Diablo 3 Discussion Thread

Four acts.



Yes it can, and Wizards are probably the strongest class in the game right now (in regards to Inferno difficulty). Spend 20k gold on the AH and get a complete set of gear with INT and VIT. Not either one, but both on the same item. Don't worry about those other crap stats at the moment, and don't spend more than 5K per item. If you need to, wait ten minutes and refresh, there are killer deals all the time. In Inferno your stat priorities will change (for a Wizard).

I dont use the AH personally. only trading and what I find myself :D
 
Posted this in Genmay, but there seems to be a lot more rabid D3 players here:

48 wizard here. Any advice as to what type of gear I should focus on? For a long time, I kept a high vitality set around for soloing and high intelligence one for grouping. But now that the mobs are doing so much damage to me in Nightmare, I find myself using a lot less INT related armor and a lot more VIT and resistance gear. I think my current build has 12k hp, 600 INT and 550 VIT. If I completely stack INT my HP goes down to 7000 and I die fast in boss fights.

A lot of you in here keep mentioning that you can pretty much super buff your character by buying stuff from the AH. For the first time last night, I checked the AH for a weapon. I was amazed to find a level 48 wand that does 180+ base damage and even has an extra slot for a gem. This compares to the 80 dmg one I currently have. How the hell do people get drops this good at level 48? Do the people playing Inferno mode have the ability to make super armors for lower levels? Because I've tried crafting before (only up to level 6 Illustrious of course) and have never crafted anything close to being so overpowered. Granted, the item in question was selling for 200k, but there were quite a few wands around the 140 damage level for a five digit price.
 
It must just be the engine the game uses. It seems pretty poorly coded tbh. My friend has a i7 920 and a GTX580 and he reported occasional dips into the 40s, but I thought that was just an NVIDIA driver issue, but I guess not.

it doesnt run perfectly for me either to be honest I meant I have an i5 2500k and a gtx 570 and sometimes shit gets a little hazey. Really I should have a steady 60 fps at all times.
 
I just post every Magic for 1000g, Rares are 5000g, only have 1 Legendary so I don't really sell them. My basic philosophy is that most people are only going to spend high amount of gold on an item if its a LVL 60.

Underpricing seems the best way to sell right now. The 10 auction limit is driving that. If you price too high, you dont get to sell anything for 2 days while your items rot. Which in turn means you get less money to buy gear for yourself.

I hit 60 over the weekend and have a full bank (no extra tabs) and an alt full of rares to sell. And from that income now I dont mind spending 100k on an item.

The auction interface is sort of a mess right now, lots of little bugs, errors and annoyances. People are going to have problems when it starts using real money.
 
It must just be the engine the game uses. It seems pretty poorly coded tbh. My friend has a i7 920 and a GTX580 and he reported occasional dips into the 40s, but I thought that was just an NVIDIA driver issue, but I guess not.

Maybe, but it makes sense to me. I mean have you guys ever played custom maps on SC2. With the amount of enemies on screen to draw it only makes sense that mid range cards are getting crushed.

By the way any computer with a i7 and 680 is about 2x and maybe 2.5x times the speed of my current system now.

My computer is really mid range at that.

My point isn't that the game has a poor engine it is that people who say they are running it well on the min. specs are completely full of shit, or they haven't been in hell mode yet.
 
Posted this in Genmay, but there seems to be a lot more rabid D3 players here:

48 wizard here. Any advice as to what type of gear I should focus on? For a long time, I kept a high vitality set around for soloing and high intelligence one for grouping. But now that the mobs are doing so much damage to me in Nightmare, I find myself using a lot less INT related armor and a lot more VIT and resistance gear. I think my current build has 12k hp, 600 INT and 550 VIT. If I completely stack INT my HP goes down to 7000 and I die fast in boss fights.

A lot of you in here keep mentioning that you can pretty much super buff your character by buying stuff from the AH. For the first time last night, I checked the AH for a weapon. I was amazed to find a level 48 wand that does 180+ base damage and even has an extra slot for a gem. This compares to the 80 dmg one I currently have. How the hell do people get drops this good at level 48? Do the people playing Inferno mode have the ability to make super armors for lower levels? Because I've tried crafting before (only up to level 6 Illustrious of course) and have never crafted anything close to being so overpowered. Granted, the item in question was selling for 200k, but there were quite a few wands around the 140 damage level for a five digit price.

