LadyCrimson

Ok, that's what I've been using, along with Cleave once in a while. I know that given the right gear/skill setup, WW can be good even in Inferno, but I disliked WW in D2 and still dislike it in D3. It doesn't feel.....I dunno, like something a big, muscled, sword-swinging melee dude should be doing. He's not a magical ninja chr. or agile, ballet-like fencer. Maybe I'm weird. Anyway...he's lvl 52 in Act1 Hell. Getting my alts to lvl 60 feels like it's taking forever, I guess because I don't find playing them all that interesting. My DH is lvl53 and kinda stuck on Hell Butcher. She's way too crunchy even with 20K+ health...I don't get the Shadow/disappear skill, either. I use it, it lasts 1.5 seconds, and doesn't seem to prevent her from visible to enemies/being attacked at all, hence seems pointless. Am I missing something? (edit: diamond skin on the wiz seems much more effective...)

I've had a glitchy Cain ever since the recent patch, which led to this amusing (to me) moment. Note, it's a Cain plot spoiler, if you're unaware of it already. Edit: btw, what's the best melee skill for the barb, in your opinion? Not whirlwind, please.

First one I actually owned? Oh dear, i don't even remember. I'd have to ask hubby. He actually had the "early" stuff cause he was into it before I even met him (he probably once had a used TRS-80 and the Com.64, that sort of thing). So when we first moved in together, it was "his" computer/s. He'd build his own and go out hunting for bargain used HDD's that were big, heavy, and had tiny space. I don't think I got one that was entirely for myself until about ... um ... 1992? Darn, was that 20 years ago already? I know hubs dealt with Ms-Dos and Windows versions pre-3, so I do vaguely remember those because of that, but I didn't get into PC's much until 3.1. I think. And until Doom/Myst, I didn't use the PC for anything but word processing. Bah, too long ago.

That would be more interesting and open up more tactics to gearing up, for sure. I was thinking about that the other day, how you can have all the Resists in the world and still be constantly Feared. Or I've had monsters cast Wall right on top of me, so I'm literally stuck in the wall and can't move until it collapses. Really sucks when you're melee. Nice find for a 2H Barb, especially if it had some str or vit attached to it. I've actually tried a no-dex, blue/magic 900dps Fist Weapon, but without all the extra dex like my current Fists have, the dps improvement is almost zero. Not to mention no life on hit=a lot less survivability. One day I might have enough dex or life on hit on other gear for that to work, but not at the moment.

God, I love my black cat. The way he stands up on hind legs, giving me a belly "hug" while I scratch his chin. Or when I'm doing the dishes and suddenly there's paws patting/grabbing me on the back....it's just so adorable/endearing, even with the belly/back scratches sometimes. On some days, it's what makes life tolerable. When my sister-in-law saw him do it, she said "that is one huge cat." lol. He is the awesome. Whatever your pet of choice, they are definitely a great anti-depressant sometimes.

I'm sure luck and patience can get you some better armor items than what we have, but I haven't seen a Monk weapon in ages. Still....maybe it's just me. I also think the player base has dropped off a lot since the first couple weeks, which doesn't help. Anyway....after an embarrassingly large number of hours played all I've seen is one Set belt, 2 low lvl Uniques 1 mid-lvl Unique, and the Andariel Unique. But since most Uniques aren't very great anyway, I focus more on Rares. And despite numerous evenings of farming Act1/Inferno I have yet to have any "good" weapon (for any class) drop that has more than about 500dps. I have had some 650dps 2H hammers drop, but they were only good for the Enchantress (high INT). @MrBrown - yeah, one doesn't absolutely have to use the AH. The issue, as far as I'm concerned, isn't that the AH exists, or that one needs to farm a lot to get the truly great stat gear- it's that because of the AH, Blizzard purposely created an item system that makes it far more difficult than D1/D2 to progress without a certain level of stats and items that largely come from...the area above you. Plus, the items are farking boring, which = less motivation to keep you farming for all those hours/days that might be required, hence many end up going to the AH, even if only for a few things. What happened to the low-mid level Uniques/attributes that were still used/coveted by high level players? MageFists? RavenFrost? Lidless Wall? Plus to all skills? Faster Cast Rate (separate from/not just IAS)? Faster Hit Recovery? Can't Be Frozen? Prevent Monster Heal? ...now it's just "main stat/VIT + resists + armor/dr or toss it." When everything seems/feels just about the dps/resists, the motivation isn't exactly huge to farm for days to get an item that has....more dps. I mean, yay, a Rare with +35 more dex and vit than what I have on. Useful? Marginally. Interesting/motivating? Not a bit. Sigh....but, that's me and my ranting. I'm going back to Nation Red for a while. Mindless bursts of violence. Kewl.

