Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Psyren]

Yes, the paragon levels and cache carry over. Makes leveling up the next sacrifice to the microwave gods a bit easier, assuming you kept enough low-level gear to assist. A real benefit would be having a rank 25 Gem of Ease, but it's not usually a priority for greater rift gem leveling.

If I played Hardcore, I would keep a small stockpile of Gem of Ease. Not only can you use them to level replacement sacrifices alts quickly, you can also use them to fuel Caldesann's when your surviving mains acquire ancient gear.

[Icewraith]

If I played Hardcore, I would keep a small stockpile of Gem of Ease. Not only can you use them to level replacement sacrifices alts quickly, you can also use them to fuel Caldesann's when your surviving mains acquire ancient gear.

I'd use the cube recipe to take the level requirements off a max-level Leoric Ring and Crown. Plus a Hellfire Amulet with a cheat death passive. Then just keep those in the stash.

[Psyren]

I'd use the cube recipe to take the level requirements off a max-level Leoric Ring and Crown. Plus a Hellfire Amulet with a cheat death passive. Then just keep those in the stash.

That's an excellent point, can you strip the reqs from Hellfire? A cheat death passive at level 1 is an amazing boon for HC, it's strictly better than the one amulet that destroys itself to save you.

[Icewraith]

That's an excellent point, can you strip the reqs from Hellfire? A cheat death passive at level 1 is an amazing boon for HC, it's strictly better than the one amulet that destroys itself to save you.

How do you get that thing anyways, is it a drop or what? I remember trying to google it, but several season's worth of discussion about amulets made me give up pretty quick.

[Psyren]

How do you get that thing anyways, is it a drop or what? I remember trying to google it, but several season's worth of discussion about amulets made me give up pretty quick.

Do you mean the Hellfire Amulet, or the extra life one (Ancestor's Grace?)

The latter is a random drop (i.e. can get it anywhere) but it only drops in hardcore (which makes sense, as that's the only place you'd really need it), so you won't see it unless you're playing there.

Having said that, Hellfire with a cheat death passive is superior since it does the same thing without leaving your neck slot empty in the process (which can very easily get you killed again.) Also, apparently the destruction of the Grace amulet takes any leggem you have in there with it. Now granted, you'd have lost that gem forever anyway if you died, but it's still a raw deal if you have a really high gem in there. Here again the Hellfire shines since you not only avoid death, the gem inside it stays intact too.

[Lord Torath]

Now I just need to get to the point where I can get some gems up to 25! My current highest is 7, and I've just hit paragon 70 this season. Two characters died in the 50's and 60's before hitting paragon, and the first died at paragon 40. I currently have 3 Forgotten Soul, and about 10 Deaths Breath. Woo. Hoo.

[Psyren]

That's the other reason I don't play hardcore - you have to be so cautious to avoid losing days if not weeks of progress. I'm not even really trying this season like I used to (playing Overwatch and WoW concurrently among other things) and I'm paragon 250.

Venting for a second - I've been gambling and upgrading dozens of rings with no sign of the OROTZ I need to finish my build. I can't finish my set dungeon without it. This is infuriating.

[mangosta71]

How do you get that thing anyways, is it a drop or what? .

And if you were asking about Hellfire, one of the vendors in the Act 2 camp sells the recipe. You have to farm Keywardens to get Infernal Machines, and then the Uberbosses for the actual components to craft the amulet. And then you have about a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance of getting a useful passive, if my experience with it is any indication. Of course, if you want a specific passive, you're even less likely to get that.

Oh, and to make things even more fun (for definitions of fun that are synonymous with suicide-inducing tedious), Infernal Machines and Uberboss components aren't guaranteed drops until you get higher in Torment than you're likely to see on a HC character, what with the whole "start over every time someone makes a burrito thing" you've got going on.

[Psyren]

And if you were asking about Hellfire, one of the vendors in the Act 2 camp sells the recipe. You have to farm Keywardens to get Infernal Machines, and then the Uberbosses for the actual components to craft the amulet. And then you have about a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance of getting a useful passive, if my experience with it is any indication. Of course, if you want a specific passive, you're even less likely to get that.

Oh, and to make things even more fun (for definitions of fun that are synonymous with suicide-inducing tedious), Infernal Machines and Uberboss components aren't guaranteed drops until you get higher in Torment than you're likely to see on a HC character, what with the whole "start over every time someone makes a burrito thing" you've got going on.

I think Torath is the one with burrito-character problems; Icewraith was the one asking about amulets.

[Icewraith]

And if you were asking about Hellfire, one of the vendors in the Act 2 camp sells the recipe. You have to farm Keywardens to get Infernal Machines, and then the Uberbosses for the actual components to craft the amulet. And then you have about a 0.000000000000000000000000000000000000001% chance of getting a useful passive, if my experience with it is any indication. Of course, if you want a specific passive, you're even less likely to get that.

Oh, and to make things even more fun (for definitions of fun that are synonymous with suicide-inducing tedious), Infernal Machines and Uberboss components aren't guaranteed drops until you get higher in Torment than you're likely to see on a HC character, what with the whole "start over every time someone makes a burrito thing" you've got going on.

I meant the amulet that destroys itself.

My Season DH is currently rocking an Ancient Hellfire with Ambush Passive, 22K life per hit (almost like getting a 6th passive, Leech), decent Dex roll, and the last main stat rerolled to 9% Crit. And as of this weekend, Caldensann's from a level 60 gem.

For HFA, the chance of getting a useful passive for your build on any particular amulet is at least 5/N, where N is the number of passives the class can roll.

[Lord Torath]

Oh, and to make things even more fun (for definitions of fun that are synonymous with suicide-inducing tedious), Infernal Machines and Uberboss components aren't guaranteed drops until you get higher in Torment than you're likely to see on a HC character, what with the whole "start over every time someone makes a burrito thing" you've got going on.

