f13.net

2.3 is out today.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/19859662/patch-230-now-live-8-25-2015

All aboard the hype train, choo choo.

SAY WHHHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

THANK GOD

GAMES HAVE BEEN AWFUL

today is not a day to be playing HC chars :ye_gods:

Otherwise, I'm liking this patch so this will be a good distraction

Boo, you were suppose to only post about it in the split off thread.   :why_so_serious:

gonna be soo many bounty runs to finish the book but as Schild said, "like Pokemon, gotta catch em' all"

So if anyone needs help or wants to team up for these, let me know when im in game. I should be able do up to t7 fairly fast and easily with my spin to win Barb

My crusader can still one/two hit kill anything in T6 but he's a glass cannon.

So using Kanai's Cube I added; damage vs elite(furnace), whirlwind damage (skullgrasp) and bonus damage while moving (hexing pants of Mr yan).  Holy shit.  I was able to tear through T7 with my ww barbarian.

I'll suck for greater rifts but for farming, it's super easy.

How do we get the Cube? Also how do I get access to the new section they added? I've figured out the new rift stuff and I like it.

Just talk to Zultan Kulle.  The new area is in Act 3, you can go there whenever you want in adventure mode.

OK thanks

So, I'm assuming the best way to farm the mats for the cube is to stick the game on normal and burn through all the missions as fast as possible, correct?  Or do you get more/better shit from higher difficulty caches?

T1-t6 give 3 mats (and another 3 if you do the bonus bounty act), t7-t10 give 4 and another 4 for bonus bounty.

Note, when doing bounties always do the bonus act first as once completed a new act will get the bonus

This has been the best season in a long time. Really enjoying the Kanai's cube stuff.

Also, monks are ridiculously overpowered.

Can only re-roll an item in a set into another item (in the same set) if the set has at least 3 pieces.  I tried yesterday with a few 2-item sets and got a pop-up of denial.  Then I tried a few times to get the boots in a 6-piece set and I got gloves, head, and gloves, after which I ran out of the mats required because it's 10 per try.  I'll have to reprocess 10 legendary items to get another try, and luckily, I have them, but it's a grind rather than instant gratification.

Also need 1 mat from each act to "collect" a legendary item's power.  So basically that means running the bonus bounties in the order that they appear.  So far, I got Acts 1 and 4; need to do 2, 3, and 5, and then I'll be able to "collect" 6 or so powers, then more grinding bounties to do another 6 legendaries or so.

So, in a way, it's a choice between doing the Kanai cube stuff and starting a new seasonal character.  Either choice will take some time and grinding to complete.

Are powers you unlock via the cube on normal available to you in the season?  I'd assume no, but haven't gotten that far yet.

Nope. Which is fucking OBNOXIOUS.

Isn't that the whole point of seasons?

Pretty much. Though I would like it if there was a way to see which cube unlocks you have in season and normal play for when they are merged at the end of a season. With the rate of legendaries that drop it isn't a huge issue, but it would be nice.

Never tried season before.  When a season ends, does your character revert to a normal char, and bring all his equipment into your collective fold?

Yes, your character becomes a normal, or hardmode character, and you'll get whatever was in your stash in the mail.

Yes, and it's a pain in the arse.   :grin:

Thanks for the info.  Looks like I'll give a Monk a go then. 

Anybody know if abilities you unlock in the cube also transfer over (unless you've already unlocked them of course)?

Why are monks overpowered this time?

I have no idea. Mine certainly doesn't feel overpowered (or any different from previous patches), but I haven't changed my build (I just put Exploding Palm on things and then Dash to kill shit and cause massive explosion chains... if I don't die first or run out of spirit).

When it comes to "overpowered" classes, monk or otherwise, there is a large gap between the top couple percents of streamers and poopsockers and the rest of us. If your plan is to get to 70, run some rifts, and try a couple sets of gear, what class you pick is simply a matter of preference. The fact that Monks clear Grift 64 and Wizards can only hit 61 is simply not going to be felt in any meaningful way by the average player. In large part because to experience these differences you need gear and builds far removed from what a casual player is going to be using.

The game is reasonably balanced. Just pick a class you like and have fun.

Once my monk gets a Madstone and Gundos, it's going to be a vicious killer.

That's what I had imagined. Which makes sense.

I'm playing a stupid wizard this time.

I'm playing an angry wizard.  She is smart because everyone compares her to her pal Cormac.

I ran a DH up to 70, forgot how bad the jump to Torment1 is when you've got no gear.

Just grab some on the AH.

 :awesome_for_real:   :oh_i_see:

It's probably only a few dozen SoJ to get geared up.

Minor bitch... but I'd forgotten how stupid levels 30-60 were.  61 is a brief peak of iLevel adjustment, and then another bout of stupidity until 70. 

