**OFFICIAL** Diablo 3 Thread

[ScottAD]

By and far the changes tested on the PTR seem fantastic. More diversity in builds is always a good thing. maybe just maybe we will see a non-archon wizard

 

[cronos]

So, I started playing again about a week or so ago, and my Necro has been doing a decent job. I'm on the second-to-last season journey step (the one with the stash tab), which might be doable solo. I'm a little hesitant on how easy a 5-minute T13 Rift will be, but it might be okay since I've already done GR75 solo (~9.5 minutes). Most of my rift times are usually due to luck more so than capability, so it'll probably take a few tries. My biggest problem as a Rathma Necro is surviving. I die very fast if I get hit by things, so I have to be really careful.

Anyway, one question that I have is... what do you guys do with all of your seasonal characters? I mean... I already had a character of each class (except Necromancer) prior to ever doing seasons, and now I've got duplicates of various classes. The sad thing is that my seasonal characters are arguably far better than the originals by many orders of magnitude.

The next season you are doing, do a rebirth of the class you want to play instead of creating a new character. The character will start fresh in season, and all their gears will be sent back in the mail in non-season. Only keep classes in non-season that you'd like to play non-season.

 

[Aikouka]

The next season you are doing, do a rebirth of the class you want to play instead of creating a new character. The character will start fresh in season, and all their gears will be sent back in the mail in non-season. Only keep classes in non-season that you'd like to play non-season.

Wait.. you can do that? I must have not been paying attention at that point when it was implemented as I didn't know that you could. That would certainly make things easier and remove my difficult decision of which character to get rid of.

 

[cronos]

Wait.. you can do that? I must have not been paying attention at that point when it was implemented as I didn't know that you could. That would certainly make things easier and remove my difficult decision of which character to get rid of.

Yup you definitely can do that. I actually did that to clean up my characters/inventory after a year not playing and have no idea what item is where and who's got what anymore. Rather than dealing with each character one by one (two DH, three barbs, etc), I rebirth the extra characters in order to strip them of their gear/inventory. Then I can deal with all the excess gear in the mail and sort them out, keep or salvage. I then simply delete the rebirthed character in season that I don't really want to play. There is a limit of rebirth that you can do in a season though, can't remember exactly, I think it's 3 or 4.

 

[Aikouka]

Oh, and I read that Trag'oul's set is supposed to be the top tier build to play in this season, but ugh... I really can't stand playing that build. I tried it out last night, and just the very passive nature in between major cooldowns just makes it a real boring affair. Although, some may consider Rathma's set to be a bit boring too. All I do is spam either Bone Spikes or Skeletal Mages while also mashing Devour, but at least I'm not stuck doing nothing. Although, the big difference seems to be that my damage doesn't really increase that much during Land of the Dead where as it allows Trag'oul builds to cast a stupid number of Corpse Lances, which when paired with Convention of the Element's physical damage buff, it's quite ridiculous.

Anyway, even though I didn't care for the set, I completed its set dungeon and all of the other Necromancer ones. I actually found the Rathma set dungeon to be the hardest, because I'd forget to use Army of the Dead right when it came off cooldown, so I was wasting procs. I also had to really weaken myself, because my skeletons were killing enemies too fast. I'm pretty sure I finished the Trag'oul's, Inarius's and Pestilence set on the first try. I'm shooting to do the Clear 8 Set Dungeon challenge for my second one as I already got clearing GR75. The only thing that I may have problems with is doing a T13 rift in 5 minutes... that can be a bit of luck.

 

[cronos]

Oh, and I read that Trag'oul's set is supposed to be the top tier build to play in this season, but ugh... I really can't stand playing that build. I tried it out last night, and just the very passive nature in between major cooldowns just makes it a real boring affair. Although, some may consider Rathma's set to be a bit boring too. All I do is spam either Bone Spikes or Skeletal Mages while also mashing Devour, but at least I'm not stuck doing nothing. Although, the big difference seems to be that my damage doesn't really increase that much during Land of the Dead where as it allows Trag'oul builds to cast a stupid number of Corpse Lances, which when paired with Convention of the Element's physical damage buff, it's quite ridiculous.

I couldn't play Trag'oul style. It's like a combination of things that I dislike, hunt for elites + wait for cooldowns. I want to destroy stuff as I go along, not skipping everything and only attack when I have LotD up *and* I see an elite pack. I'm not a huge fan of managing pets either, Rathma is quite okay, although I haven't seen one ancient Jesseth Scythe after 800+ paragon (tried upgrading and reforging many times, too). Corpse explosion (or at least Nova) would be my preferred build, but no good build exist for these for now, so I had to settle with Lazystorm and its variation.

