Season 8 Haedrig - Best starter

[qvazmir]

So, the haedrig sets are

Barbarian – Immortal King’s Call
Crusader – Seeker of the Light
Demon Hunter – Natalya’s Vengeance
Monk – Uliana’s Stratagem
Witch Doctor – Spirit of Arachyr
Wizard – Vyr’s Amazing Arcana

now, which would actually bring the most paragons & farmspeed in the least amount of time and stay relevant.

Barb - Can easily get 6p immortal 4p raekor, fast t10+ clears
Crus - Decent start, endgoal is LoN as always, may aswell start gearing it early?
DH - Natalya is pretty good earlygame, but dies off very fast. And bot + squishy = bad more often that not.
Monk - Uliana works good with the bot, good early clear, scales decently.
WD - Arachyr decent dmg, can get pretty good with firebats?
Wizard - Vyr is decent early, good toughness and okay damage. Not a fan of wizard end-game with the bot though (firebird archon)

What do you guys think? Just go for the lon crus like always?

 

[TwoCigars]

[TABLE="width: 550, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Season 7[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Season 8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Barbarian[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Wrath of the Wastes[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Immortal King’s Call[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Crusader[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Roland’s Legacy[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Seeker of the Light[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Demon Hunter[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Unhallowed Essence[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Natalya’s Vengeance[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Monk[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Raiment of a Thousand Storms[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Uliana’s Stratagem[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Witch Doctor[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Helltooth Harness[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Spirit of Arachyr[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Wizard[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Tal Rasha’s Elements[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Vyr’s Amazing Arcana[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


In season 7, I think it's pretty clear that some classes got the "meta" set while others didn't.

Ranking them [IMO] as to their relevance to the end game set:

1) Witchdoctor

Helltooth gives you 2 endgame builds; Firebats and Gargantuan

​

2) Monk

Technically a tie for 1 because of the R6 Generator build, but some people prefer the LTK Sunwuko build

​

3) DemonHunter

Gearing/playing UE is much easier than the LoN meta build with the Shi Mizu Haori
LoN build is still the end game more than UE for try-hards

​

Three way tie for last:

6) Barbarian

Primary WW builds require either IK pieces or Bul-Kathos set to really be effective.
Raekor or Earth set builds are much much better
Exception: WW is one of the best botter support specs you can run.

​

6) Crusader

LoN Sader and Invoker Thornsader are both significantly better than Roland's set.

​

6) Wizard

Tal's Set. Hmmm. Spectral Blade anyone? Didn't think so.​

---

In season 8 it looks like they have evened out those differences. At least, if the game is indeed getting no balancing, item or skill changes. Almost all classes will get a set to start their grinding, but will eventually have to change mostly to other sets...

Barbarian will at least get some IK pieces to work into an eventual IK/Raekor build, but will probably start out running the IK HotA spec. It is a good build for survive-ability but not very fast.

Crusader will be farming all of it's LoN gear from scratch, like always... Need a change here, Blizzard... [New Meta after 3+ seasons?]

DemonHunter will be starting out with a nice speed build with Rain of Vengeance.

Monk will have to contend with the Seven Sided Strike build at first. I feel it's a bit clunky but it can be powerful.

Witchdoctor had the best start in season 7 and has technically the worst start in season 8. Thank you reverse balance! Firebats is not a fast or great solo build. However, potentially the best starter set for group players.

Wizard Possibly the best start for solo players. It's an Archon set and Firebird Archon is the Meta. It will at least allow you to play a spec that gets all of the non-Firebird item's going for when you do build that set.

---

You really have 3 choices every season:

• Pick your preferred class for the season. Set the bot to run with whatever found gear you have a few rifts after 70 and wait until you have the set you want (pretty slow)
• Pick your preferred class for the season. Get the Haedrig set and let the bot run with it until you can change to the META build (most common)
• Pick the class with the best Haedrig set that can be a speed build, let the bot run speeds to get enough materials to cube/legendary your preferred class. (I might do this next season)

Obviously Haedrig is the best way to get geared for torments the fastest. It appear that Blizzard want's META build gearing to take longer than the current iteration or wants people to try out more builds.

 

[qvazmir]

Purely for speed i'm starting to think that Natalya is the fastest at ~~ t7, but it becomes irrelevant pretty quick. So maybe just get the crusader and start the lon-farm.. I've never had any success with archon firebird, bot just dies. Vyr on the other hand has good defensives, but not enough damage.. hm..

 

[TwoCigars]

Purely for speed i'm starting to think that Natalya is the fastest at ~~ t7, but it becomes irrelevant pretty quick. So maybe just get the crusader and start the lon-farm.. I've never had any success with archon firebird, bot just dies. Vyr on the other hand has good defensives, but not enough damage.. hm..

I had some efficiency issues with the stock .237 Trinity and archon, mainly due to chantodo not being stacked well enough. I kinda gave up on the class and started testing DH/Monk/WD when the new BETAs started rolling out.

