First off is I realize that there are some animation changes. But here's an idea... The more points in a base skill the more flashy it becomes and the more unique factors it unlocks.

I'll use an easy one.

Frost Nova. Level 1 freeze enemies in a 10 yard radius for 1 second. Each level increases range and duration.

Level 6 now adds vulnerable

Level 9 causes ice shards to fly out

Level 15. Spend a mist that deals dot damage

Level 21 drops stalagmites on x number of enemies.

Level 30 has a chance to cast another on Emmy death

Level 40 adds a 2nd cast

Thoughts on this being on every skill? They could even add passive skill points that we can use on the secondary effects. Basically allowing us to choose between multiple skills or investing hard into a single skill. It doesn't only have to be skill points focused. It could be stat focused. If you have plus to elemental damage beyond a certain threshold then you get additional effects instead of just getting lots of skill points.

PC First Playthrough. Base Game story line first. Vessel IS purchased. Finished all of Act 1, except for this:

I have been really enjoying this first play through for the story and just for fun. I am a completionist at heart and Side-Quests are my reese pieces added to my ice cream. I have everything done in Fractured Donuts. Except the side quests with the little blue exclamation point! 35/38. Where does it show me a list of the side quests I have completed, or even better the ones I have not. I know how to get to the challenges menu quest list. that is not what I mean. I have been to wiki, google, forums, Reddit, porn hub. everywhere you can ask anyone for help. Just waiting for it to click, waiting for the OHHHH I am an IDIOT moment. The AH HA! Yet it never happens. So here I am making my own post, most likely for naught, because I havent found any responses to this problem on this site, but who knows maybe I AM an idiot and someone will PLEASE show me the most simple solution to this problem. Until then I guess I will move on to Act 2.

Side note: No I do not remember the names of the 35 quests I have completed. Even if I knew that I HAD to write them down as if I were playing a nintendo game from the 80's that required level codes, I wouldn't have.

A couple weeks ago I logged into find that my starless skies mythic had disappeared. I swap it around between my alts, but each of them had an empty ring slot. I was annoyed and kinda lost the wind in my sails for the season but whatever, maybe I accidentally broke it down? Seems unlikely.

Well tonight I sign in for the first time in weeks to find that my heir of perdition and my shroud of false death are also just MISSING.

I know for a fact that I didn’t break them down. All of my seasonal characters have empty slots on chest and head.

Has anyone run across this? I feel like I’m going crazy. Shits disappearing! I want my stuff back!

Whats the point in porting your characters if you cant then use your characters to test out the seasonal mechanics you're supposed to be testing. Seems odd.

Once I logged into PTR I tinkered with The Armory and really love it. Items can be part of multiple loadouts so performing side by side comparisons with builds will be seamless now. Plus the obvious benefit of pivoting into a completely different build with ease. But the items themselves are starting to look like a clown fiesta when equipped on your character.

https://preview.redd.it/an3qllefmq4e1.png?width=414&format=png&auto=webp&s=2ef8d85032f2e4aba48043d81b0e7b58aa3f7068

A few suggestions that might alleviate this visual clutter:

• Items tagged with armory loadout (bottom right symbol) should always have the same protections as favorited items. So you can't sell or salvage them.
  • To prevent players from accidentally bricking a loadout they should have to go to the armory to remove the armory loadout tag from an item.
  • With this you can remove UI redundancy and use the top left to denote an armory loadout item instead of the favorite symbol (showing both would no longer make sense).
• The socket size on the items can be a little smaller to give the item UI a bit more space to breathe.
  • Since you see socket affixes on item hover these don't provide much information at a glance. It's not like you can tell what runes are socketed.
• Consider reworking the UI for masterworking by incorporating the item border/background.
  • The border of an item is universally bland, which presents an opportunity for masterworking to make the item "pop" more on a quick glance.
  • Be sure to maintain that items are easily identifiable as MW'd in your stash/inventory. Adjusting the background behind the item is another tool to make MW'd very easy to spot.

I hate to even make this comparison, but here is the other end of the spectrum.

https://preview.redd.it/04lx8ce1mq4e1.png?width=564&format=png&auto=webp&s=ef8cb406a068937ea2a8b5d5e682591ca45d8b6a

I'd argue the size of the socketed topaz is actually a little too big since it basically blocks all of the item art. But the point is this is an easily identifying iconic item because we are actually able to see it. A lot of the items in D4 don't have a strong identity because we can't actually see them. I love the addition of the armory, but the UI should be occasionally trimmed down to make room for new item systems. Brevity is the soul of wit when it comes to UIs.

