Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Erloas]

Previous thread, if anyone cares. (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?376708-Diablo-III-Don-t-Forget-To-Eat-Today)

So since there didn't seem to be anyone willing to start the new thread, and we didn't have any list of players or such, I figured I could go ahead and start it. So here it is.


Gamer Tags
PC:
PsyrenY#1247
legoshrimp#1722
Polytonic#1953 (Neftren) - Paragon 712, can carry full party through GR65+, or possibly 2-man GR70.
Snowman#1764, Paragon 613, and I've got a bunch of 70s that can go as high as GRift 60ish.
Vaz#2543; Crusader (Paragon 486), Grift Farm 45-50, Max 55ish (PC)

[Psyren]

I prefer just "Kanai Fix It" as well, so thanks for that :smallsmile:

Are we compiling battletags/console IDs in the OP?

[Erloas]

I fixed it. That's what comes from having kids controlling the TV all the time.

Not much luck on my wife's character. She had 2 Aughild's Authority plans drop, as well as a legendary crusader shield plan. As well as Hallowed plan, but I don't actually remember if it is the 60 or 70 version, and I know she already had one version trained.
I seemed to have a lot more legendary items drop.
Barbarian is 59 now, got 7 levels yesterday, so I expect 70 to be done by the weekend. At that point I should be pretty well set because we have a lot of crafting things just waiting until I get to 70. Although I'll probably be short on forgotten souls to really do much. Since we have a lot of different sets though I should figure out which one(s) I want to start with. Probably have to take the old Barb on her account to craft some of them so they roll with useful skills/stats and then transfer them over (she has been luckier with the plans than I have).

We're already doing T1 with me at lower levels so I think we should be able to move up to t3 as soon as I hit 70 and get a few things crafted. Could probably do t2 now but might be pushing it some, it seems like the power changes in the patches have made a huge difference that we don't see.

edit:

Are we compiling battletags/console IDs in the OP?
If you want to start listing them or there was some list I missed in the last thread, I would be happy to put them in the OP.

[Psyren]

Scratch that, I should have said I prefer "Kanai Fix it?" Making it a question feels just a bit more punny :smallsmile:

Battletag is PsyrenY#1247. When I get a PS4 later I'll update that too.

[Legoshrimp]

legoshrimp#1722
Eww why would you play it on ps4? :smalltongue:

[Icewraith]

Carrying over conversation from the last thread, the place you can get the most life on hit is far and away your weapon.

However, IIRC you usually also want a damage roll, main stat, % damage, and a socket. Weapon I believe also has a higher-than-usual cooldown reduction roll, plus class specific bonuses.

Of course, enter the Rama's gift to slightly ease up those weapon requirements and let you slot in LoH or CDR. Another thing diminishing the usability of any given weapon drop is that you can't roll LoH if it rolled Life Per Kill for secondaries.

[turbo164]

legoshrimp#1722
Eww why would you play it on ps4? :smalltongue:

Probably so he can dodge on something other than an X-Bone. :P


So, still haven't done anything this season beyond log on, buy the first stash page, dump my season 4 mailbox into said stash page, salvage everything that didn't fit, and log off.

At some point, I will try to play long enough to get the second stash page; If I only create one season 5 character, which would have the easiest time doing so? (Last season I was DH who was one of the hardest to do the solo rift conquests etc as compared to faceroll barb/monk; no idea who is "OP" this season)

[Pendulous]

Carrying over conversation from the last thread, the place you can get the most life on hit is far and away your weapon.

However, IIRC you usually also want a damage roll, main stat, % damage, and a socket. Weapon I believe also has a higher-than-usual cooldown reduction roll, plus class specific bonuses.

Of course, enter the Rama's gift to slightly ease up those weapon requirements and let you slot in LoH or CDR. Another thing diminishing the usability of any given weapon drop is that you can't roll LoH if it rolled Life Per Kill for secondaries.

You can get a bunch on an amulet too, but it's another case of "you don't have room".

[Psyren]

Eww why would you play it on ps4? :smalltongue:

Glad you asked :smallsmile:

1) Curiosity (I've never played an isometric ARPG with a controller before - particularly one so historically mouse-driven as Diablo - and I'd like to feel for myself how they did.)
2) Couch co-op with RL friends.
3) Duping, while deplorable from a competitive standpoint, does mean that playing alone I'll be able to catch up to and even surpass my PC progress with far less time investment. I can also use it to farm gear for less-involved friends since console players can trade. There are some builds (e.g. LoNEvil with full Caldesann) that it would take me months to even try on PC, that I could potentially realize on console in a fraction of the time by amassing a stockpile of upgrade and reroll mats.


Probably so he can dodge on something other than an X-Bone. :P

That's another thing, I heard consoles have some kind of unique dodge mechanic - how does that work?



So, still haven't done anything this season beyond log on, buy the first stash page, dump my season 4 mailbox into said stash page, salvage everything that didn't fit, and log off.

At some point, I will try to play long enough to get the second stash page; If I only create one season 5 character, which would have the easiest time doing so? (Last season I was DH who was one of the hardest to do the solo rift conquests etc as compared to faceroll barb/monk; no idea who is "OP" this season)

Crusader would be the easiest by far - your Haedrig's Gift is Invokers, which is extremely powerful this season. You also get crazy high toughness on a thorns build because you have the Crusader's native 30% DR, a shield in your offhand on top of that, and vitality adds to your offense on top of that.

[Legoshrimp]

Glad you asked :smallsmile:

1) Curiosity (I've never played an isometric ARPG with a controller before - particularly one so historically mouse-driven as Diablo - and I'd like to feel for myself how they did.)
2) Couch co-op with RL friends.
3) Duping, while deplorable from a competitive standpoint, does mean that playing alone I'll be able to catch up to and even surpass my PC progress with far less time investment. I can also use it to farm gear for less-involved friends since console players can trade. There are some builds (e.g. LoNEvil with full Caldesann) that it would take me months to even try on PC, that I could potentially realize on console in a fraction of the time by amassing a stockpile of upgrade and reroll mats.


I guess playing with friends is a reason. Silly of course though :smalltongue:

With the changes this season I have been able to get any build I wanted to pretty easily. Although this could be that I liked the starting build for DH and spent a while playing that, but I was able to get stuff for my wizard pretty quickly. I did have the advantage of a DH that can farm shards/mats really quickly though.

[Starwulf]

For those who are Wizards, and have completed "The Thrill", what gear did you use to do it? Just the best ancient gear you could find in general? I'm thinking about giving it a shot, just not sure how well I'll do without a set bonus.

Edit: Well, even with about 1.8mil dps and Taeguk boosting that to about 2.5mil, I just do not have the "Oomph" to push through a GR45 >< Far, far to weak to attempt it, even wearing all ancient gear it just isn't happening right now, at least not with my current build ><

[Pendulous]

That's another thing, I heard consoles have some kind of unique dodge mechanic - how does that work?



You move the right control stick and you roll in that direction.

[Starwulf]

Woot! Well, now I just need to figure out which of the conquests I'm going to be able to do, as I Just managed to get done the TX rift done in under 4 minutes :) Had the blood marsh layout and I was teleporting everywhere just firing into crowds indiscriminately whenever I saw yellow or blue.

The "The Thrill" conquest still seems to be the most likely, just not with a Disintegrate build I'm thinking.

[Psyren]

The "The Thrill" conquest still seems to be the most likely, just not with a Disintegrate build I'm thinking.

I posted the exact disintegrate build I used for this conquest in the last thread, let me dig it up for you.

EDIT - Here's the post:


WOOHOO! Got the "GR 45 without any set items" conquest at last!" Now I'm on the last page of the Season Journey before I get my stash tab and can tell Blizzard where they can shove their seasons :smalltongue: :smallbiggrin:

I'm definitely not looking forward to Avarice and Sprinter but since I have no chance at Years of War or Masters of the Universe, it looks like they're going to be my only chance. Better start leveling my Hoarder...

(For the curious, here's the build I used (http://www.d3planner.com/334174265) - I don't think I'll ever use it again so saving it here is as much for me as anyone else.)

EDIT: And I just noticed I pulled it off while forgetting to reroll the Energy Twister damage on my boots and helm to meteor/disintegrate. Oh well.

Looking back at that post is quite funny considering how adamant I was about not doing the YoW and MotU conquests back then, a position which I've since reversed :smallbiggrin: but it's there. Kadala is being extremely stingy about giving me a Shrukani's Triumph, which I feel is going to be damn near mandatory for the Jade dungeon. But I did finally get 6pc Helltooth, which I hear is easier, so I may just take a break and go knock that one out.

[Traab]

Im having fun now with the bounty leveling path. Im so glad I got the expansion, it was so tiring running through the storyline over and over again whenever I wanted to level up something different.

[Erloas]

So apparently you unlock Master difficulty when you beat Diablo, but you don't unlock Torment until you have at least one character hit level 60.
We had taken the kids through Diablo and moved up to Master but we decided, now that my barbarian has some levels and I can help, to bump it up to Torment but it said they couldn't enter. That shouldn't take too long but they tend to get bored and leave fairly quickly, and not being able to take them into higher difficulties makes leveling them that much slower.


Still trying to figure out which way to go with crafted sets when I hit 70.
Options are
Hallowed Protectors
Sage's Journey
Demon's Hide
Aughild's Authority
Born's Command

If I'm remembering correctly, the +250 Int from the Sage's Journey set is a lot more defense than the +100 resist from Hallowed Protectors. I also assuming a weapon or shield will be one of the first and easiest things to change out.
Depending how the damage reduction from Aughild's is done, it could be really good or it could be pretty crap, I'm just not sure.
Don't think I'm going to have enough Thorns to make much use out of Demon's Hide (and not having the cube probably not a viable option on console).
Born's and Aughild don't mesh, but I could do Aughild's, Sage's, and Hallowed. That would probably be my strongest choice until I start getting class sets.

[Psyren]

Of that group, Aughild's is the strongest for the defensive and elite bonuses (at least, it is until you get Blackthorne's.) Back when people had to assemble sets much more painstakingly (i.e. with the crappy version of Kadala... i.e. yours), Aughild's would typically be used as filler pieces along with RRoG.

Sage's is nice if you're short on Breaths, but without the cube, you'll end up with excess breaths without it anyway just playing normally because you guys have nothing really worthwhile to spend them on.

[Unity]

It seems a lot of informed D3 players are in this thread. I was an addict from last season but haven't had a chance to play or follow much this season.

Is anyone able to give a ballpark figure of how long it would take to unlock the achievements for the two sets of Season Wings?

I'm really interested in that but wonder if I should start if it's going to take a herculean effort to get them. I understand there's a bit less RNG with them giving us a full set for free almost.

[Istarial]

It seems a lot of informed D3 players are in this thread. I was an addict from last season but haven't had a chance to play or follow much this season.

Is anyone able to give a ballpark figure of how long it would take to unlock the achievements for the two sets of Season Wings?

I'm really interested in that but wonder if I should start if it's going to take a herculean effort to get them. I understand there's a bit less RNG with them giving us a full set for free almost.

Getting guardian this season for the pet, portraits, and stash tab has, summing up the playtime on my characters, taken me about 75 hours of play (Mainly on invoker crusader)- I don't know how that compares to others. It could probably be done faster with help- I played almost all of that in solo games.
However, the Wings are not seasonal, to my knowledge- you just have to get all the set dungeons done.

[Unity]

Getting guardian this season for the pet, portraits, and stash tab has, summing up the playtime on my characters, taken me about 75 hours of play (Mainly on invoker crusader)- I don't know how that compares to others.
However, the Wings are not seasonal, to my knowledge- you just have to get all the set dungeons done.

Perfect thanks. I plan on playing Crusader. Was very sad it wasn't competitive last season.

If the Wings aren't seasonal that would be a godsend. I only really care about those :)

[Derjuin]

For those who are Wizards, and have completed "The Thrill", what gear did you use to do it? Just the best ancient gear you could find in general? I'm thinking about giving it a shot, just not sure how well I'll do without a set bonus.

Edit: Well, even with about 1.8mil dps and Taeguk boosting that to about 2.5mil, I just do not have the "Oomph" to push through a GR45 >< Far, far to weak to attempt it, even wearing all ancient gear it just isn't happening right now, at least not with my current build ><

A Twisted Sword and Ranslor's Folly (with Raging Storm rune on your energy twister) will boost your damage considerably if you're not already using them. A build like this (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Vriska-1615/hero/71192151) (obviously swapping out the Frostburns (ignore those, haha)/LoN for other items, and the Etched Sigil in the cube for Deathwish) can handle GR45 easily, it just might take a little bit to get the right mob placement etc. to get it done.

[Starwulf]

Grrr. Me and Kadala are no longer on speaking terms after tonight >< 3 full inventories of pants gambled on, and literally not ONE legendary or set >< Very irritating.

[Derjuin]

Welp, just surpassed my nonseasonal Paragon level with my seasonal level. 591... it feels like it shouldn't have taken this small amount of time. :smallconfused:

And for some reason, it feels like it's almost impossible for my crusader to actually assemble the Light set. I've spent over 6,000 blood shards just trying to get the helm and shoulders; I've already gotten 3 ancient Roland's helm/shoulders, and have completed every other set /except/ Light (except the Flail/Shield set). :smallannoyed:

[Starwulf]

So I've got another communal question for everyone! Actually two questions to be precise. First one: What is your highest level gem/how many do you have over 50? I have 5 at 55, Bane of Trapped/Powerful/Stricken, Taeguk and Toxin, and I leveled them all because they seem to be the most useful ones. Second question: Do you use the empowered rift feature? I do because there is literally no other use for gold besides using the mystic and unless you have some seriously bad luck you'll get the stat you want at it's highest level/near highest level long before it gets to terribly expensive. My buddy refuses to use it, citing the idea that you can just run more grifts so why waste the gold, despite the fact there's nothing else to use it on.

[Legoshrimp]

So I've got another communal question for everyone! Actually two questions to be precise. First one: What is your highest level gem/how many do you have over 50? I have 5 at 55, Bane of Trapped/Powerful/Stricken, Taeguk and Toxin, and I leveled them all because they seem to be the most useful ones. Second question: Do you use the empowered rift feature? I do because there is literally no other use for gold besides using the mystic and unless you have some seriously bad luck you'll get the stat you want at it's highest level/near highest level long before it gets to terribly expensive. My buddy refuses to use it, citing the idea that you can just run more grifts so why waste the gold, despite the fact there's nothing else to use it on.

I only have 3 at 55 at this point, a couple that are close to that as well.
I think the next step for me is leveling gems to get more dex on items. Or playing my wizard more I am not sure which I am going to do. I got the stash tab and am not really planning on going for the icon so I might actually just be mostly done this season.

Also your buddy is objectively wrong. having a billion gold gives no benefit. I mean I have a billion gold, and tend not to use it to empower of I am going to be leveling a gem that is 20 levels lower then the grift. But at least I know that I should be doing it :smalltongue:

[Psyren]

Welp, just surpassed my nonseasonal Paragon level with my seasonal level. 591... it feels like it shouldn't have taken this small amount of time. :smallconfused:


Remember that our non-seasonal characters back in the day had far fewer avenues to gain experience. The highest torment was 6, there were no GRs, and even getting to 6 was a chore because class sets were fairly difficult to find and poorly balanced. Now we have 10 torment levels with massive XP bonus percentages, GRs can go even higher than that, and of course our seasonal characters were basically handed a class set as a participation trophy so we could dive back into that level of content much more quickly.


So I've got another communal question for everyone! Actually two questions to be precise. First one: What is your highest level gem/how many do you have over 50? I have 5 at 55, Bane of Trapped/Powerful/Stricken, Taeguk and Toxin, and I leveled them all because they seem to be the most useful ones. Second question: Do you use the empowered rift feature? I do because there is literally no other use for gold besides using the mystic and unless you have some seriously bad luck you'll get the stat you want at it's highest level/near highest level long before it gets to terribly expensive. My buddy refuses to use it, citing the idea that you can just run more grifts so why waste the gold, despite the fact there's nothing else to use it on.

3 gems at 55 for the seasonal requirement. Off-season it's been so long that I forget. Yes, I empower rifts.

[NineThePuma]

I need to do a conquest. For some reason, I can't bring myself to work toward one. Guess I'm capping at champion again x.x

[Psyren]

I need to do a conquest. For some reason, I can't bring myself to work toward one. Guess I'm capping at champion again x.x

The Thrill is a good one because it rewards experimentation. There are a wide variety of builds that can work - you can either pick one from online and work towards that with the gear you have, or devise your own.

[Starwulf]

Woot, just managed to go a little further in my soloing. 2 steps ahead actually, I went from completing GR61 to GR63 :) Going to try GR64, switched out my Toxin gem for Stricken, as it took me quite a while to take out the Rift Guardian and I feel that Stricken will help immensely in that regard(From what I've read, if the fight lasts longer then...45 seconds Stricken is the superior choice as you'll be doing double your original damage, and that's just from the first part of the gem. Second one of course gives you 25% damage against rift guardians, so I imagine as long as I can get the GR64 guardian to spawn I'll kill it substantially quicker then I did 63).

Bleh. Terrible set of spawns in GR64. Utter fail >< Might try again though. I was absolutely right about killing the boss MUCH faster though. Literally in a quarter of the time.

[Psyren]

At long last, I got my hands on a Shukrani's Triumph mojo. Ancient too! Thanks Kadala, you cheating cow! :smallbiggrin:
With that elusive mojo in hand, I revisited the Jade Harvester dungeon and mastered it on my second attempt. I then donned Helltooth and Mara's, and promptly mastered that dungeon in two tries too.

If anyone's curious - the builds, gear and cube choices I used are in the links below.

Helltooth Mastery: http://www.d3planner.com/345576919
Jade Harvester Mastery: http://www.d3planner.com/901627357

Now I'll move on to Zunimassa and Arachyr, then Tal Rasha, Vyr, and finally DMO and I'll be all set for the season at last.

[Seerow]

So just blew through all my deaths breaths on a bunch of rings... didn't get the Ancient Compass Rose I was hoping for, but I did pick up not one, but two new Unities, so I now have a cubed unity plus 2 in the bank for the first time ever. I also picked up a new Justice Lantern, so my current project is tossing as many forgotten souls into rerolling that as I can (because it seems to be fairly rare).

Oh, also managed to get my ancient gloves too, the str roll was disappointingly low, but otherwise great itemization and pretty happy with it all around.

Overall, good night on Diablo, and I didn't even spend that much time playing.

[Erloas]

We are looking at the PS4 option again, so...

Assuming anywhere here actually knows... the only difference between the PC version and the PS4/XOne is that the new consoles don't have seasons?
What exactly do seasons add? It seems like there are specific challenges? Are those not available to normal characters or do they just unlock something special in seasons?

The other day my wife asked what her progress path forward was, since she had most of Tal Rasha set (all but helm I think, enough to get the meteors), and I don't think there is much left in this version.
Other than getting pieces for Vyr's and Firebirds and mixing them in, maybe a few specific legendary items, and getting versions of said items with sockets, I don't think there is much more to do in our version. I'm also not sure that is actually going to take us much farther.

I picked up 3 pieces of Legacy of Raekor so far on the barbarian. Probably won't see a whole lot of power increase until I get the 5th, and I'll have to figure out where to switch in Furious Charge. I've got pretty great defense now, was like 500k at 69, then hit 70 and put my crafted sets on and it jumped up to around ~20M. I can pretty much survive everything now on T2 without a problem. But my damage is pretty anemic, some where around 300k (or was it 200k...?) so I can survive pretty much everything but not really killing anything. Goal right now is to whirlwind the enemies away from my wife and let her actually do the killing which works now but doesn't seem like my only option. But other than set items I'm not sure what else to do, everything has Str on it and I'm just not seeing a whole lot of places to really bump up my damage, a socket in my weapon will only go so far and I've tried a few legendary 2h and dual wield weapon options and my sheet damage changes very little.

Right now I'm using
Cleave
Whirlwind
Leap
Avalanche
Battle Rage
Wrath of the Berserker

Passives
Unforgiving
Juggernaut
and others have changed a lot, tried Rampage (which seems to be gone for PC) but couldn't keep the stacks up

[mangosta71]

The "seasonal exclusives" are only available to seasonal characters in the PC version (until the season ends, and then they're released for all characters) are immediately available to all characters on console versions when they get patched into the game. So basically, seasons are a gate for introducing stuff to PC players that console players get by default.

[Psyren]

I just curbstomped the Arachyr set dungeon, it took me one try to master and I didn't even watch any videos first. Easiest set dungeon by far. Here's the build: http://www.d3planner.com/538371188. On to Zunimassa!

EDIT: Zunimassa was a little harder (I hate instant-fail conditions) but after a few tries I got it. You will want a high-damage setup for this one because killing the enemies quickly is paramount. I removed the gems already but here's what I used: http://www.d3planner.com/451766868

With that, I've mastered all the Witch Doctor set dungeons and gotten my class pennant :smallsmile: it's a great feeling. Back to Wizard and I'll be one Conquest closer to ultimate victory!


The "seasonal exclusives" are only available to seasonal characters in the PC version (until the season ends, and then they're released for all characters) are immediately available to all characters on console versions when they get patched into the game. So basically, seasons are a gate for introducing stuff to PC players that console players get by default.

This is now false, there are no longer any "season-exclusives." Starting with patch 2.4 (i.e. this one), all the legendaries, set items, set dungeons and other additions available to seasonal characters were released simultaneously to non-seasonal characters. The only thing now being gated behind Seasons is additional stash space, which console players won't need to worry about. (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/19941044/patch-240-ptr-preview-11-6-2015#_More_Stash_Space)

[Icewraith]

Me, to my Wife: "It's probably time for you start cubing wands, I never saw an Aether Walker on my wizard last season."

Wife: *Cube* *Cube* "So that was an Aether Walker I wanted? Now What?"

Me: *Groans inwardly* "Well since you're collecting Vyr's pieces and like Archon so much (she runs Fire Archon* instead of... Magic Weapon? on Firebird's), you should probably keep going until you get a Chantodo's or run out of Breaths. That and I had you make five wands."

Wife: *Cube* *Cube* "Alright, now what?" *Cube*

Granted, she'd been relatively skunked on drops that night, but still, it's ridiculous. In the meantime I've been running myself dry trying to get a Mask of Jeram and/or a second Carnevil to cube.

The current Zunimassa progression build drops the ring and helm set slots to run Carnevil, F+R, and Jeram in the Cube. However, running the ring and helm slots plus Nemesis Bracers and a Cubed Carnevil helm would give me room to run 2pc sages + cubed RoRG + Traveler's Amulet+ring, which also gives a damage boost while standing still.

Which is what you do when spamming darts.

Which pierce for a good screen and a half thanks to Dagger of Darts.

Should do pretty well, especially since my try out with the Angry Chicken speedfarming build alternated between giggling at the on-screen explosions and frustration at the severe squishiness (especially when the RG showed up), and that one can't run Sage's, either.

However, I can't actually do it until I either get a second Carnevil helm or a Mask of Jeram good enough that I'd be willing to cube the Carnevil.

* She says doing nothing but holding down Disintegrate makes her sleepy and is kind of boring. She likes killing everything on screen (and I find it difficult to cherry-pick elites using Zunimassa since not attacking means I stop producing free fetishes) so she's not really getting mileage out of the Firebird DoT and she hates the set dungeon. Those last two Vyr pieces and the Archon-boosting belt can't drop fast enough.

[Starwulf]

Question for those who play Wizards: Do you all use Aether Walker, either as your weapon or your cube power, and if not, how do you manage to do higher rifts in a reasonable amount of time? I've tried not using it in favor of "The Furnace" for the 50% elite damage, but it was so hard moving around with only 1 teleport(2 if using wormhole I think it is) that I actually cleared a fair amount of time slower, and in one instance of trying a GR63(I discovered I just can't do GR64 yet) I failed by amount a minute n a half and I have to think if I had been using Aether Walker I'd have succeeded.

Edit: Also, is it just me, or does the Kanai Cube not actually show all the powers you can extract? I mean, it obviously can't as I'm staring at a flail for a crusader that clearly has a power that can be extracted and yet it is not listed in the weapons section of cube powers.

[NineThePuma]

It only lists powers you can equip on the character you're using.

[Psyren]

Mastered 8 set dungeons, which means... WOOHOO! Stash tab GET! *does a happy dance*

Now Blizzard, feel free to take this season journey and shove it where the Arch don't shine. (Mostly kidding... I had fun with it overall.)



* She says doing nothing but holding down Disintegrate makes her sleepy and is kind of boring. She likes killing everything on screen (and I find it difficult to cherry-pick elites using Zunimassa since not attacking means I stop producing free fetishes) so she's not really getting mileage out of the Firebird DoT and she hates the set dungeon. Those last two Vyr pieces and the Archon-boosting belt can't drop fast enough.

I feel your wife's pain - intensely disappointed with Firebirds. It looked so promising when I read up on it but in actual play, keeping that buff up is extremely irritating to do.


Question for those who play Wizards: Do you all use Aether Walker, either as your weapon or your cube power, and if not, how do you manage to do higher rifts in a reasonable amount of time? I've tried not using it in favor of "The Furnace" for the 50% elite damage, but it was so hard moving around with only 1 teleport(2 if using wormhole I think it is) that I actually cleared a fair amount of time slower, and in one instance of trying a GR63(I discovered I just can't do GR64 yet) I failed by amount a minute n a half and I have to think if I had been using Aether Walker I'd have succeeded.

This depends - is the speed boost you're getting from Aether Walker likely to help more than whatever else you had in there? In the case of Furnace, you'd be getting to the elites faster and killing them more slowly. Only experimenting can tell you which one wins in the end,

[Starwulf]

Is there a list of what items can be upgraded into what legendary/set items? Or can I just take any level 70 rare(say a helm) and use the cube recipe and have it turn into any of the helms? Need to get an ancient tals helm and an ancient tals source.

[mangosta71]

Is there a list of what items can be upgraded into what legendary/set items? Or can I just take any level 70 rare(say a helm) and use the cube recipe and have it turn into any of the helms? Need to get an ancient tals helm and an ancient tals source.
The legendary/set item will be the same slot (and type, for weapons) as the rare that you upgraded, but other than that it's completely random.

[Icewraith]

Mastered 8 set dungeons, which means... WOOHOO! Stash tab GET! *does a happy dance*

Now Blizzard, feel free to take this season journey and shove it where the Arch don't shine. (Mostly kidding... I had fun with it overall.)



