Diablo 3 Secrets - Tips To Getting Started Faster

Diablo 3 Secrets - Tips to Getting Started Faster

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What to Expect from the Game __________________________________________________ 4

No More Skill Tree _________________________________________________________________ 4

Reusable Gems ____________________________________________________________________ 4

Crafting __________________________________________________________________________ 4

Universal Auction House ____________________________________________________________ 5

Structured PVP ____________________________________________________________________ 5

Random Gear Drops ________________________________________________________________ 5

End Game Content _________________________________________________________________ 5

How to Use this Guide ______________________________________________________________ 5

Farming _____________________________________________________________________ 7

Check Everything __________________________________________________________________ 7

Farming Techniques ________________________________________________________________ 7

Pack Hunting ______________________________________________________________________ 8

Container Farming _________________________________________________________________ 8

Combine the Two __________________________________________________________________ 8

Farming Tips ______________________________________________________________________ 9

Auction House _______________________________________________________________ 10

How it Works ____________________________________________________________________ 10

Selling __________________________________________________________________________ 11

Buying __________________________________________________________________________ 11

Auction House Strategies ___________________________________________________________ 11

Buy Low Sell High ________________________________________________________________________ 11

Monopolize ____________________________________________________________________________ 12

Inferno_____________________________________________________________________ 13

Preparation ______________________________________________________________________ 13

Skill Changes _____________________________________________________________________ 13

Loot Changes ____________________________________________________________________ 14

New AI _________________________________________________________________________ 14

Enrage Timers __________________________________________________________________________ 14

Hardcore ___________________________________________________________________ 15

How it Works ____________________________________________________________________ 15


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Play Style _______________________________________________________________________ 16

Skill Selection ____________________________________________________________________ 16

Gear Selection ___________________________________________________________________ 16

Create a Stockpile _________________________________________________________________ 17

Gem Guide _________________________________________________________________ 18

Upgrading _______________________________________________________________________ 18

Different Gem Types ______________________________________________________________ 19

Amethyst ______________________________________________________________________________ 19

Emerald _______________________________________________________________________________ 19

Ruby __________________________________________________________________________________ 20

Topaz _________________________________________________________________________________ 20

Conclusion __________________________________________________________________ 22


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What to Expect from the Game

If you go into Diablo 3 expecting a higher graphics version of the previous game you will

be sorely disappointed. Not only are you going to be working your way through a

completely different campaign (although many of the bosses should be pretty familiar)

you’re also playing with different mechanics, different classes and a whole different

system.

While the two games look similar on the surface there are very different mechanics

running in the background and you are in for a completely different experience.

No More Skill Tree

No longer will you have to try and figure out which skills to take in a skill tree. Now

when you get new abilities you can switch them out on the fly and enhance them with

skill runes that unlock later on. This makes it possible for a more dynamic type of play

and you don’t have to worry about the impact of your skill choices nearly as much.

Reusable Gems

All of the gems you get in the game can be used in item after item so you won’t be

throwing them away with each new upgrade. Instead they follow a path of progression

and they will level up with your character.

Crafting There is now a basic crafting system that allows you to create new weapons using

patterns at the Blacksmith. You won’t be doing the crafting yourself, but you will have to

work to help the blacksmith gain levels as the game progresses.


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Universal Auction House Your entire realm will have access to the same Auction House. This means getting better

items will be easier early in the game, and getting rid of the stuff you don’t want is as

simple as putting it up for sale and waiting for someone to buy it.

Structured PVP Now you can challenge your fellow players in an actual PVP arena where it will feel

more like a competition and less like an ambush. Many players don’t like this change, but

I think it will make for a more even playing field and more exciting matches.

Random Gear Drops Boss farming isn’t going to be the main focus of Diablo 3 because it will do you no good

(outside of Inferno). The game is setup so that bosses drop some decent items the first

time they are killed and then they drop nearly ordinary items every other time they are

killed. Some of the best gear is going to come off normal enemies or even out of chests,

your best chance at finding something good is to kill massive swarms of enemies, not

farm bosses.

End Game Content Now when you reach the level cap of the game (60) you have essentially only just begun.