Anyway, even though I didn't care for the set, I completed its set dungeon and all of the other Necromancer ones. I actually found the Rathma set dungeon to be the hardest, because I'd forget to use Army of the Dead right when it came off cooldown, so I was wasting procs. I also had to really weaken myself, because my skeletons were killing enemies too fast. I'm pretty sure I finished the Trag'oul's, Inarius's and Pestilence set on the first try. I'm shooting to do the Clear 8 Set Dungeon challenge for my second one as I already got clearing GR75. The only thing that I may have problems with is doing a T13 rift in 5 minutes... that can be a bit of luck.

Brave man. Set dungeons are the bane of my existence. I got one just to get through the requirement and never look back.

Easiest way to do T something under x minutes is to go to a public game and wait for a lucky open area rift and overgeared people blazing through together. You'll get it in no time. If you need another conquest, the 50M gold streak is not too hard.

 

[Aikouka]

I couldn't play Trag'oul style. It's like a combination of things that I dislike, hunt for elites + wait for cooldowns. I want to destroy stuff as I go along, not skipping everything and only attack when I have LotD up *and* I see an elite pack. I'm not a huge fan of managing pets either, Rathma is quite okay, although I haven't seen one ancient Jesseth Scythe after 800+ paragon (tried upgrading and reforging many times, too). Corpse explosion (or at least Nova) would be my preferred build, but no good build exist for these for now, so I had to settle with Lazystorm and its variation.

That's kind of what sucks about Diablo. Viable builds are purely defined on whatever Blizzard has given enough gear to make a specific ability powerful. It's even worse when your build just isn't good enough because you're missing one piece of gear. My Barbarian is missing that +300% Whirlwind damage ring, which is hurting my progression at this point. It took me quite a while to get a Circle of Nailoj Evol. I actually had to game the system, level a Necromancer to level 4, and buy rings with blood shards. At that level, the only higher items that you can get are Leoric's Signet and Circle of Nailoj Evol. About a week later, I finally found one at my level. I have found quite a few Jesseth's Arms sets though. I did use the upgrade method to get my first one. If I remember correctly, there are only 5 legendary/set 1-handed scythes to upgrade to, so you technically have a pretty good chance.

I liked Rathma a bit more in the beginning. In the beginning, a good bit of your damage comes from the skeletons, which is nice since you can directly control them. Most pet builds are kind of annoying since you can't choose a target, but Command Skeleton lets you do that. However, the higher progression setups focus more on Skeletal Mages, which have no ability to direct their damage.

Brave man. Set dungeons are the bane of my existence. I got one just to get through the requirement and never look back.

Some of them aren't too bad. The game started giving me some Barbarian gear on my Necromancer. I took a look at suggested set dungeon difficulty, and Barbarian didn't look too bad, so I decided to make one. (My non-seasonal Barbarian is kind of a joke too, so I wanted a better one.) Unfortunately, the game gives you Wastes for the seasonal journey (I had a pack left over from my Necro), and wastes is arguably the hardest Barbarian set dungeon. You have to apply rend to 10 mobs at the same time five different times, and you can't take a single point of physical damage. The problem is that the Armaddons are flippin' bugged. I had them rear up to attack me, so I moved behind them, and I still took damage. It took me about... 10-15 tries, but I finally got it done. One time, I had one mob that I just couldn't find, and I ended up running out of time.

So, right now I'm 5/8 set dungeons, and I have all the pieces of the Earth set to try next.

 

[sweenish]

Finally unlocked my final stash tab. Joined a pub game and luckily hit the TX < 2 minute conquest on the first attempt.

I'd been slowing my diablo roll lately, but I think I'm going to be putting it on pause for a bit. Breath of the Wild, Witcher, etc. need some attention. It'll stay on the hard drive for now, though.

When I do feel like playing again, I really should get a speedfarm build going. I think the necro, while not the fastest, has a pretty solid build I wouldn't mind playing.

 

[Aikouka]

Finally unlocked my final stash tab. Joined a pub game and luckily hit the TX < 2 minute conquest on the first attempt.

I decided to just try a T13 rift for funsies, and I ended up getting the T13 in 5 minutes on the first try. The only bad part is that I went back into the dungeon to grab some of the stuff, and I heard some goblin noises. So, I went to kill the goblin before the 20-ish seconds were up. Yeah... it wasn't just a goblin, but rather an entire pack of goblins! I killed as many as I could in the time, but I definitely missed a few.

