I don't think you're quite getting it (or you are, but you just called it "an overarching problem").
Without the rewards, D3's gameplay is basically God of War. I hate God of War.
What I liked about D2 wasn't the combat; it was everything else. When talking about the virtues of D3, most people mention the fluidity of combat, the physics, the graphics, etc. These are all things that aren't very important (to me) in RPGs.
That's why a lot of people are hung up on 'efficiency'. It's because it's the only thing that's left. Without that, all you have is the same old hack and slash action game. Like God of War. I hate God of War.
I am getting it, Maka. You like getting lots of gear, because you see Diablo as an RPG. I get that, believe me I do. What I'm saying is, if all you want is gear, then sure...go enjoy efficiency. Be as efficient as possible, farm as much gear as you can. Hell, invest in the tools and programs for multiboxing, that's a legal way to get as much gear as humanly possible.
What I'm saying is, there's far more to this game than just efficiency. I find the challenge of rummaging through every piece of gear I pick up and fishing out the best stuff, or the most useful stuff, the most fun part. I love the combat and physics, like others do, but because this game provides such a flowing string of stuff to pick up, that's the part I like.
You hate God of War, I respect that. You think without "efficiency", D3 turns into God of War, that's where I think you're wrong. D3, even not being as deep as D2, will still be deeper than God of War. It will still offer more to find and more to do than God of War.
Basically, what I'm getting at is..."efficiency" just gets you to the end faster. Efficiency just means you're blasting through every possible pickup, drop and piece of treasure as fast as you can. This thread was intended for people who aren't looking for efficiency, It was intended for people who want additional challenge beyond just "gearing up the right way," and want to expand their gameplay experience to something quirky.
If that idea or way of thinking isn't for you, I respect that. But while I do respect it, this thread likely isn't for you either, ;-)
@CardinalMDM: I refer you to my post on this page. I like RPG's, not action games. So the 'action' part of this game (the actual killing of the monsters) is no fun (to me) if there isn't a suitable reward (nice items dropping). That's why a lot of unorthodox builds are unappealing: they're TOO inefficient in terms of what I'm looking to get out of the game (item drops).
If you don't find the reward suitable, that's kind of an overarcing problem that may cause you to dislike this game with time. If the problem is simply "efficiency," then people can use their most "efficient" builds to farm the right kinds of gear to make unorthodox builds work as optimally as they can. We all get tons of stash space. As long as it's cleaned out regularly of any junk, and/or organized properly, you can have multiple gear sets saved for all your characters. So, an "efficiency" set for quality farming, and then a fun alternate set that's just for messing around.
I understand the efficiency problem, but not every build needs to be efficient. I mean, characters in this game are very gear dependent, which is bad in terms of innate skill and stat building, but it also ensures that gameplay experience can change based on what a player equips. All my characters will have a "best gear possible" set, certainly...but I'd love to give each one an alternate set so if I get bored with how efficient I am, I can switch things up.
I guess I'd have to say yes. I copy pasted an Archon build, face rolled Act 3 for a bit, and ended up getting so bored that I decided to go back to my original build, the one I had crafted on my own, and have decided to stick to that. Sure, I might lose 5-10% efficiency, but really if I'm playing a game and the goal isn't to have as much fun as possible, I might as well just call it work.
I understand the need for efficiency, since getting good drops is awesome, but it's not like the players who aren't running the top of the line builds are derping around with some goofy build that takes 6 minutes to kill an elite pack. So I don't even see the reason to worry about it.
My point exactly, Ignatius.
This game has a lot more styles of play than people give it credit for. People think builds aren't "viable" if they aren't facerolling Inferno MP10, but really, what we should all be asking is...what kinda stats are really required to just survive and kill reasonably on MP10? Sure, obviously, stacking massive amounts of crit chance and crit damage will do enough harm to enemies that you'll kill fast enough to survive...but if I don't need nearly as much, I'll get what I need and still have room to make a build I LIKE, as opposed to just doing what everyone else is doing.
