S28 Meta thoughts

By the looks of it, Bone Spear Necro will not get enough of a buff to replace Tal Meteor or Trag Nova. Saw someone say that Necro buff equals to 9 tiers. Current top Bone Spear on XB is a pathetic 135 clear (this is a jab at the build, not the player). PC pushed 145, but that’s 10k para. Other builds get a bump but won’t be enough to change anything.

Big shocker: Tal Meteor didn’t get nerfed! That’s really good news as FB Twister needed to die a horrible death.

LoD MM is dead because it was the “sanctified” buff that carried it, but another “lawnmower” build is going to replace it; UH Multi-shot is getting major buff.

Most “perks” are QoL and power-creep. No game changers here.

So, all that leaves us with the same 4men meta: 2X Tal Meteor + zDH + zBarb. A round of golf clap, everyone? Big meh! Raise a glass of non-alcoholic gluten free ale in celebration!

zBarb, later in the season, gets to run St. Archew’s gloves and MoC because “perk” will unlock Illusory boots.

Starting sets are gonna match s24:
Uliana Monk; Natalia’s DH; Sader Seeker of Light; Wizard Vyr; Barb IK; Arachyr WD; Trag Necro.
Nothing interesting. It’s still best to start with FB Twister if you’re solo or Necro/Tal in the group.

1 Like

I haven’t played in a few season but what takes FB twister out of the meta for console is meteor just that strong?

The extra progression orbs and potion abilities caught my eye. Getting a pylon effect would be really nice when pushing. Getting a free conduit lol. I wonder if Flavor affects it. It is a 1/11 chance though with 6 shrine and 5 pylon effects in total. Still many pushes will be based around this mechanic and getting good RNG.

Lots of QoL things that are pretty cool. I sat out this current season, but will have one last hurrah for next season. We will see what the final notes say.

Bonespear is nice, but console doesn’t even have close to the density like they do on pc and hit boxes are bigger making it more difficult to pixel. Hulks literally walk into each other on pc and they big bois on console. Tal’s will likely be the meta unless some big changes to patch notes. The extra damage will be nice.

I will probably be starting Necro into zBarb for 4 man. Going for first 150 at the start of the new season. The extra progression orbs and potion abilities will make 150 easy. I can imagine 1:30 times on console. 1 floor maps. Maybe even faster. PC will likely get under a minute (look for those 0% conduits/potion into conduit on supports :crazy_face:) .

Oh and on the zBarb, you wont need IP for this season since you get immunity and the 25% DR is nothing stacked with everything. Maybe take sprint - forced march for more move speed for tal bois. They get the extra 25% from the season theme, so they will be booking it a little bit.

A zNecro might be used with Leech - Blood Flask to get the potion to cooldown faster. Triple support and 1 Tals. Tal feeds the necro kills. The znecro brings a lot as a support just make sure not to rune Frozen Lands.

1 Like

Yeah, next season:
How did you guys clear in 33 seconds?
Well, we got 1 floor Festering and proc’d like 11 condies…

Necro and DH as starters are gonna be hard to beat. The challenge rift gives you enough mats to unlock 2 perks and upgrade 1 level 70 rare. One of the perks is “no level req”, which means you can you can craft 2H (Nec) or dagger (DH) and upgrade rare to pretty much guarantee huge boost at level 2-7.

Other classes have too much in the item pool to guarantee good weapon, but Nec and DH are pretty good. Everyone else might get a great weapon but the skill doesn’t unlock till level 30+

1 Like

You’ll have enough materials to craft a full set of Sage Gear (guaranteed socket in the helm), upgrade a weapon, and craft the rest as yellows. Just convert one set of blues to yellows, and one set of whites to yellows.

Your first goal should be to 18, to unlock the second node. Unfortunately, because Massacre Bonuses don’t help on the console, it’s going to be tedious to get there.

But once you’re at 18 and unlock the second node, you can get to Level 50 in about 15 minutes.

Necro will still be the optimal route though. They can solo to 70 in an hour, and with a group, it’s possible to go faster. And that’s without the No Level Requirement buff. 40-45 minutes as a group to 70 should be possible this season.

Yeah, do you think crafting full Sage’s will be stronger than crafting Karlie’s dagger (375% buff to Impale) or the other dagger (400% Fan of Knives buff) ? Impale is level 2, FoK is level 14 so it’s not as good. CR cache gives you all the mats to get first 2 perks unlocked.

DH will be a great start and the no level req for lvl 70 items will make it easier. The starting sets are a bit scuffed aside from a few. Nats will actually be pretty good on paper. I wonder if the traps are casted at location or on you for the two piece bonus will have to wait until tomorrow. They might do something special like let us pick our set to start with. Probably not, but would be nice as a bonus for the last season.

