I'm making headway on gems with my Triple Triple DH build.
maxed out gold find, on T4, with Goldskin. Current gold find, +3200%.
Emeralds are staying spent, rubies are going down quickly, and I'm staying current or making headway on all the other gems.
The key is the Gladiator Gauntlets. Getting paid for killing ten monsters probably adds 50 to 75% to my gold haul. Any magic items I pick up inevitably get salvaged, so grabbing gold is really the only way I make money.
I've currently made 775 million. :0 I wonder if there's an achievement at a billion?
Spent almost all of it, of course.
I strongly urge all of you to make a strong gold finder build to satisfy your cash needs. My big thing now is spending gold to tinker legendary rings and amulets. That's 900k for every tink, because you have to make a royal gem of the appropriate type (and sadly, they aren't all diamonds or amethysts!)
==Aelryinth
One level from 400!
My emeralds and rubies are being kept under accumulation control, I am bringing topaz down, and amethyst and diamond are remaining stagnant.
In terms of tinkering, all I've left to do is tinker amulets and rings...which cost about a million a pop for the royal gem of whatever type.
My gold mod is about +3000, which is the same as Tier 6. So in gold, I'm doing what a Tier6 is, but I'm much safer.
I lucked into a decent Unity Strength ring. Bowing to the word that Unity on an unkillable follower means they don't take damage, I swapped out my Rogar's Ring with the +646 Vit mod, got a Unity Ring with a decent set of +at and +crit on it, and gave it a try.
I've died exactly once since I did it, getting vortexed into a couple fire guys blowing up at exactly the wrong moment. Half damage from everything means I can stand in acid and fire for decent periods of time, arcane turrets don't outright kill me.
571k life is working out to about 10 million toughness, too, so I'm much harder to kill. Still playing on Torment 4, by the way.
Damage is staying right around the million benchmark...if I go all out for damage, I can reach 1.2 million.
I do have a full marauder set, although it's not optimized the way my current gear is, and in 400 levels, I've never gotten a bombardier's satchel, the quiver that gives you extra sentries.
Since I've been playing my triple triple, I haven't changed my tactics at all. Still using devouring arrow to kill most stuff, with a multishot/Shade/wolf cry to eliminate hordes of low level stuff, and swapping into Mark of Vengeance and Sentry for fights against solo creatures if needed.
My wizard actually buffs to the highest base damage, but I still don't have a great wizard weapon for her. I have two of the iconic crusader shields, but haven't stumbled across a crusader weapon. I've gotten my barbarian halfway to 70, using a level 70 weapon with a 14 level debuff on it, and he's fun to play when I'm using him, but needs a lot more damage to play on Torment.
If I give up my goldskin for the Garwulf cloak and start using Sentries, I can probably do a decent attempt at t5, especially with Unity giving me tanking power. However, I'll wait for the patch to do so, since it's going to be changing one of the sentries to Cold damage, and one of the Multishots, which should really help me out with stacking damage.
Of course, then I need to get a pair fo the gauntlets that increase cold damage. I've stumbled across so many magefists that boost fire...
A marauder suit build would probably be a fire or physical build, of course. But I don't want to waste a Skill Slot on Custom Engineering if I don't have to, so maybe someday I'll get a Bombardier's and have a real go at it.
=+Aelryinth
Patch 2.1 is up!
Well, me and Danowan were ripping our way through a rift, looking for that boss...tons of loot and gold and whatnot...and then got booted, and now the server is down.
)*&^)&* DDoS attacks. 532 minutes before the queue cleared. Couldn't get back in. Hit anyone else?
==Aelryinth
I can't stay ingame long enough to earn a bounty, let alone complete a rift. Much unfunliness.
==Aelryinth
Well, me and Danowan were ripping our way through a rift, looking for that boss...tons of loot and gold and whatnot...and then got booted, and now the server is down.
No, I never got back on that night. I played about two days ago and haven't had too many issues since then.
Has anybody been able to do a new character in seasonal play? I keep searching for the option but it hasn't appeared yet.
