Diablo III:3 Kanai Fix It?

[Psyren]

I'll probably get started tonight - one of my RL friends wants to roll together. I'm leaning towards Hammersader since I haven't conqueured those set dungeons yet.

[Krazzman]

I'll probably get started tonight - one of my RL friends wants to roll together. I'm leaning towards Hammersader since I haven't conqueured those set dungeons yet.

Jay! Good luck!

I've got a question tho... I am currently using this build.

But I also found this and this (although this one is in german but with a BiS list).

I currently have Nat-Set: Helm, Gloves, Boots, Ring, Weapon
UE-Set: Ancient Shoulders, Pants.
Focus as Ring and the bracers where my generator reduce damage.
Currently rolling for the Belt that raises Rain of Vengeance... but Kadala is... annoying. Farming for Dawn too...

Here is my current profile. Any recommendations?

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Anyone know a decent, reliable Crusader build that doesn't rely on specific combinations of unique pieces? I'm just wanting a casual 'sader who can walk in and put a beat down. Area Effect a plus. If you want to show how class-specific pieces work into it, that's great, so I'll have a goal to shoot for, but I'm more interested in 'these are your holy trio/quad of stats, buff these and you won't be far off' kind of thing.

I typically play the mobile glass cannons like wizards or DH's or WD's. I'm wanting to branch out into the beatstick genre. Whatcha got for me?

[Psyren]

Here is my current profile. Any recommendations?

You need a Dawn and Crashing Rain, but you already knew that.

Since you're using the Tenclip, the Drifting Shadow rune on your Strafe is redundant - I'd change to something else, like Icy Trail or Rocket Storm.

Other than that, no real advice, you're building to the gear you have.

Anyone know a decent, reliable Crusader build that doesn't rely on specific combinations of unique pieces? I'm just wanting a casual 'sader who can walk in and put a beat down. Area Effect a plus. If you want to show how class-specific pieces work into it, that's great, so I'll have a goal to shoot for, but I'm more interested in 'these are your holy trio/quad of stats, buff these and you won't be far off' kind of thing.

I typically play the mobile glass cannons like wizards or DH's or WD's. I'm wanting to branch out into the beatstick genre. Whatcha got for me?

Not clear on your objective - every build needs "specific combinations of unique pieces" (namely, set items and then legs that support that set's overall goal) unless you're just planning to bum around below TX or something. What are you looking to do? Do you want your 'Sader to be melee or ranged? Or both, in the case of Hammersader?

The set that would afford you the most freedom of choice is probably Akkhan's, which unfortunately isn't the gift this season, but even starting with Light it shouldn't take long to farm one up.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Not clear on your objective - every build needs "specific combinations of unique pieces" (namely, set items and then legs that support that set's overall goal) unless you're just planning to bum around below TX or something. What are you looking to do? Do you want your 'Sader to be melee or ranged? Or both, in the case of Hammersader?

The set that would afford you the most freedom of choice is probably Akkhan's, which unfortunately isn't the gift this season, but even starting with Light it shouldn't take long to farm one up.

I'm not particularly interested in 'uber tier' X+ content, I just want a melee build that I can charge into the fight and come out the winner. I've played too many ranged builds, time to finally play a character that can tank what comes at him, either through 'nope' or 'I heal faster than you can hurt me' (heal per hit?), and bludgeon everything into submisison. I recall a Chargadin from D2, or perhaps an Avenger pally where 'it doesn't matter what you are, yes I can hit you, yes I can kill you, no you can't do much about it' kind of thing. Not as necessary for the Avenger stuff anymore since mobs don't appear to have immunities in D3 (that I have encountered).

If I can be a debuff for the opponents, so much the better, but I'm really wanting a build that is all about getting into the thick of things and wading through the corpses of my enemies.

[Vaz]

Have you tried the Thorns build? It's very nova based, and there isn't much wiggle room in terms of options, but it's quite fun IMHO.

[Psyren]

Gotcha - Melee Sader is unfortunately very much not my strong suit. Roland's is probably their main melee set so I'd look into a build using that. Or a Thorns build of course, but those are definitely highly specific and have been done to death in my eyes.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Maybe I'll just start playing around with a 'sader and see what I can come up with.

