I have to admit, I like the changes.
Here's a run down of some key stuff.
1) You don't gain fixed stuff per level, you get Paragon points that accumulate. Best of all, you can change your Paragon allocation whenever you want. So, if you want to be fast and hunt gold, you can be set up that way. Want high defense and life? Do it. Want damage? Find the combo of crit chance or Crit damage that works for you.
2) YOu can now switch skills on the fly and in the field. THIS. IS. AWESOME. After being stuck on one configuration just to keep my Nephalem Valor at max, I can now swap out for boss fights, routine hunting, AoE damage...whatever I need. Heck, I can swap in Web Shot Rapid Fire when I see a Treasure Goblin!
3) Loot is tailored to match your character. Want good Int items? Hunt with your mage or witch docter. I have a 106 mix I got by leveling a Demon Hunter to 92, and the other 5 classes up to 60+. I was level 98 when I logged in after the patch.
4) You level faster. All my xp on all character got me to 98. In one run through of the game, I gained 8 more levels, when it was taking me 2-3 days to level at 90+. So I'm making a lot more xp. Of course, now the end goal is 800. I can only guess that if this system was around when I started I'd be 700+ right now.
5) Paragon points apply to even low level characters. So you can give your low level toons bonus stats far beyond their level to help them level up easier.
6) Cursed Shrines: Running across these is a chance for xp. Your job is to kill waves of spawns, each wave in under 30 seconds. I imagine on normal difficulty this would be a hoot, but I'm playing Torment level, and I could never quite finish the third wave.
7) Cursed Chests: Your job is to kill 100 enemies in less then a minute. Man, I couldn't even do that, killing shadow crawlers on hell level, or frikking bats. Swapped out my config and still couldn't do it.
8) Azmodan gets a lot more helpers. The Siegebreaker gets 4 Hellbearers coughing up dudes to help him out.
9) Elites have a LOT more powers to pick from to use on you at range. Before, they basically could desecrate you with fire, vortex you in close, drop mortar fire on you, lock you in place or wall you up. Now, they can call lightning on you, erect plague under you, send acid flows your way, send snowballs chasing you, and more. Their attacks do a bit less damage then before to make up for the sheer variety they can come at you with, but yeah, one spawn of elites can have like 5 different ways to damage you at range.
Oh, and the freeze bursts? Do damage now.
10) Don't stand in front of the flames breather devices in Mount Arreat now. Just saying.
11) Gold elites frequently will have mismatching cohorts. I ran into three combos of succubi helping out gold Hell Tremblers, which is a bit of a surprise on Act 3. You're going to get all sorts of combinations.
12) I ran into a LOT more elite spawns parked next to one another. Dodging the sheer variety of attacks coming at you from all those special powers can be...interesting.
13) The Loot! Base loot starts at +200 of your prime stat, or thereabouts. Just about everything you have will be within 10% of that number. Armor, rings, etc. Then Vitality is the next most common.
What this means is you're going to find loot with a LOT of Vit backing up the special powers.
LEGENDARIES ARE AWESOME. I was using a +117 +AS +Crit D + Crit% pair of gloves, and I swapped them out for a +323 Dex +500 Vit thing called St. Andrew's Gage. And I ran into another Legendary Glove with +323 Dex, +8 Crit and +25 Crit Damage.
New Legendaries don't key off old ones. I am wearing 2 Natalya's Reflection Rings at the moment. 1 is old, +90 Dex, +9 AS, +Crit %. The second one is +236 Dex, +6 AS, +Crit %. The Attack Speed stacked. I'm now hoping for the helm to drop, so I can get two sets of +7% to Crit Chance going!
14) The Skeleton King dropped a Legend for me, a belt which is coming in major useful as it blinds things for 2 seconds in a large area. I'll have to kill him again to see if he drops a rare again. I got a bow with a +400 Dex mod from the Butcher (Windcluck, it shoots chickens!), but it's not as good as my Manticore yet.
I got nothing off Belial or Azmodan or any other boss.
Diablo dropped a rare...the upgraded Dead Man's Legacy. Yeah, I went from +180ish Dex and Vit to +323 Dex and Vit.
15) There's much less gold getting dropped. I think I earned maybe 4 million playing through the whole game, picking up everything, popping everything.
Bodies rarely give up stuff compared to before.
Occasionally, barrels and bodies pop up a whole stream of gold, which is nice.
Gold is in smaller amounts.
16) Everything that drops is usable.
"Normal" stuff, white, you salvage for Common Debris, which is used in crafting. So even the trash loot is useful. I've got about 500 built up now.
Blue items get you exquisite Essence. But since magic items drop so much less, suddenly the price of the stuff on the auction house went up by 4x.
Gold items get you iridescent tears.
Essence, tears and debris also drop as loot. Monsters drop maybe a tenth of the loot they did before. The fact its all usable loot means that is FINE with me.
Gems added Diamonds, which grant res all, or a % damage bonus against elites. You no longer need books to craft gems, and the cost of crafting them is MUCH less. On the flip side, it costs a lot more to take them in and out of items.
