A Call to the Builders Extraordinaire

To the Mods: I'm posting this in each class forum because it's not really class-specific. If you'd prefer it go into a different forum or something, feel free to delete and move whatever posts you want. I understand.

Hey gang... I'm nobody. No honestly, I'm nobody. I'm sure you can ignore my post and my request for help and literally nothing would happen and no one would care.

But if you care, I have a humble request.

I'm looking for some good build ideas that *DON'T* cost hundreds of EX. I don't mean "starter builds"... I've played with plenty of those. I mean builds that can actually rock the faces of the end game bosses, guardians, shapers, elders, whatever. Starter builds always hit a wall. If you are interested in helping me, I implore you to read on.

I've been playing the game for a very long time (took breaks and returned, obviously) and have managed to get *right to* some of the end game bosses but no matter what my characters just fail. Not for lack of skill (I'm sure many of you will claim)... but because I don't have *quite enough* of something. Just barely not enough health not to get one-shotted, or just barely not enough Chaos res, or just barely not quite enough DPS, or evade, or armour, or whatever is required.

I love this game. Honestly, I do. I used to play way back when every time you used a movement skill you would desync from the server and loved it even then. But I don't have the time to put in just to farm until my face melts just to get a couple more EX.

There are so many builds out there that I want to try, but I look at the POB and almost every item is 20+ EX... or sometimes there will be that one crucial item that the entire build revolves around and even in standard it costs 50 EX.

Yes, I can craft, but because I can't spend days and days farming (My wife would tell you I play too much as it is), I just don't have the currency to really craft what I need. I actually spent some time and currency trying to craft and ended up with pitiful failures every time. It is just agonizing.

I've got a handful of EX (around 30) and I've worked very hard on my top characters to be able to *MODESTLY* make it through most maps, but it's like when I get to the "end"... I hit a wall that just will not relent and the only explanation I can come up with is that my builds just aren't quite strong enough - and that I need to spend 25 EX on a new single item. Is this how you guys do it?... farm for months for the EX you need to replace *ONE* item at a time?

Look, I know I'm nobody. But I truly love this game and really want to see and accomplish some of that end game stuff.

Can anybody help?

there are some builds that you simply aren't compatible with
like you need to dodge a lot or flask a lot
sometimes you need to get a statement from the build owner, sometimes you must be skipping some fundamentals that are obvious for other people
there are also some "commandments" in PoE like invest first in defence then do the offence part
also comes with experience (mostly dying a lot) that you get a knack for when you are going in the right direction

see my champion build that i just created today and tell me what you think about cost and so on perhaps you can get some inspiration for your build

also there are some builds that comes with a trap
like people saying that build is tanky but using abyssus (does this ring any bells?) or abusing very expensive clusters to barely make the build work
watch out for some youtube channels too, many put mad skillz for editing but they are poorly made builds that simply are pumped to the brim with mirror-tier gear

let me construct a criticism around your gladiator build:
1-you are using abyssus and have less than 4.5k life and that is dangerous
2-you are cycloning which makes you slower and that makes you more prone to get hit
3-you are a DW gladiator, but your damage is too low (around 1.2 M) you are scaling with starter gear for maps
4-your block chance is not that high (edit:misread it) for a gladiator nowadays...there are so many builds that you can reach over 80% block chance
5-Flasks are part of your build, you put way too much life flasks (mostly because of all of the above) and little utility flasks...there should be a rumi's and a diamond there

It appears to me that you are lacking some fundamental understanding of the game mechanics. By no mean I'm trying to sound condescending, because I for once hit the same wall back in beta because of my lack of understanding and quit the game for a long while. And I hate to see another play walking the same path as I did.

For example, like you mention that you are lacking chaos res, and I figure that's why you are running an chaos res flask in your setup. But in most cases, another utility flask would offer much more value to your build. Back to the chaos res problem, they are nice to have , but not absolutely needed, especially if you are playing softcore. Most builds can breeze thru maps with -60 chaos res. I recommend you to watch some engineering eternity's video to has a better grasp of how different mechanic works in this game. Although those videos are from older patches, the fundmentals still hold to this day.

It is impossible to list everything in just one post, I'm more than happy to offer help if you whisper me in game.