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General Words of advice:
The key things to get to a million damage are Base Weapon: High main stat; Crit Damage; Crit Chance; and Attack Speed....in that order.
Socket your main weapon with an emerald. Just do it. Biggest emerald you can find.
Get your fighting stat up there. While each +400 to the stat might not seem like much, the aggregate is your main damage multiplier.
Your necklaces and rings should have +stat, +Crit damage, +Crit chance. Whether you want +Vit or Attack speed or +Elemental damage otherwise is up to you.
Your Bracers should have + 6% Crit Chance modded to them, with +Stat. +Vit or + Resist All is your call. The bracers that give a bonus to movement speed save you paragon points. Bracers can also roll with any + Elemental modifier.
YOur boots should ALWAYS have +Movement. Most boots do NOT mod to +Resist All, but some do. Test and see. Your ideal combo is +stat, +vit, +Movement, +resist all. THe illusory boots that let you move through enemies are excellent since they let you wall through Wallers.
The Witching Hour and the Hellcat Waistguard both give you more offensive punch.
There is one belt that rolls with a +lightning modifier.
Getting two pieces of the blackthorn set gives you +250 vitality and +10% damage against elites. It's a common drop.
Getting the ring and necklace of the Traveler's set is +50 Crit damage, which is also nice.
Your gauntlets should be +stat, +crit damage, +crit chance, and then choose between Attack Speed or Vit. I usually go with AS if possible. There are Legendaries that roll with +Cold and +fire elemental mods.
Your helm should be +stat, +vit, +6% crit chance. The #1 offensive helm is Andariel's Visage, which always rolls with an elemental modifier and a +attack speed. The #1 non-set defensive helm is Blind Faith, which gives a 30-35% chance to blind on hit, which is huge for shutting down a foe.
Your torso should ALWAYS have +stat, +vit, and 3 sockets. I prefer resist all as well. Cloaks can also roll +Discipline for DH's. There's a lot of nice non-set BP's. A lot of people end up with Blackthorn's for a time because it's so common.
Your legs should be the same as torso, with 2 sockets. legs often come with nice secondaries if legendaries, from +move, to acid clouds, to double base skills damage, and more.
Your shoulders should be +stat, +vit, +resist all, and +regen. You may or may not want to sub in resource reduction or cooldown reduction for regen.
There is an item, the Rimaldi token, that lets you socket a weapon. Which means that you can tinker for +weapon damage (max +10%) or +Attack speed (max+7%).
If you don't have a Rimaldi, don't worry about it. Get the socket on your weapon by tinkering. When you do get a Rimaldi, tinker the weapon again to get weapon damage or attack speed, then Rimaldi it for the socket.
Special Note: Any Special gem effects are based on your weapon damage, not your DOT. Thus, using a big 2 handed weapon means those effects, like the poison DOT or the Teardrop smite, are bigger if you are using a 2h'er.
The big comedown for the 2h is because you are missing out on extra stats and extra modifiers, they are actually better in many instances then a 1 h for dealing big hits.
Off hand: You want +Stat, +crit chance (up to +10%, huge!), and if you're a DH, +attack speed (up to +20% on a quiver, huge!). +Vit is next. Special powers vary by class, but your off-hand often determines your game play (Bombardier's Rucksack and Seven Cirri for DH's, Mirrorball for Wizards, for example).
Crusaders may or may not want +Block % on a shield. It depends on your play style. WD's and Wizards probably want +maximum mana.
==========================
That's gear basics. I'll get to Companions next.
==Aelryinth
Companions:
All companions:
Companions gain TRIPLE stat mods off items (i.e. 3 times Int boost, 3 x resist all, etc).
This applies to gems as well. The single most important thing you can give a companion is all socketed items.
Companions receive no benefit from Set items (i.e. giving them the traveler ring and amulet does not activate the set bonus).
Companions give you 1/10th their bonus gold/magic item find.
Companions do get totally passive benefits of weapons. For instance, the Rogue gets no benefit from the raven companion of blackwing, but does get the knockback of Windforce. Nor do they spawn a goblin if you give them a Puzzle Ring.
Companions MAX OUT crit chance at +150%. Thus, giving them +Crit damage stuff is generally useless. You can get up to +100% crit damage off their special token, and you should modify the Token to 90%+ just for that, and then never put it on another item.
The level 70 Tokens currently come in 3 forms: Follower cannot die; Follower has access to all skills; Follower skill cooldowns cut in half.
The only one you want is Follower Cannot Die. That means no down time for follower. It also means the two of you can wear a Unity Ring set when in solo play. ANd it means you never have to worry about a +Vitality modifier on anything.
Unity is a ring that shares all damage between wearers of the Ring. It is NOT something to wear in group play. However, when sharing with an unkillable follower who takes no damage, it cuts the damage you receive in half. It's generally considered key for being introduced to the highest levels of solo play.
Can you say, double hit points? Sure, I knew you could.
After that, you want the highest possible stat mod, a socket for a Ruby (ups base damage of weapon) or a Stat gem, +Crit chance, and +Attack Speed.
By Type:
The sorceress is your best offensive companion. She provides an attack speed boost, she does the most damage, and she can turn enemies into chickens or confuse them.
She gives you a minor defensive buff. But her best effects are confusing and morphing enemies, which shuts them down and keeps their damage off you. Her additional damage can be nice, my best one is up over 800k!
Give her the biggest 2h weapon you can with the highest +Int mod. IF it's over 3k, tinker it for +weapon damage. If it's over 4k, then you additionally want +attack speed. Otherwise, put a socket on it and slot a ruby there.
An interesting use of the sorceress is the Butcher's Sickle, which reaches out and grabs an enemy and drags it to her. If you're using a ranged attacker, that's one more foe momentarily standing doing nothing and not attacking you. The Ess of Johan, a necklace, forcing enemies to clump up together, is also useful on her.
The sorceress is your best companion if you've good defenses and just want to stack more damage and have bedazzled enemies in clusters. I tend to use her with my Barbarian or Crusader.
The Templar is your best defensive companion, and the one I prefer to use.
I use the Templar to shore up my healing ability.
He provides excellent life per second, he provides a heal, he does a charge which can stun groups of enemies and keep them off me, and he does a combined heal/charge/knockback in emergencies, as well!
Alternatively, he can provide a significant boost to your mana/hate/wrath etc regen rate.
Since I hate dying, I tend to prefer the Templar as my companion. I provide offense, he keeps me alive to keep providing it.
Once you have an undying Templar, provide him a big 1H weapon with a socket and big str mod, a shield with a +10% crit chance, str mod and socket, and stick him full of rubies. He'll never be a huge damage contributor, but his aid to your defenses will be excellent.
I use the Templar on my DH and my Wizardess.
The Rogue:
I don't use the ROgue much. His main thing is inflicting status conditions (blinding, etc). Nominally, he should do more damage then the others, but his buff of a crit chance to your offense isn't much, and the huge weapon of the sorceress is more reliable DOT.
With the right weapon/amulet combo, such as WIndforce, CLuckeye, and Ess of Johan, he can do a reasonable amount of knocking enemies around, confusing them and drawing them after him as he runs around. If you know you're going up in a fight against weak or annoying ranged attackers (Shadow wisps and all kinds of wasps), he's nice to have around.
Thus, he's better paired with another ranged attacker. I use the Rogue on my Witch Doctor, and occasionally monk.
===============================
So, there you go, offense, defense, and gadfly. On my mains, the damage for my companions is 800k for sorceress, 400kish for Templar, and 600kish for the Rogue.
==Aelryinth
Items that have really changed my play style:
Wizard:
Mirrorball.
This doubling, and then tripling the base damage of my primary attack basically moved my wizard from mana-reliant to hit things, to mana-optional. With the Mirrorball I was able to go up to level 26 in Rifts, and make it to Torment 6.
The Tal Rasha set: The extra offense of the meteors dealing AoE damage, combined with Blizzard shutting down close attackers, got me up to Tier 29 solo. I used rote MMissile attacks stacked with lightning and fire and cast blizzard to get the +20% damage mod for using 4 elements. My only spender was Blizzard.
the NEW Tal Rasha set: OMFG. I managed to get the new boots that double meteor damage. Now, I only cast two energy spells, so the boost I get is either +150 or +300%, not the potential 450 or 600. I QUALIFIED for Tier 34 off keystone, and would have won Tier 37 except I got the absolute worst combos of elites and final boss, and missed the timer by 30 seconds.
