Take my Seasonal Female DHer. She is the second character I ever created in the game clear back in 2012. https://us.diablo3.com/en/profile/DTMAce-1687/hero/10562626
Currently, I have cleared up to GR 81 solo. I know, its not much, but look at the gear. Embarrassing.
I’m pretty confident that my comfort clearing level will top out around GR 85 or so with that gear. Again, insane. Gem levels aren’t even to 25 yet. For the last 30 some GRs I have ran this season, earned between 8-12 paragon a run.
Now.
You look at this non-seasonal DHer, with a similar build.
I have cleared up to GR100 with him. Before Squirt. I have yet to push with him since Squirt came along. But I’m betting I could run a GR110 right now, blind.
Both are very glass, but I’m used to that.
But I just found it interesting that the differences in gearing, augments, and paragon show only a rough 20-25 GR gain. Crazy eh?
Tonight I went in and ran an 83 in 8 minutes with exactly what you see. Gained 10 more Paragon, finally leveled a couple of gems to 25 and did NOT die once that run.
Might be able to get near 90 with it with the current gear. Who knows. Its laughably bad though. Watch it be the next CR, that would be hilarious.
I’ve been using it to (very) slowly progress upward. It’s T4 capable right now. I could do T6, but the kill time drops drastically there and the toughness isn’t enough yet. I need a Mara’s or Star of Azkaranth, preferrably both with one cubed. That eliminates the two deadliest elements, fire and poison, leaving only exploding fatties as the main source of death.
I’ve temporarily halted progress with it though so I can finish each of the last three main chapters in the season journey on my HC DH so it doesn’t have to rely on LoD. LoD would feel a lot better as a straight up progression tool if it were only 49 ranks total. Having to go through a span of 99 ranks, even if it’s only a “2-5 GR difference” really hurts early on when you have fewer ancient pieces. Maxing that bonus earlier would feel a hell of a lot better for straight progression using only LoD to climb with. It just isn’t a very smooth curve being at half power for so long. A “2-5 GR difference” is at the high end, not the low end. Half power really stings and creates a lopsided curve starting at roughly GR 30, with the brick wall getting ever higher as you inch up, especially if you aren’t lucky enough to find more ancient pieces of the needed items.
The problem here is that Blizzard treated it as a gem you level up via sets and forgot that the most tangible enjoyability of LoD comes from using it as the sole progression method, for which that 99 ranks is ill suited. It really does need to be brought down to 49 ranks to make that progression feel better. You still have to find the gear after all.
I get that. Nothing worse than being able to kill ok, but slow. I usually aim for 4-6 minute rift clears to the RG as a baseline when grinding upwards solo.
For me its those damn grotesques (maybe not the right name)… I HATE them. When you are glass, you aren’t rushing the map with those blowing poison up everywhere. lol
If it were me, I would probably wait to put together a build for it until I had enough ancient/primal options, but that’s me. At least the gem works with normal legendaries, unlike the rings.
It feels really nice as an alternate progression method to sets. It’s just that having its power cut in half hurts the low end and middle much much more than the high end. High end, you’re pushing and it’s really hard to distinguish between power levels. Low/mid tier though, it’s a very different story. The power swing is much greater at those levels. I wasn’t worried about the high end when I suggested the 49 ranks instead of 99. I knew that would be minimal total GR increases in terms of raw levels. It was the progression that I was worried about, and it looks like I was right. Most players might not feel it when they’re gathering their LoD pieces while utilizing sets to speed through everything, but for those utilizing LoD as the means of progression, it’s definitely felt.
Blizzard made a mistake treating it as only being played after getting the pieces while wearing sets and forgot those of us that wanted it for alternate starter to endgame progression.
I guess I never really considered using that sort of build as a level up option or build up from low levels to higher levels. For me it was something you would do when you had farmed some good items to use with it and leveled the gem or found ancient versions of the LoN set (back before the gem).
