Yeah. I didn’t used to, but now that I generally want to play past mid merciless or so, having at least a basic idea of what I want to play before rolling a new character is the way to go.
POE gives you way more than enough rope to hang yourself with, that’s for sure.
The way I play each league is generally to plan a fairly easy starter character, gear independent, and then have a general idea of what I’d like to do depending on what good items I find. So I sort of make general plans, but also let RNG determine what I end up playing.
I think I actually enjoy planning builds more than playing them though; at least half the fun of this game for me is planning the builds at the start of league and seeing how they pan out.
In a new league I usually pick a so-called ‘starter’ build that uses a skill I haven’t used before - GGG typically has a few patches that change the relative strength of different skills before a league launches so I’ll often try something that’s been buffed. Whatever the build is, I only pick ones that don’t require a lot of expensive gear to make it work. I’m not against a ‘flavor of the month’ build so long as it doesn’t require special gear to work.
I don’t know if I’ve ever run across a drop and said “wow, I could build an X build that uses that.” Maybe my imagination is lacking.
PoE is a game in which the “on the fly” approach works fine through Normal difficulty, but is extremely difficult afterward. Considering how much time it takes to level up characters to the point where you can see if your idea works, most players aren’t going to want to try something new, making build guides a must.
This is one reason I don’t play the game more. I’ll try one or two builds in a new league, then get tired of following recipes. Any time I think about getting creative, the impulse is quickly quashed by the thought of getting murdered in Merciless after sinking hours into planning and leveling.
I guess that is why I haven’t had an issue with building on the fly. I haven’t played a character to merciless level yet, so I haven’t noticed an issue with the game getting too hard for my build. My current league character is level 21 and I was hoping to get more towards the end game with this character. Maybe it’s not too late to look up a build and try to focus on something.
It’s not that you can’t homebrew builds, but yeah, planning it out is almost required to advance much past cruel. A large set of game changing gems become available at 38, and whole new mechanics open up.
The good news is that playing by the seat of your pants through normal is fun in and of itself, especially when you’re exploring the game itself and learning how everything fits together. So don’t let us crusty old farts ruin that for you if that’s what your enjoying ;)
So I’m curious how others approach gearing for non-SSF characters.
I find myself generally following a similar pattern for most characters:
That sounds pretty close to what I do for non-SSF, except that assuming I have a little, I’ll spend it every 10 levels or so on leveling uniques.
For example, in SSF I found a Geofri’s Baptism and 4-linked it. At level 27 when I switched to it, my dps went from around 700 to 2500. That is absolutely worth the 1 chaos it would cost me to buy it and use for 10-15 levels until I buy another leveling unique as it’ll shave an hour or two off the time it takes to go from say, levels 27 to 40.
Haha these guys with 3c to throw around in cruel. I use whatever I can get my hands on (I horde 4Ls) with essences thrown on them.
Really? I haven’t had any crazy luck this league. 5 chaos plus 20-ish alch (and maybe 100-150 chromatic/alteration) is pretty average for me in found currency and maybe a couple item sales by the end of Cruel.
I think I’ve gotten 2c + 3a in item sales this league. The 2c was a nice 17% Ethereal Knives that dropped for me, and I’ve moved a couple rando 4L pieces for an alch apiece. That’s entirely typical for me at this point in a league.
FYI in case folks are interested in this sort of thing, stash tabs of all kinds are on sale this weekend (happens regularly, but it is the One Microtransaction To Rule Them All).
I finally got around to trying out that fully linked stone. I also had saved up a few uses of a stone that guaranteed a radiant tempest which grants lots of item rarity. All told, I got about 200 fully linked items, about 100 rare, with 1 of them being a 5 link.
Ah well, my dreams of discovering a 6-link someday live on. At least I have another lowish level 5 link for leveling new builds with. I already had a low level int base 5-link, now I have a dex base so that’ll cover most characters. Which is good because I knocked out about 5 more build ideas today; I’ll need to find a way to clone myself to try them all.
Edit to say: I thought I needed someone to buy gems but I don’t! Move along here.
Siosa in Library sells all skill gems now.
woah, that’s that the Wiki means! I kept seeing references on the Wiki pages to all sorts of skill gems being available for my class but I could never find them at Clarissa. Thanks for that info!
It’s all regularly available gems right? Or is it possible to get the drop only gems like added chaos/enlighten etc, maybe after doing uber lab or merciless malachai? I haven’t bothered with either of those yet, but I could really use an enlighten.
I just learned about the Siosa thing the other day, too. Far as I can tell it’s all the gems that any other vendor will sell you. So none of the drop-only stuff, and if you’re in Normal and haven’t done all the quests yet, the selection is limited. Minor nitpick - since he’s not in a town zone, you have to actually be carrying the currency. No buying with an orb from your stash.
The good news is that I got my 5L Carcass Jack. (Thanks, Navali!)
The bad news is I might have to buy an armor transmog so I can stand looking at my Inquisitor.
Just vendor gems.
Ah well, one of the bigger weaknesses of the SSF mode I guess, at least for temp leagues. It takes me something like a month to level an enlighten even with quality and the haku trick so if it doesn’t drop in the first couple weeks it’s useless.
The other would be the inability to get exalted orbs; having a vendor sell exalts for 40c or something like that would make my day. As it stands, I’ve found exactly one and I’ll need to just sit on it until I’ve found a proper piece of gear that I’m sure will never be replaced before league end. Non-SSF and that exalt would buy me all the gear I need for an entire build other than the real top tier builds. I actually prefer it this way, that decision of when to use it and what on is far more interesting than going shopping with it.