BORED

Come ON, Blizzard, come up with Season 2 already because I'm so stone cold BORED. I mean, Season 1 has gone on long ENOUGH. I was playing the other day and my eyes suddenly glazed over and my character died. I didn't care. I just exited the game. Could it be I'm finally, completely bored with the game? I did try the new 2.1.2 patch on the PTR, but it's just more of the same. I easily got bored with that as soon as the community buff wore off. As in I stopped cold when that buff went off line. I wasn't having fun anymore.

Right now I'm playing something else. Hey, I'm actually playing DRAKENSANG again!

Playing Patch 2.12 on the PTR

I couldn't wait for the patch to go live so I tried it on Blizzard's Public Beta Testing System, PTR. I've had to redownload the game, but it was worth it! To fully test the system, they allowed ridiculous boosts to the bonus features:

And because of this, look at this! The inventory below is the result of just ONE Nephalem Rift on Torment 3:

Holy crap, right? I mean, sure...my character and all these items will be deleted when the patch goes live but, in the meantime, I'm having LOTS of fun!

The Vault is the Gift that Keeps on Giving

A nice little Legendary Gem I got after killing Greed from The Vault is this "Boon of the Hoarder". At rank 12, it gives 43% chance on killing an enemy to cause an explosion of gold. At first it didn't seem like much, but when I tried it, it was amazing. When it said "explosion of gold" it wasn't kidding! At 43%, nearly half of monsters I kill give up an incredible amount of gold.

Here's what gold I got from simply finishing a cursed chest bounty:

I got around 650 thousand gold from this!

A typical Torment 1 run on a Nephalem Rift gives me anywhere from 1-3 million gold!

I Found the Treasure Pygmy's Vault!

In earlier versions of Diablo 3, I often speculated where those pesky treasure pygmies go when they escape into their portals. Why couldn't we follow? What wonders can be found there? In the latest patch, they finally show us exactly what lies behind those portals! In rare instances upon killing a treasure pygmy, such a portal would open to the "Vault". After killing so many of these pygmies, a vault finally opens! And holy SHIT!

There's practically treasure everywhere! Break open vases and they yield no less than a million gold. And vases are all over the place! There are new monsters here, but they look like modified versions of familiar monsters and were easy enough to dispatch.

The area is a relatively large one, and at the end of it is an "Inner Sanctum" which holds a new boss named "GREED".

Greed's behavior is similar to The Butcher and with a simple strategy, she can easily be dodged and defeated. Just watch out for large treasure chests that fall from the ceiling. They can cause much damage to you if you get hit multiple times.

And upon defeating Greed, a large treasure chest with fangs appears and eats Greed. An explosion of gold and stash follows! And it's incredible. At least three legendary items! All in all, I got around at the very least 20 million in gold!

Best Amulet EVER

I've stumbled on what may well be THE BEST AMULET EVER. Check out this awesome stat; "Prevent all Arcane damage taken and heal yourself for 24% of the amount prevented." Holy crap, isn't that amazing?

Arcane damage is something I've always dreaded when playing Diablo. Now Arcane is my friend. I look forward to it. Not only does it NOT damage me, it actually heals me! So yeah! Bring the Arcane on!!

Here I am, just chillen' with my best buds, Arcane damage.

My Level 70 Crusader

I've been playing Diablo 3 almost exclusively with a Crusader ever since I got Reaper of Souls. I like it a lot. It is without a doubt the most powerful character in the game. I think Blizzard pretty much admitted it as such. I like feeling powerful in a game so I'm really enjoying this a lot.

Fellow player Jonas Diego did mention that this character has a weird dissonance in that his fearsome posture and demeanor seem at odds with an almost swashbuckling dialogue. I tend to agree. But I think that's apparent mostly in Campaign mode, but not at all noticeable in Adventure Mode. I've never played Campaign ever since I beat Act V. I've been playing exclusively on Adventure Mode since then. I've never really looked back.

I like playing in Adventure mode because it allows me a complete gaming experience in a relatively short amount of time. For instance. If I only have time to play for like 15 minutes I can do so in Adventure mode and within that time I would have completed tasks that's both satisfying and rewarding.

I'm currently Level 70, Paragon Level 116. My gear:

The Most Annoying Thing About Diablo 3

You know what is the most annoying thing about Diablo 3? Some monster that is more deadly to a player than Ghom, Rakanoth, Malathiel and even DIABLO himself? Well, it's THIS!

