Diablo III: Not Just a Vitality Race!

[pffh]

That's not even a remotely similar situation.

The difference is this: in D2, you could progress in the game on the highest difficulty without HOTO/HoZ/Nigma/2x SoJ/Mara's/Eth Treks/etc that you would farm with your other characters.

Saying that "this one dude full cleared Inferno and solo'd Diablo with 5NV, so Barb and Inferno have got to be totally balanced" when said one dude had some of the best gear in the game that he was incapable of farming himself (and was in part only available to him because of the ****ty itemization balance and lack of solidity contributed to the AH by its age) is somewhat flawed. That, and just that, was my point.

I don't really think inferno clears should be compared to Hell clears in Diablo 2. I would say beating inferno would be closer to killing uber diablo.

[ex cathedra]

I don't really think inferno clears should be compared to Hell clears in Diablo 2. I would say beating inferno would be closer to killing uber diablo.

So, only Smiters should be able to do it?

[Traab]

That's not even a remotely similar situation.

The difference is this: in D2, you could progress in the game on the highest difficulty without HOTO/HoZ/Nigma/2x SoJ/Mara's/Eth Treks/etc that you would farm with your other characters.

Saying that "this one dude full cleared Inferno and solo'd Diablo with 5NV, so Barb and Inferno have got to be totally balanced" when said one dude had some of the best gear in the game that he was incapable of farming himself (and was in part only available to him because of the ****ty itemization balance and lack of solidity contributed to the AH by its age) is somewhat flawed. That, and just that, was my point.

So, you're saying that the experiences of the minority are somehow less valid because the majority of players, who aren't even involved in the conversation/feedback between players in inferno and developers, have no experience of their own to which to compare? How does that make any sense?

I'll never understand why you feel that you should judge people who enjoy the game in a way that you don't.

No, im saying that spending three days working on inferno is a bit early to make sweeping claims about balance. 2% of the player base is too small of a sample for blizzard to just accept judgement of content, it would be smarter to wait a bit, see what other players have to say as more make it that far, test it themselves, and only THEN come up with a plan to deal with the problems, (if any)

[GolemsVoice]

Saying that "this one dude full cleared Inferno and solo'd Diablo with 5NV, so Barb and Inferno have got to be totally balanced" when said one dude had some of the best gear in the game that he was incapable of farming himself (and was in part only available to him because of the ****ty itemization balance and lack of solidity contributed to the AH by its age) is somewhat flawed. That, and just that, was my point.

And nobody said that Barbarian is totally balanced, just that it's not impossible, which it isn't.

[Avilan the Grey]

I think the main point with the 1.9% figure is that, the game is still brand new, barely anyone has even REACHED that content, so its a bit premature to start screaming about how impossible it is. I mean, the game is what, a week and a half old? I will never understand that mindset of player. "Its a new game, ok guys, lets complete it as fast as possible so we can get bored within a week of release! WOOHOO!"

Especially since it seems 99% of those complaining must have kept themselves 110% spoiler free, since they are acting like all this is news.

Blizzard have repeatedly said the following, over the last three years:

1. You WILL die in Inferno.
2. You will DIE in Inferno.
3. YOU will die in Inferno.
4. Inferno is MUCH harder than Hell.
5. Inferno is not the Endgame; it is an extra challenge for those feeling up to it.
6. Each difficulty will release drops, and affixes and suffixes on drops, that were not seen in previous difficulty.
7. oh and YOU WILL DIE IN INFERNO.

The difference is this: in D2, you could progress in the game on the highest difficulty without HOTO/HoZ/Nigma/2x SoJ/Mara's/Eth Treks/etc that you would farm with your other characters.

...

So, you're saying that the experiences of the minority are somehow less valid because the majority of players, who aren't even involved in the conversation/feedback between players in inferno and developers, have no experience of their own to which to compare? How does that make any sense?.

Again:

1. Hell is equal to Hell in D2. Inferno is OVER THE TOP. On purpose. Because the ultra-hardcore people claims Hell in D2 was way too easy. To compare "highest difficulties" between the two games is obviously wrong, since they are two different difficulties. It's like saying that the roof on five-story building should be at the same level as the roof on the three-story building beside it...

2. It has nothing to do with invalidating the experiences of the minority. It has to do with Balance: the balance of Inferno hinges on it being a lot more players there before the item drop ratios etc will play out as intended.

