I know it’s early but I’m very disappointed in the build variety of barbarians so far. It’s shout builds only because anything else is too weak to compete. Even found the unique chain pull axe but giving up a shout on the bar is simply not worth it. Anyway with the start of the first season I’d like a class with some variety to play around with different builds. Any recommendations?
Druid has decent variety, but it depends on what sort of comparisons you are making. For pushing the very highest of NM-dungeons there is going to be less variety, in all classes.
Yeah but for a lot of us that isn’t the most important. But something to keep in mind for sure.
Yeah but I think that’s where the difference is. What is build diversity? Even if there are a “best build for X” (pvp, NM dungeons, open world content) - likely those will be different builds, and thus you have achieved build diversity.
So its about what perspective we take when we talk about build diversity. Is it to have several builds that can do X content at the highest level from one class? is it for builds to do several avenues of content at a high competetive level?
Definitely. From what I can tell it’s about being able to play more than one spec the main activities of choice. Which for 9/10 people is PvE.
There’s always one top build for solo pushing and that’s fine but on the way there I’d like to switch it up sometimes. Maybe have some unique drop and build something around that. At some point a unique 2h sword for bleed builds dropped but the skill/weapon effect is so weak and clunky that it simply isn’t worth it. Not even close. That’s what I’m trying to avoid.
I play rogue and I think there’s like a decent amount of viable builds. Im running barrage with poison and ice that’s a lot of fun. I started with pen shot/shadow which was also cool. Then of course there’s the twisting blades rogue.
You might consider sorc? You can try out different elements or combinations of them, though I’m not sure how many of them are viable.
For season 1 I’m gonna play necro for the minions. Maybe I’ll start with bone spear/blood since ive heard bone spear is very strong and blood skills are satisfying to use.
I settled on Rogue too, after playing around with Druid and Barb. Running a flurry with poison build at the moment and enjoying it. Problem I have is there’s almost too many ways to be effective, whether you want to do ranged or melee
Haven’t played much of necro get, saving that for season 1 as well so feels fresh.
I’ve mostly played Druid but on my first Rogue atm. Made the jump to hardcore after reaching lvl 56 on softcore and the whole game got a lot deeper and a lot more interesting! Died three times so far. Very limited playtime. I’m loving it! :)
Sorc is even more limited than barb specially with endgame in mind.
Every Sorc build is teleport, Nova, ice armor, flame shield + x.
Even if your spells look different you pretty much playing around the same loop in every build.
Rogue is actually top of my list so far with Necro as a close second. Sorc looks neat too but I already heard they got similar issues with many mandatory skills. To a certain degree that’s always a thing but I’d like more than 1 button to change between builds.
Druid has the most viable builds.
I am current playing HotA-barb with no shouts at all. Is it optimal? I don’t know, most likely not. Works for me though.
I actively avoid following guides etc, because it’s to easy to optimize the fun out of the game. Most likely there will always be the „best“ build, even if only mathematically. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Played ww barb at start but i found it a bit boring so i tried a bleed build and was okayish in solo. Not so much fun when i played with friends and saw how much dmg they deal. After switching back to ww it’s so much better, also i would like to experiment more without feeling completely weak.
I have the same issue with my Sorc. All of the viable builds are the same with one or two details changed
Do you want to take all the defensive skills and ice shards? Or all the defensive skills and blizzard? :P
So basically Shout barb with different whirlwinds. Cool.
Do you want a shout barb with HotA? Or a shout barb with Whirlwind? :P
That’s a bummer. I played sorc during beta and it was a lot of fun but any build gets boring over time so it’d be so much better to have multiple viable builds that actually feel different.
“Shout builds” aren’t a thing, since all shouts are support skills. There isn’t anything like the Singer/War Cry Barbarian from D2.
You’re right that the skill system in D4 tends to homogenize builds due to powerful cooldown skills though. Sorc has the same exact issue, where you keep the same 4 cooldown defensive skills in every build.
The class with the most skill diversity overall is Rogue I think, although there are still several skills with next to no use at the moment. Rogue at least has lots of options for Core skill/spender, and a variety of play styles (melee, ranged, traps).
I’ve played around with rogue and sorc so far. The two do feel different to one another, but within them - feels like you have “defensive melee sorc” and “squishy sorc” and both play almost identically. Rogue is either melee zip zap or mid range zip zap. Both play heavily around maintaining cc.
It feels like there’s a whole skill slot missing. Or some skills/passives need a bigger buff to allow for more utility options. Basic skills being kinda meaningless, you can either have one to press to feel like you are doing something or you run around for 2 seconds not pressing anything if you take an actual skill instead.
Like sure, you can take combo points and auto attack three times… Which feels bad because the skill itself does basically nothing.Granted I have some pretty solid life per second but my firewall sorc at 60 can nearly stand still and my heath barely moves , I’ve been enjoying it.
This is my hesitation with barb too. HotA is solid, leapquake is fun, and Fatal Blow is satisfying, but upheaval looks dumb and I don’t like ww or bleeds.
Compared to the sheet build variety of druid, that’s not a lot of variety, though to be fair a lot of the high performing builds rely on 2+ uniques (tempest, crone, waxing gibbous, vasily’s) to really function.
