I started with a full defensive CM build with Crystal Shell, Prismatic Armor, and the CD reduction rune on frost nova, as well as Cold Blooded, CM, and Evocation as passives that were unchanged throughout. I took the fight time and my char sheet dps to compute the DPS Multiplier, which is the effective dps gain of the build. For example, at 100k dps using the full defensive build I would expect an effective dps of 247k. I also computed relative DPS of each spec meaning switching from Prismatic to Storm Armor increased dps by about 36%.
And in case there's any confusion, 'x' in the table means that skill was used.
| Storm Armor | Shocking Aspect | Pinpoint | Shards | Prism | DPS Multiplier | Relative DPS |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.47 | 1 | |||||
| x | 2.78 | 1.13 | ||||
| x | 2.99 | 1.21 | ||||
| x | 3.01 | 1.22 | ||||
| x | 3.36 | 1.36 | ||||
| x | x | 4.06 | 1.65 | |||
| x | x | x | 4.25 | 1.72 |
The interesting information is that Storm Armor is about a 36% dps gain over prismatic armor. When you add Shocking Aspect it's a 65% dps gain over prismatic armor and about a 36% dps gain over pinpoint barrier. Adding Diamond Shards further increases the dps gain but it's only about a 4% dps gain by itself when you use Shocking Aspect. The dramatic decrease in survivability for the fight makes it very not worthwhile, but that could easily change depending on the fight. Rak for example, would probably be just fine with DS or prism.
I also expect the values for Shocking Aspect to be dependent of crit and attack speed, since it only procs on crits and higher attack speed should lead to more procs from WW, so with 50% crit, I'd expect the damage to increase by about 16%, or I'd expect the total dps gain to be about 90%, for a relative dps of 1.9. With a crit % of 52% I would expect Shocking Aspect to double your dps over prismatic armor, roughly speaking, with the same APS of 1.965 or so.
For reference, my stats at the time of the data collection were 104k dps buffed (110k with pinpoint), 1.965 attacks per second, 20 APoC, 1298 LoH, 1.5% Life Steal, 641 resist all and 4588 armor unbuffed, with 40.5k hp and 43% crit with Scoundrel. I also had about 400 life per second regen, just to complete the stats.
2
Thanks!
Have no time to play the entire season journey; would be great if anyone who does the season journey can show what's changed so I can upgrade my Tracker.
FYI, the conquests this time around:
And the free sets from Haedrig's Gift are:
Crusader and monk get their best "starter farming set". Earth for farb is okay, though I'm not a fan of EQ. Firebird+Jade are viable, though more powerful later on for higher GRs where it's not all about speed. DH probably got the worst this time around (sucks, I was thinking of playing DH). Overall, I'd say crus (if solo) or monk (if grp) are going to be top starter choices. I'd still add a DH and WD just because WD is so good for boosting 1-70 and DH is a beast once you get UE set.
Edit: Picture of portrait and pet
1
@entro: Hm, good to hear. Not really a DH fan but UE is just so much fun, so maybe Shadow is a good way to get there.
1
No. Once you've used the gift on a weapon, you won't get a socket when re-rolling the weapon.
There's no way to get 2 sockets on a new weapon. (D3V legacy Manticore had 2 sockets but it's useless now.)
9
Let me picture this:
Many of my friends (on my f-list since day 1 since we played together since the 90s) haven't played Season 8. Now imagine I invite them to S8, and play with them. Since I have no use for many of my gear anymore after doing Years of War/Masters of the Universe, I can just give them a ton of great loot, including well-rolled ancient items. They log in, get powerleveled to 70, get fully equipped and can faceroll Torment 11+. 15 minutes are logging in. They have all the gear, no need for Haedrig's Gift, no intention to do the Season Journey (otherwise they would've played before) - so what are they playing for?
Diablo is a loot-based game. If you give your friends all the loot, you're removing the sole purpose for them to play. (Unless they're the one in a million who like to grind paragon).
And of course the illegal 3rd party websites will find a way to exploit this as well, as others have mentioned. Thankfully, trading is not coming back. And it's good that way. You want loot? Slay monsters. That's it. There's no shortcut to get it from your friends. You want to give your loot to your friends? Well, group with them. Otherwise it's good that you can't give it to them; you'd lessen their game experience.
I know that people like trading, but please think about it: as good as it sounds, it's just bad in so many ways from every single perspective. I'd love to see the 2 hour window being extended to 5 or 10 (or at least for as long as you're in a game with someone), but beyond that - please no trading. It made D3 a better game.
