DiabloFans

Well... I've been trying to help.

I've gotten the hunch that various people playing in public games are just bots based on the following information:

1. They follow the person who's furthest ahead on the run. Literally follow, as in they emulate your exact movements. I run in a circle, so does the "bot" that's trying to follow me.

2. Profile stats. For example, the latest one I've figured was a bot was a paragon 79 monk with 90K lifetime kills in 700 hours of play time. Also, along with the 90K lifetime kills are about 30K elite kills and 99M gold picked up.

3. Legendary bait drops. This is actually hilarious and I should record this one day. I drop a trash legendary several paces away from the "bot" and watch it come towards me to attempt to pick it up. Before it can arrive, I pick up the legendary and walk away. The bot will stop in its place. I will drop a different legendary further off and again watch the bot come after it. I repeat and laugh.

4. No communication. I had a two other people in the public game continuously threatening to report the account for botting. No response. I can type in Chinese, so I tried saying hello to it. No response. Someone tried Spanish. No response.

5. High EHP, incredibly low DPS, high paragon level, stacked with MF and pickup radius gear. This is peculiar to me. It's not really a dead-giveaway if someone's botting, but it sure helps in making a claim when combined with all of the qualities above.

Again, it's really difficult to prove if someone's botting. But I do report them to Blizzard on suspicions of botting, that way they can keep an eye on these accounts for a longer period of time.

You're in good shape. And as you've said, if you die, everyone else dies. Your buddies need to pump up their EHP... badly.

If you're the designated tank (which to me it seems like the case), try having your glass cannon wizard buddies run Ancient Guardian Familiar and Force Armor instead. While they may get wrecked by Ghom's poison (which can be solved with Diamond Skin and proper LoH or life steal), they will be able to survive Magdha's Wreck-Your-Face Butterfly Sneeze, as well as Leoric's Moonwalk of Doom, Rakanoth's charge and Kulle's meteor attacks.

Like you, I rarely die, and when I do die (if there are no barbs/monks in my party), there's a good chance we're all dead. Personally, I'm not sure about the EHP for people I party up with. The barbs and monks are usually in good shape, and the DHs and WDs in my group are usually smart enough to carry Smokescreen and Spiritwalk in cases of emergencies. Wizards I party up with generally have similar stats to you, so they all hold their own pretty well. But for the wizards with lower EHP, I really, really, really recommend Force Armor and Ancient Guardian.

So for strategy:

1. Game starts, don't go in. Wait for Leoric to finish flailing around before engaging. I can't even begin to count how many of my party members died within the first 3 seconds of the fight just because they went Leroy Jenkins on Leoric.

2. Kill Leoric. Ignore Magdha. Just dodge her butterflies and Arcane Sentries and gun down Leoric. This involves heavy kiting unless you're 100% certain of your EHP limitations. After that, it's straightforward.

3. If someone dies in the process while fighting Leoric, kill all surrounding mobs immediately (especially archers) and have someone aggro Maghda so her butterflies stay away from the one trying to do the reviving. Leoric will teleport, which is why someone will have to lure him away as well and preferably stunlock him when he begins his teleporting animation. A good way to do this is have everyone run off as far away from the dead character to increase the amount of space between Leoric/Magdha and the corpse.

How often do you use the RMAH?

I use it approximately once a week or once every two weeks and I rarely have this problem. It usually takes about 1-3 hours at most for me. Sales take longer (once it took over 24 hours to get my $150 for selling an IK chest), but usually they're done within a day.

Maka you're doing very well for someone who doesn't use the AH.

And you're right. Play how you want. This is a game and you're meant to do whatever you want in a game in order to have fun (other than the fact that this is an online game so you have to adhere to online rules like no exploiting and botting). Some people enjoy experimenting and theorycrafting (Loroese), and some people want to dominate the world, or try to (me).

Quote from Westy357

It may just be my imagination but it seems like I get less stuff when I go to Monster Power 1 (especially) or 2 than I do just trudging along @ MP-o with gold+ magic find.

