Last night I beat Act I Inferno (playing solo Demon Hunter). I enjoyed it a lot. Didn't run into any too retarded elite packs, got tonnes of cash and loot thanks to Nephalem Valor, and I died only a handful of times. Fights against elites were tough and challenging - often a 'by the skin of my teeth' type of affair - keeping me on the edge of my seat.

Today, I ground my teeth on Act II Inferno (with a stealthily nerfed DH), and I had the worst of times. It's ludicrous. There's no natural progression from Act I Inferno to Act II. Coop is currently out of the question, due to the security issues, and even if, I doubt it'd be any fun either.

So it's either grind away at Act II in coop, of farm Act I for gold and AH upgrades (tens of millions of gold for a meaningful DPS upgrade). And even then, many an elite pack template will simply not be beatable solo. You can beat the game (at least that's what I say to myself), but not every foe in it. Regardless of skill level and preparation.

Nah - I'm not gonna fall for this shit. I'm too old to grind the same content over and over, just for bragging rights and pleasing my inner completionist. Time to move on. Other character. Or even other game. Inferno is a major turn-off.

I'm still in act 1 of inferno as a wizard, about 3/4 of the way through (at the jail). Very slowly and methodically going through areas as I can be 1 shotted by nearly everything (currently @23k health, 16k dps), but I've been enjoying the change of pace so far. I actually find myself dying less often than in act 3 hell when going down the towers, but that's probably due to not playing all gung-ho like. Thankfully, recents nerfs haven't affected me as I wasn't using those specific skills anyways

With that said, a lot of people are saying Act 2 is where it really starts getting insanely difficult, so I'll refrain from voting until I get there.

Yes. Anyone who doesn't clearly does not understand the point of Diablo.

I wish we could see the percentage of level 60 characters with the inferno achievement for the Belial, or even Maghda.  I'd wager it's no more than 10%.

Part of it is because of the ss nerf as you pointed out but you aren't alone in your frustration. Every class is feeling the pain of Act 2 inferno right now. Especially since monks and wizards got a little taste of the nerf bat along with the demon hunters. As far as I'm concerned, I haven't even hit inferno yet on my Barb as I'm still making my way through hell. From what everyone is saying, I'm in no rush. I made a wizard last night and had a lot of fun with her. All in all, I think it's the gear requirements that turn me off to inferno the most. The idea of the challenge itself isn't scary but I don't want to rely on the auction house, endless act one farming, or hand outs for friends to progress inferno. Not that I'm complaining. I'm having a blast on the other difficulties.

Due to melee classes being basically broken at the high levels of the game, im really starting to get bored with this game.

i have not unlocked it yet still in act 2 hell but some day some day i will get to inferno no matter what it takes

@Turambar said:

I wish we could see the percentage of level 60 characters with the inferno achievement for the Belial, or even Maghda. I'd wager it's no more than 10%.

there has been a wizzard with about 7 k hp who solo'ed diablo basicly he would get one killed on every attack so he had to evade every attack but his dmg was insane and pretty much just used poison hydra

I mean, it's inferno. After difficulty levels called nightmare and hell, shouldn't it be really really tough? Isn't that the point?

I wish we could see the percentage of level 60 characters with the inferno achievement for the Belial, or even Maghda.  I'd wager it's no more than 10%.

@Canteu said:

Yes. Anyone who doesn't clearly does not understand the point of Diablo.

To farm gear until your numbers can deal with their numbers ?

I'm not gonna say there's no skill to it, but when the game starts boiling down to just gameplay it really starts to show it's weaker sides. Challenges are fun and all, but they are much more interesting if the gameplay has some more complexity.

@Ares42: Gameplay is the reason i Playgames.

Funny that.

Second hand information from a friend reading it off the Blizzard forums, but apparently Blizzard is addressing the "must have" skills first.  Force Armor will now only work on attacks doing less than your max HP, negating the low vit wizard builds, and Smoke Screen is having its duration cut in half to 1 second.  Inferno enemy damage will be addressed after that.

@Turambar said:

Second hand information from a friend reading it off the Blizzard forums, but apparently Blizzard is addressing the "must have" skills first. Force Armor will now only work on attacks doing less than your max HP, negating the low vit wizard builds, and Smoke Screen is having its duration cut in half to 1 second. Inferno enemy damage will be addressed after that.

Official patch notes have been released: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5825330

@Turambar said:

Second hand information from a friend reading it off the Blizzard forums, but apparently Blizzard is addressing the "must have" skills first. Force Armor will now only work on attacks doing less than your max HP, negating the low vit wizard builds, and Smoke Screen is having its duration cut in half to 1 second. Inferno enemy damage will be addressed after that.

