Diablo III

[Thongsy]

General guidelines would still hold true. Patch changes were more about skills.

[LockerK]

1. What from Shockmesane’s advice would be different on the console versions that don’t have the latest patch? I don’t know how extensive the changes were, so if it’s not a short answer, never mind, I can keep looking elsewhere.

2. What, if any of this, is different for different classes? Or does the gear really all boil down to the same needs for everyone (other than obviously addressing whatever your primary class stats are). Or do people not even seriously play anything other than Wizards for endgame stuff?

Thongsy covered point 1, the big thing to ignore is that console doesn’t have legendary gems, but it wouldn’t hurt to stash some jewelry with good stats + socket for when it rolls out. Regarding 2, gear needs are generally identical, which is one of the big criticisms of D3 vs D2. When you get to higher levels of difficulty, there’s generally a class-specific set you want to shoot for (ex: Firebird’s for Wizards), as well as a couple of BIS legendaries (Ring of Royal Grandeur comes to mind) to fill out your remaining kit.

[Dave_Markell]

Until I see Dave did a L25 one in 7 minutes. 7 minutes! Color me impressed. :D

Thanks! My build has really come together over the last few days. There are a few reasons for this:

1. I found a 6th Firebird’s set piece, the boots, which enabled me to stop wearing the gloves and use my Magefists instead (I have an RoRG equipped, naturally).
2. I have 3 legendary gems that I like at 25 or better now, which is a huge boost to my effectiveness.
3. I took Meteor out of my build entirely. 4 damaging spells is 1 too many given arcane power considerations. Teleport/Safe Passage replaced it. I use it on occasion to get away from walls but constantly to just hop sideways while boosting my defenses.
4. I swapped Blazing Hydra in for Mammoth Hydra. Mammoth may return if the bugs are ever fixed, but Blazing is better against Rift Guardians and other boss type monsters than Mammoth, IMO. Mammoth excels vs trash, but trash evaporates anyway, so who cares?

There’s still a lot I can do to improve, though, like what you mentioned next:

Oh, and has anyone tried making a Hellfire Amulet? I’m being drawn by the appeal of a free extra passive heh. (It’s random though so yeah it’ll probably suck … but it’s something else to do …)

I’m considering doing this myself. My amulet is just OK and the HF has a chance to be the best in the game. It will take a lot of pulls on that slot machine lever to get a great one, but the potential for awesome is there. I wonder if I can solo ubers on T6 yet? The highest grift I’ve run solo so far is 30, and it wasn’t bad. I could probably do 33+ if I pushed it.

[Dave_Markell]

Followup: T6 ubers aren’t a challenge if your build can do greater rifts in the 20+ range. I killed enough wardens to make one machine and beat the Khule/Siegebreaker fight in about a minute.

[Shockmesane]

That magefist makes me saaaaaad. So jelly. And yea, if you can do grifts 30, you will laugh at how “uber” the uber bosses are. They fall over dead quite quickly.

[MrGrumpy]

Thanks! My build has really come together over the last few days. There are a few reasons for this:

1. I found a 6th Firebird’s set piece, the boots, which enabled me to stop wearing the gloves and use my Magefists instead (I have an RoRG equipped, naturally).
2. I have 3 legendary gems that I like at 25 or better now, which is a huge boost to my effectiveness.
3. I took Meteor out of my build entirely. 4 damaging spells is 1 too many given arcane power considerations. Teleport/Safe Passage replaced it. I use it on occasion to get away from walls but constantly to just hop sideways while boosting my defenses.
4. I swapped Blazing Hydra in for Mammoth Hydra. Mammoth may return if the bugs are ever fixed, but Blazing is better against Rift Guardians and other boss type monsters than Mammoth, IMO. Mammoth excels vs trash, but trash evaporates anyway, so who cares?

There’s still a lot I can do to improve, though, like what you mentioned next:

I’m considering doing this myself. My amulet is just OK and the HF has a chance to be the best in the game. It will take a lot of pulls on that slot machine lever to get a great one, but the potential for awesome is there. I wonder if I can solo ubers on T6 yet? The highest grift I’ve run solo so far is 30, and it wasn’t bad. I could probably do 33+ if I pushed it.

Ironically I’m looking for Firebird gloves so I can put my cindercoat back on. That and some regen from the Tal Rasha bonus (Helm, belt) help with mana issues. I’ve found multiple Firebird pieces but no gloves. I switched from Blazing to Mammoth as anecdotally it seems that it triggers the Firebird proc faster. It’s hard to tell … I’ll swap back to blazing as the guardians can be a challenge. I can’t use three gems yet - I just replaced a yellow amulet I’ve been wearing since forever. Unless the gems are better than +Fire% damage? I have 2 gems at 25 (bane, the poison one) but will start working on Zei. My main stumbling blocks now are toughness and upgrading my Sparkler. I have a 2400 DPS one sitting in the bank but i need a gift to socket it. My current one is 2100 and that’s hurting damage output.

How do the Hellfire Ubers work, i.e. like before with random component drops?

