I realise that very few players actually farm Crucible Gladiator 150-170, but still after recent hotfixes/patches I have noticed few things that felt like they were not balanced properly. (I do test all my build ideas in Crucible, and there are quite a lot of them, and just few make it as a written guide).
Kuba and his cold/vitality resistance and healing. I think it’s definitely overtuned. Not sure if he should be such a pain in the ass for cold builds. It doesn’t feel like a challenge, but more like an annoying chore - chopping him down with a cold char.
New healers everywhere. Now I know Zantai definitely watches new overperforming builds and their Crucible videos and tries to tweak Crucible accordingly. Healers seem to spawn now just about every wave. Honestly, not a fun mechanic. Wave 163 becomes even more tedious with them. I would rather have more monsters or more incoming damage to tune up defenses on my builds then deal with Healers.
Amalgation is not the same as Mad Queen. I think it’s wave 162 or 164 where Beast boss and Amalgation or Mad Queen spawns. Either buff Amalgation or make MQ a single boss or something, but those two bosses are nothing alike, one is a pushover and other one is a very dangerous foe with huge hp pool and self-healing that can kill quite a lot of builds.
Korvaak on wave 169. Again, not the same as Theodin. Much more damage. And I would even be ok with that, but. He has that annoying animation during which you can’t kill him that just eats away your timer. It feels so different to Theodin. Either buff Theodin or somehow cancel Korvaak’s animation where he spawns rifts or plays oujia or whatever.
Some Myrmidon/Spellbreaker/Mages heroes and bosses sometimes have ridiculous resists/almost immunity to some kinds of elemental damage. Like they become literally unkillable. And they heal each other on top of that. Really not fun.
So all in all, I am not against a challenging Crucible. But those things I have mentioned are, in my opinion, out of sync.
Currently 169 is arguably the hardest wave,with Korvaak on top of stackable RR by multiple enemies and Anasteria burst damage,very big difference compared to Teo.163 with three stooges and healers is super annoying as well.
Kuba is indeed a nightmare for non-top-tier cold builds. But every non-vanilla nemesis is a nightmare for someone. Reaper for aether, Grava for fire, Kaisan for phys and pierce, etc. I think it’s actually good.
Healers is 163… even with applying optimal strategy they ALWAYS add at least 5-10 seconds to clear times. Record breaking vids almost never have them. They should either spawn from bottom-left or spawn interchangably with the heal-on-death Slith. They are a nightmare for chaos builds as one of them has ridiculous chaos res making him nearly unkillable for non-top-tier chaos builds and sometimes adding 20-30 seconds to even the best chaos builds.
True. I prefer MQ though. With Amalgation, you gotta do an aggro run to the bottom-right or he doesn’t come out. Doing this with non-top-tier builds is risky as if it turns out to be MQ facetanking her there in the middle of the stage together with the top-right wendigo boss can be tricky. So many a time you run to bottom-right, see MQ, gotta kite. So - faster clears for top builds and slower for weaker builds. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer.
Korv is a nightmare. Just like MQ in 162, he creates an additional discrepancy between strictly top-tier and mid-tier builds. Top-tiers don’t care. Non-top-tiers might find it too risky to leave his second form for 170. Killing him in 169 is extra 10-15 seconds.
I think this is actually a bug. I experienced it myself. Not to the extent shown in John_Smith’s bomberman vids but it still felt like a bug.
I agree that the healers are a bit excessive, particularly on wave 163. It’s mainly punative to builds with lower DPS. I’ve had that wave take me well over a minute by itself on weaker builds, and one time with bad mutators (shattered + resistances) I literally couldn’t kill anything and eventually gave up.
I’d vote for something hard from FG to pair with MQ. Maybe Ramzul?
Difficulty-wise I don’t have a huge problem with Korvaak but I think he might be a better alterantive for Anasteria than Theodin as I think Ana and Korvaak are probably closer in danger level than Korvaak and Theodin. Korvaaks animations are awesome for MC, but are unfun in Crucible. The thing where he becomes unattackable for several seconds is extra irritating.
Edit: Forgot to mention Ishtal. That guy is also really irritating.
Also, those Korvaak champions on wave 163 also seem to be able to heal, or I am hallucinating. There are a huge pain in the ass paired with healers.