I feel your wife's pain - intensely disappointed with Firebirds. It looked so promising when I read up on it but in actual play, keeping that buff up is extremely irritating to do.



This depends - is the speed boost you're getting from Aether Walker likely to help more than whatever else you had in there? In the case of Furnace, you'd be getting to the elites faster and killing them more slowly. Only experimenting can tell you which one wins in the end,

Is the Furnace additive like Depth Diggers or multiplicative like Bane of the Trapped?

There's another angle aside from getting to and killing elites. It's avoiding elites and hazards, avoiding a Vortex right after you teleport, skipping particularly troublesome packs, rounding up large packs of monsters, skipping small packs of monsters, and turning Teleport from a cooldown into a spender for Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac. Also it (should?) turns teleport (Calamity) into a mana spending attack for purposes of focus+restraint.

[Vaz]

Any preliminary thoughts over the datamined patch for Season 6?

Biggest one for me is the limit on Wizards and Twisted sword only stacking 5 times. It seemed really cool when I was browsing for a new Seasons Character. it makes the Witch Doctor and/or Monk more interesting for me.

[NineThePuma]

Any preliminary thoughts over the datamined patch for Season 6?

Biggest one for me is the limit on Wizards and Twisted sword only stacking 5 times. It seemed really cool when I was browsing for a new Seasons Character. it makes the Witch Doctor and/or Monk more interesting for me.

link? I've not heard anything about it

[Vaz]

Sorry!

http://www.diablofans.com/news/48667-new-ptr-patch-datamined-march-2nd

[NineThePuma]

Ah. So, every set's getting buffed.

ways to get extra health globes are being taken out (good riddance, imho)

Barbarian's getting some power moved around

Firebirds dungeon is getting reworked to not be obnoxious

Actual Set Commentary, when I care about a set:
Shenlong's Spirit
going super saiyan for a larger spike of damage. nifty. Not sure I've ever used the set though.


Immortal King's Call
Buffs to the six piece make me giggle.

Tal Rasha's Elements
I don't know that "MOAR DAMAGE" was what was needed here; I think that keeping stacks longer would have been much more desireable

Zunimassa's Haunt
Still trash because pets

The Shadow's Mantle
Doesn't actually address the problem that the set has; namely that there are frankly no good AoE options. Like, more damage is good, but that just makes it even more feast/famine. Either you get a good rift and ROCK, or you suck.

Thorns of the Invoker
Why would you buff Invoker?! Invoker is ridiculous.

Monkey King's Garb
Double the damage, double your fun, especially since you leave clones everywhere, lol.

Delsere Magnum Opus
Nice survivability buff. Still upset by the murder of Delrasha.

Unhallowed Essence
Reinforcing the playstyle is mean :<

Uliana's Stratagem
OMFGWTFBBQ. DAT DAMAGE.

Spirit of Arachys
Survivability boost is nice.

This season I made a Crusader, a Witch Doctor, and a DH. Of those, my Crusader is the one I actually enjoy playing, so next season I'm probably gonna play a monk or a barb.

[Pendulous]

Buffing numbers doesn't fix the problems with Sunwuko's set. It's still clunky and has issues with keeping Sweeping Wind stacks. For the build I found, it uses Istvan's swords, which are damn impossible to find. I've spent at least 1500 death's breaths and surely 20,000 shards trying to get them. Just gonna say screw it and go to Kyoshiro's Soul and Vengeful Wind.

Multishot buff is insane. I didn't even think it needed it.

The Whirlwind buff is pretty pointless since the build doesn't use rend. Not sure what that's for.

The Shenlong buff seems to be trying to counteract the loss from two-piece raiment, but I'm not sure if it's worth going back to.

The increased duration on Iron Impact is nice for earthquake build. The only issue I have with the build is that Boulder Breaker seems way too necessary, because of its insane damage. Earthquake has a DoT effect, and the damage can be slow. There needs to be a way to make earthquake's damage a little more relevant.

I don't see any changes to Inna's. The issue I had with it was I felt incredibly squishy. Could not take any damage at all.

[Traab]

When does the next season start anyways? I had a lot of fun playing with my barb and his class set, id like to be able to do the same with another class. (I seriously have terrible luck on set drops, in that they dont.)

[Seerow]

When does the next season start anyways? I had a lot of fun playing with my barb and his class set, id like to be able to do the same with another class. (I seriously have terrible luck on set drops, in that they dont.)

Hope it doesn't start too soon. I still need to finish one more conquest to get my stash tab, and I've been procrastinating a lot.

[Psyren]

dat Ulianas :smalleek: holy hell.

Looking forward to trying out the new Vyr and Raiment.

What I find particularly interesting are the sets that aren't in the data. While they may have been missed, it's also possible they're not being changed; so I guess Inna's, Jade, Marauder, Light, Akkhan, Firebirds (really?), and LoN are all fine?

[turbo164]

Hope it doesn't start too soon. I still need to finish one more conquest to get my stash tab, and I've been procrastinating a lot.

I still haven't started mine :/

Reddit said mid-April.

[Erloas]

So the PS4 should be delivered some time today.
Other than the steps required to transfer the characters over and a long patch download, what is the first thing we should be looking at doing with all of the new patch content?
Will crappy two-handed weapons we have saved be upgraded, or will only new ones that drop be the new stats? Will the cube just appear in our inventory or do we have to talk to someone/do a quest?

[Seerow]

I still haven't started mine :/

Reddit said mid-April.

Oh, a month is plenty of time then. I'll start working on it in the next week or two, shouldn't take too long to farm a decent non-set thorns set for gr45.

[Psyren]

So the PS4 should be delivered some time today.
Other than the steps required to transfer the characters over and a long patch download, what is the first thing we should be looking at doing with all of the new patch content?
Will crappy two-handed weapons we have saved be upgraded, or will only new ones that drop be the new stats? Will the cube just appear in our inventory or do we have to talk to someone/do a quest?

Your first step is getting Kanai's Cube. To do so (and figure out what to do with it), see this FAQ. (https://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/wiki/kanaiscube)

It's been a long time since 2.1 so I don't think your 2H weapons will be upgraded and you'll have to find new ones, but don't quote me on that. Note that bows and crossbows weren't upgraded (since quivers are a thing) so don't worry about replacing those.

[mangosta71]

The weapons you currently have will most likely have the old stats.

There will be a ghost in town (I think it's Zoltun Kulle) that will tell you about the Cube. You'll need to explore the Ruins of Secheron (a new area in Act 3) to get it. And yes, getting the Cube should probably be the first thing you do.

[Erloas]

So items like Ramaladni's Gift, does that come from some place specific or just a random loot drop like everything else?

The legendary crafting materials, it says they come from caches in each act, do they also drop randomly in that act? And if so does that also include rifts done in the same act?

It also says the quest to unlock the cube is in Act 3, does that mean Act 3 in story mode or can it be done in adventure mode too?

And looking at the recipes, unless they really upped the rate of legendary drops it is going to be very slow to get all those forgotten souls, and I can see Death's Breath running out very quickly too.

[mangosta71]

So items like Ramaladni's Gift, does that come from some place specific or just a random loot drop like everything else?
Completely random.


The legendary crafting materials, it says they come from caches in each act, do they also drop randomly in that act? And if so does that also include rifts done in the same act?
Only bounty caches. As a plus, there are more in the bonus caches for completing sets of bounties. The number you get will depend on the difficulty you're running.


It also says the quest to unlock the cube is in Act 3, does that mean Act 3 in story mode or can it be done in adventure mode too?
I know that it can be done in adventure mode. I've never tried doing it in story.


And looking at the recipes, unless they really upped the rate of legendary drops it is going to be very slow to get all those forgotten souls, and I can see Death's Breath running out very quickly too.
Higher drop rate for both legendaries and Death's Breath as you increase the difficulty. I think it's near 100% for DB from champions and elites once you get to T6-7.

[Psyren]

Ruins of Secheron (where you find the cube) is adventure mode only.

For DBs don't forget the Sage's set to double your drops, and also T9-T10 have a good chance of doubling your DB drops from elites as well. (T10 I believe is guaranteed; if you can squeeze Sages into a T10 build you will get 3 DBs from every elite and extra DBs from goblins as well.)

The easiest way to make a T10-viable Sage's build is to use one of the 7-piece sets along with RRoG; the 7-piece sets are generally the ones that were around back in vanilla D3, like Inna's and Tal Rasha's. This will allow you to replace two pieces of that set with two pieces from Sage's, and still get the 6pc and 3pc bonuses respectively (5pc + 2pc + RRoG.) Go for a build that can kill on the move, like a strafe build with Natalya's or an Explosive Blast build with Tals, and just run the heck out of T10 rifts.

[Erloas]

I've got my account linked up, though I think I'm going to have to create a BN, XBL, and PSN account for my wife to get her transferred over too. I assume you can have multiple XBL accounts tied to a single XBL Gold subscription? Although I never got the Signet ring, I think maybe because we were always playing locally and it didn't check online.

I have a feeling we'll probably spend most of the evening just trying to get everything set up, updated, transferred, and going.

[Vaz]

Are there any recommended damage levels for improving my scores?

I have currently really slowed down on gearing as I'm playing through the Campaign on my Seasons Crusader, but I'm playing T1, might do T2 trial tonight.

Paragon 68 currently, just got into Padaemonium, and provided I can get some time free tonight from the triplets, i'm going to be completing tge story and then can hopefully jump pack to Greater Rifts.

I am running a Limitless Blessed Hammer (Johannas Argument Cubed), Akarats Champion, Falling Sword, Provoke and Shield Glare along with Johanna's argument to just spam out a million Hammers with Cooldown reduced for each enemy hit by a resource spender, topped off with Reapers Wraps and a Health Globe drop improver but I'm lacking in Single Target Damage; particularly noticeable against Diablo, Adria, Urzael and I'm guessing Malthael when I get there.

I'm trying to get Gabriels Vambraces, and/or possibly Hammer Jammers.

I'm really enjoying it, but I really want to push to try and get that second stash tab this season, but I struggled with a Torment 4 attempt to kill the Siege Beast (and disconnected before i got to the beast).

And should I swap my Movement Speed Paragon (running Cubed Illusory Boots) for improved Strength?

I have 280K Damage and 8.5M toughness with 1.1M Recov. I do have 4 PC invokers, but it rolled very poorly.

Any advice other than 'loot more'?

[Starwulf]

And should I swap my Movement Speed Paragon (running Cubed Illusory Boots) for improved Strength?

I have 280K Damage and 8.5M toughness with 1.1M Recov. I do have 4 PC invokers, but it rolled very poorly.

Any advice other than 'loot more'?

Unless you just don't feel that you need the movement speed you should always max out your movement speed via paragon and never keep any on items. What you get via paragon levels is the cap, and that opens up a slot on boots that is far more useful then the 50 points in paragon levels.

[Psyren]

Are there any recommended damage levels for improving my scores?

I have currently really slowed down on gearing as I'm playing through the Campaign on my Seasons Crusader, but I'm playing T1, might do T2 trial tonight.

Paragon 68 currently, just got into Padaemonium, and provided I can get some time free tonight from the triplets, i'm going to be completing tge story and then can hopefully jump pack to Greater Rifts.

I am running a Limitless Blessed Hammer (Johannas Argument Cubed), Akarats Champion, Falling Sword, Provoke and Shield Glare along with Johanna's argument to just spam out a million Hammers with Cooldown reduced for each enemy hit by a resource spender, topped off with Reapers Wraps and a Health Globe drop improver but I'm lacking in Single Target Damage; particularly noticeable against Diablo, Adria, Urzael and I'm guessing Malthael when I get there.

I'm trying to get Gabriels Vambraces, and/or possibly Hammer Jammers.

I'm really enjoying it, but I really want to push to try and get that second stash tab this season, but I struggled with a Torment 4 attempt to kill the Siege Beast (and disconnected before i got to the beast).

And should I swap my Movement Speed Paragon (running Cubed Illusory Boots) for improved Strength?

I have 280K Damage and 8.5M toughness with 1.1M Recov. I do have 4 PC invokers, but it rolled very poorly.

Any advice other than 'loot more'?

Feel free to link your profile/battletag and we can help you with specific build, gem and enchanting suggestions. I've helped a couple of folks here with dramatic results even just using the gear they currently have.

[Vaz]

Thanks; I hope this works.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Vaz-2543/hero/75298797

[Icewraith]

Unless you just don't feel that you need the movement speed you should always max out your movement speed via paragon and never keep any on items. What you get via paragon levels is the cap, and that opens up a slot on boots that is far more useful then the 50 points in paragon levels.

Unless you have boots that rolled movement speed and some skill you don't use (this happens to me a lot). In that case it's better to reroll the skill to something useful and tweak your paragon levels appropriately.

Edit: If anyone's unlocked the extra stash tab yet, what are the the actual big hurdles in the process? I might be able to get the "master 8 set dungeons" thing done since I have two characters, but right now I'm only at 3.

[Psyren]

Thanks; I hope this works.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Vaz-2543/hero/75298797

Got it. Okay...

I would strongly suggest deciding between blessed hammer or melee - trying to go for a mix of both like you are now is just going to make them both weaker than they would be alone. I recommend going melee (specifically, Sweep Attack) - even though your torso is from the Light set, without the rest of the set hammers are pretty weak. Sweep will also trigger both your Denial and Stalgard's for a big damage boost.

Hammer builds have a lot of cooldowns (as you've no doubt noticed), and even with your OROTZ you're going to have a lot of downtime due to only having 7% CDR before paragon and extremely slow attack speed due to using a 2-hander. If you want to stick with hammers, go for a 1H weapon and swap Heavenly Strength for Fervor, which both gives you a big 15% cooldown reduction increase, it also boosts your attack speed, letting you proc your OROTZ more often and lower your cooldowns even more.

If you go with Sweep, replace Blunt with Indestructible, make the gear changes below, and start pushing into higher difficulties. If you stick with hammers, replace Slash with Justice, get a 1-hander, and replace HS with Fervor.

In terms of gear - well obviously you want to replace the yellows and up your gems as soon as possible but until then, I would do the following rerolls. (Note: numbers below don't include paragon points.)

1) Reroll the Life on Hit on your weapon to a socket and drop your best emerald in there. Even an Imperial Emerald will get you 60k more dps, i.e. a 21.5% damage boost, and the higher you can get it the better off you'll be. (A Royal will get you 24%.)

2) You're not using Justice, so the Justice damage on your belt isn't doing anything. Rerolling it to Resist All will get you ~1M more toughness. (8.5 -> 9.5)

3) Reroll the Life on Hit on your gloves to either Crit Chance or Attack Speed. The average value of 9% gives you a 50k damage increase.

4) You need a new amulet badly; the one you're wearing has Dex. Even a crafted yellow will likely leave you better off. At the very least, reroll the Dex to Str (30k dps increase, i.e. 12%) until you can get something better.

5) The physical damage on your Reaper's Wraps isn't doing anything; Either reroll it to fire or to a defensive stat instead. Rerolling it to the average value of resists (95) gets you another million toughness.

6) Replace the Life On Hit on your helm with a socket, and drop your best diamond or amethyst in there.

7) Drop that OROTZ in your cube and get a ring with primary stat (Strength) on it instead. OROTZ should almost never be worn because the stats on it are terrible aside from that godly affix.

Making the changes above I was able to nearly double your damage (277 to 442) and boost your toughness by over 50% (8.5M to 13M.)


Unless you have boots that rolled movement speed and some skill you don't use (this happens to me a lot). In that case it's better to reroll the skill to something useful and tweak your paragon levels appropriately.

Edit: If anyone's unlocked the extra stash tab yet, what are the the actual big hurdles in the process? I might be able to get the "master 8 set dungeons" thing done since I have two characters, but right now I'm only at 3.

The conquests are the big ones - The Thrill and Masters of the Universe were mine and they took as much time to get as every other requirement of the season I found.

The only other ones that are time consuming are running a rift in under 3 minutes (which is actually easy, if you keep joining public games you'll get it eventually) and leveling 3 gems to 55 takes a while too, but that helps you with the conquests anyway.

[Vaz]

This is amazing, thank you! I'll make some changes when I get home. I played for a few hours last night, and all I have to do is finish Invokers dungeon for Chapter 5.

[Erloas]

Is there any way to link from the new consoles to the online builder like that? BNet so far shows no indication that it actually thinks I have Diablo, and I don't know if that will change with the PS4.
Haven't actually got the PS4 hooked up yet though, got it on Monday but with the kids we just didn't want to set it up with them around because we'll probably be looking at hours worth of updates between the system and the game. Looking at doing it tonight.

[Psyren]

Is there any way to link from the new consoles to the online builder like that? BNet so far shows no indication that it actually thinks I have Diablo, and I don't know if that will change with the PS4.
Haven't actually got the PS4 hooked up yet though, got it on Monday but with the kids we just didn't want to set it up with them around because we'll probably be looking at hours worth of updates between the system and the game. Looking at doing it tonight.

The answer appears to be no (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/13977917768#2) :smallfrown:

You can of course manually recreate your character in the builder but that's understandably irritating.

[Erloas]

Yeah, it would be different if items were set, but with the random aspect of every single item it makes it a huge PITA to do it by hand. 13 slots with 6 different bonuses all at variable levels, then 6 skills and ruins and then 4 more passives and now the cube as well.

May have to do a quick search and see if there is a quick and easy way to export it from the save file.

[Vaz]

Thanks; I hope this works.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Vaz-2543/hero/75298797
So, slight update as of last night. I've ran a few T4 or more rifts after trying out Invokers; (it seems kinda broken, but hey, seeing 54m damage is brilliant when I've literally) and picked up some better kit. On my very final bounty run I got a Blood Goblin, followed by a Portal to Greed (got a Firebirds Helm, no real idea of quality, and 50m gold after picking up a Cindercoat earlier in the night) and then gambled with Kadala and got a Spiker, and the Steed Charge Shield. I have the 2H Flail in my non season Stash.

I'm going to try and organise my Spiker to be better than my current Shield with some Enchanting tonight, and rinse through some of my money reducing my stack of gems (i picked up Leoric's Crown, which dropped a bucket ton of Ruby's, and try and get a Socket on the Axe to pop in the Topaz.

Also, picked up a RoRG, and the first in a legacy of nightmares set, which former of which had rolls were good enough to outclass my current, and the latter is not only awaiting its partner, but some ancients.

It looks like a belt is next on the cards then, looking for that Bombardment Belt.

[Psyren]

You should also be going for a legendary amulet, looking to upgrade your gems, and then get sockets in the rest of your jewelry and shield. Then you can drop Vigilant for Finery and have the same toughness with nearly double damage. Run some GRifts until you get the Boyarsky's Chip gem, it shouldn't take long if you're already handling T4.

As you have no spenders at all, you should try to get your hands on Aquila Cuirass for a massive toughness boost - you'll exceed 30M. I would also consider dropping Akarats Champion for Steed Charge so you can farm faster by zipping between elites.

Your cube is still showing Johannas and Rakoffs, so definitely swap those out for something that benefits your build more :smallsmile:

[Erloas]

So apparently my plan to get everything set up and ready to go beforehand was partially a big screw up. Since my account (wife's characters) was already on an XBL account it went just as planned. However my wife's profile (my characters) was just a local account. Apparently there is no way at all to link an offline profile with an existing account. You can create a new XBL account through the offline profile, but that is the only way. Of course we couldn't use her email address, because it was taken with the XBL account I had created earlier. It took forever before we figured out we couldn't actually do what we wanted to do. We even tried downloading her XBL account and moving the save over, but it is not possible to move the save between profiles. We ended up having to find an old, mostly unused email address, recover the password, and then use that to set up a new XBL account through her offline profile, then go into BNET and switch the link from the other XBL account to the new one (the link that I had set up earlier yesterday), and got it all working and transferred over.

The D3 update was just over 2GB, but it only took 30 minutes to download. We spent several hours trying to figure out the account thing. So by the time we sat down to actually play the kids were already home. Not normally an issue, except that we only have 2 controllers right now (extra $100 for 2 more is going to have to wait a bit) and we weren't going to create all the accounts necessary to transfer over their characters. So they wanted to play and then didn't want to play and switch between who was playing which character a bunch and we didn't really make it anywhere.

We tried to get Kanai's cube, freed the barbarians, found Kanai, followed him to his stomping grounds and killed some cows. He opened a portal back we went through, and then nothing happened. There hadn't been any quest tracking since freeing the barbarians, and no indication as to what to do after killing all the cows. Not sure what we missed (we were in adventure mode, T3).

Right off I couldn't tell much of a difference in skills, didn't notice anything had changed right away. But I could tell we were more powerful, I had switched it to T3, and it was easier than T2 on the 360. The game looked better and felt smoother.

[Seerow]

Honestly the biggest things to focus on right now (in no particular order) are going to be
1) Socket for the weapon (slot in a yellow gem)
2) Boyarski's leveled as high as you can push it
3) Heart of Iron
4) Belt of the Trove

The first three will get you an immediate huge spike in Thorns damage, making you much more effective overall. Seriously, you mention 54mil thorns hits, I regularly see 10billion thorns hits. It's that huge of a difference. Belt of the Trove is primarily for the huge defensive boost, but with Barrel of Spikes glyphed it's also pretty great damage (especially if you can also pick up a Mortal Drama to cube).

Like Psyren said, Aquilla's Curias is also fantastic. Both it and Heart of Iron are practically mandatory for Invokers, thank goodness for the cube!

On skills:
1) Once you get Boyarsky's to 25, the benefit of Provoke is negligible, you're better off switching Provoke out for almost anything else. Agree that Steed Charge is the way to go here.
2) The Slash Glyph you're using isn't any good. Thorns can't crit and your non-thorns damage is negligible. Invokers is pretty much the one set where you are avoiding crit/crit damage like the plague. Punish with Celerity is generally the way to go but I admit to not having looked at the Slash glyphs much.
3) Finery should replace Vigilant. 13.5% strength increase with a full complement of gem sockets translates into a lot of damage and toughness both.

Other:
When you want to start pushing higher grift levels, you may want even more toughness than what the above offers. At that point, I recommend keeping an eye out for Justice Lantern, and using Blood Brother over Mortal Drama in the cube (trading out a bit of damage for a lot of extra block); and possibly also switching Indestructable for Hold Your Ground (depending on if you're hitting block cap without Hold Your Ground or not. You probably are not). Justice Lantern with a high block chance build is basically an extra 40% or so extra DR that stacks with everything else.

In the end you have 50% reduction (set), 50% reduction (Aquilas), 37.5% reduction (Justice Lantern). So you're taking about 1/6th as much damage as a typical player altogether passively. All on top of a 1million+ health pool, 75% chance of blocking an incoming attack (block's damage reduction is actually somewhat noticable when incoming damage is reduced so much), great defensive cooldowns, and normal resistances/armor. It's really kind of silly.

[NineThePuma]

And then next patch they're making its offense stronger.

[Psyren]

In the end you have 50% reduction (set), 50% reduction (Aquilas), 37.5% reduction (Justice Lantern). So you're taking about 1/6th as much damage as a typical player altogether passively. All on top of a 1million+ health pool, 75% chance of blocking an incoming attack (block's damage reduction is actually somewhat noticable when incoming damage is reduced so much), great defensive cooldowns, and normal resistances/armor. It's really kind of silly.

To be fair, "typical player" is a bit of a minsomer here - just about every build that is viable above T10 will want a 50% DR buff in their build somewhere, and possibly even 2. The majority of the 6pc sets include one now, or some equivalent. For instance, DMO gives 50% DR while standing in your bubble, Helltooth gives 60% DR every time you Necrosis something, UE gives 60% DR if you keep your distance etc. And even the "glass cannon" sets out there like Ulianas and Jade Harvester typically have an open slot for a DR-boosting item like Spirit Guards or Lakumba's.

Having said that, Thornsaders are indeed tougher than most. On top of the reductions you mentioned above, Finery allows them to stack diamonds/amethysts in their gear without losing much damage, plus having a shield as their offhand grants both higher armor and a chance to block, reducing damage yet further.

[Vaz]

Well that certainly gives me a goal; i have used all of my Keystones now, so need to farm some more. I think I'm missing 14 Legendary Gems, and I reckon I might be able to hit 25 for levelling so thats 5 Keystones there, then another 10 levels with only ~80% success, so that is another maybe 5 Keystones, going by an 80% drop rate at T4, that is possibly 25 Keystones (worst case) needing 32 Runs; at around 6-7 Minutes per run, that is around 4 hours of Rifts; I should hopefully have found a decent Aquila Cuirass, Belt of the Trove and/or Heart of Iron. The missus is home tonight so I should be able to get some playtime on it.

Is there any particular Amulet or Ring to go for? With thebRoRG are there any 3 or 4 piece sets to take advantage of?

I actually have a Mortal Drama, but as I was using Blessed Hammer/Falling Sword at the time, the poor rolls didn't do me any favours, and lacking materials meant that I hadn't cubed it yet.

This new upscale in damage has definitely made me enjoy the game more than mindless farming of 'stuff' to gamble. It feels a bit like 'look mum, no hands' when riding a bike. Going to give T5 and maybe T6 equivalents a run tonight, possibly try and box off the set dungeon for the Seasonal stuff.

Would a Barbarian be the next best shot for Seasons to get the sets due to the stat similarity in equipment or should it not take any effect?

Sorry for all the questions, you guys/girls are incredible.

[Psyren]

Is there any particular Amulet or Ring to go for?

Hellfire Amulet is generally the go-to, since it is guaranteed two good affixes (socket + main stat) and also gives you a 5th passive. To get it, you'll need to farm the keywardens located in acts 1-4 for their Infernal Machines.


With thebRoRG are there any 3 or 4 piece sets to take advantage of?

The only 3pc/4pc sets left are the crafted ones - all the dropped sets are 5-7 now, with the old 4pc class sets like Vyr and Shadow being upped to 6.

Of the crafted sets, the only ones really worth mentioning are Aughild's (passable filler until you get something better) and Sage's (great for stockpiling breaths, which you can then use in the cube to get something better.) See the theme? :smallbiggrin:



This new upscale in damage has definitely made me enjoy the game more than mindless farming of 'stuff' to gamble. It feels a bit like 'look mum, no hands' when riding a bike. Going to give T5 and maybe T6 equivalents a run tonight, possibly try and box off the set dungeon for the Seasonal stuff.

