Haven't played in a few months and since I started again thought I might as well try HC with a class I've never played before.
I'm liking the WD. I use the blowgun triple shot attack, with zombie dogs and the eels for crowd control. Works pretty well. Use soul harvest and the horrify skill as needed. Into Act II, haven't really come close to dying yet. I upped it to MP1 to get more XP. I am dreading Belial -- always found him tough. Any advice on min level/stats to take him on safely? I remember he had some power attacks that could oneshot characters pretty frequently.
I could not find any guides for HC WD below level 60. Not really sure what to do. Recently got spirit barrage and it seems cool but don't really want to rock the boat with what is working. I am considering replacing the frighten skill with the spirit walk but not sure what is better for escape.
Easiest way to see if you are killing things faster is testing against Ghom. As long as you can sustain against a single target (just lure him into a corner), the results should scale up to against elites. There should be a noticeable difference in kill times with the two setups.
Yeah thats a good idea.
I re-activated SA, used CS, and left GC on. I also got a higher (much) DPS OH according to your specs, high average damage and close to 200 int (sorry couldn't afford more). I'm *slightly* more squishy than I was before but go thru the runs much faster. I can kill elites in < 10 seconds most of the time and can sustain at least one continuous source of damage (fire chains, molten, etc) and sometimes more (the poison from wood wraiths always means quick death though).
So where I am now is Im doing MP 7 runs faster, but due to squishiness probably wont be able to handle mp8, at least not well. I guess I need to Armor/AR up.
Don't replace SA with FA. SA is worth like 20-50% of your effective dps and you only gain like 15% from GC. If you want to make a minor change, you can try swapping shards with shell, and then using GC. That's mostly a break even if you don't have sub-100ms latency, though you do lose a little aoe range since the range on DS is a little wider than EB.
I've seen a few people do this and it just boggles my mind. SA is worth so much more than Glass cannon. I guess they like the paper dps of glass cannon, then have to make up for it with prismatic armor.
It's pretty common to see people neglect defensive stats or what amounts to higher effective dps multipliers in favor of high char sheet dps. The problem is, they wonder why they can't survive high MP and/or why it takes forever to kill things.
To be fair to those who don't really read the forums or guides, the terminology on some skills really makes you wonder why people use them, like the "chance to crit for 35% weapon damage" on SA. Some people just assume the chance is small and it barely procs at all.
I could swear I was killing things faster this way, but Ill go back to SA and use the higher CS damage absorber and see if that works.
You only need about 18 APOC. The wand and storm crow already give you enough. With a Stormcrow no APOC OH is needed.
Ahhh, Storm Crow...got it . Going for a better OH. 220AD and 200+ int are expensive though. I might have to just build up a bit more of a budget.
Just realized before that i said i was running MP6, but its MP7. Also, I swapped out SA for FA and changed blur to GC and am having an easier time of it. I think I could go up a MP if I could just get 10-15k more damage.
Never replace EB with meteor. EB doesn't use an attack so you can cast EB+WW at the same time. With meteor it's just meteor or EB. If you want to use meteor I'd either spec around it, or use it as the last optional skill, in place of teleport or MW.
Your shoulders are pretty decent, imo. For SNS I prefer running VWs and going for 250+int, 150+str and ignore vit. Those tend to be very cheap and it gives me a lot of extra armor over my current ones.
Otherwise 10 mil isn't much of a budget. You might be able to get an AR tal chest, though you'll likely lose some int, but more AR will make higher MP easier. I prefer armor on my chest too, but those likely cost 30-100 mil for decent armor and 60-70+ AR rolls. Same for pants.
You also don't need APoC on your OH if you use a SC. With your budget you won't be able to get a crit mempo, so I'd swap the OH for one with higher dps and preferably a vit roll (ideally 200+int too).
Armor on boots would be good, and if you're patient you can sometimes find good deals on a similar vit pair+armor.
Also, you're 5% IAS over the current breakpoint or 8% below the next, so your gear isn't very well optimized with respect to IAS.
Neat ammy though. It gives you good options for mempo later because of the LoH.
Those are just a couple options, so I'd say pick one and run with it.
