Just hit 300 Hours and still I Don't know anything

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Hironoga29 wrote:

What i am trying to say is how did you guys/gals Get to the point were become comfortable with the ins and outs of this great game and do you have any advice for someone at noob status as myself?

I have put over 2000 hours into this game, and honestly I'm just getting to the point to feel comfortable to truly experiment. I've played mainly melee(only two caster and two bow builds), there's so much to this game and there's always more being added/changes being made, almost always something new to try out.

My friend who's played maybe 500 hours more than me is still making me feel like a novice, it's a very heavy game and it pays off to watch streamers/read the twitch chats(just before a new league is ideal time to tune in as there's a few big streamers doing build reviews), and you learn a lot from just tuning in, really helps you learn to make your own builds.

Joining a guild is also a very good idea if you haven't already, joining players who are slightly better than you is a good way to learn, as you scale up to match them without feeling overwhelmed.

ya you go through phases of development, a few 100 hours in i was completely clueless. The more builds you make the more the game makes sense, its not till you actually play something you begin to get an idea about that sort of build, and its not until you can seriously equip it and make an extremely efficient build tree that you properly understand its potential I feel.


I learned most of what I know from streams, mainly nugi, hes the man. Honestly if you have a stream running while you play, watch Zenocide, thats my advice. That guy can talk theory all day. Never trust anyones opinion 100%, everyone says shit about this or that build that is bullshit because were a bit clueless, no one knows it all. Listen to people who have serious experience but remember its always an opinion, even if 100 people are saying it they might all just be reading from the same broken page.


Experience is everything in this game, just keep playing. Start out trying to do simple concepts and staple builds until youve played some that truly demolish the game and you get a feel for what a proper build is capable of. Then you can start branching out, try stuff, different weapon types, defense types, different skills, how to mix and match, combine stuff you know worked with new aspects youve never tried before. I feel like the important first step though is getting into maps, getting that first build that can really hammer through the content, grind good items and give you that bench mark for what a solid character feels like to play. I wouldnt get too lost in fancy ideas, a lot of extreme high end, expensive gear builds are very fancy, employ a lot of quirky ideas. But the most effective builds on lower budgets are simple builds, get life, get defense, get damage, be efficient, thats the key.

I played my first char very casually, just hopped into the game and made it to a3 merciless somehow until i failed horribly with 1300 life and ~25% fire res in the Docks. Started to think and plan a ahead a bit more with each subsequent char and right now my usual approach to making a build is by picking a skill or skill combination i find interesting, usually starting with these steps:

1. what does the skill exactly do
-> i try out its mechanics on a higher level char or in standard where i have a ton of gear and high level chars available to get a feel for how it works

2. how can i scale the damage and clearspeed
-> effective damage vs. tooltip etc.

3. what other skills/supports synergize well with it
-> i usually prefer to have 2-3 damage skills so i can get an effective endgame build with just a few 4L items with a fairly optimized skill setup for every situation

3. make a passive skilltree for it
-> 2 and 3 are usually an iterative process, even if you have a lot of experience and semi deep understanding of game mechanics

4. refine the build while i level it


I also learned a lot from posting in the gameplay help forum although this may sound strange at first. When giving advice about pathing optimization of a skilltree, game mechanic basics or the few types of builds i am most familiar with (like many kinds of dualwield, claw, sword or self caster builds), i often get to the point where someone has a different basic approach.
At some point you realize that there rarely is a single best approach and that several different ways can lead to a similar outcome. If someone tells you that there is only a single best way to make something work, it turns out that they are usually wrong.
It is often just when i try to help someone with their build that i have the best ideas for my own chars ;)

Also: testing! With some basic math you can easily calculate the effective damage output or survivability of a specific build with a specific level of gear and links available but that doesn't necessarily tell you how it feels playing it. I always level a lot of seemingly non-optimal support gems in the offhand slots for testing pusposes and often enough i will switch out one of the more obvious supports when another proves to be more fun or provide better synergies than i originally thought it would.

In Short: be creative, learn, test, use and teach!

Thanks to everyone for the kind words and patience explaining personal tips,I will be using the forums more watching videos and playing with a guild,at the moment i have actually not played with more then like 3 people my whole time on the game.I think i do tend to take someone people word on a certain build and take it as 100% fact which i know now is not the best why to learn.I think my first step is to find a guild and start playing more social when ever possible.