Hi, i decided to Play the PTR for Season 11 of Diablo 4 and wanted to test the leveling/Progression experience.
I have made some notes along the way but i dont know how to best put them together as a Post so i´ll just tell everything chronologically in the order that it occured to me.
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€€€€€€€ I DECIDED TO DO A SHORT VERSION OF IT IN FORM OF BULLET POINTS(?) OF IT ALL CAUSE I WAS ANNOYED MYSELF BY THE LONG TEXT - SO YOULL FIND THE SHORT VERSION AT THE END.
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I started with a Rogue cause that´s my favorite class in D4.
At Level 1-10 i was getting beat extremely hard in Helltide, running out of potions multiple times, surviving like almost not a single hit, constantly running from Mobs and even dying 3-4 times. That felt horrible.
It wasnt until around Level 10 when i switched from Flurry to Dance of Knives and found 2 blue weapons that it got a Little bit better.
But then i got 2-3 pieces of White(normal) loot from a helltide chest which also felt horrible. What am i gonna do with that ?
I felt the same way when i got Nothing but blue(magic) junk from a tree of whispers Cache at Level 18.
At Level 20 Character strength felt somewhat decent due to Picking up double imbuements.
But then… i decided to take part in the azmodan world Event that was an active whisper.
it took my Character from Level 24 to 32 and then upon second completion from 32 to 39 ? That surely can´t be intended.
So then i got completely demolished with subpar gear (normal, magic and rare items from Level 20-24) at Level 39 in normal difficulty helltide and in the new capstone dungeon “Torrid Menagerie” all the same.
Also in Torrid Menagerie i started to get constantly CCed, either stunned or pulled in by vortex Mobs which felt again horrible on Dance of Kives and was probably amplified by being undergeared at this Point.
I also did not like the fight against shadowclaw. there were seemingly now Windows to even try to avoid some of the CC he/she was throwing at me and i was constantly getting thrown/knocked around. This felt bad again … probably even more so on DoK than on any other build.
Also i found it annoying to wait for him to reenter the fight every time after he went Stealth.
I was Level 39.8 at this Point and still 90% of the time normal and magic crap items kept dropping….This - again - doesnt feel good.
Culling the Collection took way too Long in Torrid Menagerie… Maybe partially due to me being undergeared cause of that “boost” from the azmodan Event.
But i felt like i was able to decrease the item deficit a bit thanks to new magic items that were dropping throughout the Dungeon.
At this Point i´m wearing one legendary from Level 20-24 with a useless aspect on it, 5 rares , 5 magical ones.
It was nice to see the curator come back, not so nice to see emberclaw join the fight. Although the fight was manageable for DoK at that Level with subpar gwar as explained… it just took Long.
The Dungeon counted for my Season journey although i went in on normal difficulty and the caption on the Right side of the screen stated i was on normal difficulty… It probably defaulted to hard anyway for that dungeon.
I got a decent reward from the dungeon itself in form of rare / legendary items and also from the Season journey afterwards.
So that was good. Although one piece i got was Ancestral with Item Power 800 and GA and wasn´t usable before Level 60.
I´m Level 39 and completed a Level 30 Dungeon ? What is that About ?
So after the Item Upgrades i got from Torrid Menagerie, the next Dungeon i did on normal difficutly for whispers felt Pretty good again.
I was rocking 5 rares, 2 magic items, and 4 legendaries now most of which were much more appropriate for my current Character Level again.
I really like the heavenly forge area ! It , and Hadriel, look cool.
I sometimes felt like normal Mobs were stunning me ? If thats the case that Needs to go.
Noticed that i could move through the doors in the whispered vault immediately after clicking on them , so that felt good.
Leveling from 40 to 51 (also to 60) felt smooth, although…
I took part in a normal world boss Event which was azmodan again and he took my Character from 51 to 57 again… which i did not intend…
So i got to Level 60 in 4 Hours with all the unintentional “Boosts” i got from completing world Events…
In current live Season (Season 10) i got from 1 to 60 in 5.5 Hours without such Boosts … i found that to be an acceptable time although i wouldn´t be mad if it was Shorter.
Hellish Descent was Overall Pretty nice although i dont know why it had to be 5 of everything we had to do … slay 5 Wardens … charge 5 altars … 5corruption … 3 or 4 would have also been sufficient imo.
