Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Erloas]

Well so far the Marked for Death - Mortal Enemy experiment has not worked that well. I did get to move up to T6, and we ran a 31GR (it turns out we had beat 29 and unlocked 31 but didn't actually do it), so I had a bit of a chance to hit things but still stuff died a bit too fast to really tell if it was working or not, and at least in that case it didn't do enough to make it worth using.

I don't think the pets would trigger the hatred, but the sentries might, I did notice the sentries would apply MFD when they shot (from calamity) but it was really hard to get the sentries to attack and not the pets to see much more than that.


Since I didn't hit the snooze too many times this morning I logged into the game and quickly took pics of the TV with our characters up so I could enter them. I think I got them all right but some of the pics were pretty blurry and so I might have a gem at the wrong level or a few numbers off but I think they are at least very close.
I don't remember my wife's skills specifically, so they are blank at the moment. I know she uses teleport, familiar, energy twister, archon and disintegrate, but I don't know the last or the specific ruins, though I know most are fire. Also not sure on passives.
I do know the D3 planner and our sheet numbers aren't exactly the same.

http://www.d3planner.com/293793719
http://www.d3planner.com/869004749

I'm thinking if the MFD thing doesn't work out maybe I should go back to Vengeance, I hadn't been using it before because everything dies so quickly right now, but if we keep moving up that shouldn't be the case and I guess I can use it just for the hatred regen. If not I'm not really using anything with a cooldown and can change my helm gem.
Her sword I don't know if she'll stay with, it just dropped and she was messing around with it. She had the firebird off-hand and Chantodo's Will before.


We both died in the GR31 run, she dies early on from ground effects, just happened really quickly. I got blasted by a molten, just didn't get out of the way fast enough. The rift guardian also killed her again with some blast attack. I think those were all just simple sloppy play sort of deaths rather than not enough toughness. Everything died pretty quickly.

I just got the Traveler's Pledge/Compass Rose so I don't know how much of a difference that will make. Got the Compass from Kadala, and she had the Traveler's Pledge in her stash and didn't want it so I reforged it for my own stats.

[Psyren]

I changed up my Vyrzard build to be cold-based and he is kicking ass. Ray of Frost is a delightfully cheap spender to get Archon back off cooldown (and builds Chantodo stacks blazingly fast), and now I can use that cold passive for even more damage. I also have a thematic reason to bust out my Halo of Arlyse, which in turn triggers the Rimeheart I have in the cube.

I know she uses teleport, familiar, energy twister, archon and disintegrate, but I don't know the last or the specific ruins, though I know most are fire. Also not sure on passives.

Skills, passives and runes make a big difference; when you find those out, update hers and we can take a look; that would be more productive than trying to guess.

I do know the D3 planner and our sheet numbers aren't exactly the same.

The planner is generally more accurate. There are some small things to watch out for like short-duration buffs not being up all the time if your cooldowns are low (e.g. Vengeance) but you can toggle those off to get the full comparison.

I'll take a look at your affixes later and see if I can provide any recommendations.

http://www.d3planner.com/293793719
http://www.d3planner.com/869004749

I'm thinking if the MFD thing doesn't work out maybe I should go back to Vengeance, I hadn't been using it before because everything dies so quickly right now, but if we keep moving up that shouldn't be the case and I guess I can use it just for the hatred regen. If not I'm not really using anything with a cooldown and can change my helm gem.

Keep in mind that sentries benefit from cooldown reduction too, if you find yourself repositioning them a lot. But if you feel like it's not making much difference (i.e. there isn't a time where you're waiting to put more sentries down), by all means drop the diamond and go with an amethyst to be tougher instead.

We both died in the GR31 run, she dies early on from ground effects, just happened really quickly. I got blasted by a molten, just didn't get out of the way fast enough. The rift guardian also killed her again with some blast attack. I think those were all just simple sloppy play sort of deaths rather than not enough toughness. Everything died pretty quickly.

I just got the Traveler's Pledge/Compass Rose so I don't know how much of a difference that will make. Got the Compass from Kadala, and she had the Traveler's Pledge in her stash and didn't want it so I reforged it for my own stats.

