Diablo III

[zircon]

Loving Act 1 Inferno so far. I have about 11k dps (13k w/ self-buffs), 4.8k armor (~7k w/ buffs), and 600 resists. It's a good progression over Hell, although obviously I geared up for it. I've even found several pieces of great equipment in my progression so far, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to keep moving.

Of course it seems like there is really only one viable Monk build right now, which is basically all defense. Just rely on auto attacks for damage and rotate defensive spell cooldowns, hope you don't die in between. Tricky stuff. I'd be curious to see if a dual wield combination strike build could really tear it up, focusing on very high dodge chance and mobility. As it stands the hardest elites tend to be ones that are either Fast, Teleporter or Waller with ground abilities like Plagued or Molten. Stuff like Damage Reflect or Mortar isn't bad.

[BardicKnowledge]

Loving Act 1 Inferno so far. I have about 11k dps (13k w/ self-buffs), 4.8k armor (~7k w/ buffs), and 600 resists. It's a good progression over Hell, although obviously I geared up for it. I've even found several pieces of great equipment in my progression so far, so I'm hopeful that I'll be able to keep moving.

Of course it seems like there is really only one viable Monk build right now, which is basically all defense. Just rely on auto attacks for damage and rotate defensive spell cooldowns, hope you don't die in between. Tricky stuff. I'd be curious to see if a dual wield combination strike build could really tear it up, focusing on very high dodge chance and mobility. As it stands the hardest elites tend to be ones that are either Fast, Teleporter or Waller with ground abilities like Plagued or Molten. Stuff like Damage Reflect or Mortar isn't bad.

What's your skill build specifically?

I also wonder if a Combination Strike build that reached +24% damage using Reach +50% armor, Crippling Wave -25% damage, and Sweeping Wind (which for some reason triggers Combo Strike) might be viable. I've seen Inferno builds that use Wind, at the very least...

What's your full setup atm, zircon?

[zircon]

Yeah, I suspect there are other possible options too, but that's just based on what I've read on Reddit. Combo strike build with Overawe (+24% dmg to monsters, +48% on activation) might work too, if you run Crippling Wave w/ Mangle and Fists of Thunder for +dodge.

My build is currently:

* Deadly Reach +50% armor

* Blinding Flash with +holy damage on activation

* Seven Sided Strike with reduced cooldown (faster champ/elite kills, temp invuln)

* Serenity with extended duration

* Breath of Heaven with damage buff

* Mantra of Healing with +resists buff

I've tried using Mystic Ally and she just gets blown up immediately, doesn't seem viable at the moment. However there's definitely room for experimentation here.

[Tensei]

Dualwield is viable afaik, mostly due to the 15% dodge passive. If you combine that with the Mantra and the temporary boosts you get from other skills its relatively easy to keep yourself around 50% dodge rate (it's hard to get a lot more than that due to diminishing returns though).

Stacking Dodge and Resists while skimping on Vitality seems to be the way to go mostly because the heals don't really scale that well with levels (Breath of Heaven heals only for like 7k).

Also, Monk will probably have the hardest time with ranged elites that have molten/vampiric/fast. It doesn't matter if you can tank them when you can't actually outdamage their heal or even get close enough to punch them.

[eternal Zero]

Those were my tentacles. I showed him my...dexterity. Hahahaha.

Also, Tensei, we run pretty much identical builds though I'm torn between the Scatter and Bandolier runes for the mines and it's also hard for me not to run Shadow Form [Gloom] cause it's so strong.

[zircon]

Dualwield is viable afaik, mostly due to the 15% dodge passive. If you combine that with the Mantra and the temporary boosts you get from other skills its relatively easy to keep yourself around 50% dodge rate (it's hard to get a lot more than that due to diminishing returns though).

Stacking Dodge and Resists while skimping on Vitality seems to be the way to go mostly because the heals don't really scale that well with levels (Breath of Heaven heals only for like 7k).

Also, Monk will probably have the hardest time with ranged elites that have molten/vampiric/fast. It doesn't matter if you can tank them when you can't actually outdamage their heal or even get close enough to punch them.

True that heals don't scale, and armor/resists are usually better for EHP than vitality... however it's easier to find large chunks of vit on some pieces of equipment. 200+ vit is possible while 200+ resists on a single piece isn't. I'm now at about 535 base resists myself and almost 25k HP with around 4800 armor. I'm spending 150-200k for each new piece of gear. I'm hoping by the time I've upgraded everything to level 60, I'll be at 600+ resists unbuffed and 30k HP.

[eternal Zero]

Isn't it that for monks you can stack a single type of resist and it'll blanket to everything so you can just hunt for a single type of resist and not have to compete for +all resist gear?

If that's the case I don't see why you'd bother competing for +vit until you've hit the point of harsh diminishing returns for resist.

[zircon]

Correct, however it's not a huge advantage unless you get gear with both +all and +specific. So, something with +40 lightning is good, but +20 all +40 lightning is better. Otherwise, your total resist numbers are not going to be higher than they would be otherwise.