1-30 are great fun learning the class, getting most of the major skills and fully gearing in yellows with a unique weapon.  What are we doing again between 30 and 70?  As far as I can tell, not even S3 portrait enhancements for mini-dings... even the new Season guide thingy doesn't provide any meaningful reward for completing a chapter... and Chapter 2 has a hard req of hitting 60 to complete, so there you go.

I just hit 50, so, yeah, I'm whining about something that will be forgotten in another few sessions (and yes, I know I'm doing it wrong because I'm just soloing or duoing... not being carried in open groups  :awesome_for_real: ).

It's not nearly as bad anymore imo. On my fresh 70 DH I ran a couple of rifts for legendaries and shards for gambling, and upgraded weapons/rings/neck via the cube and I was on to t2-t3 in a day.

If I'm reading the patch notes right (I just unlocked chapter 3 myself), the first four chapters of the Season Journey are supposed to be pretty routine. Level up. Gear up. Get your crafters leveled up. Buy something from Kadala. Routine activities, so that anyone who spends time playing can get rewarded.

Then ratchet things up in the later tiers of the SJ.

I leveled a crusader to 70 the old fashioned way grinding story.  It took me a few days.  Then, I leveled a wizard up with 2 friends by running rifts and it took me about 20 mins.  I was a bit surprised that they made it so easy to PL toons.  I guess there's still plenty of grind after 70 (gear).

But there's not much point.  I mean, at this stage the stash IS your character.

As long as you've got one of each class, you may as well run a season and then delete them once you've harvested the stash.

I'm still figuring this out.  I have friends that are WAY into this game and I don't get it.  It's a fun little time waster, but the grind is almost too obvious. I found PoE to be much more interesting (from a theory crafting standpoint).

Diablo 3 feels like a slot machine sim.

I tried to level my second character (wizard) in Adventure mode instead of Story, hard difficulty.  No problems with the kills, just didn't get much in terms of yellow gear; for some reason most of the drops are blue.  I may have to switch to story mode, but for now I went back to my first character (monk) to get the cube and empty out my stash of all the saved legendaries.   Looks like I'll go non-seasonal this season too, try out a Crusader and Witch Doctor.  I'll try the seasonal grind next season.

I prefer to play MSH when I want to waste my time.  I like the 'playing' of Diablo, the smashing and blasting and all that stuff, but in terms of being invested in it, it's utterly, utterly pointless.

Whereas, at least in MSH, there are heroes that I don't have yet and when I grind, I'm getting splinters to buy them....

Monk gets silly.

Then you see the barbs spinning past you...

Attempting to upgrade a yellow item to legendary (with the cube) only costs common mats, and so far, my first 2 attempts have resulted in the missing pieces that I needed to complete various sets.  I needed the monk boots so I upgraded some random yellow boots (got the monk boots on the first try), and I figured I might as well try with a random ring see what happens (and I got the other ring to complete a two-ring set).

If this pattern holds, it will be THE cheapest way to get needed legendary or set items.  Just figure out what piece you need, and upgrade random yellows.  Requires just common mats, no act mats or legendary mats.

I kind of miss my season 3 barbarian that was crushing Torment 6 within literally 2 days.  :oh_i_see: 

Witch Doctor is fun, but the loot has NOT been flowing for me this season and jumping up in difficulty is all about getting those pieces that let you hit break points.

This is my first season char, so don't know if they tweak the rates or anything.  But holy hell Legendaries have been dropping at a greater rate than I've ever seen for me.

Not finding very many legendaries myself, but it's a fairly small sample size.

 :oh_i_see:

25 Death's Breaths = 25 champion packs @ T6.

Step 1. Craft Cain's

Step 2. Wear Cains with an int gem in the helm.

Step 3. Run Rifts with a group

Step 4. PROFIT!

It's not the process, it's the time.   :grin:

Actually you're better off:

1. Crafting Sage set.
2. Killing as many champion packs in T6 Rifts as you can
3. Death Breaths
4. Cube Rare+DBs => Legendary/Set pieces for whatever slot you need.

I got half my set pieces that way.

Is it faster than running rifts/greaters for blood gems to buy gear with?

Honest question.

Is PoE the Pillars of Eternity or the Path of Exiles?  I may have mixed up the Eternity or the Exiles.  Game names make me feel fuzzy minded sometimes.

Cube Rare+DBs is so good because you get to choose the slot.  So I've been bloodsharding for all the armor peices, and Rare+DB for weapons.

Edit: quotes r hard!
Edit2: dammit! did it again!

What Typhon said. You can do both at the same time since you're running rifts for the DBs anyways. I found I preferred to use the cube for weapons, rings, and amulets and use blood shards for armor pieces since it's less expensive that way.

It works REALLY well for class specific slots (fists, wands, class hats).

You can get those set pieces super fast.

Path of Exile.  Sorry about that.


Thanks!

