Anyone else find A3 nearly unplayable with 4 melee?

Cross post from ISBoxer, looking for some serious discussion about this. =)

I've got about 120M in gear PER monk, running 4 monks. Act 1 is a cakewalk, act 2 I take damage occasionally, act 3 I get flat out raped. I don't know what I'm doing wrong here, I've tried literally every build I can think of/researched and still I get straight up owned. The problem? -- Affix abilities...

Apparently they claimed to have nerfed the 4 man damage that the mobs do (which since the last hotfix there is an insane BUFF to inferno mob damage http://us.battle.net/d3/en/forum/top...8788785?page=1 ) but honestly the fact that mobs can cast 4x the amount of abilities if you have 4 guys alive is just stupid. Desecration = near instant death for me EVERY-SINGLE-TIME, Generally arcane as well.

I'm geared well, there's no question about it. I have 30+k hp, 15-25k dmg, 45% dodge, 950-1k resists, 55-60% block, 980-1500+ LOH & 2.6-2.9% Leech, 1.7-1.8 attack speed, 30-32% Crit, 180%++ Crit DMG, 4.8-5k Armor, all unbuffed... However no matter how hard I try; these 2 abilities will always lead to my death, why is this? I have 120-150M worth of gear on 3 and 400m++ worth of gear on my main monk, does it matter? nope. I've tried dual wielding as well (which I survive longer due to the increased attack speed and life on hit as well as dodge % increase.

What's funny is every single time I try to fight one of these elite packs with arcane or desecration they spawn 3-4x as many on the ground meaning I have to move almost non-stop because it stacks so fast. However if I die with 2 or 3 the spawn rate of it slows down and I can finish with the remaining 1-2 monks -- how stupid is that? Farming act 3 with anyone one monk is easy, any 2 is no problem, 3 is almost impossible, 4 is a waste of time/money sink. Their physical damage doesn't do squat to me, neither does ranged, however their affixes are so over-the-top that it makes playing with more than 2 people in your group pointless.

What are your thoughts? Is ANYONE farming act 3-4 with 4 characters WELL? Meaning actual farm runs where you don't wipe at least 1-2x per pack? Anyone? If so what classes are you using? How much $ in gear do you estimate you have? I don't see why it's so damn hard with this kind of gear to progress still in act 3. I can't even imagine trying to get magic find gear to do this, it's quite honestly a joke. I've never struggled so hard to attempt to farm with a group in a game that is supposed to be co-op.

I'm on the verge of liquidating 100% of my monk gear and going back to solo DH farming, not that gear is worth farming at all anymore, it's all about gold farming, getting lucky crafting, or playing the AH, so lame, it's not a wonder all the high end stuff has gone up as far as 10x the value in the past 2 weeks or so -- not very many people are farming gear anymore, the amount of items on the AH are dropping at an insane rate too.

I remember back in D2 grouping was actually viable, better than soloing, fun... /sigh

/discuss

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Originally Posted by Lightsan

I remember back in D2 grouping was actually viable, better than soloing, fun... /sigh

/discuss

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And you're 'boxing' - you can't really compare yourself to a group. Your tactics are limited.

A real group can split elite packs and fight them apart.

Although I'm not denying the difficult might need tweaking.

Right but even so, if I can do act 3 with any 2 of them, or when any 2 of them DIE in a 4 man group... something's wrong. I can literally bring 4 guys into act 3 inferno and when 2 die; kill any elite pack with ease. However when 4 of them are up the mobs spawn affix abilities at a MUCH higher rate and so generally 1-3 of them just fall over before I have a chance to do much of anything. -- That's unrealistic in general and it's why virtually NO ONE boxing or not does act 3 with more than 2 people -- ever. Watch the streams, there's a reason it's 2 people tops 98% of the time in act 3 or 4, this game is broken for coop, period.

Actually, I noticed that too with a group of four - the affixes are tougher - and I think this might be a fairly recent change. Even in Act 1 I get some crazy mobs, reflect damage, molten, invuln, frost, plagued or something crazy.

I can do pony runs on my WDs, but I usually die - I basically stand there and aoe and let the LoH heal me. I kite the elites to the entrance so I can respawn quickly and they don't reset.

I recently leveled barbs to 60 - man, what a waste. I can't believe I tried that, the rage crap is just too much to deal with.

Tell me what your build layout is and your tactic currently against these types. my gear is no where even close to yours but I do have some tactics in mind that make everything doable. I did try act 3 briefly but did not enjoy it as the kill speed was way too slow compared to act 1. I did want 3 to work especially with exploding palm trick. Maybe with better gear I'll get there :)

I did Act 3 and Pony level last night. Now that I look at it again, I don't think the affixes were really changes, I think it's just very random.