There is a fourth difficulty known as Inferno and it is structured to be so hard that it will

take months for the average player to complete if they are able to at all. You won’t be

working toward new levels here and instead will be doing everything to boost up your

gear to higher levels and get the most coveted items in the game.

How to Use this Guide As a new player you should use this guide as a guideline to get you started on the right

track. With the information listed throughout you will understand the basic mechanics of

the game and you can avoid simple mistakes made by uninformed players such as boss

farming, or throwing out perfectly good gems.


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Whether you are a relatively new player or a seasoned veteran; stop playing the game for

a minute, and flip through this guide. You should be able to pick up some useful tips and

ultimately improve your progress and overall experience with this game. If nothing else

you will probably reaffirm some of your suspicions and build confidence that you are

heading down the right path.


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Farming

Anyone familiar with the Diablo franchise will probably go into Diablo 3 expecting the

bosses to be the best way to gain rare items. While they often do drop a few rare items the

first time you beat them, after that they aren’t much better than a standard enemy. Out of

everyone playing the game all of the best items have come randomly from non-boss

enemies so far.

What this means is that instead of focusing on killing bosses in the game over and over

again, - like many of us did in Diablo 1 and 2 - you should be exploring the world and

killing as many packs of enemies as you can find. Since rare item drops are completely

random, the more enemies you kill the better chance you have of finding something of

worth.

Check Everything One of the biggest mistakes you can make is skipping over those barrels or corpses as

you progress through the game. Anything can come out of those including rare and even

unique items. By checking every one of the barrels, chests, and any other containers in

the game you increase your chances of finding something of worth dramatically. You

never know - the next weapon rack may be holding the best item you will get your hands

on for the next 30 levels, it would be pretty horrible to miss out on that because you

wanted to get to the next boss a few seconds faster.

Farming Techniques Even though rare item drops are completely random in the game, it doesn’t mean that

there aren’t ways to improve your chances of finding something of worth. Before you


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will be able to use either of these techniques you have to explore the world to become

more familiar with it. Of course you will never know where everything is because it’s

randomized every time you play, but you can become familiar with different areas.

While exploring, pay attention to how many enemies are in an area. Some sections of the

game will have thick packs of enemies, and other sections will be almost barren. Make a

note of all the areas with high numbers of enemies as well as the areas with high numbers

of containers and chests.

Pack Hunting One of the best ways to improve your gear is to go pack hunting. Find a section of the

game that is thick with packs of enemies. Now get your best AOE (area of effect) attacks

ready and tear through those groups as fast as you possibly can. Only focus on the largest

groups to save yourself time and effort. After you get through all the groups, restart the

game and tear through them again. Continue this process until you have either found

something of worth, or you want to move on to a new area.

Container Farming The next type of farming is even easier and can also be done with great results. For

container farming you want to find an area with a high number of containers and a low

number of enemies. Now you simply run around opening every container that you see

and picking up anything of worth at the same time. When you are done opening them all,

restart the game and do it all over again.

Combine the Two If one method gets boring you can combine the two in an area with a high number of

containers and enemies. Now you can switch between mowing down swarms of demons

and picking through chests and barrels. This won’t necessarily improve your odds of

finding random items over doing the two separately, but it is certainly more interesting.


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Farming Tips There are a few ways to improve the items that you find in the game dramatically. The

first way is to progress through the game as far as you can before you start farming

seriously. Basically, don’t bother with farming the same areas over and over again until

you have made it past the Normal difficulty level and maybe even Nightmare difficulty.

The farther you get in the game the more powerful the drops will typically be. This

means that unique item you find in Hell will probably be much more valuable than the

unique you dug out of a chest in Normal.

The other way to boost your odds is to utilize magic find gear. There are many magical

items that come with an attribute that improves your ability to find magical gear.

Whenever you can, keep the magic find gear on so that you increase your odds of finding

something really good. When you are finally ready to farm for gear you should have as

much magic find gear on as you can.


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Auction House

Unlike the previous versions of Diablo, Diablo 3 comes standard with an Auction House.

Now instead of joining a trade game to barter with other players you can simply get onto

the universal auction house and list your items and search for items that you are

interested in. This not only saves time, but it also gives you access to a huge number of

items that you never would have been able to get before.

