Look for weapons with sockets, it will be far and away the best way to increase your DPS. Natalya's boots with vitality will be very helpful, and just getting more vitality in general, even at the cost of a little dex will go a long way to making you able to play at higher monster power.
Your weapons are not that great, the set isn't worth much. I would look for something with lifesteal+socket in one hand, then an Echoing fury with a socket and vitality or something like that in the other (to keep the cost down, if you really want to go big then look for an Echoing fury with socket and LS or socket and CD).
You might look into a different helm, the one you have is pretty weak. A mempo would be better, or a better rolled inna's.
Its not just the difficulty got rescaled, mob density and the pace of the game was significantly reduced. MP1 act 1 has probably 2.5X the monsters as Master on the PTR. The game just isn't nearly as fun with fewer things to kill, especially when those few things die way too fast.
this is really a big step back. not really impressed with ROS and $40 too
please can we have torment on patch 2.01
You are posting in the wrong foums if you want your voice to be heard by those that matter.
I do agree that the game will be toast for anyone who doesn't buy the expansion however, and if the stated goal by Blizzard to not make the purchase of the expansion mandatory is genuine, they need to find a way to make 2.0.1 comparable to 1.8 in terms of replayability.
Anyone who wants mine send me a PM here. First to PM gets it.
And I truly hope you like it better then I did. Plasmic hit it on the head. As I was playing it I was thinking, "OMG, this is just a Scyrim knockoff".
I agree with your argument that it COULD be released prior to the AH removal with no real implications on the game. But, having played blizzard games a long time and followed these kinds of things, I also know how blizzard likes to do things. I think it unlikely that we will see the pre-patch before the AH removal.
That being said, I'm holding out hope that this is not the case and we do see it before then. The announcement that pre-download of the patch should begin sometime this month gives me hope. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Save mats to craft shoulders once you find the Archon shoulders of vitality plan, then go for bracers, and then an amulet. Shoulders are the easiest to get a good roll on, followed by bracers. Amulet and gloves are difficult to get a good roll on, but the payout can potentially be huge if you get trifecta. Dont bother crafting any of the ilvl 62 gear, only the ilvl 63. Gems get very expensive to upgrade, hold off on it until you have crafted a few peices of decent gear. I wouldn't buy the archon chest for a while, since crafting it is very expensive, and your income is probably kinda low. How much gold do you have?
I wouldn't go to mp1 yet since your resistances are pretty low, its very risky running Hardcore without using the one with everything passive. Also going to mp1 is a significant step up in monster damage and hp, not just density. I wouldn't do it yet if I were you.
I would try to shoot for 50k hp, 400 resistances, 4k armor, and 30k dps before i made the jump to mp1. You will also need some kind of sustain, be it life on hit, lifesteal, life regen, or extra globe healing to stay up and I didn't see much on your profile.
Buffing HS for 1h causes new problems though, it becomes a passive that everyone has to use, regardless of build. In which case you just might as well make it a baseline crusader ability, like barbs and monks taking 30% less damage.
I think they would have to make a different passive for 1h's.
I doubt that the pre-expansion patch will come out several weeks before RoS - not only because it would allow for level 60 RoS loot to be traded on the auction house,
The only things that will be tradeable are rares, not legendaries when 2.0.1 hits live, so it wont be that big of an issue IMO if it hit early. Especially since rares can only roll 4 primary affixes in 2.0.1 instead of 6, which is the case with live servers now. The best items will be pre 2.0.1 for this reason (vit, main stat, all res, sockets is 4, you wouldn't be able to get armor or crit, or life%, or trifecta...ect ect), so I could see the pre expansion patch hitting live servers before the AH shutdown, although I agree with you it seems unlikely.
Back to the rephrased question by the OP: The stats that you got from paragon levels now will all disapear and you will instead get points you can allocate for different kinds of stats: main, offensive, defensive, and utility. New paragon levels won't be as strong as they are right now, but give a larger diversity of options and don't have a limit. The main thing you should be aware of is that all of your MF and GF from paragon levels will go away, regardless of whether or not you buy the expansion.
Whirlwind with hurricane would probably be really powerful for this build, since whirlwind hits so quickly and has a fairly high proc coefficient for an aoe ability, and would serve to pull everything close together. Or you could use the healing WW rune, same deal. Might be worth trying.
I think there is probably a high likelihood of this build being broken before it hits live servers. Blizz doesn't like perma-CC builds, and this is more OP than the wizard build because it kills faster and it really is permanent stun lock most of the time.
Having said that, I hope I get a chance to try it but it seems unlikely to me.
75% block cap was D2, I don't think that block can get close that high in D3 unless some of the crusader passives and legendaries that I don't know about can stack multiplicatively. There is a ring that has like 8-11% block chance, stormshield that can have up to 34% block...and maybe a helm of command with 8%.
