Made it level 70 now what?

Hardcore
1

Hey everyone,

I finished campaign mode and then finished getting to level 70 using bounties.

I found the cube and found the altar.

Question #1

What should my next goals be?

I’m a bit confused on what the cube does. It strips out a property from legendary, so I can put it on other legendaries I’m building. Should I be feeding all my legendaries into a cube? Not quite sure how that works.

I’m currently playing on Hard. If I wasn’t playing on hardcore, I’d probably just play around and experiment with different builds, but considering I can die, I’m a bit scared to do that.

I’ve found maxroll.gg and found several necro hardcore builds.

I found LOD, Trag, & Inarious nova builds, and 2 other that use scythes (Masqeured bone spear & LOD posions scythe).

Question #2
Do most people follow these builds to a T? Or do you all just play around and find what you like?

I was having fun using Corpse Explosion, Decrepify, Singularity Mage, and Army of Dead.

I’d use explosion for trash mobs, use mage for elites, and I had an oh crap button which I hardly ever needed in the army of dead. I had the teleport skill in case I needed to get out.

This worked much better than the Nova builds I’m trying to run now, but I’m guessing that’s because I do have any of the gear they suggest.

Question #3
How do I decide and understand when I should advance my difficulty level?

Question #4
The closest I came to dying was going into one of those white portals. I’ve been avoiding those, not really even sure that they are. Should I be avoided those for now until I get some good gear?

Thanks for any input!

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Q1:

The Cube extracts a legendary power (that orange “property”) and lets you just use it. There are 3*) powers you can use simultaneously - one from any weapon your class can use, one from any piece of armor your class can use, and one from any piece of jewelry your class can use.
This is not what you can see in Diablo 4 - where you extract a legendary power and transfer it to another item.

*) This season adds fourth slot in the Cube, in which you can use any legendary power from whatever item your class can use.

Q3:
Maybe when you notice that you do not lose life that easy and at the same time it feels too easy to kill mobs (especially elites).

Q4:
Yes, on hardcore you should definitely avoid those portals (“Visions”) when you do not have good gear. These portal have increased difficulty each floor, and elites have unique affixes (not to be met outside of Visions) that can be deadly to unsuspecting player - especially when there’s a pack of spinners that slow you down, greatly reduce your life regeneration and cast a storm upon you - if you do not have CC immunity and passability (both can be acquired from the Altar), you can be dead within seconds.

3

The Guides are pretty good, but they are just that: Guides.
They show what high-level players in SC are using. Lower-level players, especially in HC should be aware. EX: Squirts necklace can kill you in HC. Bane of the Powerful gem is more useful than Stricken until you get well above GR 100.
Assume that the Vision portals run 2-3 levels higher than the level you find them on. You can survive a Vision on Normal if you are comfortable doing Expert Rifts, and so on.
Do not attempt an Echoing Nightmare until you are quite strong. They will kill you.
Keep backup gear in stash because you Will die.

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4

Q1: your goal now is to set up a build, with a 6-piece set and supporting legendaries. You can do that through the season journey, or running lower difficulty content with whatever skill and synergising gear you have (typically with legacy of dream legendary gem). Your next goal after that is to set up a second and third copy of that build, so that when you die, you are ready to go again. :smiley:

Q2: Do what you enjoy. That said, following a guide is way stronger than just randomly piecing together gear and skills that look cool. As for how exactly you need to follow guides, almost all of the gear and skills provide key bonuses, so randomly exchanging a skill or piece of gear will break the build more often than not, or at least make it significantly weaker. There are flavours to all builds, changes that makes the build a play a little differently, and sometimes even makes it a little stronger. But you need to know the game very well to find those modifications without losing power. As a new player, safer to follow the guides exactly. Most maxroll guides have suggested changes for hardcore or for improving defense, I do suggest you make all of those suggested changes, as you are low paragon, hardcore, and inexperienced.

Q3: I’m not a hardcore player myself, but get your 2 cheat deaths (one passive skill, one from follower), increase the difficulty one step, if your cheat death procs (too often) or you kill too slowly, go back down.

Q4: Those portals have the best legendary drop rates in the game, but of course not worth dying for. Farming them is good, but might want to drop a difficulty or two for that. Again, like in Q3, use your two cheat deaths, and if you proc, get back up to previous level, go to town and remake the game at lower difficulty.

And in general in HC, keep plenty of backup gear in your stash. You will die, by disconnects if not else.

Good luck.

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5

Complete the Season Journey.

Here’s a list of the Season Journey Objectives (There’s a total of 9 Chapters): D3 Planner: Diablo 3 Season Journey Tracker

For detailed information on Seasons:

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6

To get set and ancient items as drops you have to play on Torment 1 at least.

You still can get them from Kadala before that.

My recommendation - try to get a strong (especially defensive) build together (Legacy of Dreams legendary gem drops from Greater rifts very early on) and then work your way towards higher Torments.

Good luck!

7

Q1: What should my next goals be?

WORLD DOMINATION!!!

Oh you mean in game? ummm… dunno, maybe… game domination?

Q2: Do most people follow these builds to a T?
We play around and find what we like.

Q3: How do I decide and understand when I should advance my difficulty level?
You keep going until you either just can’t kill elites “fast enough” or you get hit HARD enough to say “WHOAH!” and want to run away. Then you change something in your build/gear or step back a level.

Q4: White portals?
Do you mean Echoing Nightmares? Those can be dangerous if you’re not careful. There’s no “quit” button you have to run away which lets the “overwhelm” progress bar go all the way across and the Nightmare ends. The longer you last in it, the higher the level loot you will eventually get. Assuming you live. If your hc toon dies in one, IT. DIES.

They can reward up to a Level 125 “legendary gem” for solely useful for augmenting a legendary giving it +625 stat points. Level 125 takes a normally long time to grind for so spending 10+ minutes to get one is a major thing.