[Tensei]

So I managed to squeeze out 184% increased magic find with gear+ 5 valor stacks and a fortune shrine before killing the Warden. The ensuing loot shower was definitely worth it.

[Sir_NutS]

I just remembered the last Blizzcon where they were talking about viable builds and how you could be a melee wizard or petless wd and such.

Yeah right. I can't even be a real Barbarian atm.

10 min mark. Hilarious when you see the current situation of Inferno.

[Tensei]

I don't think that vid does any false advertising with regards to viable character builds. I've stopped using pets on my WD since I started Nightmare (aside from the occasional Gargantuan to tank bosses), and it has probably been my easiest and fastest solo Hell run so far.

Also, they're talking about Hell difficulty, not Inferno. You can do loads of different builds on Hell, while still enjoying a decent challenge, which is a drastic contrast with D2 Hell. Inferno is the equivalent of Uber Tristram, i.e. endgame content for completely players that want a challenge for their twinked out characters.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Tensei

[Sir_NutS]

I don't think that vid does any false advertising with regards to viable character builds. I've stopped using pets on my WD since I started Nightmare (aside from the occasional Gargantuan to tank bosses), and it has probably been my easiest and fastest solo Hell run so far.

Also, they're talking about Hell difficulty, not Inferno. You can do loads of different builds on Hell, while still enjoying a decent challenge, which is a drastic contrast with D2 Hell. Inferno is the equivalent of Uber Tristram, i.e. endgame content for completely players that want a challenge for their twinked out characters.

Look at the Inferno slideshow. It specifically says CRAZY BUILDS. Jay Wilson says this builds would work through the game and specifically on inferno. They are talking about this working on inferno.

And again, Inferno is not uber trist. You did uber trist after you've ubered your character. You're doing inferno so you can uber you character. This is not "extra challenge", this is part of the progression.

EDIT: You can hear the crazy builds portion a bit before, around 9 min mark.

So yeah, I really dunno what happened with Blizzard and Inferno balance. It only takes 15 minutes of play to realize that you can only progress with an optimal build.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Sir_NutS

[Brandon Strader]

I bet this would work on Inferno

[Hemophiliac]

I think i'll be getting this game within a week or so, is everyone playing USE?

[zircon]

I believe it's region-free, so anyone can play with anyone.

I'm SLOWLY progressing through Act 2 Inferno on my Monk, solo. I have about 27k HP, 14k DPS, 900 resists and ~8000 armor. I can kill most champ packs. The tricky part is that you need a lot of DPS as well as many survivability/CC tools. You can't JUST be a tank because you will die anyway, and glass cannon doesn't work for melee.

[Tensei]

Look at the Inferno slideshow. It specifically says CRAZY BUILDS. Jay Wilson says this builds would work through the game and specifically on inferno. They are talking about this working on inferno.

And again, Inferno is not uber trist. You did uber trist after you've ubered your character. You're doing inferno so you can uber you character. This is not "extra challenge", this is part of the progression.

EDIT: You can hear the crazy builds portion a bit before, around 9 min mark.

So yeah, I really dunno what happened with Blizzard and Inferno balance. It only takes 15 minutes of play to realize that you can only progress with an optimal build.

You're right, I skipped to 10 minutes and missed the part where they mentioned that they were talking about Inferno. What happened with Inferno balance is that they upped the difficulty to the point where their internal testers couldn't beat it, so they'll most likely be rebalancing it based on community feedback.

The thing is though, the fact that you're currently grinding for gear to progress to the next act is more or less how Blizzard intended Inferno to work. They also mentioned recently that many players went into Inferno undergeared. This leads me to believe that it's totally possible to play an unconventional build in Inferno, you just need more gear to make up for it.

[Brandon Strader]

Demon hunter with about 16k hp and 18k dps, low resistances, how do you get them?

I've been focusing on dps. I can get 33k hp and considerably less dps, but hp is irrelevant when you die in 1 hit...

[Sir_NutS]

I believe it's region-free, so anyone can play with anyone.

I'm SLOWLY progressing through Act 2 Inferno on my Monk, solo. I have about 27k HP, 14k DPS, 900 resists and ~8000 armor. I can kill most champ packs. The tricky part is that you need a lot of DPS as well as many survivability/CC tools. You can't JUST be a tank because you will die anyway, and glass cannon doesn't work for melee.

I have 46k hp, 12k dps 600 resists and 8k armor. I have good dps and ALL my talents including passives are defensive oriented (minus frenzy). I get killed by all champ packs on act 2. why? well for starters im a barbarian, and also I'm not wearing a shield.

So yeah...

[Tensei]

So get a decent shield to farm Act 2 until the rest of your gear is good enough to let you tank with a 2-hander or whatever. Also accept that certain elites just can't be done by certain classes if you're not overgeared for the act.

