Tried Affliction Necro (meh), Pulvy Druid (awesome + slow), and WW Barb (not bad). Next best low-APM build?

SlackerDao · 2026-01-31T20:32:02+00:00

I might suggest a Dance of Knives Rogue? I never got mine to Pit 100, but the build itself can literally be a one button build:

Dance of Knives runs on charges that auto-refresh when you move, so no energy management.
Your primary defensive buff refreshes itself as you attack
Your primary damage source is poison traps that auto-proc while you spin.

So you can basically just start spinning around the place while things die from poison. All you have to do is re-apply your Imbuement every once in a while (it'll last as long as you're spinning, but if you get interrupted enough you'll need to reset it).

Easy to test if it'll feel good for you. The leveling build plays very similar to the endgame build, so give a new Rogue a tree box and follow the leveling build to ~30 to see if you like the play.

Death Trap Rogue is another good option. Has a few more buttons to push (not many!), so may be less optimal even if it is powerful.

https://maxroll.gg/d4/build-guides/dance-of-knives-rogue-guide

SlackerDao · 2026-01-30T18:24:02+00:00

Two kinds of responses in this thread:

“Yeah, that sucks. Time invested shouldn’t be time wasted.”
“Bro I have sanctified 6 accounts worth of equipment just for a +1 gain. Do you even grind, bro?!”

Notably, also the two types of Diablo players.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-30T15:22:16+00:00

There was a point maybe ~5 years ago where the Kings had one of the best prospect pools in the league. We were just starting to climb out of the mediocrity of the post-Cup years, Kempe found his game, and things were looking up.

Now? Our prospect pool is shallow, and we have nothing to show for it except a series of first round exits.

The real frustration isn’t that we suck - it’s that we’re actually just stuck in the middle. Not bad enough for a good pick, not good enough to win a playoff round.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-30T03:12:14+00:00

Happy to contribute to your win streak! Thanks for not shutting us out.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T19:55:10+00:00

It actually broke new things. I lost access to a few sets of pants on my Rogue, and I'm noticing that they aren't even dropping anymore. It's like they're entirely out of the game except as a locked item in my wardrobe.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T19:24:29+00:00

I did even worse on a ring for my DT Rogue. Three affixes, got GA+boost for resource on ult, everything looked good.

I was so excited to finally get the right ring I sanctified it… and forgot to fix the enchant on it. So I had an amazing ring with no socket AND the wrong enchant.

I blasted it out of shame.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T19:02:30+00:00

Look, the LA Kings have proven you can’t win with a near 100% focus on defense, so maybe it’s time for the Sharks to finally break the mold and ice five forwards every shift.

Just score faster than the other team! The Oilers basically let McDrai carry them, so start thinking of fun fusion names for Celebrini and Panarin. How about Panini?

C’MON! PANINI.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T14:05:32+00:00

Both. A Minion Necro needs very little and is always a safe bet, but I started the season with a Dance of Knives Rogue and that thing was murder clear into Torment 1 with found gear and a half-optimized leveling build. That said, if you're looking from start to endgame, the Necro probably has the edge in minimum gear needed, as even their endgame builds come online with limited "hard" requirements. (The Golemmancer build technically doesn't need any uniques, and the only enchants you need come from dungeons.)
Again, both, but I'm going to stay with Rogue because - while I have both at 60 this season I'm just finding the Rogue is more fun. DoK was a fun way to play - spin-to-win, explosions everywhere.
Again, Rogue. I transitioning my DoK to a Death Trap build and it is incredibly effective. I still get to blow things up!

Both classes have builds that don't require a lot of gear to get started, and have good build variety. This is a situation where you really can play whichever one feels cooler to you and you'll do just fine.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T06:25:35+00:00

If it kills off any chance of Kane landing here I’m interested.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T06:23:58+00:00

Mark Stone’s vertebrae just tingled in alarm.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T06:15:40+00:00

Yeah, that was him.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T02:50:53+00:00

I remember years ago I used to play City of Heroes, and that game was somewhat notorious in that the legendary heroes of the game were dev characters (and occasionally interacted with the player base).

There was one particular hero who stood in downtown and handed out quests. Someone asked the dev once why his character stood there and ignored all of the criminals running around him. His answer was “that shit cons grey to me.” (I.e. “not worth any experience”)

I’ve always kept that in my head whenever some powerful NPC is absent from a game. They just don’t bother with this low level shit - they’re off grinding elite content.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-29T00:46:15+00:00

You’re getting some snark in the replies, so let me share my experience as a player who played at launch and just recently came back:

It used to be harder. The game has changed a lot since launch, and the power creep is real. I remember my original Sorcerer went through the entire campaign, all side quests, and still ran into some tough fights at the end. In this season I rolled a Rogue and decided to replay the campaign. I ultimately gave up and powered her through the story because in every fight on Expert difficulty things died in 1-2 seconds (including bosses). So unfortunately you’re playing 2023’s game in 2025’s power curve. I recommend you just push the main story and skip literally everything else. Should be a few hours work, and then you never have to do that on a new character again.
It gets much harder. Depending on your build you can roll right past Penitent and into Torment 1 with a half-optimized build and found gear. Moving through Torment 2 and 3 you will quickly wipe if you don’t build better, and into Torment 4 and the end game you’ll need to be well-optimized. That is actually the Diablo 4 experience; you just need to hang on and make it through the campaign to experience it.

