- Item is cheaper than 6$ -> post it on GAH (15% tax < 1$)
- Item is between 7$ and 20$ -> post it on RMAH over Battle.net Balance
- Item is more expensive than 20$ -> post it to RMAH over PayPal
I wish I've got more of those items from 3d category..
Thursday 14 June 2012
RMAH is real!
Smart auctioning works for real moneys now! Got my first profitable sale:
As far AH posting goes, I'm going to use the following ruleset:
I wish I've got more of those items from 3d category..
I wish I've got more of those items from 3d category..
Friday 8 June 2012
Weapon evolution
This my current weapon and off-hand:
My weapon evolution started with lucky drop of 999dps 1h weapon from Iskatu. By that time I was wearing two-handed axe with 1200+dps and was pretty happy about it, not looking for upgrade any soon. However with this drop I received a chance to experiment and I realized that 1000dps 1h weapon + 230dps off hand is actually better (and often more affordable) than 1300 2h. Main reasons are:
1 to 2: I made about 1M profit on this change and gained extra dps due to added ias and critical hit damage.
2 to 3: Very similar weapon, but extra vitality allowed me to swap some other gear to be more offensive (int instead of vit) which added to the total damage
3 to 4: Flat dps number is going down again, but 217 intelligence beat it!
As a result I have a comfortable Act 3 farming gear set with: 30K hp, 70K dmg (buffed), 124 mf and 19% movement speed. High movement comes at a cost of hp, if I swap pants and boots I lose it but get extra 8K hp and 30 mf with the same damage. It's very nice to have option to adapt your gear to the situation (since you can't swap skills without losing nephalem buff). In full MF gear with follower I'm at 231 mf (no nephalem stacks), which means with valor I'm at 306% magic find when soloing!!!
If only the would not nerf IAS in 1.0.3...
My weapon evolution started with lucky drop of 999dps 1h weapon from Iskatu. By that time I was wearing two-handed axe with 1200+dps and was pretty happy about it, not looking for upgrade any soon. However with this drop I received a chance to experiment and I realized that 1000dps 1h weapon + 230dps off hand is actually better (and often more affordable) than 1300 2h. Main reasons are:
- Off-hand damage scales with weapon attack speed. So if you have a dagger with 1.4 ias and off-hand with 230 damage (low+hi/2) then offhand will actually add 322 damage! Also, if you upgraded your dagger to something with 1.6 ias you are instantly getting +46 to the dps with the same off hand.
- Besides damage, off-hand offers other very useful magic properties, like magic find or life regeneration
- A lot of people hunting for big dps numbers on weapons, which means you can get an awesome deal on AH for weapon with lower dps but some extremely good stats on it compensating for the flat damage
- dps: 999, ias: 1.2
- dps: 889, ias: 1.4, crit dmg: 58
- dps: 896, ias: 1.4, crit dmg: 47 (bonus +100 vitality)
- dps: 845, ias: 1.4, crit dmg: 65 (bonus +217 intelligence)
1 to 2: I made about 1M profit on this change and gained extra dps due to added ias and critical hit damage.
2 to 3: Very similar weapon, but extra vitality allowed me to swap some other gear to be more offensive (int instead of vit) which added to the total damage
3 to 4: Flat dps number is going down again, but 217 intelligence beat it!
As a result I have a comfortable Act 3 farming gear set with: 30K hp, 70K dmg (buffed), 124 mf and 19% movement speed. High movement comes at a cost of hp, if I swap pants and boots I lose it but get extra 8K hp and 30 mf with the same damage. It's very nice to have option to adapt your gear to the situation (since you can't swap skills without losing nephalem buff). In full MF gear with follower I'm at 231 mf (no nephalem stacks), which means with valor I'm at 306% magic find when soloing!!!
If only the would not nerf IAS in 1.0.3...
Farming Inferno prior to 1.0.3 patch
I've been pleased to have few individuals contacted me with a question: "Why there are no updates on the blog? What are you up to?" Well friends, I've been farming:
Farming in my terms is when you repeatedly do some action to get profit and find/purchase better gear. Legitimate farming is a big part of Diablo 3 end game and it basically means you (re)start your favorite quest, go hunt champ/elite packs to stack nephalem buff and then have epic battle with Act boss to get guaranteed yellow items. With proper magic find on your gear it works even better as you constantly getting yellows from every elite demon you kill.
