Path of Exile – Basic Guide to Betrayal Mechanics

Other PoE Guides:

• 100% Achievement Guide.
• Beginner-oriented Farming Guide / Build.
• Achievements for Atlas Completion.
• How to Make Your Final Izaro Fight Easier.

How the Syndicate and Its Four Parts Function

All credit goes to space!

New league new mechanics.
This league has a lot of mechanics.
You’re going to learn them to get fat loot.

To get to the mastermind, you have to raid the safehouses.
To raid the safehouses, you need intel.
To get intel, you have to get the members to betray each other, or just imprison everyone.
Imprisoning everyone lowers their rank, which means less loot.
You want fat loot so you have to learn the mechanics.

There are four sections of the Syndakit: Transportation, Fortification, Research, and Intervention.

Transport will try to protect some glowy pillars filled with souls to a portal. Timed but not usually a hurry.

Fortification will set up a fort in some part of the map, and defend it with their lives. Breaking open the door will spawn lots of enemies, can easily get swarmed watch out. Usually there are healing totems; remove those.

Research will have a dank den for you to walk into, and the Syndakit will try to destroy the intel before you get there. Either rush the leader or try to kill all the priest lookin dudes with the lazers and banners. Lots of mobs will spawn, i recommend phasing in your builds, and lots of aoe.

Intervention is just like it sounds: they’ll teleport into your map and try to take you out. Depending on how many buddies show up you could die real quick, so run away asap and kite if you’re worried about dying.

This Board is Confusing, What Does It Mean

Alright let’s take a look at the board huh (press v ingame to see at any time).

Break it down.

Yellow Lines means they’re in the same branch of the synokate, and will have a room in the safehouse. The max is 5 members.

Green Lines means they’re buddies with another member. Very important as they’ll show up to defend each other more often during the league events (which means more loot), and will enable betraying each other later on. This is key as it enables very very big gains of intel. Someone betraying a hideout leader will give you +40 intel.

Red Lines means they’re rivals and will try to fight each other periodically. I don’t really like it as it makes fights more confusing then they already are. Try not to have too many red lines. You can remove all rivalries within the syndokat with a bargain option sometimes.

The Ranking System is relatively easy: higher rank means harder fights and better loot. Higher rank means more items. Watch out for scary items like stun chance, extra crit, or chaos damage.

The Intel Bar Under the Leader you need 100 intel per section, which includes the mastermind. Interrogating a rank 3 safehouse leader will give 12 intel over all, so you’ll need quite a few raids to reach the big bad.

WTF Should I Do: Interrogate, Bargain, Execute, Betray?

Members will always have the two options to pick from: interrogate or other.
The other can change depending on how many members there are down at the time.
Having 3+ will always make you kill/imprison one.
Be sure to check your options after every choice.

Don’t forget about the secret third option.

Interrogate

You always have the option to interrogate/imprison. Imprisoning does a few very key things.

+ Will always provide intel towards the safehouse/mastermind.
+ Will always derank the member -1, or if was a leader, completely.
+ Will remove the items they have.
+ In 3 turns they go free.

Everyone’s different so who you want to interrogate is up to you.

If you don’t like someone’s loot: interrogate them.
If you’re afraid they’re gonna kill you in maps over and over: interrogate them.
If they have a really scary item synergy: interrogate them (bye tora).
If you just want to rush the leadership: interrogate everyone.

Execute

Killing a member will make them stronger and they’ll get more loot in the safehouse raids.

+ Will always +1 rank, unless they’re max.
+ Will give them an item so they get scarier.
+ Will let them give more stuff at the end.

If you like what the dude is giving, i would always make sure they’re rank 3 before the raid. It really does make the difference at the end.

I don’t know if an itemless rank 3 does the same damage as a rank 0 but its worth testing.

Bargaining

There’s a wide variety of events that could happen with this.
It’s better to figure them out on your own 🙂 You’ll learn as you go.
But really, if they say drop currency, unique, map, or scarab. Take it. Big drops.

+ It can do anything.
+ Get those drops man.

Betrayal

This is the big one. Major board changes and big intel gains.
In order for a member to betray another, they must be allies. Make everyone green lined for more chances!

+ It’s the name of the league lol. It’s important!

The Secret Third Option

Walking away. If you don’t like what they’re offering, and you don’t want to remove their rank/position, just walk away.

+ No loot gained.
+ Only walk away if you know what you’re doing.
+ No loot gained.
+ If you’re in a reseach lab you have to walk away out by yourself.
+ No loot gained.

Don’t mess your hard worked board up; no loot is the price you have to pay.

Who Are All These Members and What Do They Give as Fat Loot

Everyone wants different loot so your opinions are your own and that’s ok (spoilers).

