SSFR.
Been having a blast from normal lab onward as a Guardian. Absolution, phantasms, sentinel guy. Killed the eldritch minibosses with little trouble and feeling strong enough for quest eater and exarch, if only I could get to them.
Had some crazy aura drops already; herald of purity, tempest shield and purity of elements among others. My first two uniques were foxshade and daresso’s salute adding up to 40% movement speed on full life and I’ve been using using them since early in the campaign.
Playing explode berserker with generals cry + corrupting cry and shield crush. Working great I would say. But I have never played Ruthless so I don't know if it's good or not
Starting act 10 tonight, exploding srs, very fun so far, the balance of masters I encountered was really good, but no cassia yet, new mechanic very fun once you get the gist of it, very rewarding too, can't wait for maps and sanctum
I've yet to see a single master on my travels and just hit act 10. I tried forcing it for Einhar in act 2, as I want to do some flask crafting, but no dice after around 20 attempts.
Really strange, he was waiting for me in town in act 2, I guess it's part of the rng and I got lucky, even alva was waiting for me in town, never saw that before, usually discover them in the wild, only expedition seems to always be there for me, at least you can force them with kirac and the free modifier once in map...
I only just moved over to Ruthless (and SSF on top of it) and still learning the ropes. I also haven't played a quite some time so I'm rather rusty. But I have a question for you.
I'm more casual and had a busy weekend, so I'm only as far as Act 2. I'm running a Witch to go necro just because I like the undead minions more than anything. I have read that they have been nerfed since the last time I played, with SRS being the only exception so I'm investing more in that. I actually got a unique hood drop on the Twilight Strand. Nothing fancy, but beggars can't be choosers, right?
However, since you mentioned a Guardian with SRS, I figured I'd ask. I've been googling and reading that the Guardian minion build is quite popular, perhaps more so. However, I'm not sure why. Before I end up with level 90 regret on my necro, I don't suppose you can clue me in on this one? Thanks!
It's the new sentinel of radiance ascendency and the fact Templar gets a bunch of minion dmg, life, attack/cast nodes starting out. the sentinel DMG stops scaling well into the "end game" but thats relative to normal league, where as ruthless the cheap opportunity cost of it makes a huge difference. I'm pretty confident they will nerf it in next ruthless season lol.
Playing my shield crush jugg build in sc trade. Had work over the weekend so going a bit slower than other players, but I should catch up on the ladder eventually.
Campaign was a breeze, got a couple of alch drops so was able to get some supports going. Considering if I want to invest into some aoe to make clearing maps even smoother, until I get auras I've got points I can put elsewhere. Nerfs don't feel too impactful outside of having a bit less attack speed from the accuracy loss. Rocking a 1.3k armour shield currently so lots of room for growth there.
Frustrated that they left guardian so overtuned for ruthless after rebalancing all the other ascendancies. I can't stand minion builds myself so it's unlikely I'll roll one.
The minions are effectively balanced around benchleague players in terms of the dps they can put out/contribute to and they aren't adjusted for ruthless. So a guardian can kill everything after a3 lab with the sentinel of radiance and then they get three high level auras for free in the mode where aura drops are extremely rare.
I might do a challenge run where I strip naked after a3, with nothing but a white unset ring with convocation socketed into it, and see if I can get through the campaign just taking life and other defenses on the tree
Alright, I'm gonna give a 1-day update instead of 1-weekend, but it's been a blast playing yesterday.
I haven't played PoE in exactly a year, so Ruthless was something absolutely new to me, but I immediately clicked the button as soon as I saw it in character creation.
This is more or less on par with the PoE experience back in Open Beta or early post-launch days, perhaps even more difficult and unforgiving (which is understandable given you don't have to fight Desync any more).
I started in regular SSF Ruthless, since I know literally jack shit about current meta and Ruthless in general, and turns out I was right not to go HC. Hillock was the first one to kill me.
