I will make no apologies for not blogging about D3 lately because, well, I haven't felt the need. That and the fact that I was away from the computer for several weeks. But then I returned just in time for patch 1.0.5. And what a breath of fresh air this is! Now Diablo 3 is finally beginning to feel like the game it should have been from the beginning. I lauded the Paragon system when it was introduced in 1.0.4 but the new Monster Power system helps to further consolidate the game. But even more than MP, I was excited about the huge improvements to the Auction House interface.
Love the new AH
"Search for similar items" is an awesome feature. It has simplified AH searches immensely. Best of all, they managed to implement it exactly the way I envisioned it. Of course, YMMV. It helps in two major ways: 1) makes searching for upgrades very easy and 2) helps you easily price items for sale. I'm just annoyed they didn't think of this from the beginning. Oh well, better late than never.
Monster Power = Players X rebooted
Monster Power is, IMHO, even better than Diablo 2's Players X because it allows for finer tuning and it also improves the loot and XP gained. I'm currently playing on MP 1 in Act 1 because, well, I'm chicken. I like to play it safe. I prefer to annihilite everything easily vs struggling to survive on a higher difficulty.
The market is more dynamic
Maybe it's just me but I've noticed that the AH seems to be more dynamic in patch 1.0.5. I've never managed to sell more items and for such high prices as I do now. Maybe it's the surge of new players or the huge influx of improved items. Speaking of gold and stuff...
How to make and lose a fortune
For the first time in my D3 career I've managed to top 14 million gold. I know what you're thinking, pathetic. But hey, I make most of my gold by selling stuff I find on my own, not by playing the market, ok? So give me a break. Anyway, I decided I deserved an early Christmas present so I spoiled myself by buying a Tal-Rasha's chestpiece with good stats for 13 million. Was it worth it? I might have paid less in a week or two but I wanted to enjoy the game today. Besides, it added over 8000 DPS to my Wizard.
Cool drops bro!
I can attest to the fact that item drops have been vastly improved in 1.0.5. I found a lot of good stuff that I managed to sell on the AH for decent amounts. I even got 2 legendary drops, which, while mediocre, fetched a few cents on the RHAH. This is a very good sign. Before the patch, I never found anything worth more than 100K on the AH. Now, I sold drops for hundreds of thousands or millions of gold. And I didn't even play that much.
Wizard 2.0
My beloved Wizard is kicking ass more than ever. A week ago she was standing at around 65K DPS. After buying a 2H weapon with good DPS and nice stats for 1 million gold, and swapping the 1H dagger + off-hand she was using before, her DPS jumped to 95K. Massive! With the new Tal-Rasha's chestpiece, it went up even farther, to 103K. Now granted, that 1 million upgrade was a much higher bang for the buck (+30K DPS) compared to the 13 million chestpiece (+8K DPS). However, keep in mind that my equipment is pretty good and, going forward, each upgrade is very expensive. The only thing that will make a big difference now is a shoulder upgrade. Anyway, despite all the DPS, I still haven't killed Diablo on Inferno. I could do it anytime but I'm just lazy. Because I would do it on MP 0 (just to be safe), there's no big incentive for me, so I'm postponing it indefinitely. I'd much rather farm items in Act 1 on MP1 (or higher).
Torchlight 2
A quick word on Torchlight 2. It was supposed to be a D3 killer, or D2 reincarnated or something. I downloaded the demo and tried it for a while but it didn't gel with me. I disliked the original and, while the sequel is a vast improvement, I found it unappealing. Some of you will hate me for this but I find D3 superior in every way. TL2 made me realize how much I enjoy D3's skill system, automatic attribute leveling and the weapon-DPS-to-skill-damage system. In contrast, TL2's system felt confusing and awkward to use. Sorry folks, maybe I spent so much time with WoW and D3 that I "dumbed down" but I don't feel like going back to the old system. The dark side must have won me over because I much prefer D3's online play with all the convenience of the AH to an offline game which seems very static and isolated in comparison.
No expert here
Having said all this, I want to re-iterate something. I'm not a Diablo 3 expert. A reader once lambasted me for being too pretentious because I tagged this blog with words such as "strategy" and "theorycrafting". Not to burst anyone's bubble, but I don't take myself too seriously with this blog. I don't excel at making money (gold or $), in fact I downright suck at it, because I don't play the AH. I don't excel at killing Diablo on MP 10 (or even MP 1) because it's not my thing. I'm not a D3 pioneer in any way. I simply play the game for my personal enjoyment and blog about it occasionally. If I happen to come across an interesting strategy, I will discuss it. If I can craft some theory, I will. But I won't go out of my way to do these things. So there. Expect laid back, not cutting edge.
