How do you even solo self found?! I mean... like... how?

I love it. For me it's the only way to have fun.

In a trade league I farmed chaos trial for soul cores, traded them, got great gear and then DPS Arbiter without doing pretty much any mechanics.

In SSF I actually had to engage with loot, each exalt drop felt good. Each expert base might be the one. Bosses are challenging, and progression is something you get throughout the whole journey. I feel like the game was designed for SSF.

I hate trading but i also dont like SSF so i just play standard league without trading and use currency exchange, its so much better, maybe try that.

SSF sucks ass in PoE. Devs don't really care about this mode. All the do is disable trade, even though literally all drop rates are balanced around trade. There's zero individual tweaks to make it single-player viable and enjoyable.

If you have unlimited free time and masochistic tendencies, feel free to try it. Otherwise just play standard mode, but only use trade if you absolutely have to. Or stick to currency exchange only. It's much better experience than full SSF.

Identifying every gear you find 😆

its doable, but its infinitely slower, tbh I would not recommend SSF in PoE2, since there are no tools available to craft mid tier gear reliably.

Ssf is incredible fun because at no point in the game do you overkill anything. Even all the way at the end when mapping you can put so many modifiers on a map that it’s still challenging. Every good drop or craft is a huge dopamine hit and you feel a personal victory because you worked for it. Im level 94 ssf and im still having amazing fun. Highly recommended.

My strategy is to start a first character that can get some good damage without any mandatory unique items or mandatory 6L. For example in PoE2 Pathfinder concoctions are great starters because of great boss killing capabilities and natural gem progression (levels and sockets) that doesn't require much gear. As you progress through maps you keep any valuable unique or rare items that could be good for your second character. Once your first character start to plateauing and struggling a bit, you look at all the best items you've found and theorycraft a build for your next one. On top of that you can also gamble/craft a bit: because there is no trade, currency's real worth it's tied to the effect it has on gear. Whenever I've found a good base I always transmute, augment and decide if it's worth regaling. If the regal hits, I triple exalt slam and see what I got.

The only 2 issues with this strategy is that you'll be slower than trade league and you do need to spend a bit of money in stash tabs.

PoE2 so far lacks crafting options for a good SSF experience.

Ive never used the trade, and I just play with what I find and craft. No big deal.

1. pick up lots of base items, use your currency on them. make yourself familiar with ilvl and what mods can roll at what level via poe2db.tw

2. be open to learn to build around your items and try to find different solutions. don't have a high phys damage bow? make changes towards more ele damage and explore your build in that direction instead. you found a good str/int shield with high block chance? why not include it in your frost orb stormweaver.

following a build guide with the most optimal items is easy, building your unique character with the items you found is fun, even if it isn't as optimized.

On my way to 90 I pretty much never found an item that was better than stuff I bought for 1-5ex (except than ONE crossbow I sold for 50ex). As soon as exalts started dropping every slot would get a pretty significant upgrade for 1ex...

you didn't find any upgrades because you bought already decent / good items for cheap that had suitable rolls in 4 or 5 out of 6 modifiers. you narrowed down your possible choices of upgrades significantly, that's a side effect of trade. remember, every item you bought from trade was found or slammed or gambled by someone else. it's not impossible to find these items yourself.

4. be prepared to "farm". sometimes it's necessary to invest time into an upgrade by going through a lot of items before progressing. although not the best atm, there are multiple options through gambling, checking vendors, reforging, slamming and rerunning the same zone for items.

A Good ssf means no trading done. No trading means no special stash space Sold and no "Player Interaction" aka looking at bought cosmetics so you buy some too. The reason is money.

Watch manni2 on twitch to see how. Would be my suggestion.

Mostly it comes down to optimize how you farm and a lot of time investment.

I always play regular trading, but I always go SSF anyway. It just happens.

You need a lot of knowledge to play SSF bcs you can only have so much resources and you need to get better items as you progress and you cannot trade.

Identify all blues that are the right base & IL. If the 2 affixes are good, regal ex ex.
Gamble for the slots you need the most.

You say you didn't find any good crossbows, I bet that would change if you ID'ed 50 blues off the floor and gambled another 50.

Managed to loot a +175% Phys +16-30 phys flat 2h hammer, with +4 melee levels and reduced cost of attributes. Best pull I've ever had. Probably get upwards of 50-100DIV solely because of the reduced attributes line.

Ended up Vaal'ing it for the giggles and lost the +4 levels line.

I don't play warrior, and I'm a gamba addict. Would never have forgave myself if I had looted this on SSF. On trade league however, it doesn't really matter that much.

People with lots of time to spare

Are y'all running around in shitty gear forever?

Pretty much this, yeah.

Unless they make the crafting more deterministic, I can't see this working either. Running a minion build, I'm looking for specific attributes that hardly ever drop, not to mention, roll randomly.

