Diablo 3 - Gamepad Edition

[tabs]

I play on PC, but this thread is way more active. Been pushing greater rifts recently and got very lucky with a power and channelling pylon just before the rift guardian.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Looks like I'll need to farm some better gear before trying for 51 again.

 

[BadTB25]

Game is deeper than I thought.

Thanks to Cyan for helping me level up from 68 to 70 pretty quickly.
He dropped some cool gear for me to play with also.

One word of caution. If you co-op in to another players game that is in a higher difficulty, when you're done double check your difficulty in Adventure mode. I was playing Rift level on Torment III (I think) with Cyan and then played my own Rift levels solo and was getting wrecked bad. After about 10 minutes of dying literally on the doorstep of the levels, I figured out that it had changed my difficulty from Expert to Torment III. Now playing it on Master as Expert was a little to easy. I'll see how that is before going up again.

 

[specwarGP2]

Great, I miss the cow level. I will get my dairy dose of Diablo 3 tonight. *as I commented on the EG article already, fun chain there*


I think Renegade is right, the drop rate should be more or less about the same as in the PC version. -maybe @specwarGP2 knows more on the matter-

I don't think the drop rate is higher than the PC version. å

 

[specwarGP2]

Great, I miss the cow level. I will get my dairy dose of Diablo 3 tonight. *as I commented on the EG article already, fun chain there*

Cow level spawned for me last night... wasn't anything special imo.

I think Renegade is right, the drop rate should be more or less about the same as in the PC version. -maybe @specwarGP2 knows more on the matter-

I don't think the drop rate is higher on console than it is for PC. At least it doesnt feel like it and I'm P 570ish now on console and P600ish on PC. This is purely anecdotal, for my by far most played class (wizard), only one Wand of Woh has dropped for me on console and PC.

If you decide to create a new character, other people can power level you up in a matter of minutes. You will be able to get to level 70 /from level 1/ in an hour or less in some cases. So you can try out new characters or builds.

Lvl 25 Gem of ease lets you use a lvl 70 wep at lvl 1, so no need to ask someone to power level you. Just start in T6 Act 1 adventure mode and do quick bounties. Dont do the ones in fields where you have to find the den.. takes too long. Exit out after you do the easy bounties and restart. Good items to have are HF amulet, lvl reduce Leorics crown with ruby and low level leorics signet. The first thing you kill with a gem of ease equipped lvl 70 wep will give you like 10 lvls lol. After 5 min I was at lvl 30ish. Around 50 things start to slow down. I was able to get to lvl 70 in about 15 min, but I also had a bunch of lvl 70 legendary level reduce gear that I rolled and found specifically to gear low lvl chars.

 

[BadTB25]

Cow level spawned for me last night... wasn't anything special imo.




I don't think the drop rate is higher on console than it is for PC. At least it doesnt feel like it and I'm P 570ish now on console and P600ish on PC. This is purely anecdotal, for my by far most played class (wizard), only one Wand of Woh has dropped for me on console and PC.



Lvl 25 Gem of ease lets you use a lvl 70 wep at lvl 1, so no need to ask someone to power level you. Just start in T6 Act 1 adventure mode and do quick bounties. Dont do the ones in fields where you have to find the den.. takes too long. Exit out after you do the easy bounties and restart. Good items to have are HF amulet, lvl reduce Leorics crown with ruby and low level leorics signet. The first thing you kill with a gem of ease equipped lvl 70 wep will give you like 10 lvls lol. After 5 min I was at lvl 30ish. Around 50 things start to slow down. I was able to get to lvl 70 in about 15 min, but I also had a bunch of lvl 70 legendary level reduce gear that I rolled and found specifically to gear low lvl chars.

What is a level 25 Gem? Is that something that Shen can make for you? I have him fully leveled up at this point, but haven't seen any indication of what Gem levels other than names. I guess I need to boot it up and read more carefully--On X1 here.

Is the story any different with male characters vs female?

