1.10 Ridulous

[Ferengi]

I had decided to create a K Fail for new sorcs to level with, I only needed the part at the bottom of the Flayer Dungeon to complete it. When my clvl 20 sorc had died for the fifth time and was still on level 2, I decided that perhaps I should bring in the clvl 41 necro to clear down to the chest. That necro is nearly pure bone, and has nearly 400 damage absorb Bone Armor and about 200 HP. I used to do the Dungeon with a Ice Blast sorcs for a small bit of coordination practice and teleport fun (i.e. death simply wasn't even possible).

The necro TWICE was left with a sliver of life in mere seconds. That's nearly 600 damage being delivered within the reaction time to drink a potion.

This is absurd. This is carrying "making the game challenging" far beyond reasonable sense. This sort of stupidity makes hardcore "game over", I am no longer surprised at a post I read a couple days ago from a fanatic hardcore player about selling off all his CDs (on the second day after the patch was released)!

DId anyone actually play test this release? It certainly is not the beta.

[War_Master_Ares]

Well, you see Bone Armor absorbs physical damage, and you only had 200 health, now whilst 200 elemental damage might be a lot, I can tell you now, a lot of level 41 HC characters have well over that amount. The general rule(From what I have heard.), is that you should have a minimum health of 10xClvl, so in esence most Lv41 characters would have a minimum 410 health, at least double what you have. They would also most likely employ more strategic and careful tactics such as luring away a single enemy at a time and not wildy running in spamming Bone Spirits left right and center (No offense whatsoever is meant to your' playing skills, forgive me if I have offended you in any way.). Also if this build is not working out, try creating a new build. A lot of builds that were viable in 1.09D are no longer viable in 1.10, and whilst the difficulty level of the game may have been drastically ramped up, this should not pose as much a problem as you suggest. By increasing the difficulty Blizzard is trying to encourage co-operative party play, and game progression, personally, I would rather have a revamped difficulty level and have a harder time killing if it means I can enjoy more party friendly, public games. And whilst it is harder to Solo the game from Act1 Norm, to Act5 Hell, it is possible, you just need more careful consideration into the type of build you are creating, and in most cases you will be required to branch out into more then one tree. Well that's my two cents.

P.S If I have offended anyone in anyway I apolofise profoundly.

[Bob the Beholder]

Yes, it is very difficult. So difficult in fact that just this very day I have run a level 22 Hardcore Necromancer through the place without any troubles at all. Through all of Act III, in fact. Without Bone Armor, but with a few skeleton tanks. Note that this is also in Single Player, with a complete lack of gifts or trades, leaving me with very little good equipment. (He's now level 26, by the way, with The Feeble Horde, my skeletons, running rampant through the plains of hell.)

One thing, perhaps, could be the skills you used. Everybody knows it's harder now, so if you went in the place with the mobs of tiny little flayers, and used Bone Spirit, for example, it'd definitely be a problem. Unless that was your only option.

By the way: My first post. Woot.

[Crystalion]

The necro TWICE was left with a sliver of life in mere seconds.  That's nearly 600 damage being delivered within the reaction time to drink a potion.

Was that from the Shamen inferno, the lil guys butcher knives or from a barrage of blowdarts? Since you had bone armor up I'd assume you got flamed? I've heard that like the Balrogs, these guys inferno was improved for v1.10. I'm afraid I don't know personally, since my wake of fire assassin never got touched by a shaman inferno when she did act 3 in her low 20s. I've never had an easier time creaming the lil act 3 pests than with v1.10 WoF.

I'm 36 now, and, iirc, I've died only once, fairly early on, when I was careless about keeping my HPs full, and putting points into vit--a bit of lag hit and splat. I'm actually tracking on 12x clvl for hitpoints, since I'm trying to have 90%+ of what I'm fighting not put me into Hit Recovery if they happen to get to me (I'm not meleeing with this build, unless there is only one monster and my act 3 cold merc has frozen it and I'm bored or low on mana). I'm basically only doing something other than WoF when terrain is too narrow for it, or I'm facing a Fire Enchanted or immune boss. I found the Flayer Dungeon (I never used a Shadow Warrior, so it was just me and my act 3 merc) to have just enough room to continue to use WoF, which, like a Hydra Sorc, means most mobs never got close enough to me for my merc to "save me".

I'm assuming you weren't using cast ahead skills (Clay Golem, which is cheap and slows enemies when they hit the golem now; Dim Vision; etc.) but were just proceeding cautiously?

