These items are crazy. Definitely seems like they've made legendaries BiS. This makes the game a lot more enjoyable I think. Even if it's a little bit one-sided.... everyone just looking to get those legendary drops.
This build could definitely work I think. You should be able to get like 4 full mana pools of bears out, which is like 16 casts or something. I would recommend like +20 regen for this build though, seems like it'll help if you can get it.
@Ruppgu: You plan on using Poison Dart a lot? If you have 75 regen + VQ you're looking at 98 mana / sec. Bears is 273 / sec with PtV and a 1.5 weapon. You're looking at 4 Bear casts before you switch back to Darts. Spined Dart is a definite possibility with Bears... they can still be used, you just need more regen than before.
@Rickarus: Bats is 238 / sec with a 1.5 weapon and PtV. With 75 regen I don't think Swallow Your Soul and Honored Guest are going to be great for making up that 163 mana / sec.
Against white mobs this doesn't matter, but I don't think GF will make up for this mana deficit aganist champs.
I agree 275% x 3 isn't great damage. That's kind of why I tried to build around buffing another ability. The problem with sacrifice will always be the fact that you can't get more dogs against elites, which means it'll always be weak by itself.
Basically sacrifice will always be flawed because you can't get more dogs against champs
I believe this reply was meant toward the setup of re-summoning dogs? I mean you can simply spawn more dogs when you have 0 cooldown on it. That's when 3 x 275% damage is very nice.
Are you talking about getting some new gear with reduced ZD cooldown? Because the base will be like 34 seconds even with Tribal Rites.
You have to ignore Grave Injustice / Death Is Life / CoL against champs because it's all based around killing things. Even GF is kind of a stretch since each stack only lasts 10 sec. But hopefully you would get enough globes from dogs + the ones champs drop to keep it at 5 stacks most of the time.
I mean even though Spirit Barrage is single target... with this build you'd be looking at +650 Int, +50% Total Int, +15% Damage on an ability that does 230% base Damage... seems pretty good.
I agree 275% x 3 isn't great damage. That's kind of why I tried to build around buffing another ability. The problem with sacrifice will always be the fact that you can't get more dogs against elites, which means it'll always be weak by itself. However, the idea with this build is to keep Gruesome Feast at 5 stacks (which very rarely happens right now like I said) and be able to use PtP for a constant 15% additional damage. Even if you use Next of Kin, you'll hit that wall against champs because it's just not enough damage and the radius is hard to work with.
The question is wheter 65-75 regen per sec + Swallow Your Soul + Honored Guest is enough mana to use an ability like Firebats or Bears (or something else) to burst down an elite pack, considering that you have PtV also.
Bears is like 275 / sec with a 1.5 weapon, so about 200 mana / sec after regen. Even with multiple sacrifices that's not going to be near enough damage I don't think. Could it be done with a 2H? Maybe... but with a 1H I don't think this is an option.
Which means that there are only 2 options as I see it if you're trying to use PtP with GF like this... either use a Primary or use Spirit Barrage. Something like these:
As for Grave Injustice... it's a good ability, but at this point I don't think it goes well with sacrifice unless you're trying to use it for life regen or something. Basically sacrifice will always be flawed because you can't get more dogs against champs. Even if you drag enemies with you, you can't always do that and it's riskier. I think it's best to use with a typical BBV / FA (and even MC or Garg) build where you can have both 2 min cds up for every single champ pack.
I'm considering a build like this using GI as well, but getting a lot of pickup radius gear is kind of annoying.
Anyways... you shouldn't need more than 3 dogs to kill white mobs, even after the buff. Grasp + 3 Dogs should definitely kill a group. I question whether it's more efficient than other options though... because if you're killing less than like 5 mobs (which happens a lot) it may be pretty common to only get 1-2 dogs back.
It all depends if having +50% Intellect and +15% Damage but having to use a Primary or Spirit Barrage is better than using Bears or Bats (etc) with VQ and a lot less +% Damage.
