Diablo 3: Your Character(s)

The Game Room
1

Hi there everyone. Although we have a few threads on Diablo3 already active at the moment, none of them focus on the one thing that I find intensely fascinating thanks to the new skill system in D3, character builds. I use build here in the loose sense to describe skill choices, gear, passives, etc etc. Before continuing, one favor please. When describing your build, please describe things instead of just listing names. Or use the skill calculator on Blizz’s website. I did both. Without further ado, I’ll
go first:

Gamertag: Autolycus#1971
Character Name: (for cutscenes, emotes, or if slain): Marina
Level: 31
Class: Wizard
Health: 7K
DPS: 380 base

Here is my toon’s skill calculator link: Here
Left-click: Electrocute (splitty rune)
Right-click: Disintegrate (wide beam)
1: Archon
2: Diamond Armor (extra absorption)
3: Force Wave (extra dmg+stun)
4: Blizzard
Passives: Blur (-20% dmg), 4 arcane power from primary, and plus to arcane/regen.

I’m not at my home comp so I’ll try and see if I can describe my gear later. It is changing constantly now though thanks to the AH, so we’ll see.

Anyway, right now in Act4 Normal and just steamrolling everything. Playing hardcore though, so I know that in NM the fun easy-going killing spree will have to come to an end :stuck_out_tongue:

Your turn!

2

My current Demon Hunter
Basic strategy: When I see enemies, move away, and lay down a few Caltrops while doing so. While the enemies are moving through the Caltrops, Rapid Fire until I’ve emptied my hatred, then Evasive Fire any that are left. If something goes wrong and I get surrounded, Vault away.

My retired barbarian
Basic strategy: Charge into the center of a bunch of enemies, Stomp to stun them and pull them in, Ancient Spear to catch any that were too far out, to completely surround myself. Then, take damage and Revenge as much as possible to get it all back. If Revenge isn’t active, then Frenzy (I was using Cleave, but was having trouble with bosses). If it looks to be a tough fight, or I’m about to die, then Earthquake. The problem is that there turn out to be too many things that kill too quickly to give Revenge a chance to activate.

3

Gamertag: Spinetingler#2454
Character Name: Crichton
Level: 60
Class: Witch Doctor
Health: 36.6k
DPS: 39k

Skill Calculator. Although my skill set is pretty much set in stone (to take advantage of the Nephalim buff) I do occasionally swap out Haunt for Hex/Confusion/Horrify/Big Bad Voodoo.

My usual tactic is to find a group, put down Grasp and start attacking with my Poison Darts. That’s usually enough TBH but if there is a particularly tough enemy I’ll throw a haunt on it.

Against elites and champions Wall of Zombies stops them in their tracks for 5 seconds allowing me to freely attack. Grasp is pretty useless on them. Fetish Army provides an awesome distraction allowing me to DPS them unmolested for a while. Spirit Walk is easily our best ability and keeps me out of trouble.

My passives increase my damage, keep my mana regenerating during Dart spams and give me a delightful get-out-of-jail-free card in Spirit Vessel. There are other passives I’d like to use but I consider these essential to my build.

For gear I’ve been focusing on attack speed and intelligence. Lately I’ve started to care about resists and armour rating but I’m at a bit of a crossroads. It seems opinion is divided about whether Witch Doctors should worry about defence or just go all out DPS and not get hit.

I’m currently in Inferno Act 3. It took me a few goes to kill Belial (and the server kept going down) but when I finally got the bugger I did a little dance. Basically if I got hit even once during the last stage I died (unless Spirit Vessel was off cooldown). I watched a few YouTube videos and learnt to avoid his attacks.

I’ve been playing Solo, although I admit I got some help on Inferno Butcher (I’ve since killed him solo dozens of times).

I also have a level 30 Barbarian named Dargo but he’s pretty much been abandoned.

