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.

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.

Battle Tips: Terrain

In the various landscapes of Diablo III you don’t usually get to choose where to fight but rather fight where the demons and monsters find you. The type of places you fight in however, does offer its fair share of advantages and disadvantages and knowing these can be the difference between life and death for your character.

There are basically two types of battlefields you’re going to find yourself in: enclosed and open space.

Enclosed Spaces are, either because of man-made (fences, walls, etc.) or natural (rocks, trees, etc.) structures, forces your opponents into a bottle neck. Wikipedia defines a bottle neck as a term “taken from the 'assets are water' metaphor. As water is poured out of a bottle, the rate of outflow is limited by the width of the conduit of exit—that is, bottleneck’. Simply put, there’s not a whole lot of space to move.

This a classic military tactic most famously used by the Spartans against the overwhelming numbers of the Persian Empire. Taking advantage of a bottle neck 300 Spartans held off the Persian Army (supposedly composed of over one million soldiers but projected today to have been much smaller, around between about 100,000 and 150,000) in the Battle of Thermopylae. Because of the bottle neck, Persian Army was unable to use its superior numbers and the Spartans were able to hold their own for a while exploiting this advantage as well as their superior training and equipment.

By finding natural bottlenecks in the terrain and positioning yourself in the right place, your opponents will be forced to come at you 2-4 at a time, giving you a better than average chance of overcoming a horde which would have otherwise overwhelmed you in open space, attacking you from every direction. This is very helpful when you’re faced with monsters that can inflict high levels of damage since they can only attack you taking turns instead of all at once.

The drawback with contained spaces is that you can very well get trapped with no means of escape if you find yourself getting overwhelmed so pick your battles carefully and don’t bite on more than you can chew.

Open Spaces are environments which don’t have a lot of hindrance for movement and you’re pretty much free to run (or dash) in whichever direction you might choose. These kinds of terrain are ideal for hit and run tactics when battling multiple opponents. You can just pretty much deal damage, run away before the enemy can retaliate, and then swoop back in and repeat as needed.

A word of caution however, without a plan you’re bound to spread yourself too thin and get yourself killed in the process. If you’re not too careful, it’s easy to get surrounded by enemies (especially in cases where you’ve taken on more than you can fight effectively). If ever you find yourself in such a situation the best thing you can do is try to get away, regroup (if you’re with a party), and resume your tactic before you get killed.

That being said, this kind of tactic is best for characters with an overabundance of brute force (such as the Monk and the Barbarian), a high armor rating, and natural resistance to damage (both characters receive 25% less damage compared to the other characters). Plus it wouldn’t hurt if you’ve got armor and/or weapons that increase your regenerative capabilities.

Stack the odds in your favor as much as possible and don’t be afraid to run away if needed.

What battle tactic do you prefer?

Hardcore

Laying off my Level 60 monk on Inferno Act 1 for now as I gather my wits about further progressing through the game successfully.

For the meantime, I decided to start a new Barbarian character...on Hardcore setting!

This means that once my character dies, that's it. Game over. He can't be revived anymore. I lose all money and gear that this character is associated with.

I have no illusions at all that I can finish the game (at least on Normal Setting) without dying once. I would just like to see how far I can go with that kind of risk looming over my head. I would like to see how careful it would force me to play and what techniques I learn here I can use on my Monk on Inferno.

I'm currently on Level 9 and I've successfully killed The Skeleton King. So far so good!

Starting Inferno

I haven't been able to post much here as I've been playing the game during my breaks from work. This game is incredibly addicting. I've fought my way through Normal, Nightmare, and Hell.

Now I'm about to take out the Skeleton King on Inferno difficulty.

Inferno is not kidding around. It's been incredibly difficult. The crazy thing is, the "Elite" creatures are actually far more difficult to beat than the big bosses. In fact, once in a while, I would actually skip Elites that I just could not kill. These are the ones with immune minions, lasers, and the ones that can yank you right in front of them and kill you with one or two blows.

It's crazy.

Since I'm already at Level 60 and that's pretty much the cap on leveling up, the only way to get stronger and build up more defense is getting better gear. That can be done through three things: farming, training your blacksmith and jeweler, or using the Auction House (which I use most of the time). I realized early on that it's such a waste using so much gold and wasted so much special items training the Blacksmith when he would give me next to useless items on the level I was on.

It's far easier to find really good items in the Auction House. Yeah, items there are crazy expensive as a lot of these sellers seem to be in it to get rich quick rather then be reasonable. I mean... 99 Million for an item? Are they INSANE? It's like they don't want their items sold at all. Who would be stupid enough to buy that?

