Haha, I'm working on the lists!
I've been temporarily sucked into a vortex of Modern Warfare 3 (10!) and Skyrim (9.5!), but those D2 lists are coming!
Uh... don't expect magic here, either. I'm a wiki-noob and I have a dearth of spare time, so while my aims are heavenly the actual mark may be much more terrestrial. For more specifics on the lists, you can always check out my wiki profile.
Edit: Apoc, you're a God. That's a huge amount of data to move! Thanks for that!!!
- kahdrick
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Member for 12 years, 8 months, and 23 days
Last active Sat, Oct, 6 2012 19:56:58
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Oct 28, 2011kahdrick posted a message on Diablo 2 Patch 1.13dhome channel is something I've wanted for a loooong time and it works beautifully! All of your characters share the same home channel, too, and it persists across logins. you don't even have to /go home when you first sign in to chat - it just defaults you to your home channel.Posted in: News
I'm not sure how the ignore list works - if it perma-squelches people or not, but it seems like the spambotters are countering by having hordes of bots. Where I used to get 1 every few minutes in a non-restricted game, I now get an endless stream, keeping the game nearly full all the time (good), but so I can't see a damn thing ever (bad). -
Oct 6, 2011kahdrick posted a message on Diablo III in SpaceI'm with Daemaro. The problem isn't that corpses are getting bashed sky-high, it's that they float when they get there. Same goes for them sliding across the ground - the dead bodies simply don't have any sense of weight. What's more, they bounce if they hit a wall - that shouldn't happen either. There should be a wet thud and the body should stay there. The corpses need more weight, and gravity needs to be stronger on the way back down from a hit.Posted in: News
Now, I'm sure that the physics guys are saying things like "we're using 9.8 m/s/s!" but the fact of the matter is that when you're not in a first person view, real gravity just looks slow. You've got to beef it up a little. - To post a comment, please login or register a new account.
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Honestly, this is how I feel as well. If the game doesn't actually start until 60, what's the point of levels 1-59? Why even have them? Most people I read on the forums are just power leveling through to 60 anyway, which I find very hard to believe is fun for them.
I've been leveling through the game and am finding that after the initial playthrough to enjoy the story, it's as if the developers completely forgot that the levels before 60 exist. The "randomization" between areas is incredibly minor, and the emphasis on random champion packs and events makes me feel more like ignoring the quests and wandering aimlessly is more valuable and rewarding than "saving the world" by following the plot. Huge disconnect there.
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Honestly, D3 feels a little aimless to me when I'm farming... I just wander around hoping to run into a random monster, and then I hope that monster drops a random yellow that rolls random stats that are better than the vastly more rare legendary items. Having a few fixed places to get decent drops, maybe not the best drops, but something decent, would at least give me a goal as I farm. I feel very "meh" about D3 right now.
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SO: Post your lowbie leveling builds here. The game is way easier at low levels (or so they tell us), so you probably have a weird build that's fun to play, even if it isn't so effective. For me, I'm using this:
http://us.battle.net...iXfcS!Ya!aaZaZa
First I buff with magic weapon, then ice armor, and then orb(it)s.
Basically I electrocute everything except champions and bosses, which I disintegrate. Champ packs last an average of 3 seconds, and are often dead before my templar finishes his "hey there's a champ pack" dialogue. Anything I miss or that gets close enough to me (Lakani, grr) one shots themself with the arcane orbs. I also have full arcane power pretty much all the time since most of my spells are "prep" so I can afford to wait 5 seconds after casting them before I run off in search of more things to kill. A very fun, very, very strong feeling build.
Gripe: Why is there no timer icon to show how long magic weapon lasts? Laaaaame.
Edit: Obviously I'm not using the best runes, because, well, I don't have access to them - it's a build for lowbies!
Edit 2: I couldn't beat diablo normal with this build. I didn't realize how much I depend on the passive healing and increased arcane power generation of the templar until that fight. To beat diablo, I swapped out orbs for arcane hydra. I hate playing the sorcy as a kiting queen, but that was the only way I could find to beat D.