I had a level 88 SSF Warrior within the first few weeks of launch. I intentionally avoided looking up any builds or guides, and just chose my skills based on feel. Ended up making a boneshatter build that carried me all the way through T15 maps.

You learn to use your "currency" for its intended purpose. To modify the items you find to fish for something better than your current gear.

It was even easier in POE1 when crafting was more deterministic.

I only stopped playing because the state of end game is not worth playing to me atm, so I'm waiting for more updates.

I like it, it makes me feel so reckless

How? You just... Play the game? :D

In SSF you play with what you have. So its not a matter of how but rather: how long.

Ssf in poe 2 is like shooting yourself in the foot because crafting is non-existent.

What is SSF??

You'd be surprised what you can make work when you're not just solely taking the "optimal paths" or just copy pasting a build off a guide. I did ssf for the first month and got a lvl 90 witch doing t14-15s no problem

I love SSF, however… I’m on tier 3 maps and still haven’t found a single Divine Orb

SSF have the worst loot drop rate, and for now, we consider this like part of the challenge itself (hopefully it really does improved or GGG to consider the loot drop for SSF). Right now, if you want max your gear then trade's the no brainer choice, while SSF is like challenging you on how far you can drag your character 'til the very last leg that you can push it.

Some builds if I remember really dont need much gear, or just a few good rolls.

I think Inferanlist is prob the best noob SSF'er because it's your basic MOM/EB/Archmage build but generally can make up going ultra durable with high mana, but since you don't have to worry about wand/foci (just a semi decent power sigil staff and good to go, if you get stitch mask early on at the 33-40 range, you've pretty much won at that point. You can focus more in durability once you get the stiched demon mask as you will maintain stacks with life regen up to 400-500, and at around 30-40 stacks you're pretty much on par to a maxed out foci+wand build, only really missing about 5% cast speed, and +1 level to spells. Allowing you to easily spend currency on your stuff.

Since your chest piece/helmet are chance rares but common ones (ghost writhe/stitch) and can be found mid game, you can easily SSF as you spend all your points into raising ES (you dont get mana but extra life regen from it.) and Mana/Int for archmage/arcane power/pure power and just get ES/+Spell gear, life on your rings, with Mana and lightning damage, and you're mostly fine you can prob get up to T4 without issue for most fights.

SSF requires a bit of knowledge about which items are worth the exalts and so on to „craft“ on them. Beside that’s it’s just hoping for the best. 

And in endgame you usually use Essences, Omens and so on to make „crafting“ a bit more relatable. 

All the currency you spent on buying things you instead use to gamble craft on magic and rare items you find. Adjust your loot filter to show blues/whites from your desired bases. Transmute, aug, regal if 2 good mods. Exalt slam if 3 good mods. Check vendors regularly. Spend excess gold gambling your worst item slots.

It might feel slow to get upgrades, but it also feel way more accomplishing once you get 'em!

SSF is an entirely different game loop.

In a trade league to be efficient a lot of the time people feel like they need to do the thing that gives the most currency to buy gear to continue that loop.

In SSF you end up doing a lot of different things because you don’t just need a currency drop to purchase an item.

Titan ssf, im level 91, downside I had my weapon at level 45 and cant find or make a better weapon. But i have an interrest to continu cause thats your build and gear, every loot can be my next weapon. My exalt serve too something etc..

Figure out which bases you want for your build.

Highlight them on your item filter. Hide everything else. For bonus efficiency, ppl that have a decent understanding of the game allow for other high value bases to be shown.

Pick all of them up and slam on them. Here for poe 1 I would say crafting, but there's nothing like that in poe 2 so it's just transmute -> aug -> regal / essence -> slam x times. All of this is subject to your game knowledge and your current gear. Obviously if you have good gear it's better to skip regaling trash magic items and greater essence only the best items.

If you fail at this step, don't discard your items, stash them in a dump to do a massive 3:1 session later on.

That's it. That's the extent of SSF poe 2 offers. Enjoy / suffer. Imo ssf on poe 2 is completely out of the question right now, you are literally playing slot simulator, there's no agency whatsoever. If you want a challenge play a souls-like single player, if you want ssf play poe 1 and if you want good ssf play Last Epoch.

Depends on what type of content and difficulty you are targeting. During campaign most of your gear will probably be bought from the vendors (and you can save the currency you find for endgame) and if you are picking a meta build you won’t really need good gear either. Progression will be slower of course but not really by much until you reach endgame or harder content. If you need a certain thing (let’s say a soul core with chaos res) you’ll just have to farm that specific thing in its respective mechanic. It’s gonna take a bit longer but hopefully feel more rewarding

Youre relatively new and got to 90? Geez I must suck really badly.

1. You change your expectations for items. The fact that amazing items are available for 1-5ex, doesn't mean that items you find suck.

2. You either choose a build that will work with less gear and/or gear that you can target-farm (for example you can get some low level uniques by repeating some low level are with a boss).

