Wait a second, there is not a proper cgi cinematic at the end?
It goes to show how blizzard think of their customers. And people said it wasn't a DLC...
If there was a cinematic at the end, it would break the format.
Intro Cinematic -> Act I -> Intro Cinematic -> Act II -> Intro Cinematic -> Act III -> Intro Cinematic Act IV -> Ending Cinematic -> Intro Cinematic -> Act V -> Intro Cinematic Act VI -> Ending Cinematic -> Diablo 4.
I don't presume we'll be fighting Diablo again in Diablo III as a storyline boss. We'll probably kill another boss who could give us insight into what Diablo has up his sleeve for his "Original Beefcake Form" reappearance come Diablo 4.
Diablo is a flagship franchise, we attempted to kill him in "Diablo I" but he just corrupted the hero, We killed him in "Diablo II" Adria brings him back through Leah as his vessel, we realize we can't kill him, so we trap him in the soul stone, Mathael breaks the soul stone, freeing him again. If we kill him again, how could there really be a Diablo 4?
Blizzard is going to make a Diablo 4. Lets just be real about it.
Do you really want to kill Diablo twice in one title? How do you even begin to write that without it seeming 1,000x worse than the story already is?
I run strafe on the ptr as well. Suggestions:
Run Shuriken cloud in place of Grenades, you dont need a generator. 200% damage around as your whirling through is a big bonus.
Run wolf companion, 30% damage boost for 10 seconds is very nice. I pop it for elites.
Run Smoke screen - healing vapors. With high cc and demolitions high proc rate with nightstalker you can spam it against elites for 15% health every time and break any crowd control affix.
I also run Hot pursuit. You're always hitting something when your strafing so its another 20% bonus movespeed for strafe.
Some legs I run too that really help:
Bracers that give you run speed when you break an object. Since strafe fires at everything, you're constanting breaking stuff and getting the speed bonus so you can whirl through even quicker.
Fire Walkers, on 2.0 they do 100% weapon damage. Since you're constantly moving you're always leaving a trail of fire, so its just more damage.
Not related to this build but I also use The Inquisitor Cloak. On 2.0 it allows you have 3 wolves instead of one, so just more damage as each wolf does 130% weapon damage. I also pair this with Tasker and Theo gloves which give your pets 100% attack speed increase.
Some legs that I wish I had:
The pants that give you 25% damage and resource generation when moving.
The bow that takes strafe's cost away. With this I would switch Fan of Knives rune to the one that has no cool down and just use my hatred towards that.
There is no bow that removes the Hatred cost; that was way too OP and has been changed to "*Strafe Gains the Effect of Drifting Shadows Rune."
Basically making all your strafe runes lose the movement penalty.
It doesn't matter though, the infinite strafe is totally possible and it's with neither of these awful builds.
No offense, it's just that you don't want to use the wolf companion -- you'll do more damage than they will strafing, so if you're running out of hatred that's no good.
Drop the wolf, switch to the bat, also you don't really want to use fan of knives unless you have some serious resource cost reduction gear + Hex Pants. You will also need +max discipline and +max hatred[paragon] as well as stacking as much hatred regen as you can.
Scorch could be reworked to explode in a big AoE on impact instead of going through mobs.
Nooooooooooooooooo! It does explode, and the explosion does bonus damage, but if it didn't pierce, you don't have fire wall. Scorch is Diablo III's version of firewall, and it rocks as it is, you want a big aoe on impact, you go Arcane instead of fire. Arcane Orb does exactly that.
Frost builds are even worse without legendary gear.
Frostburns/Magistrate/Winterflury/Azurewrath/Serpent Sparker/Mirrorball/SoJ/Eye of Etlitch/Cold Andy's/Cold Bracers.
There really isn't any really good build that doesn't require legendary gear. You won't ever get passed T3 without them. And yes, it is RNG -- hence why BoA is BAD for the game, but fire does more damage than cold, also does more damage than lightning with zero gear.
So, yeah. Arcane and Fire = DPS builds, Cold and Lightning = CC Builds. That's just how the cookie crumbles.
Cold is the best CC, lightning has more damage potential than cold, but still has strong CC. Arcane has the strongest damage, but no DoT, and fire has the DoT. Fire beats Arcane in terms of damage potential imo, but then again, Arcane has Archon. So arcane is your uber boss killer build, fire is the better farming build.
They all have equal AoE properties, but that's the break down.
I don't know if it's just me, but it feels like ranged fire spells are really disappointing compared to the lightning and frost spells. I know fire is meant to deal DoT, but compared to running a Frozen Orb build on T1+ solo, a Scorch Orb/Conflagrate build just doesn't seem to have that same wow factor. I mean, Frozen Orb alone has this massive piercing AoE when it moves compared to Scorch which is basically a small piercing fireball that leaves a trail of flames behind.
As for Meteor, it's either got a really long cooldown and delay (Molten Impact), or it's too random and too slow (Meteor Shower). I get the feeling that fire damage was meant to be more focused on the close range with Wave of Force and Explosive Blast being really popular from what I've seen in random groups. Do you guys think it's disappointing?
Nah, I think you have it backwards, Wave of Force and Explosive blast are useless, they don't do anywhere near enough damage to compete with the build that I used when I was rocking fire.
So here is a definitive Fire Build that will melt everything in the game;
For skills % damage, you want all gear that enhance Magic Missile.
This gives you 120% to fire damage skills.
You can also get up to 30% to magic missile on shoulders and a belt, you can get another 15 on pants too. So that gives you 45% to magic missile, but with the mirror ball, that's actually an additional 135% on magic missile.
