The Grind from 90 to 100 Feels Ridiculous

[DoofMaster4000]

Path of Exile is supposed to be a grind. But the grind from level 90 to 100 feels insane, especially with the risk of dying and losing XP. I’m not totally against losing XP on death (it adds some stakes), but seriously, what are people even doing to push through this grind?

I’m running T15 maps when I can, but I still run out of maps sometimes. For safety, I stick to T14s on boss-heavy maps because I tend to die more often there. Some of those deaths don’t even feel fair, like dealing with weird hitboxes or random mechanics that catch you off guard.

Am I missing something here? Are people just grinding endlessly or cheesing it somehow? I’d love to hear what strategies folks are using because this feels like an absolute crawl.

[SharkPlush]

Yes, it's on purpose. You are at some point supposed to feel like Sisyphus, and that's when its time to make a new character. How far each one makes it is the true measure of the character's individual success.

Expecting to hit 100 the first time means you're missing the point, mostly.

[tenchu400]

You need to push the levels of the map up. Increase density, do breaches, delirium ect. If you are playing t14 for safety this is why. Play t16 to speed things up. Improve your survival-ability/build. Stack the maps as much as possible via towers. If you want to play it safe use omens on maps to keep the number of bad modifiers down until you can safely take on harder and hard t15-t16. There are omens to reduce exp loss on death also that you keep in your inventory. There's likely a lot here you can look into to improve things. I run t15-t16 completely juiced 500-600% waypoint stacking whatever tablets, delirium, exp boosts I can add on. There is no secret to it. It's just that the level 100's remained dedicated long enough and built for speedy map completion.

[DoofMaster4000]

Originally posted by SharkPlush:

Yes, it's on purpose. You are at some point supposed to feel like Sisyphus, and that's when its time to make a new character. How far each one makes it is the true measure of the character's individual success.

Expecting to hit 100 the first time means you're missing the point, mostly.

Haha, okay, so the trick is to hate the game more than I hate myself? Got it.

Originally posted by tenchu400:

You need to push the levels of the map up. Increase density, do breaches, delirium ect. If you are playing t14 for safety this is why. Play t16 to speed things up. Improve your survival-ability/build. Stack the maps as much as possible via towers. If you want to play it safe use omens on maps to keep the number of bad modifiers down until you can safely take on harder and hard t15-t16. There are omens to reduce exp loss on death also that you keep in your inventory. There's likely a lot here you can look into to improve things. I run t15-t16 completely juiced 500-600% waypoint stacking whatever tablets, delirium, exp boosts I can add on. There is no secret to it. It's just that the level 100's remained dedicated long enough and built for speedy map completion.

This is really good advice, thanks. I’ll focus on buying another piece of gear, grabbing my last ascendancy, and then start pushing T16 maps. What’s a fair price to pay for T16 maps? I’m tempted to ask here to avoid getting ripped off, but any tips would be appreciated.

[tenchu400]

To add, if you are running out of maps, Your atlas passives are not optimized or you are not using currency on the maps themselves. Or you are dying to much. It's almost a must have good atlas passives and at least 200% waypoint drop rate on the map itself which is mostly gained from using currency on maps. On average I drop 2-4 T15 per map. Reforge any 12-14 for t15 blanks.

[p00se2]

Originally posted by DoofMaster4000:

Haha, okay, so the trick is to hate the game more than I hate myself? Got it.

its your choice

you want levels ?
you have to take the pain to get there

dont adjust the game
adjust yourself

[tenchu400]

Originally posted by DoofMaster4000:

Originally posted by SharkPlush:

Yes, it's on purpose. You are at some point supposed to feel like Sisyphus, and that's when its time to make a new character. How far each one makes it is the true measure of the character's individual success.

Expecting to hit 100 the first time means you're missing the point, mostly.

Haha, okay, so the trick is to hate the game more than I hate myself? Got it.

Originally posted by tenchu400:

You need to push the levels of the map up. Increase density, do breaches, delirium ect. If you are playing t14 for safety this is why. Play t16 to speed things up. Improve your survival-ability/build. Stack the maps as much as possible via towers. If you want to play it safe use omens on maps to keep the number of bad modifiers down until you can safely take on harder and hard t15-t16. There are omens to reduce exp loss on death also that you keep in your inventory. There's likely a lot here you can look into to improve things. I run t15-t16 completely juiced 500-600% waypoint stacking whatever tablets, delirium, exp boosts I can add on. There is no secret to it. It's just that the level 100's remained dedicated long enough and built for speedy map completion.

This is really good advice, thanks. I’ll focus on buying another piece of gear, grabbing my last ascendancy, and then start pushing T16 maps. What’s a fair price to pay for T16 maps? I’m tempted to ask here to avoid getting ripped off, but any tips would be appreciated.

Last I checked 1-3 ex is average for any random t16 map. But you should really make them yourself whenever possible. Unless you hit a really bad steak, which happens. I know it does, I have many of corrupted t15 and t14 and often lose t16 streak. Which I don't like that aspect of it. In that you are essentially gambling on the higher levels. You have to be really strategic with t16 placement.

[ominumi]

Level cap is just a long term goal. I highly doubt GGG expect every player to reach level 100.

[DirtyMick]

It's not like diablo4 where you're supposed to hit lvl 100. Its more like diablo 2 where it's very rare that someone hits 99.

[Dwane Dibbley]

If you think its ridiculous at 90, you wont get to 100.

98-100 is ridiculous, 90-95 is still fine cuz you can get decent XP in t15/16 +1/2. After lvl 95, things starts to get ridiculous cuz you cant keep up with maps, you are stuck at lvl 82 area and XP penalty actualy ramp up.

So take lvl 90 as your goal and anything above are just few bonus points. Chasing lvl 100 is just neverending torture for 99.9% of players.

[ffrotty]

Originally posted by Ih8myjob:

The game isn't designed to hand casuals everything. It's not designed for everyone to be able to hit 100. A lot of people like that about it. It gives reaching those "hard to reach" goals something special, not just a checkbox everyone can do during the league.

The difference between "Casual" play and requiring literally 500+ hours of doing trivial maps to get to 100 is massive. Handing casuals everything has nothing to do with how idiotic the grind to 100 is for no good reason except making people chase broken/meta clearing builds to do it days faster on a multi-week timeline.

I watched a streamer who's mid 99 clear maps ad nauseum for hours and they gained half a bubble of exp.

There are only 13 players in standard who've hit 100. Everyone else is casual I guess.

Wanting to get all the passive points: sorry not unless you're one of 13 people who've literally poopsocked the game for weeks, doing trivial content and not even picking up 99% of drops because none of it matters to getting to this "hard to reach goal."

"Checkbox everyone can do," again, /Yawn. Again, there's a difference between something pointless only a vast minority will bother doing, and something that takes dedication that a small chunk of the playerbase does. And by small I mean thousands of players, not 13.

They will nerf this curve, it's ridiculous even by POE1 standards.