Been away for a while, how's solo self found?

Hello,

I have been away from the game from a while. I stopped played regularly 2 leagues ago, I logged in during Perandus and according to the character list I got to level 12, but I haven't read up on Ascendancy, Perandus or Prophecy much.

I always play solo self found, and I've accumulated a "reasonable" wealth over the thousand hours I've played (couple 6links, tons of uniques or decent weapons). Usually I played the SC league and level to 80-85 before starting over for 2-3 characters. As solo self found, levelling past 80 becomes tedious since I'm usually still running very low tiers and using a 5link in the best case scenario. I would love to go higher and run tiers 10+ maps at some point, or even do that Uber boss that I forgot the name from the Vaal patch from a while ago.

Did Ascendancy help for this? From what has been announced of Prophecy, is there anything that might help? Does the gear discrepancy/tuning of end game become worse because of Ascendancy/Prophecy? (ie. they made the game much harder due to the power creep, sort of like when crit was way too strong so they nerfed crit on the passive tree).

I'll read up on everything I've missed at some point if I come back, but I just got the email announcing Prophecy so I had an itch to play and I'm wondering if it will last more than the 12 levels of Perandus.

Well, the game's probably easier than ever thanks to the power creep, but maybe that'll change.
Perandus had a wealth of items for everyone, I doubt that'll be the case in Prophecy. So, in a way, not much changed, I guess.
More ways to create your character, and the taste of the masses slowly flows from one build type to another, but regarding changes explicitly affecting SSF.... I guess it might be a bit easier to get some higher level maps now.

It's good. I play mostly character based solo self found. Aside from gem availability still being super crappy for each class (less relevant if you're not character based), gearing to an acceptable level isn't bad. Masters easily cap your resists, make your okay weapons good, and so on.

Divination cards also help. You can grind a Tabula Rasa if you really want a 6-link. It takes a lot longer since the drop rate was nerfed, but it's still not too bad. Most divination cards take way too long to farm solo, but a few can be worth it.

One issue for next league is that prophecies will make trading super important. Some prophecies require specific uniques that you'll probably never have drop in the league even if you play 500 hours. Even common uniques are super rare when you're a solo player looking for a bunch of specific ones.

You'll either have to pay the silver fee to lock those useless prophecies away or trade for some uniques. I'm not sure if you can just dismiss a prophecy, but that would still really suck as far as completing challenges goes. I'm planning on playing self found next league aside from prophecies and challenges. If something is impossible for me to find solo, I'll bite the bullet and pay for it. I would go character based, but playing an elemental Sunder witch is kind of difficult when you don't have Sunder, Weapon Elemental Damage, Anger, and so on.