Any Class A Guide To Buildmaking

2k!!!

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Welcome to my buildmaking guide! Hopefully you’ll learn something here.

I’m assuming you know all the ID’s and all that stuff. If you don’t, there are several threads that explain them, and you can easily search for them.


We’re going to stay within the intended bounds of the game in this guide. That is, we’re gonna follow some basic guidelines – namely, no glitch abusing, no OP mechanic abuse (read: no tier, Cancer for damage, etc.), and only one Hive Master Armor per build. Most builds I make assume unlimited budget, so for the most part this guide will be tailored to this. (There is one section about budget building.)


The information in this thread is valid up to the Corkus update.

The First Step
Your first step, is, obviously, going to be deciding what exactly you want your build to be. Typically you can sum up your main desires in one sentence, and then when you get more experienced you can sum them up in a couple of words.
Here are a few examples of such statements:
“I want a tanky warrior that also has a lot of mana.” can be shortened to “tank spellspam warrior”.
“I want an archer that uses lifesteal as its main source of survivability and uses mana steal and spells for spell damage” can be shortened to “vampiric spellspam archer” (note: vampiric is a name I coined, afaik nobody else uses it)
“I want an assassin that uses melee for its damage but also has a lot of thorns and reflection” can be shortened to “melee cactus assassin”.

In my opinion, the exact playstyle you want is far more important than what elements you want to use. Once the playstyle is given, the elements often come directly afterwards, because a lot of items that have a certain playstyle will all share similar identifications. For instance, a large amount of items that have mana regen are water, so a spellspam build will often use the water element. Similarly, if you want to build walk speed, you’re gonna want air. On the other hand, a water build could simply be a damage truck with little mana regen, so deciding first that you want a water build doesn’t limit the possibilities as much.


Picking the Items
Now you’ve decided what playstyle and/or elements you want to go for. It’s time to start choosing items.

First, a few things to keep in mind:
1) The elements you originally decided aren’t the only ones you can use! If you see an item that requires a little bit of strength that you really want to use, but your build is TFA, you can always stick a tiny bit of strength in there.
2) Consider things you don’t originally build for when making your build! Most importantly, you should always consider health and elemental defense when making a build. Things like speed are important too; Statue, in particular, is not the best pair of boots in the game, as typically its negative walk speed makes travelling and in turn strafing unbearable. Similarly, for the most part you want to avoid negative health regen (raw) and you should shun negative mana regen like the plague. (Obviously, these two do not apply when it comes to Warp.)
3) Rarities aren’t everything! There are many viable uniques and rares in the game. Sure, they’re lower rarity for a reason, but sometimes they’ll fit the exact niche you need and some people will gloss over them due to their rarity.
4) Do not always start with the helmet! The first item you pick should be the one that you most need.
When it comes to intelligence in particular, you want to aim for certain numbers so that you are just able to obtain buffs. 68 and 129 are the most important ones (68 is 50% mana reduction for spells, and 129 is 75%).
You also usually do not want too much mana regen, which you will have if you go something like Third Eye / Aquarius / Crystal / Memento. Too much mana regen is a waste, and you could be using it towards something like spell damage or more tankiness. In general, if you have 129 intelligence you would need 10/4 mana regen at most, and if you have 68 then 12/4 will suffice. (This is, of course, ignoring mana steal.)


Examples
Some precise examples are probably needed to teach it a bit more detailed. Item names will be bolded. We will use at most one Master Hive Armor Piece, because you’re not supposed to use more than one.

"I want a mage build that can sometimes do a ton of damage and can consistently spam spells. I do not want to be a glass cannon, though I also don’t want to be a complete tank and lose too much damage."

“Sometimes do a lot of damage” is typically indicative of thunder, which specializes in “pray to rnjesus”-style damage. Spamming spells implies that we need a ton of mana regen. So, we want a semi-tank spellspam thunder mage.

Let’s start off with figuring out how we can get a bunch of tankiness and spellspammability both at once. If we can’t do this, then we can go to specifics.