With bloodshards you also choose the slot, but you gamble on that slot.  With the cube, you're guaranteed to get a legendary or set piece, and it really feels like they tweaked the code to check for what you're missing.  Not only did I get the boots to complete Inna's set on the first try, I also got 3 pieces of Rainment of A Thousand whatever, the other ring paired with Focus, and it's now giving me Natalya set pieces.  On the first roll.

Diablowiki.net (http://www.diablowiki.net/Kanai%E2%80%99s_Cube) lists the undocumented recipes for Kanai's, namely you can put in a Puzzle Ring and open a portal to the goblin Vault, and you can put in a Bovine Bardiche and open a portal to the "Not the Cow Level".  The ring and the bardiche are consumed, of course.

I have an excess of Veiled Crystals, but instead of converting them to the lower mats, which takes Death's Breaths, keep in mind that recycling white trash at the blacksmith gives 8+ mats per item, and recycling blues seems to give 4+.  Given the fact that Death's Breaths are needed for all Kanai recipes, it's probably better to collect and recycle blues and whites than to use the cube to convert higher mats to lower.

EDIT:  The set, Krelm's Buff Belt and Bracers, has orange effects on the belt AND the bracers, and these effects can be "learned" in the cube, despite the items being green rather than orange.  I guess it makes sense, since sets are made of legendary items, but I destroyed a couple before I realized it.

Also, we apparently need to have an item in the stash or inventory in order for its appearance to be available to the Mystic's transmog.  I got a few weapons into Kanai's Cube and can no longer transmog my staff to look like them.  Kinda sucks.

I love as running a rift that was one of those narrow underground tunnel level.  I hit a conduit pylon, took 2 steps, and ran into a goblinfest.


It was a good day.

Played the hell out of this lately, but am getting discouraged.  My friends are playing a Barb/Monk and I'm on a wiz.  Unless you're playing a monk, barb, or wd right now anything over 60's is pretty much not happening.   So I'm left soloing if I want to play my wiz or they will be kind and drag me along for loot so I can gear up another toon.

Do you mean GR 60's?

Yes.  Seems that when you get above 62 right now on the leaderboards that it's dominated by barbs and monks.  When we do high 50's, the monk and barb I play with just carry me.

For the record, my wiz is struggling with Torment 8 while the barb/monk similarly geared are doing torment 10.  I may switch to a WD for the rest of the season to trio with them.

Man, I remember when everybody was bitching about Wizards being the most OP.   :awesome_for_real:

I love my wizard.  The play style is varied, and quite fun, even if you can't do the top most rifts (which I've never even attempted).

I had a fire build that I really enjoyed playing but had to switch to a vyr archon to be able to contribute.  If I could find a viable ice/blizzard build that could easily solo torment 8, I'd probably just do that. 

I'm sure I'm doing it wrong but I'm having fun with an arcane wizard.  I want to marry Disintegrate and keep Hydra on the side as a girlfriend.

Monk here, can't really survive past GR 26, I'm sure I'm doing something wrong.  But don't care, it's a casual game for me.  Currently toned back down to Torment 2 and farming act mats for the cube.  I can just about handle Torment 7 with my current gear and build (Inna, exploding palm and 7-strike), at some point I'll try a switch to Natalya gear and that run-around-twirling-my-staff power, see if that's better or worse.  But it's all for naught, because as soon as I'm done loading legendary powers into the cube, I'm gonna start a crusader from level 1 and take it easy with that.

More notes:

- I'm getting all sorts of hilarious achievements for killing bosses in under 30 seconds, and/or before they activate their special abilities or minions, so doing bounties for mats on T2/T1 difficulty is still somewhat amusing.
- Secheron does NOT seem to have randomized map areas, it's always the same map.  It does have bounties that send you there, pain in the butt as it's a long run to level 2 where most bounties are.
- There is a goblin shrine (chance to appear randomly as with other shrines), clicking it immediately spawns a goblinfest (at least 4 goblins, who immediately take off in different directions).

Monks excel at higher GR ranks due to their tankiness rather than their dps.  I ran a bunch of GR 55's today with a monk and barb and it went surprisingly well.  If you gear for it, 7-sided strike can do some crazy good damage. 

Yeah, I just got most of the pieces for the 7 Sided Strike build I wanted, and moved over to that.  Holy crap, I am absolutely melting shit now, and its a fun build.

Need bigger stash.

THIS!

I'd even pay for it.  HEAR THAT BLIZZARD??? TAKE MY MONIES!

What in the fuck are you people putting in that stash? Are you saving every damn legendary you got ever?

I'd put in a screenshot of my Path of Exile stash if I could, but I can't because it would be a confusing mass of images and a real pain in the ass to assemble.

The thing is, your character is basically your stash.  This is especially true now that D3 has seasons (and disposable characters), which are simpler forms of PoE's leagues (also disposable characters).  Grinding Gear realized this and have made money from me selling stash space.  Also a few cosmetics.  But mostly stash space.