Dying costs you much less gold, and you have a choice of coming back at your body, nearest spawn point, or back in town.
17) If you are a pack rat and have bunches of old stuff, salvage it, don't sell it. All the old stuff was devalued down to next to nothing if you sell to a merchant. At least get some essence or a tear out of it.
18) I went through on Torment 2 for half the first act. Ugh. This was like Monster Power 6 or harder, combined with the new stuff for elites was a total pain. I dialed it back down to normal Torment, which is about equal to MP 5, which I normally hunted at, and I did okay.
I started out losing 270 Dex and taking the damage hit for it, got 98 of it back with Paragon, and some crit chance and attack speed.
My DPR was about 157k, and I had 42k Life.
At the end of the play through, my DPR is now 181k, 188k if I want to go for pure damage and lose 20k hp, and my health is 80k. I can now endure so much more stuff it isn't funny. All 5 Rogues now have 300 Dex Tools, 2x 200 Dex rings, and 250+ Dex amulets, and 950+ weapons with 300+ Dex mods.
If I get just a couple more legendaries, especially boots, helm, or upgraded Natalya's cloak, I can very easily see myself breaking 200k+ damage and 100k health. Woot!
19) The Templar is my preferred henchie for my DH. He got a major damage boost (he's doing over 35k now, with a non-awesome weapon). His HP are over 80k, his healing is better.
20) Play on the Demon Hunter:
You regen hatred more slowly, which means Rapid Fire eats it up MUCH faster. I used to be able to take down a gold with one long fusillade of rocket fire...I'll run out of Hatred now, first. Same with the Boss fights in Acts 3 and 4...Rakanoth took me two full pools of Hate to bring down. And it's not observer error...I just didn't get Hatred back as fast.
More stuff with higher dex means your pets and sentries do more damage, since they don't crit. Interesting trade off.
Shadow Power's 'I'm unkillable' button was nerfed. You can heal ~1500 a hit now, instead of 15%, the latter figure of which makes you almost unkillable when your base damage of 150k x 444% for Rapid Fire + Rockets means you're healing 40k health in one second, so unless your rapid fire gets broken, or you get one hit, you couldn't be killed.
Heal on hit and life regen are now VERY important because of that. I heal a LOT on hit now, and Shadow Power on Blood MOon makes it 3k more as long as I hold the button down, but given the sheer number of special attacks elites can send at me, it won't keep pace (I could generally keep pace with at least 5 plagues or desecrates under me before).
It's true for all the classes, btw. The uber healing stuff was nerfed. They let us do more damage, and made life regen and heal on hit more common to make up for it. It has the flip side of giving us less down time.
Ah, companions! Your companions now have passive and active effects. They don't die. The 'passive' effect is the old one, which you get all the time now, and the critters don't die. The active one is if you hit the button and trip the cooldown timer. The bat gives you 50 Hate, the spider webs everything close by, the boar lures everything to it, and the wolf gives you a +30% damage boost for a few seconds.
I'm going to try another run through with boar instead of bat and see how it works. The extra regen and resistance buff should be useful.
Equipping my second tier stuff to my monk got his damage from 60k to 100k. :o
Any questions? Keep in mind that I've not played the other classes through yet, it's only been 4 days, and I prefer a DH.
And if you're looking for some loot upgrades, well, hey, I got old stuff I'm going to get rid of. The stuff I'm just selling would probably have been uber gear at one time.
21) Legendaries now bind to account, so the new ones are non-tradable UNLESS you give them away to someone who was playing with you at the same time (as I did with Ariaspinner, who popped into a game I was playing)
==Aelryinth
Updates:
No unique from the skeleton King second run through.
Dead Man's legacy, new- Did I say 323 Dex? Sorry, 508 Dex, 432 Vit. +19 AS, +7.5 Crit (that last is actually down)
Eesh. My DPR is now over 200k.
Gold bats can have ten minion bats. That is REALLY bad in narrow corridors when they are flaming and surround you in layers of molten trails. Ugh.
==Aelryinth
Second Diablo kill, no rare.
I have a new Goldskin now if my Barb wants to go gold hunting. 260 Str and Vit mod!
==Aelryinth
i will wait with going back to diablo 3 until the +50% XP period is over. The game is so ridiculously easy already, the last thing i want is to also be 5 or more levels ahead of the curve.
Every zone scales to your current level, Threeshades, so there's no actual "curve" to edge out. That being said, I just finished a full run through with some friends starting with level 1 characters. We started on Master Difficulty, but by the time we beat the skeleton king we had to bump it up to Torment I. When we got to Diablo last night, we'd had it on Torment III for most of Act IV. We all hit 60 in Act III, right around Seigebreaker.
We are all having a LOT of fun with it too. The new loot system restored, at least to us, that sense of eagerness when finding resplendent chests or elites/bosses. I've had the least amount luck in the group since we hit 60 as far as legendaries are concerned, as my character has a mere 4 equipped while the others each have 6 or 7.
