# PoE Heist Guide: Rogue Markers, Contracts & Blueprints Explained
> How Heist actually works in Path of Exile: Rogue Markers, Contracts vs. Blueprints, Rogue unlock order, and the most efficient ways to run it, checked against the wiki with notes on what's unverified from the source video.
- **Game:** Path of Exile
- **Category:** Farm-strategy
- **Author:** LongBeam (https://guides-factory.com/about)
- **Difficulty:** Beginner
- **Reading time:** 9 min
- **Published:** 2026-08-26
- **Updated:** 2026-08-26
- **Tags:** Endgame
- **Adapted from:** [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsASRkqHFiA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsASRkqHFiA)
- **Canonical URL:** https://guides-factory.com/guides/poe-heist-guide-rogue-markers-contracts-blueprints
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## 🎯 The core idea
> This guide is based on Sir Cuthbert's "Heist Guide for Path of Exile" (YouTube, ~8:30 runtime), published 2025-10-28 and labeled **[3.28 - Unchanged]** — the creator originally researched it for his 3.27 league start and confirmed nothing major changed going into 3.28. We're currently on **3.29**, so treat this as "probably still accurate" rather than "verified current." Core Heist mechanics (Rogue Markers, contracts vs. blueprints, alert level, rogue jobs) have been stable for years and check out against the wiki. A few specific numbers (reveal discounts, gold room drop rates) are the creator's own testing and could not be independently confirmed — those are flagged below.
free costs nothing
cheap small cost
setup needs preparation
grind pays off slowly
skip the thing to stop doing
## Getting started in Rogue Harbour
Once you reach Act 6, Rogue Markers and Smuggler's Caches start dropping, and caches can contain markers, Contracts, and Blueprints. Right-clicking a Rogue Marker opens a portal to the Rogue Harbour, your Heist hub; after your first visit it's available on the waypoint list, or you can type `/ist` to travel there directly. On your first visit, talk to Kurai to unlock the Heist locker so contracts, markers, and blueprints route into their own stash tab automatically.
## Contracts vs. Blueprints
Regular Heists (Contracts) send you and one hired Rogue to steal a single piece of contraband, which you sell to Faustus for Rogue's Markers. Along the way you'll find small chests and side rooms themed to specific reward types (currency, divination cards, harbinger items, and so on). This matches the wiki's description of Heist mechanics directly.
Blueprints are the bigger "Grand Heist" version: multiple wings, multiple hired Rogues, and a Curio Display reward at the end offering a choice between several items — this is confirmed by the wiki as the primary source of Heist's high-end value. Blueprints usually drop with only one wing revealed; you pay Rogue Markers and run regular Contracts to unlock additional wings and reward rooms. A contract more than 5 levels below your current one can't earn reveals, and the game warns you before you start one.
The wiki lists Gianna's perk as (10-30)% reduced Blueprint Revealing Cost, and Niles separately provides a 10-35% discount specifically on blueprint reveal costs. The video states Gianna gives "a 40% discount at max level" — that's higher than the wiki's listed range for Gianna alone, so it may reflect an older or combined value. Don't take that exact number as gospel; the direction (Gianna makes reveals cheaper, and is worth prioritizing) is correct, but verify the live number in-game before planning around it.
## Rogues, unlock order, and gearing
In the video "Their order is as follows: Tibbs will unlock Tullina, who will unlock Nenet. Then Karst will unlock Huck, who will unlock Niles, then Vinderi, then Gianna. Gianna is the most important one here, so you really want to get her done first."
The wiki confirms the same two unlock chains: Tibbs → Tullina → Nenet, and Karst → Huck → Niles → Vinderi → Gianna, with Isla as a dead-end starter Rogue who doesn't unlock anyone. Contracts must be level 50+ for a new Rogue to appear, which also matches the wiki. The claim that rogues no longer need individual job leveling (all jobs "maxed at level straight away") was a 3.27-era change the creator called out as new at the time of filming — we couldn't independently verify this specific patch note against the wiki's version history, so treat it as the creator's testing rather than wiki-confirmed, though it's consistent with how the system currently behaves.
Each Rogue carries four gear slots: brooch, cloak, gear, and tools. Increased job speed is the priority stat across the board. Heist tools at item level 82+ can roll +1 to all Heist jobs, which is especially valuable on Gianna.
## Three ways to run Heist
The video lays out three practical approaches, roughly in order of investment:
In the video "The most efficient profit tends to come from running single wing blueprints... you can just bulk buy the blueprints, bulk buy rogue markers, and run these back to back to back."
1. **Regular deception contracts** grind — run contracts (scour-rarity, not rare) with Gianna to earn cheap reveals, then apply them to blueprints you're accumulating.
2. **Single-wing blueprints** cheap — no reveals needed at all; bulk-buy blueprints and markers and run them back-to-back for what the creator calls the most efficient profit once you're a few days into a league.
3. **Fully revealed 4-wing blueprints** setup — most expensive to buy outright, so it's best paired with running your own deception contracts to earn the reveals yourself rather than buying pre-revealed copies.
