I feel like I have hit the concrete wall now in greater rifts. They had been fun up until this point. I'll explain my situation.
I'm paragon 560 ish M6 Demon hunter. I would consider myself to have above average gear. I'm at work so I can't link my profile or give specific numbers but the fact that I'm even able to get to GR38 should give some presence of what my current gear is at. Also as a point of note I am doing this solo and I am NOT using Unity. I could but I have chosen not too at this time...I just don't agree with its function and it makes me feel like I'm cheating the game even though Blizz has said it's not cheating. I also want to say that I have the 3 legendary gems that are considered a requirement for a demon hunters and they are all at level 38.
My problem is at 37 the mobs are still manageable and I can complete the rift with just enough time to advance to GR38. However the difference between 37 and 38 is night and day. I'm not going to go into complaining too hard but simply I can survive the 1 shotters in 37 and in 38 there is NO surviving.
I have a fundamental problem with this. There is Zero fun getting 1 shot in a game. I play this game as much as I do because I have FUN doing it. I enjoy the challenge of the greater rifts alot. However getting 1 shot is not a challenge, it's absolutely the most frustrating, irritating, unfun, useless, time consuming, black eye, Eff you and btw HAHAHA moments of the game.
I want a challenge when I play the game but I don't want it to where I have no chance. There is no amount of gear at this point (aside maybe from Unity which I explained why i dont like it earlier) that will all of the sudden allow me to progress past 38 with any FUN frequency. Sure there I could get slightly better gear but it would be like getting the exact same gear but with 20 - 30 more dex on it. What I'm saying is not enough of a change to make a huge difference.
Annnnd I'm starting to ramble, so I'll get to the point. I like the greater rift system and the challenge it provides. 1 shotting is not a challenge. Its asinine and a waste of my/our time. The rewards are not great enough to be like ...ok I just died 18 times being 1 shotted and slogged through a half hour greater rift just to have all my gem upgrades fail and to get 3-4 legendaries I don't need.
Definitely keep the system but the challenge provided needs to be changed.
Find a different way to distribute damage.
Provide a reward to make this worth my time
Provide a system that allows me to advance. The concrete wall is NOT FUN
Either way I'm going to keep playing the game because I do have fun outside of greater rifts. However when i log on and think about doing a great rift my first thought should not be...."ohh man do I want to subject myself to this". It should be sweet can't wait to start this run to have fun and progress and more loot.
This is a very well structured and mature QQ. Unfortunately I myself am stuck on Grift 22-24 and cannot provide you with any help but I can sympathize with getting one shot and the leap in differences between 1 levels of rift.
I personally would like a system to upgrade loot where the stats on ur item get closer towards its max
I'm sorry but i stopped reading at "not using unity". If you want to get the maximum out of solo play you must use unity in my opinion. I really don't see how anyone could complain when they are not even fully utilizing what the game has to offer. It's like me not using bombardier's rucksack or something... It's just not viable, period.
I'm sorry but i stopped reading at "not using unity". If you want to get the maximum out of solo play you must use unity in my opinion. I really don't see how anyone could complain when they are not even fully utilizing what the game has to offer. It's like me not using bombardier's rucksack or something... It's just not viable, period.
Hey man I totally understand your point. it's just a personal decision at this time. I intend to give the unity thing a try though just too see if it really makes that huge of a difference. Thanks for your comments.
Unity is an item that disappoints me as well. I can complete greater rift 27 in time, but 28 I'm short by just a few seconds, only because I die 1-2 times. I imagine then that at higher level rifts, dying would happen nearly all the time for me. But then Blizzard comes along and says, "Wait, you can take 50% less damage!" All you need to do is find two Unity rings and a legendary for your follower so they can't die.
I always imagined Unity to be something that a group of players would use, so that four players all using Unity would have a far more even distribution of spiked damage, such that one person standing in the fire is off-loading half of that damage to someone else who isn't. In its current form though, this isn't at all how Unity is used. Instead, Unity is a gimmick that gives a static 50% damage reduction because of another legendary that prevents them from dying.
To put this into perspective, imagine the rune for Call of the Ancients, Together as One, which divides 50% of the damage you take amongst the three ancients. This doesn't work at all in practice, because once you get to levels where that 50% is the difference between you being alive or dead, your ancients are taking so much damage from it that they fall over dead instantly. The only thing stopping your follower from following the same demise is a legendary.
To further put that into perspective, imagine there was another four piece set that, instead of allowing your ancients to stay until they die, it prevented them from dying (while they were out). And with Ring of Royal Grandeur, let's assume you could have both sets active (just as I have both Raekor and IK full set bonuses).
