Complaints, gripes, kvetches...

[calapine]

And pAElos, not pEAlos. 

Me very sorry. 

[Lakov_Sanite]

Pealos is a gorilla with a monocle.

[Jeff Kelly]

Demon Hunter so Vit and Dex mostly with crit chance and attack speed as secondary.

I won't play multiplayer, on principle even if it kills me ,-).

Blizzard claims that Diablo 3 a single player game at heart with a strong multiplayer option and I'll treat it as such.

I currently sport a 305 dps bow with quiver (both Level 54). If I enter a reasonable buyout (100,000) and nothing else and sort for DPS the best bow I get has 320 dps but I'd lose a huge amount of Dex and Vit for a small upgrade. It's the same with most other equip I own. Next tier of equip starts at 500,000 or worse in the EU AH.

It's frustrating because I could kill Maghda and the Butcher with that sort of equip but in the old Waterways and Shifting Sands almost everything kicks my ass big time.

[Thrawn]

I currently sport a 305 dps bow with quiver (both Level 54). If I enter a reasonable buyout (100,000) and nothing else and sort for DPS the best bow I get has 320 dps but I'd lose a huge amount of Dex and Vit for a small upgrade. It's the same with most other equip I own. Next tier of equip starts at 500,000 or worse in the EU AH.

It's frustrating because I could kill Maghda and the Butcher with that sort of equip but in the old Waterways and Shifting Sands almost everything kicks my ass big time.

I'm going to assume you are 54 here, so I could be completely wrong but -

Do not search for a level 54 bow.  Set the level field as level 60, then filter it for "Reduced Level Requirement" by 6.  These items do not show up otherwise until you hit 60.  You will probably find a bow that is double your current ones dps, my 2h cross bow at level 56 has over 700dps on it doing that so I'm at around 27k dps on my DH before I've even hit 60.  (+10 or more attack speed on rings, amulet and gloves whenever possible in addition to dex)

[Segoris]

4) Find a Sugarmommy.

If you follow this advice and find one, let me know if she has a sister


Good tips in general though, search for level 60 weapons with reduced level requirement and you'll plow right through anything giving you trouble.
Sometimes, it's also your spec. As shitty as it sounds, not all specs are created equal.
Up until Act2 inferno for dps classes, I'd also say it's safe to just stack vit and your main dps stat with a good weapon. Don't worry about +magic find or gold find, since at that level it's pretty irrelevant.

[kildorn]

A 300 dps bow should be fine, the main issue in the waterways are Nagas due to the invulnerability while closing and high damage output. I'd suggest switching your build around a bit at that point in the game. I pretty much limped through Act 2 Hell on my DH due to Nagas, then walked through Act 3/4 without dying once. I swapped out to Frost Arrow as my spam ability, cluster arrow with stun, and the carpet bombing version of rain of arrows. Everything else was geared around hatred generation and my one smoke screen oh shit button.

Nagas will always suck hard, however. Fuck Nagas.

[Lantyssa]

And pAElos, not pEAlos. 

Pälos.

He just anglicizes it.

[Malakili]

It's frustrating because I could kill Maghda and the Butcher with that sort of equip but in the old Waterways and Shifting Sands almost everything kicks my ass big time.

What sort of build are you running?

[Arinon]

Some of the mob types in Act 2 are just way to painful to kite and I had to bite the bullet and tank some shit.  Shadow Power with Gloom can be chained for quite a while with Prep.  Put a shield on if you have to and spam Ball Lightning or Nether Tentacles.  You may be surprised at what you can tank with that setup.  Also works for any mobs that hide/burrow/run away when you pop smoke or those too fast for you.

[Xanthippe]

Demon Hunter so Vit and Dex mostly with crit chance and attack speed as secondary.

I won't play multiplayer, on principle even if it kills me ,-).

Blizzard claims that Diablo 3 a single player game at heart with a strong multiplayer option and I'll treat it as such.

I currently sport a 305 dps bow with quiver (both Level 54). If I enter a reasonable buyout (100,000) and nothing else and sort for DPS the best bow I get has 320 dps but I'd lose a huge amount of Dex and Vit for a small upgrade. It's the same with most other equip I own. Next tier of equip starts at 500,000 or worse in the EU AH.

It's frustrating because I could kill Maghda and the Butcher with that sort of equip but in the old Waterways and Shifting Sands almost everything kicks my ass big time.

Whatever dex and vitality you get on a weapon at 54, it pales in comparison to any weapon with more damage. Honest.

