Well, I finished the Altar and Season Journey in under 40 hrs. Would have been quicker, but it took 44 tries to get an Ancient Hellfire Amulet.
Got the ingredients for the Staff of Herding including the Plan in 5 games. Got the Challenge Rift done just about 2 hrs before the new one dropped yesterday.
Got to blast the night of season start for about 5 hours before I had to go to bed. Got in another 3 hrs before the wife and I went to the cabin to do some fishing. Got myself a nice largemouth bass. Wife caught a 30 inch Northen Pike and a 20 inch Walleye. My brother-in-law caught 3 Walleyes ranging from 19 to 24 inches.
My brother-in-law filleted the walleyes and we had a good fish fry on Sunday. We threw everything else back.
Was able to do a little blasting before and after the fish fry and then did some yesterday and last night.
Also, I said something about getting Avarice and Need for Speed Conquests done in the same rift in some thread that was posted before season started and I’ll be damned if it didn’t happen. Outside of the one Regular Rift I did to get the first 4 Chapters of the Season Journey, I ran only one more with a level 50 BotH. The Rift was a Southern Highlands map and wound up with about 75 million in under 2 minutes. That was another bit of luck because I didn’t have to fish for good rift to get those two conquests done.
I just had the chance to play it for a couple of hours yesterday. I’m just half way around to level 70. Hopefully once my fatigue ceases from commute back I’ll be able to get back to it.
Try them in the oven next time with a simple sauce spread of a pinch of crushed cardamom, a touch of ground white pepper, regular soy sauce, sunflower oil, lots of ground paprika and some other spices to your taste.
I know everyone’s “goals” are different. For me, it depends on the theme. This one isn’t super exciting, so I’ll probably be done after the season journey.
I have barely started on mine. Went on vacation and won’t be back until this weekend. Looks like an underwhelming theme so I’ll probably finish the journey and Altar then call it quits.
I was trying to race this journey on EU, but since the change to the season journey, it’s become much harder.
The main problem becomes you needing to run an Echoing Nightmare, which is 100% RNG. I managed to get all 3 gems to 70 without getting a Petrified Scream. Not much you can really do in that situation. Just comes down to luck. For example, on my SSF HC character on Americas, I have 6 Petrified Screams in about 20 Greater Rifts.
Sounds good! My brother-in-law dips them in a mixture of biscuit and chicken. Then fries them. Tasted awesome!
The theme isn’t as bad as I thought it would be. I just don’t feel like putting together a Nat’s Set to do a GRift 150. I like the set and all, but I intend to push with it when the Soul Stone Season comes back around, and I don’t want to get burnt out on it before then.
Yeah, I almost wasted one of my Screams because I was dumb and died in wave 36. I was able to use that Whisper on the Altar requirement of an augmented weapon, but you should have heard me cursing when I died. lol
I think you mentioned in another thread a while ago about the PS drop rates being higher for lower level GRs and I’ve observed this as well though I haven’t figured out exactly how high I can go to still have higher PS drop rates.
Have you by any chance determined what GR range is considered low for PS drop rate purposes? Or have you changed your view on this given your comment about “100% RNG”?
I mean, I still think that. After all, with the Hardcore, I was running much lower Greater Rifts than Softcore. (And EU, I was definitely pushing higher GRs.)
But it still comes down to a situation of it being anecdotal.
Let’s say the drop rate is 5% as people have previously mentioned.
Season Stats (combining Non SSF + SSF):
Softcore:
4 Petrified Screams in 100 Greater Rifts
74% chance of this happening
Hardcore:
8 Petrified Screams in 64 Greater Rifts
1.4% chance of this happening
The above are my real numbers. And just by looking at the numbers, my thoughts don’t change. But 1.4% chance is not so unrealistic that I could definitively prove anything. After all, 14 people in 1000 will have this occur. (I.e. If I had gotten 20+ Petrified Screams, that would be a different scenario, in that the probability would be so ridiculous it would be hard to deny. That would roughly be a 1 in 45 billion chance.)
And let’s presume there even is a way to manipulate it. Does that mean it’s running low GRs? Not necessarily. Perhaps the rate is boosted in HC. Perhaps the rate in HC is boosted because I don’t touch Echoing Nightmares in HC. Etc. Just because there could be a way to manipulate it doesn’t necessarily mean I know how it’s being manipulated, even if I’m inadvertently manipulating it.
