Posted by douvinsky at 02/04/2013 02:12 AM

You are right that most of the gears/ tips are applicable to other classes. Generally if you are thinking of soloing, important checkpoints would be:

1) level15 (socket helm for exp, socket weapon for DPS), or earlier if you could afford the legendaries. Speaking about legendaries, for monk it would be level10 Spirit Stone, See No Evil, which could roll a socket. For 1H, is the slayer of human - Genzaniku but that would cost a few millions.

2) level21-23 (Born's set, Cain's set). You may skip the Born's set if you are on a budget.

3) level30 Insane DPS with Spectrum. But these are very expensive, more than 10 - 20m for a good one. An alternative is keep upgrading your 1H every 8 - 10 levels, that should work well too.

4) level42 -45. Time to look for reduced level weapons. Usually you only need to look at the raw weapon DPS since it is suffice to one hit those mobs in NM. You don't have to look at Loh, LS, socket.

5) Other legendaries checkpoint if you are looking for those additional movement speed from gears. Cap at 25%.

@douvinsky: +1 to your post.

IMHO, this is a *really* good resource that should be turned into a Guide & placed in the Guide section so that anyone who wants to level a new hero knows exactly at what level they should be looking for what items on the AH in order to maximize efficiency. You could include subsections on recommended skills for each class too, like what you've done for monks in this post. Very useful & informative; if I ever decide to level another hero to 60, I would definitely be looking for a resource like this to consult..! :)

Posted by theoryzero at 02/04/2013 02:52 AM

Thanks man! I'll be browsing the AH for some of those items you mentioned. My gold budget is pretty low atm, have about 3M, but we'll see what I can come up with to get started.

Patience is a virtue. If you track the AH over a span of 3-4 days and only buy on bid or clear lowball buyouts, the only thing you won't be able to afford is the Spectrum.

I chose to be patient with my barb starting from clvl 38. I've purchased about 20 pieces of gear overall and sold all but 2 of them for a profit. I think spent more than 50k on only two pieces and those were both weapons up to level 51.

Cain's set is fantastic and if you can afford it, it's worth every penny, but it's by no means necessary. You can buy an entire set of +8 XP gear on Bid for the same price as a good Cain's Helm. If you're patient, a good set of leveling gear won't cost you a dime.

@eastdragon42

Thanks.
My post isn't perfect, I also want to highlight thanks to various suggestions/ contributions from e.g. @ninjax, @ecocd, @Khan, .......

Posted by douvinsky at 02/04/2013 04:46 PM

Thanks.
My post isn't perfect, I also want to highlight thanks to various suggestions/ contributions from e.g. @ninjax, @ecocd, @Khan, .......

Yes, it's not perfect & would have to be fleshed out a bit in order to be "stickied" or placed into the Guides section, I imagine. But something worth doing, if you have the time.

& yes, the final version can have a credits section too for thanking all the veterans who helped contribute to the guide...! :-)

@ecocd: Good points regarding substitute EXP gear besides Cain's set. It's kind of scary how certain legendary & set items can cost sooo much more just cause of their name, despite the fact that decent rares with almost equivalent stats can be found for sooo much cheaper. Maybe that sort of data could also be put into the "Fast Leveling" guide that @douvinsky will hopefully put together...! :-)

Working on the damn Wizard now.

Why did she keep shouting need more arcane power? Bought her a source with an open socket, and I thought I was smart to put a ruby inside to boost the damage, and I only get a little boost from armor >-<

Posted by Khan at 02/03/2013 08:41 PM

@douvinsky If you see me online, ping me because I have some reduce level INT items you may need. They're not extreme reduced level but they may assist in the 40's to 50's for that extra push when things really seem like a drag.

Regarding skills, the Wizard has an interesting skill tree...

1) Blur/Passive - (lvl 10) Essentially an extra shield. Whether farming, leveling, or Uber running, I never leave home without Blur.

2) Diamond Skin - (lvl 8) Also essential if you're running around with the squishy Cain's set.

3) Ice Armor - (lvl 14) Again, any armor is essential when using Cain's set.

4) Electrocute/Forked Lightning (lvl 29) I love this thing. Critical hits cause bolts of lighting that cascade in random directions for 55% damage. Long range, free, and decent damage.

5) Magic Weapon - (lvl 20) Extra damage. Extra better at lvl 35 when Force Weapon unlocks.

6) Familiar - (lvl 22) Shoots at targets for 20% damage. Better at lvl 30 when it effects all attacks for an additional 12% extra damage.

7) Blizzard - (lvl 27) its not really the damage that this does. Its the fact that it slows enemies, is cheap, and when combined with Cold Blooded passive (lvl 30), you get slowed enemies that take an extra 20% damage.

