Last night I finally scrounged up enough cash to buy a good weapon. I'd found I couldn't beat Butcher on my own with my current setup and had tried lots of different things to try to help. I'd been built pretty defensively so I tried buying some new gear focused on int instead of on vit/armor. It made me squishier for sure, and made me do more damage, but it wasn't enough. So I saved up and bought a 1200DPS weapon for 450k. It let me beat him pretty easily and I decided to give act 2 a shot.
Now, I'd thrown away a lot of my health earlier trying to get better to beat Butcher and was only around 22k. The guys at the start were jumping down from above and 1-shotting me if I didn't have diamond skin up. Of course I murdered them almost as fast so I took to running in with my teleport clones up and hoped they'd get jumped on first! Eventually I got out into the open and was able to properly murder everything in sight as it tried to walk up to me. Elite packs I was able to kill by kiting them and only fighting when diamond skin and teleport were off cooldown. I found myself wanting a better way to kite them and thought maybe I should try switching blizzard back in. With a .9 speed weapon I have tons of arcane power and it should actually hit reasonably hard since blizzard keys off weapon damage and not weapon DPS.
I did some browsing around, keeping in mind most things are hitting me for almost my full health bar, and noticed a couple of interesting runes that might combo very well together...
Familiar - Ancient Guardian - While you are below 35% health the familiar will completely block one attack every 6 seconds.
Energy Armor - Force Armor - Incoming attacks that would deal more than 35% of your max health instead do 35% of your max health.
If these interact the way it sounds like they interact then it'll take at least 4 hits to kill me from full. Even if those hits are for 50k into my 22k health pool! The first knocks me to 65%, the second to 30%, the third will be blocked by the familiar, and the fourth will kill me. Unless I've managed to regen 6% of my health pool since the first attack!
How does this interact with diamond skin? It can get big enough to grant almost a 22k shield. If I take off all my health gear so that I have, say, 14k max health... Will the force armor reduce all incoming attacks down to 5k? Will diamond skin then suck up 4 full hits no matter how big they'd actually be? A healing potion would also be a full heal instead of a third of a bar if I get my max health down that low. Assuming I have time to react to the incoming hits and can drink the potion I could quite feasibly take 11 hits of any size before I die. And that's assuming no regen! With a really small health pool even a relatively small amount of life steal, life on hit, of life over time could be enough to add on extra swings. Last long enough and the familiar will block extra hits, too!
I'm excited! I really want to test something like this out...
Assuming the skills combo like I think they do defensive stats (except dodge) will be completely irrelevant. Glass cannon becomes sheer awesomeness. Without needing teleport to escape I can get away with stacking both familiar and magic weapon for huge bonus damage. I can get extra regen from magic weapon and from the galvanizing ward passive.
My gear isn't well set up for this since pretty much every item I have has bonus armor, resist all, or both. Vitality actually becomes a bad stat to have on gear! All it serves to accomplish is making healing potions and diamond skin worse. Finding total glass cannon gear shouldn't be too hard, though. All I'd care about is int, magic find, and gold find. Attack speed/movement speed/dex too, I guess, but not as much as the first group.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
League of Legends: Yorick Early Game
When I first started playing Yorick in League of Legends I read a fair number of different guides to get an idea for how other people play him. Some people recommended running armor penetration runes. Some wanted magic penetration runes. Some wanted straight attack damage runes. I ended up running with the attack damage ones because I didn't realize the armor penetration ones would help my ghouls do damage. The question I have now is which of those options is better early?
For starters I'm going to assume my opponent has 50 armor and 20 magic resist. Recalling that the damage reduction formula in this game is to multiply by 100/(100+X) where X is armor for physical damage or magic resist for magic damage. Also, I have 10% magic penetration from my masteries. Therefore, for y incoming damage:
MR(y) = y*100/118 = .85y
AC(y) = y*100/150 = .67y
My current way of playing involves leveling my W spell to rank 1, my E spell to rank 2, and pumping the rest into Q which actually is rarely used. I'm mostly concerned with the damage done by the W and the E while ignoring autoattacks and Q. The reason for this is my primary plan is to toss the two ranged spells at the enemy before they get close enough to really engage in melee combat.
