How to Learn Build Making - 5 Steps for How to Start Making Your Own Builds in Path of Exile

Learning how to make your own path of exile character build from scratch can be a difficult task. In this video I want to provide some sort of formalized way that is simple to follow to help people get into making successful PoE builds. Now normally those steps would be advertised as "fast and easy" steps. But in this case they are long and quite involved steps that require you to put in effort and brain power. PoE is a complex game and learning all the ins and outs of creating your own passive tree, skill setups, gearing steps and much more will always take some time to learn. But I hope this does help some people out :)

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[GymLeaderSpud]

I love this. I make my own builds and sometimes there crappy but that makes the game fun for me. Most of my builds fall off around t14 so im trying to get over that hurdle

[BIGPILGRIM]

i think another, more 'meta' thing to keep in mind is the assessment of new/reworked content each patch. i started harvest as an ice crash raider because i saw damage effectiveness buffs and other tools that could enable an underused ascendancy. i knew it would probably overall be secondary to other versions of the build but base tree/item parameters was plenty for the endgame, and also helped me understand what raider did that others didn't. so the journey of path builds is an almost never ending quest for game knowledge that also evolves each patch dynamically with countless other aspects of the game. phew. thanks for the vid!

[clamiraclegaming]

I've been making my own build since day one. Everytime i tried someone else's build, i found myself giving up the char too early. Only the builds I made have made it to end-game

[SanfordTheGrey]

i had to recount the ascendancies 3 times, there's 19 not 21 lol

[XxDragonOo]

The way I learned making builds was different back in the day:
1. I basically started in phase 4 by just playing an architype I knew from other games would be my kind of thing and should in theory work because it's a simple concept.
2. When ever I hit a wall I would check guides of the same or similar builds, or videos discussing/explaining a problem I had (more vs increased for example)
3. I would then go to yoji's phase 3-4 and branch out from the area I already knew, in all directions, always cross referencing guides with any problem I had, or checking with more experienced players.
4. This over some time lead me to yoji's phase 5, where I've been now for a while. And let me tell you, making a meme-build that you just do because you think an interaction is cool, and it turns out way stronger than expected, is an amazing feeling.

What I did is the hard way, and I would highly recommend to start with a guide, unless you really are the type of person that rather wants to "learn on their own", because the first build will be shit at the start, and there won't be much money to fix it, cause it's too weak to run more profitable content.

[derektafoya]

Been playing since synthesis got introduced to ps4 which is also how I play the game . Following builds is great, especially when you find one that really pops for you, but the satisfaction of a build idea you created going to red maps and above is bar none a great feeling to strive for in PoE . I'm currently working on a spellslinger project with my son using arc/WoC/ storm brand and so far we're having a great time and the build feels punchy on ps4 =)

[thoriandragontamer]

this is super helpful @itsyoji, thank you so much for sharing your experience!!

[Christian_Bagger]

I’ve never really played PoE.. but if I had to, I would like to make my own builds. Maybe it’s not gonna be top notch competitive, but if I can get the knowledge on how to create a playstyle that’s compatible with my own style, that’s an immense freedom and fun to have. And the prolonged fun is to optimize and refine it.

[TeramondTv]

You forgot to tell them that you need to watch two years of your videos :-)

[zengrath]

Wow this is first time i seen a video abut how to build your own build. cool. i'm honestly waiting for POE 2.0 before jumping back into POE but if i played more often i'd love to learn how to build my own unique build rather then following others without realizing before end game it's crap and i wasted my time.

[bradleywilliams]

PoE noob here and can say I built the most brick wall of a character. The ONLY reason i made it past piety and first 5 acts is vitality. Without that skill, impossible. So ive kinda given up on ot due to it being all over the place. And vitality possibly getting nerfed hard. Its a set and forget skill that has no risk reward or niche. Currently trying the toxic rain+caustic arrow ranger and loving it. But rng is not allowing me to progress with that as of right now. So im possibly gonna just start from scratch again and the ranger build opened my eyes as to what i was lacking with my first build. I can mob clear with the first one, easily but bosses not at all. I love the game and i enjoy it even though i have a LOT of progress to make. Cant wait to get a pc. Its kimda bad on console.

[robkicsi]

Great discussion as always. Keep up the good work. When are you back streaming?

[YBladeY]

Just got to 6k hours played.
This video is almost identical to how I experimented as well.


Wedu, Ambulances and But Yoji's.

[MrDestroyerPrime]

I learned to build my characters by just getting really good with Path of Building. There are three general rules I use for determining if a build is good for me.
One: The build should have no less than 3-4 defensive layers.
Two: The build should hit at least 7k+ effective life
Three: The build needs to do at least 3 million Shaper DPS. (Remember that 200k+ is viable for endgame content, but, you really need to know your monster mechanics and having such low of damage makes a lot of encounters much more janky than they have to be)

Honestly at this point I think I enjoy Path of Building more than actually playing the game sometimes.

[pwest]

hmm..I got a question that I tried searching for and nothing came up. Do you know if unique boss map mods effect Metamorph bosses? I would assume no but I would love to know for sure. hate getting one shot and wondering if it was the boss mod lol.

[ukdnbmarsh]

i recently changed my build style after 1700 hours of playing cyclone till it go nerfed, now over 200 hours into a ele witch phys impale carrion golem build and loving every second, the only boss i havent beaten yet is sirus A8 and it was a close call

[haikukillyou]

I made a crappy build once, bleed bow deadeye. It was fun to mess with it even though it was horrible haha. With the right now, it would only have a puncture bleed of 2.1 mil shaper dps (not sure if that’s Mac stacks or per stack, not sure how bleed works in POB.) and 700k split arrow dps at level 90 it only had 4.7k life but had amazing evade and dodge %. Alas it was only theory crafted and I never had guts to try it. I may try on standard to check it out sometime

[Dharengo]

I have the reverse problem. I feel like I am not having fun if I don’t get to make all the choices myself. I’m still on act 5 on my first playthrough but I have not followed any actual guides. I understand that maybe I will at some point hit a wall, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. Making the choices is the actual fun part of the gameplay. I don’t want to take that away from myself.

[zengrath]

I'm glad you didn't act like it's super easy to do like most people. I get so frustrated when i decide to play in a league, , follow a build, , do ok but people tell me i'm a loser or lame in chat for whatever reason because i don't want to do a build from scratch and follow others builds. people constantly say why bother playing if you follow other peoples builds. That just annoys me because i play like once every other league since POE released, i got a life out side of POE, i have other games i play, i'm simply not going to play this game every single league like some people do, therefore i simply do not have the knowledge to build from scratch, when i try, i end up missing out on all the cool end-game content which is the best part of POE, doing campaign for the 100th time isn't fun to me. But part why i'm just waiting for 2.0 now before i give POE another go. I just hate the elitest attitudes in chat sometimes saying i'm stupid if i can't do my own builds from scratch.

[Chromodar]

So basically you're telling me now is not the time for frostblink brands?