Challenge Rift Build

General Discussion
21

My point is, you have to be really selective to not use any of those and still score 6 minute clear time with mediocre monster density. In the case that CR build have no boost for mobility yet still score 6 minute clear time then the monster density in the map should be more than enough to a point that it’ll be an easier run farther from the expected challenge.

For example, you need in some of mobility in high Greater Rifts but some builds have to lose from that as they climb by gaining crowd control or more damage output in return; compared to Nephalem Rift builds. How much you can lose from mobility to favor other attributes usually rely on your effective reach. What you see as incoherent is just a small challenge for a drawback.

True but there are also staples that they can not skip due selected range of GR tiers or mandatory picks for functions of the Set build.

For example Jade Harvester grants you all Soul Harvest skill runes and can not function without it at all. If such run exists for Jade without SH then monsters better be dying at a single Locust cast and stacked together firmly at their spawn for it to jump targets. This doesn’t sound like a challenge to me at all. You can find other examples for other classes too. All classes have passives for mobility or their defensive buffs giving them a momentary speed boost.
If you see a Wizard with no Teleport, Monk with no Dashing Strike or Witch Doctor with no Spirit Walk and shut the CR, then you are not up to the challenge that’s all. Better luck next week. I bet I have CRs that I have failed at some point and I will keep failing them to get frustrated and skip it for the week but that doesn’t prevent me from trying them because I have this prejudice of “entire CR is there to troll only”.

22

Yes, we all understand the difference between speed GR builds and pushing builds. The creators of these builds selected for the CRs simply do not. The vast majority of these builds have 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 dead skills. They could easily get rid 1 of the skills that are doing nothing for you, and put a mobility skill in.

And this is totally irrelevant in a CR. 6 minutes is an arbitrary time, not a mandatory time as 15 min is for a normal GR. The point of the CR is to beat the builder, not to beat 6 minutes. If the algorithm selects a build that was done in 6 minutes with no mobility or 2 minutes with mobility, the challenge remains the same, beat the original time with the presented build.

As I have said in many other of these threads, the only real challenge to the CRs is trying to figure out what the person who made the build was thinking. Only once or twice have I had to run a CR a second time. Again, most these builds are clunky, incoherent, and unfun. CRs had soooooo much more potential, they were simply implemented in the laziest way possible.

What is clunky, incoherent, and unfun is having:
no mobility with 1-5 of the skills being dead
no defense skills with 1-5 of the skills being dead
no other utility skills with 1-5 of the skills being dead
having 1, 2, or 3 legendary powers in the cube that are also worn by the player
having 1, 2, or 3 legendary powers in the cube that are not used by the build
having 1-10 gear pieces with the wrong main stat

3 Likes
23

But they did not, and mobility doesn’t have to come from established skills that you have a taste for.

Haven’t said otherwise and time limit has to be tight, so either you adapt or skip. Mobility has to arrive from somewhere because without a tight timing, even arbitrary, it’s not a challenge. And with tight timing you need to find a way to traverse the field and slay monsters unless they are placed so close at one spot.

You really have no option of mobility and about 4-6 minutes on the clock of CR? Do you have any idea how many monsters you need to kill to fill the bar? Can you imagine yourself scoring that without figuring anything out about the intention of the build? Can you kill all of them without any mobility when spawns are scattered and density is mediocre across narrow paths and sharp turn corridors? No mobility passive like Fleet Footed, Hot Pursuit, Fierce Loyalty or movement speed buffs either; then you won’t need it because monster density is enough. Figuring it out is the challenge itself. It is not there to troll you or someone else.

Then your main intended skill should have enough range, reach of impact or scattering hits that automatically target the nearby entities. As I have said, the mobility you can sacrifice arrive with effective range of the build and difficulty. Not every CR build have melee range, no mobility and no defensive buffs. In case you found such thing please share here.

24

I feel like it’s really just a giant Dunning Kruger effect. You gotta remember, “average” is actually really terrible most of the time; an “average” IQ is between 90 and 110; an “average” passing score on a standardized school test is 80; an “average” speed limit in the United States tends to be between 55 to 70 MPH. “Average” tends to actually really suck in most objectively quantifiable metrics. We consider a 7/10 game to be “average.”

An often understated effect of Dunning Kruger is that people with ABOVE average capacity, tend to underestimate the difficulty of the task at hand; they think to themselves, “this is so easy” when in reality, it’s only easy to them. Someone who can seemingly intuit advanced math somewhat innately, without the need to study? They’ll view Algebra as amateur hour. To the true “average” person, not so much.