Curious if the community has any other interesting item UI suggestions. To me Ancestral items strike the perfect balance of making an item pop, being distinctive, and not overpowering the item art.

I got the ptr of diablo 4 season 7 and the cheat vender isn't working. When I click on the cheat vender nothing happens.

is seasonal quest disabled? cant find where to accept it :D (btw the new 'green tide' feels good when the cocoon explodes and many elites appear:D)

New to the game and just about to hit 60. Still learning about which buffs affect which minions, etc.

My question is if my goal is to peak my blood golems active ability damage, what are some must haves I should aim for straight away in terms of gear and paragon points?

What the title says. Can we get a Christmas event?

I have been a hardcore D4 fan for the past few seasons and I loaded up the PTR and it just feels "pointless" to play with the current systems. There's nothing really to work towards and the new seasonal mechanic is just green helltides with a new new powers.

What's the point of grinding? I feel like they just stretched out the grind (but in non fun ways like extremely rare ancestrals, runes aren't fun to have to grind) once VOH launched. I really felt like the game was so finely tuned right before they made all the changes in the expansion. It all feels like such a step backwards and I can't put my finger on why. Maybe I'm OCD but the fact the glyphs have to go to 100 which is almost unobtainable if you don't follow a sweaty build guide means nothing ever feels "done" and the path there is insane.

Might be sadly done with Diablo :(

Can’t seem to figure out the tree an which ones to pick

Hi!

Question: Why won't barrier generation buffs through gems/items show on the Earthen Bulwark skill?

I have lvl. 1, and it still shows as 45%, even though I have +10% barrier generation.

I have 80 life, and the barrier shows as 39 Which menas that the effect is there in practical terms (though it seems to increase the 45% + 10% increase i.e. 4,5% = a total of 49,5% which adds up).

I would guess it's because Earthen Bulwark needs to show where the base comes from, i.e. as a percentage from life, and that this percentage is the one that is buffed by increase in barrier generation? Would that be a correct assumption?

Bonus question: Any reason why Blizzard didn't include a short tutorial on all the different kinds of damages (lucky etc.) and buffs? I mean, it's kind of old school to have to search for guides etc, but seems kind of too old fashioned to not just explain it as well.

Thank you :)

Never played an isometric ARPG till this past week and I'm addicted! That being said, I've tried to find the answer to this but I want to make sure I don't screw up and lose this affix.

So this thing has been melting everything for my first 33 levels. However, it's pretty far behind in terms of damage now even though that hasn't mattered much because the 96% arrow storm melts everything. I want to salvage it so I can put the arrow storm on higher level weapons as I progress.

Is that bottom portion of the affix that's spaced out "...deal 96% increased damage", included in that affix? Or will I lose that modifier if I salvage the weapon?

Other question, there's no limit to how many times we imprint the same affix, correct? I remember seeing some posts saying you could only do it once, but maybe that was how it used to be?

Thanks in advance!

I was wandering around and found that rare guisarme. I'm wondering which name it should have

For T3 & T4, how do you like to personally gauge whether or not your character is comfortably "ready" for the uptick in the difficulty level notch? What are your personal standards?

On the new Season 7 PTR, I was able to create a spiritborn and access the vendor which upgrades you completely.

Created another character, now I can't click on the vendor. I can see him, but nothing happens when clicking. I've exited and come back numerous times.

Yesterday, I could run a Blood Maiden and get multiple of 100s cinders each time. Three runs would see me with plenty of cinders to collect every chest on each side with tons to spare. Today though, may 20 cinders/Blood Maiden run.

Has something happened server side and I missed the news?

Edited to say that the monster spawn density for a Blood Maiden run is way less too. Obviously connected to the lack of cinders but why now?

https://reddit.com/link/1h5zta4/video/gex3jm4qjp4e1/player

Ring of Starless Skies is the last piece I need for my Pure Landslide druid build.

I know that Duriel is supposed to drop it, but after 50-60 or so runs I haven't had any luck there. Not all of these runs were on T4, granted, and now I'm finally in the comfortable T4 range so I'll continue to grind that.

