Let me start by saying I am loving this game. It really is an awesome piece of work.
However I have recently had an encounter that has left me rather annoyed - a trip to the Den of the Lost (DotL) on Ultimate Difficulty.
I have a Blademaster build. I don’t intend to go into too much detail, I don’t feel it is relevant beyond that my build is a melee character.
Relevant points - Nemesis talisman & Living Shadow from Devotion (i.e. something other than me for mobs to hit), and have ‘Pretty Great Pants’ with their crowd control proc. All resistances at 80% and above. 16,000 Health.
Now, up until getting to the Den of the Lost on Ultimate I’d died about a dozen times. 6 times wrapping my head around the mechanics (I don’t like to read game guides and would rather experience the game first hand) and 6 times due to my own stupidity.
It was a little struggle getting as far as the DotL on Ultimate but I guess it is supposed to be. Nothing too bad, some normal mobs hitting very hard, some bosses a little weak but nothing could have prepared me for DotL.
I entered the area and was immediately greeted, and by that I mean they were literally on top of me, 4 mini-bosses, a truck load of spiders including at least 4 Matriarchs, including one of the mini-bosses being a spider regenerator and a load of riftspawn (who on Ultimate do a massive amount of damage in a short space of time).
Before the area had fully loaded, i.e. faded out from black, half my health was gone. Within seconds I was dead. The literal swarm on screen making it impossible to click back on the exit.
After 5 deaths in very quick succession, I worked out a solution, which included being fully potioned up with every potion I could craft. Cleared out the mobs ‘blocking’ the exit. Died 5 more times just doing this. Leave. Come back. Hit Regenerator (not easy to see in the scrum) four times. Leave. Come back. Repeat. Took me a very long time to clear.
I then cleared the rest of the DotL. And went in for the shrine. Again a truck load of riftspawn and spiders spawned and 5 mini-bosses. Again they spawned on top of me and I died with zero chance of escape. Came back. Tried kiting. All followed. Tried running around the whole area trying to split the packs. Died another 4 times by the time I’d whittled the packs down, riftspawn taking more health off me than bosses. Took me 15 minutes to then split off riftspawn/individual bosses and kill them.
My point/feedback is this: Den of the Lost on Ultimate killed me more times than the rest of the game combined.
The reason: A complete lack of on demand AoE and CC due to playing a melee character. Not to mention the way the mobs were placed/spawned upon entering DotL and shrine activation. If I had been on hardcore mode, I would not have been a happy camper at all.
Some adjustments need to be made to this dungeon me thinks.
PS. After all that, absolutely no useful gear dropped just to add insult to injury. Grrr!
