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Diablo III: Ultimate Evil Edition |OT| Loot has never looked this good before!

joeblow

Member
ive realised that as i get more damage and further up the levels, i use WAY less skills.

With my current build, i can do T4 quite well. Im only using literally one attack the whole time (Shield Bash).

Im not using any primary skills.
Im using 2 types of wrath regen (provoke and blinding stare)
Akkarats champion (prophet)
Laws of whatever (Wrath in half)
Horsey thing (Run away and heal)

With the Piro Mirella - its basically shield bash non stop, then balancing my wrath regen.

Its working..but its less fun?

When i see the stampede build its the same spamming all over. The Shotgun build its the same thing. Blessed shield same thing non stop.

I think i enjoyed the game more when i was taking my time using more skills on T1...where as with T4 and beyond i guess its about maximising your gear and using that one skill over and over?
That isn't accurate. I've had the PS4 game since launch and am now L70 / P300+ with my Crusader and played solo the entire time. I've ben destroying T6 for a week or so, and manhandling T4&5 well before that. This is all without trading for any gear upgrades.

However, it's only this weekend that I finally tried some cookie cutter builds. My own custom setups were doing fine, especially because I carefully sync'd my gear with my chosen skills.

For eons I was rocking the Captain's three piece as the only armor set because final Akkan gear kept eluding me. Really, it is now that I have the full set (along with recent, awesome, SoJ and RRoG drops) that T6 is no longer a challenge. My skill selections, which may have 4-5 attacks, were doing a ton of work even if they did it a bit slower than the mega-power builds. For the longest, I didn't even use AC so the game is more flexible than it may appear.

But you are right though: one-attack wonders are less fun to play than builds with varied offensive skills.
 

redwolflim

Neo Member
if anyone wants to join up with raptor or myself we're doing the usual

hit me up, psn blacksalad_

we're doing T6/grifts, so any adventure mod peeps are welcome!

Hey blacksalad sorry about earlier on. I did not have the rift stone to enter, and I was going out soon as well. I hope I could run T6 with you guys in the future with my monk.
 

ZenaxPure

Member
That isn't accurate. I've had the PS4 game since launch and am now L70 / P300+ with my Crusader and played solo the entire time. I've ben destroying T6 for a week or so, and manhandling T4&5 well before that. This is all without trading for any gear upgrades.

Honestly T6 doesn't mean much anymore as every class has a bunch of builds that can do T6 in 2.1. Greater Rifts are a better measuring stick for what your build can handle, the stampede build for example is fairly easy to reach the high 30s with and break past GR 40 with enough skill/RNG.
 
Actually this isn't entirely accurate, a while back they changed how DoTs work so that they can no longer crit, but, their damage is now based on your weapon damage, crit chance, and crit hit damage. Sources offer 10% crit that directly increases the damage of your Firebird DoT that a 2h can't get.

Now that said a perfectly rolled Furnace is probably your best option, but, if you don't have one but you DO have a really good Sunkeeper and Firebird Source you are probably better off using that. Like the top 5 wizards on the seasonal GR leaderboard on PC, 2 of them are using Sunkeeper + Firebird source and 3 are using a Furnace. The number 1 guy is using Sunkeeper + Firebird. Basically my point is you should use whatever you have with the best rolls, until you get a Furnace.

I didn't realize it took other things besides weapon damage into consideration! Very interesting. I've played around with a 1h though (I have a decent sun keeper + fb source) and it literally cuts my damage in half without adding survivability. I'll have to play around a bit more I suppose.
 

ZenaxPure

Member
I didn't realize it took other things besides weapon damage into consideration! Very interesting. I've played around with a 1h though (I have a decent sun keeper + fb source) and it literally cuts my damage in half without adding survivability. I'll have to play around a bit more I suppose.

It's just a really squishy build. If you aren't using the Illusionist passive you should, it's pretty much key for surviving (and helps with the Zei gem obviously). As for cutting your damage, if you mean your sheet damage remember that your sheet damage is not accurate for your real damage so the 20% fire damage from the source and the 30% damage from sunkeeper won't be represented on your character screen.
 
