Diablo III

[LMN8R]

I wouldn’t be surprised if DH was simply a bad class in the early days. All of the classes have been tweaked and improved so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if the DH we’re both playing now and thoroughly enjoying is unrecognizable from the one that Diablo 3 launched with.

What’s more, is that the more I play Diablo 3 and experiment with different classes, the more brilliant the class system is. The fact that I can respec my skills whenever I want is absolutely brilliant. There’s such an insane amount of variety and so many viable combinations for a bunch of different potential play styles, it’s just great.

[KevinC]

I wouldn’t be surprised if DH was simply a bad class in the early days. All of the classes have been tweaked and improved so much that I wouldn’t be surprised if the DH we’re both playing now and thoroughly enjoying is unrecognizable from the one that Diablo 3 launched with.

All the classes had this problem to one degree or another, but the DH seemed to be in particularly bad shape at release in that there were a few viable skills/runes that were actually effective and the rest just sucked. That was my problem with it at release, anyway. While other classes had this issue, the DH seemed a lot worse than the others to me.

I just leveled one to L70 in Season 4 and found it much more enjoyable. Just as an example, the sentry turrets do something like 280% weapon damage or something like that, at release they were around 30-40% from what I remember. Then I combined that with the Lightning rune that gives them a 100% chance to pierce with a Legendary effect that has a 15% chance to make an enemy turn into a lightning discharging deathtrap. That right there is way more interesting than the DH ever was back in the day.

[Destarius]

Good to know! I’m leveling a DH now and just picked up a pair of Leoric’s Crowns - one from a drop and one from Leoric. Socketed an XP gem into the crown and a Gem of Ease into a 1-hander and now blowing through levels. I’ll stop to breathe and figure out what actually works for this class at 70.

[LMN8R]

All the classes had this problem to one degree or another, but the DH seemed to be in particularly bad shape at release in that there were a few viable skills/runes that were actually effective and the rest just sucked. That was my problem with it at release, anyway. While other classes had this issue, the DH seemed a lot worse than the others to me.

I just leveled one to L70 in Season 4 and found it much more enjoyable. Just as an example, the sentry turrets do something like 280% weapon damage or something like that, at release they were around 30-40% from what I remember. Then I combined that with the Lightning rune that gives them a 100% chance to pierce with a Legendary effect that has a 15% chance to make an enemy turn into a lightning discharging deathtrap. That right there is way more interesting than the DH ever was back in the day.

Wow yeah, with this they’d be totally useless. As they are now, they’re handy and effective but not even close to overpowered.

[charmtrap]

I’ve played a Witch Doctor up to level 70 and enjoyed it, but the class is generally all about letting your roving critters do damage on your behalf, and I find that it gets a bit dull at the higher levels.

Ooo, not necessarily. This is my WD, not pet-dependent at all (other than Zombie Dogs for Chilling and damage increase): http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Seaurch-1715/hero/65547535

[rowe33]

All the classes had this problem to one degree or another, but the DH seemed to be in particularly bad shape at release in that there were a few viable skills/runes that were actually effective and the rest just sucked. That was my problem with it at release, anyway. While other classes had this issue, the DH seemed a lot worse than the others to me.

I just leveled one to L70 in Season 4 and found it much more enjoyable. Just as an example, the sentry turrets do something like 280% weapon damage or something like that, at release they were around 30-40% from what I remember. Then I combined that with the Lightning rune that gives them a 100% chance to pierce with a Legendary effect that has a 15% chance to make an enemy turn into a lightning discharging deathtrap. That right there is way more interesting than the DH ever was back in the day.

Interesting - my favorite D2 class was the lightning trap assassin. Wonder if I can semi-recreate that now with the damage boost.

[inactive_user]

Interesting - my favorite D2 class was the lightning trap assassin. Wonder if I can semi-recreate that now with the damage boost.

Not to derail, but have you peeped Path of Exile? My trapper was by far my favorite D2 character, and you can do some really fun things with the playstyle in Path.

[rowe33]

Not to derail, but have you peeped Path of Exile? My trapper was by far my favorite D2 character, and you can do some really fun things with the playstyle in Path.

I haven’t actually - I play D3 entirely on the PS4 now so I haven’t looked at PC-alternatives. Will take a look though as I’d love to revisit a true trapper build in a game. Thanks!

[sharaleo]

Does anyone in the thread have admin rights for the guild? ie can invite new players?

[Kahlil]

Based on all this glowing chat, I bit the bullet this week and got the base game + expansion. Was having a ball until I hit Act II and the game started crashing on me every time I entered a certain map. Turns out to be a long known issue with AMD 6XXX series video cards and D3. Only solution is to go back to old old video drivers, which I don’t think is an option given my recent Win 10 upgrade. Poop. Looks like I need to shelve this game and wait to see if AMD ever fixes their drivers. Or wait until next year when my PC will be due for a hardware uplift.

