So, assuming you're not doing multiplayer, the only valid reason to desire to do seasons is for the GR leaderboards. Also, you start seasons fresh - seasonal characters have access to nothing from your other characters. No gem of ease, no crafting mats, no paragon levels, no gear. You start at level 1 and with nothing.
You seem to have a good idea on how to progress your character. To answer the question on "what is the best way to just try to get new items?" the answer is definitely by running GRs quickly. Set up a build to clear through regular rifts as fast as you possibly can to get GR keys, then use the GR keys to clear the highest GR you can reliably run in ~8 mins and under.
Doing bounties for rerolling of stuff is important for weapons and other highly important pieces - less so for more common/less important pieces of gear. A great example of this is that rerolling a Karlei's point for demon hunter is a bit less good on the basis that upgrading daggers via regular mats will get you a karlei's half the time - you can effectively "reroll" a karlei's for the cost of 2 rare upgrades rather than one reroll.
I will preface by saying i feel like paragon is an old system that could 100% use (at minimum) tweaks or (at maximum) complete overhaul.
Reception (How do you feel about the changes?)
I feel like they are an absolutely horrible direction: not only do you keep the basic framework of paragon that has diminishing returns and then at plvl 800 suddenly goes off again, some HUGE impact changes to the core stats are made that frankly feel awful.
Just take for a moment and think as a barb who has been playing since D3 came out as barb, and has loved it. Suddenly your main stat is no longer a source of mixed offense and defense, instead only offense, and yet for crusaders nothing changes on that front. That feels really bad, and they have no reasonable reprieve other than to pick up a non-main stat to make up for the fact that they just lost a major source of defense. In D&D this is called "MAD"- having multiple ability score dependence - and it feels really bad, because in the end you only have so much stat point progression.
Also, thorns on intellect is... counter-intuitive if you are looking to reinforce the glass-cannon playstyle. Reinforcing getting hit to do damage is exactly the opposite of reinforcing glass-cannon (not that intelligence users should even be relegated to that super specific playstyle that not everyone wants anyways).
Balancing (Do you feel that each stat provides a reasonable bonus?)
No, each stat does not provide a reasonable bonus, as outlined above. Some classes are obviously favored in the changes (crusaders over barbs), others are just directly sad that they get extra ineffective stats for their archetype while others do not have this problem (int users). Dex is roughly the same, but suffers from exactly the problem that having dodge on dex had before (because... you know it used to do that in one iteration of D3), and many other games have had with providing an easy access to a stat that stops a percentage of attacks from landing - it is either far too strong or far too weak, and it is a huge multiplier on toughness that is only reasonably accessible to two classes, meanwhile no other class has access to anything quite as polarizing. Dodge on dex has already existed, and it doesn't need to happen again.
Long-term effects (What impact would you expect on Plvl 5k+?)
I would expect dex to dominate when they can reach a high level of dodge chance. Scaling damage AND a highly effective multiplier of toughness while removing everyone elses sources of double dipping damage with high impact toughness multipliers means there is no one at all to stop them, not even close.
So these changes are "NOT INTENDED AS A LONG-TERM FIX" -why should they even be considered then? Is the current system broken to a highly unfun or unplayable level? Is there a potential disaster scenario that necessitates implementing short-term band-aid fixes? If not, why spend time balancing this iteration of the same basic system, with all of it's flaws rather than changing the dynamic entirely?
Also, if vitality becomes so good that it competes with main stat... nothing really changes. suddenly people need even more paragon points to match both the defensive and offensive requirements to complete rifts greater than other peoples... it just goes slower.
The idea of a season is to provide a fresh start, so that people can play new things without feeling like they are behind, and so that competitive players can continuously be engaged and there is no staleness. There are two tags applied to characters: seasonal and hardcore. You can play both, either or, or neither. Any character with a different tag only has access to gear from other characters with the same tags (i.e. a hardcore seasonal character is only able to access the hardcore seasonal stash).
That said, at the end of a season, all seasonal characters lose their seasonal tag and become non-seasonal, merging with non-seasonal of the same tag between non-hardcore and hardcore. In a sense, this is a way in which seasonal gear gets transferred to non-seasonal characters.
Seasons have lasted a few months each, so it's moderately temporary.
Getting into your second question, it depends upon you. If you intend to spend the time to level all the way up and spend some time on the season, it can very much be worthwhile. Even if you don't care for the time restraint, if you're making a brand new character it is highly suggested that you at least make a seasonal character to start (the reward of a stash tab is the principal reasoning here). There are plenty of people who play non-seasonal constantly, and it's a very good option for people that are only going to play for a handful of hours every week.
To answer your third question then, there is no reason to play until January 15 if and only if you intend to play seasonal.
If playing with a group, do you think having one person split from the group to do campaign mode and get leorics crowns for everyone is an idea worthy of merit?
