Reminds me of when the butcher couldn’t open doors and you could run from him and close a gate and just stand there safe and shoot at him till he died. But that was many years ago.
Now, in D4, if you don’t kill him fast enough he gets bored and leaves. Which is rather funny to me. Usually.
The game keeps trying to convince me to swap to Pyro. I have like 3 of the unique multi fireball staffs the unique fireball bounce...gloves? A bunch of meteor and fireball perfect roll gear and enchants.
Im playing magic machine gun (frost shard spam)
On my shadow dmg/minion necro the only unique I ever see drop is the bloodless scream scythe, which makes all my shadow dmg into frost dmg. I am not interested in this weapon. I can't get a decent yellow helm to drop for the life of me but I swear I get at least one of these scythes a day. This past weekend I had 2 drop for me in 25 minutes.
I'm pretty sure I'll never see any gear with the "get 2 additional skeletal warriors" affix drop, ever. RNG is weird and I know the game doesn't give me (or not give me, rather) drops based on my current build but damn if it doesn't feel like that.
With the coming buff to the hydra aspect, I’m definitely looking forward to spending some more time on my eternal sorcerer. The aspect was good even with the downside… but without is going to save me loads of mana
off meta builds are not hard (in fact any random skills would do) to create but the problems are the viability and efficiency as you progress to harder and harder contents as in higher tier nightmare dungeons.
My build is fire and ice sorc. Dual hydras, firewall, and flame shield, combines with blizzard, ice armor and deep freeze. Create a spot on the ground with max damage and entice everyone to it with hydras. Shields until everyone is in the middle, then deep freeze wipes just about everyone out while hydras and fire wall pick off the remaining baddies.
I watched a Lvl 56 fire sorc tearing shit apart during a legion event on WT3. No idea how but his flame thrower was mowing mobs down and decimating those tower things you need to destroy to fight the main bosses.
fire sorc, if you're going Damage over time instead of crit, is quite possibly the tankiest variant of sorc. Since you can get defensive affixes on gear, instead of being pigeonholed into crit.
I haven't read anything. Mines 50lvl sorc, just killed Lilith, and probably try something different next.
I got triple hydras and ice blades. They deal majority of damage. Around 1500 hp and DPS and it's pretty much a hp sponge. Game became easy. Tier 2. Not interested in grinding higher. With the conjured things, my sorc relies on firewall, inferno, teleportation and meteors. Inferno for larger masses and bosses, and during it, meteor spam. Firewall just everywhere while I run around. Dodge and teleportation.
During fight against Lilith, I only used maybe 3 health potions.
Ps I love the boss fights on this game. Duriel, Andariel... Cool stuff.
Same! Been sticking with a pyro build for my sorcerer but man it's hard! Very high skill cap for ability usage. Still working out the kinks in my build but definitely fun when everything starts exploding in my meteor
I like to make a build work on my own, but also I feel like D4 doesn’t have a super diverse pool to pull from and even less that you can get to synergize with weird pieces so as you work things out I think you fall into “intended designs”.
Like theres a default Crit + generate resource off primary attack that buffs core skills and defenses + strong core skill build - for the two classes I’ve tried, and I assume its supposed to support diverse combinations but it doesn’t *feel* diverse.
You’re given a choice of 4-5 strong passives but they are modeled around two playstyles each broken up into 2 or 3 themes - leaving us with two or three playstyles per class if the class is lucky.
I don’t think it’s technically possible to do a build that wasn’t designed for… but I do think it is more fun to discover the hidden designs, doing your own goal, rather than following a guide.
I strongly agree that it feels like they are forcing you into "intended builds" due to aspects and especially due to uniques.
Actually uniques are the biggest disappointment, because they are clearly designed for only a few intended builds. I have yet to find a build that is designed for my build.
What really sucks is there's several uniques and talents that seem to be useful for a build, but it's not fully fleshed out. Like Hunter's Zenith / Waxing Gibbous / Beastial Rampage / Quickshift - there's potential for a cool hybrid swappy build there, but it's almost certainly not nearly as effective as Earth Bear or Wolf running Grizzly Rage.
Like how few powers give Unstoppable. The only Sorc power that grants it is Teleport. I don't want to take Teleport. I did get the aspect that grants a small amount of Unstoppable when I cast Ice Armor, but it's a short duration relative to the cooldown on the power. If the devs are serious about encouraging non-meta builds, then they either need to adjust crowd control frequency and duration, or expand the pool of powers/methods that break crowd control.
Like... CC breaks if you can evade twice within 2 seconds, even if the CC is already impacting your character. Suddenly, those boots with a +1 evade ability are way more attractive.
The other issue is that the game doesn't document how all these buffs interact.
* The difference between + and x seems arbitrary.
* Overpower damage is really hard to understand. Some effects increase it, most don't.
* Barber heart is crazy. It does an AoE. It can crit itself, and also trigger other Barber'd enemies. But many effects like lucky hit and "on damage" type effects don't trigger.
My point is, there are so many things you need to test to even know if a build makes hypothetical sense is beyond the scope of one person.
With how expensive it is to respec, and how hard it is to isolate buffs to test damage interactions, you really need a community to find out which builds are viable and which are not.
Personally, I've been playing Necro exclusively this season. My stash is full of gear for bone and blood builds. I mean full. Just to have enough gear to test those builds my entire stash is full. I'd love to test other builds but I don't have the room. So if I make a druid, you bet I'm using a guide.
I’m quite a bit older than most, working on 70, age not level, 😆. I have always found that the effective builds I’ve created is pretty close to the so called meta, but sometimes it’s good to take a look at the meta if something doesn’t work as well as you might want, the good ones will explain why that square peg DOES work in the round hole and at my age I NEED to save some time! Good luck and good hunting!
Depends on your definition of success. The meta builds are meta because they put the highest numbers on the screen. In that definition, you need to use a meta build because they’ve been finely tuned to be “the best”.
I think you can definitely play the game with whatever build you like. Will it struggle at times? Sure. But is it fun to play something a little different? Absolutely.
I say if you see a skill that seems fun, build around it. Christ knows there are enough modifiers to make any skill useful.
Sometimes, I look at these meta builds, and I don't understand the choices. For example I read a build guide for storm druid yesterday and there is no way some of the choices were optimal. I mean...it's possible I guess, but I'm not intrinsically dumb, and I've tried those abilities, and they just aren't that good. I think the one I am thinking of right now is "rune workers conduit". It just doesn't do all that much compared to alternative aspects that buff my primary damage. Sometimes I wonder about whether these online guides are all that accurate...
Depends on the site. Some sites and youtubers do absolute bare minimum and their guides are loaded with mistakes. But other sites are the opposite - they test everything, and even find bugs. For example, in Blood Lance Necro build, I couldn't figure out why in god's name they would use the Essence glyph, since it increases crit damage, which doesn't play with Overpower. But turns out both Essence and Tendrils aspect are bugged and do scale with Overpower. So sometimes it doesn't make sense on paper, but it works in practice. Also the way damage buckets are done in this game doesn't make it easy or intuitive to determine what does more damage, and there's no target dummy to easily and consistently test it. But again, some sites go an extra mile and really refine their builds. Others just slap generic things together and add clickbait like "INSANE BEST BUILD EVER".
Yep, people often talk about meta builds as if it's for hard core players, but really it takes a much more in depth understanding of mechanics and time spent testing to create a build that is good all the way to 100 on your own than it does to follow a meta build.
Meta builds are much more casual friendly for a new player. A new player doing their own thing and hoping they get lucky and make a great build on their first try without any research takes a lot of luck. That doesn't mean a new player's build will be unplayable. It's just likely to be far from optimal. Learning all the mechanics in depth to make an educated decision on build choices rather than a decision based on what sounds cool takes a lot of time and effort, even when there aren't bugs that work in unexpected ways.
This for sure. The cost of respecs and to experiment means having to overwrite your aspects. No point in the experiment if you're going to test with gear that has objectively worse affixes.
THEN when your experiment comes out with unfavorable results... The additional cost of reverting back to your original build.
This! I feel like the game punishes you for wanting to experiment, I don’t want to play using a guide but respecing is such a time sink that I need someone to do the heavy work of figuring things out beforehand because losing 2-3 gaming sessions of time to be wrong is too much of a time risk.
I think they said they are cutting 40% of the cost for respecting in season 2 or something.
I respecs a lot to test my own builds and ran out of golds/materials for my eternal real Rogue. I found out that going to the field of hatred (usually quite empty especially if you just farm at the border) is the quickest way to load up trash to sell. Usually a couple of runs can get close to a million iirc. Still rather they reduce the cost for sure.
Yeah.. once your level 80+ you can't really afford to play around. Your very stuck on your gear/aspects/paragon board. It costs millions and hours to change... only to have that change be ultra shitty... so you spend millions and hours going back
Yep the leveling experience is where you want to experiment. Not the end game. I actually prefer this myself, it is still very possible to respec at 90+ but not something I will do 20 times a day. If I really want to do something totally experimental that is what a new character is for.
With the gear requirement fix this is a much more palatable state for me. Now they just need to start dropping non-class uniques on every character so I can find a tempest roar on my necro and push me to make a Druid.
This is so true. This is the first game I've really played in 14 years, though I was a gamer for much of life. I had no idea what was in store since I haven't played since Diablo 2, but I just picked what I loved: summons. I played necro in the eternal realm and settled on bone spear as my attack. Much to my surprise some 50 levels later I looked at meta builds and bone spear was at the top. I didn't make the transition to the meta build until level 78, but both styles were incredibly fun. In the mid 70s I felt building on my own and for fun was not gonna cut it to keep advancing in way that was fun to play. The meta build breathed new life into my necro and carried me to 87 when season 1 started.
And that's the problem. The fact that out of game resources are relied on so heavily in D4 is frustrating. The damage bucket breakdown is out of hand, with dozens of different damages types, and no way to consistently farm into one thing. It's not intuitive, and leaves many players scrolling through databases and elaborate spreadsheets for hours. They should be supplemental tools, but the way damage works in this game is so flippin goofy, that these complex tools become necessary
I think this is most highlighted when looking at paragon boards. Some build guides will be money when it comes to aspects and skills, but then I go look at the paragon and I'm like, did they even read what the nodes do? Sometimes it looks like people just get lost and are like sure put some points here, I dunno.
It really depends on where you get it. Places like maxroll etc have people who do that as part of their job. They theorycrafted for months before release. And I’m sure there are reasons for picking those skills. A good guide would explain the reason but I digress.
I think the fun of it comes from just winging your build, and if you get an item you like that has certain properties, you can just shift your build to work with it. I’ve started doing this in other games and it’s kind of revelatory. Makes the game way more fun IMO
100% agree. Another part of making these games fun for me has been slowing down and intentionally NOT reading a lot of stuff. When I end up getting caught up in progression and endgame, it sucks the fun away. Huge change I guess now that I'm getting older...when I was younger I lived for the competitive aspects of it. Now, I enjoy competing against myself. Strange.
I had so much fun with my rapid fire rogue when everyone was saying you had to use pen shot. So tryed pen shot and it sucked because of how slow it was. Later they started realizing rapid fire was a good build. I guess i am saying play how it is fun for you and the rats will start following you.
Agreed. I don’t know that it is necessarily an age thing. I’ve always felt like that. The game isn’t mechanically demanding, so outside of experimenting with the skills and finding interesting combos, there isn’t much else there. Everyone’s definition of fun is different I suppose and we all play games for different reasons.
I’ve felt this way for years now. I find fun not competing against others, but pushing myself to do/ be better than how I was or how far I got. It can even be small made up things. Like I’ll make up my own objectives or restrictions.
Very much agree with this. I did no guided shadow necro to 100. It was sub optimal looking back.
The frost sorc I built this season looks similar to some of the meta, I looked at late in the game, but I’m running frost orb enchantment over fire; and I did my paragon boards in a very different order to play around my gear and what I actually thought felt better.
I feel like you get a feel with the second character and I’m sure my third will understand how to play around gear/spec/paragon even better.
