I don't see what the issue is if wizards and WDs have builds that use signatures only. Don't we want items that change HOW we play?
The issue with Depth Diggers is that it highlights a fundamental weakness in resource generators and not a fundamental "OPness" with WD/Wiz signature spells.
God forbid someone gets Depth Diggers and Rhen'ho Flayer. They might actually have access to different builds based on Plague of Toads. Whoop dee fucking doo? I don't see what's so inherently bad about that. It breaks general paradigms. It works well with Carnevil. It works well with Mirrorball. It works well with Combination Strike. Aren't those kind of synergies what most players actually want from the game?
- shaggy
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Member for 11 years, 8 months, and 27 days
Last active Thu, Nov, 26 2015 02:41:53
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Jul 15, 2014shaggy posted a message on Depth Diggers Changes Explained, Fetish Counters, Tempest Rush Changes, Paragon Levels on UEE, Play Your Way ThursdaysPosted in: News
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Sep 17, 2013shaggy posted a message on Diablo III Auction House is Shutting Down on March 18, 2014Posted in: NewsQuote from maka
Wow, people are really coming out of the woodwork. Where were all you bastards when I was being outnumbered 20 to 1 on the whole AH issue?
I jest
The crowd that comments on the news is very different from the ones that post on the forums. In general, if you read news comments, it's basically the b.net crowd.
I, personally, don't give a shit if they remove the AH. I haven't used it for quite a while and I didn't plan on using it in the future. But I think without some way to facilitate trading that amounts to more than sitting in trade chat and competing with the chat bots.... that this is a myopic solution.
My biggest concern is that D2 was better-equipped to handle trading (better chat interface, named games, no need for battletags to join a game) than D3 currently is. That means, without some kind of improvement... trading in D3 is going to be worse than D2 and, likely, going to amount to forum use.
One thing I have always taken issue with is any "trading" solution that requires alt-tabbing. It's lazy, sloppy, and something that was appropos in 1998 but is completely unacceptable in 2013.
It has no bearing on how I play, but I can clearly see this as a major stumbling point. If someone chooses to trade an item it shouldn't take a feat of herculean strength to arrange a trade. -
Jun 24, 2013shaggy posted a message on Archon on Demon Hunters and Powerful Builds, The Art of TeknoKyo Customs, Curse Weekly RoundupPosted in: NewsQuote from Zero(pS)
Great video from Archon.
It's one of the things Blizzard should really have done early on. They probably didn't take the "fix" route because of the outcry from having things like DH's Smokescreen and Monk's Serenity nerfed like that.
500 kids cry in a forum that Blizzard always "nerfs everything" (and that's usually because everything else is in line and working as intended, as Archon himself pointed out) and suddenly we're stuck with "broken" builds for almost a year
Something dawned on me the other day. When you sub to WoW you get forum access. D3 has no sub so you basically have forum access forever, factoring out banned people obviously.
That means that purchasing D3 (or acquiring a key somehow) basically gives you the ability to troll the fuck out of the official forums without actually having played. It's kinda the polar opposite of the people who claimed they quit and then were "outted" by the armory.
Now I'm not saying that people who quit have worthless opinions, but it does seem more likely that people who are actively playing the game will not go the full-on troll route. So I can only wonder how many of the people on the official forums are 1) just raging because it's the "cool" thing to do, or 2) haven't actually touched the game in months.
It's rather a shame that Blizzard never took action on WotB and Archon from the get go and instead was held hostage by the same morons who claimed that the IAS nerf would make IAS useless. A lot of people get on Blizzard for playing "daddy knows best" with us, but I really think that sometime they need to just tell people to STFU and deal with it because not making those particular changes due to a handful of people who whine over OP things being nerfed... well that's detrimental to the game for the rest of us. -
May 30, 2013shaggy posted a message on Diablo III: Book of Tyrael Coming This October, CMs and Their Personal D3 Accounts, Titan Project Delayed Until 2016Posted in: NewsQuote from Buu
I saw that coming when Rob Pardo "MOVED" Jay Wilson out of Diablo 3, and weeks later was confirmed that was in Project Titan Team.
