messing with the skill calculator witch doctor just seems far and away the coolest. I think I'm gonna do that instead of monk at launch... not positive but it's very likely.
Thematically I really dislike the witch doctor, but I was poking around the calculator and looking at his skills. They seem pretty great. Might very well end up being my second class.
messing with the skill calculator witch doctor just seems far and away the coolest. I think I'm gonna do that instead of monk at launch... not positive but it's very likely.
Thematically I really dislike the witch doctor, but I was poking around the calculator and looking at his skills. They seem pretty great. Might very well end up being my second class.
still starting with a barbarian but the WD was the only class i didn't play during the open beta. poking around the skill calc leaves me wanting to play him to see how the abilities feel and actually work before i decide if it's worth time to invest in like the barb and monk are.
Shipping estimate: May 16, 2012
Delivery estimate: May 17, 2012 - May 21, 2012
Edit: this is due to ordering from .com while being in Canada, due to having $100 gift certificate on that account. No release day shipping option (and I'm not sure .ca will do release day shipping anyway). That's with the fastest/most expensive shipping choice already snagged, so while there's a risk on delay, I'm also only paying $37 for the CE.
Forar on
First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
Witch Doctor has a ton of variety. Something like this build could be used as early as Act IV normal. Gargantuan and Horrify to keep monsters away, Grasp of the Dead to slow their approach, and dart + bats + spirit barrage (or acid cloud for synergy with the passive) for offense.
Contrast that with an earlier build that was all about pets and the blowing up thereof - two completely different play styles. There's some variety in all the classes, but WD takes the cake.
My Amazon order isn't expected to arrive until the 22nd. That would give me a week to play before I'm off 6 months for work. I'm really considering buying another copy just so I can play as soon as it's released. Like Jay said though, I already spent $100 on a physical CE. This is a terrible predicament to be in.
/firstworldproblems
Why the 22nd? CE? Didn't pick release date shipping?
You're not alone -J-. Mine may show up at around 5:30pm. But I look at it as it giving the servers a chance to pick themselves up after being down all day. Or if they are up and running smoothly UPS better just hate my neighbors and when they showed up so late a few days ago was a fluke. I can never remember when they show up for me...
I pre-ordered it back in October or something and when I checked lately there's no 'release day' shipping available. It needs to be sent to an APO address though, which pretty much screws me on that. So I'm debating whether or not to pick up a digital copy so I can install that day. Only problem then is what am I going to do with the CE? I can understand having two account in WoW or something, but it seems pointless in D3. I think the best option will be to check out my store on the 15th to see if they have any CE's, then I could snag one of those and just send the other one back to Amazon or gift it or something.
This might be worth a read, especially if you can find someone that'd be interested in giving you $60 for the extra key.
Here's an idea for explosive zombie dog build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#heYVTQ!aTd!ZZcZYc . Set the primary and secondary to whatever matches your taste. Of course you are going to want some gold radius extension gear for more zombie dogs for you to explode.
Also you would want a big slow weapon to get he most out of each dog blowing up.
to echo some of their tips: I'd swap of circle of life for gruesome feast, CoL is best suited for builds where you arent using summon ZD as an active skill slot.
Final Gift rune for Zombie Dogs synergizes well with GF.
I'd also think about putting in Mass Confusion with the Devolution rune- enemies slain while confused have a 50% chance to rise as a new zombie dog. It has a much shorter cooldown than BBV.
D3's upcoming release has made me go back and try and get through Diablo II, which I never did complete. I've always made it to Act 2 and ended up quitting for one reason or another.
A few weeks ago I finally made it to Duriel and he kicked my ass. I died about 10 times before giving up, and I didn't touch the game again until a few days ago. I started grinding my Barbarian up a little more and giving better gear to my henchman and decided that I was ready to face Duriel once again.
Turns out I wasn't ready! Oh well. I'm not using a guide, so I probably specced my character out poorly anyway.
Duriel was the bane of my existence in D2 HC play. Run some tombs till you have the levels/gear to take him. At least he doesnt lag like hell the way he did in the early days of d2.
Witch Doctor is the class that thematically appeals to me more than any other. Everything about the aesthetic is awesome, as far as I'm concerned. I didn't love the way it played, though. I will still certainly make one, but I found the Monk to be the most interesting class to play, personally. I was planning on a full summoning build for my WD, though, similar to what you guys are posting. Seems like those builds are going to be pretty common (they're awesome, by the way). I'm wondering what a build that completely bypasses the summons would look like?
