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Caldesann's Despair Theorycrafting & Math
wudijo recently made a thread on our forums sharing a spreadsheet and some numbers on Caldesann's Despair. It gives players a general idea of when to upgrade gems and how to more efficiently use their gold in this activity. Check it out below.
Hey guys,
here's some math on Caldesann's Despair I did a while ago and I decided to share it now. It's about when to upgrade which gems and how to use our gold optimally. I calculated numbers for P1400 / Tier 90 gems with my solo Natalya setup(dual wield, no mainstat on jewelry, full diamonds, nonancient amulet), which will be pretty early in the season but for casuals like me it will still be decently high. Keep in mind we know neither the exact duration of this season nor the exact XP/h values that people will achieve. I assumed ~3.5 months and 200b/h early game, increasing up to 1000b/h near the end of season.
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Part 1
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Gold, cost and time comparison. If you want to see the numbers, here's my Excel sheet (explanation see below): http://puu.sh/mso0i/31f05c1ea4.png
- Top left: Cost for empowering (basically +1 gemup)
- Top center: Required amount of runs / gold / time (time is a rough approximation for 3-5 weeks into the season) to get a gem to 90 with all empowered rifts
- Top right: Same but empowered stops at Tier 77
- Bottom left: Cost scaling more precisely for relevant Tiers
- Bottom center: Comparison of leveling main gems with <60% vs. leveling Caldesann gems with 60%
- Bottom right: Comparison of leveling main gems with 8% (and less) chance vs. replacing a low level Caldesann gem
My findings (the colored text in the pic):
- Empowering 79+ is not recommended
- Stopping empower at 77 will save you 8.4b gold (70%) but only requires ~2 more runs (~20 more min on top of ~2-2.5 hours)
- Main gems should be 3 above highest farming Tier once you start hitting a wall (not counting tryharding high Tiers for "gemup runs")
- To replace a Caldesann gem on an item the new gem should be ~20 ranks higher, else you should max out the 8 / 4 / 2% chances on your main gems first.
- If you're playing on lower Tiers / Paragons, most of these findings should still hold somewhat true (obviously discounting the scaling, so you could probably replace old Caldesann's at ~ +15 ranks already etc.).
Additional comments:
I assumed Tier 60 will be the absolute lowest you'd want to run to still get decent loot and somewhat acceptable experience / key value. I only calculated the Bane of the Trapped for the main gems, other gems are comparatively slightly weaker in most cases, and support builds don't necessarily use them. I also used a comparatively low Paragon / gem baseline, which will probably be surpassed quite early into the season.
Still, you should get a general idea of the value of more paragons vs. gemups. I suggest to spam rank 60-70 Caldesann's on every item early in the season and then replace them with 90+ later (in case you keep the same items) once. After 90+ Caldesann I'd never replace them and just put the gemups into spare gems (for better drops / other sets) or spam 1% on main gems. Overall you should expect to spend ~3 hours on every Caldesann gem, not counting Torment farming.
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Part 2
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Here's how Caldesann impacts the relative powerlevels between characters. My excel sheet: http://puu.sh/msWWB/0a73ff6e7f.png
- Left: Mainstat comparison at same level (2.3 no Caldesann, 2.4 progressively higher Caldesann up to 100, nonancient amulet)
- Right: Dmg difference vs. +1000 Paragon players (same limitations)
Findings:
- Caldesann buffs everyone by roughly 45-25% for relevant paragon levels (P1000-3400), so ~1.5-3 Tiers depending on class and build.
- Since we'll probably see paragons into the 3000s more commonly than last season, the +1000 calculation will be insufficient and as always you need to do your own calculations for the people you're competing with (this also doesn't include higher main gems and better items etc.).
- Overall Caldesann will decrease the damage gap by roughly 8-10% for low to mediocre paragons and 5-8% for high paragons, so more or less half a Tier. I assume this is much less than most people previously thought, so don't expect Caldesann to save you the paragon grind or make the leaderboards significantly more accessible to casuals.
- Looking at last season's damage difference from the weakest character to the strongest in the end-of-season top 10, a ~60% damage difference should be acceptable to get into top 10 for challenging and ~45% difference for easier classes.
- This should make top 10 rankings possible between P1200-1800 or P1600-2200, respectively (very rough approximation).
Happy Farming!
Greater Rift 103 Clear
Ever wondered what the highest Greater Rift clears look like? Chainer uploaded some first person footage of his Barbarian on a 4-man #1 rank GR 103 clear. It's interesting seeing not only how coordinated their party is, but how they communicate essential information. Watch it below.
"It's interesting seeing not only how coordinated their party is, but how they communicate essential information."
Someone using turbohud and informing everyone is admirable communicating? Meh, this is just stupid how you can be in frontpage of diablofans while cheating and still not getting banned. You can clearly hear people talking in their voice chat about information they shouldn't have yet.
Even Chainer has to group up with cheaters to compete, this is just lame. Well played by Chainer but blizzard really has to do something with this cheating, it's just killing the competitive part of this game.
"Empowering 79+ is not recommended" stopped reading at this point.
>Turbohud
>Cheating
Lol. Explain to me, what is it that turbohud automates for you again? What percentage of an advantage would you say turbohud gives to someone? What is this turbohud user seeing that someone with a mouse and keyboard and no turbohud can't see just the same?
Mob affixes are available on mouseover, seeing them tacked as small boxes really doesn't accomplish anything a mouseover couldn't. Instead of whining about "cheating" perhaps the Blizzard interface team should step up their game and stop getting oneupped by a single dude.
These arguments are so idiotic, you are trying to justify cheats and that's why I'm not wasting my time explaining why it's wrong. Why is cheating wrong in sports? Because it's unfair, competing with cheaters is impossible.
Yeah, i don't actually see where everyone is saying they're using maphacks or whatever. Every time you hear someone talk about "Hey, there's this ahead" or "We got a good tile next" it's after 2-3 of the people in the group have split off if you actually watch the map. When you hear percentages, it's always about what the health is at, or the amount that they'll get out of the pack, which you should know a general amount you'd get from the amount of elites that you're working on.
you are supposed to empower 60 and below, then the highest you can reach. If you're farming 85s and empowering every run, you will run out of gold very quickly lol.
I may need someone to explain it like I'm 5, but I just don't see the point of empowering rifts. Is an extra chance to level a gem really worth multiple billions of gold? Why is that billion gold extra roll worth more than just doing more grifts? I understand the cost in terms of time, but if you've got enough time to accumulate enough gold to cover the cost of empowering, then you have the time to just run more grifts.
I hope wudijo is ironically calling himself "casual," because I do not think a casual Diablo 3 player makes spreadsheets to optimize gem leveling and Caldesann's Despair gearing.
Chainer has always looked really greasy and unkempt.