Since moving into nightmare I've replaced a few skills with more passive +damage stuff. Ice armor has been replaced with slow time and the rune of +20% damage to slowed mobs. Orb has been replaced with sparkflint familiar for the passive +12% damage (and to better track how long enchanted weapon is up). My nightmare play is almost the same as normal: I pop a slow time bubble, back up slightly, diamond armor (for the cheaper channelling), and then disintegrate the crap out of whatever I'm fighting. So far only "extra health" champions have survived past the initial duration of diamond armor. For the most part this build just melts face, no kiting needed. I'm really excited to push it through to hell and inferno - I like the wiz but I'm really scared about everyone's descriptions of having to play inferno by kiting everything. I hate kiting.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UiXgjS!YaX!aZZZaa
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I'm really glad that you enjoyed the DH. For me, it was probably the class I was most excited about coming into the beta (since I'm a die-hard amazon player for D2), and I felt that it was just not nearly as effective as the other classes. Even with a very high damage crossbow, I felt like monsters lived for 2-3 times as long as when I fought with my not as well geared wizard or monk. once I got the wizard comparable gear, she was 1-shotting almost everything, and the DH was still attacking, snaring, running, attacking again to try and kill things.
Chain gang was cool, but doesn't do enough damage. I simply could not use it until my friend showed me how to assign any skill to any button (terrible design, btw, blizz, hiding that option) so that I could use chains and Impale at the same time. As for rapid fire, which looked cool and sounded cool, it didn't kill anything for me. I would literally burn through 100% of my rage on a single, normal zombie, and it wouldn't die. Ineffective ability, however cool looking, is still ineffective. Comparing the DH skills to similar skills from other classes (ray of frost outshines rapid fire by a wide margin, grasp of the dead outperforms caltrops in every way), he left me feeling weak.
And the last straw for me was, as I said, that the dual-resource system just doesn't feel good to me. The two resources are totally unrelated, the abilities I used from them aren't particularly complimentary, and there's no positive re-inforcement for me to mix up my skills to use both resources. I'm sure all of that will change later in the game, but at level 13, he simply did not impress me. I really feel like the other 4 classes were distinct in their play and abilities, whereas the DH feels like a hybrid mish-mash of random skills, resources, and playstyle. It's very possible that I simply don't "get" the class, and that if I watch a youtube video of some DH master playing, I'll learn what I was doing wrong, but the way he seemed intended to be played just didn't work for me.
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Initally I was turned off by the very linear story and maps prior to the Weeping Hollow. At that point, however, the exploration and open game world came into play, and the game really felt like the diablo games that I grew up with. Heck, I still play D2 on the regular. Based on this experience, I'm definitely getting D3.
Classes:
Barb: Pretty much what I expected. The "moon physics" weren't as bad as they looked in the vids, in fact I really enjoyed the physics - overall the class feels pretty fun. I didn't really understand what was healing me as I fought, but for the most part the class feels good. The Rage mechanic is the same as WoW... you feel like you have to rush and skip over item upgrades and skill swaps because you don't want to lose your rage between fights. Cutscenes are murder on the flow of this class because of rage loss.
Monk: This is going to be the class I play first in retail. I wasn't going to before beta, but after the very first hit, I was sold. The class just feels awesome. Strong hits, strong AoE, really awesome sound effects, and an accent I can make fun of - this class is great. Plus there's the endless comedy of the spunk-meter. Spirit is a fun mechanic. It's just like the barbarian's rage, but without the loss over time. In fact, the only part of the Monk experience that irked me was the teleport-punch of the main attack with the first level rune. There's no animation at all for it, so rather than appearing to "teleport" you feel more like you "glitched" to the monster. The camera also jumps, instead of flowing to you, so the overall feel pulls you completely out of the game, disorients you, and looks like you're glitching around the screen. For that reason alone I'm never going to use this attack.
