|
I may never come back, and I just want someone to know. This article contains text from a former Shadow Academy course. It is no longer in use, and is preserved here for historical purposes only and should not be used/referenced.
|
Course Notes
Introduction
Hello everyone, and welcome to the “How to most effectively obtain carpal tunnel syndrome” course! In this course, I will try to explain the basic mechanics of Diablo III, different game modes, differences between classes, ways to obtain gear, and ways to level your character.
As you may have already noticed from my oh-so-funny starting sentence, Diablo III is a grindfest! Apart from the campaign, which by itself is a lot of fun, the endgame revolves around searching for gear and consequential progression in higher tiers of Greater Rifts. Already confused? Don’t worry, everything will be explained thoroughly!
Characters
This section will talk about the different types of classes you can be, as well as the types of characters you can create in Diablo III.
Classes
The current classes available in Diablo III are Barbarian, Crusader, Monk, Demon Hunter, Wizard, and Witch Doctor. With some exceptions, the first three classes are considered melee, while the second three are ranged. The main difference between the two, apart from their range, is that melee classes have 30% damage reduction as a perk due to them generally having to come up close and personal to the monsters.
Another way to classify classes are by their primary stat, which is what gives a class most of their ‘oompf’. Barbarians and Crusaders have strength, Witch Doctors and Wizards have intellect, while Demon Hunters and Monks have dexterity as their primary stat. The only difference this makes is that you will be searching for items with your class’ primary stat in every single item slot available.
An important thing to keep in mind is that there is no best class in Diablo III. While some can progress farther than others, the leaderboards are separate for each class, making it irrelevant. So choose your class by your playing style and fun factor, not by the “power” level.
Character types
There are three character types available in Diablo III: Normal, Seasonal and Hardcore. Each of these character types has a separate inventory, paragon levels, gold and progress.
A normal character is.. well.. a normal character! What does this mean? It means it will be there no matter what season is currently running, no matter how many times you’ve died. You can always rely on your character being there and being available for play.
A seasonal character, on the other hand, is a character created specifically for a given “season”. A “season” is a period of time during which players can create seasonal characters that start the game from level zero, without paragon levels or access to gear accumulated on “normal” characters. Seasons usually last several months each and always have a defined beginning and ending; they usually follow major balance or content patches, to ensure that the game plays a little differently each season.
Why would anyone want to choose this? There are several reasons, most prominent of all being the fact that everyone starts fresh - inventory and stash are completely empty, zero gold and zero paragon levels. This way, no one has an edge when competing for leaderboards. Once a season is over, your character, along with your complete inventory, paragon levels and stats are made into a normal character.
The third type of character you can create is a Hardcore character. This is the most challenging mode of all, as you only have one life. If you die, your character is lost forever. There is nothing you can do to bring him back. Please note that a Hardcore character can be a “normal” Hardcore character as well as a Seasonal Hardcore character.
Game modes
There are two major game modes in Diablo III: Campaign mode, and Adventure mode. These can be accessed through the “Game settings” option in the main menu. In order to unlock Adventure mode, a player must complete the full campaign on at least one character of any type (Normal, Seasonal, and/or Hardcore).
Campaign Mode
This is the main storyline of Diablo III. It consists of five acts, each of which has a series of quests that lead up to the main boss of the act. Once the main boss is defeated, you may progress to the next act. I will not go into detail about the lore itself, as the story is really fun and I recommend everyone to follow the storyline through before rushing into the farm phase. I will, however, explain a few critical things that are going to happen while completing the campaign.
The first major event in the campaign is the acquisition of the town portal (Default key T on the PC or right on the D-pad for the consoles). This is a permanent spell on your taskbar that opens a portal to the hometown of the act you are currently in. It is obtained when picking up Leoric’s Crown in Act I, and will be your most important mobility spell in the game.
The next major event is unlocking a follower. A follower is an NPC companion which follows you around, helps you with killing mobs (an MMO term that refers to the generic enemies you fight) and staying alive. There are three followers available in Diablo III: The Templar, The Scoundrel and The Enchantress. Each of the three has a certain role and suits different classes more than the others. The Enchantress Eirena is a mage with numerous powerful ranged magical attacks and a variety of helpful buffs (spells that boost your character in various ways). The Scoundrel Lyndon is an ex-thief and archer who wields a crossbow. He has numerous bow attacks and can debuff monsters, slowing and poisoning them. The Templar Kormac is a heavily-armored tank, ready to act as a meat shield for your ranged attacker. He can take on large groups of melee fighters and draw enemy attention in the toughest scrap, while also being able to heal you should your health get low.
