Diablo III: 4 - Necros Aren't Just for Posts Anymore!

[Lord Torath]

Previous Threads:
Diablo III: 2 - Don't Forget to Eat Today (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?376708-Diablo-III-Don-t-Forget-To-Eat-Today)
Diablo III: 3 - Kanai Fix It? (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?479688-Diablo-III-3-Kanai-Fix-It)


Well I still die a lot as Wizard :P

I think this season's free set for Wizards is Firebirds so if you want to fix that "dying" problem you'll be covered.Hah! At GR65, I could kill the Rift Guardian in 3 seconds! But I couldn't stay alive long enough to reach him going solo! I had to switch to a Delsere's Lightning Ball Build to get any further. I managed to solo GR75, and completed the Guardian chapter of the Season Journey. Now I'm switching to a Hardcore Crusader (Currently up to level 40).

The discussion at the end of the last thread focused on the pros and cons of D3 relative to other games in the genre (D2 et. al.) Carry on! :smallbiggrin:

[Rynjin]

Haven't played the other two, alas, so I can't comment.

I will say in Diablo 3 I'm kid of addicted to extra life abilities, I just think they're really neato. Especially since when I'm playing with friends we inevitably pop into PvP to kill some time every now and then.

I think we've determined my Holy Shotgun Crusader is the undisputed king of PvP. You either let him attack you (and die) or attack him (and trigger an automatic Holy Shotgun, aka "die"), or give up.

[Psyren]

I'm having fun with Grim Dawn but honestly, I'm just killing time until Diablo 4. And I even think the Auction House wouldn't be a terrible idea if they combined it with the current loot model where it would be a nice bonus rather than mandatory to progress. But perhaps what Diablo really needs is a reboot and some serious retconning.



I will say in Diablo 3 I'm kid of addicted to extra life abilities, I just think they're really neato.

By this do you mean the cheat death stuff like Unstable Anomaly? Because if so I agree, although some classes definitely get the short end of the stick with their abilities. The necro is one of the worst, as theirs eats all their pets, punishing some builds disproportionately.



I think we've determined my Holy Shotgun Crusader is the undisputed king of PvP. You either let him attack you (and die) or attack him (and trigger an automatic Holy Shotgun, aka "die"), or give up.

Have they tried using a build with tons of invincibility frames or outranging you, (or both, e.g. Uliana Monk?)

[Rynjin]

By this do you mean the cheat death stuff like Unstable Anomaly? Because if so I agree, although some classes definitely get the short end of the stick with their abilities. The necro is one of the worst, as theirs eats all their pets, punishing some builds disproportionately.

Correct. It's part of the reason I like Crusader, because you can easily get 3-4 of them.


Have they tried using a build with tons of invincibility frames or outranging you, (or both, e.g. Uliana Monk?)

Both of the people I play with usually play Wizard, and I generally chase them down on my horse.

[Psyren]

Yeah, that would explain it - I don't PvP much at all, but a Wizard's burst is very weak. It's either easily avoided (Meteor, Orb) or very close range with no iframes protecting them (Explosive Blast, Energy Wave, Archon) - both of which would let you run up and shotgun their face off easily.

A build with extreme range or substantial iframes would be needed to properly challenge a shotgun crusader. Again, I don't PvP, but I'd probably try something like Uliana Monk, Jade/Chicken WD, Leapquake Barb, or just about any DH build other than Natalya.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

My Frozen Core wizard might give the shotgun crusader a run for his money, unless you've got some immunity to cold/freezing thrown in there somewhere. Her whole shtick is making sure you DON'T get close, and peppering away at you from range. Frozen Orbs + Slow Time + Des = fun times.

[Psyren]

My Frozen Core wizard might give the shotgun crusader a run for his money, unless you've got some immunity to cold/freezing thrown in there somewhere. Her whole shtick is making sure you DON'T get close, and peppering away at you from range. Frozen Orbs + Slow Time + Des = fun times.

I imagine his shotgunsader uses Akkhan, which is part of the reason why he fries wizards so easily. Akarat's Champion makes you immune to CC, and Akkhan builds strive for near-100% uptime on it. Ergo, since you can't keep your distance and you have no iframes to survive up close, you would get stomped quickly in PvP. Even for Wizard builds that do manage a lot of burst, Akkhan also has multiple cheat death mechanics as Ryn mentioned above, allowing them to stay in the wizard's face until the job is done.

This is mostly theory of course - I haven't seen the actual builds being used here (and again, I don't PvP much, I just know the abilities being used.) I'm assuming things like no major gear disparity and roughly equal skill.

[Tvtyrant]

I finally got my witch doctor to level 70 today! Need to go get Kanai's Cube next, and grinding set blueprints for helltooth.

I see what people mean about CC declining. I used my pure CC+Gargantuan build all the way up to 70, but bounties are so hard that way I finally gave up and moved over to a more DPS heavy build.

[Lord Torath]

Congrats! I've got my HC Crusader up to 66. Four more levels until I can start getting Set gear. Currently I'm using a Blessed Hammer build. What I end up with will depend on what gear I find.

Oh, I got two Primal Ancients so far this season: Death's Bargain pants and the Butcher's Sickle. :smallannoyed: Why couldn't they give me something useful?

[Tvtyrant]

Congrats! I've got my HC Crusader up to 66. Four more levels until I can start getting Set gear. Currently I'm using a Blessed Hammer build. What I end up with will depend on what gear I find.

Oh, I got two Primal Ancients so far this season: Death's Bargain pants and the Butcher's Sickle. :smallannoyed: Why couldn't they give me something useful?

I haven't gotten any primal ancients.... Is T4 not high enough?

Also getting a good set to drop seems impossible. I spent 12 hours grinding T4 rifts and bounties and none of the sets were even class specific.

[tyckspoon]

I haven't gotten any primal ancients.... Is T4 not high enough?

Also getting a good set to drop seems impossible. I spent 12 hours grinding T4 rifts and bounties and none of the sets were even class specific.

Primal Ancients unlock when you clear a Greater Rift level 70 or higher while solo. They're a reward/thing to chase for further improvement for players who have already found the items they need for their builds and are looking to squeeze out a further edge by getting better versions of those items, mostly.

Sets just need persistence. They're a lot easier to gain once you can get up to T6-ish and farm the associated rift/Greater Rift difficulty levels, but you have kind of a chicken/egg situation there because that requires good legendary properties and/or set bonuses to achieve, so.. have patience, keep trying, and don't be afraid to cobble together a build using the legendary items you do get while trying to turn up sets. (And don't forget Kadala and the Cube recipe for turning a set item into a different piece of that set when the game inevitably gives you three sets of the same boots.)

[Psyren]

I haven't gotten any primal ancients.... Is T4 not high enough?


Primal Ancients unlock when you clear a Greater Rift level 70 or higher while solo. They're a reward/thing to chase for further improvement for players who have already found the items they need for their builds and are looking to squeeze out a further edge by getting better versions of those items, mostly.

To add to tyckspoon's explanation, GR 70 = T15, so you need to at the very least be able to handle T13 solo. Remember also that every 2 Torment levels, monster health and damage double.



Sets just need persistence. They're a lot easier to gain once you can get up to T6-ish and farm the associated rift/Greater Rift difficulty levels, but you have kind of a chicken/egg situation there because that requires good legendary properties and/or set bonuses to achieve, so.. have patience, keep trying, and don't be afraid to cobble together a build using the legendary items you do get while trying to turn up sets. (And don't forget Kadala and the Cube recipe for turning a set item into a different piece of that set when the game inevitably gives you three sets of the same boots.)

You can also play Seasons for a leg up via Haedrig's Gift, i.e. free set.

But tyckspoon is correct again, Kadala and the Cube are your best tool for cutting through the RNG problems. Neither care about difficulty either - you will have the same shot at good loot from them on T4 that you would on T10.

[Tvtyrant]

I am rather irritated with the game right now. I am now paragon 200, and have two torment 7+ solo characters. My witch doctor who relies on pets and DoT effects with helltooth, and my Barbarian charger with raekor.

The stupid barbarian got 4 pieces of the raekor set in like an hour, and no deals 50+ million a hit while the witch doctor grinding has taken 20+ hours to get a similar total output (but really 700k a hit with many hits a second).

Darn RNG.


Edit: Weird glitch has made me rich. On a bounty in act V the goblin that opens the vault would keep showing up in the same place right before the boss. It would reset the bounty and then be there again, so financially I am set.

[Lord Torath]

My HC Crusader is finally up to Torment 2. She's got Faithful Memory burnt into the cube, but I have yet to find any of the Seeker for the Light set. Currently wearing Roland's shoulders, and Blackthorn's chest armor. And I only have one ring/amulet with a socket, so I'm rocking Bane of the Powerful 15 (although I just found Bane of the Trapped, and have it at Rank 5). I've got everything I need for a Hellfire amulet except for the 5 million gold to buy the recipe...

Edit: I'm now up to almost 200 paragon levels on my HC Crusader, and I'm going with a Blessed Shield build. I've got Gyrfalcon's Foot, so I'm not spending any wrath. I've got Molten Wildebeest's Gizzard up to Rank 25, which generates a shield equal to double my life per second. Combined with my cubed Boots of Disregard and the rest of my gear, I'm rocking 92,000 life per second, giving me a shield of 184,000 life. Am I better using Ashnagar's Blood bracers (increases shield effectiveness by 75-100%) or the Aquila Cuirass for 50% damage reduction?

*New thing I learned today: There is no "beast" in the correct spelling of "wildebeest".

[Psyren]

Aquila Cuirass definitely. Blood Bracers, in addition to being wizard-only, don't work on the Gizzard's shield. It only works on shields that come from skills, e.g. Galvanizing Ward and Magic Weapon -> Deflection.

You didn't mention your set but it goes without saying that Akkhan is the best one (save LoN) for a Blessed Shield build, to the point that even the non-set matching item Bracers of Akkhan works with it.

[tyckspoon]

Am I better using Ashnagar's Blood bracers (increases shield effectiveness by 75-100%) or the Aquila Cuirass for 50% damage reduction?


Aquila Cuirass is an excellent defensive item for resource-free builds. Although the torso slot is almost uniformly eaten by a set chestpiece, which means you'll probably be Cubing it eventually. As for comparing shield efficiency, consider that 50% damage reduction means your shield can absorb 100% more damage anyway.

[Lord Torath]

Good points. I figured I'd cube or wear a Ring of Royal Grandeur (when I find it) to allow me to wear the Cuirass instead of the Akkan chest piece (currently wearing Roland's chest armor, as I haven't completed the Akkan set, yet. Still need the helmet and the breastplate). That lets me keep the Boots of Disregard for that high Life per Second. Currently I've got Dovu's Energy Trap cubed, and I'm wearing the Endless Walk and an Ancient Wailing Host for jewelry.

I think an Akkan Bombardment-Steed Charge build could be fun too. Assuming I can assemble the right gear....

[Psyren]

The boots don't scale with difficulty unfortunately, so they get eclipsed quickly - particularly as you start taking several orders more magnitude of damage in a second than they can regen. As you get higher up, they provide less and less benefit, even with the MWG gem.

When you finally do replace them in your cube with Aquila, you'll realize an even stronger benefit - being able to drop RRoG for a better ring. Specifically, you'll be able to use either Unity or OROTZ there instead, and thus achieve 100% uptime on Akarat's Champion much more easily (or 75% DR, if cooldowns aren't an issue) while also wearing your Compass Rose and CoE for big damage. This also lets you drop MWG for a better legendary gem. I would say the top 3 are Bane of the Trapped, Gogok of Swiftness, and Bane of the Powerful/Stricken in that order. (Powerful below GR70 and for speedfarming, Stricken above it).

[tyckspoon]

When you finally do replace them in your cube with Aquila, you'll realize an even stronger benefit - being able to drop RRoG for a better ring. Specifically, you'll be able to use either Unity or OROTZ there instead, and thus achieve 100% uptime on Akarat's Champion much more easily (or 75% DR, if cooldowns aren't an issue) while also wearing your Compass Rose and CoE for big damage. This also lets you drop MWG for a better legendary gem. I would say the top 3 are Bane of the Trapped, Gogok of Swiftness, and Bane of the Powerful/Stricken in that order. (Powerful below GR70 and for speedfarming, Stricken above it).

Justice Lantern is a decent toughness option if you have a spare ring space as well, and allows you to have its benefit in multiplayer when you can't carry around an invulnerable follower to wear the other Unity. OROTZ is not as great for a Blessed Shield build as it could be - the fixed properties on it are nearly ideal, but IIRC the Legendary trait (reduced cooldown when you use a resource-spending attack) no longer triggers with free Blessed Shield. If I'm wrong, then yeah, OROTZ is great and 100% uptime Akharat's Champion - Prophet is a huge survival benefit too.

[Psyren]

Justice Lantern is a decent toughness option if you have a spare ring space as well, and allows you to have its benefit in multiplayer when you can't carry around an invulnerable follower to wear the other Unity. OROTZ is not as great for a Blessed Shield build as it could be - the fixed properties on it are nearly ideal, but IIRC the Legendary trait (reduced cooldown when you use a resource-spending attack) no longer triggers with free Blessed Shield. If I'm wrong, then yeah, OROTZ is great and 100% uptime Akharat's Champion - Prophet is a huge survival benefit too.

Other way around I think - it used to not trigger but now it does. If I'm wrong though then yeah, JL works instead.

EDIT: Yeah just checked and OROTZ doesn't work on it. Sadpanda.

[Traab]

Heh, I finally bit the bullet and bought the necro class. Speaking from the lofty level of 12 I have to say so far its a lot of fun! Corpse explosion is handy for slaughtering those tightly packed swarms, bone spear is a hefty chunk of damage, and my little aoe bone spikes attack is a handy dandy little generator. Also am glad to have my skeletal pets back. Thats big fun.

[Lord Torath]

Obsidian Ring o'th' Zodiac works great with the Blessed Hammer build, though, so when I get enough of the gear, I'll go with that. I've got about half the gear I need for Blessed Hammer, but I specifically still need Johanna's flail and shield, which seem to be pretty rare.

I've completed GR35 (Torment 8) with 7-8 minutes to spare, and I usually don't trigger my regular Cheat Death (I've never triggered Akkarat's Champion's cheat death). But I'm still playing T7. And Kadala has not been much of a friend to me lately.

So Boots of Disregard are worth 10-40k life per second and 20-80k life in my shield. Aquila Cuirass is worth about 500k life (I currently have about 800k health, and a shield worth about 180k). Seems pretty strongly to favor Aquila. If and when I find it, anyway.

I'd kind of like to swap out the Gizzard for the Gogok of Quickness or Zei's Stone of Vengeance, but the high regen from the gizzard is hard to give up on Hardcore...

[Psyren]

Don't forget that damage reduction (Aquila) also effectively doubles your life regen. You recover the same amount of health, but only feel half the incoming damage.

If you're playing on Hardcore you should absolutely have a defensive gem, the opportunity cost of a random death is far too high in terms of time lost. MWG and EA are both fine.

[Lord Torath]

Finally found Aquilla, and a pair of Unity rings. My incoming damage has been reduced by a factor of 4! I managed to clear a GR60 solo, which allowed me to jump into a Public T13 Game. A few Rifts and Vaults (and a Not-the-Cow Level) later, I've got everything I need to the Holy Shotgun build, and everything except Johanna's stuff for the Blessed Hammer build. I've heard about the Holy Shotgun build, but never actually played it. I think I'm going to give it a try.

I've been using Leoric's Crown with a FR Diamond and the RoRG (since I didn't have Akkan's helmet) to help with cooldowns, which left be about a 3-second gap between the end of Akarat's Champion and when I could restart it. Now that I've found Akkan's helm, the gap has increased to about 6-7 seconds.

I finally found a Witching Hour belt. I've been using Krelm's Buff Belt, for that +25% movement speed I get as long as my MWG-generated shield is still operating. Witching hour greatly increases my Critical Hit damage, but I kind of miss the speed.

I want more slots in my armory. I've got a Blessed Hammer build, a Blessed Shield build, a Gold Blessed Shield build (Boon of the Hoarder instead of Bane of the Powerful and Gold Wrap instead of Krelm's Buff Belt/Witching Hour). Then I want to try the Holy Shotgun build. But I also want co-op builds, where it switches out Unity for something else for each of my builds (Justice Lantern for Shotgun, maybe Convention of Elements for other builds), which doubles the number of slots I need.

[Psyren]

@ Space: I do a character of each gender and two sets per character. That generally gives me plenty of Armory space to go around, plus I get to enjoy the differing aesthetics (voice lines, animations, and models) of each one.
Several of the Diablo 3 VAs show up in other games and even some other media, so it's always fun to recognize them. Plus, IMO, some sets look better on a specific gender; for example, Uliana looks downright comical on a female monk due to the oversized helmet/chest/shoulders, but on the male monk it fits better and gives them a wicked looking chest tattoo. Another example is Immortal King (Queen in my case) - the IK helm looks boss on both barbarians, but for the female one in particular you get all her bright red hair flowing out the back and it fits pretty well. In addition, some of the sets were passed down from their previous owner who had a specific gender, so my inner Vorthos likes the idea of continuing that tradition since it would make sense for the gear to be made with that in mind. Invoker is an example of that; the previous owner was canonically a femsader so I can view it as having got passed down to mine. Finally, I also like defying stereotypes in some cases, i.e. making the female the big melee bruiser (Rolands, Invoker) while the male is the less physical caster (Light, Akkhan).

@ Holy Shotgun - I had actually forgotten that one got buffed and it should work with OROTZ. I should have all the pieces so I'll try it this evening.

[Lord Torath]

I finally cleared a GR70 solo Hard Core! :smallsmile: And even better, the next rift I ran got me a Primal Ancient Johanna's Argument! :smallbiggrin:

Edit: So, uh, funny story... My hardcore crusader is no longer quite as hardcore as she used to be. I should have waited another half second before charging into that next group of baddies in that last GR70...

So now I'm starting a new one. All the way up to level 12. Fortunately I had a Hellfire Amulet, and when you combine that with Byorsky's Chip and 528 paragon levels, baddies kill themselves just by attacking you. Kinda fun.

On the plus side, I was NOT, in fact, wielding my PA Johanna's Argument (still sporting the Blessed Shield build), so I didn't lose that. And I already found a low-level Leoric's Crown, so putting a Flawless Royal Ruby in there nearly doubles my XP gain. If only I'd level a Gem of Ease up to 25....

[Kadesh]

So, given that there's not been much activity on hear, I'm not sure if this is technically Necro. Anyway, hope I can have a bit of help with trying to gear a prospective Necromancer. I'm a fan of Legacy of Nightmare builds, and want to make a Melee Necro-Cursemancer out of it. I've tried a Trag'oul's build before, but don't really like it. That said, with the current Season being about Bounties, I thought why not try and get a Speedy build with it as well. I have next to no interest in tabling, so that's not a concern, and more about seeing if I can gear for this badlad.

I've come up with the following theorycraft while I level (as well as having come to the conclusion that there is too much gear with not enough effect for a Necromancer - condensing some of the builds and giving new mechanics would be a neat improvement IMHO). I'd put a link, but I don't have anywhere near the gear.

Skills

Actives; LMB; Grim Scythe (Frost Scythe), RMB; Bone Armour (Harvest of Anguish), Devour (Devouring Aura), Decrepify (Dizzying Curse), Leech (Osmosis), Frailty (Aura of Frailty)
Passives; Fueled by Death, Swift Harvesting, Spreading Malediction Draw Life

Gear

Head; Andariel's Visage (Guaranteed +Cold Damage and Increased Attack Speed)
Shoulders; Pauldron's of the Skeleton King (I don't like to switch gear - helps with Grifting and frees up a passive slot, gives increased resilience in the form of Guaranteed Armor and Vit)
Chest; Requiem Cereplate (Devour keeps Health and Essence topped up)
Bracers; Ancient Parthan Defenders (Increased Damage Resistance while there are Stunned enemies nearby
Gloves; Frostburn (+Crit Chance, Cold Damage and Chance to Freeze enemies)
Waist; Dayntee's (Additional Damage Resist)
Legs; Depth Diggers (Obvious)
Boots; Illusory Boots (for just ghosting between elite packs)

Weapon; Rimeheart (Shattering Frozen enemies from Frostburn Gloves)
Shield; Lidless Wall (+Cold Damage, +Int, +Essence to have more lee-way with Aquila Cuirass)

Rings; Legacy of Nightmares
Amulet; Wisdom of Kalan; Additional damage resist from Bone Armour

Cube
- Trag'ouls Corroded Fang; does this provde bonus damage to cursed enemies despite not using Cursed Scythe? If not, what else to go for?
- Aquila Cuirass; none-resource build? Are you surprised? (Cereplate has one more minor affix, hence why that's being used)
- Ess of Johan; gathering up hordes into nice compact curseable blobs


Harvest of Anguish gives me a move speed bonus, as does Fueled by Death combined with Devouring Aura. Liberal use of the Ess of Johan to blob and curse enemies; Decrepify's rune triggers Ancient Parthans (which goes off even more thanks to Swift Harvesting and Frost Scythe's attack speed buff); Leech helps with resilience between the kills and when fighting the Rift Boss, while Frailty is obvious. I was stuck for a better Rune, although faster clears with exploding enemies might be fun.

Frostburn+Rimeheart+Grim Scythe seems pretty fun to me.

What Gems should I go for? Trapped and Stricken are going to be necessary. I'd love for an excuse to use Iceblink, but is Gogok going to be too necessary do you reckon?

Thanks!

[Psyren]

It's tough for me to visualize the whole build from all that text. Want to plug those skills/items into https://www.d3planner.com/ and link the result?

It appears to be a generator-only build so I would recommend Simplicity's Strength as your third gem, which is both offense and defense in one tidy package.

[lord_khaine]

But perhaps what Diablo really needs is a reboot and some serious retconning.

This kinda.

It is a bit of a problem, that each game kinda needs to go further somehow.
And here in the last game it was suddenly no longer enough to defeat Diable. It had to be a fusion of all the prime evils.
There isnt that many places this can go now.

[Keltest]

This kinda.

It is a bit of a problem, that each game kinda needs to go further somehow.
And here in the last game it was suddenly no longer enough to defeat Diable. It had to be a fusion of all the prime evils.
There isnt that many places this can go now.

Last I heard, theyre done with Diablo as the main antagonist of the series, and any further games are going to examine other aspects of the world.

[Psyren]

Last I heard, theyre done with Diablo as the main antagonist of the series, and any further games are going to examine other aspects of the world.

Which is fine if the next game is called "Sanctuary" but it'd be pretty odd to have the guy it's named after not feature prominently if they keep that name.

[Keltest]

Which is fine if the next game is called "Sanctuary" but it'd be pretty odd to have the guy it's named after not feature prominently if they keep that name.

Why? The Elder Scrolls don't feature prominently in most of the Elder Scrolls games. Its an established series, they don't need to change the name.

[Kitten Champion]

Why? The Elder Scrolls don't feature prominently in most of the Elder Scrolls games. Its an established series, they don't need to change the name.

Most people would still call it Diablo anyways. It's a pretty culturally-ingrained IP.

I don't care if Zelda appears in a Legend of Zelda game either.

[Rynjin]

See also: this entire page. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtifactTitle)

[Psyren]

Why? The Elder Scrolls don't feature prominently in most of the Elder Scrolls games. Its an established series, they don't need to change the name.

They're not characters either, at least last time I checked. For me it would be more like... a Pokemon game without any Pokemon in it, or a Mario game where he doesn't even show up. Something jarring like that.


See also: this entire page. (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ArtifactTitle)

That just proves my point, the video game examples tend to be titles that are about the world itself or are pretty generic. The one example I saw that kinda fits your point is Megaman, and even then it could be seen as more of a title than a name, passing the torch of "Megaman" from Rock/X to Zero.

[Kitten Champion]

In retrospect, they've already made two games called "Diablo" wherein Diablo is no longer the main antagonist or "alive" in the setting, they're called "Diablo II: Lord of Destruction" and "Diablo III: Reaper of Souls".

[ShneekeyTheLost]

In retrospect, they've already made two games called "Diablo" wherein Diablo is no longer the main antagonist or "alive" in the setting, they're called "Diablo II: Lord of Destruction" and "Diablo III: Reaper of Souls".

Those are DLC, not all-up games. Expansion packs. You might even call them postgame unlockable content.

[Kadesh]

It's tough for me to visualize the whole build from all that text. Want to plug those skills/items into https://www.d3planner.com/ and link the result?

It appears to be a generator-only build so I would recommend Simplicity's Strength as your third gem, which is both offense and defense in one tidy package.

I forgot about Simplicity's Strength; https://www.d3planner.com/834664270

Thanks for the link to D3 Planner, I didn't know that existed!

[Psyren]

Those are DLC, not all-up games. Expansion packs. You might even call them postgame unlockable content.

^

I'm totally okay with spinoffs/expansions having his name without him being there, but a main series title would be, again, odd.


I forgot about Simplicity's Strength; https://www.d3planner.com/834664270

Thanks for the link to D3 Planner, I didn't know that existed!

Yeah it's definitely a great tool.

I didn't take a super deep dive but some immediate things that jumped out at me:

1) General tip that you should only stack elemental stuff (Rimeheart + Frostburn + Lidless etc) if you have nothing better to go in those slots. Which leads me to...

2) I would drop the Rimeheart, and wield the Trag'oul's Fang instead of cubing it. That frees up the weapon slot in your cube for either Furnace or Reileena's Shadowhook, the latter of which is pretty beastly on generator builds because you'll always have close to full essence. You also want to drop a passive (likely Fueled) for Overwhelming Essence for 20% more multiplicative damage.

3) I think Leger's Disdain in your offhand is likely to get you more damage than Lidless.

4) I would wear the Ess of Johan instead of Wisdom of Kalan. That'll free up the jewelry slot in your cube for either Convention of Elements (big damage burst on your cold cycle), or even better, Krysbin's Sentence which is likely to be an even bigger damage boost that's up more often.

5) Andariel's isn't terrible in the helm, but I would personally go with Leoric there for the bigger defense boost. You're going to be pretty squishy on higher GRs being in melee.

6) You want Bane of the Powerful/Stricken instead of Gogok of Swiftness in a non-cooldown build. (BoP until about GR 70-75 or so, BoS higher than that.)

[Eurus]

Man, the Grin Reaper is a crazy fun item. I really wish there was a high-tier build that capitalized on it, because running around with my Skeleton Bros throwing slime blobs and spiders so densely that you can hardly see the screen anymore may just be my favorite thing.

[tyckspoon]

Man, the Grin Reaper is a crazy fun item. I really wish there was a high-tier build that capitalized on it, because running around with my Skeleton Bros throwing slime blobs and spiders so densely that you can hardly see the screen anymore may just be my favorite thing.

Depends on what you define as 'high tier', I guess, but looking at it looks like a Legacy of Nightmares generator-centric build (Depth Diggers, Simplicity's Strength) or channeling build might be moderately viable? It'll depend a lot on which of your damage bonuses the mimics are capable of receiving, and I think you'd have to do some fishing in data or live testing to determine that with certainty. A wiki article I found states it's everything except 'bonuses to specific skills', so general 'you do +x000' damage probably works. I think the Mimics count as pets, too, so Enforcer gem should work on them. +% skill damage on items probably doesn't transfer; not sure about legendary affix effects like the bonus to Firebats from the Chiroptera staff, or the specific named skills from set bonuses. That would significantly hamper the effectiveness of the build if you can't use those for amping a signature skill.

[Psyren]

You could try to combine it with Zunimassa. No idea if the Mimics count as "pets" though.

[Eurus]

Supposedly they do in fact get pet bonuses, which is cool. LoN might be the best route, hmm... I'll have to experiment. I wish there was a better way to test stuff and actually see where your damage is coming from.

