Changes to the Labyrinth

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Tyrex15 wrote:

The lab, like Atziri and Shaper, has a place in the game. A good place. It is a vector for earning some of the best loot (well, Uber lab is good for this), as well as adding some interesting enchantment options.

However, Ascendency should not be tied to the lab.

Too many builds simply can't deal with Izaro. Do you rely on a Vaal skill (e.g. Vaal Grace) as a layer of defense? Does not work for Izaro, sorry. Are you life-based? Izaro's ridiculously counter-intuitive invisible hit-boxes of doom have a one-shot for you.

Additionally, insanely dim lighting, multi-screen trap gauntlets, and trap combinations that cannot be navigated hit-less are absolutely terrible from a platforming perspective. There are spike + saw blade layouts that you cannot time because you are racing through the part you could see with no chance to analyze the portion that is off screen until you are standing on it. There are roomba + spike dart layouts that actually offer no window of safety while traversing due to their timing.

All of this can exist and be a good thing, pushing players to make dedicated lab-runners if they want to run lab. We already have this with Atziri and Shaper and the highest tiers of league challenges. Some (optional) content should only be possible for a build dedicated to that content.

But, I CANNOT use my dedicated lab build to run the Ascendency for one of my other characters.

That, right there, is the fatal flaw of lab. It is content that is required for builds that cannot be built around running that content. No one is required to run Atziri to progress past level 80. No one has to kill Merciless Malachai before running maps. No other aspect of character progression is gated behind a task that (massively) favors specific builds over others.

Leave lab in the game. Leave the option to run it at differing challenge levels, with the cool enchants gated behind those levels. Leave the loot in Uber lab as is, and buff the loot a bit in the lower challenge levels. Add some slight deterministic weighting to the enchant system for helms (the current system is the Keno of RNG crafting -- just a black hole to throw one's time into).

Lab farmers will emerge as a play style, just like Atziri farmers and Shaper farmers. And the rest of the builds in the game can progress from Twilight Strand to maps without having to engage in content for which they are severely sub-optimal.

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pathofwarcraft wrote:

"

Tyrex15 wrote:

The lab, like Atziri and Shaper, has a place in the game. A good place. It is a vector for earning some of the best loot (well, Uber lab is good for this), as well as adding some interesting enchantment options.

However, Ascendency should not be tied to the lab.

Too many builds simply can't deal with Izaro. Do you rely on a Vaal skill (e.g. Vaal Grace) as a layer of defense? Does not work for Izaro, sorry. Are you life-based? Izaro's ridiculously counter-intuitive invisible hit-boxes of doom have a one-shot for you.

Additionally, insanely dim lighting, multi-screen trap gauntlets, and trap combinations that cannot be navigated hit-less are absolutely terrible from a platforming perspective. There are spike + saw blade layouts that you cannot time because you are racing through the part you could see with no chance to analyze the portion that is off screen until you are standing on it. There are roomba + spike dart layouts that actually offer no window of safety while traversing due to their timing.

All of this can exist and be a good thing, pushing players to make dedicated lab-runners if they want to run lab. We already have this with Atziri and Shaper and the highest tiers of league challenges. Some (optional) content should only be possible for a build dedicated to that content.

But, I CANNOT use my dedicated lab build to run the Ascendency for one of my other characters.

That, right there, is the fatal flaw of lab. It is content that is required for builds that cannot be built around running that content. No one is required to run Atziri to progress past level 80. No one has to kill Merciless Malachai before running maps. No other aspect of character progression is gated behind a task that (massively) favors specific builds over others.

Leave lab in the game. Leave the option to run it at differing challenge levels, with the cool enchants gated behind those levels. Leave the loot in Uber lab as is, and buff the loot a bit in the lower challenge levels. Add some slight deterministic weighting to the enchant system for helms (the current system is the Keno of RNG crafting -- just a black hole to throw one's time into).

Lab farmers will emerge as a play style, just like Atziri farmers and Shaper farmers. And the rest of the builds in the game can progress from Twilight Strand to maps without having to engage in content for which they are severely sub-optimal.

pretty much this i would prefer the lab to be a little harder soo lab enchants still have alot of value they should not be easy to get not everybuild can do uber lab