Thinking about SSF league playstyle

Last week I started my first ever HC character.
Decided to go ssf just to test it out.
She is lvl 59 dual wield sword ranger.

My two cents:
- make sure you can get all your gems from quests
- farm up before encounters in order to have the gear you need
- your build should be generic and flexible
- jewel nodes are much harder to fill out if you have to alt/regal them yourself
- use your currency liberally
- masters are really important
- quest reward items are actually useful
- it's really easy to evaluate which gear to vendor; if it's not a weapon type you need or the correct base item
- generic nodes are better than specific nodes early on, but you will want to respec down the road; start off with two-handed nodes or dual wield nodes before picking weapon specific ones

Edit: not sure what the subset of SSF HC where you are not allowed to mule between your own characters.
Last edited by MBata on Feb 26, 2017, 7:46:43 PM
Go crit caster with elementalist ascendancy

That's plain truth, not a trolling, joke nor brain malfunction.
Burn all the orbs!
"
e1337donkey wrote:
Obviously, you have to plan on not finding specific uniques for your build. That means that your start is pretty limited. You also don't have access to a quick 5 link. So you need to find something that functions pretty well off a 4 link.

You'll be engaging more in the crafting system to try and get solid pieces to get further in merciless/mapping. I save all my currency until I get to mapping, and just get by with whatever I get... even if an item is off colored or base isn't related to my build. Then when I start mapping, I look for base items that my build works with.

You will probably want to avoid crit at the start, since you don't have free access to accuracy and crit/crit multi to make it work very well. You also can't really pump out great jewels for this as well. So spell casters are pretty nice, anything resolute technique is pretty nice, if your pure right side of the tree... you probably have enough dex and acc % nodes to get you into mapping.

Other then that, you pretty much plan a basic league starter but you may find yourself making a new character fairly quickly. If you happen to find a unique or 2... or find a really nice rare weapon, or find a 5-6l piece of gear. Drop can dictate what you start playing in SSF. You may even want to plan out 3 different characters so that you can take good drops you find and move them to characters that can use them. If you stick to just 1 character, you might be hard pressed once you reach red maps, that you don't have enough life/es, damage, etc.


That's good advice about having multiple characters.

The issue that I see with rolling gear is that at the start you don't have a ton of chaos/divines to roll rares. So would you just be rolling blues and wearing those? I don't think so. Plus with the way this Challenge league is, I think you will need really strong gear and builds to complete those league stones. I don't think any old build will do.

I am still on the fence about playing SSF. On one hand I think it will put a lot of emphasis on farming and planning and analyzing, awesome. But, on the other hand I think everyone will be playing the exact same build types, so that worries me a little.

Also I dont think my knowledge of the game is very vast so that intimidates me a little. Might just be easier to look up a guide on the forums and just play it in the regular challenge league.
Build
I plan on playing a 2h marauder, probably most interested in 2h maces/stun.

I'll play with whatever useful weapon I find until maps.
Then I hopefully find a unique that suits my tastes (like Marohi, Kondor, the new Tidehunter thing), or an equivalent rare mace with nice rolls. If not, I can craft a suitable mace with Alt/Aug/Regal/Vagan.

If I find a very potent 2h axe or sword, I'll spec into axe/sword. That's just a small change in my tree.
If I find crazy strong onehanded weapons, I'll respec 2h nodes and turn him into 1h. That's a bigger change, and I hope I don't have to do it.

If I find crazy caster gear, I put it in a stash.
Maybe reroll a caster later, probably not.

Currency
Alterations, Augmentations, Transmutes, Alchemys:
This is usually my "waste" currency.
I spend them during levelling, to get useful gear. They will always be replenished.

Chaos, jewellers, fusings, chances:
I save them for later, when I want to gamble/craft my mapping gear.

Farming
I'll probably farm aqueduct instead of dried lake for a while, for the Tabula Rasa cards and the easy 6L.
I'll do all Vaal side areas, to gain access to Atziri asap, her flask is needed on pretty much every build.