Right now I feel like this build could be extremely good if they're going to adjust the super slow base attack speed of Spirit Barrage.
Sacrifice still costs no mana, so assume that you only use Bears on Champs for the most part. Basically sacrifice will kill all trash mobs combined with grasp. The point being that it keeps your GF stack at 5. This is very difficult to do most of the time right now.
Apparently Bears isn't getting nerfed either. So basically you would have 50% Int, +650 Int from SH, and 20% Damage from PtV. And on top of that you'll rarely cast Bears on trash, so you'll rarely use mana.
When you encounter a champ pack, you sacrifice a few dogs leftover and then Jaunt + Bears until you run out of mana + resummon / sacrifice + Bears again.
This build seems extremely strong to me because it should allow you to use Bears without need any real mana regen. Of course some people will be able to do that simply because they have insane damage. But this build you could do it with far less damage.
But still, you have to trust that your Bears are strong enough to kill a pack with a few sacrifices, and that you can survive without JF and SV simply because you have huge damage.
You could also get either Honored Guest or drop PtV for something else depending on how you feel. But PtV seems like it would be very good against trash mobs with sacrifice. Also, you could swap something else in for Bears... but I still think it does the most damage.
An alternative version of the build could look like this:
That's 15% PtP, 20% PtV, 50% Int GF and +650 Int SH. All you have to do is be able to get enough globe spawns from Grasp + Sacrifice to keep it at 50% and have enough mana to actually use Bears (or maybe another ability).
In Diablo 2 every major upgrade gave you killing speed, durability and by thus faster farming, facerolling like a boss.
I love Diablo 2 because i can spam corpse explosion till i clear whole level. Diablo 3 is slowly getting to that point and i hope we will feel that "bossy" state again. If i want to move out of fire , dodge frozen balls and dance over arcane beams i would play wow. I want to kill fast and have no problem with elite packs when i reach top end gear.
Another problem is when you reach that kind of gear level you cant use it apart from farming again and again (Which is no fun atm). No pvp, no level race to 99.
Simply no endgame, and farming is slow and not enjoyable.
This is what I was trying to say basically. The drop rates might be similar to D2, but in D2 more things were probably dropping.
But really I wasn't comparing the drop rates of D3 to the ones in D2. I was saying as a general statement that the drop rates are too low for the game to feel rewarding. I know it has to be this way because of the AH, but the point remains.
Also, it's not really about the drop rates, it's about how exciting the drops are. Since this game is nothing but an item farm, that's really where all the enjoyment comes from.
That's why I don't understand the idea of making ilvl 63 items terrible. It sets up a situation where people have high expectations (because ilvl 63s can be great) and then get an ilvl 63 weapon with 250 DPS. It's like getting wrapping paper as a present on Christmas.
A solution to this is to create a system where you build weapons (a much better one than current crafting). That way, when you find a great item, it doesn't have to be the item itself, but is still exciting because you're closer to building the item you want. That's just one idea of course.
By the way... the AH is garbage, I don't think anyone can convince me that it's a positive aspect to this game. Necessary maybe... but it's not good. When I find a really nice item, the enjoyment is usually curbed by having to price it and sell it on the AH. And then I get to wait until someone decides to buy it. I don't see the fun in that.
Farming one thing over and over is NOT more entertaining than farming entire acts. I do agree that you should be able to log in for 5 minutes and get something done though. The whole NV system is pretty lame in my opinion. But in no way is doing the same repetitive 2 minute run over and over better than playing through an entire act.
Blizzard had the right idea in trying to get rid of Pindle-style runs, but the way they tried to solve it is pretty bad. For most people, the first 5 kills in an Act feel annoying... especially when you can get no rares with 400% MF (4 stacks).
It's been said to death... but I'll say it again. Even though farming entire acts is FAR superior to farming 1 thing over and over, that's not the problem. The problem is the rock bottom drop rates for good items resulting from the existence of an AH. I mean you still get sellable items all the time, but it's very rare to get a truly exciting item (the bad affixes are the other reason for this).
