What you’ve described is not a diversity, it’s just a number of possible, “good”, builds that every ARPG has. If by diversity you mean just a bigger number than D3/Chaosbane than yeah, okay. But I think that diversity means a plenty of options that do possible to make ANY build works.
Than what Experimental affix of Ward per missing health is inteded for? Just a Healing Hands Paladin? Only one build? Is that a diversity? I just don’t understand that.
Here: Last Epoch Builds - only 3 builds, one with Reaper Form, one with Ghost Flame both don’t use Ward per missing health, and only one with this Experiment affix uniques and still in progress since 2021 0.8.2.
Again, are we talking about a number of possible builds or about a number of options that do possible to make ANY build works? There is a difference!
I’m not sure where this question came from. 
That experimental affix can be used with any class and any skill setup.
But just because the experimental affix exists, it doesn’t mean you have to use it and have no other defensive layer.
It also doesn’t mean that you have to use it in the first place. We have Life builds, Twisted Heart builds, Vessel builds, Armor builds, Block builds, Dodge builds, and probably others I’m less familiar with too 
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to see in the link. Last Epoch Tools doesn’t list ALL possible variants of ALL possible builds. People are making their own builds and not sharing them anywhere y’know?
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I think its more fair to say any build can unlock empowered monolith. A build clearing 300 with exalteds [T7, T6] is already challenging to get, even more so if we want to talk about the mythical Sealed Tier 3-4 affix on each item
I dont consider a perfected set of exalts to be reachable, same reason i dont say… well a build can clear 600, you just need 5 perfect rolled 24 roll weavers will items. As i do not think most people will farm enough to get a T20 item, i doubt they would even for a T6*3.
TlDR: i think its confusing. Just because exaltds are doable does not nec mean a build is viable for 300, even if its all exaltds. Clarification from devs would been great
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What?
T20 is a yellow item. An item with 4 affixes total, all T5 affixes. The kind of item you can get from lucky item roll at any vendor and forging it 
Are you telling me people don’t use the item Forge, or am I missing something here?
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first think about what you consider a ‘build’.
if your build does not include all the necessary capped resistances, capped reduced crit damage/avoidance as well as 2k+ armour, then its not a build, you have no defence.
as long as you dont die you will kill anything in the game, even if it takes you 30+ minutes to kill a boss.
defences come first, then damage with what ever you have left over.
as long as your defences are good, you will even go past 300 with rare items, but you need to know what stats to have on them.
a big problem i see is people using uniques and not actually seeing that they use low level base items, which means they have almost NO armour, which is a huge problem when people dont know how important that stat can be.
look at the armour
unique 8 armour Last Steps of the Living
common +185 Armor +(35% to 50%) reduced Bonus Damage Taken from Critical Strikes Citadel Boots
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Yeah, sure. You will be need a looot of ward retention, ward per second and a looot of health to make it really big so that ward per missing health can generate ward to not be drained in few seconds at 200 corruption by pack of pursuing mobs. And you can do that only by using two uniques and gloves with this Experimental affix. And it is still not enough. And you can’t make any armor because you have only Helm and need to be very lucky to farm Gloves with decent armor, and it still not enough, you will be able to get only 300-400 armor at best. Maybe dodge will help you? Nah, still not enough slots to place such affix to make any viable.
So yeah, with any class and any skills set, just as you said, sure.
As I said, the affix that can directly synergy only with Healing Hands. There are just no other ways to use it effectively.
You are talking about a number of possible builds not about a number of options to do possible to make some build viable. And this is not diversity, it’s just a number of builds. There is a difference, please, hear me!
My thoughts are that the wild gaps in difficulty depending on what mob types your echo rolls with need to get narrowed significantly before I’m even going to begin to care about Corruption as a gauge for whether a build is good or not.
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Having an arbitrary low-bar number does exactly squat to address balance. So what? If all builds can achieve 300c, does that mean everything is fine? Even though 75% can hit 600c, 30% can run 1000c, and 2 or 3 can run 2500c? No, the 300c number is completely useless, in terms of game balance. It sounds just like an arbitrary number, plucked from the heavens, to determine if a skill/build is viable… just if it can hit that 300c threshold… After that, it’s the Wild Wild West.
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That is diversity.
I also described it as having a variety of ways to make a “good” build.
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I have recently replied to another topic where the user also struggled in monos (although this was non-empowered), and his build was also using LL Ward. It seems to me like there is a pattern with builds that use LL Ward.
