I really dislike Raekor + IK charge, but for sure it has very impressive damage in large AOE packs and Earth (Boulder Toss or Seismic) cannot compete with that, on boss damage though Raekor isn't that impressive since Vile Ward is no longer in effect, nor do the Ancient Parthan Defenders have the same effect.
I'm doing a lot of rifts at the moment in a 3man group with an Impale Demon Hunter and Raekors Barb (I'm playing SS) and we're farming 75s pretty quickly, I'm at a situation where I can just stand on the spot and heal through almost everything, with only physical damage being scary (since esoteric does nothing), where as the Raekor Barb during the whole rift will only fight mobs until they are stun immune and then he will leave and find new stuff and leave me + DH to deal with it.
In solo the Raekors is still clearly the best spec because the damage on large packs is so much stronger than other builds, but the spec is still quite prone to death and it's such a clunky and situational spec to play, I just can't stand it. My Seismic Slam build will take me far enough, it will run out of steam in the early 80s though from lack of damage scaling, where Raekor will keep pushing on.
I've not played Boulder Toss (with Tribes Blade) enough to really compare, but SS seems in a similar place but while being far more about the spender than the generator, with SS the Earthquake/Avalance is more like a filler damage to activate Earthen Might so that you're at high Fury and full toughness (from Iron Impact + Band of Might) just before the fire element on COE comes up. My latest crit records are over 200bil on RG.
I do it because when I used it on right click and had War Cry/Threatening Shout on left click it was causing issues where the character could sometimes not use entrances, like for example to go down to the next level inside a greater rift. It's a strange bug too since it's not something that happens at all entrances, it's just like it chooses a specific one that won't work and that will never work, while every other will work fine.
Sometimes bugs out with the stash too, other times not. Only time I need to do that though is with Bul Kathos + Wastes build, other builds I have WW on right click, since you dont need to shift or force move for it to work.
Why not go 6IK + 2 Wastes, run Furnace/Lamentation (2 rend stacks)/Convention of Elements in the cube and then play Rend + Charge/Whirlwind. It's a much stronger build than Hota for soloing anyway due to superior AOE damage and better survival.
HOTA is only really best in groups due to group synergy, the big crits are used to set off exploding palm (thus taking care of the AOE damage requirements) while the single target takes care of the rift guardian.. Survival not being an issue because you would run with a healing monk.
HOTA is just the ultimate group spec, both Rend (6 IK/2 Wastes) and WW (6 Waste + 2 BK) are stronger solo.
This thread is full of all the anti-pvp players all rounded up into one place or? jeez if you don't want PVP then don't do it and get on with your own thing, don't put a downer on everyone else. Blizzard displayed a working and very popular arena style pvp system that had a lot of people hyped, there were people who were buying the game purely for that reason alone, just as people played D2 for only PVP.
The current PVP is pretty much the same as D2 without the open world aspect but in this day and age that does not cut it... In D2 they balanced things separately from PVE to PVP and there is no reason why that can't be done to some extent here, it doesn't have to be competitive well balanced PVP but at least something that was shown and promised... Expand the boundries a little.
Don't forget that they had arena PVP pre-launch and then pulled it from the game in the last minute (as a temporary thing, I might add) and then there was no pvp at all for a very long time, until they half assed in this dueling arena that we have now. PVP in Diablo is fun, it works well and It makes absolutely no sense that they have completely abandoned it.
I'm a Diablo and Diablo 2 player who also misses being able to trade items, this whole account bound thing just doesn't sit right in a Diablo game, not for me anyway.
Diablo 2 had some big problems surrounding non bound loot, but despite those it was a massively popular and successful game, the fact that it's still online is evidence of that. But the issues with D2
1. Trade Scams
2. Third party item shops/D2jsp
The problem with trading in D2 was simply the lack of a secure and accessible medium with which to trade, trade games were common but they were full of people trying to get free loot, people trying to scam, people with wild imaginations on the value of an item.. Trading in D2 was a frustrating thing, I remember many a trade game that was over before it even began. So some people turned to websites like D2jsp, others simply bought from item shops.. the rest just struggled on cluelessly in game.
