Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it, follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
Diablo III: 1.05 PTR notes, Enchantress no longer worth keeping around
Shen
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Blizzard hacked, recommend US players change their passwords.
Patch 1.04 patch notes
1.05 PTR notes
WARNING! There has been a lot of hacking of Battle.net Accounts since Diablo 3's release. GET AN AUTHENTICATOR. You can get them for iOS and Android devices for free, or from the Blizzard store for a reasonable price. If you get hacked Blizzard will restore your items and characters, but only a limited number of times. After the first you will need to get an authenticator anyway, and after the second you will no longer be able to use the RMAH.
Spoiler:
Welcome to the Diablo 3 thread! We apologise in advance for the incessant moaning, it's only because we care.
PA Battletags! Join us in game! First, Add yourself to the list. Then, View the full list here!
What's different from Diablo 2?
The game is still an isometric click fest where you slaughter thousands of demons in the enternal search for better loot, though several of the mechanics/game systems have been changed. It is now ONLINE ONLY. You can set games to be private (invite only), friends only, and open to public. With friends only games, your friends will see a quick join button on their main screens, letting them drop in any time as long as there is room. The max player size is also 4 now.
Skill trees, skill points, synergies, and manual stat placement are all gone. Instead, all of your stat points (you get more than 5 now) are gained and placed automatically with each level up, with distribution based on your class. Skills are now broken into Actives and Passives, and are all gained as you level up, along with the new skill runes (see below). The potion belt is also gone, and potions themselves now have a 30 second cooldown, so no more chugging to stay alive. Instead, enemies drop Health Orbs, which simply heal you (and all your allies within range.) when you walk over them. The bigger the orb, the more it heals. Runes and Runewords are also gone, and have been replace with a proper crafting system.
Hardcore makes a return, but the requires you to have one character reach level 10 in normal before you can create any Hardcore characters. And last, but not least, Hell is no longer the hardest difficulty in the game. That duty has been taken over by the Inferno difficulty, which has proven to be a significant challenge.
There's a lot more detailed info available at the official game guide, including skill calculators and character profiles. If you're still curious, you can try the game for free up to the first boss and level 13.
The Classes
The Barbarian, aka The Wayfarer
Spoiler:
The Demon Hunter, fueled by Hatred and Discipline
Spoiler:
The Monk, Unyielding in the service of Ivgorod
Spoiler:
The Witch Doctor, aka the Doubtwalker
Spoiler:
And last but not least, the prodigious Wizard
Spoiler:
Auction Houses
Diablo 3 has two different types of Auction houses available for players: the gold AH, and the Real Money AH. The gold AH is fairly straight forward, and functions largely the same as AHs found in other games, like WoW. It's available at launch to both Normal and Hardcore characters, but is exclusive between the two. The RMAH allows you to buy and sell in game items with real world currency and is only available for Softcore. Here's quick breakdown of the specifics:
Spoiler:
For a more indepth how-to, please go here http://us.battle.net/d3/en/services/auction-house/how-to
Useful links:
Game guide: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/game/
Skill calculator: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian
EHP calculator: http://rubensayshi.github.com/d3-ehp-calculator/#intro
Damage calculator: http://theasiangamer.com/d3-damage-calculator/
Max values on items: http://www.d3rmt.com/guides/diablo-3-item-stat-maximum-values/
Blue tracker: http://d3db.com/blue/browse
Gem calculator: http://diablo-3-gem-calculator.com/index.php
Excellent legendary browser: http://www.d3lexicon.com/legendary
Shen on
This discussion has been closed.
Posts
I don't see any problem with it now that they fixed the crits and everything.
D3: Caretta#1196
It would be nice if Monks, rather than Wizards, became the indestructible tanks they should be.
