The Diablo IV thread

[cepheid]

Just hit 300 and wrapping it up for this season.
S11 is easily the best season ever IMO, but not because of some super cool powers or new functionality.....

The divine gifts powers provided the proper loot drop amounts so one wasn't scrounging to find a rune or mythic to put a full build together. It also undermined the bots spamming equipment or runes for unrealistic billions of gold. Sanctified items was kinda cool, but the lack of chasing a rare item or rune is what really made it a fun time this season.
This is the way it should look at the conclusion of a full season

 

[skazz]

How many hours did you play this season to collect all of that?

 

[cepheid]

How many hours did you play this season to collect all of that?

222 hours according to the character tab. No idea if that's a lot or a little. I started as a spiritborn too, but flipped about 2 weeks into the season when we all realized how crazy powerful the Pally was.

Also, keep in mind I'd leave myself AFK in town if I ran out to drive my kids around or whatever errands, so there's a fair amount of hours not actually playing.

Undercity Ascension and ~6 prankster runs was the secret for the mythics. A few dropped from boss fights but the vast majority came from those 2 kinds of runs.
Prankster drops were fairly rare, but given the absolutely stupid amount of sigils that dropped this season because of the season powers, they were out there to find.

 

[skazz]

Season 12 begins tomorrow, then 6 weeks into the season we get the expansion, meaning a new zone, level 70 and of course the Warlock being added.

Blizzard still haven't said exactly when Season 12 will end - will it be 6 weeks and then we have Season 13 starting in April, or will it continue for the usual 3 months (until 2nd week June) and the "endgame" of Season 12 only really start after the expansion arrives on April 28th?


Blizzard has also confirmed a collaboration with DOOM Dark Ages, and it looks like we will be getting a few Doom style weapon cosmetics via a reliquary and the rest via the shop similar to how the collaboration with BERSERK worked last year.

Graphically the cosmetic armour looks quite close to DOOM Dark Ages:

Of course, the good stuff will be paid cosmetics, and probably not as interesting as those Warcraft collaboration ones last year.

Edit: Found the free reliquary contents. No armour but it is definitely better than BERSERK was...

Additionally, Deluxe and Ultimate Edition pre-orderers of the LOH expansion get warlock related cosmetics for free to match the paladin ones we already had.

All LOH expansion owners get the Warlock class.
Deluxe and Ultimate owners will get:

• The Infernal Apostle Cross-Class Armor Bundle inspired by the Warlock

Ultimate owners also get:

• Avel’hud, Nucleus of Perdition reactive Back Trophy
• Embrace of Evil Town Portal

So the same split as we saw for the Paladin cosmetics iirc.

 

[RandomZero]

Thanks for the summary! I'll play until I get all the Reliquary done, then probably put it down until the XPac drops. Pushing to P300 this season was a bit much, and now with the nerf to boss XP, yeah, never again

 

[skazz]

In game the Season 12 repository is showing 47 days, so I guess it will end when the expansion (28 April) arrives after all.

 

[NervousEnergy]

Ended the season with like 3 or 4 sparks - didn't get anything till near the end (I stopped at Paragon 205, I think) when I got a Shroud by gambling (total shock there - I've never received a mythic from gambling), and then purple sparks from the various in-game mission tiers.

Paladin was fun, but it ultimately wasn't quite as fun as a well-geared Sorc. I'll try the Warlock when the xpac drops.

 

[skazz]

Interesting change this time around for the collaboration. You can buy each Doom skin separately per class, or you can buy a bundle of all 7 classes for the price of just over 2 skins bought separately. I don't recall them ever doing a bundle like this before, definitely not for a collaboration:

The barbarian armour is closest to the Doom: The Dark Ages MC images in exact appearance. Definitely unique in the game.

As compared to the game appearance:

 

[Mortus]

The prices for their cosmetics still amaze me. It's one thing with POE where their MTX is what sustains them. But D4 has a full purchase price, 2 DLCs, and paid battle passes that don't return enough credits to cover anything. Then to charge over $20 for a single class's cosmetic armor set?

That said, I'm still a consumer whore who buys shiny things to make me shiny. But I have no interest in the DOOM collab stuff.

 

[Gub]

That said, I'm still a consumer whore who buys shiny things to make me shiny. But I have no interest in the DOOM collab stuff.

Since I'm also a weak consumer whore, I bought the cacodemon pet. Nothing else really screamed "buy me."

 

[skazz]

On the other hand, I splurged on last season's deluxe battle pass just for the feather wings and matching feather armour, pets and mounts:

And I'm considering the same this season, to the despair of my wallet....

These new wings are blue, shiny, starry, huge and well animated. And the glowy armour is not terrible either. Probably time for yet another €28 deluxe battle pass:

P.S. I like how Blizzard took the basic tiger mount shape and adjusted it for that mount bottom right of the picture. Creative use of their model size and shape.