W does 60 magic damage up front and then the resulting ghoul will melee 3 times for 35% of my total AD each swing. The up front damage also includes 100% of my AP but I won't have any of that. E does 85 damage up front and then the resulting ghoul will again melee 3 times for 35% of my total AD each swing. It also includes 100% of my bonus AD, which is any AD gained above and beyond the base amount from leveling. I will have 3 of that from my masteries. So, without any runes my damage at level 4 will likely be:
MR(60+85+3)+2*1.05*AC(65) = .85*148+2.1*.67*65 = 217
Filling in both quints and marks I have a few options. All AD, all MPen, all APen, or a combo. I'm interested in two combos in particular: AD quints with APen marks and full duo-pen. Those 5 options would add:
- 15.3AD
- 15.09MPen
- 24.94APen
- 6.75AD & 14.94APen
- 15APen, 9.13MPen
How does my damage change?
.85*163.3+2.1*.67*80.3 = 252
.97*148+2.1*.67*65 = 235
.85*148+2.1*.8*65 = 235
.85*154.75+2.1*.74*71.75 = 243
.92*148+2.1*.74*65 = 237
Ok, one of these is just better off the hop. At low levels the straight AD looks to be right.
There's one other thing I wanted to look at. That's what leveling up each skill accomplishes. It's pretty obvious to me that Yorick needs to put at least one point into each skill due to his passive. (He gets 5% damage reduction and 5% stronger melee attacks for each ghoul in play.) But where should the extra points go? First we need to know how much damage Q actually does...
It's an autoattack modifier which means it takes the place of your next melee swing. It also resets the swing timer when you use it so theoretically it could be worth a full melee attack if you're engaged on a target and time it right. In practical terms I don't know how often that actually happens so I'm going to ignore the autoattack portion and just look at the extra damage. It adds 30 damage, and an extra 20% of your total attack damage, and the ghoul does an extra 8 damage per swing. Comparing rank 1 stats with 80 AD:
Q - AC(54+1.25*80) = 103 damage for 40 mana with a 9 second cooldown
W - MR(60)+AC(1.05*80) = 107 damage for 40 mana with a 12 second cooldown
E - MR(73)+AC(1.05*80) = 118 damage for 55 mana with a 10 second cooldown
Comparing rank 2 stats with 80 AD:
Q - AC(108+1.25*80) = 139 damage for 40 mana with a 8 second cooldown
W - MR(95)+AC(1.05*80) = 137 damage for 45 mana with a 12 second cooldown
E - MR(103)+AC(1.05*80) = 144 damage for 60 mana with a 9 second cooldown
There are two ways to look at things. Damage per second assuming you're spamming the spell on cooldown or damage per mana. Yorick is rather mana constrained early if you're going all out on spamming so I think that number is probably more important but both are worth considering...
Rank 1
Q - 11.4DPS, 2.575DPM
W - 8.9DPS, 2.675DPM
E - 11.8DPS, 2.145DPM
Rank 2
Q - 17.4DPS, 3.475DPM
W - 11.4DPS, 3.044DPM
E - 16DPS, 2.4DPM
At rank 1 E is the best DPS, W is the best DPM, and Q is second best at both. At rank 2 Q is the best at everything. If your goal is to burn down your opponent then you want to level your Q. If your goal is to make efficient use of your mana then you want to level your Q. Are those the only things to consider?
Well, no. Each skill has a different impact on the game which scales with rank. Q gives you a run speed buff which gets bigger as you level the skill. W slows the enemies and the slow gets better as you level the skill. E gives you back 40% of the initial damage done as health so while it doesn't have an extra scaling component you do need to make sure you're stealing back enough life to stay in lane. It's only 10 extra healing per rank of E and it does drive the cost up by 5. As far as the different speed buffs go I like buffing my own speed more than debuffing my opponent's. The reason for this is I mostly only care when I'm getting ganked and then the faster I can get to my turret the better.
Personally I'd been leveling E to 2 and then maxxing Q. I think I'm ok with this going forward. I haven't found I need more healing than a rank 2 E. I do wonder if maybe I could get away with only a single point in E. I certainly have no desire to put more than one point in W.
