UPDATE2: Apparently, paragon starts scaling exponentially again - after level 2250. Updated chart at the bottom of this post. However, paragon 750 to 2250 are still unchanged and relatively easy to get, and provide a ridiculous benefit; and even beyond it's not super crazy scaling, though much more difficult than on PTR and pre-2.3. Despite this small bandaid fix to insanely high paragon levels, all the issues (and potential solutions) of this thread are still valid.
UPDATE: Some of the issues in this thread have been addressed as paragon continues to scale linearly after 2000. Nevertheless, paragon is still an issue and, depending on how long season 4 will last, will be an even larger issue as it was in season 3 due to the fact that XP gain will even be more inflated. The core issues are still relevant, and the solutions proposed should still work. Note that CAPPING paragon is not really a solution - better would be to either 1) let it continue to scale exponentially after 750 (best solution), or 2) remove XP gear (it's the same as MF gear in D3V), or 3) lower the benefits paragon gives after level 800 (probably the best overall and feasible solution as it also works retroactively on non-season).
Yay, catchy title! Sorry for the buzzfeed style, but at least I got your attention now. I previously made a thread about my concerns regarding paragon. There was also a nice thread on Reddit by Xabster highlighting an issue with paragon scaling. However, since yesterday we have new data as Kalmah raced to paragon 10000 on PTR using the GR glitch (live on Empyrian's stream). As it turned out, that changed the game once again - because the paragon XP charts we used so far (including Xabster in his post) were off. After reaching paragon 2000, every level requires exactly the same amount of XP - approx. 170 billion. Yep - paragon level 2000 to 2001 takes exactly as much XP as 9999 to 10000.
Edit: If you don't like to read text but prefer videos, watch Empyrian's great summary of the paragon issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llPluMsxE7M
Now, in all those paragon threads many people said "I don't care". If that's the case, and you don't like numbers or charts then just stop reading and don't bother replying, there will be nothing in here for you. Otherwise, hear me out and read on.
This is a chart displaying the race from paragon 1 to 750, how much XP you need for the next level. This is what most people are probably experiencing, or have experienced - in all Diablo games ever: as you acquire more power, acquiring *even more* power becomes more difficult. In one word, power creep is exponential. As it has always been, and as it should be. Now... after 750 this is not the case anymore. This is what it looks like once you reach paragon 750:
The amount of XP needed to reach the next level increases only linearly - by exactly 122.4 million per level. On this level you acquire several billions of XP per hour though - in 2.3 there might be scenarios of 200-250 billion per hour in a fast group - which makes this a minuscule increase. It's not like in D2 where the next level *feels* like it's going to take longer; instead of an hour it will only take an hour and a few seconds more (not even a few minutes), so not noticeable at all. That's the reason why paragon leveling at this point has become so rewarding: after 750 you make steady progress without a noticeable slowing down effect. However, after paragon 800 every level gives you 5 more main stat - which is a noticeable increase in power and something that you can't get easily through gear upgrades on that level. That's why people are hunting paragon like crazy. And the first few have reached 2000 already. That number will increase in season 4 when paragon farming becomes even easier (shared XP, power creep will let us farm 10-15 level higher). In non-season, where half the playerbase (including me) has found its home, it's going to be even worse: from the start we will have several 2000+ paragon players, and many many more just after a few weeks. Now, why is paragon 2000 such an interesting number? The answer can be found in this chart:
After level 2000, the paragon needed does not increase - as aforementioned. It will always be 170 billion. Now, why is this an issue? Simply because you will *increase your power* - more paragon, maybe occasionally even more gear, more DPS/toughness which allows for even more XP, higher GR clears which result in higher gem ranks. Paragon leveling will be faster and faster - but the paragon XP required will be the same. When you're paragon 2000, you need probably a bit more than one hour to get one level. When you're paragon 3000, you will have 5000 more main stat (!!!), which means 5000% more damage - granted, it's additive damage; but it will still make you much much stronger and let you farm faster. What that means: the higher paragon you are, the more powerful you are, and the more paragon you will acquire. "Paragon per time" (or "power per time) will not be an exponential curve anymore in Diablo - as it has always been - but it will be a bell curve. Once you're at paragon 2000, you are definitely on the lowering right slope of the bell curve, and you will acquire more power as you go on, and you will not slow down but actually get faster in acquiring this increased power.
