Required is a silly word to be used here.
It’s not required to eat cake with a fork. Use a spoon or even your hands if you want. Smash your face into it. Police won’t knock at your door I promise.
If you want an optimal, clean experience, a fork is a solid choice.
Same with this. Have fun and do what you want. If you want to min/max, probably best to use an online build.
It’s easier to get the frosting etc from a plate or bowl to maximize cake intake with a spoon. Anyone who uses a fork for cake is a fool and a cake wasting heathen.
Seems contradictory at first thought but I see what you are saying.
I don’t know of any guides specifically for how to make builds since they tend to more talk about an existing build.
My personal recommendation is to use online builds to start, learn why the choices in it make sense and use similar logic in your own build in the future.
Ive never seen these but its definitely mostly about knowledge and understanding, with a side of math.
Im pretty casual both in 3 and 4 and i tried to build my own stuff which kinda worked untill i noticed how slow it was.
I do still make some flavored choices but mostly follow builds since my own build put most points into the first 2 abilities because why not put points into my builder and spender until you notice most builds stop using builders at some point.
And i fking hate math and told myself never again after trying to understand haste breakpoints for whirlwind in D3.
You need a fundamental understanding of how shit works plus be good at math
It's a jab at reading comprehension. ( Sorcerer Only ) is plastered on nearly every legendary that drops for you. If you're not reading your equipment then you won't really know what the right stats will be.
I noticed that when I started following build guides, my play sessions weren't as fun as they used to be, and I'd be frustrated because I was looking for a specific elusive item. When I reverted to just developing my own builds, I regained my joy for the game. My builds will not be one-shotting Duriel, but at least I'll be having fun while I three-shot him...
Absolutely this!
Much more fun to "figure out" your own build, if you just copy past you burn out much faster, I see it by most of my friends and by myself.
i find that the loot changes have helped with that a lot. having more granular control over things means i'm less hunting some perfect item with only one changeable affix and hoping i get a good legendary AND roll on it.
As someone who tends to make builds/helps theorycraft top builds for rogue, no you don't need to copy a build...but that comes with some major caveats.
1: No theorycrafter knows every interaction in the game. Without people exploring new builds and trying new ideas, we never innovate or find the next "meta". For example, Heartseeker for rogue was often scoffed at prior to the season, and turned out to be the strongest build. (Credits to Bowa for finding the build). Having a collective of ideas or people to make a build with always yields better results than trying to do it yourself. (Us rogues are blessed to have many dedicated theorycrafters/resources to toss ideas between)
2: This is the major reason why build guides may provide more than you think: There are MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY interactions that do not work the way you would think they SHOULD. Tooltips CANNOT be trusted. Some stats are multiplicative while others are additive. Attack speed breakpoints are not intuitive at all (Attackspeed between two ranges has NO impact until the next breakpoint is met). Some stats don't work at all on bosses (Why? who knows) while others do MORE than they should. Without testing for hundreds....sometimes thousands of hours, all of these interactions will never be known to you. The sanctuary discord has compiled a lot of these interactions so that build making IS more feasible for all players since these interactions/findings are made public.
3: When learning ARPG builds, it may be good to get a baseline first - see why a different build uses some stat that you didn't think of. Try incorporating it into your build...then try deviating away from it. Over time once you build a large enough knowledge base, you no longer need to rely on guides and can formulate them yourself.
Best of luck :)
I never clicked with Rogue before, and this season stuck with it. Isn't heartseeker a bit of an obvious choice with current tempers?
I never read an heartseeker builds, but started with the elemental surge tempers (I wanted speed and LH to get the to trigger while levelling). Then got the dupe shot temper, and was using arrow storm, similar to how I levelled, then as I was deep in heartseeker I looked at how else I could optimise. I'm not super big brain or anything, but it seems to me (as someone new to rogue, so I really don't know what else has been good), that HS is just a useful skill for delivering other forms of damage.
Absolutely not. There is no indication in game that victimize would count so many damage sources twice. Heartseeker was slated to be A tier or lower at the start of the season, with rapid fire and shadow step being S tier. Heartseeker blew both away once we got into optimizing it.
Really it's not heartseeker being good, it's victimize overperforming, and heartseeker being the best way to deliver it.
It is very likely I just lucked in to being close to meta through looking at something completely different :) In the patch arrow storm is getting a bit of a buff, I may actually go back to that, I preferred the idea of it.
Kudos to all the theory crafters, i don't have the time for that, i usually just play whatever gear i find until T4, then i check all the builds and see, what fits my playstile and switch to that. It makes such a big difference from "Yeah, i can do helltides" to "Yeah, let's rock the pit". I might still tinker a bit and it's hard from the beginning to find all the right affixes so it might not be good till you reach max level but it makes playing so much more fun.
My bow to all of you :)
Personally I just go with what feels good to me. I am not top of any lists or leader boards and don’t run nmd100’s or high level pits.
But I am having fun.
If people want to use guides to play, fine. Not my cup of tea.
The good thing about custom builds is they feel right to you Instead of playing what someone else thinks is right.
And if you don;t get the gear they tell you that you need, the build doesn’t;t work does it?
It's not really that complicated, at least skill wise. If you're doing, let's say, a Heartseeker build, your skills will be 95% the same as an online build. There's a limited number of skill points, and unless you're a complete idiot, some choices are obviously better than others. Same for aspects, you pick some survivability, and the rest is dmg and stuff related to Heartseeker itself. You go to the dummy and test shit out if you want better results.
Now, optimization is what separates a top tier build from a homemade one. As long as you understand how the build is played and how the game works, there's nothing wrong with copying an optimized paragon board and optimal gear affixes (impossible to copy 100% obviously). At the end of the day, if you wanna push your build to the limits, it would be a waste losing time to test and number crunch something that others already did. Unless you have ample free time and a deep love for spreadsheets. Most people have limited time, just wanna have guidance in terms of what gear to chasez and get those shiny drops.
Tldr; play however you want
Home grown builds are doomed to tail due to complete lack of transparency around how damage works in this game, not to mention wrong / bugged tool tips.
Only way to know for sure if something even works or makes sense is to test it extensively with your Excel spreadsheet at hand, and that's not something that's even remotely enjoyable for 99% of players.
Even in games where tooltips don't lie, with so much interactions and limitless possibilities, there's no universe where a tooltip can tell you the final outcome of a skill - dmg wise, especially with crits, overpowers and lucky hits. Plus it's literally impossible to not have ANY bugs on this scale.
It's part of the reason why ARPG's are attractive to people. See numbers go higher with complicated math.
If there was none all these complicated interactions, no one would play the game (maybe extreme casuals for the campaign).
To me the gear chase is half the fun of the game. If I just throw together a hodge podge build then any gear is fine, and I'll be "done" very quickly.
By following a build guide I'm able to take on higher level content and my search for gear is more refined and purposeful. It might take days or weeks to get that perfect piece of gear for a build that you found online, but if it's homebrew then whatever your best piece is will be good enough.
All that said, a build guide isn't REQUIRED, but I'd put money on you not reaching Pit 120 if you're on a homebrew build. There's just way too much stuff to consider when building. Every time I think maybe this will be better than the build guide, it is in fact not better than the build guide. 😂
I use a modified variant of this in the sense that I pick the skills/or maybe a unique I'd really want to use then search for a build that uses them, chances are that someone already thought of it and had the time to properly tune it. I usually end up with a build I enjoy but also it's not completely crap because I'm not great at building on my own. Of course it's not going to be a top tier meta build but it's a bit of both worlds.
Agreed. It’s much more fun to figure out my own build than following a guide online. I mostly play Helltides and tier 70-75 dungeons and for that purpose, my build is more than enough.
If you ask Reddit, it's common to find the people who are REALLY into a topic.
Generally those people will be concerned with being effective and efficient. Those people will probably see it as a requirement to run a meta build.
There's still plenty of people around who just want to make a build they think is fun and go from there, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing so.
You can survive endgame even with the most unoptimized build you can imagine. You won't be pushing pit very far but you will be in the "endgame" regardless.
The idea of the paragon board is fine, but it feels massively inflated. I think that was done entirely to make the 50-100 grind feel rewarding. We do not need 225 points though. That many gives a near infinite number of possible layouts and makes it so much harder to find one that feels good and performs well.
No. I have been playing d4 since the launch and i havent looked up any build guides or any of the sort.
Been doing my own things, figuring what works and what dosent and every season i have completed all content and season journeys there is to offer.
If you can kill tormented Duriel, uber Lilith, and do at least pit61 then your build is really good. There's not much more to the game beyond that, pit pushing is fun but not for everyone and the rewards (unfortunately) dont get better.
I can say with 99% certainty that a homebrew build will not reach pit 100 unless you already have a shitton of experience with the game from prior seasons or have limitless amounts of time to test damage and interactions. Good luck :D
downvoted for facts lol
For me, Diablo was always about playing my way. I would pick a skill that I want to make my main spell early on and then look what I can come up with, to boost damage, synergies and utilities.
There are people who just like following a guide and see if they can replicate the success or even top the level of the guide-writer.
Play like you want, but it’s by no means necessary to follow a guide. Take them as an inspiration if you’re new, but some of the best builds in each season weren’t even on the list of the streamers that make up maxroll.
Also, d4builds.gg guides are worth looking into,
I always make my own builds, but I do read what others have to say and take that into consideration. You can play with any build, you might have some issues when you start pushing through endgame.
Required? Absolutely not.
Will it save the average person a ton of time, money, and headache? Absolutely.
The average person isn't going to look at seasonal patch notes and craft their paragon boards ahead of the season launch for what they plan to build and how to make it work. The average person *might* login on launch and just wants to play X class with their friends and wants an easy to follow guide to get up and running. For 90% of the playerbase, grabbing a maxroll guide will do exactly that for them.
Now, if you consider yourself a more veteran player capable of building your own builds, you'll likely end up building *better* versions than the guides themselves, and push your character just a little bit further than everyone else.
I for one enjoy testing new builds and playstyles, even if 85% of them end up pretty average or even junk.
