Will the first character I create suck?

That seems to be one of my biggest concerns as someone interested in coming over to this game and perhaps eventually convincing others to play.

I'm not a dumb person or a dumb gamer, but certain games have mechanics that aren't exactly intuitive. I know that in a system without a forgiving respec mechanic, the first character I create will invariably be sub-optimal, but my concern is to what degree is this variance from the optimal.

This quote in the dev diary is alarming to me -

"

Players abusing whatever the current broken skill is with a clever synergistic passive build, godly rare items and high-quality Skill Gems are able to handle triple the challenge of other players.

While the gear part (items and skill gems) isn't all that concerning, since a core part of these types of games is seeing huge increases in power as you gear up, what is worrisome is the mention of the passive build.

I suppose it isn't that big of an issue if the leveling curve isn't that long, but I really don't know how long it takes to hit the end game. If it is only around 20 hours WITHOUT powerleveling, that is somewhat bearable.

Beyond that however, you start getting into territory where your passive skill tree starts RESTRICTING options due to fear of spending a lot of time leveling a character who will ultimately become useless and forcing new players to look up builds online.

So, my question is, how much of a difference does the passive skill build make? Will my sub-optimal build make progressing to the endgame impossible? I don't mind the idea of rolling a new character to farm endgame content more efficiently, but the idea that I'd have to roll up another character because the game has become unbeatable for my main is disturbing.

Unless you spend a lot of time planning it or follow a passive guide then the answer is yes.

My first build made over a year ago sucked big time. I made it to level 30 realised I made big mistakes (this was way before respec points or orbs of regret) and rerolled.

I for one enjoy learning through mistakes and you will make many as you build various characters in POE.

"

So, my question is, how much of a difference does the passive skill build make?

"

the answer is yes.

>.<

Feel as though you didn't really read my thread, just the title.

"

I made it to level 30 realised I made big mistakes (this was way before respec points or orbs of regret) and rerolled.

I think this may answer my question well enough though. Having trouble in the equivalent of nightmare (I assume that's where level 30 would put you?) is... definitely concerning. I think in D2 even with the worst build I made myself, I was able to push into Hell (and in that game, Hell was the endgame for a while).

I mean, I suppose 10$ isn't that big of a deal, but I don't know if spending some money on something that may end up frustrating me is a good idea. I think I had about enough of that with Diablo 3's Inferno difficulty :)

Define Suck?

My first character is doing ok, the next few i have dabbled with already feel more improved diff builds and classes however. Its more about the learning curve than anything holding you back.

However that being said tis fun to learn this game, if as mentioned you are the thinking mans gamer and dont want your hand held then I would say you will be fine.

lvl cap is 100 you wont get there in 20 hours. Its also closed beta so once it goes open you characters will be wiped. No big deal thats part of a beta treat this as you chance to make a character that "sucks" so that cmoe Open Beta you will jump in running.

Well there ARE orbs of regret, and it's not like your entire build will ever be useless. Just plan things out carefully. Live and learn, man. The game isn't supposed to hold your hand and reward you for making a crappy build.

That said, every build I've made so far and stuck with has been able to do alright in Merciless. It depends a lot on finding the right balance in defense and offense passives and equipment. The noob's mistake is to think your build has failed when in fact you just have crappy gear.

You'll do fine! The learning curve seems steep but you'll get most of it in your first playthrough.

Maybe I can go into a bit more depth for you with an example.

I have only been playing for a few weeks now, and my first character was pretty decent, but not optimal. He was a 2h marauder, I grabbed troll's blood and golem's blood and attempted to build a high hp character to synergise with these two passives.

While the idea was good and all, I unfortunately navigated the passive tree in a sub-optimal way which resulted in a sub-optimal character. By the time I realized this, I was at level 40, but without hesitation I re-rolled despite the fact that I probably could have continued for a lot longer with him.

I rebuilt the same character, but chose my passives more wisely and was even able to grab resolute technique by the same level as my previous marauder (Big deal).

The way you decide to move around the passive skill tree has a lot to do with the success of your character. The only thing you really need to keep in mind is that he needs to be good at something, and if you stick to an idea, it will probably work out nicely.

