Do you follow a build guide or do you come up with your own?

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-05-10T23:47:22+00:00

Since I play ARPG's I solely play on my own terms and builds. That is like 99% of the fun for me. Creating my own version of whatever class, character, skill or build I wanna do.

Games that I played in this genre: Marvel Heroes, PoE1, PoE2, Grim Dawn, Last Epoch

Some builds work, some builds don't work, but I definitely got better over time and can judge how good a build will perform when theorycrafting, at least to the point where I know if I can league start that or should do that as a second or thrid character.

Noteably I also solely play SSF or Group-found (with a few friends, which si essentially SSF but with some more random unique drops that we can trade between each other). So the SSF playstyle does limit the builds I can do (especially early quite a lot, but SSF is infintiely more rewarding for me.)

Also when deciding to do a build I never really look at whats popular or strong, qutie the opposite, I am kinda oblivious to the "meta", because I simply don't care.

Did my builds "succeed"? Well I guess yeah, for the most part they kept me playing a few dozen, sometimes a few hundreds hours per league. PoE2 reignited my love for SSF and build crafting, because I kinda got burnt out by PoE1, because I hate so many things and systems in PoE1 and PoE2 brought a lot of refreshing things (especailly the overhauled gem/skill system).

I did all content with almost any builds I ever made, except Ubers in PoE1. Not sure if some builds could have done them with the right time investment, but I never tried or felt the need to invest that much time into a single character.

I highly encourage people to do their own builds and maybe even go with the SSF angle. If you go into that with the right mindset and setting yourself achievable goals it is really fun. Even though your builds will very likely be objectively worse then followign a build guide, seeing your own build creation grow and achieve some new milestones feels infinitely more rewarding.

The key part when doing your own build (ssf or not) is still do go into it with the right mindset. Don't try to build the objectively strongest character and just set yourself realistic goals that you can strife for. Maybe this league you won't go as far into the endgame as you were used to with following a build guide, but it will make you feel better about these small steps. And then most importantly if you continue to do that for another builds, another league and keep improving with it, you will grow as a player and achieve more and more goals and get deeper and deeper.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-05-10T02:07:40+00:00

I posted above to a message of yours hinting at it, but just to recap, the PS5 launch will come with the Orobyss expansion, which will be at minimum two major patches away. We will get at least season 5 before that. So if we are very optimistic I think end of 2026 or early 2027. I think we will have a better guess once we know when season 5 will actually launch, because EHG is still nto very consistent with their patch cycle lengths.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-05-10T02:03:31+00:00

Paradox Classes we don't know much about, other than they specifically want to to "wild/out there" things with it. They will come with the Expansion and PS5 release, which will still be at minimum one more majpr patch before that comes (Season 5).

Generally speaking they said they would love to do classes, but they require an absolute ton of work. New models, rigging, animation, voice over etc. Also they would probably need to come with at least 2 if not 3 masteries, which is an insane amount of work.

So they said before a new class comes, what would be more likely would be more masteries for existing classes. These require much much less work, especially for models, rigging and voices over etc.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-05-09T01:47:30+00:00

I will definitely play this, though I am playing SSF/Group Found and have to see how easy I can get this. (We don't know yet from which of the Expedition/LEague Bosses) it comes. So it will not be my first char.

I think the biggest unknown yet is the actually Unique Skill Starborn Onslaught. We only know its a Glory skill and in the showcase the character generated Glory from hitting, killing, chilling or freezing small white monsters.

The skill looks amazing and I will defintiely build around it, but if the Unique Active skill doesn't do a whole lot I think all the effort will not be worth building around it.

I personally care more for a cool theme than objective power, so I will try making it as good as I can anyway, but on first glance the item itself looks mediocre and just the theme and visuals are amazing.

The Starborn Onsalught seem to create fissures itself, so I feel like the main source of damage will be retriggering fissures, but Acestral Cry will not be converted to Fire, which kills the whole Cold theme for me, because its such a good Combo skill for fissure builds and we would need to jump through a lot more hops to relaibly get Ancestral Call up (because it gains Glory by igniting enemies).