For starters I'm going to assume my opponent has 50 armor and 20 magic resist. Recalling that the damage reduction formula in this game is to multiply by 100/(100+X) where X is armor for physical damage or magic resist for magic damage. Also, I have 10% magic penetration from my masteries. Therefore, for y incoming damage:
MR(y) = y*100/118 = .85y
AC(y) = y*100/150 = .67y
My current way of playing involves leveling my W spell to rank 1, my E spell to rank 2, and pumping the rest into Q which actually is rarely used. I'm mostly concerned with the damage done by the W and the E while ignoring autoattacks and Q. The reason for this is my primary plan is to toss the two ranged spells at the enemy before they get close enough to really engage in melee combat.
W does 60 magic damage up front and then the resulting ghoul will melee 3 times for 35% of my total AD each swing. The up front damage also includes 100% of my AP but I won't have any of that. E does 85 damage up front and then the resulting ghoul will again melee 3 times for 35% of my total AD each swing. It also includes 100% of my bonus AD, which is any AD gained above and beyond the base amount from leveling. I will have 3 of that from my masteries. So, without any runes my damage at level 4 will likely be:
MR(60+85+3)+2*1.05*AC(65) = .85*148+2.1*.67*65 = 217
Filling in both quints and marks I have a few options. All AD, all MPen, all APen, or a combo. I'm interested in two combos in particular: AD quints with APen marks and full duo-pen. Those 5 options would add:
- 15.3AD
- 15.09MPen
- 24.94APen
- 6.75AD & 14.94APen
- 15APen, 9.13MPen
How does my damage change?
.85*163.3+2.1*.67*80.3 = 252
.97*148+2.1*.67*65 = 235
.85*148+2.1*.8*65 = 235
.85*154.75+2.1*.74*71.75 = 243
.92*148+2.1*.74*65 = 237
Ok, one of these is just better off the hop. At low levels the straight AD looks to be right.
There's one other thing I wanted to look at. That's what leveling up each skill accomplishes. It's pretty obvious to me that Yorick needs to put at least one point into each skill due to his passive. (He gets 5% damage reduction and 5% stronger melee attacks for each ghoul in play.) But where should the extra points go? First we need to know how much damage Q actually does...
It's an autoattack modifier which means it takes the place of your next melee swing. It also resets the swing timer when you use it so theoretically it could be worth a full melee attack if you're engaged on a target and time it right. In practical terms I don't know how often that actually happens so I'm going to ignore the autoattack portion and just look at the extra damage. It adds 30 damage, and an extra 20% of your total attack damage, and the ghoul does an extra 8 damage per swing. Comparing rank 1 stats with 80 AD:
Q - AC(54+1.25*80) = 103 damage for 40 mana with a 9 second cooldown
W - MR(60)+AC(1.05*80) = 107 damage for 40 mana with a 12 second cooldown
E - MR(73)+AC(1.05*80) = 118 damage for 55 mana with a 10 second cooldown
Comparing rank 2 stats with 80 AD:
Q - AC(108+1.25*80) = 139 damage for 40 mana with a 8 second cooldown
W - MR(95)+AC(1.05*80) = 137 damage for 45 mana with a 12 second cooldown
E - MR(103)+AC(1.05*80) = 144 damage for 60 mana with a 9 second cooldown
There are two ways to look at things. Damage per second assuming you're spamming the spell on cooldown or damage per mana. Yorick is rather mana constrained early if you're going all out on spamming so I think that number is probably more important but both are worth considering...
Rank 1
Q - 11.4DPS, 2.575DPM
W - 8.9DPS, 2.675DPM
E - 11.8DPS, 2.145DPM
Rank 2
Q - 17.4DPS, 3.475DPM
W - 11.4DPS, 3.044DPM
E - 16DPS, 2.4DPM
At rank 1 E is the best DPS, W is the best DPM, and Q is second best at both. At rank 2 Q is the best at everything. If your goal is to burn down your opponent then you want to level your Q. If your goal is to make efficient use of your mana then you want to level your Q. Are those the only things to consider?
Well, no. Each skill has a different impact on the game which scales with rank. Q gives you a run speed buff which gets bigger as you level the skill. W slows the enemies and the slow gets better as you level the skill. E gives you back 40% of the initial damage done as health so while it doesn't have an extra scaling component you do need to make sure you're stealing back enough life to stay in lane. It's only 10 extra healing per rank of E and it does drive the cost up by 5. As far as the different speed buffs go I like buffing my own speed more than debuffing my opponent's. The reason for this is I mostly only care when I'm getting ganked and then the faster I can get to my turret the better.