Just hit GR50 on my monk and can attest that it's stupid strong.

The scale for damage is crazy for exploding Palm. Do the cold one -6k%. Double it with a legendary fist. Run SSS kit that detonates your exploding Palm when you cast. Stack +cold damage. Focus and restraint because you are naturally procing both for another 100% base.

It's nuts. Detonates for 500mil-2bil.

But why monk is running up is like what nebu said. Damage reduction.

You get 30% from being melee. 50% from desert shroud. 40% from cubed bracers. And I just set unity with an undying follower for another 50%. Then you add in 80% dodge. It's nuts.

Plus mobility.

I keep all the legendaries that have powers I haven't cubed yet.  Between that, gems, mats, and sets for 4 toons... well... it takes up space.

I felt like a total useless sponge the first time I ran into a whirlwind barbarian in T7 who destroyed everything at high speed (literally, I couldn't even move fast enough to keep up)

Holy shotgun on the crusader capped out in the low-mid GR30s.  Rolands got me to 40 with difficulty, but I wasn't in the set long enough to optimize it.  Last night I got the pieces for the blessed hammer set, and now I feel like the barbarian--critting for 3 billion, and most of the pieces aren't good rolls and the gems I've changed to are still at shitty levels.  It actually makes me like the stupid blessed hammer skill; I've always hated it. 

Now I need a second Unity to cube, and for a goddamn Furnace to drop.  I cannot get one for some reason.

My stash has:

1.  Gems, legendary gems, mats, infernal machines, potions.
2.  Full of legendary weapons that I haven't put in the cube yet and also want to keep for transmogrifying my weapon to look like that.
3.  Full of legendary armor pieces that I haven't cubed yet and ... ditto as above.
4.  Full of monk armor sets and set pieces.
5.  Full of duplicate legendaries that I can reprocess for mats.  I periodically destroy 10-15 at a time to make room for more.

I only have one high level character, the monk, and everything in the stash is rolled-for-monk (dex stat).  I have created 3 mule alts to expand my storage capacity, and they're currently holding non-70 lower level gear that I thought was good (L70 high damage weapons with reduced level requirements).  Mule alts are also so I can roll int or str instead of dex with the mystic transmog option.  Item drops, Kadala rolls, and cube upgrades are affected by what's in your stash already, and I have NOT tested to see if they're affected by what the mules carry (I mean, if I move my Natalya set to a mule, and then I go hunting with the monk, I wonder if the game will think I don't have any Natalya pieces).

Furnace is the bane of my existence.  Haven't seen one yet.

Transmogs register with the mystic as soon as you get them and "discover" them. They also carried over to my non-season mystic at the end of S3.

EDIT:  I guess you're right.  The sword I thought I no longer had a transmog for did appear as an option when I equipped a sword, rather than a daibo.  Got confused by the fact that staves, daibos, and axes are apparently the same category, but like 1h swords and dagger/knives are not.

Is there a T4 wall?  Because I think I'm hitting it.  Are there some set pieces that only drop at T5+ or something like that, or has the RNG unfriended me?

RNG.  Obviously you need to increase your sacrifices to Nuffle.

Anyone got a decent starter monk build for a fresh 70?   Got a friend to power me to 70 on a seasonal monk, and just realised that since i havent played a monk since like, before season 1 started, I have absolutely no fucking idea what I am doing.   Should have gone with a WD or DH.....

At 70 it's gear-dependent.  You can increase difficulty whenever you get "good" monk gear, and it's likely that you'll get random legendary weapons and random legendary armor pieces before you're able to put together one of the monk armor sets.

For me, I had Schaefer's Hammer (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/schaefers-hammer) drop right away, and there isn't anything special about it other than a bonus to lightning damage, so I switched all my skills to the lightning runes.  I coupled that pretty fast with Blackthorne's (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/blackthornes-surcoat) armor set which is a very common drop, gives you vitality and immunity to the most common boss ground effects, so you can just stand in them when you're walled-in and not worry about dying.  I also happened to have a level 39 Broken Promises (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/broken-promises) ring, which means I avoided gear with +crit chance, and maximized +crit damage by slotting a green gem into my weapon.

Once you get a Ring of Royal Grandeur (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/ring-of-royal-grandeur), you'll want to switch to armor sets (green), because the ring lets you combine a few for their bonuses.  My current set is Inna's (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/innas-vast-expanse), which gives me all 4 mantras (buffs) while letting me set all my 6 attacks to actual attacks.  Also enhances Mystic Ally (the pet), which is further enhanced by Crudest Boots (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/the-crudest-boots).  So I'm running around with 2 pets + the Templar follower, and they each cast the big Monk damage attacks whenever I do (and believe me, I spam the hell out of the attacks). All of these attacks are further enhanced by a few pieces of the Sunwuko (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/sunwukos-crown) set. So crowds of monsters get caught in triple 7-strike, tail kicks, cyclones, etc.  It's all about focusing all your gear to enhance the one or two attacks you use the most.