4

Wizard, build here. The constants are Electrocute/Lightning Blast (which turns electrocute into a line area of effect attack), Diamond Skin, and Hydra. I’ve flopped between Arcane Orb, Arcane Torrent, and Disintegrate; I used to run mirror image as an “oh shit” button but now prefer the massive damage bonus from Archon. I love Power Hungry and basically will never run without it except vs. opponents who don’t drop health globes (pretty much the Butcher).

5

Level 60 Demon Hunter
Health: ~34k
DPS: ~32k base (often higher than that to some degree due to Sharpshooter)

Skill Calculator

I started a Demon Hunter because I wanted to relive the days of my Amazon; I have very little interest in most of what I would refer to as “that assassin crap”. As a result, I am set up to do the vast majority of my damage through shooting arrows at things. That said, virtually all of the defensive and evasive abilities for the DH don’t fit in with that, so I had to compromise a little bit. I’m pretty happy with how it plays overall, though.

I am currently in late Act 2 Inferno - I should be killing Kulle tonight for sure and hopefully Belial, though historically the latter has given me more trouble than any other boss fight in the game.

For any non-elites, it’s a pretty simple game of shoot arrows from as far away as possible. Both Hungering Arrow and Multishot work well without needing to be aimed with precision, which makes it a lot easier to move-shoot-move-shoot-move-shoot and maintain proper distance. Vault aids with positioning when needed, and Fan of Knives is major AE damage + snare for anything that manages to get that close, along with Impale for another damage/defense combo. The Bat Companion is strictly for Hatred regen, and for a couple of particular boss fights (especially Diablo) I switch in Shadow Power with the Gloom rune in that spot.

I can take about 80% of Elites and Champions. Invulnerable Minions has me immediately either reloading or trying to figure out a place where I can hide that monster pack and not have to fight it; I don’t even try any more vs. those. Anything else can be killed unless it’s a particularly bad combo. Jailer and Vortex are the two most dangerous because they restrict the ability to keep distance, and in combo with Molten/Mortar/Desecrator they can become insta-deaths very quickly. Reflect Damage is surprisingly annoying because life steal doesn’t appear to give back NEARLY as much life as it should, and I can easily shoot arrows into one and kill myself on the reflect before it dies. Hooray for kiting while potions cool down.

For gear, I focus on damage (over and above DPS, because the extra attack speed that helps that DPS number so much doesn’t help nearly as much while kiting), run speed, vitality/life, and magic find. I am actually running about 110% base MF with those stats in my current gear set, which puts me over 200% with Nephalem Valor stacked all the way. The deaths are more fun when more/better loot is dropping, and that much MF can lead to some good farm runs. That said, I am trying to push through the frustration to get to the end of Act 3, as Cytherea/Azmodan in short succession should be some good, easy loot.

I largely play solo, though I’m not above jumping in a public game to get past a frustrating part, and at some point I hope to do some SDMB farm runs once everyone is level 60. I also have a mid 30s monk, a low level wizard, and several dead mid-teen hardcore characters. I lost my last hardcore monk to an ISP drop out, and it’s temporarily soured me on the HC scene.

6

When I am able to use only one hand due to babies or whatever, but still want to play D3, I spec out my (lvl 52) Wizard as a one-handed wonder as follows:

Left mouse button: Spectral Blade w/ the bleeding damage rune
Right mouse button: Diamond Skin w/ doubling rune OR Teleport w/ mirror image rune
Arcane Orb w/ the arcane orbit rune
Magic Weapon w/ the venom rune
Familiar w/ the rune that increases my attack damage by 12%
Energy Armor w/ the crit rune

Passives:
Blur
Galvanizing Wind
The one that can cause stun on Arcane damage. (This one I switch around a lot though)

Surprisingly effective against almost everything so far…

7

Name: Rocky
Class: Barbarian
Level: 26

Tactics: Waste inordinate amounts of time killing things in Diablo 3, when I could be doing something meaningful like World of Warcraft instead.

8

Please feel free to critique my current build. Any help would be appreciated as I’m not sure it’s the strongest.