There´s no more artificer Stones as pit entry fee ? That´s a good Thing !
I had not found any useful aspect whatsoever for any 1 of the 2 builds i was gonna Level / Progress with by Level 60!
I tried to go to torment 1 and got completely demolished. So i played a bit more - still got not a single useful aspect but was able to upgrade my item power and rolled some useful stats onto them. Then i went to the pit again and got one that almost exclusively consisted of tight corridors… so i was trying to draw circles with DoK to Keep recharging it and while i was trying to do that i was constantly getting attacked by belial ambushes, avarice ores and different elite Affixes. A lot of them kept spawning directly on top of me and went off almost immediately so that i had no Chance of dodging any of it. So i was constantly getting CCed and dying or almost dying all while dealing very Little Damage and trying to DoK through corridors which are too tight for DoK in the first place… Another horrible experience…
So i unlocked T1 anyways and since i caught on Twitch that DoK double Damage temper was bugged (stacking infinite Damage) and elemental surge tempers seemed to have gotten useless (i tried them out), and also aspects for DoK-Poison-Trap were missing, i didnt wanna continue with DoK. So i went to Dungeons to get some aspects for flurry.
And that was way better at that Point!
I like the Addition of the 4th stat on items and reduction to 1 tempered Affix.
Although i had fun with it Perma-TP of the sorc needed to go. It´s a good Thing it´s gone.
My Character was torment 1 Ready after like 6 Hours.
Why is Pang of Duriel crawling underneath the earth for 5 seconds after it spawns in helltide ? that doesnt Need to be.
Although i was making quick work of enemies on t1, the pit felt unbearably slow. The Progress Bar was just filling too slow - idk what it was - do enemies give less Progress than before ?
Also im not a fan of needing to click belial eyes in the pit.
All the mob Affixes and ambushed and so on are just too much in my opinion if youre not already absolutely deleting everything. especially in tight corridors as mentioned before.
Unseen awakening capstone is annoying as hell. The constricted field of view sucks, end-bosses deal too much Damage.
Lair bosses are too hard compared to before. especially zir. had to try 6-8 times for one kill although i was already demolishing normal T1.
So i had been taking part in one more world boss Event which made me jump from Paragon 20 to 60 again … so i skipped another 40 Levels.
At Paragon 100 i had still not found either aspect of star shards or aspect of bursting venoms even though i also used obols to gamble for those!
At this Point i decided to boost my aspects through the boosty NPC.
Then i rerolled a stat on an ancestral piece of gear i found early(not the one from lvl 39, i destroyed that) About 5 times and was already out of forgotten Souls … sorry but that is terrible. If you find an ancestral item early on you cant even be happy About it because you cant reroll it to being Wearable cause it Costs too much.
So then i decided to also boost my materials.
After that i switched to DoK Poison trap.
Now i´m at Paragon 111, have 4 Ancestral Legendaries equipped (the rest are normal legendaries or unqiues), have every item masterworked thanks to the material boost, have all the aspects i Need as maxroll cause of the aspect boost, have picked up 3 legendary Paragon nodes, socketed 3 glyphs, completed 3 capstones, and i would think that the stats on my items BROADLY make sense.
With all of that i´m not really able to efficiently farm T2 which seems weird to me.
The Monsters just take a bit too Long to kill. I would expect that i can farm T2 at this stage of Character Progression. Especially since all aspects are maxed.
I think Maybe even Picking up some Fists of fate could help out a bit here but i have gotten Little to no boss materials during the time i played regardless for which boss they are.
I only had materials for 1 run of zir, 1 run of grig, 1 run of varshan and i dont wanna Keep farming for them since i don´t really enjoy my time on the PTR.
So that´s probably it for me - at least for now.
SHORT VERSION:
BAD:
- character at level 1-10 way to weak
- character at level 10-20 still too weak for my taste
- loot before level 40 felt absolutely horrible, not only too few
legendaries but also too few rares.
- the absoluetely rare loot leads to not having any useful aspects once
youre level 60 and want to progress towards torment difficulty.