That said, there is also "cheesy" farming. This is usually exploiting some easy way to get profit avoiding fair battles in open ground. A lot of people are doing cheesy farming nowadays because Inferno Act II and further is quite tough and farming Act I could get boring due to low level drops. Here are few cheesy farming techniques I'm aware about.
There are some specific places with high probability of goblin spawn. All you need to do is login, check the "sweet spot", if goblin not there logout and repeat. In full MF (magic find) gear single goblin can drop up to 4 yellows, a bunch of flawless gems and secret tomes. This farm works extremely well in coop mode: several people are looking for goblins simultaneously and once found all jump in to each other to loot it.
There is a sweet spot where you can continuously kill with relatively low effort (<3 Archon) a champion pack really close to checkpoint. Usually it takes less than 30 seconds for a single run, so you can get full of yellows really quick (screenshot above was made after about 30 mins of this farm). It gets boring though, mostly cause its solo. It's possible to do coop here, but you rather slowed down than getting more profit.
There are few places where resplendent chest spawns very often, so it's similar to goblin runs. The main difference is that this is act 3 so there are chances for better items. The disadvantage is that you often getting killed by randomsoul reapers demons guarding the chest. Good for coop runs as well.
There is an elite guy sitting behind gates at the trebuchet on "Kill balistae" quest. Once get there, range classes can kill him almost without any effort since he only get out of the gate if you come closer. It could be tough to get there though as this zone full of demons and often there are champs on the way. We've been doing it with my friends though and its a lot of fun cause you have to fight your way rather then just come and get loot for free (goblins/chests).
This is the first boss in Act 4 and its super easy to kill him as wizard if you have 50K+ dps (with buffs). Simply get Arcane Dynamo up and fire Archon - the guy will melt in no time. He doesn't drop yellows (well he did few times out of a hundred), but drops high level blues. For example, I got a 999 dps blue weapon out of him which I was using until recently (and it sold quick for 2 million after I got a better replacement for 700K - remind me to write about weapons). Possible to do coop.
If you wear high MF gear, even simple jars in Act 4 will start dropping items better than those elite champs in Act 2. I was even getting more yellows from jars then from Iskatu! Disadvantage: it feels dumb to come to burning heavens just to kick jars :)
There is a place where random ghost appears when you walk in and after quick dialog it converts into elite demon for you to kill. Same idea as with Iskatu - you getting easy kills often, but only blue gears. I only tried it few times, cause Iskatu feels more fun.
It started with me looking for a ring with MF and IAS and seeing good ones starting from 1M+. Suddenly someone posted a 3M worth ring for 500K - well, I happily snatched it and wear up. After some monitoring I start seeing more of those rings coming out for cheap and realized that they are only 54 level. My guess is people who level up don't realize true value of those items and post them heavily underpriced. So far I was able to get about 5M profit just from reselling jewelry and I have more items still to be sold. Farming AH is tricky but also fun and rewarding.
So what's going to change in patch 1.0.3? I feel like a lot. Check out the official post about upcoming design changes, to name a few: Inferno Act 2+ nerf, drop tables update, IAS nerf, repair costs change, coop nerf and more. Also I expect some of those cheesy farms to be fixed (just because they are so dumb and popular), so the end game and market is going to change for sure. Catch the train and do pre-1.0.3 farm while you can! :)
Farming in my terms is when you repeatedly do some action to get profit and find/purchase better gear. Legitimate farming is a big part of Diablo 3 end game and it basically means you (re)start your favorite quest, go hunt champ/elite packs to stack nephalem buff and then have epic battle with Act boss to get guaranteed yellow items. With proper magic find on your gear it works even better as you constantly getting yellows from every elite demon you kill.