When my Assassin hit 35 I realized I'd once again neglected a visit to the cows (never been much of a fan). WoF build dusts normal cows pretty much like old time spammed FO did: fast and pretty, before they get close.

So I think some builds have suffered in some areas and others gained. I'm pretty sure my build will run out of steam in early hell difficulty, but I don't mind (this is my jumpstart build, and it's fun). I personally think the Hardcore concept is inherently flawed and only "worked" because previously the game was "too easy". The game is too laggy and unfairly damaging at times for HC to make any sense to me (although they made some effort to fix some of those apparently). In playing through normal I had three really bad cases of lag that would have made me very unhappy to be playing HC.

It's an interesting question whether "normal" builds should have been play tested for unfair death in "storyline" quests. I've had a couple of scares with the new "stair traps allowed" monster placement that would be quite challenging to overcome (i.e. unfairly so) in hell difficulty I imagine. I would like to see how a Holy Freeze Merc with 100% Monster Flee would do when swarmed like that.

[gimlisam]

My barb is currently level 23 and in act three. He has had little trouble with those annoying shaman, but that could be because of his 56-ish fire resist and lvl 3 leap attack. Well, I lied a bit. The inferno still was able to knock off 1/4 to 1/3 of his life in the time that it takes me to a. realize that the Leap Attack didn't kill the shaman and b. bash or concentrate until he WAS dead. At least it didn't do what the Inferno usually does to my heros and kill them!

[Pren]

I want to know why you went there with a lvl20 sorc. Only in the most rushed classic diablo single player games did I ever get there below lvl20. In this beta, hardcore characters could realistically be over lvl30 before entering act 3. lvl58 before entering nightmare.

That said, there are a lot of stupid things in 1.10. And if you were in the swampy pit with the gloams, we'd understand.

[Ferengi]

First off, go back and read that first line FLAYER DUNGEON.

Clearly several of you have never been there or are so insistant on replying that you mutter nonsense with respect to the DUNGEON. Here is a big hint, it was 5 levels deep in previous patches.

[DSTheHermit]

Uhm...the only thing in D2 that has ever been five levels deep is the Countess's Tower.

Oh, and the levels of stupidity pubbies can reach, so sayeth The Hermit.

"This bog is thick and easy to get lost in, 'cause you're a stupid, belligerent [censured]." Tool - Swamp Song

[Ferengi]

Was that from the Shamen inferno, the lil guys butcher knives

but were just proceeding cautiously?

I personally think the Hardcore concept is inherently flawed

It's an interesting question whether "normal" builds should have been play tested for unfair death in "storyline" quests.

There are no Shamen in the Dungeon except for the last boss. The ONLY elemental attack is poison until the bottom. The infernos from slow moving monsters are simple to deal with. Shamen also come with light radius BTW. I see that the other details were placed in a different thread, I thought that I had repeated them here. The pack on the bottom level fell over dead, I was getting nailed on levels 1 and 2.

It was simply fast, large, high damage packs coming out of the dark. Flayers have always been fast and the Dungeon has always been dark, but they have ridulous damage and speed in order to hand me 600 in a couple of seconds. It's a good thing that potion drinking doesn't require faster hit recovery. It's also good that gold drops are increased to help pay for your merc (again). Since I see Shamen reviving over a greater distance now, I assume that monster "radius of awareness" has been boosted, which is why entering a large dark room can result in sudden rushes from distant side corridors as you come abrest of them. When that pack delivers so much damage that it becomes a 1-hit kill on a character carrying an effective 600 HP in normal act3, when previously a sorc with about 80 HP could stroll through the same area, surprise will be the least of the generated emotions.

Proceeding cautiously? Well death does temper one's enthusiasm after a few times. It was the dread of facing 3 more levels (while on level 2) that caused me to bring in the necro. By the time I brought in the necro, I expected to encounter that level of damage, it is ridulous that it occurred.

As for the rest of Act III, (i.e. what most replied about), it was simple, Chain Lightning nailed flayer packs, since they could be seen (or were otherwise predictable) easily and it auto-targets (even offscreen). The Council handed me some 39 Chancies for instance. Even the sewers didn't have these killer mobs, they just had a nasty HS pack on level 2 that I played ring around the pool with quite a bit (good thing that is a fixed level design that I played enough in eariler days). My Confuse necro can deal with known (or knowable) packs pretty easy, in Normal monsters cannot kill each other, but they do not swarm attack me. In NM, monsters will kill each other, if they live long enough.