At 16M toughness you shouldn't be having any issues with T6, so have at it. This difficulty will also guarantee more GR keystones, and legendary gems are your easiest way aside from rerolling to boost your numbers quickly while you wait for better gear. Make sure you up to T7 before running bounties though.



Would a Barbarian be the next best shot for Seasons to get the sets due to the stat similarity in equipment or should it not take any effect?

Sorry for all the questions, you guys/girls are incredible.

No problem :smallsmile:

I generally pair classes up with their stat-based equivalent but that's just me. Jewelry like CoE, Unity, RRoG and SoJ are generally easy to transfer, and many weapons can be shared too.

[Icewraith]

Well that certainly gives me a goal; i have used all of my Keystones now, so need to farm some more. I think I'm missing 14 Legendary Gems, and I reckon I might be able to hit 25 for levelling so thats 5 Keystones there, then another 10 levels with only ~80% success, so that is another maybe 5 Keystones, going by an 80% drop rate at T4, that is possibly 25 Keystones (worst case) needing 32 Runs; at around 6-7 Minutes per run, that is around 4 hours of Rifts; I should hopefully have found a decent Aquila Cuirass, Belt of the Trove and/or Heart of Iron. The missus is home tonight so I should be able to get some playtime on it.

Is there any particular Amulet or Ring to go for? With thebRoRG are there any 3 or 4 piece sets to take advantage of?

I actually have a Mortal Drama, but as I was using Blessed Hammer/Falling Sword at the time, the poor rolls didn't do me any favours, and lacking materials meant that I hadn't cubed it yet.

This new upscale in damage has definitely made me enjoy the game more than mindless farming of 'stuff' to gamble. It feels a bit like 'look mum, no hands' when riding a bike. Going to give T5 and maybe T6 equivalents a run tonight, possibly try and box off the set dungeon for the Seasonal stuff.

Would a Barbarian be the next best shot for Seasons to get the sets due to the stat similarity in equipment or should it not take any effect?

Sorry for all the questions, you guys/girls are incredible.

RoRG really isn't useful for Thornsader unless you're missing a piece.

Traveler's pledge set is ideal for Thornsader. Amulet+ring combo leaves you room for a Justice Lantern (you want to wear the JL because it ALSO rolls block %) and a cubed CoE. The CoE is basically how I've made it to GR63, when you see the lightning proc it's time to let a bunch of mobs surround you (and stop moving so your damage bonus goes up to 100% from traveler's pledge) so you can pop everything as soon as the physical is up and kill things relatively quickly, then get a move on and hope a rare or elite pack shows up before your lightning proc rolls around again. Only issue with the set amulet is it always rolls crit damage, which is great for everything except Thornsader. I cannot seem to get the damn thing to drop or roll with a socket so I'm stuck rerolling the crit damage to socket intead of physical %. However, my current amulet did roll Thorns, so that's something. It's really hard to get an ideal amulet because the thorns roll has to happen naturally since you'll always be rerolling the crit damage.

The build I've seen for thornsader has been resist aura that reduces enemy damage when active + thorns consecrate + defensive cooldown that also adds thorns + akarat's champion (prophet) + punish (celerity) + steed charge. How do you fit bombardment in there (maybe drop the resist aura?), and if you do, I assume you do not reroll the damage on Pig Sticker as I see recommended? I thought belt of the Trove was why you didn't need to have bombardment on your bar.

I personally wouldn't drop akarat's champion. The damage boost and built in cheat death are great since you don't have room for the actual passive or hellfire amulet. Also, once you (eventually) get your Akarat's (Awakening?) shield with the 1s cooldown reduction on 20-25% of your blocks (in a block-capped build), Akarat's Champion is on most of the time.

Note that if a good enough ancient aquila curiass drops, you can reroll the secondary into Thorns and wear it and cube Heart of Iron to get the full 300% of your Vitality to Thorns. I don't know if Aquila can roll the same amount of secondary Thorns as Heart of Iron though, which can roll up to 9k thorns when Ancient (and always rolls Thorns). The only things wrong with my ancient HoI are the thorns % from vitality roll is middle-ish, it only rolled with two sockets, and I needed to reroll something else (I think to Vitality).

From what I've seen, it's better to use STR gems even with finery because STR multiplies all your thorns damage (Vit just adds to it with HoI) and the more STR you have the more you get from the bonus % for each gem.

One thing that's counterintuitive when playing thornsader is if you know you have enough toughness, you actually want to run INTO the lines of bugs the wasps shoot at you. Each hit will AoE proc your thorns.

[Psyren]

I only meant he should drop AC until he has that shield (or other significant cooldown reduction.) Sorry that wasn't clear. I agree that Provoke is the one to drop later. Either way, Steed Charge is too useful/fun to pass up.

[Vaz]

Made some changes as requested; Greater Rift 27 Completed in 5:05, with Sheet Damage just shy of 360K (although my gear is hardly tweaked), and Sheet Toughness of just over 12M. Picked up a Bonesabre with a +7% Attack Speed.

On my shield, is it better to roll a socket (I have a Flawless Royal Ruby, and shouldn't be too hard to get a Flawless Diamond or Amethyst) or should I swap it's Gold Find to +Thorns (5.3K-7.7K). Still no Boyarsky, nor Aquila etc, but it's ~3hrs of play, so I'm not that fussed yet. Although Kadala and me? 2000 Blood shards and nada. She's dead to me. Sweet FA worthwhile.

[Icewraith]

Made some changes as requested; Greater Rift 27 Completed in 5:05, with Sheet Damage just shy of 360K (although my gear is hardly tweaked), and Sheet Toughness of just over 12M. Picked up a Bonesabre with a +7% Attack Speed.

On my shield, is it better to roll a socket (I have a Flawless Royal Ruby, and shouldn't be too hard to get a Flawless Diamond or Amethyst) or should I swap it's Gold Find to +Thorns (5.3K-7.7K). Still no Boyarsky, nor Aquila etc, but it's ~3hrs of play, so I'm not that fussed yet. Although Kadala and me? 2000 Blood shards and nada. She's dead to me. Sweet FA worthwhile.

Completed IN 5:05? Crank that difficulty up!

Re: Shield, how much Cooldown Reduction do you have?

[Vaz]

Will do =). Giving T7 a try. Had a quick boojy around with removing some of the nonsense +Fist of the Heavens etc, and just shot up to 14.5M toughness after picking up +15% Health and +100 Resist (All) on my Helmet and Bracers respectively. I just don't last long enough in the Set Dungeon.

My CDR is 23.5%, but to get that, I'd be swapping Str/Vit/Resist (All)/Crit Chance (+9.5%) for it, rather than Gold Find.

Picked up my first ancient! Butcher's Carver. ¬_¬

[Seerow]

The build I've seen for thornsader has been resist aura that reduces enemy damage when active + thorns consecrate + defensive cooldown that also adds thorns + akarat's champion (prophet) + punish (celerity) + steed charge. How do you fit bombardment in there (maybe drop the resist aura?), and if you do, I assume you do not reroll the damage on Pig Sticker as I see recommended? I thought belt of the Trove was why you didn't need to have bombardment on your bar.


Depends on what you're pushing for. Personally I switch out Consecrate for Bombardment, because being able to have Barrel of Spikes glyphed makes the damage on bombardment really awesome. If I'm farming lower content, I'll drop my Resist Aura for Consecrate, since Consecrate deals fairly decent damage as well. If I'm pushing grifts I drop bombardment altogether and go with the normally recommended Consecrate + Aura.



Personally I don't even use Pig Sticker, I enjoy the extra duration from Swiftmount too much. From a pure damage perspective, pigsticker is better, but from actual gameplay perspective that extra horse duration is huge. (I also use the Endurance Rune over Spiked Barding. 100% thorn damage per second is nice, but doesn't actually 1-2 shot stuff at torment 10, and if I'm going to have to stop to kill it anyway I'd rather be able to just skip past it and devastate the next elite I find instead.) Endurance + Swiftmount gives a 6-second duration, between that and my CDR I have effectively 100% mount uptime. Or close enough to it that I don't often notice the difference.


If it helps, this is my Crusader profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Oshi-1354/hero/73404837 (and that should also answer one question: The Curias can in fact roll thorns, and up to 9000 of it. My ancient curias has 8600 thorns)

[Istarial]

We tried to get Kanai's cube, freed the barbarians, found Kanai, followed him to his stomping grounds and killed some cows. He opened a portal back we went through, and then nothing happened. There hadn't been any quest tracking since freeing the barbarians, and no indication as to what to do after killing all the cows. Not sure what we missed (we were in adventure mode, T3).


Ah, that's the result of a few things being mutually confusing: The cube itself is found in a small side-room on the upper-right side of one of the open snowy sections of the elder sanctum, NOT in the immortal throne area- the quest there with the cows is actually totally unrelated.

[Psyren]

Yeah, I'm definitely not the guy for Thorns advice. I don't fully grok the mechanics and my inner Johnny has an innate aversion to FotM builds (the reason I never ran Delrasha.) At least with FireRasha there's room for experimentation - with Thornsader there is a clear "best" choice for just about everything with little room for variation.



Anyway - since this is the de facto Diablo thread, here's some news and such:

Diablo 2 gets its first new patch in almost 5 years (http://kotaku.com/years-later-blizzard-releases-a-new-diablo-ii-patch-1764232247) ----> helps the game run on modern PCs/Macs

Next Diablo 3 patch is full of cosmetic rewards (http://kotaku.com/diablo-iiis-next-patch-is-all-about-cosmetics-1763996086) --> new wings, pets and transmogs leaked so far.

Forbes speculates about new expansion (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/03/10/hey-blizzard-wheres-our-next-diablo-3-expansion/) ----> (Spoiler alert: hopeful but nothing concrete)

[Erloas]

Ah, that's the result of a few things being mutually confusing: The cube itself is found in a small side-room on the upper-right side of one of the open snowy sections of the elder sanctum, NOT in the immortal throne area- the quest there with the cows is actually totally unrelated.

We found it last night, after running everything else in the zone and checking back at town we decided to go back for another look. "We" missed the small out-cove where it was. And by we, I mean the kids wanted to play at that point and we had to go back and check all the little places they missed.

We didn't get a chance to actually do anything with the cube yet. We're going to need a lot of crafting material first. Those are from the caches only right? I think I asked before but can't remember if I did or just read some of the wikis.

We also found that we had some wings sitting in our bags and put them on. Where do we get more things like that? Are they event/quest awards or are they random drops?

Also looking at the numbers you guys are posting, and what we have, I'm thinking we should be able to do a lot harder stuff than we do. My barbarian has ~280k damage and ~20m defense, wife's wizard has ~350k damage and ~7.8m defense. It just seems like it takes us a while to kill things still. No way my barbarian would be running anything quickly on his own, would never die but take forever to kill things. Given the sheet damage, I'm thinking it has to be skill selection and maybe some itemization that doesn't show up on those stats. My barbarian is running whirlwind, I seem to be really lacking in single target damage, which skills should I look at to increase that?

I'm sure the cube will be helping too, no idea how long it will be before I get things worth extracting and have the materials to do it though.

[Psyren]

We didn't get a chance to actually do anything with the cube yet. We're going to need a lot of crafting material first. Those are from the caches only right? I think I asked before but can't remember if I did or just read some of the wikis.

There's a lot of recipes that use a lot of different resources. Some use the bounty mats. Some use forgotten souls and deaths breaths. Some use gems. Some use white, blue and yellow salvage mats. It all depends on what specifically you're trying to do.

The cube interface should have a button you can press to show you the recipes and what you need for each one. Or you can just read this (http://www.diablowiki.net/Kanai%E2%80%99s_Cube) - or the cube guide I posted earlier :smalltongue:



We also found that we had some wings sitting in our bags and put them on. Where do we get more things like that? Are they event/quest awards or are they random drops?

I believe those were a free reward for upgrading to the new console version. Right now the only way to get more wings is to go to Blizzcon, but the next patch should have more that we can win. You can also get pennants (wearable flags) by clearing the set dungeons.


Also looking at the numbers you guys are posting, and what we have, I'm thinking we should be able to do a lot harder stuff than we do. My barbarian has ~280k damage and ~20m defense, wife's wizard has ~350k damage and ~7.8m defense. It just seems like it takes us a while to kill things still. No way my barbarian would be running anything quickly on his own, would never die but take forever to kill things. Given the sheet damage, I'm thinking it has to be skill selection and maybe some itemization that doesn't show up on those stats. My barbarian is running whirlwind, I seem to be really lacking in single target damage, which skills should I look at to increase that?

Without a way to see your whole build and gear that's going to be really tough to analyze :smallfrown:
See if you can find a way to share the details, or in the worst case scenario, manually input your stuff into d3planner.

[Istarial]

I believe those were a free reward for upgrading to the new console version. Right now the only way to get more wings is to go to Blizzcon, but the next patch should have more that we can win. You can also get pennants (wearable flags) by clearing the set dungeons.


There are also some wings available for doing every set dungeon for every class, but that might take a while...

[Psyren]

There are also some wings available for doing every set dungeon for every class, but that might take a while...

Mastering in fact. Yeah, forgot those.

There's also some for pre-ordering WoW Legion, though I have no idea if console gets those.

[Starwulf]

Forbes speculates about new expansion (http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2016/03/10/hey-blizzard-wheres-our-next-diablo-3-expansion/) ----> (Spoiler alert: hopeful but nothing concrete)

Man, you got me excited for absolutely nothing. There isn't even anything "hopeful" in that article, it is literally nothing but an opinion piece by someone who isn't even an insider. I don't see how that article qualifies as anything spoilery or hopeful :-(. The guy just talked about how great D3's sales #'s and how with the decline of WoW subs and the uncertain future of Starcraft that it just makes sense for a 2nd D3 expansion.

[Vaz]

You can now get wings via killing bosses on the PTR; bone for killing Adria, and Butterfly Black for Magda, Butterfly Red for Uber Magda.

Also, fairly happy with my transmogs now.

http://i.imgur.com/DONOLz0.jpg

I just wish there were some additional Spear transmogs. Only one I really otherwise like is Three Hundredth Spear, but I don't like the overbearing Spell effect. - Edit; running Pig Sticker, hence spear.

Current Build.

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Vaz-2543/hero/75298797

I've now got both Legacy of Nightmares, so am building up to getting some Ancient Gear in my stash. Still no Boyarsky's drop, Aquila Cuirass, Akarat's Awakening, Swiftmount, or Heart of Iron. I've not had enough Death's Breaths to start cubing (literally got 5 pages full of Legendary's to Cube/Smash).

[Vaz]

Bruh, first ever Furnace drop, and it's an Ancient.

http://i.imgur.com/SKrEIOI.jpg

And Kadala's paid up for her deficit with a pair of Heart's of Iron and an Aquila with 1000 Shards of each other. Good lass. I take back what I said. Unless of course you want me to go ancients.

Going to see if I can get a Sunkeeper - is upgrading Rares the best way to do this?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Got a second Unity, so for SSP, I've got my durability down pat. Ally already has the legendary thing that makes him immune to death. Now I just need a Greed gem to go with the Goldwrap and I'll be set.

Still looking for a Wand of Woh. Probably converted twenty or so rare wands into legendaries. Gotten just about every single one EXCEPT a Wand of Woh.

Picked up a Firebirds pants, so that gives me an extra slot to play around with if necessary. Looking at possible firebirds combo with Tal Rasha.

Got Aughild's in chest and wrist for the bonus to elites since I wasn't able to get Blackthorne's going.

Anyone know a good way to grind DB's? I'm in T6 and with all the wand conversions, running pretty low on them.

[huttj509]

Looking for input: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Huttj-1478/hero/41441692

So, Kadala, Kanai's Cube, and drops have all not been cooperating on me getting a Quetzocouatl.

Main thing I run into is feeling really squishy (Torment 9). If things go well, great, but once my stacks of soul Harvest stop dropping, my survivability plummets. This mainly comes into play against rift bosses and bounty bosses (where against one guy my Soul Harvest starts dropping).

Am I missing something, or are large single bosses a known weakness of Jade Harvester?

I also need a better ring. That Oculus is *not* being useful most of the time. Drops! *shakesfist*


Also, what're people's thoughts on WD sets this season. I can get to 6 piece with RoRg for Arachyr's, Helltooth, and Zunimasa's.

Prob. gonna try Zuni's as I have a Tasker and Theo and Jeram mask ready to go. Though I still wanna tweak my Jade Harvester setup if it's tweakable beyond what I have.

[Psyren]

Jade Harvest is my favorite build in the game, so I'm happy to help :smallsmile:



Am I missing something, or are large single bosses a known weakness of Jade Harvester?

You're missing Bane of the Stricken (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/bane-of-the-stricken), which is the dedicated "anti-boss gem." Both the primary power and unlock power are aimed specifically at making boss fights go much faster. You would drop Mutilation Guard for it (but see ring advice below) - you should be spirit walking to run through enemies and survive melee long enough to harvest.

While you wait for a Quetzal, work on maxing out your gems, especially that amethyst in your helmet, to get tougher.

You'll notice a big jump in your survivability once you get Quetzalcoatl in the cube - it effectively doubles your damage (both the dot, and the huge spike from SH) so even on TX you'll be one-shotting a lot of things before they can really hurt you. You also want a Wormwood or Furnace in that empty cube weapon slot (I'm lazy so I prefer the former), and you want to drop Fetish Sycophants for Spirit Vessel to avoid the odd bullcrap death.



I also need a better ring. That Oculus is *not* being useful most of the time. Drops! *shakesfist*

Yes, Oculus is near worthless - especially on builds that don't stand still, like Jade Harvester. You want either this (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/ring-of-emptiness) or this (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/unity), preferably both, alongside your CoE. You should also work on finding the JH chest so that you can dump both Tyraels and that RRoG in your cube, in favor of OROTZ.

Either OROTZ or Unity in the cube will boost your survivability considerably. OROTZ is a more active form of defense because you're still required to hit spirit walk in time to avoid getting splattered, while Unity just plain doubles your toughness. Personally I prefer OROTZ so I can farm in groups as easily as solo without swapping rings.


Also, what're people's thoughts on WD sets this season. I can get to 6 piece with RoRg for Arachyr's, Helltooth, and Zunimasa's.

They're all good. Zuni's main woe is the pet AI continues to be bad (especially the Gargantuan), but when it does work it works very well.



Anyone know a good way to grind DB's? I'm in T6 and with all the wand conversions, running pretty low on them.

Sage's + Tal Rasha is a very easy way. Then run the highest group regular rifts and group bounties you can clear quickly. You may have to drop Aughild pieces.


Bruh, first ever Furnace drop, and it's an Ancient.

http://i.imgur.com/SKrEIOI.jpg

And Kadala's paid up for her deficit with a pair of Heart's of Iron and an Aquila with 1000 Shards of each other. Good lass. I take back what I said. Unless of course you want me to go ancients.

Going to see if I can get a Sunkeeper - is upgrading Rares the best way to do this?

Yes it is, and congrats on your Furnace, though I assume that means you'll have to hold off on cubing it until you find a non-ancient one.

The socket is unfortunate - you're forced to reroll that into another stat so you can gift it, which means you can't reroll the native damage any higher or reroll the vitality into something more offensive. At least you can drop an emerald into it as-is.

[Erloas]

Is there a full list of legendary affixes? Found a list on Diablowiki.net but it appears to be missing quite a few (doesn't even show all the item types). I had found a couple items I wanted to extract and was going to mention them but forgot the exact name so I went to look them up...

Started running my DH again just to see how things have changed. With the change to marauder's set I already had the whole pack of animals. Then I had Zoey's Secret drop (damage reduction for each companion) and my defense went from ~8m to about 20.5M. My DPS was also about 550k, so that was a lot higher than it was before, not sure how much was change in calculations and how much was change in stats/effects.
Still running out of hatred pretty quickly, but I thought there was an item that could help that dropped for my wife but still looking for it.

Also had 2 Mantles of Channeling drop, which seem great for pretty much all of my characters because I use the channeling skills on all of them so far, and gave one to my wife because she'll get a lot out of it too.

Saved some Hexing Pants of Mr. Yan before, wasn't sure how I wanted to use it but seemed worth while to keep, and now I can cube it and use it, so that will help.

Was thinking there was something else with reduced channeling costs but can't find it now, if it even exists.

Tried the Cinder Switch (2h axe) on my Barb, damage was close to doubling, it cut my defense in half though. Seems to mostly be worth it but think I'll be taking too much damage if we got up in difficulty too much. Fireball seems to do decent damage but it doesn't seem like it procs while in whirlwind.

Haven't got anything cubed yet, and that is what I'm looking at now. Haven't found any weapons I'm too fond of but some good armor, not sure where to go with the jeweler either because much of what I've got so far hasn't been all that great (though wife got RoRG).

All the new goblins are kind of cool. Already had one drop the portal to the land of greed. I was usually low on gold from combining gems and now we have something like 40-60m each. Greed legendary is the only special gem we've got so far. The blood shard goblins are pretty cool but always leads to a trip to town.

[NineThePuma]

Is there a full list of legendary affixes? Found a list on Diablowiki.net but it appears to be missing quite a few (doesn't even show all the item types). I had found a couple items I wanted to extract and was going to mention them but forgot the exact name so I went to look them up...

http://www.d3maxstats.com/items/?unique-affix=yes

[Psyren]

All the new goblins are kind of cool. Already had one drop the portal to the land of greed. I was usually low on gold from combining gems and now we have something like 40-60m each. Greed legendary is the only special gem we've got so far. The blood shard goblins are pretty cool but always leads to a trip to town.

You have to run Greater Rifts to solve both of these problems - that's the only place that will drop the other legendary gems, and it's also how you will increase your blood shard carrying capacity. You can find the keys to unlock them inside of regular rifts - the higher you go, the better your chances of a key dropping, until you hit 100% chance and then start getting a small chance of two keys dropping instead of one.

[The_Jackal]

Can anyone articulate why I routinely see players doing T1 rifts and bounties with characters who are WAYYYYY overgeared for them? To the point where nothing lives long enough for me to punch, if I follow them around.

[Erloas]

At a guess they don't realize how much the drop scaling changes with difficulty and think running more things faster at lower level will get them more than harder difficulties a bit slower. Or they have put everything in to attack over defense and go into harder things and die really fast when they don't kill something right away.


I'm sure I've seen greater rift keys drop before, but the only times I've tried it says I don't have the key. Although I'm not sure if I tried before I got the key and then changed characters before I tried again. Are greater rifts one key per run or are they 5 like the normal rifts (or at least it was 5 before, haven't paid attention to if it changed).
We've mostly been running world bounties so far to try and get the materials for the cube so we can start using it.

[Vaz]

Aye.

Normal rifts give me the highest density for Death's Breaths (20-25 or so per run, doubled to 40-50 with Sages), for the shortest amount of time; T6 giving me a cross between legendary drops (I'm looking for an Ancient Sun Keeper) and speed, averaging 6-8 minutes per run. Also, Keystones.

Bounties for Materials as necessary, and also a slight change of scenery from the constant grind.

Grifts for XP/Paragon and Gem grinding. Admittedly if i did have unlimited keystones, I wouldn't be doing much else.

Greater Rift stones have a 55% Drop rate at T1 (0% before), scaling to 100% at T6, hence T6 Rifts. If you pick them up, they are a stackable item, black purple with yellow cross; as far as I am aware, they are a 1 per Rift thing i think, but I don't run T7 rifts with enough frequency to comment; they show up when dropped like Blood Shards; purple text and beam of light. I'm unsure if putting it into the Stash allows it to be used as a Keystone, but if swapping/alternate characters, then if in their invent, then they'll be unuseable.

Hopefully, they, along with crafting mats etc become a non invent (ie cash, blood shards) thing like some other QoL updates.

[Psyren]

At a guess they don't realize how much the drop scaling changes with difficulty and think running more things faster at lower level will get them more than harder difficulties a bit slower. Or they have put everything in to attack over defense and go into harder things and die really fast when they don't kill something right away.


I'm sure I've seen greater rift keys drop before, but the only times I've tried it says I don't have the key. Although I'm not sure if I tried before I got the key and then changed characters before I tried again. Are greater rifts one key per run or are they 5 like the normal rifts (or at least it was 5 before, haven't paid attention to if it changed).
We've mostly been running world bounties so far to try and get the materials for the cube so we can start using it.

The GR keys only drop in regular rifts, so if you're just running bounties you won't see any. Regular rifts no longer need keys. As I mentioned previously though, GR keys are not guaranteed to drop until you get to the higher difficulties, so keep at it.

Also, when you get the keys, put them in your stash - that way all your characters can use them even when you switch.


Aye.

Normal rifts give me the highest density for Death's Breaths (20-25 or so per run, doubled to 40-50 with Sages), for the shortest amount of time; T6 giving me a cross between legendary drops (I'm looking for an Ancient Sun Keeper) and speed, averaging 6-8 minutes per run. Also, Keystones.

I average 60-80 per run on TX (I've gotten up to 90+ in one run, though there were a couple of goblins in that one too), along with much more gold and a higher droprate. With most groups they average around 6 minutes or so, though of course I've gotten a few that clocked in below 3 minutes for the season milestone/achievement.

If you're alone though (and not consistently clearing 55+), then I agree, T6 is probably the most efficient.



Hopefully, they, along with crafting mats etc become a non invent (ie cash, blood shards) thing like some other QoL updates.

Honestly, I'm happy with the GR situation now. Running TX lets you stockpile them fairly quickly at 2 per run.

[Vaz]

Oh i think the Drop Rates are fine. Trying to get some more BiS items (2 hours played last night, not a single worthwhile Gamble with Kadala, Upgrade from Cube, or Drop; well, tell a lie; got some nice Bracers which would go well on a Hammerdin - those which refund the Wrath cost; which as I'm running a Thorns/AoE build isn't a problem.

Want to try and get my Stash tab, and honestly unsure as to how I'm going to get those conquests done, when I can't even run a T9 Rift in 6mins. Still don't have Swiftmount either.)

I just hope that Materials become somethjng akin to BloodShards rather than inventory hogging.

[Psyren]

Want to try and get my Stash tab, and honestly unsure as to how I'm going to get those conquests done, when I can't even run a T9 Rift in 6mins. Still don't have Swiftmount either.)

The set dungeons one (Masters of the Universe) doesn't care too much about your gear so that's a good one to attempt. Well, you may need some specific speed pieces like Swiftmount, Aether Walker or Shukrani's Triumph, but beyond that you don't need bleeding edge stuff. I also recommend The Thrill, it's a fun one if you like build experimentation, but you can powerlevel a Boon of the Hoarder and try for Avarice too.