I know from watching that clip that non-summoner WDs are intended to be completely viable, and I think it could actually be pretty powerful. Maybe something like this? I don't know. I haven't given it much thought; that's like, 100% off the top of my head, lol.
This is what I came up with mixing damage types for resistances and staying with the no pets theme. Very mana intensive so I got the same passives to take care of it. Of course no real play experience but since its only lvl 30 max build there is plenty of room to branch out as you get past normal.
the witch doc is super fun to make builds for. theres so much synergy!
Like if you take the zombie handler passive you'll also want both gargantuan and summon zombie dogs. if you take zombie dogs you may want sacrifice, but sacrifice takes space you'll want if you are looking at getting fetishes! then there's the tribal rites passive, and the fetish sycophants passive, which makes me think fetish builds will be a whole different animal from zombie dog builds.
plus there's all the mana cost/regen stuff: blood ritual, vision quest, spiritual attunement, pierce the veil. which could have neat interactions.
plus soul harvest stacking with GF and pierce the veil for uber damage
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VariableMouth CongressStroke Me Lady FameRegistered Userregular
dps focused WD : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#hZdfkQ!WbY!bYYZYb
soul harvest and BBV actives plus pierce the veil/gruesome feast passives for max DPS. Then spiritual attunement for mana management.
pile on for its massive 765% weapon damage, and grasp of the dead to allow you to hit with pile on. :P
firebomb cause its the coolest primary and gives you some fire damage and zombie charger for poison damage in an AOE and ta da!
tempted to swap out BBV for more CC (horrify would be great in a soul harvest build), but a 30% DPS increase aura is no joke either. plus I've got no spirit walk! or minions! arrrgh
I'm seeing how this 6 skill limit is going to encourage tons of build diversity
D3's upcoming release has made me go back and try and get through Diablo II, which I never did complete. I've always made it to Act 2 and ended up quitting for one reason or another.
A few weeks ago I finally made it to Duriel and he kicked my ass. I died about 10 times before giving up, and I didn't touch the game again until a few days ago. I started grinding my Barbarian up a little more and giving better gear to my henchman and decided that I was ready to face Duriel once again.
Turns out I wasn't ready! Oh well. I'm not using a guide, so I probably specced my character out poorly anyway.
Don't worry you're not bad at the game, it's just Duriel is an absolute fucker for untwinked characters.
dps focused WD : http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#hZdfkQ!WbY!bYYZYb
soul harvest and BBV actives plus pierce the veil/gruesome feast passives for max DPS. Then spiritual attunement for mana management.
pile on for its massive 765% weapon damage, and grasp of the dead to allow you to hit with pile on. :P
firebomb cause its the coolest primary and gives you some fire damage and zombie charger for poison damage in an AOE and ta da!
tempted to swap out BBV for more CC (horrify would be great in a soul harvest build), but a 30% DPS increase aura is no joke either. plus I've got no spirit walk! or minions! arrrgh
I'm seeing how this 6 skill limit is going to encourage tons of build diversity
Well, it reminds me of Guild Wars, which also had a bunch of skills, but you could only use a limited number at once. Eventually people figured out broken builds like the 50 health healer builds that reduced damage to some percentage of max health but also had lots of regen going on.
Oh PA, save me from the tedium of going to the Blizzard Website. (Laziness more than anything.)
This awesome shit: Be it available digitally?
Because I am tired of Best Buy and Game Stop fornicating with the game discs before they get to the store, hence delaying the speed with which they get to the store, hence resulting in many happy faces exiting the store with brand new game boxes, none of them my own.
KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
Current Blizzard practice seems to be that you can buy it digitally, and if you buy the physical copy instead and register it (which you probably have to do, since battle.net is required), then you have access to the same digital download version if you want to reinstall later.
The preloading thing is a damn smart move, definitely doing that.
Yes, you can download it digitally and even preload the game now if you preorder it.
Ya, but that would slow down the streaming of my Jim Henson Puppet Ultra-Porn. Thanks though, will preorder tomorrow.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
So I tweaked my healing +dmg monk a little bit.
Mantra of Conviction (runed for 24% extra damage) + Breath of Heaven (15% extra damage) + Blinding Flash (Faith in the Light rune for 30% bonus Holy damage) means I get 69% bonus damage for one, maybe two big attacks (Faith in the Light only lasts for 3 seconds). If I healed someone else with BoH I get another 16% (Guiding Light Passive), and if I squeeze in Crippling Wave (Breaking Wave rune) it's another 10%, for a total of an effective 95% bonus damage (61% bonus weapon damage, 34% bonus damage taken by monsters).
