As some of you might have noticed (but I don't blame you if you haven't), I haven't posted anything for a long time. That's because I kinda-sorta quit Diablo 3. Well, not quit it completely but my enthusiasm has cooled off to a large extent.
The thing is, I don't feel like posting anything anymore about Diablo. I was planning an article about a nice Witch Doctor build I was using but I don't have the energy for that. The D3 community is falling into a torpor and so am I. It's surprising because in all my years playing WoW, and despite the occasional nerd rage, this never happened.
There are many problems that plague Diablo 3. Among them I will mention the bad itemization, the extremely hard Inferno difficulty, the futility of playing in groups in Inferno, the rampant botting and hyperinflation, the bad AH interface, the lack of a viable endgame, the insanely high repair costs in Inferno, the poor story and on and on.
But there are also plenty of things that I like. To me, Diablo 3 fits really well in the Diablo series. The moment I lay hands on it it felt like Diablo. I know that this opinion isn't shared universally but it's true for me. The graphics and art are gorgeous and so are the sounds. The gameplay is frantic and largely satisfying. Most of the skills are very satisfying to use and runes make them even better. I still love the pinata loot system but, in truth, Diablo 2 was more satisfying in this aspect.
As a result, I am still playing the game but a lot less than at the beginning. In fact, over the past few weeks I haven't farmed Inferno at all. Instead, I've concentrated on leveling my Witch Doctor to 60, though she's still in Hell Act 4.
Then, I spent a couple of hours every weekend with my friend from across the big pond, leveling my Wizard. She's 52 now and the going is slow because at these high levels we can't gain more than a couple of levels per play session. Problem is, I'm itching to get her to 60 because I love the Wizard best of all classes. Of course, there's a distinct possibility that she'll suck in Inferno but we'll see.
My Demon Hunter with 50K DPS can't do shit in Inferno Act 1. He destroyed everything in Hell but Inferno is really bad. He's a 2-hit kill and mobs move too fast for him to be able to escape. I just can't do it, so I abandoned him for now.
Surprisingly, I decided to start a hardcore character. It sounds crazy because I always thought it would be a waste of time but here I am. The class? Wizard, of course. She's 22 in Act 2 and she's doing fine so far. My strategy is to repeat content until I outlevel it, just to be on the safe side.
I find it interesting that in hardcore it seems the Auction House moves better. I sold most of the good items I found and I even managed to sell a rare level 13 ring for 20K. Prices are higher, but you can still find good deals. It should be really interesting if they add a hardcore RMAH.
So that's what I've been up to these past few weeks. I've also sold a few items on the RMAH here and there, for the minimum amount because most of it was junk.
Plans for the future? I just want to level that damn Wizard to 60 so I can try to kick some butt the way I like it. Unfortunately I don't think I'll be posting too often, I just don't feel energized like I was when the game launched.
What about y'all? If I don't get any comments I'll just assume none of my readers is playing any more lol.
Friday, July 27, 2012
Friday, July 6, 2012
Barbarian 30-60 build
I would like to share with you the build I used on my Barbarian from level 30 all the way to 60. Why 30? Because that's about the point where you step into Nightmare difficulty. Act 2 especially can be tough. Normal mode is very easy but Nightmare ramps it up a notch and very often it requires a re-shuffling of your skills in order to progress. I was ready to give up on my Barbarian at this point because I was taking too much damage with my previous hodge-podge build. The fact that I was using a 2-hander didn't help either.
I came upon an interesting build on a forum somewhere but unfortunately I can't remember where, to link to it. I decided to give this build a try and I was very impressed. My Barbarian became an unstoppable force (and immovable object) and he sailed easily all the way to Inferno Act 1 using this build.
You won't have all the sweet runes that finalize this build from level 30. But the skills themselves don't change at all. Only one passive skill changes, but much later. Instead, the basic build continues to improve as you go along and unlock better runes. Furthermore, it so happens that you don't even need to enable Elective Mode if you use the same skill placement I use.
I found that this build works best with sword-and-board, i.e. 1H weapon and shield. Your mileage may vary with a different weapon setup but personally I wouldn't want to give up the extra protection afforded by the shield.
Without further ado, here's the build at level 30:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WeRVkP!bVe!ZZaa
Primary
Frenzy with Triumph - This is your bread and butter Fury generator. It deals massive damage to a single target and it works best with a fast weapon. Triumph heals you for a significant amount when you kill an enemy. I consider it essential for survival. You will use this rune all the way to 59.
Secondary
Seismic Slam with Shattered Ground - Seismic Slam is your main Fury spender. I love it because it deals massive damage in a 45 degree arc in front of you to all the monsters caught in it. More importantly, it knocks them back, allowing you to recover if you are surrounded. The rune simply improves the range of the skill and the knockback effect. This rune is so good that there is no reason to change it even at 60.
Defensive
Ignore Pain with Bravado - It seems that Ignore Pain has become a must for most builds and this one is no exception. Pop it up whenever things become hairy. The Bravado rune is temporary until you can get a better one but it is still very good, knocking enemies back if they surround you and also dealing 50% weapon damage to them. In fact this rune can be used as an extra source of DPS if you so desire, popping Ignore Pain whenever it's off cooldown. While the cooldown itself is fairly short, I prefer to use it only when shit happens.
