Diablo III - Loot 2.0

[iyaerP]

Skeleton king drops a guaranteed legendary for your first kill of him in torment.

[Pendulous]

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.

Well, that's incredibly stupid.

Skeleton king drops a guaranteed legendary for your first kill of him in torment.

If he does, it's a bug. Before 2.0.2, he dropped a guaranteed legendary when you killed him for the first time, including after resetting your game. They fixed it so he doesn't anymore. But I still think that the end of act bosses should do it.

[huttj509]

Oh, something it took me a bit to find out:

On the item stats, some abilities have a lit up orange diamond to their left, others do not.

Ones that have the diamond not lit are things like strength, vitality, crit, stuff that gets factored into the damage/toughness/healing ratings and % gain/loss at the bottom.

Ones that are lit up are things such as damage to cold spells, pickup radius, reduced resource cost, etc. This is not factored into the rating adjustments.



This means that if you have an item that's close to one you have, you can scan them for the lit diamond icons and see if those push one over the other. Maybe I lose 5% damage, but have 11% to fire skills, and want to do a fire build. Or I lose .5% toughness, but 6% reduced damage from elites would outweigh that. Basically, the more "lit gem" skills an item has, the less accurate the stat adjustment window is in determining its true worth.

[Fleeing Coward]

If he does, it's a bug. Before 2.0.2, he dropped a guaranteed legendary when you killed him for the first time, including after resetting your game. They fixed it so he doesn't anymore. But I still think that the end of act bosses should do it.

They said they didn't have time to fix it in time for 2.0.2 so Skeleton King after a reset still guarantees a legendary.

[Chen]

Well, that's incredibly stupid.

Why? They dropped the rate presumably because you no longer need to farm up NV before you have a chance at the keys dropping. Without NV there's also no time limit on killing the bosses before you had to stop and go refresh NV. Maybe Torment 6 should have a higher drop rate, but 25% on Torment I is a gift frankly. It was 5% on MP0 and 10% per MP previously. Torment 1 is still easier than MP3 was before.

If he does, it's a bug. Before 2.0.2, he dropped a guaranteed legendary when you killed him for the first time, including after resetting your game. They fixed it so he doesn't anymore. But I still think that the end of act bosses should do it.

As stated by Fleeing Coward they didn't fix the bug yet. The way it will work once its fixed is that after you use the "Reset Quests" function, you'll get a guaranteed legendary drop off Diablo. Since you have to fully complete the game again before you can "Reset Quests" again, it makes the change pretty negligible.

[Psyren]

If he does, it's a bug. Before 2.0.2, he dropped a guaranteed legendary when you killed him for the first time, including after resetting your game. They fixed it so he doesn't anymore. But I still think that the end of act bosses should do it.

I got legendaries off both him and the Butcher post 2.0 with 0 MF. Pre 2.0 neither of them gave me better than a rare. So whatever they tweaked behind the scenes I'm quite happy.

[Chen]

I got legendaries off both him and the Butcher post 2.0 with 0 MF. Pre 2.0 neither of them gave me better than a rare. So whatever they tweaked behind the scenes I'm quite happy.

I believe any first boss kill while you're lower than level 60 also gives a guaranteed legendary.

[huttj509]

I believe any first boss kill while you're lower than level 60 also gives a guaranteed legendary.

indeed.

If you go through the story from scratch, and kill diablo before 60, you get guaranteed legendaries from:

Skeleton King (this is the only one that's a bug)
Butcher
Belial
Asmodeus
Diablo

At level 60, if you reset quests, you get a guaranteed legendary from:

Skeleton King (this is a bug)
And increased quality/quantity from the other bosses, but no guaranteed legendary.

When they fix it, at level 60, if you reset quests, you will get a guaranteed legendary from:

Diablo
And increased quality/quantity from the other bosses, but no guaranteed legendary.

[Psyren]

Like I said, those guaranteed legendaries weren't there before 2.0, so I'm happy. I only got yellows from SK and TB the first time I fought them, pre-patch.

[Karoht]

Even skipping the guaranteed stuff, I've managed to score at least one Legendary every 2 hours, often more. Also, thanks to smart loot, more often than not the rares are even decently useable.