So with this, you get double hydra damage [because you get 2 of them] * 100% Fire skill damage.
How to play it;
So you open with the double hydra, then shoot a magic missile to get a stack of conflagration, drop a meteor or two, and lay down the scorch over the hydra fire walls, keep using the magic missile with *885% bonus damage[Brings you to over 1000% weapon damage on magic missile] to fill back up your arcane power to drop more meteors and scorch. If you get in trouble, you have teleport handy, with the new illusionist, it resets teleport when you get hit basically by anything on T4 or higher, so you have plenty of escape options as well. If you are confident you don't need the escape options or are playing with a good group, you can drop teleport for magic weapon force weapon for an additional 20% damage which gives you knockback that gives you 20-30% enhanced damage from the legendary passive on the Strong Arm Bracers. I'm not entirely sold on Ignite, although, it's possible that's a viable rune too when stacking all this bonus fire damage gear.
*The break down on magic missile bonus damage.
Magic Missile does 175% weapon damage, with a mirror ball, you shoot 3. This gives your magic missile effectively 525% weapon damage. You have 20/20/20/20/20 bonus to fire damage, this is 120% bonus to fire damage skills * 3 magic missiles.
You have 45% weapon damage on magic missile, but since you are shooting 3, and each one gets the bonus, you get an additional 135%. The Familiar gives you 10% * 3 magic missiles, and magic weapon another 20% * 3 magic Missiles.
Totaled Magic Missile does 1,110% [1,140% to elites with a 30% SoJ] weapon damage per attack. This is why the mirror ball is absolutely ESSENTIAL to any fire build, this makes your generator one of your most damaging skills, the entire time -- all the enemies are roasting in the DoT's from the double Mammoth Hyrdas and the scorches [which do stack.] The meteor is your big damage aoe that capitalizes on the conflagration stacks caused by magic missile, enhancing your crit chance and doing mega damage.
You don't want to stack +% to meteor damage at all, since you're going to be shooting a ton more magic missiles than meteors. The magic missile IS your bread and butter and because the mirror ball triples the damage output you end up dealing WAY more damage stacking magic missile damage. I don't care how alluring the +% to meteor is, it's all about magic missile.
This is an end game fire damage build, and it's certainly nothing to scoff at if you have a decent crit chance [30% or better] and good crit damage [280% or better.]
Touching on Cold Damage There is also a similar build for cold damage. It won't put out as much damage as fire for obvious reasons, but it will make the harder difficulties easier to solo. Why? Because you'll be freezing things at all ranges with almost the same efficiency as old Critical Mass frost nova builds, with the added advantage that you can do it from ANY range.
Since elemental damage is multiplicative then you multiply your new sheet dps with elemental percent. Formula is (1+elemental dmg) * sheet dps = actual dps. So to break even, (1+elemental dmg) = new sheet dps/ old sheet dps. So to break even, your elemental % gain ALWAYS needs to be higher than your % dps lost.
Using the previous examples, if you lost 30% sheet dps then you need 1/0.7 = 43% elemental damage to break even. Since you gained 20% cold damage, then your overall actual dps is 0.7 * 1.2 = 84% of your original dps.
Next example: losing 18% damage for +25% cold does NOT increase dps by 7%. Let's see: 0.82 * 1.25 = 1.025 = 2.5% dps increase
Now if your weapon has cold damage and also has % cold damage buff, then my guess is that amount of cold damage on the weapon gets multiplied by the cold damage buff, for all spells. I'm not sure if the sheet dps already calculates the buff in.
May I ask where you got that formula? I'm asking because I want to transfer it to a spreadsheet for quick & easy calculation. Therefore the formula needs to be correct.
EDIT: Wait a minute, I'm not sure if I understand that Formula.
You say: (1+elemental damage) * sheet dps = actual dps
With "elemental damage", do you mean the % damage increase (like +15% Cold Damage)? And are you sure it gets multiplied like that? So if I say (1+15) * 250.000 =4.000.000 dps? That can't be right.
You are correct, this is wrong. What +% to element damage does, is adds that % to the end of the calculation vs your skills.
For instance, your dps is calculated with the standard formula, weapon average damage x attacks per second x mainstat in %, then x skill damage percent, PLUS element damage %. [Just keeping it simple, we aren't going to factor CC or CD, so we can see how it exactly works.]
It's not "multiplicative" it's additive, but it's being added to something that IS multiplicative.
I.E.
Your damage is 100k, your attacks per second are 2.0. Frozen orb does 393%. This means Frozen Orb does 393,000 every second or 196,500 per hit. [Assuming you don't crit.]
With 20% + To cold damage, frozen orb does 206,500 per hit. [still assuming you don't crit]
If you're using a weapon that does Cold Damage, you take the average damage in cold, and add 20%, then you do the base weapon calculation with the additional 20% and you'll get a higher base or flat damage, which is then multiplied by main stat, and then multiplied by skill damage %.
So the question is, is it ever worth it to drop damage % on the paper sheet for Element damage, the answer is still yes -- but it's not at all woth it if you're losing 20-30%, it's only worth it if you're losing 1-10%, depending on how much +Element damage you have, and what skills your using. +Element damage scales better vs skills that already do really high % weapon damage. An example is meteor. Meteor will get a bigger bonus out of +% weapon damage than Frozen Orb, since it's weapon damage % is nearly twice that of Frozen orb.
So no, that formula is made up and bunk and not at all how it works, if it was, people would be melting T6 with average crits of 5 million a pop, which would give you an eDPS of around 10 million if you had an attack speed of 2.0.