Might
Revenge with Vengeance is Mine - Revenge is one of my favorite skills. It has a chance to activate when you are taking damage. So the more you are hit, the higher the chance. It procs very often when you are surrounded or standing in a pool of nasty damaging stuff. You need to keep an eye out for it but it does some nice AoE damage when you hit it. Make sure not to wait too long because the effect eventually expires. Damage aside, the main strength of this skill is that it heals you for a very nice amount for each enemy affected by the skill. It is literally a lifesaver. The rune (temporary until much later) increases the healing effect and also gives you some Fury.
Tactics
Warcry - This one buffs your armor (and your allies') by 20% for 1 minute. The cool thing is that it also generates Fury so I use it whenever it is off cooldown, every 30 seconds. At level 30 there is no rune for it yet.
Rage
Wrath of the Berserker - This one is optional but highly recommended. It provides massive burst damage and even though the cooldown is long at 2 minutes, I like to save it for boss packs when I can pop it and destroy them in a few seconds. Runed, this skill becomes even better, but at level 30 you will have to contend with the naked skill.
Passive
Nerves of Steel - Awesome defensive passive. It increases your armor by the same amount as your Vitality. Since you will have a ton of Vitality anyway, this means that you will have huge amounts of armor. This passive does a lot to help mitigate a great deal of physical damage.
Tough as Nails - Further increases your armor by an additional 25% but also improves your Thorns damage. If you have a build centered around Thorns, this passive is a must. Otherwise it still does a lot of mitigation which makes it important for this build.
Superstition - While the previous two passives take care of physical damage, this one reduces non-physical damage by 20% and also gives you a little Fury when taking ranged or elemental damage. In all, it's a solid defensive skill and highly recommended.
Gameplay
As you can see, this build centers mainly around defensive skills but also has some nice health recovery via Revenge and the Frenzy rune, as well as good damage thanks to Frenzy, Revenge (again) and Wrath of the Berserker. Between all the mitigation and health recovery you will use very few health potions. For this to work you will obviously need a good 1H weapon and shield but fortunately these are cheap to buy on the Auction House until level 55 or so. For the shield I recommend as much block as you can find (ideally about 20% or so), and then armor. Shields also have Strength, Vitality (which also gives armor via the passive) and other desirable stats.
Progression from 30 to 60
This build will evolve in your journey to level 60 but the beauty of it is that you'll be using the exact same skills. Only the runes change, for the better. Here's what I recommend, as you go along.
Level 32
Warcry gets its first rune, Hardened Wrath. This doubles the armor bonus to 40%. You will use this until level 60 when I recommend another rune.
Level 36
Ignore Pain gets Ignorance is Bliss. This rune gives you additional healing while Ignore Pain is active. At 20% that's a lot of healing. If shit hits the fan, pop this and you will do a complete turnaround.
Level 40
Wrath of the Berserker gets Impunity. This rune doubles your damage while Wrath of the Berserker is active. In other words, you can deal double damage every 2 minutes. This allows you to burn down boss packs and bosses in record time.
Level 40 (but you can do it at 60 if you don't feel the need)
After 40, when you feel like you are getting too close to death for comfort, you have the option to swap the Superstition passive for Relentless. While you will lose some elemental resistance, your survivability will be greatly increased when your health gets really low. This passive has saved me numerous times and allowed me to recover from desperate situations. I'd say it's a must for hardcore builds. In addition, it also reduces your Fury costs by 75%. This skill used to be even better because it reduced costs by 100% but it got nerfed because people were using a build where they deliberately got their health down to 20% so they could kite tough mobs from a distance with unlimited Weapon Throw and/or Seismic Slam with Shattered Ground. This really sucks, IMO, but Blizzard are sometimes dicks like that.
Level 52
Revenge gets Provocation. You give up some healing and also Fury generation but Revenge now procs twice as often. Believe me when I tell you that the tradeoff is definitely worth it. Now it seems like it's up all the time. Do massive AoE damage! Because it procs more often you can also heal more often (even though the amount is smaller) but this does wonders when you're surrounded by lots of monsters or when you get a boss pack with Plagued or Desecrator.
Level 59
Frenzy gets Maniac. Each stack of Frenzy increases your damage by 4% for a potential total of 20%. That's a huge amount of extra damage. You'll be forgoing the healing after monster kills but this rune is much better for downing boss packs and tough mobs.
Level 60
Use Impunity for Warcry. While you'll be giving up some armor, I think you'll gain a lot more by boosting all your resistances by 50%. Don't use this if you don't have enough base resistances because the difference won't be significant.
At level 60, your build will look like this:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WeRVkP!bVU!cZbccZ
It's a very solid defensive build that can also deal a fair amount of damage provided you have a decent weapon. I'm currently in Inferno Act 1 with this build but I haven't really played the Barbarian a lot there due to lack of good equipment. I did kill a few Inferno boss packs with this build, although in truth I am a bit squishy. If you've used this build or have better suggestions I'd love to hear all about it.
I came upon an interesting build on a forum somewhere but unfortunately I can't remember where, to link to it. I decided to give this build a try and I was very impressed. My Barbarian became an unstoppable force (and immovable object) and he sailed easily all the way to Inferno Act 1 using this build.
You won't have all the sweet runes that finalize this build from level 30. But the skills themselves don't change at all. Only one passive skill changes, but much later. Instead, the basic build continues to improve as you go along and unlock better runes. Furthermore, it so happens that you don't even need to enable Elective Mode if you use the same skill placement I use.
