LadyCrimson

If you can farm Act3 Inferno, this might be true. Act1 Inferno drops nothing but crud for your level. I see a whole lot of lvl 55 items, for example. Ok, I did find that Tal Rasha belt. But I mean..they suck 99% of the time. Just more efficient to farm gold as fast as possible and wait for someone to sell something on the AH you want. Sad but true. Altho, the patch may change this, with ilvl drops changing. I'll definitely be checking it out when that happens. At the moment Highlands to the Butcher in Act1 Inferno, about an hour, 80K-120K gold. But Act4 NM or Act2 Hell, I can make 300K in that hour because I can do multiple entire "runs" in that hour. Right now I just want to stock up on gold so I can stop thinking about stupid gold for a long while and just play. Plus, in anticipation of potential higher repair costs and dying a lot in Inferno Act3 or 4. After playing a DH and Barb into late Act3 NM, I can say....it's a Monk thing. They seem designed to be a lower dps but high survivability skills class, making up for the seemingly lower dps. It may say 13000dps on the stat sheet, but I dunno...sometimes I think the actual result may be quite a bit higher than the stat indicates. You could make a high dps Monk of course, and I'm sure some do, but they don't need to be, relatively speaking. My Dodge is only 31%, btw. Of course there's the bob and weave thing, too.

I was aware of that by the time I watched the movie, so that isn't my complaint. At least, not any more so than I would have watching "Mission Impossible" and going "yup it's a spy/suspense movie." eg, everything feels somewhat derivative to me these days so I try not to hold that against a film specifically anymore. I just found it kind of dull. The romance/chemistry between the leads didn't work for me, even on the shallow basis these types of film tend to use... and frankly, Carter's extreme leaping ability (even if it is on Mars) made me giggle. It started off reasonably enough, for fantasy, with Carter having trouble walking and such, then rapidly went to totally absurd. I know the material was written when people still thought there were "canals" that mean there might be life on Mars, and of course it's a fantasy, not reality. But still hard to suspend disbelief when the rest of the movie didn't capture my emotions/attention enough to forgive it and the only explanation they have is "Mars has different gravity than Earth" (Superman has alien DNA, Green Lantern has a magical ring, Luke has "The Force" etc). As filmed, perhaps if it had taken a more satirical approach I would have enjoyed it more. Not an over the top satirical...just the occasional knowing wink type.

Real Money AH is now available, according to what the login screen says. It shall be interesting to see how much this affects the gold AH. Mostly, I wonder if this will make the goldAH nowhere near as easy to "farm" as it has been, if that makes sense. We shall see. Either people will want more gold for good stuff because they figure some are just buying to turn around to sell on RMAH and they don't want that to be easy, or there will just be less and less "good" items on the goldAH. Or nothing will change. Heheh. Also...I have killed Izual 20-30 times now and he still has not dropped that staff. On the plus side, I discovered that you can farm quite a bit gold using Valor, even on late NM difficulty. eg, it's a ton easier than trying to farm the gold in Inferno. Sure you don't get as much per stack dropping, but with the speed you can kill everything (at lvl60)+the fact you can give up stats for gold find, it's way faster to accumulate 300K gold than farming Act1 Inferno.

I'm stubborn. (small pic) The big yellow hammer-carrying beast, before you get to her, one-hit me three times. Also...behold the awesome vendor sales and item drops of Inferno!

I saw one report that a quick fix made it so less gold will be dropped from vases in Act1 and the urns in Act4. I don't know how much less, but ... that could make the easy gold farming spots people were using less profitable. I mostly want items...either for me, or to sell on the AH. I sold my Dawn legendary for 125K. TeeHee. Still keeping my Tal Rasha belt tho. I could probably sell it for 1.5 million but...not right now.

After several reloads, finally managed to get a game without 2 champs in that spot. Moved verrrrrrry slowly around map edges and managed to clear enough to get to the first quest bits. Killed one Champ (purple) flying bug mob (barely, died once, Enrage activated but my life regen was enough to just survive that). Crossed bridge, skirted the map edges again, got to Alcarnus and managed to get the "City of Blood" checkpoint. So...going to stop there. Good checkpoint to restart at when I want to go back. Wish I could put on more MF gear to stack with Valor. 87% isn't enough.

Yesterday largely took a break from D3 and spent time in the yard reading under the shade, playing with the outdoor kitty...sunny and warm so it was nice. Then watched TV. Relaxed. Today it's supposed to be a bit warmer so I'll likely stay indoors (AC...) after I run some errands. I swear my tombstone will say "She sure did run a lot of errands."

KungFu Panda 2. It was "free." Watchable with some cute moments but the 1st was better. And of course, every time the duck-father Ping was on-screen, I kept thinking about Diablo3 (I'm Covetus Shen!)... Haven't seen the film, but I'd agree with this. Not that Kristen isn't cute or anything, but .... yeah.

