I wish I had seen this before. I appreciate and respect the work you did, and this is a good resource, but I think this needs more disclaimers… I don’t like how this is given a gold star and sticked and presented as gospel, as I disagree extensively with many of your choices. The thing is, this game has SO MANY builds that are viable, that some are bound to slip through the cracks, for any number of reasons. Entire powerful playstyles aren’t represented, like FoI and EoR.
You should link to the description of the build at the build for every build, and not just the GT link.
I won’t argue with the top ones which blow up Ravager or Callagadra, but, for a lot of the lower ones which only clear SR75… maybe they can clear higher, but given that there’s a thingy that lets you start at SR80, why not start there? That should pretty much be a requirement at this stage in the game, except for farm specialists or budget specialists. It’s not like there’s a dearth of options there.
For example, I am a lazy clumsy dude who uses a controller, and, on previous patches (which therefore have less power creep) I have 22 builds that can clear SR80+, six clearing SR85+, and two clearing SR90, and even one that cleared Callagadra and Crate of Entertainment with a controller. The only one that made your list is a highly modified (IMO worsened) Lightning CT Druid, and that’s not even the best Callidor’s Tempest build. Nor do I see a post of their doing of the build on their profile, with its justification for some choices that I very much disagree with, compared to my Lightning CT Druid. Even if it’s better than my Druid, which I seriously doubt, I can’t believe it’s better than my Spellbinder, let alone my SR90 Leviathan Death Knight, or my MI heavy SR90 FoI Mage Hunter, which has been heavily buffed since I did it.
If this were titled as “Ranking 20 of the Top-tier Softcore Builds” I wouldn’t have an issue. But… it’s not, and I can’t help but feel like it’s misleading, and should have more disclaimers.
If the scoring system were more objective, I think it would have resulted in something better. Instead of having every person involved test every build, you could have just chosen the best results for each build at SR, crucible, and celestials, and give them a performance score based off of that. That wouldn’t have to be (and shouldn’t be) the full scoring, but it would be a good place to start, and there wouldn’t be builds with the best accolade being a clear of SR75.
Anyway, I hope you take my suggestions to heart if you do another one of these.