Patch 2.1.2

[Devile]

Been playing a good amount of hours since the release and having some fun with it. Here my first impressions:

General

Sad to see they still don't address the main issues with the game: itemization, build diversity. They just give us more stats so we can climb a little higher in the ladders and a bunch of goblins. That's 2.1.2 in a nutshell. It's fun, but not sure how long it will remain fun.
Ancient items ... just inflated stats. No new cool effects to help with build diversity. Blizzard says they are optional, but devs clearly have no idea about this game. Since u farm items to be more powerful, if there are items that can let u be more powerful, then u need them. That's kinda THE goal of the game. Everyone just farms for ancient items now.
The game has shifted towards T6 Rift farming now because of the previous 2 points.
Goblins! I like the item but the seriously need to add autoloot for veiled crystals and arcane dust. Makes no sense to autoloot potions who nobody needs now but we cant auto pickup mats. Carpal tunnel is a serious possibility, specially for multiboxers.
Mob density is much better. Not solved but at least way better than 2.1.1.
All classes remain a copy+paste of each other. Everyone looking for the best build to copy.
Seasons, sad no gems are released for non seasons. Leaderboards are dumb since they released the patch before Season 1 ended.


Wizard / WD

Pretty much no changes.
Both classes are weaker compared to other classes. WD are kinda useless now, unless they are used as ZDPS for GR. Still I want to try a Carnevil build.


Monks

They are pretty good now in terms of DPS but again, 1 build rules them all. At least u can pick the element now :P
Tempest Rush works but kinda sucks since u lose your TR stacks everytime u open a chest/door, get knocked back, stunned, etc.
Still need to try a 4x bells build and see how it works. Epiphany teleport sucks tho for multibox.


DH

Even more OP than before.
The new M6 set paired with Ancient weapon makes T6 Rifting extremely fast. U can clear all levels in a rift in a few minutes. I'm 1 shotting most trash with Multishot. Nothing fancy configs, just raw fire damage and everything dies.
GR still hard for multibox.


I've got a ton of ancient items but most have been just ok. Nothing amazing so far.

What are your impressions so far?

[Devile]

Barely scratching the surface of this build. Monks are the way to go for ... everything right now :D Well, bounties are still faster with Crusaders, hands down.


http://youtu.be/a010OF3C3bQ

2 horrible packs and the worst RG, still cleared with plenty of time. I'm pretty sure I can get up to 43+. I think dual wielding is better. More CDR and u get TR stacks faster. Will take time to get there tho. If I can get my CDR high enough to keep my Epiphany uptime 90%+ and maybe add Blinding Flash or Serenity, I can scale easily.


http://youtu.be/tzBnC4XSxBQ

I like Ligfhtning for T6 because it has a lot more AoE. I didn't notice I was still using BotT gem there, but still was killing everything pretty fast. Will switch to Toxin instead.

[Ellay]

It looks great, I haven't had the chance to play D3 since the patch, thanks for the videos.

[Ishar]

Hmm, might have to dust off the monks and come back to D3. I'll check out the video's when I'm at home later. I am curious about your exact monk build / gear setup though.

[Ellay]

I think season monk will be more enjoyable.
Also the mob density looks awesome.

[Devile]

I'll most likely play Season 2. Monks seem to be very good atm and thats without Gungdo Gear bracers. My TR setup is great for T6 farming. I pretty much kill everything on a single pass. Elites take a couple secs only. Here's my current build:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Devile-1430/hero/17365457
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Brikinger-1856/hero/24813038 (http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/Brikinger-1856/hero/24813038)
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/TRES-1497/hero/24840887
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/FOUR-1713/hero/24841328

Gems are Taeguk, Bane of the Trapped and Toxin. White mobs just melt. I round robin Blinding Flash (permaCC on whites and almost permaCC on elites and RG ... need more CDR) and I rarely have troubles so I can stack more dps and less toughness. This build differs slightlty from the one in the video, but is faster and more efficient. No need for Ancient weapons. Only 1 monk has an Ancient Warstaff and just my main has a good amulet. The rest have normal legendaries and horrible amulets. Because of so many debuffs and buffs, the final party dps is pretty high and T6 is a joke now. I'm aware I'm stacking Class A buffs/debuffs but there's not much I can do and regardless, the result is good, so I don't care.