Wizard: Also a fun class. I really like the ray of frost effect, and frost nova - they feel good, feel balanced - just enough snare to let you get distance, but a cooldown that's long enough for you to have to run a bit. Arcane power is a fun mechanic too - a very good resource. It prevents spamming one ability all day, but replenishes fast enough that you don't feel "out" of power.
Demon Hunter: I was very disappointed in this class. no AoE at all, low damage, very poor snares (caltrops centers on you like frost nova but doesn's freeze enemies, it's radius isn't as big as a witch doctor's grasping hands, and it doesn't slow as much as the other snares as well). With such poor AoE and crowd control, you'd think this class would be great 1 on 1, but that's not the case either. Single target damage is terrible. You play this class by running away a LOT. Not fun. It's like a combination of all of the worst parts of the assassin and the bowazon from D2. Rage and Discipline don't really work well either. They play completely unrelated. Why not have one go up as the other goes down, forcing a mix of attacks? instead they both diminish separately, and there's a third class of attacks for rage generation. Lame.
Witch Doctor: I played this class the least, but it seems really fun. I like the pets, and the attacks are pretty decent. Unlike the Demon Hunter with poor single target and poor crowd control, the Witch Doctor does well in both categories. The grasping hands snare is fantastic, and really helps out in groups. Also, the mana pool is a tried and true resource. I'm curious to see how it handles later in the game, but for the beta, it didn't need to be monitored at all.
In order by my preferences:
1 - Monk
2 - Wizard
3 - Witch Doctor
4 - Barbarian (I feel really weird that the barb is 4th. This class is super fun, just not quite as fun as the ones above it).
and a very, very distant 5 - Demon Hunter. This class just sucks.
Quests:
- I *love* the new quest structure. Not only is the main storyline fun, but the "events" that pop up are interesting, have their own backstories, and provide good rewards. Very cool! If the quests for the whole game are as fun as those of the Beta, we're really going to be in for a treat!
Crafting:
- The other major system I got to explore in beta was the crafting system, and I like it so far. The rewards are definitely stronger than most items that drop in the beta, so crafting is well worth it. In addition, the fact that the smith etc. are shared between all of your heroes is very nice - you don't have to grind the same recipes over and over and over. I wish there was a way to use the "fallen tooth" that I keep getting from salvaging my crappy blues, but maybe I just haven't found the recipe yet. In general, I really enjoy crafting, and in this game the crafting has seen a lot of polish.
Graphics and Sounds:
- Top notch. I can't even explain how disgustingly satisfying both of these elements are. The thwack of the barb's axe flaying the skin off of a thorn beast is just great! Once again, Blizzard has raised the bar for presentation.
Ending thoughts: I'm buying this game, no question. Great job Blizzard! Hopefully the Demon Hunter class will get some love, because I will never play it in its current state, and hopefully the Monk's tele-punch gets an animation and more fluid camera movement... Nothing should ever be designed to mimic bugs and lag. Even so, this is a fun, FUN game. Thanks for the open beta weekend, Blizz!
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I *think* all that needs to be done, really, is to copy and paste the D3 one into a new template page, and then manually change all of the listed elements to match the items shown on the Template: Item Box (Diablo II) page. Am I right? If so, I can do this. If not, what does need to be done to make the Item List template exist for D2 items?
I should mention that in order for me to convert my lists into wiki-pages that reference the data that Apoc so generously prepped, I need this template to work. Until then we're looking at either manual data entry for each item in the list (boo) or really clunky looking collections of item boxes that won't really show comparative data any better than what already exists (also boo).
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I've been temporarily sucked into a vortex of Modern Warfare 3 (10!) and Skyrim (9.5!), but those D2 lists are coming!
Uh... don't expect magic here, either. I'm a wiki-noob and I have a dearth of spare time, so while my aims are heavenly the actual mark may be much more terrestrial. For more specifics on the lists, you can always check out my wiki profile.
Edit: Apoc, you're a God. That's a huge amount of data to move! Thanks for that!!!
