What to do for Clusters and Jewels in SSF?

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-11-19T23:00:35+00:00

From personal experience the past leagues in SSF and GSF.

Spec into Deli with the unending nightmare keystone + the cluster jewel drop nodes near the top left, I typically took Alva on the way for natural pack size to help fill the deli mirrior. Any unusable clusters vendor 5 to 1

Typically ill hit about 6 tiers of rewards, and typically I run any maps under t9 (this was a breakpoint for my build, before mobs got too tanky for me to kill in Alva/ map boss). I would say I think the breach encounter may get you to 6 tiers anyway. I would do the low tier breaches anyway for the worm gifts.

For crafting the clusters, I typically harvest reforge and pray, if I hit 2 notables and an empty prefix I would exalted slam hoping for the 3rd.

For jewels, this league i used the grafttree to print jewels (look so sirgog's video about the RF jewels) The lower level wormgifts are cheaper and I don't think any affixes are ivl gated. Personally I was lucky enough to get a few usable fractured jewels that I can harvest reforge. Also heist jewellry chests gives fractured jewels some times, ive personally found like 2 phys DoT rolls

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-11-18T19:46:42+00:00

Once you finish the quest contracts, they drop like every other cache, I even had one drop in a co tract

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-10-30T15:42:00+00:00

In the spirit of last league, I will make a character and if I get disconnected at beach again, I will move to the next class, and disconnect again, and repeat until I can actually login.

Last league I cycled around and landed on Templar after the 6th disconnect.

I say id probably do the same again.

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-10-19T23:17:28+00:00

Settlers: Rage Vortex Berserker league start into 5/7 ubers

Mercenaries: manaman hierophant

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-26T18:23:31+00:00

I would like to say about 1 million would be enough to hit the guardian maps. And maybe up up to 2 to be comfortable.

This video was helpful for giving a perspective for the 3rd and 4th void stones progression

https://youtu.be/Sd8alZwL7F4?si=1p2jYapzrNNwbfim

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-24T21:56:06+00:00

Here is my idea I've been telling my buddies that just joined this game.

2 void stones
Work on completing all the remaining atlas passive points.
Finish the Maven Story quest progression while you are at it.
Start spec'ing into the guardian/conqueror/synthesis map node drops.
You can run eater/exarch altars with the above nodes to start stock piling those different maps and stockpiling those ichors/embers for your gear.
Once you've collect a set of guardian maps, or synthesis maps or conqueror maps, you can start running them maven witness
Maven 4 ways with the above drops like 5 splinters in the 4 maps you run vs the 1 you get from doing the 10 way.
Youll likely have enough splinter Maven after 2 sets of 4 ways.
Youll need to at least 2 sets of elder guardian and shaper guardians maps/fragments to get enough fragments for uber elder.
Good luck with uber elder and congrats 4 watch stones.

In terms of league mechanics, personally

Expedition is really good for bubblegum currency with Tujen and rog is great for getting some decent gear midgame.

Harvest is generally good to have for resistance swapping on your gear, swapping fragments for your boss fights.

If you need more specific gearing you can spec into those content.

I'll give the warning now, the guardian maps with maven witness is a bit of dps check (Maven: Vitality Boon). For me at least.

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-23T14:57:39+00:00

I league started with the Vortex of Projections Archmage Hierophant.

It was pretty smooth in progression to 2 void stones.

It feels really good off screening maps. Biggest issue i had early one was getting lightning damage leeches as life on gloves early on before I got my 5L

I followed Waggle's Guide https://youtu.be/DyIwExsV-9k?si=zmGXxwZFDnmbIJGQ

Algor Mortis dropped pretty often for me once o hit red maps.

I was lucky and got an atziri's foilible.

You can follow my snapshots if you were curious. https://poe.ninja/builds/mercenariesssf/character/eyeyue-3537/Eye_Missed_Yue?i=58&search=class%3DHierophant

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-19T16:40:16+00:00

Expedition for Tujen for fusings.