I'll record another video with this setup so u can see how much faster it actually is.

PS: DHs are stupidly OP now. Did GR42 already, np. Sure I can die instantly, but since u can revive where u died, u dont lose much time. I'm playing Crusaders right now to farm keys so I can build a ton of Hellfire amulets.

PS2: Toxin gem is prolly the most underrated gem. The debuff stacks so if 4 players use it, its 40% debuff. Sure, it's an additive debuff, but still it adds a very good amount of dps and IMO, far better than BoP in a party. Toxin now goes in all my builds: DH, Crusaders and Monks.

[Devile]

This is my current build. Depending on rift density, I can get to the RG in a 2-5 minutes.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08L5nD-7Hyc

Here some DH action:


http://youtu.be/d6ACwH579yw

Haven't done my homework with DHs yet. They are basically 2.1.1 setup with Ancient weapons only. Will start working on DHs soon to get higher in GR. Might add a WD for permaCC. My gameplan is to use Monks for T6 farming, Crusaders for bounties and DHs for GR and Ubers. TR Monks are pretty good for GR, but they will hit a wall faster than DHs, not to mention dsync and waller affix is a HUGE pain in the butt, as well as molten and other ground effects that will destroy u while TR around elites. Wizards and WDs for nothing but fun since they kinda suck right now.

[Multanis]

Hey, i discovered this forum some days ago, it's nice to share some informations with other multiboxers. :)

I started playing Crusaders about 2 weeks ago as it was my planned class for Season 2, after playing some DH in 2.1.1 and mostly WD all the time prior to that. At first i played with a FoH/Fissure build which is really strong as a startup build, when you still don't have the Akkhan Set. As i got a really nice BoP and completed the set on all chars, i switched over to Condemn, as it has a very fluid gameplay and is imho the best speedfarm spec for Crusaders.

Those are the 2 main builds that i have tested so far, havn't looked into Stampede or any other builds yet, but i will do that in Season 2 for sure. I'm also curious how the Season 2 Bombardement belt will end up if used by 4 crusaders, could be a nice passive damage boost. I also tried playing TR Monks, but after tasting the permanent crowd control immunity that comes with Akarat's Champion, i can't go back to anything else. :/

Here is a short video of a GR34 run, as i currently farm them for some XP, no where close to where you guys are farming, but you have to start somewhere. =)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrcKcrWtfUs

[Devile]

Nice setup u have there. I will def try Condemn once the shield drops in NS. As for Season 2, I haven't made up my mind yet. I love DHs and their power, but Monks are also pretty good right now.

PS: Mind linking your profiles to take a look?

[Multanis]

Main - lanara#2402 (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/lanara-2402/hero/53423760)
2nd - L02#2313 (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/L02-2313/hero/53643887)
3rd - L03#2575 (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/L03-2575/hero/53643885)
4th - L04#2507 (http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/L04-2507/hero/53643886)

I leveld the crusaders about 2 weeks ago, so the equipment isn't that good.

[Devile]

Wonder when can we get Season items in non season since it ends today. I'm gonna try your build, but will change Phalanx as my main attack and move Shield Glare to 1 so I can round robin and have perm blind. Also wondering if it's worth going for 4x Laws of Hope Stop Time for god mode. Change Akarat Champion to Embodiment of Power to take care of wrath issues and try higher GR with it. Since Long Arm of the Law won't be needed, I can add another passive for more damage. Basically build 4x glass canons.

[Multanis]

You should be able to get the old season items as soon as the season ends. I basically used Shield Glare as a damage boost, not for the cc. I used Phalanx/Bowmen as it is castable on the run, without any interruption and clears some mobs that are left behind with ~10% after i ran through them. They also serve as a meat shield sometimes against annoying mobs, but in general this is a replaceable skill.

