merciless and self found pro tips

skip to bottom for short version :-)

I've been trying to go _mostly_ self found. i've had to buy a couple of things or life would have been more miserable than i could stand.

i forgot what an awful, miserable experience it is to level without a stashful of uniques.

normal, no problem. as it should be, new players should get a chance to figure stuff out.

cruel, harder, but really no issues. starting to be a pain to get gear, but usually find worthwhile stuff and can get by.

merciless. holy shit. have i ever played this game before ?

now your gear _sucks_. most of my resists are negative. my armor is too low, my damage is too low.
there is a serious disconnect in difficulty between cruel and merciless.

tidal island guy. ripped 3 times even with a tank helping me. i was getting 2-shot, with 68% cold resist (i used different gear configuration to get my cold resist up). obviously the physical damage is what was nuking me, but really, should it be that hard ?

brutus. even worse. now you're trapped , spikes come out of the floor, you get the groundslam thing, etc... that combination of stuff is killing me in about 2-3 hits, and i have no idea how to avoid it, and you have nowhere to run.

I was thinking that I should have overleveled before going into merciless, but that's not going to help enough. I quick look at my stats tells me, as usualy, it's 100% gear problems.

short version:

so i'm wondering, how the hell do you self-found folks do it once you get to merciless ?? and if your self-found solo, i really don't know how you do it (without using certain builds that is).

grind the ledge for 2 weeks ? 3 weeks ? try and rush to fellshrine and grind there ? i mean i was thinking i wanted to get to fellshrine but there's a very real chance i will not be able to make it past merveil (solo that is) for quite some time.

the drops are absolutely fucking horrible (i got a rivald's highland blade for my 2H sword wielder and i was never so happy to see a "trash" unique in my life) i can't even put together alts to get jewelers and fuses to 4L stuff, because i'm seeing so few rares.

i'm looking for self-found pro-tips.

thanks!

What's your HP?

I played self-found up until about lvl 65 in rampage league (wearing mostly lvl 40-50 gear)

The trick is to craft what you need and don't follow the strict "rules" that most people play with while leveling a new character in an estabilshed league

Masters make this infinitely easier


I'm level 73 now and I -just- bought a new ring to replace the blue one i've been wearing since lvl 40. I needed resists so I found a two stone ring with fire/lightning and used alts until it had cold resist mod. My gloves were ones that I found that happened to have 60 HP and 4 links but no other worthwhile stats whatsoever.

You just gotta compensate in your build by grabbing extra survivability nodes (resist nodes if possible) then you can regret out of those points later when your gear gets better. You can also use purity of elements aura in place of a better one until your resists get higher.

Once you make it to maps you can start using your masters to augment the stuff you find. Dual resists = tri resist, no life = has life, crap weapon = good weapon. YOu can use masters to really "fill the gaps" in the gear you find to progress easier.

TL;DR - make sacrifices to get more survivability in order to push through merciless and into maps, then revert back to a more powerful build as your gear improves via masters. Don't fall into the trap of thinking you need each peice of gear to be 'perfect' in order to wear it. use blue items

I play solo self-found (95%). Like you, I had gotten used to have a decent amount of currency and gear stashed so I found it long (not necessarily hard) to go through normal and cruel compared to my other characters.

What I have always done, is build similarly to HC characters (even though I only play SC). What I mean by that is you should concentrate on the tankiness part of your build up to level 60ish then go for whatever damage you are going for. Only exception for that for me was when I play summoners, since minion passives are more important than mine.

The only difference with self-found levelling I find, is that you are more limited in your sockets and attacks. The gear itself can be found and compensated for. I always level as the end-game build I'm going towards, even if it isn't as fast as other levelling means. The only pieces I'll buy are higher level build enabling pieces (for example Rise of the Phoenix when I did an RF build). Melee characters are always the worst for me, even though I like them, weapons are too important in builds. Casters can usually get away with very little gear.

For an FYI, this is my gear at level 60 on my Rampage character at the end of Act2. Dual flame totem build. 3.1k hp, 450 tooltip dps (but it shotguns), 30/75/12 if I remember correctly. Only things purchased so far are GMP and Ele weakness. You can see I have many unlinked pieces, still only on a 3L because I haven't found a 4L where I wasn't losing out too much.

