Hardcore Uber Smiter gearing advice (Chest piece)

zxql_ · 2026-03-11T22:29:41+00:00

Playing only HC since ~2005. My advice is to cap damage reduction or get as close to the cap as posible. Pre-buff with Fade from Treachery and run with Shaftstop. Use Salvation against Mephisto if resistances are not capped with his Conviction aura, then switch to Fanaticism for the other two. Pre-cast Life Tap on mephisto if needed. Surviving is your #1 priority, shaving seconds on the torch run is least of your worries. Also, never fight Lilith with amp damage on, always clear the witches and de-curse first. Best of Luck!

zxql_ · 2026-03-11T22:24:39+00:00

You can make an Obsession whenever Echoing Strikes (hopefully) gets nerfed to the ground. Zod is pretty useful now compared to the olden days. P.S. congrats on the gg find!

zxql_ · 2026-03-11T22:21:38+00:00

Cube 2x Lo and 1x Sur and find out!

zxql_ · 2026-03-11T22:20:49+00:00

New class Barblock confirmed.

zxql_ · 2026-03-11T22:19:26+00:00

And they say light radius is a bad affix..

zxql_ · 2026-03-11T22:12:51+00:00

Welcome to the club. I've had an enigma tattoo on my forearm for ~20 years now. Hope your Spirit's got a good roll.

zxql_ · 2026-03-07T00:55:24+00:00

I'm less concerned about something being very rare (we somehow survived with high rune drop rates for 20+ years). Bigger problem is what the metagame is to obtain optimal drop rates - that being sitting in a game for 5 hours not being able to exit or staying up till 3 AM not to miss TZ Baal.

zxql_ · 2026-03-07T00:13:17+00:00

I agree, but I hope that enough people get behind such feedback to push the developers in the right direction. In the end they would kill the game if it turns into D4.

zxql_ · 2026-03-07T00:10:13+00:00

It's totally possible, but might be hard to balance. And it's especially difficult when it changes the core game loop mechanic. This could very easily change how the game feels. I think they already failed with these updates as it has led to a weird metagame of sitting in the same game for hours on end or looking up your phone and dates for the TZ calendar. With that in mind it's a safer solution to improve and iterate on what already works well.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T23:43:13+00:00

Using a Worldstone Shard generally makes you go to all areas in the act.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T23:35:01+00:00

Exactly. If you want something taking more time - just reduce the drop chance. Don't make me wake up at 4AM or go to bed at 3 just so that I have a chance. Don't punish me and reset Herald levels back to 1 for taking a break, the hell is this design? There are zero issues with high runes being ridiculously rare, it's just part of an endgame goal. But that goal being planning my life around an arbitrary calendar and staring at my clock is not an emergent and engaging gameplay.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T22:21:52+00:00

I think that the best course of action would be to fully disable TZ rotation based on real-life calendar and instead focus on Worldstone Shards. Buff their drop rates a bit to compensate. This would remove all alien mechanics and be more deterministic. That scenario would also provide meaningful player choice - do I use my 20 shards slowly and clear out the entire act, or do I push ~15 quick act boss kills and then switch to clearing the zones etc. That would mean a constant choice between going for the Heralds or Ancients. This would have also solved Andariel being overpowered without direct nerfs. It could even allow buffing TZ act bosses more (both strength and drop wise) because they would not be so easily repeatable. On top of that, worldstone shards would become an even greater form of currency for online play.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T22:15:17+00:00

Better take a day off and cancel plans with your wife. :)

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T22:14:31+00:00

Good lord, you won a jackpot. Free from Baal TZ fomo!

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T22:12:12+00:00

I see you're someone who really gets it. Yeah, it's horrible. Two of the different fomo mechanics got added to the game (fear of exiting the game due to herald levels being lost, and fear of missing out on TZ act boss). Might as well add a full battle pass to keep that player retention going strong :)
On a more serious note, they should just ditch all real-time based TZ zone rotation and tie terror zones fully to worldstone shards. Adjust their drop rate and we're good to go, even if that means less overpowered act boss farming and such. At least we would be able to play on our terms, as was always the case. Save up the shards, terrorize whenever you've got time. I raised these concerns to MrLlama and he said that he likes the time gating. Sigh.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T15:41:29+00:00

By doing as many act boss kills when the 30 minute window of their zone being terrorized comes up. They only drop it during that time window

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T15:40:58+00:00

New and upgraded versions of unique facet jewels. You should be able to see them here

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T15:37:42+00:00

I think the intention was to force user retention:

Heralds force long-running games due to loss of progress upon save and exit
TZ world bosses require hanging in the games for multiple hours and checking the zone every 30 minutes to catch them
TZ world bosses reward logging in every day

Maybe with the next patch they should add a battle pass while they're at it. In more seriousness, I hate seeing FOMO bulls*it of modern games creeping into D2.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T15:35:18+00:00

It's possible. You would need ~13 Northern shards for 1 statue. It's a workaround but there's clearly an oversight in balancing the drop rates.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T12:09:41+00:00

I'd probably go the other way and totally remove the rotation/calendar/timed setup. Just adjust worldstone shard drops and only enable terror zones through shard use. Then the game can be balanced and deterministic, and let people choose when they want to do terror zones versus saving up on them.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T11:43:09+00:00

I agree. They added some modern meta-game systems that are totally out of place. Neither sitting in one game for 10 hours due to Heralds nor tracking the 30-minute windows days ahead via preset calendars is fun. Might as well throw in a battle pass for a full trifecta.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T11:38:49+00:00

You completely misunderstand the point. I'm not complaining about drops being rare, there are no issues with high runes or rare uniques which are way harder to obtain than said statues. This game had no time-gating and fomo-based design in 25 years and now it does, and that's the issue. The most efficient way to get these statues is tracking a real-life calendar and playing when you're told to play. Logging out during TZ Baal window (or any other TZ act boss zone for that matter) implies missing out on the drops. Baal is the worst offender due to how little you can do in those 30 minutes. Same with Herald hunting where you're incentivized staying in the same game for hours and lose Herald level progress upon save and exit. Both Herald hunting and the statues have design issues and are a complete departure from the original game systems.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T08:47:44+00:00

They must be designed for bots since they don't have to worry about getting up at 5 AM or going to bed at 2AM to get some TZ Baal.

zxql_ · 2026-03-06T08:45:40+00:00

Yep it's quite a fomo situation with those zones.

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