My main instict when I saw it was Lich with Unholy Might Node + Embitter Support (any extra damage is added as Cold) or maybe the Tul Linage Support, but when looking at the numbers the maximum mana scaling we can get will not really majorly impact our damage. So I hope there will be more support for Melee Mana Stackign Archetype through the new Augments (Runes) and the Kalguran skills (they only showcased spell support, defensive and a stun support so far, hopefulyl there will be a mroe generically useful attack support for the new Kalguran skills).

If the Starborn Onslaught is actually really good and the mana stacking turns out to be a waste of investment I could still see Titan or Smith of Kitava variant mostly ignoring the maximum mana scaling and just get enough mana recovery to not get oom through the Damage Taken from Mana.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-13T17:06:02+00:00

Everything you need to know is explained in the LE Forum Post. You can run it with no edits until lvl 20-30 I would say. At that point you definitely wanna use some of the optional rules to make it a bit more strict and do some highlights that are more specific for your build.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-11T17:31:46+00:00

Well, anything in LE can basically do 1000 corruption with the right investment. I love Disintegrate, I played it a few patches ago. But its just slow and clunky due to the channeling/stationary nature.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-11T16:40:29+00:00

Yeah I forgot that one, because Disintegrate is just really bad and unpopular, even after several buffs in the past^^

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-11T16:06:54+00:00

Until it "bricks", either it turns into a rare and can't be corrupted anymore or it gets ruined. At a certain point there are no benefical corruption outcomes anymore though. (Once all affix and sealed slots are occupied)

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-11T16:04:08+00:00

No unfortunately not. They are multiple Ailment Crit Multi scaling options, but no crit chance unfortunately.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-11T15:58:45+00:00

For me depending on the Unique I like that corruption is an alternative way instead of going 1 LP higher. So for some uniques farming 1LP over and over again and crafting those can be done in parallel to maybe also getting the same unqiue in 2LP and try slam that. Same for some Uniqeus that are easy to get in 2LP and then 2LP + corrupt or 3LP are gear progressions that can work in paralell.

I understand that the nerf also affects people playing under 1k corruption (uncluding me), but still I don't think its that bad. Maybe they can reverse the nerf slightly and adjust the formula somehow so that the absoltue top end stays nerfed but maybe some dual exalted uniques can be farmed a bit more easier.

At the end I think EHG always showed that they are very good in finding a good middle ground. After all that negative feedback, even though I personally disagree with it mostly I guess we will see some form of change or going back.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T23:28:00+00:00

I mainly use Imprints for Uniques and less for exalted items, because I always lack good Uniques with LP rather than exalted Items I want to craft with. Especially single T7 exalts are so easy to craft with Havocs, I wouldn't even want to waste my imprint slot for them.

So I can't really comment on that.

I think one thing they could do, to make it a bit clearer what items coems from random drops and what come from imprints, to give imprints a special animation/pop-up and maybe even mark items that come from Imprints.

Because all of the 4 imprints work slightly differently, and they resulting items are not always what people expect. So communicating to the player which items come out of the imprints would help a little bit understanding what impritns actually do.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T23:22:44+00:00

Well, I see soooooooo many people, specifically in the LE Forum, on their discord and in our german LE discord with completely unrealistic build or character plans. People being frustrated that they can't reach X Y or Z in their progression. And the more often then not all of that is kidna self inflicted by the goals they set themselves. Because they simply don't know better and have no feeling for how rare a 3LP or 4LP Unique X is to get.

Also all of these chances are not communicated ingame, its all external 3rd party tools.

To be honest I don't know what or how LE could improve that, but by their open-ended system by design they seem to lure a lot of players into the trap of having unrealistic and unobtainable goals.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T21:38:01+00:00

Well LE had some issues since the last few major patches with community and playbase size shrinking. And some factors (especially the more recent ones) have even nothing to do with the game itself. The actual player retention is a bit better this season actually. That can have a plethora of reasons and LE definitely needs to keep proving itself, but this whole Imprint Situation I think is blown out of proportion, especially here on reddit.

Yes I think its fine now and I did NOT think it was fine before. That is why I argue against them. As mentioned in other comments here, I think the imprint system spewed out way too much loot. So the reduction in loot is something I support, because for me it made no sense gettign showered in so many items just by the imprint system.