The future
Diablo 3 is slowly getting there. It's too bad they released it in an unfinished state and it took 5 months to get it on track. Either way, things are looking good. I love the feeling of being (slightly) overpowered and mowing down monsters with the greatest of ease. Unfortunately there's something about D3's progression (zones/events are separated by quests and acts remain separated from one another) that gives me a weird vibe. And now with Monster Power I don't feel the need to venture outside Act 1. The next 3 acts are pretty boring to me. What I think Diablo 3 desperately needs is an expansion with an additional, much improved act and a revamped/reloaded/reimagined crafting system.
The end.
Showing posts with label auction house. Show all posts
Showing posts with label auction house. Show all posts
Monday, October 29, 2012
Monday, August 20, 2012
Patch 1.0.4 - a paragon of excellence?
With a little luck, patch 1.0.4 hits tomorrow. I have to say, I haven't been so excited since Diablo 3 launched. Yes, there are the naysayers and those who've quit the game for good (hey there Loque!) but I'm sure there will also be many who are returning to sample what 1.0.4 brings. To them I say "to each his own". I don't blame you for giving up on Diablo/Blizzard. I've raged against them on many occasions. But hear me out brothers: these improvements really appeal to me. I haven't stopped playing the game completely but my interest has piqued now. Here's what I like about this great (and long in the making) patch.
Class changes
While the changes themselves are rather meh, along the lines of "this skill is under-used, let's buff its damage", I'm really glad they didn't nerf the popular ones instead, such as Poison Hydra. They could have done that, in typical Blizzard nerf-bat style but they chose the correct path of buffing the unpopular ones. Good.
Auction House changes
This is everything I was hoping for, and more. If I were to nitpick, I would also ask for tabs for the various types of transactions: sales, buys, cancellations, outbids and so on. This would bring some order to the way transactions are listed but at least we're getting a lot more detailed item information.
The Paragon system
I can already hear the naysayers decrying Blizzard's approach to the "endgame". To me this new system is very appealing. It single-handedly increases Diablo 3's longevity by orders of magnitude. Granted, it's gonna be grind-grind-grind-grind on and on and on and on, the same zones for months and years on end. But if that turns you off, maybe the whole concept of Diablo isn't for you. After all, Diablo 2's endgame consisted of endless boss runs in the never-ending quest to level 99. At least Diablo 3 has brought variety by making it more lucrative to kill random elites, rather than the same boss over and over. In addition, 1.0.4 makes trash mobs more important and increases their chance to drop rares, so they will really be worth killing.
The Paragon system gives Diablo 2 fans what they have been asking for from the beginning: a virtual "level 99". But in a way it's even better. Each Paragon level (up to 100) gives +3% Magic and Gold Find to a cap of 300% (at Paragon level 100), in addition to base stats (Str, Dex, Int, Vit). I find this great because the more you advance, the less you will rely on MF/GF gear, because the MF/GF bonus will be inherent to your character.
Eventually, after a tremendous grind, you will reach Paragon level 100. At this point you won't need any MF/GF gear at all because you will have reached the 300% cap. I'm betting that some people will be upset at this point because they can't increase their MF/GF past 300%. Well, don't worry folks because you should be able to equip the most powerful items in the game and you should absolutely dominate Inferno Act 4 with full MF. But of course, by the time people reach Paragon level 100 I'm sure they'll be playing in Act 5 or 6 of the next expansion(s).
There's one thing that I would have liked: a way to swap gear at the touch of a hotkey. It's really annoying to click-click-click-click-click-click on the MF gear I keep in my inventory, just before killing an elite or boss. But this is something that I don't think Blizzard will ever implement because it's against their precious "principles".
In conclusion, I'm pretty much stoked about what patch 1.0.4 brings. If you quit Diablo, I understand. We don't all like the same games and different things make us happy. I'm sticking to it because it gives me enough satisfaction. Now bring on the Diablo 3-bashing! I'm ready to take it!
Class changes
While the changes themselves are rather meh, along the lines of "this skill is under-used, let's buff its damage", I'm really glad they didn't nerf the popular ones instead, such as Poison Hydra. They could have done that, in typical Blizzard nerf-bat style but they chose the correct path of buffing the unpopular ones. Good.
Auction House changes
This is everything I was hoping for, and more. If I were to nitpick, I would also ask for tabs for the various types of transactions: sales, buys, cancellations, outbids and so on. This would bring some order to the way transactions are listed but at least we're getting a lot more detailed item information.
The Paragon system
I can already hear the naysayers decrying Blizzard's approach to the "endgame". To me this new system is very appealing. It single-handedly increases Diablo 3's longevity by orders of magnitude. Granted, it's gonna be grind-grind-grind-grind on and on and on and on, the same zones for months and years on end. But if that turns you off, maybe the whole concept of Diablo isn't for you. After all, Diablo 2's endgame consisted of endless boss runs in the never-ending quest to level 99. At least Diablo 3 has brought variety by making it more lucrative to kill random elites, rather than the same boss over and over. In addition, 1.0.4 makes trash mobs more important and increases their chance to drop rares, so they will really be worth killing.