Some of the testers said the latest BETA Archon is really good now, both of us might want to at least give it a shot again in the future.


I agree about the DH. A perfectly geared Nat's DH might hit into the GR 70+ range, but it takes too long to get that well geared just to swap to another build.

For material farming you really have to get into T8 to guarantee a DB drop on every elite. 2 DB isn't a guarantee until T12. And you can probably get to T8 with most of the 6p sets.

I have a feeling they are going to reconfigure greater rift difficulty for season 8. A few of the developer comments mentioned "if the difficulty ever changed"

 

[qvazmir]

I'm comparing every build to LoN crus, so that might be why I think archon doesn't perform as good as I would've wanted. Hmm, will be a hard decision. And I'm guessing there wont be any change from s7, so probably will just stick with crusader...

 

[boynextdoor]

I'm comparing every build to LoN crus, so that might be why I think archon doesn't perform as good as I would've wanted. Hmm, will be a hard decision. And I'm guessing there wont be any change from s7, so probably will just stick with crusader...

lon crusader is still king for demon buddy. the other bot guys have a lon monk setup which nets you 10b/hr less but at least its something different to bot if you're getting bored of 3 seasons of sader. The lon monk will help you gear a zmonk, solo monk, 4s dps monk, torment / bounty monk and a gr botting monk. So there is value in that alone. not sure how lon monk stands with the db crew since i dont have one to test. Hopefully they do a great job with it because trying something new would be nice.

Best bet is to play manually the first few days as a barb and just gear up that lon sader. Then set it and forget it once you have something that works.

 

[Angusm]

I was playing HT Garg WD, then changed to LoN sader. Sader is hands down the best for the bot in my opinion. Mostly because the AI for the Pets is really dumb, and all your dmg sits with them, while Sader just needs to run trough stuff.

Way more time to gear, but imo its worth it

 

[TwoCigars]

I was playing HT Garg WD, then changed to LoN sader. Sader is hands down the best for the bot in my opinion. Mostly because the AI for the Pets is really dumb, and all your dmg sits with them, while Sader just needs to run trough stuff.

Way more time to gear, but imo its worth it

+1 on the Pet AI.

I think when they originally setup the HT and Arachyr sets, the idea was for Arachyr to be the "Firebats" set and HT to be the "Pet" set. If this was the case, they did a really poor job of making pets worthwhile.

Overall, pets lag behind and have no logic other than to attack whatever is closest to them until it is dead. The idea of a Witch Doctor having "pets" revolves around their ability to control otherworldly things. Yet the one thing we don't have IS control.

Another problem with the HT Garg build... All the standing around. It starts to get boring above GR70 when kills take longer.

Blizzard could easily fix both problems by updating the HT set to add a pet control function. Perhaps it's a simple "Pets move to the location of your Jar Of Spiders, Pyrogeist, etc"

They also need to fix the guardians which focus solely on pets as well as ones that ignore pets completely. These scenarios create bosses that are too easy to kill and ones that are impossible to kill.

 

[qvazmir]

Blizzard could easily fix both problems by updating the HT set to add a pet control function. Perhaps it's a simple "Pets move to the location of your Jar Of Spiders, Pyrogeist, etc"

Yeah, I mean, carnevil builds already have somewhat of a function like this. Wouldn't be hard to implement at all, and would be a big quality of life improvement!

 

[qvazmir]

So this decision is really rustling my jimmies. Since LoN crus is so good with the bot, I feel like I should go with the crusader, alternatively barb for chance of LoN gear. But crusader start-clearspeed is so freaking bad with the hammerdin set. So this points to barb, but I kinda want to play manually the first weekend, and barb is not fun in my opinion since i've played it before. So I'm starting to lean towards wizard since vyr got good speed, good toughness and can clear ~~gr60 in the first day, but then again, no LoN strength gear. Please help me make a wise decision!

 

[NoLongerAwayBoss]

[TABLE="width: 550, align: center"]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"][/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Season 7[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Season 8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Barbarian[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Wrath of the Wastes[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Immortal King’s Call[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Crusader[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Roland’s Legacy[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Seeker of the Light[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Demon Hunter[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Unhallowed Essence[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Natalya’s Vengeance[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Monk[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Raiment of a Thousand Storms[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Uliana’s Stratagem[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Witch Doctor[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Helltooth Harness[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Spirit of Arachyr[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="align: center"]Wizard[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Tal Rasha’s Elements[/TD]
[TD="align: center"]Vyr’s Amazing Arcana[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

In season 8 it looks like they have evened out those differences. At least, if the game is indeed getting no balancing, item or skill changes. Almost all classes will get a set to start their grinding, but will eventually have to change mostly to other sets...

Barbarian will at least get some IK pieces to work into an eventual IK/Raekor build, but will probably start out running the IK HotA spec. It is a good build for survive-ability but not very fast.

