanely cost efficient and reduces the time for waiting for the explosions to go off.

Video guide by Allie: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMPYtp1JVpo&ab_channel=Allie

4. Dunes Legion Farming

By far the best league start strategy for any player, casual or otherwise, Dunes Legion Farming just got better with the introduction of The Fortunate, a divination card that grants 2 Divine Orbs, and it’s crazy common!

You need a fast and strong build here, often a Deadeye, Tornado Shot or Lightning Arrow, with as much Elemental damage as possible on the bow, and anything that increases clear speed.

Maps can take less than 2 minutes to fully clear, and your goal is to enter the map, rush to the boss, and then clear everything as you go along.

Your rewards are varied, but your big money earner are Stacked Decks from Diviner’s Incubators, as well as raw Divine drops from Ornate Incubators. You also get a ton of Expedition currency that you can bulk sell, as well as stash-full maps, Dunes, Strand, Beach, Mesa, all the great layouts, that will sell like hot cakes.

How it works:

You want to use 3 main Scarabs, Rusted Expedition, Rusted Sulphite, and Polished Legion Scarab. The fourth slot can be anything you want, but good options are Cartographers and Divination.
For Sextants, you only want to use 2, +1 Legion and Gloom Shrine. You can even double up so you don’t have to use a Sextant every 4 maps, and instead it’s once every 8 maps.
You’ll want Expedition, Shrines, Searing Exarch, Legion notables on the Atlas passive, and all the ‘Connected Map Drop Chance’ small passives, to really boost map sustain, combined with all 3 Shaper of World/Sea/Sky wheels. This is the atlas tree for reference: https://shorturl.at/tIJLY

Video guide with full details by Elesshar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9INpb77-HM&ab_channel=Elesshar

3. Trial of the Ancestors

As is often the case with any new league mechanic (not always, though), GGG made it insanely profitable and quite enjoyable to play, though it requires a lot of setup and knowledge, making it a tricky and confusing mechanic at the start. Well received and with even more expansion down the line, TotA is set to be integrated into the game, which would be a boon to all players!

This is Grinding Gear Games’ attempt, and success, at creating an Autobattler inside Path of Exile. You start the Tournament with 4 units, randomly selected by the game, and you progress the tournament by winning rounds against other competitors, while gaining Favour from Sponsors.

Favour is the currency you use to buy new units and equipments for them, and there are some insanely OP units.

At the end of every round, you get the reward you selected, and if you’re in a party, you might get extra random rewards per party member. And when you win the Tournament, you not only get better rewards as you progress the Tournament (and your Rank!!) but you can also choose between a very specific Tattoo from the Tribe you defeated or an Omen.

Omens are consumable items that will be used upon performing an action. Similar to old Prophecies, you have Omens that can instantly 6-Link an item upon using a Fusing, or Transform a Normal Item into Unique with a single Orb of Chance.

How it works:

Your board has 4 positions: Attackers, Flankers, Escorts, and Defenders. The Attackers will obviously attack the enemy’s units, and if there’s no unit around, they’ll attempt to destroy the enemy’s Totem (it’s how you win in the game.)
Flankers ignore every enemy and try to just destroy the enemy’s totems, while Escorts will follow you, and copy your actions. If you’re killing enemies (they respawn very quickly) they mimic you, and if you attack a totem, they’ll channel it with you. Defenders never leave your base and will interrupt the enemy from destroying your totems.
Each round you win, you get Favour that you get to spend with the Sponsors, and you should focus on a few specific units for a higher chance of winning, like the Thunderbird in Flanker, the Sunset Sage as Escort, the Tidecalled as Defender, the Ravager as both Defender or attacker, etc.

Video guide by Grimro: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tRGIVYLvpuA&t=1503s&ab_channel=Grimro

2. Memories

Ironically, Memories are often forgotten by the majority of players, because of how rare they are, and you need to interact, in most cases, with other players to buy them. They are a core mechanic in the game that allows you to experiment with some of the most insane content in the game, and have some of the best rewards, besides raw currency.

You can use Memories in the Atlas, and it will spawn this coloured line between random maps adjacent to the map you used it in, and you can then talk to one of the Masters to follow their Memory.

These maps won’t follow your Atlas Passives and they have unique properties that get magnified as you progress along the memory chain. And it can get really crazy hard!

There are several memories, but 3 are the most profitable and what you should look for to farm. Essence Memory, Harvest Memory, and Beast Memory.

How it Works:

The Essence Memory is basically a map filled with Rogue Exiles, insanely strong, with several Essences on them. Your goal is to corrupt everything with Remanent of Corruption for Shrieking Essences and Deafening Essences, as well as getting all the Corrupted special Essences, the Delirium, Hysteria, Insanity, and Horror. And the best thing here is that you can do them in low tier maps, to make it easier on you, since the essences don’t scale based on monster level! Sell in bulk for insane profits!
The Harvest Memory is probably the hardest one, because you want to make the most out of the map, quality-ing it up, vaaling, and hoping for as much increased quantity as possible, especially on T16 maps. It scales the amount of Lifeforce you can get, so you want as much as possible. This memory is basically Harvest, but instead of a choice between which plot to grow, you only have one massive one that has mixes of all 3 crops, and you have a much higher chance of seeing T4 seeds!
The Beast Memory is the one where you can capture Harvest Mobs with Einhar, and it opens up a bunch of new crafting methods and recipes in the Bestiary. It’s easily the most money you can make, but it also has the highest risk, because you can get terrible beasts instead of the big moneymakers. It’s definitely worth the risk, though, because when you get the jackpot, it’s big!

Video Guide by TheVictor003: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0PoqD-YZxRE&ab_channel=TheVictor003

1. Forbidden Sanctum

A fan favourite is finally returning, and though we expected it to be nerfed to the ground, we are more than pleasantly surprised by just insane it can be.

Not only does the Sanctum give you raw drops, with 1~4 Divines being a common sight for a full run at Ilvl 83, but Relics are also in high demand, with the amount of people looking to min-max their runs.

You definitely want an insanely strong single target build, and totems are your friend here, especially Shockwave Totem. Hexblast Mines are also a big contender, and can nuke the bosses within seconds.

How it works:

The Forbidden Sanctum is GGG’s attempt at making a Rogue Lite game within PoE, and it functions fairly similarly. Each new run grants power in the form of Relics, that can help you find a good balance, even if you get a ‘bad’ run, and be able to clear the whole Sanctum without much issue.
You can get Boons and Afflictions each run, and they heavily impact you character or enemies, in good and bad ways. You can go from dealing 50% more damage to suddenly the enemy taking 40% less damage, and having 50% more life.
There are countless Boons, Afflictions and modifiers that will help you with your runs, Cursed Pacts that can win you the run or make you lose it, if you make a bad choice, and you can buy Boons mid-run with Divinia, to help you out.

Video Guide by Zizaran: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oe4FHSqlNvU&ab_channel=Zizaran