Having trouble getting to T4? Think your build is junk? Well my friend (or foe) you’ve come to the right place. Here’s a not so quick, but very dirty guide on how to properly progress your character. I’ve even broken it up into different sections for your convenience!
How do I get to T4?
For the most part, the order of things to do goes like this:
- Run helltides in T3 → Aspects & boss mats
- Run bosses in T2 or T3 → Uniques & reputation
- Open seasonal caches with all the reputation you’ve gotten → Ancestral legendaries
- Run Infernal Hordes in T3 via party finder → obducite
- Temper and Masterwork gear
- Run pit 55 and test out T4 → If you’re still unable to clear T4 content, rinse and repeat from the top.
Once you get to T4 try doing some of the content in T4. If you can’t there’s no shame in going back to T3 to gear up more.
Gearing overview
Gearing is extremely important for your build. I’ll first go over the basics, and then what stats you need to actually see those big numbers.
What stats are good?
Long story short, it depends on the build, but to start here’s how you determine what’s strong for you.
- Look through your skill tree for passives that give multiplicative (x) damage. Keep those in mind for + passives on tempers and amulets
- Look through your offensive aspects, determine which give scaling bonuses instead of flat damage. Skill deals % (x) increased damage
- Determine what your main source of damage is (overpower, crit, vuln) and build around that.
Gearing: the basics
Now this part’s pretty important. Many newer players default to using a ton of uniques because hey, they’re unique! That’s better than legendaries right? WRONG.
- Many uniques are build defining, giving you massive increases to damage or changing how a skill works entirely. USE THESE
- Some uniques are generally good, giving you decent bonuses to damage but nothing build defining. USE ONLY WHEN THE ALTERNATIVE (legendary w/ aspect) IS WORSE
- Some uniques are useless (frostburn, butcher’s cleaver, etc.). I don’t care if you have a 4 star butcher’s cleaver with perfect rolls. DON’T USE THESE
The power of Legendaries
Legendary items more often than not will take your build to the next level, with the amulet, rings, and weapons being the most important items. They give two things we need for a strong build: Tempers and Aspects. I’ll give examples of how this propels my current build (earthquake) to insane strength.
Tempers:
- 83% chance for earthquake to cast twice is basically doubling my damage.
- +12 to heavy hitter gives me 180% multiplicative damage to my earthquakes
Aspects:
- Incindiary fissures: Your earthquakes deal 120% multiplicative increased damage, their damage is converted to fire
- Executioner’s: Your earthquake damage is increased by 5% multiplicative for every 100 strength, up to 200%
And that is why substituting any legendary weapon, amulet, or ring with a unique should be heavily weighed, because altogether just the things I’ve listed alone are giving me more than 500% multiplicative damage.
Armor and Resistance
Armor is capped at 1000 and resistances are capped at 70%. Max resistances can be increased on your paragon board and through gear, but for the most part it’s not necessary. Here’s some tips on how to cap out:
- Aspect of the Juggernaut: Gives around 500 armor at the cost of having 0% dodge chance. Absolutely busted for early game
- Potions/incense: You can have three incenses in total, one for stats, one for armor/health, and one for resistances. Basically always use these as they always give % exp bonuses. There is a potion for armor, but it’s pretty bad. I recommend using any other potion (the health one is pretty good)
- Armor on gear: Generally a bad idea, but if you’re just getting into T4 by all means go for it. You can also roll % armor on some tempers and on your amulet
- Resistance on gear: Most builds will need to socket in all res to their legendaries at some point. Don’t be afraid to do this, but for the love of god DON’T enchant an amulet with all res over + passives unless you absolutely need to, and DON’T go for a specific res unless you’re using sinnerat’s flames, all res is common enough that you won’t need to.
- Diamonds/Skulls (IMPORTANT) Socketing a diamond or skull into jewelry gives you all res or armor respectively. This is typically how players get around having armor / all res on everything.
How do I make a good item?
For starters anything with a single GA in main stat is a good item. All of these are potential endgame weapons and armor. Here’s the rundown on what to look for. PS: you can always substitute the GA to main stat for a GA in your main damage source, but don’t underestimate main stat. It’s really strong!
Weapon
One GA in mainstat + one usable stat. Enchant for main damage source or max life
Armor
One GA in mainstat + resistance or health. Enchant for whatever you’re missing (res, health, armor). If you’re already beefy and have 1000 armor / 70% res, you could reroll for + to skills, though this is not necessary.
Amulet (IMPORTANT)
One GA in % main stat OR usable passive. Enchant for + passive pretty much always.
Amulets can roll a number of strong stats including:
- % main stat
-
- passive
- Cooldown reduction
- Chance to make enemies vulnerable on lucky hit → good source of procing vuln if you have none.
Ring
One GA in mainstat, crit, or attack speed (depending on build) + one usable stat. Enchant for attack speed, crit chance, or all res.
Gearing: The TL:DR
Here’s basically what you should do, or plan to do, before you get the idea that your build sucks or the game’s too hard
- Temper items correctly (see above)
- Masterwork to 12/12. Double crits are fine, you don’t need a triple
- Have main stat on everything
- Find an amulet with % main stat
- Enchant amulet for + passives
- Get glyphs up to 46
- Build around your main source of damage (overpower, crit, vuln)
- Use good rune combos
- Use good jewels
Once you’ve done all that, your build should be T4 ready
What am I doing wrong? The TL:DR
Probably one of these things.
- Too many uniques
- Too many mythics
- Going for triple crit masterworks with 20k obducite
- No masterworking at all
- Incorrect tempers
- Incorrect aspects
- Not enough + to passives
- Sub-optimal runes
- Currently using melted heart of selig
How do I get XYZ
- GA legendaries: seasonal cache obtained via reputation
- GA uniques: lair bosses on T3 or T4
- Mythics: lair bosses and end of seasonal quest cache (1 per character, can buy oath scrolls from vendor to use on new character. Honestly look this up on youtube)
- Obducite for masterworking: Infernal Hordes and undercity (tribute of refinement)
- Forgotten souls: lair bosses, seasonal cache
- Runes (Trading): sell uniques from lair bosses for gold and buy em
- Runes (SSF): Tribute of Harmony, lair bosses
- Jewels: Infernal Hordes
- Gold (Trading): Legendary runes sell for 250m and up, grand jewels sell for 1b and up.
- Gold (SSF): Whispers
- Gud: read my guide
Feel free to agree with me in the comments.
