they shouldn’t
it was mentioned because someone said druid wasn’t popular nor have utility as gunner/melee, demonstrating the opposite 
- it wasn’t for OPs benefit/needs
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My apologies, I thought it was top 20 Beginner builds not endgame. I’m looking for a good start and then use that character to help gear up others.
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Thanks for that clarification. I was under the impression it was top 20 Beginner builds not top 20 endgame. I’ll stick with Primal as it looks cool/fun. Just have to make a choice of Vindicator or Druid. Druid seems the winner as from my understanding it works well as melee or ranged depending on setup, so while leveling i could try both finding what I like.
Then you can not go wrong with any of the masteries I listed above 
Heck, there is even possible to make a good budget vitality primal strike build too, using Necro or Occultist or Nightblade as second class
Ritualist: Ritualist, Level 100 (GD 1.2.1.6) - Grim Dawn Build Calculator
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You can make almost anything work, so I wouldn’t worry too much about what masteries you pick.
The thing to look out for as a beginner is mainly to cover your resists. And don’t invest into all the skills at the same time. It’s generally better to level one (or one attack and a few defense) before investing into more.
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Thanks, of those Druid and Vindicator seem the “best” and druid seems to cover both melee and ranged options. I honestly don’t see a ton of builds for the other classes. Not that I’ll be following a guide to a T exactly, I will play my own way as I level but since you can’t respec masteries I want a mastery type that works at least somewhat effeciently end game while still being fun.
As for POE complexity, I am not a POE vet by any means. I have barely played a handful of hours of POE 1 and while I played POE 2 I only played enough to start running tier 5 maps on one char. I am far more of a Diablo 2 (and D2R) player having played it since before the release of Lord of Destruction and played every Diablo game since D1 (though not as big a fan of D3 or D4 at least end game loop). I even played an obscure old school game called NOX back in the day 
. Just for some reason never played this game.
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if you outright prefer tankiness/know you like a little extra chonk, Warder will be almost silly amounts of tanky as melee Primal Strike
Kinda always guessed it was the notion of extra sturdy that made it one of the most frequent recommended, and it’s not like it gives up all dmg for that safety anyway
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Shaman + Soldier/Demo is more tanky than Arcan/Inqui which means less dps which in turn makes the “attraction” less when it comes to top meta mega super builds.
But as far as a beginner goes, they are basically equal in that regard.
When it comes to 100% endgame stuff, Shaman + Demo is almost almost Stun Jacks spammer and Shaman + Soldier is almost always retaliation.
If you wanna spam primal strike, just stay away from Necro (require you to get vitality damage gear as my GT link showed) and Blademaster. All the other masteries are just fine.
I think if I were to begin totally from scratch I would do Shaman + Soldier, primal strike spammer, then farm to get those nice blue epic gear with tons of lightning retaliation then I have my lazy afk SR 25-26 farmer boy.
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Can also do phys primal strike 
(late game only obviously)
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yeah and savagary avenger
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I would actually say that Druid and Warder will be the best versions… Druid can do both melee and range well and Warder is the best with melee of them all.
Vindicator, Elementalist and Archon will be below these two. And the rest is a bad possible combo for lightning.
The second best after lightning Warder would be cold Trickster I think. I have one and it is quite good. Physical PS just sucks due to armor these days…
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Is that retaliation build basically they hit you and retaliation strikes them with lightning? That does seem pretty cool.
I think Druid seems more what I’m looking for over tanky though. I’ll still look at it. I am playing on Veteran and just hit level 7, so far no issues except almost died to some green creature in a cave that chunks spikes at me. Not sure if building tanky is better or not.
Is there a general rule to stat allocation? I’m not exactly sure how I should be spending my points.
Yeah might not be great, but it’s still fine for SR 32. Haven’t tried celestials I think. It’s been a while. 
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You can get a potions to reset them later, so don’t sweat it too much. Generally I dump it in physical during leveling and keep a few points spare in case I need to bump one of the other stats to wear gear.
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level 7 is like 20 min gameplay?
You can go to level +70 with shaman and primal strike alone, just because you can choose a second mastery at level 10 does not mean you have to.
As Bas said, try to save a few like 10 attribute points while leveling up in case you need to meet gear req later. Just dump them into physique. Remember that you also get attributes from many devotions and leveling mastery bar.
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Soldier is best for regen/tank route, 30k HP and 5k per second is insane and; damage is decent but gotta fish for affixes to cover resists, needs attack speed and OA is lowish but build isn’t crit reliant. Big stick go wack and eventually enemies die. 
Have an Elementalist that is also good but not great imo, lots of crits tho to make you smile.
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yes but we are still talking to a person who just started the game and is at level 7
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Elementalist is weak defensively in general and HP regen won’t save it… It needs damage mitigation.
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blast shield
flash bang(searing light)
and da in temper
if we stretch it a bit could kinda include the knockdown on UW for trash mobs (which is actually dope during levelling )
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This one is pretty good actually. Sadly there aren’t many items that boost it. 