How do you reroll into a stronger build in SSF?

Apologies if this is such a basic question. Like everything in this game, I assume the answer to this question is entirely knowledge based. So I am aware of that, and want to see what you guys have to think.

Heist was my first league where I was predominantly SSF and I noticed one thing - it is harder to reroll into a stronger character and easier to reroll into a character at the same power level or worse than your league starter. So I have a couple questions that will hopefully help me out next league.

1) How do you identify what build is stronger than what you have? Stronger can mean a ton of things but lets look at a well rounded character - one whose purpose is to clear maps and boss.

Poeninja will just tell you what is popular for the very top of the xp ladder, not necessarily what is the strongest and what will take the most or least investment. ED/C will always be one of the top skills despite all the overwhelming fact it is pretty much zdps).

2) How do you identify what you have in your inventory is enough to make a build stronger than yours currently?

Just because you have a 6L Quill Rain and a 6L Hyrris Ire chest piece doesnt mean you can get a bootleg elemental hit deadeye to work. Just because you have a shaper shield that can be crafted with +1 to totems doesnt mean totems are going to be viable, you know? It would be nice to know: "Oh I got this unique item, that means I can make a ____ build" or "I got an influenced item, that means if I can craft this affix my build is basically done!". Generally speaking it would be nice to know the amount of gear it'd take for any given build to reach a generic dmg threshold.

TL;DR - I got the league start part down. I know what to do. I don't know how to make a build that has 5mil shaper dps that will nuke all content, and I think it's because of these two questions - how do you identify a strong build, and items to make that strong build?

I assume you began your SSF journey with the initial goal to complete the strongest possible SSF-viable build, whatever that may be... let's say that is Call of Steel Champion? Let's say you already crafted your 2H axe by spamming alts (I bought it BTW).



You are saying that you may discover an item drop that enables you to switch over to a formerly non-SSF-viable build. Lets say that is a 1H mace as shown below (which I opened from a Grand Heist BTW). Maybe it lets you switch to Impale Cyclone. But in keeping with the theme of getting "stronger", you first have to deduce whether that "formerly non-SSF-viable" build is actually better or worse than CoS even with that newly-found gear. Despite the impressive stats on the 1H mace, current meta says NO, it will not outdo the CoS Champion, at least not without other supplementing gears such as Ryslatha's Coil, etc.

Well I am never build oriented, I am goal oriented and the build can be a goal...if that makes any sense. This league my challenge was to get to A8 Sirus. I got that, but I never was able to reroll into a stronger build (bleed gladiator).

If I had that 500 pdps axe was end game I figured I'd have two options - find a better weapon to use in that build (650 p dps axe isnt out of the reach in SSF) or reroll, as I find playing the same build over and over a little boring. Spice things up, learn something new, why not?

I guess the thing that confuses me is that I would look at that new mace and see what I could do, since it is 500 p dps, pretty absurd. At this point I would like to try offmeta things like melee elemental conversion (maybe ice crash or ele hit or something) but none of those are very strong, despite having a very strong mace.

I suppose you could take that Call of Steel champion build and turn it to a 1h+shield, but with such a drop like that I'd want to reroll or try something new. So how would you reroll with something like that? Or would you genuinely not? And how would you know what is the "strongest" with investment in the meta? Because if thats the case then maybe you could spend a fortune on buying/crafting a 900 p dps axe or something ridiculous.

use pob a LOT
carefully examine your new build and compare it to your current

also just knowing what is gonna be good is helpful, but that obviously takes tons of experience

So is the answer really just play more, basically? Become more familiar with systems, what have been traditionally strong builds before, what new skills / supports are introduced and how they might change the meta?

I know PoE is such a huge knowledge-based game and knowledge comes over time, but its really frustrating knowing you don't know certain things. I dont know how to take a build to 100. I don't know necessarily how to do a big craft (outside of get lucky?). I don't know how to minmax a character. And I don't know how to make a character that is impressively strong. All of these are related to eachother.

I started playing the game in late metamorph and got my first A8 kill in SSFSC this Heist league. I am doing the similar content (albeit rougher) on my cold dot trickster. I am not really sure what environment will help me learn the game the best (SC trade, SSFSC, HC trade, HCSSF) but I am always wanting to improve :)

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Chalck wrote:

So is the answer really just play more, basically? Become more familiar with systems, what have been traditionally strong builds before, what new skills / supports are introduced and how they might change the meta?

