General Tips & Advice from a Diablo Veteran

There has been a large influx of player interest in D3 with all the recent announcements Blizzard has released centralized around the Diablo universe. To that extent, I wanted to pay-it-forward to the community by compiling 10 Useful Tips and Resources that will give you an edge when you’re fighting Diablo’s hellspawn!

 

Tip #1 : Base stats are EVERYTHING!

 

This first tip can varry slightly once you know how to gear your characters, but I'd advise not diverging from this advice until your Defensive slots are optimized. At level 70; each piece of Rare or Legendary gear can have 4 or more Primary Attributes. Ensure that you dedicate EVERY Armor (Not Jewelry, Weapons, Offhands) piece to having 2 of those stats being Primary Stat (Strength, Dexterity, Intelligence) and Vitality. Utilize the other 2 Primary Attribute slots on your gear to be tailored to your Build.

 

Attributes like % Element Dmg +, CHC/CHD, IAS, % Life etc all = nothing without GREAT Base Stats. They’re important, but increasing your DPS by 17% Fire = nothing if you no stats to support it; always prioritize Prim Stat and Vit on all Armor slots.

 

Tip #2: Certain Gear Slots roll Offensive, Defensive or Hybrid stats more favorably.

 

In addition to dedicating Prim Stat and Vit to each Armor piece, each Gear Slot should be thematically tailored to either Offense, Defense or Hybrid. Imagine your character like a classic D&D character. Gear can roll a variety of Attributes, but each piece of gear is better at rolling either Defensive, Offensive or a mix therein.

 

Weapons and Jewelry should be 100% Offensive Attributes (zDPS being the exception). Armor as follows:

 

• Defensive Armor Slots: Boots; Legs; Belt
• Hybrid Armor Slots (Can favor Off or Def depending upon build): Chest; Helm
• Offensive Armor Slots: Gloves; Shoulders; Bracers

 

Use the Hybrid slot’s to offset your rolls in the Offensive and Defensive Slot’s. The more balanced you are overall, the more effective your build will perform.

 

Tip #3: Armor or All Resistance?

 

Mitigation is very important! When you’re dead, you’re doing zero DPS. Mitigation can be obtained in one of two forms... either via Armor or Elemental Resistances. Both accomplish the same effect in a different manner.

 

Armor: Mitigates all incoming damage regardless of the source. Whether it’s melee, a projectile or a spell, it will reduce it by a flat amount based upon your Armor Rating.

 

Elemental Resistance: Mitigates damage based upon its Element type. Just like Class abilities, enemy attacks, whether melee or projectile are still dealt in alignment with a particular Element. Having Elemental resistance of a corresponding type will reduce damage from that Element.

 

That said, it’s important to note that each Class inherently obtains one of these mitigation types for free by investing into their Primary Stat. Strength and Dexterity yields Armor, while Intelligence characters get All Resistance. To avoid diminishing returns you should invest in the alternate stat on your defensive slots. Strength & Dex classes should invest in All Resistance on defensive Slots and avoid Armor. While Intelligence characters should focus Armor on their defensive slots and avoid All Resistance.

 

Note: The only instance where you’ll want both, is if you’re a zDPS character.

 

Tip #4: You cannot Double Stack Resistances

 

All Resistance can roll on a lot of different slot’s. However, All Resistance can never roll on a piece of gear that also has a singular Elemental Resistance as a Secondary Attribute. Blizzard has done this to avoid double stacking of elemental types. So if you’re re-rolling gear the Mystic wondering why your Defensive item is never rolling All Resistance, check to make sure it doesn’t already have a Secondary Elemental Resistance.

 

Tip #5 : Farming Efficiently = More Loot overall

 

Getting drops of gear & upgrades is about completing the highest difficulty of content possible while being efficient! If you are struggling to kill trash mobs and/or killing an Elite Pack take more than 2-4 seconds than you are not being efficient.

