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So at this point, I'm feeling like a boss. My DPS is through the roof, I'm destroying monsters left and right. Even with the insanely bad lag I'm getting (400+) I'm breezing through without any issues.

Sure I should be further then this. I should be finished with NM already. But hey, Blizzard should also know how to run an online game without so many problems so whatever.

There I am standing in front of the Butcher.

"Ah fresh meat"

And I'm thinking, "Ah fresh loot."

Then the dying began.

Honestly, I think that if I hadn't been lagging so much. (An issue that I am sure is from Blizzard because I have no lag in any other game including WoW) I probably could have done it with the build I had. However, I learned a very important lesson.

A good offense, hell, even a great offense, is not always a good defense.

I died a good fifteen times, never getting him to half health. I was getting angry. It should be that hard, I'm moving when I should be, but I'm not seeing that I should be moving until it's too late, because of the lag.

So finally I decide, that I can do this, I just need to change my build. Alright, what needs to change. I took a good look at the skills I was using, and what was available, and finally decided that all I needed, was to get rid of Archon, an ability that I love, but is proving to be less and less useful, and take Diamond Skin instead.

Next attempt, down goes the Butcher.

I hated Diamond Skin, I felt like I should be able to get enough defensive stats from gear, to not need it. However, I was not stacking any defensive stats outside of the armor thats on all gear. Not even Vitality. So I was pretty squishy. Diamond skin has since made the rest of NM a breeze.

Well, maybe it wasn't Diamond Skin. I got a wand today. It made me very happy. It was a 200 damage increase over what I was using, as well as vitality, and defensive stats. It jumped my damage up well over 1000 DPS. So that was fun. I'm thinking that I'm still going to be challenged once I finish ACT II though, as thats when normal started to ramp up again.

Another skill that I have absolutely fallen in love with, is the rune for teleport that returns you to where you teleported from.

It's amazing, can be used offensively, defensively, and it's good for going back to get that gold you missed quickly. I never planned on using it at all, but its amazing.

I'm finally starting to get some resistance as well. I have a few rings in my stash that I'm holding onto in case I need them, but overall its just too much of a loss of damage because I have two +9-16 damage rings both with sockets. But I did get a Head Piece that was nice, no loss of damage, but gave me a little resistance.

I'm starting to get an idea of the build I'll be running in Inferno. And it's not at all the build I thought that I would be running, but it is close.

I'm still trying to decide what I want as my generator. Electrocute is an ability that I need to come back to. I found it too boring in Normal as it's really strong, but it may be a good choice. It's super fast, and doesn't need to be aimed as much. But I'm also starting to run out of AP more often as well.

I still think I'm going to be ditching Diamond Skin most likely. But we'll have to wait and see I suppose.

But right now this is the build that I'm working towards for Inferno:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...YQO!cfU!aaaabb

The biggest worry I have at the moment, is the lack of damage outside of Arcane damage. Arcane Orb is my real only high burst damage ability. With Disintegrate being there to hit monsters that are causing problems while hiding behind other monsters. So, I may change it out for something that can do a bit of damage out side of Arcane, but we'll see. It's not supposed to be impossible to do it without two damage types, but we'll see.

That's all for now. I'm hoping to finish up NM and probably ACT I of hell tomorrow, so the challenges are just getting started, and hopefully it will lead to more interesting things to talk about in this series. There just isn't much yet to talk about when the biggest challenges so far are Blizzards servers and not the game haha.

As I announced on the stream during that first night, I will be trying to do a daily article chronicling my adventures through the game, and my rise into Inferno.

For now though I'm gonna keep things a bit short, but it will probably get longer as time goes on.

A few things that I found interesting:

I'm using different skills than I thought that I would. They aren't really skills that I didn't think would be good, but just that I didn't think would be needed. But I took things like Teleport out of my build at certain points, and hated life. But I almost never used it in a build. So it will be interesting to see how that works out.

Archon is amazing. It's so powerful. That opening to ACT IV, I died like four times in a row within thirty seconds. (I did have like 1k ping due to crappy server issues though.) But when I said screw it and popped Archon right at the start it was over in 15 seconds. So powerful, but extremely situational. Because there is no CC in the build, it makes it a bit hard to use at times. But I will definitely be using it through NM for sure.

I got my ass kicked by the first few blue spawns in NM, it was awesome. I must have died like 5 times to these monsters with these lines of fire connecting them. And then there was this group that summoned blue orbs, and out of the orbs came rotating lines of death. It reminded me or Mario. It was nice to see the difficulty ramp up, as I had a bit of an edge in the end of Normal because I was 2 levels ahead and had extremely high DPS from what I've seen others have at that stage. To still have it be a challenge was both a surprise, and a nice change of pace.

It's really fun actually having to move away out of danger because I will actually die instead of just standing still blasting away because they can't kill me anyway. Great fun.

In the future I'll talk more about what kinds of gearing, and build strategies I'm using as I progress, and how they change and why, but for now I think this is a good start. I'll see you all tomorrow with another Daily Damer.

