Hi folks,

So I'm running adventure mode right now having just reached 70 with my monk and read that the greater rifts are only accessible on torment + difficulty so decided to give it ago. To be honest doing rifts as been pretty useless except for the XP as the drops are poor as hell with only one legendary (which was crap) in three rift runs. I gave torment 1 a go and did reasonably okay on a simple bounty but it takes forever to kill some minions even so I'm sure I don't have the gear at all to actually play torment 1 right now. So I need some tips on what best to do next. Like I said, rifts have proven pretty poor for me and I've read that you need a certain amount of DPS before even considering jumping into torment difficulty levels.

So what's the best approach for me now, is it best I gear up my monk slowly through expert/master difficulty and then take on torment? Also in regards to the paragon system, what decides which points you can add to in regards to core, offense, defense etc. I leveled up but could only add to my core levels.

Appreciate some sound advice from those who can kick ass in torment. Thanks.

Rifts should really be your best way of getting upgrades. That sounds like some rotten luck with the legendary's in your runs. Blood shards are okay too, and allow you to (hopefully) get an upgrade for a specific slot.

It does take some solid gear though, I guess. First, I'd say, make sure all your items are lvl70. Reroll a stat if you think it's worth it for that item.

Another thing to do would be run Act 1 bounties to try and get the Ring of Royal Grandeur, which I'll assume you'll want eventually. This can be done on normal even, so can be very quick per run. Could take a LONG time to get your ring though, depending on your luck.

Edit: Oh, and the paragon system just alternates between the four, in order.

Pretty much this. Legendaries are twice as likely to drop in rifts, and they give the most blood shards, so they're your best bet for getting good drops.

Oh, and crafting can definitely help get your gear to a decent starting point when you've just hit 70. Give that a shot if you haven't already.

I've got two different characters on PC, a Witch Doctor that can do Torment VI and a new Seasonal Demon Hunter that I've got up to Torment IV.

When you first hit 70, do Act 1 bounty runs for awhile and get some better gear that way while also collecting Rift keys. Make sure you're completing the full Act 1 bounty so you get the Bounty Cache from Tyrael, like Vamino said these have a chance to drop the Royal Ring of Grandeur which is pretty much required for every top end build. Do these on the highest difficulty you can where you still melt through elite packs like they were nothing...the key here is to do these runs fast. Farm bounty caches fast for awhile until you get up to around 400k dps and 3-4 million toughness, you should be able to do Torment I at that level. Start doing T1 rifts and gearing up that way - a lot of legendaries and set items only come from Torment difficulty and above, although some are available from Kadala for Blood Shards most of your drops are going to come from rifting.

I'm not sure which platform you're playing on so things may be a little different if you're on a console. Blizzard recently made a change to bounty legendaries and increased the rate at which they drop through the Torment levels, so at T6, bounty caches have a 100% chance to drop a legendary. This is going to make it far easier to farm for your Royal Ring...I'm personally going to wait until I can do T6 and then get my Demon Hunter's RROG that way.

A note on damage, you want to try and concentrate on one type of elemental damage that fits in with the runes you're using. A couple of pieces with 15%-20% extra Lightning damage can make a huge difference if your build is right. Add to this Elite Damage and Elite Damage Reduction if you can - rings like Stone of Jordan are critical. White mobs (trash) are nothing - you should be blowing through entire groups of these like they were burnt paper. Elites and bosses are everything, so if you need to sacrifice 5% overall damage to get an extra 15% against Elites or an extra 15% fire damage, do it. If you find yourself taking too much damage, try and pick up a String of Ears belt for melee damage reduction up to 30%, it can help immensely especially for classes like Monk.

Oh, and whatever you do, SAVE all Monk legendaries and set items you get, even if they are duplicates or you think you'll never use them. Save them until you run out of room.

Pay special attention to the stats on your gear, the real end game here is getting the best possible synergy between your chosen spells and runes and your gear (including passives that are very important). Critical hit chance and ummm, critical hit amount or whatever it's called (been a few months since I played I've forgotten the exact terminology for a lot of this) are fairly important for doing enough high damage consistently in higher difficulties, in some cases higher offense is your best defense also. Definitely make an effort to try and understand how the properties of your gear work as opposed to just picking the thing that shows up as the highest of something, because if you have a hodge podge of gear without focused properties your going to struggle. Specific advice is fairly class specific, but unless you are playing with some other people consistently and working together you probably want to focus on having some good spells for crowd control, a good single target damage, and a reliable escape or two.

