I have reached level cap with my monk, and mostly solo. I’m at the very end of hell and about to take on Diablo. The entire game up until this point has been extremely easy and I rarely die, BUT this is due in large part to my obsessive gear optimization.
I upgrade weapons almost every level, and have been in full rares with desirable stats. The key to that has been some serious AH watching and buying/selling.
Ninyu
5742
It is much harder if you choose not to buy your way to the end. However, it is still possible to solo in all the difficulties provided you spend a lot of time farming for gear. To each their own.
I’m’a buy the shit out of that AH. It’s either that or upgrade my blacksmith, who has already way outleveled me – I’m 21 and he’s learned to make level 26 shit already… and what the fuck else am I going to spend all this gold on?
Speaking of which, is there an achievement for completing the game (I"d guess Hell Diablo would qualify with Inferno being what it is…) without using the AH (and, optionally, without using the shared stash either)?
Seems there should be, it’d be an additional feather for folks who don’t like the AH.
I wouldn’t think so. Not with the Real Money AH on the way. If anything, blizzard would give you an achievment for using the AH.
Pogo
5746
Of course they’re bullshit. We live in a day and age where the first thing someone does when their shit gets fucked is to blame someone else.
Pogo
5747
This is the mentality I don’t understand. Why would you not want to go onward with the items you have and maybe, just maybe, take more than two hits to kill 10 mobs? Perhaps you’ll find out that the combat system allows for you to do something other than spam two skills, blow everyone up, and move onward? Just a suggestion.
If you’re playing solo, do whatever, but if someone in a multiplayer game tells me to wait because they’re going back to re-equp a whole new set of rares that they bought every two or three levels, I’m not going to wait.
It’s interesting, because with the monk I remember reading that one of Blizzard’s goals was that it reward skill. Exploding Palm is a good example – if you can get the timing right with it, your effective DPS goes up substantially. I wonder how many other kinds of DPS-boosting micro-tactics like this the other classes have, and how much difference it actually makes. WoW this ain’t – sub-second timing makes a real difference in play.
(Which, of course, makes lag spikes utterly shitty. Hope they get that crap sorted, because it’s seriously eating my DRM-positive viewpoint.)
I don’t make people wait at all while I re-tune. I finish the chapter out, sometimes even the act and then leave.
Your mind’s eye of the situation differs from the reality quite a bit. I need to use all of my skills to survive on a consistent basis.
I really enjoy the fine tuning and gear optimization aspects of this game and games like this. I geek out on dodge chance and crit damage, and then meld my skills and runes to match the gear or vice versa. If I’m not trying to optimize then I’m having a lot less fun.
Finding a grossly mis-priced deal on the auction house is like finding treasure.
This is true. I just wish that more people would put in a buyout price. I have a hard time placing a bid for an item then having to wait for two days to maybe get it. This game is about instant gratification, damit.
Amen. Buyout prices FTW, that’s the only way I want to bother to get anything.
This in itself makes my AH interactions tractable – if I were obsessively watching bids and trying to keep up, it would get waaaaaaaay too boring. It also ensures that I don’t throw myself at trying to get the most uber pieces available, which moderates the “AH = win button” factor considerably.
Any news whether it is safe to play public games again?
From what blizzard says, it was always safe. No confirmed account hacks on people with an authenticator attached.
Yea there were tin-foil-hat types talking about session ids getting hijacked even without being in a public game with someone. No one has had a session more ripe for picking than mine. Since the servers came up solid mid-day on the 16th my computer has been logged into D3 more than not. One game session went for like 10 hours because I was afraid to drop back to the login screen.
Well I finally got around to finishing act 4 with my barbarian. Without ever using anything from the AH I had somewhere north of 450 deeps. It could probably have been higher, but in the first room of act 4 I found a magic nodachi. While my rare bastard sword and shield technically had better damage and defense, I decided “Fuck it, I want to run though heaven killing demons with a glowing nodachi.”
And then I finished it off by achieving the achieviest of achievments:
Is it sad to admit I am already bored with Diablo III? My main character is a Barbarian up to Act II nightmare and I have Act I normal of every other class. Same problem happened to me in Diablo II. It’s a very classy well made game but man it became tedious for me fast.
Well, I made it to level 20 with a hardcore monk and I have to say, I’m enjoying hardcore a lot more than my “immortal” characters. I’ve got my stash stuffed to the brim with good stuff that I could use to equip a future character if I die, and the game is more… thrilling, I guess, knowing that I could die at any second and wipe out all my progress.
I’d like to put my HC monk aside for now and build up my immortals because I want the system to be rock solid before I go any further; too many stories of lag killing HC characters. I’d like to, but I feel like I’d be taking a step back. Oh, to hell with it! /generous wink
Why did you buy it if you didn’t like Diablo 2?
Make no mistake I did enjoy them. But not to replay through multiple times with exactly the same content.
