Challenge rift problems

General Discussion
1

I started the new season trying to follow the guide released by Raxx. I have tried over a dozen times to complete the Challenge Rift. My quickest time still is over 8 minutes. Today my shortest time was over 9 minutes, I died 8 times. I’m guessing that is what is hurting me. With the CR refreshing on Monday, does it also change the character you use to attempt to complete it? I just can’t do it under the 5:49 they give us.

I have over 10 hours playing now about 4 hours on the Necro start, which I guess includes the CR tries, and another 5 hours and some mins on a DH I wanted to play this season. I am right now lv25, in 10 hours. The guide says that I should be lv70 in around an hour or 2 maybe?

Anyone have any help as to the best way to level a season character (DH) to 70 Without having to do the Challenge Rift or taking 30-40+ hours? I played last season (27) and it took me around 2 weeks to level to 70 doing the campaign. Before S27 I had not played D3 for about 6-7 years.

Also, can anyone tell me why the quick level guides only use a Necro for the first 18 levels? Why does it need to be only a Necro, are the other characters too bad?

My first attempt I tried the Necro to lv 18, then created a DH but, once I had the DH, I could not craft anything as I had little gold. So I had a lv 1 DH that took 10 mins to kill each enemy on T1. That was completely frustrating but I stuck with it and now I am lv 25 and still die alot.
I am considering trying to just start over if I can find some way to level faster than 30+ hours.
Every guide I have found so far all are starting with the Challenge rift, and I cannot beat that.

Help please.

Because I did not know there was a Quick level method. I had not played D3 since after the game first came out. I probably did play for the first 5-6 years straight but then have been gone from D3. It was only a couple of weeks ago that I ran across the fast level guides when looking for a leveling guide and character to start with. I did not even know I could play adventure mode before hitting lv 70 until then.

Final Note:
I finally figured out how to beat the Challenge rift. Not a single person mentioned to me nor did I read anywhere that mentioned that the key to completing the challenge rift is to fill up the bar on the right hand side of the screen. I had spent all of my attempts to rush through the stages to get to the end, instead of just standing and fighting to fill up the bar. Once I did that the Challenge rift was quite doable. Just remember when you are trying to help never assume that the person who you are trying to help knows what you know. Explaining to them exactly what to do might just help them the most.

Thanks to everyone that did reply and try to provide help I really do appreciate that.

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I assume we are talking the NA rift?

So, I kinda disagree with Raxx’s advice on this one. Yes, it’s easy to die but you actually have so much extra time that you can afford to die. What you can’t afford to do is play too safe, because you lose too much corpse momentum.

My advice is to play aggressive but don’t play stupid. It’s ok to die, but not to a flame trap or something silly like that. If you die, make it in pursuit of corpse generation.

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Did you do the 2 Altar things to get you started? I see you got your char to 18 so you have the requirement for the gems. Once you get the first 2 altars unlocked, the killstreak and the no level requirement, unlock the highest tier of the blacksmith, craft yourself the highest damage weapon and start slaughtering after that.

4

You need the gold and other stuff from the challenge rift. For the challenge rift you could also try and do it in a public game, that might help.
The necro is so good because of corpse explosion and some other skill available later on while levelling.
Find one of Raxx’s levelling guides where you level with oir without a cache. With a cache it’s probably this one: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72OAj7kBTk8&t=565s

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5

If your can’t do the Challenge Rift by yourself do in a group.
its easier

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the best advice I can give is learn where the pylons are than just dash for those… Trying to complete the rift normally is very hard, and if you dont know where the next floor is already before starting the rift, you will probably end up failing it.

After 50 (15-20, pre - exaggeration) tries, I finally got it by chasing pylons and just mashing buttons on the keyboard hoping for the best. I got it with 5 seconds left to spare …

The good news is that the rift god is probably the easiest part of the challenge, so if you can make it to the rift god, it should oinly take you about 5 seconds even with button mashing, so you dont need much extra time once you get to the boss. ( so dont abandon hope if you have less than 30 seconds on your timer like I did the first few times.)

Youre supposed to command your skelletons than charge in with your scythe to “mark the enemy” than run away and use corpse explosion, but half the time, when I chaged in with my scythe I neded up in a vicious death cycle by getting walled stuck to death \etc… which caused me to fail the rift.

So I ended up giving up trying it that way and just learned where the pylons where and exxits, and charged for those.

You have 1 skill that allows you to go god, but it lasts about 10 secxonds than youre on cooldown for 1-2 minutes so for a challenge with a 5 minute timer, that gives you basically 2-3 uses out of it. Time it well otherwise that can be the difference of success and failure. (or get the pylon that reduces

I am sure if I played the class for 5 - 6 hours, it would have been much easier… It’s the only class I have never really played , never got to 70 with necro but got to 70 with every other class, and it s the only class I have issues with Challenge Rifts…

But no one should be penalized for not knowing how to play a class and in this season its huge because the altar of rites requires a challenge rift cache for progression meaning if you suck at challenge rifts, you will end up being unable to clear altar of rites which in my opinion is not fair, and also if you dont save your caches for the altar of rites, you can really screw yourself up and end up needing to wait a long time to continue your progression with the altar of rites.

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Thanks, that is the guide I was using to level. I do have the first 2 Altar points. My biggest problem is now with not having gold. I did level my blacksmith to 6 then ran out of gold. The weapons and gear I can craft are way lower than what I am finding while playing. I now have 10k gold left.