The Paragon system gives Diablo 2 fans what they have been asking for from the beginning: a virtual "level 99". But in a way it's even better. Each Paragon level (up to 100) gives +3% Magic and Gold Find to a cap of 300% (at Paragon level 100), in addition to base stats (Str, Dex, Int, Vit). I find this great because the more you advance, the less you will rely on MF/GF gear, because the MF/GF bonus will be inherent to your character.
Eventually, after a tremendous grind, you will reach Paragon level 100. At this point you won't need any MF/GF gear at all because you will have reached the 300% cap. I'm betting that some people will be upset at this point because they can't increase their MF/GF past 300%. Well, don't worry folks because you should be able to equip the most powerful items in the game and you should absolutely dominate Inferno Act 4 with full MF. But of course, by the time people reach Paragon level 100 I'm sure they'll be playing in Act 5 or 6 of the next expansion(s).
There's one thing that I would have liked: a way to swap gear at the touch of a hotkey. It's really annoying to click-click-click-click-click-click on the MF gear I keep in my inventory, just before killing an elite or boss. But this is something that I don't think Blizzard will ever implement because it's against their precious "principles".
In conclusion, I'm pretty much stoked about what patch 1.0.4 brings. If you quit Diablo, I understand. We don't all like the same games and different things make us happy. I'm sticking to it because it gives me enough satisfaction. Now bring on the Diablo 3-bashing! I'm ready to take it!
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 8
On day 8 of my D3 marathon I went on a roll on the Monk and managed to level from 44 the previous day to 51. My DPS also jumped by a lot, from 900 to 2200. Current health is 14K.
I'm afraid he's an ugly-looking bastard at this point, with that nasty helm and hodge-podge equipment he's wearing. Oh well, good looks don't kill monsters.
I also finished Nightmare on my own and beat Diablo easily on the first attempt (also at level 51). I can tell you that 2200 DPS really makes a difference. I wouldn't have been able to plough through the last two acts in Nightmare if it hadn't been for the dagger/sword I am now wearing. I found both of these on the AH for about 6K each. I slapped some Rubies on them and there you have it: uber-DPS.
I have moved on into Hell but I'm still at the very first quests in Act 1. What's interesting is that the monsters aren't that hard to kill but their hit points have jumped up significantly. Also, when they hit, they hit hard. Luckily, those zombies at the beginning are slow as molasses and hit once in a blue moon. I'm pretty sure that, in order to beat Hell, I'm gonna need a lot more than 2K DPS, perhaps more along the lines of 5K-10K.
Speaking of weapons, I much prefer 1-handed fast weapons to the 2-handed polearm I was wearing yesterday. The Monk becomes a machine-gun with these fast weapons.
Now, the cool thing is that I got Azmodan (Act 3 boss) on farm mode in Nightmare. From levels 47-50 I farmed this dude exclusively. The reason why this works so well is that when you pick the quest "Kill Azmodan" and complete it, you get two different quest credits (along with XP and gold rewards). One is right after killing Azmodan, while the other is after going back to town, speaking to the guard dude and then climbing on the ramparts.
So the "farming" part is solely for the XP. Azmodan himself doesn't drop anything of worth, nor does he give much XP. But I also take the time to clear the mobs in the zone leading up to him. Another cool thing about this quest is that the zone that spans from the waypoint to Azmodan's lair is static. You could even rush through it without engaging mobs, if you can stun/slow them somehow. But I wanted to kill them each time, both for XP and items/gold.
It's pretty cool, if I start having difficulties in Hell I'm definitely going back to farm Azmodan for some more XP. At level 50 you need about 3 of these runs to gain a level. Pretty nifty. A run shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes, depending which champions/rares you run into. It happened that I came across some nasty Arcane enchanted mobs with another dangerous affix, and instead of risking dying (I knew they would be trouble), I simply started a new game after porting back to town.
Auction House adventures
If it hasn't sunk in already, I highly recommend looking for bargains on the AH. It's a very easy way to increase your damage and survivability and it shouldn't cost you a lot. After all, that's how I bought my two nice weapons, as well as other upgrades. I paid a total of 17K for these two weapons. Totally worth every little penny.
Build and skills
My build has continued to evolve, little by little. Now I just run with a single build instead of having a grinding and a boss build. Things have become tougher and I am trying to play more defensively. It amazes me sometimes how the Monk can escape some very hairy situations.
