Diablo III

I'm already past the point where more EXP gain would have been relevant to me. Had it been double Death Breaths, on the other hand...

Meh just let the season start already bleh.

Oh, I don't know, I managed to get a lot of Paragon levels out of it by farming Rifts and Greater Rifts while experimenting with the Shadow Impale build for the Demon Hunter, and managed to get a lot of Ancient upgrades in the process. (And a Primal Ancient Beckon Sail, which I use in precisely zero builds. Oh well, 15 Forgotten Soul.) Lots of Death's Breath as well, come to think of it.

Four weeks between seasons does feel like an eternity... I'm guessing Blizzard wanted to give people who purchased the Necromancer DLC time to get used to it? Oh well, only three days to go.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention this. I managed to beat Magdha surprisingly quickly and easily by turning into an Archon.

I think everybody on this forum should be ok by this point, but just in case: Blizzard announced that as of October this year, they will no longer be supporting the Windows XP or Vista Operating Systems for any of their products. That means that if you're still using one of those two come that time, the games will be patched to only run on Windows 7 and beyond. No idea if they're planning on affecting the Apple IOS anytime soon though....

However I believe this will not affect older titles such as Starcraft 1, Diablo 2 and Warcraft 3, so breathe easy if your dinosaur of a comp can still only play those.

I should think running anything pre-Windows 7 at the very least would be pretty risky, since Microsoft themselves stopped supporting XP at least a year ago, possibly two years. That said, I use Windows 7 myself (at least if it's a dinosaur, it's a Cretaceous Era one rather than Jurassic or Triassic), so hopefully Blizzard won't be pulling the plug on support for that for a few years yet. And hopefully by the time they do, there will be a new version of Windows that doesn't make me want to force feed Bill Gates his own glasses.

(EDITED ADD: Oh yeah, and NEW SEASON TODAY YEAH WOOO &c. I'm embarrassed to admit that it didn't occur to me until I was idly watching a Diablo III stream on Twitch to get ideas for Necromancer builds earlier this week that beating the week's Challenge Rift and cashing in the, er, cache on a seasonal character is a good way to get an early start on materials, money, and Blood Shards. It helps that this week's Challenge Rift is dead easy; Level 25 with an Electrocute-centric Wizard build with the 6-piece Tal Rasha bonus.)

(EDITED FURTHER TO ADD: This week's Challenge Rift, on the other hand, is a disaster in every way. I did beat it eventually, but it took several dozen attempts. Oh, and Primal Ancient update (non-seasonal; I've never beaten a Level 70 Greater Rift with a seasonal character): the boots from the Raiment of a Thousand Storms set. Game, I take back all those things I said about your parents not being married or your mother being a female of the species Canis lupus familiaris. For now, at least.)

edited 25th Jul '17 1:25:40 AM by mlsmithca

The first notes for Patch 2.6.1 were posted today. The main thrust of this patch seems to be buffing the living daylights out of a wide array of Legendary and Set items, to the point that it'd probably be easier to list the class-specific sets that aren't getting buffed. (Which, as of the 28 September version of the patch, is down to just one: Tal Rasha's Elements.)

The irksome thing about the tweaked Legendaries is that a lot of Ancient items I've had drop - and possibly a few Primal Ancients! - may be rendered obsolete. Oh well, back to the grind. At least I should be able to grind on higher level Greater Rifts post-mass buff - and the drop rate for Legendary and Set items will purportedly be increasing in the next patch.

Oh, and thank goodness, they're tweaking the layouts of Temple of the Firstborn rift maps so that they're not full of massive dead ends, and are at least lessening (possibly not getting rid of) that damnable eye-ruining pink fog in certain Shrouded Moors rift maps. Here's hoping they also fix the absolutely dreadful enemy and elite density in the Shrouded Moors maps for ordinary rifts.

edited 28th Sep '17 9:20:41 PM by mlsmithca

Let's keep on mind this is just the PTR. Let's wait until the live version is closer. These changes are so excessive that I'm suspicious many of them won't make it to the live version.

Changing topics, the enchanting function is horribly broken. I was trying to complete the season journal and the only step I was missing to complete chapter 4 was "Get a socket on a weapon by enchanting", which I hadn't completed because Ramaladni's Gift turns this into one of the things you absolutely want to avoid. I spent a good chunk of money and materials rolling primary affixes, and the mystic just gave me the same affixes all the time. Eventually, an enemy dropped me a weapon which already had a socket. I had an idea and I selected the socket to enchant: first time gave me things like mainstat or vitality, second time offered me back the socket. I chose the socket and it counted me for the journal (even though the original affix had already been a socket). Well, now I know what I'll have to do next season.

