How many of you have started on some build idea only to realise while leveling that it in general just feels better to drop a certain aspect of the build to focus on something else?
Like i had started a forge-guard Reflect Manifest Armour build only to find out i should most likely drop the reflect part and use Forge Strike so i have Manifest Armour and Manifest Weapons to simply overrun my enemies…
Usually i start new chars/build to use a specific unique or i want to use a specific skill combination.
I usually don’t plan out the whole build in advance. I only set myself 1 or 2 “core pillars”, like i want to use skill X and Y, the rest i will experiment with.
Since i am very familar with almost all aspects of the game, i rarely do a 180° change, except for builds wherei reached endgame and i just don’t like them.
But even than i will start a new char most of the time instead of respeccing
I usually level the same with most builds depending on the class, then when I hit End of Time I will start to experiment with ideas/interactions I think are interesting by going to Arena and leveling. After I find something that has a good baseline I will start to expand on it and gear for it. I only make small tweaks from then on. It’s like a funnel process for me.
I am the same as Heavy in regard to if the build starts to fail later on. I will just quit that character and move on to the next. I spend the majority of my time in arena. So I guess I sorta do it often, leveling the skills over and over with different variations in the beginning.
Rarely, unless I’m trying to make leveling easier.
I always extensively research what builds are meta (mainly to avoid anything that will get nerfed, I avoid A tier or S tier builds as much as possible), what skills look interesting, and what skills to avoid (too weak and/or too boring).
When I’m leveling/farming, I also make sure to collect basic gear for other archetypes of a given class so that I can relatively painlessly switch to a different setup if a specific build I’m playing gets hit by the nerf hammer.
I usually dont change my build during the campaign phase… If I really dont like a skill then I’ll swap it out for something but for the most part the campaign (up to level 60) is easy so you dont really need to have an ideal build to enjoy it.
MoF - is where I start changing builds heavily. Mainly because you begin to notice the deficiencies of your build - which were not a problem before - that make it difficult to progress… Everything from gear not matching skills to skills not synergising with each other to passives that are simply wrong choices… I have a VK on level 98 and I figure I have changed it from scratch (cleared all passives, all skills) at least 20 times.
Really kind of depends on where I’m at with a character.
If they’re lower level (really anything below lvl 75, where lvling is pretty fast still and gear doesn’t really have any major investment) I’ll mess around with, swap out skills and just experiment. For example, my last pally went through testing Judgement, Hammer throw and several other options just to test how they perform compared to what he had been using, focusing each around ignites, when he was around lvl 75, eventually settling.
But if I have a character where I’ve spent a lot of time focusing/crafting gear, if I get to the mid to late lvl 80’s and find it just isn’t working, I’ll typically just restart a new character (or if I get bored, which also happens). Major switch-arounds don’t feel good to me because I tend to develop muscle memory while playing a character, and abrupt changes kind of don’t gel well with me, so I tend to just start over.
I usually have a clear idea of what I’m testing out or wanting to experiment with, since I have well over 400 hours in the game I’m relatively familiar with it, and I also only play SSF to add a bit of challenge to it, so those are all variables to keep in mind too.
My plan doesn’t change too much while leveling. I don’t really know what I have while leveling. It’s much later before I usually know whether it works for me.
I pretty much have a good plan going into building a new character but if I don’t reach a good bit of damage or surivability around when I am at Lagon’s temple I will drop a build. Normally that is the place where you know your going to survive maps after or not. Lagon’s temple you will most likely get hit a lot and have to have decent single target and aoe clear so it’s a good place to judge where a build going to make the cut. It’s also the perfect length of time for me to judge if a build is fun mechanically and/or I like the animations enough to look at it for another couple of days.
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