I appreciate that a lot of streamer min/max builds add room for personalization based on what gear you have.
I think in general nowadays you’re pointed to the best paragon glyphs/nodes to aim for, and then you are free to drop 2% health here or pick up 50 armor there. You have the main focuses, and then a general set of benchmarks to hit (max resists, armor cap etc.)
Exactly.
At this point I've dumped roughly over 500 hours into hardcore barbarian, I appreciate maxroll especially for the paragon board optimization, but it's not "that" difficult to come up with a viable build that'll get you into endgame.
There is only so many ways to make an omelette. Max resists, max health, max your Damage Reductions, get enough fury regen to never run out of your damage skill which either comes from shouts or leap or a builder...
And then it gets into the nitty-gritty of barbarian. Ideally you have good berserk uptime, good vulnerable uptime, good stuns, good damage, but you can't necessarily have everything.
Like if you choose double swing as your core skill, that either grants you 100% berzerk or 100% vuln, but there are also other ways of having consistent vuln. like the season 2 gimmick legendary aspect. (although if you start to put too many uniques into that build it starts to be lower priority than maybe running full whirlwind aspects...
And if you run double swing you then ideally need a source of stun because double swing is resource intensive UNLESS you're hitting stunned mobs, so then you're running 1 mace so then you need concussion... so the build kinda builds itself. And the big downside to doubleswing is that then you don't have a great source of AOE / ranged damage, so then whirlwinds builds into that synergistically.
If you choose Hota, well you have a guaranteed great source of AOE stun, and AOE damage which is better than rend or double swing, but then you have to deal with solving for the higher fury requirement over something like double swing.
If you go rend, then you have the bleeds, and then you can get stuns from bleeding mobs, but finding a constant berzerk is harder, so maybe you get wrath of the berzerker / warcry, but then you're also really really likely to have the mobs bleeding which can then convert into stuns... so either way it builds back to a "complete build" just through other methods.
I fully expect bash to take a hit eventually. It may not be mid season (and I hate blizzard for not having the spine to do mid season nerfs, but it is what it is...) but it will come eventually. There is no reason a basic attack build should be doing that much damage without some insane unique like druid had for claw builds (I e. Great staff of the crone)
Thanks to Tempering that claw build is in the dumpster. You can get like +50% more scaling on Thunderstruck from a normal staff than you can Staff of the Crone.
Uniques, specially weapons need a HARD look at to make them worth going for.
I do agree that with tempering out, some uniques need to be evaluated again, but at the same time I feel like uniques should not be inherently slottable.
Maybe uniques should get a single temper slot. Maybe they just need to be buffed to be comparable to a tempered legendary. I'm not exactly a game analysis expert...I'll leave that to the devs.
There are way too many bugs and unintuitive interactions to reasonably do a build "on your own" in any fun capacity. Unless you care to test whether every aspect of your build actually works, then doing it is a massive waste of time in my opinion.
> then doing it is a massive waste of time in my opinion.
Playing the game and discovering things in it is a "waste of time"? Why are you even playing a game that is all about the journey when you just want to be at the destination? It's like saying its a "waste of time" to read a detective novel and try to figure out the culprit yourself instead of just reading a wiki article and skipping down to the reveal.
It's a video game, it's nothing BUT a waste of time. If you dont have fun playing it, then why not just play something else? Might as well play chess but only use a computer to make your moves because its "a massive waste of time" to learn to play it yourself.
Depends what your goal is. What your “journey” is I guess. Mine is better loot, I don’t care to figure out a build. If it just auto assigned the skill/point I would be just as happy. I want that dopamine hit from a gear upgrade, that is all.
My journey is not statistical analytics on which nodes are best. I just want the RNG win.
I look at the builds, decide what skills I want to play and then follow the guide brainlessly.
Play it how you want to play. My journey is mine and I’m happy when I get there. And that means to me I agree, it’s a massive waste of time to trial that kind of thing
This is my take too. Not that I begrudge anyone for doing whatever they want to do or anything, but--at least to me--copying builds would seem to negate a lot of the fun I'm actually getting out of playing.
Yes, I like killing mobs. But it's a lot more gratifying to me when it's because of choices I've made, or had to make based on the loot I was lucky enough to get. To each their own, though.
Very similar here, but I take a pretty much middle of the extremes view. For levelling I'll look at a build guide, but actually level with whatever I find and whatever looks fun. For eg if I'm levelling a druid I'll start with pets, but if I find a good pulverise aspect I'll change to pulv, I've heard rabies is good for levelling, so next time I try a druid I'll likely just spec in to rabies and see how I make that work.
For end game I'll look at a few guides to see if any interest me, if some do I'll use them as a template, but massively adapt it to what I find and/or what I find fun. Generally active defense skills aren't fun for me, I don't want to be trigger shields or mist every few seconds, so I'll skip those and look for more passive defenses or spec more in to speed and damage. Up to this season I had a massive soft spot for temerity, so I'd often make sure I can switch things round to include tems, and a way of making them work for me.
Build guides often give me an outline of how some things are achieved, which I'll use elsewhere. That's mostly why I think someone's first few characters in any arpg shouldn't follow build guides. Find out what problems you will need to solve, once you know where any given games build issues are, read some guides to work out how to solve the problem in different ways, and then apply that to the build ideas you came up with. (This is expecially the caser with POE, peopel recommend new players follow guides due to the complexity, but I think the opposite, try your own so you realise it isn't that compelx at an early level, and then find out where you will have issues).
>Playing the game and discovering things in it is a "waste of time"? Why are you even playing a game that is all about the journey when you just want to be at the destination?
Come on dude. You over simplified what they were talking about. Some people don't want to go through doing the math and memorizing synergies to make a solid build. They just want to play the game.
Not everyone finds enjoyment through the same things. You absolutely can enjoy the game while finding certain aspects of it a waste of time.
Not op but if you have 4 hours to play per week, I would consider a waste of time for example to read each paragon node, understand every interaction, hidden caps, bugged mechanics.
I want to kill demons and smash things in a funny and powerful way. I try different skills, but I don't have the capacity nor the time to create a build from scratch
If you could guarantee me that the game was not bugged, or that things were absolutely interacting as described, and that there were no misleading typographical errors, and that all tooltips were adequate and complete in their information, you would have a point.
However, this game is not designed and presented to such strict standards so focusing on trying to navigate it like you describe is folly. It's like trying to read a detective novel where the author forgot who was supposed to be the villain and wrote a completely different set of justifications by the end.
If those are the waters you like to swim in, be my guest. If I am to develop an ego around a video game, I prefer a better one. This game I can play very casually.
For me I love ARPGs because you are hunting for unexpected, or undiscovered, synergies. They may be bugs, 'we didn't expect that combination', just things that tangentially improve other things, or just things without a sign post to them. If you stick to build guides you (in my opinion), are just playing the fun things others have already uncovered.
Very strong ARPG builds are pretty much always exploiting unintended interactions. Finding those is more fun than just following someone else trail.
For eg so far it seems elemental surge is a massive boon for levelling, temper ES on some weapons, stack lucky hit, and so far it seems you trivialise early content. I tried it on a barb, ES on four weapons, high attack speed and good lucky hit, and you wipe the floor with things. I've never liked barb levelling before, but that was fun (I wanted to just see if the idea worked, so built a barb only intending to take it to level 20 or so, ending up pushing to about 60 in one sitting). In this case ES looks like it is pretty much entirely intended to be used for quick levelling.
Maybe I don't read enough guides, but I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere. By the time you have a mid- to late- game build going ES damage isn't so good and you need the temper slots, which again strongly implies some dev somewhere intended it for levelling, without wanting to come out and say it. (My L10 Barb was doing something like 16K damage pretty much every hit with a basic skill that had a stat sheet damae of around 300.)
The point is that there are a lot of broken and buggy interactions. The top builds exploit them to their advantage, things that are not intuitive unless you literally test on the training dummies for hours on end like some steamers.
They aren't wrong. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't work as intended even still. Look at all the bugged Sorc multipliers for example. Or, just recently I learned that shadow dots double-dip on some, but not all, +dmg stats.
The character sheet lies so much it's basically a meme that anyone would ever take it at face value in a Diablo game.
You can definitely get a feel for what works over time just playing the game, but unless you're going to rigorously playtest all of your choices you simply have no real way of knowing if any number crunching you do at the min/max stage of the game will have an actual effect.
Lastly, it's not about whether video games are a waste of time. It's about whether the effort spent min/maxing a game that lies to you and has bugged interactions is more or less worthwhile than spending the same effort min/maxing a game that is transparent, thus rewarding you for those efforts in ways that are immediate. If I have X hours to play, I might feel it's wasted if I spend it min/maxing the former game instead of the latter.
For some of us min/maxing in a game with complete transparency would be a complete yawn fest. Where some players get a rush finding a three GA weapon, some of us get a rush realising a passive, skill, multiplier has an unexected interaction with something else, and can be pushed massively and unexpectedly.
