TL;DR<\/p>
- \n
- Never skip the passive point quests or the Labyrinth trials \u2014 they're worth up to 24 skill points and every Ascendancy point you have.<\/li>\n
- The Act 2 bandit quest and its resistance\/attribute reward matter more early than most builds admit.<\/li>\n
- Most optional side quests (hidden bosses, extra lore areas, non-passive bonus quests) can be skipped with zero mechanical loss beyond flavor and a bit of loot.<\/li>\n
- Twink gear \u2014 Tabula Rasa, Wanderlust, Goldrim, a cheap unique belt \u2014 removes the early-game gear grind almost entirely.<\/li>\n
- Any \"three hours\" style time estimate depends heavily on your build, your gear, and how many times you've run the acts before.<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"What Is a PoE Campaign Speedrun?","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
A campaign speedrun is a leveling run through Acts 1 through 10 where you skip everything that doesn't advance your character's power or unlock the next zone. It sits on top of the normal leveling loop and the league start prep most players already do<\/a> \u2014 the difference is intent: you're not exploring, you're routing. Players care about this because Ascendancy points are among the strongest character upgrades in Path of Exile, and delaying Labyrinth completion can leave a character much weaker than expected for its level, so a badly planned first run can burn hours for nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"table","headers":[{"header_text":"Labyrinth Tier"},{"header_text":"Trials Required"},{"header_text":"Ascendancy Points Granted"}],"rows":[{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Normal Labyrinth"},{"cell_text":"Six trials, Acts 1 \u2013 3"},{"cell_text":"First 2 points"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Cruel Labyrinth"},{"cell_text":"Three more trials, roughly Acts 6 \u2013 8"},{"cell_text":"2 more (4 total)"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Merciless Labyrinth"},{"cell_text":"Three final trials, late campaign"},{"cell_text":"2 more (6 total)"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Eternal (Uber) Labyrinth"},{"cell_text":"Offering to the Goddess, no trial"},{"cell_text":"Final 2 (8 total)"}]}],"size":"small"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Which Quests You Cannot Skip: Passives, Lab Trials, Resistances","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
Two categories are non-negotiable. First, the passive point quests: there are only 23 such quests because the final one grants two Passive Skill points at once, adding up to a total of 123 points across the Passive Tree at level 100. Skipping any of these means permanently building a weaker character on that tree \u2014 you can't buy the points back. Confirmed early ones include The Dweller of the Deep, found and defeated in the Flooded Depths, and The Marooned Mariner, which has you bring the Allflame<\/a> to Captain Fairgraves in Act 1, followed in Act 2 by The Way Forward, completed after defeating Captain Arteri in the Western Forest, and in Act 3 by Through Sacred Ground, which requires finding the Golden Hand in Crypt Level 2.<\/p>\n
Second, the Labyrinth trials. There are 12 Lab locations you have to visit during the campaign in order to specialize your class into an Ascendancy, and the useful part for a speedrun is that completion of these trials is tied to your account per league, so once your league starter runs them, you don't need to run them again on any subsequent character \u2014 a huge deal for twink leveling. The trials cluster roughly as Act 1's first trial in the Lower Prison, then two more in Act 2's Crypt Level 1 and Chamber of Sins Level 2, with the final three for the Normal Lab in Act 3's Crematorium, Catacombs and Imperial Garden. Later tiers continue into Acts 6 through 10.<\/p>\n
\n24<\/span>passive points from quests<\/span><\/div>\n123<\/span>total tree points at lvl 100<\/span><\/div>\n12<\/span>Lab trials in campaign<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\nThe third unskippable item isn't a quest, it's a decision: the Act 2 bandit quest. You can choose to help one of the three Bandit leaders for a specific reward, or slay all of them for a Passive Skill point, and this is a popular choice on league starts because it helps undergeared characters cap their resistances earlier, though the reward can be changed later but is fairly expensive early into a league. Decide once, based on whether your build needs early resistances more than the raw passive point, and move on.\n\n<\/p>\n
Normal Lab<\/span>2<\/span><\/div>\nCruel Lab<\/span>4<\/span><\/div>\nMerciless Lab<\/span>6<\/span><\/div>\nEternal Lab<\/span>8<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"![\"Path](\"https:\/\/media.rawg.io\/media\/screenshots\/756\/7567039877f95cf47333503925c62aa2.jpg\")