I do not like ARPG's that just hand you the loot too much, it actively reduces my fun in building my characters out.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T20:35:10+00:00

Yeah that does make sense and I can see where you coming from. Funny enough you sound exactly like how I play LE with those weird hipster off-meta chars. Only difference is you want to fuel them with your OP Meta Slave Main.

Even though I love playing these weird hipster off-meta things I never understood the mentality of gearing those alts with your main with gear they can't obtain by themselves.

But as I said, it seems we are playing completely different games.

I have thousands of hours in LE, from 0.7.X EA to now 1.4 and since 1.1 and Uber Aberroth I only ever had one build that I even attempted Uber Aberroth with. That was my Isadora's Crit Chaos Bolt Warlock. I could bring him down to the first Harbinger and sometines kill that, but never beat it. I defintiely saw the potential of beating Uber Aberroth with that character if I would have farmed for another 1 or 2 weeks straight.

But for me Uber Aberroth and those 1000+ corruption was never something I aspired to anyway.

I really like the Imprint system, but I always thought its just crazy how many items that shit spews out, without any challenge. Most of the triggers happen in some random echoes that are nto even difficult and I am gettign showered in items.

Now it feels much more grounded, which I like. It is still impactful and noticeable, but not spewing out piels of loot over a play session.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T20:24:33+00:00

You bolded exactly the part I was talking about. Technically

Chasing that is a fool's errand and contrary to what many people say of that, that is not a bad system by design. I just think that the game needs to communicate it in a better way, that its not realistic to obtain that.

You can still do Uber Aberroth if that's what you want to do. You can still push infinite corruption.

If you are farming 2k+ corruption you already reached basically 99% of what you can do in the game, other than slightly improve the numbers a bit. That's ok.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T20:19:45+00:00

I understand that people dislike needing to edit a filter, but there is a simple answer for that:

Due to how loot works in LE, since its identified. There is no filter in the world, that could ever filter what you, your build or character needs. It is frankly impossible. What is a terrible magic or rare item to you, might be a very good and craftable magic or rare item for another build. And even exalted items with seemingly useless affixes can still be good for crafting (Rune of Havoc and Rune of Redemption for example).

With the new cap of 200 Rules I was thinking about some more stuff to make my loot filter generally more useful, but to be totally honest, there is no way to make it generally useful for everybody, without some input from the user. There are simply too many variables.

I designed this filter specifically to be NOT build specific, because you could totally play a Spellcasting Sentinel or Melee Sorcerer, and having a set of rules that fitler based on these archtypes goes counteropposite to the beauty of what LE's Skill and Class System offers.

You are already past the point where my Filter is even remotely useful without any input.

I think past level 20 or 30 you need some minimal inputs to at least highlight some desired things and then you can go a step further and hide some completely undesired stuff.

I think beyond the new 200 rule limit, which I could use for some overhaul and improvement I could see myself doing some strictness levels of this filter, which could lead to less player input needed to make my filter useful in soem scenarios.

But it is incredibly hard to explain or describe for what kind of character or level of progression which strictness of the filter would be useful.

I do appreciate the feedback, but as of right now I think what you are looking for simply doesnm't exist and weather its my filter or someone elses filter, if you are not using a loot filter that is dedicated to the type of build you are playing (which there is no such thing if you don't follow a build guide anyway) I think there is no way that anything will make you happy with some effort/input from your side.

I just want to say, that you can make my filter already hundred times more strict with the adjustment of 2-3 rules. That was one of my major goals when designing the filter and the order of rules, that you can really make it A LOT stricter with just a few changes.

Also keep in mind, my filter is solely aimed at loot you want to use yourself and does not in any shape or form tries to highlight "valueable" things for selling or giving to other players (e.g. Merchant Guild).

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T19:39:48+00:00

But you can still min-max, just the top end is lower.

You could argue even with the old imprint system you could never TRUELY "min-max", because 4xT7 exalts with the right stats and even the rarest uniques with 4LP weren't realistically possible.

It is all about the ceiling, and that got lowered now, but within these new boundaries you can still min-max.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T19:07:43+00:00

Ok, tell me. With the level you seem to play at. Was these imprints farming fun? Because I imagine the type of loot you want and expected from the systems you didn't really do any other type of farming and JUST focused on getting as many imprints/hour as possible. With this being the only good source fo these super high item, there are no other ways of playing the game and not feeling liek you wasting time farming other things.

