Solo Self-found end-game

First the gear on my self-found lvl 83 Nemesis Scion (when I started mapping I used a sword bought for 2.5 chaos for a little while but other than that everything I've ever used has been self-found or self-crafted):



I leveled solo but most of my mapping has been done duo. I've done maps up to level 70 (just a couple of 71's too but 66-70 on regular basis). My /played on this character is 6 days 6 hours. Currency wise I'm poor as fuck (total wealth in currency is probably worth 2-3 exalts).

So on one hand I agree with the OP. Playing (solo) self-found and getting into maps is surely possible. It just takes some time (admittedly more than a working family man/woman could easily spare) and willingness to grind. Still I don't share the optimism of the OP and few other posters...

...Because on the other hand I'm stuck badly. Upgrades are extremely rare and because I'm playing HC I can't try my luck in higher maps without proper gear. I'm lacking HP badly but I can't cap my resist otherwise so I'm only at 4.2k life. I need to avoid Elemental Weakness mod because I can't over cap even at this low HP. Unlike for OP level 70 maps aren't end game for me.

And this is for one the easiest to gear builds. Any CI is completely out of question as I don't have a single good ES piece. The build I'd like to do is Split Arrow crit but after playing it in Domination I won't even try it without Voltaxic in HC. The point being that almost all good builds do require specific gear that's almost impossible to get when playing self-found.

I'm not content in managing low level maps. I want that self-found grinders have equal chance to real end game content. I don't agree with the concept that spamming the trade chat and searching indexers is far better way to get gear and currency than actually playing the game. It goes against the idea of ARPG's - kill monsters, collect loot.

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Qetuth wrote:

Well, I have to agree 4 month leagues are bad for remotely casual players, and have no advantage for solo self found at all.
They really only benefit those who want to compete for position, and those who want to play the economy not the game.

I play ladder because standard league is way too boring, I never played standard in Diablo 2 and never fought about any league position or ranking, only 5-10 people did that every league because you needed to make baal runs 24/7 with a team, anything else was senseless.
The rest just played for fun.

You could reach lvl 99 in 3,5 days (even less if you play perfect) and a german team did it around 2011 or so and the ladder was over after 3,5 days - did the people stopped playing? No they enjoyed ladder because fresh economy, fresh characters, fresh builds, new fun.

Ladder is not competitive for 99% of the people.