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I'm quiting D3 until a new patch appears. Playing D3 is really unrewarding at this point - in one game sension i'm not able to improve my character, my possessions or my skill. I think D3's gameplay lacks the depth modern game asks, it's all hit, run and use skill in the right time.

The thing with cooldown is not a power level matter but gameplay i believe.

When a good number of your skills has 15+ seconds cooldown on then, it's just fact that you will pass the majority of time running and shooting your primary attack (or tanking and shooting your primary attack). I think this kinda makes the gameplay a bit similar between classes. I was playing my brothers wiz this weekend (just to see if i like wiz and if i should start one) and i definetly felt the gameplay between the two classes were way to similar. WD gotta lock stuff on WoZ, but you only do that once every fight. Wiz can teleport, but again you only do that now and then.

I dunno how to reduce the cooldown of such abilities without breaking the game, but i definetly think that too much limit in the defensive spells definetly makes the class gameplay bit too generic because you're only applying your defensive tatics in pontual times, not all the time.

Another argument to prove my poin is that how different WD's gameplay gets when you make pet work. Execly because pets have 100% uptime, unlike other defensive tools.

The class is fine indeed. Theres just a couple bad passives and runes, but all classes have those. All they need to do in order to fix the WD is make ccoc and hpr affixes more common, since the whole pet build needs then and they are super rare and expansive, making WD's signature build (pets) one of the most expansive ones.

Quote from Molster

you guys make me sad =(


The armory has nothing to do with the game issues or patches, its a 100% different team that has no impact on how long a patch takes... its free "content" if you will.

It's workforce investment that could be used in another feature. For exemple, making the game guide something close to Arreat Summit with all the theorycraft formulas explained.

Anyway thats just a simple question: are you looking forward that feature ? No cause all my FL is no long playing the game, noone will look my profile and i will look the profile of noone. It's pointless for me, i'm sorry =(

I think this patch is just taking too long. Each patchless day more people are giving up and some part of those quits will never return. This is extremely sad for me, i wish D3 had at least a clan feature so people felt little more commited to each other.

Quote from CurseYouAll

No, it's not like DIII. In DIII mobs get to hurt you. In this gameplay video of LineageIII don't even come close.

Only on Hell / Inferno. Any normal/nm character can one shot all the threats he faces before getting damaged, execly like this game. Not to mention this is an gameplay demonstration. Take D3 2008 announcement video and see how the barbarian one shot a horde of ghouls only spamming cleave without even getting damaged.

No, DIII is not shiny and repetitive. The engine is several years old and each encounter with elites plays differently and required different strategy. In that video over there the guy just presses a button and everything around dies. So boring.

Different strategies ? I dunno what game you're playing. I use the same tatic on every single champ (hit and run) and it works just fine. This game has an bunch of affixes but the gameplay is so clunky that you can't realy adaptate to then. Never saw anyone fighting a arcane pack by moving in circles, people just kite stuff out of the danger zone. Arcane, plagued, dessacrator, molten, all are beaten by the very same way. And the majority of other affixes doesn't really give you a tatical choice, it's just a harder monster to kill and you gotta be better at kiting and use your defensive stuff.

And yes, Asian, coz Asian games often overbuff the main hero and grant him over the top powers while battling an on-screen pandemonium without getting a scratch.

I dunno what Asian games you have played. Everything on RO and Lineage 2 one shooted me. You're being really ignorant to associate Asian with easy games. Asian games are time consuming and repetitive, yes, but they are not easy by any means.
I think i've never played something easier then D3 normal.

All in all, don't even talk to me about other action RGPs like PoB, TL2 or whatever. With all its flaws DIII is still miles ahead of them. And I am not a Blizz fanboy, btw..

You don't have any object claim to back up this statement. D3 has bugged hit boxes (things hit you when you're not there, you move and attack enemies because they leave no place in the screen for you to click) and items are way to over the top, they basically change your character so much you can make the game "cheap" (a properly geared barb can effectively ignore all the things you should be evading and many boss fights are merely tank-spank).
This alone makes TL raw gameplay better once it's more precise. I never found myself attacking when i wanted to move in that game or getting hitted by a javelin that is 16 yards distance from me.

My priority would be:

Physical (most mobs and affixes hits physical, including mortar one of the hardest ones) > Poison (plagued is one of the easiest elemental affixes but there are significant poison attackers in the game such as Belial, Ghon, Cyd, Desert Wasps and Spiderlings) > Arcane (you will never have enough arcane resistance to mitigate the sentry's but Act 4 argels hit with arcane and they hit hard) > All other are semi useless.

^ Yeah thats definetly a great build. Keep in mind you can change PtV for Jungle Fort if you need more defense !

