Guide for Diablo III: Reaper of Souls - Ultimate Evil Edition

The information in this section is really all to give you a solid foundation. I’ll go over generally how the game works. Understanding this is key to understanding how to approach the achievements. I’d really suggest that, unless you have substantial experience with Reaper of Souls, you at least take a look at the information here!

One additional important note for the achievements for completing all quests in an Act. Any Acts that you previously completed in Diablo 3, will be completely open and available to you from the start. You can simply play the last part of every quests to get it to count that completion. Only exception to this rule is Act 5 since that is a completely new addition to this game. This also goes for defeating a certain boss. You can simply just select the quest ending the boss is on and get right to the fight. This will save you a lot of time by doing so. At the bottom of this page are instructions for importing.

For reference, the base version of this game uses patch 2.0.5. Blizzard may update this in the future.

Table of Contents (How this page is laid out)

I. Major Changes

• Adventure Mode
• Difficulty Settings
• Mystic
• Loot 2.0
• Co-op Play
• Nemeses
• Friend Loot

II. Character

• Paragon Levels
• Classes

III. Creating a Build

• Elective Mode
• Step 1: Choosing a Spender
• Step 2: Supporting the Spender
• Step 3: Synergies
• Step 4: Finishing the Build

IV. Game Modes

• Bounties
• Nephalem Rifts
• Hardcore Mode

V. Crafting

• Blacksmith
• Jeweler
• Mystic

VI. Importing a Save from Another System or Previous Game

In General

Diablo 3 is a classic dungeon crawler. You pick one of six classes, customize its spells and abilities and just level up and collect gear by killing hordes of enemies and completing quests. “Beating” the game is really just the beginning here, and if your goal is to earn all the achievements, you’re going to need to experience some of everything.

I. Major Changes from Diablo 3

(Read this even if you’re new!)

There are tons of minor changes, such as changing abilities of classes and adding new ones. I’ll go over some of the major ones.

Adventure Mode
This is probably the most note-worthy addition. It adds a lot of replay-ability to the game by removing the need to constantly grind story. I’ll go over this in more depth in the Game Modes section on this page. Some achievements require you to spend a lot of time here.

Difficulty Settings
This is the other extremely important change. Previously, you’d select a difficulty level appropriate to your character’s level. Now, enemies will scale with your level at all times. There are 5 base difficulties:

• Normal
• Hard
• Expert
• Master
• Torment (And this has a difficulty slider, allowing you to make it even more difficult)

With each increase in difficulty, players are rewarded with increased gold and item drop rates among other bonuses. There are also legendary items that can only be found in Torment.

Mystic
This is a new crafter, like the Blacksmith and the Jewelcrafter. More on this further down the page.

Loot 2.0
The original console editions had a modified version of this. Now we get it in full. We get more legendaries to drop, and legendaries are now far different. Instead of just being better in stats with an occasional bonus, legendaries can significantly improve or alter certain abilities, allowing for new play-styles.

Co-op Play
This was already in Diablo of course, but it’s new and improved with the Ultimate Evil Edition. Now, a lower level player joining their friend’s game will automatically scale up to their friend’s level. This is an amazing feature that should have been in every dungeon crawler ever made. The low level character will still earn loot and experience that is appropriate for their level. You no longer have an excuse not to play with your friends.

Nemeses
That's plural of "nemesis", for those of you who are confused! Now, whenever an elite enemy kills you it will occasionally turn into a nemesis. This nemesis will either come back to your game later (with a ghost version of you as its ally) to try to kill you again, or it will join your friend's game. Nemeses can get continually stronger with each kill, and the person who finally kills one can get great rewards.

Friend Loot
Occasionally, loot will drop that can only be given to your friend. Simply open your inventory, go to the bag, click the treasures section, and then press A to send it to the person automatically! It arrives in their mailbox next time they log on. They don't even need to be playing for you to earn them some loot.

II. Character

Now it’s time to learn how your character works. The entire game revolves around making your characters better, so this is important!

The level cap is Level 70.

Paragon Levels
Paragon levels are now tied to your profile, not your character. There is no cap to paragon levels – any XP you earn on any level 70 character will go toward increasing your paragon level. The XP required to level up increases exponentially, though the bonuses you gain for each level up remain static.