 

[Malo]

The legendary gems from greater rifts can be levelled up to 50. Their ability gets progressively better and you unlock a secondary power at 25.

 

[BadTB25]

The legendary gems from greater rifts can be levelled up to 50. Their ability gets progressively better and you unlock a secondary power at 25.

Thanks. I was wondering when you would get Legendary gems.

 

[Cyan]

I play on PC, but this thread is way more active. Been pushing greater rifts recently and got very lucky with a power and channelling pylon just before the rift guardian.

I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. Looks like I'll need to farm some better gear before trying for 51 again.

I think Beyond3D should merge the console and PC forums. It can be a total success, the contributions of everyone enrich us all, the forum would feel more alive than ever. But that's just a personal opinion.

As for your character, wow....just wow. I thought my Demon Hunter carried a lot of punch already, at Paragon level 215, but yours is a whole different thing. .500 miliseconds... :smile2: you didn't make it by less than a nose, it has to be both amazing and frustrating at the same time.

How did you make it at such difficulty and what's your paragon level? I feel tired tonight and am trying to be concise.

 

[Cyan]

Game is deeper than I thought.

Thanks to Cyan for helping me level up from 68 to 70 pretty quickly.
He dropped some cool gear for me to play with also.

One word of caution. If you co-op in to another players game that is in a higher difficulty, when you're done double check your difficulty in Adventure mode. I was playing Rift level on Torment III (I think) with Cyan and then played my own Rift levels solo and was getting wrecked bad. After about 10 minutes of dying literally on the doorstep of the levels, I figured out that it had changed my difficulty from Expert to Torment III. Now playing it on Master as Expert was a little to easy. I'll see how that is before going up again.

I'd wholeheartedly recommend you to play at Torment 1 now and stay there some time before moving to Torment 2.

Master is ok and all, but the high level gear you'll be using drops at Torment, regardless it's Torment 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 or 6. The good drops won't come in Master.

Don't mind how many apparent good drops you get, most of it is kinda useless depending on your character's play style.

To build your character, while the example I will share with you it's not a Wizard, it doesn't matter, it's just about what to reinforce, and where, where to put gems, etc. For instance, this hardcore Demon Hunter player made it into the news.

http://www.vg247.com/2015/02/16/diablo-3-one-player-has-reached-paragon-level-1000-in-hardcore-without-dying/

Look at his EXACT build in Battlenet, his skills, etc (my DH is different but it doesn't matter, it's about how smart you are adapting the items and the skills, gems, etc):

http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Nokieka-2213/hero/52913062

Thanks. I was wondering when you would get Legendary gems.

Complete Adventure mode Bounties. Then open Rifts with the Keystones. Some Rift bosses will drop Keystones of Trials.

Use a Keystone of Trials, play and see how many waves of monsters you clear. Wave 25 is the equivalent to Torment 6 (afaik, that's why @tabs character is so out of this world). I can get up to wave 27-28 alone now with my DH, in my best trials, not bad for a paragon level 215 I think, but I have a very tough time).

You will get a Keystone to open a Greater Rift with monsters the same level of your trial. Wave 25 means the equivalent of Torment 6 level, as I said, the keystone will have a 25 in it.

Use that keystone, a portal to a Greater Rift will open. This Greater Rift is timed. If you fail to get the Rift boss to appear in less than 15 minutes, you wont get the greatest rewards.

Sometimes those Greater Rift bosses drop legendary gems. Those are increidible overall, in some cases. And can be upgraded. Once you complete the timed rift, a character called UIrshi will appear. Talking to to her you can upgrade a gem or increase the difficulty level of a Greater Rift keystone -say from 25 to 26-.

You also have the option to upgrade one of your legendary gems. The change of success of the upgrade depends on the level of the gem and the level of the rift you completed.