So the main points of 1.0.4 are to 1) Deal with VQ and 2) Buff pets survivability.
I don't think buffing pet survivability is that big of a deal because once you hit a certain gear level, it's your damage that matters, not how well you can tank enemies. Clearly there will be uses for pets... Big Stinker + Burning Dogs should be really good if they don't change CC effects and Summoners will be pretty solid in HC (for the people that actually play it). But they'll never give you more damage. I think it just means more people are going to have glass cannon builds where their pets tank for them and they hope not to die... but this is kind of dumb because the chance of getting killed by white mobs is still going to be high.
I think the change to VQ is most important (30% regen for 5 sec after using a Primary spell). It seems like this isn't going to stack.
So it's a situation where you'll have ~100 mana regen / sec if you stack mana regen gear with VQ now. I assume bears is still like 210 mana / sec. So this means you get to spam bears for a few seconds, and then maybe use something like Spined Dart in order to get a bit of mana back. Except most people will gear towards bursting enemies down and just get more mana gear.
The truth is that this patch is sort of a nerf to WDs.
Right now with VQ and +30 regen we're getting 200 / sec. In 1.0.4 we'll be getting 100 / sec. So if Bears costs the same, that's a significant nerf assuming the 30% doesn't stack.
Also, I think this patch kind of forces players into the builds they should have had all along... where you have 1 Generator and 1 Spender basically.
In a way, this patch will make mana runes way better. Because people really want to just spam the highest damage abilities. So something like Honored Guest is going to be extremely good I think... same goes for Devouring Swarm.
Your average build now would include 1) The highest damage attack. 2) A primary for regen. 3) SW, probably Honored Guest. 4) SH, perhaps Swallow Your Soul. 5) BBV. 6) FA. Something like that... And you would get the typical passives, perhaps using something like Rush of Essence instead of VQ, depending on your build.
There aren't really enough damage passives that you would take instead of VQ. PtV seems like it'll be only for low cost mana builds now, which is appropriate.
So you end up going JF, SV and VQ. The alternative being GF instead of JF once you can get decent defensive stats or GI if you somehow actually have Pickup Radius gear.
Basically I still think the same principle applies... you find the highest damage attack, completely build your gear and spec around it.
The biggest change may be that GI actually becomes pretty useful. So it could be a good idea to start getting pickup radius gear now.
It'll be more worth it to stick around to kill white mobs since the drop rates get better, so if you had like 35 pickup radius or something you'd easily be able to have BBV and FA up much faster than every 1.5 minutes. And since there's no advantage to having them on cooldown anymore and VQ is nerfed, it'll make sense to have those cooldowns for every champ pack.
For example, if you run GF / PtV / GI with pickup radius gear you should be able to really well if they buff some of the other skills enough.
Blizz specifically doesn't want pets to do damage in this game. So even though they buffed the HP which is great, the game is still about killing champs and your pets still aren't going to do any damage. I could see them being very useful against certain bosses maybe, but having more tanking based off your own HP isn't really that amazing overall.
The main question is how good the Gargantuan is going to be, because he's the pet that people would actually use for real, the dogs seem more like a novelty thing, unless they're buffing the defense amounts pets get as well. If the Gargantuan gets 35% life... that would be pretty sick.
Jungle Fort + Spirit Vessel + VQ is best for Bears I feel like. You can get by with only +20 regen with no PtV... not sure if you can do that with it. I guess if you had good enough gear you'd drop Jungle Fort, but I'm not at that point yet.
The idea is to just have enough defense to be able to take a few hits, but mainly you burst champs down during Jaunt etc.
Shielding packs can actually be pretty lame, but you just have to aware of that before you attack them.
WD farming is pretty basic once you have the right gear. You need like 10k more damage and 10k more life with more AR.
That weapon won't cut it obviously... and you should use a Templar, not a Scoundrel.
