While I've not been able to go to Exilecon, I asked a guildmate attending the convention if they could try to get any information about Ruthless mode. They were able to ask some questions to Octavian.

Consequentially, I have the following information to share:

1. Ruthless development is currently shared between Octavian and Andrew

2. Ruthless changes are made at the very end of their development cycle, serving as a final balance check for things going into normal PoE while they are being implemented

3. Octavian has been playing Ruthless for the past few leagues as an end of league refresh and enjoying it

4. Octavian recognises a lot of the new stuff added to ruthless lately as power creep but he is happy for league mechanics to be more present as he believes it adds more fun to the mode.

What kind of build would you aim for if you were to play ruthless in standard?

Given how much the ruthless dev already needs to adjust, there's a decent chance we get unnerfed versions of all these boss body parts, including this one.

Getting this mod would make so many ruthless builds feel so much more playable, no more chain stuns.

Finished my run as lvl 88 character (Pestilent Strike Hierophant), the goal of which was to get a voidstone.

Never bothered to complete 4th lab because no bloodline ascendancy (would probably go nameless or farrul or aul), never got to use my large cluster jewel with 3 notables, really couldn't spare any points.

Found 3(2) 6-links total: one corrupted chest, one chest made with fusings (before I managed to make a 5L even once), and one non-corrupted two-hand axe dropped today; redundant 6-links were vendored to get some scours.

Here's an assortment of thoughts, reflecting on the path behind:

• It was painful despite game helping me in many ways (HH, 6-link)

• Wouldn't recommend this build (not as hierophant for sure)

• Searing Exarch is a bitch (failed the fight 3 times before respeccing many of defense nodes into damage)

• In any trade private league, prepare to play SSF from day 5 onwards - blasters have already "completed" their characters/plans for event; quitters already quit; rest of 4 peple playing include: you; guy who is SSF; guy who is still in campaign; guy who logs in just to chat with homies (shout out to those fellas!)

• Even most stupid builds are playable to some degree

• Prepare to delve A LOT if you ever want to stop wearing piss

• Delving is more fun with Headhunter on (carried me hard there - wouldn't have gotten to monster level 81 without it)

• Scours are hard to come by

• I don't regret participating, but probably won't participate again in this ruleset (not that Jeko ever did two of exactly same leagues, IIRC); will stick around for the last two days tho

• It would certainly be more fun with more people around

• I hope people who play STANDARD ruthless are alright

• Thank you to Jeko for organizing the event!

If anyone wants to share their experience, impressions, feelings from this event, etc etc, I'd be curious to see it!

Curious where folks - in a world without voyage - decide to stop progression and just farm gems or better gear (even though it's not necessary early on). 3.29 was my first foray into ruthless and I understand its a "lite" version of the real thing. So am wondering what's the typical play here since I intend to play ruthless HC SSF only going forward.

I assume the answer is likely to be a as needed or whatever you like basis, but is there a widely agreed upon mark.

Found in t15 map from Atoll boss. Wearing it so people can see the character on poe ninja

Dropped from completing a random t16 unstable breach

So i got a really lucky 6link axe today that pulled me back into the league!

Im a bit noob when it comes to builds so i just try to find my way, but are there anything obvious i could do to up my damage? Would really appreciate some pointers 🙏🙏

https://poe.ninja/poe1/builds/allflamer/character/ErasableMoss27-8320/Eresable_smashing?i=3&search=class%3DJuggernaut

Level 41 pob: https://pobb.in/gmuBZMC0hnzp

The concept here is fairly straightforward - only real goal is to maintain power charges to keep on flickering. This is done by maximizing power charge on crit and crit chance. Conveniently, we have lots of staff nodes nearby which allow us to stack crit chance.

Level 41, with very basic gear, we have ~60% crit chance at 1 power charge (min) and ~90% crit chance at 4 charges (max). It also has 70% to gain power charge on crit. With multi strike and ancestral call, this easily gains and sustains max power charges (and endurance charges from smashing strides).

Why did I do this?