As an alternate example, Rainment of a Thousand Storms (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/item/heart-of-the-crashing-wave) enhances the Dashing Strike ability, and if you combine it with off-pieces that give you spirit regeneration to the point where you can keep the Dashing Strike going forever, you end up just running through monsters and they just die in troves because of it.

Bottom line, the abilities you use depend on your gear, the gear pretty much gives you a list of what abilities to use.  Typically you want the big damage abilities that can do 3,000-6,000% weapon damage, the armor set that enhances that ability, and whatever secondary gear that can let you spam that ability or keep it going forever.

Or conversely, I had the same question, and found this build:

http://www.diablofans.com/builds/39773-starter-monk-build

The video half way down the page explains how to use it.  With just yellows, you can melt Torment 1, and I didn't have a problem going higher.  With a set of totally random shit legendarys, was doing torment 4/5 easily.  Its a great starter build, no legendarys needed (and it ramps up fast with just a few).

I played that for awhile till I farmed all the stuff for my 7 sided strike build, and now I'm doing torment 9/10 (still need one or two special legendary pieces for defense to cap me off in torment 10 I think).

and Nebu said
I found an RoRG this morning so crafted both, just to see - although the T6 rift thing, I don't know that I can kill champion packs there on my WD. A friend just pulled me through a T7 rift and I had to stay far away from anything.

Dang, I was afraid of that.

Anyone else wonder how the Cube Quality-of-Life team got their design approved? 

"Hey, remember how we changed everything so that you don't have to carry the materials with you to use a crafting station?
Yeah.
Well, I have this really cool idea: what if you have to carry all the materials with you to use just the Cube?  Won't folks thinks this is really cool?
Good idea Johnson, we've heard some fans are clammering for more interaction with their inventories."

Yeah, pretty much what you said.

Probably the same fucking dipshit that said 'Hey, you know how it currently remembers your crafting settings ?  What if that reset every fucking time you zoned ?'

Assholes.

I think the idea with the cube is that you don't know all the recipes, if they gave you a drop-down (and you didn't need to load it with materials), you would know all the recipes ...

I'm not sure why I'm trying to justify this/get in the designers' heads because it pissed me off as well.

They'll figure this out and eventually make it so you don't have to put mats in there.

They're trying to let you re-live the days of the Horadric Cube.  Where's your sense of nostalgia dammit!

That was fine because you could fucking carry the cube about with you.

Just have the dropdown auto-fill  the cube with crafting mats, while still letting you manually load arbitrary items. Where's my designer job, Blizzard?

This is the best patch for D3 yet, I think. I'm loving it. Barb and WD this season, both a lot of fun.

I'm a little bit confused, and want to understand this. Bounties are for DBs and crafting mats. Rifts are for DBs and Grift keys. Grifts are for gear. Is this correct?

Also, running in groups increases magic find and exp/gold bonuses? So joining a public game for these things is better than soloing, in terms of stats (if one can handle public groups)?

The main reason for grifts (other than the leaderboard stuff) is to level Legendary Gems.  Drop rates do scale with the higher grifts, but that has been mitigated some with the introduction of T7-10.  I still prefer to run regular rifts for gear because you have a chance for a legendary with every mob and not just the RG and you're also getting DBs along the way.  Which as was mentioned above is a great new way to get the gear you want.

Bounties are for cash and crafting mats, rifts are for grift keys, grifts are for gems.

You can get gear everywhere:  the "at least 1 legendary per hour" thing still holds, mats can change a yellow into a legendary, there are white, yellow, and cursed chests everywhere, Kadala has a good chance to give legendaries for blood shards (bounties give shards too, btw).  Despite blitzing bounties on the easiest setting possible for mats so I can cube all the legendaries I've accumulated, my damn stash is still full; I seem to be getting more legendaries per hour than I'm disintegrating with the cube (and, again, I'm blitzing for act mats specifically on the easiest setting with the smallest loot chance multipliers).

So... played my wiz a bunch.  Farmed up a complete set and crafted some things.  Farmed some more.  Got my gear to the point I could solo torment 8 comforatbly.  This took a couple of weeks.  

Rolled a Witch Doctor.  Got PL'ed to 70 and picked up random legendaries and whatever dropped in the first hour.  Already better than my wizard.  

Thanks Blizzard.  Nice balance team ya got there.  I think I'm done with D3 for a while.  This season is all about the WD, Barb, and monk.

Same experience here - started with a wiz, finally got the archon set running (which is a lot of fun to play), felt like I wasn't going to be able to get it past torment 8-9 (GR 35-40?) without a lot of tuning effort.  So I gave the WD a try.  The pet and chicken builds are decent, finally got the helltooth set together (along with an ancient suwong (sp?) staff) and I'm pretty much breezing through torment 10.

