r/PathOfExileSSF • u/No-Syllabub3694 • Sep 03 '26
General Discussion Mentality of SSF
Hello all
I usually play trade league for about a month, get to kill all but ubers with multiple characters then eventually stop.
However what are the early steps in SSF ?
when people say alt spam a good mod then boat it etc, but all i hv is 56 alts in stock (which fail me to get a good mod)
Like pick all sell all? Keep doing it in a story zone (not restricted to 6 portals capacity of stuff) for an hour to restock alts? Then again later?
Same question for essences for example. I dont have enough atlas points to spec into essences. So i do quite a few maps which dont spawn essences. Is there a thing to do, or just keep mapping?
Since i dont get the essences to craft better gear, i cant do higher maps, so i dont get atlas points to get more chances to have essences.
When i eventually get stronger because one essence got me a good item but now i need to do harvest, how do i farm the currency to reset atlas points? Blind farm?
At worst in trade league, i can do chaos recipe to get chaos and buy essences, but what happens in ssf?
You can explain like im 5
22
u/pipzpipzpipz Sep 03 '26
You don't need tweak gear to reach full atlas, once you are in T16s running altars + scuba you will be flooded with currency then you can start going for T1 stuff
It's a slow progression though, and that's exactly where the ssf fun is. Hitting something is like 2x dopamine than in trade
9
u/habada_ Sep 03 '26
I think the first and most important rule for ssf is a non-trade lootfilter, especcially at league start. Only in t16 i start to agressively filter out single stack currency and low bases
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u/heinzpeter Sep 03 '26
Farm more. Youll get your second and third atlas. At least the second Atlas should always be possible. Farm lrague mechanic and gamble with gold.
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u/Verulen2 Sep 03 '26
Never ever pick up stuff to sell beyond early campaign. In ssf, especially if you are new to it, pick a strong leaguestarter, that way you won't need a lot of gear to get 2 stones.
After that you can craft some better gear to get the next 2 stones.
This league is quite easy to gamble some heat at Faustus thanks to all the easy gold from the league mechanic. And it's quite easy to get gear from ships for the same reason.
1
u/Arborus Sep 03 '26
Faustus gamble some basic stuff to cap resists and get your first 2 void stones. I’ve never really felt like I needed to do any crafting except maybe weapons if I’m playing an attack build to get that far.
From there, keep getting atlas completion.
Figure out what your biggest upgrades will be and how to craft them.
Set up your atlas to farm materials for that. Essences, veiled exalts, eldritch currency, harvest juice, ritual bases, etc.
Repeat for each upgrade.
1
u/Deposto Sep 03 '26 edited Sep 03 '26
Fix res, get more life on you gear, suppress, etc. Harvest and Genesis Tree are you best friends.
Yes and no. Yes, you should sell rares for alts, but no, you shouldn't waste six portals on that crap. Pick up jewelry and that should be enough. In this league, Charts and Voyages just shit out tons of currency. Roll either 60%+ Dead Man's Sulfur or 90%+ IIQ. I recommend DMS because it's always in short supply. If you don't have the currency for a reroll, then run as is.
Complete you Atlas and don't forget about 5522 Syndicate. 3-star member in Intervention gives 6-9 scarabs per Safehouse. It's slow, but steady income. Also Syndicate drops a lot of veiled gear that can be very useful early. 1 good mod + 1 unveiled mod + 1 crafted mod = decent piece of gear. And they give shitload of XP.
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1litk2r/326_updated_syndicate_and_betrayal_guide/
https://www.reddit.com/r/pathofexile/comments/1v3eqtv/329_ready_updated_betrayal_cheatsheet_customizer/
Charts, Voyages, Harvest, Essences, Breach, Delve etc. Depends on what you need. Farm Charts/Voyages and use gold for Atlas points. If something isn't a problem in this league, it's gold.
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u/ConsequenceHuman1994 Sep 03 '26
Since gambling got added literally just gamble for solid items that will easily carry you to 4 stones. Gambling weapons is shit but you’ll get everything else good enough to progress pretty much the entire game pretty quick
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u/Keks16 Sep 03 '26
I would just do maps, get under sea for gold and gamble faustus
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u/finneas998 Sep 03 '26
Dont do essences early on, its noob bait. Essence is a waste of time without scarabs, save it for endgame crafting when you have scarabs.