Torment difficulty combined with the 4-player proximity bonus to magic find and xp gain lead to some serious speed leveling and some outrageous drops though.
Welp turns out you're right, and more than that, there is an actual difficulty setting now (not this "difficulty" level that was just a new game+ with enemies scaled up to match your level, but an actual choosable difficulty setting that makes enemies harder in relation to your level!)
I really appreciate that. I think i just stepped that much closer to actually getting the expansion.
Hm this might be what I was waiting for before giving it a try.
Torment basic is approximately equal to MP5, in my experience. Torment2 was about MP6 (I'm basing this on how fast I kill things).
Note that at Torment level, magic find is basically useless, because you default to +300, which is the maximum you can have, and it goes up on higher difficulty levels.
I really should be playing my secondary characters to get their share of uber gear, hehe.
==Aelryinth
I've been playing my Wizard. Under the new system, I've somehow turned from DPS into control/tank. The new forcefield mechanic the wizard has provides a whole lot of solo survivability, especially combined with an essentially cooldownless teleport that stuns and damages.
1. Teleport into group.
2. Meteor x3 on self.
3. Frost nova group.
4. Energy swords everything nearby.
5. When freeze wears off, teleport on the spot, stunning for 1 sec.
6. Meteor, then swords while regenerating arcane pool.
7. Freeze often and stun as needed to interrupt guys doing a big hit animation.
8. Win eventually.
This strategy is so far indestructible on torment, but tends to trip the rage timers on bosses (and still survives their onslaught indefinitely).
Here we go: My Build
Poor me my biggest failing in playing is losing track of the mouse pointer in all the explosive special effects. This means it's hard for me to control powers like Teleport it has consistently held me back on the more difficult settings.
I got up to Belial in torment.
Turns out I can only tank three waves of his enrage.
I need to do more damage.
Whew. Two buddies and I tried working our way through Act I set at Torment V. I was starting from scratch with a new level 1 wizard, one dude was a level 20 witch doctor, and the other was a level 30 wizard.
It seems the game scales the zones to the lowest level character, not the game creator/party leader like I'd thought. Since everything scaled down to me, the other two were able to blitz through things pretty easily until we got to Leoric, at which point I'd leveled to the mid 30's. It was also at this point that I was actually able to contribue to a tiny degree to the fights, but we also agreed that I should lower it down to Torment IV.
By the time we finished the Act, I was level 57 and the witch doctor was 58, and we'd scaled down to Torment II. We discovered an unfortunate downside to speed-leveling: no good gear! We were finding gear more slowly than I was gaining levels, so it became a real challenge to stay hardy enough and strong enough to push through, especially if we ran into elites and their mooks. Hence the constant need to lower the difficulty as we advanced.
Even fully decked out, I can't imagine ever having a character strong enough to handle Torments IV and up. But, I am really looking forward to Reaper of Souls to go live now. I'm really enjoying D3 like never before.
Wait, Torment V? With a level 1-20? Are you sure you weren't on Hardness 5? Because the instant you trip an elite with a ranged attack at Torment V (equal to Inferno MP10 at least), you will instantly die.
Oh, duh. Auto-tunes to your level. Right, sorry.
Because my level 120 DH with excellent gear and 200k DPS finds it slow going on Torment 2, and I haven't tried Torment 3. You're doing a group game.
I have so far taken my wizard through the whole Torment 1 up to Diablo with a fairly standard DPS build (teleport, Energy Armor for +20 mana, magic weapon, familiar, seeker magic missile, Chaos Nexus Disintegrate).
It was easier then my DH, mostly because DIsintegrate lets you Pierce enemies and kill them all at once. Every single cursed chest and shrine I faced, I killed everything and met all kill targets. I did that once with my DH on the 100 kills, using the long-duration hail of arrows twice successfully, but couldn't do the waves as I couldn't kill things fast enough, and the hail of arrows timer didn't reset fast enough.
I have a Mirror Orb on my wizard, who has managed to make it up to 150k base damage, starting from 70. It adds an extra magic missile. That means I'm shooting out TWO auto-target seeker missiles at 211% each, PLUS a straight shot from the familiar for +179%. I do almost as much damage at range with M.Missile at range as I do with disintegrate, and I don't miss. For swarms, I can switch to over-piercing Conflagrate ...doubled magic missile damage is impressive!
Chaos Nexus is, however, by far the best boss-killer for DPR. If you are close, you're hitting them with the primary beam and a secondary beam, so you're doing 650% damage, and your familiar is machine-gun firing. It sucks up the mana like nobody's business, but you're also killing anything behind it, and the stuff around you. It's really funny when the moloks are coming down out of the sky all around you, you set off disintegrate, and the nexus beams are actually doing damage and extending off the screen because the bloody things haven't landed yet.
If you have Prismatic Armor going, disintegrate is basically 'free' if you use the one that reduces resource costs by 9. I smashed my way through the final fight with Diablo doing that. The combination of damage absorption and disintegrate was very useful.
