Diablo III Catch-All 2.0

Boss Mode isn't a hard conquest. It's done on normal, so all you have to do is make a speed build, like the new Tempest Rush monk or Chicken Doctor, then do the bosses. It helps to prioritize certain bosses first, like Adria, Urzael, and The Butcher first because they require you to find them. Leave easy to find bosses last, like Zoltan Kulle, Belial, and Skeleton King last. It's even easier in a group. You split up and search for the bosses, the first one to get there clicks on it. Then, everyone who hasn't found their boss yet teleports home then clicks yes on the fight. After it's done, use the Map to go back to base, then jump back into your portal and continue your search. Rinse, repeat.

I will keep that in mind.
I guess I will probably make a chicken doctor build this season. Sounds a lot of fun though I don't think I've ever seen that knife mojo set drop in all my time in D3...

It will be good since many people recommend doing the GR 55 with 6 sets conquest. You pick classes with the same main stat for the hand me downs making the journey much easier.

I may go arachyr's chicken since the changes to ring of emptiness only requires haunt or locusts instead of haunt and locusts.

Honestly don't know which start I'll go with for Season 20... I know I'll be playing a Wizard, but don't know if I'll start as a Wizard.

Necro could be a nice quick start... also WD. But honestly, my end game will be Hydra Wiz since it's been like forever since I've played a Wizard.

Not my best geared class by a long shot. But wizard is still my favorite and most fun class.
Spin barb is a beast and is my best geared class by far. And is a ton of fun.

But nothing holds a candle to laser beam disintegrate. And then when they added etched sigil, why would I do anything else?

Fang, remember, you can convert weapons with the cube. That's a good way to get relatively rare sets.

Except they changed the way that hits now. Gotta blast them for at least a second for it to proc now. Used to be able to just run by and zap, zap, zap.

I'm going Wiz this time. HAIL HYDRA!

Action in this thread juked me into thinking the season had started

March 13 apparently. Guess I'll go wizard, has to be done.

My only concern with Wizard is the start. For Vyr Chantodo to be good, you need a bunch of items. So it could be a little bit of a slow start unless you're with a good group.

Well, if four wizards are leveling together, sharing items should be easier.

Wizard here as well. Not sure if I will go with set or no set/gem build. Likely both to get conquest.

My only concern with Wizard is the start. For Vyr Chantodo to be good, you need a bunch of items. So it could be a little bit of a slow start unless you're with a good group.

Ignore the set. You can build a LoD hydra build very easy until you get the new set. With just moderate pieces you can clear T13. (without the bugged arcane torrent)

Hey, Fang, please bring that point up again in 9 days. I think I want to try that.

fangblackbone wrote:
My only concern with Wizard is the start. For Vyr Chantodo to be good, you need a bunch of items. So it could be a little bit of a slow start unless you're with a good group.

Ignore the set. You can build a LoD hydra build very easy until you get the new set. With just moderate pieces you can clear T13. (without the bugged arcane torrent)

I find it fun for the first build to just be cobbled together out of whatever luck gives you. So my first build is usually: "three random legendary affixes I got while leveling and then cubed with mats from the weekly challenge".

Like one season on a crusader, RNG gave me two items that buffed Phalanx plus those gloves that double pet attack speed. So I was a phalanx crusader up until like T9

So the game patched yesterday to 2.6.8 but the season hasn't started.
So, that means that all the other changes are in like the new sets and changes to legendary items?

I guess I am going to have to experiment tonight. I am wagering that I will have to loot serpent sparker and magistrate again to roll the bonuses to hydra. Again, I'll have to look but I don't recall seeing the patch changes reflected in legendaries in the kunai's cube...

On the good note, I migrated my witch doctor over to arachyr's 6 piece and looted the mojo that supports the angry chicken build. It is kinda hot and cold on T9 but once I get the 2 piece for perma chicken it will be a lot better.