I didn't get 1 waller in all of act 3 last night, I cleared several maps and did seigebreaker (who enraged and seemed to reflect like 3x more damage at least, it was nuts, but I still got him).

I did get some tough pony packs though, but nothing that crazy. They just hit for a ton, and I died a lot.

When my alts die, I can often times finish off the pack or at least kite them to the spawn point so they don't reset.

Hopefully Ellay can give you some Monk tips, I think your gear is very solid, so it's probably just a technique thing. You find one little trick and it all comes together.

I've watched a lot of streams (DH, WD, Barbs, Monks) and I haven't seen anyone face-roll act 3,4 or pony. People seem to still die quite a bit.

Lightsan, did you try the glass cannon route? If you're getting one shot anyways, drop all your resist gear and go full on dps. You should be able to hit around 50-60k dps, then just go nuts. It's the same way 5 mage groups would work in dungeons in wow - they would dps the crap out of stuff before it even got to them.

I've just decided to give a different class a try, maybe finish my WD's. Currently waiting for my gear to sell before I give it a go again. Honestly there have been many threads about the ninja buff on fire damage in act 3 and 4. Everyone who actively farms that on the forums has agreed, there was even a blue post about them looking into it. I know affixes are random, however the rate in which they spawn arcane and desecration is just silly when 4 people are alive. It's one thing if you can split up and kite, however playing 4 guys all it takes is about 3 spawns of desecration and my monks just drain like mad after the ninja patch. Before I wasn't having any issues, but now it's just unplayable. The amount of money you have to spend on gear just isn't realistic to farm when the gear you farm is trash anyway most of the time.

on a side note; I saw this video and will probably give barbs a try if my WD's don't work out -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4x3VCUMWLUE&t=0m48s LOL! There are a lot of these vids floating around now and i'm sure it's going to get nerfed, however most people are doing this with under 150M worth of gear (all you really need is a decent LOH weap and you stay perma health as long as there are multiple mobs)

@ d0z3rr; as melee the mobs are already "to them" you have to be able to take some hits or you just spend most of your time re-gathering those who died. I have tried quite a bit of dps, but to get 50-60k on each one it would cost quite a bit. The problem is that it takes so much money to invest in survival and dps now n' days and when you want it for 4 guys at the same time; it's pretty brutal. It's only the arcane and desecration that kills me at the moment in act 3 nothing else phases me at all. When there are 4 guys alive on the same screen it just spawns WAY too fast to realistically avoid + still dps as melee.

@ Ellay; did you make that video? I'd love to see you doing act 3 or ANYONE doing act 3 with 4 monks vs arcane/desecration after the ninja buff. I've tried nearly every build, it doesn't seem to matter though as serenity is the only thing that allows me to dps, by then if they have any other CC ability it's basically gg. I can't kill elites within the first 4 seconds and generally it's easiest for me to just let 2 monks die and then I can kill the elites with the remaining 2. -- so sad, but it's the only way I could kill elites with those affixes, which is just lame.

Do any of you farm act 3 with 4 players in inferno? I see people talk about it, however I don't see any vids anywhere of people actually doing it. =(

Hey Lightsan,
I have 4x WDs and I can farm Act 3 Inferno. I do die at times, so it's not like a faceroll farm run, but I'll kite tough packs to spawn points to clear them if I have a problem.

My gear is okay, but not nearly worth more than 10mil on 3 other alts, my main guy has maybe 30mil worth of gear at most.

Just last night I went through Keeps Depths Level 1 - 3, got 5 stacks, killed all the elites I could find. Then went on the bridge, killed packs, went into the storage place, killed a pack. Then killed Seigebreaker. Had a bag full of rares at the end. Seigebreaker is a 1 shot, but I do hit his enrage at when he's at about 10% health or less.

I also can pretty much just keep AOEing everything without moving much at all. So I'm not sitting there kiting everything around the map. Which is huge.

This is on 4x WDs in inferno.

I then went to Whimsy last night and cleared it twice, but it was a bit painful. Died a LOT - probably 3 full repairs worth. But I did find a recipe that sold for 30 mil in 6 mins.

I finally found a spec that works for me - I always thought a CC or pet build would be the key, so I've always looked for that gear. It's actually pretty cheap:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...jdQ!ZVU!aaacaZ
On one of the WDs I take Bad Medicine instead of the damage reduction, which gives monsters 20% less damage when you hit them with poison.

