SSF - Spells vs Weapons

How is GGG going to handle the disparity of Spell based builds vs any weapon based build?

Spells scale and weapons don't drop. That's the easiest way for me to put it. And not only is the drop rate for "any" decent weapon low as it is, the difficulty in obtaining a decent one is magnified when your looking for a specific base type.

So right off the bat, assuming drop rates were not changed for SSF leagues, you would have to be a masochist to play anything other than a spell based build.

Now if they did manipulate RNG to prevent this disparity, that would leave openings for players to abuse RNG mechanics and filter items into other leagues.


Thoughts?

you should plan spellcaster for the start? hope on essences + mastercraft, mf-runs :>
its more about working with what you get than playing builds.

My SSF build of choice for last 3 leagues was Ancestral Warchief build. This is extremely safe build that works with just about anything you can find. It also has a flexibility to be modified for various damage types and even go unarmed if you happen to find Facebreakers. AW will easily get you to mid-tier maps. It can be further scalled by swapping Inc. AOE with Conc. Effect or addition of Vaal Lightning trap if you happen to find it.

I eventually start trading on my SSF characters, usually just selling some items but also buying few cheap pieces. I bought Brain Rattler for 2C this league and clear up to t15 maps with it no problem.

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macdiesel wrote:

How is GGG going to handle the disparity of Spell based builds vs any weapon based build?

There isn't really much they can do about it, they can't tamper with drop rates or rare affix chance as long as SSF and regular leagues are linked. It's something SSF players are already used to, spells scale better than weapons and you go for a weapon build only after you drop a something good with another char.

If the game balance changes significantly in 2.6 and 3.0 the gap might lessen a bit but I don't think weapon builds will ever become a go-to option for SSF, elemental builds are ok-ish even now but you'll still roll better with spells.

I played SSF essentially from nemesis - talisman in HC and can say without a doubt that you just level a spell character first. Its pretty easy to make a life based caster clear everything up to T12's easily even just using self found stuff.

If you make a melee first its entirely possible you get gated behind your equipment, you can work around by taking generic nodes but sometimes you can be screwed literally forever if you are looking for a decent drop. Essences will increase the chances of you finding something usable eventually but if you have any experience with loot rolls in general you'll know the chances of getting a good item is tiny, even with a guaranteed mod.

I don't see them tweaking it though its part of the fun of SSF, yeah the melee/ranged balance is worse than usual but it does give you a really epic feeling when you find or make a 500+ dps 2h. If you want to have an easy time just do the same as all league characters atm, go pizza stick you can probably do all the content in the game straight away even as ssf lol

Make a MF spell caster first to accumulate so currency and level masters with so you have the work benchs. After that make whatever you want as long as the proper gems are available.

"having a Scion, a Duelist and a Witch which have completed Act 4 each will grant access to all gems available from vendors. "

Not sure if the wiki quote above is still accurate to gems?

I always play SSF and dislike casters in general. It is not that bad as melee, especially when most skills are semi-ranged now anyway - frost-blades, wild strike - or serious AOE like ice slam or earthquake.

Pick elemental or physical; two-handed, dual-wield or sword-and-board, and passive accordingly. Any build in this game really doesn't hit any kind of difficulty wall until Act IV cruel - Malachai can be a bitch though, I've for sure corpse run him on occasion.

Warchief is definitely the safe bet though. I've reached T15 and ~ 85/125 on the atlas with that build, and still going strong (albeit 190 deaths and counting). Uber-lab and Normal Atziri on farm status.

Don't let a fear of melee slow you down!

Another thing to keep in mind is that common weapons can be fairly reliably chanced if they use an endgame base, a great example is Oro. You can just farm dried lake or low maps with any setup for white Infernal swords and turn trash uniques into chance orbs.

The biggest problem with playing SSF for a long time is that going for failproof builds every league can get boring, that's why I stopped doing it.

it wasnt quite as bad before the rustic sash recipe got nerfed.

I always played physical melee first when playing ssf and never had a problem, but I was using rustic recipe a lot. now I guess you use granite recipe to make a decent starter endgame weapon, you need a regal and you need to have been doing your vagan quests along the way, if you have those elements ur good to go.

alch recycle is a tactic too. I think its rare + blue + white of same base all 20%q to make an alch right? So you find 3 white bases of whatever ur doing, vaal axe, 20% them all, alch one, transmute another, if the alch bricks you vendor all 3 and get ur alch back. Repeat until you hit something you can use or fix up with a master mod.