Diablo 4 - Hellish Grind

[Mexal]

7 minutes ago, Relic said:

Got my barb up to 80. So have a 86 src and 80 barb and holy shit is the barb easier to play. Unlimited sustain, no downtime, taking on 4 to 5 level higher elites without much of an issue other than getting CCed. It's basically easy mode compared to Ice Shards sorc. 

When I got to 77 or so, I switched to a blizzard/ice shards hybrid build. I completed NM level 41. It wasn’t so bad but I had to play it smart sometimes.

Losing my ice shards gloves (with my mana reduction) has been a massive issue for me so I haven’t tried again. Trying to get more.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Mexal

[Relic]

10 minutes ago, Mexal said:

When I got to 77 or so, I switched to a blizzard/ice shards hybrid build. I completed NM level 41. It wasn’t so bad but I had to play it smart sometimes.

Losing my ice shards gloves (with my mana reduction) has been a massive issue for me so I haven’t tried again. Trying to get more.

i havent tried the blizzard build but ive seen it played on Twitch and just not a fan. Altho Whirlwind Barb doesnt really require much thinking either. How large were your pulls on that NM level?

[Soylent Brown]

For any barbs looked to do something non-meta, Wudijo has come up with a fun-looking Walking Arsenal Deathblow/Upheaval build that nearly one-shots bosses.

There's a build link in the description. It looks like his rotation is Upheaval (bludge wep) > Lunging Str (dual wep) > Upheaval > Deathblow (slash wep) - which now has Walking Arsenal procced, and then an additional Upheaval to reach 100 rage spent and proc vulnerable via the Expose Vulnerability passive, and then finally another Deathblow, with vulnerable, WA, and 200% bonus damage added in. It looks fun, but it'll keep your fingers busy!

 

[Arakasi]

Yeah Wudjio is great. He came up with the double core build using flurry for groups and rapid fire for bosses that he’s shown to work well and break the usual thing of just using one core skill. Also just a chill guy and quite positive. There was a good stream with him yesterday along with Kripp and Rax and another guy.

On the matter of sorcerer they are fine but their damage is too reliant on frost nova as they have no other way to proc vulnerable reliably. Also they are very squishy as they only have a few armor nodes on paragon board instead of the thousands rogue have. I notice my son often gets exploded but he does play him aggressively. Because their armor is so crap they do have to usually run 3-4 defensive cooldowns which often limits them. (Frost nova, ice armor, teleport, flame shield/deep freeze) In contrast my rogue just runs 3 (dash, shadow step, poison trap) and they all have utility or damage applications.

[Soylent Brown]

Yeah, sorcs need help in the S1 patch. Perhaps some sort of buff to their shields or armour to make up for how awful resistances are at the moment, and something - perhaps an aspect - to help with vulnerable uptime.

[JGP]

1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

For any barbs looked to do something non-meta, Wudijo has come up with a fun-looking Walking Arsenal Deathblow/Upheaval build that nearly one-shots bosses.

There's a build link in the description. It looks like his rotation is Upheaval (bludge wep) > Lunging Str (dual wep) > Upheaval > Deathblow (slash wep) - which now has Walking Arsenal procced, and then an additional Upheaval to reach 100 rage spent and proc vulnerable via the Expose Vulnerability passive, and then finally another Deathblow, with vulnerable, WA, and 200% bonus damage added in. It looks fun, but it'll keep your fingers busy!

 

Deathblow is such a great ability, was sad when I dropped it. The reset is the issue, particularly once you start getting into the much higher health pool content.

---

 

I dinged 100 a few days ago and have pulled back a fair bit on the gameplay in lieu of more experimenting and theory crafting. 

Rend/Rupture still going strong.

Rupture is a frontal cleave, so positioning is important. You won't get multiple blood pools going when Rupturing more than one target [as I'd hoped] but, it does appear to amplify the pool you drop the more enemies you hit. Bunch of Bleeds out then a well placed Rupture on lots of targets can wipe a room more often than not, so, good to discover.

I've also swapped out one of my 1H Swords for Ramaladni's Magnum Opus and I'm Rending with that. At nearish full Fury it applies a bigger Rend than my 2H, and it doesn't gimp my 2H Sword expertise gimme [30% [x] more Bleed dmg for 5 seconds after killing an enemy] because my Fields of Crimson gives me that on Rupture. Faster application speed cause 1H as well. The Bleed dmg just stacks and stacks [for 5 secs] then you pop it with Rupture. It's quite fun. 

Order of Ops: Rupture first, drops a pool that buffs Bleed dmg by 10% [x] stack Rend and incidental Bleeds, then bop it with your second Rupture.

Just need a better rolled Temerity [44% Barrier lol] and some other min/maxing.

 

edit: It would be cool if Fields was a bit stronger. Also, it bugs Rupture [infrequently, but even so] where occasionally a enemy Ruptured will get a whole heap of Health back after the bop. Something off in the order applications from what I've read. Hopefully that'll be addressed soon.

Edited July 11, 2023 by JGP

[JGP]

Update: testing it on my lower lvl Barb who doesn't have Fields, and it's Rupture itself that's buggy, not the Unique. How tf this made it out of Beta much less persisted this long into launch is le wow

[Kalbear]

2 minutes ago, JGP said:

Update: testing it on my lower lvl Barb who doesn't have Fields, and it's Rupture itself that's buggy, not the Unique. How tf this made it out of Beta much less persisted this long into launch is le wow

Reminder that for Diablo 2 for a whole 1.5 years the Amazon's entire bow damage was bugged so that the only ability that worked vaguely as expected was strafe and every other ability did not scale with a bow's damage whatsoever. 