Personally I'd been leveling E to 2 and then maxxing Q. I think I'm ok with this going forward. I haven't found I need more healing than a rank 2 E. I do wonder if maybe I could get away with only a single point in E. I certainly have no desire to put more than one point in W.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: Battlefields
Spread around the map in Mystic Quest are various battlefields. Each battlefield contains 10 encounters worth the standard amount of experience/gold for the fights and each award a different bonus for completing the battlefield. I did the first one and got bonus experience but then decided to just plow through the game and skip as many fights as I could. I figured if I was underleveled it might make the game a little more challenging (one of the common complaints is that the game is too easy) and would possibly make the playthrough go faster. While writing yesterday's post I wondered if maybe there was some other reason to do these battlefields and figured I'd take a look...
It turns out there are 20 battlefields and 5 of those have a unique reward for completing the battlefield. Two are pieces of equipment, two are spells, and one appears to be a mandatory item for progressing the plot. I'm not at the point where I'd be stuck without that item so I wonder if I would have received a warning that I needed to actually do that specific battlefield or if I would have ended up frustrated and stuck. The battlefields I need to check out are: south of Aquaria, north of Libra Temple, far north of Focus Tower, and south of Mine. I don't need the 5th item since it gets made obsolete by the item south of Aquaria.
I just lost my ally and am currently wandering around solo. I guess I'll find out if I can solo these battlefields or if I need to advance the plot enough to get a new ally!
It turns out there are 20 battlefields and 5 of those have a unique reward for completing the battlefield. Two are pieces of equipment, two are spells, and one appears to be a mandatory item for progressing the plot. I'm not at the point where I'd be stuck without that item so I wonder if I would have received a warning that I needed to actually do that specific battlefield or if I would have ended up frustrated and stuck. The battlefields I need to check out are: south of Aquaria, north of Libra Temple, far north of Focus Tower, and south of Mine. I don't need the 5th item since it gets made obsolete by the item south of Aquaria.
I just lost my ally and am currently wandering around solo. I guess I'll find out if I can solo these battlefields or if I need to advance the plot enough to get a new ally!
Monday, May 28, 2012
Final Fantasy Mystic Quest: First Thoughts
Starting up Final Fantasy Mystic Quest immediately brought back memories. The main character runs into a weird cloud riding dude who makes mention about being the knight of legend or some such. The main character's sprite responds by doing a cute little shoulder shrugging animation. A little later on after beating the first dungeon he does a Hulk Hogan style flex animation. I know this sort of thing has nothing to do with how good the plot or gameplay is, but I really like it.
Along those lines, I'd totally forgotten that the enemy pictures change as they take damage. A standard monster will have two pictures: a mean one and then a sad, damaged one. The picture changes at 50% health. Bosses have many different pictures showing the monster in varying states of decay. I just killed an ice golem and the different pictures show him melting more and more as he takes more damage. I guess Octomom worked a little like this in Final Fantasy IV but I can't really recall this happening in any other game. Monsters tend to look fully healthy until they keel over dead in games and I really like this 'feature' of Mystic Quest.
The lack of random encounters makes the game feel different than a standard jRPG but I enjoy it. I've taken to skipping as many fights as I can which has made my main character rather underleveled. The game works by having a sidekick join up and they're always a fixed level so the game is still pretty easy despite the main character being several levels shy of where I should be. As far as difficulty goes if you die in a fight you get the option to do the fight over so when I die it isn't crippling. (I die a fair bit, but mostly when my sidekick gets confused and shoots me in the face with her bow and arrow.)
The plot is fairly tame so far (the world is in chaos because the four crystals have been dimmed; I need to go kill bosses in dungeons to power them back up) but definitely feels like the core of a Final Fantasy story. I'd expect more twists and turns and random distractions but it doesn't seem as bad as reviews would lead me to believe. It's incredibly linear, though. There are 'battlefields' you can enter but they don't seem to do anything except level you up and I'm skipping fights as it is so I've avoided them. I should see if I'm missing anything important...
One control innovation I love is being able to change weapons at any time (combat or dungeon map) by hitting L or R to scroll through my options. Given that I need to use different weapons to solve dungeon puzzles this is huge. Compared to Final Fantasy Adventure or Zelda: Minish Cap where I was constantly digging into menus to change items this is such a great quality of life improvement.