You can test this, you can do my calculation, and it will match the damage you get when you don't crit with damage numbers on. It is correct, this other formula does NOT match the damage numbers in the game, therefor -- it's wrong.
So now, the next question is, is stacking a single +% damage to skill x worth it?
Absolutely for the same reason. So you have +% 20 to cold damage, and +20% to magic missile, then using glacial spike that does 175% now does 215%, if you pair this with a mirror ball, it now does 430%. If you're also using a cold damage weapon, the average damage on the cold damage affix is increased also by 20% at the base, which gets multiplied by mainstat, increasing your effective damage multiplicative, before the 430% is factored against your weapon damage.
This essentially makes Glacial spike do more damage than Frozen Orb, frozen orb still has more damage potential against large groups, because it has a bigger AOE radius, hence hitting more people and doing more actual Damage Per Second, but it will take longer to kill a single target vs Glacial Spike. So at this point, you use frozen orb to melt whites, and glacial spike to murder elites.
If you have a pair of frost burns too... you're sitting pretty.
It's also important to note, that the DPS in your paper sheet, is ONLY for attacking WITHOUT a skill. All skills that are 100% weapon damage or more, will do incredibly higher damage per second than what you see on the sheet, since weapon damage is applied first, before the multiplicative increases from mainstat, and the proc rates of CC.
So I've taken the time to explain the logic behind the original design of DIII and it's inclusion of the AH and what the removal of that means.
In this post I address why BoA does more harm than good, doesn't solve ANY of the problems it's attempting to fix, and what it ultimately means for the future of Diablo.
This is all merely logic, statistics, and probability.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/10972667249?page=1#1
Go there and support it, or hate it -- but read the whole thread first. Make an attempt to understand all the posts before you reply. Try to leave personal bias aside until the thread is read, before you reply.
P.S. Request it as sticky.
^^Your argument has a lot of merits. I'd encourage you to post in the bnet forum, if you can take the heat
I have terrible luck on b.net dude.
I make posts all the time and they get fast tracked to page 5 and never really get going cuz they get buried instantly.
The only surefire solution to that I'm aware of, is to come to curse and get a following for an idea first, so we can hold page one and get some traction going first.
I fully recognize I failed to see the two points being considered as one whole when I originally talked about it. I understand, however I still wanted to provide my rebuttal to that argument. It causes too many problems to be a workable solution. I think there are ways that can resolve the issue that won't resort to player base segregation.
It's a big topic and I rather enjoy the debate it brings. Personally I don't hate nor love the AH. It could be removed today (without item drop changes) and I'd be fine. I do think that some item drop changes need to happen either way.
You don't have to segregate players at all. Diablo III is built in such a way that a "No Auction House" character can play with auction house players just fine.
Why?
Everyone gets their own loot.
Simple.
So why do we have to play in different games because my loot table is different than yours? You can't see what drops for me anyway.
The simple solution is to BRING BACK LADDERS.
While in an active ladder NO A/H is enabled. When you fail the ladder or it expires you get bumped into the normal game.
You solve the segregation problem easily, items found by ladder characters will be "Bound to ladder characters." Ladder characters can only use ladder bound equipment. That way someone who is currently playing in a ladder, can play with characters outside the ladder without trashing the ladder. [Since he can't equip any items found from non-ladder players.] If you get knocked out of the ladder, or it's reset, all the loot you currently have is no longer ladder bound. (This way you can still equip it, even though you are no longer ladder licensed.)
Then add a new chat channel called [Ladder - Trade]. Problemo solved.
This would also add replayability to those that have exhausted the games content, too -- a nifty side bonus.
This also solves discern with the PS3 version being the "better" version of the game, since it has NO A/H of any kind.
[Blizzard knows the A/H was a bad idea NOW [hence it not being in the PS3/4 versions], it's just an undoable problem. People are used to it, so take it away and people will miss it. PS3/4 players will most probably be first time players, so they don't have a crutch to miss. Introducing ladders gives all players options to both.]
This is basically a "Soft Reset." Diablo III needs to be reset, Diablo II needed to be reset from time to time, that's why the ladder system existed.
Everyone gets to start all over, with all the changes and improvements that made it a better game, without losing their old characters, whilst still being able to play with their old characters with new ladder players.
It's the PERFECT solution.
People will play, they will craft, they will trade -- the old fashioned way, whilst enjoying the ability to find useful items and good drops [like PS3/4 players].
They will also retain limited/unlimited access to the auction house once characters are "retired" from the ladder in the event of a ladder reset or *failure of ladder conditions.
*Path of Exile has really cool ladder options, you can join a "Hardcore Ladder" which means if you die, you are kicked off the ladder [instead of losing your character forever, he just becomes a normal character.]
P.S.
I believe ladders should only be reset with game changing patches [like drastic loot table overhauls] or expansion packs.
I also believe there needs to be something to incentivize players into joining the ladder.
I feel like the new loot table should only apply to new ladder characters. [Once they are retired, they maintain this new loot table.]
Sorry man, but those points you bring up, while valid, are only a drop in the sea comapred to what really makes this game not fun for extended periods of time.
As far as I can tell, the top reason for people quitting is that in order to be efficient they have to sit on the AH a significant portion of your play time, and those who went past that point by either screeching teeth or just liking spending time on the AH, are getting bored of being encouraged to just farm stuff they can kill with extreme ease and repeat over and over, preferably using the top-of-the-line build that involves lots of movement speed boosts (see: sprint/whirlwind barbs, which will remain by far the fastest post 1.0.5 because you will still be encouraged to farm easy stuff and the nerf wasn't severe enough to bring the build in line with other builds).