 

Clearing content ASAP allows for more drops of gear; mats; goblins; chests etc. because it increases your average exposure to more content overall. Too high of a difficulty will slow you down; therefore lower your exposure to content.

 

Reference this awesome chart for a quick glance at the efficiency breakpoints for various item: http://d3resource.com/difficulties.png. The Author maintains the link and updates it whenever patch notes or datamined information change.

 

Tip #6: Spending Materials & Resources Efficiently

 

If you spend your Materials and Resources efficiently, they’ll go farther, you’ll have to farm less and you’ll be able to gear-up faster overall.

 

Blood Shards: At least until you get optimized Roll’s on all your Armor, Blood shards should be exclusively Spent on Armor. They provide you the most bang-for-your-buck. Not only from a Resource Cost perspective, but also from a an item potential perspective. There are more variations of Generic (Non-Class specific) Jewelry and Weapons then there is Armor.

 

Generic Mats: Generic Mat’s are best used for performing Rare Item Upgrades in the Kanai’s Cube with the Hope of Cain recipe; specifically for Weapons and Jewelry. As well as re-rolls on gear. This will be the fastest upgrade path for those gear slots.

 

Once you’re no longer wearing Rares, stop picking up Blues and Yellows altogether. You’ll get plenty from purchasing items from Kadala with Blood Shards. White’s you should pick up whenever you can though! Each item disenchants into 1 or more Resources.

 

• Legendaries = 1 Forgotten Soul
• Rares = 1 Veiled Crystal
• Magic = 2-4 Arcane Dust
• Normal = 8-10 Reuseable Parts

 

Using Kanai’s Cube, you can convert any Rare or lower Material to any other Rare or lower Material at a 1 to 1 ratio using Anger of Iben Fahd. Because of this, keeping Whites is actually most valuable. Counter intuitive, but true!

 

Legendary Materials: Don’t bother wasting your Legendary Mat’s on Craftable Sets. With recent changes to XP, even Cain’s and Born’s are useless at 70. Save all your Leg Mats for two Kanai’s Cube recipes: Archive of Tal Rasha for Legendary Power Extraction and Law of Kulle for Reforging Legendaries for the chance to become an Ancient version of the same item. Now that we can farm T13 in Adventure Mode, the Law of Kulle has become the most efficient method in the game to obtain Ancients. On the condition that you can effectively farm T13 Bounties with a decent group in 10-15 Minutes. If you turn in the Cache’s in the Bonus order, you’ll 16 of each Legendary Material on each run. This is amazingly efficient, but only if you can farm T13 effectively.

 

Tip #7: How to get great XP for Paragon Levels?

 

As seen in the Chart linked above and below in the Useful Links section. Greater Rifts by far yield the highest amount of experience per hour. Whether you’re Solo, or in a Group, Greater Rifts will be your ticket to those high Paragon levels and free stats.

 

Tip #8: Speed Farming

 

Speed Farming Builds forgo Combat effectiveness (Damage & Toughness) for utility. This allows players to farm faster and thereby get more Loot. It is advised that you don’t optimize for a Speed Farming build until you have sufficient DPS and Toughness elsewhere in your build or you’ll defeat the purpose of Speed Farming. Speed farming group’s aim to clear rifts in 2-5 Minutes.

 

Here is a list of the most common Item’s/Equipment used for Speed Farming:

 

• Nemesis Bracers: These bracers allow you to spawn an Elite/Champion pack every time the wearer selects a Pylon/Shrine. The more elites packs you kill = more Death Breath’s & more Progression Globes = faster clear = more loot per hour.
• Avarice Band: The reason why this Ring is amazing is because of it’s absurd pick-up radius. Every time you pick up Gold, Avarice Band expands your pickup radius by 1 yard. If you’re using Boon of the Hoarder &/or a Pet you’ll likely always be picking up gold as long as you stay on the move. Everytime you kill an Elite pack, your pickup radius will automatically grow and grab all the Progression Orb’s as well. Letting you avoid spending valuable seconds scrambling to pick up Orb’s after each pack.
• In-geom: This Sword resets the cooldown on any ability with less than a 10 second cooldown instantly for 15 seconds after killing an Elite/Champion pack. This adds a ton of utility, speed, offense and toughness to a wide array of builds.
• Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac: If you can’t get your hands on an In-geom, Orotz is a great alternative. Anytime you spend your primary resource it’ll randomly reduce one of your abilities cooldowns by 1 second. The less abilities you have that exhibit cooldown, the more effective this item becomes.