That said, there is also "cheesy" farming. This is usually exploiting some easy way to get profit avoiding fair battles in open ground. A lot of people are doing cheesy farming nowadays because Inferno Act II and further is quite tough and farming Act I could get boring due to low level drops. Here are few cheesy farming techniques I'm aware about.
Act 2 - Goblin runs
There are some specific places with high probability of goblin spawn. All you need to do is login, check the "sweet spot", if goblin not there logout and repeat. In full MF (magic find) gear single goblin can drop up to 4 yellows, a bunch of flawless gems and secret tomes. This farm works extremely well in coop mode: several people are looking for goblins simultaneously and once found all jump in to each other to loot it.
Act 2 - 1 min champ pack farm
There is a sweet spot where you can continuously kill with relatively low effort (<3 Archon) a champion pack really close to checkpoint. Usually it takes less than 30 seconds for a single run, so you can get full of yellows really quick (screenshot above was made after about 30 mins of this farm). It gets boring though, mostly cause its solo. It's possible to do coop here, but you rather slowed down than getting more profit.
Act 3 - Chest runs
There are few places where resplendent chest spawns very often, so it's similar to goblin runs. The main difference is that this is act 3 so there are chances for better items. The disadvantage is that you often getting killed by random
Act 3 - Trebuchet runs
There is an elite guy sitting behind gates at the trebuchet on "Kill balistae" quest. Once get there, range classes can kill him almost without any effort since he only get out of the gate if you come closer. It could be tough to get there though as this zone full of demons and often there are champs on the way. We've been doing it with my friends though and its a lot of fun cause you have to fight your way rather then just come and get loot for free (goblins/chests).
Act 4 - Iskatu farm
This is the first boss in Act 4 and its super easy to kill him as wizard if you have 50K+ dps (with buffs). Simply get Arcane Dynamo up and fire Archon - the guy will melt in no time. He doesn't drop yellows (well he did few times out of a hundred), but drops high level blues. For example, I got a 999 dps blue weapon out of him which I was using until recently (and it sold quick for 2 million after I got a better replacement for 700K - remind me to write about weapons). Possible to do coop.
Act 4 - Jars kicking
If you wear high MF gear, even simple jars in Act 4 will start dropping items better than those elite champs in Act 2. I was even getting more yellows from jars then from Iskatu! Disadvantage: it feels dumb to come to burning heavens just to kick jars :)
Act 4 - Ghosts farm
There is a place where random ghost appears when you walk in and after quick dialog it converts into elite demon for you to kill. Same idea as with Iskatu - you getting easy kills often, but only blue gears. I only tried it few times, cause Iskatu feels more fun.
AH deals farm
It started with me looking for a ring with MF and IAS and seeing good ones starting from 1M+. Suddenly someone posted a 3M worth ring for 500K - well, I happily snatched it and wear up. After some monitoring I start seeing more of those rings coming out for cheap and realized that they are only 54 level. My guess is people who level up don't realize true value of those items and post them heavily underpriced. So far I was able to get about 5M profit just from reselling jewelry and I have more items still to be sold. Farming AH is tricky but also fun and rewarding.
So what's going to change in patch 1.0.3? I feel like a lot. Check out the official post about upcoming design changes, to name a few: Inferno Act 2+ nerf, drop tables update, IAS nerf, repair costs change, coop nerf and more. Also I expect some of those cheesy farms to be fixed (just because they are so dumb and popular), so the end game and market is going to change for sure. Catch the train and do pre-1.0.3 farm while you can! :)
Friday 1 June 2012
How a Weapon's DPS is Calculated
After doing some research and testing myself I figured internet will have answer to this question :) This video is quite illustrative for example:
This frame includes all pieces that you need to multiply to get the in-game Damage value: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEyiezB8Mpw#t=6m19s
Few things to learn from it:
Same for intelligence. If my primary stat is 1480, then to have 15% damage increase I need to add 222 intelligence! Which is again a quite high stat for a ring. However if I replace my 200 int amulet with just 15% asp, I'm not getting much out of it.
Final note: you need to know relative importance of each damage affecting stat as well as this stat availability (i.e. how much you can add to stat X with single upgrade of item Y) to find the best upgrade for your current item set. Also different skills favor different dps builds (i.e. crit-based, asp-based or raw damage based).