I hope this helps you a bit :P

p.s. re-rolling was a lot of fun, didn't expect to enjoy bringing a nearly identical character to the same place I already had one.

"

Define Suck?

"

Will my sub-optimal build make progressing to the endgame impossible?

>.<

"

lvl cap is 100 you wont get there in 20 hours.

I understand this. I mean, in D2, originally getting to "the end game" was getting to Hell (at least in my experience with classic release D2), not reaching 99.

I guess more importantly than how long does it take to reach the end game is, how long does it take to realize that a character is gimped? In most games it takes end game content to really break your build, so in a certain respect finding out a build is flawed earlier is better, but still, that can be frustrating if it happens way too early.

And obviously I'm not talking about the equivalent of dropping 20 points into warmth and frost bolt. I'm talking about putting some thought into what you're doing but not having all the information about endgame meta. Certain builds might make sense in theory, but when it comes to the interaction of them with items and skills, they might not measure up.

"

it's easy to make a character that's adequate, but a little bit suboptimal for most of the game

Cool, cool. This is how I should have phrased things, making an adequate character. Able to do things. I'm glad to hear that.

I am no expert at the game but I think I have a general handle on the concept.

If you do your research first, ie read up and learn the basics, and understand the skill tree your first character should be fine I think. It won't be perfect but it won't be bad either. Now if you go in will nilly just dropping points all over the place...yeah it's going to suck.

What I've found is that while my character is doing well, over time you stumble across superior builds and ideas created by more experienced or insightful players. You learn from that and improve. There simply is no substitute for experience.

The beta is a great opportunity to get some hands on "practice" so that when it does go live you have the right tools to make the choices that you ultimately would like.

Eg..my Templar is summoning, staff, cold, and fire and while great at none is decent at all. That allows me to experiment with many of the skills now so that I will know which ones I really want to concentrate on at release. The fact is that until you actually try them you won't know what works best for you.

The skill tree has a lot of depth, so yes there is a learning curve and it is easy to make a mistake. There is also a system for correcting mistakes so it's not like you have to be perfect. You just can't make one mistake after the next and expect to succeed.

I would suggest getting your feet wet in beta and then planning out a build (which you can do and save on this website) so that you're ready to go when it counts.

With complexity comes room for error, just the way it is. But the rewards and satisfaction are also higher and in my opinion, worth the effort.

Good luck.

As my signature indicates, I absolutely love theorycrafting in games such as this one. When I began the game, I planned out a few characters that I thought would be fun to play and hopefully optimal; I played each of them little bits here and there and worked out the kinks. I quickly learned what sort of builds I should be going for in order to maintain maximum DPS. I also like tank characters, and HP regen is a favorite of mine. As such, I built two new characters - an elemental archer and an hp-regen "tank."

Now, I'm used to having to specialize in one area and only that area, then things going relatively well; I feel as if this game requires your characters to be slightly more rounded. My pure DPS character made it all the way to Maelstrom of Chaos (dying plenty along the way); I got over 200 deaths on the poor fellow until I decided to go ahead and remake a more balanced version; this new guy is now up to par on the old one's DPS, MUCH tankier, and has 0 mana problems - a huge improvement over the old one. :) I had to stop playing my pure tank character at level 40 due to it being somewhat useless - it had too low damage to solo, no auras to support allies, no form of crowd control, etc. I have since created a new "tank" which includes all of the above and much more - it's currently in Ruthless on its way to Merciless! :)

In the meantime, I've put together a myriad of new builds (probably 20+) some of which don't make it past the planning stages, others make it up to level 40ish before I say "that works alright, time to move on" or "this sucks, I'm deleting it."

In short, yes, your first character, or two, or five may not be the "best." It'll take some experience with the game before you get what you truly want - at least, it will if you're extremely picky like I am. Many people are fine with the first character they make; you can make it work, it just won't be as "efficient" as others (it may die more often, have lower DPS, have some mana problems, etc.)

Are there changes I'd make to the characters I've got? Probably so, but they're so minimal at this point that it really wouldn't make an enormous difference in the long run. The idea is to get some experience under your belt, try a lot of different skills and playstyles, see what you like, and begin to test/tweak. You'll find your character. :)