That aside, the best way to up your Demon Hunter DPS is to just go out and buy the best ranged weapon+ quiver you can find. I had no trouble getting 800+ DPS Crossbows for less than 200k. At this point extra stats like Dex, Vit and sockets are just very expensive luxuries that won't really boost your effectiveness by much. DH survivability ultimately comes from the fact that you blow everything up before you get hit.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Tensei

[zircon]

I have 46k hp, 12k dps 600 resists and 8k armor. I have good dps and ALL my talents including passives are defensive oriented (minus frenzy). I get killed by all champ packs on act 2. why? well for starters im a barbarian, and also I'm not wearing a shield.

So yeah...

Have you considered Life on Hit mods? One of the reasons I can stay alive as Monk is because I can rotate my abilities and spam healing while I'm fighting (no spirit = no healing). If you don't have that kind of self-healing, maybe life-on-hit would be good. Also, I have to play carefully. I try to clear an area of whites as much as possible and pull blues away from unexplored areas so that I can run around as necessary. I definitely do spend some time running and waiting for Serenity (invulnerability) or blind to be up, interspersed with a few ranged attacks.

Generally, I can't beat Illusionists unless they have really easy mods. Fast/Vortex with Fire Chains is next to impossible, and champion Wasps are also very hard unless they have no mobility affecting skills.

[Sir_NutS]

Have you considered Life on Hit mods? One of the reasons I can stay alive as Monk is because I can rotate my abilities and spam healing while I'm fighting (no spirit = no healing). If you don't have that kind of self-healing, maybe life-on-hit would be good. Also, I have to play carefully. I try to clear an area of whites as much as possible and pull blues away from unexplored areas so that I can run around as necessary. I definitely do spend some time running and waiting for Serenity (invulnerability) or blind to be up, interspersed with a few ranged attacks.

Generally, I can't beat Illusionists unless they have really easy mods. Fast/Vortex with Fire Chains is next to impossible, and champion Wasps are also very hard unless they have no mobility affecting skills.

Ever heard of revenge? It's one of those mandatory abilities for barbarians. Yes, it heals you. Also Charge+dreadnought heals you as well. Also, I have 500 life on hit atm, which is supposed to have synergy with frenzy and dual wielding (speed boosts).

I know how to play, I know how to kite, and duh of course I will not be running to unexplored territory while kiting . Problem is, the only way I can heal as a barbarian is by getting hit or hitting mobs, and if getting close to hit them means dying well you get the idea. Monks need to get close to gain spirit for their heal, but monks can stack dodge and resistance easier. Stacking dodge on barbarians is bad because your healing DEPENDS on you getting hit.

Believe me I understand how barbarians work, I have done my homework extensively. As i said, I'm not advancing because 1-Barbarians are much more gear dependent than any other class ATM and 2-I am not using a shield.

[Brandon Strader]

That aside, the best way to up your Demon Hunter DPS is to just go out and buy the best ranged weapon+ quiver you can find. I had no trouble getting 800+ DPS Crossbows for less than 200k. At this point extra stats like Dex, Vit and sockets are just very expensive luxuries that won't really boost your effectiveness by much. DH survivability ultimately comes from the fact that you blow everything up before you get hit.

Can't I do it as a dual-wielding DH with Hand crossbows? I've got 800+ DPS handbows in each hand and no quiver.

It's starting to sound like Mr. Nuts with his needing to use a shield problem

[Tensei]

Here's why dual wielding isn't the best idea: It takes the average DPS from your two weapons and adds 15% attack speed. That's it. If you have a 900 DPS bow and a 700 DPS bow, your DPS will actually INCREASE if you remove the second bow. It's stupid, but that's how it works unfortunately.

A quiver costs a a fraction of a second crossbow, so you're essentially paying twice the cost for a single upgrade. Shields + Melee weapons are a similar story, you trade 1k+ armor, as well as any potential resistance stats for slightly faster attack speed, and each weapon upgrade will cost you twice as much. Monk might be able get away with dualwielding because of the passive 15% dodge bonus.

I'll admit that it looks cooler, but I don't think you can really complain about the game taking a dump on you if you're making it intentionally harder on yourself.

Edited June 3, 2012 by Tensei

[Brandon Strader]

Well to be fair, averaging out the DPS instead of combining it is pretty dumb

I guess I'll be keeping an eye out for quivers.

[Sir_NutS]

I'll admit that it looks cooler, but I don't think you can really complain about the game taking a dump on you if you're making it intentionally harder on yourself.

I guess I can complain about the game not allowing me to play a barbarian as they should be played? I mean, there are VERY few barbarians out there that are happy about being sword and board, must of them just tolerate it to be able to progress. When people think about a barbarian they think about a big guy smashing faces not a wimp that only can tank a lot of damage while chipping away at enemies for pitiful damage.

I'm not really trying to seem overly angry about the whole deal because I'm really not, I love the game for the most part, its just frustrating to see every other class living up to their archetype AND making progress much quicker. But I have faith it will get fixed, Barbs will be back to their 2H and dual wielding goodness soon. In the meantime, I'll spend more time levelling up my other characters so I can farm better in the later acts and get enough gold for my barbarian.