If can somehow squeeze in an immediate activation of MoC, the bonus increases to 48% for 3 seconds, up to 143% bonus damage!
It's probably possible to get one big attack in under these conditions, but the nice part is a good percentage of the bonus damage sticks around (BoH +dmg lasts for 45 seconds, Guiding Light for 15 seconds, MoC for 7 minutes with Chant of Resonance). There's also utility as some of this is not bonus damage, but rather an increase in damage dealt to monsters. (Which is interesting because the calculations of additional damage might be different. Whereas some skills say "X% additional weapon damage," Mantra of Conviction says "X% additional damage," which might indicate that instead of simply adding +% to weapon-keyed skill, it gets added afterwards, for potentially even more damage than estimated!). Plus with Breath of Heaven and Blinding Flash I have some very nice defensive skills, and a lot of general group utility.
Here's the build: us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WeXYfk!cfd!cZbcca. Only thing I'm unsure of is the big pain skill. It depends on how some things are calculated. If Seven-Sided Strike counts as a single attack, that's the clear choice since it incorporates AOE and the highest +% weapon dmg of the monk attack skills. But the text seems to suggest that it doesn't apply, which means that some combination of Wave of Light (possibly runed for higher % dmg or for the AOE dmg) is the way to go.
I don't know enough about the game yet to discuss any of the other things you were talking about, but this is the first mention I've seen of Monks and "Healing." Are we talking like Healing-Priest-Paladin-Druid-Shaman healing with the goal being to heal other people? Or is this more a self-healing sustainability thing? I'm not sure what the purpose of the former is, unless the ultimate goal is for completely Co-Op campaigns?
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Custom SpecialI know I am, I'm sure I am,I'm Sounders 'til I die!Registered Userregular
lu tzeSweeping the monestary steps.Registered Userregular
Hard to tell how the skills will work out, but Exploding Palm with the Essence Burn perk looks like it can be used to chain detonate groups, as well as being a pretty hard hitting boss killer.
It's the time to meet the muppets in a muppet porn tonight.
Wait, so did I accidentally mention a real thing? Now I'm just terrified.
Ancillary question: Do all players of a particular class get access to the same skills? Say, as a Monk, do I have the ability to build the same monk as the next guy, or am I going to be hunting for that ultra-super-extreme .0000000001/0 % augmentation thingamajigger that turns my Gut Punch: Rank 2 into the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique?
It's the time to meet the muppets in a muppet porn tonight.
Wait, so did I accidentally mention a real thing? Now I'm just terrified.
Ancillary question: Do all players of a particular class get access to the same skills? Say, as a Monk, do I have the ability to build the same monk as the next guy, or am I going to be hunting for that ultra-super-extreme .0000000001/0 % augmentation thingamajigger that turns my Gut Punch: Rank 2 into the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique?
Fortunately I conjured up that incantation from the netherverse myself. I have no idea nor desire to determine whether that lair of nameless horrors actually exists. I already feel as though I have spoken the name of that which should not be, as it is.
And yes, all classes will have access to all of their associated skills and runes. They decided to go with a level-based unlock rather than anything looted, so you will automatically unlock access to them as you level.
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GoodKingJayIIIThey wanna get mygold on the ceilingRegistered Userregular
I don't know enough about the game yet to discuss any of the other things you were talking about, but this is the first mention I've seen of Monks and "Healing." Are we talking like Healing-Priest-Paladin-Druid-Shaman healing with the goal being to heal other people? Or is this more a self-healing sustainability thing? I'm not sure what the purpose of the former is, unless the ultimate goal is for completely Co-Op campaigns?
A main Monk ability, Breath of Heaven, heals the monk and a nearby ally for X, with a cooldown of 15 seconds. Monks also have some other abilities that can heal them and allies or regenerate health. But it's really nothing like an mmo healer archetype.
At 8:55 they show some goats running around and being adorable. A few other clips in there of players being horribly murdered, too.
My problem with this is, if they are saying the game doesn't get interesting until Nightmare I wish I could just choose to start a character on Nightmare. I wish Blizzard valued my time a little bit more. Not that that I am not going to have fun playing on normal, but when I start trying out the other classes I'm probably going wish I could just skip ahead. I feel that way with Diablo 2 and it's too bad they didn't improve it for 3.
Yeah, it's nothing at all like your typical "mmo heal-bot" playstyle. Monks have abilities that they can weave into their rotations that heal themselves and others. Being around them is beneficial, basically, because they can radiate healing with Breath of Heaven, and they've got Mantras (like Paladin Auras) that buff teammates.
