*** The Official Diablo III Thread ***
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Sorry I'm too far off the ground to hear you right now, since I'm enjoying the game and not whining about it, my bad.
Dragged the DH through normal last night, another 125k in the bank that was then spent on gems, didn't enjoy it at all though, lol! Wizard or Witch Doctor next but really unsure which to go with. Have been picking classes based on what newb gear I have, and I have very little int based stuff as it's not dropped.
To be honest no AH ****es me off no end, and I would guess that a high percentage of the Diablo 3 community are upset about it. So its probably more the case that people dont understand your senseless acceptance of something that should be working.
It's a joke, when you pay for something you expect it to be working, this game has been full of bugs since launch and patience is running thin.....even for me who in the begining was sympathetic to Blizzard, its gone on too long...
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Sorry I'm too far off the ground to hear you right now, since I'm enjoying the game and not whining about it, my bad.
Take a bow
Seen a few posts recently from Demon Hunters who are struggling with Inferno, so thought I'd post a sort of guide to the way I approached the game which should hopefully give some options for people to explore.
I've played a DH since day 1 of release. I cleared all of Inferno (including Act 1) pre damage nerf, but post smokescreen duration nerf. I did this using the glass cannon approach, which is to stack dex, crit chance, crit damage and attack speed at the expense of all survival stats. Before patch 1.0.3 this was a very viable build due to the damage provided by Nether Tentacles and whilst I died a lot since basically 1 hit from anything would kill me, I still progressed steadily and was able to farm Act3 and 4 pretty effectively.
Since patch 1.0.3 I found this playstyle a lot less viable. Damage from Nether Tentacles was halved, and the reduction in attack speed on items meant longer fights, meaning more opportunities to be one shot. Whilst there are still glass cannons out there, it requires high levels of concentration and a lot of patience due to deaths from 1 shotting.
Just before 1.0.3 hit, I sold all my gear on the RMAH and then when 1.0.3 hit I started at the beginning of Act 1 with a character naked except for a chest piece and a 900 dps bow I had in my stash.
I decided to regear as what I think is probably Blizzard's vision of how a late Inferno DH should be geared. This means, getting enough survival stats to be able to take a few hits whilst still keeping dps high enough to make farming viable.
Firstly we need to think about how much of everything we need to survive. Then we need to look at what each gear slot has to offer in terms of possible properties to decide where we need to make compromises to keep things on budget.
The key stats we are interested in are
Dexterity - Damage and dodge %
Vitality - Health
All resistance - Reduced damage from all types
Physical resistance - Reduced damage from physical attacks
Armor - Reduced damage from all types
Critical Hit Chance - Increases the chance to crit
Critical Hit Damage - Increases the damage from each crit
Attack Speed - Increases rate of attack but also speeds up the attack animation , important for 2h xbow users who kite!
Secondary stats which we dont need to stack, but do provide benefits
Intelligence - 10int = 1 all resist
Strength - 1 str = 1 armor
Life % - only of real value if you have lots of Vitality
Fire resistance - Reduced damage from fire based attacks
Life on Hit - Adds x amount of life per successful attack
So, how the heck do we go about balancing all of this? Well you can use a tool like http://rubensayshi.github.com/d3-ehp-calculator/ which gives you an effective health value for each stat. This if nothing else will highlight the importance of resists in increasing your effective health.
Its very difficult to put a 'you need THIS much to survive Act x' because so much depends on your playstyle and, to be honest, your skill level. What I'm going to do is give a slot by slot guide as to what you should be looking for and leave the exact balancing of each slot to you. For Act 1, dont look for perfect items, just try and be balanced and then upgrade incrementally as you find stuff or make enough gold to buy on the AH. Always be mindful of any tradeoffs you have to make and have a plan to make them good in another slot so you are never going backwards. For instance if I trade off 30 vit on gloves for a dps upgrade, I'll be looking to gain 30 vit somewhere else.
Primary Weapon
--------------
Look for the highest dps weapon you can afford with either a socket or high crit damage and ideally a high amount of dexterity. Vitality and life on hit are a bonus.
Amulets and Gloves
------------------
These are your big dps slots. They can have the highest values for Crit Chance and Crit damage, and can also have attack speed. You should be looking for high dex + at least one of the 3 properties already mentioned. The more the better but the price rises exponentially as each is added to the same item. You should also try if possible to get some resistances (ideally all resistance) in these slots but for Act 1 it wont matter if you dont. If you can only have 1 resist, make sure its physical or fire. Vitality is a bonus.
