Diablo 3 Blog Guide

Blizzard Blue Tracker: June 19, 2012.

Hello everyone, and welcome to Sanctuary! Below you will find the Known Issues list for our 1.0.3 patch. Please do not report bugs that you see on this list as we already know about them, and help out other players reporting bugs by referring them to this list. 

As a reminder, this list will not list every bug that is active in the patch. What it is listing are issues that are active and confirmed as bugs by Quality Assurance. In addition, potential exploits and the like will never be listed here.

For reference, the 1.0.3 Patch Notes can be found here.

Achievements

• The achievement "Espionage" cannot be completed because the lore "Battlefield Reports" doesn't drop in game.

Battle.net

• We are aware of players who are unable to gain EXP on their characters and their followers. Customer Service has been made aware of this issue as it may be an account issue.
• Workaround: Change your password.
• It is possible for the Switch Hero button to disappear.

Combat

• Demon Hunter: By using Fan of Knives with a quiver equipped but no weapon, then equipping a weapon, you can bug out your DPS such that you deal no damage at all to anything.
• Demon Hunter - Strafe: Drifting Shadow can cause you to rubber band at low hatred when casting it with high attack speed and/or latency.
• Witch Doctor - Zombie Handler: Zombie Handler's health buff does not dynamically update.
• Witch Doctor - Spirit Vessel: Spirit Vessel does not allow you to walk through enemy collision.
• Witch Doctor - Zombie Charger: Zombie Bears stop abruptly with small bumps of physics.
• Witch Doctor - Zombie Charger: Zombie Bears are not casting properly on slopes.

Environment

• Act 2 - Ancient Cave Level 2: A Resplendent Chest's items can become unreachable when opened in a location in this area.
• Act 2 - Hidden Aqueducts: Loot can fall behind a chest by an altar near the Jeweler, making it unreachable.
• Act 2 - Hidden Aqueducts: You can use movement spells to clip into the empty altar prop and exploit combat by being out of range of melee monster attacks.
• Act 3 - Arreat Crater Level 1: The loot from a specific rare chest falls into the chest and cannot be picked up in this area.

Items

• Existing Legendary items that had the bugged Increased Attack Speed affixes will not get fixed until a future patch. All newly-created Legendary items (created by the player or the game) willcorrectly increase your attack speed.

Monsters

• The player can be feared in rapid succession by Nightmarish monsters.
• Arghus the Collector (a unique armor vendor) cannot spawn.
• If you attack a Beast with the Illusionist affix just prior to its charge, it will become unresponsive.
• Bloodhawk monsters can perform their diving attack repeatedly while remaining untargetable.
• Cydaea's enrage timer does not function properly. It is possible for a player to fight her without her enrage timer activating.
• Siegebreaker does not incapacitate players who are picked up in his hand, allowing them to use various abilities, some of which can cause unintended behavior from Siegebreaker.
• The charge portion of The Butcher's Frenzy ability can hit players standing behind the boss.
• The Oppressor monster's charge attack deals damage twice.
• Act 3 - Tower of the Damned Level 1: Claw Bomb are dealing too much damage in Inferno difficulty.
• Act 4 - The Silver Spire Level 1: The Aspect of Destruction's max and current health increase every time he splits with the illusionist power.
• Act 4 - Secellum of Virtue: The monsters in this world do not grant XP when they are killed.

Followers

• Monsters with the Reflect Damage affix will reflect damage caused by Followers onto the player.

Quests

• Act 4 - Great Span: The ice barricade on the left side of the arena does not form if you quickly skip the cutscene during "Prime Evil : Kill Izual."
• Unlocking a new questline, then starting a game on a previous questline can cause the Quest Selection menu to not show the most recently unlocked questline.
• Act 4 - The Pinnacle of Heaven: It is possible to get stuck at a black screen if you immediately skip the cutscene during the quest "Prime Evil : Climb to the Pinnacle of Heaven in the Silver Spire," blocking progression.
• Act 4 - Holy Sanctum: The puzzle platforms are not all spawning in this area.

User Interface

• Multiple Life UI indicators do not update when the hero heals or otherwise avoid a killing blow.
• Logging out while taking a town portal back to your initial location results in a disconnect.
• After patching, your Diablo III preferences will be reset. Please go to the Options menu and change your preferences to your liking. This will only happen once after patching and will not happen once they are changed back.
• The FPS feature does not update and will always show your FPS at 0.

Compatibility

• Running programs that put an overlay over Diablo III (such as Mumble, Xfire, and MSI Afterburner) can cause Diablo III to crash. Use these overlays at your own risk.

Inferno Demon Hunter Post Nether Tentacles Nerf Build submitted by Lurker.

So by now all of you Demon Hunters out there know that NT was nerfed and isn't as effective as it used to be.

