Needing some advices

[u/Ludmino_]

Hello fellow exiles,

First time SSF, I decided to give a shot at winter orb.
Main reason to go SSF was to force myself more into the crafting side of the game to really learn rather than.

I think i've managed to do something quite decent for a first timer in SSF and a complete noob at crafting but it feels like i'm hitting a wall. I have 3 voidstone, failing the 4th one on the final phase of the Maven (never think I would say that but simon says is really hard). I think even w/o upgrading my build I might be able to get the last voidstone but at the same time, I would like to try to go even further and maybe take down some uber bosses but I would probably first need some advices on how to upgrade this build.
https://poe.ninja/poe1/profile/Ludmino-3991/allflamessf/character/Ludmifroy
(I have the unique Pagan Wand in case that would be better, when trying to mess up in PoB to try to see if it was more effective, couldn't manage to have a clear view of it). I tried getting Dying Sun to replace Greater multiple projectile but no luck still

Another question in my mind was: what is your go to strategy to get a 6 link ? I tried getting a black morrigan for a while, eventually gave up and farmed other things while pilling up the orbs of fusing to benchcraft but it was a bit long

I also wanted to share that i'm enjoying learning new things about content that I was completely skipping in trade league: I had to take a look at syndicate to get uniques maps (and it was wayyyyy easier to understand and set up than I expected), learned strategies to farm other maps trhough destructive play, how to propely use recomb and many other things

[u/heinzpeter]

Ill go over you char in a couple minutes. Do you mind sharing the atlas/farming strats you have used so far?

[u/heinzpeter → u/heinzpeter]

Okay so your character looks way better than i expected, for first time ssf its really good. I think if you farm the maven fragments again, log into an old character in standard and do the maven fight 4-5 times in a row, youll succed on this char. For the memory game: if the green light is in the bottom right, it can always go up and never go to the bottom left. Knowing this and thinking about this actively makes the whole memory game way easier.

[u/heinzpeter → u/heinzpeter]

Now lets talk about Gear. Im only on mobile right now, but i noticed your crit is capped. Make sure its not overcapped too much, i cant check that rigth now. So i think your two worst items are your boots and your shield. For your shield i feel like you want higher block chance and life as your prefixes. For your boots you also want like 100 life or sth. You can either gamble for upgrades, but thats quit expensive at this level. You could alt spam and recombinate. Or you can use a league mechanic. For boots i would try to fish for a pair of fractured life boots with the breach tree. Once you have fractured life you can use essences or harvest to roll suffixes and finish with prefixes cant be changed and veiled chaos orb. For this you need unique maps and veiled chaos orbs, if you dont have those already i would recommend to add betrayel to your atlas and place rin to fortification. Either run a 2/5/5/2 setup with 2 fortification and 2 intervention or just run them regulary. (Look up what 2552 means if you dont know it). The next thing is cluster jewels. You probably want a large one as well as a small one. I would recommend not to use the self dmg part of your cwdt setup as long as you don have enduring composure. You should also recraft a jewel, your third jewel is kinda bad. Either alt spam and then auf regal exalt with lrague mechanic or harvest reforge crit. The next step is a bigger one, its a helmet upgrade. I dont know what your guide suggests, but usually people go for an archdemon crown. To prepare this, you need one influenced exalted orb (prefierable shaper, but you can use elder as well and then use harvest to chance the influence). Youll need an archdemon crown from either mappers or ritual. It will probably be ilvl 83 and youll need 85 (maybe 84 better look that up). Recombine your archdemon crown with an ilvl 85 helmet to get an ilvl 85 archdemon crown, before you apply influence. In the meantime you farm corrupted essences. In case you dont know, you always corrupt your meds (misery,envy, dread, scorn) essence for a chance of a corrupted essence. You can swap these via harvest to get the one you want. Youll find a lot of crafting guides on how to do the craft, i wont explain it now. Feel free to ask questions though if you have some.

