Path of Exile Lost Charts: How to Run Underwater Expeditions
Lost Charts in Path of Exile 1 open underwater areas in Curse of the Allflame. These individual loot excursions also provide the foundation for assembling a later Voyage. A useful run has two outcomes: bringing rewards back to the surface and obtaining charted areas for your next expedition.
This guide covers league 3.29 and its subsequent changes. Judge an individual Chart by its properties and your character's capabilities. Its type name alone does not promise comfortable difficulty, identical rewards or a fixed income.
For your first attempts, learning the lanterns, return route and loot transfers matters more than clearing every corner. Complete a few understandable excursions, compare their results and then decide whether buying extra Charts for a future Voyage makes sense.
Cursed Treasure and obtaining Charts
When you find Cursed Treasure, look for its dedicated minimap icon. While the encounter participants are spawning, the chest is locked and cannot be interacted with. Deal with the danger around it first; after the encounter ends, when its chains open and the chest becomes interactive again, open it and collect the actual loot. Keep any Chart you find for Valerie rather than leaving it among items you intended to skip.
Cursed Treasure encounters can also grant Possession buffs. After the fight, check the buff icons as well as the loot beside the chest. If you do not need a particular effect, update 3.29.2 lets you remove it by right-clicking its icon.
You can obtain Charts during your normal journey through Wraeclast and buy them from other players. Your preparation therefore need not depend on one encounter or a promise of the desired Chart from a particular chest. When buying, choose an uncharted Chart with suitable properties: after completion, the area is used in your planner and does not turn back into a tradeable key.
What to do with a Chart you find
The system connects Valerie with her ship, The Sovereign. Keep the Charts you find for underwater excursions and read their properties before starting. Since patch 3.29.0b, you can begin an individual Chart directly through the Bathysphere aboard the ship; planning a Voyage still involves speaking to Valerie.
In the dialogue with Valerie, the Corsair, Chart Area concerns an individual Chart, while Plan Voyage is for planning a connected expedition. Choose Chart Area to start through Valerie, or open Plan Voyage to arrange charted areas. The same menu contains the lantern setting: Disable Auto-Lanterns disables automatic placement. This is useful when you want to choose where to extend the safe area yourself.
The Sovereign connects individual underwater excursions with planning a larger Voyage.
Before entering, check:
Whether your selected league includes the Curse of the Allflame sea mechanic.
Which dangerous properties this particular Chart has and how your character handles them.
Whether you have room for the loot you want.
Whether your usual movement, recovery and defensive tools are ready.
Do not choose difficulty solely because the previous excursion felt easy. A different combination of properties can interfere with your particular defenses or damage delivery. Read the description first and decide whether to enter afterwards.
In the introductory quest sequence, Valerie offers a Chart aboard The Sovereign: take it, place it in the device on the ship and enter the Bathysphere to descend. After completing your first Chart, speak with Valerie aboard the ship. If she offers Dead Man’s Sulphur, take it.
On the ocean floor, look for clusters of luminous coral and place Allflame Lanterns near them to collect the coral. Lantern placement therefore serves both exploration and collection: find a cluster first, then choose where to place the lantern. Once lantern placement is finished, return to the Bathysphere and extract from the area.
Lanterns: plan the excursion around the return journey
Allflame Lanterns protect you on the seabed. When their light fades and the safe areas start shrinking, you need to return to the Bathysphere. The outward and return journeys are therefore one planning problem, rather than independent parts of the run.
In your first area, pay attention to passages and obstacles. Remember junctions where you could take the wrong turn. If opening another chest leaves you unable to identify the way back, stop extending the route and regain your bearings.
Patch 3.29.0b added a notification for your final remaining lantern and slowed the initial stage of shrinking after placing it. Treat that as room to return, rather than permission to remain at the far end until the last moment. Respond to the warning before the situation becomes a rush.
Patch 3.29.2 allowed you to leave the encounter through the backup Capsule without placing every lantern. If you already have useful loot or find the area too difficult, do not continue merely to spend the remaining resource.
Choosing loot and using Capsules
Underwater rewards compete for your time. Before entering, decide what matters in this session: learning the mechanic, collecting materials or obtaining a particular reward category. That makes it easier to reject a lengthy detour for something unrelated to your purpose.
Allflame Capsules send loot to the surface. Placing an item in the interface and confirming its transfer are separate actions: check that the transfer happened before continuing. Be especially careful when combat is ongoing nearby or your party is rushing ahead.
