Some tips for beginner to intermediate SSF players

The following tips are intended for beginner to intermediate players who want to try the Solo Self Found mode aka SSF, or want to improve their experience while playing SSF. They may not be very useful for complete novices (if you are struggling to complete the story mode in a trade league, a beginner guide will be more suitable for you), neither to experts (I'm not an expert).

It's my first post here and a work in progress, so please be gentle, but constructive criticism is welcome.

General:

- When starting SSF, it is generally recommended to find a build that does not require a specific item or set of items. Use this build to get as far as you can/enjoy. Depending on items you find with the first build, you can create another build(s). Use this next build to get as far as you can/enjoy, find more items, create another build etc. You can eventually experience all content and almost any build in SSF, it will just take (much) more time than in a trade league - but this may actually be the upside of SSF for some players. [Caveat: Items required for a few builds, like a Golemancer with all its thrills, may be out of the time range of a sane SSF player.]

- If you are a casual player (~1h/day or less), consider playing SSF on Standard so you are not restricted by the duration of a league. Again, getting to the endgame in SSF takes a lot of time.

- Use a good item filter. Neversink's is a popular choice. If your are unsure, get the Regular one, leave it at that and possibly tune it later in Filterblade, when you know what you are doing.

- You don't need Premium tabs in SSF, but a Currency tab, a Map tab and a bunch of regular tabs will make the play experience much more pleasant.

Builds:

- Plan your first character as a life based build. ES based builds, while possibly strong, are generally much more item dependent (high ES rolls on gear), and also need fairly large respec when transitioning from life to ES in the late game. ES is definitely doable in SSF, but keep it for one your later playthroughts.

- It's good to have a character that does not care much about Map mods, so you can run reflect/no regen Maps without rerolling them (to save currency/to run Vaaled Maps that end up with these mods)

- Generally, for my first playthrough and when opening the Atlas, I don't care that much about Mapping speed, instead I prefer a character that can (with bad gear) reliably kill Map bosses with nasty mods, and get Map completions. After my Atlas is reasonably completed, I add another character that focuses more on Mapping speed and wears gear with at least some homeopathic amount of Increased Item Rarity (and Quantity if available).

- Here are some build archetypes that should work well for your first SSF character ('1st line') or after you acquire a bit of gear ('2nd line'). '/' stands for 'or', current patch is 3.5, future patches can and will change things.

1st line:

# Hierophant - Spell Totems (Arc is strong and popular choice, but you can choose any spell you like. Can run reflect Maps, it's just mildly annoying.)

# Saboteur - Spell Traps (Arc and Glacial Cascade are strong and popular, but you can choose any spell you like. Does not care about reflect.)

# Saboteur - Spell Mines (Arc and Glacial Cascade are again popular but many other spells will work. Detonate Mines Gem helps, but is not mandatory. The playstyle may not suit everyone. Does not care about reflect.)

# Necromancer - Summon Skeleton/SRS (The playstyle may not suit everyone, but it's generally quite strong and safe. SRS is generally better in the early stage, Skeletons after completing the 2nd Labyrinth)

# Dominating Blow (Quite tanky build that clears well. Most bosses die fast, but those with strong AoE and invulnerability phases could be tough. This is a fairly Ascendancy-independent build that does well with many different ascendancies, e.g. Champion, Necromancer, Guardian, Gladiator or Occultist.)

# Chieftain/Champion - Ancestral Warchief (Slow mapper, but safe and reliable bosskiller. Good for Uber Lab runs if you are not a very experienced runner.)

# Slayer - Cyclone (Getting a decent pDPS 2H weapon should not take too long, there are several 2H uniques that sport around 400 DPS. If going the full phys route with Brutality support, you are effectively bleed immune, stun immune, reflect immune, can run no regen Maps, and have great sustain thanks to massive overleech. Also good to learn boss mechanics thanks to low visual clutter and undemanding playstyle. OTOH, mapping is a bit slow and DPS scaling is somewhat limited.)

2nd line:

# Necromancer - Raise Spectre (You just want boots with +1 Spectres; It's best with +1 Spectre Chest, but works reasonably well without that. Solar Guards are very good overall, but you may try other Spectres and see which you like best)

# Gladiator - Herald of Agony (Advancing Fortress, The Anvil and a good shield helps, but none are mandatory and the former are a rather common drops. The Coming Calamity is not mandatory, the Crawler can live for example in Lioneye's Vision, in Ashrend or in an Elder Helm with + Minion lvl & Minion Damage Support. This is a very tanky build with moderate mapping speed. Reflect Maps aren't an issue, no regen is annoying but can be dealt with.)

# Champion/Juggernaut - Molten Strike (Champion is a great beginner class with well balanced defense and offense if you go the Fortify and Taunt routes. You don't have to care about Fortify, and not much about accuracy. The builds needs a good weapon to work well, typically a 1H-sword, 1H-axe or claw. Also having a 6-link Loreweave helps a lot. Other classes, like Raider or Ascendant Slayer+{Pathfinder/Raider/Elementalist/Juggernaut}, will work as well)

# Pathfinder/Trickster - Toxic Rain (This is a fairly item independent build that can effectively use many different chests - QotF, Cherubims, Belly, ... Delve craft some +Gem levels on a fast bow and you are good to go. It also doesn't care about reflect.)