Here is the key (At least if they don't change anything - this worked as of last night - after the hotfixes where they fixed that monk exploding fist thing):
Stack LoH - at least 1k per guy
Stack CC gear, stun and freezes - at least have 10% per guy between the two. (I actually probably only have 4% stun, 4% freeze on each guy, with another 2% on one or two of the offhands - so maybe 36% total)
230-300 resist all is what I currently have. I'd like to get it higher, but the gear cost too much.
Mojo, Weapon and Helm all must have mana regen - which will put you at about 50 mana regen ( I only have 40 on one of the guys)
DPS is 39k, 28k, 24k, 26k with no buffs
Each guy has at least 30k hitpoints: 32k, 30k, 32k, 34k
12% movement on boots is nice when you have to run out of an AOE. Also I bought some cheap level 44 pants that give 7% movement speed for my guys.

I have Big Bad Voodoo on round robin, it gives mana regen. All the other skills should be on cooldown 100% So you get 300% mana regen.

I basically just spam acid cloud in packs, and grasp when it's up. Make sure all your guys are aligned so that it's hitting the elites directly in the center of the cloud. With all the CC gear, it stuns and freezes all the non-elites, and elites it usually will stun them most of the time - so you can sit back and just keep spamming acid cloud.

When I hit a elite pack, I hit one of my BBV on round robin, it gives me more mana and I can spam acid cloud big time. Hopefully everything will freeze or stun, but it's not perfect, so you might have to move to avoid arcane or molten. Just takes a bit of practice on some elite packs. Some packs are much easier to keep cc'd than others.

Anyway, that works for me right now, and it's a fairly non-bank breaking gear-up.

Ya that video was of my guys - I seem to use too many different names :P
I did too notice Desecration is insane on an elite pack, especially if there is 4 of them. At that point your option is to run around and let a few stacks float on the ground - run in and DPS - when the hp starts dipping cycle through serenity on each character while making sure inner sanctuary is up for the 35% reduced damage. I can usually net about 7-8 seconds of pure DPS in this timeframe before needing to run out. Wait roughly 15 seconds for the cooldowns to be back up and repeat. It's not the usual face tank but it gets the job done. Mind you this isn't on act 3 - as the kill speed for me there is way too slow.

The way they need to fix desecration is when it's cast by the mob it places the burning spot underneath all players at the same time instead of jumping every second to the next player. Right now I agree it's basically just an endless cycle if there is more than 2 mobs using it.

I think WD's or Barb's would be super fun too. I'm going to keep using my bread and butter exploding palm till it is fixed though and then maybe venture onward.

@ Kick; I'll probably finish leveling my 4 WD's and give them a go, I had fun with them up to about 30ish. Do you ever try to wall off mobs with your pets? It seemed like nothing ever even got to me up to 35-ish, however inferno i've heard bad things about pet users. =(

@ Ellay; I meant did you make the one showing the op-ness of 4 monks, not the palm vid. Been waiting to see a video of anyone doing act 3 with 4 boxing on inferno. =P

@ Lightsan - check out the video I posted. It will give you a feel for WDs.

I tried a little more of Act 3, it was definitely not enjoyable. Looks like I'm sticking with act 1 - hopefully it doesn't get too boring :)

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Originally Posted by Ellay

I tried a little more of Act 3, it was definitely not enjoyable. Looks like I'm sticking with act 1 - hopefully it doesn't get too boring :)

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Yeah, Act I is so easy and more enjoyable. I think it took me an hour to do 1 pony run last night. Just to kill 5 elite packs and the trash. Although I did get some better techniques down, and I die less. I hit the enrage timer on a couple packs last night on some other pony farming runs. That's the first time I noticed it on elites. One of the elites went to like 2 billion max health, it was nuts.

I've been off for a while. but want to add to this discussion here. I've also tried boxing act 3 with monks. With limited control, you just have to kill quickly. Your gear is pretty good already. 40k damage is needed IMO. I only boxed 2 as it needs finer control and monk (dex) gear is very expensive. My general strategy is:

1. if range/runners, just sit on it , spam, with thundering fist teleport, 1100 LOH + 70 life per spirit spent, I can normally survive enough to kill it.
2. if melee, tank it if I can, if I cannot, I kite with CDs (only fight them when my CDs are ready). I use dashing strike to get out.

Elite skills:

1. the killer for monk is: wall (definitely skip) /jail (maybe kite a bit with serenity) /freeze (doable with kiting) + arcane + desecration, I recommend skip. this is just flat out not worth it. To your point, I think with 4, there are just too much stuff added (x 4 freeze , x4 desecration, x4 arcane). Your added damage is offset by added HP by the mob. The added stuff on the ground WILL instantly kill you.