Lack of build diversity and boring items is a big one too, but not as important as what more directly causes the players to get bored and quit (too much time needed on AH and farming easy stuff repeatedly).
You are entitled to your opinion, but I spend 99.9% of my time playing in game, not the AH and I have 78 million sitting on my character right now, not bought for real money.
Also, the point about farming is a little silly, considering that farming in an ARPG always gets easy if you get strong. DII was even sillier in that reguard.
Diablo is about the loot.
I will give you the fact that it's boring to farm loot when you don't need it anymore, it was the same way in Diablo II, however, farming loot in Diablo II even when you were beast was usable in PvP, and the same will ring true in DIII once PvP is released.
I also don't think the items are that borked. They just need to make it so 7 affixes can roll on a rare instead of 6 and add in a bunch of % chance to cast based on "x".
I.E.
A chest armor with 15% chance to cast frost nova when hit.
Or, a weapon with 18% chance to cast diamond skin on crit.
Or a belt that has 13% chance to cast fan of knives on dodge.
This is the only thing that needs to be added to rares to make it cool, and remember we still have an expansion to come, where we will likely be able to add sockets for a fee [the jeweler could do this in the blizcon builds] and the third artisan that lets you add an affix to an existing item for a fee and crafting materials.
In the blizcon demo, you could add hatred regen to an axe if you wanted.
They have stuff planned for the future, it's just about getting the core game right now, and I think that lies within fixing the free roam, dueling, followers and legendary and set items that still suck. [They don't all suck, but there are a bunch that still are completely useless.]
With those fixes, combined with the new content they have planned for the expansion, I think DIII has a very good chance at surpassing DII as the greatest ARPG of all time, I sincerely mean that.
Especially with the introduction of Monster Power and the Infernal Machine and Paragon levels.
DII had 99 levels. DIII at launch had 60, it now has 160.
DII had ubers. DIII will now have Ubers.
DII had PvP, DIII will have PvP.
DIII's items aren't as bad as people make it sound, I'll admit getting them to roll with all the affixes necessary is a bit broken right now, but just like they are fixing everything else, I'm sure this will get better with time. We can already see an improvement with items rolling from monster level instead of item level.
So you need Mainstat + Vital, other than that, it's pretty much the same as DII, with the exception of + to skills.
In Diablo II, you had +1 to Bash.
In Diablo III you have +10% to bash damage.
They are the same thing, infact, the higher damage you do base, the bigger difference you get out of +10% to Bash damage.
And tbh, if they want to add an equivolent to +to all skills in diablo III, all they have to do is add an affix that adds "+10% weapon damage" "+20% weapon damage" and "+30% to weapon damage" since all skills are based on weapon damage, raising weapon damage raises the skills power. Really simple stuff.
We need more gems, we need charms, and maybe we could see the return of jewels -- but jewels could have affixes like +% to a skill on them instead of +Mainstat, and the item system is fixed.
P.S.
Diablo II was broken when it came out too. It also lacked runes and jewels and charms until LoD. And half of the cool uniques were added in LoD too, same with set items. Immortal King's was an LoD set, Ral Rasha's was an LoD set.
Do you guys not remember DII's launch? It was rebalanced every patch, and what did that mean in DII, not only did you have to regear, but you had to re-roll and start over, because your build didn't work anymore and there was no respec.
DII didn't get really good until LoD, and even at that, not until 1.09. That's real talk.
Post mortem implies the game is dead. Good day to you sir, I'm still playing.
Indeed it does literally, but on the same page, it's also the industry standard term for talking about failed design in concurrent games as well as past games.
They did a post mortem on DX: Invisible War, Final Fantasy 11 before it died, they've done post mortems on games like "Rage" only a week after it came out.
I didn't make up the phrase, I just used it -- however, I'm still playing, and my thread is not a qq thread. There is no whining or complaining inside.
Also, Roll a new character, you won't find a public game to join until you are around level 50. Does this mean the influx of new players is gone?
Probably.
Could this mean that the people who do play, are not playing low level characters anymore, maybe.
Could this mean that the game is in actuality dying? Yes, it could.
All in all, I love Diablo, and I just wish to make it a more enjoying experience, I wish you would have read the thread instead of just reading it's title, you might have been left with a different taste in your mouth.
P.S.
People still play dead games. Quake III Arena is a dead game, but people play it. Tribes II is a dead game, but people still play it.
What determines whether or not a game is dead, is the amount of players playing it.
200 players is a dead game.
1 million players is a very much alive game.
I'm thinking Diablo III is leaning towards sub 1 million and declining. I had over 200 players on my friends list, and out of that 200, I'm down to about 10 that still play the game.
Out of the 200, about 25 were IRL friends that still play Diablo II to this day who no longer play Diablo III.
This by all means doesn't mean it's dead, but does provide insight into what is happening to the player base, albeit, on a small sample rate.
I can come up with a few reasons. None of them really compelling, but it's something:
1. Different acts have different difficulty. You could in principle get your 5 NV in act 1 (easier) and then farm A3 with full stacks. Right now nobody would be interested in doing this, but I guess a few month ago people would have done this.
2. Farming spots. The more areas are available, the more likely it is that one optimal route will emerge, with other areas remaining unplayed. With monster power, I could easily imagine starting in A2, VotA, then moving to festering woods and finally, if I was interested in exp also, continue in A3 keep lvl 2 and fields of slaughter, all with the same NV stacks.
3. The checkpoint system might be harder to implement.
4. Blizzard likes to have zero loading times between game regions, but this might be tough to achieve if all 4 acts should be available at the same time
5. It's weird when you hop from act to act, and in every city the same stash is standing around. Currently you have to travel, so it's easier to imagine that the stash is loaded on the caravan.
