
Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

t1 is about equal to old Hell level, and t1 in the old system.
Where you want to be is in the t3-4 range, where you can actually earn enough money to keep up with the marquis gems you are picking up.
Don't be afraid to stick with gold jewelry items for now if they have better stats. They are cheaper to tink and you can get tons of them trading in bloodshards, until you get a combo that works for you (i.e. Stat/Vit/Crit chance/+crit damage for most people) via tinking.
If you're using a Manticore, remember to up your crit chance. The small bonus +Crit damage it grants is only useful if you keep critting. Otherwise you're better trading it out for straight bonus damage or something.
I haven't found a manticore worth keeping, period. When you could get double sockets...oh, heck yeah. Now? Meh.
The blackfeather cloak that shoots enemies that shoots you is a great way to thin out opposing ranged attackers. There's quite a few in the later game.
==Aelryinth

Mikael Sebag RPG Superstar 2014 Top 16 |

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.
...WHY AM I ONLY NOW HEARING ABOUT THIS?!
Seriously though, that's brilliant. Definitely gonna try this with wizard gear as I'm currently hunting for a Fragment of Destiny and a Triumvirate (though really just for the transmogs, to be honest).
I'd like to join this clan I've been reading so much about, but would my wizard be someone worth doing rifts with? I haven't managed well beyond T2, but I think with some tanks I might have some luck. Truth be told, I've mostly played this game solo, so teaming up could be a very welcome change of pace.

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2.1.1 patchnotes:
*The cost to purchase items from Kadala has been greatly increased.
*The chance for Kadala to drop a Legendary item has also been greatly increased
*Ghosts now run away less frequently and no longer fly through walls in Nephalim Rifts & Greater Rifts.
Sad about blood shard costs changing, since they're already slower to farm in 2.1 than in pre.

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Helping Aelrynth to 70 last night in seasons.
Anyway, after bounty'ing A4 and running those 4 rifts out, he hit 70 on the xp from the completed rift. Myself, I was groaning that I was out of money after forging three more Unbound Bolt bows looking for an upgrade and still needing to tinker a socket into one of them. So I decided to do a random Azmodan run (easiest boss boss to get to, mind you). Well anyway, we're trucking through core of arreat, and boom, treasure goblin spawns the Greed Portal.
My first one. Fun as hell. We were playing on Expert, and I raked in 3.5M in gold, and a good dozen imperial gems, plus the boon of the hoarder at the end. Can't wait to do it again on T1 for *MOAR MILLIONS!*
Also got a nice 70 K'mar Tenclip with a socket that ended up better than the Unbound Bolt I was trying to tink a socket into anyway. Win Win.

Rakshaka |

Beat Malthiel yesterday on T6 with my seasonal demon hunter (solo). I've got a pretty good build going where I'm piling everything on my Sentries (got the quiver that gives you 2 extra sentries and +39% damage to them from items). Between that, a full set of Natalya's (minus the crossbow) and most of the Marauder set, I can simply outlast most enemies with the turrets and the resetting cooldown trick from the Natalya's set. Pretty excited, as I've never beat Malthiel on anything higher than t3.
Now onto making that Hellfire Amulet finally and getting up there in rifts (23 is the highest I've gotten). One thing I'm really hating about the uber-rifts is that its very random as to how successful you're goin to be at it; if you get stuck with a level (like the caves) that has a lot of space between groups of specials or few specials at all, you can easily lose time for no fault of your own.
Aanyone know how you're supposed to beat the entire game in an hour (that seasonal achievement)?