2
Or you can just read what it says: area damage is a 20% change of dealing X% damage to all mobs in a certain area. The 20% chance is always 20%, but the X% is your area damage. Even if you have 250% area damage - which sounds like a lot - your main target will overall still get damaged more than the "area damage target". Yes, it gets hit for a huge blow of 250%, but only 20% of the time. For a more detailed and nuanced explanation just follow the link. In general the answer simply is: there's no cap, and more is better. Note though that obviously more area damage also means you want to avoid any areas of non-density - it's really only advisable for pushing and if you have a skill (or a friend) to pull stuff together.
You're not. I've mentioned it here as well, and many others have pointed out that removing area damage would address many problems. For those who cry out loud: Area damage is only really an efficient stuff for pushing rifts, and if you stack a lot of it. But once you get there, you'll encounter lag and a lot of frustration because of "not enough density". No area damage would make the game much more fun and enjoyable for everyone.Not true, see above. Combined - if you have 5 or more monsters around you - it might be correct that those 5+ monsters combined take more damage. But your statement can easily be misread, so make sure you understand how area damage works. Having 120% area damage and fighting 3 mobs, for example, your statement is absolutely wrong.
Hell no. Crushing Blow is terrible and "breaks" the game. We've seen this with Furnace/Rimeheart before they were fixed. CB is so OP that basically any speed runner in D2 needs to get it (unless you're sorc and have static) to kill stuff in reasonable time. It's the reason why Necromancers mass-revive big golems. CB sounds cool, but as soon as the game moves beyond just casually slaying monsters that die in 3-5 hits, CB is a broken game mechanic. We've been there, done that. Not coming back.
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It's not botting, but it's account sharing - which is against the EULA.
This is simply not correct. Please do not spread misinformation.
Of course this is not allowed. See first reply to your question - it's account sharing, which is against the EULA.
Again, it doesn't matter if the 2 people playing 1 account live in the same house, or live in the same room, or are spread around the world. If you share your account with someone else that's account sharing, against the EULA, and will get you banned.
Please, people, stop spreading misinformation that will get people banned.
1
I bought one. List last year. And I got a feeling that it's gonna be worth it.
And if not, at least I have the Diablo pet. HA! (Still love my Murloc portrait from from 2015, default first choice in every season.)
2
As the rumors about Blizzcon go through the roof, we've heard everything - from patch 2.5, over an expansion, D4, Diablo as a mobile game, Diablo as an MMO, Diablo in an Overwatch engine. What I found interesting about this is that everyone seems to have a different opinion on this and there isn't one thing that would please everyone. For example, people always asked for seasons, but now that seasons are there it's not enough; it also needs to have tons of new content in every season and even a new stash tab, wings, and a portrait frame is not enough. (In the super awesome D2 that everyone praises there's absolutely nothing new after a ladder reset, not even a cosmetic thing.)
Similarly, a lot of people ask for more balance, more sets, more classes, just more more more. We have 6 classes with 4 sets and LoN, so about 30 different builds, of which 20+ are viable for GR80+ or higher. Yet people act as if the game was as badly balanced as Diablo 2 (while in reality it's miles ahead of any "balance" that D2 has ever seen). Also, people don't seem to *want* to play more than one class/cookie cutter build, as I realized after posting the guide for the two conquests that are meant to showcase D3's diversity. Only a handful of people have done either of those conquests in one week after the season, despite both of them being relatively easy.
Therefore, I'm curious what people want. Let's see if this poll works out, where you can rate a few metrics that I came up with on the fly. I just realized I can't edit the poll, so I can't edit something - if you think something's missing just add it in your reply to this thread. I'm really interested to see the results of this (though I know, obviously, that this will be not at all representative).
1
As Munchen has said, this cycle of "good kills evil, becomes corrupted and the new evil, rinse & repeat" has been driving the entire franchise. I'll just post the D1 ending cinematic because I guess 20 years later, many people have either forgotten about it or never seen it (WHAT A SHAME! ;-)):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YGRGxt2-7rc
To me personally it would be a bit odd and almost boring if it would just happen again a fourth time. It wouldn't be all that unusual in this day and age, where reboots of franchises are done quite often and aren't even telling a different story (Spiderman, Star Wars, and a million others come to mind). What I could imagine is a PvP-oriented spin-off. I wouldn't like it, since I have no desire for PvP at all, but I know it would be damn successful because I know that I'm an outlier and PvP is what drives many people. So yeah... I could see something like what you mention, an MMO or Overwatch-style game where you choose sides, either play a barbarian or Diablo. (Not sure who'd choose the Nephalem side though, wouldn't we all like to be evil just once :P)
1
Absolutely 100% for sure get them all on one class. The point of Haedrig's Gift is getting the 6 pieces for the 6 piece set bonus, which gives every class/spec approximately a 2000% damage bonus. That's 20x more damage and enables you to immediately farm T6.
Then you can farm items and bloodshards and Death's Breath and gamble/cube on the other class to complete that set. Whether DH or barb is just preference. But don't split. You'll regret it.