I admit it. Buying Diablo 3 for my PS4 has been the best and worst idea ever. I'm enjoying this game version like hell, thanks to all the commodities the console offers (joypad, sofa), but this is draining me away from many other activities. I'm neglecting reading and other games a bit too much: for example, I buyed Destiny's collector's edition, but I still have to put the disc into my PS4, as Diablo 3 is always running on it!
My main is the Wizard, even if he is not among the the actual best classes, measured in "farm speed". I'm slowly levelling up all the six classes, both to equip them and for the Dream Team trophy, as I'll platinate this game for sure!
A game with 2 Witch Doctors and 2 Demon Hunters,
all pets based! (Part 1)
I play alot both in solo and multiplayer, even if the latter game mode is a bit ruined by a clunky matchmaking system and the great amount of modded (cheated) items you can find at higher difficulties.
I really appreciate the easiness the PS4 offers in recording videos and screenshots, as I can quickly do some of them about my gaming experence: this is something always intrigued me.
The three attached screenshots are just some among the ones I take while adventuring on Sanctuary. The first is about a 412 kills chain, the best I ever did. That was a 4x Witch Doctor game, full of nasty dps, and in a particularly dense Rift. The other two are taken in a 4 player multiplayer match where the team was composed by 2 Demon Hunters and 2 Witch Doctors, all using a pet-based build: the screenshots don't give the right idea about how messy that game was, even more because of the amount of enemy mobs!
(Part 2)
As always, if you want to reach me there, add my PSN ID to your friendlist: LoneTear77. At least we will take advantage of the gift and nemesis system of this version!
I've recorded a quick tutorial for fast exp farming while soloing in Diablo 3 Ultimate Evil Edition. The video is in Italian language, as I'm too slacky to speak my ugly english for such a long time. Because of this, I've created the present post as a translation and english guide to the video.
To gain a nice amount of experience while playing alone, one of the best way is to do bounties. There are 2 specific bounties that are particularly rewarding and fast to complete.
This is how this method works, step by step:
1) Change settings to ACT III, difficulty to T6*.
2) Join a private game.
3) Press "down" on the pad (bring up the map), hit R1 once, move the cursor to The Battlefields with the analogic joystick. Check if one of Clear Cryder's Outpost or Clear The Forward Barracks (avoid the ones about clearing 2nd levels) is available at the location. If yes, go to 4), if not, go to 5) .
4) Teleport to The Battlefields and complete the quest. Cryder's Outpost is always in the middle of the map, while The Forward Barracks can be to the east or to the west side of the map. Both bounties are about clearing a 1st-level-only dungeons, so they're pretty quick.
5) Leave game and repeat by going back to 2) .
*: you can do the "run" at the difficulty you prefer; T6 just gives you the best exp and cash reward you can hope for.
Each of the two bounties, if done at T6, award around 42 millions exp (52 millions if you have a Pool of Reflection active) . You can even do the bounty at T5, so you can kill the mobs faster, and raise the difficulty to T6 just before killing the last mob, in order to get the better exp reward. Each of the two mini-dungeons home an elite/unique group of mobs, anc you can often find a Treasure Goblin, too (which you must kill or let escape, to complete the bounty).
A T6 run with an end level equipment take around 4 minutes, so this is quite a good way to level up.
Both the bounties where part of the original Alkayzer Run 2.0, but I find somehow quicker (and perhaps boring) to farm just these two bounties. On the PC version, the exp amount has been fixed and reduced accordly to the time needed to clear the quests, so probably it will be changed on the PS4, too, but at present patch (which should be 2.0.6), you can still abuse it.
Because of the way PS3 and PS4 make savegames, the Diablo 3 console version can easily be exploited.
To some degree, all the stuff described here can be considered cheating.
Personally I consider true cheating when you employ external programs (like "trainers") to easy your game (invincibility mode, infinite gold, one-shot-kill mode etc. etc), or when you (or someone other) modify game data to gain advantage (like changing a savegame by altering it's code).
Exploiting is more about abusing a game's programming and architectural "faults": you don't touch the code in any way; you don't modify anything, you don't use external aid to change the original purpose of the programmation. You just slip through the "holes" left in the system in order to obtain a little or strong advantage.
That said, I'm totally ok with exploitation ("Hey, developers, you left that available, so I'll use it until you'll fix it!"), even if I'm against cheating ("Using that SuperUltraUberUniversalModdedInvincibility Sword is just plain sh*t!").