This frame includes all pieces that you need to multiply to get the in-game Damage value: www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEyiezB8Mpw#t=6m19s
Few things to learn from it:
- Each weapon's type has its own base attack speed (e.g. 1h dagger = 1.4, 2h mace = 0.9)
- Weapon's own attack speed magic modifier is already applied to weapon's base attack speed on tooltip
- Weapon's total attack speed multiplies weapon's average damage and any other damage sources on armor (rings, amulets, off-hand)
- 3 other damage modifiers are equally important and they are: primary stat * 0.1, crit chance * crit damage and non-weapon attack speed
- Mana-based classes should also take resource into consideration: with two different builds giving same damage output, the one with lower attack speed may be preferable for continued fights!
Same for intelligence. If my primary stat is 1480, then to have 15% damage increase I need to add 222 intelligence! Which is again a quite high stat for a ring. However if I replace my 200 int amulet with just 15% asp, I'm not getting much out of it.
Final note: you need to know relative importance of each damage affecting stat as well as this stat availability (i.e. how much you can add to stat X with single upgrade of item Y) to find the best upgrade for your current item set. Also different skills favor different dps builds (i.e. crit-based, asp-based or raw damage based).
Tuesday 29 May 2012
Blue weapon > Yellow weapon
Apparently as wizard you don't need any stats on your weapon other than massive damage and attack speed. Well, of course those are useful and such, but if you want to maximize your damage output and have limited budget then just do what I did:
- Go to Auction House
- Search for 2-hand weapons (all types)
- Filter those that have 20%+ attack speed and cost <1M
- Sort by DPS column
- Purchase something that has high damage/cost ratio
- Enjoy your 10K damage increase:
Sunday 27 May 2012
New weapon = new DPS record
OMFG! Just purchased this awesome weapon on AH for 500K and got my DPS bumped by 8K instantly (under magic weapon, sparkflint and glass cannon)!!! Beware Belial, I'm coming! :)
Saturday 26 May 2012
First legendary drop! And some yellows.
After few days of farming, I finally got my first orange item!!
It's certainly not the best item that I looted, but I'm still pleased to have it. And will be even more pleased to sell it for good $$$ on AH :) I didn't play tank, but hopefully "Reduce damage from melee attacks" is a valuable stat.
As far as drop goes, I'm really excited each time I get yellow ring or amulet - these things often cost a lot! For instance I've updated my rings today with these freshly farmed ones (Act III Hell):
This pulled my damage stat to a new record of 31K (with magic weapon and glass cannon). Attack speed IS the king!
It's certainly not the best item that I looted, but I'm still pleased to have it. And will be even more pleased to sell it for good $$$ on AH :) I didn't play tank, but hopefully "Reduce damage from melee attacks" is a valuable stat.
As far as drop goes, I'm really excited each time I get yellow ring or amulet - these things often cost a lot! For instance I've updated my rings today with these freshly farmed ones (Act III Hell):
This pulled my damage stat to a new record of 31K (with magic weapon and glass cannon). Attack speed IS the king!
Friday 25 May 2012
Attack speed FTW
By the way, I discovered just recently, that attack speed is really important dps stat for mage. Just by getting those blue gloves with 15% attack speed my damage increased by almost 2K!
I also found that very few items may have AS on them, so that is a valuable stat to have.
I also found that very few items may have AS on them, so that is a valuable stat to have.
Inferno progress
Inferno is going tough, managed to finish Act I so far. Played it a bit with Monk tanking - that part was much easier, without tank its a lot of kiting which is time consuming.
I was trying to wear high magic find gear set, but didn't get any significant drops yet. Thus decided to switch to optimal damage/defense instead and progress ASAP, hoping to find something on the way (e.g. good farming opportunities).
As of now, with magic weapon and glass cannon buffs on I have 31K health, 19788 damage and 57% magic find (no nephalem buff):
As you may notice I also wear couple blue items because nothing better has dropped and prices on AH for similar yellows are 200K+. Time to hunt some luck on this long weekend!
