Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Lord Torath]

OK, I completed Years of War, and got the Stash tab. Now it'd be nice to clear GR70 solo to unlock Primals. What do I need to do to the Lightning Ball and/or Firebird build to get me there? Anything other than getting more Ancient pieces, leveling up gems, and Caldesan's Despairing them in?

[Psyren]

I'd start by only wearing one Convention Perhaps swap the one in your cube to a Unity or Halo.
I'd replace Unwavering Will with Unstable Anomaly or Arcane Dynamo.

Rerolls:

- Reroll the Life Per Second on your chest into Armor.
- Reroll the All Resist on your bracers to Lightning damage.
- Try to get a better Crit Damage roll on your amulet. Replace the Bane of the Powerful in it with a Bane of the Stricken.
- Try for a better crit damage roll on your Convention.
- Caldesann each of your ancient pieces with at least a 50 gem.

[Vaz]

I haven't been playing much at all. Got my brother to start a character but didn't get that far in. He wanted to do the story, which is good, but doesn't realize that the first "work to get decent skills" is not really the fun part of the game. He should just let me power level him then run through the campaign.

Since I don't really have anyone to play with much I also decided to log into PSN and see about finding a game, once I did that I saw the seasonal stuff and decided to try. Of course I decided to do that just before it gets over so I don't think I'll even get anything out of it.
But if anyone else is playing on PSN (PS4) maybe we could run some stuff?

If your bro wants to play the story, let him. Its clear he doesn't care about the end game content, and you'll possibly ruin the story for him if you trivialise it with an overwhelming character. My GF loves sitting down ajd playing the game for story, and I enjoy watching her do it and get excited when she gets that little orange legendary symbol. She'll explore and clear the entire map of enemies, crash every box and then proceed to the next area, and talk to everyone.

I sometimes play along, but mostly let her enjoy figuring things out. She's just fought Azmodan with her Wizard, which is woefully underspec'd, and even still she is trying higher difficulties because she feels it is too easy.

Sure, I can't run end game content with her, but let her/him have their fun.

[Erloas]

I figured if we just got to level 70 and then ran the campaign then we could still do all of the story stuff and it should scale to our levels, so it should still be a reasonable fight. But then you don't have to worry about all of the "well I'll use this crappy skill until the good ones unlock" stuff and drops will actually be useful for more than 10 minutes.

So it was a no-go with power leveling my monk. Being seasonal I couldn't level it with my non-seasonal characters and whenever I try to go online to find a game it never does anything. I think some of that is the connection we have, seems to have issues a lot of the time.


Still getting the feel for my monk. Only level 20 so not a whole lot of options yet. Seems like exploding palm on a weak guy and finishing him off is about the best way to clear groups at this point. Not having much difficulty yet with elites (on hard, but nothing for equipment) but it just takes a while to kill them. Don't seem to have any great single-target skills at this point, though that might be perception rather than reality. The big bell is kind of goofy but it seems effective. The Mantras seem kind of... well I'm not sure if they seem to do enough to remember to hit them every few seconds.

[Icewraith]

I'd start by only wearing one Convention Perhaps swap the one in your cube to a Unity or Halo.
I'd replace Unwavering Will with Unstable Anomaly or Arcane Dynamo.

Rerolls:

- Reroll the Life Per Second on your chest into Armor.
- Reroll the All Resist on your bracers to Lightning damage.
- Try to get a better Crit Damage roll on your amulet. Replace the Bane of the Powerful in it with a Bane of the Stricken.
- Try for a better crit damage roll on your Convention.
- Caldesann each of your ancient pieces with at least a 50 gem.

GR 70 is where Stricken MAYBE starts being better than powerful. It's a question of how much time you save killing mobs vs. how much time you save killing the boss. If you don't have issues with trash but aren't so great at the RG, Stricken is probably the better choice. If you barely had enough time left to kill the RG due to how long the trash took (or if you have a durability problem) on gr 68-69, Powerful is probably the way to go.