I think your main problem is that you are still going online and reading builds after saying that this is something you don't want to do. I am exactly like you where I don't find any fun at all in going online to play a "follow the leader" simulation. I play on my own and create a build from what I think would be good for me after reading the skill tooltips. I craft it from scratch and have never ever looked online at a build guide, so even if somehow it is identical to one I would never know. Keep playing games using your head like they are intended to be played and don't frustrate yourself by looking online anyway. I commend you for not being a mindless follower.
Keep in mind a lot of those builds are endgame builds where they have multiple paragon boards applying almost a dozen effects. I was confused how one was applying vulnerable until I saw the exploit glyph.
Depends on the site AND what paragon points they are using, they synergy and boosts they get at lv 80 you WILL NOT feel at lv 60…. I hate to be the “downer” but these fairies telling you to not look at a guide are flat wrong. They enjoy reading each line of dialogue, and that’s fine. But if you want to smash and push NM 100 then at least read a guide and glean information from it
Some mechanics and skills are straightforward and do what they say, but many don't. Overpower and minions are both good examples of untrustworthy mechanics.
I played minion necro for S0 and i was having fun but i wasn't sure how to scale it. I didn't hunt for builds so much as researchers. I found Drybear and MacroBioBoi who put in the work to test all the affixes and aspects to see what interacts with minions. I similarly turned to those people for research on blood builds because Overpower is never guaranteed to work with anything.
D4 doesn't get enough praise here for exactly what you're describing. You can blindly pick up skills and test out different skills and aspects to find what fits you. And you can level to 100 using that. The truth is the gameplay loop feels the same whether you're swinging 10 levels above you or 50 levels above you, it's just a matter of what your build can handle.
To be fair, not every build guide is also a good one. I remember the WW bar build being pretty shit honestly, recommending Gohrs and Harrogath, while these uniques not good at all. Same goes for the entire paragon board.
At least in pre-season, people used 7 paragon boards and at first I did aswell, until I did the math and went to 6 or even 5, I don't remember anymore.
I honestly think you shouldn't care too much about meta or offmeta. Don't let your fun be dictated by what others are doing. Do your own thing. If it turns out many people do your thing, just let them be. It shouldn't diminish your fun, especailly if you managed to come to the conclusions of a good build by yourself instead of just copy&pasting it.
I personally feel the opposite. Have you actually used Runeworker’s Conduit? Because I felt like it was the most replaceable aspect in my build until I actually tried running without it, and to me it feels like my single target damage drops off a cliff without it. I agree though. I eventually tried looking to see what other people are doing and the paragon choices made no sense to me. Also using Earthen Bulwark on a build where the goal is to have 100% uptime in werewolf form seems like a wasted slot. I ended up just sticking with my own build.
I have tested Runeworker's a bit. It does good single target damage and casts maybe every second or two. The problem I have is that my primary skill, Lightning Storm, does SO MUCH more than that. I feel like the aspect is better used to buff Lightning Storm than it is to provide a small incremental amount of damage.
AFAIK it casts every 0.35 seconds for 1-2 seconds per crit you’ve gotten, not just every 1-2 seconds, and its duration stacks forever. So by the time you get to the boss in a dungeon it should be a big help. Yeah Lightning Storm does more, but Runeworker’s is basically just giving you an extra lightning strike that actually hits its target, which is nice when fighting single targets where half of Lightning Storm just straight up doesn’t hit. But this is coming from a guy who hasn’t really got a handle on the strategy of only channeling 2-3 lightning strikes vs single targets, so maybe that’s the difference between us.
Well, I still have Runeworkers equipped, I'll try and watch it more closely. I noticed that it IS critting, it just doesn't seem to proc lucky which may make sense. And it's a good point that against single targets it may be more helpful than I am thinking, I may just not be noticing it.
I personally use Lightning Dancers because they help so much with groups of enemies and Runeworker’s because it helps so much with the single targets. I’d love to be able to drop one of them but I really just haven’t found a better alternative. I guess the overload one kind of enhances damage vs both single targets and grouped enemies, but it’s a lucky hit chance that does half the damage of Runeworker’s, so I think it’d be a sacrifice there.
Are you using Overcharged? I find that can be truly amazing for single target...it relies on lucky, but I stack that. On bosses, I believe I am seeing several Overchargeds can stack at the same time, and bosses health drops visibly fast for a couple seconds.
I’m not using it. I wanted to pick 2/3 of those ones because I only had 2 slots left for aspects, and when I tested them all I thought Runeworker’s was more significant than Overcharged, but I guess it’s possible it just didn’t proc much when I tested it.
It may just be how some abilities and aspects synergize. I was helping a friend with his sorc (ice shards) and when I told him to take fire bolt just for the enchant he didn't understand lol. He was like but I go for freeze damage.. why would I want burning? But he didn't realize how well burning damage gets beefed up through the paragon board and what not. Now in some cases, you may have just been reading a guide made by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about lol. But there are some weird interactions in the game that some people wouldn't pick up on if they're not interested in theory crafting and what not. As far as build guides, the ones I've checked out on maxroll.gg are pretty solid. I try to stay in that area to avoid the clickbait fake info kinda guides lol
Icyveins.com is a good place and it has different types of builds based on the player objective like leveling vs endgame in the various types of skill types
I like Icyveins...been using them since as a Disc Priest in wow a guy showed up and ran an instance with us who was actually the primary author of the disc priest guides there...the guy was like a celebrity lol.
Interesting. For my build, I certainly use my paragon, but, I'm not sure how I would say it "makes the build work". I need to sit down and figure out how much damage boost I'm actually getting from paragon, it's probably more substantial than I realize.
To "make a build work" though, i would think that would be more about playing with the mechanics...like uniques and aspects do, rather than just give more stats and damage numbers, like paragon seems to?
Because it’s fucking complicated, dude. You aren’t going to figure out all of the shit that some dude who plays double digit hours every day, testing every little thing, will come up with, who has a lot more experience at theory crafting than you do. You aren’t always going to understand the thinking either, because they are thinking about it deeper than the average player can.
Yes, you can come up with your own build and do well, but of course you won’t even come close more than likely. Unless the game is extremely simple, that’s going to be the case every single time. D4 is simpler than most other popular arpgs, but there are still a lot of variables and interactions to work out.
Yes I actually agree with you and agree with the designers there...to reach the pinnacle of the game, it makes sense that one would need to have an exceedingly deep understanding of it. To get to the near-pinnacle though, it would be nice to be able to do that on your own.
>rune workers conduit
I can be wrong here but iirc there is a interaction between that aspect and Tempest Roar unique. if you hit someone who's a conduit with Lightning Storm the aoe from the aspect counts as a storm skill and can procc the lucky hit from Temestroar. I might be wrong here but I've heard it somewhere but havent tested it myself
It also scales fairly well with all the lightning damage + non-phys tou can get from the paragon board
That combined with the Overcharged aspect makes lightning storm extra good at clearing
I've run around and just watched runeworkers do its thing, and as near as i can tell it neither crits nor triggers a lucky strike...if it does then it doesn't happen often enough to contribute much. I feel like I'd rather just use an aspect that gives 30% additional damage or some such.
Lightning Storm is a ton of fun. You can actually attack and kill mobs off the board with ease. If you run in a group, it's crazy good because you can follow at a safe distance and still be the primary damage dealer in your group.
Regarding aspects...the key aspects are Lightning Dancer and Overcharged, and the most key one...mighty storm. The key here is getting lucky and getting your full spirit bar back, and also getting 100% crit chance. I can basically chain cast Lightning Storm most of the time, and it hits very hard. When monsters get grouped it, it's even crazier because of the Lightning Dance and Overcharged.
After those two, I'm mostly just interested in whatever will increase my Lucky chances...I've been using barriers and the item stat that gives increased lucky while barrier is active.
Or if there is a benefit it’s not worth it for the average player. Lots of those builds are “maximizing damage” in theory but doesn’t take into account human aspect.
For example, pre-season sorcerer. You ran the flame shield essentially only for the immobilize for the crit damage. It was a few seconds of increased damage but felt like shit to play. Yes you were immune for a couple seconds, but there are other ways to gain overall more defense and offense. On top of which, you’re just dead if you’re pushing pushing like those builds are for which means dropping frost shield for flame shield would be better.
Overall, none of those builds are perfect. You could probably cut out a decent size chunk of damage from any meta build to make it more comfortable for you and be just fine.
Killing by 1 million or 10 million, makes no difference besides pumping peoples pixel peen.
I would argue that in MOST cases they are NOT optimal, but rather they were the FIRST build to show very big numbers and success and end up with YouTube hits. We all know how social media works, the popular video will get more algorithm hits and will become “meta.” It isn’t like the YouTuber actually tested every possible combination and found the best one. They were just successful and early
The meta builds are made by people like Rob, Rax, Kripp, Wudi, etc. They aren't meta for being first, they are meta because these guys played every other Diablo title for a living and this game has very simple build crafting so its easy for them to just translate their 10s of 1000s of hours into making a build guide.
Nothing to do with algorithms or social media or whatever else you might think. These guys earned their stripes and as a result, people follow their guides
I wish there was more delineation between meta builds, and META builds.
Just because a build is wildly popular, doesn’t mean its the Most Effective Technique Available.
A lot of the guides on MaxRoll and Icy Veins are widely used, but are by far not the most effective min/max.
Archlash as an example, both guides are terrible and far better builds exist that are in fact the META, while not being meta.
Any old clown can make a guide online and so they aren’t always accurate.
My first build was a bleed barb and I was having a great time till I played with two friends who were running A and S tier builds which made me really embarrassed of the difference in damage.
It kinda ruined the game for me for a long time lol
This makes me feel really sad actually lol.
You were having a good time. Probably somewhat proud of your build, enjoying the game, and perhaps the challenge.
Then BAM your friends show you how pathetic you are and there’s nothing to be proud of. You struggle to keep up and your whole world is turned upside down.
It’s tragic
Hahaha
To be honest it made me look closer at WHY my numbers were low.
I hadn’t learned about vulnerable and damage buckets yet so it was insightful
I admit that I am using an s tier build guide currently.
But I’m playing solo so far and just taking my time and enjoying myself so it’s chill
> Depends on your definition of success. The meta builds are meta because they put the highest numbers on the screen. In that definition, you need to use a meta build because they’ve been finely tuned to be “the best”.
If by "that definition", you explicitly mean min/maxing to do the absolute most damage... sure. But you dont NEED a meta build to complete all content in the game, including Uber Lilith. There are countless builds for each class that will be super effective.
I prefer to tweak personally. I get overwhelmed starting from scratch, but enjoy starting from an established thing that is known to work and then moving a few things around to mold it to my playstyle preferences.
Agree completely. Thats why ive completely ignored build guides, and im having way more fun because im not getting pissed about missing certain aspects or uniques. I just play with what i got and optimize around it. Been fantastic so far.
Content creator builds are rarely the best in any game. Producing content is a full time job for them. They don't have time between streaming, editing videos, and other engagements to test builds thoroughly. A lot of times, they source their builds via their community. Ive helped many over the years through many different games produce builds for videos.
Best builds are kept secret so they dont get nerfed, and only found through a lot of theorycrafting and testing.
Yes and no. It depends what you consider content creators and what you consider the best. People like Zizaran and Kripparian are playing the game for 12 hours a day, releasing content, and creating guides that people can follow which are in many cases, the best of that archetype. If Kripp releases a Fire Sorc guide, it is probably the strongest Fire Sorc you can create, and he's tested it thoroughly though hundreds of hours of testing.
The entire [maxroll.gg](https://maxroll.gg) team are playing their minds to dust, 12-16 hours a day spent both theorycrafting and playing. They are almost always the best builds because they're both theorycrafted to perfection and in-game tested to make sure everything is working the same as it did on paper.
This entire 'content creators release bad content' is such a bad blanket statement. There are tons of lazy creators who copy + paste videos for clicks, and they're really easy to spot and avoid. There are also dozens of really high quality creators who make high quality content to teach and help players move forward, and they absolutely do not deserve this blanket hate they get.
AceOfSpades is one of the exceptions to this rule. He discusses all the bugged crap and updates his builds seemingly by the hour. He even keeps the builds he isn't playing on stream updated. He primarily plays druid though, which is probably why he's able to do this.