Do you mean you rerolled the main stat at Myriam, or did you reroll it completely in the cube? I'd suggest the latter, because the amulet is guaranteed main stat so rerolling it completely you'll get that back along with the chance to roll something else.

[Erloas]

Keep in mind that sentries benefit from cooldown reduction too, if you find yourself repositioning them a lot. But if you feel like it's not making much difference (i.e. there isn't a time where you're waiting to put more sentries down), by all means drop the diamond and go with an amethyst to be tougher instead.

Do you mean you rerolled the main stat at Myriam, or did you reroll it completely in the cube? I'd suggest the latter, because the amulet is guaranteed main stat so rerolling it completely you'll get that back along with the chance to roll something else.

Right now with the sentries I'm mostly just tossing some up as we go to make sure none disappear, so I stay at max damage. I will toss some at cursed chests, bosses, and such, but right now I'm not needing the DPS from 5 to make sure they are all in one spot at one time.

I rerolled it completely in the cube, I used reforged to try to make that clear (as that is the term the cube uses) but I guess it wasn't. Entering the numbers I could see quite a few pieces that had rolled pretty low on quite a few stats. Not sure how quickly I can get those done though, still perpetually out of forgotten souls.

Will reforging keep ancient status or if I reroll an ancient will it, most likely, come out as a normal?

edit: so looking over D3Planner some more, I want to make sure I have this right... Holding down shift shows how your roll compares to the min-max of that affix for that weapon slot. And the perfection is how close to perfect the item is and attack/defense breaks it down for each of those, so it is a quick and easy way to see what needs reforged the most and which ones you might just reroll one specific stat.

Also see a few that had an option for "Caldesann's Despair" bonus dex or vit, what is that?

And to go back quite a bit, I remember something about an item that gives you a free socket (only on weapons I think)? That is just a normal random drop, no specific farming to get it? So when I do find one of those I should reroll my socket or reforge the weapon (as mine rolled low all over the place) first, then give it the free socket, correct?

[mangosta71]

It's called Ramaldani's Gift (or something like that). It will appear as a legendary consumable when it drops. But yeah, no specific place to get it; just keep mowing stuff down until you get lucky. And yes, it can only be applied to a weapon that doesn't already have a socket. They're rare, so it's generally best to hold onto them until you find an ancient of the weapon you want that rolled well before using them.

[Psyren]

Also see a few that had an option for "Caldesann's Despair" bonus dex or vit, what is that?

It's a new cube recipe that lets you add more of your main stat to an ancient item by sacrificing a sufficiently high-level legendary gem. Basically it's a way to encourage you to get ancient items in every slot and then upgrade them further, allowing those items to have a dramatic impact on your overall performance, but the need to sacrifice leveled legendary gems means it takes a huge time investment to use.

And to go back quite a bit, I remember something about an item that gives you a free socket (only on weapons I think)? That is just a normal random drop, no specific farming to get it? So when I do find one of those I should reroll my socket or reforge the weapon (as mine rolled low all over the place) first, then give it the free socket, correct?

mangosta covered this one, but just to reiterate - your best bet is to save these until you have an ancient weapon to use them on.

Will reforging keep ancient status or if I reroll an ancient will it, most likely, come out as a normal?

Enchanting one affix to another via Myriam will keep ancient status. Rerolling via the cube has only a 10% chance of doing so (i.e. a 90% chance of losing it), so generally you don't want to do that. It's a better idea to get a non-ancient version and reroll that until it's ancient then see if it's better (or can be enchanted to be better) than the ancient you're using.

[Vaz]

Urgh, just did a quick theory that it would take around 1400 Marquis Gems, 700M Gold, 200 Death's Breaths, and around 35 Hours (or 25 Hours and I-don't-want-to-do-the-maths-on-thatM Gold to get a full set of Ancient Gear to all be Augmented to minimum levels to do the 2000 (or 1500) Greater Rifts, not to mention the farming runs in that time.

