Thursday, February 26, 2015

Diablo 3 - Deadset's Guide List for Patch 2.1.2


FOREWORD

Hello! I’m Deadset, and you guys might remember me from several popular Crusader guides I’ve done over the past year. Last month I was hired by Icy Veins to be their dedicated guide writer for all classes, a position I took very seriously; over the past month, I built up a collection of top tier guides for all six classes, researched carefully and talked over with high ranking representatives of each class. I will not claim them infallible, but I stand by my word for their high quality and presentation effort (no video over 13 minutes). Whether you need a guide for a class/build you’re unfamiliar with, or you’re simply curious how badly I botched your main, I would be honored if you check my efforts and tell me what you think! :P

BARBARIAN

Video version // Text version
I explore the dominating Raekor build in both popular variations, going over the pros and cons of both choices (the AoE potential of Physical versus the single target improvement of Fire). I explain the division between the Ignore Pain and War Cry variants, as well as the minor adjustments for T6/low GR speed farming.

CRUSADER

Video version // Text version
A revision of the 2.1.2 champion, the Condemn build – respectful to the changes to Pylon fishing, this guide goes over the playstyle nuances of current Condemn (mobility, the ‘imprisonment’ conundrum, the Leoric trap). The important variations in Primary skill usage are also discussed, along with a few important passive and crowd control options.

DEMON HUNTER

Video version // Text version
The revamped Marauder Cluster Arrow is discussed at length, going over the solo Cold variation and the multiplayer Fire playstyle. After a presentation of resource management options and critique on the defensive skill tree, I go over nuances of the passives and weaponry. The popular Multishot farming variation also finds a place.

MONK

Video version // Text version
Benefiting from the seasonal toy, Gundgo Gear, this guide was among the most fun ones to make. I go over the dynamic between Inna, Resource Cost Reduction and Sweeping Wind; the optimization of secondary resists with respect to the passive interaction of Harmony and Sixth Sense; and of course, the benefits of Unity in a Crudest Boots setup.

WITCH DOCTOR

Video version // Text version
Getting into the mindset of an exotic and hard-to-wield setup like Jade Harvester wasn’t a breeze, but it was well worth it. I offer a detailed explanation to DoT mechanics, with its somewhat obscure interaction between Creeping Death, Quetzalcoatl and the Soul Harvest consumption. The 2.1.2 debutant Poison Spirit vs. the old favorite Resentful Spirits is also not neglected.

WIZARD

Video version // Text version
While fairly straightforward, the Firebird Wizard guide has minutiae worth discussing. Be it the exact mechanic of the Firebird DoT, the two-hander vs. one-hander argument, or the toughness vs. cooldown reduction preference, this build had intricacies I did not initially suspect.

THANK YOU FOR READING!

For me, this has been a tremendous journey across all six classes - learning to appreciate their strengths and weaknesses alike. Things that seemed godly and OP before seem more balanced now, and vice versa; I highly encourage you to expand your playing pool as well! That being said, the aforementioned guides are but the start of my cross-class journey (with Crusader at the helm, of course) – and with today’s 2.2 PTR the road grows longer still. As always, I would appreciate your advice, company, or encouraging word at the twitch and youtube channels. And most of all, Thank you for reading!

SOURCE

Monday, February 23, 2015

Hearthstone - Silentstorm's ESL Demonlock


WINNER OF ESL LEGENDARY SERIES SEASON 1


Diablo 3 - Kayge's Greater Rifting Guide

I am proud to present Kayge's Greater Rifting Guide! Right now it's available in 2 different formats a google doc and a website where I work as a news writer. The links for them are listed below.


OPNoobs pretty version: Kayge's Greater Rifting Guide


Google Document: Kayge's Greater Rifting Guide


Rawapple: www.twitch.tv/rawapple

SOURCE

Friday, February 13, 2015

Heroes of the Storm - Tempo Storm Arthelon - Hero Tier List for Competitive Play

This list is a quick look at what heroes you'll most likely being seeing most in competitive for this patch. COMPETITIVE, not anything else.

S tier - ETC, Nazeebo, Rehgar


Tier 1 - Tassadar, Valla, Illidan, Uther, Stitches, Malfurion, Tychus


Tier 2 - Hammer, Zeratul, Azmodan, Zagara, Lili, Jaina, Kerrigan


Tier 3 - Muradin, Diablo, Tyrande, Tyrael


LOL Tier - Abathur, Anub, Brightwing, Chen, Falstad, Gazlowe,Murky, Nova, Sonya, Thrall, Nazeebo with Gargantuan


Not completely sure yet - Raynor (prob tier 3), Lost Vikings (tier 2 or better) Arthas (no clue)

If you would wish to inquire upon my thoughts and feelings, continue reading, if you just wanted the tier list you can stop here


Notes:  

ETC - with resurg removal and nerfs to all the top tanks and shift to a less bursty meta etc excels at absorbing damage and being disruptive while dishing out good dps


Nazeebo - Ravenous is ridiculous, best damage in game by far


Rehgar - Better than Uther since he has way more overall healing on top of ancestral which wins fights single handedly


Tass/Valla/Uther no changes and are all really solid, should see them picked every game. AND NO, AUTO ATTACK VALLA IS BAD, STOP IT.