I decided to try out a slightly different build, and here is what I came up with, it is working for me in Act 2 Inferno. Feel free to comment and let me know what I can improve or change.

I also added a bunch of alternatives to using Elemental Arrow - Ball Lightning.

My new build:
http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#bRYgXV!YeT!YaZYZc

PRIMARY: Entangling Shot - Justice is Served - Great hatred builder and it keeps mobs away. Personally I like to switch out justice is served for shock collar for the bit of extra damage, and because Ball Lightning isn't too expensive to use. Chain gang is nice too, if you are having problems with getting swarmed by many mobs, try it out.

Note: I have also been trying out Hungering Arrow with Spray of Teeth instead of Entangling Shot (+Sharpshooter and crit gear) and it has been working out really well. I bought a +Hunger Arrow damage quiver as well, and now it hits (and crits) for insane damage.

SECONDARY: Elemental Arrow - Ball Lightning - Since NT was nerfed, I decided to try Ball Lightning and so far it works well, it is very similar to the old NT and handles large packs of mobs with ease. (+ it has great range) I really think BL could be the new NT. It does solid damage, handles both single target and aoe well, and does not cost too much hatred. There are some great alternatives though.

Alternatives to Ball Lightning:

Cluster Arrow - Cluster Bombs - This does a lot of damage. If you aim it right, it can take out a lot of mobs in one shot and even take an elite mobs HP down very quickly.The problem is it has a small range, so you can't miss, and it costs a whopping 50 hatred, so you can only use a few. If you use it with caltrops, you can set up the mobs easier for the shot.

Elemental Arrow - Frost Arrow - If you don't want to use Ball Lightning, try Frost Arrow instead. It's faster, deals more dps and it freezes things.

Elemental Arrow - Screaming Skull - Note from KS: I use screaming skulls over lightning bolts because I value fear over stun. Fear makes the monsters run, often backtracking them farther from you. This gives you more time to deal with the other elites that are probably rushing towards you. With a decent attack speed and some luck you can even alternate monsters, fearing them all into a corner. I've done it a few times, its hilarious.

The negatives of screaming skulls is that it doesn't stack with Sharpshooter to make your first hit always work and can go for a long period without fearing if you're unlucky ( my record is probably 10 arrows without skulls). the skull is not that good for dps because it is not often that monsters line up unless you funnel them through a door, although I still get 70k crits with it, easily.

As for functionality, all champs and elites and normal mobs are fearable. but the champs with special names that dont have minions arent. Untill I get 40% crit chance I'll stick with screaming skulls.

Chakram - Twin Chakram - 2 chakrams that hit for 100% damage each and it can hit multiple mobs. Very effective spam move.

Multishot - Fire-at-Will - 20 hatred, lots of damage, mows down enemies. Hits very fast and very wide so accuracy isn't as strictly required. Also note that if you can't decide between Multishot and Ball Lightning for AoE, BL only deals 10% less damage than Multishot for half the hatred cost.

Impale - Overpenetration - 250% weapon damage that can hit multiple enemies. Great for elite pack farming. Only downside is requires extreme accuracy and you may want to run with an AoE move as well since this is not a good AoE skill)

Note: Use the grenadier passive aswell as a 6 hatred generator attack like entangle shot and bat pet, this means you can fire CA almost constantly.


The rest of the skills:

Caltrops - Torturous Ground

Shadow Power - Gloom - This will help you defeat reflect elites. I used to use vault, but not anymore.

Smoke Screen - Lingering Fog

Preparation - Backup Plan (I know people will disagree but even though Backup Plan is great, I still like taking Battle Scars sometimes. A lot of times I don't get one shotted and just get taken down to around 20% HP and battle scars REALLY comes in handy if potions and SS is on cooldown.)

Passives:

Steady Aim - Archery - Sharpshooter

Here is an image submitted by LeStache that shows how the 1.0.3 IAS change will affect the game.

With over 50k people watching, and a few close calls, Kripp and Krippi managed to down hardcore Diablo in Inferno.

Congratulations to both Kripp and Krippi for the incredible feat! Below are the videos of the fight.

Kripparrian - Barb Point of View




Krippi - Wizard Point of View

Here is another Monk Inferno Guide submitted by MixMax2.

Intro

Completely elated right now, for the past few weeks I was bashing my head against a wall with my monk, stuck at the beginning of act III. Starting this morning and lasting all day, I decided to achieve a goal I didn't think would be possible for me and I soldiered on through late Act III and all of Act IV.

Just wanted to let fellow frustrated monks know that it is possible to achieve this, you just have to reach a certain breakpoint with your stats and have a very defensive build if you are reaching new territory, now I did this by spending around 50 million gold which I only had because of some lucky legendary rolls, and 3 days ago my monk was actually completely naked because I sold all of his gear out of frustration (and leveled a DH in the process, turns out kiting and being randomly one-shot is worse then playing a monk).