It's possible to play through this game without "farming" and I hate it when people refer to it as something you should be doing. Just make an effort to continue to improve your build sensibley and the legendaries etc will come over time. Remember there is no actual "winning" this, so "farming" something earlier rather than later is entirely pointless, there is no one special item that you absolutely need. Just enjoy playing around with the different builds, and when you find a difficulty level your happy with stick with it until you find it getting too easy.

I think the keyword is luck. I've gone through T4 Rifts with only one-two Legendaries drops through four runs, and the next day I had around ten drops through three runs. I play on PC, but I'm pretty sure the loot-system for consoles is exact the same.
Patience is key. Just make sure you play on a difficulty that fits your character skill and gear-wise.

Wow, some awesome advice. Really appreciate it. I play on PC by the way.

Well I have decided to focus on upgrading my gear and I've even run some bounties on normal just to quickly upgrade my items/weapons and DPS which as helped me get near 200k at this point and get a few paragon levels which as helped. I guess I wasn't paying as close attention to the stats as before and I'm realizing where to strengthen as a monk. I think I'll stick with expert and master difficulties as I think they'll fit my needs better and be as rewarding. As Rowr stated, I do tend to go on the stats alone without actually considering how they will affect my build and I've even underestimated the extra benefits legendary items/weapons can have which seems stupid of me. Right now I'm mainly playing solo because I'm still trying to get the hang of how to properly play my class but I hope to improve my character enough to be helpful with groups.

I have about 150 blood shards which I haven't spent, maybe I should do and see what I get. I figured out that the paragon upgrades simply rotate to.

"Oh, and whatever you do, SAVE all Monk legendaries and set items you get, even if they are duplicates or you think you'll never use them. Save them until you run out of room."

Is there a specific reason for that or is to to stock up on them to than salvage them for material when needed, because that's what I've sort of been doing anyway? Interested to know more.

Again, some very helpful info to send me in the right direction. Many thanks. :D

@machofantastico:

Oh, and whatever you do, SAVE all Monk legendaries and set items you get, even if they are duplicates or you think you'll never use them. Save them until you run out of room.

I'm going to guess @mb suggests that because Monk-specific gear boosts Monk skills, for example "Increases Skill X's damage by 11%". Ideally you'll be mixing and matching gear to the elemental damage and skill sets you are using to maximize damage.

Tune your difficulty to match your gear.

Slogging through on Torment 6 just to say you did it, is less efficient than going through in half the time on torment 3. Remember, faster runs mean more drops, which means more upgrades.

It can still screw you. I had a rift boss & a nemesis to deal with at the same time. Barely survived.

With the new Season mode, I took up playing a Wizard. I have since gotten her to level 70 and she can now pretty much melt through Torment 1 elite mobs. The important things I have learned are to focus on maximizing damage with what you have and to not be dead set on using specific skills. I got used to using Disintegrate, which was my right click power. It was pretty awesome for most of the game, but when I cranked up my difficulty, I found it lacking. I did some research and it seemed like a lot of people liked Arcane Torrent. I now know why after switching to it. You can stack a crazy amount of damage in a short amount of time, up to 1010%. So while I didn't like it when I first tried it, it's actually a fantastic damage dealer. Paired with passives that augment that, I've turned into a killing machine.

But I'm also not afraid to change stuff on the fly. I decided to switch the damage type of my Blackhole from lightning to fire because I got a piece of gear that ups my fire damage by 15 or 16%. Again, adaptability is important and making sure to maximize your gear benefits is key. Also, learning to not just switch to a piece of gear and really looking at what the different stats and benefits are. I have passed over a helm or belt that gave me increased stats after reviewing it because it had some stuff on it that I knew I wouldn't get any value from. But, you can always take those pieces and try to change the enchantment at the transmog/enchant lady. I managed to change an increase in damage to blizzard skill to the blackhole skill. So if you like a piece of gear, don't be afraid to try and change the enchantments on it to get something more geared towards your build.

