I had some fun trying to clear NM100 with my Hydra Sorcerer back at release. I didn’t manage to, as I gave up after clearing NM99 and never finding another NM100 key to reach the “Achievement”, but it was fun nonetheless. One shot mechanics were probably too rough for many classes/builds to handle, but it was a better endgame than spamming Pits is, IMO. Sure, some mobs are dangerous, but Pits are like D3 Greater Rifts : Sponges mobs that you need to group up together to kill them as soon as possible before the timer runs out. Then a HP sponge boss.
Anyway, to actually make challenging content “challenging”, they need to keep most builds in check and get rid of anything that is so busted that it clears this challenging content without blinking. They completely messed that up by bringing multiplicative bonuses even higher. Vulnerability and Critical hits aside, we used to get 10% here, 15% there, then 30% against CCed and the like. They did a good thing by removing the “Damage buckets”, only to bring them up again with aspects/uniques/passive/paragon/temper multiplicative bonuses. Now, we have 250% on that skill, 200% on that effect, 750% on that Aspect, 175% on CCed targets and 450% on that particular spammable skill. Oh, an a bug that add 1000% to everything once all stars align.
I don’t get why people need to see bigger numbers to get a sense of progression between seasons. D3 had to “increase” the power level with each season or so, changing so that the gear bonuses give something like 1000% to a particular skill or situation. D4 damage is getting out of hand, and the high number of multiplicative bonuses stacking has a lot to do with it.
You remind me the time in S1 when I play Hydra tried to clear NM100 as it scale with enemy level. I had problem in dealing with the suppressor elites. Even I cast the hydra inside the purple circle. but the game count the attack is from outside unless I stand inside the circle as well. It does not end well as I was murdered the moment I step inside the circle
With the power creep nowadays, no one really care about being inside or outside the suppressor circles.
This is both misdirected malaise & a confusion of the topic.
There are disparities in builds. That’s the issue. Streamers do not create those disparities - Blizzard does. At most, some players discover additional exploits or weird interactions that boost the power of certain builds… but that’s not what this topic is about. Blood Waveas designed is OP this season. It was showcased & the devs knew it would be OP… they made it so.
The “copy pasta” is informed by what builds are stronger than others. The devs take the lead on this, the “streamers” are merely echoing it & testing what’s already in the guts of the game. And other players discover both, because Blizzard campfires exist, and because the Internet exists. Your complaint is really about the existence of the Internet.
Low prioritization, or poor grasp, of balance in the D4 studio is the actual “problem” if there is one.
I was meaning more that the result of the copy pasta mentality means that the playerbase as whole doesn’t really see the issue you’re highlighting.
If you’re in the habit of just copying a streamers build and bursting through the content like it’s nothing are you really paying attention to the rest of the woefully inblanced game? Not really.
I agree that the fact the builds are pushed by the streamers isn’t the core issue. It just adds more horse blinkers so that the cries of “this balancing is trash” is met with “just play a broken class” instead of “yeah, they need to address it”.
The OP outlier builds this season (and last season when you take into account the bugs on SB) all have one similarity => the ability to stack stats to boost 1 or more multipliers to the moon. In a game with many multipliers from many sources, allowing any multiplier to reach 10x or more creates massive disparities in final damage output. If a build has two or more of these (think S6 SB) then the disparities can reach millions or more due to exponential scaling. The devs either need to get rid of these stacking multipliers or provide easy access to these on every build (e.g., put all of the scaling multipliers on all the key passives so any build can access) and then rebalance the game accordingly. The builds that can get access to these today are the ones that shine, and it’s obvious that is going to be the case from simple math.
If the intended experience is what most skills feel like (i.e. Having to actually grind from T2 to T4; starting to feel a tad weaker by Pit 75-80, and taking some time to climb to Pit 100), the game is balanced around that point and most skills feel eeringly similar in power. I mean, you could pick almost any skill from any class and make it to T3 easily past Paragon 100 with the right aspects, but would probably have to farm a little bit in T3 to be able to blast through T4 as easily.
When using non OP skills, it definitely takes more time to grind from scratch and you cannot climb from T1 to T4+ in 3 hours, despite good enough loot and aspects. I think that the progression, outside of meta skills, felt good past level 60.
Sadly, so many people want to be done with seasons as soon as possible (2-3 days, one week maximum) that it makes the existance of these exponentially better skills “mandatory” for them as their excuse is “No one wants to play seasons for more than a few days. It only takes a few days to complete everything anyway, then we’re bored.”.
It’s obviously easier to get bored if you use a build that obliterates every relevant content, and so easily so that you’re left climbing the relatively meaningless Pit ladder and asking yourself what else is there to do (answer : There’s nothing). This is even worse if you didn’t have to do any thinking to get there and simply followed a guide.
I really wish these OP builds never made it out of PTR, especially since Blizzard gave us a PTR this time. It gives the idea that the game is balanced around clearing Pit 150, while it’s definitely not the case.
These few outliers skills with easy infinite stacking multipliers aside, I feel like it’s “relatively balanced”, with most skills ending their journey at any point between Pit 95 and 120. I don’t get why Blizzard thinks that giving some skills a 500-1000% [ x] bonus through a single aspect/unique is a good idea.
Yeah, Mendeln minions could be better without the bug. I gave up with mine at Pit 84-85 with no mythics pending a patch, as I use every single aspect that is supposedly not compatible with the Mendeln ring proc, meaning the proc probably ends up being 6-10 times lower than it should. I could try again with my Heir of Perdition, could be a nice damage boost, but probably wouldn’t break past Pit 90 without some gear change.
Reading your messages, you went up to Pit 95 without a Grandfather, so that’s actually great. I honestly think that with the Mendeln proc corrected and with good gear/mythics, it could reach Pit 100+ which is okay.
yeah i managed 96 so far with 3 mythics (shako/shroud/grandfather), my masterworking is 12/12 bodged, so needs to be triple critted still… but realistically maybe with a rune change I could do a 97? but im not interested in trying to push any higher until its the only way to level my glyphs.
