Diablo III launch

[Paracelsi]

I got it from Blizzard's D3 forums (I've been avoiding other sites because of the hacker rumors) and personal testing. You read all kinds at the forums though, so beyond these I have no idea which other stats work. None of the pet guides gave been stickied so far. These stats are the easiest to test though, just remove all armor and use weapons/off-hands/rings/amulets with the same stats.

Since I don't know exactly how these stats work the best I can do is compare your stats with mine. Your int is much higher (my WD has 919) but I use a two-hand weapon. My damage (from the character window) was ~9.8k in Hell, currently its 12,787 and my vitality is only 600 (~21k HP). My resists are at 300 though (~50% reduction) which rises to 350 with 5 stacks Soul Harvest, and I have a total armor of 3.3k. I can survive 4 or more hits in Act 1 Inferno. The dogs die in 2 hits, Garg can survive long enough to tank 8 hits. None of them die if I kill fast enough and loot health orbs. Currently 3 hits from just about any mob in Act 2 is fatal. Garg goes down in 4 or 5, though I've seen him go down in 2 from an elite. Yep, I really need better gear.
The one good thing is that Act 2 mobs seem to have just about as much HP as Act 1 mobs. I think it might be best if you test your survivability in Act 1 Inferno first before switching gear, I'd suggest switching immediately if you had ~30k HP but you must have something like ~45k HP? And with good armor. It might be just as effective for Act 1 Inferno. Act 2 Inferno is different, though.

[Marceror]

Originally Posted by Paracelsi

I got it from Blizzard's D3 forums (I've been avoiding other sites because of the hacker rumors) and personal testing. You read all kinds at the forums though, so beyond these I have no idea which other stats work. None of the pet guides gave been stickied so far. These stats are the easiest to test though, just remove all armor and use weapons/off-hands/rings/amulets with the same stats.

I'm not sure I really understand why Blizzard forces players to reverse engineer such important details. I mean, if you want to play an effective summoner, it would be kind of nice to, you know, understand how to improve that stats of your summons.

Since I don't know exactly how these stats work the best I can do is compare your stats with mine. Your int is much higher (my WD has 919) but I use a two-hand weapon. My damage (from the character window) was ~9.8k in Hell, currently its 12,787 and my vitality is only 600 (~21k HP). My resists are at 300 though (~50% reduction) which rises to 350 with 5 stacks Soul Harvest, and I have a total armor of 3.3k. I can survive 4 or more hits in Act 1 Inferno. The dogs die in 2 hits, Garg can survive long enough to tank 8 hits. None of them die if I kill fast enough and loot health orbs. Currently 3 hits from just about any mob in Act 2 is fatal. Garg goes down in 4 or 5, though I've seen him go down in 2 from an elite. Yep, I really need better gear.
The one good thing is that Act 2 mobs seem to have just about as much HP as Act 1 mobs. I think it might be best if you test your survivability in Act 1 Inferno first before switching gear, I'd suggest switching immediately if you had ~30k HP but you must have something like ~45k HP? And with good armor. It might be just as effective for Act 1 Inferno. Act 2 Inferno is different, though.

Interesting to compare another player's stats. You definitely have me beat in the damage department. When you say you went from 9.8k damage in hell to 12.7k in inferno, is that because you improved your weapon or something, or do you get a damage bonus in inferno over what you get in hell?

[Paracelsi]

Bought a new weapon with 960 dps around the later half of Hell Act 4. They're pretty cheap at the moment, though as soon as you include +Intelligence or +crit rate in the AH search window the prices you get skyrocket. I pretty much need all the damage I can get, since my only damaging skill (besides the summons) is Plague of Toads.

[Marceror]

Nice. I finally killed Diablo in Hell difficulty this evening. It was a rather tough fight at ~7k DPS. And there was one battle on the way to him that I couldn't beat... 3 enemies that weren't taking ANY damage from me. I lured them to one side of the map, they killed me, and I portaled back in and stayed clear.

Those 2 things convinced me to make my largest purchase to date, a 1 handed weapon that does 653.4 dps, which I purchased for 400k gold. It also has 124 int and 116 vitalit, among other mods. DPS is now over 10k and life is close to 49k. Opening part of Act I in inferno is push over easy so far. I'm sure it will become a lot tougher soon.

[joacqin]

I have gone a completely different route. I play my wizard and have been and will continue to focus on dmg. The people I play with said that I had to start stack defence and vitality. I don't want to tank. I want to kill!

Playing alone is generally easier than going as a group at least up to early inferno where I have played. A lot more fun as a group though.