Oh, Unstable Anomaly! I had the unfortunate experience of getting caught in one of Diablo's traps, and instead of animating to walk over and beat on me, I Instead got to inherit a full outlay of his rainbow breath flame. When the Anomaly went off, I broke out of the prison effect! That was cool and unexpected.
The anomaly unfortunately doesn't help you escape from walls that seal off your escapes (teleports won't get you out of wall pins, either). I've died a couple times when I couldn't move and got pinned in acid pools or desecrate flames by walls.
---
I am currently taking my barbarian through Act III, Torment I.
His DPR is about 120k, with monstrous crits. Standard tactic so far is just to whirlwind through knots of monsters and elites, and rip them to shreds. Haven't died yet, although I've come close, haven't called on the Ancients or gone berserk. Just whirlwind and cleave.
He kills stuff way faster then my 200k damage DH. I haven't looted enough to get really good new gear, but he's so much better at ripping through mobs then even my wizard, it's just uncanny.
And he's wearing a new Goldskin, so he's just sucking in all the extra gold drops.
==Aelryinth
Also, my barb is using the enchantress as secondary, just because.
Um, well, she's also doing 58k damage with her staff. Yeah. Actually does a pretty good job picking off and finishing off stuff.
Haven't come across any series of great 1h high Str weapons to see what I can get the Templar to, but the Rogue seems to be maxing out in the 40's for damage, although he does get triple arrows.
I prefer the Templar for my DH and wizard for the heals, accelerated regen, and the Inspire to help Hatred and Mana get back quickly. He's also the only follower you can use to block doors and stairs, and that charge-stun of his is really useful.
==Aelryinth
Gah. Torment 2 is waaaaay more dangerous then 1.
Torment 1 was a cakewalk for my Barb. He'd whirlwind, stuff would fall over. Killed the Siegebreaker in seconds, Azmodan never got off his first fireball before he was dead, I had to dodge a whole one of Diablo's prisons, the only thing that could slow me down, before he was gone.
The gold elites on Torment 2 are harder to take down then the bosses on Torment 1. I went from one-shotting zombies to requiring 3 hits on them. I generally can't kill a whole pack of blues during my Wrath of the Berserker, and even with Ancestors coming in to help, generally can't finish off a gold (and this is with the ANcestors basically giving me unlimited rage, too).
It's fun and its challenging, yeah, but I'm just goggling at anyone who could solo on Torment 3+. How much damage are they doing? Or is that only for group play? The time it would take to kill stuff must be incredible.
==Aelryinth
I've been running on Torments 3+ only in a group. As far as my 60's are concerned, my WD and Barb can both handle Torment 2 solo, but it's sloooow going and can quickly turn into a chore if two elite mobs get activated at once. My wizard can't even handle Torment 1 yet, but he's still stuck in mostly low 50's gear.
Our group play has been successful as the four of us all come in with AoE and Stun focused skill sets for the most part. We're each just constantly exploding on everything within X yards while we take turns stunning things that we're beating on. My barb with his leap (or WD with his Gargantuan). I'm not sure what skills the DH or the monk use, but they stun stuff too. I'm not sure if the mage does or not, he may just be going bonkers the whole time with throwing out as much damage as possible. It's tough to keep track off since the screen is just constantly a riot of explosions.
We all joked the other night how none of us knew where our cursors were half the time, similar to Aranna's earlier lament up-thread =)
I'm guessing it's taking a LOOOONG time for you to kill stuff, too!
is there appreciably better loot drops on Tier 3?
I'm pretty familiar with the DH stuff, and I don't know any area stuns, only the Thunderball, which is single target.
It looks like only some of the old legendaries are getting upgrades. Stumbled on a pair of Firewalkers that weren't any better then an old set I had stored.
==Aelryinth
I texted my buddy who has the DH and it's not stun he's applying, it's fear. One of his crossbows has a 40% chance to fear on hit, the other turns elemental arrow into a hatred generator instead of a hatred spender. He flips between the two as the situation warrants.
We motored through stuff pretty quickly if it was all four of us on Torment 3, actually. The difficulty setting and the scaling bonuses from having allies nearby had us seeing lots of good stuff drop. One of us would get a legendary every 30 minutes or so (some were only good for salvaging, sadly) and everything else was either yellow items (we saw almost zero blues or greys) or gems and such. Our DH got 5 legendary bows/crossbows during that session, which made me rather jealous having only gotten an amulet and two maces =P
Torment 4 was a different story - it was slow and painful and only the monk and the DH survived fights with elites with any regularity. The wizard and I exploded as often as we lived. =\
I was running my barb through Torment 2, and he was doing okay. Would die occasionally, but if I had my skills set up right, he had to be sitting on multiple static damage things to actually die (the one where you gain HP for spending rage works very well with the one that gives you rage every time you hit something while whirlwinding!)
My most irksome thing is that I have to go full buff out (wrath of berserker + call the ancients) in order to kill a bloody treasure goblin!
I give my barb props for being virtually impossible to solo kill. He makes enough HP back that without multiple AoE's doing damage to him, he'll recover before an enemy gets in a second blow.