Every Barbarian would be stupid not to run a 50% damage reduction set. It might as well read, "You take 50% less damage from all sources" then, because that's what Unity reads like. And once you reach that wall where you have two options: more damage, or more survivability, the choice is forced on you, because you can't do much damage when you're dead.
I believe this is what OP is getting at Jamoose. It's an artificial barrier. Yes, Greater Rifts aren't supposed to go on forever, but at the same time, putting ONE option into the game that EVERY player has to use to get past a barrier, is poor item implementation and gameplay design. In other words, you can't get an item that increases your damage enough to kill creatures before they kill you, but you can get an item that significantly reduces incoming damage so that you can do the same damage and eventually kill them.
The problem? One of your ring slots isn't interchangeable with anything else, one of your follower's rings is locked in as well, as is their focus/token/relic. What's the point of introducing additional legendary items such as the one that reduces cooldown by 50% of follower skills, if the only people who can use it are those who haven't reached the wall requiring them to use unity+(skeleton key/smoking thurible/enchanting favor)?
They could put out one that says "Your follower dealer 100% more damage" and people would still be stuck using "Your follower cannot die" legendary. At what point does mandatory equipment lose its fun value?
It can certainly be tried and I'm willing to try it. But then which dps leg gem do you give up? The loss of dps with the removal of one will cause you to clear more slowly. You may live longer but if you can't beat the timer what's the point? I'm not certain it's viable...but I haven't tested it yet so I'm only speculating.
so boring and no skilled build, have it myself. dont feel like a DH anymore using my own bow.. more like put sentry, move, put sentry, move... do that 1 million times and repeat. gg"
I don't understand your point. The M6 build is all about sentries. So yes I completed Gr38 using the M6 sentry build. I'm using the tools provided by Blizzard. I'm unaware of another build to use at higher levels as a Demon Hunter.
I'm sorry but i stopped reading at "not using unity". If you want to get the maximum out of solo play you must use unity in my opinion. I really don't see how anyone could complain when they are not even fully utilizing what the game has to offer. It's like me not using bombardier's rucksack or something... It's just not viable, period.
Hey man I totally understand your point. it's just a personal decision at this time. I intend to give the unity thing a try though just too see if it really makes that huge of a difference. Thanks for your comments.
50% less dmg, I'm going to go out on a limb and say you'll notice a 'huge difference'
1) You're hitting a brick wall because your gear is not good enough. If you further improve your gear you might not be a "one-shot" anymore. But then, you might get to the next level at which you're a one-shot again... just saying that the brick wall is movable, not fixed (otherwise no one would be able to get past 38 which obviously is not the case).
2) I can't believe we're having this Unity discussion again. It's fine if you're not using Unity; I'm not using Unity either on some of my characters. Not because I don't need it, but because I decide to go full damage and if I die, shit happens. Getting a higher ranking in GRs is 90% RNG in getting a good rift anyways, and a bad mob pack can kill me with or without Unity, so why bother. Just my opinion. But I play only solo 2% of the time (when I need to upgrade gems up to 25-30) - enjoy group play much much more. But saying "I think Unity is cheating" is like saying "putting down sentries feels like cheating". You're not necessarily shooting yourself, yet killing mobs... could be considered cheating just like Unity.
3) Unity is as much required as is M6 as is Bombardier's as is RoRG... and so on. Of course it's not. There are people running without RoRG (full M6). There are people running without Unity (full damage, because at 40+ you're one-hit with or without Unity, so doesn't make a difference). If we complain about Unity being a "required item" we might also complain about all the other items that are required... which are all items except for weapons, which (for DHs) seems to be the only slot where you have a real choice. Itemization isn't perfect, but it'll never be if you want to have 5 entirely different ways of gearing. Just not possible in the very endgame.
Yes, I'm aware that probably means that 82% are running in groups. Nevertheless, there's nothing wrong with that aspect of the game, especially considering how common Unity is.
Everyone hits a brick wall at some point, it's just in the nature of the game. If you want to play "at the top" you need to perfect your gear and live with the fact that things get super difficult. You could easily swap some more gear to defensive to sacrifice DPS, you wouldn't be one-hit anymore... but it'd mean you can't get as high. There's absolutely NOTHING game designers can do to prevent this. Even if they reduce damage dealt to something like 10% people will go even more glass canon and run with zero HP just to squeeze out more DPS - until they're a "one-shot" again. You can't balance this unless you introduce a "lower cap" for required survivability stats, like, the game would force you to have at least 10m toughness. And then it'd be the same thing as Unity - you're "required" to do a certain thing. If you're a one-hit on level 38 it's your gearing choice - and it's your choice because if you get lucky it works. If you don't like it, change it (and live with the consequences).
