Create a way for players to catch up on Tableau, Helliquary and Gear Ranks

General Discussion
1

I originally posted this a few weeks back on my clan’s Discord server. I used myself and a clanmate as examples of the disparity between a player that’s been here from day 1 (me) and a player that hasn’t (my clanmate) to demonstrate to our members, and especially our officers, why some of our members quite simply could never catch up to having enough Combat Rating like the long-standing players…

My Clanmate

Overall Combat Rating
21703

Set Items

  • Amulet = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Ring 1 = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Ring 2 = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Gloves = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Belt = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Boots = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)

Legendary Items

  • Helm = 1273 (base) + 130 (rank)
  • Chest = 1289 (base) + 102 (rank)
  • Shoulders = 1287 (base) + 102 (rank)
  • Pants = 1267 (base) + 102 (rank)
  • Main Hand 1 = 1273 (base) + 102 (rank)
  • Off Hand 1 = 1285 (base) + 130 (rank)
  • Main Hand 2 = 1265 (base) + 102 (rank)
  • Off Hand 2 = 1263 (base) + 102 (rank)

Total from base

  • 17744

Total from rank

  • 1688

Menu > Helliquary > Level

  • 44

Menu > Helliquary > Combat Rating

  • 1776

Menu > Warband > Ancestral Weapons > Current Bonus > Combat Rating

  • 231

Meteorblade

Overall Combat Rating

  • 23368

Set Items

  • Amulet = 1257 (base) + 150 (rank)
  • Ring 1 = 1257 (base) + 150 (rank)
  • Ring 2 = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Gloves = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Belt = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)
  • Boots = 1257 (base) + 136 (rank)

Legendary Items

  • Helm = 1289 (base) + 220 (rank)
  • Chest = 1293 (base) + 220 (rank)
  • Shoulders = 1287 (base) + 196 (rank)
  • Pants = 1289 (base) + 196 (rank)
  • Main Hand 1 = 1295 (base) + 220 (rank)
  • Off Hand 1 = 1279 (base) + 220 (rank)
  • Main Hand 2 = 1293 (base) + 140 (rank)
  • Off Hand 2 = 1281 (base) + 140 (rank)

Total from base

  • 17848

Total from rank

  • 2396

Menu > Helliquary > Level

  • 55

Menu > Helliquary > Combat Rating

  • 1932

Menu > Warband > Ancestral Weapons > Current Bonus > Combat Rating

  • 816

Combat Rating Differences…

Base

  • 17848 - 17744 = 104

Rank

  • 2396 - 1688 = 708

Helliquary

  • 1932 - 1776 = 156

Tableau (Ancestral Weapons)

  • 816 - 231 = 585

Total Differences

  • 104 + 708 + 156 + 585 = 1553

Note that only 104 of the 1553 difference comes from the base CR on gear.

So why am I detailing of this?

Well, it’s to demonstrate that unless Blizzard provides some sort of catch-up mechanic (like they did for Paragon levels) for the Tableau, Helliquary and Gear Ranks, we’ll have players that have pretty much no hope of ever catching up to the current content’s Combat Rating requirements, i.e. dungeons, raids and gauntlets.

Let’s just look at the differences I mentioned…

CR from gear is an extremely small difference, at just 104. Max CR on INF2 set items is 1257, that’s easy to get. CR on INF2 legendary items starts at 1257, the max increases by 2 per paragon level, up to paragon 950, so it’ll cap out at 1357. You’ll have 50+ levels (from 950 to 1000) to ensure this. It’s trivial.

Now the hard part…

Rank upgrades take huge amounts of materials to upgrade, increasing markedly as the ranks go up. As an example, the Rank 29->30 upgrade needs 10000 white materials and 1400 yellow materials. If your legendary items are the teens, getting them to Rank 30 is multiple months of farming effort. Whilst that may just be possible, it’s a huge time committment.

