Diablo III Catch-All 2.0

Good thing you have 10 years or so to get those wings.....

So I don't know why it has taken me this long. Probably because I haven't really delved into the higher GR's before. But, I stumbled onto the skill builder.
I was interested in it because I wanted to understand all the real numbers behind damage, toughness, etc.

So my best geared most successful character to date is a spin barb that does 160 billion damage with rend that is cast on every hit of whirlwind. She also has ~160 million toughness idle and closer to 350 million with the buffs from spinning and gems.

It also helped me learn why my disintegrate/frozen orb wizard paled in power compared to disintegrate/meteor. (frozen orb was doing roughly 12 billion damage and meteor was over 60 billion)

So I experimented with a witch doctor guargantuan build that will take a long time to get but is really exciting. 2 piece jade, 5 piece zuni and 2 piece crimson. With the right gems and rings, my gargantuans are doing 70 billion damage, haunt can toss on another 17 billion, fetishes are doing 40 billion and zombie dogs are doing 25 billion

phew, that is a lot of numbers.

fangblackbone wrote:

But, I stumbled onto the skill builder.

Where, pray tell?

So Path of Building for Diablo?

I wish D3 had some kind of UI that showed average or peak damage over the last N seconds, or ANY way to gauge a build other than "carefully watch the tiny tiny numbers".

fenomas wrote:

I wish D3 had some kind of UI that showed average or peak damage over the last N seconds, or ANY way to gauge a build other than "carefully watch the tiny tiny numbers".

I thought that's what the Greater Rift timers and levels were for.

https://www.d3planner.com/

Found the import tab and discovered that my actual barb (not the rereated barb) does 180 billion damage with rend.

Vargen wrote:
fenomas wrote:

I wish D3 had some kind of UI that showed average or peak damage over the last N seconds, or ANY way to gauge a build other than "carefully watch the tiny tiny numbers".

I thought that's what the Greater Rift timers and levels were for.

GR timers are the thing one optimizes towards, I mean a way to do the optimizing. Like: "with these gloves my Rend does 5M but with those it does 5.5M" etc.

I mean, in principle that information is already available, but UI-wise the numbers involved are small and overlap with each other and tons of other visual noise, so it's just really inconvenient.

fangblackbone wrote:

https://www.d3planner.com/

Wow, that tool has come a reaaalllly long way since last I saw it! It has some blind spots though I guess. On the build I imported a couple of the build-defining affixes aren't (I guess?) supported by the simulation, so it simulated the same damage with and without the gear.

You do a rift with one pair of gloves then you do the same level rift with the other and see what works better. That's like, the entire game.

On the topic of the new season, I wonder if having three element immunity amulets is going to break things?
The new season bonus is that you can cube anything (weapon, armor, jewelry) in any slot. So you can cube 3 rings, 3 weapons or 3 armors or any combination of them.

I didn't use the simulation with d3planner. It was enough to highlight the skill and see the gross damage as well as all the bonuses that were being applied.

fangblackbone wrote:

I didn't use the simulation with d3planner. It was enough to highlight the skill and see the gross damage as well as all the bonuses that were being applied.

Ah weird, that UI does grok the bonuses that were getting left out when I tried the simulation bit.

It really highlights how misleading Blizzards character stat page is.
One character can be within 10% here or there but can be doing 10 times the damage.
It also illustrates how much things like +skill damage really effects that skill. And how 6 piece bonuses are pretty much mandatory for GRs 90 or above.

Well, in defense of the LCS (ah there's a throwback) the UI does show you which affixes it does and doesn't model. It was pretty accurate back before 2.0, but even nowadays it's still useful to gauge overall gear level, and also for comparing e.g. two different drops of the same set item.

Actually come to think of it I think "toughness" on the LCS is pretty accurate. I'm not sure if there are any major defensive stats that it doesn't take into account.

fangblackbone wrote:

On the topic of the new season, I wonder if having three element immunity amulets is going to break things?
The new season bonus is that you can cube anything (weapon, armor, jewelry) in any slot. So you can cube 3 rings, 3 weapons or 3 armors or any combination of them.

It kinda should. But the game is so damage focused, that the dmg loss you take from those 3 (or even 4) slots would likely outweigh the added survival, making you unable to push as far as you could before.
For HC characters it seems like it could make things a fair bit easier though.

fenomas wrote:

GR timers are the thing one optimizes towards, I mean a way to do the optimizing. Like: "with these gloves my Rend does 5M but with those it does 5.5M" etc.

I mean, in principle that information is already available, but UI-wise the numbers involved are small and overlap with each other and tons of other visual noise, so it's just really inconvenient.

I think A-RPGs should always come with a combat log and a"self-only" dmg meter. Would make testing and theorycrafting that much easier, and arguably more enjoyable.

Testing purely by seeing how fast/far you can push GRifts doesnt tell that much, considering how random each GRift are.

One thing the in game character sheet does that the skill builder does not is give elemental damage reduction. If you highlight your all res stat in game, it gives a percentage. The skill builder just gives you the total res without the %reduction. Which is weird because there is a general damage reduction stat on the skill builder...