I hope some more people start to understand now why there's something wrong with paragon. There are several issues - and relatively "easy fixes", though they might hurt. Note, I am not crying for nerfs or anything - I am almost 1000 myself, so I can see the "benefits of the bell curve" for me as well soon. But I just don't think that running low-level Greater Rifts non-stop every day is the best that this game can offer. Here are my main issues with the paragon system and how I believe it can be fixed:
Problem 1: Paragon leveling becomes slower and slower until 750, stays at approximately a steady pace from 750 to 2000, and becomes even faster after that.
Solution: It should continue to be exponential after 750, and especially after 2000. It cannot be that the power creep is even exacerbated by a bell curve - that simply has to be a design flaw. It doesn't necessarily need to be as crazy exponential as before 750, but as players gain more power it should be harder to get *even more* power.
Problem 2: Paragon levels after 800 are more rewarding than any before.
Solution: After paragon 800, each additional level should only grant 2 main stat (instead of 5). After paragon 1000 - up until 10000 - each additional level should only grant 1 main stat. That would still mean a paragon 1000 player has 400 more main stat than a paragon 800 player, and a paragon 2000 player has 800 more. On this level, those differences matter - especially in season 4/era 4, where top-level players will all have very similar gear thanks to the cube. But at least with a bit of skillful play and luck in GR RNG you can make up for it, and aren't straight out of the competition.
Alternative solution by Skelos_bg: "Cap the bonus from stats at P800. Turn the points after P800 in a currency: With this currency the dedicated players who reach P1k, P1.5k, P2k etc can buy special cosmetic rewards, more stash space etc..."
I love this idea - I would kill for stash space. The option to have one more stash tab every 200 or 500 or 1000 levels or whatever would just sound amazing and, although I dislike paragon leveling, would have me leveling like a mad man. Plus, it wouldn't break the game for anyone else if I'm paragon 5000, but at least I don't have to re-farm all gear when I want to experiment new builds. Thanks!
Problem 3: Greater Rifts, especially low GRs for speed runs in 2-4 minutes, are too rewarding and pigeonhole competitive players into a very specific, tedious, time-consuming, and (in many people's opinion) boring gameplay.
Solution: Make XP gained similar in all aspects of the game. This low GR speed madness only started after the XP was changed to be multiplicative in GRs. I guess this was done because T6 was more effective for XP than GRs (I don't really remember, but I think that was the case), and it gave people a gearing choice (Hellfire Ring or Stone of Jordan? Diamond or Ruby?). However, this means that you want to run GRs only (as it currently yields about 10 times more XP!), and you want to run approximately 20-25 levels below your "real power level", as you can afford to give up DPS for XP gear on at least some characters in the group and run this at an insane speed which yields the best XP/hour. Basically, if this game's rules would apply to football, it would mean that Champions League players would have to practice 10-16 hours a day against mediocre low-league teams to become the best players. I'm not sure that would be fun for either side. The concrete solutions here would be to reverse the multiplicative bonus XP change - or even better, get rid of XP bonuses on gear (just like you did the absolutely right decision by basically removing magic find).
Thanks for reading everyone. If you want to see the complete 1-10000 XP plot, here it is:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1MIVWYG18yayYU52xFPIH2iT-N_Yap3_UoQh_ZSHndlY/
(Last change in 2.3, accurate as of October 2016 (2.4.2/S8), thanks to <ZE> Vajet for data and Diablo3Ladder.com for publishing them)
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I know that there are still some people who enjoy the old lightning gameplay and are unhappy about the changes made by Blizzard, and since everyone is talking about how dead the lightning build apparently is, I just wanted to share with you this clip of how it is still working after patch 2.1.2. --> Video (Tier 47 - 11:37).
Given that the highest clear on PTR and live 2.1.2 was Tier 50 so far, I still think that lightning can be a viable alternative to the Cluster Arrow and Multishot builds right now. No ancient items were used in this run.