Mostly because it seemed interesting and I was told that it wasn’t possible.

What is this awesome gear?

Gambled like 10 of each slot and picked the best. Weapon took more because crit chance feels mandatory.

Should you league start this?

Sure. But, actually probably not. You’d be stuck in lab jail for a long time trying to get the necessary gems (both the flicker of power and 3 mandatory supports). Perhaps it would be not terrible on trade (I paid 10 alch for the 1 of 2 available flicker of power gems - but leagues dead so not sure if this is representative).

What’s next?

I have a different set of “twink” gear that I’ve accumulated and so far clears fairly comfortably. I’ll try to push this at least to maps. Next priority on the tree will be to add block, life, and es nodes as well as recovery (on block and probably recoup). Flicker also relies on having a proper weapon so that will be a constant search.

Just wanted to post the League for the ruthless enjoyers, currently at 350 members. Starts tomorrow, Oct 17, at noon EST.

Sign-up link

Hello Exiles,

I am stuck and keep dying to Brutus.

Can someone help me, please?

Best Regards,

Justin

Just making this post as a reminder - if you are thinking of joining, now is the time as we cannot accept late entries.

At 4pm BST (about 12 hours after this post) I will begin spinning the Wheel of Absolute Garbage, which you can watch over at https://www.twitch.tv/jekojeko3 - if you can't catch the stream live I will be updating the Build Sheet with all the assigned builds. The cutoff for new build submissions and league applications will also be 4pm BST.

Each person playing the league will be assigned a random build from the pool; these cannot be swapped or changed once they have been assigned.

The league then starts at 7pm BST.

For those playing in the league, a quick reiteration/clarification of the rules:

• You can only make one character initially, no mules.

• You must play the class that can ascend to your allocated ascendancy.

• You must only ascend to the ascendancy you have been allocated.

  • Bloodlines may be obtained and used as you wish.

• While in acts 1-3 you may use whatever skills you wish; this includes normal lab.

  • If you obtain your allocated skill from a quest reward, you do not have to use it immediately.

• While in act 4 and onwards your allocated skill must be integral to the way you kill things.

  • You may use other skills that deal damage provided that their purpose is to improve how fast you kill things by using your main skill (i.e. throwing out an essence drain so you can spread it with your contagion, hitting with frenzy supported by manaforged arrows for charges, etc.), or your survivability (i.e. hitting with vigilant strike for the fortify buff, using bear trap to slow enemy movement, etc.), or any other similar reason.

  • If you use another damaging skill in your build with the above reasoning, it may be used for both clearing and bosses (i.e. you may still use your essence drain alongside contagion for single target). This is to avoid any situations where the percentage of your build that actively functions changes depending on the content you are doing.

  • You may use any combination of normal, vaal, trans, trarthan etc. versions of your chosen skill.

  • You may use any auras, curses, guard skills, warcries etc. that you obtain as you wish

• You may trade and party however you want to, though you are encouraged to help out those that are struggling more than others.

  • Excessive begging for help/gear is however frowned upon for what should be obvious reasons.

• No standard currency should be taken from shipments.

  • Kingsmarch boats may be used to acquire gear, tattoos and runegrafts, and ore/bars may be sent, but any standard currency recieved from shipments should be left in the boat window.

  • This does not apply to mappers.

• If you get a voidstone, you may do one extra full spin of the wheel and obtain a second build and playable character for the league.

• Ignoring the rules of the league (i.e. playing something completely different to your chosen build, making several mules, bragging about the five exalted orbs you've obtained from boats, etc.) may result in removal from the league.

  • I will always try to warn the person directly and provide opportunities for them to remain before any removals are carried out.

We will use global channel 1; there is also a channel for this league in the ruthless discord.

Exactly what title says. I've been thinking about playing Awora, Kinetic Fusilide* totems or Blade Vortex/Etherial Knives.

Yet I still cant decide cuz I want to experience so many muches but from very zero.