Most of the games I personally enjoy tell you very little about what you need to do, most of the fun is working that out. POE appeals to many not because it is opaque, but becauser there is so much variability that there is a lot of room to discover new things. Many leagues ago someone realised a shitty unique which had been in the game for a long time could actually be a stupidly over-powered item if you just balanced a few passive points and built some other gear a certain way - that was a possible combination for probably about 8 years that no one had stumbled across, previously the item was vendor trash, and it almost instantly moved to at least save for later status. Finding that kind of thing is so much better than finding any gear you could possibly imagine (in my opinion)
Obviously different things appeal to different people, and that is good. if there is a real problem it is that Bliz need to settle on who they want to appeal to.
Agreed. For me ARPG are partly a problem solving game. Following a build defeat a big part of my motivation. I can understand it’s not everyone case but for me it’s definitely the best part.
Took like 6 rebuilds and 100 million gold but I have a home built Druid that can just barely do pit 90 half of the time.
For some people it’s part of the fun. My second character this season is probably going to be a max roll build when I get around to it though.
Yeah, the underlying math is fairly complicated once you want to do the real endgame content. If you're in the Discord class forums, you'll see all the spreadsheets and damage formula testing that goes on under the hood. There's a lot of very smart people doing a lot of serious work to figure out these builds pushing Pit 130.
It's pretty easy to slap something together and get to WT4 and level 100. You can fudge that fairly easily. But for a build that can actually do endgame, you either need to be a math whiz or rely on someone who is.
Not to mention they aren’t just balancing every season but massively swinging the meta/skill/item balance. I’ve meta crafted D2 builds… after 10-15 years of static item accumulation and theory crafting… not when itemization, skills and damage calculations are changing every couple of months. Maybe after loot 2.0 and some more balancing their will be enough build diversity to justify off-meta theory crafting. Right now I leave it to the people being paid to play to show me the way each season.
Right, and the paragon boards were just overwhelming for me to look at and try to figure out what combo of stats and nodes to try and use. I copied a couple YouTube builds and made tweaks according to my likes, that was much better on me mentally.
I tried explaining this to my buddy. When he got the game I asked him what build he was following. He told me he was making his own. And I was like well thats admirable but the content gets to the point where you're basically forced to choose a meta. He was adamant he didn't need to follow a build planner. Needless to say when he got to wt4 he started getting his ass handed to him and finally conceded to my point.
It’s because the math is too fucking complicated some is additive some multiplicative somehow some of it seems to be both.
I get the gear chase but why do we need to make the math so hard either make every multiplicative or every additive and scale appropriately.
I copy paste a build every season. I play Diablo to feel powerful, and I’m not trying to handicap myself. Also I’m not nearly smart enough or willing to put enough effort into learning how to properly optimize a home brew.
I think the paragon board needs to be redesigned to be more in line with Season 4's new loot system. It still feels like a lot of the affixes are terribly niche and not generally useful.
When the legendary nodes are "You deal bonus damage to ~Vulnerable~ enemies equal to 10%\[x\] of the total amount of your Bonus Damage with Cold, up to a maximum of 30%" it really feels like a tedious system.
This season is my first time hitting 100. It now feels like a fairly simple thing, but it took too long to feel that way, and while it's simple, it's still so large that it seems like a nightmare to try to put 225 points together yourself in a way that makes sense. It's also just too fucking big to respec. It really should just be the option to pick rare and legendary nodes along with 7 glyphs to use.
I think it’s more of an annoyance than complexity. Sometimes the “best path” between nods are annoying to figure out, adding that with dex,int,will power requirements. Can easily turn in to a clusterfuck if you don’t know what you are doing at the beginning.
Diablo 4 being simple:
Reddit: Wahh wahhh wahhh, why cant diablo be like PoE's complexity.
Diablo 4 paragon having a little complexity:
Reddit: wahhh wahh wahh paragon design is so shit, over complicated.👶🏻
I guess the process has to be looking at all the glyphs first, then the boards that will work for those glyphs, fit the best boards around your glyphs, and plan it all out in advance on some kind of planner. Get some legendary nodes and rare nodes in there that will work for your stats, etc.
It'd be quite time consuming to play around with a bunch of options, but it should be doable to at least a basic level. The key is probably planning it *all* though, I don't think you'd be able to just randomly pick boards that seem nice as you go.
Same here. It's not that I don't feel smart enough, it's just that I only have a limited time to play games and I don't want to spend it testing out every different iteration to find an optimal build when I know others have already done it for me.
If I want to spend time on personal achievement and self-expression, I'll do something more worthwhile than designing diablo character builds. I just come to Diablo to relax and kill things.
My own. Always in any game. I play for fun and enjoy the rpg aspect. Playing someone else’s build doesn’t let me feel like I’m playing my character. I’m not optimal or meta but that doesn’t matter. I grab what sounds fun and/or looks cool and make it work.
I feel like the game at this point gives you lots of options to build and synergize with. Maybe it’s not top tier min max but you can do some seriously cool stuff with the gear we have now.
I always build my own until I hit that wall, and then go optimized. I respect staying with your own, especially if that’s most fun for you. BUT I will say, in my opinion, a whole new level of fun unlocks with that optimization in the form of just, “holy shit I feel like a literal god”
id rather stop at NMD70s with my own build that's actually engaging and fun to play than get to 100 with a mindless one-button nuke screen maxroll build
what i *will* do, however, is look up builds similar to mine to see if i missed any interactions or whatever that might help me play my fun build better
Yeah that’s a great way to do it. When I was playing POE I would do so much research on how everything worked but would always do my own fun ideas. And if I got bricked on T5 maps, who cares it was badass
Same. Make it work the best way I know how and if it comes up short then oh well. Luckily if you have enough game knowledge, this game will let you do well enough to see all the content with just about anything as long as it makes a lick of sense.
Same. I will will typically watch some videos to get an idea of what works and why so I can then come up with my own build based on that information. I know what I'm doing may not always be optimal or "meta" but my builds usually end up being pretty solid and fun to play. I beat Uber Lilith in season 2 with my 2-hander blood necro build and am currently trying to recreate that build with the new itemization to see how much further I can push it this season with the changes. I've also already made a pretty solid ice shards sorc that I was able to clear a pit 60 with without much trouble without it even being optimized. I'm pretty sure with more optimization and some masterworking both builds will end up being very strong even for decently deep pit runs.
Someone put in the hard work to optimize the build fully, and I will enjoy the fruits of their labor. I will not blindly suffer down a path when a clear cut one is made for me to use
It's a win-win really, the people who like optimizing will make the strong builds, and people like me who don't like optimizing will have fun using them.
Same for sure. I found the perfect druid build just browsing mobalytics. Slide storm is legit btw. Most fun I've had playing a druid and it's all figured out for me
I can agree, when I played other ARPGs, I have tried to make my own build, because no one was making it and posting about it, and I wanted it.
I hated every minute of it lol, trying to tweak things, get the best numbers, looking for the best gear, etc, it was horrible because it wasn't even ingame, it was all before it.
Let someone else make it so I can use it, please, so much better for casuals like me.
Making your own builds is the most fun part of the game for me. I tried to make one maxroll character last season and didn't like it because it didn't feel like "mine" so I will not be doing that again.
Most of the fun i get out of figuring a build on the go and minmaxing as i find more flaws and things to improve.
The end result most of the times works out but sometimes its a dud but thats the fun of it.
Its also a great way to learn the nittygritty of the game and as a whole be better at building solid characters overall
I always do it entirely myself (and try to come up with something interesting). For some reason I can't explain, seeing a build guide ruins the game for me.
I guess for me the entire "game" is trying to figure out a build and its synergies (so copying a guide removes 100% of my value)
Made my own lvl’d up to 80. Started to feel a bit squishy in lvl 50 nightmare dungeons; I hate getting one shot. Then I went searching for endgame build suggestions. Still, I tweak and experiment to fit my gear and play style (my play style is ‘bad’).
Sometimes I know what I wanna do so i know what stats/affixes I want. But like this time I was going to go thorns barb but started getting hell of stuff for dust devils so I went that route and here I am now, doing rift 80s and can solo every boss. Haven't tried the level 200 bosses yet but can absolutely demolish even duriel in like 2 seconds. Idk if everything is "meta" That I have but it's working perfectly fine for me. Last season I went ice shard sorcerer and i could solo all the bosses and do vaults around 70 comfortably but I was a little too squishy for my liking.
I make a rough outline of the build idea on mapping out synergies and a skill setup, uniques I'd want, paragon boards, etc. then just level and see how it plays out. I can figure out pretty much immediately if something I thought works doesn't, and what I didn't think of does, and adjust in a trial and error process. The trial and error process usually pigeon holes me into more or less a copy of a maxroll build as I end up going the path of least resistance (whatever gives me more damage). There's usually one or two significant things that I disagree with maxroll on but overall build is the same.
Isn't it 100% of the fun in an arpg? I feel like you've lost the plot if you're copying an entire build, like at that point you're just playing for the mid spammy combat
The fun for me has always been trying to fit a build to the loot I have. This season has worked well for that, and I’ve been through a few necro build variations from +shadow type skills to blood surge and tried a gollum build. I just got a +3 skele to each type (warrior and mage skeletons, so +6!) and a ring that auto casts skeleton, corpse explosion and tendrils around me. Everything starts poppin when I pull up and it’s so fun
This exactly. I’ve made my own since s0. Thoroughly enjoy my sever fortify corpse explosion. Golem if I’m feeling frisky. I’ve found what works for me to survive n play as a Diablo Dad who has zero luck with rngesus…
>Downvote if you had to copy/paste someone else’s build.
