Diablo III: Don't Forget To Eat Today

[Derjuin]

This sounds like the amulet my son recently found that his barbarian is now wearing - makes wading into the middle of arcane enchanted a tickle-fest for him now!

One thing that always confuses me when reading forum discussions about Diablo III (we have Reaper of Souls) is that we play on the PlayStation 3 locally (not online) and I often wonder when I don't understand something in a forum discussion if it's because the offline/online games are somehow different from each other. For example, what is a "rift"? I've never heard of anything referred to as a "rift" in the game, or maybe its another name for something I do know?

The rifts are Nephalem Rifts - I don't know if console versions have them, but they are created via using a Rift Keystone at the Nephalem Obelisk-thingy in towns. You find Keystones from doing bounties in Adventure Mode. Greater Rifts (grifts) are created by using trial keystones you find at the end of Rifts, which drop depending on your difficulty setting starting in Torment 1.

Edit:

Just a question for those who do high-end grifts: How do you survive in, say, grift 31+? Is it from stacking elite damage reduction, or just smart dodging/immunity skills/damage reduction passives (like Numbing Traps for DH)?

[thethird]

The console has them, at least my xbox has them :P

[Kerrin]

Oh cool, thanks for the rift info. We have one party up to just before taking on the final Act V boss, so adventure mode isn't far off for our highest level party. Thanks again for the info!

[Karoht]

Just a question for those who do high-end grifts: How do you survive in, say, grift 31+? Is it from stacking elite damage reduction, or just smart dodging/immunity skills/damage reduction passives (like Numbing Traps for DH)?

From what I see of the really high end stuff (35+) it's both.
Also survival by virtue of absurd front loaded damage. Enemies can't hurt you when they are dead. Bane of the Trapped + Bane of the Powerful + High Elite Damage Bonus (50% or more is the stuff I've seen) seems to be an incredible combo for stacking damage. I saw a 41 rift with a barbarian, a matter of seconds and 5 blues were just up and dead. Next group, repeat.

[orrion]

Just a question for those who do high-end grifts: How do you survive in, say, grift 31+? Is it from stacking elite damage reduction, or just smart dodging/immunity skills/damage reduction passives (like Numbing Traps for DH)?

Depends. A couple classes try to avoid damage entirely, and how high they go is based on never, ever getting hit (or being immune to said hits). DHs have that silly build where they perma-Smokescreen or whatever it is, and Wizards just kite I believe. Monks use permanent Serenity, Crusaders use Phalanx to stun/knockback everything.

The situation in higher Grifts is broken all belief right now. It's essentially "use this build with this equipment or don't play."

Oh cool, thanks for the rift info. We have one party up to just before taking on the final Act V boss, so adventure mode isn't far off for our highest level party. Thanks again for the info!

Yeah, Rifts are Adventure Mode. Once you enable it, there's pretty much no reason to do the campaign anymore except for achievements (and goblin portals, I guess, but Console doesn't have that as far as I'm aware).

Greater Rifts and Seasons, however, aren't currently in the Console version. I doubt the Console ever gets those.

[Legoshrimp]

Greater Rifts and Seasons, however, aren't currently in the Console version. I doubt the Console ever gets those.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/14728143164

It appears to already be on consoles. I don't have it so I can't test personally.

[Karoht]

So I finally finished getting my first three legendary gems up past rank 25.
Pain Enhancer-> Crits trigger a bleed, and for everything bleeding in 20 yards from me I get a 3% haste buff. On a Witchdoctor triggering so many crits with fetishes, it's kind of fun. The downside is, I use Rain of Frogs to proc my fetishes, and it caps at 3 'rains' so haste doesn't really do much for that attack. My fetishes on the other hand, who do benefit from my haste buffs, go nuts once I get a good bunch of bleeds happening. And don't forget that they double dip from my Big Bad Voodoo if they are standing in it along with myself.
I also got lucky on a 20% physical damage roll (which does affect bleed effects), so I'm seeing rapid strings of crits for 8-11 million where before I was only really seeing 5-7 mil.