Previously, you earned added gold/item find up to a hard cap. This is no longer the case. Now, there is a soft cap at around level 800 (you will never get to paragon level 800). Each time you level up, you can pick one of four stats to increase. The choice of stats changes every time you level up. There are four different categories. They are:

Core – Primary Stat (Str, Dex or Int), Vitality, Movement Speed (which has a cap of 25%) and Max Resource

Offense – Attack Speed, Cooldown Reduction, Critical Hit Chance and Critical Hit Damage

Defence – Life %, Armor, Resist All and Life Regen

Utility – Area Damage (increases damage done when using abilities that hit many targets), Reduced Resource Cost, Life on Hit and Gold Find

It is highly recommended that you increase Movement Speed first every time until you hit the cap. Once you hit 25%, any movement speed bonuses from gear will be useless and you can remove them (using the Mystic, see below).

Classes
There are six different classes. There are a lot of ways to play each one, so I’m not even going to try to make generalizations about what each class stands for. Earning all the achievements requires you to level each one to 70, and this guide is structured so that you’ll have played all of them when you need to do any grinding.

The classes, with their primary stats, are listed below. Click on Skill Calculator to go to the official website and get an idea what kind of abilities the classes have. Beware – PC patches can be further along than console patches, so this might not be entirely accurate:

Barbarian – Melee + Str – Skill Calculator

Crusader – Melee + Str – Skill Calculator

Monk – Melee + Dex – Skill Calculator

Demon Hunter – Ranged + Dex – Skill Calculator

Wizard – Ranged + Int – Skill Calculator

Witch Doctor – Ranged + Int – Skill Calculator

III. Creating a Build

This is based on a post I found on the official Blizzard Diablo 3 Wizard forums. You can find a link to the original post here. Basically, I’m going to give you a short guide on how to think about making a build.

Creating builds is essentially the core of the game. It’s how you stop yourself from getting bored. Legendaries will change abilities as well, so I encourage you to mess around with creating a new build if you get a good legendary.

I’d also recommend that while levelling up for the first time, you use all your abilities for a least a little bit. It’s important to understand how they work. Don’t forget to experiment with all the different runes as well! You’ll be constantly unlocking more as you level up.

Elective Mode
Elective Mode allows you to place any ability in any ability slot. Doing so allows you to fully customize your build. This is definitely something you'll need to activate as soon as you're comfortable with the game. To do so, just enter the options menu, select gameplay and turn elective mode on.

Step 1: Choosing a Spender
All classes have spenders. These are the abilities that COST resources and have no cooldown to do their damage. These will be your primary damaging abilities in the build.

You want to pick ONE spender to be the core of the build. It does not matter if there are multiple abilities that have synergy – if they are spenders, pick only one. The reason is that you want to focus on doing as much damage as possible with that one ability. If you’re using the second spender, you’re not using the first. This means you’ve wasted an ability slot. There can be exceptions and once you have this down, feel free to experiment a bit if you get a legendary that works well. Generally, pick ONE.

Step 2: Supporting a Spender
Now you want to pick abilities that support the spender. In general, you’re probably going to want to have at least one ability that GENERATES resources. This isn’t strictly necessary, but if you don’t have one your build is probably going to run out of resources, which means you’ll be doing less damage.

You’ll also need defensive and supplemental damage abilities. You’ll always want ways to escape if you’re challenging yourself at all. Especially at higher difficulties, this can be key. Consider how your spender works and make sure the rest of your abilities work well with it. Supplemental damage abilities are “fire and forget” abilities. These are abilities you aren’t going to actively cast in rapid succession. Your Spender doesn’t need to be your only damaging ability, it just needs to be your primary damaging ability.

Make sure to have a good ratio off defensive and supplemental abilities. If you only have one defensive ability, chances are you’re going to end up getting yourself killed.

Step 3: Synergy
Always consider synergy when making a build. Consider how your Spender works and make sure you’re able to do damage with it. If you’re a Wizard with a channelled Spender, you’re going to be standing still channelling a lot. You need to make sure that you have adequate crowd control to make that possible. Melee characters need to ensure they have ways to get around the battlefield so they can keep their damage up.

Your abilities need to work together. If one ability slows and another does more damage to slowed targets, you have synergy. This is what you need to look for.

Step 4: Finishing the Build
Now you need to make sure your build is rounded out. You may want an ability that simply gives passive damage increases. Or perhaps an ability that summons a companion to help you out. The choices here depend entirely on your build.