That said, it does get me a bonus of 3000 Strength, and all the Paragon Levels, to get to that stage, which would allow me to push to higher tiers. So, +150 Strength for Weapon, +600 from the Jewellery, and 2250 from the rest of my gear.

A good long weekend would be enough, only issue is I wouldn't want to put time into buffing that gear if it's not the best in slot.

Throw on a full equip of Ancient Legendary Gear and not only would I be rocking the +3000 which should help with the The Thrill, but I'd also be able to run a my LoN set (just an Ancient Wailing Host now, I've had 3 Ancient Litany of the Undaunted, but no Wailing Hosts ffs) for pushing higher GR's with +1300% Damage Bonus on top of that. This numbers game gets ridiculous quickly XD.

[Pendulous]

It's a new cube recipe that lets you add more of your main stat to an ancient item by sacrificing a sufficiently high-level legendary gem. Basically it's a way to encourage you to get ancient items in every slot and then upgrade them further, allowing those items to have a dramatic impact on your overall performance, but the need to sacrifice leveled legendary gems means it takes a huge time investment to use.

I'd argue that getting the regular gems takes longer than leveling the legendary gem for the recipe.

[mangosta71]

Is Boon of Bul-Kathos broken? Because it's not reducing my Earthquake CD, which is making the Earthen Might set dungeon impossible.

[Psyren]

I'd argue that getting the regular gems takes longer than leveling the legendary gem for the recipe.

You might be right as I've never bothered with it myself - but if I were to do so, I'd stockpile gems by chain-running rifts, then use the shards I gain thereby to gamble rings (along with upgrading rings via the cube with the crafting mats and breaths from same) and use the puzzle rings I gain from doing all that to spam Vault runs. Whenever I'm bored with all that, I'll just do bounty runs, and click yes on every boss fight so I get the gems from the Diabolic Cache. If I can squeeze Broken Crown into my build for any/all of that to double my gem drops, so much the better.

[Psyren]

Is Boon of Bul-Kathos broken? Because it's not reducing my Earthquake CD, which is making the Earthen Might set dungeon impossible.

Every build I've seen uses that, along with either In-Geom, OROTZ or both. Are you using one or both items? If only one, have you tried both? If BoBK isn't working then I'm not aware of it, though Barbarian is probably the class I play the least these days.

[mangosta71]

Well, I did some testing, and it looks like it's taking the 15 seconds off the CD; I was expecting the tooltip to reflect the reduction, but apparently D3 doesn't do that. I need to play more so that I can acquire an OROTZ and In-Geom, as I don't have either of those yet. I think for farming I'm going to switch back to LoN/ancients/fire, as I seem a lot more fragile in my Earthen Might/frost build; I think my Aquila is the biggest contributor there.

I did finally manage to complete the set dungeon, but I don't have enough CDR for mastery yet. And there's basically no chance of finishing all the bull**** necessary to unlock the stash tab at this point because I just don't play enough.

[Psyren]

Well, I did some testing, and it looks like it's taking the 15 seconds off the CD; I was expecting the tooltip to reflect the reduction, but apparently D3 doesn't do that.

If by "the tooltip" you mean the CDR stat in your character sheet, it can't affect that - the BoBK passive only affects the cooldown of specific abilities, and the CDR stat reflects your overall/general CDR. If however you mean the Earthquake on your action bar, the CDR actually is reflected there, by changing the starting position and speed of the "cooldown wipe" over the icon depending on how much CDR you have for that specific skill taking everything into account.

I need to play more so that I can acquire an OROTZ and In-Geom, as I don't have either of those yet.

I can't speak for every single set dungeon, but from personal experience mastery without at least one of these is extremely hard, because most of the high-speed abilities classes have rely on cooldowns (even indirectly.) Either the speed ability itself has a cooldown, or there's a rune/item that makes it spend resource instead, and you have another cooldown ability that refills your resource when it runs dry.

[mangosta71]

Yes, but I mean the tooltip still says the CD is 60 seconds. I timed it with the swipe thing and it's being applied.