The super wand you bought just had the right range of the right random stat (i.e. +dmg, +%ias, +dmg%, instead of a wand with +200 strength for example). This is how loot works in Diablo games basically. There isn't a formula for getting these items, it's all luck. People playing inferno do not make level 48 items.

I plan on building a wizard with 0 vitality and just use Energy Armor with the Force Armor rune. This build is insanely popular in inferno.
 
The super wand you bought just had the right range of the right random stat (i.e. +dmg, +%ias, +dmg%, instead of a wand with +200 strength for example). This is how loot works in Diablo games basically. There isn't a formula for getting these items, it's all luck. People playing inferno do not make level 48 items.

I plan on building a wizard with 0 vitality and just use Energy Armor with the Force Armor rune. This build is insanely popular in inferno.

1) I didn't purchase the 200k wand, I was simply drooling :D

2) The 180 dmg wasn't with +dmg bonuses I believe, it was the base value.
 
The super wand you bought just had the right range of the right random stat (i.e. +dmg, +%ias, +dmg%, instead of a wand with +200 strength for example). This is how loot works in Diablo games basically. There isn't a formula for getting these items, it's all luck. People playing inferno do not make level 48 items.

I plan on building a wizard with 0 vitality and just use Energy Armor with the Force Armor rune. This build is insanely popular in inferno.
That build relies on heavily stacking +hp regen too. I imagine it's going to get nerfed since if you stack enough regen / life leech you heal to full every second while a boss on Inferno difficulty will hit you for max 35% of your life.. dumb lol
 
1) I didn't purchase the 200k wand, I was simply drooling :D

2) The 180 dmg wasn't with +dmg bonuses I believe, it was the base value.

The base quality of the item is tied to the level of the item (until you hit 60... at 60 some items are simply better than others even if they both require level 60).

Keep in mind that any damage modifier gets thrown into the big "DPS" number that it shows. This big number reflects the aggregate DPS of the modifiers on the weapon (excluding dexterity/strength/intelligence).

I.E. if a weapon does 100 base dps with 1.00 attack speed and it adds 100 elemental damage, the big "DPS" number will show 200.
 
I finished the game last night with my Barbarian on normal.

I don't even think I'll go through it again on higher difficulties. I don't see the point. My character has nothing I care for or nothing to work for. Having only the equipment modify stats seems to have turned me off (I can't really pinpoint "why").
 
it doesnt run perfectly for me either to be honest I meant I have an i5 2500k and a gtx 570 and sometimes shit gets a little hazey. Really I should have a steady 60 fps at all times.

I rarely, if ever, get drops below the high 40's on my laptop (in sig.), and mobility drivers are garbage right now. a.k.a., they're not optimized. Fully maxed out 1920x1080. It only dips from my capped (VSYNC in game, Full Screen) 60 to the high 40's when A LOT, and I do mean, A LOT, of enemies are on screen. We're talking elite packs and other sh*t walking into the fray, with spells galore flying everywhere. Picnic tables and book shelves flying around as well. Visually, I can't see any slow-down even when it does drop 15'ish frames.
 
What skills are you using for your wizards? My lvl 23 is using the following:

Signature: Chain Lightning
Arcane Orb (w/ rune for increased damage)
Frost Armor (w/ rune for AOE slow around you)
Diamond Skin (w/ rune for 2x damage absorb)
Force Wave (the wind knockback with 200% physical damage, with the rune to stun)
Magic Weapon

For passives I am using the one that gives 30 arcane power when you get a health orb and the one where using your signature grants 4 AP.

Good? Bad? Terrible? I'm tearing through normal and I one shot most enemies.

No idea what I'm using off-hand. I should though, friggin level 40 something, lol.

I can reply back tonight. No idea if what I'm doing is right or "best" but it's been working so far.

I only use Diamond Skin for boss fights. Frost Nova is too nice for aoe'ing mobs.
 
What skills are you using for your wizards? My lvl 23 is using the following:

Signature: Chain Lightning
Arcane Orb (w/ rune for increased damage)
Frost Armor (w/ rune for AOE slow around you)
Diamond Skin (w/ rune for 2x damage absorb)
Force Wave (the wind knockback with 200% physical damage, with the rune to stun)
Magic Weapon

For passives I am using the one that gives 30 arcane power when you get a health orb and the one where using your signature grants 4 AP.