I found that this build works best with sword-and-board, i.e. 1H weapon and shield. Your mileage may vary with a different weapon setup but personally I wouldn't want to give up the extra protection afforded by the shield.
Without further ado, here's the build at level 30:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WeRVkP!bVe!ZZaa
Primary
Frenzy with Triumph - This is your bread and butter Fury generator. It deals massive damage to a single target and it works best with a fast weapon. Triumph heals you for a significant amount when you kill an enemy. I consider it essential for survival. You will use this rune all the way to 59.
Secondary
Seismic Slam with Shattered Ground - Seismic Slam is your main Fury spender. I love it because it deals massive damage in a 45 degree arc in front of you to all the monsters caught in it. More importantly, it knocks them back, allowing you to recover if you are surrounded. The rune simply improves the range of the skill and the knockback effect. This rune is so good that there is no reason to change it even at 60.
Defensive
Ignore Pain with Bravado - It seems that Ignore Pain has become a must for most builds and this one is no exception. Pop it up whenever things become hairy. The Bravado rune is temporary until you can get a better one but it is still very good, knocking enemies back if they surround you and also dealing 50% weapon damage to them. In fact this rune can be used as an extra source of DPS if you so desire, popping Ignore Pain whenever it's off cooldown. While the cooldown itself is fairly short, I prefer to use it only when shit happens.
Might
Revenge with Vengeance is Mine - Revenge is one of my favorite skills. It has a chance to activate when you are taking damage. So the more you are hit, the higher the chance. It procs very often when you are surrounded or standing in a pool of nasty damaging stuff. You need to keep an eye out for it but it does some nice AoE damage when you hit it. Make sure not to wait too long because the effect eventually expires. Damage aside, the main strength of this skill is that it heals you for a very nice amount for each enemy affected by the skill. It is literally a lifesaver. The rune (temporary until much later) increases the healing effect and also gives you some Fury.
Tactics
Warcry - This one buffs your armor (and your allies') by 20% for 1 minute. The cool thing is that it also generates Fury so I use it whenever it is off cooldown, every 30 seconds. At level 30 there is no rune for it yet.
Rage
Wrath of the Berserker - This one is optional but highly recommended. It provides massive burst damage and even though the cooldown is long at 2 minutes, I like to save it for boss packs when I can pop it and destroy them in a few seconds. Runed, this skill becomes even better, but at level 30 you will have to contend with the naked skill.
Passive
Nerves of Steel - Awesome defensive passive. It increases your armor by the same amount as your Vitality. Since you will have a ton of Vitality anyway, this means that you will have huge amounts of armor. This passive does a lot to help mitigate a great deal of physical damage.
Tough as Nails - Further increases your armor by an additional 25% but also improves your Thorns damage. If you have a build centered around Thorns, this passive is a must. Otherwise it still does a lot of mitigation which makes it important for this build.
Superstition - While the previous two passives take care of physical damage, this one reduces non-physical damage by 20% and also gives you a little Fury when taking ranged or elemental damage. In all, it's a solid defensive skill and highly recommended.
Gameplay
As you can see, this build centers mainly around defensive skills but also has some nice health recovery via Revenge and the Frenzy rune, as well as good damage thanks to Frenzy, Revenge (again) and Wrath of the Berserker. Between all the mitigation and health recovery you will use very few health potions. For this to work you will obviously need a good 1H weapon and shield but fortunately these are cheap to buy on the Auction House until level 55 or so. For the shield I recommend as much block as you can find (ideally about 20% or so), and then armor. Shields also have Strength, Vitality (which also gives armor via the passive) and other desirable stats.
Progression from 30 to 60
This build will evolve in your journey to level 60 but the beauty of it is that you'll be using the exact same skills. Only the runes change, for the better. Here's what I recommend, as you go along.
Level 32
Warcry gets its first rune, Hardened Wrath. This doubles the armor bonus to 40%. You will use this until level 60 when I recommend another rune.
Level 36
Ignore Pain gets Ignorance is Bliss. This rune gives you additional healing while Ignore Pain is active. At 20% that's a lot of healing. If shit hits the fan, pop this and you will do a complete turnaround.
Level 40
Wrath of the Berserker gets Impunity. This rune doubles your damage while Wrath of the Berserker is active. In other words, you can deal double damage every 2 minutes. This allows you to burn down boss packs and bosses in record time.
Level 40 (but you can do it at 60 if you don't feel the need)
After 40, when you feel like you are getting too close to death for comfort, you have the option to swap the Superstition passive for Relentless. While you will lose some elemental resistance, your survivability will be greatly increased when your health gets really low. This passive has saved me numerous times and allowed me to recover from desperate situations. I'd say it's a must for hardcore builds. In addition, it also reduces your Fury costs by 75%. This skill used to be even better because it reduced costs by 100% but it got nerfed because people were using a build where they deliberately got their health down to 20% so they could kite tough mobs from a distance with unlimited Weapon Throw and/or Seismic Slam with Shattered Ground. This really sucks, IMO, but Blizzard are sometimes dicks like that.
Level 52
Revenge gets Provocation. You give up some healing and also Fury generation but Revenge now procs twice as often. Believe me when I tell you that the tradeoff is definitely worth it. Now it seems like it's up all the time. Do massive AoE damage! Because it procs more often you can also heal more often (even though the amount is smaller) but this does wonders when you're surrounded by lots of monsters or when you get a boss pack with Plagued or Desecrator.
