I want to hate on Bloodbourne (didn't even know it was a thing until last night) but in researching the game, I found it is from From Software, and those dudes know how to make a game. The Souls series is great, if not my bag. So I wont hate on the game.
Bloodbourne is uglier than balls though. So I will just hate on the graphics.
If you are reading this add me.
D3: HexDex#1281, PSN: DireOtter, Live: DireOtter
So I hear wizards aren't viable in 2.2? Playing on the PTR my wizard seems to do considerably more damage with firebirds, and I was even able to squeeze 2 piece of tal rashas in for some meteor fun times
Clearing a t6 rift takes at least a solid 2 less minutes on the ptr, what am I missing
anybody can clear a t6 rift that fast though
its not that they aren't viable. its that blizzard doesn't seem or is able to bring the classes up to parity
Went ahead and looked at the 18 minute game play of Bloodborne. Spooky, children with no legs praying at a lamp, giant a werewolf mauling your face, a werewolf with an argyle sweat shirt, but what I REALLY don't understand/find most distracting is why does the protagonist's suspenders... are suspending around his waist instead of over his shoulders. I feel like that would get in the way of everything.
so the disparity seems a bit more in line from what I can tell after the last ptr patch
DHs are doing GR 57, barbs are around 54-56 post IK nerf/fix, and Monks/wizards/WD are at 54 supposedly in terms of top performances
Crusaders are hovering around 49-50... I can see why you would forget.
Something foul is afoot if Crusaders are not in the happy margin between 50-55 in greater rifts. I demand justice! And mostly unnerf Drakkon's Lesson.
I didn't see anything about Crusaders posted where I got that update so that's why I didn't add them :x
sorry sky
hopefully they do a fast turn around on a new patch for the crusader/wd/monk stuff and not make everybody wait forever, or at least another decent balance patch in two months for season 4
It's all good! The Crusader forums haven't been QQing enough for some reason. DH will always be the outlier in these cases and I'm so glad Witch Doctors got the buff they needed (despite making Zuni 100% mandatory). Just disappointed that Crusaders are falling fast behind when all the other classes have shiny new toys. Armor of Akkhan 2 piece bonus is 500 strength... Please Blizzard give Crusaders new shiny toys too!
DaimarA Million Feet Tall of AwesomeRegistered Userregular
Next question up from the recently returned. I can plow through T3 pretty fast, T4 at a reasonable rate and tend to get stomped on if I try T5 or T6 solo. I know that I'm still missing one piece of gear that boosts damage and reduces resource costs (Cindercoat) but when I see people that are able to absolutely just sprint through a T6 is the right gear all of the difference? Or am I stuck in a lower gear until I get around 300-400 Paragon? Just trying to work out what the big gap in performance is between having to nuke something two to four times vs just one shotting trash.
Next question up from the recently returned. I can plow through T3 pretty fast, T4 at a reasonable rate and tend to get stomped on if I try T5 or T6 solo. I know that I'm still missing one piece of gear that boosts damage and reduces resource costs (Cindercoat) but when I see people that are able to absolutely just sprint through a T6 is the right gear all of the difference? Or am I stuck in a lower gear until I get around 300-400 Paragon? Just trying to work out what the big gap in performance is between having to nuke something two to four times vs just one shotting trash.