I have not used a firebird's set, nor a Vyr's set for eternal Archons. The firebird's set is pretty straight forward, do 3000% fire damage to something, it burns until it dies. Usually accomplished with a Blizzard (fire). Oh, and it also doubles all fire damage. Single element makes it very easy to max out.
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Demon Hunters
Byaza-do Kyanon: Or however it's spelled. The crossbow that makes your attacks pierce twice.
In combination with the Hungering Arrow that gets +70% each time it pierces, and the Nine Cirri Satchel that gives +25% to pierce chance, this weapon basically put repeated basic attacks at 4-6x damage. If your base damage is a million, this can easily mean you're doing 30-50 million per shot, depending on crits.
When fully unloading, you're doing 100 million per second on an enemy, magnified with appropriate feats, pets, and the like.
Cloak of the Garwulf: 3 Wolves. Multiple companions, blockers, etc. Went from Tier 4 to 5 just with the additional blocking.
Marauder set, old and new, with Bombardier's Rucksack: I never built the old set, but the damage output of 5 sentries all shooting explosive arrows, without you having to do ANYTHING, is very impressive. Add to that 5 companions as blockers, and this was THE default high level build.
THe new set changed it so the sentries fire when you do, AND you get damage modifier to those attacks per sentry you have out. So, 5 sentries, +500% DAMAGE. Yes, it gets impressive REALLY quickly.
I used it with Hungering Arrow and a hand crossbow to quickly get Hatred back so I could keep firing explosive arrows, and then stumbled across the bow that turns Elemental Arrows into Hatred Generators...except your Sentries still shoot them.
So, +300% routine attack, +300% area/burn damage, THEN the big exploding AoE when you're full.
Yeah. The screen is full of fire.
My secondary DH with the Marauder set has gone all the way to Tier 32 solo. She's currently #2 on my characters for pure killing power, and likely can do more DPS then any of them.
New Demon Hunter set: Fierce Gauntlets, whatever it's called. The big thing is the stage 6 ability...magnify the damage of your multishot and Hatred generators by 15% per point of Discipline.
A SH starts with 30 discipline, cloaks get that to 40, and certain Rings can raise it further. Still, figure +450% to base damage on my Kyanon build. With Multishot AoE's to help things along.
Yes, that's going to get sick really fast.
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Crusader: fate of the fell and Akaraat's champion: The Fate of the Fell is a big 2h flail that adds two Heaven's Fury when you use the skill. The highest level of that ability changes it from a cooldown to a wrath cost.
Akarat's Champion's set reduces the cooldown of all skills by 50%. If you can get that to 67%, then the one minute cooldown of the set hits 20 seconds, which is the duration of the skill, and now you can keep Champion up all the time.
And hey, Champion reduces all your Wrath costs by 50%. More triple Heaven's Fury blasts and stuff.
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Barbarian:
The standard high level Barb build is an Earthquake build using one of the sets and Luc's Boots that start an Earthquake when you do a Leap. earthquake, leap, leap, leap, stack monster AoE damage on something while bouncing around like jumping bean.
Witch Doctor:
The standard high level build involves using the Mojo that generates more and more fetishes for you as you go along, until you have an entire army of them firing on your command.
Tall Man's Finger (ring) turns your multiple dogs into a huge dog with enormous killing power and crit capacity...it can take on bosses solo.
Little Man's Finger (ring) turns one gargantuan into three that are tougher then the original.
Truly, the Witch Doctor is the master of the army of pets.
Monk:
I'm not familiar with most builds, but most of them rely on Serenity spam, which means getting a lot of cooldown reduction so you can stay in that mode and generate a ton of spirit and use powerful AoE effects. Add in the Monkey King set for generating exploding clones for color, and Dash to move about the battlefield with basically unlimited teleports, and you have a very motile, fast-moving build.
==============
Legendary gems next.
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Legendary Gems I find useful. If I get the names wrong, the effects will still be accurate.
#1. Miranae the Teardrop:
Smites. 2000% smites. The 15% chance to activate basically means you get one every 6.67 attacks or times you hit something. This is awesome for whirlwinding barbarians, or wizards getting triple magic missiles, or anyone with AoE attacks that hit more then one opponent.
At level 25, you are guaranteed a smite every 5 seconds, and your smite is up around 3000%.
The smites are target wipers. They are single shot eliminators of enemies, which means they reduce the damage being done to you. The crits can be in excess of 80 million damage for my characters, and occasionally I'll get 2-3 firing off on top of one another for monstrous amounts of damage on things like Rift bosses when they activate together.
My wizardess is the best user of these, as each magic missile + familiar is an attack that can activate the teardrops. At 6+ attacks/second, I'm basically getting one teardrop per second falling down and smacking my enemies.
#2 Simplicity's Strength: If your primary attack is your main attack, this is your gem. Straight damage to your repeated no-cost attacks. At level 20, this is +40%.
The level 25 effect is +2% life per hit. If you're getting 4 hits a time, that's +8%, which is excellent. If you have extremely high health, it's better then most Heal on Hit effects, but not overpowered. Combine the two, and I can generally get back to full life in under 5 seconds.
#3 Bane of the Trapped: If you're using slow/chill/freeze effects, this is your toy.
Bonus damage to anything suffering a slow effect. At level 25, you GENERATE a slow field, so that anything that is close to you takes the damage bonus.
If you're using stuns or cold effects, this is your baby.
#4 Bane of the Powerful: Another favorite, this one gives you +20% damage for an increasing period of time after you kill an elite pack. It's about a minute at level 30. If rapidly clearing Rifts is your thing, this comes in VERY handy.
At level 25, you get a flat +10% against elites, to help you along.
This is a good gem for high mobility builds.
#5 Miser: This one makes you gold. If you have gold problems, slot this and don't look back as you go around slaughtering stuff. You can effectively get 'drop rates' of over 50% at higher levels, and picking up gold increases your movement speed! Combine with a Goldskin to really make the money.
#6: Gizzard and Estoeric Alteration: These are two of the new gems. The first gives you regeneration powers, and the second one gives you a big boost to your resistances.
If you are playing a group game and are used to operating with Templar buffs, these are extremely useful items to slot into your rings for the duration of the group game. The Gizzard's health per second is massive, the largest in the game, and the defensive bonus of the alteration is, too.
#7 The other new gem that gives you bonus xp/monster. If you can level this to 25, you can level up noobs in no time at all. The xp bonus multiplies by your level, so it is MASSIVE. Combine with a -40 level required weapon, and accelerate your noob to uberness.
#8 The Toxin stone: The poison DoT isn't that impressive. It's like a Smite that takes ten seconds to actually use. The best part is, at level 25, anything taking poison damage takes +10% damage from anything else, once you've damaged them. Paint a target with AoE's, they take some incidental per round, and 10% from the real stuff you're heaping on them.
If they are splives, the additional DoT can actually kill them over time if you don't have time to deal with them. The DoT doesn't stack in damage, but the longest remaining duration does apply.
#9 The pet enhancer stone: If you are doing major damage with Pets, you can't go wrong here.
Note that this doesn't work for marauder-using DH's using sentries, as such fire when you do.
Combine the speed boost with Tasker and Theo, and you are giving a massive offensive punch to your independent pets.
#10 Zei's Vengeance.
This stone does more damage the further you are away from the targets. Amusingly enough, this applies to DoT calculations.
So, wizards hitting with a Firebird set can smack an enemy and run away, and literally accelerate the burn damage they are doing to an enemy thereby. It's also great for a massive opening salvo.
Special: Elemental Booster: The new gem that does massive damage of a particular elemental type as it changes every 4 seconds should be EXTREMELY useful to a Tal Rasha build that makes use of all 4 elements anyways.
HOW TO SPEND PARAGON POINTS
1) Hey, I'm not saying I know everything, but this is how I did it.
2) Your mileage may vary.
Main POwers:
#1 Raise your movement rate to +25%. Coordinate with your boots and whatever else. You can only raise to a max base rate of +25, so if you have 2 +12 items, you only need +1% in here.
At levels 600+, guess what? Yeah, you can just take care of it all here, and not have to worry about needing it on your boots.
2) Raise your damage stat.
That which you kills faster makes you stronger faster. Note, however, that putting ONE Royal Gem into a socket is the same as 50 paragon points!
3) Depending on build, raise mana pool or Vitality.
The mana pool only goes up by specific magic items, and if you're spending a lot of it, maybe you need more.
If you're like my DH, however, I need to survive, and don't rely on Hatred use. Too, I've got the Templar there to up regen rate, which is almost as good.
Note also: One Royal Amethyst is better then 50 paragon points here.
OFFENSIVE POWERS
In order:
1) Raise Crit damage to max.