[Kadesh]

Supposedly they do in fact get pet bonuses, which is cool. LoN might be the best route, hmm... I'll have to experiment. I wish there was a better way to test stuff and actually see where your damage is coming from.

PTR, maybe? Is that still a thing?

[Lord Torath]

Supposedly they do in fact get pet bonuses, which is cool. LoN might be the best route, hmm... I'll have to experiment. I wish there was a better way to test stuff and actually see where your damage is coming from.The D3 planner has a simulation function which might be useful for that.

In other news, I've got everything done for this Season's Journey except for a 3rd Conquest (I didn't get the Stash Tab - apparently I'm maxed out already). I did Avarice and ..The Thrill? Whatever they're calling the GR45 solo w/o set items. I'm going Wizard this season, so I did a Disintegrate-Whirlwind-Etched Sigil build for that conquest. Now I just need that third Conquest...

My current plan is to redo one of the two conquests I already did in Hard Core, and my Crusader is currently level 68.

[Psyren]

I'm going Wizard this season, so I did a Disintegrate-Whirlwind-Etched Sigil build for that conquest.

I assume you meant Twister? (Whirlwind is a Barbarian move.)


In other news, we're getting a Switch soon and D3 is likely to be one of the titles we pick up for it. With console allowing trading I'm hoping to be able to assemble some LoN builds I never got to try on PC. I'm hoping Blizzcon has some other Diablo-related reveals though.

[Lord Torath]

Whirlwind, Twister, what I really meant was Firenado (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsyvOYcWgcg)!

For my crusader, I will probably focus on a Blessed Shield build unless I come into a lot of Blessed Hammer gear first. If I get to T10 without a set, I'll try the Hardcore Thrill, otherwise I'll go with Avarita.

[Keltest]

Well... RIP the hype. That was painful. I feel bad for the guy on the stage, the un-hype was so real.

[Resileaf]

I've been following from the WoW story forums, but no one really said what was going on in detail about Diablo, except that it was pretty bad.

So, lay it on me. How bad is it?

[Keltest]

I've been following from the WoW story forums, but no one really said what was going on in detail about Diablo, except that it was pretty bad.

So, lay it on me. How bad is it?

Mobile Game levels of bad.

During the announcement, the crowd was just dead silent. Not even a token half hearted cheer. You could tell the poor guy on stage didn't know what to do about that.

[Resileaf]

Oh god, I just felt myself cringing in sympathy for him. Just from your description.

[Seerow]

Oh god, I just felt myself cringing in sympathy for him. Just from your description.

Here's a couple of clips from the Q&A:
https://clips.twitch.tv/NaiveSincerePieAMPEnergy
https://clips.twitch.tv/FairSarcasticLettuceCeilingCat


Like people are legitimately livid over this. And I don't blame them, they hyped up a Diablo announcement, and the only thing they have to show is a ****ty mobile game that is not even actually being developed by Blizzard. What I'm hearing is that there's a huge market in China that is interested in this, but the domestic audience is collectively staring at this going "what the **** are you thinking Blizzard"

[Psyren]

Mobile Game levels of bad.

During the announcement, the crowd was just dead silent. Not even a token half hearted cheer. You could tell the poor guy on stage didn't know what to do about that.

There were boos when they announced it would be mobile-only.
Someone asked if it was an April Fool's joke.

I had high hopes for Diablo's future but now... ehhh.

(Like, why does it have to be mobile-only? Hearthstone isn't.)

[Seerow]

(Like, why does it have to be mobile-only? Hearthstone isn't.)

Because it's not actually being developed in house. It's being developed by some Chinese company that is reskinning one of their games to Diablo.

[Psyren]

Because it's not actually being developed in house. It's being developed by some Chinese company that is reskinning one of their games to Diablo.

And they don't have PCs in China? If that's the reason, it doesn't seem like much of one to me.

[Inarius]

Heh, the mobile announcement was probably the single Diablo announcement possibility that I was unexcited for. Remaster of 1 or 2? hell yes! Diablo 4? please! Expansion to Diablo 3.. ok thats fine. A mobile game though... -.- I mean I guess Blizzcon isn't over yet so they may add in another announcement but why open with the Mobile game announcement if they are going to announce something better later on.

At least they are working on at least one other Diablo game and it's supposedly the game everyone was hoping to hear about at blizzcon. Which most likely means Diablo 4 or a remaster of Diablo 2.

[Thomas Cardew]

Heh, the mobile announcement was probably the single Diablo announcement possibility that I was unexcited for. Remaster of 1 or 2? hell yes! Diablo 4? please! Expansion to Diablo 3.. ok thats fine. A mobile game though... -.- I mean I guess Blizzcon isn't over yet so they may add in another announcement but why open with the Mobile game announcement if they are going to announce something better later on.

At least they are working on at least one other Diablo game and it's supposedly the game everyone was hoping to hear about at blizzcon. Which most likely means Diablo 4 or a remaster of Diablo 2.

INB4 remaster of Diablo 1.... I'm definitely not interested in a mobile game and this announcement killed whatever inclination I had to pick up D3 again. I still haven't forgiven them for adding the Necromancer essentially 3 years late and gating it behind another paywall.

[theNater]

I had my heart set on a DIII expansion with Imperius as the final boss, so I'm pretty disappointed myself. Still, not gonna judge the game without at least hearing from the people who tried the demo.

[Kadesh]

I found this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VSdaNRr4XOA

It basically sums up my thoughts.

[GloatingSwine]

And they don't have PCs in China? If that's the reason, it doesn't seem like much of one to me.

PC gaming is a different market in China (and most of the rest of SE Asia). Most people actually don't have PCs and play PC games in internet cafes.

Which tends to mean that the more successful games are ones where progress is account bound so it can be transferred between individual machines, and games that can be installed in large volumes.

So free to play does well over there, and they have a completely different opinion of pay to win (they don't give much of a damn about it).

[Psyren]

PC gaming is a different market in China (and most of the rest of SE Asia). Most people actually don't have PCs and play PC games in internet cafes.

Which tends to mean that the more successful games are ones where progress is account bound so it can be transferred between individual machines, and games that can be installed in large volumes.

So free to play does well over there, and they have a completely different opinion of pay to win (they don't give much of a damn about it).

Right, and all of that applies to Hearthstone too. So I'm still nonplussed by this design choice.

I'll just bask in the inferno that is the Diablo forums like everyone else...

[GloatingSwine]

Right, and all of that applies to Hearthstone too. So I'm still nonplussed by this design choice.


I'm not sure why you think Hearthstone is relevant? People who would play a diablo-em-up on a phone are not necessarily the same people who would play Hearthstone.

This is Activision identifying some people who aren't giving them money and finding a cheap way to squeeze some money out of them. (Cheap because the game is basically a reskin of existing Chinese mobile games by the same developer).

(Also Hearthstone has exploitative nature built in because that's what CCGs are.)

[Olinser]

PC gaming is a different market in China (and most of the rest of SE Asia). Most people actually don't have PCs and play PC games in internet cafes.

Which tends to mean that the more successful games are ones where progress is account bound so it can be transferred between individual machines, and games that can be installed in large volumes.

So free to play does well over there, and they have a completely different opinion of pay to win (they don't give much of a damn about it).

Then the Chinese announcement should have been big.

To hype this up and make the big release announcement to an American audience and then be surprised at the backlash means at a minimum that you are totally disconnected from what your current non-Chinese customers actually are interested in.

[GloatingSwine]

Triple-A publishers like Activision being disconnected from the desires of their audience (whilst being firmly connected to ways to extract money from them) isn't even news any more.

And whilst people tend to give Blizzard a hell of a lot of slack, remember they're also the ones who put the real money auction house in Diablo 3 when they first released it, and made all the good drops super unlikely and unlikely to be character relevant so they could push people to use it and cream off their cut.

[Seerow]

Then the Chinese announcement should have been big.

To hype this up and make the big release announcement to an American audience and then be surprised at the backlash means at a minimum that you are totally disconnected from what your current non-Chinese customers actually are interested in.

Pretty much agree here.

I have several problems with the announcement:


1) It was an announcement for a mobile game and nothing else. A mobile game announcement along with any sort of updates for D3 (a new expac is probably out of the question, but a new class? A patch with a few systems/tuning updates? Maybe Diablo 2 Remaster? How about that Netflix series we've been seeing rumors about? Literally anything else along with it would have been great.

2) They saved the announcement for last. If they had put it at the start as a "Hey this is a thing that is happening, you probably don't care but it's here" that'd be one thing. But instead they spent time hyping up a Diablo Announcement, and put it as the closer for the opening ceremony, and put it up first on the mythic stage. For something that most people gave zero care about. It's a huge case of Blizzard misreading the audience, and setting expectations that were doomed to fail.

3) It's not a Blizzard game. It's a NetEase game with Diablo imagery. I've looked into NetEase's similar games, and am not impressed at all. We have been given no reason to suspect Immortal will be any different. I can generally trust Blizzard quality for when they release something. I don't trust NetEase in the least.

4) On a similar note, ARPGs are not a genre that is really good to play on mobile. Even coming in with worst expectations of seeing Diablo for mobile as our only announcement, I figured at the very least they'd do some unique take on it. Similar to how instead of just doing WoW for mobile, we got Hearthstone, a totally new game in a new genre using the Warcraft IP. Not saying I needed another card game, but there are so many other genres that DO genuinely work on mobile. I would have been happier seeing a Match 3 Diablo game where you're collecting gems and runewords or whatever than this. Okay maybe not quite that, but there are definitely things that would work much better for mobile than trying to port action RPG gameplay poorly onto it.

[Psyren]

I'm not sure why you think Hearthstone is relevant? People who would play a diablo-em-up on a phone are not necessarily the same people who would play Hearthstone.

Because it's a Blizzard mobile game that is also on PC and that doesn't seem to have hurt its success any. That should be obvious.

And while the overlap may not be 1:1, Blizzard themselves are banking on it, what with offering multiple promotions that include HS card backs, Diablo pets, WoW mounts etc. But even if the two audiences were mutually exclusive, who cares? More platforms is still a bigger audience, and it's not like they'd have to envision how Diablo works on PC when it already does that.

(And if you want another big-ticket and even more relevant example - Fortnite is on both mobile and PC too and it's raking in the cash.)

[GloatingSwine]

Because it's a Blizzard mobile game that is also on PC and that doesn't seem to have hurt its success any. That should be obvious.

Except this is a (not) Blizzard mobile game that is not also on PC. Diablo Immortal is not getting a PC release, and the answer to "will there be a PC release" was literally "don't you people have phones?!". If you can get your most dedicated audience who have paid hundreds of dollars to come and see you to boo you live on stage you done ****ed up.

Also, when Hearthstone was released it was not the only significant Warcraft themed content for several years then teased as major news, and it was a brand new game not an inevitably limited version of an experience that people were looking forward to a much more significant version of.

There's a reason why the defining moment of this launch was someone asking "Is this some kind of out of season april fool's joke?".

(It's almost as if Activision weren't paying attention when everyone dunked on EA for doing the same thing with C&C, they were super brave to let the audience ask questions.)

[WhismurWanders]

I feel like most people missed the memo (https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/22549433/diablo-at-blizzcon-2018-10-17-2018) when Blizzard came out and said (paraphrased), "Hey guys, don't get too excited. I know we said there'd be cool stuff for Diablo, but it's probably not D4/A popular remake."

D4 is probably still in the works, it's not like the existence of Immortals precludes the existence of any other game using the Diablo IP. Just that this is what they happened to announce this year, at this Blizzcon.

[Seerow]

I feel like most people missed the memo (https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/22549433/diablo-at-blizzcon-2018-10-17-2018) when Blizzard came out and said (paraphrased), "Hey guys, don't get too excited. I know we said there'd be cool stuff for Diablo, but it's probably not D4/A popular remake."

D4 is probably still in the works, it's not like the existence of Immortals precludes the existence of any other game using the Diablo IP. Just that this is what they happened to announce this year, at this Blizzcon.

I got the memo. I set expectations low. They managed to sink below those expectations. If we were going to get a trash mobile game, I didn't think I even had to hope that it would be a Blizzard trash mobile game. I didn't think I had anything to worry about expecting at least some mention of update for D3, or some allusion to other projects even if they're not ready for a full showcase yet.

Blizzard coming up to announce a half-done port of a chinese mobile game I don't think was on anyone's radar even as a worst case scenario, even after being told to lower expectations.

[Inarius]

I feel like most people missed the memo (https://us.diablo3.com/en/blog/22549433/diablo-at-blizzcon-2018-10-17-2018) when Blizzard came out and said (paraphrased), "Hey guys, don't get too excited. I know we said there'd be cool stuff for Diablo, but it's probably not D4/A popular remake."

D4 is probably still in the works, it's not like the existence of Immortals precludes the existence of any other game using the Diablo IP. Just that this is what they happened to announce this year, at this Blizzcon.

Yeah I saw that, but at the same time Blizzard had been hyping up Diablo before blizzcon. So while I figured there wouldn't be an announcement of Diablo 4 I was assuming they'd at least announce something interesting and worthy of them saying "its a great time to be a diablo fan" like a remaster of 1/2 or an expansion/dlc for D3. I also figured a mobile game was in the works as part of their "we have multiple diablo projects in the works bit" but to make that the capstone of the opening ceremonies seems a bit tone deaf. They could of at least gone the way Bethesda did when announcing blades by teasing one of the other upcoming projects they're working on because that's what traditional fans of diablo are most interested in.

[Olinser]

Yeah I saw that, but at the same time Blizzard had been hyping up Diablo before blizzcon. So while I figured there wouldn't be an announcement of Diablo 4 I was assuming they'd at least announce something interesting and worthy of them saying "its a great time to be a diablo fan" like a remaster of 1/2 or an expansion/dlc for D3. I also figured a mobile game was in the works as part of their "we have multiple diablo projects in the works bit" but to make that the capstone of the opening ceremonies seems a bit tone deaf. They could of at least gone the way Bethesda did when announcing blades by teasing one of the other upcoming projects they're working on because that's what traditional fans of diablo are most interested in.

Yes. After the relative success of StarCraft Remastered and them hyping up a Diablo annoucement I was kind of expecting a Diablo 1/2 Remastered.

Instead they gave us Warcraft 3 Reforged and a ****ty mobile game they slapped the Diablo label on.

[Keltest]

I think the fact that it isn't even an in-house project is what offends me the most. What is the PC team even doing, if they don't have any news for Blizzcon?

[Winthur]

I think the fact that it isn't even an in-house project is what offends me the most. What is the PC team even doing, if they don't have any news for Blizzcon?

Oh, they set up a website for the actual, full-fledged Diablo release they have in the works: http://playdiablo4.com

[Thomas Cardew]

Even knowing what that link was in advance, it still cracks me up.

[Lord Torath]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed to hear Diablo Immortals was just a reskinning of another game.

In other news, I completed the Season 15 Journey! It only took me 750 paragon levels (450 regular and 299 Hard Core).

What's the fewest paragon levels you've ever had when you completed the Guardian level of the Season Journey?

[Olinser]

Yeah, I was pretty disappointed to hear Diablo Immortals was just a reskinning of another game.

In other news, I completed the Season 15 Journey! It only took me 750 paragon levels (450 regular and 299 Hard Core).

What's the fewest paragon levels you've ever had when you completed the Guardian level of the Season Journey?

It's not even a reskin.

It's a reskin of a game made by ANOTHER COMPANY. Blizzard isn't even making it themselves they farmed it out.

So the actual Blizzard team had LITERALLY no progress to report on anything the Blizzard Diablo team is actually making.

The more I find out about this the more I think Blizzard would have been better off just not making a Diablo announcement.

[Resileaf]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

[Keltest]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

Im dubious myself, but it seems... plausible.

[Inarius]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

FWIW while Kotaku may be fairly cringeworthy, they do have some fairly accurate predictions. The guy who wrote the article in particular, Jason Schreier, is more often right than wrong with his inside sources. He's the same guy who said Fallout 76 was going to be an open world multiplayer survival game weeks before the official announcement for example.

[Olinser]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

I mean that's all they needed to keep this completely ****storm from hitting them.

They didn't need a big trailer, gameplay reveal, release date, voiceover, nothing.

They needed 30 seconds of a black screen fading into a Diablo 4 logo - that's it. Fans would still be complaining and asking for more information but they wouldn't be raging about Immortal like they are now.

[Winthur]

Apparently, Blizzard was going to make a Diablo 4 reveal... But for some reason pulled it back.
Or so Kotaku claims they have learned from inside sources. I have no idea how trustworthy they might be on this. It would explain a lot, though.

Damage control.
"We left the final announcement of Blizzcon - the meatiest and juiciest one - to announce a completely anticipated big hit but decided to retract it at the last minute because the other announcement went poorly."

Not to mention that this is only there to switch the media's narrative of "gamers are entitled children, see, Blizzard NEVER promised Diablo 4, they promised the exact opposite!" and replaces it with "actually they had it there all along but they didn't show it because the core audience didn't like their previous announcement so... they... doubled down on it by not showing anything at all"?

[Resileaf]

Damage control.
"We left the final announcement of Blizzcon - the meatiest and juiciest one - to announce a completely anticipated big hit but decided to retract it at the last minute because the other announcement went poorly."

Not to mention that this is only there to switch the media's narrative of "gamers are entitled children, see, Blizzard NEVER promised Diablo 4, they promised the exact opposite!" and replaces it with "actually they had it there all along but they didn't show it because the core audience didn't like their previous announcement so... they... doubled down on it by not showing anything at all"?

That would make sense if the whole "We had Diablo 4 ready to announce" came from Blizzard and not from inside sources that talked to Kotaku.

[The_Jackal]

I really don't see how the 'gamers are entitled children' motif works for anyone. That simply doesn't work. You have this big giant hype fest for your games, for which you charge participants hundreds of dollars to attend, and your big reveal for one of your biggest tentpole properties is a mobile game from a third party developer? How exactly did you expect that to go over?

IMO, Mark Kern nails (https://twitter.com/Grummz/status/1059206672143409155) this one right on the nose: Blizzard's PR people do not understand their audience. The execs making these decisions don't care what kind of games they make, they just see the stable of Blizzard brands as a collection of intellectual properties to be exploited. I don't think it's a coincidence that you're starting to see an exodus of Blizzard founders and original contributors. Sixteen years ago, Blizzard spiked a third-party project, Starcraft: Ghost (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StarCraft:_Ghost), because they felt that the partner's product didn't adequately meet the standards they set for themselves. I just don't see the current crop of marketing droids who run the show at Blizztivision doing that.

[Erloas]

Maybe they pulled back the reveal of D4 after the Immortals thing went to poorly because they've also done something stupid with D4 and the previous announcement was finally enough for them to see that. Maybe D4 was mobile too? Maybe they were going to try to reintroduce some of the things that went over so poorly at the launch of D3, like the Auction House? Or maybe "ok, this isn't the right time to introduce D4s new lootbox battle royal deathmatch design?"

[Winthur]

That would make sense if the whole "We had Diablo 4 ready to announce" came from Blizzard and not from inside sources that talked to Kotaku.
Considering that gaming journalism is composed of people forming a third-party PR team for big studios I'd say it's not unlikely that "inside sources" are actually a controlled leak.

[Narkis]

What boggles the mind is how utterly they failed to learn from EA's and Bethesda's similar announcements earlier this year: EA announced CnC Rivals and nothing else for CnC and got an instant ****storm in their hands. Bethesda announced ES: Blades together with a single stock image with the TES6 logo and got everyone to shrug on their mobile cash grab and start generating hype on a game that's half a decade out. And yet Blizzard decided to follow EA's example rather than Bethesda's. Is it any wonder they had the same result?

All they had to do was give us a single Diablo 4 logo on a black background, if they are indeed working on it. The fact they didn't do it means they either have no actual plans for it, despite recent rumours, or their entire marketing department consists of incompetents who should be fired yesterday.

As an aside Polygon (https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/5/18064290/blizzard-diablo-immortal-reaction-explainer-blizzcon) is the only major site I've seen with an article that gets why people are actually upset.

[Olinser]

What boggles the mind is how utterly they failed to learn from EA's and Bethesda's similar announcements earlier this year: EA announced CnC Rivals and nothing else for CnC and got an instant ****storm in their hands. Bethesda announced ES: Blades together with a single stock image with the TES6 logo and got everyone to shrug on their mobile cash grab and start generating hype on a game that's half a decade out. And yet Blizzard decided to follow EA's example rather than Bethesda's. Is it any wonder they had the same result?

All they had to do was give us a single Diablo 4 logo on a black background, if they are indeed working on it. The fact they didn't do it means they either have no actual plans for it, despite recent rumours, or their entire marketing department consists of incompetents who should be fired yesterday.

As an aside Polygon (https://www.polygon.com/2018/11/5/18064290/blizzard-diablo-immortal-reaction-explainer-blizzcon) is the only major site I've seen with an article that gets why people are actually upset.

And its even worse they didn't learn from C&C.

This is a literal dead franchise that NOBODY, even hardcore fans, ever expected another actual PC game, and there was still a huge backlash against a mobile cash grab of a dead franchise.

The Diablo franchise is very much alive and they somehow didn't expect massive backlash.

[Narkis]

Blizzard: We generally don’t comment on rumors or speculation, but we can say that we didn’t pull any announcements from BlizzCon this year or have plans for other announcements. (https://m.ign.com/articles/2018/11/06/diablo-4-announcement-reportedly-pulled-from-blizzcon-2018)

There goes that, I suppose.

[Thomas Cardew]

Oh wait, it gets worse.

https://www.ign.com/articles/2018/11/07/blizzard-is-working-on-mobile-titles-across-multiple-franchises

[Olinser]

So let me get this straight.

Blizzard has I think almost literally the worst received game announcement in history (I'm heard pressed to even think of one, Battlefield V didn't even come close) because they made the brilliant decision to announce to a hardcore PC gaming audience a mobile freemium game that they didn't even make, but farmed out to another company.

Kotaku spreads the rumor that they actually intended to announce Diablo 4 but changed their minds.

Blizzard not only explicitly denies the rumor, but announces MORE mobile freemium crap.

This is the functional equivalent of somebody jumping off a boat because they thought it was a great idea and starting to drown. Then somebody throws them a rope to pull them out. Not only do they not grab the rope, but they punch the potential lifesaver square in the nuts.

WHO IN THE NAME OF **** IS MAKING PR DECISIONS FOR THIS COMPANY.

Because they need to be fired. Not because the community is mad at them, but because they are clearly utterly incompetent.

[lord_khaine]

Said person is really, really incompetent if his job is to manage relations with the fans.
The only meaningful explanation is that Blizzard is trying to court investors with the lure of mobile payout.

Of course, that comes across as a gigantic sellout to their hardcore PC fans.
It is almost like they are not realising they do have competition in every single niche on the PC market.

[GloatingSwine]

It is almost like they are not realising they do have competition in every single niche on the PC market.

They don't really have meaningful competition in any of them though.

There are other MMOs but none are as big as Warcraft and the Warcraft audience is basically locked in by sunk cost.

There are other online CCGs but none are as big as Hearthstone and the size of the playerbase is an inherent advantage for a competitive game (the sunk cost thing is less relevant as cards cycle out of standard so people can fall off the treadmill).

There are other shooters, but none of the ability base hero shooters stuck like Overwatch, and people who like tacticool shooters like CoD and Battlefield aren't necessarily in the same market.

And whilst Path of Exile exists it's not got anything like the market pickup Diablo 3 had and a Diablo 4 would have.

So Blizzard are just used to owning their niches.

Also, they seem to have genuinely gotten confused between Diablo fans and people who will pay in to a free to play mobile Diablo-alike. People obviously will pay in, because NetEase already has a bunch of games for them to pay into, so the Diablo fans must be doing that, right? They like Diablo, they must be playing some kind of Diablo methadone on their mobile, right?

You can tell they believed that because of the "don't you guys have phones?". They were genuinely shocked that the Diablo fan audience didn't want Diablo on their phones.

(Also they won't talk about monetisation, when that is literally the only relevant question people can ask right now, because it doesn't matter how "fun" the gameplay can be if the fun bits of it are all locked behind paywalls and gacha systems).

[Narkis]

Yeah, I don't think it's just an incompetent pr person anymore. A pr person doesn't get to make the decision to shift the best developers across all IPs to mobile.

Instead, I think it's a case of oblivious upper management wanting to chase the $$$ of mobile, and a dev culture that doesn't know or care about the differences between the PC and mobile audiences.

I think Blizzard as we knew it is effectively dead.

[Keltest]

Call me an optimist, but this still smacks of obvious failed PR to me. I cant help be reminded of that scene at the end of Raiders of the Lost Arc.

"We have top devs researching mobile games as we speak."
"Who?"
"Top. Devs."

[Erloas]

I had actually looked for a Diablo like mobile game, even a pay one, and I couldn't find any even worth the time to get started, let alone the obvious painful grind to anything interesting.

I have really only found a few mobile games worth playing and even the one I've been playing the longest has power crept past all appeal.
I think the main issue is that many mobile games are essentially just skins on a course in event driven programming. They've really lost much of what I would even consider a game.
Can blizzard do better? Maybe, but they aren't even doing it.

[Olinser]

I had actually looked for a Diablo like mobile game, even a pay one, and I couldn't find any even worth the time to get started, let alone the obvious painful grind to anything interesting.

I have really only found a few mobile games worth playing and even the one I've been playing the longest has power crept past all appeal.
I think the main issue is that many mobile games are essentially just skins on a course in event driven programming. They've really lost much of what I would even consider a game.
Can blizzard do better? Maybe, but they aren't even doing it.

This is the relevant point, and one of the main reasons people don't believe this is going to be just another freemium cashgrab crap not worth playing - and people who have played the build of the actual game that was available have not been particularly positive about the game.

BLIZZARD ISN'T EVEN MAKING THE GAME. That's what absolutely screams 'crappy gameplay cash grab'. If Blizzard themselves were making it I might believe that

But to farm it out to a different company? Every time they've done that the results have been mediocre at best, and usually totally crap.

Diablo Hellfire was mediocre, the additions were clunky at best, the tone/design of the new enemies were complete crap, the new dungeons completely destroyed the progression of the game because they took place in the middle so you were dramatically over-leveled for either the 'normal' dungeon or the new dungeons, and the 'puzzle' with the new boss was a complete joke. However it was at least functional with no major bugs and did have moderate reception so it wasn't a total disaster.

Starcraft Insurrection was complete and utter crap. When it was first released it was LITERALLY UNBEATABLE because they hadn't actually tested a couple missions.

Starcraft Retribution I didn't play but it was not particularly well-received either, although I believe some of the multiplayer maps they added were moderately popular.

So basically they're 1 for 3 in 3rd party games that were released.

[The_Jackal]

So let me get this straight.

Blizzard not only explicitly denies the rumor, but announces MORE mobile freemium crap.

Yes, but here's the problem: The companies that are rolling out mobile-friendly, freemium games are raking in absurd cash. Of course, it's not guaranteed that Blizzard/Activision/EA will be able to replicate the success of games like Fortnite, GTA Online, and League of Legends, but that isn't going to stop them all from trying. Remember when WoW was the boss of the beach and every other week, there was another competing MMO trying to horn in on the market? Well, this is what Blizzard has been reduced to: Riding the me-too train toward micro-transaction laden mobile game drivel.

Is Diablo: Immortal's release a PR failure? Sort of, in so far as they wildly misread the nature of the Blizzcon audience, and the Blizzard brand's audience. But the bigger picture is that three's a lot of money making greedy games for morons with phones, and Activision will be gunning for that market, hard. Our only recourse as PC gamers is to not contribute to their cash grabby tactics. Don't buy lootboxes. Don't fund the games you don't want to see, or you're part of the problem.