EDIT: My phone thinks that bragging is bear aging...huh...

LOL And yes. We obviously prefer different things.

[Dublock]

I am making an assumption so if I am wrong please correct me.

But a reason why I think people "race ahead to the end and be bored at the end within the week of the release" is because of competition.

Its a form of competition to be in the top percent of the game's population, to be pushing yourself and seeing/knowing that you are among the elite. If I was in that mindset I would be thrilled to know I am in the top 2%.

Also by rushing ahead now you are setting yourself up to be a potential player in the economic situation (going back to competition) by being in the spot to farm for the best gear before the vast majority of players and being able to sell those gear for extremely high prices because everything is in flux currently.

To me in D3 is not a big of a deal but for example when MoP comes out I will be taking advantage of it like I did for Cata, in a day and half I was level 85 and half way done with my tailoring (abit the easy half :P)

[Chen]

You guys seem like you're making a lot of assumptions based on what you think that Inferno drops are like, but the fact of the matter is all legendary items seem to have set ilvls, and more importantly they all have pre-set base stat ranges and types so Wizardspike's stats are never going to roll on top of an ilvl 63 Dagger. Thus, its DPS will never roll high enough to compete with ilvl 63 daggers with decent mods. Weapons like Azure Wrath have terribly low base values, and the fact that they inherently roll modifiers like +cold damage and +% damage means that they can't possibly roll a higher-ilvl version of those affixes.

The game guide doesn't have ilvl of the item on it. It has the level requirement of the item. Nothing on that guide is higher than 60, yet the article Blizz posted explicitly mentioned ilvl 63 items.

Now whether this can affect Legendaries or not may not be relevant in a lot of cases. If a Legendary has + damage and + damage% as fixed stats, then yes its not going to get that much higher in listed DPS (+ attack speed will be the only one that increases it more I believe).

If it does NOT then it has the same potential to be great as a rare, assuming it has fixed stats you can work with. The main problem with the Legendaries is that their fixed stats are not the same ranges as the fixed stats on high ilvl rares and blues. All they really need to do is bump them up to match and they'd be fine.

Even with such a change, very good Legendaries are still going to be extremely rare since you need the high end of the stat ranges AND good rolls on the random stats. Combined with the fact that their drop rate is so low, it only makes sense to see tons of rares and blues on the AH at high values compared to very few Legendaries.

It doesn't help that people tend to remember things that stand out rather than those that are commonplace. This means when people finally get that Legendary they think its crappy and thus extend it to all Legendaries being crappy. The crappy blues and rares you get are forgotten since they're FAR more common. I suspect if you took the percentages of the godly items vs ALL the total items dropped of that type, they'd look pretty similar for magic items, rares and legendaries. I mean that supposition on my part but if I wanted things to be truly random that's how I would design it. I also bet that if we reduce our threshold from godly to good, you'd have a FAR higher % of Legendaries (compared to the total pool of them) that were "good" than if I did the same with magic items or rares simply due to the fact most Legendaries have desirable stats on them that are fixed.

Since the drop rate on them is so low, I don't think there's much of a problem with buffing them so that they are almost strictly better than blues/rares or at least equivalent. I don't know what buffing they are going to be doing, but I suspect it won't be too difficult to put them in line.

[Avilan the Grey]

The game guide doesn't have ilvl of the item on it. It has the level requirement of the item. Nothing on that guide is higher than 60, yet the article Blizz posted explicitly mentioned ilvl 63 items.

Yes, because there is a characteristic that can appear on weapons called "lowered level requirement" (or something like that) that at most can be "-3". This can be on lvl 60 weapons, which makes these actual lvl 63 weapons.

Edit: Dammit, I still can't decide! Male or Female monk!?!? Going nuts here...!

[ChaosOS]

Yes, because there is a characteristic that can appear on weapons called "lowered level requirement" (or something like that) that at most can be "-3". This can be on lvl 60 weapons, which makes these actual lvl 63 weapons.

Edit: Dammit, I still can't decide! Male or Female monk!?!? Going nuts here...!

1. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but there's a difference between iLvL and base required level. See: Most MMO's raiding gear

2. Reduced level requirement ranges up to -15. Which is why towards the end of nightmare you can get a weapon that blows everything else out of the water by virtue of being level 60.