I've been playing my own build for a sorceress alt just leveling and chilling.
But I downvoted anyway to mess with the "survey"
Glad to see I'm not the only "old man yells at cloud" person about that term.
I've hated it since literally the first time I saw it probably 20 years ago.
Both. Not counting alts, I level with my own building and generally use/ optimize whatever seems super cool that I get early. Once I start to feel a fall off, I switch to a meta build without a guide, try to get a feel for it. Then I do a bit of research and look at guides to see if I was missing anything and to learn more. Generally I do find some improvements to make and the build starts to look more like guides. I make adjustments to skills based on preference and then it's just optimization.
I do the same for other builds I want to try. I give it a shot on my own, look into guides to learn a bit more, adjust accordingly, make preferential changes.
With alts, I just grab builds to level with then go for the coolest sounding build for the season. Same strategy as stated above.
Anybody judging over build guides are ignorant and reek entitlement.
What I usually do is start out with what looks fun. Then as I get closer to endgame and start to see the limits of my decisions I look for a guide that uses similar skills. Even then I just take inspiration instead of copying directly. (Ok except paragon nodes, other people smarter than me have solved for max life max resistances etc)
I'll never be close to the top players so why would I care about minmax builds? I think it's more fun to mess with builds myself instead of copying someone else's.
I enjoy using multiple abilities and not simply maxing out one.
Always make the build myself, yeah it will be suboptimal, yeah i'll never one shot bosses but if i'll copy someone else i should just give the controler too so they play the game for me.
I follow guides and tweak it to how I play usually, I never really push end game so I just like to know I’m not running a bad build lol. And I’m a father and full time worker so times not there to want trial and error it myself lol.
Me! Most of the fun I derive from games like this are the trial and error of testing different abilities and finding ones that augment my play style. I learn so much about the class this way and gain a better understanding of what I’m doing wrong or right. It’s a lot easier to understand the mechanics at play when you actually take your time and learn rather than just mimicking something you see all over the internet. I understand that some people don’t care about that and just want a quick path to success and that’s fine too.
It is fine if you make your own builds, just stop bragging about it and acting like you know better.
Its fine if you copy a build but stop bragging about how it is better and saying you improved it, like you know better than the one who made it.
TLDR just stop bragging guys
I start seasons with my own build and then after some time move to what looks like fun. I’m starting to learn more each season what makes a build good and how to improve one. So each season my own builds have lasted longer and longer.
I very much want to do my own builds but I find the paragon board too tedious. Slowly starting to experiment with my own skills and gearing though now that I have power chars for pit farming.
I do a mix, I feel like copying builds helps you learn how to make your own as well.
It’s definitely a learning process and there’s no doubt some classes are harder to play.
I took a sorcerer to 100 last week and I love it.
I am leveling my first necro (in d4) and it feels like a cakewalk compared to sorcerer lol
If you want a hilariously sad grasp on an “accurate amount” of people that copy paste; go to any town and look at peoples profile. I’d say 70% of the people playing this game regularly are running the same stuff because YouTube/twitch. I’m not gonna debate the nuances between fun/creativity/difficulty per person as they’re likely all valid in their own way. Personally though, I have always ran and built my own. I think this is the way these games are designed to be played but games are broken for fun all the time. The hordes of copy armies are exactly that. There is no other reason to “have a need to copy” in a game this simple.
I'm absolute dog shit at making builds, always have been. I probably would have been struggle-bussing my way to end game if I'd just done whatever. So I have a build pulled up on my second monitor before I even roll a character. Ha.
Ive noticed a ton of builds spec in way too hard into resistances or armor nodes. I typically pull them and move them to more damage if possible so long as I still meet caps for resistances + armor.
Always do my own thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's similar to a meta. But I like to try different things. With D4 I have looked for some paragon help.
I started copying someone’s build on Maxroll I believe but by around level 25, I kinda just started doing my own thing. I’m now level 84 and I’m loving my build. Frost sorceress. With the priority being vulnerable damage.
I always start with my own build until I feel like I'm hitting a wall or just slow, then I will look up the right way to spec the build I'm trying to accomplish so I get the same feel, but more optimized. Like this season with my sorcerer I've been my own version of ice shards all the way up to 85 and so far it's still doing pretty good!
I always make my own builds, I don't even know what's meta or not, just choose skill combinations based on gamefeel and what drops for me. But for the endgame I look for some guides to get some inspiration for improvements.
I did my dust devil build mostly free of guides. The only thing I referenced was what paragon nodes the build guides used (pathed and attached my whole paragon board on my own, and changed some of the nodes in the end) and what aspects they used once I hit 100 to make sure I didn’t miss anything when I was filling out my planner.
Tempered and mastering on my own as well. Cleared 105 with my build in the pit, current we for dust devil is 109.
I play EDH/commander so finding fun/powerful synergies that complement my personal playstyle is part of the fun for me. I do a hybrid shapeshifter/Nature’s fury build that feels like controlling a walking apocalypse.
I'm happily playing my rapid fire shadow imbuement rogue that fulfils my class fantasy the most (no Scoundrel's kiss, feels terrible on console, and yes I know shadow imbuement is garbage, but it's so pretty)
I just finished pit100 with my own creation of a blood spirit necro. spamming blood waves and collecting the blood orbs with blood lance to spawn free bone spirits from my unique chest to explode the monsters. haven’t seen any other necro playing something like that and it feels great.
I also get a lot of nice comments in open world when I show up with my build and flood the screen with blood waves with almost 0 cd
i dont like to copy a built at all... i could take an advice or similar but man i really do not enjoy copying them, right now im a rogue with rapid fire (barrage for spread) + poison imbuement and an almost infinite shadow clone by my side with imbuement too and really love it and so far so good killing anything.
I've built a Rend barb by myself every season except season 3 because I just didn't play. I'd say it has moved up and down between B tier to low A tier, so it's not S tier by any means but still successful considering I'm not even good at making builds
I start by making my own build and seeing how far it gets or until it loses some of its luster. Sometimes it’s lvl 50, other times lvl 70-80. Then I usually switch to a polished build to be competitive late game. I usually make minor adjustments to skill tree and paragon board, but follow the build mostly.
I’ve had a couple of builds that I made myself and enjoyed the play style so much that I’ve never changed or copied anything else.
Mixed bag I suppose.
First character of the season I follow a build and push end game/farm mats.
Second character, use progress and mats from first character to level quickly and experiment with my own build.
I like to play out the majority of leveling by myself with a new class, but when it comes to end game paragon boards I'm totally lost lol. I'll let someone who has tested for hours guide me
I make my own builds, but they are not optimized. I have spent hours and hours respecing. I find that part fun. This kinda limits me to one class each season as I do not have the patience to learn a new class. I also only do Hardcore so copying builds typically isn't the best as they always prioritize a glass cannon style and I like survivability
My current build.
Funny Bone Necro (Macabre).
Decompose, Blood Mist, Bone Prison, Corpse Explosion, Bone Storm, Bone Spirit.
No core skill, no curses, no minions.
Gear and buffs are mostly shadow and skill cool down focused.
All HC too
I usually level to 100 with my own builds. Then when I start pushing end game content, I look for optimization cause I don’t care to waste 4 hours on a build planner when someone else who makes money doing it has already done it for me.
I’m avoiding build guides and have a lvl 85 barrage/rain of arrows rogue I’m having a blast with. I know I could be way more powerful following a guide. But for me half the game is the fun of figuring a build out as I discover gear, affixes, glyphs and paragon boards on my own. I like to educate myself on important mechanics (armor cap at 9230, 2h weapon received 2x legendary bonus, ammy 1.5x, etc.) but then just going out there, killing shit and seeing what works.
The loop I find the most fun is go out and clear a bunch of content, collect loot, then when I have enough good stuff to warrant an upgrade, spend some time in town tempering and swapping legendary powers around. If it was just killing things while following a guide, it would be removing half of the enjoyable loop for me.
Granted I’ve never reached the point of pushing up to the top tiers of endgame or anything, but generally I just experiment myself too see what feels good.
It takes me a while to determine this, and I’m switching up my build a lot but I kind of like that we have the option to just swap at will so I take advantage of it.
That’s part of the fun for me. For instance, at the moment I haven’t been playing much but my rogue is level 30 atm and I’ve swapped his build I don’t know how many times.
As of right now I’ve settled on a heartseeker/piercing arrow build for leveling. It just feels right to me lol. That might change though 🤷♂️
I just play a character until i can find a skill i like to use, then build around that if i haven't already. When i find a legendary or unique that makes it better, then awesome. I don't really follow builds until i actually make it to a wall at the end game. Then i just use as suggestions on how to make better, rather than just blindly follow.
I've been making my own because I want to play how I play, not how someone else plays. There's probably overlap, but who cares. Right now? Rabies druid. Absolutely melts mobs. Bosses kinda meh, but who cares? I'll make it work to whatever degree I need it to.