Mac'n'Cheese, tonight. No fatalities, yet, but I'm only playing on Torment II. I'm using Chantodo's Force and Chantodo's Will, but 'Force is level 48, with a 13-level adjustment, making it effectively level 61. But the combo with Archon is better than going without. Just hit Paragon 72 in Seasonal Hardcore, but my non-HC wizard got Haedrig's Gift, so I'm reduced to scavenging for Set pieces. In addition to Chantodo, I have two pieces of Tal Rasha (pants and helm), three pieces of Firebird (Pants, Gloves, and Source), and two pieces of Vyr's set (pants and gloves). Plus 17 Death's Breath, and 4 Forgotten Soul. I'm currently wearing the Tal Rasha pieces, but I should probably find a way to get the Firebird on, to complement my Unstable Anomaly.

[Psyren]

Mac'n'Cheese, tonight. No fatalities, yet, but I'm only playing on Torment II. I'm using Chantodo's Force and Chantodo's Will, but 'Force is level 48, with a 13-level adjustment, making it effectively level 61. But the combo with Archon is better than going without. Just hit Paragon 72 in Seasonal Hardcore, but my non-HC wizard got Haedrig's Gift, so I'm reduced to scavenging for Set pieces. In addition to Chantodo, I have two pieces of Tal Rasha (pants and helm), three pieces of Firebird (Pants, Gloves, and Source), and two pieces of Vyr's set (pants and gloves). Plus 17 Death's Breath, and 4 Forgotten Soul. I'm currently wearing the Tal Rasha pieces, but I should probably find a way to get the Firebird on, to complement my Unstable Anomaly.

Oh god, that's something else I didn't consider. So if you collect Haedrig's Gift on a HC character and it dies, even if you reroll you don't get it again right? Leaving you forced to farm for sets manually?

I mean, at least you could use the original to blaze through bounties and hopefully farm up Blacksmith recipes like Aughild's, so any alts aren't starting exclusively from yellows and blues, but damn man. Seasonal HC is a level of masochism I can't fathom.

[Istarial]

Oh god, that's something else I didn't consider. So if you collect Haedrig's Gift on a HC character and it dies, even if you reroll you don't get it again right? Leaving you forced to farm for sets manually?

I mean, at least you could use the original to blaze through bounties and hopefully farm up Blacksmith recipes like Aughild's, so any alts aren't starting exclusively from yellows and blues, but damn man. Seasonal HC is a level of masochism I can't fathom.

Agreed, I was so glad when they dropped the get to 70 requirement for Guardian, let alone going further.
But I guess we all enjoy different things- I admire the skill, guts, persistence and patience of those who do play it.

[Psyren]

I might give HC seasonal a try after I get my softcore seasonal stash tab.

What I'm definitely not going to do is waste valuable Season Journey time on death by burrito

[Krazzman]

I finally got to play again. :D

Congrats on not dieing... again on HC. I will maybe try an HC run next season...

For now I have finally gotten a Dawn (as a drop) and I got 4 Pieces of UE as well as the Litany/Wailing Ring Set(which is worthless for me right now). Paragon ~160 but T8 Rifts just wreck me when playing with other players. I just don't have enough of anything to play T8 decently fast with Natalya... as such I currently try to get enough UE stuff to switch.

The recommendation of getting a Hellfire amulet: I already got one, traded it for an Ancient (Arcane Damage heals me) with far better stats.

[Lord Torath]

And, there goes another one. Level 70 with 99 Paragons, a Bane of the Powerful, Boon of the Hoarder, and a Rank 14 Bane of the Trapped. My Gem of Ease is also Rank 14, and still in my cache. Not quite high enough. But I do have a pair of Flawless Royal Rubies, one for the weapon, and one for the head. And two Puzzle Rings, which I was saving until my wife and I both had level 70 characters (she's going Demon Hunter) to replace Boon of the Hoarder.

I was in a Level 23 Greater Rift, and had Cold Snap below 20% health when he slowed me with the "heat-seaking" ice ball (follows until it gets reasonably close to you, then spins and occasionally bursts), then hit me with 5 or six of the ice balls that slowly grow until they explode, freezing you*. I had two pieces of Firebird's Finery (when you die, a meteor strikes and returns you to life up to once a minute) and Unstable Anomaly, and those bursts ripped right through both of those. One more for the Hall of Fallen Heroes.

* According to the Chat Log, I was killed by a "Frozen Pulse".

[ShneekeyTheLost]

I've never been a fan of HC mode in any of the Diablo offerings. Death by Lagbeast is not uncommon.

[Icewraith]

I've never been a fan of HC mode in any of the Diablo offerings. Death by Lagbeast is not uncommon.

And, there goes another one. Level 70 with 99 Paragons, a Bane of the Powerful, Boon of the Hoarder, and a Rank 14 Bane of the Trapped. My Gem of Ease is also Rank 14, and still in my cache. Not quite high enough. But I do have a pair of Flawless Royal Rubies, one for the weapon, and one for the head. And two Puzzle Rings, which I was saving until my wife and I both had level 70 characters (she's going Demon Hunter) to replace Boon of the Hoarder.

I was in a Level 23 Greater Rift, and had Cold Snap below 20% health when he slowed me with the "heat-seaking" ice ball (follows until it gets reasonably close to you, then spins and occasionally bursts), then hit me with 5 or six of the ice balls that slowly grow until they explode, freezing you*. I had two pieces of Firebird's Finery (when you die, a meteor strikes and returns you to life up to once a minute) and Unstable Anomaly, and those bursts ripped right through both of those. One more for the Hall of Fallen Heroes.

* According to the Chat Log, I was killed by a "Frozen Pulse".

You're braver, or more stubborn, than me.

RNG Trolling:

So my DH is stuck on GR 74. Kadala is dropping Natalya's, Marauder, and Shadow set pieces like no tomorrow but is being very stingy on the UE set pieces. Even so I've got a few ancient pieces, but they're either slightly worse than pieces I have on my non-seasonal dh (I've actually got some really good gloves but my non-seasonal DH has even better) or they're very flawed. My helm and chest rolled with life % on them, which isn't good in general and is even worse on an ancient instead of Vitality.