And really, if I can go against the grain and do something unorthodox AND survive MP10, I'm damn sure going to. Especially in this community, where there's such a consensus of "everyone's doing the same thing, why don't you." People are feeling massively upset that their skills don't set them apart, but part of the reason I posted this thread is to basically say...why aren't people going against the grain and doing their own thing? So far, the best reasoning is "efficiency," and I can't argue that unorthodox builds aren't the MOST efficient.....
But let's look at it the other way....are the most "efficient" builds the most fun to play? Or do they feel humdrum, boring, and cookie cutter? If they feel boring, then maybe that's a good reason to change one's style of play. :-) I've been wanting to make an ALL Spirit spell build for my Witch Doctor for a while now, and I finally figured out how to make mine work this morning, and it's a blast! I'm working on getting her to Inferno asap, so the real fun can start, but so far, it's going well. Might need a bit of rune tuning, battle strategy, but all in all, I'm liking it and it feels "mine."
Jaetch...first of all, sorry if I sounded rude in some of my responses to you, I didn't mean to be a jerk about it, and I apologize.
Anyway...I watched the video you posted, about the "lamest wizard build ever," and to answer your question...it's definitely closer to what I had in mind, certainly gear-wise it is, :-). Like I said in the original post, I took a purely ranged class (a Demon Hunter) and purposely took away his left click skill so that he could swing the axe I'd equipped, pretty much changing the entire intention of the class, or even just changing how most people would play it. That's kinda what I meant.
You had mentioned when your Wizard hits things with an Echoing Fury, it's an amusing animation because of how it looks when it hits things with a hammer. That is actually what I mean. So, equipping a spellcaster with sword-and-board is on the right track...but I'd try it with the left click skill slot empty, so my Wizard could swing the melee weapon, :-)
Very cool video, though, really fun to watch. Like the use of Slow Time, I'll have to try out a Wizard like that myself. By the way, I'm now a subscriber to your videos.
TLDR: If some people are so bored with the same old builds, especially with so many people streaming on twitch and YouTube, why is it not more common to see people with funky variations, doing strange and unorthodox builds to show what these classes are really made of?Why are the same default builds seen sooooooooooooooo often?
Why would anyone use anything else other than cookie cutter builds and little variations off them? Fun? Doing what? Isn't farming what this game's about? Why would you gimp yourself and use something completely inefficient?
Sartorius...to your original point here...
The whole purpose is to try something new that works. Like many other people, you think this game is all about efficiency, likely because in Diablo 2, you could be power-leveled in an hour to a few hours, at least to 30 or 40...and once you get good enough gear via farming the right spots, gaining level 99 really wasn't a major challenge if you went down the right avenues. In Diablo 3, there's really no such thing as "power-leveling," thus people focus on "efficiency" because they want to feel as elite as possible as quickly as possible, instead of looking at "paragon level" and gear quality as a sign of how long you've been grinding and/or farming for.
Thus, efficiency doesn't come into play when discussing builds like my melee DH with -1 skill in favor of swinging an axe...because frankly, builds like what I described in my original post are basically ANTI-efficiency. You say in your later post, "if you're not playing as a Barb, you're doing it wrong," from an efficency standpoint. First, I do have a Barb...his gear is ALL self-found, and while close to 40k DPS may not sound impressive compared to other Barbs that got their gear from the AH (aka, the flea market), I'm still pretty proud of his progress SO FAR (he's only just gotten to Inferno, and can handle MP2 fairly well...he's FAR from done). Second, I say...if your ONLY focus in a game like this, one that could provide you thousands of hours of enjoyment, is simply making it to max level as efficiently as possible...YOU'RE doing it wrong, ;-)
FARMING efficiency, that I can understand, to an extent. Obviously, in D3, farming a specific legendary is almost impossible, but if you're farming gold (whether gold drops, or items to vend), gems, crafting materials, or just BETTER gear (if you're all-bought, this is practically impossible...then again, if you play with all self-found gear, AND have high level characters, upgrades or possible upgrades drop fairly often), you may actually come to a point where being efficient has led you to find what you want.
