How do you start planning a new build? I see so many different approaches.

Some people start building their build around uniques. Some around the primary skill they want to use. Some (HC) with what defenses they want. I've seen a lot of different ways people start to plan out new builds and I'm just curious how you people do it? Because I've never made a build around a specific legendary and a friend of mine found that weird.

Also do you consider some particular order to be the best? For example Skill > passive > gear vs for example passive > unique > skill etc.

First character of the league, I try to build a very "loose" character. That means very few uniques and very low passive tree requirements. The idea is by the time I get to Merciless, I more or less have the basics of the build down and I'm just filling in juicy node clusters that are nearby my pathing and waiting for my level to get high enough to use those end-game weapons. These builds are great for early in the league because mistakes aren't all that expensive, being under-geared doesn't make the build unfun, and you can abandon the build without feeling guilty of how much currency you ended up sinking into them. A good example of this is stun Marauder that focuses on life, regen, maces, and armor. There's a lot of ways to build it, and chances are you're just looking for gravy nodes by the time you get to 80.


Usually around halfway through the league, I'll start fresh with a new, "tight" character. These are the guys that have multiple unique requirements, go on a skillgramage across the passive tree to get a variety of nodes, and generally are a pain in the ass to level right up until level 70 or 75 when you can get all the requirement passives and use the keystone unique items. Examples of this include max-block builds, constraint builds (I'm going to make a build that uses all three heralds!), or just concept builds that want to see if trying to get X, Y, and Z in the same character is spreading yourself too thin or not. Generally every passive point is welcome right up until level 90, and they have difficulty getting anywhere higher than 4,000 HP due to all the unique gear they use. They ARE generally immensely fun however.


In Torment my first build was a 100% lightning Static Strike Templar. I was able to build up wealth with it, but I hated how SS feels as an AOE skill. Halfway through I then made a Three Dragons, triple herald dual Doryani's Catalyst cyclone templar that passively freezes the screen and splats packs from Herald of Ice shatter procs. It was really fun, but due to some unfortunate interactions with proliferated freezes and shatter damage from Herald of Ice, reflect packs were a 100% death sentence if I didn't turn off HoI (basically each mob would deal the HoI shatter damage to each other all at the exact same time. A mob of 8 means 8 x 7 = 56 HoI procs reflecting back all at once).



This time around I'm going to go with pure-physical leech + bleed Cyclone for my loose build, and then try and do a max-block Ice Crash for my tight build.

Best way I've found is first decide on what skill you want to use, and if it best suites your play style. Then read up on it and take careful note on what buffs it or what type of supports you'll need with the skill. Then decide on what type of character would best suite you and if you would be going armour/es/ev.

Once you have this down make sure you haven't missed something about the skill or supports you'll be using. Added fire damage is a tricky one compared to added cold damage. The one only works with attacks the other with spells and attacks. These are the little things that caught me out early on in playing the game.

Once you've got all this down there is crit/melee/weapon etc to decide about, from here you'll look at the tree and find the best nodes to suite your build.

Hope this helps a little.

Best way I have found to make a build is to figure out how you want to survive.

Survivability can mean many things:

- High leech / regen - usually high ES, high damage and insta leech. Can also mean an Aegis build

- Perma freeze - will work on most bosses but not Atziri. Glacia Hammer, Ice Shot, Ice Spear etc

- Damage nullification - Perma IC, high max resis

- Damage avoidance - blind, evasion, dodge, block

- Damage mitigation - armor, ECs, Arctic Armor, Lightning Coil etc.

- Hit and Run / Mobility - ST+whirling blades, puncture, high movement speed, playing at range, etc

Obviously you can mix and match but this will then guide what uniques and skills you can use.

I think making a build with survivability as the starting point will help prevent a lot headaches and frustration.