What to do in the last week of Season Two, and how to prepare for Season Three? Plus higher Greater Rift strategy and death avoidance, SUPERKADALA, and a shared Legendary Gem interface. Featuring Tyr, Mjinspace, and Flux.
Click through for approximate segment starting times and related links:
The Diablo 3 Podcast #169: S2’s Last Week and GRift Heights
1:30 — Plans for the last week of Season Two. The secret super value of the Overwhelming Desire amulet.
7:00 — Random tales of RoRG and Keywarden farming. Has anyone ever found a usable Hellfire Amulet?
14:00 — Preparing for late Season GR push… danger in HC and sandbagging in SC.
18:00 — The ridiculous nature of T6 once you’re really geared for GR40+. Why is there no higher Torment yet?
21:00 — Season Three weekend plans?
27:00 — Greater Rift progression; can you predict your advance, or is there too much RNG from too many RNG sources?
34:40 — Does Gambling satisfy now, and will a 900 max Bloodshard cap change your opinion come Patch 2.3? Would gambling specific weapon types fix the problem?
39:45 — SUPERKADALA! How the devs said it might work as a new way to create Ancient weapons, and why perfect is the enemy of good in Diablo III patches.
45:00 — Ancient weapons are mandatory, but too hard to find. How to fix? More weapons with better legendary affixes?
55:00 — Devs are too advanced and using ideas way beyond what the community is looking for?
1:01:00 — Too much difficulty and random unavoidable death on higher GRs?
1:10:00 — Shared interface for Legendary Gems would be awesome; just one of each type in menu, and clone off a copy any time you want for each char?
The problem is that Ancient items stand alone as end-game weapons, if there were other choices when a player does not get an Ancient weapon then things would be so much better.
When you make such an exclusive item and tie it to progression (damage) then the game really needs to offer alternatives.
Diablo 2 did this with multiple item types being end game viable.
As was mentioned in the podcast, having options is a good thing. Right now this is not the case with weapons.
Another issue with ancient weapons that wasn't really discussed is that not all classes are created equal in their weapon flexibility. Take Crusader (my main) the only viable build for leader boards right now is condemn. In order to make the condemn build work you have to have a Blade of Prophecy, it's not even up for discussion. I have found plenty of decent ancient weapons throughout the season (ancient golden flense, maximus, heart slaughter etc.) but I can't use a single one to help push that next GR higher because the build completely falls apart.
I think the game would be better off without Ancient weapons because it does add a level of RNG that's just unnecessary, but failing that it'd sure be nice to have more flexibility in weapon choices so if you find an ancient weapon it's most likely going to be better than your BiS non-ancient weapon.
Maybe build enabling affixes (like condemn) shouldn't be placed in the weapon slot…
I think the Crusader is suffering right now for being the newest class added to Diablo 3 during the expansion, the rest of the classes have had years for the devs to really hone their philosophies on each class and there has been plenty of time for skill tweaks and items to come into the game for the vanilla classes, while the Crusader just has not had enough time devoted to it yet. Its still very much maturing in this slow development its caught up in.
The Crusader needs at least two more sets to even begin to come close to other classes right now.
I agree about unavoidable damage too, but the #1 reason i don't play HC is because the few times i've tried i lost the characters to connection issues (whirlwind de-sync, d/c etc.)and that's even less fun.
Mjinspace was talking about Jailer being unavoidable damage but invigorating gemstone mitigates most of that. He just made it sound like there was no options, lol there is options just have to use a defensive gem maybe.
It's MyJiN _ FIFY
I totally disagree with mjinspace. Ancient items are awesome. Much better than non-ancient and there's more to look forward to, not less.
The problem is that Ancient items stand alone as end-game weapons, if there were other choices when a player does not get an Ancient weapon then things would be so much better.
When you make such an exclusive item and tie it to progression (damage) then the game really needs to offer alternatives.
Diablo 2 did this with multiple item types being end game viable.
As was mentioned in the podcast, having options is a good thing. Right now this is not the case with weapons.
Another issue with ancient weapons that wasn't really discussed is that not all classes are created equal in their weapon flexibility. Take Crusader (my main) the only viable build for leader boards right now is condemn. In order to make the condemn build work you have to have a Blade of Prophecy, it's not even up for discussion. I have found plenty of decent ancient weapons throughout the season (ancient golden flense, maximus, heart slaughter etc.) but I can't use a single one to help push that next GR higher because the build completely falls apart.
I think the game would be better off without Ancient weapons because it does add a level of RNG that's just unnecessary, but failing that it'd sure be nice to have more flexibility in weapon choices so if you find an ancient weapon it's most likely going to be better than your BiS non-ancient weapon.
Maybe build enabling affixes (like condemn) shouldn't be placed in the weapon slot…
I think the Crusader is suffering right now for being the newest class added to Diablo 3 during the expansion, the rest of the classes have had years for the devs to really hone their philosophies on each class and there has been plenty of time for skill tweaks and items to come into the game for the vanilla classes, while the Crusader just has not had enough time devoted to it yet. Its still very much maturing in this slow development its caught up in.
The Crusader needs at least two more sets to even begin to come close to other classes right now.
Things should be better by next expansion.
I agree completely with Mjinspace on the whole unavoidable damage issue, and what that does to the game.
Its the number one reason I do not and will never play Hardcore in D3, even though I was very much into Hardcore in D2.
I agree about unavoidable damage too, but the #1 reason i don't play HC is because the few times i've tried i lost the characters to connection issues (whirlwind de-sync, d/c etc.)and that's even less fun.
Mjinspace was talking about Jailer being unavoidable damage but invigorating gemstone mitigates most of that. He just made it sound like there was no options, lol there is options just have to use a defensive gem maybe.
It's last week already? Oh, I need to level up my WD to 70.