Say... if you beat a Trial and gain access to a level 22 Greater Rift, for instance, any legendary gem you get in that game has a 100% chance of getting upgraded. But if you have been gradually upgrading a Legendary gem, and that gem is level 22 now, beating a level 22 Greater Rift and asking Urshi to upgrade that gem will probably give you a 2% or less chance of success to upgrade the gem, so it isn't worth trying.

Sorry for the dense post, I feel tired, don't feel like typing things out. @Malo , @AlphaWolf , @homerdog , etc, have some very interesting posts from which I learnt a LOT!! in the PC gaming forums, Diablo 3 thread.

 

[BadTB25]

That's a lot to take in. I'll try Torment 1 next time to see how I do.

 

[tabs]

How did you make it at such difficulty and what's your paragon level? I feel tired tonight and am trying to be concise.

I'm paragon 600 as of that image (it's under my portrait), I'm 608 now. Here is a link to my character on bnet so you can see what I'm using.

I can clear 49 almost all the time, 50 frequently and 51.... not yet. As I said I was very lucky with pylons on that 51 and I still didn't quite make it. The rift monsters and guardian could have been better though, so if I don't get any gear upgrades I'll try again in the next few days and see how lucky I am.

The build I'm using focuses primarily on cool down reduction. I forego damage to get more cool down reduction on almost all my gear. With a fully stacked Gogok of Swiftness (this builds up extremely fast and is usually maxed) I can have almost but not quite permanent epiphany and blinding flash, and permanent inner sanctuary. It's a bit tricky to pull off in higher grift levels though, due to needing Taeguk to be stacked, mainly for the defensive bonus it provides, yet having dashing strike as the only resource spender to activate Taeguk. If you overuse dashing strike it reverts to charges if you have no spirit left to spend (meaning Taeguk no longer gets an extra stack, and with a 3 second timer it is back to 0 before you know it).

I love the playstyle. It's very engaging and rewarding when you do it well.

What is your top solo grift with your DH? Are you using Nats? I must confess I don't know much other than monk, I only started seriously playing about a month ago.

 

[Cyan]

I'm paragon 600 as of that image (it's under my portrait), I'm 608 now. Here is a link to my character on bnet so you can see what I'm using.

I can clear 49 almost all the time, 50 frequently and 51.... not yet. As I said I was very lucky with pylons on that 51 and I still didn't quite make it. The rift monsters and guardian could have been better though, so if I don't get any gear upgrades I'll try again in the next few days and see how lucky I am.

The build I'm using focuses primarily on cool down reduction. I forego damage to get more cool down reduction on almost all my gear. With a fully stacked Gogok of Swiftness (this builds up extremely fast and is usually maxed) I can have almost but not quite permanent epiphany and blinding flash, and permanent inner sanctuary. It's a bit tricky to pull off in higher grift levels though, due to needing Taeguk to be stacked, mainly for the defensive bonus it provides, yet having dashing strike as the only resource spender to activate Taeguk. If you overuse dashing strike it reverts to charges if you have no spirit left to spend (meaning Taeguk no longer gets an extra stack, and with a 3 second timer it is back to 0 before you know it).

I love the playstyle. It's very engaging and rewarding when you do it well.

What is your top solo grift with your DH? Are you using Nats? I must confess I don't know much other than monk, I only started seriously playing about a month ago.

The last paragraph makes it all the more impressive. A month? It took me almost a year to get where I am. The monk is my second character, so thanks for sharing your build (Monika rules) , it gives me very important hints, although since the Monk and DH most important ability is Dexterity, I know now where to put certain gems and what to look for when it comes to items. But I will use your character as a reference because honestly, I levelled up my monk pretty fast to level 70, and it was my first character after I purchased the game day one on the PC, but I hated the game and only got to level 23..., so I am very green at handling the monk. :smile2:

Yes, I use Natalya's . Rain of Vengeance is one of my most important skills. Evasive Fire is my resource producing skill. Elemental Arrow is the skill I favour the most -still have longs wait to go, Myriam is giving me headaches with Transmogrification, it's tough to obtain enhanced damage for Elemental Arrow after each re-roll.