I was just reading through this thread to see the posts since the season started. I ran into this problem too (in fact I lost a HC character because of it.) But there’s a workaround. You don’t need to totally back out of your AMD drivers, you just need to take some of the files from one of the old driver downloads and copy them directly into your D3 directory. I found the steps somewhere on the bnet forums, and since then I haven’t seen the problem.

What are the favorite Cube powers that everyone’s using? I think my new favorite might be the WD Mojo “Shukrani’s Triumph”. It lets you go into PERMANENT Spirit Walk mode as long as you’re not hitting the attack button or as long as monsters don’t get too close.

[sharaleo]

What are the favorite Cube powers that everyone’s using? I think my new favorite might be the WD Mojo “Shukrani’s Triumph”. It lets you go into PERMANENT Spirit Walk mode as long as you’re not hitting the attack button or as long as monsters don’t get too close.

Works a treat with my DH Unhallowed Essence build, especially playing solo where I am guaranteed first hit. Wipes trash mobs at T6/7, but I will replace it with Calamity when I get one to drop to speed boss kills.

[TheWombat]

I’m running Mad Monarch’s Scepter, which does 1000-1400% weapon damage to everyone in a 30 radius after each 10th kill; it’s pretty good. http://www.diablowiki.net/Mad_Monarch’s_Scepter

I also run the necklace thingy that makes you immune to arcane and arcane heals you, and either the one where you have a chance to blind and slow everyone around you with every hit or one of the belt things that throws damage at people with every attack. I really haven’t found much in this Season to cube, at least, not stuff I’m not still using. My seasonal wizard is wearing an amulet that makes him immune to poison, too, so the combo of immune to poison and immune to arcane helps with boss packs.

[Kahlil]

I’m running Mad Monarch’s Scepter, which does 1000-1400% weapon damage to everyone in a 30 radius after each 10th kill; it’s pretty good. http://www.diablowiki.net/Mad_Monarch’s_Scepter

I use that on my non-WD characters. I WISH you could use class-specific cube powers on the “wrong” class. The staff that automatically casts “Locust Swarm” dropped for my WD, and I ripped the power and immediately created a new Demon Hunter with the goal of Vaulting around and spreading swarms. Unfortunately, the “WD Only” powers won’t show up in his cube. I wanted to create some really insane builds.

[scharmers]

Does anyone in the thread have admin rights for the guild? ie can invite new players?

Yes; it’s better for newbies to speak up in this thread so that we can remember to look for the requests in-game :)

[JFrazer]

I’ve been eating legendaries like crazy, to the point that I’m not sure which power to use anymore. I’m running Azurewrath, Grin Reaper and the amulet that makes you immune to poison (best choice at the moment for me) on my WD at the moment. But last night I got both the Locust Swarm staff and Dagger of Darts. I have the the “Your fetish army lasts until killed” sitting in my bank, which temps me to switch to a Fetish spec with the Dagger. But I also have 2-piece Helltooth…

So glad there are actual choices now. No more “you just need these 3 pieces of equipment and this build”, for the most part.

[stusser]

Yes, the original plan was to have player builds dependent upon the admittedly very deep skill and talent system, but that missed the point of ARPGs, they’re all about the loot. The new system, enabling entire new gameplay styles via loot drops, is in hindsight the most incredibly obvious way to go.

[KevinC]

Yes, the original plan was to have player builds dependent upon the admittedly very deep skill and talent system, but that missed the point of ARPGs, they’re all about the loot. The new system, enabling entire new gameplay styles via loot drops, is in hindsight the most incredibly obvious way to go.

I think it made more sense when Runes were supposed to be loot drops themselves, which sounds something similar to the skill gems in Path of Exile. The game (IMO) suffered for the transition, because like you I felt like it was missing the point of the genre. The loot just felt like various stat sticks, more WoW loot treadmill as opposed to Diablo. I feel like the game’s in a good place now, though, it’s incredible how much has improved since Reaper of Souls.

[stusser]

Diablo2 didn’t enable new gameplay styles via loot drops, special abilities and runewords and whatnot added passives and procs, but they generally didn’t change how you played the game. It was really only an obvious mistake to me in hindsight.

Isn’t it very easy to get skill gems in PoE, though? Or are they highly prized even at level 1?

[inactive_user]

Depends on the gem. There are rare gems, yes, and superior-quality gems (which are always hard to get a hold of) can make a world of difference to a lot if not most builds.

[KevinC]

Isn’t it very easy to get skill gems in PoE, though? Or are they highly prized even at level 1?

It’s much easier now, especially with their latest expansion. But as Adam says, there are rare gems and high quality gem finds can make a big difference in some builds.