I also updated the guide in the Diablofans builds section (previously: Meticulous Punishment), and renamed it Blue Tides (for the constant ups and downs of the discipline bar and the feeling of drowning your enemies in a surge of blue lightning), since the Preparation - Punishment rune is no longer involved in the build.
For anyone curious about how it works, you can find all the necessary information here
GG WP Blizzard, let's see how far we can push it =)
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Hi everyone,
so I heard lightning Demon Hunter is not a build you could play in hardcore. A few months ago, after my initial success with the build in softcore, I set out on a mission to prove the naysayers wrong. It was clear to me from the get go that this is what it would take to be at the top of the ladder, and being a nonseason softcore player with only occasional trips to the hardcore world, I was slowly forming my character to do so. Now with the patch just around the corner, the incoming lightning “nerfs” and the possibility for every DH to go much higher than 42 (even in hardcore) pretty easily and without as much danger involved, it was clear to me that I was pressed on time to do this. Initally, I was planning to farm to paragon 400 at least (I am at 333 as of this video), getting my Taskers, getting some other good stuff and then beat the shit out of tier 44-45. Being nowhere close to the best equipped demon hunters in hardcore (those paragon 600 and up with few if any deaths), I needed to take advantage of a build that would allow me to outpace everyone else, just as I did with the lightning build in softcore before. My plans, however, were bound to fail due to the time limitations I have ingame and outside of it, so I was forced to just go all in and try to make best use of the items I had (which are pretty shitty honestly, I will show them at the end of the video along with my paragon distribution). Unfortunately I had to invest a lot into attack speed to reach the 2.842 breakpoint, even more than I would need to invest for the 4.154 breakpoint if I had a mediocre Taskers roll. Along with the steep cdr requirements (I wanted to chain ss without Gogok for dangerous situations), this really lowered my dps by a lot, so I had to resort to clearing lower tiers to compensate.
It is clear to me that this will not stay a record for long because of the patch, but who would have expected Blizzard to make such a move. This rank was done for proving a point: lightning demon hunter has been there all along in hardcore (even if it’s only me). It was also clear that I would not stay the only one after something like that happens, because other people naturally will try to get to the top at the end of the season, and they would have to resort to playing lightning in any case. (Damn you Blizzard, I wanted to make everyone suicide themselves in the hopes of breaking my record!). In fact, some people have already been trying to do so during the season, but none have succeeded so far (apart from Mongobiene, who held the previous rank 1 – but he wasn’t playing with zero toughness and rather went for raw strength and survival).
To anyone new to this build, you could check out my old thread for some further general information [Link]
This particular run was really good in terms of density and I used a conduit to kill the RG (2:30 to spare would have been easily enough for Blighter tier 42). I also procced my awareness once near the end on a nasty reflect pack, which I then had to kill of all by itself to not risk making any further mistakes. This was my fourth tier 42 run, I had three tier 43 tries, two of which I had to abandon immediately and one in which I was progressing to 90% ahead of the timer until I hit an empty map with two unskippable elite packs. The keys were farmed today in 3p with <GN> Desolacer and <RIP> T3nno, whom I’d like to thank for their time and support as well as taking the risk to do the trials without a WD; it’s very difficult to find people for “high” level trials on hardcore these days, especially without having the benefits and logistics of a hardcore clan at my disposal. I’d also like to thank <RIP> Drahque and <RIP> Drui for leveling me and the <RIP> clan in general for helping me out a little in T6 until I was able to run it quickly enough myself (by inviting me to their community).
Now, enjoy the show: http://youtu.be/OdfdXP8khyI
Screenshot of the leaderboard (EU season hardcore) as of 8 Jan 2015
To everyone who might have been missing me and my stream: I have been mostly inactive for some two months now and still will be for some weeks, as I’m busy writing my term papers and preparing other things that are related to university.