Good? Bad? Terrible? I'm tearing through normal and I one shot most enemies.

I'm in Act 3 Hell atm and most of my skills (different runes) are the same. It's a fun build but I don't have any point of reference to say if its bad or good.

Primary: Electrocute with Chain Lightning rune (hits 6 targets)
Secondary: Arcane Orb with Arcane Nova rune (doubles explosion radius)
Defensive: Frost Nova with Cold Snap Rune (lowers CD to 9 seconds)
Defensive: Diamond Skin with Crystal Shell rune (doubles damage absorbed)
Conjuration: Magic Weapon with Force Weapon rune (15% damage increase and 2% knockback)
Conjuration: Familiar with Spark Flint rune (12% damage)

Glass Cannon (15% damage, 10% reduced armor/resistances)
Astral Presence (+20 max AP, regen 2 AP per sec)
Power Hungry (30 AP regen per health globe)

With the exception of the Arcane Orb rune (which I switch to the +damage one on single target situations), it's basically about as glass-cannony as you can get with all the damage stacking and a slow 2H weapon. I love the gigantic radius from the runed Arcane Orb. In some rare cases, when health globes drop at a steady rate, I can stand in the middle of a pack and unleash massive AoE damage constantly. Even in a pack of Champions or Rares because my health and AP doesn't drop. Most of the time, I die a horrible death lol.

I'll change things as they are needed. I was thinking of replacing a skill with Hydra so I can do damage when I'm out of AP or can't stop moving.

Underpricing seems the best way to sell right now. The 10 auction limit is driving that. If you price too high, you dont get to sell anything for 2 days while your items rot. Which in turn means you get less money to buy gear for yourself.

I hit 60 over the weekend and have a full bank (no extra tabs) and an alt full of rares to sell. And from that income now I dont mind spending 100k on an item.

The auction interface is sort of a mess right now, lots of little bugs, errors and annoyances. People are going to have problems when it starts using real money.

Yeah, there's an odd bug where if you search for a rare item, it won't show all of them unless you set the level range. I couldn't find any level 60 weapons until I put 60 in the min or max level filter.
 
I finished the game last night with my Barbarian on normal.

I don't even think I'll go through it again on higher difficulties. I don't see the point. My character has nothing I care for or nothing to work for. Having only the equipment modify stats seems to have turned me off (I can't really pinpoint "why").

Let me guess, you got burned out on Diablo 2?
 
I'm in Act 3 Hell atm and most of my skills (different runes) are the same. It's a fun build but I don't have any point of reference to say if its bad or good.

Primary: Electrocute with Chain Lightning rune (hits 6 targets)
Secondary: Arcane Orb with Arcane Nova rune (doubles explosion radius)
Defensive: Frost Nova with Cold Snap Rune (lowers CD to 9 seconds)
Defensive: Diamond Skin with Crystal Shell rune (doubles damage absorbed)
Conjuration: Magic Weapon with Force Weapon rune (15% damage increase and 2% knockback)
Conjuration: Familiar with Spark Flint rune (12% damage)

Glass Cannon (15% damage, 10% reduced armor/resistances)
Astral Presence (+20 max AP, regen 2 AP per sec)
Power Hungry (30 AP regen per health globe)

With the exception of the Arcane Orb rune (which I switch to the +damage one on single target situations), it's basically about as glass-cannony as you can get with all the damage stacking and a slow 2H weapon. I love the gigantic radius from the runed Arcane Orb. In some rare cases, when health globes drop at a steady rate, I can stand in the middle of a pack and unleash massive AoE damage constantly. Even in a pack of Champions or Rares because my health and AP doesn't drop. Most of the time, I die a horrible death lol.

I'll change things as they are needed. I was thinking of replacing a skill with Hydra so I can do damage when I'm out of AP or can't stop moving.



Yeah, there's an odd bug where if you search for a rare item, it won't show all of them unless you set the level range. I couldn't find any level 60 weapons until I put 60 in the min or max level filter.

Does no wizard use the laser-beam skill? Forget what it's called. I love that thing. Runed to also hit another mobs for 40% weapon damage.
 
Does no wizard use the laser-beam skill? Forget what it's called. I love that thing. Runed to also hit another mobs for 40% weapon damage.