Thats all I can think of for now. Hit me up whenever.

After some running on the field, I am going with the following (for now):

1) Electrocute (15) as primary skill
2) Arcane Torrents (12) as secondary skill (primary button for attacking)
3) Storm Armor (17) <-- I love this thing, it is auto-cast, auto-seek, auto-kill. Even when I am just walking around it automatically kill things for me.
4) Teleport (22) <-- I need this for faster mobility
5) Magic Weapon for DPS buff
6) Familiar but I don't think it really helps when I can still one shot things

Passives:
(13) Evocation - reduces cooldown by 15%, for faster teleporting
(16) Glass Canon

I didn't go for armor skills for now, since I can still pretty much one shot mobs.

@douvinsky That works too. Try and get yourself a Goldwrap belt like I have on my monk.

Also, crafting is great at these low levels! My shoulders, pants (two sockets), and bracers are all from my blacksmith.

@Khan

Reached level30-31 so I have added what I think is a complete set of skills for now:

Added Astral Presence passive for more Arcane Power & faster regen.
Added Archon (30) to replace 6) Familiar above, for fast boss fight
Added Wormhole rune to enable double teleport.

Argh, the Goldwrap. I have one but equippable only at level28, I didn't realise it has such a high reduce level requirement. Hope I don't lose out too much XP per kill from that 9 levels which I missed!

Very Cool! I want one of those just for its looks.

@douvinsky Right behind you. LVL30.

@khan sexy.................but I expect a little bit more biceps lol

@Khan

Have some queries on Wizard............thanks

1) Archon - after I activated it I only see 3 skills, is that all? I am only using the right click anyway, the long beam thing.

2) Archon - after activation, is the movement speed = only movement speed from gears? Is there anyway to cancel the archon form such that I regain access to my teleport/ wormhole?

3) Critical Mass passive - reduces cooldown, but why do you need that? What skills in particular do you need to reduce cooldown?

@douvinsky

Posted by douvinsky at 02/10/2013 08:13 AM

1) Archon - after I activated it I only see 3 skills, is that all? I am only using the right click anyway, the long beam thing.

2) Archon - after activation, is the movement speed = only movement speed from gears? Is there anyway to cancel the archon form such that I regain access to my teleport/ wormhole?

3) Critical Mass passive - reduces cooldown, but why do you need that? What skills in particular do you need to reduce cooldown?

1) Initially, yes. However Archon Teleport rune opens up at LVL40. This allows teleport.

2) Yes, movement speed from gears and shrines. To cancel archon, right click on the archon "timer" icon that appears above your toolbar.

3) Good question. The majority of wizard skills have long cooldown times. In order to be able to spam these skills (such as with a critical mass wizard that uses wicked wind, frost nova, explosive blast, and diamond skin), the passive is necessary. With critical mass (and enough arcane power/arcane power on crit) you are able to use all those skills repeatedly within seconds.

You can watch my first person view of the CM process at this
old video along with some of the players on this site. You'll notice how quickly my spells refresh in the toolbar.

I gotta see the video and research more first, feel that I have been missing out a lot. My wiz is at 51 now with 6 hours played. I didn't even know there are runes in Archon form. Are the archon skills and runes even on bnet?

Yup. Here they are.

I don't think you'll benefit too much from CM at this point. Its mainly for higher level play since its dependent on really high end gear with high crit chance and high attack speed.

As far as archon is concerned, its one of the quickest ways to farm if your DPS and lifesteal is high enough since the archon beam cuts through everything including walls from waller elites. The downside is that the wizard is a slow mover with the exception of teleport.

My wizard was defeated by Nightmare Diablo on MP10. Twice!

My wizard was using the same set of gears (squishy Cain's) as for my WD. I felt that it was much harder for wizard to pull it through as a glass canon.

Without dragging the time further, I changed it to MP0 just for that fight and moved on.

As expected, the new patch 1.0.7 and new ruby scaling help out power-leveling quite a bit.

I'm borrowing the Genzaniku mentinoned in this thread from @douvinsky to help get my monk and barb through the early level lulls.

Even just updating to 1.0.7 proved helpful, I did not realize that rubies under tier 9 got a buff too. The DPS using a flawless square went from 39.8 to 47.1.



This put my lvl 9 Barb's DPS at around 75. Then I spent my spare tomes and rubies to craft a tier 12 (flawless star) ruby and put that in the Genzaniku. As you can see, a substantial jump in DPS.