Not planning on doing seasons. Haven't done one yet, not about to start now. I've just never had a chance to 'sader before.

[Psyren]

Maybe I'll just start playing around with a 'sader and see what I can come up with.

Not planning on doing seasons. Haven't done one yet, not about to start now. I've just never had a chance to 'sader before.

Even if you don't want to go all the way through the Journey, it's a good idea to be seasonal. Primarily because of Haedrig's Gift - a free class set if you don't already have one on that class will make farming exponentially faster, as you can basically jump straight to T7+ and the far superior gold find and magic find at those higher difficulties. In addition, you'll find public games (especially bounties) much faster in Seasons since people will be running them for their own journies, letting you stock up on mats with minimal effort.

Best of all, if you find you're enjoying the character, you can just take it through the seaonal objectives as something to work towards, with a great reward (stash tab) as well as various cosmetic ones awaiting you.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Even if you don't want to go all the way through the Journey, it's a good idea to be seasonal. Primarily because of Haedrig's Gift - a free class set if you don't already have one on that class will make farming exponentially faster, as you can basically jump straight to T7+ and the far superior gold find and magic find at those higher difficulties. In addition, you'll find public games (especially bounties) much faster in Seasons since people will be running them for their own journies, letting you stock up on mats with minimal effort.

Best of all, if you find you're enjoying the character, you can just take it through the seaonal objectives as something to work towards, with a great reward (stash tab) as well as various cosmetic ones awaiting you.

Mmmm... nah.

Everyone does D3 differently. I suppose I'm more different than most. I absolutely refuse to join public games. The whole point of playing video games is to do the whole mindless slaughter of not-so-helpless pixels, due to being stressed out from dealing with people. Dealing with people is NOT what I want to do in my off-time. So public games is kinda counter to the whole reason I got it in the first place. Honestly, I still feel it was a mistake to set up D3 the way they did because now you can't play it offline. Wasn't fan of Bnet before with D2, still not a fan of multiplayer now.

The armor rewards this time around REALLY stink (Vyr's? Seriously? I can't count how many pieces of that crap I've salvaged). I'd be better served by playing non-seasons and taking advantage of my stock of gems, legendaries, cubed augments, and gold to get myself up to 70 faster, where I can then start farming the set pieces I actually want using standard techniques.

Really, Seasons is kinda the antithesis to the concept of how I play the game. I don't care about leaderboards, I don't care about vanity crap, I neither want nor need anyone else in my game, and I could not give two figs for achievements.

[Krazzman]

Mmmm... nah.

Everyone does D3 differently. I suppose I'm more different than most. I absolutely refuse to join public games. The whole point of playing video games is to do the whole mindless slaughter of not-so-helpless pixels, due to being stressed out from dealing with people. Dealing with people is NOT what I want to do in my off-time. So public games is kinda counter to the whole reason I got it in the first place. Honestly, I still feel it was a mistake to set up D3 the way they did because now you can't play it offline. Wasn't fan of Bnet before with D2, still not a fan of multiplayer now.

The armor rewards this time around REALLY stink (Vyr's? Seriously? I can't count how many pieces of that crap I've salvaged). I'd be better served by playing non-seasons and taking advantage of my stock of gems, legendaries, cubed augments, and gold to get myself up to 70 faster, where I can then start farming the set pieces I actually want using standard techniques.

Really, Seasons is kinda the antithesis to the concept of how I play the game. I don't care about leaderboards, I don't care about vanity crap, I neither want nor need anyone else in my game, and I could not give two figs for achievements.

I play seasons solo too. With the exception of a friend getting me to greed.
I personally find season play more fun.

You need a Dawn and Crashing Rain, but you already knew that.

Since you're using the Tenclip, the Drifting Shadow rune on your Strafe is redundant - I'd change to something else, like Icy Trail or Rocket Storm.

Other than that, no real advice, you're building to the gear you have.



Not clear on your objective - every build needs "specific combinations of unique pieces" (namely, set items and then legs that support that set's overall goal) unless you're just planning to bum around below TX or something. What are you looking to do? Do you want your 'Sader to be melee or ranged? Or both, in the case of Hammersader?