Oh, and I changed up my Ess of Johan to a Halcyon's. The pseudo stun effect is excellent for Grifts. Normal groups? They stand there doing nothing for about 8 seconds. Oh that's how long it takes my Big Bad Voodoo to be back up again thanks to my Starmetal Kukri. So normal groups just stay stunned the whole time. No effect on elites of any kind though, but my Ess of Johan was usually a liability with those groups anyway.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Got my second piece of Firebirds. Stats were kinda meh, but the set bonus of 500 INT goes a long way to offsetting that. It also came with a socket, so my Topaz has been snugly slotted in. At least until I get the rest of Firebirds finished.

So, I was wondering, what kind of wand does one use with Firebirds? Right now I have a Chantodo's Will. It's not a bad wand, actually. It has a huge flat damage bonus, 10% damage modifier, Int, Life After Kill, +14 max arcane power, and a slot that currently has an Imperial Emerald. Hasn't been touched yet, but there's not a lot to roll on. The Life After Kill can only re-roll into monster kill grants xp bonus, a 1-2.6% for a status effect to hit an opponent, ignore durability loss (I currently have a legendary shoulder that prevents durability loss on all gear), or level requirements reduced (I'm level 70). So there's no point in trying to re-roll that stat. The max arcane power has the same alternate options, so there's no point in rolling that. The rest I kinda want to keep. The socket can re-roll to some interesting things, but I don't think anything it could reroll into would be any better for me. About the only one worth it would be 5-8% vs elites, but even that is kinda meh compared to the bonus crit damage from the emerald and there's a LOT of suck that it could roll into.

So, what do you think I should try for to pair up with my Firebirds? The focus was my first drop, so I'm committed to a 1h something.

[huttj509]

Got my second piece of Firebirds. Stats were kinda meh, but the set bonus of 500 INT goes a long way to offsetting that. It also came with a socket, so my Topaz has been snugly slotted in. At least until I get the rest of Firebirds finished.

So, I was wondering, what kind of wand does one use with Firebirds? Right now I have a Chantodo's Will. It's not a bad wand, actually. It has a huge flat damage bonus, 10% damage modifier, Int, Life After Kill, +14 max arcane power, and a slot that currently has an Imperial Emerald. Hasn't been touched yet, but there's not a lot to roll on. The Life After Kill can only re-roll into monster kill grants xp bonus, a 1-2.6% for a status effect to hit an opponent, ignore durability loss (I currently have a legendary shoulder that prevents durability loss on all gear), or level requirements reduced (I'm level 70). So there's no point in trying to re-roll that stat. The max arcane power has the same alternate options, so there's no point in rolling that. The rest I kinda want to keep. The socket can re-roll to some interesting things, but I don't think anything it could reroll into would be any better for me. About the only one worth it would be 5-8% vs elites, but even that is kinda meh compared to the bonus crit damage from the emerald and there's a LOT of suck that it could roll into.

So, what do you think I should try for to pair up with my Firebirds? The focus was my first drop, so I'm committed to a 1h something.

Form a "firebirds 6 piece build" guide I found:

Furnace 3.6k DPS, 45 elite- Endgame weapon. Huge base damage, supremely slow attack speed. Huge elite damage. Perfect - will get you 100M ticks easy. Rountinely Crits over 150M, but I've seen it go over 250 with party buffs, and with a power pylon I've hit 700M.

Sunkeeper 2.3k DPS, 22 elite- I like sparker a lot, simply because its a lot of fun, but ultimately, this wins out. Most of your time sinks in GRs are elites, and Sunkeeper is very good at killing them. Wins marginally over SS. Also opens up a gear slot so you can use Leorics or cindercoat if you're ballsy. Crits between 80-100M - its a slower weapon than SS, so base damage is higher, resulting in bigger crits.