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The number of bots currently farming the game is astronomical. If you think about the quantity of bots in public games, and then think about how easily you could just program 8 bots to join the same private farming game and clear the whole thing super-fast for runes... well, you see why blizzard is trying to put an end to bot-farming in D3. It really is absurd. As much as bots can make power leveling easier, the fact of the matter is that they ruin the game. It's not fun to just follow a program endlessly while you level up, and it's certainly not fun to find a rare item when there are already 40,000 of them in circulation because of the army of undead computer zombie bots farming endlessly for their demonic overlord's amusement and (meager) income.
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I just want my flying car. It's 2011 for crying out loud!!!
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Bow Druid is essentially a pure summoner. You'll use heart of wolverine though, instead of heart of the oak. This will increase your bow damage by quite a bit. Use your summoned critters as a living wall, and you can stand back with impunity blasting away with the bow of your choice. There's no need for any elemental or shapeshifting skills at all (though I find the wind armor is always worth having). In a long-form play, you want the rune word bow that give fanaticism aura, but in the short time frame you're looking at, it will be more about finding a bow with lots of physical damage to take advantage of your heart of the wolverine. Alternately, the witch wild sting is very good as the amp damage benefits all of your critters.
For merc choice, a might merc is probably the best one out there. In low levels, I'd recommend sticking with the rogue so you have a partner in archery.
As Apples says, poison javs take a while to kill things, but it makes for interesting play: Shoot, dance around the mob for a while, watch it die. Mana is hardly an issue since you attack so rarely, and you can ignore +IAS items altogether for the same reason. You also have the added benefit of not needing any real gear - the poison damage is so high that it easily eclipses whatever weapons you may be using. If you're soloing the game, it should be plenty of damage to one-shot most guys, though boss fights might be rough. Get a really tanky merc (defense aura, imo) so he can soak the damage while your poison does its trick, or get a ranged merc to dance along side you (act 3 merc, maybe - lightning has some aoe ability to help with groups. Rogue isn't bad either). The only real problem with poison zons is the prevalence of poison immunes in nightmare and hell. If you move past normal, you'll need to put points into something else (lightning fury or freezing arrow, imo, but those are clearly my favorite zon abilities).
Oh - a fireclaws druid is really fun, too! You max fire claws and then put points into ele skills like crazy. Fireclaws easily climbs over 5k per hit in wolf form, plus you'll have great ele skills for situations where you don't want to melee the baddie, or you need aoe. Also throw 1 point into all of the summons up to grizzly and use +skills to beef those further. This is a build that is 100% about weapon speed - ideally it wants a 5 socket phase blade with all IAS jewels or runes. AND it combos with Fury, so you can build Fury stacks to further increase attack and run speed, and then use fire claws to blow enemies away. I really enjoyed this build, though it struggles with Hell.
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I also recommend multi-shot-azon, charged bolt sorcy, holy fire pally, Firestorm druid... all very powerful low level builds. Fury barb also should be viable (though it will mostly be a 'dual strike' barb cause of the low levels. Bash-a-din too? Lots of good options.
If you want an interesting play, try a bow/summon druid. Weird, weird play, but pretty powerful. Poison javs zon is fun, too, but really not until past level 30 when the damage becomes literally absurd (I think my best was 42k over 27 seconds or something like that. The strat was to thow a jav and then go make a drink while whatever I hit died). Might not be the best for your purposes.
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Good to know, thanks!
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Apologies if this topic has been addressed already, as the topic description says, searching for "the" is sort of challenging. Or rather, it's way too effective. You know what I mean.
I've noticed that the wiki sorts items such as The Fist of Az'Turrasq under "T" for "The" instead of under "F" for Fist. I also didn't see anything in the Style Guide about proper use of the definite article in Item names, so I was wondering if this is on purpose, a side effect of wiki-tech, or something that hasn't been discussed and that should be addressed in order to maintain consistency?
If there is a conscious decision here, we should at least update the style guide to reflect that information.
Now that I think about it, the style guide has a lot to do with how to format the wiki and wiki articles themselves, but very little information about how to deal with the specific data of Diablo such as Item Templates, Monsters, etc etc.. Is there a more specific guide somewhere?