The RNG trolling extends to my weapon and off-hand. I made it up past GR 70 with a pretty good non-ancient Yang's but was really feeling the time pressure. I burned a bunch of bounty mats on reforges, which isn't something I've had the resources to do in previous expansions. No luck. I finally got desperate and started cubing bows since I had a huge supply of DBs. I decided to do sets of five.

On the third set of five bows, I cubed FOUR CLUCKEYE BOWS IN A ROW (including an ancient)... and then finally, an Ancient Yang's. That was slightly worse than the one on my non-season DH.

The one place I am sort of doing well is I've got three Ancient Dead Man's Legacies. One of them rolled 100% multishot skill... but no discipline or cooldown reduction (which are vital). The other two rolled the lowest possible (non zero) discipline, and I was able to roll max Cooldown reduction onto both. Both of those rolled badly enough that I have a non Ancient version that reads as a sheet DPS increase. (It's not all bad, one has 15% (possible 10-20) area damage and the other one has a chunk of Vitality)

So I'm missing the GR 75 timer by 10-30 seconds. I have a gem for Caldensann's fodder leveled to 64, but I don't really have an ancient I want to stick it on. A lot of my gear rolled with elemental resist secondaries, so I have a few very low resists. I tried socketing diamonds in my gear, which seemed to help with toughness- I survived hazards I'm pretty sure were one-shotting me previously, but dropped my kill speed enough that I was still running out of time with the RG still up. I switched back to emeralds, and I killed faster but died more often. I also lost a bit of damage adjusting to the higher health pools, I had to take some paragon points out of dex to fill up my hatred globe. Don't want to have to use evasive fire for hatred during the fire CoE proc.

I've had a friend running with me on a WD while I farm 60-65 GRs for gem levels and T12-13 for mats/rift tokens. She's gotten geared pretty quick (also one GR 60 run was enough to take her from Paragon 30 to Paragon 100), but still isn't super useful at T13. She wanted to try a Zuni build and has been cubing and Kadalaing relentlessly, and finally came up with a Carnevil helm yesterday, after spending a considerable amount of resources.

I felt like I needed a change from DH for a bit, so I made a WD and she powerleveled that. She asked me if I had a build in mind, and I said not Zuni, because I had a Zuni WD a few seasons ago and I remember what a pain it is getting all the stuff for it. Once I hit 70, I used my backlog of breaths and blood shards. I decided to start on WD helms, because some of those are build defining.

So my very first Cain's Hope cube, the RNG spits out a Carnevil helm. I start cubing WD knives. Three knives in, Dagger of Darts. Start gambling pants at Kadala- Zuni pants.

Well I guess this WD is going Zuni, at least to start. The RNG is still trolling, but it's not trolling ME, it's trolling my WD friend. Carnevil on the first cube is insane.

[Krazzman]

You're braver, or more stubborn, than me.

RNG Trolling:

So my DH is stuck on GR 74. Kadala is dropping Natalya's, Marauder, and Shadow set pieces like no tomorrow but is being very stingy on the UE set pieces. Even so I've got a few ancient pieces, but they're either slightly worse than pieces I have on my non-seasonal dh (I've actually got some really good gloves but my non-seasonal DH has even better) or they're very flawed. My helm and chest rolled with life % on them, which isn't good in general and is even worse on an ancient instead of Vitality.

The RNG trolling extends to my weapon and off-hand. I made it up past GR 70 with a pretty good non-ancient Yang's but was really feeling the time pressure. I burned a bunch of bounty mats on reforges, which isn't something I've had the resources to do in previous expansions. No luck. I finally got desperate and started cubing bows since I had a huge supply of DBs. I decided to do sets of five.

On the third set of five bows, I cubed FOUR CLUCKEYE BOWS IN A ROW (including an ancient)... and then finally, an Ancient Yang's. That was slightly worse than the one on my non-season DH.

The one place I am sort of doing well is I've got three Ancient Dead Man's Legacies. One of them rolled 100% multishot skill... but no discipline or cooldown reduction (which are vital). The other two rolled the lowest possible (non zero) discipline, and I was able to roll max Cooldown reduction onto both. Both of those rolled badly enough that I have a non Ancient version that reads as a sheet DPS increase. (It's not all bad, one has 15% (possible 10-20) area damage and the other one has a chunk of Vitality)

So I'm missing the GR 75 timer by 10-30 seconds. I have a gem for Caldensann's fodder leveled to 64, but I don't really have an ancient I want to stick it on. A lot of my gear rolled with elemental resist secondaries, so I have a few very low resists. I tried socketing diamonds in my gear, which seemed to help with toughness- I survived hazards I'm pretty sure were one-shotting me previously, but dropped my kill speed enough that I was still running out of time with the RG still up. I switched back to emeralds, and I killed faster but died more often. I also lost a bit of damage adjusting to the higher health pools, I had to take some paragon points out of dex to fill up my hatred globe. Don't want to have to use evasive fire for hatred during the fire CoE proc.

I've had a friend running with me on a WD while I farm 60-65 GRs for gem levels and T12-13 for mats/rift tokens. She's gotten geared pretty quick (also one GR 60 run was enough to take her from Paragon 30 to Paragon 100), but still isn't super useful at T13. She wanted to try a Zuni build and has been cubing and Kadalaing relentlessly, and finally came up with a Carnevil helm yesterday, after spending a considerable amount of resources.

I felt like I needed a change from DH for a bit, so I made a WD and she powerleveled that. She asked me if I had a build in mind, and I said not Zuni, because I had a Zuni WD a few seasons ago and I remember what a pain it is getting all the stuff for it. Once I hit 70, I used my backlog of breaths and blood shards. I decided to start on WD helms, because some of those are build defining.

So my very first Cain's Hope cube, the RNG spits out a Carnevil helm. I start cubing WD knives. Three knives in, Dagger of Darts. Start gambling pants at Kadala- Zuni pants.

Well I guess this WD is going Zuni, at least to start. The RNG is still trolling, but it's not trolling ME, it's trolling my WD friend. Carnevil on the first cube is insane.