There will always be a wall. Yes you can push past it, but it's going to take you time, gem upgrade grinding, perfecting gear, paragon points, honing your skills, and a bit of luck. Deal with it. Most players can't do G38.
the whole GR concept is compeletly wrong , to tell you the truth. blizzard made huge mistakes and now it is almost impossible to fix. it is likewhen people spot an iceberg,blizz will remove the tip of it and make sure people do not see it anymore.
the whole GR concept is compeletly wrong , to tell you the truth. blizzard made huge mistakes and now it is almost impossible to fix. it is likewhen people spot an iceberg,blizz will remove the tip of it and make sure people do not see it anymore.
I think the GR concept is amazing, as it gives people something to strive for. We'll be occupied for quite some time to "get to the next level", which is much better as just to "improve our speed on T6 runs" pre-2.1. I'm happy that there's a game mode which is *not* completely beaten yet but offers a real challenge. And the best thing is... you don't need it. Unless you're playing 24/7 you don't need legendary gems of level 50+, it's fine if you only get to, let's say, level 35+ and run T6 or ubers or whatever, just as good for improving your gear. But for those who're steamrolling T6 and have all the gear that one can get, GR45+ are a real challenge.
The only thing about GRs that's "broken" right now is the RNG, the density disparity is a bit too large. I'd rather have a bit less RNG involved in getting a good GR. That being said, it'll never be perfectly balanced, and it's good that way; otherwise you'd be worn out after ~5 GRs as you know exactly where your limits are. The way GRs work right now it's okay because every next GR could have the insane density or easy mobs that allows us to beat even higher levels and get higher gem upgrades (and place higher on the leaderboards, which is only secondary to me though).
If you think using a skill of the class that was put in the game by the developers some how means the player is not skilled or doesn't actually do damage themselves you are retarded. Then again you retards said the same type of shit before 2.1 when it came to WD.
@OP: I consider unity cheese and don't use it as much as can be helped but you are going to get to a point where you just need to. So you already know what your wall is. Either live with it, use it or get a team together to go higher. Ignore the whiny forum bitches that are stuck at GR 28. They obviously suck at the game.
I'm sorry but i stopped reading at "not using unity". If you want to get the maximum out of solo play you must use unity in my opinion. I really don't see how anyone could complain when they are not even fully utilizing what the game has to offer. It's like me not using bombardier's rucksack or something... It's just not viable, period.
I didn't stop reading at that point, but I definitely started skimming. If someone is opposed to using an intended and legitimate strategy like double-unity, then they're clearly not interested in competing on the leaderboards. You don't have to use exploits to be competitive, but you definitely do have to use every legitimate advantage you can get.
This "personal decision" is one of the things holding you back, OP. You will never have a chance of competing if you continue to hold yourself back. Good luck!
I'm sorry but i stopped reading at "not using unity". If you want to get the maximum out of solo play you must use unity in my opinion. I really don't see how anyone could complain when they are not even fully utilizing what the game has to offer. It's like me not using bombardier's rucksack or something... It's just not viable, period.
I didn't stop reading at that point, but I definitely started skimming. If someone is opposed to using an intended and legitimate strategy like double-unity, then they're clearly not interested in competing on the leaderboards. You don't have to use exploits to be competitive, but you definitely do have to use every legitimate advantage you can get.
This "personal decision" is one of the things holding you back, OP. You will never have a chance of competing if you continue to hold yourself back. Good luck!
I get what you are saying. Just to let you know I'm not personally interested on competing on the leader boards, It personally does nothing for me. I would however like an avenue to keep progressing. I don't want EZ mode, I just want to know that I'm not banging my head against a wall. I'm also not saying there is no room for improvement in my gear or play style but I personally believe that I have obtained gear that should allow me too keep progressing. Maybe that's a misconception on my part...but why put a system in place that allows for progress but puts such a hard stop in that you can't get there. Again it's just frustrating. Maybe with a few tweaks to my gear and play style , adding the unity thing in, I could get to gr 40+ but where do you go from there?
I want to be able to play and feel like I'm continually making progress.
I agree with the op, the first tick of ts or frozen only takes half my hp on 37, but on 38 its like 90%.
It looks like unity is the only way to go at 38+ due to unavoidable mechanics. Unity has always been for baddies, its a shame we have to use it in gr's solo.