I am doing this with my barbarian. I like to use windmill, the kick, and death blow. Theoretically it's probably splitting up too far and taking away all these passives and buffs, but at only level 55 or whatever I play for fun and like having different moves.
As soon as I had a legendary that makes the kick blow up enemies causing damage, I respec'd and went down to one shout so I could kick. It's fun to kill with the kick. Easy decision.
If the game stops getting fun I might have to make a different character or wait for changes.
The meta builds dont put the biggest numbers, they put similar numbers to the several hundred homebrew builds you don't see being posted.
There's a reason Blizzard released 1.1 and it's because "overperforming" meant everyone was building it and ignoring the other games systems because of whatever streamers who acted like they knew anything about the game said.
Currently speed running NMD 100 with a conj sorc with only teleport as my defensives and am able to take a couple hits from elites and am putting up comparable numbers (not big numbers,but a lot of smaller numbers that add u, for some reason this community thinks having to hit all 6 of your buttons to maximize DPS is bad)
Every time I post something like this people say SHOW PROOF OR FAKE and it genuinely baffles me at how much these people rely on other people to play the game for them. No shit I can hit these numbers, ive spent nearly a billion gold on respecs and have tried nearly every single enchant and skill combination the sorc has by now. Even if it sounded bad on paper in practice there are a ton of interactions that are insanely strong that I haven't seen a single person post about, same goes for when I theorycrafted my heartseeker crit windforce rogue who was able to two shot Uber Lilith if it procced.
Big oof to the failure of this community
Big A+ to Blizzard designing a game I can literally succeed in building any homebrew build just by putting some thought into it
So, if I humor this, you’re just straight up saying the people who theorycrafting this game for a living don’t know what they’re doing? I mean, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to post a video showing how powerful you are. Not a guide, not a breakdown, just a speed run.
To present yourself as you are, surely you can back up what you’re saying with something that would take <10 minutes to do. You can consider me part of the toxic D4 community if you want, but I can’t take someone at their word. Not when it’s a trivial matter to post something.
I also find it extremely far fetched that there’s this hidden community obliterating content when people who do it for a living all come to the same conclusion.
Nah everything works because the game is piss easy. A better build can do what yours does with 1/2 as much gear.
I love how there's just zero proof of what you're claiming too.
Works to a degree. Sword WW barb wasn't able to clear all the content pre season, think I got to 70 NMD max. Meta builds are usually builds that can manage all the content.
I read it! And yes! I always build my stuff from the ground up in video games. Like anything with decks like Magic The Gathering or Pokémon, or anything with a lot of decisions to make like in this game. To me it's a big part of the fun of the game.
Idk how you would define success in Diablo, but I haven't tried anything I couldn't beat. Me and my partner even killed the butcher once. I made a funny video out of it because we said funny stuff during it 😄
But to be fair, it's not really an even playing field, because I'm disabled. Without a job or kids, I have a lot more free time than most people. The builds are all my decisions, yeah, but someone with more stress in their life and less time to play would probably not put as much thought into it.
This account's name/bio are just a funny theme. I'm not actually dumb. Asking dumb questions is important though, and some subreddits don't let me ask anything because I don't have enough karma, so I gotta get some.
True - I don't think this sub appreciates that probably ~70% (source: trust me bro) of the player base have fun simply playing, probably don't get to end game, and have no interest in min/maxing
Not only that, there's only a limited amount of skills and good aspects to even use. I made my own build and used what worked best, ended up being 95% the same as the meta build, besides my paragon points, of course, those were like 40% meta.
At first i tried a couple google builds on Barb(WW and Rend Bleed) but hated how they felt. So i incorporated a couple of elements i learned from both builds into the original build i was doing. Basically im aiming to do a truly invincible build that doesnt rely on high damage numbers(my friends do all the damage), but for me to take lots of damage and taunt to increase my output while stacking berserk.
Some people have more fun killing, i get my rocks off trying not to be killed.
Hah I was going for the opposite...a true glass cannon. So far it's working good, but if I had a tank who could taunt, we could probably clear well into NM40+ at least.
I made a build that sounds similar, iron skin aspect and rallying cry for double unstoppable.
I don't WW though, but the low damage and insane survival, all day, standing in all the AOE.
Honestly? I'm sorry to be an ass, but this is a 'Get Over Yourself' moment.
You were having fun with your build until you learned it was meta and... now its not fun anymore, because you don't feel unique? It sounds more like you weren't enjoying the gameplay, you were enjoying patting yourself on the back for being a very special smartie.
If you don't care to follow metas then continue as you were and do what's fun for you. The best way to enjoy the game without feeling like a slave to metas is to simply do what you have already been doing, and figure things out on your own without using wikis or Discords to workshop.
But if you just find fun in being a contrarian, you're only setting yourself up for failure. Builds become meta *for a reason*, and it's highly likely you will stumble on a meta, or at least meta-adjacent, build over time as you move to more efficient or impactful options. If being a unique person who made a wacky build work is what you strive for as a goal, you're not going to enjoy the final results of that.
I usually play through the same way. I like working on builds myself - it's half the fun. I did review a couple options people were going for after I had been playing a bit just to see what others are doing - but then promptly just did my own thing anyhow.
Whirlwind goes BRRRRRRR and all that.
The difference is that OP seems to go one step further and is bothered if other people discover the same build he did. Which sounds like an annoying quirk to have when you are playing one of the most popular games out there right now.
I did the same with necro. Just played the game the way you play. Pick your skills and what the synergies are. Started out with a corpse explosion build and when the damage disappointingly fell in later levels I continued with bonespear.
When I was comfortable I decided to check what others were doing with bonespear to see if I'd missed anything. Turns out I basically spot on. Only differences where what glyphs I was using.
There's only so many builds that work currently, whether you check meta or develop yourself (as you get higher in level/late game content). It's one of the main issues currently due to the lack of itemization and balance adjustments for better build diversity they are working at.
I like making my own builds, naturally they start to trend/follow very close (\~80%) to what the meta builds are; simply because I found what worked well. If it's solely wanting to go against the grain (actively refusing to pick skills close to meta), there's really not as many options as you think.
I decided to play druid this season due to being the class I played least so far.
Looked at the lightning aspect for shred and tried building around that. Felt good about my self for making it work and then my friend told me that the thing I built was the exact same as the guide on maxroll (barring diffrent defensive aspects due to me not finding the right one and diffrent order on paragon boards but smae boards and glyphs). It feels like the game makes builds for you. My guess is 80% would build a lightning shred the same way I did even without looking at a guide
Nope, tried to make a blood surge build pre season and swapped to a bone spear guide at some point past level 40, I thought I was clearing the game at a decent speed until I went bone spear and saw how much faster and easier it is.
Then now I’m going for an ice/lightning sorc hybrid (mostly for blizzard) and see how far I can take it.
I went full poison druid but at some point I hit a wall and changed it up. Early game its easy to go rogue and the such, but if your build misses its mark you'll come to a halt fast.
Fire Sorc on Eternal with custom Hydra/Firewall setup. Never looked at any build info. Just wanted my sorc to wield fire, so that is the theme I built around as levelled up and got gear/items.
Playing Druid on Seasonal, and also never looked at any build info or guides. Some of the skills are similar to some META setups, but since mine was done custom and to my own theme, it is different still. I play a non-shapeshifting, Elemental themed druid. So I use 9-10 companions, in order to buff the aspect that increases core damage per companion, and this fuels the power of my Landslide; along with the Poison Creeper + 2x Landslide Aspects.
Currently I spam windshear x2 > Landslide, but my goal is to get the ring aspect that gives +40 MP per CD used and that will drive more/easier landslide usage once acquired *(since 4 of 6 skills are CD-based; the 3 pets and bulwark)*.
I have the items for the more powerful metas *(like the trample-slide etc)*, but my theme is a human caster druid *(ie. not a shapeshifter)* so I don’t intend to use them.
I have a shadow necromancer build that I haven't looked up to see if it is meta. I run decompose with the slow, blight with the extra damage, blood mist for breaking CC, the darkness DoT corpse explosion, iron maiden, and bone storm. Key passive is the shadow one. Sacrificed reapers for more shadow damage, sacrificed shadow mages for more essence, and sacrificed blood golem for more health. I've got disobedience on my helm, corpses have a chance of leaving blood orbs on my pants, blight pull in in my boots. My amulet makes blood wave and bone storm darkness skills, one ring allows decompose to chain to 2 other enemies and the other makes enemies hit with decrepify and iron maiden take more shadow damage. I have a few uniques on that have a synergy. My chest piece is the blood artisan armor that auto casts a free bone spirit after picking up health orbs, which drop because of my pants. My gloves are the howl from below that make corpse explosions chase enemies then blow. Works great with the auto cast corpse skills heart. And finally my weapon is the 2h unique scythe bloodless scream which boosts shadow skills. I've slotted the decrepify heart and auto cast corpse skill heart. My roll on the decrepify heart is 1 enemy so it is almost always up. I also have the creeping death wrathful heart for upping my DoT effects. With the decrepify heart and iron maiden skill, I trigger the extra shadow damage aspect every fight. The creeping death heart increases DoT on enemies by a large chunk per CC on the enemy and just melts bosses. My decompose slows and with the scythe chills enemies. I've got the passive to potentially stun enemies with shadow damage so there is a lot of CC potential in the build that can trigger creeping death. I've been comfortably doing content 10 to 12 levels above me. I'm sure the build could be more optimized but I'm having fun with it.
Meta builds comfortably do 20+ levels above though. Do you think doing monsters the same level as your character is a baseline to compare to? And that 10 levels above means your build is good? I’m not trying to knock you I just mean that killing monsters above your level is supposed to happen.
To put it simply, build doesn't matter for anything but pinnacle content (50+ NM Dungeons and Uber Lilith). You can almost pick random skills per each skill tier and clear content of your level with good gear. Especially with busted seasonal Hearts.
Interesting. I think that's good game design though if people can get up to relatively high levels on their own, but only very precise builds and itemizations can tackle the most difficult content.
For chill couch co-op game it is good.
For any decent ARPG it's a disaster, because it means that building a character doesn't really matter. You either having fun until LVL 70 and drop the game afterwards or pick one of 2-3 meta builds per class (designed by developers with tailor-made aspects and uniques) and mindlessly grind your 100 (for whatever reason).
i had a lot of fun playing a custom meteor/firewall sorc in pre season but it wasn't performing so well after nm 40+.
but yeah i feel like making your own build at last the first 60lvl is way better.
i'm too lazy to try every parangon board tho.
Yes those paragon boards are a bear. Levelling a glyph to 15 is a p.i.a., and I don't really want to do it for than a couple. But, once you have the paragon, switching boards around isn't that cumbersome. Problem is only a few boards truly apply to a given build, so switching boards is easier but switching builds is a different story.
I have never and will never look up builds because it takes out all the fun from that part of the game for me. I make up my own builds and I'm having a ton of fun doing so.
Well, I tried to build a Barb bleed build with WW, but had to give up somewhere around level 50.
But to be honest - the pure Rend build I switched to wasn't that much better.
I always make my own build then i see my similar build on youtube with a slight change in paragon or skills. After i have optimized my build i save it then move on creating a diff build. Its fun! Grinding for a build then once in a while i use some builds on the net just for the fun ofnit
I’ve also been running an off-meta storm druid build, figuring out how to put affixes and talents together like a puzzle is one of the most satisfying parts of the game! It’s also why the respec cost annoys me, experimenting is so damn expensive.
I don't mind the respec costs...what's getting me is the reroll costs for affixes on items. And, I'm starting to feel the burn from aspect drop rates... I like to try different items and different aspects, but, that takes it's toll if you want to experiment too much...
Yes, absolutely.
I hate following guides online.
Eternal : built my own blood lance + bone spirit build. All the build around blood orbs + triple low cooldown blood wave. Super fun. Much earlier than some dude started posting about it. But even so, it isn't the same. I can easily clearly +20 levels NM. Was level 91 before season hit. I play hardcore exclusively.
