Before we go any further let's make it very clear that grouping with randoms won't on average even result in a greater XP than you could gain by playing alone. Even tho the health of monsters are marginally lower, the incoming damage gets spread over 4 people and NV stacks are multiplicative it is essential that the group functions together to have an advantage over single player. Discussing optimization is a waste of time when each group you join come with different builds, classes and personalities.
I'm not going to dispute this (as I know it is very true), but I'd like to drop in my 2 cents.
Most public games can indeed become an inneficient endeavour. The random guy who wanders off the group, the DH who's using a single target Rapid Fire with 40k DPS, etc.
But every now and then (actually a lot more common than I'd expect) you come around a good coordinated and smart group of players. It is then that party-buffs and group play is absolutely amazing.
I can barely do MP 6 with my Archon Wizard by myself. In a group, with an average of 120k~ dps (the group's average dps, which is crappy - but just to say there wasn't a 280k dps Barb/Monk carrying everyone) we were absolutely one-shotting everything white on MP 7, and dealing with elites very very easily (with multiple surviving abilities, multiple crowd control sources and multiple targets things become MUCH easier).
I'm actually leaning heavily towards group play as being vastly superior these days.
Instead of thinking about how ineffective their build would be for solo, look at how effective it is in a party.
Thats the problem their build would not. There is no true party build that is effective in this game, at least not one that cut all ties with a regular all purpose build of said class. This is not a role rpg, there is no support, healer, tank, etc. Everyone deals damage and offer support. If you downgrade your surviability or damage to offer any of these thing, you are making things worse for the team, not better. Should i take a tanking barb with 50 dps because he can vaccum the mobs or a 300k dps archon wizard? The answer is the wizard, as much as pulling the mob is cool, the barb will make it 6 time longer to kill elite packs and bosses.
Same goes for any classes, you cannot be support if you dont pull any dps or have paper wet surviability and die alot on high MP. The funny part in this thread is that people point out to party build and only mention stuff like barb giving shout, cyclone strike, cm wizard. News flash these are common all purpose build that everyone use, cyclone strike is very good damage on its own you can use it solo. CM is the best high mp build for wizard, solo or not. There is no viable support builds, not one that you cannot use solo, not one.
I'm actually leaning heavily towards group play as being vastly superior these days.
If people know what they're doing, and aren't complete douches, this is absolutely true.
Couldn't agree more. I run on a group with a well geared WW-Hammer barb, a poorly geared monk and myself. The monk, knowing he is incapable of doing more DPS right now acts as a tank and buffer (he has nice healing and DPS group buffs).
The playing experience for all of us is great, and so is the XP. We do carry the monk with us, but it's not a burden. Alone the barb plays MP9, with us MP8 or 7. Alone I play on MP8, and the monk plays MP3 (because he can't kill anything fast).
Before learning a little more how to play Archon correctly, they carried me on lower MPs. And slowly we are gearing the monk so he can play by himself on higher MP's, allowing our group farm to run faster.
What are these vasts benefits from group play besides completely irelevant MF ?
well, the MF isn't irrelevant by any means, plus it adds in gold find, and experience.
Playing with friends / people means you'll all have to screw up pretty bad to do a complete wipe.
This also means you can take advantage of the DPS/ LPS/ defenses / pet-tanking / CC's that other classes have to offer compared to what you have. This makes taking down champs / elites not only easier, but more fun as well.
Each person only adds 50% more HP to the mob. This means comparable dps players will obviously want to join together because it'l take less time to kill enemies.
What are these vasts benefits from group play besides completely irelevant MF ?
Here's a silly, overly simplistic answer, but it should illustrate a point. Consider a high DPS barb using a HotA: Smash build and a low DPS monk using an Exploding Palm build doing ubers. The bosses have 150% of their normal health, but they take 60% more damage as long as the Monk keeps Conviction and Exploding Palm up, so even if the Monk does 0 DPS, the barb still kills the first boss in 93.75 percent of the time it took on his own, and that's not counting Guiding Light. If we assume the bosses have equal health, exploding palm will take off 74% of the second bosses current HP. Assuming that mob has somehow not been hit at all yet, the entire fight would be over in 65.16% of the time it would take the barb to kill the bosses alone.
