How do you plan your builds?

I usually start with theorycrafting up builds by looking through unique items and looking for interactions with skills. After I've decided on the skill, I plan everything about with my intended BiS endgame gear, and how I'm going to run auras and how many links will I need. This gives me an idea if I can realistically pull off the build. Then I will plan out the tree to about 100 points, and calculate rough life/ES totals to see how viable it will be at endgame. If everything above has passed my own scrutiny, only then will I embark on actually rolling the build. I only go through with the new builds if I am completely sure it will work and if it will be successful in endgame mapping.

I usually pick a character and then thinks of a concept for the "class" i will play. I.e for a Witch i can play these archetypes: Elemental Witch (Fire\Frost\Lightning), Wandslinger & Minion Master
I have yet though to base an entire character around a piece of equipment though.

The first and only time I planned a build was when I got my Face Breakers.

Beyond that I wing it.

Planning is for financial advice not video games.

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DorenAlexander wrote:

The first and only time I planned a build was when I got my Face Breakers.

Beyond that I wing it.

Planning is for financial advice not video games.

Interesting opinion i guess our time is worth less than our money so spend money wisely and just waste your time farming new gear and buying more regret orbs. I think this works for casual players but if you play 2 hours+ a day, i would not recommend it.

Well usually i just get an idea and go with it, then i get another idea and start over :p that's why most of my chars never reach cruel

HP or ES (or both if i'm rich, which I'm not).

Spellcaster or physical?

Melee or ranged?

Then I just select the appropriate skills and a weapon and take as much hp/es nodes as possible and go from there.

I an a mixture of 1 and 2.
usually for me when i start a new toon the first thing i do is try to get a few damage nodes. then somewhere around the end of the first difficulty I only upgrade damage by items and turn completly defensive on the tree.. resists, armor, crystal skin etc

once i am 80 percent happy with his survive-ability I start stacking life weather life or es dependant on toon.

once I have cleared the life type nodes in the whole part of my tree I change back to defense. such as block nodes or mana. once i hit the second act of merciless i focus on starting the end game gear as in getting the stats on the equiptment i need to survive. when i finally can run a3 without having problems then i lastly focus on damage to buff the toon.

also I have a minimum rate that each of my survival skills have so if I find an upgradeand want to change gear i wait till the new gear gives me at least what the old gear did if not better,

Only time I ever played a cookie cutter build was a ww barb and didnt like it..its funny all the know it alls try to tell me how to gear myself up...oh no you need blood magic, or a decoy totem ..I just laugh at them thinking well if I needed it id have it by now..

my current toon was made cause i found some nice facebreakers..so many people is like dude you need the bringer of rain its like why? I do 27k dps have 90 percent dam reduction 64 to block and 81 resistances and can do content fine...why do I need something that will make me stash my 6l chest...but then we all know there is no shortage of know it alls that are more than willing to tell you how to play your toon

you already had a 6l chest-.- people who know bringer of rain power is cause they don´t have to go for a super nice stat 2k armor triple resist with life 6l chest.

but that doesnt mean you cant try bringer of rain, your block should be maxed with it and in the worst case scenario they are easy to sell.

i use a meele low life flicker striker, because i already had 6l shavrone, the build would be better if i had 6l CI chest but i don´t have the option to just buy it and try it out. i wish there was a 4 exalt replacement like bringer of rain is.

A lot of the time I just make it up as I go along, though I usually start with a base skill :) Like my duelist started as a char built using dual strike which evolved into a mega-speed AOE dual strike user similar (but far superior ;D) to blenders

My witch is kinda the second iteration of a character based around split arrow and frenzy... Originally I was planning on it being a duelist life char using chain, though I later evolved the idea into a CI build using pierce node + gem instead for 100% pierce chance (which i definitely prefer :P) as well as focusing even more on frenzy, using 8 rather than 6 max charges. People hype the blood dance up too much, this is the proper frenzy item innit ;)

I find an item and then build a man to hold it. But not just any man will do, as little people as possible must be able to claim they also have a man similar to mine.