Really liking the changes in 2.1: Mass Salvage, less keystones needed for the rifts, the super-rifts, and the new gems are all pretty neat. So far the highest I've gotten is level 20 on the rifts. Hoping 5o push that further.
Maxing out on rift tests at level 19...cause I've only been able to do one solo!!
I did get a NICE gem. 2000% poison damage to creatures over ten seconds...and it upgrades! I can see where upgrading gems is going to be a huge time sink, given how many times you are going to have to go through rifts and tests to get better stuff...
But I'd really like to see what I can get that gem up to.
Oh, and seasonal play was supposed to start on Monday, I believe.
==Aelryinth
I really did mean to post Friday. I did. really. Today. Act I, all done. And someone killed Maltheal in a duo game around 10 PM. Guess I'm not getting that first!!
==Aelryinth
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/me so totally grumbles
I've not been able to stay connected long enough to finish the zombie spawner quest in A1 with my seasonal guy. First game i'll have started playing out the box on t1, and omg, my 7 damage per shot is killing me (sometimes literally). Level 5 and I haven't even made it to the hanging tree yet lol.
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After the lizard d'bags finished their ddos I was able to play some this weekend. Got my seasonal DH up to 33 I think, just finishing Magdah Sunday afternoon. Getting used to not having my maxed out crafters is a bit wow, but i've already found half a dozen legendary plans, and about as many items (nagel ring, manald heal, and stolen ring amongst others). I wish I could say I stayed on T1, but after the 1st big mob on the way to old tristram took near 5m to kill 1/3 of the critters, I dropped it back down to Expert.
Hehe. Starting T1 is doable if you get gear and stats out the gate, but without em? Gonna be reaaaaaly hard. I, for instance, had socketed weapons, amulets and rings. Those first few levels just flew by when you're putting high level gems in them, and you've got post=70 stat buffs kicking in.
But in seasonal play, with none of that? It's still easier then I remember, but nowhere near what would be required for t1.
And btw, higher dif doesn't make you level faster if it slows you down in your killing speed.
==Aelryinth
Well. Who here has gone into the Treasure Goblins' Vault? First time for me was tonight.
When you do, don't worry about it disappearing on you. Calmly pick up all the loot on the ground from the dead treasure goblin. Then teleport home and GET ALL THE GOLD FIND ITEMS YOU CAN.
Especially a Goldskin.
There are piles of gold you blast apart, and the resulting stacks can be over 100k gold each. My eyes were popping.
The final fight is similar to fighting the Butcher...except I got FOur Legends, including a set piece, as part of the loot. Amusingly enough, I got a socketable gem that explodes enemies into gold, and a gladiator Gauntlets, too.
My total take for that ONE DUNGEON: 50 MILLION GOLD.
Yes. That's right. I made 50 million gold in one dungeon. Took about ~5 minutes.
And when I ran back to it (there's no exit, so you have to recall close to where you entered it and foot it back), 15 minutes later, the portal was still there. So, as I said, don't worry about it disappearing on you.
The fighting wasn't hard, there were Vault sentries and sometimes the gold piles coughed up more treasure goblins to kill (and I got 'em all, the blighters), gold and gems were everywhere. It was crazy. I am sobbing that I didn't go back to town and grab my Goldskin. Probably would have made another 20 million.
==Aelryinth
Those of you who've met me ingame or followed my posts know that my main character is my DH, who uses a Burzadon Kyanon/9 Cirri Satchel combo as my main damage dealer. The Devouring Arrow/+70 per pierce combo is effectively a double crit combo.
Well, yesterday, two things happened.
1) I went through 750 blood shards on kadala, and after getting 3 pairs of Set Pants that I had to salvage, I got the 2nd most common legend pants drop (hammers slammers being #1). Yes, my friends, I got a new set of the Depths Diggers.
If you don't know why this is important, it's because Depths Diggers now have a unique ability: They give +75 to +100% damage to non-resource using base attacks.
Like, um, Devouring Arrow.
The pair I got is +85%.
What this just did is double my damage output. I'm chewing through t4 at the speed I was reaping t3.
I may finally have my t5 build.
Secondly, last rift run of the Night.