So, it's just up to you to decide what to do with the following informations: use them, ignore them, deprecate them, I just don't bother. ;)
Anyway, what's all of this about? All the stuff relates to the fact that PS3 and PS4 don't save every thing you do inside Diablo (where PC does): the savegame is written once you create a new game, when you exit that game through the appropriate menù option, and again every few minutes or when some special events occurs (mainly checkpoints). If you close Diablo by selecting the "Close game/Close application" option available when pressing the "PS" button on the joypad, you'll exit the game without giving it the time to save (this way to exit Diablo will be grom now addressetd to as "kill/killing diablo 3"). Such a thing can be abused at our advantage in a number of different ways.
So, what can you actually do?
- Duplicate item/gold
This is also called dupe/duping and is about creating a copy of gold or any item in the game.
There are mainly two ways to do this.
The simpler is to send items or gold to a friend through the mailbox, closing Diablo 3 before it saves as explained above. This is very viable, but you must be warned that you should send only few items at once, or you'll risk that Diablo will naturally save the game when your items are sent, making the modifications permanent. You can even use this method alone, on the same console, using two different accounts and sending stuff between them, logging through them. This can be a bit slow if you don't have 2 joypads, but is still quite useful to duplicate craft materials, gems, gold, and Horadric Caches. Here are the detailed steps:
1. Go to the mailbox and click on it.
2. Select the person you're sending the duplicate stuff (items or gold).
3. Select the items and/or the gold you want to send.
4. Send it and a message will ask you if you want to do that. Click ok.
5. A message saying the item has been sent will appear.
6. Kill Diablo 3.
If you have two joypads available, you can duplicate stuff much more quickly, by following these steps:
1. Log in Account A with Joypad A and start a game.
2. Log in Account B with Joypad B, choose any character and join the game.
3. Account A drops the item you want to duplicate.
4. Account B picks it up and exit the game with the appropriate menù option, saving the game.
5. Account B enter the game again with the previously used character, which should be in possession of the item Account A dropped. Account B now drop that item, then leave the game by long-pressing the PS button and logging out from PS4. This way the original item will be on the ground and Account A can gather it. Rinse and repeat for fast dupe.
This is very simple: Just spend your Blood Shards at Kadala's "shop", but leave the game with the PS-button method if you don't get the item you're searching for. This way you'll restart with all your Blood Shards intact. You can even mix this with the dupe method, by sending to another account the interesting items you get from Kadala before killing Diablo 3 to reset everything.
In the PS3/PS4 version of the game, an Horadric Cash content is rolled upon opening it, not when it's received. The level is set when you get it from Tyrael, but the class isn't. Beacuse of this you can even farm them with, for example, a Crusader and obtain Intellicenge-based items if you open them with a Witch Doctor. Pairing this with the dupe method can allow you to easily find all the special Horadric Cashes rewards (starting with the pretty useful Ring of Royal Grandeur).
In a way much similar to the Blood Shards abuse, you simply try some crafting/enchanting and, if you're not satisfied with the results, you can just kill Diablo 3 to retain all the material used in the procedure. All the enchanting modifications will be lost, as will be any item you crafted, but you can easily try again without wasting tons of money and materials.
- Experience trick
An additional trick you can use is what I call the Difficulty Change Trick (what a mystical and evocative name eh? I know, I know, got a great inspiration here, for it!). While adventuring in Sanctuary, you can always change the game difficulty by 1 step harder or easier (even more, under some circumstances), switching, for example, from T5 to T6 in a couple of seconds. To do this, just bring up the in-game menù, select Change Difficulty and adjust it. Do this just before completing a "quest" (finishing a bounty, talking to Orek after a rift, talking to Tyrael after completing the 5 bounties of an act etc. etc.), increasing the difficulty to the higher step you can reach, to gain some additional experience. Return to previous difficulty once done, or just leave game and restart it at a different difficulty level. Simple, clean and helpful.
As you can see, some abuses are less game breaking than others. Duping stuff can easily be seen as heavy cheating, while blood shards and crafting/enchanting exploits are just ways to easy your life a bit. Still, you should use them based on your judgment and at your own risk. I just provide informations and I'm not in any way responsable on how you use them ;).
Attached picture does not mean anything for the most, but for me it's a little big satisfaction. After a lifetime as RPGs lover, a passion now standbyed because I'm unable to find a group with which I am comfortable, I was able to tie my name to a commercial work belonging to this world.