All the other advice here is super good. Listen to everything that's already been said and you should be mowing down mobs in no time.

Also, sorry to hear your rift luck has been not so... lucky. In my first greater rift, I got 4 legendaries, one of which is a fantastic two-handed sword for my Wizard. Then the next one I did I got nothing.

Not really...what I meant was that class-specific legendaries can be rare and have affixes that aren't available on general legenaries. Any generic legendary can roll +skill damage for any class, but the special effects on things like Witch Doctor masks & ceremonial knives can only be had on those items and are often the chief requirement of top end builds. So if you get a Starmetal Kukri or Mask of Jeram, save them. But overall it's good practice to save as many legendaries as you can, for as long as you can, unless they are total garbage.

Whoops, I guess I've been salvaging my legendaries when they don't suit my needs because the material is useful for crafting. Guess that was a mistake :) I did get a legendary shield that's pretty solid but I'm unsure if to use it on a monk, especially when right now I can take on mobs/elites with no concern of death. I'll probably stay dual wielding and try the shield if it's suitable at higher difficulty levels, but a monk using a shield feels wrong to me somehow, should be always dual-wielding :D

Thanks for the tips JadeGL, I'm impressed with how efficient some players are in D3. The help as been great.

@machofantastico: You can salvage legendaries for Souls but honestly you shouldn't be rerolling too many legendaries early on. It's too expensive and unless you're at 70 and well into Torment you'll be replacing those items anyway. I learned from experience, the last thing you want is to realize 50 hours from now that you really want that Tall Man's Finger ring to complete your pet build, only to remember that you salvaged it weeks ago.

Items and builds DO change in this game. Skills get buffed and nerfed, and legendary items get their affixes changed or improved with patches. I brought up Tall Man's Finger because that ring used to be worthless, but a couple of patches ago Blizzard buffed it big time and it became almost a must-have for Witch Doctors using pet builds.

So, try to save legendaries until you're out of room and only salvage the worst ones you find that have stats so bad you're positive you will never use them. All of your crafting materials and gems will only take up about a third of a tab in the bank or less, so you have plenty of space to store items.

Welcome to the grind. Getting to 70 is really only scratching the surface - from now on focus on synergizing a build with better and better gear and make sure you have a viable class for the gear that you do find. By synergizing a build I mean maybe focus on an element or theme for your build (like: Lightning Tank monk - a monk with primarily lightning based skills that has a strong focus on toughness) there are far too many options, so work with the gear that drops and find a build that works best.

I suggest doing rifts for gear and if you want to mix it up throw in some bounties every once in a while. As far as drop rates for legendaries - its a crapshoot. Don't be discouraged if you don't get a ton of legendaries, that will just happen since there is no guaranteed way to have the gear you want to drop - just the luck of the RNG.

And I know this must have been echoed here somewhere, but stick to a difficulty that is efficient for your character. If you can't efficiently do higher level torment yet then gear up in lower difficulties - otherwise you're most likely just wasting time. Best of luck in the grind duder.

Grinderino. That's the game, though it's slightly more interesting in Hardcore. Just play the game while you listen to a podcast or watch a stream and then its not quite as tedious. Torment I is generally doable with "just got to 70" gear at a somewhat efficient rate. Even if it wasn't for some reason (likely build related) you can simply get some good rares from a few master rift or bounty runs and then T1 is easy-peasy, for higher grifts/torments you just need luck, but it seems like they upped the legendary rates from early RoS by 4-5 times, perhaps more; so it really isn't that long of a grind to get to 90-95% of optimal status, even soloing the whole way; in a group the amount of time is near-trivial. I'm expecting some balance changes relatively soon to make monks/barbs/crusaders more viable, but until then you could just DH it up, everyone else is.