The next major event is a mini boss in Act I, the Skeleton King. Why is this important? BECAUSE LOOTZ! Just kidding, but seriously, Skeleton King has a 100% drop rate on your (probably) first legendary item in the game, Leoric’s Crown. Drop rate refers to the chance that a mob will drop a certain item on their death.
The next three major events will be unlocking the Blacksmith, Jeweler and Enchanter. These three are a must if you wish to progress through the endgame. The Blacksmith is used to repair gear, craft new gear, or salvage parts from gear that drops while playing the game. A recommendation is that you should always salvage gear that you don’t need, as opposed to selling it, because you will most likely need the materials to either craft new gear, or to change your existing gear through Kanai's Cube (will be explained later). The Jeweler is used to craft higher level gems, extract gems from gear, and to craft jewelry (rings and amulets). The Enchanter is used to modify a certain stat on your gear pieces, and to transmogrify items (make your equipped item look like another item of the same type) for aesthetic purposes.
Adventure Mode
This is the mode in which most players will spend the majority of their in-game time. Though every single notable character from Campaign mode can be found here, it does not have a storyline or a feeling of progress through the lore. Instead, you can jump from place to place, act to act, waypoint to waypoint, and search specifically for the thing you need at any given moment. As a special note, this mode (and most of the best end-game content) is only available to those who own the Reaper of Souls expansion to the main Diablo 3 game (on the console, the "Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition" includes this standard). So why is this the most played mode of the game? Two answers: Rifts, and Bounties.
Rifts
Fully known as “Nephalem Rifts”, these are specific events in Diablo III which serve the purpose of gaining experience, farming gear and materials that are used to improve your gear, and, in our case, gaining [Clusters of Earth](https://wiki.darkjedibrotherhood.com/view/Cluster_of_Earth)! They are accessed through “Nephalem Obelisks” that are located in the hometown of every act. When accessing the obelisk, a portal opens that leads into a special zone called the Rift.
The first thing you will notice when entering a rift is a progression bar in the left part of your screen. This progression bar will fill up as you slay monsters, and once it is full, a “Rift Guardian” will appear. While you can continue to progress through the rift even after slaying the guardian, it is almost never recommended to do so. Killing the rift guardian results in the completion of the quest, and your next step will be to go back to town (using your town portal) and talking to an NPC called Orek, who will complete your quest and close the Rift.
You may be thinking “What is the point to all this nonsense?”. Well, the main thing I didn’t mention is that all mobs drop loot. Gold, equippable items, crafting materials and gems. Rifts are going to be your primary method of farming all these things. Apart from that, and depending on the game difficulty (will be mentioned), the Rift Guardian drops items called “Greater Rift Keystone”s. These are used to enter Greater Rifts.
Greater Rifts
There are three things that differentiate Greater Rifts from Rifts. One: They are timed. You have fifteen minutes to complete the Greater Rift (Fill up the meter and kill the Rift Guardian). Two: No loot or gold drops from mobs apart from the Rift Guardian. Three: There are unlimited difficulty levels of Greater Rifts (Though, to my knowledge, no one ever got past Tier 112).
Point number three is the most important of the three. This is basically the goal of every single Diablo III player in the endgame. Everything you do in the game leads up to progressing in Greater Rift tiers and fighting for the leaderboards. Keep in mind that Greater Rift 45 is the equivalent of Torment X Rifts, and that everything from there on out will be exponentially more difficult.
Bounties
Bounties are special types of quests in adventure mode. There are five random bounties in each act, and completing all five in one act awards you a Horadric Cache (similar to a chest) which holds gear, crafting materials, gems and blacksmithing/jeweling plans. Keep in mind that there are certain legendary items that only drop from these chests, such as the Ring of Royal Grandeur, which is one of the most important items in the game no matter what class you play.
