Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

[arus2001]

For the more tech savvy, probably not. Then again, I couldn't tell you if there are any sort of handshaking protocols with the thing. Still, was more a jab at the, "It does nothing!" crowd and I'm otherwise in agreement that if people can't play without it, apparently something "good" is happening. "Gee whiz, I wish I had a parser!" is never what I've asked when failing a GR39, though. It's usually, "Fucking density..."

[Julian]

Season doesn't directly correlate to competitive play.

Am I the only person that did season just to replay the game and re-enjoy the experience from the beginning with all of the enhancements since launch?

Had a hell of a fun time, too.

[arus2001]

One doesn't need the season system to do that, though. Just the willpower to not twink yourself.

[Abandon]

yall niggas mad

[Julian]

No, but it's a good incentive to do it, since a bunch of people come back to the game and are starting from scratch as well.

[Mina]

Season doesn't directly correlate to competitive play.

I disagree on this. Seasons is the Diablo III ladder. With an included leaderboard to wave your epeen around on.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/15198713/

One of the biggest additions to Diablo III in patch 2.1.0 is a competitive system we're calling Seasons. An entirely new gameplay mode, Seasons encourage you to roll a new hero and race against others to complete new challenges, acquire new and exclusive loot, and experience once more the feeling of starting fresh.

Read further in and it's a non-stop verbiage of competitive play talk. The seasons system is for that thirsty Diablo II ladder crowd and it's definitely a competition to them.

Regardless if you treat it as a competition or not that is the purpose of Seasons. For people to wave their epeens around on. I am in the same boat as Bane on this one. I may not be competing because all I want are my cheevos and rewards but that doesn't mean I'm not participating in a competition. I do agree they could have done something like a checkbox in the menu for some sort of 'Fresh Character' where you can't twink yourself but that's definitely the ol' willpower talking that you could do as well.

[Gokku]

weighing in on this:
so i didnt know about this till it was posted installed it outta curiosity.... and HOLY SHIT its cheatting out the ass, BUT its also helpful improves the UI 1000% and when solo makes the game that much better.that being said im even against it myself id rather blizz improve the UI then have this be the baseline for all players its pretty sweet but you know damn well thats cheating , like overlay on ffxi while camping shiki.

[Abandon]

wat

[Kachiko]

wat

If anything, the threads been a good read since D3 Windower was brought up. I can understand the moral compass of those who want no part in it, but at the same time, I knew something like it would eventually come to light. You can't have eSport casual competition and not expect people to come up with whatever advantages they can 'get away with'.

[Darkmagi]

The amount of people in here butthurt over TurboHUD must have been the people crying for people to get banned for windower use. Also wasn't aurik the one insisting that this isn't a loot based game? Please, just go.

[BaneTheBrawler]

must have been the people crying for people to get banned for windower use.

you should try reading the thread before you post

[Darkmagi]

What am I missing? The farce of a competition in Diablo 3 isn't reason enough to separate it from something like FFXI. People getting really upset and antagonistic against the idea of a tool that greatly improves QOL in a casual game. It's adding fun to the game for those who choose to use it, the people who are abusing to get ahead in leaderboards would be there by means much greater than TurboHUD.

[arus2001]

Well, it was nice carrying people with M6 while it lasted. :/

[arus2001]

Teehee, and now they're already nerfing their new M6. Welcome back to pre-RoS "nobody wants you" status, DHs. Ah, Blizz...

[SamanosukeShiva]

I saw people streaming M6 DH on PTR, it's not a nerf like ppl been saying, multishot doing 200M+ gg

[arus2001]

You're likely seeing the old new. The revision they have in the pipes is removing the bonus damage to the spenders the sentries fire, essentially resulting in only the DH doing juiced damage. Problem here, though, winds up being Hatred in both deploying 3+ sentries and then actually using the harder hitting spenders to even hope to see big numbers. I'm getting this vibe Blizz is imagining the DH in some perfect scenario where all variables align properly so this coming version matches live M6, if not better. End result is really just them adding tedium to placate the people whining about the "tower defense" instead of just focusing on the new set they hinted at Blizzcon and doing THAT right so those clamoring for a more active build would get it.

Overall, their plans for DH seem to be establishing an alarming trend where instead of just buffing the skills that need it, class "fixes" are coming solely through 6 piece sets with huge damage multipliers (Sentries for M6, hoarding Discipline bonus for the other). Build variety isn't much of a thing at present when you consider 4 of the 6 active skill slots are pretty much locked if you go M6 (Gen, Spender, Sentry, Companion). And since the class is generally hatred starved, you can pretty much bet Prep Punishment will be number 5 with RWs still being virtually mandatory with maybe a side of BV as a passive since Ballistics lost appeal with a lesser emphasis on TnT/BPs and Arsenal triggering.

