Quote fromI'm not sure. Maybe that's part of the beta testing thing for the Battle.net 2.0 accounts? They may randomly select. I don't think they've said anything.
Do you know how they did it for WCIII?
On Wc3 you can log on the PTR which is usually called Westfall... Whenever there's a patch you can log on the beta testing via the realm chooser in game....
I think it will be similar in d2.
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No etheral item was ever useful by itself even if you zod it. It had to have a certain ammount of sockets for certain rw's used by you (only ones that used zod) or used by your mercenary (which could be kept ehteral i.e infinity eth cv). Also add another layer of rng because you wanted those items to roll as superior with 15% ed (defense or damage respectively).
So in d2 you had to have:
1. An etheral item drop.
2. It had to have a certain ammount of sockets or 0 sockets so you can use the quest which gave you max socs on white items which limited your rw choice.
3. It was 15% better if you could find a superior version of it.
4. You had to actually find the runes.
All of those layers of rng trump the 5-10% Wyatt was talking about. Sure in d2 you had a bot ridden economy which made all of those items easily accesible but did the dev develop in the intention of catering towards this type of economy? I doubt it. Let's say that you are playing single player legit self found. The ammount of time and effort you needed to invest into getting an - Etheral superior berserker axe 6 socketed with Vex hel el eld zod eth (pulled it out of my head, not sure if accurate) is crazy and felt insanely rewarding.
In D3 it's just 1 layer of rng after the specific legendary item roll which is not interesting at all. I compare it to the ilvl 63 thing because that's what it will eventually turn into. Every piece of gear that is not ancient will be garbage in comparison.
My point is that it's not an interesting system at all. Jsut more rng for the lucky people to be happy about. I don't like the initial snowball effect that it will create when some person from a decent clan gets a crazy ancient weapon on day one and suddenly his clan is able to clear like 5 levels of GR higher than everybody else (just throwing a numebr here) which will lead them to more xp and loot gained - snowball effect.
Again, i would really like it to be some sort of a system that you have to work through and upgrade your gear with. Something that is tied to GR clears immediately comes to mind. Like balancing it somehow to make it so every GR level previously uncleared by you will give you a recipe that you can use once on some item along with having a high cost of materials or something along those lines.
I don't think that ancient items will really "reward players who play the most" because RNG is RNG and some people will be unlucky like shit. Some noobs will get the best items in one week. I know people who played hundreds (even thousands) of hours without getting that one extremely rare item (wow for an example) and that really sucks. I don't see how this new tier is any different.
TL:DR: I expect the devs to add upgrades in a more interesting manner like upgrading systems that are tied in with GR for an example and not just increase the stats on items and make them a bit rarer.
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Imagine combining the 4pc with mote + lamentation. Should work out quite well. The cold rend rune with lamentation gives you 20% more dmg to everything. Cold EQ barb + cold rend anyone? Add an ancient Wrath of the bone king... I would'nt rule out the addition of ground stomp wrenching smash either but probably unneeded. Obviously SA bracers, bott gem, etc...
Something like this... http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#cXTkRd!iegV!YYZcaZ - Possibly berserker rage isntead of one of the thoughness passives.
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@Ruksak: Wyatt cheng compared the rarity of ancients to the relation between exceptional and elite tiers in d2 which imo is a total bullshit thing to say. Elite items in d2 were a lot rarer than 10% of all unique drops... I don't understand why you think anyone should have brought this up to be honest... There's a rarirty tier that is similar to something in d2 ok, but in d2 Etheral didn't mean an automatically awesome item... Remember you had to actually have the high runes for a runeword that made a weapon indestructable to be able to make anything out of that item (botd comes to mind obviously). But even then, you had to have the exact amount of sockets needed so if the item already rolled socketed and not 6 soc or w/e it's total garbage. Other pieces like etheral armors for runewords or etheral uniques were useful only on mercenaries which is a nice mechanic i guess but always seemed unintentional by the devs and somehow kept in game when they realized that it's actually cool (Mercenaries in d2 didn't suffer durability loss) - Etheral Andariel's visage comes to mind.
