So I been noticing that the rewards in Infernal Hordes mode could use some tweeking. Currently my highest clear on a WW Dust Devil Barb is a Tier 5 so I am unsure how the rewards are on the higher tiers.
The “Spoils of Material” chest drops way too many Masterworking materials. It completely overshadows The Pit. I’d like to see the Masterworking materials dropped from the chest reduced by 50% and add in 1-2 random boss summoning materials to make up for the reduced Masterworking materials. This will allow players to still get boss summoning materials by opening this specific chest.
The “Spoils of Greater Equipment” also feels a little lackluster for a 1 time per run opening. Instead of just guaranteeing just 1 Greater Affix item, either have the chest guarantee 2 items with greater affixes or 1 item with at least 2 greater affixes on it. I also feel like for the time investment, the chest needs to have an 80% to 100% chance to drop 1 random unique item. The Fell Council is in some ways just as hard if not harder than Uber Bosses depending on the tier of compass. Since these chests only start dropping on a Tier 3+ key in World Tier 4, make the chance of obtaining 1 unique item as follows:
Spoils of Greater Equipment chest’s chance to drop 1 random unique item.
Compass Tier 3: 80%
Compass Tier 4: 90%
Compass Tier 5+: 100%
Don’t let the chest have a chance at dropping Mythic Uniques though. Instead, what you could do is that the chest has a 10% chance of its unique drop chance (Tier 3 compass has 8% drop chance etc) to drop 1 Resplendent Spark instead of a Unique item. This way it doesn’t overshadow Lilith or Tormented Uber Bosses rewards. That way it keeps its 1 time per run special and exciting to open.
Just some suggestions on balancing the chest rewards with existing content and making them feel more exciting.
The Pit isn’t a leaderboard pushing area. It is kind of a measure of strength while farming for masterworking materials. The Leaderboard pushing area is the obelisk thing in the city to the south west of the map.
Whatever the reason, I just don’t want Blizzard negating existing content. I would rather reward tweeks be made for the new game mode and maybe a slight increase to existing material drops in The Pit to make it more desireable.
We don’t want another case of Renown. Renown is a good system that was ruined by hiding part of your character’s power behind it. I bring this up because this is a system that can be revived easily by taking out all the character’s power from the system (and moving it elsewhere as a reward) and replacing the higher tier renown rewards with something like respendent sparks or random uniques. They could even replace it with a system like the seasonal reputation bar rewards: you have a certain number of set rewards and when you hit the maximum and obtain all the rewards you can farm more reputation for a chest of random goodies. But they don’t. They let the system waste away rather than putting in effort to make it enjoyable.
Having Infernal Hordes as the best way for masterworking materials is ok for this season only, but they can’t keep the rewards as it is and just increase the pit rewards. The current Infernal Hordes masterworking materials overshadows The Pit by magnitudes. Blizzard has to at least cut the masterworking materials in Infernal Hordes in half, if not more, just so it doesn’t negate The Pit entirely. Simply buffing the materials in the Pit to match would also negate The Pit as you would only need to run it a few times to get all the materials you would ever need. The Pit was meant to be farmed for endgame crafting materials. Giving it a significant buff to overshadow Infernal Hordes would kill it.
I haven’t heard that. Even if that is true, there is only so many aether you can get from Infernal Hordes to open that chest. Honestly I would rather them buff the rewards and keep it as a 1 time per run only chest rather than letting players open it multiple times and keeping the lackluster rewards as they are.
I love Infernal Hordes as well. Blizzard finally has an endgame activity that feels different from dungeon grinding.
Honestly I do think that the reward chest at the end of The Pits is lackluster. The materials seem fine enough. The amount of items that drop at the end should either be increased in quantity or quality.
