Hi,
New, solo only player here, my 2nd season (got fed up with D4 so tried D3…)
Playing Nova necro mostly because I am lazy and hate complex rotations 
I am very impressed with the build, pretty much moved to TragOul not soon after I got the Inarius season gift.
I am currently 24 on the leaderboard (paragon 1456), cleared 136 ~10min or so and I am very happy with it. However, I just watched a video where somebody cleared 150 with worse gear, no augments, etc. and I am like how?? What am I missing?
I though you need better gear so I did a lot of speed rifts (105) to get better/primal gear but all I got was just paragon really, mostly got complete utter rubbish when it comes to primals.
Sure, I know there is a strat about pylons leaving one for the boss fight, need good map and good mob types too what you either get or not but I am sure there are some techniques like I recently learnt that just before my physical rotation I should fire bone armour to stun so my dmg is more, drinking potions could get me frenzy shrine effect, etc
But even applying these strats, I feel like I am struggling on dmg with even on 136, I don’t know how the guy shred the boss health so fast after clicking on the pylon. The pylon did not span that many mobs, to fuel bloodtide blade
Thanks and happy holidays!
Pushing higher GRs is difficult. These people you see on youtube have often played the game thousands of hours over a decade and will have great decision making and extremely clean execution. Coming in new and playing a little for a couple of season, it will be near impossible for you to match their clears.
That said, you will improve as you play, especially if you know what you’re aiming for.
Some things to be aware of, and other might add more:
- First, you’re at a disadvantage playing console. Targeting is more difficult as you say, and you have to deal with the nephalem globe buffs that PC has by default.
- Use maxroll. There is a guide for the build, and there is a guide for how to push GR. While maxroll is not always 100% accurate, it’s an invaluable resource for new players.
- Gear is important. At low paragon like you and the linked video, you will be nowhere close to perfect gear, and knowing which of the imperfect drops is best can make a huge difference.
- Know when to leave a rift. When you push, most rifts simply can’t be cleared. Fish for something you can clear.
- Execute your rotation perfectly. For this, you want to understand the mechanics of the build, ever item, every skill, every gem, every passive, etc.
- Knowing all the map, mob, pylon and RG mechanics helps a lot. Without many many hours in the game, this is just impossible. So try to pay attention as you play, read up or ask when confused, and you’ll improve. For example in the video you linked, the rift guardian was saxtris, that spawns swarms of minions below 75% health. One of the best RGs for nova for that reason, and was the reason the RG HP bar disappeared in a couple cycles once below 75% HP.
Thanks a lot, makes a lot of sense… Yes, I tend to base my builds on maxroll but most of the time, you just have to improvise and adjust as their build displays everything being perfect. I understand that I am a rookie although have solid experience in D2/D4 but the 4th cube slot and the extra 400% dmg is so tempting to push high tiers… if I cannot do it now, I doubt I can later on without this buff.
I watched number of videos lately and I am beginning to believe that the core issue for me is the mob targeting/stricken stacking as you said and I am also losing focus in the heat of the battle 
and don’t pull enough mobs around me despite not really having survivability issues. I find it difficult to hit elites and stack stricken in a large groups with body positioning being the only targeting mechanism and as I learnt yesterday, elites lose stricken stack as soon as they lose agro of you.
Few questions if I may ask:
- what is the nephalem globe buff we don’t have?
- is there an indicator or sign for bane of the stricken stacks?
- does the leaderboard (what I see) show console players only?
I am on Xbox and when I check the character details sometimes I see lots of extra buffs icons but I cannot scroll them down in the right window to see everything at the bottom. Is this normal?
Thanks a lot
I’m on PC, so can’t give you details on console mechanics or UI, but apparently stacking nephalem globes gives you more damage, up to factor 2x at full stacks. There is no such mechanic on PC, we instead have the 2x damage already (or consoles have base of 1/2x damage). But that’s all second hand information, you’ll have to ask someone else on how to deal with that.
There is no indicator of stricken stacks (without using cheats), at least not on PC. In general you will only get value out of stricken stacks on the RG. Elites in the rift you will mostly kill with area damage or condi (so don’t stay and dps an elite when there isn’t enough trash around). But you do want to target the elite for the extra damage multiplier on the channeled target. Know the mechanics.
Yes, leaderboards are separate for console, and separated into regions on PC. You can look at maxroll to see the PC regions.
Btw, the game is pretty dead, and so is this forum, so if you have questions about pushing that aren’t about console, then you might get more attention if you post in general sub forum, which is the only sub forum that is even somewhat active these days. Some regular posters here enjoy telling ppl of for posting in wrong forum, so try to formulate it as a general question. 
Thanks a lot, appreciate the answers. I tried to post in other forums but Blizzard says I have to own the game 
This is ridiculous that as a console owner, I can only post here…
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