1 Vault = infinite gold, no such thing as too expensive anymore other than Forgotten Souls.

The Hardcore community is extremely miniscule in the Americas region (on PC) so if you want to play let me know; Efreet #1563

Well I actually got a decent run in a rift on expert, earning two legendaries one of which I was able to use. I have stopped salvaging the stuff as the items/weapons I can craft isn't as good as the stuff I have and I have enough material anyway, I have been selling what I don't need to earn some cash for those more powerful gems (200k to craft a gil for example) so I'll stick to running some rifts to upgrade some gear.

A quick super newbie question regarding build and gear upgrades, is it a good idea to go by the quick summary below an item (the red, green and gray percentages) when it comes to choosing suitable upgrades or should other aspects of the item be taken into consideration? As for a specific builds go, I'll be honest and say that stuff is a little crazy for me and I wouldn't know how to start. I know it's basically about building your character towards a specific elemental power (as NorthSarge said, Lightning Tanks Monk) but that sounds like I'd need to get super specific and right now I'm still trying to get to the point where I might be viable in Torment 1.

@machofantastico: The green arrow stuff is good for leveling, past that you'll have to start to prioritize what stats you want if you really want to have an efficient character (I mean functionally you'll still be getting green arrows but you might have to reroll whichever stat to X superior stat and so on). Builds right now are all about legendary gems and not really quite as much about elemental damage, elemental damage is good but not as good as a socket on jewelry; you should be able to do GRifts up to like rank 5ish no matter what and each run will get you a legendary gem until you have all of them (except the vault one). A level one Conduit Gem is better than 3-4 legendaries most likely.

In general the builds aren't too complex to wrap your head around for the most part, there's some esoteric builds for certain classes that are super good but require like 5 specific items, however as far as a basic build goes just turn on advanced tooltips and pick the stuff with the biggest numbers and a defensive cooldown or two. If an ability seems like it sucks it probably does suck (e.g. even though they buffed it Shield Bash is still total garbage).

The percentage numbers are a good gauge for whether or not you should use an item. If everything's green, definitely put that shit on unless you're giving up some crazy useful legendary ability. Don't worry too much about specific builds at this point. For me, that stuff fell into place naturally as I found gear. You might end up with a great piece of gear that boosts lightning damage for example, which will encourage you to check out your lightning skills.

@machofantastico: find someone to dupe you a overpowered sword (20-30kdmg) and then do t6. You will still die a lot but it won't take 10minutes to kill a mook.

NonSequitur777

Is my psn if you want me to mail you a OP sword

@machofantastico: Just a little more detail here. 2 handers are really good right now for most classes before you get optimal gear, so use them, a socket on a weapon is still really strong but because of Ramaladni's not necessarily mandatory.

Buildwise your passive skills are important, luckily almost every passive skill is terrible so pick the handful of ones that aren't and you're set. Every witch doctor ever is going to use Pierce the Veil for example, because it is essentially a 20% damage buff; almost no one is going to use Physical Attunement because Jungle Fortitude is straight up better. Fetish Sycophants is completely nuts, and so on.

http://www.diabloprogress.com/top_skills

@fredchuckdave: Wow, that table is actually super useful as I've had issues being truly comfortable with the skills I'm choosing. I'll try and adjust my monk to best take advantage of those.

I've began a crusader on expert to change things up a bit, though I'm still mainly focusing on my monk. I stupidly died a bunch as my crusader in a crypt only to realize my gear kind of sucked and that I could craft a bunch of better stuff, a bit silly of me really but hopefully I should be more armored now. It's strange going from burning through mobs one moment to actually having to think the next, Jeff was right though it's a great podcast/music game. I do have one question regarding blood shards, are they only useful for say a second character your leveling/upgrading because when I spent some on my monk the items I got were rubbish compared to what I had. So what purpose do they serve exactly in regards to spending them on the merchant in adventure mode?

Said it before but I'll say it again, many thanks for the help folks. Stay awesome.

Edit: In that graph of skills, I understand what hardcore refers to but does softcore refer to farming easy mobs etc?

I love this game. Crushing T4 with my Demon Hunter and also have T1 Crusader and Barbarian. Doing a Hardcore run with a Witch Doctor too... I played Diablo 3 on PC when it came out and had some fun but now I'm pretty much addicted while playing on PS4.

If you're playing PC, you can link to your profile if you sign in at http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/ . That way people can see your gear and where you can particularly improve.