D3 mechanic is so inconsistent and buggy. Why does LoH work with this bomb, rain of toads and energy twist but doesn't work with GotD and Acid Cloud ? It's all bugged and arbitrary, some skills are meant to be used and others doesn't.

Strong suggestions:

* Drop Healing Journey, get Honored Guest or Jaunt: 14% HP every 12 seconds is very little for a rune, a single piece of armor with good HP regen affix gives more then that. Honored Guest gives incredible amount of mana (30% mana every 12 seconds means 18.5 mana/s with base mana pool, which is around the power of two items giving mana regen) and it's good to situations were you have no mana left but you skills are not on cooldown. If you feel like you already have enough mana you can pick Jaunt since it's a incredible rune too.

* Drop Hegde Magic, get Jynx: I think Healing Journey is mediocre rune and it's much better then Hedge Magic ! In Inferno you will be sitting on 25k+ HP, the amount healed will be really little. I know the 10% increased damage doesn't sounds alot but it is, specially when you're facing fat monsters and bosses (hexable ones).

* Drop Spiritual Attunement or Blood Ritual, get Spirit Vessel: VQ builds already have an sweet amount of mana, i think 3 mana fixers is too much. Also, Spirit Vessel is just too good to be overlooked. The effect over Spirit Walk alone justify it's usage and it also saves your life every 2 minutes. You have to test which one of those two you should drop. I'm inclined to say you should keep Blood Ritual because it also has a small HP regen bonus which is always nice but you should keep Spitirual Attunament if you don't have any mana regen items (you will need it to reach 120 mana per second on VQ).

Other things you can try:

* Drop Blood Ritual/Spiritual Attunement, get Jungle Fortitude: you will loose the mana fix but it shouldn't be a problem as long as you have mana regen items (around 11~14 mana/s from items). And the 20% DR does really make an huge difference, specially on Act 2+.

* Drop Blood Ritual/Spiritual Attunement/Julgle Fortitude, get Pierce the Veil if you have 46+ mana per second: With two good mana regen affixes you can reach 46+ base mana per second, which is enough to spam Direbats during VQ w/o running out of mana with 30% increased cost and an 1.2 attack speed weapon. You actually can do it with little less then that, it greatly depends on play style. In general with 50 base mana regen you cna easily use it and enjoy a 20% increased damage for free as the extra mana costs won't make any difference on your Direbat spamming. Beware that all WD skills costs mana, even the cooldown skills such as Spirit Walk and Hex. The increased costs will GREATLY increase the total mana you need to activate VQ, so if you run out of mana and have not VQ triggered you're even more screwed with PtV. Ideally this shouldn't happen but it does sometimes.
Resume of the opera: PtV is good choice if you have (i) good mana regen gear (45+ base mana regen), (ii) enough defensive stats so you cna drop the 20% Dr from jungle fort and (iii) enough cooldown triggering pratice to avoid the situation described above.

I think this build is quite powerful. Personaly i think it's far better then Bears.

Quote from Derwiv33

I don't think you need life regeneration after the 1.0.4 patch, as long as they make summons scale with vitality.

As long as Fiercy Loyalt passive exists pets will scale better with HPr then VIT. Unless Blizz drop the ball again ofc by making a stat that requires an passive to work worse then a stat that allways kicks in.

I would not expect pets being great outside pet builds.

Don`t quote me on this but there are some people out there saying you can end Act4 using an pet build. All you need is a very specialized build.

Around 5k Armor, 800 All Resistances, 2,000 HP regen, 10% Freeze/Stum on Hit, 12k DPS. Jungle Fort, Zombie Handler and Fiercy Loyalt are your passives. Flame Dogs and Big Stinker are your summons. Healing Journey for CCB and healing pets. Splitters pluss one good spender for attack. The last slot go for Hex, BBV or FA (w/e suits you).

You will need around 20kk in items. The thing is CC on Hit are WAY to hard to drop, so it`s kind expansive. This is the real issue in the build =/

Quote from Nausicaa

I'm assuming Carrion Swarm = Locust Swarm for the rest of us.

"Haunt is great skill" - Yes it is. It's fun and such. But it's far inferior to LS. That was my point. And as you said yourself, there is no real tactical advantage to having both (due to mana issues).

"it deals more damage per mana then any spender skill WD have" - So very far from the truth. If we stay away from theoretical scenarios where a new mob shows up just as the previous one died, thus giving infinite dmg. 1 LS will hit between 5-50 mobs (yes 50, my mighty blow record with LS is 87, Barracks act 3 NM) all depending on which area you are in and which mobs you are killing. And I usually don't cast it when there is less then 5 mobs around (cept for packs), as it's quite costly. Haunt will usually hit MAX 2 mobs for full effect I find (act 1 inferno) before it either fails to jump to another mob (is it just me or does it jump worse the LS?) or the mobs are dead.

