SSF Atlas Progression (Shaper Orb strategy) by Karvarousku

Solo Selffound (SSF) Atlas Progression Guide by Karvarousku

Video guide: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj5VJ9dbfqk

__________________________________________________________________


Here are some useful links;
Shaped Maps 3-to-1 (+1) upgrade recipe: http://pathofexile.gamepedia.com/User:Cirf_eu/ShapedMaps
Useful Atlas planning tool: http://poecraft.com/atlas
List of maps that are slow/harder to obtain: https://pastebin.com/FfbFKtY8

Needed recipes

3 Sextants + Scouring = Cartographer's Seal
- Memoves a map from atlas
- 3 versions/tiers:
	Apprentice (white)
	Journeyman (up to yellow maps)
	Master (up to red maps)

5 Regrets + 20 chisels = Unshaping Orb
- Unshapes a map back to it's original tier
__________________________________________________________________

This guide is to help people optimize their Atlas in Solo Selffound (SSF) in general Atlas progression and how to set up a Shaped Atlas with as minimal use of Sextants to remove maps as possible.

There is some room for choice, but the core of this to get to Excavation (for T6 Shaper Orb) as soon as possible
while getting good bonus% to your Atlas, and to increase the chances in finding your needed maps.

In order to do this, we need to understand how to obtain maps and how the maps drop in Atlas.

Also for the sake of simplicity, when I say unlocked in this guide, it means a map can drop, but bonus is not completed. And when I say completed, it means with the bonus.

This guide is split in 5 different sections:

PART 1: Rules of obtaining maps
PART 2: White maps
PART 3: Yellow maps
PART 4: Red maps
PART 5: Alternative way of progression for yellow maps

__________________________________________________________________

PART 1 - Rules of obtainng maps


1) Any map that is unlocked can drop as long as it's within drop level restrictions.
- Generally you will find up to +1 (magic and rare monsters) to +2 (map bosses)
	- Exceptions to that rule:
			- Strongboxes with +levels
			- Specific map bosses such as Olmec's Sanctum

2) Locked maps can only drop if you're doing a map that is adjacent to it.
- This is VERY important to understand, as we will utilizing this rule the most in order to get proper Atlas bonus%
- Unique maps can only drop if the base for it is unlocked. So for example Caer Blaidd won't drop naturally (you can still get it from divination cards) if you don't have Underground River unlocked
	- Exceptions to that rule:
			- While in a zana mission, you can find locked maps

3) Zana can sell locked maps
- Her shop will reset after you do her daily regardless if you completed it succesfully or it failed.
- Leveling her up also resets the shop, so be sure to buy all the maps that you need from her before leveling her up.
- Zana will start selling you maps right after you complete your first map, regardless if you have completed her mission or not.


4) You can upgrade 3 same maps to a usually +1 tier adjacent map.
- In a quite a few cases a map has 2 different adjacent +1 maps, which means that only 1 of those maps can be obtained by the 3-to-1 recipe. (check the list provided earlier)
	- Rules 1 and 2 allow us to increase the chances of getting that second map by a huge amount. Here is an example:
	  We are doing Factory map. It has adjacent maps Channel and Cavern, but 3 Factories trade into Channel.
	  This means, that the only ways to get Cavern is to buy it from Zana (RNG), finding it while doing Zana's mission (RNG), or to run maps adjacent to it.
	  In this case, Factory. The reason you can't run Phantasmagoria or Waste Pool, which are also adjacent, is that we need to use the strategy I'm about to explain you all the way to T9 maps.
		- If you have unlocked every t3 map in Atlas, except Cavern, your chances of finding a Cavern when a t3 map drops in a Factory is 1/8 because any of the t3 maps could drop.
		- If you haven't unlocked any t3 maps, your chances of finding a Cavern when a t3 map drops in a Factory is 1/2, which makes it a lot easier to get.
			- Now you probably already figured out that in order to get all the maps unlocked you can't unlock every single new map that you find immediately, as it will lower your chances at finding specific maps.

