How viable are different builds?

[Epsilon Rose]

I know Salt and Sanctuary has a giant skill tree/web and lots of different weapons, but how viable are different builds? Are there only a few good ones? Only a few good ones with in any given path? Can you experiment and dabble (within reason) and still get good results?

Similarly, what kinds of skills are they? Are they mostly just +1 to x, or are there actual abilities and game changers in there?

[De_faulty]

They aren't really skills they are just what weapons/armors/spells you can use, and if you are still early in the game, there are weapons that require 2 skills to use: like the black widow that needs lvl2 greatsword and lvl1 Magic

[Scraps]

In terms of viability, there's definitely a glaring difference between different builds. From personal experience, being a pure mage is pretty much the game's "easy mode", as long as you're capable of managing your resources. In contrast, a dagger-centric build is definitely more of a challenge build, and it feels like an endurance round with every boss you fight.

There arent any "gamechanger" skills I can think of at the top of my head; the giant skill tree is very simple when looking at individual skills. Most provide attribute points, weapon-oriented skills provide accessibility to a larger arsenal, and you have your potion skills which gives you additional resources after every resting point (Basically extra Estus/Ashen Estus uses).

Lastly, is there flexibility? Sort of. Gray pearls are available incase you screw up with stat allocation, but they're very limited, so you need to know what you want to build into. Weapon paths are fair, though, and you won't need to allocate into anything irrelevant to get to the next weapon upgrade.

[Epsilon Rose]

Really. That's a bit unfortunate, given that giant skilltree thing it has.

[C(r)ap]

Best build imo:

Start game with 2h sword/greathammer and heavy armor. Get to nightmare and switch to greatsword/tower shield build.

[Yal]

I think S&S kinda has the same thing as Dark Souls with your build basically being the built-in difficulty setting, your playstyle decides what's hard and easy and some playstyles/builds have different weaknesses.

Pure magic builds has great power (once you get spells like Wildfire) but builds up Fatigue (max stamina debuff) really quickly, so they need to keep energy phials at hand and manage their resources carefully. Focusing on magic stats means they don't have a lot of points to spare for armor, so they tend to have to dodge a lot and stay far away from enemies... but long-distance is what their attacks are the best at, anyway.
Greathammers and greatswords have huge AoEs and deal lots of damage, but the animations are pretty slow, so builds centered around those are all about timing attacks. The focus on equip load (to be able to actually lug those things around) means these builds also get able to don heavy armor, and this means they can afford getting in melee range with enemies. Eventually, you'll start being able to oneshot enemies, which makes your playstyle focus even more on getting the first hit in, being more focused on strategic movement and timing your attacks than twitch reflexes.
Shield-based builds lets you mitigate attacks easily, but slows you down and introduces another dimension of stamina management, and blocking attacks means you get less stamina to counterattack with. It's a safer option, but also slows down your pacing in general.

Idk where I was going with this build review thing :P

[C(r)ap]

Actually the 2h swords are pretty much overpowered in NG+ because if you get the fastest one (the one crafted with carsejaw's ashes) you swing at the speed of a 1h sword, but deal the damage of a hammer. (if upgraded, that is)

[Terrarius]

The builds are not very balanced
2h greatswords op
Armour just like in souls:light armour is better earlygame,heavy armour in newgame+ where your level is so high that you can easyly wear very heavy armour and still fastroll

[Terrarius]

The cap is 50..there the levels get much less effective
As far as i know if you 2h the cap is at 34 because you get 50% bonus for 2h
Even with 2h scaling falling of sooner its superior in terms of damage to dex

[GreyZ]

As long as you are not randomly putting the points down really any build is viable in NG and NG+.

To give yourself the most flexbility, avoid whenever possiblity putting points into the generic +1 x stat bubbles, and always instead take an equipment skill when possible, this will allow you to try out more weapons and also use ones that are better vs certain enemies and bosses.

For example on my hunter I wanted to max out Dex for pistols, so I went down the polearm skill tree. That alone won't make out my dex though, so I also went down the Spear skill tree without necessarily having the intention of using spears.
I ended up trying out the Headsman Voulge poleaxe for funsies and fell in love with it.

There are also numerous weapons that have very varied scaling between str/dex/wis/mag, so whatever build you go with you can usually find a weapon that will support it.