[Guide] Zodiac Rend (Season 20)

Congratulations Chris!

Are you going to try for 137?

I have two Doombringers:

Each has the same damage just about with 20% physical / 10% damage / CDR but the difference is one has strength and one with AD. I am trying to decided what to use as one has 966 strength and the other has 21% AD. With the AD one, it will put me at 160% AD or I can roll with more strength. I do not run metas at all and probably won’t get much more paragon to add to strength. Which would be better to use?

I do have 14 gems at 125 that I managed to level up and will put one more level on each gem then augment my gear at 126 and that should be it for me on this gear.

I managed to do some things this season that I didn’t think I would do:

I ran a 95 in 1:26 the other day, was stoked I finally broke 1:30.
I then got lucky leveling gems and gambling for gloves when Kadala blessed me.

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Depends on what your goals are. For solo pushing, then generally AD, for grouping or casual speed, then the Strength will be better.

Usually I recommend AD, but you are already pretty stacked on AD at 140%. The top barbs on the season ladder generally have ~4-5 slots of AD so I don’t think adding another 20% AD will really move the needle for you. Given your low paragon , I actually think the 966 strength will be better.

Dude… I want your gloves. Your gear is pretty amazing for Paragon 2000… way better than mine. The RNG gods have def been on your side this season.

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I read this and just had to go look.
Hot damn, primal quadfectas with CHC / CHD / AD / CDR.
Very nice, Adrenaline!

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Thanks. I was leaning towards the strength. RNG has been awful with FoT this season. Other than that, RNG has been good.

My takeaways this season for me are:

Leveling gems solo is very long and boring. I get to play at my own pace though.
I will augment with 100 level gems when I can next season instead of waiting until I do a 120 with no augments (I did a 122 before I augmented).
Public bounties are not that bad. One bounty done by someone else is one less I have to do.
I really should play zBarb (I posted about this before and how boring it is to me. I fell asleep tanking in WoW. I just enjoy dps.)

Eh I’m thinking I will put the effort form 137 is it looks like I will fall out of top 200 by era end. I am at the point of needed amazing sets of maps and fishing gives me very little enjoyment. In the long run its better to keep farming paragon in 4mans. I need lots of paragon to try and catch some of these higher dudes. I am more about long term progression.
My history compared to the world rank#1 barb clear is as follows
Era 2018-1/105@2508p -25 rank #1
Era 2019-1/116@3309p -19 rank #1
Era 2019-2/131@4247p -15 rank #1
Era 2020-1/136@5064p -11 rank #1

Hey Chris, awesome job on the 136. I don’t suppose there is video?

I’m a little confused on this:

I get everything up to the 2nd dash. Like, in the first row, in Era 2018-1, you cleared GR 105 at 2508 paragon. But what does the “25 rank # 1” mean?

So, after reading about what Adrenaline said about holding off the augmentations, I have a question. Is it because
A. a challenge to self? (to see how high one can go without augmenting)
B. no desire to spend time leveling legendary gems or farming rubies?
C. to hit the wall earlier so one can begin overcoming the learning curve?
D. unsure if the current gear is GG enough to be considered worthwhile for augmenting?

Any thoughts?

If you’re looking to clear as high as possible and be efficient with your time spent, I personally think it’s silly to hold off on augmentations, because they can literally double your effective paragon earlier on in the season. Perhaps some people do it as a personal challenge.

How far behind world rank one clear

Wait, that can’t be right. In 2019-1, a 116 was 19 ranks behind world rank 1? I did 124 in that Era and was rank 17 just in NA… I think rank 120 worldwide.

Could chris have meant number of GR levels behind the world #1?

Oh, haha, yeah, that’s it exactly. TY w4nk!

yah its GRs behind…

Fishing is so ridiculous… Finally cleared 136 on EU season at paragon 2.1k, was pretty rough for over 1k keys, and then suddenly I clear it in 11 minutes… power + saxtris is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen.

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This is why Ive been saying all along that I wouldn’t be surprised if someone gets an unthinkable clear. Top clear in the world is 145 in 14:09. Still have around a month left to throw keys at maps to find that GG rift. Someone will get very close to a 150 solo.

Nothing more than a personal challenge. I wanted to do a 120 with no augments. I did a 121 in about 20 tries and a 122 in about 10 tries but got lucky with pylons.

Once I did the 120, I was good to go. I will augment earlier next season. My gear has gotten better since the 120 though.

I farmed a ton this season. I upgraded over 750 mighty belts to get the one I have, ran over 5k bounties and still heave nearly 1k keystones still as I peaked around 1.75k.

I wanted to try some stuff differently this season. I still have a ways to go.

Chris, I don’t think you really should bother pushing 137.

Instead, you should try to clear 140. Kavanaugh did it at 6k paragon, and I’m like >90% sure that you can do it at 5k.

Will it take a lot of fishing? Yes, obviously. But: that extra fishing you’ll do in going straight to 140 will save you all the fishing you’d have to do if you needed to find a 1 in 500 map for 137, a 1 in 600 map for 138, and a 1 in 700 map for 139.

I ran into this big-time back in 2019-1 when I was pushing Leap. The rift that eventually let me clear 122 was amazing. With that same rift, I could have also done 123 or 124. But, instead, since I only play solo, I had to slug my way through each GR level, in order. So, it was back to the drawing board for 123, and then again for 124.

You don’t have that obstacle. You can just go straight to making attempts at the end-point. And like I said: I think you can do it.

I agree 100%

If you’re fishing for that GG 1 in 500 rift, then just go big. 3-4 tiers won’t make or break it - especially with your 5k paragon and perfect gear.

Congratulations man. GR136 @ P2100 is INSANE!!!

That must be close the #1 rank in the world if there were such a thing as a pound-for-pound ranking based on Paragon.