2. molten also hurts a lot , but with enough resist 1500 buffed and LOH + LPS, you should be able to stand in it.

3. other skills: shielding, invulnerable minions, etc I find those manageable with enough LOH and LPS. and rotate heals + serenity.

all in all, it is a bit of challenge. and I don't see it can go smooth unless you have a 10 billion gold budget per monk.

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also to add to the barb video. I play barb solo as my main. BARB right now is totally broken.

far far OP than anything else, the only thing comes close is the wizard crit + twister + nova chain stun build.

2 things made barb OP:
1. the 4 Tornado on the ground have insane LOH %. With 1100, and 1.8 attack speed, you can regain HP back so fast it is not even funny.
2. Wrath of Berserker is immue to all CC, double - triple your damage , and can be infinitely extended with Battle Rage (crit to add fury , gain fury to extend WOB duration).

THe only thing is Barb's WW spin need some control so it is not easy to box. and the above 2 things are heavily rumored to be nerfed.

I've moved onto 4 witchdoctors and I'm doing fine in act 3 now, even with the stealth buff to affixes. Basically if you have to take hits you're looking at 250M +++ per character to gear up, more around 350M+++ if you want to not have to kite like a madman. Damage is everything and a really high dps LOH weapon is insanely expensive, needing 4 of them is extremely unrealistic. Basically 4 melee is not worth doing in my opinion. The game is broken on MANY levels though, I have never seen or heard of any team doing farming runs with more than 2 people. I've seen some mediocre attempts with 3, but zero 4 man farm runs without having 3 ranged + 1 tank. NOW? I don't know of anyone who does anything with melee in act 3 with the stealth buff that isn't either constantly kiting desecration as monk, or using the extremely OP Barb skills (LOH WW Barb).

Either way; this is a perfect example of what I'm talking about; http://imgur.com/a/RW8QA (That's not even act 3... You get stuck on mobs like that in act 3 you basically have to quit now, losing your 5 stack in the process...)

Minions + Desecration (or arcane) + 4 man = uninstall worthy, especially since the stealth buff to affixes. (Note the screenshots above were with 1 person only, hence the follower)

I don't know what blizzard was thinking with so many aspects of this game. I really genuinely want to enjoy it, however there are so damn many road blocks and/or lack of gear on a regular basis that I'm finding it extremely hard to maintain any level of genuine interest in even logging on anymore. I was hoping quadboxing would resolve this for me, however it's basically just 4x the moneysink (gold)... =(

You got some witchdoctors to act 3? that's awesome, I've been wanting to get me a group of them after seeing how well they can stun lock things. Must tell me more on their kill speed compared to monks and enjoyability.

It's faster than monks without question. Kick's guide is pretty nice, I just went a LOT more dps than he probably has. Once you meet enough survival with hp/resists/loh and you have the mana regen to constantly spam your ability; it's all damage from there. I actually added 4 bracers with knockback as well for a bit of added CC and then went really high int and crit where I could. There is no kiting like you have to do with monks most of the time so there's that little bonus to dps as well. =)

Doing 4 barbs i know i can make it work will post videos once 60 =-)

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Originally Posted by Lightsan

It's faster than monks without question. Kick's guide is pretty nice, I just went a LOT more dps than he probably has. Once you meet enough survival with hp/resists/loh and you have the mana regen to constantly spam your ability; it's all damage from there. I actually added 4 bracers with knockback as well for a bit of added CC and then went really high int and crit where I could. There is no kiting like you have to do with monks most of the time so there's that little bonus to dps as well. =)

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You know, I went to farm Act I and ditched my MF gear, to go full DPS (The spec in my video). Once I farmed it had a full bag of rares that I id's, I was like, well I got 5 stacks, I'll hit Whimsy - everything else in act 1 is clear.

So I went to Whimsy and did pretty damn well, I killed almost all the packs without wiping, I just had to kite 1 to the entrance.

If I had like 10k - 20k more dps on each guy, it would kick ass. I just don't have that kind of money right now. I can't even figure out a way to get that much more. The supply of kick-ass stun gloves and freeze belts are extremely limited.

I also put chill (4.0+) on 3/4 of my shoulders, it SEEMS like it's making a difference. Stun/Freeze is really key, but Chill might actually do something. I'm not sure if it reset their cast or what, but it's nice. I decided against knock-back/fear because it can knock them out of the AOE and then they cast arcane lazer or something.

So I'm happy with these guys, kiting is very, very limited, you can usually just sit in one spot and AOE. As I get better gear, it should be really nice. I've just got these tiny upgrades from time to time.

I bet Lightsan is going to have a lot of fun with higher DPS and survival.