Paradox is one of the best boots in the game. It has a ton of health and gives a bit of mana regen/steal as well. Plus that juicy 26% spell damage. The requirements are quite low in terms of rainbow ID’s, so it’s more of the kind of item you can throw onto the build.
Dark Channeler has some pretty nice damage and mana, as well as not hurting any defense badly raw-wise. The raw damage is pretty helpful if your opponent has a lot of thunder defense, and the total damage is pretty good too. It’s lower on health, but that will be dealt with.
Now, we have 4/4 mana steal, which in a spell build isn’t always needed. Let’s throw in a Suppression to give us more mana regen while our mana steal is still nonnegative. Now, we have 7/4 mana regen and no mana steal. If we can reach 68 intelligence and get 5/4 more mana regen, we’ll be set.
Speaking of more mana regen, Chef Hamsey’s Apron fits that bill pefectly. It also has some pretty good elemental defense and a few skill points which can definitely go towards making this build possible. (Note: Definitely an off-meta choice here. One of the more underrated items in the game.)
Assuming we can get 68 intelligence, which shouldn’t be too difficult, we can pretty easily get 2/4 more mana regen, so let’s focus on damage right now, while still keeping tankiness in mind.
Anima-Infused Helmet, after the damage buff to it, will have a metric ton of thunder spell damage. It will also still be one of the tankiest helmets in the game, boasting 3500 health and only positive defenses.
Diamond Static Bracelet is really, really good for thunder damage for a bracelet. The minus health is pretty negligible, and the damage buff is worth almost every problem it could have.
I think we’re done dealing with damage. Let’s make sure this build is possible and then finish it up.
Summa is one of my favorite items in the game. It gets you 2/4 mana regen, finishing up the 68-intel 12/4 mr dream, and has a decent amount of skill points for making this build possible.
Gigabyte, in my opinion, is the single best necklace in the game. Tons of skill points? Check. Health? Check. A bit of damage? Check. Health regen, to counter Summa’s negative in this build? Check. And it all comes with no downsides or skill point requirements whatsoever.
For the weapon, we’re just gonna take the best damaging thunder wand in the game. Fatal. With it and thunder powders, you can get some juicy 33k meteors, while having good defenses in everything but air (which can be dealt with using powders, or ignored altogether, because nonnegative is usually sufficient) and 11k health. Not to mention, you have so many spare skill points after getting 68 intelligence that you can play around with this build a bit. Maybe you’d want to use a more damaging item like Runic Coin or Generator Amulet instead of Gigabyte. Maybe you want to keep some mana steal, so you use a Concentration instead of Suppression. Maybe you’d use a Moon Pool Circlet instead of Summa, or maybe you’d throw in a Prism or two for rainbow defense. Really, there are a dozen different choices to slightly modify this build. And that’s only post-build modification.

For reference, the final build is:
Anima-Infused Helmet
Chef Hamsey’s Apron
Dark Channeler
Paradox