The set that would afford you the most freedom of choice is probably Akkhan's, which unfortunately isn't the gift this season, but even starting with Light it shouldn't take long to farm one up.

Jeah... currently I got the belt and switched to rocket storm. The profile just doesn't update that fast.
Trying to get better fitting shoulders and ring of royal grandeur. Dawn is an elusive little thing. Upgraded 3 crossbows and got 2 cap ones and one set (natalya).
As soon as I got the last pieces I instantly got into GR28 easily.

[Psyren]

Mmmm... nah.

Everyone does D3 differently. I suppose I'm more different than most. I absolutely refuse to join public games. The whole point of playing video games is to do the whole mindless slaughter of not-so-helpless pixels, due to being stressed out from dealing with people. Dealing with people is NOT what I want to do in my off-time. So public games is kinda counter to the whole reason I got it in the first place. Honestly, I still feel it was a mistake to set up D3 the way they did because now you can't play it offline. Wasn't fan of Bnet before with D2, still not a fan of multiplayer now.

It's your decision obviously, but one final point. Public games in Diablo 3 are nothing at all like, say, WoW or LoL or Overwatch, nor even Diablo 2. There is effectively no toxicity at all because nobody ever talks. The closest analogy I can think of is Mass Effect 3 multiplayer - you're pretty much playing the game solo, but alongside 3 highly sophisticated bots. People don't even say "hi" and "bye", they just drop in and drop out without fanfare. In fact, fairly often you ARE playing alongside bots and don't even realize it unless you notice their distinct patterns of behavior.

The armor rewards this time around REALLY stink (Vyr's? Seriously? I can't count how many pieces of that crap I've salvaged). I'd be better served by playing non-seasons and taking advantage of my stock of gems, legendaries, cubed augments, and gold to get myself up to 70 faster, where I can then start farming the set pieces I actually want using standard techniques.

The problem here is Loot 2.0 - your best way by far to get Crusader gear is by playing a Crusader, and if you don't already have one geared up, then you have an uphill climb ahead of you because he'll have to go from blues to yellows to crafted legs, slowly growing in power until you can survive the Torment levels (4+) with decent set drop rates. Haedrig's Gift is like taking the ski lift up that hill; even with all your non-seasonal resources on other characters, it might be faster.

If I misread you above and you do have a geared Crusader however, then by all means just use that one (but see below.)

Really, Seasons is kinda the antithesis to the concept of how I play the game. I don't care about leaderboards, I don't care about vanity crap, I neither want nor need anyone else in my game, and I could not give two figs for achievements.

I'm with you actually - I don't care about any of those things either. I do however care about stash space, because my non-seasonal characters have amassed a large quantity of special items and resources that I want to experiment with in various builds (including at least one of every class set, multiple interesting legendaries and stockpiles of gems and crafting materials), and seasons are the only way to expand that storage.

To reiterate though, public games in Diablo don't actually feel like playing with other people; it's just faster single player, MUCH faster in the case of bounty runs. So I just wanted to point out, if that is the primary deterrent, you have nothing to worry about on that front. And with that I think I've said my peace.

[Istarial]

-snipped for length-

Just chiming in to agree here- I mostly play solo diablo as well, since I much prefer it, but occasional group play in seasonal does mostly feel like playing with good bots. (There are some idiots up until you get past torment 10 or so, but it's not that common.)

But having said that, the big advantage of seasonal is the journey to get to the gift set- if you've already got most of a crusader set from your other characters and you don't care about stash space or the cosmetics, I guess it wouldn't matter too much. If you haven't got close to a full set though, the slightly longer time to level might well be worth it even if you then totally ignore the seasonal mechanics afterwards.

[Icewraith]

I also mostly play solo- EXCEPT for when I need Bounty Mats. Even with one other person splitting Bounties with you, it dramatically decreases the time spent. You just drop down a couple torment levels from what you can solo (because of the 4-player HP and damage increase) and do the bonus acts. It's also a pretty good way to get Breaths, since there's usually 2-3 elite packs in the "clear the 2nd level of this dungeon" quests and a couple more on the way.