I also finished the Earth set dungeon, which was pretty annoying. During two attempts, I had one mob left that I couldn't find and I ran out of time. Many times, an elite got caught in an avalanche used to kill normal mobs, and it took too much damage for me to do the Leap+Ground Stomp+Avalanche combo. I also had to learn the position of all elites as you have to use the avalanche skill on them not the free avalanche that you get from using Leap or War Cry. Fortunately, while normal mob positions change, elite positions don't. Fortunately, lists have Earth and Wastes as the two hardest Barbarian set dungeons, so hopefully, I'll have an easier time with the last two. Once I do that, I just need the 50-gem enchant on a piece of gear, and I'm good.

 

[sweenish]

Yeah, when I am clearing for time, I make that the priority. I don't pick up anything. I kill gobs because they advance the bar a decent amount, but that's it. Thankfully, shards are auto-picked.

But I have given up timed rifts if I hit a pack or just feel like I want to pick up the stuff, especially DB's off the gelatinous sires.

If I had another 20 hours, I might be able to actually complete the season journey (I bet I could get that gold conquest just speeding T13's, but I would have to level a new set of gems, optimize all new gear, etc.), but time is always the issue.

 

[Aikouka]

Yeah, when I am clearing for time, I make that the priority. I don't pick up anything. I kill gobs because they advance the bar a decent amount, but that's it. Thankfully, shards are auto-picked.

But I have given up timed rifts if I hit a pack or just feel like I want to pick up the stuff, especially DB's off the gelatinous sires.

If I had another 20 hours, I might be able to actually complete the season journey (I bet I could get that gold conquest just speeding T13's, but I would have to level a new set of gems, optimize all new gear, etc.), but time is always the issue.

I ended up getting the T13 in 4 minutes achievement last night. It took quite a lot of runs... mostly because I kept getting such bad layouts and pack distribution. I was also quite bad about still picking up the Death's Breaths, which don't take a ton of time, but given how tight it is, every second counts. I'm pretty sure I also nabbed any legendary that dropped too. The only thing that I changed about my build was using Nemesis Bracers instead of Reapers Wraps, which did hurt my Essence generation, but it was still manageable. (I ended up getting an ancient legendary Nemesis Bracers along the way too.) Unsurprisingly, I was able to get it done in a rift that was based off the Act 1 field map. It really is a pain that you have to be lucky enough to get an open map if you expect to get any sort of speed run achievement done. Prior to that, my best run was maybe 4:30 on a slightly open map (Act 5 cemetary). I also replaced my Rathma boots with an ancient pair that don't have Movement Speed, and I forgot to shift my Paragon to compensate.

I also got my first primal ancient... which was a garbage, straight stats, 2H axe that I'll never use.

I was also watching a video on a guy with a slightly tankier Rathma build that still has good damage numbers. Mine's your straight forward Consume + Land of the Dead build, but that tankier build traded them out for Frailty and Bone Armor. It used a heavy amount of Life per Second (including the legendary gem, which replaced Zwei's) to help stay alive. I tried it out for a little bit, but I found it hard to get away from the desire to constantly mash Consume (mapped to 1). I kept placing Frailty on targets numerous times.

 

[sweenish]

I never experimented much with my Rathma build.

I have all the pieces for a speed Inarius build, but without an ancient weapon and 60+ gems, it's not viable for actual speed runs. I just don't have the time right now.

Grats on the 4 minute run. I am very dubious my build can pull it off. The damage is there, but the movement speed absolutely is not. I'd have to play with the build some. If I had the mobility, it would be a cakewalk.

 

[Aikouka]

Grats on the 4 minute run. I am very dubious my build can pull it off. The damage is there, but the movement speed absolutely is not. I'd have to play with the build some. If I had the mobility, it would be a cakewalk.

All I had was the base +25% movement speed and that's it. I do think the luck of the map pick mattered far more than anything else. The second was probably using Nemesis Bracers as I had 3-4 shrines in there. I think as long as you can focus your damage on a single target at once, it'll help a lot. So, when you run into boss mobs, you can just kill them and ignore the minions.

 

[nakedfrog]

I also got my first primal ancient... which was a garbage, straight stats, 2H axe that I'll never use.