[sharaleo]

How often are set pieces dropping nowadays? Leveling from 0-66 so far I have had maybe 15 legs drop, but not a single set, two or three plans excepted. Admittedly, this is HC on a fairly low difficulty as my goal is to get one to 70 and earn some paragon levels.

I am in adventure mode now and have not really been rifting, either. I’d rather the RNG be kind once I hit 70!

Is there a recentish guide/info on drop rates/drop quality vs difficulty vs area vs rifting?

[Profanicus]

Three out of four Legendary drops were all Magefist for me last night. :P

[Ephraim]

It’s as if Blizzard wants me to go out and buy Destiny, with their stupid downtime!

[Reemul]

How long do the bounties stay completed. I had completed 3 of them and logged in after a weekend away and they had reset. Do they reset daily or how long do you get to complete them all before they reset.

Also does it matter which ones you do, are any better than any other?

Cheers

[Dave_Markell]

Bounties reset every time you start a new game. And some are way harder than others–the Spider Cavern in Act 1 is universally loathed, for example, because of all the snare throwers in there that slow you down. Do the ones that you find fun and fast.

[Dave_Markell]

Ironically I’m looking for Firebird gloves so I can put my cindercoat back on. That and some regen from the Tal Rasha bonus (Helm, belt) help with mana issues. I’ve found multiple Firebird pieces but no gloves. I switched from Blazing to Mammoth as anecdotally it seems that it triggers the Firebird proc faster. It’s hard to tell … I’ll swap back to blazing as the guardians can be a challenge. I can’t use three gems yet - I just replaced a yellow amulet I’ve been wearing since forever. Unless the gems are better than +Fire% damage? I have 2 gems at 25 (bane, the poison one) but will start working on Zei. My main stumbling blocks now are toughness and upgrading my Sparkler. I have a 2400 DPS one sitting in the bank but i need a gift to socket it. My current one is 2100 and that’s hurting damage output.

How do the Hellfire Ubers work, i.e. like before with random component drops?

Yeah, I think there’s a 50% chance you get an organ at T6, although which organ is set by the portal you open. I’m one organ away from being able to craft my first ammy. Of course, it will suck. Heh.

I agree with your first two gem choices, but my third was Bane of the Trapped. When you get it to 25, it applies a slow to all nearby mobs, and that slow counts as a “control impairing effect” for purposes of triggering the bonus damage (and so does Black Hole). Nothing wrong with Zei’s either, of course, but I like the snare + higher damage of Bane.

[Shellfishguy]

So far I’ve been saving the few greater rift tokens that I have. My wizard can do regular T2 rifts pretty safely, is it worth going into the greater rifts now or should I wait until I can tackle harder content?

[Ginger_Yellow]

Also does it matter which ones you do, are any better than any other?

Certain items only drop from certain acts’ horadric caches, most notably the Ring of Royal Grandeur which is an Act 1 (and Act IV) only drop. See here for a list, though some of the info is now out of date (mainly that higher difficulty now dramatically improves the legendary drop rate for caches).

[Dave_Markell]

So far I’ve been saving the few greater rift tokens that I have. My wizard can do regular T2 rifts pretty safely, is it worth going into the greater rifts now or should I wait until I can tackle harder content?

I’d go. The greater rifts are tuned to your strength, so you’ll get a challenge you can beat. And the legendary gem rewards you can get as rewards need to level up quite a bit to reach their full potential. Might as well get started! Even the base gems might improve your build enough to enable you to fight higher torments.

[Reemul]

Bounties reset every time you start a new game. And some are way harder than others–the Spider Cavern in Act 1 is universally loathed, for example, because of all the snare throwers in there that slow you down. Do the ones that you find fun and fast.

Sorry I don’t understand what that means.

I did 3 bounties on Act I with my level 65 Monk but ran out of time to do all 5. 3 days later I log my Monk on to finish the remaining outstanding bounties but all 5 need doing. Do you need to do all 5 in 1 gaming session?

[Dave_Markell]

Yes, you do. Bounties reset every time you start a new game. All previous progress is wiped and a new, random set of bounties for each act is generated. People who want the special items that drop from Act 1 caches, for example, will finish all the Act 1 bounties, open the cache, and then immediately start a new game to repeat the process.

[Ginger_Yellow]

Yes, and annoyingly this is true even if you don’t exit the game (ie Diablo III). If you pause for long enough and Battle.net logs you out for inactivity, it gets reset.

[Reemul]

Yes, and annoyingly this is true even if you don’t exit the game (ie Diablo III). If you pause for long enough and Battle.net logs you out for inactivity, it gets reset.

Ok thanks, that’s a pain even a 24 hour window would help, not sure I will ever get long enough to do all in 1 sitting.

[Reemul]

Yes, you do. Bounties reset every time you start a new game. All previous progress is wiped and a new, random set of bounties for each act is generated. People who want the special items that drop from Act 1 caches, for example, will finish all the Act 1 bounties, open the cache, and then immediately start a new game to repeat the process.

Thanks Dave. So is it best Cherry picking the easiest ones until I at least hit 70 if I only have smaller chunks of play time or to stick to doing the rifts