Natalya's (I am missing some parts for now, the actual good stuff is very very hard to come by in Diablo 3, no matter how much gold and green items you see) and the Ring of Royal Grandeur help me to take Rain of Vengeance to the next level.

I don't use Elective Mode, maybe in the future with a DH using pets or traps.

You truly don't realise how good you are. Let me tell you that I played with Paragon Level 10000 characters -yup, Xbox One version , modified chars imported from modded Xbox 360s, pure cheating-, two in the same game, sometimes.

The other day 2 of those level 10000 Paragons started a few Greater Rift Trials. The max level we achieved??? 47 and 48 -thought it was 51, but my Keystones of Trials don't lie-. I got a lot of experienced beating the level, they made it in time, I stayed behind because monsters killed me with a single hit.

My top solo grift is 25, if we talk about beating it before the time runs out.

What's your favourite method to level up fast?

Anyways, when I saw your number and your character, what you achieved alone...I was bowled over.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Torment 3 is pretty easy for me now. Moving up to Torment 4. Figured out a better build, and it made a big difference. Did some rifts on my own quite easily. Greater rifts I've only tried with friends, but they're geared up for Torment 6, so I basically sat back and did nothing and collected some paragon levels. Not very exciting. Once I'm geared up to be more useful, doing higher level greater rifts should be fun for a bit, but I think my time with the game is going to be short lived. I'm at just over a week, and I already feel like I've seen almost all that the game has to offer.

 

[tabs]

No point in playing if it's not doing it for you. Personally I find the game very addictive even if it is highly repetitive. Maybe you haven't found the right class / build that you'd enjoy more? I know I wouldn't enjoy playing a WW barb nearly as much as my DS monk. Also I find solo grifting a real challenge and highly enjoyable as you push higher (also nice to level your legendary gems).

What's your favourite method to level up fast?

Solo play is simply slower, there's no way around it. Some of the tips I'm about to give rely on having a group. In order of value:

Difficulty level
You should be 1 or 2 shotting trash mobs with your main damage source. Any more than that, you need to lower the difficulty or you'll be completing quests too slowly.

Speed running Greater Rifts
Speed running GR40+ with a friend or two is what I'm up to these days. We tend to complete one in 3-5 minutes and at GR42 you get 250 blood shards at the end (which is the max you can get from a grift). Of course you already need to have pretty good gear before you can do speed runs at that level. Basically find the grift level that you can complete in 3-5 minutes (more often closer to 3 minutes) and do lots of them.

Get used to finishing your town duties as the "grift will close in 30 secs" timer runs out. Spending 30 seconds in town each run, rather than 3-4 minutes makes a huge difference in the long run. I have a process that I follow after every grift.

1. Speak to Orek
2. Kadala
3. Cain's book
4. Blacksmith
5. Stash, but only if I have new items (get used to having a bunch of gems and materials in your inventory - as you're grifting you don't need the extra space)

There is no running back and forth with this routine, and is the fastest I've found yet.

I didn't start speed grifting until I could do a GR30 in about 3 minutes, so it may be that at lower grift levels it is more efficient to farm rifts and bounties.

If one of the group needs to go afk for a couple of minutes between runs, I'll hop around the acts and try to find a pool of reflection. If I find one I'll wait there until they can teleport to me then we use it. There is always a pool (either red or yellow) in one of the maps right next to the waypoint you spawn at... I want to say act 3. You'll know it when you find it. It's the battlefield next to the crossing, I forget the name.

Rifts
A fresh T6 player will probably want to clear the rift after killing the rift guardian as the elite mob density is higher here than in bounties (meaning more loot). Someone who is already speed farming grifts, or has a nice backlog of rift fragments will want to finish the rift as soon as the guardian is dead. If you are clearing the rift, once you've killed the rift guardian ignore the trash mobs and just hunt down the elites and open the chests. Once you've killed the elites, move on to the next level of the rift. Slowing down to kill trash mobs is your worst enemy from an efficiency standpoint once the rift guardian is dead.

