Diablo 3 new patch

[Malcador]

Interesting abilities, the sweep attack is cool for my lvl 16 at the moment and I do like the horse as an escape for a crowd.  Still punching along...wish I could skip the utter boredom that is Act II.

[Gfted1]

Yeah, the horse makes me lol. Im also digging the ability to jump in the air and crash down for 1200% weapon damage.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

 

Alright some more info/reflections on D3:

 

I must say, as a recent hardcore player, that Act V seems very lethal at almost any difficulty level, so I will steer clear from that for quite some time. A lot of critters dog-pile you via some jump-mechanic that also locks you in place, which means instant death. Add to that quite a few high-damage ghosts and certain trapping monsters, and death is even more certain.

 

On my third day of playing and have been doing all the side quests and collecting all the achievements. And I still haven't finished Act 5. The maps are freaking huge!. And there's so many side dungeons off the main quest to explore. Playing my Monk in Hardcore and at the start I thought T1 isn't that bad. Then I went into Westmarch and holy heck. Straight back to camp and went down to Normal.

 

Normal is a breeze throughout most of Act 5 but now I'm in Pandemonium and a couple of parts feels dangerous, even on Normal. The part where the two angels protect you with the machine... at first I didn't realise they protect you and lost half my health in an instant. I was like   Any higher in difficulty, and I would've been dead. And this is with 246K health and 2.5 mil toughness. Just getting some of the achieves in HC and when I finish Act 5, going back to SC for a while.

 

One player in our clan who had all the HC achievements (even with Loot 2.0) before RoS was released lost his HC character, trying to get all the achievements on T1 on the first day. Torment HC in Act 5 is too dangerous for a lot of seasoned players. It's pretty scary.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Forgot to mention. Epiphany is my favourite Monk ability. He goes bat**** crazy when it's activated and isn't affected by things like frozen by monsters. Similar to Wrath of the Berserker for the Barb and the spirit regen is hilarious. I use the Wave of Light bell on monsters like a machine gun.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Hiro Protagonist II

[IndiraLightfoot]

Heh! I haven't tried out my monk in lvl 60 + content yet, since I was a fool and reset all the quests on her, so she's stuck in Act I atm, and I didn't bother using her.

 

I've mostly played my wizard Chthonia. She has found some decent items, but her weapon sucks. It's a level 66 yellow wand with a socket with no dps and perks at all. Pandemonium and onwards, she had to step down from T1 and Master to Expert.

Well, proof that she isn't very good is aplenty! Here she died in a weird Nephalem Rift la-la-land to a Twinkleroot. I'm just glad it wasn't Tinky-Winky that had slain her with that handbag.

 

Also, I just caved in under the massive peer pressure. Here are my very first trembling baby steps as Redeema, the Crusader:

Edited March 26, 2014 by IndiraLightfoot

[marelooke]

Interesting abilities, the sweep attack is cool for my lvl 16 at the moment and I do like the horse as an escape for a crowd.  Still punching along...wish I could skip the utter boredom that is Act II.

Ohoh... I just finished Act I and noticed Act II was a desert and deserts tend to be kind of boring...is it really that bad?

 

Anyway, made it to lvl33 and just when I was seriously starting to consider replacing my Legendary Leoric's Crown a new one dropped. Convenient

 

I upped the difficulty from Hard to Expert (as high as I can go for now) but didn't really notice any difference... Butcher fight took a long time, but it wasn't exactly "hard" (hardest part was staying focused for all of it really). Some ranged enemies can really hurt though, there was this one elite in the Fields of Misery that managed to kill me two of the three times I encountered him (seems I can't manage to reliably dodge his thrown spears)

 

I must say that I'm rather enjoying the flexibility the abilities/runes system gives.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Just finished Act 5 HC. Holy crap that was a hard fight, and it was only Normal at level 65.   Health was 291K and Toughness 2.9 million. A couple of times I was worried and had Breath of Heaven, Serenity, Healing Potions and the healing wells going all the time. Glad that's over with for now.

 

And Adventure mode looks great.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Hiro: You should be quite proud. Surviving that on HC at all is a feat all in itself. You are probably among the first few thousands in the world that achieved that so early.

[Hiro Protagonist]

Thanks. It's the last time I go into a boss fight alone on HC. I will never do that again solo. Co-op games for now. Safety in numbers. Also, doing HC gets you two achievements instead of one as you get the SC achievement as well. It's why I wanted to do HC first. HC Co-op is the best for achievement hunting.

[Endrosz]

Gratz, no matter the gear or difficulty, venturing alone into unknown territory in HC takes huge balls!

[Malcador]

 

Bogans, and especially Bogan Trappers! Cool traps, they shoot darts, they have treehouse towers...

 

I thought they just drank beer, swore a lot of made a mess of things.

Edited March 26, 2014 by Malcador

[Blarghagh]

 

Interesting abilities, the sweep attack is cool for my lvl 16 at the moment and I do like the horse as an escape for a crowd.  Still punching along...wish I could skip the utter boredom that is Act II.

Ohoh... I just finished Act I and noticed Act II was a desert and deserts tend to be kind of boring...is it really that bad?

 

 

Act II is the worst act in the game due to the desert portions. There are relief sections (tombs, sewers, oasis) but all of these stretch on a bit too long as well, which makes the desert even more unbearable.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

Finally got my monk up to level 70 in HC. Hopefully will see some good drops come in now. My scoundrel nearly does more damage than me.   Also time to level up my other characters too.

 

 

 

[SadExchange]

I certainly commend you on the level 70 hardcore.  The idea behind it is intriguing to me, however if I were to die and lost everything, with the low amount of time I do have to game, it would be hard to pick the game up again, but that's awesome.

