Log books are they worth running?

[D55]

I`ve been selling them but im now starting to wonder if they are worth running them myself.

Taking the time to place explosives, checking the mods then actually running it i could run 2,3 maybe 4 maps, i kind of feel the same way about blight maps and ive run 100`s of those and i just dont think they are worth it, blights in a normal map arnt too bad but still takes time.

Im only an intermediate player at best im not trying to be pro about it im more interested in others thoughts and experiences.

Just from my own personal experience ive dropped divines from chests in maps from the expedition mechanic and the most so far was 3 but ive run around 10+ log books and it just seems like a time sink.

[Nico]

I have a friend who loves running logbooks and from what I've heard from him it's only really worth it to run Tujen or Dannig Logbooks, since Tujens currency can be traded for currency, sometimes even divine orbs, while dannigs currency can be traded for ... more logbooks as well as more Tujen currency.

Though sometimes the modifiers on the remnants are also quite nice, like stacked decks whihc might eben give you a valuable divination card. But from what I understood it still mainly was the Tujen currency for making money. But I personally don't run them, so I'm not 100% sure.

[The_Driver]

There's a guide for profiting from Rog called From Rogs to Riches[docs.google.com] and how else would you farm Rog artifacts?

But logbooks all are a bit more like intermediary steps, like Nico said, you use the results to get other stuff, so it's a rather indirect form of money making.

[D55]

Ive been fast running maps and have the Atlas passives for Dannig and Tujen and Tujen sold me yesterday a 20% quality Enlighten for a few lesser artefacts so i do get why expedition is good, what im saying is the log books take to long, i use the one explosive atlas passive to make maps quicker, the log books seem like bigger versions of the map version but take so much longer, i was just worried im not seeing the big picture.

Ive made a few good things with Rog, nothing over a divine but ill check out that link as i do think hes useful.

[acirb]

Logbooks give a lot more Expedition currencies.

Both the re-roll currency and the one you use to trade.

Once you've played a few of them, it gets a bit quicker. Look at some of the markers you can see close to the beginning, maybe a few further away, and start moving in a direction. You can use the map to look for underground areas or bosses, or areas where there are a lot of Expedition currency nodes,

[Scarsick]

I don't do them, because honestly I think the mechanic is kinda boring, but I always include expedition on my first or second farming strat and the logbooks sell really fast, so yeah, it's definitely worth it.

[Syiss]

Logbooks are one of the best money making strategies early on when you don't have 100c+ to invest in every map or the currency/build to start bossing, but they have some downsides.

League start Rog and Tujen are the best.

Tujen is easy, just run the logbooks, gamble his artifacts for currency, simple. You'll make way more money from him than what you spent on the logbooks, but most of it wont be directly in chaos/divines, so you'll have to trade everything out when you're done. I personally find sitting there gambling with Tujen to be mind numbingly boring so I don't do it anymore. Also I screwed up and lost a mirror shard with him several leagues ago and I'm still mad at him about it.

Rog is an insane currency multiplier IF you know what you're doing with his crafting (check the Maxroll guide someone else posted above for the basics). I often buy his logbooks in sets of 20 early in the league (1-3 times per league usually), run them, do the crafting, then use the profits from that as they come in over the next few days to fund whatever else I'm trying to do. It will usually take several days for everything you craft to actually sell off though, and thats if you're being pretty generous with the pricing. You can easily turn 400c (approximate price of 20 Rog logbooks early in the league) into 20+ divines, or even 40+ if you hit on a few nice items.

The main benefit of Rog is that you can turn a small amount of currency into a large amount of currency, there's almost nothing in the game that requires so little initial investment to produce so much currency. The downside is that on a per hour basis it is not that efficient, and the price of the items that are easy to craft with Rog tend to drop steeply after a week or two (it's very easy to craft high life + double/triple res gear, which is in high demand early in the league but barely worth anything a few weeks in). There are still nice items you can make that will continue to sell later on in the league, but they are much harder to craft and the currency/hour calculation only gets worse the longer the league goes.

You can technically run Dannig instead of either Tujen/Rog, since you can buy their currencies with his, but I don't generally find it worth the extra effort. In a pinch you could also just run Dannig logbooks for his reroll currency and sell it off directly (its usually the most expensive one). Depending on the going rate of his logbooks and current price of burial medallions, this can be pretty profitable without all of the extra work of gambling/crafting with Tujen/Rog. You want to buy the logbooks that guarantee the boss spawn (these will be notably more expensive than other logbooks), then stack up as much monster item drop quantity from Remnants (I think that's the one that increases it), and you can average about 25-30 of his reroll currency per logbook. That said, you need a much stronger build to run this strat than the other two, since its highly dependent on blowing up multiple remnants, and if your build can't handle most of the modifiers then you're going to get screwed, and the boss is pretty tough even without a ton of modifiers on him.

For Tujen/Rog your goal in the logbook is entirely just to generate maximum artifacts, and this is a lot simpler than it might seem. The great thing about this is you can almost completely ignore the Remnants (the things that boost monsters when you blow them up). Look for logbooks that increase the number of Runic Monsters, increase the number of artifacts dropped by monsters, or increase the number/radius of your explosives. Almost every other modifier on the logbooks are more or less useless. For actually running the logbooks, speed is more important that getting the perfect chain of explosions. Look around your immediate area for valuable remnants (increased quantity of artifacts from monsters/chests mostly, but stacked decks can also provide some decent value if you get one early in the chain, and increased quantity of items dropped by monsters can increase both the # of stacked decks they drop but also the reroll currency, which you will need), then look at your map overlay to determine where most of the artifact dropping chests are. Then just try to path in a way to get all/most of those chests, while also blowing up any of the Runic Monster markers along/near your path.

[D55]

Originally posted by Syiss:

Logbooks are one of the best money making strategies early on when you don't have 100c+ to invest in every map or the currency/build to start bossing, but they have some downsides.

An excellent reply, packed with good information and a genuinely interesting read!
I might try a few more log books today to break up mapping and just try maximise artifacts.
It doesnt happen often but im pleased i made a post on steam, thanks to everyone for their replies