Season 3 in Diablo III is officially over and done with. My Seasonal Crusader has joined the rest of her softcore comrades. It was now time to open the mail and sort through all the stuff my Crusader brought back home with her.

I am a “digital hoarder”. I have a really bad tendency to keep stuff that I probably don’t actually need. I’ve gotten really good at getting rid of things in real life, in part because they collect dust (and I have severe allergies). The “loot” from Diablo III doesn’t collect any (real) dust, and so I tend to feel a need to hang onto it.

The hardest thing for me, when a Season ends, is that I have to figure out what to keep and what to get rid of. I’ve decided to make a blog about my decision making process so I can use it as a guide when upcoming Seasons end. Others might find it useful as well.

For some reason, I always find it somewhat jarring when my Seasonal character loses that little “Seasonal” title above his or her head, and the little green leaf disappears from their portrait. I get used to seeing it there.

McGlynn ended Season 3 with 115 Paragon points. Now that she’s back with my other non-season characters, the “Share-a-gon” is 178. Sometime before Season 4 starts, I’m hoping to sort through my characters and make use of those newly added Paragon points.

I had 119 Messages Pending. That means I had 119 items to move from my mailbox to my non-season softcore stash. There is a time limit in which players can access their mail and retrieve the items from it.

I try and work on doing that immediately after a season ends. The longer I put it off, the bigger a chance I will forget about it. There’s always at least a few items that I would miss if they disappeared out of forgotten mail.

The above screenshot shows what my softcore Stash looked like. This is before I started opening my mail and accessing the “loot” I brought back from Season 3. I’ve got all 5 tabs – and very little free space left for new stuff. I had a lot of work to do.

And so… the process begins!

When you take items out of your mail – they go directly into the bag of the character you are currently using. (It doesn’t have to be the one you played during the Season that has just ended). This time around, I learned that it is a good idea to clear out your Seasonal character’s bag shortly before the Season ends. Free up that space for the stuff that will be arriving by mail.

My Seasonal Crusader ended up with a bag that was half-full. This made the process of retrieving items from the mail, and figuring out what to keep, more tedious than necessary. Fill the bag. Pull some stuff out of the stash that I’d decided to get rid of. Guess which items in the bag were worth keeping. Sell/salvage the stuff I identified as “get rid of”. Open the mail and pull out more Season 3 loot. Repeat, repeat, repeat.

I eventually achieved “Mailbox Zero”!

Tips for “Digital Hoarders” who need to clear out their Stash:

Start by getting rid of stuff that is obviously a duplicate item. For me, this meant selling off the multiple copies of the wings and skeleton pug that I’d accumulated. If I remember correctly, players who got the Collector’s Edition of the Reaper of Souls expansion received the special wings and skeleton pug. Since then, I learned that these items are going to reappear on each new character I roll. (Thus, the multiple copies). I can only play one character at a time, so it didn’t make sense to hoard all the duplicate ones. I sold them.

Sell the smaller gems. In Season 3, I actually got started on that before the Season ended. My Seasonal Crusader gathered up all the “little-bitty” gems that she accumulated, and that stopped dropping after she hit Torment 1, and sold them off. When the Season ended, I decided to sell off some of the smaller gems that were in the stash. To me, it doesn’t make much sense to try and save them in the hopes that I’ll one day be able to turn them into higher quality gems. It’s way easier (and less expensive) to get into Torment 1 or higher and pick up the better gems that drop on the floor.

Get rid of every item that doesn’t require Level 70. I’ve learned that level 60 set pieces don’t actually “fit” with the level 70 ones – even if they are the same set. You can equip a mix of level 60 and level 70 set pieces, but the game only counts the level 70 ones. To me, this makes the level 60 ones rather useless, since they won’t help you to get the set bonuses for having 2, 3, 4, or more pieces of one particular set. Get rid of them!

While you are at it, get rid of Legendary (or lower) items that don’t require Level 70. In my experience, the “loot” I set aside for future lowbie characters is never as good as the stuff that newly rolled character can find on his or her own. (This is especially true for items that I’d found before the Reaper of Souls expansion came out).

Put like with like. Devote one tab of your stash to gems, Legendary gems, and crafting materials. Most (but not all) of these items stack. If you put them all on one tab, you can easily see if you accidentally put one kind of gem into two (or more) different spots. Stick them all together! It saves space. I also like to put my keys in one place. (Yes, I am aware that Rift keys are going to be unusable after the patch hits. I’ll figure that out later.)

Devote another tab to set pieces. Start sorting them out so that the pieces you collected of one set are all right next to each other. This will make it easy to equip one of your characters with them. It also makes it easier to compare any new set pieces you find with the ones you already have. Keep the one that is better. Get rid of the one that isn’t as good for your characters.

Do you have any Ancient Legendary items? Put those next to each other. Doing so makes them easy to find. That way, when you come across a “regular” Legendary weapon of the same type, you will know that it’s ok to get rid of it.

Compare, compare, compare. After I started sorting through the stuff in my stash, it became really obvious that I’d collected up more than one copy of the same kind of Legendary weapon. (I seem to have a “thing” for two handed weapons.) Sorting through it all made it easier to compare one weapon with the other (of the same type). One got kept, and the other got sold. Next, I followed the same process and sorted through armor, rings, and amulets.

What about the fun stuff? Personally, I like to hang onto the random items that are extra fun. For example, I’ve got Maximus in my stash because I find it fun to run around with a demon on a chain. I’ve got the Bovine Bardiche in my stash so I can have a set of demonic ghost cows randomly come to my aid. I’m still hanging onto Rakanishu’s Blade, just in case I run into Bashiok somewhere in the Dahlgur Oasis someday. (There’s an Achievement for hitting him with Rakanishu’s Blade.)

I’ve also got stuff that amuses me, but doesn’t do anything special. Some examples include: Chaingmail, Tyrael’s Might, and a handful of weapons that had flavor text on them that tells a story I found to be interesting from a lore perspective. My stash also has what I think could be a complete set of those papers that players can find in Act II by the boat that somehow found its way to the desert area.

Here’s what my softcore stash looked like after I was all done sorting things out. I think it actually has more empty space in it now than it did before Season 3 ended. There isn’t a ton of empty space, though, so I’m going to have to be careful about saving stuff in between Seasons.

I’m glad I took the time to sort stuff out, and get rid of a bunch of stuff. It’s going to make it easier for me to realize what I already have (and compare it to newly found versions).

I won’t have this problem at the end of Season 4. Instead of softcore, I’ll be playing a hardcore character. Right now, my hardcore stash is fairly empty. So, even if I get grabby and decided keep way too much stuff…there should be room for it at the end of Season 4.

 

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