sup, I played this game a little bit with my ex years ago; I decided to redownload it.
Is it impossible to clear the game's content without minmaxing?
Yes, though it depends on what you mean by all the content.
If you just mean getting through act 10 and doing some maps, you could do this by largely playing the game as an action game with minimal worry about gearing or anything.
You need to learn enough to execute a decent build in order to do the harder post game content reliably though. Stuff like Uber lab, guardians, shaper, etc.
That said, i wouldn't consider just looking up a build guide 'minmaxing' either(or just learning enough about the game systems to know what works and what doesn't), and some builds are really quite forgiving. I've done SRS and essence drain builds with garbage gear and totem builds as well. The two places where 'minmaxing' becomes almost required are melee builds(flicker strike and such) and if you want to farm end game content efficiently.
If you just want to get through the content and have a decent amount of fun, you can get a way with a lot of suboptimal stuff though.
I've reached the end of Act 3.
I'm very happy with the Raider Ascendancy and the first thing I chose was Way of the Poacher.
2750 DPS with Lightning Strike during battles. Is that good at that point of the game? Most mobs are a piece of cake and that Act 3 boss was easy.
My chest piece is a 4 Link with Lightning Strike, Faster Attacks Support, Physical to Lightning Support and Elemental Damage with Attacks Support. I could've had a 6 Socket chest piece, but it only had 3 linked sockets so I sold it. Looking back, I should've tried getting all 6 linked and changing up the colors.
It's basically impossible to compare tooltip dps because there is so much variance in actually applying the dps, but 2750 at the end of act 3 seems on the high side of my experience.
As for trying to 6 link a chest piece, it can take thousands of fusings to do that if you get unlucky, so you will have many many more 6 socket items drop before you manage to 6 link anything, so you can afford to wait until you find the exact right item to spend your fusings on.