Disintegrate. I used that for about five levels from 40-45 but went back to the orb.
 
Does no wizard use the laser-beam skill? Forget what it's called. I love that thing. Runed to also hit another mobs for 40% weapon damage.

It's fun and powerful but it feels constricted. I like to move around as much as possible, so being able to move right after unleashing a nuke fits my play style more.

edit: there's also a problem with dealing with close range mobs. The forward beam makes it a hassle to deal with enemies surrounding you. Arcane Orb's explosion radius takes care of that. Arcane Torrent is also great for that too.
 
I like the damage + AOE aspect of Arcane Orb more than the single target damage aspect of Frost Ray or Disintegrate. At my difficulty level I can pretty much one-shot an entire pack of normal enemies with one Arcane Orb, and 2-3 will clear a room.
 
That blacksmith is a complete rip off. Spending over a 100k gold to unlock poor weapons.
 
That build relies on heavily stacking +hp regen too. I imagine it's going to get nerfed since if you stack enough regen / life leech you heal to full every second while a boss on Inferno difficulty will hit you for max 35% of your life.. dumb lol

I don't think it will be nerfed. Without it, bosses will faceroll you in a hit. With it, you still get facerolled by getting hit multiple times per second. Now, couple this tactic with diamond skin and critical mass with a crit build and you turn into a pretty solid tanker. Still at the mercy of RNG, though.
 
I am disintegrate/hydra/slow time build until I can do the 0vit energy armor build with critical mass.
 
It's fun and powerful but it feels constricted. I like to move around as much as possible, so being able to move right after unleashing a nuke fits my play style more.

edit: there's also a problem with dealing with close range mobs. The forward beam makes it a hassle to deal with enemies surrounding you. Arcane Orb's explosion radius takes care of that. Arcane Torrent is also great for that too.

I like the damage + AOE aspect of Arcane Orb more than the single target damage aspect of Frost Ray or Disintegrate. At my difficulty level I can pretty much one-shot an entire pack of normal enemies with one Arcane Orb, and 2-3 will clear a room.

Guess I could try it again. Never really found a problem with the "single line" of fire. I usually had trouble "aiming" the orb at lower levels. I would always end up hitting one mob further way from the group and it would fuck everything up. Like they were falling on a grenade for their buddies.

Like I said the rune helps to spread out more damage. Ususally if I can I'll frost nova a group, then line up and take them down. I guess my AP regen is good because I can keep the beam going for quite a bit.

I also like the sound :D
 
Well I've also been playing with my brother, who is a monk, so when the mobs surround him it gives me an easy target to AOE on :)
 
In our group of four, we don't have a Barbarian, so our monk acts as one. Stacks up on VIT gear only for a max hp of 27k. As a result, his dex is low and damage is only like 300 at level 50. Takes him forever to kill mobs, but he makes a damn good tank.

What kind of healthy do you barbarians have around level 50?
 
Not to mention monks have a skill that pull every mob within 20 yards into him.
Yep, pull the mobs in with cyclone strike then do kick with the rune that does 220% aoe.

win

In our group of four, we don't have a Barbarian, so our monk acts as one. Stacks up on VIT gear only for a max hp of 27k. As a result, his dex is low and damage is only like 300 at level 50. Takes him forever to kill mobs, but he makes a damn good tank.

With dodge the monk can be a great tank without having to stack a lot of Vit. I am a level 50 monk and I can tank a lot of stuff and do decent damage with a good mix of skills.
 
My newly-60 monk has ~40k hp, 25% dodge, 62% resist all and another 50% resist from armor. He can bubble for 4 seconds of every 20, taking no damage. And he puts up a shield of 15% of max HP for the whole group every few seconds. Super defensive.

Even with all that he can still die to rough combinations like arcane/vortex/waller. But all weekend long I was watching other classes and even other monks die constantly while I just kept slowly plowing through groups.
 
The super wand you bought just had the right range of the right random stat (i.e. +dmg, +%ias, +dmg%, instead of a wand with +200 strength for example). This is how loot works in Diablo games basically. There isn't a formula for getting these items, it's all luck. People playing inferno do not make level 48 items.

I plan on building a wizard with 0 vitality and just use Energy Armor with the Force Armor rune. This build is insanely popular in inferno.

