u/Competitive-Math-458

So I love hardcore in ARPG and do it on basically all games and hardcore races are very enjoyable as its that mix of speed but also not going too risky, However the s5 boss kill race was ruined by people dying to bugged bosses and the exact same thing happened last 3 races, there is even things like bugged skills so abom will spam the same skill ignoring cooldowns. We even still have snap shotting in the game so some builds will do a several minuite setup then have 100s of million of dps and kill uber abberoth fast enough to not do any mechanics.

Last season we had primordial items added that didnt even work until 2 weeks into the season they got fixed.

There is soo many people i know that stopped playing due to bugs or glitches and it was common for people to ask on discord why x does not work and the answer was just thats bugged or not actually working in game.

This was one of my favorite old builds. However since then the mana costs have been added and the actual mana reservation went up.

But the basic idea is that you can use 3 or 4 chaos spells that all scale with that same damage value.

I know you can do better damage by self cast but im wondering if this is still a valid option at least for 4 stones. Not sure if spell slinger just results in a squishy character as you then cant fit in a defensive aura due to needing to use lots of spell slinger and also needing a clarity or some other methods to solve the mana from casting 4 spells every time you attack.

So I initially planned to play a pure spectre necromancer in HC SSF, however the build needs alot of gear to get up and running and I didnt really enjoy the walking simulator style of the build.

So i swapped into PRAW which has felt very nice and currently using unleash for smoother mapping. Currently just doing breach and mercs in very safe maps.

However I was actually thinking after srs got the AI improvements this would that also be a solid option. Im also not sure if mercs can drop the 100% minion fire dmg converted to chaos as then you could have 100% of srs converted to chaos and not just the physical part.

I know PRAW got some decent buffs from socket colour changes as it gives 1 extra weapon and more cooldown for convocation but extra quality on srs means you summon more meaning possibly dropping unleash or needing to summon less often.

Since you would replace gmp and pierce with melee splash would srs technically have 1 more dmg support and possibly better overall dmg ?

Or is the issue with srs that you would need minion movement speed and convocation would keep pulling them away from targets ?

So I have now played all the most popular variety of minion builds to the point i feel comfortable with them.

However id like to select one to really focus on for SSF. I would like HC SSF viable also but poe2 is a little too punishing with one shots to make HC really enjoyable for me currently.

I want something that can have a few buttons for boss fights or buffs and don't want a full walking simulator build.

So im not sure it spirit walker with companions would be an option using offerings with clerics and marks as my active skills. Or if lich / infernalist would be nice as a build i can start on minions and play all the way through or Djin minions who would be a little more active.

Im just wondering if there is any SSF limits for these builds, for example is getting a companion with 3 or 4 good mods really hard while on trade you can just buy it making spirit walker overall weaker ect ?

So I know that everyone loves the monkey for spirit walker but im just wondering your other options as tame beast.

Since you can fo full zoo and have 8 or 9 companions what are you selecting.

For example is the a clear speed companion you would run and use monkey for just single target. Are there certain beasts you want as they give a buff or some effect you can pair with them also giving an aura ?

Or is it basically you just want whatever beast and only care about the extra mods like auras ?

So I recently did a post about hitting this wall at red maps. However going back to merc lab to quality up gems and get trans version basically solved my issues.

On an elementalist its 20% golem effect from quality and for slammers it gives cooldown for warcrys. I have also seen people will farm merc lab for trans gems early on so they have them if a later character wants them. Like farming ranged AW or pconc of bouncing so when you play that character you have the trans gem with 20% quality already.

So im wondering do you ever farm lab on these specifc builds as getting some levels and quality can really give a huge boost.

So there is alot of cool and strong items you can now make. People have talked about things like getting supported by pierce onto a covenant and now you have this 8 link chest for example.

There is lots of other good mods you can transfer but is it just way too much RNG to actually hit anything for SSF ?

So I have found this on basically every single character i play in SSF. Been playing SSF for 4 years and always hit this same wall.

Im not sure the mods just get harder or if there is a big increase to red maps in general.

I either need to farm yellow maps for a bit, or just run red maps with no mods or sometimes go back to lab for quality and levels to progrss. This league a bit of charts and gambling for upgrades.

Do people normally run red maps just white no mods when they first reach them or farming upgrades in yellow maps first ?

Im not sure if sometimes im rushing too much and there is a certain benchmark of gem levels / life and dmg before entering red maps ?

So I did not get to play in 0.5 and the spirit walker minion setup seems cool.

However is there a good setup to level as before I swap into full minion stuff. Im assuming grenades might be an option but never actually played them so dont know what the leveling is.

So I missed 0.5 so my league start is basically going to be 0.5.5.

I have limited time to play and probably around 45 mins per day once averaged out. There is 3 possible builds that I might want to play at first glance

- chaos dot - essence drain and contagion on lich

- plants druid - going oracle with coc to grow plants.

- beast minions - using spirit walker and taming bosses. Unsure about this as I'll need to level with grenades for 3 or 4 days before actually playing minions.

After playing elementalist for the past 3 leagues i want a different class to do caster on. However have come to realise that heiro is kind of the only thing that can compete atleast early on.

So whats the best feeling mana man setup. I don't want to most damage or fastest clear but what has the best QOL feel.