In D3, an ancient item is automatically a better item. In d2 you had several layers of rng + things that the player needs to do i.e socket + get runes... In D3, the first ancient weapon you will find will DESTROY every other previous weapon you had no matter what legendary affixes it has or what rolls it previously had... a 1 handed ancient monster hunter is possibly better than a freaking perfect furnace (probably an exxageration but you know what i mean).
I liked that in d2 you could invest in an item. You could upgrade a unique armor for an example (gore riders, vipermagi, etc..) and socket it and invest a good rune on it. The best memorable example is a soc'd up'd 35 all res vipermagi with an UM rune which resulted in an armor for your wiz with over 800 defense and 50 all res (obviously fcr, 1 to all skils, etc...). That's the kind of stuff i like to have in d3, not an automatic roflstomp of all your previous items just because you found the new "falvor of the patch"...
The only upside i can see from this ancient items tier is that it will actually make underused crappy weapons useable. Again, the example of the monster hunter; It will probably be the best 1h item you can put your hands on, at least for a while untill you find the good items in their ancient version. An ancient warmonger (underused crappy 2h sword) will be better than a perfect furnace for an example which can be good because people will start running with "new" items all of a sudden but it will only take a while untill everyone who plays enough has an ancient furnace. Well you know, not everyone but a lot of people.
I'm personally not really concerned because i know that i will get lucky with the drops. I just wish that they could introduce a system of upgrades that required the player to invest his time into a certain item and not something 100% rng reliant. I don't understand why players praise this... If you wanted somethign that truly appleis to people who play a lot and "deserve" an upgrade, then you should be more in favor of an expensive recipe like i mentioned in one of my previous posts. A recipe which costs materials that take you a month to farm for an example.
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People have been saying that the majority of players don't care about the end game and shit but i think that's only true when a new patch / season is released. All the (I'll use the term not meaning to say it's specifically you) casuals return and flood the servers for a while but then they all quit and go play HS / Hots or whatever... The only people who remain are the "hardcore" players who are actually trying to push high gr... I think this whole "majority of players don't care about high gr" is just a misconception that comes from looking at numbers in a very limited period of time.
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This is good because it means that we don't have to keep a billion skull grasps from now untill the patch comes out.
I hate the idea of ancient items being just something you need to be lucky to get. There's a good post on reddit where someone asks how is it not obvious to the devs that ancient items are exactly like the ilvl 63 items in d3v situation and i fully agree with that. I think if anything, ancient items should be achieved through upgrading our existing gear, possibly tied in with the GR system or just a recipe that costs a shit ton like 100 FS, 1B gold, 1k of each mat type, 100 of every marquise gem type... somethign along those lines ^^
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I know for a fact there is someone who filters the questions... Too bad that person has 0 knowledge about the game itself... I guess they only filter immatue people and trolls...
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But seriously, you guys can't say that the panels were awesome... I mean, 90% of the info we already knew before the panels even started and like 99% of the Q&A was a major facepalm... the amount of butt clenching was ridiculous.
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So what do you think, is it worth it giving up on:
1. Shield glare - divine verdict (20% more dmg (multiplicative but still a nice boost) + blind everything, helps a lot to keep ranged mobs blinding inbetween pulls and also helps a lot in RG fights like crusader king for an example, you can cancel 100% of his teleports...).
2. Judgement - resolved (20% more crit chance on mobs inside the aoe circle that you can basically cast anywhere i.e you don't have to stand next to something to apply this debuff).
3. Law of valor - critical (15% ias + 100% chd to everyone, helps DH get the breakpoint easier, possibly gearing for better items like SA bracers instead of steady /lacuni, etc - and 100% chd is just awesome)
4. Steed charge - draw and quarter (reliable pulls from up to 3 screens away when using swiftmount + allows you to scout the whole rift in a very short time if you want to look for a conduit for an example. The uptime on the horse is 100%...)
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The only group buff i see you providing is warcry (impunity?). The main advantage as i said is your ability to pull unlimited ammounts of mobs which sadly creates a shit ton of lag... Let me know why you think that crusaders will "lose their job".
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It's not the best gear obviously but my dagger is quite nice. Every shot from you and your fetishes deal around 7-10m dmg... You can get to around 150m average dps in a rift...
The gems i used are Gogok, BOP and enforcer. I think you can go for Toxin instead of BOP.
It's fun and it's a nice change of pace from Jade for me so i like it.
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