Well, I hit Hell difficulty on my monk yesterday and all I have to say is WOW! It's much harder than Nightmare was. I LOVE it!
However, I find that my gear and damage is lacking for this difficulty because I have mainly been playing with drops I get and the occasional piece of gear I'd find on vendors. I have been trying to avoid the temptation of buying super good gear off the AH because I was afraid it would let me just steamroll though the content. I don't know if this is true now that I've experienced Hell.
My 53 monk has around 22-24k life, 1100-ish armor and does just over 2k damage. My fist weapons do are vendor purchased and do around 184 dps with rubies, but they only have a min-max damage affix and socket, so they suck.
As you can tell, this isn't the best gear and stats. When I look on the AH there are tons of weapons that do 250+ dps with multiple affixes on them. The same goes for armor as well.
I'd like to stick with drops, but I just don't see enough good drops and killing champ packs and rare elites is a pain. Hell, I barely can kill the treasure goblin before he ports away.
By using only drops and vendor gear my fight in Hell has been harder than it had to be and I'm only just past the SK. I was curious if Hell difficulty would become too easy if I bought some gear off the AH? My plan was to stick with gear my level or 1-2 levels below.
I guess the AH has become a necessity. What are your opinions on using it? How many like the struggle of just using drops you find instead of buying gear off the AH?
If you buy the right items, Hell will become utter faceroll. That said, I don't think the AH is necessary before Inferno: indeed, I didn't buy anything until I hit Inferno and realised I needed to start min-maxing my gear.
Before that point, on my Monk, if I started struggling I would go back an act or two and farm up some gear/EXP. Maybe upgrade a couple gems, switch my spec around a bit, that sort of thing. If I remember rightly I had to go back and farm at least once per Act:
-First time, I got stuck making my way towards the Halls of Agony. I went back to the start of Act 1 and managed to get through from there
-Second time, I got stuck in the many dungeons on the way to Zoltun Kulle. Went back to Act 1 and played all the way through again, then had no serious issues
-First half of Act 3 was easy enough, but I struggled on the second half. So I went back to the start of Act 3 again (this time dinging 60 in the process), then managed to get through the second half.
-Act 4 I struggled a fair bit with, but I don't think I had to go back at all actually. I skipped a few champion packs though (including this vampiric/fast affix that I just couldn't DPS through, they healed too much)
-Wiped for about an hour on Diablo before killing him.
Hell was certainly a lot of fun on my first go through. Second time on my Demon Hunter was lolfaceroll because I decked her out in tons of awesome gear.
Inferno is a completely different story though. You will need to use the AH a lot if you want to make timely progress without weeks of farming. The game is doable without the AH, but you'll take a hell of a lot longer to farm the gear yourself.
I have played multiple characters to 60, including a monk, and I cannot say, I agree. I used only drops each character found himself up to inferno, and it worked out pretty well on every class I played so far, even without any additional farming for items.
This is what I want to do and I may stick with it.
If you want to use the ah, just go ahead. It will certainly make your life easier. On the other hand, don't expect to find any upgrades yourself afterwards
This is my biggest fear of using the AH and why I have not bought anything yet.
If you struggle in hell, try different builds. Hell is no walk in the park anymore, champions and elites start to get quite dangerous. Do you know elective mode?
I do know of elective mode and have been using it from day 1 on all toons. And I have been trying out different builds to find one that works best.
Again, you can try other spells, Sweeping Wind is an awesome spender for consistent, quite high damage output, for max evasion build you can use Evasion mantra with Feedback Blast rune, which does awesome damage.
I'll look into these skills and runes tonight, if they are available at 53.
Thanks for the input. I think I'll keep at it and see if things improve and if I get some more drops.
Great thread. I have been wondering / experiencing the same thing. I decked out my DH from the aH and it's not fun anymore, because I just wipe all the mobs out like that. I'm cruising through levels until it gets more challenging. On the other hand, my level 50 WD is a blast to play in Hell. I haven't been to the AH since Nightmare and don't plan on going to the AH.
Great thread. I have been wondering / experiencing the same thing. I decked out my DH from the aH and it's not fun anymore, because I just wipe all the mobs out like that. I'm cruising through levels until it gets more challenging. On the other hand, my level 50 WD is a blast to play in Hell. I haven't been to the AH since Nightmare and don't plan on going to the AH.
Yeah, you're experience with the DH is why I haven't bought stuff for my toons. I'd hate to ruin the game. I may just buy a couple of weapons a little better than what I have and wait for drops and for Blizzard to reduce blacksmith costs so I can make an item or two.