It is a small book, more an introduction to a wider world, but still I was part of his birth and growth, something that makes me proud and satisfied, although there will probably not a continuation on thise field, as it can keep you very busy: translate decently from English to a good Italian it's not easy at all!!.
The project concern the FATE role playing game, and in particular the "Accelerated" version, which allows you to quickly approach the complete game with simplicity.
FATE is more a "game creation system" than a classical RPG, as it allows the game master and the players to shape they'r own game experience by detailing both the characters and the world as they like more, and with the participation of everyone.
The standard Blessed Shieldbuild is much different from the one I use. I love both the Cooldown Reduction mechanics and the Blessed Shield skill, so I decided to make my own build, more focused on these two aspects than the classic one, which completely abuse Blessed Shield. Additionally,
What I like very much about my build is that it's heavily based on craftable stuff. You still need one or two very random item(s) (weapon and shield), but all other parts can be crafted or gained with focused farming.
The build allows for a fast farming up to T5 (full tested on rifts and the famous Alkayzer Run 2.0). I gave some tries on T6, but I actually miss survivability. It's doable, but death is pretty common. I'm sure that more paragon levels and the Unity "trick" (see "Ring 2", below) will surely fix this!.
The equip is aimed to heavily boost "classic" damage output (atkSpd, crit% and critDmg), because the build deals a mix of holy and physical damage. Additionally, this equipment setup focus on building an high amount of cooldown reduction, in order to abuse the various CD-based skill you'll emply.
General tips: Aim for a life amount over 450k+ as soon as possible, and keep all of your resistances over 850. Armor is very important too, but a high amount of this stat should came naturally to you, as a Strength based character: resist all is better than armor bonus, on items, at least until you're under 900 on resistances. Try to keep a 1:10 aspect ratio between crit% and critDmg (40% crit and 400% crit dmg, for example). AtkSpd is very useful for this build, as you're not going to depend on resources, so every point of atkSpd is just sheer dps gain. As always, in all stats, the highest the better ;) .
Weapon: Gyrfalcon's Foote: this weapon is mandatory for the build. Without it you can't abuse Blessed Shield. You should aim for Str, dmg% and socket (with Emerald). If you're able to put atkSpd into it that's good.
Off-Hand: Jekangbord: This shield is not mandatory, but it makes the build much more effective, so you should get one. Str, and crit% are mandatory. A high parry% is quite useful (and increases damage), and Vit, resAll, and 6 ricochets all helps.
Helm: Aughild's Spike; On this, you want at least Str, crit% and socket. It always come with resAll, which is good if you need survivability. If you don't need it, just throw in Blessed Shield dmg% increase!
Necklace: Any heavy dps necklace is fine. Your best choice is Str, critDmg, atkSpd and crit%. CdReduction and holyDmg are also good choices.
Gloves: Cain's Scriviner; Str, atkSpd, critDmg and crit% (in this order).
Bracers: Aughild's Search; Str, crit%, holyDmg% are mandatory. Vit or resAll based on what you need more as additional stat. You can go Str, Vit, crit% and resAll if you prefer more survivability.
Ring 1: Ring of Royal Grandeur; The best you can get here is Str, atkSpd, critDmg and crit% (in this order of importance). Take the best you can. The item usually comes with atkSpd and Str, and you need it for it's special quality.
Ring 2: Any good ring will be fine. Try to use this slot to balance what you're missing most. The build gives high survivability for it's game style (ranged with very high mobility), so you should probably focus on damage. As always Str, atkSpd, critDmg, cdReduction and crit% (in this order) are among the best choices. Stone of Jordan is always a solid option, even if this build can live without an high amount oh holyDmg% (but the eliteDmg% is good). Unity is the best choice for high Torment, one for you and one for your follower equipped with the Immortality Focus/Token/Relic: this will make you almost undying.
Gems: socket everything with Rubies, unless you need more life or resistance, but put your best Diamond on Helm.
Paragon Levels
Core: Cap Movement Speed, all other in Strength.
Offense: Cap atkSpd, critDmg and cdReduction in this order. Perhaps you need crit% more than other stats, but this depends on your equip. http://www.bannedofgamers.com/index.php?cdr/ is a good tool to find out your true Cooldown Reduction and decide the way to go.
Defense: cap Resist All, then Life% and Armor, based on your needs.
Utility: Area Damage must be capped first, then Life on Hit. You can reverse this, if you see you need healing power.