You’ll also need to consider the Passives if you haven’t done so already. Try to get a mix of offensive and defensive Passives if you’re really unsure what to get.

IV. Game Modes

There are essentially three different game modes available. Available from the beginning is story mode. You’ll simply play through it and can come back to any chapter you want at any time. The Story Walkthrough discusses what achievements can be earned during this. Upon killing the final boss of Act 5, you will unlock Adventure Mode. Adventure Mode is new to the Ultimate Evil Edition and contains two new game modes: Bounties and Nephalem Rifts.

Bounties
Bounties are short quests that you can take. They take place in the game world, and task you with a specific objective to complete, such as killing a specific enemy or clearing a specific dungeon. They are generally quick, though due to the random nature of the game you’ll sometimes find the enemy you want to kill immediately and sometimes it will take a few minutes to find.

There are two important rewards from Bounties: 1) Blood Shards and 2) Rift Keystone Fragments.

Blood Shards can be used to buy random pieces of gear from a vendor. Getting better gear will result in doing everything faster, which will translate into earning other achievements quicker.

Rift Keystone Fragments are incredibly important. Combining 5 of them will allow you to enter a Nephalem Rift.

Nephalem Rifts
These are the final end game. Rifts send you to a randomly generated dungeon to do battle with random enemies. These enemies can be any combination of enemies from any act. A Rift can be anywhere from 1-10 levels and that means it takes a varying amount of time to complete one. The goal is to kill all the enemies, and then kill a Rift Guardian to complete the Rift. There is an achievement for this, and it will take quite a while.

Hardcore Mode
This is separate from the other modes. When you create a character, you have the option of making a Hardcore character. Hardcore characters are different in that they are deleted when they die. This adds a degree of uncertainty and importance to every fight which can be a lot of fun. It also adds immense anger and frustration when you die.

If you’re in it only for the achievements, you’ll probably want to stay away from this mode for most of your play time. There are achievements for doing certain things with a Hardcore character which will be discussed later.

V. Artisans

There are three different artisans in the game. Each is particularly important for gaining and customizing your gear. You’ll unlock them throughout the game and there are achievements for levelling them up. They’ll be discussed in depth on a later page.

Blacksmith
The Blacksmith is unlocked by completing the quest “A Shattered Crown” during Act 1.

Haedrig Eamon is the blacksmith. He can do two things for you: 1) Forge new items from crafting materials and 2) Salvage old items for crafting materials. Despite being a blacksmith, he does make weapons and armour for all classes. Some armour pieces are trained, while some recipes must be found out in the world. The gear he creates is always imbued with random properties. You should ALWAYS salvage ANY items you no longer plan to use.

For a complete list of all the items he can be trained to use (ie, not recipes), click here.

Jeweler
The Jeweler is unlocked by completing the quest “Blood and Sand” during Act 2.

Covetous Shen is the jeweler. He can create and socket/unsocket gems for you.

Mystic
The Mystic is unlocked by completing the quest “Souls of the Dead” during Act 5.

Myriam Jahzia is the mystic. She can do two things for you: 1) Enchant items, replacing one item property with another chosen from a selection of random attributes and 2) Transmogrify items.

Enchanting items is incredibly important as it allows you to turn an item that was good into an item that is great. If there is a bad attribute on an otherwise good item, it’s always a nice idea to try to enchant it with a more favorable attribute. These possible attributes are random and they are different each time you do it. You always have the option of keeping the old attribute if you don’t like any of the new options. Each time you pay to enchant an item, the random list of attributes changes, so if you don’t get what you want the first time, you’ll probably get it within the first fifty times.

Transmogrification is Blizzard’s word for making armor look like something else. Basically, if you get a new item that is a great upgrade but is an ugly green that doesn’t match your pink outfit whatsoever, you can transmogrify it into another piece of gear that does match. It doesn’t change your new gear’s attributes, only its looks.

VI. Importing a Save from Another System or Previous Game

Blizzard does allow you to import and old save. You will take all the characters and gear from the old save and import it into the Ultimate Evil Edition. This does NOT affect achievements whatsoever, and you will need to earn all the achievements again, even if you did them in Diablo 3 or another version of Ultimate Evil Edition. You can import a save from last gen to next gen (including across Sony/Microsoft systems), but not vice versa.

Blizzard has an in-depth FAQ for how to do this that I suggest you read if it’s something you’re interested in. I've copied it into the spoiler below. You can find it by visiting this site.

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