kind of depends on your class, and the rest of your gear. paragon really has nothing to do with progression except as an indication of how long you've been playing
what's your character, I tried looking up anything tied to Kragaar#1484 on US and EU but got nothing
Well, as a player who spent almost all of S1 and S2 playing exclusively on seasons I felt a bit disappointed with S2. I enjoy seasons, the fresh start for everyone and the initial race to see who can rank well on the leaderboards and then the race at the end as people try and end the season with a good rank. I know not everyone enjoys that, I understand some prefer non-seasonal play and recognize there is a divide between seasonal and non-seasonal players within the community but seasons offered that illusion of competitiveness with a clean slate that I enjoyed a little bit. I didn't get as much enjoyment from S2 as I did from S1 though, S2 was pretty disappointing and I place the blame largely on the shorter duration. In S1 there was a lot more time to spend grinding against the RNG gods if you weren't fortunate enough to loot that game changing gear or to get optimal gear in most every slot and min max everything to increase the chances of ranking well. I just hit 600 paragon in S2 last night and the overall quality of loot compared to what I found in S1 which I played until 707 paragon is horrible. I can't cite exactly how long I've played in S2 vs S1 and I know paragon is a bad comparison with the XP scaling in greater rifts making the paragon grind much easier in S2 - but if I wanted to achieve a similar quality/amount of nice gear in S2 at the rate I've been going it feels like I'd end up being around paragon 1200 by time that happened.
I suppose the point I'm making is that a shorter season places a lot more emphasis on a players luck whereas a longer season allowed enough time to grind and grind until whatever you were seeking finally dropped. Obviously that's the nature of the game though, and despite referencing the illusion of competitiveness as one of my attractions to seasons I'm wise enough to know it's just that - an illusion. The game is all around a competition against RNG. You compete against RNG as you grind for gear, some will find that godly ancient Furnace, SMK or BoP by paragon 50 and many won't find one in 600, 700 or more paragon. Once you're fairly well geared and want to try and push high greater rifts you start to compete against RNG once again. Some classes might compete against RNG for a good map that suits their play, some classes might compete against RNG for great density in that high level grift. For the most part the only real competitive nature of the game ultimately is a competition of will power. A competition won by the players willing to do the same thing over and over until a certain number of parameters, each dictated by their own RNG, are finally met. I always knew this, I've even said it plenty of times before on the Blizzard forums, but I still allowed myself to get caught up in the illusion. Despite my disappointment I still enjoyed it but I am starting to lose the allure towards seasonal play. As S3 rolls around, I'm not sure if I see myself investing the time to grind out the gear and then sit there farming dozens or perhaps hundreds of high greater rift keys to keep spamming through until RNG works to my favor and I find that sweet spot of good map, decent mobs and great density to rank well.
I'm sure S3 will still see me, but probably for a more limited time so at the least I can get the transmogs. For now though, I foresee myself making a return to non-seasonal play.
Next question up from the recently returned. I can plow through T3 pretty fast, T4 at a reasonable rate and tend to get stomped on if I try T5 or T6 solo. I know that I'm still missing one piece of gear that boosts damage and reduces resource costs (Cindercoat) but when I see people that are able to absolutely just sprint through a T6 is the right gear all of the difference? Or am I stuck in a lower gear until I get around 300-400 Paragon? Just trying to work out what the big gap in performance is between having to nuke something two to four times vs just one shotting trash.
kind of depends on your class, and the rest of your gear. paragon really has nothing to do with progression except as an indication of how long you've been playing
what's your character, I tried looking up anything tied to Kragaar#1484 on US and EU but got nothing
Monk, as I mentioned, just the chestpiece really missing as well as a ring which would be nice to upgrade to either SoJ or unity, whichever comes first. I also haven't fine tuned most of my gear to try enchant in the best stats, so that could be contributing to some of my problems. Working toward Quin69s T6 speed build.
Unfortunately I'm on mobile so can't see exact stats, but judging by the "gear bonus" list and 346k damage, you seem to be lacking in crit chance and critical hit damage. Stacking both of those is was really inflates dps.
Crit chance is basically required on gloves, amulets, and bracers... then you may even want it on helm, and sometimes rings.