"Haunt is cheap" - Half the price of a LS which deals between 2-20 times the dmg I wouldn't call that cheap.

"and its duration is big" - A bit to big imo ('cept with the rune), giving to little dmg/sec compared to it's mana cost.

"Also, Haunt is free if you use the mana return rune" - That's what I was hoping this rune would do. So I could replace my primary attack with Haunt and just use this, but that doesn't really work. As usually mobs tend to die too fast to give the mana cost back. The second issue is, that in the time I run around w8ing for my Haunt to tick, I could have just kited and thrown some Jar or Dart for the same dmg, without risking my mana in the process.

Haunt needs tweaking. I'm not saying it's a crappy skill. I'm saying that LS > Haunt, and there is no real room in your 6 skill slots to have both. That's my main gripe about Haunt. I want to use it... but the theorycrafter in me won't allow it ^^

It's not far inferior to LS. Also Haunt is not secondary skill. You can easily fit something like Splitters, LS and Haunt or Splitters, Direbats and Haunt. But you can't fit Splitters, Direbats and Locust Swarm. Because LS cannibalizes the mana of other secondary skills !

Forget about thrash mobs. Your secondary skills (Zombie Bears, Dire Dats, Acid Cloud) can easily alone take care of those. Haunt is not meant to be used against thrash mobs, it's strict anti-pack and boss dps booster. Haunt damage / cost ratio is 5.8 while LS damage/cost ratio is 1.8, the very ratio of Dire Bats ! It means if you try to cast LC and use Direbats you have absolutly no DPS increment in the long run (think about 1+ minutes fights were your mana allways is drained up) because the mana used to cast LC could be used to cast Direbat and the damage would be execly the same.
But if you use Haunt you have a effect DPS increment because of the high damage / cost ratio. Mathematicaly Haunt adds value to your mana bar while LC don't. by giving alot of damage and asking little mana.

For the WD, the DPS of skill doesn't matter much. Damage / Cost ratios are far more important.

"Also, Haunt is free if you use the mana return rune" - That's what I was hoping this rune would do. So I could replace my primary attack with Haunt and just use this, but that doesn't really work. As usually mobs tend to die too fast to give the mana cost back. The second issue is, that in the time I run around w8ing for my Haunt to tick, I could have just kited and thrown some Jar or Dart for the same dmg, without risking my mana in the process.

Ok by this setence i see you don't understand how Haunt works. Haunt is not meant to be used in your first buttom as free spell, and it's not meant to be used in your second bottom as your primary damage spell. Haunt is a marginal DPS booster like Hydra, Companion, Sentry and damage buffs such as Magic Weapon. LC doesn't belong to this cathegory because it's damage/cost ratio is the same of an common attack skill, meaning it will only cannibilize resourses.

Try this: Kill Belial (inferno) using LS + mana spender skill you like. Then try killing Belial using Haunt + mana spender skill you like. You will see the boss will die 20%~40% times faster with Haunt.

Just see the time you play until you get a upgrade (both drops and getting money to buy a item). I get a upgrade every 10 hours or so. Thats a good number. I play like 2 hours per day, so 1 item every week is what I expect from the high end of farm based game. I remember old lineage times were one needed like 50 hours of efficient perfect planned farm to get a upgrade.

I think majority of people don't really now what they don't like about D3. It's not a matter of time you take to get a upgrade. It's the lack of variety in item types and ways you have to get a upgrade. It's lack of different interations inside the game.

Hats off, thats pretty good build.

I passed the first half of my D3 playtime trying to make pets work and inly meded at Act 2. I'm impressed lol i'm your fan.

Quote from Nausicaa

Quote from KiriONE

Mana: At this point after playing a monk fully through inferno and a wizard into hell (I actually play and not farm Leorics manor for each difficulty). Resource management on those classes just feels so much more natural. Diablo 2 felt like resource spending game, Diablo 3 feels like resource generation game. This point has been argued so heavily that if Blizzard doesn't make some kind of change -- whether it be in skill mana adjustment or a buff elsewhere -- I'd say it's clear that they don't play WD nearly as much as Barbarian (which seems to be the most well thought-out.

QFT. The mana resource system needs a complete overhaul. We can burn our mana in 4-5 sec and have to 20-40 sec for it to regen. No other class has that huge a difference between spending and earning resources. Sure all classes could burn their full resource even quicker, but they can also regen them in a few seconds.

Quote from Derwiv33

Summon Zombie Dogs cooldown reduced to 14 seconds.

Hex - Angry Chicken rune's cooldown has been reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. In addition, the skill now knockbacks nearby enemies with the explosion.