Shortly after Titan get a reset just like the ones he did to Diablo 3 for five years.
Keep him there for long enough and Titan will be a crap released in the next decade.
Project Titan just got jaywilsoned. Guesses of when Rob Pardo will commit Hara Kiri for his decision?
The Diablo 3 reset came directly from Vivendi and it was because they were not going to have Blizzard developing two MMORPGs at the same time.
They hired Jay Wilson AFTER Vivendi told Blizzard that the D3 MMORPG was not going to fly and to fix their shit. Jay Wilson had absolutely zero to do with D3s restart.
Just to cite that Vivendi shitcanned the original D3 game:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blizzard_North
On August 1, 2005, Blizzard Entertainment announced the closure of Blizzard North. A key reason for the closure was Blizzard North's poor development of what was to be Diablo III which did not meet the expectations of Vivendi.
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May 4, 2013shaggy posted a message on The Making Of: Diablo, Blue Posts, Community Commentary: Why Can't We Be Friends?, Mephisto's Visage Fan Arthttp://www.mobygames.com/game/windows/diablo/creditsPosted in: News
There were plenty of "underlings" who made Diablo 1 happen. It may have been the vision of 1, or 3, people, but they had tons of help. -
May 1, 2013shaggy posted a message on Watch Tower and Weeping Hollow Density Adjusted, The Process of Adding Changes, Game Devs Don't Work on the Website, Console andPosted in: NewsQuote from maka
Ridiculous. The dude "just" wants to be able to WW from one end of the zone to the other, and is upset that now he can't. And the crazy thing is that Blizzard is taking its feedback from people that get outraged that "sometimes there is an empty screen between mob clumps". OH NOES!!!
Yeah that's basically the exact same thought I had. Sadly this thread exhibits the same issue with two people whining about a nerf to Watch Tower as if Blizzard didn't just spend months buffing 90% of the game.
Evil Blizzard. Shame on them for putting in some very minor nerfs with the massive amounts of buffs that this patch has. They're obviously trying to ruin our fun with 1.0.8. I swear some people in this community would probably leave their hands and feet in the bed when they woke up if they didn't have wrists and ankles. The stupidity is sometimes overwhelming.
It's pretty sad that Blizzard has to continue to waste time by repeating that the web team isn't the team that develops the game and that the console team is different and this and that. It's boring, it's old, it's something that anyone with a brain knows. Yet, instead of meaningful dialogue they have to waste their time addressing the total morons out there. -
Apr 19, 2013shaggy posted a message on Public Test Realm: Patch 1.0.8 Notes (Updated 4/18)Posted in: News
I wasn't aware that 4% HP/sec, 20% armor, and 20% resist all was even in the same realm of awesomeness as Overawe is. Hell, even WDs have a ridiculously-strong DPS buff. To say that Inspiring Presence + Warcry + Impunity is the "best" buff is severely... stupid.
It's good that Barbs get a solid defensive group buff. It's certainly better than Mantra of Healing, but it's hardly the absolute best buff in the game. Frankly, I think they should encourage people to bring synergies to groups anyway. Sacrifice a little personal DPS for a very large group survivability buff, or a very big DPS buff.
I know I typically don't run BBV on my WD, but every time I'm in a group I switch it in for something. -
Apr 18, 2013shaggy posted a message on Datamined PTR 1.0.8 Class ChangesI'm pretty sure this thread has 10-ish people who don't even know what War Cry is.Posted in: News
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Apr 3, 2013shaggy posted a message on Developer Journal: Multiplayer ImprovementsPosted in: NewsQuote from maka
The tags going onto PTR are Questing, Full Act Clear, Keywarden, and PvP.
Hmm.....Questing and Full Act Clear are pretty similar, and none of them are really what I would consider "farming".
I would heartily suggest that you provide that feedback through the PTR channels as well. I'm sure that Blizzard is eager to hear what "tags" we want, which ones we'd use, etc.