But it's really nothing like an mmo healer archetype.
Thank you merciful lord.
Priest, we should video game.
And yes, as someone mentioned, you can buy from Blizzard directly as digital only. It lets you completely pre-install the game, then it will unlock to play when the game is 'released'.
I ordered the physical copy so if I need to reinstall (or install on a second system) I can skip a few GB of downloads and just patch up.
Posts
Thematically I really dislike the witch doctor, but I was poking around the calculator and looking at his skills. They seem pretty great. Might very well end up being my second class.
I'll probably play the WD first. But after watching that Barb video, its hard to say.
still starting with a barbarian but the WD was the only class i didn't play during the open beta. poking around the skill calc leaves me wanting to play him to see how the abilities feel and actually work before i decide if it's worth time to invest in like the barb and monk are.
Edit: this is due to ordering from .com while being in Canada, due to having $100 gift certificate on that account. No release day shipping option (and I'm not sure .ca will do release day shipping anyway). That's with the fastest/most expensive shipping choice already snagged, so while there's a risk on delay, I'm also only paying $37 for the CE.
Contrast that with an earlier build that was all about pets and the blowing up thereof - two completely different play styles. There's some variety in all the classes, but WD takes the cake.
This might be worth a read, especially if you can find someone that'd be interested in giving you $60 for the extra key.
D2 on the other hand...
Twitch: KoopahTroopah - Steam: Koopah
It's the opposite for me :P
this is a good link for a sacrifice build discussion: http://diablo.incgamers.com/forums/showthread.php?825129-Best-Consistent-Sacrifice-WD-Ever!!!
to echo some of their tips: I'd swap of circle of life for gruesome feast, CoL is best suited for builds where you arent using summon ZD as an active skill slot.
Final Gift rune for Zombie Dogs synergizes well with GF.
I'd also think about putting in Mass Confusion with the Devolution rune- enemies slain while confused have a 50% chance to rise as a new zombie dog. It has a much shorter cooldown than BBV.
Duriel was the bane of my existence in D2 HC play. Run some tombs till you have the levels/gear to take him. At least he doesnt lag like hell the way he did in the early days of d2.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/witch-doctor#WcUjdg!bWX!abZaZa
This is what I came up with mixing damage types for resistances and staying with the no pets theme. Very mana intensive so I got the same passives to take care of it. Of course no real play experience but since its only lvl 30 max build there is plenty of room to branch out as you get past normal.
Like if you take the zombie handler passive you'll also want both gargantuan and summon zombie dogs. if you take zombie dogs you may want sacrifice, but sacrifice takes space you'll want if you are looking at getting fetishes! then there's the tribal rites passive, and the fetish sycophants passive, which makes me think fetish builds will be a whole different animal from zombie dog builds.
plus there's all the mana cost/regen stuff: blood ritual, vision quest, spiritual attunement, pierce the veil. which could have neat interactions.
plus soul harvest stacking with GF and pierce the veil for uber damage
Apparently neither can I. Once I got to the butcher I started getting diablo 2 so damned fast.
I didn't play as much of the beta as I thought I would. I got my taste and now I'm ready to roll.
2008, 2012, 2014 D&D "Rare With No Sauce" League Fantasy Football Champion!
Yeah stress test was the pilot light that ignited my gas of excitement... or something.
Basically, I was looking forward to the game before but now that I got a sweet sweet taste, I need some more.
soul harvest and BBV actives plus pierce the veil/gruesome feast passives for max DPS. Then spiritual attunement for mana management.
pile on for its massive 765% weapon damage, and grasp of the dead to allow you to hit with pile on. :P
firebomb cause its the coolest primary and gives you some fire damage and zombie charger for poison damage in an AOE and ta da!
tempted to swap out BBV for more CC (horrify would be great in a soul harvest build), but a 30% DPS increase aura is no joke either. plus I've got no spirit walk! or minions! arrrgh
I'm seeing how this 6 skill limit is going to encourage tons of build diversity
Here it is
Well, it reminds me of Guild Wars, which also had a bunch of skills, but you could only use a limited number at once. Eventually people figured out broken builds like the 50 health healer builds that reduced damage to some percentage of max health but also had lots of regen going on.
Switch: US 1651-2551-4335 JP 6310-4664-2624
MH3U Monster Cheat Sheet / MH3U Veggie Elder Ticket Guide
This awesome shit: Be it available digitally?