In the meantime, what are my other options? Gambling for Obols by picking rings? I don't think I'll ever be able to craft it because the rune cost is insane. I'm still at 0/6 with some of them. Where else can it drop? I mean, as a random drop it can happen anywhere, but I don't know if there are places and events where there are better chances for it.

Thanks in advance!

All Lilith statues appear to be collected even though I collect them in Diablo 4 (ps5). Is there any solution for this?

I love this community, I haven't seen it in any other games. Here's my story from the other day:

For context, I am a dad now, I can only put max 1 hour in on most nights, at best. I have been playing SB and did about 200 boss kills without getting a shroud. I have 8 sparks but missing one bac rune that I have been farming hard for but it doesn't drop. I have 50M or so in my bank, that's close to the most I've ever had in one season.

I post on discord about buying a bac runes but that I am poor and can only afford 40M (people seem to sell them in volume for 100k, or 250k for singles..)

An hour later someone comments "ok add me" Which I do, and invite him to party. First thing he says is "it's free" to which I say something like "omg what? is there anything I can do for you or give you?" And he opens the trade window.

He puts in the rune, I put in a tip of 10M. He closes the window.

I wait a sec thinking shit I fucked this up.

I reopen the window, and he puts the bac rune. I put in 10M.

At that point ladies and gentlemen, he puts another ONE BILLION in his trade window and accepts. I... Am besides myself, and click accept.

Not only has he given me shroud for free, but a billion gold on top, you gotta understand I've never ever owned like a quarter of that.

I flood the chat with thank yous, and he just responds:

:)

I craft the shroud and BOOM I get a GA on exactly what I wanted.

I go to the master worker, and triple crit the stat I needed to, first try. Something that has never happened to me!!

I message him again to say I got the GA and triple crit and he replies:

:)

Class act. Great community.

It was incredibly brain rotting to do this grind, but it is done. While grinding pits endlessly, I came up with some feedback, things that are pertaining directly to gameplay rather than balance.

Edit: A bonus for anyone wanting to grind, I created a sheet where you can input some info and get an idea of how long it'll take. Create a copy and use as you please!

Let's start off with the good:

• The grind paragon grind feels good. It's the perfect time commitment for the most dedicated of players, and the power scaling at higher levels is exactly what it should be. Blizzard nailed it with this one, and it shouldn't change.
• The glyph upgrades are really good. Level 46 is achievable for literally every class and build, and pushing it any higher is optional optimization.
• Ancestral items have become a psuedo item filter. Since Blizzard is steadfast against the idea of an item filter, I'm quite satisfied with this feature.
• Self boosting other characters from the tree of whispers caches is very nice, and this should stay. I'd argue that it should be even faster on T4, requiring ~10 caches instead of ~30.

Minor things:

• Why aren't scattered prisms automatically picked up by your pet or when you walk over them despite them being a mat?
• Why does it take 5 minutes for the tree of whispers cache to drop its items?
• Why do some items take so long to drop out of enemies after death? In speed farming, I'm already a screen away by the time the item decides to drop.
• Why weren't ghost helltide regions fixed?
• Why are there ghost helltide chests leftover since the last update?
• Why are ghost boss announcements still not fixed?

Things that need to be added/changed:

• Why the **** isn't there an overlay map and why is Blizzard so vehemently against this? Speed farming anything, your eyes get forced to the minimap instead of the actual gameplay. Why not finally add a minimap overlay like the other Diablos?
• Why isn't there a way to view other players' profiles outside of their character? What if I want to see how many achievements my friend has? I cannot do this.
• Why isn't there a journal? There are so many side quests in each region, with no way to track which ones you've completed and to see which ones are missing. This shouldn't be hidden.
• Why can't I search a specific word of my choice in the skill tree? For example, if I have an amulet with + ranks to dominance, I don't know what this does, nor can I search it up on the passive tree without either reading all the passives or using maxroll's planner to search.
• Why isn't there a dedicated rune tab?
• Why isn't there a dedicated boss mats tab?
• Why don't boss mats stack more?
• Why aren't runes included in the "items you've missed" tab?
• Why do yellows still drop on torment tiers?
• Why do mercenary caches drop so few resources? E.g., the masterwork cache literally drops 10 obducite.
• Why do some pit tilesets focus on hiding enemies behind corners?
• Why the **** are there doors in dungeons? Some dungeons have hundreds of doors and this is ridiculous.
• Why do dungeons drop so little obducite compared to other sources?
• Why do dungeons give no experience compared to other activities?
• Why does the duriel dungeon block your pathing to where the items drop?
• Why is the pet deceleration/acceleration so slow that it impairs item pickup speed?