I just wish I had the gear currently to support this build :( Time to scramble in the AH xD
 
My newly-60 monk has ~40k hp, 25% dodge, 62% resist all and another 50% resist from armor. He can bubble for 4 seconds of every 20, taking no damage. And he puts up a shield of 15% of max HP for the whole group every few seconds. Super defensive.

Even with all that he can still die to rough combinations like arcane/vortex/waller. But all weekend long I was watching other classes and even other monks die constantly while I just kept slowly plowing through groups.

To each their own. I will admit that I just hit 50, starting Act 4 nightmare so I'm not sure how hell is going to be. right now the only thing I seem to die to are arcane, firechain, or desecrators. Even then it seems to be mostly luck and positioning that matters more. I have fairly high dodge and do decent damage so i can run in and hit and run out and still kill pretty fast.

Or just run back and pick off a few mobs, that healing mantra is probably the best thing though, no cool down to activate is nice.
 
To each their own. I will admit that I just hit 50, starting Act 4 nightmare so I'm not sure how hell is going to be. right now the only thing I seem to die to are arcane, firechain, or desecrators. Even then it seems to be mostly luck and positioning that matters more. I have fairly high dodge and do decent damage so i can run in and hit and run out and still kill pretty fast.

Or just run back and pick off a few mobs, that healing mantra is probably the best thing though, no cool down to activate is nice.

It gets harder in Hell and several orders of magnitude harder in Act 2 Inferno.

Monks almost have to spec tanky to avoid being dead weight at that point. I don't really see any other way around it other than hoping you get a lucky dodge so something doesn't 1 shot you. Lower HP + high resist / armor.

The ranged classes just build for literal glass cannon considering just about everything will 1 shot you (including a log trap...).
 
That's most likely your problem. Assuming you were partied with three others and they had +0% MF (unlikely, but let's go with it), you actually had an effective MF of +20%. MF is averaged between all party members.

The other problem might be that supposedly Champion and Elite monsters drop better loot now than bosses (stupid), except in Inferno difficulty (Nephalem buff).

Is this really the way it is? Why the fuck did they do that for? I can see what's going to happen next...there's going to be so much discrimination with people wanting to join groups.
That votekick button that noone is using right now will become very popular.

Why wouldn't they just use your own personal stats to determine that? I mean its not like your sharing loot with your group so why the fuck would they do that? This along with the scaling of difficulty level with additional people in groups that everyone is complaining about will kill the game for everyone except the hardcore farmers.

Nice job blizztard. :rolleyes:
 
Is this really the way it is? Why the fuck did they do that for? I can see what's going to happen next...there's going to be so much discrimination with people wanting to join groups.
That votekick button that noone is using right now will become very popular.

Why wouldn't they just use your own personal stats to determine that? This along with the scaling of difficulty level with additional people in groups that everyone is complaining about will kill the game for everyone except the hardcore farmers.

Nice job blizztard. :rolleyes:

My guess is that they don't want the MFer to be a leecher. When you stack MF you're most likely compromising your damage. I don't really like the way it is either, but I wouldn't want to carry the weight while the MFer is getting all the loot.
 
My guess is that they don't want the MFer to be a leecher. When you stack MF you're most likely compromising your damage. I don't really like the way it is either, but I wouldn't want to carry the weight while the MFer is getting all the loot.

Unless you have extremely good gear that has MF on it, 99% of the time stacking MF means you do less dmg, you have less hp which means you are worthless to my party and I.
 
Back in D2 days, people would calculate time to kill / MF amount in a way that determined whether it was worth stacking a specific amount for a certain boss.

For example you could stack 600% MF but it would take you 15x longer to kill a boss. In the long run it was many times more effective to just have a little MF and then be able to kill quickly. I don't know how MF values work in D3, but in D2 anything over a certain number seemed to be pointless since it had harsh diminishing returns. You could go from 250% to 600% and in actuality it was something like a 35% increase drop chance for uniques.
 
So after my first full day playthrough...just sat on my ass and played D3 all day Sunday...here are my thoughts.