[Icewraith]

Depends on what you're pushing for. Personally I switch out Consecrate for Bombardment, because being able to have Barrel of Spikes glyphed makes the damage on bombardment really awesome. If I'm farming lower content, I'll drop my Resist Aura for Consecrate, since Consecrate deals fairly decent damage as well. If I'm pushing grifts I drop bombardment altogether and go with the normally recommended Consecrate + Aura.



Personally I don't even use Pig Sticker, I enjoy the extra duration from Swiftmount too much. From a pure damage perspective, pigsticker is better, but from actual gameplay perspective that extra horse duration is huge. (I also use the Endurance Rune over Spiked Barding. 100% thorn damage per second is nice, but doesn't actually 1-2 shot stuff at torment 10, and if I'm going to have to stop to kill it anyway I'd rather be able to just skip past it and devastate the next elite I find instead.) Endurance + Swiftmount gives a 6-second duration, between that and my CDR I have effectively 100% mount uptime. Or close enough to it that I don't often notice the difference.


If it helps, this is my Crusader profile: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Oshi-1354/hero/73404837 (and that should also answer one question: The Curias can in fact roll thorns, and up to 9000 of it. My ancient curias has 8600 thorns)

Isn't Swiftmount still 1.4s flail attack speed? I can understand wanting to use a different dagger, but going from flail to a dagger is a very noticeable difference.

[Vaz]

Yeah, but it cannot be spear-transmog'd =(

Spear, particularly Spear and Shield is one of my favourite and least used tropes games for characters.

As a question. Is it worth dropping the double bombs of Bombardment for 50% extra damage from the furnace vs elites on my invoker build? Would that help me go through the GR's any?

[Psyren]

These patch notes (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/20057106/) are giving me life. The Taeguk change alone... [cries in nephalem]

All the other forgotten leggems like Bane of the Powerful and Moratorium are getting buffs too. Only time will tell if they get anywhere near BotT and BotS though.

Skillwise, I'm loving the buffs that Vyr, Akkhan and Marauder are indirectly getting via buffing their key skills.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Picked up a Greed gem, now to grind out GRifts to power level it...

[Icewraith]

Yeah, but it cannot be spear-transmog'd =(

Spear, particularly Spear and Shield is one of my favourite and least used tropes games for characters.

As a question. Is it worth dropping the double bombs of Bombardment for 50% extra damage from the furnace vs elites on my invoker build? Would that help me go through the GR's any?

Well, I dropped the resist aura for bombardment (barrel of spikes) on my bar, and I had a much quicker clear through GR 63- I had maybe a minute to spare last time, I had minutes to spare this time. However, my Boyarsky's up about nine levels since I stopped at GR 63 so that might be what's doing it instead of the skill change. I do also notice that I am squishier, so at some point I'll probably have to put the resist aura back on just to live. It also may be that I'm clearing faster because I'm making better use of CoE.

However.

Dropping bombardment, then popping the Thorns boosting skill, consecration and Akarat's Champion during a CoE physical proc (then getting bombardment from the belt)? Pretty effective AoE clear. Just gotta remember that Bombardment has a couple seconds of windup as the barrels drop, and I'm not sure if it's getting the boosted thorns if the barrels are in midair when I use the skill. CDR is enough that Bombardment seems to be up every second Physical proc on CoE.

Specifically regarding double bombs vs. Furnace, are you having more issues taking out clumps of normal mobs or elite packs? If elemental affixes are giving you headaches, either Furnace (to cut down on the time you need to deal with affixes) or Blood Brother (for more blocking if you have Justice Lantern). I'm assuming you're using Barrel of Spikes on your bar, otherwise the double bombs are in no way worth it and you should use Furnace.

Very badly need a Traveler's Pledge Amulet that I can get both Physical % and a socket on.

[Erloas]

So I've seen it posted many times on here that you should be able to run your high damage spender skills pretty much constantly. How are you guys doing that? Neither my Barbarian nor my Demon Hunter can come close to that. I can keep it up for a while with other actives (like shots, vegence, call of the ancients, etc.) but that tends to not be enough for longer single fights. Usually I'm making up for it with builder skills at the end of a horde or beginning of the next to regen my resources.

[Icewraith]

So I've seen it posted many times on here that you should be able to run your high damage spender skills pretty much constantly. How are you guys doing that? Neither my Barbarian nor my Demon Hunter can come close to that. I can keep it up for a while with other actives (like shots, vegence, call of the ancients, etc.) but that tends to not be enough for longer single fights. Usually I'm making up for it with builder skills at the end of a horde or beginning of the next to regen my resources.

Probably with resource cost reduction, Mantle of Channeling (or a similar legendary), and the right active and passive skills. For instance, there's a WD off-hand that removes the mana cost of Grasp of the Dead and a rune that removes the cooldown (it might be the other way around), alowing Grasp spamming for the Zuni set dungeon.

Similarly, Mantle of Channeling allows a Barbarian to whirlwind almost indefinitely (possibly in conjunction with a skill rune or other legendary or set) and a Wizard to sit on Disintegrate until they need to move again (which is what makes Firebird boring).

Edit: a couple classes have a resource cost return on crit mechanic that helps as well. Other times your resource generation is just fast enough that your bar should be full again once an orbiter or desecrator forces you to move.

[Psyren]

So I've seen it posted many times on here that you should be able to run your high damage spender skills pretty much constantly. How are you guys doing that? Neither my Barbarian nor my Demon Hunter can come close to that. I can keep it up for a while with other actives (like shots, vegence, call of the ancients, etc.) but that tends to not be enough for longer single fights. Usually I'm making up for it with builder skills at the end of a horde or beginning of the next to regen my resources.

I haven't seen your build to be sure, but for generator-less builds you want one of two things:

1) A cheap/zero-cost spender (e.g. Ray of Frost, Rapid Fire, Firebats->Vampire Bats, Disintegrate+Hergbrash etc.)
2) Very low cooldowns

For the latter, there is usually a cooldown skill that will refill your resource, either in a big burst (e.g. Provoke) or over a short period of time (e.g. Epiphany.) The key to not running out is being able to rotate the resource-generating skills as quickly as you spend. So your primary item is usually going to be an OROTZ (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/obsidian-ring-of-the-zodiac) in your cube. For a Demon Hunter for instance, this enables you to switch between Vengeance, Preparation -> Punishment, and Bat companion if necessary.

Note though that generator builds can work just fine, thanks to the Bastions of Will ring set (aka Focus + Restraint). These typically perform best with sets that encourage you to use a generator, like the Demon Hunter's Unhallowed Essence set or the Wizard's DMO set. Together, F+R give you a huge boost (something around +125% multiplicative damage) and cause the generator to more than pull its weight in the damage game.

For whirlwind barbarians specifically however, you want one of two things - either 2 pc. Immortal King with the Fury rune, or that pair of whirlwind swords that makes you generate as much fury as it costs to channel it.

[Erloas]

I haven't seen Focus or Restraint yet, it looks great but probably a completely different type of play style, as I would have to fairly constantly switch between a generator and a spender. Might have to go back to multi-shot on my DH if I do find one. Also haven't seen an OROTZ, are those normal drops or only from GRifts or caches or what?

Last night I decided to try Rapid Fire again... and it just seems so much more lackluster than I remember, it just seems like strafe is killing things just as fast or faster and gives me mobility and the ability to handle crowds. I don't think I've ran RF since the 360, so maybe strafe just gained more in the patches than RF did.
I tried moving multi-shot in there too, does better at hitting whole groups at once, I'm just not sure if it is worth it compared to strafe again. Not sure what else to try in that slot, it used to be shadow power but I have no need for that since I picked up Zoey's Secrete and don't take any real damage.

Right now I'm running
Evasive Fire - Focus
Strafe - Rocket Storm
Companion - Bat
Sentry - Spitfire turret
Vengeance - Seethe
and last I'm trying to decide

At T3 things are still dying very quickly, I don't think I currently need anything more for defense, and attack seems ok but I think maybe more could be done there. Not sure what is going to be the next problem moving up in difficulty.
Companion I'm wanting to keep for Marauders, as well as sentries. Although I have to get something else in there for the sentries to fire... maybe strafe isn't the best option for a marauder build...

Original plan was to cube the mantles of channeling, and I will do that when I get the last of the material I need, but wasn't sure on the other cube options.


So we ran our first Greater Rift last night. It seems that other than globes nothing at all drops anything except the bosses, is that right? (Does that also mean we aren't going to see any treasure goblins in them?) We did a level 18 one and I think we still had several minutes left over. We also both ended up with a Bane of the Powerful gem. It seemed like the GR was easier than the world at T3, but normal rifts seem to be harder, does that mean GR difficulty is entirely based on their own level and not the difficulty level the game is set at?

It also seems like we have to beat the rift under the time to go to the next rift level, if that is the case then why were we able to go straight to level 18?

[Psyren]

I haven't seen Focus or Restraint yet, it looks great but probably a completely different type of play style, as I would have to fairly constantly switch between a generator and a spender. Might have to go back to multi-shot on my DH if I do find one. Also haven't seen an OROTZ, are those normal drops or only from GRifts or caches or what?

OROTZ is a general drop, as are F+R. Keeping the buff(s) up is actually easier than it sounds, certainly much easier than keeping something like Taeguk going.



Last night I decided to try Rapid Fire again... and it just seems so much more lackluster than I remember, it just seems like strafe is killing things just as fast or faster and gives me mobility and the ability to handle crowds. I don't think I've ran RF since the 360, so maybe strafe just gained more in the patches than RF did.
I tried moving multi-shot in there too, does better at hitting whole groups at once, I'm just not sure if it is worth it compared to strafe again. Not sure what else to try in that slot, it used to be shadow power but I have no need for that since I picked up Zoey's Secrete and don't take any real damage.

Right now I'm running
Evasive Fire - Focus
Strafe - Rocket Storm
Companion - Bat
Sentry - Spitfire turret
Vengeance - Seethe
and last I'm trying to decide

I'd go with either Smoke Screen -> Displacement for the double movement speed (which can be activated while strafing), or Marked for Death -> Contagion to increase your dps. Both will give you a relevant use for your discipline pool.

Also, if you're taking no damage you may want to consider upping the difficulty for more gold and better drops.



Companion I'm wanting to keep for Marauders, as well as sentries. Although I have to get something else in there for the sentries to fire... maybe strafe isn't the best option for a marauder build...

Original plan was to cube the mantles of channeling, and I will do that when I get the last of the material I need, but wasn't sure on the other cube options.

For Marauders you usually want Cluster Arrow or Elemental Arrow (+Kridershot). The latter turns Elemental Arrow into a generator, and then you can combine with Spike Trap to spend your Hatred. Spike Trap also benefits from the Engineering passive that buffs your sentries.

For Strafe I've found the best set is Natalyas. No need to worry about placing/strafing away from turrets, just ballet your way through rifts while spraying Rain of Vengeance everywhere. Combine with Calamity and you'll debuff every single enemy on the screen, making your family or any other group members love you.

I think I might be able to make a strong LoN Strafe build too.



So we ran our first Greater Rift last night. It seems that other than globes nothing at all drops anything except the bosses, is that right? (Does that also mean we aren't going to see any treasure goblins in them?) We did a level 18 one and I think we still had several minutes left over. We also both ended up with a Bane of the Powerful gem. It seemed like the GR was easier than the world at T3, but normal rifts seem to be harder, does that mean GR difficulty is entirely based on their own level and not the difficulty level the game is set at?

Correct on all counts.



It also seems like we have to beat the rift under the time to go to the next rift level, if that is the case then why were we able to go straight to level 18?

I actually don't know as by the time the new GR structure was released I was already running 40 so it started me there. Note that if you finish the current GR with a lot of time left over, it will unlock multiple levels above you at once.

[Icewraith]

So when I'm trying to max out my gems, and it tells me there's a 60% upgrade chance... is it really 60%? It seems more like it's 25%.

[Erloas]

I only have... I think 1 Natalya's set, so it will be a while before I can try that.
I searched for Kridershot rune for a bit before figuring out it was a legendary bow.
I have a relatively low number of choices right now, so it will take a while before I get a good selection of items to build from.

What sort of cube powers should I look for for various builds?

Calamity seems good for most builds, Helltrapper looks like a great choice for marauder, Valla's Bequest seems like it could be pretty good but not totally sure. Bombardier's Rucksack seems almost required for a marauder build.
Wojahnni Assaulter looks like it could be a fun options, especially with Sin Seekers. Although I don't see much in the quiver range to be worth cubing, as it seems almost anything worth having could just keep the quiver rather than the ability.

[huttj509]

It also seems like we have to beat the rift under the time to go to the next rift level, if that is the case then why were we able to go straight to level 18?

Greater Rift level you can start at is based on 2 things:

The highest torment level you've completed a Nephalim Rift on.
The highest Greater Rift you've completed.

Whichever is higher.

I've noticed some things (completed GRift 40, and could then go up to 42, not 41), but as to what affects that, those are the 2 factors (with some wiggle room as to what it actually gives you for completing, say, a Torment 4 Neph Rift, might give you a couple above the direct parallel).

[The_Jackal]

So, I have a kind of dumb question: Is there any putative Barbarian build which might justify using Simplicity's Strength and/or Depth Diggers? I saw the boosts to those items in the 2.4.1 test patch notes, and I've always had a soft spot for bash, and wondered what people thought. The 'neverending whirlwind' style of Barb play really puts me to sleep, so I'm looking that would use builder and spender, with F&R. Thoughts?

[Erloas]

I think you could probably do it pretty easily. I think Oathkeeper would be required as well (or at least cubed). For Bash specifically Blade of the Warlord would be a good option if you had Might of the Earth or Immortal King's Call, although if that would still work with the rings I'm not sure. Since most of those do all the primary skills, you might even be able to do Bash for fury use and Frenzy or Cleave for a builder. If you go with Frenzy then you need Undisputed Champion belt, and with cleave figure out how to get Dishonored Legacy. Though i don't know if that works because I think you're needing 3 weapon powers, but I think they are all 1-handed weapons. Then you just fill out the skills depending if you have Earth or Immortal sets.

I don't have any idea how well that will actually work, but you get a lot of bonuses, just don't know how many are additive and how many are multiplicative.

I would say give it a try and let us know.

edit: So I checked the diablo.somepage.com lists and 2 of the 5 don't use whirlwind, they use:

#1
Call of the Ancients - Together as One
Hammer of the Ancients - Smash
Wrath of the Berserker - Insanity
Furious Charge - Merciless Assault
War Cry - Veteran's Warning
Battle Rage - Bloodshed

#4
Call of the Ancients - Together as One
Hammer of the Ancients - Smash
Wrath of the Berserker - Insanity
Furious Charge - Merciless Assault
War Cry - Veteran's Warning
Battle Rage - Bloodshed

Of course none of the builds used any builders, but my "gut" feel looking at the numbers is with the items I've listed above the primaries should be very close to the spenders in damage. But I say that knowing fully well that I don't know which damage increases are additive and which are multiplicative.

[Psyren]

Helltrapper looks like a great choice for marauder

I'd say for Marauders that you want either Kridershot or Manticore as your main weapon, Bombadier's is mandatory as you mentioned, and then in the cube you either want Calamity, Dawn or possibly Rimeheart if you're going for an ice build.



Wojahnni Assaulter looks like it could be a fun options, especially with Sin Seekers. Although I don't see much in the quiver range to be worth cubing, as it seems almost anything worth having could just keep the quiver rather than the ability.

For a Wojhanni build you probably want Buriza in the cube for the auto-piercing affix, or better yet vice-versa.


So, I have a kind of dumb question: Is there any putative Barbarian build which might justify using Simplicity's Strength and/or Depth Diggers? I saw the boosts to those items in the 2.4.1 test patch notes, and I've always had a soft spot for bash, and wondered what people thought. The 'neverending whirlwind' style of Barb play really puts me to sleep, so I'm looking that would use builder and spender, with F&R. Thoughts?

The only one that potentially comes to mind is an IK build that doesn't use the fury-generating ancients - you'd need a generator there. IK is a general enough set that it enables a lot of builds, and so long as you have ancients + wrath you can really run just about anything else. For a Bash build, my only caveat would be that you should probably skip using the IK maul - generator builds want to hit fast and often rather than slow and ponderously. (It would fit well in a Frenzy build though, which can get your attack speed to blindingly high levels and make 2-handers hit like mack trucks as a result.)

[mangosta71]

I know there's an item that gives you the effect of every rune on Frenzy, if you don't mind using that instead of Bash (I forget what the item is, but I know that my barb has it because I switched to Frenzy for my builder after acquiring it). As I recall, I'm currently using Frenzy, Rend, Ground Stomp, Avalanche, Earthquake, and Threatening Shout (I also have the item that pops Earthquake + Avalanche whenever I hit Threatening Shout). I have a full Might of Earth set that's sitting in my stash because I scored an early Litany + Wail set, and I'm sporting 5 ancients atm. I've barely played this season; I'm only about P100 and don't have many good Cube options.

But anyway, I would expect a similar setup with Focus + Restraint to be viable at least through middling torment.

[huttj509]

I know there's an item that gives you the effect of every rune on Frenzy, if you don't mind using that instead of Bash (I forget what the item is, but I know that my barb has it because I switched to Frenzy for my builder after acquiring it). As I recall, I'm currently using Frenzy, Rend, Ground Stomp, Avalanche, Earthquake, and Threatening Shout (I also have the item that pops Earthquake + Avalanche whenever I hit Threatening Shout). I have a full Might of Earth set that's sitting in my stash because I scored an early Litany + Wail set, and I'm sporting 5 ancients atm. I've barely played this season; I'm only about P100 and don't have many good Cube options.

But anyway, I would expect a similar setup with Focus + Restraint to be viable at least through middling torment.

It's a belt, don't recall the name.

[Vaz]

Undisputed Champion, I think. I can't comment on it's efficacy, as I've yet to even create a Barbarian character. I'm thinking of doing it myself, kind of like the idea of a ranged build.

[Psyren]

Undisputed Champion, I think. I can't comment on it's efficacy, as I've yet to even create a Barbarian character. I'm thinking of doing it myself, kind of like the idea of a ranged build.

I have a ranged barb that was doing quite well even before the huge buffs to MoE. I'll have to fire him up again and see how he's doing now (after I get my DH where I want her to be.)

[Vaz]

So, I settled on a Wizard. Already kind of regretting it, the VA is quite annoying, so might just finish levelling my Gem of Ease and rustle myself up a Barbarian and go farming that way, because after checking, the Lidless Wonder is a normal shield, which might make bit easier to gamble on with a Barbarian. Also have a pair of Hearts of Iron, going to start farming mats to try and reroll one into Ancient, and the same with my LoN set.

In regards to my attempt for an LoN build, I'm going to have an attempt at levelling some gems a bit more. I've cleared GR50 (although died like 4 times, not to mention numerous 'saves' thanks to Indestructible passive and Akarat's Champion Prophet.).

I've picked up a Bovine Bardiche (ironically, ancient), and apparently, that is something I can use to get Avarice with by cubing a portal. I do now have a Swiftmount, however, now, which might make going for a T9 Corvus Ruins a viable option. (although I've got maybe 2500% gold find, but that's not including my Goldskin, some workgoing into gold find on my Follower (I have an immune to death Legendary now)). Swap Bane of the Stricken for Trapped (Thunderfury and Wyrdward on Templar), and Mutilation Guard for Boon of the Hoarder (L35).

Still not yet able to make a 5 minute T9 Grift, let alone 4 minute TX, even with Swiftmount. Considering swapping Rubies for Diamonds, but I lack killing speed to make the time.

Can you append more than one type of Caldesanns recipe to an Item? Ie increase Str AND Vit?

[Istarial]

So, I settled on a Wizard. Already kind of regretting it, the VA is quite annoying, so might just finish levelling my Gem of Ease and rustle myself up a Barbarian and go farming that way, because after checking, the Lidless Wonder is a normal shield, which might make bit easier to gamble on with a Barbarian. Also have a pair of Hearts of Iron, going to start farming mats to try and reroll one into Ancient, and the same with my LoN set.

In regards to my attempt for an LoN build, I'm going to have an attempt at levelling some gems a bit more. I've cleared GR50 (although died like 4 times, not to mention numerous 'saves' thanks to Indestructible passive and Akarat's Champion Prophet.).

I've picked up a Bovine Bardiche (ironically, ancient), and apparently, that is something I can use to get Avarice with by cubing a portal. I do now have a Swiftmount, however, now, which might make going for a T9 Corvus Ruins a viable option. (although I've got maybe 2500% gold find, but that's not including my Goldskin, some workgoing into gold find on my Follower (I have an immune to death Legendary now)). Swap Bane of the Stricken for Trapped (Thunderfury and Wyrdward on Templar), and Mutilation Guard for Boon of the Hoarder (L35).

Still not yet able to make a 5 minute T9 Grift, let alone 4 minute TX, even with Swiftmount. Considering swapping Rubies for Diamonds, but I lack killing speed to make the time.

Can you append more than one type of Caldesanns recipe to an Item? Ie increase Str AND Vit?

Bovine bardiche is avarice via boon of the hoarder, which is quite comfortable with a max level boon, not sure about lower level but should be fine. Caldesann's is most recent only- applying a second to an item will overwrite the old one, IIRC.

[Psyren]

Wizard is actually my favorite VA - especially the male one, he's such a smug arse :smallbiggrin:


So, I settled on a Wizard. Already kind of regretting it, the VA is quite annoying, so might just finish levelling my Gem of Ease and rustle myself up a Barbarian and go farming that way, because after checking, the Lidless Wonder is a normal shield, which might make bit easier to gamble on with a Barbarian. Also have a pair of Hearts of Iron, going to start farming mats to try and reroll one into Ancient, and the same with my LoN set.

Given how cheap armor is to get via shards, I'd recommend going that route personally, and save your reroll mats for the more expensive things (weapons, rings and amulets). In the time it takes you to amass the 100 souls and 10 of each bounty mat for just two rerolls, you should be able to get thousands of shards from rifts or grifts. Then just gamble chests like crazy, preferably on a crusader. You can even upgrade the yellow chests you'll be getting using the regular mats you'll be getting as byproducts from said shard farming.



I've picked up a Bovine Bardiche (ironically, ancient), and apparently, that is something I can use to get Avarice with by cubing a portal.

Does this really work? My understanding was that Avarice cannot be obtained within the Cow Level or Vault. It'd be a lot easier if one of those was wrong.



Still not yet able to make a 5 minute T9 Grift, let alone 4 minute TX, even with Swiftmount. Considering swapping Rubies for Diamonds, but I lack killing speed to make the time.

Are you talking about the season journey? The time limit objectives are for regular rifts, not GRfits, which means your best bet is joining public games until you land one with uber-elite players farming extra mats or land one with bots in it (same thing.) You'll get TX under 3 minutes while barely lifting a finger.



Can you append more than one type of Caldesanns recipe to an Item? Ie increase Str AND Vit?

No, it's one per item.

[Erloas]

My wife hated the stuff they say so we've had the voice volume turned down for a while now, I thought they were fairly annoying much of the time but didn't care that much.

Kids have a puzzle ring and bovine bardiche, so when they level out of those we can steal them for the cube.

My power jumped crazily over the weekend. My sheet numbers actually went down but my effective power is outstanding. Got RoRG in the cube, got Natalya's crossbow and another piece, though I've not actually finding much of a chance to use rain of vengeance before everything is dead. The main thing though is that I got the 6th piece bonus for Marauders and the bombardiers rucksack and everything is just being mowed down. Nothing like a cursed chest surrounded by 5 sentries with multi-shot going out. Also found the chest piece that gives 2 extra wolves, cubed that so now I have 3 wolves, boar, 2 ferrets, spider, bat, and raven; and with Zoey's Secret I've got some amazing survivability, which was the primary reason I took the extra wolves. But I'm finding my pack of animals will kill elites almost as fast as they can get to them, we've had times were they take out the key wardens and some other purple elites before I even get to take a shot. That is all at T5, I know we can do more but not everyone is ready to move up in difficulty.

My thought just this morning, so haven't had a chance to try it, is that I got a calamity drop and cubed it, if I put the Marked for Death skill up with Mortal Enemy rune I should be able to easily drop my builder, maybe even the passive regen on items, and still always be full. Only question there is if my pets or sentries would also get me hatred, if they don't, I might not actually be hitting my marketed targets enough to stay full.

Since strafe didn't work with my sentries I wanted to use things that they could shoot, I started with Cluster Arrow but the hatred use was just too much, then tried impale and it was ok but still a bit high on the hatred use so I went to elemental arrow (the fact that it has a good fire rune and I have pretty good fire bonus was another reason) and it is doing well right now. I figured more shots at lower damage will probably work out better at this point, but if my Mortal Enemy/calamity thought above works well I can go up to more damage for more hatred.


I think the biggest hurdle right now is finding some more defensive options for the firebird set. Got Aquila Cuirass for the cube and that helped but I figure we have some better options out there too.

So far we've done Greater Rifts up to 31 or 33, and I think that is about t7, and they have been easy so far. I think it will be easier to push the difficulty there than in other places because it is done almost behind the scenes. Although at the start of the last one we did we had a death, just too much right at once, have to avoid those to make the case for moving up.


We've both had trouble finding anything good for bracers, not sure if it is just a weak slot or we're just unlucky. I'm also in need of some better rings and amulets, especially with gem slots.

[Psyren]

I think the biggest hurdle right now is finding some more defensive options for the firebird set. Got Aquila Cuirass for the cube and that helped but I figure we have some better options out there too.

I've found that Galvanic Ward + Magic Weapon(Deflection) + this bracer (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/ashnagarrs-blood-bracer) help your toughness a lot. This combo basically more than doubles your HP, and your other defenses (armor and resists) apply before the bonus HP too to make it effectively even higher.

The forcefield (annoyingly) won't show up on your sheet toughness, but if you hover over your health globe you'll see exactly how much bonus HP this is getting you.


So far we've done Greater Rifts up to 31 or 33, and I think that is about t7, and they have been easy so far. I think it will be easier to push the difficulty there than in other places because it is done almost behind the scenes.

GR 33 is very close to T8.

I'd just be up front about it. If T5 is so easy that you're wiping things out before you can even fire off a RoV, and your whole family is cakewalking GR33, there is no reason to stay on T5 anywhere else. There is a point at which the clear speed from a lower difficulty doesn't make up for the loss in mf/gf for staying down there, and if you're easily clearing 2 torment levels higher, you've definitely hit it. Point that out to them and convince them to step up with you, at least to T6.


