I’ll try to answer your questions, seeing I’ve played PoE a little and share some of your critiques about it. Overall, I think you’ll enjoy GD :
1/ Much less RNG in GD, no Map RNG, no Special Chest RNG, no Synthesis RNG. Mainly loot RNG and some crafting RNG that isn’t essential.
2/ Didn’t have serious lag problem in PoE, but you can play GD offline in solo, so no lag there, and there might me some lag in multi, as always for this kind of game.
3/ Ok, depends what you call “viable”, but pretty much any build with correct synergies and stuff can finish the Xpac campain and safely reach level 100 (note that these are two different goals). After that, you can see if your build can kill Nemesis, which are Super-Bosses, and are manageable by a wide variety of builds, then you have even stronger secret bosses called Celestial that not many builds can defeat, and then there is Crucible, which is an optional DLC, where you fight waves and waves of enemies, and scales really hard, and has kinda a different logic than the rest of the game (hit hard, kill quick, but be tough). It’s used as a metric for the best of the best builds, as it gives the best rewards, but any build can get reasonably far, just not crazy far crazy fast.
Overall I’d say, if you don’t aim for ze best of ze best, you have an amazing diversity of viable builds, and unlike PoE, it is quite reasonable to reach level 100 and even get all the gear you’re aiming for, be it from drop or from trades (more on that later), so you will be able to finish your build and see how it performs.
4/ This part only applies to Crucible, and even then, only to the last waves (151 to 170) in the highest difficulty. Other than that, you can play a really sturdy character that takes 5 minutes to kill Bosses but takes nearly no damage (might have to move from time to time, because of stacking aoe under your feet)
One critique to be made is that ranged characters often find themselves in melee because lots of enemies have “charge” movements or very high movement speed, but FG will add movement skills available to all builds that should help a lot in that regard.
5/ RNGesus be RNGesus. That being said, I think that GD droprates are in a very good place, rare enough that you won’t be overwhelmed by legendaries, but common enough that you will be able to build your collection steadily when farming (5-6 legendaries per hour for the easiest and most common farming routes in Ultimate)
6/ As I said, droprates are satisfying, and you can play self-found if you understand itemization priorities correctly (aka, defense first, then offense).
7/ Crafting is very accessible, noting to do with the currency nightmare than PoE is, where you always have to think it you will dare use these precious currencies on your gear or keep them to trade later, or dunno what the heck to do with them because you don’t understand if a gear piece is good enough to begin upgrade it.
The only thing a bit limiting at first is that you have to drop some blueprints for some very useful items, but there are ways to efficiently farm the “necessary” ones, and at worse, you can farm the materials and ask someone that has the blueprint to craft it for you.
A few points to complete what I’ve said :
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GD is an offline game mostly built around solo. As such, it is moddable, and at worse, there are programs to directly edit your gear. Things like that are obviously to use with a lot of moderation, because where’s the thrill if you can get all your gear in 10 minutes tops?
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trading is possible, but not necessary. I used it a couple times to get some very specific items, like the fourth piece of the set I intended to use, or a specific weapon that eluded me. As such, I can say that trading is dirt easy and dirt cheap, most people will accept around 10ish crafting materials for any regular legendary, which can be farmed in 1-2 hours. The community is very friendly, and there is very little haggling, most people have a lot of items they don’t really have a use for, so they’re not stingy (plus, you know, the fact that anyone can create items out of thin air kinda put things into perspective).
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the way GD items are designed, epic (blue) and legendary (purple) items are not ALWAYS better than rare (green). Epic and legendaries are very build-specific, and there are a few slots (pants, gloves, boots, and medals, most notably), where a well-rolled green might be much more useful, just because there are no legendary that fits your build for that slot.
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you can access all the content without having to worry about RNG.
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items do drop between classes, but they might still be very useful to you even if they don’t fit your build to the perfection. Heck, a lot of high-level legendaries cannot be used to their fullest by anyone, since they give bonuses for three different masteries, when you can only choose two masteries to make your class (to simplify greatly, generally items give 6+ properties, even being able to use half of them might make an item interesting for your build)
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as I said, crafting GG items might be a bit painful, but the difference between a GG item and a non-GG item is minor, so not a big deal. And it is affordable.
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no maps thank god. We’ll see what Shattered Realms are, but there won’t be a mini-management game inside the game to make maps worthwile, at the least.
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try checking the Compendium IX thread in the build/class section. However, I do recommand that you take these guides with a grain of salt, they’re often showcasing builds tailored for the highest of challenges, Gladiator Crucible speedfarming, recommending stats that are quite hard to achieve at first, like 15k health, 3000 OA and DA, 3000+ armor with 100% absorption, and all that at the same time. While it is useful to keep in mind these values in mind as general goals, you don’t need them for the rest of the game. GD offers a variety of challenges. Your build might struggle more against certain enemies, and less against others, and that’s just how the game is designed. Try to balance things out, and don’t forget to enjoy the journey, find what you like, and try to see what you can do, even if it’s not optimal. For 95% of the game, you’ll be ok.