Diablo III: Reaper of Souls

[Koyangi]

So today was my 1st time playing Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, I had a few questions that I couldn't quite find using Google. If it matters at all I just finished killing the Skeleton King and I'm a Wizard.

Unlike Diablo II's expansion which added more story, zones, and Baal, is this expansion more like a big patch to the game than it is in adding what I mentioned earlier?

Is my progression in the story and Acts the same as if I was to play this game without the expansion?

I saw someone mention the layouts of dungeons are now static and not random like in Diablo II, is this good or bad?

Is this game relatively linear akin to Diablo II?

For someone who is just playing solo/private and no particular interest in doing anything Season/Hardcore related, any advice you can give me?

Can I grind stuff on a Torment difficulty for example to get drops/gold and re-scale my difficulty lower later whenever I want?

Thanks.

[Koul]

So today was my 1st time playing Diablo III: Reaper of Souls, I had a few questions that I couldn't quite find using Google. If it matters at all I just finished killing the Skeleton King and I'm a Wizard.

Unlike Diablo II's expansion which added more story, zones, and Baal, is this expansion more like a big patch to the game than it is in adding what I mentioned earlier?

Is my progression in the story and Acts the same as if I was to play this game without the expansion?

I saw someone mention the layouts of dungeons are now static and not random like in Diablo II, is this good or bad?

Is this game relatively linear akin to Diablo II?

For someone who is just playing solo/private and no particular interest in doing anything Season/Hardcore related, any advice you can give me?

Can I grind stuff on a Torment difficulty for example to get drops/gold and re-scale my difficulty lower later whenever I want?

Thanks.

1) RoS finishes up some story arcs that vanilla D3 left open and it adds some more flare to it. Yes, there's more zones and it's been 2 major patches since it came out so there will be TOONNSS for you to do.
2) Progression in RoS isn't really the story or acts, you can do it but you'll be wasting your time tbh. You'll want to finish the story to unlock adventure mode and then the game really begins. Flowchart:
Adventure mode > Bounties like crazy > get rift stones > do rifts and get greater rift stones > greater rifts.
3) They're "random" but pretty easy to memorize after a while.
4) I suppose
5) Not really. Just play whatever you find fun or when you get a legendary adjust build accordingly. I would suggest doing seasons because they'll drop legendaries that won't drop anywhere else.
6) You're not stuck in a difficulty anymore. You can piss around in normal, then go to T1 etc. I'd work on T1 until you get decent stats. Work on being able to handle T3 with ease, if you can't do T3 just fall back to T1 until you get better gear. I wouldn't bother with T2 so much. Once you can breeze through T3, try and skip T4 and get to T5. The best method I found was doing a difficulty you can just blast through. Even though higher ones have better drop chance, you'll get more gear per hour on easier modes, imo.

Once you get legendary gems, work on Greater Rifts to increase those up in lvl. Even though the boosts are rather small, they add up and they can add a significant dps/survival boost even if it doesn't totally reflect as such in your stat page.

[Koyangi]

In response to your #2 answer, since right now I'm in the Acts and following the story, is this essentially original Diablo III and the gameplay elements that have come along with all of the patches? What is this "wasting your time" bit you are referring to?

Is the T1, T3 etc just code for the difficulty names, like Normal, Hard etc?

Will the character I'm leveling now be able to be brought into Adventure mode when it unlocks?

Thanks for all of those answers.

[Koul]

In response to your #2 answer, since right now I'm in the Acts and following the story, is this essentially original Diablo III and the gameplay elements that have come along with all of the patches? What is this "wasting your time" bit you are referring to?

Is the T1, T3 etc just code for the difficulty names, like Normal, Hard etc?

Will the character I'm leveling now be able to be brought into Adventure mode when it unlocks?

Thanks for all of those answers.

Yeah, story mode will have all the good stuff that the expansion and patches brought up. If you havn't gone all the way through the story at all (beaten Mathiel) you havn't unlocked adventure mode. By wasting your time, I mean doing story mode after you beat it all. Once you beat story mode completely and unlock adventure mode, shit will start to get fun. If you want you can reset story mode and do it all over again for first kill bonus's, excluding 100% legendary drop chance from act final bosses. But I would find that boring and tedious as fuck

T1, T2, T3 etc refers to Torment levels. All the way to Torment 6.

Yes, once you unlock story mode you can play your guy in that mode and everything will transfer over. Think of adventure mode as Free Mode. All acts will be unlocked and there will be waypoints everywhere you can go to. Once you unlock adventure mode you pretty much NEVER haveta do story mode on any character again, even brandspanking new lvl 1 guys you can start on adventure mode. If I come off bitchy or like I'm talking to you like a child, it's not my intention. I just like to be as exact and precise as possible when explaining junk

[arus2001]

Would suggest not killing Malth until you're level 70 since he gives a guaranteed legendary on fresh SM clear. It'll probably be crap, but who knows.

[Arkanna]

Would suggest not killing Malth until you're level 70 since he gives a guaranteed legendary on fresh SM clear. It'll probably be crap, but who knows.

And as an extension to this, don't complete your first set of Act 1 bounties until you're level 70 as well, because if you're under 70, you WILL get a Ring of Royal Grandeur and you WILL be mad. ^_^

[synistar]

Worst thing ever for me was rushing a friend and getting a Lvl 69 SoJ with max roll on damage to elites and %damage element. So angry at that.

[Koyangi]

Does Expert mode also help the droprate on rares/legendaries? I'm not high enough level yet/finished with campaign mode to select any difficulty higher.

[Anakron]

Honestly, if you're not even 70 yet, your drops won't really matter. Just do the most efficient exp / time difficulty you can for now.

[Chrius]

Was just outside top 250 solo wizard HC board in season 2 then lost my gems on DH. Won't be in town this weekend to finish the season strong so I'm hoping I don't drop out of the top 500 since I don't know if I can gem back up in time :/

[vagus]

GF and I bought game and were about level 45. Should we just buy Ros and exp to 70? Then what after that? We're on ps3.

[Koul]

If you don't buy the expansion you are missing out on pretty much what makes the game good/fun. For what to do in the expansion, I explained it a few posts up

[Darkmagi]

To kill time til the new season/patch hits, me and a friend decided to do a hardcore run with the following rules: DH only, no ranged weapons allowed lol. It's proving funny as fuck so far, I love doing stupid shit like this.

[Penthesilea]

Got myself a sweet new sword. check it out!

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/L.../hero/58705809

Where should I be looking to gain CDR? Belt? Gloves? I still need my akkhan gloves to complete the set and allow me to swap out the crown

[Koyangi]

I am in Act III now and level 55 (Expert). Will I hit 70 before I'm finished with the Acts? If I don't, where would I level at next? If I am 70 and I'm not finished with the Acts, does further Exp go into something else instead?

[Gokulo]

Paragon levels after 70

[arus2001]

I imagine you'll be around 67 if you continue on in Expert and get to Mal. If that happens, I'd suggest running a high density area like the Halls of Agony 2/3 until you're 70.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

I started a bit late but I feel like I finished s2 pretty decently on my Condemn Sader, which I knew absolutely nothing about before the season start.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/G.../hero/58064362

Next season I get to learn how to play monk and what all those electric pillars and clones do.

[Intrinsic]

Hopping back into D3 for S3. Which classes are going to lag behind this season?

[Chrius]

Woo - stayed in the low 300s HC solo wizard after bailing on Season 2 last week. Was prepared to be happy with top 500 in case of end of season pushes