Self-Found Gems Challenge (updated for Bestiary!)

So I decided to give this a go, sort of. Will be playing on SC, because the idea of going self-found gems appeals to me way more than the idea of playing HC. Still, I'll try my best to play on a HC mindset, and see until where I can go without dying. I hope it's not a problem if I post here without actually doing it on HC.

I just dropped my first gem a few minutes ago, on the fetid pool. Decoy Totem, which turned out to be really nice against the Necromancer on that zone - instead of bringing hordes of monsters back to life, he just keeps attacking the totem.

The necromancer also dropped a Redbeak, which helps my damage a fair bit compared to the white weapon I was using - and gives some extra life. Won't be using it for long, but for now it's a nice drop.

EDIT: Getting really lucky with gem drops so far. Still at Prisoner's Gate, already got Puncture and Ruthless. Just learned that Puncture actually works with swords, I always thought it's a bow gem only.

Also got Fire Trap, which isn't great but does help a little bit with it's area damage.

EDIT²: Now on act 3. Got my second active melee skill - infernal blow. I never actually used that skill before.

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DanutMS wrote:

I never actually used that skill before.

I've tried out a ton of skills I probably never would have used doing this!

Looks like you're off to a nice start!

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jolsen26 wrote:

I've tried out a ton of skills I probably never would have used doing this!

Looks like you're off to a nice start!

Yeah, that's one of the reasons I decided to give this a go. My normal characters always end up using the same skills I'm comfortable with.

Things were fine up to the second half of act 3. Lunaris Temple almost killed me a couple times, specially in the beginning of it. Still no death though, mostly because Decoy Totem is amazing. Judging by how things are going, I don't think I'll make it out of act 4 without dying.

Last thing I tried was to kill Dominus. But my attempts of getting a unique item out of my prophecies backfired, and instead I got a ghosted Dominus. So now I have to find him again.


EDIT: And I got a Sunder gem. Things just went from "I'm trying to figure out how to use these skills I never used" into "oh, well, guess it'll be Sunder once again". It does makes things easier though.

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DanutMS wrote:

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jolsen26 wrote:

EDIT: And I got a Sunder gem. Things just went from "I'm trying to figure out how to use these skills I never used" into "oh, well, guess it'll be Sunder once again". It does makes things easier though.

Haha! well, there is still the mid to late game aspect of making things work with the gear restrictions! So that is still unique

Yeah, I never played SSF before, and most of my characters just use the "keep throwing bodies until they die" strategy on all bosses during leveling, so even with Sunder I'm still having a very interesting new experience.

Right now, I was looking at my crafting options, and saw that I can craft a rare Talisman. Now, it's a rare amulet, so I guess it would not be allowed by your rules. On the other hand, you did say that you like to incorporate past leagues, and breach rings and elder belts are allowed. So what about Talismans?

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DanutMS wrote:

Right now, I was looking at my crafting options, and saw that I can craft a rare Talisman. Now, it's a rare amulet, so I guess it would not be allowed by your rules. On the other hand, you did say that you like to incorporate past leagues, and breach rings and elder belts are allowed. So what about Talismans?

That's a very good catch :)

However, I feel it is a bit too easy to fill out another item slot. On the otherhand it's a random talisman (could have worthless implicit like +1 zombie) and it is corrupted so you can't add with master crafts.

How bout a middle ground - you can only craft tier 2 talismans. I'll update the rule set!

Quick update: still no deaths, now in the middle of act 6. Innocence was a REALLY close fight in the end, it get's pretty hectic and I got so close to dying a few times. Stiil, I think it's the first time I go through that fight without dying, so that was cool.

Kitava was also hard, mostly because I still don't understand the mechanics of that fight - I often don't see what hit me at all. But the hits weren't that hard, and I haven't been as close to death as in Innocence.

Overall I'm pretty happy with how things are going. My normal Bestiary character has died around 130 times, so getting into act 6 in this challenge without dying is way more than I expected. But also I only managed to get this far because I got really lucky with gem drops.

Decoy Totem is just so good, every boss fight gets much easier with it. And I have basically all the gems I need. My 4-link Sunder has Faster Attacks, Melee Phys and Ruthless, which is basically what everyone would be using at this point, even outside of the challenge. Got a Shield Charge to run away when needed, and even Blood Rage dropped recently to help a little bit on clearspeed.

Having as much luck with gems allowed me to go full-defense on passives. I've had capped resists from act 4 onwards (cold isn't capped after kitava, but close to it), more than 2.3k life, endurance charges, and no damage. Things die slooooooowly, but they also hardly take more than 1/3 of my life.

Wow. Nice! That's awesome. The slower considered playsytle, with literally everything being able to kill you, I think actually makes you a better player since you learn a lot and get better mechanically.

Having that Ancestral Warchief Totem as well was a huge pickup! Get a couple more supports for that and you'll really see a big increase.

You could also respec 2 points and go two handed for more damage (strong arm to butchery instead)

Juggernaut for this challenge is probably OP since you can get so much phys damage reduction just from the ascendancy.

I was also thinking about trying champion to get fortify. Just haven't had as much time to play recently and still workin on my regular BHCSSF league.

I might start a SF Gems run tonight or this weekend

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jolsen26 wrote:

Wow. Nice! That's awesome. The slower considered playsytle, with literally everything being able to kill you, I think actually makes you a better player since you learn a lot and get better mechanically.

Yeah, it definetely is helping me. But I think I'm a lost case when it comes to game mechanics, I'm just really bad at them.

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jolsen26 wrote:

Having that Ancestral Warchief Totem as well was a huge pickup! Get a couple more supports for that and you'll really see a big increase.

You could also respec 2 points and go two handed for more damage (strong arm to butchery instead)

Yeah, I used the AW around a bit, and it does help killing things faster. As it is right now though, I think I still prefer using the Decoy Totem. Given my lack of skills, it's just too good to not have to worry much about enemies attacking me. Maybe when I get a few more supports then the damage from AW will outweight the utility of the Decoy Totem.

As for going two handed, that's my usual route. I think I only ever played with claws in the one-handed weapon spectre, so I thought it would be interesting to play a bit more with one-handed weapons. So for now I'll stay in the one-handed part, even if I do a bit less damage. I did respecced a few points around already because of pathing mistakes, so I don't want to spend the rest so early. If I manage to progress further into the story and find a good two-handed weapon, I'll consider swapping around.

My plan is to eventually get to Destroyer or Defiance or Dervish, so at that point I'd have to make a decision about which weapon type I'll want to use.

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jolsen26 wrote:

Juggernaut for this challenge is probably OP since you can get so much phys damage reduction just from the ascendancy.

I was also thinking about trying champion to get fortify. Just haven't had as much time to play recently and still workin on my regular BHCSSF league.

I might start a SF Gems run tonight or this weekend

Yeah, when I saw the challenge Juggernaut was the first thing to come to my mind. I don't have much familiarity with a lot of the skill tree - basically just with Marauder, Duelist and Shadow starts, so my options were a bit limited. In the future I might try something different, but it would be just too much to learn right now.

Champion might also be good. Perma Fortify is nice, and specially so in this case, where we might never find the gem.

I'd be interested in seeing how you run goes.

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DanutMS wrote:

I'd be interested in seeing how you run goes.

Well... Not great so far haha. Found only two gems, multi trap and siege balista.

Siege balista is pretty shit. I wonder how it is normally with actual supports and stuff.

Just gotta keep pressing on. I'm probably going champion, even though I think Jugg is likely better.