As for the necro, Fire Golum is very active and precasting is difficult when you are essentially blind. I had tried that with the ChainLightning, but after 5 deaths it was clear that didn't work. Holy Freeze is useless against these packs, you die in less than 3 seconds afterall and auras do not go around corners. A Hydra sorc would have had advance warning, which is enough. Chain would have nailed them IF I had known they were there (Chain sets off hit recovery and the cast rate ensures that they never leave it). Chain disables 5 members of the pack, which reduces the size enough to have an opportunity to teleport away.

It's interesting to see that most players are getting into the Durance without completing the fail, so much for the anti-rush techniques. There is a similar backdoor in Act2 for players without the Snake quest. The playtesters might have been lucky or not paying much attention, the in game chatter in NM shows many players dying in ways that surprise them.

Oh, I never had much respect for Hardcore, since I rarely died and rarely pumped vit. Making it a ghost would be fine, I find most Hardcore players carried a chip on their shoulder and would be glad to get rid of that (since the game was easy). The new lag from the server counter World Event will doom many players now, so that should sweep away everything but clvl 50 in act1 normal hardcore.

It will be interesting to see what is posted by the next weekend....

[Nadreck]

1.As posted by someone else, flayer dungeon has only 3 levels.
2. It sound like you are trying to tank with your necro, which I would never, ever do no matter how much bone armor I had. Get your merc and summons to tank for you.
3. You might have more fun if you tried to figure out how to deal with the increased difficulty instead of whining about it.
4.(to Crystalion) In my opinion the increased difficulty is a big improvement. I only play hardcore, and have no intention of switching.
Although, admittedly the lag has been scary at times, especially the first day. It seems to have improved since then though. And the reports of nightmare ancients sometimes doing 1 hit kills make me me a bit nervous too. Perhaps when I fight them I'll run away until each one has hit the mercenary once to make sure none of them do too much damage.

Edit: my level 45-46 ladder barb (now level 47) has just beaten the flayer dungeon on nightmare difficulty. Based on this experience, it seems the flayers like to ignore mercenaries, so it may not be possible to get a merc to tank for you effectively. However, you can still scout ahead by casting clay golem or curses ahead of you as you go along (remember that curses cause a patch of illumination around enenies even if you can't see them). You can probably use terror as well if you see a group of enemies about to swarm you.

[Bob the Beholder]

4.(to Crystalion) In my opinion the increased difficulty is a big improvement. I only play hardcore, and have no intention of switching.

YES.

It is funtimes, especially in hardcore. Of course, I'm desensitized to character death by now, so that could be just me.

[Guest]

Wow, I feel sorry for you. There's many other monster types which are far harder than Fetishes. I didn't have much problem in that dungeon except for the Shamans, of which you say didn't exist.

You can always increase the gamma in the video settings, your monitor and in control pannel, if the darkness there bothers you use much.

[Brista]

I personally think the Hardcore concept is inherently flawed and only "worked" because previously the game was "too easy". The game is too laggy and unfairly damaging at times for HC to make any sense to me

But Crystalion, the point is that hardcore is a different set of rules that appeals to some folks but not to all

I can see your point and accept from your reasoning that Hardcore may not suit you and that you're quite justified in feeling that way

But it's unfair to say that the concept is flawed when so many of us are clearly enjoying ourselves playing that way

A lot of what makes Diablo 2 a success is that it's many different things to different people.

The frag-artist who came to the game straight from Quake and now has eleven accounts full of ear mules has a different perspective to the cooperative folk of the Amazon Basin

So while most of us will have our own notions of how the game should be played they are preferences not absolutes. Multiplayer is better than single player? hardcore is better than softcore? PK is beter than co-op?

None of these stances can be said to be other than preferences in a game which supports all of them

I could illustrate how both lag and unfairly damaging attacks can be anticipated and to a great extent countered but I won't talk at length about that because to some extent it's a side issue

The real issue is that as hardcore players we understand and accept that Nilathak or the Ancients have a sporting chance to end the character, we enjoy the risk and if we die don't especially mind starting over

Just a personal choice in a game that can be played in many different styles

[Ruvanal]

Ferengi, I have to wonder what game you have been playing before?

First off, go back and read that first line FLAYER DUNGEON.