Crit damage is basically required on gloves, amulets, and especially an Emerald in your weapon... and generally seems to be the better than crit chance on rings, depending on your other gear.
okay well, your problem is your damage is really, really low and you don't seem to have enchanted most of your gear to fix this. like when optimized you should be able to do T6.
you need a socket on your weapon for an emerald, crit dmg on your gloves, crit chance on your helm, crit dmg or crit chance or elemental% on neck, crit chance or crit dmg on your rrog, get a better second ring
drop some vit or lph or life regen on those items to do that, on the rrog drop the area dmg
It's all good! The Crusader forums haven't been QQing enough for some reason on the forums. DH will always be the outlier in these cases and I'm so glad Witch Doctors got the buff they needed (despite making Zuni 100% mandatory). Just disappointed that Crusaders are falling fast behind when all the other classes have shiny new toys. Armor of Akkhan 2 piece bonus is 500 strength... Please Blizzard give Crusaders new shiny toys too!
You bring up a good point; I hadn't really thought about how boring and terrible the 2 piece bonus is. They could easily do something like making spenders do increased damage. Of course that'll probably just widen the gap between Akkhan's and Roland's. I am very curious to see what I can do with Roland's after the patch hits. I think I have a pretty well rolled set including an ancient piece or two. I probably just need to craft a Piro and find a Golden Flense (or Furnace). I'm not really sure what the ideal weapon for that setup is.
People have been suggesting that 2 piece bonus for Armor of Akkhan should be Akkarat's Champion gains effect of all runes. It does make the most logically sense since it follows the theme of Armor of Akkhan. Also Barbarians get that sweet WOTB bracer.
Unfortunately most of Akkarat's Champion runes suck besides Rally and Firestarter (Barbarians have better WOTB runes all around). The other problem concerns balancing. People would just wear 2 piece Armor of Akkhan and 4 piece Roland's Legacy only with the effect of all runes. Now if they had made the Roland's Legacy 6 piece bonus GOOD, it'll be worth ignoring the 2 piece Akkhan or give us an "option" to wear 6 piece Roland or 2 Akkhan with 4 Roland for more flexibility.
So I can see why Blizzard is blatantly jumping around updating 2 piece Armor of Akkhan. It's very difficult to balance at this point. I can only hope though right?
It's all good! The Crusader forums haven't been QQing enough for some reason on the forums. DH will always be the outlier in these cases and I'm so glad Witch Doctors got the buff they needed (despite making Zuni 100% mandatory). Just disappointed that Crusaders are falling fast behind when all the other classes have shiny new toys. Armor of Akkhan 2 piece bonus is 500 strength... Please Blizzard give Crusaders new shiny toys too!
Now that Barbarians can have permanent Wrath of the Berserker from the IK 4-set, permanent Akarat's Champion feels really weak by comparison. And with the new Mortick's Brace Barbarians gain the effect of all Wrath of the Berserker runes and can easily fit this into all builds. All of the WotB runes are good, providing huge damage and survivability boosts. They easily outclass the runes on Akarat's Champion, which really only has Prophet as an end-game competitive option.
So even if you moved the 4 and 6 bonuses on Armor of Akkhan to 2 and 4 and made the 6-piece bonus "Akarat's Champion gains the effect of all runes", I still don't think that would bring Crusaders up to Barb, DH, Monk and Wiz solo GR levels. Maybe then a 3-piece Roland + 3-piece Akkhan + RoRG could be good then, as you'd get the survivability and wrath utility from Akkhan and damage and defensive utility from Roland.
SaldonasSee you space cowboy...Registered Userregular
Maybe I should actually try playing my barb after the patch drops, that's my third leveled class. If my monk has taught me anything, it's that it feels wonderful to run through t6 and insta-gib everything.
Maybe I should actually try playing my barb after the patch drops, that's my third leveled class. If my monk has taught me anything, it's that it feels wonderful to run through t6 and insta-gib everything.
I'm going to be playing my Barbs a lot in 2.2 so I'd be happy to rift with you and drop you some gear.
One thing everyone should do before the end of the season is get 500 blood shards on both your seasonal and non-seasonal stash. The seasonal shards will transfer to your non-season account during seasonal rollover. This will allow you to temporarily exceed the 500 cap so you can have 1000 blood shards ready to spend.
I'm going to spend every blood shard on bracers until I get a Mortick's Brace. Gaining all runes for Wrath of the Berserker will be such a huge power boost.