Crusader will be farming all of it's LoN gear from scratch, like always... Need a change here, Blizzard... [New Meta after 3+ seasons?]

DemonHunter will be starting out with a nice speed build with Rain of Vengeance.

Monk will have to contend with the Seven Sided Strike build at first. I feel it's a bit clunky but it can be powerful.

Witchdoctor had the best start in season 7 and has technically the worst start in season 8. Thank you reverse balance! Firebats is not a fast or great solo build. However, potentially the best starter set for group players.

Wizard Possibly the best start for solo players. It's an Archon set and Firebird Archon is the Meta. It will at least allow you to play a spec that gets all of the non-Firebird item's going for when you do build that set.

---

You really have 3 choices every season:

• Pick your preferred class for the season. Set the bot to run with whatever found gear you have a few rifts after 70 and wait until you have the set you want (pretty slow)
• Pick your preferred class for the season. Get the Haedrig set and let the bot run with it until you can change to the META build (most common)
• Pick the class with the best Haedrig set that can be a speed build, let the bot run speeds to get enough materials to cube/legendary your preferred class. (I might do this next season)

Obviously Haedrig is the best way to get geared for torments the fastest. It appear that Blizzard want's META build gearing to take longer than the current iteration or wants people to try out more builds.

Thanks for the info TwoCigars....
Pretty sure I'll make 1st toon DH for speed build and level a Wiz, Monk and HT WD for rest of team. Not sure yet. But thanks again so I have something to chew on.

 

[qvazmir]

Really pointing towards wizard haedrig this season. Fast start, early 60gr farm, bot runs good with vyrs.

 

[iChoJo]

+1 on the Pet AI.

I think when they originally setup the HT and Arachyr sets, the idea was for Arachyr to be the "Firebats" set and HT to be the "Pet" set. If this was the case, they did a really poor job of making pets worthwhile.

Overall, pets lag behind and have no logic other than to attack whatever is closest to them until it is dead. The idea of a Witch Doctor having "pets" revolves around their ability to control otherworldly things. Yet the one thing we don't have IS control.

Another problem with the HT Garg build... All the standing around. It starts to get boring above GR70 when kills take longer.

Blizzard could easily fix both problems by updating the HT set to add a pet control function. Perhaps it's a simple "Pets move to the location of your Jar Of Spiders, Pyrogeist, etc"

They also need to fix the guardians which focus solely on pets as well as ones that ignore pets completely. These scenarios create bosses that are too easy to kill and ones that are impossible to kill.

Great stuff TwoCigars, thank you.

I know that LoN Crusader is very viable for HC boting, do you know if the bot die often with Archon Wizard (vyr or firebird?) or LTK Monk?

Thank you sir

 

[qvazmir]

Great stuff TwoCigars, thank you.

I know that LoN Crusader is very viable for HC boting, do you know if the bot die often with Archon Wizard (vyr or firebird?) or LTK Monk?

Thank you sir

Vyr is safer than firebird due to the additional defensives per stack. I wouldn't ever pick anything except LoN crus on hc, if i would bot it tbh.

 

[iChoJo]

Vyr is safer than firebird due to the additional defensives per stack. I wouldn't ever pick anything except LoN crus on hc, if i would bot it tbh.

What about invoker rather than LoN? I think invoker have more toughness?

 

[qvazmir]

What about invoker rather than LoN? I think invoker have more toughness?

In my opinion LoN has more defense, and more utility which converts to "survivability". Invoker is clunky. And the bot plays LoN overall better than invoker in my experience, and LoN is just overall better so...

 

[qvazmir]

Question is, is it worth picking crusader as my starting character and have a slow start, but start gearing LoN from the start? Or pick wizard/dh for faster clearspeed but not being able to get strength LoN gear? Hm.

 

[Emergenza]

How crus can 4 min TXIII?

 

[qvazmir]

How crus can 4 min TXIII?

LoN crus with all ancient and a few augments can easily do t13 in 4 min. But full LoN gear is pretty time consuming to get. Would probably be faster to do 4min t13 with say a monk or UH DH.

 

[boynextdoor]

Question is, is it worth picking crusader as my starting character and have a slow start, but start gearing LoN from the start? Or pick wizard/dh for faster clearspeed but not being able to get strength LoN gear? Hm.

This season I think I'm going to use "the other bot" and start with swk into lon monk just because its not another season of sader. However, I'm still on the fence. I do love my easy xp.

Last season I started a week late and used autofollow to tail my friends DH (gave him one of my alts after he got banned) and was able to put together a shitty lon sader with mostly dex gear and in less than 3 days of leaching from a P700 dh I was up and running. Finished the season top 5 paragon NA.

If you only have one account, then suck it up and play barb at the start even if you don't like it. 3 days of manual barb will set you up for 3 months of waking up to 25 paragon and a stash page of ancient sader loot.