Well, whether you agree or not, killing the same boss or NPC over and over again hundreds of times for a specific item & possibly having to farm some other stuff as well in order to even be able to access them is a chore. This is what we have to do in some cases in order to complete a build.
Breaking down legendary items for components is a chore since you have to farm aether crystals, then craft aether shards, and finally dynamite, which can easily total millions of iron bits. So right there’s another possible farming for iron bits in SR, assuming your character can handle the upper shards that pay out enough iron bits for it to be feasible. This is what must be done unless someone has a weird enjoyment of endless farming and won’t keep anything for a possible future build. I have a single mule character specifically for lvl 94 non-duplicate Legendary sets storage. Its not a problem since I’m not trying to get the best rolled stats on them or hoard 2+ sets of the same.
I prefer getting things done at some point & moving on to another class combo & experimenting rather than throwing away time on a seemingly endless farm loop. Not all of us play Grim Dawn 24/7 and burn through a bunch of other games in a couple of months.
What’s the point in experimenting by using a 3rd party program that generates all items on demand? Using the Grim Tools website alone should be able to give you a general idea of whether or not a build is viable. Generating equipment sets for characters is just cheating and is probably how some of the top posted builds over on the Grim Tools website were created.
There are many, many documented cases of builds that seem incredible on paper but completely fall apart when it comes to actual gameplay. Some have to do with clunkiness, others have to do with defensive layers that seem alright but the initial defenses break down so quickly that the other layers don’t have time to assist. There is no substitute for actual in-game testing.
The notion that players getting what they want in a single-player game (as long as it’s within the bounds of the design space, obviously, so hacked items that give 10X what they’re supposed to give) - where said items are not used in community races or other community-designed competitions where the playing field is actually relevant - is “cheating” meant to be discouraged is a laughable idea that should be thrown out of the room any time it’s brought up.
The game state is you against the AI, and if a build philosophy (such as a character designed around a particular set) requires hyper-rare materials that can only be spontaneously generated instead of reasonably farmed, then the build philosophy is inherently flawed and should be brought up in balance discussions.
Many build creators (including myself) are aware of reasonable farming requirements when posting build threads, and if certain MI’s are required, they provide a range of alternatives that provide the stats required for such build to work, even if not at 100% maximum efficiency (so if you can’t get that specific affix that gives %OA and pierce resistance, you can shuffle other affixes and components around to have an alternative scenario that works well enough)
The idea that we need to wait for one player to get all the farming materials needed to even test whether a build philosophy works just leads to months of balance discussions not being raised and even more months of waiting around for bad build ideas to get fixed, where ultimately people get fed up with the inaction and go play something else (not to mention the all-too-common scenario where people farm the items after waiting for so long only for the item to not even function as it’s intended to due to bugs within the item or its functionality with player skills).
The design-test-feedback loop that @Dioarchet mentioned is absolutely the right way to go about things and should not be discouraged by phony appeals to “fairness” that don’t even exist in a single-player adventure that pays no mind to how other people like to play.
EDIT: Before people deride me as being “divisive” or “toxic” or whatever, a failure scenario like I’ve described above has already occurred in another once-promising ARPG: Last Epoch.
That state is more pronounced because build-makers state that a specific, rare Unique item slammed with a similarly rare affix must be obtained for the build to even work at all (when said slam state only has a 25-50% to work, that leaves many disgruntled players who think they have no alternative to making their build work in the slightest and simply give up on the game).
The playerbase goes on this grind to try to put all the pieces together only to realize the item is bugged or the character’s skilltree is bugged and the interaction doesn’t work at all the way they thought it would. So months go by with no discussion on the matter because not enough people try to test these things, and bad or dysfunctional skills lie dormant for years and leave a horrible taste in the playerbase’s mouth as a dysfunctional company that can’t get its act together and give players functioning characters like they promised to before its official release 2 or so years ago.
I am grateful that the designers at Crate were smart enough to avoid this pitfall in the name of “fairness” and gave players a design space to thoroughly test things with and are responsive to forum discussions if a particular item or philosophy is flawed.
i feel like even Zantai said GDstash is helpful in these (PTR) matters?, exactly because it makes testing+direct feedback easier faster and more even
(please feel free to correct me if i’m wrong so i don’t put “objectionable” words in the devs’ mouth 
)
disliking GDstash because of “muh legit play and MP or trading” i can see as subjectively fine, but in a game that’s deliberately already fully modable, including dev console commands, GDstash is basically just a shortcut vs modding a vendor/dispenser or inputting however many spawn commands would be needed anyway.