Imho I think that the loading times is the best reason why one might not want to allow players to switch acts within one game.
Monster power destroys point 1.
Point 2 is a non point, because there is already a most efficient farm spot, it's called the second sin heart, cydea azmodan runs, that's all the end game farmers run. That's all I run, because that's where I get the best loot drops, it's also where I get the most frequent loot drops.
Point 3 is a non issue too, as the checkpoints remain in the same places now. If you start at The second Sin heart but walk into the keeps, the checkpoint system works regardless of being out of order.
Point 4 is also a non point, the game loads an act in about 3 seconds.
Point 5 is also a non point, the stash is an entity built into each town, it doesn't move. Just like Diablo II.
The reality is, they made it this way in an attempt to stop boss farming, yet -- it didn't work. People still just farm Azmodan.
So rather than give us the choice to farm who ever we want, we are stuck farming one spot.
I.E.
There is no reason other than they thought it would stop boss farming when it actually didn't. It just made it so instead of being able to farm whatever boss you wanted, you now only have one choice -- Azmodan.
So in short, it was a design with a purpose, except in reality it doesn't serve the purpose, in fact, it counters the purpose by making people run the one boss ad infinitum.
This is the very reason it should be reverted back to DII classic. P.S. I'd be fine with only allowing those who beat the entire game on inferno access to free roam.
Anybody farming act 3 already beat diablo in inferno, so -- yeah -- free us up some places to go, cuz currently right now, and even in 1.05 unless you are farming hellfire ring, the only place to farm efficiently is Act III Second Sin heart.
I agree with everyone here for the most part, but still kinda looking for a more concrete answer about why it is that you cant go from act to act. Is it because the shitty servers we play on wont allow it or what? Is it a playing issue or a hardware issue?
They didn't want people to boss hop, so if you kept 5NV stacks all the time people would then just port to each boss and skip the content. In other words they didn't want another D2.
But in the long run, all people do is the second sin heart, get 5 stacks quit and remake, second sin heart.
So in practicality, it's exactly like DII mephisto runs. That's ALL any reasonable farmer does in DIII. The second Sin Heart, over and over and over and over.
I've found a witching hour, Inna's Radiance, a Windforce, et al just by doing this.
30 minutes a run, and about every 10 or so there is a leg or set item with only my paragon for MF.
So I.E. because we can't jump around means we end up running just one small section of the game over and over and over and over and over and over and over and this is what makes DIII more monotonous than DII.
If they opened it up, you would start at the prime evil, jump back to the second sin heart, kill cydea/azmodan, jump into act 4 kill rakanoth [since you can't get 5 stack and kill him now anyway, so he's a completely wasted boss] jump back to act 2 kill magdha zoltun kulle and belial then jump back to act 1 kill skele king spider queen and buthcer and finish with a pony level.
That is a ton more fun than running The Second Sin Heart 9,999,999,999,999,999 times.
I actually have a long Diablo III Post Mortem thread on the official forums right now asking for this to be changes amongst other things. You guys should go support it.
0
Intro Cinematic -> Act I -> Intro Cinematic -> Act II -> Intro Cinematic -> Act III -> Intro Cinematic Act IV -> Ending Cinematic -> Intro Cinematic -> Act V -> Intro Cinematic Act VI -> Ending Cinematic -> Diablo 4.
I don't presume we'll be fighting Diablo again in Diablo III as a storyline boss. We'll probably kill another boss who could give us insight into what Diablo has up his sleeve for his "Original Beefcake Form" reappearance come Diablo 4.
Diablo is a flagship franchise, we attempted to kill him in "Diablo I" but he just corrupted the hero, We killed him in "Diablo II" Adria brings him back through Leah as his vessel, we realize we can't kill him, so we trap him in the soul stone, Mathael breaks the soul stone, freeing him again. If we kill him again, how could there really be a Diablo 4?
Blizzard is going to make a Diablo 4. Lets just be real about it.
Do you really want to kill Diablo twice in one title? How do you even begin to write that without it seeming 1,000x worse than the story already is?
P.S.
RoS is not even close to DLC.
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Basically making all your strafe runes lose the movement penalty.
It doesn't matter though, the infinite strafe is totally possible and it's with neither of these awful builds.
No offense, it's just that you don't want to use the wolf companion -- you'll do more damage than they will strafing, so if you're running out of hatred that's no good.
Drop the wolf, switch to the bat, also you don't really want to use fan of knives unless you have some serious resource cost reduction gear + Hex Pants. You will also need +max discipline and +max hatred[paragon] as well as stacking as much hatred regen as you can.
0
Trail of cinders on DH does not though.
0
0
Frostburns/Magistrate/Winterflury/Azurewrath/Serpent Sparker/Mirrorball/SoJ/Eye of Etlitch/Cold Andy's/Cold Bracers.
There really isn't any really good build that doesn't require legendary gear. You won't ever get passed T3 without them. And yes, it is RNG -- hence why BoA is BAD for the game, but fire does more damage than cold, also does more damage than lightning with zero gear.
So, yeah. Arcane and Fire = DPS builds, Cold and Lightning = CC Builds. That's just how the cookie crumbles.
Cold is the best CC, lightning has more damage potential than cold, but still has strong CC. Arcane has the strongest damage, but no DoT, and fire has the DoT. Fire beats Arcane in terms of damage potential imo, but then again, Arcane has Archon. So arcane is your uber boss killer build, fire is the better farming build.
They all have equal AoE properties, but that's the break down.