I don't know what they were thinking with the Helltooth set.  You do crazy damage AND you're tanky as hell.  It's like they want people to not play DH and Wiz. 

They were thinking, "We're Blizzard. We don't balance, we over-correct!"

What does balance even mean in a game like Diablo to begin with?  Just enjoy blowing the every living crap out of monsters in hilarious fashion.

Without PvP and the seasonal play, class balance means less to me than most other games.

The best thing they could do for the next xpac is release three classes, really diversify the playerbase. With PvP off the table, it no longer matters, really. Especially because there's no true holy trinity needed to advance.

Is Crusader just the red headed step child of D3?

I'd like to play with my friends, but they're doing content too advanced for my wizard or crusader.  They will just carry me most of the time which gets old fast.  It's just not fun knowing that you're not really contributing.

Armory hasn't updated yet but I just spent some time playing and hit 4 pieces of Uliena's monk set. I added the Lion's Claw bonus to my weapon slot for 14 hits with 7 sided strike. On Torment IV it's a one-button one-shot on the butcher - he just melted.

So far I've got as far as GRift 20 as I've been gearing up since hitting 70 on Friday. I loved my S3 monk and not really theorycrafting this one, I'm in love with it again. It actually makes the pain of S3 worth it (highest solo GRift was 34). I had to change mantras to the resist increases and have been tweaking it all as I go. Wave of light is my spender when my elite killers are down.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Setanta-1696/hero/66499414

(No idea why HP and gear hasn't updated).

I have 6 pieces, and have almost completed this build:

http://www.icy-veins.com/d3/monk-ulianas-strategem-seven-sided-strike-build-patch-2-3

I'm missing broken promises, which probably would boost my dps a lot, and using crippling wave instead, but that's about it.  Have all the other gear listed there.  Currently doing around GRift 44.  Can do Torment 9 solidly, and while I can get through torment 10 stuff, it takes way to god damn long to widdle bosses down.  Its been a really fun build so far though.

Cheers for the link. I'm still building the set at the moment but will switch once I have. Right now the build I have is pushing me through T5 but I'm starting to feel it's dps focused limitations a bit.

Yeah, I did the same thing.  Didn't switch till I had 5 pieces of the set (and RoRG'd the other piece till I found it) and had most of the legendaries.  My other build was fun, but was also tapping out around T5.

Funny enough, after I posted previously, I got broken promises to drop.  I then fully went all in on this particular build.  Still playing with it, but T9 can be done without dying easily (and can finish Grift 44, the last one before torment 10 equivalent, with about half of the time still left).  T10 may still be tricky though.  However, I still need to level up the boss killing gem though, so that might push me over the edge.

Yeah... I was thinking that they really need to add more classes for me to think about doing another season.  That and something that gives the "regular" characters in my portfolio to do... in this model, I'd start a new character in a season, but still have something to do once he "graduates" to some point at which I usually quit anyway.  Having the rest of my characters available for some sort of additional advancement would help with the all-or-nothing point I'm at.  Chasing ladders might work for some, but I don't think it is a broad enough appeal - certainly not something that will keep a punter like me playing.  [Then again, why would they care?  Not like I'm giving them money everytime I log in - or don't].

Heck, in its current state, I'd give them $30-$50 for an expansion with 3-5 more classes.  I might even give them $10 just to buy a new class... hmmn, wonder if there's anything like this that they could steal from?

Whittle.

 :oh_i_see:

It seems to me that every major patch has favorite classes, they just change from time to time (whether talking about WoW or D3).

So play a WD, Barb or Monk - it's fun!

Monks are just super, super fun at the minute.  My wee season 4 chap hit 70 and got some nice gear, so he's exploding everyone on screen every 2 seconds.  His DPS ain't that great, but it really, really doesn't seem to matter...

Pew.  And, in fact, Pew.

... As opposed to MMO's and even single player games (Skyrim) where it takes effort and coordination to bring down a single dragon, and you die multiple times in the process.

I'm thinking someone should bring this system of "increase the difficulty to whatever torment level you feel comfortable with, but there are loot rewards at all difficulty levels" to the MMO PVE raiding scene.

I don't recall needing to coordinate taking down dragons in Skyrim past the first. They got pretty damn easy pretty damn quick, so much so you needed a mod to make them challenging.

That last bit is already there. Only part lacking is the ability to scale it back to an individual or duo encounter instead of 10 folks minimum.

I'm enjoying the wizard. I'm sure I won't be melting faces at GR XXX but I wasn't in the last season either. I was a T4 crusader that did like GR 20.

If you keep tweaking your build and gear you'll be able to do torment 8 GR's (40 or so) easily.  That's where the loot sweet spot is, so it all works out.