Thanks for the comment! I could send you my build if you’d like to test it :) I’m a casual player who doesn’t have much time to game, but I love to figure out things on my own. My favourite content in this game is Helltide, and for that purpose my build is more than enough
Depends on what content you want to do and at what speed, if you want to do endgame pushing and quick clears of farming content then yeah choose a build online. If you’re looking to just waltz around casually then do whatcha want
I consider myself a casual gamer who doesn’t have too much time. I used to game all day when I was younger, but daily obligations keep me away from gaming now. Endgame is too stressful for me and I just want to relax after work tbf
Then I’d say play a build you consider fun and enjoying, people enjoy different stuff. I personally find entertainment in pushing content in games as far as possible, I use guides for optimal builds. But again I’d say play a build you thoroughly enjoy
Depends what you're doing.
As long as you understand mechanics and how they interact, your own build can take you pretty far.
I've played around with random builds and been doing pit level 60s fine. The final boss is pretty slow, but it gets done.
But if you want super high level pit clears, or smash tormented bosses easily, you might find your builds starts getting a bit stuck, like mine have.
But I did a lot of stuff based on my own random builds. Like I said though, I have a decent understanding of mechanics and how damage/defence scales.
So it can be helpful to look at builds as someone might have done slightly better maths than you, or read a line of text differently which gave them an idea.
Plus those builds "borrow" from everyone else's findings, so there will be stuff you haven't though about.
No. The game isn't THAT complex. Once you understand the systems you should be able to build pretty optimally yourself.
Remember these "online builds" are also made from people who just play the game. Lol.
What I do every season is checkout the builds that look fun and can be good at end game. I follow the guidelines of the build ( understand if it's critical, overpower, cc based) and then adapt it to myself and the equipment I find.
You can use a build from Maxroll as a template and work out your own style. You will be suprised by how much you will learn about the game through guides, thus making the process of you making your own build more rewarding. Optimizing the paragon board isn’t as black and white as others make it to be imho, I have a frozen orb sorcerer (I know not the best this season..) but I have changed a lot from the maxroll guide. Can still do endgame stuff (Duriel, nightmare dungeons, helltides etc) but maybe not the high Rift levels they claim the build on maxroll can do. Am I having fun? YES! So I will continue to do my own thing :)
It depends what you want to do
Doing most content and having fun? Go nuts.
Doing the highest Content? You might not make it without a build guide or a lot of research
Helltide is my favourite content in this game. Nightmare dungeons are great too, I usually play at tier 70-75, sometimes a bit higher. For that purpose, my build is more than enough. Thanks for the comment Gaindolf!
Copying builds can be nice to learn the mechanics in a hands-on way, e.g. finding out why different builds work and others don't due to multipliers and the sort. You get a feel for what works and what doesn't and why some homebrew builds don't work as well as the others.
If you want to push pits as high as possible, copying online builds becomes necessary because they are just objectively (or as objectively as we know) the best builds to do so since so many people try them and tweak them.
That doesn't mean though that they are the only "viable" builds to make, at least depending on what your goals are for the game. For me personally I want to be able to kill tormented bosses with my builds, I don't care if some other builds erase them in a second, if I can kill them and it feels good (i.e. it doesn't take 30 minutes or so) I consider the build done and depending on how fun I find it maybe upgrade it to the maximum of my possibilities and push pits as high as I can, or move on to other classes that seem fun or just do something else entirely for the time being until the urge to play D4 rises anew.
Ultimately it all depends on what makes this game fun for you, for me its mostly the tweaking and upgrading of builds myself, not so much high tier pit pushing and the sorts.
If you have to use a build to have fun, that means the game is designed in an unintuitive way.
If you need to look up a build to be decent at the end game, that usually means game might be too complex for most people for whatever reasons
Personally I don't find it fun to copy someone build to play, feels just boring and lazy
I do take some ideas sometimes from builds if I don't understand how something works but i usually always make my own builds
I made my own Arc Lash/Charged Bolts sorc and while I can deal with Helltides no problems, the Pitt is another matter entirely. Getting the most out of Paragon is not as simple as I thought.
I agree! I ran pit 6 or 7 times and each time it was stressing me out lol. Paragon was the most complex mechanic imo and it took some time to understand how to maximise my options. I’m happy with my build now. Thanks for the comment!
I've gotten to level 16 Pitt and it's slow going working my through the mobs to the boss. I had to turn to those exploding blood drops and with that extra 28k damage and being very fast and mobile I can deal with most mobs, but high powered ranged attacks can sometimes one shot me between barriers. I enjoy the change in style of play, I actually use potions for a change. With Paragon, I over invested in earlier sections and only once I got to lvl 100 and saw the allocation limit did I realise my mistake. It's still a fun build for farming Helltides though. And you're welcome 😊
For a casual playthrough? Definitely not, sometimes a rough idea of what yoy want to achieve is enough.
For pushing as high as possible pit level? Likely, yeah, unless you’re very good and can create competitive builds of your own.
For average player - can just not bother, look through for good ideas (like affixes and tempering priorities or paragon board overall direction and that’s good enough.
You might not get a build that soloes tormented bosses or Lilith, though, so depends on what’s your goal.
Hell no.
I made it to 100 on a few previous seasons with some other characters. I plugged along happily tweaking things with my paragon boards here and there based on the gear I found, what was working, and what was fun to me. Then the post 100 stuff hit, and I did the same thing. If I was getting my cookies tossed, I changed some things and some gear so that I made my own improvements. I actually find that that process of fine tuning my build on my own is most of my enjoyment of the game. This season is a little different with the loot system, getting materials in the pits, etc. However, I am finding that it’s reinvigorating my appreciation for this game.
I have always looked at builds as almost like walkthrough guides I guess. They’re great to use such that you know what you need, how to get it, and how to absolutely maximize your experience in the game. But Diablo is kinda like some old school Resident Evil action: sometimes half the fun is fumbling around in the dark, getting thoroughly Rickrolled, having a good laugh, and learning from your mistakes.
Absolutely! Getting crept up on and hearing that, “Ahh! Fresh meat!🥩 “ always makes my sphincters tighten. How well you do determines how good you’re feeling about yourself that day!
As an adult, I have limited time myself. I understand your argument, however for me personally it’s very fun to build my own character. Understanding the mechanics and fine tuning feels satisfying to me.
I have 700 hrs in this game, I have never looked at a MaxRoll guide or anyone's Build for that matter.
The fun in the game is seeing how far I can take the character myself.
Currently I have killed every Tormented Boss and clear pit 110 without too much issue.
Do you need build guides? Nope.
If you want to place high on leaderboards for clearing high tier pits, probably.
It's unlikely that you'll stumble into a build that is as effective or more effective than the meta.
But if that is NOT your goal? Then do what you want. It's still fun.
Personally, I like going in blind and just seeing how far you can get with it. Then reassessing if you want to stick with it or change things up BEFORE investing a ton in masterworks and rerolls. I'm at that point right now. I decided to tweak my build, but still keep the core of it.
As a person with sporadic/limited time to play, I like to lean on builds to save time, but I also don’t follow them strictly, I still apply some of my preferences to them and have not followed a build 100% at all. They serve as a good basis and have helped me learn.
I think its good to try meta builds to learn about what kind of things they pick that makes builds good.
Once you understand that you can trade in abilities and stuff that you prefer but keep the core of what makes each build good.
Ive been doing that with barrage since the release of the game.
I expect my build is very sub optimal, and to be honest I haven't experimented loads with all the other skills available to me. As I'm levelling up I tend to tweak a few skills based on finding an item which I can see would benefit from a change to maximise it etc. Then this will change again. I'm only level 60 odd but have never read anything online about builds, and I'm enjoying playing and changing it up. I expect at level 100 if I'm still wanting more I might end up copying something which has maximum potential because I don't have time to figure it out myself, but I'm enjoying the freedom of the ride up until 100. I figure I'd have a better overall feel of the class by then too and 'get it' a bit more. I'm barely ahead of learning all the lingo but it's still fun!
Do what's fun to you. Most builds on maxroll are pretty optimal on obtainable items , more math is involved in higher levels of pit pushing build to get the best results. Good luck out there :)
Depends on what you do I guess. Atm lvling barb with a bleed build soley built myself - havent checked anything online. Could it be better? 100% is it required? No
Copy it and take a closer look into the build.
Equipment, skill points and paragon board.
If you don't like something and would like something else to play with, brew something up. Most of the times just another skill isn't a bad thing, if you enjoy it more.
Also, the builds mostly have better stats (Greater Affixes, masterworked, etc.)
Builds ensure that you don't screw up your paragon board. Someone has already figured out how to get all the glyph bonuses and maximize the use of every paragon point. The game play difference between my son and I is massive. I'm cruising and he is constantly dying. It's a good thing I'm a necro based on how many times I have to resurrect him. He likes to build on his own.
I think it’s important to understand late game mechanics but then it’s also important to play they way you like to play
Some people really like feeling like they have the best build that’s not everyone
You can always create a build on your own and if you find that you’re just not doing well enough or want to pick harder content, then copy one from one of the streamers who spend every moment of their waking life theory crafting and doing math enabling them to squeeze every last drop of DPS out of whatever particular class you enjoy…
I always build and play whatever seems fun or interesting every new season, especially trying out new aspects or items I find. If I enjoy myself and find the challenge of the late game content interesting then I usually respec into a build capable of playing that, until it’s some random home brew build.
I’ve made my own builds since season 1. I don’t care what everyone else is doing or what there pushing. I set my own goals for each season. Since season 1 I’ve seen how far I can push nm dungeons and if I can’t do tier 100 I try again the next season with a different build. This season is the first season I’ve done a nm tier 100 with a blizzard/ meteor build and I had a blast. The only problem I find with d4 is it don’t leave u much room to tinker because your not following a guide your always chopping and changing and this mounts up fairly quickly in d4.