That's just RNG for you.



You technically get more loot at higher levels. Whether or not you want to take the time to do so is your business. Everyone has a sweetspot where they can farm equally fast as lower MP levels and just as well so that they don't die during the runs.

No one farms efficiently on MP9-10, usually. Even if you can wreck MP10 elites in 10 seconds or less, it's still drastically longer than melting elites in 1-3 seconds on MP1-5.

I still think someone should record themselves soloing Diablo on MP10 with only their tongue and a rubber chicken.

Man, I brought up the topic about Archon and Life After Kill in co-op games way back in August in the BNet forums. Looks it finally made it onto the devs' to-do list. Too bad I don't run LAK anymore.

As for Athene's thing... yet another "world's first" video. Next they should have "World's First MP10 Azmo Kill Without Using a Keyboard or Gaming Mouse" or "World's First MP10 Diablo Kill Blindfolded with Full NV Stacks" or maybe "World's First MP10 Solo Ubers Using Only Your Tongue and a Rubber Chicken."

Quote from Huminator

35-40 million. You do realise thats around HALF of what the other classes can do. Who cares if your archon got 100% uptime, you still move like a snail. Your xp gain per hour only confirms it.

1. You said wizards cannot keep up, which isn't true.

2. You said the people I play with don't use keyboards, which for their sake I hope isn't true.

3. 35-40M is what Archon wizards get with average stats and on MP1. 35-40M is also what other classes get with average stats and on low MP. The 50-70M EXP per hour rates are for above average geared characters that can fly through MP3+ without breaking a sweat.

Yes, WW barbs are fast. There are more softcore paragon 100 barbs worldwide than paragon 100 DHs, WDs, and wizards combined. (FYI, there are more paragon 100 wizards than DHs and WDs). That's not saying wizards can't keep up with the other classes. That's saying WW barbs are just more efficient at leveling (don't get me started on WW barbs being unable to slow down to pick up potentially good rares).

I'm pointing out that while wizards may lack easy single-click raw speed like other classes (Sprint barb, TR monk, SW WD, Vault-Tactical Adv. DH), they can still keep up with base run speed and abilities like Teleport-Wormhole-Illusionist. It's not imbalanced. It's called class diversity. I would love wizards to fly through the map without a care in the world. But I don't see that happening anytime soon and I don't see a problem with that.

WW barbs cannot efficiently get quality loot since they have to keep moving along with mobs dying in their wake, dropping potentially great rares off-screen. Sure they can kill things fast and run through content at blazing speed, but they can't pick everything up.

Archon (Teleport) wizards are slower in terms of run speed, but they can AOE everything on-screen in a single click and pick things up without losing much time. CM-WW is reliable, but not for pure farming speed.

Tempest Rush monks can easily compete with WW barb speed and they also have the advantage like Archon wizards to just chill and pick things up without worrying about losing much time.

Legacy Nat's DHs are blazingly fast since they can ToC Vault+Tactical Advantage through the entire map. Cannot compare with high spirit TR monks or insta-kill Archon wizards (since DHs have to stop-shoot-change positions more often, even when equally geared), but still highly efficient.

Same with nuke (Bears) WDs. They may be slower than the rest above, but they can still clear content fast and rely on Spirit Walk to cover great distances.

Also, no one in their right minds will loot farm on high MPs. It's not worth it for the bonus item drop %. Listen, I've tried it on my wizard and monk (not yet DH), ranging from MP1 to MP 7 with my Archon wizard (and MP10 with CM-stunlock) and up to MP5 with my monk. You get a small handful of more drops, but they're not going to guarantee better rolls. With everyone farming MP1-3, properly geared characters will be able to clear set Act III routes in 10-15 minutes tops regardless.

Just put this absolute beauty in the gold AH.



Currently the only one in the U.S. up for sale in the AH.

Quote from Jaetch

Quote from "71989646727" »

a few of the posts here appear to be dripping with the sweet nectar of well-honed internet sarcasm

And with that we lock the topic. A fine end.