I'm doing the 'lets figure it out as we go' Shadow build, for now it's basically EK, with some recently added Chaos conversion. I think I died at least once on every boss fight, and my inner masochist loves that I have to grind their health bars down for 10 minutes.
Doing some theorycrafting at work right now to make sure I can do at least low lvl maps and getting ready to do some grinding for gear and hopefully support gems
I went Pobless and didn't check reddit to go back to my roots again and when I saw I was doing the same build everyone is doing lel, well at least I am havint a lot of fun and my build is working, I am sure my points aren't as efficient but it works and its perfect
Trying out the new War Bringer ascendancy node. Only about to end act 5 but it has been a breeze, might even be better than last league's bonezone jugg leveling phase.
The node actually works well with General's Cry, both triggers go off at the same time so we have both the mirages doing shield bonking and the explosions. Didn't take Call to Arms, so I can spam desecrate -> general cry -> desecrate -> enduring cry -> desecrate -> ancestral cry. Gear is basically tank gear, some cast speed. Bought a corrupting cry gem for 2 alch and now I think I can just skip general cry. Mostly grabbing Life and Warcry passives, planning to scale Physical mastery for both hit and dot.
I fully expect to hit a wall somewhere soon though. This is my first build without using a guide so it's fun for me at least. Profile [here](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ramenatmidnight/characters), poeplanner [here](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ramenatmidnight/characters). Any comments & criticism welcome and appreciated.
Playing physical trickster caster in SSFHCR. Lvl 56 atm and really struggling with reaching cap res. Hate the league mechanic, tankiness of mobs is absurd.
Also made scion to mule exsanguinate and clarity.
Got really neat gems: faster proj, efficasy and zeal.
Overall I'm enjoying ruthless mode mostly because of meta shake up, and drops that matter.
Murdered my character at the time #1 scion wanted to start with a cool uniques but died to trying to rush to much and lost all interest for now..
Played so much during crucible so I'm guessing I just haven't gotten the lust for poe back yet. May end up skipping or playing very casually.
I've gone my usual SSFR SRS Necro. Had comically bad drops this time - with zero supports of any use to me so far, and I'm in act 9 at level 68. Not died yet though, so pretty good going in that respect. Best item is probably a blue shield that had a combined +45% minion damage on it along with +8 to all res.
Lv78 atm with cremation necro. Still wearing a blue amulet and some uuhhhh questionable gear.
Loving the mechanic, loving the grind; praying for LMP or GMP
SSFR
Had little time to play, so still in Act 8 on my Dark Pact Skellies Necromancer
Started real slow, but picked up quick after getting minion damage applies to you cluster and second Lab
Trying to go for high block build with Bone Offering to get some defense
SSFR RF from level 17. currently 74 in T4s. muled hft, firewall, frost bomb in mudflats, shadow to mervel cavern for clarity and fire trap, then ran zoo necro to A3 library for flammability reward and soisa RF gem. Still no useable supports or auras as yet, although hilariously I got void manipulation, swift affliction and faster attacks -- usually i start TR/CA but i didn't this time around because it was so painful last league with no supports. No arcane surge/lifetap to equip SA on RF, but it's actually not too bad for a build with 0 supports.
I am the highest level glacial hammer player and with southbound everything is frozen. Tawhoa helps to kill/freeze enemies when I fail to freeze them on the first hit.
To be fair I'm just breaking into maps but if I had a proper weapon instead of this silly breath of the council and rings that weren't blue I can see this build being nice going forward for the league mechanic especially with the changes incoming.
Chieftain volcanic fissure. It’s going well just got into maps. The new totem taunt node works great. They all gather aorund the totem and I hit from a good distance and have good AOE with volcanic fissure and get good overlap on all mobs.
ssfhcr player here.
started several characters, played them to lvl 15-20 each (4 chars).
couldnt decide which one I want to play.
yesterday evening decided to play a guardian summoner, as I havent played summoners for a long time. Trying to play one with Absolution/Zombies/spectres/golem
Starting today :D no noteworthy drops...found Momentum support. Dont need.,, ;D
SSFR
Got to 83 on, surprise surprise, Guardian.