A thing worth mentioning is that there is always a “Highlighted Act”, which gives you an additional Horadric Cache upon completion. These should always be done first, since once one highlighted act is completed, another one becomes highlighted. If done in the right order, you should have a total of ten chests after clearing all the bounties; five regular and five bonus chests.
Another thing worth mentioning is that, when playing in a group, you get the credit of completing bounties even if you weren’t directly involved in their completion. This means that a group of four people could technically split up and do four different bounties simultaneously, while each member gets credit for all of the completed bounties. This is extremely useful, as it can possibly cut down the time used to complete all the bounties by 75%.
Random useful information
This section will talk about a few things that do not fit in any of the categories above, but are essential during your gameplay. Specifically, I will talk about crafting materials, Kadala and Blood Shards, Kanai's Cube, the Puzzle Ring, the infamous Cow Level (The cow level is a lie!), and Uber-bosses.
Kadala
Kadala is a merchant that is available in the hometown of every act. So what is so special about Kadala? She sells random gear, with random rolls, of random rarity of a specific item slot of your choice. Think of this as a sort of necessary gamble (The equivalent of Kadala in Diablo II was actually called Gheed the Gambler!).
The currency used to purchase items from Kadala is called “Blood Shards”. Blood shards are earned for completing Bounties in Adventure Mode; they sometimes drop from Horadric Caches (similar to treasure chests, they drop loot including potentially Blood Shards), and are always dropped by Rift Guardians. The quantity of shards awarded or dropped scales up with the difficulty, with more per Bounties and many more dropped by Rift Guardians on higher difficulty levels.
If searching for a specific item in a specific slot, this is the single fastest way (highest probability) of obtaining it. If you’re not much of a gambler, then just keep in mind that this is the only way to spend blood shards anyway, so it would be pointless not to!
Kanai's Cube
Kanai's Cube is found in the Ruins of Sescheron (specifically from the Kanai's Throneroom located on level two of the Ruins of Sescheron in Act Three). Finding it, and clicking on it, will give you a new type of artisan in your hometown.
There is an in-depth guide to using Kanai's Cube in-game, so I will not go over the technicalities. I will, however, point out the most useful uses for it.
Use 1: Extract Legendary Power. This recipe destroys the legendary item and adds its legendary affix to the cube, enabling a character to enable that power through the cube and enjoy it without equipping the item. Only three powers extracted can be “equipped” at a time (one from a weapon, one from jewelry, and one from a piece of armor).
Use 2: Reforge Legendary Item. This recipe rerolls any legendary item, completely resetting all stats as if the item had just dropped for the first time. If you already have the legendary item you want but the stats on are it are bad, use this to reroll the stats.
Use 3: Upgrade Rare Item. This recipe allows you to turn any level 70 Rare item into a random legendary or set item of the same type. Items purchased from vendors, crafted or gambled can be used, as well as found from drops. While this is heavy on materials, it is really useful when searching for a specific legendary item.
The rest of the uses (while helpful) do not have as much of a practical use as the others, so I will leave them for you to check out on your own!
What I will point out, however, are two items that (by themselves) create something when applied to the Cube. Those two are the Puzzle Ring and the Bovine Bardiche.
The Puzzle Ring opens a portal to “The Vault”. The Vault is, in short, a gold mine. It has very few creatures in it, but it has breakable objects and chests which drop humongous amounts of gold and gems. In addition to this, there are always a few treasure goblins. These are creatures that have more-than-usual HP yet do not fight back; they drop anything from loot and crafting materials to tons of gold. While treasure goblins can be found at random anywhere in the game, the Vault is the only place that guarantees that at least three of them will spawn. Another important thing to mention about the Vault is that the boss (located at the end of the Vault) drops a specific legendary gem (will be explained later) called Boon of the Hoarder. This is the only place you can acquire this gem.
The Bovine Bardiche opens a portal to a place called “Not the Cow Level” (In reference to the hidden cow level in Diablo II). This level is basically a circular area with hordes (herds? :P ) of cows to kill, yielding tons of experience. If you are lucky enough to find a Bovine Bardiche while leveling, expect to gain tons of levels by completing the stage.
