Karayne

Good to see you again, welcome back!

So I've addressed it once or twice briefly in game, but I figured it would be best to have an actual written post to clarify a few things regarding invites/etc with our clan.

Our clan in D3 was originally started as just an additional layer of interactivity between SoH-ers as we went about our way through Sanctuary. It's an active way to chat, share the drops and achievements we're seeing, and organize a few runs. It certainly didn't qualify as "chapter" material, but we have seen quite a spike in our roster!

To clarify, though, I made a decision to move invites to Veterans only (which isn't a system entirely parallel to our boards, as the clans in D3 only let you have 2 non-leader ranks,) to ensure that the clan kind of stays in it's current-SoH roots. We've had a few returning faces, which has been really great to see, but I figured D3 didn't entirely provide the environment we sought in recruitment that our actual chapters provided. For that reason I have kind of set the foundation to keep things to friends/family of current members at the furthest, but generally to establish the clan as an in-house environment. I did also move the clan off the LFM boards, so as to reflect this process and not give the wrong impression. This does mean that those of you who have not yet joined the Reaper of Souls team (you're missing out!) will have to send a tell to another player for an invite, but at this point quite a few people can make that happen should you decide you'd like to jump on in. And I don't mean to be discouraging at all if I'm leaving that impression; the number of people online has gotten pretty considerable at this point and that has been awesome to see. I just wanted to be certain that the <SoH> tag that we all get is placed well, as I know we expect a lot from and provide a lot for our members! Best guild around, as I can clearly state from my non-biased perspective.

But I simply wanted to provide a little of my thought process and insight after making a few changes, and doing so publicly allows you guys to discuss, agree or disagree with me as you see fit.

Either way, happy looting!
 

Karayne has one started!

It's true! And there's a whopping 2 members in it atm, including myself.

I mean, reflecting on the list of legendaries that I've seen in the news feed is nice, but it's too quiet!

For those of you playing the new and exciting loot-centric 2.0, I did whip up a clan for us (for now and onward, into RoS!) Should be searchable under South of Heaven or SoH, and you just request invites which I then accept as soon as I'm on. I play a good bit atm, but I'll give members invite status so we can have our roster fill out a little faster.

Awesome to hear from ya, Hip!

Sounds like you're doing ok, but as always feel free to hang around or pay a few visits. We'd all be glad to see a bit more of ya!

Well, time to get that hype train going again. I'm really hoping the expansion develops the game into what we all wanted, and it does look blizzard is going to work in that direction. You could pretty safely say Lord of Destruction made D2, will Reaper of Souls make D3? I sure hope so!

Also, rejoice, they're bringing back hammer...ders. Hammerders. We probably won't get a build so focused and OP as the original though.

Another homerun cinematic from Blizzard, it seems. They really do seem to be the one thing they can't get wrong, as that was really cool. Wasn't really interested in HoTS before, but now...

I'll go ahead and toss out what's on everyone's mind- that title in the recent topics frame was totally unexpected.

WHAT- Idra kicked ass and I missed it? I haven't followed the scene in depth in a while, but he was always one of my favorites to watch- offered great commentary, too.

Guess I'll be checking this out tonight.

Welcome back!

Yeah, this was a neccessary change. By the time you hit inferno, CC was useless. Ground stomp was a great ability, but it just wasn't worth it relative to things like ignore pain like they mentioned. That also had the effect of destroying diversity, so this kind of ties with their last set of updates.

Oh it gets much better. There are some very tall ramparts through that portal and in the stoneforts and even though it looks wonderfully rediculous, you can leap up and down them. I smile every time.

Counter Logic Gaming, an esports team that has members in a few different games.

I really like this. It fulfills that really basic, fundamental need for me to progress towards a goal that I can't achieve in short time. It's something to work on here and there, and a reason to play!

EDIT: IT BEGINS- 2nd comment: "Nice, this is something Brevik would've supported "

Wow. I'm astounded that things like this continue to happen, really. At this rate the D3 community will never, ever be calm and content. They just keep getting fed reasons to get pissed off.

That was an incredibly poor move, though. Everyone knows that you should be careful what you do on the internet...

They've changed these items in a big way, which explains why this patch has taken so long. It's actually kind of impressive when you factor in they're doing item remakes, class balancing, and inferno tuning all at the same time. I'm curious to see how these items work out in practice, though. Goldskin, for example, always rolls 100% GF with an additional chance to drop gold, but how are they handling weapons in particular? Did they take the old damage ranges and just shift them right, or did they narrow the range as well? Did they increase the size of the range, still allowing these items to roll terribly (but finally allowing them to be decent?)