We've both had trouble finding anything good for bracers, not sure if it is just a weak slot or we're just unlucky. I'm also in need of some better rings and amulets, especially with gem slots.

See above for a solid bracer to shoot for on any wizard players. It's also guaranteed two good stats (main stat + crit.) Rings are easy to get via gambling/upgrading, 50 shards a pop is reasonably cheap - though to farm the Breaths fast enough, you'll likely need the Sage's set somewhere in your build. Amulets are more expensive, but you have an affordable and powerful option there in the form of the Hellfire Amulet, which is guaranteed a gem socket and main stat. Just make going after the keywardens part of your routine while you run bounties and you'll be all set before you know it.

[Erloas]

Ah, so by shields that bracer means the ability shields rather than the items, I'm not sure if we've seen that one either way though.

And to make sure, Magic Weapon increases the base damage of the weapon by 10%, so that every single attack you make, which are all based on weapon damage, is going to see that 10% increase? So it will be multiplied out by everything else. And with Deflection, or any of the other ruins, it counts for every type of attack you do? From magic missile to disintegrate and black hole? If that is the case then I didn't know that was how it worked, not that I have specifically looked over the wizard skills that closely.


I had a hellfire amulet but it didn't roll that great, right now I have Countess Julia's Cameo, which is pretty good, though I think of those types The Star of Azkaranth would be better, seem to see a lot more fire than arcane being thrown about. I think the Traveler's Pledge is probably my best choice, especially if I get away from any regen skills, as the focus/restraint isn't as good then. She is running those rings (pulled both pretty close to each other) but I don't know if she watches her stacks close enough to get the most use out of them.
I didn't realize Natalya's had a ring, I need to find that, that and the Pledge/Rose would be close to ideal.

Reaper's Wraps really has 8 magic properties? I didn't notice that before when I made them, probably the best option for a DH then.

Along the same lines, are sockets really rare on rings and amulets? I've tried to reroll a socket on one, the list has it shown as an option, but I used all my souls and never had one roll.

Also for DH specifically, I thought all chest pieces could get hatred regen? I tried to reroll one and none of the slots showed that as an option. I don't remember if it was Natalya's or marauder's, I know one had hatred regen and I switched to the other and it won't show it as an option.


Kids aren't running with anything hard yet, they haven't unlocked Torment yet as they don't stick around that long and we started them new characters with the PS4. I wasn't sure if they could enter GRifts with us or not, and since they are timed and it can be hard to keep the kids moving (like herding cats) we haven't tried yet. I'm sure we could get them to 70 in no time if we could run some harder stuff with them.

I would have upped the difficulty several times already if it was up to me, I'm working on convincing them but it is slow. I think if I can say "even though the difficulty was set at Torment 5, that GRift we just ran was the same as Torment 8" I might be able to, but I'm not totally sure that is the case yet (though it seems to be).

[Derjuin]

Also for DH specifically, I thought all chest pieces could get hatred regen? I tried to reroll one and none of the slots showed that as an option. I don't remember if it was Natalya's or marauder's, I know one had hatred regen and I switched to the other and it won't show it as an option.


It's just capes that can roll Hatred regen, iirc; note that Natalya's is a Cape, whereas Marauder's is Chest Armor.

[Psyren]

Ah, so by shields that bracer means the ability shields rather than the items, I'm not sure if we've seen that one either way though.

And to make sure, Magic Weapon increases the base damage of the weapon by 10%, so that every single attack you make, which are all based on weapon damage, is going to see that 10% increase? So it will be multiplied out by everything else. And with Deflection, or any of the other ruins, it counts for every type of attack you do? From magic missile to disintegrate and black hole? If that is the case then I didn't know that was how it worked, not that I have specifically looked over the wizard skills that closely.

It's additive actually, but otherwise correct. What's more important though is the barrier component - every attack will give you more barriers, which stack higher based on how fast you attack (works especially well with channeled skills like disintegrate), which effectively works out to a buttload of life on hit that can exceed your maximum HP - great for a ranged class capable of engaging enemies before they get close enough to return fire. The Deflection shields stack with Galvanic Ward too, and the entire thing gets doubled by blood bracer. End result, you'll be surviving on TX fairly easily, especially if you're good at kiting elites around for 5 seconds so they recharge to maximum strength mid-fight.



I had a hellfire amulet but it didn't roll that great, right now I have Countess Julia's Cameo, which is pretty good, though I think of those types The Star of Azkaranth would be better, seem to see a lot more fire than arcane being thrown about.

It's all about what kills you most. Fire is very common (traps, molten, mortar, fire chains, those demons that run up and breathe on you) but it's also pretty easy to avoid. Cold is also easy to avoid, but failing to do so can get you stuck and killed just as easily. Lightning is easy to avoid for ranged classes and harder for melee classes (Thunderstorm, Orbiter, Lightning Enchanted.) Poison and Arcane are very hard to avoid. Note that arcane enchanted enemies deal arcane instead of physical also, so the Cameo will cause you to heal from their normal attacks too.



Along the same lines, are sockets really rare on rings and amulets? I've tried to reroll a socket on one, the list has it shown as an option, but I used all my souls and never had one roll.

Nah, it's just bad luck. Socket is the same probability as anything else afaik. I've gotten sockets on the first reroll plenty of times.



Also for DH specifically, I thought all chest pieces could get hatred regen? I tried to reroll one and none of the slots showed that as an option. I don't remember if it was Natalya's or marauder's, I know one had hatred regen and I switched to the other and it won't show it as an option.

What Derjuin said - but you shouldn't really be aiming for hatred regen from gear imo, it's a wasted stat. Hatred issues are solved at a more fundamental level, like Preparation/Bat/Vengeance + OROTZ, or by using a generator.


Kids aren't running with anything hard yet, they haven't unlocked Torment yet as they don't stick around that long and we started them new characters with the PS4. I wasn't sure if they could enter GRifts with us or not, and since they are timed and it can be hard to keep the kids moving (like herding cats) we haven't tried yet. I'm sure we could get them to 70 in no time if we could run some harder stuff with them.

I would have upped the difficulty several times already if it was up to me, I'm working on convincing them but it is slow. I think if I can say "even though the difficulty was set at Torment 5, that GRift we just ran was the same as Torment 8" I might be able to, but I'm not totally sure that is the case yet (though it seems to be).

35 is T8, so run one of those successfully and then try making your case. Good luck!

[Istarial]

Does this really work? My understanding was that Avarice cannot be obtained within the Cow Level or Vault. It'd be a lot easier if one of those was wrong.



Definitely, it's how I got mine when it refused to give me any gilded barons. Doesn't work in the vault, but not the cow level is fair game.

[Icewraith]

Is that just "get a certain amount of gold in a certain period of time", or what?

[Legoshrimp]

Is that just "get a certain amount of gold in a certain period of time", or what?

You can keep it going for a while. It is the gold picked up streak thing. So if you don't pick up any gold in like 2-5? seconds it resets the gold streak.

[Psyren]

Definitely, it's how I got mine when it refused to give me any gilded barons. Doesn't work in the vault, but not the cow level is fair game.

That's great to know because the Conquest itself says you can't get it this way. So either it's a bug or Blizzard is just sadistically warning people off the easy way of getting it. (Probably both!) :smalltongue:

I found a rather hilariously easy way (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WV259qrDg) of getting it too. Of course, if I had the stash space to use this method, I wouldn't need the damn stash tab to begin with, but at least on season my stash is emptier.

[Dada]

It actually only says "Outside of The Vault and the Inner Sanctum". Nothing mentioned about the cow level.

[Legoshrimp]

It actually only says "Outside of The Vault and the Inner Sanctum". Nothing mentioned about the cow level.

Yeah the Vault is the area before the inner sanctum. So both areas are part of the goblin area.

[Psyren]

My bad then, looks like I misread. That would've made my conquest a lot simpler :smallbiggrin:

I think I'll go with the bounty bags approach anyway though, just so I have a ton of reroll mats waiting when the season ends.

[Erloas]

So what source do you use to know how each skill/passive/items damage is calculated in? As in how do you know when it is added, and when it is multiplied and at what stage in the calculations?


Marked for Death is 20% increased damage, I assume since this is done on the enemy side rather than the weapon calculation side it would have to be multiplicative, and it would be really hard to beat a straight up 20% damage increase. I also assume this applies to everyone's attacks and not just my own?

And are pets considered "you" in terms of skill/rune/passive activation? Will you get life on hit or kill if the pet does the killing? Will I get hatred regen from Mortal Enemy rune on Marked for Death? I know there are many other legendary affixes and skills where the question will also come up.

Also I see there are indications of when pets die, or that they can't die, and they get healed from globes, is their damage reduction unique to them or mirrored off your own? I don't think I've ever seen one die, is there any obvious indication when they do? (a group fighting molten elites I'm sure would end up getting some of them blasted but I've never actually noticed one dying. )

[Arcane_Snowman]

So what source do you use to know how each skill/passive/items damage is calculated in? As in how do you know when it is added, and when it is multiplied and at what stage in the calculations?


Marked for Death is 20% increased damage, I assume since this is done on the enemy side rather than the weapon calculation side it would have to be multiplicative, and it would be really hard to beat a straight up 20% damage increase. I also assume this applies to everyone's attacks and not just my own?

And are pets considered "you" in terms of skill/rune/passive activation? Will you get life on hit or kill if the pet does the killing? Will I get hatred regen from Mortal Enemy rune on Marked for Death? I know there are many other legendary affixes and skills where the question will also come up.

Also I see there are indications of when pets die, or that they can't die, and they get healed from globes, is their damage reduction unique to them or mirrored off your own? I don't think I've ever seen one die, is there any obvious indication when they do? (a group fighting molten elites I'm sure would end up getting some of them blasted but I've never actually noticed one dying. )
I believe that http://www.d3planner.com/ is one of the better places to work out that sort of thing.

[Psyren]

As Snowman mentioned we use d3planner to estimate the effects of such things; it's even more accurate than the Battle.Net sheet damage and sheet dps estimates, though still not perfect. As we mentioned upthread though, on console you will have to reconstruct your gear by hand if you want the best read. (Honestly, it sucks - but it shouldn't take you too much time and could provide a lot of helpful info. You can then save that once you're done and just update it for minor changes.)



And are pets considered "you" in terms of skill/rune/passive activation? Will you get life on hit or kill if the pet does the killing? Will I get hatred regen from Mortal Enemy rune on Marked for Death? I know there are many other legendary affixes and skills where the question will also come up.

Generally yes - pets are one of your skills just like any other skill you'd kill things with, so they count as "you" for on-hit and on-kill effects.



Also I see there are indications of when pets die, or that they can't die, and they get healed from globes, is their damage reduction unique to them or mirrored off your own? I don't think I've ever seen one die, is there any obvious indication when they do? (a group fighting molten elites I'm sure would end up getting some of them blasted but I've never actually noticed one dying. )

Pet toughness is based on yours (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12041874574#1), so if you're at a higher difficulty where a single hit will drop you then the monsters will chew through your pets quickly too. (That's Blizzard's goal anyway - I haven't tried a pet build above TX yet, so I haven't put that into practice.) There are also ways to make pets tougher than they otherwise would be, notably the Enforcer legendary gem.

[Icewraith]

As Snowman mentioned we use d3planner to estimate the effects of such things; it's even more accurate than the Battle.Net sheet damage and sheet dps estimates, though still not perfect. As we mentioned upthread though, on console you will have to reconstruct your gear by hand if you want the best read. (Honestly, it sucks - but it shouldn't take you too much time and could provide a lot of helpful info. You can then save that once you're done and just update it for minor changes.)



Generally yes - pets are one of your skills just like any other skill you'd kill things with, so they count as "you" for on-hit and on-kill effects.



Pet toughness is based on yours (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/12041874574#1), so if you're at a higher difficulty where a single hit will drop you then the monsters will chew through your pets quickly too. (That's Blizzard's goal anyway - I haven't tried a pet build above TX yet, so I haven't put that into practice.) There are also ways to make pets tougher than they otherwise would be, notably the Enforcer legendary gem.

At least with Zuni's, my pets are so freakin' beefy it's ridiculous. And my WD... is not. I've seen the fetishes shrug off a molten pack exploding mostly simultaneously on TX and that would absolutely fry the WD. I don't think you benefit from life on hit from pet attacks.

[Derjuin]

Pets only take about 1% of the damage dealt by attacks that are intended to be dodged, like molten explosions, arcane sentries, frozen icesplosions, etc. Basically things that require precise movement and are supposed to force players to move a specific way, deal much less damage to pets because pets dgaf. :smalltongue:

[Erloas]

I wasn't sure how life on hit would work, it just seems like it would be a bit off if I was getting it for 9 pets, and if they counted as well, 5 sentries. Especially if those sentries were shooting multi-shot and hitting dozens of monsters each.

Although I wasn't so much worried about life per hit as I was hatred regen from mortal enemy on Marked for Death. It is hard to test right now since most things don't even get the mark before they die but maybe I'll get some stronger stuff soon. Of course I also don't think the pets/sentries will put the mark out even though it (calamity) is in the cube, so I assume in that specific case it is only attacks from my weapon (though I guess things like grenades and throwing knifes aren't technically coming from my bow anyway).


As for d3planner, I'm hoping to get some pics of the characters to save but the wife rolls her eyes whenever I talk about anything like that so I don't get much of a chance of actually getting the data. Although for what I'm wanting right now I could probably find any random firebird set build and play around with the skills and see what it does, not specifically looking for how much changing one specific thing will do for her, just how things interact, so I can get a better idea on the fly about what to recommend.

[turbo164]

There is (was?) a rune for Zombie Dogs that caused them to trigger your Life On Hit, while none of the other runes/pets do(did?) [though in Vanilla, the Big Stinker and Burning Dog auras did...]

Also for a few patches, pets could apply Pain Enhancer and Effecacious Toxin, but not the holy or lightning gems.

#consistency

[mangosta71]

When I was running my WD, my zombie dogs died all the time. And then one day I found a Tall Man's Finger. I've never seen the Superdog go down.

[Psyren]

As for d3planner, I'm hoping to get some pics of the characters to save but the wife rolls her eyes whenever I talk about anything like that so I don't get much of a chance of actually getting the data. Although for what I'm wanting right now I could probably find any random firebird set build and play around with the skills and see what it does, not specifically looking for how much changing one specific thing will do for her, just how things interact, so I can get a better idea on the fly about what to recommend.

Since we can't see what your wife is wearing (heh heh heh), here's some general rerolling advice - main stats to shoot for by slot. If your item has an off-stat or stats, prioritize rerolling those to one of the ones below.

General Advice 1: Get main stat on all items, it boosts both damage and toughness so it's good to have all around. It also gets a big boost for the item being ancient.

General Advice 2: You want offensive stats (% damage, crit %, crit damage, attack speed, % area damage, and possibly cooldown) on as many slots as possible. This is because there are several slots that can only have defensive stats, and you require insanely lucky rolls to maximize offense everywhere, so keeping that balance means going offensive wherever you can. Offense is good for defense too - the faster things die, the less damage you'll take. Typically, you want just enough toughness that you occasionally need to use a potion to save yourself, but aren't dying, and everything else into offense so you can clear as quickly as possible.

General Advice 3: I've ordered the stats per item from most to least desirable but take this with a grain of salt. The best stats for each slot vary a lot based on your build, what the other stats on that piece rolled, what the other stats on all your other pieces rolled etc.

*All slots:* Main Stat (see above)
Head: Socket, Crit %, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Life %3
Shoulders: Area Damage1, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Life %3, Skill Damage1, Cooldown Reduction1
Gloves: Crit Damage, Crit %, Attack Speed %, Area Damage1, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Cooldown Reduction1
Bracers: Crit %, Elemental %1, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3
Torso: 3x Sockets, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Life %3, Skill Damage1
Belt: Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Life %3, Primary Skill Damage1
Pants: 3x Sockets, Armor2, All Resists2 Vitality3, Life %3, Primary Skill Damage1
Feet: Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Skill Damage1
Rings: Socket, Crit Damage, Crit %, Attack Speed %, Average Damage, Area Damage, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Life %3, Cooldown Reduction1
Amulet: Socket, Crit Damage, Crit %, Elemental %1, Attack Speed %, Average Damage, Area Damage, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Life %3, Cooldown Reduction1
Weapon: Socket, Damage %, Attack Speed %, Area Damage, Elite Damage %, Vitality
Offhand: Average Damage, Crit %, Area Damage, Cooldown Reduction1, Armor2, All Resists2, Vitality3, Life %3
Shield: As Offhand, but also Block %1

1Some stats are build-dependent. For builds whose damage comes almost all from a single skill (e.g. Blessed Hammer on a Hammersader), you want +skill damage for that skill on as many pieces as possible, and its priority goes up. For builds whose skills don't all share the same element, that stat ceases to matter as much and the priority goes down. For builds with heavy reliance on cooldowns, you want that on enough pieces to maintain 100% or nearly 100% uptime on those things, and CDR's priority goes up. For builds that focus on dealing a large amount of damage to a smaller number of targets (e.g. Demon Hunter Shadow set), area damage increases in value and that stat goes up. (Area Damage is solid in general, minus a few builds.) Conversely, if a build doesn't use any of something, that should be your first stat to throw out - builds with no primary skills should not have that on their belt and pants, builds with no cooldowns need that stat off their shoulders and gloves etc.

2Whether Armor or All Resist is more valuable depends on how much you're natively getting from your main stat. Wizards and Witch Doctors get all resists from Intelligence as that is their main stat, so for them, Armor is slightly more valuable. The other 4 classes get Armor from their main stat (and even more from a shield, in the case of the Crusader) - so for those classes, all resist is more valuable. This is a general rule though - as one gets much higher than the other its benefit decreases, so be sure to keep them as close together as you can manage. All Resist also has a disadvantage - if a piece rolls with it, it cannot also roll a secondary resist stat, so armor gains a slight edge for that reason.

3While vit/life is never a bad stat (i.e. it always helps unless your difficulty is too low), in most cases other forms of mitigation are better. This is because all life does is let you take more hits before dying - armor and resists do the same thing, but they do it by reducing the damage you take, which means that they boost the impact of your recovery too. As a basic example - if one guy has 1,000,000 life and 1,000 life per second but 0% DR from armor and resists, while the other guy has 500,000 life but 50% DR from armor and resists and the exact same life per second, then in game terms they have the same toughness, but the second guy will effectively have twice as much healing.

[NineThePuma]

This is a general rule though - as one gets much higher than the other its benefit decreases, so be sure to keep them as close together as you can manage.

As a follow up: Armor and Resistances work on a similar formula; for "optimal" mitigation levels, you want a 10:1 ratio on armor to resistance. The balance being out of whack is fine, but be aware that after a certain point you want more armor than resists or vice versa.

[Vaz]

Season 6 now available on the PTR; Source (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/20742945307#1)

[Psyren]

Season 6 now available on the PTR; Source (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/20742945307#1)

Wow, that was quick. Glad I got my stash tab...

I'm looking forward to getting the next one now! My new one is already half-full and that's not including all the clutter in my seasonal stash :smallfrown:

[Erloas]

Well so far the Marked for Death - Mortal Enemy experiment has not worked that well. I did get to move up to T6, and we ran a 31GR (it turns out we had beat 29 and unlocked 31 but didn't actually do it), so I had a bit of a chance to hit things but still stuff died a bit too fast to really tell if it was working or not, and at least in that case it didn't do enough to make it worth using.

I don't think the pets would trigger the hatred, but the sentries might, I did notice the sentries would apply MFD when they shot (from calamity) but it was really hard to get the sentries to attack and not the pets to see much more than that.


Since I didn't hit the snooze too many times this morning I logged into the game and quickly took pics of the TV with our characters up so I could enter them. I think I got them all right but some of the pics were pretty blurry and so I might have a gem at the wrong level or a few numbers off but I think they are at least very close.
I don't remember my wife's skills specifically, so they are blank at the moment. I know she uses teleport, familiar, energy twister, archon and disintegrate, but I don't know the last or the specific ruins, though I know most are fire. Also not sure on passives.
I do know the D3 planner and our sheet numbers aren't exactly the same.

http://www.d3planner.com/293793719
http://www.d3planner.com/869004749

I'm thinking if the MFD thing doesn't work out maybe I should go back to Vengeance, I hadn't been using it before because everything dies so quickly right now, but if we keep moving up that shouldn't be the case and I guess I can use it just for the hatred regen. If not I'm not really using anything with a cooldown and can change my helm gem.
Her sword I don't know if she'll stay with, it just dropped and she was messing around with it. She had the firebird off-hand and Chantodo's Will before.


We both died in the GR31 run, she dies early on from ground effects, just happened really quickly. I got blasted by a molten, just didn't get out of the way fast enough. The rift guardian also killed her again with some blast attack. I think those were all just simple sloppy play sort of deaths rather than not enough toughness. Everything died pretty quickly.

I just got the Traveler's Pledge/Compass Rose so I don't know how much of a difference that will make. Got the Compass from Kadala, and she had the Traveler's Pledge in her stash and didn't want it so I reforged it for my own stats.

[Psyren]

I changed up my Vyrzard build to be cold-based and he is kicking ass. Ray of Frost is a delightfully cheap spender to get Archon back off cooldown (and builds Chantodo stacks blazingly fast), and now I can use that cold passive for even more damage. I also have a thematic reason to bust out my Halo of Arlyse, which in turn triggers the Rimeheart I have in the cube.


I know she uses teleport, familiar, energy twister, archon and disintegrate, but I don't know the last or the specific ruins, though I know most are fire. Also not sure on passives.

Skills, passives and runes make a big difference; when you find those out, update hers and we can take a look; that would be more productive than trying to guess.



I do know the D3 planner and our sheet numbers aren't exactly the same.

The planner is generally more accurate. There are some small things to watch out for like short-duration buffs not being up all the time if your cooldowns are low (e.g. Vengeance) but you can toggle those off to get the full comparison.

I'll take a look at your affixes later and see if I can provide any recommendations.

http://www.d3planner.com/293793719
http://www.d3planner.com/869004749



I'm thinking if the MFD thing doesn't work out maybe I should go back to Vengeance, I hadn't been using it before because everything dies so quickly right now, but if we keep moving up that shouldn't be the case and I guess I can use it just for the hatred regen. If not I'm not really using anything with a cooldown and can change my helm gem.


Keep in mind that sentries benefit from cooldown reduction too, if you find yourself repositioning them a lot. But if you feel like it's not making much difference (i.e. there isn't a time where you're waiting to put more sentries down), by all means drop the diamond and go with an amethyst to be tougher instead.



We both died in the GR31 run, she dies early on from ground effects, just happened really quickly. I got blasted by a molten, just didn't get out of the way fast enough. The rift guardian also killed her again with some blast attack. I think those were all just simple sloppy play sort of deaths rather than not enough toughness. Everything died pretty quickly.

I just got the Traveler's Pledge/Compass Rose so I don't know how much of a difference that will make. Got the Compass from Kadala, and she had the Traveler's Pledge in her stash and didn't want it so I reforged it for my own stats.

Do you mean you rerolled the main stat at Myriam, or did you reroll it completely in the cube? I'd suggest the latter, because the amulet is guaranteed main stat so rerolling it completely you'll get that back along with the chance to roll something else.

[Erloas]

Keep in mind that sentries benefit from cooldown reduction too, if you find yourself repositioning them a lot. But if you feel like it's not making much difference (i.e. there isn't a time where you're waiting to put more sentries down), by all means drop the diamond and go with an amethyst to be tougher instead.

Do you mean you rerolled the main stat at Myriam, or did you reroll it completely in the cube? I'd suggest the latter, because the amulet is guaranteed main stat so rerolling it completely you'll get that back along with the chance to roll something else.

Right now with the sentries I'm mostly just tossing some up as we go to make sure none disappear, so I stay at max damage. I will toss some at cursed chests, bosses, and such, but right now I'm not needing the DPS from 5 to make sure they are all in one spot at one time.

I rerolled it completely in the cube, I used reforged to try to make that clear (as that is the term the cube uses) but I guess it wasn't. Entering the numbers I could see quite a few pieces that had rolled pretty low on quite a few stats. Not sure how quickly I can get those done though, still perpetually out of forgotten souls.

Will reforging keep ancient status or if I reroll an ancient will it, most likely, come out as a normal?

edit: so looking over D3Planner some more, I want to make sure I have this right... Holding down shift shows how your roll compares to the min-max of that affix for that weapon slot. And the perfection is how close to perfect the item is and attack/defense breaks it down for each of those, so it is a quick and easy way to see what needs reforged the most and which ones you might just reroll one specific stat.

Also see a few that had an option for "Caldesann's Despair" bonus dex or vit, what is that?

And to go back quite a bit, I remember something about an item that gives you a free socket (only on weapons I think)? That is just a normal random drop, no specific farming to get it? So when I do find one of those I should reroll my socket or reforge the weapon (as mine rolled low all over the place) first, then give it the free socket, correct?

[mangosta71]

It's called Ramaldani's Gift (or something like that). It will appear as a legendary consumable when it drops. But yeah, no specific place to get it; just keep mowing stuff down until you get lucky. And yes, it can only be applied to a weapon that doesn't already have a socket. They're rare, so it's generally best to hold onto them until you find an ancient of the weapon you want that rolled well before using them.

[Psyren]

Also see a few that had an option for "Caldesann's Despair" bonus dex or vit, what is that?

It's a new cube recipe that lets you add more of your main stat to an ancient item by sacrificing a sufficiently high-level legendary gem. Basically it's a way to encourage you to get ancient items in every slot and then upgrade them further, allowing those items to have a dramatic impact on your overall performance, but the need to sacrifice leveled legendary gems means it takes a huge time investment to use.



And to go back quite a bit, I remember something about an item that gives you a free socket (only on weapons I think)? That is just a normal random drop, no specific farming to get it? So when I do find one of those I should reroll my socket or reforge the weapon (as mine rolled low all over the place) first, then give it the free socket, correct?

mangosta covered this one, but just to reiterate - your best bet is to save these until you have an ancient weapon to use them on.



Will reforging keep ancient status or if I reroll an ancient will it, most likely, come out as a normal?

Enchanting one affix to another via Myriam will keep ancient status. Rerolling via the cube has only a 10% chance of doing so (i.e. a 90% chance of losing it), so generally you don't want to do that. It's a better idea to get a non-ancient version and reroll that until it's ancient then see if it's better (or can be enchanted to be better) than the ancient you're using.

