(Nov 14) One-week Turbo Hardcore Race

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Rahabs wrote:

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Vondum wrote:

Witch seems to struggle early. It still leads the death count at 262 deaths, but only 19 of these characters were over level 20.

As someone who's donated about a dozen witches to this number, let me say, spot on observation. I don't play HC, so i'd say about 1/2 of those were derp losses due to my impatience, another three I vividly recall were from server lag/dysnc, and I had three seriously ass kickings which I can only attribute to straight out getting owned. The irony is none of them were to bosses.

My three serious deaths where all in situations where i was quite frankly out gunned / burned down by an assortment of rare mobs which just over whelmed me.

You are 100% correct that witches are a pain when starting out. After said dozen attempts, I've had two that passed lvl 20. At this point my greatest challenge is grinding through the starting zones again, as the tediousness of it leads to the aforementioned impatience, and therefore more stupid deaths.

The biggest challenge to witches in HC turbo that I've seen is the lack of a dependable primary attack early on. Yes we have some good quest skills, but each has a severe limitation, which turbo seems to exploit. Archers out ranging frost wave, swarms blowing through spark, or everything side stepping fireball just puts a spot light on how squishy witches really are early on.

Overall, I'm loving turbo mode though. I tried playing normal after getting frustrated and giving up on the event, and I just can't do it. Turbo just has that added edge that makes it a lot more fun imo.

As top witch in one of the recent 3 hour turbo races, I'd like to comment on this. I believe the issue comes down to no off stat access in a functional point early in the tree. ES is completely useless early, more noticable in turbo. It provides no mitigation, and does not regen quick enough to matter. Once its gone, its gone, unless you run around like an idiot until it recharges, but thats not a practical solution in a race.

Therefore, A witch needs to wear other equipment, but does not have the stat points to do it. To get the stat points, it requires sacrificing the belt slot and/or an ammy slot, which don't come into play until about level 8. The belt slot hurts, giving up life just to wear something useful armor wise. It makes it survivable to just before merv, which point my preferred rush build hits the passive stat nodes. Its doable, but makes for some interesting times (brutus & shipwreck rhoas). This is the one issue that annoys me most about the new skill tree. The off stat point nodes are too far away on the primary classes, but its worse for the witch because es is so far behind armor/evasion early game. Taking the side path for the 2 +10 stat points is unacceptable, as you get ammy/belt around that point anyway. Of course, this all presumes a supply of scrolls to buy stuff that doesnt drop, not to mention cold resist rings/flasks if necessary. Overall its very thin on equipping the witch.

The other issue is life. Witch is already hurting from the lack of strength, and giving up a key item slot to meet stat requirements. Its pretty bad having no useful early game armor, and having the lowest life. The best thing GGG did for the hybrid classes was plant the life nodes right in the middle of the 2 paths, so either can grab them. The witch, not so much. The nodes of the left require too many dead points to get to. The ones on the right are kinda buried, and getting those limit the options.

Heres the tree I use for races, taking the :


Spells: The problem I have with the spells is: cast rate. The current group of cast rates is a pain in the ass and makes bosses a bit annoying combined with the weak character and turbo.
Both, spark and freezing pulse, low level fast cast spells are short range. Everything else is .85sec to 1 sec to cast. Trying to fight brutus up close doesn't work, but there is not really enough time to shoot and dodge using a .85sec cast skill or constantly waiting to unfreeze against merv. I usually end up stacking 2x fire trap skills for bosses (thanks to trying to rush hillock in races), but its slow, but one of the few options that can dot without getting hit. The AoE options are quite nice though. Freezing pulse + fire traps are a very nice combination for dealing with the masses. Maybe I'll find a better off skill to carry for killing bosses at some point? Attacks get nice single target kill skills (heavy strike) while having good aoe.

Overall, in turbo, I think the witch is definitely playable due to the good aoe options required for xp farming, but it it requires quite a bit of muddling to get through the bosses due to lack of good option for killing a boss. No matter what I do it feels like 1 element of a build is lacking to actually compete for 1st. Whenever I compensate for something, it opens up a new hole in the build.

I think turbo puts the HARD in hardcore. I had fun, though after my third char died in rather quick succession on day 3 I decided I just didn't have the twitch, time or gear to get my duelist through - so I can't comment on the late-game wall of numbers issues.

I agree in general with the posts about normal mobs not being much more of a challenge. (With the exception of the exploding spawn mobs, which killed my first char). Brutus was a REALLY hair-raising experience. I couldn't see the red in my health globe and had emptied my flasks when he died. (Thanks to indczn for the tip about using Fire Trap for DoT). Probably (definitely) there are builds that can take him easier.

But going back to the normal-speed leagues felt a bit like being Neo in the Matrix for the regular mobs.

2 suggestions from my experience :

1. Consider making normal mobs at least move a little faster (20-30%?).

2. Make a permanent turbo, hardcore league.

It was fun doing the turbo race, I too died to Ruthless Vaal, being a hybrid HP/ES shadow, which just wasn't viable. I was trying to acquire ES gear so I could make the transition to CI but I just never found any pieces (did not have the materials to craft and change sockets, etc), and I did not use trade, which 95% of the time I never use in general making the game much harder.

My life pool + Energy Shield was a joke and so it was expected when the falling rocks took me to 1% hp and one ranged mob hit me to finish me off before I could even react. There are some instances when Turbo seems really fast and hard and other instances it is no different to normal. Brutus is a crazy fight if you don't have much life/armour, which I never had.

Turbo is more RNG oriented, which can be a bit of a problem. Because RNG is a factor you want to keep at a minimal, and in this mode it is increased. After I died to Ruth Vaal in solo. In instances I played in a group with friends, and it became very clear how much easier party play really is in turbo, and in all fairness, in other leagues as well. If I really wanted the best chance to survive I could of just played the race in a party and the chances of surviving would of been much higher.

