lol, so I wanted to firm up that 500ish paragon GR100 clear and sure enough, my character is P level 702. Oops, sorry about that.
Even still what made it possible are the huge buffs this season, not my leetness. Do people still say that?
Second thing that made it possible was a lot of game time. With everyone in the house down with strep throat, there hasn't been much else to do.
If you haven't played much in a long time, there are a few things you should know:
1. A few seasons/patches ago, Blizz gave all the classes big defensive boasts, mainly through either skill/item changes. It's great, but important to know that most of these buffs are on some sort of short timer, i.e., they activate for 3-6 seconds and need to be refreshed repeatedly. No big deal, but when stacking these, if you lose focus just for a moment, your toughness drops from 100s of millions to 20 or 25 million. This becomes important for T10 and above. It could just be me, but I really have to pay attention to keep the buffs active, particularly when playing classes or builds with which I'm not familiar.
Over many seasons, Blizz has introduced a lot of power creep. If you haven't played in a long time, GR 60 is the new GR 30.
2. Once you hit level 70 and have some blood shards to spend, take a few minutes and check out the builds on the leaderboard and Youtube. Ryyker does a great series of videos. This is worthwhile not just if you're looking to push your build, but I find the Youtubers in particular can give you a good idea of what various skills and items can do. If you're naturally curious like Orbert, you'll probably want to do your own thing, but they are available if you want.
3. Some efficiency tips. For folks who want to speed up the progression somewhat, start by focusing your attacks on elites/packs. Trash gives very little experience and drops very little useful loot but you can easily spend more than half your time or more killing stuff that might drop 5% of the loot. Don't quote me on that number, but the vast majority of the loot falls from elites/packs.
The worst attributes on a complete set build will always be magnitudes more powerful than the best attributes on anything else. Focus on getting the pieces, then worry about upgrading attributes.
With this season bonus of the RRoG, it might be fun to try different combinations of sets together. Right now, I've got the 6 piece set bonus of Innas and the 4 piece set bonus of Sunwukos. Not exactly apple pie and ice cream, but it's interesting.