Rings
-----
These are your secondary dps slots. Rings can have crit damage, crit chance and attack speed but at lower maximum values than amulets and gloves. To start gearing I would be looking for dex + crit chance + a little bit of vit and resistance. Again adding multiple damage adding properties sends the price through the roof.
Helm
----
You can gain a big chunk of life % by getting a helm with a socket, but to start with look for Dex, resistances and crit chance 3% or higher. Vitality is a bonus.
Bracers
-------
Same as helm but no chance of a socket.
Quiver
------
Quivers were the only item that didnt get an attack speed nerf. They can also have the +max discipline property which adds massively to your survival due to allowing increased use of DH defensive skills. Finally a quiver can have pretty high critical hit chance. A decent quiver will have all of these and some dexterity. So, Dex, Attack speed, Crit Chance, Max Discipline.
Boots
-----
The one unique property for boots is movement speed. 10% is enough for you to be able to kite most things that dont have a fast affix. After this you should be stacking dex, all resistance and then as much vit as you can get whilst not compromising on the first 2.
Legs/Shoulders/Belt/Chest
-------------------------
These are your big survival slots. They cannot roll any useful dps stats other than dexterity so you should be using these to stack as much vit and resistance as you can whilst still keeping dexterity high. Life % is a bonus, as is +max discipline on chests.
With these gear weightings in mind, you should be able to plan a series of upgrades that fits within your budget but also makes your character both more powerful and better able to survive.
Build
-----
the build I use is as follows
Hungering Arrow + Devouring Arrow = Best single target dps a DH can get with decent crit chance
Elemental Arrow + Nether Tentacles = Even post nerf I find this the most comfortable hatred spender. When gloom tanking the bit of lifesteal does help. The fact it passes through targets helps with invun minion champs. Slow moving means you can walk them into mobs that are just off screen.
Vault + Tumble = I find this invaluable when cornered as you can get past mobs that are blocking you. Its also useful for kiting fast moving elites and with tumble uses very little discipline. Finally when act 1 farming I just vault past all the trash and kill the elites
Preparation + Backup Plan = Instant discipline refresh with a chance at no cooldown. Since all our defensive skills use discipline this is kind of a must have. Rune choice can vary but most people use backup plan.
Smokescreen + Lingering Fog = I used to use this a lot more than I do now. Its the only thing we have for breaking CC so its still on my hotbar. I'm thinking of changing the rune to something else though as I really do only use it for CC now, hardly ever tank with it up because it lasts for half the duration of shadowpower with the same disc cost.
Shadowpower + Gloom = 65% damage reduction and 20% lifesteal for 3 seconds, can be chained with enough disc. So long as the lifesteal is outhealing the incoming damage you are effectively invincible.
Archery = required for this playstyle really since it adds so much damage
Steady Aim = 10 yards is not far in D3, so its nearly always on. 20% more damage
Tactical Advantage = Invaluable for kiting, especially fast affix champs. If you are better at kiting than me you can probably lose this one! Makes Act 1 elite farming much faster as you can just sprint through all the trash.
With the stats I have (posted above), there is nothing in Act 3 that can 1 shot me apart from those fat blimp things that fling fireballs which are relatively easy to dodge. Most stuff I can just tank down with Shadowpower/Gloom including named packs other than Phasebeasts and the reaver guys with the big overhead axe attack thing. I am still able to kite effectively due to high dps xbow and movement speed as well as vault with tactical advantage passive. 48 max discipline + preparation means I can burn disc using skills for a long time
Anyway I hope this proves to be of some use. If people have questions feel free to post here or add me Brokkah#2761 and I'll do my best to answer them.
I've played a DH since day 1 of release. I cleared all of Inferno (including Act 1) pre damage nerf, but post smokescreen duration nerf. I did this using the glass cannon approach, which is to stack dex, crit chance, crit damage and attack speed at the expense of all survival stats. Before patch 1.0.3 this was a very viable build due to the damage provided by Nether Tentacles and whilst I died a lot since basically 1 hit from anything would kill me, I still progressed steadily and was able to farm Act3 and 4 pretty effectively.
Since patch 1.0.3 I found this playstyle a lot less viable. Damage from Nether Tentacles was halved, and the reduction in attack speed on items meant longer fights, meaning more opportunities to be one shot. Whilst there are still glass cannons out there, it requires high levels of concentration and a lot of patience due to deaths from 1 shotting.
Just before 1.0.3 hit, I sold all my gear on the RMAH and then when 1.0.3 hit I started at the beginning of Act 1 with a character naked except for a chest piece and a 900 dps bow I had in my stash.
