DiabloFans

I'll start posting here again, now that I'm actually playing D3.

I don't know how anyone could use the RMAH to purchase anything significant... I tried, and had to throw away the stuff I bought. I felt like I was cheating. I'd rather have shitty gear that I worked my ass off for, than a perfectly rolled item I bought with a credit card.

Meh, nothing against it, but it's just not for me.

Last Friday I came third out of thirty-eight people at the Magic: The Gathering tournament I attend every week. I was pretty happy about how well I did, especially considering I've only been playing for five weeks or so. I won six booster packs, which is like $24 Canadian. The entry fee for the night is only $5.

Also, it's been a week and three days since my last cigarette.

I love Magic: The Gathering to death. It's fucking amazing.

Also, Neverwinter Nights is really awesome.

Quote from Xereoth

lol if you keep playing diablo 3 for a year in the condition it is right now. You must be really bored out of your mind and i would suggest going outside for a change, meet some living creatures that are not sticking behind a computer.

Now that you've resorted to personal insults and assumptions about my life I'll just ignore you entirely.

I used to get a lot of stuttering when I would play Diablo III, and I tried everything I could to fix it. I finally ended up buying a 16GB USB and now I play the game off of that. The stuttering vanished completely although I still experience some lag when playing cooperatively, which I figure is perfectly normal.

If you have a 16GB USB laying around I suggest you try that.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5642269402

If you want to play Diablo II then I suggest you reinstall it and enjoy because the shit that you're suggesting will never happen.

Hate to break it to you

I started to put an end to all of my obsessive behaviours (especially in regards to the way I play video games) about a week after the release of Diablo III. I've spent the last two months working on that and about a week ago I feel I've finally succeeded.

Fucking awesome.

I'll vote for Diablo III based on the fact that it's the best game I've ever played, Although not a flawless masterpiece, Diablo III is fucking incredible. I don't find Path of Exile or Torchlight 2 appealing in the slightest.

Yeah, I was really pleased to find n read that statement about D3 this morning. Kind of made my morning, not because I think that D3 is in a terrible state right now but because it gets me HYPED for the next patch. I can't wait to see how they buff the underused skills and tweak class balance. That's what I'm most excited about...

Quote from ruksak

Quote from GeNMaKB

Sorry, I have nothing to complain about.

I don't see that as being possible.

How can anyone that loved D2 not have something that bothers them about the bizarre omissions that were made with D3?

It doesn't bother you that, for some inexplicable reason, you cannot have a duel with your friends?

It doesn't bother you that, for some inexplicable reason, there's only 4 iLvL's of rares that are worth looting?

It doesn't bother you that most Legendary and Set items are total shit compared to rares?

It doesn't bother you that any item below iLvL 60 is unusable junk?

It doesn't bother you that followers are nearly useless dead-weight that make little to no difference?

Nobody has been more supportive of this game than I. Nobody has been more optimistic...but after a few months, the subtractions from our beloved D2 have smacked me in the face like a bag of hammers.

Dude, I have nothing to complain about because I don't fucking care. Diablo III isn't perfect, I know that, but every possible issue that I could complain about has already been brought up a thousand times. I don't bitch for the sake of bitching. I play to enjoy myself, and I definitely enjoy playing D3. I choose to concentrate on the positive aspects of the video game I'm currently playing. I don't let petty shit get to me because I don't fucking care. I'm in this for the long haul and I know that improvments will be made in due time. I trust that Blizzard is working diligently to adress a lot of of the complaints that have been made by the community.

Introduction
First, I want to start off by saying that this build is by no way suppose to be a "beat Inferno" build. This build is meant to be a little off course and a fun change to the typical WD builds. While I have tested it in Inferno, it is by no means the strongest build to clear the difficulty. However, it should be more than capable of taking on Normal and Nightmare and with the right tactics Hell.

When the Witch Doctor was first announced, all I thought about was pets and poison. The Diseased Zoo Keeper focuses on just that; poisoned animals to do your killing. With the use of five animal skills and plenty of poison imbuement, the character definitely lives up to his name.

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Skills
http://us.battle.net...WSYV!Zcd!ZbZZab
The main design behind the skill choice is both to chose summons that do not need to be constantly spawned and to add poison damage where ever possible.

