Various Thoughts

Just recently made it to Torment IV difficulty with all the Champion tier and below rewards acquired in Diablo IV‘s tenth season.

This season seems to be a notable step down from the previous, as not only are the seasonal items lackluster (the same old uniques just locked to a different slot) but there are less seasonal abilities and there’s not much variety to them. I had to really struggle to find a third relevant lesser power for my build and none of the four main ones were a great fit either. Less subjectively, the new chaos monsters are incredibly low quality and look as though they’re missing their textures/shaders.

The new Infernal Horde boss meanwhile has little point in existing in his current state. You’d need to have at least 1100 aether and no interest in the non-equipment chests in order to make fighting him worthwhile… which is not always possible to accomplish regardless of how powerful your build is. Well whatever. It’s there for those that want it I guess.

As mentioned earlier, I decided to go with a self-made Necromancer build and ended up with:

• Paragon 176, all Ancestral gear; Chaos Unmaker chest & Greaves of the Empty Tomb uniques. All Masterwork 12 except the helm, amulet, and 1 ring (which are at 8 since I hope to replace them). Eventually plan to acquire The Grandfather Mythic greatsword if the rune drops cooperate.
• Cursed Aura, Torturous, Blighted, Empowering Reaper, Damned, Decay, & Hardened Bones affixes.
• NaguVex and LithLum runewords with double Topaz in the armor and double Emerald in the weapon. Jewelry is 1 Diamond and 2 Skulls.
• Control -> Wither/Amplify -> Frailty/Gravekeeper -> Scent of Death/Darkness -> Bloodbath/Territorial paragon boards/nodes, all at level 46.
• Armor at 1k with 75% Fire/Poison/Shadow Resistances & 65% Lightning/Cold Resistance. 9k Life, 42% Attack Speed, & 60% Crit Chance
• Extra Bolt Shadow Mages & Warriors/Golems Sacrificed for 10% Crit Chance and 15% Attack Speed.
• Aldkin (Shadow) and Varyana (Attack Speed) mercenaries.
• Chaos Unleashed with Decimating Desecration, Erupting Chaos, and Accelerating Chaos (so Shadowrift has 100% uptime).
• Abilities
  • Rank 1 Enhanced Reap, Supernatural Blight, & Abhorrent Iron Maiden
  • Rank 5 Paranormal Sever, Abhorrent Decrepify, & Supreme Soulrift
  • Rank 1 Crippling Darkness & Shadowblight
  • Rank 2 Hewed Flesh & Necrotic Carapace
  • Rank 3 Imperfectly Balanced, Necrotic Fortitude, Titan’s Fall, Death’s Embrace, Amplify Damage, Precision Decay, Coalesced Blood, Reaper’s Pursuit, Gloom, Terror, Finality, & Inspiring Leader

Basically, all I have to do is constantly cast Sever while popping Soulrift whenever it comes off cooldown. Blight and the two curses are handled by the equipment affixes while I pretty much never have to re-summon the skeleton mages. It’s a very simple and straight-forward build that deletes normal enemies and elites quickly and painlessly. Bosses in T4 take a bit longer but should go much smoother once I hit paragon 200 and have the rest of the key offensive nodes acquired.

As it so happened, there was little more than a week left in the season when I picked the game up. A discovery which rather quickly derailed my plans of leisurely 100% clearing each area as the main quest sent me to them, as I had to rush through that in order for the season quest to even become available.

Worked out well enough in the end though as by this morning everything was unlocked that didn’t require real money to buy and all rewards below the final tier were claimed except one (the Whispers Bounty one, as ancestral boxes simply never appeared).

As mentioned earlier I was using a Thorns Barbarian build which pleasantly enough could be played straight through the game from level 1 without issue. Ended up at Paragon 170 with two nodes at 45 and the other three at 15, all ancestral gear masterworked to either level 4 or eight depending on how close it had to the ideal stat spread (except the chest which is just basic Razorplate). It currently breezes through most of T3 aside from a few particularly stat-inflated bosses (Astaroth is a slog) and even basic T4 if you don’t mind grouping stuff up before engaging and/or boss fights dragging out.

My main takeaway at this point is that the story writers very much seemed to be longing for the times of Diablo II; this felt very much like a sequel to that. There’s almost no mention of III besides one throwaway reference to Leah hidden at the end of this season’s artifact gathering questline. Meanwhile, the gameplay devs seemed to have been jealous of Grim Dawn since “The Pit” is just a far worse Shattered Realm (added in the Forgotten Gods expansion) and Infernal Hordes are a simplified Crucible.

Future plans involve making some kind of homebrew Shadow-damage necromancer build that I can take my time developing and exploring with when the new season starts in a few days. I’ve always enjoyed the leveling journey more than any kind of endgame play, and nothing I’ve seen here so far (Pit, Infernal Horde, Helltide, Echo farming, Undercity) makes this game look like an exception.

For the past week or two I’ve been on a nostalgia kick replaying Diablo II. Eventually burning out recently and annoyed that retaliation/thorns builds aren’t viable (and that there’s no buff/debuff timer) I finally got around to doing a bit of research on Diablo IV.

On the positive side, it appeared there actually was an effective Thorns build available (albeit for an unexpected class). On the negative, it seemed like the game had turned wholly into an MMO with cooldowns and attack/buff rotations and world bosses and whatnot. So I waffled a bit but, ultimately just as with Diablo III, ended up caving.

Some thoughts being now a little ways past the prologue and having cleared a chunk of the first area’s north and western stretches:

Negatives
– Dungeons tend to be rather empty with barren halls and a notable lack of destructive urns/barrels.
– The Cellars and timed World Events feel exceptionally gamey.
– Weapon and skill bonuses seem pretty minor, with differences being sometimes only a fraction of a percent or a couple seconds.
– There’s about twenty too many different types of resources.
– Oddly frequent cutscenes.
– Dungeon rewards being static. Could they not think of a class-specific reward for each one?

Positives
– Grim Dawn-like respec access.
– Gameplay at this point isn’t as complicated/rigid as feared.
– The massive number of resources don’t take up inventory space.
– So many things to collect and upgrade.
– The map evolving as you clear strongholds is a nice touch.