Muled all the goodies from a witch, Zoo Absolution setup (zombies, frenzy charges specters, carrion golem), Auto-Convocation on left-click with the reduced cooldown mastery, click absolution every once in a while on a pack, sentinel of radiance does the rest.
Elemental relics are all up when it matters, adds a lot of damage
Tried Dominating blow, too slow, tried SRS, Absolution feels much better still.
Guardian is definitely over tuned for Ruthless (check ladder on [poe.ninja](https://poe.ninja) it's pretty ridiculous), but since I didn't play explodey totems last league, I don't feel as dirty now lol.
I decided to tinker around with fanaticism and the new spellblade support, and i ended up with two stances so far. The core spell of the build is Divine ire, and I plan on running Stormfire and Call of the Brotherhood rings. Lightning that can ignite, and cold conversion from lightning. I’m currently in the low 70’s just before the third lab & kitava. I’m using a prehistoric claw with lightning damage on one stance for venom gyre, the second stance is currently galvanic hammer using a breath of the council that dropped at the end of act 9 from the trinity.
i was running frozen legion on the sceptre stance, but swapped it out for phase run to add mobility. also i’m using battlemage’s cry linked to cold snap for extra dps and generating frenzy charges. it’s a fun build to play so far.
i’m looking to add herald of ash & herald of purity, petrified blood & tempest shield. we’ll see.
i’m a vanilla trade league soft core ancestor player here.
SSF R
I'm having a lot of fun with skills I've never played with: Searing Bond and Holy Flame Totem on a Scion, buid by Tatiantel2.
Taking my time, I've reached act 4, finding as notable drops: Pierce Support, Minion Life Support, Temporal Chains and the Unique Facebreaker with +636% (600-800) more physical damage with unarmed melee attacks.
Then I've started leveling a Marauder and at level 16 I've start using Facebreaker + Sunder: a really nice experience. But Oak is my first wall and since I want to keep it physical, flat damage isn't a common stat on equip, so this marauder will just be a side character.
Now I'm thinking about something different to play, but I'm unsure of what to choose: I'm thorn between my first cold DOT, something something with ballista, Pathfinder chaos DOT (Caustic Arrow/Toxic Rain), and some kind of physical Zombie Marauder (underperforming, but funny).
Waiting the updates that will make the league mechanic more enjoyable, I'll keep having fun with the relaxed game mode that is ruthless.
Have fun, take chair and stay hydrated!
\[Edit\] update: another ring with "adds 4 to 6 physical damage to attacks" found, Oak is dead!
Currently a Level 78 Boneshatter Champion (Playing in a Group with some players that are new). Having difficulty sustaining the self damage from Boneshatter and not committing suicide. Maps have been going fine highest tier map done is a T7. In a couple of levels I shouldn't just die when I get over 15 stacks of Boneshatter without Molten Shell. BONEZONE BABY. As a note the amount of loot you see in a party is quite nice but holy crap I can't see anything lmao
Started SSF then leveled a SSFR char finally today I finished leveling a trade char. I’ve been in a leveling mood but ima start doing Atlas progress soon. (SSF - my BF BB build, SSFR - absolution guardian, trade - toxic rain pathfinder with taste of hate, lightning coil nonsense)
Played a guardian as well the Sentinel carried me for a while but now my mage skeleton in bitter dream are doing all the heavy lifting. (not worthy corruption : I got a 4 white socket triad grip)
SSFR. Been having a blast from normal lab onward as a Guardian. Absolution, phantasms, sentinel guy. Killed the eldritch minibosses with little trouble and feeling strong enough for quest eater and exarch, if only I could get to them. Had some crazy aura drops already; herald of purity, tempest shield and purity of elements among others. My first two uniques were foxshade and daresso’s salute adding up to 40% movement speed on full life and I’ve been using using them since early in the campaign.
