Like ethereals did? Would be nice to have that power boost will make leveling fun.
It’s already quick I’m not denying that but the shards may make it a tad more exciting.
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They will. They did on the PTR so it’s going to be like that in live.
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It is not the shards that concern me it is the embers. How often will they drop?
Well they drop more frequently than ramas gift, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up, that I find one while leveling.
I leveled 4 characters on the ptr with rifts, got a ton of shards but not a single ember… do they even drop pre 70?
Yes they do.
TinneOnnMuin:
oh, by the way: bosses from different acts drop specific shards
act 1 = anguish
act 2 = lies
act 3 = sin + destruction
act 4 = terror + pain
act 5 = hatred
acts 1/2/5 bosses seemed to drop that single shard every time
acts 3+4 bosses seemd to drop only half the time, but dropped 2 when they did
it also seemed independent of difficulty, looked the same on normal vs. t10 vs t16
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Do the main stats work on follower?
On the tier 2 shards? I’ll be honest I haven’t payed attention to that. My guess is yes but I might be wrong.
Those blasted cubes are rarer than hen’s teeth until you get fairly far into the game. I’m doing a play thru on the EU server just for giggles. I just cracked GR70 with my LoD wizard and am closing in on P500 and I still haven’t seen a single one. And that’s typical for me, I rarely get a slot cube before P600 or so, maybe once in the last 4 seasons. So if that’s how often the embers drop… ugh.
My concern too about the embers.
Yes they work with main stat. All the bonuses besides the legendary bonuses work.
so bottom line is: Shards drop while leveling and can be targeted.
BUT since embers don’t start dropping till you’re 70 they are not going to be as useful as Ethereals were while leveling.
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FilthyCasual had a video on this:
How Soul Shards will affect levelling in Diablo 3 Season 25 (Guide) - YouTube
So, if they do drop from bosses 100% from Acts 1, 2, and 5 (we won’t really know until season start), there are really 3 that are worth targetting.
Essence of Anguish (Weapon, Act 1) - Every time you deal poison damage to an enemy you increase your cooldown reduction and movement speed by 2.5% while your damage received is increased by 5% for 10 seconds. Max 10 stacks.
Dreg of Lies (Weapon, Act 2) - You deal 25% less damage. Your pets deal 50% increased damage
Shard of Hatred (Helm, Act 5) - You deal 15% reduced damage while you have 3 or fewer enemies within 25 yards. If more than 3 enemies are within the same distance, you deal 10% increased damage per enemy (to a maximum of 100%).
As mentioned in the video, Lies will really work well for Monks. But for leveling 1-70, that’s about all really. And that assumes you get Crudest Boots. No other class really uses pets for efficient leveling. Yes, Witch Doctors and Necros can use pets in their leveling process, but those are less about doing damage.
The main problem here though is that it’s a weapon gem. Once you get to 40, you’ll really want a Level Reduced Weapon, and getting one with a socket means you either need to get exceptionally lucky, or you need to tradeoff either vitality or your main stat. Vitality is crucial for playing harder difficulties, especially in hardcore. So, either you won’t have your main stat, or you’ll trade life on hit. The main stat is probably the way to go here. The reason being, trading life on hit means that it’s harder to get a good level reduce weapon.
I would say the real winner here is Shard of Hatred and Necro. For Cursed Chest leveling, it’s all upside. It’s a helm gem, so you don’t need to worry about sacrificing something on your Level Reduce Weapon. And you only do 15% reduced damage with few close by enemies. Corpse Explosion though is typically overpowered enough though, that with a Level Reduce Weapon, you can stay on T6 all the way to Level 70, while carrying one other player. For Cursed Chest leveling, you typically need 1 Necro per other player, thus, in a group of 4, 2 Necros. So, with this, you could probably carry 2 other players now per necro. The downside is, it’s an Act 5 boss drop. So, if in a group, I’d probably have one player just try to get to one of the bosses. Malthael is the fastest to get too, but Adria, is probably the overall best boss to face. The other player will get decent massacre bonuses getting there, and she’s faster to defeat than Urzael or Malthael. It’s not like you’re going to have a socket in your helm at Level 1 anyway.
Outside of that though, I think they’re really going to just hurt your leveling process, unless you do rifts or can’t hit 70 in under 2.5 hours normally.
So while they can drop from bosses in rifts etc. We need to farm act bosses instead, like keywardens?
No, that’s just an easy way to get them, if you’re after a specific shard.
Seems like some have told that they drop more from these act bosses than rifts, like from the post from tinneonnmuin
Anyone know the approximate ember drop rate?
Yes as said shards are more linked to boss drops so you can actually farm bosses for much higher chance. Embers are more like Ethereals in drop rate, didn’t spend too much time on PTR this time but if I were to guess I’d put a 66-75% more common tag on it, just under twice as much as Ethereals.
Wudi mentioned that from playing the PTR he had gotten 11 embers and 6 ramaladnis in a period of time.
That’s much appreciated info there thank you.