Goodbye to PoE plus an actual budget SSF viable RF league starter

It's been a great 4 years for me for PoE. I started in Legion league, skipped a couple here and there, and had a lot of fun. PoE was challenging and fun. But unfortunately, these days, I've not enjoyed it as much for a completely different reason than most--GGG seems to nerf the difficult stuff a little too much. As unpopular as it was, I really enjoyed the initial version of the 3.15 nerfs. But league after league, things were made easier and easier. With no new endgame in 3.23 as well, I finally came to the realization that this is no longer the game for me.

Getting to 40 challenges was enjoyable for a while, and doing it in SSF a few times was nice. I even spent a couple of weeks recently enjoying HCSSF. I've tried Ruthless but I don't like the lack of maps (I don't mind grinding for everything else). So this is it for me.

As a parting gift to the community, I wanted to address a problem that a lot of people have as it seems everyone is making RF builds that require expensive T1 uniques and the like on league launch to function, which is out of reach for most casuals and SSF players. One of the characters I played around with in HCSSF was an RF Chieftain. He had less than 500k dps but was practically unkillable due to how strong chieftain defenses are. My dps was also completely fine for all the content I did, which included 2 voidstones, Guardians, Conquerors, Elderslayers, and Shaper. This was on a 5L with a 4L Fire Trap.

So, to help those in need, I've modified the ideas I used for that build into an actual league starter that is not dependent on crazy expensive uniques or other weirdness like that. I've done my best to explain the item choices in the Notes section. As you will see, this is gear that is completely viable for any budget and in any non-Ruthless game mode. The dps is for Low Life as I have Punishment. But even w/o that on, you still have more than double the dps I was playing with.

This version can scale decently into endgame as well. But if you prefer the much higher ceilings that the streamers are hyping up, you can at least start with this one to build the currency you need for those (though make no mistake, RF being meta and the top end being even stronger means triple digit divine price tag for those builds).

Finally: The build needs to meet stat reqs and cap res. But I've left tons of suffixes open on the gear. There is more than enough to fix that there.

Thanks for being my "second home" all these years. I've enjoyed my time playing as well as helping others with their builds. Best of luck to those starting Affliction today!


https://pobb.in/UYCW6WUJF4Ga

Edit: I forgot--I left an Enlighten 3 in there. That's normally cheap but if it's not, there's a ton of ways to solve that: Charisma anoint (Oil Extractors for the golds if you are in SSF), Loathing Essence on chest, etc.

I tested your build when you replied in another thread, it was good. I didn't take it very far as the new league is upon us but thanks nonetheless.

You are a good GP&H contributor.

And thank you for your help and advice for other players. Could PoE 2 be a future option for you?

Best of luck and thanks again.

I'll give PoE2 a try when it comes out. But getting a weird vibe from it so far so not sure I'll like it. We'll see!

Good luck with whatever you'll end up playing