PA D3 Battletags Form
PA D3 Battletags List
Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/id/iNaddict
PSN: iNaddict
Steam ID: darklite_x Xbox Gamertag: Darklite 37
Oh and _J_, i'm in the same boat as you. Make mf switching either impossible or a pain in the ass to pull off, make people play the entire time with the same gear. If you have to kill all the champs down to 1 and then switch all your gear, something ain't right. I've been collecting mf gear for all classes at this point.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Doug-1496/hero/22964679 - DH
Have you actually played with the build? No, it's not 'necessary' to have amazing gear, but then you'll do 10k damage and get destroyed when you don't have Diamond Skin up against ranged monsters. The builds needs all the usual highly sought after item affixes that all the other classes also want, and when you want a combination of them, be prepared to pay a lot. As for the speculation that legendaries will totally break the game, the build at the very least can't use two-handers, since otherwise only the helm can provide arcane on crit. Barbarians can dual wield the same weapon and use Sprint to get amazing proc rates. Nope. Not convinced.
I have to say that overall with the Wizard preview, I am disappoint, but this mentality is perhaps a bit prematurely fatalistic. WW wasn't the only skill that triggered CM in the windup build, EB with Chain Reaction does its fair share of work too. I would also argue that even with my own modest crit rate, all my skills recycle essentially instantly. If I have to spend a little more on some gear to up my crit % a little bit and my recycle times only slow down slightly, I don't think it will hurt the windup build too badly, especially with lower elite hps overall.
But yeah, a preview that boils down to "we're going to try to make the other runes as good as venom hydra, and oh yeah there's a WW nerf incoming" is really limp.
Looking forward to doing another run with this new patch.
KoopahTroopah on Twitch.tv! - Youtube! - Steam - HoN - Battle.net
Currently playing: Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate, Metro 2033
I'm glad people are coming around to the self-evident point I made at launch.
They may have started with Barb / Sorc in a sort of "saved the best for last" buildup thing.
Something something life steal something something.
The actual issue is that it didn't work quote correctly unquote. One nether tentacle could hit a mob multiple times if the tentacle was slowed, or the mob's hit box was large enough. That's why the skill was so awesome at release: One tentacle could hit a mob three times under ideal conditions.
Really? It was supposed to hit mobs multiple times?
That is news to me.
hummusandkimchi.blogspot.com
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FriedRice-1814/hero/11834264
Considering that's the way they originally coded it and that's the way that ball lightning -still- works, I would say yes? They nerfed it as part of their 'fuck you demonhunters' patch. So many changes that patch were just blatantly designed to screw over demon hunters.
Giving out WD changes on a Wednesday vs Thursday does not seem like a significant difference in the "love" amount to me.
Not a fan of Gloom, I take it? Anyway the idea of DHs being a "nerfed" class is rather silly. It's still an extremely effective and fast MF farming class. Probably still the best. Having to slow down the tiniest bit by taking defensive skills or gear is not some unusual or crippling burden being placed on Demon Hunters.
Don't really buy the idea that Blizzard wanted NT to be the only hatred spender that any DH ever used.
Ball lightning does half damage per hit, hitting regular targets twice to do the listed 155%, which suggests it was actually designed that way. NT was just hitting for listed damage multiple times. I mean, I was killing azmodan faster than I do now with like one third the dps.
Edit - Caught it on my phone. Nothing massive, few people may use SSS more often now.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Doug-1496/hero/22964679 - DH
Spirit Spenders
Exploding Palm: From a strict usability standpoint, we think the visuals for Exploding Palm can be a little difficult to interpret. It's hard to tell who's affected by the Bleed and who's being damaged by the resulting explosion. Our Visual Effects team has made some improvements in 1.0.4 which will make it easier for players to tell who's bleeding and who's getting damaged.
From a mechanics standpoint, the three-second Bleed can make the explosion hard to pull off, and the damage just doesn't seem enough to be worth the Spirit cost. To help with both of these issues, we’re increasing the duration of the Bleed to nine seconds as well as its damage per second, which should make it more likely that monsters you’ve touched with Exploding Palm will go boom when they die.
