I always found TX in 2 minutes pretty hard to solo - casual player, low para, etc etc.
Anyway with just another friend with me we did it very easily - most of the time in solo is lost due to the port to town -> click to the spirit thing. In two you just melt stuff and as soon the guardian pops, the one who's far from it ports and closes while the other guy kills the guardian.
Really, it doesn't take much more than this.
While i can see the points of pure solo players about a lot of things, i don't think that spending a little time with another player who's wanting to do the same conquest will ruin your game experience at a so fundamental level.
As a mostly solo player, i'm happy that the XP disparity is being dealt and every season the difference is smaller.
I'm really wondering what builds will come out for the WD - especially now that stuff like Enforcer is now multiplicative, maybe i can finally run a true pet Army WD and not the crappy darts one
Nice to hear that even after all the shizzle being thrown at you Drahque, you're still on the spot and working on these compendiums
As far as i know, S5 builds are still viable for the most part as most of the sets got buffed in raw damage. If anything, we can try to swap out some defensive skills to a more offensive setup, as with the GR nerfs after 70, the real roadblock will be monsters hp instead of the incoming damage.
I'm looking forward to what people will be coming out with this season
Also your guide is awesomely convenient all the info in a single place.
There's a hidden little room in the Royal Quarters. it's in King Leoric's bedroom to the left of his bed if you click on a book shelf, it opens and there's a shield there with a new transmog. The shield is called Lachdanan's Stormshield.
The clickable door "unlocks" if you correctly follow the ghost of the queen around the quarters.
Nice lore behind the shield:
- Lachdanan was the royal guard that has slain Leoric when he got mad, only to be cursed by him to eternal damnation together with his companions. In D1 you find him already corrupted but still lucid under the Tristram cathedral, and he gives you a quest where you have to find an elixir to free him from his damnation. You find all the diaries through the cathedral in D3 and you can witness the scene when he killed Leoric in the royal crypts by clicking the sword.
- Stormshield was a unique shield in D2; the skin unlocked is a replica of that item
I try to see both points here - i find myself in the middle while Quind does in fact make some points i agree with, and some others i don't.
As some others in here, i see that every patch there is more choice and not less in gearing; unfortunately the more choice is tied to new set and "pre-existing" or "premade" builds to which we need to adhere to have any chance at endgame. I can understand the feeling of players being pidgeonholed into something the Blizzard devs have chosen for us and we can just accept it or don't play it.
Unfortunately for us players, there are two things which are facts and cannot be changed:
- "premade" builds makes both set creation and balancing much easier for devs. Having to balance an big number of legendary combinations is much harder thand looking ate some limited number.
- there is place only for 1 best build and one #1 spot on ladders; choice has no room here, either you run with the best stuff or you're behind - that's the nature of competition.
Given this, however i agree that putting all these "XY% more damage on Z skill" is a very bad approach. We have an already limited degree of choice in D3, and this makes only choices narrower because some items become immediately mandatory to equip. Given also how limited we are in slots and how some items are clearly superior than others, we're really making the choice near to non-existent.
The point is that legendary items should have legendary affixes; not "sostrong they cut down competition" affixes.
Let me do an example:
- xbow #1: your cluster arrow generates double the amounts of grenades/rockets.
- xbow #2: your cluster arrow main hit now has a 15 yard radius
- xbow #3: your cluster arrow now leaves a crater at the point of impact, slowing targets inside the area and dealing X00% weapon damage over 4 seconds (damage type changes based on rune)
Balancing issues apart (just thrown random numbers and stuff there), here's what i expect legendary items to do - to add fancy stuff to my skills and not just change dmaage/coist coeafficients so they become suddendly the best efficient skills i can have on my bar.
The three xbows above all increase the CA damage, but in different ways; the #3 could have laess damage to balance the addition of CC. However i can choose either 2 of the three to have a different combo - all will be damage increases, and if balacing is done well, the damage will be the least stat to look at.
So basically the solution to the issue is to remove those passiove additive bonuses, and make more legedaries that overlap each other, so for these limited number of slots we can have a real choice.
I don't see Blizzard completely destroy and redo current itemization system; but having sets to choose from and for each set a number of items to mix up would be definitely better than now.
I am still thinking about why Vengeance related bonuses have been set in both M6 and UE sets.
Given how the mechanics worked, i am fine with Vengeance in M6 builds (rucksack/manticore setup is basically a must, leaving cube spaces for Dawn/Gunes).
However with UE and how fast the Ballista shield stacks, i would rather have the damage bonus baked directly in the set for balancing it and leave the space for Ballista in the cube (again given that Yang/DML is the bust have equipped combo).
More variety and usage of different items across the board. Vengeance as a must have ability for every spec kinda sucks.
Only "unfair" thing that comes to my mind is people hoarding PL now before the nerf to xp gems goes live.
The nerf is directly aimed to paty players who already have the "advantage" of running higher GR for bigger XP rewards, the gem and the XP builds were just exacerbating the issue to a complete new level.
2.4 hits, what happens? levels are merged and nerf takes place.
- on non season, the ones hoarding levels will have higher Paragon than you; this doesn't mnatter as ladder competition happens in seasons, and no-season is mostly farming and trying new stuff.
- new season starts, everyone starts from zero, so everyone is on the same ground
- if someone plays more than you, gets more stuff - it's the nature of the game. If you want to play ladders competitively,you need to grind your ass out, end of story. If you don't care about the competition, paragon levels don't matter at all (completed s4 journey around 600 paragon playing very short sessiosn and starting 1 month after season beginning).
It's all about what you want to do. The XP nerf doesn't affect solo player nor casual players - if you count also HP nerfs solo play has become more than viable.
1
1
Very likely.
