Diablo III

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5994

Cool. I didn’t know about that ability. That does sound cool for every build.

But I’ve noticed when you’re an intelligence based character, you generally tend to find 99% of loot that’s got intelligence boost. So when I hand that down to my follower, that helps them only if it’s the enchantress. This time I’m a monk, so I’m going to want to hand down equipment I’m no longer using that’s going to be +dex. It will be rare for me to find +strength equipment for the templar. How do you guys handle that?

5995

Easiest way is just to share some loot from another of your characters. But if you’ve only got the one, you can reroll the Intelligence boost at the Enchantress on some high level gear until you get Strength instead.

5996

The bonus you get from stats is completely meaningless for any of the hirelings really. It will make so little difference in what they do. They are really just there for the skills, and can be used in various ways to help distract mobs. The only thing that’s important on the templar is health and armor, and even that not so much once you get the ring that makes them incapable of dying.

There are a few pieces of jewelry that really can be important on your hirelings where you’re pushing the bleeding edge, but as far as stats go, don’t worry about them.

5997

Yep, the damage your followers do is meaningless, ergo making sure mainstat matches your followers is not important. They are there for their skills and as extra slots for legendary items. Legs work on them just fine, so the idea is to kit them with legs that support you, which is typically anything that provides additional crowd control or regen. The most important peice is the legendary relic that prevents your followers from dying - otherwise nothing you have on them matters as they spend all their time dead. Easiest way to get that relic is crafting rare relics and upgrading them to legs with the cube. There are only three leg relics so upgrade chances to get the right one is very good.

Templar with Thunderfury, Stormshield, never die relic, Ess of Johan ammy, Wyrdward and Oculus rings is usually where it is at. Or a Unity ring for mitigation if your toon’s build can spare the ring slot.

5998

Going slower than I wanted due to IRL stuff but still nearly finished Season step 3 tonight. I have gotten all trash rolls and Kadala hates me. Hope to have my set tomorrow.

5999

Isn’t this a given?

6000

Don’t be mad, Kadala hates everyone.

6001

Good advice! The Templar is a heal/regen bot; in HC there is literally zero reason to use any of the others IMO. I’ve tried, but there’s no replacing that heal and regen. And yes, oh yes, he will be dead so often once you hit even GR 25 or so without that legendary artifact.

Also, if you really want some goofiness, and are a pet class, outfit him with legendaries that summon pets…

6002

Ok, so now I’m starting to understand, and I mean to fully grok, what you guys were talking about upthread. After getting Leoric’s Crown and putting a ruby in it (and taking it out four times and putting it back in), I went back to adventure mode and did the bounties for Act 1 and 2. And as a reward I got multiple sets worth of plans!

Holy shit. So this is where the loot really comes in this game, huh? I mean, I know you say it really comes in the Greater Rifts, but first it comes in these bounty rewards in Adventure mode. Not only that, but unlike the plans I had with my level 70 character, which all required a bunch of ingredients I didn’t have, so those didn’t really feel like plans as much as theoretical aspirational documents, these actually just required normal ingredients, so I crafted them all.

I crafted Cain’s set, and had two items from some other set.

Now granted, both of these sets are kind of lame. It sucks that Cain’s set doesn’t even give you a bonus for wearing all 4 pieces. You get the bonuses if you wear 3 out of 4 pieces. And the bonuses themselves aren’t all that great. And each piece of Cain’s set replaced a yellow piece of equipment with better stats.

But hey, my first set in Diablo 3! And it all came from doing Bounties in Act 1 and 2 for 2 or 3 hours. 90% of that time was spent doing one bounty in Act 2 that told me to “cleanse the waters” or something vague like that. There was no quest marker, so I just wandered in that area for a long time, killing all the enemies, then killing all the enemies in adjacent areas, and then areas adjacent to those areas. Finally I went back to the area I started, and it turned out I’d missed a little corner with an elite enemy there that I needed to kill. *Facepalm. Oh well, at least the reward was worth it, even though I’m not setting any speed records here. Plus I earned a lot of experience, reaching level 31 last night I think.

6003

It usually does a good job of pointing you in the right direction with an arrow on the map when you aren’t making progress.

Poor Kadala, no one appreciates her. I love you, Kadala (now give me the damn goods!)

6004

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Buddy just took the US conquest leaderboard for the Masters of the Universe conquest (master 8 set dungeons). I helped him master his last set dungeon by clearing trash mobs! :)

He reckons his chat went nuts - 100’s and 100’s of messages of congratulations from randoms!

6005

This guy beat Kanai’s cube. One way to skip Kadala:

6006

That is what the cube gave me when I was reforging to complete the task for chapter 4. Not a ancient though, so not quite as nice.

6007

Lame? Cain’s is great! Grats on getting it. :)

It’s usually sought after for levelling to 70 quickly, due to the bonus it gives to experience. On the path to 70 all you really care about is damage and experience. Cain’s can stick with you for much of the way, even if you’re finding equipment with much better stats (as most armour doesn’t award damage).

Since you can skip one piece of Cain’s and still get the XP bonus, this means you can also wear Leoric’s Crown for its XP bonus. :) Post-70 when making your real build (probably based around the free set you’ll get chasing the Season Journey) you’ll be glad of set bonuses that don’t require all pieces. One of your most desired bits of equipment will be Ring of Royal Grandeur, which lets you wear one less piece and still receive the set bonus.

But hey, my first set in Diablo 3! And it all came from doing Bounties in Act 1 and 2 for 2 or 3 hours.