[Vaz]

Urgh, just did a quick theory that it would take around 1400 Marquis Gems, 700M Gold, 200 Death's Breaths, and around 35 Hours (or 25 Hours and I-don't-want-to-do-the-maths-on-thatM Gold to get a full set of Ancient Gear to all be Augmented to minimum levels to do the 2000 (or 1500) Greater Rifts, not to mention the farming runs in that time.

That said, it does get me a bonus of 3000 Strength, and all the Paragon Levels, to get to that stage, which would allow me to push to higher tiers. So, +150 Strength for Weapon, +600 from the Jewellery, and 2250 from the rest of my gear.

A good long weekend would be enough, only issue is I wouldn't want to put time into buffing that gear if it's not the best in slot.

Throw on a full equip of Ancient Legendary Gear and not only would I be rocking the +3000 which should help with the The Thrill, but I'd also be able to run a my LoN set (just an Ancient Wailing Host now, I've had 3 Ancient Litany of the Undaunted, but no Wailing Hosts ffs) for pushing higher GR's with +1300% Damage Bonus on top of that. This numbers game gets ridiculous quickly XD.

[Pendulous]

It's a new cube recipe that lets you add more of your main stat to an ancient item by sacrificing a sufficiently high-level legendary gem. Basically it's a way to encourage you to get ancient items in every slot and then upgrade them further, allowing those items to have a dramatic impact on your overall performance, but the need to sacrifice leveled legendary gems means it takes a huge time investment to use.



I'd argue that getting the regular gems takes longer than leveling the legendary gem for the recipe.

[mangosta71]

Is Boon of Bul-Kathos broken? Because it's not reducing my Earthquake CD, which is making the Earthen Might set dungeon impossible.

[Psyren]

I'd argue that getting the regular gems takes longer than leveling the legendary gem for the recipe.

You might be right as I've never bothered with it myself - but if I were to do so, I'd stockpile gems by chain-running rifts, then use the shards I gain thereby to gamble rings (along with upgrading rings via the cube with the crafting mats and breaths from same) and use the puzzle rings I gain from doing all that to spam Vault runs. Whenever I'm bored with all that, I'll just do bounty runs, and click yes on every boss fight so I get the gems from the Diabolic Cache. If I can squeeze Broken Crown into my build for any/all of that to double my gem drops, so much the better.

[Psyren]

Is Boon of Bul-Kathos broken? Because it's not reducing my Earthquake CD, which is making the Earthen Might set dungeon impossible.

Every build I've seen uses that, along with either In-Geom, OROTZ or both. Are you using one or both items? If only one, have you tried both? If BoBK isn't working then I'm not aware of it, though Barbarian is probably the class I play the least these days.

[mangosta71]

Well, I did some testing, and it looks like it's taking the 15 seconds off the CD; I was expecting the tooltip to reflect the reduction, but apparently D3 doesn't do that. I need to play more so that I can acquire an OROTZ and In-Geom, as I don't have either of those yet. I think for farming I'm going to switch back to LoN/ancients/fire, as I seem a lot more fragile in my Earthen Might/frost build; I think my Aquila is the biggest contributor there.

I did finally manage to complete the set dungeon, but I don't have enough CDR for mastery yet. And there's basically no chance of finishing all the bull**** necessary to unlock the stash tab at this point because I just don't play enough.

[Psyren]

Well, I did some testing, and it looks like it's taking the 15 seconds off the CD; I was expecting the tooltip to reflect the reduction, but apparently D3 doesn't do that.

If by "the tooltip" you mean the CDR stat in your character sheet, it can't affect that - the BoBK passive only affects the cooldown of specific abilities, and the CDR stat reflects your overall/general CDR. If however you mean the Earthquake on your action bar, the CDR actually is reflected there, by changing the starting position and speed of the "cooldown wipe" over the icon depending on how much CDR you have for that specific skill taking everything into account.


I need to play more so that I can acquire an OROTZ and In-Geom, as I don't have either of those yet.

I can't speak for every single set dungeon, but from personal experience mastery without at least one of these is extremely hard, because most of the high-speed abilities classes have rely on cooldowns (even indirectly.) Either the speed ability itself has a cooldown, or there's a rune/item that makes it spend resource instead, and you have another cooldown ability that refills your resource when it runs dry.

[mangosta71]

Yes, but I mean the tooltip still says the CD is 60 seconds. I timed it with the swipe thing and it's being applied.

Earthen Might mastery would be doable without either if the requirement wasn't specifically that you have to use the skill; I have the mighty 2-hander (Warblade of the Tribes or something) that triggers free Earthquakes when I use Threatening Shout, but that doesn't count for the challenge.

[Psyren]

Yes, but I mean the tooltip still says the CD is 60 seconds. I timed it with the swipe thing and it's being applied.

Gotcha - yeah, that won't change, you do have to watch the swipe (or just mentally track the time it takes you to use it again.)

[Erloas]

So I guess Caldesann's Despair is only worth it when you have an ancient item and know you're going to keep it. I assume if you reforge the item (for low general stats, cube) the bonus would be lost, not transferred over?

Got Natalya's ring, which gives me the set 4 bonus. We moved up to T7, and we've been running GR36ish several times, haven't tried moving up yet.

Not sure if the Compass Rose/Traveler's Pledge are actually doing much for me, it takes a bit to switch between offense and defense and I'm not actually sure I need the defense bonus, as I don't stop that much. Not really sure there is much for better choices though.

Had an ancient helltrapper and manticor drop, the manticor might be worth it in the cube instead of Marked for Death (calamity), but still not sure on that. I didn't want to cube an ancient though so I didn't. Main thing I would gain is being able to switch out elemental arrow for cluster arrow, which would be more damage for not a lot more hatred, but I don't know if it would *actually* be much more with the loss of MfD. Helltrapper would only be worth it if it could drop a sentry and not count towards my 5 limit but still give me bonus damage.

Other than rerolling items and finding ancient versions, I'm not sure if there is too much more I can do. Don't think breaking the sets would be worth a legendary affix in most cases, maybe Natalya's, but not marauders.

I do need to roll a socket on the compass rose, but I'm not sure which gem to stick in there yet. Esoteric Alteration would seem to be the best choice for defense, and Gem of Efficacious Toxin or Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver both seem like solid offensive choices but I could be missing something.

[Psyren]

So I guess Caldesann's Despair is only worth it when you have an ancient item and know you're going to keep it. I assume if you reforge the item (for low general stats, cube) the bonus would be lost, not transferred over?

Rerolling in the cube treats the item like it was freshly dropped. Not only do you lose Caldesann's, you have a 90% chance of the item not being Ancient anymore at all. (Generally, if you have a mediocre ancient, your best bet is to use it anyway and try to find another ancient entirely.)



Got Natalya's ring, which gives me the set 4 bonus. We moved up to T7, and we've been running GR36ish several times, haven't tried moving up yet.

Grats on T7!



Not sure if the Compass Rose/Traveler's Pledge are actually doing much for me, it takes a bit to switch between offense and defense and I'm not actually sure I need the defense bonus, as I don't stop that much. Not really sure there is much for better choices though.

Hellfire Ammy + Nat's Ring + this (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/elusive-ring) would be my goal. Endless Walk (i.e. Compass + Pledge) works best for builds that stand still a lot, that are tough enough to survive while they do so, and that have a really good ring (Nat's... isn't, aside from the bonus if you're RoV-ing a lot.) They also work better on classes with weak passives, like Wizard. DH passives are much stronger. so getting a 5th one is good.



Had an ancient helltrapper and manticor drop, the manticor might be worth it in the cube instead of Marked for Death (calamity), but still not sure on that. I didn't want to cube an ancient though so I didn't. Main thing I would gain is being able to switch out elemental arrow for cluster arrow, which would be more damage for not a lot more hatred, but I don't know if it would *actually* be much more with the loss of MfD. Helltrapper would only be worth it if it could drop a sentry and not count towards my 5 limit but still give me bonus damage.

Never cube ancient weapons, they're too hard to find. Ancient anything really, but especially not weapons.



Other than rerolling items and finding ancient versions, I'm not sure if there is too much more I can do. Don't think breaking the sets would be worth a legendary affix in most cases, maybe Natalya's, but not marauders.

I honestly would drop Natalyas from the build and use that ancient Manticore along with your Rucksack. This would free up your cube's ring slot (currently using RRoG right?) for CoE or the ring I linked above, along with Focus + Restraint for 225% damage, and free up your amulet slot for Hellfire. Your Hatred problems would also be over with F+R since you can just spam your primary to refill anytime you want. (Not that you should be having much Hatred issues with a Manticore.)



I do need to roll a socket on the compass rose, but I'm not sure which gem to stick in there yet. Esoteric Alteration would seem to be the best choice for defense, and Gem of Efficacious Toxin or Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver both seem like solid offensive choices but I could be missing something.

You're forgetting Bane of the Trapped (use cold damage, will also combo with Cull the Weak) and Bane of the Stricken. Both will achieve much higher damage output overall than Mirinae and Toxin.

[Vaz]

Well done on the T7 Erloas! Hopefully you'll be able to get some materials a lot more. You'll notice that you don't so much level/difficulty up in a linear pattern, as go through hops and skips.

I know the missus scoffs at "nerding" up on the build advise, but that shouldn't prevent you from learning how to do her stuff. If she's running a Monk with an Explosive Palm (apologies, forgotten the actual build) and is using a piece of gear that's not upping Explosive Palm damage in favour of another, it might be worth taking it to Mystic Meg, and seeing if she can enchant it with a preferential roll, such as Dexterity, possibly Life of Hit, or obviously +Explosive Palm, Cooldown Reduction, etc (don't run a Monk, sorry! Hopefully indicative though). When I rolled up my gear, and went from various +15% affixes and running numerous damage skills to get the benefit of that +X% damage, and transferred it to say Bombardment, or Blessed Hammer depending on what build I used, to have that now +90% damage was brilliant.

If the wife enjoys a particular build, rather than encouraging her to farm for a particular style, just pick up the gear that you like the best to support that build. From my point of view, I've learned to not trust the +Damage/Toughness/Recovery as much as learning some of the mechanics behind it. For example, I use a Pig Sticker on occasion (a super fast Dagger), although its stats really otherwise suck, that it attacks so quick, and my normal damage is poor, that I add my Thorns stat to the damage "off sheet" means that the more individual attacks I make, the more damage I do, rather than hitting harder but slower.

I wish you look to push higher!

[Erloas]

Other than that Hellfire is always going to have a socket and is going to be fairly easy to reroll for good stats, is there anything else really going for it? I know there is a legendary affix for it but the sites don't have it listed so I don't remember.

The elusive ring, I'm not sure when/how I would fit any of those skills into my build. At least right now none of them seem all that useful.

I could see focus/restraint being a good choice, though I still haven't got both of them yet.

I see the advantage of taking out Natalya's because the marauder boost doesn't help RoV, but it is nice that I can cast it a lot of the time and it doesn't take any resources to do it, especially nice when I get stuck in a group (have the knockback rune) or when my sentries have fallen and I haven't got the hatred to get them back up.

The manticore, even with a really good bonus, is still going to make cluster arrow twice as much as elemental arrow. Although I could see dropping a damage skill to get another regen, seems hard to find a great time to use RoV, elemental arrow, and multi-shot at the same time. And switching evasive fire in there as well... I'm just not sure. I could see maybe multi-shot for groups and cluster arrow for more formidable foes, both being alternated with evasive fire for F/R. That would give me a free skill slot for either vengeance-seethe or preparation-punishment.


As for gems, seemed like Bane of the Stricken would only be good against the biggest monsters, given those are the ones you have to work the most for. Trapped I could see being good with some builds, though all of my skills are set to fire right now (seemed like the best choice for many, happened to get quite a few +% fire damage so moved the others) so I'm not sure how practical or good it would be to switch to cold.
How hard is it to keep Taeguk up? Seems like it could stack to a lot of extra damage and defense, but it seems like it would be really easy to loose the stack.

For the CoE ring, is that for elements you have available to your currently equipped skills/ruins or just available to your class at all? I know I can do fire, cold, physical, and lightning. But I think all of my skills are fire, my pets are physical, and I have one cold skill (evasive fire). I'm just wondering how effective it would actually be if I've only got 5 of any 20 seconds applying to most of my damage.

[mangosta71]

Hellfire Amulet's really special thing is that it gives you a free passive skill. Keep making new ones until you score one that grants one of the passive skills you're using, or a passive skill that you would like but had to cut because you only have room for 4 and the others were slightly more important.

Bane of the Trapped, once you get it to level 25, will apply its bonus damage to everything within 15 yards whether you have any form of CC in your build or not.

Convocation of Elements cycles through every damage type that your class can dish out, so, yes, if all of your damage is fire it will only apply 25% of the time. However, if you time your CDs to coincide with the big buff to your damage type, everything around you will die almost instantly. And still, even only getting the bonus 25% of the time averages out to a 50% damage buff overall.

[turbo164]

You're forgetting Bane of the Trapped (use cold damage, will also combo with Cull the Weak) and Bane of the Stricken. Both will achieve much higher damage output overall than Mirinae and Toxin.

Yeah sadly, there are a lot of gems not worth using this patch...but happily a LOT of them are getting buffed next patch. Can't check at work, but off the top of my head, Toxin reduces enemy damage by 10% (in addition to increasing the damage they take like it currently does) and Mirinae procs more often and restores a % of your health when it does!

[Icewraith]

Season 6 now available on the PTR; Source (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/20742945307#1)

Shooot. Anyone have a good idea of how much time we probably have? I need to get moving on d3 if I'm going to get the stash tab.

[Psyren]

Yeah sadly, there are a lot of gems not worth using this patch...but happily a LOT of them are getting buffed next patch. Can't check at work, but off the top of my head, Toxin reduces enemy damage by 10% (in addition to increasing the damage they take like it currently does) and Mirinae procs more often and restores a % of your health when it does!

To be clear, even after the ones you mentioned get buffed, BotT and BotS will still have higher raw damage output because theirs is both multiplicative and uncapped. The other two gems will get defense added, which can help glass cannon builds push higher - but for builds that are already good at avoiding or mitigating damage natively, BotT/BotS will retain their superiority.


Other than that Hellfire is always going to have a socket and is going to be fairly easy to reroll for good stats, is there anything else really going for it? I know there is a legendary affix for it but the sites don't have it listed so I don't remember.

It gives you a bonus (5th) passive skill (as I mentioned previously.) As I also mentioned previously, Demon Hunter passives are quite good, so having a 5th there is particularly handy.



The elusive ring, I'm not sure when/how I would fit any of those skills into my build. At least right now none of them seem all that useful.

Oh right, doesn't console get a dodge natively? And you're sharing a screen so you can't exactly go running off on your own (I think?) Yeah, those skills are less useful in that case - though I'll point out that Shadow Power doesn't require dodging or anything, it just pumps your Life on Hit through the roof. There's also a rune for it that slows down everything in a wide radius around you, perfect for triggering Bane of the Trapped.


The manticore, even with a really good bonus, is still going to make cluster arrow twice as much as elemental arrow. Although I could see dropping a damage skill to get another regen, seems hard to find a great time to use RoV, elemental arrow, and multi-shot at the same time. And switching evasive fire in there as well... I'm just not sure. I could see maybe multi-shot for groups and cluster arrow for more formidable foes, both being alternated with evasive fire for F/R. That would give me a free skill slot for either vengeance-seethe or preparation-punishment.

You should never really be using two spenders, it's a waste of damage. The only time I'd combine Elemental Arrow with something else is if I was running a Kridershot, which I don't think you are.



As for gems, seemed like Bane of the Stricken would only be good against the biggest monsters, given those are the ones you have to work the most for. Trapped I could see being good with some builds, though all of my skills are set to fire right now (seemed like the best choice for many, happened to get quite a few +% fire damage so moved the others) so I'm not sure how practical or good it would be to switch to cold.

Cold was just the easiest way; there is actually a passive that makes all your shots snare regardless of element. (Yet another good reason to get a Hellfire.) Or the Shadow Power rune mentioned above, or caltrops etc.



How hard is it to keep Taeguk up? Seems like it could stack to a lot of extra damage and defense, but it seems like it would be really easy to loose the stack.

Without a channeled skill like Rapid Fire or Strafe it's a pain in the ass (and after the patch it will only work with channeled skills anyway, so leveling it is a waste of time if you're not using one of those.) Do not recommend.



For the CoE ring, is that for elements you have available to your currently equipped skills/ruins or just available to your class at all? I know I can do fire, cold, physical, and lightning. But I think all of my skills are fire, my pets are physical, and I have one cold skill (evasive fire). I'm just wondering how effective it would actually be if I've only got 5 of any 20 seconds applying to most of my damage.

It cycles through all elements available to your class, whether you have them equipped or not. Say you get a perfect one at 200% and all your skills are all one element - it means that during that few seconds you will be doing +200% additional damage, then the rest of the time you'll be doing normal damage. If your class has 4 elements, then on average this works out to a 50% damage increase from a single ring - a very hard bonus to equal elsewhere. (Imagine for instance you found a ring that had +50.0% damage in the comparison window - that would be pretty hard to beat, right? It's kinda like that.) There's also strategy to it - if you time your cooldowns to coincide with it, you'll actually be getting even more than that, since most of your damage comes from those short bursts anyway.

It's generally only effective if you are mono-element, because you want all guns blazing during that buff window.

[Erloas]

Sorry, I had thought you meant something more like "it gives you a bonus that is as good as another passive skill" rather than it was a passive skill itself.

I had a Ramaldani's Gift drop last night, but we didn't have time for me to mess with my build. If the Manticore looks like a good roll (mostly just tossed it into my chest, didn't look at it too closely) I'll use the gift there, otherwise I'll hold onto it.

I still haven't seen the Focus/restraint set myself, but I can probably get them from my wife and reforge them for my own stats.
Although I guess I'll have to figure out if that is worth it or the RoE and something else.

I used shadow power before, but at least right now my life-per-hit is good enough that I'm almost never at full health. It seems that the only time I die is when I miss a ground attack and I go from perfectly fine to dead before I can react (if I see it and move no damage, if I miss it and stay there I'm just dead, can't heal through it- I guess those are a case for the staggered damage gem...). Defense is in the 25-28M range.
I'm trying to decide if the Cloak of the Garwulf is worth it in the cube, the two additional wolves are a modest 100% damage each (base) which isn't that much, but I have a lot of other pet boosting things, and everything the pets get in the way of is something that can't really hurt me. It isn't that uncommon for my pack of animals to take down purple elites before I really get to shoot at them (at least in T5-7 that we've been playing at the most). But the other good part is the Zoey's Secret, and the extra 16.8% damage reduction. I'm thinking with the Enforcer gem, the bonus damage from marauders, and other companion boosts, as well as the extra defense that it is probably worth keeping. But it is very possible there are some great legendary affixes that I have overlooked or simply not seen yet.


I'm thinking with the right spender it will probably be a lot easier to not have two of them to use. I've found Cluster Arrow to, in general, be kind of annoying to use. I haven't tried all of the runes yet, but the ones I did it seemed like they were... I don't know, kind of slow and not that great of range. At least the times I used them they didn't seem to be great at taking out groups, but that was before a lot of my current power increases.

[mangosta71]

The Bastions of Will (Focus and Restraint) are fantastic for builds that don't use channeled skills. As long as you regularly use different abilities it's really easy to keep both buffs up full time. However, even if you just spam one skill constantly, you'll still get one of the buffs (so 50% bonus damage, which averages out the same as CoE except you don't have the massive buff if you time your CDs).

Honestly, I prefer BoW to CoE because there are usually enough things going on on my screen that I don't want to be watching a little ticker on my buff bar, too; just give me those consistent buffs that turn me into a nonstop nuclear tornado.

[Psyren]

I had a Ramaldani's Gift drop last night, but we didn't have time for me to mess with my build. If the Manticore looks like a good roll (mostly just tossed it into my chest, didn't look at it too closely) I'll use the gift there, otherwise I'll hold onto it.

I honestly would, unless you don't like Cluster Arrow at all. Socketing an ancient weapon is a huge damage boost, which means you'll kill faster and get a better chance of that second ancient and Gift later.



I used shadow power before, but at least right now my life-per-hit is good enough that I'm almost never at full health. It seems that the only time I die is when I miss a ground attack and I go from perfectly fine to dead before I can react (if I see it and move no damage, if I miss it and stay there I'm just dead, can't heal through it- I guess those are a case for the staggered damage gem...). Defense is in the 25-28M range.

Sure you don't need defensive skills now - but remember also that you're only at T7, so it's something to keep in mind if you decide to push.

Concerning the Cloak... I think the multiple wolves multiply the damage buff too (including what allies get) so overall you'd get a bigger damage increase than it seems, in addition to the extra DR. I could be wrong, but I think it's worth looking into at least.

A good way to check, which I can't do as I'm missing a Garwulf myself, would be to equip Companion and put Garwulf in the cube, then swap between that and some unrelated armor piece (e.g. Illusory Boots) to see if your sheet dps changes. Then have your wolves howl and check both values again.



I'm thinking with the right spender it will probably be a lot easier to not have two of them to use. I've found Cluster Arrow to, in general, be kind of annoying to use. I haven't tried all of the runes yet, but the ones I did it seemed like they were... I don't know, kind of slow and not that great of range. At least the times I used them they didn't seem to be great at taking out groups, but that was before a lot of my current power increases.

Cluster is great at shredding tightly packed groups, for example if your wife hits them with a Black Hole, especially if you and all your sentries are focusing on the same cluster. It's also by far your highest damage spender barring legendary or set bonuses (e.g. Multishot can surpass it with UE and Yang's Recurve, and Impale with Shadow + Greenstone, but CA is natively stronger than both.)

Also, most Cluster Arrow runes use Grenades, meaning your Grenadier passive boosts its damage (and radius) further.

[Vaz]

Shooot. Anyone have a good idea of how much time we probably have? I need to get moving on d3 if I'm going to get the stash tab.

Probably about 2 weeks or so? Apparently started Jan 16th, so Apr 16th if 3 months is to go by, followed by a further 2 weeks downtime maybe (to sort space out and play with new toys and practise with builds) before Season 6 at the start of April. So Reddit thinks anyway.

[Traab]

I had a semi related question I wanted to ask. Something very strange is going on for me. When I load up battle.net, I can play diablo 3, but starcraft 2 has the play button greyed out. There is no indication of a patch that needs to be downloaded, and I was able to play it a couple of times before this. Does anyone have any idea why its doing this? I would really rather not have to uninstall and reinstall the game, despite having a much better download rate to work with if I can avoid it.

[Psyren]

I'd wager they'll have more seasons than stash tabs anyway, so the folks who missed out will have chances to catch up with the rest.

[Icewraith]

Probably about 2 weeks or so? Apparently started Jan 16th, so Apr 16th if 3 months is to go by, followed by a further 2 weeks downtime maybe (to sort space out and play with new toys and practise with builds) before Season 6 at the start of April. So Reddit thinks anyway.

Well I got the gold conquest down at least. That was surprisingly easy once I leveled up Boon of the Hoarder.

[Erloas]

So to make sure, the loaded for bear ruin increases the damage at impact, it also keeps the grenades that spread out? Some it isn't clear if the ruin completely overwrites the entire base ability or just parts of it.

Being that I have a lot of rockets in my normal build and the rocket passive, the maelstrom cluster arrow should be good.

I don't really have the opportunity to test numbers or play around with builds too much. I do know that when I use the pet active the wolves howl, I get the hatred, and the spider does the slow, I never thought to see if I got 3 stacks of the wolf active though... I'll have to watch for that.

I have a bit of a question about cold, does it only have an effect on the enemy if you have something that upgrades it to a chill effect? I know cold can chill and fire can burn but I'm not sure if it is normally a random chance or if only based on skills. Just trying to make sure I know what will and won't trigger bane of the trapped/cull the weak, etc.

I should also look at picking up at least some skill that uses discipline, it just seems like I'm skipping out on part of the class if I never even use that bubble.

[Psyren]

So to make sure, the loaded for bear ruin increases the damage at impact, it also keeps the grenades that spread out? Some it isn't clear if the ruin completely overwrites the entire base ability or just parts of it.

Unless a rune says something is replaced ("instead..."), everything from the base ability is kept. So yes, Loaded for Bear still drops grenades, and they deal the listed damage from the base skill. (You can test this yourself by equipping it and firing also.)

For Maelstrom, it does say "instead" - so there are no grenades in that one, only rockets.



I have a bit of a question about cold, does it only have an effect on the enemy if you have something that upgrades it to a chill effect? I know cold can chill and fire can burn but I'm not sure if it is normally a random chance or if only based on skills. Just trying to make sure I know what will and won't trigger bane of the trapped/cull the weak, etc.

I recall reading somewhere that not every class' cold skills trigger a chill effect, but the DH's certainly do - it's part of the basis for their Cull the Weak passive. Wizard triggers chill too.



I should also look at picking up at least some skill that uses discipline, it just seems like I'm skipping out on part of the class if I never even use that bubble.

If you don't need defensive abilities, then your best bet is likely to be Marked For Death. But I would instead say - get a defensive ability like Smoke Screen, socket your Manticore, and go stomp T8.

[Vaz]

After 20 Minutes of trying to complete the The Thrill with a Cubed RoRG and Aquila Cuirass (while wearing an Aquila Cuirass and no set items) and wondering wear I was going wrong, I managed to complete it with completely unoptimized gear; I didn't even have access to enough Diamonds to make a full set of Flawless Royals. I could have made it easier on myself by crafting my gear, but I got lazy, and thought "Sod it" and went in anyway, gaining practise at T7/8/9 equivalents. I've still yet to find Unity, that would have been a help to have a further 50% DR.

As I'll be changing gear to go back to my Invokers to level my Gems for the rest of the Challenges (literally only one remaining is to level to 45 three gems (I can manage 55 solo) before here is what I ran.