However, due to RL and WoW, my DH is... like level 20 at best. I'll have more time to play a couple weekends from now.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The problem here is Loot 2.0 - your best way by far to get Crusader gear is by playing a Crusader, and if you don't already have one geared up, then you have an uphill climb ahead of you because he'll have to go from blues to yellows to crafted legs, slowly growing in power until you can survive the Torment levels (4+) with decent set drop rates. Haedrig's Gift is like taking the ski lift up that hill; even with all your non-seasonal resources on other characters, it might be faster.

I absolutely understand where you were coming from, and if this was my priority, I'd absolutely take your advise. However, I have a fundamentally different perspective on the game and the enjoyment I get from it.

I'm more of what you would call a Casual player. My goal isn't to get him up to the point where he's rocking TX+ as fast as I can. I don't care how fast he can clear stuff, because ultimately, I'm not really all that worried about the loot -> power -> higher difficulty -> better loot cycle. I'm not particularly worried about eeking out every last percentage. I'm not really all that interested in being 'uber'.

I just wanna blow up some pixels, man. I don't care of my build is 'horrendous' or even 'painfully badly designed'. My goal is not to progress faster, because progression is just a recursive loop with a false sense of accomplishment as you enter the next iteration. Basically, D3 is my version of something like Overwatch... mindlessly blowing up stuff and getting my evil chuckle on. I don't care if I don't make any progress, I spent a half hour or so blowing off steam. Mission accomplished. Sure, if I had done it 'correctly', I could've walked away from the game session with like ten times the mats and far superior quality gear

It's a fundamentally dynamically different mindset than I typically bring to games. I'm 'that guy', the rules lawyer, the optimizer, the guy who brings a character to the table that is clearly head and shoulders over everything else. By all rights, I should be extraordinarily frustrated by lack of progress, and take your advise. But... I guess it's like quantum staleness, being able to just go 'eh, screw the numbers, I just wanna go pound on some demons' is surprisingly cathartic for me.

I don't really stockpile stuff, if it looks interesting I'll Cube it, if it doesn't, then I salvage it. I don't even have all of the purchased slots yet, not because I can't afford them, but because half of them are already going unused. So extra stash slots are... meh. The gear sucks. The trick here is that a Torment set is only really useful for one trick, so you have to use that one trick to take advantage of that set. When you're talking about something like Vyr's... that means you need a ton of CDR, like OROTZ and stuff, and that's really not a build I particularly enjoy having to micro-manage. So there's literally zero interest for me there. The Crusader set seems to be focused mostly on Blessed Hammer and Falling Sword. If I don't want to use those two skills... absolutely worthless to me. So again, no reason to put up with the BS of doing a Seasonal character.

I'm not criticizing you, or your play style. You are absolutely correct in your analysis. However, for once, I'm not looking at it from a min-max perspective, so it isn't really that relevant. I was asking if there was a good general strat for Melee Crusaders in general, that was it. I'm assuming the stats to go for are STR/Crit%/Crit Damage/Attack Speed with secondary focus on Life per Kill and defensive stuff (focusing more on resistances than defense since I'm a Str focused character) to let me tank the hits.

[Psyren]

I was asking if there was a good general strat for Melee Crusaders in general, that was it.

Right - and I attempted to answer that question in good faith (Rolands, Akkhan or Thornsader can all do melee well - as can LoN, though obviously that is very much not a casual endeavor.) So I'm not sure where the "horrendous" stuff is coming from, or if maybe you're reading a judgement from my reply that wasn't there.

I don't really stockpile stuff, if it looks interesting I'll Cube it, if it doesn't, then I salvage it. I don't even have all of the purchased slots yet, not because I can't afford them, but because half of them are already going unused. So extra stash slots are... meh. The gear sucks. The trick here is that a Torment set is only really useful for one trick, so you have to use that one trick to take advantage of that set. When you're talking about something like Vyr's... that means you need a ton of CDR, like OROTZ and stuff, and that's really not a build I particularly enjoy having to micro-manage. So there's literally zero interest for me there. The Crusader set seems to be focused mostly on Blessed Hammer and Falling Sword. If I don't want to use those two skills... absolutely worthless to me. So again, no reason to put up with the BS of doing a Seasonal character.