Official patch notes have been released: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/blog/5825330

not really enjoying it atm no. I have no problem with difficult games, but it should remain fun and rewarding.

Endless act I farming on my monk isn't that rewarding when i get no upgrades. I'm even having a hard time solo'ing act I :(

I am playing Minecraft.

@Canteu said:

@Ares42: Gameplay is the reason i Playgames.

Funny that.

So you're saying Diablo has deep and complex gameplay ? You're talking about a game that consists mostly of left or right clicking either on a monster to hit it or on the ground to move. We're talking Tetirs levels of simplicity here. Not to say you can't enjoy honing your skills as a Tetris player, but to me it gets pretty monotonous pretty fast.

@Ares42: You got all that from that?

The fuck?

Gameplay doesn't have to be complicated to be deep or fun.

Also, I'm having to consider my build very closely just to stay alive in inferno. So that seems deep to me. The input method is irrelevant if the outcome is satisfying and tactile.

If you think modern games are "Tetris simple" then you are clearly more advanced than I.

Really liking it so far. Killing champions and elites takes quite a while and it's pretty damn easy to die.

@Canteu said:

@Ares42: Gameplay doesn't have to be complicated to be deep or fun.

Most definitely, but games with simple fun gameplay aren't the kinda games most people dig deep and spend hours doing aggrivatingly hard challenges in. They're the kinda games people play for 30 minutes to have some fun when they have some time to waste, like Angry Birds. I know that there's a niche group of people that just love that shit (as mostly every game like that has these small groups of crazy people that do insane stuff), but to me it just gets boring.

@Canteu said:

@Ares42: You got all that from that?

The fuck?

Gameplay doesn't have to be complicated to be deep or fun.

Also, I'm having to consider my build very closely just to stay alive in inferno. So that seems deep to me. The input method is irrelevant if the outcome is satisfying and tactile.

If you think modern games are "Tetris simple" then you are clearly more advanced than I.

I hear that, rolled a barb to level with a friend, facerolled though normal and most of nightmare, come hell it got tougher, act 3 hell im struggling against rares and champions, the right choice of skills and runes along with skill management and in some cases tactical retreats can be very complicated , at the end of the day you get what you put in and playing coop Monk/ Barb has been very rewarding for me. Tetris levels of complexity , i guess our friendly troll here doesnt know tetris is a maths puzzle and is based on a crazy formula.

http://math.stackexchange.com/questions/80246/the-mathematics-of-tetris some light reading

@buft: It's still just another game that can be explained to someone in 5 seconds and they're completely able to play it. Everything can be made extremely complex if you go into the minute details, just ask Steve Wiebe about Donkey Kong.

I get that too easy games aren't fun, as you can basically ignore a lot of the mechanics of the games. But at a certain point the ramping of difficulty in Diablo doesn't really bring out hidden mechanics anymore, it's just accentuating the same mechanics you've already been dealing with for a while. Going from Hell to Inferno I'm not suddenly doing completely new things, I'm just doing the same things better. And to me that's boring. I'm not interested in doing the same thing I've already done a thousand times, but this time I have to do it 1 second quicker. It's just difficutly for the sake of difficulty, not to force you to actually deal with the mechanics of the game (as you've already been doing that for a while).

I beat Act IV Hell, hit 60, then immediately plowed my way through Act I Inferno. It was an amazing amount of fun and the loot was delicious. I only had to skip 2 bullshit champ packs too so that was nice.

In the meantime my friend who has been in Inferno since the weekend finally ground his way to Belial. After a few failed attempts I jumped in along with another friend to try and give him a hand. Sadly we were a Demon Hunter and Wizard using our just-nerfed skills. I had adjusted already but the Wizard had not and he was geared completely incorrectly. We eventually gave up.

The difficulty-spike definitely seemed a bit harsh, especially consider how buff my Barb friend is with 70% mitigation from armor and over 600 in all resists. I think that once I get some real DH gear and not the shit I scrounged up in Hell we'll be ready to really kick ass. Of course by then they'll have probably nerfed the damage anyways so it won't matter.

Either way, I'm still loving the game and can't wait to do daily Act I Inferno runs while leveling alts. The jump in loot quality was amazing and I'm glad that the build I naturally grew into is still more or less viable (fuck Invincible Minion packs).

@Canteu said:

Yes. Anyone who doesn't clearly does not understand the point of Diablo.