So when D3 came along and announced an AH I thought "Yes, this is exactly what was needed" and really from a D2 perspective it was the right solution, they stayed true to the games nature of trading items whilst providing a safe and easy/convenient place to do trading. The problem came when the balancing of the game at launch (extremely tough) combined with the average item drop (generally poor) and the restrictions on what ilvl gear could drop where (ilvl 61 max in act 1 inferno) so obviously it turned the game into effectively a gold grinding game where you bought the gear from the AH because for the most part it was much quicker and more efficient than waiting for all your drops to come.
This left an extremely long lasting bad taste that really wasn't necessary after the item buff/fix (due to the game now being pretty easy and item drops now being pretty good), but that wasn't enough. So now we're at Loot 2.0, the patch that effectively killed the AH by removing the option to trade Legendaries (a core Diablo feature)... But still that wasn't enough, though it was already known it was coming for some reason many people felt the AH needed to still go (even though loot 2.0 effectively killed it off anyway, it simply served as a minor convenience).
So now we're left at what is essencially the World of Warcraft model.
Low - Medium quality items (blues/yellows) and materials - tradeable
Legendaries - soulbound, with a 2 hour exception for others in the group (just as in WoW).
This is a really negative factor for me, as being able to pass my gear on to my friends was a big part of Diablo, and having my friends pass along gear to me was something I've had since Diablo 2, it feels wrong to me the way it is. It was clear from the start when they announced the end of the AH that they were really announcing the end of trading, since removing the AH would still leave third party sites and D2jsp just like in the Diablo 2 days... So they killed off trading, which effectively killed off the AH without it needing to be removed.
I don't know how they are going to fix this, if you look back at Jay Wilson, his ideals for the game were staying true to the series, perhaps too much but his direction was clear in giving Diablo it's own identity in keeping with the formula, and I think the new team for all the good they have done to the game have sucked away an integral part of the Diablo experience. I don't mind a solution to kill off third party item sites, but not one that completely kills off trading, there has to be a better way.
I thought the AH was fine, I didn't use it much but I liked having it there and knowing I could use it if I needed. The people who hated it often claimed to be the ones who didn't use it, but if they didn't use it why do they hate it? It was very easy to ignore as if it didn't exist. People called the RMAH pay to win, but D2 was no different and that didn't do so bad, only difference in D2 was that the pay to win gear came from third party websites.
Diablo isn't really a "win" type of game, it's not like Warcraft where there is a pve progression race, with very difficult progression path and guild/player ranking, Diablo is a non competitive/casual hack n slash co-op game.
1
I really dislike Raekor + IK charge, but for sure it has very impressive damage in large AOE packs and Earth (Boulder Toss or Seismic) cannot compete with that, on boss damage though Raekor isn't that impressive since Vile Ward is no longer in effect, nor do the Ancient Parthan Defenders have the same effect.
I'm doing a lot of rifts at the moment in a 3man group with an Impale Demon Hunter and Raekors Barb (I'm playing SS) and we're farming 75s pretty quickly, I'm at a situation where I can just stand on the spot and heal through almost everything, with only physical damage being scary (since esoteric does nothing), where as the Raekor Barb during the whole rift will only fight mobs until they are stun immune and then he will leave and find new stuff and leave me + DH to deal with it.
In solo the Raekors is still clearly the best spec because the damage on large packs is so much stronger than other builds, but the spec is still quite prone to death and it's such a clunky and situational spec to play, I just can't stand it. My Seismic Slam build will take me far enough, it will run out of steam in the early 80s though from lack of damage scaling, where Raekor will keep pushing on.
I've not played Boulder Toss (with Tribes Blade) enough to really compare, but SS seems in a similar place but while being far more about the spender than the generator, with SS the Earthquake/Avalance is more like a filler damage to activate Earthen Might so that you're at high Fury and full toughness (from Iron Impact + Band of Might) just before the fire element on COE comes up. My latest crit records are over 200bil on RG.
1
I do it because when I used it on right click and had War Cry/Threatening Shout on left click it was causing issues where the character could sometimes not use entrances, like for example to go down to the next level inside a greater rift. It's a strange bug too since it's not something that happens at all entrances, it's just like it chooses a specific one that won't work and that will never work, while every other will work fine.
Sometimes bugs out with the stash too, other times not. Only time I need to do that though is with Bul Kathos + Wastes build, other builds I have WW on right click, since you dont need to shift or force move for it to work.
