A good build answers one question first: what is it for? A solo dungeon set, a ZvZ healer and a black zone gathering kit share almost nothing. Start from the activity and the rest of the choices get easier.
Answer four questions before you open the editor
- The activity. Solo PvE, Mists, Hellgates, Corrupted Dungeons, ganking, ZvZ, gathering, the Ancient Lands.
- The role. Tank, healer, melee DPS, ranged DPS or support.
- What kills you there. Big mob packs, one hard boss, a single invader or a gank group on the road.
- The budget. What you can lose and rebuy without changing how you play.
Then look at what players already run. Builds by activity groups loadouts by content, the build library searches them by weapon, and Community builds holds what Outpost players have published. In game, the Armory added in Radiant Wilds ranks builds by real gameplay data and, since Dragonfire, shows per-hour damage, healing, kills and deaths with average IP. Use both: the Armory tells you what performs, a written build tells you how to play it.
Start from a copy or from scratch
On a library build, Make this build yours copies it to your account and opens it in the editor; on a community build, Duplicate build does the same. Create a build starts empty, with Starting sets that fill every slot from a template you then change. You can build without signing in; a guest draft saves on this device only. Sign in with Discord to save it to your account, publish it, share a link and put it in a comp.
Fill the ten slots
The editor has four tabs: Equipment, Abilities, Alternatives and Notes.
- Equipment. Ten slots: main hand, off hand, helmet, chest, boots, cape, bag, mount, food and potion. Search by name ("Battleaxe", "Bloodmoon", "Hunter"), then set tier, enchantment and quality for each piece. Pick a two-handed weapon and the off hand locks, which is what the game does too.
- Abilities. For each piece, choose the abilities and passives you actually use. Readers copy these first, so a wrong Q or a missing passive costs them more than a wrong tier.
- Alternatives. Up to four swap items per slot, for example a purge cape for PvP or a cheaper chest for budget players. Below them, Spare sets save the whole loadout under a name, such as "Boss swap" or "Budget T6", up to five sets.
Write notes people can use
The Notes tab holds the build settings: title, a one or two sentence description, the activity, build region, player count and Recommended IP. That last one is your own estimate; Outpost does not calculate it from the items, and 0 hides it. Under Strategy & patch notes, good notes cover:
- the content and the IP the build was made for, and whether that content has a soft cap (blue and yellow zones cap at 1,200 IP, Corrupted Dungeons and the Ancient Lands have their own),
- the opening rotation, in key order,
- the escape, and what to do when a pull goes wrong,
- which pieces can be cheaper without hurting the build,
- which patch you last checked it on.
Readers treat these as the author's advice, so write what you would tell a guildmate.
A worked example
Say you want a set for yellow-zone Mists:
- Activity: solo Mists from yellow zones, so knockdown rules and short fights.
- Role: solo melee DPS.
- Threat: other solo players who start a fight while you clear a camp.
- Budget: a set you can repair every night and replace once a week.
That points at a weapon with burst and a gap closer, armor with a defensive cooldown, boots with a purge or a dash and a cheap cape. The yellow-zone 1,200 IP soft cap means a T6-equivalent set on a specced weapon loses little to a T8 one. Search the build library for Mists builds on your weapon, choose Make this build yours on the closest, swap the pieces your budget cannot cover, list the swaps as alternatives and write in the description what you changed and why.
Check it and price it
Preview build shows the finished loadout as readers will see it. What will this loadout cost? prices every slot at its quality from sell orders in the city you choose, for one set or several. A slot with no sell order in that city shows as missing instead of free, so you know what you still have to find. Buy one set to wear and keep the silver for a second; a build that costs twice your budget to replace is one you will play scared.
Private, unlisted or public
| Setting | Who sees it | Use it for |
|---|---|---|
| Private | Only you | Planning and testing |
| Unlisted | Anyone with the link | Sharing with your group or guild |
| Public | Everyone, listed in Community builds | Builds you want others to find |
You can change the setting at any time. A copied link follows the build's visibility, so a private build's link opens for nobody but you.
Revisions for each patch
The first save is Save build; after that the button reads Save new revision, and each save keeps the earlier revisions. Use the patch notes field for what changed, for example "Dragonfire Patch 4: Healing Potion nerf, swapped to a stronger self-heal chest". On the build's page, Revisions lets you restore an older one; restoring saves it as a new revision, so nothing is lost. When a balance patch changes an ability, save a new revision instead of making a new build. The link stays the same and readers see the history.
From the editor's More menu you can also open the revision history, add the saved build to a comp, copy its link, or export and import the build as an Outpost JSON file (under 64 KB) with equipment, abilities, swaps and spare sets.
Builds in comps
When you add a build to a comp, the comp gets its own copy. Later edits to your build do not change the comp, and edits in the comp do not change your build. How to plan a party comp covers comps.
Game balance changes between patches. Check requirements, yields and costs in game.