Earthen Might mastery would be doable without either if the requirement wasn't specifically that you have to use the skill; I have the mighty 2-hander (Warblade of the Tribes or something) that triggers free Earthquakes when I use Threatening Shout, but that doesn't count for the challenge.

[Psyren]

Yes, but I mean the tooltip still says the CD is 60 seconds. I timed it with the swipe thing and it's being applied.

Gotcha - yeah, that won't change, you do have to watch the swipe (or just mentally track the time it takes you to use it again.)

[Erloas]

So I guess Caldesann's Despair is only worth it when you have an ancient item and know you're going to keep it. I assume if you reforge the item (for low general stats, cube) the bonus would be lost, not transferred over?

Got Natalya's ring, which gives me the set 4 bonus. We moved up to T7, and we've been running GR36ish several times, haven't tried moving up yet.

Not sure if the Compass Rose/Traveler's Pledge are actually doing much for me, it takes a bit to switch between offense and defense and I'm not actually sure I need the defense bonus, as I don't stop that much. Not really sure there is much for better choices though.

Had an ancient helltrapper and manticor drop, the manticor might be worth it in the cube instead of Marked for Death (calamity), but still not sure on that. I didn't want to cube an ancient though so I didn't. Main thing I would gain is being able to switch out elemental arrow for cluster arrow, which would be more damage for not a lot more hatred, but I don't know if it would *actually* be much more with the loss of MfD. Helltrapper would only be worth it if it could drop a sentry and not count towards my 5 limit but still give me bonus damage.

Other than rerolling items and finding ancient versions, I'm not sure if there is too much more I can do. Don't think breaking the sets would be worth a legendary affix in most cases, maybe Natalya's, but not marauders.

I do need to roll a socket on the compass rose, but I'm not sure which gem to stick in there yet. Esoteric Alteration would seem to be the best choice for defense, and Gem of Efficacious Toxin or Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver both seem like solid offensive choices but I could be missing something.

[Psyren]

So I guess Caldesann's Despair is only worth it when you have an ancient item and know you're going to keep it. I assume if you reforge the item (for low general stats, cube) the bonus would be lost, not transferred over?

Rerolling in the cube treats the item like it was freshly dropped. Not only do you lose Caldesann's, you have a 90% chance of the item not being Ancient anymore at all. (Generally, if you have a mediocre ancient, your best bet is to use it anyway and try to find another ancient entirely.)

Got Natalya's ring, which gives me the set 4 bonus. We moved up to T7, and we've been running GR36ish several times, haven't tried moving up yet.

Grats on T7!

Not sure if the Compass Rose/Traveler's Pledge are actually doing much for me, it takes a bit to switch between offense and defense and I'm not actually sure I need the defense bonus, as I don't stop that much. Not really sure there is much for better choices though.

Hellfire Ammy + Nat's Ring + this would be my goal. Endless Walk (i.e. Compass + Pledge) works best for builds that stand still a lot, that are tough enough to survive while they do so, and that have a really good ring (Nat's... isn't, aside from the bonus if you're RoV-ing a lot.) They also work better on classes with weak passives, like Wizard. DH passives are much stronger. so getting a 5th one is good.

Had an ancient helltrapper and manticor drop, the manticor might be worth it in the cube instead of Marked for Death (calamity), but still not sure on that. I didn't want to cube an ancient though so I didn't. Main thing I would gain is being able to switch out elemental arrow for cluster arrow, which would be more damage for not a lot more hatred, but I don't know if it would *actually* be much more with the loss of MfD. Helltrapper would only be worth it if it could drop a sentry and not count towards my 5 limit but still give me bonus damage.

Never cube ancient weapons, they're too hard to find. Ancient anything really, but especially not weapons.

Other than rerolling items and finding ancient versions, I'm not sure if there is too much more I can do. Don't think breaking the sets would be worth a legendary affix in most cases, maybe Natalya's, but not marauders.

I honestly would drop Natalyas from the build and use that ancient Manticore along with your Rucksack. This would free up your cube's ring slot (currently using RRoG right?) for CoE or the ring I linked above, along with Focus + Restraint for 225% damage, and free up your amulet slot for Hellfire. Your Hatred problems would also be over with F+R since you can just spam your primary to refill anytime you want. (Not that you should be having much Hatred issues with a Manticore.)