Bombardier's Satchel, which is the final component of the Marauder build that I needed, which is the Demon Hunter t6 build.
(Sighs)
Decisions, decisions.
==Aelryinth
If you don't know why this is important, it's because Depths Diggers now have a unique ability: They give +75 to +100% damage to non-resource using base attacks.
:O
My magic missile mirrorball wizard needs this!
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Good playing last night. Tore Belial a new one with a lot less headache than I remember it being the very first time through (I thank all the uber boost patches of late, plust the schnazzy hand crossbow legendary i'm rolling). Connectivity forced me out at Stonefort, but over halfway back to 70. Need a few good items between now and Azmodan to complement my boss killer loadout (hungering+sentry+machinegun skill) and figure out what I want to put on the #4 key when I'm not spamming Strafe (such as on boss fights). Ready to finish up this story mode shenanigans and get some bounties and rifts rolling for season only equips!
Anyway, one big thing I've noticed in my new found replay is how prolific crafting plan drops are now. Last night I had my fifth orange plan drop from a fallen dog monster elite. I think on my non-season smithy, I have a grand total of like 7 (all ilvl 70 plans too, iirc), with tons of playtime (Ignoring the 9 or so sets I have plans for on main, since sets won't drop til I 70 on season anyhow).
Yeah, so does mine.
I tried out Tier 5 yesterday. Hit points of enemies only went up 50%...so I was actually killing things faster then pre-Diggers on Tier4. Now, the incoming attacks were more dangerous, but the majority of stuff died before it ever got to me. The highest crit number I saw was 33 million...which meant I did somewhere between 80 and 90 million damage with ONE SHOT.
The biggest problem I had was with timed events, of course. Devouring Arrow is strange because the thing you want most to kill is the thing you shouldn't aim at. Ideally, if you have a target in a mass of enemies, you want it to be the second or third target hit, not the first one. So, if you are aiming at a creature hovering at the edge of the map, you might not be able to hit it if something is closer, as your missile will veer off.
To get a pair of Depth Diggers, the fastest way is probably to simply run Rifts and use blood shards to buy pants. IF you don't get a set doing the Rifts, eventually Kadala will cough a pair up, and they only cost 5 shards. 450 shards is 90 attempts, and a bunch of Veiled Crystal for tinking the final product.
Oh, and to stay ahead on gems, you need gold find in excess of +2500%. To make progress on gems you've stacked up, it needs to be substantially higher then that.
I blew my 50 million gold from the Vault paying down my 600+ Amethysts that had stacked up. I got the majority of them to Royal status so they can be used to tinker jewelry...but not all of them.
I'm looking at my 750+ diamonds, with 240 Imperials already made, and just shaking my head. I would be a very happy camper if all tinkering for necklaces and rings used amethysts or diamonds.
Last night, a rift boss dropped the amulet that gives a weapon a socket last night for me.
I unsocketed my Kyazadon (which happily unsocketed the emerald so I didn't have to pay 250k gold), and swapped to +8% damage (I may try for +10% in the future), and then added the socket back on.
I now have a heavy crossbow with base 2694 damage, which is the highest I've seen for a Heavy Xbow (I've a hand xbow with 2780, however).
The highest statistic on any of my characters is my DH, with 9120 Dexterity. The highest stat on anything is one of my Sorceresses, who has an Int Score of 10,200+.
==Aelryinth
So, what gems are people leveling up?
After a false start or two, I've been leveling up a gem that does base 2000% poison damage over 10 seconds. If you hit 25 with it, anything taking poison damage takes 20% additional damage.
It's definitely a boss killer type thing. I've another one that does 1200% bleed over 3 seconds if you crit, but I want to finish upgrading my first one.
I've a third one that makes monsters explode into showers of gold coins. I really want to see this one in use.
Other then that...I've a nice collection going. I can see where if you're running rings and necklace with gems the combination of effects could be...impressive.
My highest solo trial run so far has been 19. I almost failed it because the monsters were so far apart I kept running behind on the time. Only the purple coins buying me time saved me.