Act2 Inferno - lawlz. My friends were right. It's a wall (without uber-gear). I can't even get past the first outer area outside of town yet (not the very first w/the poison fliers, but a bit after that). Champion mobs are doing 5000-10000 dmg and that doesn't include their special non-melee attacks. So in 3-5 seconds you can be dead. Even while kiting. Stupid Enchantress' attracted a 2nd Champ mob to me when they moved around. Hah. May be time to not use a Companion at all...when the game lets me. My stats. Dps is still "low" but that's really not the main problem at the moment. Hitting twice as hard still wouldn't kill them in that 3-5 seconds. That difficulty spike is insane. Anyway...Act2 Inferno, melee, I'd recommend: 700-800Resist All 1200+ Life Regen (I think this is the best melee stat after Resists, lets you tank Desecrator longer and such) 30-50K health (doesn't matter a whole lot, really) 8000+ armor 15-20k dps - Dunno about Barbs, but for Monks at least, you can get away with relatively low dps, but you do need to at least "keep up" somewhat. Just my opinion/playstyle tho. Farm Butcher w/stacked Valor, wait for patch.

I'm probably one of the few who doesn't mind the home-video cam or shaky cam in movies that much. Only time it bothers me is if it bobs and spins so much that it looks like a 5 year old on a merry go round is holding the camera for 90 minutes. Yeah, it doesn't always make story-sense that someone is holding a camera the whole time of the film, but then again, it's not sensical that we should be able to see the events going on in a film, anyway (that godly narrative perspective) so I guess I don't care. heh Anyway, last night we watched John Carter. I'm glad I didn't pay to see it in the theater. It wasn't terrible or anything, and I'm sure the effects looked cooler on the big screen, but it was pretty silly and overwrought. The best thing in the film was the "dog." I loved that "dog." I want one. The actors, btw, were not the problem. They seemed mostly fine for what the movie called for, even the guy playing John Carter.

I don't know what it is, but in Diablo games I've always sucked with bow characters. I've died several more times to Elites in Act3 NM with her than I ever did with the Monk, or the Barb, or the Wizard. Something about having to hit the shift, aim, fire, run, repeat. Micro lag (which I don't notice in melee, oddly) often has her firing behind her when I'm supposed to be running to the next retreat point, instead. And the Wiz doesn't really have to aim. I know the DH has the chakram and I use it, but then I feel like I may as well play the mage. Anyway....I'm hitting a play-entertainment wall. Keep trying to level up my alts but fall asleep after half an hour and do something else. MF'ing Inferno Act1 has been largely unproductive with my Monk so far (lots of Rares but nothing very good). Think I'll see what Act2 Inferno is like...assume I won't get very far....then I'll probably stop until they patch the game. I'll be interested when Torchlight2 comes out, how that compares to this game in terms of replayability.

The jeweler is way useful on the journey to lvl60, imo. Sure what he can craft will just get dropped later in the game, but if you're having trouble even getting to that later part of the game, it's well worth crafting those gems up...to a point. My gear has all kinds of gems in it. It's one of the better options for taking lesser gear and still being able to use it to get through the game. In my mid40's, I used a blue armor that had +104VIT and three sockets (green, green, purple)for a long time, and it was a while before I saw anything on the AH for my clvl that would beat it stat-wise (well, in the 10-20K price range anyway). And of course, Rares with sockets are very fun. However, I'm not convinced gems past the Flawless Square or Perfect Square (looks like a diamond shape) are worthwhile, except for lvl60 perfectionists. Or after an expansion, maybe. Not to mention, upgrading them becomes way expensive. I think that the Blacksmith, given plans, could be useful. His rares will start to have a lot more attributes (5, 6). But still the problem of random and cost. It seems designed largely to give endgame lvl60's something to do with all their gold and useless magic items. That developer discussion I mentioned earlier, they were mulling over the possibility of being able to use gems with the blacksmith to force a stat on a crafted item. Which could make him better, but I bet it'd be mega expensive in gold and gems required.

I've seen some shows about that, renting your apt. to convention people and whatnot. Like a temp. hotel service. Assuming your apt. is a place such folk would want to stay in. But...yeah...I don't think I'd like strangers parading through my house. I'd have to have a separate rental unit or something. Today I woke up early, caught up on chores, have yet more chores/errands, then I'll probably take a nap (because I'm old, or something).

Y'know, I was never a huge fan of his books. It's not about what's in them/the stories, it was his writing style. I tended to like his short stories more than novel-lengths. But he was a huge creative and other influence and will be sorely missed/mourned. At least he had a good long life.