From comments:

• Why do mounts still get stuck?
• Why do max movement speed characters move as fast as mounts? This invalidates the purpose of mounts.
• Why can't 5x or even 10x the boss mats be used for a much higher chance of a mythic? Current chances (1.5%, T4 duriel/andariel) is too low and forces players to spend hours in dungeons summoning bosses, going back and forth from town to dungeon, instead of doing a more fun and involved activity.
  • Side note: why not make certain bosses drop certain mythics, and increase the chances? Isn't the idea to get the uniques you need and get out to more fun activities?
• Why is the balance philosophy to completely murder the **** out of a build, moving it from S tier to F or even NEVER PLAY tier? Take a more balanced approach to.... balancing
• Why are scrolls so rare? I only got 1 at level 298. With this rarity, why not make them a real cheat death mechanic?
• Why are mats so imbalanced? Veiled crystals are particularly difficult to come by. Salvaging a yellow item gives you a staggering ONE veiled crystal. Legendaries give 1 to 2, ancestrals give a few more. It makes this resource very rare and pigeon holes players to farming bosses to salvage uniques for mats.
• Why isn't animus automatically picked up?
• Why can't players reconnect in to a party that is in an undercity or other activity if they were disconnected?
• Why can't players add their own captions to the party finder? The risk of derogatory use doesn't outweigh the utility this would provide
• Why is there no global chat? Especially in hardcore, players are forced to communicate with each other through trade chat. This game has "social features" but feels most socially isolating.
• Why are there ladders in pits or dungeons? I fully endorse these existing in the overworld, but in dungeons, you are there for a reason and it's a disruption in the gameplay similar to doors.
• Why do some abilities enable teleporting through walls and others don't?
• Why can't you teleport through walls closed by doors? What enchanted barrier is this?
• Why isn't the completion time of pits visible on screen or in chat?
• Why aren't pit leaderboards a thing? Segregate it based on class and primary ability (i.e., all builds that use the same damage ability would be binned regardless of variation)
• Why are all game mechanics a giant slot machine? I'll concede the undercity is the first step in the right direction in this regard.
  • Wild idea: Towns each have different merchants (unlike old Diablo games). Imagine if each town's merchant had a different quirk to them. Suppose K-mart merchants stay default, Cerrigar merchants have a much higher chance to masterwork a GA stat, other merchants have a chance to masterwork a tempered stat, etc. This retains the gamble aspect, and gives a unique element to crafting.
  • Wild idea: Suppose world events, which are always ignored, have a higher chance to drop GA + skill ranks gear?
  • Wild idea: Suppose world bosses have a chance to drop god jewelry?
  • Wild idea: Suppose helltide commanders can drop GA weapons?
• Why isn't there consistency in game speed? For example, world events are the slowest, and in increasing speed we have NMD, Helltides, Hordes, Undercities and Pits?
• Why is there no way to see a player's class at a glance in the party? Perhaps add the class emblem beside their paragon.

Experience
The experience distribution is very bad. Pits give many times more experience than other activities, why? Players are forced to either do pits or hordes since those are the only two rewarding activities both in items and experience. On torment 4, the experience needs to be increased for other activities to the point of the pit.
Additionally, difficulty is not rewarding at all. In pits, the most rewarding method of farming experience is by finishing pits in <60 seconds, since experience is offset to the completion instead of killing enemies.

"Radical Seasons"
We were promised seasons that are wild, but all we get now are slow ass realmwalkers that spawn 1 enemy every 10 mins. What's going on?

Boss Farming
Why isn't there a way to add additional mats for a higher chance for a mythic? Mythic drops are crazy rare this season and it takes too many hours farming hundreds of bosses at a time. It's not fun, and not rewarding.

Hardcore Only
Lag deaths need to be fixed. Add fail safes in place so if a player disconnects, the character is instantly removed from the world. Currently, if a player has their client crash, their character will continue to idle in place for 1 minute (60s). This is complete BS.

