My first hack and Slash was Diablo 1 and I then experienced many other games like Baldur’s Gate Dark Alliance 1 and 2, Diablo 2, Titan Quest, Van Helsing, Titan Quest, Diablo 3,etc.
I have the feeling that over years, the genre has become more complex stats wise, and it is hard to get a clear visibility on what to do and what to avoid. The time where a warrior woul raise strength and a wizard would raise magic is far behind us.
One thing that drives me to constantly look for premade builds, is that there are many factors to take into account: how each mastery works and can be combined with the second mastery, items, and devotions.
I have the feeling that some builds require much more effort to be played than other where you just rely on two or three skills.
And there are also plenty of elements, not just fire thunder and ice, but also aether, chaos, bleeding, piercing,poison. That makes it a bit confusing to pick up a direction. I have read that aether and chaos are harder to develop overall because players were not originally supposed to use those elements(apparently that information came from a CM, maybe developers can confirm this).
In addition to this, I often read that Crate gave too much importance to RR, making it mandatory for people who want to play effectively in Ultimate.
I feel that is is not easy to spot which choices will lead you to dead ends and which choices are good.