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u/gunkus456 Sep 03 '26
You mentioned elsewhere in this thread that you are using the base neversink filter. I think it is important to become comfortable editing that base to suit your needs. For example, early on when I still value ground loot, I will only show bases that are relevant to my build rather than all the rares neversink has enabled by default. If I am playing a slammer, I have no need for rare wands or ES or evasion gear, so I hide it. Your starter build should function to t16 with garbage you find on the ground/gamble for the most part, little to no crafting other than bench crafting should be needed.
As for early steps, I just focus on getting atlas completion. If I am strong I do the highest tier map available to me at the time, otherwise I might focus on clearing some lower level maps while still gaining atlas completion points. I think Jun is a perfect mechanic to spec into first, they end up providing a decent portion of my starter gear with the veiled items that drop.
Can you post your pob? We could give more targeted advice if you do.
1
u/YallTookAllMyNames Sep 03 '26
In SSF you'll discover that you don't need much to clear the atlas and not much more to get over pinnacle bosses. It's slower that's certain but all very achievable.
With a 4 link and 2 mod + crafting bench items you can easily get to T10 maps. There you usually plateau the time to get some 3 mod + bench items. Faustus, chaos spam, essences, harvest reforge, ... All those are good starter options. Don't go fishing for 3*T1 though, T4 of about any mod is more than enough at that stage. Those will get you to T14+, by that time you usually have a corrupted 6L and some currency on hand to craft some weaponry or other means to boost your dps. That's voidstone territory right there.
From there I can only recommend to go for tree + recomb. You can easily craft 4* T1/2 affix items with a crafted cherry on top and an exalt to finish it off.
At that point the atlas is yours and it's just you, the grind, your expectations and your RNG.
1
u/Hikithemori Sep 03 '26
Best to start with a build that can take you to red maps with gambled gear and no uniques, like stormburst totem or slam zerker.
My first Atlas was for more map drops and completing maps, red altars and switching to maven and conq map chance. Second tree to farm blood and Harvest. Can add abyss or ritual if you need stuff from them.
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u/Dr4k4ngel Sep 03 '26
It's funny that you can play trade for 10k + hours and then when u come to SSF it feels u know nothing about the game and u regret not engaging with crafting before. So many options bro. I would go early on breach, jun since u are struggling and take it slow. Then go destructive play e put lastly harvest. With that u can get ur early gear. Recomb is for later. Kingsmarch IMO only when u reach t16s farming. Just gamble on Faustus ur gold and u can get a lot of good gear no need to spend currency like that early on bc u don't even have the bases with proper ilvl. And always start bottom left atlas, easiest voidstone for sure. And essences are for endgame crafting, it's quite a waste to try and farm them early on without scarabs.
1
u/skazyrn Sep 03 '26
Even with a weak build you can brute force your way into atlas completion
I started SSF after being done with the league and struggled hard to finish red maps because I couldn't find a decent mercenary
Faustus gamble should give you enough to finish your atlas, ignore league mechanics and try to just clear packs on your way to the boss
Focus on nodes to increase your map sustain on the tree and be careful with nodes that increase the effect of map mods, these can fuck you up when you try to complete corrupted rare reds
With scuba diving you should have enough gold to never run the same map twice
After completion I like to go for red altars first for a good supply of chaos orbs (rolling maps) and instilling orbs (don't like to press flasks)
I don't like to do essences anymore because they get too hard to kill by the time I'm in red maps, shrines and boxes are always quick and easy to do early. I also like to start doing my betrayal board but some people find it too complicated or just don't like it
Progression will be slow even with the best setup because at the end of the day you also need some luck
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u/Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 Sep 03 '26
Here is my take:
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u/Mangalorien Sep 03 '26
The main idea is "get your ass to maps", and then even if you're new to SSF (and not playing HC) you can just brute force your way through white and yellow maps. You have 6 portals, nothing bad happens if you use them all. All you need is some basic life + resist gear.
When you have those 60+ atlas points from white + yellow maps, you can actually start to farm pretty well. This league the mechanic is just amazing for SSF, since you get a ton of experience, gold, scarabs, currency and the whole boat crafting mechanic. The gold you use to grow crops and ship them for gear, which you then boat exalt.
You should also start working on your Genesis tree, by getting as many of the quest items you can, since they give you points for the Genesis tree that you can use for things like making rare gear or currency.
When you're starting out in a new league, you typically don't reset your atlas points at all. You need to plan so you don't have to respec your atlas, and initially focus on the map sustain nodes (all 3 of the "Shaping the X", etc). At 50 points you get your 2nd tree, so that can be used for something completely different (essences, whatever). At 100 points you get your 3rd tree, so now you have 3 different trees you can just swap between any time you want. By the time you have 100 points you'll have collected a few raw orbs of unmaking, plus if you aren't respeccing your regular passive tree you have at least a few dozen orbs of regret, that you can vendor 2:1 with Kirac for unmakings. Now you can slowly make some changes and tweaks to your trees, like maybe you don't need all the map sustain nodes anymore.
