Is 1.10 Hell playable?

[pjnow]

I've seen a number of posts abut how 1.10 Hell is survivable ( usually with the help of top end gear or rune words - not much help for no twink or SP ), it may wll be survivable - but is it playable? By playable I mean, is it tough but fun or is it tough but an endurance test. Tough but fun is good.

I've just gotten a Zon into 1.10 Hell. She's Clvl 72, has found a good Bow ( Kuko, I have a Lum but need to get the Pul to upgrade it), has a nice pair of crafted gloves, found Tals mask, Mav's belt, and some OK rings and ammys - in short she has an avgerage equipment set up for an untwinked Char about to enter Hell at 72.

So far the first two quests in Act 1 Hell are survivable, certainly. The Merc dies rather too frequently and there's a lot of running back to town for mana ( even with 15% leech ), but death from Monster is not a real concern if you're careful.

Death from tedium however, is a potential possibility. It took more than an hour ( at players 1 ) to clear the blood moor and Den. Cold Immune boss packs of Zombies ( Zombies are cold immune, two bosses were stone skin, one was fire immune ) while dangerous to Mercs are simply an exercise in patience and fatiguing to your mouse fingers.

I'd be very happy if critters were more dangerous and death was a constant peril but that you could kill them as quickly as they can kill you, this would reward skilled tactical play. However it seems from what I've seen at the beginning of Hell that ( even on players 1 ) the killing pace is going to be painfully slow and remain so throughout all of the Hell acts even while monster lethality increases.

Hell appears to have been balanced for a high level Char using top end equipment and even at that it's going to be an endurance test.

I liked the changes in NM, I liked that you'd see exceptionals and elites dropping at a better pace as the game progressed, I really liked the changes to the Bloody Foothills and Act V in general, but they may have gone too far in Hell on the Monster hitpoints and resistances.


It shouldn't be a stress test for your mouse buttons. They've made it annoying and frustrating ( "sigh here's another stone skin Zombie boss pack, better head back to town and load up with exta arrows and mana, and have a leak, this could take a while") without increasing the payback to reward you for your perseverence.

In fact, they've decreased the reward - they've made it much harder to level up past level 70 and just about impossible to level up past 85 ( I cannot forsee anyone having the patience to play hell single player on players 8 ).

[Occhidiangela]

For increased challenge, I think.

If the challenge is sufficient in Players 1, is that not a case of "so much the better?"

Rumor has it that by the time your 72 finishes act I Hell, she will pick up a few levels. That has apparently been fixed. Let us know how you fare in that regard.

[channel1]

I like it.
I went in with my bowazon at CLevel 54, and she must have been at the sweet spot for experience. She got one, sometimes two levels clearing Blood Moor. Her Act2 merc was right behind her on experience, and was keeping up pretty well until she got to CLevel 63, when the merc had fallen two levels behind.

She is the first character I made in D2. I hadn't played her much after the Valkyrie nerf came out (1.07?), since she has a lot of points in Valkyrie and it was pretty pathetic after the nerf. Now, my Valk can kill stuff again. :)

I went in with fairly crummy equipment by 1.09 standards. I'm still using the Rare Gothic bow I got by testing Charsi's imbue. It took 40 tries, but I finally got one that has decent damage (33-166, IIRC).
Charms are just what I found on this character, not many and not very good.

I found that Magic Arrow is very usable now. The global physical resistance seems to still be there, but with Magic Arrow converting Physical damage to Magic it kills well. There does not seem to be many Magic Resistant/Immune monsters.

I finally found a non-Magic Embossed Plate, and used it to make up a set of all of the 1.10-only Runeword armors. That made quite a difference in whether I Stand and Deliver, or Hit and Run. Even with the crummy equipment, I only got killed once, that was in the first 5 minutes. :)
Bramble seems to be a good Runeword armor for the melee merc (Act2 from NM, Might aura). Having Thorns on the Valk is a pretty fine way to get damage. The Merc does need something to keep him from getting killed so often. Zombies are his nemesis, and a lot of time is spent running around to get him to disengage from Zombie groups.

I also got a non-Magic Crown, and made a Delirium for my character and the merc. Having Confuse cast about every three hits is strange, but it gives great crowd control. Best tactic seems to be to use Multishot to get Confuse cast over a large area, which seems to bring all the monsters together in a mob. Freezing Arrow to take out the non-Cold Immune critters, followed by whatever works for the ones that are left.