I tested Law of Hope/Stop Time but as far as i can tell the invulnerability only counts for the crusader that acitvly used it and not for the whole group, which makes it basically useless. Would've been cool if it worked on all though, thats right. :)

[Devile]

Mmm ... I'll do some testing with Ghom. Last I remember, it worked for the party but only for 3 secs, no matter what. Long Arm of the Law didn't extend the active effect. I'll check again tonight.

Hope shields start dropping today then. I stopped playing Crusaders cause Stampede was too frustrating. Single player u can deal with objects and maps, but with 4x saders, your party dps can easily drop to 40% cause u are in a narrow path and half your horses dont reach the target. And waller was such a pain in the butt to deal with.

[Yelgis]

That is correct Devile. Long Arm of the Law specifically does not increase the duration of the immortality from Stop Time. That was an intentional change by the dev team before Stop Time ever got out of its first PTR. I remember that PTR because my crusader buddies were keeping it up round robin with only two of them. It needed nerfed.

Good news is that the 3 second duration still works for the party. So if you have 4 Crusaders over 61% cooldown you can keep it up permanently in round robin. The downside is you lose an active law. The benefit is you can use all your passives and skill choices outside of Stop Time for offensive reasons. So that means Firestarter on Akarat's and other such things.

Not sure how well a team keeping Stop Time up permanently would be, but I have had fun this past season with my CDR near-perma serenity monk, so I intend to try it out.

There are no real awesome items released for the new season that appeal to me. Instead I will just play Crusaders this go around since I haven't done that yet and this could be a fun experience. If nothing else I like playing zdps support builds for 4man Grifts with my clan, so if the 4 Sader team doesn't work out I can just use my 3 alt accounts to gear up the main for that capacity.

[Devile]

61% for 4x saders? Sure? Seems a little high. Didn't have much time to test this yet. Only got 2 Condemn shields so far from Kadala. Farming Stampede Crusaders is such a pain because of certain maps. I cant play it anymore, too damn frustrating. I'm just farming exp with my DHs and spending shards on my Crusaders to get the shields. I really wanna make them work for GR but they seem squishy and DPS kinda low for the tradeoff. Will give it a fair try and see how it goes. Still, the gameplay of Condemn seems fun and different for a change.

If I'm gonna play a squishy class, I rather play DH and clear everything faster.

[Yelgis]

Yep 61% one each crusader gets the cooldown to about 11.5 seconds for Laws and 4x3 seconds = 12 seconds duration for Stop Time. So it is doable.

http://bannedofgamers.com/index.php?cdr/

Max Cooldown for Sader is somewhere in the area of 76% with current gear out there. The calc I linked above doesn't have options for Towering Shield or Fervor though. You can use the Gogok box as a Fervor substitute in a pinch though if you don't plan to use Gogok. Since most Saders aim for 56% for perma Akarat's anyway it isn't much more of a stretch to go from 56 to 61%

[Devile]

Nope, not doable. Stop Time was nerfed completely and it's useless now. The effect only applies to the Crusader that casts it. The party gets the passive effect and the absorb shield only from the active effect, that's it. The 3 sec health loss pause only applies to the one casting it, so there's no chance to round robin this. I thought about making a round robin with Iron Skin so I didn't need to go so high with CDR. Like using Stop Time every 3 secs and then go Iron Skin for X seconds to cover for the lack of CDR. The Round Robin worked flawless but I kept dying nonstop with ground effects. Did a bunch of tests and found only 1 Crusader was invulnerable for 3 secs at a time. Multanis was right, that rune is useless.

[Yelgis]

Saddly you are correct Devile. I had done some testing apparently pretty poorly without the actual CDR needed and I thought I was getting the immunity but that is not the case. I just geared up my current team to the needed CDR and tested it more thoroughly. I thought Long Arm not affecting it was the only change made but I guess they completely gutted the skill. Oh well sad day. Back to the drawing board.