After all, these things are, indeed, one of the reasons these patches take a stop at the PTR first. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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It's funny that "all you ever hear is non-seasonal players bitching and moaning" because it sure sounds to me like you are bitching and moaning that you need special snowflake content.
You made a choice to play seasonal content just like others made a choice to play non-seasonal content. Yet, it really seems that you cannot live with your choice unless that means that you get exclusive content. Somehow you don't see the complete hypocrisy in that stance.
Why do some seasonal players have this God complex where they believe that everyone else is inferior and undeserving? Besides, storage space is a massive issue for everyone in the game. It knows no bounds between Seasons, Non-seasons, and Hardcore. It's a problem that we all grapple with regardless of our game mode. When you have a problem that effects everyone, like storage space, you don't put it in one of the three game modes. Tying a very basic game feature such as storage space to any specific game mode is tantamount to the developers denouncing the other game modes as not the "real" game.
Imagine if you had to do some specific task in Hardcore or Non-season to unlock the tabs. That would be just as wrong. I support your desire to play Seasonal characters. It would be completely unfair of Blizzard to give us more stash tabs and simultaneously tell you, the Seasonal player, that you had to spend a few dozen hours playing Non-seasonal characters to unlock them. It's similarly wrong to tell Non-seasonal players that they have to spend a few dozen hours playing Seasonal characters to fulfill a basic need.
I haven't played much of the game since 2.2. I tried some 2.3, it was OK. I read the 2.4 patch notes. I saw how they were removing season-only legendaries. I was happy with this news. Then I saw that they tied storage space to seasonal play and immediately my happiness was replaced with incredulity. They managed to make the situation worse. They managed to thumb their noses at Non-seasonal players even more than they were in the past. I cannot imagine why they'd want to be so spiteful and hateful towards a segment of their playerbase. It just doesn't make sense.
I was ready to give 2.4 a whirl simply because of Legacy of Nightmares because, at this point, I simply have no desire to even attempt to push leaderboards. This single issue, though, will keep me from even trying out 2.4. It's high time they stop treating Non-seasonal players as if we're playing the game "wrong." At the very least with the items in previous seasons we were able to earn them eventually. With the current stash tab proposition we can't even do that. We can't even get them after the season has ended. It's "play seasons" or "go to hell."
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The #1 thing I hate about this absolutely fucking shitty community is the constant need to blame people. Something went wrong? We need a public execution to make amends.
It's like we've completely lost our sense of civility because we've all turned into spoiled little man-babies.
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The DH, via M6, has the BEST ability to (reliably) deal damage while also having the best chance to out-range, line-of-sight, or whatever other tactics necessary to avoid the incoming damage.
My WD sure as fuck can't out-range jailer if I want to kill the monster any time before next Tuesday. And therein lies the imbalance, which is really only an imbalance when monsters are doing SO FUCKING MUCH DAMAGE that the only way to kill them without constantly running back to your corpse is to do so from five screens away.
Greater Rifts need a lot of work, philosophy-wise otherwise this will continue to be a problem no matter how many skills, items, passives, mechanics they buff/nerf.
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It's much like the lottery. And I don't think that anyone with any brain would argue that holding a lottery to determine the #1 spot in ANY semi-competitive environment is the right way to do it.
World Series? Nah. Just draw straws. It makes so much more sense. That's PRECISELY what Conduit Pylons push the "endgame" towards. So it doesn't matter if it's "fair" because it's absurdly-bad gameplay.
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What they need to do is sit back and take ANOTHER long, hard, look at itemization.
We still have 100% useless legendaries. Most specs are 100% set-centric. There's very little room to assemble a "set" of legendaries that create synergy and roll with that because Firebirds, Akkan, Maraduers, etc. are just far too strong. This means that the RoRG is, by virtue of the set-centric endgame, a virtual necessity for most players.
The only competition between orange and green items is basically for whichever slot you choose not to equip because of your RoRG and most of the time that's determined by which non-set piece gives the best synergy with the set (Quetz, MoJ, T&T, etc.).
