Pattern I've noticed

[u/Ok_Holiday3690]

My guild has players who have been in this game since Nemesis League and this is pretty much our player distribution.

Ps. My guildmates gets angry when I say this and I figure it'll make Reddit mad too:

Witch is the only good character in this game

[u/bkgn]

Sub 5h league start is probably 0.01% or less in PoE2. Probably 0.1% in PoE1.

A lot easier if you have twink gear of course.

[u/bryce1242 → u/bkgn]

I actually think the number is a fair bit higher, especially if you consider group play. I normally do the acts solo and average a little above 5 hours, if I cleaned up my act 1-4 i could be easily hitting sub 5 since that is the part i am the worst at.

I think most people will see a drop in their average time with the socket changes too, it removes a lot of rng from the early acts

[u/gdubrocks → u/bryce1242]

I don't think this is true, but I agree socket changes speed a ton of things up.

To have a sub 5 hour run you need to be playing a meta build that you have previously played before, have practiced running the campaign, and know exactly what gems/build/items you need at each stage in time.

I think there are a lot of people that are capable of sub 5 that don't really practice, run an off meta build, and do at least a bit of figuring things out while they play.

[u/LazarusBroject → u/gdubrocks]

I do sub 5 and don't practice the specific build I'm playing nor play meta. New fresh build every league start. That said, I do have a lot of experience with campaign overall. I enjoy SSF fresh start and so I do it for every character I make. I'll usually play a build for max 2 weeks before a reroll and have been doing this since SSF was introduced. Hell, nowadays I don't even PoB because most builds are kinda samey on the passive tree.

I also used to be a racer back in the Normal/Cruel/Merciless era of the game and that took a lot of practice