Level 59
Frenzy gets Maniac. Each stack of Frenzy increases your damage by 4% for a potential total of 20%. That's a huge amount of extra damage. You'll be forgoing the healing after monster kills but this rune is much better for downing boss packs and tough mobs.
Level 60
Use Impunity for Warcry. While you'll be giving up some armor, I think you'll gain a lot more by boosting all your resistances by 50%. Don't use this if you don't have enough base resistances because the difference won't be significant.
At level 60, your build will look like this:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WeRVkP!bVU!cZbccZ
It's a very solid defensive build that can also deal a fair amount of damage provided you have a decent weapon. I'm currently in Inferno Act 1 with this build but I haven't really played the Barbarian a lot there due to lack of good equipment. I did kill a few Inferno boss packs with this build, although in truth I am a bit squishy. If you've used this build or have better suggestions I'd love to hear all about it.
Monday, July 2, 2012
Oh cruel fate why do you mock me?
I don't believe in fate or destiny (merely in coincidence) but sometimes life can be very ironic, to say the least. Diablo 3 has been toying with my feelings for a while now. Over the past couple of days I decided to start farming that damn Staff of Herding so I can get into the secret pony level. What, did you think it would be easy? Perish the thought.
I leveled 3 characters to 60, another to 50+ and another to 30+. I killed Izual (who drops the plans for the Staff) many many times. The plans didn't drop. Then, over the last 2 days I decided to farm him specifically for the plans with my Monk. So I ran him over and over again, on Normal difficulty. Did the plans drop? Nah.
I bought a copy of Diablo 3 for my best friend over in Europe. We get together about once a week for 1-2 hours and play together, chatting over Skype. It's an awesome way to enjoy the game even though we're thousands of miles apart. He plays a Barbarian and I play my Wizard. Because we don't get to play a lot, advancement is slow. Yesterday we both reached level 32, after finishing Normal difficulty.
So guess what drops for my friend on his very first Izual kill? You guessed it. The plans for The F*#$% Staff of Herding. He was like "Oh, I got a legendary drop". I was like "Sigh", already knowing what dropped.
On the whole, this episode makes me me lol uncontrollably. I plan to continue farming for the staff, even though I'm not sure about the benefits of farming Whimsyshire. Does it give better drops? More of them? Or is it just a novelty thing?
How about you? Have you found the plans yet? What about the other components? How long did it take you to find them?
UPDATE: I got the plans tonight, just after posting this article and after killing Izual about 5 more times. OK fate, I forgive you.
I leveled 3 characters to 60, another to 50+ and another to 30+. I killed Izual (who drops the plans for the Staff) many many times. The plans didn't drop. Then, over the last 2 days I decided to farm him specifically for the plans with my Monk. So I ran him over and over again, on Normal difficulty. Did the plans drop? Nah.
I bought a copy of Diablo 3 for my best friend over in Europe. We get together about once a week for 1-2 hours and play together, chatting over Skype. It's an awesome way to enjoy the game even though we're thousands of miles apart. He plays a Barbarian and I play my Wizard. Because we don't get to play a lot, advancement is slow. Yesterday we both reached level 32, after finishing Normal difficulty.
So guess what drops for my friend on his very first Izual kill? You guessed it. The plans for The F*#$% Staff of Herding. He was like "Oh, I got a legendary drop". I was like "Sigh", already knowing what dropped.
On the whole, this episode makes me me lol uncontrollably. I plan to continue farming for the staff, even though I'm not sure about the benefits of farming Whimsyshire. Does it give better drops? More of them? Or is it just a novelty thing?
How about you? Have you found the plans yet? What about the other components? How long did it take you to find them?
UPDATE: I got the plans tonight, just after posting this article and after killing Izual about 5 more times. OK fate, I forgive you.
Friday, June 29, 2012
Demon Hunter is 60
Last night I hit 60 on my Demon Hunter. I stopped playing him a few weeks ago and left him languishing at 55. My spec sucked, my DPS was mediocre and leveling was a drag. Then, a couple of nights ago I decided to make the final push to 60 so I could equip my DH with level 60 items inherited from the Monk, not to mention a bow or two that I had set aside for him.
One of the tricks that you can take advantage of when you're close to 60 and things seem to slow down is to search the Auction House for a weapon with Reduced Level Requirement. You'll be surprised what you can find. In many cases you'll be able to grab a level 60 weapon (with the associated massive damage) for your level 55-56 character.
After buying a 758 DPS bow (which had more than double the DPS of my existing crossbow), my damage spiked from 13K to a massive 32K. In truth, these numbers are with the passive Sharpshooter. It's all good though. I love that passive.
At the same time I decided to change my spec. I adopted this guy's spec. It's awesome, I can tell you that. From that point onward, I was pulverizing everything in my path. That is, until I decided to group up in order to kill Belial. The group wiped 4 times before we decided to split. Afterwards I killed Belial on my first solo try. BTW, I still think this is one of the worst encounters in the game.
In Act 3 I joined another group and found myself in a party of 4 Demon Hunters. It was the first time that happened and it was fun. Unfortunately my DPS was disproportionate to what the others were dealing.
About halfway into Act 3 I hit 60 without too much fuss. I equipped a 1H crossbow that I was saving, along with 2-3 other upgrades and my DPS jumped again to... drumroll...
Yup, 47K DPS. I also have +145% Critical Hit Damage and 2.16 attacks per second. That's pretty damn awesome. Mobs die like flies. Champions don't stand much of a chance either. I just love being overpowered. Unfortunately I am rather weak. 2-3 well-placed blows will kill me. I'm also sure that 47K DPS in Inferno for a DH without too many defenses won't quite cut it.
