A common issue with D3 players is the reward of group play v solo play.
Whilst the power creep in set items has reduced this a little over the last few patches it is quite evident from streamers playing the PTR that they are having a huge benefit from the changes.
The circle produced by the seasonal buff lasts 5 seconds and can be far away from the player but in a 4 man group they are everywhere and you literally get to choose which color of circle you want to stand in.
The solo experience is nowhere near as good.
Then there are the item changes. Supports in a 4 man group will wear a Flavor of Time and thus the entire group will get double pylon time for 60% of the pylons (you only need to wear the item for Speed & Conduit double time, the others you get double time as long as one in your group has it and selects the pylon).
How many solo builds will use a Flavor of Time?
It doesn’t make sense to increase the disparity between group play and solo play when groups can hit GR150 3-4 weeks into a season yet solo play is hitting GR130+ in a Season.
Whilst I understand the reward of group play should be in the game to see the game help solo players in the last few patches then to see these changes in PTR that greatly increases group play is a bit disappointing.
Unfortunately this game is written with multiplayer in mind. Solo is side dish unlike its predecessors.
Group play is core to this game. Every resource spent on MP is logical. Solo will be left out but there are plenty rewarding solo games available else where.
In D4 Solo vs Group should be better balanced, as for D3 its too late to inject fundamental changes.
Flavor of Time is geared towards a solo player. Unless it changes and one person wearing it transfers the pylon duration to all in a group, it remains a single player benefit.
The new gem is worth taking up and trying with all ancients.
It is unlikely there will be a lot of meta builds with this third option. If you enjoy solo, why worry about metas? They do not worry about solo players I imagine.
Thanks. I mentioned this in the Flavor of Time thread and yet the post was completely ignored. As you can see, there is still a large misunderstanding regarding how it works:
In MP, as long as the person wearing Flavor of Time clicks the pylon, everyone benefits from the extended duration; and
The only pylons exempted from this are Conduit and Shield.
Having said this, imagine rat runs with 1 minute power pylons and 1 minute channeling pylons…anyone thinking that the Flavor of Time rework was geared for ‘solo players’ seems to have missed the memo.
I have it now. I am sure I am not alone in missing it, but in saying that, there ARE a lot of conflicting posts. It’s also PTR so the final of “This is what it does…” is yet to be decided.
Additionally, having shield and conduit stay up double, only in solo mode, definitely benefits solo players because as stated, they are not in meta.
I thought the idea behind Executioner was it was a follower-friendly weapon. (the follower would kill enemies on hit with 5-10% HP left.) but it doesn’t appear to be working. I asked @Nevalistis for clarification for the item.
If it works as I think it should work, it would close the gap a little behind solo and group play.
Solo cannot beat group. As someone said that makes no sense. But there have been a lot of people asking for more benefits for solo play. This might be one of them.