Whenever this happens (and this has been happening a lot lately), it just becomes impossible to play. The monsters win. I lose.

Whenever I see this, I just really fly into a rage. I wish I can translate that into a Barbarian's "Fury" or a Crusader's "Wrath" which I can use to demolish enemies, but whenever my own Fury or my own Wrath rises because of bad BAD latency, I just pop veins and my ears bleed so it's not really a good thing.

Back to My Monk

I went back to my old Monk and see what it has in store in Reaper of Souls. I found I enjoy the Monk much much more this time around. I leveled up quickly to Level 70, and since Paragon levels are shared between characters, this one is already up at Paragon Level 88. With better weapons and armor, the Monk has become much more powerful than I remember it. In fact, I enjoy this character now more than my old Barb. I think I'll be sticking with this one for a while.

I leveled up this Monk from Level 60 to 70 exclusively through Adventure Mode, doing bounties and rifts at the Master Level. It seems to be holding up pretty well at that difficulty level, more more than my old Barb. After a few more Paragon levels I think I will try and go back again to Torment.

Yellow

Yes. Yellow is my favorite color. After finding a rare merchant that sold the yellow dye, I bought tons of it just in case I don't see him again for a while.

Right now I've pretty much finished ACT V, and I'm simply doing bounties and rifts via Adventure mode. It's a lot of fun, and it's got lots of rewards. I think my upper limit right now in terms of difficulty in this mode is Expert. I will slowly inch up to Master and then finally to Torment as soon as I get better gear.

Transmogrified!

Went ahead and jumped to ACT V, but damn, I had to dial back the difficulty down to EXPERT because I was dying left and right to elites in Torment, even Master. Yes, I'm so crap at this. I'm already up to Level 67 and I finally encountered the new artisan, the Mystic. It wasn't so expensive to train her up to her highest level so I maxed her out immediately.

One fun thing about the Mystic is that she can "transmogrify" your armor, meaning she can change the look of your armor according to what you want. Place your, for example, helmet in the transmogrify window and you will be given several choices as to how you want it to look. It's so cool. That's my old Barbarian up there, fully transmogrified!

Reaper of Souls First Impression

I noticed a vast improvement in latency on the Americas server so I decided to continue playing my Barbarian there.

There was a big patch a while back, Patch 2.0 which upgraded the game and has in fact changed the log in screen to "Reaper of Souls". It came with an adjusted loot system (which is awesome), additions to the game like "Pools of Reflection" which allowed you to level up faster. But it wasn't until March 25 did the expansion "Reaper of Souls" was finally activated.

It comes with a new act, Act V, raising the level cap to 70, allowing more powerful items into the game.

Before the launch, I made it to Act 1 of Torment 3, Paragon Level 74. Torment 1 didn't seem all that hard, and the only thing that made Torment 2 slightly more difficult was that it took such a long time to kill monsters.

I thought I'd start over the game on Torment 2 after the launch, and just level up my character from there. What I noticed was the game had suddenly become more difficult, much more difficult than Torment 2 was before the launch. That's probably because the monsters are now leveling up the same time as me. Now that I'm up to Level 65, the monsters have leveled up to 65 as well. In fact, it's become so difficult that I've lowered the difficulty to Torment 1 and the monsters...just mobs and not even elites are STILL KICKING MY ASS. Holy crap. They seem to have a much higher damage this time around.

The joy in all this is that I've started to get much more powerful items, although I've noticed I haven't gotten much legendaries as I used to. Leveling up from 60 to 65 I only got ONE legendary item, but it's a really good one and it's now my primary weapon:

Additionally, the default gem that drops now is the "Marquise" gem, which automatically made all my other gems that I've been keeping and upgrading quite useless. I don't mind though. It's levels higher than the previous default gem which was I think "Flawless". As long as it makes my items much more powerful, I won't complain!

I've yet to see Act V or encounter the new artisan. But I'll get there eventually!

Akarat's Champion

Latency has improved dramatically today enabling me to play lag free for the first time in a week. YEAH! I've been leveling up my Crusader and upon reaching Level 25, I gained the "Akarat's Champion" skill, which enables me to literally go berserk for 20 seconds, very much like the Barbarian's "Berserker" skill. The character grows dramatically, looking more ferocious, which is awesome.

