They definitely cares about leveling experience. Watch the video where yang explains why they raised the lvl requirement for nagel ring.
I think locking items with specific skill is ok as long as the skill runes really matters. If the utility you get by selecting different runes are big enough, people will pick for that skill for utility instead of damage thus unlocking them from those items that buff the damage.
He mentioned that twin blade set is shit compared to balance. I disagree on that, you still can destroy T10 with that set. What's stopping you from doing that? If you are looking for maximization, there will always be ONE choice. The difference will only appear when different items or skills that provide utilities to make you success in different environments. And if you fish enough, that difference is barely anything. People will play one build that can fish out the best GR to do the highest GR.
If you are trying to achieve maximization, there has never ever been a choice.
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Assume you can do GR40. You might not even beat a bad GR38 and you might beat a pefect GR43. Your luck range is about 5lvl GRs.
For this build, the luck range is higher than the normal build.
I say this because I play barbarian. And I know how tanky raekor can reach GR45. The luck range for tanky raekor is huge. probably GR35 to GR45.
To become the top rank one on the leaderboard, you just need the build that has the highest potential GR capability and keep fishing for it, even though the luck range is huge and most of the time you perform worse than other commonly accepted builds.
I don't mean to say you don't deserve the rank one. You totally deserve it. But I think they made GR leaderboard 50%luck/40%persistence/10%skill. I admire your persistence.