Mostly I've been playing the game when Diablo 3 has been down but last night I powered up the SNES instead of leveling my barbarian. I'm enjoying the game for the game itself and not just as a stepping stone to Final Fantasy V which is saying a lot considering the terrible reviews it gets.
Along those lines, I'd totally forgotten that the enemy pictures change as they take damage. A standard monster will have two pictures: a mean one and then a sad, damaged one. The picture changes at 50% health. Bosses have many different pictures showing the monster in varying states of decay. I just killed an ice golem and the different pictures show him melting more and more as he takes more damage. I guess Octomom worked a little like this in Final Fantasy IV but I can't really recall this happening in any other game. Monsters tend to look fully healthy until they keel over dead in games and I really like this 'feature' of Mystic Quest.
The lack of random encounters makes the game feel different than a standard jRPG but I enjoy it. I've taken to skipping as many fights as I can which has made my main character rather underleveled. The game works by having a sidekick join up and they're always a fixed level so the game is still pretty easy despite the main character being several levels shy of where I should be. As far as difficulty goes if you die in a fight you get the option to do the fight over so when I die it isn't crippling. (I die a fair bit, but mostly when my sidekick gets confused and shoots me in the face with her bow and arrow.)
The plot is fairly tame so far (the world is in chaos because the four crystals have been dimmed; I need to go kill bosses in dungeons to power them back up) but definitely feels like the core of a Final Fantasy story. I'd expect more twists and turns and random distractions but it doesn't seem as bad as reviews would lead me to believe. It's incredibly linear, though. There are 'battlefields' you can enter but they don't seem to do anything except level you up and I'm skipping fights as it is so I've avoided them. I should see if I'm missing anything important...
One control innovation I love is being able to change weapons at any time (combat or dungeon map) by hitting L or R to scroll through my options. Given that I need to use different weapons to solve dungeon puzzles this is huge. Compared to Final Fantasy Adventure or Zelda: Minish Cap where I was constantly digging into menus to change items this is such a great quality of life improvement.
Mostly I've been playing the game when Diablo 3 has been down but last night I powered up the SNES instead of leveling my barbarian. I'm enjoying the game for the game itself and not just as a stepping stone to Final Fantasy V which is saying a lot considering the terrible reviews it gets.
Sunday, May 27, 2012
Through The Ages 3 Player League
I mentioned a couple weeks ago that there was a 2 player Through The Ages league starting up on the asynchronous website. I don't think there was much interest but maybe that's because it was 2 player and it was a 10 game commitment. This time around you're only signing up for 6 games total and they're played in two groups of 3 which should be a pretty manageable number. If you're interested signups end tomorrow at the following link.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Diablo III: Twinking Out
My wizard has picked up some new gear and spec and can now handle pretty much everything in act 1 inferno. Act 2 inferno is a completely different story. The difference in difficulty between the two is really extreme! If I want to stick with the wizard I guess my only really option right now is to keep grinding act 1 over and over for cash so I can buy upgrades on the AH. The other option is to try another class and see if they can do any better! With gear/gems transfering over between characters to trivially in the game this isn't as rough as it would be in World of Warcraft, say. Really all I need to do is level up to max level and I'm most of the way there. Probably need to switch some gear out if I have a different primary stat, of course, but I can recycle a lot of stuff.
One thing that really caught my eye while looking through the mechanics guide is the fact that monks and barbarians get 30% damage reduction for free. I believe this was added in the beta because they're melee and therefore had a harder time surviving the stuff in early act 1 and I can believe that to be true. But I think when you get to inferno everyone is having a hard time surviving everything! Especially in act 2 where enemies have a habit of jumping off the ceiling directly on top of me! Taking 30% less damage from stuff like mortar also sounds pretty sweet. So I want to try one of those two classes. I already have a 35 monk on hardcore and don't really want to start a second one lest I get confused and ended up dying in hardcore so I'm going with a barbarian. I already had a level 11 barbarian kicking around so off I went.
I found myself dying a fair bit to random large melee dudes and it took several swings to kill most anything. So I figured I should probably take a swing by the AH and see if I couldn't find some upgrades. I decided since my goal was to hit 60 as fast as I could that I concentrate on finding gear with +experience on it if I could. It turns out I was able to buy cheap rares with experience and strength for every slot and it made a stupid amount of difference. I'm one shotting everything in my path! I'm also set up with +115 experience per kill and 23% bonus experience on top of that which has made leveling really really fast. One thing I noticed while shopping for rares is most slots could get +10 experience but a couple could only get +8. That has me curious about how stat mods work and when they're going to jump in size so I could go back to the AH for upgrades...