Leorics Crown (Flawless Royal Diamond)
Deathwatch Mantle
Ess of Johan (Bane of the Stricken 35)
Ancient Gloves of Worship (don't know where my Ancient St Archews are, lost them)
Ancient Aquila Cuirass (3x Flawless Royal Diamond)
Ancient Sanguinary Bracers
Justice Lantern (Bane of the Trapped 31)
Ancient Belt of the Trove
Ancient Nagelring (Boyarsky's Chip 41)
Ancient Pox Faulds (Royal Diamond + Flawless Imperial Diamond)
Swiftmount (Flawless Royal Topaz)
Ancient Illusory Boots
Ivory Tower (Flawless Royal Diamond)

Cubed Mortal Drama, Heart of Iron, Convention of Elements

Immortal Follower; Thunderfury, Wyrdward, Haunt of Vaxo (got an ancient, and wanted to try out his Stuns, doesn't trigger Clones *sadface* Back to Ess for him), Bul Kathos Wedding Band, Denial (yeah, don't ask).

Punish (Celerity), Consecration (Bed of Nails), Iron Skin (Reflective Skin), Steed Charge (Spiked Barding), Bombardment (Barrel of Spikes), Akarat's Champion (Prophet), Fervour, Indestructible, Finery, Lord Commander

Statwise, no bonuses to Bombardment, (I had 45% scattered among three other skills), 24.7K Armour, +50% Area Damage, 50% CDR, 24% Block, 104K Thorns, 635K Life, 52M Toughness, 360K Damage, 8.6M Recovery Sheet.

As you can see, really all over the place. The gear wasn't as optimized or streamlined as it should be, but I still managed it. Just another 64 or so Bounties to run (so 7 Split Bounty Games), and I'll have Avarice, and then it's just piggybacking high Grifts for Gems =) I think I'll have my Stash tab to fill with more useless junk. Wish me luck!

[Psyren]

Haunt of Vaxo (got an ancient, and wanted to try out his Stuns, doesn't trigger Clones *sadface* Back to Ess for him),

Thanks for confirming this, I've always wondered.


Wish me luck!

You can do eeeeeeet!!

[Erloas]

Still haven't had a chance to play with my build, but we did run a 40 GRift. I died once I think to some explosion but the wife died quite a few times.
The fat guys that explode into little snakes, that explosion is damage too right? We're thinking that is what killed her quite a few times. Anyone know what kind of damage that is? I'm thinking it is physical, the color isn't too clear, but nothing else really makes sense (it clearly isn't green or red, but blue, purple, and grey are all possible).


Is there a general guideline you guys use for reforging an item compared to just rerolling a single skill?

I was running really late today so I didn't get to take pics of my items to bring to work to enter into d3planner, but I know the DPS on the manticore is only about 2600, which isn't much more than the normal Natalya at around 2450. But I've got several ancients that have dropped much closer to 3000. I'm thinking it is going to be hard to make up for the loss of 20% dps from the loss of MFD if I put something else in the weapon slot over the Calamity, but I could use MFD as the skill but it is hard to get that out as consistently and quickly as Calamity. But maybe some other combination would be better and worth using the manticore in the cube instead. I just know I can't give enough specifics to figure that out without the actual stats of the items.

I did get another Ramaldani's Gift drop last night, it happened at the same time my wife got a very nicely rolled ancient Chantodo's Will so I gave that to her.


If a pet dies is there an easy way to get it back? Just using the active? I have so many running around that it is hard to keep track of them, but I think I had some die before, if getting them back is as simply as using the active then I never really have to worry about it but if it takes more I'll have to pay more attention.
As for the wolf howl skill, I couldn't see an icon for it, I think it uses the quick-bar buff indication (instead of a dedicated icon) so I couldn't tell if I got one or three and didn't get the chance to check the character sheet.

[Psyren]

Still haven't had a chance to play with my build, but we did run a 40 GRift. I died once I think to some explosion but the wife died quite a few times.
The fat guys that explode into little snakes, that explosion is damage too right? We're thinking that is what killed her quite a few times. Anyone know what kind of damage that is? I'm thinking it is physical, the color isn't too clear, but nothing else really makes sense (it clearly isn't green or red, but blue, purple, and grey are all possible).

Yes, it's physical, and it's pretty substantial at higher difficulties. Treat it almost like a Molten explosion (i.e. gtfo quickly.) It also damages surrounding monsters, so if you damage a group of them and pop one, you can get hit with chain explosions that will wreck your HP.

It sounds like your wife needs some more toughness. Try using my enchanting guidelines I posted previously on her stuff, if she'll let you, and give her passives a second look. Does she have Ice Armor/Energy Armor?



Is there a general guideline you guys use for reforging an item compared to just rerolling a single skill?

"Don't reforge ancients" is pretty much it.

Well, that and "save reforging for weapons and amulets" since they're the most expensive to farm from Kadala. Definitely don't waste it on armor, shields or offhands, you can just spam Kadala for ancients on those.



If a pet dies is there an easy way to get it back? Just using the active? I have so many running around that it is hard to keep track of them, but I think I had some die before, if getting them back is as simply as using the active then I never really have to worry about it but if it takes more I'll have to pay more attention.
As for the wolf howl skill, I couldn't see an icon for it, I think it uses the quick-bar buff indication (instead of a dedicated icon) so I couldn't tell if I got one or three and didn't get the chance to check the character sheet.

Your pets shouldn't be dying at all - as a general rule, they're even tougher than you are, and it sounds like you're not really dying much either. If they do though, yes, using the active skill should bring any dead ones back.

You won't be able to tell if the extra wolves are helping by looking at the icon. You'll have to check your sheet damage by swapping Garwulf in the cube for something else and then comparing the two values as I said previously.

[Erloas]

I do think she needs more toughness and I did suggest some of what you said above. It is her character though and she will run it the way she wants so at most I can just make a few suggestions. I think she equipped one of the armor skills but not sure which one now.

I'm not sure if the pets died, just once or twice I'm not sure if I missed a wolf or if it had died, and the bats and ferrets are just too easy to miss. But if using the active brings them back, I use that quite regularly so I'm not going to worry about it at all.


I guess if "farm" for the item using blood shards is the fix rather than reforging, I guess the question is at what point do you call the item "good enough?" If the primary resource and legendary affix are low should that be redone even if the other skills are good? I don't think you can reroll a legendary affix, correct?

[Psyren]

I do think she needs more toughness and I did suggest some of what you said above. It is her character though and she will run it the way she wants so at most I can just make a few suggestions. I think she equipped one of the armor skills but not sure which one now.

She's holding you back! I recommend immediate divorce proceedings :smallbiggrin:
(Less facetiously, see below.)



I guess if "farm" for the item using blood shards is the fix rather than reforging, I guess the question is at what point do you call the item "good enough?" If the primary resource and legendary affix are low should that be redone even if the other skills are good? I don't think you can reroll a legendary affix, correct?

Before you start chasing the margins and blowing tons of mats to squeeze an additional 1% out of your gear, keep this in mind - when you play multiplayer, the monsters are scaled up to present more of a challenge to the group. This is done at a flat rate, regardless of how strong your team is. In other words, the monster scaling assumes that more people in the group means you can handle a higher difficulty than you otherwise could solo. If those other people you're playing with have low damage output or spend a lot of time dead on the ground instead of dpsing, its going to make the game harder for you too. In other words, you might actually get more of a boost out of improving your wife's gear/build than you would your own, especially since you can trade mats to each other on console.

To really test the effectiveness of your gear, try playing a session or two alone and see how you do. If you're curbstomping T9 alone but doing worse when playing with her (or others), then you'll know where your focus should be as far as upgrades and rerolls go.

Also - no, you cannot enchant legendary affixes without rerolling the entire item from scratch, which again you shouldn't really do for ancients.



I'm not sure if the pets died, just once or twice I'm not sure if I missed a wolf or if it had died, and the bats and ferrets are just too easy to miss. But if using the active brings them back, I use that quite regularly so I'm not going to worry about it at all.

I don't think the flying pets or ferrets can even be hit, so that's definitely odd. Only the wolf and boar should be dying, and not even then if you're not.

[thethird]

As for the wolf howl skill, I couldn't see an icon for it, I think it uses the quick-bar buff indication (instead of a dedicated icon) so I couldn't tell if I got one or three and didn't get the chance to check the character sheet.

I don't think having three wolves makes the howl more potent. At least it doesn't on my olde xbox, perhaps it has been addressed in a patch that I haven't been able to get.

[turbo164]

Immortal Follower; Thunderfury, Wyrdward, Haunt of Vaxo (got an ancient, and wanted to try out his Stuns, doesn't trigger Clones *sadface* Back to Ess for him), Bul Kathos Wedding Band, Denial (yeah, don't ask).

Yeah last I checked (season...3 maybe?), most stuns cast by players worked...as well as the Gargantuan stun rune, and the Furious Charge freeze rune...but not the Rain of Vengeance freeze rune, or followers. :smallconfused:

[Erloas]

I know the monsters scale based on the number of players, and I know we can pull two empty characters through at least T6 (we haven't taken them into GRifts, they are too easily lost and spend time running into walls or just the opposite direction of everyone else).

And yeah, I know having both characters well rounded will get us the farthest, but I can only control my own character so I'm seeing what I can do there. Also if I have a better idea how to optimize myself I can more easily give general information when she asks for it.


Having just played around a bit with defensive affixes on D3Planner, it seems with both of our characters we gain the most from Vitality, Resist All and %Life are both very close, and armor does the least.
For paragon points it seems to be %Life, armor/Reists all, and Vitality by far the least.
Does that seem right overall?
If so it might be worth changing paragon points and rerolling some affixes if that is the case, it seems like a few changes there could make some decent improvements very quickly. A few rerolls are also very cheap in terms of time and resources.

[Psyren]

Yeah last I checked (season...3 maybe?), most stuns cast by players worked...as well as the Gargantuan stun rune, and the Furious Charge freeze rune...but not the Rain of Vengeance freeze rune, or followers. :smallconfused:

I used it on my DMO build along with Crown of the Primus, which gives my slow time bubble every rune, including the stun rune. So I'd slap it down and out would pop two clones, spamming Arcane Orbs at everything. It was pretty cool, especially since DMO and Primus have a time manipulation theme, so I refluffed the clones as being out-of-phase time ghosts of myself :smallbiggrin:

If only Hellfire wasn't so much more dang effective!


I know the monsters scale based on the number of players, and I know we can pull two empty characters through at least T6 (we haven't taken them into GRifts, they are too easily lost and spend time running into walls or just the opposite direction of everyone else).

And yeah, I know having both characters well rounded will get us the farthest, but I can only control my own character so I'm seeing what I can do there. Also if I have a better idea how to optimize myself I can more easily give general information when she asks for it.

I know you know - the issue is that what you were proposing (reforging ancients completely) was going to get pretty expensive mats-wise, so I didn't want you burning through a lot of souls/breaths/bounty mats trying to chase the unicorn of 100% perfection when there's a much easier way to boost your mutual progression.



Having just played around a bit with defensive affixes on D3Planner, it seems with both of our characters we gain the most from Vitality, Resist All and %Life are both very close, and armor does the least.
For paragon points it seems to be %Life, armor/Reists all, and Vitality by far the least.
Does that seem right overall?
If so it might be worth changing paragon points and rerolling some affixes if that is the case, it seems like a few changes there could make some decent improvements very quickly. A few rerolls are also very cheap in terms of time and resources.

It's whatever the numbers say, so sure. Yes, affix rerolling is always the easiest lift.

[Vaz]

We have an end day. For UKers, 5pm Fri 15 Apr, and restarts 5pm 29th Apr. Gogogo.

I think it helps if we have some friendlier faces or some slightly known faces, perhaps a list of battle tags and servers, along with Grifting ability (safe level for farming, and perhaps a max level?)as well as platform.

To start it off, I'm UK based, usually playing sometime after 10pm on weekdays, variable others, although may be free to arrange.

EU; Vaz#2543; Crusader (Paragon 486), Grift Farm 45-50, Max 55ish (PC)

If anyone feels I can be of a help in some grfits shoot me a message in game or on here to arrange sometime to get together in game.

[Arcane_Snowman]

Sounds fun. My battle tag is Snowman#1764, Paragon 613, and I've got a bunch of 70s that can go as high as GRift 60ish.

[Neftren]

Polytonic#1953 (http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/polytonic-1953/Polytonic/35238390) - Paragon 712, can carry full party through GR65+, or possibly 2-man GR70.

I've also fully completed the Season Journey (Guardian - Conquests: Avarice, Sprinter, The Thrill) so I can help with any of those as well, for instance, if you need the three minute TX Rift speed clear, I can power you through it with good mob density.

[Erloas]

I've added the gamertags to the first post.


I've updated my d3Planner (http://www.d3planner.com/293793719) with the Manticore and many of the spare items I have in my chest. (not counting set armor I don't plan on switching to)
So far I've been happy with the change to the Manticore and cluster arrow build. In fact when we entered the first area my wife thought I changed the difficulty down because of how quickly everything was dying.

We did run a GR42, and she died once and I didn't die at all, so a bit of toughness is all I think we need to move up.

Now that most things are entered I guess I can play around with various combinations of weapons and rings and cube powers and see what I can get the most out of. I did get Focus but I'm still waiting on Restraint. And also see what things look like between Bane of the Powerful, trapped, and iceblink (I think those are my most likely to be useful gems, with enforcer practically a given)

[Psyren]

I'm still pretty sure DH cold skills snare without Iceblink. The 10% crit chance is nice, but I'd recommend dropping IB in favor of a gem that scales better - a great choice here is Zei's Stone of Vengeance (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/zeis-stone-of-vengeance). It works especially well in a Marauder build:

- you have a menagerie to tank things for you, keeping them at a distance
- your snares make them take longer to reach you, increasing the number of hits you can land with the damage boost
- Zei's calculates damage using distance between the source and the target, meaning your sentries firing from two screens away will get the maximum boost every time.
- The stun effect on the unlocked Zei's will give you just as much defensive punch as the slightly slower chill on IB. On elites, you won't even notice the slowdown, but you will notice them getting stunlocked - and by the time they hit immunity, they're dead.

[Erloas]

That is why I'm checking here. It is hard to get a good idea of distances, at least I haven't really figured it out yet. I guess the only question with Zei's Stone, it will help the sentries, but since all the pets are melee it isn't going to help any of them. They are a pretty substantial amount of damage, it might be worth finding something that helps them too, or at least try to figure out how it compares.

What 3rd one would you take then, enforcer, Zei, and trapped? And I guess, given what I just said above, is the enforcer worth it? It is a pretty big bonus to the damage of the pets, but they are only one part of my damage.

I've also noticed a few bugs in the D3planner, I had at least 2 items today that it wouldn't let me enter everything because it said there was a conflict. Windforce, the built in chance to knockback wouldn't let me add the chance to blind, which is what the item actually has. And I can't remember the other. I also just tried changing the Cube of the cloak of the garwulf, the defense changes and the pet damage on the skills sheet changes but it doesn't change the effective DPS.


edit:
Looking at wizard defense options and legendary items... I see Ancient Parthan Defenders (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/ancient-parthan-defenders) could be good if you could get a lot of stuns out. Is there any reasonable way for a disintegrate wizard to do that? (I do know there are a couple ways for my DH to do that, and lightning wizards). I also see a few other options, but I don't think most are worth the cube slot since it wouldn't be a big difference.
I know wirt, or squirt? has a legendary necklace, is that good for anything else? I know the puzzle ring and bovine bardiche both open zones, any others that I have missed?

[Quayleman]

Looking at wizard defense options and legendary items... I see Ancient Parthan Defenders (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/ancient-parthan-defenders) could be good if you could get a lot of stuns out. Is there any reasonable way for a disintegrate wizard to do that?

halo of arlyse ring procs a frost nova every time you get hit. The freeze from the frost nova counts as a stun for ancient parthan defenders. This combination has been used by every top solo wizard build since the introduction of halo of arlyse, so it is an incredibly strong defensive combination as long as you can stand near enough enemies. Requires one ring slot or cube jewelry slot and one active skill for ice armor (usually the crystalize rune).

[Psyren]

That is why I'm checking here. It is hard to get a good idea of distances, at least I haven't really figured it out yet. I guess the only question with Zei's Stone, it will help the sentries, but since all the pets are melee it isn't going to help any of them. They are a pretty substantial amount of damage, it might be worth finding something that helps them too, or at least try to figure out how it compares.

I'd say your sentries and spender form the bulk of your damage by far. The pets are primarily for keeping things at bay, and the buffs they give you which apply to your main schtick.



What 3rd one would you take then, enforcer, Zei, and trapped? And I guess, given what I just said above, is the enforcer worth it? It is a pretty big bonus to the damage of the pets, but they are only one part of my damage.

I would personally do Stricken, Trapped and Zei. Enforcer isn't a bad choice though.

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it more I might do Trapped, Zei and Enforcer. I don't think Marauder has much trouble with single targets since the turrets can focus fire, so Stricken will be less necessary. Meanwhile Enforcer IIRC boosts Sentry damage too.



edit:
Looking at wizard defense options and legendary items... I see Ancient Parthan Defenders (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/ancient-parthan-defenders) could be good if you could get a lot of stuns out. Is there any reasonable way for a disintegrate wizard to do that? (I do know there are a couple ways for my DH to do that, and lightning wizards). I also see a few other options, but I don't think most are worth the cube slot since it wouldn't be a big difference.
I know wirt, or squirt? has a legendary necklace, is that good for anything else? I know the puzzle ring and bovine bardiche both open zones, any others that I have missed?

Quayleman covered this one, you need Halo. Note however that for the ring to work you need to be close to enemies, which usually means an Explosive Blast or Arcane Orbit build - Disintegrate prefers to keep its distance.

Another decent choice is Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, combined with the Galvanic Ward passive and the Deflection Rune on your magic weapon for mighty barriers. Ward + ABB alone = +120% life that refreshes every 5 seconds.

[lord_khaine]

So, just got my season defender to 70, and has been a little uncertain what stats to value the most.
Is block worth focusing on? how much and against what does it actually help?

And what are the generally best passive skills to use?

[Vaz]

Season Defender? Crusader?

It depends on where you're going for with it, and what luck you get with Drops. I don't think a session goes by for me to not pick up an Invokers Bracer, which you should be able to reroll for a full set.

Thorns works by getting attacked. Reducing damage is good, but Thorns damage is based on Physical Damage, Strength, Thorns Stat, but it is no good if you get attacked and die straight away, but then again, walling and doing no damage isn't really a thing until you're 4p Group Pushing and you cannot compete with a Top Tier Barb for DPS so you're on ZDPS support duty.

So you need to deal damage but stay alive; kiting isn't so much an option I haven't found until you need to dodge a avoid Molten/Dead Hulksplosions/Poison/Arcane affixes etc. If you struggle for the full set, a 5pc RoRG and Sanguinary Bracers for Damage (deals increased Thorns), Ancient Parthans for Defense (with a Stun build Templar wyrdward/thunderfury/dovu energy trap or a Party member) and Nemesis Bracers for Speed Farming Grifts.

Gems; Boyarsky's and Trapped, and possibly Stricken although I have found that unless pushing higher grifts, stricken is less necessary and more open to other suggestions.

Vit obviously keeps you alive. For Damage, you can either rely on Bombardment/Belt of the Trove, in which case, Mortal Drama, or your Thorns.

Practising timings with a Convention of Elements means that you may be able to stack 20 Bombardment ****s, each one dealing 2x Thorns Damage, and each one boosted by 200% damage from Phys up is rather hilariously face melt melting damage if you can stack on iron skin (reflective) for 300% Thorns. This could be cubed. Other options include a Bloodbrother (works with high block and Akarats Awakening Shield), or Hack (adds Thorns to attack), or a furnace.

For weapons, a Pig Sticker can get 1.61 Attacks base with 7% IAS, which stacks with Attack Speed buffs elsewhere. Each attack applies.

If you check out Icy Veins or Diablofans builds, most recommend Strength, +Phys Damage, +IAS, with Vit, All Resist, fpr defense.

Other shields which work well with a high block chance include the ivory tower, although that favours a Heavens Fury Build, which may spread things a bit thin, if trying to do both Heavens Fury, Thorns, & Bombardment.

I hope that has hped slightly identify where to go somewhat.

[Icewraith]

Icewraith#1444, I still need to finish off a couple things on the journey. I usually run solo or with the wife, so a 4 minute T10 rift hasn't happened yet. My Thorns Crusader can solo up to GR 63.

I discovered a few days ago that Thornsader is actually a pretty good build to hit GR 45 solo with no set items, if you already have the recommended pieces for the full build. Well....

Thorn Bombadier.

I ran with the 100% thorns damage on attacks weapon but it mostly wasn't necessary. What is necessary is having Heart of Iron and Belt of the Trove, and then the double bombardments flail, Aquila Curiass, and CoE in the cube. Having a STR Leoric's Crown lying around also helps. Everything else is just replacing your set slots with anything semi-useful with STR on it that you happen to have lying around that's helpful, especially if you've got a stash of stuff saved up for a LoN build. Even some of the no effect 6 slot crafted legendaries will do (I ended up crafting pants). +Phys amulet and Bracers really helps. The usual really hard to find shield might also be essential to the build. Any relatively high speed weapon with life steal, a good damage range, and a socket wiill do.

You run around and stay alive until your lightning CoE procs, then you stop and attract the biggest crowd of white mobs or dive into an elite pack. Melee things to keep your life steal going. When the Lightning proc is just past halfway through, drop Bombardment. Right before Lightning phase ends, drop Consecrate+Iron Skin as mentioned above. CoE will proc physical, then everything on the screen will die, either from your Bombardment or the one your Belt will drop shortly afterward. Then you Steed Charge off to find either the biggest mob pack you can or the next elite pack, and survive getting hit by things (thus refreshing your CDs if you have the shield) until lightning phase, at which point you get in position to do the combo again. I had a ton of time left when I completed the rift.

[lord_khaine]

Other shields which work well with a high block chance include the ivory tower, although that favours a Heavens Fury Build, which may spread things a bit thin, if trying to do both Heavens Fury, Thorns, & Bombardment.

I hope that has hped slightly identify where to go somewhat.

Thats for the long reply Vaz, even though a lot of it, mainly the different item names, vent over my head. And for that matter seems like something thats out of my control.
What i were mainly confused about where what passive traits were the good ones, besides obvious ones like +50% thorns.

Things have worked out however, i managed to find the Justice Lantern ring, and are now running it along with the thorn seasonal set and that elemental ring.
I have managed to get 3 different elemental nukes, and things are melting nicely as i switch among them.

[Icewraith]

Thats for the long reply Vaz, even though a lot of it, mainly the different item names, vent over my head. And for that matter seems like something thats out of my control.
What i were mainly confused about where what passive traits were the good ones, besides obvious ones like +50% thorns.

Things have worked out however, i managed to find the Justice Lantern ring, and are now running it along with the thorn seasonal set and that elemental ring.
I have managed to get 3 different elemental nukes, and things are melting nicely as i switch among them.

Thorns damage is physical damage, so the more benefit you get from the Invoker's set, the less benefit you'll get from having other element nukes on your bar.

The standard build is punish (extra block rune), steed (endurance or spiked barding in lower torments), either bombardment (barrel of spikes) or a defensive ability I can't remember for high Grifts, consecrate (thorns damage), Iron Skin (triples your thorns damage while active), Akarat's Champion (prophet).

You want +phys damage (when you can get it), Str, Vit, COOLDOWN REDUCTION (when you can get it), Sockets (when you can get them), and All Resist on your gear, Thorns damage in your secondary slots. Ideally you have Life on Hit in your weapon and a Ramaladni's gift to add a socket, but Gifts aren't super common- I usually don't use one unless I have a couple, just in case RNG decides to drop a perfect ancient of the weapon I just gifted. Otherwise you'll usually be rerolling something on your weapon to a socket until you find better or a Gift- Life on Hit is really important on a good weapon but a Socket is VITAL. IAS is nice to have but nowhere near as vital as CDR. Dagger base attack speed is already blindingly fast compared to other weapons, whereas more CDR gives you more and more time spent in Akarat's Champion, which has a free cheat death, huge armor bonus, and damage boost all in one.

Also it's good to keep in mind that most items have four primary stats and two of some combination of secondary stats and unique legendary abilities.

Edit: Passives. The others are usually the one-hander bonus with attack speed and CDR, finery, and the one that changes your dodge into Block. If you don't have a lot of sockets in your gear yet you could take something else instead of finery, but sockets are absolutely essential in five pieces (both rings, amulets, weapon, and helm) and come pre-rolled on invoker pants for a total of seven sockets. Invoker doesn't have a set chest, but set chests usually automatically come with three sockets.

[Erloas]

halo of arlyse ring procs a frost nova every time you get hit. The freeze from the frost nova counts as a stun for ancient parthan defenders. This combination has been used by every top solo wizard build since the introduction of halo of arlyse, so it is an incredibly strong defensive combination as long as you can stand near enough enemies. Requires one ring slot or cube jewelry slot and one active skill for ice armor (usually the crystalize rune).

Quayleman covered this one, you need Halo. Note however that for the ring to work you need to be close to enemies, which usually means an Explosive Blast or Arcane Orbit build - Disintegrate prefers to keep its distance.

Another decent choice is Ashnagarr's Blood Bracer, combined with the Galvanic Ward passive and the Deflection Rune on your magic weapon for mighty barriers. Ward + ABB alone = +120% life that refreshes every 5 seconds.
I don't usually get to check the forums over the weekend, but we just happened to get a Halo of Arlyse drop and tried the ice armor build with it. We didn't have the parthan defenders though. She didn't really like it at all.

I think the shield build is probably the best bet but I think it is harder to demonstrate easily.


I'd say your sentries and spender form the bulk of your damage by far. The pets are primarily for keeping things at bay, and the buffs they give you which apply to your main schtick.
...
I would personally do Stricken, Trapped and Zei. Enforcer isn't a bad choice though.

EDIT: Actually, thinking about it more I might do Trapped, Zei and Enforcer. I don't think Marauder has much trouble with single targets since the turrets can focus fire, so Stricken will be less necessary. Meanwhile Enforcer IIRC boosts Sentry damage too.
D3Planner does give the sentries the Enforcer bonus.
I knew my pets could kill stuff pretty quickly, but without numbers turned on, and in general so many different things happening it was hard to really keep track of what does how much.
Looking at it though, it has my pet DPS as 725M combined DPS. The sentries are listed at 122M DPS each, or 609M if I can get all 5 of them down at one place at one time (usually I have a couple far away, still counting towards the damage boost but not able to actually shoot anything).
Cluster Arrow is listed as 448M base damage and 621M damage from the rockets from me (1069M combined), with each sentry doing 181M base and 251M rocket (432M combined) each cluster arrow. So if I can get all 5 sentries down that is 2160M damage.
Since cluster arrow doesn't really have a DPS directly, a single sentry will do the same DPS as all of my pets as long as I get one cluster shot out per second, my base attack speed is 1.34 attacks per second so that should be reasonable.