Phalanx - Bowmen: I always felt my build suffered from low single-target damage. This skill completely balance the issue. Thanks to the high Cooldown Reduction, you can throw out the four archers quite often, and they kick ass hard. At my equip level, they attack very fast, with a typical critical hit around 2M damage.
Steed Charge - Endurance: Life saver and farm speeder. As for Phalanx, this ability benefits like hell from Cooldown Reduction, allowing you to summon the horse almost every time you need it. This often save you from dire situations and speed up the farming process a lot, especially while doing bounties.
A simple demonstrative video
Shield Glare - Divine Verdict: With the high cooldown reduction of this build, you can almost spam this skill whenever you want. This means great degree of crowd control (versus common thrash, you can keep them blinded almost forever, if you want!) and a good bost in damage, especially to the Phalanx's one, as you don't use Lord Commander.
Laws of Valor - Critical: Increase atkSpd is quite good for this build, and the ungly boost in critDmg given by activation can literally melt enemies. Throw out the Law, Phalanx and Champion and you'll have 5 seconds of pure power. Cooldown reduction boost the benefiets of using this skill alot.
Akarat's Champion - Prophet: Kaio-ken button. You became almost invicible for enough time to destroy everything on your path or just put yourself in a safer position. Cooldown reduction make it very viable even without the Akkhan set.
Passive Skills: Fervor and Finery are a must, as they better the overall build'd performances alot. Additionally, Towering Shield is a must as it boost both Blessed Shield and Shield Glare. Finally, Holy Cause is just the perfect completion, adding both dps and survivability to the build.
Additional Considerations
I often change things and try other stuff, out of boredom or because I'm not completely satisfied buy the build. Heaven's Fury is a skill like alot, even if it never satisfy me, as this build lacks the amount of holyDamage needed to use it with efficiency. Sometimes I switch Shield Glare - Divine Verdict with Bombardment - Annihilate or Bombardment - Targeted, a skill I really like, even if I always feel like it has a way too long cooldown for what it does, even with Lord Commander replacing Towering Shield (or Holy Cause) and high cooldown reduction.
As an additional note, as this build isn't completely focused on Holy damage (especially when you use Bombardmentover Heaven's Fury), we can assume it can benefits from the +min/max damage affix. Still, I'm not that much into maths to be able to say how much, when and if it's best than +holyDmg, but having it on necklace, and rings can give a nice overall damage boost, increasing Phalanxdamage alot, especially if your cooldown reduction is high enough to spam it often!
Anyway, as you can image, this can be considered an entry build, until you can put your hands on the stuff you miss to reach what is considered the "optimal" Blessed Shield build. Still I think the cooldown reduction focus can offer an interesting, different and fun approach, without losing much effectiveness. As always, just try to find the way to play you like must, as the most important thing is to have fun while clearing Sanctuary from the sh*i!
I'm making my way to this game Platinum trophy. I just want to share a quick method I used to do the Walking Bank and Businessman trophies, even if you probably already figured it out by yourself.
The method is plain simple: the Bandit chapter is the only one where you have access to both a vendor and a good number of opponents. The full level homes around 30 human enemies, mainly equipped with personalized Lolife, Duplet and Ashot.
These weapons are worth around 25-65 military rounds each. Because of this, even in the worst scenario, you should be easily able to reach the 1000 military rounds amount needed for Walking Bank by just gathering the dropped weapons and running back to the vendor to sell them.
Remember you can't sell all your weapons (Artyom will always keep at least one with him), so this can take a while, but it's neverthless the quickest way to complete the trophy.
The Businessman trophy comes by itself just after completing the previous one: the best way to do it is to quickly buy and resell Throwing Knives at the above mentioned vendor. At a minimum cost and in no time, you'll also get this trophy.
I just received the printed version of the FATE STAR WARS book, translated in Italian language by MAMMUT RPG . Both the translation and the final physical result are quite satisfying.
When I want to print a book from PDF (or another digital format) to paper, I use YouCanPrint services .
You can build an estimate directly from the website, and the final costs are always quite good, if you print in Black&White. For most of the books I printed so far, the shipping costs have always been higher than the book itself, because YouCanPrinte uses SDA Courier instead of taking advantage of the lower costs Itialian Post Office can offer for books delivery.
Preparation times aren't incredibly fast, because they prepare a draft of the final product you need to approve before they proceed with print and delivery. All of this took around 3 weeks, if you answer quickly to their mails.
They publish your books, too, as eBook or paper: the one YOU write, I mean :), taking charge of everything is legally needed.