[Psyren]

I'm not against mobile Diablo conceptually. And I've actually heard some positive feedback from people who tried it on the floor, with the main complaint being "too easy". That's concerning to me since it's the same problem D3 had at launch (followed by a massive difficulty spike at Inferno to drive the RMAH).

It all comes down to how they monetize it and what the core loop ends up being. Like will the microtransactions be purely cosmetic? Will there be crafting? How "drop-in/drop-out" will the game actually be in practice?

For me, Bellular said it best - if they had simply had a brief teaser for D4, even just a logo and nothing else, they would have avoided a lot of backlash. Just something to let people know that they're actively working on a PC entry too. Bethesda is smart enough to do that, I don't see why Blizzard failed at it.

[Resileaf]

I'm not against mobile Diablo conceptually. And I've actually heard some positive feedback from people who tried it on the floor, with the main complaint being "too easy". That's concerning to me since it's the same problem D3 had at launch (followed by a massive difficulty spike at Inferno to drive the RMAH).

It all comes down to how they monetize it and what the core loop ends up being. Like will the microtransactions be purely cosmetic? Will there be crafting? How "drop-in/drop-out" will the game actually be in practice?

For me, Bellular said it best - if they had simply had a brief teaser for D4, even just a logo and nothing else, they would have avoided a lot of backlash. Just something to let people know that they're actively working on a PC entry too. Bethesda is smart enough to do that, I don't see why Blizzard failed at it.

And Bethesda did not hype their mobile games to high heaven either. Blizzard very much acted like their mobile game was going to be the next big main series game, something that mobile games, by their nature, are not.

[Psyren]

I can understand hyping the experience though; Diablo Immortal looks to be a hell of a lot closer to a "core game" than something like Fallout Shelter.

What I can't understand is why they left it at DI and didn't even tease development on anything for PC. (Actually what I really can't understand is why DI itself can't be on PC, but I aired that grievance earlier.)

[Seerow]

I can understand hyping the experience though; Diablo Immortal looks to be a hell of a lot closer to a "core game" than something like Fallout Shelter.

What I can't understand is why they left it at DI and didn't even tease development on anything for PC. (Actually what I really can't understand is why DI itself can't be on PC, but I aired that grievance earlier.)

Honestly I would have been more hyped for a fallout shelter style game. It being an attempt at a main series game is actively hampering my opinion of it.

I'd have played the hell out of a Diablo idle game, or a turn based dungeon crawler, or even a Pokemon go clone (imagine walking around exploring for demons to fight with some simplistic ar combat as you collect loot to fill in Cain's book).

Like I don't hate mobile games. I came into blizzcon expecting one (admittedly I expected something else with it), but I never expected them to try to make a real Diablo game on mobile. I find it hard to swallow the idea that this game will actually feel like Diablo rather than a shallow knock off.

[Resileaf]

Honestly I would have been more hyped for a fallout shelter style game. It being an attempt at a main series game is actively hampering my opinion of it.

I'd have played the hell out of a Diablo idle game, or a turn based dungeon crawler, or even a Pokemon go clone (imagine walking around exploring for demons to fight with some simplistic ar combat as you collect loot to fill in Cain's book).

Like I don't hate mobile games. I came into blizzcon expecting one (admittedly I expected something else with it), but I never expected them to try to make a real Diablo game on mobile. I find it hard to swallow the idea that this game will actually feel like Diablo rather than a shallow knock off.

Especially considering they've hired a team that is famous for making shallow Diablo knock-offs. XD

[Olinser]

Honestly I would have been more hyped for a fallout shelter style game. It being an attempt at a main series game is actively hampering my opinion of it.

I'd have played the hell out of a Diablo idle game, or a turn based dungeon crawler, or even a Pokemon go clone (imagine walking around exploring for demons to fight with some simplistic ar combat as you collect loot to fill in Cain's book).

Like I don't hate mobile games. I came into blizzcon expecting one (admittedly I expected something else with it), but I never expected them to try to make a real Diablo game on mobile. I find it hard to swallow the idea that this game will actually feel like Diablo rather than a shallow knock off.

Yeah the fact that Blizzard isn't even bothering to make it themselves is what convinces me more than anything that this is just a crass cash grab trading on the Diablo name.

See my post above - so far Blizzard is 1 for 3 on out-sourced content (actually 1 for 4 if you count the never-released outsourced Starcraft: Ghost).

[Winthur]

Honestly I would have been more hyped for a fallout shelter style game. It being an attempt at a main series game is actively hampering my opinion of it.
So were Bethesda fans at the reveal. Todd was on stage talking about Fallout 4, and then in the middle of it went "Oh by the way guys, we did some tinkering with mobile technology in our spare time and we put out this". Cheers all around from everyone. Hell, I have edgy opinions about the Fallout franchise, worthy of an NMA account (which I don't have) and I still enjoyed Fallout Shelter for the... 2-3 hours I generally sink into mobile games outside of my 3DS.

Compare this to the Diablo Immortal reception. It really wouldn't have gone this bad if it weren't for the heaps upon heaps of complete audience misreading.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Yeah the fact that Blizzard isn't even bothering to make it themselves is what convinces me more than anything that this is just a crass cash grab trading on the Diablo name.

See my post above - so far Blizzard is 1 for 3 on out-sourced content (actually 1 for 4 if you count the never-released outsourced Starcraft: Ghost).

Eh, I would count Starcraft: Ghost in Blizzard's favor. They knew it wasn't going to be up to snuff, that it would never be capable of being brought up to snuff, and so they pulled the plug rather than releasing the mess. They protected their branding by careful selection.

Which is the exact opposite of what D:I is doing.

I wouldn't have minded a "D2 Remastered" much in the same way that Starcraft was remastered. Just give it a new coat of paint, bump up resolution to modern standards, and bob's your uncle. It'd have sold like hotcakes. Maybe even run it in the D3 engine if you like. It would take more work doing the assets in the new engine, but it would fix a lot of problems at the same time. And if you want to tack on a cosmetics shop, fine, I can ignore it and those who like the cosmetics can pad Blizzard's budget.

I wouldn't have minded D2/D3 on mobile, if it was done in-house instead of a freemium pay-to-leet business model. I mean, come on, even a potato by today's standards can run D2. Even older smart phones are more than capable of running it. Toss in some daily quest things that don't take a whole lot of time (think GRifts or Keymaster hunting) to play while you are on the run and unable to play the actual game, and bob's your uncle.

But this? Yea, no. And Blizzard has consistently been failing to 'get the hint' and doubling down. I'm betting this is rolling down from Activision, though. I don't think even Blizzard has gotten this tone deaf yet, I mean this is almost EA levels of fail.

[Olinser]

Eh, I would count Starcraft: Ghost in Blizzard's favor. They knew it wasn't going to be up to snuff, that it would never be capable of being brought up to snuff, and so they pulled the plug rather than releasing the mess. They protected their branding by careful selection.

Which is the exact opposite of what D:I is doing.

I wouldn't have minded a "D2 Remastered" much in the same way that Starcraft was remastered. Just give it a new coat of paint, bump up resolution to modern standards, and bob's your uncle. It'd have sold like hotcakes. Maybe even run it in the D3 engine if you like. It would take more work doing the assets in the new engine, but it would fix a lot of problems at the same time. And if you want to tack on a cosmetics shop, fine, I can ignore it and those who like the cosmetics can pad Blizzard's budget.

I wouldn't have minded D2/D3 on mobile, if it was done in-house instead of a freemium pay-to-leet business model. I mean, come on, even a potato by today's standards can run D2. Even older smart phones are more than capable of running it. Toss in some daily quest things that don't take a whole lot of time (think GRifts or Keymaster hunting) to play while you are on the run and unable to play the actual game, and bob's your uncle.

But this? Yea, no. And Blizzard has consistently been failing to 'get the hint' and doubling down. I'm betting this is rolling down from Activision, though. I don't think even Blizzard has gotten this tone deaf yet, I mean this is almost EA levels of fail.

Well its in their favor that they realized it, but I included it in the 1 for 4 as a failure because they chose to outsource a game, and company they outsourced to failed to produce an acceptable game. It was just Blizzard rejecting it rather than the customers, but the game produced was unacceptable.

[Erloas]

I think the biggest issues, at least for me personally, just comes from the free and massive aspect.

Free means grind, and while Diablo is known for grinding, D3 is pretty much at my tolerance for it. In fact it is past my personal tolerance, but if I'm playing with a friend then it is ok. I'm not sure how they're going to monetize it exactly, but it usually means making things annoying enough that you want to skip it. I've done IAP in a few games, but only one on mobile and I regret that now. The biggest issue is usually that there is never enough, WOT and MWO I could buy a garage slot or specific 'Mech and be done, it didn't require constant purchases. Maybe if they find a really good balance of casual access and IAP... but given their failure to read the consumer base, I'm not betting on that. I don't know the NetEase games to know their track record.

Then the massive. The draw of Diablo has been the tight gameplay and character design. That would be hard enough to transfer to mobile, but adding all of the issues inherent with large groups of players and I'm just not seeing it happen. Especially since so many of the other mobile games I've looked for to do this gate multiplayer behind a lot of grinding before you even get there and that why I want a mobile Diablo-esque game is to play with one or two specific people. I just think the chances of a clunky mess are too high.

[The_Jackal]

I think the biggest issues, at least for me personally, just comes from the free and massive aspect.

Free means grind, and while Diablo is known for grinding, D3 is pretty much at my tolerance for it. In fact it is past my personal tolerance, but if I'm playing with a friend then it is ok. I'm not sure how they're going to monetize it exactly, but it usually means making things annoying enough that you want to skip it. I've done IAP in a few games, but only one on mobile and I regret that now. The biggest issue is usually that there is never enough, WOT and MWO I could buy a garage slot or specific 'Mech and be done, it didn't require constant purchases. Maybe if they find a really good balance of casual access and IAP... but given their failure to read the consumer base, I'm not betting on that. I don't know the NetEase games to know their track record.

Then the massive. The draw of Diablo has been the tight gameplay and character design. That would be hard enough to transfer to mobile, but adding all of the issues inherent with large groups of players and I'm just not seeing it happen. Especially since so many of the other mobile games I've looked for to do this gate multiplayer behind a lot of grinding before you even get there and that why I want a mobile Diablo-esque game is to play with one or two specific people. I just think the chances of a clunky mess are too high.

Here's the problem with free = grind. The way freemium gets you to crack you wallet is by gating LOTS of rewards behind TONS of grind, often more grind than any human can reasonably do. So even disregarding the huge likelihood that you'll get some dumpster-tier pile of unplayable excrement for actual gameplay, I simply don't see a F2P ARPG being remotely enjoyable to play and actually profitable from microtransactions at the same time. This is precisely the problem which Destiny 2 contended with when the Eververse store was initally put in. The reward rate for getting the cosmetics from play was so low, it was simply impossible for even a hardcore player to get enough resources to get all the cool rewards. The resulting hue and cry from the community caused Bungie to revert the model to something achievable by a human, at which point cash purchases have more or less dropped off a cliff.

[GloatingSwine]

I'm not against mobile Diablo conceptually. And I've actually heard some positive feedback from people who tried it on the floor, with the main complaint being "too easy". That's concerning to me since it's the same problem D3 had at launch (followed by a massive difficulty spike at Inferno to drive the RMAH).

None of the feedback you can get on how this game plays right now is meaningful.

Firstly none of the paywalls that are going to exist in the final version between the player and the kind of experience being demoed are present for the demo. And secondly because the sense of progression that is the fundamental reason for playing a game like this will, in the final version, be inextricably linked to its monetisation model. So anyone who plays the game without the monetisation present is not going to be able to meaningfully describe the real end user experience (an increasing problem with AAA games of all stripes, even when the publishers don't sneak the microtransactions in a few weeks after launch so none of the reviews can mention them).

[Psyren]

None of the feedback you can get on how this game plays right now is meaningful.

*snip*

Well, sort of. I think a partial picture is still better than nothing. If the basic gameplay of moving, aiming abilities and dodging affixes is bad, then nothing you mentioned is going to save it. All the stuff you mentioned can absolutely sink the game, no arguments here, but we can at least evaluate the basic gameplay in this new medium.

[Kadesh]

PTR Headsup that are essentially 'we know we done ****ed up here is a little something to stop you playing PoE, because we' re giving you big damage numbers
- QoL upgrades: +5 Stash Tabs, Primals show up with Red Beam, Red Outline, and Red Pentagram on field, Stash and minimal, Keystones are now stored on mats, Paragon Points can't be changed mid rift
- Season 16: non stackable RoRG effect, free random primal when you complete first level 70 grift.
- Sets:
-- LoN: 500% Buff per Ancient
-- big damage sets for most class sets apart from Necromancer sets.

I might push for a LoN melee Curse necromancer (Requiem Cereplate definitely needs to give Cannibalize as a bonus rune also)

[ShneekeyTheLost]

You know... I just realized that D:I was an even bigger blunder than I had originally realized.

Stop and think for a moment. D3 is available... on the Switch. Which... drumroll please... IS MOBILE! And is more ergonomically suited to gaming than a phone using a touch interface, because the controls are to each side of the screen so your hands aren't obscuring the playing area.

So D:I is almost literally an inferior port of a game they have already released for a system they already support, and one that most of the fanbase who care about mobile gaming already possess.

[Psyren]

We just got the promotional Diablo Switch as a Christmas present for each other. Planning to jump into the new Grandeur Season with it, which supposedly gives a passive RRoG effect (i.e. freeing up a ring slot for a number of builds, and potentially enabling a couple of brand new ones.)

I'm prefacing with that because I wanted to make the point that I don't think saying "they have Switch Diablo, so Phone Diablo shouldn't exist" makes sense. There are a number of places I won't bring my Switch that I will bring my phone - places like work, bars, public transportation, or the DMV. And in terms of raw install base, there are almost certainly more people with phones, even higher end ones that could run a game like Immortal, than there are folks with Switches - particularly if you go outside of the US and Japan markets. If they design Immortal properly, these could end up being places where knocking out a quick bounty or rift could make sense and scratch that itch when I'm not able to partake in a more dedicated gaming session, much like firing up a quick match in Hearthstone, including an AI match against an adventure or dungeon run boss.

My problem isn't that Phone Diablo exists - I don't think it's a bad idea, if they can get the gameplay to feel at least somewhat like the real thing. My main problem has been the disregard towards folks who DO want more PC Diablo. Had they teased D4 or even just another D3 expansion alongside Immortal, I would've been totally on board.

As for our first foray into Console Diablo - yeah, it's all right. we jumped in at Expert Difficulty and while we've already died a couple of times, we're grokking the controls fairly well and the new "dodge roll" ability feels responsive, though it's pretty useless if monsters box you in.

[GloatingSwine]

My problem isn't that Phone Diablo exists - I don't think it's a bad idea, if they can get the gameplay to feel at least somewhat like the real thing. My main problem has been the disregard towards folks who DO want more PC Diablo. Had they teased D4 or even just another D3 expansion alongside Immortal, I would've been totally on board.

My problem isn't that phone Diablo exists, my problem is that phone Diablo is cast iron guaranteed to be an exploitative lootbox driven trashpile which exists to prey on compulsive gamblers because that's what mobile games are like, and what Netease games are like.

[Psyren]

My problem isn't that phone Diablo exists, my problem is that phone Diablo is cast iron guaranteed to be an exploitative lootbox driven trashpile which exists to prey on compulsive gamblers because that's what mobile games are like, and what Netease games are like.

Which is why it hinges on the gameplay as I said. If it's not fun to play without spending a dime, then it's going to fail hard.

Using Hearthstone as an example, the Dungeon Run and Witch Hunt modes don't require any cash at all, and you can get hours of fun out of those. Casual play and several of the tavern brawls can be done F2P as well.

If they build the core loop around the monetization - which, unfortunately, they've done before with the RMAH - then they will get similarly bad results.

[GloatingSwine]

Which is why it hinges on the gameplay as I said. If it's not fun to play without spending a dime, then it's going to fail hard.


Ethically and critically yes.

Commercially probably not.

These games aren't designed to be fun to play, they're designed to provide a compulsive experience through the same triggers as gambling (anticipation of reward in a randomised environment), so they can extract money from problem gamblers.

Netease's existing phone Diablo, Endless of God, even has an automatic mode so you don't even have to play the gameplay.

[Psyren]

Ethically and critically yes.

Commercially probably not.

Here's the thing though - just because something is a commercial success doesn't mean they won't be willing to retool it for critical success too if they drop the ball. We saw that happen with D3 itself, which sold more than enough copies at launch that they could have gotten away (fiscally) with doing nothing, but they still revamped the gameplay loop via Loot 2.0. We saw the same with games like No Man's Sky and Destiny 2 (eventually...) and it looks like we're about to see the same with Fallout 76.


These games aren't designed to be fun to play, they're designed to provide a compulsive experience through the same triggers as gambling (anticipation of reward in a randomised environment), so they can extract money from problem gamblers.

I agree with you: lootboxes are gambling and should be regulated as such. I don't think their very existence robs a game of fun - Overwatch and Hearthstone disprove that - and futhermore we don't even know if DI will have them yet. There's a lot of potential for downside here, but that's all it is right now, potential.


Netease's existing phone Diablo, Endless of God, even has an automatic mode so you don't even have to play the gameplay.

Putting aside that no Diablo title has been free of automatic play, I heard nothing about that mode being in DI from Blizzcon myself. Even if it shows up, I'd have no intention of using it - though I do have Progress Quest on my phone :smalltongue:

[GloatingSwine]

Here's the thing though - just because something is a commercial success doesn't mean they won't be willing to retool it for critical success too if they drop the ball. We saw that happen with D3 itself, which sold more than enough copies at launch that they could have gotten away (fiscally) with doing nothing, but they still revamped the gameplay loop via Loot 2.0. We saw the same with games like No Man's Sky and Destiny 2 (eventually...) and it looks like we're about to see the same with Fallout 76.


I'm not so sure.

Remember that this is not a Blizzard game, it's a Netease game. I do not think the Chinese mobile market's equivalent of EA is going to care about the critical perceptions of western media.

Also, Blizzard are not what you think they are. Not any more. It's increasingly clear that it's Activision calling the shots, and they want more releases and more cost cutting. That'll mean less support for already released products.

(And whilst you think Destiny 2 has course corrected, remember that Activision are not happy with the numbers for Forsaken and are planning to monetise the current players harder)

[Olinser]

Here's the thing though - just because something is a commercial success doesn't mean they won't be willing to retool it for critical success too if they drop the ball. We saw that happen with D3 itself, which sold more than enough copies at launch that they could have gotten away (fiscally) with doing nothing, but they still revamped the gameplay loop via Loot 2.0. We saw the same with games like No Man's Sky and Destiny 2 (eventually...) and it looks like we're about to see the same with Fallout 76.



I agree with you: lootboxes are gambling and should be regulated as such. I don't think their very existence robs a game of fun - Overwatch and Hearthstone disprove that - and futhermore we don't even know if DI will have them yet. There's a lot of potential for downside here, but that's all it is right now, potential.



Putting aside that no Diablo title has been free of automatic play, I heard nothing about that mode being in DI from Blizzcon myself. Even if it shows up, I'd have no intention of using it - though I do have Progress Quest on my phone :smalltongue:

Lootboxes for cosmetic rewards is fine.

ANY item or drop that actually affects actual gameplay being attainable only from lootboxes it completely unacceptable.

[Psyren]

I'm not so sure.

Remember that this is not a Blizzard game, it's a Netease game. I do not think the Chinese mobile market's equivalent of EA is going to care about the critical perceptions of western media.

Also, Blizzard are not what you think they are. Not any more. It's increasingly clear that it's Activision calling the shots, and they want more releases and more cost cutting. That'll mean less support for already released products.

(And whilst you think Destiny 2 has course corrected, remember that Activision are not happy with the numbers for Forsaken and are planning to monetise the current players harder)

I can't stop you from being a cynic, I can only speak for myself and what I intend to do - which is judge the finished product (harshly, if need be.)


Lootboxes for cosmetic rewards is fine.

ANY item or drop that actually affects actual gameplay being attainable only from lootboxes it completely unacceptable.

Warframe has randomized mod packs - lootboxes with gameplay items in them, in other words - and nobody considers it exploitative. I don't believe in blanket rules, rather context is everything.

[Lord Torath]

So... anyone know when this season is ending? I thought it was supposed to be around the 15th of Dec, but as far as I can tell, we're still going...

[Psyren]

It got extended to January 6. (https://heavy.com/games/2018/12/diablo-3-season-15-end-date/)

We'll be playing next season, but on Switch this time - it changes up the formula enough to feel like a fresh game, yet still familiar. A bunch of our IRL friends who weren't as big on Diablo as we are (but have picked it up on Switch) will be joining us too!

[Wookieetank]

(And whilst you think Destiny 2 has course corrected, remember that Activision are not happy with the numbers for Forsaken and are planning to monetise the current players harder)

I can't say that I'm surprised by this. Had a group on PS4 who got into Destiny2 with the free game from PS+ and we all ended up picking up Forsaken and the other expansions. All of us had fun getting through the story and running around for a bit, but once we hit endgame, the grindwall is awful. None of us have picked up the game since the beginning of October, less than a month after Forsaken launched. I didn't even know there was a new expansion to it out this month till I saw post release reviews popping up.

Activision (and triple A game companys in general) are leaving much to be desired in their handling of pretty much everything these days.

On-topic, I find D3 is much more fun for me when I think of it as an arcade game over an AARPG. It feels much closer to Gauntlet than D2 at this point. And the ridiculous damage numbers just feeds into that. There's no real sense of exploration at this point, its just a matter of how fast can I steamroll this difficulty before moving onto the next. Its like playing a speedrun of a Shump, but in a fantasy setting and with beings instead of spaceships.

[tyckspoon]

On-topic, I find D3 is much more fun for me when I think of it as an arcade game over an AARPG. It feels much closer to Gauntlet than D2 at this point. And the ridiculous damage numbers just feeds into that. There's no real sense of exploration at this point, its just a matter of how fast can I steamroll this difficulty before moving onto the next. Its like playing a speedrun of a Shump, but in a fantasy setting and with beings instead of spaceships.

Greater Rifting for advancement/loot does at least have a lot more variety to it in maps, enemy types, and bosses you fight than the equivalent activities in D2.. or can you really say that killing Mephisto, Baal, and the Countess a billion times didn't have exactly the same feeling?

[Keltest]

Greater Rifting for advancement/loot does at least have a lot more variety to it in maps, enemy types, and bosses you fight than the equivalent activities in D2.. or can you really say that killing Mephisto, Baal, and the Countess a billion times didn't have exactly the same feeling?

My thing is that the goals in D2 were a lot more tangible. When you farmed for your Breath of the Dying or whatever it was, you had a definite goal that gave you something totally new when you completed it. With D3, its just bigger numbers on the same items youre running with for the entire endgame.

[Wookieetank]

Dunno if it was the group of friends I played D2 with or what, but it was a much more relaxed, what's over here sort of play through than D3 has been for me. I also never did any of the ladder play, since for a lot of D2's run I didn't have worthwhile internet (hurray for LAN parties). I still have fun with D3, but its a very different sort of fun than D2.

[Kadesh]

My thing is that the goals in D2 were a lot more tangible. When you farmed for your Breath of the Dying or whatever it was, you had a definite goal that gave you something totally new when you completed it. With D3, its just bigger numbers on the same items youre running with for the entire endgame.

So what is it that you do with your Breath of the Dying or whatever it was? Stop playing and say to yourself 'well that's me done now'?

I'm running a Melee Lon Curse Necromancer. It is hot garbage, but one of the most fun playstyles given it is essentially an auto attack bot. I mean a few Legendaries need a tweak: Requiem Cereplate for exampls needs to grant Cannibalize or Devouring Aura to allow the other to work as well. I don't play enough to Leaderboard pushing, so why bother?

[Keltest]

So what is it that you do with your Breath of the Dying or whatever it was? Stop playing and say to yourself 'well that's me done now'?

I'm running a Melee Lon Curse Necromancer. It is hot garbage, but one of the most fun playstyles given it is essentially an auto attack bot. I mean a few Legendaries need a tweak: Requiem Cereplate for exampls needs to grant Cannibalize or Devouring Aura to allow the other to work as well. I don't play enough to Leaderboard pushing, so why bother?

Probably. I move on to another character. Once I have the classically good stuff down, I use that to get a bunch of gear to make stupid sounding builds playable instead of hot garbage.

[Psyren]

My thing is that the goals in D2 were a lot more tangible. When you farmed for your Breath of the Dying or whatever it was, you had a definite goal that gave you something totally new when you completed it. With D3, its just bigger numbers on the same items youre running with for the entire endgame.

I think LoN builds offer that sort of long-term goal myself. Moreso, because you can even experiment again at that point while still pushing the ladder or being viable at the highest difficulty. I find D2 builds to be dreadfully static by comparison.

[Winthur]

As a big D2 player in my youth who never saw a Zod I also never saw a BotD. I fairly quickly moved on to just playing untwinked to semi-twinked characters in a "play the hand you're dealt" manner since I actually never had much luck with MFing even when following the guidelines. My goal was always something like "take this dude, get him some "heirloom" gear to speedrun Normal because that crap is boring, and then see if he can make it to Patriarch / Guardian". I think D2's endgame is somewhat tangible in the sense that you can set it up entirely on your own. Some people want to put Ubers on farm, some people want a BiS hammerdin, and some want to play utterly oddball crap or test their knowledge of game mechanics through untwinked play.

In other news, I actually got D3 on the Black Friday sale but haven't played it much because the guy I was supposed to play it with has a schedule slip. Figured it will be worth the discount in its current state. If I hit level 70 with any character, do I unlock "Torment" difficulty levels forever, ladder or not? I'm thinking of just blazing through with a Demon Hunter and see where that takes me.

[Psyren]

If by "Ladder" you mean "Seasonal", I believe you have to unlock public Torment games each time. Privately (i.e. by yourself or only with friends) you can usually set the game as high as you want, though if you're leveling then its actually slower to try for anything higher than Master (or even Expert if Master has you going carefully or returning to town for upgrades frequently.)

I never saw Zod drop either, but thanks to trading (and let's face it, duping) it was pretty easy to get one. Just farm for something valuable yet easier to get, like Isenhart's Case a couple of full twink sets + some lesser runes, or maybe a stack of UNID charms, and you were generally good.

[T.G. Oskar]

To see if some discussion can be sparked here...

I got Diablo III: Eternal Collection for the Switch (basically the second/third such game I get for the system, the others being Civ VI and TES: Skyrim). Mostly playing it on Handheld Mode (no TV, though that should change pretty soon).

First, even with a bunch of enemies on sight, the game runs super smooth. I saw a video where they mentioned the game constantly runs in 60 FPS regardless of mode, but after playing it constantly, I have to give them the pass: I've never seen any slowdown on the game, at any moment. Probably it's because of the tech specs, but that's fine by me; prefer the gameplay to the graphics anyways.

Let's just say that it's super fun to spend some time killing mobs. It has a sort of zen quality, to get off work, fire up the Switch from Sleep mode, and just kill stuff mindlessly. I mean, I've gotten to the point some mobile games are more complicated and cringeworthy.