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

Do the entire GAME in an hour?
I assume with a high level character with movement buffs you might be able to do it on the easiest level. Still, that's a lot of racing around, and you'd have to know exactly what you are doing.
Grab your illusory boots so you can run through bad guys and walls and try it.
I've easily completed each Act in less then an hour, but the whole game? Wow, that's moving.
==============================
I'm probably at the limit of what I can do with my DH, which is my best build.
I've been playing Greater Rifts with her, and my highest completed one is 29 (ran out of time). My highest completed qualifier round was 28.
They've been nice enough not to reduce the chance of tinkering up a gem so much once you get past 25. I still had a 60% chance to advance my Simplicity's Strength to 25 with a level 29 advance.
The reason you do Greater Rifts is that you can keep going through them, getting excellent chances at more legends and more bloodshards, over and over without having to repay stuff. This gets you to higher level Tinkers when you finally run out of time and want to tinker up your gemstones.
You also aren't distracted by dropped gold, gems and items that would slow you down, so you get them done much more quickly.
I've got a murderous Kyanon going...I regularly see crits of 40 million, and I can take a 5 billion hp boss down in under a minute. But it still isn't enough total damage to do what I need to have happen. I can't take down major spawns or elites fast enough to get past 29, especially with the amount of damage they do slowing me down.
I'm running Custom Engineering with 3 minute long Sentries, CLoak of Garwulf for 3 puppies, and Mark of Death for additional damage. At single targets, I'm easily clocking 100 million dmg/second.
To break level 30 solo (and I've no idea how those guys talking about level 39 solo can do those things!) I'm pretty much going to end up getting forced into a Marauder suit that will multiply Sentry damage.
FYI, you really, really want tinkered up gems. When you are slapping down 3000% poison damage on a load of creatures all at once, even over ten seconds, that's a great benefit, especially if you are using attacks that proc more then once (like my wizard with triple magic missiles).
I'm still trying to get some depth diggers on my Wizard to double her magic missile damage. Right now she's using Simplicity Strength and that gem that calls down smites with a 15% chance. Well, when you're throwing out 3 MM's + Familiar, that's a 60% chance of an extra smite every attack, for 2000% damage...which can crit up to 30 million.
She rips through Tier 3, and gets up to Tier 23 for qualifiers. WIth the Pants, she could probably do Tier 6. I use her for the 'cheap tinkers' that start out each gem, since high level tinkers aren't needed.
I also need the wand that does + arcane damage for her. Still haven't found it.
I've pretty much given up on gathering gold and blue items now. I have 2000 salvaged of each, and start picking them up once I've used some, stop once I've enough. I do still grab gems and walk over gold, but I don't go out of my way like I did. I do nudge corpses and blow barrels, because doing so has gotten me a lot of legends, and its a habit now.
basically, it's about getting gems to tinker rings and amulets now, and more legends, and upgrading legendary gems.
I've been through the Greed Vault four times now with my main set of characters, and once with seasonal. My seasonal has no gold problems, only Forgotten SOul problems, now. Still using the xbow that give bonuses for sustained Rapid Fire, as its the best I've found.
My current gold stored up is 260 million. When I get a Greed Vault, I grab my Goldskin, slap on my +73% gold find amulet, shift paragon to +50% gold find, go in and make 100 million gold in that dungeon. I consider it a failure if I don't kill every treasure goblin, even in the boss room.
Also, did you know the Goblins can also spawn a portal to Whimseyshire? That was news to me.
==Aelryinth

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

You know, I think I did complete the whole game in an hour. Ran through it with a level 60 character on normal mode with speed buffs. Of course, didn't have the Westmarch stuff in it, but I did it. Was funny watching my raven make everything around me explode, I just ran through stuff. Nothing took more then one shot except a boss.
Once you know where to go, it's not all that hard to do.
==Aelryinth