5) When shaping a map to +5 levels, it is considered it's original tier + 5 in the map drops, so you could remove a tier 5 map from the pool of unlocked t5 maps to increase your odds at finding a different tier 5.
Same way it makes it harder to find other maps of the tier it is now.
	- Shaped maps upgrade to +1 tier of it's level in the same corner in the Atlas.
		- Trading shaped maps allows us to do 2 things:
			- To skip maps in specific tiers (most useful in tiers 10 and above) while getting maps that we want unlocked.
			- To get maps that you would othervise have to buy from Zana, find during her mission or find in a adjacent map. Best example of this is Barrows, and we get to that in a while.


If you are confused at any point during the guide on why or how something is done, read the rules I just went through. Everything is done within those rules.

Try to complete (bonus) on every map while unlocking if you can, however for red maps you should ALWAYS unlock it first because they need to be rare + corrupted for the bonus,
and corrupting a map can make it too hard to complete or straight up change it to a different map.

During the progression remember to use 3-to-1 (+1) recipe to obtain new maps and to check Zana every time she levels or you do her daily for new maps!
Also keep in mind you might not get the perfect progression on your Atlas, but this is the optimal route/order to go if you want to optimise your chances at finding the maps that you can't obtain from 3-to-1 recipe.

Now that we have the rules and restrictions out of the way, let's get in to the actual progression part in the atlas.

__________________________________________________________________


At any point during the progression in the Atlas, if you find unique maps and you can complete them, do so.
	- The exceptions to this are Caer Blaid Wolfpack's Den and Oba's Crused Trove. You want to save them for later.


PART 2 - White maps


White maps (Tiers 1-5)

T1: Unlock every map.
	- While doing these maps you're free to unlock Factory, Beach and Oasis the moment they drop.

T2: Unlock Factory, Beach and Oasis.
	- Do not unlock any T3 maps or Ghetto before you find Cavern (from Factory), Marshes (Beach) and Grotto (Oasis)
	- After you find these 3, you can unlock Ghetto and all T3 maps you have/find.

T3: Unlock every map
	- I recommend unlocking Sewer first, as the only T4 map that will be unlocked at the beginning is Graveyard, so you might be able to get 3 Sewers to trade up to Graveyard instantly, if you don't find it.
		- If you find Graveyard before completing all T3s, you may unlock it right away. It might help a bit to get Academy, but it's not really a big deal.

T4: Unlock Graveyard.
	- Do not unlock any other T4 before you find Academy.
		- After finding Academy, unlock Acid Lakes (for Pit) and Phantasmagoria (for Primordial Pool).
	- Do not unlock any other T4 maps before you find Pit (Acid Lakes) and Primordial Pool (Phantasmagoria)
		- If you find Pit before Primordial Pool, unlock Waste Pool to increase chances at finding Primordial (since 2/5 of T4 maps that drop can drop Primordial Pool, instead of 1/4.)
	- After you find Pit and Primordial Pool, you may unlock rest of the T4 maps.

T5: Unlock Peninsula.
	- Do not unlock any other T5 map before you find Ramparts.
		- If you found Ramparts before Thicket, unlock Spider Lair.
	- After you find those 2, you can unlock rest of the T5 maps.

__________________________________________________________________

At this point in the progression there is 2 different ways to continue.
- The first option is cheaper, but slower (atleast on theory, you could always get lucky). It uses the same idea as going through T1-T5 maps.
- The second option is faster, but costs you more regrets/chisels as you have to unshape more maps.
	- The idea on 2nd option is to maximize the trading of Shaped maps to progress.
	- This option also limits RNG of map drops.
		- 2nd option will be explained in Part 5 of this guide.
_________________________________________________________________

PART 3 - Yellow maps

Yellow maps (Tiers 6-10)

Pay in mind if you Shape any low map during the next tiers, it will lower the chances of finding other needed maps in their tiers. Not recommended unless you're using them to actually progress Atlas (alternative method which I explain later)

T6: Unlock Vaal City
	- Do not unlock any other T6 map before you find Arachnid Tomb.
	- After you find Arachnid Tomb, you may unlock rest of the T6.