2) Raise crit chance to max.
3) Raise Attack Speed to max.
4) Raise cooldown reduction. It maxes at 10%, so it's not a bad deal, and if you've a build that needs it, sub it in sooner. If not, then it's definitely tertiary.
Defensive Powers
Point: The Templar helps a LOT here with regen.
1) Raise Resist All to max. This is absolutely the best value for defense you can get. Your 50 paragon points are worth 4 Royal Diamonds, by comparison.
2) Raise life regen to max: More in combat recovery
3) Start raising +armor %. Damage you don't take is better then losing health. Note that +% life is generally less useful then pumping Vitality.
Utility Powers
1) Raise life on hit. This magnifies survivability
2&3) Totally optional on raising Resource Cost Reduction if you're a Mana SPender, or AoE damage if you want more offensive power. The reduction in cost might not be much, but if it lets you squeeze out one more big shot in a salvo, you're on.
4) Gold Find is at the bottom. unless, of course, you find a treasure goblin vault. Then you reset and max this out immediately.
==Aelryinth
Your Gold-finding Suit
Okay, you need money, maybe.
or, more tellingly, that treasure goblin just died, and there's a shimmering golden portal in front of you to undreamt of treasures.
Time for Phat Lewt.
Do not go inside. Go home.
1) Get your Paragon Points/Utility reallocated to maximize gold find. Ding, +50% gold.
2) You have a goldskin breastplate. You don't? Spend shards until you have one. it's the most common Bp to drop.
+100% gold find. That's a multiplier. So, whatever Level you're at, was just increased by 50%, is now doubled. Triple gold.
3) The best jewelry to wear is a Squirt's Necklace (always rolls with +80% or better gold find) and a Nagelring (bonus to gold find). There's a set of jewelry which does the same, but not worth gathering.
4) Strap on that broken crown of leoric, and inset the gem you want the most of. You're going to be getting a lot of them.
5) Go into the Vault. Your gold find is likely going to be over +1000, and if playing Torment VI, can be +2000 or more. If you kill EVERYTHING, and loot it all, you should be easily able to make over 100 million gold at Torment VI. At lower levels, it should still be very impressive.
-----------------
If you're just running around and need gold, do the above, but:
Play A Demon Hunter, and use the weasel pets. Bonus to gold find, AND they pick up all your gold for you!
Have a Miser Gem socketed. Enemies explode into gold, and you run faster after you pick up gold. Zip around the screen gathering your lucre, and head off to kill the next thing.
I have a Goldskin with 3 emeralds in it, a Broken Crown, and a squirt's necklace just waiting for my next vault.
So far, I've looted 6 goblin vaults, and I currently have over 600 million in gold waiting. Since I made over 100 million per Vault, it's fairly safe for me to say that if I hadn't maxed out my gold find per Vault, I'd have a lot, lot less gold today then if I hadn't done the above.
==Aelryinth
Woo! Season 3!
I should start a character for this.
I have a level 39 keystone on my mage now using the Tal Rasha's set.
I'm somewhat curious of an effect...it appears that the Magic Weapon Lightning does NOT trigger a meteor fall of lighting, although it most certainly should.
I'm going to swap familiar and magic weapon fire/lightning and see if I suddenly stop getting fireballs from above.
Also, you must CAST an elemental spell to get the +150% bonus, just effects activating do nothing. So getting to that massive +600% bonus (which is equivalent to having a Power Pylon going, FYI), you actually must cast 4 different spells with elemental descriptors. I suppose you could keep up a litany of no-cost mana generators for 2 or 3 of them, but wow, how annoying that would be to keep up for 20 minutes. You'd definitely be rocking the uber damage, however.
Oh, and at the higher Rift Tiers, Conduits do maybe enough damage to take a Guardian down to 1/2 hit points. IT's also a good way to kill yourself...run into a pack of elites with Reflect Damage, and now they activate it as soon as you are on screen. Running into the middle of them to kill them is basically executing yourself.
So, I've achieved that 39 keystone with only 3 meteors falling, but I get all those meteors all the time, very consistently, and at basically x6 damage (I wear the boots that amplify meteor impacts).
Between the meteors doing lots of AoE, the arcane meteor being able to crank 400 million damage, and the Smites that crit for the same thing, DPS is somewhere in the 100-200 million range (or higher). Which is pretty good, except all the bosses at 36 have 21 billion health to start, and so it takes more then a minute to kill them regardless. Basically, when all three meteors fall and the smites hit, every 8 seconds something is taking a billion damage.
My peasley little magic missiles? Fully buffed, base damage is 1.5 mil. Seeker Missiles are 285%, say, 4 million. 3 per volley is 12 million. +300% is 36 million.
So, yes, magic missiles alone average to 36 million dmg/second. And then the meteors and smites come down to play.
==Aelryinth
Woo! Season 3!
I should start a character for this.
You really have to play something other then a wizard so you can enjoy the game differently. ;)
==Aelryinth
MM, Gem of Ease.
It's one of the new gems. Unlike all the others, this is a WEAPON SOCKET gem.
Yeah, didn't notice that until I couldn't put it into a ring. Poo. No +270 dmg weapon for my level 11 wizard.
On the flip side, it didn't matter for long. My main wizard's weapon just happens to have a -38 level req on it. SO all I had to do was get this noob level 11 to 32, and I had a base 2900 weapon.
Well.
I got the gem of ease to 25 and Um. +2000 xp per monster kill, multiplied by the xp level.
I started Act 2 at level 11. I ended act 2 at level 61. I hit 32 before I killed Magda.
it's kind of funny seeing the chat indicators on the supporting characters advance even though I was still in act 2.
I expect to be 70 long before I actually reach Azmodan I Act 3. Just clearing the battlements got me to 63.
The gem of ease makes it seriously easy to level up a noob. Keep in mind my time investment is less then 5 hours now.
At level 70, I can have an alternate build wizard running around for full time use. Which should go great with the new wizard's set of Slow Time armor and stuff. Of course, I don't have the support gear to make him truly uber, but he'll be tricked out and ready for play.
Slow Time kill effects and the helm that gives all Slow Time stuff all the rune effects. I expect to be butchering a lot of stuff. I'm going to try a lightning build with the orb that lets Electrocute wrap back on itself. That should be lethal. Slow Time + Stuns should mean not getting hit too often.
==Aelryinth
Woo! Season 3!
I should start a character for this.
You really have to play something other then a wizard so you can enjoy the game differently. ;)
==Aelryinth
Hey! I have a 70 of everything but Barbarian! :P
OKay, I reached level 70 on my noob wizard just past Azmodan and into Heaven, swapped out the scrap gear and equipped the new Wizard set with a ring ofRoyal Granduer.
I then realized that an Electrocute build with the Hate orb wasn't going to work, because there's key spells it uses to work down the cooldown of Slow Time, and Electrocute ain't one of them.
So I swapped the mirrorball out from my tal Rasha build and we'll see how that build works with lightning.
I only used 5 pieces, because I'm also using the Helm that gives Slow Time all runes.
In Play, the new set is extremely strong facing stuff inside slow time fields. The 7.5 x damage to any creature inside a Slow Time field torped anything pretty fast. The Stun entering/leaving the field, although it didn't work on porters and jumpers, was also extremely useful. Outside the Slow Time fields, of course, it was just normal damage.
However, the build I was using had no AoE. The 2000% damage DoT wipes small stuff out in seconds, but takes longer to have any real effect on big stuff. Triple Magic missiles could eliminate stuff fast, sure enough, but there wasn't the huge, broad array of attacks coming down and smashing everything with meteors that the Tal Rasha build gives.
However, I can see this being godly in group play. The Slow Time fields all over the place, buffing your friends and debuffing the baddies, could be VERY helpful.
It's technically also possible to combine this with a Meteor build. With a Ring of Grandeur, if you're willing to give up your normal orb, you can orb, belt, talisman, and qualify for level 4 of Tal Rasha while getting level 6 of this set...Meteors on things in slow time fields!
I might just end up using that, I don't know...
I'll play both revised builds tonight and see what's up. Note that my noob does not have buffed gems, or even all his Intelligence boosting gems socketed, and has a much lesser weapon (2300 dmg vs 2900) then my main wizard.
==Aelryinth
Erm.
Well, an electrocute build using the orb of Hate does good when qualifying for Keystone trials...did 34, which is as good as with magic missile.
Once IN the trials, however, it sucked. I did the level 34 one okay, but the 35 failed utterly. The main reason is the Electrocute vs a single opponent sucks, even if it can arc back...if there's no one else to arc from, it's just a rote attack doing less then 1/4 the damage of the magic missiles from the mirror ball build.
