05-24-2012, 08:46 PM
(This post was last modified: 05-24-2012, 11:44 PM by MongoJerry.)
In the past few days, I've grouped with a guy named Xeon from time to time, who is a prototypical min/maxer kind of guy. He said that he explored nearly everything in the game the first time through, but after he lost his first level 52 hardcore character in nightmare, it's clear that he has no qualms whatsoever about decking his character out in the best auction house equipment he can afford or using any game mechanics to get ahead. I met him in a pug game and found him very helpful (he gave me a fantastic sword that he had just crafted) and a skilled and conscientious tank barbarian, so I enjoyed playing with him and a couple of his friends, when the Lurkers crew weren't on-line.
Over a couple of days, I ran nightmare Acts II and III with him, and when we killed Azmodan, I asked if we would continue into Act IV, and Xeon said no that we would kill Azmodan again. I was suprised about this, since bosses don't seem to drop very good loot, but I went along with it and joined him and his friend in their newly created "kill Azmodan" game. We hopped to the waypoint, did a small dungeon crawl, killing maybe two or three random champion/boss packs, killed Azmodan again, escaped through the cinematics, and then it dawned on me what we were doing. We were getting 88k exp from each run just from the end quest rewards plus any exp from the mobs we killed along the way. We ran Azmodan over and over again and leveled at a pace unparalleled with farming normal mobs. And, since Azmodan is so easy to kill (just don't stand in the blood/corruption pools), we were never in any danger -- a significant bonus for a group of hardcore characters.
But the Azmodan rush didn't stop there. After doing about ten runs, I left to join Frag, Swirly, and Kevin in their game, while Xeon continued with his Azmodan runs. A few hours later, I messaged Xeon to find out if he'd be interested in grouping up again and found out that his character had died during one of the Azmodan runs when there was a server disconnect.
I commiserated with him a little, and he mentioned how he was disappointed that all of the people who had asked him to help them rush their characters were suddenly too busy to help him out. Curious, I asked how one could rush in Diablo 3, and I ended up agreeing to help him just to see how it worked. Here's what we did:
1. My level 52 Wizard created a "kill Azmodan" game on normal difficulty.
2. Xeon had his level 1 character join the game. The game does not require a character to have completed Act I or II to be able to join a game in progress in Act III, if the character is joining a friend's game.
3. My Wizard ran or teleported past most of the mobs on the way to Azmodan's lair, while Xeon waited in town. Interestingly, when I had to toss an Arcane Orb at a pack of scorpions that were in my way, he leveled to level 2 while he remained in town.
4. When my wizard got to Azmodan's lair, Xeon accepted the event with me. I ran forward and killed Azmodan in under 10 seconds, while Xeon stayed far back safely away from the fray.
5. We escaped through all the end of act cinematics. In the end, we got 25k experience from the quest rewards. Well, Xeon got only a fraction of that at the beginning, but he got enough to jump to level 4 in just the first run.
6. Rinse and repeat again and again.
After an hour of these runs, Xeon got to level 18. If I had been more focused and efficient (those treasure goblins must die!!), I probably could have gotten him to level 20 in that hour. Note that as he leveled, he got a higher share of the 25k exp each time. At level 18, he was getting about 80% of the quest exp.
Xeon's belief is that he expects this to be a standard practice in the not so different future -- level 1-35 using normal Azmodan runs and level 36-60 using nightmare Azmodan runs.
Thinking about this over the last few days, I realized that I don't think Blizzard minds this at all. Blizzard could easily have stopped this by preventing low level characters from joining later acts or by preventing them from getting exp from high level quests entirely. But I think Blizzard doesn't mind the level rushes so much anymore, because ultimately in this game, one levels by one's equipment and not so much by leveling the character anymore.
However, I do predict that it won't be long before 3rd party services provide leveling services. For example, maybe a service will ask for $30 to level up your character to level 60 and provide you with a million gold to spend on the auction house for your equipment.