And that's a perfectly valid point - if Hammersader truly doesn't appeal to you, then getting the hammersader set for free isn't much help no matter how powerful it is. I'm the reverse - I only play caster Crusaders myself - so I totally get it, that's exactly how I'd feel if Roland's or Invoker were the Gift instead.

As for the stash space - I agree totally, if you have no use for it then there's no reason to do seasons at all. Speaking for myself, I greatly enjoy tinkering with builds, and so having a huge variety of puzzle pieces handy to play around is key.

I'm assuming the stats to go for are STR/Crit%/Crit Damage/Attack Speed with secondary focus on Life per Kill and defensive stuff (focusing more on resistances than defense since I'm a Str focused character) to let me tank the hits.

Did you mean Life per Hit? Life per Kill is a secondary stat, and generally not a good one since it triggers much less reliably.

Stat priority is complicated; mainstat should indeed be #1 but how you rank the rest depends on a lot of factors, so your best bet is to allocate your gear and paragon towards one or the other and check your sheet damage value. Better yet, use a source like d3planner to check it even more accurately, though if I'm reading correctly that may be more in-depth than you were hoping to go.

[Vaz]

I think the issue is with the Crusader, is that unless you've already played a Crusader, and have some mid-tier gear, it's going to take some time to get where you need to be.

With Haedrigs Gift and the rest of the season journey, it catapults you through to the mid-tier gameplay straight away, and can easily rack up Tier 4-5, if not higher without much further effort. Doing it on your own can be laborious. Even with the additional members on the team to ramp up the difficulty, this is offset by the speed at which things get cleared. The mat stock doesn't mean much until you're pushing high tiers anyway.

If you think that when you're clearing bounties in 1/5th of the time that you are on your own, effectively (often with other people who just farming), and can use people to powerlevel you if you really do want to. I can only recommend sucking up to the Multiplayer Seasons, rather than Solo-running a Crusader with a non-Haedrigs gift set. There are ridiculous odds into trying to get a full set, much less getting a set where you're getting all of the right affixes, and then getting all of the rolls into the top 10-20% percentile.

Playing multiplayer seasonal just means that those chances come around quicker, because you can sooner play at higher levels giving you a much larger chance to roll on the legendary tables, and also roll much more often.

I get what you mean about wanting to experience the journey, but once you've completed the storyline, there isn't really much of a journey, and playing at a lower difficulty doesn't mean anything other than you have a lower chance of actually playing what you want.

Now, I am biased, but I thought very similarly; what's the point in pushing higher Grifts/Tiers if I don't want to get involved with the ladders or whatever; I'm 3 years behind these guys in experience for D3, and have never played D2, and I'm only copying the builds suggested online, so someone else is much more experienced than me, and can often afford to either spend many hours/days doing it (i.e, they Stream it, and monetize their playing, or bot (bad! no, don't bot!)), when I can maybe afford 1-2 hours on a weekend evening. Juggling baby triplets, 2 jobs, and a fiance, just doesn't leave me much time, so obviously, for me to have fun and play the build i like, squeezing out the most efficient use of my time is by doing that.

By playing efficiently with a build I'm not entirely happy with for a say 4 hours (1 weeks worth of gaming), it means that the next weekend, I can play a little bit less efficiently, but have more fun with a build more to my liking the next time I get a chance to game, rather than spending 15 hours grinding with a make do build until I get those rolls I like.

The important thing to remember is that D3 is a loot game, which means that it doesn't really matter what your skills are, your gear defines your skills. It's not like Dark Souls where your skills define your playstyle, and then you get gear to reinforce that, it's you get gear, and if it's better (on the basis of your 4 passive skills, 4 actives, and 2 clicking skills), then you use it. When you're in the mid tiers, that's when you can start saying to yourself "does this do more of what I want".

I've been using the same Crusader now for a long while, once a seasonal, now a normal one. I've done the seasonal, which has got me half of the stuff (a Thorns set), which catapulted me through to a stage where I could reliably farm, giving me more legendaries than I ever have done, and giving me more opportunities to play around with a builds I've never tried before. I'm now 6 pieces into getting a LoN set which is my newest goal for the Crusader, as it's the same playstyle, but allows me to play at higher tiers. I'm not yet at a level I can reliably swap into the LoN set, but none of my gear is the same basic set. Half of the Invokers set I'm currently wearing is already Ancient, and it's all stuff that has dropped from me playing at higher levels.