The bosses aren't any harder then normal rift bosses. With three wolves chomping on them as a distraction, and two Sentries chilling them and pumping damage into them, I am killing them fast.
And I love missile damper fields. With my Devouring arrow doubled in damage, it's just sick how fast the creatures die.
If anyone wants me to help out, just message me ingame and I'll be happy to join in. My season DH is at the start of Bastion's Keep, too, about to head down into the keep and show Ghom who is boss.
==Aelryinth
I don't even own an Xbox, PC here. I'm pretty sure that doesn't mean we can't game together, however.
--Aelryinth
I only have it on PC.
Does it play better on console?
Well, it looks like my main can settle into Torment 6. I haven't tried it on group play, yet, where I'd lose my Unity benefit and be MUCH squishier, but I've soloed all the main bosses but Maltheal, and have no problems taking out Rift bosses.
Getting twice as many legends as before, too.
Got like 9 training gems. Now to see if I can make it to a higher level of rift dungeon.
Gone through a thousand blood shards trying to get the new Depth Diggers for my wizard. No luck yet!
==Aelryinth
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I only have it on PC.
Does it play better on console?
For me it is. The control is just much nicer to play with. I started a new character and played through master difficulty with no trouble until facing Belial. After him I did not have trouble again and made it to level 68 in one play through.
I still play it on pc every once in a while. I am thinking about starting a new character for the seasons.
Well I was on and got my Wizard geared up to easily handle T1 now. My Monk that I cut my teeth on while adventuring with Aelrynth so long ago is looking quite nice now too... not sure I could handle T6... but T3 isn't any problem. And I am into the difficult point with my poor seasonal demon hunter between 60 and 70 where gear becomes a big issue.
So far I am liking the new way loot drops. Much fairer.
I finally got a Tasker and Theo Gauntlet drop.
The new power of this gauntlet is an incredible +42% to attack speed of your pets. I believe that includes sentries.
I bit the bullet and tinked them and the bombardier's satchel, and am carrying them for swap purposes...specifically, those 5 wave shrines and 'kill 100' chests.
I managed to clear out t6 5 wave shrines for High heavens (you know the one, it's a bounty) and southern highlands (another bounty).
So, it looks like there's another viable build for t6 DH's. I've seen a Fan of Knives build somewhere on the net, but I don't know much about it. I think you run up next to big things and chain the Fan for monster damage, but I'm not sure.
I can only imagine what a Maruader build with six Sentries pumping out Cluster Arrows, Multishots and IMpales would be doing for damage.
As an aside, I've never managed to complete five waves of the lacuni shrine or chest challenges for the play level I'm at (I can complete them if I downtone, of course). I wonder if 4 sentries will make a difference...
==Aelryinth
Well I was on and got my Wizard geared up to easily handle T1 now. My Monk that I cut my teeth on while adventuring with Aelrynth so long ago is looking quite nice now too... not sure I could handle T6... but T3 isn't any problem. And I am into the difficult point with my poor seasonal demon hunter between 60 and 70 where gear becomes a big issue.
So far I am liking the new way loot drops. Much fairer.
Monk builds seem to rely on stacking stun or freeze effects and/or just having ungodly all round defenses. The combination of taking less melee damage, high armor and high resistances make them as good as crusaders.
And, of course, everyone loves mantras.
==Aelryinth
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For the fan build, the lightning rune is a no resources attack, and does 1600% weapon damage, but 15s cooldown. That +75-100% bump you mentioned would make 3200% damage attack. Pretty good, especially with a nice crit build.
Last night before I logged, I did a quest "Find my Amulet" in the burning part of Westcrown. The amulet has an ability that totally negates arcane and heals you 35% of the negated damage. Other than the always annoying, but now negated, arcane mobs, what other non-pc sources are there of arcane damage? The ghosts in A5? Random boss attacks?
Generally, elemental attacks can be discerned by the colour. Arcane is purple.
I think the fire one regens your primary resource instead of your health.
there's a set of boots that make you immune to frozen and chilling effects, granting immunity to those elite effects.
