Hello exiles and it is time for a new build. This time the plan is to use Blight of Contagion with the Trickster ascendancy. There has been consideration of playing this skill for quite a while and now that it has been buffed by 40% this feels like the perfect time to try it. If you do not know what this skill does, it is a channeling ability that spreads its damage by using Contagion.
If you played PoE2, you might have seen a similar play style with Essence Drain and Contagion, which was a popular build this league. It might sound a bit clunky since two skills are needed and one of them requires standing still to channel. However, standing still will only occur on bosses and for mapping, only a single cast of Blight is needed because Contagion will spread that buff and handle the rest of the packs.
Leveling Path and Early Goals
As for leveling, Blight and Essence Drain are used because the normal Blight gem does not spread with Contagion. Essence Drain will be dropped once the transfigured version is obtained. Here is how the leveling tree looks. As always, the start is with zero currency and the plan is to farm a Mageblood in the first episode of the series. This belt gets cheaper as the league goes on.
And since the league is already 1 month in, it should not be too hard to farm. [Music] And here is the first lucky find. With this, the main gem can finally be obtained and Essence Drain can be dropped. Leveling with Blight and Essence Drain was not bad, but playing with three different skills became a bit monotonous after a while. [Music] The acts are done.
Early milestone: finish acts, secure the transfigured Blight, and transition off Essence Drain for smoother mapping.
First Gear Upgrades and Playstyle Snapshot
There is a good amount of currency. So, some items are purchased. Cane of Unraveling. This is a very cheap but strong leveling weapon that will carry progression all the way to red maps. Amulet with plus one to gem levels and damage over time multiplier. Six-link body armor and a ring to fix resistances. This is how the play style looks.
It has very nice clear speed and it will get much better once there is more area of effect and damage. Bane is also used now. It applies Despair and Punishment curses and spreads them with Hex Bloom. This is how the leveling tree looks. As usual, map drop chance and Kirac missions are prioritized with some Shrines to speed things up.
Early Currency Plan Choosing Legion
For early currency strategy, Legion is the choice. This mechanic is very popular at league start, but most people stop farming it after one or two weeks because it becomes less profitable over time. Legion emblems are always used by leveling carries. And now that most people have stopped farming Legion, these emblems have become very expensive.
As for mercenaries, a mercenary will not be used. There is a good option for additional auras, but it requires a lot of currency to make it worthwhile. Too much DPS loss on bosses is not desired since they are already very tough with this build. A POB link will be placed in the description to show what the setup looks like.
Budget tip: When emblem prices rise, Legion mapping regains value even without heavy scarab investment.
If capital is tight during the first mapping push, it can be practical to source gaps via marketplace liquidity, such as to buy Path of Exile 1 Currency for rolling maps or acquiring early jewels. For slot-filling upgrades, it is also feasible and fast to fast to get PoE 3.26 items at AOEAH, smoothing the transition into consistent Legion clears.
Cluster Jewels and Damage Scaling
[Music] Nice gem. There is no currency since the focus is only on completing maps for the atlas. So, this will be very helpful. It will be used to craft a cluster jewel. This build needs cluster jewels to increase damage because there are not many damage nodes available on the passive tree alone. This one looks good enough.
Additional jewels are purchased for more damage. Now, here is how Legions look with this build. [Music] The area of effect is not enough. [Music] First, Divine Orb. That area of effect will be fixed with this cluster jewel. Two of these will be bought and two more will be obtained when another large cluster jewel is available.
Let us try it again. [Music] This looks much better. Some enemies are still left because they are out of the screen, but this seems enough to start farming Legions. Now, this is how the Atlas passive tree for Legion looks. There is not enough currency to buy scarabs right now, so the Legion map crafting option will be used for now.
Atlas Strategy and First Profits
There was a recording oversight for these maps, but a couple were run and the drops sold, which provided enough currency for the next upgrades. Now, it is shopping time. This amulet with plus three to Blight gem. Light of Meaning. New wand, shield with plus one level, spell damage and resistances. Helmet with intelligence, energy shield and resistances.
Rings with life and chaos resistance which will also be crafted to get chaos resistance capped. This is how the tree looks. Not all currency will be spent on upgrades. Instead, some will be used to buy eight-mod Legion maps and scarabs. Tier 17 and Originator maps are not considered worth buying when farming Legion.
| Choice | Reasoning |
| T16 8-mod Legion maps | Strong monsters + good density without excessive rolling cost |
| Avoid T17 / Originator | High investment; Legion loot stems from chests and rares not scaling with currency mods |
| Scarabs as budget allows | Incremental juice while preserving profit margin |
Their map cost along with the cost of rolling them requires a lot of investment. Plus, most of the loot comes from chests and rare monster rewards, which do not scale with additional currency modifiers. These drops include emblems, stacked decks, and fortress maps, where luck can also provide fractured or high-quality items.
Headhunter Acquisition and Scarab Testing
[Music] About 12 maps were completed, yielding the following currency. The pricing is a bit off because emblems are almost four times higher than shown. Therefore, more than 20 Divines per hour were actually made. The best mapping belt in the game can now be purchased. Headhunter, the top item for Legion farming. Gems will also be upgraded.
[Music] New clusters with these three notables. [Music] Now that Headhunter is obtained, Legion farming will start with this scarab. It makes enemies die multiple times, which makes them tougher and also increases their rewards. This is how it looks. [Music] It looks really good.
Loot quantity definitely increases, but each map takes much longer, and with the current damage, it does not feel that profitable. A few more maps will be farmed like this, then the scarab will be switched back since it was much faster before. This was not mentioned earlier, but sometimes the clear speed gets so fast that the game actually crashes because of it.
Notable Drops and Efficient Momentum
After logging back in from one of these crashes, a logo on the map appeared that was not seen before. Here are some of the cool drops obtained while farming Legions. [Music] [Music] This strategy does not give raw Divines like Alva or Abyss, but there is a substantial amount of other valuable items that are easy to sell.
There was no measurement of currency per hour from these because the focus was simply on blasting Legions in about 2 seconds. A staff was also bought halfway through the farming since it was very cheap and provided a good damage boost. After a long farming session, these are the emblems acquired. Some of these emblems were sold as splinters since not many people do this and they were four times more expensive when sold that way.
Mageblood Goal Achieved and Closing Notes
After selling some of the other items like emblems, incubators, and high-quality gear, there was enough money to buy the coolest belt in the game, Mageblood. An extra 100 Divines were farmed because Mageblood was thought to still be around 200 Divines, but the price dropped a lot during the farming period.
No meta farming strategies like Alva or Abyss were used, and it appears it is still possible to reach this milestone without relying on top-tier methods. It was an enjoyable time using this skill. The current setup is far from perfect, and Headhunter was the only real defensive layer. The Path of Building link will be in the description below for anyone interested.
There might not be another part of this series, but it will be considered. Hope this was helpful. Do not forget to like, comment, and subscribe if you want to see more. See you in the next one.