My 2c.

[Icewraith]

I absolutely understand where you were coming from, and if this was my priority, I'd absolutely take your advise. However, I have a fundamentally different perspective on the game and the enjoyment I get from it.

I'm more of what you would call a Casual player. My goal isn't to get him up to the point where he's rocking TX+ as fast as I can. I don't care how fast he can clear stuff, because ultimately, I'm not really all that worried about the loot -> power -> higher difficulty -> better loot cycle. I'm not particularly worried about eeking out every last percentage. I'm not really all that interested in being 'uber'.

I just wanna blow up some pixels, man. I don't care of my build is 'horrendous' or even 'painfully badly designed'. My goal is not to progress faster, because progression is just a recursive loop with a false sense of accomplishment as you enter the next iteration. Basically, D3 is my version of something like Overwatch... mindlessly blowing up stuff and getting my evil chuckle on. I don't care if I don't make any progress, I spent a half hour or so blowing off steam. Mission accomplished. Sure, if I had done it 'correctly', I could've walked away from the game session with like ten times the mats and far superior quality gear

It's a fundamentally dynamically different mindset than I typically bring to games. I'm 'that guy', the rules lawyer, the optimizer, the guy who brings a character to the table that is clearly head and shoulders over everything else. By all rights, I should be extraordinarily frustrated by lack of progress, and take your advise. But... I guess it's like quantum staleness, being able to just go 'eh, screw the numbers, I just wanna go pound on some demons' is surprisingly cathartic for me.

I don't really stockpile stuff, if it looks interesting I'll Cube it, if it doesn't, then I salvage it. I don't even have all of the purchased slots yet, not because I can't afford them, but because half of them are already going unused. So extra stash slots are... meh. The gear sucks. The trick here is that a Torment set is only really useful for one trick, so you have to use that one trick to take advantage of that set. When you're talking about something like Vyr's... that means you need a ton of CDR, like OROTZ and stuff, and that's really not a build I particularly enjoy having to micro-manage. So there's literally zero interest for me there. The Crusader set seems to be focused mostly on Blessed Hammer and Falling Sword. If I don't want to use those two skills... absolutely worthless to me. So again, no reason to put up with the BS of doing a Seasonal character.

I'm not criticizing you, or your play style. You are absolutely correct in your analysis. However, for once, I'm not looking at it from a min-max perspective, so it isn't really that relevant. I was asking if there was a good general strat for Melee Crusaders in general, that was it. I'm assuming the stats to go for are STR/Crit%/Crit Damage/Attack Speed with secondary focus on Life per Kill and defensive stuff (focusing more on resistances than defense since I'm a Str focused character) to let me tank the hits.

The only slight hole here is that by not doing at least some min-maxing and hanging on to good gear, you're limiting the ways in which you can mindlessly blow things up. Fully tricked out Vyr Archon, for example, is a most excellent way to blow things up- Your Chantodo's pulses are lighting up the entire screen as you teleport around in your force bubble of doom and rip things to shreds. Once Archon drops off you've still got a ton of attack speed so 20 more Chantodo's stacks takes very little time (unless you're in a super, super sparse area), and then you're back in Archon blowing the crap out of everything again.

Or to put it a different way- if you're interested in using a set of skills, then having the legendaries that boost those skills will probably result in blowing more things up.

Edit: Regarding melee stat priority, depending on the difficulty you play at, Vitality becomes super, super important.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

The only slight hole here is that by not doing at least some min-maxing and hanging on to good gear, you're limiting the ways in which you can mindlessly blow things up. Fully tricked out Vyr Archon, for example, is a most excellent way to blow things up- Your Chantodo's pulses are lighting up the entire screen as you teleport around in your force bubble of doom and rip things to shreds. Once Archon drops off you've still got a ton of attack speed so 20 more Chantodo's stacks takes very little time (unless you're in a super, super sparse area), and then you're back in Archon blowing the crap out of everything again.

Or to put it a different way- if you're interested in using a set of skills, then having the legendaries that boost those skills will probably result in blowing more things up.

Edit: Regarding melee stat priority, depending on the difficulty you play at, Vitality becomes super, super important.