The biggest change from new equipment will probably be having Teleport, now that I can equip Enigma armor. That will probably be an effective way to keep the merc alive, it's going to take a bit of a change in my Amazon mind-set to use it well. :)

I haven't gotten any bows yet for weapon Runewords, but some of them look like they are extreme enough to get this character through Hell. Breath of the Dying might be a game-killer, we'll see. :)

Overall, I think Hell is fine, as far as I've gone. It's dangerous enough to be challenging, and leveling fast enough in the CLevel 50s-60s to be able to tune the character's attributes.

Once 1.10 hits the Realms, it's going to be tough to say how it will be with fresh characters, but I think that by the time you hit Hell you'll probably be able to put together a fairly effective set of equipment. There seems to be so many ways to go, that I don't think the cookie-cutter builds will be written in stone.

-rcv-

[--Pete]

Hi,

Yep, the "players" option is nice to tailor the game difficulty. But that wasn't his point, I think.

The way I read pjnow's comments was: "Is the game hard or is it just boring?"

For instance, I just played some this morning. Bowazon, still in normal. Couple of bosses required the intellectually challenging tactic of "hold the left mouse button down, occasionally set the teacup down to drink a pot, hope I don't run out of arrows and/or interest before that boss dies." Yeah, it makes the game slower. And, I suppose, if I were a newbie that didn't kill off the minions first it might, just possibly, have made the game a bit harder. But mostly it just made it boring. I'd much rather have one shot kills on the monsters if it took some cunning and skill to set up those kills.

Between my total clear habit and limited play time, I might not get to hell before the beta ends. But I, too, would like to know if the game is harder, and if so, does it challenge the brain or the butt?

--Pete

[Brista]

I made a level 1 Necro last week and have reached Hell with him

Hell came as a shock

Very tough, very fun

After somewhat strolling through Nightmare (I didn't even bother setting it to Players 1 for Baal, usually a hard fight for a Zookeeper) I was very quickly sent running for cover

I love it :lol:

[Ice]

For most parts, I think hell has been playable for the 3-4 builds I have tried (including one untwinked reaching hell). But if you're unprepared against monsters highly resistant to your attacks, the game gets boring and tedious fast.

For example, my mageazon with gear not much better than what your zon took over 15-20 mins of clickfest to kill baal in hell with almost no chance of dying due to a bit of click-and-run here and there. Lister was also unkillable with huge life and regeneration plus immune to both my main attacks. My third attack element was weaker and even with the merc attacking, was unable to even dent his life bar before he regenerated it all back.

The other two builds relied largely on crushing blow and static field to crash down monster's life irregardless of how huge it initially is. However, they required some very specific gear to work (mainly guillaume's or goblin toes, plus a 'um' rune). Even then, the paladin ran into a very tedious fight against a PI monster that is also immune to his main elemental attack (cold). The assassin fared much better with two very strong attacks in his death sentry + wake of inferno, on top of a crushing blow, static'ing blade fury attack.

I don't see leveling as too big a problem. Even a level 87 character I brought over from LoD gained nearly 1/3 of a level although that was with a rather specific build and had been running through hell in higher player counts for 1-2 hours at least.

IMO the difficulty is there in 1.10 beta and unless you have means to strip off monster's immunities, two strong elements of attacks are almost necessary and possibly even a third element which is not too weak (for use against dual immunes). Without that kind of flexibility in your attacks, hell is simply going to be hell when you meet monsters immune to your main element of attack.

[kandrathe]

My necro is lvl 48 and starting NM. I'm thinking of backing down to Players 4 for the same reason. In the cold plains I ran into 4 boss packs that had stoneskin, and it was tedious to string them out and kill them off one at a time. I never felt in danger, but my lvl 47 (act 2 prayer) merc is getting swarmed and dies too often. I think I spent over 200,000 in gold just resurrecting him through the cold plains. My build is a stand off build, so I need a good tank. I'm going to need to concentrate of getting my merc some really good defense. His resists are good (mid 50's), so I just need to find a way to keep him alive. He is wearing a good rare helm def 65, and venom ward armor def 132. His polearm is a rare war scythe +20 IAS, 35% ed, adds 12-24 cold dmg and a little AR IIRC.

So challenging? Yes, but not in staying alive and fighting off the monsters.

Edit:

My necro is lvl 48 and starting NM. I'm thinking of backing down to Players 4 for the same reason.