Also, while whirlwinding you are almost invulnerable. You can move through and around the enemy's space, which means those big honking instant kill attacks never make it to you. I can melee the Butcher and it literally cannot hit me since I just drift around to its backside while whirling. The only time it has a chance is when I Frenzy to get rage back, and that takes all of five seconds while it's fighting off the stuns.
Currently running my monk through on Torment 1 first act, and its different then I remember, mostly because I'm using a Skorn axe with 1200 dmg. I wanted to dual wield, but I'd need a couple 1k weapons with huge crit mods to even come close, the set I had was literally half the damage over time.
So, he's slower and doesn't deal the HOH that he used to.
Lastly, I got a crazy legendary...if you have it on, when you use a shrine, you spawn a gold elite crew! I've started passing it between my active characters, just for the fun factor!
==Aelryinth
I know those bracers you're talking about, my buddy with the DH got them too! He just keeps them in his inventory and when we find a shrine we get setup while he slaps those bracers on =P
The neatest legendary I've found so far is the Puzzle Ring, which I pass from character to character. While it's on, a treasure goblin follows you around and picks up grey items for you. After 12 (or 14, I forget) pickups, it'll drop a yellow or legendary item for you. Really great for solo runs on lower difficulties. Not as helpful grouped up or on the tougher settings as greys aren't nearly as prevelent.
A treasure goblin following you around and dropping legendaries. LOL, that's great! They did put in some cool stuff with the uniques.
==Aelryinth
smashed my way through the skeleton King. He didn't manage to summon a single undead horde. hit twice, stun kick, rinse and repeat.
Also, I have now officially seen my first 1 million+ Crits. The circle kick is a 500% attack, and when it crits at 42.5% and +300% on a base 120k, damage bloops over 1 million (actually 1.4 million is the highest I've seen.)
My DH can probably put up a bigger number, but I don't remember SEEING it. With Rapid Fire it's all DoT in smaller increments, and I don't use Impale that often.
==Aelryinth
Going through Act 1 Torment with a Witch Docter.
Not sure I'm doing things correctly, but Acid Cloud over big areas, dogs and gargantuan are taking most of the attention off my Docter, only died once (pinned in walls, as usual, and bisected by Arcane beams) seem to be doing things.
Below 100k Damage, Torment is definitely slower going.
I'm also kind of amused that the sorceress is the highest damage of the three types. I've got one equipped with a +500 Int greatsword, +300 Int token and amulet, +200 Rings, and she's capable of doing 62k damage.
It was REALLY funny when she had the Butcher's axe...1200 base damage one handed weapon. She'd cast spells at enemies and out would fly the hook and drag them back to her. Which was annoying when it was my barbarian she was working with. Wouldn't have been so bad with my DH.
Got my first Crusader only magic item last night, a Legend BP.
Having problems finding decent weapons for the Templar. All the one handed weapons are in the 800's range. Unless I stumble on a legendary, they all suck. And unless I'm playing a barbarian, they have the wrong stat mod. One of the reasons I started the Barbarian at Torment 2 was hoping for more good 1h weapons for the Templar. Unfortunately, all I seem to be getting is Mighty weapons he can't use.
Redid all my scoundrels from self-preservation and damage to status effect arrows. they used to die easily, now they have so many hit points its actually rare.
I also note that your companions have NO natural ability to crit, and 1/3 the modifier when they DO get a crit boost from items. SO the Scoundrel's ability to boost crits is basically based on YOUR ability to crit.
==Aelryinth
Partnered up with someone I used to play with a long time ago. They had a barb/60 P11 they logged in with, couldn't handle Torment and were having trouble on Master.
helped them with the build, gave them some old gear and new stuff I was going to sell, got their damage up, and then we killed Belial and went through all of ACT 3.
He gained 12 paragon levels! LOL. And I think he died twice, and my level 140 DH died like 5 times. Hah! He said he picked up like 6 legendaries during the trip, and I think I have him another 2.
Was fun. :) I gained two levels over the course of it, as well ...grouping really does get you more xp!
==Aelryinth
My sorceress has popped a couple 2 million crits as Fire, but I've gotten several items that give a boost to Cold damage so that's what I'm running with right now. Cold is Easy Mode; she can handle Torment 2 solo right now at ~120K Damage, though I've noticed that this Damage rating doesn't seem to include the effect of type bonuses from items. Blizzard, Glacial Spike x5, Arcane Orb/Frozen Orb, GS x5, rinse/repeat. It's rather convenient that Arcane Dynamo (or whatever the Passive is) that boosts damage on the next non-Signature is maximized right when the Arcane Power from using Signature spells increases to the point I can use a bigger one.
My barbarian is having trouble, though. He can't kill stuff in Torment 1 by himself, but Master doesn't drop upgrade items to allow him to play Torment. I should be able to group with friends this weekend to play Torment and hopefully get a bunch of upgrades.
I'm going to have to see how big a crit my DH can pop, I'll have to use Impale at range.
