Diablo III - Loot 2.0

[factotum]

Legendaries drop less, but still aren't "there" yet. In Diablo 2, they dropped almost guaranteed off major bosses. And were usually useful.

I think you might have a case of the rose-tinted spectacles there--don't you remember running Mephisto over and over waiting for the one item you really needed to drop? Sure, he might drop a unique more often than not, but they were a long way from "usually" being useful.

[Avilan the Grey]

I think you might have a case of the rose-tinted spectacles there--don't you remember running Mephisto over and over waiting for the one item you really needed to drop? Sure, he might drop a unique more often than not, but they were a long way from "usually" being useful.

Indeed. First of all you had to do your Meph Runs (that is grinding the same boss for hours) to get something useful, but on top of that the RNG was rigged so that he had a MUCH higher chance of dropping something truly good the first time a character killed him. If he didn't, then you knew you were in for a grind.

[Pendulous]

I think you might have a case of the rose-tinted spectacles there--don't you remember running Mephisto over and over waiting for the one item you really needed to drop? Sure, he might drop a unique more often than not, but they were a long way from "usually" being useful.

Yes, but as much as I hate the barter system, you could at least trade useful items for other items. You can't do that in Diablo 3.

[darksolitaire]

Indeed. First of all you had to do your Meph Runs (that is grinding the same boss for hours) to get something useful, but on top of that the RNG was rigged so that he had a MUCH higher chance of dropping something truly good the first time a character killed him. If he didn't, then you knew you were in for a grind.

This was the same for every boss, so called Quest Drop. You could actually bug Andariel so that she would always give Quest Drop reward.

[Chen]

Second chance? Yes. From what I've seen, the new items are unique, and potentially useful. But so far, I've found four legendaries, and have salvaged three of them. Sound familiar? Not a single rare drop has been useful at level cap either. Legendaries drop less, but still aren't "there" yet. In Diablo 2, they dropped almost guaranteed off major bosses. And were usually useful. Also, you could trade them. And that's the major problem here. All legendaries are BOA. Someone told me the set bonus for the new Inna's set. I was stoked. Then I remembered I'm NEVER going to see it. See, because there's lots more items now, and the lower level ones can drop at level cap, with level capped stats. So, good luck actually coveting any particular item. You're never going to see it. Ever.

Thing is, right now your actual gear is probably ABSURDLY good in absolute terms. That's what the AH did. The gear my wizard is wearing, which only gives something like 200k damage, 350k toughness is probably on the order of being in the top 0.01% of gear available (pre-2.0.1). That sounds like a crazy high level of gear, but it's not. It's what the AH allowed people to do. You were pooling the gear from a HUGE population and then setting up a system where they all compete against each other for the lowest price to sell. This is the reason if you already had decent gear, you're not going to find too many good drops.

That said each of the Legendaries I've had drop since the patch have been quite good. I got a Hellcat Waistguard that would be exceptional if I wasn't using an almost top end legacy Witching Hour. Even compared to that it has MUCH better toughness, at the cost of DPS (may use it when leveling). I got an axe that is higher DPS than my current wand, but lacks the life-steal the wand has. Again will be great for leveling when life-steal is phased out.

I was not convinced removal of the AH and legendary/set trading would be good. I don't know what it will do to the game long term, but right now I'm having more fun playing than I was for the last long while before this patch.

[Psyren]

Speaking of RoS, I am completely uninterested in everything but the actual extra class.

It is kind of nice that the Hammerdin and FoHadin will make a comeback. FoH was my favorite Paladin for a long time even though it wasn't very good in PvE, and the new one looks like it will be much better at fighting packs.

Yes, but as much as I hate the barter system, you could at least trade useful items for other items. You can't do that in Diablo 3.

You can't trade legendaries; however, there are still many useful rares and of course crafting mats that can be traded.

But more importantly, you no longer have to trade to get ahead of the curve. You can get by just fine on what you find, farm or craft now. And once the cap is raised to 70, all the bleeding-edge gear currently saturating the market will thankfully become much less useful.

Thing is, right now your actual gear is probably ABSURDLY good in absolute terms. That's what the AH did. The gear my wizard is wearing, which only gives something like 200k damage, 350k toughness is probably on the order of being in the top 0.01% of gear available (pre-2.0.1). That sounds like a crazy high level of gear, but it's not. It's what the AH allowed people to do. You were pooling the gear from a HUGE population and then setting up a system where they all compete against each other for the lowest price to sell. This is the reason if you already had decent gear, you're not going to find too many good drops.

