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Path of Exile 3.18 shook up the atlas, also there's been a number of end-game changes that have made certain maps better than they were in the past, but most importantly it is the sentinel league and sentinel mechanics have changed which maps are really good and which ones are less good. So we want to go through the top 8 best maps for POE Patch 3.18, and some of the sorts of mapping strategies people are using along with them.
One of the big changes from 3.17 is that quick access to the map boss is much less important than it used to be. In POE 3.17, it was really powerful to be able to go straight to the map boss, setting off at most one and hopefully zero packs of eldritch minions on the way, kill the map boss and then go out and be able to do the whole map, but every eldritch altar that you encounter cannot choose map boss affecting mods because the map boss is already dead they won't be in the pool. This would then allow you to bias the chances in your favor on what those elder shelters did, you also had the option of doing the map boss dead last, and maps like Mesa are also very good for that, even though you could do the mat boss dead first in them you would also do them dead last and that was really strong. However in POE 3.18, there have been changes to Eldritch Altars which make this strategy weaker additionally, sentinels are so good that you probably want to focus your mapping around sentinels instead. So for that reason, being able to go straight to the map boss is less important than it was in the last league and Mesa is going to leave this list, city square will be on it for a different reason.
Before we enter the best maps to farm mageblood, exalt Div cards, and sentinel synergies, we would list the new atlas map tier list of Path of Exile 3.18. Your atlas is fully voidstoned and every map is a T16. But you only want completion for the atlas bonus:
Tier 1
Underground Sea
Arid Lake
Spider Forest
Cold River
Tier 2
Museum
Tower
Peninsula
Dungeon
Bog
Acid Caverns
Frozen Cabins
Plaza
Tier 3
Moon Temple
Necropolis
Ramparts
Basilica
Reef
Infested Valley
Carcass
Volcano
Tier 4
Cemetery
Overgrown Shrine
Temple
Bazaar
Ashen Wood
Arsenal
Crimson Temple
Armoury
Tier 5
Shore
Arena
Toxic Sewer
Dry Sea
Arcade
Tropical Island
Mud Geyser
Maze
Now follow us to check out the new POE 3.18 Map Tier List, so we're going to be discussing Glacier, Tower, Promenade, Crimson Temple, City Square, Ashen Wood, Beach, and Tropical Island and just point out that strand can substitute for beach, they have the same strengths they have the same weaknesses.
Top 1. Glacier (probably the best Sentinel map)
Very best layout for Sentinel. Nothing comes close.
Builds that can turn off damage and endure a few hits can get full value from their Stalker and Pandemonium sentinels in the first room, then only go to the map boss on those maps where is an Eldritch invitation to get from the boss.
It's possible to do 60 or even 100 of these maps an hour
Best for Alch and go with the specialized tree
Glacier is the best layout for sentinel nothing comes close. The very first room of Glacier is has a very large number of monsters in it, a huge pack size, and they're all concentrated at the start. This makes the first room extremely lucrative, you just go in there, set off your stalker sentinel, round up a whole bunch of mobs, set off your pandemonium sentinel round up another bunch of mobs, set off your pandemonium central a second time using the sentinel controller options to do that, and you can kill all these monsters and get staggering amounts of loot without leaving that first room. Then once you've looted everything, you can exit and you can do it all over again, this strategy was popularized by streamer plastron and it is extremely potent. There are some builds such as minion builds just can't really use pandemonium sentinels well.
However this is an extremely powerful strategy just because you can do it so fast, this is best for an elk and go strategy with a specialized tree, you don't want to be using scarabs and be using map events that take a long time things like legions and breeches that take a while to get through, so you want to build up your entire passive tree around that.