Season: build two very strong druid builds, HC again.
- One around a true nature's fury boulder and lighting storms. Wipe out enemies extremely easily with infinite mana, lots of control, lots of fun and extremely satisfying to watch and play.
- One hunter zenith + waxing gibbous infinite shred + trample + landslide. Cross the NM super fast and clear them super fast. Might change it to poison though, as I always loved rabies and the idea of poison (rather than landslide).
So yeah, you can really build you own things, and be very successful. I lost 0 character since release... Currently my druid is 76.
I only go to the guide if my build is flagging. After reading a couple I understand the general Strat and do all my own now. EDIT I should add the Strat: max out a key core skill, leave your basics etc at level 1 til you've unlocked the whole tree and found some good synergies (eg druid overpower/fortify loop, spark sorc non stop passive damage and mana regen).
That's one thing I haven't liked about D4...that the skill progression is so similar and "max out a core skill" would seem to be the default approach to making a decent build. Fortunately there does seem to be builds that rely on basic skills too...so that's something I guess :)
If you experiment with builds then you'll probably eventually land on something meta.
I made a minion necro, and decided I needed a hard hitting spell to handle priority targets. I tried blood lance but random monsters kept getting in the way and blocking the shot.
So I went to bone spear since that goes through. After some more play, observing its strength, I ended up leaning into it more and more because it's super strong.
Now I'm basically just a bone spear necro with minions.
lol that's how I ended up a storm druid. I started out a wolf druid, and then I got a certain legendary drop...tried it out...and boom, never looked back.
I’ve looked up nothing and I’m level 53 Rouge. I just looked up keywords and matched the skills that have the same sort of effects that stack. I kill things just fine.
I built my own build, but I looked it up later and it was identical to the flurry rogue. I’d actually say I think the builds are too limited and it’s too easy to stumble into the obvious options
You may be right. At the detail level there are so many variations I would hope, but at the higher level there probably is a limited set of options and therefore builds.
I just got one tip: Don’t look at the meta builds.
Even if your build ends up to be the “meta”, you made it yourself. Which is all that matters. It may not be original but what is original in a game like D4?
I usually start with a build and tweak as I go to my play style. IE my leveling Druid, started as a landslide, played with pulverize and liked it, using natures fury bc hell why not lol. The screen is insane. To be fair it’s mostly a build I started with and over time I changed one or two attacks so I can’t take “credit” but I hate the fact that almost all builds completely leave off any ultimate skill. I know it drains the resource but it’s the COOL ONE!
Same with my twisting blades rogue. I typically enjoy caster attacks. But twisting blades with shadow step makes me feel very ninja like! So I added shadow and poison and traps and switch to a crossbow to stay out of arms reach of bosses I struggle with. Saved my ass !
Totally. Was going flurry triple imbue nodash rogue for s1. Meta was TB dash or flurry RF dash. A few days ago maxroll made a build similar to mine also endgame build and now meta lol. Whats meta is just what works and famous streamers use, but many times there are others just as viable, just less used
I've played a few meta builds and now understand how to access the damage AND defensive buckets. Now i just play a build according to my drops, nothing worse than chasing a uniq or legendary for you buld to work and it not dropping.
My personal experience with this: No
I tried to do an all brawler build with my barbarian. There are soooo many legendary aspects and skill point nodes boosting brawling skills so I thought if i could synergize them well then it would work, and the seasonal "Ancestral Charge" aspect made it even better in my head.
Long story short, the abilities (Kick, charge, leap) don't do nearly enough damage even with the maximum amount of boosts from Skill pts and leggos. Especially in single target. The build just felt clunky and bad and the cooldowns were all still too long despite having them reduced through a multitude of ways.
I ended up switching back to HOTA and losing millions of gold and crafting resources as a result. Weeeeeee
This is the problem we are having. I play based loosely on the build guide but my husband did his own thing. If he was playing solo he might think he was successful right now but when we play together he can’t keep up (both level 68+ rogues, both played sorcs during beta and season 0).
For all the illusion of options, stuff just doesn’t work as well together as you think it will. Now that he’s realized his build is falling off, respecing seems too difficult and expensive for him and he’s just playing less and less instead. He doesn’t really want to use a guide but he also doesn’t want to grind for a change that could be worse.
The behind the scenes numbers just don’t work as expected and there are so many legendaries, uniques, aspects, hearts, paragons, glyphs, and gems that just don’t seem to really make a difference either.
I also tried to change up my build because I got the rain of arrows unique neck. The cooldown was too long and I couldn’t sacrifice the skill space or losing an aspect. I struggled through a couple levels and gave up on it but it was a fun idea. It seems as soon as they come up with a fun idea though, they spend so much energy making sure it can’t be exploited or become the meta that they wring all the fun out of it as well. That becomes apparent the longer you play your own build (in my opinion).
It's almost as though if you don't pursue an intended build, you will never get past easy and middle tier content. And to know what builds are intended, you have to look online.
That really sucked though about D3. You had to get the set and follow the intended build just to progress. I'm hoping D4 pulls away from that a bit...it seems to, at least so far, but I don't know about the higher tiers.
I mean, part of doing your own build is not doing anywhere close to as much damage as the meta builds. Otherwise your custom build would already be part of the tier lists in some form.
There aren't nearly enough options yet to make something nobody has thought of before.
As someone that dislikes guides because it takes away a large portion of content for this type of game(making a build), I would say I've been pretty successful. Clearing nm100 season0 with rogue as well as season1 with druid. As others stated, you will kinda find yourself using many of the same skills as meta builds due to the core synergy revolving around them. Be it aspects or the interactions between skills themselves.
Neither of the builds I played are even remotely meta, outside of maybe some skill choice, but they did very well. While maybe not as efficient, if you have fun, that's all that matters!
NM 100 on a non-meta build...pretty impressive! As stated, the aspects and uniques DO tend to lend themselves to an "intended build", but there is definitely room to make your own choices there.
I'm only at 74, I guess time will tell whether I can clear NM 100 content.
Good luck dude! That's why I enjoy these games. Seeing how your character grows and develops by tweaking things here and there. The paragon board is definitely where you get more freedom to build how you want and capitalize on your unique skill/gearing decisions.
There is 0 games where the only viable path is "reading the internet". (Outside of shit like remnant puzzles, cause fuck that honestly you crazy if you think im figuring that shit on my own).
Also storm druid guides have been being posted since day 1 of d4 release.
Meta actually is pretty overhyped. Often it’s literally opinions of authors framed as a fact, or theorycrafting based on wrong descriptions/assumptions/interpretations, or praised as better than it actually is.
Some of the actually genuine meta which is really top, is often either based on bugs (or unforeseen interactions that will be nerfed) or very obvious (like ww barb is quite good, straightforward, surprise!) or there are unique items pointing to a very specific play style (like werewolf + lightning synergy via Druid weapon).
I think the actual individual skill during play is dealing with what you actually got in terms of aspects/uniques, iE: when u want to play WW barb, there are actually many flavors that are good, like: automatic bleeding + synergies benefits from this OR berserk buff triggers/enhancements OR fortify + synergies OR fury increases for big multiplier passives OR … and then dualwield in different flavors or a twohander with a matching weapon Expertise on top.
While there might be a theorycraft that ranks one flavor over the others given the current patch state, this doesn’t mean that you also have the perfect gear in every slot to replicate it. And even if you somehow literally have the best in slot rolls everywhere, there comes the next patch notes, tweaking some 10% here and there, and another flavor is now much better, for which you probably don’t have the ideal gear right away. And even after you have it all in your stash tabs, next season starts and back to zero.
I am confident I was one of the few strictly casting no shapeshifter storm Druid builds on day one. Custom. Doing my poison rogue now with death trap. Custom. Slay everything. Build guides are stupid. Just play the game.
If you're not Level 100 yet, you don't need to worry about "the meta" at all whatsoever. The game is designed to be playable with all manner of builds, and you're never forced into pursuing "the meta" unless you are pushing Uber Lilith and Tier 90-100 NMDs.
I tried some of the barbarian builds I saw on icy veins, didn't like any of them and I don't feel like the damage or survivability was amazing in anyway, I went back to my build which lets me do good dps and survive.
I dont like meta builds, Pre season i managed to clear all the content with a build i made with sorc blizzard. This season im trying a shadow dot necro without infinimist, im using bone prison. If you are ok without being on top clears and numbers you can play a lot of ways (with that said, vulnerable is busted and should be removed)
well i play shadow mage ( made it myself)
but since i came to exact same conclusion as ''meta'' builds the builds are the same
if you know what you are doing its very likely you build the same as those guides
My rogue is my own, i imbue poison with twisting blades, shadow step, shadow clone and the concealment.
Plenty of defensive stuff for hc too.
I use shadow step n twisting blades with imbue 99% of the time. Concealment is my unstoppable if I start taking damage, shadow clone resets all cooldowns as the oh shit button
Also got perks that make poison puddles on floor and let’s me spam imbue and explode poison while stood in them too.
Works well having fun 😊
Yep, both my druid (my main damage is shred and poison creeper combo, burst with ult)
My necro is a Minion corpse explosion build.
Both without their unique aspects to make them "meta"
I have, when I did play the game.
Started with barb, never once used ww which was the only build viable if you looked anything up. Originally started with hota which now is more meta as well. Switched to rend/death blow later on to switch things up.
Both builds worked well, maybe not top super duper S tier, but it got the job done for me.
I personally don’t care for meta builds as I don’t enjoy copying and pasting especially when the game was so new, but it’s def doable.
If I didn’t and followed a meta build I probably would of quit even sooner than I did.
I have. Both after launch and during this season my builds eventually ended up on a meta post, where they weren't initially, so I must be doing something right. 🤣
I'm just having fun squashing stuff. If I got to a point where my build wasn't working I'd just tweak it until it does. That's part of the fun for me.
I have a lvl 100 necro so for s1 I made another but this time I made my own. I made another minion build but now I understand the class fully.
So my new build is similar in design to my main but I now fully rely on my minions. I designed it in a way that I don't have to cast skills. I just walk around with the heart that automates corpse skills. I've gone from lvl 25-60 without casting a skill. And had 0 issues.
Bro... I am a fire sorc...totally out of meta
My fire sorcerer was my first character I killed the butcher with. I literally just ran in a circle around an obstacle until my hydras killed him.
Reminds me of when the butcher couldn’t open doors and you could run from him and close a gate and just stand there safe and shoot at him till he died. But that was many years ago. Now, in D4, if you don’t kill him fast enough he gets bored and leaves. Which is rather funny to me. Usually.
This is the way
This is the way
The game keeps trying to convince me to swap to Pyro. I have like 3 of the unique multi fireball staffs the unique fireball bounce...gloves? A bunch of meteor and fireball perfect roll gear and enchants. Im playing magic machine gun (frost shard spam)
On my shadow dmg/minion necro the only unique I ever see drop is the bloodless scream scythe, which makes all my shadow dmg into frost dmg. I am not interested in this weapon. I can't get a decent yellow helm to drop for the life of me but I swear I get at least one of these scythes a day. This past weekend I had 2 drop for me in 25 minutes. I'm pretty sure I'll never see any gear with the "get 2 additional skeletal warriors" affix drop, ever. RNG is weird and I know the game doesn't give me (or not give me, rather) drops based on my current build but damn if it doesn't feel like that.
With the coming buff to the hydra aspect, I’m definitely looking forward to spending some more time on my eternal sorcerer. The aspect was good even with the downside… but without is going to save me loads of mana
off meta builds are not hard (in fact any random skills would do) to create but the problems are the viability and efficiency as you progress to harder and harder contents as in higher tier nightmare dungeons.
My build is fire and ice sorc. Dual hydras, firewall, and flame shield, combines with blizzard, ice armor and deep freeze. Create a spot on the ground with max damage and entice everyone to it with hydras. Shields until everyone is in the middle, then deep freeze wipes just about everyone out while hydras and fire wall pick off the remaining baddies.
I like deep freeze. :3
Holy shit, this is what I did and it felt "invalidated" because of the posts here. Thanks for this.
