(2.2) Build balance in Acts 1-3 normal and feedback

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Lynderika
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2.0 changed both acts monsters and the ways skills scale. Since then, there has been many discussions, complaints, and statements that build balance early game is terrible, and so on. Therefore, I... Wanted to try every single build of the game. Yep. Or more precisely, every trees. I'm not motivated enough to level entierely every skills, but I did try them and will discuss it. Anyway, most builds pop off after getting their first TU, that can be obtained after killing Travincal council, and the game overall become way smoother then. Farming mephisto is a good way to get ACs, runes, and xp, as well. Therefore, I'll focus entierely on the experience in act 1-3 normal, that I believe to be quite important. It's what new players will base their opinion of the game on, and something everyone goes through, after all. I don't know much about later, so don't take this thread as a "good league starter" list, the strength of a build that early does not necessarly reflect well how it will do later on.

I myself love leveling a lot in arpgs in general, often way more than endgame mindless farming, and find it very fun to optimize early game, learn what is strong, learn to adapt to drop inventively, etc. I participated to and won 2 normal speedrun contests, in 1.8 and 2.1 ; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DN0cWAv8vhk / https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okepgqA7zPg . So of course, my experience will be quite different from one of a new player. If you are entierely new and want to share your experiences as well, do feel free to do so here.

As for me, my job will be to try every trees casually. Meaning, I'll play them like a normal season start, doing side quests and all, and for each of them, record and show my leveling to mephisto. Rate them, give feedback, and potential changes recommendations. Oh boy what did I start...
And remember, almost everything I'll say will only apply to Act 1-3 normal, so from level 1 to 30-35. If otherwise I'll specify it.





Conclusions

Here is my perfectly objective (what do you mean I played many of them only once so their place is a bit approximative?) ranking of builds. I've putted them in tiers but they are in what I believe to be the order. Strength, speed, tankyness, ease to play (include mana cost), all are accounted for. But mostly speed.


Tier 0 (speedrun potential) : Claw sin / Wolf Druid
Tier 1 (The top, they have no worries in their life) : Bear Druid / Java Zon / Totem Nec / Summon Nec / Throw Sin / Bow Druid / Caster Druid / Neutral Paladin / Unholy Caster Paladin / Cold Sorc / Earthquake Barb / Psi Sin
Tier 2 (Feels ok man, some have specifics issues though) : Nagi Sin / Trap Sin / Malice Nec / Storm Zon* / Elementalist Barb / Poison Sorc* / Fire sorc / Summoner Barb* / Unholy Melee paladin / Melee Necro / Melee Sorc / Arcane Sorc** / Spear Zon
Tier 3 (Problems) : Blood Zon** / Owl Druid / Templar Paladin / Incarnation Pala**
Tier 4 (Oh boy) : Crossbow Nec / Bow Zon
Tier 5 (???) : Light sorc / Throw Barb***
Untested (And it will stay that way)  : Whirlwind Barb**** / Scorpion Blade sin

*No pax mystica = rip (apply to most T3+ as well)
** Sponsored by Mana Potion™
*** Actually bugged, but would be terrible even fixed lmao
**** Anybody in his right mind would play ww ''with the support of'' Earthquake/Shower of rocks, so let's pretend it doesn't exist.

As you see, I consider 14 builds to be extremely strong, 17 to perfectly playable, but they often rely on drops, and might have problems such as mana cost, no good bosses damage, or simply are overall a (big) step behind. 6 are to be avoided at all cost.
But I might ask ; What is the intended balance, even? Do we consider Tier 1 or Tier 2 to be the base of "being in a nice spot"? I definitely think and will assume that a few T2 need at least a small qol improvement, while every 3+ all need help. The ideal would for sure be for new players to struggle, while someone knowing his deal could play comfortably mostly anything. I don't even know if there's a build representing that idea, though.



General Feedback

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Druid

Druid overall does really well, morphs not being tied to their weapon IAS really help a lot for early game, the last time I tried him, which was... Long ago, it clearly wasn't that good. Owl is a bit subpar but mostly simply doesn't feel good, and caster druid spells are quite unbalanced, but again overall he's a strong a pretty fun boy. I was honestly surprised by how fun bear and bow were. Not sure if it would be so for long, but hey.

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Necromancer

Overall, Necro perform nicely simply because he has an innate 2 second cd, which not only make him faster but also is useful for using (abusing) the mercenary. I found Malice and Summoner to be quite fun, too.