0
So here is a definitive Fire Build that will melt everything in the game;
Build:
WALLS OF FIRE - [WoF Wizard]
Skills;
Actives
Mammoth Hydra - Hyrda
Spark Flint - Familiar
Meteor Shower - Meteor
Scorch - Arcane Orb
Conflagrate - Magic Missile
Wormhole - Teleport
Passives
Conflagration
Prodigy
Illusionist
Supporting Gear;
Jewelry
Stone of Jordan - 20% Fire Damage
Eye of Etlitch - 20% Fire Damage
Armor
Bracers
Demons/Strong Arms - 20% Fire damage
Gloves
Magefist - 20% Fire damage
Chest
Cindercoat - 20% Fire Damage
Helm
Andariels Visage - 20% Fire damage
Source
Mirrorball - +2 Additional Magic Missiles
Weapon
Serpent Sparker - +1 Additional Hydra
For skills % damage, you want all gear that enhance Magic Missile.
This gives you 120% to fire damage skills.
You can also get up to 30% to magic missile on shoulders and a belt, you can get another 15 on pants too. So that gives you 45% to magic missile, but with the mirror ball, that's actually an additional 135% on magic missile.
So with this, you get double hydra damage [because you get 2 of them] * 100% Fire skill damage.
How to play it;
So you open with the double hydra, then shoot a magic missile to get a stack of conflagration, drop a meteor or two, and lay down the scorch over the hydra fire walls, keep using the magic missile with *885% bonus damage[Brings you to over 1000% weapon damage on magic missile] to fill back up your arcane power to drop more meteors and scorch. If you get in trouble, you have teleport handy, with the new illusionist, it resets teleport when you get hit basically by anything on T4 or higher, so you have plenty of escape options as well. If you are confident you don't need the escape options or are playing with a good group, you can drop teleport for magic weapon force weapon for an additional 20% damage which gives you knockback that gives you 20-30% enhanced damage from the legendary passive on the Strong Arm Bracers. I'm not entirely sold on Ignite, although, it's possible that's a viable rune too when stacking all this bonus fire damage gear.
*The break down on magic missile bonus damage.
Magic Missile does 175% weapon damage, with a mirror ball, you shoot 3. This gives your magic missile effectively 525% weapon damage. You have 20/20/20/20/20 bonus to fire damage, this is 120% bonus to fire damage skills * 3 magic missiles.
You have 45% weapon damage on magic missile, but since you are shooting 3, and each one gets the bonus, you get an additional 135%. The Familiar gives you 10% * 3 magic missiles, and magic weapon another 20% * 3 magic Missiles.
Totaled Magic Missile does 1,110% [1,140% to elites with a 30% SoJ] weapon damage per attack. This is why the mirror ball is absolutely ESSENTIAL to any fire build, this makes your generator one of your most damaging skills, the entire time -- all the enemies are roasting in the DoT's from the double Mammoth Hyrdas and the scorches [which do stack.] The meteor is your big damage aoe that capitalizes on the conflagration stacks caused by magic missile, enhancing your crit chance and doing mega damage.
You don't want to stack +% to meteor damage at all, since you're going to be shooting a ton more magic missiles than meteors. The magic missile IS your bread and butter and because the mirror ball triples the damage output you end up dealing WAY more damage stacking magic missile damage. I don't care how alluring the +% to meteor is, it's all about magic missile.
This is an end game fire damage build, and it's certainly nothing to scoff at if you have a decent crit chance [30% or better] and good crit damage [280% or better.]
Touching on Cold Damage There is also a similar build for cold damage. It won't put out as much damage as fire for obvious reasons, but it will make the harder difficulties easier to solo. Why? Because you'll be freezing things at all ranges with almost the same efficiency as old Critical Mass frost nova builds, with the added advantage that you can do it from ANY range.
Yes you can virtually permafreeze mobs in 2.0.
0
For instance, your dps is calculated with the standard formula, weapon average damage x attacks per second x mainstat in %, then x skill damage percent, PLUS element damage %. [Just keeping it simple, we aren't going to factor CC or CD, so we can see how it exactly works.]
It's not "multiplicative" it's additive, but it's being added to something that IS multiplicative.
I.E.
Your damage is 100k, your attacks per second are 2.0. Frozen orb does 393%. This means Frozen Orb does 393,000 every second or 196,500 per hit. [Assuming you don't crit.]
With 20% + To cold damage, frozen orb does 206,500 per hit. [still assuming you don't crit]
If you're using a weapon that does Cold Damage, you take the average damage in cold, and add 20%, then you do the base weapon calculation with the additional 20% and you'll get a higher base or flat damage, which is then multiplied by main stat, and then multiplied by skill damage %.
So the question is, is it ever worth it to drop damage % on the paper sheet for Element damage, the answer is still yes -- but it's not at all woth it if you're losing 20-30%, it's only worth it if you're losing 1-10%, depending on how much +Element damage you have, and what skills your using. +Element damage scales better vs skills that already do really high % weapon damage. An example is meteor. Meteor will get a bigger bonus out of +% weapon damage than Frozen Orb, since it's weapon damage % is nearly twice that of Frozen orb.
So no, that formula is made up and bunk and not at all how it works, if it was, people would be melting T6 with average crits of 5 million a pop, which would give you an eDPS of around 10 million if you had an attack speed of 2.0.
You can test this, you can do my calculation, and it will match the damage you get when you don't crit with damage numbers on. It is correct, this other formula does NOT match the damage numbers in the game, therefor -- it's wrong.
So now, the next question is, is stacking a single +% damage to skill x worth it?
