Hello, exiles. This is Kankar’s Mirror guide. It looks like we have a new event in my favorite game, which means we are back to PoE 1. We are only a couple of weeks away from the new league. So, I've decided to do a zero-to-mirror run to get some practice. This won't be a day-one league start, though, because I got a bit of a late start to the event and ended up starting on the fourth day. Anyway, let's talk about the build I'm going with.
Build - The Fulcrum Scavenger
The idea is to get a massive ignite on our own character and spread it to other enemies. To get that big initial ignite, I'll use chaos explosions from things like Obliteration and a Gloom Shrine and make them ignite using our last ascendancy point. Scavenger is a very good choice for a character like this because you can use the ascendancy points to get the important items in PoE 3.28.
Leveling - Righteous Fire
And as for leveling, I decided to go with righteous fire. I've never leveled with this skill before, so this was a good time to try it out. Overall, I really liked how it worked out, and I'll probably level with it every time I play an ignite build. I need to figure things out on my own after swapping into my actual build, but that's just the fun of this game.
Items
The campaign is done. It took me a little longer than usual, but it should be good enough. With that divine drop in the campaign, I can buy the first couple of items I need to make the swap, but I don't have any gold right now, so I will just run some maps to get that sorted out. The only item I bought was a wand to get some extra damage. I was already resistance capped, and I had a solid life pool thanks to the shrines from the first ascendancy node.
The first item I buy will be Bound by Destiny, and it will make us unaffected by ignite. I got two warlord items to enable this buff, a five-link cloak of Flame, and Winterweave to reverse the chill effect. To ignite myself, I will use Hexblast of Contradiction. This gem has very high base damage and gives 120% more damage with ailments. Even without the explosions yet, it still feels okay to run around and ignite enemies. I don't want to play like this, though so that I will get that last ascendancy point very early on.
And the Zerphi's Heart will be the last node. It doesn't work by itself because I need this Obliteration wand to trigger the explosions that will ignite enemies. With these upgrades, this build essentially becomes a walking simulator in early yellow maps. These explosions will get much better later on, but even with this current setup, it feels like a real build. Although it looks cool when clearing, it struggles with killing bosses like every other ignite build.
Thankfully, I got a great drop from a random monster so that I can afford some upgrades, six-link body armor, anoint, and a jewel. Using a six-link means I need to drop the cloak of flame. This armor is very good for physical damage reduction, but the main reason I was using it was for the increased ignite duration. With that and some more from the tree and masteries, I can carry a single ignite for a long time, so that I don't need to refresh it constantly. I really need the damage right now. So, I will get back to that armor later on when I get my damage to a better spot.
The first quest bosses were no problem. After running a couple of maps, I decided to change my source of explosion to the item Screams of the Desiccated. It was kind of expensive for the budget I have right now, but it will make the build feel much better, and it also frees up my weapon slot, so I can use my old weapon for more damage. This should be enough for the first void stone. Getting the other ones will take a lot of time, and instead of doing that, I will go into farming PoE currency right away.
Farming Guide
I also won't finish the entire Atlas because I only need around 100 points. Looks scuffed, but it will be enough for my farming strategy. And well, the strategy is Stacked Deck farm with Cloister scarabs. With the last couple of chaos left, I will buy some eight mod maps and cloister scarabs.
With the currency I had left, I was able to prepare 20 maps. I reached this stage in around 11 hours, which was slow in my opinion. From this point on, I will minimize my spending so I don't lose any time getting that mirror as fast as possible. The idea of the strategy is very simple. Just kill monsters, collect loot, and skip the bosses. You can kill bosses if you want, but it's not worth the time if you're only here for fast currency gains.
The loot from the first 20 maps we got almost 30 divines with a scuffed setup that has only one void stone, a third of the Atlas missing, and just a four chaos investment per map. I'll use some of this currency to buy the last upgrades for this build - six-link cloak of flame with high ignite Duration, Light of meaning. I said I won't spend too much currency, but these items will make me farm currency much faster, and if I really need to, I can easily sell them back later on.
And now I will change the strategy a little bit. It's still the same concept, but I will remove ritual and add delirium instead. Ritual takes too much time, and I don't really like farming it, even though you get more stacked decks from it. Delirium is much faster, and it adds extra enemies as well as some additional quantity. Not only that, but we can also get some of this cool currency inside the Mirage mechanic. We don't know if they will keep this Mirage mechanic next league, but I hope it gets added to the Atlas tree.
In total, I ran around 180 maps, and the profit is about 52D and 84C. Delirium was more profitable, which means I definitely made the right choice there. I had so many stacked decks that I decided to sell them slowly over about 3 hours so that the price wouldn't drop too much. I forgot that this was just a random event, and it took me quite a while to get rid of all my stock.
Conclusion
And here is the mirror. I think this is the fastest zero-to-mirror run I have done, with only 26 hours in total. If I had started on day two or three, it would probably be even faster, likely under 20 hours. So yeah, that's about it. I didn't really play the ancestors mechanic, which was supposed to be the main deal of the event, but I think that mechanic is boring, and I couldn't bring myself to try it out.
As for the build, I think it was pretty fun. I only spent around seven divines in total, which was barely enough to farm tier 16 maps. The reason I wanted to play this build was to get Chieftain's explode with the ascendancy tattoos and run some expedition with the new scarab, but I ended up doing none of that.