0
So, assuming you're not doing multiplayer, the only valid reason to desire to do seasons is for the GR leaderboards. Also, you start seasons fresh - seasonal characters have access to nothing from your other characters. No gem of ease, no crafting mats, no paragon levels, no gear. You start at level 1 and with nothing.
You seem to have a good idea on how to progress your character. To answer the question on "what is the best way to just try to get new items?" the answer is definitely by running GRs quickly. Set up a build to clear through regular rifts as fast as you possibly can to get GR keys, then use the GR keys to clear the highest GR you can reliably run in ~8 mins and under.
Doing bounties for rerolling of stuff is important for weapons and other highly important pieces - less so for more common/less important pieces of gear. A great example of this is that rerolling a Karlei's point for demon hunter is a bit less good on the basis that upgrading daggers via regular mats will get you a karlei's half the time - you can effectively "reroll" a karlei's for the cost of 2 rare upgrades rather than one reroll.
1
I will preface by saying i feel like paragon is an old system that could 100% use (at minimum) tweaks or (at maximum) complete overhaul.
Reception (How do you feel about the changes?)
I feel like they are an absolutely horrible direction: not only do you keep the basic framework of paragon that has diminishing returns and then at plvl 800 suddenly goes off again, some HUGE impact changes to the core stats are made that frankly feel awful.
Just take for a moment and think as a barb who has been playing since D3 came out as barb, and has loved it. Suddenly your main stat is no longer a source of mixed offense and defense, instead only offense, and yet for crusaders nothing changes on that front. That feels really bad, and they have no reasonable reprieve other than to pick up a non-main stat to make up for the fact that they just lost a major source of defense. In D&D this is called "MAD"- having multiple ability score dependence - and it feels really bad, because in the end you only have so much stat point progression.
Also, thorns on intellect is... counter-intuitive if you are looking to reinforce the glass-cannon playstyle. Reinforcing getting hit to do damage is exactly the opposite of reinforcing glass-cannon (not that intelligence users should even be relegated to that super specific playstyle that not everyone wants anyways).
Balancing (Do you feel that each stat provides a reasonable bonus?)
No, each stat does not provide a reasonable bonus, as outlined above. Some classes are obviously favored in the changes (crusaders over barbs), others are just directly sad that they get extra ineffective stats for their archetype while others do not have this problem (int users). Dex is roughly the same, but suffers from exactly the problem that having dodge on dex had before (because... you know it used to do that in one iteration of D3), and many other games have had with providing an easy access to a stat that stops a percentage of attacks from landing - it is either far too strong or far too weak, and it is a huge multiplier on toughness that is only reasonably accessible to two classes, meanwhile no other class has access to anything quite as polarizing. Dodge on dex has already existed, and it doesn't need to happen again.
Long-term effects (What impact would you expect on Plvl 5k+?)
I would expect dex to dominate when they can reach a high level of dodge chance. Scaling damage AND a highly effective multiplier of toughness while removing everyone elses sources of double dipping damage with high impact toughness multipliers means there is no one at all to stop them, not even close.
So these changes are "NOT INTENDED AS A LONG-TERM FIX" -why should they even be considered then? Is the current system broken to a highly unfun or unplayable level? Is there a potential disaster scenario that necessitates implementing short-term band-aid fixes? If not, why spend time balancing this iteration of the same basic system, with all of it's flaws rather than changing the dynamic entirely?
Also, if vitality becomes so good that it competes with main stat... nothing really changes. suddenly people need even more paragon points to match both the defensive and offensive requirements to complete rifts greater than other peoples... it just goes slower.
edited for readability.
0
The idea of a season is to provide a fresh start, so that people can play new things without feeling like they are behind, and so that competitive players can continuously be engaged and there is no staleness. There are two tags applied to characters: seasonal and hardcore. You can play both, either or, or neither. Any character with a different tag only has access to gear from other characters with the same tags (i.e. a hardcore seasonal character is only able to access the hardcore seasonal stash).
That said, at the end of a season, all seasonal characters lose their seasonal tag and become non-seasonal, merging with non-seasonal of the same tag between non-hardcore and hardcore. In a sense, this is a way in which seasonal gear gets transferred to non-seasonal characters.
Seasons have lasted a few months each, so it's moderately temporary.
Getting into your second question, it depends upon you. If you intend to spend the time to level all the way up and spend some time on the season, it can very much be worthwhile. Even if you don't care for the time restraint, if you're making a brand new character it is highly suggested that you at least make a seasonal character to start (the reward of a stash tab is the principal reasoning here). There are plenty of people who play non-seasonal constantly, and it's a very good option for people that are only going to play for a handful of hours every week.
To answer your third question then, there is no reason to play until January 15 if and only if you intend to play seasonal.
Best of luck.
0
If playing with a group, do you think having one person split from the group to do campaign mode and get leorics crowns for everyone is an idea worthy of merit?