5461

My issue with loot is that it’s pretty boring. I know you can get chance to blind/stun/etc on weapons but that’s pretty much it in terms of cool mechanics. I take it there’s no “chance to cast x random spell”?

5462

I don’t think so.

5463

So you are saying you should use a 2h weapon instead? You will get definitely superior DPS (given weapon equivalence) with a 2h over dual wield?

I have a question for everyone who has beaten Nightmare Act 2. The prince of lies, how do you beat him? I have a wizard with diamond skin, teleport and ice armor for defense. I have chain lighting, blizzard and disintegrate for offense. Last night I had 6500hp and my DPS was about 1300. My crystal armor give me another 8k life.

So I tried this demon like 15 times before giving up. The particular thing that gets me is when he puts his arms into the ground and starts spawning those green pools all over the place. If I am in one of these things when it pops, it will shatter my diamond armor. If I am not in armor, I will die. Anyway it would be ideal if I could avoid them, but it seems to be luck if I can avoid it. If I make it past the first time he does this, it is doubtful Ill make it past the 2nd time. How do you avoid this stuff? I can’t find the pattern.

I did buy some gear to boost my HP to 11000 and DPS to 1500. Ill try again tonight, but I am thinking the extra health will only buy me one or two hits in that case. Healing it up will be an issue since health potions will not even come close to healing all that health.

5464

I think their intention is to make people “play the game” - not grind bosses. Which is a sound philosophy, but not what’s happening here though.

They’re making bosses irrelevant - and if you want to kill them, it’s mostly meaningless after completion.

Also, they’ve made packs skippable, which kinda defeats the challenge of getting through Inferno. I think they should make them somehow mandatory or less easy to circumvent - and I think they should introduce a more sensible combination of powers - whilst keeping them randomized.

I think it’s great that they’re making non-bosses interesting and carry phat l00t - but why would you actively prevent people from farming bosses, if that’s what they prefer? I mean - they could have some random attributes on those as well - and make them at least comparable in challenge and loot drops.

That would make “playing the game” a bit more meaningful than simply traversing the countryside looking for packs, and retain a sensation of having a “goal” that’s actually satisfying to reach more than once.

5465

Except that leveling in an MMO is more interesting than going through normal in Diablo 3, though admittedly also more time consuming.

5466

I thought that bosses drop more loot when you have that valour buff that kicks in at level 60 when you kill an elite group? I think the idea is that you kill an elite group, get the buff, and keep killing elites on your way to the boss (as the buff disappears if you don’t kill an elite in a certain amount of time? Maybe?) and then kill the boss to get bonus loot… Something like that.

From Blizzard:

By killing a Rare or Champion pack, not only do you get their loot, but you’ll also receive a buff granting you increased magic find and gold find. However, if you change a skill, skill rune, passive, or leave the game, the buff disappears. As an extra reward, if you kill a boss while this buff is active, you’ll receive extra loot drops from that boss.

We expect this system will encourage players to stick with a skill build of their choice, select an area of the game they enjoy, and sweep it for rare and champion packs on their way to a boss, finishing off a run with a boss that’ll be worth killing.

But all that only comes into play at level 60. I don’t know what level you’re at.

5467

I think he’s saying that the loss of armor from the Shield isn’t worth the 15% increase in damage from a second 1H weapon.

and have some packs be a pain for ranged (like pulling them close) - and some packs be a pain for melee. This is not how it is in the game currently.

Vortex? :)

5468

But all that only comes into play at level 60. I don’t know what level you’re at.

Yeah, I know about this buff - and it’s a fine idea. But bosses supposedly drop worse loot - which is understandable given their scripted and predictable nature.

I’m just saying that “playing the game” shouldn’t just mean hunting for packs. That’s one way to play, surely, but if it made sense to kill bosses as well - then it’d be an alternative.

I’ve heard nothing about bosses giving “special prizes” if you have this buff, but if that’s true - then that’s a pretty good incentive to get to them. I’d be happy about that.

Doesn’t change that it’s kinda silly that people are clearing Inferno by skipping the packs, though - even if I don’t really care about it. I intend to clear Inferno by doing regular content - not just exploiting weaknesses in the design.

5469

AFAIK, this is a pain for both ranged and melee - kinda like mortar. But it’d be great if 9 out of 10 packs in Inferno didn’t mean you had to play hit-and-run like a madman as a melee dude.

5470

That valor thing affects bosses too. It’s just that bosses don’t have as high a chance to drop crazy loot as elites or champions, but they still CAN. In fact, anything can drop anything, they have stated. More so with the valor buff running. If you want to run to a boss and defeate elites/champs along the way, then kill the boss, you’ll get great stuff doing that. There is no reason to want bosses to drop better gear than they already do, near as I can tell. For one thing, boss fights are A LOT easier than champion/elite packs. A LOT. They shouldn’t drop better stuff than the most challenging fights in the game.

5471

Again, from Blizzard:

As an extra reward, if you kill a boss while this buff is active, you’ll receive extra loot drops from that boss

So I don’t know 100% what that means, but it looks like there is some kind of bonus for killing bosses with the buff.

5472

Tieman: So in your opinion you should be sword and board? If things are balanced then 2H = Duel Weild and therefor both are inferior (according to you) to sword and board? Got any numbers or is this just a subjective feeling you have after playing?

5473

Is ~15% more damage worth more than a decent boost to armor? I’d say it depends on the player, their playstyle, and the situation. I’d take the extra damage on my Demon Hunter, personally.

5474

My entire point is that bosses shouldn’t be less challenging, actually.

5475

I really like how Borderlands did this. The legendary weapons had unique properties that were added on top of regular equipment specs (that’s an abstraction but run with it). So you could find a Hellfire SMG at all different levels with different properties. Compare that to Diablo uniques that are always a particular level, e.g. frostburn gauntlets are always level 22. Instead Frostburn could have been a property that had a tiny chance to spawn on any rare glove at any level.

Diablo is all about the rares in this incarnation.

5476

Those of you who are actually seeing stuff like legendary items and recipes - are you playing solo or with groups? I am a bit curious how much multiple people in the game affects drop rates. I was at 41 hours over 4 characters at the end of last night, and I haven’t seen anything in the ‘fun’ loot categories (with one character in Act 3 Hell, one in Act 3 Nightmare, and two others still in Normal). About 98% of that was solo play, though.

I also feel like AH prices are way out of whack when it comes to that stuff, incidentally. People are putting up level 40 or 50 items for 500k+ gold and actually expecting people to buy them? Really? Is someone duping gold already or am I just doing something really, really wrong?

5477

If things are balanced then 2H = Duel Weild and therefor both are inferior (according to you) to sword and board?

As a general rule, caster skill damage is based off weapon damage (not DPS). So it’s perversely often the case that WDs are better off using a 2H maul than their class specific weapon/off hand combo. This is doubly so for those running a mana/AP intensive builds, as slower cast time for the same DPS means less mana usage.

5478

People are just stupid. I think I saw a random level 30-ish item for a billion gold. Similarly with people who put up leveling items without buyouts. Who is going to wait a day and a half for a level 15 rare?

5479

I am almost certain it is based off of DPS. As far as fast or slow attacks, I just pick whatever gives the best DPS at the time. I have an off-hand item for int, damage, and attack speed. This with my single handed weapon so far, gives me far more DPS than any 2h I have run into.

5480

I believe this is incorrect.