2.1 PTR videos

A major reason why I don’t bothering doing test runs on Torment VI is because my gear is already at its limits for T5 on 2.0.x (I don’t have any elite damage reduction, not enough sustain, and not enough increased elite damage.)

I never crafted Aughild’s on live either because I wanted to use only drops (plus I can actually get by with Blackthorne’s if better rolled ones dropped).

While this character can still solo T6, the play is mostly all like this; inefficient (which is how I normally play D3 anyway but this is a bit too much). The only times I even played T6 solo on live was to get an idea of where my gearing was at as far as the numbers go.  But T5 was the limit with T3-T4 being farm mode.

Some of the skill buffs and healing changes (if I can get the right drops) in 2.1 actually puts my character in a better position since the skills I’m using are a decent upgrade. My elemental damage also saw a huge buff (due to my Moonlight Ward going from 21% to 35% Arcane damage; yes, the attack speed on it went from 6% to 5% and crit chance from 9.5% to 9% but I’ll take the increased elemental damage).  Basically if these changes stick, farm mode will shift to T4-T5 (and getting to do T6 more effectively is just a few decent drops away).

I also temporarily unbanned myself from the Battle.net forum to see the PTR feedback/bug boards; I didn’t bother reading the large number of posts which were clearly about the poor state of the wizard class.  I did read/reply to one which went counter to those other topics because while I do also have issues with the developers approach, the small amount of changes has been sufficient enough for my character to actually progress upwards.

Part of that is due to the way I played vanilla hardcore (where I always tried to learn the absolute limits of what was possible with the gear that I had).  I basically play my softcore characters the way I did on hardcore (which is why my trigger finger to get out of dodge has me often times moving well before I need to).  It’s no different on the gear front where I just made the most out of what I do have.  I’ve documented my mostly bad luck here so I’ve made do without a completed set of the better ones (the only complete set I do have is Firebirds).

I’m not saying everything is all right…. because many did put in a lot of effort to optimize their items.  I just don’t buy into the whole “lack of T5/T6 builds”/”lack of synergy” due to the channeling cost issue when my character (which is under P400, doesn’t have the best rolled items, does not have a RoRG and also does not rely on multiple set items for special proc effects) is able to actually move up a full Torment level (T5 solo) by just switching to a non-channeling resource spender.

It’s also why I stopped farming for the RoRG; it’s something I can do without.  While I do get some decent solo damage reduction via the Unity (and my follower with a Unity+Legendary follower relic), I also lose that in co-op play (where I’ve always been able to manage playing a Torment higher on live sans the ring – which means I also lose the increased elite damage).  I just believe that many players haven’t fully explored the full limits (the math behind the numbers) of what their items are capable of and/or exploring other skill/item synergies.