Finished the game with a Crusader (both the vanilla game and Reaper of Souls expansion), with increasing difficulty (I think I ended up in either Expert or Torment I). Never had too much difficulty, aside from a few silly deaths (namely, a few gang-bangs, trying to get accustomed to Torment difficulty had me some consecutive kills on Act IV, and got killed by Malthael when I could have used the Bottomless Potion of Chaos to warp away, but nothing truly overwhelming. Had the fortune to get two very nice pieces of equipment pretty early on (Blessed of Haull and Haunt of Vexo), which pretty much defined my build. Had fun playing as pretty much all the Avengers, though my focus is on lots of pets:


Justice as Primary, with Burst as the Rune (Stun = Haunt of Vaxo shadow clones). With Blessed of Haull, I got Blessed Hammer with every hit, which feels downright unfair to every single other build (note I said "feels"). I mostly used Smite up until then, but once I got that, there was no way to change it. In fact, I refused to change my belt up until I got the one that procs Bombardment every 7 seconds, and by then, I had Kanai's Cube active, so...
Blessed Shield as Secondary. Nothing better than playing as Captain America. Settled with Divine Aegis for the rune in order to get more Damage Reduction and Life.
Consecration as Defensive. Helps with the healing, but it's mostly because of the DoT from Shattered Ground.
Phalanx as Utility, with Bowmen as the Rune. Quite frankly, I believe it's the best option out there. With the Warhelm of Kassar, I can trigger Phalanx almost every time, which is magnificent
Laws of Valor to boost Attack Speed, though for the most part I went with Laws of Justice for the increased defense (plus, I'm a sucker for passive tanking skills, and Protect the Innocent does just that). Chose Frozen in Terror to have another choice to Stun.
Falling Sword as the Conviction (i.e., the Desperation move). Superhero landing is always awesome, and with Rise Brothers granting more Avatars of the Order, it's a win-win situation.
Passives include Fervor (hit faster), Hold your Ground (because of the shield I use, which triggers on a Block), Lord Commander (to boost Phalanx damage, though it's a bit lost on Bombardment) and Blunt (best buddy with Blessed of Haull).
Kanai's Cube powers include, as I mentioned, Blessed of Haull and Haunt of Vaxo.


Thunderfury as weapon, for the pseudo-Chain Lightning effect. I also have two copies of Odyn Son, for actual Chain Lightning
Ivory Tower as shield. No biggie, other than Fires of Heaven as the Block trigger.
Warhelm of Kassar with Red Soul Shard. Will stay with it probably for a long time.
Cain's Scrivener, Cain's Habit and Cain's Travelers for hands, legs and feet respectively. Easy to build, and helps to get more Magic Items, so it's an obvious transition set.
Blackthorne's Surcoat for armor, until I get something better
Belt of the Trove for belt, which FINALLY replaced Blessed of Haull. Bombardment every 7 seconds is fun.
Rondal's Locket for amulet, once I cannibalized Haunt of Vaxo. Gives some nice stuff, including nearly doubling my Crit damage.
Pauldrons of the Skeleton King for shoulders. Has a nice saving throw effect, but for the most part, it's because of the stats. Huge defensive bonuses.
Restraint and Krade's Flame as rings. No big deal from here, though Krade's Flame is pretty nice on certain places and against certain enemies (Urzael comes to mind...)
Bottomless Potion of Chaos as my potion. Have the Kulle-Aid one, but this one is very useful.

I was planning for a Thorns of the Invoker set, but not sure if I should change my mind. Probably get separate pieces for all of the Phalanx-boosting items, and settle for Seeker of the Light + Ring of Royal Grandeur for the full set bonus. As for Weapon + Shield, probably max Blessed Hammer damage (Johanna's Argument + Guard of Johanna) or boost Blessed Shield damage (Gyrfalcon's Foote + Jekangbord).

As you can see, the build is mostly meant to call in the Cavalry ASAP (and with Warhelm of Kassar, this means a pretty sticky Cavalry): four Bowmen, two Bodyguards from Falling Sword, plus the Shadow Clones that use Sweep Attack and Condemn on their own. That gives a ton of damage support. Primary damage, though, comes from spamming Primary in all directions to maximize the number of hits from Blessed Hammer, and then maximizing the damage from Blessed Hammer (nice, big numbers each time).

Took me a while, but it's Greater Rift capable (that said, it's not Cursed Chest capable). Gonna go for a sweep in Adventure Mode for each Torment until I get stuck.

Also, currently doing Campaign mode (again) with a Monk. Pretty fun to play, going for sheer speed rather than loads of creatures nearby. No Exploding Palm (sadly), or I'd be playing Fist of the North Star's Kenshiro (have a lot of fun with Way of Hundred Palms). Still slow on the damage, though.

[Lord Torath]

There's a lovely two-handed flail, The Mortal Drama, which will double the number of Bombardment impacts, which works nicely with your Belt of the Trove.

One of the Game Play options lets you assign any skill to any slot (meaning you can have two Conviction powers, though you can still only have one Law at a time), which opens a lot more combinations. For example, there's a one-handed flail that removes the Wrath cost of Blessed Shield (Gyrfalcon's Foot). You can then put Blessed Shield as your primary attack, and be Captain America all the time. I like having Falling Sword or Steed Charge on my right-click.

[Rynjin]

The current free Seasonal Set for Monks is Uliana's, so if you want to Exploding Palm whole crowds of dudes, maybe start over in Seasonal mode.

[T.G. Oskar]

There's a lovely two-handed flail, The Mortal Drama, which will double the number of Bombardment impacts, which works nicely with your Belt of the Trove.

One of the Game Play options lets you assign any skill to any slot (meaning you can have two Conviction powers, though you can still only have one Law at a time), which opens a lot more combinations. For example, there's a one-handed flail that removes the Wrath cost of Blessed Shield (Gyrfalcon's Foot). You can then put Blessed Shield as your primary attack, and be Captain America all the time. I like having Falling Sword or Steed Charge on my right-click.

Thing is, I'm more into Sword & Board, so my options boil down to Gyrfalcon's + Jekangbord, or Johanna's Arms (Argument + Guard) to boost either Blessed Shield or Blessed Hammer. Probably going for Johanna's Arms, because maxing Blessed Hammer and then spamming it through Justice.

That said, I know about Elective Mode (switched the slots for purposes of button setup, and on my Monk, I got both Cyclone Strike and Mystic Ally active at the same time), but as I said, I feel Justice + Blessed Hammer will do better than spamming Blessed Shield. Still can have the benefit through Kanai's Cube.


The current free Seasonal Set for Monks is Uliana's, so if you want to Exploding Palm whole crowds of dudes, maybe start over in Seasonal mode.

Thing is, I'm still getting the hang of Monk, and so far, my set-up is mostly to draw enemies with Cyclone Strike, tap Mantra of Retribution, and then spam Way of Hundred Fists. If things get rough, I use Breath of Heaven to heal (and get a small damage boost), and when a group of enemies is down, use Dashing Strike to move to the next. I feel Dashing Strike is super-effective for a lot of things, in particular for movement and escaping certain traps (i.e., the Frozen mines) or getting Power Globes. It's easily one of my favorite Monk skills, in addition to Way of Hundred Fists. Have to check what item sets work best with WoHF, Cyclone Strike, Mystic Ally, Breath of Heaven, Dashing Strike and Mantra of Retribution (or else, what I can shift to work better).

Also: finally got a TV to play with, and the game looks really crisp and fluid. (It pays to mention the TV is meant to support 1080p resolution.) Just like in handheld, it plays seamlessly on docked mode.

[Lord Torath]

Thing is, I'm more into Sword & Board, so my options boil down to Gyrfalcon's + Jekangbord, or Johanna's Arms (Argument + Guard) to boost either Blessed Shield or Blessed Hammer. Probably going for Johanna's Arms, because maxing Blessed Hammer and then spamming it through Justice.Oh, I hear you! I almost always go with a one-handed weapon in hand (for the Fervor passive benefit) and the complimentary two-hander in the cube. I really do love the Blessed of Haul Justice Hammer. Tons of fun. I was just suggesting The Mortal Drama in the Cube to augment your Belt of the Trove.

[tyckspoon]

Thing is, I'm still getting the hang of Monk, and so far, my set-up is mostly to draw enemies with Cyclone Strike, tap Mantra of Retribution, and then spam Way of Hundred Fists. If things get rough, I use Breath of Heaven to heal (and get a small damage boost), and when a group of enemies is down, use Dashing Strike to move to the next. I feel Dashing Strike is super-effective for a lot of things, in particular for movement and escaping certain traps (i.e., the Frozen mines) or getting Power Globes. It's easily one of my favorite Monk skills, in addition to Way of Hundred Fists. Have to check what item sets work best with WoHF, Cyclone Strike, Mystic Ally, Breath of Heaven, Dashing Strike and Mantra of Retribution (or else, what I can shift to work better).


You'll be wanting Inna's set for that loadout - it improves Mystic Ally and Mantras, and then gives you a damage bonus based on the number of Mystic Allies you have (one of the set effects is activating all runes for it at once, and you can double it with The Crudest Boots to have 10 spirit pets running around with you.) And that's it - it doesn't lock you into any other skills for its effects, so you can combine it with whatever else. It works nicely with Cyclone Strike due to a couple of supporting legendaries for that skill. Lefebvre's Soliloquy (sp) gives you a hefty damage reduction after you Cyclone Strike, and Bindings of the Lesser Gods makes your Mystic Allies do increased damage to the things you hit with Cyclone Strike. It also makes the Mystic Ally active use a huge general-purpose button because of all the different Allies going off - damage and crowd control from Fire, Water, Earth, spirit regen and heal from Air and Enduring.

Edit: You'll probably want to move away from Breath of Heaven at some point, especially if you do wind up playing with Inna's - most higher level builds rely on Life Per Hit or Life Per Second for their health sustain, and Inna's in particular will have a pretty hefty Life Per Second from Enduring Ally and Healing Mantra as well as a burst heal from Enduring Ally active. If you still feel the need for a defensive/restoration cooldown beyond your potion, Serenity (with the time extension or added burst heal runes) and Blinding Flash can give your regen/active life per hit time to build you back up, or Inner Sanctuary is a short enough cooldown to be used in most potentially nasty fights.

[Rynjin]

The main issue with Inna's is how kinda boring it gets on higher torments. It's kinda like Invoker's Crusader. You don't take much damage so there's zero danger of death, but you also don't deal all that much damage, so Rifts take forever and a day to finish.

It's great for safely pushing GRifts and easy turn off your brain gri ding, but not super engaging once you have the rotation down pat.

[T.G. Oskar]

Oh, I hear you! I almost always go with a one-handed weapon in hand (for the Fervor passive benefit) and the complimentary two-hander in the cube. I really do love the Blessed of Haul Justice Hammer. Tons of fun. I was just suggesting The Mortal Drama in the Cube to augment your Belt of the Trove.

I was looking for a good weapon power for Kanai's Cube, and this one works fine. I'll consider if I get it.


You'll be wanting Inna's set for that loadout - it improves Mystic Ally and Mantras, and then gives you a damage bonus based on the number of Mystic Allies you have (one of the set effects is activating all runes for it at once, and you can double it with The Crudest Boots to have 10 spirit pets running around with you.) And that's it - it doesn't lock you into any other skills for its effects, so you can combine it with whatever else. It works nicely with Cyclone Strike due to a couple of supporting legendaries for that skill. Lefebvre's Soliloquy (sp) gives you a hefty damage reduction after you Cyclone Strike, and Bindings of the Lesser Gods makes your Mystic Allies do increased damage to the things you hit with Cyclone Strike. It also makes the Mystic Ally active use a huge general-purpose button because of all the different Allies going off - damage and crowd control from Fire, Water, Earth, spirit regen and heal from Air and Enduring.

Edit: You'll probably want to move away from Breath of Heaven at some point, especially if you do wind up playing with Inna's - most higher level builds rely on Life Per Hit or Life Per Second for their health sustain, and Inna's in particular will have a pretty hefty Life Per Second from Enduring Ally and Healing Mantra as well as a burst heal from Enduring Ally active. If you still feel the need for a defensive/restoration cooldown beyond your potion, Serenity (with the time extension or added burst heal runes) and Blinding Flash can give your regen/active life per hit time to build you back up, or Inner Sanctuary is a short enough cooldown to be used in most potentially nasty fights.

Thanks for the advice on Inna's set. Having all five effects of Mystic Ally at once is wonderful.

As for all the other items, part of the reason I went for Mystic Ally + Cyclone Strike is because I got Bindings of the Lesser Gods pretty early on, and I saw it was a nice combo. Switched the bracers, but I can see probably griinding for it again at lv. 70.

As for Breath of Heaven, it's mostly because of Blazing Wrath for that damage boost. I prefer Life per Hit (I actually look for LPH rather than LPS, since it combines well with boosts to Attack Speed); it helps a LOT with my Crusader's survival, so I know about that. Breath of Heaven isn't necessarily meant for emergency healing, but I don't feel any of the other moves aids a lot. I might end up replacing it with Ring the Bell or Seven-Sided Strike. Not really surprised with the Defensive skills, other than maybe Inner Sanctuary + Intervene + Templar to insist with movement.

[Psyren]

The main issue with Inna's is how kinda boring it gets on higher torments. It's kinda like Invoker's Crusader. You don't take much damage so there's zero danger of death, but you also don't deal all that much damage, so Rifts take forever and a day to finish.

Inna Generator and Inna Wave of Light do a ton of damage actually, both are A-Tier. This puts them roughly 50% ahead of Uliana (C-Tier) in both damage and toughness because they can clear 5-6 GRs higher within the timer. (every 10 GRs, monster health and damage doubles, i.e. 100% increase.)

With that said, I find Uliana much, much more fun to play even if it's less effective. (But I probably like Sunwuko best of all.)

[Rynjin]

Maybe it's just that I was always expected to be support man in group play when I had Inna's equipped. I haven't seen those offshoots, maybe I'll give them a shot.

[Psyren]

Maybe it's just that I was always expected to be support man in group play when I had Inna's equipped. I haven't seen those offshoots, maybe I'll give them a shot.

I almost never do that kind of "role-based" group play in D3. When my bf and I are pushing GRs, we either run solo or together using whichever dps builds we're having the most fun with, rather than trying to do an established 4-man comp in a PuG setting. Those 4-man groups with a dedicated support and boss-killer role can certainly get much higher (triple-digit range) but I'm much more interested in solo-pushing or duo-pushing usually.

I also hate builds that don't play intuitively - my instinct in Diablo is to nuke the screen as much as possible and any build that does something else (e.g. support, or dragging enemies along without killing them, or intentionally holding back) just feels wrong to me.

[tyckspoon]

I almost never do that kind of "role-based" group play in D3. When my bf and I are pushing GRs, we either run solo or together using whichever dps builds we're having the most fun with, rather than trying to do an established 4-man comp in a PuG setting. Those 4-man groups with a dedicated support and boss-killer role can certainly get much higher (triple-digit range) but I'm much more interested in solo-pushing or duo-pushing usually.

I also hate builds that don't play intuitively - my instinct in Diablo is to nuke the screen as much as possible and any build that does something else (e.g. support, or dragging enemies along without killing them, or intentionally holding back) just feels wrong to me.

Playing Wizard is always weird for me because of this - none of their sets really work on the straightforward 'just go kill stuff' idea. Vyr makes you manage Archon timing without doing anything to just let you permanently be in Archon or giving you bonuses when you aren't Archon, Firebird has that kind of weird 'Ignite an Elite and then never kill it so you can maintain the full Ignite bonus' kiting, Tal's makes you shuffle elemental attacks usually involving at least one skill that's not really meant to be an attack, Delsere's doesn't do anything unless you can drop a Slow Time on your fight.. a Wizard version of Marauder's or something would be nifty ('Hydra has all runes, your pets do 1000% damage' or 'your Arcane Hydra now casts whichever version of Arcane Orb you have runed' or something would be pretty fun), or just something as straightforward as Inna's "you have flat bonus damage, go kill things with whatever" or Waste's "Whirlwind. Whirlwind some more. Are they dead? Keep Whirlwinding" thing where maintaining the effects of the set is very obvious and straightforward.

[Rynjin]

I love Wastes. It's so faaaast. Same with Sun Wuko's Monk, dashing everywhere.

[Psyren]

Playing Wizard is always weird for me because of this - none of their sets really work on the straightforward 'just go kill stuff' idea. Vyr makes you manage Archon timing without doing anything to just let you permanently be in Archon or giving you bonuses when you aren't Archon, Firebird has that kind of weird 'Ignite an Elite and then never kill it so you can maintain the full Ignite bonus' kiting, Tal's makes you shuffle elemental attacks usually involving at least one skill that's not really meant to be an attack, Delsere's doesn't do anything unless you can drop a Slow Time on your fight.. a Wizard version of Marauder's or something would be nifty ('Hydra has all runes, your pets do 1000% damage' or 'your Arcane Hydra now casts whichever version of Arcane Orb you have runed' or something would be pretty fun), or just something as straightforward as Inna's "you have flat bonus damage, go kill things with whatever" or Waste's "Whirlwind. Whirlwind some more. Are they dead? Keep Whirlwinding" thing where maintaining the effects of the set is very obvious and straightforward.

I would say Tal and Delsere are pretty straightforward actually. Sure DMO wants you dropping Slow Time on your target, but you're naturally doing that anyway, just treat it like a Necro curse or a DH Mark and you'll be fine. As for Tal, you don't need all 4 elements to be equally represented - rather, pick one as your "kill element" (usually arcane or fire for their beefy meteors) and just keep the buff from the other three rolling with the occasional tag.

Vyr is also straightforward for anyone who plays Shadow Priest in WoW, Archon is basically identical to Voidform. The problem is that playing Vyr in a straightforward way is weak; it actually encourages you to do what's called a "reverse archon" build, where archon is just used to build up your stacks, and the real damage comes outside it. I can't deny the effectiveness, but I just hate the playstyle; it's like a Goku that gets weaker when he goes Super Saiyan and is stronger when he doesn't. (And yes, I know about Ultra Instinct, hush I'm making a point here.)


I love Wastes. It's so faaaast. Same with Sun Wuko's Monk, dashing everywhere.

Isn't Raiment the dashy one? Sunwuko is the caster monk I believe. (Of course, they're all dashy to an extent, just because that ability is so good.)

[The_Jackal]

I would say Tal and Delsere are pretty straightforward actually.

I wouldn't describe a high-end Tal's build as anything approaching straightforward. I would describe it as a nightmare of juggling damage buffs along with playing Simon says with Convention of Elements. It is exactly this tendency for all top builds to devolve into the CoE rainbow juggle that made me quit playing Diablo III in the first place.

[tyckspoon]

I would say Tal and Delsere are pretty straightforward actually. Sure DMO wants you dropping Slow Time on your target, but you're naturally doing that anyway, just treat it like a Necro curse or a DH Mark and you'll be fine. As for Tal, you don't need all 4 elements to be equally represented - rather, pick one as your "kill element" (usually arcane or fire for their beefy meteors) and just keep the buff from the other three rolling with the occasional tag.


I don't normally use Mark on my Demon Hunters >.> Delsere's actually wasn't bad, although I suspect I'd have preferred running it on PC instead of console so I could more tactically/usefully place the Slow Time bubbles; I sometimes ran into problems with the cooldown (even with the generous CD reduction from the set effects) just because I'd often end up needing to drop two or three bubbles to cover all of a pack with console targeting when mouse-pointer placement would have let me just put one on the ground in the middle.

[Rynjin]

Isn't Raiment the dashy one? Sunwuko is the caster monk I believe. (Of course, they're all dashy to an extent, just because that ability is so good.)

You may be right. Lemme check.

Edit: Yes, Raiment is the one I was thinking of, with Shenlong's.

[Psyren]

I wouldn't describe a high-end Tal's build as anything approaching straightforward. I would describe it as a nightmare of juggling damage buffs along with playing Simon says with Convention of Elements. It is exactly this tendency for all top builds to devolve into the CoE rainbow juggle that made me quit playing Diablo III in the first place.

That's for one specific build that uses Elemental Exposure for extreme top-level pushing. You can run a much simpler mono-element build and still push just fine, and even still use CoE - a 200% buff 25% of the time is equivalent to a 50% buff all the time, which is more than most rings will give you.


I don't normally use Mark on my Demon Hunters >.> Delsere's actually wasn't bad, although I suspect I'd have preferred running it on PC instead of console so I could more tactically/usefully place the Slow Time bubbles; I sometimes ran into problems with the cooldown (even with the generous CD reduction from the set effects) just because I'd often end up needing to drop two or three bubbles to cover all of a pack with console targeting when mouse-pointer placement would have let me just put one on the ground in the middle.

That's fair, console targeting is much less precise - but DMO lowers the cooldown on ST too, so you can usually toss out enough bubbles to blanket your targets anyhow.


You may be right. Lemme check.

Edit: Yes, Raiment is the one I was thinking of, with Shenlong's.

Have you tried the non-gen, dash-focused version? (Fleshrake/Crystal Fist/Jawbreaker)

[Rynjin]

Alas, no. I've never even SEEN any of those weapons drop, except maybe Fleshraker once or twice?

I had the same issue trying to make the Lashing Tail Kick build and never seeing hide nor hair of the headband that makes it shoot a fireball.

Edit: Hah. Funnily enough, I just got a Fleshrake...on my level 19 Monk I'm leveling for the Season. =/

[Psyren]

Edit: Hah. Funnily enough, I just got a Fleshrake...on my level 19 Monk I'm leveling for the Season. =/

The solution is easy, cube that one and target the two that do drop to wield :smallbiggrin:

[zlefin]

Is diablo 3 still adding expansions/content/dlc/whatever it is they add, or is it fully finished?
I'm waiting to buy it (been waiting several years, fine to wait more) until everything is finished so I can get it all at once.

[hamishspence]

IMO it's as close to finished as it's likely to be. now that there's the Necromancer expansion.

It would surprise me if they release any more expansions on that scale.

[Psyren]

With both Immortal and D4 in the works, it seems unlikely that D3 will get anything new beyond seasons and balance patches. So you should be good to buy, especially on console because the 4-player couch co-op makes for a solid party experience.

The common meme in the community is that Heroes of the Storm is getting more Diablo content right now than Diablo is :smallbiggrin: e.g. playable Imperius came out not too long ago.

[The_Jackal]

That's for one specific build that uses Elemental Exposure for extreme top-level pushing.

I kind of think the whole concept of 'extreme top-level pushing' is kind of a cipher. You're either doing speed runs, or you're trying to get the highest rift level you can. Your highest rift is your extreme top-level, and you can either use CoE for 90% of viable top-end builds, or you can just choose to be weak.


You can run a much simpler mono-element build and still push just fine, and even still use CoE - a 200% buff 25% of the time is equivalent to a 50% buff all the time, which is more than most rings will give you.

But it's NOT equivalent to a 50% all the time buff, and virtually anyone would choose a consistent 50% buff over a 200% buff 25% of the time, because you can quite easily miss your window due to boss phase changes, mechanics that force you to seek cover. Meanwhile, the rest of the time, you're tossing marshmallows at your enemies. Simon says, "Do damage". It's irritating.

If they wanted to promote rainbow builds, I support that fully, but there are way more fluid, intuitive and fun ways to do that than a timed, rotating buff.

[Keltest]

I kind of think the whole concept of 'extreme top-level pushing' is kind of a cipher. You're either doing speed runs, or you're trying to get the highest rift level you can. Your highest rift is your extreme top-level, and you can either use CoE for 90% of viable top-end builds, or you can just choose to be weak.



But it's NOT equivalent to a 50% all the time buff, and virtually anyone would choose a consistent 50% buff over a 200% buff 25% of the time, because you can quite easily miss your window due to boss phase changes, mechanics that force you to seek cover. Meanwhile, the rest of the time, you're tossing marshmallows at your enemies. Simon says, "Do damage". It's irritating.

If they wanted to promote rainbow builds, I support that fully, but there are way more fluid, intuitive and fun ways to do that than a timed, rotating buff.

As I recall, CoE was actually designed by the fans at one of the blizzcons.

[The_Jackal]

As I recall, CoE was actually designed by the fans at one of the blizzcons.

I did not know that, certainly explains some things. If I were designing something to take the place of the CoE ring, I would have gone more toward the route taken with the Wizard Passive, "Elemental Exposure". Has more or less exactly the same benefit to rainbow users, but doesn't completely monopolize all other builds, and also puts the tempo of the build in the hands of the player, rather than simply having the computer tell the player, "Use cold skills now".

[Psyren]

I kind of think the whole concept of 'extreme top-level pushing' is kind of a cipher. You're either doing speed runs, or you're trying to get the highest rift level you can. Your highest rift is your extreme top-level, and you can either use CoE for 90% of viable top-end builds, or you can just choose to be weak.

No, there's still a big, big difference between "highest level you can" and "highest level anyone has possibly achieved with that build." When you go onto Icy Veins or a similar elitistjerks-style optimization site and you see a DMO build throwing in a bunch of different elements and trying to line up the timing with each cycle of their CoE, that is the kind of top-level play that they're using to try and hit GR100+ and that I simply find un-fun, just like I think grinding out ancient pieces and a bucketload of level 50+ leggems so I can Caldesann every single one of my slots is un-fun. But that is what the people who want to push the extreme top level are expected to do, so to them, a weird multi-element build that hits harder is a no-brainer.


But it's NOT equivalent to a 50% all the time buff, and virtually anyone would choose a consistent 50% buff over a 200% buff 25% of the time, because you can quite easily miss your window due to boss phase changes, mechanics that force you to seek cover. Meanwhile, the rest of the time, you're tossing marshmallows at your enemies. Simon says, "Do damage". It's irritating.

Except almost no build is consistently doing the same amount of damage at all times. Even when your rotation lacks any sorts of peaks and valleys, you're also traveling around trying to find the next pack, or running away from harmful affixes, or rounding up density. So damage windows are indeed engaging gameplay, even if you're not always able to hit them - the fun is in trying to do so as often and consistently as possible despite everything else happening on screen.


If they wanted to promote rainbow builds,

They're not "promoting rainbow builds" - a handful of extreme optimizers are using them, just like extreme optimizers in any game will find ways to squeeze out extra damage, whether or not the designers intended them to be able to do that. You and I are quite free to ignore them, we'll never be at that level anyway so getting bent out of shape over them is pointless. (At least, I know I'm not GR95+, I'm not going to speak for you necessarily.)

[The_Jackal]

No, there's still a big, big difference between "highest level you can" and "highest level anyone has possibly achieved with that build." When you go onto Icy Veins or a similar elitistjerks-style optimization site and you see a DMO build throwing in a bunch of different elements and trying to line up the timing with each cycle of their CoE, that is the kind of top-level play that they're using to try and hit GR100+ and that I simply find un-fun, just like I think grinding out ancient pieces and a bucketload of level 50+ leggems so I can Caldesann every single one of my slots is un-fun. But that is what the people who want to push the extreme top level are expected to do, so to them, a weird multi-element build that hits harder is a no-brainer.

So, wait, even YOU find the sacrifices necessary to make a competitive ladder build unfun, yet you're going to bat to defend the design of this item which drives the gameplay which is required to make those top-end builds work? Are you sure you're not just indulging in some kneejerk contrarianism? I don't mean this by way of judgement, it happens to me all the time.


So damage windows are indeed engaging gameplay, even if you're not always able to hit them - the fun is in trying to do so as often and consistently as possible despite everything else happening on screen.

No they're not. Following a metronome isn't gameplay, or being very generous, it's infant-level DDR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revolution). You've as much as said even you don't like it, and I know I don't like it. But even leaving aside the "whether hitting a fixed damage window is fun" debate, it's also really mediocre in terms of diversity. This one, wildly overtuned ring completely owns that slot in like 90% of top tier builds.


They're not "promoting rainbow builds" - a handful of extreme optimizers are using them, just like extreme optimizers in any game will find ways to squeeze out extra damage, whether or not the designers intended them to be able to do that. You and I are quite free to ignore them, we'll never be at that level anyway so getting bent out of shape over them is pointless. (At least, I know I'm not GR95+, I'm not going to speak for you necessarily.)