Build @ level 51 (available at 39)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXgQj!ZYX!ZZZaab
(Sorry about linking it this way, I'm still having trouble with linking the build properly)
The main highlight is that I picked the Sweeping Armada rune for Lashing Tail Kick because it helps a lot with those nasty mobs. If I get surrounded or my health is dangerously low or if I'm facing champions/rares with dangerous affixes, I can just kick them away and they are thrown much farther thanks to the rune, not to mention that their speed is also slowed for 2 seconds. This allows me to regroup/escape/heal or simply pick them off one by one.
I'm keeping Mystic Ally for now because this little dude continues to impress me. First, I don't have to micro-manage him. Second, he seems very tough and very often can take more damage than me. For example in Act 4 there are some huge monsters called Mallet Lords. These dudes can kill me in 2-3 hits, despite my Monky Zen and they also have a lot of health. But with the Mystic Ally, I can use him as a meat shield. I will stay back, let him engage, and then rush to engage the monster myself. My dude will take 2 hits and die while in the meantime I can whittle the monster's health down to 50% or so. Then I can pop a Serenity and finish him off.
So that's about it for now. I'll be fighting my way through Hell, next.
Follow the D3 Marathon
I'm afraid he's an ugly-looking bastard at this point, with that nasty helm and hodge-podge equipment he's wearing. Oh well, good looks don't kill monsters.
I also finished Nightmare on my own and beat Diablo easily on the first attempt (also at level 51). I can tell you that 2200 DPS really makes a difference. I wouldn't have been able to plough through the last two acts in Nightmare if it hadn't been for the dagger/sword I am now wearing. I found both of these on the AH for about 6K each. I slapped some Rubies on them and there you have it: uber-DPS.
I have moved on into Hell but I'm still at the very first quests in Act 1. What's interesting is that the monsters aren't that hard to kill but their hit points have jumped up significantly. Also, when they hit, they hit hard. Luckily, those zombies at the beginning are slow as molasses and hit once in a blue moon. I'm pretty sure that, in order to beat Hell, I'm gonna need a lot more than 2K DPS, perhaps more along the lines of 5K-10K.
Speaking of weapons, I much prefer 1-handed fast weapons to the 2-handed polearm I was wearing yesterday. The Monk becomes a machine-gun with these fast weapons.
Now, the cool thing is that I got Azmodan (Act 3 boss) on farm mode in Nightmare. From levels 47-50 I farmed this dude exclusively. The reason why this works so well is that when you pick the quest "Kill Azmodan" and complete it, you get two different quest credits (along with XP and gold rewards). One is right after killing Azmodan, while the other is after going back to town, speaking to the guard dude and then climbing on the ramparts.
So the "farming" part is solely for the XP. Azmodan himself doesn't drop anything of worth, nor does he give much XP. But I also take the time to clear the mobs in the zone leading up to him. Another cool thing about this quest is that the zone that spans from the waypoint to Azmodan's lair is static. You could even rush through it without engaging mobs, if you can stun/slow them somehow. But I wanted to kill them each time, both for XP and items/gold.
It's pretty cool, if I start having difficulties in Hell I'm definitely going back to farm Azmodan for some more XP. At level 50 you need about 3 of these runs to gain a level. Pretty nifty. A run shouldn't take more than 10-15 minutes, depending which champions/rares you run into. It happened that I came across some nasty Arcane enchanted mobs with another dangerous affix, and instead of risking dying (I knew they would be trouble), I simply started a new game after porting back to town.
Auction House adventures
If it hasn't sunk in already, I highly recommend looking for bargains on the AH. It's a very easy way to increase your damage and survivability and it shouldn't cost you a lot. After all, that's how I bought my two nice weapons, as well as other upgrades. I paid a total of 17K for these two weapons. Totally worth every little penny.
Build and skills
My build has continued to evolve, little by little. Now I just run with a single build instead of having a grinding and a boss build. Things have become tougher and I am trying to play more defensively. It amazes me sometimes how the Monk can escape some very hairy situations.
Build @ level 51 (available at 39)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXgQj!ZYX!ZZZaab
(Sorry about linking it this way, I'm still having trouble with linking the build properly)
The main highlight is that I picked the Sweeping Armada rune for Lashing Tail Kick because it helps a lot with those nasty mobs. If I get surrounded or my health is dangerously low or if I'm facing champions/rares with dangerous affixes, I can just kick them away and they are thrown much farther thanks to the rune, not to mention that their speed is also slowed for 2 seconds. This allows me to regroup/escape/heal or simply pick them off one by one.
I'm keeping Mystic Ally for now because this little dude continues to impress me. First, I don't have to micro-manage him. Second, he seems very tough and very often can take more damage than me. For example in Act 4 there are some huge monsters called Mallet Lords. These dudes can kill me in 2-3 hits, despite my Monky Zen and they also have a lot of health. But with the Mystic Ally, I can use him as a meat shield. I will stay back, let him engage, and then rush to engage the monster myself. My dude will take 2 hits and die while in the meantime I can whittle the monster's health down to 50% or so. Then I can pop a Serenity and finish him off.