How it Works When you sign into Diablo 3 there is a button that gives you access to the Auction House.

By clicking that button you are taken into the universal gold auction house for your area.

In the Auction House you can browse through all of the items you have listed on your

character, and you can look at the items that all of your characters have in the stash.

From the starting menu you have the ability to search through all of the items other

players have listed on the Auction House. You can also list any of your items if you want

to get rid of some things. It’s important to note that all of the gold held by all of your

characters will be added up and that is what you have access to at the Auction House.

If you want to access items your other characters have in their inventory, you simply exit

the Auction House, switch characters and go back into the Auction House.


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Selling Listing an item in the Auction House is nearly effortless, and it won’t cost you a dime

until after it has sold. Simply go to the sell tab and select the item that you want to sell.

From there it will suggest a starting price for the auction that you are free to change, and

it will give you the option to add a buyout price. By adding a buyout price you may limit

the amount you get from the item, but you will also often sell your items faster.

If your items sell within the two day time period you will get the gold from the auction,

minus the 15 percent transaction fee taken for the Auction House services.

Buying Early in the game you can get some very affordable upgrades using the Auction House.

Simply select the type of item that you want using the browser options and you can get

upgrades of the item quality and type that you desire. After you buy an item it’s added to

the completed tab in the Auction House. From there you can have the item sent straight to

your stash and you can pick it up with the desired character in the game.

Auction House Strategies After you understand how to use the Auction House effectively, and you have some gold

to spare, you can start playing around with the Auction House and using it to make

yourself a profit in the game. There are a number of different techniques that you can use

to make money in the Auction House. Most are fairly simple if you have a bit of capital

to get you going.

Buy Low Sell High

The simplest technique for making a profit in the Auction House doesn’t take much

money to start. You simply look through different items listed for sale and try to find

items that are listed way below the last 10 items sold. When you see an item that is going

for much less than what people are willing to pay, you buy it out and resell it closer to the

actual average price. Just make sure the price difference is large enough to make you a

profit after you subtract 15% for the transaction fee.


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This same technique can be used with a group of items if they are all listed at a

significantly lower price than yesterday’s average price. Even if the item is around the

average for the last 10 items you can probably make a profit by raising the price if there

are only a few at that lower price.

Save up your gold and keep an eye out for these opportunities to make yourself a tidy

profit in the Auction House.

Monopolize

The next technique takes a lot more gold to use effectively. Basically what you are doing

is finding an item that people really want. Make sure it is an item that people need such

as a crafting material, gems, or some nice piece of gear that is popular. Buy up every

single listing of that item that there is on the Auction House. Now that you own the entire

supply of that item you can resell it at a much higher price.

In order for this to work effectively you have to be able to buy out the other items that

people list at a lower price. Since the Auction House doesn’t tell who the seller is you can

make your listing look more natural by pricing them at different amounts. Start off at the

lowest price that you want to sell the item at and randomly increase the price of the items

as you continue to list them on the house. Make sure to keep a few of the items at each

price point with more sitting at the lower price and less at the higher. This will make

people more likely to buy an item at the lower price because it will look like a bargain.

Just make sure to watch the Auction House for any competition and don’t be afraid to

monopolize several different items as long as you have the gold and the time to keep

track of them all.


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Inferno

Inferno is the last difficult of Diablo III and it is unlike any of the other difficulties before

it. You unlock Inferno when you have finished Hell and reached the level cap of 60.

From there you can enter the most difficult part of the game and gain access to some of

the best items and most terrifying enemies.

Preparation The first step in preparing for Inferno is getting your character up to level 60 and

finishing the Hell campaign. From there you should continue to run Hell until you get

some of the best gear available in the difficulty. When you are having a hard time getting

better gear from Hell it’s time to reassess your skills and move to Inferno.

Skill Changes In all the other difficulties you probably focused on AOE damage more than anything

else. In Inferno you need to put more focus on single target attacks because the powerful

single target enemies will take everything you’ve got to bring down.

On top of altering your skills to favor single target attacks you should also switch to skills

that improve your defense and resistances. Later on in Inferno you can switch to a higher

attack build, but in the beginning it will take everything you’ve got just to stay alive

while you collect your starting gear.