Illidan - might be too early of a prediction but it looks as if he will be prominent, counters auto attackers hard and works very well with double healer


Stitches - was falling a little out of flavor and the 2 sec hook cd will put him even lower in priority


Malf - best pick if uther/rehgar taken, good hero on his own and king of double support


Hammer - might be higher, but I feel she won't be picked every game and is still situational


Zeratul - hes pretty weak till 16 and can't steal golems anymore, also requires very high skill and coordination from teams to play which doesn't make him tier 1


Azmodan - Obviously not everyone thinks hes this high but with the basketball build he can throw out precision strikes every 10 sec at enemy team, and 1 shotting waves puts tons of pressure on map. i would put him at tier 1 but were the only team picking him atm


Zagara - With mutalisk change she can dish out amazing damage in a fight and maw is always going to be a great heroic


Lili - only heals, but at 20 she becomes best support in the game, can be rough getting there though, can be really good against auto attack comps


Jaina - I think shes lower but teams are putting in a good amount of games on her for her burst, but low mobility and high CDs is the reason we don't value her


Kerrigan - maybe lower, she is still insane early game but loss of rewind and her soulmate Arthas definitely knocks her down quite hard


Muradin/Diablo - you're next best bet if etc/stitches are out of the picture, not very good compared to the rest of the roster however


Tyrande - loss of rewind hurt a lot, she paired best with arthas/kerrigan who both got nerfed, might be LOL tier, we will see


Tyrael - might be higher, but was already a rare pick and removal of cast aside won't help
 
LOL tier - Just put these alphabetically, i feel these heroes aren't competitively viable and therefore should not be picked unless for fun. Think the only note worthy one is Brightwing, with 45 sec phase shift and removal of rewind and other nerfs she is strictly worse than all the other supports atm.

Source 

Diablo 3 - Solo leveling guide Season 2 by goingtodie


As season 2 approachs everyone is clearly interested in getting to 70 as fast as possible. Aside from some exploits, for those of use that want to do it in a more legitimate fashion, cherry picking bounties seems to be a good method for fast EXP especially for those of us that play solo.

A while back /u/xMikeh posted about completing all season achievements which included 10,000 bounties. As a result, he learned quite a bit about which bounties were quick and efficient to clear. I asked for a guide and he gave me a great one that I still use today. I cleaned it up a bit and I'm reposting it here:

Cursed Chest: always do them and do them first! You can start it, then run back to them after doing a bounty or two so it's really fast.  
Cursed Shrines: start them and walk away. Let the timer count down and go back and finish em.

Act 1
Always do:
- Festering Woods
- Cathedral Level 1
- Cathedral Level 2
- Royal Crypts
- Halls of Agony 1
- Halls of Agony 2
- Old Ruins
- Cemetery of the Forsaken

If you're willing to take the time to check them:
- Fields of Misery: Carrion, Farm Besieged, Cursed Mill
- Southern Highlands: "Help", Cursed Camp
- Weeping Hollow: Any of the kill a unique
- Halls of Agony Level 3: Any of the kill a unique


Act 2
Always do:
- Road to Alcarnus
- Archives of Kulle: Kill Kulle
- Stinging Winds: Guardian Spirits, Restless Sands, and Rygnar Idol. (For stinging winds, you can go north on Road to Alcarnus for a quick check for the events, cuts a lot of time. For Rygnar idol, once you're in the dungeon, the event spawns in the same location every time.)
- Howling Plateau: Cursed Battlement (shrine); Cursed Outpost (Chest)


Act 3
Always do:
- Tower of the Damned Level 1
- Core of Arreat.
Check for:
- The Battlefields: Triage, Tide of Battle
- Keep Depths Level 3: Any Kill Unique
- Keep Depths Level 1: Forged in Battle (start this first, go to keep depths 2 and go backwards, treat this like a cursed chest.)
- Tower of the Cursed Level 2: Any Kill Uniques


Act 4
Always do:
- Hell Rift Level 1
Check for:
- Gardens of Hope 1: Kill Torchlighter, Cursed Dias, Kill Rakanoth
- The Silver Spire Level 1: Kill Pyres
- The Silver Spire Level 2: Cursed Chapel


Skip Act 5.
Yes! That does mean skip out on getting caches. It slows you down. xP

Original thread: http://www.reddit.com/r/Diablo/comments/2iu65x/i_finished_season_achievements_tonight/

Source

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Heroes of the Storm: The Lost Vikings Trailer

Heroes of the Storm proudly presents The Lost Vikings. Heroes of the Storm is a raucous online team brawler starring your favorite Blizzard characters.

For more information on The Lost Vikings: http://blizz.ly/LostVikings

To learn much more, visit HeroesOfTheStorm.com, where in the weeks to come, you'll find tons of videos, hero profiles, game features, information on how to join the public beta test, and more.

For more on Heroes:
Website - http://heroesofthestorm.com
Twitter - http://twitter.com/blizzheroes
Facebook - http://facebook.com/blizzheroes

Diablo 3 - 1 to 70 in 6-7 Hour Leveling Guide & What To Do When You Hit 70 by HerpDerpenberg




TL:DR: Level up on hard or expert difficulty cherry picking efficient quests, high dense zones, and select cursed chests. At level 70, "slow roll" your greater rifts to maximize legendary gem acquisition while side farming T2 caches in act 1. You'll be able to do T2 and maybe T3/4 in 5-6 hours play time as a conservative estimate. Your mileage may vary based on drops and how much you prayed to RNGesus. Good luck!
 
Foreword With all the talks on exploitive "no kill" leveling for seasons, there still is an interest in legit leveling methods.  I'm here to give a LEGIT way to level 1-70 in a timely manner for season 2.  The recent Alaric "no kill" exploit is known, you can find that out if you want. You'll get to 70 in about 4 hours that way.

Using this guide you can expect to be 70 in 6-7 hours, a little bit slower in hardcore as you'll still want to take it easy maybe a bit faster in softcore since you can take more risks.