[Psyren]

The smart rares is definitely the biggest QOL change. Before I used to dread crafting, especially blowing the resources to craft a rare. Now I am hitting up smith every time I go back to town because I've usually gained a level and opened up some new toy.

[Traab]

There is something flat out bizarre about getting a "legendary" bit of gear at level 12.

[Karoht]

There is something flat out bizarre about getting a "legendary" bit of gear at level 12.

No more so than when it happened in D2 really.

[Dhavaer]

Are there any monster attacks that deal arcane damage other than the spinning globes from arcane enchanted champions/rares? I found a legendary amulet that gives me healing from arcane damage and I'm wondering how useful it is.

[orrion]

Are there any monster attacks that deal arcane damage other than the spinning globes from arcane enchanted champions/rares? I found a legendary amulet that gives me healing from arcane damage and I'm wondering how useful it is.

No, there aren't other monster attacks, but Arcane Enchanted is one of the most dangerous monster affixes in the game.

Most people with that amulet swap it in for packs with that affix.

[orrion]

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

The description seems contradictory: A big "Adventure Mode" that ignores the plot??? Does not compute. To me it is a hell of an oxymoron.

People ignore the plot now, and have for a long time. Very few are actually playing through the questlines over and over and over again. They pick a few farming spots and do those instead.

The essence of the Diablo games has never been about completing the story, except as the initial step in unlocking everything else. It's kind of hard to put a ton of emphasis on the plot in D3 when you complete the game 3 to 4 times before you even reach maximum level.

Personally, I think Adventure Mode is going to be awesome. There's objectives and things to do aside from just hunting the next elite pack down.

[Gnoman]

No, there aren't other monster attacks, but Arcane Enchanted is one of the most dangerous monster affixes in the game.

That seems to be less true now. Arcane Enchanted hasn't gotten any less dangerous, but a lot of the other affixes have become incredibly dangerous as well.

That doesn't count the nastier combos that you can run into. Vortex Knockback Jailer Poison Enchanted, which I ran into fairly recently, was one of the hardest fights I've ever had in this game.

[Psyren]

There is something flat out bizarre about getting a "legendary" bit of gear at level 12.

It makes a hell of a lot more sense than "uniques" that everybody and their mother had copies of.

Personally, I think Adventure Mode is going to be awesome. There's objectives and things to do aside from just hunting the next elite pack down.

This! It'll be like Bloody Foothill runs, only the environments will actually change.

[Traab]

It makes a hell of a lot more sense than "uniques" that everybody and their mother had copies of.



This! It'll be like Bloody Foothill runs, only the environments will actually change.

Heh, thats true, I always thought the naming convention was a bit odd like that. And I suppose having a boss drop a legendary item isnt that unreasonable overall. I just wish they could call them something else. Its honestly something that has always irked me in WoW. Here I am, with this weapon of legend. One of the most dangerous beings in existence used these weapons to wreak awful slaughter on the world and everything in his path. It took a small ARMY to bring him down in the end. Oh wait, I just bought something 3x as powerful off a vendor on the next continent. /junk

[Avilan the Grey]

People ignore the plot now, and have for a long time. Very few are actually playing through the questlines over and over and over again. They pick a few farming spots and do those instead.

The essence of the Diablo games has never been about completing the story, except as the initial step in unlocking everything else. It's kind of hard to put a ton of emphasis on the plot in D3 when you complete the game 3 to 4 times before you even reach maximum level.

Personally, I think Adventure Mode is going to be awesome. There's objectives and things to do aside from just hunting the next elite pack down.

I know all this. I am just finding the combination "adventure mode" and "Ignore plot" incompatible. In my book, anything called "adventure mode" should ENHANCE the plot, not disregard it.

[Pendulous]

I got legendaries off both him and the Butcher post 2.0 with 0 MF. Pre 2.0 neither of them gave me better than a rare. So whatever they tweaked behind the scenes I'm quite happy.

I believe any first boss kill while you're lower than level 60 also gives a guaranteed legendary.

I didn't get one off Butcher after resetting. Or Maghda.

[orrion]

I know all this. I am just finding the combination "adventure mode" and "Ignore plot" incompatible. In my book, anything called "adventure mode" should ENHANCE the plot, not disregard it.

I don't think you can argue incompatibility yet when you haven't played it.

For all I know, the adventure mode bounties and rifts build on the lore of the world, and that would enhance the plot.