So that's about it for now. I'll be fighting my way through Hell, next.
Follow the D3 Marathon
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
D3 Marathon - Day 7
On day 7 I'm becoming even more comfortable with my Monk. At the end of the day he is level 44, with about 1.1K DPS and 7K+ health. This may not seem enough but I can explain.
I was playing with this Demon Hunter who was lower level than me. I asked what his DPS was. Mine was 900 at the time and I was feeling pretty good about it. He surprised me when he said 1600. But then he said that he spent a bunch of gold on the Auction House buying upgrades. Fair enough.
Regardless of DPS, the Monk feels just right. I run a defensive build, with a lot of passive and active healing and it seems to work very well so far. I will detail the build shortly.
Here's my Monk, at level 44, with his new polearm. I gave up a shield for now, but I'd like to take one up again, for the extra armor. Also, I prefer a faster weapon, but this 2-hander was very cheap on the Auction House and it gave me a very nice DPS and health boost.
Also notice that I changed my banner. Yeah, ok, banners are not so bad after all.
I'm tempted to play with some armor dyes but I realize it would be a waste of gold right now so I'm putting it off until much later, after the RMAH is released.
Build and skills
I love how my build evolves slowly from one day to the next. Today I'm using a slightly different build than on day 6.
Grinding build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXfQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaaZab
The main highlight is that I replaced Crippling Wave (regretfully) with Fists of Thunder runed with Lightning Flash. The reason is twofold: first, it generates more Spirit; second, it increases my Dodge by 16% as long as I'm hitting stuff with Fists of Thunder.
The other thing is that I replaced the Water Ally rune for Mystic Ally with Air Ally. While the little dude seems to do slightly less damage, occasionally he gives me a huge Spirit boost thanks to the rune.
The main reason for these changes is that I kept finding myself starved of Spirit. I need a build which could generate lots of Spirit, especially since spending Spirit also heals me thanks to the Transcendence passive. This build is an improvement but still not perfect. If you have any suggestions on how to improve my Spirit generation even further, I'd be grateful.
Boss build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#UZXgQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaZaab
The boss build remains almost unchanged, except for the Mystic Ally rune. The other minor change is that I'm now using Breath of Heaven with Circle of Life instead of Circle of Scorn, for even more healing. Truth be told, I'm not even sure this last change is warranted. With this build I'm not taking enough damage from act bosses to make the extra healing mandatory.
I can see myself later on replacing Mystic Ally with Inner Sanctuary runes with Safe Haven or Consecration or Circle of Protection. So many choices. This would make for the ultimate tank.
Auction House
Speaking of the Auction House, I have become a convert. Not that I wasn't before, but I didn't expect I would end up searching actively for upgrades. I decided to upgrade some lousy pieces of equipment I had and in short order bought, for a total of 6K gold, 3 rare pieces which boosted my DPS by over 100, as well as my health and other stats. Was it worth it? Hell yeah! I can make 6K in less than 5 minutes on Nightmare.
The polearm/pike thing you see in the screenshot was also purchased for 6K gold and this alone improved my DPS by an additional 200.
I have also discovered an easy method to search for the best deals on the AH, but I will have to write a standalone article on the subject. UPDATE: never mind. Great minds think alike. Meldora posted the exact same thing, along with a video showing how it's done, on d3artisans.
A friend from Europe has also mentioned he was using the AH for upgrades. I'm telling you, if you want to rely solely on items you find on your own, that's fine. But in Nightmare things are getting hairy and you might suffer greatly for it. My friend's Wizard has 2K DPS and 12K health at level 47 but still struggles in Nightmare Act 3. Now, this is very subjective because, in comparison, my Monk has a bit over half his stats but he doesn't have a lot of problems, also in Act 3 Nightmare.
Auction House bugs
The AH might be great for finding item upgrades but it suffers from some serious bugs, currently. First, there's a major bug that prevents you from selling high(er) level gems. This is especially true of Perfect Square and Radiant Square gems. Basically you post the gem on the AH but other players can't buy it. I don't even think they will see it, even if it is the lowest priced. There's an elaborate trick involved that seems to fix this issue but such workarounds are ridiculous and shouldn't be needed at all. Damn you Blizzard, fix this right now!
Apart from that, I got some serious errors when trying to purchase some Tomes of Secrets. These are reagents for crafting some higher level gems. I spent over 20 minutes trying to buy 6 lousy Tomes. After placing the buy order I waited for several minutes while the order was "processed". Then, each time I got an error that my request failed. Problem was, the gold was deducted from my account. In the end, I found that I had purchased 2 stacks of 6 Tomes each, instead of just 1 stack, but there was a lot of gold missing (about 100K or so). Each time I clicked "Buy" my gold seems to have disappeared into a black hole of some sort.