Clearing GR 70 with most sets is a matter of getting your gear reasonably well optimized and having all the gear you need for the build. Most of your gear should be above average in the rolls department and have 4 of the best 5 stats for your build (if not 4/4). Whatever you rerolled using the enchanter should be at or near its maximum value (if mats are scarce, and the RNG is trolling you, get your other gear in better shape before trying to bump the 5.5% crit on that ring to 6% or getting that Crit damage from 40ish into the near 50 range). You should have at least a couple ancient pieces (weapon or off-hand is a big help, and in most (but not all) cases the crappiest of ancients is still better than a well-rolled normal item) and at least one Caldensann's isn't a bad idea. Your legendary gems should be in the 60 range (remember, upgrade chance doesn't drop below 60% until GR level -5 or so). Your other gems should all be at the highest value.

[Lord Torath]

And there's the two-week's notice. Season ends on June 23rd. Season 11 starts on July 20th, a Thursday for the first time I can remember.

Anyone know what the deal is with the "Challenge Rifts?"

[Erloas]

So I got my monk to 70 over the weekend.

May have just went in a different direction, but I'm not sure if I would have liked the monk at all if I hadn't found Gyana Na Kashu pretty early in the game (fireball kick) as that really seemed to be where most of my damage comes from. Then adding in the Rivera Dancers (when I found them after 70) made a lot of things almost trivial. Was easily doing Torment 2 before that, I think I'll be going up to 4-5 tonight when I try again (also got most of the set stuff late last night).

Pretty much found once Lashing Tail Kick did a lot of my damage that Exploding Palm wasn't necessary, so switched to Sweeping Wind for the spirit regen rune. Also went with Epiphany with the extra spirit regen (though that might not be necessary, have to check again). Go with Serenity for defense.
Mantra I've got Conviction I think, but I don't seem to use it all that often. Probably will be more important as I go up in difficulty, and now that I've got the set bonus. It just seemed like before it didn't do enough to be worth using since they had to be hit every 3 seconds and my damage uses so much of my spirit.

And spirit seems to be the big issue, while Epiphany is active its never an issue, but without that I run out pretty quickly. I guess the trick there is just do everything I can to reduce the cooldown so I can use it more of the time.

The primary/builder skills I never really found much difference between them. It seems mostly like I can freely switch them without much of anything actually changing and their damage and utility doesn't make one stand out over the others.


I haven't explored the legendary items too much, a few I've found with monk specific stuff but I'm sure there are a lot more that I haven't seen yet.

Is there any reason to use 2h weapons? I know they went through some adjustments in patches a while ago, but just not sure. It just seems like they're all so slow and not that much stronger. I suppose if I get a good legendary to drop (or I think I have a recipe for one actually) it might be worth trying since Lashing Tail Kick is more one-shot damage than fast damage, it would make my spirit go farther. It just seemed so slow last time I tried one (no where near 70 though), although I think that was an axe or sword, are the staves any faster?

[Icewraith]

And there's the two-week's notice. Season ends on June 23rd. Season 11 starts on July 20th, a Thursday for the first time I can remember.

Anyone know what the deal is with the "Challenge Rifts?"

"Challenge Rifts" sounds like you get an optimized character with set gear and see how well you can do with it. It's an interesting idea- by taking the gear part of the equation, people can focus on skill.

Ugh. Season ending.

On one hand, I don't need another stash tab. On the other hand, What's the point in doing seasons if I'm not going to finish off the journey?
I really don't want to roll an alt, so I'll be stuck doing Sprinter for my third Conquest if I decide to stick it out.

[Lord Torath]

"Optimized Character"? Aren't they all optimized? Everyone gets the same stats at each level, after all. Or do they set your skills, too? So everyone attempting the rift gets identical gear with identical affixes and the same skills. Do you keep your paragon levels, or are those identical too?

Yeah, now that I've hit GR70 solo, and acquired my extra stash tab (and done the same for my wife), I'm at a bit of a loss. I guess try to get a useful Primal Ancient piece.

[Icewraith]

"Optimized Character"? Aren't they all optimized? Everyone gets the same stats at each level, after all. Or do they set your skills, too? So everyone attempting the rift gets identical gear with identical affixes and the same skills. Do you keep your paragon levels, or are those identical too?