Serpent Sparker 2.3k DPS, 10% CDR with Ramalamading Clear winner for clearing trash. 2 Hydras is 100% better than 1! Amazing math. Falls pretty far behind on elites though, you'd be lucky to see a 60M crit, with maybe an occasional 80M (probably from the stacked 2x Mammoths+DoT). Is very, very good at attaining max stacks quickly - this is what makes it so good. The DPS number on the wand is inflated by the fast attack speed of wands. Also with the source, you can use Leorics Crown, plus the 10% CDR on your weapon, which should add at least 10-15% sheet CDR. I was rolling at 55% CDR, which is a lot of Black Holes, but you don't need that many when **** dies twice as fast with a Furnace.

Maximus 3.5k DPS, 19% fire - no Rama - Yeah, I tried this too, but quickly swapped back to Sunkeeper. The biggest appeal of this weapon is the firechain. The biggest downside to the firechain in 33 or so plus is that you often arent in a good postion to use it. You have to teleport to a really bad spot to postion it well enough to damage, and then realize it doesnt kill the baddies fast enough to keep you from dying. Important to note is that the chain does NOT contribute to your DoT. Critted 80-100M, chains critted for 8-12M

Burning Axe of Skankiness 2.3k DPS - no Rama - used for a bit, proc is a nice bonus, but not really that good. 50-60M Crits.

Devastator 2.3k DPS - no Rama - Like burning, but no proc. Craftable, which is nice, but Haedrig's favorite rolls are sub 2k, with area damage and life on hit. 50-60M Crits.

Random 3.9k DPS Leg, no Rama - 50-80M Crits. You lose your source.

You don't have real fire bonus yet on the set, so really just look for good stuff, nice bonuses, and if you get any of the ones mentioned above save for later even if it's a downgrade for now.

[Psyren]

How does Vyr's measure up these days? I'm 2/4 on that one so I feel like aiming to finish it.

[Karoht]

My Wizard is rocking Vyr's + Tal's. It's fun, but really needs the CDR to support it. As such I'm probably dropping Vyr's. It's a fun toy, and Archon really makes things just up and die. But if your build wasn't awesome without Archon, chances are it won't be awesome with it, even if you get all the rune effects.
That said, Archon's attacks have a very high proc coefficient. Wyrdward + Paralysis + Lightning Archon is excellent for locking things down while melting faces.
But, given that Blizzard (with the 100% Freeze chance rune) and Black Hole are just better at controlling your battlefield, to the point where I'm considering dropping Wyrdward + Paralysis completely from my build.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Form a "firebirds 6 piece build" guide I found:

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. However, The Furnace is a 2h weapon, which means no focus. I'd rather have a +20% damage bonus on All The Things plus whatever I can get from the primary weapon. Same problem with Maximus. If I was wanting a 2h, I'd probably try for a Molten Core and use Meteor instead of Black Hole since mobs are then taunted into the meteor blast and it comes with a slot to put a gem in.

Burning Axe looks like an interesting choice, and so does Sunkeeper. Serpent Sparker is nigh worthless when you don't actually use Hydra.

You don't have real fire bonus yet on the set, so really just look for good stuff, nice bonuses, and if you get any of the ones mentioned above save for later even if it's a downgrade for now.

I've got +60% fire damage across all my gear, and 20% of that is from the orb. So fire damage is already kind of a thing for me.

[Chen]

Those weapon suggestions are for when you have the full firebirds set and are throwing out one apocalypse/hydra/black hole and getting the infinite dot up. You want a nice slow 2 hander for that and with the furnaces HUGE elite damage buff it is by far the best.

Without the permanent dot you're clearly attacking more so that list of suggestions is not as good. Depending on your playstyle a thunderfury or even leroics scepter might do better for you. Sunkeeper again is good for the elite damage of course. Burning axe is pretty mediocre (you'll note that with 60% increased fire damage an additional 20% from the axe is in fact only a 12.5% damage increase).

[huttj509]

Interesting. Thanks for sharing. However, The Furnace is a 2h weapon, which means no focus. I'd rather have a +20% damage bonus on All The Things plus whatever I can get from the primary weapon. Same problem with Maximus. If I was wanting a 2h, I'd probably try for a Molten Core and use Meteor instead of Black Hole since mobs are then taunted into the meteor blast and it comes with a slot to put a gem in.