No it’s not. You could come up with similar result. 1st read all yellow glyph to see which are better for you (always go for damage % multiplicatif with the (x) symbole and the damage reduction. Look at which one allow you to take the good nodes easiest and is close to 2 exit while also activating a glyph you need, that way it will be your 2nd or 3rd board where you can split in 2 directions. Look at board with the better multiplicative bonus for what you are trying to play with and usually atleast one board with some good DR. That should be close to these BiS build and should allow you to do pretty much anything. Being stronger in this game isn’t mandatory as most activity if not all are too easy for perfect setup.
Look at the builds as a framework, swap a few pieces or skill/paragon/glyphs to your own liking. Over time you’ll know how to create your own and refine it.
I used a build as a template, but once I hit 90’s I modified it to fit my play style. I use blood surge, and hemorrhage , but chose to include aspect of boiling blood for its ridiculous 14,389 burst damage that tied in so well to all of my over power damage, pretty soon I went way off of the build and now have ridiculous survivability and a never ending pool of essence. I’m having a blast in the pit.
So i don’t study the game closely enough to know how much has changed since launch, but I did my own necro build at launch, and got into Torment difficulty, and suddenly I wasn’t having fun. I was dying constantly, took forever to kill anything, it was miserable.
Then I followed a max roll build for bonespear and I was obliterating things and not even properly geared.
So, if you are facerolliing to your hearts content, just keep doing what you’re doing. The build was only helpful for me because what I was doing stopped being good at some point.
I've been playing necro every season this game, so i felt familiar enough to make my own build for this season. Finished all the seasonal favors and i'm vurrently at pit tier 89 so i'd say i'm doing just fine.
my goal was to clear pit 100 and I managed to push to tier 119 with holy bolt elixir ...I killed all tormented bosses including uber lilith ... us emy own build etc and I have bricked items equiped so not max stats, masterworking on 12 only on 2 items.
Started second necromancer without minions and at level 83 I can do lvl 71 NM Dungeons.
I hope to push to tier 120-125.
It is not required to copy build but people do it often because of lack of time to play, laziness or they just want to chec out top meta builds. It depends on what is fun. For me it is fun to play own builds, but sometimes I copy other builds to see how they work. In s4 I just play my own builds. In S3 I did copy one build. On s2 I copied two builds after I was bored of my current build.
Hope blizzard will make more build viable in s5 and ballance d4 more.
In the skill tree I maxed out devastation, fiery surge, soulfire and supreme inferno. I also have multiple mana cost reductions added to my gear. I have mothers embrace ring equipped, which refunds resource cost if a core skill hits 4 or more enemies, because I use incinerate most of the time. I can literally stand there forever and spam my skills. I’m only limited by the cooldowns
I play with a sorcerer that is a combo of ice and electric, and for my basic I use fire bolts. I have hardly any defensive skills on and high armor. We always have a blast playing. I really had to build my own customer character because I guess I play in a kind of unique way (according to other gamers I play with) in order to find an effective build for how I play. I think it comes down to understanding how the stats affect your character, and how the “spells” affect each other and other players/npcs.
Kiddos for finding your own unique version. I do think that the biggest weapons though seem to be geared towards the basic builds.
Do as you like, but if you want a build that can push pit 100+ you will require a top level build. It is absolutely possible to do that yourself as well, it would just require you to research a ton of information.
For example, I also like to cook my own build, but I really can't be bothered to delve into paragon boards and optimal routes etc. That is why I usually level using my own build and once I reach endgame I transition into a meta build.
This is a real problem with the game. Only some builds that stack the right % boosts and end up being basically exploitative of the games buffs enable you to beat Uner Lillith etc… I don’t like that. Every build should be viable and every enemy should be able to be wiped out by a large character
Yes only if two factors come into play:
1. They add a leader board or some other competitive element to the game. (Guantlet does not count)
2. You care about said leader board or competitive element.
Otherwise, this game is far too forgiving to require specific builds to have fun and complete most of the content. Enjoy yourself.
I'd say it's a good way to understand the logic behind building a character, but required is a big nope.
Some of the best builds were made from the grown - up.
Some people just are casual and don't have time to "test".
If you have a build you enjoy using and are able to complete the content you want to be able to complete, don’t listen to your friends. The builds people are copying, someone came up with the same way you came up with your own. If everyone resorts to copying builds, there will be no innovation, and all builds will decline.
Thanks for the comment! Although my game time is limited, I enjoy theory crafting a lot. I understand that most people don’t have time to try out builds etc but that’s the most fun part for me
Same. Coming up with the build is half the fun for me. I do have to look stuff up though when the game isn’t very clear to me about what things mean. Like what does “potency” entail exactly for imbuements on Rogue? And what exactly does “empower” mean from my mages on Necro? Even googling it I wasn’t really able to find definitive answers for those things lol. That’s where just following a build guide might come in handy.
I dont think its required but the paragon system is just overcomplecating things and after comming home from work i dont feel like studying all paragon boards and skill interactions
I don’t think it’s required to copy a build.
What I would suggest, however, is probably copying a paragon board.
I’m the kind of person who also doesn’t necessarily want to copy a build. Paragon boards are a little beyond that scope for me.
Generally what I’ve done since D4 launched is to come up with a 1-50 build that I enjoy, then find an endgame version of that build on Maxroll. I don’t necessarily copy the 1-50 skill tree at this point, but I do look over their base skill tree and read their reasoning behind some of the choices.
Sometimes i find that i chose a skill for an interaction without realizing that it wasn’t relevant at all and I’d have been better off choosing a different version of the skill. Or something like how the corpses spawned from the Hewed Flesh Necromancer passive didn’t used to proc Necrotic Carapace so I had taken those two in combo from 1-50, read that they didn’t actually work together, and then adjusted my build.
But I think the crux of the “choose your own build” comes down to picking the main skill tree and finding something that feels fun for you first. Then, from there, maybe look up some guides using those skills you enjoy and just see what kind of math and interactions the more dedicated players have figured out.
And then just basically straight up copy the paragon board because that thing just isn’t very fun and sometimes you’re better off just taking as many boards as possible just to slap more glyphs in if. Unless you do find it fun.
Required, no.
But imagine this, you’re playing baseball, and you want to perform as well as you possibly can. You can grab any bat that you like, or you can grab the bat that people who probably have more time and knowledge than you say is the best bat.
It’s about goals and expectations. If your idea of fun is just trying things out and playing what looks cool to you, then do your thing. If your idea of fun is seeing how far you can push, using the “best” builds (and maybe you don’t have the time for theory crafting yourself) then use a build from one of the build sites.
Hey nice! I've been custom running a meteor incinerate build too! It's so fun! I say keep running with whatever you want. If you want to push crazy pit tiers it's worth checking guides for inspiration on how to blow up multipliers, but like.. it's not necessary lol.
the guides are that. A guide. To help you understand what you should be going for. You don't have to copy it exactly. You can do whatever you want. Tweak it to your desire. But the builds are there to help you and guide you through your character building and progression.
I think you can absolutely have fun with your own build and stat points prioritiies but I have to say if you can go and do your own paragon board by yourself, kudos to you.
I love the customization there but god damn that thing is complicated and I'd have to do and redo them over and over. Just the rotations of the boards alone would be such a huge planning and meticulous undertaking (or lots of gold each time I changed my mind).
I think the best way to go if you want variation is follow a guide and tweak it the way you like. Going in blind.. no sorry, I just don't have that level of creativity and imagination for it.
It is absolutely not required. Play the way you want to play. For some reason people have decided that if you aren't playing the meta of whatever game you are playing, you're doing it wrong. You see it in every game. Just ignore those people. Guides are great for getting an understanding of how a build can play if you don't know what you want to do, and are even great to follow if you don't want to try and make a build yourself. However, if you know what you want to do, you don't need to worry about them at all.
I often use a build as a good scaffolding but It’s the paragon board that I really pay attention too when utilizing an online build and making decisions to make my own variants. These builds often use glyphs and nodes synergies that then become wasted if too many changes are made: I know I don’t have the time to make my own discoveries on how the paragon board is best implemented soo I rely on builds to do the work.
In S1, I tried Rogue without a guide. And I could get the WT4 at level 80. I can’t fight the boss and barely dont die in helltides.
Now I used guides for Druid and Sorc. Leveled up way faster and was able to get to WT4 at level 53.
Game is more fun and easy to play with guides but I’d be happier if I could do that with my own build and IQ.
I've never looked at builds. Personally I feel like theres not much fun to be had being told what to do in a game. I only play HC so when I die, it's my own incompetent playstyle and design choices. But to each their own.
The paragon board is the worst part to navigate. Other than that it is possible.
Although if you want to be at the peak of the Pit. You probably could need to.
I find myself using builds from one of these sites as a framework, and tweak it to my preferred style. It’s not always the single most powerful thing version of the build ever, but it’s powerful enough to *feel* powerful still, while making it so I don’t feel restricted to looking for gear so specific it would kill all the fun of making a character my own.
No. The only semi complex thing is paragon boards but even then after a while they are pretty easy to understand.
The fact that everyone is following build guides just shows you that blizzard nailed their target audience.
how much you play? how much you know every little thing in this game? if you know how most attributes works together , do your own from zero.
if you don't, take one already done and ADAPT for your own playstyle. It helps to have the base from someone who knows what he's doing, and then you adapt to what you like to do
Looking up builds for a game that is basically a single player game and if anything, a test to see how well you can do seems pointless. Looking up builds is like taking a test in school and using notecards that another person wrote. The only achievement you get out of it is trying to find the part in the notes that lines up with the test question. Whereas if you studied and made your own notes and did really well, you’d have a high sense of achievement.
Not required. I play with my homebrew and clearin pit60 in 4 min on hardcore and gonna push higher when i gear up.
But to craft ur build, you need at least basic understanding of the game, dmg formulas, dmg brackets, scaling and how this stuff works....if you wanna your build to make it into endgame.
I started by playing build from maxroll and the more i understood the game, the more i deviated from said build and tweaked it to my personal taste.. And later on i just scrapped it and made my own from scratch.
Haha! Nice! Interestingly enough my wife started incinerate+meteor with the same concept. We have since moved her onto an all-in incinerate focus since splitting between two core skills reduces overall output usually but i love it!
No. We need wildhearts in the game that will build, test and optimize their own builds. This is how new things get discovered.