Click to enlarge…

The hideout Leader gives Double Rewards.

It’s difficult getting the leader to show up in the normal events so if you can upgrade them, do it for sure.

I don’t really care for the rng stuff from guff and riker but that’s just me. Guff can be really good for crafting es gear. Riker can remove some rng with uniques. Update riker is alright now.

Transportation

Keep:

+++++ Cameria (league uniques).
+++ Gravycius (big stack of 1 div card, higher rank means rarer/better card).
+++ Korell if lvl 2-3 (lots of good essences).
+++ Guff is really nice here if you want to craft high es gear with chaos spamming.
+ It that fled if you don’t have many breach splinters yet.
+ Aisling (veiled weapons).
+ Hillock if you’re melee (overqualities weapons).
+ Leo if you want silver coins.
+ Vorici if you need quality gems.
+ Jorgin if lvl 3 (talismans).
+ Elreon (unique weapons).

Remove:

— Vagan sucks.
— Janus sucks.
– Tora.
– Rin (drops 2-4 maps, she’s better elsewhere).
– Haku does nothing special here, tell me if i’m wrong ok.

Fortification

Keep:

+++ Gravycius (lots and lots of div cards, i got a fated connections (6link prophecy) here).
+++ Tora (lab enchants, need +3 rank for helmet).
+++ Hillock (overqualities armor), very important for 6 linking chances.
+++ Cameria (harbinger currency).
++ Riker gets ‘take a unique’; pick one unique out of 7 or so, 8 seconds to decide.
++ Elreon (unique armor).
++ Korell has fragments? if you can get the mortals or shaper guardian keys he’s really good then.
+ Aisling (veiled armor).
+ It that fled if you really need abyss jewels.
+ Leo is ok here, gives currency.
+ Rin is ok here, if you need rare maps for the unid challenges.
+ Jorgin gives items with a bestiary mod (aspects), pretty good.
+ Tora (lab enchants, need +3 rank for helmet).

Remove:

— Vagan sucks.
— Janus sucks.
– Vorici is better elsewhere.
– Haku gives some strongboxes (i fought him here when he was lvl3 and i got one normal strongbox).
– Jorgin better elsewhere.

Research

Keep:

+++++ It that fled (can make breachstones harder/give more loot and xp).
+++++ Aisling gives an item a veiled mod, at level 3 she gives 2. you can change the mods afterwards using your crafting bench giving you a multimod like weapon. Very powerful.
+++ Hillock (only way to overquality flasks!).
+++ Tora (gives gems experience, very important for levelling empower enlighten etc).
+++ Vorici (gives items white sockets, higher rank for more sockets).
+++ Rin (unique maps, very important for atlas %).
+++ Jorgin turns amulets into talismans, keeping all the prefix/suffix mods it had before, very nice for good mods on a bad base.
++ Elreon (unique rings/amulets, important for loreweave).
++ Leo gives an exalt usage with rank 3.
++ Korell (gives fossils).

Remove:

— Vagan sucks.
— Janus sucks.
— Cameria is way better in the other 3 branches.
– Gravycius turns a div card into another? i can turn in gambler sets too. better everywhere else.
– Honestly i’m not sure what haku does here.

Invasion / Intervention

The rank of the intervention leader matters as it determines what kind of scarab you get (rusted, polished or gilded). I don’t know if it is supposed to be like this but that’s how it currently is. This is very important if you’re going for the use gilded scarabs challenge.

Keep:

+++++ Rin (map scarabs).
+++ Jorgin (bestiary scarab, very powerful this league).
+++ It that fled gives breach scarabs.
+++ Gravycius gives div card scarabs, big for farming.
+++ Riker gets pick a divination card.
++ Cameria if you want to big delve.
++ Haku gives strongbox scarabs, big for red maps.
++ Korell gives elder scarab.
++ Vorici gives shaper scarab.
++ Tora gives harbinger scarab.
+ Elreon gives unique drops scarab.
+ Aisling gives veiled rings/amulets.

Remove:

– Vagan sucks.
– Janus sucks.
– Hillock gives map quality? Not really worth it.
– Leo gives torment scarabs pretty bad.

Members to Watch Out For / End of Guide

• Janus sucks, stunlocks you and gives awful safehouse rewards. 
• Tora and it that fled do major chaos damage, if you don’t improve your res you’re gonna eat dirt real quick.
• Vagan’s blade aura can hurt you when he’s down watch out.
• Haku does big damage. Tala moana warrior.
• I have big spikes of damage versus Vorici and i don’t know why.
• Cameria has a icicle ground effect that is barely visible and sticks around after his death.
• Elreon has something similar with homing holy relics.

Really just be careful this league, try to get 0% chaos res.