Bounties are great for materials and plans (and a couple of the exclusive drops). Since these are all awarded upon bounty completion it’s quickest to do them with some help - open up your game to Public and set the tag to ‘Bounties’. Then start doing the bounty, and soon enough you’ll get people dropping in, and each player in the party will solo a different area completing the bounty much quicker.

Are you doing Rifts as well? They’re great for levelling and loot. Loot generally comes from Champions and Elites and Rifts have a good density of them.

6008

Thanks! I did notice the boost to experience, and was thinking that would help me a lot when I played tonight.

Ah rats. The head piece was the only piece of Cain’s set that improved my stats over what I was already wearing! (I love those green arrows in the comparison). But you’re right, if I’m going to focus on experience, I suppose the primary stat loss by wearing Cain’s is something I should just forget about for now.

When is a good time to do rifts? Between bounties in each act maybe? I suppose that’s as good a time as any. So I’ll start tonight with a rift, and then move onto Act 3 bounties.

I don’t think I’m going to get into a public game though. I often have to pause at a moment’s notice. It’s nice playing in single player for that reason, being able to pause in the middle of a tough elite fight and go take care of the baby or the laundry or something.

6009

All the time! Rifts have a higher legendary drop rate and also give blood shards, which you can exchange for ‘paper weights’ with Kadala. ;)

I don’t do many bounties at all in the early game, beyond the one that’s required for Chapter 1 of Season Journey and maybe hunting for those Act-specific items like the Ring of Royal Grandeur or set plans.

Rifts are the primary thing you should be playing up to 70, unless you are levelling using what’s called ‘massacre bonus’, which only works in bounties. I don’t bother with this as I’m not overly min-max focused but apparently it’s the fastest way to level.

I don’t think I’m going to get into a public game though. I often have to pause at a moment’s notice. It’s nice playing in single player for that reason, being able to pause in the middle of a tough elite fight and go take care of the baby or the laundry or something.

It’s quickest way to farm materials but yeah not essential. Most groups I’ve been in are pretty casual (and mostly silent) but tend to want to clear all five Acts. Which in a group takes about as long as doing one yourself.

Ah rats. The head piece was the only piece of Cain’s set that improved my stats over what I was already wearing!

Cains can last most of the way to 70 along with the Crown. There’s a choice to be made there between the 100% XP bonus from Expert difficulty, which is a good place to play at once past the first 15 or so levels (Master gives 200% XP, but can slow things down too much). If you can’t slaughter Elites quickly at Expert, then I guess that’s when you consider upgrading the primary stats so you can. So damage, XP, and the difficulty set as high as you can but where you can still mow stuff down. :)

If you haven’t already, press ‘Shift-J’ to check out Season Journey. This gives you goals to aim for and rewards to earn, and is the thing that got me hooked on playing seasons.

Good to see some life in the clan too!

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6010

One thing I did while leveling my Necro this time was do bounties and stash the Horadric Caches in my stash; I opened them when I was 70. Not really necessary but if you do get a cool thing it’s at least, well, level 70 then.

I find I can’t really do anything much until I farm bounties though, now that I’m 70, because I can’t craft or cube without mats that I need to get from bounties. And without those mats, I can’t advance to higher difficulty levels or really do GRs reliably.

6011

Yeah that’s why you do them in a group, it makes it much quicker to get mats. Maybe I should be doing more? Saving the stashes is a good idea, except the plans can be useful for leveling - I just got Borns and Cains plans in the same stash, and with Leoric’s it’s now up to 130% XP bonus, vs. 61% without that gear. Think I’ll save the rest!

6012

Ok, now for an embarrassing confession, about the perils of wearing bifocals, getting old, and playing games.

Remember upthread I was talking about my 70 Hardcore Necro for this season? The one I spent Thursday evening and most of Friday and Saturday leveling? Yeah. Well. I went to start a Wizard, while my wife caught up on her Necro. I created a new Wiz, and went into town to set my Cube abilities, check the stash, etc. Um. Nothing. WTF?

Well. After restarting and stuff like that, I realized the cold, awful, truth. All that time I had been leveling the Necro? I wasn’t in Hardcore. Just Seasonal. The two check boxes you check when you create a Hardcore Seasonal had somehow, to my age-addled eyes, become just one checkbox. Yes, that’s right, I just spent two days leveling what I thought was a HC character, but wasn’t. Doh.

Why didn’t I notice? Well, I only play HC. Never leveled a non-HC character. So while my hall of heroes is full of dead ones, those have become pretty few and far between (well, last week’s Necro was something of an exception). I generally don’t die, and in leveling this Seasonal character, I didn’t die. So there was no reason really to doubt I was, in fact, playing my usual HC mode. Up in the right corner there is the little leaf symbol by your character, and the HC symbol, but they are quite small and I simply never looked there. Again, doh.

Not that this is that terrible, really. I’ll just kill off the non-HC Necro to free the spot probably, and I’ve already started leveling a Wizard (can’t abide three Necros in a row right now). I do miss out on the Season rewards, as I completed Chapter I-III already on the faux Necro, so no Haedrig’s Gift stuff, but, meh, not a biggy.

Of course, while leveling the actually Hardcore Wizard I started on last night, Comcast went down…in the middle of a Rift. Luckily, when it came back up and I checked this morning, my Wizard was still alive. And yes, I double checked; she’s actually a HC Seasonal character.

Always gonna doublecheck from now on.

6013

Does reforging a sub-70 legendary change it to level 70? I don’t think it does but I wanted to verify.