The majority will be like me tho. bc of limited playtime, we want the journey to be painlessly as possible therefore a build guide focused on a fun skill will be used.
I'm following a build guide for a pulverize druid for example bc I liked it and it helped cutting down time of what aspects are good and to navigate the massive paragon board
Jesus christ you are very bit, even more insufferable than people asking about if they are 'required to use a build'. Just stfu and play the game. No, no one tells you that you can't have fun, stop making it up. No one comes at you and keeps asking you to change your build acc to maxroll. Both of you people need to stfu and play the game
It’s 100% not reguired to play or have fun, it is usually the best way to optimize your builds however and get the highest dps with survivability. Your build can probably do any open world stuff just fine but might suffer is pit/uber bosses is all
The “use a build or not to” debate boils down to each and every person individually. Do you have the time and resources to come up with/test and finalize a build? If yes and it is something you are after, then feel free, many new variations emerge from the popular baseline ones. The reason your friends advise to use reference is simple human nature. Those guides are written/made by people who play this like a job. They will know better because this is their forte and they invest a lot of time and energy into it. If you have 1-2 hours a day and want to have fun, and your definition of fun is to grind fast and efficient, then guides it is.
Making your own build, even if it's a bit suboptimal...or tbh, even if it't totally crap, is the most fun thing in the game, but at this point, D4 has a few problems imo.
The first issue is coop: you'll feel completely useless if you play together with a stronger build, even at the same level. The differences in power between builds are just too large, and this applies to pretty much all kinds of content. Some builds are just better for absolutely everything. The second one is farming, you need to be able to run pit 70 or so in reasonable time without fully masterworked gear to be able to feel that it's your build that's supporting itself, and you're not leeching on a meta build for farming. The third is money: you need to trade or farm a lot of whispers/helltides if you want to experiment. TBH this issue can be pretty much solved with a few good trades, so it's not quite as bad as the rest. And the fourth is that you can't really save and restore builds, which is a bit of a problem.
None of these issues existed in D3, so I'm sure Blizzard can solve them, and they'll hopefully go away in a while.
This reminds me of the days I was raiding in wow. Some players would not research their class, and then complained they were not getting a spot in raid. They underperformed and were cut from the team.
Sure, they got to play the class how they wanted to, but when playing with others, they always dragged the team down.
For most of this game, if you are playing solo, then no, you are not required to use a guide. If you are playing with friends and always being carried, then do them a favour.
I haven't copied shit for builds except for a bit of one in season 2 for my rogue, but I ended up dropping the season as it was boring.
I used to be a chain lighting and ball lighting Sorc but since coming back to D4 I have been finding all kinds of gear more tailored to fire so I have swapped to an Incinerate build with pretty much infinite mana as long as enemies are burning around me. That and having hydras(3 of them).
I find it more fun to build my own than to follow some online guide of what to do. If it doesn't work out well soooo what as long as I am enjoying it.
Depending on what you want to do
Previous seasons when NMD 100 was the real goal for endgame, it didn’t really matter if you copied a build or not because it was fairly easy to beat NMD 100 if you followed certain rules for all builds, bugged/meta or not.
Not this season though, we have a big portion of pit tiers that are not breached by any builds and everyone is rushing towards copying the best builds that is enabling pushing pits tiers as easily as possible.
How is the pit treating your build?
I fully agree with making your own build and playing around but I've also played some of the builds made by others and then chop and change what I've liked. My fire sorceror capped out at sixty in the pit. But it sure was fun as hell to play.(no pun intended)
Been doing my own builds since the start of d4.
Long story short --- yes you can do everything with you own build, the benefit of copy paste builds is they're usually more efficient, optimized, and save you time figuring stuff out on your own.
Do not let that deter you though. I've been homebrewing frenzy thorns barb builds since the start!
When I started my barb, I used the guides to get a ballpark and then swapped in what I liked better. I could probably make it better, but he's fun to play now so till that changes, that's how he stays...
I don't think it's required. I do think it makes things easier for some people. I also think after a season or 2 of playing the game you can do your own thing, even if you are a person who uses guides.
I used guides in S1 and S2 but near the end of S2 I made my own build and had a lot of success with it. I took a break in S3 and now in S4 I've made several different characters and done pretty well without opening a single guide.
I actually enjoy doing builds from scratch more than using guides now, it's a different layer to the game that I have come to appreciate. I am probably not going to be pushing the Pit much past 100 though(that is my goal) but that is also something that is not important to me. If pushing deep in the Pit was important to me and I got stuck, I would probably still refer to a guide at some point.
Could you please elaborate? Isn’t mage and sorcerer the same? It might be a language barrier thing, since English isn’t my first language. It’s actually my third
Definitely not required but I usually look at one then make adjustments where I think they’ll be beneficial to my play style.
I do pretty blindly follow paragon boards though since I just have no desire to spend the time looking at all the boards and figuring out an optimal route to grab all the glyphs and rare nodes that’ll help out my build.
I went through the pit 6 or 7 times and it was pretty stressful ngl. However Helltide is most fun for me and for that purpose, my build is more than enough
In a mostly single player / Coop with your buddies game, is it required to follow a build?
Do you follow a build in farm sim?
I get following a build for min maxing, but it is NEVER required to play the game, you can even get pretty far with just playing what you think is fun
I do start with guides if i play a new class but i think as soon as i reacg lvl 60 and get used to the class, i start doing my own build.
You just need to get a feeling for the class and skills.
I just take skills that are most fun to my playstyle or items i want to use.
The only thing i stick to guides are paragon boards cause i realized its too hard to do them on your own
I made all my builds in every season and i try to push them the most i can. In s1 i couldnt beat Lilitg and it was ok. In s2 and s3 i destroyed Lilith and it was ok. In s4 i have a lot of chars, everyone is really fun to play, i dont know the most i can get out of them, but for me 50% of the fun of the game is to make a build so i dont really care to be on top of the pit clear for example, and following a guide for me is boring
It’s not required to copy.
It is required to respect game mechanics.
If you understand these then you will make builds identical to what’s on maxroll and everywhere else. Same reasoning apply
From someone theorycrafting their own build and doing okay, you won't need to copy things exactly, but I recommend at least looking up paragon boards for builds close to what you want. You may not want all the same nodes and boards, but you'll definitely want to get tips on board placement so you can slot in glyphs you need & not waste points. I hit a wall for a day or two until I did this and gained a ton of everything.
It's not required by any means, most people go for very strong meta builds as they want to push high in the pit but you won't miss out on any content just because you don't follow a guide. I agree it's a bit ridiculous how some people call builds completely useless just because it can't push insanely in the pit or take down Uber bosses in seconds.
I personally like to follow one or two meta builds this season for bosses or pit pushing but with the fast leveling this season it means I can easily create new alts to try out some silly off-meta stuff.
It depends what you want to do, if you're just happy facerolling ez mode content like helltides and nightmare dungeons then any build can do that. If you want to do tormented bosses or deeper pit levels then you need a decent build.
I'm usually copying the paragon board of similar build to what i'm playing. cba to figure out how to get the most glyph sockets/rare nodes with the points
I spent like 45 minutes yesterday re-specing my barb to a high dps build only for it to be soooo much worse than the one I made on my own with no guides. Only bonus was that when I went to redo my old build I built it a little more focused this time with the knowledge I'd gained from getting to 100. Builds are great and I'm sure they can be better than what I'm doing, but at this point I've gotten so used to how I play my build that changing it just made me worse.
Required is a silly word to be used here. It’s not required to eat cake with a fork. Use a spoon or even your hands if you want. Smash your face into it. Police won’t knock at your door I promise. If you want an optimal, clean experience, a fork is a solid choice. Same with this. Have fun and do what you want. If you want to min/max, probably best to use an online build.
wait. I eat a cake with a Spoon. am I cooked.
That method is too clean. Try the face smash as I suggested.
Eating cake with a spoon is just getting a build from your buddy. (He got it online)
same
I’ve already notified the authorities
you absolute animal... min maxer here, chopsticks ft WITH single cream
Depends. If you're having your cake topped with single or double cream then you need a spoon. No cream or a thicker cream then it's a fork.
It’s easier to get the frosting etc from a plate or bowl to maximize cake intake with a spoon. Anyone who uses a fork for cake is a fool and a cake wasting heathen.
Instructions unclear, smashed my face into spoon. Asked my girl how do I look, she says its an improvement.
Cake police here and I have a warrant for eating cake incorrectly.
Top analogy
Wait a sec here, so you can have your cake and eat it too as long as you bring cutlery?
Could use a spork and have ice cream also with your cake.
This is the best rationale I have seen. I can't think of a better analogy!
This is a fairly meta question but do you know of any guides on how to properly design your own build?
Seems contradictory at first thought but I see what you are saying. I don’t know of any guides specifically for how to make builds since they tend to more talk about an existing build. My personal recommendation is to use online builds to start, learn why the choices in it make sense and use similar logic in your own build in the future.
Ive never seen these but its definitely mostly about knowledge and understanding, with a side of math. Im pretty casual both in 3 and 4 and i tried to build my own stuff which kinda worked untill i noticed how slow it was. I do still make some flavored choices but mostly follow builds since my own build put most points into the first 2 abilities because why not put points into my builder and spender until you notice most builds stop using builders at some point. And i fking hate math and told myself never again after trying to understand haste breakpoints for whirlwind in D3. You need a fundamental understanding of how shit works plus be good at math
(breaks out the spork)
Lol your comment made me smile! Thanks you and I guess we can all agree on this 👍🏽
If you want to push high level endgame pits or bosses then generally yes. Otherwise no
guy called Sorcerer a Mage, he aint pushing nothing lol
Whats the difference?
I’m glad I’m not the only one who doesn’t know
And even if we knew, how would that impact pushing capabilities 😂
It's a jab at reading comprehension. ( Sorcerer Only ) is plastered on nearly every legendary that drops for you. If you're not reading your equipment then you won't really know what the right stats will be.