Yes, you can also keep playing your copy of Diablo III at Torment 1, and never interface with the game's progression system at all. You can also unplug your computer and read a book. When I play a progression game, I want to progress, and sooner or later, progression is going to take you to a point where you've got to minimax. I'm fine with that. That's actually what I like about progression games: How continued work and understanding of the game's items, mechanics, and gameplay afford me the ability to accrue greater and greater power. But where Convention of Elements ruins the experience is how one overtuned, badly designed item warps all build design around itself to make an experience which, and I'm quoting you here, "I simply find un-fun."

Real talk: It doesn't have to be that way. The game should be no less fun at Greater Rift 120 than it was at Torment II. There's no reason that a well-rolled Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac or Short Man's Finger shouldn't be competitive with Convention of Elements or Unity (if you're solo). The reason they aren't competitive isn't a necessary product of cranking up the challenge, it's just lazy itemization and game design.

[T.G. Oskar]

All the speak about Convention of Elements...and I happened to land it recently. That, plus a Ring of Royal Grandeur, which is the kind of item I was actually looking for. That said...either it only works for one set, is glitched, or the effects aren't as obvious, because I don't seem to see it working. (My other ring is Restraint, which is part of the Bastion of Will set, and I still have Blackwell's chest piece, so at least it should have the benefit for 2 pieces). Got one from a Large Horadric Chest (obviously), the other through a visit to the Vault.

The Vault is pretty fun; it's like Christmas never ended. (Technically, it hasn't, ecclesiastically speaking, until Feb. 2nd). Mounds of gold everywhere, various Treasure Goblins, and hitting Greed was like hitting a piñata full of gold; it's insane to see my gold go from 5m to 14m in one run. If doing DIII felt like relaxing, this just upped the ante.

[Rynjin]

You need at least two set pieces for a Ring of Royal Grandeur to work. So it can up 3 pieces of a set to 4, or 5 to 6, but not 1 to 2.

[Psyren]

So, wait, even YOU find the sacrifices necessary to make a competitive ladder build unfun, yet you're going to bat to defend the design of this item which drives the gameplay which is required to make those top-end builds work? Are you sure you're not just indulging in some kneejerk contrarianism? I don't mean this by way of judgement, it happens to me all the time.

My position has been consistent, please go back to every other debate we've had on this topic if you doubt me. You for some reason I'm unable to fathom CANNOT distinguish between "competitive" and "bleeding edge", and you have never been able to do so. :smallannoyed:



No they're not. Following a metronome isn't gameplay, or being very generous, it's infant-level DDR (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dance_Dance_Revolution). You've as much as said even you don't like it, and I know I don't like it. But even leaving aside the "whether hitting a fixed damage window is fun" debate, it's also really mediocre in terms of diversity. This one, wildly overtuned ring completely owns that slot in like 90% of top tier builds.

Want to know why it's popular? Name one other ring that gives you 50% damage to everything. I'll wait.

And that's the minimum; it's 50%+ if you have even a vague ability to line up procs, cooldowns, or even just basic density with a favorable cycle.



Yes, you can also keep playing your copy of Diablo III at Torment 1, and never interface with the game's progression system at all.

Because not being interested in GR100 and not caring about anything past T1 are the same thing.

If you're not going to argue in good faith, at least don't waste my time.

[The_Jackal]

My position has been consistent, please go back to every other debate we've had on this topic if you doubt me. You for some reason I'm unable to fathom CANNOT distinguish between "competitive" and "bleeding edge", and you have never been able to do so. :smallannoyed:

That's because there is no difference. What separates someone playing 120 rifts and someone playing 50 rifts isn't their build, it's the quality of their gear. A 50 grift D3 player has a CoE with bad rolls, a 120 grift D3 player has an ancient CoE with perfect rolls. Both of them are using the ring, you're wasting your own time if you don't. Oh, sure, you can play the game with a sub-optimal build, but you're just working longer for less benefit. Cookie cutter builds don't happen because players are lazy, they happen because developers are.


Want to know why it's popular? Name one other ring that gives you 50% damage to everything. I'll wait.

And that's the minimum; it's 50%+ if you have even a vague ability to line up procs, cooldowns, or even just basic density with a favorable cycle.

Yeah, that's why it's bad design. Let's take one super-ring that's so amazingly overpowered that no other alternative could come close to competing with it. Good plan? Great plan.


Because not being interested in GR100 and not caring about anything past T1 are the same thing.

If you're not going to argue in good faith, at least don't waste my time.

Sooner or later, you're going to hit a wall. The hammer you need to use to break through that wall is a cookie cutter CoE build. That's that or tap out. I tapped out. Which is all I said, you didn't have to come flying to the defense of that one ring which you know is overpowered and rules virtually every endgame build.. You're wasting your own time, I didn't order you to say anything.

[Psyren]

That's because there is no difference.

And as long as you continue to believe that, we have nothing else to discuss.

[Keltest]

Im with The Jackal here. You can play without CoE just like you can play without item sets, or without using all your skill slots, but at that point your just deliberately choosing to not even try to see how high you can get. And while theres nothing wrong with that, it kind of defeats the purpose of having multiple items if one or two just so vastly outperform the rest.

[Psyren]

Im with The Jackal here. You can play without CoE just like you can play without item sets, or without using all your skill slots, but at that point your just deliberately choosing to not even try to see how high you can get. And while theres nothing wrong with that, it kind of defeats the purpose of having multiple items if one or two just so vastly outperform the rest.

But he's not complaining just about using CoE. His complaint is a feeling (all in his head) of being "forced" to use it in a very specific, high-ceiling way (i.e. in a multi-element build which tries to match every single one up with a cycle) and finding that annoying. For one or two specific builds, yes, that's obviously a powerful way to use it. But saying that's the only viable or competitive or whatever adjective you want to use way to do so, is like saying that if you're playing D&D and not running Pun-Pun then clearly you don't actually care about optimization.

And his feeling is wrong even then, because most top-tier builds that use CoE don't play element-tetris with it. The vast majority are mono-element (or at least their key spenders are), and simply do their thing continuously with a nice extra boost when that element rolls around. In other words, they ignore the ring completely for the most part, or at best line up a cooldown or two with the right cycle. Examples: Jade Harvester is mono-poison and has no cooldowns. N6M4 is mono-cold and presses two buttons (Vengeance and Companion) on-cycle. Multi-shot uses Fire and presses the same two on that cycle. and so on. All are S-Tier, i.e. every bit as powerful as the one DMO build he found to complain about.

And even if your complaint is just with the game having a ring that is clearly better than most of the others for some builds - hi, I'd like to introduce you to this game series called Diablo. Remember Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac from D1? Or SoJ/BK from Diablo 2? BiS rings are nothing new. D3 is actually the best in this regard, as there are far more solid builds around that don't use CoE at all.

[Keltest]

But he's not complaining just about using CoE. His complaint is a feeling (all in his head) of being "forced" to use it in a very specific, high-ceiling way (i.e. in a multi-element build which tries to match every single one up with a cycle) and finding that annoying. For one or two specific builds, yes, that's obviously a powerful way to use it. But saying that's the only viable or competitive or whatever adjective you want to use way to do so, is like saying that if you're playing D&D and not running Pun-Pun then clearly you don't actually care about optimization.

And his feeling is wrong even then, because most top-tier builds that use CoE don't play element-tetris with it. The vast majority are mono-element (or at least their key spenders are), and simply do their thing continuously with a nice extra boost when that element rolls around. In other words, they ignore the ring completely for the most part, or at best line up a cooldown or two with the right cycle. Examples: Jade Harvester is mono-poison and has no cooldowns. N6M4 is mono-cold and presses two buttons (Vengeance and Companion) on-cycle. Multi-shot uses Fire and presses the same two on that cycle. and so on. All are S-Tier, i.e. every bit as powerful as the one DMO build he found to complain about.

And even if your complaint is just with the game having a ring that is clearly better than most of the others for some builds - hi, I'd like to introduce you to this game series called Diablo. Remember Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac from D1? Or SoJ/BK from Diablo 2? BiS rings are nothing new. D3 is actually the best in this regard, as there are far more solid builds around that don't use CoE at all.
Honestly Psyren, im not sure you even understand the problem. Youre either not actually fighting enemies until your element comes around, or youre actively wasting a ring slot if you attack when your element isn't up. How is it good gameplay to punish you for not paying tribute to the ring buff? And because its so much more powerful if you do jump through the hoops, you cant hope to match people who are willing to put up with that crap on the leaderboards.

In what way is this well designed? You either have to play according to the ring's song and dance or youre stuck behind all the people who do.

[The_Jackal]

But he's not complaining just about using CoE. His complaint is a feeling (all in his head) of being "forced" to use it in a very specific, high-ceiling way (i.e. in a multi-element build which tries to match every single one up with a cycle) and finding that annoying. For one or two specific builds, yes, that's obviously a powerful way to use it. But saying that's the only viable or competitive or whatever adjective you want to use way to do so, is like saying that if you're playing D&D and not running Pun-Pun then clearly you don't actually care about optimization.

Nice straw man you've got there. Let's pick it apart, shall we? First of all Diablo 3 is a game about progression, not a tabletop RPG, where the spotlight must be shared with other players, and the focus is (usually) on narrative, character, and improvisation, rather than combat. If the only purpose of playing Dungeons and Dragons were combat, then YES, Pun-Pun would be the only viable build. If your yardstick for a balanced and well-designed combat game is Dungeons and Dragons, then we have some fundamentally different assumptions about what constitutes good game design.


And his feeling is wrong even then, because most top-tier builds that use CoE don't play element-tetris with it. The vast majority are mono-element (or at least their key spenders are), and simply do their thing continuously with a nice extra boost when that element rolls around. In other words, they ignore the ring completely for the most part, or at best line up a cooldown or two with the right cycle. Examples: Jade Harvester is mono-poison and has no cooldowns. N6M4 is mono-cold and presses two buttons (Vengeance and Companion) on-cycle. Multi-shot uses Fire and presses the same two on that cycle. and so on. All are S-Tier, i.e. every bit as powerful as the one DMO build he found to complain about.

Actually, I was complaining about Tal's, not DMO. I kind of liked DMO. I didn't like that we were still stuck in the 4 seconds on, 12 seconds off playstyle that CoE slathered on top of it, but DMO is a fine set, and I enjoyed playing it. I'm perfectly aware that many builds use CoE just for the boost. That doesn't make the ring any less overpowered, or any less annoying to play with. When you play a build with CoE, it shoehorns you into a playstyle where you're pissing in the wind for 12 seconds, and then finally get to kill someone for four.


And even if your complaint is just with the game having a ring that is clearly better than most of the others for some builds - hi, I'd like to introduce you to this game series called Diablo. Remember Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac from D1? Or SoJ/BK from Diablo 2? BiS rings are nothing new. D3 is actually the best in this regard, as there are far more solid builds around that don't use CoE at all.

Yes, actually, I did play those far more enjoyable, better designed games. So let's look at those examples, shall we? Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac in Diablo 1 had 30-40% to all resist, and 16-20 to all attributes. The reason it was a top tier ring was because it just had good stats. It didn't wildly alter the tempo of your gameplay, you still got to choose when you used your abilities, you still got to select your build. If playing a Wizard with Mana Shield and Fire Wall got you to that point you could put on Ob/Zod and keep playing your game. The same goes for Stone of Jordan in Diablo II. It just gave you +1 to all skills, added mana, and gave you some token lightning damage to your likely irrelevant weapon damage. BK is the same, just geared for weapon builds, with some life steal and health in lieu of mana. None of these items hijack your tempo, telling you when you need to push your high impact attacks. If Stone of Jordan had given +4 to Fire, Frost, and Lightning skills in Diablo II, rotating in 4 second intervals, I would have found that just as overpowered, irritating, and distorting.

But you're right in one respect. I'm not just fixated on this one poorly designed item. It's the whole mindset behind a game which designs in massive flexibility into the base game, only to cram the player into a straightjacket of cookie-cutter builds by virtue of a litany of goofy set bonuses and synergizing legendaries, all of which require you to play the way they want you to. Welcome to Diablo III!! Pick any 7 skills, and play your way! No, wait, you have Marauder's 6, you're playing sentry hopscotch for the next 4 weeks until something better drops.

[Psyren]

Youre either not actually fighting enemies until your element comes around, or youre actively wasting a ring slot if you attack when your element isn't up.

Elites and champions exist. And trash mobs that are weaker than both (i.e. the majority of what you fight) exist. Why would you stop firing?


How is it good gameplay to punish you for not paying tribute to the ring buff? And because its so much more powerful if you do jump through the hoops, you cant hope to match people who are willing to put up with that crap on the leaderboards.

How is continually holding down a fire button "jumping through hoops?" How is pressing a cooldown at the right time "jumping through hoops?" Please explain.

[The_Jackal]

Elites and champions exist. And trash mobs that are weaker than both (i.e. the majority of what you fight) exist. Why would you stop firing?

No, of course you don't stop firing, but firing for a fraction of your peak damage feels bad. It feels like you're lobbing marshmallows until your window opens up, a window over which you have no control. You don't have control over when you do big damage, the ring does. It removes your agency and undermines the whole power fantasy the game purports to offer.


How is continually holding down a fire button "jumping through hoops?" How is pressing a cooldown at the right time "jumping through hoops?" Please explain.

See above. The effect of the ring is to act as a traffic cop, holding up a 'Slow' sign for 12 seconds out of every 16.

[Rynjin]

I too, hate Convection (it's just...not fun, and I relish any build that uses two rings and can't afford the slot in the Cube for CoE), but there's really no reason to jump down each others' throats over it.

[Psyren]

No, of course you don't stop firing, but firing for a fraction of your peak damage feels bad.

Very well, I can't control how you feel (even if I cared to). Speaking personally though, I only notice the difference when fighting elites (the folks with 10x health) and rift guardians anyway. After all, if you're 1-shotting trash, 1-shotting it 4x faster doesn't really matter. And even on the thicker targets, it just means there are windows where their health is draining faster than usual, just like any other cooldown. And on those elites, part of the skill of the game is to put as much of your repositioning/affix-dodging outside of the burst window as possible, while as much of your raw output goes inside that same window.

Thus I like the mechanic, and there are plenty of builds that don't require element-tetris to get the most out of it (because they only have one element anyway.) You don't, that's okay, but it means there's really nothing to debate.

[The_Jackal]

Very well, I can't control how you feel (even if I cared to). Speaking personally though, I only notice the difference when fighting elites (the folks with 10x health) and rift guardians anyway. After all, if you're 1-shotting trash, 1-shotting it 4x faster doesn't really matter. And even on the thicker targets, it just means there are windows where their health is draining faster than usual, just like any other cooldown. And on those elites, part of the skill of the game is to put as much of your repositioning/affix-dodging outside of the burst window as possible, while as much of your raw output goes inside that same window.

If you're one-shotting trash without CoE, you're really not pushing very hard, and thus will wait far, far longer to gear up than if you cheese a top-tier build to do harder grifting. Higher grifts, better drop chances, more set pieces, more ancients, more blood shards, and higher level rings. By all means, you can putter along in the slow lane if you want to, but that's not an effective way to play the game.


Thus I like the mechanic, and there are plenty of builds that don't require element-tetris to get the most out of it (because they only have one element anyway.) You don't, that's okay, but it means there's really nothing to debate.

Only because you keep drifting past my main point, which is that the unbalanced itemization of endgame gear winnows down player choices to the point where the huge variety of skills they put into the game are not viable. Which, to be fair, if you're not going to argue, you're right, we don't have a debate. I'm just right.

[Psyren]

If you're one-shotting trash without CoE, you're really not pushing very hard, and thus will wait far, far longer to gear up than if you cheese a top-tier build to do harder grifting. Higher grifts, better drop chances, more set pieces, more ancients, more blood shards, and higher level rings. By all means, you can putter along in the slow lane if you want to, but that's not an effective way to play the game.

No - GRs aren't for gearing, T13 speedruns are. The only "gear" you should be targeting in a GR is raising your gems.


Only because you keep drifting past my main point, which is that the unbalanced itemization of endgame gear winnows down player choices to the point where the huge variety of skills they put into the game are not viable. Which, to be fair, if you're not going to argue, you're right, we don't have a debate. I'm just right.

Sure man, whatever. *dismissed*

[The_Jackal]

No - GRs aren't for gearing, T13 speedruns are. The only "gear" you should be targeting in a GR is raising your gems.

Great. Fantastic. And how many hours of flubbing around T6 in a cookie-cutter build do I need to do before I can casually speedrun T13 and oneshot everything without CoE?


Sure man, whatever. *dismissed*

Indeed. Whatever you do, don't grapple with the real argument. Check and mate.

[Seerow]

Great. Fantastic. And how many hours of flubbing around T6 in a cookie-cutter build do I need to do before I can casually speedrun T13 and oneshot everything without CoE?

Depends on which cookie cutter build you're using. There are some out there that don't use COE at all.

Just at decided to look at builds that are being advertised as top tier using the starter set from Haedrigs Gift (Immortal King). Looking at just those labeled as "High Tier"

https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/barbarian-seismic-slam-build-with-might-of-the-earth-and-immortal-king-patch-2-6-4-season-16 lists CoE as optional.
https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/demon-hunter-natalya-marauder-sentry-build-patch-2-6-4-season-16 lists CoE as optional
https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/witch-doctor-arachyr-firebats-build-patch-2-6-4-season-16 does not mention CoE at all
https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/wizard-lightning-archon-build-with-manald-heal-and-tal-rasha-vyr-sets-patch-2-6-4-season-16 does not mention CoE at all
https://www.icy-veins.com/d3/wizard-vyr-archon-build-patch-2-6-4-season-16 does not mention CoE at all.


So that's at least 5 different builds across 4 different classes, while looking only at "high" tier builds and only looking at ones that use the Haedrig's gift set. I'm sure if you are willing to accept Mid-tier (which is till easily able to clear T13 speed runs) and look at sets beyond the one you will get for free from the season, you'll find even more options.


It's cool that you don't like CoE. Yes it is a very powerful item, and yes a lot of builds take advantage of it. But nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use it in order to play the game even at a high level.

That being said I would be interested to see analysis from people who know the system better than me how much you lose overall from swapping CoE out on the builds that say it is necessary, and put whatever the next best in slot item is in instead. I'd be willing to guess it's a difference of a few GR levels, but I'd be willing to bet not enough to stall your progress permanently.

[Rynjin]

That being said I would be interested to see analysis from people who know the system better than me how much you lose overall from swapping CoE out on the builds that say it is necessary, and put whatever the next best in slot item is in instead. I'd be willing to guess it's a difference of a few GR levels, but I'd be willing to bet not enough to stall your progress permanently.

200% damage every 8 seconds or so? Make of that what you will.

[Psyren]

It's cool that you don't like CoE. Yes it is a very powerful item, and yes a lot of builds take advantage of it. But nobody is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use it in order to play the game even at a high level.

And even if they were holding that gun and saying use it, nobody is forcing him to use it in that specific way. But there's some kind of compulsion to pull the trigger I guess?


200% damage every 8 seconds or so? Make of that what you will.

And what % damage is, say, Manald giving you? Or Krysbin? How about OROTZ, Or RRoG? How about Short Man's Finger or Ring of Emptiness or Skull Grasp or Rue Chambers?

Or maybe you put a defensive ring there instead, like Unity or Halo of Arlyse/Karini - the toughness from which lets you reallocate some other slot(s) to damage output. How much did that get you?

Answer: it depends. And it's beyond shortsighted/lazy to look at one number on one slot and conclude the itemization is lacking depth.

[Rynjin]

It's not utterly lacking depth, there's just a few too many "best in slot" items. CoE, Endless Walk, Unity, Focus and Restraint; you're hard pressed to find a good build that doesn't utilize at least one of those, with stat sticks like Furnace, In-Geom, and ORotZ taking close second place for items with a bit too much general impact.

[T.G. Oskar]

You need at least two set pieces for a Ring of Royal Grandeur to work. So it can up 3 pieces of a set to 4, or 5 to 6, but not 1 to 2.

No wonder. Seems there's quite a bit I need to learn. Still good for my plans with the Crusader (Seeker of the Light, but dropping the Helm), and should let me keep Belt of the Trove for some additional fun. Will have to replace the other ring and drop Restraint when the time comes, but at least it's there.

[Kadesh]

If you magically get what you wished for, and your choice of build bumps you up to the heady heights of say GR130, what actually changes for you?

You are running the exact same build, playing the exact same mechanics, only this time, you are now doing it with a few more zeroes on the end.

What content is being gated behind you not competing GR130?

[Keltest]

If you magically get what you wished for, and your choice of build bumps you up to the heady heights of say GR130, what actually changes for you?

You are running the exact same build, playing the exact same mechanics, only this time, you are now doing it with a few more zeroes on the end.

What content is being gated behind you not competing GR130?

GR 131 and above. Which is a separate problem with the illusion of progress given that they just buff the sets every patch.

[Kadesh]

GR 131 and above. Which is a separate problem with the illusion of progress given that they just buff the sets every patch.

Which does what, for you should you be able to achieve 131? We're playing an Exponential Clicker Game with no real reward save for enjoyment. If you're having enjoyment running one build, then run that build as best as you can.

[Keltest]

Which does what, for you should you be able to achieve 131? We're playing an Exponential Clicker Game with no real reward save for enjoyment. If you're having enjoyment running one build, then run that build as best as you can.

I don't disagree with you exactly, but D3 purports to have massive build variety. Yet as soon as you want to get to GR 50 or so, let alone the 100s, you need to start using these cookie cutter builds based entirely on how the devs have buffed set bonuses to absurdity. You will never, ever under any circumstances be able to find a yellow item that can come close to offering the same benefits as a set item, and even most legendary items are chosen based on whether they compete with the set bonus or not.

The equivalent in D2 would be running a build that cant operate in nightmare mode. You might enjoy it for a while, but you cant do anything with it either.

[Lord Torath]

Which class do you think has the best "interjections"? I personally like the Wizard and Crusader interjections the best. The wizards are definitely not humble, but they're kinda funny.
The Crusader's threats are pretty great, too.

I'm currently trying a Monk, and I'm just not enjoying the banter as much. I really didn't enjoy the Necromancer's speech. And I'm not that thrilled with the Witch Doctor, either.

[Keltest]

Which class do you think has the best "interjections"? I personally like the Wizard and Crusader interjections the best. The wizards are definitely not humble, but they're kinda funny.
The Crusader's threats are pretty great, too.

I'm currently trying a Monk, and I'm just not enjoying the banter as much. I really didn't enjoy the Necromancer's speech. And I'm not that thrilled with the Witch Doctor, either.

In terms of character, im with you in that the Wizard and the Crusaders are the best. I like the male DH's voice lines too, you really get the sense that he's mad as hell and ready to do something about it. The lady DH, a bit less so.

[The_Jackal]

Which class do you think has the best "interjections"? I personally like the Wizard and Crusader interjections the best. The wizards are definitely not humble, but they're kinda funny.
The Crusader's threats are pretty great, too.

I'm currently trying a Monk, and I'm just not enjoying the banter as much. I really didn't enjoy the Necromancer's speech. And I'm not that thrilled with the Witch Doctor, either.

I find the Wizard to be a bit shrill, personally. I prefer the female Demon Hunter and the male Barbarian. They're a bit trite, but I find that I care a good deal more for the quality of voice acting than I do the content, and I feel those two are marvelously cast. My picks for worst are the female Monk and Witch Doctors. Soooooo lame.

[Psyren]

I don't disagree with you exactly, but D3 purports to have massive build variety. Yet as soon as you want to get to GR 50 or so, let alone the 100s, you need to start using these cookie cutter builds based entirely on how the devs have buffed set bonuses to absurdity. You will never, ever under any circumstances be able to find a yellow item that can come close to offering the same benefits as a set item, and even most legendary items are chosen based on whether they compete with the set bonus or not.

The equivalent in D2 would be running a build that cant operate in nightmare mode. You might enjoy it for a while, but you cant do anything with it either.

Well of course legendary and set items are generally better than rares. Power correlating with rarity is how these loot-based games function on a basic level.

What I genuinely don't understand is how this is any different than Diablo 2's cookie-cutter uniques, sets and runewords being necessary for its own higher difficulties. Why is this such a sticking point now, when the genre (and even this series) has been around for over 2 decades at this point? Furthermore, I don't agree that a build being Hell-viable in D2 is equivalent to one that is GR130-viable in D3; D2 Nightmare and Hell have actual content that differs from Normal. GR70 and GR130 meanwhile don't differ an iota besides throwing more zeroes on the end of everything. It's the game design technique of Differences in Scale vs. Differences in Kind. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBR1z-ue-I) In terms of differences in kind, GR70 viability is where that stops mattering because it unlocks Primal Ancients to drop on T1+, and is the highest requirement for the Season Journey.

Speaking of Primal Ancients, that's what D3 has done that I find particularly beneficial for the genre - i.e. a category that is guaranteed to roll perfectly in every stat, even persisting through rerolls. It's something that is entirely unnecessary but that the hardest of the hardcore who do care about the ladder for whatever reason can push for.


Which class do you think has the best "interjections"? I personally like the Wizard and Crusader interjections the best. The wizards are definitely not humble, but they're kinda funny.
The Crusader's threats are pretty great, too.

I'm currently trying a Monk, and I'm just not enjoying the banter as much. I really didn't enjoy the Necromancer's speech. And I'm not that thrilled with the Witch Doctor, either.

I love the monk's "multikill" blurbs the most, e.g. "Your flaws are revealed!" and "The storm breaks!" The female monk is also my favorite female character voice out of all of them just in general.

[Resileaf]

Female DH is a bit weird to me because the VA was replaced for Reaper of Souls so her voice is at this weird state where it's both similar and different at the same time and it bothers me to hear it.
I like the female wizard voice because of her HotS appearance.

[Keltest]

Well of course legendary and set items are generally better than rares. Power correlating with rarity is how these loot-based games function on a basic level.

What I genuinely don't understand is how this is any different than Diablo 2's cookie-cutter uniques, sets and runewords being necessary for its own higher difficulties. Why is this such a sticking point now, when the genre (and even this series) has been around for over 2 decades at this point? Furthermore, I don't agree that a build being Hell-viable in D2 is equivalent to one that is GR130-viable in D3; D2 Nightmare and Hell have actual content that differs from Normal. GR70 and GR130 meanwhile don't differ an iota besides throwing more zeroes on the end of everything. It's the game design technique of Differences in Scale vs. Differences in Kind. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TlBR1z-ue-I) In terms of differences in kind, GR70 viability is where that stops mattering because it unlocks Primal Ancients to drop on T1+, and is the highest requirement for the Season Journey.

Speaking of Primal Ancients, that's what D3 has done that I find particularly beneficial for the genre - i.e. a category that is guaranteed to roll perfectly in every stat, even persisting through rerolls. It's something that is entirely unnecessary but that the hardest of the hardcore who do care about the ladder for whatever reason can push for.

NM and Hell in D2 get harder, but you aren't actually seeing any new content except for a certain definition of new in act 5, which transplants older monsters in. Otherwise its the same content you've seen in normal, just with, as you put it, more zeroes.

Also, you A: didn't need to use top end cookie cutter builds to kill Baal in hell mode in D2, nor use cookie cutter gear and B: D2 was designed with skills intentionally becoming obsolete as you grew in power. Nobody uses or thinks you should be able to use Frost Bolt in hell, no matter your gear. D3 meanwhile wants you to think every skill is useful for the entire game... until you start rifting, and anything not supported by a gear set is worthless.

[T.G. Oskar]

Which class do you think has the best "interjections"? I personally like the Wizard and Crusader interjections the best. The wizards are definitely not humble, but they're kinda funny.
The Crusader's threats are pretty great, too.

Agree on the Crusader part, though I love their sarcasm the most. It's refreshing to hear a holy warrior actively use sarcasm.