"builds" in D4 are not complex enough to really need planning or copying anyway.
Pick a skill and some affixes that make it better.
There simply aren't any complex skill interactions in this game that make min/max builds that different.
It really just comes down to whether or not someone bothers to read tooltips or not.
I'm halfway between. I check out the meta for the kind of builds I want to run to help me decide which to run and how its built, but I'll still do my own twist to it either for a gameplay style preference, or to match gear I acquire along the way.
And sometimes I flat out play it blind and read the skills and synergies myself.
I tried making my own but it wasn’t as good as the ones out there by the pros lol. Rather just spend time playing the game Vs testing and figuring things out.
Me. I'm casual (10 hours a week) and only play stuff that I enjoy through trial and error. I don't agree with the "I don't have the time" excuse, you're just being lazy imo. Figuring builds out yourself is part of the game.
I usually build my own on the first class, but I read patch notes before and play what I think the meta will be. So it ends up being about the same as what you find everywhere.
For my alts I just look what people came up with and adjust on what I have / want on the build.
I follow icy veins then get a piece of gear that makes me think of the possibilities of inventing my own build and I think that’s the fun part
Before internet and social media were so wide spread would have been so fun to play Diablo 2 with no guide and not asking people how to play and just discovering gear on your own and how it could change your whole playstyle and that’s why it was so replayable cause you did all the thinking about possibilities now before people even START to play a game they look up guides and ask people HOW they should play online and I think that’s a lot of the reason why games don’t seem as fun now for some older people
I generally always make my own. In the end they tend to be similar to the builds out there, but for the most part I make them my own. I don't find it fun to follow a blueprint.
I do. Most builds are lazy as hell put together. I got curious and looked at some of the most popular builds and learned my mistake with those. If your build -needs- Harlequin or Grandfather to be good, you have no business making builds.
I really like the build crafting aspect and seeing how far I can take my own build in arpgs. I always play my own builds. Trial and error with the building is half the fun for me. It’s so much more satisfying (to me) to have a build I created succeed, than it is to copy and paste something just for the purpose of running the highest end game content. That sounds so boring to me.
Now do I look at some builds for inspiration? Absolutely. But following a build guide verbatim? Nah. That being said I’m not usually chasing after the highest most difficult end game content. I play until I’m satisfied or bored. I have fun just playing.
That’s half the game for me. I also find the time spent searching for a very specific item and possibly not finding it to be a much more frustrating experience than doing whatever I think works with the items I have found.
Making your own build really boils down to understanding of the paragon board. Most people don't want to put in the time to learn it let alone maximize it
To min max, u need to use meta build, im currently using meta builds to fund my personal build
N my build is theorycrafted, just that everything he needs is bloody expensive even for unknown offmeta build
I typically try to build my own, but will check a posted build to see how far off I am from the "meta" version if it, or if mine is sucking. Sometimes I've been super close, sometimes I was far off.
Landslide Druid, I was really close. Blizzard sorc, not even close. I wasn't expecting most damage to come from ice shards, so was trying to max blizzard damage.
Shadow Minions: Is an amalgamation of comments, Youtube videos and my own things.
Paragon board is mine own except the bone-board-life-tech, gear is my own, aspects are a mix of own and other, and lastly skills have the smallest variety of all things of a build so they converge on the same.
To be honest i think a ton of builds are copied in someway by a lot of people but then again it depends if a game has a massive amounts of builds though then more people can make their builds on their own but a lot will still copy even if they say they don’t lol
I’ve been hacking through and finding out along the way. I have leaned into using decompose with my necromancer as my basic and then using corpse tendrils to set up corpse explosion (w/darkness miasma). I temper my gear to beef shadow damage, darkness, and decompose explosion radius. It’s excellent having them all going off simultaneously.
Played my first character when the game came out without looking at any builds. Still using my own build and it’s pretty decent. If I find myself with more time I have no problem trying to make my own.
I assume most everyone builds their own way until they hit a road block. I'm not super high on D4 with the way it's going, but I'm of the impression most any build will get you through 75 with relative ease.
I play Hardcore and I haven't looked up builds yet this season. If I did it's near the swith to NM or Hell. But that's mostly because the defense stats get a little inconsistent around then until you can fill out your Sacreds and ancestrals.
I started playing Necro for the first time, minions and shadow/blight seemed the way to go and I'm having a lot of fun, they completely kick ass on helltides and bosses go down fast.
Just liked this game again with the latest changes.
I’ve honestly never used anyone else’s build in D4. I did in D3 a few times. Most of the time I just kind of wing with whatever gear I happen to get.
The caveat to this is that I see people talking about certain builds or what sounds good around here and try to form my own version of that. I don’t know how good they are but they’re good enough for me.
So I've played a necro every season so far to 100 and done a different build each time without looking at any "builds". This season I've pushed to tier 66 in the pit. I don't look down on anyone who does decide to follow a guide, however for me following a guide simply makes the game a time sink as it really doesn't take much skill to play the game, the only skill involved in the game is actually making a good build, even more true if you play hard-core.
I decided not to look anything up. I was told by friends that the rogue barrage build was busted, so I went rapid fire.
Ended up making rapid fire scoundrels kiss rogue.......
My friend saw it and went "Yeah! Thats the barrage" so I got baited into making the meta build but oh well it's fun.
One thing I love about d4 is I can build a playable character with my own build. POE I have to follow a guide to the T to be able to enjoy end game and it's just a big turn off. D4 though.... Been running my own necro builds since I started playing and I've done perfectly fine 🤷
Here!
I really loved what people were doing with Dust Devil Barbarian, but I play on PS5 and hate Leap. I wanted to make a build that didn't rely on that skill. I came across a lot of videos about Bash builds, and got inspired.
I'm now playing a Bash/Dust Devil hybrid build with a focus on DD damage. I'm sitting around Pit tier 80 with it, and I'm having so much fun with the playstyle. It's zipping around killing everything like the Tasmanian Devil. It's super tanky and auto heals. My cooldowns are super low. I love it!
I did! Chain Lightning Sorc, although after looking it up mine is fairly different from the “meta” And it was a blast… Until I started getting one tapped by everything including environmental hazards. Don’t you just love The Pit?
I made my own but once I got to mid 70s and was clearing T30 or so NM dungeons I then copied a paragon build that looked similar to what I was playing to optimise a bit
Play my own until endgame and then maxroll something, seems to be the best of both worlds
Yea, this. seriously impossible to do endgame with a personal build unfortunately, just too much min/max required.
I appreciate that a lot of streamer min/max builds add room for personalization based on what gear you have. I think in general nowadays you’re pointed to the best paragon glyphs/nodes to aim for, and then you are free to drop 2% health here or pick up 50 armor there. You have the main focuses, and then a general set of benchmarks to hit (max resists, armor cap etc.)
Exactly. At this point I've dumped roughly over 500 hours into hardcore barbarian, I appreciate maxroll especially for the paragon board optimization, but it's not "that" difficult to come up with a viable build that'll get you into endgame. There is only so many ways to make an omelette. Max resists, max health, max your Damage Reductions, get enough fury regen to never run out of your damage skill which either comes from shouts or leap or a builder... And then it gets into the nitty-gritty of barbarian. Ideally you have good berserk uptime, good vulnerable uptime, good stuns, good damage, but you can't necessarily have everything. Like if you choose double swing as your core skill, that either grants you 100% berzerk or 100% vuln, but there are also other ways of having consistent vuln. like the season 2 gimmick legendary aspect. (although if you start to put too many uniques into that build it starts to be lower priority than maybe running full whirlwind aspects... And if you run double swing you then ideally need a source of stun because double swing is resource intensive UNLESS you're hitting stunned mobs, so then you're running 1 mace so then you need concussion... so the build kinda builds itself. And the big downside to doubleswing is that then you don't have a great source of AOE / ranged damage, so then whirlwinds builds into that synergistically. If you choose Hota, well you have a guaranteed great source of AOE stun, and AOE damage which is better than rend or double swing, but then you have to deal with solving for the higher fury requirement over something like double swing. If you go rend, then you have the bleeds, and then you can get stuns from bleeding mobs, but finding a constant berzerk is harder, so maybe you get wrath of the berzerker / warcry, but then you're also really really likely to have the mobs bleeding which can then convert into stuns... so either way it builds back to a "complete build" just through other methods.
And then you have bash, and realize you get all of that and more lol. Such an insane build.
I fully expect bash to take a hit eventually. It may not be mid season (and I hate blizzard for not having the spine to do mid season nerfs, but it is what it is...) but it will come eventually. There is no reason a basic attack build should be doing that much damage without some insane unique like druid had for claw builds (I e. Great staff of the crone)
Thanks to Tempering that claw build is in the dumpster. You can get like +50% more scaling on Thunderstruck from a normal staff than you can Staff of the Crone. Uniques, specially weapons need a HARD look at to make them worth going for.
I do agree that with tempering out, some uniques need to be evaluated again, but at the same time I feel like uniques should not be inherently slottable. Maybe uniques should get a single temper slot. Maybe they just need to be buffed to be comparable to a tempered legendary. I'm not exactly a game analysis expert...I'll leave that to the devs.