My main is a Firebird's Wizard. Vyr's is utter rot, at least to me. I don't have to worry about cooldown with my Firebird's build, I just walk through and things die around me. With everything on fire, and with the secondary explosions, nothing really stands for very long. And if it does, channeler's bracers + Disintegrate (Fire rune) + Blizzard (Armageddon rune) = fun times. Free blizzards proccing faster than one a second, overlapping and stacking DPS, on top of the main disintegrate beam(s). WAY more effective than a skill dependent upon cooldown.

I'm toying with a cold-based version, swapping out the Source for LoG for piercing frost ray, using one of the ice-based Blizzards, and maybe tossing in Frozen Orb into the mix with Deslerie's set to provide boosting via Slow Time. Will still likely keep the two-piece set bonus from Firebirds in case of being locked down and splutted.

Yes, D3 is a loot-based game. However, that doesn't mean that I need better loot. That just means I get to kill things on a lower difficulty until that loot eventually drops. I don't care how long it takes to get the suit set up, because it doesn't matter to me if I am killing stuff on T1 or TX. Progression is a phantom, an illusion, a recursively iterating grindfest. I don't care about progressing, I just like to occasionally blow stuff up gratuitously.

Right now, my Crusader is in his mid-thirties in Act 2, and is doing fairly well for himself. I'm using Slash with the Carve rune, and Shield Bash with the Crumble rune as my primary attack, with Shield Glare (Divine Verdict) for defensive and damage boosting, using Condem/Unleashed as needed, and Laws of Valor/Critical for my passive. Finally, I use Falling Sword as my version of Leap to move around combat if things get too thick. I'm sure this will change as I level, but it is working out for me right now. I found a unique 2h flail that gives my Shield Glare damage based on the number of stacks of Shield Bash I have, put a Ruby in it, so I'm kinda roflstomping at the moment, even on T1 difficulty. But at the same time, I'm starting to get a feel for the class. It'll definitely be different than playing my glass cannon, but it should be fun. I'll definitely be cubing that 2h flail, because that ability is a whole lot of fun.

[Psyren]

Edit: Regarding melee stat priority, depending on the difficulty you play at, Vitality becomes super, super important.

Actually, among the defensive stats Vitality is usually the least valuable. The other two (armor and resist all %) not only also make you tougher, but they magnify the effect of your healing. If you need more toughness, the only time to focus on vitality is when (a) there's no way to fit either of the other two onto that piece of gear, (b) you're starting to hit diminishing returns with the first two, or (c) both.

There's also Dodge as the 4th defensive stat, but that's been generally taken off of gear and relegated to skill runes.

My main is a Firebird's Wizard. Vyr's is utter rot, at least to me. I don't have to worry about cooldown with my Firebird's build, I just walk through and things die around me. With everything on fire, and with the secondary explosions, nothing really stands for very long. And if it does, channeler's bracers + Disintegrate (Fire rune) + Blizzard (Armageddon rune) = fun times. Free blizzards proccing faster than one a second, overlapping and stacking DPS, on top of the main disintegrate beam(s). WAY more effective than a skill dependent upon cooldown.

Try fire disintegrate with the Energy Twister sword (fire twister rune of course), the orb that gives you free spenders while channeling disingtegrate, and the bracer that makes said twisters suck enemies in. Talk about clearing a room!

[Icewraith]

Actually, among the defensive stats Vitality is usually the least valuable. The other two (armor and resist all %) not only also make you tougher, but they magnify the effect of your healing. If you need more toughness, the only time to focus on vitality is when (a) there's no way to fit either of the other two onto that piece of gear, (b) you're starting to hit diminishing returns with the first two, or (c) both.

There's also Dodge as the 4th defensive stat, but that's been generally taken off of gear and relegated to skill runes.



Try fire disintegrate with the Energy Twister sword (fire twister rune of course), the orb that gives you free spenders while channeling disingtegrate, and the bracer that makes said twisters suck enemies in. Talk about clearing a room!

This sounds like more of a rehash of tank stat priority in WoW. Other stats are more valuable than (Stamina) Vitality as long as you have a certain amount of health to not die from a hit or two. In D3, you still need to live long enough to pop your defensive/tele/pot/whatever and GTFO.