World Lag
There is a staggering amount of lag when crossing overworld server boundaries. I have 1 gbs internet speed, it's not an internet issue, it's a game issue. Each update, it gets worse and worse, too.

Pits
Similarly, even though pits are technically on the same map, it can take way too long to load in the portal for no reason. Instead, remove the pit portal and make it a single level. This would also improve the experience for people that speed run pits and look for specific tilesets. Next, some enemies give waaaay more pit progress than other enemies. Why is there even an imbalance in this? In some tilesets, I need to kill every single enemy in both pit tiers to unlock the boss, and in others I unlock the boss half way through the first level.

TL;DR
D4 has so much low hanging fruit to fix. It's like the lessons from past games were all forgotten and we are here begging for features that should've been part of the base game to begin with (armory, map overlay, an actual endgame, etc). The game feels much better than it did, but still has a really long way to go. They better fix it up fast to stand a chance with POE, too.

Edit 1: Appreciate the feedback from the community. Have reworded the Andrial Section to be more accurate.

Here’s a guide I’ve put together with my thoughts on hardcore progression in Diablo 4. I discovered the joy of hardcore probably 12 months ago. So I have more experience under my belt and want to share what I’ve learned. One of the most notable things I’ve learned is that it’s kinda hard to find D4 Hardcore content. So this is my step to solving that problem.

The guide is split into topics that start with the broadest possible thinking then get more and more detailed and specific. It assumes that you know the game well and have experience of the endgame in softcore mode.

Exposure:

In hardcore mode, you always run the risk of dying and losing all your progress. At any given time you run the risk of fully wiping out and having to start from scratch. Which, if it’s your fault, is all fair and part of the game. You just need the lesson to make fewer dumb mistakes. However, this is an online game that you are probably running on windows. Once you’ve got your head around the hardcore game play, technical issues are the far more likely cause of death.

To manage this, we want to think about the duration of a given activity. At any given point your internet could drop, or the client could crash or windows BSODs. Once you log back in you see the character has died. That’s a seriously unfun way to lose a HC character! The idea then, is to minimise the time spend doing anything and do activities that are short and sharp. You want mobs to die in one or two shots and ideally, the bosses are dead in under 5 seconds.

This way you are spending as little time as possible exposed to the risks of technical issues. I refer to this idea as reducing “exposure”.

Leveling:

The trick here is Level smooth. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast. Don’t examine every item as a possible upgrade, only swap out gear between long sessions of leveling fill a stash tab with interesting items till you hit 20 then spend some time building a set for 20+ then do it again around 30, 40 and 50. Constantly stopping to fiddle with gear slows you down. Once you have a good set keep in the stash for the next generation.

Use potions and incense for XP bonuses, you know that though it’s the basics of leveling.

When you hit 40 that’s a good time to do the strongholds. They are great sources of XP and will see you through to 55-60 easily. Don’t do the ones with long cutscenes. You just want to smash them out as quick as possible.

Leveling will happen mostly in Helltides, get the embers, open chests, get the baleful hearts, kill the blood maiden, get the embers... A self-reinforcing loop. I have had many happy times holding back the hordes of hell in hardcore. It’s a good time!

Don’t forget the Ashes from the season journey! They’re a good boost to XP.

Early End Game:

Eventually you hit 60 then all sorts of things come online to increase your power.

• Higher tier gear: Helltides are still good to run till you’ve got ancestral gear with mostly the stats you want. Helltides are a good source of Whisper Caches too, which is a sorta halfway decent way to target farm for the right upgrades.
• Glyphs: Drop Everywhere (levelled in Pits)
• Obducite for Master Working: Nightmare Dungeons, Infernal Hordes, Undercity (tribute of refinement)
• Paragon Levels: Just XP from doing stuff (Pitt is fastest source of XP)
• Gem Upgrades: Just play the game
• Upgrade Legendary Aspects: Just play the game
• Upgrade Tempering recipes: Just play the game
• Killing Bosses for Mythics: Don’t try this as a fresh 60.

At this point the best way to scale up power is Glyphs and Obducite. What I do is build my confidence up, one level at a time, to a level 20 pit, to unlock Torment 1. Then I chain-run nightmare dungeons. If you want to make it more efficient, you can stack up the dungeons that are offering Grim Favors. You can do this by picking a zone (Nahantu) and spamming as many Sigils as you can at the occulist. Salvage the ones not in the zone we are not interested in (so only keep the green ones). Doing this you can pretty quickly build up a good collection of NMD Sigils and then when the dungeons refresh you are able to open a nightmare dungeon that also gives Grim Favors! More Whisper Caches!