Helliquary levels are time-gated. The currency you need to upgrade the Helliquary is obtained by salvaging essences dropped by raid bosses. You can only obtain these twice a week. Assuming you raid twice a week, every week, you’ll get around 300-350 Voidblood Slag per reset, so let’s say 700 a week. At my Helliquary level, it’ll take me 1200 to upgrade. Earlier upgrades were cheaper, but let’s say for ease of demonstration, they cost 1000 per rank on average. My Clanmate’s 10 levels behind me, so that means she’s 10,000 voidblood behind. At 700 per week, that’s 14-15 weeks behind, i.e. 3-4 months behind. There is no way for a player to shorten this.

Tableau levels are time-gated. The currency you need to upgrade the Tableau is Warband points. It costs 300 WB points per level. If you do a WB raid of 5 bosses, that earns you 80 points per boss, so 400 per set of raids. If you raid twice a week, that’s 800. Add in a planned Castle Defence, and an Endless Castle Defence, and you’ll probably be earning 1000-1200 WB points a week. If we assume you get 1200, that gets you 4 Tableau upgrades a week. Now, how many stats those upgrades add depends on your Tableau’s level. At early levels, you’d get at least +1 to all five stats, so you’d get 5 CR. The higher the level, it starts to go down per upgrade, giving +1 to four of the stats. At my level, I get +1 to three of the stats. But, let’s assume an average of +4 CR per Tableau level increase. My Clanmate’s 585 CR behind me from the Tableau. At 4 CR per level, that means she’s 146 Tableau upgrades behind me. On the assumption of 4 upgrades per week, that puts her at 36-37 weeks behind me. There is no way for a player to shorten this.

The long and short of this is that unless Blizzard introduce some catch-up methods, we’re going to have players that will never be able to catch up and carrying them through dungeons / raids, to get gear / essences will in no way address this. If My Clanmate had exactly the same base CR gear as I do, she’d gain 104 CR, but that would still leave her 1449 behind due to the differences in Helliquary, Tableau and Rank upgrades.

Please understand, this isn’t intended to denigrate our members that have lower CR, it’s to show to those of us that do have the CR, why those players are behind and why they cannot catch up, regardless of how much we carry them through content and regardless of how much time / effort they put in.

As we approach INF3 in the coming months, this will become even more of an issue.

Not sure what to suggest, other than folks with Reddit accounts to hit up the Blizzard Community Managers and try to get them to hear the plight of people that can’t catch up.

TL;DR
Some of our members have insufficient CR for current content and it’s not necessarily through a lack of time / effort they’ve put in (I see a number of people constantly doing their best) but we can’t fix it for them because the differences in CR is mostly not because of the base CR of their gear.

Now, since I published that on Discord, the latest patch has been announced, and it has a catch-up mechanic whereby players can receive up to 5 times the amount of Combat Rating upgrade points per Tableau level increase if they’re far behind the rest of their Warband. This is excellent news and takes care of one of the three items in my article.

Could you consider implementing similar catch-up mechanics for Legendary / Set item rank upgrades and Helliquary level upgrades in future patches?

2 Likes
2

I mean, you can always open up your wallet to catch up. You wont catch the whales that have grinded since release, but you can catch everyone else. I believe this is as intended.

3 Likes
3

You can’t buy gear rank though or WB points.

3 Likes
4

The three things I mentioned…

  • Legendary gear ranks is just pure farming time, i.e. running circle routes for drops to turn into materials.
  • Tableau levels are hard time-gated, i.e. you can, at most, gain 5 tableau levels per week because each level costs 300 warband points, and there’s a hard-cap of 1500 per week.
  • Helliquary levels are hard time-gated, i.e. upgrades cost voidblood slag, which comes from essences dropped from raid bosses (and potentially a few if you control accursed towers), which means the first 5 raid bosses per reset, so 10 bosses a week.

None of these can be caught up by spending money.