You can manage to get a hold of items with okayish stats and
730-750 itemlvl relatively quickly but the aspects are just missing.
you could try to stay in expert / penitent and acquire aspects
through dungeons but that doesnt let you play certain builds - also
builds that were normally really nice for progressing early on.
- i don´t wanna stay in hard/expert/penitent for any extended period
of time after i already have gotten to 60 just to farm for aspects.
it´s no fun.
- even at paragon 100 and beyond certain key aspects were missing
which feels bad.
- world bosses / azmodan event give way too much experience but no
gear to keep you on par with level progress.
- too much CC, especially in the pit, in tight corridors, in torrid
menagerie, and during the shadowclaw fight.
feels very bad and annoying - probably even more so for DoK
players.
- also waiting for shadowclaw to reenter fight after stealth is annoying
- culling the collection takes too long
- capstone dungeons count for season journey even if you enter on
normal or wrong diffculty - caption to the right side of the screen
even states wrong difficulty ? Do they always default to the right
difficulty ?
- i felt like normal(non elite) Monsters were stunning me, if thats the
case it Needs to go.
- Why is Pang of duriel crawling beneath the earth for 5 sec after it
spawns in helltide. That´s unnecessary.
- Although making quick work of enemies pit Progress seems slow ?
Do enemies give less Progress than before ? thats not good.
- not a fan of needing to click belial eyes in the pit
- if youre not already absolutely deleting everything, all the mob
Affixes and ambushes and so on are too much ,
especially in tight corridors - goes Hand in Hand with the CC being to
much.
- Unseen awakening capstone is annoying as hell. constricted field of
view sucks, end-bosses deal too much Damage.
- cost of rerolling stats on acnestral pieces of gear too high. you cant
be happy when you find one early cause u dont have the mats
to reroll it to being usable.
- Character at Paragon 111 with 4 ancestral gear pieces , everything
masterworked , 3 legendary Paragon nodes and 3 glyphs,
maxed aspects , 3 completed capstones, stats on items that broadly
make sense wasn´t really strong enough to efficiently farm T2.
That seems to weak to me.
- too Little boss materials do drop - i just had enough materials for 1
run of zir, 1 run of grig and 1 run of varshan at Paragon 111
- Lair bosses too hard compared to before, especially zir - had to try
6-8 times for just 1 kill although i was already demolishing
normal T1 Content
- something probably Needs to happen with stat Variety on items - for
me it seemed like there were too Little different stats
and it seemed like there was too much overlap between different
item Slots.
- Progression wasnt fun for me as is on PTR. I quit at Paragon 111.
GOOD:
- character strength from level 20 to 24 and from 40 to 60 felt okay at
NORMAL difficulty.
and i suspect it would have felt good from 24 to 40 as well had i not
gotten the level skips from world bosses / azmodan event.
- nice to see the curator come back, not nice to see emberclaw join
the fight.
- Decent reward from torrid menagerie dungeon itself and then
afterwards from season journey
even though i got 1 ancestral piece from any of those sources at level
39 which i could not use.
- heavenly forge area and hadriel do look cool
- being able to move through doors immediately upon clicking on
them is good.
- Hellish descent Overall was good
- No more artificer Stones as pit entry fee is good.
- Addition of 4th stat on items and reduction of tempered stats to 1 is
good
- Perma-TP needed to go, it´s a good Thing it´s gone (although ive had
fun with it)
- I think masterworking is ok
- i really like the thought of sanctification although i have not
interacted with it.
The rest i want to leave to other People to test
CHEERS !
I wanna add to my original Post the following:
I went back in again and because i had some leftover obols i decided to spend them and what did i get ? An absolutely awful deathmask of nirmitruq with itemlevel 750 and almost min-roll on every stat ! Perfect for my flurry build! And also some okayish gloves for flurry !
so i swapped back to my flurry build and gave it another try - i was now able to clear T2 with my rogue with almost exclusively 750 ilvl items ! and i was having fun doing so ! i still think that youre getting too few legy aspects and boss mats early on and those are probably my main complaints by now… the rest i can probably find a way to live with. but its also strange that theres only belial now as a pit boss … where did the other pit bosses go ? lol.
Oh and the rerolling costs for ancestral pieces of course those are also too high 
I´ll probably continue playing a bit and try having some more fun since i have never actually played a flurry rogue with nirmitruq before lol 