01-01-2013, 05:54 AM
Happy New Year! In 2013, I resolve to play even more Diablo 3, as well as use even more obscure references when posting about it. Shortly after the above post, I sent this one to the Interwebs:
Title: They're here
Got through two Act 3 runs last night and the drops were awful. Not even anything worth listing on the AH. One crappy level 60 legendary that got salvaged as soon as I identified it. That is, until the very last pile of items I picked up. There was a rare sword that was a nice upgrade for my monk. I had to look at it a few times to make sure I was reading it as a 1-handed weapon, because the DPS is over 1,200. No socket, so it isn’t a huge upgrade, but it gets me to the 50k DPS level. It made me glad I bothered to head back through the portal and pick up those last ½ dozen pieces.
The night before I found a quiver upgrade for my demon hunter. It’s the same as my old one (Dead Man’s Legacy), only better. Kicked me up to 90k DPS and even more importantly, my attack rate ticked up a tad. I want a socketed Calamity so bad, but all I seem to find are stupid Balefire Casters. And a good, socketed Calamity is out of my price range on the AH. [Guild member] suggested I shop for a Manticore, but at this point I think I’ll just let RNG decide. It’s not like I allot much time to play DH anyway.
Which brings me back to my witch doctor. So I mentioned a few tweaks in my previous posts, 2 of which are rune changes. In my quest to keep the blue mana ball filled, one way I can accomplish it is to pop out more health globes for Gruesome Feast, and more frequently. In other words, NEED MOAR DAMAGE! As I was walking through those packs of spiders (actually Stygian Crawlers) in Act 3, I was thinking “if only I could do damage at the same time, instead of “wasting” the extra souls harvested (SH maxes at 5).” And then I had an “ah-ha!” moment. The Vengeful Spirit rune also deals 225% damage to any enemy harvested. After changing over, I was killing half that pack while still in its midst.
My next gaming session I looked at the runes on Spirit Walk, and sure enough it has a damage one as well. Now I can pass through mobs, hit them on the way in, damage them with Soul Harvest, and hit them on the way out again with Spirit Walk. Or on a big monster, like a Tremor, I can run through it 3 or 4 times before SW ends. That means I only need 1 or 2 casts of Acid Cloud to kill it instead of the 3 or 4 it took previously. That’s also a mana savings. It improved my killing speed enough that I added another area (Tower of the Cursed 1) to my farming run [Archon_Wing showed me this], so it still takes about an hour [for an entire run] but I get a few more elite kills there. Since all of that damage tends to happen in spirit form, I’m dubbing this build, “Full-On Poltergeist Mode.”
The last change also has to do with mana management, as I swapped out the passive Spirit Vessel for Blood Ritual. BR means you pay some of your mana costs with life, but in return you get life regen. I have definitely noticed being able to get more acid cloud casts with this setup, but at the price of dying 2-3 times during a run vs. 1-2 times previously. At this point, I think it’s worth the trade-off but I won’t be all that surprised if Spirit Vessel makes a comeback in the future.
I also have in mind a build where maybe I add Gargantuan, take away Acid Cloud, and use only Spirit Barrage/Well of Souls as a damage-dealing skill. If I ever end up trying that out, I imagine I’ll post the results here.
Title: They're here
Got through two Act 3 runs last night and the drops were awful. Not even anything worth listing on the AH. One crappy level 60 legendary that got salvaged as soon as I identified it. That is, until the very last pile of items I picked up. There was a rare sword that was a nice upgrade for my monk. I had to look at it a few times to make sure I was reading it as a 1-handed weapon, because the DPS is over 1,200. No socket, so it isn’t a huge upgrade, but it gets me to the 50k DPS level. It made me glad I bothered to head back through the portal and pick up those last ½ dozen pieces.
The night before I found a quiver upgrade for my demon hunter. It’s the same as my old one (Dead Man’s Legacy), only better. Kicked me up to 90k DPS and even more importantly, my attack rate ticked up a tad. I want a socketed Calamity so bad, but all I seem to find are stupid Balefire Casters. And a good, socketed Calamity is out of my price range on the AH. [Guild member] suggested I shop for a Manticore, but at this point I think I’ll just let RNG decide. It’s not like I allot much time to play DH anyway.
Which brings me back to my witch doctor. So I mentioned a few tweaks in my previous posts, 2 of which are rune changes. In my quest to keep the blue mana ball filled, one way I can accomplish it is to pop out more health globes for Gruesome Feast, and more frequently. In other words, NEED MOAR DAMAGE! As I was walking through those packs of spiders (actually Stygian Crawlers) in Act 3, I was thinking “if only I could do damage at the same time, instead of “wasting” the extra souls harvested (SH maxes at 5).” And then I had an “ah-ha!” moment. The Vengeful Spirit rune also deals 225% damage to any enemy harvested. After changing over, I was killing half that pack while still in its midst.
My next gaming session I looked at the runes on Spirit Walk, and sure enough it has a damage one as well. Now I can pass through mobs, hit them on the way in, damage them with Soul Harvest, and hit them on the way out again with Spirit Walk. Or on a big monster, like a Tremor, I can run through it 3 or 4 times before SW ends. That means I only need 1 or 2 casts of Acid Cloud to kill it instead of the 3 or 4 it took previously. That’s also a mana savings. It improved my killing speed enough that I added another area (Tower of the Cursed 1) to my farming run [Archon_Wing showed me this], so it still takes about an hour [for an entire run] but I get a few more elite kills there. Since all of that damage tends to happen in spirit form, I’m dubbing this build, “Full-On Poltergeist Mode.”
The last change also has to do with mana management, as I swapped out the passive Spirit Vessel for Blood Ritual. BR means you pay some of your mana costs with life, but in return you get life regen. I have definitely noticed being able to get more acid cloud casts with this setup, but at the price of dying 2-3 times during a run vs. 1-2 times previously. At this point, I think it’s worth the trade-off but I won’t be all that surprised if Spirit Vessel makes a comeback in the future.
I also have in mind a build where maybe I add Gargantuan, take away Acid Cloud, and use only Spirit Barrage/Well of Souls as a damage-dealing skill. If I ever end up trying that out, I imagine I’ll post the results here.