Corpse Spiders (Spider Queen) - Corpse Spiders is normally a spammable attack but with the Spider Queen rune we get a skill that we can click once and let it do its thing plus we get added poison damage

Firebats (Plague Bats) - Firebats becomes your only skill that needs to be actively used constantly. It will also be your main source of direct damage. The Plague Bats rune is used to add additional poison damage to the attack.

Plague of Toads (Toad of Hugeness) - Plague of Toads naturally has poison damage to it so we can use the Toad of Hugeness rune to change the skill from something spammable to a persistent source of damage. We also get the added benefit that the giant toad removes attackers from the battle temporarily.

Locust Swarm (Devouring Swarm) - Locust swarm also has the original benefit of poison damage so here is a chance for us to get some mana regen back that all Witch Doctors need with the Devouring Swarm rune.

Summon Zombie Dogs (Rabid Dogs) - What is a Summon WD without his Zombie Dogs. With the Rabid Dogs rune we get the additional poison damage we are looking for with this build.

Sacrifice (Pride) - Used primarily for elites, Sacrifice can help get that extra umph of damage you may need. With the Pride rune, we get another chance to gain back some needed mana as well.

Passives

Jungle Fortitude - Helps you and your Zombie Dogs stay alive longer.

Bad Medicine - With Poison damage added to almost every attack we have, this will also help keep us alive for longer by reducing their damage.

Zombie Handler - Four Zombie Dogs are always better than three. Plus the 20% additional life will help them fight for longer.

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Gear
Since this build is primarily for fun, gear is not as important compared to most builds. The obvious INT and VIT will give your WD the boost in damage and life it will need. There are really no other attributes you need to focus on based upon this skill choice.

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Tactics
Now the important part, how to play the character. As mentioned, the ideal behind the class is poison animals you can summon once and let them do their magic.

You should always start with summoning your Zombie Dogs. Once entering any grouping, you then want to cast your other three summons; Corpse Spiders, Plague of Toads, and Locust Swarm. With these four summons out, they will attack anything in the area while you are left free to do other things.

Once all summons are casted, you can use your Firebats to focus damage on any one/group of monsters that need the extra attention. When fighting elites, Sacrifice can also come in handy to drop some heavy damage quickly. I would suggest making sure your CD on Summon Zombie Dogs is up before using this, however.

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Pros and Cons
Given that this build is just for fun there are definitely some weaknesses to the build but there are also some advantages. The biggest advantage is the use of consistent summons. You do not have to constantly be micromanaging them. Click once in any grouping and they should last throughout the fight. With the use of Jungle Fortitude and Bad Medicine, paired with the use of summons survivability is actually pretty good as well since you won't be taking much damage. Lastly, you only need to be lvl 36 to have all of the runes available so you can play through all of Nightmare with this complete build.

The biggest disadvantage is a lack of direct damage. With only Firebats at your direct control, the spreading of damaging can be difficult. Poison deals a lot of damage but it is also over time so taking that into account takes some getting use to. The last problem, as with all WD, is resource management. Firebats is mana heavy so with little mana, there is not much you can do but sit back and watch your summons do everything.

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Game Play

Quote from ZachMorris

Quote from GeNMaKB

Diablo III is not a flawless masterpiece, but it's still the best game that I've ever played.

Wow...new to gaming?

no, just accurate, that is a pretty accurate description of D3

Back before the AS nerf I actually used a 2 hander with 900 LoH and 1k dps because I could actually get my attack speed higher then it is now with 2 1 handed weapons but since the patch I haven't used 2 handers. Their base dps is definitely sexy and they can do more overall damage then 1 handers so I guess if you have the right build it's viable but otherwise not so much I think. just depends on the weapon and your playstyle really.

On your way to level 60 it definatly could work. Not sure how long, but it could. By and large, you can get away with doing whatever you want until Inferno.
That said, I always found the two handers too slow to be fun.
Obviously, it also depends on the two hander. Also, unless you're going for some kind of "on hit" build (which would be weird with a two hander), I would recommend changing out sweeping wind. Mostly because I find it boring, but also because it then lets you use other skills that I find generally better, such as Pillar of Light (good AoE damage plus decent knockback, and can be runed to use half as much mana), lashing tail kick (decent AoE damage, good knockback) or Seven Sided Strike (decent AoE damage, great single target boss damage)

Trap Hunter 1.0.3

http://youtu.be/EBfD9rzJb9E

Quote from GeNMaKB

Mouse Skills:
Primary: Hungering Arrow/Devouring Arrow.
Secondary: Impale/Chemical Burn.