On another topic: I guess I was wrong about the RMAH vs. the goldAH. I think decent lvl60 items have all but disappeared from the gAH in the past days. I thought there would be enough players who didn't care about RMAH to keep the goldAH viable, but either the lvl60 gear you want is millions or billions (I mean really, has anyone made 4billion in gold in this game in a month?) or it's just not there. This is the gear I currently use most of the time on my Monk - tho I have all star gems now, no squares. The amulet and the better ring, in particular, haven't seen anything like it on the gAH since. And can't find any weapons better than mine, even for a million gold. Now that I don't have the "digital copies must wait 3 days" bug, I can see the RMAH listings, and that's where they all are. Btw, only 3 items I'm wearing I found myself. By Inferno, it was all about the AH. I guess with the patch, that could change somewhat, but it's still aggravating to have a clvl50 Rare drop in Act2 Inferno. clvl50? Really? Crafting costs for some Inferno blacksmith items have gone down (but only for 4-5 attribute ones), but the mat. costs haven't, and those Inferno mats aren't exactly super-fast to accrue. Apologies for my long winded ranty posts. I don't think I've ever had a game where I've had this degree of a conflicting love and hate relationship and it drives me crazy...even when I'm not playing much anymore. (edit: the attack speed items are lesser, now, of course. Andariel's helm dropped to 5% instead of 12, I think, etc)

The Barb (and the Monk) are both engines of death (assuming good gear, likely AH'd, and effective skill setup) until Inferno. And again, once you have good gear, can be pretty good death engines in Act1 Inferno. Try running WhimsyShire Inferno with one tho....keep in mind it's not that you can't kill everything, it's that you can't stand still and do it, unless you like death-zerging. The concept of old-school "tanking" just isn't there. Now, it's possible if you can somehow get over 100K health + 1200 life on hit + 1200 life regen + 800+Resists and other uber gear/stats, that you can do it with mobs and some less difficult Elites. Everything/everywhere? Most likely not. And not many average players are going to be able to get gear like that to begin with. My Monk can stand in Arcane sentries in Act1 Inferno to a degree. Depends how many there are tho. 2-3 ok, a huge cluster of them, not as much. In Act2, can take it for 3-5 seconds. But after that, especially if they have more than just the Arcane (like Arcane+Desecration or Molten etc), I have to run. Plague, oddly, is less damaging than most of the other DoT stuff. I can often stand in that for a very long time. Also, humor: http://us.battle.net...89888966?page=1

I saw an ad for that and I was like, "wtf?" The idea is just crazy enough it might work.

Iron Man2 was watchable, but yeah, had none of the depth (for a superhero flick) that Iron Man1 did. My thoughts on Iron Man3? .... don't care, really. Like many movie series these days, if the first one was awesome, the rest will be....not so awesome. There are exceptions (SpiderMan2 comes to mind) but typically, I expect nothing from sequels. However, I'll probably still see IM3 when it comes to my cable TV. I figure it'll at least be mindlessly watchable like the 2nd one. As to will it make money.....yes, yes it will, since you have to include worldwide profit these days. Unless of course they spend 500million making it or something, maybe. But if 3 is terrible/only breaks even, a 4th movie becomes unlikely, imo. And I like Bale as Batman. I do not like him as Bruce Wayne, however. There's a difference there. Oddly, I think Michael Keaton made the best Bruce Wayne (in film) even if he doesn't look the part to my mind, but his Batman was a bit weak.

Hehehe yeah....i've seen groups like that. The person actually playing, and then this whole squad of other people farming. There is no such thing as true tanking in Diablo3. If you can do it, you're either overleveled or over-geared for an area, and from what I've seen/heard (and judging from my previous and still current Act2 experiences), you can't be over-geared for Act3/Act4 inferno Elites. The patch has made it easier, but ... yeah, no. I know another Barb who had hoped that the patch would mean he could tank Act2 Inferno because of his very frequent 150K crits build, but nope, he just died and died still.

