... Snail Time ...

You have seen the movie Inception?... Well, since a few days I had an idea hanging around my head. This idea would not leave me in peace... I created again a build, 100% mine, without following guidelines. I not even know if someone else with something similar exists...
Good clearspeed, safe enough, cheap (for me XD)... I created an abomination to which I have called "The Jugger-Double Consuming-Pyre-Vortex/poison" O_O

Now I can die in peace...


Lvl 99 and 12%

Hey guys :)

Just spent an hour catching up, lol. I had to quit for a bit due to real life issues, but things are looking up again.

Returned yesterday to clean my stash, and noticed I was really close to leveling a gem.. Hmm, might wanna give it a go, it's only been 2 months or so..

Right, cleared a couple of T9s without worry, thankfully. Sitting at 95.26% now, and being slow and solo only it's a struggle already. Having fun though, and my gear is shaping up. :)

So, about that gem..



Look at that red little guy. ;)

Do you have ANY IDEA how long I've been trying to achieve that? LOL. Like, 2 years or something crazy.. I've lost count on how many I've bricked, honestly.

Think I'm gonna start chewing up my T11 maps now. :)

Hey Ceri, good to see you back, and congrats on the gem! :)

Holy fuckballs...more exp nerfs? So...fucking...LAME! Act, my friend, you have just one more day to grind, grind, grind for Level 100 before they make it even harder! I recommend lots of coffee.

Sorry to be a downer...but hearing this along with how badly my build has been hit by the upcoming nerfs is killing my desire to play at all...but I'll at least try to rebuild my CoC build. At least I have my Lv 80 Pathfinder from Prophecy to test things out on first...

I knew I should have drank more liquor when I was at the pub tonight...LOL.

Sasori, you now finally understand what I meant? Even for a few days I put in my state... AoW is nothing more and nothing less than a huge, massive, grotesque undercover NERF. In addition to this new cut to the experience they have gone up to tier 13 the best map to go up to level 100, which means that we can no longer (at least not solo players) play Gorge as we did before because it will be very difficult to get...
In summary, there are 2 large nerf into one.

GGG once again shitting in his players unashamedly.

Well, some days went by and I can say without equivocation that I was absolutely right. This is a Nerf, not a buff...

It seems that I am left alone. Turnip, he went away some time ago. Sasori, his state says that he will take a long break... And as is tradition, the expansion has made me die 2 times due to ignorance of new Bosses. But I keep playing, my bar is at zero percent. Surrender is not a viable option because "if I give up now, nothing will have served all the effort I made yesterday".

You're not alone, Actkqk. :)

I made a character in Essence even though I convinced myself not to.. Such resolve. Well, I got to play a bit with Blade Vortex finally - really fun skill. Quite useless at mapping though, my defenses (& gear) are terrible. Clearing trash is pure joy but I was struggling a bit with bosses. They hurt! So, it's back to Standard for now.

Initial impressions on the Atlas are that it's kind of fun, but I suspect you're correct Act that it is indeed a massive nerf. We'll see whenever I get to the higher tiers. So far I'm having a blast trying all the new maps and seeing all the revamped ones. Some new maps are really nice, I've got to say.

Some of the new bosses are quite rippy though, beware! Particularly nasty I've found the trio in the (otherwise awesome) Racecourse map to be. One of the guys (forgot which one) has a reflect aura that is seemingly a 100% reflect. You literally oneshot yourself whenever it's up so pay attention to their auras. I managed to live through it but it was close. :p

Also, the new boss in Coves took me by complete surprise. He's borrowed that throwing-green-balls-in-your-face trick from Izaro, and holy crap do they hurt! My poor ranger with 70% evasion, 30% dodge, Arctic Armour and 5.9k hp was oneshot by two of those balls. I got stuck on that boat wreck thingie and couldn't move away in time, ack! 10% lost, now I'm down to 95.37%. :( I'm gonna go ahead and state that those balls are seriously overpowered.

This game is so nice...

Some minutes ago I was fighting the new boss in a legacy Arid Lake... I can tank that shit. Suddenly the game crash to the desktop... I get back and I am now at 0.0%... GGG and their common stability problems after a major patch... I do wonder if they are professionals or are just an amateur group. Why the fuck I'm wasting my time here?

The truth, sometimes not even understand it myself.

Much water has passed under the bridge... All this time I've died a lot of times. Sometimes my fault and sometimes not... I changed build several times trying to find the answer to this stupid expansion, full of nerfs for someone willing to reach level 100. Now finally I have confidence that I have found the correct answer...
But I feel lonely, I think that there is anyone known.
Everything that I need to do is not change my build, and not feel so alone... Really you have to be well f*** crazy to want to reach 100 solo and under the current conditions.

There's someone else or am I the only stupid, stubborn and f*** crazy here?


:(


Lvl 99 and 14%...

No you are not alone. I am lvl 96 on my caster and progressing very slowly and mostly solo other than an occasional public party. I am super casual and often go days without playing. When I do play I often have an hour or so only, with an opportunity for an occasional multi-hour session. All of this means it will likely take me months and months to achieve lvl 100, which is both okay and deflating.

I've adjusted my mentality for this little game to be all about the journey. I don't play meta builds, nor do I desire to play them, as I don't really care about clear speed. I would change lots about this game, but I try to enjoy it for what it is, not for what I'd prefer it is. I spent most of my currency to buy some skyforth's a few months back and that was cool to be able to modify my home-grown build accordingly, but I am sure any number of experts here can look at my build and tear it apart / improve on it. Point is, I'm enjoying the journey. I don't worry about what others are doing, I don't worry about speed clears, I don't worry about min-maxing my build, I just play.

Try to do the same?

Sorry but you will never reach lvl 100. Nobody is immortal and with your pace of play at lvl 98 if you die you will lost the advance of maybe a couple of weeks... and at lvl 99 maybe a month for just 1 death.
How do I know? Because I play a minimum two hours absolutely every day. On weekends it can easily become 6 hours per day... and if I die at lvl 99 means more or less one week.

Just thinking about that loss means that my style of play has had to adapt, I need to think, I need to be careful, and therefore, slower... The only problem is that it does not guarantee security because this is an online game and there is lag and disconnections, and (of course) an occasional encounter WTF style and you may end up with your beautiful body lying on the floor and wondering what the hell happened.