Deadlock

I have a general idea in mind and that changes during the laning phase. What do they have, what do we need? The counter build is the side quest and getting my build online is the main quest.

First I check what kind of heroes are on my team to see if I go spirit or gun, if my hero allows both. Then I go depending on the the enemy lane. If there is a enemy hero with a good counter item, I go for that, otherwise I try to build my damage items in order to push the enemy team back. If I get hurt to much, I then buy more green items as fits to my character and enemy heros.

Oh and I forgot: if the enemy team is getting too strong, it's time to buy the counter items that disarm/silence/dispell/counterspell them, depending on what area they are getting too strong.

This gets easier as you become more familiar with all the items and their interactions.

I maintain my own builds for all the heroes I play.

When I pick up a new hero I generally play a few games completely improvising, so I get a feel for what does and doesn't click for me with that hero, so I can cover my weaknesses and build to my strenghts.

As an example, when I started off with Mina, I went for fire rate to make getting love bites easier. Eventually I noticed my feel for her gun was good enough that I no longer needed it.

I plan out three tiers of items to try to buy every game, and then I have an "optional" category of a bunch of stuff that might be contextually useful, or fun to try.

If I find something fun or effective, I move it to the main categories.

Usually I'm braindead and follow build L -> R but I learned to try to jump item to keep more money. I don't feel confortable yet trying to build my own build but I feel I'd learn a lot by trying to build one

@Acidbath i'm choosing community created builds, and game after game i begin to understand what item saves me or makes me stronger, or whatever. also ! the street brawl mode is great to discover and try new items !