One thing I like about Diablo 3 is working hard to get good gear, and push my limits in the Greater Rifts.
The Pylon buffs from Potion AC is currently so strong you don’t even need to use skills or any specific build to complete a GR 150, as long as you get enough Conduit Pylons (see video below).
The pylon powers are in my opinion not a good idea in general, not just because it is too strong, but also because it makes “fishing” for a good rift more important than before, taking away from the core philosophy that Diablo has - slaying monsters.
As a casual player who likes to attempt getting on the Leaderboard, or just beat my own record, it doesn’t make me feel good knowing I only made it because I got “lucky”. I want to say “I finally cleared GR xxx because I have gotten better at playing the build, and the gear grind paid off.”
Reducing RNG in Diablo has gotten better over the years by making changes to the outcome of the rifts and monster progression etc, but it still has a long way to go IMO.
My suggestion is to remove all RNG from the Potion AC, and making a consistant power buff instead, opening up for more strategic playstyle of when to use the potions, to gain an advantage in the Rift, rather than getting lucky.
The pylon lottery is already present. GR map and monster luck is already present. Changing the potion to a constant buff will ruin the ‘slot machine’ fun element of the potions, but it will do very little to change the fact GR pushing is a game of farming a bunch of keys and maximizing those chances.
I would be ok with some form of slot machine element with the potions, as long as the range of outcome is not too big. The current RNG range of maps seems to be roughly 10 GR levels, where the best map and mobs and lucky pylon spawns would take you 10 GRs higher than the worst possible outcome. Now with the Potion AC Pylon powers, you could get all Conduit Pylons if you are very lucky, or all Fortune Shrines worst case. The equivalent RNG range would probably be, well, uncapped, as with all Conduits you could do a 150 no matter what, as the video shows. There are many ways of implementing fun RNG in games, but personally I’m not a huge fan of it for things like GRs, where I want to push my limits and see progression for my character.
It’s totally reasonable to want a fair baseline to judge one’s self, but not how GRs work currently. There is a tremendous amount of randomness as you push towards the top end. Some of the skill, for lack of a better word, is working within that randomness.
The potions won’t go live like this, it’s just absolutely insanity right now.