I’ll be back, see you in season 2 and I'll do my best to entertain you then as well =)
Cheers,
wudijo
EDIT: Armory
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Many people have been asking me to create a video guide for the Helltrapper lightning build as well as the Kridershot lightning build, so recently I have done so. The guide includes the items, paragon, skills and a tier 45 solo run (no rift-fishing). Right now I can only upload the Helltrapper guide because of some weird copyrights claims by twitch, even though I consciously shut down all music save for ingame sounds; I have appealed their claim and hope this issue can be resolved soon. In the meantime:
Twitch Link: http://www.twitch.tv/wudijo/c/5343481
Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvaQpc-oIA
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Disclaimer: After trolling people with my poison Chakram / Spike Trap build for a full day (I really enjoyed those guys who believed it, though), I guess it's time to resolve the mystery about what really went down on this run. So here it is:
Most of you probably have already heard of the Meticulous Bolts quiver and the potential lightning builds that arise when using it. Ever since blizzard announced this quiver on the 2.1 ptr I wanted to create a build that revolves around lightning and M6, and after some experimentation, I believe I have found the optimal build for solo play in high grifts, which basically comes down to something I like to call “Meticulous Punishment”.
The build: http://us.battle.net/d3/en/calculator/demon-hunter#RjkVXS!XiUc!aaYZZ
The idea is to keep up hatred regen via Preparation – Punishment and spam shots nearly incessantly. Because the ball lightning is moving slower, it hits the targets more often, thus dealing more damage and generating more procs. Like this, you can use the Helltrapper one-handed crossbow found in Act V bounties, which allows you to offset the loss of Bombadiers Rucksack by spawning up to two more sentries nearly instantaneously upon entering a fight. The second benefit of these procs, and perhaps even more importantly, is the huge amount of discipline that you can regenerate using the Night Stalker passive. This doesn’t work so well on single targets, however on huge packs of 10 or more monsters you’ll basically need just one or two shots in order to refill all of your discipline, which in turn lets you chain smoke screen nearly indefinitely. You will need to tightly manage your resources in order not to run out of hatred or discipline, because otherwise you will most likely be dead at the spot. Aside from the effectiveness of this build, it’s also great fun as well, as you are forced into attacking actively yourself and not rely on sentries entirely. It’s a really engaging play style that offers a most welcome variation to the Demon Hunter class.
The biggest downside to this build is the huge amount of internet traffic and graphical clutter it creates, which oftentimes leads to gigantic lags. With a fully stacked Gogok of Swiftness gem I am sitting at around 42% cooldown reduction, which sometimes still is not enough to ensure a permanent uptime of smoke screen in really intense situations even though you’ll just need 25% theoretically (2.0 sec CD, 1.5 sec duration). This issue becomes even bigger when playing in a party. It’s still good in two player parties for the most part, but after that it becomes worse really quickly, leaving the build basically unusable in four player rifts. Even at night time, we sometimes encountered massive lag spikes of up to 2 minutes, including disconnects and game crashes. The same problem arises even in solo when fighting electrified packs, as they spawn such huge amounts of lightning bolts that basically the whole screen gets covered not only in your but also in their blue light show, and the game stops reacting to anything you do, leading to instant death. It might work a little bit better now that electrified cannot proc as often anymore, but it remains to be seen.
The items:
The two most prominent items of this build: Meticulous Bolts and Helltrapper. Other than that, you will want to use a Lacuni or Steady Strikers, a Witching Hour, Hellfire or Xephirian Amulet as well as the typical M6 + TnT.
My items: http://imgur.com/Xh8HPkg,mWafQ1H#0
My stats: http://imgur.com/Xh8HPkg,mWafQ1H#1
As you can see, I have fairly suboptimal items mostly, and there’s still much room for improvement. Optimally, the weapon would have %dmg, %ias and dex, and the quiver 30% travel speed, %elemental arrow, %crit, %cdr, dex and +max disc. Additionally, I have a really bad Hellfire Amulet, okayish SoJ and a bad RoRG, losing out on ~150% critical hit damage (by dropping crit chance on rings), but I can’t seem to get any better ones. The reason why I recommend a Xephirian Amulet is because of the aforementioned laggy situations, and it could really help you survive on electrified packs, even though I haven’t tried it myself.