Alright, here we are at last. The day before launch. Less then 10 hours before no one will remember this site exists for a short period of time, and we are completely absorbed in our mission to destroy Diablo, this time once and for all (HA).

But while we wait, I have for you the last article in my Outside the Pentagram series, and I saved my favorite class for last.

While he is my favorite class, I also am probably the most pigeon holed in the way I make his build. I tend to be very stuck on a few different abilities when I make builds for him. Even though he has a very large amount of abilities and tools that are completely awesome.

So this build is about using those abilities and passives that I tended to ignore before.

The Build:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...dkP!bUW!cZYbZY

The Reasoning:

Firebomb is one of those skills that got a great deal of attention at certain times, as it is a strong ability, but was one of those that I really hated. I don't like the way it is launched and the aiming of this ability on moving targets. But it is still very strong, both for AoE and for single target damage. For this reason it will be my main attack.

Locust Swarm is one of those abilities that is in a great deal of builds, including my own. I wanted to put Acid Cloud in here, because it's going to be much more powerful, but I'm pretty heavy on the mana use in this build, so I thought I'd leave it out for something else. I do have quite a bit of mana regen in this build, so if I found that I wasn't having issues I'd try it out still.

Horrify is an ability that I believe to be one of those abilities that blizzard has said is in the gave specifically for a PvP build. That is why it is in my build, because I hate it. Will never use it in PvE, and don't think anyone else should. Mass Confusion is ten times better, not only in effect, but in efficiency, especially if you are using pets, as making enemies run away in fear will pull your pets with them, and possibly get you into trouble.

Soul Harvest, is in my opinion, either going to be one of the strongest abilities in the game, or one of the weakest. I have a feeling in later difficulties, it will be good in tandem with the Circle of Life passive, as both effects can be increased through Gold Pick Up Radius, mostly because you will have had time to get enough of it to still be at range, making both abilities easier to use. However, you have to use a rune to get damage from it. I don't like that. But the buff is strong, and I actually picked it in this build, because I have no continuous pets, and needed a bit more slow from a source that I don't pick all the time.

I love Wall of Zombies. Who wouldn't love to summon a giant wall of grotesque, groping, green zombies. (Not sure if they are really green, but needed another word with G in it haha.) Imagine hiding around a corner and scaring the life out of your friends, too good. This ability will be a great tool for kiting, as well as escaping. You can throw it up inside of buildings to effective block enemies way to you, allowing you to blow them us, or to use Soul Harvest to keep the buff up.

Lastly I have Fetish Army, not an ability I am too fond of. Considering there are other options that stick around til they die, it just seemed like a waste in a spot. They do seem fairly strong though. And the whole point of this series was to do things I wouldn't normally do. Decent ability, and necessary to take advantage of my passive.

Spiritual Attunement is for a bit of help with my mana regen. Vision Quest because I will be using my abilities quite often, and it will help with my mana regen quite a bit. (If I am able to keep a 75% up time on this effect, I would change Locusts to Acid Cloud.) And then Pierce the Veil to get some extra damage out of my abilities, as I only have a couple of constant sources of damage.

In all reality I won't be trying this build for quite some time, unless I'm bored while leveling up through Hell (not likely). But it looks fun. And I do like Vision Quest builds, just not this one. Still, would be fun, somewhat viable through the difficulties, and it was different than I would typically go for.


Closing Comments:


The whole point of this series was to look at the classes in a way that perhaps we hadn't before, to see interactions between the abilities of a class that we had probably missed before, when we were caught up in what our favorite abilities were. It has certainly been a success for me, as I really did see some things that I hadn't before. And I hope that you have as well.


I will be starting a new Project with the launch of Diablo 3 tonight. It's called "The Daily Damer" and will be a sort of mini journal. The idea is that every day when I stop playing for the night, or perhaps when I wake up the next morning. I will record and audio segment that will talk about my progress through the game day by day until I defeat Inferno. It should be interesting, and may provide some insight to those whose lives keep them for going as hardcore with progression as I plan to, and are thus behind. Keep tuned in for that, and other projects coming soon!!!!

Diablo III Release day contest and party



We here at Diablo Sanctuary will be hosting a few Release day competitions sponsored by Steelseries.

Below are a few of the awesome Contest / Giveaway's happening.








The InfintyX Clan will be running a 24 hour Stream on their TwitchTV Channel
D3InfinityX






The Eternal Exile Clan will be running a 24 hour Stream on their TwitchTV Channel
Eternal Exile






The Sanctuary Revisited Clan will be running a 48 hour Stream on out TwitchTV channel with the assistance of the other Clans admins. We will all be taking turns in 4 hour increments, Starting with, obviously the Sanctuary Revisited Clan Admin, Lucifer, Karieo as well as other members of the Sanctuary Revisited Clan.
Sanctuary Revisited








All Streams will start as close to 12:00 AM Midnight PST/PDT as possible, this just depends on when the servers are live and how fast we can get software installed and running.

4) Diablo Sanctuary


The SiteWide, Diablo Sanctuary will be running a large contest.

