I was trying out another build with a ranger going from 0-60 and after about 30 levels I just started thinking to myself that "this is not fun." I had grown accustomed to a certain way of playing with previous characters I had used and the new style, which is considered to be a good "endgame" type of character to have, simply didn't appeal to me.
I tend to enjoy ranged characters with some sort of dodge built into their offensive strategy and this new build of mine required me to be in melee range constantly. I found myself not playing very often because I didn't like the style.
Then I started thinking: Then why are you bothering doing it?
The answer is that you don't actually have to.
I don't know if it was always this way but the way this game works now is that you can completely respec all of your skills and abilities for no charge. They may have charged gold to do this in the past but if that ever was the case, it certainly isn't now.
Well I just answered my own half-question. Yes, you did have to pay for it at some point but I did it yesterday, being prepared to pay for it (in-game currency) and didn't have to pay a single gold piece for the pleasure.
I was then able to play around with the skill tree in order to have the skills that I already knew that I enjoy using.
Once I get back up to max level I will work on finding the gear that they recommend for the other builds and try them out once they are fully maxed out. Respec on skills will not take you very long to do and you can actually save equipment loadouts at your stash in the event that you want to switch back and forth between the two styles.
The loadout screen (for equipment) doesn't look exactly like this anymore, but it is similar and can be easily customized inside of any stash, of which there are likely hundreds scattered throughout the Diablo world.
Now paragon point on the other hand, this could end up being a bit more complicated if a couple of your builds are using extremely different skillsets such as for me, ranged with the rogue as opposed to another build I would like to try which focuses more on close combat.
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paragon boards are huge and time-consuming to change
Paragon boards are an entirely different kettle of worms in D4, with hundreds of skill points potentially included. While there is mixed information as to whether or not you can save these entirely for different builds, most signs that I have seen point to "yet" BUT, if you are using a paragon board with the same name between two different characters that are the same class, I don't yet know if this will work.
The good news is that most builds inside the same class tend to head towards the same major skills in paragon boards and any minor tweaking of these "paths" is going to have an almost imperceptible impact on actual damage output or input. I think that these minor changes would only matter to the truly hardcore players that I see online and I personally have no aspirations to get to the level these guys are at. It would take entirely too much time, especially on a console.
The major takeaway from what I have written here is that if you are spending skill points or even later, paragon points, you don't need to worry that your decision is somehow permanent and therefore must be made with careful consideration.
I think Blizzard realizes that the interest in the game is waning and that in order to achieve customer retention that they have to make things easy to understand and not be something that costs in-game money to change. I believe that the current system where all of these changes can be made for free will be the way that it remains until they stop supporting the game entirely - which will be a while when you consider that D3 servers are still live and Diablo 2 servers have been active for 24 years!
So if you are following on online build just keep in mind that you dont really have to make every move that they do which in many cases can be counterproductive to what you are trying to accomplish NOW, which is likely to make gameplay fun and to also level up in the process. Just do whatever you want since you can change literally everything about your character at a later time .