I would welcome having someone who can clear the challenge rift carry me through it. But otherwise I fear I would end up with someone like me who cannot clear it either and the rift might be worse in that case. I know it resets on Monday so I am hoping it is easier if it even changes. I am not sure about how the challenge rifts operate, this is the first time I am ever trying to do the rift. I am also now stuck with not being able to get the Death’s Breath or GR key I need for the 3rd Altar point as I cannot clear the content on a high enough tier for the DB to drop, and the rifts take so long to clear with my DH in it’s current state.

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Yes, it will be something entirely different.

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Well written. Thank you. This is my thought exactly. 50 times huh? You have more patience with this than I do. I’m hoping for a change to the CR come Monday that makes it easier to complete on a different character. I am also worried about the Altar requirement that needs the CR for point 15. So if I do end up completing it I’ll just be saving it for that .

11

The next CR will feature a Barbarian build, so here is hoping it is actually a decent one. I always have difficulties with the Necro and WD, as I really don’t like either class, so I skip them.

Good luck next week, hope it works out for you.

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^^^^

I did this for someone who was having trouble getting through it.

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Hi there, add me Slipknot#1659 and I’ll help out if you want a hand. I’ll log on in a few and check and see if you have. If not, I’ll be on later this afternoon around 12:30-1 central time. Good luck.

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14

I did this challenge rift twice. Once for me, and once for my father.

Both times, it was more or less the same thing. I mashed buttons and killed stuff and moved through as quick as I could. Both times I died twice. But still finished with a minute to spare.

I will admit it was annoying to play, but apparently random button smashing works. lol

15

I dont own the necro pack, so I never play the necro. i just practiced for 5m before start.

What I notice is you use those CD skills 1 per elite. Raxx’s guide at start is wrong, you turn right at the start where the power pylon is, and those blues put you more ahead then skipping as I think he skips those.

#1 key is use the AOE skill that centers on you on the first elite, then the CD skill that allows you to chain cast corpses on the next 2 elites, they are right next to each other and you have time. Then you grab the blues I mentioned above and you should be way ahead of timer.

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problem is if you play too careful, you dont do enough damage in the rift , but if you play too risky, you end up dying over and over and getting penalized… the scythe both saved me and killed me.

also you still have to watch out for some attacks like the red sparkly balls of death from the witches, those things hurt.

If you dash for the pylon that reeduces cooldowns, and take advantage of it while its up, it can make it much easier even for someone who has no clue and hates necromancer like myself.

Theres a power pylon at the beginning too,

I also have severe wrist problems sfrom playing Diablo 3 back in 2012… so I actually have alot of isuses with moues \ keyboard games… I never usually play games without Controller support, but I wanted to play Diablo 3 one last time before diablo 4 came out… ( which will have gamepad support)

and this is a build that tends to really muck up by wrist bad… so it got very frustrating on my wrist, physically. The continuous dance between left and right click really hurts my wrist.

I tend to stick to builds that dont make my wrists burn since D3 on PC has no Controller support.

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Point was, I rushed through, mashed buttons, still finished a minute faster than the time required. I would have liked to learn more about how to max the build, but I don’t usually spare the time for it. lol

In my father’s case, he was struggling with it, had tried it a few times and he recently had his shoulder replaced, so asked me to just run it through. So I basically repeated the same button mashing I did on my own and finished a tad faster. lol

Anyway.

Sounds like you have some potential carpel tunnel issues or something going on there. I have been working on computers and gaming for nearly 35 years, and while I can get wore down faster than I used to when I was younger, I often don’t run into actual problems like that thankfully.

But 5 hour+ gaming stints are a thing of the past for me. Nowadays, couple hours or so is about all I’m willing to commit to at a time. Not to mention all the other life things I have to do. lol

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18

Might not help but what I usually do for every CR is look at their passives, the gear they are wearing, and the abilities I have on the bar. I then just blindly play it first and get the hang of how it’s supposed to work, after maybe 2/3 tries if I need it I get it down and complete the CR.

I never watch any guides on how to do them, but if Rax’s didn’t help try maybe Rhyker or someone else. All you really need tho is a basic understanding of trying to get elite kills as much as possible and skipping small unnecessary groups.

Speed> Enemy groups/Elite Packs clustered for kills(skip small normal packs unless in your way) > next level.

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Why? Why would you waste your time in the campaign? You should be in Adventure Mode all the time. The only reason to do the campaign is to attempt that one particular Conquest.

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how do you know what the next one will be?. I do hope that it is a Barb, in the 5 years I have played, I only did one CR and it was a Barb one, I usually play DH and enjoy the class, This season i made a necro and then a wizard, got the necro to 70, I could have stopped at 18 but was enjoying my self, then played a wizard, I do have a DH waiting in the wings to play a bit later. I have enjoyed the season so far, my only negative is that of the season challenges, I am a bit of a plodder when it comes to playing this type of games, I move slow and steady, so fast paced moves needed to finish a mission or quest, is something I usually do not do. I do not like the fact that to really get the full experience of the season it requires me to have to do something “outside” of the game, my biggest foil in the past has been the set mastery, but after a lot of reading and lot of trying , I find I can do the Marauder set dungeon, so I have been able to do the full season the last two seasons.it does take me about 15-20 tries to get it, I do 3-4 then take a days;rest so as not to get frustrated, then keep trying it again. and I can do it.

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They follow a set schedule.

Taken from the official Blizz site:

“Challenge Rifts rotate every Monday afternoon, in the following class order: Demon Hunter, Necromancer, Barbarian, Wizard, Monk, Witch Doctor, and Crusader.”

Link: Welcome to Challenge Rifts - Diablo III

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