Absolutely for the same reason. So you have +% 20 to cold damage, and +20% to magic missile, then using glacial spike that does 175% now does 215%, if you pair this with a mirror ball, it now does 430%. If you're also using a cold damage weapon, the average damage on the cold damage affix is increased also by 20% at the base, which gets multiplied by mainstat, increasing your effective damage multiplicative, before the 430% is factored against your weapon damage.
This essentially makes Glacial spike do more damage than Frozen Orb, frozen orb still has more damage potential against large groups, because it has a bigger AOE radius, hence hitting more people and doing more actual Damage Per Second, but it will take longer to kill a single target vs Glacial Spike. So at this point, you use frozen orb to melt whites, and glacial spike to murder elites.
If you have a pair of frost burns too... you're sitting pretty.
It's also important to note, that the DPS in your paper sheet, is ONLY for attacking WITHOUT a skill. All skills that are 100% weapon damage or more, will do incredibly higher damage per second than what you see on the sheet, since weapon damage is applied first, before the multiplicative increases from mainstat, and the proc rates of CC.
0
0
100% cool down reduction on a 30 second cool down is 15 seconds.
200% is 7.5 seconds. 300% is 3.75, 400% is 1.8, 500% is 0.9.
So would 100% cool down reduction be op? Naw. The 8 second frost nova would take 4 seconds with no critical mass.
0
I have terrible luck on b.net dude.
I make posts all the time and they get fast tracked to page 5 and never really get going cuz they get buried instantly.
The only surefire solution to that I'm aware of, is to come to curse and get a following for an idea first, so we can hold page one and get some traction going first.
1
You don't have to segregate players at all. Diablo III is built in such a way that a "No Auction House" character can play with auction house players just fine.
Why?
Everyone gets their own loot.
Simple.
So why do we have to play in different games because my loot table is different than yours? You can't see what drops for me anyway.
The simple solution is to BRING BACK LADDERS.
While in an active ladder NO A/H is enabled. When you fail the ladder or it expires you get bumped into the normal game.
You solve the segregation problem easily, items found by ladder characters will be "Bound to ladder characters." Ladder characters can only use ladder bound equipment. That way someone who is currently playing in a ladder, can play with characters outside the ladder without trashing the ladder. [Since he can't equip any items found from non-ladder players.] If you get knocked out of the ladder, or it's reset, all the loot you currently have is no longer ladder bound. (This way you can still equip it, even though you are no longer ladder licensed.)
Then add a new chat channel called [Ladder - Trade]. Problemo solved.
This would also add replayability to those that have exhausted the games content, too -- a nifty side bonus.
This also solves discern with the PS3 version being the "better" version of the game, since it has NO A/H of any kind.
[Blizzard knows the A/H was a bad idea NOW [hence it not being in the PS3/4 versions], it's just an undoable problem. People are used to it, so take it away and people will miss it. PS3/4 players will most probably be first time players, so they don't have a crutch to miss. Introducing ladders gives all players options to both.]
This is basically a "Soft Reset." Diablo III needs to be reset, Diablo II needed to be reset from time to time, that's why the ladder system existed.
Everyone gets to start all over, with all the changes and improvements that made it a better game, without losing their old characters, whilst still being able to play with their old characters with new ladder players.
It's the PERFECT solution.
People will play, they will craft, they will trade -- the old fashioned way, whilst enjoying the ability to find useful items and good drops [like PS3/4 players].
They will also retain limited/unlimited access to the auction house once characters are "retired" from the ladder in the event of a ladder reset or *failure of ladder conditions.
*Path of Exile has really cool ladder options, you can join a "Hardcore Ladder" which means if you die, you are kicked off the ladder [instead of losing your character forever, he just becomes a normal character.]
P.S.
I believe ladders should only be reset with game changing patches [like drastic loot table overhauls] or expansion packs.
I also believe there needs to be something to incentivize players into joining the ladder.
I feel like the new loot table should only apply to new ladder characters. [Once they are retired, they maintain this new loot table.]
4
You are entitled to your opinion, but I spend 99.9% of my time playing in game, not the AH and I have 78 million sitting on my character right now, not bought for real money.
Also, the point about farming is a little silly, considering that farming in an ARPG always gets easy if you get strong. DII was even sillier in that reguard.
Diablo is about the loot.
I will give you the fact that it's boring to farm loot when you don't need it anymore, it was the same way in Diablo II, however, farming loot in Diablo II even when you were beast was usable in PvP, and the same will ring true in DIII once PvP is released.
I also don't think the items are that borked. They just need to make it so 7 affixes can roll on a rare instead of 6 and add in a bunch of % chance to cast based on "x".
I.E.
A chest armor with 15% chance to cast frost nova when hit.
Or, a weapon with 18% chance to cast diamond skin on crit.
Or a belt that has 13% chance to cast fan of knives on dodge.
This is the only thing that needs to be added to rares to make it cool, and remember we still have an expansion to come, where we will likely be able to add sockets for a fee [the jeweler could do this in the blizcon builds] and the third artisan that lets you add an affix to an existing item for a fee and crafting materials.
In the blizcon demo, you could add hatred regen to an axe if you wanted.
They have stuff planned for the future, it's just about getting the core game right now, and I think that lies within fixing the free roam, dueling, followers and legendary and set items that still suck. [They don't all suck, but there are a bunch that still are completely useless.]
With those fixes, combined with the new content they have planned for the expansion, I think DIII has a very good chance at surpassing DII as the greatest ARPG of all time, I sincerely mean that.
Especially with the introduction of Monster Power and the Infernal Machine and Paragon levels.