Yes, the WOTB bracers and perma WOTB are amazing! Armor of Akkhan is very, very dated in comparison. Crusaders need a whopping 6 piece bonus and 56% CDR to maintain perma Akkarat's Champion. Those spots where we need to absolutely roll CDR are taking precious defensive rolls (vit on gloves, all res on shoulder, vit on shield, vit on weapon, list goes on). Crusaders are a lousy melee class with poor LOH, toughness issues, no pets to divide our damage, and have terrible blocking mechanics.
Wow, I'm such a negative nancy about Crusaders. Don't let that deter anyone from rolling a Crusader! They're still a great class with tons of flexibility. Just not as "new" in 2.2. :P
Yes, the WOTB bracers and perma WOTB are amazing! Armor of Akkhan is very, very dated in comparison. Crusaders need a whopping 6 piece bonus and 56% CDR to maintain perma Akkarat's Champion. Those spots where we need to absolutely roll CDR are taking precious defensive rolls (vit on gloves, all res on shoulder, vit on shield, vit on weapon, list goes on). Crusaders are a lousy melee class with poor LOH, toughness issues, no pets to divide our damage, and have terrible blocking mechanics.
Wow, I'm such a negative nancy about Crusaders. Don't let that deter anyone from rolling a Crusader! They're still a great class with tons of flexibility. Just not as "new" in 2.2. :P
Barbs suffered a sizable "nerf" in the latest PTR patch due to the reworking of the IK set bonuses and fixing the CotA damage and fury bugs, but they are still much stronger and have much better build diversity in patch 2.2. Mortick's Brace is such a huge item and will become the default bracer for all barb builds. Look at what you get for just 1 gear slot. Keep in mind that this gear slot doesn't conflict with any set bonuses.
Wrath of the Berserker: Enter a berserker rage which raises several attributes for 20 seconds.
Critical Hit Chance: 10%
Attack Speed: 25%
Dodge Chance: 20%
Movement Speed: 20%
Arreat's Wail: Activating Wrath of the Berserker deals 3400% weapon damage as Fire to all enemies within 15 yards. With the IK 4-set reducing the cooldown of WotB for spending fury, this previously 120-second cooldown skill becomes a somewhat spammable nuke. A nice source of additional AoE damage.
Insanity: While active, gain 50% increased damage. This is the rune that everyone picks right now and is a huge damage boost.
Slaughter: While active, Critical Hits have a chance to cause an eruption of blood dealing 300% weapon damage to enemies within 15 yards. Another huge AoE damage boost that can replace the Bloodshed rune of Battle Rage, freeing you to use Into the Fray or another skill entirely.
Striding Giant: Reduce all damage taken by 50%. This rune gives you the option of not running a Unity ring, freeing you to run some combination of SoJ, Bul-Kathos, RoRG or Focus + Restraint.
Thrive on Chaos: While active, gain 5364 Life per Fury spent. This is a huge source of healing that frees you from using Ignore Pain: Ignorance is Bliss and the Pride of Cassius mighty belt.
With the 4-piece IK bonus reducing the cooldown on Wrath of the Berserker for spending fury, you can easily get to perma-WotB status with little to no CDR on your gear. You can then stack toughness stats so that you are much tougher and have much higher damage than a Crusader, who still has to sacrifice so many gear stats to achieve permanent Akarat's Champion, on top of using a 6-piece set. And then Akarat's Champion pales in comparison to Wrath of the Berserker.
Barbs got a lot of attention in patch 2.2 and I'm hoping Crusaders get that kind of love in the next patch.
Maybe I should actually try playing my barb after the patch drops, that's my third leveled class. If my monk has taught me anything, it's that it feels wonderful to run through t6 and insta-gib everything.
I'm going to be playing my Barbs a lot in 2.2 so I'd be happy to rift with you and drop you some gear.