Anyone try out the PTR yet?

I had it loaded this morning but the servers were down (of course because they'll likely open at 9am or 5pm pacific)

ZOMG don't fire up the PTR.
You are warned
You wanted to make some progress on the pile but NOOOO. You had to change to the PTR realm and press play ;P

Spoiler:

The new wizard hydra set is AWESOOOOME!

I casually built a lightning version (I'm guessing there is a frostburn or rimeheart cold build among others) and didn't have time to move around the set pieces to incorporate Magister's helm. I equipped the halo of karini ring but I don't think I even needed it. The other ring was mana heald but again, I don't know if I even needed that. Lastly, I tried to get free hydras from etched sigil and that won't work because the hydras last twice as long and can't be recast that way until they die or expire. (they can be recast at will via the skill though) - again though, not needed.

With above average but not great gear (gear I got from the PTR vendor was ~10% worse than the GR45 gear I copied to the PTR), the hydras alone were able to blow through T10 rift. I was untouchable and when I forced being hit, the damage was ~10% health.

I hope it doesn't get nerfed. I feel it is comparable to the spin barb but my guess is it is a hair on the weaker side (maybe 10GR). Plus there is skill based risked. If you start getting hit, you will lose hydra heads and the fall/danger will come quickly.

These sorts of new mechanics (along with the WD set's damage based on mana per second) are very refreshing to an 8 year old game. They are exactly the type of thing D3 should have been doing for years.

Im interesteed in the hydra set too. I have a weakness for pet builds, and Blizzard has kinda butchered most of D3s pet builds over time, by changing them to be "pets buff your attacks" instead of "you buff your pets attacks". I understand why they have done it, to avoid a playstyle where you can be afk while pets murder everything, but that should be solvable in better ways (like you having to do something actively for the increased pet dmg to apply).

fangblackbone wrote:

These sorts of new mechanics (along with the WD set's damage based on mana per second) are very refreshing to an 8 year old game. They are exactly the type of thing D3 should have been doing for years.

Yeah, some of the best skill designs in D3 was the few ones that scale with your pickup radius, life regen, resists etc. Making the gear/build interaction more interesting. Same holds true for sets.

Fang, the Hydra set currently can do a GR115 in 10 minutes with around 1000 paragon and no Augs. Definitely very appealing set!

FYI, Echoing Fury is the bees knees
It is a major AP drain for wizards but it is so worth it!

I'm basically a noob, I got the Switch version for Christmas after not having played since literally two weeks after the original PC version launched. I played into Act 2 with a normal mode witch doctor, then switched to a season mode crusader. I just finished the campaign and hit 70 on the commute this morning. I'm very not a min-maxer.

A while ago, I happened to pick up a legendary chest piece that does something like increase your thorns by 297% of your vitality. I didn't think much of it, then noticed that one of the runes on my "drop a circle that does something for 18 seconds" ability changes it to "enemies in the circle take 500% thorns damage." I tried that out, and it absolutely melts mobs. Then I started focusing on gear that buffed vitality and thorns, and abilities that do thorns damage. I've now got a build that just demolishes everything and it's great fun.

Problem is that the lynchpin seems to be that chest piece. Without it, my thorns damage drops a lot, and the build is much less effective. The piece is way lower level than me at this point. I've been playing on hard up until now to power through to 70, but I'm about to start kicking up the difficulty, and I'm not sure if the lower stats will affect survivability. Is that something that I'll need to worry about, or is there some way to boost the base stats of that piece while keeping that one modifier?

Chaz wrote:

I'm basically a noob, I got the Switch version for Christmas after not having played since literally two weeks after the original PC version launched. I played into Act 2 with a normal mode witch doctor, then switched to a season mode crusader. I just finished the campaign and hit 70 on the commute this morning. I'm very not a min-maxer.

A while ago, I happened to pick up a legendary chest piece that does something like increase your thorns by 297% of your vitality. I didn't think much of it, then noticed that one of the runes on my "drop a circle that does something for 18 seconds" ability changes it to "enemies in the circle take 500% thorns damage." I tried that out, and it absolutely melts mobs. Then I started focusing on gear that buffed vitality and thorns, and abilities that do thorns damage. I've now got a build that just demolishes everything and it's great fun.

Problem is that the lynchpin seems to be that chest piece. Without it, my thorns damage drops a lot, and the build is much less effective. The piece is way lower level than me at this point. I've been playing on hard up until now to power through to 70, but I'm about to start kicking up the difficulty, and I'm not sure if the lower stats will affect survivability. Is that something that I'll need to worry about, or is there some way to boost the base stats of that piece while keeping that one modifier?

Go into Adventure mode and take Zoltan Khul's quest to find Kunai's Cube. Once you get that you can extract that critical legendary item bonus and use it in addition to whatever you are actually wearing.

Chaz wrote:

Problem is that the lynchpin seems to be that chest piece. Without it, my thorns damage drops a lot, and the build is much less effective. The piece is way lower level than me at this point. I've been playing on hard up until now to power through to 70, but I'm about to start kicking up the difficulty, and I'm not sure if the lower stats will affect survivability. Is that something that I'll need to worry about, or is there some way to boost the base stats of that piece while keeping that one modifier?