# Occultist/Elementalist/Chieftain - Blade Vortex (Occultist needs some decent ES gear; Elementalist could use the Hrimsorrow gloves + Inpulsa improves the experience by a lot)

Items:

- When evaluating rares outside weapons, look mostly for Life and Resists, Movement Speed on Boots, Mana if going for a MoM build, Elemental Damage with Attacks if going for a Attack build and Crit Multiplier if going for a crit based build. Remember that Strength also gives Life, and Intelligence gives Mana (the rate is 2:1). Attack speed is also a handy stat for any build that utilizes Shield Charge/Whirling Blades/Leap Slam (including casters), as it effectively makes your movement faster, and you can dodge the telegraphed hits quicker.

On weapons, look for the most DPS (for spells, this translates to Spell/Elemental damage, Cast Speed, Crit Chance+Multiplier if going Crit, ...).

- Outside weapons, a very rough way to evaluate the defensive quality of a rare item for an end game character is to sum the Life and Elemental Resists it gives (including a possible Master crafted mod). Is the sum around 150? That's a decent item. More than 200? That's a really good item. [Caveat: Resist generally fall off a bit in usefulness as your gear gets better, but I wouldn't worry about it too much. Also, item type matters, this is really only a rough estimate.]

- Increased Item Rarity, while despised by many, is actually quite good in SSF if done modestly, as it speeds up your gearing and gives you a better chance to find some useful or build-enabling uniques. Also, you can get Loreweave faster, and Loreweave is a really good chest that is great for many builds (and a good candidate for 6-linking). If you can get some IIR on gear without a noticeable negative effect on your build, I would do so. Even 50% total IIR helps. A good places to look for IIR are rings, amulets, and helmets. I would not worry about IIR before hitting Maps, thought.

- Learn what affixes can by added to magic and rare items on the Crafting Bench, which of those are the more useful ones, which can be crafted as a prefix and which as a suffix. My pick for the better craftable affixes include:

[[This section will be updated]]

- Tabula Rasa (Humility cards) can be farmed somewhat reliably in the Blood Aquaduct in Act 9. For some players it could be quite a grind (running the same area again and again), but Tabula is a great levelling item, comparable to a good chest that is 5-linked. So when wearing a Tabula, I wouldn't worry about 5-linking other chests and just save the Fusings for a 6-link. (A recipe for turning your Tabula to a 5-link Belly of the Beast: Open your passive tree. Respec 10 to 15 nodes from damage to life and defences. You are done.)

- Learn what Shaper and Elder items can roll useful Shaper / Elder mods, and at what level. Those might be used as good crafting bases. This kind of info can be found e.g. at poedb.tw, poeaffix.net, or poecraft.com. I would look into Helmets, Rings, Amulets and Sceptres/Daggers first, they can roll some nice stuff.

Delve crafting:

- Blocking undesired affixes is often the better approach than boosting the desired ones

- By blocking the right affix categories on a Shaper/Ender item, you will have a much better chance to roll a Shaper or Elder affix

- Prefixes are generally easier to block than suffixes (less prefix categories)

- You can use contradictory Fossils to block both categories (e.g. Frigid + Scorched)

- Str, Str/Dex & Dex armour can't roll +Mana. One less prefix to worry about

- See poedb.tw/en/mod.php for a description of which fossils influence which affixes on which items

- I didn't play Delve myself, so take this with a grain of salt

Labyrinth:

- Uber Lab can be a good source of quality Gems and can kickstart you into high level Maps. Getting all the Trials can be a pita, but since patch 3.4, you can sometimes choose to have a Trial in a Zana mission, which should ease the pain a bit.

- To run the Uber Lab, check if it's a good day to run it on poelab.com, get 2 Life Flasks, adjust your Pantheon accordingly (Life Flask charge recovery or Reduced physical damage over time both come handy), and wear the Bloodgrip Amulet if you found one (it's quite a common drop). Also look for the Darkshines, they can give you some nice bonuses. This should make the experience more pleasant... or at least bearable.

- After completing the Lab, enchant Boots, not Helmets. While there are some great Helm enchants, those are really rare and all are specific to a single skill. Most Helm enchants will be useless to you. E.g. hitting a +1 Volatile Dead explosion on a good base may earn you several Exalts in a trade league, but when SSF, it may just sit in your Stash (probably until you get 2x Poet's Pen, and that may take a while). OTOH, hitting a good Boot enchant is much more likely (only 15 types exist, and several are useful). For some builds (e.g. the Arc Totems, Mines and Traps builds), there are several Boot enchants that give you around 5% to 10% More damage. The % Life & Mana regen if you were hit recently enchant is also nice for MoM builds. It's ok to try a Helm enchant after you get your Boots enchanted, but in SSF, I would definitely go for the Boots first, even in Uber Lab.