One thing everyone should do before the end of the season is get 500 blood shards on both your seasonal and non-seasonal stash. The seasonal shards will transfer to your non-season account during seasonal rollover. This will allow you to temporarily exceed the 500 cap so you can have 1000 blood shards ready to spend.
I'm going to spend every blood shard on bracers until I get a Mortick's Brace. Gaining all runes for Wrath of the Berserker will be such a huge power boost.
What sort of stuff would I want to start collecting right now? I need to finish leveling my barb since he's 57 at the moment. I think I have one piece of IK laying around.
Yes, the WOTB bracers and perma WOTB are amazing! Armor of Akkhan is very, very dated in comparison. Crusaders need a whopping 6 piece bonus and 56% CDR to maintain perma Akkarat's Champion. Those spots where we need to absolutely roll CDR are taking precious defensive rolls (vit on gloves, all res on shoulder, vit on shield, vit on weapon, list goes on). Crusaders are a lousy melee class with poor LOH, toughness issues, no pets to divide our damage, and have terrible blocking mechanics.
Wow, I'm such a negative nancy about Crusaders. Don't let that deter anyone from rolling a Crusader! They're still a great class with tons of flexibility. Just not as "new" in 2.2. :P
I think, even if it hasn't been stated verbally, there has been a shift in the dev team internally about what acceptable balance is.
There were several knee jerk reactions by the dev team at the before 2.0 to utterly level the game from the state it was in at 1.x.
Gutting perma wotb, archon, life steal, a few other things.
I think largely Akkhans and Marauders were their test cases. "What can we allow in this new balanced environment?" Akkhans showed them that perma 'ultimate' is not broken. M6 really showed them what pushing glass cannon builds could do, and that it doesn't "break" what people like about Diablo.
True to their previous words, Greater Rifts are being used to help guide balance choices for the classes.
I think from 2.2 going forward, you will see more build freedom, for all classes, and I expect Akkhans to get a tuning pass in a future patch after they get their current focus sets to where their goals are.
If you are reading this add me.
D3: HexDex#1281, PSN: DireOtter, Live: DireOtter
Maybe I should actually try playing my barb after the patch drops, that's my third leveled class. If my monk has taught me anything, it's that it feels wonderful to run through t6 and insta-gib everything.
I'm going to be playing my Barbs a lot in 2.2 so I'd be happy to rift with you and drop you some gear.
One thing everyone should do before the end of the season is get 500 blood shards on both your seasonal and non-seasonal stash. The seasonal shards will transfer to your non-season account during seasonal rollover. This will allow you to temporarily exceed the 500 cap so you can have 1000 blood shards ready to spend.
I'm going to spend every blood shard on bracers until I get a Mortick's Brace. Gaining all runes for Wrath of the Berserker will be such a huge power boost.
What sort of stuff would I want to start collecting right now? I need to finish leveling my barb since he's 57 at the moment. I think I have one piece of IK laying around.
Right now you can look for:
Sets: all pieces of Immortal King's Eternal Reign, Legacy of Raekor, Might of the Earth
2H: Heart Slaughter, Furnace, Maximus
1H: Bul-Kathos Warrior's Blood and Bul-Kathos Solemn Vow
Mighty Belts: Pride of Cassius, Lamentation, Chilanik's Chain
Boots: Lut Socks
Bracers: Strongarms, Ancient Parthan Defenders
Gloves: Tasker and Theo
Rings: Unity, Stone of Jordan (physical, fire), Focus + Restraint
In 2.2 you will also want to find:
Sets: IK Pants, Wrath of the Wastes 6-piece
2H: IK Boulder Breaker. (In 2.2 the IK weapon will roll with 45-60% Call of the Ancients damage)
Maybe I should actually try playing my barb after the patch drops, that's my third leveled class. If my monk has taught me anything, it's that it feels wonderful to run through t6 and insta-gib everything.
I'm going to be playing my Barbs a lot in 2.2 so I'd be happy to rift with you and drop you some gear.