Players pick a LL Ward build to follow, but the build only showcases the final form where you have the required items + the Ward is already high enough + the DPS is already good enough so everything looks fine. But usually the early monolith phase isn’t showcased.
Players then get stuck at varying levels of difficulty, because they don’t have the required items for LL Ward, or don’t have the damage sources (or both).
I wonder if this is the case with @Beyorn1973 and @d4rw1n1s7 too.
The build you follow has Legendary Body Armor and Legendary Boots, right? Do you have them Legendaries too? That’s the pattern I just described (above, in this post).
You got jebaited by the final version of a build that does work, but right now your character uses the not-final version, which either barely works or just plain doesn’t work.
This is the buildmaker’s fault, as they didn’t properly explain how to get to the final form from zero. In cases like this, you should just start a topic in the class forums and ask for tips.
You need to be lucky? Hehe, no
You’re Lich, right? Then you simply vendor for rare items. These bases all have decent armor:
Burial Mask
Revenant Mask
Necropolis Helm
Profane Crown
You’ll also drop a ton of helmets just by running monos. Just set your filter to show you rare ones with min. 2x T2 affixes you want. Craft up to T20.
You can also run Soulfire Bastion at a Tier you’re comfortable with, and gamble for helmets there.
You can also directly buy good exalted gear for literally zero gold if you’re a member of MG.
You can grab a CoF prophecy for helmets, and that’s where a little luck will be involved, but you’re getting exalteds out of this.
Repeat the above steps for the rest of your gear:
- There’s up to 250 armor belt Praetorian Belt so belt + correct helmet base alone will land you in the 300-400 armor range you mentioned, BEFORE any +armor / +%armor affixes.
- There’s a + flat armor blessing, and a +% armor blessing.
- You can slap STR on
helmet, rings, glovesand relic(STR gives +% armor if you didn’t know).
PS: turns out STR on helmet and relic is only for Primalist and Sentinel
That way you can have lots of armor while still having free suffix slots for HP for your LL Ward setup. And this is just one example solution…
And as I said, any class can use it. In the same way your build is using it right now. I don’t need Healing Hands to make a LL Ward build after all…
I’ll give you an example using Healing Hands, since you keep mentioning it. So, let there be a build that uses Healing Hands as its main damage ability.
You have
- direct use Divine Bolt variant
- direct use Melee variant
- Channeled variant
- Smite procced variant
and more. I hope we can agree that this is diversity.
I can pick the ANY of those variants, and combine them with these Defensive setups:
- giga Ward from overhealing
- Ward from HP (Twisted Heart)
- Ward from HP regen (Vessel)
- Ward only from actual skill use
- Ward + Armor
- Ward + Dodge
- Ward + Block
- LL Ward
- Life + Armor
- Life + Dodge
- Life + Block
- Life + HP regen
- Life + HP regen + Vessel
Now, you combine ANY of the damage variants with ANY of the defense variants, and you get viable builds for this single skill. Some will be better, some will be worse, but all of these will clear 300c. Again, all of this is just ONE skill picked as an example out of MANY skills. That’s build diversity.
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@BroncoCollider This is a good point. I feel like sometimes I’ll just get an echo that is stacked with rare mobs that makes my build feel like is failing only to have the next few echoes be complete cakewalks.
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I don’t follow any builds, I’m on my way. It’s just not fun to follow someones build.
And you will be alone with the ward that can’t be restored at a critical moment, very clever. How about Chains of Uleros - Unique Noble Sash - Belt - Last Epoch Item Database so you can restore some ward instead of being alone with your ward?
And lose INT (Ward retention +4% if you didn’t know, and Spells scaling) or Damage, good one, yeah.
I’m already done this: No-life Lich without Reaper form
And here is my latest version of build: Lich, level 94 (Release / 1.0.5) - Last Epoch Build Planner
I’m already know that with Healing Hands you can do a lot of builds just with one node - Divine Barrier. What about Marrow Shards and Lich without Reaper Form? Do you know that decent damage can be achieved only with using Bone Splinters (not the node, but the skill) only? Where are the options?
Only with Smite. With great Cast Speed. With a lot of Health. With direct cast of Smite. Too many options, sure.
Do you know that Ward decays? The Vessel is an anlogue of ward per second. How do you think, how many Ward per second do you need to sustain Ward at 3-4K constantly with a decent regen of ward? Do you know why everyone use ward only if they can generate it? Maybe because only this way you can sustain it and be good with it?
