Secondly, there are some things that Adventurers are really good with, and it pays to know them.
So, overall tips for build. Here are some thoughts for any build you might want to try.
-Physical builds.
Physical builds are generally not the optimal way to go with Adventurer; This is one of the few times you don't have a comparable or better life mod than every other class, and most physical builds tend to have a good set of skills for hitting people really hard with a given weapon.
With that in mind, here's a few thoughts...
-Staff. Staves are surprisingly good lategame physical weapons, and skills like Berserker are great support(they're still twohanders!). You'll want to be a fighter/mage type with this, at least running some support magic even if you don't run pure damage magic, as you'll always have a good source of Spellpower. Staff Combat doesn't require a category point, either.
-Mindstar. Mindstars again don't require a category point for their category, and dualwielding trees+mindstars is a powerful combination that's hard to get(though not impossible, obviously) on other classes. Again; Grab support mind skills, you will have a lot of incidental Mindpower and Mindcrit.
-Twohanders. Normal twohanders(as opposed to staffs) are not recommended. Berserker tends to do most of the things you would do, except better. Use them short term on a staff build, perhaps, but running up a two-hander build is not being as abusive of the broken class as possible, and hence is boring.
-Sword/Shield. Better than twohanders, but still questionable; You're mostly making a Sun Paladin/Bulwark combo if you're trying to do this optimally. It works, but it's really dull.
-Dualwield. Even without Mindstars, this is a good option; 0 is the lifemod of the dualwielders in general, and you get a good set of the normal dualwield skills and Surge to work with, in addition to skills like Reaving Combat and Arcane Combat. Mindstar builds are similar but tend to have more mindpower/less raw power.
-Ranged weapons. Sorta pointless...Archer and Temporal Warden usually cover any builds you'd want. You can combine the two, and add more support skills... but again, kinda boring.
-No specific weapon type. Possible but generally not worth it; Pick a weapon. But hey, if you want the novelty of it, it's certainly possible to make as a build.
Magical Builds:
-Mana primary. Good build, you have tons of solid options, you can't go too wrong with this. On the other hand, tons of good support skills are in Mana, too, and if you have resource problems, you're doing your Adventurer wrong. Also, 0 instead of -3 or -4 lifemods.
-Paradox primary. Way better than a Paradox Mage; You can use Vim or Mana to have backup escapes and offense, which doesn't run off your flaky primary resource, and you have 0 lifemod instead of -4.
-Vim primary. Corruptor that trades some raw impact on their skills for more versatility. Still very good.
-Celestial primary. Not recommended; Takes a lot of investment for questionable gain. This is probably the worst magical build. This doesn't say much-you can still make it very good, you just need to put a lot of categories into Celestial oriented skills.
-Multiple primary. Not really recommended; You want to run most of your offense off one resource, because you have to put some investment in to restore it. You need a Manasurge and/or a Mana regen skill/equip for Mana, Static History(and hence a specific, though good, category) for Paradox, Vim will run fine if used rarely but more than rarely it needs Drain, and Celestial generally needs two categories for anything that drains Positive and three for anything that drains Negative. It can be done(Mana's with another resource is the easiest), but you're better off running expensive sustains and occasional support skills off the rest.
Mind builds:
-Equi primary. Pretty good, has a required one of a few categories(Fungus, Mucus or Call of the Wild) to really restore it, but Fungus is a great healing skillset and you can get it for free if going AM. Generally a powerful set and you get a lot of versatility from it.
-Hate primary. Doomed has great skills; Like Paradox Mage, you can pretty much build a Doomed-alike and add some support skills and end up a better Doomed. Needs Feed to really work for a Mind heavy build, though, and Cursed builds are better off just grabbing one weapon skill and playing mostly as a Technique fighter.
-Psi primary. Means you grab Solipsism, as you can't really float the high Psi costs for Solipsist skills otherwise. On the upside, this is a good skill for Adventurers(Since you don't have to cast using your pseudo-HP with everything and have better HP backing it up), and Psi doesn't have a required sink skill to recover it. Quite good.
-Multiple primary. Works pretty well, actually; Equi/Hate/Psi can be ran in tandem, as long as you keep the Psi low, make sure you get Feed, and go AM. Off the top of my head, a Distortion/Solipsism/Summons using build is pretty good, for example.
Combo builds:
Physical and Magical and Mind all can work together! Each has a good "bridge" category to grab that enables using them together.
Mind and Physical, Mind and Magical: Temporal Combat. Gives you good Strength/Magic boost skills that run off Paradox; Not a big problem if you weren't using Paradox to start with. They scale with Will.
Arcane Combat is an excellent option too, as it runs off Cunning and gives great physical and magical power bonuses. Obviously, this is a good way to combine all three. Mind and Physical also can be enabled by Mindslayer skills(Specifically, Augmentation).Physical and Magical: Oddly enough, somewhat harder to combine. You could run up Enhancement for Inner Power's general stat bonuses, use one of the top two options-though it runs off a stat you're not primary in-or just use equipment based options for a moderate amount of Spellpower and play like a physical fighter. One of the harder builds to get off the ground, though Arcane Combat's potential certainly shows it's very workable.
Generally speaking, you'll want to pick one power as your "primary damage" power and the others more as supports, again; It's easier that way. But if you want to hurt people with all three types of damage at once, go for it; Pick up Temporal Combat and Arcane Combat both, build Will and Cunning, and eventually your damage will get insane with everything.
-Supporting categories:
Now here's the big part. There's some very good specific categories for any build that can use them(or, in some cases, basically any build).