Top 2. Crimson Temple (Best Map to farm the best divination card in the game)
Best map to farm the best divination card in the game - The Apothecary, and other great cards, such as Seven Years Bad Luck, The Enlightened, and more. Note: This is drop restricted to level 75 and up, so you will need to run higher tier versions of the map
Best for highly delirious, scarab-enhanced mapping strategies
Best map in the game to use Divination Scarabs on, and it's not close
Crimson Temple is the complete opposite of Glacier, this is being run because it has the best Divination Card in the game (the apothecary, set of five from age blood, this is the best divination card in the game because it can be target farmed it drops in a specific tile set) Very important warning though, the apothecary cannot drop from monsters under level 75 and that means you're going to want to have at least two void stones in your atlas and be running at least tier 11 crimson temples. You can potentially get it from a one void stone version, but you can't get it from normal monsters, only from magic and rare monsters. Now rimson Temple also has other great divination cards such as such as Seven Years Bad Luck, The Enlightened, and more, so this is a map that is sometimes done with magic find setup but also more commonly is done just with heavily delirious maps. Pull out your scarabs, go nuts in this map, and you probably won't get an apothecary still because the card is very rare, but you will find that the average value per map that you run of the chance of getting an apothecary is actually pretty significant. This is also the best map in the game to use divination scarabs on and it's not even close.
Top 3. Tower (Best map to farm Headhunter div card, Empower div card)
Best map to farm good div Cards such as The Nurse and secondary div card such as the Home (cheaper and rarer than Nurse but still adds decent value, it has many drop locations)
Straightforward layout, corners for tactical use
Bad for Breach, Legion due to corners
Boss is always dead last and is awful, so don't do this map if you want Conqueror or Shaper or Elder guardian maps.
Best for Magic find, although suitable for other approaches
Tower is going to be the third-best map to farm because there's a good divination card but also a good general layout. You've got the Nurse which is one of the head hundred divination cards, and an adequate secondary divination card in Home which was added in 3.18 patch, this is cheaper and rarer than the nurse but still adds some decent value to every map. It's a straightforward layout and it has corners for tactical use, it's a bad map tileset for legion and breach due to corners, but you can block those now. However the boss of Tower is dead last has multiple phases and is an awful boss, so don't do this map if you want to get conqueror maps or shaper guardian maps, or elder guardian maps, you're mostly going to be skipping the boss. This is a good map for magic find strategies although it's suitable for many other approaches too, we do think Crimson Temple's probably better but Tower is still fine.
4. Promenade (Best map to farm Headhunter and alternate quality gem cards)
Tower-esque layout, very liner with only tiny backtracking - but minus the corners
Best map to farm amazing divination cards such as Patient, Dying Anguish
Boss is completely trivial once you know what to expect
Basically, this map is Tower but better, Dying Anguish is cheaper than Home but appears approximately 20 times as common
Best for Magic find, although suitable for other approaches
Promenade is very similar to Tower but it's more outdoorsy and so it works with those breaches and legions, it's a tower-esque layout but has amazing divination cards, such as the Patient which is another one of the headhunter cards. This map is got dying anguish not as good as Crimson Temple for divination cards but not all that far behind the boss is completely trivial once you've had a bit of experience with the map and know what to expect and also once you know that multiple projectiles is pretty dangerous on this boss. Basically, this map is Tower but better dying anguish is cheaper than home but it seems to be about 20 times, so you will get quite a bunch of sets of this while you're farming there. We do think this is one of the best maps in the game for a magic find strategy.
5. City Square (Best map for Apex Sentinels)
Very best map for Apex Sentinels. Apex Sentinel strategies aren't meta, Pandemonium is better, but not all builds can use them. Apex Sentinels, however, are definitely good enough
3 Bosses although dangerous, are predictable - check
Able to accept the Twinned modifier - check
Predictable boss location - check
Apex sentinel strategies are not meta apex signals are a bit better than most people think but they are definitely weaker than pandemonium signals, however, there are builds that can't use pandemonium sentinels effectively, so if you're in this situation Apex Sentinels are definitely good enough and City Square is the very best map for them. It has three bosses that are individually quite dangerous but quite predictable as well, and also it's able to accept the twin modifier. But most important of all, it has a predictable boss location. Apex sentinels drop more recombinations than any of the other sentinel types, if you're wanting to get yourself some recombinators, you may want to consider running City Square maps and just simply popping the apex sentinel when you get to the boss and beating down those bosses, they'll take a little while since they'll be tanky, but you will find that every time you get a sentinel reward icon over their heads, you'll be getting paid off reasonably well. It's not rare to see two recombinators drops from the boss here although more commonly you'll get on,e and of course, that does require you to take all of the investment on the sentinel controller that increases your chances of getting sentinel rewards.
