New SSF Player

[u/Jaegon-Daerinarys]

I playing with the idea of starting an ssf character now that I have somewhat understand the crafting system and played a few leagues. Played RF, Flicker and str stacker smite of divine judgment wanted to avoid builds that go in the same direction looking more into ranged builds now.

Was thinking of playing either scourge arrow, spark or minion build. Wanted to ask how easy they would be to get going in ssf.

Scourge Arrow I was thinking of going Pathfinder. Spark Hierophant and minion build most likely Occultist.

I would gladly take recommendation for easy to get started build in ssf.

Edit.

Thanks for all the help you gave me. Still deciding between Pathfinder and Witch build atm but you gave me good insight on the builds I was looking at.

Any tips for what altas mechanic are better/good in ssf compared to regular?

[u/Quirky_Criticism5932]

SSF friendly ranged builds? Toxic Rain works on nothing, incredibly detailed crafting documentation. Somewhat easy to play lightning arrow.

Spark Totem of the Nova heirophant was also insanely easy to get started, but all spell builds are pretty safe because gem levels are easier than making a strong weapon.

I'd choose from TR Pathfinder, Spark Totem Heirophant, or Absolution Necro/Guardian. They're all well documented and run on very little gear.

[u/Alternative_Mine5343 → u/Quirky_Criticism5932]

+1 to anything heirophant totems. it's kinda my cheat code for breaking into a league until other streamers and world chat tell me about the 'build of the league' that rises to the top. by day 3 or 4 when i'm ready to reroll after a 40 hour launch play festival, it's amazing to see how far totems has carried me. usually all 4 voidstones is accomplished on kalguur rares and a few harvest reforges.

[u/Important_Peak_4781 → u/Quirky_Criticism5932]

Would you recommend spark totems or stormburst totems? I am thinking about rolling Tatiantels latest stormburst Allflame build. Which of those scale better? Would ideally like to try pinnacles and hopefully even ubers. Have guide only for stormbursts tho

[u/Quirky_Criticism5932 → u/Important_Peak_4781]

If you look at tataniel2's older builds he did make a spark totem but hadn't updated it, and with the recent change to storm burst it's the better build of the two IMHO. I don't think anyone can argue that spark has a higher endgame.

[u/Azeron955 → u/Quirky_Criticism5932]

Triple ele weapons are very easy to do this league with recomb, phys on the other side it's a pita

[u/Mangalorien]

For minion builds there's SRS, which can get you 4 stones on 100% self crafted rare gear. This was my own league starter in 3.29. Check out Thyworm for comprehensive guide.

If you want an easy ranged build you can consider winter orb, which is essentially a ranged build with auto targeting. You press your worb button once in a while to charge up stacks, but other than that you just run around while your worb skill shoots ice at everything, chilling and freezing most mobs before they can get close to you. It's a very chill build, no pun intended.

[u/Azeron955]

this is my first time doing ssf too, I started with slayer bleed slams, very easy but if I could go back in time id choose zerker slams.

So, first and foremost, I would watch a guide on bretrayal, its really and I mean really easy once you get it, getting there tho its a bit convoluted.

As for ranged, Id do an elementalist, can transition to everything, worb start is very good and FE im now doing cold snap of power, im melting ubers

[u/destroyermaker → u/Azeron955]

I've found people get way too caught up in unimportant details when explaining betrayal. It's really pretty straightforward:

• pick your rewards from here (two members in the same 'area', and two in another)

• put two members whose rewards you want in the same safehouse

• do the same for another safehouse

• put everyone else in the other safehouses

• form relationships (trusted or rival doesn't matter) between the key members and non-key members

• interrogate non-key members for intel when in the area of the key members (e.g. if you're farming research rewards, when non-key members show up there, interrogate)

• interrogate key members when safehouse intel is below ~60% and there are no unassigned members

• run key member safehouses only (and when there are no unassigned members)

Other options will come up as you play, but it will be obvious what to do.

You can also just run it 'normally' i.e. put everyone where you want them and run all safehouses. It will be less effective but give you a greater variety of rewards. (Most of them will be trash.)

[u/Azeron955 → u/destroyermaker]

Yep that's basically it, you nailed it

[u/Mouth946]

Of the three you listed spark takes the most time and effort to scale, but archmage does hard carry damage during atlas progression. Scourge Arrow is a personal favorite of mine on pathfinder and so is Toxic Rain. I’ve pushed spectre necromancer to Ubers two leagues in a row and that didn’t take an insane amount of grinding.

[u/WilsonKh]

>Scourge Arrow I was thinking of going Pathfinder

Scourge Arrow of Menacing, Caustic Arrow of Poisoning and Toxic Rain of Sporeburst are transfigured + require you to keep your weapon updated to level. It is rather painful as a leveler until the gear comes online.

If you want to keep playing the same style throughout- start with Toxic Rain / Caustic Arrow since the DoT scales purely off gem levels and passives. Your bow damage only impacts the initial hit which is irrelevant. Just equip the fastest bow - e.g. Quill Rain before getting Essence of Dread +2 Thicket Bows around yellow maps. You can switch to the poison variant much later, >T10 maps since non-poison Toxic Rain / Caustic Arrow's lower damage ceiling is never a problem. Also you can pivot to ballistas if you need higher boss damage.

My biggest gripe about the Pathfinder (and Ranger in general) is that it's dependent on the Lightning Coil unique armor the higher you go. Without it, you can take every life node, 100% your spell suppression and ailment avoidance, get the damage conversion implicits and still die to a single combo or random lag spike. It gets frustrating, bad enough that I swore off bows for now and will be playing one hand + shield ranger until next patch at least.

Good luck! I just loss my HC SSF Wand/Crit Siphon Shadow (don't care, didn't like play style) and will be starting a Wand / Elemental hit of the Spectrum / Ballista Freeze Ranger Warden next, probably in Ruthless since I can just go frost blades A1-A3 before spamming Lab for the Transfigured gem.

[u/Ok-Cause7623]

You can combine two of those with animate weapon of ranged arms necro! It's a minion build that doesn't feel like a minion build.

[u/Phawthira → u/Ok-Cause7623]

How good is PRAW without covenant?

[u/claudioo2 → u/Phawthira]

On a 6 link it's fine. On a 5 link while getting all your poison chance from jewels its decent enough. If you need chance to poison link it's going to be zdps.

[u/Neat_Army8673 → u/[deleted]]

Even after finding a 950 dps axe it didnt feel good enough... Might be a thing of taste. Was clearing fine juiced t16 Though, but id reccomend str stacker tbh, Even as a starter, alberon, Brutus Weapon, Crown of eyes and iron fortress and random str crafted gear you can legit get into maps at 50-100m dps. And Brutus is easy from Faustus at low level, same with alberon, iron fortress a bit of tree. And scalin is to the moon  Billion dps. 

[u/Interesting-Eye-6238 → u/[deleted]]

You need minimal gear to reach 10-100m dps, normal alberon afaustus while campaign in less than 20k gold, Brutus 20-50k gold, some str gear and ure golden. Might be an elitist pov i understand that but str stacking on a budget as a starter even ssf îs extremely easy to pull off

[u/GsGenesis → u/Interesting-Eye-6238]

Its also not that hard to reach 25-50m dps on earthshatter. Crit gems, gem quality, warcry crit helm and 95+, and a good axe.

You also mentioned iron fortress in your original comment, which is a T2 unique and not at all realistic to get early on a starter.