Labyrinth is for NEET.

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Pyrokar wrote:

You are envisioning lab specific builds when answering to me and i already said that i am not talking about them.

Whether you are talking about them in terms of the homogenization or not: They clearly show that distinct build concepts are viable in the lab. Unless you have a better source for investigating the truth about this?

You could look at the ladder or at later positions in the lab ladders. There are bound to be some people who got a carry for Izaro. But they still have to get through some of the traps.

You can see that fully offensive builds don't work in the lab by the threads and comments created by them not being able to beat him, since the can't zerg him. If izaro wasn't there they would find that wall eventually in maps as someone said, where they would lose too much xp to progress and we would see the "dmg overtuned in high lvl maps threads" instead. But they get culled at normal and the variation gets lost in the process.

There is a thread in general discussion with what the hc players are playing in the top 50k (or something don't remember the number) and most of them are chieftains. What do chieftains have a lot of? Regen. I don't know if it is mostly the lab or not but there clearly is an influence.

If you wanted to play a defensive build before ascendancy you had many different options. After ascendancy, the fact that you have to go through the lab and the fact that most traps ignore hp pool definitely don't tempt you into building for a big one since your heal flasks heal for less % of your hp pool in that case. I personally had to take off my kaom's heart (arguably the most iconic for defense chest in the game) in order to have an easier time with the traps and that is absurd. Block doesn't matter either most of the time. You invest so much to get max block without flasks and then the traps just say "nope", you better had regen m8.

I personally r8 8/8 but not really.

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Pyrokar wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

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Pyrokar wrote:

Example: My 95 char, 7500 life, max block+spellblock, 12k armor (all without any use of flasks), no extra charges, 3-4% regen. Ultra tanky, gets destroyed by traps in normal...

Completely and absolutely irrelevant to the discussion.
It does not impact the viability of the build in the lab, all builds are supposed to be destroyed by traps, there are some builds that can cheese it tho, I hope that GGG will do something about it.

Very relevant. Why would i roll a character with those kind of defences nowadays when all of them mean almost nothing against traps? Therefore homogenisation.

Probably because of the other 99% of the content ?
Izaro included of course, Izaro is THE threat of the labyrinth, and building defensively is a good thing against him.

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Emphasy wrote:

The Uberlab is a bit different, but again just doing it without additional keys isn't hard, it is basically a blank map and Izaro doesn't even hit that much harder like unmodified bosses of the same level

I disagree with that, really.
It also depends on the days.

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Pyrokar wrote:

There is a thread in general discussion with what the hc players are playing in the top 50k (or something don't remember the number) and most of them are chieftains. What do chieftains have a lot of? Regen. I don't know if it is mostly the lab or not but there clearly is an influence.

As I said right before, the difficulty in the lab is Izaro, not the traps.
And chieftens are popular because ................. auto taunting totems, not because lab imho.
It's just ridiculously safe and powerful, what HC players look for.

Labyrinth itself isn't NEET. The 4 instances of it is, along with 3 story playthroughs.

I've already suggested a compromise for labyrinth haters.

Remove low level enchantments (gloves).
Remove labyrinth from the story completely.
Reward medium level enchantments at the end of each uber trial.
Reward one ascendancy point at the end of each of the 8 uber trials.
Make trials one life attempts.

You still have to deal with the mechanics in a 'hardcore' setting, but in a much smaller time investment and overall difficulty... but now with higher reward and less needless repetition. The izaro fight in the labyrinth will actually be special because you haven't already defeated him 3 times. The labyrinth doesn't need to be attempted at all to recieve all 8 ascendancy points, and you recieve the same rewards of labyrinth runners now.

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Maceless wrote:

Labyrinth itself isn't NEET. The 4 instances of it is, along with 3 story playthroughs.

I've already suggested a compromise for labyrinth haters.

Remove low level enchantments (gloves).
Remove labyrinth from the story completely.
Reward medium level enchantments at the end of each uber trial.
Reward one ascendancy point at the end of each of the 8 uber trials.

