Ranger - [outdated] Caustic Arrow Solo Map MFer (20/300+) - Forum

Pretty much everything between my last 2 posts didn't show up until after I posted... My 2c: I'll try and do all I can, but if I don't do some of the last 4 grinds myself they look super-expensive to buy a bunch... but as Serleth said... at 36/40, the only MTX you are missing is the totem topper... Having missed Prophesy and Essense leagues, this leagues challenges do look more time consuming than the hard Perandus ones... but I finished the Perandus ones in 6 weeks and pretty much quit the game and didn't return for 7 months... I think no matter how easy or hard the challenges are there will always be troublesome ones... at least the challenges are veering towards grinds instead of terrible RNG... Back in Perandus, the problems were waiting for all the Labyrinth elements to show up for completions and getting all 10 types of enchants with totem/minion/aura taking some people days of grinding... at least 10k tiers you can feel the progress... same with the others... its not 100hrs of wasted time for 1 lucky hour to give you your last 3 enchants all of a sudden	Posted by Piros#7740 on Dec 20, 2016, 7:20:18 AM Quote this Post
As an aside, I came up with a tree designed specifically to make Chayula breaches easier. This is a level 93/94 ish setup. It's reworked pretty much to get Purity of Flesh and Atrophy to add 28% chaos res. Coincidentally, it adds 1% extra life and 41% increased damage than the current tree I run, while still retaining 6 jewel sockets, but it sacrifices a helluva lot of accessibility to res balancing options and would be an absolute bastard to level, as you'd pick up almost nothing useful damage-wise until Act 3. This tree drops Soul Siphon out of sheer necessity, and loses a Frenzy charge, which offsets the base increase in dps at least somewhat but not too significantly, and also eats some life regen but still manages to get 3.2%. It also opens up the door to grab AoE nodes. EDIT: Okay so I realized I was looking at a tree for an older MFer of mine which has not done Uber lab The actual comparison is this * Guide tree gets 152% life, 7 jewel sockets, 390% damage, 3 charges off tree. * Chayula-fighter tree gets 163% life, 6 jewel sockets, 415% damage, 2 charges off the tree, and takes three more points In other words, those three points equalize the Chayula tree to 153% life and 400% damage while losing both a jewel and a frenzy charge. So, it's worse. Flat out. Granted, not by much, but missing that jewel socket alone on the Chayula tree loses any combination of 5-7% life, 10-12% damage, resistance rolls, etc. In other words, the guide tree would match an equalized Chayula tree for increased damage modifiers, beat it by a minimum 4% life (accounting for an appropriate jewel), and still retain the last frenzy charge. Don't derp with trees at ungodly hours. That's the lesson here. ANYWAY, point being if you did want to specifically rework the build to make running into Chayula breaches an easier fight, you can do it, at the cost of mostly a bit of dps. Just as effective, and easier, to keep a Breach ring on swap. Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018. Last edited by Serleth#4392 on Dec 20, 2016, 2:41:34 PM	Posted by Serleth#4392 on Dec 20, 2016, 7:34:35 AM Quote this Post
" Piros wrote: Reading this I started thinking... why not just pick up 2 breach rings with 34-35% chaos resistance and swap them in before you do any breach hands? Part lazy, part I had not looked into it. Also the Gold ring I am running is 70 Life and 26 Chaos res. I am fine with running it over an Andy at the moment. Besides getting Chaos to 0% or as close as I can (That is where Chaos damage is balanced) is good enough for me in normal mapping. " do the Breachlord map zones count as Breach all the time? Yes they do. Also this is where I would want the Breach rings when I get ready to run the Chayula Zone. However given the damage output of that boss, I don't think I am going to try on the MF character. I'm not sure where I fall on the 40 challenges this league. I will try for them as best I can, but I don't have a dedicated mapping group, so there will need to be a lot of time spent, or maps bought. It will be what ever I can find/buy on my own, or what my friends are working on that I can leech/split costs. I'm more bothered by the rare RNG challenges (Vaal only jewels, Chayula in temporary breach, Unique Strong box, Coffers) than I am the grinds. The obvious can be bought (frags, maps, cards) and time sinks for some reason bother me less. (Yes I know the strong box and coffers can be purchased, but they are not a 'tangible' good and there is more a chance for dishonesty, so I am more weary as a result. I've not had any bad experiences myself, but healthy skepticism on Wraeclast might be a good thing.) Edit - Ninja'd by Zombie Serleth. I think you should go to bed.	Posted by ChronoExile#0033 on Dec 20, 2016, 7:44:36 AM Quote this Post