No, the damage mod for elements is not included in your DPS. IT has to be a sustaining effect applying to all attacks. Notably, the DH has one that boosts damage if no one is within 20 yards of you. You can watch your DPS go up and down as things get close to you and then die.
also, you can watch your DPS tick up with the DH skill that increases your crit mod by 3% every second until you crit, then starts over. It's kind of funny seeing what you actually if you only crit!
==Aelryinth
Erm!
Got a new Manticore last night.
Base dmg was within 20 pts of my current one, which I bought for 20 mil off the auction house some time ago.
Dex mod was 396 or so, so almost +200 over what I have now.
Crit Mod? +32.
Yep. +32. Average old manticore was +80-+100.
And my current one also has +vit and Heal on hit.
All in addition to the all important socket.
It's backing up the trend I see...they are really trying to crack down on crit and +crit damage revving up the DPS, and going back to + Ability Score mods, which are easier to control.
But yeah, here I thought I was going to get a rocking new crossbow, and I got something I stuck a +40 dmg red rock into and will forget about it.
eesh.
==Aelryinth
So, loot progressing.
Got a Dex based leoric's crown last night. Crit chance the same as my Andurial's helm, dex mod MUCH higher, and no at bonus or vit. Still, a slight improvement to DOT, and no other change, plus the lower attack speed means my Hatred lasts longer when Rapid Firing, and the higher dex means my companions and sentries do more damage.
Oh, and did I mention the +15% damage to Rapid Fire while wearing it? Sure I did. We all know Leoric was an archer in disguise, we did.
Let's just say I am now burning through the bosses on Torment 1 now. Damage has to be nearing 300k base with Rapid fire.
I have decided to level up my second set of characters just so I have some place to put all the new stuff.
Say, does anyone know what the chickens do when Cluckeye is used?
==Aelryinth
Based on research and vids, looks like the chickens interrupt actions...sort of like a half stun.
If it wasn't for the -48% to my damage I'd take using it, I'd see how it works. Maybe in a boss fight.
10 levels on my 2nd DH, hopefully I can get to 60 tonight with devoted play. Really should level all the noobs while the xp bonus is going on...
==Aelryinth
|
After having not touched this game in a bit more than a year, Saturday I pre-ordered the Exp for the frilly gold wings. Since then, I've dropped probably ten hours into it between my 60 barb (now 60(9)) and 40 (now 48) wiz.
In that time, I've found 4 legendaries (vs the fat 0 I found in the first three months after Launch when I still played), got relevant loot (including 3/4 of those legendaries), and seem to have a much more enjoyable time.
I find the crafting overhaul much nicer (especially for my stash space), and I'm glad to see diamonds return. The loot that I'm getting is really really helping my character feel relevant. For example, on my wizard, in the first fifteen minutes of play, from my winter 2013 loot to the drops goofing around on the way to Alcarnus, all 3 of my green/red numbers for equipment got a bump of 70-150%, before I even gained a level. By the time that I reaccustomed to the control scheme, I had went from struggling (I remember having *tons* of trouble solo'ing NM Magda back when) to the confidence to bump the Wiz's game up to Hard and quest from A1 start through Leoric.
So far, I'm looking forward to Tuesday evening and the Crusader (which there was loot for in Merchants already, even tho I cant make a character to use it).
I haven't played in the past two weeks but I'm looking forward to the expansion going live tomorrow. One of my buddies I had been playing with has been going at it non-stop over the past two weeks going through the Infernal Machine over and over. If what he says is true, he is now solo-ing on Torment VI.
I can't even fathom ever being able to solo Torment III!
I find Torment 1 to be my happy medium difficulty now. But I am taking time off for another day so I can start my Crusader with a fresh energy toward playing. I will be at work when the expansion goes live, so I hope the wait ques aren't too long by the time I get home.
Just Killed Belial on Master with a firend Paragon lvl 11 yesterday. It was way too easy, i barely needed to dodge.
I Do hope my preorder copy of RoS arrives on time for a change, but looking at my previous preorder experiences (with anything from any retailer or otherwise, really), i will probably get it some time in late April.
Played a bit with Aelryinth and Ariaspinner on... um, Saturday, right? Finished A3 and blew through A4 on Torment 1 like hot butter through a knife. My barbarian got a few legendary items over the weekend: almost exclusively 1-hand weapons, when I'm really looking for a Skorn. Not much in the way of armor upgrades, though. Damage has moved up to roughly 60K from 40K last week.
Wizard has had two legendary wizard hats drop, and a legendary belt. I'm still soloing Torment 2 as Cold with her because Rare/Elite packs in Torment 3 just slaughter me. Damage has held steady at 120K.
Also, crafting. If you have mostly Rare items with a few legendaries or just hit 60 recently, take a look at what you can get from the Blacksmith. Crafting Exalted Fine items can provide both my Barbarian and Wizard with possible upgrades - but it really needs the right mix of stats across all six bonuses to be worthwhile. Exalted Fine items are plan drops, but they're not particularly uncommon and I have that level for almost all armor categories - though not as much for weapons. Unfortunately, they're all Bound to Account: so no item trading with other players which is huge BS for those of us with long-standing gaming guilds/clans/etc.