Starship Troopers is one of my "guilty pleasures." The original one at least. I tried watching one of those horrible sequels once. Never again. Kind of like how in Walking Dead season2, they hardly fight any zombies. It's a little slow (the human interest stuff, like I mentioned). And yes it's silly. I must admit that half of my like for the show probably stems from the Pope character. I always like those types of characters. And in terms of the day/night thing....that was the first thing that came to my mind watching the very first episode ... "these aliens must be day-sleepers or something, because the confrontations are always at night." I liked the premiere the other day tho....I wonder what they'll do with the Ben/son chr....

Dear Diary: today I cleaned up cat hairballs off the area rug. Also, I ate some spicy mango meatballs, which was yummy. The two things are completely unrelated, btw. Just saying.

917. I "could read War and Peace in 10 hours and 40 minutes." Faster than I expected, not a good test, like already mentioned. Sounds about right for "in the zone" fiction reading however....not that I would actually remember even half of the book afterwards, mind you. Actual retention of specific things is not a part of my casual/fiction reading speed (I'll just remember the basics of the story, main chrs, emotions it brought out in me etc). If I was reading a textbook or something, trying to learn, it slows waaaaaaay down. Couldn't figure out how to make their html code post a pic in the forum so I screenshotted it instead.

@entreix - the bnet forums are good for a laugh, and the occasional bug/glitch info. That's about it. Repairs....yeah...if you don't die, the repair fees are still reasonable. More than they were, but I haven't found them to be that much. But die 3-5 times trying to kill some Elite mob with horrid attribute rolls and you're suddenly looking at 20K repair bills. But....thing is, once you're lvl60 and can farm Act4/Hell and/or Act1/Inferno in relative safety, the money just rolls in. I was down to 250K gold yesterday morning (bought something on the AH ), spent a few hours testing the patch, and I'm back at 600K gold. However, it does still suck because that hour or three you spent Valor-farming an area for gold and items to vendor/sell could have been spent doing something else. Re: difficulty changes - yup, it's quite nerfed now. Keep in mind I spent almost a week farming and "shopping" for gear for my Monk, to try to make Act2/Inferno manageable, and largely failed. So my gear, while not even close to the best of the best, is not exactly shabby either. eg, I'm sure people first entering each Act will find it very hard still. But with my setup, the patch made Act2 more than twice as easy as before. Oasis/Desert Sands/Kulle's Archives were basically impossible for me, Elite-wise. Dead in 4-8 seconds. Now those same areas, I can faceroll half the Elites I encountered, kite most of the others, and one or two per "area" would kill me 3-5 times before I got them all. Before, I couldn't even whittle them down at all, so it was useless. I'd just run. So anyway....yea...it's a lot easier now, relatively speaking. For my Monk at least. I'm sure by late Act3 or Act4 it'd be horrible again, with the never ending hunt for more uber gear. But compared to what it was...drastic change. For Act1, it means I can now wear a whole lot of MF gear and still faceroll everything there. Crazy. P.S. but even with the increased/better item droppage, think I'll delay going further into Inferno. Still burnt out on the game from pre-patch Act2 frustration. heh

"We'll just get some of those cheap hotdogs, buns, canned mandarin oranges at CostCo." ...later.... Meatballs, two kinds of sandwich meat, a huge platter of breakfast pastry thingies, beef jerky, frozen chicken, bread, etc. At least I don't have to go to the grocery store now.

Checked....they're now lvl59. Which is better than lvl13, but they still lost a level. Took a while to get them to 60, too. Oh well, better than before. Side note: never go to CostCo when hungry.

It's worse. You don't gain XP anymore either. Neither followers or player chrs. My lvl60 monk is still lvl60, but my lvl 30 alt's xp bar now looks like this, with the important part being that "0" for xp needed to level: Killed a few things, the xp bar didn't budge/numbers didn't change. However my mule chr. who's only lvl 6 does gain experience and has a "xp for next level" number instead of a 0. So the issue seems to be that the patch reverts people (some? all? don't know?) to "starter accounts" (eg, like the beta), hence no xp. gain if you're higher lvl than than 13 already. Current player-workaround found is to reset/change your bnet account password. Why this would fix it, I don't know. Not to mention, I shouldn't have to do something like that in the first place, to fix a game bug. I'll wait and see if they hotfix it later themselves.