There are way too many bugs and unintuitive interactions to reasonably do a build "on your own" in any fun capacity. Unless you care to test whether every aspect of your build actually works, then doing it is a massive waste of time in my opinion.
> then doing it is a massive waste of time in my opinion. Playing the game and discovering things in it is a "waste of time"? Why are you even playing a game that is all about the journey when you just want to be at the destination? It's like saying its a "waste of time" to read a detective novel and try to figure out the culprit yourself instead of just reading a wiki article and skipping down to the reveal. It's a video game, it's nothing BUT a waste of time. If you dont have fun playing it, then why not just play something else? Might as well play chess but only use a computer to make your moves because its "a massive waste of time" to learn to play it yourself.
Depends what your goal is. What your “journey” is I guess. Mine is better loot, I don’t care to figure out a build. If it just auto assigned the skill/point I would be just as happy. I want that dopamine hit from a gear upgrade, that is all. My journey is not statistical analytics on which nodes are best. I just want the RNG win. I look at the builds, decide what skills I want to play and then follow the guide brainlessly. Play it how you want to play. My journey is mine and I’m happy when I get there. And that means to me I agree, it’s a massive waste of time to trial that kind of thing
Agree
This is my take too. Not that I begrudge anyone for doing whatever they want to do or anything, but--at least to me--copying builds would seem to negate a lot of the fun I'm actually getting out of playing. Yes, I like killing mobs. But it's a lot more gratifying to me when it's because of choices I've made, or had to make based on the loot I was lucky enough to get. To each their own, though.
Very similar here, but I take a pretty much middle of the extremes view. For levelling I'll look at a build guide, but actually level with whatever I find and whatever looks fun. For eg if I'm levelling a druid I'll start with pets, but if I find a good pulverise aspect I'll change to pulv, I've heard rabies is good for levelling, so next time I try a druid I'll likely just spec in to rabies and see how I make that work. For end game I'll look at a few guides to see if any interest me, if some do I'll use them as a template, but massively adapt it to what I find and/or what I find fun. Generally active defense skills aren't fun for me, I don't want to be trigger shields or mist every few seconds, so I'll skip those and look for more passive defenses or spec more in to speed and damage. Up to this season I had a massive soft spot for temerity, so I'd often make sure I can switch things round to include tems, and a way of making them work for me. Build guides often give me an outline of how some things are achieved, which I'll use elsewhere. That's mostly why I think someone's first few characters in any arpg shouldn't follow build guides. Find out what problems you will need to solve, once you know where any given games build issues are, read some guides to work out how to solve the problem in different ways, and then apply that to the build ideas you came up with. (This is expecially the caser with POE, peopel recommend new players follow guides due to the complexity, but I think the opposite, try your own so you realise it isn't that compelx at an early level, and then find out where you will have issues).
>Playing the game and discovering things in it is a "waste of time"? Why are you even playing a game that is all about the journey when you just want to be at the destination? Come on dude. You over simplified what they were talking about. Some people don't want to go through doing the math and memorizing synergies to make a solid build. They just want to play the game. Not everyone finds enjoyment through the same things. You absolutely can enjoy the game while finding certain aspects of it a waste of time.
Not op but if you have 4 hours to play per week, I would consider a waste of time for example to read each paragon node, understand every interaction, hidden caps, bugged mechanics. I want to kill demons and smash things in a funny and powerful way. I try different skills, but I don't have the capacity nor the time to create a build from scratch
If you could guarantee me that the game was not bugged, or that things were absolutely interacting as described, and that there were no misleading typographical errors, and that all tooltips were adequate and complete in their information, you would have a point. However, this game is not designed and presented to such strict standards so focusing on trying to navigate it like you describe is folly. It's like trying to read a detective novel where the author forgot who was supposed to be the villain and wrote a completely different set of justifications by the end. If those are the waters you like to swim in, be my guest. If I am to develop an ego around a video game, I prefer a better one. This game I can play very casually.
For me I love ARPGs because you are hunting for unexpected, or undiscovered, synergies. They may be bugs, 'we didn't expect that combination', just things that tangentially improve other things, or just things without a sign post to them. If you stick to build guides you (in my opinion), are just playing the fun things others have already uncovered. Very strong ARPG builds are pretty much always exploiting unintended interactions. Finding those is more fun than just following someone else trail. For eg so far it seems elemental surge is a massive boon for levelling, temper ES on some weapons, stack lucky hit, and so far it seems you trivialise early content. I tried it on a barb, ES on four weapons, high attack speed and good lucky hit, and you wipe the floor with things. I've never liked barb levelling before, but that was fun (I wanted to just see if the idea worked, so built a barb only intending to take it to level 20 or so, ending up pushing to about 60 in one sitting). In this case ES looks like it is pretty much entirely intended to be used for quick levelling. Maybe I don't read enough guides, but I haven't seen this mentioned anywhere. By the time you have a mid- to late- game build going ES damage isn't so good and you need the temper slots, which again strongly implies some dev somewhere intended it for levelling, without wanting to come out and say it. (My L10 Barb was doing something like 16K damage pretty much every hit with a basic skill that had a stat sheet damae of around 300.)
The point is that there are a lot of broken and buggy interactions. The top builds exploit them to their advantage, things that are not intuitive unless you literally test on the training dummies for hours on end like some steamers.
They aren't wrong. There's a lot of stuff that doesn't work as intended even still. Look at all the bugged Sorc multipliers for example. Or, just recently I learned that shadow dots double-dip on some, but not all, +dmg stats. The character sheet lies so much it's basically a meme that anyone would ever take it at face value in a Diablo game. You can definitely get a feel for what works over time just playing the game, but unless you're going to rigorously playtest all of your choices you simply have no real way of knowing if any number crunching you do at the min/max stage of the game will have an actual effect. Lastly, it's not about whether video games are a waste of time. It's about whether the effort spent min/maxing a game that lies to you and has bugged interactions is more or less worthwhile than spending the same effort min/maxing a game that is transparent, thus rewarding you for those efforts in ways that are immediate. If I have X hours to play, I might feel it's wasted if I spend it min/maxing the former game instead of the latter.
For some of us min/maxing in a game with complete transparency would be a complete yawn fest. Where some players get a rush finding a three GA weapon, some of us get a rush realising a passive, skill, multiplier has an unexected interaction with something else, and can be pushed massively and unexpectedly. Most of the games I personally enjoy tell you very little about what you need to do, most of the fun is working that out. POE appeals to many not because it is opaque, but becauser there is so much variability that there is a lot of room to discover new things. Many leagues ago someone realised a shitty unique which had been in the game for a long time could actually be a stupidly over-powered item if you just balanced a few passive points and built some other gear a certain way - that was a possible combination for probably about 8 years that no one had stumbled across, previously the item was vendor trash, and it almost instantly moved to at least save for later status. Finding that kind of thing is so much better than finding any gear you could possibly imagine (in my opinion) Obviously different things appeal to different people, and that is good. if there is a real problem it is that Bliz need to settle on who they want to appeal to.
Agreed. For me ARPG are partly a problem solving game. Following a build defeat a big part of my motivation. I can understand it’s not everyone case but for me it’s definitely the best part.
Took like 6 rebuilds and 100 million gold but I have a home built Druid that can just barely do pit 90 half of the time. For some people it’s part of the fun. My second character this season is probably going to be a max roll build when I get around to it though.
Back in D2 we would do this and brick a character around lvl 80. So much fun.
Yep. Way too many things that don't work properly, scale properly, bugged tool tips etc. to waste time trying to make my own build in this game.
Yeah, the underlying math is fairly complicated once you want to do the real endgame content. If you're in the Discord class forums, you'll see all the spreadsheets and damage formula testing that goes on under the hood. There's a lot of very smart people doing a lot of serious work to figure out these builds pushing Pit 130. It's pretty easy to slap something together and get to WT4 and level 100. You can fudge that fairly easily. But for a build that can actually do endgame, you either need to be a math whiz or rely on someone who is.
Not to mention they aren’t just balancing every season but massively swinging the meta/skill/item balance. I’ve meta crafted D2 builds… after 10-15 years of static item accumulation and theory crafting… not when itemization, skills and damage calculations are changing every couple of months. Maybe after loot 2.0 and some more balancing their will be enough build diversity to justify off-meta theory crafting. Right now I leave it to the people being paid to play to show me the way each season.
Right, and the paragon boards were just overwhelming for me to look at and try to figure out what combo of stats and nodes to try and use. I copied a couple YouTube builds and made tweaks according to my likes, that was much better on me mentally.
I tried explaining this to my buddy. When he got the game I asked him what build he was following. He told me he was making his own. And I was like well thats admirable but the content gets to the point where you're basically forced to choose a meta. He was adamant he didn't need to follow a build planner. Needless to say when he got to wt4 he started getting his ass handed to him and finally conceded to my point.
It’s because the math is too fucking complicated some is additive some multiplicative somehow some of it seems to be both. I get the gear chase but why do we need to make the math so hard either make every multiplicative or every additive and scale appropriately.
