A Guide for the Self-Found Exile.

Introduction
There will be a lot of confusion between Self-found play, and Solo play. I will hopefully deliver only the information relevant to the former and not the latter. I am a 95% Self-Found player, and rarely group (giving me the worst odds of finding useful items).

There is really no difference between a fresh league start and starting a character as self-found. You vendor unidentified backpacks of magic items up to 4 squares in size (helms, small shields, rings, flasks.. etc) to obtain your transmutation orbs (which you will sell for Wisdom scrolls to ID rares). You race to Hailrake for the quicksilver and race to farm ledge. The real difference comes at about level 50 when you typically look for build enabling uniques, or GG rares.

I think the group of players that will have the biggest hurdles will be the min-maxers, and those who enjoy the top tier unique-based builds. I guarantee you though, moving back to your old character on standard will make you realize how easy having perfect set ups make the game.


Life as a Self-found player
Being self-found really means having a much smaller pool of items from which to build from. This shift in thinking really needs to be understood, because it means that your passive trees must pickup the shortcomings that easy to get gear would otherwise fill (Crest of Perandus, Rainbowstrides, Maligaro’s.. etc).

The other impact to this play style, is that progression is slower overall – especially in the case where you need a 5L or better, to “Kill it or Die!”.

I try to build in as much MF as possible while being safe. Aurseize gloves and Perandus Belts will not drop like candy from a broken gumball machine. You should choose a build that can do 100% dedication to MF up to Cruel, and then transition to 50%/50% MF dedication to Merciless, and then finally 10%/90% MF: Standard build to get through Merc/Maps.


Day Zero
This first step to planning begins well before you login and choose your character name.

First research your build:
- Know thy recipes. They will help you in the early game and save you a lot of yolo currency.
- Choose a build that you can build from acquiring the reward gems from each act.
- Stay away from builds/mechanics that require tier 1-2 uniques or level 4 empower.
- Understand the value of currency.
- Organize your tabs. As an example, my tabs are arranged like so:

[Unsorted drops] [$$$] [MF Gear] [Fire Gear] [Cold Gear] [Lightning Gear] [Chaos Gear] [Uniques] [Maps/Vaal]


Early Currency
Efficiency with your skill tree is second only to efficiency with your currency expenditures. Even Wisdom scrolls can deplete fast enough (which is the true gateway to early wealth). Sell unidentified blues to gather transmutes and sell transmutes to gain wisdom scrolls.

The only gear I use Trans/Alts/Augs currency on (early starting) is gold rings, gold amulets and boots (for the movespeed). I will take boots with movespeed, rarity and 3 garbage stats over a decent life/resist roll if I am taking on content that is on par with my defense and dps.

Your prized currency is no longer Chance, Scouring, Gemcutters, Exalts, Divines.. etc. They are Alchemy orbs and later on, Chaos orbs (don’t use the Scour/Alch combo).

Another way you will be gaining small amounts of currency, is by upgrading your gear over time, and vendoring much of what you won’t use anymore. You will upgrade a lot.

You will learn to craft efficiently early on and not waste stacks of chromatics trying for 4 red sockets in a pair of ES gloves, or trying to 6L that chest/weapon. Don’t bother using Whetstones or Armous Scraps till level 50, as they will just be used on something you could be upgrading in the very next zone.

Now, in the event that you will find a Tier 1 or 2 unique, you may want to respec out of as much as 50% of your tree. For that, Regrets become so important (as well as your passive respec points from the act rewards). Don’t waste them… you never know when something good might drop *cough* Shavs *cough*.


Gear and Difficulty Checks
Stat priority on gear change somewhat. Early onwards, you want to stack as much MF as you can find and easily becomes one of the big three (Rarity/Life/resist). Much in the same way speed is a factor in racing, you will probably wear blue boots with movespeed well into your 30’s unless you get a lucky alchemy yolo.

You’ll be looking for white bases with full links and specific colour combos that fit your build requirements and Alching them praying to RNG for a good group of stats.

Every now and then, you will run up against the gear/skill checks that POE has strewn throughout Wraeclast. Your first bump is the Prison in Act1 (and specially The Prisoner's Gate with leapers, firehounds and The Guardian of the Mound).

The good news is, that for each of these significant bump in difficulty, is preceded by a good farmable area that you can farm gear upgrades, uniques and currency. The Bear Cave in act 2 is a perfect example of a place that offers a unique mob in a side area that is much higher than the local content.


Group Play
I can only expect that group play changes nothing in terms of being self-found. The easiest solution is to make everything BoP – but that would mean Portal Gems would the philosopher's stone of POE.

The other solution would be to make permanent allocation persistent on zone out – a possible tie-in to the mechanics to make pets persistent on zone-out.

But, we will see, and have to assume that trading (or bypassing the standard trading mechanics) will be disabled.

An Aside: My personal reason for being 95% self-found was really formed based on the trade system (or lack thereof). In its current state, I don’t have time to setup a shop, haggle, get ignored when I don’t offer stacks of exalts.. etc. There is a large part of the trading community that I find very distasteful or un-ethical and I choose not to pollute my very limited game time with it. I don’t want this to turn into a debate, but I thought I could state it upfront incase people were wondering why anyone would choose a hard path.

I would never, ever stack IIR, when all that really matters is maps.. with the current tree/game difficulty there is nothing that stops you running maps with 4L gear..

Some of my characters start to struggle in 73 maps and those are ALL attack-based :D

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PyleWarlord wrote:

I would never, ever stack IIR, when all that really matters is maps.. with the current tree/game difficulty there is nothing that stops you running maps with 4L gear..

Some of my characters start to struggle in 73 maps and those are ALL attack-based :D

If you read, I outlined the progression from early game MF to end game gear.

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Fri3dchick3m wrote:

I can only expect that group play changes nothing in terms of being self-found. The easiest solution is to make everything BoP – but that would mean Portal Gems would the philosopher's stone of POE.

what do you mean by BoP?

Thank you for the info Fri3dchick3m.