The best thing, however, is that now I can go back to farming Inferno with the Monk so I can equip the Demon Hunter and the Barbarian who are both 60 now.
One of the tricks that you can take advantage of when you're close to 60 and things seem to slow down is to search the Auction House for a weapon with Reduced Level Requirement. You'll be surprised what you can find. In many cases you'll be able to grab a level 60 weapon (with the associated massive damage) for your level 55-56 character.
After buying a 758 DPS bow (which had more than double the DPS of my existing crossbow), my damage spiked from 13K to a massive 32K. In truth, these numbers are with the passive Sharpshooter. It's all good though. I love that passive.
At the same time I decided to change my spec. I adopted this guy's spec. It's awesome, I can tell you that. From that point onward, I was pulverizing everything in my path. That is, until I decided to group up in order to kill Belial. The group wiped 4 times before we decided to split. Afterwards I killed Belial on my first solo try. BTW, I still think this is one of the worst encounters in the game.
In Act 3 I joined another group and found myself in a party of 4 Demon Hunters. It was the first time that happened and it was fun. Unfortunately my DPS was disproportionate to what the others were dealing.
About halfway into Act 3 I hit 60 without too much fuss. I equipped a 1H crossbow that I was saving, along with 2-3 other upgrades and my DPS jumped again to... drumroll...
Yup, 47K DPS. I also have +145% Critical Hit Damage and 2.16 attacks per second. That's pretty damn awesome. Mobs die like flies. Champions don't stand much of a chance either. I just love being overpowered. Unfortunately I am rather weak. 2-3 well-placed blows will kill me. I'm also sure that 47K DPS in Inferno for a DH without too many defenses won't quite cut it.
The best thing, however, is that now I can go back to farming Inferno with the Monk so I can equip the Demon Hunter and the Barbarian who are both 60 now.
Thursday, June 28, 2012
Blizzard fails at game design
Did the controversial title make you click through? Good. That was my intention. Before you start hating on me, give me a chance to make my case. I don't really think that Blizzard fails at game design and the title is more tongue-in-cheek than deadly serious. But some of their design decisions do make me scratch my head. It is said that true love has both highs and lows and there's a love-hate relationship between me and Blizzard. There are many occasions in which I cussed them to hell but many more in which I praised them. This little article is meant to question some parts of their game design so bear with me if you will.
With Diablo 3, Blizzard has always maintained that their goal was to encourage a vast number of builds and equipment choices, such that no particular build would shine above all others and no piece of equipment would be mandatory in order to advance through content. It turns out that their plan didn't pan out too well. Here are a few reasons why.
1H vs 2H
Normally it shouldn't really matter which kind of weapon you use. It would come down to personal preference and specific builds which favor one type of weapon or another. Unfortunately, in Inferno it's almost impossible to play as a melee class without a shield. This excludes 2H weapons and makes 1H + shield almost mandatory. To my horror, I heard that even Wizards, Demon Hunters and Witch Doctors are using shields instead of their class-specific off-hands.
I'm sure there are literally tens of players who go against the norm and use 2H weapons but those are the exception. A shield provides too many benefits to give up in favor of slightly more DPS on a 2H weapon: block, armor, life, resistances and other desirable stats.
I would argue that the same thing is valid for 1H vs dual 1H. Though you will get more damage from dual-wielding 1H weapons, the tradeoff might be too big.
Take my Barbarian, for example. Until Act 2 Nightmare he bullied his way through using a variety of weapon setups, including 1H + shield, dual 1H and 2H. But he hit a wall right about that point and I was forced to change both his spec and his equipment to 1H + shield. After that, his problems ended.
Blizzard wanted to stay away from mandatory equipment setups but they failed in this noble endeavor. Unfortunately I don't have a ready solution for this. If I recall correctly (and hopefully I'm not seeing this through rose-colored glasses), Diablo 2 handled this better by offering a much wider build variety, where any combination of gear could be viable. Of course, some were more efficient than others but on the whole you could still finish Hell with a non-mainstream setup.
Strangely, I like D3's DPS system. Translating weapon DPS into skill DPS is very simple and intuitive. But this introduces gremlins into the system. And frankly I don't have any idea how Blizzard will manage to chase those gremlins out.
Crafting
Crafting is supposed to be something exciting, that players find a lot of fun to engage in, as well as a convenient gold sink. Unfortunately, crafting in Diablo 3 leaves me cold. I leveled my Jewelcrafter to some extent and now I regret it. I was hoping to flip some gems and this worked well for a couple of days until commodity auctions were disabled. After that it became useless. Flipping gems is unprofitable now and crafting gems for myself is... meh, since I can usually buy them cheaper from the AH.
Luckily I didn't level the Blacksmith at all, but if I had, I wouldn't find any use for him. From what I can determine, the Blacksmith is only useful to a small niche of players who have figured out how to take advantage of certain crafted items on the Auction House. That's cool but the vast majority of players doesn't engage in AH warfare.
Then there's the small group of players who don't use the AH for certain reasons, preferring to craft their own gear. Unfortunately, until the late 50s you'll be better off buying very good gear directly off the AH so they are still wasting their time and gold.
Blacksmithing does come in its own at max level, but again, only if you invest a lot of gold in it first, buying rare recipes and expensive mats. Even then, there's no guarantee that you will get good stats on an item.
