How do you make builds?
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I know you can fiddle around with Path of Building and eventually come up with something, but I don't think that's all people are doing.
There are people who just look at spark (any skill) at the beginning of a league, shrug, use it from level 1, and by day 2-3 are doing 4 million dps. I don't want that exact scenario, but I do want to learn how to better "make it work" like these people do. I want to make my own builds. I also want to understand more about scaling. Where should I look for info on this? How do you do make builds? How should I? Last bumped on Nov 7, 2019, 3:02:28 AM
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It looks like you've been playing for awhile, but generally don't take most builds to end game. Play your builds to 90 and work on optimizing them within some given budget. You can optimize any build on 50 exalts or 5 ex or 50c or SSF. Just depends on how you want to play. Play some end content when you get there.
Study more while you're playing. The fact that you have ~20 builds over three years and are asking about scaling suggests that you like to just play and not worry about the details. Don't take that as a criticism; there's nothing wrong with that at all. But if you want to create your own builds and have them be viable, you will need to study the game more. You can do that via guides, PoB, the Wiki, posting questions, etc. And guys who finish UE on day 3 of a league are not typical players, and generally not playing alone. A goal of getting better is great, but that's probably not a realistic goal for most players. Last edited by GreyLensman on Nov 6, 2019, 12:14:19 PM
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Hi Rasisca,
this is a pretty good question and there are for sure several ways to figure out an "own build". Based on your descripted scenario "picking one skill and min / max the shit out of it", lets assume you want to play in a trade league, because with SSF your progression will depend on drop luck of specific items. There are a lot of dicision to be made, mainly you can have a look on any well structured build guide to get an idea on what helps you to scale your build and good guides will also explain why the individual choices are made (which will help you to understand further game mechanics). Mainly Guides are containing the following topics, which i sorted based on the impact on a build (from highest to lowest): 1) Skill Gems, Support Gems and Links 2) Gear (incl. build enabling uniques) 3) Class and Ascedancy 4) Passive Tree 5) Bandidits 6) Pantheon For sure there are further factors which i forgot and its very important to understand that every detail counts to have a proper scaling in the end. So basicly the process is to go trough those 6 steps and make the required decision one time to have a rough overview about your targeted build and than further optimize it by going through all topics several times again, as each factor influences the other decisions. As this is an complex iterative process, most of "build designer" are using "Path of Building" to plan and optimize builds. PoB is a 3rd Party Tool, which calculates relevant figures (e.g. defences, DPS, ...) based on all relevant factores. You can also import existing characters to POB to start an optimization process based on that. I hope i could give you a rough guideline for your first step into the direction of your own build. Added comment: I understand the appeal of creating an own build, but that process can be / will be very frustrating for most people. I always recommend using build guides (not just copying 100%, but trying to understand the reasons why those decisions were made), as this is in my opinion the best way to learn the game mechanics. You can always tweak or adapt the builds according to your prefered playstyle. Best regards Bernhart | |
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Won't claim to be an expert by any means, but I'd say there are (at least) three ways to make yourself an end game build.
1. Use whatever got re-tuned. Obvious one first. GGG tends to over-balance stuff when they buff it - which is why we have summoner league currently. New skills are a mixed bag which can vary between very strong and somewhat weak but are typically strong when they come out as GGG wants new skills to create hype. In the most recent league you can do literally anything with a summoner and make it to end-game. I've seen absolute garbage builds that still make it to mid-90s just because summoner skills are over-tuned. It won't be the same every league but it's a pretty good bet there will be at least one over-tuned mechanic every league. 2. Pick a skill with good mechanics. Ease of play trumps DPS because with sufficiently good gear, you can always get enough DPS... and a build that's easy to play lets you get more currency faster and therefore better gear. Playing with a smooth skill is a self-reinforcing cycle of wealth and higher power. Just as an example compare two channeling spells, Flameblast and Winter Orb. Flameblast will show higher DPS with a comparable build, but that neglects that you have to stand still to charge it, monsters can move and you miss them, and it has no inherent defensive advantage. Winter Orb will aim for you, freeze enemies so they can't attack, and so on. So who cares what the PoB DPS shows -- a Winter Orb character will play better, and be better, than Flameblast as a result. A big edge I think experienced players have is identifying what new skills will have smooth mechanics. Again, summoners with the new AI gems are extremely smooth to play because they auto-aim. The new poison skills less so. 3. Recognize item-based ways to get your scaling (so your tree can be mostly defense). As an exercise, check out Blade Vortex Elementalist builds from a few leagues ago. They just path for jewel nodes, acrobatics, and life and get all the DPS from items and Heralds. Similar for Winter Orb in 3.6. Some ascendancies are popular because they do basically all the scaling for you as well as having very flexible and strong defenses (looking at Trickster...) This is one area where I think PoB can lead you astray because if you're all about getting the most DPS out of your skill tree, you forget about the sort of items you can realistically gear with to accomplish the same things (but better). % increased spell damage is easier to get on a wand than your passive tree, while for % increased life it's the reverse. |
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WOW! What a great read! Thank you all!
