With this holiday weekend having a much needed XP boost on Diablo 4, I decided to take advantage of it and really push my sorcerer to the limit. Well, first I managed to get into WT4 and collect a few cool uniques, replacing my old Raiment of the Infinite with an Ancestral version (actually picked up two) and really pushing her gear, using the world bosses to find item power 925. From there I stopped farming Legions, Helltides and Vampire zones and started to hit the higher tier Nightmare Dungeons. I think I managed to get in the upper 50s before achieving level 100. But boy does that feel good.
While there is a plan for a future level 100 event, my goal here wasn’t to prepare for that event. Instead, I simply wanted to have at least one character at level 100. The idea here was to get someone topped off level-wise to farm Duriel. While I haven’t started on that part of the quest line, the foundation is there. I’m hoping that by farming the world bosses a little longer, I can get more upgrades to my regular gear before looking to move to the end game bosses.
In the meantime, I pushed my 2nd WT4 character of season 2: my Barbarian. I managed to farm up the Ring of the Furor and chucked out my other ring. Even now, I’m still using that one along with the Chieftain aspect ring (which I still cannot find another). But the Elias fight turned out fairly easy on her especially with her damage ramping up big time. Honestly, it was far more painful trying to make it through the rest of the dungeon instead of fighting Elias.
At the moment, I got her to level 78 and the build is coming together nicely. I ended up finding an Azurewrath and decided to use it for now. While the build doesn’t require an Azurewrath, I kinda like it just because you get to freeze enemies. I think I got rid of the Edgemaster aspect weapon and probably will continue using this until I find an Uber Unique. But I unlocked the Marshal glyph which I really wanted to help with my various shout cooldowns. That combined with the Chieftain aspect makes the build a little smoother.
My other project that I need to start on again is my Druid. He just hit level 70 and I’ve been contemplating switching from Pulverize to Stormclaw. The major problems are that I’m missing a key aspect that you need to find and I have to redo my paragon board, which means that certain glyphs probably won’t be leveled. Quite honestly, I’m wondering how hard Elias will be on a Pulverize Druid the way my guy is geared out. Now, I still need to review his resistances, which might be the only downside at the moment. For the most part, I had been lazy about his gear once I got the two main uniques and the two key aspects.
I also have a Necromancer that I’ve putting off leveling. I went Bone Spear and hate it. The leveling guide I’m using isn’t very good to be frank and I saw a better one that employs minions. So far I’ve not had many problems with the Capstone dungeons but I can see the vanilla Bone Spear Necromancer just hitting like a wet noodle. So I might end up switching her build around to employ minions. The key to the build seems to revolve around the Exposed Flesh aspect and no matter how many obols I gamble, I can’t pick one up (I’m doing it on my main necromancer). I thought about switching to my main necromancer and just doing a complete respect but I feel it’s a waste.
What makes me mad about this is that I already have the unique to make the Bone Spear part work in the Deathless Visage. It’s crazy to me how I managed to acquire one of those before getting the Exposed Flesh aspect. But I’m kinda motivated to play one just because I have that and want to find the Necromancer version of the Malignant ring since I have the other three.
That does leave my Rogue. I already found the Condemnation dagger. The Malignant ring does nothing for the Twisted Blade build so I don’t want to waste time trying to farm one up. Unfortunately, that makes playing a Rogue kinda boring when it comes to farming. There’s really no great unique at this level to acquire. I think I have a Sacred version of the Penitent Greaves so I could swap those in. Beyond that though, the Rogue has lost its appeal just because I have one on the the Eternal Realm in WT4. I guess the only real thing here is to try and get her into WT4 on my own this time. I think with the Vampire powers, it shouldn’t be as bad, just horribly tedious.
That all being said, that made me realize that the aspect system just sucks. Originally, I liked the idea of being able to have these abilities that one could “copy”/imprint onto other items. But seeing how it’s been implemented at this point made me realize just how much it was poorly thought out. First, the Dungeon part is an interesting way to discover powers. Once you discover a power outside of a dungeon, that’s where the system just begins to really stink. The problem is that you have the typical Blizzard randomization for a range of powers. Thinking that you may need a power later on, you end up hoarding a bunch of shitty items that clog your stash.
Now, here’s where the system just takes a complete shit in your mouth and expects you to enjoy Blizzard’s brown pudding. It’s the build defining aspects that have low drop rates. First, why are these even considered aspects? Yes, you can copy/paste them onto other items but someone pointed out that they feel more like unique items based on their droprates. And here’s where I get really irritated: once you pick one up, you don’t truly know if you’ll ever use it. So shouldn’t these super rare aspects like Exposed Flesh, Chieftain, etc. have a distinguishing color to alert a user NOT to throw them away? It’s bad enough the stupid stash has no way to search by keyword. You’re telling me you can simply nuke one on accident because there’s no easy way to tell how useful or rare it is. That is a deformity in a system that I’ve ever seen.
Now, this all relates to how I’m swapping builds out and later realizing that I probably shredded a key aspect. Or worse yet, shredding it while keeping 9 copies of some other aspect I thought had some sort of value. This is just maddening.
Certainly, there’s going to be people who think, “Well, you should organize your stash better.” It’s pretty hard to be that anal retentive/OCD when you’re trying to get things done in a short period of time. I’ve done the stash overhauls and there’s no great strategy when the builds are schizophrenic and you’re trying to determine what might be fun and easy to play.
But I’m going to stop ranting for now since I’m tired. There’s still more that I’d like to do but I’m too brain dead to really come up with more at this time.