Personally I just don't want to bother with crafting. It is too unappealing to me but I'm hoping this will improve in future patches. Hah, ironically it almost seems like Diablo 2's gambling system was more appealing to players than Diablo 3's crafting system, despite the fact that results were a lot less predictable.
Crafting mats
Another thing that failed, in my opinion, is the market for crafting mats. The only ones that are worth something on the AH are level 60 ones. In other words, Normal, Nightmare and Hell mats are completely useless. I don't even understand why people choose to salvage their items and then sell the mats on the AH. You are losing money people! On the flip-side, those who know how to exploit this will profit by buying cheap mats, crafting certain niche items and selling them on the AH. Once again, these people are a very small minority.
Even at 60, things aren't rosy. The prices for the 3 types of mats are dysfunctional. Leaving aside the fact that Inferno mats are several orders of magnitude more expensive than their lesser counterparts, Exquisite Essences (magic) are 8-10 times more expensive than Iridescent Tears (rare)! How the hell is that even possible? I find it ridiculous.
Blizzard designed crafting in such a way that the demand for lesser materials is much higher (up to 10 times in fact) than that for rarer materials. How messed up is that? Something needs to be done here: either decrease the drop rate of rare items (something that I would hate), or tweak the number of mats of each type required to craft a recipe.
Conclusion
These are just some of the nits I wish to pick right now. While Blizzard is an awesome company with a lot of top-notch talent, they are still human, and humans make mistakes. They have frustrated me on many occasions with what I perceived as stupid design decisions but their games have also entertained me like nothing else. With Diablo 3 they went through several iterations and radical changes in game systems but unfortunately all is not well in the magic kingdom. But this is nothing that a few major patches and an expansion or two can't fix.
With Diablo 3, Blizzard has always maintained that their goal was to encourage a vast number of builds and equipment choices, such that no particular build would shine above all others and no piece of equipment would be mandatory in order to advance through content. It turns out that their plan didn't pan out too well. Here are a few reasons why.
1H vs 2H
Normally it shouldn't really matter which kind of weapon you use. It would come down to personal preference and specific builds which favor one type of weapon or another. Unfortunately, in Inferno it's almost impossible to play as a melee class without a shield. This excludes 2H weapons and makes 1H + shield almost mandatory. To my horror, I heard that even Wizards, Demon Hunters and Witch Doctors are using shields instead of their class-specific off-hands.
I'm sure there are literally tens of players who go against the norm and use 2H weapons but those are the exception. A shield provides too many benefits to give up in favor of slightly more DPS on a 2H weapon: block, armor, life, resistances and other desirable stats.
I would argue that the same thing is valid for 1H vs dual 1H. Though you will get more damage from dual-wielding 1H weapons, the tradeoff might be too big.
Take my Barbarian, for example. Until Act 2 Nightmare he bullied his way through using a variety of weapon setups, including 1H + shield, dual 1H and 2H. But he hit a wall right about that point and I was forced to change both his spec and his equipment to 1H + shield. After that, his problems ended.
Blizzard wanted to stay away from mandatory equipment setups but they failed in this noble endeavor. Unfortunately I don't have a ready solution for this. If I recall correctly (and hopefully I'm not seeing this through rose-colored glasses), Diablo 2 handled this better by offering a much wider build variety, where any combination of gear could be viable. Of course, some were more efficient than others but on the whole you could still finish Hell with a non-mainstream setup.
Strangely, I like D3's DPS system. Translating weapon DPS into skill DPS is very simple and intuitive. But this introduces gremlins into the system. And frankly I don't have any idea how Blizzard will manage to chase those gremlins out.
Crafting
Crafting is supposed to be something exciting, that players find a lot of fun to engage in, as well as a convenient gold sink. Unfortunately, crafting in Diablo 3 leaves me cold. I leveled my Jewelcrafter to some extent and now I regret it. I was hoping to flip some gems and this worked well for a couple of days until commodity auctions were disabled. After that it became useless. Flipping gems is unprofitable now and crafting gems for myself is... meh, since I can usually buy them cheaper from the AH.
Luckily I didn't level the Blacksmith at all, but if I had, I wouldn't find any use for him. From what I can determine, the Blacksmith is only useful to a small niche of players who have figured out how to take advantage of certain crafted items on the Auction House. That's cool but the vast majority of players doesn't engage in AH warfare.
Then there's the small group of players who don't use the AH for certain reasons, preferring to craft their own gear. Unfortunately, until the late 50s you'll be better off buying very good gear directly off the AH so they are still wasting their time and gold.
Blacksmithing does come in its own at max level, but again, only if you invest a lot of gold in it first, buying rare recipes and expensive mats. Even then, there's no guarantee that you will get good stats on an item.
Personally I just don't want to bother with crafting. It is too unappealing to me but I'm hoping this will improve in future patches. Hah, ironically it almost seems like Diablo 2's gambling system was more appealing to players than Diablo 3's crafting system, despite the fact that results were a lot less predictable.
Crafting mats
Another thing that failed, in my opinion, is the market for crafting mats. The only ones that are worth something on the AH are level 60 ones. In other words, Normal, Nightmare and Hell mats are completely useless. I don't even understand why people choose to salvage their items and then sell the mats on the AH. You are losing money people! On the flip-side, those who know how to exploit this will profit by buying cheap mats, crafting certain niche items and selling them on the AH. Once again, these people are a very small minority.
