Play testing builds

I am just curious how players test builds in this game. It a matter of leveling a toon then deleting it if it doesnt work? Where can I find a good place to determine how much damage I should be doing when? How much hp and mitigation should I have? Or is it only from playing the game?
I dont want to have my hand held 100 percent of the time but I would like to know what if any resources where I can get a feel of how over/under powered I might be at any point. Additionally how much is skill tree and how much is the gear.

builds tend to shape up around level 70-80, and experienced players level relatively fast so it's not a big deal to reach that level and then abandon the build




uniques like these make leveling go much faster

even without these uniques, being lazy and dicking around on Solo Self Found from scratch (no Masters), playing a melee witch and playing about 4x slower than racers, I got to level 45 on just 7 hours /played

well mostly it's kinda "thought process", you understand this game enough and can have a pretty accurate guess ahead of time

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TravisL wrote:

well mostly it's kinda "thought process", you understand this game enough and can have a pretty accurate guess ahead of time

Although this is true when you've played a ton of builds in the course of many leagues, Path of Building is still an amazing tool and allows you to minmax your build as early as the concept stage. Considering how useful and amazing I find it to be after years of PoE, IMO its usefulness and importance can't be overstated for a newer player.

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