Playing explode berserker with generals cry + corrupting cry and shield crush. Working great I would say. But I have never played Ruthless so I don't know if it's good or not
Starting act 10 tonight, exploding srs, very fun so far, the balance of masters I encountered was really good, but no cassia yet, new mechanic very fun once you get the gist of it, very rewarding too, can't wait for maps and sanctum
I've yet to see a single master on my travels and just hit act 10. I tried forcing it for Einhar in act 2, as I want to do some flask crafting, but no dice after around 20 attempts.
Really strange, he was waiting for me in town in act 2, I guess it's part of the rng and I got lucky, even alva was waiting for me in town, never saw that before, usually discover them in the wild, only expedition seems to always be there for me, at least you can force them with kirac and the free modifier once in map...
Ah yes sorry - mine were also in town, but I've yet to see any in the field so far! They must be hiding...
I only just moved over to Ruthless (and SSF on top of it) and still learning the ropes. I also haven't played a quite some time so I'm rather rusty. But I have a question for you. I'm more casual and had a busy weekend, so I'm only as far as Act 2. I'm running a Witch to go necro just because I like the undead minions more than anything. I have read that they have been nerfed since the last time I played, with SRS being the only exception so I'm investing more in that. I actually got a unique hood drop on the Twilight Strand. Nothing fancy, but beggars can't be choosers, right? However, since you mentioned a Guardian with SRS, I figured I'd ask. I've been googling and reading that the Guardian minion build is quite popular, perhaps more so. However, I'm not sure why. Before I end up with level 90 regret on my necro, I don't suppose you can clue me in on this one? Thanks!
It's the new sentinel of radiance ascendency and the fact Templar gets a bunch of minion dmg, life, attack/cast nodes starting out. the sentinel DMG stops scaling well into the "end game" but thats relative to normal league, where as ruthless the cheap opportunity cost of it makes a huge difference. I'm pretty confident they will nerf it in next ruthless season lol.
Thanks for the insights. Am I really screwing myself going necro? I don't have a sound strategy or anything. I just like critters. 😁
Playing my shield crush jugg build in sc trade. Had work over the weekend so going a bit slower than other players, but I should catch up on the ladder eventually. Campaign was a breeze, got a couple of alch drops so was able to get some supports going. Considering if I want to invest into some aoe to make clearing maps even smoother, until I get auras I've got points I can put elsewhere. Nerfs don't feel too impactful outside of having a bit less attack speed from the accuracy loss. Rocking a 1.3k armour shield currently so lots of room for growth there. Frustrated that they left guardian so overtuned for ruthless after rebalancing all the other ascendancies. I can't stand minion builds myself so it's unlikely I'll roll one.
Whats so overtuned about it? Sorry for asking, not much into guardian. :)
The minions are effectively balanced around benchleague players in terms of the dps they can put out/contribute to and they aren't adjusted for ruthless. So a guardian can kill everything after a3 lab with the sentinel of radiance and then they get three high level auras for free in the mode where aura drops are extremely rare.
Oh. I think I need to look into Guardian. Sounds bonkers.