Don’t know why you separate them because the only way to generate a decent amount of ward from Healing Hands is to use Divine Barrier. Synthesis Of Light and Guardian’s Chant is just additional buff to Divine Barrier and the Barrier needs to be allocated to allocate them, so…
With Divine Barrier, sure. In other ways the amount of ward will be enough for one hit at 200 corruption at best, just too inefficient.
Sentinel. With Dodge. Only if you use Rive with Sword and Weapon Specialist. In other ways too inefficient.
The Vessel. Yeah. With tiny amount of ward per second without ward retention and all other. Sure.
300 CORRUPTION. ANY WITH ANY. YEAH. 
Not even going as far as lots of rares is necessary either. The difference between having one “fill the screen with bullshit” mob type versus several in one echo is night and day.
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As always it’s somewhere in the middle. Not as diverse as Psojed makes it out to be, but not as bad as darwin makes it out to be. Some people need to chill, game isn’t perfect and not every game will be where you want it to be. Play if you like it, don’t if you don’t. Give your feedback and move on.
I’m also making my own build. I’ve already gone past 170c.
Correct. It’s okay, because LL Ward restores itself. The missing Health gets converted to Ward per Second.
No thanks. You see, that armor mitigation will be always active. So, the damage you would take, then refill with a potion, now doesn’t require drinking a potion, because armor reduces it at the start.
But more importantly, you want those belt suffixes for +HP and +hybrid HP.
Oh, you mean the INT that you don’t have on those unique rings? Or perhaps the INT you don’t have on those gloves?
Well guess what. Survivability > Damage. You don’t deal no damage when you’re dead.
Well, no wonder you’re having trouble clearing.
T9 amulet and T10 off-hand, that’s campaign level gear.
No, you can’t do any builds with just Divine Barrier.
Note I specifically said “Let there be a build that uses Healing Hands as its main damage ability”. It’s kinda important 
I haven’t looked at Acolyte as a class at all, so I can’t tell you what you can do with Marrow Shards.
No, not only with Smite, Healing Hands is elemental too. Yes, Cast speed helps for sure. Yes, high max HP is a requirement, same as for LL Ward builds. Yes, I believe directly casting Smite (to proc Healing Hands) is one of the variants I mentioned.
Going by the sentences…
Yes I do. Correct, just like the LL Ward setup. At 400% Ward retention (=100 INT), you need 400-540 WPS. Yes I do, because some Ward generating skills are busted. And no, you can “sustain it and be good with it” without generating Ward from skills.
Because one relies on the %Missing Health gained as Ward effect to generate absurd amounts of Ward, and the other does not. Feel free to think of them as the “pre-nerf” and “post-nerf” versions
No?
But let’s say you are correct for a moment, so one hit from a boss is dangerous right? So, simply avoid that one hit, problem solved right?
I did say some builds will be worse than the others.
However, you thinking a build version is inefficient doesn’t prevent anyone from going out there and making it. If someone wants a HH Dodgedin, go for it!
Not sure why you assumed there wouldn’t be ward retention
That’s right!
This was true at one point. Sadly the release is rushed and while LE is a game with nice foundations and systems in place it is still a monumental construction site. the release was rushed and unpolished and with the ammount of powercreep that is now in the game there is no coming back from this.
In the past they literly gutted OP builds into oblivion and called it balancing to keep the game in a meaningfull state when it comes to player power vs difficulty of he game.
Right now we are making big steps towards D3 levels of stupid when it comes to player power and it’s a realy dissapointing situation for me. I would LOVE if they nerf the builds so they met their 300C benchmark stance and not allowing builds to run 10x the ammount of it.
It’s np if some builds struggle at 250 and others do 400 because there is never such a thing as perfect balance but what we have here right now is a clusterfuck and proof how rushed the 1.0 release was. If this was a game by aother dev studio of the genre people would’ve roasting the game back and forth and all they way arround but intrestingly this isn’t happening here for whatever reason.
On the other hand the devs play it smart and are used to poletician talk and tell us a lot without making statements to hold them accountable to. This isn’t better or worse then what Blizz is doing but only on a smaller scale.
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FWIW, I’m currently working on a challenge to see how far I can make it with:
-Melee build
-No ward
-Only using free gear 0g from Bazaar
-Only allowed to buy Idols at 20k gold or lower
Currently, just past 712 Corruption, haven’t slowed down yet but I think I will stall in the 800s.
If a non-meta build wearing welfare gear can comfortably do 700s, 300 as an endgame benchmark is a joke.
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Ok, I’m not going to lie. Anyone with that build and items has no business talking about build diversity. You need to get better before having an opinion on how the game lacks build diversity. Because that build shows how little you know about the game 
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