The cameo is awesomely useful because of just how powerful arcane is on elites at higher levels of the game. The healing it can give, conversely, makes you virtually immune to damage. It also means you don't have to run all over the place to avoid arcane turrets, which if you get a horde of minions can literally spawn all over the bloody place...and running won't help you if you get vortexed and caught in one, which happened to me waaaaay too many times.
As for other arcane users...the undead tomb guardians shoot arcane bolts when they aren't making more skellies.
Put the Cameo in your inventory as a back up. Double click on it to sub it in when facing arcane turrets, and you're golden. It's what I did, up until I found one with +20% cold damage and I tinked in a +94% crit chance, which made it worth wearing pretty much any time except when I'm doing a shrine or chest.
===Aelryinth
Yeah my wizard has both the poison and arcane amulets and I swap them depending on what I am fighting.
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Finally beat story mode on Seasons, so back to funner bounties and rifts! Only boss I died on with entire story solo on expert was Adria, and that was even with my arcane amulet (which all but 2 of her attacks are), but sadly the red swirls and her melee got me. Malthael came close to killing me once or twice, but that templar heal helps.
I find the Templar is the most broadly useful of the followers. The heals, the fact he's actually a blocker, and his stun charge are just a great combo. It's too bad he does the worst damage.
On the bright side, I got a nice one hander last night for him, put a socket and a marquis gem on it for him, and got his damage to 400k+. And that's with a Unity ring pulling his damage down.
He still does maybe a third the damage of my wolf, however. But not having to put points into Regen for 400 levels was really nice.
==Bob Drouin
I usually go with the enchantress for a companion... nothing beats when she turns an entire group of elites into chickens letting you open up a torrent of damage before they can even fight back.
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Hit 60 on seasons last night. Damage jumped from oh... 20K ish to nearing 200K over the course of 5 levels and 4 acts worth of bounties. expert went from just about right to completely easy after picking up 2 new ilvl 61 hand crossbows. Probably bump it up to Master or T1 tonight and see if it still takes 5m to kill 1 pack of goatmen in fields of misery.
archmagi popped into my level 43 game last night. I'd never seen anyone using a strafe DH build, and I kinda rolled around picking up gear and loot while he one-shot everything on the screen.
Made it through ACt 4 and killed diablo in about ten minutes. Heh! I should have at least tinked it up to Master dif If I'd known he was coming!!! Yeah, first time Diabolo kill, and 2 legends. At level 45 :)
I will be waiting for level 70 to kill Maltheal, however!
==Aelryinth
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Heh, with my crit % I was doing 2-400K per crit, with my base damage at 130K (180K with my wolf skill activated). I was pretty impressed by how much I steamrolled everything in a monster level 43 game at 65, though.
The strafe build isn't bad, but its a hatred *hog*. I probably do more DPS using rapid fire and standing still (And for 5-6 times longer), but the mobility added with strafe (being able to move through monsters! to that globe on the other side) was pretty darn handy. The K'mar Tenclip hand crossbow was with me in 2 different ilvl's for much of my playthrough, and the free 2nd rune (move fast) on strafe was amazing.
Heh, at one point the other night, I had two hand xbows that gave enough hatred regen that I nearly broke even on rapid fire, and nearly broke even on strafe when I was on an Empowered Shrine.
do you double stack the Templar and the bat for hatred regen, too?
I found that just 10% resource reduction has an amazing effect for extending the duration of Rapid Fire.
==Aelryinth
If you're a Rapid Fire user:
10% resource reduction moves you from taking 10 Hatred/second to 9 hatred/second.
This may not seem like much...until you realize that you might be GAINING 6-8 Hatred a second in counterpoint.
Going from a net loss of 4 hatred/second to 3/second is a 33% extender of how long you can shoot. Going from 3 to 2 on 100 Hatred means you can shoot for almost 50 seconds. If you can get it down to 1 (8 regen), with a 10% reduction you can shoot for like 90 seconds straight.
