Diablo 4 - Hellish Grind

[Ramsay B.]

I just did the Capstone with a buddy to get him to tier 4. We beat it but it says he didn’t at the World Tier statue. And his map shows a green checkmark. Wtf?

We also did some Helltide and cinders were barely dropping. Yup, silly and baffling update.

[Relic]

5 minutes ago, Ramsay B. said:

I just did the Capstone with a buddy to get him to tier 4. We beat it but it says he didn’t at the World Tier statue. And his map shows a green checkmark. Wtf?

We also did some Helltide and cinders were barely dropping. Yup, silly and baffling update.

The Helltides thing is a confirmed bug. They aimed to nerfed drop rates from objects and instead nerfed all cinder drop rates.

Anyway, pressing the uninstall button. I'm done, ight be back in a couple of seasons. Was kinda fun while it lasted. Enjoy, all.  

[Mexal]

3 hours ago, Ramsay B. said:

So I’m running arc lash/ice shards/flame shield/hydra/meteor and inferno. A fire build mostly as I’ve put a majority of my paragon points towards fire damage/burning enemies/non-physical damage. I did have fire bolt but had to switch off that as it felt useless most of the time.

I tinkered with my aspects to make ice shards pierce more and put on Frostburn gloves to get that freeze lucky hit(24%), and that is helping. Also getting my cooldown reduction up is a priority. 

I might have to go back to my trusty magical bubble when not healthy soon.

Ah I see. I always found Inferno tough to play and fire damage just to be too weak compared to cold or lightning. I can see where how that might lead to some challenges progressing. Sadly, you'll probably want Ice Armor/Teleport because I'm not at all sure how you'd survive, especially after this patch.

[Ramsay B.]

32 minutes ago, Mexal said:

Ah I see. I always found Inferno tough to play and fire damage just to be too weak compared to cold or lightning. I can see where how that might lead to some challenges progressing. Sadly, you'll probably want Ice Armor/Teleport because I'm not at all sure how you'd survive, especially after this patch.

Yeah. Heard ice build was the obvious better choice early on but just plugged ahead with fire anyways. Didn’t feel the pain until the higher tiers recently. Oh well. 

[JGP]

Well, if the Eternal Realm wasn’t dead before it certainly is now lol

Yikes
 

 

[Arakasi]

So I went and logged in and tried a 57 tier dungeon with my rogue. Not too bad other than being made fresh meat again. My armor isn’t too bad but I don’t think I was stacking it much. Definitely a bit squishier. Damage is fine.

Totally anecdotal but it does feel they buffed it more on good items dropping. Very few sacred, multiple ancestrals at 780+ and my first ever seen 820 item. If they can just make 800 tier items drop more I’d be happier with the drops and loot progression.

[Argonath Diver]

If you want a good time, go look at the D4 subreddit. That entire site is a colossal community of echo chamber negativity on 95% of subs, but boy howdy is the backlash against this Season 1 epic right now. 

My favorite is this reference to the newly-added The Oculus, an iconic item from D2 (D3 had it too but it wasn't as exciting) which has a negative aspect that gives a chance for the Sorcerer to be teleported to a random place on screen. Very dangerous but workable in softcore. Top tier meme, though, and being bombed with meaningless Reddit stars.

Diablo 4 Kinda Sucks Though recommendations:

Spoiler

Once POE drops its new season, perhaps a few of you will try it out for the first time! It's easily the best ARPG out there, although the endgame is wildly complex and gameplay has reached silly amounts of on-screen clutter with screen-clearing explosions and badly telegraphed monster attacks. I highly recommend trying out a free playthrough of the campaign at least. Last Epoch is a terrific indie game with less imposing complexity than POE, but great action and fun early levelling like D4 and a far superior item system. Grim Dawn is an all-time favorite single player experience for a slower, lore-filled time. Eff Blizzard til content improves!

 

[Mexal]

They level capped tier IV capstone at 70. That grind between 64-70 is going to be brutal now that everything is massively slowed down. Hilarious.

To point above, PoE is fun though I got bored of it and the complexity is so much that without a guide, it’s daunting. Last Epoch is great but they need more… monolith grind is a good idea but man does it get old after awhile.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Mexal

[Tywin et al.]

Haven't played much lately. So they really made the game worse with S1? Awesome...

[Arakasi]

No I don’t have any interest in playing PoE. I don’t like games that are that complex for no real reason. Every time I went back to that game I played less because there was more complexity added. Game to me is just a bloated mess.

[JGP]

52 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Haven't played much lately. So they really made the game worse with S1? Awesome...

They buffed the majority of additive dmg [not all, zero to while Berserking or to Bleeding, for instance lol] which sounds great in theory, but while nerfing Vulnerable and Crit DMG they're both still multiplicative [lol again] so both will remain as highly sought after as before even after balancing; nerfed cooldown reduction, which is absurd as a lot of builds [most?] require as much as possible since resource gen is so ass and the CDs are too long excepting maybe Ultimates; nerfed Armor but haven't fixed Resists [might be one of the bigger fails in the patch, but who's counting] nerfed XP, level capped some content, nerfed weapon stats, some Aspects blar de blar... So, the grind is going to be grindier, and for the many, many people who enjoyed 'play your own way' one colossal middle finger lol

Dot builds will quickly become the S1 meta, at least for Barbs since Gushing Wounds elevates Bleeds from being flat dmg, though I see dot Rogues and Druids doing very well, but they'll [dots, and/or the dot gem] will also get a nerf bat three or four weeks into S1.