When I started this new character by the way, I didn't bother with Diablo 3's "Normal" setting and went straight to "Hard". It's actually not that hard and it's faster to level up.

Serious Latency Issues

I continue to have serious latency issues. In an earlier blog entry I posted about how it became virtually impossible to play properly on the Americas server, causing me to switch to the Asian server. I was able to play OK for a while, but very soon it too became plagued with really bad latency issues. My new Crusader above already died several times because of it.

Can you imagine how frustrating it is when encountering a pack of elites, and you engage them, and everything just stops? You keep on hacking and nothing's happening. 8 seconds later everything moves again but you're dead. I'm like WTF.

Hardcore playing is SO out of the question.

This is not just because of Launch Day because I've been experiencing latency issues for about a week now. It's really soured my playing of the game. It's too bad because my Monk has been kicking ass and this new Crusader holds a lot of promise. Diablo 3 seems like a new and revitalized game. I'm so stoked to play it. But well...

It's just not me though. Looking over the forums at Battle.net, you have an endless list of people having the same issues worldwide. And yes, that includes quite a number of complaints from the Philippines.

Perhaps it is because of the launch. People have started to play Diablo 3 again after a long time and lots of people are starting to log in. Notice how I'm on a queue in the graphic above. I mean, that hasn't happened since the game first launched a couple of years ago.

With a renewed interest in the game, Blizzard has to recognize the fact that they need to make people happy at this time. This time more than ever. Many of these people have already swore off Diablo 3 (including me) and are coming back right now.

You are being given another chance Blizzard...don't blow it.

New Character, New Server!

Fed up by the frustrating lags on the Americas server, I switched to the Asian servers where I'm able to play without lags at all. Unfortunately, my Barbarian, along with all the contents of my chest, don't come with me. I have to create a new character and build up its own inventory.

That's just fine. I created a Monk, which was the very first character I ever played on D3. I found myself leveling up incredibly fast. I mean, I just started this character today and I'm already at Level 24! Something must be in the air, and it turns out I was right!

Apparently, Blizzard has further boosted the Experience bonus to 100% on the eve of the Reaper of Souls launch. YEAH!

I'm not sure how long I will be playing on the Asian server. I will check again upon the ROS launch how playing on the Americas server will be. If it still lags, I will be playing Reaper of Souls, with a brand new Crusader, on the Asian servers for the time being.

Just Passin' By

Yep, just another monster passin' by. It's been difficult to play Diablo 3 lately. I don't know if it's just my connection or if more and more people are now logging in and playing in anticipation of "Reaper of Souls", but whatever it is, it's causing really frustrating drags.

What happens is you come across a monster like this, or an elite pack, you go swinging, then everything except you just stops. You're still swinging away, but it's having no effect. In the meantime, your Berserker Rage is counting down, your Eathquake is counting down, and its doing nothing. And then everything moves again and for some reason, you're transported some other place and your life is on half. Everything stops again. You escape, you run away. You think you're far away but, all of a sudden, you're in the middle of the fray again, monsters swinging at you, and you're about to die.

I can't play like this. I'm laying off for a while.

Belial's Defeat

Finally defeated Belial at the end of Act II (Torment II) but it took the combined might of Gerry and I to bring the bastard down. Gerry's been having problems defeating the Lord of Lies himself for a few days now, same as me. He messaged me earlier and asked if I'm up to ganging up on Belial and, of course, I was raring to go.

The beasts between the gates and the Imperial Palace were easy enough. I'm a Paragon Level 97 Barbarian and Gerry's a Paragon Level 71 by this time.

Battling the minions were relatively easy (we were in no danger of dying) as well as Belial's initial form.

The killer really was Belial's ultimate form.

We actually died the first time around. Truth be told we still died at our second attempt but with his dying breath Gerry managed to land the killing blow (I was already dead at this point...my Barbarian's high on damage but relatively low on hitpoints, Gerry's is the opposite I think).

It was such a surprise that I forgot to take screencaps. Oh well!

On to Act III!

My Favorite Companion

My favorite companion is the Enchantress. Why? There's lots of reasons why.