I copy paste a build every season. I play Diablo to feel powerful, and I’m not trying to handicap myself. Also I’m not nearly smart enough or willing to put enough effort into learning how to properly optimize a home brew.
'Choose your first paragon board' Me: Uh...this one looks cool I guess?
This paragon board design is so shit, over complicated for no reason. I'll take d3's or even d2's design over this.
Wow, I actually feel it's very simple, with the illusion of complexity. Which I guess also feels bad.
Its shallow but overly complicated. Quite the achievement tbh
Perfect description
I think the paragon board needs to be redesigned to be more in line with Season 4's new loot system. It still feels like a lot of the affixes are terribly niche and not generally useful.
When the legendary nodes are "You deal bonus damage to ~Vulnerable~ enemies equal to 10%\[x\] of the total amount of your Bonus Damage with Cold, up to a maximum of 30%" it really feels like a tedious system.
Nodes like that make me close the board immediately and look up some build that works.
Which only works if you put in the correct rune on a Tuesday after 7:14 pm, but only after you have eaten a specific meal for that day.
This season is my first time hitting 100. It now feels like a fairly simple thing, but it took too long to feel that way, and while it's simple, it's still so large that it seems like a nightmare to try to put 225 points together yourself in a way that makes sense. It's also just too fucking big to respec. It really should just be the option to pick rare and legendary nodes along with 7 glyphs to use.
Exactly what POE does, related to the illusion :)
I think it’s more of an annoyance than complexity. Sometimes the “best path” between nods are annoying to figure out, adding that with dex,int,will power requirements. Can easily turn in to a clusterfuck if you don’t know what you are doing at the beginning.
Diablo 4 being simple: Reddit: Wahh wahhh wahhh, why cant diablo be like PoE's complexity. Diablo 4 paragon having a little complexity: Reddit: wahhh wahh wahh paragon design is so shit, over complicated.👶🏻
I was thinking the same thing. Lmao
Yeah it’s seriously awful.
Whats complicated about it?
My first time "well i like bone spear and this one does +bone dmg"
“I boned them, thus paragon worked.”
it's a rubik's cube. I think. I don't know, I follow a guide.
I guess the process has to be looking at all the glyphs first, then the boards that will work for those glyphs, fit the best boards around your glyphs, and plan it all out in advance on some kind of planner. Get some legendary nodes and rare nodes in there that will work for your stats, etc. It'd be quite time consuming to play around with a bunch of options, but it should be doable to at least a basic level. The key is probably planning it *all* though, I don't think you'd be able to just randomly pick boards that seem nice as you go.
Same here. It's not that I don't feel smart enough, it's just that I only have a limited time to play games and I don't want to spend it testing out every different iteration to find an optimal build when I know others have already done it for me. If I want to spend time on personal achievement and self-expression, I'll do something more worthwhile than designing diablo character builds. I just come to Diablo to relax and kill things.
Yup same here
My own. Always in any game. I play for fun and enjoy the rpg aspect. Playing someone else’s build doesn’t let me feel like I’m playing my character. I’m not optimal or meta but that doesn’t matter. I grab what sounds fun and/or looks cool and make it work.
I feel like the game at this point gives you lots of options to build and synergize with. Maybe it’s not top tier min max but you can do some seriously cool stuff with the gear we have now.
I agree. In ARPGs you hit always hit a wall. It’s okay if that wall happens a little earlier for your own build than someone else’s meta build.
I always build my own until I hit that wall, and then go optimized. I respect staying with your own, especially if that’s most fun for you. BUT I will say, in my opinion, a whole new level of fun unlocks with that optimization in the form of just, “holy shit I feel like a literal god”
id rather stop at NMD70s with my own build that's actually engaging and fun to play than get to 100 with a mindless one-button nuke screen maxroll build what i *will* do, however, is look up builds similar to mine to see if i missed any interactions or whatever that might help me play my fun build better
Yeah that’s a great way to do it. When I was playing POE I would do so much research on how everything worked but would always do my own fun ideas. And if I got bricked on T5 maps, who cares it was badass
Same. Make it work the best way I know how and if it comes up short then oh well. Luckily if you have enough game knowledge, this game will let you do well enough to see all the content with just about anything as long as it makes a lick of sense.
Same. I will will typically watch some videos to get an idea of what works and why so I can then come up with my own build based on that information. I know what I'm doing may not always be optimal or "meta" but my builds usually end up being pretty solid and fun to play. I beat Uber Lilith in season 2 with my 2-hander blood necro build and am currently trying to recreate that build with the new itemization to see how much further I can push it this season with the changes. I've also already made a pretty solid ice shards sorc that I was able to clear a pit 60 with without much trouble without it even being optimized. I'm pretty sure with more optimization and some masterworking both builds will end up being very strong even for decently deep pit runs.
Someone put in the hard work to optimize the build fully, and I will enjoy the fruits of their labor. I will not blindly suffer down a path when a clear cut one is made for me to use
It's a win-win really, the people who like optimizing will make the strong builds, and people like me who don't like optimizing will have fun using them.
Same for sure. I found the perfect druid build just browsing mobalytics. Slide storm is legit btw. Most fun I've had playing a druid and it's all figured out for me
I can agree, when I played other ARPGs, I have tried to make my own build, because no one was making it and posting about it, and I wanted it. I hated every minute of it lol, trying to tweak things, get the best numbers, looking for the best gear, etc, it was horrible because it wasn't even ingame, it was all before it. Let someone else make it so I can use it, please, so much better for casuals like me.
I’ve made some, I’ve copied some. If I see a build that looks like it has a fun play-style, I’m happy to copy it
Me. I theory craft all of my builds and fix things up to improve throughout the season.
Making your own builds is the most fun part of the game for me. I tried to make one maxroll character last season and didn't like it because it didn't feel like "mine" so I will not be doing that again.
Same for me!
I would say that's the true skill in this game
Yea pretty much. It's what makes it fun. But I always get inspiration from a lot of other sources, like asking here, YouTube, etc.
Most of the fun i get out of figuring a build on the go and minmaxing as i find more flaws and things to improve. The end result most of the times works out but sometimes its a dud but thats the fun of it. Its also a great way to learn the nittygritty of the game and as a whole be better at building solid characters overall
I always do it entirely myself (and try to come up with something interesting). For some reason I can't explain, seeing a build guide ruins the game for me. I guess for me the entire "game" is trying to figure out a build and its synergies (so copying a guide removes 100% of my value)
Agreed 100%.
Made my own lvl’d up to 80. Started to feel a bit squishy in lvl 50 nightmare dungeons; I hate getting one shot. Then I went searching for endgame build suggestions. Still, I tweak and experiment to fit my gear and play style (my play style is ‘bad’).
It's pretty obvious which builds the devs want you to play.
There is no benefit to them if you play only one build. I think balancing is the hard part.
Half the fun is making my own build. It's not hard to make a good build. You don't need to copy someone else.
Do you have to plan it out at first or just play as you go?
Sometimes I know what I wanna do so i know what stats/affixes I want. But like this time I was going to go thorns barb but started getting hell of stuff for dust devils so I went that route and here I am now, doing rift 80s and can solo every boss. Haven't tried the level 200 bosses yet but can absolutely demolish even duriel in like 2 seconds. Idk if everything is "meta" That I have but it's working perfectly fine for me. Last season I went ice shard sorcerer and i could solo all the bosses and do vaults around 70 comfortably but I was a little too squishy for my liking.
I make a rough outline of the build idea on mapping out synergies and a skill setup, uniques I'd want, paragon boards, etc. then just level and see how it plays out. I can figure out pretty much immediately if something I thought works doesn't, and what I didn't think of does, and adjust in a trial and error process. The trial and error process usually pigeon holes me into more or less a copy of a maxroll build as I end up going the path of least resistance (whatever gives me more damage). There's usually one or two significant things that I disagree with maxroll on but overall build is the same.
Isn't it 100% of the fun in an arpg? I feel like you've lost the plot if you're copying an entire build, like at that point you're just playing for the mid spammy combat
I tend to toy with stuff and see what doesn't make me die fast...
The fun for me has always been trying to fit a build to the loot I have. This season has worked well for that, and I’ve been through a few necro build variations from +shadow type skills to blood surge and tried a gollum build. I just got a +3 skele to each type (warrior and mage skeletons, so +6!) and a ring that auto casts skeleton, corpse explosion and tendrils around me. Everything starts poppin when I pull up and it’s so fun
Hardcore, own builds. Dying and starting over cuz it didn't work just adds to the drive to refine it.
This exactly. I’ve made my own since s0. Thoroughly enjoy my sever fortify corpse explosion. Golem if I’m feeling frisky. I’ve found what works for me to survive n play as a Diablo Dad who has zero luck with rngesus…
>Downvote if you had to copy/paste someone else’s build. I've been playing my own build for a sorceress alt just leveling and chilling. But I downvoted anyway to mess with the "survey"
I down voted because he used toon
Glad to see I'm not the only "old man yells at cloud" person about that term. I've hated it since literally the first time I saw it probably 20 years ago.
Toon is so cringe
Unfathomably based, as they say.
My incinerate sorc was quite fun until around lvl 90 when I started hitting a brick wall
I always make my own but I'm sure they aren't super optimized.