[Paracelsi]

I've come to the point where I simply can't rely on my summons anymore. The dogs are still useful for the Sacrifice rune Provoke the Pack, but the Gargantuan can no longer survive without Big Bad Voodoo rune Ghost Trance. I blame my gear (if you haven't done so yet try searching the AH for high-end legendaries. They're as stupidly powerful as they are expensive).

[joacqin]

Ok, Inferno is great, in a team. Doing the same thing you have done three times before with the only exception stupidly powerful enemies isn't very fun. Especially not when you have to farm to get gear/money to be able to go to the next act. The jump in difficulty between act1 and act2 inferno is almost as big as between hell and inferno. So, you need to improve your gear. Doing it alone is boooring.

Doing it as a group is fun. You trade drops, you laugh at each other when you get instagibbed and you really all run around like headless chickens. Seeing as some combinations of abilities monsters have are neigh on impossible for certain classes being part of a group spreads the risk. A combo my wizard struggles with is something my barb mate find easy and vice versa. Quite a lot of packs when one or the other of us have spent most of the fight dead while the other have had no problem whatsoever.

[Marceror]

Originally Posted by Paracelsi

I've come to the point where I simply can't rely on my summons anymore. The dogs are still useful for the Sacrifice rune Provoke the Pack, but the Gargantuan can no longer survive without Big Bad Voodoo rune Ghost Trance. I blame my gear (if you haven't done so yet try searching the AH for high-end legendaries. They're as stupidly powerful as they are expensive).

According to Blizzard, WD summons are underpowered. They should be receiving some buffs at some point in a future patch: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/topic/5596252588

Having them scale with player vitality sounds like an excellent start.

[Tassadar]

I like the little fetishes, they seem to survive anything. Wish they lasted a bit longer than 20 seconds though! Or at least lower the cooldown a bit - 120 seconds is so excessive.

[Paracelsi]

The dogs definitely have very limited survivability but I honestly don't think they should scale with vitality. The Gargantuan could do with armor/resistance/damage absorption improvements though, so I don't need to sacrifice two skill slots (Big Bad Voodoo's Ghost Trance and Spirit Walk's Healing Journey) -and- two passives (Fierce Loyalty and Zombie Handler) just to keep him alive. Him scaling with vitality sounds just about right. The dogs should just be invulnerable, imo, like the hydra. Since the dogs no longer need an HP boost Zombie Handler and Fetish Sycopanths should be combined (Jungle Summoner, or whatever).

[Marceror]

The Demon Hunter gets an invulnerable companion (a raven, spider, bat, boar, pair of ferrets or a wolf, depending on the rune used), so it doesn't seem a stretch at all that the so-called summoner of the game would have such a benefit also.

It doesn't sound like that is the direction Blizzard wants to go, but it seems they haven't made any firm decisions yet, so who knows.

[joacqin]

Invulnerable summons can't tank for you. One hit on your dog is one less on you.

[Marceror]

Good point. Personally, as my DH has around 1200 vitality, allowing this stat to improve the survivability of minions, garg and dogs, would surely make the summoner option a lot more viable for me.

[Gnarfflinger]

I got the game at launch, but had to wait a week and a half until I got a working computer that would run it (That's a rant for somewhere else if I want to go back there). I've tried all 5 classes and like them all. The shared stash is really helping me gear my lower characters better.

I'm still seeing server lag issues, but they only pop up when I have limited time to play, and the auction house hasn't been helpful yet as I keep getting outbid on items I've tried to get.

So for now I'm stuck at Diablo with my WD is stuck at Diablo (normal), my Barb is just entering act IV, Monk working act III, DH just getting there, and my Wizzard is late in act II. I've got some work cut out for me, but I'll have more time next week...

[joacqin]

How can you be stuck in normal? You must be doing something seriously wrong if that is the case. The game doesn't even start to get remotely challenging until early Hell and even there things are quite manageable. Now, inferno, jeez, again act1 inferno ok but after that things become stupid. Fun but stupid.

I think you should give the AH another look, don't bid on stuff. Just buy things out.

Another tip is to check for elective mode I think it is. It allows you to choose whatever skills you want on your action bar and doesn't limit you to one per "school". I struggled a bit when I kept thinking that newest skill is the best skill. Not the case, find a set of spells that fit your play style and stick with them. Below Inferno you can make pretty much any combination work although some are easier than others.

[Paracelsi]

Invulnerable summons can't tank for you. One hit on your dog is one less on you.