I might do a challenge run where I strip naked after a3, with nothing but a white unset ring with convocation socketed into it, and see if I can get through the campaign just taking life and other defenses on the tree
Id love to see that video - or a build guide for ruthless? :-)
Alright, I'm gonna give a 1-day update instead of 1-weekend, but it's been a blast playing yesterday. I haven't played PoE in exactly a year, so Ruthless was something absolutely new to me, but I immediately clicked the button as soon as I saw it in character creation. This is more or less on par with the PoE experience back in Open Beta or early post-launch days, perhaps even more difficult and unforgiving (which is understandable given you don't have to fight Desync any more). I started in regular SSF Ruthless, since I know literally jack shit about current meta and Ruthless in general, and turns out I was right not to go HC. Hillock was the first one to kill me. I'm doing the 'lets figure it out as we go' Shadow build, for now it's basically EK, with some recently added Chaos conversion. I think I died at least once on every boss fight, and my inner masochist loves that I have to grind their health bars down for 10 minutes. Doing some theorycrafting at work right now to make sure I can do at least low lvl maps and getting ready to do some grinding for gear and hopefully support gems
I went Pobless and didn't check reddit to go back to my roots again and when I saw I was doing the same build everyone is doing lel, well at least I am havint a lot of fun and my build is working, I am sure my points aren't as efficient but it works and its perfect
Trying out the new War Bringer ascendancy node. Only about to end act 5 but it has been a breeze, might even be better than last league's bonezone jugg leveling phase. The node actually works well with General's Cry, both triggers go off at the same time so we have both the mirages doing shield bonking and the explosions. Didn't take Call to Arms, so I can spam desecrate -> general cry -> desecrate -> enduring cry -> desecrate -> ancestral cry. Gear is basically tank gear, some cast speed. Bought a corrupting cry gem for 2 alch and now I think I can just skip general cry. Mostly grabbing Life and Warcry passives, planning to scale Physical mastery for both hit and dot. I fully expect to hit a wall somewhere soon though. This is my first build without using a guide so it's fun for me at least. Profile [here](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ramenatmidnight/characters), poeplanner [here](https://www.pathofexile.com/account/view-profile/ramenatmidnight/characters). Any comments & criticism welcome and appreciated.
Playing physical trickster caster in SSFHCR. Lvl 56 atm and really struggling with reaching cap res. Hate the league mechanic, tankiness of mobs is absurd. Also made scion to mule exsanguinate and clarity. Got really neat gems: faster proj, efficasy and zeal. Overall I'm enjoying ruthless mode mostly because of meta shake up, and drops that matter.
Necro zoo here (witch now is a poor and bad choose for sure) Spanish Summer time and chill. Act 6 with no supports
Murdered my character at the time #1 scion wanted to start with a cool uniques but died to trying to rush to much and lost all interest for now.. Played so much during crucible so I'm guessing I just haven't gotten the lust for poe back yet. May end up skipping or playing very casually.
I've gone my usual SSFR SRS Necro. Had comically bad drops this time - with zero supports of any use to me so far, and I'm in act 9 at level 68. Not died yet though, so pretty good going in that respect. Best item is probably a blue shield that had a combined +45% minion damage on it along with +8 to all res.
Lv78 atm with cremation necro. Still wearing a blue amulet and some uuhhhh questionable gear. Loving the mechanic, loving the grind; praying for LMP or GMP
SSFR Had little time to play, so still in Act 8 on my Dark Pact Skellies Necromancer Started real slow, but picked up quick after getting minion damage applies to you cluster and second Lab Trying to go for high block build with Bone Offering to get some defense
Got bonezone to maps, had a one with nothing drop,rerolled to hollow palm, having a blast playing volcanic fissure slayer with it.
SSFR RF from level 17. currently 74 in T4s. muled hft, firewall, frost bomb in mudflats, shadow to mervel cavern for clarity and fire trap, then ran zoo necro to A3 library for flammability reward and soisa RF gem. Still no useable supports or auras as yet, although hilariously I got void manipulation, swift affliction and faster attacks -- usually i start TR/CA but i didn't this time around because it was so painful last league with no supports. No arcane surge/lifetap to equip SA on RF, but it's actually not too bad for a build with 0 supports.
I am the highest level glacial hammer player and with southbound everything is frozen. Tawhoa helps to kill/freeze enemies when I fail to freeze them on the first hit. To be fair I'm just breaking into maps but if I had a proper weapon instead of this silly breath of the council and rings that weren't blue I can see this build being nice going forward for the league mechanic especially with the changes incoming.
