When does "the push" generally start?

[Omedon]

I have a question for those familiar with the “mid to late game” in D3: Let’s say the Paragon 800ish, “newly experimenting with full LoN builds” phase. I do not play seasonal, I'm talking about my overall somewhat casual non-seasonal game. I'm a longtime solo player and resently reset for the switch, where I do all my D3 now.

Where would you say the real augment-fueled “push” begins? I blasted to GR 90 with an out of the box thornsader build, out of the box meaning one augment and mostly non-ancient, but complete set and BIS items. Now I’m focusing on my necromancer, using the highest recommended solo build on icy veins (“skelethorns”) and with 3/4 of my full ancient BIS gear augmented between 50-70 ranks of int, the mid 80 GRs are a real slog of timing out and seemingly low damage. Is this normal? I understand that thornsader is one of the god builds, but I’m having such a hard time overtaking my crusader’s GR record with my far-better-geared necromancer. If this is normal in a game not really beholden to tight class balance because no real mattering PVP, that’s fine, but does it all generally and eventually open up with paragon and augments and gem levels?

(Also... I'm rather paranoid about the oft mentioned spear of Jairo bug, but even swapping out the spear/fang equip/cube combo for a fang/shadowhook experiment, I'm still timing out even worse, so I imagine the spear got fixed and, well... see above)

[Battlebeard]

There is no answer to this, cause the community is messed up and focuses on paragon levels.

I finished Guardian of the season journey as well as GR solo 100 within 15 hours playtime and maybe 600 paragon, yet I can't even get invited to "split bounty farm" groups by randoms cause for some reason they ask for 1000 paragon levels, ignoring that noobs with high playtime gets invited over people who play efficiently and who are twice as good.

So I gave up any kind of push, and I started to pray already that Diablo 4 won't have paragon levels.

[Thelxi]

It depends on the build of course, but if you are like me and only start patiently pushing once most of your gear is augmented (15-20k mainstat), then the push starts in low/high 110s depending on build. On both my monk and wizard it felt like the push began in that range.

Another metric you could use is when do you swap powerful out for stricken. A lot of people make the mistake of swapping it out way too early, but basically you only swap it out once bosses take too long to kill; prior to that powerful is considerably better.

I haven't played necro, but looking at the leaderboard all classes' top builds are performing quite similarly with the exception of Vyr, which is also not quite as extremely far ahead as the leaderboards would suggest due to the sheer number of people playing the spec and fishing for good rifts. You should be able to farm 95-100 in 3-4 minutes this season on most classes as a solo player eventually, and relatively easily push for 110 augments.

Also don't go to icy veins, always go to the leaderboards for build blueprints. You can usually find tankier variants of the best builds on the hardcore leaderboards too. Just make sure you fully understand the build you are recreating, and pay attention to the actual rolls on gear; where they are getting vitality, CDR, AS etc. I see a lot of people with the correct ancients/primals but with terrible stats on them; this is probably the biggest mistake people make.

- - - Updated - - -

Another tip for those looking at the leaderboards is to scroll down a bit. Usually at the very top of the leaderboards are people that either farm extreme paragon levels/augments/gems in groups, got extremely lucky with rolls on gear, got extremely lucky with rift RNG (density/mob types/elite affixes/layouts/pylons) or are extremely high skilled players that play very squishy variants of the build that most people would wipe with at -10GR levels. Especially saturated leaderboards like wizard will give you a better understanding of the build if you go lower.

[Puri]

It simply is a question of the build and expectations. Thorn skeleton is a very passive build, that is overly dependent on the right rift layout and mob count and type. It's main damage comes from reflecting the incoming damage, and that means that the clearing speed does not really increase if you do lower rifts than you actually could. And when you get a rift guardian like Orlash, where it is close to impossible to reflect the damage back in a solo game, it takes just as long as the rift took to actually kill him. Other rift guardians just die instantly.

When looking at the leaderboards you just see the snapshot of the almost perfect rifts, you don't see the 299 rifts they failed or were not "compatible" with their build.

If you want to stay LoN necro you can also try out a mage build (although I am not certain if this is viable without the seasonal buff). This build can deal with pretty much everything, but is depending on your army of the dead CD meaning you do insane amounts while it's up and a short time afterwards, but then you literally do no damage again until it comes up again.

Personally I just start augmenting items when I can easily push keys to 100, simply because it's a nice number. I couldn't get in terms with any LoN Necro this seasons, and went back to demon hunter. LoN grenadier was really fun to play imho, but although I am now 5 levels higher than I could reach with my necros I once again hit the rift wall where I need to get a certain mob density and right rift guardian. So the push most likely ended for me this season.

[Super Kami Dende]

Around 105-110 Grift Solo. Past that Point it starts coming down to just farming Ancients/Primals Optimal stat Upgrades and gaining Paragon.

[Djuntas]

Paragon points was a huge mistake, thats all. RNG on gear is OK, still a bit cruel with rings, amu's and some other insane rolls, but paragon is dumb.

[Wilfred]

You STILL play Diablo 3???

[melodramocracy]

Paragon points was a huge mistake, thats all. RNG on gear is OK, still a bit cruel with rings, amu's and some other insane rolls, but paragon is dumb.

There was really nowhere else to go. Highly repetitive low % rng gaming simply isn't fun if you aren't seeing "some" level of advancement as you play. And when paragon came out, it was nowhere near as quick to acquire as it is now (nor was gear even close to what it is now).