Thank you for the details. Yeah I thought it weird that my amulet crafted with 1000LoH; seems like that should be all I need. Although it doesn't seem to improve my survivability.
So it sounds like there is nothing obvious wrong; I need to focus and start getting high quality pieces. BtW, what an SC wrt You also don't need APoC on your OH if you use a SC?
I can do MP6 fairly easily. I can do MP7 but its too slow.
Are there any obvious upgrades I can make with ~10 million. I had been working on crafting amulets but haven't gotten anything great yet. Someone once told me to work on Shoulders; what should I be looking for?
Also, how viable is it to replace EB with Meteor? I just did a run -- I died a bunch but I haven't gotten used to it yet. With EB I can hold down the mouse to spawn WW and my keyboard key to charge EB and it just worked. If I replace EB with meteor, WW doesn't spawn. So I need to only hold down the meteor key after I have my WW setup. Once that is done, the destruction comes quickly :).
I'm not sure you should be having that much of a problem early on.
With just a little bit of vit on most slots and even crappy pieces of gear on all slots you can facetank most things on Normal.
You know you're overextending when you start seeing that red screen too much
I hear ya. It only happened once :). Im going to run thru the halls of agony and gain a few levels before facing the butcher. Im thinking of doing self found only. ...
thank you for the replies. I'm not there yet. Im worried about dying when I get to the butcher. I almost died in the fields of misery by some goat shaman with the cold splosions (Screen turned red, luckily i mashed the potion and my healing skill and recovered just in time).
How do I know if I'm ready to proceed? Is there a guide that matches stats/level to game milestone (e.g. be at least level 15 with 100 AR and 1000HP to take on the butcher on normal)?
Plus I need to constantly remind myself that this is it -- dont just rush in and mash buttons. I need to get out of the softcore mentality. I mean, I might never face a random 2 elite pack confrontation with this character....
ah cool. d3up is nice. so according to your table I am rightly qualified for mp6; yesterday I said I was farming that comfortably, so cool. I might try MP7.
I have been using extremely defensive build, with crystal shell and the ice armor that increases your armor with each hit. I might go to the diamond skin that explodes at the end and try MP7.
200+int and 50+vit are good targets for the OH, though you can trade extra int for ave damage to get similar dps for cheaper at times. Just look over a bunch of different OHs and compare what dps you get.
As for as the whole OS and breakpoint issue, reaching 2.73 APS with an OS weapon required 8 IAS pieces. With an IAS chanto you can reach 2.73 with as few as 6 IAS pieces. To reach 2.5 APS you can use and OS weapon and only 6 IAS pieces. With just 6 pieces you can use a non-IAS ammy for high DPS (CC+CD) and crafted bracers for high DPS+EHP, as well as a SC helm for LoH+APoC. IMO the most efficient method of gearing for breakpoints is like that, specifically using an OS chanto for 2.5 with 6 IAS pieces, or an IAS weapon for 2.73, with 6 IAS pieces. If your IAS wand is too slow you will need a 7th slot though, which is fine if you have a good trifecta ammy.
There's more info about how much IAS is needed with each weapon in my CMWW guide, and I have a reference table with IAS needed to reach breakpoints for various weapons in my DPS/EHP spreadsheet.
Thank you so much. You are a gentleman and a scholar when it comes to D3. In your guide you mention Damage Reduction in your chart for stats vs MP level -- how does one calculate that (I dont see it on Diableprogress)?
You may be the first person I've come across within the last 400 days or so of playing this game who actually questioned the usefulness of a socket in a weapon.
He originally wrote
and thought he meant get the OS "to get to 2.5", not "if you are happy with 2.5, get an OS", and I didn't see how the socket would help in getting to 2.5, since so far as i know no gem will increase attack speeds.
EDIT: I took a look on Jaetch's Diablo 3 Urban Dictionary, but OS states for Open Socket, which I'm pretty sure it wasn't what Loroese meant.
No, he definitely meant "Open Socket (OS) Chantodo's Will" for easily reaching the 2.5+ breakpoint or "Increased Attack Speed (IAS) Chantodo's Will" for reaching the higher breakpoints at 2.73+ or even 3.01+.
OH would be "off-hand" source, or an "off-hand" weapon.