So, when I say it’s 100% RNG, it’s what I can prove.
Thanks for the detailed breakdown and caveats, and I get what you mean about 100% RNG being what you can prove.
I’m willing to go out on a limb based on my own experiences and continue trying my luck with lower level GRS to try to increase my changes for Petrified Screams for Season Journey and Achievements purposes. But optimally, I want to run the highest GR that is still considered “low” from a higher PS drop rate perspective in order to also maximize my blood shards/leggie drops.
That’s why I was wondering if you have anecdotally determined what is the highest GR level that is still considered low enough to get the higher PS drop rates? Would it be GR 60? or 50? or 40? etc?
Season 30, I unlocked On a Good Day in 10 Greater Rifts (0.1% chance of that happening).
GR: 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 28, 31, 34, 62, 65
I had 4 Petrified Screams drop, and all 4 dropped from the GR 13-34. (So, if you exclude the 62 & 65, by the time I had 4 Petrified Screams, it would be a 0.04% chance.)
And that was my hypothesis, in that you don’t get a guaranteed legendary until around GR45, so that the screams would be used as a quasi-reward to offset the lack of blood shards & legendaries.
(Most people on Season Start, even in HC, try to push to GR45 ASAP.)
But even if that’s true, yes, you would be sacrificing legendaries and blood shards.
EDIT
As per the guaranteed legendary, I could be wrong about it. Just going off of what I remember people saying.
Wow, that was quite an incredible result. I have noticed from your Twitch and Youtube streams that you have pretty good RNG in general. For example, you seem to get 2 diamonds from your first lvl 18 boss kill just about every time I’ve seen you do it, whereas I seem to average about 3 to 5 boss runs to get 2 diamonds, and it’s taken me as many as 8 or 9 runs in the past.
But back to the Petrified screams - thanks for the detailed breakdown on where you got them. I didn’t know that GR45 was when legendaries become guaranteed. My only source for this has been https://d3resource.com/difficulties/index.php but I don’t understand what the drop rate data means. For example, T4/GR19 has a leggie drop rate of 119% and T10/GR45 has a leggie drop rate of 461%, but that doesn’t match what I see either in NRs or GRs, though I also don’t know what the base value those percentages are based off of.
Just chiming in on my experience. On a Good Day has come up a few times since we have had screams. I usually level up 1 gem to 65 at a time and start at 14, 19, 24 (gives you more chances to empower when the gold is tight) similar as you do for both sc and hc.
I can remember 1 time getting 3 screams before I got 1 gem to 65. By the same token, I have had multiple times I got 3 gems to 65 with no scream. Most the time, I get between 1-2 screams for the Conquest. Haven’t tested it, but I am going to figure it is simple rng = rng.
On a side note, as I was doing my Conquests for SSF HC (what I am not going to play for the rest of the season), I got Staff of Herding plans from Boss Mode, GG while farming my Avararice Band for Avarita, and while getting shards to roll for my WD gear, I did 3 GR60s and got a Primal, did 3 GR60s and got another Primal, did 3 more GR 60s and got a 3rd Primal. All of this happened in a 2 hour span.
I would wager a steak dinner it will take me over 2 hours on regular SC to get just my GG. I can assume this is because Blizz’s Skynet AI is trying to spite and punish me by teasing me with good RNG on the mode I won’t play and crap RNG on the mode I will play, but tin foil hat aside, it is just RNG = RNG.
I got a gem hoarder at 14 this season. Was pretty stoked about that. Oddly the mushrooms were the hardest part of my journey/altar. Guessing I did about 100 games in Cath 1, full explores, before I found the dearn things.
I finished my season Journey and completed the Altar. This seasons theme is boring to me. Pushing GRs rely too much on fishing for the right rift, timing the seasons theme and getting the right pylons. It’s just not my idea of fun, but I can understand why some people enjoying it. I will definitely reduce my playing time considerably.
Got my spot on the Achieves LB. Not really interested in finishing the SJ as I have long had all the rewards. The theme is very meh, so won’t be doing any heavy grinding this season. Currently just hanging out with my friends. When they fade off, will probably go back to Vision farming for non-season Primals.