Burning Axe looks like an interesting choice, and so does Sunkeeper. Serpent Sparker is nigh worthless when you don't actually use Hydra.



I've got +60% fire damage across all my gear, and 20% of that is from the orb. So fire damage is already kind of a thing for me.

6 piece firebirds basically doubles all fire damage you do, multiplicitavely with +fire damage, with eventual dot until dead. Access to it can easily change your playstyle. That's what I meant by "the real fire bonus" from the set, sorry.

[Kerrin]

A question for Diablo III Reaper of Souls (PS3) players who are more informed that I am...

What is the best way to complete sets of items?

I've been working on some sets forever and a day and don't seem to be getting matching pieces in item drops (gotten a couple but the vast majority of sets I've started to collect with various characters are incomplete).

Thanks for any advice or insights you can provide!

[Psyren]

A question for Diablo III Reaper of Souls (PS3) players who are more informed that I am...

What is the best way to complete sets of items?

I've been working on some sets forever and a day and don't seem to be getting matching pieces in item drops (gotten a couple but the vast majority of sets I've started to collect with various characters are incomplete).

Thanks for any advice or insights you can provide!

This is anecdotal on my part, but I've found that wearing the pieces of "Set X" that I possess while gambling with Kadala for one of the missing pieces makes it more likely to show up. This has happened for me with Firebirds, Natalya's and Vyr's.

[Anxe]

A question for Diablo III Reaper of Souls (PS3) players who are more informed that I am...

What is the best way to complete sets of items?

I've been working on some sets forever and a day and don't seem to be getting matching pieces in item drops (gotten a couple but the vast majority of sets I've started to collect with various characters are incomplete).

Thanks for any advice or insights you can provide!

Higher Torment for more drops? I don't think there is a way to specifically increase the chances of getting certain sets. Playing a Monk to get monk sets obviously, but thats about it. The wearing thing might work though.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

A question for Diablo III Reaper of Souls (PS3) players who are more informed that I am...

What is the best way to complete sets of items?

I've been working on some sets forever and a day and don't seem to be getting matching pieces in item drops (gotten a couple but the vast majority of sets I've started to collect with various characters are incomplete).

Thanks for any advice or insights you can provide!

Grind Legendary+ rifts and grifts for hours on end. With as much MF as you can stack.

Seriously, the RNG is a cruel mistress. The only way to complete the set you are looking for is to continue grinding in ways to maximize your legendary drop chance.

[thethird]

If you want to get the set and then have fun as opposed to have fun while getting the set you can always exploit that the game takes time to save to buy a lot of pieces from Kadala and if you get something you want move to another episode, which will save your game and repeat.

[Kerrin]

Hey, thanks for the info, folks!

[Kerrin]

Lately my son has been doing something with his demon hunter that I find amusing ... He has a passive that when he dies he explodes damaging nearby enemies, and he has an item that causes all his gear to ignore durability loss. So he doesn't care how many times he dies. When he's about to die and has no way to heal, he runs in close to an enemy and gets killed quickly (e.g. from electric, ground effects, etc.) so as to explode on the enemy.

Question with probably an obvious answer ... I've been working on pumping up resistances to deal with taking so much damage from ground effects or other effects from special enemies, but holy moly some of those effects dish out staggering amounts of damage playing on Torment III. I've been using hit and run tactics to avoid taking as much damage as possible while still getting in some shots at the special enemies, but is there anything else I can do besides those two things?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Lately my son has been doing something with his demon hunter that I find amusing ... He has a passive that when he dies he explodes damaging nearby enemies, and he has an item that causes all his gear to ignore durability loss. So he doesn't care how many times he dies. When he's about to die and has no way to heal, he runs in close to an enemy and gets killed quickly (e.g. from electric, ground effects, etc.) so as to explode on the enemy.