Yeah, now that I've hit GR70 solo, and acquired my extra stash tab (and done the same for my wife), I'm at a bit of a loss. I guess try to get a useful Primal Ancient piece.

From what I understand it's identical gear (including Gems), probably a set Paragon level, I would think that they'd at least let you move skills around on your bar but selection limited in some way. The challenge rift uses a Blizzard-provided character, not yours. No idea if the rifts will be variable or not.

The main thing going for it is it's a way to compete with other players without the advantage/disadvantage of gear. The potential issues are that it seems to remove a lot of D3's incentive structure.

[Psyren]

Is there any reason to use 2h weapons?

As a general rule, no. It's slower and you get one fewer legendary affix or set piece (for those sets with an offhand like Zunimassa or Firebirds.) The slowness is especially noticeable on the monk build you're using (LTK) because it has a wind-up animation before the attack goes off, which a staff will slow down.

For a 2H build to be worth it, the weapon has to bring an advantage that outweighs these drawbacks. The only two I'm aware of currently are Immortal King's Boulder Breaker (which gives you the extra set piece you need to combine IK + Raekor or IK + Wastes) and Inna's Reach (which has a huge Mystic Ally damage buff that offsets its slow speed - not to mention Flying Dragon.)

[Erloas]

So by the time I finally beat the game with my monk it was T4, and Mathiel was a good fight, maybe slightly too easy, but he can be a pain.

Did a few multiplayer rifts up to about 24-28 (someone else was starting them so I'm not sure) and it was pretty good. I was clearly doing enough damage but my survivability got a bit iffy at times. Might mostly be a case of moving in a bit slower than I'm used to. but other than that what is the best options for monk increased survivability?

I know Zoey's Secret was the key to my Demon Hunter.
Aquila Cuirass is a common choice but I would never get that with how I play my monk. Endless walk might be a good choice (have to do OroTZ in the cube then).

Mostly I assume there are a few good legendary or set items that will really help that I just haven't seen yet. Just looking for a bit of guidance on where to look. (aka where to toss all my stones at from Kadala)

[Psyren]

You're on console, right Erloas? Do you have a way to link your build? Then we can tell you which slots to focus on for gambling and cubing purposes.

[Erloas]

Yeah, PS4. From what I can tell BNET still has no way for consoles to link to their builds. I know a few points here and there that could use some work, and I'm sure it is like my WH (or anyone that isn't a wizard or WD) that I should try to get as much +all resist as I can because I'm getting plenty of armor from my dex.

Was mostly just looking for legendary affixes or sets, or maybe just a skill change or two, that I could look at doing.
Then there are options like Sixth Sense, or One With Everything and then just reroll all single resists to the same type.
I also thought there was an item that did something like 20% of all single element resists goes towards resist all, but I can't remember what that was now.

edit: It seems that the wiki is out of date. I didn't think I would have missed that passive. It is Harmony, 40% of single elemental resistance goes to all elements. Is that worth it? A must have sort of thing?

Right now my passives are Exalted Soul, Beacon of Ytar, Near Death Experience, and Transcendence.

[Rynjin]

Harmony's pretty baller. It makes All Res simultaneously slightly less important and still VERY useful. Generally your character doesn't care a whole lot if one of their Secondary abilities on gear is, say, Lightning Resistance but 100 LR then becomes 40 Physical, Fire, Arcane, Cold, etc. resistance as well.

I don't know about "must have" but it's one of the Monk's best passives IMO. I'd take it unless you feel like you absolutely need four other passives and can't fit it.

I'd hands down drop Transcendence for Harmony myself.

[Psyren]

I don't know how much free time you have on your hands Erloas, but you can manually reconstruct your character here if you really want help: www.d3planner.com. You can just do the items if you want (without worrying about their specific stat rolls) and the skills your build is using for broad-level analysis, or you can go to painstaking detail and capture the specific affixes on each piece, whether any are ancient, etc. Also, be sure to populate the contents of your Kanai's Cube.