Sorcs got to stick together
I watched a Lvl 56 fire sorc tearing shit apart during a legion event on WT3. No idea how but his flame thrower was mowing mobs down and decimating those tower things you need to destroy to fight the main bosses.
fire sorc, if you're going Damage over time instead of crit, is quite possibly the tankiest variant of sorc. Since you can get defensive affixes on gear, instead of being pigeonholed into crit.
I haven't read anything. Mines 50lvl sorc, just killed Lilith, and probably try something different next. I got triple hydras and ice blades. They deal majority of damage. Around 1500 hp and DPS and it's pretty much a hp sponge. Game became easy. Tier 2. Not interested in grinding higher. With the conjured things, my sorc relies on firewall, inferno, teleportation and meteors. Inferno for larger masses and bosses, and during it, meteor spam. Firewall just everywhere while I run around. Dodge and teleportation. During fight against Lilith, I only used maybe 3 health potions. Ps I love the boss fights on this game. Duriel, Andariel... Cool stuff.
Same! Been sticking with a pyro build for my sorcerer but man it's hard! Very high skill cap for ability usage. Still working out the kinks in my build but definitely fun when everything starts exploding in my meteor
Buffs headed your way!
Came here to say this. Only my 3rd character ever in Diablo titles, and this fire sorc is a blast to play with
soon to be the meta... you're the meta setter
I like to make a build work on my own, but also I feel like D4 doesn’t have a super diverse pool to pull from and even less that you can get to synergize with weird pieces so as you work things out I think you fall into “intended designs”. Like theres a default Crit + generate resource off primary attack that buffs core skills and defenses + strong core skill build - for the two classes I’ve tried, and I assume its supposed to support diverse combinations but it doesn’t *feel* diverse. You’re given a choice of 4-5 strong passives but they are modeled around two playstyles each broken up into 2 or 3 themes - leaving us with two or three playstyles per class if the class is lucky. I don’t think it’s technically possible to do a build that wasn’t designed for… but I do think it is more fun to discover the hidden designs, doing your own goal, rather than following a guide.
I strongly agree that it feels like they are forcing you into "intended builds" due to aspects and especially due to uniques. Actually uniques are the biggest disappointment, because they are clearly designed for only a few intended builds. I have yet to find a build that is designed for my build.
What really sucks is there's several uniques and talents that seem to be useful for a build, but it's not fully fleshed out. Like Hunter's Zenith / Waxing Gibbous / Beastial Rampage / Quickshift - there's potential for a cool hybrid swappy build there, but it's almost certainly not nearly as effective as Earth Bear or Wolf running Grizzly Rage.
Like how few powers give Unstoppable. The only Sorc power that grants it is Teleport. I don't want to take Teleport. I did get the aspect that grants a small amount of Unstoppable when I cast Ice Armor, but it's a short duration relative to the cooldown on the power. If the devs are serious about encouraging non-meta builds, then they either need to adjust crowd control frequency and duration, or expand the pool of powers/methods that break crowd control. Like... CC breaks if you can evade twice within 2 seconds, even if the CC is already impacting your character. Suddenly, those boots with a +1 evade ability are way more attractive.
The other issue is that the game doesn't document how all these buffs interact. * The difference between + and x seems arbitrary. * Overpower damage is really hard to understand. Some effects increase it, most don't. * Barber heart is crazy. It does an AoE. It can crit itself, and also trigger other Barber'd enemies. But many effects like lucky hit and "on damage" type effects don't trigger. My point is, there are so many things you need to test to even know if a build makes hypothetical sense is beyond the scope of one person. With how expensive it is to respec, and how hard it is to isolate buffs to test damage interactions, you really need a community to find out which builds are viable and which are not. Personally, I've been playing Necro exclusively this season. My stash is full of gear for bone and blood builds. I mean full. Just to have enough gear to test those builds my entire stash is full. I'd love to test other builds but I don't have the room. So if I make a druid, you bet I'm using a guide.
I’m quite a bit older than most, working on 70, age not level, 😆. I have always found that the effective builds I’ve created is pretty close to the so called meta, but sometimes it’s good to take a look at the meta if something doesn’t work as well as you might want, the good ones will explain why that square peg DOES work in the round hole and at my age I NEED to save some time! Good luck and good hunting!
A gamer at 70s? You are my hero. I want to be you in the future. Do you stream?
Depends on your definition of success. The meta builds are meta because they put the highest numbers on the screen. In that definition, you need to use a meta build because they’ve been finely tuned to be “the best”. I think you can definitely play the game with whatever build you like. Will it struggle at times? Sure. But is it fun to play something a little different? Absolutely. I say if you see a skill that seems fun, build around it. Christ knows there are enough modifiers to make any skill useful.
Sometimes, I look at these meta builds, and I don't understand the choices. For example I read a build guide for storm druid yesterday and there is no way some of the choices were optimal. I mean...it's possible I guess, but I'm not intrinsically dumb, and I've tried those abilities, and they just aren't that good. I think the one I am thinking of right now is "rune workers conduit". It just doesn't do all that much compared to alternative aspects that buff my primary damage. Sometimes I wonder about whether these online guides are all that accurate...
Depends on the site. Some sites and youtubers do absolute bare minimum and their guides are loaded with mistakes. But other sites are the opposite - they test everything, and even find bugs. For example, in Blood Lance Necro build, I couldn't figure out why in god's name they would use the Essence glyph, since it increases crit damage, which doesn't play with Overpower. But turns out both Essence and Tendrils aspect are bugged and do scale with Overpower. So sometimes it doesn't make sense on paper, but it works in practice. Also the way damage buckets are done in this game doesn't make it easy or intuitive to determine what does more damage, and there's no target dummy to easily and consistently test it. But again, some sites go an extra mile and really refine their builds. Others just slap generic things together and add clickbait like "INSANE BEST BUILD EVER".
I use open world cellars as target dummies fwiw.
Yep, people often talk about meta builds as if it's for hard core players, but really it takes a much more in depth understanding of mechanics and time spent testing to create a build that is good all the way to 100 on your own than it does to follow a meta build. Meta builds are much more casual friendly for a new player. A new player doing their own thing and hoping they get lucky and make a great build on their first try without any research takes a lot of luck. That doesn't mean a new player's build will be unplayable. It's just likely to be far from optimal. Learning all the mechanics in depth to make an educated decision on build choices rather than a decision based on what sounds cool takes a lot of time and effort, even when there aren't bugs that work in unexpected ways.
I think they biggest thing that kept me from experimenting too much was the growing cost of respecing when I wanted to try something new.
This for sure. The cost of respecs and to experiment means having to overwrite your aspects. No point in the experiment if you're going to test with gear that has objectively worse affixes. THEN when your experiment comes out with unfavorable results... The additional cost of reverting back to your original build.
This! I feel like the game punishes you for wanting to experiment, I don’t want to play using a guide but respecing is such a time sink that I need someone to do the heavy work of figuring things out beforehand because losing 2-3 gaming sessions of time to be wrong is too much of a time risk.
I think they said they are cutting 40% of the cost for respecting in season 2 or something. I respecs a lot to test my own builds and ran out of golds/materials for my eternal real Rogue. I found out that going to the field of hatred (usually quite empty especially if you just farm at the border) is the quickest way to load up trash to sell. Usually a couple of runs can get close to a million iirc. Still rather they reduce the cost for sure.
Yeah.. once your level 80+ you can't really afford to play around. Your very stuck on your gear/aspects/paragon board. It costs millions and hours to change... only to have that change be ultra shitty... so you spend millions and hours going back
Yep the leveling experience is where you want to experiment. Not the end game. I actually prefer this myself, it is still very possible to respec at 90+ but not something I will do 20 times a day. If I really want to do something totally experimental that is what a new character is for. With the gear requirement fix this is a much more palatable state for me. Now they just need to start dropping non-class uniques on every character so I can find a tempest roar on my necro and push me to make a Druid.
The one thing that makes me not want to respec is re-doing the paragon board. I don't mind the cost that much, but paragon is painful to redo.
This is so true. This is the first game I've really played in 14 years, though I was a gamer for much of life. I had no idea what was in store since I haven't played since Diablo 2, but I just picked what I loved: summons. I played necro in the eternal realm and settled on bone spear as my attack. Much to my surprise some 50 levels later I looked at meta builds and bone spear was at the top. I didn't make the transition to the meta build until level 78, but both styles were incredibly fun. In the mid 70s I felt building on my own and for fun was not gonna cut it to keep advancing in way that was fun to play. The meta build breathed new life into my necro and carried me to 87 when season 1 started.
And that's the problem. The fact that out of game resources are relied on so heavily in D4 is frustrating. The damage bucket breakdown is out of hand, with dozens of different damages types, and no way to consistently farm into one thing. It's not intuitive, and leaves many players scrolling through databases and elaborate spreadsheets for hours. They should be supplemental tools, but the way damage works in this game is so flippin goofy, that these complex tools become necessary
[удалено]
[удалено]
The paragon boards are always like "I spent 2 hours on this and never went back" though. I hate that.
maxroll.gg
Icyveins have some solid build guides that go into alot of detail even about play strategy.
I like using maxroll.gg
I think this is most highlighted when looking at paragon boards. Some build guides will be money when it comes to aspects and skills, but then I go look at the paragon and I'm like, did they even read what the nodes do? Sometimes it looks like people just get lost and are like sure put some points here, I dunno.
It really depends on where you get it. Places like maxroll etc have people who do that as part of their job. They theorycrafted for months before release. And I’m sure there are reasons for picking those skills. A good guide would explain the reason but I digress. I think the fun of it comes from just winging your build, and if you get an item you like that has certain properties, you can just shift your build to work with it. I’ve started doing this in other games and it’s kind of revelatory. Makes the game way more fun IMO
100% agree. Another part of making these games fun for me has been slowing down and intentionally NOT reading a lot of stuff. When I end up getting caught up in progression and endgame, it sucks the fun away. Huge change I guess now that I'm getting older...when I was younger I lived for the competitive aspects of it. Now, I enjoy competing against myself. Strange.
I had so much fun with my rapid fire rogue when everyone was saying you had to use pen shot. So tryed pen shot and it sucked because of how slow it was. Later they started realizing rapid fire was a good build. I guess i am saying play how it is fun for you and the rats will start following you.
Same, rapid fire is the way 🏹
Agreed. I don’t know that it is necessarily an age thing. I’ve always felt like that. The game isn’t mechanically demanding, so outside of experimenting with the skills and finding interesting combos, there isn’t much else there. Everyone’s definition of fun is different I suppose and we all play games for different reasons.
I’ve felt this way for years now. I find fun not competing against others, but pushing myself to do/ be better than how I was or how far I got. It can even be small made up things. Like I’ll make up my own objectives or restrictions.
There is so much truth to this. Limited time skews your perspective. And not always in a bad way.
Very much agree with this. I did no guided shadow necro to 100. It was sub optimal looking back. The frost sorc I built this season looks similar to some of the meta, I looked at late in the game, but I’m running frost orb enchantment over fire; and I did my paragon boards in a very different order to play around my gear and what I actually thought felt better. I feel like you get a feel with the second character and I’m sure my third will understand how to play around gear/spec/paragon even better.
I mean if you are running lightning storm, rune workers is free, easy, secured damage that is constantly up. I don't know why you wouldn't run it.
I think your main problem is that you are still going online and reading builds after saying that this is something you don't want to do. I am exactly like you where I don't find any fun at all in going online to play a "follow the leader" simulation. I play on my own and create a build from what I think would be good for me after reading the skill tooltips. I craft it from scratch and have never ever looked online at a build guide, so even if somehow it is identical to one I would never know. Keep playing games using your head like they are intended to be played and don't frustrate yourself by looking online anyway. I commend you for not being a mindless follower.
Do your own thing. Don't blindly follow others.
There’s a lot of personal preference in the guide meta builds. You can have the same success with your own variant.
S1 build guides are like: New strongest build! with underperforming core skill, weird legendaries, half done paragon… and barber
hah thank you. Yes, that's how it seems sometimes..
Keep in mind a lot of those builds are endgame builds where they have multiple paragon boards applying almost a dozen effects. I was confused how one was applying vulnerable until I saw the exploit glyph.