That's with the monk doing zero damage for the entire fight (except the Exploding Palm explosion obviously, but that skill ignores all gear except bonus damage to elites and possibly bonus % elemental damage). It's also not optimized since I'm not counting buffs like Guiding Light which would make it faster, and it's also ignoring the MF / XP / GF bonuses and the fact that incoming damage is now split among two people instead of one.
Again, this is an oversimplified example and forgive me if any of my numbers are off (I took most of it from Invis's Speed Palm guide), but similar concepts hold when farming non-ubers in groups. There are certain buffs which have multiplier effects in parties and exploiting them, along with the inherent bonuses of group play, make farming with a reasonably competent group more efficient than solo play as long as you aren't having to drag poorly geared / played characters along with you.
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...and if you disagree with me, you're probably <insert random ad hominem attack here>.
I rarely play public games so pardon me for not commenting on that.
My group currently consists of 2 Hota barbs, One big bad vodoo-slam dance WD and me a little monk with crippling wave-breaking wave, MoC-owerawe, cyclone strike-soothing breeze with guiding light.
The barbs love it when it all comes together. Their hota hammers are insane Waiting to try out an uber run this weekend.
Oh we play mp10.
sure a tank is not necessary these days but the buffs you get from various other classes is just too good to pass. the synergy of various builds just melts elites.
Instead of thinking about how ineffective their build would be for solo, look at how effective it is in a party.
Thats the problem their build would not. There is no true party build that is effective in this game, at least not one that cut all ties with a regular all purpose build of said class. This is not a role rpg, there is no support, healer, tank, etc. Everyone deals damage and offer support. If you downgrade your surviability or damage to offer any of these thing, you are making things worse for the team, not better. Should i take a tanking barb with 50 dps because he can vaccum the mobs or a 300k dps archon wizard? The answer is the wizard, as much as pulling the mob is cool, the barb will make it 6 time longer to kill elite packs and bosses.
Same goes for any classes, you cannot be support if you dont pull any dps or have paper wet surviability and die alot on high MP. The funny part in this thread is that people point out to party build and only mention stuff like barb giving shout, cyclone strike, cm wizard. News flash these are common all purpose build that everyone use, cyclone strike is very good damage on its own you can use it solo. CM is the best high mp build for wizard, solo or not. There is no viable support builds, not one that you cannot use solo, not one.
Totally wrong
Guiding Light monk is a party build , you can't get guiding light buff from playing solo
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Most public games can indeed become an inneficient endeavour. The random guy who wanders off the group, the DH who's using a single target Rapid Fire with 40k DPS, etc.
But every now and then (actually a lot more common than I'd expect) you come around a good coordinated and smart group of players. It is then that party-buffs and group play is absolutely amazing.
I can barely do MP 6 with my Archon Wizard by myself. In a group, with an average of 120k~ dps (the group's average dps, which is crappy - but just to say there wasn't a 280k dps Barb/Monk carrying everyone) we were absolutely one-shotting everything white on MP 7, and dealing with elites very very easily (with multiple surviving abilities, multiple crowd control sources and multiple targets things become MUCH easier).
I'm actually leaning heavily towards group play as being vastly superior these days.
Seconded. Provided all the players are basically on the same page there are vast benefits to be had from grouping.
Thats the problem their build would not. There is no true party build that is effective in this game, at least not one that cut all ties with a regular all purpose build of said class. This is not a role rpg, there is no support, healer, tank, etc. Everyone deals damage and offer support. If you downgrade your surviability or damage to offer any of these thing, you are making things worse for the team, not better. Should i take a tanking barb with 50 dps because he can vaccum the mobs or a 300k dps archon wizard? The answer is the wizard, as much as pulling the mob is cool, the barb will make it 6 time longer to kill elite packs and bosses.
