Diablo 4 Design Discussions

Speaking of builds, since I'm going to most likely start with a Hardcore, I am probably going for a Marksmanship Rogue build. I messed a bit with builds in the previous Beta, and the Shadow Infusion / Rapid Fire setup seemed to instantly obliterate about anything even in World Tier 2, so I might stick with that, at least for my first attempt.
 
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I was running those skills for a while until it clicked how the second spec actually worked. Then I went with Twisting Blades and the cooldown reduction which works on the spec. But they nerfed TB cooldown a lot!

My bow build was ummm...

Heart Seeker arrow basic, Rapid Fire core (Don't forget that Ricochet legendary aspect!), Shadow Imbue or Poison for the world boss, Dash because it's awesome, Concealment for the 100% crit chance and being able to break out of stuns and Death Trap.

Most of those skills I'd stick with but there's room to swap Death Trap for something else. I didn't really like how slow Rain of Arrows spreads out and I found the Shadow Clone would not Rapid Fire at the target when I moved away.
 
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I agree, Concealment is definitely a must-have for survivability. I played a bit with Caltrops too, it's not great at anything, but good at a lot of things - a little extra movement, a little extra AoE damage, and a good slow/vulnerability debuff on enemies. When you put all effects together, you get a well-rounded ability that's very welcome as part of a ranged DPS class kit.

There's still time for people to draw conclusions from the server slam and theory craft a bit. Part of me wants to just wing my build so it feels personal, but again, because I'm intending to play Hardcore I don't want to go in completely blind either.
 
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I was thinking about playing hardcore to start but it might be more fun once the ladder is up and try to be the first to level 100 hardcore. Sort of pointless goal, though. I'm sure there are people ready to not sleep, live off delivered pizza and piss in a bottle to win that one. :p

I had a play with Caltrops but didn't really like it. You do leap back a pretty nice distance but its a little awkward leaping backwards. There might be some synergy with Frost Imbue and Frost Caltops that I didn't explore. Seems like no one goes with Frost. But, in the build above, I'd have to replace Dash rather than Death Trap but dash can also slow so there's probably no point unless you're going with a frost imbue. You need to stack a bunch of frost effects to proc the Frozen status, which is what you'd be aiming for. Just seems a bit hard to get there. But, again, I haven't really explored it. There might be a reliable combo to Frozen everyone?
 
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Frost is a great Elite-killing build since it guarantees solid, regular stuns as long as you keep hitting your rapid fires. The downside is that bosses are immune to CC, and against normal hordes of enemies you need good splash damage to clear them out and not get overwhelmed. Frost might do well in some theoretical rift/elite rush setup, but it's early to say.
 
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So, had a quick look at the rogue build calculator...

You need to get to 100% chilled to proc Frozen.

Frost Caltrops lasts for 6 seconds and does 20% chilled per second.

Frost Imbue at 5/5 rank does 35% chilled and has 2 charges. Also gives you 20% more damage to CC and 40% more to Frozen.

The frost passives will give you 15% more damage vs chilled and 30% more slow so keep them in the caltrops longer.

So, we're up to a flat 55% more damage vs Frozen if you cast Frost Imbue early enough that it's ready to instantly recast in battle. But even just 15% more vs chilled and 30% more vs frozen is pretty nice.

The thing is, rapid fire isn't going to freeze a big pack...

So, maybe this is where Rain of Arrows shines since imbuement effects have 20% increased potency and it hits TWO times and is the only imbueable ultimate and best AOE to dish out chilled..

So, that's 42% chilled per wave from RoA, up to 84% chilled... Enough for caltrops to instantly freeze or Rapid fire if there's a spare imbue charge.

They did also show a legendary item that adds all 3 imbue to Rain of Arrows, so you might not even have to waste a charge on it, eventually.

Plus, caltrops does raise damage 3% a second... Potentially 18% more damage. So, we're up to 73% bonus damage, best case scenario.

That's actually pretty good. :)

Heartseeker, rapid fire, caltrops, concealment, frost imbue, rain of arrows?

I mean, poison you're waiting around forever for the damage to kill them. Dark you rely on them dying to explode or it just does damage to the main target when it expires without AOE. Frost you're looking at 15% flat damage minimum up to over 70%

Might be the overlooked spec? Or maybe its just the bow spec because slow is only really important if you want to keep your distance?

