as long as it’s a softcore char you can just brute force it, don’t care about death, 1v1 bosses etc, use consumes, all you need is to clear the boss room eventually, there is no other requirement than that (and not crashing ofc )
(regular/avg char)
imo/“these days”, SR 30-31, clear ToH, Lokarr - Ravager optional, Calla not even a consideration now
I’m not specifying a strict time for speed clear on 30-31, simply because even on top builds i’m actually generally “slow” so if it’s just “avg” build, anything below 8mins is fine by me as pilot, - but i’d happily consider slower memes passable. Good builds should preferably run in around 6mins or less when piloted in my scrub hands, but even that isn’t always a guarantee even for top20 stuff
A big difference is also my default approach is to 1v1 bosses, which is both slower and safer so actually makes a bunch more stuff feel viable than 3+ boss pulls, thus my bar is lowered a “bit” compared to top builds or others ofc.
*in the past my requirement was just 65-66(new26-27), but had to “get with the times” to some degree and acknowledge part of the powercreep bar had changed overall to atleast push it up to 75-76(30-31) now.
“one day” i’m sure we’ll see that bar raised again so the floor will be 32-33 and then finally 36-37, on Ascendant ofc … …viva la crêpe
“to be fair”, i think it’s kinda funny EoR is the target of this specific degree of complaints now, considering it’s been part of the top20 2/3x times still - but the bar keeps rising
Yeah I get it. I used to play a lot of softcore but something happened along the way where a character dying upset me so much that I didn’t want to play it anymore at all. Might as well play HC at that point… I should probably get that checked out but in the meantime if I have a character that is ‘average’ I will make at least a small effort to avoid things like Shard 32 until said character is geared/leveled/reputationed enough that I feel good about it.
It all depends on what you personally consider peak performance and what list you go by. Many believe SR30 is a good test. Some believe editor builds are the best test. Others believe solo SR36 legit drops considerably narrows the “top” list.
IMO “average” should survive a full SR30 playing solo relatively fast. EoR can easily do that with a decent build. It can survive a SR36 with buffs from good players. That’s because it’s a low point skill tree. The dev’s try to balance investment and reward every patch.
If you plan to use a low point skill tree as your only weapon for SR36 you may have trouble. Not impossible and not immune to being balanced if you find something unique.
Never saw the point of campaign bosses after getting their specific drop. No opinion there.
Thanks for the insight, it’s interesting to see how much impact piloting has on the timer even for someone with experience. I’m a total noob, so my timer is at least 8 minutes on my builds, but It’s somehow conforting knowing that it’s because i can’t pilot
How come? A tanky build with decent armor and physical res should be able to fight it, casters/dots can always kite. Something changed?
The “peak performance” was more of an intro, you are right that every one should be free to chose it’s own metrics of course, and I’m simply interested in what a new/casual user should be aim to while building their first couple of builds.
This seems nowdays the bare minimum that a build should be able to do
I don’t really care too much about objective performance measures. Sadly the main campaign difficulty is easy for any ‘properly’ geared up level 100 character. So the only measure really is SR something. Usually I’m happy if I can stroll through SR32 or something without dying or getting super close to it. I don’t really watch the time (too much effort). Though sometimes I just want to make a fun build with some theme or something and then if they don’t end up doing as well as others it’s not a problem. Maybe they just do SR 26 or whatever. So I’d say an average build is somewhere between beating SR26-32 without too much effort
I still feel sad for all the epic weapons. Many of them seem utterly useless compared to all the eternally buffed legendary stuff. Though some of them do have quite a bit of flat on them!
because not all builds get that, ie it’s not an average fight for avg/regular builds - sure if you get that include i the bonus, but it’s not a criteria for passing the avg apability metric (imo)
A good example would be the top20 comment Lee made where even for their top builds it’s such a hyper specific fight they don’t wanna build “just” for that, but rather want improved criteria elsewhere even if the calla fights drags it down contra trying to aim for min or so ravager specific criteria.
to be fair, super specific granted skills/conversions or themes aside, i’ve never seen the point in most of them since 2017 MIs are just better because modifier and targetfarmable stonks. There’s a few one that has a niche power use, like falcon claw etc "primal strike"weapon early - before you get Halberd or Sparkthrower, but that’s it.
It’s hard compete with them green stats, and i get with the very generous droprates perhaps epic base stats don’t feel like getting mega bloated to compete on raw numbers with modifiers and customizeable affixes.
And like i’ve said before, perhaps there was a point in time of GD lifespan, where it would simply have been better to reclassify some item tiers, when epics aren’t really that “epic”.
When it comes to metrics, I refuse to join the bandwagon of considering SR 30-31 “average”.
I only agree with that if by average you mean the average of the builds posted on the forums. Than yeah, pretty much all of them can go 30-31 so that’s your average.
If however we’re looking at “average” as just normal performance, I’d say
that would be comfortably clearing 24-25.
Maybe I have low standards, but a build that runs 30-31 without much piloting requirements is at least good by definition.
average because every build should be able to do it, like how you should be able to kill all world nemesis and skeleton dungeons too for any passable levelling char.
Like i said, before my floor was 65-66(now 26-27), and if a char couldn’t do that it was dumpster (and that was already when the norm was 75-76 to “meta”/most of everyone else)
These days even budget builds can clear 26-27/“fresh lvl 100 chars in greens and faction gear before transitioning to full endgame kit/legends and specific affixed MIs”
Sorry I accidentally hit reply under your message, whereas I meant to write that as a general reply to the topic, not you specifically. That’s regarding “was never a criteria” part.
When it comes to levels, I guess my “average” comes from my own playstyle bias.
I really like leveling meme builds that might not be even properly tested, just posted as a joke.
I also play HC, so I can’t just hit 32 the moment I finished campaign and see how it goes. So I’ve spent most of my end-game playtime in SR 26-27.
I’m sure the average player would struggle with those, compared to people who at least read this forum.
I mean, even beating nemesis bosses was a tall order for me when I started playing, and in fact they were part of what made me quit the game. I only came back years later and learned enough (and farmed enough) to now make nemesis bosses easy. (By reading guides on this forum.)
But as you get experience, you likely also set higher standards. So nowadays if I make a build it will always be able to do Shattered Realm 30+ and beat nemesis bosses. And if not I will change it until it can. But it would be equally valid to say that I only want to play “above average” builds compared to those not posted on the forum.
That would obviously change the benchmarks for what would be considered average. The number of builds I have that don’t have at least a couple of deaths can be counted on the fingers of one hand. After juggling live grenades with that hand.
All in all, “average” probably only really makes sense as a “personal average.” Because to get a real average you’d need far more data on what builds people are playing.
)
…
- but the bar keeps rising 