You’re going to have enough materials for everything.

370 Reusable Parts
350 Arcane Dust
125 Veiled Crystals

Convert 100 Arcane Dust to Veiled Crystals and 100 Reusable parts to Veiled Crystals.

270 Reusable Parts
250 Arcane Dust
325 Veiled Crystals

Each Sage piece is 20/20/30, with 4 pieces being Sage.
The weapon is 15/15/15 with the upgrade costing 50/50/50.
The remaining pieces are 15/15/15, with you needing 5 pieces total.

This comes out to a grand total of 220/220/260. This leaves you with 50 Reusable Parts, 30 Arcane Dust, 65 Veiled Crystals, which is still enough to get your 2 powers unlocked. And that’s assuming you pick up nothing.

Sage is garbage overall for leveling. The only real bonus is being legendary gear (50-100 of each stat, so 200-400 total), and 350 to each stat once you have 2 pieces. But the guaranteed socket is nice, as you’ll almost certainly have a ruby by this point. One other thing about the gear is you’ll have a possibility of +XP gear. That’s one of the great things about it. In my DH run, had +850 XP, which is equivalent to killing a Level 48 monster. And you have the potential to get to 1695 XP per kill.

One other approach, and this might actually be better, if you get lucky. Do a single bounty split bounty run. If you get Cain’s, that’s 50% more XP. Borne’s, 20%. Not really useful to 50, but it will be more helpful from 50-70. And if multiple people in your group have it? Forget about it.

That’s one thing I ended up disappointed with. The difference between all 70 gear and all 61 gear with a Level 70 weapon was only about 25% power. Really, all you need is about 3-4 pieces of 70 gear, and you’re not going to notice a difference between that and full 70 gear.

1 Like

That’s great info! Honestly tho, I’m not even sure any of this theory-crafting will be relevant for leveling. 13 level 70 yellows are gonna be pretty OP. But, it’s fun to talk about.

1 Like

I figure, you can transfer the Sage gear over to your follower for double death breath. That’s why I also feel that, and the auto pickup of Death Breath, are the last things 2 powers that I would upgrade to, locked until I get a Staff of Herding.

I just feel those are too far down in the grid, that you’re going to be more short on materials or Forgotten Souls than you will be Death Breath.

This is how I think I’m going to approach the Altar, as a Demon Hunter:

S28 Altar Planner - Diablo 3 - by Caleko

the only thing that is actually EASIER to get on console than PC. at least we have that crumb to eat.

Starting Sets will be:

DH - GoD
Barb - Savage
WD - Muntu
Sader - AoV
Necro - Masquerade
Monk - PoJ
Wizard - Typhon

Amazing start

2 Likes

Apparently, you can farm bounty bosses for gems. Never needed to know that.

1 Like

From a bit of testing today:

The upgraded primals cannot be sent to a follower. And they don’t necessarily roll with sockets.

If you’re after efficiency, THE ABSOLUTE FIRST THING YOU NEED TO RUSH is the pylon potion. It’s affected by FoT, and it lasts the entire duration. Also, you can get a Shield effect in Echoing Nightmares. Having Channeling outside of Rifts & GRs is awesome. And having Power & Conduit on a fairly consistent basis in GRs is awesome. This is going to be nerfed though, as it’s way too powerful. I managed to complete GR110 in 5 minutes with a build that I’d normally struggle on 90 with.

HC is treated differently than SC. You’re going to need 2 Challenge Caches if you go for both.

Nats is currently broken. Someone already did a GR150 solo with 1000 Paragon.

1 Like

Its the shadow 2 piece bonus buffing the dmg, which will not be there on live. There will likely either be reduction on the shrine/pylon time of effect or an internal cooldown put so you cannot keep getting conduit/power in repetition.

1 Like

It does…it’s insane if you get speed then power/conduit.

Yeah. I watched Wudi and them. Rob got 4 condi on his 145 solo push with a shield. No way they are leaving that live for seasons.

Znecro’s clearing GR150 with the super potion buffs! :slight_smile:

Yeah he spawned the RG in like 4:30 on znec 150 :crazy_face:

Then he sat there trying to get conduit to finish the job, but the gamblin gods were not in his favor. Top necro is Rathma at 3:36ish lulw. Necros are going to be OP for next season depending on what is changed on the potion abilities/leech - blood flask rune.

Seems like top tier is farming 150’s on PTR with the same meta, 2 Tal, zbarb, zdh.