So in those initial NMD runs you are earing: Obducite, collecting Glyphs (alas not leveling them), Paragon XP, Gear drops, gem fragments, tempering recipes, legendary aspect upgrades and Whisper Caches! Look at all the sources to improve you power all through one activity! The fresh 60 in torment 1 is the fastest you can build your power!

That’s what you want! Do the thing that stacks as may ways to build your power. It won’t be long till you are oneshotting bosses in T1 dungeons that’s the time to hit some of the bosses you’ll probalby have some have materials to summon them that’ll have dropped from your activities. Undercity is a good place to get some if you have the tributes, but really, you can just zone out in a Helltide for an hour or two and you’ll get plenty (mind your exposure though).

Keep an eye on the boss that is offering whispers to stack up that even more power progress.

Once you’ve got a few whisper caches (don’t open them) roll an alt and open on that one. This will become your extra life. Don’t salvage gear you are upgrading on your main this goes to your alt as hand me downs.

The Pit:

This is the grindy phase where you are probably at most risk if you are not careful. Keep doing the activity that gets you the most power sources we’ve described above but once you’ve got all your glyphs also integrate some pit runs to level them up.

Here’s how to safely progress the pit in hardcore. Once you’ve got all the glyphs that you want to level you are right to start this process. To pick the pit level you want to take the safe route and level up one rank at a time. You want to be finishing you run in under 3 minutes to reduce your exposure. One or two shotting the bosses. If you are starting to stress on the bosses take a break from pushing pits and farm Obducite till you’ve got a bit more power. Pit levels are important relative to your glyph levels. If your pit is 10+ levels above your Glyph level it’s 100% guaranteed to upgrade one level. This is great and easy to achieve. If you are completing pits 20+ levels over the glyphs it’ll give you 2 levels and 30+ gives three. (I think this bonus caps at 15 for the plus 3 and 40 for the plus 2) but it’s plenty of head room to get the glyphs to where they need to be quickly.

There are two important points to hit level 15 has a bit power bump and then level 46.

So my process goes like this. Check my glyphs (look at the second from the left) add 20 (10 if you are conservative) to that and that’s the pit level I want to target. So if my glyph is level 5 I want to run level 25 pits (15 if being safe) so it gains levels when I upgrade it. When opening the pit (particularly on a torment boundary) check Armor and resists to ensure they’re still capped. Then when finished upgrade all the glyphs I am using from right to left (the game sorts them in descending order so if you keep doing that it’ll evenly level your glyphs. You only need to do the highest pit level that is going to level your glyph. Anything else will be slower and thus unnecessary exposure.

Changing it up with Infernal Hordes:

So once you are sick of pits and NMDs, try infernal hordes. These take a long time to run so are the biggest exposure of all activities. But the Obducite makes them tempting. The trick with these is to always pick the Hellborne upgrades (if there are none pick, exhaulted hordes, then elites, then spires, then masses) the best ones to get are “Surging” that increases the number of mobs dropping aether as well as the amount of aether they drop, which scales nicely once you stack other upgrades that increase the drop rate. Always pick max Obducite in the reward chest. Everything else you can source elsewhere.

Torment Progression:

Knowing when you are safe to bump the difficulty can be hard.

Get a good stack of resist gear so you are always maxed.

Armor: 1000

Resists: 70%

Each torment level drops resists by -25% and Armor by 250, so keep an eye on that as you push upward. Use Gems, Tempers and Masterworking rolls to get the numbers you need. It’s never worth the risk of going in without the best possible protection. Get to know the alchemist, particularly for his incenses song of the mountain (Armor) and soothing spices (resists) They can help fill a gap in gearing for a while.

Once resists and Armor are at the caps, you are 4/12 masterworked everything and level 15 on the glyphs it’s time to think about torment 2. Which you can inch your way up to. Work your way up to level 35 pits one level at a time which you’ll have done already if you’re following the glyph level + 20 rule and they’re at 15.

Then you do it all again in torment 2 till you hit 8/12 MW and level 30 glyphs. If that level 49 pit boss is going down quick, it’s time to work on T3.

