Path of Exile Heist Getting Started Tips: Things I Wish I Knew Before I Played (2024)

In this Path of exile Heist league guide, I’ll be providing you with some very helpful tips that will get you off to a good start in Path of Exile’s newest league Heist. Heist is one of the complex leagues to begin with, and involves a lot of decision making, that’s very different from core game and older leagues. Although Heist spends a good time introducing you to all the new characters and their backstory, the league mechanics itself can be tricky to master. Learning the new mechanics can take some serious trial and error, and to save you some of the hassle, I’m going to give you these tips I’ve learned so far in the league.

Path of Exile: Heist as a league is most isolated content from main game in entire Path of exile history, by many levels. First of all you neither get an NPC in your Hideout, nor use Campaign Towns for any Heist related activity. Instead, you get an entire new Town for solely all the Heist activities. And then, you don’t get any Heist content to interact with during your Campaign or normal Mapping. So you don’t need to stop what you are doing in the middle of maps, to do some Heist. But rather, you need to deliberately teleport to the new Rogue Harbour by using Rogue Marker to start interacting with anything related to Heists. It is a lot of dedication but if you do so, you will be presented with a gorgeous Town, with lots of stuff to do. So let’s get started with all various things that can improve your experience with Heist!

Rogue Skill Sets & Contract Types

Before running Heists, it’s good to know what type of contract you are doing, whom you need to run it, and what rewards you can expect. So let’s start with these first.

Rogues

There are nine types of contracts, they are tied directly to the nine skill sets of the Rogues you can hire. Each Rogue have anywhere from two to four skills, and a Rogue can level each of his or her skill by successfully doing a Heist with the proper skill requirement. So, early in the league, some contracts will be inaccessible, until you find and hire the Rogue with the proper Skill set.

You get to start with only three NPCs, Isla, the Engineer, Karst, the Lockpick, and Tibbs, the Giant. With only seven out of nine Skills: Engineering, Trap Disarmament, Lockpicking, Perception, Agility, Brute Force, and Demolition. With other two skills: Counter-Thaumaturgy, and Deception being inaccessible until you meet one of the Rogues with them.

Contract Tiers

On top of that, Contracts have a Tier requirement in related skill, for example having Huck, the Soldier with four skills doesn’t mean instant access to all contracts. But you do need to level him in each skill that you might need him to use. Once you’re in Maps, you will start to realise, to find the majority of contracts, it will require higher tiers of certain skills, so best to plan ahead.

The simple way to level up your Rogues is to do low level contracts, not long after you receive them. Do them in bulk, so finish Act one and Two of campaign, then do couple contracts you got. These low level Heist contracts always have low Tier requirement, and help leveling your Rogues before you get to Maps.

Once in Maps, you can buy level 68 contracts from Wahakano at Rogue Harbour. Usually, they require Tier one, and can be performed with any Rogue with the skill. If you find a contract that have no matching skill of same tier, you should go check Wahakano for a contract with the right skill. You can search his shop for the skill type you want, to quickly find the right one.

Reward Rooms

Additionally, chests in the reward rooms in Heists are tied to the skill set that opens it. For example, you may only get Currency rewards in Heists that require Lockpicking skill. And for Jewellry rewards, you need to wait until you meet Nenet, the Scout, or Niles for Counter-Thaumaturgy skill.

Some skills have limited reward choices, so running the related contract almost guarantee the reward you desire to find. For instance, contracts with Deception skill requirement, will always give Armour loot in reward rooms. While contracts with Demolition requirement, will have four possible types of reward rooms. That’s important to keep in mind, as this will help you make an informed decision about what contracts to run.

If you have limited chance to loot reward rooms before triggering the alarm, you can run the less rewarding contracts, and focus on getting the final Artifact. On the other hand, it’s wise to save valuable contracts to run with “reduced raising the alarm” modifiers, to get as many reward rooms. Especially Demolition contracts, because they usually turn to be the most rewarding among them all.

Here’s a full list of Skills, NPC Rogues who can perform them, and relative reward rooms they come with.

As a general advice, it’s safe to run Demolition in trade leagues, because Blight and Catalyst rewards can give you steady income. Delirium ‘Cluster jewels’ also have the potential to be crafted into great pieces. Trap Disarmament contracts is another good choice, but have less desirable rewards like Talisman and Abyss. And if you play SSF or Private league with limited trade, Engineering rooms will be perfect place to farm Unique items you need for your build.

Rogue Equipment

You can give equipment to all nine Rogues in Rogue Harbour, these type of equipment drop solely from monsters in Heists. There are four Slots for each Rogue, with three slots being general gear that requires certain Tier requirement in any skill. Gear in these three slots can be swapped between Rogues easily, before and after performing Heist contracts.