If/when you make a Crusader, all the Crusader-specific items are already available with the Blacksmith as well.
My DH is my #1 character as far as gear goes. The amulet she wears is one I crafted (350 Dex, +9.5 crit %, +12% life).
I'm sure there are better ones, but yes, crafting will get you stuff. Gems drop a lot more then they did before to facilitate this.
he can solo Torment VI? Playing what? Ugh. Of course, there were people soloing Inferno X before they got rid of it, so I suppose it had to happen.
I've taken my Barbarian up to Act 3 Torment 2 solo. My DH made it all the way to INferno 6 solo before the change. With the new damage upgrade I think I could take her through Torment 2.
But after that one group blow up on TOrment 3 with elites in a confined space, I is not looking forward to Torment 3!!!
==Aelryinth
I'm not sure if he runs it with his mage or his monk. Either seems likely, to be honest, but I think he enjoys the mage more so I'd guess it's as that.
Macharius, I'm not sure if you're going to be able to get a Skorn as good as the old ones, they've really been cracking down on the +bonus damage items. Manticore, which used to be +80-100, is in the 25-40 range now.
If you get a good one handed item and a shield that ups your crit rate or crit damage, that might be all you need. The big things that up damage are crit rate and +crit dmg...that's really all you are hunting for.
==Aelryinth
I've had two legendary shields drop; I don't recall either increasing my damage over another weapon, though the second added +19% Fire damage so it may be worth skilling into Fire damage where possible.
Are you guys on the America server? We could join up.
Just started a clan. Bare bones for now. Look for: <PFS> Pathfinder Society
Yeah, I'm all American.
FYI, the new content all went live last night around 12:30 PM. My 2nd DH is level 52, another 6 levels last night, about to enter Mt. Arreat. I'm playing on Master with him. Gave him a 688 dmg bow with a -14 level req and he's been ripping things up, but it's slowly been getting harder since he doesn't have any resist all gear, just + Vit and Dex. Still kills everything horribly quickly.
I'll finish the game with him, then try out the Westmarch stuff with basically a character geared up from one run through of the game. After I complete him, I'll make my first crusader and run him thru from scratch.
Marcharius is with Crew, I believe, and works with Ariaspinner and Iczelion a bunch, Umbral!
I play as Aelryinth, and I'm open to grouping normally, but I want to test the new content out solo a bit before I go hog wild on group rampages. If you've got a noob that wants to partner up, I can do that, however! I just don't want to see tons of new content in a group game before I see it for myself! :)
==Aelryinth
Yes, I'm also on the American server - although apparently that doesn't matter anymore. I'm with <Crew>, but I don't actually know most of them as it's the Clan that my several friends from my World of Warcraft guild (even though most of us have long since moved on from WoW). I'll probably switch to PFS, though, because I have all of them as Friends and we're on Ventrilo anyways, so the alternate grouping with you fine folks is just fine with me! I've only played with Ariaspinner last Saturday when she joined in.
I logged in for half an hour this morning just to check it out, and played through Act 5 to the main "town" where I can access the crafters. I got a legendary belt drop off the intro mini-boss for my barbarian.
Also, Aelryinth: if you reset your quests, you can't access Act 5 until you've killed Diablo again which I found out the hard way for my Wizard and is why I played it on my Barbarian instead.
Heh. That means I have to finish the game on my DH again. Not a problem.
My 'new' DH needs to hit level 60 so I can use some of this kewl stuff that's been dropping anyways.
So far, he's gotten EVERY legendary quiver, and the legendary low level bow on his leveling up. It almost makes me want to replay an Act so I hit level 60 before all the last bosses, so I get me some level 60 legends!!
The quality of gear drops is so much higher while leveling then it used to be. I know because I still have a lot of that old leveling gear on my 2nd set of characters! I've been throwing out the old gear as I stumble on the new stuff that is so much better by rote.
Sure wish I had a Hellfire Ring for the extra xp bonus!
==Aelryinth
I have to wonder, though, how useful all the level 60 Legendary items will remain when characters reach the new level cap of 70.
Well, that means they'll have to introduce yet more high level legendaries, then, won't it? Won't that just be a shame. I mean, to play Torment 6 I'm guessing you need a DPS of 400k at least. I'm only at 230k on my DH, and that's my best character for damage output by a good margin. Granted, my wizard can probably go all cold and do it the slow grinding way...
I'll look up Pathfinder Society tonight and join up. I have a Skype ID, so I'd be happy to chat with people, too!
==Aelryinth
My friend and I have started Torment 3. We made it through Act I, but it was a bear! Torment 2 has been going pretty smoothly for us so we bounce back and forth between the two.
I can attest, my buddy is soloing on T6 with his mage. I'm sure his ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY NINE paragon levels helped, but he ran me through on T6 to get my wizard from 54 to 60 last night.
It was like my wizard was made of paper and his was an unbreakable mountain.
I also play from time to time (see Aelrynth on sometimes as well as Aranna), though I don't always join up depending on my game connection. It seems that by dividing the map into more zone-type areas, they've reduced the amount of lag I experience.