Clearly several of you have never been there or are so insistant on replying that you mutter nonsense with respect to the DUNGEON. Here is a big hint, it was 5 levels deep in previous patches.

They have, the Flayer Dungeon has always been 3 levels since version 1.00. This has been a grief point for the modders until the last couple of months since it was not possible to add any new levels into the game anywhere. The only workaround that they had available was to redirect some of the 'stair' portals of the underground area to make one region deeper at the expense of taking the levels from another dungeon somewhere else in the game.

There are no Shamen in the Dungeon except for the last boss.

No, there are two types of Shaman (FlayerShaman and SoulKillerShaman) in all 3 levels of the Flayer dungeon where you need to do the quest. This is the same basic monster layout that has been in previous versions of the game. The Swampy Pit on the other hand does not have the shamam on its upper two levels (I do not recall about the 3rd level there since it has been awhile).

Flayers have always been fast and the Dungeon has always been dark, but they have ridulous damage and speed in order to hand me 600 in a couple of seconds.

and earlier

That necro is nearly pure bone, and has nearly 400 damage absorb Bone Armor and about 200 HP.

The Bone Armor is not really effective a stopping some attacks as it is applied before your resistances are taken into account. The rough damage output information is still linked to under Griselda's column on the front page. The lowest damage that you can be expecting from these two types of shaman is 34 points of fire damage per frame of time. Note that with only 200 HP that this would be enough to send your character into hit recovery animation if you do not have resistances. Even with 75% fire resistance the damage would be 8.5 damge per frame or 212.5+ damage per second. Get some life. Freeloading in the game without defenses (and life itself is the most basic form defense) is over as of v1.10.

Holy Freeze is useless against these packs, you die in less than 3 seconds afterall and auras do not go around corners.

Is this a change that I have not noticed? I used to always run into the auras going around corners and through walls in the earlier versions. Also the aura pulse have been set down to a 2 second period now.

[Crystalion]

I see that the other details were placed in a different thread, I thought that I had repeated them here.

Ah, I didn't see another thread--perhaps I'll stumble upon it...

It was simply fast, large, high damage packs coming out of the dark.  Flayers have always been fast and the Dungeon has always been dark, but they have ridulous damage

because then I'd know (?) what your hit recovery and to-block% were. In my case it is a very good thing WoF never let any substantial number of them get to me (if only for a moment) because I have no Dex (yes, an Assassin without Dex--sad, isn't it?) for blocking and my AC is soso... they wouldn't stun me, of course, but I'd not last long if they can swarm over 200 damage a second.

It's a good thing that potion drinking doesn't require faster hit recovery.

IIRC all "uninterruptible" attacks used to lock out potion drinking (am I mistaken? details?) and I'm told more attacks were made uninterruptible in v1.10 release so that could be a danger for some builds.

I assume that monster "radius of awareness" has been boosted

An interesting question. There are subtleties involved, I'm sure. For example there are a couple of skills in skills.txt that don't require line of sight which nonetheless do, except when they don't. :blink: I'd be more specific, but the test was rather involved and the results didn't seem particularly useful. Sometimes the .txt data is misleading (for example, Dragon Flight, last I looked, was marked as a kick, but *not* as a finisher).

As for the rest of Act III, (i.e. what most replied about), it was simple, Chain Lightning nailed flayer packs, since they could be seen (or were otherwise predictable) easily and it auto-targets (even offscreen).

I've been toying with the idea of making a Lightning tree Sorc, what with all the damage changes, so this is good to know (i.e. that you're finding it effective).

My Confuse necro can deal with known (or knowable) packs pretty easy, in Normal monsters cannot kill each other, but they do not swarm attack me.  In NM, monsters will kill each other, if they live long enough.

Interesting--I assume you're speaking from current v1.10 experience? My educated guess had been that confuse would be a killer in some spots in normal and almost never in nm and essentially never in hell (based on my reading of d2data) unless one managed to stop regen, of course.

Chain would have nailed them IF I had known they were there (Chain sets off hit recovery and the cast rate ensures that they never leave it).

Really? I'd always assumed CL did 1..N damage and so was somewhat unlikely to reliably put things into HR. Does lightning get special dispensation? Or do these guys have so little HPs that you mean that they are almost always put into HR? What am I missing?

There is a similar backdoor in Act2 for players without the Snake quest.