All of this to say, the average forum poster here is actually far above average at this game. Even those of us who claim to still be learning the game. We’re motivated enough to learn, we ask questions, we engage in discourse, we evaluate and parse, we look up and analyze builds, we tweak them to suit our preferences.

You think the “average enjoyer” does even a quarter of all that? Challenge Rift would suggest otherwise.

2 Likes
25

Correct, and that is my whole point. If the build chosen has 1-5 skills with no purpose and is missing easy to choose skills that will give the build purpose, it is an incoherent build.

Which is untrue for most CR builds. There has been many CRs where I jumped on the build (which I have never played before) and finished 2-3 minutes ahead (in a 6 min GR) of a person who played and designed that build.

Tight for time and 6 min < 15 min are not the same thing. A pro can make a 14:59 clear that virtually no one else could match, while a noob can make a 3 min clear that many players clear faster.

Again with the woulda, shoulda, coulda’s. Most of us here get how builds should be built and is not what we are discussing. We are discussing that many of the builds that are chosen for the CRs do not have what you are saying they should have.

26

I’m an average enjoyer who adjust my own difficulty to suit my own playstyle.
Because I don’t like to race with others but myself.
Believe it or not, I’m at the T10 with 400+ paragon.

27

I wouldn’t say that you’re truly “average.” You just choose to play at an average level because playing the way you want to, gives you more personal satisfaction than playing optimally. Thing is, you have to KNOW what is “optimal” in order to avoid it.

You have self-awareness, which puts you above average by default when it comes to discussing Dunning Kruger.

1 Like
28

For example, I avoid to be the whirlwind master race but combined it with frenzy.
I combined them together because it’s fun to travel and dodge with whirlwind.
And attack with frenzy because only spinning is not my playstyle.

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29

Solving it is the challenge and appears you are not bad at this. You know how I clear CR? I retry about seven times sometimes because the rhythm of cast or pathing elude me.

At the range of GR tier 45-60, any class Set with proper choices of skills appear kind of overpowered. With the viable skill picks for your build you supposed to clear it way faster, but then there won’t be a challenge to begin with. I am not saying that “there is certainly no way you come across a very incoherent build”, I am telling that challenge worth it. That could be a learning experience… Sometimes. For sure, algorithm would pick the clear with the wicked options.

You may think it would be better if tier was higher and build were to be more “coherent”; then that would disincentivize casual player to have a go at it because it would be complicated. Are you aware how many D3 players care about pixel pulls or know what AD% does at high level play? At the polar opposite, this kind of game play may also distract the player from progressing their own character or expect more rewards than few shiny trinkets.
Let’s say CR is tier 141 and time limit is 14:55; would you prefer this model more? Just for a cache that is meant for unlocking an Altar node?

You can not convince me that you had no mobility or had a lack of utility in those. You may not have Dashing Strike, Teleport or Leap but nearing two minute clear mark signifies you had effective mobility options. By any chance you may have found an alternative pathing with more density and get rewarded for it. Whatever the case was, it certainly sufficed.
Sometimes game doesn’t give you the skill you have the taste for, and adapting to it is the challenge. You might see five irrelevant skills in CR builds too, but in that case don’t expect challenge ahead to be deeply layered either.

30

I clear challenge builds first try every time…some (most?) are just more painfully plodding and weak. None (save for a few of the truly worst one’s we’ve ever had) are even close to an actual challenge. Since they aren’t a challenge…why not give an actual challenge? Make it GR 100 that we run, with actual builds. Then we can see who is actually good at the game.

2 Likes
31

My T11 is normal and I have to be careful.
T12 is hard and I have to be very careful.
T10 is easy and I don’t have to be very careful.
But T10 is fun because it likes that I’m blasting them all.
Especially when I turn off the HUD with Alt + Z.

1 Like
32

Easy to apply but comes with a few caveats. You can not really showcase build diversity at mid-high tiers; most builds will have one different skill slot or a passive to differ from each other which is not interesting. It’ll be like a second Set Dungeon but with higher scale of monster health. Your damage, your equipment quality and time limit changes but trying something new for game play may end up looking worse or very similar to current model. Secondly, you can not really stop people from whining about their “loot” when Rift Guardians drop none in this game mode. It may sound ridiculous but GR 100 is also where RG hits the loot limit. Tied to this, finishing a GR100 scale at the regular Adventure mode would be more rewarding than getting a CR cache.