Action Bar Skills:
Hunting: Companion/Bat Companion.
Devices: Fan of Knives/Hail of Knives.
Hunting: Preparation/Backup Plan.
Defensive: Smoke Screen/Displacement.

Passive Skills:
Tactical Advantage, Steady Aim and Archery.

I'd say that an effective build needs a good single target skill, a good multiple target skill, and an escape tool. Honestly, I'd say you're lacking an effective AOE skill. Fan of Knives does great damage, but since it has a cooldown, and requires you to put yourself at risk in order to use it, it's not great for clearing stuff. It's a great skill, it just doesn't fulfill the AOE role in your build. It works perfectly well as a utility skill, however.

What it comes down to is that it takes an awful long time to take stuff down when you're only hitting one at a time, and Hungering Arrow and Impale are both single target skills (yes, technically HA can hit more than one target, but only one at a time, and only if it pierces. In other words, it does the same amount of damage against a single target as multi target).

If you want to keep FoK, I'd say to drop Impale for Ball Lightning, Frost Arrow, Multishot - Fire at Will, Cluster Arrow - Looking for Bear, or whatever you feel like using. I personally use Multishot right now. Impale and HA are both great skills, but if they're your only damaging skills, I think it's going to be tough unless your DPS is ridiculously high.

My stats are almost identical to yours, and I'm running this build for Act I farming :http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#aQZXVT!aYe!aacZbZ

I didn't believe that Diablo became Tathamet in the first place. I don't see this as possible within the lore. Following his death, the seven heads of Tathamet spawned the Great Evils. His headless corpse became the Burning Hells. I don't see how Tathamet could become whole again. If Diablo did transform into Tathamet, wouldn't he have been unstoppable? Wouldn't Sanctuary have burned? I don't think that anyone but Anu himself would be capable of stopping Tathamet. Plus, if Diablo did become Tathamet during the events of Diablo III, I'm sure that they wouldn't have left us guessing. Shit would have been explicitly stated during the narrative of Act IV.

Yeah that's one thing that they did kind of strangely, hyping Diablo as the Prime Evil and this super mega badass. On other forums, I've seen people saying things like 'lol how can there be an expansion, we killed the prime evil' 'yeah right, we killed the prime evil and now we gonna fight the sin lieutenants or something?'

They should have done a better job of explaining what exactly the Prime Evil was in context of Diablo's 'prime evil' aka all the evils in his body. (Or Leah's body I guess technically ) Especially since they have Tyrael randomly mentioning Tathamet (which like you said, should have roflstomped whatever went against him, unless we are to believe one Nephalem is that powerful) when asked what the Prime Evil refers to. I guess that may be intentional though, as it seems 'prime evil' seems to refer to a few different things, like in that quote from one of the devs the 7 Evils are all 'prime evils,' the 3 brothers are also the 'prime evils,' then of course the 7 Evils in one body is the 'prime evil' and Tathamet was the original Prime Evil.

I'm not sure if it ended up in the game, but in the beta files Diablo had bunch of curses from the other Evils:

Diablo_CurseOfAnguish_name Curse Of Anguish
Diablo_CurseOfDestruction_name Curse Of Destruction
Diablo_CurseOfHate_name Curse Of Hate
Diablo_CurseOfPain_name Curse Of Pain

Adria has undoubtably been lying through her teeth. We shouldn't trust anything we have heard from her. I went from loving Adria as a character in Diablo to despising her as a character in Diablo III. I can't wait to embed a knife in her skull with my DH.

I don't think that we know what is going on at all. I think that the expansions to Diablo III are going to blow us away. I'm hyped as fuck because I am dying to see how this shit plays out.

Thank you for the insight. You know, this is exactly why I joined DiabloFans in the first place. I've been craving lore discussion such as this for a long time.

Lastly, Pyrrhic, you should read Diablo III: The Order by Nate Kenyon.

I'm definitely looking forward to the expansion, not just for the inevitable new features, but to see where this story is headed. Sucks that it is likely over a year away still, but we'll probably get some info on it sooner than that. (Probably will get the name first via trademarking like with Mists of Pandaria, a 'blue' then saying "Well, usually when we trademark names like Diablo 3: Queen of the Abyss, it's for a Diablo series book or comic." and then the official press release comes out a bit later confirming Queen of the Abyss or whatever is the expansion.)