Now don’t rush into T4! The Obducite drop rates are tempting but even if you are surviving ok. If it’s taking a long time to down mobs, you are increasing your exposure. It is ALWAYS better to grind in lower Torments than risk the increased exposure trying to get a bigger but slower pay off.

Get your stuff 12/12 MW in T3 use the NMD whisper stacking trick, so it feels like a good time investment, trick your monkey brain that’s trying to convince you to push into T4.

Andriel:

I avoid her in higher torments. The difficult to avoid mechanics, with the tormented debuff that punishes not being able to avoid mechanics, combined with her fights structure, means even if you one or two shot her you still have to do that totem phase at least once. These all add up to just too much exposure. To be safe I want to be killing bosses in a couple of seconds not toptoeing through bruning tulips! I don't think I am alone there either. There's always people in trade selling shackles and pin cushioned dolls so it seems like a fight that a lot of people chose to avoid. However, those summoning materials do stack up in your bags screaming "we're potential runes! Or better turn us into Mythics!" well that starts to get on my nerves.

Eventually I roll up an alt and kill her in T1 just to clear the bag space of her summoning mats, and slience those voices. It’s easy in T1 to one hit her, kill the totems and then smack her once more before that horrific Giant Flame Laser is summoned. It is a good source of runes and it’s always nice when she drops a mythic. The best builds to use here are minion based they will(might) split up and kill the totems quick and get back on her for the killing blow allowing you to keep an eye on that giant flame laser beam bullshit.

Alts:

Alts are your extra life. Invest in them as soon as you can. Once you have a satisfactory level of gear horde Whisper Caches to open on your Alts. Open 27 caches and your bam your Alt is 60! Which is a bit of grind, buuut, it only takes 14 to hit 50! Then with your hand-me down gear (and maybe a lucky mythic) It's only a few Strongholds and a helltide or two away from being a fresh 60. Just saying. It’s good to have a backup character for when disaster strikes.

My alt choices this season was easy, Spiritborn is so OP almost every alt was some variant of the jaguar hall / viscous shield bugged builds. Although it is fun having a minion build for Andarial T1, that does require a whole other gear set so only worth it if you can manage the stash space. Otherwise they should be the same class and build as your main (or at least have stats and tempers in common) so you can get the most out of your hand-me-down gear. 

Groups:

I don’t bother I always solo bosses and just lol at all the “400m for a Duriel carry” posts in trade. Like, why can’t people do this themselves? Also, I am on the AU servers and joining people in the US means my ping goes from 50 to 200 which massively increases my exposure. The downside is that I have no-one to brag to.

I am not saying don’t group, grouping can offer safety in numbers, faster clear times, reducing exposure and shared knowledge, which can be lifesaving in hardcore mode. I just don’t. So there.

Summary:

So that’s it! Limit your exposure. Level smooth and steady to 60, leveraging fast XP by completing Strongholds. Save your gear for the next generation. Stack as many power increasing activities as possible to progress through the torments. One pit level at a time bringing the glyphs up at the same rate. Start preparing the next generation by opening whisper caches on them and using hand me down gear.

I hope you get something out of this guide. Trying Hardcore is well worth it. If you can mitigate the risks of exposure to issues that’ll kill you. The rush of narrowly avoiding a death that would wipe days or weeks of effort is among the best available in gaming. My best highs have been with this mode (also my worst lows) and well, hopefully this guide makes the game mode seem more approachable.

Stay safe out there!

Is it better to just go Non-Phys and Generic % Inc or go Crit/ Vuln/ OP?

Hello! I played my pulverize werebear at release till LVL 50 paragon 50 or so. Now I'm 60 P150. I still have been following the same basic principles from the legacy build. I haven't switched over to the updated pulv werebear build. I have the gear for the new build, mjolnic, hunters zenith, godslayer, insatiable fury. Is the new and updated pulv build that much better? It involves a few different skills. If it's that much better I'll switch.

Right now I'm at 2200% overpower but only 40% vulnerable. Is this too far out of balance? I use banished lords talisman and tibaults will. My overpowers are sparse but hit hard. Wondering if I should try to chance some of my item rolls to favour vulnerable damage % instead. I'm playing Torment 3 and it's not too bad but I'm not running through anything.

Thanks to all who help <3