Sure, spending money on orbs / plat / crests will get you fancier gems, but that’s not going to enable you to catch up 1-2 thousand CR that these hard time-gated deficits cause. That’s why tomorrow’s patch, which gives a catch-up mechanic for Tableau levels, is such a good move but there needs to be similar mechanics for the other two things too.

5

I know that. By opening up your wallet you can use gems to catch up to the same Combat Rating that non-whales who have grinded helliquary and tableau have. You just won’t catch up to whales who have also grinded helliquary and tableau.

6

A full set of rank 10 5* legendaries is 1920 Combat Rating. A full set of rank 5 2* gems would be 288 combat rating which is something a non whale might have with minimal spending. Is 1600 Combat Rating not enough to catch up?

1 Like
7

So, your alternative to introducing a catch-up mechanic is that you think people should spend tens of thousands of euros / dollars on eight rank 10 5-star gems? Given an alternative between a cost like that, or quitting the game, a lot of people will choose the latter. That’s why catch-up mechanics need to exist. Having no way of ever catching up, except spending multiple years’ worth of salary on gems, means lots of players just won’t continue playing as soon as they become aware of the issue.

1 Like
8

Its not my alternative, its Blizzard’s. I am a minimal spender who left the game for 6 months and came back, and am in the same boat.

9

Well this aged like milk.

Tableau was addressed in the latest patch. It works really well (I know because I am soooo far behind, but not as much as I was.)

Gear rank is simply how much do you want to grind.

Helliquary? Who cares, the bonuses only apply in a couple of places.

BTW, why should johnny-come-lately get out of grinding? This is a Diablo game - grinding isn’t a bug, it is a feature.

2 Likes
10

My Helliquary is currently giving me over 2000 Combat Rating. Someone starting the game today will have 0. They can catch up to server paragon in a few weeks of play. Currently, they can never catch up the missing Helliquary CR.

The CR applies everywhere that isn’t PvP.

Helliquary levels are upgraded by using Voidblood Slag. That currency comes from salvaging excess raid boss essences. The supply of those is limited to five bosses per reset, i.e. 10 bosses a week. This is a hard, time-gated restriction. There is no way to grind your way to catch this up. If you started behind, either because you didn’t start playing on day one, or you had some weeks / months of a break, this is a deficit that is currently impossible to catch up. There is no way to grind this out.

Until they introduced the Tableau changes in the latest patch, the Tableau was exactly the same, i.e. hard-capped at 1500 WB points, so 5 Tableau upgrades a week. Now players who are behind the server Tableau level gain more +CR per Tableau upgrade, so they can decrease how far behind players that have done this every week for as long as the Tableau was available.

I’m not against grinding for stuff but, if you read the article, it makes it clear that these are deficits that new / returning players cannot catch up regardless of how much grinding they’re willing to do.

The end result of this, if not addressed, is that those players will just quit when they become aware of the fact that they simply can never catch up to current end-game CR requirements.

11

They will never catch up. So what.

Seriously, so what.

They will never be able to catch up with materials, or regular gems, or anything else unless they drop money.

So what. It doesn’t prevent a player from unleashing death and destruction at the highest levels.

As someone that has literally played every day since launch, I am behind on Helliquary and Tableau. I ignored the Helliquary for the first few months, and the Tableau for a year. That doesn’t stop me from getting a chest of glory on Inferno 2 raids.

My server tableau level is 675; my level is less than half that - the catch up mechanic gives a bonus based on how far behind you are. Mine is 4. Doesn’t stop me from from being top 40 on my server in BGs. Doesn’t stop me from running I2 Helliquary Gauntlets. The tableau still has a hard cap of 1,000 per week and a 1500 WB hard cap, but with the bonus, it is irrelevant.

Not being able to reach the same heights as someone that has played the game daily for a year doesn’t have an affect on their play in D:($).

It just makes them feel insecure, and encourages them to go into the shop.