One thing everyone should do before the end of the season is get 500 blood shards on both your seasonal and non-seasonal stash. The seasonal shards will transfer to your non-season account during seasonal rollover. This will allow you to temporarily exceed the 500 cap so you can have 1000 blood shards ready to spend.
I'm going to spend every blood shard on bracers until I get a Mortick's Brace. Gaining all runes for Wrath of the Berserker will be such a huge power boost.
What sort of stuff would I want to start collecting right now? I need to finish leveling my barb since he's 57 at the moment. I think I have one piece of IK laying around.
Right now you can look for:
Sets: all pieces of Immortal King's Eternal Reign, Legacy of Raekor, Might of the Earth
2H: Heart Slaughter, Furnace, Maximus
1H: Bul-Kathos Warrior's Blood and Bul-Kathos Solemn Vow
Mighty Belts: Pride of Cassius, Lamentation, Chilanik's Chain
Boots: Lut Socks
Bracers: Strongarms, Ancient Parthan Defenders
Gloves: Tasker and Theo
Rings: Unity, Stone of Jordan (physical, fire), Focus + Restraint
In 2.2 you will also want to find:
Sets: IK Pants, Wrath of the Wastes 6-piece
2H: IK Boulder Breaker. (In 2.2 the IK weapon will roll with 45-60% Call of the Ancients damage)
Bracers: Mortick's Brace
Rings: Skull Grasp
Sweet, thanks! Looks like I'll have my work cut out for me.
He's using Cindercoat, Halo of Arlyse, Death's Watch Mantle (the fan of knives shoulders, buffed significantly with 2.2), Meteor Boots, Parthan's (the freeze from Halo of Arlyse apparently procs it) and Sunkeeper/Tal Offhand. He's said admittedly that his Sunkeeper is junky and a Wand of Woh would be much better.
Legendary Gems are Bane of the Trapped and Esoteric Alteration, his Tal's Amulet doesn't have a socket so no third.
So now that the PTR has been out a couple weeks, how are wizards shaking out? Wizard is my class of choice for season 3. I really don't want to use the cookie cutter FireBlizzard and Hydra build either. While those skills are "okay" I'd much rather use a Frozen orb build or Disintegrate or Arcane Torrent as the backbone of my build.
Posts
I don't really see why not. That's not too many steps away from Dark Souls as it is.
Not to derail this thread, but Bloodborne does have a randomized dungeon. It'll be interesting to see.
Also i predict 2.2 on 4/7
Demon Hunters do more damage than Wizards; this means it is impossible to have fun playing a Wizard.
If you're interested in group GR's this is actually a huge thing.
And "more" in this case is something like 3-4 times as much.
Bloodbourne is uglier than balls though. So I will just hate on the graphics.
D3: HexDex#1281, PSN: DireOtter, Live: DireOtter
anybody can clear a t6 rift that fast though
its not that they aren't viable. its that blizzard doesn't seem or is able to bring the classes up to parity
DHs are doing GR 57, barbs are around 54-56 post IK nerf/fix, and Monks/wizards/WD are at 54 supposedly in terms of top performances
Crusaders are hovering around 49-50... I can see why you would forget.
Something foul is afoot if Crusaders are not in the happy margin between 50-55 in greater rifts. I demand justice! And mostly unnerf Drakkon's Lesson.