Overall, I'm not too afraid.
The only real downside is the inability to get specific uniques, especially those that are above your current mapping stage (I cannot just buy a Starforge and be done with it).
3.5 build: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2299519
My only hope of getting anywhere in a 3 month SSF league is if endgame uniques are more plentiful which sadly isn't going to happen. But all ARPGs have this double sided nature to them. We all want great endgame build enabling gear to drop but if I got them too frequently then I'd suffer the same fate of "loot overload" as I did when I played TL2 and get bored. GGG has to always walk this tightrope balancing act with rewards given for time played.

Won't know for sure until the 2.6.0 patch notes and the reworked passive tree are out but either a totem build or maybe BV will still be a meta skill. One handed blade buffs sound promising but until we know how much the buff is we don't know how useful it is.
"You've got to grind, grind, grind at that grindstone..."
Necessity may be the mother of invention, but poor QoP in PoE is the father of frustration.

The perfect solution to fix Trade Chat:
www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/2247070
I had no problems with 1-handed build, too.

Just don't specialize too early, don't go directly for a dagger build, when a good mace drops.

So take more generic nodes, and level an alternative attack skill, for example, blade flurry and earthquake and accoring supports to switch fast.

With grace + iron reflexes + stuff from the floor it is possible to build a char with 10k+ armor and maxblock - enough to handle most of the stuff. When a good weapon/armor/shield drops, respec to this weapon and T15 maps will be possible. I leveled often this way because I'm too lazy for trading most times.

Middle maps are no problem with a generic gladiator build for example on the defensive side.

On the other side, if you plan a spell glas cannon you won't be able to go CI, not with the first char. No access to a good ES armor, shield and hat. So you have to be more glas cannon here, hiding behind a few zombies works good here, too.

Last tip: Don't do a build that needs this one cheap unique everyone has 5 times in his stash, until you have it in your hands. Otherwise it won't drop until the end of the league.
There is some surprisingly bad/limiting advice on this thread. Below is a list of very good starter builds that will be good with no gear. Some of them are good mappers some will be better at lab or other end game. Here are a couple things to consider:

1. Are you planning on playing one character as SSF? or the whole league? If you're only going one, you need to play a character that can grow regardless of the gear you find and be able to eventually do whatever endgame goal you have. If you are playing all league, you may want to play multiple characters and build characters that are good at different things (a fast mapper, a reliable uber lab farmer, etc.).

2. Keep in mind that all gems are soon going to be available through quest completion as of either 2.6 or 3.0 (something similar to how certain gems only become available upon completing the library Siosa quest). So keep on the look out for the patch notes to see if this is implemented in legacy. This may change your build planning, or what you planned to mule for.

3. You will want to be very acquainted with all the recipes. Especially the chaos recipe and regal recipes as they are good ways to have a steady flow of them. For leveling, make sure to take advantage of the +1 to gems recipe for casters.

4. Make a list of divination cards you may want to farm. Most div cards are balanced (i.e. the number needed, rarity, and reward) around a trading economy. But there are some that are capable of being farmed for SSF (Humility, Earthdrinker, the Aesthete, etc.)

5. For legacy: There may be a great way to use your Leaguestones for profit, but there also may be great ways to use combinations of leaguestones to get what you need in SSF. Hard to say what this will be until we see exactly what's in store with Legacy.

6. Here's my list of "starters" that are great on zero gear (these are all contingent upon any further balance changes by GGG). Also consider that you will not have access to a lot of currency to start, so you may want to choose a build that can run all map mods. In no particular order of strength or preference:

a. Essence drain+contagion (occult or trickster)
b. Warchief totem
c. Earthquake (maybe Sunder or Ice Crash depending on how big the buffs they announced are?)
d. Flameblast totem or self cast (if self cast, I recommend leveling with firestorm til you have a 5 link or even until you complete merc lab)
e. Firestorm
f. Summon raging spirits
g. Deadeye ranger (tornado or lightning arrow)
h. Various trapper builds (ice trap, vortex trap, lightning trap) and some miners as well if you can get used to the play-style. Keep in mind that some builds are really slow to develop until you get chain reaction from Saboteur.
i. Someone also mentioned Explosive Arrow, but I can't attest to that.
Last edited by jolsen26 on Feb 27, 2017, 3:18:37 PM

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