Good points about mid-tier and top-tier builds. Those discrepancies irritate top-tier builds because they increase their completion timer but they can actually stop mid-tier build in the tracks and make them quit/die.
Mixed feelings about this one. I actually like the variety; I think the issue is mostly how much they can heal, when, and how fast. You fail to notice a healer tucked into a corner off the screen and whoopsie, the Councilman who was just about to go down is back to full.
(By the way, I like how wave 163 rewards movement and dodging for players who want to minimize clear time. It’s a nice change of pace, although their damage reduction might be a wee bit excessive.)
Agreed.
On the subject of weak bosses, we might as well give Karroz a little red hood and a basket of freshly baked goodies, because on wave 167 he’s getting thrown to the wolves.
I enjoy the additional challenge, but agree that the transition is overlong, especially for characters that can’t afford to bring him into 170.
Also on wave 169, Dravis is much nastier than poor ol’ Krieg, who could probably use a little help.
Isn’t Crucible supposed to be a survival arena instead of a race? What happened to that?
I still remember
OH SHIT DUDE MY CHARACTER IS ABLE TO DO CRUCIBLE 140!!!
REALLY!? NO WAY! WHAT BUILD YOU USED!?
Now it’s like,
I did 150 - 170 in 6 means, beat that!
I did it in 5 minutes.
Oh, yeah, but you used Infiltrator and I used insert the weakest class ever to exist
Crucible became a joke a long time ago. It should get back to the times where doing 150 (it was before 170 iirc) was an achievement, rather than a joke. Currently completing 170 is literally nothing, any build can do that and people made a racing game out of it. Waves no longer matter at all, it’s only about the faster you do it, the “better” your build is.
Fully agree with all of this. Ana + Korvaak as a combo was actually the most dangerous thing for pre-nerf retal Drain Essence, and has dropped me VERY low on that character as well as a couple others that I brought into crucible.
Ramzul is definitely high in the level of danger, but i’d be concerned about the reports of lightning rain spam bug first where he apparently rapidfires it so hard it drops you to 1 fps and if you don’t die from taht you’ll die from something else… I’ve still yet to see it myself but i’ve heard it from like 5 different people now
I’m fine with the healers. Know that imo you shouldn’t farm cruci (3buff/banner) with an 8 min build. You should farm it with a 7:30 build, so you have some leeway in case of bad spawns. 153 has 3 spawn configs. 1 has no healer, the second has a few healers but manageable and the third is the fuck you spawn with humans. In a 3-run farm, assuming the spawn chances are even, then the timer evens out, unless you get three shit spawns in a row.
Maybe just nerf MQ healing or damage exclusive to cruci? Cause buffing amalgamation has some problems. In my experience that guy takes a bit longer to kill for most builds, compared to other bosses, even mq with the heals. Tho amalgamation does no damage. Idk why since campaign amalgamation is super easy.
Don’t replace anasteria with korvaak. You guys want theodin+korvaak on 170? I don’t. Personally I don’t have much of a problem with korvaak alone. It’s korvaak+dravis. I think those two shouldn’t spawn together. Also decrease respawn timer for 2nd form. Oftentimes I get korvaak on 170 cause if you just run around waiting for him to respawn and not kill the others then that’s a bigger danger than having korvaak on 170.
Haven’t experienced this, tho I haven’t played much elemental lately.
That doesn’t change the fact that Crucible is way too easy nowadays. Back then only few characters could do 150 (when it was max), now doing 170 is nothing hard to do. Heck, even people in hardcore are not scared to do it.
It seems these days players are fed up with Crucible. Try naked is also an option too.
I know you’d say it’s pointless not using blessing and banner. Still it’s a way playing Crucible.
Yeah I agree. Mid-tier builds that have a harder time can always go for challenger crucible and still get good rewards anyway. It does not need to made even easier than it is. That ~6 minute clears is becoming more commonplace is sad. The faster it gets the less risky as many monster can’t even get a single hit in before they die…
As for the OP I honestly don’t see the problem to many of the points raised. So what if these things add a few seconds to the time? If you want the perfect run for the speed thread then try again rather than ask for balance changes. Removing the RNG variation will make crucible even more dull also. If a run is for a build thread then either try again or simply state the run was plagued by bad RNG and estimate the time cost.
+1 to replace amalgamation though. Adding Ramzul would be welcome too.