[Avilan the Grey]

1. I'm not sure what you're trying to say here, but there's a difference between iLvL and base required level. See: Most MMO's raiding gear

2. Reduced level requirement ranges up to -15. Which is why towards the end of nightmare you can get a weapon that blows everything else out of the water by virtue of being level 60.

You are right; but as far as I understand it Blizz is saying you can find gear that is lvl 63, that you can use at lvl 60.

[Chen]

Yes, because there is a characteristic that can appear on weapons called "lowered level requirement" (or something like that) that at most can be "-3". This can be on lvl 60 weapons, which makes these actual lvl 63 weapons.

I didn't think to check those for level 60 weapons, but the reduced level requirements can be significantly higher than just -3. At level 47 I was using one that was -10 level req meaning it was a level 57 weapon. For reference, that's massively OP for leveling. If you find weapons with lowered level requirements they can sell for a TON of gold.

You are right; but as far as I understand it Blizz is saying you can find gear that is lvl 63, that you can use at lvl 60.

Yes, but it doesnt need the reduced level requirements on it. The item level (ilvl) of the gear is 63 but the required level is 60. The higher the ilvl of the gear the better the stats that can be allocated to it. So blue sword X with ilvl 60 is likely worse than blue sword Y with ilvl 63 even though both have a level 60 required level to use.

[Meta]

I think it was mentioned in some game direction post that Blizz might change it so you can see the true level of an item (60+).

The difference in quality of drops between Act I and Act II in Inferno is just nuts. Pretty much every drop in Act II seems to be better than my best drop in Act I. I imagine III and IV will be similar and that makes me a sad panda.

On the bright side, I feel like WD is the most fun class to be in inferno with. I still have to kite (better than needing to kite on a monk or barb though ) but it's not so left click to win DPS that I hear Wiz and DH go for. The usage of all my control spells actually requires some skill, regardless of what D3 forum goers will tell you about how the whole difficulty is just a gear check. Granted, I still maintain that Blizz messed up Inferno's design pretty badly.

[ex cathedra]

On the bright side, I feel like WD is the most fun class to be in inferno with. I still have to kite (better than needing to kite on a monk or barb though ) but it's not so left click to win DPS that I hear Wiz and DH go for.

Left-click-to-win is the last thing that I'd describe Wizard as; actually, one of the most popular WD builds is much better at that than any Wizard build in the game.

Yes, because there is a characteristic that can appear on weapons called "lowered level requirement" (or something like that) that at most can be "-3". This can be on lvl 60 weapons, which makes these actual lvl 63 weapons.

Don't mistake ilvl for level requirement; they are not always equal. Similarly, neither of them have anything to do with Reduced Level Requirement, and I believe that I've seen it as high as -15 or even -17.

The item's ilvl is determined by the level of the enemy who dropped it; thus, only level 60 enemies can drop ilvl 60+ gear, as far as I recall. However, in earlier versions of this item system, that didn't necessarily determine the level requirement of the item; that wasn't rolled until the weapon's affixes were determined. Additionally, a level 63 enemy wouldn't always drop level 63 items, it was just the best case scenario.

Gear drops as such*: When you kill an enemy, it decides what type of gear to drop. Armor, Weapons, etc, and more specifically daggers, axes, etc. At this point in time, the weapon is always white. White weapons have base DPS determined by their ilvl, and ilvl 63 items are much, much stronger than ilvl 60 items. The game then checks to see if this item is going to be of higher quality; there's (these numbers are fabricated for the purpose of my example) a 12% chance of the item being Blue (magic), a 2% chance of the item being Yellow (rare), and a 1% chance of the item being a Legendary or Set (Orange or Green, respectively).

If the gear is magical or better, it compares the item's ilvl to the affix tables and rolls something level-appropriate. This is relevant because an ilvl 60 item might be able to roll ~+40% damage, but an ilvl 63 item can roll up to +50%. Similarly, other modifiers such as +damage, +attack speed, +critical damage, etc, are all potentially higher, and all of the increases affect the item's inherently superior ilvl 63 base damage. Because Legendary weapons have set base damage and set affixes, even if they could drop at a higher ilvl (which I don't think they can) their stats would be almost completely unaffected by it.