I was trying to wear high magic find gear set, but didn't get any significant drops yet. Thus decided to switch to optimal damage/defense instead and progress ASAP, hoping to find something on the way (e.g. good farming opportunities).
As of now, with magic weapon and glass cannon buffs on I have 31K health, 19788 damage and 57% magic find (no nephalem buff):
As you may notice I also wear couple blue items because nothing better has dropped and prices on AH for similar yellows are 200K+. Time to hunt some luck on this long weekend!
Wednesday 23 May 2012
Hell, yeah!
Diablo down three times now, entering Inferno level.. this is where the real challenge supposed to start, right?
Tuesday 22 May 2012
First legendary item!
OK, it didn't drop (I still haven't seen neither orange nor green drops), but I got it from AH:
Isn't it cool? Boosted my damage by about 800 instantly! But that's not the best part. Remember how I sold amulet for 750K? Guess how much I paid for legendary weapon? Ready??
I got the weapon above just for 70K!! AH ftw. Can't wait for real money one ;)
Isn't it cool? Boosted my damage by about 800 instantly! But that's not the best part. Remember how I sold amulet for 750K? Guess how much I paid for legendary weapon? Ready??
I got the weapon above just for 70K!! AH ftw. Can't wait for real money one ;)
Auctioning on Hell ... 750K sale
Oh my god! Posted a rare amulet this morning for 890K gold and it is sold now!! +750K in cash just from one item drop on Hell. Wondering if the buyer hopes to resell it for real money in a future OR it was indeed such a great amulet..
Monday 21 May 2012
Vitality or Magic Find?
Heh, you may have noticed how I built high magic find (~100%) into my items set. Of course it comes with a sacrifice of some other useful stat, mostly vitality in my case (i.e. it is extremely hard/expensive to find items that have both intelligence, vitelity and magic find).
However since I'm playing on hell, sometimes I'm getting in trouble with rare monsters that kill me waaaaay too fast. Thus I have secondary item set in my bags, which has about the same damage stats, but replaces magic find with vitality. If I wear all those items on, I'm suddenly a 38K health mage with 5700 damage and 22% magic find!
Impressive, huh? However even that much health often not enough on Hell (lvl 57), so I'm planning to build alternative sets. Things to try stacking: crit chance/crit damage, armor, resistances.
What's your items priorities?
Farming XP
I've tried farming XP (and magic items) on lvl 50 and lvl 56, here is my experience:
lvl 50 - Azmodan Nightmare
Time: 10 min
XP: ~150K
Start at the last quest of Act III, go through 2-3 rare/champ groups, kill the boss. It took me 6-10 mins per run (depending on champs). After finishing the boss you got 45K for quest and then immediately after you got another 45K for the next quest!! Plus ~60K from killing monsters. Overall a really nice easy run, I levelled from 50 to 51 in about 40 minutes (510K XP).
My stats for this runs:
13K health
2410 damage
88% magic find
lvl 56 - Zultan Kulle Hell
Time: 3-5 min
XP: ~110K
I've killed him first time very fast and was pleased to get 98K for quest, so I stopped and farmed him till level 57. Pretty easy and fast run in my setup. Slowing-kiting-killing golems, then dodging tornadoes and finishing the boss. There are no monsters to kill before encounter, you basically spawn straight to the boss.
My stats for this run:
20K health
5600 damage
104% magic find
Temporal flux passive is super important - without it golems reach you and make life hard. After golems down, the mechanic is simple - wait for diamond skin and teleport cooldowns, run (not jump) to the boss, use diamond skin and burn with disintegrate (or whatever), then jump away and repeat. All this time hydra and your follower also doing some dps. Oh and note Wormhole rune on teleport - without 3 jumps it will be much harder to dodge some of Kulle's stuff!
Sunday 20 May 2012
My best Auction House sell so far
Is a rare lvl 32 (or so) amulet with great warrior stats and socket. I sold it for 50000 in 15 minutes!