The problem with some of the builds is that they often tend to playstyles I find really unfun, so I get to certain point with a build I like, then say fuck it and move on to the next season.

Something I found helpful with my Wiz was to use my Templar follower.  I'd get a relic that would prevent him from dying and give him a unity ring.  Then I'd cube another unity ring and put it on myself.  It mitigates a LOT of damage in GR's and helps you solo with low survivability builds. 

Hope that helps.

I feel like the "teleport as often as you like!" wand is just critical for anything you might be doing with the wiz.  Because it's so much fun, that's why.

I thought that was the "standard" way to solo high torment / gr levels pretty much since they introduced the Unity + Follower Relic combo.

It is.  I just thought it helpful to reiterate it to those that may be unfamiliar.

I find it fascinating that they took away the timebomb wizard build ages ago and now its back with the monk.

I'm really digging the Season Journey stuff.

It's like a quest list for D3!

I think I may almost be done though.

This sounds like what I'm accidentally doing after dusting off my monk yesterday.  She was so crusty that the loot I found in the first five minutes was very obviously "version 2" over what she was using prior, and naturally I didn't remember how to play her.  I figured out that EP was good for what ails me, coupled with something to hasten the explosion.  Currently I'm using a large bell and seven feet kicks or whatever it's called.

Yep.  Exploding palm is just so much fun.  I got a crappy version of the fist weapon with the "Exploding palm does 100% more damage" affix which I pulled off with the cube and the bracers that spread to nearby mobs when one of them explodes.  Now i just try to get into groups with a wizard with the gravity well attack and watch entire rooms full of stuff just explode.   Doubly loving it on the levels with those goddamned fallen shaman, since they cant resurrect exploded buddies.

My point was also ' Enjoy it while you can'. I suspect they'll cap it shortly or something.

Why would they do that?  Diablo is literally built around the idea of creating broken synergies to output obscene numbers and make pixel demons explode as gruesomely and grandiosly as possible.  Besides, you arent going to be putting out stupid numbers untill you have farmed your ass off for a nearly perfect set of sets / assorted gear.  And if they did that, they would also have to nerf several builds for half the other classes in the game as well.   Like the pet-doctors running around with fetish armies shooting poison darts who can literally melt torment 9 rift guardians in a matter of seconds.  Or  the barbarians who just spam whirlwind non stop and cause everything around them to die before they even get to it with tornados of doom.

Nerfing it would be pointless.  Adding more torment levels like they recently did so you have a worthy challenge to pit your bigass numbers against is the right way to go.

They did it with Timebomb, being my point.  I loved Timebomb.  I was having a bomb with Timebomb.

QED.

Blizzard are cunts, is what I'm saying.

Enjoy everything while you can.  A worthwhile philosophy.

(http://i.imgur.com/iDk94aW.gif)

Quite.

(also, bring back timebomb.)

Ok, I'm fed up.  Anyone got any fun Wizard builds ?

Sure, I can level to 70 in five minutes and melt everything with Disintigrate, but it ain't fun.  Monk is fun, WD is fun, Barb is Fun, even the Crusader is fun.

Help me find the fun with my damn Wizard.

I like my archon build. I'm missing two of the key items, but flicking on archon and fucking shit up is fun.

http://www.diablofans.com/builds/56530-2-3-basic-archon-build

If you don't like Disintegrate, you won't like my build, but here's what I've got going so far on my Seasonal. (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Pelton-1464/hero/65463847)

I understand this is probably no help at all, but I was playing a 4 man torment 9 or 10, and there was this wizard running way out in front, melting god damn everything in our path.  What ever the build was, it was based around the meteor skill that drops a shit ton of the little fuckers all around.  I just ran around in the middle of an endless stream of fiery explosions.  It looked pretty fun.

So, uh, I guess find that one maybe?

That's a strange co-incidence, because I just saw that one on youtube and it looked like the very thing.

I shall try it oot.

WHYYYY CAN'T I LEVEL THROUGH ADVENTURE MODE.

God story mode is so boring and uninteresting, and I can't even increase the difficulty for whatever reason.

Edit:

Ignore me, I"m an idiot and was looking in the wrong spot for these, horray.  It's been a long time since i last played.

lol.

You can use Adventure Mode to get to 70 in about 45 minutes.  Sockets are your friend.

Yeah I remember adventure mode being great for leveling (and much less boring than story mode), I just couldn't find the option :-/

Friend convinced me to do hardcore with him.  He gets on and powerlevels me to 70 in like 20 minutes (him doing T6 rifts, me standing with my thumb up my ass).

I get to 70 and they go in another area, I decide to look at skills while in getting xp, teleport ot my friend without asking if it's safe and insta die.

Good introduction to hardcore lol

Hmm they changed the chart I linked to a thumbnail, sorry.

In general you don't want to be teleporting to people without asking in Hardcore.  It takes a second to load in, but you character shows up in the game world before the screen loads sometimes, so you end up dead before you can even do anything.

