Well this was a terrible decision to put as a progression step in the new altar mechanic. So just because we didn’t spoil everything and read a step by step guide before starting playing and we took the Cache out at the beginning like in every single season these last couple of years we’re now soft locked in the new league mechanic for 5 days? That kinda killed the fun for us and we were having a blast for the first time in a long time in D3. Sadface 
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Had the same thing happen.
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I haven’t started the Season justyet, would you recommend that save my cache?
5 days? US resets on Monday and EU on Tuesday.
If you’re on US, no. Challenge rift reset is Monday. If you’re on EU and will play 10+ hours at max level this weekend, yeah, maybe.
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It’s rather pathetic that you exaggerate by saying “5 days” to make it seem like SO MUCH TIME making you appear SO VICTIMIZED. Oh boo hoo
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I guess I’ll save it, I’ll probably be playing an hour day.
So you probably haven’t figured out that you can get all of the QOL nodes without needing the challenge rift. You know, cause you didn’t do any homework.
For those finding this thread later, if you’re not a seriously hard core player, you should use your challenge cache for the league start QOL benefits, and then continue progressing after the challenge rift reset.
Here’s the order to take the altar nodes in can be found in a few places, but since I can’t post a hyperlink, if you search for " Altar of Rites Mechanics in Diablo 3 Season 28" your first hit should be that page on Icy Veins.
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Yes, since you haven’t started the season yet. I find I’m blazing through the altar much faster than I thought I would, but I also started sometimes last night. If you can wait a bit, the CR resets on monday already. I don’t think it’s worth trading early progression speed for more unlocks.
should be a challenge cache or 5 bounty caches
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If you play an hour a day there’s really no reason to save it, you will have at least one, probably two additional caches by the time you need it for the Altar. (Unless you dislike Challenge rifts to the point that you don’t consider the Altar and leveling bonus both be worth the hassle)
This is like the Diablo equivalent of “first world problems”
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Some them are unbearable.
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So to get up to the cache slot in the Altar, I think about 10h for your average player is about right. That’s roughly what it took me to get there. RNG-dependent on a key or gift dropping, of course. If you’re super efficient you could maybe do it within a couple hours.
I’d say use the cache in your case. A faster start is worth it considering the reset is on monday afternoon.
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The fact that the challenge rift reset is “just a couple days away” is besides the point. It’s simply bad design to require a weekly gated item, one that you would never think to save for any reason unless you spoiled the requirement for yourself as OP said. It doesn’t matter how fast or slow you play either. Come Monday, a bunch of people are going to get a new cache and open it, then realize they are locked out of the big new feature for a whole week. And this will just keep happening to people every week. Every other requirement each takes like, an hour at most, so why does just one right in the middle take up to a week?
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It’s simply GREAT design because it’s built as such that it doesn’t matter. You can get anywhere on the tree. Want all the damage? OK. Want all the potions? OK. Want to turn your pet into a slave….well you get the point.
You can do so much in 14 nodes that the OP’s complaint is simply null and void. Less crying and more reading would do a lot of people on this forum a lot of good.
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I hate how Blizzard games all try to incorporate eSports garbage with progression. If they want to have challenge rifts, fine, but make it just a novelty. Don’t give materials that you get in your ladder character games. I don’t want to spend time mastering something that I’ll just have to put in the trash the moment that I’m successful with it. It’s like I have to get it out of the way in order to actually have fun and play the game I want to play. Stupid stupid design.
Getting the Staff of Herding at least for me took like 5 hours.
I have to agree, I kind of wish each mode was just tied to a requirement and I could bounce around as I please.
I never thought I would have gotten 14 nodes in the first day… guess I’m waiting now.
While its true, that it really isn’t that big a deal to wait a few days,
most of the big QOL features can be gotten without needing it;
and needing a “step by step guide” is also wrong, since the requirements were in the patch notes, and i feel like reading those should be a given to play new patches.
It still is a weird design desicion to include the challenge cache in the progression, every other unlock is made by game progression on season characters, only requiring luck or skill, like the staff needs rare drops that can take a while to get, but when you do want to get them you can try to do so immediately.
A Gift or EN-key can also be a bit RNG when you get them for how early you need them in the altar, but still they are acquired with your season character.
Everything else is just effort you put in, a few hunderd souls just take time, 1600bloodshards require GR110.
Apart from the cache nothing else is time gated, nothing else is done “outside” of the season.
And having players decide between a smoother leveling with a cache, like they’ve done since CR were introduced, and having to wait a few days to unlock the altar or holding onto the cache, taking longer to level but beeing able to unlock faster feels just weird.
As i said, not really a big deal, you can get to all big nodes before requiring the cache, and a few days wait isnt that long.
I also used the cache, since i just really dislike the early leveling, and i didnt expect to unlock it that fast/to be able to play as much as i did; but now that i’m at the cache step, it does leave a slightly bitter taste.
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This says it all what is the rush, OH wait to be the 1st to finish it. To have your Name up in lights look at me I did before any body else!!!
People you get the cache every Mon ot Tues. The season is 3 months WOW!!! I could careless how long it takes to finish the Altar.