RE 40/40 Breach Discussion Spoiler Ah... I didn't know that the devs were, by design, making 40/40 much more challenging with the goal of retaining players. Will that actually work though - or might it prove demotivational and actually reduce participation? We'll see. My prediction is that 1/5th or so players will make 40/40 this league as compared to previous leagues. Regarding trading - I did not discount that possibility. But in previous leagues you could buy a map and then group with 5 others for grinds. Maybe that sort of thing will happen later on this league - but so far I've seen no groups for Breach Lord kills or Guardian kills. Regarding the map grind - I timed a Tier 10 map the other day - I looted all drops and vendored them. Took me about 4-1/2 min or so, but a lot of that was vendoring. If I were to tackle 10000 map levels solo without going bonkers, I'd change my mapping style - pick up nothing except jewelry, maps and obviously good stuff and maybe some good bases - goal is no vendoring except once every 2 to 3 maps. I could probably get clears down to 3 min or so. Edit - forgot about Breaches... if you do all Breaches you find in maps, I don't think you're going to be finishing them in 3 min. But, meh... There's a point where something transitions from challenging but kind of fun to a job - and I think challenges this league have reached that point. So I'm probably going to go ultra casual (see my point above about possible player loss due to demotivation) - for fun, I'll just do my own challenges. Kill Shaper; kill all the Breach Lords; kill Uber; somehow get a pure Blight build to be fun and end-game viable. Last edited by hankinsohl#1231 on Dec 20, 2016, 6:10:23 PM	Posted by hankinsohl#1231 on Dec 20, 2016, 5:50:45 PM Quote this Post
@Hank/Serleth: Yeah... pushing unfun challenges probably pushes people away from the game even more than not pushing them... I think that was part of the reason I quit within a week of reaching 40/40 in Perandus instead of sticking around and trying more dps-focused builds that can try all the end-content Versus Talisman (which I returned at with only 1 month left, and reached 28/32 the day before the league ended)... @Chrono: If all that is true, all the better for me... I can just lug around the ring I got with 14% IIR and 31% chaos resist and some other semi-useful stats, and only lose 50 IIR temporarily to reach +2% chaos resistance... I'm already in better shape since I picked up my 6L bow yesterday and equipped the IIR gem anyway	Posted by Piros#7740 on Dec 20, 2016, 8:46:17 PM Quote this Post
" hankinsohl wrote: RE 40/40 Breach Discussion Spoiler " Ah... I didn't know that the devs were, by design, making 40/40 much more challenging with the goal of retaining players. Will that actually work though - or might it prove demotivational and actually reduce participation? We'll see. The goal isn't player retention, although that might be a side effect. The goal is to give something more challenging / grindy for veteran players to work towards. But at it's core, it's just a way to please the hardcore players of the game. For my money, 40/40's been super easy. I'm glad for the change. Guardian kills are fine solo, I don't think a group is required at all. The sheer amount of high tier map drops you get will fund your next kill. " There's a point where something transitions from challenging but kind of fun to a job - and I think challenges this league have reached that point. I get what you're saying, that it feels more like work, and I respect that but, for me personally with the Essence challenges: * Two twinned runs (Core, Dark Forest) @ 15 maps apiece = 30 runs. * 100 Atziri's * 12 Vaal Temple bosses (4 maps) * 60 Izaros To get three done at the higher skill thresholds is only 34 maps. That's a day's worth of playing,and a bit of a currency investment. And like you say, grouping practically negates the cost. I don't really feel this league is that much harder, just more time-sinky but you can accomplish a lot of it sort of just as you're