I do need to roll a socket on the compass rose, but I'm not sure which gem to stick in there yet. Esoteric Alteration would seem to be the best choice for defense, and Gem of Efficacious Toxin or Mirinae, Teardrop of the Starweaver both seem like solid offensive choices but I could be missing something.

You're forgetting Bane of the Trapped (use cold damage, will also combo with Cull the Weak) and Bane of the Stricken. Both will achieve much higher damage output overall than Mirinae and Toxin.

[Vaz]

Well done on the T7 Erloas! Hopefully you'll be able to get some materials a lot more. You'll notice that you don't so much level/difficulty up in a linear pattern, as go through hops and skips.

I know the missus scoffs at "nerding" up on the build advise, but that shouldn't prevent you from learning how to do her stuff. If she's running a Monk with an Explosive Palm (apologies, forgotten the actual build) and is using a piece of gear that's not upping Explosive Palm damage in favour of another, it might be worth taking it to Mystic Meg, and seeing if she can enchant it with a preferential roll, such as Dexterity, possibly Life of Hit, or obviously +Explosive Palm, Cooldown Reduction, etc (don't run a Monk, sorry! Hopefully indicative though). When I rolled up my gear, and went from various +15% affixes and running numerous damage skills to get the benefit of that +X% damage, and transferred it to say Bombardment, or Blessed Hammer depending on what build I used, to have that now +90% damage was brilliant.

If the wife enjoys a particular build, rather than encouraging her to farm for a particular style, just pick up the gear that you like the best to support that build. From my point of view, I've learned to not trust the +Damage/Toughness/Recovery as much as learning some of the mechanics behind it. For example, I use a Pig Sticker on occasion (a super fast Dagger), although its stats really otherwise suck, that it attacks so quick, and my normal damage is poor, that I add my Thorns stat to the damage "off sheet" means that the more individual attacks I make, the more damage I do, rather than hitting harder but slower.

I wish you look to push higher!

[Erloas]

Other than that Hellfire is always going to have a socket and is going to be fairly easy to reroll for good stats, is there anything else really going for it? I know there is a legendary affix for it but the sites don't have it listed so I don't remember.

The elusive ring, I'm not sure when/how I would fit any of those skills into my build. At least right now none of them seem all that useful.

I could see focus/restraint being a good choice, though I still haven't got both of them yet.

I see the advantage of taking out Natalya's because the marauder boost doesn't help RoV, but it is nice that I can cast it a lot of the time and it doesn't take any resources to do it, especially nice when I get stuck in a group (have the knockback rune) or when my sentries have fallen and I haven't got the hatred to get them back up.

The manticore, even with a really good bonus, is still going to make cluster arrow twice as much as elemental arrow. Although I could see dropping a damage skill to get another regen, seems hard to find a great time to use RoV, elemental arrow, and multi-shot at the same time. And switching evasive fire in there as well... I'm just not sure. I could see maybe multi-shot for groups and cluster arrow for more formidable foes, both being alternated with evasive fire for F/R. That would give me a free skill slot for either vengeance-seethe or preparation-punishment.


As for gems, seemed like Bane of the Stricken would only be good against the biggest monsters, given those are the ones you have to work the most for. Trapped I could see being good with some builds, though all of my skills are set to fire right now (seemed like the best choice for many, happened to get quite a few +% fire damage so moved the others) so I'm not sure how practical or good it would be to switch to cold.
How hard is it to keep Taeguk up? Seems like it could stack to a lot of extra damage and defense, but it seems like it would be really easy to loose the stack.

For the CoE ring, is that for elements you have available to your currently equipped skills/ruins or just available to your class at all? I know I can do fire, cold, physical, and lightning. But I think all of my skills are fire, my pets are physical, and I have one cold skill (evasive fire). I'm just wondering how effective it would actually be if I've only got 5 of any 20 seconds applying to most of my damage.