Forget dex and vitality on weapons until you are rich rich rich. Damage is king. Get the highest damage bow, hand crossbow, whatever you pew pew with.

You can get dex and vitality on your other pieces. Damage on weapons is the main trait you need. Maybe the only trait you need, until you are either much richer or much luckier with drops.

[Ingmar]

Also, 305 to 320 is not a 'small' upgrade. That displayed weapon DPS is multiplied by all your other DPS-affecting stats, a difference of 15 damage on the weapon can easily be hundreds of displayed DPS difference on your character sheet.

[Rokal]

Edit: Wrong thread to talk about durability loss... or upcoming patch changes. Whoops.

[Phred]

Near the end of Act3 nightmare and still not a single legendary.  I'm getting sad.

I did not get a legendary until I got to inferno with NV. Now I have 2 legendaries (both from inferno).

I have never stacked MF.

I don't know what they are because I heard that they are going to buff legendaries in the next big patch (1.0.3?) but the buff only applies to unidentified legendaries. So I tossed them into stash for future identifying.

Actually they said they weren't going to retroactively change existing legendaries. If they clarified that to say they would uppgrade unidentified legendaries I must have missed it.

[Jeff Kelly]

After skimming the AH for a day I finally found an affordable 60 Bow with reduced level requirement because people have caught on by now that those were a bargain and now prices are up. 600 dps for 75,000 Gold although with 4% more life and x life per hit it's still a bargain.

Now it's just mashing buttons and watching goons die where I was the one dying before. Even got Belial on the second try. Afterwards things got even more ridiculous and I've been breezing through Act 3 without breaking a sweat. Difficulty goes way down once you switch acts.

It's not a testament to balance that a single upgrade can influence the difficulty that much but I'm not complaining.

I'm now Level 59 and elemental arrow with nether tentacles is just ridiculously overpowered. Spam until discipline is gone and watch everything die.

[rk47]

Great job, Jeff. You're playing the game, the way it's meant to be played. Money is power. 

[Ragnoros]

Regarding your experience: The lead designer of diablo has stated several times that things such as reduced level requirements were put into the game so you could feel like you were breaking things and being a badass.

Heck, for posterity.

There’s lots of “breakpoints”, as I like to call them, in the game. I love games that exhibit breakpoints. Points where you’re following one strategy, but as soon as you hit some magic break point you can suddenly do something you couldn’t do before.

That point where your archon goes from 25 seconds to INFINITE. Yay! That point where your life per hit is completely mitigating all incoming damage. That point where you have enough crit to perma-CC all non-elite monsters with certain builds.

One of the things that absorbs a lot of mental energy is trying to create that feeling that you “broke the game”. No level requirements on gems and Reduced Level Requirements going as high as 18 are two examples of this. I love things that make the player feel like they broke the game (as long as it is, in the grand scheme of things, not going to ruin it).

[Ironwood]

But it kinda does ruin it.

 

[Jeff Kelly]

That sort of 'mechanic' (I'm using the term loosely here) wouldn't work without the AH. I could have farmed Act 1 and 2 on Hell from here to eternity and the bow I bought wouldn't have dropped ever.

The difficulty also doesn't gradually increase or decrease. You switch from Act 1 to 2 and it's instantly harder, you buy a new item and it's instantly much easier. That's not a 'breaking point', that's just shitty balancing.

[rk47]

That sort of 'mechanic' (I'm using the term loosely here) wouldn't work without the AH. I could have farmed Act 1 and 2 on Hell from here to eternity and the bow I bought wouldn't have dropped ever.

The difficulty also doesn't gradually increase or decrease. You switch from Act 1 to 2 and it's instantly harder, you buy a new item and it's instantly much easier. That's not a 'breaking point', that's just shitty balancing.

[Malakili]

That sort of 'mechanic' (I'm using the term loosely here) wouldn't work without the AH. I could have farmed Act 1 and 2 on Hell from here to eternity and the bow I bought wouldn't have dropped ever.

These "break points" existed in Diablo 2 also and there was no AH.  It absolutely required trading in the end game to get a full set of gear of course.  And then it was practically all for show anyway, because there wasn't even any difficult to complete content in the first place (by comparison to Inferno).

[Ironwood]

You totally contradicted yourself in one line.  That's awesome.

 

[Ingmar]

That sort of 'mechanic' (I'm using the term loosely here) wouldn't work without the AH. I could have farmed Act 1 and 2 on Hell from here to eternity and the bow I bought wouldn't have dropped ever.