Split farm bounties
Split farm act 1 bounties. Act 1 bounties are easier and faster than other acts. Split farming means you each do a different bounty, converging on the last one. 50% of the time on a public game (PC, EU, non-seasonal) people know what they're doing in my experience. On T6 in pubs I find that most games are over within 4-8 minutes. That's a bunch of XP and a horadric cache every 4-8 minutes! As soon as the horadric cache is collected leave the game and find a new one.

Cherry picking bounties
Rather than limiting yourself to act 1, go through all the acts and look for bounties that are 'cursed'. These are lots of fun and give lots of xp and usually some loot. Once you've exhausted all the cursed bounties, leave the game and remake.

 

[Cyan]

No point in playing if it's not doing it for you. Personally I find the game very addictive even if it is highly repetitive. Maybe you haven't found the right class / build that you'd enjoy more? I know I wouldn't enjoy playing a WW barb nearly as much as my DS monk. Also I find solo grifting a real challenge and highly enjoyable as you push higher (also nice to level your legendary gems).



Solo play is simply slower, there's no way around it. Some of the tips I'm about to give rely on having a group. In order of value:

Difficulty level
You should be 1 or 2 shotting trash mobs with your main damage source. Any more than that, you need to lower the difficulty or you'll be completing quests too slowly.

Speed running Greater Rifts
Speed running GR40+ with a friend or two is what I'm up to these days. We tend to complete one in 3-5 minutes and at GR42 you get 250 blood shards at the end (which is the max you can get from a grift). Of course you already need to have pretty good gear before you can do speed runs at that level. Basically find the grift level that you can complete in 3-5 minutes (more often closer to 3 minutes) and do lots of them.

Get used to finishing your town duties as the "grift will close in 30 secs" timer runs out. Spending 30 seconds in town each run, rather than 3-4 minutes makes a huge difference in the long run. I have a process that I follow after every grift.

1. Speak to Orek
2. Kadala
3. Cain's book
4. Blacksmith
5. Stash, but only if I have new items (get used to having a bunch of gems and materials in your inventory - as you're grifting you don't need the extra space)

There is no running back and forth with this routine, and is the fastest I've found yet.

I didn't start speed grifting until I could do a GR30 in about 3 minutes, so it may be that at lower grift levels it is more efficient to farm rifts and bounties.

If one of the group needs to go afk for a couple of minutes between runs, I'll hop around the acts and try to find a pool of reflection. If I find one I'll wait there until they can teleport to me then we use it. There is always a pool (either red or yellow) in one of the maps right next to the waypoint you spawn at... I want to say act 3. You'll know it when you find it. It's the battlefield next to the crossing, I forget the name.

Rifts
A fresh T6 player will probably want to clear the rift after killing the rift guardian as the elite mob density is higher here than in bounties (meaning more loot). Someone who is already speed farming grifts, or has a nice backlog of rift fragments will want to finish the rift as soon as the guardian is dead. If you are clearing the rift, once you've killed the rift guardian ignore the trash mobs and just hunt down the elites and open the chests. Once you've killed the elites, move on to the next level of the rift. Slowing down to kill trash mobs is your worst enemy from an efficiency standpoint once the rift guardian is dead.

Split farm bounties
Split farm act 1 bounties. Act 1 bounties are easier and faster than other acts. Split farming means you each do a different bounty, converging on the last one. 50% of the time on a public game (PC, EU, non-seasonal) people know what they're doing in my experience. On T6 in pubs I find that most games are over within 4-8 minutes. That's a bunch of XP and a horadric cache every 4-8 minutes! As soon as the horadric cache is collected leave the game and find a new one.