Even if you get past 38, around GR40 you'll need unity plus ~12 mill toughness or Cameo amulet to not get one-shot by jailer. As to rift progression, it is definitely RNG dependent and often a zombie rift + a conduit pylon have more to do with getting the next level rift complete than anything else.
getting one shot is not fun at all ,mobs damage is scaled too high on certain level ,some elite affixs are too powerful such as jailer which instantly reduce your hitpoints to 5% with unity combo+ high toughness + staggering gem on higher tier( 40 to be exact), so how do people manage to progress soloing ? well ,go 4 men team with a monk( you know what i mean).
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I'm paragon 560 ish M6 Demon hunter. I would consider myself to have above average gear. I'm at work so I can't link my profile or give specific numbers but the fact that I'm even able to get to GR38 should give some presence of what my current gear is at. Also as a point of note I am doing this solo and I am NOT using Unity. I could but I have chosen not too at this time...I just don't agree with its function and it makes me feel like I'm cheating the game even though Blizz has said it's not cheating. I also want to say that I have the 3 legendary gems that are considered a requirement for a demon hunters and they are all at level 38.
My problem is at 37 the mobs are still manageable and I can complete the rift with just enough time to advance to GR38. However the difference between 37 and 38 is night and day. I'm not going to go into complaining too hard but simply I can survive the 1 shotters in 37 and in 38 there is NO surviving.
I have a fundamental problem with this. There is Zero fun getting 1 shot in a game. I play this game as much as I do because I have FUN doing it. I enjoy the challenge of the greater rifts alot. However getting 1 shot is not a challenge, it's absolutely the most frustrating, irritating, unfun, useless, time consuming, black eye, Eff you and btw HAHAHA moments of the game.
I want a challenge when I play the game but I don't want it to where I have no chance. There is no amount of gear at this point (aside maybe from Unity which I explained why i dont like it earlier) that will all of the sudden allow me to progress past 38 with any FUN frequency. Sure there I could get slightly better gear but it would be like getting the exact same gear but with 20 - 30 more dex on it. What I'm saying is not enough of a change to make a huge difference.
Annnnd I'm starting to ramble, so I'll get to the point. I like the greater rift system and the challenge it provides. 1 shotting is not a challenge. Its asinine and a waste of my/our time. The rewards are not great enough to be like ...ok I just died 18 times being 1 shotted and slogged through a half hour greater rift just to have all my gem upgrades fail and to get 3-4 legendaries I don't need.
Definitely keep the system but the challenge provided needs to be changed.
Find a different way to distribute damage.
Provide a reward to make this worth my time
Provide a system that allows me to advance. The concrete wall is NOT FUN
Either way I'm going to keep playing the game because I do have fun outside of greater rifts. However when i log on and think about doing a great rift my first thought should not be...."ohh man do I want to subject myself to this". It should be sweet can't wait to start this run to have fun and progress and more loot.
Thanks for reading.
I personally would like a system to upgrade loot where the stats on ur item get closer towards its max
I dont see why its cheating to combine certain items to get an advantage that is working as intended.
Man, your using the most op set in the game. Why is that ok but double unity + relic is cheating?
Seems like cheating to roll through a grift without really doing damage yourself
I always imagined Unity to be something that a group of players would use, so that four players all using Unity would have a far more even distribution of spiked damage, such that one person standing in the fire is off-loading half of that damage to someone else who isn't. In its current form though, this isn't at all how Unity is used. Instead, Unity is a gimmick that gives a static 50% damage reduction because of another legendary that prevents them from dying.
To put this into perspective, imagine the rune for Call of the Ancients, Together as One, which divides 50% of the damage you take amongst the three ancients. This doesn't work at all in practice, because once you get to levels where that 50% is the difference between you being alive or dead, your ancients are taking so much damage from it that they fall over dead instantly. The only thing stopping your follower from following the same demise is a legendary.
To further put that into perspective, imagine there was another four piece set that, instead of allowing your ancients to stay until they die, it prevented them from dying (while they were out). And with Ring of Royal Grandeur, let's assume you could have both sets active (just as I have both Raekor and IK full set bonuses).
Every Barbarian would be stupid not to run a 50% damage reduction set. It might as well read, "You take 50% less damage from all sources" then, because that's what Unity reads like. And once you reach that wall where you have two options: more damage, or more survivability, the choice is forced on you, because you can't do much damage when you're dead.