Details can be found in the Contests forum, here

Shortly after the launch of Diablo III, we’ll be adding a new feature to our official site. Profiles will let you review all of your character information at a glance, share it with others, and check out the accomplishments of the other heroes out there.
You’ll be able to look at your heroes (or your friends’ heroes) from any page on the Diablo III site through our personalized menu. If you’re curious about the exploits of your fellow forum posters, it’ll be a simple matter to click over to their profiles and feel envious of their gear or how long they’ve managed to keep their Hardcore characters alive.
Our first profiles release will include these two elements:

• A career tab that displays all of your heroes, how far you’ve progressed in the Diablo III campaign, how many foes you’ve slain, the names and playtimes of your fallen Hardcore heroes, and more.
• A heroes tab that shows off your equipment (including dyes, socketed gems, all equipment bonuses, etc.), your attributes and skills, the skills and equipment of your Followers, and more.

We’re planning to add tabs that’ll show off your artisans and achievements as well. Profiles will be available on the site sooner rather than later, but you should feel free to share your suggestions and thoughts in the comments section below or in the Website Features forum.
We’ve also been hard at work on a ton of other website content, available to help you sharpen your knowledge and prepare to face the forthcoming onslaught. On Monday, May 14, you’ll be able to browse an updated Items section, which will include Legendary and Set items, as well as some specific hand-crafted items. In addition, you can:

• Watch the new gameplay overview video – What Is Diablo III?
• Experiment with class builds using the Skill Calculator.
• Discuss the game on the Diablo III Community forums.
• Pre-purchase Diablo III.

See you in Sanctuary!
- Blizzard Web Team

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5406...5_11_2012#blog

So I think somewhere along the line I missed one of these, so I'm going to do two this time, with the last one coming out on the fourteenth just in time for release. I also have another article planned for between that I will be doing about lore, and my predictions for the story, and what we can expect to see lore wise.


So lets get into it.

Barbarian:

The Build:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...fdj!beV!YYYbZc

The Reasoning:

Alright, so two things before I get into this. The first, I hate the Barbarian. There is nothing wrong with him, he's strong, he's manly, he's dirty, so its probably a little mean of me, since he is probably the most popular of all the Diablo classes. But his play style is just not one I like, and not one I care to play. I also found him to be one of the easier classes to play in the Beta, which turned me off even further.

The next thing, is that this is a PvP build, something I really don't care too much about at the moment, as I think that people are really not realizing what PvP will be like in Diablo, and are still thinking we're going to be getting duels, and they haven't realized that the RMAH will ruin PvP.

With that said. This build is designed around protecting the squishies on your team. It basically functions in a way that allows you to constantly be annoying the team, slowing them, stunning them, and constantly allowing you to peel them off your team maters. I'd be stacking vitality, and defensive stats, and going for the fastest weapon I can get with a shield. The idea is to be able to take a massive amount of punishment, sacrificing damage in return. But that's fine, because no one is going to get anywhere near my Wizard, or WD. (You'll never touch a good DH to begin with so meh.)

I'll also be stacking thorns damage on my gear. This will allow me to be a bit more annoying. I'll leap in, taunt, and just when they think they are going to get away, I'll stun. If you teleport away, I'll pull you back, there will be no escape.

My passives will allow me to be a bit more tanky, getting that armor from stacking vitality, as well as the armor already on gear, along with the strength, which also gives me armor. (Depending on the finalized ratios this could be a lot of armor. I think it was something like 10 HP for 1 point of Vitality, with an conservative estimate of around 60k health, that means 600 vitality, thats 600 armor.) I'll also be taking less damage from ranged attacks from magic users such as the WD and the Wizard.

It's not a perfect build by any means, and not meant for PvE play at all, as there isn't nearly enough damage, but it would be an effective build for PvP with the concept I have laid out.



The Monk:

The Build:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculato...VTS!YbU!bYaZbY

The Reasoning:

I love the Monk, it's an amazing class, with really fun abilities. However, its also a class that will have one of the highest skill caps in the game. Besides the Witch Doctor, no other class has as much difficulty in performing at it's peak, as well as in meshing the skills together to make a truly epic build.

This build may not be that viable later on, but it seems like it would do better the further into a difficulty you get as you get more and more gear.

The reason I don't think it may be viable later on is because my spirit regen requires very good timing on my exploding palm ability. I have to get that spirit regen or I won't have enough to continue using my abilities.

But that is also the core of the build. Is using high cost abilities as much as possible. The idea is that almost everything does AoE damage. With the high cost of spirit for all my spenders I'll also be healing for quite a bit as well.

My passives are built around giving me the healing that I'll need, and the resistances that I need. The extra resistances from the passive will allow me to get more out of my gear. The only passive I'm really iffy on is the extended spirit pool. After the start of a fight, I'll almost never use the extended pool of spirit, but it will allow for a much higher initial burst when needed, or it can be used for longer prolonged damage by weaving in my generators. I'll always want at least thirty spirit so that I can use my sanctuary. If I changed from the large pool of spirit it would be for the Seize the Initiative passive. This would synergize really well for more defensive options, as I'll be stacking dexterity anyway for the dodge.

This build isn't so much of an odd build, but a high risk high reward kind of build. Which is why I like it.