At least with DiabloFans, you know the people here should be, well, fans of Diablo, and if they are wandering into the Lore & Storyline forum, they should be interested in the lore and story. As I mentioned earlier about the 'other forums,' other night I looked at a 'what will the expansion be' topic, and they were discussing why Westmarch is more than likely going to be a setting (which it seems is probably 98% chance that it is, unless they pull a fast one and just happened to have 2/3 followers have strong ties to it, with their plotlines both ending with them wanting to go there or you going there with them) and saw some jagoff saying something like "lol u guys probably think the stuff ur foloowers say is releveant too." (Which is hilariously stupid, especially when you watch that Behind the Scenes thing about how they went about telling the story while still letting it be a fast-paced game, and how they wanted the followers to be involved characters.)

I'll probably pick up the Diablo books at some point, but currently I am reading WW I era or earlier books since I've always found the Great War intriguing and most of them are free for my Kindle.

Quote from GeNMaKB

I am glad that my topic has spawned such excellent discussion. I do not have the time to read through everything right now (fucking dentist) but I will later tonight. My interest is definitely piqued. From what I have read of your post already, Pyrrhic, you deserve a +1. It is nice to know that there are people out there that find the lore of Diablo as interesting as I do.

Edit: I thought that the souls of Mephisto, Diablo and Baal were trapped in the abyss, following the events of Diablo II: Lord of Destruction. How did Adria mark their souls for capture within the Black Soulstone?

In the Behind the Scenes DVD, they talk about how they were throwing around ideas for what to do with the story, and they decided that since the Dark Exile, Diablo has been conspiring to kill off the other Evils and unite all their souls into one body, his body.

Paraphrased a bit for some quotes (bold is my emphasis):


"Leah represents innocence. Leah represents hope. She is smart, she is resourceful, she has powers of her own. She represents everything that humanity can be."

"What happens to Leah is sort of the ultimate tragedy and is what is going to happen to everybody if you, the player, doesn't stop it."
(The people will die, or they will become hosts for demons/corrupted...?)

"One of the guys had this idea for this kind of cool NPC girl you meet out in the woods with a bow, and there was some suggestion, that she might have been the daughter of the Wanderer from Diablo 2"

"Her mother was the witch Adria, Adria was a character that occurred in Diablo 1. I think we look at her as this woman who was obsessed with the occult, the arcanum. You know, chasing mysteries and magical powers over the course of her life."

"She meets with the Dark Wanderer and falls in love with him, and at this point he has been corrupted by Diablo, and she bears his child, and this child is Leah.."

"It was clear that she was not fit to be a mother, and potentially she had her own dark mission, such that Adria gave up Leah for adoption."

"Ultimately it was Cain that recognized this baby was very special and kept her safe for the past twenty years."

"He potentially knows that evil is lurking within her, but because he carries so much guilt from the past games, trying to help people understand that the sky is falling, and not really taking action, he felt he needed to take her on and raise her the right way. And on the other hand, he knew if this girl so much as looked sideways, he knew it would be his job to take her out."

"Since she was a little girl, Cain's been roaming around this map looking for pieces of this prophecy of the End Days. All that while, he's teaching Leah to be his apprentice. He would have been constantly talking to her about this prophecy, you know, 'At the End of Days, angels and demons will fight on the land of man.' but she has never seen angels or demons so she doesn't believe it, but at the same time she closes her eyes and sees these nightmares and doesn't know if they are real or just her uncle's stories blending together."
(Yep, called it that the End of Days isn't fully manifested )

"Leah eventually has to come to terms that everything he had been telling her was real, and she finally realizes that and starts fulfilling this and becomes this new Cain for us. Tyrael, as a mortal now, begins to rely on Leah as that Deckard Cain role. Together, they help pretty much uncover Diablo's maneuverings and what he's been planning under the surface of all of this all along."

"In trying to solve this riddle of how Diablo comes back again, we kind of had the idea that maybe this time he comes back through his mortal offspring."

"All the way back to the Great Exile, this has all been Diablo's plan. At a certain point he discovered the idea of the Prime, the idea that all the Evils can become one, and become exponentially more powerful than they had ever been before, and that essentially the last 300 or so years have been his plan to off all the other Evils."