Unfortunately a half hour of searching couldn't turn up any such list. I know lists of affixes with level ranges used to exist in Diablo II but I guess the game hasn't been out long enough for a list to get compiled or get high up on the Google search ranks. Oh well!
One thing that really caught my eye while looking through the mechanics guide is the fact that monks and barbarians get 30% damage reduction for free. I believe this was added in the beta because they're melee and therefore had a harder time surviving the stuff in early act 1 and I can believe that to be true. But I think when you get to inferno everyone is having a hard time surviving everything! Especially in act 2 where enemies have a habit of jumping off the ceiling directly on top of me! Taking 30% less damage from stuff like mortar also sounds pretty sweet. So I want to try one of those two classes. I already have a 35 monk on hardcore and don't really want to start a second one lest I get confused and ended up dying in hardcore so I'm going with a barbarian. I already had a level 11 barbarian kicking around so off I went.
I found myself dying a fair bit to random large melee dudes and it took several swings to kill most anything. So I figured I should probably take a swing by the AH and see if I couldn't find some upgrades. I decided since my goal was to hit 60 as fast as I could that I concentrate on finding gear with +experience on it if I could. It turns out I was able to buy cheap rares with experience and strength for every slot and it made a stupid amount of difference. I'm one shotting everything in my path! I'm also set up with +115 experience per kill and 23% bonus experience on top of that which has made leveling really really fast. One thing I noticed while shopping for rares is most slots could get +10 experience but a couple could only get +8. That has me curious about how stat mods work and when they're going to jump in size so I could go back to the AH for upgrades...
Unfortunately a half hour of searching couldn't turn up any such list. I know lists of affixes with level ranges used to exist in Diablo II but I guess the game hasn't been out long enough for a list to get compiled or get high up on the Google search ranks. Oh well!
Friday, May 25, 2012
GCBGB: Toronto
This years Great Canadian Board Game Blitz Toronto event is being held this weekend at a downtown bar. Details can be found at the Facebook event. There have been a couple changes to the format this year to shake things up a little. They've shifted almost entirely to new games (either to the Blitz or in terms of recent publications) and they're handling overflow by doubling up on games instead of adding a wider variety of games. As I understand it the switch to newer games is to encourage people to learn new games and provide an advantage to people who are keeping up on new releases.
Unfortunately for me I haven't really been getting out to play the newest games. Of the 25 games being played this time around there's only one (Vegas Showdown) I've played a reasonable number of times. 16 of the games I've never played at all. The remaining 8 are games I may have played once or twice. I have no delusions about my ability to do well this time around. Normally I go to these sorts of things planning on winning but that's simply not plausible this time around. So the question then becomes if I want to wake up early and spend a day in a room crowded with strangers to learn games I may not even want to play. There are certainly some games on the list I want to learn (Ora and Labora at the top of that list) but generally I know people who have those games who would teach me them if I wanted. Without needing to wake up early and travel half an hour on the subway. Without having to skip playing Diablo. Without having to enduring endless ribbing from people when I don't win games I've never played before.
There's a minor issue with doubling up on games in that you can't try to attack the leader in the last round. (Normally if you pick the game they pick you can try to knock them out. Now you only have a 3 in 7 chance of sitting at their table assuming two 4 player games.) Historically this strategy doesn't seem to get used anyway so it's probably not a big deal.
I donno. I may not go, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't! If you like playing games with random cool people this is a great way to do so. Check it out!
Unfortunately for me I haven't really been getting out to play the newest games. Of the 25 games being played this time around there's only one (Vegas Showdown) I've played a reasonable number of times. 16 of the games I've never played at all. The remaining 8 are games I may have played once or twice. I have no delusions about my ability to do well this time around. Normally I go to these sorts of things planning on winning but that's simply not plausible this time around. So the question then becomes if I want to wake up early and spend a day in a room crowded with strangers to learn games I may not even want to play. There are certainly some games on the list I want to learn (Ora and Labora at the top of that list) but generally I know people who have those games who would teach me them if I wanted. Without needing to wake up early and travel half an hour on the subway. Without having to skip playing Diablo. Without having to enduring endless ribbing from people when I don't win games I've never played before.