Nice! Short version: it sounds like you're playing story mode, right? If you've beaten the campaign you can switch over to Adventure mode, where there's an item that lets you extract a legendary power from legendary items - so you could get that thorns buff even while wearing other armor. It's in Act 3, Ruins of Sescheron. Note that doing the extraction requires some materials, which you can get* by running bounties (zone-specific quests that only show up in Adventure mode - check the map, each act will have five bounty quests, and if you complete all five you get some items and materials as a reward).

Or your other option is to start killing L70 demons until they drop your chest (or something else you like better...). The legendary affix won't be any better (every "Heart of Iron" has +250-300% thorns, regardless of what level the item is), but L70 items have much higher base stats (vit, str..) which will greatly help both damage and survivability.

(*Note, one other way to get mats for extracting legendary affixes is the weekly challenge mode - the third option besides adventure and campaign. But if you're not familiar with endgame items and builds you might want to put it off for later.)

And note that challenge rifts can vary in complexity and difficulty greatly.

Thorns end game builds were all the rage up to a few seasons ago. It was so crazy min maxed that players would re-roll damage on their weapons for +thorns damage. Another departure is that thorns does not crit so unlike nearly all end game builds that rely on crit, these thorns builds would remove it for again +thorns damage or defensive stats.

The thorns chest piece is a pretty common find. So odds are that you will find a higher level replacement in a dozen or so hours of adventure mode.

The Kunai's Cube also has a recipe for upgrading rare items to legendaries. So the combination of adventuring, crafting and using blood shards at the blood shard vendor will get you a replacement very quickly.

I definitely switched over to adventure mode after finishing the campaign, and I picked up the cube yesterday. I need to figure out where all the different drops for mats come from so I can do the extract the attribute thing. I also need to wrap my head around what endgame winds up looking like. I've done a few of whatever the first level rifts are, and did one greater rift. That was quite a difficulty jump, and I didn't realize until too late that I probably want to be running past everything except elite+ mobs, and I wound up finishing thirty seconds after the timer expired. I don't know how the difficulty gets set for those, but I think it might have been T13? But I don't know if that's good or not.

Complete all the bounties in an act and you get a bonus chest that will drop gear and the mats you will need for the cube. The mat is specific to each of the 5 acts and the recipes require various amounts of all 5 mats.

You will also need death breaths which most commonly drop from champions and elites. The fastest way to farm them is by completing normal (not greater) rifts. The higher the Torment difficulty, the more DB's will drop per elite kill.

For normal (non act specific) mats, you will be getting those from salvaging blue, white, yellow, gold and green gear at the blacksmith.

Ah, it's that bonus chest is what drops them. I didn't have any context for what I was grabbing, since I hadn't gotten the cube yet. Thanks!

As noted above, doing the Challenge Rift once a week gets you mats for conversions and item mods. So when you see one you can finish, go for it!

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So I am leery of the conqueror and conquests this season.
I missed out on getting the pets and the extra stash tab in the seasons prior to 19 so now that it is the realm of possibility for me to get them, I gots ta have them.

I know I can do the reach level 75 GR solo. I think I can do the 350 kill cursed chest. I do not want to do the 8 set dungeons... at all. I think I can do the 6x 6 piece set GR 55 clears. But that will take a quite a bit of time and that precludes I can get 5 pieces from each set. These have Hardcore variants yes? So I could get credit for 3 conquests by doing 350 kill on normal and hardcore + GR 75 solo on normal?

Totally going wizard this time and probably start on hardcore. Hydras will be the bomb either with the set or with Legacy of Dreams. You can easily hit T12-T14 with an above average LoD etched sigil build.

Right now I am running that build to see how far I can push it before the new season begins. I have aquila's cubed, the halo ring that reduces damage with storm armor, deathwish and etched sigil. I use familiar with the AP on hit and ray of frost (with less AP cost rune) to proc frozen orb and black hole. I have echoing fury cubed which insanely boosts damage but drains AP. (hence using ray of frost + familiar with APoH to keep aquila's up)

I also am following the route that uses squirt's necklace + galvanizing passive since the shield offsets the negative damage from squirt's. Ideally I would wear aquila's so that I could cube the bracer that doubles shields so that I can keep the ancient bracers I have that spawns champions at shrines. (dangerous yet totally amazing in helping shave minutes off GR clears)

For a boost in HP I decided to wear a leoric's crown with an amethyst. I also have mantra of channeling.

With this build, there are several avenues to pursue for improvement. But I am clearing GR 65 with 5-6 minutes left. My LoD is only level 55 and I have bane of the stricken equipped at level 1 with no other legendary gems. I have probably 6 pieces that need to be upgraded to ancient. (or hell, primal would make a huge difference) I could level up bane of the stricken and taeguks to decent levels to push further. I am using magefist but should switch to the cold gloves since I am using ray of frost and frozen orb. (get some decent CC out of it too)

So, long story short, it is wizard for me this season