My DH is stuck with GR35 (Torment 7) I am running T8 Rifts (with "bots") but that's it... I don't really deal damage, my survival is laughable at best and UE stuff won't really drop. Or the ones that dropped had... horrendous rolls afaik... haven't gotten a Yang's yet but 3 Clustershots or how they are called... couldn't even use them to cube a nice effect... pushing Kadala for Quivers in the meantime...

[Psyren]

I finally got an OROTZ on my Hammersader, which I promptly surrendered to my Vyrzard friend. Kadala, Greed and RNGeezus now abjectly refuse to give me a second one

[Icewraith]

My DH is stuck with GR35 (Torment 7) I am running T8 Rifts (with "bots") but that's it... I don't really deal damage, my survival is laughable at best and UE stuff won't really drop. Or the ones that dropped had... horrendous rolls afaik... haven't gotten a Yang's yet but 3 Clustershots or how they are called... couldn't even use them to cube a nice effect... pushing Kadala for Quivers in the meantime...

Edit: Looked back a couple pages for more info.

My guess would be that you don't have the toughness pieces for Natalya (DR primary skill Bracers whose name I cannot recall ATM and Mantle of Channeling) or you're not quite using Rain of Vengeance right. Crashing Rain (which I believe you have) adds a very small damage zone in the dead center of the spell effect that does a tremendous amount of damage. If you're just dropping RoV so that enemy mobs are in the general vicinity of the effect, you're not getting any mileage out of the belt. Drop RoV so that the very center of the effect is right on top of a group of mobs and at least one of them should flat-out explode on T8 (assuming your set bonus is already running). Another thing to check might be the damage range on your main hand weapon. Since Natalya's always rolls with bonus damage %, it's usually the better main hand option. If you got a bad base damage roll, however, that can seriously crimp your style. If you've got a spare Natalya's Slayer sitting in your stash that has a socket on it, reroll the base damage until it's close to as high as it can go, and then try it out.

If you're still having damage issues, cube rings until you get Focus and Restraint (and Convention of Elements for the cube). With F+R, Vengeance, Crashing Rain, full Natalya's, and decently leveled gems, IIRC you should be 1 or 2-shotting Rift Guardians on T8 (higher if you have CoE) if you land the Crashing Rain. You want all three rings for a UE setup anyways, so looking for them now won't hurt.

Note that if you get a nice CoE and you have a cubed Ring of Royal Grandeur (or vice versa), you can wear Natalya's Ring and 2 pieces of Sage's for the death's breath farm setup (instead of Focus and Restraint). If you must clear at T7 or T8, you might as well still get Death's breaths like you're in T12 or T13, right? IIRC when I was in your shoes I ran T1 or T4 split bounties until I got a RoRG (and had enough keywarden mats to make 1-2 Hellfire amulet), then ran t6-t8 regular rifts and GRs until I got three level 25 legendary gems (Hoarder, Taeguk, Trapped), then I ran even more regular rifts. I used all the blood shards and DBs I got from that to cube or gamble the gear I still needed and leveled Bane of the Powerful and built up a surplus of GR tokens. That got me into t9-t10, getting F+R shot me into t11-t12. IIRC I was in the low GR 60s before I got frustrated enough with Natalya to switch over to UE.

If you're STILL having Toughness issues, if you find an Aquila Curiass chest, cube it. IIRC that shouldn't be necessary until t11+ but I could be misremembering. You have to be much better about keeping your Hatred bar full or near full if you're running Aquila.

Another toughness thing- you have at best 2 attacks before you need to start strafing again to keep Taeguk at 10 stacks. If your stacks are dropping off between trash packs that will hurt your toughness and kill speed. One tick of Strafe is enough to keep Taeguk up, so if you're running a short distance between trash packs you can pop it a couple times and then unload on the next pack at full strength.

If you find a second Dawn and you're still just hurting for damage, cube one of them and equip a Valla's in your off-hand. It comes with a big damage bonus to Strafe and will make your shots pierce (this might also reset the Rain of Vengeance cooldown faster). If you've only got one Dawn I wouldn't recommend cubing it until you've got the full UE set ready to go.

Alternatively, if you're sick of Natalya's but don't have a full UE set, what about Marauder? It's not super fast, but it's very durable (with the Zoey's secret belt) and packs a very large punch once you've got a bunch of sentries down (with Bombardier's Rucksack). Cluster Arrow x6 is very satisfying (with the Manticore crossbow).

One more thing that occurred to me. Natalya's.... isn't necessarily great in multiplayer. If you're running group content with speedfarming bots and not having a good time, that's going to get old fast. The only thing I do in public groups are split bounty runs, everything else I did with Natalya's was solo.

I finally got an OROTZ on my Hammersader, which I promptly surrendered to my Vyrzard friend. Kadala, Greed and RNGeezus now abjectly refuse to give me a second one

Does Greed have a higher ring drop rate? If so, I wasn't aware of that.

[Psyren]

Does Greed have a higher ring drop rate? If so, I wasn't aware of that.

I have no earthly idea; I just got so many damn puzzle rings from Kadala that I had to burn a few.

If you're still having damage issues, cube Focus and Restraint rings (and Convention of Elements).

I think you meant to say "wear Focus and Restraint, cube CoE." But see below.

If you're STILL having Toughness issues, if you find an Aquila Curiass chest, cube it. IIRC that shouldn't be necessary until t11+ but I could be misremembering. You have to be much better about keeping your Hatred bar full or near full if you're running Aquila.

Nah, NatHunters have two much better survivability options than Aquila: cubed Visage of Gunes, and Elusive Ring. Naturally, Shadow Power Smoke Screen is going to be your escape move of choice, but that's perfectly fine since it can be used without breaking Strafe. This also allows you to not have to worry about your Hatred staying above 90%, which is really hard for a Strafe build anyway.

One more thing that occurred to me. Natalya's.... isn't necessarily great in multiplayer. If you're running group content with speedfarming bots and not having a good time, that's going to get old fast. The only thing I do in public groups are split bounty runs, everything else I did with Natalya's was solo.