Once you have that, there's no denying that Zombie Bears is far and away the best skill to use. It completely destroys champs.
People use Firebats and Poison Dart when they're undergeared in some area. Personally, I don't see the point in that once you can farm A1 fast with Bears. I'd rather farm it really fast using Bears vs kiting using Bats / Poison Dart. Maybe before repair costs got so high it was worth it, but the chance of dying is pretty high if you're undergeared in this game.
Bears is just so ridiculous that it's pointless to use anything else. I'd go with Jaunt and Siphon as someone else said, plus BBV / FA with Bears and then Darts when you occasionally need to be at long range.
If you can't get new gear quickly you'd go with a BBV / FA build using SH, Grasp, Dart and SW I think. Even though killing trash will be awful (you can run by a lot of it) having BBV and FA for champs plus the damage from SH will be helpful. Personally I'd go with Ghost Trance at 21k life.
I'm a hardcore Diablo nerd and gamer.... and yes, this OP has a point tbh...
I haven't played since... forever. Like in a month. Game became so boring.. and repetitive.. YES EVEN FOR A DIABLO GAME.... it's just... I dunno.... not really challenging or fun anymore... endless rare item hunts.. meh..
I hope 1.0.4 can revive the game for me a little... or im out
What I've basically noticed is that it's very difficult for me to play this game for more than like 2 days at a time. I get sick of it really quickly.
Like I'll start out playing, get a few good rares, maybe make a few million gold, but then it sets in that the next time I login I'm just going to do another MF run and that's when I stop playing.
I really think that a lot of the people who defend the game are those who play casually. It's hard to imagine there are many people who have like 500+ hours played and think this game is great. Maybe I have the wrong standards here, but for me a game should be something you want to keep doing. Ideally a great game is as fun the first hour you play it as the last.
It's easier to have a positive opinion about D3 when you've only been playing it for like 1 hour a day since release. And frankly I find it hard to take those people's opinions too seriously.
If you're used to playing games hardcore, you're likely going to be sick of D3 pretty fast.
The thing is... because all that matters is champs in D3, you end up with kind of weird specs designed for burst damage being the best.
Like generally you wouldn't use darts with bears, but once you have to gear it actually makes sense. Same goes for Gruesome Feast.
Some advice... get mana regen on Helm, Weapon and Off Hand. Use Bears (or bats) with BBV and FA, along with Soul Harvest and SW. If you're using Bears (which is actually better I think for pure farming) you probably want Poison Dart as your other ability. Personally, I'd use Jaunt as my SW rune. You can kill champs super fast with Bears, making Jaunt really useful for being immune to everything.
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I thought about using Rain Dance as well.
Something like this:
http://us.battle.net...UdYV!WTY!cZZZZc
Where Trial Rites can be swapped for Grave Injustice as well.
The amount of globes you'll get will be terrible so it's likely not a great build.
What sucks is that all these builds have less defense than most of us are used to, but I guess it's just something you have to get used to.
Gruesome Feast has gotten so much better because of the Sacrifice buff, I think it's probably bad not to use it.
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@Ruppgu: You plan on using Poison Dart a lot? If you have 75 regen + VQ you're looking at 98 mana / sec. Bears is 273 / sec with PtV and a 1.5 weapon. You're looking at 4 Bear casts before you switch back to Darts. Spined Dart is a definite possibility with Bears... they can still be used, you just need more regen than before.
@Rickarus: Bats is 238 / sec with a 1.5 weapon and PtV. With 75 regen I don't think Swallow Your Soul and Honored Guest are going to be great for making up that 163 mana / sec.
Against white mobs this doesn't matter, but I don't think GF will make up for this mana deficit aganist champs.
I'm looking at this build: http://us.battle.net...UdYV!ZYf!baaYZc
A Primary might be better if Spirit Barrage still casts supre slow.
edit......... Bears is less actually since the base attack speed is likely under 1 sec, but still, you need close to that amount / sec to spam it.