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Loot Changes Unlike in the first three difficulties where the best items available fall off of random

monsters in the game, in Inferno the best gear is going to come off of heroic enemies and

bosses. This means that instead of running around killing large groups of enemies to find

your gear, you should be taking on all the bosses and as many heroics as you can find.

In order to beat some of these bosses and gain access to the better loot you must build up

your gear first. This means taking on normal enemies for a while to gear up and then

tackling some heroics to gear up further before facing your first boss.

New AI One of the most exciting things about Inferno is that you won’t know what to expect

when facing a boss or heroic enemy for the first time. Even if you have faced the same

enemy in the other difficulties he isn’t going to act the same in Inferno. All of the

powerful enemies have been given new special moves that are designed to challenge you

even further. On top of that they will be much harder to kill and they will deal a whole lot

more damage.

Whether you are a ranged class or a melee class, you can expect some abilities to target

you specifically and make the fight harder until you understand how to deal with them.

Enrage Timers

It’s important that you are capable of doing a decent amount of damage when you face

your first boss because chances are good that you will be facing the wrath of enrage

timers if you cannot. Blizzard has put in place enrage timers on many of the bosses that

will make the boss more powerful after a certain period of time has passed.

For instance, the Skeleton King may start hitting harder or summoning more minions five

or six minutes into the battle. This was done to keep players from chipping away at

bosses for hours with subpar gear. Instead you must get in there and start dealing the

damage before that enrage gets thrown into the mix.


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Hardcore

Hardcore mode is for players who want the ultimate challenge in Diablo 3. Not only will

you have to face everything that your enemies throw at you through all the difficulties,

but you will do it without dying at all. That’s the main feature of hardcore mode and it’s

pretty significant. As soon as you die you lose your character forever along with all the

gear that they were holding at the time.

How it Works You can’t create a character in Hardcore until you have made it to level 10 with one of

your other characters. After you finally get one of your other characters up in levels,

check the Hardcore box when creating your character to lock them in Hardcore.

As a Hardcore character you won’t have access to items found by any characters that

aren’t in Hardcore. That means the better items will be harder to come by. You also can’t

trade items between your other characters unless they are also in Hardcore which goes

without saying.

If your character dies they cannot be looted by any other players who are on the screen at

the time and your character changes to a ghost on the character screen. The ghost can be

used to chat with players but cannot be played any longer.


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If you die above level 10 your character can be added to the Hall of Fallen Heroes where

you can go back through and look at stats about them. Archived characters no longer

occupy your character slots.

Play Style As a Hardcore player you should alter your play style quite a bit. You can’t afford to just

run into a room and start attacking huge groups of enemies carelessly. Instead you have

to think out your moves and make sure what you are doing won’t get you killed.

You should take your time and play through a few areas a couple times before making

your way to more difficult sections of the game. By being a little stronger than you feel

you actually need to be you lower the risk that you will die when facing bosses or elite

enemies.

Skill Selection When you pick out the skills for your character in Hardcore, survival should be the

number one priority. This means that you have to pick the defensive skills that are

designed to keep you alive over the power house damage skills.

Focus on slowing abilities or stunning abilities and skill runes whenever you can. If you

only have to sacrifice a small amount of damage for increased survival you should

probably do so.

Gear Selection Your gear should follow the same general idea that your skills do. Pick items that

promote survival over items that promote damage. As a Barbarian go with a shield and

one handed weapon combination over a duel wield setup. Sure it will take you longer to

kill your enemies, but you won’t have to worry as much about dying.

Your gear should focus on Vitality and Defense and you should focus on Amethyst gems

more than any other for their increase in life and life drain abilities.


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Create a Stockpile After you have been in the game for a little while on your Hardcore character it’s

important to start building up a stockpile of gear and gems. You should do your best to

get a powerful set of gear for each of the level ranges so that if you ever die you can

quickly gain levels on your new character. Just be sure to put all of your item sets into

the shared stash so that you can quickly gain access to them with a new character.

Another method to store gear is to create a separate Hardcore character just to hold your

items for any of your new characters.


