Dunno how many have EU accounts, but… I tried to run this thing, and it just seemed flat-out impossible. I haven’t played much Barb in the past, so I may be missing some kind of ‘trick’, but the build you’re stuck with seems to severely lack both damage-output and survivability. It’s got only 4 pieces of the Immortal King set - making it rather less than Immortal - 2 pieces of Captain Crimson, Bastion of Will ring-set, and miscellaneous Legendaries, most notably the Fury of the Ancients shoulders and the Gavel of Judgement…
It has Hammer of the Ancients as your ONLY damage-dealer, while the main damage-MITIGATION is CotA with Together As One and Wrath of the Berserker, both of which, granted, you can have on near-permanently. This gives you decent surviveability… until you encounter an Elite Mob, and your absolutely TEPID damage-output makes itself known. Missing those last two pieces of Immortal King seriously cripples the build - beating Elites is like hacking your way through a wall with a toothpick, consuming endless seconds, and the fact that you get bogged down for so long smashing away at them means that you’re very much at risk of getting rapidly killed by the various affixes they hurl at you. Worse, if you DO die, odds of recovering and pushing on are next to nil unless you’re lucky enough to have WotB and CotA both off cooldown in that moment - since resurrecting WITHOUT those just means instantly dying again, and you need to continuously pound enemies to reduce their cooldowns.
It’s also just plain hard to move as quickly as you need to in order to beat the required time. Even beating the final boss, when you DO get him to spawn, requires AGES as you, once again, ever-so-slowly chop your way through his health-bar. After innumerable runs, I haven’t even manged to get within 10 seconds of the target time. So… yeah. I’m not really sure what to do with this one, but I could REALLY use the reward - any insights or ideas?
Oh, and you know how normally, teaming up makes Challenge Rifts way easier? In this case, it’s literally impossible on multiplayer - it partially relies on the newly buffed-up Templar Companion for damage-mitigation and rescues. Going in with a buddy takes off enough of your mitigation to make you EXTREMELY squishy, and since the enemies now have more HP, even chopping your way through regular foes becomes a chore due to the aforementioned bad damage-output… =_=
It’s definitely do’able. My first attempt I missed the time by around 0.5 seconds. Second attempt, I found a Conduit pylon that I’d missed the first time around…
Would this be much easier with the 6-piece bonus? Absolutely. With a RoRG in the Cube to activate the 3-piece of Captain Crimson? For sure. But we have to make do with what the player had at the time. As it’s a 250ish paragon hero, we can probably deduce that it was someone that was early in their season journey and making do with the 4-piece bonus.
As to the movement issues, it would be more useful / usual to take the charge that reduces the cooldown on itself the more mobs you hit, but the 3 charges version is taken for a reason, as are the shouts. Two of your abilities (charge and one of the shouts) are fury generators, and the other shout / HOTA are spenders. These are what you need to keep alternating between so you can maintain both damage bonuses from the Focus + Restraint ring set as only having one active is a big damage multiplier to not be benefitting from.
Even with both buffs from the rings active, the damage-output is STILL pitiful… I looked on YouTube and found a video of the #1 Ranked run-through - which came in at barely 10 seconds ahead of the required time! (And he was ripping on how crappy this build was the whole time. ) This has got to be one of the single-hardest challenge-rifts to ever grace the EU servers… >.<
Pathing does seem to be a primary concern - picking up every possible Pylon to make the most of their double duration is vital, as is moving CONSTANTLY forwards and only taking out key mobs… one mistake I made several times was to try and wipe out entire mobs of Elites, minions and all, when you really just need to take out the yellow, grab the orbs, and rush onwards - taking out minions simply takes too long. Problem is… the kind of crazy berzerker rush you need in order to maintain that kind of pace is EXTREMELY risky. One wrong move, one affix landing in the wrong spot, and you’re instagibbed. You basically need to consistently get lucky on every elite mob you encounter… at least, that’s how it looks to me. =_=
Well, presumably the vid I watched was from Day 1 of the challenge or thereabouts - but hey, if you can beat the time by 18 secs, I guess it must be more doable than I thought!
Anyway, I get your meaning about the ‘crazy berzerker rush’, but generally, that kind of Barb playstyle involved DOING ACTUAL DAMAGE, rather than battering away at your enemies with what appears to be a squeaky rubber hammer.
EDIT: Aaaand I finally beat it! Took dozens of tries, but in the end… I was nearly 30 seconds ahead of time. =_= I’d like to pat myself on the back, but I honestly think it’s just a matter of Elite mob affixes not landing in the wrong spots at any point.
I tried this CR but quickly decided it really wasn’t worth the effort. Just seemed like a nonsensical CR overall.
But is it one of the hardest ever? Well…
Indeed. While I didn’t bother completing this one, I seriously doubt it comes even close how hard CR 36 EU was. Only 56 people managed to complete that one. Only 56!
That’s the one. I’ll be amazed if there’s ever going to be another CR of that level of difficulty.
If I remember correctly, it was doable (just barely) if one got lucky with crits. Without luck FoK didn’t do enough damage and clear speeds dropped like a stone.
Eh, I couldn’t say - I wasn’t around at that time. Been playing this game very ‘on-and-off’ for years now, breaking away from it only to later feel the urge to return. All I can say is that this one certainly is the toughest Challenge Rift I have encountered during any of the times I’ve played! Honestly, if I hadn’t been desperate for the mats, I would’ve given up well before finally getting my one ‘lucky run’…
) This has got to be one of the single-hardest challenge-rifts to ever grace the EU servers… >.<