Summa
Suppression
Diamond Static Bracelet
Gigabyte

Fatal


EXAMPLE TWO
“I want a very tanky build for assassin that also has a lot of walk speed. I don’t really care about the damage.”
So, a walk speed-rainbow tank, where damage is secondary. Let’s first see if we can get any items that have both good walk speed and good overall elemental defense, hopefully with some good health.
Hephaestus-Forged Greaves have some pretty decent walk speed and very good elemental defenses, as well as a ton of health. Another one of my favorite items. Another choice for the master hive slot would have been Boreal-Patterned Aegis, but I’m using Heph because I can use a different chestplate which does a lot of stuff at once.
Matryoshka Shell is low level, but it’s really good for its level. The elemental defense is really, really nice (the % does wonders, and the raw is a nice touch), plus it comes with a bit of walk speed. Don’t forget that we can put a LOT of powders on it, so whichever element we’re missing some defense in at the end, we can stuff a lot of it in here. The one major downside is the lack of health, but Heph for the most part deals with that.
Heph has a lot of raw defense in TFA, but we’re missing the earth defense and water defense to patch up the build. We’re obviously gonna throw a bunch of water and earth powders on Shell, but a bit more would be nice. But let’s round out the walk speed right now. Slider can be our weapon – it’s the best walkspeed dagger, as well as having respectable DpS with powders (which is secondary, but damage is still pretty nice).
We have around 100% walk speed now, so let’s focus a bit more on elemental defense – if we need more later, we can always take more.
Morph-Stardust is the best helmet in the game right now, and for good reason. The immensely helpful 100 raw rainbow elemental defense gives us the raw defense we need on earth and water, plus the skill points are helpful for making the build possible. And 3400 health, with some mana regen? This item needed a nerf a year ago. (I also tend to avoid this item for the reason that it’s boring and meta. Corrupted Nii Helm could be used here, as it’s overall better for defense, but I like the rest of the build a lot and switching in a zero-SP item hurts a bit. And with Corrupted Nii Helm your health is pretty low.)
Capricorn finishes up our water defense, gives us some mana, and even has quite a bit of walk speed on it. Really, it’s perfect for this build.
Diamond Fusion Bracelet is amazing defensively – the percent defenses are really helpful for the build and the raws are very nice too.
Gonna use one Prism in here for roughly the same reason. Percent and raw defense is really nice here, and so are skill points.
We’re gonna take the other ring, however, for the other half of the build. Raging Wind is basically better than its Legendary Island counterpart. Some pretty nice walk speed and air damage round off the build quite nicely.
For the necklace: There are a lot of ways you could take this item. Diamond Fusion Necklace and Gigabyte are the first ones that jump to mind, because of their skill points in both items and elemental defense and health/walk speed respectively. But let’s go for the weird choice, because we can. Ominous Wind is an item that, to be frank, I have never used in a build before now. However, it has a little bit of earth defense as well as being one of the best walkspeed necklaces in the game. A nice and interesting finishing touch.

The build ends with over 140% walk speed and amazing elemental defense. Damage is still alright.

For reference, the final build:

Morph-Stardust
Matryoshka Shell
Hephaestus-Forged Greaves
Capricorn

Prism
Raging Wind
Diamond Fusion Bracelet
Ominous Wind

Slider

Budget Building
Let’s think realistically for a bit. Not every person can have access to twenty stacks of LE’s worth of items, nor does everybody have the time or dedication to do, say, Geyser Pit tons of times until they get a 9 skill point, 2/4 mana regen Summa with -26 to -31 Health Regen (fun fact: I actually made a build once that required this, and I decided to see how many runs it would take. You’re expected to get one every roughly 2.5k times you ID the item. Good luck!)

So, if you’re building under a budget of time or money, there are several things you need to consider sacrificing, but there are also some things you should definitely keep.
Sacrifice mythics and Hive Armor for their replacements. There are tons of threads that say a bunch of mythic/Hive replacements, so you should be able to get them. The Hive weapons, in particular, are almost as good, if not better, than their counterparts, so you should always consider them. As always, keep in mind what you’re doing when you make these replacements, as you may need to switch other items out in order to account for the lost DPS or worsened survivability.
Loosen up skill points if you want to sacrifice an item that you need good skill points for. In the Summa example, you could, say, take out a Diamond Fusion Bracelet and put in Prowess instead. Or a multitude of other substitutions. Personally, my buildmaking style involves a lot of “make the armor as tight as possible, then rely on skill point accessories to make everything wearable”.
Consider lower rarities more strongly if you’re on a budget. Unique replacements for legendaries, for example, become so much more viable if you can’t afford the legendary. For instance, we want to use Anima-Infused Helmet for the damage buff, but we can’t afford another Hive item or the skill points. Instead, we can just substitute in Quartzite Helm, which has pretty good damage while still having decent health.
Always sacrifice things that you don’t need and aren’t building for first. For example, if you’re building for melee, feel free to use items whose main problems are negative spell damage. Similarly, if you get something extra from some ID of an item which you’re using for a different purpose (for example, the poison on Leggings of Desolation that you’re using for its spell damage), you can use items which have negative poison, or take LoD out for something that doesn’t have poison but maintains some of LoD’s buffs (like Vaward). However, in general you should never sac health regen or mana regen or other things you need to survive.
If you really need to, sacrifice the things you are building for, rather than the things you aren’t mainly building for but still need. This is the most unintuitive thing in this entire guide, but it’s important. A good build needs to have some sort of balance between offense and defense, and its respective components. If you specialize in one of those components, sacrificing the other components is a pretty big problem because you won’t be able to do enough damage or the like. On the other hand, if you sacrifice a bit of the component you specialize in, your build (hopefully) maintains enough of the other components to still do well, but it can still have the specialty.