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Gem Guide

While gems work differently in Diablo 3 than they did in Diablo 2 they still remain an

integral part of the game and you must understand how to use them to get the most out of

your character.

Instead of throwing out gems when you switch to a different piece of equipment, you can

bring all of your gems with you from item to item. You will have to pay a little gold to

remove gems from your items, but after they are out they can be upgraded to the next

level.

The Jeweler not only removes gems from sockets, but he also will upgrade your gems to

higher levels. The only catch is that you have to upgrade the jeweler before he can

upgrade the gems very far. This means you have to pay money to the jeweler and collect

materials to get him to the higher levels.

Upgrading There are 14 tiers of gems available in Diablo 3 and in order to progress from level to

level you have to combine three of the same level gem. So in order to go from a Chipped

Topaz to a Flawed Topaz you have to put three different Chipped Topazes together.

When you get up to the perfect level and beyond also have to start collecting other

materials besides gems to upgrade to higher levels. You will either need Page of

Jewelcrafting, Tome of Jewelcrafting or Tome of Secrets when upgrading any farther as

well as having three of the same gems. Each of these three materials are dropped off


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enemies randomly, but you can purchase them off the Auction House if you aren’t having

luck finding them.

Different Gem Types

There are four different types of gems in Diablo 3 and each of them enhances three

different properties depending on the gear in which they are placed.

Amethyst

Summary – Boosts Life

Amethyst is the purple gem associated with the life of your character. When you add an

amethyst gem to a helmet it boosts your total life by a percentage. When it is added to a

weapon you will heal yourself with every attack that you make and when it is added to

anything else your Vitality will receive a boost, raising your total life pool.

If you are having problems staying alive you can use amethyst to boost your total life and

let you take a few more hits before dying.

Emerald

Summary – Boosts Gold, Crit Hit and Dexterity

The green gems that you come across are emeralds and they boost three different

attributes depending on what they are used in.


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One of the best places to socket emeralds is in helmets because they boost the amount of

gold you find from monsters by a percentage.

If your build depends on a good critical hit chance you should place emeralds in your

weapon because it raises your chances of critically hitting.

When placed in any other socket you will get a Dexterity boost from emeralds making

you more likely to hit your target. This is the main attribute that Demon Hunters need.

Ruby

Summary – Boosts Damage, Experience, and Strength

Rubies are all about damage and boosting your leveling speed. Anyone trying to power

level should put their best rubies in their helmet to give a nice experience boost for every

kill you make. When placed in a weapon you will do more damage with rubies and if

they are put into any other socket you will have enhanced Strength which also results in

more damage. Rubies are an important part of the game for characters in lower difficulty

levels when survival is less important than speed leveling and raw power to take out large

packs of mobs.

Topaz

Summary – Boosts Magic Find, Thorns, and Intelligence

Any yellow gems are known as Topaz and they give three different attribute boosts that

aren’t related to each other. The most useful of the three is the helmet attribute that

increases your chance of finding magical items. With good enough Topaz gems you

should find a significantly larger number of magical items than you did before.


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When used in a weapon you gain a thorns attribute that will deal damage to any enemies

that attack you. This is great for melee characters, but not very useful for the ranged

classes who won’t be getting hit much.

When Topaz is set in any other gear type you gain Intelligence which will boost up your

power pool. Intelligence is a great attribute for Wizards and it will increase the amount of

damage your character deals while also boosting his resistance to elemental damage.


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Conclusion Diablo 3 is an incredibly deep game that, while not exactly like its predecessors, certainly

takes a number of cues from them to produce a fantastic random action hack and slash

adventure with a heavy focus on finding the best possible loot and trying not to get killed

over and over again.

For those new to the Diablo universe, this is a fantastic game in which to get started; for

veterans, make sure you adjust to the new mechanics and rules of gameplay. Sticking to

what worked in Diablo 2 is not going to serve you well in this case.

And for everyone involved, enjoy the game!

Do you want even more help getting started? Check out Diablo 3 Hero.

The Diablo 3 Hero guide is a complete leveling guide for Diablo 3 - we are the only

guide to feature leveling guides, a full strategy guide and also HD videos to go along with

the guide.

http://golearnhere.com/diablo3hero



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