You still have to deal with the mechanics in a 'hardcore' setting, but in a much smaller time investment and overall difficulty... but now with higher reward and less needless repetition. The izaro fight in the labyrinth will actually be special because you haven't already defeated him 3 times. The labyrinth doesn't need to be attempted at all to recieve all 8 ascendancy points, and you recieve the same rewards of labyrinth runners now.

Since most players do not actually reach cruel / merc, GGG wants them to be able to enjoy the full labyrinth experience ( the basic lab, not counting uber of course ) and therefore they do not want to reduce it in normal, so thinking of removing it ....

Plus it would remove powerful leveling tool, definitely not a good thing.
And some build enabling points poping randomly at higher level instead of being accessible during the story ? no thank you.

.

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Fruz wrote:

Probably because of the other 99% of the content ?
Izaro included of course, Izaro is THE threat of the labyrinth, and building defensively is a good thing against him.

And why would i not just get the defences that work for both of them? Even better, if defences get constantly screwed why do i not get just enough to get by and just one shot the whole screen with ridiculous dmg? Homogenisation galore.

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Pyrokar wrote:

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Fruz wrote:

Probably because of the other 99% of the content ?
Izaro included of course, Izaro is THE threat of the labyrinth, and building defensively is a good thing against him.

And why would i not just get the defences that work for both of them? Even better, if defences get constantly screwed why do i not get just enough to get by and just one shot the whole screen with ridiculous dmg? Homogenisation galore.

So why not do like in the rest of the game you mean ?
Then the labyrinth isn't any different.

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Pyrokar wrote:

You can see that fully offensive builds don't work in the lab by the threads and comments created by them not being able to beat him, since the can't zerg him.

I am not arguing about some/many offensive builds. I am arguing about the homogenization. See the example with the "one shot miner build". It is Izaro viable. You ridiculing this example does not change its viability.

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Pyrokar wrote:

If izaro wasn't there they would find that wall eventually in maps as someone said, where they would lose too much xp to progress and we would see the "dmg overtuned in high lvl maps threads" instead. But they get culled at normal and the variation gets lost in the process.

I dont agree with that. Map bosses are easier to skip than Izaro. No loss of Ascendancy points. And they can be zerged after a level up for the Atlas bonus.

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Pyrokar wrote:

There is a thread in general discussion with what the hc players are playing in the top 50k (or something don't remember the number) and most of them are chieftains. What do chieftains have a lot of? Regen. I don't know if it is mostly the lab or not but there clearly is an influence.

Dont think that most of them are chieftains. Chieftains are the most represented Ascendancy. And obviously due to combination of cost + safety + power. Whether lab has a significant effect I do not know. If you look at the hardcore uber lab ladder: There are only 32 entries today. So "no one" does uber lab anyway. So probably not too much of an influence.

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Pyrokar wrote:

If you wanted to play a defensive build before ascendancy you had many different options. After ascendancy, the fact that you have to go through the lab and the fact that most traps ignore hp pool definitely don't tempt you into building for a big one since your heal flasks heal for less % of your hp pool in that case. I personally had to take off my kaom's heart (arguably the most iconic for defense chest in the game) in order to have an easier time with the traps and that is absurd. Block doesn't matter either most of the time. You invest so much to get max block without flasks and then the traps just say "nope", you better had regen m8.

Yes it hurts build variety and the "special trap rule system" makes no sense (thematically) and is inconsistent with the rest of the game. That however does not lead to all "lab viable" builds being similar.

I don't understand the argument that you feel like you have to spec into a build that is designed ONLY for the lab in order to do the lab. How is it possible that people are completing the lab successfully with SO MANY different builds if the only way to do it is by speccing into a build designed ONLY for the lab???

As usual, the difficulty and time-investment required to run the lab is greatly exaggerated. It takes an experienced player 10-15 minutes to run the lab. Less experienced may take 30 minutes. That's not exactly a HUGE investment for the massive return you get.