So something that boosts both damage wouldn't need to be nearly as strong as something that only boosts the sentry as long as I don't have all of the sentries down.

It looks like I would have to have a *lot* of stacks to make Bane of the Stricken come out ahead. Bane of the Powerful actually doesn't seem to do all that much either. Pain Enhancer seems to be really good, don't need a whole lot of bleed effects for it to be doing a lot either... though I would have to get to higher difficulties before that would pay out much, as right now things staying alive long enough to bleed for the bonus seems unlikely.
So Trapped, Enforcer, and Zei seems like the best choice. With either Trapped or Zei's being switched out when things start living longer. ...although come to think of it, trapped probably mostly falls under the same issue, in that most things are dead so quickly the trapped part doesn't get to come up because they are dead before they are slowed, though figuring in the level 25 aura is a bit trickier.

Also does anyone know what it means by breakpoint on the skills/effects tab of d3planner? I think it has something to do with attacks per second but what it is actually telling me is lost on me right now.

[Vaz]

The Halo won't really work without the Ancient Parthan's; Halo triggers AoE Stuns which then improve your Damage Reduction Stat from other attackers. It still 'works' but in the same manner as the Crusader gets the Belt of the Trove, but it needs a 4pc Invokers to get a constant Damage Reduction, and/or Mortal Drama to deal damage.

Each of those has a particular bonus which is good, but the benefits continually stack.

[Psyren]

Even without Parthan's, Halo is damn good. It's hard for Wizards to get that much survivability from a single item. Hell, I run Blood Bracer and still use the Halo too.



I think the shield build is probably the best bet but I think it is harder to demonstrate easily.

That's very easy to demonstrate - wait till you have a bubble up around your toon, then stand in the lasers/poison/fire and laugh :smallbiggrin:

Your health orb while playing should show any shield values you have - if it does, watch your shield values for when they refresh and you should get an idea of how much effective toughness and healing you're getting out of it.


*stuff about Stricken*

I don't want you to sell Stricken short - the whole point is that you're using it in scenarios where the stacks matter, i.e. where you need to be hitting something (a boss or elite) more than 20+ times before it dies. If things are dying faster than that, then yes, it's going to be weaker. Again though, for your build, your pets and sentries are designed to focus on single targets anyway, so you won't be needing the de facto single-target gem.

[Icewraith]

The Halo won't really work without the Ancient Parthan's; Halo triggers AoE Stuns which then improve your Damage Reduction Stat from other attackers. It still 'works' but in the same manner as the Crusader gets the Belt of the Trove, but it needs a 4pc Invokers to get a constant Damage Reduction, and/or Mortal Drama to deal damage.

Each of those has a particular bonus which is good, but the benefits continually stack.

Mortal drama is nice, but it's more that you still need to have the skill on your bar for it to deal damage. If the skill's not still on your bar, it uses the unruned version of the skill.

[Seerow]

Icewraith: thanks for posting about your experience with the GR45 conquest. I'd been procrastinating on that for literally months (you can go back in the thread to see how far back I was saying I meant to do it). After your post I decided to just go ahead and gun for it, rather than waiting for perfect off pieces to drop, I just grabbed what I had in my bags (wound up having to roll a few pants because I literally did not own a pair of non-set pants), and ran in... and just crushed it. I realized after the fact I had even forgotten to put a gem into my Leoric's Crown, but it just didn't matter, finished with like 8 minutes to spare. So thank you for pointing out how stupidly easy thorns build makes it, so I felt better about going in with what I had rather than waiting until I found better non-set gear.

I now have my stash tab and am happy to wait on the next season.

[mangosta71]

I think you can be wearing one piece of a set; as long as you don't have any of the bonuses, you're not disqualified. I know that I wear a couple of set pieces with my LoN because they have better stats than anything else I've gotten to drop, but since they're different sets I still get the pwnage for having no other bonuses.

[Psyren]

I think you can be wearing one piece of a set; as long as you don't have any of the bonuses, you're not disqualified. I know that I wear a couple of set pieces with my LoN because they have better stats than anything else I've gotten to drop, but since they're different sets I still get the pwnage for having no other bonuses.

LoN = no set bonuses, but The Thrill = no greens at all.

[Icewraith]

Icewraith: thanks for posting about your experience with the GR45 conquest. I'd been procrastinating on that for literally months (you can go back in the thread to see how far back I was saying I meant to do it). After your post I decided to just go ahead and gun for it, rather than waiting for perfect off pieces to drop, I just grabbed what I had in my bags (wound up having to roll a few pants because I literally did not own a pair of non-set pants), and ran in... and just crushed it. I realized after the fact I had even forgotten to put a gem into my Leoric's Crown, but it just didn't matter, finished with like 8 minutes to spare. So thank you for pointing out how stupidly easy thorns build makes it, so I felt better about going in with what I had rather than waiting until I found better non-set gear.

I now have my stash tab and am happy to wait on the next season.

You're welcome! I ended up getting my stash tab last night as well. I don't know how I'm going to fit everything together when the season ends, right now I have six tabs of seasonal stuff and two empty non-seasonal tabs. Granted, a lot of the int gear I acquired for my WD will be redundant with the Wizard gear I already have, and I'm sure I'll end up salvaging a lot of duplicate pieces- but you basically need a stash tab for the set items from each class you've gotten to max level. I seem to do 2 classes per season so far, so this coming season I'll probably do a Barb and a DH and then work on mastering all the set dungeons.

Protip: While you're fiddling around with your stash trying to pare down, dismiss your follower so they stop complaining about how boring you are.

Edit: Once I got the 4 minute TX rift out of the way, it turns out I still hadn't killed Diablo on TX. I thought I beat the fight in plenty of time but didn't get the notification I had done so, and briefly panicked.

[Psyren]

Congrats to our new stash-tab-getters!


I don't know how I'm going to fit everything together when the season ends, right now I have six tabs of seasonal stuff and two empty non-seasonal tabs. Granted, a lot of the int gear I acquired for my WD will be redundant with the Wizard gear I already have, and I'm sure I'll end up salvaging a lot of duplicate pieces- but you basically need a stash tab for the set items from each class you've gotten to max level. I seem to do 2 classes per season so far, so this coming season I'll probably do a Barb and a DH and then work on mastering all the set dungeons.

I have a lot of salvaging to do as well. In general though my seasonal gear has been inferior to what I found off-season, so that at least makes it easier.

What classes I run with next time will depend entirely on Haedrig's Gift. I went with Wizard because Firebirds would be an easy set to farm Tals in, and FireRasha would make spamming TX rifts a breeze. Plus with either of them I could easily squeeze in Sages. If the next Monk set is Innas or the next DH gift is Nats, I'll likely be going for one of those. Pity that the Crusader has no 7-piece sets :smallfrown:



Protip: While you're fiddling around with your stash trying to pare down, dismiss your follower so they stop complaining about how boring you are.

That irritates the hell out of me! And I never remember to do it until they bellyache. :smallfurious:



Edit: Once I got the 4 minute TX rift out of the way, it turns out I still hadn't killed Diablo on TX. I thought I beat the fight in plenty of time but didn't get the notification I had done so, and briefly panicked.

Bounties are great for this. Simply join TX bounty games and check Act 4 until you see that he's one of the targets. If he isn't, leave immediately so someone can take your place (good guy nephalem), and if he is, just run bounties as normal until someone else gets to him - Then hit yes on the notification and join in. Piece of cake!

[Icewraith]

Congrats to our new stash-tab-getters!



I have a lot of salvaging to do as well. In general though my seasonal gear has been inferior to what I found off-season, so that at least makes it easier.

What classes I run with next time will depend entirely on Haedrig's Gift. I went with Wizard because Firebirds would be an easy set to farm Tals in, and FireRasha would make spamming TX rifts a breeze. Plus with either of them I could easily squeeze in Sages. If the next Monk set is Innas or the next DH gift is Nats, I'll likely be going for one of those. Pity that the Crusader has no 7-piece sets :smallfrown:



That irritates the hell out of me! And I never remember to do it until they bellyache. :smallfurious:



Bounties are great for this. Simply join TX bounty games and check Act 4 until you see that he's one of the targets. If he isn't, leave immediately so someone can take your place (good guy nephalem), and if he is, just run bounties as normal until someone else gets to him - Then hit yes on the notification and join in. Piece of cake!

Eh, I actually preferred soloing Diablo on a time limit as a way to finish off the season and unlock my stash. It felt.... right, even though it was easy as hell.

What the gift is will determine whether I start Barb or DH, but I didn't buy the expansion until last season, so I didn't have any 70s then. After this coming season I'll just roll whatever has the best gift or I like, because I'll have a 70 of each class.

[Vaz]

I'll probably go for a Barbarian, Monk or a Witch Doctor, and possibly try out a Hardcore Character (question; is Haedrics one per account, or do I get a hardcore and softcore bags?) in order to easy mode doubling up on the conquests.

[heronbpv]

From what I experienced this season, the season journey is the same for both normal and hardcore. So, sadly, you only get one gift. :/

[Erloas]

So what is the fastest and easiest way to up the survivability of a crusader? It is fairly freshly 70, and doesn't yet have most crafted recipes (though if that is the fastest and easiest way we could farm them from caches), and only a few set pieces. I know resist all gems is an easy start, but I haven't had much of a chance to look over skills and passives yet (wife was setting him up so far). Anything like Kadala for X shield, belt, etc. first is mostly what I'm looking for in gear advice.

The goal right now is passive survivability, things like buffs are fine but "keep using X skill every few seconds" is beyond the player skill available. We took him with us for a bit in T8 last night and he died like 6 times, mostly in a single hit.

[Psyren]

Eh, I actually preferred soloing Diablo on a time limit as a way to finish off the season and unlock my stash. It felt.... right, even though it was easy as hell.

Oh, I can certainly do it in seconds now, but recall that I got my tab months ago when my seasonal gear wasn't quite as good :smalltongue: Certainly my Jade Harvester WD or FireRasha could now. But I was basically trying to knock it all out as fast as possible so that I could play other games like Hearthstone.



What the gift is will determine whether I start Barb or DH, but I didn't buy the expansion until last season, so I didn't have any 70s then. After this coming season I'll just roll whatever has the best gift or I like, because I'll have a 70 of each class.

Indeed - I have 2 70s for each class (one for each gender, though FemBarb is probably my least favorite.) Also, I hate FemMonk's stance when holding a staff - she looks like she's getting ready to gingerly place a steak in a lion's cage at the zoo - so she ended up being my fist monk (Uliana/Raiment) while DudeMonk uses a staff (Inna's/SWK).


So what is the fastest and easiest way to up the survivability of a crusader? It is fairly freshly 70, and doesn't yet have most crafted recipes (though if that is the fastest and easiest way we could farm them from caches), and only a few set pieces. I know resist all gems is an easy start, but I haven't had much of a chance to look over skills and passives yet (wife was setting him up so far). Anything like Kadala for X shield, belt, etc. first is mostly what I'm looking for in gear advice.

The goal right now is passive survivability, things like buffs are fine but "keep using X skill every few seconds" is beyond the player skill available. We took him with us for a bit in T8 last night and he died like 6 times, mostly in a single hit.

That depends on your build - for a Thorns or Blessed Shield+Gyrfalcon build (read: one with infinite resource) then Aquila Cuirass provides the biggest jump.

Unity is an easy boost too but I gather that you play with your wife so it won't work too well. Justice Lantern however should.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Silliest build I ever came up with?

DH with resource cost reduction and resource regen all over the place focusing on Strafe. Dressed all in Winter Dye. He's a Smooth Criminal...

[mangosta71]

I hate FemMonk's stance when holding a staff .
Is it honestly worse than FemWD?

[Psyren]

Silliest build I ever came up with?

DH with resource cost reduction and resource regen all over the place focusing on Strafe. Dressed all in Winter Dye. He's a Smooth Criminal...

I've never tried a DH in white. Hmm...


Is it honestly worse than FemWD?

I don't think I've ever seen her staff pose.

*Checks d3planner's 3D modeler*

Actually that's not so bad. The crouching sway fits it better than the FemMonk's ramrod-stiff upright stance, like she's holding a broom that's two sizes too long. Its not too far off from the Male Monk's stance with a staff.

I love the monk's polearm stance though (both male and female.)

[mangosta71]

I don't think I've ever seen her staff pose.

*Checks d3planner's 3D modeler*

Actually that's not so bad. The crouching sway fits it better than the FemMonk's ramrod-stiff upright stance, like she's holding a broom that's two sizes too long. Its not too far off from the Male Monk's stance with a staff.

I love the monk's polearm stance though (both male and female.)
I was actually referring to her overall stance; she does the crouching sway no matter what she has equipped. With most weapons, it looks ridiculous.

[Traab]

I probably already asked this, but is there an official start date for the new season? Also, perhaps a link where I could go to check out what the class set rewards will be this time? Im curious to see what sort of options I will get. On an unrelated note, im having fun playing with a locust/acid wd build. The swarm jumps to everything, the acid cloud melts the big pile of creatures bunching up on me, and my pets keep everything at a safe distance from me, making my survivability rather nice. I would welcome some advice on a spammable skill though. Currently im using a bouncing firebomb or whatever its called for when I run oom. Just wondering what the best option would be.

[Vaz]

So, all that's left is to get 3 gems to 55, and I have my stash tab. Decided to drop all of my stuff I was saving for LoN as I was getting nowhere with accumulating gear for it. Low and behold, with the exclusion of not actually having a a LoN Ancient Ring set, I had all of the stuff needed.

Only problem is, it turns out I'd trashed the rings as well, and will they drop now? Will they ****.

[Psyren]

I probably already asked this, but is there an official start date for the new season? Also, perhaps a link where I could go to check out what the class set rewards will be this time? Im curious to see what sort of options I will get. On an unrelated note, im having fun playing with a locust/acid wd build. The swarm jumps to everything, the acid cloud melts the big pile of creatures bunching up on me, and my pets keep everything at a safe distance from me, making my survivability rather nice. I would welcome some advice on a spammable skill though. Currently im using a bouncing firebomb or whatever its called for when I run oom. Just wondering what the best option would be.

Season 5 ends @ April 15th, 5pm PDT
Season 6 starts two weeks later @ April 29th, 5pm PDT

Above is for North America

[Icewraith]

I haven't seen anything on what next season's Haedrig's Gift will be, but I looked sometime last week and my google-fu might have simply failed me.

If they keep the same conquests, one of my main focuses will be on acquiring and leveling a Boon of the Hoarder early for speedruns, the gold conquest (since praying for a Baron won't be an option), and empowered rifts.

[Vaz]

PTR is;

Barbarian; Raekor's
Crusader; Akkhan
Demon Hunter; Marauder
Monk; Inna's
Witch Doctor; Zunimassa
Wizard; Delsere's Magnum Opus

I didn't really like Akkhan's, although its potential to just do AoE damage is much better than Invokers, but Invokers just got a further +150% damage IIRC in the PTR. Magnum Opus took a hit with Twisted Sword capping out at 5 Twisters also IIRC. I've not really done a Pet Build, and although I may just play a Crusader (possibly as a Hardcore Cherry Popper, so that I can try and get the Hardcore Avarice with ease, because I know how to play, and gear - ish - mostly thanks to you guys - without being overly fragile). I've not really played a Witch Doctor, or a pet build, although I may even try for a machine gun general Crusader also.

[Seerow]

PTR is;

Barbarian; Raekor's
Crusader; Akkhan
Demon Hunter; Marauder
Monk; Inna's
Witch Doctor; Zunimassa
Wizard; Delsere's Magnum Opus

I didn't really like Akkhan's, although its potential to just do AoE damage is much better than Invokers, but Invokers just got a further +150% damage IIRC in the PTR. Magnum Opus took a hit with Twisted Sword capping out at 5 Twisters also IIRC. I've not really done a Pet Build, and although I may just play a Crusader (possibly as a Hardcore Cherry Popper, so that I can try and get the Hardcore Avarice with ease, because I know how to play, and gear - ish - mostly thanks to you guys - without being overly fragile). I've not really played a Witch Doctor, or a pet build, although I may even try for a machine gun general Crusader also.

Out of curiosity did they nerf the effectiveness of thorns without the set? Because if so the damage buff on Invokers makes sense. Invoker's Set actually isn't all that powerful, Thorns itself was just really strong (as evidenced by the ease with which The Thrill was completed with no Invoker set). Not to say Invoker's was a bad set, it definitely made a strong build stronger, but not by the same degree other sets augment their respective builds.


Anyway I kind of want to try a DH next go around, but I wound up abandoning my mage this time and focusing on a second crusader, so I'm wondering if I should just skip leveling a ranged character I probably won't like and go straight for Monk.

[Icewraith]

Out of curiosity did they nerf the effectiveness of thorns without the set? Because if so the damage buff on Invokers makes sense. Invoker's Set actually isn't all that powerful, Thorns itself was just really strong (as evidenced by the ease with which The Thrill was completed with no Invoker set). Not to say Invoker's was a bad set, it definitely made a strong build stronger, but not by the same degree other sets augment their respective builds.


Anyway I kind of want to try a DH next go around, but I wound up abandoning my mage this time and focusing on a second crusader, so I'm wondering if I should just skip leveling a ranged character I probably won't like and go straight for Monk.

The thing about Thorns is that it lets you focus on survivability stats instead of crit damage, unlike conventional dps builds. Everyone usually wants CDR still, but not worrying about crit chance or crit damage was extremely nice. You just stack STR, VIT, +Phys %, CDR, and Resist All, and hope for Thorns rolls on your secondary stats.

Anyone have an opinion on Raekor's or Marauder sets? I haven't played a Barb or DH at top level and have no idea how well either works.

[Seerow]

The thing about Thorns is that it lets you focus on survivability stats instead of crit damage, unlike conventional dps builds. Everyone usually wants CDR still, but not worrying about crit chance or crit damage was extremely nice. You just stack STR, VIT, +Phys %, CDR, and Resist All, and hope for Thorns rolls on your secondary stats.

Anyone have an opinion on Raekor's or Marauder sets? I haven't played a Barb or DH at top level and have no idea how well either works.

Raekor was kind of garbage last time I played a Barb, but it looks like it's been overhauled significantly since then so my input is worth a grain of salt. I'd at least try it if haedrig's gift worked for every character instead of just your first 70. As it is I will likely pass this time.

[Psyren]

Inna or Zuni will be my main most likely. Both have the benefit of being 7-piece sets, allowing me to squeeze in 2-pc Sage's and farm breaths quickly.

Raekor is ew, the only set I dislike more is Roland.

[Traab]

On the witchdoctor set, do pets really do enough damage for the 800% boost to be useful? I admit to never really paying close attention, I was too busy layering acid clouds and locust swarms to register my pet dps. But if so, then I would imagine a nice bouncing locust swarm to tag everything in range would make for an interesting blood bath when combined with a permanent fetish army along with other pets.

[Icewraith]

On the witchdoctor set, do pets really do enough damage for the 800% boost to be useful? I admit to never really paying close attention, I was too busy layering acid clouds and locust swarms to register my pet dps. But if so, then I would imagine a nice bouncing locust swarm to tag everything in range would make for an interesting blood bath when combined with a permanent fetish army along with other pets.

I got my WD up to t9-10 but the big damage isn't directly from the perma fetishes, it's from the Carnevil helm + Dagger of Darts. However, you drop Grasp on an elite and its heath does go down noticeably faster. It's a tad on the slow side because you do a lot of standing spamming darts, but once you've got the full setup you can damage (and pull) a screen and a half at once.

Edit: Any opinions on Maraduer set?

[Vaz]

Aww yisss

http://i.imgur.com/CqNMDhh.jpg

[Psyren]

Aww yisss

http://i.imgur.com/CqNMDhh.jpg

Cutting it close, nice job

[Icewraith]

I guess I'm going DH? Raekor is so bad the only endgame build for it uses 3 pieces and 5 IK + RoRG.

[Dhavaer]

Which classes are most likely to get swords from Kadala? I'm looking to get a Deathwish for my Wizard, but she mostly gets a lot of wands.

[Arcane_Snowman]

The best way to acquire a specific kind of weapon is to use Kanai's Cube to upgrade yellows to legendaries as it will always use the base type of that particular item for whatever legendary it turns into. Hence why it's a really good idea to upgrade 2-handed hammers as something not-barbarian, which will then give you a pretty decent shot at getting The Furnace.

If you somehow don't have access to Kanai's, then I wouldn't have a clue, most of the classes have class-specific 1 handers.

[Vaz]

The typical answer is "don't bother", and upgrade crafted ones. Kadala costs 75 Shards/time to have a chance to roll against all of the following tables;

is it the correct kind of weapon (1/6)
Is It Legendary? (1/10 maybe)
Is it the correct Legendary? (X amount of Legendaries)
Is It Ancient? (Typically a 1/10 chance)
Does it roll the correct Primary Stats (4-6 Stats, typically looking for around 3-4, and you don't want a Socket, because that can be Ramaladni's gift)
Does it roll the most important of those Primary Stats (and for those Legendary Affixes) in the correct percentile (at least upper 25%, if not 10%)

Going by Swords, there are 20 possible legendaries, so that's 1/4, out of say 1/3, and 1/10, 1/20, and 1/10, or in other words, about 1 in 148000 Chance of rolling a Legendary. That's 11.1M Shards. You're more likely to get one dropped farming the Blood Shards.

To get a higher chance, upgrade crafted ones with Kanai's Cube.

[Dhavaer]

I'd prefer to do crafted ones, but the common craft material is - ironically - very difficult to come by, while blood shards are easy to get. I'd much rather pay some number of blood shards + 50 scrap for the cube rather than 15 scrap for a sword then 50 scrap for a cube. I just wondered if a different class would have to pay less blood shards on average.

[Vaz]

If you run through the Battlefields of Eternity, you can pick up a ton with ease. No need to run it with any difficulty either. Just run it at the lowest with which you can just blitz and you'll farm the heck out of it. Remember each one gives 10 Scrap, so a full inventory gives something like 300 Scrap.

[mangosta71]

The big underground area on the way to Adria also has a fairly large number of Ancient Armaments that will spew out white items.

[Dhavaer]

Whoo! Got my Ancient Deathwish! Also like three Twisted Swords, damn things. Stats aren't great, but the ability more than makes up for it.

[Psyren]

I guess I'm going DH? Raekor is so bad the only endgame build for it uses 3 pieces and 5 IK + RoRG.

Raekor is indeed bad though there are buffs planned. But I still hate the stop-motion playstyle with a passion so no amount of buffs are likely to save it in my eyes.


The typical answer is "don't bother", and upgrade crafted ones. Kadala costs 75 Shards/time to have a chance to roll against all of the following tables;

is it the correct kind of weapon (1/6)
Is It Legendary? (1/10 maybe)
Is it the correct Legendary? (X amount of Legendaries)
Is It Ancient? (Typically a 1/10 chance)
Does it roll the correct Primary Stats (4-6 Stats, typically looking for around 3-4, and you don't want a Socket, because that can be Ramaladni's gift)
Does it roll the most important of those Primary Stats (and for those Legendary Affixes) in the correct percentile (at least upper 25%, if not 10%)

Going by Swords, there are 20 possible legendaries, so that's 1/4, out of say 1/3, and 1/10, 1/20, and 1/10, or in other words, about 1 in 148000 Chance of rolling a Legendary. That's 11.1M Shards. You're more likely to get one dropped farming the Blood Shards.

To get a higher chance, upgrade crafted ones with Kanai's Cube.

I think I'll save just this post to point to later whenever people ask about getting specific weapons from Kadala. :smallcool:


If you run through the Battlefields of Eternity, you can pick up a ton with ease. No need to run it with any difficulty either. Just run it at the lowest with which you can just blitz and you'll farm the heck out of it. Remember each one gives 10 Scrap, so a full inventory gives something like 300 Scrap.


The big underground area on the way to Adria also has a fairly large number of Ancient Armaments that will spew out white items.

I'm a bit late (sounds like Dhavaer got what they were looking for) but I also wanted to point out that there's another option too - there's a cube recipe called Anger of Iben Fahd that lets you convert 100 of any crafting material into any other one except for souls and breaths. If you have a surplus of blue or yellow crafting mats - easy to happen after a bunch of successive rifts or a huge Kadala binge - you can use that cube recipe to convert them into white ones. This is a good way to fix any material imbalances you might have in your stash as well.

[Dhavaer]

I'm a bit late (sounds like Dhavaer got what they were looking for) but I also wanted to point out that there's another option too - there's a cube recipe called Anger of Iben Fahd that lets you convert 100 of any crafting material into any other one except for souls and breaths. If you have a surplus of blue or yellow crafting mats - easy to happen after a bunch of successive rifts or a huge Kadala binge - you can use that cube recipe to convert them into white ones. This is a good way to fix any material imbalances you might have in your stash as well.

Huh. I thought that only converted them upwards. Definitely a good deal.

[Icewraith]

So did anyone actually manage to get their stash pared down to 7 tabs? I've got two alts with their inventories full now, I'll get back to clearing them out at some point probably.

[Seerow]

So did anyone actually manage to get their stash pared down to 7 tabs? I've got two alts with their inventories full now, I'll get back to clearing them out at some point probably.

Nope. I'm gonna have a lot of cleaning to do if/when I ever log onto a non-seasonal character.

[Psyren]

So did anyone actually manage to get their stash pared down to 7 tabs? I've got two alts with their inventories full now, I'll get back to clearing them out at some point probably.

I spent a looot of time yesterday comparing duplicate pieces and salvaging the ones I didn't want and I'm still not there :smallfrown: This stash space seems almost more like a curse than a blessing.

It's nice having so many more souls, breaths and keys though.

[Icewraith]

I spent a looot of time yesterday comparing duplicate pieces and salvaging the ones I didn't want and I'm still not there :smallfrown: This stash space seems almost more like a curse than a blessing.

It's nice having so many more souls, breaths and keys though.

I'm considering only leveling a DH this season and then only leveling a Barb next season. That way I'll get the additional stash tab I need to at least store the class sets when the character ports back over.

Or, I mean, I do have some more alts I could just use as old school d2 mules.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So did anyone actually manage to get their stash pared down to 7 tabs? I've got two alts with their inventories full now, I'll get back to clearing them out at some point probably.

I'm currently using three tabs. And I've still got a bit of space before I need to pick up a fourth.