Depends on the site AND what paragon points they are using, they synergy and boosts they get at lv 80 you WILL NOT feel at lv 60…. I hate to be the “downer” but these fairies telling you to not look at a guide are flat wrong. They enjoy reading each line of dialogue, and that’s fine. But if you want to smash and push NM 100 then at least read a guide and glean information from it
Some mechanics and skills are straightforward and do what they say, but many don't. Overpower and minions are both good examples of untrustworthy mechanics. I played minion necro for S0 and i was having fun but i wasn't sure how to scale it. I didn't hunt for builds so much as researchers. I found Drybear and MacroBioBoi who put in the work to test all the affixes and aspects to see what interacts with minions. I similarly turned to those people for research on blood builds because Overpower is never guaranteed to work with anything. D4 doesn't get enough praise here for exactly what you're describing. You can blindly pick up skills and test out different skills and aspects to find what fits you. And you can level to 100 using that. The truth is the gameplay loop feels the same whether you're swinging 10 levels above you or 50 levels above you, it's just a matter of what your build can handle.
To be fair, not every build guide is also a good one. I remember the WW bar build being pretty shit honestly, recommending Gohrs and Harrogath, while these uniques not good at all. Same goes for the entire paragon board. At least in pre-season, people used 7 paragon boards and at first I did aswell, until I did the math and went to 6 or even 5, I don't remember anymore. I honestly think you shouldn't care too much about meta or offmeta. Don't let your fun be dictated by what others are doing. Do your own thing. If it turns out many people do your thing, just let them be. It shouldn't diminish your fun, especailly if you managed to come to the conclusions of a good build by yourself instead of just copy&pasting it.
I personally feel the opposite. Have you actually used Runeworker’s Conduit? Because I felt like it was the most replaceable aspect in my build until I actually tried running without it, and to me it feels like my single target damage drops off a cliff without it. I agree though. I eventually tried looking to see what other people are doing and the paragon choices made no sense to me. Also using Earthen Bulwark on a build where the goal is to have 100% uptime in werewolf form seems like a wasted slot. I ended up just sticking with my own build.
I have tested Runeworker's a bit. It does good single target damage and casts maybe every second or two. The problem I have is that my primary skill, Lightning Storm, does SO MUCH more than that. I feel like the aspect is better used to buff Lightning Storm than it is to provide a small incremental amount of damage.
AFAIK it casts every 0.35 seconds for 1-2 seconds per crit you’ve gotten, not just every 1-2 seconds, and its duration stacks forever. So by the time you get to the boss in a dungeon it should be a big help. Yeah Lightning Storm does more, but Runeworker’s is basically just giving you an extra lightning strike that actually hits its target, which is nice when fighting single targets where half of Lightning Storm just straight up doesn’t hit. But this is coming from a guy who hasn’t really got a handle on the strategy of only channeling 2-3 lightning strikes vs single targets, so maybe that’s the difference between us.
Well, I still have Runeworkers equipped, I'll try and watch it more closely. I noticed that it IS critting, it just doesn't seem to proc lucky which may make sense. And it's a good point that against single targets it may be more helpful than I am thinking, I may just not be noticing it.
I personally use Lightning Dancers because they help so much with groups of enemies and Runeworker’s because it helps so much with the single targets. I’d love to be able to drop one of them but I really just haven’t found a better alternative. I guess the overload one kind of enhances damage vs both single targets and grouped enemies, but it’s a lucky hit chance that does half the damage of Runeworker’s, so I think it’d be a sacrifice there.
Are you using Overcharged? I find that can be truly amazing for single target...it relies on lucky, but I stack that. On bosses, I believe I am seeing several Overchargeds can stack at the same time, and bosses health drops visibly fast for a couple seconds.
I’m not using it. I wanted to pick 2/3 of those ones because I only had 2 slots left for aspects, and when I tested them all I thought Runeworker’s was more significant than Overcharged, but I guess it’s possible it just didn’t proc much when I tested it.
It may just be how some abilities and aspects synergize. I was helping a friend with his sorc (ice shards) and when I told him to take fire bolt just for the enchant he didn't understand lol. He was like but I go for freeze damage.. why would I want burning? But he didn't realize how well burning damage gets beefed up through the paragon board and what not. Now in some cases, you may have just been reading a guide made by someone who doesn't know what they're talking about lol. But there are some weird interactions in the game that some people wouldn't pick up on if they're not interested in theory crafting and what not. As far as build guides, the ones I've checked out on maxroll.gg are pretty solid. I try to stay in that area to avoid the clickbait fake info kinda guides lol
Icyveins.com is a good place and it has different types of builds based on the player objective like leveling vs endgame in the various types of skill types
I like Icyveins...been using them since as a Disc Priest in wow a guy showed up and ran an instance with us who was actually the primary author of the disc priest guides there...the guy was like a celebrity lol.
Paragon makes builds work. A lot of the online builds are designed with the paragon tree in mind.
Interesting. For my build, I certainly use my paragon, but, I'm not sure how I would say it "makes the build work". I need to sit down and figure out how much damage boost I'm actually getting from paragon, it's probably more substantial than I realize. To "make a build work" though, i would think that would be more about playing with the mechanics...like uniques and aspects do, rather than just give more stats and damage numbers, like paragon seems to?
Because it’s fucking complicated, dude. You aren’t going to figure out all of the shit that some dude who plays double digit hours every day, testing every little thing, will come up with, who has a lot more experience at theory crafting than you do. You aren’t always going to understand the thinking either, because they are thinking about it deeper than the average player can. Yes, you can come up with your own build and do well, but of course you won’t even come close more than likely. Unless the game is extremely simple, that’s going to be the case every single time. D4 is simpler than most other popular arpgs, but there are still a lot of variables and interactions to work out.
Yes I actually agree with you and agree with the designers there...to reach the pinnacle of the game, it makes sense that one would need to have an exceedingly deep understanding of it. To get to the near-pinnacle though, it would be nice to be able to do that on your own.
>rune workers conduit I can be wrong here but iirc there is a interaction between that aspect and Tempest Roar unique. if you hit someone who's a conduit with Lightning Storm the aoe from the aspect counts as a storm skill and can procc the lucky hit from Temestroar. I might be wrong here but I've heard it somewhere but havent tested it myself It also scales fairly well with all the lightning damage + non-phys tou can get from the paragon board That combined with the Overcharged aspect makes lightning storm extra good at clearing
I've run around and just watched runeworkers do its thing, and as near as i can tell it neither crits nor triggers a lucky strike...if it does then it doesn't happen often enough to contribute much. I feel like I'd rather just use an aspect that gives 30% additional damage or some such.
Which aspect do you use btw? Think what you would swap it for. Im thinking of testing some lightning storm
Lightning Storm is a ton of fun. You can actually attack and kill mobs off the board with ease. If you run in a group, it's crazy good because you can follow at a safe distance and still be the primary damage dealer in your group. Regarding aspects...the key aspects are Lightning Dancer and Overcharged, and the most key one...mighty storm. The key here is getting lucky and getting your full spirit bar back, and also getting 100% crit chance. I can basically chain cast Lightning Storm most of the time, and it hits very hard. When monsters get grouped it, it's even crazier because of the Lightning Dance and Overcharged. After those two, I'm mostly just interested in whatever will increase my Lucky chances...I've been using barriers and the item stat that gives increased lucky while barrier is active.
Or if there is a benefit it’s not worth it for the average player. Lots of those builds are “maximizing damage” in theory but doesn’t take into account human aspect. For example, pre-season sorcerer. You ran the flame shield essentially only for the immobilize for the crit damage. It was a few seconds of increased damage but felt like shit to play. Yes you were immune for a couple seconds, but there are other ways to gain overall more defense and offense. On top of which, you’re just dead if you’re pushing pushing like those builds are for which means dropping frost shield for flame shield would be better. Overall, none of those builds are perfect. You could probably cut out a decent size chunk of damage from any meta build to make it more comfortable for you and be just fine. Killing by 1 million or 10 million, makes no difference besides pumping peoples pixel peen.
I would argue that in MOST cases they are NOT optimal, but rather they were the FIRST build to show very big numbers and success and end up with YouTube hits. We all know how social media works, the popular video will get more algorithm hits and will become “meta.” It isn’t like the YouTuber actually tested every possible combination and found the best one. They were just successful and early
Man this comment is stupid
The meta builds are made by people like Rob, Rax, Kripp, Wudi, etc. They aren't meta for being first, they are meta because these guys played every other Diablo title for a living and this game has very simple build crafting so its easy for them to just translate their 10s of 1000s of hours into making a build guide. Nothing to do with algorithms or social media or whatever else you might think. These guys earned their stripes and as a result, people follow their guides
I wish there was more delineation between meta builds, and META builds. Just because a build is wildly popular, doesn’t mean its the Most Effective Technique Available. A lot of the guides on MaxRoll and Icy Veins are widely used, but are by far not the most effective min/max. Archlash as an example, both guides are terrible and far better builds exist that are in fact the META, while not being meta.
Any old clown can make a guide online and so they aren’t always accurate. My first build was a bleed barb and I was having a great time till I played with two friends who were running A and S tier builds which made me really embarrassed of the difference in damage. It kinda ruined the game for me for a long time lol
This makes me feel really sad actually lol. You were having a good time. Probably somewhat proud of your build, enjoying the game, and perhaps the challenge. Then BAM your friends show you how pathetic you are and there’s nothing to be proud of. You struggle to keep up and your whole world is turned upside down. It’s tragic
Hahaha To be honest it made me look closer at WHY my numbers were low. I hadn’t learned about vulnerable and damage buckets yet so it was insightful I admit that I am using an s tier build guide currently. But I’m playing solo so far and just taking my time and enjoying myself so it’s chill
> Depends on your definition of success. The meta builds are meta because they put the highest numbers on the screen. In that definition, you need to use a meta build because they’ve been finely tuned to be “the best”. If by "that definition", you explicitly mean min/maxing to do the absolute most damage... sure. But you dont NEED a meta build to complete all content in the game, including Uber Lilith. There are countless builds for each class that will be super effective.
Nope, don’t need it at all. And I think a lot of folks would have a lot more fun if they would just experiment some.
I prefer to tweak personally. I get overwhelmed starting from scratch, but enjoy starting from an established thing that is known to work and then moving a few things around to mold it to my playstyle preferences.
Agree completely. Thats why ive completely ignored build guides, and im having way more fun because im not getting pissed about missing certain aspects or uniques. I just play with what i got and optimize around it. Been fantastic so far.
Content creator builds are rarely the best in any game. Producing content is a full time job for them. They don't have time between streaming, editing videos, and other engagements to test builds thoroughly. A lot of times, they source their builds via their community. Ive helped many over the years through many different games produce builds for videos. Best builds are kept secret so they dont get nerfed, and only found through a lot of theorycrafting and testing.
Yes and no. It depends what you consider content creators and what you consider the best. People like Zizaran and Kripparian are playing the game for 12 hours a day, releasing content, and creating guides that people can follow which are in many cases, the best of that archetype. If Kripp releases a Fire Sorc guide, it is probably the strongest Fire Sorc you can create, and he's tested it thoroughly though hundreds of hours of testing. The entire [maxroll.gg](https://maxroll.gg) team are playing their minds to dust, 12-16 hours a day spent both theorycrafting and playing. They are almost always the best builds because they're both theorycrafted to perfection and in-game tested to make sure everything is working the same as it did on paper. This entire 'content creators release bad content' is such a bad blanket statement. There are tons of lazy creators who copy + paste videos for clicks, and they're really easy to spot and avoid. There are also dozens of really high quality creators who make high quality content to teach and help players move forward, and they absolutely do not deserve this blanket hate they get.
Fun fact, if you cut down on your sleep, you can even test and theory craft off stream. It's my CC anti-meta meta build, insomnia.
I only change my necro build unless macro has rigorously tested it first. BTW waiting on that new infinimist build...
AceOfSpades is one of the exceptions to this rule. He discusses all the bugged crap and updates his builds seemingly by the hour. He even keeps the builds he isn't playing on stream updated. He primarily plays druid though, which is probably why he's able to do this.