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Are you talking about getting some new gear with reduced ZD cooldown? Because the base will be like 34 seconds even with Tribal Rites.
You have to ignore Grave Injustice / Death Is Life / CoL against champs because it's all based around killing things. Even GF is kind of a stretch since each stack only lasts 10 sec. But hopefully you would get enough globes from dogs + the ones champs drop to keep it at 5 stacks most of the time.
I mean even though Spirit Barrage is single target... with this build you'd be looking at +650 Int, +50% Total Int, +15% Damage on an ability that does 230% base Damage... seems pretty good.
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The question is wheter 65-75 regen per sec + Swallow Your Soul + Honored Guest is enough mana to use an ability like Firebats or Bears (or something else) to burst down an elite pack, considering that you have PtV also.
Bears is like 275 / sec with a 1.5 weapon, so about 200 mana / sec after regen. Even with multiple sacrifices that's not going to be near enough damage I don't think. Could it be done with a 2H? Maybe... but with a 1H I don't think this is an option.
Which means that there are only 2 options as I see it if you're trying to use PtP with GF like this... either use a Primary or use Spirit Barrage. Something like these:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ZVUdYa!ZYW!bcaYZa
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ZVUdYg!ZYf!bcaYZa
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ZVUdYg!ZYW!bcZaZb
As for Grave Injustice... it's a good ability, but at this point I don't think it goes well with sacrifice unless you're trying to use it for life regen or something. Basically sacrifice will always be flawed because you can't get more dogs against champs. Even if you drag enemies with you, you can't always do that and it's riskier. I think it's best to use with a typical BBV / FA (and even MC or Garg) build where you can have both 2 min cds up for every single champ pack.
I'm considering a build like this using GI as well, but getting a lot of pickup radius gear is kind of annoying.
Anyways... you shouldn't need more than 3 dogs to kill white mobs, even after the buff. Grasp + 3 Dogs should definitely kill a group. I question whether it's more efficient than other options though... because if you're killing less than like 5 mobs (which happens a lot) it may be pretty common to only get 1-2 dogs back.
It all depends if having +50% Intellect and +15% Damage but having to use a Primary or Spirit Barrage is better than using Bears or Bats (etc) with VQ and a lot less +% Damage.
Right now I feel like this build could be extremely good if they're going to adjust the super slow base attack speed of Spirit Barrage.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ZVUdYg!ZYf!bcaYZa
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That makes this skill very useful I think. They'll need to make other changes to balance this.
For example...
http://us.battle.net...UdYf!ZYW!bZaYZc
Sacrifice still costs no mana, so assume that you only use Bears on Champs for the most part. Basically sacrifice will kill all trash mobs combined with grasp. The point being that it keeps your GF stack at 5. This is very difficult to do most of the time right now.
Apparently Bears isn't getting nerfed either. So basically you would have 50% Int, +650 Int from SH, and 20% Damage from PtV. And on top of that you'll rarely cast Bears on trash, so you'll rarely use mana.
When you encounter a champ pack, you sacrifice a few dogs leftover and then Jaunt + Bears until you run out of mana + resummon / sacrifice + Bears again.
This build seems extremely strong to me because it should allow you to use Bears without need any real mana regen. Of course some people will be able to do that simply because they have insane damage. But this build you could do it with far less damage.
But still, you have to trust that your Bears are strong enough to kill a pack with a few sacrifices, and that you can survive without JF and SV simply because you have huge damage.
You could also get either Honored Guest or drop PtV for something else depending on how you feel. But PtV seems like it would be very good against trash mobs with sacrifice. Also, you could swap something else in for Bears... but I still think it does the most damage.
An alternative version of the build could look like this:
http://us.battle.net...UdYf!ZYW!bcaYZc
Or this:
http://us.battle.net...UdYf!ZYW!bcZaZc
That's 15% PtP, 20% PtV, 50% Int GF and +650 Int SH. All you have to do is be able to get enough globe spawns from Grasp + Sacrifice to keep it at 50% and have enough mana to actually use Bears (or maybe another ability).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#ZVUdYc!ZYW!bcZaZa
^ This might actually be the best version since survivability will be an issue.