It's just a really squishy build. If you aren't using the Illusionist passive you should, it's pretty much key for surviving (and helps with the Zei gem obviously). As for cutting your damage, if you mean your sheet damage remember that your sheet damage is not accurate for your real damage so the 20% fire damage from the source and the 30% damage from sunkeeper won't be represented on your character screen.

I mean my actual damage ticks I'm seeing on enemies.
 

ZenaxPure

Member
I mean my actual damage ticks I'm seeing on enemies.

Could just be that your 2h weapon just overshadows your 1h/source setup. I had a fairly average Maximus vs a really great Devastator + FB Source + Magefist (since using the source frees up another gear slot for set bonuses) and the ticks were pretty much the same between the two setups. It wasn't until I equipped my Furnace where I saw a noticeable difference in the damage.
 
They added a lightning and fire rune for blizzard in 2.1.
Ah, it seems Apocalypse does Fire now, but it's not mentioned in the Game Guide.
Anyone else unable to search for Items lately?

This thread should answers like all of your mechanical questions I believe.
Yes, that was super helpful. A few questions.

Attack speed doesn't alter the tick rate, obviously, but it also doesn't alter the damage being done by the Firebird effect? Oh, but it also doesn't alter the threshold? So high AS well let you cross the threshold more quickly than low AS? AS 2.0 will let you reach infinite DoT in half the time, but will only do half as much actual damage per second as you might expect?

So, for determining the threshold, you use only your FDI and A1 buffs, but all buffs apply for crossing the threshold? So increasing my Fire Damage or slotting Glass Cannon/Magic Weapon is self-canceling, but a 15% bonus for Disintegrate or from Audacity means 15% fewer hits to cross the threshold?

Because crits are pre-calculated in to the threshold, but still rolled on the fly, even if you're hitting with something that does 900% damage, it won't always take exactly 10 hits to apply in infinite DoT; it just depends on how your crits roll during the battle? And it'd prolly take 11 hits anyway, since your threshold is determined by your max damage, not your average?

Every application of Fire refreshes the full effect? So I have an unlimited amount of time to cross the threshold, as long as I don't go more than 3s between applications? And that's kept alive by DoT such as Ignite, Conflagration MM:Conflagrate, and Apocalypse?

Kinda off-topic, but would Conflagration MM:Conflagrate and Ignite keep each other alive, like a poor man's Firebird? The fire damage from the Ignite should keep refreshing the Conflagration MM:Conflagrate stacks, which should then in turn re-proc Ignite whenever they tick, right? And then the Ignite procs would stack… whoa.
 

ZenaxPure

Member
Yes, that was super helpful. A few questions.

I think most if not all of what you say is accurate, but, I am not really knowledgeable about Firebird, I only recently started playing it myself. Yeah, attack speed does absolutely nothing for the damage of the DoT, the formula for it is in that thread. It just helps you get there faster if you are using a skill that is effected by attack speed.

Kind of a side note, but, one of the reasons Blizzard is the most popular skill for stacking it is obviously because of GR damage, white mobs will destroy you even in the early 30 GRs so having something you can cast and then kite enemies around is really key. If you are doing just T6 you can use basically any fire skill you want to stack it and it should work fine. Blizzard is still going to be really good because you can drop it and just run to the next pack as the current one dies, but, you can make anything work really at that difficulty if you want.

As for the procs I am honestly not sure how all of that works now in regards to firebird.
 
I think most if not all of what you say is accurate, but, I am not really knowledgeable about Firebird, I only recently started playing it myself. Yeah, attack speed does absolutely nothing for the damage of the DoT, the formula for it is in that thread. It just helps you get there faster if you are using a skill that is effected by attack speed.
Cool. Thanks again.

Kind of a side note, but, one of the reasons Blizzard is the most popular skill for stacking it is obviously because of GR damage, white mobs will destroy you even in the early 30 GRs so having something you can cast and then kite enemies around is really key. If you are doing just T6 you can use basically any fire skill you want to stack it and it should work fine. Blizzard is still going to be really good because you can drop it and just run to the next pack as the current one dies, but, you can make anything work really at that difficulty if you want.
Gotcha. I was actually thinking that if you had a Woh, you could use Chain Reaction to "instantly" apply sufficient damage, if you can find a 44% buff for it outside of FDI and A1. Then you just need something that automatically roots dudes that are on fire. lol Hmm, maybe Slow Time or something like that… I know ST is centered on you; does it follow you, or stay put?

