# PoE 3.29 — 36/40 Challenge Guide > Curse of the Allflame: which 36 challenges out of 40 to do, which four to drop, and what exactly to buy in a trade so that most of them are closed in one run. - **Game:** Path of Exile - **Category:** Challenges - **Author:** LongBeam (https://guides-factory.com/about) - **Difficulty:** Intermediate - **Reading time:** 25 min - **Published:** 2026-08-03 - **Updated:** 2026-09-06 - **Tags:** Atlas, Challenges, Endgame, League 3.29 - **Adapted from:** [Drelvak — PoE 3.29 Curse of the Allflame 36/40 Challenge Guide](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORF-IskghmE) - **Canonical URL:** https://guides-factory.com/guides/poe-3-29-36-40-challenge-guide ---

league This guide covers 3.29 Curse of the Allflame. For whichever league is live right now, start at the PoE Challenge Guide and follow it back here for the challenge-by-challenge detail.

## 🎯 The core idea > Every challenge cosmetic — the back attachment, the totem, the portal, the eel pet, the oceanic weapon effect — unlocks at **36 of 40**. Not 40. So four challenges are free, and **choosing which four to drop is the actual strategy**, not a consolation prize. > > Most of the remaining 36 are not skill checks. They are *shopping* — buy the scarab, buy the logbook, buy the contract, run it once. Two of them are gated on your Atlas tree, and if you don't set that up first you'll run those maps twice. > > *Drelvak dropped Intrigued Interlopers, Brinerot's Bloody Bounty, Horrific Halls and Apex Assailants. His own note: if he had to un-skip one, it would be Brinerot's.* ## Do this first 1. **Build the item-quantity Atlas tree before you touch two specific challenges.** *Trustworthy Teachers* needs T16 at ≥80% quantity and *Excruciating Echoes* needs 150%. Take every map modifier effect node, the full quantity wheel, and the inner quantity wheel as well. Doing this after the fact means running those maps again for nothing. 2. **Treat the trade site as part of the guide.** A large share of these challenges are one purchase and one map. You do not need to know Heist to kill the Heist boss, or Incursion to kill the Omnitect — you buy the entry item and walk to the boss. 3. **Keep five scarab slots filled from the very first map.** *Stacked Scarabs* counts passively, and most of the "any three of the following league mechanics" challenges are just scarabs you were going to run anyway. ## All 40 challenges

free comes naturally
cheap buy it, run it once
setup needs the Atlas quant tree
grind real time investment
skip he skipped it

*In video order. Tick them off as you go — every row links to the exact second in the video.* ## The four to drop, and why | Challenge | Why it's the one to cut | |---|---| | Intrigued Interlopers | Needs four boss altars in a single map. Rare, and altar loot is bad enough that chasing it costs you hundreds of maps of real drops. | | Horrific Halls | The wording hides it: five *delirium orbs*, not one delirium. A 100% delirious nightmare boss at 150% quantity, with no scarab slots spare. | | Apex Assailants | Pure Uber bossing. Free if your build does that, impossible if it doesn't. | | Brinerot's Bloody Bounty | Not actually hard — just a brutal retry loop, since every failed attempt costs a whole new voyage. **This is the one he'd go back and do.** | *If your build *is* a bosser, swap Apex Assailants back in and drop Bountiful Bloodlines' expensive tail instead — it's the same trade in the other direction.* ## Scarab shopping list *Not in the video — collected from it. Buy these in bulk once and most of the "any N of the following" challenges collapse into normal [mapping](/guides/poe-mapping-guide-explained-tiers-atlas-void-stones).* | Scarab | Feeds | |---|---| | Mercenary *(+ of Infamy)* | Savage Sellswords, Cross Contamination ×2 | | Delirium | Legendary Leagues, Cross Contamination, level 100 | | Breach *(+ Marshal node)* | Legendary Leagues, Taxing Tasks, Cross Contamination | | Abyss / Abyssal Depths / Consort | Legendary Leagues, Taxing Tasks, Challenging Curators, Cross Contamination | | Shrine + Domination | Ingrained Increases, Cross Contamination, nightmare maps | | Harvest doubling + Cornucopia | Legendary Leagues, Taxing Tasks *(tier 4 seed)* | | Sulphite, Bestiary | Trustworthy Teachers | | Beyond *(boss nodes, not Endless Tide)* | Challenging Curators, level 100 | | Ultimatum of Dueling | Bountiful Bloodlines *(guaranteed Trialmaster)* | | Strongbox, Essence, Legion, Rogue Exile, Wisp, Adversary | the "any three / any five" challenges | | Monstrous Lineage ×2, Beyond Invasion, Elder | level 100 grind | | Prefix- / suffix-negating | emergency valve for nightmare maps | ## Extra tips

from the video

Astrolabe quadrants are not cosmetic. Where you place it decides the Memory Vault pool. North-west (stacked decks / div cards) was the most consistent; south-west generic currency was actively bad.
Hall of Grandmasters — do not take it for Remarkable Realms. It respawns real player builds as NPCs and at least one of them will simply kill you repeatedly.
Nightmare maps double-dip. They carry a lot of modifiers, so 40 of them for Gallant Grinding Goals also finishes most of Modified Maps.
Memory of Trauma pays for itself — the Chamber of Impunity boss has a guaranteed valuable drop, so Excruciating Echoes is one of the few grinds that makes money.

from the comments (not in the video)

Unique items the cheap way — use the 3:1 recipe on junk uniques: three copies of the same non-corrupted unique returns a new copy of it. People have whole tabs of 1c rings. — thornburg9170
Trialmaster at tier 1. The scarab guarantees the fight, and there's nothing stopping you doing it in a T1 map. — Nisze
The Abyssal Consort scales with abyss density and turns into an unkillable raid boss if the map is full of abyss pits. Run exactly one abyss. — roflmattable

unresolved

A commenter reports doing Trustworthy Teachers with Niko and Einhar on a T16 at 80%+ quantity two or three times with the counter still on zero. There are replies but no confirmed answer. If your count isn't moving, you're not alone — check the quantity number on the map device itself rather than trusting the tree.

## Sources - ["PoE 3.29 Curse of the Allflame 36/40 Challenge Guide"](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORF-IskghmE) — Drelvak, YouTube, 3 August 2026. - Chapter timings are the creator's own; the per-challenge detail is transcribed from the video's auto-generated captions, so a few **item and boss names may be slightly misspelled** — the method is right even where the spelling isn't. - The "from the comments" box collects tips from viewers thornburg9170, Nisze and roflmattable that are not in the video itself. - The scarab shopping list is not from the video — it's assembled by cross-referencing which scarab feeds which challenge. --- ## FAQ ### How many challenges do you need for all the rewards? **36 of 40.** Every challenge cosmetic — the back attachment, the totem, the portal, the eel pet, the oceanic weapon effect — unlocks at 36, so four challenges are free to drop. ### Which four challenges should you skip? Drelvak dropped **Intrigued Interlopers**, **Brinerot's Bloody Bounty**, **Horrific Halls** and **Apex Assailants**. If he had to un-skip one, it would be Brinerot's. ### What should you set up before starting? The **item-quantity Atlas tree**. *Trustworthy Teachers* needs T16 at ≥80% quantity and *Excruciating Echoes* needs 150% — building the tree afterwards means running those maps twice. ### Why avoid Hall of Grandmasters for Remarkable Realms? It respawns real player characters with real gear, and at least one of them is effectively unkillable. Pick any of the other unique maps. ### Which grind actually pays for itself? **Excruciating Echoes** via *Memory of Trauma → Chamber of Impunity*: the boss has a guaranteed valuable drop.