SSF player. I feel like I'm running out of builds to play

if GGG not gonna add tattoo omens weap passiv tree to core than less builds to play...

Hot take here, but maybe you should give up on playing SSF. It's a handicap mode that takes away a core feature of PoE which is trading and the game is literally balanced around that fact. By playing SSF, you're inherently going to have limited options on viable builds due to required gear being rare and unfeasible to find on your own.

Your options on what builds you want to play will open up a lot more outside of SSF, because now the resources you farm up can be used to buy necessary items off other players.

"

jsuslak313 wrote:

I am not "mythologizing" anything: I am pointing out the fallacies of the post. Because...I'm responding to a post: I'm not going off on SSF as a whole. You are willfully ignoring the initial post...which I find odd because we had agreed on the very first page of this thread!

Please don't pretend to tell me what goes on in my own head. I have not ignored the initial post at all - indeed, as you say, I responded to it. I am simply disagreeing with some of the ways you are responding to it yourself. Surely it isn't odd that someone can agree with some things you say and disagree with others.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

Your own first post in this thread was questioning the validity of the entire mentality of the OP. I was literally doing the same thing, except pointing to specifics about SSF.

I gently suggested questioning the value of an idea if it wasn't helping them enjoy things. I made no judgements, I didn't tell anyone what they should do or who they are.

You're telling an SSF player they're not an SSF player. You're deciding that someone who has said they don't have fun trading would have fun trading. You're assigning them identities ("meta copy/paster"). This is not 'literally the same thing'.

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jsuslak313 wrote:

its neither the SSF nor the build diversity that is the problem here: it is HIS insistence to play SSF, when the method of his playstyle is implicitly incompatible with the SSF design.

It's clearly not incompatible if they've been playing SSF this whole time. OP specifically said they don't want to trade. That's all SSF is, and this is why I say you're mythologising it. You're taking "not trading" and turning it into some kind of spirit-of-exploration mindset woo. It might be that for you but it doesn't have to be that for others.

Same reason I quit HC years ago.

Except SSF has always been clear on it's handicap where the game was originally balanced with HC in mind. Players just drifted away from it with each release of untested league mechanics.

I can't imagine the problem is as severe though. Mostly build enabling Uniques.

"

Xzorn wrote:

Same reason I quit HC years ago.

Except SSF has always been clear on it's handicap where the game was originally balanced with HC in mind. Players just drifted away from it with each release of untested league mechanics.

I can't imagine the problem is as severe though. Mostly build enabling Uniques.

The OP specifically sets his aims:

"

I'm just going to define a strong build as one that can consistently and quickly kill:

* essence mobs
* an expedition with the keystone
* harvest in a T11 map

on a 5L without gear that requires you to have already farmed that content.

THat's all very reasonable for SSF, with limited time, within a league. It's not asking for extremes of power or Uber facerolls. It's not requiring specific cluster jewels, or particularly-rolled legion jewels, or Eater/Exarch-only drops before a build will clear smoothly.

And what OP is complaining about is that after leagues of this he's running out of interesting new builds to try.

I'd suggest to OP to try whatever ascendancy has changed, and see if there's some build potential in it. Don't wait for trade builders to decide what's good, as they'll be basing it on gear we non-traders never see.

For example, if you haven't tried it, give the new Guardian a go, with the new relics/sentinel, Dominating Blow and HoP. I found it quite different playing a summoner who runs straight into melee combat, but without the SSF melee wall on weapons power because your damage comes from your minions.

Use a staff and aim for a + to socketed (melee) gems, although I suspect there are tweaks if you can find the Vaal skill. A 6L is nice (I got a base donated from a guildmate) but it only needs a 5L, plus 6S on chest as you're running a lot of support skills. I find Geofri's Crest is useful for the extra Holy Relic, two of these make for good close defence. There probably is BiS gear for this build but I've never looked it up.