Are stacks an ability trap?

[Quitch]

Many of the archetypes have some core passive that stacks and impacts many of their abilities. The obvious path is to build around these, powering up your abilities through the desired patterns to then hit hard.

But this seems like a trap. I'm early in Act 2, but thus far combat is decided in the first two rounds, long before any stacking is going to meaningfully happen. Thus it seems like building around these stacks is suboptimal and you're better off looking for ways to optimise your initial rounds.

Am I wrong in this?

[Taifun_Vash]

There are talents that give you more starting stacks, or work as if you have more. You can also earn stacks through comrades, then there are talents that increase your crit&dmg through this stacks. There're ways to reach max stacks in round two and some of the boss battles last longer, if you don't go for the absolut broken builds.