While that may be true, a bow that was good enough to break your stall point would have. The total roadblock problem with drop levels really only exists in inferno (and they're taking steps to fix it.) I guess maybe it exists in normal too but normal is so easy it doesn't really matter.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

The problem is really that there is only one vector for gaining effectiveness: gear. In D2 there were tons of examples of this 'breakpoint' satisfaction that simply came from your skill build hitting a certain plateau -- like when you finish saving up all those points and hit the level where you can dump them into a new skill that is wicked awesome (whirlwind, etc.)

And even in terms of gear the number of upgrades that will create that sort of game-breaking/new car smell are much more limited, because there are so few unique affixes or unusually-statted items. Now it's pretty much entirely when you upgrade your weapon, and in some very rare cases when you manage to stack some other 'interesting' stat (crit, life on hit?) When the only thing that changes your gameplay is upgrading a single piece of gear, the number of times it can become interesting again -- and D2 was kind of like an endless sine wave of 'bored now... oh but what if I try this new thing?' -- is a lot more limited.

[Ingmar]

Eh, I would say there are also spots where you get that great rune or passive that you wanted also.

[Malakili]

You totally contradicted yourself in one line.  That's awesome.

 

Where?  I don't see the problem.  The break points in D2 were things like going from being able to complete the content to being godlike with dual leech, or being able to crush huge packs of cows more quickly.  It is a totally different thing that in Diablo 3 because the end game actually has content that is hard at max level.  In other words - In Diablo 2 end game progression was only about clearing more quickly, in Diablo 3 it is about being able to clear something at all.  Perhaps this is your problem with the system?

If you were talking about the AH/Trading thing - my point is that you've always had to do something with regards to the economy if you wanted a full set of highend gear - the only difference is that a full set of high end gear is actually necessary in Diablo 3 (see the previous point) whereas it didn't matter in Diablo 2 if all you cared about was the binary of being able/not being able to clear something.

[Ice Cream Emperor]

Nephalem Valor should just always apply, to characters of all levels. Add a little bit of scaling if necessary, but seriously, why not? It makes the game more fun, and there is no real downside to letting players get more low-level interesting drops.

Or if you want to preserve that initial desperate-for-drops feeling, just have NV be an account-wide ability activated when you first get a character to level 60. It's annoying to be levelling up a secondary character and thinking 'I could have my main farm this and the drops would be better -- and not just because I'd clear it faster.' It would also add some novelty to alt-levelling the first few times, since you might actually see some of those low-level legendary drops.

One of the better new mechanics -- and like the ONE good idea from the Sacred games, so good to see an improved version showing up in Diablo -- but it feels wasted at level 60, when it could be making the whole levelling experience more fun too.

[Malakili]

Nephalem Valor should just always apply, to characters of all levels. Add a little bit of scaling if necessary, but seriously, why not? It makes the game more fun, and there is no real downside to letting players get more low-level interesting drops.

Or if you want to preserve that initial desperate-for-drops feeling, just have NV be an account-wide ability activated when you first get a character to level 60. It's annoying to be levelling up a secondary character and thinking 'I could have my main farm this and the drops would be better -- and not just because I'd clear it faster.' It would also add some novelty to alt-levelling the first few times, since you might actually see some of those low-level legendary drops.

One of the better new mechanics -- and like the ONE good idea from the Sacred games, so good to see an improved version showing up in Diablo -- but it feels wasted at level 60, when it could be making the whole levelling experience more fun too.

I agree.  Their reasoning is that it would make people not want to equip that new skill they just got in order to preserve the buff.  I think that is reasonable at least, but I do wish I had it on all my characters.

[Khaldun]

So I know this is old news but now into Act III on Inferno, I'm finding that gameplay really has only two dimensions: steamrolling or desperate kiting across half the map. When you draw the wrong characteristics on a pack, it's going to be a twenty-minute kite fest. Molten Immune Fast Knockbacks in Act II, for example, were pretty close to impossible--but not the fun kind of impossible, really.

[Paelos]

The "skill" level certainly isn't really there in inferno, unless the skill is running around a lot.

[Shatter]

So I know this is old news but now into Act III on Inferno, I'm finding that gameplay really has only two dimensions: steamrolling or desperate kiting across half the map. When you draw the wrong characteristics on a pack, it's going to be a twenty-minute kite fest. Molten Immune Fast Knockbacks in Act II, for example, were pretty close to impossible--but not the fun kind of impossible, really.