T7: Unlock Armoury, Cells and Castle Ruins
	- Do not unlock any other T7 map before you find Bog (Castle Ruins), Barrows (Cells) and Arena (Armoury)
	- After you find those, unlock rest of the T7s.
		- If you find Bog and Arena before finding Barrows, you can unlock Bog.

T8: Unlock Tropical Island
	- Do not unlock any other T8 before you find Reef
		- Exception to this is of course if you got sick of running Cells, you unlocked Bog.
	- After finding Reef, unlock rest of the T8s.
		- If you unlocked Bog earlier, you need to wait until you find Barrows before unlocking rest of the T8s.

T9+: Unlock Promenade and Temple
	- After you find Museum (from Promenade), you may unlock the rest T9 maps if you want, but it might be a good idea to keep only Promenade and Temple at this point, so you get the Excavation faster
	- If you find Colonnade while running Promenades, you may complete it for the Shaper Orb and use shape your desired map to T10.
		- Remove Colonnade after you have your T5 Shaper Orb (or keep if you enjoy the map, obviously)
	- You will need 9 Temples to create an Excavation, so run it only once for the completion
		- 3 Temples -> Malformation, 3 Malformations -> Excavation
	- Generally you don't want leave any T10 maps unlocked, as whenever you run them, they might drop a T11 map that you don't want to run.

_________________________________________________________________

PART 4 - Red maps


Red maps (Tiers 11+)

Once you get your first Excavation, only unlock it first.
	- After that every time you find it, make it rare + corrupt it. It's recommended to alt+regal easy mods instead of alch+chaos, as 2 of the corruption outcomes don't change the map mods at all.

In order to get T7 Shaper Orb (Estuary), you have two options

1) Shape Wharf/Ramparts into a T11 with the Orb you got from Excavation, trade 3 of them to Estuary. Do the same as you did Excavation, unlock it only the first time you run it.
	- If you do this, DO NOT REMOVE EXCAVATION FROM YOUR ATLAS YET. You need to run another corrupted one to get a second Shaper Orb later!
	- Once you get the Shaper Orb from Estuary, you may remove it from your Atlas
	- This will only cost you 20 Chisels + 5 Regrets, which in SSF is definitely considered cheaper than 3 Yellow sextants (+ scouring)

2) When in the process of obtaining Museum, also unlock Crypt (or go as far as only unlocking Crypt as your T9 at that point)
	- 27 Crypt -> 9 Arsenal -> 3 Chateau ->  Estuary
		- As you can see you'd need quite a few Crypts, so you're somewhat forced to also unlock Arsenal in this option.
			- It will cost you 3 Yellow sextants to remove later, not recommended at all.

When it comes to T8 and T9 Shaper Orbs, if you have Oba's Cursed Trove and/or Poorjoy's Asylum, it might take you extra time and an Unshaping Orb per Shaper Orb.
	- Both can be obtained from the divination card The Enroaching Darkness, and it's a fairly common card, so if you don't have the maps you could keep farming until you find them. These maps are quite common in the card set.

At the point when you have your desired T10 and T11, you may complete Caer Blaid Wolfpack's Den if you have it.
	- Depending how desperate you are for getting Caer Blaid, you may unlock Underground River so the Caer Blaid can drop. You can get it from the Enroaching Darkness though, so I don't personally recommend unlocking Underground River.
		- If you did unlock Underground River, remember to remove it from you Atlas once you have Caer Blaid completed.
Obtaining T15 and T16 maps works the exact same way as the previous red maps,
but if you really want to get T10 Shaper Orb, you should shape Overgrown Shrine to T14 (3 of them -> Overgrown Ruin that has T10 Shaper Orb)

For any missing red maps you want to have in your Atlas, you can look in the list provided in the description to check what maps trade to any specific map,
and then use the Shaper Orbs (good idea to leave atleast Volcano in your atlas so you can get a new T9 Shaper Orbs for this)