Keywardens and Uber-bosses
Keywardens are four unique demons located in a certain area in 4 different acts (marked by a key next to the waypoint). Act V doesn’t have a keywarden, as it was added in Reaper of Souls.
The keywardens have a chance (higher difficulties have a higher chance) to drop a legendary item called “Infernal Machine”. These items are used to open portals in New Tristram, Act I (Next to Brother Malachi the Healer there is a door that leads to the “Heretic’s Abode”, which is the room you need to be in for the portals).
Once inside, you will face off against a pair of bosses called “Uber-bosses”. Once killed, they have a high chance to drop specific crafting materials which, combined, serve as materials to craft the Hellfire Amulet, a very popular amulet for most classes which give you another passive skill. Passive skills are skills that boost your stats or change your skills in various ways but aren't used actively; as the name would suggest, you gain these bonuses or changes without having to activate them.
There are four different Infernal Machines, coming from the 4 different Keywardens respectively:
Act I drops the Infernal Machine of Regret, that opens a portal to the Realm of Regret, where you fight Leoric and Maghda, and receive “Leoric’s Regret”.
Act II drops the Infernal Machine of Putridness, that opens a portal to the Realm of Putridness, where you fight Rakanoth and Ghom, and receive “Vial of Putridness”.
Act III drops the Infernal Machine of Terror, that opens a portal to the Realm of Terror, where you fight Siegebreaker and Zoltan Kulle, and receive “Idol of Terror”.
Act IV drops the Infernal Machine of Fright, that opens a portal to the Realm of Fright, where you fight Diablo, who will spawn another two random Uber-bosses, and receive “Heart of Fright”.
Paragon Levels
In many games, once you hit your maximum level your progression is done; you can still play, but you can't continue gaining levels. Diablo 3 takes a different tactic on that: once you hit level 70 (the current level cap in the game for those with the Reaper of Souls expansion), you can no longer gain levels but instead you can begin gaining what are known as Paragon Levels (or PLs). Paragon Levels are not capped, which means theoretically there are an infinite amount of levels, and are gained by earning experience points just like normal levels. With each Paragon Level gained, you can raise one of four stats in one of four categories; for instance, you might be able to raise your primary stat, increase your attack speed, increase your hit points, etc. Every 10 levels until PL100 gives you a new border around your character's portrait; after PL100, you get a new portrait feature for every 100 levels.
Legendary Gems
Legendary gems are gems that are socketed into your jewelry (rings and amulet), and each one has a specific trait that makes it different from ordinary gems. Legendary gems are obtained, and are leveled, after completing a Greater Rift within the 15 minute time limit.
After completing your Greater Rift (defeating the Rift Guardian), a new NPC called Urshi will spawn somewhere near you. There, you will typically be able to level a gem of your choice three times. The chance of a specific gem being leveled depends on the level of the gem, as well as the tier of the Greater Rift completed. Typically, you will have a 100% chance to level your gem if the Rift tier is at least 10 levels above the current level of your ring, after which it drops off by 10% for every level.
Legendary gems have two main stats: The first increases with each level of the gem, while the second is a specific stat that is obtained once the gem reaches level 25 (the second typically being the more important affix of the gem). All legendary gems reach max rank of 200.
Although every build uses gems specific to its playstyle, there are a few honorable mentions that I feel should be here as they are more common than others. Bane of the Stricken is a legendary gem that largely boosts your damage against Rift Guardians and Bosses, which is a must have in almost every Greater Rift pushing build. Bane of the Powerful amplifies your damage against adds that are under the effect of crowd control, while the level 25 bonus applies a slow to all adds, which basically means it powers itself. Gem of Efficacious Toxin is probably the most useful gem for a support in a group rift, as the level 25 affix applies a 10% amplify damage debuff to all adds.
There are many, many more gems, which I will leave for you to explore and discover, as explaining all of them would probably drive you mad! :)
=== Conclusion
As already mentioned, Diablo III is a grindfest. You need to have patience, make sure not to break your keyboard in the farming process, and pull through. While this sounds bad, it’s actually really satisfying once you get an upgrade, reach that crazy paragon level you were pushing for, or manage to complete a greater rift one tier higher than you did earlier. Here’s to hoping this guide helped you achieve some of that stuff a bit easier!
Course Trivia
The original course author was Aexod.