So, yeah, no lightning build unless you're going for stun effects. In greater rifts, the magic missiles just blew it away for progress. Electrocute is good at getting rid of swarms, but outside that...ugh.
POINT OF NOTE FOR EVERYONE: The damage on your weapon, and Magic Weapon: Conduit and Magic Weapon: (Force Weapon, the arcane one) do NOT trigger Arcane or Lightning Meteors on the Tal Rasha set.
However, Magic Weapon (Fire) does, for some reason. I'll have to test and see if Storm Armor can trigger it. Otherwise, I'll just have to live without having all 4 meteor types.
==Aelryinth
Well, I got the new Demon Hunter armor set assembled.
I had a choice here of going with a Garwulf cloak and +9 Discipline for another +135% damage, or go with the Depth Diggers that grant +95% damage to basic attacks. Ring of royal Granduer to do so, of course.
For those of you who don't know, the 6 piece benefit of that set is +15% per point of discipline to your hatred generator and multishot attacks. The normal DH has 30 Discipline, so +450% damage. Or x5.5.
Using the cloak would have got it +585%, which would be Nice. But using the legs is 450% x 1.95%, or close to 900% with hungering arrows. I can stand a slightly worse multishot for making the single best repeating attack in the game, right? Especially combined with the simplicity strength gem for another +40% multiplier.
Using a Byuzado Kyanon, for auto pierce attacks, with the 9 Cirri for +25% on pierces past the first 3.
I knew when I saw a 124 million hit that I was on to something big.
The revised build, with no special discipline booster, got me to 31 on keystone...and I blew through the 31 greater rift, a rift level that I couldn't really pass with the build just prior to this test. Skipped to 34, blew that rift open, and went to 37...which is higher then the Marauder suit normally gets to. I didn't beat it (died 3 times to a thunderstormer boxing me in walls with lightning storms killing me), but I reached the end easily otherwise.
in short, the new armor set for the DH's, if you have the right gear, is murderously strong.
If you want to build for it, I'm not sure if there are any rings that grant discipline, there used to be, but it's often an option on DH Cloaks and Hand crossbows (+9-12,usually). With a large enough discipline pool, you can do ridiculous damage with basic attacks and don't need to be wed to the Hungering Arrow.
Oh, and I assembled 4 of the 6 pieces by using Shards with Kadala, not finding them!
===Aelryinth
If you're leveling up multiple characters and wondering about how you don't have enough gold, gems, and leveling takes so long...
I recommend you focus on a main character, and make them uber.
the mission of this character is to make gold fast for you; to make xp fast for you; and to pick up tons of gold, gems, raw materials, useless (or useful?) legendaries to scrap, as well as generate lots of shards to go shopping at Kadala's.
As I noted above, I got over half the new wizard and DH sets by shopping shards at Kadala's.
Guess what? As you reach higher tiers of Greater Rifts, you get more shards. You get 220 shards for completing level 37. You get 100 for completing a normal rift.
In my estimation, the easiest way to do this is a Tal Rasha wizard, with a mirrorball build and the new Meteor-buffing boots. You will very, very quickly find your offensive ability shooting through the roof. By killing stuff quicker, you gain awards of xp and gold faster, saving yourself time and letting you play more and repeatedly. Get Simplicity's Strength and Miranae the Teardrop on your jewelry, and start building them up.
Just my 2p.
==Aelryinth
Started a hardcore seasonal barb. I haven't done hardcore before!
Level 11. Things are looking good so far...
All I know about Hardcore is that Vitality is the #1 stat buff on everything, and you take all the defensive stuff you can.
Can't help you otherwise. :o
==Aelryinth
I seem to die in the early to mid fifties in Hardcore. I think the game lulls me into a false sense of security then surprise mega-combo elites and dead before I know what hit me.
Update on builds:
I've gone past using Unity/unkillable follower on my three main builds: DH's for Marauder and Unhallowed, and Tal Rasha mage. Frees up a ring slot.
My Unhallowed DH has soloed to level 41 successfully...barely. Basically, a combination of enemies that didn't hose her, and a boss using fire that basically couldn't hurt her, only wait for me to do the billions of damage to kill it.
My Marauder DH has soloed level 40. Zei's Stone of Vengeance and the stun chance seem to have made the difference here.
My Tal Rasha Wizard has soloed 42! I changed my rings to the Focus and Restraint set from a Stone of Jordan and Convocation of Elements, and the +100% stacking damage has been impressive, to say the least. It helps that she has a base 3300 dmg one handed melee weapon, of course.
Using Shards, I have finished the Witch Doctor and Barbarian sets. I mean, the three class specific ones, except for the Belt for the Immortal Kings, and the Breastplate for the Jade Harvester.
My gear for the Barb isn't optimal, I haven't played str based very often...but he blows away my Crusader as she stands. I don't have a usable Unity, for example, which he kinda needs as he's still fragile.
HOWEVER...he's wearing the Wastes Armor set, AND, HOMG, I got one of the new Skull Grasp rings that triples the effect of Whirlwind.
First time out, ripping through everything at Tier 6 without much problem.
Tier Test...since there were no bosses, he excelled. I got Tier 37 twice in a row, Tier 38 when I didn't die. He butchers his way through the spawns pretty well.
Keep in mind, I haven't actually played the Barb for probably a year now. The combination of that armor and Skull Grasp was just that high. I'm using a lightning based build so when he's in whirlwind and hits stuff, he gets Fury back. Basically, as long as there is stuff around, he won't run out of Fury. He is awesome at mowing through loads of squibs, but doesn't really have the killing power of other builds for bosses. Being up close and personal means he also has to deal with the combination of Aoe Energy attacks and melee attacks, where my ranged builds don't.
I'm using a big 2h Lightning Hammer with +25% lightning damage, and voltage flying all over the place, but still. I've successfully completed Tier 38 with him, but he dies in every rift due to lack of recovery options when fighting larger monsters. His 'come back from death' skill is also pretty lame, and I'll probably train it out simply because it's so useless at higher levels.
I would like to get a Ring of Royal Grandeur, and get two pieces of Immortal Kings set so I could have Ancients up all the time feeding me more fury.
I got my Crusader so I can basically remain in Avatar all the time, with the accelerated Wrath powering up the light from above ray. Unfortunately, that's still only a 1000% repeating attack, and nowhere near the speed and power of the other builds.
Not sure if I should play the WD minion build or the Haunting build, which is more direct damage then anything.
==================
I'm taking to putting on a Broken Crown of Leoric when I open resplen chests, and when I see a Gem Hoarder or malicious tormentor goblin. It seems even now I still need more gems!
Pretty funny doing teamups with some of the people in the clan. I gain one level over four hours, they gain 15... :)
==Aelryinth
Well as one of the people in the clan I thank you greatly.
Seriously if any of you clan people still play, running with Aelryinth is lucky. I found an ancient mirrorball and many firebird and tal rasha pieces while playing with him. It would probably have taken me a year to find all that on my own.
Thank you again Aelryinth.
Welcome! I enjoy playing with others and being able to give them gear I don't need. I'll happily play the same class as you to help you out.
Too, I was level 300 before I could play comfortably on torment 6, which is when you really start being able to earn enough gold, gems and legends to do the tinkering you want to do. If I can get you to Torment 6 faster, that's just how much faster you'll take off on your leveling and loot.
Seriously, anyone reading...the key to getting past your gold problems is simple: Play on torment 6. Gold problems become a non-issue very quickly. I've got 1.7 billion gold stored up and literally nothing to spend it on.
We were doing Tiers last night, and our last one of the night was Tier 35. That's 'starter' tier for me, but for Icz and Ara, very high.
Ara leveled THREE TIMES JUST ON THAT TIER. Ugh. She earned 20 levels over the course of the night, consisting of 6 Tor 6 normal rifts, 9 Keystone trials, and 8 Greater Rifts of Tiers 26-32, and 1 Tier 35.
Me? I leveled once. heh!
==Aelryinth
Update on Legendary Gems:
Legend gems have varying worth depending on what level you are playing at.
For instance, the toxic gem has great value at Torment 6 level and below, because the poison itself is capable of killing the weak creatures spawning. However, the poison does not stack with itself, so the damage is much lower then it seems at first glance.
It's nice at higher levels because it gives a +10% damage kick if you hit something, which is nice if you have to hit something more then once. Icz has a nice combination where he uses Calamity and the Poison stone, 'painting' everything he hits and giving everyone +30% damage against them! Great for group games.