This method was done by myself and a lot of my hardcore clan mates in Season 1. We were were able to get 1-70 in around 7 hours of gameplay.  It's by no means blistering, but it helps nevertheless and isn't much longer than those "no kill" exploits.

This guide is for those that don't want to death rush for hours on end or hardcore players who cannot afford to die.  You'll gain an advantage of already farming keystone fragments for rifts once you hit 70. I was going to make a YouTube of this (I still might), but honestly it was going to be too long, I'd have to divide it into sub sections, and I feel it is best represented in a wall of text.

In this guide, I'll present two methods of play, and go into tips for group or solo play. It doesn't mean you have to do either specifically in group or solo, both work interchangeably but group play gives you a better advantage over solo play for faster killing speeds.

Difficulty setting
The biggest question is what difficulty do you farm on? Most would say that going on Torments are best, but this isn't the case leveling up. While leveling, you want to be doing damage as often as possible. If you are in too high of a difficulty, monsters and champ packs take too long or you take too much damage and need to back out of combat to regen, or worse you die. You cannot kill monsters or gain XP while dead so you need to stay alive and in combat as much as possible.

To start an evaluation we need a baseline. I went and recorded myself running a bounty on normal difficulty. I went back and analyzed the time I was traveling vs time I was in combat. No matter what difficulty, your travel time will always be the same but your combat time will increase. I found for a 6 minute bounty, it was roughly a 50:50 split on travel:combat. We now have our baseline. I can then multiply each combat time by the increase in monster HP and get a scaled time for how long that bounty would take in a higher difficulty. So to keep it easy, here are the results below. **The reason XP bonus and XP total are different. Normal has zero% XP bonus, hard gets 75%. But your baseline has to be 100%, hard gives you 175% XP. I am simply adding 100% to all values. I will get back to formating it in a table later if this is jacked up (doing this on a tablet for now).
Difficulty Monster HP XP Bonus Travel MIN Combat Min Total MIN Time Longer Than Normal XP Total
Normal 100 0 3 3 6 1 1
Hard 200 75 3 6 9 1.5 1.75
Expert 320 100 3 9.6 12.6 2.1 2
Master 512 200 3 15.4 18.4 3.06 3
Torment I 819 300 3 24.6 27.6 4.6 4
Torment II 1311 400 3 39.3 42.3 7 5

Now,what does all this mean? Look at the last two columns. Hard difficulty, takes 1.5 times as long (9 total minutes vs 6) but rewards 1.75x XP (175% vs 100%). So Hard is more efficient than normal and at a positive ratio. Moving up the list, we find expert takes 2.1 times longer than normal but gives 2.0 times the XP. It's around an equal ratio to normal so not really much of a gain. As you move up you see the ratio is still about 1:1 until you get to Torment I and Torment II. Torment II takes 7x as long to kill stuff but you only get 5x the XP so its not worth it. It only gets worse the higher up you are. You're also taking a lot of damage at that point and it becomes more difficult to stay alive.

Overall, HARD is the most constantly efficient difficulty to level on.

The only exception to this is when you get something like a sick upgrade and are slightly above the curve killing things. The biggest time this happens is in the transition from 60-61 as you move to RoS items/gems. Here, you can bump up a difficulty or two but you should drop back down to Hard as you approach 70.

Furthermore, going higher isn't always a good option for Hardcore players and you're just taking a greater risk for death and a restart in HC or no XP gain and buff loss in SC.

Leveling Tips
  • Top tip from /u/snowhawk04 is to go to adventure mode immediately and steal a weapon from a follower as these weapons are free and better than your starting weapons. The Templar has a spear and the Enchantress has a dagger. Scoundrel has an Xbow.
  • Another tip, when you're level 45ish get your blacksmith to the point where he can create level 60 weapons and roll level reduction on it, so You can farm way easier until then. (Credit /u/xShuusui) Look for a weapon with freeze/stun/fear or other crowd control and roll off the OTHER secondary stat as this reduces possible affixes by a great amount. (/u/Aenoch_EUW)
  • Buy rings/amulets with min-max damage from the fence as soon as possible. Even town vendors have weapons early on that give decent boosts. While leveling though, you'll find 2h are the highest DPS increases due to the recent 2h buffs.