The inherent power of some of the set bonuses is just so immeasurably strong and that's where the problem lies. DHs are pretty shitty, but M6 makes them unbelievably powerful. This is the problem at hand. A set can take a class from "Oooooh I wish I could clear T2" to "HAR HAR HAR HAR GR45 NUBZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ."
When Josh talked about build-changing legendaries, I really didn't envision itemization completely dominated by sets where legendaries were sprinkled in only where sets weren't necessary. I think more people really believed we'd be able to find a "set" of legendary items that all had good synergy and assemble those into working builds (electro-stun wizard comes to mind here as high synergy among items but generally low effectiveness).
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They are rifts... with a timer... and infinite scaling. It's just not my cup of tea in terms of "something I'd like to do forever and ever into the future" which means, from my perspective, it's not really "endgame." I have come to expect Blizzard to be innovative and think outside the box, and Greater Rifts don't feel like any thinking, let alone thinking outside of the box, ever happened during the development process. They just seem like panem et circences - stuff to keep us entertained enough that we don't realize how crappy the stuff we have is.
I would honestly prefer if the "leaderboards" amounted to who could clear T6 rifts fastest and not who could manage to ninja-click their way through the most one-shot mechanics. I'm just not into such binary challenges. If you fuck up and misclick at any time it's over. To me that sounds more like a bullet hell game than an ARPG, and I guess that's what fundamentally has held me back from really enjoying 2.1. The "challenge" seems to be something that really isn't appropriate to an ARPG. It seems misguided and off-target.
Because Josh and friends really seem to think that there is one "best" way to play the game and anyone who doesn't follow that exact mold is doing it wrong and has no business playing the game. In addition to Hellfire Rings/Amulets, it's plenty obvious that the only "right" way to level your legendary gems is in co-op games. Why? Because the scaling between solo and co-op isn't even close to right. Things like this SHOULD be plenty apparent and should be fixed - there's no reason that co-op players should be able to get more ranks on their gems than a solo player. Then again, this is also a testament to how ass-backwards the current gem leveling paradigm is. It shouldn't have anything to do with what GR level you're clearing. This was echoed by almost EVERYONE during the beta.
If they removed the legendary gem ranking up from Greater Rifts, then this problem would *mostly* rectify itself as Greater Rifts would basically be for ePeen only.
So long as Greater Rifts have actual rewards (in this case, more powerful legendary gems) then the issue that they stifle diversity matters. It's an absurdly simple fix, though. Which makes me wonder why they went with the LEAST-FAVORITE method for leveling legendary gems among the community. Tying gem progression to Greater Rift level is just so bad and creates far more problems than it solves.
Just give us an xp-based system. Separate legendary gem progression from Greater Rifts. If you do that then suddenly trials are so very easily removed because it doesn't matter one goddamned bit if you can "spam" high-level Greater Rifts and you've killed two major problems with one, very straightforward, change.
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I find it absurd that they removed trading because players could circumvent the natural flow of the game and gain some kind of "advantage" over other players. Yet, when faced with people exploiting a bug with XP gains in rifts, they just fix the bug and move on. If one is a problem then the other is a problem. If one problem requires compete eradication of trading then the other surely requires more than just letting the people who exploited keep their spoils. It's inconsistent stances like this which frustrate me.
They want to open up diversity? So they implement a game mode that actively encourages us to seek out every last little .5% increase in effectiveness of our builds. Greater Rifts are the biggest hit to build diversity (and related item diversity) since the horrible decision to "double it" in regards to Inferno difficulty.
They want to open up diversity? So they make Campaign Mode completely useless and Bounties useless except as a gate to Rifts and as a mechanism to get a select few items. Our choices as to *how* to spend our time are at an all-time low. Want to rank up your legendary gems? There is only one way to do that. If you're not going a Greater Rift of equal, or higher, level than the gem you want to rank up then you probably aren't going to be making much progress on that front.
