Quote:
Originally Posted by kerowo
So I've made it to the maps, any tips or strategies? What does improving the quality of a map do? Are there always bosses on maps?
It's not usually worth it to chisel maps until you are at least well into the yellows (t8+) unless you're farming a map in particular (burial chambers). Keep your eye out for a t6 map with stars on it (check your atlas by hitting g). Beating that map will spawn the Elder. Once the Elder is on the map, you can keep doing one higher tier at a time of Elder influenced maps (tentacles, also such maps will have blue circles) to progress on Zana's quest. You can move Elder influence by doing a Shaper (stars) map that's connected by a line to an Elder map. Once beaten, the Shaper influence will back off or disappear, and the Elder will take over that zone. So, if you want to do a t8 Elder map to continue your progress on Zana's quest, you may have to look out for e.g. a t5 Elder map that's connected to a t6 Shaper map, and then do the Shaper map to push then Elder to t6 and the Shaper influence up to the connected t7, and then do the t7 to iterate, and then the t8, and then the Elder will be on the t8 for you to complete the Elder influenced t8.
Be mindful about using the Shaper's orbs you get as rewards for doing this. It's probably better to sit on them until you have a bunch of maps under your belt rather than using them on maps right away before you know what you're doing. Using them can make it harder to progress deeper into your atlas (the upside to shaping a map is that it makes it easier to do the shaped map over and over).