Nats is great in speedfarming actually if you have a perma-strafe build (no generator and no stopping) Here's one I've used - between Vengeance (Seethe), Preparation (Punishment), Bat Companion and Reaper's Wraps you should never run out of Hatred no matter how high your attack speed gets. With that + Drifting Shadow + Displacement no bot on earth will be able to outrun you.

[Krazzman]

Edit: Looked back a couple pages for more info.

My guess would be that you don't have the toughness pieces for Natalya (DR primary skill Bracers whose name I cannot recall ATM and Mantle of Channeling) or you're not quite using Rain of Vengeance right. Crashing Rain (which I believe you have) adds a very small damage zone in the dead center of the spell effect that does a tremendous amount of damage. If you're just dropping RoV so that enemy mobs are in the general vicinity of the effect, you're not getting any mileage out of the belt. Drop RoV so that the very center of the effect is right on top of a group of mobs and at least one of them should flat-out explode on T8 (assuming your set bonus is already running). Another thing to check might be the damage range on your main hand weapon. Since Natalya's always rolls with bonus damage %, it's usually the better main hand option. If you got a bad base damage roll, however, that can seriously crimp your style. If you've got a spare Natalya's Slayer sitting in your stash that has a socket on it, reroll the base damage until it's close to as high as it can go, and then try it out.

If you're still having damage issues, cube rings until you get Focus and Restraint (and Convention of Elements for the cube). With F+R, Vengeance, Crashing Rain, full Natalya's, and decently leveled gems, IIRC you should be 1 or 2-shotting Rift Guardians on T8 (higher if you have CoE) if you land the Crashing Rain. You want all three rings for a UE setup anyways, so looking for them now won't hurt.

Note that if you get a nice CoE and you have a cubed Ring of Royal Grandeur (or vice versa), you can wear Natalya's Ring and 2 pieces of Sage's for the death's breath farm setup (instead of Focus and Restraint). If you must clear at T7 or T8, you might as well still get Death's breaths like you're in T12 or T13, right? IIRC when I was in your shoes I ran T1 or T4 split bounties until I got a RoRG (and had enough keywarden mats to make 1-2 Hellfire amulet), then ran t6-t8 regular rifts and GRs until I got three level 25 legendary gems (Hoarder, Taeguk, Trapped), then I ran even more regular rifts. I used all the blood shards and DBs I got from that to cube or gamble the gear I still needed and leveled Bane of the Powerful and built up a surplus of GR tokens. That got me into t9-t10, getting F+R shot me into t11-t12. IIRC I was in the low GR 60s before I got frustrated enough with Natalya to switch over to UE.

If you're STILL having Toughness issues, if you find an Aquila Curiass chest, cube it. IIRC that shouldn't be necessary until t11+ but I could be misremembering. You have to be much better about keeping your Hatred bar full or near full if you're running Aquila.

Another toughness thing- you have at best 2 attacks before you need to start strafing again to keep Taeguk at 10 stacks. If your stacks are dropping off between trash packs that will hurt your toughness and kill speed. One tick of Strafe is enough to keep Taeguk up, so if you're running a short distance between trash packs you can pop it a couple times and then unload on the next pack at full strength.

If you find a second Dawn and you're still just hurting for damage, cube one of them and equip a Valla's in your off-hand. It comes with a big damage bonus to Strafe and will make your shots pierce (this might also reset the Rain of Vengeance cooldown faster). If you've only got one Dawn I wouldn't recommend cubing it until you've got the full UE set ready to go.

Alternatively, if you're sick of Natalya's but don't have a full UE set, what about Marauder? It's not super fast, but it's very durable (with the Zoey's secret belt) and packs a very large punch once you've got a bunch of sentries down (with Bombardier's Rucksack). Cluster Arrow x6 is very satisfying (with the Manticore crossbow).

One more thing that occurred to me. Natalya's.... isn't necessarily great in multiplayer. If you're running group content with speedfarming bots and not having a good time, that's going to get old fast. The only thing I do in public groups are split bounty runs, everything else I did with Natalya's was solo.



Does Greed have a higher ring drop rate? If so, I wasn't aware of that.

Uhm... wow. Guess some thing are already fallen flat on the buttered side...
The Dawn I got was that horrendous (no socket, bad rolls and bad secondaries/primaries) that I felt save just directly cubing it. I begin to feel to dislike Natalyas in Public play since even with the supposed instagib of my crashing rain my damage just pales to anything else they have around there. AFAIK I have the right bracers, wrong Shoulders but I am currently switching to UE anyway so I don't really see the point in advancing a set I don't wanna play anymore.

I have no earthly idea; I just got so many damn puzzle rings from Kadala that I had to burn a few.



I think you meant to say "wear Focus and Restraint, cube CoE." But see below.



Nah, NatHunters have two much better survivability options than Aquila: cubed Visage of Gunes, and Elusive Ring. Naturally, Shadow Power is going to be your escape move of choice, but that's perfectly fine since it can be used without breaking Strafe. This also allows you to not have to worry about your Hatred staying above 90%, which is really hard for a Strafe build anyway.



Nats is great in speedfarming actually if you have a perma-strafe build (no generator and no stopping) Here's one I've used - between Vengeance (Seethe), Preparation (Punishment), Bat Companion and Reaper's Wraps you should never run out of Hatred no matter how high your attack speed gets. With that + Drifting Shadow + Displacement no bot on earth will be able to outrun you.

Prep(Punishment) is the only one I don't have. I've got the Tangling Shot (generator skill) to procc my Bane of the Trapped (since it's not yet 25) and my Cull the Weak when playing solo...

Zodiac and Dawn cubed, as well as Cindercoat (nothing better so far). Got this setup right now.


EDIT: Lucky drops right now, got a yangs, an ancient visage of gunes, convention of elements and a better Weapon for now (Natalyas Handcrossbow) as well as some other stuff... but sadly still not enough to switch to UE...

