Remember V-GER from the first Star Trek movie? In case you don’t, the idea was that the Enterprise had to intercept an extremely powerful alien anomaly that liked to eat Klingon vessels and Federation space stations. The entity turned out to be Voyager 6, which had collected so much data that it became a sentient eater of planets. That’s sort of what happened to my silly little alt wizard, which I originally created as a mule to tote my main wiz’s extra items. Entirely by experimentation and accident, the mule is now V-GER, eater of monster armies.

ILA, mn, and I decided to brave the environs of Torment 10 last night, where I must say we all comported ourselves with satisfactory professionalism. I was especially surprised by my freakish mule, who managed to eat huge quantities of monsters while barely staying alive. She has a ways to go, as T10 (at least for a sub-600 paragon character) is very unforgiving, but I have hope that she will do great things (or, as Anthony Hopkins says in The Wolfman, terrible things, Lawrence — terrible things).

Image credit to this guy: http://scrooge0.deviantart.com/art/Diablo-3-Wizard-321629182

I can never predict what she’s going to do next.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tkeEkK1bPw

Recently, when not doing Season 6 with ILA, I have been working on my demon hunter. I used not to care very much for this class because his early days were characterized by boring pew pew (which sounded more like ka-thunk ka-thunk). Of late, however, he’s pretty decent.

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/simmery-1600/hero/41726719

As you can see, I finally managed to get him a Focus/Restraint set, though I’m not pleased by the rolls. I think the key with this guy is going to be legendary gems, so I’m working on leveling those. I’m also not happy about the Krelm’s bracers, but it shouldn’t be too long before I find some ancient Strong Arms or maybe something better. Of course, the big change is the Marauder set which, as you will notice, synergizes primary skills with turrets and thus increases power by about 8000 orders of magnitude. The belt and Magefist gloves are also very important. (Note: even though the page indicates that the 6-piece Marauder bonus is not active, it really is. I’m using a Ring of Royal Grandeur in the cube.)

The big problem with the DH is Blizzard’s strange skill set, which makes a bow indispensable. Nearly every DH skill comes with the proviso “Bow only.” I’m not exactly sure what this means, but the way I read it, a bow is what you think it is: an archery bow, the kind you would use with two hands. As far as I can tell, this does not mean crossbows, either 1h or 2h. If this is true (and I’ll have to research this further), it means that a 1h crossbow set like Danetta’s does not benefit from the majority of DH skills. Surely this is incorrect, but that’s my interpretation. All I know is that once I went back to an actual bow, all those skills went ape-ballistic. I was initially worried about the DH’s inability to cube the Furnace (50% bonus dmg to elites), but Marauders and the proper skill choices obviate this problem. I’ve been one-shotting every elite pack. Rift bosses are trivial. (Update: I discovered that “Bow only” refers to every kind of bow, including 1h and 2h crossbows — see reply below.)

The best thing is that ka-thunk ka-thunk has been replaced by asplosion-asplosion. And speed. Man, this guy can move. Throw in Vault with no cool-down and he’s a bullet.

Meanwhile, my crusader is also coming along. Like the DH, she needs a truly uber weapon. She also needs quite a lot more health and resistances, but she’s got a lightning-damage thing going that seems to work really well right now.

The monk is also coming up but needs better gear.

I have recently faced the fact that Diablo 3 is the king of ARPGs. I like Grim Dawn pretty well. Other titles have their good points. But D3 is the undisputed champion of this genre. Because I am very busy at school these days, I tend to spend an hour or two grooming my wizard and other characters. If my wizard were real, she would look like this:

. . . only much scarier. She is presently so scary that I don’t see how I’m going to avoid taking her into Torment 8 much longer. Here is an update of her gear and stats:

http://us.battle.net/d3/en/profile/simmery-1600/hero/41726720

As always, I have to point out that the paper damage you see there does not reflect her real in-game power. The Firebird set alone is conferring stupendous damage not shown on the stat page. Also not factored into page damage is the tremendous bonus to fire damage she gets from various items.

If you click around on that stats page, you can see my other toons and how they’re coming along. I’m especially pleased by the crusader, who I frankly never thought would amount to anything. She has a ways to go before she can comfortably enter T7, but that shouldn’t take long. She’ll never be the monster my wiz is because she (the crusader) is really a support character and not a damage dealer. Still, she’s pretty good.

As you can see, I’m kinda sorta working on my demon hunter, too. He’s not as unappealing as I remember. I’m trying to collect more of the Marauder set, upon completion of which he may be able to enter T6. His paper damage is quite high, but the in-game reality is not that impressive. He’s certainly nowhere close to the wizard or barbarian.

More as things move along.