That said each of the Legendaries I've had drop since the patch have been quite good. I got a Hellcat Waistguard that would be exceptional if I wasn't using an almost top end legacy Witching Hour. Even compared to that it has MUCH better toughness, at the cost of DPS (may use it when leveling). I got an axe that is higher DPS than my current wand, but lacks the life-steal the wand has. Again will be great for leveling when life-steal is phased out.

I was not convinced removal of the AH and legendary/set trading would be good. I don't know what it will do to the game long term, but right now I'm having more fun playing than I was for the last long while before this patch.

Hear hear!

[Avilan the Grey]

Saddest part of all this? It really makes me want to start playing Torchlight II again...

[Karoht]

So far it's working out decently.
My only complaint was the change from Inferno to Torment system. Hard to place where I was supposed to be until I hit a brick wall in difficulty and scaled back from there until comfortable.

By and large, I'm seeing WAY more Legendary and Set pieces drop. I was farming MP8 for Keys and doing Crypt runs after stacking up 5 Nef Valor, I maybe saw a Legendary once a week. Now I'm seeing at least one every two hours give or take.

The item property changes have been AWESOME though. Barbarian gear that actually has Strength. And Fury generating stats. And useful stuff like like bonuses to Barbarian abilities! That used to almost never happen.

And the new set bonuses? Having actual useful capstones rather than just marginally good stuff? Immortal Kings gives you the Fury generating bonuses of the old set at 4pcs instead of 5, and the 5pc bonus is that Call of the Ancients lasts until the minions die, rather than 15-20 seconds. YUS! My friend is one piece away from this awesomeness himself, but already the set is completely paying off. 400+ Strength on just the gloves. Awesome.

[Psyren]

I tried both Torchlight II and Path of Exile, and I'm sorry, but gameplay-wise and aesthetics-wise neither of them can really hold a candle to D3. All of D3's problems are peripheral to the game itself - the auction house, the connectivity issues, the bum rap it got at launch. Having gotten past that initial hurdle I think D3 is truly the superlative product.

Of all of them, D3 truly makes me feel superhuman as I slam enemies (or their limbs) into orbit and lay waste to entire hordes. And as much as I enjoyed Diablo 2, playing it solo bored me to tears; not so with D3 at all.

I still wish there were an offline mode on PC but I'm not going to lose sleep over it.

[Chen]

I tried both Torchlight II and Path of Exile, and I'm sorry, but gameplay-wise and aesthetics-wise neither of them can really hold a candle to D3. All of D3's problems are peripheral to the game itself - the auction house, the connectivity issues, the bum rap it got at launch. Having gotten past that initial hurdle I think D3 is truly the superlative product.

It's funny. I've been playing PoE as my grinding game while I was waiting for the D3 2.0 to come out. I got fairly in to it and was enjoying it. I played a few min of 2.0, felt super weak compared to my old archon wizard AND my PoE char and stopped. But then I tried fiddling with some builds and played a bit more and got pulled RIGHT back into D3. I think it has to do with the interface. Blizzard was always exceptionally good with that. Pressing buttons always feels responsive. This is painfully obvious when playing WoW compared to other MMOs and apparently its pretty similar when comparing D3 to Path of Exile. The game just feels so much more fluid and streamlined, even if the content is roughly the same as the other games.

The fact legendaries are dropping much more now and you don't need to stack magic find on everything definitely makes random grinding more fun IMO.

[Karoht]

Build changes everything.
I was once an Arcane Wizard, spraying my Disintegrate everywhere. It was good times. But I have since found the way.
Lightning/Arcane Wizard. 80% Slow. Lightning constantly triggering Stuns, even from Disintegrate. Teleport triggering Mirror Images giving me more Lightning Hydra's giving me MOAR stuns. Crits trigger lightning strikes giving me yet MORE stuns. Two casts of electrocute and I'm mostly full on arcane power.

Still a glass cannon, but an incrediby fun and mobile glass cannon, with lots of lockdown. Chain stuns and 80% slow FTW.

And the new Paragon system? Flexible and meaningful point distribution done right. Vitality is not the only choice like in D2, it's incredibly diverse and interchangable.

Fun as heck for farming Keys for my next Hellfire ring.

[Avilan the Grey]

I tried both Torchlight II and Path of Exile, and I'm sorry, but gameplay-wise and aesthetics-wise neither of them can really hold a candle to D3. All of D3's problems are peripheral to the game itself - the auction house, the connectivity issues, the bum rap it got at launch. Having gotten past that initial hurdle I think D3 is truly the superlative product.

I disagree. Aestetic wise... yes and no, it looks better than PoE, but it merely looks DIFFERENT from TLII. TLII is deliberately cartoony, the characters has three-fingered hands, for god's sake.

