The pit has bored me out of really wanting to push higher, i’ve gotten to level 115 solo, and it’s just a game of fishing from d3 all over again. Really need to look at the minion types/floor tiles/boss encounters, as there’s a lot of stuff that you just go in and look for 10 seconds and say “nope i’m good” to
Minion types that need readjustments -
Serpents, both the male and female variants have extremely harsh above average mechanics to play through, ESPECIALLY on VERY limited movement areas, ie crypts/cathedral floor tiles (Unless you’re able to just live in unstoppable 24/7, and even then the female serpents just beam you for your max health every tick that sticks to you no matter how much you try to dodge it to stay near the fight)
Mariners/Sea Captains, both have a pulsing aoe they do that will just 1 shot you with 0 real counterplay aside from using an immunity or playing so far out of range that you’re not really even engaging with the content anymore.
Floor tiles that just shouldn’t exist in the pit-
Crypts, these feel self explanatory, but a maze that has dead ends you can go through, and realize isn’t the end, and you instead have to backtrack for 25-30 seconds to get back on the right path just feels so incredibly horrible to play with. I believe on the beta the portals were spawning once you had high enough mob count for the area, but with how it is now with portals being static, it’s such a bad feeling to clear out only to realize you’re on the other side of the map of where you need to be. There’s also extremely cramped areas of no real ways to outplay mechanics, and I cannot believe i have to say this, but opening 30 doors in a pit dungeon is just the worst thing to exist in this game.
Cathedral (temple of knights etc.) you have effectively 4-5 good areas to exist in, but you’re forced to travel through extremely small hallways that you cannot really outplay mechanics inside of, for the majority of these tile maps. It always feels good to clear when you get into the big open area to pull mobs together to, but often these open areas are super barren in comparison with what’s inside the very tight hallways.
Charnel House, Same real issue with crypts, in that a good majority of the time, the portal you need to leave is in one of the 4 quadrants of the map, and you’re out there going through a maze to get one quadrant done, only to realize this isn’t the one with the portal, and instead you need to backtrack through the maze to the next corner to see if it’s there.
Bosses that should just not exist in the pit-
Let me say, that this may just be a wild take, but (to me at least) the shadow affixes are supposed to make the bosses harder, not be the core mechanic of the boss itself
Blood Bishop, After a certain level, the blood boils that he spawns, with the amount of time you have to kill them, with all cooldowns used, you just cannot, great, so hide behind a pillar and los them, except he often spawns in open rooms without los options available, while also having to play with the shadow affixes, everytime i get through a pit to this boss, i give it an honest attempt, but I always die the same way, to 3/4 blood boils going off. These need to be scaled back in the health department going higher in the pit.
Bandit leader, this boss just straight up vanishes for upwards of 10 seconds every 10-15 seconds, giving you very low engagement time with the boss itself to try and fit burst windows in to, and instead you’re playing what’s normally a 5 minute boss fight is now a 10 minute boss fight where you barely even see the boss and are instead just dodging shadow mechanics, which feels just awful to play
Den Keeper, A lot of the same core problem with Bandit Leader, although much better in terms of actually fighting the boss, still goes invisible, much less than leader, but same core problem of not actually fighting a boss, just playing dodge shadow mechanics.
Sea Witch, The same problem that exists with the mariners/sea captains, after a certain level, the pulsing aoe, the puddles that spawn under you, so much of this boss has uncounterable mechanics that are just too highly scaled (i play with 49.5k max hp and full defensives/shako) that just outright 1 shot you the millisecond they begin to exist, with no counterplay, it’s just a go in and die and leave boss.
Lastly, PLEASE MAKE IT AN OPTION TO RUN LAST PIT TIER. I am so tired of upgrading my gear by having to play with the scroll wheel to get to ~90 (25 levels of scrolling) to farm neathiron. I fully understand you guys want to make the pit a thing where everytime you go in you need to go higher, but you also have to understand with gearing the way it is, you need to farm the materials to upgrade your gear to go higher. You had this option in diablo 3, i don’t know why you wouldn’t bring it to diablo 4.