I started with a full defensive CM build with Crystal Shell, Prismatic Armor, and the CD reduction rune on frost nova, as well as Cold Blooded, CM, and Evocation as passives that were unchanged throughout. I took the fight time and my char sheet dps to compute the DPS Multiplier, which is the effective dps gain of the build. For example, at 100k dps using the full defensive build I would expect an effective dps of 247k. I also computed relative DPS of each spec meaning switching from Prismatic to Storm Armor increased dps by about 36%.
And in case there's any confusion, 'x' in the table means that skill was used.
| Storm Armor | Shocking Aspect | Pinpoint | Shards | Prism | DPS Multiplier | Relative DPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.47 | 1 | |||||
| x | 2.78 | 1.13 | ||||
| x | 2.99 | 1.21 | ||||
| x | 3.01 | 1.22 | ||||
| x | 3.36 | 1.36 | ||||
| x | x | 4.06 | 1.65 | |||
| x | x | x | 4.25 | 1.72 |
The interesting information is that Storm Armor is about a 36% dps gain over prismatic armor. When you add Shocking Aspect it's a 65% dps gain over prismatic armor and about a 36% dps gain over pinpoint barrier. Adding Diamond Shards further increases the dps gain but it's only about a 4% dps gain by itself when you use Shocking Aspect. The dramatic decrease in survivability for the fight makes it very not worthwhile, but that could easily change depending on the fight. Rak for example, would probably be just fine with DS or prism.
I also expect the values for Shocking Aspect to be dependent of crit and attack speed, since it only procs on crits and higher attack speed should lead to more procs from WW, so with 50% crit, I'd expect the damage to increase by about 16%, or I'd expect the total dps gain to be about 90%, for a relative dps of 1.9. With a crit % of 52% I would expect Shocking Aspect to double your dps over prismatic armor, roughly speaking, with the same APS of 1.965 or so.
For reference, my stats at the time of the data collection were 104k dps buffed (110k with pinpoint), 1.965 attacks per second, 20 APoC, 1298 LoH, 1.5% Life Steal, 641 resist all and 4588 armor unbuffed, with 40.5k hp and 43% crit with Scoundrel. I also had about 400 life per second regen, just to complete the stats.
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I don't think the term rollback is suitable here because it refers to another possible source of item dupes. "Restoration policy" probably describes best how dupes are being produced right now. To answer your question, of course it's all just guessing but due to the fact that Blizzard managed to eliminate dupes in Asia - to my knowledge almost completely for now - just by making restored items BoA, it seems it's the only source right now. All other "evidence" of other dupe methods was provided in poorly faked Youtube videos. (Note: dupes from before the BoA change are still existent, so there are still dupes in Asia, but afaik no new ones).
To be honest, I think in the end we'll end up there anyway. Dupes just accelerate this process. Anyways, Blizzard doesn't like dupes and is doing the best they can to stop them (please think about duping in D2 before you flame me for that sentence). It really seems like it's under control now, also in Asia (someone from Asian servers please correct me if I'm wrong). I understand your concern though. Independent of whether there are dupes or not the outcome will be the same: the top items (whether it's top 10% or top 0.1%) will cost the maximum amount of money that high-end players are willing to pay for items (right now multiple billion already). That'll go up. Mediocre or worse items will lose their value because as more items hit the market more players can afford them.
In June getting to 100k DPS was insanely expensive. Right now you can get there with a low budget of single digit million, I guess (depending on class and spec, obviously). For some players even 200k+ is affordable with a couple of million, a number that was considered to be high-end months ago and worth billions. The gap between the poor and the rich will widen, but the average casual gamers' DPS will slightly go up. Anyways, duping just accelerates and magnifies this process, but it's gonna happen anyways.