All it takes is a little patience looking for powerful items that aren't expensive. The most expensive thing I bought was a 2 hander Daibo for my Monk that gave me 1K damage. I got it for around 200K.

Right now the Skeleton King is proving hard to beat but not impossible.

Switching Classes + Attributes

After playing a Barbarian for 20 or so levels, I tried playing the Demon Hunter, which turned out to be more difficult than playing a Barbarian (at least for me). I played the character for a few levels and then switched again, this time to a Monk.

And man, the Monk is AWESOME!

He seems much stronger and more durable than the Barbarian and the Demon Hunter (at least in my experience) but his moves and attacks are much more cooler. Visually, at least they look more lethal. I tried taking a screen shot of my character but it doesn't seem to work. WTF, Blizzard.

Anyway, I'm thinking I'm going to be playing the Monk for a while.

All right, now I think I can talk about how attributes are distributed in this game.

Path of Exile attributes distribution.

With something like Path of Exile, or even Diablo 2, you get to choose which attributes your character will achieve (Intelligence, Dexterity, Strength, etc). In Diablo 3, a set group of attributes is given to you each time you level up.

I only noticed this when I did level up and I looked at the bunch of text that appeared on the lower left corner of the screen. I didn't pay much notice to that area because for much of the time, it simply repeated what's being said on the screen by the characters. But when I looked again, it actually listed the attributes that were added to my character when I leveled up.

Now, for me, that takes a little of the fun out of the game. In Diablo 2, you get to choose which attributes to improve. In Diablo 3, they're spoon-fed to you.

I guess it makes the game more accessible to casual players but to someone like me who has played Diablo 2 and other games which allowed me to have bigger control over how my character is developed, well I'm kinda frustrated.

And disappointed.

What’s your Diablo III Character of Choice?

Diablo III is an upcoming dark fantasy/horror-themed action role-playing game in development by Blizzard, making it the third installment in the Diablo franchise.

In other words, evil is back!

“The game takes place in Sanctuary, the dark fantasy world of the Diablo series. This world was saved twenty years prior by a handful of unnamed heroes in Diablo II, heroes who, having survived the onslaught brought by the armies of the Burning Hells, have gone mad from their ordeals. It is up to a new generation of heroes to face the forces of evil threatening the world of Sanctuary.”

There will be five available character classes this time around, some familiar but mostly new ones.

The Barbarian

The Barbarian is the staple of the Diablo franchise and will have a variety of revamped skills.

This human tank will be able to whirlwind through crowds of enemies, cleave through swarms, leap across crags, and crush opponents upon landing. Fury is the fuel that powers the Barbarian’s skills which is generated through getting attacked by enemies, attacking enemies, and through certain other abilities.

Fury is used for certain strong abilities and degenerates over time which means the Barbarian has to keep fighting or lose steam.

The Witch Doctor

A new character reminiscent of the necromancer from Diablo II, the witch doctor has skills more traditionally associated with shamanism and voodoo.

The doc can summon monsters, cast spells and curses, and has great proficiency throwing poisons and explosives. Contrary to ongoing opinion among fans, the Witch Doctor is not another version of the necromancer (who, speaking of which, may or may not see a comeback with future expansion in the third installment of the franchise).

To power spells the Witch Doctor uses mana which regenerates slowly.

The Wizard

The Wizard is a new version of the Sorcerer from previous Diablo releases.

This master of magic’s abilities range from shooting lightning, generating fire and ice, slowing time (reminds of Neo in The Matrix Movies and his famous bullet time), and teleporting (around enemies, through walls, etc.).

The wizard fuels their spells with arcane power which is a fast regenerating power source which is probably a very good thing since they need to be dishing out a lot damage before the enemies can get close which is when a wizard is often most vulnerable.

The Monk

The Monk is a melee attacker, sort of like those Shaolin monks in those kung-fu movies (okay…a lot like those Shaolin monks in those old kung-fu movies).

These monks use martial arts to cripple foes (see what I mean?), resist damage, deflect projectiles, attack with blinding speed, and land explosive killing blows. It combines the melee elements of Diablo II's assassin class with the holy warrior role of the Paladin.

The monk is fueled by spirit, which has defensive purposes and is slowly generated through attacking, though it does not degenerate.

The Demon Hunter

The Demon Hunter combines elements of Diablo II's Amazon and Assassin classes (which I guess makes this class a sort of Ranger-type character).

Demon hunters use crossbows as their main weapon but can also throw small bombs at enemies. Some of their skills have been revealed and among them are arrow skills such as Chain Arrow. The demon hunter is fueled by discipline and hatred (which is kinda weird since hatred tends to have a negative light to it).

Hatred is a fast regenerating resource that is used for attacks.

So, which class are you going to play as?