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This is what I was trying to say basically. The drop rates might be similar to D2, but in D2 more things were probably dropping.
But really I wasn't comparing the drop rates of D3 to the ones in D2. I was saying as a general statement that the drop rates are too low for the game to feel rewarding. I know it has to be this way because of the AH, but the point remains.
Also, it's not really about the drop rates, it's about how exciting the drops are. Since this game is nothing but an item farm, that's really where all the enjoyment comes from.
That's why I don't understand the idea of making ilvl 63 items terrible. It sets up a situation where people have high expectations (because ilvl 63s can be great) and then get an ilvl 63 weapon with 250 DPS. It's like getting wrapping paper as a present on Christmas.
A solution to this is to create a system where you build weapons (a much better one than current crafting). That way, when you find a great item, it doesn't have to be the item itself, but is still exciting because you're closer to building the item you want. That's just one idea of course.
By the way... the AH is garbage, I don't think anyone can convince me that it's a positive aspect to this game. Necessary maybe... but it's not good. When I find a really nice item, the enjoyment is usually curbed by having to price it and sell it on the AH. And then I get to wait until someone decides to buy it. I don't see the fun in that.
0
Farming one thing over and over is NOT more entertaining than farming entire acts. I do agree that you should be able to log in for 5 minutes and get something done though. The whole NV system is pretty lame in my opinion. But in no way is doing the same repetitive 2 minute run over and over better than playing through an entire act.
Blizzard had the right idea in trying to get rid of Pindle-style runs, but the way they tried to solve it is pretty bad. For most people, the first 5 kills in an Act feel annoying... especially when you can get no rares with 400% MF (4 stacks).
It's been said to death... but I'll say it again. Even though farming entire acts is FAR superior to farming 1 thing over and over, that's not the problem. The problem is the rock bottom drop rates for good items resulting from the existence of an AH. I mean you still get sellable items all the time, but it's very rare to get a truly exciting item (the bad affixes are the other reason for this).
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I don't think buffing pet survivability is that big of a deal because once you hit a certain gear level, it's your damage that matters, not how well you can tank enemies. Clearly there will be uses for pets... Big Stinker + Burning Dogs should be really good if they don't change CC effects and Summoners will be pretty solid in HC (for the people that actually play it). But they'll never give you more damage. I think it just means more people are going to have glass cannon builds where their pets tank for them and they hope not to die... but this is kind of dumb because the chance of getting killed by white mobs is still going to be high.
I think the change to VQ is most important (30% regen for 5 sec after using a Primary spell). It seems like this isn't going to stack.
So it's a situation where you'll have ~100 mana regen / sec if you stack mana regen gear with VQ now. I assume bears is still like 210 mana / sec. So this means you get to spam bears for a few seconds, and then maybe use something like Spined Dart in order to get a bit of mana back. Except most people will gear towards bursting enemies down and just get more mana gear.
The truth is that this patch is sort of a nerf to WDs.
Right now with VQ and +30 regen we're getting 200 / sec. In 1.0.4 we'll be getting 100 / sec. So if Bears costs the same, that's a significant nerf assuming the 30% doesn't stack.
Also, I think this patch kind of forces players into the builds they should have had all along... where you have 1 Generator and 1 Spender basically.
In a way, this patch will make mana runes way better. Because people really want to just spam the highest damage abilities. So something like Honored Guest is going to be extremely good I think... same goes for Devouring Swarm.
Your average build now would include 1) The highest damage attack. 2) A primary for regen. 3) SW, probably Honored Guest. 4) SH, perhaps Swallow Your Soul. 5) BBV. 6) FA. Something like that... And you would get the typical passives, perhaps using something like Rush of Essence instead of VQ, depending on your build.
There aren't really enough damage passives that you would take instead of VQ. PtV seems like it'll be only for low cost mana builds now, which is appropriate.
