My three favorite and effective loadouts are:
Sentenza/Storm driver
Biohazard/FF/Umbra Driver
Sentenza/GF (only use this one on EU usually)

You can succeed without using the easiest loadouts known to man, the learning curve is just higher. So many use the loadout in the OP because it's simple and usually gives a good sense of instant gratification.

If LD is not for you then that's cool, everyone has their own taste on what's fun.

Aaaaand a double post.

Heart Trinkets

For anyone looking to get into LD, I always recommend T2 instead - less GF and Polaris spam, more room for mistakes, and skill plays a larger factor.

My Boy Ranick, show me 20k dmg with the skolver + toothpick + polaris, you are talking about, for starters. THEN, we can go into detail about the shiz u be spewing from ur mouth :P

Zeddy got 72k with Shard Bombs. Not impressed.

erm getting people to line up as defender the whole game to get the said dmg.. should never even be considered.

use all the gear you want. 1v1 me. then you can talk about skill. I'll use chaos set and my beloved brandish.

RedblAAdes spammer!!!

Danielflame's antigua - the bane of guardians and bombers everywhere.

OP's post is pretty narrow-minded. Sounds like you need more LD practice.

Polaris is easy to bypass.
Toothpcks are easy to dodge
Skolvers? Shadow or Elemental dmg. Obviously.

Tbh, i used to be one of the crowd that thought LD was full of skolver clones. But honestly, the skolver clones kinda suck. The Vog GF combos...you are f'ed.

But I play T3 LD, and there is quite the variety of stuff.

Gunners, using alchemers predominately, followed by antigua lines/valiance, and lastly the occasional biohazard and callahan.
Few bombers, but those who do bomb are quite fun. Vortex, Hazebombs, snarb bomb and nitro.

And swordies, who use Sealed lines mostly (easy to dodge), then flourishes, then brandishes, with levi and sudaand triglav from time to time.

In terms of armor, mostly wolver lines, but chaos line is growing due to its universal dmg bonus.

Compared to T2, T3 is better.
T2 is mostly duskers who do well. No competent gunners exist in T2 for obvious reasons, nor bombers. The armor for those classes only becomes useful at 5*. Pretty much all swordies, toothlick spam.

Just my opinion, but T2 LD sucks compared to T3. T3 has more variety, cooler weapons, multiple fight styles (guns and bombs), and more derpy people. T2 has duskers with their flourishes, and the rest who fail at LD.

Only possible downside is that trinkets are needed for both in order to be good, but more so in T3.

Also, not many weapons compare to the rocket hammer in T2, but it is more balanced in T3.

Heavy T2 has no Sealed Sword Upgrade spam but still trollaris crap from those Duskers. Heavy swords are much less popular. Alchs. are more popular to those who have no Polaris or Antigua gear. So to answer the question skill is in the wep. and how it's used. (T2 has less spam anyway)

Hammers are less prevalent in T2, since there are less veteran players who actually buy things there. Not as many people have UVs, because no one wastes punch money on T2 stuff. There are definitely competent gunners and bombers. And there are most certainly fun people, in part because there are more newer players. In T3, on the other hand, the arena is constantly filled with polaris explosions, CTR max brandish charges, GFs and DAs. GFs and DAs are worse than SSs by a long shot, since they deal specialized damage. In T2, you can be good without UVs, without spamming. In T3 it's much harder to get people to notice. So if you're the best LD player in the world, sure, do T3. But T2 is better for those of us who aren't the best with infinite punch money.

The OP doesn't understand LD? I say you don't understand T2.

Toothpicks are hard to use correctly. Same with hammers, although their effectiveness at high levels is limited. The thing that's "easy" about them is how effective they are when you switch on AT and mash dat left mouse button.

And do brandishes count as "non-clone" gear?

@Han-shot-last:

Sir, you simply have no idea about your claims. They are false, sorry.
Not everyone is able to play well with "clone gear" in fact, Most clones are stupid and doesn't know how to use their gear.
So no, the people that wreck you in LD are skilled, and YOU are the one who needs to practice more and stop whining

There are ppl that actually do this ..and its fun..but most of them just dont whant...but that dosent meen gear make u better..for example i didnt played form 2 months and after i finnaly get on play in 1st week with chaos set (lvl 5 or lower dont remeber) ff asi med gf asi med and storm got 32k dmg ...so ur argument is invalid

I had my Wolver loadout long before LD was a thing. Does that make me not a clone, too?