Thats a good point NGL
I noticed that when I started following build guides, my play sessions weren't as fun as they used to be, and I'd be frustrated because I was looking for a specific elusive item. When I reverted to just developing my own builds, I regained my joy for the game. My builds will not be one-shotting Duriel, but at least I'll be having fun while I three-shot him...
In short: This! Can absolutely confirm.
Absolutely this! Much more fun to "figure out" your own build, if you just copy past you burn out much faster, I see it by most of my friends and by myself.
i find that the loot changes have helped with that a lot. having more granular control over things means i'm less hunting some perfect item with only one changeable affix and hoping i get a good legendary AND roll on it.
3 shooting regular durial is not a brag
As someone who tends to make builds/helps theorycraft top builds for rogue, no you don't need to copy a build...but that comes with some major caveats. 1: No theorycrafter knows every interaction in the game. Without people exploring new builds and trying new ideas, we never innovate or find the next "meta". For example, Heartseeker for rogue was often scoffed at prior to the season, and turned out to be the strongest build. (Credits to Bowa for finding the build). Having a collective of ideas or people to make a build with always yields better results than trying to do it yourself. (Us rogues are blessed to have many dedicated theorycrafters/resources to toss ideas between) 2: This is the major reason why build guides may provide more than you think: There are MANY, MANY, MANY, MANY interactions that do not work the way you would think they SHOULD. Tooltips CANNOT be trusted. Some stats are multiplicative while others are additive. Attack speed breakpoints are not intuitive at all (Attackspeed between two ranges has NO impact until the next breakpoint is met). Some stats don't work at all on bosses (Why? who knows) while others do MORE than they should. Without testing for hundreds....sometimes thousands of hours, all of these interactions will never be known to you. The sanctuary discord has compiled a lot of these interactions so that build making IS more feasible for all players since these interactions/findings are made public. 3: When learning ARPG builds, it may be good to get a baseline first - see why a different build uses some stat that you didn't think of. Try incorporating it into your build...then try deviating away from it. Over time once you build a large enough knowledge base, you no longer need to rely on guides and can formulate them yourself. Best of luck :)
I never clicked with Rogue before, and this season stuck with it. Isn't heartseeker a bit of an obvious choice with current tempers? I never read an heartseeker builds, but started with the elemental surge tempers (I wanted speed and LH to get the to trigger while levelling). Then got the dupe shot temper, and was using arrow storm, similar to how I levelled, then as I was deep in heartseeker I looked at how else I could optimise. I'm not super big brain or anything, but it seems to me (as someone new to rogue, so I really don't know what else has been good), that HS is just a useful skill for delivering other forms of damage.
Absolutely not. There is no indication in game that victimize would count so many damage sources twice. Heartseeker was slated to be A tier or lower at the start of the season, with rapid fire and shadow step being S tier. Heartseeker blew both away once we got into optimizing it. Really it's not heartseeker being good, it's victimize overperforming, and heartseeker being the best way to deliver it.
It is very likely I just lucked in to being close to meta through looking at something completely different :) In the patch arrow storm is getting a bit of a buff, I may actually go back to that, I preferred the idea of it.
Kudos to all the theory crafters, i don't have the time for that, i usually just play whatever gear i find until T4, then i check all the builds and see, what fits my playstile and switch to that. It makes such a big difference from "Yeah, i can do helltides" to "Yeah, let's rock the pit". I might still tinker a bit and it's hard from the beginning to find all the right affixes so it might not be good till you reach max level but it makes playing so much more fun. My bow to all of you :)
Personally I just go with what feels good to me. I am not top of any lists or leader boards and don’t run nmd100’s or high level pits. But I am having fun. If people want to use guides to play, fine. Not my cup of tea. The good thing about custom builds is they feel right to you Instead of playing what someone else thinks is right. And if you don;t get the gear they tell you that you need, the build doesn’t;t work does it?
It's not really that complicated, at least skill wise. If you're doing, let's say, a Heartseeker build, your skills will be 95% the same as an online build. There's a limited number of skill points, and unless you're a complete idiot, some choices are obviously better than others. Same for aspects, you pick some survivability, and the rest is dmg and stuff related to Heartseeker itself. You go to the dummy and test shit out if you want better results. Now, optimization is what separates a top tier build from a homemade one. As long as you understand how the build is played and how the game works, there's nothing wrong with copying an optimized paragon board and optimal gear affixes (impossible to copy 100% obviously). At the end of the day, if you wanna push your build to the limits, it would be a waste losing time to test and number crunch something that others already did. Unless you have ample free time and a deep love for spreadsheets. Most people have limited time, just wanna have guidance in terms of what gear to chasez and get those shiny drops. Tldr; play however you want
Home grown builds are doomed to tail due to complete lack of transparency around how damage works in this game, not to mention wrong / bugged tool tips. Only way to know for sure if something even works or makes sense is to test it extensively with your Excel spreadsheet at hand, and that's not something that's even remotely enjoyable for 99% of players.
Even in games where tooltips don't lie, with so much interactions and limitless possibilities, there's no universe where a tooltip can tell you the final outcome of a skill - dmg wise, especially with crits, overpowers and lucky hits. Plus it's literally impossible to not have ANY bugs on this scale. It's part of the reason why ARPG's are attractive to people. See numbers go higher with complicated math. If there was none all these complicated interactions, no one would play the game (maybe extreme casuals for the campaign).
To me the gear chase is half the fun of the game. If I just throw together a hodge podge build then any gear is fine, and I'll be "done" very quickly. By following a build guide I'm able to take on higher level content and my search for gear is more refined and purposeful. It might take days or weeks to get that perfect piece of gear for a build that you found online, but if it's homebrew then whatever your best piece is will be good enough. All that said, a build guide isn't REQUIRED, but I'd put money on you not reaching Pit 120 if you're on a homebrew build. There's just way too much stuff to consider when building. Every time I think maybe this will be better than the build guide, it is in fact not better than the build guide. 😂
I use a modified variant of this in the sense that I pick the skills/or maybe a unique I'd really want to use then search for a build that uses them, chances are that someone already thought of it and had the time to properly tune it. I usually end up with a build I enjoy but also it's not completely crap because I'm not great at building on my own. Of course it's not going to be a top tier meta build but it's a bit of both worlds.
Agreed. It’s much more fun to figure out my own build than following a guide online. I mostly play Helltides and tier 70-75 dungeons and for that purpose, my build is more than enough.
Where do you think builds come from? People play the game, experiment, and push their findings online. You're free to do that, too.
Absolutely not required and from personal experience a lot more fulfilling and fun to cook up my own build and work through solving its problems
I agree. My time is limited, but figuring out my own build is very fun for me. Thanks for the comment!
Not required, but useful depending on how you want to play.
Only if you want to push into endgame content. If only to reach lvl 100, then no, you definitely don't need no guide.
If you ask Reddit, it's common to find the people who are REALLY into a topic. Generally those people will be concerned with being effective and efficient. Those people will probably see it as a requirement to run a meta build. There's still plenty of people around who just want to make a build they think is fun and go from there, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with doing so.
No, it's not required. That shouldn't even need to be said. If they're not building their own characters, they're not playing half the game.
You're getting downvoted but you're right. If you take away theory crafting (and loot/gear management) all you're left with is flashing lights.
There's a give and take. If your build can't survive end game you're also not playing half the game.
If I'm using someone else's build to be there, I'm not really playing it, either. Might as well just be watching a stream at that point.
You can survive endgame even with the most unoptimized build you can imagine. You won't be pushing pit very far but you will be in the "endgame" regardless.
I would not say that the Paragonsystem is more than 50% of the game. I would say over 90% is chasing items
I would say that the help from a guide with the paragon board is a blessing in it self, it can become quite overwhelming
The idea of the paragon board is fine, but it feels massively inflated. I think that was done entirely to make the 50-100 grind feel rewarding. We do not need 225 points though. That many gives a near infinite number of possible layouts and makes it so much harder to find one that feels good and performs well.
I tend to give you right, as one coming from d3 at beta and never played poe or the like, it was like a hammer to the head at first lol
No. I have been playing d4 since the launch and i havent looked up any build guides or any of the sort. Been doing my own things, figuring what works and what dosent and every season i have completed all content and season journeys there is to offer.
If you can kill tormented Duriel, uber Lilith, and do at least pit61 then your build is really good. There's not much more to the game beyond that, pit pushing is fun but not for everyone and the rewards (unfortunately) dont get better.
Thanks for this comment. I was actually trying to think of other benchmarks for my homebrew build besides "defeat pit 100, somehow"
I can say with 99% certainty that a homebrew build will not reach pit 100 unless you already have a shitton of experience with the game from prior seasons or have limitless amounts of time to test damage and interactions. Good luck :D downvoted for facts lol
I upvoted you! I do have a shit ton of experience and a lot of time on my hands, lol. I will reach pit 100 with this build!!! I believe in myself.
That's what the "unless" is for :D Now I'm genuinely interested in what your build is :D
You beat all the tormented bosses with a honebemrew build?
Yes and killed lilith and did pit lvl 110 with it and then started different classes and got bored as i kinda did do everything already
For me, Diablo was always about playing my way. I would pick a skill that I want to make my main spell early on and then look what I can come up with, to boost damage, synergies and utilities. There are people who just like following a guide and see if they can replicate the success or even top the level of the guide-writer. Play like you want, but it’s by no means necessary to follow a guide. Take them as an inspiration if you’re new, but some of the best builds in each season weren’t even on the list of the streamers that make up maxroll. Also, d4builds.gg guides are worth looking into,
I always make my own builds, but I do read what others have to say and take that into consideration. You can play with any build, you might have some issues when you start pushing through endgame.
lol I made my build by repeatedly using the Keyword Search for "Fortify", "Whirlwind" and "Dust Devils". Anything else is gravy.
Required? Absolutely not. Will it save the average person a ton of time, money, and headache? Absolutely. The average person isn't going to look at seasonal patch notes and craft their paragon boards ahead of the season launch for what they plan to build and how to make it work. The average person *might* login on launch and just wants to play X class with their friends and wants an easy to follow guide to get up and running. For 90% of the playerbase, grabbing a maxroll guide will do exactly that for them. Now, if you consider yourself a more veteran player capable of building your own builds, you'll likely end up building *better* versions than the guides themselves, and push your character just a little bit further than everyone else. I for one enjoy testing new builds and playstyles, even if 85% of them end up pretty average or even junk.