However, at Tier 35+, you are better off swapping in a defensive gem or something with a pure offensive kick, like the stone of Zei.
The Stone of Zei's combination of high damage ranged punch and stun is very popular at high levels. Combined with ancient parthan defenders to lower the damage you are taking from stunned monsters, it's offense, defense, and a survival tool.
Likewise, Bane of the Trapped, which combines a damage boost to supplying its own slow effect to activate that damage boost, is VERY popular with the melees.
Bane of the Powerful providing a speed boost and damage against elites is also used in mid-high tier (35-40). After 40, you need a higher damage boost, or more defenses.
The Teardrop is an excellent item if you are getting off lots of distinctive attacks, such as with mirrorball magic missiles, triple shots from a Witch Docter's blowgun, or whirlwinding enemies.
However, at the highest levels, the Smite effect doesn't increase in damage as fast as the hit points of enemies, so at Tier 40+, it starts losing usefulness.
==Aelryinth
I should probably finish getting my barb to 70 before the end of the season, but I've been playing a lot of Heroes of the Storm. D:
I got onto the PUblic Test Server for the new patch they are testing out, Ruins of Sesserhon.
Some Notes for everyone:
If you have never been on the test server, the process is a bit involved. Have your character SET UP TO GO exactly as you want it on your main account, because logging in to get something off another character is considerd LEAVING and subjects you to wait times to get back in!
Wait times can be very low (20 min for running Normal mode baseline story) to long (Torment Ten Adventure mode at 2 hours). the displayed time is very misleading, the actual log in time will be better, but still quite variable.
You can afk and it will still log you in. Just check frequently or you will be logged back out!
You must be in adventure mode to access the RUins and get the Cube. So...there you are. Talk to ZOltan Khule (he's floating in town as a new advisor).
To get components for the cube, you must run bounties on Torment Level. You need 5 dif components to use the cube, 1 from each act. You get 1 component for each level of Torment you are at...so if you complete bounties on Torment 8, you get 8 materials per Act completed.
Acts are now done by bonus pattern...and the bonus goes to the nxt ACt when you complete the current one. Thus, you can get a bonus chest for each act if you do them in the order they want you to.
I advise 'playing down' for speed. ON the test server, basically ONLY legendsaries drop. This is to both give you good gear and test out new legends. After a while, you will get enough that you simply leave them on the ground. The xp, gold, and items aren't going to stick, so there's no need to worry about gaining levels and stuff. You basically just want to see Sesseron and test out the cube and the new Rift structure.
You do not get to fight the barbarian undead king, but you can get the cube. The map is average size, perhaps as large as the foundry, or a level of the Keep. The parts they showed didn't have any subordinate dungeons, I'm assuming the king sends you to some to test you at some point. Regardless, get the cube and zoltan khule will pop up to gloat, and you can use its abilities.
Rimaldi's, the socket cube, will start dropping off monsters like any other legendary.
The 'special abilities' of the cube are varied, but the important one is the new 'equipment sockets' for people. I.e. you can get legendary abilities like passive skills.
You get 1 'skill' for a weapon, an armor piece, and a jewelry item. The passive abilities are the ones in green or brown at the bottom of certain artifacts, like the Krelm Buff Belt +25 run speed when you haven't been hit for 5 seconds.
Many items that don't have unique skills like that, and instead roll guaranteed or bonus things, like +at speed or + elite damage, will become recipes usable by the smith at some point.
Every single ability you can get can be 'read' by clicking on the icon on that screen, and thumbing through them. You must recover the item, and feed it to the cube, along the with proper bounty Comps and death's breaths (it does not draw them automatically from your chest). Hit the button, and it becomes a potential passive ability. After that point, you can switch them around as you like by using the cube to do so (which is also the only way to see them active).
The other abilities are: reforge a legend (basically, take the legend and 'try again', just like smithing it anew); turn a rare gold into a legend of the same type; turn gems of one type into another type in lots of 9; turn one kind of material into another kind of material; and turn one set piece into a random other piece of the same set.
it's a way to use up a LOT of comps.
=================
Rifts: Normal rifts scale to the level you're at, so basic rifts are at whatever level the game is.
Greater Rifts you get to the set the scale up to the level you've completed. they have relaxed the scale somewhat, allowing people to get higher levels and lots more shards. Torment 10 is equal to level 45. If you want to see what higher level play is like, just start going through the rift levels, one by one.
======
To take advantage of the cube, you need to start collectinig extra rares. Note that some rares do not drop for certain classes much, if at all, so you will have to play dif classes or use shards on them to get the items.
Here's some key items that are poppinig up on builds:
Mr. Yan's pants: the ones that give a dmg/resource bonus while moving. Whirlwinders are using the buff.
Obsidian Ring of the ZOdiac: Being redone. Special ability: -1 second on cooldwons when you hit an enemy. Being used by whirlwind/immortal king builds to spam Wrath of Berserker.
Halcyon Ascent: Being used by Wrath of Berserker spammers to keep everything around them spastic and twitching.
==Goguk and Taeguk are VERY popular with the Whirlwing King builds, combining speed, armor, dmg, and cooldown reduction. The highest level of Tiers attained solo was a barb Whirlwind King. SO is the bleeding/critical gem, because it stacks yet more attack speed.
Furnace: This two handed hammer's special ability is +50% against Elites. That is HUGE. Much beloved.
Other common items:
Ring of Royal Granduer: Moving this off the character allows you to wear a Focus/set. Very common among multi-set builds.
There is a new Crusader armor set that is actually uber, and items to complement it. Blessed Hammer is going to see a major comeback. It actually has damage output. You'll probably be getting rid of your other Crusader sets.
Krelm:? I think that's the name. A Helm that drops for WD's, +100% pet damage. Ubiquitous on Carnevil builds. Doubles their poison dart army damage. BUT...it will also work for DH's and their sentries for a marauder build.
There's a new weapon that allows yours and your Fetish Army poison darts to pierce...
There's a weapon that allows the cooldown of Fetish army and big bad voodoo to be reduced by one every time you or a fetish lands a poison dart. So, BBV spamming for combat buffs (this is a mighty strong build, and huge lag causer in group games).
There's a dagger: 100% chance of crit against an enemy with 100% health, i.e. if you've a big opening strike, you can ALpha strike it HARD. Combine with Ambush from DH for +40% on top of that...
Dead Man's Legacy: Below 60% health, multishot hits something twice. So, combine with above...if it drops something below 60% wth the initial hit, it hits it again. Instant map clearer of small/midsize stuff, and makes Multishot effective against larger foes in longer fights.
THere's a set of bracers: 30% damage reduction for 5 seconds after using a generating skill. Extremely good defensive option...
There's a new belt: +30% AS and +30-40% dmg to primary skills.
Calamity's Marked for Death is available: Flat 20% buff for anything you hit.
Byuzado's Pierce twice for projectiles is available.
Depth Digger's +100% dmg to primary attacks is available.
Convocation of Elements: The +200% damage kicker was VERY popular with multiple builds, even those using one element.
Unity can now be used as a Cube kicker.
The new Gem turns cold damage into chill/slow effects. Combine with Frostburn, it can turn them into Freeze effects. Dovetails with Cull the Weak. It's level 25 effect is a bit weaker: +10% crit chance, which is a 20-25% buff.
FINALLY - You can be immune to REFLECT DAMAGE!!@! They are redoing it so the damage reflected is the same kind as inflicted. SO, if you are doing fire damage across the board, and you are wearing a necklace that turns fire damage to healing...you are IMMUNE to Reflect damage and will actually get some healing out of it!!! (and yes, I tested this with cold immunity to see if it worked).
i.e. sacrifice those amulets giving elemental immunity to the cube when you get them, so all your characters can enjoy.
============
Leaderboard builds: Pretty much all the leaderboards followed the same top end builds, which combine speed of movement, continuous damage, cooldown reduction, and a killer ability spam.
Whirlwind King relies on boosting attack speed to make more whirlwinds with the waste set, and Immortal King to have the Ancients around to make you free rage. It boosts Attack speed to the moon, so you're always moving and attacking, lettingthe whirlwinds kill stuff for you, and spamming wrath of berserker for additional damage and speed.
DH is using Natalya's Spinning Storm: Evasive Fire for Hatred Generation, Strafe for generating hits, and Rain of Vengeance spam. basically, you cooldown the Rain to under 20 seconds, generate a ton of hits with evasive fire or Strafe, and spam Rain of Vengeance for a ton of damage and the set damage boost, basically getting 8x Rain of Vengeance damage, all while moving continuously. 2 pieces of Accursed set in to generate extra Discipline for more Tumbles might be folded in. I found it odd, but Thunderfury's ability to proc chain lightnings was the common weapon add-on used here. Possibly to proc even more hits?