So after playing with loads of new spells I sort of want to compare with attack based wands. I also dont want to play another elementalsit build for the rest of the league.

I didnt play attack wands when it was the hot new thing so want to try them now.

Im thinking of 3 options that would work for this but dont know which is the best

- guardian gives 3 dmg auras and shrines possibly help with early dmg also.

- necromancer using spell slinger with offering to get loads of attack speed. Witch area also has lots of good wand passives and early spell dmg which helps

- mana man using clustering for to give lots of dmg and aoe to clustering. However not sure how well this performs early on and for bosses.

I sometimes find it hard to get good SSF builds. Alot of content creators are focused on trade or some will do a SSF run to 2 stones to showcase a build. However a build able to do 2 stones in SSF is not a great overall showcase on well it will perform later.

There is little things like maybe necromancer minions is more popular in trade, but in terms of early game strength a srs guardian would be stronger for SSF.

Do you take content creators builds then remove any t2+ uniques and try to find replacements or is there a good way to find SSF viable builds.

So I really enjoy the more HC versions of builds normally. However I'll decide i want to play x skill so go and check HC and its all heiro archmage builds or elementalist with golems. Even when I look at wanders there is a good amount of people mana stacking with clustering on heiro.

Is heiro scaling getting es from mana and 4 endurance charges just way too good to compete with anything else.

Archmage did get a nerf this league but it also seems like it went from an S tier build to an A+ tier build if anything.

So I have been looking for options that could compete with elementalist currently. It's not just the damage and QOL from solving mana but also the amount of defence they gain that has resulted in 80% of the spell casters in past 3 leagues i have played all be elementalists.

Im wondering if this setup would work. Using inquisitor you create conc ground that lingers for 4 seconds, this gives you 5% of your life and es per second. Using eldritch battery you can then use this ES as a source of mana. Using MOM then means you still take 40% of dmg from your ES so dmg is split between life and ES making full use of the regen from conc ground.

Later on you can scale str and int to get crit and use iron will to scale up spell dmg.

So im wondering does this style of setup work or would the big issue be that your not spending mana for skills like sigal of power, inspiration or arcane surge.

Im wanting some takes on this as i dont really see people using this and I assume its mostly as inquisitor is under explored and less played than the other caster classes.

So normally spark is a very endgame high budget build. However I really like the skill so want to get it working even if its a little worse than other options. I have already played archmage and assasins spark so want something else.

There is a few ways to solve damage using flame wall to add flat fire and orb of storms for extra dmg early. The new lightning notable is also a really big damage boost.

Then its just about farming deli to get medium clusters with streamlined (20% proj speed and dmg) and aerodynamics (+1 pierce and 10% proj speed and dmg). Both you get from lv68 medium so can farm those very easily.

However I would really like to actually level as spark and not just swap end game. Probably swap to spark in act 3 once I have inspiration to help with mana and proj speed support for it to feel good. Until then whatever caster leveling i decide to do.

Im thinking there is two clear options that have a strong early game for this to work and can also scale.

- elementalist with golems would really carry the early game. Lightning golem giving mana and cast speed solves a good amount of sparks issues. Then being able to use shaper of flame for 100% inc dmg vs ignited mastery and shaper of winter to get some solid defence. Im thinking maybe path into ranger area to get projectile nodes going through scion area to get duration and life nodes.

- Inquisitor using EB + MOM. The idea is that with conc ground giving life and ES it solves mana and also gives you defence with all the regen. Later on you can scale str and int to go into a crit build.

Normally I take alira for the res on my league starter just to help out early. Paired with purity of elements and a chaos golem and 2 amethyst rings your basically sorted on res.

Then for 2nd or later characters go for +1 passive to get that little extra dmg early in acts.

However im now starting to re-think if maybe im going for the wrong choice.

Maybe the movement speed reward is actually really good when you just have 10ms on boots and that will make you progess faster. Or maybe on builds like cold dot that get dmg from cold res alira is actually better than +1 passive for example.

So I have generally a good progession in SSF. However I do wonder if its worth spending those few points to get an essence in every map or the 60% chance to spawn merc wheel.

This would basically be to round out getting essences to make a fire dmg wand or getting a big life roll on ring from a merc just to make early gearing a bit smoother before you have full breach tree and all the other mechanics.

Or generally is the amount of time it would take to fight essences and mercs not really be worth it.

So I keep seeing this on poe ninja. People will play some spell build but then run a dark monarch and the extra minion support and then take the bloodline for 10% increased defence per specture.

Im guessing you then have a bunch of spectures that all give you boosts and auras, but are these build actually good ?

It seems like they would just consistantly die so your lossing those auras and using the bloodline for 100-120% increased defence.

So there is alot of builds that level as spell slinger and then later swap to a self cast version of the spells.

The two that come to mind recently have been cold and chaos dot. Since both have multiple skills that all scale with the same mod you can use spell slinger and now each attack will trigger 3 or 4 spells giving really good dmg. Both of these also get around the less dmg with hits and ailments as they are dots so you dont hit or apply ailments like poisons.

But im wondering can you scale this core concept to endgame, using a 6 link and 2 4 links to have 3 spells that all trigger from spell slinger. Or would you almost always just drop spell slinger for auras. Is there maybe some weird interaction where spell slinger wants attack speed to do more hits while most casters will be near cast speed nodes instead ?