As a side note, when I said "we were getting 25k exp," I really meant *we*. As in, my level 52 Wizard was getting the 25k exp from the quests as well, even though she was well above the Azmodan quest level. In addition, she got the cash from the quests and from vendoring any blues she found along the way. The hour of runs netted her about 2/3rds of a level and about 100k gold. I could have could have made more money farming in nightmare myself, but the time spent leveling Xeon wasn't without its own tangible rewards to my character.
I'm not recommending that fellow Lurkers use these tactics. But I found these game mechanics interesting and thought I'd share them with you.
Over a couple of days, I ran nightmare Acts II and III with him, and when we killed Azmodan, I asked if we would continue into Act IV, and Xeon said no that we would kill Azmodan again. I was suprised about this, since bosses don't seem to drop very good loot, but I went along with it and joined him and his friend in their newly created "kill Azmodan" game. We hopped to the waypoint, did a small dungeon crawl, killing maybe two or three random champion/boss packs, killed Azmodan again, escaped through the cinematics, and then it dawned on me what we were doing. We were getting 88k exp from each run just from the end quest rewards plus any exp from the mobs we killed along the way. We ran Azmodan over and over again and leveled at a pace unparalleled with farming normal mobs. And, since Azmodan is so easy to kill (just don't stand in the blood/corruption pools), we were never in any danger -- a significant bonus for a group of hardcore characters.
But the Azmodan rush didn't stop there. After doing about ten runs, I left to join Frag, Swirly, and Kevin in their game, while Xeon continued with his Azmodan runs. A few hours later, I messaged Xeon to find out if he'd be interested in grouping up again and found out that his character had died during one of the Azmodan runs when there was a server disconnect.
I commiserated with him a little, and he mentioned how he was disappointed that all of the people who had asked him to help them rush their characters were suddenly too busy to help him out. Curious, I asked how one could rush in Diablo 3, and I ended up agreeing to help him just to see how it worked. Here's what we did:
1. My level 52 Wizard created a "kill Azmodan" game on normal difficulty.
2. Xeon had his level 1 character join the game. The game does not require a character to have completed Act I or II to be able to join a game in progress in Act III, if the character is joining a friend's game.
3. My Wizard ran or teleported past most of the mobs on the way to Azmodan's lair, while Xeon waited in town. Interestingly, when I had to toss an Arcane Orb at a pack of scorpions that were in my way, he leveled to level 2 while he remained in town.
4. When my wizard got to Azmodan's lair, Xeon accepted the event with me. I ran forward and killed Azmodan in under 10 seconds, while Xeon stayed far back safely away from the fray.
5. We escaped through all the end of act cinematics. In the end, we got 25k experience from the quest rewards. Well, Xeon got only a fraction of that at the beginning, but he got enough to jump to level 4 in just the first run.
6. Rinse and repeat again and again.
After an hour of these runs, Xeon got to level 18. If I had been more focused and efficient (those treasure goblins must die!!), I probably could have gotten him to level 20 in that hour. Note that as he leveled, he got a higher share of the 25k exp each time. At level 18, he was getting about 80% of the quest exp.
Xeon's belief is that he expects this to be a standard practice in the not so different future -- level 1-35 using normal Azmodan runs and level 36-60 using nightmare Azmodan runs.
Thinking about this over the last few days, I realized that I don't think Blizzard minds this at all. Blizzard could easily have stopped this by preventing low level characters from joining later acts or by preventing them from getting exp from high level quests entirely. But I think Blizzard doesn't mind the level rushes so much anymore, because ultimately in this game, one levels by one's equipment and not so much by leveling the character anymore.
However, I do predict that it won't be long before 3rd party services provide leveling services. For example, maybe a service will ask for $30 to level up your character to level 60 and provide you with a million gold to spend on the auction house for your equipment.
As a side note, when I said "we were getting 25k exp," I really meant *we*. As in, my level 52 Wizard was getting the 25k exp from the quests as well, even though she was well above the Azmodan quest level. In addition, she got the cash from the quests and from vendoring any blues she found along the way. The hour of runs netted her about 2/3rds of a level and about 100k gold. I could have could have made more money farming in nightmare myself, but the time spent leveling Xeon wasn't without its own tangible rewards to my character.
I'm not recommending that fellow Lurkers use these tactics. But I found these game mechanics interesting and thought I'd share them with you.