[Erloas]

Well here is my monk:
https://www.d3planner.com/302874594

I have quite a few pieces that are on the low end of the rolls.
The cube weapon is nothing, just the only one I've had that really seems to do much so I stuck it in there until I get something better. I'm thinking I'll probably put scarbringer on there once I get a better weapon to replace that with.
Got the Lefebvre's Soliloquy yesterday, was a pretty easy swap in, replacing sweeping winds to cyclone strike for essentially a constant damage mitigation.

I was thinking about it and probably short term my best bet would be to swap the Rivera Dancers to Inna's and put the Rivera Dancers in the cube, then I can switch out the surcoat to Inna's for the damage boost from the mystic ally. I didn't want to give up the fireball on the kick, but I think it would be the best thing I can do until I get a RRG to drop (act 1 bounty caches, correct?)

The compass rose is not doing anything for me really, but so far its the only decent ring I've got with a socket. Puzzle ring is just the best ring I've found for stats. I haven't found much of the good rings and amulets for the effects yet, other than the ORotZ which I cubed.

With the change to the damage reduction from cyclone strike my defense has been pretty good, at least up to the T6 which I'm running now. I think my damage is the main thing holding me back from going much past that. Solo'd around a 28 rift, but that was early in the day and I'm sure I can do more than that now but was doing quick matches most of the rest of the evening so no attempt to solo anything harder after some of the changes.

[tyckspoon]

Well here is my monk:
https://www.d3planner.com/302874594

I have quite a few pieces that are on the low end of the rolls.
The cube weapon is nothing, just the only one I've had that really seems to do much so I stuck it in there until I get something better. I'm thinking I'll probably put scarbringer on there once I get a better weapon to replace that with.
Got the Lefebvre's Soliloquy yesterday, was a pretty easy swap in, replacing sweeping winds to cyclone strike for essentially a constant damage mitigation.

I was thinking about it and probably short term my best bet would be to swap the Rivera Dancers to Inna's and put the Rivera Dancers in the cube, then I can switch out the surcoat to Inna's for the damage boost from the mystic ally. I didn't want to give up the fireball on the kick, but I think it would be the best thing I can do until I get a RRG to drop (act 1 bounty caches, correct?)

The compass rose is not doing anything for me really, but so far its the only decent ring I've got with a socket. Puzzle ring is just the best ring I've found for stats. I haven't found much of the good rings and amulets for the effects yet, other than the ORotZ which I cubed.

With the change to the damage reduction from cyclone strike my defense has been pretty good, at least up to the T6 which I'm running now. I think my damage is the main thing holding me back from going much past that. Solo'd around a 28 rift, but that was early in the day and I'm sure I can do more than that now but was doing quick matches most of the rest of the evening so no attempt to solo anything harder after some of the changes.

Completing a set is probably the single biggest thing you can do to advance, so I would concentrate your gambling on the Torso and Foot slots to assist with that If you don't already have the pieces around. If you do, then by Ytar, yes, use them. Finishing Inna's should absolutely take care of your damage issues, as well as helping out with your toughness and assisting with your Spirit management - you get all of the Mystic Allies plus their passive benefits are amped by Inna's, so you're looking at 20% extra damage from fire, 8 passive Spirit regen from Air, bonus Life from Earth, slowing attacks from Water.. (don't forget to slot Mystic Ally as one of your skills so you can *use* their active - recommend Water for the damage + crowd control.)

Consider farming and crafting a Hellfire Amulet or two as an at least temporary neckpiece; you might get a relevantly useful extra passive, and if nothing else it's guaranteed to give mainstat + a socket for holding another legendary gem, which is really the basic requirement for a placeholder item. Monks have a lot of nice generally-useful passives, too, so there's reasonably good odds you'll get something you can live with inside of a few crafts. Unity would probably be a winner for Inna's.

Other pieces to look for: If you end up really liking the Mystic Ally thing, look for The Crudest Boots (will go in your cube instead of the Rivera Dancers.) Your Bracer should probably be Bindings of the Lesser Gods or Spirit Guards, depending on if you're feeling more lack in your damage or your survivability. Rings.. well, there's still not a lot of good choices for rings. Focus/Restraint if you don't want to go Endless Walk, Convention of Elements, a Stone of Jordan that matches the damage type you primarily do.. the usual suspects. Other than that, just try to find or reroll a socket into your rings - legendary gems are pretty important, and you're cutting off a lot of available power by not having all three slots for them.