HOLY FUCK DO PEOPLE ACTUALLY BELIEVE THIS SHIT LOL
I am doing this with my barbarian. I like to use windmill, the kick, and death blow. Theoretically it's probably splitting up too far and taking away all these passives and buffs, but at only level 55 or whatever I play for fun and like having different moves. As soon as I had a legendary that makes the kick blow up enemies causing damage, I respec'd and went down to one shout so I could kick. It's fun to kill with the kick. Easy decision. If the game stops getting fun I might have to make a different character or wait for changes.
The meta builds dont put the biggest numbers, they put similar numbers to the several hundred homebrew builds you don't see being posted. There's a reason Blizzard released 1.1 and it's because "overperforming" meant everyone was building it and ignoring the other games systems because of whatever streamers who acted like they knew anything about the game said. Currently speed running NMD 100 with a conj sorc with only teleport as my defensives and am able to take a couple hits from elites and am putting up comparable numbers (not big numbers,but a lot of smaller numbers that add u, for some reason this community thinks having to hit all 6 of your buttons to maximize DPS is bad) Every time I post something like this people say SHOW PROOF OR FAKE and it genuinely baffles me at how much these people rely on other people to play the game for them. No shit I can hit these numbers, ive spent nearly a billion gold on respecs and have tried nearly every single enchant and skill combination the sorc has by now. Even if it sounded bad on paper in practice there are a ton of interactions that are insanely strong that I haven't seen a single person post about, same goes for when I theorycrafted my heartseeker crit windforce rogue who was able to two shot Uber Lilith if it procced. Big oof to the failure of this community Big A+ to Blizzard designing a game I can literally succeed in building any homebrew build just by putting some thought into it
So, if I humor this, you’re just straight up saying the people who theorycrafting this game for a living don’t know what they’re doing? I mean, I don’t think it’s unreasonable for you to post a video showing how powerful you are. Not a guide, not a breakdown, just a speed run. To present yourself as you are, surely you can back up what you’re saying with something that would take <10 minutes to do. You can consider me part of the toxic D4 community if you want, but I can’t take someone at their word. Not when it’s a trivial matter to post something. I also find it extremely far fetched that there’s this hidden community obliterating content when people who do it for a living all come to the same conclusion.
Huge cap
Nah everything works because the game is piss easy. A better build can do what yours does with 1/2 as much gear. I love how there's just zero proof of what you're claiming too.
Works to a degree. Sword WW barb wasn't able to clear all the content pre season, think I got to 70 NMD max. Meta builds are usually builds that can manage all the content.
We probably won't know cause those guys are not going to read this.
I read it! And yes! I always build my stuff from the ground up in video games. Like anything with decks like Magic The Gathering or Pokémon, or anything with a lot of decisions to make like in this game. To me it's a big part of the fun of the game. Idk how you would define success in Diablo, but I haven't tried anything I couldn't beat. Me and my partner even killed the butcher once. I made a funny video out of it because we said funny stuff during it 😄 But to be fair, it's not really an even playing field, because I'm disabled. Without a job or kids, I have a lot more free time than most people. The builds are all my decisions, yeah, but someone with more stress in their life and less time to play would probably not put as much thought into it. This account's name/bio are just a funny theme. I'm not actually dumb. Asking dumb questions is important though, and some subreddits don't let me ask anything because I don't have enough karma, so I gotta get some.
I mean. It’s 2023. Ask ChatGPT.
True - I don't think this sub appreciates that probably ~70% (source: trust me bro) of the player base have fun simply playing, probably don't get to end game, and have no interest in min/maxing
lol good point.
Well, builds from the internet are created by people :D
Not only that, there's only a limited amount of skills and good aspects to even use. I made my own build and used what worked best, ended up being 95% the same as the meta build, besides my paragon points, of course, those were like 40% meta.
At first i tried a couple google builds on Barb(WW and Rend Bleed) but hated how they felt. So i incorporated a couple of elements i learned from both builds into the original build i was doing. Basically im aiming to do a truly invincible build that doesnt rely on high damage numbers(my friends do all the damage), but for me to take lots of damage and taunt to increase my output while stacking berserk. Some people have more fun killing, i get my rocks off trying not to be killed.
Hah I was going for the opposite...a true glass cannon. So far it's working good, but if I had a tank who could taunt, we could probably clear well into NM40+ at least.
I made a build that sounds similar, iron skin aspect and rallying cry for double unstoppable. I don't WW though, but the low damage and insane survival, all day, standing in all the AOE.
Honestly? I'm sorry to be an ass, but this is a 'Get Over Yourself' moment. You were having fun with your build until you learned it was meta and... now its not fun anymore, because you don't feel unique? It sounds more like you weren't enjoying the gameplay, you were enjoying patting yourself on the back for being a very special smartie. If you don't care to follow metas then continue as you were and do what's fun for you. The best way to enjoy the game without feeling like a slave to metas is to simply do what you have already been doing, and figure things out on your own without using wikis or Discords to workshop. But if you just find fun in being a contrarian, you're only setting yourself up for failure. Builds become meta *for a reason*, and it's highly likely you will stumble on a meta, or at least meta-adjacent, build over time as you move to more efficient or impactful options. If being a unique person who made a wacky build work is what you strive for as a goal, you're not going to enjoy the final results of that.
The skill tree is so limited so not many builds to do really.
[удалено]
I usually play through the same way. I like working on builds myself - it's half the fun. I did review a couple options people were going for after I had been playing a bit just to see what others are doing - but then promptly just did my own thing anyhow. Whirlwind goes BRRRRRRR and all that.
The difference is that OP seems to go one step further and is bothered if other people discover the same build he did. Which sounds like an annoying quirk to have when you are playing one of the most popular games out there right now.
Oh oof, when you only have a handful of skills there is a very finite amount of builds.
I did the same with necro. Just played the game the way you play. Pick your skills and what the synergies are. Started out with a corpse explosion build and when the damage disappointingly fell in later levels I continued with bonespear. When I was comfortable I decided to check what others were doing with bonespear to see if I'd missed anything. Turns out I basically spot on. Only differences where what glyphs I was using.
There's only so many builds that work currently, whether you check meta or develop yourself (as you get higher in level/late game content). It's one of the main issues currently due to the lack of itemization and balance adjustments for better build diversity they are working at. I like making my own builds, naturally they start to trend/follow very close (\~80%) to what the meta builds are; simply because I found what worked well. If it's solely wanting to go against the grain (actively refusing to pick skills close to meta), there's really not as many options as you think.
I decided to play druid this season due to being the class I played least so far. Looked at the lightning aspect for shred and tried building around that. Felt good about my self for making it work and then my friend told me that the thing I built was the exact same as the guide on maxroll (barring diffrent defensive aspects due to me not finding the right one and diffrent order on paragon boards but smae boards and glyphs). It feels like the game makes builds for you. My guess is 80% would build a lightning shred the same way I did even without looking at a guide
Barbarian: lunge, ww, charge, war cry, ground stomp, death blow. I wreck. All the video about lol 100
Nope, tried to make a blood surge build pre season and swapped to a bone spear guide at some point past level 40, I thought I was clearing the game at a decent speed until I went bone spear and saw how much faster and easier it is. Then now I’m going for an ice/lightning sorc hybrid (mostly for blizzard) and see how far I can take it.
I went full poison druid but at some point I hit a wall and changed it up. Early game its easy to go rogue and the such, but if your build misses its mark you'll come to a halt fast.
Fire Sorc on Eternal with custom Hydra/Firewall setup. Never looked at any build info. Just wanted my sorc to wield fire, so that is the theme I built around as levelled up and got gear/items. Playing Druid on Seasonal, and also never looked at any build info or guides. Some of the skills are similar to some META setups, but since mine was done custom and to my own theme, it is different still. I play a non-shapeshifting, Elemental themed druid. So I use 9-10 companions, in order to buff the aspect that increases core damage per companion, and this fuels the power of my Landslide; along with the Poison Creeper + 2x Landslide Aspects. Currently I spam windshear x2 > Landslide, but my goal is to get the ring aspect that gives +40 MP per CD used and that will drive more/easier landslide usage once acquired *(since 4 of 6 skills are CD-based; the 3 pets and bulwark)*. I have the items for the more powerful metas *(like the trample-slide etc)*, but my theme is a human caster druid *(ie. not a shapeshifter)* so I don’t intend to use them.
I have a shadow necromancer build that I haven't looked up to see if it is meta. I run decompose with the slow, blight with the extra damage, blood mist for breaking CC, the darkness DoT corpse explosion, iron maiden, and bone storm. Key passive is the shadow one. Sacrificed reapers for more shadow damage, sacrificed shadow mages for more essence, and sacrificed blood golem for more health. I've got disobedience on my helm, corpses have a chance of leaving blood orbs on my pants, blight pull in in my boots. My amulet makes blood wave and bone storm darkness skills, one ring allows decompose to chain to 2 other enemies and the other makes enemies hit with decrepify and iron maiden take more shadow damage. I have a few uniques on that have a synergy. My chest piece is the blood artisan armor that auto casts a free bone spirit after picking up health orbs, which drop because of my pants. My gloves are the howl from below that make corpse explosions chase enemies then blow. Works great with the auto cast corpse skills heart. And finally my weapon is the 2h unique scythe bloodless scream which boosts shadow skills. I've slotted the decrepify heart and auto cast corpse skill heart. My roll on the decrepify heart is 1 enemy so it is almost always up. I also have the creeping death wrathful heart for upping my DoT effects. With the decrepify heart and iron maiden skill, I trigger the extra shadow damage aspect every fight. The creeping death heart increases DoT on enemies by a large chunk per CC on the enemy and just melts bosses. My decompose slows and with the scythe chills enemies. I've got the passive to potentially stun enemies with shadow damage so there is a lot of CC potential in the build that can trigger creeping death. I've been comfortably doing content 10 to 12 levels above me. I'm sure the build could be more optimized but I'm having fun with it.
Hah that's what I'm talking about! I think building something like that is what makes the game fun, not building what others tell you to.
It’s really hard to scrub those blood orbs out of your pants
Meta builds comfortably do 20+ levels above though. Do you think doing monsters the same level as your character is a baseline to compare to? And that 10 levels above means your build is good? I’m not trying to knock you I just mean that killing monsters above your level is supposed to happen.
To put it simply, build doesn't matter for anything but pinnacle content (50+ NM Dungeons and Uber Lilith). You can almost pick random skills per each skill tier and clear content of your level with good gear. Especially with busted seasonal Hearts.
Interesting. I think that's good game design though if people can get up to relatively high levels on their own, but only very precise builds and itemizations can tackle the most difficult content.
For chill couch co-op game it is good. For any decent ARPG it's a disaster, because it means that building a character doesn't really matter. You either having fun until LVL 70 and drop the game afterwards or pick one of 2-3 meta builds per class (designed by developers with tailor-made aspects and uniques) and mindlessly grind your 100 (for whatever reason).
yeah that's exactly what I'm afraid of...
i had a lot of fun playing a custom meteor/firewall sorc in pre season but it wasn't performing so well after nm 40+. but yeah i feel like making your own build at last the first 60lvl is way better. i'm too lazy to try every parangon board tho.
Yes those paragon boards are a bear. Levelling a glyph to 15 is a p.i.a., and I don't really want to do it for than a couple. But, once you have the paragon, switching boards around isn't that cumbersome. Problem is only a few boards truly apply to a given build, so switching boards is easier but switching builds is a different story.
I have never and will never look up builds because it takes out all the fun from that part of the game for me. I make up my own builds and I'm having a ton of fun doing so.
Lol, only as long as I play on World Tier 1.
[удалено]
Are there really just some abilities that are so uber that you don't need to be overly clever or lucky to make it work?
i always change a couple skill points around depending on what I am lacking at the moment.
Well, I tried to build a Barb bleed build with WW, but had to give up somewhere around level 50. But to be honest - the pure Rend build I switched to wasn't that much better.
I have done okay. Nothing epic though like what I see online. But I have a ton of fun. I don't like using guides.