playing. If you're playing high tier maps anyway, you'll eventually get 40 guardian kills, you'll get 300 Prophecies complete as part of just playing, that realistically only leaves Uber as the one you kinda have to go out of your way to get done. I disagree that it's more work-intensive this league. I think it's just pushing you to play higher maps, and that's about it. I think where you're getting the "job"yness of it is twofold: a) You actually have to invest in the challenges more intensively (at least unless groups pop up to ease the cost) and b) The psychological impact of seeing "10,000" map tiers. Or perhaps you're just inherently a group player? That could be it. Playing in groups exhausts me, I have to play solo to enjoy the game. I'm playing pretty consistently at the moment, but not really going super hard and I've got 4934 map tiers complete, 10 Guardians down and 3 Guardian maps ready to go. Currently about 75 hours in. Only real difference I made is just I'm playing in reds. Anyway, regardless, I think you hit the point at the end of it: having fun is more important, and if pushing 40/40 is going to burn you out, then probably a good idea to skip that. =) Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.	Posted by Serleth#4392 on Dec 20, 2016, 9:35:00 PM Quote this Post
Yea, I prefer solo to group play because a) I've yet to play one of them builds that melts things with 6 player HP values yet, so b) my experiences in group play tend to involve chaining quicksilver flasks to keep up with the group and loot some things, while being unable to contribute much to the actual killing This is probably why the only time I group is for master rep (which I still like to do, even as its less important this league challenge-wise)... its much faster once you get all the masters in your hideout at Elreon 7 and can just do 1 super rotations... 42 master missions in a row in 45 minutes to an hour...	Posted by Piros#7740 on Dec 21, 2016, 12:09:21 AM Quote this Post
" Serleth wrote: Challenges " hankinsohl wrote: 40/40 in Breach League IMO, I think that Breach League is insanely more challenging than previous leagues. 10,000 maps as a solo player is insane, IMO. Yeah, I could do that, but would I have fun doing so? Absolutely not. Endgame grinds? Equally stupid, IMO. 40 Guardian kills? Maybe. If there was a group for this. Haven't seen any though. Solo.... 40?... maybe... but not if you have a job/family/other interests... and not fun even then. 10 uber kills?... WTF?... 100 regular Atziri kills was a pain in the butt... those generated about 6 to 8 complete uber sets... assuming 100% success in uber kills, you'd need to work regular Atziri maybe 20 to 40 percent more times just to get the full Uber sets.... which, meanwhile, a bunch of other players are after, making this challenge ridiculous 100 Uber Izaro kills... just great. That'll cost between 400 to 500 chaos for the Goddess Sacrifices assuming 100% success... not to mention how long that will take you just to do the runs... oh, and how long will it take you to generate 400 chaos? 100 Breachlord kills... not happening unless you group... check out global 820... I've never, ever seen anyone post a Breachlord kill group Fulfill 300 Prophecies in a Map - this one is OK, I think - a pain in the butt, but doable. Alright, so, a couple things here. Carl touched on this in Lioneye's Watch podcast. There needs to be a subset of challenges, aka four challenges for the push to 40/40, that are intentionally geared towards the hardcore player who really wants that extra thing to do and that prestige of having done the thing. The second function of this, which he sorta touched on indirectly, is that by having the difficult / grindy things in the challenge pool, it also provides a goal, inspiration, motivation, however you want to call it, for players to push themselves to become better in order to achieve those things. So there can't be a full set of 40 challenges that are completable (sic) for the average-skilled, solo player. Although I will note all the challenges can definitely be DONE solo, and aren't anywhere near as group intensive as you seem to be considering. You also seem to be neglecting the notion of trading, and given you haven't specifically said SSF, I'm guessing you're making your remarks in the light of trade being open. * Guardian Kills - I have 10/40 and I haven't even been actively farming T15s yet for T16 drops. You can also buy these maps if you need to. Guardians take about four hours