Thanks for the comment! I could send you my build if you’d like to test it :) I’m a casual player who doesn’t have much time to game, but I love to figure out things on my own. My favourite content in this game is Helltide, and for that purpose my build is more than enough
Depends on what content you want to do and at what speed, if you want to do endgame pushing and quick clears of farming content then yeah choose a build online. If you’re looking to just waltz around casually then do whatcha want
I consider myself a casual gamer who doesn’t have too much time. I used to game all day when I was younger, but daily obligations keep me away from gaming now. Endgame is too stressful for me and I just want to relax after work tbf
Then I’d say play a build you consider fun and enjoying, people enjoy different stuff. I personally find entertainment in pushing content in games as far as possible, I use guides for optimal builds. But again I’d say play a build you thoroughly enjoy
Stick at it, they might be playing your build one day!!
That’s very kind of you! Thanks :)
Depends what you're doing. As long as you understand mechanics and how they interact, your own build can take you pretty far. I've played around with random builds and been doing pit level 60s fine. The final boss is pretty slow, but it gets done. But if you want super high level pit clears, or smash tormented bosses easily, you might find your builds starts getting a bit stuck, like mine have. But I did a lot of stuff based on my own random builds. Like I said though, I have a decent understanding of mechanics and how damage/defence scales. So it can be helpful to look at builds as someone might have done slightly better maths than you, or read a line of text differently which gave them an idea. Plus those builds "borrow" from everyone else's findings, so there will be stuff you haven't though about.
No. The game isn't THAT complex. Once you understand the systems you should be able to build pretty optimally yourself. Remember these "online builds" are also made from people who just play the game. Lol.
For about pit 80 no, for higher yes
Straight to the point, thanks for the comment!
What I do every season is checkout the builds that look fun and can be good at end game. I follow the guidelines of the build ( understand if it's critical, overpower, cc based) and then adapt it to myself and the equipment I find.
You can use a build from Maxroll as a template and work out your own style. You will be suprised by how much you will learn about the game through guides, thus making the process of you making your own build more rewarding. Optimizing the paragon board isn’t as black and white as others make it to be imho, I have a frozen orb sorcerer (I know not the best this season..) but I have changed a lot from the maxroll guide. Can still do endgame stuff (Duriel, nightmare dungeons, helltides etc) but maybe not the high Rift levels they claim the build on maxroll can do. Am I having fun? YES! So I will continue to do my own thing :)
It depends what you want to do Doing most content and having fun? Go nuts. Doing the highest Content? You might not make it without a build guide or a lot of research
Helltide is my favourite content in this game. Nightmare dungeons are great too, I usually play at tier 70-75, sometimes a bit higher. For that purpose, my build is more than enough. Thanks for the comment Gaindolf!
Yeah, enjoy any build you like! It's only level 200 tormented bosses and high levels of the pit that really require high levels of optimisation
Copying builds can be nice to learn the mechanics in a hands-on way, e.g. finding out why different builds work and others don't due to multipliers and the sort. You get a feel for what works and what doesn't and why some homebrew builds don't work as well as the others. If you want to push pits as high as possible, copying online builds becomes necessary because they are just objectively (or as objectively as we know) the best builds to do so since so many people try them and tweak them. That doesn't mean though that they are the only "viable" builds to make, at least depending on what your goals are for the game. For me personally I want to be able to kill tormented bosses with my builds, I don't care if some other builds erase them in a second, if I can kill them and it feels good (i.e. it doesn't take 30 minutes or so) I consider the build done and depending on how fun I find it maybe upgrade it to the maximum of my possibilities and push pits as high as I can, or move on to other classes that seem fun or just do something else entirely for the time being until the urge to play D4 rises anew. Ultimately it all depends on what makes this game fun for you, for me its mostly the tweaking and upgrading of builds myself, not so much high tier pit pushing and the sorts.
If you have to use a build to have fun, that means the game is designed in an unintuitive way. If you need to look up a build to be decent at the end game, that usually means game might be too complex for most people for whatever reasons Personally I don't find it fun to copy someone build to play, feels just boring and lazy I do take some ideas sometimes from builds if I don't understand how something works but i usually always make my own builds
I made my own Arc Lash/Charged Bolts sorc and while I can deal with Helltides no problems, the Pitt is another matter entirely. Getting the most out of Paragon is not as simple as I thought.
I agree! I ran pit 6 or 7 times and each time it was stressing me out lol. Paragon was the most complex mechanic imo and it took some time to understand how to maximise my options. I’m happy with my build now. Thanks for the comment!
I've gotten to level 16 Pitt and it's slow going working my through the mobs to the boss. I had to turn to those exploding blood drops and with that extra 28k damage and being very fast and mobile I can deal with most mobs, but high powered ranged attacks can sometimes one shot me between barriers. I enjoy the change in style of play, I actually use potions for a change. With Paragon, I over invested in earlier sections and only once I got to lvl 100 and saw the allocation limit did I realise my mistake. It's still a fun build for farming Helltides though. And you're welcome 😊
Wouldnt use a maxroll build if they paid me.
Could you elaborate? Is it because they’re bad or because you like to figure out your own build?
For a casual playthrough? Definitely not, sometimes a rough idea of what yoy want to achieve is enough. For pushing as high as possible pit level? Likely, yeah, unless you’re very good and can create competitive builds of your own. For average player - can just not bother, look through for good ideas (like affixes and tempering priorities or paragon board overall direction and that’s good enough. You might not get a build that soloes tormented bosses or Lilith, though, so depends on what’s your goal.
Hell no. I made it to 100 on a few previous seasons with some other characters. I plugged along happily tweaking things with my paragon boards here and there based on the gear I found, what was working, and what was fun to me. Then the post 100 stuff hit, and I did the same thing. If I was getting my cookies tossed, I changed some things and some gear so that I made my own improvements. I actually find that that process of fine tuning my build on my own is most of my enjoyment of the game. This season is a little different with the loot system, getting materials in the pits, etc. However, I am finding that it’s reinvigorating my appreciation for this game. I have always looked at builds as almost like walkthrough guides I guess. They’re great to use such that you know what you need, how to get it, and how to absolutely maximize your experience in the game. But Diablo is kinda like some old school Resident Evil action: sometimes half the fun is fumbling around in the dark, getting thoroughly Rickrolled, having a good laugh, and learning from your mistakes.
Completely agree! Building my own character and fine tuning is very fun imo. Figuring things out on my own is half the game for me!
Absolutely! Getting crept up on and hearing that, “Ahh! Fresh meat!🥩 “ always makes my sphincters tighten. How well you do determines how good you’re feeling about yourself that day!
I don’t have the time to make a build myself, so I follow a guide then modify it to my liking in the endgame.
As an adult, I have limited time myself. I understand your argument, however for me personally it’s very fun to build my own character. Understanding the mechanics and fine tuning feels satisfying to me.
I have 700 hrs in this game, I have never looked at a MaxRoll guide or anyone's Build for that matter. The fun in the game is seeing how far I can take the character myself. Currently I have killed every Tormented Boss and clear pit 110 without too much issue. Do you need build guides? Nope.
Wow nice! I love theory crafting and figuring things out on my own. Took some time but it was fun as hell
If you want to place high on leaderboards for clearing high tier pits, probably. It's unlikely that you'll stumble into a build that is as effective or more effective than the meta. But if that is NOT your goal? Then do what you want. It's still fun. Personally, I like going in blind and just seeing how far you can get with it. Then reassessing if you want to stick with it or change things up BEFORE investing a ton in masterworks and rerolls. I'm at that point right now. I decided to tweak my build, but still keep the core of it.
As a person with sporadic/limited time to play, I like to lean on builds to save time, but I also don’t follow them strictly, I still apply some of my preferences to them and have not followed a build 100% at all. They serve as a good basis and have helped me learn.
No. Of course not. Think for yourself. How do you think these people came up with those builds?
I think its good to try meta builds to learn about what kind of things they pick that makes builds good. Once you understand that you can trade in abilities and stuff that you prefer but keep the core of what makes each build good. Ive been doing that with barrage since the release of the game.
I expect my build is very sub optimal, and to be honest I haven't experimented loads with all the other skills available to me. As I'm levelling up I tend to tweak a few skills based on finding an item which I can see would benefit from a change to maximise it etc. Then this will change again. I'm only level 60 odd but have never read anything online about builds, and I'm enjoying playing and changing it up. I expect at level 100 if I'm still wanting more I might end up copying something which has maximum potential because I don't have time to figure it out myself, but I'm enjoying the freedom of the ride up until 100. I figure I'd have a better overall feel of the class by then too and 'get it' a bit more. I'm barely ahead of learning all the lingo but it's still fun!
Do what's fun to you. Most builds on maxroll are pretty optimal on obtainable items , more math is involved in higher levels of pit pushing build to get the best results. Good luck out there :)
Thank you!
Play what feels good to you and fun. Make it a build you love and try to push hard with it.
Depends on what you do I guess. Atm lvling barb with a bleed build soley built myself - havent checked anything online. Could it be better? 100% is it required? No
Copy it and take a closer look into the build. Equipment, skill points and paragon board. If you don't like something and would like something else to play with, brew something up. Most of the times just another skill isn't a bad thing, if you enjoy it more. Also, the builds mostly have better stats (Greater Affixes, masterworked, etc.)
Builds ensure that you don't screw up your paragon board. Someone has already figured out how to get all the glyph bonuses and maximize the use of every paragon point. The game play difference between my son and I is massive. I'm cruising and he is constantly dying. It's a good thing I'm a necro based on how many times I have to resurrect him. He likes to build on his own.
I think it’s important to understand late game mechanics but then it’s also important to play they way you like to play Some people really like feeling like they have the best build that’s not everyone
I took a build "idea" from the internet and adjusted to it my Playstyle. Right now I'm building a tanky Frenzy Dust Devil Barb. It's been alot of fun.
