Question for those of you that play self found

Also... after reading this thread again, I never knew there were schools of thought about "self-found"

all my gear I found, myself. I don't trade but I do share a stash between the family of my characters that I built.. myself. eg; self-found.

That is some impressive gear for self found. GZ, respwnd.

I just can't do the self found thing. I started like that in this game because that is what I did in every other game like this, but what happens is oh, there is this build I need this or that or the other thing. What actually happened was at the time I needed a high lvl reduced mana gem for my 2nd character ever a really stupidly build by me of course summoner. First transaction ever in PoE.

Self found here, no MF nor have I ever traded for a single item. Why? For me, it goes back to D2 (without LOD) played to completion all three difficulties totally self-found. Just in my blood I guess. That said, things may change as I am only level 53 (just an infant compared to most).

Happy MF'ing

I go between self-found and trade characters based on how I feel like playing the game.

For MF, I usually find it's better to just use my best items rather than worry much about rarity items, because good items rarely drop with IIR and progression with a self found character is more reliant on pushing yourself into high level maps than MFing in lower levels.

That said, if I find a great item with rarity and a great item without rarity, I give it a good amount of thought when comparing their values and whether I want to use it. Most of the time I just have to go with the item that fits into my gear and build though. Sometimes getting rarity can cost you resistances or life on gear slots where you really need it, and it's simply not worth it.

disagree about Magic-Find being the domain of traders only.

while I don't have a "MF Build", I do have some MF pieces on some characters - as long as I can swap them in temporarily without getting my defenseless ass handed to me.
truth is, you don't get anything without MF. and with MF you get almost nothing, which is better than nothing I guess.

still will never get to see a Shavs, but when I can put the trusty Aurseize on the Cycloner or the Goldwyrm + Andvarius on the Arc Witch - and hopefully get an extra Rare with a chance of not being crappy - I probably will.
unless scary Map with scary monsters, even the normal gear can barely handle.

For me, Self-Found = I found it myself. I share my stash across all characters. I pretty much just play softcore because I like jumping around to new characters and using my accumulated stash to level up fast to see if I like the build I am trying.

With that said, I don't MF per se, but I try to cram as much MF stats as I can into every character. I was working very hard on a self-found MF summoner pre-2.0. Then they totally crushed my build with the changes in Awakenings and I have not recovered from it on that character (lvl 80).

In protest, I made an easy-mode dual flame totem build. Currently at lvl 80, best potential farming character I have made yet. Maybe I will get to MF status on that one some day......

However, the ice-crash 2-H and flicker strike 2-h builds I also started are way more fun playstyle, just much more gear dependent and harder with self-found.

These are some of the self-found MF gear pieces I was running on my pre-2.0 summoner.

Well, after all this time playing I could do an mf character totally self found. Hell, I do have a weakling mf bow ranger who is self found except for the bow but that is not the MF part.
I've found everything I need.
I do trade but I mostly sell. I only buy when I have to. I bought a disfavour b/c none of my chars could do uber (ditto for the mask and armor). But I would say over 90% of my gear I found myself. It takes time tho.
I started selling when I began farming Atziri with a character whose gear was found by little old me except one piece.
It is kind of a step by step process.