Yes, I think I got around to mentioning various act 2 quest oddities in some post. But the particulars of that trivia aren't very important, as, of course, the carry-along sleaze trumps everything (except Malus/Ancients/anything with a clvl req/factor).

in game chatter in NM shows many players dying in ways that surprise them.

saw a post lately where someone died to a LEB beetle ("one-hit" lightning death). It seems quite possible to me that the LE was adding to the normal on-struck beetle lightning effect. In any case, I'm sure there are quite a few "surprises"--many of them not planned/considered fair by Blizzard--for us to find and document.

This reminds me, to clarify my opinion of Hardcore: the unfairness of HC death (imperfect game: lag etc.) does have a redeeming benefit in that it weeds out a lot of players... in general I'm more likely to admire or enjoy playing with *players* who happen to prefer being Hardcore players, but I still dislike the the HC not-your-fault lotto (ymmv--IRL I'm one of those people that you could not pay enough money to be willing to play one round of Russian Roulette, for example).

[Crystalion]

But Crystalion, the point is that hardcore is a different set of rules that appeals to some folks but not to all

Sorry to waste your time "justifying" Hardcore--I did qualify my objection to HC a little bit in my reply to Ferengi (that post crossed with yours)--because, fundamentally, by "flawed" I was referring to the imperfect game technology...

It would be one thing if the game were "perfect" and then invited you to play Russian Roulette to voluntarily alter your risk/reward equation. But the game is imperfect, and thus inadvertently "cheats" in killing characters that did nothing to deserve to die.

Of course this "failure" on Blizzard's part isn't as bad, in my eyes, as Verant deliberately swatting down successful players/tactics in EQ by patching in arbitrary powers/rules for their monsters (what I refer to as the "You're in our world now--so Suffer!" mindset).

You do have the right of it though: I recognize that my objection to this imperfection is my own feeling, and that many people who choose to play HC do not feel (as strongly) that way.

And I hope it is clear from this and my reply to Ferengi that I generally admire Hardcore players (one might also note that many of the people I admire IRL have both suffered and have an awareness of their own mortality).

[Brista]

No offence was taken :)

[Guest]

Note that with only 200 HP that this would be enough to send your character into hit recovery animation if you do not have resistances.

Actually, no damage-over-time spells (nor any of Diablo's, for example) can cause hit (nor block) recovery. GetHit column in missiles.txt governs it.


Edit > That was a little inaccurate. All the monsters' Inferno attacks have disabled hit-recovery, except for Baal's mana drain one (but then again it only does mana damage?).

[Lokmar Iskaran]

I'd just like to point out that at some point in the past either the Swampy Pit or the Flayer Dungeon was five levels deep. I distinctly remember dreading Act 3 and specifically the slog down into that dungeon as it was "maze-style" for the last couple levels.

I suppose this can be checked by installing D2C on an old computer and playing it single player unpatched to verify... but I'm too lazy to do this, and I'm not really sure I care that much.

Anyhow, I do remember those dungeons being deeper, and they suddenly went to 3 levels after one of the patches. (And I remember not paying attention and fighting my way to the bottom of the Swampy Pit whilst thinking I was in the other dungeon... then getting all pissed when I realized I was level 5 of the wrong dungeon.)

-lokmar

[Occhidiangela]

Don't live long in HC by themselves without a bit of care.

Act III Bitch Rats From Hell have always been annoying, especially to those of us with poor connections, or like me in early D 2 days, with barely specworthy vid cards on our machines.

Adapt and overcome.

If your Necro does not use curses, does not use tanks, or as a Bone Necro does not use Bone Walls to now and again crowd control the flayers, then yes, he is gonna take some hits. 1.10 did indeed make monsters hit harder.

I have lost two already in HC. One to a Fangskin cornering me next to the stairs (I had just come down stairs, and "lo" my pubbie 'friends' had parked him there.) I clicked on the stairs to go back up, kept drinking pots, and should have save and exited. Sadly, I ran out of pots before I realized that my char was "stuck" and simply could not move. So it goes.

My Sorceress died to Andarial, she was 15, thanks to what I can only describe as the chaos of an 8 person party all running amok, me trying to sneak in the occasional static at level one, a bit of bad timing, maybe too much tactical risk on my part. I also think she got a crit hit, but maybe not. Dead is dead, and the deeds of Meloni_Flegrei will be remembered by few, if anyone, outside of Atma's Tavern. :)

All things considered, I find your complaint curious at best. Bone Shield being hit seven or eight times, particularly if there are minions involved, a Might Aura, or what have you, is not substitute for crowd control tactics.