Even at 60, things aren't rosy. The prices for the 3 types of mats are dysfunctional. Leaving aside the fact that Inferno mats are several orders of magnitude more expensive than their lesser counterparts, Exquisite Essences (magic) are 8-10 times more expensive than Iridescent Tears (rare)! How the hell is that even possible? I find it ridiculous.
Blizzard designed crafting in such a way that the demand for lesser materials is much higher (up to 10 times in fact) than that for rarer materials. How messed up is that? Something needs to be done here: either decrease the drop rate of rare items (something that I would hate), or tweak the number of mats of each type required to craft a recipe.
Conclusion
These are just some of the nits I wish to pick right now. While Blizzard is an awesome company with a lot of top-notch talent, they are still human, and humans make mistakes. They have frustrated me on many occasions with what I perceived as stupid design decisions but their games have also entertained me like nothing else. With Diablo 3 they went through several iterations and radical changes in game systems but unfortunately all is not well in the magic kingdom. But this is nothing that a few major patches and an expansion or two can't fix.
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Act 1 Inferno down
Last night I completed Act 1 of Inferno on my Monk. I killed the Butcher easily in what felt like an anticlimax.
After bitching so hard about patch 1.0.3 I feel almost ashamed at my outburst. What can I do, I'm hotblooded... The fact remains that the patch lost me over a million gold, even if I managed to make a full recovery afterwards. Recoveries don't come cheap though.
Let me tell you a bit about my Monk's stats, which allowed me to so easily complete Act 1 in Inferno. All of these are unbuffed but with the Enchantress companion (who gives extra armor and DPS).
18K DPS (1549 Dexterity)
30.4K Life
5871 Armor
35.5% Dodge
20% Block
303 Resist All
Here's my build. I changed it a few days ago, in a departure from what I had been using for the past couple of weeks.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#biXgYh!ZUX!ZZbaca
If you get stuck with your Monk, I highly recommend this build. If there's one word to describe it, it's "awesome". I don't take credit for it because this is the exact same build used by the guy in this video:
So while this isn't my own innovation, I can attest to the fact that it works very well and playing the Monk is, once more, a pleasure. The video is quite long but worth watching, at least until you can see how he explains the build.
My gear is quite decent for Act 1, as you can imagine. I have a 910 DPS blue sword with 1.47 attack speed. I paid 850K for it on the Auction House and even though it seemed expensive at the time, now I believe it was quite a steal. For some reason 900+ DPS weapons are incredibly expensive.
Yeah, so that's about it for now. I'm satisfied that I have Act 1 on farm mode. I can make a very nice circuit of the most interesting areas (by taking various waypoints) and finally, with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor, I can kill the Butcher easily. The fun is back in the game. I really enjoy this endgame farming aspect where I have a chance to find the most powerful items in the game, including a legendary or two.
I don't want to move to Act 2 right away. I think I'm going to farm Act 1 for at least another couple of weeks until I can slowly gear myself up for Act 2. I need about 500 Resist All for that, and also more DPS.
So where are you at? Have you reached Inferno yet? Have you finished it? What is the highest area you have on farm?
After bitching so hard about patch 1.0.3 I feel almost ashamed at my outburst. What can I do, I'm hotblooded... The fact remains that the patch lost me over a million gold, even if I managed to make a full recovery afterwards. Recoveries don't come cheap though.
Let me tell you a bit about my Monk's stats, which allowed me to so easily complete Act 1 in Inferno. All of these are unbuffed but with the Enchantress companion (who gives extra armor and DPS).
18K DPS (1549 Dexterity)
30.4K Life
5871 Armor
35.5% Dodge
20% Block
303 Resist All
Here's my build. I changed it a few days ago, in a departure from what I had been using for the past couple of weeks.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#biXgYh!ZUX!ZZbaca
If you get stuck with your Monk, I highly recommend this build. If there's one word to describe it, it's "awesome". I don't take credit for it because this is the exact same build used by the guy in this video:
So while this isn't my own innovation, I can attest to the fact that it works very well and playing the Monk is, once more, a pleasure. The video is quite long but worth watching, at least until you can see how he explains the build.
My gear is quite decent for Act 1, as you can imagine. I have a 910 DPS blue sword with 1.47 attack speed. I paid 850K for it on the Auction House and even though it seemed expensive at the time, now I believe it was quite a steal. For some reason 900+ DPS weapons are incredibly expensive.
Yeah, so that's about it for now. I'm satisfied that I have Act 1 on farm mode. I can make a very nice circuit of the most interesting areas (by taking various waypoints) and finally, with 5 stacks of Nephalem Valor, I can kill the Butcher easily. The fun is back in the game. I really enjoy this endgame farming aspect where I have a chance to find the most powerful items in the game, including a legendary or two.
I don't want to move to Act 2 right away. I think I'm going to farm Act 1 for at least another couple of weeks until I can slowly gear myself up for Act 2. I need about 500 Resist All for that, and also more DPS.
So where are you at? Have you reached Inferno yet? Have you finished it? What is the highest area you have on farm?
Friday, June 22, 2012
Ka-ching!
Apparently Blizzard read my whiny, ranting post the other day and decided to bribe me. After the big IAS nerf I decided to (what the hell) spend some more gold to re-equip my Monk. 1.7 million gold later I found myself with the same DPS I had before the nerf: around 17K. I also switched from using the Scoundrel to the Enchantress and DPS went up to 18K. OK, I was back on track to farming Fields of Misery on Inferno.