Hex - Hedge Magic rune now heals for 5% of the players max HP instead of 1861 HP. In addition, the skill now heals nearby allies as well instead of choosing the one with least HP.

Big Bad Voodoo - Rain Dance rune will now regenerate 20% of the players maximum resource per second. In addition, the skill now affects allies as well.

Zombie Handler will now have an additional effect. One pet will survive from fatal damage and heal themselfs to 50% HP. This effect cannot happen more than once per 120 seconds. The skill is global among all pets meaning if a dog uses the skill, gargantuan needs to wait 120 seconds.

While under the effects of Spirit Vessel, the player can move through units like in Spirit Walk.

-Summon Zombie Dogs cooldown reduced to 14 seconds.
-Zombie Handler will now have an additional effect. One pet will survive from fatal damage and heal themselfs to 50% HP. This effect cannot happen more than once per 120 seconds. The skill is global among all pets meaning if a dog uses the skill, gargantuan needs to wait 120 seconds.

Make a mix out of these two and you might be on to something. Use the second effect, but allow it to proc at something like once every 20 sec for dogs. Keep the CD for dogs at 60sec. And just make the Garg more robust, as he can't tank more then 1 target at the time anyway.


-Hex - Angry Chicken rune's cooldown has been reduced from 15 seconds to 10 seconds. In addition, the skill now knockbacks nearby enemies with the explosion.

I thought it already did a knockback???


-Hex - Hedge Magic rune now heals for 5% of the players max HP instead of 1861 HP. In addition, the skill now heals nearby allies as well instead of choosing the one with least HP.

ALL the heals should work in a % manner (with a minimum fixed value). Not just the WD ones. I think the Monks would agree.


-Big Bad Voodoo - Rain Dance rune will now regenerate 20% of the players maximum resource per second. In addition, the skill now affects allies as well.

I like it. And sure it might sound OP, but remember, that fetish circle isn't that big, how often can a group of 4 gather up and stand in place for 20 sec ^^


-While under the effects of Spirit Vessel, the player can move through units like in Spirit Walk.

I think they fixed/or was about to fix this as well.

Quote from TheDFO

Firebomb - base damage increased to 100% (which is still the lowest damage of the WD's primaries). Additionally, all "repeat" runes such as Roll the Bones and Flash Fire can hit the same enemies repeatedly.

Locust Swarm - Base range tripled. The speed of the cloud reduced by 50% every original length (not sure what it was).

Fire Bats - Range doubled. Fire bats spreads out so that it does less damage the farther away the enemy is. Dire bats range not changed.

Hehe, you might wanna rethink that bouncing on the same target for Flash Fire. You are saying that you want it do do 100% + 85% + 70% + 65% + 50% + 35% = 405% dmg / cast ^^?

I have 0 problems hitting with Locust Swarm.

I wouldn't mind having the non-Dire bat runes reach a little further. That's the main reason everyone runs ONLY Dire bat runes in a VQ spec.

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Something I would really love to see changed, is Haunt. Atm there is 0 incentive to use this skill at the higher lvls due to 3 things:

It's mana cost is just to friggin' high.
It doesn't jump between targets nearly as good a Locust Swarm does.
Is inferior to Locust Swarm in almost every way, so if we just have 1 slot left for an extra spell we pick Swarm over Haunt.

One of the most fun times I had on my WD was at the low lvls just having gotten 2 sec duration Haunt, which was still fairly cheap in mana at those lvls. So I used that INSTEAD of my primary (was kick ass fun) and used Locust Swarm as my secondary ^^!

Sadly, even with maxed out mana regen gear this is just not possible at the higher lvls UNLESS you use a VQ spec, and since you are using 2 attack spells that forces you to keep the rest of your abilities on constant CD... I don't know about you, but I like to keep my Spirit walk handy while playing HC Inferno

Ohhhh and the BIG P.S. Blizzard you fixed the issue with dots not scaling with crits, can you plz fix it so that they scale with attackspeed so I can actually use my class specific items instead of walking around with my big phat pole-arm >.<?

I"m currently farming Act 3 and i use Haunt in my spec. Haunt is great skill vc. packs. You can cast it from a safe distance and it deals more damage per mana then any spender skill WD have (meaning it won't canniblize mana of spenders skills).

The differences between Carrion Swarm and Haunt are huge. CS is pretty mana intensive and have decent DPS, meaning it does really works like a secondary skill such as acid cloud, zombie chargers and firebats. I can't picture an WD using an primary ability, a secondary one AND CS.
Haunt is cheap and its duration is big, meaning you don't need to recast it very often. Haunt is sustanaible damage skill. It more or less fits the role of Hydra and Damage buffs - an situational damage buff meant to make you bit stronger vs. elites. Also, Haunt is free if you use the mana return rune, despite the number of targets available. They could definetly buff other runes though