12

Read my original post again. My clan-mate is over 1500 CR behind me. That means that when we both reach Para 1000, I’ll be able to do all the INF3 content (I’ve already been doing open-world and dungeons for weeks at this point), including the first 4 raids and they won’t. The lack of catch-up mechanics locks players out of the end-game content and when they find out there’s literally no way for them to catch up other than dropping tens of thousands of pounds / euros / dollars on high-end gems, they’ll quit.

Blizzard’s lack of catch-up mechanics will lead to loss of players.

13

I read your post again. It doesn’t change my conclusions. They aren’t locked out - they have to put the grind in just like you did.

They will never catch up - so what.

I have been grinding 1 - 2 hours a day since launch; I will never catch up to you either.

On a practical level, it means I’ll start Inf 3 dungeons a week or so after you do.

Same thing for your clan mate.

14


Nope…

  • Inferno 3 dungeons require 23600 CR.
  • My clanmate, in the opening post, had 21703 CR.
  • Going from max CR INF2 items (1257 on set items, 1357 on legendaries) to starting INF3 items (1369 on set and legendary items) results in an increase of 768 CR.
  • That takes my clanmate from 21703 to 22471 CR, i.e. still 1129 CR short.
  • The max CR on INF3 items will increase by 2 per Paragon level, up to Paragon 1050.
  • By Paragon 1050, the 8 legendaries could increase to 1469 CR each.
  • That’s an increase of 8 * 100 CR = 800 CR.
  • That takes my clanmate’s CR up from 22471 to 23271, i.e. still 329 CR short.

In other words, even with the best CR possible from INF3 items at Para 1050 (i.e. five weeks after everyone else hits INF3 gear) they would still not have enough CR to do INF3 dungeons and they still have no way to get to the required CR other than Tableau, Helliquary and Rank Upgrades.

15

Chinese patch notes for the update coming on December 14th…
https://di.blizzard.cn/news/official/20231208/34091_1124539.html

The pursuit mechanism is upgraded and light speed pursuit is enabled! After the version update, when the player’s equipment enhancement level and Moon-Eating Magic Box level are low, they will receive an additional 100% material reward when acquiring items such as enhancement materials. At the same time, if the player’s level is between Peak 0 and Peak 599, the experience acceleration effect can be increased up to 3000%! Multiple mechanism blessings allow players to quickly increase their strength and become an important force in guarding the sanctuary.

Moon-Eating Magic Box = Helliquary
This means that if your Helliquary level is low, you’ll be gaining a lot more materials, i.e. drops from raid bosses that you can salvage into Voidblood Slag, enabling you to catch up on Helliquary levels.

Equipment Enhancement Level = Legendary Gear Ranks
This means that if your legendary gear ranks are low, you’ll be gaining a lot more materials, i.e. scrap / dusts, to enable you to catch up on gear ranks.

It seems Blizzard reached the same conclusions I did. Just took them a while.

16

So what. It doesn’t prevent a player from unleashing death and destruction at the highest levels.

I hate to burst your bubble but the highest levels are inferno 3 and gauntlet 3, not inferno 2. So yes, it does prevent a player from playing at the highest level…

1 Like
17

Where is this displayed in the game? My helliquary is level 38 and I cannot see anywhere that it states it’s giving me more materials, also my legendary gear rank is 16 across all 8 slots and also I cannot see anywhere that it gives me more.

18

I don’t know how to tell what the server’s Helliquary level is, hence why…

…but that does show what it looks like if your Helliquary is low enough to be receiving bonus voidblood slag.

They didn’t implement any catch-up mechanics for legendary rank-ups.

19

You only get more mats if you’re some (i think 50 or more) levels below server paragon.

I have no clue if that actually works or not, was in one of the last patchnotes, that they implemented increased material drop for newer players.

As far as i know, it’s nowhere displayed or at least nobody showed a screen so far that showed it.