I know PoE is such a huge knowledge-based game and knowledge comes over time, but its really frustrating knowing you don't know certain things. I dont know how to take a build to 100. I don't know necessarily how to do a big craft (outside of get lucky?). I don't know how to minmax a character. And I don't know how to make a character that is impressively strong. All of these are related to eachother.

I started playing the game in late metamorph and got my first A8 kill in SSFSC this Heist league. I am doing the similar content (albeit rougher) on my cold dot trickster. I am not really sure what environment will help me learn the game the best (SC trade, SSFSC, HC trade, HCSSF) but I am always wanting to improve :)

play around a lot with pob. look at it as character simulations
this teaches you about a lot of things

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Chalck wrote:

I guess the thing that confuses me is that I would look at that new mace and see what I could do, since it is 500 p dps, pretty absurd. At this point I would like to try offmeta things like melee elemental conversion (maybe ice crash or ele hit or something) but none of those are very strong, despite having a very strong mace.

I suppose you could take that Call of Steel champion build and turn it to a 1h+shield, but with such a drop like that I'd want to reroll or try something new. So how would you reroll with something like that? Or would you genuinely not? And how would you know what is the "strongest" with investment in the meta? Because if thats the case then maybe you could spend a fortune on buying/crafting a 900 p dps axe or something ridiculous.

Nature of CoS Impaler builds to put more emphasis on Avg Hit than DPS means the 1H mace either makes no difference or makes it worse, even if it is worth several times more. If reroll to Ice Crash, it will give me a build with lower clear speed. Bossing maybe around the same rating. You roughly know these outcomes if you aware of what the streamers have been playing, have played these builds yourself in the past, and confirm it with PoB.

This means price-checking the item you found may not be a very good indicator on whether you should proceed to make some build out of it. The item may simply be expensive because it is rare or difficult to craft. Like Obliteration and Cold Iron Point are worth more than their prices suggest. They are cheap because they are common drops.

A few thoughts at OP...

The game changes in significant ways every 3 months. If you want to be up to date on the latest of everything, you need to make a lifestyle decision.

Some things are not that difficult. For example, getting to 100 just takes a solid build and a HC playstyle, since you can't afford to die after a certain point. Even then, it's incredibly tedious though, so you're making a lifestyle choice.

You're pretty much right about big crafting. It tends to be heavily rng dependent and require specialized knowledge. You can get some of that knowledge by watching videos, but it also changes over time. Here as well, you can decide how much time you want to invest. Trade is often a cheaper option in game currency, and a much cheaper option in time.

As far as the leagues, HC is a completely different playstyle. If you like it better, play it. Because there are so few people playing HC, HC trade is not that much of an advantage over HC SSF. It's often hard to find what you want, and it will probably be expensive.

In SSF, a lot of players start a character with the idea of taking it as far as they can. I think the idea of "re-rolling" in SSF based on what gear you find is probably not the way most folks play it, but that doesn't mean you can't go that route if you want. The problem is that one nice piece of gear doesn't make a build.

I will usually play several characters in a league, mainly because my fun comes from exploring the crazy range of builds that are possible in the game. I often get to maps without trading, but at some point I will end up needing or wanting something. Sometimes I just need a specific item (or maybe even a map that I just can't drop for some reason.) Other times I know that investing 5 ex in a build will take it to a completely different place and I just want to see how much better than feels.

And other times I want to try a build that requires several uniques to function. In that case you can try it in standard where you may have the gear, or you can trade. SSF can be a serious handicap for that type of build.

Anyway, the short answer is that you just need to figure out what fun is for you, and what improvement means for you. There is no best way to play the game. Whatever works for you.

its entirely about knowledge OP, its about knowing that X is stronger than Y, but X is harder to gear so you probably can't start as it.

For example low life is very strong for quite a few archetypes, but you can't start as it you need a substantial amount of investment.

There isn't really a shortcut for this, its about learning what skills are strong with what gear, and which gear pieces are actually hard to get and which aren't.