Oh and my GR 60-65 orb/rof wizard tried the cursed peat event to test the ability to do the 350 kill cursed quest conquest and finished first try with... 349!

Well I had a stupidly easy time last season with Barb. I got super lucky and got both Ambo's and the belt early on which pretty much gave me GR100 on day one.

Wonder if RNG will be kind to me again this season. I'll start with Wiz and definitely see if I can make a beeline for the Serpent Sparker and the helm.

If anything I'm actually just excited to play Wizard since it's my second least played class.

Didn't know the patch had hit already though so that's awesome. Will play around a bit with it tonight!

Does anyone know a gimmick for doing the curse/350 thing? I seem to recall that there's a bounty with a cursed chest that qualifies, and you can spam games until you roll that bounty? Otherwise you're just wandering around hoping, right?

Any cursed chest can be done. Some are much easier than others because of how they trap the monsters in a smaller area. The one you really want is in a5 but I do not remember the exact place. Only has to be done on t10, not t13. 13 is usually easier since it will spawn more monsters. Does not have to be done solo either.

ww barb, multi-shot dh and skellie mage necro all make it stupid simple. I am sure there are other builds too but I don't play much outside barb, necro and dh although it looks like wiz may be back on the table again.

The Cursed Peat in Act V is the absolute best place to get that conquest. I think Leapquake Barb might be better but I'm splitting hairs.

The easiest one is in Path of the Drowned. The bounty is Cursed Peat but the chest can roll without the bounty. Note that the chest will not spawn if certain bounties other than Cursed Peat spawn in your game.

There is a guide that lists these and other info. Just google "D3 curses conquest"

Confirmed:
New sets are in. A typhon piece dropped for my wiz
Changes to legendaries are in. Serpent Striker and Magistrate boosts hydra damage + magistrate works on all hydras.
LoD hydra build with serpent striker and magistrate can clear T13-T14 with good but not great gear.

More thoughts: A lot of people used the frost hydra probably because of magistrate casting frost nova but that restriction has be removed (works on all hydras). People also used mammoth hydra for the aoe damage. In my experience, I would not over look the lightning hydra. It casts fast (not as fast as arcane) and IIRC it chains. But even if it doesn't I've found it to be a faster killer early in the build when you don't have frostburn or magefist on top of good rolls on deathwish or more ancients equipped. I tried it with paralysis and I liked it but once you get magistrate it is over kill since you are constantly casting free frost novas for CC.

Summary (my best guess as to reqs for T13-14 with hydra build):
LoD rank 50+
45/350 crit/critdam
2500-2800 dam main hand with source
all slots legendary with 4+ ancients
serpent striker
halo of karl something (ring with DR from storm armor)
aquila's
magistrate or deathwish (magistrate is easier since you don't have to cast anything for the damage boost plus the CC from frost nova)

Nice to haves:
squirt's necklace
mantra of channeling
ice climbers
bane of the stricken
tasker and theo (because I believe hydras count as pets for the attack speed bonus)
ashengar's blood bracer (doubles wizard shields)

Had a bit of fun with the new Hydra set last night and was speed running GR100s in about 4 mins. That's without a squirts necklace so assuming I can dodge all the damage, I could bring that time down if I had a decently rolled Squirts.

It's good for T16 as well with a few tweaks. I was using frost for my GR100s and tried lightning for T16. Feels like it could be a little underwhelming though with the nerf from 600 to 450 to 300 for Serpent Sparker and Magistrate. If they can push it back to 450 each then I think that'll allow it to compete better with the new Witch Doc Spirit Sprinkler and WW Barb.

It is a little unclear, is hydra weaker in general? Or was lightning hydra weaker?
What did you think of lightning?
I mean I guess speed running T100 in 4 minutes is way better/faster than I've done with any class.
Were you using deathwish or no?

Also, with shields, you don't need to dodge all the damage. As long as the shield is up, hits won't proc the damage debuff of squirt's.