The balance concern is that weapon DPS is the single most important stat that your weapon can have and that legendaries are absurdly rare. Given those facts, the blue item situation is problematic. Because all of these legendaries are ilvl 60 or 61 at best, even if you get one of the relatively strong legendaries (Azure Wrath, Wizardspike, Hellrack) it's pretty much assured that it won't be nearly as strong as the thousands of blue items that drop with highly common affixes, much less 4 or 5 affix rares with particularly good rolls. I think that rares should have a chance to be superior to uniques, but I don't think that legendaries should be almost strictly worse than common blue weapons. Comparing an ilvl 63 item to an ilvl 60 item is faulty, yes, but not setting a single weapon to ilvl 63 is much, much worse.

*Information inferred from Diablo II item mechanics. Not necessarily accurate, but they're likely still relevant.

[hamishspence]

Weren't the best blue items in Diablo 1 normally better than corresponding Uniques?

A King's Bastard Sword of Slaughter for example, compared to the best one-handed weapon, the Griswold's Edge.

There's other examples- the Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac compared to, say, the Nagelring or the Ring of Engagement.

Just because D2 Uniques tended to be more powerful than the best Magics, doesn't mean D1 followed that rule, or that D3 has to.

[Avilan the Grey]

Stuff

A quick note: The reason rares etc are so incredible, well, rare is because of the AH. Since a lot of rares will become recycled, the drop rate ingame must be lower.

Weren't the best blue items in Diablo 1 normally better than corresponding Uniques?

In my experience Rares were almost always better than same-level (keyword!) blues, and basically always superior to uniques.

[hamishspence]

In Diablo 2, yes, rares trumped uniques- but did ordinary blue magic items tend to beat uniques as well?

Diablo 1 of course didn't have rares- that was why I was comparing it to that.

[Chen]

The balance concern is that weapon DPS is the single most important stat that your weapon can have and that legendaries are absurdly rare. Given those facts, the blue item situation is problematic. Because all of these legendaries are ilvl 60 or 61 at best, even if you get one of the relatively strong legendaries (Azure Wrath, Wizardspike, Hellrack) it's pretty much assured that it won't be nearly as strong as the thousands of blue items that drop with highly common affixes, much less 4 or 5 affix rares with particularly good rolls. I think that rares should have a chance to be superior to uniques, but I don't think that legendaries should be almost strictly worse than common blue weapons. Comparing an ilvl 63 item to an ilvl 60 item is faulty, yes, but not setting a single weapon to ilvl 63 is much, much worse.

Yeah the simple fix is to allow the fixed stats on Legendaries to reach the maximum values that Rares/Blues can reach (or actually a bit higher if you want to make these strictly better). They'll still be absurdly rare and blues/rares will likely be better than most, but those couple of godly Legendaries will in fact be the best you can get.

Now looking at some of the Legendaries it does look like they haven't put in Legendaries for all the best versions of weapons out there. The highest Legendary one handed axe doesn't look like its the Legendary version of the strongest white axe. Its possible they're leaving room for new items later here.

[ex cathedra]

Just because D2 Uniques tended to be more powerful than the best Magics, doesn't mean D1 followed that rule, or that D3 has to.

*Shrug.* Doesn't strike me as all that relevant. D3 is much more similar to D2 than it is to D1, and the developers have admitted that Legendaries need to be buffed, so what's the point in suggesting otherwise? Rarity should, to some degree and with variation, correspond to power. Hence blue weapons being superior to white and rare weapons often being superior to blue. Thus, Legendary items should not be almost uniformly less common and less powerful than Blues and Yellows because it breaks the aforementioned design principle.

A quick note: The reason rares etc are so incredible, well, rare is because of the AH. Since a lot of rares will become recycled, the drop rate ingame must be lower.

Rares are actually quite common, but the reason that legendaries are so rare and the reason that there exist so many completely worthless affixes (thorns, pick-up radius, health globe nonsense, XP on kill) is the Auction House, yes. Obviously.

[hamishspence]

I noticed on Arreat Summit that the best prefixes and suffixes tend to be reserved for blue items in Diablo 2: Grandmaster's, for example, is a prefix that only blue items, not yellow, can have. "Of Butchery" and the even more powerful "Of Evisceration" are suffixes that again, yellow items can't have.

Does D3 follow that principle?

[lord_khaine]

One of my friends showed me this link on inferno tactics, and i though i would share it with those of you who hasnt seen it yet,

Inferno tactics

[Dublock]

One of my friends showed me this link on inferno tactics, and i though i would share it with those of you who hasnt seen it yet,

Inferno tactics

Ah so thats what I need to do to beat Inferno!