Edit: No he def mean os chant for 2.5 bp or ias chant for high bp 2.73 or 3.01 for proper sns with good aps. now needs mit for better ehp, pref res and more armor or str. drop evo for ua if survival is a prob, else conflag could be fun with sc proc
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I'm liking the WD. I use the blowgun triple shot attack, with zombie dogs and the eels for crowd control. Works pretty well. Use soul harvest and the horrify skill as needed. Into Act II, haven't really come close to dying yet. I upped it to MP1 to get more XP. I am dreading Belial -- always found him tough. Any advice on min level/stats to take him on safely? I remember he had some power attacks that could oneshot characters pretty frequently.
I could not find any guides for HC WD below level 60. Not really sure what to do. Recently got spirit barrage and it seems cool but don't really want to rock the boat with what is working. I am considering replacing the frighten skill with the spirit walk but not sure what is better for escape.
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Yeah thats a good idea.
I re-activated SA, used CS, and left GC on. I also got a higher (much) DPS OH according to your specs, high average damage and close to 200 int (sorry couldn't afford more). I'm *slightly* more squishy than I was before but go thru the runs much faster. I can kill elites in < 10 seconds most of the time and can sustain at least one continuous source of damage (fire chains, molten, etc) and sometimes more (the poison from wood wraiths always means quick death though).
So where I am now is Im doing MP 7 runs faster, but due to squishiness probably wont be able to handle mp8, at least not well. I guess I need to Armor/AR up.
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I could swear I was killing things faster this way, but Ill go back to SA and use the higher CS damage absorber and see if that works.
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Ahhh, Storm Crow...got it . Going for a better OH. 220AD and 200+ int are expensive though. I might have to just build up a bit more of a budget.
Just realized before that i said i was running MP6, but its MP7. Also, I swapped out SA for FA and changed blur to GC and am having an easier time of it. I think I could go up a MP if I could just get 10-15k more damage.
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Thank you for the details. Yeah I thought it weird that my amulet crafted with 1000LoH; seems like that should be all I need. Although it doesn't seem to improve my survivability.
So it sounds like there is nothing obvious wrong; I need to focus and start getting high quality pieces. BtW, what an SC wrt You also don't need APoC on your OH if you use a SC?
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I can do MP6 fairly easily. I can do MP7 but its too slow.
Are there any obvious upgrades I can make with ~10 million. I had been working on crafting amulets but haven't gotten anything great yet. Someone once told me to work on Shoulders; what should I be looking for?
Also, how viable is it to replace EB with Meteor? I just did a run -- I died a bunch but I haven't gotten used to it yet. With EB I can hold down the mouse to spawn WW and my keyboard key to charge EB and it just worked. If I replace EB with meteor, WW doesn't spawn. So I need to only hold down the meteor key after I have my WW setup. Once that is done, the destruction comes quickly :).
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I hear ya. It only happened once :). Im going to run thru the halls of agony and gain a few levels before facing the butcher. Im thinking of doing self found only. ...
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How do I know if I'm ready to proceed? Is there a guide that matches stats/level to game milestone (e.g. be at least level 15 with 100 AR and 1000HP to take on the butcher on normal)?
Plus I need to constantly remind myself that this is it -- dont just rush in and mash buttons. I need to get out of the softcore mentality. I mean, I might never face a random 2 elite pack confrontation with this character....
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Any tips for either HC in general or the Monk in HC?
I just got thru the skeleton king -- that was the first encounter that could have killed me. Im finding the Fields of Misery dangerous.
Do people typically use shields here? Do people replay sections just to level up before moving on?
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I have been using extremely defensive build, with crystal shell and the ice armor that increases your armor with each hit. I might go to the diamond skin that explodes at the end and try MP7.
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Thank you so much. You are a gentleman and a scholar when it comes to D3. In your guide you mention Damage Reduction in your chart for stats vs MP level -- how does one calculate that (I dont see it on Diableprogress)?
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and thought he meant get the OS "to get to 2.5", not "if you are happy with 2.5, get an OS", and I didn't see how the socket would help in getting to 2.5, since so far as i know no gem will increase attack speeds.
Whats good for the Chantodos offhand?
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how would the open socket help?
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Im farming MP6 fairly comfortably with some of the suggested upgrades.