 

Tip #9: Portal Immunity

 

In order to address some Network issues and to help optimize group play, Blizzard has inputted a safeguard when exiting out of Portal’s. If you do not Attack (Abilities or Skills) or Move you’ll be immune from all sources for 30 seconds. It is a hidden buff not displayed on-screen. Whether you’re transitioning between Rift level’s, teleporting on an ally, or traversing through a Portal to Cow Town or the Vault, if you do not move or attack, you’ll be safe for a limited time; attacking or moving will cancel the effect.

 

Note: This is very valuable in Hardcore!

 

Tip #10: Elective Mode

This option, found in settings under Gameplay, allows the user to configure their Action bar however they want. Really valuable for customizing builds!

 

Useful Links

I keep these readily accessible every season to keep ahead on the Leaderboard Curve.

 

Check em out!:

• Difficulty Scaling Chart & Item drop intervals: http://d3resource.com/difficulties.png
• Kanai Cube Recipe’s: https://us.battle.net/d3/en/game/guide/items/kanais-cube
• Which Slot’s can roll which Stats? You can view slot’s via a Character Sheet or by a Table: http://www.d3maxstats.com/ Includes Legendaries as well :D
• The best Diablo 3 builds can be consistently found on these two sites:

Diablo Fans: http://www.diablofans.com/

Icy Veins: http://www.icy-veins.com/d3/

 

Additional Advice that came from a Comment question

 

1. zDPS = Zero DPS. These are builds focused on Supporting the rest of the Group. They forego DPS stats to emphasize toughness while buffing allies, debugging enemies and providing utility.

2. I would consider the Socket on Helms mandatory. The Stats obtained from Gems in the Helm are among the best in the game and can't be obtained any other way.

• Diamond = CDR (Combat Effectiveness)

• Amethyst = % Vitality (Toughness for zDPS)

• Topaz = RCR (Combat Effectiveness)

• Ruby = +Experience (For leveling)

3. Legendary Gems are obtained by completing Greater Rifts. You'll randomly obtain 1 for each Rift until you have them all. You can get extras of a given gem by taking them out of your characters inventory & stash then putting it on another character.

Best DPS Gems are: Bane of Trapped, Bane of Powerful, Stricken and Zei's (ranged)

Best zDPS Gems are: Esoteric, Toxin & Ice Blink

Builds on D3fans & Icy Veins will provide better insight as to which gems you'll want for your builds.

4. For non- ancient Jewelry you want To prioritize the following stats on the following order: Socket > CHC > CHD > Prim Stat.

For Ancient Jewelry: Socket > CHC > CHD > RCR/CDR/AS, and you'll get Prim Stat from Kanais Despair Recipe.

5. Most builds benefit most by having a Main hand and Off-hand because 2 Legendary affixes are better than one. 2-Handed Weapons are generally used in the Cube if utilized.

6. In most cases you won't have to prioritize Regen on your gear. Between Paragon levels and optimized gear you should have all the sustain you'll need. For Group play, the zDPS's will provide more sustain.

 

Wrap-up

I’m an avid Hardcore player always looking for more people to group with for various content. If you’re looking for a fun and inviting Clan that promotes teamwork yet respects individual play, whether you’re Softcore or Hardcore, I can hook you up there as well. I’ve been an Officer of LAW for over 3 years and have known most of the members for awhile. They’re good people and we have a Ventrilo server for voice chatting during group play.

 

Hit me up if you’re looking for a Clan, advice, or just someone to play with:

• IGN: Inciter#1245