I did this last night, and it helped. Actually, what helped more was that a 4 socketed trident and a Rattlecage dropped (and a near perfect 1/3/5 Storm Eye scepter. A gift perhaps for a Paladin, in exchange for a nice wand or head) . I have been accumulating gems forever now, so I socketed the trident with a pskull and the 3 perfect emeralds. Now most NM non-boss type monsters run up to him, he jabs them frenetically for a second and they run away with 300 poison over 6 seconds, then return to the fray (due to confuse I think) ad naseum. Pretty funny to watch actually. It makes it harder to form clumps of corpses for CE, but then my merc is surviving and tanking better which is key. I had my first death in the Black Tower, on my second trip through. I struggled and fought my way the first time to have the countess drop an Eld. So feeling cheated I started a new game, fully intent on hurrying on down to get a more appropriate NM rune, and got swarmed by a pack of fanatic rogues. And, then the countess dropped... yup, another Eld. Also, a unique warsword so I felt a little vindicated. Anyway I'm now fighting through the Tamoe Highlands, and back to /players 6 and working back up to /players 8.

[Any1]

I just cleared the third area in ACT-5 Hell. Based on my experience with my Paladin here is how the ACTs layout, from most difficult to least difficult:

ACT-2

ACT-4

ACT-1

ACT-5 (It wil get harder as I progress further)

ACT-3

The ACTs get much more fun to play as one proceeds.

[Nicodemus Phaulkon]

Y'be givin' me back mah Fury an' Zeal... THEN I'll be show'n ye "playable", boah! :ph34r:

*tips helm*

[whyBish]

I can't kill the balrog pack in the C.S. in NM with the one char I have tried so far. Regen is way too fast and since they are E.F. I can't take on one at a time :( Does anyone know if I can park them to get to D?

[AtomicKitKat]

If you have Bone Spirit or Guided Arrow, try firing at the Infector of Souls(boss) IIRC, Diablo will automatically kill all enemies once the big 3(Lord De Seis, Infector of Souls and whatshisname, the flying thing with the homing missiles) are dead.

Poison or Prevent Monster Heal might help to curb the regen.

If you're a Barbarian, use Taunt to bring them to you one at a time. If you're a curse Necro, chain cast Confuse on the minions so the boss gets chopped to death by his own horde. Sorc will probably have to rely on attacks which FREEZE(eg, the armour which freezes attackers, Glacial Spike) A Paladin with high Thorns should probably keep getting hit. :lol: It would help if you mentioned your class and general skill allocation.

[EyeOfHorus]

I'm in act2 Hell with a lvl 77 necro with 9 skeletons, 5 mages and a might merc. Though at first i found Hell difficult, i now find it only a little bit more difficult than NM. The skeletons kill at a decent rate, the merc is of course a good help. What is important though is : keep battles relatively small. I try to limit it to about the 6-10 opponents. Then the killing speed is fast enough and your army remains intact. Extra opponents i bone prison when they approach. Another point that works well is casting a clay golem(only one skill point) in trouble spots. The AI seems to target the golem before the skeletons. The Golem dies relatively quick (thoug not immediately) but it helps to ease the pressure.
For the moment, for this character in Act2, Hell is too easy. Once or twice I have to retreat, the merc dies occasionally(not often though) but the threat level is not high enough to give me the feeling that i constantly have to watch my back. My gear is mediocre, nothing special, only +3 on all skills in total. Good resistances though. Maybe the higher acts will be more difficult.

[Brista]

They're very dangerous

I would suggest luring them to the River, tp-ing out and coming back from the way point and killing them from across the River

If you are melee then you might be able to separate them. Then again parking might work, as long as they're out of the CS

[whereagles]

NOTE: this is for melee characters.

I consider 1.10 up to A1 hell a pathetic exercise of boredom and exasperation. From A1 hell upwards it's a challenge for how long you can go on without cheating. If you don't have at least a cruel exceptional of some 20% ias, every area takes about 1h to clear. It's slow and almost devoid of risk (at least I was never in danger of dying). Just the usual D2X players 8 bore, except for the fact that now you play in players 1 instead of players 8 (players 8 you can't kill a thing).

I gave up at the countess. Got back to 1.09, hacked a few runes and a lev 71 character and got back, this just to do experiments. There's no fun anymore, not because monsters hit hard, but because its a bore. How am I supposed to kill 5k hits monsters with a damage of 300-500? At least spellcasters can reach 2k damage at this stage, but for melee chars, the drops prevent any attempt at proficiency.