6. Ashen Wood (Alternative map to Glacier with an exalted orb card)
Substitutes well for Glacier
Not quite as good for Pandemonium Sentinels as Glacier is, but the boss is very early in the map and so you can use the Glacier strategy, but also kill the boss for Conqueror/Elder/Shaper/Synthesis special maps
Good map to farm Divination Card - The Scout, though it's a rare drop
Ashen Wood substitutes well for Glacier, it has the same strengths in that there are a lot of monsters quite near the start and that it works well with pandemonium sentinel. It doesn't work as well with pandemonium sentinel as Glacier does and that's why Glacier is the best of the maps probably for this league, but the boss is also very early in the map and so you can use the glacier strategy but slightly adapt it to also be killing the map boss, and this will help you get conqueror maps, elder guardian maps, shaper guardian maps and synthesis unique maps. It's also a very rare drop but you will find the excellent divination card - the scout (a set of eight scouts will grant you seven exalted orbs so each card that you get is almost worth an exalted orb)
7. Beach (great layout, no other strengths)
All of these points apply to Strand as well, but Beach just looks better. If you like the dard tileset, do Strand instead, Park is also similar
An adequate substitute for Glacier, allowing you to round up lots of monsters and set off a Pandemonium Sentinel with minimal obstruction.
No amazing divination cards
Beach just looks better if you prefer the dark tile set then do strand instead, they have the same strengths and weaknesses. Like Ashen Wood, this map is an adequate substitute for Glacier, you can round up lots of monsters set off a Pandemonium sample with minimal obstruction, it just takes a little bit longer to set up on than it does in Glacier, and you'll find that sometimes you'll be five or ten mobs short of maximizing your pandemonium sentinel. Beach has no amazing divination cards, people run it for its layout but one thing that's really nice about Beach because you are going to probably run the whole map every time you go in there. You'll find that you'll come across all of the alters and the same applies to strand, in fact, the strand if you want to get to the map boss you have to run through all of the maps, this means that you'll probably find all of the eater of worlds or searing exact ultras in the zone and you'll be able to make progress towards your challenges at the same time as finding lune.
8. Tropical Island (Delirium is on the map device)
Delirium is on the map device, all the old favorite strategies with Tropical Island apply again
Best for Very powerful characters with all passive tree Delirium support and lots of Alva missions saved up
Tropical Island is similar in layout to strand and beach, but just a little bit worse, however, Delirium is on the map device. Tropical Island is the best map in the game for delirium mirror encounters, and so if you're willing to set up your atlas around delirium, then it will definitely pay you off, however, you will need a very powerful character in order to do this effectively. Additionally, chaos orbs are very cheap in this league, you can get yourself about 180 chaos orbs
for a single exalt at the time and that's enough to fund 11 uses of the delirium craft on the map device, which means that you can get tremendous value out of running these tropical island maps, loot a bunch of delirium, specific rewards which you can then go and trade to other players who are running different types of strategies but want things like your delirium orbs. This is best for very powerful characters and a delirium-oriented passive tree, you don't want to spec into delirium as well as beyond, on your atlas and then you're going to want to roll your maps rare with beyond on them. You're also going to have a lot of Alva missions saved up. One thing you might want to consider doing is specking into all of the Alva master mission replenish notes on the atlas passive tree, there are two major ones one will grant you a four percent chance to get an over mission on, killing a map boss one will give you three percent, so spec into both of those that seven percent chance when you kill a map boss to gain a mission and then later on in the league when your character is much more powerful. You might have run for 500 maps in the interim and that's going to mean that you'll have a couple of dozen extra Alva missions that you can use, because Alva does work better with delirium than anything else in the game.