I'm quite satisfied by this print-on-demand service, and I strongly reccomend it to anyone who needs somthing similar.
If you are the lucky owner of a Nexus 5 smartphone like me, you are perhaps using a Spigen Nexus 5 Hybrid cover. The feature I like most of this cover (which is overall quite good, even if a bit big in size, vote 7/8) is the possibility to put an image as a cover for the back side of your phone. You just have to find a suitable one, use a template to "build" it in the right way, print it out and cut it.
I've played quite alot with this, creating some very ugly covers, but today I camed out with a couple of good ones (I think, at least), mostly thanks to the beautiful arts by Ale Giorgini. My favorite is the one on the right, which is Star Wars themed, but the others are cool, too.
I'm going to share them with you all, along with the template to build your own, as you can see by the picture attached to this post. To gain the printable versions, just right-click on the picture you want to download and choose "Save Picture as...", or whichever option your browser uses for this purpose.
I suggest to print these pictures on some kind of photo paper, which is more solid and resistant than common paper. You cna easily use a scissor to cut out the longest edges, but you should switch to a cutter when taking care of the camera hole, which don't need to be perfect, as the edges are somehow hidden by the cover borders themself.
Meh, I just noticed I haven't made any post on the two new guys who share my home! I adopted them from Arzignano's shelter, around 3 months ago, which is a long time without putting something about them on my blog :) !
Povia is the biggest of the two. I'm so sorry it was given such a nasty name in the shelter, but that's it, he is used to it, so I kept it, even if he is Anakin for me (you know, black, missing a limb, somehow self centered and possessive/protective). He is a beautiful belgian shepherd who was hit by a car during his life on the road, and had his left front leg amputee. Neverthless he still is a force of nature: he runs like a bullet, fast like the wind and jump without a problem to great heights; sure, he become tired and winded quickly, but the athletic prowess he shows, even with the handicap, always leav me breathless. He search cuddle and contact alot, and always try to keep attention on him, especially when you try to give it to the other dogs. It's a pity my other two furred babies are a bit scared from his size compared to their, while playing, so Povia is often left a bit aside during games, and he suffer for this, even if I play with him. When he jumps on you, giving his only frontal leg to attract attention, or just sit doing the same, he is absolutely irresistible :)
Cedric is much smaller. Smaller than Ennoia, in fact. He is stocky and strong, a little bit chubby, with short legs and massive feet which face outward. He is clumsy and not athletic at all, but has a lot of strength and loves to play with Ennoia. He also play with Povia often, but gets tired quickly, since Povia mouth is bigger than his head, so there is little to do ;). I kept the name he was given at the shelter, too, although he is Obi-Wan for me (brown and white, good-hearted, positive attitude and pretty quiet, but always ready for action). You can't say he is beautiful to look at, but is incredibly nice and fun, and has a set of attitudes (as he sit down, how he looks at you, how he search for cuddling) that can not steal some smiles.
So, they're my two new joys, even if now I spend a capital for food, veterinary and the like and al the three of them can become quite an hurricane in the moments of maximum activity :)
Before last Christmas, between October and November 2013, I finally decided to give a deeper try to Star Wars: The Old Republic (the MMORPG from Bioware / EA), which I played in its early days, with little enthusiasm.
This time I decided to pull out the 12 euros needed to play "full powered" for a whole month. After createing my human Jedi Guardian with thriving joy, I went into the Galaxy of the Old Republic, loving the experience alot.
Massive amount of quests (many of which quite funny and interesting, though, in the end, they always resolves around the usual take quest - go clik/kill - report), several instances (trying to learn how to tank all those enemies with ranged weapons!) and a lots of hilarious PvP (funny!). All of this without joining a clan, enjoying the freedom to explore the game with my times and some privacy. So, I often used the public chat for help or a talk here and there.
During one of the many breaks, wasting time on the Republican orbital fleet, a bloody discussion on God, religion and similar dangerous arguments exploded in the public chat. After spending a few minutes reading the verbal confrontation, I decided to intrude with a "joke". So I wrote, perhaps in favor of one of the factions, but not on purpose, the following sentence: "I find your lack of faith disturbing"... The result? A sudden shift to general laughter, and a burst of Star Wars quoting by everyone, with the addition of the almost instantaneous dissipation of the controversial discussion (and including a good amount of private messages from amused strangers).
Moral: You can solve most arguments in life with a good and solid Star Wars quote :) . Darth Vader Approves!
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