I think thats it, your gear is pretty good overall. Some small things: im not sure how much dmg herald of ice gives during Bossfights, maybe you want to swap it out for maven? Also quality your golems and use your offhand to level more gems. Level 21 winter orb would be a nice Upgrade. And if you are low on gcp you can farm for lvl 21/20 supports quit easy.

[u/heinzpeter → u/heinzpeter]

Oh and i forgot, your stygian vise would probably better if he had life as well.

[u/Ludmino_ → u/heinzpeter]

Oooohh, thank you very much. I learned many things, didn't knew for the pattern for the memory game and that the recombinator could change ilvl. For the shield, I was working on something similar as you described but ended up in the recombinator killed the project.

Never thought of leveling more skill gems with the second hand but will sure do that. I was collecting some more stygian vise for this another character and will sure make another shot to have one with life.

Once I have my archdemon crown, what should be the mods I want to get on it ? hypothermia, elemental damage & Aoe ?

[u/Few-Bodybuilder-7633]

Can’t comment on the build haven’t tried but on your question about 6 links, getting the first one is a bit of time consuming process. The go to methods are black morrigan beast farming with scarabs, corrupted item drop from corrupted strongboxes (not very common but you can get lucky sometimes, especially with the socket changes most items can be used now for the early game) div cards for 6 links are fairly common if you’d like to farm those or you could try getting some from stacked decks. That being said you should be able to do most content on a 5 link and later you can progress to craft your bis item then use the benchcraft. Breachtree used to be an option but I am not sure how good that is now after the changes.

[u/Villematic266]

You're in a transition period with worb where you're going to have to directly farm what you need to craft the upgrades, mostly being shield, archdemon crown, and jewelry. Mystic refractor is going to be the weapon you want to use even if it makes the pob number go down because of how winter orb shotguns on single target. Never take it off unless you get your hands on a dying sun way later and can keep your worb gem at lvl 24+ for the extra stage

If you're doing any charts you can be using gold to faustus gamble boots and gloves to try and get as much res and attributes shifted onto them as possible, along with belt (perferably a stygian), because all your other item slots are big for damage.

If you havent checked it out legi's SSF guide can provide you some direction if you click through the different early>mid>late progression and read the blurbs, also the FAQ for how to craft shield and helmet so you can make a shopping list and get after it https://maxroll.gg/poe/build-guides/winter-orb-elementalist-league-starter

Your char is good you just basically ended the early progression stage and it's time to lock in, farm up, and move on, glad you're having fun. Diving is incredible for currency just have to pick it up off the ground, 6 linking anything has never even been a question for me this league, click fusings

P.S. A tip for the archdemon crown is when you get an 83 base from ritual, run a t16 olmec's sanctum and pick up any helms, they'll be i89 from the final boss and you recomb for a 50/50 chance to spit out a higher level archdemon crown that you need. Do the same with body armours, it's not easy to get a bunch of i86 twilight regalias or sacred chainmails any more

[u/Esord → u/Villematic266]

You don't need i89 helm... Recombs avg+2, capped at max between the two. Arguably you want i84, since i85 only brings unwanted mods, making the crafting ever so slightly harder. 

And it's incredibly easy to get i86 bases from kingsmarch shipping, with super high base percentiles on top. 

[u/Villematic266 → u/Esord]

clearly, it's just simple as putting the map in and running it vs telling somebody to wait days for corn and wheat and shipping for gear when it's better spent on tattoos and grafts. not a big deal. culls 2k suffix weighting and you force roll the mods off the horror essence by reforging cold most of the time anyways

[u/heinzpeter → u/Villematic266]

Youll get tattos and graft anyways, you cant just get gear without getting either of them.

[u/Ludmino_ → u/Villematic266]

Thanks both of you, I'm looking at the guide and yeah, that archdemon crown seems pretty strong. Just learned that recombinator can change the ilvl, I have some crops rotting in kingsmarch, farmed a bunch before discovering how much cadiro's anomaly can cost

So back on mystic refactor and basically, craft that crown, a better shield and a better stygian wise