Since 3.29.2, several participants can use one Capsule, but its capacity is shared. Agree on priorities beforehand. Once an expensive item has been sent up, assess further danger against what you still carry, rather than the expedition's total loot.
The ship provides an option to claim all transferred rewards. Complete the loop by checking it: free inventory space, collect the rewards and separate items for your next upgrade from items to sell. Your next excursion can then begin with an organized inventory.
Chart variants and why old lists are incomplete
The official 3.29 launch item list names Sandy Seabed Chart, Coral Forest Chart and Coral Reef Chart. Patch 3.29.1 added another variant, Eldritch Depths. A list containing only three variants therefore describes the launch rather than the entire later selection.
Do not infer a particular reward from the name alone. When comparing charted areas, their properties and suitability for your future Voyage matter. Keep options with different connections and useful effects instead of retaining only the most immediately attractive-looking items.
In the planner, charted areas become components of a combined configuration. While learning, it helps to think of three groups: useful now, promising for a different setup and safe to discard. This is an organizational suggestion rather than a game rule, intended to reduce repeated reading of similar options.
Reward changes worth knowing
The developers improved underwater rewards after launch. Patch 3.29.0b made Currency, Scarab, Stacked Deck and Map chests more common. Diviner, Arcanist and Operative Strongboxes in areas above level 67 no longer require the previous Vesper upgrades to appear.
Patch 3.29.1 subsequently added Sunken Opulence and Sunken Gems. In 3.29.2, Chart properties that previously promised increased gold found were replaced with increased item rarity: the former gold bonus did not work in Charts and Voyages. Do not build your current route around its old description.
Those changes do not guarantee a particular value from every excursion. Compare routes by recording duration, delivered loot, expenses and the cause of dangerous situations. A few fortunate chests do not establish a reliable average income, and a deathless run can still be inefficient with your time.
Turning resources into crafting
When you obtain a Ducat, identify its purpose first. For example, Kishara's Ducat is applied to an item with Vesper and preserves one randomly chosen modifier in the ghostly versions. Cursed Ducats for a Voyage are socketed into the planner to empower Charts and the expedition; each socketed Ducat adds the same amount of empowerment. Do not spend crafting currency as though it were a board setting, or vice versa.
Distinguish treasure from your Dead Man's Sulphur reserve: Valerie identifies the substance swirling around a placed lantern as Sulphur. Look for luminous coral clusters, choose a lantern position near them and watch the resource collection. Further Charts let you return for Sulphur, which you then spend with Vesper alongside crafting currency.
Dead Man's Sulphur is used with Vesper aboard The Sovereign alongside the currency for the selected operation. Do not spend the whole reserve simply because you have finished another Chart: choose an item and the step it needs first, then assess the cost in the crafting window. Your excursions can then supply a specific project instead of ending in arbitrary spending.
In the tutorial, Valerie gives you a ring and an Orb of Transmutation: use them to craft with Vesper, then speak with her. When Vesper directs you to retrieve the mysterious flame, travel to the Ship Graveyard, defeat Captain Fairgraves, pick up the Allflame and bring it to Valerie aboard the ship. Then speak with her belowdecks to help Vesper. Completing this quest makes Allflame Crafting available by speaking with Vesper aboard The Sovereign.
When to move on to a Voyage
Keep finding and completing Charts as you travel. When Valerie offers to plan a Voyage, choose Plan Voyage aboard The Sovereign, place completed Charts in a valid arrangement and enter the Bathysphere. The first introductory expedition requires four areas, while a normal subsequent one requires nine. Those are layout sizes, not a requirement to finish nine different Charts before the tutorial.
The transition makes sense when an individual Chart no longer requires constant reference to instructions. You understand the return journey, can verify loot transfers and can explain the dangers of selected properties. Connecting several areas can then become the next skill, rather than multiplying unfamiliar problems.
Before your first substantial configuration, review your available charted areas and choose at least one objective for the board. Do not spend your best options simply to fill every space. If the combination is unsuitable, another individual excursion may be more useful than a poor Voyage.
Why can I not find the exact bonus mentioned in an older guide?
Properties and interface convenience changed after launch. Compare the effect's name and description in your client; distinguishing gold quantity from item rarity is particularly important after the 3.29.2 change.
Must I continue until every lantern is used?
No. Since 3.29.2, the backup Capsule allows an earlier departure. End the excursion when further danger no longer serves its purpose, rather than only when you run out of exploration options.