 

[Mortus]

Blasted through the content in like 2 days, up to Paragon 200. But struggling to continue because the obducite nerf is quite rough and I just don't feel compelled to grind it out. Normally I'd try to 100% the seasonal stuff, but there's a handful that will be quite difficult without wasting hours of mindless grinding to power up enough for.

 

[skazz]

Blasted through the content in like 2 days, up to Paragon 200. But struggling to continue because the obducite nerf is quite rough and I just don't feel compelled to grind it out. Normally I'd try to 100% the seasonal stuff, but there's a handful that will be quite difficult without wasting hours of mindless grinding to power up enough for.

I didn't know about an obducite nerf (but since I'm playing my eternal character this short season I have way too much obducite already).

Just out of interest: Is the horadric event nightmare dungeon boss still the best place to farm it?

 

[RandomZero]

I'll have to recheck when I log back in, but I'm pretty sure last time it was like, I got 19. 19, It's a little ridiculous.

 

[skazz]

I'll have to recheck when I log back in, but I'm pretty sure last time it was like, I got 19. 19, It's a little ridiculous.

Last season a max rank chest from the horadric strongroom was giving around 1000 obducite wasn't it?

 

[RandomZero]

I misspoke, if you are talking the escalation sigils, I'm not sure. I ran one earlier and barely got close to 200 through the entire thing. Regular or Bloody version of NMDs are barely giving anything. Increasing the carrying capacity then nuking the drop rate from orbit is a little strange.

 

[skazz]

I mean nightmare dungeons with a horadric strongroom, which you teleport to enter from the horadric strongroom entrance inside the dungeon (follow the purple glowing thing to the entrance pillar).

You get a large pile of obducite out of the chest at the end of the strongroom from the boss. Ideally you complete all VII tiers in the strongroom to maximise the obducite collected from the chest at the end. Although often I only end up at tier VI, depending on luck.

 

[Mortus]

Last season a max rank chest from the horadric strongroom was giving around 1000 obducite wasn't it?

I think I saw someone say that they only got 300 this season.

 

[mqatrombone]

Man the survivability of my sorc vs my pally is reminding me of how important killing things is to surviving.

Also, I sent an invite request to join the clan (same blizzard name as my forum handle)

 

[Nitestorm]

The "butchered heroes" objective is essentially impossible to do unless someone deliberately lets you kill them. First, its actually a typo in that it has to be done on T4, not T3 (I did it on T3 and didn't get credit). On T4, the player letting you kill them has to essentially strip off all their gear, or at the very least disable thorns or anything that will auto attack you (this includes dismissing the follower), as you get one shot. I even found an AFK paragon 130 player in T4 and died in one hit from their follower.

 

[Nitestorm]

Seems like the latest patch actually fished the issue and the Butcher no longer gets 1 shot in T4 anymore - you can actually complete the "butchered heroes" objective legitimately now.

 

[skazz]

Well the predownload is already possible. Just a few more days until launch of Lord of Hatred.

I expect teething problems at launch, so I'll probably relax into it, just like I did with Vessel of Hatred. How about you guys? Ready and raring to go for the next season or intending to gently work through the new campaign and zones and not too bothered about the season?

 

[cepheid]

It's going to feel like a new game with all the re-done skills and features. It really reflects on how 'beta' the game was on release with so many half measures and such.
I just hope they fix the teleport issue that crashes the game, especially on AMD GPUs. It's torture playing when you open a prankster NM dungeon for a guaranteed mythic and the game crashes.
They really concentrated on consoles originally, and with this addon, it finally seems like the game is coming into its mature own.

 

[RandomZero]

Not much longer. So many changes. I'm honestly thinking about running a Warlock from the very beginning of the campaign all the way through. I dunno, will see what happens when I manage to log in. Servers could be on fire, who knows.

 

[Nitestorm]

Two hour login queue apparently and constant disconnects. I am honestly surprised.

 

[dredphul]

Whee! 42.5GB download before I can do anything.

My Steam Deck is hogging my internet and it has reported a peak d/l of over 460+ Mbps and it's making browsing Ars painful.

 

[RandomZero]

It took me about 15 minutes to get on once the season kicked off, due to login timeouts, but after that it was fine. The 38gig and change update right at 4pm took forever to download though. Anyway, I went to the new stuff, couldnt wait. Only played for about 30 minutes, but seems a little more optimized, so that is nice. Be back at it in a few hours after a nap. First thing that has been able to pull me off Crimson Desert since it launched.

 

[dredphul]

Got to the Oracle and decided to stop for the night.

I'm a gothy looking Warlock who has a phantom scorpions tail coming out of my butt as my main attack. I use chains to tie down enemies and have a fleshy weird eye creature I can summon to enhance damage. There's a smoky teleport/evade thing I can do.