I think that party play makes this game significantly easier, I know that if I partied most of the time I would likely never die, it is just too easy to have dangerous situations mitigated by party members. This also applies to races and standard play.

Not only is the game easier in a party, bosses practically become a non issue whilst grouped, and it just becomes too much of a bonus being in a party. Bosses difficulty should be increased whilst partying. It is the reason why too many players just group up in a party because they get the bonus experience the bonus loot AND the risk is far less than playing solo. It is so easy to be carried and get high level being in a half decent group.

I do enjoy playing in a party and when playing with RL friends/family it is alot of fun, but it seems slightly harsh for solo players that the bonus you get whilst partying is just too good.

Another issue is the use of portals within a party, again it is just too easy to be able to run through a portal non stop without the hassle of making new ones. Portals should have a cooldown before being able re-enter, this would fix many situations where portals are abused to an extent.

In regards to the race being a permanent league, I think it would make the standard HC league dead and tbh there are still too many RNG issues in turbo which can be slightly annoying, not only this, balancing the game around an extra mode makes it even more difficult.

But I do think having 1-2 week turbo events would be awesome because, it a lot of fun to play. Making it a permanent league will cause too many problems and also having enjoyable events to look forward to is a great thing to have in the game.

I think the current top 10 illustrates the importance of double totem near the Templar zone
It's not because Totem and Templar starts with T that they have to be together
Like Conduit, the keystone should be near the center, but spell totem could use modifications
I don't think it's right for it to have the ability to summon, combine it with skeletons and it's total immunity to dmg in 99% of any situations, granite being here for the other 1% (and rocks from vaal are here to kill if you don't like rng)

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Pam wrote:

I think the current top 10 illustrates the importance of double totem near the Templar zone
It's not because Totem and Templar starts with T that they have to be together
Like Conduit, the keystone should be near the center, but spell totem could use modifications
I don't think it's right for it to have the ability to summon, combine it with skeletons and it's total immunity to dmg in 99% of any situations, granite being here for the other 1% (and rocks from vaal are here to kill if you don't like rng)

Completely agree, but its not just the ability to summon. Double totem makes some of the hardest "turbo" bosses a joke, notably brutus and vaal.

I ran a few other builds before switching to arc totems (any other spell would work too).
For brutus, stand behind a wall, spam totem in front of brutus, while remaining completely safe. Oversoul acts like an idiot when totem are around, while the totems and whatever spell dispatches minions and only avoiding being targetted occasionally. Maybe give his BIG laser chain?

Running double totem is far far easier than any other character i played and died in the 30-40 range. Only at level 43, but almost done with ruthless.

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indczn wrote:

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Pam wrote:

I think the current top 10 illustrates the importance of double totem near the Templar zone
It's not because Totem and Templar starts with T that they have to be together
Like Conduit, the keystone should be near the center, but spell totem could use modifications
I don't think it's right for it to have the ability to summon, combine it with skeletons and it's total immunity to dmg in 99% of any situations, granite being here for the other 1% (and rocks from vaal are here to kill if you don't like rng)

Completely agree, but its not just the ability to summon. Double totem makes some of the hardest "turbo" bosses a joke, notably brutus and vaal.

I ran a few other builds before switching to arc totems (any other spell would work too).
For brutus, stand behind a wall, spam totem in front of brutus, while remaining completely safe. Oversoul acts like an idiot when totem are around, while the totems and whatever spell dispatches minions and only avoiding being targetted occasionally. Maybe give his BIG laser chain?

Running double totem is far far easier than any other character i played and died in the 30-40 range. Only at level 43, but almost done with ruthless.

True, this is a serious issue with heavy totem/summoner builds atm, their ability to just sit back in a fight and have zero risk during an encounter is something that becomes an issue in terms of game balance.

Whenever you play/party with a heavy totem/summoner, you realise how they don't have to even do anything during a fight other than pop a totem(s) every 10-20 secs, and that is ALL some have to do, even in very hard encounters it becomes almost impossible for them to die because there is no risk, they do not need positional requirements or even fast reactions.

I know people have been complaining about summoner/totem builds for awhile, but some of the reasons are very valid, and if you have played one yourself you would also know how much easier it feels compared to many many other builds. It feels like there really is little to no risk.

So my turbo race ended a few days back when my lvl 52 bow marauder died to a ruthless oversoul. Played in a group with a couple of other people but since we all progressed at a different rate I decided to solo Vaal...bit of a mistake but what is done is done.

The race overall was fun! Not much different to normal HC, other than the fact that Vaal is a real pain to kill, no matter the difficulty. Merveil was not much hassle at all...as long as you had the cold res maxed, which I did in all cases. Brutus was another one that hit real hard..but as a ranged character it is a lot easier to dodge him.

I've linked my build. I picked up mostly defensive nodes in order to survive for as long as possible and relied on gear for the damage, which was mostly scarce. Went through the race mostly with blue bows. Got lucky in the end when I was given a rare bow. As for ablities I was using mostly Poison Arrow for area effect dmg with Lesser Multiple Proj, Increased Duration and Reduced Mana support gem and Burning Arrow for single targets, along with running Anger for extra dmg, using Projectile Weakness and Decoy Totem.



I would not mind tryin out this build again but going Blood Magic cause mana does become an issue and could not really afford to put any points into mana nodes.

Here's my items at the time of death.


Thanks for reading! Would love to hear comments about the passive tree. Has anyone attempted a bow marauder before and what did you do differently, or what would you do differently?

:)

Looks like Mouze beat Hilbert by just one mob. Congrats to everyone that hit 60.