==Aelryinth
Perhaps you can help me a little. My first seasonal character was a Demon Hunter and she hit 69 or 70 this weekend... but... I find I struggle to keep any hatred at all. This is the highest level I have ever reached with a demon hunter so I feel a little like a fish out of water. My damaging powers run on hatred but I seem powerless to keep the pool from draining out completely within a few seconds and then I just fight to stay alive. I must be doing something wrong since so many people use demon hunters. I even switched to a wizard since I understand how to keep a wizard going strong. And my wizard is is around 49-50th after 1 day of play. Now I play mostly with a friend in seasonal play so I don't normally get a companion if that helps?
Sure I'll help.
First of all, how's your Hatred Regen/second?
Key items are Quiver, possibly Cloak, Companion (Bat) and Follower (Templar). What are you using for those?
Secondly, what is your non-Hatred basic attack? Hungering Arrow? Grenades?
Third, what's your weapon? Bow, Hand xbow, xbow, double hand xbow?
Fourth, what is using up your Hatred? Explosive Arrows? Cluster Arrows? Throwing down sentries? MUltiple uses of Rapid Fire?
Fifth, are you dependent on an element, i.e. have you optimized for fire or cold or physical or what have you?
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I started a DH for the season just to see how different it played. It's much faster then original D3, that's for sure.
My seasonal DH is using a Crossbow, with a triple grenade/Rapid Fire build.
You'll find most DH's use a crossbow for the very reason you are saying...Hatred Management. This is because the crossbow is the slowest of the weapons...which means it uses the least amount of Hatred for the most amount of damage, i.e. it's the 'shotgun', the bow is the 'rifle' and the H. Crossbow is the mini-gun.
Hand crossbows roar through Hatred because their rate of fire is so high. Conversely, they have the best results on to-hit effects (like Heal on Hit or chance to stun on hit), and they can get hatred BACK the fastest.
However, for sustained fire they suck. Normal crossbows are much better. Normal crossbows also deliver the biggest crits with one weapon, and so synergize best with Quivers.
Bows are to be avoided unless you are playing a Knockback build with Windforce. The +8% damage is completely inferior to the Crit mod and crit chance you get with the other weapons from Archery.
Now, there's people who are very good at managing the high Hatred costs of the explosively strong Hatred attacks. But to do that, they have gear that both increases the damage of the attacks, making them a better deal to use, and reduces the cost, meaning they can use more of them in a row before having to go back to standard attacks and get Hatred back.
The epitome of the Hatred Spender build is the Cluster Arrow build, where you're tossing out these expensive 1000% AOE attacks, but chewing through Hatred like it was water. A combination of Cindercoat, resource cost reduction on armor pieces, and using a Hand Crossbow for massive Rate of Fire and return of Hatred via 6 hatred Hungering Arrows or Grenades is the staple of those builds.
If you're slapping down Sentries, trying to do that and use Hatred attacks is going to cause a lot of frustration. Sentries are best used with excellent no-Hatred attacks so you don't run into Hatred management problems. Many builds that focus on Sentries never attack themselves...but that usually doesn't happen until they have a Marauder set.
The Templar has a base ability the fact he can increase your hatred regen. That, the life regen, the stun charge, and the heal are the reasons I love him. Oh, and the fact he's actually a blocker, not a sniper.
Consider the Bat as a companion. Look at its 'scream' ability. The wolf howls and you get a damage bonus. The bat screeches...and you get back a bunch of Hatred.
The set of bracers that you get the plan for the first time you kill Maltheal, turns Health Globes into Primary Resource regenerators. In other words, heal AND get Hatred back.
If you're playing a Strafe build...yes, you're going to have Hatred Regen problems. You need something to shrink the cost, and up the damage. The single best item for that is to go Fire and use the Cindercoat. Otherwise, you're looking at armor piece tinkers, probably having to give up Regen (which is why I love the Templar).
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ON my main, I play Hungering Arrow with the Byazon Kyan-do or whatever it is. Paired up with a Nine Cirri Satchel and the new Depth Diggers, my primary attack is a routine Devouring Arrow.
I play on T6 now. My standard, no hatred attack is that strong with the above combo.
Granted, my AoE damage sucks, and that's a problem for timed events. I haven't been able to get higher then 23 on a testing rift, for example. Since all my damage is single target, even if it is target after target after target, there's problems doing enough raw damage to kill all the different targets fast enough.
