This is just a general blog post about my experience with the season 24 so far. Going to talk a bit about the first day or two and my lack of luck and a few bad choices but how things eventually changed for the better.
First day was just getting to level 70. I managed to get the first two pieces of Uliana’s quickly from the season journey. However, I stayed way too long in T1 because Exploding Palm really sucks and making that set work requires all your gear to line up. The leveling experience in general wasn’t bad just acquiring the key pieces to make this build work. Towards the end I realized I made a pretty big error in going monk rather than Demon Hunter or Witch Doctor this season.
Once I got over that hump and managed to acquire most of the basic set on Day 2. But my hand was hurting badly because of the stupid three hit mechanics for Exploding Palm and Uliana’s. Without items like a Gungdo Gear, Madstone or The Flow of Eternity, even the 4 set bonus would feel god awful. I did end up finding a 5th piece prior to finishing up the start of the season journey then farmed for a Ring of Royal Grandeur for a while. Once I got one, things improved a bit. But it still felt bad without having the aforementioned items so I wasn’t progressing much.
Gradually, I got enough gear to start a Patterns of Justice build. That was far better and I immediately swapped to that. However, I encountered a few nasty problems such as being fairly squishy. I was using a crappy amulet both in the cube and in my neck slot that would make me immune to fire and arcane damage as well as using the Esoteric Alteration gem since I was having problems where my health would fall off. I finally narrowed it down to Epiphany and Serenity falling off. I might eventually modify the build a little to incorporate Captain Crimson’s Trimmings and use a better weapon rather than depending on Sweeping Wind. But the speed is a huge QoL thing for me.
In terms of my Monk’s Ethereals, I managed to collect a few useful ones especially for Patterns of Justice and Wave of Light. I don’t recall finding anything worth using for Innas just yet but if I do, I might try Innas one more time later on.
Gradually, I built up enough gear for the Wave of Light Legacy of Dreams no-set build. My goal here was to do the seasonal conquest. I tried twice and did not receive credit so I thought. Turns out that I had the Blackthorne’s pants on and you’re not even allowed to use that item for the achievement. Once I dropped the pants and used something (Depth Diggers), I managed to easily get the achievement down. After doing that, I actually preferred this build over Patterns of Justice, even though it’s far slower. It just felt more controllable.
In addition, I scraped together some gear for the Inna’s build. Gave it a go and still wasn’t impressed. Like LoD, this build is less wonky in terms of damage spikes but the AI just sucks. Also, you can’t zoom around as much unless you sacrifice some damage by using an In-geom. I might end up trying that for lower level stuff but I just am not a fan of this build as is. Part of the issue is just that my gear for Innas is really bad even though I have the basic stuff. I might have to experiment a bit more to figure out a better way of dealing with what I have.
On the other hand, I managed to start up a Demon Hunter last night and quickly leveled her up with some twink gear and my new twink leveling strategy. I had crafted a Ninth Cirri Satchel quiver and cubed that to start my character off and used a Fortress Ballista with a Gem of Ease. Pretty much trivialized leveling but required a little more work towards the end due to bad aoe.
Also, I started a new crusader. Haven’t leveled her yet and am waiting to collect more materials. I managed to get all the rest of my DH’s GoD gear and pretty much swapped from my Monk to her. I can say safely that there’s just no comparison between the two. I did find 4 Ethereals for my Demon Hunter but none are useful. So I’m probably going to work on my Demon Hunter for a while. One of my early goes will be to find another Ring of Royal Grandeur and grab the Cain’s Destiny set since I’m sorely lacking in Greater Rift keys this season. Thus far, I haven’t found many Rings of Royal Grandeur nor Avarice and I don’t feel like swapping between characters.
I think for tomorrow, my goal will be to push my Demon Hunter into T16 and farm copious amounts of gold along with trying to grab another RoRG and Avarice Band. Also, I’ll be hunting for the good Ethereals while gathering mats in preparation for gearing out my Crusader. The thing is that I don’t want to spend too much time on each character by doing activities like augments. My main goal this season is to collect all the Ethereals as well as finish the season journey. Now, I have a very capable character to tackle most end game content and farming so it shouldn’t be hard getting the rest of my goals lined up. I might eventually do some augments just because you need at least one for one of the season journey achievements. Either way, I’m looking forward to more stash space and the pet.