Level 32 monk, going after the Skeleton King, Act I, Nightmare
LMB - Deadly Reach w/ Piercing Trident rune
RMB - Crippling Wave w/ Mangle rune
1 - Blinding Flash w/ Blinded and Confused rune
2 - Seven-Sided Strike w/ Sudden Assault rune
3 - Inner Sanctuary w/ Sanctified Ground rune
4 - Mantra of Healing w/ Sustenance rune
Passives - Exalted Soul and Pacifism (I think)

I found I was getting my ass handed to me by mobs with molten on them. I’m a monk, shouldn’t have to kite. Also, met up with a pack of Unburied, that had at least one rare or champion and got pounded on pretty well. I normally run with Cyclone Strike and Mantra of Retribution, but they were failing me in certain situations. I changed to the above build after the molten mobs destroyed me.

9

I don’t think you’re running enough passive defense/damage reduction for even Nightmare, which is why the stuff that is starting to hit reasonably hard is causing you trouble. I am running this on my 35 monk, with some pretty strong results; you may want to look at switching in some of the defensive abilities one at a time and seeing which ones help more than others. Ideally only changing one or two things so it doesn’t affect your entire playstyle; one of the good things about the skill system is how you can build out a class completely differently and still have it work.

I fully anticipate that I’m going to have to go even more defensive if I ever bring this character up to inferno level, though. Or maybe they’ll have rebalanced things a bit by then.

10

Not sure if you meant against reflect mobs specifically, but LS is nerfed to hell in Inferno and, at least to the one LS vs. life-on-hit thread I read, pretty much considered to not be viable. (IIRC, LOH was considered to be better in Inferno, but not by a lot.)

11

Dracoblaster
lvl 44 Wizard
Left: Electrocute, Forked for more lightning goodness
Right: Disintegrate, Chaos Nexus for more lazer goodness
1: Diamond skin, with Prism, for reduced arcane cost
2: Hydra, with lightning
3: Storm armor, with Power of the Storm, for arcane cost reduction
4: Mirror Images, with Duplicates, for more not hitting me

Current attack pattern is have Storm Armor up, then Diamond Skin and Hydra at sight of bad guy, then right-click-and-hold until Diamond Skin goes away. Run through some healing, drop a Mirror Image, right-click and hold until Diamond Skin is back and Hydra goes away. Repeat.

Question about Reflect Damage: When I run into mobs with this, my health bar doesn’t move, even without Diamond Skin. Is it that (a) I have too much health, (b) I don’t do enough DPS, © this game mechanic is broken, or (d) some combination of the above?

A suggestion for the one-handed players:

Level 23 Monk:
Left: Crippling Wave, the circular cleave punch, with Mangle (extra damage)
1: Breath of Heaven.

Attack sequence: Left-click-and-hold on bad guy until he’s dead. Repeat. Heal as needed. Loot.

12

Level 50 Wizard, Act 3, Nightmare
skill calculator.
Health: ~12k
Damage: 8-9k

I’m open to advice, since I’m still not thrilled with the way this build does against elite packs. (I suppose swapping Glass Cannon out for another passive would help – possibly Critical Mass, as I have about 15% crit and Frost Nova is my go-to “oh shit” button.)

Against non-elites, I throw down a hydra and Disintegrate everything while my Templar tanks.

Against elites, well, I do the same thing, except I pop Archon after the hydra.

It works well enough, except I’m still pretty squishy. I’m tempted to either drop Archon and add Blizzard for more kiting goodness, or maybe drop Energy Armor for Diamond Skin (or maybe for the +damage familiar).

Obviously, this is all a work in progress, but I’m geared up enough that I don’t die too often.

13

I meant in general, but yeah, I really feel the lack of a viable LoH/LS type ability on reflect mobs. I ended up just abandoning it and grabbing some more dex/vit/MF. :slight_smile:

14

Just correcting some delusions of grandeur… :smack:

16

Appreciate the help. I tried this one last night, worked pretty well. The only problem I had was with a pack of chained skeletons. I might trade out Cyclone Strike for Blinding Flash w/ Blinded and Confused rune.