But XP efficiency? Leveling efficiency? This game is not all about that. You say here, "Pretty much everything has been tried and tested by much more "devious" minds than ours." Maybe...but D2 was fun because even if builds and styles were already tried by others, people wanted to try them for themselves.
Like I said, my axe-swinging DH may not be able to handle MP10, but with some better gear, smarter skill choices...if he can handle even MP5 like that, I'd call that a nice piece of glory.
Not quite sure you understood that I was simply making a statement about the amusing animation, but that's fine.
And also, maybe you're not familiar with hybrid Archon builds on MP10. Archon rarely lasts 1-2 minutes and CM does a great job reducing the CD. However, Evocation also automatically reduces Archon's CD by 18 seconds, which is a lot.
Wasn't aware of that, no. Your response came off very sarcastic. Could just be a problem with my interpretation, though...most peoples' responses seem pretty matter of fact when it comes to this game...
As for hybrid Archon builds, I've used Archon plenty, and even used Evocation plenty as well, before I made mine specifically multiplayer only with AH gear, both were handy skills. Though, I could never see myself using CM and Evocation just to reduce the cooldown between Archon transformations. Seems like a really awkward way to play, but maybe that's just me.
Well, considering I use a mace for my wizard and I constantly run out of AP when I'm not in Archon form...
It always looks like my wizard is bashing melee mobs with a hammer.
Oh, I went melee DH once. That was when I found Bashiok and I had to grab my Rakanishu's Blade so I could get the achievement.
Only that one time.
You use Echoing Fury for the extra crit damage, and you have on Critical Mass...which is funny, because you also have on Evocation. I'm sorry...you're using a passive to reduce cooldowns by 1 second per successful critical hit (which you should pretty much be doing constantly with that amount of crit chance), yet you're using another passive to also reduce cooldowns by 15%? Your CM Wizard has more critical chance than mine, exactly why do you need Evocation?
And by the way, playing a Critical Mass Wizard that wields a melee weapon (thousands of other people carry, by the way) is exactly what I'm NOT talking about. I made my CM Wizard to play multiplayer, and the only reason mine has on a dagger is for extra attack speed. Not saying it's done better, it's not. I followed a YouTube guide because my friends are AH addicts.
I mean, sacrificing a skill for long periods so a ranged/magic user can go straight melee. That's some hard stuff to do, so...I don't blame most people for not trying it for more than a couple seconds, ;-)
You can use Impale, Spike Trap, Fan of Knives and Chakram too if you want to experiment with melee weapons. You can reduce the cost of Chakram to 0 with cloak, Jordan or Mara's, so you don't even need Grenades to generate hatred.
I've done some experimenting/fun with these skills, but to be honest, it sucks to loose the stats on the quiver, and Shadow Power-Gloom makes the shield obsolete
As to your question about default builds, well, this game is about efficiency. Everything that reduces it is unpopular. High MPs put build optimization in laser sharp focus, as there is no build widely available for MP10 farming. That doesn't mean that there is no creativity in character building. In fact, everyone without infinite budget will have to be creative to build from whatever items they can snipe cheap.
Exactly, I'm sure there are lots of interesting ways to play the DH melee, I was just saying what I did at the time. Even not using the ranged skills much and just using the standard attack, though, it was still pretty fun to do, :-)
The reason I switched my Shadow Power rune from Gloom (the popular choice) to Blood Moon is that while 35% seems nice, it doesn't typically offer enough of a damage reduction for me to ever save me, even/especially when I'm using ranged weapons and I get overwhelmed, that 35% doesn't seem to do much. Meanwhile, if I increase the Life Steal % with Blood Moon, by the time I have enemies all around me, I'm keeping my Life at a healthy enough place that I have time to Vault away. I also typically use Nether Tentacles instead of Ball Lightning for the extra Life Steal, so between those two, even when my Life dips low, when I hit Shadow Power, it tends to jump back up pretty fast.