Instead of allowing legendary gems to rank up independent of where you are playing, they chose to limit it which further shoehorns HOW we play. This is OK when it's used sparingly. I'd argue that the Uber events are basically "enough" of it for the whole game, currently.
And I really think the guy/gal who OKd Trials should be tied to a telephone pole and we should be allowed to punch them in the face until all the bones in our hands are broken. They are truly boring and entirely unnecessary. Since they fixed pet survivability I've been able to enjoy 2.1 much more. It was a major stumbling block for me. But, even still, every single time I realize that I have to do a trial I log off. Trials are not fun. They're horrible. The people who thought they were fun make me so angry that I seriously want to hit someone.
I've never felt that way about anyone at Blizzard, ever. I've never wanted to take a swing at Jay, or Josh, or anyone. But if someone stepped forward and took responsibility for Trials I seriously would take a swing at them if I saw them in the street regardless of the repercussions. How anyone, including the people QAing that shit, could have given it the thumbs-up as something enjoyable that enhances the overall experience of the game is beyond me.
Trials are hands-down the absolute worst thing D3 has ever seen. I'd rather have the shitty itemization and AH back than do trials. The fact that I have to spend 15+ minutes talking myself into doing a single trial is mind-blowing. They really should be ashamed of themselves that this is the best they can do given the rocky history that this game has had.
What's worse is that they keep trying to apply band-aids to a system that many people hate and that really isn't working for the playerbase. I do not know a single person who actually enjoys doing trials. Every single person I know would prefer that they were removed from the game. While that's anecdotal, I think it's pretty obvious WHY people might feel this way and WHY it probably is a majority opinion. It shouldn't be shocking that people dislike a must-perform task that gives no rewards at all other than very poor XP.
But, this wouldn't be a major issue.... IF I COULD RANK UP MY LEGENDARY GEMS OUTSIDE OF GREATER RIFTS.
If Greater Rifts were purely "epeen mode" it would help to mitigate how uninspired and boring the Realm of Trials actually is.
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http://www.npr.org/2014/02/25/282431939/boeings-787-dreamliner-can-t-shake-major-malfunction-issues
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-us-faa-tells-boeing-to-fix-747-8-software-to-avoid-crash-2014-26
Please, tell me more about this magical bug-free software.
Jesus fucking Christ. If AIRLINE CONTROL SOFTWARE has bugs, despite literally being responsible for people's lives, I'm not sure why you'd think a goddamned video game wouldn't have bugs.
It's like an intelligence vacuum around here lately.
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What you're saying is that they should attempt to achieve something that is only doable in theory, not in practice.
They need pragmatic solutions, not theoretical solutions. Pragmatically, bugs will exist. Pragmatically, people will use those bugs to their advantage. It's just life. Trying to play it off as "code harder, get all the bugs" is so blissfully naive it's almost cute.
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I don't see why anyone would want that kind of overlap. It seems pointless, really.
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That's like saying that someone who advocates that Ray Rice does jail time is throwing a tantrum because Ray Rice didn't punch HIM/HER in the face. It just doesn't work that way. We have rules in life and in games for a reason. Wanting the rulemakers to follow through with the rules they've put in place isn't throwing a tantrum.
However, standing up for cheaters is surely the mark of a scumbag.
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I'm just illustrating that key farming is the annoying part of the Ubers process, not organ farming, and that Blizzard chose the wrong aspect to make guaranteed. My experience with T6 Keywarden farming may not be "normal" but certainly it's not far from it, and that's a problem, because it's still far too big of a hurdle to get people to actually want to do the content.... and that's all that matters.
Farming keys is the first step in the process. How many attempts do you think people are going to give, especially solo, before they realize they've spent 20+ minutes running around some of the largest zones in the game like a chicken with its head cut off, and they don't even have ONE machine, let alone FOUR machines, and that even when they do get four machines, whenever that may be, they're still completely at the mercy of the RNG gods for a proper set of primaries AND a good passive despite being on the hardest difficulty and having the best chances to get the keys? I mean even after this drop rate buff to the organs you're talking about hours of investment per craft. Most of that is spent running around Fields of Misery and Dahlgur Oasis. Woooohoooo for progress, I suppose.