And there's surprisingly a lot of people who don't get Diablo. Did they really think that less than one week of grinding gear would be enough to beat Inferno? I don't mind if Blizzard makes small adjustments but if they cave and outright nerf Inferno it will make me sad.

@Ares42 said:

Going from Hell to Inferno I'm not suddenly doing completely new things, I'm just doing the same things better. And to me that's boring. I'm not interested in doing the same thing I've already done a thousand times, but this time I have to do it 1 second quicker. It's just difficutly for the sake of difficulty, not to force you to actually deal with the mechanics of the game (as you've already been doing that for a while).

Edit: I started my response saying I didn't want to pick on you or act like an ass, then I wrote a wall of text picking on you and being an ass. Apologies. The gist of the response was that the loot treadmill and grinding endlessly for loot is kind of the entire point of the game. I understand if that's not something that you find fun, but that's pretty much what the Diablo series has always been about.

@Grimluck343 said:

@Ares42 said:

Going from Hell to Inferno I'm not suddenly doing completely new things, I'm just doing the same things better. And to me that's boring. I'm not interested in doing the same thing I've already done a thousand times, but this time I have to do it 1 second quicker. It's just difficutly for the sake of difficulty, not to force you to actually deal with the mechanics of the game (as you've already been doing that for a while).

I'm really not trying to pick on you or be an ass, you just happen to be the example in this thread. But what you just said about doing the same thing a thousand times? That's the entire fucking point. It's a loot grind game in the purest sense of the term. That's what Diablo has always been and will continue to be. The game isn't intended to be beaten over the course of two weeks. It's supposed to take months of farming gear to be even remotely ready for the toughest challenges.

We're probably talking in circles here, but that's why I said the gameplay is boring :P That's not to say that the game is boring, as there is more to it. But my point was that when you reach the point where you're not levelling anymore and you're not really looting anymore (you're still getting loot, but it's only like once in a blue moon you get anything interesting) and all you're really trying to do is beat the challenge of the game, it becomes boring.

The thing is that most other loot-driven games have figured out that people actually wanna do stuff with the loot. So they add interesting and complex gameplay experiences where the loot matters. This doesn't really exist in Diablo. If I get a weapon that has 200 more dps, what am I gonna do with it ? Sure, Diablo 2 had somewhat of a PvP scene, but if you wanted to play a good loot driven pvp game would Diablo really be your pick ?

@Ares42 said:

Sure, Diablo 2 had somewhat of a PvP scene, but if you wanted to play a good loot driven pvp game would Diablo really be your pick ?

I don't think PvP has anything to do with it. If you're asking what Diablo-clone I would prefer to play, I think the only logical answers are Diablo 3 or Torchlight. And there's no reason I can't play (and enjoy) both. Again, there's nothing wrong with not finding a Diablo style game fun, but you should know what you are getting into when you sit down to play one.

Lots of fun, but I'm a bit mad all I'm getting is dexterity loot or stuff that shouldn't even be on the loot table (another socketed amulet/ring, seriously?).

@Ares42 said:

@Grimluck343 said:

@Ares42 said:

Going from Hell to Inferno I'm not suddenly doing completely new things, I'm just doing the same things better. And to me that's boring. I'm not interested in doing the same thing I've already done a thousand times, but this time I have to do it 1 second quicker. It's just difficutly for the sake of difficulty, not to force you to actually deal with the mechanics of the game (as you've already been doing that for a while).

I'm really not trying to pick on you or be an ass, you just happen to be the example in this thread. But what you just said about doing the same thing a thousand times? That's the entire fucking point. It's a loot grind game in the purest sense of the term. That's what Diablo has always been and will continue to be. The game isn't intended to be beaten over the course of two weeks. It's supposed to take months of farming gear to be even remotely ready for the toughest challenges.

We're probably talking in circles here, but that's why I said the gameplay is boring :P That's not to say that the game is boring, as there is more to it. But my point was that when you reach the point where you're not levelling anymore and you're not really looting anymore (you're still getting loot, but it's only like once in a blue moon you get anything interesting) and all you're really trying to do is beat the challenge of the game, it becomes boring.

The thing is that most other loot-driven games have figured out that people actually wanna do stuff with the loot. So they add interesting and complex gameplay experiences where the loot matters. This doesn't really exist in Diablo. If I get a weapon that has 200 more dps, what am I gonna do with it ? Sure, Diablo 2 had somewhat of a PvP scene, but if you wanted to play a good loot driven pvp game would Diablo really be your pick ?

