How do people change their builds? (Beginner here)

Hey guys, have a noob question. If I choose a build to level with, obviously I'll follow a certain passive skill tree. If I want to change my build at endgame, do people change their entire skilltree with Orb of Regrets or what? Confused how this works. Feel free to whisper me - sorry to spam!

For example, if I want to level with a 2h cyclone build but lategame I want to dual fire totem - how does one go about this?
Obviously the gear you can change etc, but what about the passive skill tree?

Thanks.

Additionally, if there's anyone who considers themselves experienced in this game and builds - is there any chance I can add you in-game to throw some questions at you when you're free?

Firstly I want to state that this game revolves around rerolling; making multiple characters.

But if you do want to change your skill tree later on, you need passive skill refund points which can be gotten either from quests or by consuming regret orbs. But that can be costly.


Regret orbs look like this:



It is a RPG where your choices matter. So it is not meant to be easy to just change your skill tree like that.

People tend to use Spells for leveling so they don't need to find constand weapon upgrades. A Spell's damage is mostly based of it's level and the support gems. The leveling build also depends on the class you play. For example:
If I play Witch or Templar I will have most likely no problems to grab all the Increased Area of Effect nodes. I spend a few points to get there even if I will have to respec these points later on (remember that the Quests will grant you 18 free respec points). The AoE nodes now enable all sorts of Spells: Magma Orb, Glacial Cascade, Flameblast, Firerain, ...
Pick whatever you like the most and stat playing (most people will chose a Spell with a high Damage Effectiveness). I start with Added Cold and Added Lightning Damage in Act 1. Once in Act 2 I get Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder. I would dual wield Wands with Spell Damage and flat Elemental Damage added to Spells or Sceptres with Increased Elemental Damage.
After Kaom and Daresso I pick up Spell Echo and Faster Cast. If I play a Elemental Based Spell I often use a Sceptre or Wand with +1 Level to Gems of this Element.

As a Shadow or Ranger I often get Projectile Speed and play Ethereal Kinves. Same procedure as above. I'm currently leveling a Crit Dagger build with Ethereal Knives. After picking up the Projectile Speed I got all my %Increased Critical Strike nodes (beside the dagger specific ones of course). As auras I run Hatred and HoT. I'm now level 62 and once I find a good dagger I will spec out of the projectile Speed and that's it.

A few more thoughts OP:

for most character build designs, a "leveling" build is really 90% identical to the final build. The variances are often in areas that help you along while you leveling. examples would be taking damage nodes close to your main path early on, but only enough that you can respec out of them with the respec points you are given through the course of the story, which is around 18 or so (can't remember exactly). So really it's only going to be a few small clusters.

As another example, Often when I'm leveling a bow build, I'll pick up run speed increases early on, then respec out of them once i start to get decent gear (a.k.a boots with run speed on them). that's around 4-8 points depending on where the nodes are, and easily within my "respec allowance".

Another example: when I was leveling an inferno build, i put some points early on into a few totem clusters and used a flame totem to aid my leveling. this was a total of 6 points out of the main build, which i respecced once I got high enough that the totem no longer mattered.

In both those circumstances, I payed close attention to the primary build, and looked around for nearby clusters that would aid my leveling in a way that I enjoyed. As Kahzin mentioned, your flexibility lies in skills more then your passives. in my Inferno example above, I pretty much ran with flame totem and firestorm through a large portion of my early levels. the spell damage and fire bonuses helped firestorm, and cycling between that and the totem was much less draining on my weak mana early in the game. once my gear caught up and my power levels were appropriate, I switched over to inferno.

that's one of the things i love about this game. It's more then just "playing" you need to be able to map out your build as it progresses, keeping in mind your limited respec points, and your ultimate goals with the build, as well as your needs early in the game.

So those are just a few tips for your next alt, which im sure you will be starting :D ... this game is all about alts. My first few characters I really don't even play anymore...they ended up being test beds for the builds I use now. they sit around holding gear and buying gems from vendors for my other toons.

I agree with everything said so far, but I do want to point out one thing (maybe considered by some to be an abusive thing).

If history is any indication, every major patch (4 months or so), there are large changes to the passive tree, and therefore a free full passive reset. So if you're lucky and time things right, and/or extremely patient (or busy in real life), you can easily switch specs D3-style one time. You would level as 2h cyclone up to your desired level a few days before a major patch, then wait for the major patch, then you can freespec your character to a completely different tree.

What I mentioned is really more trivia than anything else though. The realistic options are rerolling new characters, massively expensive amounts of Orbs of Regret, or having very similar leveling and endgame builds, as have all already been mentioned.

Thanks alot guys! That clears it up.
No I really like that you can't change trees and respect easily - that's what I loved about D2.

So when some has a build guide and states it's for 'non beginners' and is 'expensive' - the idea is to find all the items on another character, and reroll a new character to do the build on?