sorry sky
hopefully they do a fast turn around on a new patch for the crusader/wd/monk stuff and not make everybody wait forever, or at least another decent balance patch in two months for season 4
kind of depends on your class, and the rest of your gear. paragon really has nothing to do with progression except as an indication of how long you've been playing
what's your character, I tried looking up anything tied to Kragaar#1484 on US and EU but got nothing
I suppose the point I'm making is that a shorter season places a lot more emphasis on a players luck whereas a longer season allowed enough time to grind and grind until whatever you were seeking finally dropped. Obviously that's the nature of the game though, and despite referencing the illusion of competitiveness as one of my attractions to seasons I'm wise enough to know it's just that - an illusion. The game is all around a competition against RNG. You compete against RNG as you grind for gear, some will find that godly ancient Furnace, SMK or BoP by paragon 50 and many won't find one in 600, 700 or more paragon. Once you're fairly well geared and want to try and push high greater rifts you start to compete against RNG once again. Some classes might compete against RNG for a good map that suits their play, some classes might compete against RNG for great density in that high level grift. For the most part the only real competitive nature of the game ultimately is a competition of will power. A competition won by the players willing to do the same thing over and over until a certain number of parameters, each dictated by their own RNG, are finally met. I always knew this, I've even said it plenty of times before on the Blizzard forums, but I still allowed myself to get caught up in the illusion. Despite my disappointment I still enjoyed it but I am starting to lose the allure towards seasonal play. As S3 rolls around, I'm not sure if I see myself investing the time to grind out the gear and then sit there farming dozens or perhaps hundreds of high greater rift keys to keep spamming through until RNG works to my favor and I find that sweet spot of good map, decent mobs and great density to rank well.
I'm sure S3 will still see me, but probably for a more limited time so at the least I can get the transmogs. For now though, I foresee myself making a return to non-seasonal play.
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Kragaar-1484/hero/59022891
Monk, as I mentioned, just the chestpiece really missing as well as a ring which would be nice to upgrade to either SoJ or unity, whichever comes first. I also haven't fine tuned most of my gear to try enchant in the best stats, so that could be contributing to some of my problems. Working toward Quin69s T6 speed build.
Crit chance is basically required on gloves, amulets, and bracers... then you may even want it on helm, and sometimes rings.
Crit damage is basically required on gloves, amulets, and especially an Emerald in your weapon... and generally seems to be the better than crit chance on rings, depending on your other gear.
you need a socket on your weapon for an emerald, crit dmg on your gloves, crit chance on your helm, crit dmg or crit chance or elemental% on neck, crit chance or crit dmg on your rrog, get a better second ring
drop some vit or lph or life regen on those items to do that, on the rrog drop the area dmg
well I'm never going to play this enough to be doing rank 50 greater rifts or higher
I just saw in clan chat everyone was bitching wizards got nerfed and I wasn't seeing it on the ptr, felt like a pretty nice buff? idk
all I know is now I can wear firebirds and 2pc tal rashas for MORE METEORS which is basically one of my life goals
they nerfed tal damage and meteor boots damage for no real reason on ptr in the last patch that came out this weekend
You bring up a good point; I hadn't really thought about how boring and terrible the 2 piece bonus is. They could easily do something like making spenders do increased damage. Of course that'll probably just widen the gap between Akkhan's and Roland's. I am very curious to see what I can do with Roland's after the patch hits. I think I have a pretty well rolled set including an ancient piece or two. I probably just need to craft a Piro and find a Golden Flense (or Furnace). I'm not really sure what the ideal weapon for that setup is.
Switch: SW-1493-0062-4053
Unfortunately most of Akkarat's Champion runes suck besides Rally and Firestarter (Barbarians have better WOTB runes all around). The other problem concerns balancing. People would just wear 2 piece Armor of Akkhan and 4 piece Roland's Legacy only with the effect of all runes. Now if they had made the Roland's Legacy 6 piece bonus GOOD, it'll be worth ignoring the 2 piece Akkhan or give us an "option" to wear 6 piece Roland or 2 Akkhan with 4 Roland for more flexibility.
So I can see why Blizzard is blatantly jumping around updating 2 piece Armor of Akkhan. It's very difficult to balance at this point. I can only hope though right?
Now that Barbarians can have permanent Wrath of the Berserker from the IK 4-set, permanent Akarat's Champion feels really weak by comparison. And with the new Mortick's Brace Barbarians gain the effect of all Wrath of the Berserker runes and can easily fit this into all builds. All of the WotB runes are good, providing huge damage and survivability boosts. They easily outclass the runes on Akarat's Champion, which really only has Prophet as an end-game competitive option.