[mangosta71]

Hellfire Amulet's really special thing is that it gives you a free passive skill. Keep making new ones until you score one that grants one of the passive skills you're using, or a passive skill that you would like but had to cut because you only have room for 4 and the others were slightly more important.

Bane of the Trapped, once you get it to level 25, will apply its bonus damage to everything within 15 yards whether you have any form of CC in your build or not.

Convocation of Elements cycles through every damage type that your class can dish out, so, yes, if all of your damage is fire it will only apply 25% of the time. However, if you time your CDs to coincide with the big buff to your damage type, everything around you will die almost instantly. And still, even only getting the bonus 25% of the time averages out to a 50% damage buff overall.

[turbo164]

You're forgetting Bane of the Trapped (use cold damage, will also combo with Cull the Weak) and Bane of the Stricken. Both will achieve much higher damage output overall than Mirinae and Toxin.

Yeah sadly, there are a lot of gems not worth using this patch...but happily a LOT of them are getting buffed next patch. Can't check at work, but off the top of my head, Toxin reduces enemy damage by 10% (in addition to increasing the damage they take like it currently does) and Mirinae procs more often and restores a % of your health when it does!

[Icewraith]

Season 6 now available on the PTR; Source

Shooot. Anyone have a good idea of how much time we probably have? I need to get moving on d3 if I'm going to get the stash tab.

[Psyren]

Yeah sadly, there are a lot of gems not worth using this patch...but happily a LOT of them are getting buffed next patch. Can't check at work, but off the top of my head, Toxin reduces enemy damage by 10% (in addition to increasing the damage they take like it currently does) and Mirinae procs more often and restores a % of your health when it does!

To be clear, even after the ones you mentioned get buffed, BotT and BotS will still have higher raw damage output because theirs is both multiplicative and uncapped. The other two gems will get defense added, which can help glass cannon builds push higher - but for builds that are already good at avoiding or mitigating damage natively, BotT/BotS will retain their superiority.

Spoiler: @ Erloas

Show

Other than that Hellfire is always going to have a socket and is going to be fairly easy to reroll for good stats, is there anything else really going for it? I know there is a legendary affix for it but the sites don't have it listed so I don't remember.

It gives you a bonus (5th) passive skill (as I mentioned previously.) As I also mentioned previously, Demon Hunter passives are quite good, so having a 5th there is particularly handy.

The elusive ring, I'm not sure when/how I would fit any of those skills into my build. At least right now none of them seem all that useful.

Oh right, doesn't console get a dodge natively? And you're sharing a screen so you can't exactly go running off on your own (I think?) Yeah, those skills are less useful in that case - though I'll point out that Shadow Power doesn't require dodging or anything, it just pumps your Life on Hit through the roof. There's also a rune for it that slows down everything in a wide radius around you, perfect for triggering Bane of the Trapped.

The manticore, even with a really good bonus, is still going to make cluster arrow twice as much as elemental arrow. Although I could see dropping a damage skill to get another regen, seems hard to find a great time to use RoV, elemental arrow, and multi-shot at the same time. And switching evasive fire in there as well... I'm just not sure. I could see maybe multi-shot for groups and cluster arrow for more formidable foes, both being alternated with evasive fire for F/R. That would give me a free skill slot for either vengeance-seethe or preparation-punishment.

You should never really be using two spenders, it's a waste of damage. The only time I'd combine Elemental Arrow with something else is if I was running a Kridershot, which I don't think you are.

As for gems, seemed like Bane of the Stricken would only be good against the biggest monsters, given those are the ones you have to work the most for. Trapped I could see being good with some builds, though all of my skills are set to fire right now (seemed like the best choice for many, happened to get quite a few +% fire damage so moved the others) so I'm not sure how practical or good it would be to switch to cold.

Cold was just the easiest way; there is actually a passive that makes all your shots snare regardless of element. (Yet another good reason to get a Hellfire.) Or the Shadow Power rune mentioned above, or caltrops etc.

How hard is it to keep Taeguk up? Seems like it could stack to a lot of extra damage and defense, but it seems like it would be really easy to loose the stack.

