Blizzard, reset challenge rift!

Console Discussion
104

This season, I ran in a group. I leveled as a DH with a necro partner. He carried me to 70 so that I didn’t need to even touch my challenge cache. Then he carried me through the first 4 chapters. At this point, the DH takes over in terms of firepower until the necro gets Haunted Visions. Then I was carrying him through higher level GRs. Once he got his set, we were able to bump up the GR level and cruise through the paragon.

We ran most of bounties this season during the leveling process. Because you can get the 5 jewel crafting recipes via Squirt in Act 2. The amulet counts as 3 recipes, and the rings are a recipe each. It costs 12 million gold though. I happened to get extremely lucky though in this aspect, as I also got a rorg, which helped tremendously.

After a bit of testing, I found out that power leveling via rifts is actually incredibly inefficient at the beginning of the season. It takes roughly 12-15 T6 bounties to level a character from 1-70. But it only takes 5-6 bounties to level up a character from 50-70. The necro can carry T6 easily enough with Corpse Explosion alone. It takes roughly about 30 minutes to level a player from 1-70 via rifts when you don’t have leveling gear such as Leoric’s Crown/Ring, Gem of Ease, etc., and which you most likely won’t have an hour into the season, but only 15 minutes if just doing an Act 1 bounty. Plus, you get 640k gold from the challenge cache for Squirt.

Other stupid things we did were exiting and reentering the game for the T4 key wardens and bosses, so that he had Land of the Dead up without having to wait on the cooldown timer. This is what hurt us when we went to Americas. Exited, boom, can’t reenter. By the time we got back, people were already doing GR50+, and I mainly play HC, and only SC for the very early season starts to see how it works, so I just gave up.

As far as the end of EU, he only had like 3-4 hours to play before he had to leave. And I wanted to try getting #1 on boss mode, but he doesn’t care for conquests, so just spent time leveling up. After he left though, I just couldn’t compete with the experience group players get. I was within 20-50 levels of the rat groups while grouping, but when I went solo, the xp dropped significantly, and got overtaken on the leaderboard.

It would be nice if Diablo 4 had a SSF mode, so that solo players were not at the severe disadvantage they are with Diablo 3.

1 Like
105

Yes. Most of us solo players have been bemoaning this issue for a long time. And yet, Blizzard ignore us and continues with a game that is woefully unbalanced in nearly every aspect. Paragon should NEVER dictate performance. Group XP should be removed, and say, buff drop rates for ancients and primals during group play. That’d be a far better, and more balanced solution.

Not gonna happen. Blizzard have already said that they intend to keep the groups bonuses and advantages for D4. That is One of the reasons why I have zero interest in D4 and will NOT be buying it (amongst other reasons of course).

1 Like
106

Only if you get GoE via Bloodshards and are lucky with upgrade 2H-scythe. And clone leveling is painful too with necro, as most of the clone skills have long cooldowns.

107

Raises hand on being lucky as I got both, smashed early on with Corspe Explosion!

108

The Grasps are an 86% drop with the 475 blood shards. It’s one reason why I don’t suggest rolling for a scythe on season start. The only thing that can beat a necro with Grasps of Essence to 70 is a Bloodtide Blade, and then only by a few minutes. When you hit 70, you now have an immediate legendary weapon (doesn’t matter what it is). I’d take an 86% chance and being 10 minutes slower to 70 than a 3 in 4 chance of being 30 minutes slower post 70 (about the time it takes to collect 25 Death Breath).

Two quick rifts & GRs for a Legacy of Dreams, kill Malthael quick, and craft a piece of Sage gear, and you now have 3 items, which is more than enough for T10, provided you have the survivability. Yeah, that’s how strong Corpse Explosion was buffed last season.

I tested out clone leveling last week, but I didn’t use it for the season. Even though the fastest groups used it, I found it was slower if going solo than my typical leveling route. And like I said earlier, those groups blew through all their challenge cache materials, which hurt them later on.

Too many people don’t understand that it’s not a 1-70 race. You can get to 70 in about an hour, but getting to Haedrig’s Gift is another 90-120 minutes. I’d rather have it be closer to 90 minutes than 2 hours. Having all your DB and some blood shards to gamble makes the post 70 process that much easier at the cost of a 25% chance of being 10 minutes slower to 70.

1 Like
109

I got no grasp of essence via bs. So its all theory. Cubing a weapon has nothing to do with it.