How playtested and refined are your builds - are they just right or overkill?

[DougGraves]

For instance do you have just the END that you need, or do you slot the max you  can for END and just make sure you have enough?

 

Do you check to see if 1 Recharge enhancement is good enough  or if you want 2?

 

I'm making lvl 19 builds so enhancements are tight.  I'm trying to play the builds to see where I can scrimp on them, but playtesting then doing a respec and then starting over is time consuming.

 

So do you  playtest and refine your builds repeatedly or do you just make sure it is good enough and not worry about making it perfect?

[Neiska]

I always play test my builds. But my concerns may differ from some -

1. Is it self-sufficient, or does it rely on temporary effects to work? I generally treat inspirations akin to potions. They should be there when you need them, not to make the build possible. (100% purely personal preference, and I have nothing against those whom play/build differently.)

2. Does it "flow" well? Is there a constant flow of actions and motions, or are there gaps and periods of too much or too little activity or effect? There can be such a thing as too much recharge in a powerset or build.

3. Is it enjoyable? Even if a build is ridiculously strong, if I don't like playing it, then I will shelve it. If I am not having a good time then what's the point?

4. Is it consistent/reliable, or are their high and low periods? I generally dislike brief windows of "OVER 9000 POWA" with the rest being subpar. Which means I tend to dislike "bursty" builds and AT's. Again, not insinuating bursty builds are bad by any means, they can often be the highest DPS setups, I just don't find them as enjoyable.

 

There are other considerations as well. Theme, style, and so on. And sometimes, it can be a simple "I'm just not feeling it" or "Gosh I LOVE this" even if it might overcome other considerations.

[Snarky]

It depends on my AT, sometimes powersets.  I usually bulletproof my Brute builds.  My Invul are straight up Hyperstrike monsters.  The rest are inspired by that type of design.  My Blasters tend to be high defense high Damage.  
 

The Corruptor I have made this years project is quite different.  End is a bear on Dark Dark Corr.  I solved that by really shoring up Rec and trying to find sets that gave even a little help.  I did not worry about defense, in hard content I either play smart and depend on team or die.  I built for damage and debuff.  As much as i could including incarnate choices

[Captain Fabulous]

Don't worry about builds at level 19, you'll be in your mid 30s before you know it, and that's when you start to see if there are any holes in your build that need plugging. With IOs sets having such a high price tag most of my characters stick with generic IOs. Some get a few global IOs here and there if they need it (+defense, +health/regen/recovery, +KB protection, KB2KD, LotG, etc). I find the whole process of building a top-tier character to be expensive, time consuming, and exhaustive work. Always best to do those builds on the test server first, just to make sure you really like the end result before putting in all the resources to do it on live.

I assume I'm going to do at least 2-3 respecs on every character over the course of their career (and almost always one at level 50). You take a power you think is gonna work well and it doesn't. You go into a particular pool and then wonder "why the hell did I do this?" There can be powers you needed at lower levels that get supplanted by better ones at higher levels, so no reason to keep them. Or even something as simple as changing your travel power. What you think you're gonna need at level 19 can be very different from what you think that character needs at level 35, and again at level 50.

[Yomo Kimyata]

I've often wondered what your slotting style was when you pause at particular levels.  For me, when I'm at 19, I'm mostly slotted with SOs since they are so much more powerful than IOs at that level.  I'll also make sure I have Panacea + in Health, Perf Shifter + in Stamina, Shield Wall + and Reactive Defenses +, usually Kismet +, Steadfast Protection +, Glad Armor +, Celerity + in Sprint.  I might have started to put in Winter Sets or ATOs.

 

In general, I like to play and build organically, and almost all my projects tend to have *something* new about them to me.  So if I find myself being lower on endurance than I like, on an odd level I'm putting some help into Health or Stamina.  If I don't have extensive experience with a new power, I'll check it out and respec later if need be.

 

I think I respec a lot more than the average player.  That's in part because I really don't mind the process.  I have so many alts that generally by the time I get to respeccing one, it's like looking at a time capsule and I'm all "What the hell was I thinking in April 2020?".  But my builds also go in (hopefully improving) trends.  I spend a lot more on slow resistance.  I really enjoy having an "oh shit" button or two.  I'm trying to keep a supply of respec recipes available in the /AH at pretty much my cost level.

 

As far as overkill, I very rarely make characters that I think can be overkill.  I mostly make melee, and almost all of those are scrappers, and none of them are immortal.  Tanks, even brutes to some extent, are too simple to make unkillable for my purposes, since my perception is that the currently damage to survivability tradeoff is way out of whack.

[Astralock]

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by Astralock

[DoctorHugh]

Playtested?

 

Refined?

 

My builds are the result of whim and fancy, and supernatural occurrences beyond the ken of mortal man.

 

Just like real superheroes!