[Psyren]

To all: Blizzard is having a big Black Friday sale on all their products, so now is the time to get your friends and loved ones to pick up whatever and play with you. Diablo 3 in particular, the Battle Chest is going for peanuts.

Uhm... wow. Guess some thing are already fallen flat on the buttered side...
The Dawn I got was that horrendous (no socket, bad rolls and bad secondaries/primaries) that I felt save just directly cubing it. I begin to feel to dislike Natalyas in Public play since even with the supposed instagib of my crashing rain my damage just pales to anything else they have around there. AFAIK I have the right bracers, wrong Shoulders but I am currently switching to UE anyway so I don't really see the point in advancing a set I don't wanna play anymore.

Don't feel bad about cubing Dawn, I always do that since Calamity (and Tenclip for that matter, though I don't use that) has no variables, so all you have to worry about there are standard affix rolls.

UE is really hard to beat, so I won't tell you not to switch, but Nats can definitely compete with it (especially speedfarming) if you build correctly.

Prep(Punishment) is the only one I don't have. I've got the Tangling Shot (generator skill) to procc my Bane of the Trapped (since it's not yet 25) and my Cull the Weak when playing solo...

Zodiac and Dawn cubed, as well as Cindercoat (nothing better so far). Got this setup right now.

Probably the easiest and most impactful thing you can do for your toughness is getting that Taeguk to 25. You're already running GR 35 so you should be able to do that easily (100% chance to upgrade every time). You can even drop to 34 and still have 100% chance all the way up with a touch more survivability and kill speed, because for 100% all you need is GR >= [leggem level + 9]. Doing that nets you another 1M toughness just on its own.

Speaking of toughness, here's some Enchant suggestions:

Spoiler: Over double Toughness with no loss in damage

Show

- Reroll the Grenade damage on your pants to Armor.
- Reroll the Evasive Fire damage on your belt to Armor.
- Reroll the Sentry damage on your chest to either Life% or Rain of Vengeance damage.
- Reroll the Cluster Arrow damage on your helm to Vitality or Strafe damage.
- Reroll the Cold damage on your bracers to Lightning damage.
- Consider rerolling the resource cost reduction on your shoulders to All Resist.
- And of course, as soon as possible, get those emeralds up to Flawless Royal.

Note that none of these reduce your damage output in any way as they are all skills your build doesn't use. (The bracers, Taeguk and emerald changes will actually increase your damage in addition to making you tougher.)

Doing every change above but the shoulders and gems, I got your toughness to increase by 48% (8,573,512 -> 12,727,042.) Adding in the shoulders made it a 70% increase (8,573,512 -> 14,651,251.) Then adding in the Taeguk 25 I got your toughness to a 98% increase (8,573,512 -> 17,031,264). Finally, upping the gems in your chest and legs got you to a 105% increase (8,573,512 -> 17,597,222). With a boost that big you should have no trouble getting beyond GR 35.

The numbers above assume average values on each reroll - if you get a better-than-average or max roll they will increase even more.

Finally, you should gamble and upgrade rings - you're trying for a Restraint (or CoE if you plan on dropping the generator for Prep) and either Elusive Ring or Unity. You also of course want any Puzzle Rings you can get. Since there are so many favorable ring drops for you, gambling and upgrading are worthwhile - you have good odds of getting at least something useful.

When you're through with that, Gamble helms as well - a single Visage of Gunes in your cube instead of that Cindercoat will double your toughness values above yet again, to 35M - a 300% increase from your starting value.

Also, you'll want to craft a Hellfire at some point. That Cameo is good but doesn't do much against non-arcane foes, whereas a Hellfire with Awareness will save you against a much wider variety of enemies.

[Krazzman]

To all: Blizzard is having a big Black Friday sale on all their products, so now is the time to get your friends and loved ones to pick up whatever and play with you. Diablo 3 in particular, the Battle Chest is going for peanuts.



Don't feel bad about cubing Dawn, I always do that since Calamity (and Tenclip for that matter, though I don't use that) has no variables, so all you have to worry about there are standard affix rolls.

UE is really hard to beat, so I won't tell you not to switch, but Nats can definitely compete with it (especially speedfarming) if you build correctly.



Probably the easiest and most impactful thing you can do for your toughness is getting that Taeguk to 25. You're already running GR 35 so you should be able to do that easily (100% chance to upgrade every time). You can even drop to 34 and still have 100% chance all the way up with a touch more survivability and kill speed, because for 100% all you need is GR >= [leggem level + 9]. Doing that nets you another 1M toughness just on its own.

Speaking of toughness, here's some Enchant suggestions:

Spoiler: Over double Toughness with no loss in damage

Show

- Reroll the Grenade damage on your pants to Armor.
- Reroll the Evasive Fire damage on your belt to Armor.
- Reroll the Sentry damage on your chest to either Life% or Rain of Vengeance damage.
- Reroll the Cluster Arrow damage on your helm to Vitality or Strafe damage.
- Reroll the Cold damage on your bracers to Lightning damage.
- Consider rerolling the resource cost reduction on your shoulders to All Resist.
- And of course, as soon as possible, get those emeralds up to Flawless Royal.

Note that none of these reduce your damage output in any way as they are all skills your build doesn't use. (The bracers, Taeguk and emerald changes will actually increase your damage in addition to making you tougher.)

Doing every change above but the shoulders and gems, I got your toughness to increase by 48% (8,573,512 -> 12,727,042.) Adding in the shoulders made it a 70% increase (8,573,512 -> 14,651,251.) Then adding in the Taeguk 25 I got your toughness to a 98% increase (8,573,512 -> 17,031,264). Finally, upping the gems in your chest and legs got you to a 105% increase (8,573,512 -> 17,597,222). With a boost that big you should have no trouble getting beyond GR 35.

The numbers above assume average values on each reroll - if you get a better-than-average or max roll they will increase even more.

Finally, you should gamble and upgrade rings - you're trying for a Restraint (or CoE if you plan on dropping the generator for Prep) and either Elusive Ring or Unity. You also of course want any Puzzle Rings you can get. Since there are so many favorable ring drops for you, gambling and upgrading are worthwhile - you have good odds of getting at least something useful.