When self found, currency does not exist. Craft, and craft wisely.

I play self found a lot since I really just can't be bothered to trade and would rather give gear and orbs to my friends who need them or save for mapping. A couple quick tips to help with leveling and not finding any gear is do not ever be afraid to craft using transmute/alteration/augmentation orbs.

The easiest thing you can do is find the highest level armor type you can with a four link on it be it chest/gloves/boots/helm, it doesn't matter which. Take that item and craft it with 4 armor scraps first to 20% quality it then transmute and alt/aug it till you get HP and one resist. Doing this with all your armor won't be super expensive and as long as you do it once every 7-10 levels you should be fine to progress through cruel/merciless.

Crafting two stone rings to have HP and one additional resist is also highly advisable because they are plentiful and you can easily fill in gaps in your resist from your armor here.

To solve the damage issue if you are a physical damage dealing character is much easier than you may believe. If you find your damage tapering off find your weapon of choice in the highest level range you can with the fastest base attack speed available. Use 4 blacksmiths whetstones to 20% it then slap it in the vendor with one white/blue/yellow rustic sash (I usually use blue rustics because it's cheap) and 1 whetstone. This nets you a +~60% roll for physical damage on the weapon. Aug orb the weapon as well for an additional affix.

The same principal holds with magic users. Find a scepter/wand with the links and colors you want and transmute it to magic quality (affixes at this point do not matter) slap it in the vendor with a ruby(fire)/sapphire(cold)/topaz(lightning) and an alteration orb for a +1 level to X (element) gems. Aug it for an additional affix.

Make sure to always have a granite/jade flask on your belt and carry or have access to the other elemental and chaos flasks for specific fights to help combat these types of damages.

You can easily clear merciless piety using these tips and though yes you expend some blue currency if you're a pack rat like I am you'll replenish those orbs quickly enough and have plenty left over for map rolling.

Good luck with self found and the inevitable gear drought in merciless.

I used to play 100% selffound from open beta to Ambush league start (in Standard league) and Ive made several succesfull builds

The problem with start is that you cant rely on having certain items (like uniques) while making your first character, so you need to make one that is only little gear dependant (mine was a summoner), make it to the maps, get some MF, farm.. Then you can make some other builds around the best items you found.. And repeat the cycle

Also, you dont need to care much about orbs "value". Dont mind spending orbs on endgame items, like chaosing 5L chest or yolo exalting your best and most powerfull items (usually wapons)..

However, game used to be much harder those days so the variety of builds you can play has greatly increased. Recent bench crafting is great for selffound people

Now in rampage start, I started trading (crit/pierce/bow ranger) after killing Merciless Piety and had only little problems getting there (my first death was at Merciless Vaal Oversoul when I forgot to switch rings to get lightning resists and got ones-shotted). I was just using dropped gear with life and resists and at the start of merciless I crafted decent bow (which is by far the most important item for this build) using couple of Alts, regal and a bench

"

What I have always done, is build similarly to HC characters (even though I only play SC). What I mean by that is you should concentrate on the tankiness part of your build up to level 60ish then go for whatever damage you are going for.

yep. i think i only have about 6 more life nodes left. But i'm only 53 and so life is only about 2k. I DON'T HAVE LIFE ON GEAR, i.e. drops suck.

"

Melee characters are always the worst for me, even though I like them, weapons are too important in builds. Casters can usually get away with very little gear.

yep. my posion arrow build is having less trouble than my duelist, even though the duelist has more life and more regen. it's having a _lot_ more trouble. but hey, i chose 2H because i'm a masochist. lol.