I personally haven't dropped the whirlwind build on live servers even though I know a hota/rend build is far superior only because I ENJOY the whirlwind playstyle
Superior for farming elites, but if you are just going for straight XP and item drops, WW definitely has that beat for the speed at which you can mow down white mobs.
I am more worried about 2hand builds without shield being viable than about 1hand/shield honestly.
I don't see a 2h build without a shield ever happening for a crusader, a shield gives so much survivability and useful stats it would be very foolish not to use one. 10% crit chance is better than most passives alone and is worth sacrificing a passive slot for, and that's just one affix. A crusader will ALWAYS use a shield. The only question is whether or not to use a 1h or 2h weapon, and right now that question seems almost rhetorical.
The penalty for using a 2h weapon is pretty much nothing. Move speed is capped at 25%, and you can get 25% move speed just from paragon levels, nevermind gear.
I think they should change Heavenly Strength to be double-sided, the way the monk passive Guardian's Path works (15% dodge while dual wielding, 25% extra spirit w/ a 2h). Add a perk into using a 1H weapon, like weapon strikes are more precise, adding 100% extra CD to critical strikes, or wrath builders have a 20% chance to generate 20 extra wrath, or you gain 75% more block amount, or 15% increased attack speed...I could go on but I won't.
The only pitfall with that is that Heavenly Strength becomes a must use skill, but as we now stand it pretty much is already. The other option would just be to replace one of the least used passives with a passive that gives bonuses to 1h's, like was suggested before.
http://www.diablofans.com/blizz-tracker/topic/51763-enter-on-torment-difficult-being-on-ptr
Torment difficulty for lvl 60 characters. That means Vanilla D3 gets torment and torment only Legendaries.
A PTR/Beta patch seems reasonable to me. But nothing on live servers. If there is a patch, it will only be on test servers.
Look for weapons with sockets, it will be far and away the best way to increase your DPS. Natalya's boots with vitality will be very helpful, and just getting more vitality in general, even at the cost of a little dex will go a long way to making you able to play at higher monster power.
Your weapons are not that great, the set isn't worth much. I would look for something with lifesteal+socket in one hand, then an Echoing fury with a socket and vitality or something like that in the other (to keep the cost down, if you really want to go big then look for an Echoing fury with socket and LS or socket and CD).
You might look into a different helm, the one you have is pretty weak. A mempo would be better, or a better rolled inna's.
Its not just the difficulty got rescaled, mob density and the pace of the game was significantly reduced. MP1 act 1 has probably 2.5X the monsters as Master on the PTR. The game just isn't nearly as fun with fewer things to kill, especially when those few things die way too fast.
I agree with your argument that it COULD be released prior to the AH removal with no real implications on the game. But, having played blizzard games a long time and followed these kinds of things, I also know how blizzard likes to do things. I think it unlikely that we will see the pre-patch before the AH removal.
That being said, I'm holding out hope that this is not the case and we do see it before then. The announcement that pre-download of the patch should begin sometime this month gives me hope. But I'm not going to hold my breath.
Save mats to craft shoulders once you find the Archon shoulders of vitality plan, then go for bracers, and then an amulet. Shoulders are the easiest to get a good roll on, followed by bracers. Amulet and gloves are difficult to get a good roll on, but the payout can potentially be huge if you get trifecta. Dont bother crafting any of the ilvl 62 gear, only the ilvl 63. Gems get very expensive to upgrade, hold off on it until you have crafted a few peices of decent gear. I wouldn't buy the archon chest for a while, since crafting it is very expensive, and your income is probably kinda low. How much gold do you have?
I wouldn't go to mp1 yet since your resistances are pretty low, its very risky running Hardcore without using the one with everything passive. Also going to mp1 is a significant step up in monster damage and hp, not just density. I wouldn't do it yet if I were you.
I would try to shoot for 50k hp, 400 resistances, 4k armor, and 30k dps before i made the jump to mp1. You will also need some kind of sustain, be it life on hit, lifesteal, life regen, or extra globe healing to stay up and I didn't see much on your profile.
Buffing HS for 1h causes new problems though, it becomes a passive that everyone has to use, regardless of build. In which case you just might as well make it a baseline crusader ability, like barbs and monks taking 30% less damage.
I think they would have to make a different passive for 1h's.
Whirlwind with hurricane would probably be really powerful for this build, since whirlwind hits so quickly and has a fairly high proc coefficient for an aoe ability, and would serve to pull everything close together. Or you could use the healing WW rune, same deal. Might be worth trying.
I think there is probably a high likelihood of this build being broken before it hits live servers. Blizz doesn't like perma-CC builds, and this is more OP than the wizard build because it kills faster and it really is permanent stun lock most of the time.
Having said that, I hope I get a chance to try it but it seems unlikely to me.
75% block cap was D2, I don't think that block can get close that high in D3 unless some of the crusader passives and legendaries that I don't know about can stack multiplicatively. There is a ring that has like 8-11% block chance, stormshield that can have up to 34% block...and maybe a helm of command with 8%.
When was this footage taken?