When you're through with that, Gamble helms as well - a single Visage of Gunes in your cube instead of that Cindercoat will double your toughness values above yet again, to 35M - a 300% increase from your starting value.

Also, you'll want to craft a Hellfire at some point. That Cameo is good but doesn't do much against non-arcane foes, whereas a Hellfire with Awareness will save you against a much wider variety of enemies.

Will honor your advice sometimes the next days (waiting for my preorder of Pokemon Sun [and moon] that should have arrived today but didn't...)
I got the Visage, I got an Elusive Ring and I got a CoE. Focus and Restraint are missing right now but I can now Switch Prep (uptime of Vengeance = 100%) and probably from Bat to Wolf but I have yet to see how it will be without Cindercoat.

Also I got a Hellfire, with horrendous rolls and Single Out. Yet to farm keywardens again... currently gambling Quivers for Bloodshards and I got maybe enough mats for 2 upgrades left (DB farming in T9 was a bit optimistic... for "gemupgrades" I am missing gems... I got 2 Royals left over, not even a flawless royal...

[Psyren]

I got the Visage, I got an Elusive Ring and I got a CoE. Focus and Restraint are missing right now but I can now Switch Prep (uptime of Vengeance = 100%) and probably from Bat to Wolf but I have yet to see how it will be without Cindercoat.

Try it with Bat first and see if you still have Hatred issues. Ideally one of the three (Preparation, Bat or Vengeance) should be off cooldown every time your Hatred starts to dip. If you are not having Hatred troubles at all, drop Bat for Wolf or Boar depending on whether you need toughness or damage more.

The benefit to going generator-less is that you end up with zero risk of losing your Taeguk stacks except when you transition between floors.

Also I got a Hellfire, with horrendous rolls and Single Out.

That reminds me - you should be dropping that Bane of the Powerful for Bane of the Stricken. Like UE, AoE is your speciality, so you need a gem that will give you more single-target punch. Stricken will easily eclipse Powerful when facing Rift Guardians, Keywardens, and Infernal Machine bosses.

(DB farming in T9 was a bit optimistic... for "gemupgrades" I am missing gems... I got 2 Royals left over, not even a flawless royal...

What about non-emeralds? Don't forget that there is a cube recipe to convert 9 of any color gem into the gem you need. The ideal tier to do this with is Flawless Imperial, because 9 of those = 1 Flawless Royal. So combine another color you have excess of up to that point, get 9 of them, and paint them green.

[Icewraith]

I have no earthly idea; I just got so many damn puzzle rings from Kadala that I had to burn a few.



I think you meant to say "wear Focus and Restraint, cube CoE." But see below.



Nah, NatHunters have two much better survivability options than Aquila: cubed Visage of Gunes, and Elusive Ring. Naturally, Shadow Power Smoke Screen is going to be your escape move of choice, but that's perfectly fine since it can be used without breaking Strafe. This also allows you to not have to worry about your Hatred staying above 90%, which is really hard for a Strafe build anyway.



Nats is great in speedfarming actually if you have a perma-strafe build (no generator and no stopping) Here's one I've used - between Vengeance (Seethe), Preparation (Punishment), Bat Companion and Reaper's Wraps you should never run out of Hatred no matter how high your attack speed gets. With that + Drifting Shadow + Displacement no bot on earth will be able to outrun you.

I've apparently been using "cube" to both mean "upgrade rares in the cube" and "feed the cube legendaries to extract their powers". While the context for which is which should be fairly obvious (there's nothing for the cube to extract from F+R), I'll still try to eliminate the ambiguity in the future.

On what difficulty, with about how many ancient pieces, and with what level gems do you speedfarm with that Nat's build? Also, don't you have to interrupt your channel at least briefly to cast RoV?

This may not work that well, but I'm curious to see how a LoN pure strafe build does. I'm thinking a fire build with Vallas, K'mar, Gunes, Magefist, Cindercoat, Mantle of Channeling, Hexing Pants... and some... filler for the other slots. Maybe Zoey belt + random boots (Ice Climbers?) + Nemesis, with Dawn, Garwulf, and CoE or Elusive Ring in the cube depending on whether you need more DR or more damage. Hopefully Hexing Pants + Seethe (with DR from Gunes) + Cindercoat is enough to perma-channel fire-flavored piercing Strafe (with full move speed from K'mar) without using Bat companion.

If I can come up with an Ancient K'mar and Zoey I think I've got most of those other pieces (except Ancient LoN Rings). Might be missing Hexing Pants in Ancient.

How does the LoN set damage bonus stack with skill bonuses? K'mar and Valla can each roll up to +100% Strafe damage.

@Krazzman:
Edit: Don't think about replacing Bane of the Powerful with Bane of the Stricken until you're spending multiple minutes on Rift Guardians at high difficulties where elite packs take many hits to kill. Bane of the Stricken won't have time to build up its damage bonus compared to Powerful until that point. If you're spending two minutes on the RG, Stricken will save you 30 seconds, assuming its stacking damage bonus eventually cancels out with the larger static bonus from powerful (and the 15% DR). You'll have benefits from Powerful for the first up to thirteen minutes of the rift. If it cuts your trash clear time by 20% it's saving you up to two and a half minutes compared to Stricken's 30s. It's also far more useful in normal rifts.

I cleared GR 75 last night and I haven't even started leveling Bane of the Stricken this season. I'm just now probably at the point where I should start thinking about doing so.

Double edit:

Short on gems? Run bounties. Cursed Chests drop a bunch of gems, and act-level boss kill quests spawn a similar chest when they die (and there's always one in every act). "Clear the Something Something Tunnels Level Two" style bounties always have a similarly rewarding golden chest on the bottom floor. You'll also usually run across the occasional Gem Hoarder or Splitter (or Rainbow goblin or one will open a Greed Portal).

[Krazzman]

Holey moley, since Pokemon did not arrive today I got to play more D3... blew all my gold on Gems, got 7 of the biggest greens now. And enchanted the things Psyren told me to.