Focus zone/bounty farming
The first method is to cherry pick zone clear bounties, cursed chest events and tie in heavily dense zones. You can check out http://www.diablowiki.net/bounty for a complete list of bounties. Not all XP tables are updated (and are for level 70) the bounties you want are ones with high XP reward and ease to complete.
  • Zone clear bounties: these bounties give the most XP than any other and are simply finding a dungeon and killing all monsters on a given floor. The easiest ones are those that have easy to find entrances: A1 - Khazra Den, Scavenger's Den, Den of the Fallen, Cave of the Moon Clan. A3: Icefall Caves. A4: Hell Rift. there are other zone clears but these are the easiest to find in their respective zones and have easy layouts to navigate.
  • Cursed Chest bounties: The Cursed Chest events to look for are the ones that require 100 kills for the bonus chest. These reward more XP on completion and more XP per monster kill than the wave type. You're really only looking for acts 1 and 4 for these. A1: Cursed Bellows (Halls of Agony), Cursed Cellar (Old Ruins), The Cursed Court (Cathedral Level 2), The Cursed Grove (Fields of Misery) and The Cursed Hatchery (Spider Cave). A4 you are looking for The Cursed Chapel (The Silver Spire Level 2).
  • Heavily dense zones. These are zones with easy monsters (i.e. heavily melee based) and relatively simple/linear map layouts to minimize backtracking. You will want to complete any bounty in these zones but SKIP boss kills as they take too long for the XP rewards. A1: Halls of Agony Level 3, Weeping Hollow, Cathedral Level 2. Fields of Misery is an honorable mention. If you're on higher difficulties, the ranged guys can really rip into you. But playing on Hard shouldn't be that difficult. A3: Keep Depths Level 2 a bit dangerous for HC, so I suggest only going here for SC.
You can clear all bounties in an act to make things easier, but I would suggest running 4 and skipping boss fights. Again, the fights take too long for such little XP gains and are not worth it in the long run. If you do this method, stick to Act 1 only as the mobs and bounties are a joke.
Group Play VS Solo Play
The best way to level is to have a group of 4 to get the free group XP buff.  Each player gives a 10% XP buff when in range of each other, and each additional player gives monsters a 50% increase in HP.  Four players putting out the same damage means 400% damage output but only 250% monster HP. This further increases your efficiency. You can either split farm zones/bounties on a lower difficulty or stick together (with 30% bonus) and kill in a higher difficulty.
For solo play, you want to maximize killing speed, so I suggest Hard all the way to 61, then bump up to Expert or Master for a few levels and drop back down to hard. Your mileage may vary, but remember, fast killing is good. You don't want to be struggling to kill monsters. 1-2 shots are ideal and even better are DoT abilities like "rend and run" where you leave monsters to die behind you while you move on.
What do you do once you hit 70?
The benefits of leveling legit, you gain rift keystone fragments from bounties. This way, you can jump straight into rifts at level 70 for double legendary drop rates and not have to farm bounties on a low difficulty. With the new bounty changes, you want to save bounty farming for T2+ to get that 50%+ chance at cache rewards. To get quickly into torments, you need legendary gems. The fastest way to get your base gems is by "slow rolling" your greater rifts.

To get a greater rift trial, you need to be in Torment I+. You will do your first rifts in normal, because there is no benefit running hard-master in rifts for legendary drop rates. This gets you baseline rare gear and a few single legendary items. Do not enchant these starter legendary items!!! You are better off saving your souls for better items and crafting sets and weapons to try for ancient items.

This will be your Softcore post 70 strategy this will be slowed down for HC players as you cannot jump difficulties as fast. Instead of the normal -> torment jump, go up each single difficulty as you feel comfortable.
  • Ding 70
  • Do normal rifts to get a new baseline of level 70 gear. Enchanting rates is OK and cheap, but don't go overboard. I try one enchant and select the best.
  • Move up to Torment 1 once you have all 70 gear, max sockets in chest and legs with diamonds for defense, amethyst in helm, emeralds in weapons.
  • Run T1 rifts until you get a greater rift trial.
  • Run the trial but TP out and fail it on purpose to get a level 1 greater rift. This level 1 greater rift is equal to normal difficulty but you can still get torment level drops in it AND you'll be getting legendary gems.
  • Bump the game to T2 and go in your level 1 greater rift
  • "Slow roll" the rift by killing it as fast as you can, but just before (or after) you spawn the guardian, take note of the remaining time left and TP to town.
  • Go start a bounty in act1 to farm for your RoRG. You'll likely get one bounty done as you'll be under geared (groups greatly help) for T2. WHEN YOU FINISH THE BOUNTY USE YOUR MAP TO PORTAL TO TOWN. DO NOT TP AS YOU ARE PRESERVING YOUR GREATER RIFT TOWN PORTAL!
  • Say you had 8 minutes left, you want to kill the RG with less than 4:30 left to get +1 greater rift and maximize your runs off one trial key. You get 100% drop chance of legendary gems until you have all of them. After you complete the bounty, click your greater rift TP that is still there and kill the RG with less than 4:30 remaining.
  • Rinse/repeat this for the rest of the act bounties and keep +1 your greater rift keystone. As you progress in greater rifts, you'll get legendary gems and socket those into rare (cheaper to do) jewelry and you'll notice bounties getting easier and easier and same with greater rifts.
You should be able to get into the teens of greater rifts and have a few 50% drop chance act 1 caches as well from one trial stone. By this point, the combination of your gear and gems means you'll likely be able to bump up to T2-T3 and maybe T4 farming if you got some lucky drops. At this point, you do not need to "slow roll" greater rifts and you can farm normally, level up your gems, find/gamble for your respective class set pieces on your way to T6 and beyond farming.
 
I'm also going to stream on Friday once season 2 starts if you want to watch how I'll be leveling myself. You can check it out at http://www.twitch.tv/rankil Thanks for reading if you got here. Keep on keepin' on and may RNGesus bless you well!