It is possible that I will get a refund of all that gold. Last night when I went to bed I didn't see it, but I'm hoping today, after their damn maintenance, I will.
So yeah, be very careful when buying certain commodities. If you get a very long delay when placing an order and then an error message, stop buying.
Crafting
I managed to sink a couple hundred thousand gold in leveling my Jewelcrafter. My intentions were good. Studying the gem prices on the Auction House it became clear that I could make a profit by crafting the highest level gems available so far in the game. Currently these are Radiant Square Rubies. Well, Rubies seem to be the most profitable.
There were two problems with this strategy. First, I lost all that gold trying to buy Tomes of Secrets. Second, no one can buy the first gem I crafted because I forgot that the trick I linked above involved exactly 2 gems. So now I have 2 choices: take a loss and use the gem myself on my Monk's weapon (which would give him yet another DPS boost), or risk crafting a second gem. In the meantime, prices may drop even further, nullifying any profits.
I'll see how it goes after the game is back online. But the outlook is grim. I don't understand why it's so hard for them to fix these serious AH issues. I can't even imagine if shit like this happens with the RMAH. Either way, this is inexcusable. Gold will translate very shortly into real money. So if the system eats my gold, it is essentially eating my hard-earned cash.
Items and farming
In Nightmare Act 2 you will start seeing Perfect gems drop. In Act 3 you will see Radiant gems.
I did a tally of how much gold I can "farm" in an hour and it comes to about 50K per hour in Nightmare Act 2. 30K are from picking up gold and vendoring blue/rare items. The rest are from the value of gems and pages of crafting which I find in an hour and sell on the AH. Not too shabby. I'm sure that amount would be even more if I focused exclusively on farming, but now's not the time. Gotta get to 60 first.
While killing stuff in Act 2, my Monk found this really nice 117.6 DPS bow, the first weapon with more than 100 DPS. He, of course, passed it on to the Demon Hunter whereupon the latter's DPS rocketed up to about 1600. And by the way, these are exactly the stats I'm looking for in a DH item: Dex and Vit. This bow has plenty of both.
Another Scoundrel piece of wisdom
In closing I will leave you with another lol moment, courtesy of the Scoundrel follower.
Follow the D3 Marathon
I was playing with this Demon Hunter who was lower level than me. I asked what his DPS was. Mine was 900 at the time and I was feeling pretty good about it. He surprised me when he said 1600. But then he said that he spent a bunch of gold on the Auction House buying upgrades. Fair enough.
Regardless of DPS, the Monk feels just right. I run a defensive build, with a lot of passive and active healing and it seems to work very well so far. I will detail the build shortly.
Here's my Monk, at level 44, with his new polearm. I gave up a shield for now, but I'd like to take one up again, for the extra armor. Also, I prefer a faster weapon, but this 2-hander was very cheap on the Auction House and it gave me a very nice DPS and health boost.
Also notice that I changed my banner. Yeah, ok, banners are not so bad after all.
I'm tempted to play with some armor dyes but I realize it would be a waste of gold right now so I'm putting it off until much later, after the RMAH is released.
Build and skills
I love how my build evolves slowly from one day to the next. Today I'm using a slightly different build than on day 6.
Grinding build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aZXfQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaaZab
The main highlight is that I replaced Crippling Wave (regretfully) with Fists of Thunder runed with Lightning Flash. The reason is twofold: first, it generates more Spirit; second, it increases my Dodge by 16% as long as I'm hitting stuff with Fists of Thunder.
The other thing is that I replaced the Water Ally rune for Mystic Ally with Air Ally. While the little dude seems to do slightly less damage, occasionally he gives me a huge Spirit boost thanks to the rune.
The main reason for these changes is that I kept finding myself starved of Spirit. I need a build which could generate lots of Spirit, especially since spending Spirit also heals me thanks to the Transcendence passive. This build is an improvement but still not perfect. If you have any suggestions on how to improve my Spirit generation even further, I'd be grateful.
Boss build @ level 44 (available at 39).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#UZXgQj21aYaaaaaaaaab!ZYX!ZaZaab
The boss build remains almost unchanged, except for the Mystic Ally rune. The other minor change is that I'm now using Breath of Heaven with Circle of Life instead of Circle of Scorn, for even more healing. Truth be told, I'm not even sure this last change is warranted. With this build I'm not taking enough damage from act bosses to make the extra healing mandatory.
I can see myself later on replacing Mystic Ally with Inner Sanctuary runes with Safe Haven or Consecration or Circle of Protection. So many choices. This would make for the ultimate tank.