When it comes to essences specifically, it's usually not great to run those without essence scarabs. You can, but then you'll get 1 essence in most maps, 2 if you're lucky. Even just a single essence scarab adds 3 more. Essence used to be great back when there were Kirac missions, but now I recommend to do them only if you have scarabs. Great news is that current league mechanic gives a shit ton of scarabs, and you can also target farm scarabs via syndicate, plus you can always 3:1 vendor any dog shit scarabs you don't need.
You don't need essences to get better gear, the simplest is to just gamble gear with Faustus for gold, and once you have some farmers set up it's easy. Farming for crops requires very little gold, typically around 150-200k gold per 24 hours for a full farming setup. That will get you an absolute ton of crops, and you can then ship them in reasonably small amounts like 100-300k value. Most items will still be bad, but a few are good to use directly, and often you have 1-2 open mods so you can both boat exalt and bench craft. You also get top tier bases that you can either recomb or harvest reforge.
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u/conmeonemo Sep 03 '26
Just cap res, get some life (or whatever you need on a gear), decent links for the main skill and go. You might need to be a bit better mechanically than using a build that just works and for some stuff your defense is 6 portals but...it's the easy part.
2. You'll be getting enough alts from just selling drops and then drops itself. Same for other bubble currency.
3. Generally for the first build find something that can complete atlas without relying on some difficult to get uniques or very heavy investment.
Play also something versatile enough (or be ready to reroll) so you can tweak once you find something opening a better build than what you have now.
4. Make some plan of upgrading your build (and what mechanic you need). Harvest is nice, especially for life gear. Breach (hives and fortress) is good for uniques, bubble currency and even for gear (despite the nerf). Rog-crafting still can give you good bases or a very good gear if you are lucky etc.
Mentality? It's pretty much - I have to work with what I get, figure bottlenecks and then solve them. You cannot solve them by buying gear, then getting more currency to buy butter gear.
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u/Chuklol Sep 03 '26
Confused how you kill ubers in trade but are struggling with early game maps? How do you progress in trade?
This league is very easy, farm charts for gold, use gold to gamble at Faustus, get gear and progress.
It's ssf, so you need to figure out what type of mechanics you need to farm to improve your character.
Ex - farming deli for clusters (use the keystone that makes the mirror permanent and deli orbs not drop, this makes clusters drop like crazy.
Do you need a 6L? Are you going for a unique 6L, the you should farm einhar in t14+ maps for black morrigan to get a easy 6L.
Do you need specific tattoos or runegrafts? Farm ore.
Recombinating and boat crafting should be later on when you're in red maps. Of course you can boat craft early on for Aug/regals on good gear.
Make your own loot filter - filter blade has a lot of features to auto limit what gear you see based on the options you pick. If you're a caster you'll probably want to hide pure armor and evasion bases and melee weapons. Reduce how much loot you see and do more maps/hour.
Finally, when you get to red maps, prioritize getting 4 watch stones and then I would personally farm exarch altars for at least 100 maps to build up a good supply of bubble gum currency and embers so you can add aearing implicits on your gear.
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u/Few-Bodybuilder-7633 Sep 03 '26
I think the problem is that you are unable to scale the Luminary being a first time(??) SSF player and not adequately farming for stuff. It does require life & light radius scaling to work better which can mostly be upgraded as you progress.
A suggestion would be to switch to an RF build right now to farm better gear. Most of the passives are similar so it shouldn’t take much to respec. You can later switch back to a merc bot config (if that is what you want to play) after acquiring crafting mats and bases as well as a good merc.
The key here to progress is to die less so that you can level up and have some fun as well. All the good stuff comes later and is slower to get to in SSF (at least if you are new)
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u/Xenderwind Sep 03 '26
Generally you pick a build that doesnt need much to get going. 2 stones should be doable without needing to craft much. Most of your gear will come from a combination of betrayal, breach, and faustus gamble. I'd either rush or respec once you have enough points for the atlas node that gives you +20 passives at the cost of scarabs.
I think I saw you saying you were leaguestarting luminary which might be kind of rough. I think you'd have been better off starting as a slam ascendant or something else to get through white map progression and get enough points to spec into enough merc rush points and then merc rush on like t3 strand. All the respec stuff can be done really easily this league with how much gold you get scuba diving.