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How many non-seasonal players do you usually have online at any given time? How many non-seasonal GR "teams" do you field?

Got my first SMK recently, but still haven't seen a Dagger of Darts; both of those are fairly rare though. Weirdly, I JUST got my first Nev bracers this week, and then another dropped the next day. That's the most common item (usually at least one person in every random group has it) that I never saw until now, and I've been playing since beta.

Thanks!

I'm sure this has been covered elsewhere, but all my searches turn up results from previous patches. I'm running a fetish/pet build, and I'm looking for suggestions for my third legendary gem. I'm already using Enforcer and Bane of the Trapped. Does the DoT from the Efficacious Toxin gem get applied when pets attack? Does Pain Enhancer DoT get applied when pets attack? Does Pain Enhancer increase the attack speed of pets, and if so, is it worth it? My third option is just to go defense and use the Gizzard.

Unrelated question: is Tasker and Theo still worth it for the pet attack speed? I'm wearing those now but was thinking of switching to the new Zuni gloves so I can use Homunculous off-hand. Thanks!

Newegg.com offers financing at 0% interest for 6 months if you spend $500, and for 12 months if you spend $1000+. This is definitely the best way to go if you want to build it yourself; as others have said, DO NOT get a Dell, they are terrible. I've financed several builds via Newegg and they are my go-to place to buy parts, as you can't beat the number and quality of reviews on there when you're trying to decide what to get.

Quote from yuhanz»

having more stash space is an advantage? you mean it's a competitive advantage? lol

See, this is what I mean: people have entirely different opinions on this issue, and I think there are good arguments to be made on both sides. If I have more stash space than you, and we both like to play a lot of characters, I don't have to make as many choices as you do about when to salvage gear that I might otherwise want to keep. I can have a couple different gear sets/combos for each character if I want, depending on how I play them. To me, that is an advantage, however slight it may seem to you. Inventory management is not nearly as important in D3 as it was in D2, but it is still an element of the game. I can, however, totally understand how others see this as merely a "quality of life" improvement, and not a gameplay advantage, hence my previous post.

(By the way though, why shouldn't every player's "quality of life" improve without having to pay? Cosmetics aren't quality of life, but I feel that if QoL improvements [like stash space and character slots] come to the game, they should be part of free content patches or part of a flat-payment expansion, as they have been in the past.)

I don't think many US/EU players care about cosmetics. I DO think lots of them care about buying gear/experience (or timed experience gains), and don't like it. It seems to me that the only murky area where the US/EU playerbase is divided on this is with stuff like stash space and character slots. Some see being able to purchase those as an advantage, others don't. (I'm in the former group, personally.)

Quote from cying»

any gr. obviously the higher you go and more quickly you do it lead to more gains. 35-40 is where well equipped groups are most efficient. if youre at 25, go for it. lower than 25 is lower than t6 difficulty, so id recommend you spend time gearing up instead of farming exp if youre at that point

Right on. Yeah, I'm still gearing, I was just wondering where the good sauce kicks in; thanks!

Is there any sort of benefit from using XP gear in GRs in the 15-25 range, or do you really need to be in the 30-40 range to see the massive gains?

Quote from thedoublemint»

It's not that it's bugged in GRifts, %xp is scaling multiplicatively across the board. So wearing %xp gear will get you drastically more xp as will playing in a group. On top of that, the xp rewards for GRifts are very high, and in that area of 35-39 is where people have determined the greatest xp/hr is achieved. The easiest thing you can do is always play in a group of 4 and at least have a ruby in your helm.

I was also under the impression (as others have stated) that this only occurs in GRifts. Can anyone confirm one way or another for us? Also on topic, what are people's impressions of running a Boon of the Hoarder/Custerian Wristguards combo? My seasonal character is still < p100, so I was thinking about using this combo to get a quick boost through the lower levels (if it's worth it).

You need to upgrade those gems, too. If you do, your resist all will go up along with your damage.

It sucks that the RoRG feels mandatory, but it is what it is. I agree that the best solution is to just decrease the number of set pieces need to activate bonuses; that's the only way to satisfy everyone without making something else feel mandatory at the same time. I will also point out, however, that a lot of people seem to be trying to farm up their RoRG before they even have enough set pieces to make it useful, which is backwards thinking to me. As a stand-alone ring, it doesn't have a lot staying power; there are tons of better ones you can wear until you collect most of your set(s) and make it worthwhile to get your RoRG. Plus, once you DO collect most of your set(s)/crafted gear, you will be able to run higher-Torment bounties, which will make it easier to farm the ring. It kills me when I see people who have been running bounties in Act I all day looking for a "perfect" RoRG, and they only have one (or none!) set piece so far; I mean, why bother, especially on Torment I?

I just started doing this and it's a great strategy, especially for getting all your gems. Even if you have less-than-stellar jewelry, adding 1-2 gems soon after hitting 70 is a huge boost. Plus, you will usually find at least one legendary (if not a set piece) when you finish a GR, so it's not a bad way to gear, either. You might end up with a lot of Blackthorne's and other non-ideal stuff, but hey, if you can wear it even for a bit, it's worth it, and if not, that's another Forgotten Soul closer to crafting what you DO need. Sorry to hear about the rotten luck, @Doez (though I haven't seen any legendary potions drop yet, so you got that going for you at least).

Area damage is great if you can get a ton, but not so great if you can't; so, like others have said, it's better for late game when you can get that flat 50% increase from Paragon points. Also don't forget that when you add area damage you are not adding to the CHANCE to do area damage (which is always a 20% chance), but rather the amount of damage you do. So if you only have +20% area damage on, say, a weapon (and nowhere else), then that means you have a 1/5 chance per hit to deal 20% of your normal damage, which is a tiny DPS increase. If you can get it close to 100%, then it's a big DPS increase, especially if you use lots of AoE attacks and you are playing in a balanced group trying to push into higher GRs.

The math he is doing is that multiplying a low value by a percentage doesn't increase it too much; you need a high enough base value before the percentage multiplier. If you have +10% armor from Paragon points, but your base armor is 100, then you only have a total of 110; that same +10% applied to 1000 base armor gives you 1100, 90 points more. So just dumping Paragon points into armor isn't enough. I'd echo what others have said and get more Dex on your gear, as that will up your armor and damage at the same time; just make sure you are balancing that with Vit, and your Toughness will improve significantly. As far as the Paragon points go, I like to alternate points between armor and resist all (unless I'm really low in a few resist categories), and that seems to add the most Toughness.