Hello, fellow exiles! Here's a SSF farming guide for strongboxes in the Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League. It revolves around a versatile Atlas tree that's both lucrative and not very challenging. While this approach demands some investment in scarabs, the returns are worthwhile.

While you may not completely self-sustain scarabs, this Atlas tree proves effective with a range of scarabs, not solely those geared towards strongboxes. Additionally, the Map Device offers 5 strongboxes for 7 Chaos Orbs, ensuring favorable returns in raw currency or divination items.

Overview

This approach is compatible with a variety of scarabs, including those designed for strongboxes, maps, shrines, and more. With this build, maps can typically be completed in just 4 to 5 minutes, making it a time-efficient option. Iit yields valuable rewards such as maps and currency, which are particularly beneficial in SSF. You don't necessarily need a top-tier build to execute this approach successfully.

However, it's important to note that strongboxes often drop numerous smaller stacks of loot, which can lead to a considerable amount of clicking. While adjusting the loot filter can mitigate this issue to some extent, even with a strict filter in place, there may still be a significant amount of clicking involved.

Atlas Tree Setup

Let's delve into the Atlas passive tree. I've opted to invest heavily in strongbox nodes because of their effectiveness. While the Twice Tempted as a strongbox node for 3 points is a bit debatable, considering the investment we're already making, it only translates to a minor difference of 10 or 11 strongboxes in your maps, which isn't substantial.

Tamper-Proof makes strongboxes rare and corrupted, resulting in more loot. The Secret Compartments cluster increases the chance of strongboxes being reopened by 16%. Investing in duplication nodes allows us to double the maps, currency, and divination cards obtained from strongboxes, which are particularly beneficial. Divination cards are crucial for sustainability and crafting currency.

Regarding the rest of the Atlas, the choices may not come as a surprise if you've seen the other Atlas trees. we focused on the Rogue and monsters combo, including nodes like Ruckus, Exiled Will, Seance, and Unrelenting Torment. Despite strongboxes not respecting Atlas limitations, I've chosen scarab nodes, enabling them to drop any scarab.

While the monsters spawned from strongboxes adhere to these limitations, they still yield numerous scarabs. Capturing monsters in strongboxes and reopening them repeatedly can lead to incredibly advantageous scenarios.

Ambush Scarabs

Regarding scarabs, there are plenty of options available:

• Regular Ambush Scarab: This adds 5 additional strongboxes, which are obviously beneficial.
• Ambush Scarab Of Potency: It makes strongboxes more potent by increasing their explicit modifiers, such as an increased quantity of contained items.
• Ambush Scarab Of Discernment: It provides rarer versions of strongboxes, including various unique strongboxes and more uncommon rare versions like the Diviner's Strongbox.
• Ambush Scarab Of Hidden Compartments: It provides a 15% chance for strongboxes to be reopened, which is additive with to Atlas tree, resulting in 31% chance to re-open using this Scarab.
• Ambush Scarab Of Containment: This scarab is rare and has been tested and proven to be valuable.

Tips And Tricks

First, if you don't have a build that can take an Ice Nova to the face or an explosion or Detonate Deads, run away after you open a strongbox.

Second, strongboxes capture native map monsters, which include the ones you put in Allflames. Make use of that, especially because you can reopen them and thus respawn many monsters with great loot.

Third, you can strategically open multiple strongboxes at once while keeping enough distance from them, killing the monsters of the previous strongbox you opened. Get some practice in, and you're zooming through these strongboxes in no time.

Fourth, remember that just the Ambush Map Device option already provides 5 strongboxes. On top of that, the map itself can spawn more strongboxes as extra content. As a result, this SSF approach is very versatile and works even without Ambush Scarabs.

Tier 17 maps in Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League introduce new bosses and unique items for players to acquire. However, rather than introducing entirely new Uniques, these are revamped existing unique items extracted from the core drop pool, significantly enhanced, and reintroduced exclusively as drops from these bosses.

The Dark Seer Unique Sceptre

Let’s get to the first unique item - the Dark Seer Scepter. It’s getting a large buff. Because of this change, the Dark Seer Scepter will now have plus 2 to the level of all spell skill gems, and it now rolls between 1 and 2 mana and energy shield per level. Therefore, when you reach high levels, you will gain a lot of manas and the energy shield from it.

There has been a major change to the Malediction part of the item as well. Malediction is a good debuff. It makes monsters take 10% of increased damage and deal 10% reduced damage. The way Dark Seer worked is that there were 3 different types of the weapon: one that granted life and mana, one that granted life and energy shield, and one that granted mana and energy shield.

In terms of which boss the new Dark Seer will drop from, it will come from the Uber Lycia fight. Dark Seer was a Beyond League Unique, and with the Scourge replacing Beyond. It makes sense that this item drops from the Herald of the Scourge up. For a smoother Uber boss fight, obtaining POE Currency is crucial.

Manastorm Unique Shield

Next up is another unique item which is called the Manastorm. This Shield makes you sacrifice all of your mana whenever you cast a spell, and added maximum lightning damage is gained based on the amount of mana sacrificed. As part of this change, the percentage on this modifier went from 25% to 50%, so you now gain added maximum lightning damage equal to 50% of the mana sacrificed.

Be aware that this is added maximum damage, so you want a source of lucky lightning damage if possible. But that’s not the only change that they made to this item because they’re also adding 2 new stats and changing 2 old stats.

It will now have a roll range for 4 modifiers on the item: that’s maximum mana, mana regeneration rate, mana per enemy killed, and mana recovery from flasks, ranging from 1 to 100. The new Manastorm Shield will drop from the Uber Uhtred fight.