When it comes to actual game play TLII has a number of advantages, among them offline mode, the ability to share everything with all other characters, and much more interesting classes.

[Psyren]

@Avilan:

The fact that the cartoony aesthetic was deliberate doesn't make it any more appealing to me. Diablo's gothic artwork blows it away in my opinion. Just getting to Caldeum for the first time and seeing the entire city sprawl out below me was a jaw-dropper.

Offline mode is, fortunately, totally irrelevant for me as I have a very good and stable connection. I know that's a dealbreaker for some and I acknowledge that, but for me it is meaningless 95% of the time. When it does matter, e.g. when I'm travelling, I still have Steam to fall back on.

Not sure what you meant re: sharing, because in D3 I can share everything with my other characters just fine. The stash is by account, not by character, so just put things in it.

The classes being more interesting - this one comes down primarily to taste so I can leave it at that. What I can say is that Torchlight did a great job at being an alternative to Diablo all these years and deserves credit for that.

[Gnoman]

In about five hours of play since the patch it, I've replaced every piece of AH equipment on my level 60 Barbarian with drops or crafted gear except for the weapons (which is because I'm dual-wielding 1100+ base damage 300+ str legendaries, those are going to be hard to replace until the level cap goes up).

Even more than the loot rebalance, however, I'm loving the massive skill tweaks (the Barb, at least, had almost every skill and rune altered heavily, making many skills much more viable), and the crafting refinements (gems take a fraction of the gold to upgrade that they used to.)

[Chen]

Even more than the loot rebalance, however, I'm loving the massive skill tweaks (the Barb, at least, had almost every skill and rune altered heavily, making many skills much more viable), and the crafting refinements (gems take a fraction of the gold to upgrade that they used to.)

I don't know if they changed this since the PTR but gems were extremely expensive to unsocket (I think it was 5 million for a radiant star).

[Psyren]

My Demon Hunter is now my highest level character at 33 and he is covered in rares with no less than 5 legendaries. I don't have a single iota of magic find.

So yeah, I'm really loving Loot 2.0

[Karoht]

My Demon Hunter is now my highest level character at 33 and he is covered in rares with no less than 5 legendaries. I don't have a single iota of magic find.

So yeah, I'm really loving Loot 2.0

I'm currently Key farming to make Hellfire rings for alts and such.
I was comfortably farming MP8, that gave an 80% chance for keys to drop.
Now I'm just doing Torment 1 which has a 25% chance to drop, but I can speed my way through it.
I'm stockpiling Infernal Machines (they open the portals to which you go kill bosses and get Hellfire ring parts) and then spamming portals with friends. The drop chance is much better with friends (and they get a chance at the parts too) and the loot is pretty decent. So far my personal drop rate has been 51% for Infernal bosses dropping Legendary/Set.

So if you don't know what to do, and if you don't have 1 or 2 already, get working on a Hellfire ring.

Also, your level 1 Crusaders (or any other level 1 characters) can use the Hellfire ring. So can hirelings. So if you have one on yourself and one on the hireling, you get 70% more XP, and you get a lot more mileage out of the damage procs.

And don't forget that awesome 50% XP buff that went out. Lasts from now to the expansion launch. Why? Just because Blizzard thinks we're awesome. Or something.

[The_Jackal]

Build changes everything.
I was once an Arcane Wizard, spraying my Disintegrate everywhere. It was good times. But I have since found the way.
Lightning/Arcane Wizard. 80% Slow. Lightning constantly triggering Stuns, even from Disintegrate. Teleport triggering Mirror Images giving me more Lightning Hydra's giving me MOAR stuns. Crits trigger lightning strikes giving me yet MORE stuns. Two casts of electrocute and I'm mostly full on arcane power.

Still a glass cannon, but an incrediby fun and mobile glass cannon, with lots of lockdown. Chain stuns and 80% slow FTW.

You intrigue me. Linky build?

[Karoht]

At work, can't touch Bnet.
Passives-
Arcane Flux (if you chose to use an Arcane based attack somewhere, otherwise skip it)-Causes 80% Slow
Paralysis-Causes Stun. Proc rate isn't huge, but volume of fire does indeed make up for it.
Other passive is your choice. I'm using the one that gets me more arcane power when I use a signature spell (electrocute) but when I have enough crit and crit = arcane power on my gear I'll drop that for something more defensive.