And in practice there is no difference vs running these checks in a blank mod either
I feel like it often boils down to either a lot of misunderstanding what the game already does/allow, or just an inherent disagreement whether the game/“a diablo like” should be modable in this fashion.
But in the end it’s an offline SP first and foremost, so that disagreemnt i kinda struggle with if people are fine with modding in other games, TL, Skyrim, or even native exploits eg DS souls duping etc. - difference is Crate intentionally allows modding and didn’t make it a leaderboard/online competitive ranked game.
This is a weird argument tbh. Just because you can mod the game doesn’t mean anything you can do via mods is considered to be fine as part of normal game play. You can mod in more skill points, crazy stats, etc.
If some item is super hard to find/obtain, I can totally understand that people don’t like it when others just spawn it in with some mod/tool.
That said, I agree it’s a bit silly for people to complain about how others play the game, as there are no rankings or anything like that. So nobody is hurting anyone by ‘cheating’, if you even want to call it that.
Nobody is forcing you to make that build. If you ignore the internet and just play the game, you won’t have this problem. You’ll just equip whatever you can find and when you finally do get some nice items you can try and make a build with that. And probably you’ll be more like “Wow what a cool item!” than when you’ve already researched it online and are waiting for it to drop.
You really only run into the farming if you really want to try something that requires a specific item. And as it is, pretty much anything works well for completing the main campaign. So the only reason to farm is to be able to do higher SR shards or celestials, or other types of extra fun (like wanting to uses a set with some cool bonus, or creating some specific build). But none of this is required to play (and enjoy) the game. There’s also plenty of people who post ‘beginner’ builds, that don’t require anything special that you can’t easily obtain (usually without any significant farming). Some of those can actually do end game content as well. So given that farming is purely for the fanatics 
i feel like you’re conflating things in a disingenuous way
because, atleast to me, there is a difference vs “Modding things to mod the game” ie “cheating” in skill points items argument/“things unintended vanilla gameplay”, vs modding things “preemptively” to test the game.
For me it’s little to no different than ex online games actually doing PTR servers where you do get free or full or near free+full/“low effort” range of items and builds etc
And builders using GDstash to test builds are just shortcutting what the game already freely allows you todo or aka playing a “PTR server”
hence specifically complaining about people testing builds or the ability to test builds this way becomes that more… weird or even hypocritical; the devs themselves are benefitting from it and deliberately gave us the tools to do it on top…
so for me it’s not just an argument about complaining how people play the game/“you shouldn’t care if others mod skyrim”
imagine people complaining players tested stuff on Public test realms? 
heck, half? the stuff in the last dozen patches is probably directly response to player feedback, stuff that wouldn’t be done without these features…
Sure it’s useful for testing and I don’t object to that argument, I just object to arguing that it’s ok because the game already supports modding.
so, what is the argument
“what degree of modding is permissible, and which types of modding is permissible” ? 
you’re okay with players testing the game, but don’t want them to have the ability to test the game, just other abilities to change the game ? - where is the line
again, mind you, what GDstash build testing/“item spawning” does in no way do stuff that voids vanilla gameplay abilities except shaving down time to go through XYZ permutations…
they aren’t making combos that doesn’t exist or can’t be obtained, it’s just like using a vendor with all vanilla objects available, similar to what you get in some public test realms
Maybe I just misunderstood what you wrote earlier. Seemed like you were arguing gdstash and friends is no problem because the game is already modable.
I think it would be a problem is that’s the primary way to play the game, because that means something is wrong with the game probably. I do think it’s fine for testing out stuff.
no, if the outside debate of GDstash use come up i always bring up “mess with your game all you want but don’t mess up other people’s game(s)”, since i often mention GDstash if players are seeking editor related stuff, but remidn of the courtesy to don’t ruin folk’s MP.
This/my argument was about Sliver’s? specific complaint about “cheating” testing builds before building/posting/“community feedbacking” - as if testing stuff or having access to test capabilities is either bad or wrong.
and, imo, that’s a silly specific argument to have in a game that literally gives you this "public test realm test your build"feature built in to the game… (and GDstash in that function is literally just a shortcut). and that devs benefit on as such or maybe even desire, because being able to test 5 builds in 1 day rather than 1 year drastically increase return rate on feedback.
if that makes sense/is clearer?
Interesting topic. After years of gaming of many so called hns games I finally came to the conclusion that for me the best way to play this kind of games is just go full solo self found without using any detailed build guides.
