Discuss your unorthodox/almostuseless/crazy/shouldn'tworkbutdoes builds/play styles here!

Awesome post!!

I have build some of my characters in a similar way. Sometimes using a play-style of an other game and try to get the same feel in this game.

For example; year's ago I used to play this game called Maplestory, I had a lot of fun in this game with a character called a "Chief Bandit". This character was a higher level using the skill "savage blow" which is a single target attack that rapidly throws 6 attacks on a single enemy very quickly. This was it's main skill.
For AoE it was using a skilled called "Bandit of thieves", if you attack an enemy, up to 5 extra thieves will spawn and attack mobs around it (one attack per thieve).
The mobility skill was called "Assaulter" and this made the character move quickly through an enemy, while doing a massive amount of damage while stunning the enemy for a short duration.
Also, this class was labeled as a thief and was using a high amount of dodge, movement speed and attack speed.
Best defensive tool was called "Meso Guard", it reduced up to (iirc) 40% of the damage taken and was converted to your "mesos" (the currency in the game)

SO I went to work in this game. A few skills can directly be translated into Path of Exile, such as whirling blades (Assaulter), dual-strike/double-strike + multistrike (Savage Blow), cyclone (Savage blow, although cyclone is an AoE ability) or even dual strike + multistrike + melee splash (to create a combination of savage blow + bandit of thieves).

Using haste & grace auras to get the real "Thief" play style, stacking up an ability that is similar to "meso guard" (such as immortal call, lightning coil, mind over matter etc.)


I had a blast making this character. It was for me a great success trying out different ideas how to create a similar experience as my old Chief Bandit. I played the game about 7 years ago, but still gave me great inspiration for Path of Exile.

I had many more characters I created in a similar way to this or to charan's way. Having a simple idea that comes entirely out of Path of Exile and try to make it work your own way is one of the most satisfying experience.

You're not alone. I like making themed characters a lot. Although I often remake a character or create a different one when I discover my build reaches end game and can't deal with the content efficiently. This does not lessen my playing experience, though, and I enjoy restarting and replaying the game from different angles. Discovering interesting new play styles that match different themes.

Most of my character themes rely around ranged combat, because I like to imagine that if I was ever exiled to Wraeclast I would want distance between myself and my enemies.

During race events I usually ignore themes and create things that will let me push to the top quickly. I race for points, so I can get the rewards. Not to relish the world and my character.

The name of my character usually plays a big role in what my character's theme is, although I might name it just for the character class itself. (Dilettante for a scion, as an example. The definition fits the Scion's jack of all trades but master of none theme very well. Another example may be Annulment for a templar or witch, either for the religious order's piety or the latter's energy shield and chaos innoculation).

I generally find one or two uniques or skill gems that I find interesting and, well, for lack of a better word, unique. While some times I do make builds based off of popular item choices, I find myself drawn to things no one bothers to use yet (which may be easier, to be honest; paying multiple ex for a few high demand uniques instead of a few chaos hits my savings harder).

As an example, I'm currently theory-crafting a build using Asphyxia's Wrath and Hrimsorrow. I won't be able to implement it yet, since I have been unsuccessful as Vaal orbing these items, but the idea is to get either 1% of cold damage leeched as life or 20% of physical damage converted to cold damage on the quiver. The gloves I'll need curse enemies with elemental weakness on hit. Then I will have 45-65% of phys converted to cold. As a single-target skill I will use ice shot with cold penetration, and AoE will be split arrow (again, with cold penetration). I might even use hatred to add further cold damage, and make it a crit build to freeze entire mobs.

That whole idea came to mind when I saw that none of the bows in the game deal high amounts of cold (regarding uniques). That, coupled with the unpopular skill of ice shot over other skills.

I have other themed builds (like a "hellfire" firestorm witch that uses The Three Dragons) and could go on for days, but I'm already digressing.

Yes; I agree with your sentiments Charan. Creating new characters renews my interest and love for Path of Exile, and the fact that I can do anything I want with any class (Mage marauder? Two-handed melee witch? Sure things!) probably means I will continue to create (and recreate) new characters for a long time to come.

I want to post something longer to this and I will likely come back and edit this later however before I went to bed I wanted to post some thoughts of mine. These may seem a bit bitter but, deal with it.
This game, largely won't let me play the kind of game that I want to play. I'd really hate to drag PoE net code into a cool thread like this but I have to change the way I want to play almost every time I make a character. That is because I like to play fast and tactical. I cannot do this in PoE because nothing on my screen matches what is really happening the majority of the time.
This isn't a major issue on lower difficulties since you won't get instantly one shot but unlike Charan, I like to push my characters into maps and that is when I get increasingly frustrated at all the concessions I need to start making on my design to avoid getting one shot because something was actually somewhere else on my screen.