<\/figure>"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Side Quests You Can Skip Without Losing Progress","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\nEverything that isn't a passive point quest, a Lab trial, or the bandit choice is optional in a strict speedrun sense. That includes most lore-only quests, hidden unique-monster hunts that don't feed a passive quest, and any side objective the game flags as a bonus without a skill point attached. The table below separates what's actually optional from what looks optional but quietly gates something you'll want later.<\/p>\n\n
Warning<\/p>
Skipping a passive-point quest by accident is one of the most common ways a league-start character ends up under-leveled for its own gear. Check your quest log against a passive-point checklist<\/a> before you leave an act, not after.<\/p><\/div>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"table","headers":[{"header_text":"Side Content"},{"header_text":"Safe to Skip?"},{"header_text":"What You Actually Lose"}],"rows":[{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Pure lore\/side quests with no passive reward"},{"cell_text":"Yes"},{"cell_text":"Nothing mechanical, just dialogue and minor loot"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Optional hidden bosses unrelated to a passive quest"},{"cell_text":"Yes"},{"cell_text":"Some drops and currency, no character power"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Full zone exploration \/ backtracking for maps"},{"cell_text":"Yes"},{"cell_text":"Extra loot and waypoints you don't strictly need mid-campaign"}]},{"cells":[{"cell_text":"Act 6 Pantheon god quests (Kitava's Body and similar)"},{"cell_text":"No"},{"cell_text":"Passive points and a Pantheon power slot most players don't want to give up"}]}],"size":"small"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Twink Gear: Passed-Down Items That Cut Ten Hours to Three","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
Twink leveling means handing down items from an existing character's stash to a fresh one, skipping the early gear-upgrade grind entirely. A small, reusable kit covers most of the campaign.<\/p>\n
Body Armor and Boots<\/h3>\n
Tabula Rasa is the most important investment for leveling, due to the sheer firepower it gives to any build by offering six linked sockets from level one with no other stats to fight over. On the feet, Wanderlust is the most accessible and prolific boot choice, offering freeze immunity plus a movement speed roll that most rare boots can't match this early.<\/p>\n
Helmet, Rings, and Belt<\/h3>\n
Goldrim is excellent due to immediate usability and the large injection of resistances it grants from level one, buying time before your gear can cap resistances properly. For rings, a pair of unique rings such as Berek's Grip or Perandus Signets covers early damage or utility, and for the belt slot one of the cheap unique belts \u2014 Darkness Enthroned, Meginord's Girdle, or Wurm's Molt \u2014 rounds out the kit.<\/p>\n
None of this needs to be expensive. If your main character isn't sitting on spares, our efficient farming guide<\/a> covers currency methods that make picking up a Tabula Rasa or a cheap unique belt for an alt a non-issue.<\/p>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Step-by-Step: First Speedrun Walkthrough","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"steps","intro":"Follow this sequence to get it done fast.","steps":[{"title":"Twink your stash before you start","description":"send Tabula Rasa, Wanderlust, Goldrim, a spare belt and rings to the new character before you even create it.","image":null},{"title":"Clear Acts 1 \u2013 3 in a straight line","description":"grab the confirmed passive quests as you pass through, and pick up all six Normal Lab trials on the way; don't detour for anything without a passive reward.","image":null},{"title":"Make the bandit call early","description":"decide once whether you need the resistance\/attribute reward or the flat passive point, based on how exposed your build feels.","image":null},{"title":"Run the Normal Labyrinth once trials are done","description":"do it as soon as the six trials are complete rather than saving it, since the Ascendancy points compound your damage and survivability for every act after.","image":null},{"title":"Repeat the pattern through Acts 6 \u2013 10","description":"keep collecting passive quests and Cruel\/Merciless trials, running each Lab tier the moment it unlocks instead of stockpiling trials.","image":null},{"title":"Check your resistances before Merciless","description":"swap in any twinked resistance pieces you saved, since Merciless-difficulty monsters punish uncapped resistances hard.","image":null}]},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Common Misconceptions About Skipping the PoE Campaign","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