3. You change your expectations for content you will do (it helps that you won't be now counting how many divines per hour you get by doing X content). You probably won't farm difficulty 4 bosses, and likely not even reach them (especially with how rare it is to get access to ritual or expedition bosses).

4. You use all your resources. For example if you play summoner and find trenchtimbre or fireflower, you may use the few divines that you find to make them roll higher +level numbers, even though on trade a single divine is worth more than such unique. Also even before that you can use all gold gambling on low level to find specific uniques (doesn't mean you will get them, but you should give yourself a chance). You should set up your loot filter to show more bases to use all your essences on (including white bases for chancing common uniques that you want).

There is a lot that can be discussed about how to get specific items (or does it even make sense to get them). But also you need to answer yourself what you expect about your effort you want to put, content you want to do, builds you want to play etc. There are some (IMO insane) people that like grinding the game, and are good at it, and go for level 100 SSF and try to get all uniques (including things like adorned and temporalis). They play for hundreds of hours and all of those hours are filled with grinding. They actually get insane gear in the end.

But also you can just play a random build, like literally any skill on any asendancy, and try going, try overcoming challenges. If it means you only get to act 2 boss and fail, that's fine. If it means you get to t10 maps and fail, that's also fine. Or rather you need to be fine with it. If not, then go back to choosing a build that works better both overall and on SSF.

Farm bosses for gear

i basically play soft core ssf, im in the trade league but i dont buy any gear item off of the trade site, ive basically just using my currency in the currency exchange and thats it. Ive sold items though, but honestly even that is a bother to me. i guess i just prefer actually farming my items or just slamming them instead of just buying them off the trade site. I have no doubt that i could gain much more power than through just farming but at that point why am i even playing the game, its honestly not much different from just playing GTA with cheats

If you can't shake off fomo, you are forced into trade league.

If you have no problem progressing with the intended pace (very. ducking. slowly.), you can go ssf.

I prefer to play in trade league to play with friends, but I have a couple characters that I will not trade for, these are usually the ones that I create the build for without guides. My metaslave characters are for when I get frustrated being stuck and just wanna make some carnage.

The point is to play the game in a way that you enjoy. Never compare yourself or your progress to others, that's the death of fun.

Try HCSSF. It’s where the real fun starts 🙂

SSF player here. You collect a lot of white bases and craft. You can actually use your currencies and not worry about its marker value.

In endgame crafting mechanics like essences and omens help a lot.

Ssf is okay and you will eventually find or "craft" good gear. The progression will be much slower, but I think thats okay especially with the EA endgame.

Crafting…

Love the idea of SSF. Played it until lvl 90, played until T15 maps and getting your first set of endgame gear was fun. It’s completely unplayable after that. It’s an incredibly tedious process to get any half decent upgrades.

I play the equivalent of SSF in every game that offers it. Poe2 in its current state does not support it at all

Save the bases you pick up and 3-to-one them, you get more chances to get decent gear (will inherit the lowest ilvl tho so be careful). Use trans, aug, regal; alch if you spare some, on good bases with high roll implicits. Up until t15, a decent piece of gear is just getting a good magic item with 1 resist, and regal another resist.

At t15 maps, a lot of bases have 1 desirable mod, like +level gem on amulet, boots, helmet, weapon, quiver, so target those mods. Use your currency: trans, aug, regal, and even exalt till you fill out the 3 suffixes to hunt for those (I got my +5 scepter and +3 amulet this way). 3-to-1 if it's bad, important to do this with 3 rares since a rare can have 3-6 mods and increases your chances of hitting a good one.

Make a custom filter to highlight the bases you need, then use your currencies almost completely is the gist of it.

The campaign of poe2 is really not hard to complete with self found gear. Running a solid build that is somewhat defensive oriented and ranged, like mage or witch, certainly helps a lot with SSF. Additionally it’s important to embrace the „crafting“ mechanics, which essentially means upgrading promising bases you find, that get you the most important stats like +skills. In case you want to get into t16 endgame maps OTOH, that’s really going to be tough in SSF, but that’s to be expected IMO.

You use every means you can to get gear you need.

This can means picking up every appropriate base for your build, ID'ing if blue/rare, saving if high ilvl, reforging rares, alching normals, using essences on targeted pieces.

Your gear is gonna be less good than it would be in trade. Your 1 ex doesn't get you some good dual res MS boots anymore.

Most uniques suck, but uniques are the same in SSF and trade. They can be really solid for shoring a character up if you can target farm them.

Craft non stop. Ssf lvl 94. Endgame upgrades are a bit hard but everything else is manageable

I was SSF until like the mid 80s on my first char, I slammed every single thing I got with any currency I had on hand. Got lucky and hit a pretty sick body armor and quarterstaff (for the time) that I haven't been able to replace without costing me a few divs. I find that pretty good weapons drop for me every once in a while (especially once you start dropping tiered rares), but good armor pieces? Good fucking luck. I started trading once it hit me that I've been grinding for a while and making no progress so I might as well start now instead of burning out.