_________________________________________________________________

PART 5 - Alternative method for yellow maps

This strategy optimizes Shaper Orb usage from as early the T2 Shaper Orb (Ashen Wood). You might use T1 Shaper Orb (Spider Forest) at some point.
	- You can, probably should, use parts of this strategy together with the other method even if you're not fully following this method.
	- This method costs you up to extra ~30 Regrets and ~120 Chisels compared to the first method, but most likely less than that.
	- The main maps are Ashen Wood, Bog, (potentially Reef), Colonnade, Excavation, Estuary and potentially High Gardens/Volcano.
		- If you get Poorjoy's (T9 Shaper Orb) and/or Oba's (T8 Shaper Orb) you may opt-out from High Gardens/Volcano, like mentioned in Part 4
- Be sure to check Zana, as if she has Arachnid Tomb, Barrows or Reef it will save us 5 regrets + 20 chisels per each of these maps.
- We don't go map tiers one by one, but rather target specific maps so you may unlock couple tiers higher maps than your "base" Atlas progression is.

There is 2 ways of obtaining your Excavation, and depending which you choose it alters the unlocking order a bit.
I will personally aim to get there using both, and get the Excavation with whichever provides it first.
- First option is to use T5 Shaper Orb (from Colonnade) on Spider Lair so it's T10. Then you trade 3 of them to Excavation. This option will cost you 5 regrets and 20 chisels as you you want unshape the Spider Lair so you can shape a better T5 to T10.
- Second option is to use T4 Shaper Orb (from Reef) on Graveyard so it's T9. Then you trade 9 of them to 3 Malformation, and those 3 Malformations to Excavation. This option will be cheaper, but on average will take longer to complete than the first option.

T6: (and 1-3x T7, potentially a T8): Unlock Quarry. If you find Ashen Wood, great.
	- Our primary goal is to get Ashen Wood, get the T2 Shaper Orb and to shape Factory to T7, and then gather 3 of them to trade them up to Barrows. So right when you get the Shaper Orb, shape Factory!
	- I don't recommend unlocking any other T6 before you have Ashen Wood, as then you have other T6s than Quarry, which is the only T6 adjacent to Ashen Wood. If you're short on T4/5 maps, you might want to unlock Spider Forest (again, it will slower obtaining Ashen Wood).
		- The moment you have Shaped Factory, you may unlock Spider Forest, Strand annd Wharf and Vaal City
		- After you have Barrows (remember to unshape Factory!), you may unlock Armoury, Castle ruins and Arachnid Tomb
			- If you didn't find Arachnid Tomb by the time you obtained Barrows, shape Jungle Valley to T6 and once you have 3 of them, trade them up to Arachnid Tomb.
		- Unlock rest of the T6s after you get Barrows


T7: (and 1x T8, potentially a T9). At this point your unlocked T7s are Ashen Wood, Armoury, Castle Ruins and potentially Arachnid Tomb
	- The map you're aiming now is Colonnade. This means whenever you find Barrows, you can either run it and hope Promenade (also Bog) to drop,
		or you can wait until you have 3 of them and straight up trade them to Promenade.
	- Don't unlock any other T8 (other than Barrows, which is already unlocked) before you find Bog.
		The reason for that is that Bog is only obtained by finding it in Barrows, Castle Ruins (and from Zana or Cemetery, but we don't have it unlocked)
	- Once you find Bog, you may unlock other T7s now, but if you want to speed up the process of getting Bog, don't. Not a big deal honestly.
		I personally will, as it increases the bonus which means better map drops in general, even if it means that getting Bog might take slightly longer.
		- Chance at getting a Bog in Castle Ruins when a +1 map drops is 1/3, and 1/2 when a +0 drops in Barrows.
			If you unlock rest of the T7s, you will find less Castle Ruins and therefore lower your chances at finding Bog, however since we are probably running Barrows, it shouldn't matter.
	- Unlock Promenade straight when you find it. Run it whenever it drops (For Museum + Colonnade)

