Are builds too gear-centric?

[Doppelschwert]

Seeing all the fancy builds around the forums and the internet in general, I can not help but wonder why they are often build around items. I mean, of course I understand that it's easier to make a powerful build this way, but I wonder if the game was designed with this philosophy in mind.

 

As for myself, what I usually do is disregard the effect of unique items completely when building a character by trying to make their weapon, feat and attribute selection fit a concept I have in mind while trying to optimize combat performance within these boundaries. If corresponding items improve this concept, nice, but if not, I don't care that much.

 

On the other hand, as I said before, most powerful builds revolve around the effects of unique items, at least that's my impression (and noting that this becomes less true when going from martial classes to caster classes).

 

I guess in the end, it's a matter of taste, but what I'm really wondering is how much the gear centric builds break down once you remove their gear, e.g. how big the gap between those two approaches becomes in terms of combat prowess once you remove all unique weapons, armors and shields from the available gear. Even then one can further distinguish between additionally restricting accessoires with unique effects (everything not available with crafting) or not.

 

However, crafting is allowed, so it boils down to generic buffs and inherent weapon effects (which are more emphasized by this approach, imho).

 

In fact, right now I'm thinking about playing the white march part 2 with a party of martial artists that forsake weapons and armors, and therefore don't use any unique armor / weapons, but I'm not sure if it will be much fun when you almost completely remove the incentive of loot.

 

What do you guys think about this? Is loot necessary for powerbuilds (at least for the martial classes)?

How much do you lose if you forsake unique gear (no more tidefall, no more fancy shields and armor)?

Edited January 19, 2016 by Doppelschwert

[Boeroer]

To be honest you can do great builds just with generic stuff that you enchant yourself.

 

But of course some effects on unique items are powerful if you know how to use them perfectly well or even abuse them to break the game. Some items just give a build a nice twist - like turning a 3-RES barb into a tanky healer with Shod-in-Faith boots or something like that.

 

I think the most precious thing I would lose is fun.

 

edit: typo

Edited January 20, 2016 by Boeroer

[evilcat]

A lot of epic loot comes late in game, so fancy builds are played "normal" for most of the game.

With respec there is a more freedom with builds, and space for experiments, for example player can change character talents to use specific weapon or change the role, with same stats. Which is general improvment.

Really fancy builds create a bit more buzz, since they are more original, but this not mean they are "more powerful".

The whole concept of "most powerful build" is hard to measure in single player game.

 

There are two types of relation of gear and build:

1st ) Gear just makes things better. Like rogue with gear which blinds enemies, it dosnt change the way we play, just makes easier to land SA. Or Stormcaller ranger could use any other bow(small tweaks) or firearms (avg tweaks) with same stats and many abilities/talents same.

2nd ) Gear which defines build. Like Barbarian with high int and per for stun/trip on crit weapon. (or apply any other timed effect) Without it, builds still participate and does something, but potencially is not as impressive. In this example: mass interupts are also fun, but mass trip is funnier.

 

... and both are ok.

 

I do not think PoE is lootcentric in way Diablo or Borderlines is. Just getting nice items is part of genre. Players are more or less exited for Soulbound weapons and stuff, so it is a part of making good cRPG.

 

A lot of "state" of the game may be result not of some deep though but just random idea, which may be not bad, since single spark of genius is worth more than overthinging. Plus, in game is not everything devs wanted, but what they have time for.

 

I hope that with each PoE episode there will be more: named loot, crafting options, talents opening fancy builds.

 

Q1: Probably do not using powerbuilds myself, so do not care much about them.

Q2: I prefer to have character which can do more than less.

[Mercbeast]

I feel the same way as the op. I don't have the time or inclination to theory craft or min/max to the maximum to break a game like I did when I was 18 or so back when Baldurs Gate 1 came out. Now, I just want solid workable builds that don't rely on insane item combinations to achieve some sort of gimmick item synergy that breaks the game. Yet, that's pretty much all I see in the builds on the forums here.

 

In a way I feel like it almost trivializes the game. When you are playing to get items you know exist and you are planning your entire play through around said items. I think for many of us, the allure of the unknown is what attracts us to RPGs. In a way it is like getting to go back to being an awe-filled 5 year old, who looks at the world through totally virgin eyes, where literally anything is possible. 

 

Set artifact type items, imho, detract from that experience to a certain degree. The first time you run through the game, everything is new and awesome, the second time you kind of know what items there are, where to get them, and how to build your characters around them. That's cool, some people live for that, but sometimes I wish developers would go for the middle ground. A mixing of the diablo style totally random loot, with the more baldurs gate style set magical items. Or even the option to play with one or the other.

[PrimeJunta]

I dunno, I like both gear-centric and talent/ability-centric builds. I've made lots of both, and they certainly work.

 

I think the fun specifically with Pillars and gear-centric builds is that there is a quite a bit of gear with unique properties that would normally fall into the "nice to have but not really all that awesome" category, but if you combine them with each other and certain talents in interesting ways, suddenly you'll find that your whole party has +10 Accuracy all the time, and up to +30 some of the time. There's a particular satisfaction to seeing something like that work.

 

So on balance no, I don't think Pillars is overly gear-centric. There are a few purely gear-centric builds (Boeroer's Spelltongue-based time bandit barbarian tank springs to mind) but most of the ones I've been working with have been based around particular properties of gear (e.g. Marking -- there's a pretty wide choice there), and would still be entirely workable even without it.

 

We do have lots of options in character-and party building, and lots of ways to approach it: concept/role-playing, a particular item or combination of items, a particular role in the party, and so on and so forth. And that's kinda awesome really.

[Raven Darkholme]

I never built around specific items.

I don't think the builds posted on this forum depend on certain items too much, they are often well rounded without it.

[Boeroer]

Well - some of my builds totally evolve around an item - but that's the fun of it (for me):

 

finding nice synergies between items and abilities. So "theorycrafting" and approval is exactly my thing. But at the same time the game just works perfectly well without it.

[Boeroer]

Speaking about gear-centric: barb disabler