Wraithlord Unique Helmet

Let’s get on to the massively improved Wraithlord Helmet. This helmet now has 4 slots for the Ghastly Eye Jewel, so that’s going to be an extra 4 spectres. It also has plus 1 to 2 the level of all minion skill gems as well. This will be a good unique item starting choice for the Necropolis League. The new Wraithlord will drop from the Uber Catarina Abyssal Lich fight.

Malachai’s Mark Unique Gloves

Next, we have the improved Malachai’s Mark gloves. If you don’t know how these gloves work, they grant a buff every 6 seconds which rotates through Malachai's Endurance, Frenzy, and Power. In Path of Exile 3.24, the chance to gain charges will instead be changed from 20% chance from kills to 10% chance from hits.

You will need a decent hit rate, only 10% chance, and you’ll also be wanting to invest in some charge duration if you want to keep the charges up. If the other predictions for which the boss drops which unique are correct, that would leave these gloves being dropped by the final boss, the Uber Malachai.

Yoke Of Suffering Unique Amulet

Last comes to a unique amulet, the Yoke of Suffering. This amulet is getting a far simpler change in POE 3.24. The modifier, which makes enemies take increased damage for each different type of ailment that you’ve inflicted on them, will now have a roll range going from a fixed 5% increase damage taken to 5 to 10% increase damage taken.

This amulet can make enemies take increased damage is a powerful stat on a lot of builds, especially the type of builds that want to make use of this, because they often only have one other source of increased damage taken on enemies. This one will drop from the Uber Unbreakable boss fight.

In the upcoming Path of Exile 3.24 Necropolis League, Scorching Ray stands out with its unique mechanic that enables multiple entities to inflict debuff together. So, today we will delve into the significance of this for the altered Scorching Ray.

About Scorching Ray

Scorching Ray is a channeled ability that deals fire damage over time, and it does this by applying stages of a debuff to enemies caught in the beam. Debuff stages are gained based on the cast interval, each debuff deals with its own damage and has its own duration.

But the duration only starts to expire when the enemy leaves the beam, with each debuff stage increasing the base damage by 60%, and if the enemy remains in the beam long enough to reach 8 debuff stages. Fire exposure is inflicted at a magnitude of minus 25% to fire resistance.

Ascendancy Choice

In terms of ascendancy choice, Hierophant will overcome this problem by reaching 6 maximum totems: one from Ancestral Bond, one from the ascendancy, one from a Shaper Shield, and 2 from Multiple Totem Support. This way, you’d have 3 cycles of totems, providing a larger window for each set of totems to apply their debuff. However, one of the biggest problems with Scorching Ray totems is map clear, as the totems’ AI often locks onto targets and there are some straggling mobs that are left unchecked.

The Chieftain’s Hinekora, Death's Fury notable may provide a much better map clear with his explosions, and Chieftain also has the upside of Ramako, Sun's Light, which makes the use of Temporal Chains easier as you don’t need to worry about flammability. Of course, having some POE Currency in hand can make your game smoother.

Scorching Ray Totems

Now Scorching Ray has another rather unique mechanic attached to it which allows beams from distinct entities to deal damage simultaneously, which is why Scorching Ray totems have been a thing in the past and this is an intended mechanic.

In fact, since the Scorching Ray appeared in patch 2.4.2, fire resistance of the Scorching Ray is specified to be no more than minus 24%. Each Scorching Ray debuff on an enemy can have 8 stages. An entity can be affected by multiple Scorching Ray debuffs at a time from different beams. They’ll all apply their damage over time based on their individual stages, but the total fire resistance penalty from all the debuffs on a particular enemy cannot exceed minus 24%.

In the past, this mechanic has only really been relevant for the case of using Scorching Ray totems in a standard totem build setup, where you try to max out as many totems as possible. This makes sense because Scorching Ray deals the most damage when it gains all of its stages. If the totem has been long enough to gain 8 stages, it will deal the maximum damage that it’s capable of, which is a lot more than just the base one stage because it gains so much damage from extra stages.

Transfigured Version Of Scorching Ray

However, we now have a transfigured version of Scorching Ray in POE 3.24, that’s Scorching Ray of Immolation. This gem is significantly different in terms of the numbers from its original counterpart, but it shares the same mechanics Scorching Ray of Immolation has far more front-loaded damage relying a lot less on gaining stages to deal decent damage.

It also has double the base duration and doesn’t have the fire exposure at maximum stages by using this version of Scorching Ray you can scale the damage in a way that wasn’t possible with the original gem and this is by having totems inflict their beam debuff right before re-summoning them again to inflict new debuffs and so on.

So forth this way you can scale the duration of the debuff that lasts when an enemy leaves the beam and scale your totem placement speed to achieve a ramping damage over time, which is somewhat similar to poison in fact you even make use of Temporal Chains since Scorching Ray damage component is considered being a debuff which persists on the enemy and it is affected by Temporal Chains slower expiry mechanic.

Theory & Technology

So, let’s have some theoretical and technical discussion. I think to make use of this tech, you’re going to want to invest into duration because it’s increasing your maximum potential damage output. You’ll need a good balance between scaling damage normally through increases, more multipliers, and DoT multipliers, and scaling skill effect duration.

A single duration wheel on the passive tree combined with the more skill effect Duration Mastery will be good, along with Efficacy and Malevolence. This will bring the 3-second base duration up to around 6.2 seconds, and Temporal Chains then essentially act as a multiplier on top of that duration, which will bring the actual debuff duration to just over 8.2 seconds.

Re-summoning totems will despawn the oldest totems first, so having access to additional maximum totems is potentially a great thing to have in this build. Where you get the opportunity to spam your totems for maximum damage ramp in a boss fight, if you have a low maximum totem limit, depending on your totem placement speed, you may despawn the totem before they’ve applied their debuff.