I decided to regear as what I think is probably Blizzard's vision of how a late Inferno DH should be geared. This means, getting enough survival stats to be able to take a few hits whilst still keeping dps high enough to make farming viable.
Firstly we need to think about how much of everything we need to survive. Then we need to look at what each gear slot has to offer in terms of possible properties to decide where we need to make compromises to keep things on budget.
The key stats we are interested in are
Dexterity - Damage and dodge %
Vitality - Health
All resistance - Reduced damage from all types
Physical resistance - Reduced damage from physical attacks
Armor - Reduced damage from all types
Critical Hit Chance - Increases the chance to crit
Critical Hit Damage - Increases the damage from each crit
Attack Speed - Increases rate of attack but also speeds up the attack animation , important for 2h xbow users who kite!
Secondary stats which we dont need to stack, but do provide benefits
Intelligence - 10int = 1 all resist
Strength - 1 str = 1 armor
Life % - only of real value if you have lots of Vitality
Fire resistance - Reduced damage from fire based attacks
Life on Hit - Adds x amount of life per successful attack
So, how the heck do we go about balancing all of this? Well you can use a tool like http://rubensayshi.github.com/d3-ehp-calculator/ which gives you an effective health value for each stat. This if nothing else will highlight the importance of resists in increasing your effective health.
Its very difficult to put a 'you need THIS much to survive Act x' because so much depends on your playstyle and, to be honest, your skill level. What I'm going to do is give a slot by slot guide as to what you should be looking for and leave the exact balancing of each slot to you. For Act 1, dont look for perfect items, just try and be balanced and then upgrade incrementally as you find stuff or make enough gold to buy on the AH. Always be mindful of any tradeoffs you have to make and have a plan to make them good in another slot so you are never going backwards. For instance if I trade off 30 vit on gloves for a dps upgrade, I'll be looking to gain 30 vit somewhere else.
Primary Weapon
--------------
Look for the highest dps weapon you can afford with either a socket or high crit damage and ideally a high amount of dexterity. Vitality and life on hit are a bonus.
Amulets and Gloves
------------------
These are your big dps slots. They can have the highest values for Crit Chance and Crit damage, and can also have attack speed. You should be looking for high dex + at least one of the 3 properties already mentioned. The more the better but the price rises exponentially as each is added to the same item. You should also try if possible to get some resistances (ideally all resistance) in these slots but for Act 1 it wont matter if you dont. If you can only have 1 resist, make sure its physical or fire. Vitality is a bonus.
Rings
-----
These are your secondary dps slots. Rings can have crit damage, crit chance and attack speed but at lower maximum values than amulets and gloves. To start gearing I would be looking for dex + crit chance + a little bit of vit and resistance. Again adding multiple damage adding properties sends the price through the roof.
Helm
----
You can gain a big chunk of life % by getting a helm with a socket, but to start with look for Dex, resistances and crit chance 3% or higher. Vitality is a bonus.
Bracers
-------
Same as helm but no chance of a socket.
Quiver
------
Quivers were the only item that didnt get an attack speed nerf. They can also have the +max discipline property which adds massively to your survival due to allowing increased use of DH defensive skills. Finally a quiver can have pretty high critical hit chance. A decent quiver will have all of these and some dexterity. So, Dex, Attack speed, Crit Chance, Max Discipline.
Boots
-----
The one unique property for boots is movement speed. 10% is enough for you to be able to kite most things that dont have a fast affix. After this you should be stacking dex, all resistance and then as much vit as you can get whilst not compromising on the first 2.
Legs/Shoulders/Belt/Chest
-------------------------
These are your big survival slots. They cannot roll any useful dps stats other than dexterity so you should be using these to stack as much vit and resistance as you can whilst still keeping dexterity high. Life % is a bonus, as is +max discipline on chests.
With these gear weightings in mind, you should be able to plan a series of upgrades that fits within your budget but also makes your character both more powerful and better able to survive.
Build
-----
the build I use is as follows
Hungering Arrow + Devouring Arrow = Best single target dps a DH can get with decent crit chance
Elemental Arrow + Nether Tentacles = Even post nerf I find this the most comfortable hatred spender. When gloom tanking the bit of lifesteal does help. The fact it passes through targets helps with invun minion champs. Slow moving means you can walk them into mobs that are just off screen.