With a lot of mooks around, this is basically filling the screen with continuous Rains of Vengeance.
Monk: It was basically dashing strike Elements set at the top for speed.
Mage: Combo of Tasha/Time Stop set, the first to generate meteors, boosting the meteor dmg way up, and Time stop to set up/slow the enemy for the meteors. Wands of Woh were used for Teleporting to move around quickly and not waste time. The staff that boosted meteors by 50% was used as a Cube kicker effect.
=====================
I COULD pursue a Natalya's build, I have all the right stuff for it.
But I focused on my Wastes build.
I swapped out my Byuza-do Kyanon for a really nice Calamity I have...base dmg there went from 2700 to 3500 WITH a Discipline kicker.
My Depth Diggers, giving +100% Primary attacks dmg, went into a Cube Kicker.
This allowed me to get rid of my RIng of Royal Granduer, and do a Focus Ring set, upping my crit chance and crit% to 68 and 380 respectively. Base damage went to 1.7 mil from 1.2 mil.
I equipped the new belt for +30% attack speed with primary attacks and +37% damage with them, because Hungering Arrow is my killer attack with this build.
1) Damage skyrocketed. Especially with Multishot. Because my rate of fire was so much higher, my heal on hit and hatred regen was also much, much faster. This was partly because of the focus set, as now I could swap between attacks easily. I'm still using the 9 cirri satchel, because the bonus +25% to pierce affects Hungering Arrrow for massive spike damage.
Because Calamity Marks for Death, combined with everything, I was routinely seeing billion+ point crits from my hungering arrows, and solid rate of fire, with one multishot every 5 seconds to keep maximum damage, was over a billion a second at individual targets. The hungering arrows were also moving a LOT faster, meaning inflicting their damage much faster in series.
I crushed level 42, and one by one, with no problem and no deaths, made it to 46. I died once on 46, barely closed the rift, and couldn't quite make the end on 47.
FYI, 45 = Torment 10, as a reminder.
Reflect Damage was my bane...I basically died to it 15/17 times testing the later Rifts. Mainly because I can't avoid it using Hungering Arrows...even if only 1 creature in a set is using it, my piercing arrows would inevitably hit it, and in quick series given my rate of fire.
I swapped in the cold immunity, and that certainly helped my death rate. But what it replaced was the amulet that charms an enemy and lets you do +35% damage to it. When you're facing a large enemy, that's a huge amount of damage being given up just so you don't die to Reflect. I tried a Tier 46 and didn't make the ending, so I may end up having to go back to that, or use the COnvocation for the same effect, and just WEAR the cold amulet...
The Rift timers have accelerated somewhat, and they have changed the 'pricing' on the monsters. Before, it was basically 1 tick per monster killed, with elites giving up those thirty second timer boost gems.
This meant that if you got a dungeon with a lot of high hp blocker monsters, like Uncrypted, you were hosed, since they slowed you down a lot. If you got zombies, which came in mass swarms and died easily, it was extremely easy to advance the timer!
No more! Slow, easy to kill monsters that die in droves barely budge the timer. Larger, more dangerous creatures advance it faster. This is more equitable and less swingy, but means you can't rely on a lucky monster draw to complete a Rift.
Tellingly, in the PTS, if you didn't beat the Rift, you didn't get to upgrade a gem. I can see why they did that, you still get to kill the boss and the boss loot and xp, but ouch! It basically forces you not to play at your highest Rift tier if you want to upgrade other gems.
===================
One additional note: they were putting in 'bandit shrines'. These basically pop out one of each type of treasure goblin, who promptly scatter all over the place for you to kill. Goblins also moved a LOT faster then they used to when you chase them.
=================
All in all, it was an interesting experience. Double goblins meant that in about 6 hours of play, I actually went into the Vault twice on gold portals. Seeing legendaries littering the ground was a novel experience.
The xp on Torment 8 was double Torment 6, on T 10 it was 4x. I was actually able to level fairly quickly just in normal play, which I haven't been able to do for a while.
So, if you want to prep for the new patch...get those items that you can find ready for the cube, and store them. It also means you won't need multiple sets of them for your characters anymore, hopefully ...unless you want a double elemental immunity!
Hope this helped on what to get ready for!
==Aelryinth
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I really think this will make it interesting for build diversity. I could drop my maximillian demon summoner into the cube and actually upgrade my barbarians weapon. Or take these ilvl 26 boots that give double monk elemtal allies or the boots that let me walk through enemies and actually get to wear a set boots.
Yes, it gives much utility back in casual play and design.
You can have a completely different set for casual, no-hassle play, and another set for timed, intensive play stuff, and still be able to swap around your passives, if desired.
My current internal debate will be whether to play with fire and cold immunity for Reflects, or have something there for additional damage output.
Really debating internally on whether to go ahead with a Natalya's Spinning Rain build, too. Much more intense play style then I like to use, but the leaderboards don't lie as far as power.
==Aelryinth
Well, right now the weapon will be the best weapon I can use, which can be a Natalya's/Calamity combo, or a Windforce, both over 3.2k.
I don't have a good Tenclips to employ!
Have to be careful, too. H Crossbows eat up hatred like a sieve with their attack speed.
==Aelryinth
I got my hardcore seasonal barb to 70 a little while ago!
I finally have a 70 in each class! Now I was able to delete all the extra characters.
Heh, I keep them so they have other equip sets on them. They are basically mules. If you keep the gear on them you can use Profile to examine them and see if the new piece you have is better then what they are wearing, without having to log in the character.
But my Marauder DH is perfectly playable, as is my Time Stop magus, just not optimized like my mains. I tried the Furious Charger build on my 2nd barb and was totally underimpressed compared to the Wastes set, I can try a Jade build on my alt without changing the Carnevil setup on the main WD, etc.
Yes, it means my chest space is Not Enough.
Pity I can't save up a zillion shards and then blow them on Crusader trying to get the new set when its time. That new set is awesome.
==Aelryinth
More PUblic Test Server updates:..
The new Demon Hunter belt is up to +45-60% damage to basic attacks. I guess the utter domination of Natalya's builds at higher levels drove the upshift.
Even with that extra damage, I barely passed tier 48, and knew I'd have to change up things. THe leaderboards had advanced to Tier 51 being the low point, so I knew I could do better.
I found a better amulet with damage mitigation (acid this time, VERY useful for rift bosses). I also leveled up an Icestar and started using that in place of Zei.
Oh, and didn't that make a difference.
Instead of a second elemental reverser, I equipped the Ring of Convocation.
Ah.
FYI, the Icestar Augment gem turns your cold damage to Chill effects, and applies a slow effect, on top of other slow effects. This dovetails with Bane of the Trapped, so that EVERY target now get the bane of the trapped damage. It also very nicely slows down the enemy, so you have time to kill them.
It also universally triggers the Cull the Weak passive from Demon Hunter. +another 20%.
The level 25 kicker? +10% crit chance against chilled/frozen enemies. In my case, that means going from 62 to 72% crits. Against pretty much everything.
The Ring of COnvocation means that every 12 seconds, I get 4 seconds of monstrous damage. This is incredibly apparent on rift bosses. I have seen a 4.5 billion crit on a rift boss, which basically means that ONE SHOT probably did about 9-10 billion damage. In a race against the clock on the Tier 52 rift boss, I blew through 16 billion life on her in 8 seconds. I only had 10 seconds to work with.
In doing so, I made it back onto the low end leader boards (700's). Most builds down there are inefficient Natalya's Storm/Strafe builds, with some Multishot builds using the new bow thrown in for a change. The idea of using a Devouring Arrow build there is simply not common.
My current Augment Gem trio is Simplicity's Strength (+45% damage to Devouring arrow, 2% of life heal on hit); Bane of Trapped (level 53, +27% damage) and Ice Star (as above, +10% crit chance on everything + slow). I'm using the new leech passive for an additional +25k Heal on Hit, which, which you are shooting off 3 arrows a round, is some VERY fast healing when combined with the additional 20k from Simplicity's Strength.
I'm testing out the new bracers that give damage reduction 30% for 5 seconds after using a hatred generator. I do NOT like being susceptible to stuns and knock ups/vortex/backs again, but I have to admit the one-shot kills dropped quickly.
===============
Fun Fact: If you open up your Details screen, and hover over your elemental damage bonus (Cold, Fire, etc), it actually tells you what your 'real damage' is with cold attacks. So you can directly compare equipping a +cold device to, say, a +Crit damage device.