SOURCE

Saturday, February 7, 2015

Heroes of the Storm - Some tips for beginners regarding Warriors by Shanaki

In this small post I want to go over on some heroes that literally change the way your party plays. This will mostly revolve around Warriors as their skill sets are the bulk of the way teams should fight.
  • Stitches: Some of you already know this, because stitches is everywhere in ranked. But if you aren't in ranked to know yet, Stitches is a behind the lines sort of tank. His job is to sit back and try and land as many hooks as possible turning a situation into a 4 on 5. He mostly stays near to the group so there are people there to kill the hooked victim. If his team is engaged upon, Stitches has some massive AoE damage he can lay down, as well as a mini stun associated with it later into the game. He can use this effectively by stunning everyone in an area where a lot of AoE is about to go off like Nova's precision strike, or Tychus' nuke.
If you have a Stitches on your team, it is best to do reasonable trades with the enemy but never hard engage unless the team is split. This will still allow you to deal damage, sustain with heals, and possibly turn the tides on the enemy team to hard engage onto. It is normal play in between his hook attempts. You should back off a bit when you believe his hook is coming off cooldown to prepare and position yourself.
  • Arthas: Arthas is considered one of the more offensive tanks. He will go in, and he will go in hard grabbing anyone with his combo that he can. When he does this it is best to go into the fray with him. This will set up an immediate team fight, or the enemy giving up one of their players that gets caught.
When you play with an Arthas, you want to promote off of his hard engage style. Make sure to engage whenever he engages, and disengage when he does as well, while backing each other up. If someone is chasing Arthas, don't feel bad about lending him a hand either. Arthas for the most part can turn around at any moment and catch people who are chasing him too.
  • Muradin: He is a CC machine, so if you choose any hero who's heroics can be stopped by stuns, or squishy targets that get shut down by stun easily then Muradin is going to give them trouble. You should see him focusing on those kinds of targets (Anyone squishy, like Valla, or anyone who is reliant on abilities, like Thrall.)
When you have a Muradin on your team, you want to focus your abilities and auto attacks on the people he is stunning. He can promise any 2v1 win if they engage as well, so if you have a Muradin engage your target with you, go ham on them.
  • Diablo: You should rarely see Diablo players, but they do still exist. He thrives on keeping people in the battle and dis positioning them when able. If you have someone on you, it's his job to step up to that player and knock or throw them away so that you can continue what you were focused on.
If you have a Diablo on your team, it's going to FEEL like he isn't doing much, but what he is doing is keeping people off of you. You should be the ones engaging team fights rather than the Diablo.
  • Tyrael: Tyrael is a rough subject as he is under tuned right now. He use to be good when we had burst comps to instantly delete somebody, but with all the recent nerfs has brought that potential down. He does a bit more damage than most tanks but can not take much damage at all. If he engages he's pretty much screwed if he gets focused, and even more so if people don't engage with him.
If you have a Tyrael on your team, try to engage when he uses his Heroic or when he jumps onto a target. He will need your damage with his own to try and kill as many targets as fast as possible before anyone can heal up.
  • Sonya: She has the highest damage output of all of the Warriors, but suffers from the same squishyness that Tyrael has. If there is a lot of units, however, Sonya can soak up a lot of HP while still doing considerable damage. She OOOOOAAAAAHHHH's all over people's faces and will make ANY squishy run for their lives when she has rage.
With Sonya on your team as a support, you want to keep stuns and knock backs away from her. She is squishy herself, but getting her Whirlwind interrupted is a death sentence for her. With your heals and her whirlwind going, she's going to be able to soak a lot of damage.
As an Assassin you'll want to focus on getting slows off on targets Sonya is chasing down, and to lay down the pain on anyone who is dealing damage to her. Make them back off so that Sonya can make others run for their lives.
  • Chen: He can absorb a lot of damage when CC is down for the enemy, but he is incredibly weak when they're up. He makes squishy Assassins run for their lives, and it's good to chase with him as you can get easy kills from people who are out of position.
As a support with Chen on your team you will want to make sure he survives the initial CC burst that's going to go down on him. Once he survives that he won't need many heals throughout the rest of the engagement. With his damage output and his ability to stick to a target, kind of how Illidan does, he is incredibly useful in a team fight.
As an Assassin you will want to chase targets down that he is engaging onto, but once the team fight breaks out to break off of his target and fend for yourselves. He will be chasing people out of fights, like Sonya does, and make sure they won't have any room to fight with. So make sure you are killing people who are either now chasing the Chen, or whom are now attacking you.
  • Anub'Arak: He is a fragile tank, and was recently nerfed hard, but what he lost from the nerfs he can still make up for it in his kit. He focuses on stunning as many people as possible, and engaging team fights when it's a sure win. He has massive survivability in large areas like Sonya does, except his is more effective, but a longer cooldown due to it being his heroic.
As a support you will want to keep him healthy on the back line while he gets his stuns off and weaves in and out of combat. He isn't a hard engager like Arthas because he doesn't have damage to follow up with, so you will see him weaving in and out of combat a lot.
As an Assassin the best thing you can do is follow up with massive AoE damage on his stuns. One good stun from him can turn into a massive engagement, so keep an eye out. Make sure to follow up with him when he pops his ult, because that's when Anub is going to get much more aggressive.
  • ETC: He is a disruption hero. He will disrupt as many people as he can while healing himself and trying to set up a sick Heroic. He will focus mainly on keeping healthy, keeping enemies off of his team. He can engage like Diablo, and there's no better feeling that going into their group and knocking someone back into your team at the rest of the enemy team away. It's like a mini Brightwing heroic.
As an Assassin try and be there for when he uses his Heroic and dish out as much damage in that time that you can. In other engagements just try to stick around him so he can peel for you and allow you to deal damage more safely. This will in turn keep you in position if he decides to blow his heroic as well.
As a support you don't have to worry about healing him too much unless he is getting burst passed his own healing capacity. He has a ton of self sustain but in engagements sometimes he may need a heal after the first big burst.
  • Thrall + Rehgar combo: This combo is just straight up deadly as sin. The Earthquake + Bloodlust combo shreds the enemy team to pieces. They are forced to engage onto a party that has increased attack speed and movement speed, while they are at a crawl. It forces players to fend for themselves rather than provide help to their team mates, and this is EVEN MORE effective against a heavy Melee composition.
As a Warrior in this comp you want to help lock down isolated people. They won't have any help coming their way anytime soon, so it's best to get them locked out of position with the possibility of getting them killed.
As an Assassin you will want to go in full force. The enemy team is crippled and your damage output just went through the roof. With the long cooldown to Bloodlust you don't want to waste it anyways!

