05-02-2013, 08:23 PM
[Cross-posted from guild forum to the LL:]
So let’s start today’s recap with the bad news: Belial killed off my HC witch doctor Friday evening. I was at 11k DPS, and it just wasn’t enough since I worked him down to maybe one-eighth of his life bar, but got caught in too many poison explosions. I had switched to a more pet-friendly build, with Garg, ZD/rabid, Jungle Fortitude and Bad Medicine. Ironically, my pets did not die at all. I think this means I went too defensive and should have kept a buff for my own DPS. Gruesome Feast, perhaps, or maybe Fetish Sycophants for additional damage. Vision Quest? Don’t know, but I’ll certainly change it up next time. I’ll probably also make sure I have a bit more DPS before stepping into that arena again. I think one of my issues was a lack of familiarity with that fight. I don’t face Belial in Inferno very often, whereas I did countless Butcher runs when that’s about all I could accomplish in the highest difficulty (months ago). In the Chamber of Suffering, I’m able to anticipate and dodge many of the Butcher’s attacks because I’m used to seeing them. I have no such innate feeling against Belial.
There’s not much else in HC news; I’ll probably try to level my barb next (currently lvl 10) or group with [guildmate’s] monk using my DH (level 19 or so). The journey of leveling up is a lot of the fun in HC anyway, so I haven’t been turned off playing it or anything like that.
My standard witch doctor has been farming on MP3 with [3 guildmates]. If I end up in a public game I usually choose MP2. I’m at paragon 77 and once I hit 78, I should get a nice bump in damage and EHP. I’m going to swap out my magic-find chest armor for a Zuni’s piece, and at the same time add Zuni’s boots and mojo. Hopefully I’ll get past that 100k DPS level with the change.
Now for the good news: I have been slowly adding armor upgrades to my (standard mode) barb over the past month or so. I have bid on various pieces, mostly Immortal King’s stuff, and lost out plenty of times. But I eventually won at the 1 – 2 million gold level, and now I have +Armor on every item slot save the weapon (Skorn). I also added 2 Blackthorne set pieces (chest and pants) for a boost to my Vitality. A trip over to D3up.com showed my barb at 55k Life, 8k Armor and 650k EHP. With War Cry/Impunity active, the boost gets me over 800k EHP. So what could I accomplish with that and 115k screen DPS? I was short some Act 1 keys, so it was off to the Fields of Misery.
Game one I set to MP7. I’ve adopted [guildmate's] strategy of going straight for the keywarden and then running away if I have less than 5 stacks. A quick trip to Festering Woods usually closes the NV stack gap, and then I can go right back and kill the warden. The very first elite pack I got was the charging Savage Beasts, and I managed to survive. I had one death to elite leapers that were Plagued, Waller, and Vortex. Several times I Leapt away from the fray, only to be Vortexed right back in. I still might have survived this fight if not for a tree wandering over and adding some poison mines to the obstacle course. But, about 20 minutes after starting the game, I had one key to pair with that one death. That’s an acceptable rate to me-which is good since I also had one with my witch doctor on an MP7 Act 2 key run with [guildmate’s] barb. I was rewarded with a key; [guildmate] received a laurel, and hearty handshake from the game for his trouble.
All right…what happens if I crank up this dial? MP8: 1 key and no deaths in 25 minutes. How about 9? 1 key and no deaths in just over 30 minutes. What the hell…let’s try MP 10: 1 key and no deaths in just under 30 minutes. (I had to explore every part of the Fields of Misery on MP9 before finding the warden.) As I’ve mentioned, this is a kiting build, and there was LOTS of kiting going on, but I managed to stay unfrozen 99% of the time.
[LL edit: I stole this build from Hunter (Athenau on LL).
Bash/Punish
Leap/Death from Above
Hammer of the Ancients/Smash
Rend/Bloodlust
Battle Rage/Into the Fray
War Cry/Impunity
Ruthless/Weapons Master/Animosity
end LL edit]
Since I was mobile, I could avoid taking the worst of the damage. Rend is the literal lifesaver for this build, and it’s best to fire one off right before you kite so you’re healing while you run away. 3 of the 4 runs included an elite charger pack; while those fights were scary they weren’t insurmountable. I only got one goblin, on MP7, and managed to kill it. I don’t think I would be able to above 7 unless it somehow got cornered for awhile.
So I know what you’re thinking now: “Big deal, Aahz. The monsters in Act 1 are easy compared to 2 and 3. How many deaths would you have there?” That’s a good point, and I intend to find out in the next few days. Who’s with me?