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

Hmm, the minimum tinker chance for gems is 60%. So, if you just keep at it, you should be able to get pretty much any gem to 25.
That's good to know.
My mage is now rocking 3 gemstones. Poison one, Critical Hit/Bleed one, and the Smite one.
The Poison one is probably the least effective of the three, since it kicks in for such a short time on low level mobs, and on high level ones it doesn't stack with itself. However, once it gets to 25 and the +10% damage kicks in, it should be worth keeping. I use it to 'sweep the room', poisoning everything with Disintegrate and softening them up for magic missiles to take down even if I'm not focused on them.
The critical hit one is better then the poison. It does roughly the same amount of damage, but in 3 seconds, so it's really kicking in fast. Since I'm throwing 3 missiles at a time with +57% to crit, it's basically always active on something. I'm looking at it like a +600% crit boost...probably not really, since it operates off base weapon damage, but it is nice.
I tried simplicity's strength, but didn't see the big results I was hoping for. +35% didn't seem to add all that much. Maybe once I get a pair of Depth Diggers for her.
The smite gem, the Teardrop, is actually the most useful. That +2000% coming down out of the sky is very, very noticeable when I'm shooting elites, and can easily snuff non-elites straight out. A crit from that thing is 40 million hp. And the thing is, it procs off each missile. I've seen 2 Smites come down simultaneously, and seen 3 come down exactly once on different targets. I'm sure 4 is possible with the familiar banging out damage, too. But it wouldn't be out of line to say the Teardrop is doing a huge portion of my damage against Rift bosses and the like.
Strangely, I can't Transmog my pants to the Firebird pattern, it's not in the list.
I finally got an Arcane Ring of Jordan, with a whopping +29% damage against elites. The difference in killing higher level elites was noticeable.
I got a rare legendary amulet, name escapes me, that creates a Ward around you like the magic missile effect, that explodes when monsters get close. More are created when you shoot things close up.
So, I'm shooting triple missiles, which are making 3 new balls at a time, and they are exploding for 307% arcane damage in 15" radius. Repeatedly renewed and exploding when something is on top of me. This is devastating when I'm swarmed by an elite mob, just a continuous rolling explosion that hits all of them.
The gems make a big difference in DoT, so if you're playing your mains, level up them gems!
If you need help with higher level rifts and I'm on, I'll be happy to help you. We can run some qualifiers together to make sure we have the same stones, and head through.
I've taken to leveling up the Runestones every time I can, so I can get multiple runs in. Multiple chances at legends, as it were, and more blood shards. Kadala is giving me Hammer's Jammers and the Firebird and Vyr set repeatedly, but not coughing up the Hammer's. It's kind of irking.
Anyone cruise the boards and find out how viable an arcane using mage is? I'm guessing crowd control is going to be more and more important, I can't get her solo past level 25 rifts yet...but that's about the equal of Tier6, so I could probably be playing her there if I wanted to. I play her down because I like racing through maps with her more.
Has anyone gotten the extra Hallowed Books? I thought I had all the item crafting sets, but I don't have any of the Hallowed books other then the axe and the shield, and I have no idea how to get them. They should have popped for me a long time ago, given that the books are common legend drops, and I'm not sure why I'm missing them.
==Aelryinth

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

Got my Teardrop gem to 25. Represents about a 30% increase in the Smites going off, since they trigger every 5 seconds in addition to about 60% chance per shot I fire. It also means that one hits as soon as I close in on an enemy, without me firing, as long as its been 5 seconds.
Very useful.
The additional bleed and poison effects will take a few days more, we'll see what happens when those kick in.
Finally saw the wand that gives + Arcane Damage!!!
Base damage was like 1930. Ugh. Just...ugh. I salvaged it. MY current weapon is 2560 or so. I was miffed!
anyone had any other luck with legendary gems, using them in cool combos?
==Aelryinth

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Has anyone gotten the extra Hallowed Books? I thought I had all the item crafting sets, but I don't have any of the Hallowed books other then the axe and the shield, and I have no idea how to get them. They should have popped for me a long time ago, given that the books are common legend drops, and I'm not sure why I'm missing them.
I don't know *when* i got it, but I also have the hand crossbow Hallowed in my craft list. I'm pretty sure the only one I've had drop was the one I used to give the axe and shield to my DH's templar. So, yeah, no idea. EDIT: oh also remember, i have the fists too.
Only legendary gem I've gotten any mileage out of is my Boon, the other two I have (the vs elites and some other one I cant remember) set in my stash waiting for my monk or dh to find a better ring or amulet than what they have already to pop it in the free side. About to the point where I might start tinking on my dh again to add a sock to one of his rings (not touching that near perfect tinked arcane immune amulet), now that my monk earns about 100K per minute on Expert. Getting his ass to Torment, though, is one of my near future goals that *NEEDS* done once I have internet again. He was a bit to squishy for the first encounter with an elite mob, and his damage hasn't quite made the jump over 250k to deal with T1 easily. Maybe I can get some good T-only equips drop on my dh and tink away the dh mod since monks are dex / vit just like dh.