Auction House
Speaking of the Auction House, I have become a convert. Not that I wasn't before, but I didn't expect I would end up searching actively for upgrades. I decided to upgrade some lousy pieces of equipment I had and in short order bought, for a total of 6K gold, 3 rare pieces which boosted my DPS by over 100, as well as my health and other stats. Was it worth it? Hell yeah! I can make 6K in less than 5 minutes on Nightmare.
The polearm/pike thing you see in the screenshot was also purchased for 6K gold and this alone improved my DPS by an additional 200.
I have also discovered an easy method to search for the best deals on the AH, but I will have to write a standalone article on the subject. UPDATE: never mind. Great minds think alike. Meldora posted the exact same thing, along with a video showing how it's done, on d3artisans.
A friend from Europe has also mentioned he was using the AH for upgrades. I'm telling you, if you want to rely solely on items you find on your own, that's fine. But in Nightmare things are getting hairy and you might suffer greatly for it. My friend's Wizard has 2K DPS and 12K health at level 47 but still struggles in Nightmare Act 3. Now, this is very subjective because, in comparison, my Monk has a bit over half his stats but he doesn't have a lot of problems, also in Act 3 Nightmare.
Auction House bugs
The AH might be great for finding item upgrades but it suffers from some serious bugs, currently. First, there's a major bug that prevents you from selling high(er) level gems. This is especially true of Perfect Square and Radiant Square gems. Basically you post the gem on the AH but other players can't buy it. I don't even think they will see it, even if it is the lowest priced. There's an elaborate trick involved that seems to fix this issue but such workarounds are ridiculous and shouldn't be needed at all. Damn you Blizzard, fix this right now!
Apart from that, I got some serious errors when trying to purchase some Tomes of Secrets. These are reagents for crafting some higher level gems. I spent over 20 minutes trying to buy 6 lousy Tomes. After placing the buy order I waited for several minutes while the order was "processed". Then, each time I got an error that my request failed. Problem was, the gold was deducted from my account. In the end, I found that I had purchased 2 stacks of 6 Tomes each, instead of just 1 stack, but there was a lot of gold missing (about 100K or so). Each time I clicked "Buy" my gold seems to have disappeared into a black hole of some sort.
It is possible that I will get a refund of all that gold. Last night when I went to bed I didn't see it, but I'm hoping today, after their damn maintenance, I will.
So yeah, be very careful when buying certain commodities. If you get a very long delay when placing an order and then an error message, stop buying.
Crafting
I managed to sink a couple hundred thousand gold in leveling my Jewelcrafter. My intentions were good. Studying the gem prices on the Auction House it became clear that I could make a profit by crafting the highest level gems available so far in the game. Currently these are Radiant Square Rubies. Well, Rubies seem to be the most profitable.
There were two problems with this strategy. First, I lost all that gold trying to buy Tomes of Secrets. Second, no one can buy the first gem I crafted because I forgot that the trick I linked above involved exactly 2 gems. So now I have 2 choices: take a loss and use the gem myself on my Monk's weapon (which would give him yet another DPS boost), or risk crafting a second gem. In the meantime, prices may drop even further, nullifying any profits.
I'll see how it goes after the game is back online. But the outlook is grim. I don't understand why it's so hard for them to fix these serious AH issues. I can't even imagine if shit like this happens with the RMAH. Either way, this is inexcusable. Gold will translate very shortly into real money. So if the system eats my gold, it is essentially eating my hard-earned cash.
Items and farming
In Nightmare Act 2 you will start seeing Perfect gems drop. In Act 3 you will see Radiant gems.
I did a tally of how much gold I can "farm" in an hour and it comes to about 50K per hour in Nightmare Act 2. 30K are from picking up gold and vendoring blue/rare items. The rest are from the value of gems and pages of crafting which I find in an hour and sell on the AH. Not too shabby. I'm sure that amount would be even more if I focused exclusively on farming, but now's not the time. Gotta get to 60 first.
While killing stuff in Act 2, my Monk found this really nice 117.6 DPS bow, the first weapon with more than 100 DPS. He, of course, passed it on to the Demon Hunter whereupon the latter's DPS rocketed up to about 1600. And by the way, these are exactly the stats I'm looking for in a DH item: Dex and Vit. This bow has plenty of both.
Another Scoundrel piece of wisdom
In closing I will leave you with another lol moment, courtesy of the Scoundrel follower.
Follow the D3 Marathon
Friday, February 17, 2012
New AH changes make me happy
Today Blizzard announced some changes to the way the auction houses (gold and real money) work. Here they are.
The old system had a listing fee, except for an undisclosed number of free auctions every week. I was uneasy at the idea that I might have to limit my postings because, especially at the beginning, I would be very cautious not to waste money posting stuff over and over again.