Here’s a random example of a build before and after budgeting. The build request was “heavy melee tank warrior”:
BEFORE
Dune Storm
Taurus
Vaward
Gaea-Hewn Boots

Prism
Prism
Prowess
Gigabyte

Alkatraz


Complaints:
-I don’t have any spare Master Hive Vouchers and don’t have Gaea-Hewn or Prowess.
-I don’t have the budget to buy an Alkatraz.

Fixes:
Take Alkatraz out and put in its best nonmythic replacement, Rikter.
Take Gaea-Hewn out and put in another melee boots like Mantlewalkers. Replace some of the other items to make the build tankier while still maintaining decent damage (for example, use Aries instead of Dune Storm. Also, use Diamond Fusion Necklace instead of Gigabyte for added tankiness, and throw more water/air powders on your armor to contribute towards the defenses).
Take Prowess out and put in its best nonhive replacement, Morph-Amethyst.

FINAL BUILD:
Aries
Taurus
Vaward
Mantlewalkers

Prism
Prism
Morph-Amethyst
Diamond Fusion Necklace

Rikter

Hopefully this demonstrated how to budgetize a build.


Common Pitfalls and Traps
There are many mistakes inexperienced builders make when they first start buildmaking. Here are the ones I find to be the most prevalent, that I haven’t mentioned already.
The compass is useless! Do not use the in-game compass when calculating defenses. It’s unreliable, and that’s an understatement.
Skill point requirements aren’t everything! Do not use Scorpio in an earth-fire build. I repeat. Do not use Scorpio in an earth-fire build. Just because it has a strength requirement and a defense requirement does not mean it should be used in an earth-fire build. Maybe the majority of items have the SP requirements to fit the build, but there are exceptions, and those will screw you over or give you a far suboptimal build if you don't pay attention to them.
Defense only affects neutral damage! This is just a mechanical issue, but sometimes people overrate defense because of this misunderstanding.
Don’t use Control-F for your builds! A common beginner building method is to control-F an item guide for “thunder damage”, for example, use all of those best items, and call that a finished build. This doesn’t work, as it often causes you to use items in ways that don’t fit their niches (e.g. using Breakdown in a spell build) and completely ignores any aspect of staying alive. (Of course, searching is a good way to find items that could work. Just don’t overuse it.)
Elemental defenses are the most important aspect of the survivability of a build! Fire does not immediately correlate to being tanky; just because you use Leo and have 15000 health doesn’t mean that you have a good amount of survivability. If your water defense is -500, you don’t stand a chance against water things, or any rainbow thing with water damage (e.g. Qira).
%Health Regen is basically useless! If you’re not using Amulet of Rejuvenation, in which %health regen is actually slightly helpful but purely because of its large quantity, you should ignore any %health regen in a build.


Overall, I hope this guide helped you get at least a little better at buildmaking. Have fun!

 

Grats on post 2000!

 

ayy 2k yay

 

definitely wasnt trying to get 2000th thread lol grats

 

Almost fell asleep when I was reading this

 

Congrats to you, then!

 

Finally @add air spear is mad at derpy builds which made mess on 'Class Builds' section suddenly.
We needed you

 

ah shit

 

stopped being lazy and added some formatting

may add more later if i feel like it

 

bump 10char

 

Don't die here.

 

this needs a bump

 

Skillpoints*, am I right ?

I had much fun reading this, and it really helped! Thank you!

 

this is another bump

 

Such nice bumps wow show me more

 

ok

 

bumpity bump bump

 

I read this at 6 in the morning and now I have a headache

 

bumppppppp