DII had 99 levels. DIII at launch had 60, it now has 160.
DII had ubers. DIII will now have Ubers.
DII had PvP, DIII will have PvP.
DIII's items aren't as bad as people make it sound, I'll admit getting them to roll with all the affixes necessary is a bit broken right now, but just like they are fixing everything else, I'm sure this will get better with time. We can already see an improvement with items rolling from monster level instead of item level.
So you need Mainstat + Vital, other than that, it's pretty much the same as DII, with the exception of + to skills.
In Diablo II, you had +1 to Bash.
In Diablo III you have +10% to bash damage.
They are the same thing, infact, the higher damage you do base, the bigger difference you get out of +10% to Bash damage.
And tbh, if they want to add an equivolent to +to all skills in diablo III, all they have to do is add an affix that adds "+10% weapon damage" "+20% weapon damage" and "+30% to weapon damage" since all skills are based on weapon damage, raising weapon damage raises the skills power. Really simple stuff.
We need more gems, we need charms, and maybe we could see the return of jewels -- but jewels could have affixes like +% to a skill on them instead of +Mainstat, and the item system is fixed.
P.S.
Diablo II was broken when it came out too. It also lacked runes and jewels and charms until LoD. And half of the cool uniques were added in LoD too, same with set items. Immortal King's was an LoD set, Ral Rasha's was an LoD set.
Do you guys not remember DII's launch? It was rebalanced every patch, and what did that mean in DII, not only did you have to regear, but you had to re-roll and start over, because your build didn't work anymore and there was no respec.
DII didn't get really good until LoD, and even at that, not until 1.09. That's real talk.
0
Indeed it does literally, but on the same page, it's also the industry standard term for talking about failed design in concurrent games as well as past games.
They did a post mortem on DX: Invisible War, Final Fantasy 11 before it died, they've done post mortems on games like "Rage" only a week after it came out.
I didn't make up the phrase, I just used it -- however, I'm still playing, and my thread is not a qq thread. There is no whining or complaining inside.
Also, Roll a new character, you won't find a public game to join until you are around level 50. Does this mean the influx of new players is gone?
Probably.
Could this mean that the people who do play, are not playing low level characters anymore, maybe.
Could this mean that the game is in actuality dying? Yes, it could.
All in all, I love Diablo, and I just wish to make it a more enjoying experience, I wish you would have read the thread instead of just reading it's title, you might have been left with a different taste in your mouth.
P.S.
People still play dead games. Quake III Arena is a dead game, but people play it. Tribes II is a dead game, but people still play it.
What determines whether or not a game is dead, is the amount of players playing it.
200 players is a dead game.
1 million players is a very much alive game.
I'm thinking Diablo III is leaning towards sub 1 million and declining. I had over 200 players on my friends list, and out of that 200, I'm down to about 10 that still play the game.
Out of the 200, about 25 were IRL friends that still play Diablo II to this day who no longer play Diablo III.
This by all means doesn't mean it's dead, but does provide insight into what is happening to the player base, albeit, on a small sample rate.
0
Monster power destroys point 1.
Point 2 is a non point, because there is already a most efficient farm spot, it's called the second sin heart, cydea azmodan runs, that's all the end game farmers run. That's all I run, because that's where I get the best loot drops, it's also where I get the most frequent loot drops.
Point 3 is a non issue too, as the checkpoints remain in the same places now. If you start at The second Sin heart but walk into the keeps, the checkpoint system works regardless of being out of order.
Point 4 is also a non point, the game loads an act in about 3 seconds.
Point 5 is also a non point, the stash is an entity built into each town, it doesn't move. Just like Diablo II.
The reality is, they made it this way in an attempt to stop boss farming, yet -- it didn't work. People still just farm Azmodan.
So rather than give us the choice to farm who ever we want, we are stuck farming one spot.
I.E.
There is no reason other than they thought it would stop boss farming when it actually didn't. It just made it so instead of being able to farm whatever boss you wanted, you now only have one choice -- Azmodan.
So in short, it was a design with a purpose, except in reality it doesn't serve the purpose, in fact, it counters the purpose by making people run the one boss ad infinitum.
This is the very reason it should be reverted back to DII classic. P.S. I'd be fine with only allowing those who beat the entire game on inferno access to free roam.
Anybody farming act 3 already beat diablo in inferno, so -- yeah -- free us up some places to go, cuz currently right now, and even in 1.05 unless you are farming hellfire ring, the only place to farm efficiently is Act III Second Sin heart.
0
But in the long run, all people do is the second sin heart, get 5 stacks quit and remake, second sin heart.
So in practicality, it's exactly like DII mephisto runs. That's ALL any reasonable farmer does in DIII. The second Sin Heart, over and over and over and over.
I've found a witching hour, Inna's Radiance, a Windforce, et al just by doing this.
30 minutes a run, and about every 10 or so there is a leg or set item with only my paragon for MF.
So I.E. because we can't jump around means we end up running just one small section of the game over and over and over and over and over and over and over and this is what makes DIII more monotonous than DII.
If they opened it up, you would start at the prime evil, jump back to the second sin heart, kill cydea/azmodan, jump into act 4 kill rakanoth [since you can't get 5 stack and kill him now anyway, so he's a completely wasted boss] jump back to act 2 kill magdha zoltun kulle and belial then jump back to act 1 kill skele king spider queen and buthcer and finish with a pony level.
That is a ton more fun than running The Second Sin Heart 9,999,999,999,999,999 times.
I actually have a long Diablo III Post Mortem thread on the official forums right now asking for this to be changes amongst other things. You guys should go support it.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/6864316717#1