There is a very good reason why they should have buffed the key droprate, not the organ droprate.... farming Keywardens is a horrible, boring, waste of time.
I'd like to point out that you admit you got a great hellfire amulet in about five hours of farming, and only six crafting attempts. Given that luck I don't think you have any right to sit back on your high horse and lecture people about "grinding" as you didn't really make that much of an investment into getting an amulet. You got lucky. Period. Other people have crafted dozens of amulets without getting a trifecta amulet with a good passive. Maybe you'd like to switch places with them, since apparently you don't mind grinding Keywardens for weeks and weeks.
It's almost like listening to rich people lecture poor people about just going out and getting a job. At some point you realize they're so disconnected from reality that their opinion doesn't really hold water.
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If, however, they show that they're serious about exploiters in Season 1, that LEGITIMIZES the idea that going forward they are going to be running a tight ship. And I suspect that's all most people want. I don't think the average person thought S1 was going to be perfect. Hell, anyone who payed attention to the PTR knew it wouldn't be. But, I think many people did expect Blizzard to have a pretty firm stance against things like this. Setting that tone now, rather than later, is probably all most people care about.
Losing one season to bugs and exploits isn't really unacceptable. It was bound to happen. But if they show they're serious today that may very well prevent people from using bugs to generate viewership on Twitch which would ultimately make the whole problem rather minimal when compared to the rather obvious class balance issues that have yet to be resolved.
The general issue I have is the blase Eeyore-esque attitude some people have on the subject. There is nothing wrong with attempting to discourage fair play. There *is* something wrong with rolling over and playing dead in the face of people who are clearly trying to game the system.
I've yet to see any actual argument as to why people who cheated (gaining more XP/hr while standing in town killing nothing than the best grinders can gain is clearly cheating) shouldn't suffer the consequences. It's just a bunch of people saying "who cares?" Well, I'll be honest here, I don't personally care if some guy steals $1000 in tea bags from a coffee/tea joint in San Francisco, but he still should be held accountable. Just because something doesn't have a direct impact on me doesn't mean it's acceptable.
Cheating is cheating whether or not it impacts my game experience so I view the whole "it doesn't affect you" position as somewhat sidestepping the actual issue. There are tons of things in this world that don't affect me but which are still wrong and deserving of the repercussions.
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Two Act 1 keys
One Act 2 key
Zero Act 3 keys
One Act 4 key
That's four keys on twelve kills, or an effective 33% drop rate on T6. That is unbelievably discouraging.
And that is why Ubers still suck. I was on the highest difficulty, did THREE GAMES WORTH OF FARMING, and have zero machines to show for it. You need four machines to make ONE ring/amulet, meaning at this rate I'd need 12+ games of farming just to make one ring/amulet after completing all four uber events with their guaranteed organ drops. ON THE HIGHEST DIFFICULTY SETTING. God forbid you're not on T6 and aren't getting guaranteed organs.
And then figure most people are going to have to craft dozens of amulets before they get one they want... and Jesus tap dancing Christ. Players are sacrificing legendary drops (by not doing rifts) to make these rings/amulets, and the process is utterly prohibitive.
Even if keys and organs were 100% each on T6, that would mean you still have to do four games worth of clears just to make one ring/amulet. It's almost like they want to bore people to death with this content. Farming keys is not a fun process at all.
EDIT
As redditors have pointed out, they should have made the keys 100% drop on T6 because, at the very least, the ubers fights are more interesting, and less frustrating, than running around Fields of Misery, Dahlgur Oasis, etc. hunting for a random spawn monster. Most people would probably be happier if the Ubers fight were the "roadblock" to making a ring/amulet as compared to the Keywardens. Personally, I'm all for it. It seems more engaging and interesting and I find farming Keywardens to be one of the most boring D3 activities out there.