I don't think there's a real fix unless you come up with some insane gold sink (and maybe even item sink), and I don't see that. Any gold sink that will remove billions or trillions from the system needs to give players an incentive high enough to not spend the equal amount of money on upgrading gear. Therefore I'm not sure what Blizzard can do about that. We'll see how the crafting change and the Marquise gem idea works out - but I don't think it's even remotely enough to stop this process. By the way, while I understand what you mean about a slower progression for new players, also keep in mind that for your game experience it absolutely doesn't matter what weapon other people have and how much they paid for it. Diablo 3 is not supposed to be competitive, the only competition is created by the players themselves (diabloprogress.com etc.). Ah well, and PvP, but that's not my game ;-) But I completely get your point; I also want to "slowly get there", but if someone decides to take the credit card shortcut it's their decision and it doesn't bother me. It wouldn't make me happy, but if it works for them, it's their choice.
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People have been banned for using LootAlert, I recall there was some famous p100 streamer who got banned and they even created some kind of petition on the forums. LootAlert is against ToS and you will get banned, having a stream to show everyone that you use it gives them the perfect evidence that they need. To everyone reading this: don't use LootAlert unless you don't care about getting banned.
And DarkD3 itself is not bannable, all it does is change some DirectX settings of your graphics card. DarkD3 does nothing that you couldn't do manually by adjusting settings in your driver, afaik. It doesn't touch your memory, it doesn't touch game files, and therefore is not bannable - just as Blizzard stated. What is bannable though is the add-on you can download on the DarkD3 site; it changes the in-game font to the old Diablo style font. It does so by altering game files which is absolutely against the ToS and might get you banned at some point.
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And please please please stop with your hostility and assuming that we have some fanboy mode implanted in our brain. I played the hell out of WarCraft 1, WarCraft 2, and StarCraft 1, but never liked WarCraft 3 and hated StarCraft 2. If Diablo 3 was going into the wrong direction, I would let you know. I loved Torchlight 1, I didn't like Torchlight 2. Just give us the benefit of the doubt that we're able to reflect and our opinion is really our honest opinion. I never liked the "oh, wrong skill point selected, create a new character" aspect of Diablo 2, you see to miss that a lot. Just acknowledge that some people have different desires when it comes to playing computer games. Thanks.
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2
Not gonna happen, sorry.
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Btw, Onyxia deep breaths more often now!
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Blizzard already said that they are not going back to D2. There was a recent blue post saying that D3 will not turn into an updated D2, they want to create something new.
I also enjoyed Diablo 2 very much, and as much as I would like to have an updated version of D2, I acknowledge that Blizzard tries something new. They got some few things right, but had massive problems in the beginning. They're working on it, and every patch makes it a bit better; I'm eagerly waiting for 1.07. Just like you I want to see how the game evolves and what they do to improve it - but rest assured that one thing won't happen: going back to D2 and turn D3 into an updated version of Diablo 2.
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I'm sorry to break the news to you, but I think if Blizzard decides to stop all PvP efforts as of tomorrow I'd buy 5 copies just to show them how much I'd appreciate. I think there's a lack of non-PvP games these days and even though I'm happy for the PvP fans on this board that they'll get some new stuff in 1.07 (though it's not exactly what they want), please understand that there are some people who see Diablo as a PvE game and PvP development time as a waste.
Btw, after reading several blue posts that stress the non-esports character of D3, I'd not place my money on the x-pac to have any huge PvP content. You will be disappointed.
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Here's what I used during leveling: http://i.stack.imgur.com/Cb1ps.jpg
And here's how I helped a friend get to 60 in ~2 hours: http://www.diablofans.com/topic/79612-tips-for-fast-lvl-char/page__p__1089448#entry1089448
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@Serpenth: What a surprise @PoE... After 7 years of hearing of a WoW killer, I've yet to see one. I wonder how many years it will take me to see the Diablo killer. Just finished TL2, even though it's an indie game I have no idea why anyone would rate this game higher as D3, let alone play it for more than 100 hours. I bet with PoE it'll be the same.
@Indimix: "And, please, stop quoting the name of this site.. it has nothing to do with anything. It's just a name."
Nope. It's not just a name. There's a lot of valid criticism, constructive criticism, and justified criticism. But if someone is posting stuff that is clearly trying to just provoke others without bringing any new food for a fruitful discussion into the community, it's an absolutely valid point to remember this person what the site is about. I said it once before: I don't get why some people spend hours in this forum just to make everyone's life miserable (including their own). D3 will never go back to become D2.1, and anyone to hope so is waiting for it in vain.