[Traab]

Heh, im just starting act 2 and already have my barb wearing a legendary chest, belt, and two weapons. They kind of lose their impact when you get 4 of them before level 20. I will admit though that they are decently long lasting. Im still wearing the chest slot I got from the skeleton king. Dont think my dagger will last much longer though, im already seeing blue 1h weapons within a couple dps of it.

[Chen]

That seems to be less true now. Arcane Enchanted hasn't gotten any less dangerous, but a lot of the other affixes have become incredibly dangerous as well.

That doesn't count the nastier combos that you can run into. Vortex Knockback Jailer Poison Enchanted, which I ran into fairly recently, was one of the hardest fights I've ever had in this game.

I think there's a new void zone type thing that some monsters spawn that also deals arcane damage. It looks like desecrate but is purple. Either that or its jailer and its bugged because I can walk out of it...

And yeah some of the new affixes are absurdly strong. That lightning storm one is pretty ridiculous since it hits extremely fast. The ice orb thing is bad too since with all the effects on the screen it's hard to see it coming towards you (not to mention its terrible if you're melee).

I didn't get one off Butcher after resetting. Or Maghda.

When you reset quests the only one to drop a legendary is skeleton king (and will be diablo when they fix it). The other bosses all drop a guaranteed legendary on your VERY first kill, if you're below level 60.

That said, I put together a fairly strong build for speed clearing the campaign. (found from a post on the D3 forums):

Arcane Orb - Frozen Orb
Slow Time - the stunning one
Teleport - Wormhole
Mirror Images - 20% damage one
Diamond skin - Sleek Shell
Storm Armor - Scramble
Passives: Illusionist, the arcane regen one and evocation

With all those you can keep up 50% movement speed constantly and if you get hit at any point scramble puts you up another 30%. After using your Wormhole teleport you hit Sleek Shell and you also hit 80% movement speed. Makes running through the game super fast. Stack cooldown reduction. Also I picked up a legacy Occulus which reduces teleport's cooldown by 4 seconds so that's big too. I can do it on Hard (didn't try Expert yet) and the clear takes about 90-100 minutes. I've done it three times now and average about 3-5 legendaries per run. It's pretty fun. I suspect Expert will be too long since my Frozen orbs are barely one shotting things on Expert so it might not be worth going up in difficulty. Exp wise its not great but I still get a level or two through the campaign (at 105 ish) so its not terrible.

[Karoht]

I know all this. I am just finding the combination "adventure mode" and "Ignore plot" incompatible. In my book, anything called "adventure mode" should ENHANCE the plot, not disregard it.

You've never heard of sidequests? That's how I view Adventure Mode.
Consider also that Adventure Mode does not replace any other mode, it's something you flip between. It is enhancing the content because it is adding more content and replay value.

@Builds
Found a Witchdoctor build I'm really enjoying.
No Signature Spell.
Spirit Barrage + Zombie Bears. With Zombie Dogs, Mass Confusion every 20 seconds or less (or it's free), Spirit Walk, Soul Steal
And I never run out of mana. Thanks to the passive that stacks mana regen every time I cast a Spirit Spell, and if I ACTUALLY manage to tax my regen with expensive Zombie Bears spam, Soul Steal and I'm good again.
And Spirit Barrage hits like a freaking truck. It's almost as powerful as Zombie Bears, which is literally one of the most potent spammable AoE's in the game.

I was sad to find out that 'Dog Bombing' (huge AoE as fast as you could tap the two buttons (summon zombie dogs > sacrifice) on the keyboard, with 2 absurd stacking damage buffs) was a thing that one could do before the patch, and is sadly no longer. Oh well.

@Enemy Affixes
Waller Jailer Frozen Nightmare
Terrible for melee, terrible for range.
If I see any 3 of those together, I typically just avoid the pack (RE: Run AWAYYY!) as much as I can, or try my best to separate them and nuke the nuts off one of them.
Made extra annoying as any time I fight one of the Keywardens for Infernal farming, they will often be right next to a pack like this. You feel like a god for taking on a Keywarden and a pack of dudes, but man, taking 15 minutes to kill that pack? Still cool but less fun.

