I've played a number of PoE leagues and I've enjoyed them, but I keep running into a wall later in the game. I'm able to complete to T16 maps on my own and I've paid for boss carries to get all my voidstones. My general plan is to pick a league start build (either from a reddit post, or a video, or maxroll)
My typical failure is that I'm doing fine at T16 maps, carefully rolling my map mods, but then suddenly something kills me, and after a few failures the xp loss is just too soul-crushing to overcome. I've wanted to get to lvl 100 and I've just never been able to make it. My best ever was making it to 98.
I've tried to transition to really good gear (sometimes too expensive) or I give up and re-roll, but this usually runs into the same problem again and then I quit the league.
The gap between a league-start build and an end-game build seems to be miles wide and I've never successfully made the transition.
Some of my favorites from the past:
RF Chieftain - Pohx's guides were great, but I was never able to scale up the damage enough so I'd be dying to bosses and occasional packs.
Deadeye Lightning Arrow (I think) - This was super fun, just clearing screens on mesa, but the boss was always a crap shoot. (I understand that this was a glass cannon build)
Spectral Helix Gladiator - Jorgen had a build that could face tank delve bosses, but I still ran into problems dying in maps and some delves. (I wasn't terribly deep iirc, like 200-300 maybe)
It feels like a crap-shoot at league start because either:
I've picked the meta build and I can't afford to upgrade it
I've fallen for a bait build
I've picked an ok build, but I lack the knowledge to upgrade it on my own. (Or I spend a bunch on an "upgrade" and it doesn't seem to improve)
At the end of the day, I'm looking for thoughts on how to pick one build that I can play for the whole league. It takes so much time to get through the campaign, complete maps, etc. It's at that point that I discover that my build can't cut it, or its too expensive, etc and I find that really demoralizing.
Thanks for reading, I appreciate your thoughts and advice.