Though...I do like the VA and speech of Covetous Shen. It's an odd combination, of being a braggart, a coward, but also poignant and insightful; a very complex character, given who he really is. However, the medium that blends all that is humor, and I find Shen quite humorous. Particularly when stuck in a barrel. Or...heck, the entire skit where you get him at first: the barrel, then the color commentary, then the reaction at seeing his guide at the end. Couple that with the Crusader's snark, and it all blends down nicely.

[Psyren]

NM and Hell in D2 get harder, but you aren't actually seeing any new content except for a certain definition of new in act 5, which transplants older monsters in. Otherwise its the same content you've seen in normal, just with, as you put it, more zeroes.

No, you're wrong. There are numerous sets and uniques that only drop in Nightmare+ for example (e.g. the Disciple, and the class sets like Mavs/Tals), and Ubers can only be spawned in Hell. Certain runes also only show up in NM/Hell. That is content exclusive to those difficulties. Meanwhile in D3, there is not a single enemy or item available at GR130 that doesn't show up at GR70, only higher numbers.


Also, you A: didn't need to use top end cookie cutter builds to kill Baal in hell mode in D2, nor use cookie cutter gear and B: D2 was designed with skills intentionally becoming obsolete as you grew in power. Nobody uses or thinks you should be able to use Frost Bolt in hell, no matter your gear. D3 meanwhile wants you to think every skill is useful for the entire game... until you start rifting, and anything not supported by a gear set is worthless.

Baal is far from the most challenging content in D2, so pointing to him means nothing. Heck, the Cow Level on Hell is harder than Baal, to say nothing of Ubers and Pandemonium Diablo. You did need cookie-cutter builds to take them on, or else to be carried by someone who did.

As for "worthless," I'm still waiting on a definition for that term. I'll ask the same question that Kadesh did - what does being able to run GR130 instead of GR100 with a given build actually get you? Nothing above GR70 matters in a tangible sense, you have access to all the content (both rewards and enemies) in the game at both.

[The_Jackal]

What I genuinely don't understand is how this is any different than Diablo 2's cookie-cutter uniques, sets and runewords being necessary for its own higher difficulties.

I can't answer for everyone, but I can answer for myself: I don't generally play the game to push the highest of the high leaderboards, my goals tend to be exclusively around accruing power for my character, and also collecting a varied collection of gear so I can play with various builds. To the casual observer, you'd be right, there's not much difference, after all, runewords were just as power creepy as the current sets and uniques, and arguably the same endgame cookie cutter eventually took over. What's different, as far as I'm concerned, is how the changes in the game's itemization philosphy and core game design scuppered any hope of progressing in the same way you could in Diablo 2 in Diablo 3. Three major changes inform this: 1) Removal of skill trees. Yes, getting a Occy and Stone of Jordan was definitely important for a successful build, but you also had a deep bench of synergies you could invest in your own character, independent of itemization, which governed a great deal of your character's power. 2) Design creep, a.k.a., "Let's make this complicated for no good reason". Don't get me wrong, some complexity is good, but top-end builds are generally off the deep end. Was there something deeply wrong with a multishot 'zon? Now your multishot build gets penalized for not shooting enemies from off the screen, and also incentivizes you to not spend your Discipline resource! Why? Because sarcastic air-quotes "FUN". It wasn't enough to bring back a classic, they felt the need to add another layer of jerkaround into the mechanics because just doing the same thing would have, what, involved admitting they had nothing which really improved upon what was made back in the mid-2000's? 3) The inability to trade between players. If you were a hopeless dilettante like me, and refused to roll a Hammerdin (the worst cheese ever introduced to DII), you could still go into Meph or Pindle runs and have a good crack at getting tradeable gear, to convert into something of use for your continued advancement. In point of fact, really once you had a viable build to carry you through Meph in Hell difficulty, there was very little more you could do to increase your rate of power gain, save to stack some magic find into your build. In DIII, however, you can't trade your way into better gear, so your only hope is to optimize for speedrunning/push rifts. And all that optimization leads you remorselessly to one place: Cookie cutter builds.

Look, I don't think D2 is impossible to improve upon, there are definitely things I don't miss. Charms, or whatever that BS that sat in your inventory and gave bonuses were just inconvenient and dumb, 100% immune monsters wildly distorted viable endgame builds in their own unfun way, insta-gib Gloams are, of course, terrible, and runewords were just power-creep run amok, and the lack of cheat-prevention made what should have been an impossibly remote goal into yet another commodity you could buy from whatever shady dealer you dared to deal with. But in my opinion, the changes Diablo III brought to the party replaced those with a new, more oppressive flavor of unfun.

[Rynjin]

I love the monk's "multikill" blurbs the most, e.g. "Your flaws are revealed!" and "The storm breaks!" The female monk is also my favorite female character voice out of all of them just in general.

I'm playing a female Monk for the first time and I don't really see how. To me her voice sounds laughable, and cracks weirdly in places, with SUPER weird delivery in some lines "FEEEEL the wrath of EEEEEEEEEEE-TARRRRR" in particular, which weirdly elongates the last word and reaches such a high pitch she's squeaking by the end of it.

For me, male Monk and female Crusader are the best characters.

[Kadesh]

Was there something deeply wrong with a multishot 'zon? Now your multishot build gets penalized for not shooting enemies from off the screen, and also incentivizes you to not spend your Discipline resource! Why? Because sarcastic air-quotes "FUN".

I'm sorry, you're going to have to explain how you think you can come up with such a load of nonsense. I'm running an Aquila Cuirass. I'm incentivized to not spend my Wrath or Essence (Thornsader and the Wierd Grim Scythe noPet LoN pet build I posted earlier in the thread). Is it fun? Hell yes. One less thing to worry about, AND I get a reward for not having to worry about resource management?

[Lord Torath]

I like the female wizard voice because of her HotS appearance.HotS: Heart of the Swarm?


Agree on the Crusader part, though I love their sarcasm the most. It's refreshing to hear a holy warrior actively use sarcasm.

Though...I do like the VA and speech of Covetous Shen. It's an odd combination, of being a braggart, a coward, but also poignant and insightful; a very complex character, given who he really is. However, the medium that blends all that is humor, and I find Shen quite humorous. Particularly when stuck in a barrel. Or...heck, the entire skit where you get him at first: the barrel, then the color commentary, then the reaction at seeing his guide at the end. Couple that with the Crusader's snark, and it all blends down nicely.I love listening to the female Crusader interact with Covetous Shen! Especially as she tries to pin down his possible godhood. Shen is definitely my favorite NPC.

This is my first time taking Lyndon as a follower, and I must say, I really do like his dialog. I love listening to him bait Kormac. And his attempts to flirt with Elena are pretty funny, too.

[Keltest]

I'm sorry, you're going to have to explain how you think you can come up with such a load of nonsense. I'm running an Aquila Cuirass. I'm incentivized to not spend my Wrath or Essence (Thornsader and the Wierd Grim Scythe noPet LoN pet build I posted earlier in the thread). Is it fun? Hell yes. One less thing to worry about, AND I get a reward for not having to worry about resource management?

Lots of builds circumvent resource generation or use, to avoid just sitting there tickling the enemy with your generators while you wait for your actual damage to come back online. That doesn't make it good design, just that people have worked around it.

[Resileaf]

HotS: Heart of the Swarm?


Right, should be more specific with Blizzard acronyms.
I meant Heroes of the Storm.

[Winthur]

Baal is far from the most challenging content in D2, so pointing to him means nothing. Heck, the Cow Level on Hell is harder than Baal, to say nothing of Ubers and Pandemonium Diablo. You did need cookie-cutter builds to take them on, or else to be carried by someone who did.
You did not. A group of well-coordinated naked Germans completed Ubers with 8 highly specialized characters, also naked, and documented it on YouTube. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWArvEV4tjI) Most of what the Ubers demanded is 1) resistance, 2) proper footwork to separate the Ubers (you can't facetank them) and 3) a fat source of Crushing Blow.

Another thing that I'd like to add to this discussion on D2 is some notes on D2's itemization methods that I don't think are really pointed out. For example, the supposed reliance on cookie-cutter uniques. The thing about D2 is that you could have made a Hell build work even off of uniques available in Normal. One of the most optimized (for cost-efficiency) builds for UT is a budget Smiter outfitted with cheap Crushing Blow gear and a source of Life Tap. Wand of Life Tap can be bought from Drognan, Dracul's Grasp is also a cheap item (in the D2 economy), otherwise any old blood-crafted gloves will help for Crushing Blow, and Goblin Toes are Normal boots as well. Even melee, which is a severely gimped (in terms of cost-efficiency) method of playing has plenty of builds (not just a single, unified, cookie-cutter way) that not only work, but can do so from Normal items. Bonesnap and Steeldriver (unique Maul and Great Maul droppable in Normal), Ribcracker (Nightmare staff), Butcher's Pupil (Nightmare one-handed axe) are all solid weapons. Even if you don't find any of these readily available items, you can always resort to crafting, imbuing, or even shopping for an item. Elemental melee builds (Fireclaws Werebear, Holy Shock Zealot) can blaze through Nightmare with just a shopped +40% IAS Very Fast weapon and still maintain decent killing speed / survivability in Hell against non-immunes. And casters can basically beat the game naked or become efficient runners with very low gear, with Javazon equipping a proverbial cracked Javelin.

I got D3 very recently to play with a friend and, although it's ultimately a fairly fun romp for what it's designed to do, it doesn't convey the same assumptions in regards to itemization. It's unheard of in the D3 item system to keep great items with certain secondary stats you might not care about (the ring with Dexterity on it contributes somewhat to my survivability in D2, but it's worthless for a Wizard in D3). You are also calculated to keep upgrading your gear on a steady, ilvl basis. You can't really make a Normal Unique Weapon like D2 Bonesnap into a formidable end-game weapon in D3. It won't even make the cut for something like a low-Torment run through the game.

[Psyren]

I'm playing a female Monk for the first time and I don't really see how. To me her voice sounds laughable, and cracks weirdly in places, with SUPER weird delivery in some lines "FEEEEL the wrath of EEEEEEEEEEE-TARRRRR" in particular, which weirdly elongates the last word and reaches such a high pitch she's squeaking by the end of it.

For me, male Monk and female Crusader are the best characters.

Sorry not sorry, it's my opinion and I'm sticking with it :smalltongue:

There aren't any that I dislike to tell the truth, but I really like the Femmonk. And yes, that includes the YEEEE-TARRR you're deriding above.


What's different, as far as I'm concerned, is how the changes in the game's itemization philosphy and core game design scuppered any hope of progressing in the same way you could in Diablo 2 in Diablo 3. Three major changes inform this: 1) Removal of skill trees. Yes, getting a Occy and Stone of Jordan was definitely important for a successful build, but you also had a deep bench of synergies you could invest in your own character, independent of itemization, which governed a great deal of your character's power. 2) Design creep, a.k.a., "Let's make this complicated for no good reason". Don't get me wrong, some complexity is good, but top-end builds are generally off the deep end. Was there something deeply wrong with a multishot 'zon? Now your multishot build gets penalized for not shooting enemies from off the screen, and also incentivizes you to not spend your Discipline resource! Why? Because sarcastic air-quotes "FUN". It wasn't enough to bring back a classic, they felt the need to add another layer of jerkaround into the mechanics because just doing the same thing would have, what, involved admitting they had nothing which really improved upon what was made back in the mid-2000's? 3) The inability to trade between players. If you were a hopeless dilettante like me, and refused to roll a Hammerdin (the worst cheese ever introduced to DII), you could still go into Meph or Pindle runs and have a good crack at getting tradeable gear, to convert into something of use for your continued advancement. In point of fact, really once you had a viable build to carry you through Meph in Hell difficulty, there was very little more you could do to increase your rate of power gain, save to stack some magic find into your build. In DIII, however, you can't trade your way into better gear, so your only hope is to optimize for speedrunning/push rifts. And all that optimization leads you remorselessly to one place: Cookie cutter builds.

All right, I'll engage.

1) Skill trees were illusion of choice and nothing more, just like they were when they got dropped from WoW. It got even worse once Synergies were introduced in 1.10. To be competitive in Hell, you had two choices - sink at least 80 of your points into one set of synergies, or divide them between two relatively strong skills for a dual-element build like Meteorb. And as I proved to Keltest above, Hell had content you couldn't get anywhere else, so being Hell-viable actually mattered if you cared about experiencing all the game's content - i.e. being able to fight every monster and obtain every loot drop. Certainly it matters in a truly tangible way that being GR100+ viable does not.

2) Unhallowed Essence, "complicated?" Really? The most autopilot build in the history of builds? :smallconfused:

3) I honestly agree with you that trading didn't need to be banned entirely. I would cheer if it came back. But I understand why they got rid of it, and the AH. The amount of exploits were staggering, and while I would have much preferred that they fix their dang code so that I'd have a ghost of a chance at getting kitted out in Primal Ancients, disabling it and cranking up the drop rate for the spec I'm using is the next best thing they could have done. Since there's no chance in hell that D3 will be getting a full rebuild to remove all the exploits that existed when trading was a thing, we'll have to wait until D4 to see what they plan to do there.



Look, I don't think D2 is impossible to improve upon, there are definitely things I don't miss. Charms, or whatever that BS that sat in your inventory and gave bonuses were just inconvenient and dumb, 100% immune monsters wildly distorted viable endgame builds in their own unfun way, insta-gib Gloams are, of course, terrible, and runewords were just power-creep run amok, and the lack of cheat-prevention made what should have been an impossibly remote goal into yet another commodity you could buy from whatever shady dealer you dared to deal with. But in my opinion, the changes Diablo III brought to the party replaced those with a new, more oppressive flavor of unfun.

We actually agree on a lot of this (though I don't agree on immunes, I think they would have worked very well in D3 given how easy it is to run a build that uses multiple elements without being utterly crippled like it was in D2 - and how easy it is to circumvent or escape unwanted packs too.) But the problems I had with D2 go far deeper than what I view as the surface-level annoyances you're bringing up, problems that I think D3 addressed very satisfyingly. Which brings me right back to - we just don't have a lot of fundamental common ground for these kinds of discussions.


Lots of builds circumvent resource generation or use, to avoid just sitting there tickling the enemy with your generators while you wait for your actual damage to come back online. That doesn't make it good design, just that people have worked around it.

"Design" is what lets them work around it. You realize that right? Those builds aren't accidental or unintended, there are specific items/runes that were designed make spenderless or resourceless builds function and be viable.

[Winthur]

1) Skill trees were illusion of choice and nothing more, just like they were when they got dropped from WoW.
Have you not played Wrath Death Knight (with its "every spec can tank OR dps" design actually working), never did PvP, never created a custom levelling hybrid spec that was more efficient than the alternative (hybrid Prot/Arms Warrior or Holy/Shadow Priest) and never played a high variance class like the Rogue, or any other class that shuffles its talents based on gear or raid tier?


It got even worse once Synergies were introduced in 1.10. To be competitive in Hell, you had two choices - sink at least 80 of your points into one set of synergies, or divide them between two relatively strong skills for a dual-element build like Meteorb.
"At least 80 of your points into one set off synergies" is suspect considering that the most self-sufficient class in the game, the Necromancer, can finish its least skill-heavy build as early as level 55, picking up only Raise Skeleton, Skeleton Mastery and Corpse Explosion, filling the rest of their levelups with literally whatever the hell they want. Dual-element builds also offered way more variety than you give them credit for, considering Sorcie could mix absolutely whatever elements she had wanted in whatever configuration she wanted. Frozen Orb was a cookie-cutter skill because it was extremely self-sufficient at extremely low point spenditure. So was Firewall, which didn't prove nearly as popular due to a much larger skillcap, but you can also make solid builds off of it.
Then there's melee and other physical characters who generally have a ton of variance in the skill tree simply due to usually not having great synergy support. Zealot Paladins could choose to invest in Holy Shield, a set of backup / defensive auras; Barbarians could focus on different shouts to compliment their skillset and derive the power of their builds through itemization, not synergy. Bow Amazons could genuinely hybridize due to a successful Ama only really needing 40 levels in pure Bow skills and either focusing on stuff like Pierce for stronger physical damage output or hybridizing with something like Charged Strike to kill bosses easier.

It would have been illusion of choice if the game explicitly punished you for not following a flowchart, but the core design of "create stuff around your synergies and fill the gaps according to playstyle" isn't bad at all. Especially since D2 characters generally can do more stuff within their build. A Barbarian can Howl every monster away from a bosspack, then Warcry the minions for a stun, then swap to a Wand of Amplify Damage to help with bringing them down, Taunt an Archer firing at him from just barely inside his FOV to neuter his ability to damage, and then he can start Whirling. In D2, I'd argue you have more abilities to work with.

And as I proved to Keltest above, Hell had content you couldn't get anywhere else, so being Hell-viable actually mattered if you cared about experiencing all the game's content - i.e. being able to fight every monster and obtain every loot drop. Certainly it matters in a truly tangible way that being GR100+ viable does not.
However, being Hell-viable is achievable through vastly different means than sheer grind, particularly on the classes that only rely on +skills gear and increasing HP/vita/res (and that only really matters in Hardcore, and is somewhat easily achievable through your Shield slot). Hell-viable characters can be already completed and planned out by Normal.

[Keltest]

On top of the above, D2 never pretends skill trees are a choice. The intent is visibly to upgrade your skills as you level up, with higher tier skills being solidly stronger than the lower tier skills at what they do. Glacial Spike is better than Ice Blast is better than Ice Bolt, and the game intends for and directs you to switch to the new skills as they come available. The only skills that don't get replaced as you level up are the ones that don't have any higher level skills overlap with them. Static Field doesn't have Improved Static Field, and Double Swing and Frenzy aren't mutually exclusive, otherwise it would always be better to use the higher level skill.

[The_Jackal]

1) Skill trees were illusion of choice and nothing more, just like they were when they got dropped from WoW. It got even worse once Synergies were introduced in 1.10. To be competitive in Hell, you had two choices - sink at least 80 of your points into one set of synergies, or divide them between two relatively strong skills for a dual-element build like Meteorb. And as I proved to Keltest above, Hell had content you couldn't get anywhere else, so being Hell-viable actually mattered if you cared about experiencing all the game's content - i.e. being able to fight every monster and obtain every loot drop. Certainly it matters in a truly tangible way that being GR100+ viable does not.

Wait, so you first say that they're the illusion of choice, yet you immediately follow up with a description of a pair of choices. In fact, there were a number of builds you could make work, and the way I know you could make them work in Hell is that I did. Was every combination of skill points viable? Could you simply spend your points willy nilly and expect to excel? Of course not. But there were absolutely choices, and they afforded the player the ability to customize their character, rather than just their outfit. Now as to whether there was parity amongs the various choices available to you, that's a matter of this strange concept called balance, something I've often harped on Diablo III for doing badly (though I will concede that they've gotten better than in the earlier seasons after RoS). Did the Sorc's Lightning Tree need more help? Probably. That's a spreadsheet problem, however, (and, of course the fact that Gloams are the worst, and lightning-immune).


2) Unhallowed Essence, "complicated?" Really? The most autopilot build in the history of builds? :smallconfused:

It's just an example of the bankrupt philosophy behind the "let's add complexity to undercut the basic, fundamentally sound class design". It's far from the only example, just the one I picked, mainly because the parallel between D2 and D3 is the simplest to make.


3) I honestly agree with you that trading didn't need to be banned entirely. I would cheer if it came back. But I understand why they got rid of it, and the AH. The amount of exploits were staggering, and while I would have much preferred that they fix their dang code so that I'd have a ghost of a chance at getting kitted out in Primal Ancients, disabling it and cranking up the drop rate for the spec I'm using is the next best thing they could have done. Since there's no chance in hell that D3 will be getting a full rebuild to remove all the exploits that existed when trading was a thing, we'll have to wait until D4 to see what they plan to do there.

There's no question that the monetized auction house, and the paucity of viable endgame gear at launch, was toxic to the game. I don't even necessarily need for trading to return, but rather some more viable mechanism to progress against Diablo 3's real endgame boss: RNGeezus.


We actually agree on a lot of this (though I don't agree on immunes, I think they would have worked very well in D3 given how easy it is to run a build that uses multiple elements without being utterly crippled like it was in D2 - and how easy it is to circumvent or escape unwanted packs too.) But the problems I had with D2 go far deeper than what I view as the surface-level annoyances you're bringing up, problems that I think D3 addressed very satisfyingly. Which brings me right back to - we just don't have a lot of fundamental common ground for these kinds of discussions.

The sole effect of immunes was to further punish solo players, though I'll agree that D3's skill system would make immunes considerably less horrible, compared to D2's "Stack all your synergies on one skill" framework. This I blame mostly on the synergy system being an afterthought rather than a fully realized concept embedded into the skill trees from day one. If there had simply been fewer synergies, such that a high-leveled character couldn't dump all their skills into one color to any real profitable effect, the downside of synergies would be considerably less.


"Design" is what lets them work around it. You realize that right? Those builds aren't accidental or unintended, there are specific items/runes that were designed make spenderless or resourceless builds function and be viable.

So here's the thing: I'm fine with builds which are synergistic. I'm not 100% sure I like the 'no resource' builds, but if there's someone who does, I don't begrudge anyone that. You don't want a builder or a spender in your build, great. I salute you, and encourage the developers to put in resources to let you adopt that playstyle. What I object to is the tendency of top-end builds (not all of them, but many of them) to lean heavily on mechanics which I find irritating and/or cumbersome. Simon Says courtesy of Convention of Elements, Statue builds with Endless Walk. Feast/Famine builds with Soul Harvest or Wrath of the Berseker. If you like such builds, good for you. I'd just like some consideration for some builds that didn't come from some extremely stilted item synergies, and let me play the game in a manner similar to how I played at more moderate difficulties. If I want to combine a build with Gargantuan, Corpse Spiders, Acid Cloud and Haunt, like I did when I was playing at lower difficulties, I can do that, but my damage and survivability, and therefore my rate of progression at endgame will be profoundly hampered. Sure, I'm aware that with enough Ancient Gear using Legacy of Nightmares will let me do some cool niche builds, but the problem is that getting to that point requires me to adopt tons and tons and tons of cookie cutter grinding while waiting for RNGeezus to smile on me.

[tyckspoon]

Feast/Famine builds with Soul Harvest or Wrath of the Berseker.

Most of the builds that depend on this can achieve near 100% uptime on these effects, which has its own warping effect on what 'viable' builds are - one of the ones that most annoys me is Demon Hunters with Vengeance, because there is a generic artifact that cuts its base cooldown by more than half, and another one that gives it its 'Reduce damage by 50%' rune.. and when you can have 80 - 100% uptime on a buff that is both a huge damage bonus, a major defensive buff, and can significantly reduce any resource management issues you might have by slotting it with the 'bonus Hatred per second' rune.. there's basically nothing else that is as good as that, so not doing it is self-nerfing. So nearly every top Demon Hunter build has two cube slots taken up with those artifacts and a mandatory skill slot for Vengeance.

[Kadesh]

Lots of builds circumvent resource generation or use, to avoid just sitting there tickling the enemy with your generators while you wait for your actual damage to come back online. That doesn't make it good design, just that people have worked around it.
"Being able to play the way you want is bad design" - Keltest, 2019.

Gotcha.

[Kadesh]

So here's the thing: I'm fine with builds which are synergistic. I'm not 100% sure I like the 'no resource' builds, but if there's someone who does, I don't begrudge anyone that. You don't want a builder or a spender in your build, great. I salute you, and encourage the developers to put in resources to let you adopt that playstyle. What I object to is the tendency of top-end builds(not all of them, but many of them) to lean heavily on mechanics which I find irritating and/or cumbersome. Simon Says courtesy of Convention of Elements, Statue builds with Endless Walk. Feast/Famine builds with Soul Harvest or Wrath of the Berseker. If you like such builds, good for you. I'd just like some consideration for some builds that didn't come from some extremely stilted item synergies, and let me play the game in a manner similar to how I played at more moderate difficulties. If I want to combine a build with Gargantuan, Corpse Spiders, Acid Cloud and Haunt, like I did when I was playing at lower difficulties, I can do that, but my damage and survivability, and therefore my rate of progression at endgame will be profoundly hampered. Sure, I'm aware that with enough Ancient Gear using Legacy of Nightmares will let me do some cool niche builds, but the problem is that getting to that point requires me to adopt tons and tons and tons of cookie cutter grinding while waiting for RNGeezus to smile on me.

The bolded is in direct contradiction from start to finish. You don't begrudge what someone else finds exciting, and yet when that build gets a higher GR than you, you find it irritating?

The builds exist, the builds play. The fact that some build can do 10million DPS, and another 100million, so what, when the boss you fight has 100billion HP or 1000billion, depending on your chosen difficulty level?

[Keltest]

"Being able to play the way you want is bad design" - Keltest, 2019.

Gotcha.

I will thank you to not put words in my mouth if you want to have an honest discussion with me.

If you don't, well... too bad. You can be honest or not engage me at all.

[Kadesh]

I will thank you to not put words in my mouth if you want to have an honest discussion with me.

If you don't, well... too bad. You can be honest or not engage me at all.

That is what you said, though? Literally a direct quote. People who want to play non-resource spending builds are incentivized to do so by taking legendary items empoering them.

[Keltest]

That is what you said, though? Literally a direct quote. People who want to play non-resource spending builds are incentivized to do so by taking legendary items empoering them.

That's not at all what I said, and its not a direct quote? If somebody wants to play that, its fine, but once you start hitting higher g-rift levels you simply cant take the time to sit there doing scratch damage waiting for your resource to generate.

[Psyren]

Wait, so you first say that they're the illusion of choice, yet you immediately follow up with a description of a pair of choices.

Precisely, a pair, meaning two general approaches (powerful-mono-element and weaker-overall-but-slightly-better-at-soloing dual-element). By my count, D3 has far more build diversity for each class than D2 ever did - especially when you compare both at the highest difficulty that serves as a gate to seeing all the game's content, i.e. GR70 vs. Hell Ubers.


It's just an example of the bankrupt philosophy behind the "let's add complexity to undercut the basic, fundamentally sound class design". It's far from the only example, just the one I picked, mainly because the parallel between D2 and D3 is the simplest to make.

I don't see any complexity.


There's no question that the monetized auction house, and the paucity of viable endgame gear at launch, was toxic to the game. I don't even necessarily need for trading to return, but rather some more viable mechanism to progress against Diablo 3's real endgame boss: RNGeezus.

That stuff was needed in D2 because its own RNG was far worse. In over a decade of play I never once saw a rune above Gul drop; without duped runes, some builds would simply be things I read about online, never getting to try them myself, perhaps never even seeing them in game even on other people. And before you ask, yes, I did countless Countess runs, sent multiple alts to the Hellforge, and all kinds of other face-melting grind that I had time for as a teenager but don't anymore.

Would I say no to a cube recipe that guarantees a specific primal ancient, even a ridiculously expensive one? No - but with enough mats stockpiled you basically have that anyway, if that's really the unicorn you want to chase.


What I object to is the tendency of top-end builds (not all of them, but many of them) to lean heavily on mechanics which I find irritating and/or cumbersome. Simon Says courtesy of Convention of Elements, Statue builds with Endless Walk. Feast/Famine builds with Soul Harvest or Wrath of the Berseker. If you like such builds, good for you.

I genuinely don't see what's "cumbersome" about "time your cooldowns with a specific window" or "stand still for a few seconds to do more damage." To put it bluntly, I consider those to be fairly basic expectations for an action RPG to ask for.



If I want to combine a build with Gargantuan, Corpse Spiders, Acid Cloud and Haunt, like I did when I was playing at lower difficulties, I can do that, but my damage and survivability, and therefore my rate of progression at endgame will be profoundly hampered. Sure, I'm aware that with enough Ancient Gear using Legacy of Nightmares will let me do some cool niche builds, but the problem is that getting to that point requires me to adopt tons and tons and tons of cookie cutter grinding while waiting for RNGeezus to smile on me.