This way of experiancing gameplay is very different from todays “standards of fun” connected with competition and seasons involved.
I dont mind farming, I dont mind rinse repeat, I dont really care whats meta, and so on… and so on.
The only thing I care about these days is the feeling of the chance for original adventure with the very next char.
This way I am can feel the satisfaction of progress, adventure and challenge with many popular titles today, just to mantion my two/three main these days: GD and Last Epoch, D2:R.
All of these titles give an opportunity to build something from scratch, leveling using just things you find along. Some are better in this regard (GD and LE), some are worse (d2r) but in every of those 3 it is doable for me to make such an so called virtual adventure.
I also think when i am getting older, I find more and more fun with jusy experimenting with not so optimal builds, combos, synergies even though I know It will take shit load of time to try.
I am also getting more hardkor in terms of game mods, I often choose in LE: hc, solo char found mode. So I can make the game more demanding time and test/difficult wise. I die many times, then I switch chars, then I try to build around certain items or skills, try to stay alive as long as I am able to. I know that I wouldnt many rare items this way… but I just dont care anymore, I am just having fun on my own with this game-box/title/char.
This way my gaming experience is so different to typical approch that I often laugh about f.e. when some random fellow on the forums states that “game is to easy”, “meta is boring”, “there is nothing to do in engame” blah blah blah. I mean I can live with all this statements but for me personally my own kind of approach to hns is so much more fullfilling, satisfing, less stressfull, less boring, less chore, and so on, etc…
So to sumarise, my fiinal thought would be like this: I will play all kind of hns my way as long as there will be a reasonable chance to experiance all the content using my methods of gaming inthese kind of games. This way my long favouirte as for now will still stay: GD and Last Epoch. As long as they provide full offline mode, not forcing me to trade and possible to go ssf way of playing, with the fair chance to reach/try/farm every piece of content, I will be still playing those from time to time, till bored to death I suppose… but as you all know… “Death is only the beggining!”
Just my 3 cents on the subject.
Take care!
GP
I love this kind of build and started stockpiling green items with procs for the same reason. It’s a shame that Starfury Emerald and Trozan’s Starkeeper don’t have a proc when mythical.
I agree with this so much. I believe the actual reason the end game continues to capture the interest of many loyal veteran players is the existence of fun end game challenges (coupled with how the game beautifully allows a HUGE variety of fun builds), not the hope of finally getting that perfect roll double rare MI.
I believe the majority of loyal veterans share the same sentiment. Shall we make a survey on this? If build makers and speedrunning testers outnumber item farmers significantly, then perhaps the game’s design direction should cater for this?
A few other posts in this thread have me wanting to say something in particular: just because some ARPG builders are lazy with GDStash and post their builds without ever considering whether the build can be reasonably farmed by someone who doesn’t use those tools, it does not mean that all ARPG builders are similarly lazy. I applauded the top 20 onion thread precisely because they do consider all those factors when they made that spreadsheet.
The concept of “how rare should items in a ARPG be” is a different argument entirely. If a build concept can only begin with a D2 uber-rare like item because it has those exact qualities to make a build work, I have no problems modding in that item to play with said build. I am personally not going to spend 100+ hours playing a separate build entirely in the faint hopes of ever getting that uber item. If the devs are going to make said item in the first place and want me to invest the time in to get that item, that item better sure work the way I hope it does, because if the item ends up being non-functional due to a bug and the devs didn’t even do the basic testing before releasing that item in the first place, I’d be absolutely livid and probably give up on said developers.
They could easily make everyone happy by not having ONE unique monster that simply drops 200+ different variations of the same item. I mean, this is just plain ridiculous. They should rename Gollus, the Deepdweller to Gollus, the Troll Us, because we just get trolled trying to get the rings we need from him.
That’s the problem with some of the uber builds that get posted. They probably used GDstash to get most of their items & then post their builds expecting the uninformed to follow their build, leaving them to discover you either need to use GDstash or hit the Grim Dawn lottery. The ability to farm for some of the items is next to impossible unless you’re a glutton for punishment.
i open crafting and when i see that i have do every single componet manualy nah fuck that
Personally I believe that a lot of people overestimate perfect double rares. Eg top 20 only select realistic items. If I decide to try ro copy such a build, with what I have in my item assistent, I end up with some minor lower stats but not at all build-breaking.
I enjoy to get an item with good rolls that can benefit one of my builds, that keeps me enjoying eg running SR. But I cannot understand people farming 100h for one specific double rare that improves a build marginally only