A friend e-mailed asking me gearing advice and Iâm just pasting the main body here after a short intro.
This is mostly a quick how-to for gearing up. It contains generic information and ignores class specific modifiers, so if you need more hatred regen or whatever, take that into account when building. If you have over a million dps, you probably donât need to read this.
As far as gearing up for the higher difficulties, you basically want to get to the point you can do Torment 1 at a relatively decent clip, and then do it until you can blitz through it at lightning speed. A lot of people play on a higher difficulty than they should, just because they can. This is inefficient. If you can not clear a difficulty with an absolute minimum of stopping, even on elite packs, you probably shouldnât be doing the next one up. The rate at which you kill mobs is the greatest determining factor in your loot-finding. If you want more of a challenge or find blitzing down inconsequential enemies boring, by all means play the way that is most enjoyable for you. Iâm just telling you objectively the best way to go about gearing up, not fun-policing anyone.
Here are some rules of thumb regarding loot. All items should have 4 primary stats, and preferably 2 secondaries, but 4 primaries is mandatory. The game clearly marks all loot affixes as either primary (top skills) or secondary (bottom skills). Use blood shards acquired from Rifts to get loot from Kadala. These are the primary stats you are looking for on each item. When I say Must have, I mean it. That means if you have a legendary and it doesnât have a Must, you either need to use the Mystic to get it, or its a non-usable item and you will be salvaging it as a forgotten soul to improve items that can be made usable. Rare/yellow items with all the musts are superior to most legendaries that do not. This may not be true in the case of set bonuses, or a truly awesome legendary affix that allows or hugely improves a build you want to play.
Helm: Must have Crit%(4-6%), Main stat (Int/Str/Dex depending on class). Choose 2 from the following list based on your survival needs: +Vit, +Socket, +% right mouse button ability, All resist (if a non-int class).
Neck: Must have Crit%(6-10, donât settle for less than 8%), Crit Damage (51-100%) higher is obviously better, Main Stat. Choose 1: +%damage type, +damage range ( shows up as like +50-100 damage, only for high attack speed builds, no 2H DH or Crusaders should take this), +%attack speed, +Vit, +%life.
Shoulders: Main stat, vit, best defensive stat for your class (allres for most classes, armor for wizard/wd), and then your choice of +%life, cooldownredux, resourceredux. Build/survivability dependent on which is best.
Chest: Main Stat, Socket(3), Vit, and your best defensive stat (allres or armor or life%, depending. Use your paragon points to determine which of these benefits you the most).
Belt: This slot is almost universally best as a legendary or set piece for set bonuses. If you donât have one yet, just go for +main, +vit, +allres/armor, +life%.
Gloves: Must have crit (8-10%), mainstat, Crit damage (35-50%). Attack speed should be the last primary unless you really need toughness.
Bracers: Must have Crit %4-6, Main stat, +%damagetype. Vitality is usually the best place to throw the last primary.
Rings: Must have Crit 4-6%, Crit damage 25-50%, Main Stat, and either attack speed, +damagerange (once again, much better for high attack speed builds), or some sort of survival stat.
Legs: Main Stat, Socket(2), Vit, best defensive stat.
Boots: If you donât have enough paragon points to cap your movespeed, then you need movespeed on your boots. Otherwise you need +main, +right mouse ability, and a defensive stat (or 2 if you have the paragon points)
Weapons: The main thing here is that your weapon(s) must have a socket. Note this does not include shields, sources, mojos or quivers. This needs to be socketed with your highest emerald. If youâve followed my instructions so far, your crit% should be around 49 counting the free 5% all characters have, but excluding any passives or paragon points. If you are using an offhand (wiz/wd/crus/dh), it should have 10% crit, bringing you to a target 59% crit chance. Two weapons will cause you to crit 10% less (monks/barbs/dual wielding DH), but add +130% additional crit damage with a max emerald. Otherwise, go for highest dps, +mainstat, and any cool unique affixes you can get.
Stacking crit chance and crit damage is the best way to get your dps up.
Life per second and life on hit are almost always inferior to simply having more toughness. As they vie for the same slots, you canât really justify taking much in the way of healing. This is easily overcome by life on kill, a readily available secondary stat that you should try to have at least 10k of. This should keep you topped off in most situations. If you are having a hard time, choose the Templar as a follower. His life per second and 2 available heals (if you need both, otherwise take faster resource regen as his final ability) should be enough.
If even that fails, invest your paragon points into +life regen and +life on hit after you hit 70. They are in separate categories and can be acquired simultaneously. Itâs better to take them as paragon points because you can always change those with a few button clicks rather than re-enchanting or hunting down replacement gear. As a final note, paragon points should go into movespeed until that is capped (25% for everyone except 2h/shield crusaders, who cap at 10%), crit chance if you are at less than 50% crit, crit damage if above, and defense is pretty obvious based on your class/gear. The final category is a crap-shoot. I like area damage or resource reduction the most, although take life on hit if you need it. Gold is only an issue for a fairly short period of time, but go for it if youâre broke. Paragon points can be changed at any time.
Hopefully someone here finds all that helpful.