Source

Diablo 3 - Ultimate Support Witch Doctor Guide by Clx


Itemisation & Gems:
Let me first state that I choose INT on all items wherever possible, however it doesn't really matter if you gain STR or DEX on any items as it will be just as good.
TLDR Gameplay Video at the bottom.

Head: Tiklandian Visage - The secondary stat on this item is essential to this build.

Shoulders: Born's Privilege - Used for the 3-set Bonus (10% Cooldown Reduction).

Neck: Xephirian Amulet - Required to survive against Electrified affix.

Torso: Born's Frozen Soul - Used for the 3-set Bonus (10% Cooldown Reduction).

Wrists: My personal preference is Nemesis Bracers. This is because they are very situational, but can allow you to group an existing elite pack close to a pylon and spawn an additional one on top of it. However Strongarm Bracers & Krelm's Buff Bracers are also a viable choice.

Hands: Tasker & Theo - Use whatever hands you have got with the Stats Critical Hit Chance, Cooldown Reduction, Vitality and INT/DEX/STR, best option would probably be St. Archew's Gage with the stats mentioned.

Waist: Blackthorne's Notched Belt - Used for 4-set Bonus (Immunity to Desecrator, Molten, and Plagued).

Legs: Blackthorne's Jousting Mail - Used for 4-set Bonus (Immunity to Desecrator, Molten, and Plagued).

Feet: Blackthorne's Spurs - Used for 4-set Bonus (Immunity to Desecrator, Molten, and Plagued).

Rings: Ring of Royal Grandeur used to reach the 3 and 4 set bonuses. Rechel's Ring of Larceny provides movement speed for more fluid gameplay.

Weapon: Solanium - Used to spawn Health Globes, and grants Demon Hunter's resources (with Reapers Wraps equipped) which provides a HUGE Damage Buff!!!.

Offhand: Thing of the Deep - Enables you to pickup health globes with minimal movement (minimize the risk of breaking the control you have over Mobs/Elite Packs.

Legendary Gems:
Bane of the Trapped: Provides the Slow debuff to activate Demon Hunter's Cull the Weak passive. Gem of Efficacious toxin: 10% damage buff for your party.


Optional:
Pain Enhancer: Grants attack speed and may procc additional Health globes (will update once confirmed). Gokok of Swiftness: Grants Attack speed and Cooldown reduction.


Paragon Points:
Core: Make sure to have Maximum Movement Speed (25%). Put additional Points in Vitality. Offense: Cooldown Reduction > Critical Hit Chance > Attack Speed > Critical Hit Damage. Defense:Life > Armor > Resist All > Life Regeneration. Utility:Life on Hit > Resource Cost Reduction > Gold Find > Area Damage.


Build Guide:
Your role as a support revolves around you crowd controlling packs and leading the group to safety, basically like a tank. You should aim to do this by fearing everything in your path using Horrify - Face of Death; whilst gathering all the mobs together into a large group with the help of skill Piranhas - Piranhado. Note that Piranhas - Piranhado also applies a 15% increased damage taken debuff on all affected enemies. Before you begin to engage packs, use Spirit Walk - Jaunt for immunity to all mobs for 3 seconds, and continue to use this ability on cooldown. When everything is gathered, it is preferable to spam Plague of Toads - Rain of Toads to generate as much health globes as possible. This is important because the health globes provide extra resources for your DPS, specifically if your Demon Hunters are equipped with Reaper's Wraps (Bracers). In addition, using Big Bad Voodoo - Slam Dance, provides extra attack speed and 30% damage increase within a 30 yard radius of yourself.

Mass Confusion - Paranoia acts as a secondary fear and also applies a debuff (additional 20% damage taken) on all enemies for an in the area of the spell. However you must be careful using this ability as Affixes including electrified + knockback, fire chain + knockback will bounce mobs outside of the fear range of your ability, and you will loose control over the mobs.

Passives:
Tribal Rites: Reduces cooldown of Big Bad Voodoo and Mass confusion by 25%. 

Creeping Death: Allows your amplifications from your Piranhas - Piranhado last almost forever.  
Spirit Vessel: Reduces the cooldown of your Horrify and Spirit Walk, spells by 2 seconds. In addition, the next time you receive fatal damage, you automatically enter the spirit realm for 2 seconds and heal to 15% of your maximum Life. This effect may occur once every 90 seconds. 
Grave Injustice: Every time an enemy dies within 20 yards of the Witch Doctor, the latter regains 1% of maximum Life and Mana. and all remaining cooldowns are reduced by 1 second. The radius is extended by items that increase the health and gold pickup range.

3 and 4 Man Settings: In a 3 and 4 man group you should always have an additional tank (preferably a support Crusader). Your role is to control the Elite packs and decide the positioning of your party, whilst letting your other tank gather all the other mobs into your fear range.

Related Links:
Armory: http://eu.battle.net/d3/en/profile/clx-2771/hero/49714231 Twitch: http://twitch.tv/Chrisgx Clan: http://zeroempathy.net/ Diablofans: www.diablofans.com/builds/35545-ze-clx-support-witch-doctor-guide
Thanks to all ZE members and a big thanks to Vylendis.
Gameplay Video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-rmQu3lGf8

Source

Friday, February 6, 2015

Heroes of the Storm - In Development: New Skins and More Coming Soon

We have a number of exciting new skins in development, and today we’re offering you a sneak peek at Harlequin Nazeebo and his minions, two skins for the Lost Vikings, and more!

