I'm getting slightly frustrated with 2.0's increase in difficulty.

Alright, im going to try to keep this short, because, its almost 6am and im tired, but, i want to see if anyone else is in my shoes.

I'm a theorycrafter, i like making builds that seem fun.

However, recently, im quite... depressed/sad because my ideas that would work in 1.3, dont work in 2.0 because i don't have enough defences...

Let me list the builds ive theorycrafted.

The Bloodlusting Marauder (Build guide is in the marauder forums) Was one of my successful builds, but, its cyclone, and cyclone can get really dull... so, i decided to move onto the next one (i also sold some gear, because, broke)

Split Arrow Crit Ranger using Hyrri's Ire - Decent, but physical damage made me its b-word... i had a nice 6l bow and all, but 2 things made it :(

Physical damage, and my life (somewhere around... 3.1k at level 72). OH, and the fact that there arent many Hyrri's (2.0 version) at the moment.

Scion Ice Crash MF w/ Cameria's Maul and crit sword - Nothing hugely wrong here, just, the fact that i used Belly of the beast (kinda terrible now because, hybrid stats = not even armour), its life was good, and it had a nicely rolled Ventors... so, im moderately happy about that, its just, physical damage hurts a bit :/

Templar Firestorm Chaos Rain (apeps rage) - Don't get me started with this mistake, so, i used a 6l infernal mantle, which is an amazing chest, but... its a caster build, and there are things wrong with casters these days (EB/MoM are really inefficient)



So... i can't be the only one who is upset about their builds they make (i dont follow other builds, i like using my mind and creativity) don't do very well.. its de-motivating me from playing :/ and ive got almost 5k hours on steam :(

true builds that worked in 1.3 no longer work in 2.0

but you can still get allot of things to work very well.
all i can say is that (somewhere around... 3.1k at level 72) is very low hp.
you should at the very least be in the 4k by then.
you should be 5k by 80.

that being said.
i can't say i've had any issues on getting my builds rolling so far.
-2h axe cyclone
-chinsol Totem build
-Frenzy incinerator

and just like you i do my own builds.

i just realized very quickly that i needed more defenses then i did in 1.3.
as a result my builds tend to do less damage then in the past but that's ok

if your really having allot of problems.
look up a few builds.
look at how they make things work.
learn from it.
and then create your own build with what you've learned.

Game (well, endgame) is harder than 1.3, that's for sure. I could argue that it became too easy in 1.3.
But you gotta see the big picture, for example, jewels can now provide a lot of damage for just one passive skill point, a lot more than pretty much all other nodes. And a lot of mechanics have changed, and must be used differently. EB/MoM is a good example, it's not inefficient in 2.0, but you can't just put 1 pt in EB and 1 pt in MoM and insta taking 30% less damage like you used to do in 1.3 ; now to make EB/MoM work require more investment. Spec MoM + EB + GR with a life leech support or warlord's mark for example, and it's perfectly viable.
The game is a lot different in 2.0, probably way more different than people think. We're just 1.5 months in, a lot of things stil have to be discovered / tested / experimented.

The only issue i have with damage ATM is the fact that if you are not running a Coil+Taste of Hate then i feel like im pretty much confined to the Str area of the tree! Or at the very least not matter where i decide to start any given build it better make its way into the Str area of the tree! Atleast if you want to cut down/out on the random one shots anyway!

Whats even more unsettling about this is if you Use those items AND make your build in the Str area of the tree.... You would think you would pretty much have a damn near unkillable build or atleast one that all that mitigation turns any damage into a joke but even with both the items and a Str based build stacking end charges and Armour and such you can STILL get absolutely destroyed really quick!

Im actually starting to think they would be better off to just get rid of Alt+F4 and cut out all these one shot mechanics that Alt+F4 is designed around! But i also know that is NEVER going to happen!
Not to mention at the same time im also very against removing Alt+F4 UNLESS they could do so without implementing a similar timer when you do use the function of Alt+F4 like D3 does! Thats is VERY restrictive and can become down right unfair when it comes to HC+DCs!