As for "efficiency," I know...that seems to be most peoples' mantra, my guess being that the activity of "power leveling," like in Diablo 2 is pretty much impossible. Though, creativity involving Auction snipes isn't the way I wanted to play this game. Not at all. And in fact, since I started building most of my characters from the ground up, without any help from the AH whatsoever, it's caused me to really see all the "itemization problems" this game has in an entirely new light.
Gearing up on one's own is challenging, but it's absolutely not impossible. Will it take a long time for me to get the gear necessary to make it to higher MPs than 2 or 3? Sure it will. But once I get there, I'll know I did it on my own and without needing to buy perfectly rolled stuff from people. I don't want to be proud that I swooped in on some deal, I want to be proud that I conquered the mountain without anyone to help me.
Maybe throwing melee weapons on my DH won't get him to MP10, but it's a fun thing to try out, to see the farthest aloing he can survive with a setup like that.
Hey everyone. Been checking this site out for a while, happy to finally be signed up with it finally. And maybe it's my imagination, but the community here seems to be a bit quieter and not quite as "enraged" or loud as D3.com's forums...
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else has had any interest, or tried out, any unorthodox builds.
There's been so much heat on this game for allegedly forcing everyone to be the same that, when my Demon Hunter hit level 60 in Hell difficulty, I couldn't take it anymore and had to try out my Demon Hunter as a melee-ish character. So, I threw on a Burning Axe of Sankis and a high block chance Shield (I think with some Dex), I took away his left click skill so he could wield the axe, had a pretty cool animation, actually...and put Grenades on right click to occasionally generate Hatred without needing to shoot a bow/crossbow. I didn't have to change my other four skills (Shadow Power - Gloom [though, recently changed to Blood Moon], Vault - Trail of Cinders, Sentry - Spitfire Turret, and Spike Traps - Echoing Blast) though I definitely want to look through and see if there's a more "melee/close quarters" centric build than that...also, I'd forgotten to switch out my passives, so I had on stuff like Cull the Weak and Thrill of the Hunt, which is really only good for ranged shots, though Custom Engineering helped me throw out more Sentries.
Then I started up a Nightmare MP10 Diablo run...and I gotta tell ya...I had an absolute ball! I was chopping down Oppressors any chance I could get, Shadow Power was still giving me back a decent amount of life, it was really fun! I would definitely do it again, and once I have even better armor than he has on now, I can't wait to try it out in Inferno.
I say...if a build like that can survive in Inferno MP0, it should be considered "viable."
So seeing some of the threads and posts today, it's really got me thinking about other quirky ways to go against the grain. Maybe D3 doesn't offer quite as many weird options as D2 does, however just adding a minor non-primary to certain classes can change up how they work. Witch Doctors can carry crossbows, why not go for it? I have a Pus Spitter in my stash that I'm pretty sure has Intelligence rolled on it...I let her shoot it on left click, I have one more attack to use that requires no resource. What about a Strength Wizard melee version? Extra Armor and a Shield, combined with Diamond Skin, maybe Ice Armor and attacks to slow enemies down? They'd still need Intelligence to raise damage output, and Crit and APOC would still be a big help to keep resource stocked, but if used differently it could be pretty fun.
In Diablo 2, people went against the grain with builds because they wanted additional challenge, and because even the amount of freedom in that game to make a unique character wasn't enough. People wanted the glory of doing something amazing with a different style of character, with gear that purposely gimped them in various ways, but allowed them to make a special character they could be proud of. Diablo 3 may only be out less than a year, but trying to find people who go this way in this game is pretty rough.
TLDR: If some people are so bored with the same old builds, especially with so many people streaming on twitch and YouTube, why is it not more common to see people with funky variations, doing strange and unorthodox builds to show what these classes are really made of?Why are the same default builds seen sooooooooooooooo often?
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I am getting it, Maka. You like getting lots of gear, because you see Diablo as an RPG. I get that, believe me I do. What I'm saying is, if all you want is gear, then sure...go enjoy efficiency. Be as efficient as possible, farm as much gear as you can. Hell, invest in the tools and programs for multiboxing, that's a legal way to get as much gear as humanly possible.