 

In practical terms, I pick what's interesting and convenient and looks useful. If the job is getting done, I'm under no pressure to change it. If I run into something I simply can't handle with current build, I find out what needs to change. If that's the case, I'll usually google a discussion of the various pros and cons and pick what I like from there.

 

(Any resultant level of refinement is sheer coincidence, and entirely due to the many very helpful playtesters who've been posting build discussion for over a decade now. Thank you all!)

 

Edited February 1, 2023 by DoctorHugh

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, Captain Fabulous said:

Don't worry about builds at level 19, you'll be in your mid 30s before you know it

 

I turn off xp at 19 so these characters will never get any higher.  I find the game in the mid-30's to be trivially easy and boring.

[MrAxe]

On my main I'm stupidly obsessive. I just finished a respec on it and have been changing and improving it since 2019. Everything has a minimum or a target I must hit. With alts 'good enough' is fine.

Edited February 1, 2023 by MrAxe

[DougGraves]

1 hour ago, Yomo Kimyata said:

I've often wondered what your slotting style was when you pause at particular levels.  For me, when I'm at 19, I'm mostly slotted with SOs since they are so much more powerful than IOs at that level. 

 

I slot with all SO's at 19.  I have tried using the AT specific sets from merits but I just don't have enough slots at 19 to make 6 slotting something worth doing.  My lvl 29 characters do usually have an AT IO set.

 

I rarely use any other IOs.  My fire/fire tanker does have the KB resistance IO.  My AR corruptor and maybe one or two others use KB>KD IOs.  And I have one character with with two IO's to give more END (miracle and something else).  

 

[Mjolnerd]

My builds are all playtested extensively.

 

I assume.

 

By the people here on the forums who posted them in the first place.

 

Probably.

[Seed22]

3 hours ago, DougGraves said:

For instance do you have just the END that you need, or do you slot the max you  can for END and just make sure you have enough?

 

Do you check to see if 1 Recharge enhancement is good enough  or if you want 2?

 

I'm making lvl 19 builds so enhancements are tight.  I'm trying to play the builds to see where I can scrimp on them, but playtesting then doing a respec and then starting over is time consuming.

 

So do you  playtest and refine your builds repeatedly or do you just make sure it is good enough and not worry about making it perfect?

Straight from Mids to Live for me.

 

I don't care if it's exactly tick for tack on the numbers side, just so long as it's in the general ball park of what I'm looking for(Def/Res, Recharge, Damage.) then I could care less about the specifics. It's a waste of time anyway, outside of HM 3/4. I'll playtest it through TFs/teams, or solo a radio mish to see it in action.

Edited February 1, 2023 by Seed22

[ZemX]

4 hours ago, DougGraves said:

So do you  playtest and refine your builds repeatedly or do you just make sure it is good enough and not worry about making it perfect?

 

I generally sketch out the build in Mid's before I even decide to play the character.  If I am happy with what I see, that's good enough for a start.  I don't necessarily have a leveling build.  Just the final one.  I'll fill in as I go.  Around late 20s I start to look at which ones I should angle to slot out first when I start IOing.  Powers that will hold Archetype sets tend to be first.  Well, second.  Useful one-slot wonder-procs are first.  Always.  As soon as they can be slotted.  I've got a fair number of toons that have had four or five-slotted Combat Jump before any of my attacks were done simply because of all the procs you can stuff in there.  Kismet, Shield Wall, LOTG, Winter's:SlowRes, Reactive:ScalingRes, Karma Knockback (if needed).

 

Refinement usually only happens for me after 50 and incarnates.  I start to wonder if there's a better way to arrange powers and/or bonuses.  Can I squeeze in more defense?  Should I bother?  Physical Perfection or Laser Beam Eyes! (Spoiler: Always laser beam eyes!  FREEEEEM!)

[Greycat]

I don't "build." I pick as I go and tweak what I need as I go.

 

They usually end up just fine.

[biostem]

4 hours ago, DougGraves said:

So do you  playtest and refine your builds repeatedly or do you just make sure it is good enough and not worry about making it perfect?

A lot depends upon just how much I like that particular character - if I'm really into them, then I'll tweak and refine it, but I try to pace the rate at which I go through respecs.  That being said, as of late, I seem to get hung up on that final power pick and/or the placement of 1 or 2 slots, rather than the bulk of the build itself.  I really only care that the character is fun to play and that they have enough end to get through most fights without sucking wind...

[Doc_Scorpion]

13 minutes ago, Greycat said:

I don't "build." I pick as I go and tweak what I need as I go.

 

They usually end up just fine.

Pretty much this for me too...  I'll sometimes respec out of a bad/underperforming/"wrong" pick, but not always.  It just depends on whether it irks me more than respecing does.

But if it more-or-less works, why bother?

[roleki]

I have a framework for every character, regardless of AT.  I'm going to slot Miracle/Numina/Panacea in Health, PerfShift% in Stamina and if they don't have a heal they're getting the Power Transfer% as well. 

