I was actually excited about the gem reward, because it slots in a helm instead of into jewelry. But then I noticed that what I thought was a comma in the X weapon damage modifier is actually a decimal point. Meh.
Well, that was amusing. Got the cow and Butcher pets, and all the achievements except for the cultist pages one and the kill every rare spawn one. Iāll try those again later.
Boy, the music took me instantly back to 1996.
The gem is complete garbage; slot it into a helm for the transmog then put it in the stash forever.
Season 9 started last night, and since it was Aug 2015 when I last got into Diablo 3 I thought it would be fun to dive back in with a new character - and boy was I right!
I hit level 58 already (just playing today, probably 4 hours or so now on and off) and itās been a joy. So many little quality of life improvements since I last played, like tracking your countdown before your massacre bonus runs out and changing the bonus to a multiplier (iirc it used to be a flat numbered bonus) or fun new features such as giving you a speed boost for destroying environmental objects.
Since I can, Iām also playing in 3620x2036 (DSR) on my 1440p display and it looks ā¦ well, pretty much the same as 1440p thanks to the UI scaling, but itās damned smooth and nary a pixel to be found. Itās a real purdy game, I always forget just how fun it is to look at as well as play.
Well, back to it, I suppose hitting level 70 wonāt happen on its ownā¦
Yes indeed, itās always a joy returning to this game! Even more so after such a long break I imagine. :)
One other thing I didnāt see before is that followers now get item mouse-over comparison info as well.
Had a quick delve into the seasonal event dungeon, got up to the butcher and now Iām kind of wishing I could do the dungeon without the low-res filter on top. :P
Curious about the Darkening of Tristram event, I returned to the game after not spending any time with it since 2012. To my dismay, I realized that I couldnāt play Adventure Mode without owning Reapers of Souls. Figuring that it was relatively cheap, I went ahead and bought the expansion, only to then realize that you have to finish Act 5 in order to access Adventure Mode. So I took my lvl 60 monk out for another spin (the only character I ever tried) and finished the act in two hours or so, not being all that impressed with it.
Meanwhile, I even managed to talk my brother - who also hadnāt played the game since 2012 - into buying the expansion so that we could do the event together. He joined my game before I killed Malthael, so he didnāt have to finish Act 5 on his own. For the Darkening of Tristram event, we created new characters (witch doctor for me because Tom says so and my brother on the ānewā crusader) and teleported to old Tristram full of anticipation. While we enjoyed the graphics filter, the sounds, and the UI overhaul, we quickly ran into one problem: the game was way too easy. Remembering the monster power command, I tried that one to no success. Some googling revealed that the monster power system is retired because the difficulty levels now work differently from release. So I switched from normal to hard, which had almost no impact whatsover. For some reason, it wonāt let you raise the difficulty by more than one level without starting a completely new game, so we were stuck with hard. By the time we killed Diablo, we were utterly bored and somewhat regretted our decision to bring out the game once more. For what itās worth, I did enjoy finding so many Kingsā Swords of Haste and Godly Plates of the Whale ā fond memories!
To me, this game feels streamlined to the point of dullness. Even though the production values are dramatically inferior, I am much more inclined to play Torchlight 2 once more rather than returning to Diablo 3. Somehow, Diablo 3 just isnāt clicking for meā¦ :-(
At least Blizzard now has two more sales of RoS, I am sure they desperately needed those!
Oh, one more and final complaint: of course we didnāt get the achievement for completing the whole thing with new lvl 1 characters, because thatās exclusively a āsoloā achievement. God forbid that you bring a friend to that one, oh no! What the hell Blizzard, what the hell!?
Nah, thatās not right - you just have to leave the game, adjust the difficulty in the settings, then re-enter. You donāt have to start a new game, you can resume the current game at the new difficulty.
The problem with the Darkening of Tristram event is there are no save points. Leave the game to alter the difficulty and reset the dungeon.
And yeah, Normal and even Hard are really, really easy. Poorly named even. Anyone with any modicum of ARPG experience needs to start at a minimum on Hard for a new toon. More likely Expert or Master. Some folk even rolled into the Tristram event at Torment 1.
I did it at hard for the season and did it in about two hours. From dungeon level 11 and once I got access to Disintergrate on my Wiz, it was easy mode to the end.
I still maintain it is a very average experience and a poor celebration of Diabloās 20th anniversary. I would not even bother with it if not for the pets.
Ah, right ā¦ no waypoints. :( Iām still debating whether or not to even do it! Guess I should, for the petsā¦
Having a blast atm just building my Monk toward 70 for the season. Or I was, until the internet crapped out and Iām being killed by lag.
I took a new Witch Doctor to level 8 of the Labyrinth then logged out. Looked up some info and realized that I needed to have started at level 1 to earn the pet rewards. I hit level 2 on the way to the portal. Gah!
Regardless, Iāve enjoyed the event. Yeah, the downgraded look wears on me after a while, but there are some nice shoutouts to residents of memory lane.
Huh, I took one of my level 70 characters because I figured you had to be in adventure mode to run this. So you can take a level 1 character just starting out in the campaign through this?
I, on the other hand, found T2 rather dull and never even finished one playthrough and have max leveled numerous D3 characters.
Yes. In fact thereās an achievement and pet for doing that.
But not in the campaign. Once youāve unlocked Adventure Mode, itās unlocked for every character forever.
yEA, you only get achiev pet for doing it with level 1 char. I found out as I completed it on my 70, so now Iām about to redo it.
OK, I didnāt know that. I figured you had to do your time in the campaign before you could access adventure mode with each character. Thatās good to know.
I agree with you that you should go Hard as soon as possible, but if you do it from level one it will take like forty shots to down a zombie. I promise that this is not fun.
Be sure to use the tip of taking the templarās weapon, and replacing his with the enchantressās when at level 1. Then it is only 20 shots!
Nah, you can go Hard from level one. I always do.
I forgot how much fun Monks are. Been a few years since I played one last, heh.
Got my monk some super-sweet boots that give 290% more damage (and 50% more speed) on that roundhouse kick you get early. Allowed me to ramp up difficulty 2 notches To Master on hardcore mode. Still feels a bit scary though., Only level 47. (Did 5 zones of bounties to hit 47 on Hard modeā¦)
Also got a sock puppet pet from killing something, so good times all-round.
The boots were:
- Rivera Dancers
St.Archevs gloves seem nice as well, giving me a 125% health shield whenever I engage Elite mobs.
Personally I never start a new character at hard because you donāt have any skills to work with and the enemies just became bullet (sword? spell?) sponges. But hey, to each his or her own.