One-week "Resistance Penalty Testing" Hardcore Ladder Race

molten shell looks like its been buffed and orb drop rates tweaked (lowered), thoughts/discussion?

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bingobill wrote:

molten shell looks like its been buffed and orb drop rates tweaked (lowered), thoughts/discussion?

I've found more alch's earlier than last time, but less others. Seems about the same, just rng variance.

Ok, so we need a race reporter to keep us posted on the race status so I have something to read while at work :P

I'm also not seeing any feedback on the res penalties and I know some of you are in ruthless/merci by now. How is it?

I wasn't really paying much attention to the ladder last night, so the only notable death I'm seeing this morning is that it looks like DDT died. I believe he was at least 40+ and in ruthless when I logged off. What happened man? :(

I'm trying a super survivability build with my ranger and so far it is definitely not paying off. My survivability atm seems very good, but I just have no damage. The recent changes to poison arrow means that I am constantly out of mana even with 3 mana flasks and without it I have no damage at all.

Currently in cruel act 2 (and I pretty much got carried this far) and all of my resists are negative. I probably could have killed cruel merveil solo, but at only ~42 cold resist (15% passive from skills) it would have taken a long time. I'm only expecting to pick up another 15% from skills, so merviel at ruthless and merciless will be interesting.

I try to do these HC races but I just can't survive long enough to do anything in these.

Old guy=Default league only.

Died at lvl 42 in Ruthless act 2, 16th place >.<
Was a good experience though, the resist penalties are a really good idea in my opinion. Despite helping kraitlyn twice and going for diamond skin as a duelist, I still couldn't get 75/75/75. Resist flasks were really nice as well, I was forced to use a topaz on Cruel Chamber of Sins lv3.

My Duelist build when I died:



I don't think I really had a choice but to stretch all the way to the marauder's start, Diamond Skin and the passives around it felt like a must. Otherwise I'd be dipping in the negatives for Ruthless and Merciless!

Oh well, after I take a break and get over it, I'll be back to try again! Good luck to everyone else!

Not even close to merciless yet but I guess I can post something already about those penalties. I wrote this as a part of response in another thread so don't hate me for ctrl+v please.

It doesn't seem like it made me make any more meaningful decisions about gear. It just limited viable gear to those pieces that have some good resists. It has a similar effect that IIQ had. I think they should remove resists from certain pieces of gear completely or adjust the resist on gear somehow (not spawning two resist mods on one piece for example). The penalty is apparently interesting for some people but not really a solution to the problem. Also storing gear with certain resists and switching it for specific areas is not fun. The concept is not necessarily bad but it is bad with current storage system in poe. Inventory is too small for this and I'll rather not finish the thought about stash tabs.

I also remember this rare squid witch in cruel ship graveyard that surprised me with her 'ice nova' and took over half of my hp in one blow. Negative resists or something, it was so bad (but fun, of course, because I survived).

New -res change a LOT of choices in gear.

Getting max resist (75/80) is pretty hard now, and I find myself using 2 sets of rings on me at all times to fight elites.

Also took 2 extra nodes of resists. Normally I run around with 75 res all pretty easy, this time it seems a lot harder and only in ruthless.

Gear choice is more of a matter of getting items with 2+ resist types now not just looking for HP.

I used to run with coral rings, now I MUST have a 2+ type resist ring on BOTH slots, to keep from getting killed.

With the new focus on resist, I notice also that my HP has taken a slight hit, due to getting a few less %HP nodes.

I'm even considering not helping Oak everytime now.

P.S.
Died due to lack of HP/Fire Resist in Western Forest about 15 hours ago. Im back in that area now, and you can bet your ass I have 75 fire resist =P

I predicted that templar wouldn't have much issue with this and I was right. Getting the temp and mara resists were easy and I'm holding strong at 60 AR in merci, I can switch out rings to get 81 when needed.

I like this change but it seems some classes will need major reworkings because of it. I was easily questing and I saw some of the non-mara/witch were leveling because they couldn't get resists to go into the pyramid in ruthless. I on the otherhand was able to do it at 47 (and if I wasn't such a nervous nelly I could have done it at 45, with 81/70/81)

So I think weaker classes like duelist and shadow are really going to struggle with this change.

But when properly balanced I like this penalty alot. It makes me think more about my gear beyond having life and the right sockets. I had 2 sets of rings that I switched stage to stage throughout cruel/ruthless. I think it leads towards better strategy but can be counteracted by overleveling/mfing.

See you in heaven - Shuuna died at level 53. Time for a resume:

Shuuna died to three reasons: A non-standard build which is difficult to handle, not-optimal gear (typical in a race) and a moment of inattention. I created a totem just a little to far in front of me in the Ship Graveyard's Cave. It lured about about a dozen cursed mariners (who were hiding behind a corner) into the fight - a little too much to handle. Since I wasn't lucky enough to acquire a granite potion so far, I had no chance to escape.

In my opinion, the penalties are working well. Resistances are now an issue, and there are enough possibilities to get them. I started in Merciless with something around 50%/30%/50% and was still able to acquire more easily with further gear improvement (and I didn't side with Kraitlyn). I didn't spent much time on killing for gear improvement either. My advice for the final version with only three difficulties is 0/-40%/-80%.

Good luck to you all!

RIP Shuuna !
The resistance penalty is challenging and all, but DDT is right about gear pretty much requiring multiple resists now. I was looking at a piece of gear, that would have been decent without the league penalty, and I thought to myself "No resists? It's crap!"
Do I hear an echo in here? (item quantity modifiers, diablo 3 resists situation... . . . . . . .)

edit: For an example of how this is changing gameplay, I have like 6 different resist rings and a couple different pieces of gear in my inventory at all times to switch in. It is unnervingly similar to keeping an MF set to switch in, except that you will die if you don't do the clicking. Playing a duelist finishing a2 ruthless (if I can lol)

edit2: No buyback from the vendor really sucks as well. I've accidentally sold multiple pieces of said inventory resist gear swap :3

3: Diamond Skin = world of difference. Classes that don't have this giant cluster of resist nodes and a +15 res all node directly beside their start are at a massive disadvantage early game. This was expected, but I'm trying to do this event without going marauder. I took both +15 light res nodes for ruthless vaal and then did one of the respec quests to drop them once he was dead. Down to 3 rings in inventory...I don't see the resistance penalties having much of an impact on the endgame, besides not having as much hp from gear/spec choices to get there. With stashed gear, I don't think many sacrifices would have to be made at all actually, pretty surprised by how quick you can stack resists tbh. I don't think this needs to be said by now, but the other side of the skill tree needs something like diamond skin. Tree seems very imbalanced as is in regards to resistance nodes.
Oh wow, only 3 of top 10 are marauders now...I guess we'll see what happens ;D