Also, I'm thinking if you can do a 100% crit frost rain of arrows using concealment against frozen enemies that's going to do insane damage. :D

Ps. https://d4builds.link/RTNVd0 that's what I'm looking at, still 22 points spare. Any idea how to finish the build off?

edit: I'm not even thinking clearly! A frost Rapid Fire will do 15% from the passive and 20% from the upgrade so 35% flat damage bonus compared to poisons dot or darks on death effect. I think I like the sound of that more.
 
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Frost is a pretty solid single target / small pack DPS indeed, which is why I feel it will be ideal for an elite-killing setup. Not only it offers extra damage versus frozen targets, but the CC is also exceptional for kiting/surviving dangerous encounters.

The thing that makes me not want to go Frost is that it is pretty inefficient against bosses, and bosses are a significant part of Diablo. A lot of the tougher encounters are bosses, and some of the best rewards are behind bosses too.

As for full builds, it's too early for me to dig into those, I'm neck-deep in Zelda and things are subject to change before release still, I will have a closer look once Hyrule has been saved - once again.
 
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Bosses can not be frozen but they CAN be slowed and chilled. So, you won't get up to that 73% but I think you could still get the flat +35% from chilled and potentially more from caltrops damage stacking. Probably not quite as much damage as poison but you do get the slow. More than dark, though.
 
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Reading up on it a little more, it would appear that some bosses, including all world bosses, have a "stagger" meter. I totally missed this mechanic. The world boss did get staggered but it was always around the same point when he was nearly dead. I didn't think much about it. Turns out CC is what adds to the stagger bar. Including chilled! Maybe frost is actually the best?

Apparently theres a world boss that spawns 2 loot goblins every time he's staggered so people in closed beta were focusing on taking as much CC as possible to the fight and trying to get 4 staggers out of him.
 
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Man, the game world in Diablo 4 is absolutely gigantic and beautiful. Unfortunately most of it is simply used as playground for having fights.
It feels like a lot of work went into building a world that will simply be a backdrop to having fights. And most of the time you're not even gonna pay attention to it.

I'm not sure how they balanced the xp curve, but I went through my usual steps that I do in rpgs, namely first tacked all side content I can and only then progress the main quest.
And so I cleared all of Fractured Peaks, the first out of 5 huge areas. I cleared 90% of all content and the main quest, and I'm already level 48. Actually I was level 45 before I started the main quest at all.

Anyway it's all fun. Aside from the combat difficulty curve which has really been grinded down because of the scaling. I guess it is by design that you'll have the actual dungeons as a progression meter.
 
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danutz_plusplus said:
Man, the game world in Diablo 4 is absolutely gigantic and beautiful.
Click to expand...

Has it already been available for a while, where you are? Here in Europe it will only be released in a few hours.

It's not really my type of game, but after looking at the gameplay, I have to admit I might enjoy it after all. Perhaps in a few months or with a previous version, though.
 
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Hubby bought it already so I will watch him play first - I agree that it does look very gorgeous.
 
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It does. I'm only held back because it seems designed for coop, it has microtransactions, and it's made by Blizzard (which isn't my role model).

I could ignore the microtransaction and who made the game, but I can't ignore long and painful big boss fights. I do like the idea of coop objectively, but it's just not my thing anymore.

EDIT: Ah, and online-only... that's hard to ignore it, when it's impossible to play SP for the wrong reason.
 
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Redglyph said:
Has it already been available for a while, where you are? Here in Europe it will only be released in a few hours.

It's not really my type of game, but after looking at the gameplay, I have to admit I might enjoy it after all. Perhaps in a few months or with a previous version, though.
Click to expand...
If you paid 20 euros extra you could unlock the early release 4-5 days early. Loads of people are already playing it.

Another thing I don't like is that they uncover the map of the fog of war in big chunks, and not in very small pieces, as you walk around.
This causes me not to know exactly where I walked through.
 
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I just finished the campaign!

Look, I'm just gonna say it. Not only is this Blizzard's best game but it's one of the best games ever, in general. I loved it.

Everything is such high quality. You can see how much work has gone into it. The graphics, the sound, the gameplay, the story; it's all fantastic.

I usually ignore the story in games but by the end of D4 I felt like I'd just finished watching a good movie and sat the whole way though the credits listening to the amazing music.

Games like this don't come around very often but when they do I remember why I'm a gamer.

I'd give it a 97% review score. Well done, Bliz!
 
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Didn't it just release on Friday? I guess the campaign is fairly short?

Not that that really matters. I know most fan aren't getting it just to play through the campaign once.
 
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