My whole Inferno experience past act 1 is basically clear my run path, pray I dont get elite mob Terminator 1000 with bonus pew pew lasers so I can kite the f*cker for 20 minutes and get my sh*tty blue drops. 

[Ice Cream Emperor]

I agree.  Their reasoning is that it would make people not want to equip that new skill they just got in order to preserve the buff. 

Gosh, how could they possibly solve that problem? After all we know that losing the buff whenever you change skills is crucial to what makes Nephalem Valor enjoyabl-- oh wait, no, it's totally pointless and arbitrary and should also be removed? Then they can get around to adding hotkeys for swapping skills, and the game can get significantly more fun to play. Everybody wins.

(Honestly, if anyone can explain why NV disappears on respec, I'd love to hear it.)

[Malakili]

I agree.  Their reasoning is that it would make people not want to equip that new skill they just got in order to preserve the buff. 

Gosh, how could they possibly solve that problem? After all we know that losing the buff whenever you change skills is crucial to what makes Nephalem Valor enjoyabl-- oh wait, no, it's totally pointless and arbitrary and should also be removed? Then they can get around to adding hotkeys for swapping skills, and the game can get significantly more fun to play. Everybody wins.

(Honestly, if anyone can explain why NV disappears on respec, I'd love to hear it.)

Well, I'm not saying I agree with them, I was just saying what they've said.

Also, the reason, according to them, about why NV disappears on respec is that they don't want people changing spec to be optimal for every different thing they come across.  They want you to pick a spec that is good for the entire area you are running, and stay with it.   Again, I'm not saying this is a great reason, but it is *the* reason they gave when they announced the buff in the first place.

[Jeff Kelly]

While that may be true, a bow that was good enough to break your stall point would have. The total roadblock problem with drop levels really only exists in inferno (and they're taking steps to fix it.) I guess maybe it exists in normal too but normal is so easy it doesn't really matter.

I could probably wait until I roll something with perfect stats but I already had level appropriate gear. If it wasn't for the "reduced level requirement" stat I wouldn't even be able to use the bow I now have because it's level 60 and I was Level 54 at that time.

Act 2 Hell doesn't drop anything better than what I already had because I bought my stuff from the AH and Act 2 only drops items of a level 48 - 52 (even Act 4 Hell doesn't drop level 60 loot consistently)

The only thing you could argue is my lack of skill.

Diablo in Diablo 2 was hard but perfectly doable by toons with lackluster gear if they had great tactics and decent skill. Belial or Diablo in 3with sub par gear needs a near perfect execution because they one-shot you.

I don't consider kiting mobs for half an hour or OCD-levels of perfect execution to get a boss down to be signs of great skill but YMMV.

The difficulty curve is clearly designed around the AH even if they claim otherwise. You play until you hit your particular brick wall and then you go on a shopping spree.

[Merusk]

I'll be honest, I don't think it's because they designed around the AH, I think you're just seeing what happens when a Developer focuses on an MMO so intensely for 7 years.   It's a lack of talent and ability to think in the style of other games, nothing as Machiavellian as funneling people to the AH.   

The MMO thought and design process for encounters has bled in to the other studios and it really shows in Diablo III.   It's a current-gen DIKU in all but the loot drop mechanics.  The scripted encounters, the need to gear up or be splattered, the need to use specific skill rotations and combinations to succeed.   If you had a shared interaction space you'd be hard pressed to call it anything but an MMO.

[Xanthippe]

I'll be honest, I don't think it's because they designed around the AH, I think you're just seeing what happens when a Developer focuses on an MMO so intensely for 7 years.   It's a lack of talent and ability to think in the style of other games, nothing as Machiavellian as funneling people to the AH.  

The MMO thought and design process for encounters has bled in to the other studios and it really shows in Diablo III.   It's a current-gen DIKU in all but the loot drop mechanics.  The scripted encounters, the need to gear up or be splattered, the need to use specific skill rotations and combinations to succeed.   If you had a shared interaction space you'd be hard pressed to call it anything but an MMO.

It sure seems designed around the AH to me, given the drop rates of gear to use for the next act (which seems to approach zero).

After reading the reddit summary, I am unimpressed with the developers' vision, attitudes and philosophies.
http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/uoooj/i_am_we_are_wyatt_cheng_andrew_chambers_and_jay/

Summary here: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5578596168#1