Speaking of the gems: Bane of the Powerful/Bane of the Trapped are standbys for most characters. The third one has a fair amount of leeway/season to taste; Enforcer or Esoteric Alteration would probably be the default considerations for Inna's as the DPS and defense choices. I'm personally pretty fond of Gogok, but that's because I get a kick out of attacking a billionty times per second.

[Neftren]

Okay, one final plea: I need help getting Sprinter done this season to cap out my Season Journey. Anyone else interested? I have Danettas, and am comfortable doing town or runner roles.

[Erloas]

I did finish out the level 4 season for the last pieces of the set. Last night I did switch out the pieces and I could really feel the jump in power. I went from around t6 to t9/10. I've been finding that T9 was almost too easy but running T10 there are time that I'm just dead, seem to be doing fine then I'm just dead and don't know what even happened. Probably something that I just miss because I'm in the middle of too many people to really see what is happening, I know it isn't arcane ground effects or a molten enemy exploding, and at least one time I think it was mortars hitting me. I know they have ground effects before they hit but I just can't keep track of them at times because there is so much happening.

I've done some of the keys for the hellfire amulet, I just need to pick up the recipe and give it a try. I did find a much better option, a wirt's necklace, which I'm using right now and was actually a step up from an ancient I had in there before. Swapped out the ring too, just can't remember exactly which one I ended up with now. So I have Bane of the Powerful and Esoteric Alteration right now, and I just can't remember which is the 3rd one I stuck in. I know I need to run more rifts as only one of them is over 25 at the moment. Its just that there are quite a few things I know I need to do "right away" that I'm not sure which to focus on first.

I'm thinking that while I'm on Inna's set I'll probably just have to switch my skills to a new build. I think my previous build was perfect for Monkey King's Garb set, but so far I've only had one piece drop (so many of the other sets I've had a lot of pieces drop, more than enough to complete some of them with a few set gear swaps from the cube)

I haven't seen the Crudest boots drop yet, nor a full set of the rings or legendary rings you've mentioned. Although I think I've had the same one of endless walk drop several times... if I've kept a copy that is a really easy set swap in the cube.

[Psyren]

I haven't seen the Crudest boots drop yet, nor a full set of the rings or legendary rings you've mentioned.

Sounds like you have your next gamble target then.

[Icewraith]

Okay, one final plea: I need help getting Sprinter done this season to cap out my Season Journey. Anyone else interested? I have Danettas, and am comfortable doing town or runner roles.

I am. I have an Aether walker. I don't have gems leveled yet, though. And I'll need to remember to not salvage some gear I've been regularly salvaging.

[Erloas]

Got the RoRG pretty quick this evening. And not soon after the crudest boots dropped too. It wasn't until I put the boots on that I realized what they actually did for me. Extra spirit is extra damage was obvious but I didn't realize it was going to double every type. Then I noticed my defense jumped up too since the passive boost is from each spirit not the skill itself so the health boost got me a lot.
Solo'd a 49 after that without much trouble. Will spend the rest of the evening leveling up gems now.

[Lord Torath]

Just soloed GR79, and "Caldesanned" my first rank-70 gem! And passed 750 Paragons. Will I make 800? There's only a week left...

[Neftren]

I am. I have an Aether walker. I don't have gems leveled yet, though. And I'll need to remember to not salvage some gear I've been regularly salvaging.

Yeah, having the right gear is important. The last few groups I've attempted it with haven't had move speed gear (or even the required items) so they're 5-10x slower at clearing the map compared to me.

What date/time is good for you?

[Lord Torath]

Woo! Finally got a useful piece of Primal Ancient! A Sacred Harness for my Blessed Seeker crusader!

I've got a Primal Sultan of the Burning Sands, which would be great for my Enchantress Follower, except that it's a Strength Weapon. It's also got Holy Damage, Vitality, and Life per Hit. I'd really like Cooldown Reduction and Critical Hit Chance instead of those last two.