T8: Once you obtain Bog, you may unlock every T7 and T8.
	- In the case you didn't find Arena while running the Armourys, you may Shape Ghetto to T7 (since you unshaped the Factory, you can get new T2 Shaper Orb from Ashen Wood)
		- Eventually trade 3 of them into Arena. Not essential right now, but it's something to keep in mind.
	- Complete the Bog, get Shaper Orb from it and Shape Vaal Pyramid to T8. 3 of them yields Reef, which has a T4 Shaper Orb.
		- I don't recommend completing it before you obtain Museum, but you can get Museum from trading 3 Shaped Grottos to it,
			so if you want to increase your chances at getting to Excavation faster, complete Reef right away.
			- You increase the chances at finding Shaped Vaal Pyramids if you don't unlock all of the T8s, but it shouldn't matter, you will get them at some point.
				We only need 3 of them for Reef, and Reef is not essential, it's just a second option in case We don't get the 3 Shaped Spider Lairs first.
				- Feel free to unshape the Vaal Pyramid. You can use it on a better map if you want, but I suggest holding the Shaper Orb for Grotto later,
					if you get desperate from not finding Museum while running Promenades.

T9: Unlock Promenade first, hopefully you find Museum while searching Colonnade from Promenades. Not the end of the world if you don't.
	- Do not unlock any other T9 before you find Colonnade (Well, the Reef can be completed)
	- The moment you find Colonnade, complete it and use the Shaper Orb on Spider Lair.
	- After Unlocking Colonnade, you may unlock every other T9, but I wouldn't recommend it before you find Museum. If you do unlock the others, you may shape Grotto to T8 and trade 3 of them to Museum.

T11+:Once you get 3 Shaped Spider Lairs, trade them to Excavation, and unlock it (so it can drop)
			- Now that you have Excavation unlocked, you may unshape Spider Lair back to T5, and run Colonnade once more for another Shaper Orb and use it on whatever you want.
				- After this is done, you may remove Colonnade from your Atlas. (3 Yellow sextants + Scouring)
				- Alt + Regal + corrupt Excavations until you can get one completed and receive T6 Shaper Orb. Use it on Wharf or Ramparts
				- 3 of them trades to Estuary. Unlock it, unshape Wharf/Ramparts, run another corrupted rare Excavation for another T6 Shaper Orb, and use it on desired T6 (probably Strand)
					- You may now remove Excavation from your Atlas (3 Red sextants + Scouring)
	- After you have completed Estuary (for T7 Shaper Orb), shape Ashen Wood. 3 of them yields High Gardens. Unlock it.
		- Unshape Ashen Wood, run Estuary for another Shaper Orb if you're planning to have a T12, or remove if you don't. I recommend having a Shaped T12 atleast until you have a very high T11/T13 map pool.
		- Get the Shaper's Orb from High Gardens, shape Bog/Cemetery to T13 and trade 3 of them to Volcano, unlock it and you may unshape Bog/Cemetery, and run High Gardens once more for another T8 orb than you can use on your desired T8.
			- You can use above strategy to get other T14s (and eventually to 15/16) in other corners, just look up the Shaped Map list in the description or go back to earlier part of the guide where I go through red map progression, as it's the exact same.

	- If you have Oba's (hopefully atleast 2 multiple), you don't need to shape Ashen Wood for High Gardens, as Oba's has T8 Shaper Orb.
			- Don't complete Oba's before you have your desired T10/T11 setup up, as you can find multiple of them while running Oba's.
			- By now you should've realised that if you have Oba's, don't have plans to keep T12 in your Atlas, you may shape Strand instead of Wharf from the very beginning.
				- This means smaller Atlas bonus until you find Poorjoy's for T9 Shaper Orb. And you need multiple of them, unless you went for Volcano with the T8 Shaper Orb. Then you obviously don't need Poorjoy's for anything else but the bonus.

	- You should get Oba's Cursed Trove from the divination card "Enroaching Darkness" eventually, but if you don't, you may trade 3 Shaped Primordial Pools to Torture Chamber to enable Oba's to drop in all maps that can drop it.

_________________________________________________________________

It's a long guide, but it should cover close to everything that is worth mentioning.