I have personally experienced this- I couldn't understand why I was dying all over the place in whatever the higher Torment was at the time, and then looked at my gear and realized that a number of pieces were missing Vitality that were listed in the guide. And I had never enchanted away Vitality, but enchanted really bad affixes like life regen to other, more interesting non-vitality things, and as a result I no longer had enough health to take hits at the higher difficulty.

[Derjuin]

Ooh, I just noticed the set for Crusaders this time is Light. Imma gonna hafta git me somma that. I really like the way they made Hammer Crusader feel like the old school enigma-toting Hammerdin, except with even better hammers because they don't fizzle against walls.

[Psyren]

This sounds like more of a rehash of tank stat priority in WoW. Other stats are more valuable than (Stamina) Vitality as long as you have a certain amount of health to not die from a hit or two. In D3, you still need to live long enough to pop your defensive/tele/pot/whatever and GTFO.

Diablo informed many of the design decisions in WoW (and vice-versa too.) For instance, after WoW eliminated enemy elemental resistance/immunity, Diablo followed suit.

I have personally experienced this- I couldn't understand why I was dying all over the place in whatever the higher Torment was at the time, and then looked at my gear and realized that a number of pieces were missing Vitality that were listed in the guide. And I had never enchanted away Vitality, but enchanted really bad affixes like life regen to other, more interesting non-vitality things, and as a result I no longer had enough health to take hits at the higher difficulty.

More health is indeed never bad, it's just that the other defensive stats are better (at least, to a point.)

[Icewraith]

Natalya's has quite the sturdiness problem starting around t7. T6 melts everything, T7 is glass cannony, T8 is slow and death-y.

Of course, this is mostly due to me having the full set, the belt, and nothing else relevant to the build yet. Kadala coughed up the belt REAL quick and has been super stingy ever since. I've got an Ancient.... something Wings with a terrible damage roll and no socket, so I rolled a socket on it and it's the best I've got right now.

Crashing Rain is weird. It seems like there's a tiny, tiny zone at the very center of the effect where it does its damage. Aquila doesn't seem like it will be useful until I've got a Mantle of Channeling.

Just gotta remember- it's the new season. You've got almost no paragons, no gems, and you're already in t7. GR 25 (T6) bosses don't even drop legendaries apparently, or you've had terrible luck.

What to do first.... Infernal Machines, Rifts for keystones, a few more GRs for gems and some gem levels, T4 bounties and pray for RoRG...?

[Psyren]

Even without other helpful legendaries, there might be some quick and easy enchants/skill swaps you can do to raise your toughness while keeping your damage up. Feel free to link your build

As for what to do, note that you can hunt machines and run bounties for that RRoG simultaneously. Simply pick the bounties that take you to keywarden areas, or go after them after you've completed X act assignment.

[Psyren]

So... are we just not gonna talk about this?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/11/...ng-to-diablo-3

[Istarial]

So... are we just not gonna talk about this?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/11/...ng-to-diablo-3

I think everyone doesn't quite want to get their hopes up after so long since any major content, while at the same time not wanting to dash their hopes by admitting it's probably not going to be that big. But...

:fingerscrossed:

[ShneekeyTheLost]

So... are we just not gonna talk about this?

http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/11/...ng-to-diablo-3

WD already has the Necro niche, there would be too much overlap.

Having said that, we've run into Necromancers in a couple of places in various quests. I could very easily see an NPC Necromancer showing up as something plot-centric.

[Istarial]

Hmm, so new retro diablo 1 based content, and a new necromancer class (paid for). I might actually consider getting that, even though I normally steer well clear of that sort of DLC. Remains to be seen how they separate him from the witch doctor, though...

(Pun intended.)

[Vaz]

WD already has the Necro niche, there would be too much overlap.

Having said that, we've run into Necromancers in a couple of places in various quests. I could very easily see an NPC Necromancer showing up as something plot-centric.

I'd suggest new follower, but that wouldn't make sense with a male/female. But I agree. If there was going to be class that could come forward, it would be the Amazon, to have the niche of being able to either melee or range.

Edit; Necro mconfirmed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9vx_5bKlSuw