Because I am tired of Best Buy and Game Stop fornicating with the game discs before they get to the store, hence delaying the speed with which they get to the store, hence resulting in many happy faces exiting the store with brand new game boxes, none of them my own.
The preloading thing is a damn smart move, definitely doing that.
Its actually pretty cool.
Ya, but that would slow down the streaming of my Jim Henson Puppet Ultra-Porn. Thanks though, will preorder tomorrow.
Mantra of Conviction (runed for 24% extra damage) + Breath of Heaven (15% extra damage) + Blinding Flash (Faith in the Light rune for 30% bonus Holy damage) means I get 69% bonus damage for one, maybe two big attacks (Faith in the Light only lasts for 3 seconds). If I healed someone else with BoH I get another 16% (Guiding Light Passive), and if I squeeze in Crippling Wave (Breaking Wave rune) it's another 10%, for a total of an effective 95% bonus damage (61% bonus weapon damage, 34% bonus damage taken by monsters).
If can somehow squeeze in an immediate activation of MoC, the bonus increases to 48% for 3 seconds, up to 143% bonus damage!
It's probably possible to get one big attack in under these conditions, but the nice part is a good percentage of the bonus damage sticks around (BoH +dmg lasts for 45 seconds, Guiding Light for 15 seconds, MoC for 7 minutes with Chant of Resonance). There's also utility as some of this is not bonus damage, but rather an increase in damage dealt to monsters. (Which is interesting because the calculations of additional damage might be different. Whereas some skills say "X% additional weapon damage," Mantra of Conviction says "X% additional damage," which might indicate that instead of simply adding +% to weapon-keyed skill, it gets added afterwards, for potentially even more damage than estimated!). Plus with Breath of Heaven and Blinding Flash I have some very nice defensive skills, and a lot of general group utility.
Here's the build: us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#WeXYfk!cfd!cZbcca. Only thing I'm unsure of is the big pain skill. It depends on how some things are calculated. If Seven-Sided Strike counts as a single attack, that's the clear choice since it incorporates AOE and the highest +% weapon dmg of the monk attack skills. But the text seems to suggest that it doesn't apply, which means that some combination of Wave of Light (possibly runed for higher % dmg or for the AOE dmg) is the way to go.
It's time to play the music
It's time to light the lights
It's the time to meet the muppets in a muppet porn tonight.
I don't know enough about the game yet to discuss any of the other things you were talking about, but this is the first mention I've seen of Monks and "Healing." Are we talking like Healing-Priest-Paladin-Druid-Shaman healing with the goal being to heal other people? Or is this more a self-healing sustainability thing? I'm not sure what the purpose of the former is, unless the ultimate goal is for completely Co-Op campaigns?
Stop it...
STOP IT!
I've been looking at something like this:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#aVgdfk!ZYc!acZbaa
Wait, so did I accidentally mention a real thing? Now I'm just terrified.
Ancillary question: Do all players of a particular class get access to the same skills? Say, as a Monk, do I have the ability to build the same monk as the next guy, or am I going to be hunting for that ultra-super-extreme .0000000001/0 % augmentation thingamajigger that turns my Gut Punch: Rank 2 into the Five Point Palm Exploding Heart Technique?
Fortunately I conjured up that incantation from the netherverse myself. I have no idea nor desire to determine whether that lair of nameless horrors actually exists. I already feel as though I have spoken the name of that which should not be, as it is.
And yes, all classes will have access to all of their associated skills and runes. They decided to go with a level-based unlock rather than anything looted, so you will automatically unlock access to them as you level.
A main Monk ability, Breath of Heaven, heals the monk and a nearby ally for X, with a cooldown of 15 seconds. Monks also have some other abilities that can heal them and allies or regenerate health. But it's really nothing like an mmo healer archetype.
My problem with this is, if they are saying the game doesn't get interesting until Nightmare I wish I could just choose to start a character on Nightmare. I wish Blizzard valued my time a little bit more. Not that that I am not going to have fun playing on normal, but when I start trying out the other classes I'm probably going wish I could just skip ahead. I feel that way with Diablo 2 and it's too bad they didn't improve it for 3.
why are there so many
songs about buttholes
and what's on the innnnsiiiide...
Thank you merciful lord.
Priest, we should video game.
And yes, as someone mentioned, you can buy from Blizzard directly as digital only. It lets you completely pre-install the game, then it will unlock to play when the game is 'released'.
I ordered the physical copy so if I need to reinstall (or install on a second system) I can skip a few GB of downloads and just patch up.