Same goes for any classes, you cannot be support if you dont pull any dps or have paper wet surviability and die alot on high MP. The funny part in this thread is that people point out to party build and only mention stuff like barb giving shout, cyclone strike, cm wizard. News flash these are common all purpose build that everyone use, cyclone strike is very good damage on its own you can use it solo. CM is the best high mp build for wizard, solo or not. There is no viable support builds, not one that you cannot use solo, not one.
Couldn't agree more. I run on a group with a well geared WW-Hammer barb, a poorly geared monk and myself. The monk, knowing he is incapable of doing more DPS right now acts as a tank and buffer (he has nice healing and DPS group buffs).
The playing experience for all of us is great, and so is the XP. We do carry the monk with us, but it's not a burden. Alone the barb plays MP9, with us MP8 or 7. Alone I play on MP8, and the monk plays MP3 (because he can't kill anything fast).
Before learning a little more how to play Archon correctly, they carried me on lower MPs. And slowly we are gearing the monk so he can play by himself on higher MP's, allowing our group farm to run faster.
Wizard | Demon Hunter
XP bonus (multiplicative!).
Complementary group compositions (one guy with massive AoE for all the white mobs, one guy with good single target damage for the big elite mob).
Fun of playing with friends.
And besides, "completely irrelevant MF" in Diablo 3... you gotta be kidding me, what are you playing for, world peace?
well, the MF isn't irrelevant by any means, plus it adds in gold find, and experience.
Playing with friends / people means you'll all have to screw up pretty bad to do a complete wipe.
This also means you can take advantage of the DPS/ LPS/ defenses / pet-tanking / CC's that other classes have to offer compared to what you have. This makes taking down champs / elites not only easier, but more fun as well.
Each person only adds 50% more HP to the mob. This means comparable dps players will obviously want to join together because it'l take less time to kill enemies.
Here's a silly, overly simplistic answer, but it should illustrate a point. Consider a high DPS barb using a HotA: Smash build and a low DPS monk using an Exploding Palm build doing ubers. The bosses have 150% of their normal health, but they take 60% more damage as long as the Monk keeps Conviction and Exploding Palm up, so even if the Monk does 0 DPS, the barb still kills the first boss in 93.75 percent of the time it took on his own, and that's not counting Guiding Light. If we assume the bosses have equal health, exploding palm will take off 74% of the second bosses current HP. Assuming that mob has somehow not been hit at all yet, the entire fight would be over in 65.16% of the time it would take the barb to kill the bosses alone.
That's with the monk doing zero damage for the entire fight (except the Exploding Palm explosion obviously, but that skill ignores all gear except bonus damage to elites and possibly bonus % elemental damage). It's also not optimized since I'm not counting buffs like Guiding Light which would make it faster, and it's also ignoring the MF / XP / GF bonuses and the fact that incoming damage is now split among two people instead of one.
Again, this is an oversimplified example and forgive me if any of my numbers are off (I took most of it from Invis's Speed Palm guide), but similar concepts hold when farming non-ubers in groups. There are certain buffs which have multiplier effects in parties and exploiting them, along with the inherent bonuses of group play, make farming with a reasonably competent group more efficient than solo play as long as you aren't having to drag poorly geared / played characters along with you.
My group currently consists of 2 Hota barbs, One big bad vodoo-slam dance WD and me a little monk with crippling wave-breaking wave, MoC-owerawe, cyclone strike-soothing breeze with guiding light.
The barbs love it when it all comes together. Their hota hammers are insane Waiting to try out an uber run this weekend.
Oh we play mp10.
sure a tank is not necessary these days but the buffs you get from various other classes is just too good to pass. the synergy of various builds just melts elites.
Totally wrong
Guiding Light monk is a party build , you can't get guiding light buff from playing solo