02-13-2013, 03:57 PM
First impression of 1.07: solid patch. In just under 4 hours of play I managed to find 20 demonic essences and a whole heap of legendaries (7 or 8, I think). Of course, only one of those was “good” and another might sell for 300k or so; the rest were brimstone. I noticed more blacksmith plans dropping, although I did not see a jeweler design. Of those plans, 4 were of the new level 63 crafting recipes, but 3 of the 4 were identical. The additional pickup radius feels right as well-that’s a welcome change.
The change I like the best at the moment is the experience bump. I did a couple of runs on MP1 with my witch doctor and while it took a lot longer I felt like I got a good amount of XP to compensate. And in only one run on MP2 my demon hunter got about 8/10ths of the way from paragon 20 to 21. With [guildmate's] wizard and [guildmate’s] demon hunter along the mobs were dying fast enough that it didn’t feel much slower than solo MP1. Granted, that’s partly because my DH has double the DPS of my WD, but the speed still felt like “farming” speed.
So I developed a new route to incorporate the chance for the new crafting plans to drop from certain bosses:
Start new game on the penultimate quest for Act 3 (A Second Heart?)
Arreat Crater 2, clear to exit
Tower of the Cursed 1, clear to exit
Tower of the Cursed 2, clear to exit
Kill Cydaea, run to Core of Arreat wp
Stonefort for keywarden, port to town
Tower of the Damned level 1 wp, clear one circle
Bridge of Korsikk wp, clear in a circle pattern back to wp
Keep Depths 1 wp, immediately enter and clear Keep Depths 2
Enter Keep Depths 3, and clear level; port to town
Core of Arreat WP, kill Azmodan, enter Act 4
Find Rakanoth, and kill him. End game.
Obviously it’s quite similar to the Alka-Seltzer runs of yore, with the added benefit of getting 2 chances for the new crafting plans. Now that you keep your NV stacks between acts, it’s only 10-15 minutes extra time to kill Azmodan and then Rakanoth. Another bonus last night was that Iskatu dropped one of the plans.
Looking forward to more farming tonight (but I’m not expecting as many dings.)
The change I like the best at the moment is the experience bump. I did a couple of runs on MP1 with my witch doctor and while it took a lot longer I felt like I got a good amount of XP to compensate. And in only one run on MP2 my demon hunter got about 8/10ths of the way from paragon 20 to 21. With [guildmate's] wizard and [guildmate’s] demon hunter along the mobs were dying fast enough that it didn’t feel much slower than solo MP1. Granted, that’s partly because my DH has double the DPS of my WD, but the speed still felt like “farming” speed.
So I developed a new route to incorporate the chance for the new crafting plans to drop from certain bosses:
Start new game on the penultimate quest for Act 3 (A Second Heart?)
Arreat Crater 2, clear to exit
Tower of the Cursed 1, clear to exit
Tower of the Cursed 2, clear to exit
Kill Cydaea, run to Core of Arreat wp
Stonefort for keywarden, port to town
Tower of the Damned level 1 wp, clear one circle
Bridge of Korsikk wp, clear in a circle pattern back to wp
Keep Depths 1 wp, immediately enter and clear Keep Depths 2
Enter Keep Depths 3, and clear level; port to town
Core of Arreat WP, kill Azmodan, enter Act 4
Find Rakanoth, and kill him. End game.
Obviously it’s quite similar to the Alka-Seltzer runs of yore, with the added benefit of getting 2 chances for the new crafting plans. Now that you keep your NV stacks between acts, it’s only 10-15 minutes extra time to kill Azmodan and then Rakanoth. Another bonus last night was that Iskatu dropped one of the plans.
Looking forward to more farming tonight (but I’m not expecting as many dings.)