At that point, my lvl 9 Barb had a little over 200 DPS. I don't have any Hellfire rings yet, so I was not able to take advantage of that to help out my DPS. However, with the new ruby damage stats I'm easily one-shotting most everything in Normal Act 1 MP10.

People use Critical Mass when using Archon to shorted up the cooldown of Archon when they run out of time. If you run out of Archon in 30 seconds you still have to wait 1 minute and 30 seconds to use it again, so using Critical Mass can shorten it to 15 seconds or something.

@theoryzero

I thought they are not going to buff Flawless Square and below, hence either I miss further patch notes update, or they miss it :P.

With the high dmg ruby, the Genzaniku can last you a very long time in terms of levels. It won't last you very long time though since you will be one shotting mobs and bosses lol.

I have to spend some times to finish leveling my Wizard, admidst bringing my WD to Inferno Act III, and farming plans using Monk. So many things to do.

With the introduction of the new recipes,has anyone tried making a craft-only character 1-60? Like as soon as a craftable becomes available,you *have* to exclusively use crafted equipment? Seems like it would be 20 times more expensive and slower than AH, but it would be an interesting challenge. Those Legendary recipes start looking pretty good.

@douvinsky

Indeed, the last PTR patch notes (put out on 1/31) said noting about changes to Flawless Square rubies or below, so I was surprised to see the change as well.

However, in the final 1.0.7 patch notes they mention it.

All ruby gems have had their weapon bonuses increased (these changes will apply to both existing rubies, as well as new rubies):

Chipped Ruby: +3 minimum damage/+3 maximum damage (up from +2/+2)
Flawed Ruby: +6 minimum damage/+6 maximum damage (up from +4/+4)
Ruby: +9 minimum damage/+9 maximum damage (up from +8/+8)
Flawless Ruby: +12 minimum damage/+12 maximum damage (up from +10/+10)
Perfect Ruby: +15 minimum damage/+15 maximum damage (up from +11/+11)
Radiant Ruby: +18 minimum damage/+18 maximum damage (up from +12/+12)
Square Ruby: +21 minimum damage/+21 maximum damage (up from +13/+13)
Flawless Square Ruby: +25 minimum damage/+25 maximum damage (up from +14/+14)
Perfect Square Ruby: +30 minimum damage/+30 maximum damage (up from +15/+15)
Radiant Square Ruby: +40 minimum damage/+40 maximum damage (up from +16/+16)
Star Ruby: +60 minimum damage/+60 maximum damage (up from +17/+17)
Flawless Star Ruby: +80 minimum damage/+80 maximum damage (up from +18/+18)
Perfect Star Ruby: +100 minimum damage/+100 maximum damage (up from +19/+19)
Radiant Star Ruby: +130 minimum damage/+130 maximum damage (up from +20/+20)

The Genzaniku is fantastic for early leveling. I'm hoping to find a socketed one in HC at some point (although I'm going to need a nice ruby to go with it).

Also, yes, many things to do...a good problem to have I think. :-) For me, get these two SC classes to lvl 60, farming the new recipes and keys for Infernal Machines with my WD. When I get bored with that, get serious about HC.

Posted by ecocd at 02/13/2013 08:45 PM

With the introduction of the new recipes,has anyone tried making a craft-only character 1-60? Like as soon as a craftable becomes available,you *have* to exclusively use crafted equipment? Seems like it would be 20 times more expensive and slower than AH, but it would be an interesting challenge. Those Legendary recipes start looking pretty good.

I am not ready to try this yet. What I think we should do if we wanna make this a challenge:

1. Use only crafted items available from Blacksmith, apart from starting gears, and exclude dropped plans.
2. For each item, you equip the first one you craft and that's it, any excess same item has to be salvaged/ sold.
3. No gems are allowed at all. You would be praying for no sockets.
4. Do this in Hardcore environment.
5. First checkpoint: Normal Diablo - record time spent if you manage to survive up to that point.

You win by having the least time played when you completed HC Normal - MP0.

Wizard landed at level58 at 8 hours played.
I don't like wizard with Cain's set in MP10. I have started to die a ridiculous number of times. I think I will just do MP0 Act II and get done with this project.

So, I changed it to MP0 and kept on teleporting.

Ended at 60, with a total time played of 8 hours and 53 minutes. This play time is about one hour shorter than my WD who has 9 hours 49 minutes, despite a few deaths to my Wizard.

MP10 helps in the early stage if you have the DPS, at later stage (Hell) if you are less geared and less skillful as I do, MP0 could cut your leveling time by a significant amount.

Time for my Wizard to take a rest. Let me bring my WD for a spin now. That doesn't mean I will reject any kind donation of Wizard set gears :P