Something very simple but extremely frustrating was overlooked when recycling this theme, and a PTR would have addressed this easily. Now that we have “Fields of Misery” in the Greater Rift map pool, it is worth increasing the duration of the timer for the Pandemonium stacks to drop. Any build that does not have a special mobility skill like Furious Charge, Blood Rush, Vault, Spirit Walk, etc. or a significant movement speed buff, is incapable of maintaining Pandemonium stacks when entering a Fields of Misery map (due to the length of the entrance trail that NEVER has enemies on it). I believe the timer needs to be increased by about 3 to 5 seconds in order to address this. Fields of Misery is a map most players WANT to see while solo pushing. This season we CANNOT play it as a followup map on a significant portion of the solo pushing builds in the game.
I have spoken to plenty of other players who have had this same experience, and I have had it happen well over a dozen times already. You start a greater rift push and make a significant amount of progress. You enter the next floor and it is a Fields of Misery map, and you will now most likely leave the rift because your build moves at “normal” movement speed, and is therefore unable to maintain Pandemonium stacks. Some of the best and most fun pushing builds in Diablo III have “normal” movement speed, and are therefore less enjoyable to play this season due to this oversight.
SIDE NOTE: Group compositions almost always have at least one party member with the mobility to maintain stacks when entering fields of misery. Therefore, the main area where this problem exists is in solo games.
ANOTHER SIDE NOTE: A longer timer means that it is less convenient to reset the stacks in order to procure the earlier killstreak events multiple times in a single greater rift. This could be seen as a good thing to some, while others may be opposed to it. I personally hold a neutral position on this, but if it were me, I would AT LEAST increase the timer in solo games by 4 seconds.
2 Likes
Yes it would be nice for them to fix things in the game. But that will never happen. Plus this theme might not be seen again for a few yrs too. Plus there is a lot things wrong with the game too.
Like the follower you have them set up to get more keys & DB that is broke. I have done a lot rifts to get keys. At one time you could get up to 7 keys on a run. I haven’t seen that at all this season. The most I have seen is 1 time 5 keys. Most of the time it is 3 keys and 4 keys here and there.
Sorry we have to live with what we have!!!
The Sage’s set works a 100%. The Cain’s set is a 25% chance so it’s a hit and miss and hard to prove if it’s broken.
What I feel is broken is that sometimes the rift guardians in visions don’t drop a single key 
3 Likes
ANOTHER ANOTHER SIDE NOTE:
D3 is no longer being developed. It has been this way for a few years now. There is no one to fix anything. Resources are focused on the revenue generators.
Enjoy what we have while we have it.
On the Misery map there are always (?) monsters on the path to the next map so it might be worth it to rush to the next map to see how good it is. If it’s good then get some progress there and return to the Misery map. Just a thought.
There’s nothing to fix and I doubt they’d ever take action for such “issue”. The areas at the start of a Greater Rift floor are empty, or emptied after several complaints about Hardcore characters dying the moment they stepped in, due monster aggression. Later arrived the feature of grace timer invulnerability until you make a move; but that’s rather fickle, as player can give a command unknowingly at the load screen and still can get demolished.
Play Visions of Enmity while having a mediocre connection and you’ll get the idea of why Greater Rift floors keep the first entrance rather empty. I don’t think this will change after Pandemonium theme repeating twice by now and density of Greater Rifts has nothing to do with Season theme but the general map generator functions overall.
Highly desired map layouts with high monster density have deserted entrances so it keeps you safe and said entrance areas have terrain that is not convenient for combat anyway. To add, if they were to “fix” this issue of yours, I doubt you’d like going past five hundred or hitting thousand stacks in Greater Rifts more often than it is now.
Game is balanced for Hardcore and Softcore both. So at this stage, demanding more action doesn’t really bode well for balance sometimes. Just like requesting another 100x or 200x skill damage multiplier for your favorite build never will be qualified as a “Quality of Life” change.
When you change floors with freakishly high Pandemonium stacks, then you have taken the risk of losing them unless you have reach of range and mobility both. That means you just need to strategically back track and leave some monsters for the trip back before changing the floor just so you can secure sustaining your stacks for longer. That won’t help when you eventually have to change floors, but will make you optimize the output.
According to general strategy of gameplay, killing everything on screen at once is not a good approach at weaker densities as you won’t have beacons for collateral damage when you do so.
It’s also fun with the maps where the rift guardian spawns a screen or two away making any kill streak buff fall off.
3 Likes