Actives-All the things with lightning damage!
How I'm doing it.
Magic Weapon-Procs lightning bolts, the damage boost is also lightning damage, so other attacks count as X + Lightning.
Storm Shield-Crits shoot bolts of lightning, name of rune escapes me
Electrocute-Your choice of rune, I'm using the one that gets me extra arcane power, it's really your pick though.
Disintegrate-Dealing Arcane damage yes, but thanks to Magic Weapon also dealing lightning. Triggers your slow effect.
Hydra-Lightning. Moar Lightning.
Teleport-Mirror Image rune. Mirror Images will also cast Hydra, which means you can potentially have 2-3 Hydra's up zapping things.

Variations-Ditch Disintegrate and pick up Arcane Orb, either with the Lightning orb rune, or your orb of choice. Some people swear by it for the extra stun potential and damage potential, I'm not a fan. Also, trickier to work in the arcane damage to trigger the slow effect, so it makes Arcane Flux a bit useless.

Gear-Anything that boosts lightning damage, because that is common to find now. I had +60% Lightning damage, I scaled back to 40%. Attack speed and crit are already pretty big for wizards, more can't hurt. Stormcrow and Wizardspike (legendaries) give arcane power on crit, and rares are now dropping that property too, very useful for keeping the output up.
Of course, any item with chance to stun, blind, immobilize, or fear is good. Echoing Fury is an excellent main weapon for this purpose with it's 15% fear on hits.

Paragon Points-It's all good really, but Arcane Power and Attack Speed are VERY worth having more of. Resource cost reduction is meh. You either need it or you don't. Crit chance isn't a great investment of your points, but crit damage is decent. Movement speed is critical for Wizards because you will almost always be running and shooting. But, recall that the move speed cap from items is now 25%.

[Chen]

Also, your level 1 Crusaders (or any other level 1 characters) can use the Hellfire ring. So can hirelings. So if you have one on yourself and one on the hireling, you get 70% more XP, and you get a lot more mileage out of the damage procs.

The last bit about procs is a HUGE understatement. The fireball is absurdly powerful for low level chars. I was leveling a monk pre-2.0.1 and gave him my wizard's hellfire ring. The fireball one shot the butcher when I got to him and pretty much the solution to any elite pack was "attack fast enough until the ring procs and kills them all".

I've been trying for a new ring for my wizard, but I can only seem to drop vengeful eyes. It's pretty dumb. I have 6(!) eyes, one of the other mats and none of the third one. Stupid RNG. With the massive nerf to the drop rate compared to the MP levels before, it does seem simpler to just farm the keys on Torment 1. Super fast and little risk. Soloing the bosses on Torment 1 is also really easy. Upping it to torment 2 makes the fight a lot more dangerous and long for a measly 3% increase in chance to drop. Definitely not worth it.

[Karoht]

The last bit about procs is a HUGE understatement. The fireball is absurdly powerful for low level chars. I was leveling a monk pre-2.0.1 and gave him my wizard's hellfire ring. The fireball one shot the butcher when I got to him and pretty much the solution to any elite pack was "attack fast enough until the ring procs and kills them all".

They did say that the proc is going to be adjusted to scale differently/better, but I didn't see any details on that.

I've been trying for a new ring for my wizard, but I can only seem to drop vengeful eyes. It's pretty dumb. I have 6(!) eyes, one of the other mats and none of the third one. Stupid RNG. With the massive nerf to the drop rate compared to the MP levels before, it does seem simpler to just farm the keys on Torment 1. Super fast and little risk. Soloing the bosses on Torment 1 is also really easy. Upping it to torment 2 makes the fight a lot more dangerous and long for a measly 3% increase in chance to drop. Definitely not worth it.

6 eyes? /jealous. It took me 12 machines to see a single eye drop. I've got two of each of the other two. That was torment 4 for 6 runs, torment 3 for the rest.

[Gnoman]

I don't know if they changed this since the PTR but gems were extremely expensive to unsocket (I think it was 5 million for a radiant star).

I'm not at radiant star levels (right now, I've go two stars and the thing just below a star in my armor), but it only cost about 50,000-80,000 to desocket the piece. Making those gems in the previous version would have cost about 20,000,000 gold, now it only ran me about 100,000.

[Fan]

I'm not at radiant star levels (right now, I've go two stars and the thing just below a star in my armor), but it only cost about 50,000-80,000 to desocket the piece. Making those gems in the previous version would have cost about 20,000,000 gold, now it only ran me about 100,000.

****, I have more gold than this on my sub 60 demon hunter.

Might be worth picking up again now that the grinding isn't retarded.

[Fleeing Coward]

At least you guys have inferno machines and rings. I have exactly 0
Of course, I pretty much used D3 to pay for my MoP and WoW sub and didn't even know such rings existed until I came back for 2.0 and Reaper.