So let’s start today’s recap with the bad news: Belial killed off my HC witch doctor Friday evening. I was at 11k DPS, and it just wasn’t enough since I worked him down to maybe one-eighth of his life bar, but got caught in too many poison explosions. I had switched to a more pet-friendly build, with Garg, ZD/rabid, Jungle Fortitude and Bad Medicine. Ironically, my pets did not die at all. I think this means I went too defensive and should have kept a buff for my own DPS. Gruesome Feast, perhaps, or maybe Fetish Sycophants for additional damage. Vision Quest? Don’t know, but I’ll certainly change it up next time. I’ll probably also make sure I have a bit more DPS before stepping into that arena again. I think one of my issues was a lack of familiarity with that fight. I don’t face Belial in Inferno very often, whereas I did countless Butcher runs when that’s about all I could accomplish in the highest difficulty (months ago). In the Chamber of Suffering, I’m able to anticipate and dodge many of the Butcher’s attacks because I’m used to seeing them. I have no such innate feeling against Belial.
There’s not much else in HC news; I’ll probably try to level my barb next (currently lvl 10) or group with [guildmate’s] monk using my DH (level 19 or so). The journey of leveling up is a lot of the fun in HC anyway, so I haven’t been turned off playing it or anything like that.
My standard witch doctor has been farming on MP3 with [3 guildmates]. If I end up in a public game I usually choose MP2. I’m at paragon 77 and once I hit 78, I should get a nice bump in damage and EHP. I’m going to swap out my magic-find chest armor for a Zuni’s piece, and at the same time add Zuni’s boots and mojo. Hopefully I’ll get past that 100k DPS level with the change.
Now for the good news: I have been slowly adding armor upgrades to my (standard mode) barb over the past month or so. I have bid on various pieces, mostly Immortal King’s stuff, and lost out plenty of times. But I eventually won at the 1 – 2 million gold level, and now I have +Armor on every item slot save the weapon (Skorn). I also added 2 Blackthorne set pieces (chest and pants) for a boost to my Vitality. A trip over to D3up.com showed my barb at 55k Life, 8k Armor and 650k EHP. With War Cry/Impunity active, the boost gets me over 800k EHP. So what could I accomplish with that and 115k screen DPS? I was short some Act 1 keys, so it was off to the Fields of Misery.
Game one I set to MP7. I’ve adopted [guildmate's] strategy of going straight for the keywarden and then running away if I have less than 5 stacks. A quick trip to Festering Woods usually closes the NV stack gap, and then I can go right back and kill the warden. The very first elite pack I got was the charging Savage Beasts, and I managed to survive. I had one death to elite leapers that were Plagued, Waller, and Vortex. Several times I Leapt away from the fray, only to be Vortexed right back in. I still might have survived this fight if not for a tree wandering over and adding some poison mines to the obstacle course. But, about 20 minutes after starting the game, I had one key to pair with that one death. That’s an acceptable rate to me-which is good since I also had one with my witch doctor on an MP7 Act 2 key run with [guildmate’s] barb. I was rewarded with a key; [guildmate] received a laurel, and hearty handshake from the game for his trouble.
All right…what happens if I crank up this dial? MP8: 1 key and no deaths in 25 minutes. How about 9? 1 key and no deaths in just over 30 minutes. What the hell…let’s try MP 10: 1 key and no deaths in just under 30 minutes. (I had to explore every part of the Fields of Misery on MP9 before finding the warden.) As I’ve mentioned, this is a kiting build, and there was LOTS of kiting going on, but I managed to stay unfrozen 99% of the time.
[LL edit: I stole this build from Hunter (Athenau on LL).
Bash/Punish
Leap/Death from Above
Hammer of the Ancients/Smash
Rend/Bloodlust
Battle Rage/Into the Fray
War Cry/Impunity
Ruthless/Weapons Master/Animosity
end LL edit]
Since I was mobile, I could avoid taking the worst of the damage. Rend is the literal lifesaver for this build, and it’s best to fire one off right before you kite so you’re healing while you run away. 3 of the 4 runs included an elite charger pack; while those fights were scary they weren’t insurmountable. I only got one goblin, on MP7, and managed to kill it. I don’t think I would be able to above 7 unless it somehow got cornered for awhile.
So I know what you’re thinking now: “Big deal, Aahz. The monsters in Act 1 are easy compared to 2 and 3. How many deaths would you have there?” That’s a good point, and I intend to find out in the next few days. Who’s with me?