Why are you blocking the competition?

Tower and Leaderboard Discussion
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After spending significant time progressing past Paragon 300 without obtaining a mythic sanctification, the experience starts to feel discouraging rather than motivating. I understand that mythic sanctifications are meant to be exciting, long-term chase items, and I appreciate the thrill they bring when they drop.

However, when Tower competition effectiveness is heavily gated behind specific mythic sanctifications (such as Grandfather or Ring of Starless Skies), it creates a participation barrier. At that point, the question becomes how much time investment is reasonably expected for a player to be competitive in the Tower. Even with 200+ hours invested, having no realistic path to obtaining these items makes the competitive aspect feel inaccessible.

This can unintentionally discourage participation, as players may feel they have little to no chance before even entering the Tower if they lack these sanctifications. While the Tower concept itself is fun and engaging, tying it so strongly to rare mythic sanctifications risks limiting meaningful competition to a very small portion of the player base.

I believe the Tower would benefit from adjustments that allow a broader range of players to compete and feel rewarded for their time, while still preserving the excitement of rare items. Making the competition more inclusive would encourage participation and help the Tower reach its full potential.

2 Likes
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  1. Sanctification is S11 only at this point while the Tower is intended to be evergreen. At least having systems like this will sometimes shake up where people land.*
  2. Remove the RNG and the game becomes singularly about hours spent and progression. That it’s possible to get lucky with those amazing results means even those who can’t brute force it by playing 16h every day might still be able to place well.

* The Devs actually asked Raxx what he thought about leaderboards being impacted by Loot RNG giving rare godly drops. His answer was along the lines of “I think it’s great, in fact it motivates me to try and beat them even though they have that Godly item and I don’t”. Heavily paraphrased from memory, watch his interview to see the full discussion on exactly this subject. You might find it interesting.

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Nobody gives two flying craps about Raxx. He quit D4 a long time ago, and now he’s just a critic for the sake of being mean. At least me, who posts constantly with complaints about the devs, STILL plays the game. Unlike that blue hoodie wearing loser.

1 Like
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Sure. I propose that all Tower runs can only be done with naked characters, no gear what-so-ever. Of course, the mobs will have to match this requirement and then it all comes down to skill of the players and a bit of luck with pylons or monster type etc.

Enjoy!

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Ive gotten all of them sans a shako

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What Raxx saying is pure hubris. Looking down on people is ignorance. These people are not stupid.

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Fine, but you still get some insight by listening to what the Devs had to say about it. And the fact they even asked the question is relevant.

I’m not suggesting Raxx’s response as some authority or saying I agree. It’s just a discussion some might find interesting regardless of who said what.

The point is not everyone thinks it should entirely be about time sunk and there not be any scope to do well because you got a lucky result somewhere.

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Their implementation of mythics in sanctification unfortunately broke a lot of gearing rules which further exacerbated what you’re encountering. Grandfather sanc being possible anywhere means it needs to not be in any of your offensive slots. If the build has a 2H weapon slot then starless needs to be there or your amulet (weirdly starless gets the slot based improvement that aspects get, but grandfather and shako don’t).

Given how difficult it is to farm for a specific mythic result into a specific slot (they say about 1/700 chance) it’s inevitable many will burn out far before that. For those that play solo you’ll never compete since you’ll run out of obols and prisms before you can even complete one of the specific sanc slots.

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Yup. And it’s this niche “Starless on a 2h weapon gets 2x, from 50%x dmg to instead giving 100%x dmg” type of knowledge that the devs SHOULD have included in their blog, but they didn’t. They let the community discover it all, which of course we eventually do through crowdsourcing our infos from Reddit, forums, etc. But still, it makes the gap between high end players and low end players not just a skill/time/hours played gap, but also makes it partly a knowledge gap, too.

How many players have NO IDEA that getting Starless Skies on their Shako is actually not an ideal, Best-In-Slot place to have it, and that instead they should want it on their 2h weapon or, if not using a 2h weapon, then their amulet. Most do NOT know this. Also, how many Barbs know this stuff? That getting Grandpapa on any of our weapons is a throw, because we can just get it on boots or pants or chest instead, leaving ALL of our 4 different weapons open for sanctified offensive legendary powers? Many don’t realize this.

For example, if you get a grandpapa sanctification on your grandpapa sword, that is NOT good. Sure, it’s very usable, but you’d much rather have a Vehement Brawler, or even a Starless Skies, on that 2h slot instead, and Grandpapa sanc somewhere else that doesn’t eat up offensive legendary sanctification slots (which are limited).

It’s all a confusing mess unless you immerse yourself in it quite a lot and learn it all.

I have been paragon 300 for a few weeks, yet I get friends who log in and ask, “bro what are u doing still playing the season???” and I’m like “I still haven’t found Ring of Starless Skies sanctify on a 2h weapon, so I am NOT done with my build yet!” and they are often like “??? why is that important?” and I respond with “nevermind, you wouldn’t understand” because, CLEARLY, they do not understand why it’s important.

If you want a truly best-in-slot character, here are your goals:

  1. Shako sanctification on a defensive slot (helm, boots, pants, chest primarily)

  2. a usable offensive legendary aspect sanctification on every offensive slot (weapons, gloves)

  3. +3 all skills sanctifications on both rings, altho this depends on build – for some builds, you’d rather a different sanc, like an offensive legendary power – you need to figure out which benefits you more

  4. grandpapa sanctification on a defensive or utility slot (helm, boots, pants, chest primarily)

  5. starless skies sanctify on a 2h weapon, or, if you don’t use any 2h weapons, then on your amulet. if you use a 2h wep, you want starless on the 2h wep and then an offensive legendary power on your amulet sanctification. if you’re using only 1h weps, then go starless of amulet sanctification and offensive legendary aspect on your 1h weapon/off-hand. this is because Starless sanctify scales to 1.5x or 2x if put on an amulet/2h weapon, respectively.

I am sorry, but getting Grandfather sanctify on your 1h Sword as a Paladin is a complete and total throw and while it might be an upgrade for your bad build thus far, it’s not ideal in the end-end-end-game of things

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Exactly! Starting out the season I got a near perfect Shard of Verathiel with a shako sanc and it made me excited to look at the builds that use it and run with one of them. I figured I’d see what I could throw together for leaderboards.

Now I realize this weapon isn’t even that good. It’s missing about 10% of it’s power on top of having an offensive 2nd aspect for 25%+. I also rolled a gradfather on my Starless which is another loss in damage. I’ve also been tremendously unlucky rolling any mythics on my boots/helm/chest/pants as I’ve only ever rolled Andy on them.

That’s not to say my setup is terrible, it just means that at best it’s middle of the pack in leaderboards and it’ll take a near complete swap of all my gear to go further than that.