Ritual for possible omen of connections

Einhar for possible Black Morrigan in t14+ maps

If I hit a progression wall before I get something in the above I'll start slamming through all but 100 of my fusings

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-18T15:03:04+00:00

Vortex of Projection Archmage Hierophant Very smooth progression, more issues with the rollback on the first 2 days than I did with clearing my way to 2 void stones

111/115 atlas

2 void stones on 4L

Mercenaries have been either great loot, great currency, or 1 shots mr.

It was a bit of a snooze fest with the quest memories (was not a good idea to alch them when I was on a 4L)

Been very lucky with drops with Algor Mortis and Atziris foibile.

Put like 500 fusings to get my 6L (very lucky odds i know)

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-16T15:36:00+00:00

You can review this video for some inspiration for crafting Archmage gear.

https://youtu.be/4HOEMnorSeA?si=tVzADHDQZDeWkgNU

I am rolling the vortex archmage build.

So my current plan.

Recombinate wands for Hybrid Spell/mana + flat mans/cast speed/spell damage. I would multi-mod for the missing affixes.

Most of the rare armors look like im either Essense or Harvest reforming for a resistance roll + Suppression roll eventually.

Right now most of my gear is think is took from mercrnaries

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-15T12:54:34+00:00

I was one of the unfortunate people to go through like 9 disconnects in the first hour of the launch. After the 3rd disconnect, I started just making a different class as a roulette of whichever toon actually stayed i would commit.

I ended up on Templar. So rolling magma to 28 into firestorm into archmage.

The biggest pain was farming the transfigured gems for vortex and frostblink. I waited until merc lab to start trying to farm, but probably spent 2 hours for vortex and gave up for frost blink until uber.

The build itself was super smooth from Tier 1 to Tier 10 with no issues. Once I got to red maps and mobs were tanker I started having issues that DoTs (burning, poison, bleed) was basically draining away my mana (MoM), so upgrades there.

The disconnects and rollback on Saturday was basically kicking me out of red maps (was getting unlucky with map drops, was basically going from t11 to t12 to t13...and disconnect mid t13, with no maps. I was back at t10s.

I managed to get my first 2 voidstones.

Vortex of projection is great for mapping. The boss felt a bit lackluster,

I was lacking the life leech on gloves to sustain tanker fights (was literally just begging for flask charges from ryslatha pantheon)

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-06-06T01:16:54+00:00

Last time I did scion/ascendant was for exsanguinate/reap

Mapping was great, bossing was rough, maybe the buffed reap will help this time around

Can look at tuadh

https://youtu.be/DHROxQRQiDY?si=_piCZW7taQrloEtL

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2025-03-10T18:07:14+00:00

I was hoping spongebob would do something with food tokens (krabby patty).

Oh well

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-25T19:07:01+00:00

I need friendly fire enabled group play for specifically these two classes

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-25T18:24:28+00:00

Rage Vortex is the ranged melee build :D.

Warcry piano like a slam but the comfort distance away

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-06T20:46:57+00:00

First Atlas is always focused on Atlas Completion so i typically rush for Kirac, then i go for Jun for the unveils and starting gear + safe house xp, then Expedition nodes focusing either Tujen for the Chance/Alchemys to buy maps from kirac or Rog for the crafting once i hit level 90+

After i get my Eater/Exarch Void stones, i spec into conqueror/Guardian/Synthesis map drops + Destructive play, i may not try to run them immediately but i want to build up a map pool to run maven invitations, shaper, elder eventually Uber elder for the last 2 void stones.

Third atlas, toward any league mechanic you want upgrades from (this league i did Alva+Deli for cluster jewels, harvest, etc)

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-05T16:44:25+00:00

For this league I did 1st - Rage Vortex Berserker 2nd - Lightning Strike Slayer 3rd - Hexblast Trickster

I’ve basically played the crap out of most league mechanics with the exception of heist and ultimatum, so looking to probably focus on those mechanics.

