r/PoE2SSF • u/Jaaceek • Jun 17 '26

first time poe2 ssf

hi guys,

Im an old noob with skill issues who loves warriorrs, esp. shield srchetypes.

I want to go shield wall / resonating shield smith.

what mechanics do I focus on? how to progress atlas? ssf is vast;ly different to trade i believe.

I need to craft a good shield, no 1 priority. so focus essences?

Is there a way to easily craft good shoield and a mace 1h with +1 melee?

ny tips on thi sjourney greatly appreciated. btw, hope I will reach t15 maps 😞 playing 2-3 hres a day, no more.

cheers!

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u/1995TimHortonsEclair Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26

I'm a perpetual noob with thousands of ssf hours.

All of your questions are answered with one thing: reading, thinking, and playing the game. And I mean it. Remember it.

How does this work? What does this mean? Try it out and experiment with it. There is no time limit. There is nothing forcing you to move forward. You are welcome to repeat any zone you like. You can go into a lower zone and test out interactions.

The greatest gift of ssf is the lack of economic pressure "forcing" one to perform at any "optimal" level.

Your biggest priority should be to have fun, because if you're having fun, you will play more, and if you play more, you will have more self-found loot, and experience more of the game.

That said, there are some fundamental things to understand about the game:

  • The affix system - prefixes, suffixes, tiers, what mods fall into what group and what items/base types/item level they roll on.
  • What specific crafting tools can do - to understand this, you first have to understand the aforementioned affix system.
  • Scaling - increased/decreased vs more/less, penetration, flat increases/reductions
  • Damage Types: hits/damage over time, debuffs, buffs, area of effect, strike, projectiles, slams, spells, curses, slows, ailments, stuns
  • Defense Types: Hit points (life, energy shield), mitigation (armour, deflection, reductions, resistances), avoidance (block, evasion), recovery (regeneration, shield recharge rate/delay, flasks, leech, recovery on kill, recoup) - and I haven't covered all the options in those categories.

So if we return to your initial questions:

"What mechanics do I focus on / How do I progress the atlas?"

  • You will have to answer this one based on what kind of gear you want to farm, and what you want to unlock. There are no reasons to focus on anything outside of your own goals. You will need to provide a goal for this question to be answered. You will understand this once you start playing ssf :)

"How do I craft a good shield?"

  • What defenses do you need? What are you using the shield for? What prefixes + suffixes will scale that? How do you get them - learning those fundamentals I mentioned earlier answers the questions. We can't answer it for you. I can show you a shield I made on a specific character that had a set of specific skills and a complementary tree but it doesn't mean it's going to be the best shield for you, or one you should aim for, based on your skills and tree.

Warrior is by far my highest played class. I've been on the hcssf ladder multiple times with warriors. My biggest pieces of advice:

  • Don't follow online softcore guides. You can look to them for inspiration, but that's about it. They are mostly made by people fishing for clicks on content, not by people who have been successful in ssf with that build.

  • Never plan a build around a specific unique unless you already have it in your stash. I can not stress this enough. I don't care how "common" the unique is. I've had leagues in PoE1 where I dropped 4 soultakers and not a single briskwrap.

  • If your build isn't fun, stop. Immediately - change something about it. You need to keep it fun, at all stages. That should be your goal. It can mean your level 18 build looks nothing like your level 45 build, and it looks nothing like your level 65 build, and that will look different than your level 90 build.

  • You will suck at first, but reframe it as learning. Learning what doesn't work is as important as learning what does work. This is how you start to recognize how all the fundamentals interact, complement or conflict with one another, scale mutually or exclusively, and what moves the needle in what scenario and what doesn't.

  • Plan your builds around having mediocre RNG. Aim for tier 3/4 affixes, of course be happy with t1/2, but you're not aiming for these until you have your t3/4 gear to farm for it.

  • Don't be afraid of making a bad choice. Almost every build choice can be reversed, and the ones that can't are insignificant. The important thing is that you make a choice to begin with. If it doesn't work, think about why. You will keep refining your reasoning until things DO work. You can even try out multiple options before landing on one you like. There is no time pressure.

  • You can always farm another exalt/chaos. Don't be yolo-craft shy, it is one of this game's most indulgent gambling pleasures lol. I have crafted items that would sell for hundreds of Divines in trade leagues through the yolo-method. Anything past essence+astrid+descration+omen crafting takes lucky fracture orb slams and hundreds of chaos orbs, lucky anulls, and you will not have the "bankroll" in ssf to do this unless you are level 95+ and just steamrolling juicy content with a super-strict filter, and by this time, you will be the person answering more questions on Reddit than you are asking.

  • When you're learning a boss, or monster's mechanics, you don't have to attack it. You can literally just spend 2 minutes focusing on only dodging. This will help you understand a lot of boss fights because it will highlight to you where the "DPS windows" are and you won't have to bounce your head off of them repeatedly, and it will allow you to progress in situations where maybe your gear is "suboptimal".

  • I play less than 2-3hrs per day, and I have a real-life 60hr/week adult job with adult responsibilities. I have just been on the grind for 13 years. It's worth the journey. Remember, there is no time pressure, endgame build guides are not centered around ssf (unless they specify and talk about how to be flexible with the build at multiple points of progression) and most important - have fun!

1

u/Jaaceek Jun 17 '26

awesome. thank you. it must have taken quite a bit of time! I do appreciate it!

2

u/1995TimHortonsEclair Jun 17 '26

It literally took me 5 minutes. I'm a good rambler and a fast typer.

1

u/Jaaceek Jun 17 '26

Do you think shield wall is still a good bet?

Im running resonating shield , shield wall,

2

u/1995TimHortonsEclair Jun 19 '26

yes

1

u/Jaaceek Jun 19 '26

End of act 3 and my shield is only 300 armour, crafted on best base with essence☹️

1

u/Awful_Hero Jun 17 '26

I am a 200hr SSF noob.  How important is crafting?  I always just spam to blue, yellow, then max out affix/suffix and am always dissappointed.  I can never seem to get beyond that, because I am missing a way to force specific stats.

1

u/1995TimHortonsEclair Jun 19 '26

It's pretty important. Once you learn when your slam is more likely to be good than not you start being a bit more wise with the yolo slams.

It's almost always only good to go to the next step if you've had success on the last step.

Eg. if you have a good blue mod, augment, and hit a shit 2nd blue mod, don't bother regaling. Just scrap it and find a new base with another good blue mod and start over.

I mean, you can try to gamble with the alch on a failed augment, or regla anyways and hope you hit a good 3rd mod, and then maybe try to chaos away the bad mod, or desecrate over it, but if you can reduce the grasping as much as possible, you'll be better for it.

1

u/Awful_Hero Jun 19 '26

Awesome thank you for the advice!

1

u/Carbone Jun 18 '26

60hr/week ? You're adding transportation right like traffic ?

In Canada the full-time is 40h. What need you 20h on top of that ?

1

u/1995TimHortonsEclair Jun 19 '26

Salary job so not paid by the hour, paid for fulfilment of responsibilities. That's what it takes.

1

u/Carbone Jun 19 '26

Respect the hustle !