33

It’s never been about GR cache It’s about challenge right? See who is actually good at the game with a given build. Even playing field. No hiding. No cheating. No botting. Nothing but pure challenge. Whatever we have now in regards to CR can easily be sacrificed to make way for actual Challenge Rift.

1 Like
34

I am pretty good at this game, but far from Pro. Here is my strategy that will help do a CR 90% of the time on the first try:

Prep:
Identify the “BOOM” button.
Identify the generator skill.
Look for any mobility or toughness skills.
Move “BOOM” skill to the button you can easily manage. I use either “1” or right click.
Move generator (if there) to the second easily managed button. For me, the one I didn’t choose above.
If you are lucky and there is a movement skill or utility skill, remap those as you would normally.
Dump useless skills on buttons you most likely won’t press.

Gameplay:
run or walk (if no mobility) to the first elite or big pack of mobs, and hit/spam “BOOM”
now use mobility (if it is there) to move to next big pack or elite and hit/spam “BOOM”
rinse and repeat until you get to RG and then hit/spam “BOOM”.
as far as pylons, hit them as you find them.

Things not to do:
do not herd monsters. It is a waste of time.
do not waste time on small packs 2-8 monsters.
single mobs, definitely run past.
monsters that jump/fly around, ignore.

Definitely no to either of these. Tieing CRs to any range small range of difficulty is one of the major flaws of CRs and something that has plagued the game since launch. When you tie the end game content to a certain difficulty, you cripple build diversity. Set the range at 45-60 and you get the incohesive builds we get now. Set it at 140-150 and we get a limited choice of 10-12 builds to choose from. Set it at 100-115 and you get a solid amount of builds, but miss out on a lot of fun actually cohesive builds that won’t work in this range.

Again, the biggest problem with CRs is the lazy design and implementation from the start. I have already done this dozens of times since CRs have been introduced, but I will throw the quick version of how I think CRs should have been designed and implemented back in the day:

Build selection:
Once a year for a week long period, Blizz allows submissions of videos of build submissions from players. (theory crafters are now enthusiastic as they get to be part of the design process).
Blizz then spends a week to narrow it down to 10 solid submissions per class. (1-2 employees could easily knock this out in a week, and allows vetting out incoherent builds).
For a week, players are allowed to vote on their top 5 for each class. (Players get to be engaged and part of the process).
After voting, Blizz now has 35 builds for the year. The remaining 17 builds can be pulled from popular, established builds pulled from LBs (Standard set builds, top LoD builds)

CR play:
A exclusive set of maps is chosen for the run. (not random, everyone runs the same as now).
Gear, paragon, skills are from the build selected (same as now).
Players get to choose the GR difficulty, from 1 to 150 (now noobs aren’t overwhelmed and pros aren’t bored) (This also means coherent builds are ignored due to power).
The CR time to complete is 15 minutes (same as a GR).
Rankings are based on who cleared the highest the fastest (Just like GRs).

Rewards:
Each new CR, player gets a one time CR cache for every 10th level completed. (One is awarded at GR10, GR20, GR30, etc. If someone completes a GR80 off the bat, they get 8 CR caches. Now those who only want the CR for season start or Altar can run a GR10 and get it over with, while people who want to compete can keep going up the ladder).
At the end of the week, bonus CR caches are awarded for ranking on LB. 1 for top 1000, 5 for top 100, 10 for top 10 and 25 for the #1 spot. (This gives incentive to push that LB while the rewards aren’t big enough to feel mandatory).

I have the same build skills that the original runner had. The difference is, my skill (while nowhere near pro) is significantly better than most players who’s builds are chose for CRs. Many of these noob players will waste time killing every monster, chasing bugs around, going the wrong way because they have no map knowledge, die too much because they do not understand positioning, and/or they do not understand pylon management. Because of the above reasons, I can usually finish a CR in the 3-4 minute range, which 2-3 minutes ahead of time.

3 Likes
35

Once upon a time B said that altar will be on NS.
So I think this another lies and them just create useless builds. Especially after the story with EU Wizard on the start one of the previous seasons (don’t remeber which)

36

That would be a lot of work, though. Looking at many of their designs, they tend to take the easiest, laziest way possible. It would be super easy to pull a build from the player base and implement it in a CR, whereas coming up with a new build each week would definitely be work.

While they have been full of it on many occasions, I doubt this is one of them.

1 Like
37

Hasn’t the problem with a CR been that it was based on a season theme item that wasn’t there anymore?
(I’m not a fan of challenge rifts).

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38

That has happened a few times before season start, but they usually fixed it before friday.

3 Likes