I complement my Arrows by dropping up to 2 sentries and using Mark of Death as my 'Hatred Spender'. That's right, I actually don't have a Hatred Spender on my main, unless you count Sentries. This also lets me run Wolf instead of Bat, and use a Cloak of the Garwulf.
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My seasonal doesn't have a Kyanan, just a rote legendary crossbow with no special abilities.
I run Fire Grenades for AoE damage (good for blowing up barrels, too),and Rapid Fire (rockets) with Sentries for back up (also rockets). My routine damage is usually enough to kill stuff, but I use the Bat for increased Hatred regen, and the Templar, so my sustained fire with Rapid Fire is pretty high. I haven't had any problems up through level 60, but that might change once I hit 61 and the monsters really start inflating.
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To wit, a Rapid Fire build, if that's what you're using, is a Tank build. You have to sit in one spot and churn out a steady stream of damage. every time your firing is interrupted, you have to pay an extra 10 hatred to get it restarted. Knockbacks and vortexes are annoying for this reason.
Elemental and Cluster Arrows are 'burst' effects that drive through your Hatred quickly, especially the latter. However, they are friendly for bouncy-movey builds that run all over the place avoiding stuff, unload a heap of damage in just a few seconds, and move again. There's a guy in the allegiance who plays a DH like that, and he's monstrously effective.
I don't have the mouse control or reflexes for that style of play, however.
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I know, probably more information then you are looking for.
Also note, there's a Preparation that gives you back Hatred as well as discipline!
==Aelryinth
Hmmm...
I was using the Thief for those few times when I had a companion... easy to equip the little creep with my cast off gear... so I will switch to the templar.
I was using sentry and rapid fire...
My energy builder was stun grenade but I was only wedded to that because of that nice amulet I had at lower levels that creates two shadow clones when you stun someone. I hadn't considered preparation since I didn't know it could restore hatred. It's hard to live without sentry, having a reliable damage dealer on the board for when I run dry and end up fleeing in circles is huge.
I have been using a bow... I don't have a good xbow. But I guess I will keep my eyes open. This regearing was MUCH easier with the auction house. And your builds much like the online builds require gear I can't get. I have never owned a cindercoat in the entire time I played to my knowledge. And while in the old days I was fond of using the auction house for things like depth diggers I can't do that any more. I am tempted to re-equip that low level shadow clone amulet just for the extra minions even if it's going to hit my DPS hard dropping my stats down.
Is there a better secondary attack than Rapid Fire vs hatred drain? I could toss that attack off my build and play around... I tried elemental arrow but I am not very impressed so far. I haven't done an elemental theme either... should I? Is that one of the tricks top players use? Maybe I could see what I can do... but my gear is fairly vanilla right now with no cool item abilities... other than the homing rocket reply from my 60 something level legendary armor.
Rapid Fire and sentries is okay...if you manage them. Sentries, for me, are an extra damage supplement for big fights. I'll slap them down because I know I'm not going to be able to sustain Rapid Fire.
But in all other cases, it's stronger for you to grind things down with Rapid Fire then blow the Hatred and interrupt your shooting while slapping down Sentries.
Focusing on one type of damage is the fastest way to up your overall damage. It's not reflected in your stats, but its there. The single item most common to every build at every level is the Stone of Jordan. No other item comes close...it gives a +% to any possible elemental damage, +% damage to elites, and a stat buff. The Stone of Jordan Rocks.
Getting +fire% is the easiest element to handle. Bracers you can get easily. Magefist is a common gloves drop. You WILL get a Cindercoat sooner or later. Combine with an Amulet that gives +Fire, and/or an Anduriel's Visage that does, and you can be looking at +80% to one element, or even higher.
Then you simply use all Fire Attacks, and mow everything down.
I personally run with about +60% cold damage to up the damage of my Devouring Arrows, supplement with the Cold Sentry.
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Sounds mostly like what you need is an alteration in play style.
Focus on Rapid Fire and ignore the sentries unless its a boss fight. The Hatred you spend on the sentries is better used at 500% then 150%.