I don't think they're done with the story - i expect another expansion for D3. I also think we're going to get to lvl 99 soft cap
1
I always found TX in 2 minutes pretty hard to solo - casual player, low para, etc etc.
Anyway with just another friend with me we did it very easily - most of the time in solo is lost due to the port to town -> click to the spirit thing. In two you just melt stuff and as soon the guardian pops, the one who's far from it ports and closes while the other guy kills the guardian.
Really, it doesn't take much more than this.
While i can see the points of pure solo players about a lot of things, i don't think that spending a little time with another player who's wanting to do the same conquest will ruin your game experience at a so fundamental level.
As a mostly solo player, i'm happy that the XP disparity is being dealt and every season the difference is smaller.
1
I'm really wondering what builds will come out for the WD - especially now that stuff like Enforcer is now multiplicative, maybe i can finally run a true pet Army WD and not the crappy darts one
1
Nice to hear that even after all the shizzle being thrown at you Drahque, you're still on the spot and working on these compendiums
As far as i know, S5 builds are still viable for the most part as most of the sets got buffed in raw damage. If anything, we can try to swap out some defensive skills to a more offensive setup, as with the GR nerfs after 70, the real roadblock will be monsters hp instead of the incoming damage.
I'm looking forward to what people will be coming out with this season
Also your guide is awesomely convenient
all the info in a single place.
1
Nice lore behind the shield:
- Lachdanan was the royal guard that has slain Leoric when he got mad, only to be cursed by him to eternal damnation together with his companions. In D1 you find him already corrupted but still lucid under the Tristram cathedral, and he gives you a quest where you have to find an elixir to free him from his damnation. You find all the diaries through the cathedral in D3 and you can witness the scene when he killed Leoric in the royal crypts by clicking the sword.
- Stormshield was a unique shield in D2; the skin unlocked is a replica of that item
3
I try to see both points here - i find myself in the middle while Quind does in fact make some points i agree with, and some others i don't.
As some others in here, i see that every patch there is more choice and not less in gearing; unfortunately the more choice is tied to new set and "pre-existing" or "premade" builds to which we need to adhere to have any chance at endgame. I can understand the feeling of players being pidgeonholed into something the Blizzard devs have chosen for us and we can just accept it or don't play it.
Unfortunately for us players, there are two things which are facts and cannot be changed:
- "premade" builds makes both set creation and balancing much easier for devs. Having to balance an big number of legendary combinations is much harder thand looking ate some limited number.
- there is place only for 1 best build and one #1 spot on ladders; choice has no room here, either you run with the best stuff or you're behind - that's the nature of competition.
Given this, however i agree that putting all these "XY% more damage on Z skill" is a very bad approach. We have an already limited degree of choice in D3, and this makes only choices narrower because some items become immediately mandatory to equip. Given also how limited we are in slots and how some items are clearly superior than others, we're really making the choice near to non-existent.
The point is that legendary items should have legendary affixes; not "sostrong they cut down competition" affixes.
Let me do an example:
- xbow #1: your cluster arrow generates double the amounts of grenades/rockets.
- xbow #2: your cluster arrow main hit now has a 15 yard radius
- xbow #3: your cluster arrow now leaves a crater at the point of impact, slowing targets inside the area and dealing X00% weapon damage over 4 seconds (damage type changes based on rune)
Balancing issues apart (just thrown random numbers and stuff there), here's what i expect legendary items to do - to add fancy stuff to my skills and not just change dmaage/coist coeafficients so they become suddendly the best efficient skills i can have on my bar.
The three xbows above all increase the CA damage, but in different ways; the #3 could have laess damage to balance the addition of CC. However i can choose either 2 of the three to have a different combo - all will be damage increases, and if balacing is done well, the damage will be the least stat to look at.
So basically the solution to the issue is to remove those passiove additive bonuses, and make more legedaries that overlap each other, so for these limited number of slots we can have a real choice.
I don't see Blizzard completely destroy and redo current itemization system; but having sets to choose from and for each set a number of items to mix up would be definitely better than now.
1
Yeah, MS should get through a redesign for some runes as Arsenal + Ballistic is way better than other options.
However, your ideas while pretty cool are really OP. You need to tune down some stuff.
1
I am still thinking about why Vengeance related bonuses have been set in both M6 and UE sets.
Given how the mechanics worked, i am fine with Vengeance in M6 builds (rucksack/manticore setup is basically a must, leaving cube spaces for Dawn/Gunes).
However with UE and how fast the Ballista shield stacks, i would rather have the damage bonus baked directly in the set for balancing it and leave the space for Ballista in the cube (again given that Yang/DML is the bust have equipped combo).
More variety and usage of different items across the board. Vengeance as a must have ability for every spec kinda sucks.
1
Only "unfair" thing that comes to my mind is people hoarding PL now before the nerf to xp gems goes live.
The nerf is directly aimed to paty players who already have the "advantage" of running higher GR for bigger XP rewards, the gem and the XP builds were just exacerbating the issue to a complete new level.
2.4 hits, what happens? levels are merged and nerf takes place.
- on non season, the ones hoarding levels will have higher Paragon than you; this doesn't mnatter as ladder competition happens in seasons, and no-season is mostly farming and trying new stuff.
- new season starts, everyone starts from zero, so everyone is on the same ground
- if someone plays more than you, gets more stuff - it's the nature of the game. If you want to play ladders competitively,you need to grind your ass out, end of story. If you don't care about the competition, paragon levels don't matter at all (completed s4 journey around 600 paragon playing very short sessiosn and starting 1 month after season beginning).
It's all about what you want to do. The XP nerf doesn't affect solo player nor casual players - if you count also HP nerfs solo play has become more than viable.