All my primals have been junk so far, Homing Pads, Blind Faith, stuff like that

 

[lupi]

With srason ending soon finally started logginf in to check if any power level groups going on. Last time I finally found one and took my newb necro to PL 248 that evening. Next day i logged on to sort the gear i picked up and find a build, then just had enough tine ti finish off chapter 1. Last night was finish 2 through 4 except for finding enough jewel recipes. So just need to grind some bounties or rifts till they drop and I'll have all the cosmetics done.

The guy leading the power group swapped to a necro after we hit 70 and moved to T13, and gave me the necro set weapon and I had picked up the offhand so once i finish chapter 4 I'll have the full 8 set pieces to play with.


What this really reminds me of is how much i hate that they still start you in seasons as a 0. At least let us start as a 70 even if you dont want to give us any paragon credit.

 

[Aikouka]

Oh, I finished the season journey a week or so ago. No real reason to play anymore until the next season. I'd say maybe we have something interesting to look forward to for Diablo at Blizzcon, but... probably not.

 

[lupi]

Did a set of bounties and finished the season coosmetic rewards. Would probably take too long to finish enough of the remaining chapters for the last stash tab.

Rather neutral so far on the necro. Was pretty fun just blowing stuff up with corpse explosion when i first started. Adjusting for the given set made me pretty much unkillable but non single target with cooldown dps was lackluster. Small caveat, i just activated the 6 piece bonus so not sure how much that would change things.

 

[sweenish]

Necro is currently the most powerful class in the game, so I'd imagine quite a bit.

Once you get the accompanying items for your 6-piece, you'll be speeding 70's very quickly. And as gems get leveled and ancient versions start dropping, you just keep going. I was running 70's with ~650K sheet DPS. A lot of my items are pretty garbage. I think by the time I got the tab, I was up ~800K damage.

 

[Aikouka]

Rather neutral so far on the necro. Was pretty fun just blowing stuff up with corpse explosion when i first started. Adjusting for the given set made me pretty much unkillable but non single target with cooldown dps was lackluster. Small caveat, i just activated the 6 piece bonus so not sure how much that would change things.

As @sweenish said, the Necromancer is quite a potent character, but like other classes, it requires specific items to work well. Trag'oul's is considered the best set for damage, but it's also very specific in its play style. It's a precision build where you run around finding the next pack to use your ridiculous cooldowns on. Corpse Lance gets buffed a lot by the set, so it's very strong, but it's nearly useless without cooldowns.

I used Rathma on my Necromancer... partly because it was given to me for free through Haedrig's Gift, and it's a decent pet build. The nicest part of the Necromancer is that unlike other pet classes, the Necromancer can control the Skeleton's target using Command Skeletons. I've used builds like Inna Monk, and the idea of "cat herding DPS" is never fun when you're trying to do something like take out a Gelatinous Sire. Anyway, there are certain tiers where Rathma really gains power.

• Rathma 4P: This provides a lot more defense for your character.
• Rathma 6P: This is the first damage boost that will make your skeletons your main damage dealers.
• Jesseth's: This will actually swap your main damage dealers from your skeletons to your skeletal mages.
• Nailuj's Evol: This will push you to swap from normal skeletal mages to Skeletal Mage: Singularity. You can use Singularity before this, but I don't recommend it as much due to the high mage cost (all of your essence). I preferred Archers before getting the ring.

There's also that scythe that you use in your cube. It gives you more essence back with Bone Spikes and gives you a damage boost based on your max essence.

 

[Ertaz]

Welp. 2.6.1 does indeed bing back the EB wizard for speed farming. Pretty fun.

 

[nakedfrog]

Looking at the patch notes, interesting. Will be curious to try out my various builds.

 

[Ertaz]

Did a solo GR100 with HOTA barb. Pretty fun stuff.

 

[lupi]

Started yesterday and finished season pet reward today. Went with DH and just stuck to the default impale build. First time not going with multi. As I had nok legendary melee, upgraded a rare and first one pops the desired main hand. That with the 4 piece had me melting the rest of what I needed to do even with cracking 100 PL or having the correct supporting legendary gear. May need to try this on the non seasonal side.

 

[Fallen Kell]

One of these days I might actually buy this game.... I had stayed away as the initial cash for items market had such an incentive to keep drop rates extremely low. That seems to have been corrected over time now that the game has been around for a while...

 

[nurturedhate]

One of these days I might actually buy this game.... I had stayed away as the initial cash for items market had such an incentive to keep drop rates extremely low. That seems to have been corrected over time now that the game has been around for a while...

They removed the auction house in early 2014.