What I'm saying is, there's far more to this game than just efficiency. I find the challenge of rummaging through every piece of gear I pick up and fishing out the best stuff, or the most useful stuff, the most fun part. I love the combat and physics, like others do, but because this game provides such a flowing string of stuff to pick up, that's the part I like.
You hate God of War, I respect that. You think without "efficiency", D3 turns into God of War, that's where I think you're wrong. D3, even not being as deep as D2, will still be deeper than God of War. It will still offer more to find and more to do than God of War.
Basically, what I'm getting at is..."efficiency" just gets you to the end faster. Efficiency just means you're blasting through every possible pickup, drop and piece of treasure as fast as you can. This thread was intended for people who aren't looking for efficiency, It was intended for people who want additional challenge beyond just "gearing up the right way," and want to expand their gameplay experience to something quirky.
If that idea or way of thinking isn't for you, I respect that. But while I do respect it, this thread likely isn't for you either, ;-)
If you don't find the reward suitable, that's kind of an overarcing problem that may cause you to dislike this game with time. If the problem is simply "efficiency," then people can use their most "efficient" builds to farm the right kinds of gear to make unorthodox builds work as optimally as they can. We all get tons of stash space. As long as it's cleaned out regularly of any junk, and/or organized properly, you can have multiple gear sets saved for all your characters. So, an "efficiency" set for quality farming, and then a fun alternate set that's just for messing around.
I understand the efficiency problem, but not every build needs to be efficient. I mean, characters in this game are very gear dependent, which is bad in terms of innate skill and stat building, but it also ensures that gameplay experience can change based on what a player equips. All my characters will have a "best gear possible" set, certainly...but I'd love to give each one an alternate set so if I get bored with how efficient I am, I can switch things up.
My point exactly, Ignatius.
This game has a lot more styles of play than people give it credit for. People think builds aren't "viable" if they aren't facerolling Inferno MP10, but really, what we should all be asking is...what kinda stats are really required to just survive and kill reasonably on MP10? Sure, obviously, stacking massive amounts of crit chance and crit damage will do enough harm to enemies that you'll kill fast enough to survive...but if I don't need nearly as much, I'll get what I need and still have room to make a build I LIKE, as opposed to just doing what everyone else is doing.
And really, if I can go against the grain and do something unorthodox AND survive MP10, I'm damn sure going to. Especially in this community, where there's such a consensus of "everyone's doing the same thing, why don't you." People are feeling massively upset that their skills don't set them apart, but part of the reason I posted this thread is to basically say...why aren't people going against the grain and doing their own thing? So far, the best reasoning is "efficiency," and I can't argue that unorthodox builds aren't the MOST efficient.....
But let's look at it the other way....are the most "efficient" builds the most fun to play? Or do they feel humdrum, boring, and cookie cutter? If they feel boring, then maybe that's a good reason to change one's style of play. :-) I've been wanting to make an ALL Spirit spell build for my Witch Doctor for a while now, and I finally figured out how to make mine work this morning, and it's a blast! I'm working on getting her to Inferno asap, so the real fun can start, but so far, it's going well. Might need a bit of rune tuning, battle strategy, but all in all, I'm liking it and it feels "mine."
Jaetch...first of all, sorry if I sounded rude in some of my responses to you, I didn't mean to be a jerk about it, and I apologize.
Anyway...I watched the video you posted, about the "lamest wizard build ever," and to answer your question...it's definitely closer to what I had in mind, certainly gear-wise it is, :-). Like I said in the original post, I took a purely ranged class (a Demon Hunter) and purposely took away his left click skill so that he could swing the axe I'd equipped, pretty much changing the entire intention of the class, or even just changing how most people would play it. That's kinda what I meant.
You had mentioned when your Wizard hits things with an Echoing Fury, it's an amusing animation because of how it looks when it hits things with a hammer. That is actually what I mean. So, equipping a spellcaster with sword-and-board is on the right track...but I'd try it with the left click skill slot empty, so my Wizard could swing the melee weapon, :-)
Very cool video, though, really fun to watch. Like the use of Slow Time, I'll have to try out a Wizard like that myself. By the way, I'm now a subscriber to your videos.