Either way, more reason to look forward to the patch.

So many changes! I totally didn't think they'd tackle some of those listed in this patch, either. Looking forward to the class blogs!

It's a spec with a ton of synergy, no doubt. It's also pretty much the best throwback to ye olde D2 whirlwind barb and is hella fun, but I've been running it for a while and it's not necessarily any easier than a tanky or 2h spec. It functions best against huge packs of mid-low damage enemies like you see in that vid, but has hideous issues against the good 30% of enemies in A3 that run the hell away 24/7.

The big thing that makes it work is his 70k unbuffed DPS, otherwise it's a just a crit/loh build. I mean, it got me out of the fields with those war machines and into arreat crater, but it's not the broken OP build that the forums see it as. They're actually so vocal about it right now that I'm a bit scared we'll see a nerf because of it...

Really fun though, it's just expensive to do that is all.

While I don't have a ton of monk experience yet, Resolve is a phenomenal talent. 25% less damage taken, and with sweeping winds up you should have it applied to anyone who's going to be hitting you. Transcendence doesn't seem bad, but just doesn't pull the weight that several other survivability passives do.

And if you haven't seen him yet, check out Newti- http://www.twitch.tv/newtiunplugged

His monk is really, really impressive and actually was my entire reason to roll one. He's very helpful and explains quite a bit- he even did like a week's worth of streaming where he just tried odd skills and builds trying to see what's viable in certain combinations that people don't use. A backlash-based tanking build seemed to be one of his more effective finds, IIRC.

Yeah, when the souls of the other evils were floating about in limbo post D2, Adria was apparently working some magic to "mark" those souls for capture whenever the black soulstone was available. Still seems a bit sketchy, but the fact that Leah noticed it immediately makes it seem like it's not that unusual of a spell.

And I saw that post on the gen forums when it was up, shit's hilarious.

DIABLO: CAN YOU TELL I'M A GIRL THIS GAME??? I CAN'T STOP TALKINGGGGGGG

Official patchnotes up on Diablofans, interesting stuff. There's all the crafting cost reductions and inferno nerfs we expected, but there are quite a few other very controversial changes...

No items from breakables any more, magicfind does not affect chests/barrels etc, new enrage timers on bosses, DH nerfs, etc. A lot of people are gonna be happy about this patch, but I get the feeling a lot of people are going to feel the opposite, too.

I've got a couple of links that I hold onto nowadays, both of them are tremendously useful and I should have posted them here earlier (easier access for me if nothing else )

First is the EHP (effective health pool) calculator, you can use this to see what changes in stats/gear will provide the most defensive benefits. The barbarian forums are loaded with people just saying "stack 1k resist lol" when really it's so much more complicated. Obv this is less usefull for those of us playing DH, but for Barbs and Monks especially, this thing is great.

http://rubensayshi.g...lculator/#intro

Second is a simple spreadsheet that allows you to change offensive values to see if that new piece of gear you're looking at will really be an upgrade for your DPS. Definitely helpful, especially with the rumored 50% nerfs to IAS on the unofficial patch notes.

https://docs.google....VlYlI4TUE#gid=2

I'm very excited for this patch, legendary fixes and more smooth transitions between acts along with making professions more affordable are all wins for me.

I'm not hugely excited about the repair bill change though, I still die in Act 1 inferno when I hit a pack of dark berserkers or aberrations with even one nasty affix, let alone several- and I'm rocking 500 resists, 9k armor, 14k DPS and 37k HP. Some of the changes obviously encourage more aggresive gameplay from barbarians, but then you've got this one which says you should stick to killing what's safe. Hopefully it won't be too noticeable.

pharmosh is another big name for barbarians, I know he's active on the forums but I don't remember what his youtube name is. He runs a 2h spec and is decked out.

And I respect this gear and enjoy the class for sure, but what bothers me is that this gear is gonna set you back like 50mil or more nowadays, and that price is only going up. I know the other classes sure aren't shelling out that much for their gear. I mean, if you wanna play barb you've pretty much gotta master your D3 finances and work that AH, which is a little frustrating.

I've got a 104 Str, lvl 54 2h Mace with 914 DPS for sale.

I'm looking for rings currently, with some combination of resist all/attackspeed/vit. Strength or crit chance/damage are a plus.