So I have the patch. Checked out Act1. Things seems to hurt less, even w/my MF gear on. Crafting prices as advertised. Higher ilvl blue items (most rares I found didn't fall into that category yet, however). However....after noticing my Enchantress was constantly dying, I opened her stats windows. She's now lvl13 (instead of 60). I went back to town. All the companions were lvl13, with all gear "padlocked"/unusable. wtf bug? Anyone hear of this? Tried resetting quest, reloading game, etc. They're still lvl13. Now, not a huge big deal, it's only the companions right, but that's still a huge bug, imo.

Logan has the most adorable blond curls for hair. I remember that bridge when my teen boyfriend (not my husband) and I drove across it on the way back from WA after his relatives up there gave him a car (flew up, drove down). Love the pics, looks like a lot of fun, brings back memories too. Hubs would like that Til. cheese place tho, I bet. He loves cheese, and I buy that brand a lot.

Gave up trying to kill most stuff and would lure them to far corners, let them kill me, and skirt/mad dash past them etc. So in that way I made it to the next "Start Quest" point in Act2 (where you do the 3 dungeon levels then confront Kulle boy). Now I can go back to Act1 and farm. Or wait for the patch. Or play alts. Or watch TV. Anything but more Act2. Probably spent 600K gold in the past few days trying to gear up slightly better and it didn't help a lick. Couldn't find a skill-set up that worked any better, either. It's just partly luck (the elite modifiers) of the draw and partly ... something else I haven't figured out yet. Diablo2's expansion came out after about a year or year and a half. Don't remember exactly. I wouldn't expect D3's expansion to come out any sooner than that either. I'm sure it's half done already tho. And yeah, the AH prices have gone skyhigh kablam....also, the selection (at least for Monk stat items) for lvl59-60 stuff has dropped quite a bit I think, probably because of the RMAH. It's enough to tempt me to sell that Anariel's unique for 40million gold or something. Is the Hardcore stuff really separate from the softcore stuff? I made a HC chr. once (then deleted it), and it did not seem to be separate from the softcore chrs. That is, the HC chr. could still look in/grab stuff in the Stash that the softcore chrs. had put there. So I'm not sure they're different....they just make your chr. inaccessible when you die in HC. But I could be wrong. I probably did that experiment at 3am or something.

Been catching up on the TNT series "Falling Skies" this afternoon. I somehow missed it before. Season 2 premiere tonight. It's not a bad little sci-fi post-alien invasion/human rebellion/resistance show. Not great, with a lot of sudden quick (eg, anticlimactic) problem solutions, longer-than should be plotlines and some bad dialogue here and there, but not like the pickings for sci-fi TV is huge right now. A little more human-interest drama than I tend to prefer (Spielberg...), but the effects aren't too shabby for TV and it's enough to keep me watching. Anyone else catch this one?

Gorgeous weather this weekend, as long as you don't have to do any vigorous physical activity (90F+). Put cushions on the old rickety wood patio loungers, a small table with a drink, a book, a cat by the feet, some shade trees....loverly.

Managed to get to the "get the blood" in Act2 checkpoint after Oasis, had to avoid a few Elites. Thought I'd try farming very early Act2 to see how that went now that I have 800 life on hit and 18K-19K dps. *start game* //haha normal mobs are easy ... ohno-a-jailer-arcane-mortar-avenger mob// ++die++ *startgame* //haha normal mobs are easy ... ohno-a-waller-arcane-desecrator-fast mob// ++die++ ...repeat 10 times...not in the mood to farm for yet more gold/crap items and refresh the AH over and over for hours again. *turn off game, go outside* ...those jailers and waller mobs are stupidly unfair.

Ah, Yreka. We've been through there several times. One of hubby's brothers used to live in Weed, a bit South from there, too. We used to either go up by 1/101 or 5, then at some point randomly try some road that would take us East to the other side of OR to hit 84. Adventurous roads, some of those. Then I think we used 93 or 95, or both (different trips) to get to 80/Reno. I look forward to more photos, and hearing about the grand time you all are having.