All in all, counting in an ~10% increase in dps by a better weapon, ~10-15% increase by a better quiver and another ~10-20% increase in sheet dps by having better stats on items, I see this build going up to 48 solo without pylons in a near-perfect rift like I had one (assuming perfect gameplay and next to no deaths). Add in one or two pylons and the game is on; I’m fairly excited to see where this will end.
The run:
With the advent of leaderboards and me consistently getting top rankings, I naturally got many requests from friends and clan mates to stream them, so a few nights ago I actually rebooted my stream that I once set up when DH in Torment 6 still was really underrepresented. The run was done live on stream und you can watch it there as a highlight. I also streamed my rank 1 two player rift, however at that time I wasn’t aware of the option to save my broadcasts automatically to twitch. It’s saved to my hard drive but I can’t seem to upload it, gladly taking any advice here.
For those of you who are curious: I had 11 keys in total, 4 of which I used until I managed to complete the 45 rift within 15 minutes, which was – to say the least – kind of unexpected for me and made me freak out a little towards the end (especially with Awareness gone on a boss that can oneshot you nearly instantaneously). I got a very very lucky rift, including neverending masses of zombies in an okayish layout (A5 Labyrinth). Some nasty reflect pack early on and a split up pack of blue archers nearly cost me the rift, but I was able to make it past those and actually beat it after encountering Erethon as the rift guardian. Just see for yourself
Enjoy: http://www.twitch.tv/wudijo/c/5173975
Edit: Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=emwZ5zPOW3M
Edit (23/10/2014): Here's a video guide for the Helltrapper lightning build:
Twitch Link: http://www.twitch.tv/wudijo/c/5343481
Youtube Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvaQpc-oIA
TL;DR - Go farm Helltrapper, get a Meticulous Bolts quiver and run lightning asap. It’s fun and op as f*ck. Keep it coming, guys and gals!
- Wudijo
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I'm glad production on this stopped, maybe the fakes will die eventually as well. It will be for the better.
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Actually I managed to beat tier 44 solo (rank 1 on EU again^^) last night using a Kridershot, it seems to be worthwhile and is a lot easier to use compared to the Helltrapper. You can watch the run here: http://www.twitch.tv/wudijo/c/5196566
Supposedly we will see a lot of lightning DHs on the leaderboards very soon, given the fact that I did tier 43 on my first and 44 on my second try. Eventually, I think that Kridershot could actually be better than Helltrapper if you manage to reach the 4.154 bp, but I doubt there will be anyone around who could achieve that, as it requires to have max rolls on ALL of your items basically.
About the Overwhelming Desire: Apparently it seems to have an internal cooldown, and even then it's only a 35% damage boost on a single target, while I can get ~20% via Steady Aim by using Hellfire. And the only situation where there is a single target is the occasional yellow elite and the RG, which can't be charmed I guess.
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Concerning the density issue: Of course I fish for good rifts, but if you actually watch me doing rifts on stream, I'm progressing past 30-50% almost every time before I decide to start a new game. This build is not really reliant on having huge amounts of monsters ALL of the time, you will just need to reach a certain treshold depending on your remaining resources. It doesn't work so well in empty rifts, but as was already mentioned, you can't get a rank in those either.
About Custom Enginneering: Obviously I don't use it as a passive as it is on my Hellfire Amulet, yet it is mandatory, which is why I included it in the skill calculator. I use Steady Aim as my 5th passive in solo, and Ambush in party.
Edit: Yes, reflect packs are really difficult to beat. Usually I just skip those or drag them along until I find more monsters to survive. I decided to kill the yellow pack in the beginning only because I encountered the blues just at the same time, and in hindsight, with a little bit better gameplay, I wouldn't have needed to die several times there. If you discount the time lost there, you can see that even without Erethon a 45 rift like this is very much feasible.
Another thing: I actually feel like I need less RNG on my rifts, as I can basically survive any monster type regardless of how dangerous they are, with only few exceptions. So while a zombie rift is really great to progress quickly, I can still get comparable results in a rift of this density (almost) no matter which monster types I get.