3.27 also introduced Gold reward rooms in Heist, which the creator explicitly says was untested at time of recording ("we don't know how much gold this is going to drop yet... we're going to test it out early on"). We could not verify gold room drop rates against the wiki, since gold as a currency was a newer addition not detailed in the Heist wiki page's chest-type table. Treat any gold-room advice as unverified.
## Pairing Heist with mapping
If you'd rather not buy contracts (SSF, or you just want variety), you can run maps with Heist-focused Atlas nodes and pair it with a second mechanic like Breach, essences, or boss rushing. Faster maps means faster contract/blueprint acquisition, so the creator recommends pairing with things that don't slow map clear speed. Blocking unwanted mechanics on your Atlas also blocks their scarabs, so it's worth checking scarab prices before blocking anything wholesale. Note the video references a 3.26 Atlas tree as a placeholder, promising a 3.27 update link in the video description — we did not verify that link is still current or points anywhere for 3.29.
## What this guide doesn't answer
This video is a pre-league primer, not a full walkthrough. It doesn't cover: exact chest-type-to-reward mappings (the wiki has a full table we used for fact-checking but the video only mentions a few examples), specific rogue perk percentages beyond Gianna's discount, current Gold reward-room rates, unique Heist contract bosses and their drops, or how Heist interacts with the current Atlas passive tree on 3.29 (the video's tree screenshot is explicitly outdated even by the creator's own admission).
## How this guide was fact-checked
We cross-referenced the transcript against the official PoE Wiki "Heist" page. **Confirmed by wiki:** Rogue Marker mechanics and portal access, the Contract-vs-Blueprint distinction (single reward vs. multi-wing Curio Display), the two Rogue unlock chains and their order, the level-50 contract requirement for unlocking new Rogues, the four Rogue gear slots, and that map rarity/quantity affects only monster drops on Heist chests. **Contradicted/needs correction:** the video's claim of a flat "40% discount at max level" from Gianna is higher than the wiki's listed (10-30)% range for her perk — we flagged this rather than repeating it uncritically. **Unverified (creator's claim, not found on wiki):** the exact framing that "rogues no longer need individual job leveling" as a 3.27 change, and any numbers around new Gold reward rooms, since gold-drop specifics weren't present in the wiki's Heist chest-reward table at the time of this fact-check. Three frames were pulled directly from the source video and visually verified (not just guessed from timestamps) to confirm they show the Alert Level HUD, the Rogue gear/job panel, and the creator's own "One Wing Blueprints" strategy summary slide.
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## FAQ
### How does Heist work in Path of Exile?
Once you reach Act 6, you start dropping Rogue Markers and Smuggler's Caches. A Rogue Marker opens a portal to the Rogue Harbour, your Heist hub. From there you take Contracts or Blueprints to Adiyah, hire a Rogue whose job matches the mission, and infiltrate a location to steal contraband before the Alert Level maxes out and Lockdown begins. Successful runs let you sell the stolen artifact to Faustus for more Rogue Markers, which is confirmed directly on the PoE Wiki's Heist page.
### What's the difference between a Contract and a Blueprint in Heist?
A Contract is a regular Heist run with one hired Rogue that ends in a single piece of contraband. A Blueprint is a larger Grand Heist with multiple wings and multiple hired Rogues, ending in a Curio Display that offers a choice between several rewards — this is where most of Heist's value comes from. Blueprints usually drop with only one wing revealed; you spend Rogue Markers plus reveals earned from running regular Contracts to open up additional wings.
### What order should I unlock Heist Rogues in?
There are two unlock chains, confirmed by the wiki: Tibbs unlocks Tullina, who unlocks Nenet; and Karst unlocks Huck, who unlocks Niles, who unlocks Vinderi, who unlocks Gianna. Isla doesn't unlock anyone. Contracts need to be level 50 or higher for a new Rogue to appear. Gianna is worth prioritizing because her perk reduces Blueprint reveal costs, though the exact discount percentage you'll see in-game may differ from any single number quoted in older guides — the wiki lists her base perk as a 10-30% reduction, which scales with her level.
### What's the most efficient way to run Heist for profit?
According to the source video (a creator's league-start strategy, not a guaranteed optimal method), running single-wing Blueprints tends to be the most profit-efficient once you have some starting capital: they need no reveals, so you can bulk-buy Blueprints and Rogue Markers and run them back-to-back. Running your own Deception Contracts with Gianna to earn cheap reveals, or buying fully-revealed 4-wing Blueprints outright, are alternative approaches with different cost/effort tradeoffs. Treat this as one experienced player's opinion rather than a wiki-verified 'best' method, since profitability shifts with league economy.
### Does making Heist Contracts rare or magic give better rewards?
No. Rarity and quantity modifiers on Heist Contracts only affect the monsters you fight inside, not the loot in chests. Making a contract rare just makes the run harder for no meaningful reward increase, so it's generally worth leaving contracts at their base (scour) rarity and focusing effort on hiring the right Rogue and gearing them for job speed instead.