Saw "Chronicle." Considering the good things I'd heard about it, I was prepared to be disappointed. But I liked it a lot. Not perfect, nothing ever is (eg, it was fairly predictable)....but for the type of film, it was pretty cool. I liked the understated aspect to most of the film, relative to big Hollywood flash in most pictures these days. I even felt a bit bad for the older cousin guy at the end. Anyway....thumbs up. Also, I'd love to be able to fly.

1.0.3 isn't out yet. But yeah...even tho I'm pretty sure you could make it (slowly) through Hell, at least, not using the AH - at least solo - all you'd be doing is spending all that money on the random blacksmith instead, or spending a lot of time farming with MF gear on (a lot more than you'd have to farm in D2, I mean). And thus, most people are going to say "screw the blacksmith, I'm spending my gold on the AH". Protip I discovered/learned recently: once your dps gets high enough, green gems in weapons gives you a bigger boost to dps than the red ones. It's a math thing...which I don't pretend to understand....but crit. damage is its own stat and as stats/damage increase, green is generally better. So...low lvls/low dps, red gems. Higher lvl/higher dps, green gems. Heh, yeah, I use Fleet Footed + fast run boots in order to deal with Elites. It helps (me) a lot to be able to run fast while kiting and running around those mobs, or when desperate, to run away in general. Faster I am, the more time I have to melee hit before having to start running away to recoup skill timers or escape wallers/fast runners etc. It also helps you run out of the Butcher's fire grating with less dmg. taken. But I could have changed it to something else for the Butcher. I like the Resolve one, I think it is. Where they do less dmg. to you for a few seconds when you hit them. News: According a recent developer public chat, or something, (AMAA?), in a future patch (not 1.0.3) will make it so first-kill on bosses will drop rares in all difficulties, not just Normal. They mentioned a lot of things that will likely be in future patches, mostly GUI/AH stuff, too. Other changes that will be in 1.0.3 that were not listed on that blog writeup: Confirms / 1.0.3 Additional Information:

Yay! I killed Inferno Butcher. 3 minutes, not too shabby. Not moving to Act2 yet tho...that difficulty spike they're patching sounds truly mean. Going to farm Act1 w/Neph Valor for a while instead, now that Elites don't pose too much trouble. I upgraded one more piece of gear for cheap for a bit more dex and a fair amount more of life-on-hit, but my dps was around 12500 98% of the time...nothing huge/uber. Mostly it's finding the right combo of skills/passives that work with what you have/your playstyle. Video (shows skill/stats at end): And that's why I don't want Inferno "nerfed" toooo much. Because when you beat something with less than the "top" gear, it does feel really awesome. Being able to beat the Elites is even better, tho.

Yet more tweaking and now have 400+resist all and my dps can be 11300 for consistent time, and 17500 for 2 sec. Blinding Flash bursts. At least I can farm Elites in the whole first half of Act1/Inferno now, with only a few to several deaths here and there instead of dozens. So I did. And... ...omg? 1st Set item I've seen. Now I have to decide whether to horde it or sell it for a ridiculous sum. I have a Wiz, but unlikely I'll play him long enough to have a whole Set?

Having played PoE, I can say with certainty that D3 has a lot more distinct levels than that. In Act1 for example, you have the outdoors, plenty of little caves, green brick dungeons, firey-brick dungeons etc., that all look fairly distinct. However .... I think that a lot of the D3 areas are rather bland. Not in the same way as PoE, but rather bland nonetheless. The "outdoor" areas in Act1 and Act2 especially. If I never see yellow/orange desert lands in a Diablo game again, I won't cry. Also, they feel kind of small, dungeons in particular. A lot of the little "caves" and things you may find and enter, consist largely of a few rooms, or one big room/cave. Some are larger and have a couple levels to them, but of those, most feel rather the same in design, with just slightly different pathing. However, you can't see them all in one game, so as you play through each difficulty, if you explore, you'll encounter a basement or an "event" that you didn't before, which is/was nice. One time, that door to a building is closed. Another time, it's an entrance to a set piece. I don't find the designs of the maps to actually be very random. Maybe a little, occasionally in some areas. Some areas are always exactly the same/set pieces - the jailer before the Butcher say. In dungeons, I think the game starts you at a different entrance location, ala Mephisto's levels in D2. Like having a maze square, and one time your chr. starts at the NE corner with the exit in the SW corner, another time you start in the SW corner and and the exit is in the NE corner, so to speak. So it seems different because you're approaching/moving from a different direction, and they place the objects and/or set pieces, if any, in slightly different places, to make it feel even a bit more different, but the map itself isn't changed much.

They've been doing patch notes like that with WoW for years. It goes up and down. Sometimes they'll do stuff with hardly a word, sometimes it's a long love letter. eg, they know how to time things to appease potential angry fanbases. Heheh.