As for the procs I am honestly not sure how all of that works now in regards to firebird.
I actually just tested MM:Conflagrate and Ignite, and the burning animation disappeared after 3s, so I guess they don't refresh/stack each other.
 

ZenaxPure

Member
Gotcha. I was actually thinking that if you had a Woh, you could use Chain Reaction to "instantly" apply sufficient damage, if you can find a 44% buff for it outside of FDI and A1. Then you just need something that automatically roots dudes that are on fire. lol Hmm, maybe Slow Time or something like that… I know ST is centered on you; does it follow you, or stay put?

Slow time just sticks to one place, but... assuming they fixed the bug (which they said they did in 2.1 but I have no idea) using slow time does not remove the last one so you can have a crazy amount of them out under certain circumstances. Actually slow time + mirror image (with the rune that gives you 4 instead of 2) is one of my hilarious/favorite skill combinations because each mirror image will cast a slow time before they leave which can cover entire rooms a lot of times.
 
Slow time just sticks to one place, but... assuming they fixed the bug (which they said they did in 2.1 but I have no idea) using slow time does not remove the last one so you can have a crazy amount of them out under certain circumstances. Actually slow time + mirror image (with the rune that gives you 4 instead of 2) is one of my hilarious/favorite skill combinations because each mirror image will cast a slow time before they leave which can cover entire rooms a lot of times.

It can also slow frame rates when there's also a bunch of other stuff on the screen. It's awesome!

I prefer using Miror Images with Black Holes.
 
OK. What would be option...B?

Type out my gear names and skill set up?
Some people take a bunch of screenshots, and post a link to an Imgur album. I was thinking it might be more efficient to export a video where you slowly scroll through all of your gear, but that would be kinda hard to reference. lol

Here's my general advice on gear. For each piece, you get four primary affixes, and two secondary affixes. However, certain bonuses are only able to be rolled on specific pieces of gear. For example, Resource Cost Reduction can only be rolled on Shoulders, Gloves, jewelry, and weapons. So if you need RCR, you should probably make sure you have some on your gloves, because you ain't gettin any from your boots. Armed with this information, you can design the "perfect" gloves. In your case, they might have CDR, CHC, IAS, Area Damage, Thorns, and Stun. Then whenever you pick up a new set of gloves, you can compare them to your ideal, and see how closely they match. Of course, with a different build, you may have a completely different set of priorities for your affixes.

So I'd say share your skill set, and then we can get a general idea of what you're looking for from your gear. Like, if you're better off on improving your attack speed, or should you focus on crit chance instead. That stuff would mostly be determined by the skills you and your other party members are running.
 
Slow time just sticks to one place, but... assuming they fixed the bug (which they said they did in 2.1 but I have no idea) using slow time does not remove the last one so you can have a crazy amount of them out under certain circumstances. Actually slow time + mirror image (with the rune that gives you 4 instead of 2) is one of my hilarious/favorite skill combinations because each mirror image will cast a slow time before they leave which can cover entire rooms a lot of times.
I was actually thinking about MI too. I assume the clones could help me stack up Firebird, just like a hydra would?
 

joeblow

Member
Honestly T6 doesn't mean much anymore as every class has a bunch of builds that can do T6 in 2.1. Greater Rifts are a better measuring stick for what your build can handle, the stampede build for example is fairly easy to reach the high 30s with and break past GR 40 with enough skill/RNG.

That's what I'm saying as well. He was bothered by the fact that he was spamming one skill in T4. I was pointing out that you can use a variety of setups that focus on multiple attacks to easily handle T6, let alone T4.

I acknowledge that the meta-builds are better, but if a player wants some fun trying to synergize lesser-used skills, runes, and gear the game allows you to do that anywhere except high level GRs.
 