I don’t ever get to the end of a Pit run and think to myself, I am glad I keep doing these Pit runs for the rewards. I usually think to myself: I need to run this the highest tier I can do for (insert material) to get the maximum amount per time investment so I can masterwork my gear to get stronger so I can push just a little bit higher. Maybe I can solo a tormented boss with fully masterworked gear. That is usually my thought process in the Pit. It really isn’t about exciting loot but to swing the proverbial pickaxe for materials. If there was loot to be excited about in The Pit, I would probably enjoy running it more often.
Blizzard should probably make the loot in The Pit more exciting rather than increase masterworking mats although they could use a slight increase.
I did a few Pit 71s because Hoards T6 is still too much for me at the moment. It’s a tough pill since I hate the pits that much. If they removed the Lilith Shadows and cut the Boss health in half; they could pass for entertainment and I’d do them more.
I am not sure many players can do IH 7 solo. I cannot. So, for Masterworking above 8/12, there will still be no other choice that the Pit even with an increase of quality of IH chests. For Uniques, the best source are standard Bosses anyway. No need to do IH. For Stygian Stones, if you cannot do IH7 or IH8, it’s the Pit again.
Even if we don’t like it, most of us will keep doing Pit runs.
If they divide the boss life by 5 as stated in the patch note, the total pit time will be around 2min / 2min30 max (now it is like 2min + 1min for boss).
Still good for masterworking I think when you don’t want to play 15/20min non stop spamming skills without breathing.
Hard Pass, the Pit is boring and frankly nobody enjoys it, and that is a universal acceptance at this point. Make the rewards for Pit comparable and then it will be fine, so if you want to be a sweat lord for basic bish upgrades you can, but the rest of us don’t want that. Adding Boss materials should be an addition not a substitution, Infernal hordes are enjoyable content, everyone is doing them even with maxxed characters.
As for equipment, I dunno, it’s fine, greater affixes are plentiful but generally speaking the pool of GA’s is too large for it to really make any difference. I mean look at Ubers we don’t even have consistent drops for GA’s from tormented bosses and those drops should be guaranteed GA’s.
Right now the system for infernal hordes is actually getting more players than ever engaged with the game because it actually resembles a semblance of fairness.
The Aether per run depends on how fast you can clear the mobs and the tier you play. Faster you clear them, they spawn faster per wave and more Aethers. There is RNG on the buff you receive which massively affect the aether you get. T7 is the most optimum as it gives Neathiron and you can clear them very fast if you follow the meta build.
I like the Pit for testing how far my build can go. I also find it useful for quickly farming a missing 5 pcs of Obducite or Neathrion where I don’t want to spend 5 to 10 mins in T7 or T8 just to farm 5 pcs for this purpose
I’m in the same boat as many others - solo player, cannot even solo IH 6, so IH 7 seems ages away. My only chance to upgrade past masterworking 8 is the pit. The issue is with drop numbers, needing to do about 10 pit runs versus someone who can solo IH 7 and gets a ton of everything. All we’re asking is to bring the pit in line with IH, at least for masterworking materials.
This is what I did with my Firewall Sorc. I did 12/12 MW everything just by repeating Pit from 61 to 101. Tedious process but I did it. My Firewall Sorc can’t do IH 7 so no luck in that department.
Afterwards I created two new chars based from the current meta. Since they can do T6 quite easily and T7 even with subpar gear, I was able to farm quickly for upgrades.
Play something you don’t necessarily like so that you can farm for some other character that you like playing, fully knowing that the character you’re farming for will never reach the power of your “farming main”. Every season was like this. We’re practically “forced” into one of the “meta” builds at some point, so that we can feel we’re progressing.
I fully understand and agree that not all builds should be equal, but the game seems balanced around those 2-3 “meta” builds, and that’s not good, in my view. I understand the need for competition so yeah, maybe leaderboards would be the answer. Also loadouts would tremendously help here.
Yes they can. That’s exactly what they should do. I’m not interested in running a thousand pits again. And I’m not interested in farming the horde again for half the materials I currently get.