There's a minor issue with doubling up on games in that you can't try to attack the leader in the last round. (Normally if you pick the game they pick you can try to knock them out. Now you only have a 3 in 7 chance of sitting at their table assuming two 4 player games.) Historically this strategy doesn't seem to get used anyway so it's probably not a big deal.
I donno. I may not go, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't! If you like playing games with random cool people this is a great way to do so. Check it out!
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Diablo III: Combat Mechanic Link
First thing to mention is Sceadeau found a pretty great blog post with a lot of details about the combat mechanics in Diablo III. It looks to be mostly based on beta information and is wrong in at least one place (vitality is worth 35 health at level 60, not 10) but it seems pretty reasonable overall. It certainly helped explain some of the things I found out yesterday with how often beams tick and whatnot.
I ran some more tests last night. Blizzard and meteor both do substantially more damage with the slower weapon than the fast one. Even when I put on my damage ring the faster weapon wasn't making up ground in terms on blizzard damage. With beam weapons the faster weapon at least made better use of bonus damage. With blizzard it's just flat wrong to use a fast weapon. Less damage per arcane power. Less damage per second. Maybe you become able to walk sooner after casting? I don't know, and it doesn't really matter.
I need to test the signature spells at some point. I have a feeling if a faster weapon is ever going to show returns it's going to be with the signature spells. Especially if you spend runes/passives causing them to restore arcane power? My feeling while leveling up was they didn't do enough damage to be relevant but maybe that was just perception.
One important thing to come from learning about the .5s 'cycle' for beam weapons is realizing that I'm doing more damage than I thought I was. I would see a 10k number on a beam and think I was doing 13k DPS with a 1.3 speed weapon. In reality I was doing 20k. Last night I bought a good weapon (1.2 speed now along with 150 more base DPS) and had good shoulders and a fantastic set ring drop which raised my beam damage up closer to 20k per tick. Knowing that if the monsters aren't hitting me I can sustain close to 40k DPS on a single target at range for a reasonably long time makes me feel a little less useless. It's still a far cry from Sky's 100k number but it's at least playable. Probably in the 26-30k DPS range to a pack of dudes with the piercing beam. I can beat most elite packs in inferno Act 1 by myself now and am probably a useful inclusion in a group. I switched to using blizzard even though it does mediocre damage in order to kite things more efficiently with the huge area slow. Running a vortex dude in circles around a clump of trees is pretty hilarious.
In case anyone cares, raw damage numbers from the tests after the break...
I ran some more tests last night. Blizzard and meteor both do substantially more damage with the slower weapon than the fast one. Even when I put on my damage ring the faster weapon wasn't making up ground in terms on blizzard damage. With beam weapons the faster weapon at least made better use of bonus damage. With blizzard it's just flat wrong to use a fast weapon. Less damage per arcane power. Less damage per second. Maybe you become able to walk sooner after casting? I don't know, and it doesn't really matter.
I need to test the signature spells at some point. I have a feeling if a faster weapon is ever going to show returns it's going to be with the signature spells. Especially if you spend runes/passives causing them to restore arcane power? My feeling while leveling up was they didn't do enough damage to be relevant but maybe that was just perception.
One important thing to come from learning about the .5s 'cycle' for beam weapons is realizing that I'm doing more damage than I thought I was. I would see a 10k number on a beam and think I was doing 13k DPS with a 1.3 speed weapon. In reality I was doing 20k. Last night I bought a good weapon (1.2 speed now along with 150 more base DPS) and had good shoulders and a fantastic set ring drop which raised my beam damage up closer to 20k per tick. Knowing that if the monsters aren't hitting me I can sustain close to 40k DPS on a single target at range for a reasonably long time makes me feel a little less useless. It's still a far cry from Sky's 100k number but it's at least playable. Probably in the 26-30k DPS range to a pack of dudes with the piercing beam. I can beat most elite packs in inferno Act 1 by myself now and am probably a useful inclusion in a group. I switched to using blizzard even though it does mediocre damage in order to kite things more efficiently with the huge area slow. Running a vortex dude in circles around a clump of trees is pretty hilarious.
In case anyone cares, raw damage numbers from the tests after the break...
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