I jumped in with a group of friends who were in Act 3 NM when I was only a 35 Wizard. I love the damn wizard...although I died nearly nonstop through the run. They were in the low - mid 40s. I was only 39 when we took down Diablo in NM - I had to do a weird ass utility build just to do it. I had to use:

Frost Nova with the reduced CD rune
Time Bubble with the +20% Damage inside the bubble rune
Blizzard with +slow after it's over rune
Diamond skin with +200% dmg absorbtion for defense
Frost Ray with reduced casting cost
Electrocute with...can't remember.

It was actually a lot of fun...we wiped several times before I used that, it worked really well. I was able to crowd control to some degree, in conjunction with the scattered abilities of the 4 man group, the entire fight. Even with that done, we were down to 1 party member (DH) who was able to kite Diablo to the corner, slow him, then dash down and res someone, then the whole party comes back up and takes him down. Was pretty epic. :)

Now that I'm 48, I'm tearing through Act3 NM, even when solo'ing down in the dungeon in a 3 man game. My build is:

Frost Nova with Cold Snap - doesn't hard freeze but does 160% wpn dmg and slows
Lightning Hydra - great for kiting, just drop it and run. The other hydra's so far don't seem as good...frost doesn't have the range and poison sucks for kiting as they won't stand in it.
Ice/Cold Armor with the rune that returns 100% wpn dmg on melee hit OR I will use Magic Weapon with the +15% dmg buff.
Archon with the reduced CD
Electrocute with the +1 Arcane Power per hit
Arcane Orb with reduced casting cost

Passives: Glass cannon, +20 AP/regen, and the +health regen with armor up

The bad:

It was really weird to join a friends game and be able to immediately warp to Act 3 NM even though I had just started Act 1. WTF? I know I could have quit and gone back to my own game, but still...after I unlocked hell, I still had to go resume my own game and play through NM again.
Gem drops are too high...At level 40 I had a ridiculous amount of radiant gems, to the point that it almost isn't even worth paying the gold to have the gem vendor upgrade my other ones.
Itemization...Blizz got lazy with this. Rather than properly balancing class weapons, they just made everyone use everything which is just dumb. I was just browsing the AH...there is a legendary 1H axe that does something like 150 DPS. The highest legendary wand DPS (well, at least that has dropped and was on the AH) - 65 DPS. I don't think the level requirements were that different either - but the wand would be completely useless after hitting say the early 30s. However I don't have an issue with the drop rates, they should be low and random otherwise there isn't much of a point.

The good:

The Diablo fight is really well done. It's interesting and I like the mechanics, without being tedious or so hard/complex that it is frustrating.
And really, I just have fun playing the game. Well done Blizzard, I'm thoroughly enjoying it so far. Some of the blue mobs are hilarious...waller+mortar? Fucked up.
 
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Back in D2 days, people would calculate time to kill / MF amount in a way that determined whether it was worth stacking a specific amount for a certain boss.

For example you could stack 600% MF but it would take you 15x longer to kill a boss. In the long run it was many times more effective to just have a little MF and then be able to kill quickly. I don't know how MF values work in D3, but in D2 anything over a certain number seemed to be pointless since it had harsh diminishing returns. You could go from 250% to 600% and in actuality it was something like a 35% increase drop chance for uniques.

It would be cool to see what the numbers are for this in Diablo 3. . Somebody will do it eventually I'm sure.
 
Back in D2 days, people would calculate time to kill / MF amount in a way that determined whether it was worth stacking a specific amount for a certain boss.

For example you could stack 600% MF but it would take you 15x longer to kill a boss. In the long run it was many times more effective to just have a little MF and then be able to kill quickly. I don't know how MF values work in D3, but in D2 anything over a certain number seemed to be pointless since it had harsh diminishing returns. You could go from 250% to 600% and in actuality it was something like a 35% increase drop chance for uniques.

Stacking MF isn't as harsh as it was in D2. It's also simultaneously not as extreme. I don't think you'll see such high MF values as you did in D2.

The real problem with MF is the actual ability to kill anything in Inferno while stacking it. Also, everything has an enrage timer (yes even elites in Act 2+ inferno). You can reset the Elite's enrage timer if everyone dies and leaves it alone. It also regains all of its HP though. You could theoretically still take out a couple minions at a time and then wait for the enrage to reset - not very efficient though. Nephalem Valor has also made stacking MF less necessary.

Right now people are literally just gear swapping right before an elite / champion / boss dies. This works but it's wonky and I can't imagine it's the type of gameplay that Blizz aimed for.
 
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