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Sorceress

Overall average. Only Cold perform similarly to the bests. Most other trees are the perfect representation of "ok-ish", but rely heavily on finding a
Pax Mystica
Pax Mystica
Staves

'Tir'
Runeword Level: 10
+1 to All Skills
+7% to Spell Damage
+(2 to 5) to Blink
Elemental Resists +(11 to 15)%
(11 to 13)% Magic Find
. Many spells seems a bit undertuned, not to problematics levels though, except for lightning. Oh boy light sorc is in my top 2 worst experience. Mana's one of my favorite build, and I don't think it need much tweaking to be nice at low levels.

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Paladin

Unholy and Neutral does well, while both holy melee and holy casters has issues.
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Barbarian

Also quite unbalanced, whirlwind and throw are the worst of the worst to level with, nobody in his right mind would even try. Summoner is strong and nice but unlock his tp skill at lvl 30 (should I remind you of necro innate 2 sec teleport?). Same for ele barb, he unlock his strongest skill at lvl 40, and have to rely on Iron Spiral before that. Only Earthquake has his weapons unleached from the start. Lion stance big damage help them all a lot, while Snake need many points to be usable so forget it for now. It even start at 1-2 poison damage which is quite funny. Another barb weak point is his cast frames with a staff, actually the worse, so he can't blink well. Meaning less mobility.

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Assassin

Sin not only has blink, but shadow refuge gives 90% ms with 6 points. Not to mention, Ways give flat elemental damage, which is the strongest thing at this point of the game, as enemies don't have much resistances. Add claws fast IAS frame and a strong skill, noctule, and congratulation you're ready to speedrun normal ! Dropping some bat novas in between is pretty fun, too.
Psi and Trap are mana hungry but does the job. Throw actually is clawsin tier once it unlock Maelstrom, while Nagi attack slow but is ok. Every builds are strong ! (And Nagi my Favorite of all ! Though it doesn't show off at this point, doing slow crucify is very far from how Nagi play out later). Mmh? Scorpion blade? What are you talking about?
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Amazon

Quite ironic that she has balance as a skill huh? Java outperform so much that it seems like a joke. Although, Thundercrack is decent (for now), blood start terribly but get stronger as Bloodstorm gets more targets. Spear... Does damage. That's the only good thing we can say about it. Bow feels terrible. By far the least fun char to me, but well gotta abuse java right?
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Edited by Lynderika 1 year.
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Scalewinged
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I tested pure ww without any support - pretty playable. Not speedrun but t1.
Nicely done! Even with vid walkthru for each build :bounce:
skinny
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That's so much work! Thank you, it's very appreciated.
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SeaWeed
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appreciated
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Sardonic
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Appreciated! Nicely done. I find it humbling that you rank your main as non-biased as possible (T2 Nagi Sin). I understand is is from Acts 1-3 and that end game is completely different. Well done.
Istaryu
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Sardonic wrote:Appreciated! Nicely done. I find it humbling that you rank your main as non-biased as possible (T2 Nagi Sin). I understand is is from Acts 1-3 and that end game is completely different. Well done.


Well, this isnt about endgame, this is about how builds function without having all their skills avaliable. For example bowzon becomes like a completely different char once you get wyrmshot and start upgrading it. Or throw barb also becemes decent with wolf stance and overkill. I think this is why they added free respecs.
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Lynderika
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Scalewinged wrote:I tested pure ww without any support - pretty playable. Not speedrun but t1.
Nicely done! Even with vid walkthru for each build :bounce:


I'd be curious to see that. As you can imagine, I trust videos much more than words. For now I'll just think we don't have the same definition of tier 1.


Sardonic wrote:Appreciated! Nicely done. I find it humbling that you rank your main as non-biased as possible (T2 Nagi Sin). I understand is is from Acts 1-3 and that end game is completely different. Well done.


Thanks ! Well yeah, when I play nagi for years, know perfectly how to optimize it, have speedrunned with it, and then I get much more comfortable levelings with chars that are my literal first time, so I can't say much. Though it's still higher than average... *copium*


Istaryu wrote:
Well, this isnt about endgame, this is about how builds function without having all their skills avaliable. For example bowzon becomes like a completely different char once you get wyrmshot and start upgrading it. Or throw barb also becemes decent with wolf stance and overkill. I think this is why they added free respecs.


Exactly ! Many skill only become something after many points in it, and some other like primordial strike or Hades Gates aren't even available at this point. So yeah.
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Scalewinged
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Sadly i can't record videos on my potato effectively :roll:
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Jo_Jo
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Damn...and here i was thinking on trying to start a Throw Barb lol
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Cool idea thx