After completing my season 24 journey, I decided to take a small break. Or rather I needed to focus on my writing and slowly lost interest in the game. Since I’m halfway through writing my 3rd novel, I decided to treat myself to some periodic Diablo 3 gaming.
A few things I’ve been working on are obtaining ancients, getting BiS Ethereals for a few characters and gold farming for GR runs. I figured aiming for ancients on my main Demon Hunter would be a nice way to end the season to see how far I can take her. And right now, I have all ancients except the necklace slot. I’ve been thinking of running Bounties and picking up a spare Squirts Necklace to re-roll using Bounty Mats but that might be a difficult ask.
The other character I’ve been playing lately is my Barbarian. Originally, I was using just the Bul-kathos mighty weapons but I had not been able to come up with ancient versions. In turn, I was also hunting for an Ethereal weapon. I discovered an ancient Ambo’s Pride and didn’t realize I had a decent Ethereal in storage in the form of a Grimmershred, which actually isn’t bad since this one had an In-geom power on it as well as the Unforgiving passive. In turn, I made a switch over and it felt slower than Bul-kathos and squishier but eventually I managed to get it into a better position.
Something I learned while playing my Barbarian was that I didn’t have any rune for my Rend. It mystified me why my Barbarian was struggling doing damage. Once I added the Bloodbath rune, my Barbarian felt so much better. I still don’t generate as much Fury compared to using the Bul-kathos but it doesn’t feel as awkward either. In addition to having the In-geom passive, I decided to use the Messerschmidt’s Reaver for the weapon slot in my cube. The idea here is to improve my cooldowns on Wrath of the Berserker, Ground Stomp and Ignore Pain since those are my main defenses. I probably should go Furious Charge since I won’t need to stop to trigger my Band of Might’s defense but it just feels awkward using Furious Charge. Also, I might swap the rune of Ignore Pain to Bravado for the extra movement speed since Ignore Pain ought to be up more often.
However, I might have to do more Uber bosses to get more crafting materials for more Hellfire Amulets. The one I’m using is decent but the passive is mediocre with Inspiring Presence. It forces me to use War Cry, even though I do like this ability for the extra defense and Fury. But what I need is an ancient amulet with a good passive and stats. So that’s something to look for even though I have Squirt’s Necklace as well.
The other character I’ve been playing is my Witch Doctor. While my Witch Doctor has a usable Ethereal with the right passive, I still prefer to use either The Gidbinn for the health globe movement bonus (since Witch Doctors are slow as shit) or an Arioc’s Needle for the massive damage boost. Along the way, I found out that I had a really good ancient Compass Rose in my stash that I immediately replaced on my other one with bad rolls. So that along with an ancient Gazing Demise would make my DPS skyrocket.
Also, I’m getting the itch to play my Monk with Innas again. There’s still things I’d like to try with him and possibly going LoD with Wave of Light just for fun. With my new stash tab, I might be able to build up enough gear for that build.
Then there’s my painful Necromancer sitting in a corner. While I managed to get Rathma into a reasonable spot, I never was able to find a usable Ethereal for that build. So I might eventually return to her just to see if I can take the build slightly higher.
But one thing I noticed was that in the passed few days that I had returned, I could not find any Ethereals whatsoever. I’ve been running through a pretty nasty dry spell and I can’t tell if it’s because of the late season. Also, I’ve been finding really bad legendaries. It’s been pretty discouraging to say the least, which is why I haven’t been compelled to push as much.
Now, one may ask why play D3 when D2 Remastered is out? Right now, I just don’t feel like spending more money on a game I had at one point in time. I’ve been reading about how there are bugs and at $40 I think the cost is too high. Also, I’m not a fan of having such a game forcing one to use Battle.net. With the whole grindiness back into place along with my limited time, I feel that it just isn’t worth it whereas with D3 I can jump in and jump out.
At any rate, I probably will be playing for a bit longer. As this is month 3 of Season 24, I expect maybe towards the end of the month, we might see a preview for the next patch/season 25. But with D2: Remastered being released lately, it’s tough to say how much attention Diablo 3 will be receiving in the near future, especially if that takes away from the D2: Remastered hype.