I haven't gotten the expansion yet (will this weekend), but love the changes so far that they've made. My Demon Hunter used to be capped out as far as gear (I had a Windforce that did 1300+ damage), only to find two better weapons within a week of re-playing it. I had a hand-crossbow that summoned ghostly Fallen Master's that attack enemies, until I found a better weapon, a bow shaped like a pair of raven's wings that summons ravens. (Looks like some holy weapon of Pharasma). So yeah, the loot dropping has gotten way better. Its as if they found most of the 'un-fun' elements in the game and got rid of them.
I have 160 Paragon levels, and I don't solo T6 on anything. Granted, I could swap to a cold/control format on my wizard, but the paragon levels aren't what is doing it.
================
Okay, yesterday was a full night of playing Act V.
I made it almost all the way to Urzael on Torment Difficulty before I had to pull the plug. A massacre spawn cursed chest where I managed to kill exactly TEN bad guys (goal is 100, of course) and an elite spawn that killed me six times kind of drove the point home that enemies were getting tougher, and my damage was not improving to take place.
This was about level 65. I'm guessing level 65 Torment is about equal to Torment 3 at level 60.
I finished Urzael? on Master difficulty without dying, which was refreshing, and I moved on to the swamp.
I managed to get through 99.8% of the swamp and all dungeons, actually activated the portal stone and went back out to clear the whole thing, and two rooms from the end of the last dungeon (yes, I could see the end of the map), I was disconnected.
Given that it was 2:45 AM, I took it as a sign and went to bed.
I have just hit 69. One more level and I get my Paragon levels back. That extra heal on hit and regen makes a huge difference.
----------
Observations:
Going into level 61 Torment, I tore through the level and encounters very easily with my default set up. The new Vengeance ability was impressive enough to solo the Cathedral maiden straight up. The first Bones dungeon was easy enough to handle.
As the levels progressed, none of the gear I found let me really move up my DPS. This is largely because I had pretty good gear, all things told. I did manage to get some stuff that upped my Vitality, and swapped in more Resist All. I think I was 66 before I finally found an 1854 damage bow and set aside my Manticore.
My DPS is still at the 250 range. Keep in mind it was 220 starting this whole thing. Hit points of things have more then doubled. I'm sitting on about 158k Health, a number I never thought I'd see, but it certainly doesn't save me from incoming damage. I definitely need to up my armor and resist all, but that, of course, means more loot hunting. Hardly a bad thing.
I'm now wielding a 2000 dmg hand crossbow legend that dropped. I use the DH skill that gives you +20% damage against something slowed, a helm with +15% to Rapid Fire, bracers with +15 to cold damage, and my primary kill is Web Shot, which slows AND is cold damage. Generally speaking, I can't kill a single blue elite without having to run, despite being virtua around 375k dmg at 515%. I accentuate an assault with Shade, which is a 2600% attack over a huge AoE, and Wolf Companion howl for the +10% damage boost, and can put a severe hurt on things...but I don't have the ability to tank like I did before.
My spam attack is grenade cache, i.e. 3 fireballs. Decent AoE, and my rate of fire is high enough that I can get back Hatred very quickly. It is the repeater damage where my weakness is most apparent...encounters where smaller monsters were spawning, like the crucibles, king and the Templar, I simply had problems killing the normal spawns quickly enough to complete my objectives. I'm estimating I'll need to have 300-350k base damage to be able to handle those.
My Templar is doing over 100k damage, as is my Sorceress! And that's without jewelry upgrades! Scoundrel seems to be lagging, probably because I've been taking the best bows, but he's at 70kish.
I should hit level 70 tonight, and see the return of my Paragon levels, see if that makes a difference.
At this point, all I'm basically dreaming about is a 2200-2400 damage Manticore that can really start putting the hurt on stuff. My test of damage being equal to the level is if I can kill one of the 'tough spawn' of a level while it is stunned by the Templar's charge. Currently, I can kill one less then half the time...so, lots of damage to improve.
Oh, and I'm really looking forwards to killing Adria.
==Aelryinth
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Leah's poor family.
First, papa Warrior (Aiden was the retcon I believe?) shoves that soulstone in his forehead, cause 'warrior smart!'
Then we get to kill papa Warrior after he goes and wakes up his brothers, and returns to Hell.
Along the way, we also kill her paternal uncles (Mephisto and Baal).
We get "uncle" Deckard killed in a red herring distraction sort of way.
We have to murder Leah because she's a dope just like her daddy.
Now we get to off momma Adria too.
Oh, we also get to kill "aunt" Magda.
Though, IIRC, didn't the Aiden retcon make him the not fit for rule son of Leoric anyway? So on top of that...
We re-kill Grandpa Leoric twice.
We kill Uncle Albrecht as Diablo.
So, three generations of familicide, all but Albrecht and Leoric 1 committed by the male Barbarian Nephalim, and those two were committed by one of those that the Barbarian killed. Fun times to be Khanduran royalty for sure.