So there I was, minding my own business, killing shit in one of the random dungeons that spawn in that zone, namely Scavenger's Den, level 2. I had 4 stacks of Nephalem Valor (for a total of +131% Magic Find) and I just killed a champion group (or was it a rare elite?). The final monster dies and I do a double take when I see what drops:
Yup, a legendary crossbow. I pick it up...
and identify it...
Hmm, not bad. It would make a nice weapon for my Demon Hunter when he hits 60. On the other hand, I had just picked up from the AH for 200K a bow with more DPS, but also with a lot of life leech on it. What if I sell the Hellrack?
About 12 hours later this is what I see in my AH log:
I posted it for $8.48 and ended up with $7.48 after Blizzard's cut. Also notice the other sales that happened in fairly close succession. Pretty good, I'd say. You may think I'm a fool for selling it for such a low price but I did my homework before that. There were better legendary bows on the RMAH for less than $10 and I wanted to sell this quickly. I decided to price it comparably to other bows in that range. Mine had pretty good stats for a Hellrack so I guess that's why it sold so quickly. Could I have sold it for $1-$2 more? Maybe, but it's impossible to know. When they allow us to cancel auctions I will price items more conservatively.
I have three additional reasons why I decided to get rid of this legendary bow quickly. One is that $7.48 will buy me a hell of a lot of gold (if I so desire) once gold buying is enabled. Second is that Hellracks go for about 500K-600K gold, which is pathetic. $7.48 >>>>>>>> 600K gold. Third is that Blizzard will buff legendary items in a future patch. I don't want to risk waiting until that patch, when my own Hellrack becomes worthless.
The point is that whatever you may think about this sale (too high or too low), I am happy with it. It's my highest sale so far, by far. This brings my total to over $11. Yes, it's a pathetic amount but I'm not gonna pay my bills with RMAH money. Instead, I just might use it to buy a really good item or two in the future. I have a feeling that actual money will be a lot more valuable and stable than gold.
Finally, here's a little tip. I have this nasty trick that I use to boost my Magic Find. A bazillion other players use the same trick so I'm sure you are aware of it, and it's "nasty" because Blizzard doesn't really like it but there isn't much they can do about it. I have an extra helm in my inventory with +32% MF. Just before killing the last boss or champion I will swap my usual DPS helm with the MF one. Simple but apparently effective.
So that's it then. All you gotta do to make money on the RMAH is to bitch about Diablo 3 and Blizzard will read your post and give you some nice legendary drops to appease you. I kid, of course, but the funny thing is that something similar used to happen to me in WoW. After a long hiatus or a loss of enthusiasm I would get some really nice drop, when I least expected it. Pure coincidence, all of it. Don't count on this method kids.
So there I was, minding my own business, killing shit in one of the random dungeons that spawn in that zone, namely Scavenger's Den, level 2. I had 4 stacks of Nephalem Valor (for a total of +131% Magic Find) and I just killed a champion group (or was it a rare elite?). The final monster dies and I do a double take when I see what drops:
Yup, a legendary crossbow. I pick it up...
and identify it...
Hmm, not bad. It would make a nice weapon for my Demon Hunter when he hits 60. On the other hand, I had just picked up from the AH for 200K a bow with more DPS, but also with a lot of life leech on it. What if I sell the Hellrack?
About 12 hours later this is what I see in my AH log:
I posted it for $8.48 and ended up with $7.48 after Blizzard's cut. Also notice the other sales that happened in fairly close succession. Pretty good, I'd say. You may think I'm a fool for selling it for such a low price but I did my homework before that. There were better legendary bows on the RMAH for less than $10 and I wanted to sell this quickly. I decided to price it comparably to other bows in that range. Mine had pretty good stats for a Hellrack so I guess that's why it sold so quickly. Could I have sold it for $1-$2 more? Maybe, but it's impossible to know. When they allow us to cancel auctions I will price items more conservatively.
I have three additional reasons why I decided to get rid of this legendary bow quickly. One is that $7.48 will buy me a hell of a lot of gold (if I so desire) once gold buying is enabled. Second is that Hellracks go for about 500K-600K gold, which is pathetic. $7.48 >>>>>>>> 600K gold. Third is that Blizzard will buff legendary items in a future patch. I don't want to risk waiting until that patch, when my own Hellrack becomes worthless.
The point is that whatever you may think about this sale (too high or too low), I am happy with it. It's my highest sale so far, by far. This brings my total to over $11. Yes, it's a pathetic amount but I'm not gonna pay my bills with RMAH money. Instead, I just might use it to buy a really good item or two in the future. I have a feeling that actual money will be a lot more valuable and stable than gold.
Finally, here's a little tip. I have this nasty trick that I use to boost my Magic Find. A bazillion other players use the same trick so I'm sure you are aware of it, and it's "nasty" because Blizzard doesn't really like it but there isn't much they can do about it. I have an extra helm in my inventory with +32% MF. Just before killing the last boss or champion I will swap my usual DPS helm with the MF one. Simple but apparently effective.
So that's it then. All you gotta do to make money on the RMAH is to bitch about Diablo 3 and Blizzard will read your post and give you some nice legendary drops to appease you. I kid, of course, but the funny thing is that something similar used to happen to me in WoW. After a long hiatus or a loss of enthusiasm I would get some really nice drop, when I least expected it. Pure coincidence, all of it. Don't count on this method kids.
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