Hello and welcome, We hope you find this Path of Exile – Guide to HC SSF Ruthless guide useful.

This useful post will teach you how to start off on HC SSF The road you should choose is ruthless.

How to do it?

HC SSF Ruthless is Ancestral PoE’s hardest league, yet few play it. The current poe.ninja player count is 706. Including private accounts is more, but still nothing. I wanted to provide a simple guide based on my experience as a beginner in this league on how to start and progress.

• 1. Craft a Witch: Minions can be your best allies when level 10-12 magic items become scarce; at levels 70s and 80s your gear consists of both magic and rare items, so minions provide the safest option as they require no specific gear to function and draw aggro away from you. Totems have their place too but most top players prefer minions over totems.
• 2. Gather all available minion passives nearby by typing “minion” in the Passive Skill Tree search bar and picking those results, you cannot go wrong here! Also be sure to obtain the “+1 to zombies and skeletons passive as soon as possible.”
• 3. The strategy behind Act 3 is straightforward – summon zombies, summon skeletons and spam Summon Raging Spirits until everything has been eliminated – very straightforward gameplay that should help ensure that as long as you stay out of range from mobs you should not die; I almost fell prey to that chaos spider in Act 2, however; his bite can quickly reduce health while summoning rooms full of spiders into existence – so take caution with him! Upon dying your character will enter the Void League where their existence becomes completely unplayable so avoidance should become your top priority!
• 4. Level slowly as usual. Make sure that every area has been cleared completely before beginning leveling quest rewards in this order (support gems are unobtainable except through random drops).
  Raise Zombie, Summon Raging Spirit, Summon Skeletons, Flesh Offering, Desecrate, Convocation, Raise Spectre, Summon Carrier Golem
• 5. After you complete the Death to Purify quest in act 5, you will get your 2nd Uncarved Gemstone, which is a special currency only available in Ruthless leagues, you can only get 3 of those per playthrough, one from act 3, one from act 5 and one from act 10. You can exchange 1 for any skill gem from Siosa, she only sells active skill gems and no auras that reserve % mana. You can only buy a skill gem from Siosa with an Uncarved Gemstone, so these are extremely precious. Going to act 10 to get the 3rd one is a waste of time imo, it’s faster to make a new character and get to act 5 for 2 gemstones

  Here – [poewiki.net], you can see all skill gems that Siosa sells, anything that’s not here or in the quest rewards for Ruthless – [google.com], you will have to hope for a random drop

• 6. Once we complete the Death to Purify quest, we’ve harvested everything we need from a Witch: all minion-based skill gems and two Uncarved Gemstones. Now make a new Witch, travel back to Brutus’ location, and kill him again while selecting Raise Zombie, Summon Raging Spirit and Raise Skeletons without leveling them further.
• 7. Once again create a Templar and transfer all skill gems and gear from both Witches onto it. Equip the low-level Raise Zombie, SRS, and Summon Skeletons skills gems from the second Witch as soon as you can – over time your leveling should allow you to unlock higher-level gems from both witches, including any high-level ones available from them both.
• 8. Why Templar? Guardian was the only ascendancy not completely crippled with Ruthless-only nerfs – [pathofexile.com] They only saw their beam go down by 10% instead of 20% and block increased 15%/15% instead of 25-25%; which seems relatively mild compared to other ascendancies. Furthermore, most top players on PoE Ninja play Guardian so it must be effective.
• 9. Next level Vitality, Clarity (create a templar/scion/shadow and kill Brutus), Precision (create a scion/shadow and kill Brutus), as well as any spells you like for leveling (minions will carry you regardless). Also remember spamming SRS could do more damage per mana spent than any other skill; feel free to experiment however suits you!). Feel free to experiment, however, works for you – regardless of which skill set or spell set it comes from!
• 10. In the Halls of the Dead, early victories can be won quickly – simply summon 6 Skeletons, cast Decentrate, and summon 5 Zombie Minions within 16-17 levels can give a good return; just avoid selecting those with large clubs who could AoE all your minions down!
  Rather than engaging your enemies directly, stall them with minions while running to their totems and trying to gain even 5% of maximum health at each totem – even if that means just stopping before they stun you, distracting you with minions, and repeating. Over time you will win, provided your minions don’t instantly die (which Aoe guys tend to do). Just make sure nobody from their side tries running to yours as that leaves them vulnerable!

  11. From here, simply keep up with the top players on poe. ninja ([poe. ninja]), since those who made it this far in one of the hardest leagues must be doing something right; daily snapshots can show your progress!

• 12. Useful links:

  https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3320651 – [pathofexile.com]

  https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3361403#ruthless-specificchanges – [pathofexile.com]

  https://www.pathofexile.com/forum/view-thread/3409617#ruthless-specificchanges – [pathofexile.com]

  https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Ruthless_mode – [poewiki.net]

  https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Vendor_recipe_(Ruthless) – [poewiki.net]

  https://www.poewiki.net/wiki/Uncarved_Gemstone – [poewiki.net]

  https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/15yqNTIAQbaFH5SD3FJX8-yFbBXYtZhaci0dxEbMXwAM/edit#gid=0 – [google.com]

• 13. Make sure to make fun of all your SSF Hardcore, Hardcore Ruthless and SSF Ruthless friends that you’re better than them. Don’t forget to let people in global chat know that you’re playing on SSF HC Ruthless.

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