Ah sorry, I mean the set in general. It's a good set and yes, being able to speed run GR100 in 4 mins with no Augs and only a couple of ancients is pretty decent. But I do have 2200 Paragon too.

Frost felt better, but then I was also in a GR push build config so I had Deathwish and Etched Sigil. Lighting build was more geared for speed clearing T16 where you don't need quite as much damage so I was using Aether Walker.

But in terms of being able to compete with something like WWBarb and the WD Sprinkler, yeah, it does feel a little underpowered which is why I think if they put it back to 450 or even 400, then that could help.

600-300 does seem like a big nerf. But apparently that was because LoD hydra was "outperforming" set hydra...?

Updates on the wizard hydra build:

I went from 2 pants (rerolled one to shoulders) of the new set to 5 pieces in seemingly an hour this morning. The new set is awesome!

Tasker and Theo added to the set without using deathwish nor having magistrate equipped = T16 capable. I only have 775 paragon so that isn't crazy bonuses. It is not as fast at clearing as DW+Serpent+Magi+LoD+etched but it is much easier and I didn't have any problems with fluke spike damage deaths because of squirts.

I would actually rank tasker and theo higher on the priority list than magistrate and deathwish but lower than serpent striker for both the hydra set and hydra LoD. The difference it makes especially on frost hydra is incredible. (frost hydra is the best BTW)
Now you are losing a significant chunk of DPS from not having magistrate's novas. So the first order of business with the set is finding the last piece so I can swap out the set helm for magistrate. (Tasker is cubed)

On the LoD hydra front, I was shocked that with a couple more hours of gearing, she is GR 80 minimum capable. And that was without tasker and LoD is only rank 65. Also I ranked up stricken to 25 to get the +elite bonuses and haven't tested that out either. I also found the last socketed ring that I am ranking up taegoks in.

So in short, I don't have anywhere near 2000 paragon and I can see many paths to half time clears of GR 100 with both LoD and the hydra set.

LoD hydra next steps - 7-8 more ancients to equip (ancient source will be key), in the season test out deathwish vs echoing fury or echoing + deathwish ideally, rank gems (tae, lod, strick), get better chest (aquila's ancient) and pants (ancient and better than pox)

Hydra Set - get set chest so I can swap out helm for magistrate, get better rolls or ancients on set gear, test echoing fury replacing deathwish, find replacement for etched sigil ( I don't think i need deathwish + etched anymore), replace unused LoD gem with bane of trapped.

RNG gods are in my favor. I have practically gotten everything I want and now I am mowing down empowered GR 75 with a hair less than 11 minutes remaining!

Echoing fury is awesome. The frost nova of magistrate is 2 shotting emp GR 75 trash. I liked winter's flurry on the build but found another source that was ancient and had way better stats.

Anyways, you guys can take a look...
My hydra set wizard.

Fang, I used your reference as a template and transmuted myself a set of Typhons. As you said, very nice! The Hydras absolutely smash stuff, and I've got two pieces of Tal Rasha plus some area effects on my sidekick so weird stuff is going off every second, seems like. Very extrovert.

Thanks!

Awesome! That build I posted with I think a piece or 2 that I found replacements for can clear GR85. The hydras start to fade enough that it takes just on the cusp of too long to kill trash that the echoing fury procs less regularly. It is crazy how a few percentages here or there will make the difference between clearing with 7 minutes remaining and 45 seconds remaining. (the rift layouts were poor as well)

So I am testing gem combinations. Trapped and Stricken are musts. I am going to level pain enhancer next to see how the rank 25 attack speed bonus plays out. Taeguks is really good but I have to be channeling for the boosts so that means less mobility to keep the shields up. I tried Gogok but the attack speed tops out at 15% which is easily exceeded by pain enhancer. And if I find a winter flurry with good rolls, that might be interesting yet doubling down on trash killing to be effective. I might look into enforcer. I'll have to look up how high the bonus gets at rank 75+

I think I settled on Trapped and Stricken myself. Are you getting Echoing Fury from the cube?