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

Firebirds is not a crafted set, so it should ping when I got it. It doesn't. Very weird. And I blow blood shards on pants with my wizard constantly, I've probably salvaged 20 pairs of them.
bah.
Did some research on gems.
The TOxin gem is based on weapon damage, not DPS. So the amount of actual damage it does is rather underwhelming. I just assumed it was based on DPS, and was critting. Hrm. The main benefit is the +10% fixed damage once its 25.
Same thing with Pain Enhancer, the crit gem. The bleed sounds nice until you realize it's a fixed % and doesn't stack, just like the toxin. So, its the equal of a +600% attack every round...not bad, but not great.
However, for hosing down a group you're going to carve apart piecemeal, both are pretty good. They're at least taking some damage even if you aren't focused on them.
The consensus seems to be that Bane of the Trapped, if you can induce Slow, is the best gem to have. It's a new damage buff, so it starts a new multiplier.
Simplicity's Strength is also useful, but the damage buff isn't as noticeable since it stacks with other damage buffs of the same category (i.e. stacks with +15 to magic missile). The heal on hit is also less then you get from most weapons, too, once you hit 25.
Bane of the Powerful also gets mention. Killing elites makes you stronger, which helps you kill more elites faster, and the gem gives you a nice damage boost against elites at 25.
hrm. Looks like I'll be swapping some gems up and seeing how they work.
The teardrop gets multiple mentions from whirlwind and AoE attack styles as being very useful. The more things you can hit faster, the better it is.
Well, looks like I've a lot of gems to level up and try!
==Aelryinth

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

Aelryinth wrote:Strangely, I can't Transmog my pants to the Firebird pattern, it's not in the list.If you got access to any item from Plans you don't get the transmog for it even if you make them. For some reason you have to find the actual set piece for a transmog to become available.
This is not true. I crafted Cain's set and it's in my transmog list. Same with a crossbow or two.
Firebird's is a found set. The boots pop up, and the crown, but not the pants. It's quite strange. Does anyone else have Firebird's Down in their pants set?
Has anyone got the full Hallowed Set? I think I have the handcrossbow too, but that and the axe and shield seem to be it.
==Aelryinth

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

so the system is being selective about what it offers you for transmog privileges? Interesting.
I swapped out the bleed on crit gem for the Simplicity strength straight damage buff.
I easily completed level 25 GRift in time, whereas before I was coming up just shy. The trash mobs I hosed down didn't die as fast, but my direct damage more then made up for it, especially on the rift bosses.
Torment 5 is still pretty fast. I imagine when I finally get some Depth Diggers on her I'll be able to do 6 okay (GRift 25 is about equal to Torment 6, I believe).
Wizard still sucks at the challenges, however. Haven't gotten past 23 with her. My main DH has gotten to 26 without too much problem.
==Aelryinth

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

Just wondering what kind of legendary gems everyone is using with specific builds.
I'm using the poison, Simplicity Strength and the Smiting teardrop on my mage. The poison one is to 25, so +10% dmg to anything poisoned; Simplicity Strength is almost there, a big damage boost to my Mirrorball build; and the Smiting Teardrop is a big part of my DPS with those 20 million dmg smites coming down.
Probably going to swap the poison one with Bane of the Powerful, for the +15% dmg to elites, and +20% for an increasing time period after you kill some elites.
Only using Simplicity and Poison on my DH, where I'm running Devouring Arrow with a Kyanon, have to get a third gem in there, probably going to add Bane of the Trapped for a nice damage boost.
Stopped using the critical one. The level 25 benefit basically only works if there's a lot of stuff around you, and goes away pretty quickly. I didn't think it worth keeping.
==Aelryinth

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so... many... legendary... craftbooks...
Green Treasure Goblins, FTW.
Also, the crazy event for double treasure goblins is bugged or something. On no less than 4 occasions saturday I ran into something like 9-12 goblins in a pack. 2-4 treasure gobs, 1-2 gem hoarders, and 2+ green crafting mat gobs.
Also a fun thing to do is kill a red treasure goblin as the last kill before the rift guardian spawns and watch as the goblin's loot pile is 2x as big and 5x better than the guardian's...