In early game, or Solo Self Found (SSF) league with limited access to Rogue Gear, you can still go with every Rogue equipped with some items at least. The last slot in the middle is specialty slot, and require certain Tier in certain skill. So you can only equip on certain Rogues and not the others, and usually this slot gives useful stats to the exact Rogue skill.

Rogue Equipment Stats

These items work like your own gear, you can craft them using same currency items. They may drop as white items, and you can turn them magic or rare. If you have currency to spend, keep rolling until you get stats you are happy with. Rogue equipment come with various Implicits, such as Steel Drill (for an engineering bonus), or Torn cloak (for reducing alarm raising). In addition to Implicit modifiers, they will roll several mods, which comes in two categories, Combat Modifiers and Heist Modifiers.

Combat Modifiers

Combat modifiers come with items placed in weapon slots, the left slot of Rogue Inventory. What these modifiers do is provide a buff on your Rogue, or all allies including yourself, and your minions. So using basic Arrowhead in weapon slot will allow an increase in Projectile attack damage of the Rogue by default, and can also give players and their minions some “Attack” related stats. The Conduit Line on the other hand, will always grant spell related stats such as “Spell Damage”, “added fire damage” , or “added damage to player and minions.

You can see the pattern here, if you are a spellcaster, you probably want to craft good Conduit Line for your Rogues with some added stats that benefit yourself. The same goes for other types of builds.

Heist Modifiers

Things like increasing job speed, reduce travel fee, or increase time before lockdown are possible stats on other items. If you want to get maximum loot from a Heist, you should aim to get “reduced raising alarm” stats as many times as you can on Rogue equipment, which gives a chance to loot more chests. Or you can get straight to “additional chance to duplicate contained loot”, which is RNG based, but can be extremely rewarding.

I highly encourage you to experiment with Rogue equipment, and mix and match their stats with the different Rogues. And always go with your Rogues fully equipped, to improve your odds in success.

Heist General Strategy

The depth of Heist league system allows players great control over the engagement level with the whole thing. There’s no single correct strategy to play Heist, it all depend son you, your goals, and what you want to achieve with heist runs. There are several approaches to Heists, and they all share some similarities, while having distinct goals. I’ll discuss some of them briefly, to help players set their goals and expectations. But please note, these are not the sole strategies, and not the only ways to play the new league.

The Casual Approach

Casual is suited for players without much time on their hands for Path of Exile. Those who probably play on weekends, and some scattered hours within the week. They don’t aim to reach level 100, and might not play many characters or builds during the three months period of Heist.

I recommend for these players to focus on progressing their Atlas, getting their Conquerors kills, and Awakener levels. Also prioritize doing Delve content, because casual playing will not yield as many contracts as extensive farming of fully juiced maps. Delve makes up for this, and grants great number of Markers and contracts, that will be ready for them when they decide to do their Heisting.

Heist Runs

When casual players decided to do Heists, they want to have fun more than they aim for maximum efficiency. So it’s advised to run low level Heists, and probably as low as ten levels below their character level, which is safer and less likely to end up with a failure. Death in Heist after the alarm have triggered for casual player means all their time investment gone to waste, and they have limited time in first place. If they have ran out of low level contracts to run, they can buy more from Wahakano in Rogue Harbour. Wahakano will take a small fee which is Orb of Chance,so it’s good to save this currency for buying contracts, and not waste it anywhere else.

In Heists, especially in early levels, they want to prioritize Lockpicking contracts, as these will give straight up currency. Casual players might not be so devoted to crafting, and have less time for extensive trading, so Currency rewards will be safe for them, to buy their next gear upgrade. This way the Heist complement their progress in main game, and not hinder it.

If Casual players wants to perform grand Heists, they better not waste their markers on revealing the Blueprints. They might prefer using Orb of Alchemy and go, saving their reveals for very endgame grand Heists which will be more rewarding.

Low Tier Map Farming & Chaining Grand Heists

Another safe strategy for approaching Heists involves spending more time in game and Heists. Instead of trying to rush for the highest Awakener level, and taking on tougher enemies, players prefer clear speed above all else. So they run low levels maps where they can clear extremely fast, one-shotting entire packs, and even rarer monsters, and never look back. It’s a playstyle complemented with good mapping build, and huge movement speed.

Running so many maps in a shorter length of time will allow both markers and contracts to accumulate, so the character will be ready to perform several Heists by the end of the day.

Heist runs

These farmers will focus on successfully escaping Heist instance with the required Artifact, so they will not prioritize reward rooms, and seek to reach end of Heist instance as quick as possible, and run to escape route with even faster speed. The only reward room they will care about is the final reward room, near the Artifact room, so they don’t worry much about raising alert micro-management. they will get their true rewards from Grand Heists.