Facebook: http://facebook.com/BlizzHeroes
Twitter: http://twitter.com/BlizzHeroes
Twitter - http://twitter.com/blizzheroes

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Hearthstone - Xixo Legend Face Hunter Deck

He became rank 3 legend on the Asian server after 15 hours, 49 minutes and 25 seconds of streaming. http://www.twitch.tv/xixo

Heroes of the Storm - Video Guides for Kerrigan/Nazebo/Falstad (Also Hammer/Valla/Tass/Zera/Illi/Nova/Tychus/more) by Fan


Hi Guys, Fan here again. Some of you probably have seen me around in vs games or tourneys or in the threads I post every few weeks with Video Guides. There was pretty good feedback and encouragement for me to make more videos, so I have!.

My Qualifications: Top 10 hotslogs, 1st Place ESL Monthly December trying out for C9 Vortex. 2nd Place KOTS 9 with Barrel Boys, 3rd Place KOTS Jan. Monthly with BB. Also Reached Rank 1 recently with only 1 loss(53-1 record) in hero league: http://imgur.com/dXlCP5h

My reason for making these: When I first started, it was pretty hard for newer players in this game to get a grasp of game knowledge and proper decision making, and it was even pretty hard to get the optimal talent build. I, like most of the other new players also had these problems. Looking at the scene now, it’s pretty easy to get a good talent build online, but it seems hard for a lot of players to understand how to properly play the build they are using. I had this problem when I first started playing the game, and the thing that helped me most was watching VODs of good players explaining their actions. I felt that watching good players explain the game really catapulted my game knowledge and decision making much faster than if I had just tried to learn it myself. Personally, I think I learned the most from C9 Zuna’s solo queue game VODS where he talked about heroes and game choices. It was extremely useful and I wanted to make some content like that to help players out as well. So I made a few video commentary/guides on various heroes (Zuna style, solo queue a game then just talk a lot about the build and decisions in the game), and am planning on making more videos on heroes and hero builds that I have a lot of experience with. Check them out if you are interested, and let me know of any suggestions for improvements. Thanks!.

TLDR: Made videos to help newer players get better at playing certain builds, and to help their decision making choices.

Kerrigan Maelstrom Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7hyUq1GAFs

Nazeebo Standard Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L0RvXX0t7Tw

Falstad Magic Dmg Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tKMQo7dZxaU

All of the new closed beta players, check out these guides from last post:

Tyrael Judgement Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7yzP2ufndM

Illidan The Hunt Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQ8hpXl7DQc

Sergeant Hammer Standard Mines Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SlycLDJ5Ho

Nova Standard Burst Damage Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RImGl6XuOAY

Illidan Metamorphosis Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NCBgUR2wrek

Tychus Standard Build Guide - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_x8CSLfuaog

Standard Zeratul Magic Dmg Build Game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQUwcy3HnjM

Standard Valla Multishot Build Game - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Np20XMIZg1U

Tassadar Damage/Vision Build - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1WFwOcA2QQA

Source

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Diablo 3 - Season 1 Has Ended! by menagese


Season 1 has officially ended! With that, there are some things will happen to lay the groundwork for Season 2.
  • Seasonal characters will be converted to non-season
  • Currency (Gold and Blood Shards) will be combined with your non-season currency.
    • Note: While Blood Shards can go over the cap of 500, you will not be able to earn anymore until you spend below 500.
  • Paragon Experience will be combined with your non-season experience
    • Note: Paragon will not convert on a level-to-level basis, it is based on total experience.
  • Any items in your Seasonal stash will be mailed to your non-seasonal characters. You can retreive them from here as you wish, but you have 30 days to claim all of them from the first time you log in, or they will be deleted.
  • Artisan Recipies and Progress will be rolled into your non-season artisans.
  • If you have more stash slots on your Seasonal characters than non-seasonal, those extra slots will transfer into non-season.
  • Any achievements that you have earned on Seasonal characters will transfer to non-season.
  • Season 1 Conquests will not roll-over; if they weren't earned in Season 1, there will be no way to earn them now.
  • Season 1 leaderboards will be locked and no more progress can be made on them. They will be available in game and on the battle.net website for historical data.
  • Season 2 begins Friday, February 13th at 6PM PST
For more detailed information on the end-of-season process, please click this link to go to the Diablo 3 Blog.

Source

Diablo 3 - Physical Cluster - The Ultimate Solo DH Build + Math + Video (Tier 52) by wudijo

Hi everyone,

So it's been a while and with season 1 now being concluded, I decided to come out with a few things that I have learned about DH in 2.1.2 recently. Because I got a little unlucky with pylons pre-patch, I still had to up my rank a bit before the end of the season, so I decided to try out various things. As always, there was so much misinformation floating around on the forums that I decided it would be best to not trust any of it, and after some initial testing, I went with Cluster Arrow. Following some disappointing attempts with the grenade-heavy runes of the skill I realized that in solo play, the accuracy and utility of rockets is pretty much unbeatable, so I was left with two choices: Physical and Cold. Since the mainstream was focusing on Cold so much, I decided to start with the other one first, and cleared a tier 50 rift after two tries on patchday, and my tier 52 rift quickly thereafter, lifting me up to the second highest DH solo clear after patch 2.1.2 (only to be beaten by my clan mate Kampfkoloss) and a top 10 spot overall. I have also used this build on my hardcore character to get two then-rank 1 spots (tier 44 + 45, beating my own previous rank 1 twice) shortly after the patch, even with suboptimal items, and also took it to even higher tiers with great success.