Sartorius...to your original point here...
The whole purpose is to try something new that works. Like many other people, you think this game is all about efficiency, likely because in Diablo 2, you could be power-leveled in an hour to a few hours, at least to 30 or 40...and once you get good enough gear via farming the right spots, gaining level 99 really wasn't a major challenge if you went down the right avenues. In Diablo 3, there's really no such thing as "power-leveling," thus people focus on "efficiency" because they want to feel as elite as possible as quickly as possible, instead of looking at "paragon level" and gear quality as a sign of how long you've been grinding and/or farming for.
Thus, efficiency doesn't come into play when discussing builds like my melee DH with -1 skill in favor of swinging an axe...because frankly, builds like what I described in my original post are basically ANTI-efficiency. You say in your later post, "if you're not playing as a Barb, you're doing it wrong," from an efficency standpoint. First, I do have a Barb...his gear is ALL self-found, and while close to 40k DPS may not sound impressive compared to other Barbs that got their gear from the AH (aka, the flea market), I'm still pretty proud of his progress SO FAR (he's only just gotten to Inferno, and can handle MP2 fairly well...he's FAR from done). Second, I say...if your ONLY focus in a game like this, one that could provide you thousands of hours of enjoyment, is simply making it to max level as efficiently as possible...YOU'RE doing it wrong, ;-)
FARMING efficiency, that I can understand, to an extent. Obviously, in D3, farming a specific legendary is almost impossible, but if you're farming gold (whether gold drops, or items to vend), gems, crafting materials, or just BETTER gear (if you're all-bought, this is practically impossible...then again, if you play with all self-found gear, AND have high level characters, upgrades or possible upgrades drop fairly often), you may actually come to a point where being efficient has led you to find what you want.
But XP efficiency? Leveling efficiency? This game is not all about that. You say here, "Pretty much everything has been tried and tested by much more "devious" minds than ours." Maybe...but D2 was fun because even if builds and styles were already tried by others, people wanted to try them for themselves.
Like I said, my axe-swinging DH may not be able to handle MP10, but with some better gear, smarter skill choices...if he can handle even MP5 like that, I'd call that a nice piece of glory.
Wasn't aware of that, no. Your response came off very sarcastic. Could just be a problem with my interpretation, though...most peoples' responses seem pretty matter of fact when it comes to this game...
As for hybrid Archon builds, I've used Archon plenty, and even used Evocation plenty as well, before I made mine specifically multiplayer only with AH gear, both were handy skills. Though, I could never see myself using CM and Evocation just to reduce the cooldown between Archon transformations. Seems like a really awkward way to play, but maybe that's just me.
You use Echoing Fury for the extra crit damage, and you have on Critical Mass...which is funny, because you also have on Evocation. I'm sorry...you're using a passive to reduce cooldowns by 1 second per successful critical hit (which you should pretty much be doing constantly with that amount of crit chance), yet you're using another passive to also reduce cooldowns by 15%? Your CM Wizard has more critical chance than mine, exactly why do you need Evocation?
And by the way, playing a Critical Mass Wizard that wields a melee weapon (thousands of other people carry, by the way) is exactly what I'm NOT talking about. I made my CM Wizard to play multiplayer, and the only reason mine has on a dagger is for extra attack speed. Not saying it's done better, it's not. I followed a YouTube guide because my friends are AH addicts.
I mean, sacrificing a skill for long periods so a ranged/magic user can go straight melee. That's some hard stuff to do, so...I don't blame most people for not trying it for more than a couple seconds, ;-)
Exactly, I'm sure there are lots of interesting ways to play the DH melee, I was just saying what I did at the time. Even not using the ranged skills much and just using the standard attack, though, it was still pretty fun to do, :-)
The reason I switched my Shadow Power rune from Gloom (the popular choice) to Blood Moon is that while 35% seems nice, it doesn't typically offer enough of a damage reduction for me to ever save me, even/especially when I'm using ranged weapons and I get overwhelmed, that 35% doesn't seem to do much. Meanwhile, if I increase the Life Steal % with Blood Moon, by the time I have enemies all around me, I'm keeping my Life at a healthy enough place that I have time to Vault away. I also typically use Nether Tentacles instead of Ball Lightning for the extra Life Steal, so between those two, even when my Life dips low, when I hit Shadow Power, it tends to jump back up pretty fast.