So even if you moved the 4 and 6 bonuses on Armor of Akkhan to 2 and 4 and made the 6-piece bonus "Akarat's Champion gains the effect of all runes", I still don't think that would bring Crusaders up to Barb, DH, Monk and Wiz solo GR levels. Maybe then a 3-piece Roland + 3-piece Akkhan + RoRG could be good then, as you'd get the survivability and wrath utility from Akkhan and damage and defensive utility from Roland.
Switch: SW-1493-0062-4053
I'm going to be playing my Barbs a lot in 2.2 so I'd be happy to rift with you and drop you some gear.
One thing everyone should do before the end of the season is get 500 blood shards on both your seasonal and non-seasonal stash. The seasonal shards will transfer to your non-season account during seasonal rollover. This will allow you to temporarily exceed the 500 cap so you can have 1000 blood shards ready to spend.
I'm going to spend every blood shard on bracers until I get a Mortick's Brace. Gaining all runes for Wrath of the Berserker will be such a huge power boost.
Wow, I'm such a negative nancy about Crusaders. Don't let that deter anyone from rolling a Crusader! They're still a great class with tons of flexibility. Just not as "new" in 2.2. :P
Barbs suffered a sizable "nerf" in the latest PTR patch due to the reworking of the IK set bonuses and fixing the CotA damage and fury bugs, but they are still much stronger and have much better build diversity in patch 2.2. Mortick's Brace is such a huge item and will become the default bracer for all barb builds. Look at what you get for just 1 gear slot. Keep in mind that this gear slot doesn't conflict with any set bonuses.
Wrath of the Berserker: Enter a berserker rage which raises several attributes for 20 seconds.
With the 4-piece IK bonus reducing the cooldown on Wrath of the Berserker for spending fury, you can easily get to perma-WotB status with little to no CDR on your gear. You can then stack toughness stats so that you are much tougher and have much higher damage than a Crusader, who still has to sacrifice so many gear stats to achieve permanent Akarat's Champion, on top of using a 6-piece set. And then Akarat's Champion pales in comparison to Wrath of the Berserker.
Barbs got a lot of attention in patch 2.2 and I'm hoping Crusaders get that kind of love in the next patch.
What sort of stuff would I want to start collecting right now? I need to finish leveling my barb since he's 57 at the moment. I think I have one piece of IK laying around.
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I think, even if it hasn't been stated verbally, there has been a shift in the dev team internally about what acceptable balance is.
There were several knee jerk reactions by the dev team at the before 2.0 to utterly level the game from the state it was in at 1.x.
Gutting perma wotb, archon, life steal, a few other things.
I think largely Akkhans and Marauders were their test cases. "What can we allow in this new balanced environment?" Akkhans showed them that perma 'ultimate' is not broken. M6 really showed them what pushing glass cannon builds could do, and that it doesn't "break" what people like about Diablo.
True to their previous words, Greater Rifts are being used to help guide balance choices for the classes.
I think from 2.2 going forward, you will see more build freedom, for all classes, and I expect Akkhans to get a tuning pass in a future patch after they get their current focus sets to where their goals are.
D3: HexDex#1281, PSN: DireOtter, Live: DireOtter
Right now you can look for:
In 2.2 you will also want to find:
Sweet, thanks! Looks like I'll have my work cut out for me.
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Jeez no kidding. Watching this actually gives me hope for non-Meteor based Tal'Rasha builds.
His build, for those interested: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#WchPSf!ZSic!bZYYZZ
He's using Cindercoat, Halo of Arlyse, Death's Watch Mantle (the fan of knives shoulders, buffed significantly with 2.2), Meteor Boots, Parthan's (the freeze from Halo of Arlyse apparently procs it) and Sunkeeper/Tal Offhand. He's said admittedly that his Sunkeeper is junky and a Wand of Woh would be much better.
Legendary Gems are Bane of the Trapped and Esoteric Alteration, his Tal's Amulet doesn't have a socket so no third.
Battle.net Tag: Dibby#1582
So, hope I can do that!
Seems doable
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