Current: 220% weapon damage over 3 seconds 1.0.4: 745% weapon damage over 9 seconds
(Don't worry, Impending Doom is also having its duration increased to 15 seconds.) “...we’ll be doing a straight damage increase to Seven-Sided Strike to make it an attractive option for those who are looking for a skill that really packs a punch...”
Seven-Sided Strike: The original intent for Seven-Sided Strike was for it to be a solid damage dealer that you could use for a quick burst. Where Serenity granted you an amazing period of invulnerability, and your other combat skills could put out some damage, Seven-Sided Strike would ideally exist somewhere in the middle by offering some invulnerability and some damage. Unfortunately, the way it currently plays out, Seven-Sided Strike feels more like a bad version of Serenity, and the damage just doesn’t seem worth it. To address this, we’ll be doing a straight damage increase to Seven-Sided Strike to make it an attractive option for those who are looking for a skill that really packs a punch.
The damage buff to Seven Sided Strike is significant. And although players rarely complain when a skill gets buffed, it does leave one wondering why a lower damage existed in the first place.
The answer is: our initial design was flawed in several ways. To get the skill where it needed to be, we identified three distinct problems that were plaguing not only Seven-Sided Strike, but other class skills as well, and each problem merited a damage increase. •First, we're upping the damage of many skills with longer cooldowns in 1.0.4. Across all classes, if I can only hit a button once every so often, it needs to dole out some significant damage to justify the spot on my bar. While some skills, like Archon and Wrath of the Berserker, are significant enough to make the cut, there are a lot of skills that need DPS improvements to make their cooldowns worthwhile. Indeed, many monks use Seven-Sided Strike for the brief invulnerability, not the damage. •Second, we're also upping the damage on skills that spend Spirit. As mentioned in the introduction, Spirit Spenders are getting buffed because the Spirit cost needs to be weighed against the benefit of using that Spirit on something else -- such as refreshing your Mantra. •Third, we're taking a hard look at distinctive, class-defining skills that create better tension on your skill bar. We'd like to promote skills that help to fulfill the fantasy of a class; skills that make you feel happy that you chose the class you did. Since the fantasy of a monk involves being fast, agile, and hard to hit, Seven-Sided Strike seemed like a natural candidate.
We looked at making these improvements across all skills and all classes, and Seven-Sided Strike benefitted all three times. As a result, the 1.0.4 version of the skill is incredibly potent (we'll save the details for the patch notes).
Wave of Light: Wave of Light is the kind of skill that just needs to do way more damage. It has a big Spirit cost, but it doesn’t seem to pay off based on the amount of Spirit invested into it. In general, we’d like Lashing Tail Kick to be a skill that’s good against a small number of targets and feels relatively "spammable," and for Wave of Light to be a skill that’s more of an investment -- something that you don’t use as frequently, but pays out with bigger damage numbers when you actually do hit the button.
Current: 215% weapon damage as Holy + 45% damage as AoE 1.0.4: 390% weapon damage as Holy + 45% damage as AoE
This is just for the base skill. Wall of Light, Explosive Light, and Pillar of the Ancients damage has also been buffed up by a fair amount.
Passives “...if we do make changes we'll do it in a way that doesn't invalidate the passive, doesn't hurt monk survivability, and doesn't undermine the gear people are currently wearing...”
In terms of passives, it's pretty clear at this point that One With Everything is considered a mandatory passive for all monks. While "mandatory" passives aren't great, making any major change would do more harm than good, particularly when a) incoming damage is so high and b) monks need the extra durability in order to survive. Additionally, as a result of this passive, monks are more heavily tied to their current gear, so making changes to One With Everything would have very noticeable negative repercussions to the gear monks have invested in.
While we'd prefer that there wasn't an "absolutely mandatory" passive, we're going to let this one ride for now. If we do try to make changes we'll ideally do it in a way that doesn't invalidate the passive, doesn't hurt monk survivability, and doesn't undermine the gear people are currently wearing.