1
Why not go 6IK + 2 Wastes, run Furnace/Lamentation (2 rend stacks)/Convention of Elements in the cube and then play Rend + Charge/Whirlwind. It's a much stronger build than Hota for soloing anyway due to superior AOE damage and better survival.
HOTA is only really best in groups due to group synergy, the big crits are used to set off exploding palm (thus taking care of the AOE damage requirements) while the single target takes care of the rift guardian.. Survival not being an issue because you would run with a healing monk.
HOTA is just the ultimate group spec, both Rend (6 IK/2 Wastes) and WW (6 Waste + 2 BK) are stronger solo.
1
I don't consider it my build at all, I've mostly been playing with Focus + Restraint until I tried this - check this thread on official forums - http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/14381089111
1
This thread is full of all the anti-pvp players all rounded up into one place or? jeez if you don't want PVP then don't do it and get on with your own thing, don't put a downer on everyone else. Blizzard displayed a working and very popular arena style pvp system that had a lot of people hyped, there were people who were buying the game purely for that reason alone, just as people played D2 for only PVP.
The current PVP is pretty much the same as D2 without the open world aspect but in this day and age that does not cut it... In D2 they balanced things separately from PVE to PVP and there is no reason why that can't be done to some extent here, it doesn't have to be competitive well balanced PVP but at least something that was shown and promised... Expand the boundries a little.
Don't forget that they had arena PVP pre-launch and then pulled it from the game in the last minute (as a temporary thing, I might add) and then there was no pvp at all for a very long time, until they half assed in this dueling arena that we have now. PVP in Diablo is fun, it works well and It makes absolutely no sense that they have completely abandoned it.
1
Diablo 2 had some big problems surrounding non bound loot, but despite those it was a massively popular and successful game, the fact that it's still online is evidence of that. But the issues with D2
1. Trade Scams
2. Third party item shops/D2jsp
The problem with trading in D2 was simply the lack of a secure and accessible medium with which to trade, trade games were common but they were full of people trying to get free loot, people trying to scam, people with wild imaginations on the value of an item.. Trading in D2 was a frustrating thing, I remember many a trade game that was over before it even began. So some people turned to websites like D2jsp, others simply bought from item shops.. the rest just struggled on cluelessly in game.
So when D3 came along and announced an AH I thought "Yes, this is exactly what was needed" and really from a D2 perspective it was the right solution, they stayed true to the games nature of trading items whilst providing a safe and easy/convenient place to do trading. The problem came when the balancing of the game at launch (extremely tough) combined with the average item drop (generally poor) and the restrictions on what ilvl gear could drop where (ilvl 61 max in act 1 inferno) so obviously it turned the game into effectively a gold grinding game where you bought the gear from the AH because for the most part it was much quicker and more efficient than waiting for all your drops to come.
This left an extremely long lasting bad taste that really wasn't necessary after the item buff/fix (due to the game now being pretty easy and item drops now being pretty good), but that wasn't enough. So now we're at Loot 2.0, the patch that effectively killed the AH by removing the option to trade Legendaries (a core Diablo feature)... But still that wasn't enough, though it was already known it was coming for some reason many people felt the AH needed to still go (even though loot 2.0 effectively killed it off anyway, it simply served as a minor convenience).
So now we're left at what is essencially the World of Warcraft model.
Low - Medium quality items (blues/yellows) and materials - tradeable
Legendaries - soulbound, with a 2 hour exception for others in the group (just as in WoW).
This is a really negative factor for me, as being able to pass my gear on to my friends was a big part of Diablo, and having my friends pass along gear to me was something I've had since Diablo 2, it feels wrong to me the way it is. It was clear from the start when they announced the end of the AH that they were really announcing the end of trading, since removing the AH would still leave third party sites and D2jsp just like in the Diablo 2 days... So they killed off trading, which effectively killed off the AH without it needing to be removed.
I don't know how they are going to fix this, if you look back at Jay Wilson, his ideals for the game were staying true to the series, perhaps too much but his direction was clear in giving Diablo it's own identity in keeping with the formula, and I think the new team for all the good they have done to the game have sucked away an integral part of the Diablo experience. I don't mind a solution to kill off third party item sites, but not one that completely kills off trading, there has to be a better way.
1
Diablo isn't really a "win" type of game, it's not like Warcraft where there is a pve progression race, with very difficult progression path and guild/player ranking, Diablo is a non competitive/casual hack n slash co-op game.