Well today I was inspired by Kripparian who is currently making a push for HC Inferno clear with his friend Krippi and while watching his stream I decided to just say screw it and regeared my monk by blowing loads of gold and some real money (unfortunately the state of the game at the moment), and while it was still extremely difficult I managed to chug through the last two acts. One major realization I had was that it is absolutely necessary to skip badly rolled elites, it is just not worth the time to fight them, so always be kiting them into corners or restarting the dungeon until you roll a lucky room.

Another realization I had is that for progression, you MUST solo the content unless you are playing with a group of your close friends, pubs have proven to always be dead weight and will just complicate things, for example I was on Act IV quest 1 and decided to try out a public game for some fresh air and I kept getting paired with ranged classes who would die in the first few seconds while I would kite the boss around the circle for a long time, almost killing him in a party of 4, then getting surrounded and trapped, after a few attempts with different groups I decided to just go back to solo, and I killed the guy in under 20 seconds. I one shot every boss except for Izual (I realized its pretty much impossible to melee him for more then a second with my gear, and the kill took forever because of kiting).

Below I will first list my build, and explain every single choice, then stats, then I will list my gear with my explanation of why I picked some pieces up. Finally I will give a brief explanation of how I did some select boss fights to hopefully help some people out who might be stuck along the way. To reiterate, Clearing Inferno is possible, but if you plan on doing it any time soon you must purchase your gear one way or another, the drop rates are just abysmal (I didn't even get a single Level 60+ rare the entire clear of late Act III and all of Act IV today). Also I use the enchantress because she provides not only some extra armor, but also some added attack speed.

Build

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/monk#bjghYX!UZX!Zcaacb

Guide continued after the page break..

• 1.) I chose deadly reach with hard target because the extra armor is pretty valuable, and deadly reach is amazing for kiting mobs around and hitting bosses while kiting them around objects. I can't image not having the melee range utility that this ability provides.
• 2.) Mystic Ally is another optional ability I can't live without. Not only does this beautiful bastard give you some extra hp, but he will also distract elites and bosses while you do whatever it is you need to do, couple that with no summon cooldown (hilarious the best summon in the game isn't from a witch doctor Blizzard) and you have an amazing life line at your disposal, plus this guy will actually kill mobs for you!
• 3.) Serenity is not optional, it is the cornerstone of playing monk because it is the only thing keeping you from being one shot in every nook and cranny of Inferno. Some people opt for the 4 seconds, I prefer the heal because it will top me off and keep me alive just that much longer.
• 4.) I don't really know if there are any other good options for mantra, but I can not live without dodge mantra with the extra armor. It is invaluable to be able to luck out and completely dodge one-shots and the armor is the first line of defense between you and death.
• 5.) Blinding Flash with with faith of the light is my favorite cc ability in the entire game, not only will it give you a second or two of no incoming mob damage, but it will also boost your dps an insane amount to allow you to nuke anything down before it has a chance to retaliate. For example, right now my base dps is ~26k, with my breath of heaven blazing wrath I will always have ~30k, but pop blinding flash and now I have a whopping ~50k for 3 seconds to completely annihilate the pack of mobs that is troubling me.
• 6.) Breath of Heaven is a nice ability for me because it allows me to heal in between healing orbs or serenities, so it can come quite in handy when you accidentally get hit by that pesky mob. However, the rune blazing wrath you also get a 45 second buff to your damage, which basically means you have a permanent 15% extra damage, and in this game damage scales insanely well for every extra 1000 you get because everything dies just that much faster.
• 7.) One with everything is a must, pick a resistance, and stack it with all resist, and you have an advantage in gear choices that no other class has.
• 8.) I consider resolve to be optional because it might not be possible to always keep it up on the enemy, but it provides some nice extra bump to your damage mitigation, you can also consider swapping it with near death experience to survive some bullshit one shit damage every now and again.
• 9.) Seize the Initiative is another mandatory passive, the boost in armor you get makes the difference between one shot and two shot in some cases against bosses.

Stats

http://i.imgur.com/qQoSB.jpg

I used to have a lot more resistances but I decided to drop some to improve my dex and vit (increasing dps and health makes all of the difference). Life on Hit and attack speed are must have stats at this point as most of you know, so it will be interesting to see how attack speed will be starting tommorow.

Gear

http://i.imgur.com/bWWu5.jpg

Basically I just wanted to stack as much dex and vit as possible while also having some resistances on a few pieces. My gear isn't the best out there because I had to operate within my budget and within my capabilities of acquiring gold, which the majority I only had because I got extremely lucky on a legendary drop.