Maps:

- Maps are quite a large topic by itself. I will only cover it briefly. You can find some good info that is not SSF focused here: https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/1489756.

- Zana helps, buy Maps from her. The 3 to 1 recipe is also useful.

- Don't open a higher tier of Maps until you have most Maps from that tier at your disposal (this tip is somewhat controversial and may not be worth following since patch 3.4. You may also ignore this at tier 14+).

- Horizon Orbs that you get from Shaper Strongholds can help with Guardian Maps, don't waste them at low level Maps.

- When choosing what Map to Shape, consider also it's position in the Atlas. Some Maps are an important hub that you go through often when you try to spread Elder influence around the Atlas. Others can be easily bypassed. If you shape e.g. a tier 10 'hub' Map, you may face a dilemma later when manipulating Elder influence through such a map, since tier 15 Maps are a rare merchandise. When Shaping a Map, I would rather aim for a one that does not lie on an important corridor in the Atlas. (Naturally, monster count & density, Map linearity & difficulty and number of Sextants that can be applied to the Map are another things to consider.)

- If Elder or one of his Guardians spawn on a Shaped Map, you can run it's regular version and kill him there (you can get the regular version of a Map from Zana shop or from the 3:1 recipe). Tier 15+ Maps are quite valuable and I prefer not to run them without a proper Sextant setup.

Other tips:

- Learn the vendor recipes, including:
The Chaos recipe (also a good way to get some Regals)
The 20% quality Gem recipe
The % physical damage on weapons recipe - may be good for your 1st character
The added physical damage on weapons recipe - may be good for your 1st character
The +1 to Gem level for Wands / Sceptres recipe - may be good for your 1st character

- Jewellers to Fusings trades are your most important source of Fusings. Turning Chances to Scours can also be a more effective use of your currency than trying to actually chance something.

- You can put a Vaal fragment into the Atlas device. It opens a Vaal side area where you have a good chance to get some Vaal Gems and drop another Vaal fragment. Just watch out for the refect mod.

- You can get a Vaal Gem by Vaaling the corresponding normal Gem (1/4 chance)

- Don't forget to level up some Gems you plan to use with other characters in your offhand slots. If you don't know what Gems you will use, you may level up some generally useful ones like Faster Attacks, Elemental Focus, Controlled Destruction, Increased Duration, Elemental Damage with Attacks, Arc. Alternatively, you may level 6 copies of the Gem you will try to Vaal for lvl 21 (1/8 chance) - that's a more 'high risk - high reward' approach, since if the Vaals fail, you end up with nothing, as you can't sell the corrupted lvl 20 Gems to other players.

Ooh, I really like this. Thank you for this writeup. Are you intending to keep it up to date with future patches? I've been looking for an ssf tips page to bookmark and give out to newer players.

Couple of small things: master currency discounts are at level 6 not 7, and for trials it's worth mentioning to keep an eye on Zana missions since she can give out trials in them now.

Hi & thanks for the feedback!

I corrected the Masters related mistake. Yeah, I would like to update this post after new patches go out, and possibly with new ideas I get / feedback from others. At least as long as I can get enough free time to play PoE enough to keep in touch with what is going on in the game :)

Bump for a fantastic write-up!

if you're planning to play a good amount and have decent game knowledge, I think nowadays its ok to make your first toon an ES toon, especially in SC.

well, in delve its more true than not, because of dense fossils

very cool, will there be a solo self found league on PS4? I'm returning to the game when it comes on PS4 and I can't wait!

Nice guide, one question: what do you think of arc elementalist as first character?

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what do you think of arc elementalist as first character?

I didn't play it myself, but I would guess that it it is a decent choice that clears well, but may struggle at higher tier Map bosses.

Without Inpulsa, I feel the build is a bit outshined by totems/mines/traps Arc, but if you prefer the self-cast playstyle, you can totally go for it.

Nice guide.

I played SSF for the first time this league.

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- If you are a casual player (~1h/day or less), consider playing SSF on Standard so you are not restricted by the duration of a league.

There's no downside to starting in an ongoing SSF Challenge league, since it feeds into the parent SSF Standard/HC at the end anyway.

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After you get your Masters to lvl 6, use their Currency discounts, especially 32 Alts -> 20 Jewellers

Have to disagree with this. You never run out Jewellers, thanks to 6-socket items. Alterations on the other hand, are easy to run out of especially if you buy Jewellers.

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- You can put a Vaal fragment into the Atlas device. It opens a Vaal side area where you have a good chance to get some Vaal Gems and drop another Vaal fragment. Just watch out for the refect mod.

And decent shots at 6-links now.

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Have to disagree with this. You never run out Jewellers, thanks to 6-socket items. Alterations on the other hand, are easy to run out of especially if you buy Jewellers.

I think it depends on how much you play a day, how much Alts you spend crafting and how many rares you pick up and sell to vendors. I constantly run out of Jewellers and often don't have enough to use the daily discount, while I can't remember time when I had less than 1000 Alts.