Question with probably an obvious answer ... I've been working on pumping up resistances to deal with taking so much damage from ground effects or other effects from special enemies, but holy moly some of those effects dish out staggering amounts of damage playing on Torment III. I've been using hit and run tactics to avoid taking as much damage as possible while still getting in some shots at the special enemies, but is there anything else I can do besides those two things?

There is a set that has as like a 4 or 5 piece bonus an immunity to most things that elites place on the ground. Other than that, stay mobile. Don't let yourself get trapped in an area that is damaging you, and most especially don't get frozen.

There's also a series of amulets that let you heal from a specific damage type instead of getting harmed by it. This makes some things much easier to deal with. For example, I have the amulet that gives me the ability to heal from arcane damage, so the purple spinning lightsabres of doom actually heal me now.

[thethird]

Lately my son has been doing something with his demon hunter that I find amusing ... He has a passive that when he dies he explodes damaging nearby enemies, and he has an item that causes all his gear to ignore durability loss. So he doesn't care how many times he dies. When he's about to die and has no way to heal, he runs in close to an enemy and gets killed quickly (e.g. from electric, ground effects, etc.) so as to explode on the enemy.

Question with probably an obvious answer ... I've been working on pumping up resistances to deal with taking so much damage from ground effects or other effects from special enemies, but holy moly some of those effects dish out staggering amounts of damage playing on Torment III. I've been using hit and run tactics to avoid taking as much damage as possible while still getting in some shots at the special enemies, but is there anything else I can do besides those two things?

There are amulets that let you ignore some kind of damage (I've got one for arcane and another for poison) I alternate those depending on the enemies attack.

[Derjuin]

Question with probably an obvious answer ... I've been working on pumping up resistances to deal with taking so much damage from ground effects or other effects from special enemies, but holy moly some of those effects dish out staggering amounts of damage playing on Torment III. I've been using hit and run tactics to avoid taking as much damage as possible while still getting in some shots at the special enemies, but is there anything else I can do besides those two things?

Which class?

For anyone, using an absorb amulet or the blackthorne set can alleviate some of the damage; additionally, socketing a high level Amethyst in your helm. I try to aim for ~500,000 hp, by reserving my belt/shoulder/chest/boots pieces for defensive stats (usually life%/vit/resist/main stat). Resist is almost always a better stat to slot than +armor, unless you're a wizard or WD (since both Str and Dex classes gain armor from their primary, whereas Wiz/WD gain Resist from theirs). Also make sure you have 25% move speed increase, which helps you get out of things like plagued and thunderstorm faster (12% from boots and 13% from paragon levels is what I use - you can also use things like DH's Ferret pet (+10% speed) to help).

For DH specifically, using Vault or Smokescreen will let you get out of harm's way very quickly. You don't take damage while Vaulting (unless that's changed, or I've been exceptionally lucky) and Smokescreen makes you invulnerable and can heal you for a lot of hp with the right rune.

[Kerrin]

Hey, thanks for the helpful info, everyone!

For classes, we have multiples of each class.

For gear, we have two of the Blackthorne pieces, so hope to get more someday to get the oh so good immunities. My son's barbarian has an amulet that heals from arcane, so hope to get more such amulets for other damage types sometime too.

Thanks again!

[Kerrin]

For gear, we have two of the Blackthorne pieces, so hope to get more someday to get the oh so good immunities.

Woo! Got a third piece of Blackthorne's the other day. Now just need one more!

[NineThePuma]

Anyone excited for 1.2

[Karoht]

I am. But I'm too busy dorking out over Warlords of Draenor and the Heroes of the Storm Alpha I just got into yesterday.

[Chen]

I haven't played D3 in ages. Anything interesting in the pipes for 1.2? I haven't really been following (and can't check Blizzard's site from work).

[HMS Invincible]

Woo! Got a third piece of Blackthorne's the other day. Now just need one more!

No you don't have to. Farm act one bountiesvto get the cache reward. One of the rings let's you get set bonuses earlier. So you get a 4 set bonus at 3 pieces. Google Royal ring of grandeur.