Why are you so desperate to talk about a game you don't like? Five posts in a thread, each time talking about how you don't enjoy the game play.

@haffy: who says I don't like the game ? I just don't really care for the inferno difficulty. If you ask me, I would've much rather preferred hell being the last difficulty and then have some costum made challenges or something as end-game. Just try to push the boundries a bit, instead of just making you replay the game again vs 2x numbers or whatever.

It's fun as hell when you have friends. I could see myself finding it a pain by myself or with randoms, but with 3 of my friends all chatting on Dolby Axon while we play I haven't enjoyed a game this much in a long ass time, regardless of how infuriatingly hard it is

Due to melee classes being basically broken at the high levels of the game, im really starting to get bored with this game.

@StarvingGamer said:

(fuck Invincible Minion packs).

Jagged Spikes Caltrops and Overpenetration Impale work for me.

@ajamafalous said:

@owack6 said:

Due to melee classes being basically broken at the high levels of the game, im really starting to get bored with this game.

This. There are about 1% of the people playing melee in Inferno that are able to not be onehsot by enemies in Act II of Inferno, and it involves being carried by Wizards and Demon Hunters. Honestly cannot believe the game was released in such a state.

Indeed. Act I no problem on my monk, the approriate difficulty. ACT II just eats my monk, shits him out again just to kick the heap that is left. I just cannot stand my own agains even normal groups.

It's making me a very sad panda to be honest. 60+ hours wasted on a class that is utterly useless.

@Syndrom said:

@ajamafalous said:

@owack6 said:

Due to melee classes being basically broken at the high levels of the game, im really starting to get bored with this game.

This. There are about 1% of the people playing melee in Inferno that are able to not be onehsot by enemies in Act II of Inferno, and it involves being carried by Wizards and Demon Hunters. Honestly cannot believe the game was released in such a state.

Indeed. Act I no problem on my monk, the approriate difficulty. ACT II just eats my monk, shits him out again just to kick the heap that is left. I just cannot stand my own agains even normal groups.

It's making me a very sad panda to be honest. 60+ hours wasted on a class that is utterly useless.

I'm already have difficulty staying alive in Hell, let alone Inferno. It's really sad when my DH and Wizard friends are doing 40-50K damage and my Monk is doing a paltry 5-6K. I'm probably under geared but the difference is demoralizing. Still, I do love playing as a Monk.

@Seppli said:

@StarvingGamer said:

(fuck Invincible Minion packs).

Jagged Spikes Caltrops and Overpenetration Impale work for me.

Yeah but those don't fit into my overall preferred loadout and I'm not about to sacrifice my Nephalim Valor. I'm content to skip packs like those.

After my third Act I Inferno run, I decided to finally swallow my pride and just skip past unbeatable elites in Act II. Got to Magda in 45 minutes and killed her easily. All the regular enemies and story elites are no biggie, but I only beat like 2 out of 5 elite packs I ran into... and dying like 5-6 times whilst doing so.

Vortex me into firechains for instant death? Sure. That's fun and carefully tared content. NOT. Oh well - I guess I'll just run the fuck past all the dumbass packs with Gloom Shadow Power and Caltrops and be done with Act II in an hour or so (well - if Belial plays nice).

So the skill in Inferno difficulty is in running past everything like a speedrunner pro? That's not really fun to me. Hell - it's not even the game I intended to play. But god dammit I want to get into Act III. It's my favorite Act, and there's Mass Slaughter to be had. Can't wait for Blizzard to get their shit together and balance these elites properly. I have to keep progressing now - lest I lose interest and am done with Diablo III for good.

Fun fact. The very first elite pack I killed in Act II Inferno dropped...

@Seppli: At least you're able to kill things. My Barb and Monk are both stuck sitting in Caldeum because melees have to be in melee range to kill things, which results in dying to the incredibly unbalanced Inferno enemies. My Barb is sitting above 40k health and 70% damage mitigation from both Armor and each Resist and I'm still getting rolled by the first enemies. It's pretty stupid when I can clear Act I Inferno in a little over an hour without dying or skipping a single champion/rare spawn, but I can't even fight the first normal enemies in Act II.

@ajamafalous

@Seppli: At least you're able to kill things. My Barb and Monk are both stuck sitting in Caldeum because melees have to be in melee range to kill things, which results in dying to the incredibly unbalanced Inferno enemies. My Barb is sitting above 40k health and 70% damage mitigation from both Armor and each Resist and I'm still getting rolled by the first enemies. It's pretty stupid when I can clear Act I Inferno in a little over an hour without dying or skipping a single champion/rare spawn, but I can't even fight the first normal enemies in Act II.