Players should vary their Heist contracts among all types, and accompany different Rogue each time, to level most of them simultaneously. Changing Rogues for different contracts will help quickly unlocking other rogues and skills. Grand heists require several skills and Rogues at same time, and having the right combination will yield more rewards.

Grand Heists

If a player doesn’t get enough Blueprints from running maps and normal Heists, they can supplement them by buying from other players. You will also need to be smart about getting your choice of Grand Heist type, as to run low level Grand Heists will require a type of reward that’s level proof. So things such as enchanted Weapon/Armour, and experimental bases are a poor choice, because these only sell to crafters who seek the highest item level to get best results. That leave farmers with the choice of Replica Uniques, and Alternative Guality Gems. Also Heist Trinkets to an extent, as these will be appealing to a wider player base.

A professional tip is to enable “Advanced mod description” from the game settings, and press “Alt” while hovering over Blueprints to see their possible rewards before revealing any room. Although we are more focuses on “Heist Target” than the reward rooms itself, after getting the desired Blueprint, players want to reveal as many wings as possible. The goal is to reach the end room and get to the main reward as many times as possible, and that’s achievable with revealing wings and not reward rooms.

You need to make sure you reach the end room without triggering the alarm, so you have all the time to read each reward text. You should decide carefully which reward you want to pick, because you only get one choice, and one shot at it, there’s no room for mistakes. Once out of a wing, you should return to Rogue Harbour to store all items you’ve got, and re-enter with empty inventory for another round in another wing.

High End Grand Heist seekers

This strategy is designed for top end builds and players. Its goal is to farm highest level Grand Heists, Equivalent to T15 and T16 Maps, which will be very tough content to challenge. It requires the toughest and the most tanky builds, with great DPS at same time, which typically are meta builds for Hardcore. The strategy involves careful planning of your Atlas, to reach Awakener level 8 as soon as possible, and equipping all your Watchstones to unlock the highest tier maps. In these higher level maps, high level contracts and blueprints will also drop, which will be farmed for the highest level rewards.

Heist runs

The goal for Heist runs for this strategy, is to escape with the Artifacts successfully to get the most markers in exchange, and also get all Mapreward rooms, to help you sustain high tier maps. So you will want to run Engineering contracts more than other contracts. Demolition contracts are also more rewarding at the high level Heists, due to the fact that Cluster Jewels from Delirium rewards will be better at high levels, and can roll higher tiers modifiers.

Players aiming for the highest level Heists will often find high Rogue skill requirement on these contracts and blueprints. With some Rogues unable to level past certain level skill, players will need to micro-management their Rogues even more. They need to review each Rogue maximum level in each skill, and use the ones with highest potential more often, so they level up faster.

If you plan to run high level Engineering contracts for example, you should start doing them with Isla, the Engineer from the start, as her name suggests. Isla is the only Rogue who can reach level 5 in Engineering. Same goes for Venderi in Demolition,or Tullina in Agility. So always keep in mind which Rogue you need to level up the most, and focus on them.

High level Grand Heist

When it comes to the choice of which Blueprint you want to run for a Grand Heist, we seek items that scale well with levels. Especially enchanted weapon and Armour, since they also drop with bias towards being a good item. In the end room in grand Heist you will find several items to choose from, and you will most likely find really good one there at high level, which can be used, crafted further, or sold for good currency.

You will need a good supply of Blueprints though, and if you don’t have enough, trade for them with other players. Make sure to use the official Path of Exile trade page , choosing item category “Heist Blueprint” , and set item level to the desired level (Typically +83), and then find the Blueprints with suitable targets, like “Enchanted Armament”, “Thieves’ Trinkets or Currency” or “Replicas or Experimented Items”

The aim in Grand Heists is to reach the final room without triggering the Alarm, and to stay alive once the alarm trigger. So you need careful movement and layers of defense and ways to avoid damage altogether. Projecting damage through corners is an excellent tactic while escaping, so Totem builds, or Trap and Mine builds can be much safer for this playstyle. Also builds with Phasing (which allows players to go through monsters without collision), and Elusive with huge dodge chance can run through most rooms quickly. Or Champion builds with maximum block chance.

This guide should get you up to speed in starting Path of Exile: Heist, as well as picking the right strategy for you.

If you found this build useful and want to check out more of ourPath of Exile content, be sure to watch our Path of Exile: Heist Expansion Overview for the current league. Or if you are interested in our guides, check our Path of Exile Builds including Path Of Exile Starter Build For Heist 3.12 – Chaos DoT Trickster.