Yes, all this. When I decided to try my own build it was Synthesis, the league I was sure I would hate, and I let myself hate it. (I do regret this because I actually HAD FUN in the last couple weeks) But besides the negatives, there were highlights that caught my ear/eye. Hey we got some new skills we are really proud of! Bane and Soulrend. I was very familiar with the witch and the idea of finally trying a CI build was in my mind. PLUS when GGG says play this, they really mean it! I had an amazing time, had my tree planned out almost perfectly before any hints started drifting in. Guides were popping up and I was like no, no, that's nice, there is something to consider. But I really had my plan, GMP cats soulrend and bane to finish or vice versa. It was flawless, well I couldn't kill UE but everyone else bowed to me. Took that to 95 and called her a Queen. My tree was amazing, I borrowed lots from guides, but for the most part I was actually understanding why I wanted to go a certain way. Now I look for damage, and then how much life I can get on the way to that damage. The only fails I make now are the end game failings of a gen1 PS4. My icicle miner has stalled/blue screened the old girl to be unplayable, still got to 91, and I see he could easily go higher. I understand the tree, I borrow the right supports from the community and I STRUGGLE for BIS uniques, or build defining items. But I have been happily doing my own thing for 6 months. Except when one of my favorite guide makers gets their league. Having a blast with Wrecker of Days Slomozombie build, got my first Uber Elder and hit 95. Rolled Venom Gyre, icicle miner and now a Holy flame totem that just destroys. Having a great time watching them grow up:) Good luck Exile! I will wear your ghost and you will die twice, against me and for me. That is some cold blooded shit to say... Last edited by GrunkleBob on Nov 6, 2019, 11:17:51 AM
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While it was briefly mentioned, I think it is important to reiterate and optimise your gear, skill tree, and even your choices in support gems several times, especially after major changes to one of the others. For example if you start out PoB by creating your skill setup, it will often suggest remarkably different support and synergistic skills compared to after you have filled out your tree and your gear.
It is important to understand that they all compensate for each other and influence the efficiency of their scaling. Effects that will add flat lightning damage are less important if you socket Added Lightning damage into your main link, and increases to spell damage are less relevant if you use dual Void Batteries or Indigon. Added a description of my own process which got longer than expected as I was describing the steps, so I put it into a spoiler:
Spoiler
The way I personally go about it is that I add just the main skill and possibly crucial supports or synergistic skills that are a core part of my build (rather than just what scales damage the best), and then path my way to all the nodes on the tree that would considerably benefit my build. While doing this, I try to take care to always take the most efficient pathing (looking for cheaper ways to connect parts of the tree than the way I started out) and leave out weaker nodes that I know from experience will not be as relevant in the end (stuff like 8% mana for mana stacking builds, 20% increased crit chance, 12% increased damage, etc.).
I continue until I have all of the major interesting nodes on the tree, usually up to around 150-160 points. Then I start working on gear, check out the unique options and possible rare mods for each slot, cap resists, make sure I have some life / ES depending on what the build is based on. I usually decide that depending on availability of either in the proximity of my tree. Occasionally, when I find that I cannot get sufficient gear for this (i.e. not enough life or ES on unique slots, or not enough resists etc.), I actually do change my decision and redo those parts of the skill tree. Energy from Within usually does not make it too hard to swap some life nodes for ES ones without changing too much of the pathing. When I have more or less completed my gear (including potential changes in the skill tree), I take a look at the support gems and potential synergistic skills that I have not added already. At this step, I also balance mana reservation, and finally I add utility and movement skills to see if that setup actually fits into the gem slots available. Depending on that, I might choose to get an extra unset ring instead, or try to choose gear with abyssal sockets because I do not need as many gem slots. When gear and skill gems are done, I move on to one of the most important steps, which is trimming my skill tree. I check all of the outlying clusters and branches and remove the least effective ones. This includes checking several ways of pathing to some clusters to further reduce the required points. This is the step, where I deal with the problem of a damage based skill tree. Because I have all nodes that I wanted, both defensive and offensive, I can now either remove some offensive nodes if my gear does enough, or remove defensive nodes if I do not think I need them due to defences on gear or possibly even skill gem interactions. When I am down to just a few nodes above my goal (120-130 points), I add non-essential jewels that I did not add with my first iteration of my gear, and then compare whether or not taking the jewel sockets would be worth more than an equivalent amount of points spent on regular clusters. Based on this, I reduce the skill tree to its target size (usually level 100 for theoretical builds that I do not intend to play, and around 85-90 for characters that I do intend to play at some point). In the end, I just have another quick look about things that might have changed in terms of gear and skill gems (e.g. nodes with resistance might have been cut off) and make according adjustments. In rare cases I stumble across an interaction with an item that I added out of necessity and readjust my gems or items again. It may seem obvious, but for the record, if it is not, I also adjust my gem setup whenever the number of available slots changes on the gear. Some of the really experienced players are able to entirely build characters on the go, although nowadays almost everyone does use PoB even then. |
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