1. She can charm enemies to fight for me for 8 seconds.

8 seconds might not seem too long in real life, but in Diablo time, that's a lot. A lot of things can happen in 8 seconds which can spell the difference between life and death. The best thing is, she can charm not only mobs, but elite enemies and the big dudes like the one above. Imagine being in a situation of almost dying, the monster gets charmed, stops fighting you and fights others... you have time to recover your life as you continue hacking him unopposed. 8 seconds is a LOT of time. I've escaped many scraps where I could have died because of this.

Apparently, the only thing the Enchantress can't charm are the big bosses like the Skeleton King, Ghom, Rakanoth, Azmodan, Belial and of course Diablo himself.

2. She increases your armor by 3% just by being the chosen companion.

Again, it may seem like not a lot, but it is. It works even if she's dead.

3. She increases your attack speed by 3%, Attack speed is important for a Barbarian because increased attack speed is increased damage. Nuff said!

There's another skill that I would like to use, but that means removing the additional attack speed, and that's the Enchantress' ability to turn enemies (even Elite monsters) into chickens for 5 seconds, making them lose their ability to use their skills as well as make them easier to kill. I opt for the attack speed though.

That said, I'm now Paragon Level 69, Torment II and I think I've pretty much hit a wall with Belial. I've stacked a lot of my skills in defense and vitality. I've got a TON of life but not so much damage. It takes a long time to kill Elites on Torment II and it takes forever to kill something like Belial. It gives Belial time to trigger his enrage timer at which point everything goes insane and I'm dead. There's no more going past it until I get better gear which gives me higher life and higher damage.

Reaper of Souls is just around the corner anyway so it won't be long now before I get that better gear! Belial better watch out!

Loot 2.0: Best Pants Ever!

I'm loving the massive new Diablo 3 patch that most recently updated the game. I had stopped playing for a while because it had gotten too difficult and it was so hard finding really awesome gear. I started playing again in anticipation of, not only this patch, but Reaper of Souls in general.

In the few days I've been playing, I've gotten so many awesome gear that I've pretty much replaced everything that was given to me by Diablo pal Jonas Diego. Just today I picked up what is probably THE BEST PANTS ever.

"When 3 or more enemies are within 12 yards, you release a vile stench that deals 305% weapon damage as POISON every second for 10 seconds to enemies within 15 yards."

I mean whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?

I wouldn't wear that for real though!

Finally Beat Diablo on Inferno

FINALLY. It's really not much of a victory. By this time pretty much everyone's beat Diablo on Inferno. I was finally able to do it only by reaching Paragon Level 12 and playing at Monster Power ZERO, plus the benefit of a few Legendary items given to me by fellow player Jonas Diego.

I gave up playing many months ago because it just became too hard. I got stuck on Act 3 and I couldn't progress and I just kept getting crap items. So I just gave up. So yeah, I guess I'm really not that good of a Diablo player. I admit that right now. It's actually quite more like RELIEF I feel at beating Diablo at this level because it was just simply too embarrassing knowing I haven't beaten Diablo until now.

At least now I can just sit back and relax and just continue to level my Paragon Levels up, this time at Monster Power 1! Yeah, I'm so hardcore.

I'm playing it again now to re-familiarize myself with the game in preparation for the Reaper of Souls expansion. I hope to gain a few more Paragon levels before that happens, you know, just to prevent further humiliation.

There will NOT be an OFFLINE Mode for the PC

Based on this news report, it seems Blizzard will not be implementing an offline mode for Diablo 3, even after they take down the Auction House.

Why? According to the news report:

“The game was built from the ground up to take full advantage of Battle.net, which provides a number of important benefits, including persistent server-side character saves, a seamless PC multiplayer experience, cheat prevention, and Real ID and BattleTag social features.”

Well, there you go.

Personally, I can live without an offline version. There is some kind of wisdom in being able to store my characters in Blizzard's servers, specially when I change computers every few years. There's security in the thought that my computer can get completely screwed up and years later I can go back to playing my D3 characters where I have left off.  One of my favorite RPG games ever, Path of Exile is completely reliant on an Internet connection, so I'm kind of used to it.

In some ways I can't blame Blizzard because making the game reliant on an Internet connection would prevent some parties from using pirated copies of the game, at least in theory.

It's never been a problem for me because I've always bought my Diablo games legally.

I will still purchase the expansion when it comes out. I'm very interested in starting from scratch with a completely new character to take full benefit of all the changes and additions.