So you end up going JF, SV and VQ. The alternative being GF instead of JF once you can get decent defensive stats or GI if you somehow actually have Pickup Radius gear.
Basically I still think the same principle applies... you find the highest damage attack, completely build your gear and spec around it.
The biggest change may be that GI actually becomes pretty useful. So it could be a good idea to start getting pickup radius gear now.
It'll be more worth it to stick around to kill white mobs since the drop rates get better, so if you had like 35 pickup radius or something you'd easily be able to have BBV and FA up much faster than every 1.5 minutes. And since there's no advantage to having them on cooldown anymore and VQ is nerfed, it'll make sense to have those cooldowns for every champ pack.
For example, if you run GF / PtV / GI with pickup radius gear you should be able to really well if they buff some of the other skills enough.
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Blizz specifically doesn't want pets to do damage in this game. So even though they buffed the HP which is great, the game is still about killing champs and your pets still aren't going to do any damage. I could see them being very useful against certain bosses maybe, but having more tanking based off your own HP isn't really that amazing overall.
The main question is how good the Gargantuan is going to be, because he's the pet that people would actually use for real, the dogs seem more like a novelty thing, unless they're buffing the defense amounts pets get as well. If the Gargantuan gets 35% life... that would be pretty sick.
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The idea is to just have enough defense to be able to take a few hits, but mainly you burst champs down during Jaunt etc.
Shielding packs can actually be pretty lame, but you just have to aware of that before you attack them.
0
That weapon won't cut it obviously... and you should use a Templar, not a Scoundrel.
Once you have that, there's no denying that Zombie Bears is far and away the best skill to use. It completely destroys champs.
People use Firebats and Poison Dart when they're undergeared in some area. Personally, I don't see the point in that once you can farm A1 fast with Bears. I'd rather farm it really fast using Bears vs kiting using Bats / Poison Dart. Maybe before repair costs got so high it was worth it, but the chance of dying is pretty high if you're undergeared in this game.
Bears is just so ridiculous that it's pointless to use anything else. I'd go with Jaunt and Siphon as someone else said, plus BBV / FA with Bears and then Darts when you occasionally need to be at long range.
If you can't get new gear quickly you'd go with a BBV / FA build using SH, Grasp, Dart and SW I think. Even though killing trash will be awful (you can run by a lot of it) having BBV and FA for champs plus the damage from SH will be helpful. Personally I'd go with Ghost Trance at 21k life.
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What I've basically noticed is that it's very difficult for me to play this game for more than like 2 days at a time. I get sick of it really quickly.
Like I'll start out playing, get a few good rares, maybe make a few million gold, but then it sets in that the next time I login I'm just going to do another MF run and that's when I stop playing.
I really think that a lot of the people who defend the game are those who play casually. It's hard to imagine there are many people who have like 500+ hours played and think this game is great. Maybe I have the wrong standards here, but for me a game should be something you want to keep doing. Ideally a great game is as fun the first hour you play it as the last.
It's easier to have a positive opinion about D3 when you've only been playing it for like 1 hour a day since release. And frankly I find it hard to take those people's opinions too seriously.
If you're used to playing games hardcore, you're likely going to be sick of D3 pretty fast.
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Like generally you wouldn't use darts with bears, but once you have to gear it actually makes sense. Same goes for Gruesome Feast.
Some advice... get mana regen on Helm, Weapon and Off Hand. Use Bears (or bats) with BBV and FA, along with Soul Harvest and SW. If you're using Bears (which is actually better I think for pure farming) you probably want Poison Dart as your other ability. Personally, I'd use Jaunt as my SW rune. You can kill champs super fast with Bears, making Jaunt really useful for being immune to everything.
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The most important thing is to be able to move really fast. Even if you have 25% from gear, it's not close to what you get from abilities.
So perma sprint + teleport are extremely good. Farm A3 even with 0 MF gear if you can... A1 is bad news.