Weekend (15 Jul) - End of the Road

Weekend (15 Jul) - End of the Road

On Friday Barbed reached level 60, the maximum level in Diablo 3. I've killed my way as far as Azmodan. Azmodan is part of Act III, so I still have to finish this Act and Act IV to get to Diablo.

I was excited to finally get access to level 60 gear, and immediately went to the Auction House to see what I could find. Yes, there was some awesome gear available, but the cost ... well, maybe I couldn't afford the really high end stuff from the Inferno level of difficulty, but surely there would be reasonably priced gear available for a young level 60 still at Hell level. Actually, no. Weapon prices run into the EIGHT digits - we're talking tens of millions of gold for one item. Ok, there were some "cheap" weapons for a million plus. The most gold I've ever had was about 480,000, but it's currently at 320,000. It might as well be zero for all the good it will do me.

I also checked out non-weapon gear, too, which is less expensive, but the prices were still well out of reach. Frustrated, I even gave the real money Auction House a look just to see what was there. As expected, prices ranged wildly. There were "bargains" as low as $5 - $15 on some good items, but I'm not buying pixels with real money.

Since the level 60 gear floods the market (46 pages of million plus cost gear), I had to restrict the AH to showing level 59 and below to see those under 60 items. There wasn't any help there, either. I seem to have pretty much the best gear available at level 59. I may find an upgrade on the AH now and then, but the upgrade would be modest at best.

Given the fact that gear drops can't possibly improve on the gear I already have, and that I can't afford much in the way of real improvements, Barbed will likely be facing Diablo down the road with the same gear he is wearing now. Whether it'll be good enough ... well, it will take a few more hours to find out.

One other issue that will keep me from buying much gear is that a change in the game has greatly increased the cost for repairing gear. What used to cost me 4-5k gold in gear repair is now averaging 12-15k. The result is that I am not making enough gold from questing now to even pay for my repairs. Selling gear is a hit or miss proposition, and costs me a 15% fee as well if it doesn't sell, which most don't. I'm looking at the likelihood of having to save all my gold just to pay for repairs, which sucks.

On a more positive note, I then went back to the forums for more information about changing my current build. Silver helped me put together the one I am using now, which is heavy on gaining back health, which I was having a problem with. It helped a lot, but now I needed a change. The new build is heavy on protection through armor enhancement as well as speed of attack. I took the new build into a dungeon area I'd cleared - with a little diffulty - once before. I wanted to see if I could tell a difference. Wow, what a difference!

Two things stood out with the new build, which I had to reach level 60 to use. First was that the enhanced protection was so much better Barbed could stand in AoE attacks without the immediate risk of dying. Second, the speed of attacks really cut down on the time it took to bring down bad guys. Here is what I did to change my build:

Primary Attack: Cleave/Scattering Blast --> Frenzy/Sidearm
Secondary Attack: Whirlwind/Blood Funnel -> WOTB/Insanity
Defense: Ground Stomp/Avalanche -> Ignore Pain/Ignorance
Might: Revenge/Provocation -> same
Tactics: Battle Rage/Swords to Ploughshares -> War Cry/Impunity
Rage: Earthquake/Path of Fire -> same
New Passives: Nerves of Steel, Tough as Nails, Ruthless

Even without having to go to a weapon/shield tank configuration, Barbed was extremely difficult to hit/hurt. Dual wielding with an ability that increases weapon speed with every hit turned even elite mobs into bloody hash in seconds. I can't emphasize enough how stunning the increase in protection and DPS was. In that one dungeon, I never had to retreat one time, even against elite sets of mobs that dropped AoE nastiness as well as stuns. To second guess myself a little, maybe I just happened on a very weak set of mobs. We'll see.

Update: Heart of Sin is the Azmodan fight. Barbed stood in the black AoE that killed him in an earlier level and crushed Azmodan without breaking a sweat. I'm feeling a bit invincible at the moment. I'm sure it won't last.

Update #2: Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. It's still Saturday afternoon and ...

Barbedwire has defeated Diablo AGAIN! This time in Hell level, and frankly, it wasn't very hard to do.

That is sort of the end. Barbed could be available after the vacation for groups, gold, and general slaughter if anyone is interested. Other than that, Barbed is officially retired. I think.


PS - I will be out of town 17 Jul - 1 Aug. I will not be taking along a laptop, so no WoW (even Happy is taking time off) or Diablo. How will I survive?