========================================
I made level 700 on the PTR. Going through level 50+ tiers is a LOT of xp (half a level at least), and that's without a +25% pool kicker. Granted, it won't 'stick', but it shows that very rapid advancement is once again possible once the patch becomes live.
They've put more resources into the test server. You can log in MUCH more quickly now, even at Torment 10. The last two days, I had no wait, and today, the 'starting' wait was only 54 minutes, vs 150 originally. On weeknights, I didn't have to wait at all, and got right in.
So, I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm going to need when the patch goes live. Happily, I already have most of it (Focus/Restraint Rings, jewelry for the Box of Danai, buffed calamity, spare Byuza-do Kyanon), I'll basically just need to get the new belt (and can use Krelm's until then).
The 'burst' potential of the Ring of COnvocation has been proven to me.
There'll be a lot of collecting I'll need to upgrade my other accounts, but with the numbers of shards coming down, it shouldn't be too onerous compared to last time.
===========
They nerfed Carnevil builds somewhat. They capped damage from Fetish Dartshooters at 250% of base, and you only get 5, instead of the literally dozens that might end up following you around (and lagging the heck out of everyone else).
They are trying to get people to play the new Spider Queen builds. We'll see how that works for WD's.
All the high barb builds are speed, speed, speed, for generating more whirlwinds to kill stuff for you. You want taeguks and Goguk augment gems, with Bane of the Trapped? to complement.
tal Rasha/firebird builds or tal rasha/time stop builds are dominating the mages.
The new crusader set is dominating everything.
Oh!Oh! THORNS. Your thorns damage is now going to be multiplied by your Prime stat! That's right, you can actually start hurting things that hit you again! So that Invoker throwaway set? Might actually be useful again!
And that's all for now.
==Aelryinth
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You mean a crusader with all the thorns passives won't be wasting passives anymore?
I finally hit 70 with my s3 monk. Its always a learning experience (though the same lesson) when I hit 60 and my damage starts to balloon like no tomorrow. I'm not sure if I want to go wizard monk or dh for the new season though. My season 2 dh was one of my favorite characters, but once i got back used to the slow play of the monk, i had a good time with it as well.
Exactly. The invoker set, that useless set that does lots of Thorn damage, might actually be useful. 15,000 of thorn damage at +Str% +1000% would, if your Str is 10,000, be a base 15 million x 10, or when stuff is smacking you, they do 150 million damage to themselves.
Which actually isn't 'horrible' for higher level Tiers.
====================
Talking with ICZ last night, who couldn't believe I was putting out 2 billion in damage per second. So, here's the math.
My 'base' damage is 1.7 million. Remember 'base' damage is an average of your 'normal' damage, and your 'crit' damage. My crit is +360%, base 62% chance. This number includes: Crit, Crit damage, # of attacks/rd, Dex modifier.
On top of this is my Cold damage modifier, which is +40%. So, 2.04 million base (all my main attacks are cold attacks).
I am using the Accursed Set, which is +15% dmg per discipline point. My discipline on my test server character is 68. So, +1020%, or x 11.2 dmg.
So, 22.84 million dmg, base.
IceStar - Applies chill and slow effects on every hit, and +10% to crit chance. This is roughly +16% in damage.
26.5 million damage, base.
This triggers Cull the Weak, every time, +20% damage.
31.80 million damage.
This also triggers Bane of the Trapped, at level 52, +27.60% damage.
40.58 million damage.
Focus/Restraint. As long as I shoot off a multishot and normal attack every 5 seconds, +100% damage.
81,16 million damage.
Now, we add three more modifiers, for 'basic attack' (these don't affect my multishots, so comparatively speaking my multishots are 'very low').
The first is Depth Diggers + Devouring Arrow bonus damage, which is 112%. Added to that is Simplicity Strength at level 51, for 50.5%, or a total of 162.5% bonus damage.
Base damage is now 213.05 million.
Lastly is my belt, which gives +30% attack speed and +59% damage to basic attacks. Now, I'm not sure if the +59 is added onto the 162.5, or applied separately, but I'm going to adjust as if separate.
+30% attack speed is straight up +30% more damage per round.
276.97 million damage.
+59% per attack ends my base damage.
440.39 million damage per round.
THEN, we apply Mark of Vengeance from Calamity, the crossbow I'm using, to everything, for another +20% (multishot is awesome at this).
528.46 million.
NOW...we get to what I actually use, which is the Devouring Arrow.
155% damage, pierces. Using the Cube, I have the byuza-do Kyanon's ability to guaranteed pierce, twice. Each time it pierces, damage goes up by 70%!
The base chance to pierce is 35%. I am, however, using the 9 Cirri Satchel, which raises the pierce chance by +21%, to 56% chance of piercing.
So, first shot average is 819.12 million dmg.
Piercing shot at +70% is 1392.51 million damage.
2nd Piercing Shot is 2.3767 million damage.
So, one second of dps should be 'on average' about 4.6 billion damage!...
If I get a couple pierces in there, each additional pierce is +70%. So, +3.7 billion, +5.9 billion, etc.
But wait! For jewelry, I have the convocation of the elements. for 4 seconds out of every 12, +200% damage, or triple damage!
Which means 13.8 billion damage! in one second!
------------
In 'game play', this takes a second or three to actually set up, because the Devouring arrows have to turn around and start zipping back through their targets.
In addition, I have to intersperse a multishot in there for the full +100% from focus/restraint, every 5 seconds.
But when everything comes together...yes, I was watching VERY closely on a race against the clock at the level 52 boss. She had 16 billion health, I had ten seconds as I dodged her last attack, and I started shooting.
I finished with 2 seconds to spare. 16 billion in 8 seconds. And in there was at least one 4.5 billion hit that I clearly saw.
There are times I'm watching the boss health and just suddenly huge chunks will get taken out of it when the convocation comes up, or I get a piercing string of 5-8+ consecutive hits piling up the damage.
IN reality, what is happening of an average of the 100-200 million base shots, and the 600-1.2 billion crits going off. If the boss has their back against a wall, the devouring arrows can't turn around, and my damage plummets.
If the boss is unlucky enough to have the time stop field that slows down missiles...heheheheh. What happens is the arrows turn around 'instantly', and once they hit him, do all their damage at once. With no 'zipping' animation delay, even if they are against the wall, they die because the arrows 'never' pick another target then their original, and they sort of just explode with the sheer amount of incoming damage.
So, yeah, 2 billion damage/second is totally possible, and it spikes to 3x that with the Ring of COnvocation lining up for frost.
I don't think there's another build that can do that level of single target damage, but single target damage is not how you get to Tier 60. The higher level builds have combinations of high level damage that is also AoE damage, so they are doing a billion/round to multiple foes, instead of just one enemy, and being able to wipe whole boards faster.
Witch Doctor does it spamming piercing venom dart attacks with fetishes.
barbarian does it by super attack speed generating tons of dust devils while whirlwinding that just wipe everything on the screen.
Tal Rasha does it by combining Fire bird fire double damage and AoE meteors.
Monk does it by multiplying their AoE strikes while reducing cooldowns to nothing, or getting resource costs down to really cheap while under constant Epiphany to pay the spirit costs.
DH does it by using Strafe to reduce the cooldown of Natalya's Storm of Vengeance to nothing, and getting the +400% damage mod for the Storm above the double damage the set normally gets, throwing down Storms of Vengeance every 2-4 seconds with Crashing Beasts for massive AoE damage.
the new crusader set does it by using the same primary multiplier tricks I was using with Blessed Hammer hitting multiple foes.
And all of these include accelerated movement options. DH/Strafe can attack while moving, as can a whirlwinding barb. Witch Docter gets rapid speed afoot, with buffs boosting that higher. Monk can dashing strike and teleport between targets. Mage can teleport, and sub mana for cooldown. New Crusader can falling strike for distance.
It's going to be a lot more moving around and activity, boys and girls!
==Aelryinth
For Iczelion - Yes, you can specifically use the special abilities for melee weapons in Kanai's Cube for missile weapons.
The high level Stormstrafe DH builds all use Windseeker's Fury for the Lightning/Slow effect.
However, if the weapon references a class specific weapon or ability, it naturally won't apply.
Interesting note, I tried to transmute an Ashbringer with my DH and it wouldn't let me. Perhaps because I wasn't wielding a sword at the time? (Ashbringer's ability specifically references uses a sword). It might not even be transmutable.
The AOE effect of Azurewrath has been HUGELY improved to 500% or so weapon damage PER SECOND, as Holy, against undead AND demons.
Rather nice.