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Found a gamey way to get better drops.
Take your stack of Keystone of Trials and goto T6 difficulty.
Activate keystone, TP back to town.
Wait... Turn in quest, get GR1 keystone.
Do GR1 on T6. Plays about like a GR7 on T1, vs a GR1 on T1. Still pretty easy for my T2-3 DH. Earn T6 XP bonuses for enemies, get T6 treasure bonus for Guardian.
Last night I finally got all the legendary gems. I also pinged to P100, which was a goal of mine before the season ends.
Got my DH reliably over 600K damage. Replaced my 3 wolves cloak with the Marauder Cloak, which along with the hat, gives me all 6 companions. I figured 1x 40, 3x 50, 1x 140 and 1x 150 % was better than 3x 150%, and boy was I right. Couple that with my additional Raven from my bow, I'm running around with 7 pets. Makes me want to bump my Enforcer gem up a bit more so that they can clean even more house.
Used a legendary daibo recipe I found last night to bump up my Monk's weapon. Put him from 350K to 480K. What confounds me, though, is how much more actual damage the monk does than the DH per hit. Evasive Fire (the rune where you don't roll and damage isn't dropped) crits for 0.8-2.4M. The monk's punch with the first shock rune (aka the first rune he gets), crits for 3-9M. To make matters odder, the DH kills like there is no tomorrow at his 1.5M crits on T2. Monk is slow slow killer on T1, even with the huge damage per hit disparity.

Sharoth |

So far I am enjoying Diablo II - RoS. After two false starts (niether one above level 10), I have gotten my wizard up to level 54. I went up against Malthael at level 49 and he took me over his knee and spanked me hard. After 7 or 8 more tries, I was finally able to beat him at level 54. I am now doing bounties in adventure mode. It is on the X-Box 360, not the PC. Of course my wife razzes me because she has two level 70 characters with several paragon levels to boot.

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Malthael is a tough cookie, much tougher than the other act bosses. The Butcher and Azmodan are jokes, Azmodan being probably the easiest. Belial's fight is a bit tougher because of all the aoe damage. Diablo is just 3 pretty easy fights back to back. Malthael, though... Ugh.
I think I've only ever went back and got his bounty one or two times after beating him in story. Just too much of a fight for too little reward.
My wizard I have on non seasons is pretty weak, never really pursued him after the seasonal play started (too busy with my DH and Monk when I played), but I've seen well equipped wizards wreak as much havoc as my DH.

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So already have my season 2 wiz up to 50. Started on hard doing bounties and rifts. Moved up to expert at 40. Less than ten hour play for fifty levels is probably on of my best times. Gonna hopefully get to 60 tonight before I retire to do game prep for mummys mask tomorrow night... Only died twice so far, both times on a pair of morlu meteor guys, both arcane, one fast, the other horde. Literally meteor affter meteor with no time between.

Aelryinth RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16 |

Been a while since I played. the various kinds of treasure goblins are new to me.
Just sort of fell away from it due to repetition.
Your goal is a base million damage. Once you have that, t6 starts becoming not a problem.
I've resisted doing a marauder/pets build on my DH, simply because it's so expected. Still, the amount of damage you can put out with 3-5 turrets and 5-7 pets is rather impressive.
I use the auto-piercing xbow instead of a bow, and the quiver that increases penetration %. It's basically triple damage per shot, way better then any extra pet could give. The only thing that could rival it is the knockback of the windbow, preventing anything from getting close to you.
Note that on t6, you have NO gold problems. Just walking over gold gives you enough for all your needs.
==Aelryinth