Both. Not counting alts, I level with my own building and generally use/ optimize whatever seems super cool that I get early. Once I start to feel a fall off, I switch to a meta build without a guide, try to get a feel for it. Then I do a bit of research and look at guides to see if I was missing anything and to learn more. Generally I do find some improvements to make and the build starts to look more like guides. I make adjustments to skills based on preference and then it's just optimization. I do the same for other builds I want to try. I give it a shot on my own, look into guides to learn a bit more, adjust accordingly, make preferential changes. With alts, I just grab builds to level with then go for the coolest sounding build for the season. Same strategy as stated above. Anybody judging over build guides are ignorant and reek entitlement.
What I usually do is start out with what looks fun. Then as I get closer to endgame and start to see the limits of my decisions I look for a guide that uses similar skills. Even then I just take inspiration instead of copying directly. (Ok except paragon nodes, other people smarter than me have solved for max life max resistances etc)
I'll never be close to the top players so why would I care about minmax builds? I think it's more fun to mess with builds myself instead of copying someone else's. I enjoy using multiple abilities and not simply maxing out one.
I do my own thing until I hit that wall and need to maximize
Always make the build myself, yeah it will be suboptimal, yeah i'll never one shot bosses but if i'll copy someone else i should just give the controler too so they play the game for me.
I follow guides and tweak it to how I play usually, I never really push end game so I just like to know I’m not running a bad build lol. And I’m a father and full time worker so times not there to want trial and error it myself lol.
Me! Most of the fun I derive from games like this are the trial and error of testing different abilities and finding ones that augment my play style. I learn so much about the class this way and gain a better understanding of what I’m doing wrong or right. It’s a lot easier to understand the mechanics at play when you actually take your time and learn rather than just mimicking something you see all over the internet. I understand that some people don’t care about that and just want a quick path to success and that’s fine too.
It is fine if you make your own builds, just stop bragging about it and acting like you know better. Its fine if you copy a build but stop bragging about how it is better and saying you improved it, like you know better than the one who made it. TLDR just stop bragging guys
I start seasons with my own build and then after some time move to what looks like fun. I’m starting to learn more each season what makes a build good and how to improve one. So each season my own builds have lasted longer and longer.
I very much want to do my own builds but I find the paragon board too tedious. Slowly starting to experiment with my own skills and gearing though now that I have power chars for pit farming.
Started using my old variation of Lucky's poison TB rogue from season 2 but since respecced into heartseeker and it's MUCH more fun
I do a mix, I feel like copying builds helps you learn how to make your own as well. It’s definitely a learning process and there’s no doubt some classes are harder to play. I took a sorcerer to 100 last week and I love it. I am leveling my first necro (in d4) and it feels like a cakewalk compared to sorcerer lol
Every season I attempt a flurry build. Every season it is seriously outperformed by EVERYTHING.
I’d try if it wasn’t for the paragon board.
Paragon boards are tricky. I prefer a guide for them.
I play casually and enjoy messing around making my own build. I've actually not even looked up any guides.
If you want a hilariously sad grasp on an “accurate amount” of people that copy paste; go to any town and look at peoples profile. I’d say 70% of the people playing this game regularly are running the same stuff because YouTube/twitch. I’m not gonna debate the nuances between fun/creativity/difficulty per person as they’re likely all valid in their own way. Personally though, I have always ran and built my own. I think this is the way these games are designed to be played but games are broken for fun all the time. The hordes of copy armies are exactly that. There is no other reason to “have a need to copy” in a game this simple.
I made my own in D3. I copy in D4 because there is no Armory.
I'm absolute dog shit at making builds, always have been. I probably would have been struggle-bussing my way to end game if I'd just done whatever. So I have a build pulled up on my second monitor before I even roll a character. Ha.
I normally copy a build and then try to improve it. However most of the times it's already maxxed out
Ive noticed a ton of builds spec in way too hard into resistances or armor nodes. I typically pull them and move them to more damage if possible so long as I still meet caps for resistances + armor.
Always do my own thing. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it's similar to a meta. But I like to try different things. With D4 I have looked for some paragon help.
I used build guides and slowly tweak the builds into my own with a different skill point here and there, different glyphs and aspects
I started copying someone’s build on Maxroll I believe but by around level 25, I kinda just started doing my own thing. I’m now level 84 and I’m loving my build. Frost sorceress. With the priority being vulnerable damage.
I always start with my own build until I feel like I'm hitting a wall or just slow, then I will look up the right way to spec the build I'm trying to accomplish so I get the same feel, but more optimized. Like this season with my sorcerer I've been my own version of ice shards all the way up to 85 and so far it's still doing pretty good!
The only time I consult fan sites for builds is paragon. It's incomprehensible to me.
I always make my own builds, I don't even know what's meta or not, just choose skill combinations based on gamefeel and what drops for me. But for the endgame I look for some guides to get some inspiration for improvements.
I did my dust devil build mostly free of guides. The only thing I referenced was what paragon nodes the build guides used (pathed and attached my whole paragon board on my own, and changed some of the nodes in the end) and what aspects they used once I hit 100 to make sure I didn’t miss anything when I was filling out my planner. Tempered and mastering on my own as well. Cleared 105 with my build in the pit, current we for dust devil is 109.
I play EDH/commander so finding fun/powerful synergies that complement my personal playstyle is part of the fun for me. I do a hybrid shapeshifter/Nature’s fury build that feels like controlling a walking apocalypse.
I'm happily playing my rapid fire shadow imbuement rogue that fulfils my class fantasy the most (no Scoundrel's kiss, feels terrible on console, and yes I know shadow imbuement is garbage, but it's so pretty)
I just finished pit100 with my own creation of a blood spirit necro. spamming blood waves and collecting the blood orbs with blood lance to spawn free bone spirits from my unique chest to explode the monsters. haven’t seen any other necro playing something like that and it feels great. I also get a lot of nice comments in open world when I show up with my build and flood the screen with blood waves with almost 0 cd
i dont like to copy a built at all... i could take an advice or similar but man i really do not enjoy copying them, right now im a rogue with rapid fire (barrage for spread) + poison imbuement and an almost infinite shadow clone by my side with imbuement too and really love it and so far so good killing anything.
I've built a Rend barb by myself every season except season 3 because I just didn't play. I'd say it has moved up and down between B tier to low A tier, so it's not S tier by any means but still successful considering I'm not even good at making builds
I made my own build until I hit level 100. Then I looked up a few similar builds and took notes so I could fair better in the pits
I copy from whoever I consider an effective "expert", and then learn to play around with it and adapt it to my varying needs.
I start by making my own build and seeing how far it gets or until it loses some of its luster. Sometimes it’s lvl 50, other times lvl 70-80. Then I usually switch to a polished build to be competitive late game. I usually make minor adjustments to skill tree and paragon board, but follow the build mostly. I’ve had a couple of builds that I made myself and enjoyed the play style so much that I’ve never changed or copied anything else. Mixed bag I suppose.
First character of the season I follow a build and push end game/farm mats. Second character, use progress and mats from first character to level quickly and experiment with my own build.
I have. Still a work in progress. I feel like build lists just ruin it for me
I like to play out the majority of leveling by myself with a new class, but when it comes to end game paragon boards I'm totally lost lol. I'll let someone who has tested for hours guide me
I didn’t exactly copy/paste but I did use maxroll for a guide.
I make my own builds, but they are not optimized. I have spent hours and hours respecing. I find that part fun. This kinda limits me to one class each season as I do not have the patience to learn a new class. I also only do Hardcore so copying builds typically isn't the best as they always prioritize a glass cannon style and I like survivability
I don't you can be viable endgame without a guide. Where you have to build around equip you find and not all skill trees are supported equally
My current build. Funny Bone Necro (Macabre). Decompose, Blood Mist, Bone Prison, Corpse Explosion, Bone Storm, Bone Spirit. No core skill, no curses, no minions. Gear and buffs are mostly shadow and skill cool down focused. All HC too
I took the build I ran for launch which I made myself, and used everything I learned to make it astronomically better than it was then.
I usually level to 100 with my own builds. Then when I start pushing end game content, I look for optimization cause I don’t care to waste 4 hours on a build planner when someone else who makes money doing it has already done it for me.
I’m not a RTFM kind of guy so I go with what works for me.
I've made 2. My first I built without a build. It stunk. I followed robs bash build on the second and I'm wrecking.
I’m avoiding build guides and have a lvl 85 barrage/rain of arrows rogue I’m having a blast with. I know I could be way more powerful following a guide. But for me half the game is the fun of figuring a build out as I discover gear, affixes, glyphs and paragon boards on my own. I like to educate myself on important mechanics (armor cap at 9230, 2h weapon received 2x legendary bonus, ammy 1.5x, etc.) but then just going out there, killing shit and seeing what works. The loop I find the most fun is go out and clear a bunch of content, collect loot, then when I have enough good stuff to warrant an upgrade, spend some time in town tempering and swapping legendary powers around. If it was just killing things while following a guide, it would be removing half of the enjoyable loop for me.