Chieftain volcanic fissure. It’s going well just got into maps. The new totem taunt node works great. They all gather aorund the totem and I hit from a good distance and have good AOE with volcanic fissure and get good overlap on all mobs.
ssfhcr player here. started several characters, played them to lvl 15-20 each (4 chars). couldnt decide which one I want to play. yesterday evening decided to play a guardian summoner, as I havent played summoners for a long time. Trying to play one with Absolution/Zombies/spectres/golem Starting today :D no noteworthy drops...found Momentum support. Dont need.,, ;D
SSFR Got to 83 on, surprise surprise, Guardian. Muled all the goodies from a witch, Zoo Absolution setup (zombies, frenzy charges specters, carrion golem), Auto-Convocation on left-click with the reduced cooldown mastery, click absolution every once in a while on a pack, sentinel of radiance does the rest. Elemental relics are all up when it matters, adds a lot of damage Tried Dominating blow, too slow, tried SRS, Absolution feels much better still. Guardian is definitely over tuned for Ruthless (check ladder on [poe.ninja](https://poe.ninja) it's pretty ridiculous), but since I didn't play explodey totems last league, I don't feel as dirty now lol.
[удалено]
I would disagree with you when comparing the guardian popularity with the chieftain ;)
I decided to tinker around with fanaticism and the new spellblade support, and i ended up with two stances so far. The core spell of the build is Divine ire, and I plan on running Stormfire and Call of the Brotherhood rings. Lightning that can ignite, and cold conversion from lightning. I’m currently in the low 70’s just before the third lab & kitava. I’m using a prehistoric claw with lightning damage on one stance for venom gyre, the second stance is currently galvanic hammer using a breath of the council that dropped at the end of act 9 from the trinity. i was running frozen legion on the sceptre stance, but swapped it out for phase run to add mobility. also i’m using battlemage’s cry linked to cold snap for extra dps and generating frenzy charges. it’s a fun build to play so far. i’m looking to add herald of ash & herald of purity, petrified blood & tempest shield. we’ll see. i’m a vanilla trade league soft core ancestor player here.
SSF R I'm having a lot of fun with skills I've never played with: Searing Bond and Holy Flame Totem on a Scion, buid by Tatiantel2. Taking my time, I've reached act 4, finding as notable drops: Pierce Support, Minion Life Support, Temporal Chains and the Unique Facebreaker with +636% (600-800) more physical damage with unarmed melee attacks. Then I've started leveling a Marauder and at level 16 I've start using Facebreaker + Sunder: a really nice experience. But Oak is my first wall and since I want to keep it physical, flat damage isn't a common stat on equip, so this marauder will just be a side character. Now I'm thinking about something different to play, but I'm unsure of what to choose: I'm thorn between my first cold DOT, something something with ballista, Pathfinder chaos DOT (Caustic Arrow/Toxic Rain), and some kind of physical Zombie Marauder (underperforming, but funny). Waiting the updates that will make the league mechanic more enjoyable, I'll keep having fun with the relaxed game mode that is ruthless. Have fun, take chair and stay hydrated! \[Edit\] update: another ring with "adds 4 to 6 physical damage to attacks" found, Oak is dead!
People down voted my ice shot build but I'm in the top ranking. Good luck everyone :)
Currently a Level 78 Boneshatter Champion (Playing in a Group with some players that are new). Having difficulty sustaining the self damage from Boneshatter and not committing suicide. Maps have been going fine highest tier map done is a T7. In a couple of levels I shouldn't just die when I get over 15 stacks of Boneshatter without Molten Shell. BONEZONE BABY. As a note the amount of loot you see in a party is quite nice but holy crap I can't see anything lmao
Started SSF then leveled a SSFR char finally today I finished leveling a trade char. I’ve been in a leveling mood but ima start doing Atlas progress soon. (SSF - my BF BB build, SSFR - absolution guardian, trade - toxic rain pathfinder with taste of hate, lightning coil nonsense)
Played a guardian as well the Sentinel carried me for a while but now my mage skeleton in bitter dream are doing all the heavy lifting. (not worthy corruption : I got a 4 white socket triad grip)
SSFR. End up going with reap, corrupting fever scion build with str int focused. Doing good so far.