[JGP]

23 minutes ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Reminder that for Diablo 2 for a whole 1.5 years the Amazon's entire bow damage was bugged so that the only ability that worked vaguely as expected was strafe and every other ability did not scale with a bow's damage whatsoever. 

Fuck, that's crazy lol

 

---

 

Further testing [without Fields again, why I didn't cross section this comparative before I don't know] revealed that it's perhaps not the pool of blood dropped by the Unique that can clear a room fast if you hit lots of enemies with Rupture's cleave, but rather its Enhanced mod-- Ripping your weapon out of enemies during Rupture causes an explosion for 30% Bleed dmg over 5 secs. 

 

testing would be so much easier if we could parse

 

So... now to game out if that's 30% weapon or ability dmg, or 30% of the total bleed dmg on the target you collapsed [which would be substantially more] cause the latter would account much more plausibly for the absolute meltitude on lots of enemies Ruptured.

I'm going to figure this sheesh out, as well as a way to amp it.

 

Edited July 11, 2023 by JGP

[Kalbear]

Even more crazy about the bow bug was that it was only found by the community - specifically one person - and that person was almost chased off the internet by diablo fanbois.

And they found it entirely by hacking the diablo client and save files.

[JGP]

24 minutes ago, JGP said:

So... now to game out if that's 30% weapon or ability dmg, or 30% of the total bleed dmg on the target you collapsed [which would be substantially more] cause the latter would account much more plausibly for the absolute meltitude on lots of enemies Ruptured.

 

I mean, thinking out loud here, but if it's the case where the Enhanced Rupture explosion [an AOE dot] is 30% of the collapsed dmg [low whistle]

The +ranks to Rupture from Fields only lower its CD, so if you can get reasonably close to that with CD reduction and the Harrogath chest [provided you have an Elite tagged] you could get a lot more bang for your buck with another 2H that has better inherent affixes.

Edited July 11, 2023 by JGP

[Relic]

5 hours ago, Arakasi said:

 

On the matter of sorcerer they are fine but their damage is too reliant on frost nova as they have no other way to proc vulnerable reliably. 

Yup, Frost Nova is almost broken, but the cooldown is like a minimum of 12 to 20 seconds without great stats on your gear for reduction, and that leads to a ton of down time playing as sorc. Hard core sorc is basically ice armor, blizzard, ice shards 4 times, and retreat to mana up. That's not fun. 

[Relic]

Just now, Relic said:

Yup, Frost Nova is almost broken, but the cooldown is like a minimum of 12 to 20 seconds without great stats on your gear for reduction, and that leads to a ton of down time playing as sorc. Hard core sorc is basically ice armor, fire shield, blizzard, ice shards 4 times, and retreat to mana up. That's not fun. 

 

[JGP]

Don't know if I realized it before and forgot, or what, but the S1 patch hits on the 18th and is live, meaning, if you game hard enough [and are RNG-lucky] you can try out some of the new Aspects and Uniques, which would be a leg up on new builds/mechanics etc before the S1 start.

[Mexal]

10 hours ago, Relic said:

i havent tried the blizzard build but ive seen it played on Twitch and just not a fan. Altho Whirlwind Barb doesnt really require much thinking either. How large were your pulls on that NM level?

Whatever the packs are. I can't speedrun a NM level really (too squishy) so I don't even try; I just fight my way through it and pull the packs that are in front of me. Requires a little finesse and heavy use of evade, but I find it reasonably fun. At this point with my mana affixes, aspects and skills, I don't really have a mana issue. The cooldowns can be annoying sometimes though.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

6 hours ago, Kalnak the Magnificent said:

Reminder that for Diablo 2 for a whole 1.5 years the Amazon's entire bow damage was bugged so that the only ability that worked vaguely as expected was strafe and every other ability did not scale with a bow's damage whatsoever. 

IIRC charge for the paladin was broken for what felt like a decade.

I'm a bit confused about how the first season is going to work. Are our current toons going to be grandfathered into it or are we starting over? I've heard both.

 

[Arakasi]

You’re starting over but you get 3 things that do carry over.

1. You don’t have to do the campaign you can skip it.

2. You get all your altar of lillith stat ups and renown.

3. You get all your map reveal done plus major city waypoints and it’s associated renown.

For 2&3 it’s not quirky but to get your progress there to advance you’ll have to log in to your old character (whatever is most progressed or if you have split progression then that) after the 18th. If you just started playing S1 you would not get this until you log in to an old toon.

[Arakasi]

You still have to redo dungeon renown and most waypoints and quests and so on. You start at level 1 and you get to use the season mechanics. It probably means you’ll be close to getting your second skill point if you have done map and Lilith clears. That will be nice as it’s effectively a ten level boost.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

So what's the point in playing for the next week unless you want to test out new toons?

36 minutes ago, Arakasi said:

2. You get all your altar of lillith stat ups and renown.

This has been annoying. I've covered the entire map and only found like 25% of them, lol. 

Edited July 12, 2023 by Tywin et al.

[Arakasi]

Just look for books and crannies. The majority of them are in divots or deadends.

As for playing well I hope you like the game. I wouldn’t play if it’s not fun. But for me it’s to get to 100 basically. But I think setting up for season 1 is a good thing.