===
As a mental exercise, I'm trying to come up with a viable build using the Ring of Broken Promises. Special power - if you don't crit 5 times in a row, 100% crits for 5 seconds.
To make this work, you'd have to build for maximum crit damage, and minimum crit chance (10%), so this ability triggers often. Rapid fire would work best, so a monk or DH build, although whirlwind might work, too. Basically, minimize crit chance so the ring triggers, then unleash ALL CRITS with tons of attacks for a short time, resulting in bust/boom/bust/boom scenarios, where the boom actually lasts longer then the bust.
I was able to get a crit damage build up to +602%. heh. If I could get this to work, when it went off, Everything would DIE. was also wondering if pets would trigger the crit chance, because that means you'd basically be at 100% crits all the time.
It would also be useful in that you could IGNORE crit chance % on all your gear! ANd go for attack speed, or more life, or what not, instead.
==Aelrynth
mortar mobs + illusions is terrifying to face. thankfully the range seems to fall in set parameters...if you are in melee, you've nothing to fear, and if you're sniping from most of the way across the screen, likewise.
Saw the effects of zei vs ice star last night, and came down firmly on the side of ice star. The combination of chill to slow enemies and that extra crit chance heaping on more damage definitely killed stuff faster, as far as I could tell...the 20% from Cull the Weak kicking in was probably the reason (I'd swapped in a fire reverser for an elite boss pack, it had zei in it).
So, if you're a cold user, definitely use ice star.
The toughness boost from Bracers of the Warder is indeed impressive. I can take a ton more hits now then before, as long as I can keep shooting and don't have stuff right next to me for more then five seconds.
Of course, if an elite mob spawn shows up with reflect damage, fire pools, and arcane turrets in a narrow hallway, and all the areas past them are absolutely filled with stuff so there's no open space to clear from...well, I'm still gonna die if they jump me at the start of a dungeon.
But Leech + Heal on Hit + Simplicity's Strength + very, very fast attack speed makes for VERY fast recovery. As long as I'm not taking damage from multiple sources, I actually heal fast enough hitting something with reflect damage that I can usually kill it before I die. If I aim at something OTHER then the one with reflect damage, I can usually kill the stuff around it, and when the reflect dies, finish it off.
2 bil dmg/second is really convenient that way.
FYI, the Tier 10 keywarden in Act2, the one with the Time Stop around it? Died in 8 shots once they started reaching him. I just watched his hp go from full to nothing in about 3 seconds as he moved into the arrows coming his way, and just died from taking all the pierces instantly.
Oh, and Ashbringer is not one of the transmutable weapons, silly me. Went and checked.
Lastly, max amount of comps you get from doing a full run of bounties is 8. "filling up" everything is going to take 20+ runs. Granted, most of the stuff is useless, but still.
I am sooo gonna love the patch.
===Aelryinth
If you want to prep for a multishot build, You'll probably want:
A Deadman's Legacy
A Crimson Coat (the one reducing fire skill costs)
Yang's Recurve, the new bow (+40% Multishot speed, -45% all resource costs)
And a full Accursed Set for damage.
Rings - Either a focus/discipline set, or fire Jordan's + a traveler's set (for the additional vit and crit dmg). Or maybe an appropriate Hellfire Amulet? (Ambush would be ideal).
A Marauder set would also work well, all your sentries firing multishots with you.
=================
I tested out a Ring of the Oculus last night, the one that creates an 'area of power' if you kill something.
Don't bother with it.
The area of power isn't under 'you'. It's under whatever you shot. Which means unless follow up monsters wander into that area, it has no effect.
Furthermore, there's only one area in effect at a time, so you don't even have a chance of blanketing a broad area.
In short, pretty much useless. if it affected the area YOU were standing in, then it would be okay, to some extent. You could even stack it with 'local buffs', or caltrops, or something.
In contrast, the Amulet that charms a foe (so they attack others) AND gives you +35% against them isn't so bad at all, being both CC and more damage in one, and can affect more then one monster. If you're fighting a rift boss, it's bound to kick in for at least a few seconds. For lesser stuff, it ties up two monsters and helps you kill one of them faster.
BUT...they both pale next to the Convocation, which, although you have to manage the timing, is completely arbitrary, unavoidable, and a huge damage boost to everything when it comes. Kill, kill, kill, MASSACRE OF EVERYTHING IN FRONT OF YOU, kill, kill, kill...
:)
==Aelryinth
The Greater Rifts really started emphasizing the tougher normal monsters to advance the timer.
I'm under the impression now that all those guys who advanced to higher Tiers did it by just go-go-going and slaughtering as many weak opponents with mass damage as possible, ignoring elites and tough guys unless they had to or could kill them quickly, always moving forwards regardless.
That's not really going to work anymore, because the weak monsters won't stay even with the timer unless there's a lot of them.
Was in a tier 51 GR last night with the Tuskers and Boggins. Killing the tough tuskers was worth way more then killing 6-10 of the easily sniped boggins, or wasps, or ghouls. Which was only right, because they were far more a threat with their charges (killed me 3 times, the rotters...and I still completed the Rift in time!).
Map Luck is still a thing. If you get scattered spawns with low numbers,, you're still going to have a problem completing rifts on time, and getting stuck in narrow corridors with AoE elites and having to constantly retreat, then race forwards to make up time, SUCKS.
==Aelryinth
I will probably go Crusader for Season 4. I don't know if I'll do hardcore again, though. It makes experimentation less viable.
I took my barbarian into Torment 10. didn't have quite the right load-out, but I tried.
Not enough damage. Still had problems killing elites, esp the rift boss.
Still, it was very impressive with the two Bul Kathos swords equipped and literally never running out of rage. Watching Taeguk level up armor and damage just by staying in whirlwind was impressive.
There's two barb builds up there - Immortal King consta-berserk with Wastes for Super-Rends, and Reaper with Immortal King buys offs for super whirlwinding and staying in Berserk mode all the time.
Of course, my build is 700ish and the leaders are all 1200+, which probably makes a significant difference in stats. I don't know exactly how the post-800 world assigns stat points.
He slaughtered his way through Torment 6 mercilessly, however. So t8 is probably right about his comfort level.
But my DH build had a MUCH easier time with mass slaughter at t10 then he did. It's hard to compete with a couple billion+ dmg/second. He just couldn't stack the damage modifiers as easily as the DH, so I'm wondering what I'm doing wrong.
==Aelryinth
Patch 2.3.0 is now available on all servers and the core game!
==Aelryinth
Trahir,
Finally remembered the armor piece the barbs builds were using.
Leoric's Crown - Doubles the power of the gem slotted into a helm.
They were using it with diamonds to get 25% cooldown reduction, so their Wrath of the Berserker timers were shortening up.
==Aelryinth
Season 4 has begun!
Well, my default wizard got her head handed back to her on Tier 45 (Torment 10 rift). Simply didn't have the total damage necessary to kill the tough 'normals' quickly, and the elites just took waaaay too long (and killed her too fast).
I'll have to double to triple her base damage to be viable at Torment 10. Not sure how I'm going to do that. Hmm Hmm. Can't rely on just the random generated meteors anymore, probably. Need the staff that does extra meteor damage, maybe.
Ah, well. She should still work at Torment 9.
Now need to get a Yang Recurve bow for my marauder DH. 50% resource cost reduction means a LOT more Cluster Arrows! or Fire Multishots, we shall see...
I did find out that using Krider to use Elemental Arrow, it could still benefit from a Cube Buriza=Do "Pierce Twice" and even 'exploded' and left the burning ground behind.
But! Only for my personal shots, not sentry shots, more's the pity.
So much stuff to get Cubed. Heh.
==Aelryinth
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Debating what class to run to 70 for my seasonal achievements. I still need 2 wd, 1 barb and 1 crusader to hit my level 70 achieves, so probably one of those.
Played around a bit with my good dh the other night (can kinda t5 solo), and decided that for mats it was much better for me to run in t2 or t1 just for kill speed so that I can do an act bounty in 15-20 m depending on how many kill on 2nd level (or God forbid cydia) bounties I get. Three mats at 2 vs three at 4 so only leg drop is different. Not a big deal when I'm only hunting mats to feed my alt equipment builds to the cube.
Anyone had success with the gear tier upgrade recipe for the cube? My few experiments gave "no valid item" errors.
Unrelated, but I finally got my first ancient leg from a kadala gamble and it was a no orange power quiver that was kind horrible (-10% or more to all three fields).
Kinda makes me wonder what Kadala is doing with all those blood shards? Will the next Diablo game have our heroes facing off with Kadala and her army of blood golems?