Myth: You can skip Lab trials and just farm them later<\/h3>\n
You can technically delay them, but every trial you postpone is Ascendancy points you're not using while leveling through content that assumes you have them. The trials themselves are quick; the real cost is playing acts 4 through 10 without an Ascendancy class.<\/p>\n
Myth: The bandit reward doesn't matter if you're going to respec anyway<\/h3>\n
Changing the bandit reward later is possible but fairly expensive early into a league, so treating it as a throwaway choice on a fresh character usually costs more currency than just picking correctly the first time.<\/p>\n
Myth: A twinked character skips the campaign, not just speeds it up<\/h3>\n
Passed-down gear removes gear-upgrade downtime, not the acts themselves. You still walk through every zone and complete every mandatory quest \u2014 twink gear just means you're never under-geared while doing it.<\/p>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"title","heading":"Our Take: Is a Full Speedrun Worth It?","tag":"h2"},{"acf_fc_layout":"text","text":"\n
Our Take<\/p>
For a second or third character in the same league, yes; for your very first character ever, don't force it.<\/p>\n
The passive quests and Lab trials aren't optional in any real sense \u2014 they're the difference between a character that can survive Merciless and one that can't, so \"speedrunning\" them isn't really skipping anything, it's just not wasting time on the parts that were always optional. The actual time saved comes almost entirely from cutting side content and twinking gear, not from finding some secret shortcut through the mandatory story quests.<\/p>\n
Where this genuinely helps is exactly the situation most searchers are in: a league is a few weeks old, your main character is geared, and you want an alt or a hardcore restart without repeating the slow parts. Where it doesn't help is a brand-new player's first-ever character \u2014 learning the acts, the bandit trade-offs and the Lab traps properly the slow way pays off every league after. Once you're through the campaign, the actual decisions move to what to prioritize in the endgame<\/a>, where the leveling shortcuts stop mattering and map and currency strategy take over.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n"},{"acf_fc_layout":"faq","items":[{"question":"What's the fastest way to level in Path of Exile?","answer":"Twinked gear on a known route through the passive quests and Lab trials, without detouring for optional content, is the standard fast-leveling approach. There's no in-client skip button for the acts themselves."},{"question":"Can I really skip the Labyrinth entirely?","answer":"You can delay it, but not skip it, if you want any Ascendancy points at all. Trials of Ascendancy unlock access to the Labyrinth, where your character earns Ascendancy points and chooses or upgrades an Ascendancy class after completing the required trials and finishing a run."},{"question":"Is twink leveling account-safe?","answer":"Yes \u2014 trading items between your own characters via the stash is a normal, fully supported part of the game, not a third-party tool or exploit."},{"question":"Do I need to redo Lab trials on every new character?","answer":"No \u2014 trial completion is tied to your account per league, so once your starter runs them, subsequent characters that league don't need to run them again, though you'll still need to complete each Labyrinth run itself per character to get its Ascendancy points."},{"question":"How long does a real campaign speedrun actually take?","answer":"It depends entirely on build familiarity, gear, and whether you're twinked, so treat any specific hour figure as a rough target rather than a promise \u2014 a geared, experienced player twinking a well-known route will finish far faster than someone doing it for the first time."}]}],"bottom":[{"acf_fc_layout":"more_articles","heading":"","posts":[],"count":10},{"acf_fc_layout":"chat","heading":""}],"meta_description":"A practical PoE campaign skip guide: which quests lock passive points, Lab trials and resistances, which side content to ignore, and twink gear that speeds up act clears."},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2650"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3905,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2650\/revisions\/3905"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2651"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2650"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2650"},{"taxonomy":"blog_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/neonsect.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/blog_tag?post=2650"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}