Hugstable

Banned
Just picked this game up for my PS4 and was wondering what the most fun class to choose to someone who hasn't played any D3 before. I used to love playing a Zealot and Ice Orb Sorc back in D2, as well as Barb, and just started a Diablo 3 game on hard as a Crusader, but I never know if the class I'm gonna pick is gonna have fun skills or boring ones. Also would that class be viable in the harder difficulties for the end game since I'm still pretty much a beginner at Diablo with a controller.
 

Jolkien

Member
Just picked this game up for my PS4 and was wondering what the most fun class to choose to someone who hasn't played any D3 before. I used to love playing a Zealot and Ice Orb Sorc back in D2, as well as Barb, and just started a Diablo 3 game on hard as a Crusader, but I never know if the class I'm gonna pick is gonna have fun skills or boring ones. Also would that class be viable in the harder difficulties for the end game since I'm still pretty much a beginner at Diablo with a controller.

Any class is viable. The most OP build right now is in my opinion Demon Hunter. (Sentry build are super strong)
 

HORRORSHØW

Member
Just picked this game up for my PS4 and was wondering what the most fun class to choose to someone who hasn't played any D3 before. I used to love playing a Zealot and Ice Orb Sorc back in D2, as well as Barb, and just started a Diablo 3 game on hard as a Crusader, but I never know if the class I'm gonna pick is gonna have fun skills or boring ones. Also would that class be viable in the harder difficulties for the end game since I'm still pretty much a beginner at Diablo with a controller.
you made the right choice with the crusader if you're looking for a class to ease you into the game. they hit hard and can take a punishment, and they can transition into end-game really well (depending on items, of course).
 

HORRORSHØW

Member
gr35 with a whole second to spare

B0V7JptCYAAWR1r.jpg
 

ZenaxPure

Member
That's what I'm saying as well. He was bothered by the fact that he was spamming one skill in T4. I was pointing out that you can use a variety of setups that focus on multiple attacks to easily handle T6, let alone T4.

I acknowledge that the meta-builds are better, but if a player wants some fun trying to synergize lesser-used skills, runes, and gear the game allows you to do that anywhere except high level GRs.

Oh yeah for sure, you can get by with nearly anything on T6 with smart gearing/skill choice in 2.1. It was something I noticed immediately in seasons on PC when I got most of my characters up to T5 in like a day and a half tops starting from scratch. Legendary gems and the various skill buffs in 2.1 plus new legendaries opened a lot of experimentation for T6. I've been a big fan of that aspect of the patch, T6 is still viable for farming gear and it finally offers the kind of build customization a game like this should have. There is obviously still a lot of room for improvement, but, it'll come with time.
 

domstah

Member
Torment 1 feels like hard difficulty should have been. I'm a 61 Monk in the last third of Act Three and the challenge of T1 is makes the game far more interesting than the other difficulties.

Game just keeps getting better.
 

Jolkien

Member
Torment 1 feels like hard difficulty should have been. I'm a 61 Monk in the last third of Act Three and the challenge of T1 is makes the game far more interesting than the other difficulties.

Game just keeps getting better.

Wait till you unlock Adventure mode. Aka the real game :)
 

joeblow

Member
Oh yeah for sure, you can get by with nearly anything on T6 with smart gearing/skill choice in 2.1. It was something I noticed immediately in seasons on PC when I got most of my characters up to T5 in like a day and a half tops starting from scratch. Legendary gems and the various skill buffs in 2.1 plus new legendaries opened a lot of experimentation for T6. I've been a big fan of that aspect of the patch, T6 is still viable for farming gear and it finally offers the kind of build customization a game like this should have. There is obviously still a lot of room for improvement, but, it'll come with time.

One thing that should be re-emphasized on this topic is that while focusing on specific skill builds is not overly important through T6, focusing on getting (and enchanting) good gear is definitely a lot more important.

Example For awhile I was throwing all my Blood Shards at Kadala hoping to get an improved Akkhan Glove set piece.The one I had was decent (max cold down, near max crit rate%) , but I wanted it to also have Critical Damage%. So ten days and eight junked Pride of the Invokers later, one finally dropped in a normal Rift which gave me +46% crit damage and a good Crit Rate (I enchanted for cool down). With that one change, mobs that were no big deal with the old glove started melting away noticeably faster with the new glove. I didn't change anything else.