I've also got Invoker Boots, Dexterity St. Archew's Gloves, and Strength Pauldrons of the Skeleton King. (They might show up in the equipment section of the character planner. - Edit: Nope. Looks like the stash is linked to my personal account)

And I've completed a couple of GR80's! Though not without dying half-a-dozen times each.

Is Resist All my best bet for my Sacred Harness?

Okay, one final plea: I need help getting Sprinter done this season to cap out my Season Journey. Anyone else interested? I have Danettas, and am comfortable doing town or runner roles.

I've got a pretty fast Mounted Crusader build. I've never done a Sprint before, though. When are you looking at doing the run?

[Neftren]

I've got a pretty fast Mounted Crusader build. I've never done a Sprint before, though. When are you looking at doing the run?

Pretty much anytime, really. Evenings, Pacific Time are generally good for me.

I think you can find my Battle.net info in the first post?

[Erloas]

I don't think I've seen a primal ancient yet. Got a decent amount of my kit as ancient though. Not having much luck with weapons though.
Up to about GR58, occasional death but usually good.
Set dungeon has been a pain, either things die too fast to get the mystic ally part or I run out of time.
Do the season parts after 4 give anything other than portrait frames? That is all that is listed under rewards.

Where do the other wings and pets come from? Haven't seen any indications of where they come from.

And lastly, I figured out part of my death problem, which probably doesn't exist on the PC. With the way the controls work it is really easy for epiphany to teleport me through several groups very quickly and it is impossible to use it to jump out of a group. It is also really easy for it to jump me into explosions.

[Lord Torath]

I don't think I've seen a primal ancient yet. Got a decent amount of my kit as ancient though. Not having much luck with weapons though.
Up to about GR58, occasional death but usually good.
Set dungeon has been a pain, either things die too fast to get the mystic ally part or I run out of time.
Do the season parts after 4 give anything other than portrait frames? That is all that is listed under rewards.

Where do the other wings and pets come from? Haven't seen any indications of where they come from.

And lastly, I figured out part of my death problem, which probably doesn't exist on the PC. With the way the controls work it is really easy for epiphany to teleport me through several groups very quickly and it is impossible to use it to jump out of a group. It is also really easy for it to jump me into explosions.

The Conqueror chapter (8) gives you an extra Stash tab, for another 70 boxes of storage space. Here's a summary of the requirements and rewards for the season journey: https://d3resource.com/journey/

[Erloas]

Having looked over some of the other Monk sets, I'm not sure where some of them get their survivability. I wanted to try Sunwuko's Soul but it wasn't even close to doing the same things I'm doing with Inna, let alone move forward.

Played a decent amount over the weekend but didn't really get anything to advance me. Using upgrade legendary to try for fist weapons, got quite a few ancients but either they don't have a useful special or they aren't as good as the crafted ancient Hallowed that I'm using. Either need Scarbringer or Rabid Strike (or both) but they aren't showing up.
Keep trying for an ancient bracer too, and any will do because none of them have a secondary effect that do anything for my build. Although looking over the items, maybe I need to just craft a bunch of Reaper's Wraps, probably about as good as anything. (forgot about that as an option until just now).

Otherwise I really have no idea what else to work towards. I don't see any clear path to moving past about GR58 and more than T11 right now.

I guess there is Caldesann’s Despair, is that going to be a huge jump? I have one or two pieces that are probably worth the effort (set ancients with good stats, although if you reforge will is loose the Caldesann's Despair bonus?)
Or Ramaladni's gift would be a good thing too, haven't seen a single one of those yet though and not sure I've got anything worthy of it right now.

Also have potion drop rates changed? I remember before we (now ex wife) would get all sorts of them all the time, but now I think I've seen a total of 2 drop and it hasn't been any of good ones.

And lastly, which I'm not sure anyone here can help with. From some reason when I went to play last night the quick match option was gone and to change to open online it made me sign up for PS+, which I haven't had to do before. I remember once before when I first started back up again it did something similar, but then it stopped asking and just worked.