[Psyren]

I'm currently Key farming to make Hellfire rings for alts and such.
I was comfortably farming MP8, that gave an 80% chance for keys to drop.
Now I'm just doing Torment 1 which has a 25% chance to drop, but I can speed my way through it.
I'm stockpiling Infernal Machines (they open the portals to which you go kill bosses and get Hellfire ring parts) and then spamming portals with friends. The drop chance is much better with friends (and they get a chance at the parts too) and the loot is pretty decent. So far my personal drop rate has been 51% for Infernal bosses dropping Legendary/Set.

So if you don't know what to do, and if you don't have 1 or 2 already, get working on a Hellfire ring.

I don't know what any of these words mean yet sadly. My highest guy is level 32 about to start act 2 and I haven't really been optimizing, just picking abilities that feel fun and relying on found, crafted or (rarely) merchant gear.

However, I think that's the best aspect of D3, I can just jump in and play. I don't need a strategy guide or a wiki dive to optimize my build, I can just swap abilities and runes around until I find something that fits. I don't have to agonize over talent points, retraining, saving for endgame or diminishing returns anymore. When I saw the sprawling talent web in Path of Exile - not to mention the fact that spells come from socketed gems of all things - I was immediately turned off.

[Karoht]

At least you guys have inferno machines and rings. I have exactly 0
Of course, I pretty much used D3 to pay for my MoP and WoW sub and didn't even know such rings existed until I came back for 2.0 and Reaper.

They really aren't difficult to acquire. If you can handle Torment 1 difficulty you will be fine. It's not even that bad to farm, it can all be done solo (thought it is MUCH better with more people) and all classes are capable of doing it.
They even took out the enrage timers (boss would just auto-win) so you can do things like a barbarian stunlock build to solo things if need be, it just takes forever to kill them.

Barbarian Super Survival Stunlock Build
(can solo Torment 2 Infernal Machine bosses with nothing but clever timing on these abilities and some basic rares)
-Bash/Weapon Throw (with Stun Rune)
-Rend (with Life Steal Rune)
-Stomp
-Leap (with Stun Rune)
-Overpower (with Damage Redirect Rune)
-Ignore Pain (with Life Steal Rune)

Stun stun stun stun,
Stun stun stun stun,
Stunity Stuuuuuuun! Wonderful Stuuuuuuun!

[iyaerP]

At work, can't touch Bnet.
Passives-
Arcane Flux (if you chose to use an Arcane based attack somewhere, otherwise skip it)-Causes 80% Slow
Paralysis-Causes Stun. Proc rate isn't huge, but volume of fire does indeed make up for it.
Other passive is your choice. I'm using the one that gets me more arcane power when I use a signature spell (electrocute) but when I have enough crit and crit = arcane power on my gear I'll drop that for something more defensive.

I do something similar, but more like:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...ViQ!XYc!bacYaZ

I currently am specced out of slow due to multiplaying with a tank friend, but it is quite excellent. Also because I have a legendary neck piece with +22% arcane damage, which is obscene.

[Pendulous]

They really aren't difficult to acquire. If you can handle Torment 1 difficulty you will be fine. It's not even that bad to farm, it can all be done solo (thought it is MUCH better with more people) and all classes are capable of doing it.
They even took out the enrage timers (boss would just auto-win) so you can do things like a barbarian stunlock build to solo things if need be, it just takes forever to kill them.

Is there a new chart for like, the percentages they drop on whatever difficulties? I can barely handle torment, so I doubt I can kill the double bosses solo.

[Chen]

I'm sure its on Blizzard's forums somewhere but I know:
Torment I = 25% chance
Torment II = 28% chance
Torment VI = 50% chance

Not sure of the in between ones but its a somewhat exponential increase. I don't think you can get the items to drop at all if you're not on Torment difficulties though.

[Traab]

I just played diablo 2.0 for the first time. I have to say, its actually pretty damn sweet! The loot drops are so far, like 90% stuff I could use if its blue or better. Its not always an upgrade, but, my barbarian has seen all of one caster staff and a single bow drop and most of his weapons are things like gain health per hit/kill and added damage per hit. Same for a lot of gear. Big strength and vit boosts with random bonuses that tend to be either generic "+ range to pickup things" type effects, or, once again, specifically tailored to me. I just killed the skeleton king and even got a legendary ring. Once again, a big chunk of strength and vit as well as some random generic good stuff like magic find. Now that cleave makes monsters explode when they die im carving a bloody, explosive path through everything that wants to start a fight.

Yeah, I am sure I could buy better gear from the ah if I wanted, (and it existed) but the gear I am getting is plenty good enough.