The Core.

So I had a core map drop in a zana mission(she spawned in a 13 map I was running) I was pretty happy. I Did my due diligence with chisels and alc/chaos and when I got over 100/28 pack size I said , good enough. I vaaled and.....it turned into a Vaal Temple map :0. with multiple projectiles and over 200% added elemental damage....and 18% ele reflect.

5 portals later I was victorious. I do not see how you guys do this in hardcore.

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Xtorma wrote:

5 portals later I was victorious. I do not see how you guys do this in hardcore.

A significant majority of the HC population simply doesn't do this :)

There's no incentive to do maps with rip mods and there has been none for a long time.

You can:

a) roll high-tier maps for packsize, which involves burning though 5-20 chaos per map (one exalt in temp HC is 18 chaos currently) and you need a solid map and currency base to be able to sustain it long-term - and perhaps sustain a map pool a few tiers higher than usual

b) alch and go and reroll rip mods - the middle ground, ensures a bit of a better map pool than usual, you have to take more risks but nothing too extreme

c) run blue maps only and cherrypick modes: hands down the safest approach, when you grind long and hard enough, you'll be able to sustain at least a solid t10 base (should be more in the atlas), you also expend next to no resources for map rolling so you accumulate more currency over time

Combine this with an almost insignificant difference in XP gain between high-tier maps and t10-11s and guess how many people run maps with 4-5 damage mods in HC. The difference in XP gain between a t14 and a t11 is so marginal, even people in SC put more importance on map layout over map tier for fast leveling.

The people you'll see doing high-tier maps with rip mods are usually streamers racing for the fastest lvl 100, streamers who simply think their stream would be boring if they chose the safest approach (and they are probably right) and people with support aura/curse bots. A support aura/curse bot trivializes everything so it's not really a relevant example. Of course, there also are CI BV pathfinders who can tank like champs and probably allow themselves more dangerous maps but IMO it's not really worth it, this game has such extreme damage spikes from time to time that even a very small risk of losing your char is pointless.

The main problem is, this playstyle is boring. By the time you reach 90 and start going above, you start getting bored out of your mind and fidgety and this little voice appears in your head 'dude, you already did 500 blue tier 10s, if you do one more I'm gonna cut you - go run Uber Atziri or see if you can facetank this rip boss or do something stupid!'. This voice is the main cause of death in HC for players who generally know what they're doing. If you aren't racing and you're simply going for HC lvl 100, it's a game of patience and attrition. Or having a support buddy to make everything smooth and easy.

Vaal Pyramid, or Vaal Temple? I don't think it is possible for a tier 15 map to turn into a tier 3 map...

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Docbp87 wrote:

Vaal Pyramid, or Vaal Temple? I don't think it is possible for a tier 15 map to turn into a tier 3 map...

whatever the 16 is. I am sure most people could figure this out, but I will edit if I can.

@OP congrats on doing T16 Vaal Temple with rip mods. Likely less than 1% of the playerbase can say the same!

@Bars this is what is wrong with maps (in my mind). There is literally no incentive to roll rip mods. You get very little benefit from doing it and could instead run safe maps with similar pack size (and pack size is king we all know) for significantly less currency and get almost the same rewards. I really wish they would remake the IIQ/IIR/Pack size to be a function of the number of mods on a map (so blue maps can't have 30% pack size while yellow maps with 4 mods have 0) and also revisit what each mod does individually to the IIQ/IIR (clear imbalance in many of the mods).

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Bars wrote:

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Xtorma wrote:

. This voice is the main cause of death in HC for players who generally know what they're doing. If you aren't racing and you're simply going for HC lvl 100, it's a game of patience and attrition. Or having a support buddy to make everything smooth and easy.

That is exactly the reason why I die..

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Deadpeng wrote:

It is sad that the state of Hardcore in this game is simply avoidance. Come to think of it hardcore is actually easier in that sense in that the players will be judged less for not taking risk and therefore never losing experience.

Well, I've played a fair amount of both SC and HC and I've never experienced anything in HC which could be called 'easier' :)

About the avoidance thingy - no other way around it. You have white mobs in unmodded t11+ maps sometimes hitting for 5-6 k. What are you gonna do, roll a +crit chance/crit multi, added lightning, vulnerability map for marginal or nonexistent returns or transmute - alteration it with something unthreatening and almost as effective in terms of pack size (potentially even better)?

lol

It sounds funny when you put it like that on paper. So obvious.


We are actually talking about a two-pronged problem. On one hand, we have the map drop rates and map mods system. On the other, we have the extreme damage spikes monsters are dealing. You run a map, you receive next to no damage, next to no damage and then BAM! heart attack. Chris's philosophy of 'play the game while watching TV and having an occasional 'difficulty' spike here and there' + the uber lab/trials are slowly strangling the HC temp league population. It used to be a fun and lively place once, now you have exalts costing 18c at week 2 and just 1-2 public parties in A4 merciless all league long.

@Rafurion: you misquoted me, looks as if I said what you wanted to say :)

for overall success alch and go. Because 1 alch is worth 4 alt +- and usually you can run it very easily or roll another one without chaosing. More affixes means way better loots and wealth in the long run as qty rarity and pack size have multiplicative values. You'll get nowhere relevant, spending 5 alt average per blue map. It make sense in hardcore. The worst you can do on a map is using a chance on it if it is low tier and can net unique one hence anyway it can be morphed into chisel...

With prophecy and stuff, sometimes it is worth to double frag(triple is mb too much) and use the device to give ambush or smthing. As long it cost less than the map you're runing.

I sometimes vaal maps but not in the case you are. You mostly want to use those on multi boss, or when you can afford to burn the map but would like more return nonetheless. If your char isn't reflect proof vaaling maps has way less value hence you have like 1/5 1/6 getting a reflect(with a minus res/vulnerability in option)

Spending 1h in a map having tension isn't never the best approach.

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