I also opted to aim towards 1000 life on hit so that's why I have that ammy and rings, the rest of course comes from my weapon which I got extremely lucky with in the RMAH ($30). I find it a bit silly to be spending real money on gear, but luckily I only spent profit on the RMAH due to some wild first day sales on gear I couldn't even sell in the gold auction house (in the hundreds).


Choice Boss Strats

• Azmodan - Complete pushover, keep your earth ally up and melee azmodan down, whenever the fireball starts chasing you, run in broad circles around azmo then go back to melee him. WHen the large dark pools start spreading start running around and stay away from azmo, if you get caught off gaurd and end up in a pool, pop your serinity or heals/pots to stay alive. Also keep an eye on the portals spawning around the room, and kill them off to prevent pesky adds.
• Rakanoth - Always keep your earth ally up, and kite this sucker around one of the large poles spread across the room, always keep Rakanoth on the opposite side of the pole, and you can melee him using deadly reach. When the adds come out stay on the opposite side of Rakanoth and quickly kill them, then rinse and repeat. Make sure to keep an eye on your health and pop serenity when necessary.
• Izual - This motherfucker is a pain in the ass, and is completely broken for melee as far as I am concerned. Basically the only strat I could figure out was to nonstop kite this bastard around the bottom left circle on the platform. Don't get hit by ice, and don't get in vision of Izual, keep your earth ally up at all times because he, Tyreal, and the enchantress will be doing the majority of damage on this broken asshole. Keep kiting him around, maybe sprinkling in some deadly reaches around the corners when you feel comfortable. The tricky parts are when the adds spawn, you need to get as much distance as possible around the circle between you and Izual, and pop your blinding light and breath of heaven for maximum damage and nuke these suckers down, then rinse and repeat.
• Diablo - I one shot this baddy, but it took a relatively long time and I had a blast while doing it (sprinkled in by oh shit moments of course, there was a point where I was at about 100 hp with no heals up, earth ally saved my ass by tanking for a few seconds). Basically, just get the strat down for Diablo on hell mode, and execute it perfectly in Inferno. There is no real trick you can abuse against this guy except when he does his laser, move behind one of those giant stones in the center of the room. 
• Also a tip I can give is save your serenity for the fireballs, and just do not get hit by the cages, soon as you see his animation for cages start, start running away and change your direction every few seconds to trick the AI which will sometimes spawn one on a few yards in front of your vector. If you are low with no way to heal, just get the hell away from Diablo and wait for cooldowns, your earth ally will tank him for a few seconds so he won't teleport to you right away. For killing your clone, just keep an eye on your health and pop your abilities when necessary.

Anyway I am definitely pumped right now because I achieved a goal in a day I did not see myself complete in a few months, I was demoralized by the state of the game, but I decided to bite the bullet and purchase some gear, and I reached some magical breakpoint where the game was still difficult, but absolutely do-able. I'm glad to say I cleared before 1.0.3, and I can't wait to start farming once it's patched tommorow. Hopefully this helped some of you struggling monks out either by inspiring you or actually helping you to realize you were missing something. I will answer some questions but I will be heading off to pass out in an hour or two.

Blizzard Blue Tracker: (June 18, 2012)

Patch 1.0.3 Tooltip Updates

In patch 1.0.3, we're updating the tooltip descriptions for several skills and skill runes. These updates are being made for one of two reasons:

• To make sure that the tooltip description matches how the skill functions in-game
• To provide additional detail about how a skill works, or to describe how a skill works more clearly

To ensure that players aren't surprised by these changes, we've listed each of the tooltip updates in 1.0.3 below. Please note that the functionality for the associated skills and skills rune have notbeen changed.

Barbarian

• Weapon Throw
  
  • Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be slowed: "Hurl a throwing weapon at any enemy for 100% weapon damage and Slow the movement of the enemy by 60% for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Demon Hunter

• Cluster Arrow - Dazzling Arrow
  
  • Tooltip now displays the correct type of weapon damage dealt by Dazzling Arrow: "Enemies hit by grenades have a 55% chance to be stunned for 2 seconds and changes the damage to Physical." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

• Grenades - Stun Grenades
  
  • Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: "Hurl grenades that have a 25% chance to Stun enemies for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Monk

• Seven-Sided Strike - Sustained Strike
  
  • Tooltip has been updated for clarity: "Reduces the cooldown of Seven-Sided Strike to 23 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Witch Doctor

• Summon Zombie Dogs - Leeching Beasts
  
  • Tooltip has been updated for clarity: "Your Zombie Dogs heal 50% of the damage they deal as Life divided evenly between themselves and you." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Wizard

• Paralysis
• Tooltip now displays the correct duration for how long a target will be stunned: "Lightning damage dealt to enemies has up to a 8% chance to Stun the target for 1.5 seconds." (The functionality of the skill has not changed.)

Barbarian Inferno Gearing Guide by Kripparrian.