This is why I'm sure we're speaking different languages. How do you define "profoundly hampered?"

Because I'll tell you what "profoundly hampered" me - having to nerf all my output by stacking Magic Find to have any hope of getting decent gear. Yet another thing D3 does better.


That's not at all what I said, and its not a direct quote? If somebody wants to play that, its fine, but once you start hitting higher g-rift levels you simply cant take the time to sit there doing scratch damage waiting for your resource to generate.

Uh, what? Whirlwind and Shadow are both A-Tier while Invoker and Rolands are both B-Tier. All four use Aquila Cuirass, and they don't stand around waiting for resource either.

[Kadesh]

That's not at all what I said, and its not a direct quote? If somebody wants to play that, its fine, but once you start hitting higher g-rift levels you simply cant take the time to sit there doing scratch damage waiting for your resource to generate.

So play lower ones. What do you gain by playing higher Grifts?

[Keltest]

So play lower ones. What do you gain by playing higher Grifts?

Is this a trick question?

[Psyren]

Is this a trick question?

At the risk of repeating myself, there are multiple resourceless/Aquila builds that are GR100+ viable.

[Keltest]

At the risk of repeating myself, there are multiple resourceless/Aquila builds that are GR100+ viable.

… Yes. That's what im saying. Using resource generators is a trap.

[Rynjin]

… Yes. That's what im saying. Using resource generators is a trap.

But you're...wrong. And don't seem to understand the words you're saying, or what anyone else is talking about. Resourceless builds use resource generators. They're not a trap, because there are quite a few good builds that use them. There's at least one Monk build that uses Crippling Wave as its primary damage dealer, as well as the aforementioned Roland's Crusader, which literally just sits in a crowd of enemies and holds the button for your resource generator of choice and occasionally taps the iron Skin button to victory as enemies kill themselves attacking you.

So I don't get what you're saying. You don't seem to get what you're saying.

[Keltest]

But you're...wrong. And don't seem to understand the words you're saying, or what anyone else is talking about. Resourceless builds use resource generators. They're not a trap, because there are quite a few good builds that use them. There's at least one Monk build that uses Crippling Wave as its primary damage dealer, as well as the aforementioned Roland's Crusader, which literally just sits in a crowd of enemies and holds the button for your resource generator of choice and occasionally taps the iron Skin button to victory as enemies kill themselves attacking you.

So I don't get what you're saying. You don't seem to get what you're saying.

Yes, I think there are several people in this thread who don't understand what im saying, and aren't making an effort to.

[Psyren]

Yes, I think there are several people in this thread who don't understand what im saying, and aren't making an effort to.

Could you try saying it a different way then? Because if three people are this confused by you - especially people who disagree on other topics in this thread - I'm guessing the problem isn't with them.


Resourceless builds use resource generators.

To clarify - some do use generators, but others use spenders that don't drain the resource faster than it naturally accrues, usually from items (Impale DH, TR Monk and Whirlwind Barb would be examples of this kind.)

[Keltest]

Could you try saying it a different way then? Because if three people are this confused by you - especially people who disagree on other topics in this thread - I'm guessing the problem isn't with them.



To clarify - some do use generators, but others use spenders that don't drain the resource faster than it naturally accrues, usually from items (Impale DH, TR Monk and Whirlwind Barb would be examples of this kind.)

I am greatly disinclined to go out of my way to try and communicate with somebody who led with a strawman and then tried to claim they were directly quoting me.

[Rynjin]

I am greatly disinclined to go out of my way to try and communicate with somebody who led with a strawman and then tried to claim they were directly quoting me.

*scratches head*

Is that me? I don't remember replying to you at any other point during this thread. Doesn't look like it's Psyren either.

I'm just confused by the current line of discussion.

[Keltest]

*scratches head*

Is that me? I don't remember replying to you at any other point during this thread. Doesn't look like it's Psyren either.

I'm just confused by the current line of discussion.

Sorry, Kadesh was the one who specifically used a strawman. But the point is, Im not going to make an effort to explain myself to people who aren't making an effort to understand me.

[Kadesh]

Yes, I think there are several people in this thread who don't understand what im saying, and aren't making an effort to.

'Everyone else is wrong because they clearly can't understand my higher intellect.' is what I see when I read between the lines here. Might want to crawl down there buddy, or learn to explain yourself what you mean better.

Generator Builds are fun. So I play them. Let's say I reach a nominal GR, let's call it GRX. I'm at a plateau, but having fun with my build. What about if I get to GRX+30 with another build, but am at a plateau, yet I hate the gameplay.

Literally nothing has changed apart from adding a few zeroes to your numbers on enemy defense.

Unless you think someone running Sebor's Belt and Goldwrap or whatever should be able to compete at the bleeding edge, which is an interesting thought.


Sorry, Kadesh was the one who specifically used a strawman. But the point is, Im not going to make an effort to explain myself to people who aren't making an effort to understand me.

'Strawman' : you mean the part where I said doing 1% damage to an enemy at GR70 is exactly the same gameplay as doing 1% damage at GR130?

[The_Jackal]

Most of the builds that depend on this can achieve near 100% uptime on these effects, which has its own warping effect on what 'viable' builds are - one of the ones that most annoys me is Demon Hunters with Vengeance, because there is a generic artifact that cuts its base cooldown by more than half, and another one that gives it its 'Reduce damage by 50%' rune.. and when you can have 80 - 100% uptime on a buff that is both a huge damage bonus, a major defensive buff, and can significantly reduce any resource management issues you might have by slotting it with the 'bonus Hatred per second' rune.. there's basically nothing else that is as good as that, so not doing it is self-nerfing. So nearly every top Demon Hunter build has two cube slots taken up with those artifacts and a mandatory skill slot for Vengeance.

Yes, with the right gear, but this doesn't make the mechanic any less cumbersome and infurating for me. I put it to you that a 'push this button to keep this button pressed' is not gameplay, by any reasonable measure. Yes, then there's the question of build diversity, where, again, a handful of overtuned items wind up creeping their way into every viable build.


The bolded is in direct contradiction from start to finish. You don't begrudge what someone else finds exciting, and yet when that build gets a higher GR than you, you find it irritating?

The builds exist, the builds play. The fact that some build can do 10million DPS, and another 100million, so what, when the boss you fight has 100billion HP or 1000billion, depending on your chosen difficulty level?

Yes, yes, I dispensed with this like 10 posts ago: The solution to crummy design is to declare victory, quit playing, and move onto other, better games. Believe me, I'm way ahead of you. The whole topic of this particular subthread was "Why The Jackal stopped playing Diablo III". If you like playing Simon or Dance-Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, I salute you. I, however, was hoping for Diablo.

[The_Jackal]

Yes, I think there are several people in this thread who don't understand what im saying, and aren't making an effort to.

This is why the GiantITP forums need an upvote function.

[Keltest]

'Everyone else is wrong because they clearly can't understand my higher intellect.' is what I see when I read between the lines here. Might want to crawl down there buddy, or learn to explain yourself what you mean better.

Generator Builds are fun. So I play them. Let's say I reach a nominal GR, let's call it GRX. I'm at a plateau, but having fun with my build. What about if I get to GRX+30 with another build, but am at a plateau, yet I hate the gameplay.

Literally nothing has changed apart from adding a few zeroes to your numbers on enemy defense.

Unless you think someone running Sebor's Belt and Goldwrap or whatever should be able to compete at the bleeding edge, which is an interesting thought.



'Strawman' : you mean the part where I said doing 1% damage to an enemy at GR70 is exactly the same gameplay as doing 1% damage at GR130?

No, I mean the part where you falsely attributed a quote to me and then tried to argue against it.

If theres no difference in the rifts, why should I even play? Ive beaten GR 70, ive seen everything there is to see and killed it. Whats even the point?

[Kadesh]

I literally quoted you. And now you're getting into existentialism. Whst is the point in doing anything? Nobody is forcing you to play, nobody is forcing you to play bleeding edge tier D3 Ladder with builds you categorically hate.

[Keltest]

I literally quoted you. And now you're getting into existentialism. Whst is the point in doing anything? Nobody is forcing you to play, nobody is forcing you to play bleeding edge tier D3 Ladder with builds you categorically hate.

No, if you had literally quoted me, the words you put in quotes would have matched the ones I typed. That's what quoting somebody means.

And now youre making my point for me. If the 0s don't matter, D3 has no endgame. If they do matter, then I cant actually play the way I want, I have to play according to whatever the flavor of the patch is.

[Psyren]

Sorry, Kadesh was the one who specifically used a strawman. But the point is, Im not going to make an effort to explain myself to people who aren't making an effort to understand me.

If literally asking you to repeat what you said isn't "making an effort to understand you," then GG I guess? :smallconfused:

https://media1.tenor.com/images/81b80a017bdb76bd1541154f9316f143/tenor.gif



If theres no difference in the rifts, why should I even play? Ive beaten GR 70, ive seen everything there is to see and killed it. Whats even the point?

The point is to stop wherever you feel like stopping. Not to lament that other builds can go 130 while yours can only go 115, and call that a design failure because you personally don't find the 130 build fun to play.


If you like playing Simon or Dance-Dance Revolution or Guitar Hero, I salute you. I, however, was hoping for Diablo.

I'm increasingly convinced that very few people here have actually played Diablo, or at least remember the core gameplay loop of the first two titles in anything approaching detail.

[Keltest]

If literally asking you to repeat what you said isn't "making an effort to understand you," then GG I guess? :smallconfused:

https://media1.tenor.com/images/81b80a017bdb76bd1541154f9316f143/tenor.gif



The point is to stop wherever you feel like stopping. Not to lament that other builds can go 130 while yours can only go 115, and call that a design failure because you personally don't find the 130 build fun to play.



I'm increasingly convinced that very few people here have actually played Diablo, or at least remember the core gameplay loop of the first two titles in anything approaching detail.

And what if I can only make it to 50? 30? Where is the cutoff point for where my "play how I want, not how the pros play" build needs to be viable? What if I want to take it higher but cant because it isn't supported by the "add five more zeroes to your numbers" gear?

Also, im literally playing D2 right now (waiting for my friend to get a drink while posting) so...

[Winthur]

That stuff was needed in D2 because its own RNG was far worse. In over a decade of play I never once saw a rune above Gul drop; without duped runes, some builds would simply be things I read about online, never getting to try them myself, perhaps never even seeing them in game even on other people. And before you ask, yes, I did countless Countess runs, sent multiple alts to the Hellforge, and all kinds of other face-melting grind that I had time for as a teenager but don't anymore.
Bruh, the highest rune you can get from Hell Hellforge (what a mouthful!) is Gul. Likewise, the chance for Countess to drop anything above Gul is much, much lower than for Gul, and it stops on Lo. This is probably why. These are good methods for either slowly but steadily cubing up to Ber or gearing up low-mid tier characters (Barbarians are already ridiculously strong with just a humble Oath berserker axe, for example), but the stuff you're mentioning is a mere stopgap.



Because I'll tell you what "profoundly hampered" me - having to nerf all my output by stacking Magic Find to have any hope of getting decent gear. Yet another thing D3 does better.
Runedrops are unaffected by MF. There's plenty of MF builds that, ironically, run ideally on exactly 0% MF and focus on gathering a ton of white drops (diadems for imbues, Phase Blades, Mage Plates, Monarchs), runes, perfect gems and keys. If you were running Countess and Hellforge primarily, your character needs precisely no MF. That means D2 lets you do

1) Hell Cows
2) Hell Lower Kurast ("superchests" can drop up to Ber)
3) keyrunning
4) Ubers themselves (in your later post you mention that there's a "narrow amount of builds" that can do this arguable "endgame", but you're forgetting D2 also had PvP, which, due to how insane rares and sc's could go for, as well as the scene around it, was a goal of its own; you weren't touching PvP without truly high-end gear whereas, as I mentioned, Uber Tristram can be cleared by a Smiter with gear available in Normal Difficulty. Same can be done by kicksins and necro summoners.)
5) Hellforge rushing
6) literally just killing a whole bunch of dungeons because you feel like doing so and maybe something drops a Vex or whatever

with precisely 0% MF. If you did as much of all that stuff, you're very liable to find something decent in Hell Act IV by sheer accident (River of Flame is an a85) and you can cube up in the HF until you get your coveted item.

Bonus points - you can throw whatever you just got on every character in your possession because nothing is soulbound, so that Enigma stays there. Additional bonus points - while doing all that crap you'll probably have received plenty of low-level items that your typical d2jsp accepts for a few pgems while there's an entire wealth of decent low-mid end builds that can clear hell of their own and enjoy a change of pace.

MF exists for
1) untwinked single-pass runners who want the RNG impact on getting any decent loot minimized so they can progress faster because they're not going to, and they compensate for lost stats with personal skill
2) people who are already running farm content that they have no problem killing (hello, Moat Trick) because it's better to have 100% MF less than to keep dying and slowing yourself down because you're not meeting FCR thresholds or don't have CBF.
It's been figured out a long time ago that killing speed >>> MF, and the only reason your typical 4 soc P.Topaz gothic plate + 3soc P.Topaz crown sorc with Rhyme + Spirit + generic +3 ammy is working is because Andariel and Mephisto are extremely easy to kill for this build. This extends itself to those lucrative high MF area runs where slamming more FCR and more +skill into your gosu Pit Strafer / CS Hammerdin / WSK Hybridzon / Ancient Tunnels Blizzsorc doesn't matter anymore (stuff still dies in a few seconds), so you can start getting MF.

Even so, you can easily farm any area 85 with a summoning Necro wearing fully Topazed Charsi food and keeping a Staff of Teleport on weapon switch, just not at a high player count (Corpse Explosion stops being an insane screen clear at /p5+ or so) and much slower, but at least you're really not actively gimping yourself by equipping MF% on Necro in any way since that build barely scales with gear.



I'm increasingly convinced that very few people here have actually played Diablo, or at least remember the core gameplay loop of the first two titles in anything approaching detail.
Don't even bother mixing the "first" title into this discussion, there was very little endgame or competitive focus to speak of, any child could dupe items to max out stats at level 1 because the trick was well-known and really easy to perform, it was way more slow paced and the focus on AoEing down entire screens was only descended on the one flawed-by-design class that was the best, (in spite of Hell having 100% immune monsters to any damaging magic, PvE Sorcerer was still the most dominating class at any level and the fastest levelling was achieved by equipping mage stuff on your Warrior/Rogue and just CLing everything... but very few actually played like that and Hell/Cata stops being that efficient at levelling past level 42, where you certainly weren't even obliged to progress at all), BiS gear for Hell could likewise be found as early as Normal or Nightmare (particularly Sorcerer, whereas the Warrior BiS weapon could be easily bought at Griswold of all places), and the only real amusement left after 3-dotting was the PvP, clan scene, or levelling to 50. Not sure what attributes are you giving to the first two games, but they had way, way more substance than "endless loot treadmill" and I'd rather if we argued about D3 on its own merits (what works and what doesn't) instead of arguing D3 is better at being D3 than D2 or D1. Many people never even touched the MP mode in that game, and D1 is even distinctive because SP and MP is a different experience and not just a cosmetic difference like in D2.

[Psyren]

And what if I can only make it to 50? 30? Where is the cutoff point for where my "play how I want, not how the pros play" build needs to be viable? What if I want to take it higher but cant because it isn't supported by the "add five more zeroes to your numbers" gear?

I've answered this numerous times already, but I'll do it again: GR70 is the highest GR that gates content. The season journey conquests require this level, as well as unlocking Primal Ancients. Nothing above this level matters for anything tangible.


Also, im literally playing D2 right now (waiting for my friend to get a drink while posting) so...

I'm literally playing D3 right now, on Switch. Bf and I just unlocked the S16 wings actually.


Bruh, the highest rune you can get from Hell Hellforge (what a mouthful!) is Gul. Likewise, the chance for Countess to drop anything above Gul is much, much lower than for Gul, and it stops on Lo. This is probably why. These are good methods for either slowly but steadily cubing up to Ber or gearing up low-mid tier characters (Barbarians are already ridiculously strong with just a humble Oath berserker axe, for example), but the stuff you're mentioning is a mere stopgap.

Bruh, the point is there's nothing you can do to affect the droprates of those higher runes. Nothing, it's all RNG, and bad RNG at that. At best you can spam a lot of low/mid runes and cube them up.



Runedrops are unaffected by MF.

The stuff you can trade for runes is though. I traded a full set of Tals for my first Jah rune.

Will read the rest later, have more rifts to run.

[Winthur]

Bruh, the point is there's nothing you can do to affect the droprates of those higher runes. Nothing, it's all RNG, and bad RNG at that. At best you can spam a lot of low/mid runes and cube them up.
setting the game to a higher /players setting (or doing your farming in crowded pubs or trade games) is a decent way to go (outside of Countess, that is, as Countess' rune drop is actually worse on /p8 because her loot table is skewered towards producing items instead of runes if you crank the /players setting up), and even though LK chestpopping isn't a guaranteed way to get a Ber it's still one of the more statistically likely if you don't care about how boring this approach is and just want a Ber over just playing your character in whatever content you like.

The point of my post is that if all you care about is HRs then you wouldn't need to "nerf your damage" by diluting your important stats with MF. MF is there for finding Uniques and Sets; for everything else, you just want to go to a saturated area and kill everything as fast as possible. A proverbial Javazon with a cracked Javelin can easily do Hell Cows without even risking the Cow King kill. Your droprate of whatever it is you're looking for is affected by how fast you kill something. without insane gear even a Lightning Sorceress doesn't compare (I'm talking about a 200 Faster Cast Rate capped Light Sorc) because even budget Javas tend to get high Pierce, even higher if the relatively easy to find Razortail is in play.

So yeah, your best bet of getting HRs is to either pop chests or kill a lot of highly densely packed stuff really fast, maximize amount of mobs per kill. Compare to other builds which might be good only at AoE clearing but take a long while on bosses (Summoner Necro) or vice versa (budget MF Berserker Barbarian /w Find Item and +3 Warcries statsticks on switch).

This is why the Meph sorc gets outdated by a85 runners when you get gear. Without gear you're either stacked on MF and farm easy bosses and areas (e.g. Blizzsorc can run Andy / Meph / AT / and I think Eldritch/Shenk) or you go 0% MF and go for drop volume instead (cow Javazon). With gear you can balance your MF and killspeed until you get the best of both worlds (e.g. MF Hammerdins in CS / WSK teleporting around and receiving a ton of uniques including ones Meph doesn't drop). And then there are people who build their economy exclusively on market expectations and instead sell Baal grand charms, gosu small charms, gosu rares gambled from horking for gold in Travincal or ridiculously good rolls on Crafted items.

And none of this stuff even matters because if your criterium for "end-game" is Hell Ubers, there, again, are builds that do this fight with Normal-grade items and some others that take just a tiny bit of gear more. I named three that work on a budget, belong to three different classes, and I will add that Frenzybarb can also do this on a moderate budget, a far cry from the high-rune builds (the Frenzy build can probably be "bought" for a price of Um, Lem, and a few pgems). If the zdps meta was more prominent in D2 than the occasional multiboxed barb lackey for bo's, the entrypoint would be even lesser.

The truth is most Diablo players set their own end-game, whether it is getting a character through Hell on solo self-found (perhaps with a deliberately gimped build), completing a Holy Grail, killing Ubers, going into PvP or just making a character you like and would enjoy revisiting every so often. You can even have a Hell-viable D2 romp without repeating previously visited areas!

Even D3 lets you maintain this experience. I bought it recently for a friend after being a massive Blizzard North fanatic and honestly, for what it is, it's pretty damn good, I'm enjoying it, and I'm not anticipating I'm going to push GRifts too hard. I just want to complete a set, get excited over a drop if it shows up, do some Paragons. It doesn't have to be an endless loot treadmill and the nature of the game doesn't have to be that of endless, joyless grind if that's not what you find fun. D3 gives you an end-game with a more discernible ceiling, I can admit. But the D2 gameplay that included botting, farming the same crap over and over was still a minority. D2 even had leaderboards for who levelled the fastest, and do you think that the rush to level 99 (or even attempting to complete it) was attempted by anyone but a small subset of the playerbase?

The other day I saw a Youtube personality who claimed he set up an "untwinked" bowazon through Hell, and then in the video the first thing he did was twink it. His rationale was he thought that "untwinked" = "twinked with low-end gear". Some people can't imagine solo self-found being doable in D2, but it very much is, even with the underpowered - but still fairly safe and even entertaining - bow builds.

[Psyren]

Okay, I have more time for a detailed reply now.


Bruh, the highest rune you can get from Hell Hellforge (what a mouthful!) is Gul. Likewise, the chance for Countess to drop anything above Gul is much, much lower than for Gul, and it stops on Lo. This is probably why. These are good methods for either slowly but steadily cubing up to Ber or gearing up low-mid tier characters (Barbarians are already ridiculously strong with just a humble Oath berserker axe, for example), but the stuff you're mentioning is a mere stopgap.

(Bruh,) There's nothing good about Countess runs, Hellforge or any of the other mindless farming that was mandatory in D2. We did it so that we could unlock the thing that was actually fun (trying new builds) and because we had no other noteworthy games to play at the time, not because the farming itself was engaging. This is why I vastly prefer D3 - rifts and GRs give you a much more varied layout, and when you combine that with elite affixes, mob placement, shrines/pylons, and random events like goblins and assassins, it makes for much more engaging gameplay. Add in the bad luck protection of crafting and in my view, it's head and shoulders above its predecessor.



Runedrops are unaffected by MF. There's plenty of MF builds that, ironically, run ideally on exactly 0% MF and focus on gathering a ton of white drops (diadems for imbues, Phase Blades, Mage Plates, Monarchs), runes, perfect gems and keys. If you were running Countess and Hellforge primarily, your character needs precisely no MF.

I spoke to this above, but because of the horrendous droprates, often the best way to "farm runes" was to do anything but. Trading perfect or UNID uniques/sets/charms/jewels for high runes is the only way I even got to see most of them. Farming and cubing up runes directly to get all the runes I wanted to try would have taken me months of spamming mostly unchallenging content.

And yes, farming eths and whites to socket was also an option - but even at 0 MF, those were rarer than blues (from bosses anyway) so your best bet for those was killing hordes of trash - boring, tedious, mind-numbing trash. At least a boss fight can somewhat stimulate.


That means D2 lets you do

1) Hell Cows
2) Hell Lower Kurast ("superchests" can drop up to Ber)
3) keyrunning
4) Ubers themselves (in your later post you mention that there's a "narrow amount of builds" that can do this arguable "endgame", but you're forgetting D2 also had PvP, which, due to how insane rares and sc's could go for, as well as the scene around it, was a goal of its own; you weren't touching PvP without truly high-end gear whereas, as I mentioned, Uber Tristram can be cleared by a Smiter with gear available in Normal Difficulty. Same can be done by kicksins and necro summoners.)
5) Hellforge rushing
6) literally just killing a whole bunch of dungeons because you feel like doing so and maybe something drops a Vex or whatever

with precisely 0% MF. If you did as much of all that stuff, you're very liable to find something decent in Hell Act IV by sheer accident (River of Flame is an a85) and you can cube up in the HF until you get your coveted item.

There are plenty of places to farm high runes, sure. But the rune droprates are still terrible in each one, they're just not as terrible as they are everywhere else.

Concerning point #4, you mentioned exactly three builds that can clear Ubers without needing high-end gear. I believe the summon necro because nothing can hit you to make your gear matter while you're afking in the corner, and I somewhat believe the smiter since paladins can get their resists high almost effortlessly, but every Uber list I've seen for the kicker includes crap like Last Wish, Ber'd SS and upped Gores. Even if you're right though, that's still far fewer D3 builds than can clear GR70/T15.



Bonus points - you can throw whatever you just got on every character in your possession because nothing is soulbound, so that Enigma stays there. Additional bonus points - while doing all that crap you'll probably have received plenty of low-level items that your typical d2jsp accepts for a few pgems while there's an entire wealth of decent low-mid end builds that can clear hell of their own and enjoy a change of pace.

The ability to trade is the one point I'll give you, and I did move my Enigma around until I got a second one. As I said previously, I wouldn't complain if trading came back to D3. Of course, that also throws your PvP point out the window, since I could jump back into D2 right now with my credit card and have a full set of high-end gear from a botter in less than an hour without putting any of the work in.



*snip*

Not sure what attributes are you giving to the first two games, but they had way, way more substance than "endless loot treadmill" and I'd rather if we argued about D3 on its own merits (what works and what doesn't) instead of arguing D3 is better at being D3 than D2 or D1.

By "Diablo" I actually meant the series, but I agree with you that the first game doesn't really merit discussion with all the duping and hacking that was going on making the itemization/loot loop pointless.

As for D2 having more substance, I quite frankly disagree for reasons mentioned numerous times earlier in this discussion, but I doubt we'll ever see eye to eye on that. But that doesn't mean I think D2 is bad, I think both games have their place, but for me the decisions made and the evolution from 2 to 3 needed to happen, even if they stumbled at launch.

[Winthur]

(Bruh,) There's nothing good about Countess runs, Hellforge or any of the other mindless farming that was mandatory in D2.
It isn't. You don't need to do any of this if you want to play in Hell. You don't need to do any of this if you want to roll multiple characters that are viable in Hell. Your dedicated Meph sorceress, if you even bothered to have one, can vomit out a ton of budget uniques that easily carry most builds you can think of. High-end optimization isn't necessary to make a competent CS/WSK runner. You argued for Hell viability earlier being a massive roadblock in D2 because it kills interesting build ideas, but in truth, solo self-found characters have at least 3-4 viable builds per character class. The only characters that need twinking are stuff like Wolfbarb or Passion Sorc who understandably want to unlock their build's core feature as early as possible, otherwise what's the point. (Note that D2 actually allows for such oddball builds to happen, and in some cases they're ridiculously strong, e.g. the Whirlwind Assassin.)


We did it so that we could unlock the thing that was actually fun (trying new builds) and because we had no other noteworthy games to play at the time, not because the farming itself was engaging. This is why I vastly prefer D3 - rifts and GRs give you a much more varied layout, and when you combine that with elite affixes, mob placement, shrines/pylons, and random events like goblins and assassins, it makes for much more engaging gameplay.
If you hate bossrunning or killing trash over and over, roll a character optimized for a85 and play those at your leisure. Your typical cowrun amazon is also pretty decent at clearing Eldritch, Pindle, Baal and Diablo. Those are all pretty varied areas. If you want to just run around Act 5 and enter random dungeons, you can. Hell Mephisto sorceress is the fastest at gathering low-mid uniques that consist the core of typical twinked characters, but there's no use to playing that if you simply can't be bothered.


And yes, farming eths and whites to socket was also an option - but even at 0 MF, those were rarer than blues (from bosses anyway) so your best bet for those was killing hordes of trash - boring, tedious, mind-numbing trash. At least a boss fight can somewhat stimulate.
Most areas where HC characters meet their demise aren't act bosses or super uniques (outside of Nihlathak, who demands the player to walk into the area with a minesweeper kit) but random trash fights caused by player mistake or Minions surrounding a particularly nasty boss pack that also drop all sorts of stuff. This has been the case since D1 - The Dark Lord himself wasn't nearly as scary as the Blood Knight / Advocate hordes that littered his chamber. Baal is generally less of a threat to most characters than Lister the Tormentor and pals.



There are plenty of places to farm high runes, sure. But the rune droprates are still terrible in each one, they're just not as terrible as they are everywhere else.
Yes, but you're still running a high-level area on top of that, so you're also going to receive a fairly steady flurry of uniques, rares, charms and all sorts of other stuff. Valuable items for a player at low wealth level can include anything as simple as a +3 skill amulet with lightning resistance thrown in.


