Who doesn't use guides?

[:1]Anyone else like me and prefer to figure stuff out for yourself?

I don't mind reading up on say mechanics of the game and in fact when you do its easier to figure out optimum gear anyway.Admittedly you can probably speed up things up by reading guides but I also think you can grow bored quicker too.Doing stuff yourself can gain you knowledge that is not so common,maybe not so powerful but can be fun.|||Me! I was wondering the same thing honestly >.< I just go with what works in my game.|||If you take the time to actually figure out a cookie cutter build (which doesn't actually take too long), your final stat and skill allotments will be very similar, if not identical, to a guide on the exact build. As for gear and whatever, it's pretty standard through most of the classes and there isn't exactly a lot of variation.

The fun comes from making more unique builds that aren't exactly common in your regular game. At that point, you could read up on a guide (if there is one) and alter the build to fit your needs.

A guide is just that, a guide, and there's nothing that says you can't stray from the path.|||The thing is, even if you do try a build that comes from a guide, you can almost always find ways to improve it to your own play style.

For example, I love the fishymancer. But, I don't like all the choices he advocates, so I deviate fairly distinctly in my skill choices because I find them to better suit my play style. Its not really enough to call it a new build, but its not really a Fishymancer anymore either.

That said, I applaud the spirit of your approach and all that matters in the end is that its fun.|||Quote:








If you take the time to actually figure out a cookie cutter build (which doesn't actually take too long), your final stat and skill allotments will be very similar, if not identical, to a guide on the exact build. As for gear and whatever, it's pretty standard through most of the classes and there isn't exactly a lot of variation.




Pretty much this. When I first started playing/MFing seriously I sat with the Arreat Summit item pages open in the background to get to know the items. Once you get an idea of what the common builds are (i.e. which skills work), the gear/skill setup is mostly very simple.|||I would only suggest guides for people who are new to the game and simply have no knowledge of what skills works other others. This was even more crucial before 1.13 since there was no way to respec and it is simply not fun to play to level 60+ and to realize the first character you made just doesn't work because you invested into the wrong skills. I hope this is something they fix in D3 and make all skills "equal" regardless of tier, so people have more leeyway to experiment on their own and new players will not be punished for making "odd" choices. Anyway, once you learn what skills work and what skills don't work, it's not so hard to make builds or to improve builds to fit your playstyle.