 

---

 

So, while I'm going to try it, my hopes are waist high.

Edited July 19, 2023 by JGP

[JGP]

Like, the last week or so I pushed my Rend/Rupture Barb from 50 NMDs to 65ish. Tried some last night and have been relegated back into the 50s because of the knock on survivability. I died twice in a Helltide and I can't remember the last time I *croaked even once. Granted, seasonal theme and items will likely push beyond where Eternal's at now so not a great bellwether, but... woof yo. 

Judging by the DIV forums, reddit, twitter, and the like [though I can't see a lot on twitter anymore] the reception has largely been quite negative, and just so.

 

*might as well go ahead and name my S1 Barb Croaker

Edited July 19, 2023 by JGP

[Mexal]

4 hours ago, Mexal said:

They level capped tier IV capstone at 70. That grind between 64-70 is going to be brutal now that everything is massively slowed down. Hilarious.

To point above, PoE is fun though I got bored of it and the complexity is so much that without a guide, it’s daunting. Last Epoch is great but they need more… monolith grind is a good idea but man does it get old after awhile.

On plus side, this seems to be wrong and the test suggests it’s 40/60 instead of 50/70 which is totally reasonable.

Edited July 19, 2023 by Mexal

[Arakasi]

You’re not going to be able to do it on your own before those levels anyway. They did extremely nerf getting carried. My prediction is they’ll make some more targeted fixes towards sorcs and barbs but keep the changes mostly. To me the games success still far more depends on the rate they can add new content.

Things I’d like now that I think they could add which would help.

1. A way to do certain story dungeons again. I’d like to do the one with Astaroth and the one with Duriel as well as the final dungeon. I’d also like to be able to fight Andariel. The content exists seems reasonable to add options to access it. Can be on some timer if need be.

2. Some sort of tangible reward other than glyph experience for doing higher level Nightmare Dungeons. Maybe guaranteed item power drop at the end or something based on the difference between your level and the dungeon level as well as your current level. If farming nightmare dungeons at high tier could guarantee me an 820 drop that would be exciting.

They should probably add some sort of endless dungeon concept as well where every further level down increases the difficulty and rewards. Obviously a bit harder to code this one.

[Kalbear]

It is very, very weird that unlike D2 and D3 you can't just pop in and kill things in the story. Even if they're not great for loot or whatever, you simply can't do it in any reasonable way once you've finished that area. 

That said personally I want to just run the hell area over and over again. That was the most Diablo-like part of the game for me - lots of mobs, challenging, fast paced, none of this long running around without doing shit for hours, cool environment, etc.

[Arakasi]

Yeah let us do that dungeon either as much as possible with normal boss rewards for a “dungeon” or as a higher reward thing on a cooldown would be a lot of fun.

[JGP]

Looks like dmg control is in effect. Getting a fireside chat [lulz] on Friday, and this just earlier today:

[scroll up for the video]

https://us.forums.blizzard.com/en/d4/t/developer-addresses-the-nerfs/90592/3

Edited July 19, 2023 by JGP

[Argonath Diver]

The amount of top notch memes coming from this snowballing negativity has been as much fun as I had with the game since the first playthrough. So many great ones. I expect an entertaining Fireside Chat explaining why nothing fun at all was introduced except more vendor fodder uniques and uninspiring ring enchants. 

We should have seen this type of seasonal content after that D3 season where they spawned 2 treasure gobs not one. That was it, that was the season. 

[JGP]

30 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

Fireside Chat explaining why nothing fun at all was introduced except more vendor fodder uniques and uninspiring ring enchants.

I just want to see what they have to say for themselves.

After time to digest and really dig in, I don't think the patch is as bad as I initially thought, but good yet remains at quite the remove from less bad.

 

30 minutes ago, Argonath Diver said:

We should have seen this type of seasonal content after that D3 season where they spawned 2 treasure gobs not one. That was it, that was the season. 

I don't remember if that was all that Season had, it still had sets, etc, but keeping it real here-- double goblins was pretty fun. Especially if you happened upon a goblin pack or shrine. 

Need more Goblin types, I miss my jellies.

Edited July 19, 2023 by JGP

[Argonath Diver]

Sure it was fun but the whole reason for Seasonal resets is compelling new content. Im retired from POE and I get its too much for people but their best seasons had incredible new content and systems. Double goblins is a long running joke for their worst effort.

I was such a Blizzard fanboy for twenty years - probably 15k hours all told - and will probably be playing D2 when I'm 70. To me the company is Activision just licensing the Blizz branding out for max profits. This time it's hurting them with this universal panning of this patch. Super skeptical the Chat will have anything but mild backtracking and some weak promises.