The Great Race; a proposal for "Khalim" awards

[Crystalion]

Players 8 would both be much faster leveling and also suitable for a little twinking.

Yep...

1) Malus... for qualifying for an Imbue (Charsi quest/reward; fyi norm clvl 8 restriction)

Aid: twink of Hellforge Hammer; assistance:none; difficulty normal; Players 8 (always); no exploits used... 28:34 (min:sec).

This time I only put one point into Howl and Leap and used them only to get through crowds blocking me. I remembered to put most of my points into Vit (only mattered once) and I dumped all my other skill points into Mace Mastery.

I tried to focus on getting to the Malus, but I ended up getting a bit into level 8 anyway (failure to ignore "distractions"). I started by clearing the Den of Evil and then bee-lined for the Monastary. Travel time was significant (I should have noted how long this took--sorry).

Because of MM my AR was quite high. But whereas my reported to-hit vs. Monster was typically 95% I seemed to miss a lot (you can tell, when you don't see/hear the fire damage from the Hellforge Hammer). I'm guessing I was fighting weenie stuff that nonetheless had decent blocking?

My conclusion from the speed and ease of this run is what I've always felt: Players N (or selecting games with N-1 other players) is typically a huge favor to the players, not the monsters.

You may argue that this isn't true for hell difficulty, v1.10, but I feel PMH technique is required anyway, so once you've turned off their regen, why not let them have more HP (and correspondingly loot and xp)? If this isn't in your favor then probably your crowd control m.o. and damage output need a bump.

Admittedly some boss and champ packs that are already very dangerous could be a problem (e.g. stone skin, extra fast, extra strong, plus auras) if their Players N HP boost makes the battle last too long (aka run out of belt potions or break weapon/shield). But most problem packs are subject to Brave Sir Robin technique. And making the normal easy-to-kill monsters worth more loot and xp while still mass slaughtering them is just a huge win for the player.

edit: I generally don't think about Hardcore--if I do, I'm likely to make explicit mention of it. So please don't take any of my posts or opinions as gospel, because even I know, when I post them, that they don't consider every angle. I also make mistakes and change my mind from time to time. So, as always, YMMV ;) But clearly another interesting sub-category is whether you're doing Hardcore. Kinda of a nasty thought, though, to suggest a "race" in Hardcore, because of Deadman's curve.