The Season 4 seasonal mechanic is a very simple one: grind Iron Wolf reputation in Helltides. There’s nothing fancy about it and it’s similar to the Vampire one except that the Vampire zones had the Blood Pacts and powers to compliment the season. But the real kicker for the Iron Wolf reputation grind is the last cache where you get one guaranteed Resplendent Spark per character on the seasonal realm. While you do have to create a new character and perform the grind each time, it’s definitely well worth the effort if your goal is to obtain as many Uber Uniques as you can easily and with 100% success since you can target craft them now. In my case, I got my first Shako last night.
So far in my season journey, my goal has been to get one Uber Unique. I have succeeded in getting two where one was crafted and the other was discovered in killing Andariel. For the crafted one, I played out a Minion Necromancer, Double Swing/Dust Devil Barbarian, Glacial/Ice Spike Sorcerer and a Werenado Druid. I only did a small amount of testing with the Shako on my Necromancer but I have been using the Ring of Starless Skies extensively on my Sorcerer and Druid (especially the druid because of resource issues). But even if the crafted Shako did not produce any GAs, I’m still quite happy with it and managed to Masterwork it 6 levels (got Resource Cost Reduction which is meh for my Necromancer but I might use this for someone else down the road).
Now that I have my first Shako for my Necromancer and that I’ve managed to max out here Glyphs (the relevant ones), I might start doing more Pits on her just to get Masterworking materials. I’ve gotten up to Tier 29 (I think) without any issue and with the Shako I get even more Damage Reduction and life (hitting 40k now) so I imagine I can get up much further on that ladder. I haven’t had to adjust the build to really optimize it. I think the more critical aspect would be to find better gear with Greater Affixes on stuff like life as well as hitting better Tempering. Unfortunately, in my initial exposure to Tempering and the new system, I probably put the emphasis in the wrong spots. In turn, I need to do a renewed audit of my gear to see what I can improve.
With regards to my other three characters mentioned above, most are in their high level 90s and probably have managed to hit level 15 Glyphs. But after I obtained their Iron Wolf cache rewards, I decided to put them on pause to move onto other projects. Eventually, I’d like to get back to a few of them. I think my Werenado druid is definitely one that I hope to checkout again as I found that character one of the most fun of the bunch. One thing I did initially was use a Companion build to level. That build was fine, quite tanky and the boss’ing was excellent. However, the real turn off for me was the super wonky wolf AI. I’d just see my wolves standing around looking dumbfounded. That made me want to switch especially after I got the Tempest Roar from one of the Iron Wolf caches.
However, when I first swapped to the new Werenado build, I had heard about resource issues and found a slightly different build using the Mad Wolf’s Glee (which I had some spares). At first, the build went okay but I noticed that it felt incredibly squishy. So I swapped out Mad Wolf’s Glee for a regular chest with the Juggernaut aspect and that fixed my general squishiness issues. However, I did encounter some resource issues and realized that I had unequipped the Ring of the Starless Skies. Once I put that back on, I find that I don’t have any more resource issues. The last bit of optimization that I need is getting two suggest uniques in Hunter’s Zenith (which I have a few 925s) and Wildheart Hunger. In the case of Wildheart Hunger, I tried to farm it on Sunday night in doing multiple Lord Zir runs (where my alternate purpose was to clear some stash space). I ended up finding nothing so I might have to return to that project later.
The Sorcerer though just hasn’t met my expectations. I found her to be squishy and the long cooldowns for Fire Shield and Ice Armor really hurt. Honestly, I think Incinerate was the better build but if I ever want to try that again, I’d probably just start from scratch. I have zero desire to play the gimmicky immortal Fire Bolt sorcerer build and Frost Orb turned out to be a grave disappointment. I suppose if I found a crazy good Fractured Winterglass, I might give Frost Orb another try. But without the basic gear in place, I think that I’ll just wait on that one because single target to me (i.e. bosses) is everything.
Beyond all that, the next project I started was a Thorns Barbarian last night. After seeing DatModz on HC push high level ranks with his version, I thought I might give this build a try. It’s something I had in the back of my mind for a while ever since Mathil1 did it back in season 2. I saw a few variations but the one I settled on for now is Bash. I learned that Bash has an affix that allows for Cleave. Because I already have all the Aspects and Affixes from my first barbarian from the season, I was able to Temper and add the critical Aspects which makes this Barbarian really powerful. The only key piece I’m missing is a Doombringer. If I really want to push this build, I’ll have to farm one or create three more characters and craft it. Quite frankly, I’d prefer a Grandfather just to have one since I already possess a (legacy) Doombringer on Eternal. Or maybe a Tyrael’s Might for leveling a Rogue.
If I end up trying to craft another one, I’ll have to figure out three more characters to play. So far, I’m missing a Rogue. There’s only two worthwhile builds that I can see which are Penetrating Shot and Heartseeker. Heartseeker just looks debilitating physically because I hate basic skill spam. Penetrating Shot might be good for leveling. Either way, neither look incredibly fun to play as the only Rogue build I’ve ever really liked was Twisting Blades but I’ve already done that build three times. The remaining two characters would be a Boulder druid but it looks still bugged and not worth playing. Finally, I might try Incinerate again or do some version of a Minion Bone Spear Necromancer. I haven’t really seen a good version of the Minion version of Bone Spear and I know they nerfed Bone Skeleton Mages before the season got started. However, it does have an interesting interaction with Bone Spear when a player cast it. So there’s some intriguing possibilities there. It’s just that I haven’t seen anyone really make it seem appealing. So if I do that build, it’s mostly for novelty and not pushing.
But unless they switch up the game for a mid-season update where I hope they’d bring back the OG vampire zones/powers and s3 Construct/Vaults, I don’t know how far I’ll go. I still would like another Uber Unique or two but it might not be through the Iron Wolf rep grind.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.