Cherry picking bounties
Rather than limiting yourself to act 1, go through all the acts and look for bounties that are 'cursed'. These are lots of fun and give lots of xp and usually some loot. Once you've exhausted all the cursed bounties, leave the game and remake.

Just wanted to say a huge hank you for your great tips and advice. I got general idea and I feel well prepared to play at a different pace from now on. My current play style is random, I go from one thing to another in a jiffy, change difficulty levels, switch acts, go from bounties to trials, to greater rifts, then bounties again....

Difficulty level
You should be 1 or 2 shotting trash mobs with your main damage source. Any more than that, you need to lower the difficulty or you'll be completing quests too slowly

By being 1 or 2, you mean playing on Torment 1 or 2, right? Excuse me if I am wrong. That's quite surprising if you ask me. I thought 3 was the sweet spot, but sometimes one forgets that Diablo games have always been based on speed -that's why runs like Pindleskin were so popular. And fortunately that hasn't changed.

What are "cursed" bounties? I can't tell which ones and which ones aren't, by their description. Cursed shrines?

My DH is more or less defined, it's only the items that need fine tweaking, like focusing them on Elemental Arrow -cold damage-, and finding the rest of the Natalya's set items. I have 4 out of 6, and two paris of Natalya's gloves, but I use different gloves because currently my Natalya's set gloves leave a lot to be desired.

Reading your post was a perfect summary, you have my +10. Thanks again.

 

[tabs]

Not torment 1 or 2. I mean you should kill a trash mob in 1 or 2 hits with your main source of damage. Set the difficulty to whatever fits that criteria and you will be farming the most efficiently.

Cursed bounties are bounties that have the word 'cursed' in their description. The actual bounty will either be a cursed chest or shrine. They either spawn an elite pack or waves of mobs that you have to kill within a time limit.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Diablo 2 was a much better game than this console version of Diablo 3. I'm at the point where I can get through a regular rift on Torment 6 very easily, but my damage is a bit low so I can't quite speed through it. I can do a 28 greater rift solo. Right now, the only way to advance is to get ancient drops to swap out my set. Most nights, I get nothing of value. I'll have to make an alt, grind that character and hopefully get drops for my main.

The first campaign playthrough was average to poor, because of the locked difficulty. Adventure mode offered a brief window of challenge and fun as I ramped up to torment 6. Overall, the design of the game is a failure. I got my money's worth, but compared to how much fun I had playing Diablo 2, at the time, Diablo 3 is a relatively weak experience.

 

[Malo]

People were doing much higher than 28 before ancient drops. It's not just about the stats but also about the combinations of various abilities and sets. Sometimes you just can't push a specific build any further and need to adapt. It's kind of frustrating that the viable builds get smaller and smaller as you strive to get higher add I prefer to try different builds rather than the known guaranteed output builds.

I am focused on my WD at the moment and over the weekend changed my build to get the 6 pc zunimassa bonus and went from 26ish Grift to now able to solo complete 35 within the timer.

 

[RenegadeRocks]

There was another update recently. Any major change ? or addition of gear? I plan on giving it a few rounds in between The Witcher again.

 

[Scott_Arm]

People were doing much higher than 28 before ancient drops. It's not just about the stats but also about the combinations of various abilities and sets. Sometimes you just can't push a specific build any further and need to adapt. It's kind of frustrating that the viable builds get smaller and smaller as you strive to get higher add I prefer to try different builds rather than the known guaranteed output builds.

I am focused on my WD at the moment and over the weekend changed my build to get the 6 pc zunimassa bonus and went from 26ish Grift to now able to solo complete 35 within the timer.

My damage is too low. I have a full set of that Roland's gear for my crusader, and I have the denial shield with a good roll to increase the damage on my sweep attack. I need to rank up my legendary gems, but otherwise, I'm missing the flail that makes sweep attack generate wrath. If I had that, I could sweep attack non-stop and it would make a massive difference. My items are all fairly good, but some of them the rolls are not ideal. At this point, it's just getting better items with better rolls to progress.