Cubextracted the Visage and a surplus CoE. Ran GR30's for Taeguk (3-4 minutes each) and got that to 25.

I guess the RNGesus heard me talk stuff and gave me another UE piece (gloves) with horrendous stats (like really bad) and that brings me to 5/6 pieces (no ring of royal grandeur yet). But I got the LongWalk set and a few other pieces as well as 3 Marauder pieces bringing me to 4/6 in that set too... without Cindercoat I get a few problems in hatred generation but I will see into it that I haven't tried it with Prep:Punish yet. Will now run a few GR30's for Bane of the Stricken.

[Psyren]

On what difficulty, with about how many ancient pieces, and with what level gems do you speedfarm with that Nat's build? Also, don't you have to interrupt your channel at least briefly to cast RoV?

I used it to farm TX back before TXIII was a thing, but it can definitely do 13 as I was clearing GR 60 with ease. I'm a 'Sader this season however and skipped the last one due to Overwatch's release.

It stops your Strafe for a fraction of a second, yes. This doesn't matter though because Strafe's channel doesn't increase over time like, say, Disintegrate, and you're not in nearly as much danger of losing your Taeguk/Gogok stacks as stopping to use a primary to refill would. Basically there's nothing to reset there, so it's a non-issue; I literally have Strafe on left click, RoV on right.

I just booted her up again and while I've misplaced some of her gear (specifically her Elusive Ring and 60+ Taeguk, the latter of which I think is on my Monk?), I was having no Hatred issues and was able to drop Bat for Wolf. Basically you hit Wolf whenever CoE comes around to lightning and you're good to go.

This may not work that well, but I'm curious to see how a LoN pure strafe build does. I'm thinking a fire build with Vallas, K'mar, Gunes, Magefist, Cindercoat, Mantle of Channeling, Hexing Pants... and some... filler for the other slots. Maybe Zoey belt + random boots (Ice Climbers?) + Nemesis, with Dawn, Garwulf, and CoE or Elusive Ring in the cube depending on whether you need more DR or more damage. Hopefully Hexing Pants + Seethe (with DR from Gunes) + Cindercoat is enough to perma-channel fire-flavored piercing Strafe (with full move speed from K'mar) without using Bat companion.

If I can come up with an Ancient K'mar and Zoey I think I've got most of those other pieces (except Ancient LoN Rings). Might be missing Hexing Pants in Ancient.

Either Ice Climbers or Illusory Boots should work well. I'd lean towards the latter because dodging ice is easy (especially if you can move through mobs), but neither Smoke Screen nor Strafe let you move through wallers.

Remember also that you don't actually need to permachannel - rather, you just need your cooldowns fast enough that you can Punish back to full every time you hit 25 Hatred. As an alternative to Magefist + Cindercoat, I would consider an Ice build, with Frostburns + Garwulf + Zoey. This setup also means you don't need Thrill of the Hunt to snare enemies and proc your BoT, freeing up a passive.

How does the LoN set damage bonus stack with skill bonuses? K'mar and Valla can each roll up to +100% Strafe damage.

LoN is multiplicative (but not with itself) while skill bonuses are additive IIRC.

Edit: Don't think about replacing Bane of the Powerful with Bane of the Stricken until you're spending multiple minutes on Rift Guardians at high difficulties where elite packs take many hits to kill. Bane of the Stricken won't have time to build up its damage bonus compared to Powerful until that point. If you're spending two minutes on the RG, Stricken will save you 30 seconds, assuming its stacking damage bonus eventually cancels out with the larger static bonus from powerful (and the 15% DR). You'll have benefits from Powerful for the first up to thirteen minutes of the rift. If it cuts your trash clear time by 20% it's saving you up to two and a half minutes compared to Stricken's 30s. It's also far more useful in normal rifts.

True, it does depend on how much time you spend on bosses vs. trash and champions.

Another option as stated above is Gogok of Swiftness for even more cooldown, attack speed and toughness.

[Icewraith]

Holey moley, since Pokemon did not arrive today I got to play more D3... blew all my gold on Gems, got 7 of the biggest greens now. And enchanted the things Psyren told me to.

Cubextracted the Visage and a surplus CoE. Ran GR30's for Taeguk (3-4 minutes each) and got that to 25.

I guess the RNGesus heard me talk stuff and gave me another UE piece (gloves) with horrendous stats (like really bad) and that brings me to 5/6 pieces (no ring of royal grandeur yet). But I got the LongWalk set and a few other pieces as well as 3 Marauder pieces bringing me to 4/6 in that set too... without Cindercoat I get a few problems in hatred generation but I will see into it that I haven't tried it with Prep:Punish yet. Will now run a few GR30's for Bane of the Stricken.

If you're having gold issues, get boon of the hoarder to 25 first and wear it instead of Powerful/Stricken in Normal Rifts. Your gold issues will evaporate (they'll really evaporate if you get it to 50, but 25 is the most important). If you find and extract an Avarice Band, Level 25 Boon of the Hoarder will give you a pretty consistent speed boost and pick up gold and progression globes on the entire screen instantly.

It's important to have a large stockpile of gold so you can always empower GRs. Leveling your gems faster makes better use of your time. Just remember to check your gear and your cube before running GRs.

But seriously. Don't even think about Bane of the Stricken until you're GR 65-75+. Before that you'll get far more mileage out of a Bane of the Powerful and using your CoE Cold and Fire buffs correctly with UE, or your Lightning with Natalya. Also, if you're about to switch to UE, an even better choice would be leveling Zei's instead.

For UE, the cold buff means it's time to fill up your hatred bar if it's not already full (and find some enemies if you're not fighting anything). A little before the buff switches to Fire, hold down Multishot. On lower difficulties the screen will die well before you run out of hatred. On higher difficulties you'll want to put some Paragon points in Hatred so you can spam Multishot for the entire duration of the CoE Fire proc.

Remember if you see any duplicate class set pieces, you can use the cube to reroll them to other pieces of the set, at the fairly reasonable cost of 10 Breaths and 10 Souls per attempt.