Last but not least, we added the ability for monks to wield two-handed weapons in 1.0.3, along with supporting animations. This has allowed some monks who enjoy two-handers to play this way, but it's not always effective. In the Systems Preview, we mentioned that two-handed melee weapons are getting a buff, and that will help. As additional support, the Spirit generation bonus granted by The Guardian's Path is going to be increased from 25% to 35%.
Sure it's not the only skill, but it's the one that makes the Windup build come together.
It was simply too good. It made the Wizard an untouchable melee class. One of the difficulties of Inferno is managing spikes in your health. Wizards were simply not meant to have Diamond Skin up ad infinitem in order to completely ignore their health globe.
PA D3 Battletags Form
PA D3 Battletags List
...ok. That's useful to know. I guess?
At least they're acknowledging the skill is mandatory even if they don't want it to be. Instead of throwing their hands up in the air and saying, "Whelp, we just can't get rid of that or change it whatsoever!", they do know something needs to be done, even if it can't be done right away.
I like that they're being up front about it; if nothing else, keeps people who recognize it as an obvious flaw from bitching and moaning.
I think this is pretty much the case. Increase your crit rate to make up for the lower proc rate and Windup will be fine. I'm running at 36.5% total, I think I'll probably be allright.
That was definitely the correct first sentence to start that section with. Unfortunately everything that came afterwards was pretty lame. I trust that they will eventually come up with a solution, but I'm not exactly thrilled to hear "this passive is so broken we can't actually figure out how to unbreak it without making you replace all of your gear".
Overall positive, but man monk passives are a shitty situation and they're just sending it down the river a bit.
Hopefully there'll be something relevant to my interests in the magic find post.
Hydra procs nothing. Zero LoH = Zero CM. All procs are tied to a single coefficent, which I think is a pretty stupid system, personally. They should uncouple those.
While I agree Blizzard is timid with the nerf hammer right now, I think their stance on OWE is the correct one (for now). If they nerfed it, Monks would be in a really bad spot. The reason that OWE is a mandatory passive (which isn't ideal), is because it's currently required for monks to be survivable in a meaningful way. It's not ideal, but to nerf it just to nerf it at this point would just do more harm than good.
It's a tough problem to fix. You released the game with a passive that allowed monks to stack a single resist + all resist and then equalize out. You also balanced monk survivibiity around this passive. Now barring that it was a train wreck they should have seen coming, we're here now...so what do you do? It requires a comprehensive fix, because just nerfing it or changing it would leave quite literally every level 60 monk in the game in a shitty place.
It needs to be fixed, but I agree with them punting it. Wait until this huge wave of balance changes goes in, then think about a comprehensive way to fix OWE.
it's probably not mandatory, but it's competitively good and makes gearing cheaper at the same time
Untouchable, no. There's a shielding pack and you have to get out of there because you're not procing any more and your diamond skin just got ripped off. Or some frozen bombs are about to go off. Or you're fighting Blood Clan Occultists who split up, run out of your tornadoes and hit you with ranged attacks that completely strip your diamond skin and remove half your health globe.
True, there are packs you absolutely destroy with the build, but it's far from untouchable. Anyway thinking about it more they said they wanted to keep the build viable but that's difficult to envision with such a drastic nerf to the proc rate. Half the CD reduction, half the AP generation, half the LOH? That's going to be rough in A3.
Barbs can get +50% to all resists and 45% armor, while Monks can only get 20% all resists or 20% armor.
"Orkses never lose a battle. If we win we win, if we die we die fightin so it don't count. If we runs for it we don't die neither, cos we can come back for annuver go, see!".
1) We do not want any skills to be mandatory.
2) The structure of the game we created manifests a situation within which this skill is mandatory.
One of those has to go.
It seems easier to just accept some mandatory skills.