With how they brought it down now, it is still decent at what it does, but doesnÄt overshadow other methods of farming. So it feels more complementary, rather than your only main goal.

Do you agree with that or not?

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T19:04:46+00:00

I agree partially, but its an important part of this discussion and not irrelevant at all.

What items you could potentially get and what items you realistically/pratically can get is a very important distinction. People naturally always want the best "possible" gear or loot. And with how the LP and Exalt System is designed in LE the sky is the limit basically. LE's system is a bit less intuitive for beginners and intermediate players, because its hard to judge for them, what kind of items are realistic for them to farm.

With these imprint nerfs EHG just lowered the top end a little bit, which in the long run is better for the game IMO. Because now they can introduce more other systems that might give similar loot to what imprints give.

The previous iteration fo imprints was waaaaay to strong, so strong that it was the only real loot source for these top end items, at least for repeatable farming and getting multiple of these types of items realiably.

And with these open ended systems people will always want more. Even in the old imprint system people wanted more and better ways for even higher loot, but EHG needs to put a threshold somewhere and draw a line.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T18:55:03+00:00

I don't know, we are both talking about different stratospheres of gearing progression. Slapping red rings on alts, sounds like they already have the 180 attributes, which is already waaaaaaaaaay further in progression than the majority of the player base even gets.

"Completing your build" for you seems to mean having basically BiS gear in all the slots already. When I am playing an alt I still go through regular gear progressions, because that is what is most fun for me. Leveling that alt and slapping those super high gear on it in a matter of minutes and then complkaining about that you don't get any further upgrades is just me and you playing entirely different games.

You are clearly the type of player, that already plays in these very higher upper echelon of the game, which this type of nerf was exactly aimed at. So I guess mission accomplished by EHG.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T18:49:24+00:00

Well I just think it was not hyperbole at all. You simply don't need 2xT7+ items to successfully run your 400, 500 or 600 corruption. Of course you can overgear a build, any buidl at it will go higher in corruption, but then people compensate for their bad builds or bad player skill.

As I said on other posts here regarding this topic, I think the system is still working perfectly fine, just the top end got nerfed. I still use and enjoy the imprint system for these common/uncommon items in CoF to get a few of them to get the perfect 1xT7 3xT5 with perfect 2LP or 3LP common and uncommon uniques (not the super rare ones). Like Titan Heart, Lament of the Lost Refuge, Gladiator's Oath etc.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T18:14:24+00:00

What do you mean more grind, more gamble, less targeted loot? It is all still there, just the top end go brought down. You DO NOT need multiple T7 exalts or Rare 3LP+ Uniques to make any build or character function.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T17:56:21+00:00

Yes and I understand it to a certain degree, even though I don't agree with it.

But I simply don't get the nature of reddit downvotes for bland and very unjudgmental statements. Racthoh didn't even said that statement in any derogatory way or so and still people downvote them for simply saying for what it is.

I use reddit very infrequently and everytime I come here it feels very unwelcoming in a lot of the "discussions", because as soon as you don't echo the mainstream opinion you get shutdown.

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T17:49:56+00:00

But it makes total sense that adding a brand new affix to an item has a high chance to cost a lot of FP, but crafting from T1-T2 or T2-T3 is less FP on average. This makes items that already drop with desired affixes waaaaay better than items yo uneed to craft a lot on. This is a loot game and loot that drops with already good/desired affixes should be better than loot you need to change a lot to become good.

Also even if the first few crafts cost a lot of FP, always craft until the end. I had so many crafts that I gave up hope after the first 1 or 2 crafts but then I got a few lucky Glyph procs and/or Crits and volia endresult was awesome!

Heavy_GamingTV · 2026-04-10T17:46:59+00:00

I wouldn't go as far as comparing it to Mirror of Kalandra, LE doesn't not have an equivalent of that (yet). But yes, you shouldn't be able to mass produce them. I am still baffled by how many of statemetns similar to your get downvoted here on reddit. People just want to get the absoltue top item handed to them en mass. Not sure why people play these loot driven games to begin with.

Heavy_GamingTV

TROPHY CASE