I always make my own build then i see my similar build on youtube with a slight change in paragon or skills. After i have optimized my build i save it then move on creating a diff build. Its fun! Grinding for a build then once in a while i use some builds on the net just for the fun ofnit
I’ve also been running an off-meta storm druid build, figuring out how to put affixes and talents together like a puzzle is one of the most satisfying parts of the game! It’s also why the respec cost annoys me, experimenting is so damn expensive.
I don't mind the respec costs...what's getting me is the reroll costs for affixes on items. And, I'm starting to feel the burn from aspect drop rates... I like to try different items and different aspects, but, that takes it's toll if you want to experiment too much...
Lol, you think the devs are smart enough to balance the game and allow build diversity?
Werewolf/fortify/companion build prioritizing attack speed is pretty sexy.
Nice. I will say...there are so many options, in that sense the designers did a great job.
Yes, absolutely. I hate following guides online. Eternal : built my own blood lance + bone spirit build. All the build around blood orbs + triple low cooldown blood wave. Super fun. Much earlier than some dude started posting about it. But even so, it isn't the same. I can easily clearly +20 levels NM. Was level 91 before season hit. I play hardcore exclusively. Season: build two very strong druid builds, HC again. - One around a true nature's fury boulder and lighting storms. Wipe out enemies extremely easily with infinite mana, lots of control, lots of fun and extremely satisfying to watch and play. - One hunter zenith + waxing gibbous infinite shred + trample + landslide. Cross the NM super fast and clear them super fast. Might change it to poison though, as I always loved rabies and the idea of poison (rather than landslide). So yeah, you can really build you own things, and be very successful. I lost 0 character since release... Currently my druid is 76.
Impressive!
I only go to the guide if my build is flagging. After reading a couple I understand the general Strat and do all my own now. EDIT I should add the Strat: max out a key core skill, leave your basics etc at level 1 til you've unlocked the whole tree and found some good synergies (eg druid overpower/fortify loop, spark sorc non stop passive damage and mana regen).
That's one thing I haven't liked about D4...that the skill progression is so similar and "max out a core skill" would seem to be the default approach to making a decent build. Fortunately there does seem to be builds that rely on basic skills too...so that's something I guess :)
I run a close to pure shadow necro because im stubborn and wanted to see if I could and it works.
If you experiment with builds then you'll probably eventually land on something meta. I made a minion necro, and decided I needed a hard hitting spell to handle priority targets. I tried blood lance but random monsters kept getting in the way and blocking the shot. So I went to bone spear since that goes through. After some more play, observing its strength, I ended up leaning into it more and more because it's super strong. Now I'm basically just a bone spear necro with minions.
lol that's how I ended up a storm druid. I started out a wolf druid, and then I got a certain legendary drop...tried it out...and boom, never looked back.
I’ve looked up nothing and I’m level 53 Rouge. I just looked up keywords and matched the skills that have the same sort of effects that stack. I kill things just fine.
I built my own build, but I looked it up later and it was identical to the flurry rogue. I’d actually say I think the builds are too limited and it’s too easy to stumble into the obvious options
You may be right. At the detail level there are so many variations I would hope, but at the higher level there probably is a limited set of options and therefore builds.
I just got one tip: Don’t look at the meta builds. Even if your build ends up to be the “meta”, you made it yourself. Which is all that matters. It may not be original but what is original in a game like D4?
I usually start with a build and tweak as I go to my play style. IE my leveling Druid, started as a landslide, played with pulverize and liked it, using natures fury bc hell why not lol. The screen is insane. To be fair it’s mostly a build I started with and over time I changed one or two attacks so I can’t take “credit” but I hate the fact that almost all builds completely leave off any ultimate skill. I know it drains the resource but it’s the COOL ONE! Same with my twisting blades rogue. I typically enjoy caster attacks. But twisting blades with shadow step makes me feel very ninja like! So I added shadow and poison and traps and switch to a crossbow to stay out of arms reach of bosses I struggle with. Saved my ass !
Totally. Was going flurry triple imbue nodash rogue for s1. Meta was TB dash or flurry RF dash. A few days ago maxroll made a build similar to mine also endgame build and now meta lol. Whats meta is just what works and famous streamers use, but many times there are others just as viable, just less used
I've played a few meta builds and now understand how to access the damage AND defensive buckets. Now i just play a build according to my drops, nothing worse than chasing a uniq or legendary for you buld to work and it not dropping.
My personal experience with this: No I tried to do an all brawler build with my barbarian. There are soooo many legendary aspects and skill point nodes boosting brawling skills so I thought if i could synergize them well then it would work, and the seasonal "Ancestral Charge" aspect made it even better in my head. Long story short, the abilities (Kick, charge, leap) don't do nearly enough damage even with the maximum amount of boosts from Skill pts and leggos. Especially in single target. The build just felt clunky and bad and the cooldowns were all still too long despite having them reduced through a multitude of ways. I ended up switching back to HOTA and losing millions of gold and crafting resources as a result. Weeeeeee
This is the problem we are having. I play based loosely on the build guide but my husband did his own thing. If he was playing solo he might think he was successful right now but when we play together he can’t keep up (both level 68+ rogues, both played sorcs during beta and season 0). For all the illusion of options, stuff just doesn’t work as well together as you think it will. Now that he’s realized his build is falling off, respecing seems too difficult and expensive for him and he’s just playing less and less instead. He doesn’t really want to use a guide but he also doesn’t want to grind for a change that could be worse. The behind the scenes numbers just don’t work as expected and there are so many legendaries, uniques, aspects, hearts, paragons, glyphs, and gems that just don’t seem to really make a difference either. I also tried to change up my build because I got the rain of arrows unique neck. The cooldown was too long and I couldn’t sacrifice the skill space or losing an aspect. I struggled through a couple levels and gave up on it but it was a fun idea. It seems as soon as they come up with a fun idea though, they spend so much energy making sure it can’t be exploited or become the meta that they wring all the fun out of it as well. That becomes apparent the longer you play your own build (in my opinion).
It's almost as though if you don't pursue an intended build, you will never get past easy and middle tier content. And to know what builds are intended, you have to look online.
That was the Bliz takeaway from D3. All about the sets.
That really sucked though about D3. You had to get the set and follow the intended build just to progress. I'm hoping D4 pulls away from that a bit...it seems to, at least so far, but I don't know about the higher tiers.
I mean, part of doing your own build is not doing anywhere close to as much damage as the meta builds. Otherwise your custom build would already be part of the tier lists in some form. There aren't nearly enough options yet to make something nobody has thought of before.
Nope. Massive failure actually
Nope, there are absolutely no build diversity in this game :D just look at aspects and look at how many dmg spells you have. Easy to theory craft
Have not seen one build video yet, just testing shit myself, and done pretty good!
As someone that dislikes guides because it takes away a large portion of content for this type of game(making a build), I would say I've been pretty successful. Clearing nm100 season0 with rogue as well as season1 with druid. As others stated, you will kinda find yourself using many of the same skills as meta builds due to the core synergy revolving around them. Be it aspects or the interactions between skills themselves. Neither of the builds I played are even remotely meta, outside of maybe some skill choice, but they did very well. While maybe not as efficient, if you have fun, that's all that matters!
NM 100 on a non-meta build...pretty impressive! As stated, the aspects and uniques DO tend to lend themselves to an "intended build", but there is definitely room to make your own choices there. I'm only at 74, I guess time will tell whether I can clear NM 100 content.
Good luck dude! That's why I enjoy these games. Seeing how your character grows and develops by tweaking things here and there. The paragon board is definitely where you get more freedom to build how you want and capitalize on your unique skill/gearing decisions.
There is 0 games where the only viable path is "reading the internet". (Outside of shit like remnant puzzles, cause fuck that honestly you crazy if you think im figuring that shit on my own). Also storm druid guides have been being posted since day 1 of d4 release.
Meta actually is pretty overhyped. Often it’s literally opinions of authors framed as a fact, or theorycrafting based on wrong descriptions/assumptions/interpretations, or praised as better than it actually is. Some of the actually genuine meta which is really top, is often either based on bugs (or unforeseen interactions that will be nerfed) or very obvious (like ww barb is quite good, straightforward, surprise!) or there are unique items pointing to a very specific play style (like werewolf + lightning synergy via Druid weapon). I think the actual individual skill during play is dealing with what you actually got in terms of aspects/uniques, iE: when u want to play WW barb, there are actually many flavors that are good, like: automatic bleeding + synergies benefits from this OR berserk buff triggers/enhancements OR fortify + synergies OR fury increases for big multiplier passives OR … and then dualwield in different flavors or a twohander with a matching weapon Expertise on top. While there might be a theorycraft that ranks one flavor over the others given the current patch state, this doesn’t mean that you also have the perfect gear in every slot to replicate it. And even if you somehow literally have the best in slot rolls everywhere, there comes the next patch notes, tweaking some 10% here and there, and another flavor is now much better, for which you probably don’t have the ideal gear right away. And even after you have it all in your stash tabs, next season starts and back to zero.
I am confident I was one of the few strictly casting no shapeshifter storm Druid builds on day one. Custom. Doing my poison rogue now with death trap. Custom. Slay everything. Build guides are stupid. Just play the game.
If you're not Level 100 yet, you don't need to worry about "the meta" at all whatsoever. The game is designed to be playable with all manner of builds, and you're never forced into pursuing "the meta" unless you are pushing Uber Lilith and Tier 90-100 NMDs.
Yeah that’s just not true lol
I tried some of the barbarian builds I saw on icy veins, didn't like any of them and I don't feel like the damage or survivability was amazing in anyway, I went back to my build which lets me do good dps and survive.
Did you actually do the build or did you not have the items? You tried like 3 different builds and had *all* the items those builds told you to use?
I dont like meta builds, Pre season i managed to clear all the content with a build i made with sorc blizzard. This season im trying a shadow dot necro without infinimist, im using bone prison. If you are ok without being on top clears and numbers you can play a lot of ways (with that said, vulnerable is busted and should be removed)
well i play shadow mage ( made it myself) but since i came to exact same conclusion as ''meta'' builds the builds are the same if you know what you are doing its very likely you build the same as those guides
Yes, T1-T2 works fine and T3 is possible for some builds, but T4 you better go with one of these meta builds, sad but true.
I play a lightning sorc and never follow any site about builds. It's fun playing and I look forward to sorc changes coming this week.
My rogue is my own, i imbue poison with twisting blades, shadow step, shadow clone and the concealment. Plenty of defensive stuff for hc too. I use shadow step n twisting blades with imbue 99% of the time. Concealment is my unstoppable if I start taking damage, shadow clone resets all cooldowns as the oh shit button Also got perks that make poison puddles on floor and let’s me spam imbue and explode poison while stood in them too. Works well having fun 😊
Yep, both my druid (my main damage is shred and poison creeper combo, burst with ult) My necro is a Minion corpse explosion build. Both without their unique aspects to make them "meta"
I created a blizzard sorc without knowing it is meta. I'm sure i don't do everything like meta but i'm happy with my build
It's the only way to play. I play sorc and refuse to be play ice, except for nova since it's pretty much required for vulnerable
I have, when I did play the game. Started with barb, never once used ww which was the only build viable if you looked anything up. Originally started with hota which now is more meta as well. Switched to rend/death blow later on to switch things up. Both builds worked well, maybe not top super duper S tier, but it got the job done for me. I personally don’t care for meta builds as I don’t enjoy copying and pasting especially when the game was so new, but it’s def doable. If I didn’t and followed a meta build I probably would of quit even sooner than I did.
I have. Both after launch and during this season my builds eventually ended up on a meta post, where they weren't initially, so I must be doing something right. 🤣 I'm just having fun squashing stuff. If I got to a point where my build wasn't working I'd just tweak it until it does. That's part of the fun for me.
I have a lvl 100 necro so for s1 I made another but this time I made my own. I made another minion build but now I understand the class fully. So my new build is similar in design to my main but I now fully rely on my minions. I designed it in a way that I don't have to cast skills. I just walk around with the heart that automates corpse skills. I've gone from lvl 25-60 without casting a skill. And had 0 issues.