Class options:
Technique/Bloodthirst: Good for any physical build, except possibly sword/shield; gives you a great defensive skill and critical hit nastiness.
Technique/Arcane Combat: Good for any Cunning running build that can leverage physical or magical damage. Extremely good with physical setups that also gain Magic. Generally a top tier support option.
Cunning/Ambush: Ambuscade is a great skill for keeping you safe. There's more fun skills, but this is really good if you've got the Cunning for it(or don't mind tons of swaps and it being lategame).
Spell/Golemancy: Would you like a Golem? Of course you would. You really need Stone Alchemy for this, which is why it's not totally awesome(Not that Stone Alchemy is bad, either...), but it's still very good.
Spell/Necrotic Minions: As long as you're not blasting large areas with skills, this makes an excellent, and very low investment, blasting spell/utility skill. 5/2/0/0 it and you can seriously weaken or destroy any boss, and the Magic requirement is achievable by anyone that's not AM. Good stuff; Don't forget this on physical builds, it's still good there!
Spell/Necrosis: Kinda a tradeoff, but having +2 lifemod for most of the game, higher than normal resistance caps, and Negative regeneration is sorta good for some niche builds, even if Lichform does remove your infusions. Consider it.
Spell/Temporal: Good for anything that isn't AM, great for anyone that doesn't use Mana or AM. Essence of Speed doesn't factor in spellpower, enjoy your large speed bonus. Still good for physical builds!
Spell/Shades: You're only here for Forgery of Haze. On the upside, if you have good friendly fire skills, or don't mind running right after summoning it, your Forgery can be a nightmare hellspawn of death, since it's you, and you're an Adventurer. Enjoy!
Gift/Higher Draconic: Good way to get elemental damage boosts and piercing across a wide spread.
Gift/Ooze: Great set of defensive pets and a good status blocker/crit blocker? Sounds good to me.
Corruptions/Blight: Dark Ritual is one of the best skills in the game for any build. If you find yourself being strapped on Class points, while still having a category point to spare, consider this, strongly.
Corruptions/Shadowflame: You would like two extremely good Sustains? That you can run without having to worry about the base resource very much? You can get them here. Very good option for anyone that has any notable amount of spellpower, highly recommended.
Celestial/Eclipse: Blood Red Moon is one of the better raw spellcrit boosters. Shouldn't come up much, but if you're really crit heavy...
Celestial/Guardian: Second Life and Retribution are amazing skills to start with; Being able to ignore Positive(which is quite easy for Adventurers) makes them way better. Second Life doesn't even rely on stats much, so this is good to spectacular for anyone.
Chronomancy/Spacetime Folding: Temporal restoration for any physical/magical build(meaning you can opt into Chronomancy from here) and Displace Damage are good reasons to be here.
Chronomancy/Temporal Combat: Two good sustains for stats and two good abilities if you can restore Paradox. What's not to like, if you're building Willpower and aren't AM?
Cursed/Rampage: Speed/damage booster that randomly triggers, pretty good. I prefer Essence of Speed, but this is AM friendly. Besides, they stack.
Psionic/Absorption: Easy to forget, but you get a free mindslot with any Mindslayer skill. This is definitely the best class category to dip into for that, and it's one of the best options for any build. Who doesn't like more equipment?
Psionic/Solipsism: Higher life mod Solipsism? Sure, why not. A legitimate option for any high Psi build and a fairly solid investment as a support category for other builds as well.
Psionic/Thought-Forms: The lowest invest pet, you can actually get this to do things at 1/0/0/0, and 5/0/0/0 gives it a surprisingly solid offense relative to the investment.
Generic options:
Corruption/Hexes, Gift/Harmony, Gift/Fungus: Notable because they're all free for you; Just do the thing that would normally give you the locked category. Adventurers don't have fixed categories, but in practice, you get at least two freebies anyways; Enjoy your Elemental Harmony(and Pacification Hex, if you have any spellpower at all). Fungus only applies for AM builds, but is probably the best reason to go for AM as an Adventurer.
Celestial/Light, Psionic/Feedback, Spell/Aegis, Gift/Fungus: Pick one of these for your main support Generic sink. They're all good at different things; Celestial/Light has great magic scaling and the best status cure in Generic, Psionic/Feedback is surprisingly flexible and even restores a lot of resources(albiet not very well), Spell/Aegis is insanely good for builds that build around it, and Gift/Fungus is, as mentioned, free for AM.
Chronomancy/Energy: Insanely good if you have any spellpower at all and aren't running Chronomancy skills constantly(or are, but only have these two for Sustains). Put 3-5 points in the first two skills and never look back.
Psionic/Dream Forge: Eats up all your Psi if you're not a Solipsist, but gives you great defensive abilities. Pretty close to the mind-based Energy equivalent.
Psionic/Finer Energy Manipulation: The Generic oriented way to get a mindslot. Good if you're strapped on Class points, solid support effects on top of the Mindslot. Really needs mind oriented stats to shine much, though.
Conclusion:
With all of this in mind, pick a general build(what powers/damage you want to run off of for your offense, what you want to put into support, and what you don't want at all), and pick some of those delicious key categories to make it go. Do you want to fight with summons? Melee along side them? Or maybe you want to have some non-friendly-killing skills, like Distortion, that hit from range? Or maybe you want to dualwield onehanders? Celestial/Combat is_spell, so that works well with Reaving Combat.
There's tons of options. I highly recommend not going for the most broken one(which is very hard) but for the one that fits your playstyle, and the one you want to play most.
Enjoy Adventurer, it's a ton of fun.