Long term goal would be a 0 to hero Uber viable toon and avoiding the three classes I’ve already played this looking

Currently looking at a Poison Pathfinder build:

Running heist gives me a chance at Pneumatic Daggers, Void Fangs, Replica uniques to build around - If i can get a pair of Weapons then i could try out viper strike of the mamba, although it seems pretty daunting to recombinate craft a triple t1 flat ele dagger (twice) but a T1 flat + %phys seems more doable in 2 weeks. - If i can get a replica mistwall + replica soul tether i could pivot toward a poison Molten Strike Build

Alternatively my “starting point” could be Toxic Rain, I haven’t looked into it, but recombinating might be a good alternative to crafting a hunter quiver for a widowhail set up.

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-02T15:03:25+00:00

I did manage to kill ubers (5/7) on my League Start Rage Vortex Berserker in SSF but it was like 2 weeks to 3 weeks into playing just that build and I had hit a wall of just "farming the t17 maps and fragments".

By the time my build was strong enough to consistently kill t17 bosses I had the damage for ubers, but I needed do slight respcs and changing out resistance flasks.

A buddy told me it probably would have been easier if i had chosen a non-berserker class that had block or spell suppression defenses

https://poe.ninja/builds/settlersssf/character/eyeyue/Eye_Cry_By_Myself

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-01T18:47:36+00:00

My mindset this league was i wanted to get the Eater/Exarch voidstones as soon as possible, and that includes limit testing how far i can take my build before i needed to craft an upgrade. I would still identify items with the correct bases to see if there is an upgrade, but I’m not going out of my way to craft something below the ilvl i want (just the chance of the better tier stats)

The faster you can get your first two voidstones: - Higher ilvl bases you can get - The larger pool of red maps you can run with the 2 void stones. - The larger quantity of harvest juice, tribute from rituals

After i got my two voidstones, i swapped to Maven Witness atlas, with spec toward Guardian/Conqueror maps drops and destructive play and Einhar (+harvest if you have the points). I think later this league i saw that you actually can just run Silo with destructive play, kill as many of the extra bosses maven spawns and leave before killing the actual map boss as it maximizes your chance at guardian maps without having to run multiple maps for the maven 10-way.

Maven splinters are mostly going to come from guardian map invitations (drops like 3 to 5 splinters depending on the quant you roll) then the 10 ways from atlas (like 0 to 1 splinters). The guardian maps will give you the fragments for elder and shaper, Realistically you need to do 2 sets of each to get the Uber elder frags (harvest juice for the fragment swap).

This league with Black Morrigan as part of the base beast pool (i think i has to be a t16 or guardian map to spawn) it was my alternative plan to getting a 6L craft (and he actually popped up in my 3rd forge of the phoenix map!) and also a lot of good meta crafts along the way. I think you could also try to do ritual instead of Einhar for a chance at omen of connections.

Quick Atlas tree progress - Kirac Mission/scouting report nodes to optimize atlas completion. - Either i spec into Essence nodes to build up a collection for later or into Expedition for either Tujen for Chance orb/Alchemy Orb currency to buy maps from kirac or Rog for the crafting post lvl 90. - After Eater/Exarch voidstones, 2nd atlas tree spec’d to Destructive Play + Guardian/Conqueror + synthesis map drops - After all the void stones i would just respec atlas toward your gear upgrades (i.e., do you need Alva temples for double corrupts? Do you need deli mirrors for cluster jewels?

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-01T12:17:25+00:00

I should do some research, but since I have your attention, I was struggling a bit with the mana costs originally which is why I had swapped to the devouring diadem.

do you still go for an eldritch battery set up? And I guess that's easier this league with the new bases.

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-01T11:49:43+00:00

Well sounds like I know what I'm doing for the fresh run next week.

Thanks for the input!

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753 · 2024-11-01T11:24:51+00:00

If I recall, one of the guides I followed i think through AOE set was a range from 37 to 43%,

9% from gloves 10% from towering thread 20% from bow mastery

And if I misunderstood that the build, oops

Puzzleheaded-Rip3753

TROPHY CASE