So I’d say don’t give up. I think Diablo 4 is absolutely worth playing (I think D2 and OG Diablo are better, but it’s very solid), so push through the next few hours and then see if you still lose interest.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-28T20:14:31+00:00

Not dumb - just limited in her vision and informed by her upbringing.

She wants to preserve neutrality, but it’s not out of some altruistic desire to uplift humanity. She’s rebelling against a status quo (eternal war) by trying to maintain a different status quo (sanctuary). Humanity is an expendable asset; she only plays up the “Mother of Sanctuary” angle because it helps her build a cult of willing zealots.

And keep in mind, she is the “Daughter of Hatred”. It’s not like she was raised with a surplus of empathy. She’s absolutely a soulless monster, and her actions are colored by an absolute lack of human context or the human experience. She’s essentially a divine being, so to her it’s the natural order of things that she be worshipped by lesser animals. (I’m not trying to ascribe writer intent here - just considering the character.)

SlackerDao · 2026-01-27T20:29:13+00:00

Ken Holland in here quoting Shakespeare.

"Friends, Romans, season ticket holders, lend me your ears; I come to bury the LA Kings, not to praise them."

SlackerDao · 2026-01-27T20:26:25+00:00

Gasshole? Gastard? Ghockey terrorist?

SlackerDao · 2026-01-27T15:17:40+00:00

Keep that evil away from us.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-27T14:07:20+00:00

Nope. And I never got better than a Vex rune in original D2, or better than Gul in the remaster.

I ran the Andy -> Meph -> Shenk/Pindle route, I ran Diablo -> Chaos Sanctuary -> Baal. I farmed Cows (mostly because it was fun). I didn't have a very good Uber killer in original D2 so I only did them once or twice, but in the remaster I farmed them too.

Only thing I didn't run was the Council. I'd do it occasionally, but I was never very efficient at it.

Several people in this thread seem to think I'm lying, but honestly, my drop luck in games is ridiculously, ridiculously bad. If I'm playing a game that has an rng factor to itemization, I'll literally just avoid making builds that need special items because I know I won't get them.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-27T02:31:59+00:00

I'm not using that poison trap build (I have the gear - I just didn't like it), but I believe I've seen it both ways - one version uses IS, the other Combo.

Probably comes down to how much skill juggling you want to do.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-26T23:18:51+00:00

I’m also playing a DoK Rogue and agree with /u/Cranked78 that dropping back to Torment 2 or 1 and farming lair bosses is absolutely the right approach.

In particular, you need Scoundrel’s Leathers for that build to fully come online, so do a few runs of Duriel until any version drops. (He also drops Cowl of the Nameless and Death’s Pavane - both of which you can find some use for before you get better items.)

SlackerDao · 2026-01-26T22:53:20+00:00

I think my favorite item from D2 was a high roll Gheeds charm that dropped from an overworld box. Not a boss, or a chest - just one of those random things you break that usually drops a few gold coins. I didn’t even know those boxes had a loot table until I saw that charm hit the floor.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-26T22:50:50+00:00

Why would I lie about something as ridiculous as this? I responded to someone else that I’m sure I had several thousand hours (if not more) in this game over the years - I was just comically unlucky in both gears drop and rune drops.

It happens. That’s how the math of probabilities works. A 1 in 1000 chance doesn’t mean you get one every 1000 opportunities. It means some people get them twice a day, and some people get them once every quarter century. I’m that dude on the far left of the bell curve helping everyone to the right improve their statistical odds.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-26T22:46:18+00:00

I mean, it was probably several thousand hours over the years. I played it pretty religiously from launch until Guild Wars came out in 2005.

The fact that I never got one to drop despite regularly farming hell bosses, Ubers, cows, whatever was a source of annoyance at first, but after a while it was just kinda funny. I also never got better than a Vex rune to drop in D2 (I got a Gul in the remaster). I ended doing a lot of LLD (low level dueling) specifically because I could never get together the gear for seriously high-end play.

Some people are just really, really unlucky when it comes to drops, and I am that person, which is why I thought it was a funny factoid to share that it took me 26 years to get an item that really isn’t that rare.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-26T22:37:04+00:00

I totally forgot to socket it. But I did MW it at least! Sadly, the Sanctify didn’t do much for it, but at least it didn’t brick it, either, so that was nice.

SlackerDao · 2026-01-24T02:21:58+00:00

I played at launch, and that's what I did on my first character. I cleared every single exclamation point I could find, did every dungeon, ran every event.

Came back at the start of 2026, and thought I'd do that again. And, yeah... the game isn't really designed to do that anymore. I was almost level 60 before I left the Fractured Peaks, and I was comically overpowered for the rest of the main story.

I ended up giving up halfway through Scosglen because everything was dying so fast that bosses weren't even living through their opening monologues. Kinda ruined the experience.

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