I've been spreading out my points to pick up more effects instead of piling them all into certain skills. Haven't looked at a guide yet, so will need to see if it'll work out for the rest of the campaign.

But for right now it's entertaining.

 

[dredphul]

Ended up switch to a flame based build for my Warlock as I got a plaque thingy that gives +1 skill to all flame based skills.

Also got a couple plaques that give +2 and +1 to basic skills, but found out that they don't stack.

Getting one-shotted by the boss by the Oracle. Going to get some levels running around the main map for a while and then go back to the story.

 

[RandomZero]

I've been running the Demo Lock. I thought this thing was going to flame out, but getting the 5p set bonus, yeah this is fun

 

[Nitestorm]

Leveling seems quite a bit slower than before, I'm only around 200 paragon right now but I did manage to reach T10, I guess two more to go.

 

[NavyGothic]

Just finished the main campaign. They really knocked this one out of the park; Vessel of Hatred was a little weak (pretty bad case of middle-act syndrome), but Lord of Hatred dialed up the epic factor to 10 for a fantastic finale. Love the Grecian theme, great use of Lillith and Mephisto, and I don't mind a bit of melodrama-tragedy when it's well executed. Between D4 and WoW, Blizzard has been on a roll for the last ~4 years. Not perfect, to be sure, but a very welcome return to form.

Haven't hit max level yet, so too soon to tell how the seasonal gameplay feels. My Pally felt pretty satisfying to play, but my girlfriend is playing Warlock and holy shit does she just fill up the entire screen with explosions. I literally have no idea what the fuck is going on when she's spamming away. Some option to make friendly spell effects translucent (like their pets) would be very helpful.

 

[NervousEnergy]

Watched the opening cinema piece and rolled a Warlock, but didn't really play much yet - too many other games competing for attention that I need to finish first, like Pragmata. Is Pally still a top-tier pick or is it completely overshadowed by the Warlock? New classes are always overpowered a bit, but the base gameplay didn't grab me much compared to Pally or Sorc.

 

[Nitestorm]

Okay, so I cheesed the Echo of Lilith and Mephisto T12 objective by using Melted Heart and doing a near immortal build. My damage was laughably awful for the fight so it took like 10 minutes each but it worked.

 

[pauli]

Diablo IV is in this month's Humble Choice. How is the base game experience for a solo player? The recent Steam reviews are not exactly glowing, with lots of complaints about paywalled skills and such.

 

[NavyGothic]

Diablo IV is in this month's Humble Choice. How is the base game experience for a solo player? The recent Steam reviews are not exactly glowing, with lots of complaints about paywalled skills and such.

Diablo IV is fantastic for casual play. The campaign is the best storytelling Blizzard has done in years, the world is gorgeous, and the class design all feels solid. The end-game loop had some pretty major issues at launch (the gear treadmill was extremely unsatisfying), but that is greatly improved now; and irrelevant if you just want to be a big damn hero and vanquish the hordes of Hell through the campaign.

The first expansion Vessel of Hatred isn't bad, but it's not amazing either. It's the middle act and it feels like it.

The newly released expansion Lord of Hatred is brilliant; maybe even better than the original campaign. It's shorter, but some all-time great moments as you push toward the climax.

I have no idea what complaints people have about a paywall. The only cash purchases are cosmetics, and yeah I think they're too expensive (very whale focused, like $20+ for a single skin), but I just ignore it. There's enough good looking gear in the base game to look badass.

 

[LordDaMan]

I have no idea what complaints people have about a paywall. The only cash purchases are cosmetics, and yeah I think they're too expensive (very whale focused, like $20+ for a single skin), but I just ignore it. There's enough good looking gear in the base game to look badass.

That and you can unlock some of that through normal gameplay with a seasonal character

 

[dredphul]

I have no idea what complaints people have about a paywall. The only cash purchases are cosmetics, and yeah I think they're too expensive (very whale focused, like $20+ for a single skin), but I just ignore it. There's enough good looking gear in the base game to look badass.

Maybe people are complaining that they had to buy the new expansion to get access to the Warlock and Paladin classes?

Which is a dumb complaint, but people are getting pretty entitled now a days.

 

[hansmuff]

Single player D4 is good. The new DLC is quite great in my opinion, lots of content and story for $20.

 

[NavyGothic]

Maybe people are complaining that they had to buy the new expansion to get access to the Warlock and Paladin classes?

So I took some time to check the Steam reviews. The complaint is that all classes got a big skill revamp with Lord of Hatred, and each skill now has three "modifier" talents which can significantly change the way it works. One of those modifier talents for each skill is locked if you don't have Lord of Hatred.

I can see the complaint, but it also seems kinda inconsequential. If you're playing the campaign then those build variants don't matter at all; and if you do want to get stuck into the endgame grind, you need the expansions anyway. Maybe I have a lopsided view after purchasing 11 WoW expansions and thinking mandatory expansions for endgame play is just normal?