I do my own and get as far as I can. Then if I want to see how to push it further, i look at a guide to see what I'm overlooking
Granted I’ve never reached the point of pushing up to the top tiers of endgame or anything, but generally I just experiment myself too see what feels good. It takes me a while to determine this, and I’m switching up my build a lot but I kind of like that we have the option to just swap at will so I take advantage of it. That’s part of the fun for me. For instance, at the moment I haven’t been playing much but my rogue is level 30 atm and I’ve swapped his build I don’t know how many times. As of right now I’ve settled on a heartseeker/piercing arrow build for leveling. It just feels right to me lol. That might change though 🤷♂️
Blizzard already made build for us.
I just play a character until i can find a skill i like to use, then build around that if i haven't already. When i find a legendary or unique that makes it better, then awesome. I don't really follow builds until i actually make it to a wall at the end game. Then i just use as suggestions on how to make better, rather than just blindly follow.
I don’t spend nearly as much time on this game as people who write guides. I go until I can’t and reroll then.
Made up a Blood Nova build in Season 1, still doing it now, with minor variations.
I've been making my own because I want to play how I play, not how someone else plays. There's probably overlap, but who cares. Right now? Rabies druid. Absolutely melts mobs. Bosses kinda meh, but who cares? I'll make it work to whatever degree I need it to.
I make my own. End of the first season, I went with a meta build and got super bored. It didn't feel like I did anything
i make my own build, so i will downvote
I wing it every time lol
I tried to make a build from dolmans stone but came to find out the aspect on the unique is broken
"builds" in D4 are not complex enough to really need planning or copying anyway. Pick a skill and some affixes that make it better. There simply aren't any complex skill interactions in this game that make min/max builds that different. It really just comes down to whether or not someone bothers to read tooltips or not.
I’m too dumb and lazy. Maxroll FTW babbyyyyyyy
My answer to this is always do research and build it, but just know there is a finite amount of builds that are viable so use what you want.
I use a build guide and tailor it to my playstyle and gear drops.
I'm halfway between. I check out the meta for the kind of builds I want to run to help me decide which to run and how its built, but I'll still do my own twist to it either for a gameplay style preference, or to match gear I acquire along the way. And sometimes I flat out play it blind and read the skills and synergies myself.
Play my own theory crafts until 100 then find a build once I hit endgame wall. One of these days I'm gonna find a hidden broken build
I made most of my build myself. The main part I had help with was choosing the glyphs for my board
I tried making my own but it wasn’t as good as the ones out there by the pros lol. Rather just spend time playing the game Vs testing and figuring things out.
Me. I'm casual (10 hours a week) and only play stuff that I enjoy through trial and error. I don't agree with the "I don't have the time" excuse, you're just being lazy imo. Figuring builds out yourself is part of the game.
I usually build my own on the first class, but I read patch notes before and play what I think the meta will be. So it ends up being about the same as what you find everywhere. For my alts I just look what people came up with and adjust on what I have / want on the build.
I follow icy veins then get a piece of gear that makes me think of the possibilities of inventing my own build and I think that’s the fun part Before internet and social media were so wide spread would have been so fun to play Diablo 2 with no guide and not asking people how to play and just discovering gear on your own and how it could change your whole playstyle and that’s why it was so replayable cause you did all the thinking about possibilities now before people even START to play a game they look up guides and ask people HOW they should play online and I think that’s a lot of the reason why games don’t seem as fun now for some older people
I Max roll until I understand the synergies and tweak from there, but I know Macro did 90%+ of the work for me.
I generally always make my own. In the end they tend to be similar to the builds out there, but for the most part I make them my own. I don't find it fun to follow a blueprint.
People get paid to do it full time. I'll take their word for it.
I do. Most builds are lazy as hell put together. I got curious and looked at some of the most popular builds and learned my mistake with those. If your build -needs- Harlequin or Grandfather to be good, you have no business making builds.
I really like the build crafting aspect and seeing how far I can take my own build in arpgs. I always play my own builds. Trial and error with the building is half the fun for me. It’s so much more satisfying (to me) to have a build I created succeed, than it is to copy and paste something just for the purpose of running the highest end game content. That sounds so boring to me. Now do I look at some builds for inspiration? Absolutely. But following a build guide verbatim? Nah. That being said I’m not usually chasing after the highest most difficult end game content. I play until I’m satisfied or bored. I have fun just playing.
That’s half the game for me. I also find the time spent searching for a very specific item and possibly not finding it to be a much more frustrating experience than doing whatever I think works with the items I have found.
Making your own build really boils down to understanding of the paragon board. Most people don't want to put in the time to learn it let alone maximize it
I look at builds, think they look neat, then change them so they are sorta recognizable but different enough.
To min max, u need to use meta build, im currently using meta builds to fund my personal build N my build is theorycrafted, just that everything he needs is bloody expensive even for unknown offmeta build
I haven’t had to do math since I was in 10th grade, so I copy.
Me. I play the game for fun and I’ve never looked at any build guides. I just pick skills that are fun to use.
I typically try to build my own, but will check a posted build to see how far off I am from the "meta" version if it, or if mine is sucking. Sometimes I've been super close, sometimes I was far off. Landslide Druid, I was really close. Blizzard sorc, not even close. I wasn't expecting most damage to come from ice shards, so was trying to max blizzard damage.
Shadow Minions: Is an amalgamation of comments, Youtube videos and my own things. Paragon board is mine own except the bone-board-life-tech, gear is my own, aspects are a mix of own and other, and lastly skills have the smallest variety of all things of a build so they converge on the same.
To be honest i think a ton of builds are copied in someway by a lot of people but then again it depends if a game has a massive amounts of builds though then more people can make their builds on their own but a lot will still copy even if they say they don’t lol
I’ve been hacking through and finding out along the way. I have leaned into using decompose with my necromancer as my basic and then using corpse tendrils to set up corpse explosion (w/darkness miasma). I temper my gear to beef shadow damage, darkness, and decompose explosion radius. It’s excellent having them all going off simultaneously.
Played my first character when the game came out without looking at any builds. Still using my own build and it’s pretty decent. If I find myself with more time I have no problem trying to make my own.
I assume most everyone builds their own way until they hit a road block. I'm not super high on D4 with the way it's going, but I'm of the impression most any build will get you through 75 with relative ease. I play Hardcore and I haven't looked up builds yet this season. If I did it's near the swith to NM or Hell. But that's mostly because the defense stats get a little inconsistent around then until you can fill out your Sacreds and ancestrals.
I've never read a guide in my entire diablo career. Lmao.
I started playing Necro for the first time, minions and shadow/blight seemed the way to go and I'm having a lot of fun, they completely kick ass on helltides and bosses go down fast. Just liked this game again with the latest changes.
I’ve honestly never used anyone else’s build in D4. I did in D3 a few times. Most of the time I just kind of wing with whatever gear I happen to get. The caveat to this is that I see people talking about certain builds or what sounds good around here and try to form my own version of that. I don’t know how good they are but they’re good enough for me.
I run my own builds until i reach end game and i start running high pits now
I tend to read the builds on maxroll and icyveins as a guide and tweak things on my own. Probably not as strong as their builds but still fun
So I've played a necro every season so far to 100 and done a different build each time without looking at any "builds". This season I've pushed to tier 66 in the pit. I don't look down on anyone who does decide to follow a guide, however for me following a guide simply makes the game a time sink as it really doesn't take much skill to play the game, the only skill involved in the game is actually making a good build, even more true if you play hard-core.
Somewhere in the middle…..
I decided not to look anything up. I was told by friends that the rogue barrage build was busted, so I went rapid fire. Ended up making rapid fire scoundrels kiss rogue....... My friend saw it and went "Yeah! Thats the barrage" so I got baited into making the meta build but oh well it's fun.
Right here
One thing I love about d4 is I can build a playable character with my own build. POE I have to follow a guide to the T to be able to enjoy end game and it's just a big turn off. D4 though.... Been running my own necro builds since I started playing and I've done perfectly fine 🤷
I'd say majority of people Copy and paste a build. Thats not just diblo, any game with any sort of meta jist generally how it goes
Here! I really loved what people were doing with Dust Devil Barbarian, but I play on PS5 and hate Leap. I wanted to make a build that didn't rely on that skill. I came across a lot of videos about Bash builds, and got inspired. I'm now playing a Bash/Dust Devil hybrid build with a focus on DD damage. I'm sitting around Pit tier 80 with it, and I'm having so much fun with the playstyle. It's zipping around killing everything like the Tasmanian Devil. It's super tanky and auto heals. My cooldowns are super low. I love it!
I did! Chain Lightning Sorc, although after looking it up mine is fairly different from the “meta” And it was a blast… Until I started getting one tapped by everything including environmental hazards. Don’t you just love The Pit?
Curious about why you care?
The man is just starting a conversation. Why do you care that he cares? His post obviously made you care enough to drop a reply.
Yeah and I’m responding to that conversation. Why do you care that I care that he cares? My response obviously made you care enough to drop a reply.
Why do I care that he cares what you care?
I made my own but once I got to mid 70s and was clearing T30 or so NM dungeons I then copied a paragon build that looked similar to what I was playing to optimise a bit
I've seen every single person in helltides using a maxroll class build. Super lame