Now that there is no more listing fee (and obviously the concept of free weekly auctions is out of the picture) we can all breathe a sigh of relief. We can post items (and gold) at our own leisure provided we can sell it for minimum 1.50 bucks (this will probably translate 1:1 into dollars or whatever real currency you're using).
An even bigger advantage for me (and others like me) that these changes bring is the limit of 10 auctions that run at any given time. This change alone should do a great job in limiting what farmers and especially speculators can post. This, to me, is amazing.
From a personal point of view, I can't stand speculators. Speculators are a necessary byproduct of a free market and we can assume that the Diablo 3 RMAH will be quite free once the rules imposed by Blizzard are obeyed. I won't play Diablo 3 with the purpose to make money. Instead, I will play it for fun, with the hope that occasionally I can make an extra buck by selling some rare item that I don't need. Speculators, however, can ruin the game for me and those like me by artificially raising AH prices (buy low, sell high and all that).
Now, the playing field is leveled for everyone. No matter how much you play the market, you still won't be able to post more than 10 items at a time. Of course, the hardcore people will get past this limit by purchasing additional accounts which should place a financial limit on how much of these accounts they can buy. But perhaps Blizzard will prevent this by imposing a 1 person - 1 account rule.
Softcore players who are reluctant to try their luck on the Real Money Auction House won't have any barriers now to posting items because they won't lose anything if the item doesn't sell. We can all continue to post that item over and over again until it sells (or we get tired of posting). This makes it possible to make a few bucks at any time during the game, whether you're level 1 or 60, without any financial risk.
The 10 auction limit will also put a damper on some people's dreams of hitting the mother lode by flipping hundreds of dollars worth of items a day. In the vast majority of cases that won't happen, unless, I repeat, they can juggle a dozen or more different accounts.
As for the transaction fee, I couldn't care less, especially if it is a fixed amount. It's not like I'm investing any resources in making that money. I play the game anyway for fun so any drop that I can sell is pure profit. Whether it's $0.25 or $1 is irrelevant.
I doubt these will be the final AH changes until release. Blizzard still has their work cut out for them. For my part I can't wait to give the new-and-improved AH a whirl.
To me, this is excellent news. Chief among them is the combination between removing the listing fee and limiting the number of concurrent auctions to 10.
- Listing fee is being removed.
- Transaction fee is being increased to 1.25 Beta Bucks.
- Minimum listing price is being raised to 1.50 Beta Bucks.
- You will be limited to 10 active auctions per auction house.
The old system had a listing fee, except for an undisclosed number of free auctions every week. I was uneasy at the idea that I might have to limit my postings because, especially at the beginning, I would be very cautious not to waste money posting stuff over and over again.
Now that there is no more listing fee (and obviously the concept of free weekly auctions is out of the picture) we can all breathe a sigh of relief. We can post items (and gold) at our own leisure provided we can sell it for minimum 1.50 bucks (this will probably translate 1:1 into dollars or whatever real currency you're using).
An even bigger advantage for me (and others like me) that these changes bring is the limit of 10 auctions that run at any given time. This change alone should do a great job in limiting what farmers and especially speculators can post. This, to me, is amazing.
From a personal point of view, I can't stand speculators. Speculators are a necessary byproduct of a free market and we can assume that the Diablo 3 RMAH will be quite free once the rules imposed by Blizzard are obeyed. I won't play Diablo 3 with the purpose to make money. Instead, I will play it for fun, with the hope that occasionally I can make an extra buck by selling some rare item that I don't need. Speculators, however, can ruin the game for me and those like me by artificially raising AH prices (buy low, sell high and all that).
Now, the playing field is leveled for everyone. No matter how much you play the market, you still won't be able to post more than 10 items at a time. Of course, the hardcore people will get past this limit by purchasing additional accounts which should place a financial limit on how much of these accounts they can buy. But perhaps Blizzard will prevent this by imposing a 1 person - 1 account rule.
Softcore players who are reluctant to try their luck on the Real Money Auction House won't have any barriers now to posting items because they won't lose anything if the item doesn't sell. We can all continue to post that item over and over again until it sells (or we get tired of posting). This makes it possible to make a few bucks at any time during the game, whether you're level 1 or 60, without any financial risk.
The 10 auction limit will also put a damper on some people's dreams of hitting the mother lode by flipping hundreds of dollars worth of items a day. In the vast majority of cases that won't happen, unless, I repeat, they can juggle a dozen or more different accounts.
As for the transaction fee, I couldn't care less, especially if it is a fixed amount. It's not like I'm investing any resources in making that money. I play the game anyway for fun so any drop that I can sell is pure profit. Whether it's $0.25 or $1 is irrelevant.
I doubt these will be the final AH changes until release. Blizzard still has their work cut out for them. For my part I can't wait to give the new-and-improved AH a whirl.
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