Wizard lvl 45 - Beefy Mage or Anti-Belial build
So I get to Nightmare Belial with my jumper build and set of items giving me ~1500 damage. This was pretty sweet run throw nightmare so far with perfect escape abilities (teleport, mirror, diamond skin) and enormous damage from my passives and disintegrate. However Belial proved my build weakness - I've died ~20 times before realizing it's not mechanics but build that is not good :)
So I took a deep breath (it was at 4am) and started looking through my skills again. I realized, that teleport and mirror doesn't help me that much in this fight. Also, since I was hunting intelligence and magic find (which I got up to 80%) on my items, vitality was quite low (~3000hp). Luckily enough, I didn't throw a single rare item that had high vitality, which allowed me to come up with the following solution:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#iRXjST21bYaaaaZ!YfX!aZZbZZ
After wearing all vitality items I got my HP bumped to.. 9000! Moreover, with Galvanization Wand passive I also got 100/s health regen!! That sounded promising. But what about damage? Well, it got significantly down, but look - I have enhanced Magic Weapon in place of teleport now! This boosted damage up to 1200, which I figured is OK.
Finally, I noticed new rune on Familiar which I didn't see before - Ancient Guardian. I couldn't bypass it for this fight..
As a result - with this new build I was able to one shot Belial!! Of course numerous failed attempts in the past gave me a lot of mechanics understanding, which I completely ignored on Normal due to OP Tornadoes ;)
So I took a deep breath (it was at 4am) and started looking through my skills again. I realized, that teleport and mirror doesn't help me that much in this fight. Also, since I was hunting intelligence and magic find (which I got up to 80%) on my items, vitality was quite low (~3000hp). Luckily enough, I didn't throw a single rare item that had high vitality, which allowed me to come up with the following solution:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#iRXjST21bYaaaaZ!YfX!aZZbZZ
After wearing all vitality items I got my HP bumped to.. 9000! Moreover, with Galvanization Wand passive I also got 100/s health regen!! That sounded promising. But what about damage? Well, it got significantly down, but look - I have enhanced Magic Weapon in place of teleport now! This boosted damage up to 1200, which I figured is OK.
Finally, I noticed new rune on Familiar which I didn't see before - Ancient Guardian. I couldn't bypass it for this fight..
As a result - with this new build I was able to one shot Belial!! Of course numerous failed attempts in the past gave me a lot of mechanics understanding, which I completely ignored on Normal due to OP Tornadoes ;)
Diablo III and your graphics card
I was planning to get a new graphics card for D3. My current one is OK (Geforce GTX 260), but have one nasty issue - whenever it heats up it doesn't adjust the cooling automatically (cooler spin rate) so I have to do it manually via RivaTuner every time I play graphics-intensive game. If I don't do that, then card heats above 75 C and graphics in a game "crashes" (start showing random artefacts). For SC2 I set cooler to ~70% of max speed. For LoL I leave on default 40%..
It became much worse in Diablo, where it started crashing sometimes even under 100% :( I refused to reduce graphics quality for this game and almost became desperate (cause I want to play and not wait for newegg delivery!), when I found the solution! Few changes to the D3 video settings reduced heating to stable ~66C and didn't make game look any much worse:
It became much worse in Diablo, where it started crashing sometimes even under 100% :( I refused to reduce graphics quality for this game and almost became desperate (cause I want to play and not wait for newegg delivery!), when I found the solution! Few changes to the D3 video settings reduced heating to stable ~66C and didn't make game look any much worse:
- shadows OFF (biggest win)
- foreground frame rate 80 (cause I don't think 150 is really needed?)
- Anti-aliasing OFF (not sure this one really needed, by I didn't notice much of difference anyway)
Voila! I can keep playing on "High" settings and delay my new video card purchase :)
P.S. There was a funniest crash one time, when I start seeing "Temporary art" textures in a game which is normally hidden somewhere under permanent textures ;)
Saturday 19 May 2012
Running out of space in stash/bags?