 

After the expansion came out, I just started a Crusader up from start and am nearing the end of Act II.  I'm excited to get to Act V and complete it to be able to do some adventure mode and bounties, but as of right now, just enjoying the class and the drops I get from time to time.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Crusader [...] plays like a Monk to me.

 

the horse makes me lol. Im also digging the ability to jump in the air and crash down for 1200% weapon damage.

I'm in Act 3 right now and over lvl 40 with my Crusader, and I have to agree with Gfted1's assessments so far. It's like a clunky armored monk with equestrian dreams. Since I really like the Monk, this is a class to be reckoned with in my book. And I'm relieved that I finally can put Act 2 behind me in softcore.

 

Hiro: I still can't fathom that you managed to survive that. And your Scoundrel looks mean. It must have helped too.

[Monte Carlo]

I've got to level 30 with a crusader... although he shares some Monk-like traits I find him better at crowd control. The monk, otoh, is far more mobile.

 

I like both classes, monk is possibly less of a challenge though with the sick builds you can make. I just like riding my stupid horse of doom out of trouble then casting that multiple shock-hammer ability.

[IndiraLightfoot]

Indeed. That horsey is often the perfect escape. In Act 2, I used it many times in combination with the Fallen Sword jumps for speed-runs through content that felt less than satisfying atm.  Giddy up!

[Malcador]

Blessed Hammer with the lightning is being put to great effect now.  Though a bit boring to stand there and activate the electric blender

[Gfted1]

Im currently level 26 and using: Ironskin, Condemn, Law of Justice, Fallen Sword, Punish and Shield Bash. I wish there was one to regen Health but maybe I just haven't unlocked it yet?

[Malcador]

A rune for punish does add some health regen.

[Gfted1]

Oh yeah, Rebirth. Ill have to switch from Roar when I play next.

[Hiro Protagonist II]

I certainly commend you on the level 70 hardcore.  The idea behind it is intriguing to me, however if I were to die and lost everything, with the low amount of time I do have to game, it would be hard to pick the game up again, but that's awesome.

 

After the expansion came out, I just started a Crusader up from start and am nearing the end of Act II.  I'm excited to get to Act V and complete it to be able to do some adventure mode and bounties, but as of right now, just enjoying the class and the drops I get from time to time.

 

It's one of the challenges of hardcore and one of the things you have to be careful of. One wrong move or mistake and everything is gone. The game could freeze, disconnect, or anything else and bye bye character. Some things are out of your control and you have to take it on the chin and move on when it happens. You're literally sitting on the edge of your seat. And when there's a close call, especially with boss fights, the adrenalin really kicks in.

 

The hard part is between levels 61 to 68 when there are hardly any good drops. When I finished HC I was around level 67, most of my items were level 61 which is why my dps is so low. And the fact I never bought anything off the AH in both SC and HC. I've had a couple of level 60 deaths (Monk and Barb) and many Wizard deaths in the level 50s last year. It's a totally different play style. Vitality is the number one attribute you need as well as Amethyst gems. Seen many deaths due to people playing hardcore like softcore and not getting their health up. But it does make you a better player when going back to SC imo.

 

At the moment, I'm playing Normal to get achievements. With my health and Toughness being so high, it's not a problem. I managed to get a couple of good drops (nice one handed weapon) since the screenshot and my DPS is now 190K. I did have 6.5K life on hit but it's dropped down to just under 5K with the new one handed weapon. I'd rather take the dps for now.

 

 

Hiro: I still can't fathom that you managed to survive that. And your Scoundrel looks mean. It must have helped too.

 

Yeah, scoundrel is pulling his weight and killing mobs. Still can't believe his dps. I was talking to someone from our clan who's done Urzael and Adria on Torment, his build was way OP and he barely scraped through. A few red screens with low health. He said he won't be doing Mathael.

 

I think I'll put HC on hold for now. I have other HC characters I want to level up but now want to level up my SC characters. Going back to SC and want to get my Barb (67), Monk (64), DH (60), WD (60) and Wizard (60) to level 70 and also take out the Crusader.

[IndiraLightfoot]

My crusader is now passed lvl 50 and has just entered Act V. Yay! She's doing it on Torment I difficulty as well, and that with relative ease.

How, you may wonder?

My answer is twinking and more twinking, mostly in the form of a high-level ruby-xp-turbo in her helm socket, but also through the use of other gems in other sockets, mostly weapons, of course.

However, there is an even bigger twink-factor, courtesy of my Wizard's first minutes in adventure mode at level 70. She found a yellow 2H-sword. It doesn't have any socket, and not even STR on it. However, it was level 70, and had a huge amount of dps on the ticket (2100 DPS) and like 750 vitality, and life on hit 1 700. Better still. It had a level reduction of 24 levels!

Guess why my Crusade started flying at level 45 in Act III? Never overlook yellows, folks. They can be very handy!

[marelooke]

Made it to level 43 with my Wizard, she is still in Act II and judging as I'm still trying to "help" Kulle I fear I'm not even halfway through yet. I liked Act I, but the outside areas of Act II, not so much...

 

Elite difficulty seems a bit all over the place, there's a few that really really hurt while others topple over with my sneezing in their general direction.

 

As far as drops are concerned, someone told me to just salvage everything, does that still stand or should I start selling stuff to make some extra gold?

[Malcador]

Got Fist of the Heavens, woo.  I must say Conviction with the instant explosion rune is awesome in Act 3 with the close in tunnels pre-Ghom.  I am my own breaching charge.