PoE Fast Leveling Tips

Path of Exile is a massive game that only gets bigger with each new expansion. The climb to level 100 can seem like a forbidding task, especially for players who are just starting to get a feel for the complex systems. At the same time, you will certainly want to level up in order to use the best equipment and increase your chances of survival. While advancing your character at a leisurely pace while you figure out the mechanics on your own is certainly a valid way to play, if you are interested in gaining power quickly there are several considerations that you should keep in mind.

Pick Your Battles

The only way to gain the experience you need to level up is by killing monsters. While pursuing challenges or completing quests may offer useful rewards or give you opportunities to kill monsters, those activities are not directly relevant to Powerleveling. Revived or player-summoned creatures, as well as monsters summoned by other monsters, will not give you any XP, but Beyond demons and Strongbox guardians will, as will most enemies you encounter normally. However, even those enemies will not always be worth the effort of taking them down. Some of them are simply out of the way or too annoying to fight for the amount of XP they give out, but you should also be mindful of the level difference. If your character is too far below or above your enemies in level, you will get an increasingly large penalty for your XP gain. The only monsters that are optimal for you to fight are the ones whose levels are within your character’s current Safe Zone:

What this means is that a character at level 10 would gain maximum XP from defeating monsters at levels of 7 to 13. As monster strength is tied to the zone you are in, your best bet for farming XP quickly is to always stick to areas that are just a few levels above your current level. Also, if you are in a hurry, don’t feel obliged to finish off all monsters in a zone. The Atlas of the Worlds endgame structure means that there is literally an infinite amount of monsters to kill, so you will not miss out on any experience by ignoring out-of-the-way creatures. Seek out larger concentrations of enemies first and higher-rarity monsters second, but keep in mind that dying in PvE after Act 5 will result in experience loss. By that point, you should have enough awareness of your limits to not bite off more than you can chew.

Loot Mindfully

Like most ARPGs, PoE contains an enormous variety of loot items to reward exploration and victories over monsters. It is easy for a new player to become overwhelmed by it all. Frequently replacing or upgrading your gear is essential if you are to survive on higher levels, so mastering this system will go a long way towards helping you level up.

As with monsters, the best advice is to not try and take everything. Unless you are about to return to town, you should only take the best loot you can find and leave room for better drops later in your run. Generally speaking, you will want to pick up Magic or Rare items, though later in the game you will have to get selective even with those. Acquiring a Loot Filter can be very helpful for sorting through your plunder, especially as you draw towards full Atlas completion and receive such torrents of loot that it can block out your screen.

In particular, you should keep an eye out for items that would fulfill vendor recipes. For instance, you can exchange full sets of rare equipment for Chaos Orbs. Holding on to them in the early areas will allow you to use them for crafting or trade later in your progression. The equipment you can get this way will probably be much better than most of the things you can find until then, giving you a much-needed boost just when the climb becomes steeper.

Find the Right Tools

If you want your looting to support your power leveling, you should think carefully about your gear. Ideally, you should try to plan your build in advance. Fortunately, there is no shortage of build plans out there. Recounting them in this guide would be redundant, especially since each build has its own demands. Still, there are some general points to consider. For instance, you should try and update your loadout every ten levels or so in order to keep pace. Think carefully before spending an Exalted Orb on enhancing an item – it will only rarely be worth it.

Concentrate on leveling one or two active skills (through their gems) that will take you to the endgame. The Tabula Rasa is a popular leveling item because it allows you to socket a lot of different-color gems at once. However, its flexibility comes at the price of offering no protection. You will certainly want some resistance-boosting items like the Goldrim helmet as well.

Aside from your gear, your biggest power boost will come from completing Labyrinth runs. When you beat the Labyrinth at a particular difficulty level for the first time, you will receive two Ascendancy skill points that offer dramatic improvements to your class. As the Labyrinth is one of the most challenging parts of the game, you should probably approach it when you are slightly overleveled, at least for versions that are cruel or worse (as that is when the experience penalty sets in). Make sure to bring a lot of consumables as well.

Go Fast

If you want to level quickly, you will need to move quickly. This last piece of advice may seem trivial, but you would be surprised at how much time it can save you.  Once you have your build and basic tactics figured out, you will need to start thinking about improving your movement speed to let you farm monsters efficiently. There is no shortage of speed-boosting items from Act 1 onwards, from regular equipment to Quicksilver Flasks and Onslaught Gems, but you will need to balance speed with survivability. Items that speed upcasting or attacks or let you leap into the fray can speed things up by a lot as well.

In addition, there are a few tricks that can help you cut down on unproductive travel time without fiddling with your stats. You should learn zone layouts and plan your routes in advance. While this suggestion is easier to apply in Wraeclast, the semi-random maps found in the Atlas or unlocked through Watchstones are still drawn from a limited pool, so it is possible to prepare for them to some extent. Logging out and back in can save you valuable Portal Scrolls by moving you to the hub town for free. You can learn more shortcuts for different parts of the game from coaching or online discussions, though the former method is of course more reliable.

Whether to speed level or not is ultimately up to you. It can be grueling and tedious for some people and a fun challenge for others. However, following those tips should help you get all the way to the Awakened Atlas this much faster, so follow them and your own build research if you want to experience the endgame as soon as you can.