I'm using my second account to store stuff that I don't want to throw/sell yet. This gives you extra 80 slots per level 1 character you create. Just launch two clients, join the same private game and pass your precious stuff to other character! This also increases your AH limit to 20 items at a time :)
Now, I'm not sure if guest pass would allow you to create more characters for storage, but worth a try! Looks like that key is still not taken ;)
Now, I'm not sure if guest pass would allow you to create more characters for storage, but worth a try! Looks like that key is still not taken ;)
Wizard lvl 35 - Jumper build
Although it was fun to play with Tornadoes, I had to completely change my build in Act IV, where there are fights in open areas with enemies teleporting, stunning and doing massive damage. Now it consists of 3 defensive skills (diamond skin, mirror image, teleport), 2 passive damage ones (storm armor and hydra) and only 1 offensive (disintegrate):
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#iRXPQT21bYaaaaZ!YdX!aZZaZZ
Note how I'm still favoring global arcane cost reduction runes on diamond skin and storm armor. Apparently, disengrate doing so much damage, that its alone is enough to kill enemies. The only issue with it is high cost, which is kind of solved by this runes.
I called this build jumper for two reasons. Wormhole gives me ability to make 3 jumps in a row, which is not only awesome life but also time saver (when you need to come back through labirint). Illusionist on its turn ensures that if I jump into elite monster pack I can always instantly jump back.
The way I'm playing this build atm: spawn hydra in front of you to detect enemies as early as possible. Shoot Disintegrate as soon as you see the target (sometimes monsters will not even aggro and just get slayed because of the huge range of this spell). If you getting below half of arcane power OR start getting hits, activate diamond skin and continue disintegrate. Respawn hydra (cause it will soon disappear). If monsters not dead yet, use mirror image and step back. Continue shooting. If mirrors aren't helping or dead very quick, telepoooort!!! And repeat :)
For boss fights, I'm switching Convergence to Chaos Nexus. Everything else stays the same. Soon I will probably have to take bosses resistances into account though.
And btw, I one shot Diablo on Normal with this build!! Nightmare begins!!!
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#iRXPQT21bYaaaaZ!YdX!aZZaZZ
Note how I'm still favoring global arcane cost reduction runes on diamond skin and storm armor. Apparently, disengrate doing so much damage, that its alone is enough to kill enemies. The only issue with it is high cost, which is kind of solved by this runes.
I called this build jumper for two reasons. Wormhole gives me ability to make 3 jumps in a row, which is not only awesome life but also time saver (when you need to come back through labirint). Illusionist on its turn ensures that if I jump into elite monster pack I can always instantly jump back.
The way I'm playing this build atm: spawn hydra in front of you to detect enemies as early as possible. Shoot Disintegrate as soon as you see the target (sometimes monsters will not even aggro and just get slayed because of the huge range of this spell). If you getting below half of arcane power OR start getting hits, activate diamond skin and continue disintegrate. Respawn hydra (cause it will soon disappear). If monsters not dead yet, use mirror image and step back. Continue shooting. If mirrors aren't helping or dead very quick, telepoooort!!! And repeat :)
For boss fights, I'm switching Convergence to Chaos Nexus. Everything else stays the same. Soon I will probably have to take bosses resistances into account though.
And btw, I one shot Diablo on Normal with this build!! Nightmare begins!!!
Friday 18 May 2012
Wizard lvl 25 - profile
Just for the record, this is how my profile looks like right now:
With Magic Weapon buff :) Without it, damage is 10% less.
D3 Guest Pass key give away
I have quite a few D3 guest pass on hands. Figured, I'd start sharing so others can play :)
If you claimed this key, please post in the comments. I'll give away another one!
Wizard lvl 25 - Tornado Fest build
I'm currently using this build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UcXVTh21bYaaaaZ!Yc!aZZaaa
It's a lot of fun when you spin countless uncontrolled tornadoes! Here is how it works: run into enemies pack wearing two passive AOE spells (Arcane Orb with Arcane Orbit + Storm Armor), activate Diamond Skin (with Prism), spam tornadoes like crazy (Energy Twister with Mistral Breeze), finish off with Explosive Blast.
Due to reduced cost (by Prism and Mistral Breeze runes), you can actually spam tornadoes during the whole time of diamond skin duration and have enough mana for finishing move while heavily hitting melee with lightning bolts and arcane orbit explosions. If enemies are not dead, run away for DS cooldown, then repeat. However, with all yellow armor I got from auction I'm at about 460 damage (with 500% increase from intelligence), so usually everything dies after the first DS cooldown. One shot Belial today using this build!