 

if they have a resist power, the earliest Resist power gets 4 pieces of UGuard with the proc, and then the two +Def uniques.  Earliest Defense power gets three pieces of LotG and the two +Res uniques.

 

If they're ranged, they get as many sets of Artillery as I can fit; if they're melee, then it's a mix of Winters, ATOs, Touch of Death and Obliteration. 

 

Once they have about 25% +Def in their preferred positional, I work towards whatever the secondary does best, then circle back and shore up whatever is least of +Res, +Rech or +Def until I'm out of slots. 

 

This approach doesn't lead to UBER DPS, but I usually end up with something that I can count on while I'm figuring out if I like the combo or not, and I usually only need to do one fine-tune respec afterwards.

[Gerswin]

I have several hundred alts, so I only need a handful of swiss army knives. I build most of my toons to do a specific task very well. I have some tunes that are aoe monsters at low level and others that can solo a AV's at +4. I even build for specific task forces and trials. 

 I typically start with something more versatile and then iteratively reslot and respec until I get something exactly where I want it. I have found that I prefer having more utility as opposed to optimized DPS, and that defensive slotting is overrated outside of a handful of in-game situation that I can see coming a mile away. 

 

[Luminara]

I plan every build before I start anything.  The level when I select a power, when it's slotted, everything all the way up to the post-50+ build, I plan all of it.  Once I've started playing the character, understanding the synergies between the primary and secondary, getting a feel for the powers, then I start modifying the plan.  Maybe I don't like the animation for this power, or there's an annoying pause at the end of that power, or I find that I'm just not using a power often enough to warrant slotting, or I have a feeling that the character would be "better" with this other power... whatever the reason, I'll revise the build, use a respec and move forward.  I've usually used all of my freespecs by the time a character hits 50, because I adapt builds as I'm leveling them.

So by the time a character does hit 50, it's pretty well refined and tested.  But even at 50+, I don't consider anything to be "finished".  Nothing is done until the servers are turned off.  There's always some little improvement I can make, there's always another change to a power to which I'll have to adapt or can leverage, there are always changes to the game that will necessitate a response.   And this is actually why I keep playing.  Yeah, the butts look nice, the powers are like Christmas lights and the power-trip experience of smushing entire spawns is gratifying, but it's the ongoing process of building and refining a character that has had me hooked for almost 20 years.

[biostem]

13 minutes ago, Luminara said:

Maybe I don't like the animation for this power

This is such a stickler for me.  Even with the alternate animations, it's the chief reason I haven't leveled any psi blast character significantly.

 

14 minutes ago, Luminara said:

there's an annoying pause at the end of that power

This also bugs me - I'll cast the power, and while my character is done with the animation, they're locked from doing anything for another second or so.

 

15 minutes ago, Luminara said:

by the time a character does hit 50, it's pretty well refined and tested

My issue is the internal debate as to whether I can correct the character using the remaining power picks they have, whether I should use a respec *now*, or whether I should tough it out to 50 and use a respec then or if the issue can be remedied via Incarnate abilities...

[Luminara]

20 minutes ago, biostem said:

My issue is the internal debate as to whether I can correct the character using the remaining power picks they have, whether I should use a respec *now*, or whether I should tough it out to 50 and use a respec then or if the issue can be remedied via Incarnate abilities...

 

I opt for the respec every time these days.  If something's off, it's still going to be off when I level up and select another power, and I've probably wasted slots trying to fix it, which makes it twice as off.  I'm never going to make it to 50 if playing the character feels like a chore, either.  And every build is going to have other problems later, which can pile up and make a tangled mess if they're left unattended.  Given that respecs are a lot easier to obtain than they were on the original servers, I've shed my aversion to using them.  A million or two inf* is a very, very small price to pay for a more enjoyable playing experience.

[DougGraves]

14 minutes ago, Luminara said:

I opt for the respec every time these days.  If something's off, it's still going to be off when I level up and select another power

 

That may be the case for you with a planned built.  But I had a kinetic build that was terrible about running out of END.  I respec'd with a ton of END reduction.  Then I got to level 28 and discovered I got Transference which restores my END.

 

It is not uncommon for powersets to have holes that get filled with powers later on.  For those of us who do not plan our builds in advance, it makes sense to see how things turn out before respec'ing.

[Astralock]

I create a build in Mids', take the character out for a spin at level 50 on the beta server for a few hours and see how the character plays, and make any tweaks and adjustments as necessary.  When I finally have the character's build where I want it and have enjoyed playing it on the beta server without issue, then I finally make the character.

[Clam Leader]

I've been working on the same Peacebrinfer build for 6 months now. Tweaking and moving individual slots pretty much the entire time. She's gone from 1 to vet level 170 and I'm still working.

 

 

 

 

[Spaghetti Betty]

I spend about 45 minutes in Mids patchworking something together and go, "Yup, that's pretty good." Then it isn't pretty good, and I'm sad.