Discussion: game balance...

[FireIceTalon]

I'm fine if they back off some of the spike damage, but, otherwise, let's not be nerfing Inferno just because people unwilling to gear properly can't do it.

While I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, I could do without Invulnerable Minions. That's just plain stupid and lazy. Shielding is bad enough, but I can live with it. Kite long enough, and sooner or later you'll take one down (though probably you'll damage everyone slowly over time, until you reach the breaking point of killing them rapidly because their shields are down and they have no health left). Invulnerable Minions, though? Pure cheese. Bad enough everything hits like a truck in Inferno, but now you have to have a full set of body-blockers just to ruin my shots? I'm a ranged class. How am I supposed to hit my target when his buddies, with their impenetrable shields, keep getting in the way? Yes, I've beaten Invulnerable Minions, on Inferno, but you tack something like Fast, or Horde, or Mortar on there and it just becomes virtually unbeatable (although Mortar is livable with enough room to kite, you still need to be able to turn and fire that ONE shot before moving again; Invulnerable Minions negates about 90% of those shots, meaning you'll almost certainly die before you kill the boss).

I'm enjoying my time in Inferno. I beat the Butcher solo, and though it was a close battle I felt my skills trumped his damage, despite a few close calls. I haven't yet ventured into Act II, but I'm fairly certain I need to get my defenses a bit higher (3k armor is almost as good as I'm going to get for now, but my resistances need some work by about double). Even so, there are some things that are just plain broken. I can live with Waller, Jailer, and Vortex despite how disabling they all are to a ranged class (especially one who refuses to cheese his way out of it via Smoke Screen or Vault). However, Invulnerable Minions is just pure BS. It doesn't take skill to overcome, it takes luck - luck that the pathfinding of the boss leaves him in range of your shots while the minions stay behind. Even dropping Caltrops + my Sentry doesn't work because the minions get in the way of the Sentry shots, and I can't kite tight enough circles to keep them in Caltrops. If they removed that one mechanic (and really, it shouldn't even appear in Hell at all) and toned down the huge spikes a bit I'd be happy. I could live with that smack-you-in-the-face difficulty curve of Hell to Inferno. That, however, just has no place in this game. It's a lazy mechanic designed to add artificial challenge, and instead it adds nothing but pure tedium and cheese - much like Triple Immunes did in D2 (which is explicitly why the devs avoided such things with D3).

Truly though, I agree with both points: people need to gear more defensively, period. However, it really is difficult for anyone who's not in Inferno to understand what it's like. You simply cannot imagine the impact of huge health + damage increases on top of a fourth boss modifier. I know I wasn't prepared for the change, and I still run across boss packs that are simply unkillable for me (just ask Monty). I think that's by design, though, and I'm OK with that to a point. Some things should never have made it off the drawing board, however.

Anyway, to answer RedRadical directly unless you're already over-geared you don't need to spend millions. 60k - 300k per item is about where I'm at now, and I can almost full-clear Act I solo without much trouble (almost meaning aside from those unkillable packs). High armor value items are a dime a dozen on the AH. It's just a matter of whether they have the stats you want. I have a decent (though not great) bow @ ~625 base DPS (18k on screen), about 1200 Dexterity (~32% Dodge), 900 Vitality (34k life), 3000 armor (50% reduction), and between 50 and 130 resistances (between... I don't know, 10 and 30%? something like that?) I do not use Vault, Smoke Screen, nor Evasive Fire so I have to rely solely on my kiting ability, which means if I get Jailed, Walled, or Vortexed I'm probably dead. I have yet to hit a single Berserker timer in all my time in Inferno, and the unkillable boss packs I either avoid or reroll - whichever's easier and still allows me to progress. I still manage to make a profit (in gold) during my time in Inferno, although it's far less than what I make in equal time doing Nightmare Act III / IV clears. Just this weekend I found an awesome upgrade for my amulet (+dex, +IAS magic to a +dex, +IAS, +armor rare with higher stats across the board), so it is possible to get good gear in Act I Inferno - if you're willing to farm. Elsewise, farm Hell Act III and IV for gear, or Nightmare Act III and IV for gold (between Nephalem Valor and selling blues / yellows, I make over 100k an hour). Pick and choose your purchases on the AH carefully, and look for those deals - they do exist, although you have to be quick and patient to nab them.

Pretty insane that you dont use SS or Vault. I can't imagine not using them in Inferno difficulty - it is crazy enough WITH them, heh. My armor is around 2600 ish at the moment, and admittedly I dont really focus on trying to improve it so much since it is really out of the realm of possibility to get it to a number that would really mean anything. I would really like to get my resists up though. In Act 1 it isnt as important but come Act 2 I will need a huge improvement in that area. I never see resist items drop though (at least not to all resistances), and they tend to be super expensive in the AH. It just seems like as DH's, we are going to have to stay in Act 1 for a really extended period of time to get the numbers within a range to even attempt Act 2. Sigh. There was item grinding in D1 and D2 also, but it just seems alot more tiring and energy consuming here because of the difficulty spike. Even doing one quest, I usually feel like I need a break afterward. Maybe I'm just getting old, IDK. I certainly don't have the energy to power game or have as fast of reflexes like I did in my 20's, although I am still relatively young (34).