to complete if you have a reasonably fast build to do it. And the map drops from running these alone will go a long way to funding Breachstones or Offerings. * Uber kills - Definitely the go-to option if you want to save the time-intensive nature of doing Izaro or Breachlords. Also the most profitable to fund literally anything else. It's a skill-check though, to be sure. * Izaro - Boring as hell, but you should be able to farm up at least 50 Offerings yourself if you're also pushing the 10,000 map tiers challenge. * Breachlords - You'll probably get ~25-50 yourself here as well otw to 10,000 tiers. * Prophecies - Again, something you'll get a lot of done just pushing map tiers. Which brings me to: * 10,000 map tiers. Assuming 10 minute maps, two hours a day (12 maps a day), which is a SUPER casual pace, running T9 maps will get you 8,964 tiers done, accounting for 83 days spent mapping out of the league. Now throw in an extra two hours each weekend-day, averaging out to 2.5 hours per day, per week, or 15 maps per day, that's 11,205 tiers done in 83 days of mapping T9 maps exclusively. Now of course you'd have to compensate for having to build up to T9s in the first place and run some T10-12s probably to make that compensation, but you get the drift. The real key here, casual or not, comes down more to skill level. You can very reasonably farm 40 Guardians, 100 Breachlords and 300 Prophecies putting in 2-4 hours per day. Guardians will contribute 640 map tiers on their own. Also, I think you misconstrued this challenge. It's map TIERS, not maps. Hence 40 Guardian runs = 640 tiers towards the challenge (T16 * 40). The issue is affording to buy the Breachstones, Guardian maps, Offerings, Silver coins, etc., which does require knowledge-mastery and planning in order to come up with one build that can do all that content, with reasonable speed, particularly farming the gated content and/or exclusively high-tier maps in order to be able to afford buying the missing pieces you need. But, it is doable. Completely solo. I typically finish 40/40 in a league with about 14 days /played, or 336 hours, or an average of 3.73 hours spent per day across a 90 day league period, but that's not accounting for the fact that I'm afk or alt-tabbed or whatever in my hideout for an hour out of every eight hours. So you have to chop off at least 42 of those hours. So call it 294h, or 3.25 hours per day of 90 days required to 40/40 at a reasonable pace. Am I a skilled player? Sure. Not the best, but good enough. And I guarantee you I'll hit 40/40 solo, if I decide to go for it. Which I probably will since I'll be trying to do Shaper myself for the first time, which requires Guardian kills and as such will net me 2/3rds of end-game grinds (Prophecies accounted for here). But now I'll draw your attention back to the start of this reply: " There needs to be a subset of challenges, aka four challenges for the push to 40/40, that are intentionally geared towards the hardcore player who really wants that extra thing to do and that prestige of having done the thing. In other words, 40/40 is meant to be quite a bit less reasonable than 36/40. It is not intended for casual players to be able to complete, but rather crosses the threshold into the serious / hardcore section of the player base. And I don't think there's anything ridiculous about that. Jesus man, do you stream? I have never seen another dude 1) so knowledgable and 2) so willing to answer every damn forum post except for maybe that summoner guy lmao. I'd be curious to listen to you on twitch	Posted by broseidon07#1963 on Dec 21, 2016, 2:43:27 AM Quote this Post
I do not. But thank you so much for your kind words <3 =D Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018. Last edited by Serleth#4392 on Dec 21, 2016, 3:12:33 AM	Posted by Serleth#4392 on Dec 21, 2016, 3:11:33 AM Quote this Post
" Piros wrote: This is probably why the only time I group is for master rep (which I still like to do, even as its less important this league challenge-wise)... its much faster once you get all the masters in your hideout at Elreon 7 and can just do 1 super rotations... 42 master missions in a row in 45 minutes to an hour... I got bored of doing master rotations a long time ago. I don't do meta crafts so all I really need is level 7 each. Only master I'd probably rotate is Zana, now. But I'd rather just crush the dailies then keep playing. Jul 27, 2011 - Sept 30, 2018.	Posted by Serleth#4392 on Dec 21, 2016, 3:15:40 AM Quote this Post