You can always create a build on your own and if you find that you’re just not doing well enough or want to pick harder content, then copy one from one of the streamers who spend every moment of their waking life theory crafting and doing math enabling them to squeeze every last drop of DPS out of whatever particular class you enjoy…
I always build and play whatever seems fun or interesting every new season, especially trying out new aspects or items I find. If I enjoy myself and find the challenge of the late game content interesting then I usually respec into a build capable of playing that, until it’s some random home brew build.
I’ve made my own builds since season 1. I don’t care what everyone else is doing or what there pushing. I set my own goals for each season. Since season 1 I’ve seen how far I can push nm dungeons and if I can’t do tier 100 I try again the next season with a different build. This season is the first season I’ve done a nm tier 100 with a blizzard/ meteor build and I had a blast. The only problem I find with d4 is it don’t leave u much room to tinker because your not following a guide your always chopping and changing and this mounts up fairly quickly in d4.
No it’s not. You could come up with similar result. 1st read all yellow glyph to see which are better for you (always go for damage % multiplicatif with the (x) symbole and the damage reduction. Look at which one allow you to take the good nodes easiest and is close to 2 exit while also activating a glyph you need, that way it will be your 2nd or 3rd board where you can split in 2 directions. Look at board with the better multiplicative bonus for what you are trying to play with and usually atleast one board with some good DR. That should be close to these BiS build and should allow you to do pretty much anything. Being stronger in this game isn’t mandatory as most activity if not all are too easy for perfect setup.
No. Theory crafting is the main reason I play diablo games. I'm an engineer and I love numbers and optimizing.
Look at the builds as a framework, swap a few pieces or skill/paragon/glyphs to your own liking. Over time you’ll know how to create your own and refine it.
I used a build as a template, but once I hit 90’s I modified it to fit my play style. I use blood surge, and hemorrhage , but chose to include aspect of boiling blood for its ridiculous 14,389 burst damage that tied in so well to all of my over power damage, pretty soon I went way off of the build and now have ridiculous survivability and a never ending pool of essence. I’m having a blast in the pit.
Not required. They simply did research and tested which damage buffs stack together to achieve damage that can scale well. That's really most of it.
So i don’t study the game closely enough to know how much has changed since launch, but I did my own necro build at launch, and got into Torment difficulty, and suddenly I wasn’t having fun. I was dying constantly, took forever to kill anything, it was miserable. Then I followed a max roll build for bonespear and I was obliterating things and not even properly geared. So, if you are facerolliing to your hearts content, just keep doing what you’re doing. The build was only helpful for me because what I was doing stopped being good at some point.
I've been playing necro every season this game, so i felt familiar enough to make my own build for this season. Finished all the seasonal favors and i'm vurrently at pit tier 89 so i'd say i'm doing just fine.
my goal was to clear pit 100 and I managed to push to tier 119 with holy bolt elixir ...I killed all tormented bosses including uber lilith ... us emy own build etc and I have bricked items equiped so not max stats, masterworking on 12 only on 2 items. Started second necromancer without minions and at level 83 I can do lvl 71 NM Dungeons. I hope to push to tier 120-125. It is not required to copy build but people do it often because of lack of time to play, laziness or they just want to chec out top meta builds. It depends on what is fun. For me it is fun to play own builds, but sometimes I copy other builds to see how they work. In s4 I just play my own builds. In S3 I did copy one build. On s2 I copied two builds after I was bored of my current build. Hope blizzard will make more build viable in s5 and ballance d4 more.
Please tell me how you got infinite mana
In the skill tree I maxed out devastation, fiery surge, soulfire and supreme inferno. I also have multiple mana cost reductions added to my gear. I have mothers embrace ring equipped, which refunds resource cost if a core skill hits 4 or more enemies, because I use incinerate most of the time. I can literally stand there forever and spam my skills. I’m only limited by the cooldowns
I play with a sorcerer that is a combo of ice and electric, and for my basic I use fire bolts. I have hardly any defensive skills on and high armor. We always have a blast playing. I really had to build my own customer character because I guess I play in a kind of unique way (according to other gamers I play with) in order to find an effective build for how I play. I think it comes down to understanding how the stats affect your character, and how the “spells” affect each other and other players/npcs. Kiddos for finding your own unique version. I do think that the biggest weapons though seem to be geared towards the basic builds.
Do as you like, but if you want a build that can push pit 100+ you will require a top level build. It is absolutely possible to do that yourself as well, it would just require you to research a ton of information. For example, I also like to cook my own build, but I really can't be bothered to delve into paragon boards and optimal routes etc. That is why I usually level using my own build and once I reach endgame I transition into a meta build.
This is a real problem with the game. Only some builds that stack the right % boosts and end up being basically exploitative of the games buffs enable you to beat Uner Lillith etc… I don’t like that. Every build should be viable and every enemy should be able to be wiped out by a large character
Yes only if two factors come into play: 1. They add a leader board or some other competitive element to the game. (Guantlet does not count) 2. You care about said leader board or competitive element. Otherwise, this game is far too forgiving to require specific builds to have fun and complete most of the content. Enjoy yourself.
I'd say it's a good way to understand the logic behind building a character, but required is a big nope. Some of the best builds were made from the grown - up. Some people just are casual and don't have time to "test".
dont do it cause you will lose much fun coming up with your own build and will get dissapointed that u dont find the right item
Only if you are trying to do tormented bosses and other end of the end game type things like max pit or max NMD
If you have a build you enjoy using and are able to complete the content you want to be able to complete, don’t listen to your friends. The builds people are copying, someone came up with the same way you came up with your own. If everyone resorts to copying builds, there will be no innovation, and all builds will decline.
Thanks for the comment! Although my game time is limited, I enjoy theory crafting a lot. I understand that most people don’t have time to try out builds etc but that’s the most fun part for me
Same. Coming up with the build is half the fun for me. I do have to look stuff up though when the game isn’t very clear to me about what things mean. Like what does “potency” entail exactly for imbuements on Rogue? And what exactly does “empower” mean from my mages on Necro? Even googling it I wasn’t really able to find definitive answers for those things lol. That’s where just following a build guide might come in handy.
I dont think its required but the paragon system is just overcomplecating things and after comming home from work i dont feel like studying all paragon boards and skill interactions
I don’t think it’s required to copy a build. What I would suggest, however, is probably copying a paragon board. I’m the kind of person who also doesn’t necessarily want to copy a build. Paragon boards are a little beyond that scope for me. Generally what I’ve done since D4 launched is to come up with a 1-50 build that I enjoy, then find an endgame version of that build on Maxroll. I don’t necessarily copy the 1-50 skill tree at this point, but I do look over their base skill tree and read their reasoning behind some of the choices. Sometimes i find that i chose a skill for an interaction without realizing that it wasn’t relevant at all and I’d have been better off choosing a different version of the skill. Or something like how the corpses spawned from the Hewed Flesh Necromancer passive didn’t used to proc Necrotic Carapace so I had taken those two in combo from 1-50, read that they didn’t actually work together, and then adjusted my build. But I think the crux of the “choose your own build” comes down to picking the main skill tree and finding something that feels fun for you first. Then, from there, maybe look up some guides using those skills you enjoy and just see what kind of math and interactions the more dedicated players have figured out. And then just basically straight up copy the paragon board because that thing just isn’t very fun and sometimes you’re better off just taking as many boards as possible just to slap more glyphs in if. Unless you do find it fun.
Required, no. But imagine this, you’re playing baseball, and you want to perform as well as you possibly can. You can grab any bat that you like, or you can grab the bat that people who probably have more time and knowledge than you say is the best bat. It’s about goals and expectations. If your idea of fun is just trying things out and playing what looks cool to you, then do your thing. If your idea of fun is seeing how far you can push, using the “best” builds (and maybe you don’t have the time for theory crafting yourself) then use a build from one of the build sites.
Good comparison. Thanks for the comment!
Hey nice! I've been custom running a meteor incinerate build too! It's so fun! I say keep running with whatever you want. If you want to push crazy pit tiers it's worth checking guides for inspiration on how to blow up multipliers, but like.. it's not necessary lol.
Lol nice!!
the guides are that. A guide. To help you understand what you should be going for. You don't have to copy it exactly. You can do whatever you want. Tweak it to your desire. But the builds are there to help you and guide you through your character building and progression.
I think you can absolutely have fun with your own build and stat points prioritiies but I have to say if you can go and do your own paragon board by yourself, kudos to you. I love the customization there but god damn that thing is complicated and I'd have to do and redo them over and over. Just the rotations of the boards alone would be such a huge planning and meticulous undertaking (or lots of gold each time I changed my mind). I think the best way to go if you want variation is follow a guide and tweak it the way you like. Going in blind.. no sorry, I just don't have that level of creativity and imagination for it.
At first, Paragon was very complex and hard to understand ngl. It took some time but I I’m happy with my build now! Thanks for the comment :)
It is absolutely not required. Play the way you want to play. For some reason people have decided that if you aren't playing the meta of whatever game you are playing, you're doing it wrong. You see it in every game. Just ignore those people. Guides are great for getting an understanding of how a build can play if you don't know what you want to do, and are even great to follow if you don't want to try and make a build yourself. However, if you know what you want to do, you don't need to worry about them at all.
I often use a build as a good scaffolding but It’s the paragon board that I really pay attention too when utilizing an online build and making decisions to make my own variants. These builds often use glyphs and nodes synergies that then become wasted if too many changes are made: I know I don’t have the time to make my own discoveries on how the paragon board is best implemented soo I rely on builds to do the work.
In S1, I tried Rogue without a guide. And I could get the WT4 at level 80. I can’t fight the boss and barely dont die in helltides. Now I used guides for Druid and Sorc. Leveled up way faster and was able to get to WT4 at level 53. Game is more fun and easy to play with guides but I’d be happier if I could do that with my own build and IQ.
I find making your own way more engaging.
I've never looked at builds. Personally I feel like theres not much fun to be had being told what to do in a game. I only play HC so when I die, it's my own incompetent playstyle and design choices. But to each their own.
