My first character is now level 95. I’ve finished Elite (including both expansions) at 92 (maybe 93) and did a few crucibles to get to 94 and equip some purple crafted stuff, and then to 95. I can get the lowest-level crucible to waves around 130-150, but have poor luck on Shattered realms on Elite (usually fail the timer before 5 due to mobs being too spaced apart or portal spawning on the other end of the map).
Now, I wonder what to do to top it to 100… I have quite a shortage of crafted mats but many mobs in vanilla areas stop scaling around 80-85 (on Elite) and thus don’t drop stuff like brains and such - so should I switch to Ultimate? Is it safe before 100? Or just level on Crucible to 100 and then swap?
As for leveling secondary characters (I have one at 52 - saved some items from main to help gearing it), is it even good idea to use difficulty merits? Won’t that mean losing reputation from quests AND crafting mats that drop along the way?
Ultimate is fine, however make sure your resistance are good. If you play softcore there is no worry, unless you play hardcore than you should really be careful.
Thank you both, I guess I’ll get some augments beforehand to fill the resistance gaps (pierce is where I’m lacking the most) so I don’t have to difficulty hop when I’d get a useful item, then load Ult and see how it goes.
while youre doing ultimate, if you get bored of the MC, break off for a while and do some faction bounties and run the roguelike dungeons, particularly get that Malmouth Resistance rep maxed so you can buy the XP potions, not for this character, but for any new characters you build afterwards, because lets be honest there are a bazillion builds to play around with in this game and the XP pots significantly enhance the games replayability.
Also, there are some secret gear sets that are target farmable only in Ultimate mode, as part of secret quests. So yes there is still more to see if you havent done Ultimate yet. You still havent seen all areas in the game!
I would use merits to skip elite. With both expansions usually you reach a relatively high level at the end of normal. However if you rush through normal then maybe still use the merit and spend “some” time in Elite at whatever locations you want then go Ultimate.
I personally prefer to play Normal without rushing then go ultimate. I don’t like rushing through normal to get familiar with the new masteries/builds I am trying and get a feel of their strength and weaknesses in different areas.
Okay, thanks everyone for your tips. Swapped to Ulti and went for it on story mode. Got to warden, managed to defeat some nemesis boss before him without dying, then just face-tanked warden no issue. I guess Ult it is for now, hoping to get some gear to drop.
I switched to elite at 73 or so. Then rushed it, entered ultimate at 85 I think. The only thing fundamental for both is to have the res capped, everything else can vary, I had only a purple weapon. Overlevelling in Elite can be a trap, considering the area level caps (monster and loot scaling) and there is a possibility to enter ultimate with very underleveled gear. Other than that is just a bit tougher. As an overall consideration, for first toon or for getting accomodated with a new playstyle, I would stick to normal with short trips to normal+vet to see a bit tougher game for comparison, but do all content on normal. That is, getting on Elite as reasonably low as possible (60ish?). For next toons, when reasonably knowledgeable and have already a collection of gear, I would guess the opposite is valid, stack every +xp possible or even use merits as mentioned.