That said, I have a similar play style in most games. I tend to care more about the thematic nature of the character than trying to 'win' the game the fastest and easiest way. I'll come up with a character design, or perhaps pick a particular subset of skills and make a character around them. Always though, I want to stick to whatever design I had in mind, no matter how inefficient it may seem at the start. The goal becomes making it as efficient as I can without sacrificing the core goal of the character.
I should add again that I very often need to start making huge concessions because of the design philosophies of PoE that involve insane levels of spike damage and a lot of passive defenses.

I also hate late blooming characters. If my character isn't at least mostly doing what I wanted them to do by lvl. 20-25, I am going to start getting very annoyed. I am not one of those people who can rock Searing Bond for 70 levels and then 'spec into my character'.

Another aspect of how I've wanted to play lately has been something I have been harassing my lazy bones guild members about. A bit of friendly guild competition in which someone selects a handful of skill gems, any number really, and everyone builds a character around them. Afterward, we can compare notes as to how each of our little adventures turned out.
I just really like the idea of handing a bunch of people a pile of pieces and seeing what each person makes with them. If you handed Charan a dozen skill gems, the character he'd turn out would almost certainly be a world apart from the one that I would.*

Charan has the right philosophy though. That kind of approach is a great way to extend the life of this game. I used to create far more alts than I do now. I actually feel really bad that I've mostly only played two characters this league. However, I haven't felt especially inspired by newer skill additions. I really need to get off my ass and do something about that. I just still find the early game...so dull. Probably why the 2 week race was so fun, nice and fresh.
This post is ranty and poorly edited, and I am tired. Bed time now, edit this mess later.





*Mine would be more awesome

Johnny/Spike Melvin. It has to clear the game to my satisfaction and preferably do something unusual mechanics-wise. Or at least fun. Efficiency while maintaining the play style, that's where it's at.

It's why I considered my flickermulti and doublestrike completely different builds, even though I basically did a straight gem swap on one character.

Fantastic post, and I would say that I usually create based on concept around 75% of the time, and 25% creating to min/max. Sometimes it is to recreate a character from another game, and sometimes I build a character concept around a specific skill gem. The latter can take multiple characters before certain things start to click together (trying different skills and supports, different trees, etc).

I don't really build around themes so much. But I always play with skills because I enjoy them, and not because they're considered good by the community's standards. As such, I've made four different freeze pulser variants and leveled them into the 80s and 90s despite freeze pulse being a somewhat underwhelming skill. I've never tried spec throw or a dagger build because they just don't appeal to me, even though I know I could afford these builds and destroy the game a lot more efficiently.

I have always wondered if normal ST will be an ok skill if it did not have "multiple projectiles" support and just plain damage, using hit-and-run with Crits

now I have a telepathic Duelist, shoots 1 to 2 blades to shoot at enemies hiding in blind corners.

He now feels like a Sith dark lord, specially when I use Vaal ST. This one is more satisfying with GMP, spiralling around me.

So I guess as long as I can do some damage, I would concentrate more on the look :)

Now I wish we had a Crimson Skin for ST.

Funny you'd mention Sith lords. I actually had one on the go, and again, it was based entirely off something I observed almost randomly.

I was goofing around on a marauder, and at some point I cast a spell while wielding a two-handed sword. The animation is ridiculously badass: he switches the sword to one hand, pushes the other hand out and then the spell fires.

I just had to try this with Arc and a Crimson-mtxed two-hander, to see if I could create a Sith Lord. The Arc had knockback, Iron Will and Life Leech, with the marauder himself being all blood magic based with those knockback nodes and whatever else. I'm a strange fan of Doedre's Tenure early on as well, since it can enable OHKO spell casting.

This was before the Arc buff, so it wasn't very good. I think I got him to mid 40s before Cruel Alira ate him for breakfast.

After the Arc buff, I revisited the concept, and created my current Arc user: a low-life, crown-of-thorns, dual red-beak Arc Marauder. He can handle merciless fellshrine with ease, so he's doing a lot better than my poor abandoned Sith Lord.

My boyfriend and I like making weirdo builds that are unplayable solo but make 1 + 1 = 7.