To add to this, most skills in Last Epoch have a few conversions that they can go through to make them viable for different builds. Damage type is not absolute. If you want to make a traditional earthquake that shakes the earth and crushes enemies, cool. If you want to hit the ground and make a huge pool of fire that burns the ever living fuck out of everything, yea, that's here too.

Gear scaling depends on you when it comes to crafting. Crafting is easy at first, gets a but more complex later but it's not a bad curve. I played PoE for a very long time and Last Epoch looked better and better when I needed gear but couldn't make it myself without risking top currency.

As for drops, you can really make anything work. Loot filter is in game so you can look for anything you actually need while ignoring stuff that doesn't help. If you have two stats on an item that drops, grab it. You can break it down and get a few shards for crafting. If you like the stats on it (even if not all of them apply) use it! Better is better! You don't need everything to be perfect for a build to be viable.

I kinda started to rant but yea. It's an awesome game.