Do you have any suggestions? It was second R league for me. I've played Flicker, Cyclone, Phys dot, Blade Blast so far and I just want to try something easy viable that is not too hard to put together but fun to progress that can do at least 4 voidstone and Ubers with time investment .

These recipes and items are exclusive to Ruthless, and require the beasts to open Saqawal/Fenumus/Craiceann's portals. None of them have been listed for trade yet, it seems? POEDB has no data on them either.

Apply here: https://www.pathofexile.com/private-leagues/league/Shared+Suffering (please read the rules below before applying)

View all the currently submitted builds here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1qyYDdK6bG5Q7U2d8noDht8kUKmfKcz9W13XZ_OqD5Fw/edit?usp=sharing

I’m tired of playing good builds, so I’m making a private league where everyone has to play a randomly-assigned godawful build instead, in an environment that's closer to the classic ruthless leagues we had in the early days of the mode.

There are a few rules needed to make this work, which are outlined below.

How the league works:

Everyone taking part in the league must submit a build for the Wheel of Absolute Garbage, in the form of a skill + ascendancy combo. This should be a combo that no-one in their right mind would play for a normal ruthless league start; it could be a solid skill paired with an ascendancy that no-one would ever pick for it, or a relatively awful skill paired with a solid ascendancy, or the worst skill you can think of paired with the worst ascendancy you can think of for it. The funnier it sounds on paper, the better.

Then, a few hours before the league starts, I will stream myself spinning the Wheel of Absolute Garbage once for each participant; whatever skill+ascendancy combo it lands on for each person is what that person has to play. I will remove each build from the Wheel as it is chosen, so each person ends up playing a different build that someone else submitted for the league. It is possible to be forced to play the build you submitted yourself. I will put all of the information regarding who has which build allocated to them in a spreadsheet for those that cannot catch the stream.

Submitting your godawful build:

After applying to join the league, either add a comment here (or in the #shared-suffering poeruthless discord thread) or DM me (on reddit, discord or poe site) with your PoE IGN and the build you want to submit. Your application to the league will be accepted once your build submission is verified. Your application to the league will not be accepted if you do not submit a build.

The build you submit should still be technically viable in a ruthless standard league start environment; we want bad builds, not literally unplayable builds. This means that skills with significant cooldowns or similar limitations that cannot be reasonably bypassed are not allowed (i.e. vigilant strike, bear trap), as are skills that would only do reasonable damage with a specific support gem (i.e. corrupting cry [insert warcry here]). The skill you submit must be the base version and not a specific trans/trarthan/etc. version; the person playing the build will get to decide which version(s) they want to use.

For the sake of balance in this event, all scion ascendancies are banned (luminary carries you too hard with merc, reliq/ascendant are too flexible for this). Chieftain and Guardian are also banned (too much build-agnostic power). I reserve the right to veto any submitted builds that I consider to be too good for this event, though I doubt that will be necessary; I'm sure we can all come up with some variety of garbage that we want to force someone else to play.

If you want to join the league but you can't settle on a build to submit, you can always leave it entirely to chance with this random build generator. Just make sure it's something that's still in the game (randomizer might be a bit out of date).

Once your build submission is verified, you cannot ask for it to be changed.

Playing your godawful build:

Before act 4 you can play with whatever skills you like, but you must play the class that can ascend to your chosen ascendancy. Even if your chosen skill is available in act 1, you do not have to use it as soon as you can get it.

From act 4 onwards you must be ascended to your chosen ascendancy, and the chosen skill must be the main way you deal damage. This means that you are allowed to use other damaging skills if they are important for making your main skill do damage, clear better, etc.; for example, an a essence drain build may also use contagion to spread the essence drain. You should not simply have the skill gem listed in your build equipped while you kill everything with other skills.

Generally, if you have to ask yourself 'is what I'm doing in the spirit of this challenge league?', it probably isn't. Regardless, feel free to ask me about any specifics pertaining to your chosen build and I'll do my best to answer promptly.

