Building character to some extent will always have to consider it's comparative power to other options. At every step of building a character you make a judgment based on what works better.
I hope you won't perceive this as rude or targetting you, because it's not, but I observe this "mentality" in a lot of games, for example in channels discussing Dos2. Imo this is a player issue, rather than a systems issue. I consider this a mild form of minmaxing, which is just always bad in a non-competitive game imo. When I make my characters for tabletop, there are only two considerations I make; What kind of table is it (roleplay heavy or combat heavy), and second part (in that order) is what I'm in the mood for, what sounds fun. It doesn't have to be the strongest because there is no competitiveness, no leaderboards or first place to gain.
I forget where the quote is from, but "Players will optimize the fun out of games" stands true. There's a healthy side of that though, and it's not inherently wrong to pick what seems stronger than something else, that's natural to do. But as soon as a player starts looking up external knowledge or look for what's "factually stronger", I think it's steering into a detrimental path that reduces the fun a player has, because in their mind, it removes large portions of the game for them to enjoy. For example, you could look up the strongest weapons in Elden Ring, but at that point, you're only aiming to obtain that, and as a player it's only the weapon you have and the weapon you're trying to get is what matters. You've removed/reduced the enjoyment of exploration and getting new stuff that is slightly better than what you already have, because it's not the strong weapon you know you should have.
Which is why I generally never recommend people to look up builds for a game unless it's a competitive one, such as team based MOBAs, mythic raiding in WoW or in that general direction. To me, spoiling oneself of a story, or a character build, is essentially the same thing. To me, half the point of most games is to apply my own mind and judgement and see how well I fare, consequences be damned.