As for "efficiency," I know...that seems to be most peoples' mantra, my guess being that the activity of "power leveling," like in Diablo 2 is pretty much impossible. Though, creativity involving Auction snipes isn't the way I wanted to play this game. Not at all. And in fact, since I started building most of my characters from the ground up, without any help from the AH whatsoever, it's caused me to really see all the "itemization problems" this game has in an entirely new light.
Gearing up on one's own is challenging, but it's absolutely not impossible. Will it take a long time for me to get the gear necessary to make it to higher MPs than 2 or 3? Sure it will. But once I get there, I'll know I did it on my own and without needing to buy perfectly rolled stuff from people. I don't want to be proud that I swooped in on some deal, I want to be proud that I conquered the mountain without anyone to help me.
Maybe throwing melee weapons on my DH won't get him to MP10, but it's a fun thing to try out, to see the farthest aloing he can survive with a setup like that.
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else has had any interest, or tried out, any unorthodox builds.
There's been so much heat on this game for allegedly forcing everyone to be the same that, when my Demon Hunter hit level 60 in Hell difficulty, I couldn't take it anymore and had to try out my Demon Hunter as a melee-ish character. So, I threw on a Burning Axe of Sankis and a high block chance Shield (I think with some Dex), I took away his left click skill so he could wield the axe, had a pretty cool animation, actually...and put Grenades on right click to occasionally generate Hatred without needing to shoot a bow/crossbow. I didn't have to change my other four skills (Shadow Power - Gloom [though, recently changed to Blood Moon], Vault - Trail of Cinders, Sentry - Spitfire Turret, and Spike Traps - Echoing Blast) though I definitely want to look through and see if there's a more "melee/close quarters" centric build than that...also, I'd forgotten to switch out my passives, so I had on stuff like Cull the Weak and Thrill of the Hunt, which is really only good for ranged shots, though Custom Engineering helped me throw out more Sentries.
Then I started up a Nightmare MP10 Diablo run...and I gotta tell ya...I had an absolute ball! I was chopping down Oppressors any chance I could get, Shadow Power was still giving me back a decent amount of life, it was really fun! I would definitely do it again, and once I have even better armor than he has on now, I can't wait to try it out in Inferno.
I say...if a build like that can survive in Inferno MP0, it should be considered "viable."
So seeing some of the threads and posts today, it's really got me thinking about other quirky ways to go against the grain. Maybe D3 doesn't offer quite as many weird options as D2 does, however just adding a minor non-primary to certain classes can change up how they work. Witch Doctors can carry crossbows, why not go for it? I have a Pus Spitter in my stash that I'm pretty sure has Intelligence rolled on it...I let her shoot it on left click, I have one more attack to use that requires no resource. What about a Strength Wizard melee version? Extra Armor and a Shield, combined with Diamond Skin, maybe Ice Armor and attacks to slow enemies down? They'd still need Intelligence to raise damage output, and Crit and APOC would still be a big help to keep resource stocked, but if used differently it could be pretty fun.
In Diablo 2, people went against the grain with builds because they wanted additional challenge, and because even the amount of freedom in that game to make a unique character wasn't enough. People wanted the glory of doing something amazing with a different style of character, with gear that purposely gimped them in various ways, but allowed them to make a special character they could be proud of. Diablo 3 may only be out less than a year, but trying to find people who go this way in this game is pretty rough.
TLDR: If some people are so bored with the same old builds, especially with so many people streaming on twitch and YouTube, why is it not more common to see people with funky variations, doing strange and unorthodox builds to show what these classes are really made of? Why are the same default builds seen sooooooooooooooo often?