Got my staff of herding and found out that in normal pages of BS and Jewlery do drop, which makes me wonder how high can I get my DH's dps without using the AH or NM...I am at ~1k but I know I can get high (I got simmering essence too). Almost tempting to find out.

[Traab]

Thats a HORRIBLE video! That poor kid is screaming in terror, crying, and everyone is just sitting back and watching him develop a phobia on camera.

[The_Jackal]

I noticed on Arreat Summit that the best prefixes and suffixes tend to be reserved for blue items in Diablo 2: Grandmaster's, for example, is a prefix that only blue items, not yellow, can have. "Of Butchery" and the even more powerful "Of Evisceration" are suffixes that again, yellow items can't have.

Does D3 follow that principle?

I believe so, but it doesn't matter. The limit on affixes for a blue item is 2. The limit for affixes on a yellow item is six. Even in D2, a good rare beat a good blue any day of the week.

[Artanis]

Speaking of comparing items -albeit in a different sense - is there any way to make the auto-comparison in the tooltip take socketed gems out of the equation? I'm mostly thinking of weapons, where comparing a new weapon with an empty socket to an equipped weapon with a ruby in it involves either A) using with a calculator for ten minutes, B) saying "screw it" and just trying it, or C) trying A, getting sick of it, and then doing B anyways.

[Starwulf]

Why is it monks are able to dual wield, but it doesn't increase their DPS one bit? I equipped a second claw the other day, and my Damage score didn't budge one bit on the character screen. Actually, it dropped significantly since it got rid of my shield that gave me like 40 dexterity. It wasn't even with a lousy weapon either, it was with one nearly as good as the one I had in my main hand. Very confuzzled.

[Avilan the Grey]

Why is it monks are able to dual wield, but it doesn't increase their DPS one bit? I equipped a second claw the other day, and my Damage score didn't budge one bit on the character screen. Actually, it dropped significantly since it got rid of my shield that gave me like 40 dexterity. It wasn't even with a lousy weapon either, it was with one nearly as good as the one I had in my main hand. Very confuzzled.

It works the same as with Demon Hunters, AFAIK: Your actual DPS becomes the average of the two weapons, since the game counts every second attack from the off hand in that scenario. HOWEVER, your ATTACK SPEED goes up, at least for Demon Hunters.

Best combo for Monks is two-handed, and two-handed weapon+quiver for Demon hunter because of this, unless you get a heck of an attack speed bonus.

[Runestar]

Why is it monks are able to dual wield, but it doesn't increase their DPS one bit? I equipped a second claw the other day, and my Damage score didn't budge one bit on the character screen. Actually, it dropped significantly since it got rid of my shield that gave me like 40 dexterity. It wasn't even with a lousy weapon either, it was with one nearly as good as the one I had in my main hand. Very confuzzled.

In short, unless you have 2 weapons that do exactly the same damage, you are almost always better off using a 2-handed weapon, or 1-hander+shield or misc off-hand item.

[Chen]

I can't link to it (stupid work) but there was a blue post on the Items subforum that does confirm some Legendaries are higher than ilvl 60. He stated Grandfather is ilvl 61 and that Warmonger is in fact the strongest Legendary 2 handed sword (ilvl 62 I believe).

Is there a site somewhere that shows all the possible Prefixes/Affixes? From the looks, Warmonger can get up to +40% weapon damage and has a HUGE bleed attached to it. Not only that it doesn't seem to have a fixed +damage mod which I presume means it could roll one of the very high random ones. Unless the +40% weapon damage isn't the highest possible, this looks like one Legendary that could definitely be close to BiS.

[lord_khaine]

In short, unless you have 2 weapons that do exactly the same damage, you are almost always better off using a 2-handed weapon, or 1-hander+shield or misc off-hand item.

I disagree with this, to start with using 2 weapons give you a 15% attack speed bonus, while at the same time letting you have the properties of both weapons, so as long as you have 2 weapons that are more or less equal in power, then you are better off with 2 weapons.

(this only apply til the point where you need the survivability that comes with a shield)

[Eakin]

Completed nightmare difficulty with my monk! Died quite a few times in Act 4, but managed to one shot Diablo himself, although it was a long fight. I have 13,600 HP and my damage stat is just over 1500, for reference. I suspect Hell is going to eat me alive.