If you drop Sentries, use the Bat to get the Hatred back and regen faster.
You don't need a lot of damage from the Templar. Just give him Vitality so he doesn't die, whatever weapon is convenient, and soak in his heals and regens and stuns. And blocks. getting his Str up and a good damage is just gravy. Yes, getting him good str gear is hard.
The Scoundrel is just a damage source that runs around. You're a DH, you don't need damage. You need a blocker.
If you want to tank, the combination of Freezing Shot Rapid Fire and Cull the Weak is nasty. You slow the enemy down from getting to you and do +20% to him. You can also drop a cold sentry on top of them so all your pets and toys do extra damage to them while they are chilled.
Start looking for items with matching elemental mods. The easiest ones to get or modify are bracers. Amulets are next, and then you're working with legendaries.
The right legendaries change everything, of course!
Also, don't be afraid to buy tons of rings or amulets from Kadala. Any you don't need or don't suit you can be salvaged to fuel your tinkering.
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Rings/Amulets for you:
You want:
+Crit mod amount.
+Crit Chance
+Elemental Mod
+Stat Mod.
If you are using Rift gems, swap stat mod for the gems. That's right, the stat is the lowest importance item on the amulet!
For your weapon, you want Rubies until your weapon is 500+ damage, then consider switching to Emeralds.
For your followers:
Followers get 2.5x the bonus from stats, but get only +150% total crit damage possible.
You want their Follower Token to take care of the Crit % damage. It's an easy tinker.
For Rings and amulets:
+Stat Mod is #1
+Socket is #2.
+Crit Chance is #3.
+Attack speed or +Fixed damage range is #4.
For the Templar, you want also a shield with + Str, a socket, and + Crit chance. It's the only way his damage gets close to that of the other 2.
Always put a Ruby in their weapon, not an emerald. The emerald is wasted.
==Aelryinth
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Those sentries are really where all your hatred is going. Dropping 20-30 (i forget the cost) is rough enough in a boss fight, but in general is killer. That 20 hatred is something like 5 seconds of rapid fire or 3-4 seconds of strafe. Fan of Knives is a cooldown skill that doesn't burn hatred (except for the one w/o cooldown) in that skill slot, and if your light affinity, the lightning rune is one of the best for fan.
Aye, I can afford sentries because it is literally the only thing I spend hatred on with my main build. On my seasonal, I only drop them in larger fights, especially ones where I have to move around and can't rapid fire, anyways.
My general rule is that I like to build my non-resource attack as high as possible, simply so I don't have regen problems like you are talking about. It's why I love my DH build so much...the only resource regen I have to worry about is jumping too many times in a row.
Depth Diggers are one of the most common item drops, and specifically for pants.
If you are running Rifts for blood shards, build up 400+ of them, then log out, upgrade the game to t6, log in, and start buying pants from Kadala. It may take you a while (it took me over a thousand) but it was certainly faster then waiting for a random drop.
Just remember to power down when you're done buying! I don't know if magic item find affects Kadala buys, but I suppose it couldn't hurt...
==Aelryinth
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Well last night after bounty running acts 1-4 on normal, I looked at my damage (about 320K) and said, "What the hell Brad, its been a week since you tried T1." Restarted, upped difficulty, and ported to fields of misery. Didn't have any issues at all, which surprised me, cause my non season crusader and wizard both have issues at similar damage (wizard's prob is cause he's got like 80hp period). Anyway, within the scope of finding the bounty and getting to floor 2 and clearing, I had 4 new recipes (one the infernal machine), a very poor manticore (socket tho), and got 2 leg rings (i think both nagels), 1 leg amulet (same i had at ilvl 62 on merc, merc's was better already), and a set cloak (has like crow feathers off the back, i forget the name).
Did the pull the guy out of the iron maiden in agony 2 bounty, and got a whopping nothing worthwhile.
Excited, though, that I have a character that is actually viable in T1. Only had the game for like 2 years (or however long its been out), and just now actually able to have fun with the end game. Here's hoping I can pull some of those season only legendaries in the weeks to come so that this guy is killer once season ends.