I believe this is what OP is getting at Jamoose. It's an artificial barrier. Yes, Greater Rifts aren't supposed to go on forever, but at the same time, putting ONE option into the game that EVERY player has to use to get past a barrier, is poor item implementation and gameplay design. In other words, you can't get an item that increases your damage enough to kill creatures before they kill you, but you can get an item that significantly reduces incoming damage so that you can do the same damage and eventually kill them.
The problem? One of your ring slots isn't interchangeable with anything else, one of your follower's rings is locked in as well, as is their focus/token/relic. What's the point of introducing additional legendary items such as the one that reduces cooldown by 50% of follower skills, if the only people who can use it are those who haven't reached the wall requiring them to use unity+(skeleton key/smoking thurible/enchanting favor)?
They could put out one that says "Your follower dealer 100% more damage" and people would still be stuck using "Your follower cannot die" legendary. At what point does mandatory equipment lose its fun value?
"Did you manage 37 or was it your sentries?
so boring and no skilled build, have it myself. dont feel like a DH anymore using my own bow.. more like put sentry, move, put sentry, move... do that 1 million times and repeat. gg"
I don't understand your point. The M6 build is all about sentries. So yes I completed Gr38 using the M6 sentry build. I'm using the tools provided by Blizzard. I'm unaware of another build to use at higher levels as a Demon Hunter.
2) I can't believe we're having this Unity discussion again. It's fine if you're not using Unity; I'm not using Unity either on some of my characters. Not because I don't need it, but because I decide to go full damage and if I die, shit happens. Getting a higher ranking in GRs is 90% RNG in getting a good rift anyways, and a bad mob pack can kill me with or without Unity, so why bother. Just my opinion. But I play only solo 2% of the time (when I need to upgrade gems up to 25-30) - enjoy group play much much more. But saying "I think Unity is cheating" is like saying "putting down sentries feels like cheating". You're not necessarily shooting yourself, yet killing mobs... could be considered cheating just like Unity.
3) Unity is as much required as is M6 as is Bombardier's as is RoRG... and so on. Of course it's not. There are people running without RoRG (full M6). There are people running without Unity (full damage, because at 40+ you're one-hit with or without Unity, so doesn't make a difference). If we complain about Unity being a "required item" we might also complain about all the other items that are required... which are all items except for weapons, which (for DHs) seems to be the only slot where you have a real choice. Itemization isn't perfect, but it'll never be if you want to have 5 entirely different ways of gearing. Just not possible in the very endgame.
Last but not least, 18% of the top 25% SC DHs use Unity: http://diablo.somepage.com/popular/items/demon-hunter#armor
Yes, I'm aware that probably means that 82% are running in groups. Nevertheless, there's nothing wrong with that aspect of the game, especially considering how common Unity is.
Everyone hits a brick wall at some point, it's just in the nature of the game. If you want to play "at the top" you need to perfect your gear and live with the fact that things get super difficult. You could easily swap some more gear to defensive to sacrifice DPS, you wouldn't be one-hit anymore... but it'd mean you can't get as high. There's absolutely NOTHING game designers can do to prevent this. Even if they reduce damage dealt to something like 10% people will go even more glass canon and run with zero HP just to squeeze out more DPS - until they're a "one-shot" again. You can't balance this unless you introduce a "lower cap" for required survivability stats, like, the game would force you to have at least 10m toughness. And then it'd be the same thing as Unity - you're "required" to do a certain thing. If you're a one-hit on level 38 it's your gearing choice - and it's your choice because if you get lucky it works. If you don't like it, change it (and live with the consequences).
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The only thing about GRs that's "broken" right now is the RNG, the density disparity is a bit too large. I'd rather have a bit less RNG involved in getting a good GR. That being said, it'll never be perfectly balanced, and it's good that way; otherwise you'd be worn out after ~5 GRs as you know exactly where your limits are. The way GRs work right now it's okay because every next GR could have the insane density or easy mobs that allows us to beat even higher levels and get higher gem upgrades (and place higher on the leaderboards, which is only secondary to me though).
@OP: I consider unity cheese and don't use it as much as can be helped but you are going to get to a point where you just need to. So you already know what your wall is. Either live with it, use it or get a team together to go higher. Ignore the whiny forum bitches that are stuck at GR 28. They obviously suck at the game.
This "personal decision" is one of the things holding you back, OP. You will never have a chance of competing if you continue to hold yourself back. Good luck!
I want to be able to play and feel like I'm continually making progress.
It looks like unity is the only way to go at 38+ due to unavoidable mechanics. Unity has always been for baddies, its a shame we have to use it in gr's solo.
D3Progress: http://www.diabloprogress.com/hero/emberos-1608/Emberos/51824579