[Traab]

Isnt there a suffix that life steals from you or something? I seem to recall my barb getting massively ticked off trying to bring these guys down on a higher difficulty. As far as I am concerned, those arcane ray turrets are the freaking devil though. Even on NORMAL they can carve you apart if several tag you at once. On higher difficulties you are like catherine zeta jones in Entrapment trying to dodge all the turrets they slap down before you can kill them.

[Karoht]

Isnt there a suffix that life steals from you or something? I seem to recall my barb getting massively ticked off trying to bring these guys down on a higher difficulty. As far as I am concerned, those arcane ray turrets are the freaking devil though. Even on NORMAL they can carve you apart if several tag you at once. On higher difficulties you are like catherine zeta jones in Entrapment trying to dodge all the turrets they slap down before you can kill them.

Barbarians have 2 methods to survive them, Witchdoctor has at least one (Spirit Walk or passive that gives you Spirit Walk), Demon Hunter has means of quickly getting away from them (variety of effects to make you run fast or backflip away from them), Wizard has Teleport and Diamond Skin (and probably one more that I'm forgetting), Monk has Spirit Shell which makes you 100% Invulnerable for 3 seconds.
All of the above have armor and resistances, dodge, block, and various healing effects to deal with it.

Every character you make should always always have at least 1 Get Out of Dodge button. GOD buttons are how you deal with elites and bosses typically, in addition to basic survival stats.

As for Arcane, kite like a champ. Kiting is often the answer to a lot of nasty effects. If the enemy has Waller/Jailer/Vortex then you really want to make sure you have that GOD button reserved for those "Oh snap" moments, and this is where having good keybinds that you are comfortable with really pays off. Reaction time is critical.

For Barbarians, hands down one of the best damage mitigation buttons you can have is Overpower with the Redirect rune. Redirects 35% of incoming damage to nearby enemies. Redirect means that you don't take the damage, they do. Overpower has a short cooldown, shortened even more by criting frequently. Every 6 seconds I can reliably hit Overpower for 6 seconds, at which point I stand in Arcane on purpose to hurt the enemies more.

Vampiric and Health Link and Extra Health and Avenger are considered the 'freebie' affixes, because they don't help the enemy hurt you very much, if at all, and just turn them into big fat bags of HP to take your aggression out on. All these affixes do is extend the fight slighly, if in any way noticeable.

[Gnoman]

Vampiric and Health Link and Extra Health and Avenger are considered the 'freebie' affixes, because they don't help the enemy hurt you very much, if at all, and just turn them into big fat bags of HP to take your aggression out on. All these affixes do is extend the fight slighly, if in any way noticeable.

Have to seriously disagree with you on Health Link. It's nothing by itself, but it is incredibly dangerous if you're fighting something with a couple of other nasty affixes because you generally can't kill any of the mob until you kill them all. This means that, instead of a normal pack that gets steadily weaker throughout the fight, a Health Link mob is just as dangerous at the end as it is in the beginning.

[Traab]

The problem was, that while they had vampiric, they also had some nasty abilities im trying to remember what they were, that wore me out fast. I wish I could recall but they actually took me out twice before I managed to take them down. It was the first time that happened to me in hell and was quite the wakeup call. So im not doing much dps more than they are absorbing, they are hammering me with some nasty ability or other that is straight up tearing me apart, and me being a stubborn cuss, I am refusing to avoid them, or to look up a strat for them. I figured it out but man that was annoying. Only time it got worse was while climbing the tower toward diablo I got caught by a bad pack of champs and while trying to avoid them, I managed to grab another TWO packs, one of which did an excellent job of locking me in place while the others (plus a god awful number of regular monsters) tore me apart. I must have zigged when I should have zagged and went to a section I hadnt cleared yet while I was kiting but man, that was a lot of deaths. I went heavy aoe damage to wipe out the random trash, then started whittling down the packs once my screen wasnt so full of spawns that i couldnt intentionally target anything.

[Pendulous]

Have to seriously disagree with you on Health Link. It's nothing by itself, but it is incredibly dangerous if you're fighting something with a couple of other nasty affixes because you generally can't kill any of the mob until you kill them all. This means that, instead of a normal pack that gets steadily weaker throughout the fight, a Health Link mob is just as dangerous at the end as it is in the beginning.

Yeah, but when you get some aoe's going and the group is pretty close together, watching them all die fast is fun.