Veering back to my original post on the subject, the reason why I pretty much carried folks was because it was a laid back build. While I was perhaps on the aggressive side relative to other people, I'd argue the AI spending led to a faster pace in the T6 range and a bit beyond. There's still a ramp up period to be had in the new(er) versions, but it just exchanges getting a new sentry out every 3 seconds or so to needing to wait closer to 15 to get the next 3 out at the next decent mob clump, but then you're still losing a few seconds generating back up. For those with a good Krider, this aspect isn't so much of an issue since you can just spam FA for modest damage and keeping CtW on. People forced back into Entangling Shot, though... welp, old CA Fire days. And bless your heart if you actually want to generate Hatred with a crossbow.

Shit, even some of the people who "hate" M6 are looking at the pending adjustment and admitting the set just went to hell and not in a particularly celebratory manner. Why? Because they know there's no Plan B. The class will drop like a rock if things remain as Blizz is planning, which essentially translates to 3+ months of wallowing in obscurity post-patch. Sure, the die-hards will tough it out, just as FFXI had its people who loved PUP, but I'm having a hard time feeling the tweaks I have personally experienced on the PTR make me feel like I'm having more fun... and part of this is because it IS the build I played prior to M6, only with dumping sentries first. Channel skills like Rapid Fire and Strafe are nowhere near where they should be. Spike Trap should honestly get a set build around it and Grenades. Of course, Fire skills mean Cindercoat, which is just a band-aid to the Hatred/Damage issues. I'm not really wild about playing the, "I told you so..." card when people suggested sentries behave like this in the past. but here it is. Maybe Blizz will have a change of heart, but even that isn't really giving the DH what it needs since so many core mechanics have changed between launch and now.

[Quicklet]

I actually picked up DH in Season 1 exactly because of the style of M6, and it's not like you're swimming in Hatred after dropping a few sentries while you're still trying to gear out. If they mess up the playstyle I might go back to WD or Wizard for Season 2.

It seems like Blizzard is content to have one viable build for high-end content for each class, and as long as they meet that goal they don't care about providing variety within class builds except when you're already outgearing T6. The main thing is that because a lot of new gear starts as season-only, I don't want to waste time gearing up on a first class that's going to struggle vs another class, and in S1 M6 was *the* reason I could start doing more than T1/T2 without it being painstakingly slow.

I am looking forward to that exp gem if it doesn't get nerfed though.

[arus2001]

DH "fixed" PTR tweaks up. Sadface.

It's rough to compare actual GR performance between Live and PTR, too, since changes have also come to GRs relative to increased mob density and doing lesser damage earlier on. Some are twisting this into believing the DH is even better now because they were suddenly doing a higher GR, but it's more likely you're 5+ GRs "weaker" than you were before, assuming Frostfire or lesser variants. 4.15 BL is just plain dead. Sadly, people are also using those who did benefit from the buggy M6 to farm gem upgrades into 60+ ranges and ancient versions into claiming things are fine now.

Really, this whole testing process has just been handled terribly by Blizz.

I guess on the plus side, the super rare legendaries got their drop chances buffed. So those looking for SMKs, Kriders, Furnaces, or whatever may have better luck post-2.1.2. How much better I guess remains to be seen.

[Wulfgang]

M6 was bork before though. I did Seasons and in a week was further in Torment levels with my average M6 DH than I had ever gotten on Monk or Barb (fucking last MotE piece would not drop) in several weeks of playtime. It's a stupid gameplay; you drop sentries and kite. Not hard and gets boring as hell.

[arus2001]

It's powerful early, yeah, but it leveled off. I think a lot of the other-class haters underestimated how long it took to get 3-5 sentries out to be full strength with it, and with speed being the goal of GRs, it wasn't uncommon to only have 1 or 2 sentries placed at a mob clump if your group was at all decent. The higher DHs were undoubtedly cheesing Smokescreen via Night Stalker, which is something now gone, or at the very least, a lot harder to do. Either way, I can get some might not have liked the style of play, and that's cool, but this has effectively turned into a witch hunt where Blizz could've "won" if they just implemented another set to placate those who wanted to be more "active" while leaving M6 alone, or at least minimally tweaked. Ironically, the big reason for why I'd justify any adjustment was not once brought up by Blizz themselves, and that'd be game instability caused by 4.15 BL builds. Of course, those are gone by proxy of spender firing tweaks and nerfing Helltrapper. Sadly, you've still got nutjobs clamoring for the Companion bonus to be taken off the set, too, as if running around like a headless chicken doing no damage is exciting gameplay.