So for people trying to get more damage/protection/healing in this game as they put their outfits together, listen to these experts here. Their advice has helped me know what to focus on, and it makes a far bigger difference in non-GR gameplay than the skills you choose.
 
One thing that should be re-emphasized on this topic is that while focusing on specific skill builds is not overly important through T6, focusing on getting (and enchanting) good gear is definitely a lot more important.

Example For awhile I was throwing all my Blood Shards at Kadala hoping to get an improved Akkhan Glove set piece.The one I had was decent (max cold down, near max crit rate%) , but I wanted it to also have Critical Damage%. So ten days and eight junked Pride of the Invokers later, one finally dropped in a normal Rift which gave me +46% crit damage and a good Crit Rate (I enchanted for cool down). With that one change, mobs that were no big deal with the old glove started melting away noticeably faster with the new glove. I didn't change anything else.
That's what I was saying about getting an idea of what four affixes the ideal piece of gear for a given slot will provide you. If you know your ideal gloves should be providing you with CDR, CHC, CHD, and Area Damage, and in that order, it's easy to look at a given set of gloves and know how useful they really are for you. Also, this makes it easier to identify stuff that "needs" to be upgraded. Worry about replacing the stuff that only hits one out of four of your goals before you start worrying about the gear that's already three out of four.

Also, if a piece of gear hits three out of four, it's easy to know what to enchant, but even if it hits only one or two, knowing what's most important for your build will help you decide not only what needs to be rolled on to the gear, but also which stat is least useful to you and can be safely rolled off.

Oh, and this thing is super useful for figuring out what stats come from which gear. For example, apart from maybe some Skill++, there isn't much interesting you can roll on pants. That being the case, it's a good place to pick up the "basics," like $PRIMARY, Vit, Armor/Resist, etc. Having stocked your pants with the basics, you can then focus on the more esoteric stuff like CDR for your gloves. And don't forget to budget sockets for your jewelry, shirt, and pants.
 

Laconic

Banned
It's just a really squishy build. If you aren't using the Illusionist passive you should, it's pretty much key for surviving (and helps with the Zei gem obviously). As for cutting your damage, if you mean your sheet damage remember that your sheet damage is not accurate for your real damage so the 20% fire damage from the source and the 30% damage from sunkeeper won't be represented on your character screen.

My Barb does something like 475k damage per sheet.

He rolls mid-30 GRfits. With ease.

97% Fire damage (79% since I got the Cameo)
67% Elite damage
41% CC
480% CHD

Sunkeeper + stat stick Devastator.
 

junglist

Member
I can assume most of the people I added are from the states? So with the time zone difference I probably wont game with you until the weekend...


But yeah, since adding about 10 of the Gaffers, I sent gifts, recieved gifts but I havent played with anyone yet..

Oh yeah and fought a shit ton of Nemesis'....
 
My Barb does something like 475k damage per sheet.

He rolls mid-30 GRfits. With ease.

97% Fire damage (79% since I got the Cameo)
67% Elite damage
41% CC
480% CHD

Sunkeeper + stat stick Devastator.
If you scroll to where it shows your 97% Fire Damage Increase in your Details, the description will show your adjusted Fire Damage. That's your "sheet damage" for fire attacks. Should show like 935,750 if your Damage is exactly 475,000.
 

Svafnir

Member
So I made a new character on seasons and Mad Monarch's Scepter is making things way easier. I got one at level 20 and the proc is so strong it basically kills enemies in one hit. It's awesome.

I think leveling and gearing up before the crazy itemization of greater rifts and t6 is the most fun part of the game. You can pretty much use any item and you are rewarded for experimenting. Where as level 70 and end game is... use the best items in the game or you are SOL.
 

Number45

Member
So I made a new character on seasons and Mad Monarch's Scepter is making things way easier. I got one at level 20 and the proc is so strong it basically kills enemies in one hit. It's awesome.

I think leveling and gearing up before the crazy itemization of greater rifts and t6 is the most fun part of the game. You can pretty much use any item and you are rewarded for experimenting. Where as level 70 and end game is... use the best items in the game or you are SOL.
You do realise how cruel it is posting this in a thread dedicated to a version of the game that will never get these items? :'(
 
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