How is ruthless ssf going for u guys/girls? ^^

I've ran the labyrinth more times now than I've run maps, I just can't sustain white maps haha. but this has been positive as I've had some really useful drops and one not quite as useful.



I'm currently running this as my main four link skill


I'm not sure how long i will play this character as I can't find enough maps to run, maybe it's time to roll something else.

Got a really lucky talisman in sc ssf ruthless yesterday. So far I'm running a maim support with a melee slam and it appears that is rather fortunate as well.

I have now played my Juggernaut until my RF hit 20, still in yellow maps, with the occasional trip into red maps, but I cannot sustain them, don't have vaal orbs to complete them, and haven't been lucky enough to get Kirac to offer a lot of completions.

Still feel a lot more squishy than I should be, some random deaths occured, bringing me down from 88.5 to 88.2. :(
But looking at other Juggs in the ladder, this seems to be a player issue.
83/81/81 resists, 25k armor and 5k life "should" be enough to not die in yellows. ;)

On the positive side: I finally found a determination aura, which brings my armor up by +10k already (and will do even more in the next couple gem levels).

And this shield dropped, looking quite strong with life, solid armor and +2 all max res:


Gear now:


My remaining shopping list:
- trap damage support for fire trap
- 1-2 out of: elemental focus, efficacy, increased aoe*
- arrogance support
- better rares without spending currency on them

*: with more blue supports, I could 6L my RF:

Just finished leveling my third - EA champ, the strongest one yet, feels tankier than the juggg and damage is great. Steamed rolled the campaign. It's also better than the Jugg and my summoner for running sanctum if I feel like wasting my time

This helped:


Back to grinding maps....shish, somebody shoot me

Still lagging behind.
Just started Act V.



I did find a Maim support that helps my Viper Strike a bit - however, since I convert all damage to Chaos, I think, I can't inflict Maimed. But 12% more is 12% more.

Currently playing Pathfinder (weak, build dont make much sense) without proper plan. And at last it dropped:
Now waiting for inspiration as to what to do with it. Luckily 'Inspiration Support' dropped right next to it:

Ripped my first Hierophant in Act IX. The second attempt is now at level 54, and, both characters combined, I haven't yet found a usable support gem. Fortunately, over-leveling with Holy Flame Totem provides manageable DPS.

I reached maps on my third character. Campaign was always really fun and I love having to drop skill gems.

Maps are another story though and it's quite rough. I don't mind (and like) having to "grind" gears and gems, but really hate being map starved. IMO, my gear should limit my progression, not map drops. Getting 1 T3 map out of 10 T4 maps felt really awful. Hopefully, my set of a dozen T3 map will go better, else it'll be back to T1 and crossing fingers then.

All in all I enjoy Ruthless up to now and I think it fits an SSF style really well. I'm even considering making a trapper and/or minion builds as I dropped quite a few support gems for these. This never crossed my mind in "normal" PoE, and I really like this style of building on a set of constraints.

And I don't think that it's 100% tied to the Ruthless SSF experience, but I really don't like how high and random mob damage can be, and some rare mob are just a joke. Mob tankiness also feels really random, with some lasting less than a second, and other taking forever with no clear explanation (no resist to my dmg in the affixes shown - so I guess due to an implicit mod). I think that Ruthless puts a magnifying glass on these things by forcing you to really fight through all the mechanics - and this reinforced my opinions on what I like and hate in these.

I try to build some defenses, but it's always the same story : all goes fine, until I get bursted down in a fraction of a second.

It has always been so in PoE (and I always hated that), the difference is that here I get demolished in white maps where I thought that 3.2K life + capped res + 1k armor&evasion + 60% block (glancing blows) would make my trip quite safe. But nope, not safe at all. I guess I'll have to drop a Determination gem and see if that fixes my issue. But I find it a bit ridiculous that to not feel super squishy, you have to have ALL defensive layers (and I have no clue how I'll build suppression up).

Anyway, I'm playing on Xbox One X...so the ultra end game is in late yellow maps / early red maps as that's where the FPS begins to drop in an unplayable territory. I still have plenty of room for improvement until then. That's a plus for Ruthless SSF on (previous gen) console I guess.

Running a new Character, a Deadeye Lightning Arrow, and I had a very lucky drop in Act 8


I also had a very useful support gem dropped not long before the amulet


This is the rest of my gear so far

I already had the bow and body armour from my first run.

I will probably get bored, frustrated when I reach maps as I did in my first run. I just cannot sustain maps, but it's OK as I already have another character planned.

So I dropped this:

Now if I would drop another one I could maybe make a build that wouldnt be bad on Pathfinder... Or if I drop an 'Unleash'(RIP) and a 'Fork' I may try with just one of them.

--

"

Lawlyer9014 wrote:

Mob tankiness also feels really random

Also noticed that. And than there are the all-but-invulnerable 'cycling damage resistance' mobs...

"

Lawlyer9014 wrote:

I get demolished in white maps where I thought that 3.2K life + capped res + 1k armor&evasion + 60% block (glancing blows) would make my trip quite safe. But nope, not safe at all.

Low life, low evasion and almost no phys mitigation. And 'Glancing Blows' probably increases the damage you take. It would be surprising if you could tank (random white) mobs with that. With more life and some (maybe 4-5k for white maps) armour it would be much better.

"

Lawlyer9014 wrote:

so the ultra end game is in late yellow maps / early red maps as that's where the FPS begins to drop in an unplayable territory.

No packsize mods on maps in Ruthless so this may work in your favor.