[Djuntas]

There was really nowhere else to go. Highly repetitive low % rng gaming simply isn't fun if you aren't seeing "some" level of advancement as you play. And when paragon came out, it was nowhere near as quick to acquire as it is now (nor was gear even close to what it is now).

I will agree, but that also makes the core issue of the game stick out then; Its boring and repetitive.

Look, im a casual noob when I played D3 - But every time I saw a dude with 2k, 3k paragon I was like...why even bother. I stick to non-season always also.

Gear can be RNG sure, but paragon is so big a difference gear dosent matter.

[AeneasBK]

Not to be a hater but last couple of seasons I got bored en route to 70. They really should remove the levelling part of seasons it takes an hour or more and is really really fucking boring the 17th time around. So this season I think my DH is lvl 48 and meh.

And without Paragon levels D3 would have died before RoS came out. So w/e don't like em fine but they were necessary *at the time* because the original game was so badly designed to keep people playing.

[Druitz]

Not to be a hater but last couple of seasons I got bored en route to 70. They really should remove the levelling part of seasons it takes an hour or more and is really really fucking boring the 17th time around. So this season I think my DH is lvl 48 and meh.

And without Paragon levels D3 would have died before RoS came out. So w/e don't like em fine but they were necessary *at the time* because the original game was so badly designed to keep people playing.

Leveling is rly boring but if you grind it takes less than 2 hours I am always waiting for someone to boost me.

You can't break your crusader record on your necro because of how necromancer work, it require a lot of training. Both 80 and 90 are low rifts, you don't even need any ancient for 85-90 (maybe weapon only) and with how strong classes are atm you don't need any augmented items. It's actually not worth to augment item with gem below 100 lvl even for first one because you will reach gr 100 with few ancients and some paragons.

[kabbie]

Look, im a casual noob when I played D3 - But every time I saw a dude with 2k, 3k paragon I was like...why even bother. I stick to non-season always also.

Yeah, I felt the same way, but then you think you're just trying to do the best you can with what drops for you, y'know? I don't worry about how other people are doing, just about how I'm doing. Hell, I'm slowly pushing my way past the 90s, so to me GR100 is a goalpost, not "when the game really starts."

[Djuntas]

Yeah, I felt the same way, but then you think you're just trying to do the best you can with what drops for you, y'know? I don't worry about how other people are doing, just about how I'm doing. Hell, I'm slowly pushing my way past the 90s, so to me GR100 is a goalpost, not "when the game really starts."

Because that guy is like 2 players. Look, paragon is so strong you could remove all the stats on your normal gear, just keep the multipliers and crap, and still be better than a paragon 1000.

[Lazuli]

There was really nowhere else to go. Highly repetitive low % rng gaming simply isn't fun if you aren't seeing "some" level of advancement as you play. And when paragon came out, it was nowhere near as quick to acquire as it is now (nor was gear even close to what it is now).

Diablo 2 says hi

This is the retarded mentality that encourages Blizzards endless grinds in D3 and WoW.

The problem being they aim to increase this type of design and ignore FUN completely.

If a game is fun, why would you need this arbitrary grind? If you can't retain a playerbase without some endless carrot cancer system then you've absolutely failed as a developer. All D2 had was lvl 99 and random items but fun gameplay and pvp.

[Coldkil]

If a game is fun, why would you need this arbitrary grind? If you can't retain a playerbase without some endless carrot cancer system then you've absolutely failed as a developer. All D2 had was lvl 99 and random items but fun gameplay and pvp.

Look at PoE aswell. The grind isn't the ultimate goal - you have lots of activities and the gameplay/character building is fun. Thus people just keep playing.

[mrgreenthump]

Look at PoE aswell. The grind isn't the ultimate goal - you have lots of activities and the gameplay/character building is fun. Thus people just keep playing.

I would argue that building your character in D3 is somewhat fun. It just ends after 5-6 hours of gameplay every season.

[Coldkil]

I would argue that building your character in D3 is somewhat fun. It just ends after 5-6 hours of gameplay every season.

Hehehe.

Anyway the point is - games like Diablo are awesome because the fun is in the trip itself and not the destination. We live in an era where everyone rushes to the destination and then says the trip was short and boring.

Reaching a BiS character should be time consuming, meanwhile you shouldn't be BiS to actually do content.

[Lazuli]

Look at PoE aswell. The grind isn't the ultimate goal - you have lots of activities and the gameplay/character building is fun. Thus people just keep playing.

Yes PoE developers are literally 1 of a kind.



I know it's long but when you got the time, its incredible to see their mindset on game design. They are the true Diablo sequel.
An example of a game made by players for players.

[XDurionX]

Yes PoE developers are literally 1 of a kind.



I know it's long but when you got the time, its incredible to see their mindset on game design. They are the true Diablo sequel.
An example of a game made by players for players.

PoE is a good game, but i couldn´t lay it half as long as i played D3. It´s A LOT grindier and more repetitive.

[Lazuli]

PoE is a good game, but i couldn´t lay it half as long as i played D3. It´s A LOT grindier and more repetitive.

Its definitely more in depth and takes a lot longer but with the feeling of progression , like has been said D3 just ends that feeling way too quickly. PoE probably does it too long. I did really enjoy PoE I just can't invest the time honestly. I got mad respect for those devs tho gotta admit they pulled something crazy off. Another major point is the story is much better in Diablo universe. If more devs followed GGG mentality then we would have a lot more amazing games.

I loved Diablo 2 because I could jump in whenever and progress or build my character however I wanted with ease and every night was a push no matter how much time I put in. And pvp was so huge there.