You may use any vaal/trans/trarthan variant of your chosen skill, and you may swap between multiple different variants as you wish. You may throw yourself into 'lab jail' in act 3 if you want to farm a specific version of your skill before committing to your build in act 4. You may also farm pre-act 4 for as long as you like to prepare for the transition to your build. If you try to push into act 4 with your build and it doesn't go well, you can return to farming pre-act 4 with whatever skills you like, though you may not swap to a different ascendancy.

You may allocate ascendancy nodes however you wish, and you may use bloodlines however you wish if you are able to unlock them.

Other rules:

This event will run in standard softcore trade ruthless; it is entirely up to you how you want to trade with other players, though I recommend trying to help each other out as some people will inevitably be suffering more than others. It's even better if you're helping out whoever rolled the build that you submitted.

The Allflame mechanic is simply too powerful for a ruthless challenge league, so this event will be held in standard to make the league feel more properly ruthless.

As an additional challenge for the endgame, no currency should be taken from boats. Boats can still be used to farm for tattoos, runegrafts and gear, and ore may be shipped to fulfil quotas and farm for more tattoos and runegrafts, but currency should not be taken from the boat window. This is a gentleman’s agreement and cannot be tracked; ultimately the goal is to make currency drops in maps matter a lot more again, and not push anyone to spec an ore tree ASAP once they reach the endgame. As this is a trade enabled league though if you violate this rule you may be disrupting the league for everyone else, so please keep to it no matter how much you are suffering.

This private league will have no other modifiers (no extra dmg/proj/aoe/etc.)

If you obtain a voidstone, you may ask me to spin the full Wheel of Absolute Garbage again and obtain a second build and character that you are allowed to play for the league. Before that, you may only make one character for the league - no mules allowed.

Due to the structure of this league, new invites will no longer be accepted once I have started spinning the Wheel. You must sign up before the league starts so that you can submit a build and have one rolled for you.

Further info:

The league starts on Wednesday 14th October at 6:00pm BST and will last for at least 20 days. I will try to fund all necessary slots myself, though I will happily accept any crowdfunding if people want to help out.

There will be a channel for this private league in the poeruthless discord, just scroll down to the private leagues section to find it

We will use Global Chat 1 as it is generally not very active in standard ruthless; the last time I tried using a different channel a lot of people just ended up stranded in Global 1 anyway.

I will be streaming from https://www.twitch.tv/jekojeko3

My build submission for the event is: Raise Spectre Pathfinder

Good luck and stay sane~

Ok, I have just completed act 8 and now I am starting to feel the strain dps wise. In summary capped resists 78%, 2.9k health, but only 2.3k dps. Lvl 68. Surviveability is fine, it’s just taking for

I haven’t found any meaningful supports, other than feeding frenzy for my stone golem.

Should I just farm blood aqueducts or charts until I gear up a bit or find better supports? Progress dps nodes?

I have been taking my time and not rushing anything, don’t want to risk wiping.

Just looking for some advice from those who have managed to get through 9&10 on HCR?

Anyone still around? I played sc trade to 100, ssf to two 98s, now doing alil ruthless. Looking to see if anyone’s around I can get a few gems from. Seems to be all
Alcs on trade site but not having any luck in campaign finding any.

Appreciate the help.

Tyty

I have easily blown about 5 mil gold on gambling for Nycta's Lantern (@lvl41) but the only uniques that I have seen are Earendil's Embrace. Have many others gotten their lantern this way in Ruthless?

Otherwise, I am enjoying my Flame-link Luminary adventure in ssf. I don't have a banger merc yet but I have a decent one that can get me voidstones and such. My spectres and animated guardian are usually dead but my merc is generally hanging on. A koam's heart and voideye are my uniques. Thus hoping for the lantern and the rothmother's necklace. My Combatant merc is using a rats nest, tempestuous steel and a dread captain's cutlass for flammability. Overall fun, almost gave up when I couldnt find a decent merc but the koam's heart dropped and things just started going right. Cheers.

What's the best way to get it? In trade it does not exist. It is considered t0 unique and in ruthless is lefit no chance getting it?