The dogs also double as a resource, specifically for the Sacrifice skill. Sacrifice is basically D3's Corpse Explosion, with runes that that grant useful secondary effects (recover HP/Mana, create more explosions, significantly improve your DPS per dog sacrificed). Using the dogs as a resource helps circumvent the mana problem, which is why I'd rather have the option to have invulnerable dogs than 1-2 hit meatshields (besides, the fetish already have that function covered). It would be different if I could command my dogs to kite enemy mobs away from me, but currently their AI is basically run-towards-the-first-thing-that-comes-in-range - Arcane Enchanted (a.k.a. kite or die) or otherwise. While the warning they provide (by revealing where enemy mobs are) and their ability to block enemy movement can be invaluable for some builds, their actual "meatshield value" is questionable, especially when they take off in different directions. The 60 second cooldown on the Summon Zombie Dog spell doesn't help.

[Gnarfflinger]

I was stuck on normal because I was undergeared with my lead character. I have since given the Auction house another look, and that put me over the top. My Barbarian has also fared well between a lucky drop and some stuff my Witch Doctor found when Diablo finally fell.

I see what you're saying about just buying things out, as bidding rarely gets you anything.

I'm also starting to auction off some of the stuff I find and think a lower level character might appreciate. I'm wondering if a buyout price might help me move some of this crap...

I find that buying gems may be the best bargain I've found there. Interestingly enough, it's over 100 for a chipped gem, but a flawed one can be found for 40 to 60 gold...

The biggest hurdle I'll have this week is time. It's the middle of the hay harvest, and I've had a couple long days, and there may be a couple more long days ahead...

[Aldeth the Foppish Idiot]

Holy cow! A Gnarff sighting!!! Have you transferred from WoW to Sanctuary?

[Gnarfflinger]

Last fall, I just hit a point where I just couldn't look at WoW any more. It was confirmed this spring when someone paid for a two month time card to bring me back so he could get a fancy mount.

I pre-ordered Diablo III when I heard that they were taking orders. I figure this summer I will give SW:TOR a real try.

Meanwhile, I'm selling some interesting things I find on the AH to finance my advancing characters...

[The Great Snook]

I bought two copies of this game on Thursday and myself and Teen Snook are already hopelessly addicted. One thing I'm enjoying is that he has way more free time and is a much higher level than I am so he keeps saving cool things for my Demon Hunter.

My only complaint so far, and this really isn't a complaint is that the multiplayer doesn't seem as intense as it was in D2. Although, that may be because I'm still going through my first pass (still haven't gotten out of Act I)

[joacqin]

All the way up to inferno is basically just levelling smoothly and easy. The "real" game doesn't really start until inferno and there it is plenty intense. You can play it once on normal but it isn't very satisfying and you do not get much bang for your bucks and I was thinking what was so special about this game and why people were so excited. Then I came to inferno. Jebus, what you basically do is die, die, die, curse unfair mob ability combos and then die some more. But slowly you start to get a hang of it and you start improving your gear. You have to farm a lot, scan the AH for upgrades. Improve your gear one piece at a time to be able to progress. I have been doing this for two weeks now and am enjoying it a lot more in some twisted way than when I just blitzed past the first three difficulties. I am getting ready to start progressing in act3 inferno and am playing with a bunch of both rl friends and some old WoW mates.

What class is Teen Snook playing? If you are a demon hunter I would recommend him to play a monk or a barbarian. It is really hard to progress solo for anyone in inferno but things get more manageable with one tank and one damage dealer. Tank focuses on beefing up hp, armour and resistances while the damage dealer beefs up his damage. Keep us posted Snook!

[The Great Snook]

Barbarian all the way for him. He started playing D2 at age 5 (now 16) and the barbarian suited him then and still does.

[Paracelsi]

You picked just the right combo. Barbarians have less crowd control skills than monks, but all the protection a demon hunter really needs is a lot of distance between him and his target/s.

[Faraaz]

Bit late to the thread, but I've been having fun playing the game. Leveled a Wizard to 59 on the European servers (for latency reasons) but then I realized I have the US client and when they patch stuff, it seems to break my client for some reason and it only lets me play on the US servers...

Rerolled with a Demon Hunter that's in A3 Inferno at the moment. It's been a lot of fun certainly.

Also, if any of ya'll are looking for multiplayer in game, Battle tag: Atterana#1327!

[The Great Snook]

Originally Posted by Paracelsi

You picked just the right combo. Barbarians have less crowd control skills than monks, but all the protection a demon hunter really needs is a lot of distance between him and his target/s.

I think you may be right about that. We are still in Act 2 normal and last night we got some decent playing time in. He is I believe level 21 and I think I'm 19. We found that as long as we played together we were unstoppable. It was when we seperated that we would end up dying. I need him to be an aggro meat shield killing machine and he needs me "bring on the pain" from a distance. There was one time in particular that it worked well. He was surrounded by about six "champion" level bad guys. He noticed that the first one took around ten hits to kill, but by the time he got to the last one it was so weakened he got it in one.


Here's a question. Does resurrection do anything except bring you back where your corpse is?