Since I didn't want to rely on my gut feeling alone, I needed some math to back it up. I wanted to be as exact as possible in order to produce the best possible combination of items, skills and stats; some basic napkin math just didn't catch it, so I crafted a spreadsheet to include everything. I calculated the damage versus various amounts of enemies, factoring in accuracy loss (because you can't hit everything all the time) and area damage, different weapons (generic 2h Xbow, generic 2h Bow, Etrayu, Kridershot, Calamity), various combinations of runes for Kridershot, follower, sentry deployment and multiplier for sentry effectiveness, health globes, CD use, buff uptime, time spent on RG / elites / trash packs, legendary gems, generator:spender ratios, just everything, and weighed the numbers to my best knowledge. Even though I had ceased testing with Hexing Pants pretty quickly back on the ptr, I was encouraged by oogieboogie to continue to do so on live, and I have also plotted this item against the very common Pride's Fall, with interesting results. (FYI: You can keep the bonus of Hexing Pants when constantly stutter stepping).

Here is a screenshot of a part of the spreadsheet to give you an idea how I calculated things in there. Disclaimer: The purpose is not to calculate actual damage values, but to provide a comparison for different builds. Link1

There is also a second page where I basically calculated the effectiveness of the different runes based at its heart on "rift composition", which looks like this. Link2
 
There's also some more, like a whole page devoted to Kridershot and the results of all the different weapon types. Still, the most interesting part of this whole thing is this, where "Element = 0 is cold, = 1 is physical" Link3
 
Note that physical pulls ahead for every weapon type. Cold vs. physical is pretty close for Kridershot, because I included the Spitfire Turrets for cold, but not for physical (since you will slow with Elemental Arrow), causing the gap to narrow by ~8%. For every other weapon, physical wins out by approximately 10%, even considering that you will spent a lot less time on the RG and elite packs because the rockets are considerably stronger in those situations. Hexing Pants lose effectiveness if you get a power pylon and gain some more if you get a channeling. If you lose Pride's Fall buff more than once per minute, you should use Hexing Pants in any case. If you get a plagued elite pack during your rift, Hexing Pants is almost guaranteed to be better.

The numbers uses in this spreadsheet are the values I have on my items; I used the same numbers for all bows (because I have neither an Etrayu nor a Kridershot), my Xbow and Bow rolls are within ~2-3% of the maximum, while my Calamity is lacking behind by ~6-7%.
Some further information about itemization: - Resource cost reduction is king - Hatred reg vs RCR on quiver is about ~1% worse for Xbow, increasing up to ~3% for Calamity. Hatred reg + RCR is also an option (another 1-4% worse than CA) - Area Damage is very strong, close to RCR on quiver and weapon (~-2-3% worse), depending on rift layout this might even shift into a net gain - CDR is not really important (e.g. dropping 12,5% gem is a ~3% loss), the best combination for shoulders is RCR, Sentry, Area Damage - CA wins out by far vs Sentry on quiver - Taeguk is the best third legendary gem to use in conjunction with Zei's and Bane of the Trapped, by far. Enforcer is an option in group play (requires ~150% external damage increased by skills at about rank 60 of both gems). BotP is a ~3-10% loss. - Ancient Saffron Wrap is an option compared to nonancient Witching Hour (2-5% worse) - Hellfire Amulet is probably unbeatable - Using a generic 1h Xbow is not worth it, Calamity is a ~8-12% boost - Always get % damage on your weapon, and add RCR to it (not for Etrayu). IAS is okay for Kridershot as well (~2-4% worse) - Kridershot 3 Hatred vs 4 Hatred is a ~3-4% dps increase - Dropping Reaper’s Wraps for IAS bracers is an option, possibly a gain with high attack speeds - Elite dmg is not included in the calculations, but it should be safe to assume that you will be fighting elites about 1/2 to 2/3 of the time, thus every point of elite damage should boost your overall dps by ~0.5% - Zei’s is not included for now, it’s safe to assume that your sentries benefit a little less than you do, and Kridershot with Spitfire Turrets will benefit a bit more from Zei’s.

The exact skills used are these: Build (Proper Diablofans Build to be added.

Use Steady Aim, Single Out or Night Stalker (with Calamity) as your 5th passive, and Frost Arrow + Spitfire Turrets or Nether Tentacles as your generator with Kridershot.

Some closing remarks: Please note that by choosing to run physical, you won't suddenly clear tier 50 easily. It's still difficult, you are still going to get oneshot, you will still have to dodge everything. It's a ~10% increase over cold, plain and simple, if you have a well-rolled Etrayu, it's even less. For lower tiers, you can still stack toughness and Unity if you like, the gearing priorities don’t change at all. I hope this information helps and encourages you to try out the physical element of the Demon Hunter and make your character stronger as a whole. The spreadsheet will be improved upon in the future, and I have many ideas that I need to include and test ingame, but this will take some weeks or months. I will share what I know when I find out new things.

I will return to streaming very soon, I just had a busy time at university during the last weeks/months, but this will be over in a few days. Feel free to check out my Twitch channel if you want to watch me play and interact with me, or look for me on Youtube. If you are interested in more of my recent work, you should check out this thread and the links there for some information on the lightning DH in 2.1.2. (As of now, I’m not sure if lightning will take the top spots in the end, since you essentially need to stack layer upon layer of good RNG (in terms of drops and rift) in order to complete a tier ~55+ rift, which makes it a lot easier for versatile builds like this to achieve.)

Here is the video of the tier 52 run, note that with enough time, tries and ancient items 54-55 is very well possible, and I expect to see them cleared within 2 months. I used about 20 keys to complete this rift - Tier 52 sc
 
Bonus clip: My tier 48 run on hardcore (I suggest you read the description until the "spoiler" before watching) - Tier 48 hc

Cheers,
wudijo

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