Possible modifications: Magic Weapon instead of Explosive Blast (higher overall damage), Evocation instead of Prodigy (latter is useful to regenerate mana quicker while DS is on cooldown).
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/wizard#UcXVTh21bYaaaaZ!Yc!aZZaaa
It's a lot of fun when you spin countless uncontrolled tornadoes! Here is how it works: run into enemies pack wearing two passive AOE spells (Arcane Orb with Arcane Orbit + Storm Armor), activate Diamond Skin (with Prism), spam tornadoes like crazy (Energy Twister with Mistral Breeze), finish off with Explosive Blast.
Due to reduced cost (by Prism and Mistral Breeze runes), you can actually spam tornadoes during the whole time of diamond skin duration and have enough mana for finishing move while heavily hitting melee with lightning bolts and arcane orbit explosions. If enemies are not dead, run away for DS cooldown, then repeat. However, with all yellow armor I got from auction I'm at about 460 damage (with 500% increase from intelligence), so usually everything dies after the first DS cooldown. One shot Belial today using this build!
Possible modifications: Magic Weapon instead of Explosive Blast (higher overall damage), Evocation instead of Prodigy (latter is useful to regenerate mana quicker while DS is on cooldown).
4 immediate hints for D3 beginners
And here is why I started this blog today: I learned a very important thing about the game which I'd love to have learned earlier. Well, if you are just starting, then consider yourself lucky - there goes hints for a new D3 player:
Firstly if you anywhere like me, it is super important to understand how your spells work and what's your damage throughput. Since game is item-centric, you need to know exactly how those items help to do more damage, so you can enjoy collecting items, improving your build and seeing the results.
Secondly, AH is a beast. Since there are tons of players going through Normal difficulty right now it's flooded with Rare items that are cheap and vastly better than what you can get from merchants. Even later on, when your blacksmith will start making rare items for you (after soaking thousands of gold for training) it's worse than AH, because there you will find all same items with a choice of stats that you need for a reasonable price. Thus my honest recommendation is to focus on gold mining and studying how AH works.
Enjoy your game!
- Enable "Show advanced tooltips" option ASAP. You can find it in Options -> Gameplay.
- Enable "Display damage numbers" and other numbers if you like. Also available in Options -> Gameplay.
- Start using Auction House ASAP, don't buy items from vendors or blacksmith
- Focus on primary stat + gold early on. Don't salvage blue for essences - sell it. Don't build "Magic find" or "Health from globes" or any other stat - "Gold find" is best (early on).
Firstly if you anywhere like me, it is super important to understand how your spells work and what's your damage throughput. Since game is item-centric, you need to know exactly how those items help to do more damage, so you can enjoy collecting items, improving your build and seeing the results.
Secondly, AH is a beast. Since there are tons of players going through Normal difficulty right now it's flooded with Rare items that are cheap and vastly better than what you can get from merchants. Even later on, when your blacksmith will start making rare items for you (after soaking thousands of gold for training) it's worse than AH, because there you will find all same items with a choice of stats that you need for a reasonable price. Thus my honest recommendation is to focus on gold mining and studying how AH works.
Enjoy your game!
It has begun!
It is out in a wild!! I can't express how exciting I'm to finally play Diablo III. And while playing is a lot of fun it comes with lots of learning and experimenting which I'm eager to share with fellow adventurers. Thus this blog was created. Hopefully I won't be lazy and post here at least few times a week :)
Blog author: Wizard lvl 25, playing normal difficulty atm.
Blog design: a bold TODO, drafted some random layout over awesome D3 wallpaper.
Blog language: English primarily since I'm playing on US server. Can do some posts in Russian occasionally.
See ya in hell!
Blog author: Wizard lvl 25, playing normal difficulty atm.
Blog design: a bold TODO, drafted some random layout over awesome D3 wallpaper.
Blog language: English primarily since I'm playing on US server. Can do some posts in Russian occasionally.
See ya in hell!
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