Without a channeled skill like Rapid Fire or Strafe it's a pain in the ass (and after the patch it will only work with channeled skills anyway, so leveling it is a waste of time if you're not using one of those.) Do not recommend.

For the CoE ring, is that for elements you have available to your currently equipped skills/ruins or just available to your class at all? I know I can do fire, cold, physical, and lightning. But I think all of my skills are fire, my pets are physical, and I have one cold skill (evasive fire). I'm just wondering how effective it would actually be if I've only got 5 of any 20 seconds applying to most of my damage.

It cycles through all elements available to your class, whether you have them equipped or not. Say you get a perfect one at 200% and all your skills are all one element - it means that during that few seconds you will be doing +200% additional damage, then the rest of the time you'll be doing normal damage. If your class has 4 elements, then on average this works out to a 50% damage increase from a single ring - a very hard bonus to equal elsewhere. (Imagine for instance you found a ring that had +50.0% damage in the comparison window - that would be pretty hard to beat, right? It's kinda like that.) There's also strategy to it - if you time your cooldowns to coincide with it, you'll actually be getting even more than that, since most of your damage comes from those short bursts anyway.

It's generally only effective if you are mono-element, because you want all guns blazing during that buff window.

[Erloas]

Sorry, I had thought you meant something more like "it gives you a bonus that is as good as another passive skill" rather than it was a passive skill itself.

I had a Ramaldani's Gift drop last night, but we didn't have time for me to mess with my build. If the Manticore looks like a good roll (mostly just tossed it into my chest, didn't look at it too closely) I'll use the gift there, otherwise I'll hold onto it.

I still haven't seen the Focus/restraint set myself, but I can probably get them from my wife and reforge them for my own stats.
Although I guess I'll have to figure out if that is worth it or the RoE and something else.

I used shadow power before, but at least right now my life-per-hit is good enough that I'm almost never at full health. It seems that the only time I die is when I miss a ground attack and I go from perfectly fine to dead before I can react (if I see it and move no damage, if I miss it and stay there I'm just dead, can't heal through it- I guess those are a case for the staggered damage gem...). Defense is in the 25-28M range.
I'm trying to decide if the Cloak of the Garwulf is worth it in the cube, the two additional wolves are a modest 100% damage each (base) which isn't that much, but I have a lot of other pet boosting things, and everything the pets get in the way of is something that can't really hurt me. It isn't that uncommon for my pack of animals to take down purple elites before I really get to shoot at them (at least in T5-7 that we've been playing at the most). But the other good part is the Zoey's Secret, and the extra 16.8% damage reduction. I'm thinking with the Enforcer gem, the bonus damage from marauders, and other companion boosts, as well as the extra defense that it is probably worth keeping. But it is very possible there are some great legendary affixes that I have overlooked or simply not seen yet.


I'm thinking with the right spender it will probably be a lot easier to not have two of them to use. I've found Cluster Arrow to, in general, be kind of annoying to use. I haven't tried all of the runes yet, but the ones I did it seemed like they were... I don't know, kind of slow and not that great of range. At least the times I used them they didn't seem to be great at taking out groups, but that was before a lot of my current power increases.

[mangosta71]

The Bastions of Will (Focus and Restraint) are fantastic for builds that don't use channeled skills. As long as you regularly use different abilities it's really easy to keep both buffs up full time. However, even if you just spam one skill constantly, you'll still get one of the buffs (so 50% bonus damage, which averages out the same as CoE except you don't have the massive buff if you time your CDs).

Honestly, I prefer BoW to CoE because there are usually enough things going on on my screen that I don't want to be watching a little ticker on my buff bar, too; just give me those consistent buffs that turn me into a nonstop nuclear tornado.

[Psyren]

I had a Ramaldani's Gift drop last night, but we didn't have time for me to mess with my build. If the Manticore looks like a good roll (mostly just tossed it into my chest, didn't look at it too closely) I'll use the gift there, otherwise I'll hold onto it.

I honestly would, unless you don't like Cluster Arrow at all. Socketing an ancient weapon is a huge damage boost, which means you'll kill faster and get a better chance of that second ancient and Gift later.