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My wiz who is flirting with 700k can solo on t3 without issue other than monster hp being that much higher than t2. I've done some t4 with him but he's still a bit squishy for that. The t5+ I've done on public games I'm totally outclassed (but some of that is increased monster power from mp games and all mp games wanting to do solo a1 rorg bounties simultaneously)

Aranna |

My new seasonal is getting too strong for torment 1, time to try torment 2.
What are some ways to amp up damage? I seem to be plateaued at between 300k and 400k. My gear seems top notch so there is obviously something I am not doing that all the million damage T6ers are doing... The only thing that pops to mind is legendary gems, which I have yet to get the hang of in any season. But it must be more than that?

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None of the leg gems do any straight +damage. One does a % bump to primary skills, but those are the left click only ones. Halo of Arlyse and the Poison one are the two I'm currently running with, one doing +2500% wd over 5s in poison, the other 15% chance to zap for +2500% wd. Helps kill speed tremendously for packs. Getting that Halo to lvl 25 is one of my near goals so it procs automatically as well.
Increase attack speed, increase crit chance, increase crit damage. Go for a 1h weapon and a good offhand item rather than a 2h weapon. Yeah the 2h weapon might show higher damage, but that lowered attack speed is a pain and actually makes a huge difference in the amount of damage you put out.
Stick a Flawless Royal Emerald in your weapon.
Right now, when I drop a Flawless Royal Topaz in my armor, it gives me another 10-20K damage. Load your socketed armors and pants with FR gems of your primary damage attribute.
Other than that, drop your offense paragon points into the crit damage hole until it gets to +50%. It goes a 1% for every point. IAS and crit chance are probably about the same on the damage bump for anything other than a monk or dh (where crit chance probably is better).
Keep playing. That weapon you think is good keeps looking worse than the next 6% better weapon that rolled with an open socket that you can enchant out the +12% secondary skill roll for +primary attribute or +crit chance. Each +2% or +3% damage on armors keep adding up. Making that 350K breakthrough is hard, but then you hit another wall in the 600K range where I'm at.

Lord Mhoram |

Just found this thread, I'd join this clan, but I play on console. *sigh*
It is nice to find people to talk Diablo with. I've only been playing since late December. DH 96. Just finished doing a bouty/rift run through all acts of T2, without dying. That was pretty nice.
Playing on a PS3, so stuck at 2.1.2 I think - pre greater rifts. Getting an Xbox 1 just to get the newer content.
I have a build I'm aiming for - likely not the most powerful, but I think it will be fun. Just trying to figure out what to work around the required pieces (I have 8 or 9 required depending on which direction).

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Just found this thread, I'd join this clan, but I play on console. *sigh*
I am on Xbox one, so when you get one we can play if you want.
then you hit another wall in the 600K range where I'm at.
Thats where i am at. I range from 450k to 550k. I am using the Posion legendary gem too. I am working on ranking up my gem of ease then was planning on working in the poison. I will have to look at that halo gem.

Lord Mhoram |

Cool. I should have it later this week, early next week. Son of Variol on XBL. I'll have to get Xbox gold, never done that, but doing a bit of group stuff would be cool.
Mid 400s DPS. T1 is pretty easy, T2 is where I am, don't usually die, but can be slow going. T3 is too much for me.
I do have some of my necessary pieces - I have a RoRG (got it on my first playthough, and hadn't hit online about anything, so I didn't know how much in demand it is). Asheara's set, and 1 piece of Maruader gear. 1 Unity ring (I mostly play solo, so that trick a is big goal). Going, for solo, "1 man mob". Asheara, Marauder, Haunt of Vaxo.

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Brad2411, I got a nemesis monster. That was cool; didn't expect one.
Since getting my Xbox 1 in friday, I've hit the Goblin Rift twice, Whimseydale twice, and beat up to a level 21 Greater Rift. Just got a Gem of Ease, and my Bane of The Powerful is around 7 or 8 rank.
Thats cool. I have been playing with some friends and they are blowing me out of the water with there characters.