Eh, I'm completely used to rerolling weapons and jewelry for sockets. Ramaladni's Gift is so rare that you can't count on it. My Seasonal Necromancer is PL 400+, runs GR 60 and T 12, and hasn't seen one.

edited 16th Aug '17 5:04:18 AM by Fighteer

For me, it's not that Gifts are easy to find (they're not, although my current seasonal character is way lower than yours and already has one - I'm not sure if I had good luck or you had bad luck) but that the enchanting system doesn't work very well. My experience says that it's horribly biased towards specific affixes, depending on the initial affix (which the game likes to constantly offer you back) and it's a pain to get what you want. For jewelry, I would agree that the ability to wear a legendary gem compensates all the trouble. But for weapons, considering enchanting a socket there is eventually sub-optimal...

Enchanting is biased: if you look at the list of possible affixes, the ones near the top have a higher chance to generate than the ones near the bottom. That's a deliberate part of the system.

@3433: Well, as you say, we'll see; I suspect Blizzard may be trying to make a larger than usual number of the endgame builds that have fallen by the wayside viable again. I'm sure that if any of the builds that have a stranglehold on the leaderboards (Istvan Whirlwind, Hammerdin, Shadow Impale, Raiment Generators, Blood Mage, Legacy of Nightmares Barrage, Manald Archon) do get displaced, it'll just be in the form of another build getting a stranglehold on the leaderboards, but I suppose it's one way to shake the playerbase out of Complacent Gaming Syndrome (although it is also leading to accusations of power creep). As to whether it will work, we'll just have to wait until October or so to find out.

@3434: Oh good, that's not just me; my seasonal Monk only has 200 Paragon levels, but my Witch Doctor last season had over 400 by season's end (since I only play when my groupmates are available - for the most part - I don't get to particularly high levels by season's end) and I didn't get a single Ramaladni's Gift. And none so far this season either. And I'm down to maybe two for my non-seasonal characters, which bodes ill if I have to re-roll (or re-acquire) a mess of Legendary weapons to tap into the new damage ranges. (Looks as though my Primal Ancient Orb of Infinite Depth might be destined for the forge... )

For getting the socket enchant part of the season, unless you really WANT it on your actual weapon just use some random blue or yellow that you picked up. It is much cheaper, and it still counts.

Blues can't be enchanted, I already tried that. But yeah, I used rares because otherwise the enchanting costs would have been astronomical.

So this is as good a place to ask as any... I'm planning a D&D adventure based on the first Diablo game. Other than the Butcher, the Skeleton King, and Archbishop Lazarus and Big D himself, are there any especially memorable moments I should try to include? I never actually played all the way through the first one, but I want to do it first before a longer Diablo II campaign, so my players recognize stuff like the Tristram ruins, or Blood Raven. (None of them have played the games at all.)

I can't think of anything. I mean, if they had actually played the games you could add stuff like Gharbad the Weak or Zhar the Mad, who are fondly remember by fans, but to someone who isn't familiar with the game they are just a funny goat guy and a random sorcerer.

I personally found Lachdanan's story very memorable. Including him in any form could also provide the players with a chance to learn more about what exactly happened. They might have to kill or redeem him first, but I doubt that'd be a problem.

If you want to build stronger ties to a particular NPC, include "their" quest - Griswold's anvil, the mushroom fetch quest for Adria, the contaminated well for Pepin etc. The latter could also serve as a neat entry-level challenge.

Oh, and if you find you need something a bit lighter, Snotspill is hilarious.

edited 1st Sep '17 2:18:39 AM by Farnion

That was one of my favorite quests in the first game. :)

I do distinctly remember a wizard that has a very lovely library behind him.

He goes completely insane if players ransack it for spellbooks.

Zhar the Mad.

Thanks for the input, all. I'll probably include Lachdanan at some point, and maybe the anvil or mushroom quest since I currently have nothing else planned in the caves. (I moved Leoric to the Catacombs, so he's covering that section.)

The Wizard continues to be a lot of fun to play. :)

Sorry about the double post. There's something I'm curious about. So, why do you explode when you level up?

It's likely an glimmer and expression of a Nephalem's expanded powe-ok no, it's probably the same reason Diablo III, like many others games, put you at full health on level-up - extra fun. Ok, also sheer awesome.

edited 12th Sep '17 8:45:56 PM by VutherA

Yes.