I remember when the set was introduced on the PTR and I ran a then early version of the WD Poison build:
I had a lot of fun putting that together on the PTR. Then they nerfed the ring power.
That would be impossible. Your run is over GR50, you have the correct gear for the build, you have the correct rolls on the gear, and have the correct items in teh cube. If you want to be the CR build, you need to jack your character up considerably, break it as hard as you can.
As for the OP, yes, powercreep is crazy out of control. I did my GR75 on sc and hc for the conquests with around 400 paragon in both modes. My gear was the right gear, but not great rolls, no ancient weapon, game is ez mode until you hit the 110s+.
I tried to get a super speed build in for the Challenge rift. I did a bunch of 1 min GR45s and GR50s for low level gem levelling trying to sneak it in. It didn’t make it though. I think one of the requirements is that it also has to be like a 5-7 min clear. Which is just crazy, who in this day and age takes 6 minutes to clear a GR45? Maybe for a couple rifts right at the start of the season before you have any items, but after that, no one really touches GR45 anymore.
I could sit one of my cats in front of my keyboard and they could probably pull that off.
Challenge rift is going the same way as the season journey and seasonal achievements. The requirements made more sense a few patches ago. They make less and less sense as the power creep continues. I think it’s time to re-evaluate the criteria for all those things.
Even upping the Challenge Rift to GR70ish would add a lot more variety. There’d still be some weird builds, but there would be more runs to pull from (I’m guessing a lot more casual players are farting around in GR70 compared to GR45) and the builds will probably be a bit more functional.
That is why it is usually a mostly broken build by a very novice player. The person plays the build. They should know how to play it best and it takes them 6-7 minutes for the GR. The top clearers on the CR usually hit it in 2-3 minutes. Yes, they have knowledge about elite locations and pylons, but that isn’t going to cause them to be 3 times as fast. If you want to have the featured CR build, unlearn everything you have learned.
They have almost always been non-cohesive garbage builds. The builds don’t need to be top end pushing builds, but they don’t need to be trash builds either. A little thought and effort in selecting builds that have a good flow plus a better structured challenge and reward system would greatly increase the allure of CR’s. As of now, most players treat the CR as they do set dungeons for SJ. Complete it once for the reward then be done with it until next week.
CR’s are yet another example of great idea, horrible implementation. Something that has plagued this game from the start and still does today.
Squirt’s makes a difference? Just was interesting to me, thought I would share.
Here’s the real rub though:
If you look closely at the weapon on both those characters I linked above, you will notice a few things, but one thing in particular to me stands out.
The bow on my non-season has 5 primary attributes. The bow on my seasonal has 4.
I have seen this happen multiple times with this bow when it drops. Sometimes drops with 5 main stats instead of 4, but dropping with 4 is more common.
Obviously, you are going to want a 5 main stat drop over a 4. But I wondered how many people were aware of it. I’m sure some are. I think there are some other weapons that have dropped that had the same thing happen.
It had Vit. I was actually trying to roll a socket and GOT what it has. So I left it.
Just to check:
I logged in just now to see what my rolls can be on that stat. Naturally it shows RCR as 10 percent in there, even though it says 51 on the bow. But it only had 4 stats when it dropped and there was NO RCR on it. I rolled the Vit to obtain a socket and boom. RCR showed up at 10. I looked at the bow stats and it showed 51.whatever. I was like. Ok, leave it alone then. And ran with it.
That is what happened.
No. They did not. And its not the first time I have seen this bow drop with 4 or 5 mainstats with NO socket.
Yes
I have dropped a few bows in season and not season
DTMAce is right, there are 4 and 5 attributes
Not all Yang arcs have the same number of attributes
I have 4 and 5 attributes in my closet (how strange?)
I’m sorry, it’s not our fault, it will be randomness …
It will be that this strange event only happens to those who play occasionally with DH, and therefore we can affirm that OP comment
If you don’t think that is possible, play with DH and you can see for yourself that it is true.