Concerning point #4, you mentioned exactly three builds that can clear Ubers without needing high-end gear. I believe the summon necro because nothing can hit you to make your gear matter while you're afking in the corner, and I somewhat believe the smiter since paladins can get their resists high almost effortlessly, but every Uber list I've seen for the kicker includes crap like Last Wish, Ber'd SS and upped Gores. Even if you're right though, that's still far fewer D3 builds than can clear GR70/T15.
I also added Frenzybarb as an addendum to another post, who genuinely can do this challenge with just a source of Life Tap, Crushing Blow, and a few budget runewords. You can also do this with a Fury and/or Feral Rage druid, for that matter, due to insane proccing of lifesteal and CB. Pretty much every single one of these builds can rely on budget gear, stuff like Fleshripper, War Travelers, Dracul's Grasp, runeword armor like Treachery (for Fade proc) or Duress, Guillaume's Face, Crescent Moon runeword, Goblin Toe boots (probably the Holy Grail of all the budget Normal shoes, these are unique Light Plated Boots and people give them away for free in pub games), Duriel's Shell, Stormlash.
Kicksin in particular doesn't really care for stats on her primary weapon, so you can even get away with stuff like Black and Strength runewords or even a Crushflange.
Note that I'm not talking about the neutered PlugY version of the Ubers which doesn't have adds; these builds come from as early as the patch was introduced. All you need is Crushing Blow, Life Tap (available from Wand) and high resistance count. Otherwise, it's all about lifestealing as fast as possible while isolating the trio from one another through exceptional footwork and careful pulling. You don't need high gear to do this.
Frankly, I'd be certain that this is the main area in D2 that melees have an advantage over casters (due to massive amounts of life leech needed to outlast the bosses, as well as mods like Open Wounds and Crushing Blow), and that most melee builds can do this cheaply. Depending on expenses. Kicksin, Druid, Barb, Smiter and Necromancer can do this with budget gear. But so can a melee Sorceress (with Enchant and Meteor spam), she just needs higher gear. Or an Amazon with the right gear (still nothing outlandish) focusing on Jab (could probably even do it with the standard issue 1 point Jab, to be honest).




The ability to trade is the one point I'll give you, and I did move my Enigma around until I got a second one. As I said previously, I wouldn't complain if trading came back to D3. Of course, that also throws your PvP point out the window, since I could jump back into D2 right now with my credit card and have a full set of high-end gear from a botter in less than an hour without putting any of the work in.
Oh, you could, but that's just on you. Meanwhile, if I really wanted to reach even the PvP ceiling that I posit to be D2's true endgame, I could probably just roll a Trang-Oul necro or a 105 fcr fire sorc with wizardspike and Spirit monarch. Most of what is actually expensive is charmsets or enigma, and I doubt I will need that to pubstomp trade games.




By "Diablo" I actually meant the series, but I agree with you that the first game doesn't really merit discussion with all the duping and hacking that was going on making the itemization/loot loop pointless.
And also the concerns with the fact that Sorcerer can get most of his BiS gear in Normal difficulty while the other classes could shop for their best weapons at Griswold or (much less so) Wirt. Sometimes you can just feel like popping into the game, slaying some monsters, and identify every blue Ring or Ammy that drops. D1's thresholds on successful Hell/Hell clearing also aren't nearly as prohibitive, and most people played it because desperately setting up a kill room against a pack of Vipers and Balrogs chasing you was simply fun.

Let me just ask - do you care about being competitive? Because if you don't, D2 doesn't force you into those hardcore competitive measures and nobody needs to set up dedicated farming characters and be endlessly bored. I understand D3 allows the ceiling of the competition to be more easily perceived, but I might as well complain about having to adhere to the strict meta to reach this perceivable end-game, whether it is by following the FotM sets or playing the zDPS lackey for my friend. But you don't have to roll solo DH or zDPS Monk if you want to enjoy what the game has to offer!, you might say. And you don't need to roll 2x ebotd coh frenzy barb to have fun with D2, either.

If you wanted more excitement out of your D2 journey, you rolled HC where making a pure MF cheese sorc is going to get you killed without great care, full Rejuvs at all times, quick reflexes, good planning and high FCR and FHR, and, in fact, any mundane MF run can get you killed.

I also see that the "bruh" was out of line / sorta douchey, and I apologise.

[Psyren]

I also see that the "bruh" was out of line / sorta douchey, and I apologise.

Now that's refreshing - I'll make an effort to moderate my tone too, thank you :smallsmile:



Let me just ask - do you care about being competitive? Because if you don't, D2 doesn't force you into those hardcore competitive measures and nobody needs to set up dedicated farming characters and be endlessly bored. I understand D3 allows the ceiling of the competition to be more easily perceived, but I might as well complain about having to adhere to the strict meta to reach this perceivable end-game, whether it is by following the FotM sets or playing the zDPS lackey for my friend. But you don't have to roll solo DH or zDPS Monk if you want to enjoy what the game has to offer!, you might say. And you don't need to roll 2x ebotd coh frenzy barb to have fun with D2, either.

I think the fundamental disconnect among all of us is defining what "competitive" even means for these games. For me, it means a build that can both see and clear all the unique content the game has to offer and can access all the loot drops, which is why I consistently hold up Ubers and GR70 as my standard for that term. For someone else, it might mean wanting to see their name show up on a solo leaderboard. For someone else it might mean having a high winrate in PvP.

Speaking personally I have no desire for the latter two. I PvPed in D2 purely because there wasn't much else to do with all the supergear I had amassed over time except to see how I did in public duels, due to the utter lack of PvE endgame. I don't enjoy PvP for its own sake,certainly not now that I don't have hours and hours to sink into perfecting my gear anymore and will get creamed by those who do even if they are not actually that much more skilled. And I certainly don't care about a scoreboard, where the folks on top are the ones with oodles of free time to pour into making their builds as OCD-perfect as possible, plus have a decent helping of luck with getting good randomized layouts getting them to the pinata quickly.

Last point, concerning off-the-wall "oskill builds" like Whirlsin and Wolfbarb - Yeah, they existed, but as you noted they came online so late that they were gimmicks more often than not. I won't deny some found them fun, but I consider them to be novelties at best. Part of what I enjoy about D3 isn't just the variety of builds for each class, it's how each of them still feels like they belong with that class, because they are built from class sets or from LoN legendaries designed for those classes. When I make a ranged monk in D3 for example, it's using stuff like LTK and WoL, not Multishot or Firebats that belong to other classes.



If you wanted more excitement out of your D2 journey, you rolled HC where making a pure MF cheese sorc is going to get you killed without great care, full Rejuvs at all times, quick reflexes, good planning and high FCR and FHR, and, in fact, any mundane MF run can get you killed.

Sorry, but HC is a complete non-starter for me in any game that has aspects like latency and crashes that can ever be outside my control.That goes for every game in the genre, never mind this franchise.

[Winthur]

I think the fundamental disconnect among all of us is defining what "competitive" even means for these games. For me, it means a build that can both see and clear all the unique content the game has to offer and can access all the loot drops, which is why I consistently hold up Ubers and GR70 as my standard for that term.
Technically you could make a case that "accessing all the loot drops" would involve making a character that's of a high enough level to craft great gear with the best mods or something, but in general, I find that even low-budget characters don't have a problem accessing your personal brand of end-game content in D2. I've already talked about killing Ubers being more or less within reach of most characters. Remember that most of the "competitive" UT builds are focused on clearing it in a few minutes rather than a longer standoff, too, but as long as you don't die and keep being persistent, you will kill the boss. Lifesteal and maybe full rejuvs can keep you up for an indefinite amount of time.

I think that originally the extremely low drop-rate on certain items was meant to ensure their rarity, so that you could have some very unique playthroughs even when following a standard build. This is one of the reasons I never really cared much for progressing gear into the "godly" levels - it's more fun to get through Hell with a low-mid tier powered character.
I do understand the desire to completely wipe the floor with everyone with a godly character, as that can be a fun, cathartic experience. I'm just not sure I buy the argument where it's a necessity. I wouldn't mind adjudicating the drop rates so that higher-level gear would be more accessible (in fact, neither did Blizzard considering that the latest patch increased the rune drop rate), but I also don't think the design of the game ultimately suffers because of this. If you don't want to be competitive, you don't have to be - and that would be the core of my argument.


Last point, concerning off-the-wall "oskill builds" like Whirlsin and Wolfbarb - Yeah, they existed, but as you noted they came online so late that they were gimmicks more often than not. I won't deny some found them fun, but I consider them to be novelties at best. Part of what I enjoy about D3 isn't just the variety of builds for each class, it's how each of them still feels like they belong with that class, because they are built from class sets or from LoN legendaries designed for those classes. When I make a ranged monk in D3 for example, it's using stuff like LTK and WoL, not Multishot or Firebats that belong to other classes.
This is a valid way to look at it, but I think of it more as a "huh, this item gives me access to a completely different skillset outside of my class? Let's see if I can build around it", which extends the lifespan of the game if you enjoy a variety of builds. I thought it was a nice thing about D2 itemization. D3 did get a lot of criticism pre-RoS about the stats on the weapon not mattering nearly as much as its DPS stat, for example, and there being virtually no point to any stat other than your class stat.




Sorry, but HC is a complete non-starter for me in any game that has aspects like latency and crashes that can ever be outside my control.That goes for every game in the genre, never mind this franchise.
You could do this on Single Player, I suppose.

Also, on that note: I think D1 and D2 were built with the idea of preventing homogenization by ensuring that the drop rates on items would be affected by massive disparity so you couldn't just have everyone run around with BiS gear. However, by the time they hit D2, they didn't count on the sheer amount of dupes and botting that would arise around this game. I wouldn't be surprised if their original intent wasn't to allow characters that can easily solo all of the content without a whole lot of effort within the span of a single ladder season. That said, I still think that D2's original design (if Blizzard's explicit non-endorsement of muling is to be believed) can hold up and you don't need top gear to succeed.
I think D3 embraced this homogenization somewhat with a greater emphasis on sets and whatnot, which ties up to my comments about "more perceivable end-game ceiling" earlier.
Thanks for the discussion, I'm not sure if we can add more to it, but maybe. :smallbiggrin:

[The_Jackal]

I think the fundamental disconnect among all of us is defining what "competitive" even means for these games. For me, it means a build that can both see and clear all the unique content the game has to offer and can access all the loot drops, which is why I consistently hold up Ubers and GR70 as my standard for that term.

I think that's a fair bar, and I would describe my own goals as fairly similar. I like to grow my power and collect loot, I don't particularly feel the need to participate in the leaderboards, as they're really just an expression of time investment anyway.

The problem with saying that GR70 is "enough" is when we start dipping into the drop rate mechanics inherent in Diablo 3's loot system. Simply put, the higher difficulty you clear, the more quickly you will get the legendary drops from which your endgame gear supply is coming. If you're running an off-standard build that can clear Torment 3, for example, and a cookie cutter build can run Torment 4 at a comparable rate, you're effectively paying a ~40% tax in your rate of progression by running a non-cookie-cutter build. It doesn't matter where in the progression timeline you are, it doesn't matter what your goals and aspirations for what you intend to achieve in game: An off-meta build costs you time, and quite a lot of it.

[Psyren]

Apologies for not quoting you, as the passages are quite lengthy and I want to keep this a bit more digestible. Let me know if I miss a point you wanted addressed.

Concerning viability - I know that you can technically succeed with a weak but very survivable character that whittles the boss down, or even a less survivable one that just goes in and dies repeatedly. That's not really what I'm after though. This is another bit of design I thought D3 did better - by preventing their story bosses from being taken down in this way, and by using timers on GRs to gate the content. It's not just beating GR70 that gives you the unlock, it's beating it solo within the time limit. It gives you a very clear standard of what constitutes "viability" to shoot for.

Not really talking about the godlike characters here since we're discussing minimum standards and build diversity.

Concerning itemization: Not much to say here, as stated I'd rather modify a skill that fits my class than just be handed one from somebody else's. The latter to me is just lazy - much like how they didn't make or balance movement abilities for most of the classes in D2 and instead gave everybody the sorc's teleport, with said lack of balance leading to some classes (like Hammerdin and Summonecro) being able to put it to much, much better use than others.

Concerning Hardcore: Doing it on singleplayer means no ladder and therefore no ladder-only rewards or enemies, which takes it right back to the issue I noted earlier of missing out on content. And yes, you can play Ladder games solo, but those still require server connectivity and therefore your character you sunk hours, days, or even weeks into can die forever through no fault of your own. No, just no.

I agree with your categorization of the ceiling.

[Psyren]

I think that's a fair bar, and I would describe my own goals as fairly similar. I like to grow my power and collect loot, I don't particularly feel the need to participate in the leaderboards, as they're really just an expression of time investment anyway.

The problem with saying that GR70 is "enough" is when we start dipping into the drop rate mechanics inherent in Diablo 3's loot system. Simply put, the higher difficulty you clear, the more quickly you will get the legendary drops from which your endgame gear supply is coming. If you're running an off-standard build that can clear Torment 3, for example, and a cookie cutter build can run Torment 4 at a comparable rate, you're effectively paying a ~40% tax in your rate of progression by running a non-cookie-cutter build. It doesn't matter where in the progression timeline you are, it doesn't matter what your goals and aspirations for what you intend to achieve in game: An off-meta build costs you time, and quite a lot of it.

And again I say to you, if you're trying to farm loot on GRs, you're doing it very wrong. One small set of drops from the end boss, no matter how high the droprate is cranked due to difficulty (at the expense of clear speed, I'll remind you), just cannot be compared to the piles and piles of loot you can get from a T13 speedrun. Not to mention the fact that goblins and Breaths can't even spawn in GRs. The loot from a GR is a nice bonus, but trust me when i say most people would be doing them even if they gave you absolutely nothing but leggem levels and shards.

The GR70 bar is only there so that you can get primals to start showing up in T13. Try to farm them (or any other loot except leggems) in GRs, and you will only find yourself way behind everyone who is doing it the sensible way.

[Winthur]

I think we have exhausted the other two subjects, so I'm going to just touch on these:


Concerning viability - I know that you can technically succeed with a weak but very survivable character that whittles the boss down, or even a less survivable one that just goes in and dies repeatedly.


This entire time I am proposing characters who are self-sufficient and do not suffer from crippling clear speed or require you to go glass cannon in order to proceed. All of the items I am recommending that are guaranteeing your survivability or damage are either low-tier uniques, crafts / gambles / found rares (possibly upped) or magic items with good prefixes (+300+% Enhanced Damage etc.). Or low-tier runewords that any character can assemble. Considering there are speedrun playthroughs that go by on the lowest necessary amount of repeating areas and they still beat the entire game (all 3 difficulties) in like 6-7 hours, imagine any solid build played by a player who understands how much they can push the envelope facing off against Diablo, Ancients, Baal and all sorts of nasty uniques.
The solutions I'm proposing are very realistic for a solo self-found character who doesn't want to push himself to the limit. And if you're playing a caster of pretty much any type (including "melee casters" like Elemental Zealot or Lightning Fury Amazon), your gear dependency already shrinks.
I honestly think that a lot of players are too used to the really late game as something mandatory and then are utterly surprised when a WW barb wearing budget gear and whirling with the venerable upped Bonesnap ends up doing content safe and fast.
This is my preferred style of play because I enjoy playing a character who may have to retreat sometimes or keep a steady finger on reds / rejuvs and might have to think carefully about positioning, but proper implementation of these skills still makes them look like a god of war.

[Psyren]

I didn't meant to imply that your suggested builds were weak - just stating a general preference for my own. Though I will point out that the runes you need to "up" cheaper uniques are themselves not too common, e.g. Um/Ko/Lum/Pul etc. And upping that gear has costs too - the armor and damage values increase, but other stats like resists usually don't, plus upping means higher Str/Dex requirements which can hurt your build. Granted if you're a martial build that sort of thing is necessary to deal with, but it's worth noting.

As for being "god" - honestly I've never played a hell build that didn't need potions of some kind or that could just ignore gloams and whatnot. On even the most humdrum and monotonous of Baal runs I found wipes to be possible, to say nothing of harder content. That may have been on me not having bleeding edge though.

[Winthur]

I didn't meant to imply that your suggested builds were weak - just stating a general preference for my own.
Kay, I'm just saying it didn't come off that way - it seemed like your position was that budget builds are at a binary where they have to be either suicidally pushing for glass cannon status or instead be horrifically slow.



Though I will point out that the runes you need to "up" cheaper uniques are themselves not too common, e.g. Um/Ko/Lum/Pul etc.
If you're laddering (as you've expressed a preference towards), it'll be easier to trade Rals or Pgems for those mid-tier runes, and any of the low-mid tier stuff you might find is also going to have trade value for these. In single player, you can save map data, so rolling a good map for Hell Countess if you're REALLY parched for runes is decent. That said, I believe these self-found challenges can still be done in a single-pass playthrough as has been done before.

And upping that gear has costs too - the armor and damage values increase, but other stats like resists usually don't, plus upping means higher Str/Dex requirements which can hurt your build. Granted if you're a martial build that sort of thing is necessary to deal with, but it's worth noting.
Yes, but non-martial builds generally don't have an incentive to upgrade their gear much anyway, and martial builds can always use the Str/Dex because it increases damage and AR. If I'm a Barb with maxed out BO or a paladin with any decent shield or a Bear Druid with Lycanthropy + Oak then I'm probably okay with some lost Vita, especially since as I get better gear I can also afford to slap better Rubies on my Helmet.
Meanwhile, for casters, bonus armor or weapon damage on a statstick is mostly useless to these characters, so you don't upgrade them. And your mercenary can use ethereal items.


As for being "god" - honestly I've never played a hell build that didn't need potions of some kind or that could just ignore gloams and whatnot.
I find keeping selective gear on switch (not just weapon switch but having a backup item) helps. For more high-end ways to fortify yourself entirely against Gloams, you can equip Thundergod's Visor, for example.

[Traab]

Alas, no. I've never even SEEN any of those weapons drop, except maybe Fleshraker once or twice?

I had the same issue trying to make the Lashing Tail Kick build and never seeing hide nor hair of the headband that makes it shoot a fireball.

Edit: Hah. Funnily enough, I just got a Fleshrake...on my level 19 Monk I'm leveling for the Season. =/

Heh, I started up a monk for the season and that was the first legendary I got. Now im pew pewing fireballs around like nobodies business. Just waiting to loot something better before I cube that effect. I rather enjoy having a silly large chunk of bonus damage added on. On a related note, am i the only one who has fun hitting that moment in the game where you go from struggling to kill stuff/taking forever to kill it, to suddenly death spamming your way through? Its like, you havent even looted anything that awesome yet by itself, but that random yellow weapon suddenly allows you to start carving through everything. I generally start playing on expert at level 1. Then when I get the better gear I start bumping it up till it stops being a roflstomp then grind some more till it happens again. I honestly think my standard speed run style kill fests top out around torment 2-3. I can handle a couple ranks higher just fine, its just that I start having to /shudder THINK about what im doing! Bleh. :smallbiggrin: You know, rather than running into three groups of champs and a unique with mortar desecration, arcane on all of them, plagues waller jailer for fun with maybe a vortex thrown in for good measure and just lashing tail kicking everything to death.

[tyckspoon]

Heh, I started up a monk for the season and that was the first legendary I got. Now im pew pewing fireballs around like nobodies business. Just waiting to loot something better before I cube that effect. I rather enjoy having a silly large chunk of bonus damage added on. On a related note, am i the only one who has fun hitting that moment in the game where you go from struggling to kill stuff/taking forever to kill it, to suddenly death spamming your way through? Its like, you havent even looted anything that awesome yet by itself, but that random yellow weapon suddenly allows you to start carving through everything. I generally start playing on expert at level 1. Then when I get the better gear I start bumping it up till it stops being a roflstomp then grind some more till it happens again. I honestly think my standard speed run style kill fests top out around torment 2-3. I can handle a couple ranks higher just fine, its just that I start having to /shudder THINK about what im doing! Bleh. :smallbiggrin: You know, rather than running into three groups of champs and a unique with mortar desecration, arcane on all of them, plagues waller jailer for fun with maybe a vortex thrown in for good measure and just lashing tail kicking everything to death.

I find keeping your gear up to date/correctly selecting your priority stats and items can get you up to T2/3, although it's not ideal clear/play speed (helps if you have the crafted legendary items to fill out your slots - some of them actually have pretty handy bonus properties, and if nothing else they have higher stat ranges than rares. Getting the Blacksmith to make an Ancient weapon just to use for a stat/damagestick is a big boost), but it really starts clicking when you first find a legendary that improves your favorite skill or gives a solid damage reduction - Rivera Dancers or Soliloquy or Spirit Guards or something.

[Traab]

I find keeping your gear up to date/correctly selecting your priority stats and items can get you up to T2/3, although it's not ideal clear/play speed (helps if you have the crafted legendary items to fill out your slots - some of them actually have pretty handy bonus properties, and if nothing else they have higher stat ranges than rares. Getting the Blacksmith to make an Ancient weapon just to use for a stat/damagestick is a big boost), but it really starts clicking when you first find a legendary that improves your favorite skill or gives a solid damage reduction - Rivera Dancers or Soliloquy or Spirit Guards or something.

Dont forget finally getting that rune boost to your favorite skill as well. Honestly for me it wasnt so much about damage reduction as it was damage production. The only times I died early on I was literally swamped by so many mobs I couldnt move and my dps was too low to kill them before being hit by 20 at a time, including minions and champs tore me down. I mean here I am fighting izual and the only time I stop hitting him is to dodge being frozen and thats just a time saver. No need to heal, just stand there and watch his hp ever so slowly drop bit by bit as I keep PUNCHING and PUNCHING and dropping giant bells on him and PUNCHING. Finally I get myself a nice craftable daibo legendary (One of the low level ones, im blanking on its name) and BLAMBLAMBLAM everything is starting to die in short order. I havent even finished the first chapter yet, still have to hit 50. I cant wait till I get my set of gear to play with.

[Psyren]

Heh, I started up a monk for the season and that was the first legendary I got. Now im pew pewing fireballs around like nobodies business. Just waiting to loot something better before I cube that effect. I rather enjoy having a silly large chunk of bonus damage added on. On a related note, am i the only one who has fun hitting that moment in the game where you go from struggling to kill stuff/taking forever to kill it, to suddenly death spamming your way through? Its like, you havent even looted anything that awesome yet by itself, but that random yellow weapon suddenly allows you to start carving through everything. I generally start playing on expert at level 1. Then when I get the better gear I start bumping it up till it stops being a roflstomp then grind some more till it happens again. I honestly think my standard speed run style kill fests top out around torment 2-3. I can handle a couple ranks higher just fine, its just that I start having to /shudder THINK about what im doing! Bleh. :smallbiggrin: You know, rather than running into three groups of champs and a unique with mortar desecration, arcane on all of them, plagues waller jailer for fun with maybe a vortex thrown in for good measure and just lashing tail kicking everything to death.

What I particularly enjoy is when you're done leveling in a season and hit 70, and then you know deep down that everything on your current difficulty will only get easier now. No more of that "crap, I gained 5 levels, I'd better try and craft some gear before the monsters start smashing my face in again" that happens because the mob levels scale but your items don't.

For me, the stomp feeling comes in very quickly thanks to Haedrig's Gift - you hit 70 and are basically done with Chapter II and get your first two pieces, and the 2-piece bonus of most sets is making you hit much harder with a specific skill or combination of skills, while the 4-piece is usually making you twice as tough.

I too am playing Monk this season, and Uliana's bonuses are ALL damage. Makes you feel really squishy when enemies do catch you, but hey, that's what i-frames are for.

[Lord Torath]

What I particularly enjoy is when you're done leveling in a season and hit 70, and then you know deep down that everything on your current difficulty will only get easier now. No more of that "crap, I gained 5 levels, I'd better try and craft some gear before the monsters start smashing my face in again" that happens because the mob levels scale but your items don't.

For me, the stomp feeling comes in very quickly thanks to Haedrig's Gift - you hit 70 and are basically done with Chapter II and get your first two pieces, and the 2-piece bonus of most sets is making you hit much harder with a specific skill or combination of skills, while the 4-piece is usually making you twice as tough.

I too am playing Monk this season, and Uliana's bonuses are ALL damage. Makes you feel really squishy when enemies do catch you, but hey, that's what i-frames are for.Me too! I deal very low damage with my fists, but after I have a bunch of glowing blue halos over my enemies, a quick Seven-Sided Strike (or some help from a friendly Witch Doctor) explodes them all.

I can take out Bosses very quickly (Torment 4), but the little mobs take time. Plus, I got Ulianna's leg armor from Kadala, so before finishing Chapter IV, I have the full set bonus. Current Build (https://www.d3planner.com/554805316).

[Psyren]

BF and I are on Slayer chapter, so two full 6-piece bonuses. I'll most likely drop my helm for Madstone, wear Gungdo (sp?) bracers and cube either Lefevbre or Spirit Guards for toughness - most likely the former.

He's playing Necro so we combo very well. I make a ton of corpses, then he goes ham with Corpse Lance while I'm on cooldown. We're up to T9 so far.

[Lord Torath]

My wife's Demon Hunter has just hit level 70 (power-leveled, so she hasn't completed any Season Journey Chapters yet), and my daughter has the Witch Doctor (done with chapter 3). But she really likes Poison Dart, so she's got that as her primary and Firebats as her secondary attacks. Still pretty effective, though.

[Psyren]

Uliana build I'm working toward here: https://www.d3planner.com/367937392

The cool thing about D3Planner is that if you select Seasonal it automatically factors in the S16 grandeur bonus, meaning you can check out your build without having to put in the RRoG and still get decent sim data.


My wife's Demon Hunter has just hit level 70 (power-leveled, so she hasn't completed any Season Journey Chapters yet), and my daughter has the Witch Doctor (done with chapter 3). But she really likes Poison Dart, so she's got that as her primary and Firebats as her secondary attacks. Still pretty effective, though.

If she likes Poison Dart, have her work towards the Zunimassa Carnevil Dart Storm build :smallcool:. I like the version that combines with Arachyr, because the free Spider Queen it gives you counts as a "pet" for the Zuni 6pc bonus even if you can't control it.

[Traab]

I don't disagree with you exactly, but D3 purports to have massive build variety. Yet as soon as you want to get to GR 50 or so, let alone the 100s, you need to start using these cookie cutter builds based entirely on how the devs have buffed set bonuses to absurdity. You will never, ever under any circumstances be able to find a yellow item that can come close to offering the same benefits as a set item, and even most legendary items are chosen based on whether they compete with the set bonus or not.

The equivalent in D2 would be running a build that cant operate in nightmare mode. You might enjoy it for a while, but you cant do anything with it either.

My fissure druid wants to chat. Here I am leveling my way on up, beating the game with relative ease as I can open fissures inside a room and clear the place easy as pie, when suddenly im on a higher difficulty and SURPRISE! Everything is immune to fire. My awesome build is now garbage. Or god help me, my skellymancer that I went from level one on up cleared the first two difficulties, got all the way to the last act of the highest difficulty, now I have to defeat that three ancients or whatever it was to get into the final dungeon GOD &*^%$*&^%$ IT! All of them are physical immune?!?!? Seriously?!? And of course they heal to full if you leave. Sure, gimmie a spare 20 points or so and maybe I could get enough poison points to melt them while my pets hold the line. D2 is a game I really really liked, but I swear to god the rng was designed specifically to destroy whatever build you made. Create a thorns paladin and 75% of the monsters are spell casters or archers. Specialize in fire and everything is fire immune, cold? Now they are cold immune, lightning? Yep, immune. I mean, that doesnt mean the build variety doesnt exist, it totally does, its just every build is going to hit that wall at some point where the game laughs at you as you try to survive an entire zone full of monsters flat out immune to everything you can do. Or maybe you can gimp yourself by splitting your points. Ok, now my druid is a crappy statted bear AND does only a little fire damage!