How is one supposed to design their own builds as a semi-casual player?

My approach has always been "well lets see how far I get this time" and try to slowly learn where I can improve when I inevitably hit a wall at some point.

Even if you don't follow guides I would at least take a look at them to try and pick out some core mechanics that look fun to you. It can be a useful way to spark some ideas and you can use that as a jumping off point for your own builds rather than a 100% own build if you struggle a little to begin with.

For myself I am just realistic with my expectations, I am never going to worry any league tables or be pushing the ranks but I am fine with that. I am quite happy to just plod along at my own pace and see what I can achieve each time I run a character through the game.

Even if I don't reach end game mapping or whatever I don't think I am wasting my time as I enjoy the base game experience. So as long I have fun and learn as I play then it is all good with me.

I always set some thresholds for my builds, used to be normal atziri a long time ago, now it is guardians without getting rekt.

The threshold normally is with hit points and dmg for that certain content I want to clear, the bare minimum for guardians is 200k unbuffed dps (approx 2min of facetanking to kill them), and the life is around 8k with purities because volatiles were fixed in 3.0, but I bet 10% xp on the corpse explo totems/mobs are still going to blow me up from offscreen pretty often once I get into really high level maps.

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Arrowneous wrote:

...unless the OP or me or anyone want to play PoE and successfully create endgame viable builds it means investing many, many hours of serious studying of game mechanics and build theory plus plenty of trial and error of skill + gear + passive tree + curses + auras combinations to understand what works and what doesn't work.

Unless... what? You didn't finish that thought.

However, I think I understand where you're going with this. Yes, there is an investment of time for learning the mechanics of everything and evaluating choices to make a new build. That's part of the fun for me. I started PoE with my first character by following a build guide, and I didn't learn anything other than how to play PoE. After that I always make my own builds, and I've learned quite a bit. I probably spend around 4 hours before each league planning my next build, tweaking it, and tweaking it some more before even testing it.

So are you arguing that making a good PoE build shouldn't take hours of planning?

If that's the case, might as well go play D3.

Well, to be honest. The topic is divided in basically two parts:
1. Player's understanding of mechanics + end game mechanics.
2. Player's experience with these mechanics.

In order to start playing the game, there is a lot to learn, about recipes, crafting, gem system, various types of gems, the way damage converted and EHP works, of how different specific build mechanic works like full ES or full Life, what uniques are there and the combos they might produce, DoT skills and so on. It's not a necessity however, but it's required to be able to figure out how it all works and put those together.

I won't say for anyone else, but I followed various builds reading descriptions and logic authors provide, looking up gems they use, items they equip, mechanics those are based upon to figure out how is this working out together. It saved me a lot of time to play with these builds and see how they work out, also providing me with understanding which type of character appeal to me.
As most others, back at CBT I made my first character without much of a thought, simply to check the game. It punished me hard and I won't say analyzing that mess would help me much. :)

Thanks to POESkillTree it is a lot easier today to make builds and see the impact of your passive choices.

The thing is basically, to move this path on your own, as a pure Exile. ;) You do really need to spend hundreds of hours training new characters, creating skill trees and picking up gems and items. I have to admit, I'm not young enough to have these amounts of free time. :|

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TheShinigami wrote:

I have to admit, I'm not young enough to have these amounts of free time. :|

Neither am I, in my 40s. ;-) But I do manage some time to invest in PoE and enjoy every minute of it.

I am a semi-casual player and I don't have issues.

I use:

A) My imagination.
B) Little bit of math.
C) Try and try again with the ability to learn.
D) I don't keep up with the jones' like the guy above me, you will ruin your fun like that as he points out.

I usually pick a weapon type, then choose a fun looking skill, and have at it trying to build around it. I evolve my portfolio of characters. Some work well, some don't.

My holy grail atm, I am trying to make a Dual wield Claw Wildstriker, it is a work in progess over the last few leagues. Think long term.

I regularly get up to guardians even if I don't regularly kill them in leagues with off the wall builds WITHOUT following any guides.

I have played POE for years now and never once followed a guide.

My advice to you:

Pick class/weapon type. Choose a skill it utilizes. Build around it and don't forget suitable primary defense (life or ES). Layer a secondary defense (Block is my favorite, but armor/eva or whatever you want). Include a movement skill to dodge things (Whirling blades, leap slam, blink arrow etc).

Ask yourself if you are having fun. If yes, continue, if no, start over. If you can't seem to have fun, then try a different game, POE is not for the weak.

You can't design any of your own builds if you're not a veteran as you'd just be dragging yourself down.

It's amazing how many people react adversely against the notion of being sub-optimal when starting something new on their own.

@op mistake after mistake. That's how everybody before you did it.

I don't fully comprehend this notion of being efficient while wasting your time on a video game.

Well that's not really accurate, i like efficiency myself, but i never forget i am still wasting my time on this for fun's sake and nothing more.

Peace,

-Boem-

Ive never followed a build guide, always made my own builds since day 1 of open beta back when the game was harder than it is now, a crap build today can clear content as fast and safely as a good build could back then. Just play the game and have fun.


If the question is: why cant I be an expert player with little time and knowledge investment?

the answer is: because this is a good game.


spend less time reading idiots on the forum bitching and being negative about time investments, costs and the hardships of casual players and more time actually playing the game and reading about how stuff works. If you want to get somewhere that would be a good start.