"

For an FYI, this is my gear at level 60 on my Rampage character at the end of Act2. Dual flame totem build. 3.1k hp, 450 tooltip dps (but it shotguns), 30/75/12 if I remember correctly. Only things purchased so far are GMP and Ele weakness. You can see I have many unlinked pieces, still only on a 3L because I haven't found a 4L where I wasn't losing out too much.

you have no idea how much better your gear is than mine. really. and only 7 levels difference.

this is my whole incredible irritation with the start of merciless. the damage and difficulty spikes up, but the drops do not in any way, keep pace. so i'm going to spend the next 7-10 levels moving incredibly slowly simply because i don't get resists on drops.

and my armor, which is about 400, yes 400 TOTAL, is literally killing me. I have about 15% DR. and that's why i'm dying. a lot.

as for "crafting" gear. there is no crafting. i can't even keep a steady supply of alts because i'm getting so few yellow drops (yes i turn in blues too, but wisdom scrolls). the masters _will_ make things better, i just now got vagan to level 4 so i'll try to take advantage of that, but you still need a decent base item AND you need orbs. But definitely an improvement over the tyranny of RNG. I still say that GGGs RNG is bullshit. They need to tweak it so things keep pace with the incredible increase in difficulty. Yes, I know things will get better, but they are really going to be awful for the next 5-10 levels.

all-in-all, incredibly unpleasant experience. i'm going to stick with it, just because, well i don't know why. it's not actually any fun. i'm sort of curious as to how much worse it will get.

meanwhile if i hadn't started the poison arrow build on a whim, i'd really be screwed. had to buy a silverbranch for that and a couple of gems, and if i didn't i would have just deleted the toons and gone crying back to standard. lol.

Once you have one toon to Piety and can farm her for a while, it goes a lot faster I find. It's why many people do a MF character first then their actual intended build (like I'm doing). It's excessively hard to do a good build from scratch with no currency and nothing stashed. Certainly can't face tank anything at first, even as melee I always have to jump in and out of fights.

And for some reason the required levels when linking gear doesn't show up the same as in inventory, but those required levels on my gear is all due to gems. I've had mostly the same gear since my 30s and 40s. I have fairly high life, but my resists are far from capped. I got lucky before Merveil to cap cold, but Vaal is going to be fun with 12% lightning.

"

The easiest thing you can do is find the highest level armor type you can with a four link on it be it chest/gloves/boots/helm, it doesn't matter which. Take that item and craft it with 4 armor scraps first to 20% quality it then transmute and alt/aug it till you get HP and one resist. Doing this with all your armor won't be super expensive and as long as you do it once every 7-10 levels you should be fine to progress through cruel/merciless.

i'm having a lot of difficulty getting alts, because drops suck. my experience with alt'ing is it's terrible. you can burn throug a stack easily and end up with garbage. and it takes me a _long_ time to put together a stack of alts!

"

Crafting two stone rings to have HP and one additional resist is also highly advisable because they are plentiful and you can easily fill in gaps in your resist from your armor here.

again, great advice in theory, but you need lots of alts. i do it all the time in standard to roll flasks.

however, i _will_ try this and see how it works.

"

To solve the damage issue if you are a physical damage dealing character is much easier than you may believe. If you find your damage tapering off find your weapon of choice in the highest level range you can with the fastest base attack speed available. Use 4 blacksmiths whetstones to 20% it then slap it in the vendor with one white/blue/yellow rustic sash (I usually use blue rustics because it's cheap) and 1 whetstone. This nets you a +~60% roll for physical damage on the weapon. Aug orb the weapon as well for an additional affix.

luckily my weapon problem with solved with the drop of a rivald's charge.

"

Make sure to always have a granite/jade flask on your belt and carry or have access to the other elemental and chaos flasks for specific fights to help combat these types of damages.

yes! idiot me found a granite and forgot to equip it. that made a big difference when I was in cruel sceptre of god. i only died twice !

"

You can easily clear merciless piety using these tips and though yes you expend some blue currency if you're a pack rat like I am you'll replenish those orbs quickly enough and have plenty left over for map rolling.

you use that word "easily". i do not think that word means what you think it means. the funny thing is that's all i can think about. i need to get piety so that i can farm lunaris for gear. but even getting to lunaris is looking really ugly.

"

Good luck with self found and the inevitable gear drought in merciless.

lol. so you admit it, there is a gear drought ! well i think rolling blues is a great idea, so i will try it out and see how it works.

thanks to everyone for the advice! i really appreciate it and there was lots of good help posted here.