You should talk to my Barb friend. He soloed all of Act II except for Belial where he stalled out at stage 3.

@ajamafalous: Not the same guy, but this guy has been farming act 3, and iirc he's been doing some act 4 recently too. His build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WSPgVk!eVb!acZbcc . He's got pretty sick gear though, like 10k armor 1k res buffed I think.

@ajamafalous: Not the same guy, but this guy has been farming act 3, and iirc he's been doing some act 4 recently too. His build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WSPgVk!eVb!acZbcc . He's got pretty sick gear though, like 10k armor 1k res buffed I think.

So I just switched to a Crit-Focused Skillset by some guy who apparently beat inferno with a Barb solo as well. Anyways, that build is so goddamn much fun and more exciting than my previous one and I'm wrecking Act one like the sickest boss now, so that I can actually farm up quite nicely. Still Act 2 is just madness. I was able to beat Magda but at the moment I'm just getting destroyed by everything again, so gotta gear up even better!

But after this skill switch I really started enjoying it again. Should've done that much earlier - but whatever. Now I can kill the Butcher in below 1min easily and yeh, those Jailer Warden/Butcher runs - quite nice. Also the auction house is kinda fun. Just sold a legendary .... goddamn quiver for 500k. Apparently that one was really good, maybe i should've asked for more -.-

I'm not really enjoying inferno. It's not the fact that it's cheesy rather than difficult, but that I have to have a certain spec as a witch doctor in order to do anything. The spec consists of me spamming darts and having 5 other cc spells while kiting, the rest of my skills are useless.

Inferno just isn't as fun as nightmare/ hell was where I could run around with any build I felt like and still solo clear

@ajamafalous

@StarvingGamer said:

@ajamafalous

@Seppli: At least you're able to kill things. My Barb and Monk are both stuck sitting in Caldeum because melees have to be in melee range to kill things, which results in dying to the incredibly unbalanced Inferno enemies. My Barb is sitting above 40k health and 70% damage mitigation from both Armor and each Resist and I'm still getting rolled by the first enemies. It's pretty stupid when I can clear Act I Inferno in a little over an hour without dying or skipping a single champion/rare spawn, but I can't even fight the first normal enemies in Act II.

You should talk to my Barb friend. He soloed all of Act II except for Belial where he stalled out at stage 3.

Any idea what build he's using?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WViRkP!bVU!acabcZ

Something like this. I don't know if it will link properly cuz I'm using the mobile site.

EDIT: On my PC now. Basically be as tanky as possible with a beefy 1h and shield and rely on Revenge procs to keep you alive. I think he ended up switching to a Weapon Throw build his first time through and giving up his Nephalim Valor buff in order to take out Magda and Zoltan.

@Canteu said:

Yes. Anyone who doesn't clearly does not understand the point of Diablo.

fuckin yeah man! those softcore n00bcakes just don't get it.

@ajamafalous

@StarvingGamer said:

@ajamafalous

@Seppli: At least you're able to kill things. My Barb and Monk are both stuck sitting in Caldeum because melees have to be in melee range to kill things, which results in dying to the incredibly unbalanced Inferno enemies. My Barb is sitting above 40k health and 70% damage mitigation from both Armor and each Resist and I'm still getting rolled by the first enemies. It's pretty stupid when I can clear Act I Inferno in a little over an hour without dying or skipping a single champion/rare spawn, but I can't even fight the first normal enemies in Act II.

You should talk to my Barb friend. He soloed all of Act II except for Belial where he stalled out at stage 3.

Any idea what build he's using?

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/barbarian#WViRkP!bVU!acabcZ

Something like this. I don't know if it will link properly cuz I'm using the mobile site.

EDIT: On my PC now. Basically be as tanky as possible with a beefy 1h and shield and rely on Revenge procs to keep you alive. I think he ended up switching to a Weapon Throw build his first time through and giving up his Nephalim Valor buff in order to take out Magda and Zoltan.

@ajamafalous: Possibly? I'm assuming that he uses Revenge spam as much as possible and, once he gets too low, pops Ignore Pain to claw his way back up to full then does it all again. I'm honestly not sure as he uses a completely different spec when we're grouped and he's usually off-screen anyways because I stand WAY the fuck back shooting my arrows.

EDIT: Also I think he was sitting at something over 600 in all resists when he finally made it to Belial.