Of course, after I find a cruel elite of quickness I'll be owning and 1.10 will rock lol :D

[Dyntheos]

I too am finding hell a boring game.

I was cruising with players 8 up to act 3 hell, then I got to the flayers and struggled through that but when I hit Kurast I was sick of the slow pace. I dropped it back to players 1, then hit the durance.

Every single pack is a boss pack and it's almost impossible to kill.

1.10 is fun up to nightmare but past act2 hell for me and an 82 necro with quite an army it's just to much hard work.

Bottom line is that it's not fun, sitting there and literally holding the mouse button down to kill a stoneskin boss is tedious.

I think someone described 1.10 as 1 blizzard employee's mod, and that's how it feels. I think we could have done with the bugs being fixed and the skills tweaked with a moderate increase in difficulty but from what I've seen it just borders on silly at times.

The randomisation in act5 is good but it just doesn't fit at times and looks like a mod. For instance imp towers where imps are supposed to jump up and fire inferno from, vacant because imps didn't spawn. It just feels wierd and wrong.

The regen rate for some monsters is beyond belief at times, and iam sure many off us have just thrown our hands up in disgust and decided to "leave that one alone" and run around a certain boss that was extra strong stone skin in hell..

Iam not exactly sure if certain builds can actually finish the game in hell at this time without serious cheating with programs like jamellas. All I can say is that the game seems to have been walking down this relatively straight road through normal and NM with some nice little additions here and there and then decided to not just take the left fork in the road at hell but jumped off the bridge aswell.

Can't help but wonder what exactly blizzard is trying to achieve here.

*Bemused*

[Occhidiangela]

In fact, they've decreased the reward - they've made it much harder to level up past level 70 and just about impossible to level up past 85 ( I cannot forsee anyone having the patience to play hell single player on players 8 ).

I was replying to this last bit, but given the regen boost, that same question may indeed be asked as regards players 1 in Hell. :) I may just invest in a soft cushion.

So far, I have seen little change for a melee barbarian in Acts I and II normal. I expect to see the changes start in NM with my "Irritable Caffeine Addict" Barbarian. He will focus on

Leap/Frenzy/Double Swing/Taunt/Berserk. Since there are some synergies to be had, I hope to enjoy the ride, having had modest experience with Frenzy Barbarians.

My old HC West Frenzy Barbarian is somewhere in Late Hell Act III and still drinking kickapoo joy juice with Asheera and Natalya, trying to get lucky, last I remember.

[Occhidiangela]

Can't help but wonder what exactly blizzard is trying to achieve here.

I'd guess at a few things:

Make items more important, and failing that, force a reliance on party skill synergy as the way to overcome challenge/tedium.

Trying to make PMH and "casts amp damage/static field' affixed more popular.
Trying to make cannot be frozen more popular (I always liked it!)
Trying to put the long promised new Rune Words into play
Trying to make folks think a bit harder about what skills they choose, and why
Trying to put the Thawing Potion back into the game! :D

I also think they desire a return to Diablo I tactics, with the need to string out mobs and defeat them in detail, or use barriers/walls to break up packs.

The complaint about Diablo II, that it is just a click fest, has been a long standing charge. What appears to have happened, at this point, is that the balance between challenge and tedium may have tipped a bit too far in one direction.

We shall see what blizzard does with the feedback. Since I tend to play in parties, I expect that teamwork will overcome a great deal.

[channel1]

...The regen rate for some monsters is beyond belief at times...

I noticed that even in Normal difficulty. You really, REALLY, need to have something going to prevent monster life regeneration. Poison is obvious for Normal, add in "Prevent monster heal" and/or "Open wounds" to cover the poison immunes.

-rcv-

[Occhidiangela]

The regen issue looks to me mostly confined to bosses in Normal players 4 to players 8. The rest of the monsters go down quickly enough.

[channel1]

...Trying to put the Thawing Potion back into the game!

Thawing and Antidote potions are great now, especially for mercs when going up against known poison/cold damage critters, like Andariel. :)

I usually feed an Antidote potion to my merc BEFORE he goes up against bad poison critters, the 30 seconds of enhanced Poison Resistance is usually enough to get him through the fight.

This brings up the biggest problem I've seen with most parties I've been in. Most players are in such a hurry that you don't have time to prepare for the big fights. The result is that those fights often DO turn into a "click-fest", which could have been avoided with a little preparation. Of course, the whole point of ANY game is how fast you can get through it, right?

-rcv-