Diablo 3: Monster Power and stuff

Oh hi there!

So, over the past few months there has been a lot going on in my life that I won't go into here. Needless to say my posting had been infrequent and that's something that I have been addressing! Hooray for me. The outlook is looking quite a lot better than it has for a while, but I can honestly say I am nowhere near saying that all is rosey and perfect. There is still a lot that can be better but I am doing my best to make that happen.

What have I been doing gaming wise? Well, I guess the first thing to mention is that I am getting a new pc. It's getting delivered on Tuesday and I am super excited, more excited than an average 30 something year old should be at getting a new pc. I might post up some specs if you are interested but for the most part I guess its safe to say that it's pretty okay and it will hopefully enable me to get started on a new project related to gaming.

I picked up Diablo 3 again a few nights ago unfortunately it was on a maintenance night so I was unable to play any of the characters that I have worked not very hard on! So I swapped over to the US servers and decided to try a new character.. a female Barbarian. I figured why not, since I already have a level 60 Barb and kinda know and like the play style.. So I started playing and then remembered about something called Monster Power.

What is Monster Power? Well it was introduced back in October 2012 and basically it increases monster health and damage but also increases your magic/gold find and experience gain. I don't think I was in one of my D3 phases at that point and when I got back into it I couldn't figure out how to change it! To the point where(bearing in mind I hadn't read anything about it) I thought that I might have to have completed inferno on the character in order to enable it.

So I had a revelation when I changed over to the US servers for this new character, for some reason I opened up the options while in the game and noticed the option to turn it on! If you're interested, it can be found in the Gameplay section of the options menu. Once ticked, the next time you change the quest that you are on, you'll see that you have a new option - next to the difficulty level. For more information about Monster Power, you should check out the D3 Blog post about it here.

On the level 6 odd Barbarian, when I changed the monster power to level 10, I noticed no real difference in the difficulty. When I next logged on, I tried this on my level 60 Monk(with ok/bad gear), monster power 10 was actually unplayable. The first mob on act 1 inferno had like 200 million hp(ok maybe not that much but it felt like it) and considering my Monk does like 40k crits.. it took like 5 minutes to kill that first mob, though I was never in any danger of dying to it! I think the highest level that it was about playable for me was roughly around Monster Power 3 or 4.

On the other hand, I have a level 26 odd Wizard that I had been meaning to level up.. so I swapped over to it and changed from Act 3 to Act 1, Quest 1 with Monster Power 10.. of course I ploughed through the first load of quests with no troubles.. I've yet to really have any problems with it but I'm still only in the first Act. I intend to write up more about the Wizard in the next couple of days, when I have played him a bit more. I actually quite like the play style of it at the moment.. lots of zappy lazers.. pew pew.

I think that's about all for now.. though keep your eyes peeled for some new content coming pretty soon after Tuesday.

Ciao for now!

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Diablo 3: The Monk

As promised, I'm here again! This time with a little look at the class that I have been playing the most in the short spurts I've had at playing D3 recently. Unfortunately, most of my time has been taken up with working and.. being told what to do by she who must be obeyed.. so I'm whipped, what of it?!

I actually have something else on my mind too, I was wondering about the different sites that offer homes to blogs and considering moving across to a different one. I did a brief search and it looks like WordPress is the main competitor for Blogger; in one head to head, here, they say that Blogger is much easier to use and WordPress is much more difficult to get to grips with... so, being the lazy bugger that I am, I think I'll stick to Blogger! Do you have any thoughts? Let me know!

Enough about that claptrap! The Monk! The monk is a melee based class with some funky dunky spells to help them out.. if I had to compare them to a WoW class, I guess it would be the Paladin. They can heal themselves and groups(with an Aura) and dish out a bidda damage and also be quite tanky in multiplayer. Their main attributes are Dexterity and that's about it I guess, though it never hurts to stack the old hit points.

You can run with a couple of different styles with the Monk, you can use one weapon and shield and soak damage and bore packs of mobs to death(much like the WoW Paladin used to), you can dual wield one handers(which I think fits more with the way Monks look) or you can try and lift a mighty two-hander with your scrawny looking Monk fella.. 

I found working my way through the beginning levels to be easy, almost too easy really! Especially with abilities like Breath of Heaven and Serenity. Of course, late Hell things got a bit rougher, but still not too difficult.. even Inferno doesn't hurt too much.

Do I like it? Yah, I really like the play style of the Monk for some reason(probably because it's ez-mode balanced!!!). I guess I am still a sucker for running into a group of mobs and laying the smack down and enjoying the abundance of red mist that sprays around when you kill them all! But where are you at with your Monk?!?! I hear you cry in unison.. well, I'm glad you asked! Currently I'm just starting Act II of Inferno. My last session ended when she rang me and made me die to the first champion pack I encountered in Act II! :(

I have no idea if other people who play monks use the build I do.. I think, if I can remember rightly it's something like this and I really like it. It gives a ton of survivability and puts out a decent amount of damage.  Granted it's nowhere near close to the Witch Doctor's damage.. but who would expect it to be? I'm currently stuck with some alright gear.. working on getting upgrades in the ole inferno...

Time to stop talking and get back to ... watching my pc perform a CHKDSK... joy.

Ciao for now!

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