I used shadow power before, but at least right now my life-per-hit is good enough that I'm almost never at full health. It seems that the only time I die is when I miss a ground attack and I go from perfectly fine to dead before I can react (if I see it and move no damage, if I miss it and stay there I'm just dead, can't heal through it- I guess those are a case for the staggered damage gem...). Defense is in the 25-28M range.

Sure you don't need defensive skills now - but remember also that you're only at T7, so it's something to keep in mind if you decide to push.

Concerning the Cloak... I think the multiple wolves multiply the damage buff too (including what allies get) so overall you'd get a bigger damage increase than it seems, in addition to the extra DR. I could be wrong, but I think it's worth looking into at least.

A good way to check, which I can't do as I'm missing a Garwulf myself, would be to equip Companion and put Garwulf in the cube, then swap between that and some unrelated armor piece (e.g. Illusory Boots) to see if your sheet dps changes. Then have your wolves howl and check both values again.

I'm thinking with the right spender it will probably be a lot easier to not have two of them to use. I've found Cluster Arrow to, in general, be kind of annoying to use. I haven't tried all of the runes yet, but the ones I did it seemed like they were... I don't know, kind of slow and not that great of range. At least the times I used them they didn't seem to be great at taking out groups, but that was before a lot of my current power increases.

Cluster is great at shredding tightly packed groups, for example if your wife hits them with a Black Hole, especially if you and all your sentries are focusing on the same cluster. It's also by far your highest damage spender barring legendary or set bonuses (e.g. Multishot can surpass it with UE and Yang's Recurve, and Impale with Shadow + Greenstone, but CA is natively stronger than both.)

Also, most Cluster Arrow runes use Grenades, meaning your Grenadier passive boosts its damage (and radius) further.

[Vaz]

Shooot. Anyone have a good idea of how much time we probably have? I need to get moving on d3 if I'm going to get the stash tab.

Probably about 2 weeks or so? Apparently started Jan 16th, so Apr 16th if 3 months is to go by, followed by a further 2 weeks downtime maybe (to sort space out and play with new toys and practise with builds) before Season 6 at the start of April. So Reddit thinks anyway.

[Traab]

I had a semi related question I wanted to ask. Something very strange is going on for me. When I load up battle.net, I can play diablo 3, but starcraft 2 has the play button greyed out. There is no indication of a patch that needs to be downloaded, and I was able to play it a couple of times before this. Does anyone have any idea why its doing this? I would really rather not have to uninstall and reinstall the game, despite having a much better download rate to work with if I can avoid it.

[Psyren]

I'd wager they'll have more seasons than stash tabs anyway, so the folks who missed out will have chances to catch up with the rest.

[Icewraith]

Probably about 2 weeks or so? Apparently started Jan 16th, so Apr 16th if 3 months is to go by, followed by a further 2 weeks downtime maybe (to sort space out and play with new toys and practise with builds) before Season 6 at the start of April. So Reddit thinks anyway.

Well I got the gold conquest down at least. That was surprisingly easy once I leveled up Boon of the Hoarder.

[Erloas]

So to make sure, the loaded for bear ruin increases the damage at impact, it also keeps the grenades that spread out? Some it isn't clear if the ruin completely overwrites the entire base ability or just parts of it.

Being that I have a lot of rockets in my normal build and the rocket passive, the maelstrom cluster arrow should be good.

I don't really have the opportunity to test numbers or play around with builds too much. I do know that when I use the pet active the wolves howl, I get the hatred, and the spider does the slow, I never thought to see if I got 3 stacks of the wolf active though... I'll have to watch for that.

I have a bit of a question about cold, does it only have an effect on the enemy if you have something that upgrades it to a chill effect? I know cold can chill and fire can burn but I'm not sure if it is normally a random chance or if only based on skills. Just trying to make sure I know what will and won't trigger bane of the trapped/cull the weak, etc.

I should also look at picking up at least some skill that uses discipline, it just seems like I'm skipping out on part of the class if I never even use that bubble.