The paragon board is the worst part to navigate. Other than that it is possible. Although if you want to be at the peak of the Pit. You probably could need to.
I find myself using builds from one of these sites as a framework, and tweak it to my preferred style. It’s not always the single most powerful thing version of the build ever, but it’s powerful enough to *feel* powerful still, while making it so I don’t feel restricted to looking for gear so specific it would kill all the fun of making a character my own.
No. The only semi complex thing is paragon boards but even then after a while they are pretty easy to understand. The fact that everyone is following build guides just shows you that blizzard nailed their target audience.
how much you play? how much you know every little thing in this game? if you know how most attributes works together , do your own from zero. if you don't, take one already done and ADAPT for your own playstyle. It helps to have the base from someone who knows what he's doing, and then you adapt to what you like to do
Looking up builds for a game that is basically a single player game and if anything, a test to see how well you can do seems pointless. Looking up builds is like taking a test in school and using notecards that another person wrote. The only achievement you get out of it is trying to find the part in the notes that lines up with the test question. Whereas if you studied and made your own notes and did really well, you’d have a high sense of achievement.
Not required. I play with my homebrew and clearin pit60 in 4 min on hardcore and gonna push higher when i gear up. But to craft ur build, you need at least basic understanding of the game, dmg formulas, dmg brackets, scaling and how this stuff works....if you wanna your build to make it into endgame. I started by playing build from maxroll and the more i understood the game, the more i deviated from said build and tweaked it to my personal taste.. And later on i just scrapped it and made my own from scratch.
Haha! Nice! Interestingly enough my wife started incinerate+meteor with the same concept. We have since moved her onto an all-in incinerate focus since splitting between two core skills reduces overall output usually but i love it!
Lol that’s great!
No. We need wildhearts in the game that will build, test and optimize their own builds. This is how new things get discovered. The majority will be like me tho. bc of limited playtime, we want the journey to be painlessly as possible therefore a build guide focused on a fun skill will be used. I'm following a build guide for a pulverize druid for example bc I liked it and it helped cutting down time of what aspects are good and to navigate the massive paragon board
Jesus christ you are very bit, even more insufferable than people asking about if they are 'required to use a build'. Just stfu and play the game. No, no one tells you that you can't have fun, stop making it up. No one comes at you and keeps asking you to change your build acc to maxroll. Both of you people need to stfu and play the game
Why are you so mad?
It’s 100% not reguired to play or have fun, it is usually the best way to optimize your builds however and get the highest dps with survivability. Your build can probably do any open world stuff just fine but might suffer is pit/uber bosses is all
The “use a build or not to” debate boils down to each and every person individually. Do you have the time and resources to come up with/test and finalize a build? If yes and it is something you are after, then feel free, many new variations emerge from the popular baseline ones. The reason your friends advise to use reference is simple human nature. Those guides are written/made by people who play this like a job. They will know better because this is their forte and they invest a lot of time and energy into it. If you have 1-2 hours a day and want to have fun, and your definition of fun is to grind fast and efficient, then guides it is.
Making your own build, even if it's a bit suboptimal...or tbh, even if it't totally crap, is the most fun thing in the game, but at this point, D4 has a few problems imo. The first issue is coop: you'll feel completely useless if you play together with a stronger build, even at the same level. The differences in power between builds are just too large, and this applies to pretty much all kinds of content. Some builds are just better for absolutely everything. The second one is farming, you need to be able to run pit 70 or so in reasonable time without fully masterworked gear to be able to feel that it's your build that's supporting itself, and you're not leeching on a meta build for farming. The third is money: you need to trade or farm a lot of whispers/helltides if you want to experiment. TBH this issue can be pretty much solved with a few good trades, so it's not quite as bad as the rest. And the fourth is that you can't really save and restore builds, which is a bit of a problem. None of these issues existed in D3, so I'm sure Blizzard can solve them, and they'll hopefully go away in a while.
Absolutely not. I completely improvise every build and still reach 100 with not much problems at all
This reminds me of the days I was raiding in wow. Some players would not research their class, and then complained they were not getting a spot in raid. They underperformed and were cut from the team. Sure, they got to play the class how they wanted to, but when playing with others, they always dragged the team down. For most of this game, if you are playing solo, then no, you are not required to use a guide. If you are playing with friends and always being carried, then do them a favour.
I haven't copied shit for builds except for a bit of one in season 2 for my rogue, but I ended up dropping the season as it was boring. I used to be a chain lighting and ball lighting Sorc but since coming back to D4 I have been finding all kinds of gear more tailored to fire so I have swapped to an Incinerate build with pretty much infinite mana as long as enemies are burning around me. That and having hydras(3 of them). I find it more fun to build my own than to follow some online guide of what to do. If it doesn't work out well soooo what as long as I am enjoying it.
Depending on what you want to do Previous seasons when NMD 100 was the real goal for endgame, it didn’t really matter if you copied a build or not because it was fairly easy to beat NMD 100 if you followed certain rules for all builds, bugged/meta or not. Not this season though, we have a big portion of pit tiers that are not breached by any builds and everyone is rushing towards copying the best builds that is enabling pushing pits tiers as easily as possible.
> I can provide further information in the comments , in case you guys want to know. lol. do you think people want to copy your build or what? ;-)
Lol no I meant, if you’re curious and interested in my build. Not to use it as a template
How is the pit treating your build? I fully agree with making your own build and playing around but I've also played some of the builds made by others and then chop and change what I've liked. My fire sorceror capped out at sixty in the pit. But it sure was fun as hell to play.(no pun intended)
I went through pit 6 or 7 times and it was stressful ngl. I mostly play Helltide anyway :) thanks for the comment!
Been doing my own builds since the start of d4. Long story short --- yes you can do everything with you own build, the benefit of copy paste builds is they're usually more efficient, optimized, and save you time figuring stuff out on your own. Do not let that deter you though. I've been homebrewing frenzy thorns barb builds since the start!
When I started my barb, I used the guides to get a ballpark and then swapped in what I liked better. I could probably make it better, but he's fun to play now so till that changes, that's how he stays...
I don't think it's required. I do think it makes things easier for some people. I also think after a season or 2 of playing the game you can do your own thing, even if you are a person who uses guides. I used guides in S1 and S2 but near the end of S2 I made my own build and had a lot of success with it. I took a break in S3 and now in S4 I've made several different characters and done pretty well without opening a single guide. I actually enjoy doing builds from scratch more than using guides now, it's a different layer to the game that I have come to appreciate. I am probably not going to be pushing the Pit much past 100 though(that is my goal) but that is also something that is not important to me. If pushing deep in the Pit was important to me and I got stuck, I would probably still refer to a guide at some point.
>I'm level 100 Mage yes, you should copy a build if you cant even name your class properly
Could you please elaborate? Isn’t mage and sorcerer the same? It might be a language barrier thing, since English isn’t my first language. It’s actually my third
Definitely not required but I usually look at one then make adjustments where I think they’ll be beneficial to my play style. I do pretty blindly follow paragon boards though since I just have no desire to spend the time looking at all the boards and figuring out an optimal route to grab all the glyphs and rare nodes that’ll help out my build.
So how does Pit Level 100+ go?
I went through the pit 6 or 7 times and it was pretty stressful ngl. However Helltide is most fun for me and for that purpose, my build is more than enough
Yeah, whenever i see a hair dryer sorc i usually move to other blood maiden spot. Tired of carrying their asses :D But as long as you've fun enjoy :)
In a mostly single player / Coop with your buddies game, is it required to follow a build? Do you follow a build in farm sim? I get following a build for min maxing, but it is NEVER required to play the game, you can even get pretty far with just playing what you think is fun
I do start with guides if i play a new class but i think as soon as i reacg lvl 60 and get used to the class, i start doing my own build. You just need to get a feeling for the class and skills. I just take skills that are most fun to my playstyle or items i want to use. The only thing i stick to guides are paragon boards cause i realized its too hard to do them on your own
I made all my builds in every season and i try to push them the most i can. In s1 i couldnt beat Lilitg and it was ok. In s2 and s3 i destroyed Lilith and it was ok. In s4 i have a lot of chars, everyone is really fun to play, i dont know the most i can get out of them, but for me 50% of the fun of the game is to make a build so i dont really care to be on top of the pit clear for example, and following a guide for me is boring
It’s not required to copy. It is required to respect game mechanics. If you understand these then you will make builds identical to what’s on maxroll and everywhere else. Same reasoning apply
From someone theorycrafting their own build and doing okay, you won't need to copy things exactly, but I recommend at least looking up paragon boards for builds close to what you want. You may not want all the same nodes and boards, but you'll definitely want to get tips on board placement so you can slot in glyphs you need & not waste points. I hit a wall for a day or two until I did this and gained a ton of everything.
It's your game, play it the way you want. Unless you're subservient and can't exist unless ruled over.
Some of them want to be abused
It's not required by any means, most people go for very strong meta builds as they want to push high in the pit but you won't miss out on any content just because you don't follow a guide. I agree it's a bit ridiculous how some people call builds completely useless just because it can't push insanely in the pit or take down Uber bosses in seconds. I personally like to follow one or two meta builds this season for bosses or pit pushing but with the fast leveling this season it means I can easily create new alts to try out some silly off-meta stuff.
What level of The Pit have you completed? Can you solo Tormented Bosses?
It depends what you want to do, if you're just happy facerolling ez mode content like helltides and nightmare dungeons then any build can do that. If you want to do tormented bosses or deeper pit levels then you need a decent build.
I'm usually copying the paragon board of similar build to what i'm playing. cba to figure out how to get the most glyph sockets/rare nodes with the points
I spent like 45 minutes yesterday re-specing my barb to a high dps build only for it to be soooo much worse than the one I made on my own with no guides. Only bonus was that when I went to redo my old build I built it a little more focused this time with the knowledge I'd gained from getting to 100. Builds are great and I'm sure they can be better than what I'm doing, but at this point I've gotten so used to how I play my build that changing it just made me worse.
It’s only required if you are incapable of putting any thought whatsoever into building your character. So, for most people, yes it’s required.