Vault + Tumble = I find this invaluable when cornered as you can get past mobs that are blocking you. Its also useful for kiting fast moving elites and with tumble uses very little discipline. Finally when act 1 farming I just vault past all the trash and kill the elites
Preparation + Backup Plan = Instant discipline refresh with a chance at no cooldown. Since all our defensive skills use discipline this is kind of a must have. Rune choice can vary but most people use backup plan.
Smokescreen + Lingering Fog = I used to use this a lot more than I do now. Its the only thing we have for breaking CC so its still on my hotbar. I'm thinking of changing the rune to something else though as I really do only use it for CC now, hardly ever tank with it up because it lasts for half the duration of shadowpower with the same disc cost.
Shadowpower + Gloom = 65% damage reduction and 20% lifesteal for 3 seconds, can be chained with enough disc. So long as the lifesteal is outhealing the incoming damage you are effectively invincible.
Archery = required for this playstyle really since it adds so much damage
Steady Aim = 10 yards is not far in D3, so its nearly always on. 20% more damage
Tactical Advantage = Invaluable for kiting, especially fast affix champs. If you are better at kiting than me you can probably lose this one! Makes Act 1 elite farming much faster as you can just sprint through all the trash.
With the stats I have (posted above), there is nothing in Act 3 that can 1 shot me apart from those fat blimp things that fling fireballs which are relatively easy to dodge. Most stuff I can just tank down with Shadowpower/Gloom including named packs other than Phasebeasts and the reaver guys with the big overhead axe attack thing. I am still able to kite effectively due to high dps xbow and movement speed as well as vault with tactical advantage passive. 48 max discipline + preparation means I can burn disc using skills for a long time
Anyway I hope this proves to be of some use. If people have questions feel free to post here or add me Brokkah#2761 and I'll do my best to answer them.
Sorry I'm too far off the ground to hear you right now, since I'm enjoying the game and not whining about it, my bad.
Got to say I'm with you on this. Does the AH being up/down really have that much of an impact on your ability to play the game? Sure, you need the AH for upgrades but if the AH is down, I just go and do another act 1 run or watch TV or something.
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I think early drops may be somewhat class specific as I have started a DH and get a lot of DH specific drops. Shame it doesn't translate to inferno for my lvl 60 wizard.
Why does it **** you off? If there wasn't an AH at all in the game would this **** you off? Seems to me you need to chill out and just play the game.
I've had no issue with the game so far. I don't know what 'bugs' people are going on about as I've only played through to Act 2 inferno with my barb but I can't say that anything has ruined my enjoyment of the game. Perhaps it's because I'm not spending 6 hours a night on it like some people are but yeah, I'm still having fun.
Yes
all of my characters gear went on the AH just before the issues started due to wanting to re-gear.So he's naked
That's a bit narrow minded
just because you don't need the AH doesn't mean others don't. Some peoples game is the AH.
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God forbid you are forced to trade like in Diablo 2.
That's a bit narrow minded
I enjoy playing the AH but I don't let it being down annoy me to the point where I declare Blizzard to be the worst thing to happen to computer games etc.
Maybe I'm too casual compared to others in this thread.
With Diablo 3's in game trade system? no thanks, I don't like to get scammed.
Well yeah, "the sky is falling" posts are over the top.
It ****es me off because the AH for me (and MANY others) is a massive part of the enjoyment of playing, SIMPLE, without it I would stop playing 100%. 2nd reason for this being annoying is when you buy something you expect it to work how it says its supposed to, what is so hard to understand?
Do you get this confused when people dont order the same food as you, or wear the same colour clothes as you?
Yeah it is only a game, but the fact remains you people care about this game enough to be posting in a forum.... also....I wonder what would happen if something about the game that you enjoyed stoppped working...wouldnt be acting so high and mighty then I'm guessing haha
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I enjoy the AH (hell, I've even bought and sold using the RMAH). I am not getting angry about the AH because it's just part of the game and will get fixed. I don't need it right this minute to play the game because there's various other things I can do in game and elsewhere. If something breaks, you get it fixed or replace it. Why is that so hard to understand?
What does me posting on the forum have to do with anything? I don't have an emotional bond with this game like you seem to have, I just play it for a couple of hours of fun every couple of days.
Jeez, anyone would think this was life or death or something.
Jay Wilson, post more plz.
Whilst i agree blizzard should have bug tested the ah more before it was released (especially rmah), for a game like diablo to have an ah is something 99% of games will never have and never attempt to do (and no i dont include mmos).
With blizzards track record it should be sorted soon so no point arguing about it.
With blizzards track record it should be sorted soon so no point arguing about it.
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