The AH isn't a necessity but I wouldn't recommend wasting too much of your time trying to play "vanilla" and avoid the AH. People unload gear on there for nothing. You could gear a lvl 50 from head to toe in Rare items for 25K gold total (except for rings and ammy.) 25K gold = 1 hour of gold drops. It's really a no-brainer.
My playstyle is to work through the game, getting a bunch of levels at a time, then going to the AH and upgrading my crappiest one or two items.. rinse and repeat. this keeps the game challenging without slowing me down too much.
I also don't equip or purchase any item unless it has both dex and vit. The monk is never going to be a min/max class so I don't kid myself in trying to make it one.
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However, I find that my gear and damage is lacking for this difficulty because I have mainly been playing with drops I get and the occasional piece of gear I'd find on vendors. I have been trying to avoid the temptation of buying super good gear off the AH because I was afraid it would let me just steamroll though the content. I don't know if this is true now that I've experienced Hell.
My 53 monk has around 22-24k life, 1100-ish armor and does just over 2k damage. My fist weapons do are vendor purchased and do around 184 dps with rubies, but they only have a min-max damage affix and socket, so they suck.
As you can tell, this isn't the best gear and stats. When I look on the AH there are tons of weapons that do 250+ dps with multiple affixes on them. The same goes for armor as well.
I'd like to stick with drops, but I just don't see enough good drops and killing champ packs and rare elites is a pain. Hell, I barely can kill the treasure goblin before he ports away.
By using only drops and vendor gear my fight in Hell has been harder than it had to be and I'm only just past the SK. I was curious if Hell difficulty would become too easy if I bought some gear off the AH? My plan was to stick with gear my level or 1-2 levels below.
I guess the AH has become a necessity. What are your opinions on using it? How many like the struggle of just using drops you find instead of buying gear off the AH?
Before that point, on my Monk, if I started struggling I would go back an act or two and farm up some gear/EXP. Maybe upgrade a couple gems, switch my spec around a bit, that sort of thing. If I remember rightly I had to go back and farm at least once per Act:
-First time, I got stuck making my way towards the Halls of Agony. I went back to the start of Act 1 and managed to get through from there
-Second time, I got stuck in the many dungeons on the way to Zoltun Kulle. Went back to Act 1 and played all the way through again, then had no serious issues
-First half of Act 3 was easy enough, but I struggled on the second half. So I went back to the start of Act 3 again (this time dinging 60 in the process), then managed to get through the second half.
-Act 4 I struggled a fair bit with, but I don't think I had to go back at all actually. I skipped a few champion packs though (including this vampiric/fast affix that I just couldn't DPS through, they healed too much)
-Wiped for about an hour on Diablo before killing him.
Hell was certainly a lot of fun on my first go through. Second time on my Demon Hunter was lolfaceroll because I decked her out in tons of awesome gear.
Inferno is a completely different story though. You will need to use the AH a lot if you want to make timely progress without weeks of farming. The game is doable without the AH, but you'll take a hell of a lot longer to farm the gear yourself.
This is what I want to do and I may stick with it.
This is my biggest fear of using the AH and why I have not bought anything yet.
I do know of elective mode and have been using it from day 1 on all toons. And I have been trying out different builds to find one that works best.
I haven't tried Serenity, yet, but I do like the looks of it. Breath of Heaven never leaves my skill bar.
Which is what I have. My dex and vit are both around 750-790-ish.
I'll look into these skills and runes tonight, if they are available at 53.
Thanks for the input. I think I'll keep at it and see if things improve and if I get some more drops.
Cool. I may do the same, if things don't improve.
Yeah, you're experience with the DH is why I haven't bought stuff for my toons. I'd hate to ruin the game. I may just buy a couple of weapons a little better than what I have and wait for drops and for Blizzard to reduce blacksmith costs so I can make an item or two.
gz on getting to hell tho
ah prices for me are stupid, but if you get a good wep - that will help you a hell of alot then odd armour here and there.
My playstyle is to work through the game, getting a bunch of levels at a time, then going to the AH and upgrading my crappiest one or two items.. rinse and repeat. this keeps the game challenging without slowing me down too much.
I also don't equip or purchase any item unless it has both dex and vit. The monk is never going to be a min/max class so I don't kid myself in trying to make it one.
Yeah, I am dreading inferno, but looking forward to it too after seeing so many posts about it.
I want to reach it before they make changes to it, so I can compare before and after.
Never said it was.
I just don't want to over gear and make content trivial. Because where's the fun in that?