Anyway, welcome to Hardcore.

Yeah I get that, just didn't cross my mind at the time.

How do you level to 70 in adventure mode in 45 minutes?

I've been leveling in adventure mode for days, it feels like, and I'm barely into my 30s.

 :oh_i_see:

Power leveling.  You group up with someone who is 70 and they do high level rifts with you.  You stand WAY back and scoop up all the xp.

You don't even have to stand back, you jus tstand at the entrance and teleport to the player once they zone to the next level.  It was 20 minutes to power level me back to 70 with two guys on Torment IV via rifts

Before the cube patch I tried solo adventure mode, and by level 23 I'd out-leveled the bonuses from my paragon level 200, and I had no gear because not much yellow drops at low level, so things got difficult.  Now with the cube I figure I can remove the level requirements from a set of legendaries and that should get my alt through.  It'll take more than a few hours though, and it costs a lot of mats to remove level requirements from items.

So it's way easier to be power-leveled by a 70 doing rifts.  I believe there's even a community for it, don't even need to make friends first.

Anyone from here who catches me online is welcome to a power level, season or standard.

I'm not even really talking about grouping.  Though it's faster.  I'm talking about SOCKETS.  If you have the biggest fuck off red gem in your napper and a big fuck off red gem in your weapon, you can go from 16 (when you get sockets) to 60 in about 30 minutes of murdering fucking everything in seconds.  Seriously, you'll be at about 45 dps monsters doing 2k dps.  Keep upgrading that weapon and resocketing and you'll be golden.  The 60-70 stuff is a little slower due to scaling, but still super fucking fast.

The guys are right though;  grouping is the way to go.

EDIT :

8 minutes.  Jesus Christ.  Gems of Ease, but still.... (https://youtu.be/61Y-NHtbSHw)

Not that it'll help with a first playthrough, but I was able to extract a power that doubles the strength of any gem socketed into the head slot.  Keep an eye out for that one.

It's what I use for the aforementioned Fuck Off Napper Red Gem.

Sorry took so long for me to respond to this, I keep tweaking.  I play with one-two others and the most fun I've had is with a modified "Timelord" Wiz.  Look up Timelord Wizard 2.3 for a full write-up on that (better than I'd do for you).  The change I applied to it was to use the Ranlor's Folly ability (Kanai's) with Energy Twister, it does an awesome job of pulling them all together, then you drop the Slow Time bubble.  I managed to get an ancient Aether Walker to drop (which I'm using) and I run Gesture of Orpheus as the weapon in Kanai's.  You need ring of royal grandeur (Kania's).  You benefit greater from having focus+restraint as you worn rings.

So basically you go where ever the hell you want, dropping slow time bubbles fucking everywhere.

I tried really really hard to like Vyr's, but I just not a fan of having 20 seconds of awesome followed by X seconds of not so awesome... actually not awesome at all.

Double bounty caches are happening this weekend.  Good bye weekend, wish I could have gotten to know you.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/19902281/bountiful-bounties-double-caches-this-weekend-only-9-24-2015

God dammit Blizzard I wanted special lady time this weekend.

"special lady time" this is 5, maybe 10 minutes tops! Gotta leave her wanting more.

Good point but we don't hate each other yet and so there are multiple ancillary activities.  Also I've had a big week and I don't think I can stay up late and play, then do all the shit I need to do this weekend.  Like finish that deconstructed fluorescent lamp.

Loot be crazy.

My Wizard is now Delrashing like a motherfucker.

Poor crusaders. Even the d3 stats site shows the top players only hitting grift 66; I think all the other classes have broken into the 70s at least.

It's the class I want to like the most thematically, but it's pretty similar to playing a brick.

I've had that problem with Crusaders from the start.  They don't 'gel'.  The skills are all over the shop.  The most fun one I had was a thorns build and, frankly, you just can't really tank in this game, so it was hit or miss.

Were you able to find a fun wizard build?

Yeah, I like Dalrasha.  The combination of melting people in a bubble and then throwing multiple meteors on heads won me out.

Ah, that's what it's called then.  Yeah, it looked fun when I saw it being used.  Once I need a break from my seasonal monk, I'll fire up my wizard again and give that a go.

Just came across this video of #1 players this season taking on GR82 with a 4 man (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6ZJ6TLwlss)

That doesn't look like they're even having fun anymore. They beat on the rift guardian for about 4 minutes alone. Yuck.

Yeah, that's got to be the most boring goddamn video I've ever seen.

I mean, that was less interaction than you get on a WoW boss fight and THOSE turned into too-long suckfests 3 expansions ago.

I'd like to get GR60 to try to finish the Season Journey, but I have no desire to go higher than that.  Even at the mid 50s I feel like you need to fish for a good rift (map layout/mobs) or your chances of finishing it are slim.