"For the first time all the essences of these 7 prime evils now, go into Leah and she turns into Diablo and becomes the one prime evil."
(That's a direct quote, confirming that the Diablo in game was not the Prime Evil aka Tathamet, and just all the 'essences' supercharging Diablo?)

"It fits with a lot of the stories that were told in the original Diablo and Diablo 2, where we see really precious characters succumb to this kind of corruption and madness and evil, and so this was an opportunity for us to take a character that a player directly interacted with, and hopefully that the player really likes, and see that exact thing happen to her. It was just too evil for us to resist."
(Must have been fun compiling this story, wish I could have been on that team. )

"To see her father Diablo take her over and turn her into a demon lord is the greatest tragedy we could think."

"It's tragic what happens to her. But I think the truth of Leah is she's innately heroic. She's a good person. But this evil was rooted at a genetic level. And the turn that her life takes was inevitable to some great degree. When ultimately her turn comes, it feels terrible. We want you to feel like you've been socked in the gut, like you know, "anyone but her." Her spirits still out there somewhere. There's a good girl there that deserves to be saved and brought back from the Abyss. While we don't have any clue yet what subsequent chapters will be, a couple clues (Metzen winks), I'd bet that we would chase that down because it feels right from a story level, and it feels right from a character level."
(Covetous Shen: Do you think that Leah is lost forever?
Player: Diablo consumed her. She is gone.
Covetous Shen: Do you not think Leah's soul is stronger than that? But, oh, but then sometimes I-I forget that you have not seen everything that I have seen.)


So this is Diablo's plan he has been going after for centuries. The whole 'Adria marked the souls' thing? Well, for one, do we actually trust her at her word? No, not after what she does and the fact we have been 'played like a fiddle' by Diablo the entire time.

For all we know, Izual could have been the one that rigged up the Black Soulstone. Or Zoltun Kulle, who the other characters pretty much drilled into our skulls was untrustworthy, set it up himself to suck in the big boss Angels and Demons and feigned surprise to try and get us to let him use it on his own. Or the Evils/Diablo themselves at some point, since as far as I know, the events of Diablo 2 were the first time they had ever been 'smashed' and Tyrael was likely the one that thought smashing their stones would send them to the Abyss. (The same soulstones we know were flawed and used as tools by the Evils, thanks to Izual)

Tyrael's my man, but like he says in the game:

Angels do not, in fact, know everything.

I'd have to look for a precise timeline/in-game dialogue, but:

Tyrael:Three hundred years ago, I selected Kulle and six others to form the Horadrim. He was a great man who was driven mad with his long quest to hunt evil.
Player:
Tell me, why did the Horadrim have to kill Zoltun Kulle?
Tyrael:
He delved into powers not meant for men, trying to fashion an artifact that could fill his empty heart with the souls of angels and demons. The Horadrim had no choice but to slay him. The order... never recovered.

So potentially, the Black Soulstone may have been around for hundreds of years, around the same amount of time, as stated in the BtS quote above, that Diablo has been planning his big 'middle-finger' to his brothers and sister. Again, would have to look up references, but now is possibly the first time in centuries the Evils were ever vanquished, since the Primes were running amok on Sanctuary and the Lessers were chilling in Hell due to the Eternal Conflict going to a standstill as all eyes focused on Man.

Although the Great Conflict burned hotter and longer than any of the stars in the sky, neither side could gain dominion over the other for long. Both factions sought some way to turn the tides of the war to their favor. With the ascension of Man and his mortal realm, the Great Conflict ground to a mysterious halt. Both armies paused in a breathless stalemate, waiting to see to whose side Man would eventually turn.

So, it is possible that the souls were 'marked' centuries ago, and Adria was just making sure all the pieces came together, like getting Deckard Cain out the picture, guiding the Nephalem hero to find ZK's bits, making sure Belial and Azmodan got the kibosh put on them, etc.

Well, I did act 1 two days ago pretty easily with half your stats, so you should be fine. I had:
20k dps
1.2 aps
5 crit chance
32% dodge
35% dmg reduction
70 AR
30-35k hp
~200 life regen per sec
0 life steal/life on hit
~2500 life on kill
~8.5 hatred per sec
1 disc per sec
0 mf/gf

And a whole lot of kiting.

edit: In fact I did act 2 yesterday with mostly the same stats, except 10k more hp, 70 more AR, 1.5k more dps, little more armor, and 4.5 more crit chance.