Yeah....it's not even just about whether you can get Rares/Legendaries to drop, it's that when they do drop, the stats on them feel lower than what you're already wearing, considering the area/difficulty you're currently in. It's like being in a clvl30-35 area but feeling as if only ilvl25 items drop. It does get better at clvl60 with the NephValor, but with Inferno being Inferno...that means, for many, a lot of Hell MF'ing instead, which are not going to be the vaunted ilvl60 items most people want.

Interesting. More nerfing, in a way, of difficulty. So far it's minimal, imo, and decreasing the bizarre difficulty spike between Act1 Inferno and Act2 Inferno is a good thing (I have friends who have remarked on that) but I hope they don't do a whole lot more. I may complain about not being able to do Inferno yet, but I know why that is (my low dps, among other things) but at the same time, I think it should be left as something that's very very difficult for the "masses" to do. It should remain super-hardcore. There are some changes, of course, that could make it better for even the non-super-hardcore, or more engaging to continue trying, at least. For example, increasing that Enrage timer to 10 minutes. Also, one issue I have with Inferno is that, when you start Inferno (and possibly long long after that), because it seems to be all dps (and resists, possibly, for melee classes), is that you end up feeling like you MUST use certain skills. I *MUST* use Conviction Mantra. I *MUST* use Breath of Healing with the dps-boosting Rune. eg, it kills build diversity. What I'd like to see in D3 are these things: --Time before Enrage starts increased to 10 minutes. It's silly to assume everyone's going to be geared up via the AH to be able to kill all Elite packs etc. in that time frame. I can often kill things with terrible gear, but it will take me a long while. Enrage takes away the fun/satisfaction of beating stuff despite your low-tier gear. --change it so Elites/mobs in general cannot ever spawn right on top of or anywhere very close to checkpoints/entrances (at least in Inferno). They shouldn't spawn within initial visual screen radius, in other words. --Put a limit on how much you can sell stuff for on the goldAH (say, a million) but increase number of items you can put on AH at once to 20 --less randomization to crafted items. For instance, Rare items could have at least one or two static stats (always put on) with 2 random stats. And with plans, increase that to three static and three random, or whatever. --better combat options (skill wise or item-attribute wise) that allow for more diverse builds in Inferno so it doesn't become all about using only the dps-boosting skills to get the highest dps evah just to even survive.

HeeHeeHee. http://crimsonkeep.com/wallpapers/data/media/128/Diablo3-000090.jpg ...Enchantress for her attack speed bonus is much better. Makes normals like butter again. Still have to outrun/trick-lose a lot of Elites tho - geared up for 22% faster run without losing too much dmg. Was doing pretty well against the Butcher in terms of timing but alas, once he starts turning the entire room into fire, I couldn't quite make it...even a 3nd try with Conviction didn't work. Also, there are often a couple of Elites right on top or very near his Checkpoint and the game ended up putting me back in town (instead of at the checkpoint) one time for some reason. HeeHeeHee.

For my personal tastes, my gripe is that Hell is still too easy, while Inferno just gets retarded. Normal mobs, cake and pie even when in large numbers. http://crimsonkeep.c...lo3-000088a.jpg Elites/Cahmps, you just die. And die. And die. And die. If you're lucky you don't trigger Enrage and might get them after 10 deaths but otherwise, you're toast. Even with 365ResistAll now. http://crimsonkeep.c...lo3-000089a.jpg Still don't get how people get 30K+dps with no buffs on. That 15K I do is only for 2 seconds after I trigger Blinding Flash, and then it goes down to 10K or so (and 8500dps when healing spell buff goes off). I'm only 200Dex lower than a DH I know who has 29Kdps. I don't have a 1000dps weapon, however. Only a 525dps one. And I paid 100Kgold for that 525dps sword. And the shield I'm using. I've probably spent 1.5 million on gear + the stupid gemcrafting. Hehe. Yup.

If they didn't want people running past monsters, they wouldn't give fast run attributes to items and skills and they wouldn't have made the Act bosses 100% easier to defeat in Inferno (which is why running to them works). I wouldn't call that an exploit, it's just "cowardly." Heh. Or sneaky, like being a thief type. The real issue is that it's not actually impossible. You just need to have 50000dps, and even then you're going to die a lot. The problem is that to reach 50000dps you have to gold farm forever and then sit in the AH screen forever, pushing refresh, hoping the items that you want/need will be available and that you'll be able to hit "buy" before someone else does. That's horrendously boring (shopping the AH like that), and is just as much an "exploit" as running past everything, if you want to call the latter an exploit, because it's cowardly and lazy. eg, you didn't earn it yourself. Yeah...the melee classes in Inferno have it tougher because we have to actually stand in all that arcane laser/fire stuff to do damage. Ranged classes can get away with less resistances and all of that. I'm a pretty good "kiter" but it just gets ridiculous in Inferno, unless you have crazy amounts of dps.