So, after the dreaded 1.1.4 rework I went back to see what changed, as ultimate still feels more or less the same in act 1.
My planned build was this saboteur (literally shoestring budget Rimetongue), and I made it on a whim after figuring out a shoestring Harra’s Spellbreaker (Don’t ask, I woke up one day thinking I want to make a build around Alkamos’ Warsword that isn’t a dervish).
I managed to kill Loghorrean so far with this build, but at level 42, and a sanctified bone added to the chest. The log fight itself was quite easy, huge stationary bosses with telegraphed attacks are eaten up by canister bomb and friends.
However, getting to this point, oh my…
I started on my gf’s computer (no mandates, no merits), ran past the bridge committee (they aren’t worth fighting anymore, rotting soldiers eat too much health with a charge) and beelined to Francis’ gun. There I picked Nightblade and ABB-d my way to Hevill’s Longsword, which covered my early levels (2-12). Things hit hard, but the consistent buffing of ABB left me with something to aswer them. All points went into cunning, as ABB is all or nothing. You miss the first hit, then suddenly you have a group of baddies trying to eat your face off. Bad situations like that are what we want to minimize while leveling.
Around the Foggy Bank/Burrwich Outskirts area, I flirted with nightblade leveling using a pair of Olman’s Axes, Shadow Strike, and VoS+Night’s Chill, but that simply isn’t the way this char’ll roll in the future, so I bit the bullet, grabbed a 2h sword of scorching (some 38-40% fire/burn damage), and went full demolitionist: 1p transmuted bwc, high base canister bomb, and rush the 2nd node for grenado. Devotion was Bat bound to bwc.
As expected, the Festering Lair proved no obstacle, neither did the warden, only difference from before is how spongy he is.
However, I was pleasantly surprised at some of the original heroes: Milton Hart is a lot more !fun! than just a simple beefy rotting soldier. The stun shotgun + charge has some oneshot (one-two combo) potential on veteran though. (even against fullphys shieldkeepers/warlords/soldiers).
Similarly, the other two zombie bosses in wightmire were pleasantly challenging.
Past act 1 however, I had the urge to try veteran (A1 vet was enough already on my shielded warlord) on this char, and my experience was mixed:
- On one hand, it separates slower, tankier builds from faster, glass squirtguns with the 2x (approx) health and damage scaling .
- On the other hand, it doesn’t really reward those who choose to struggle. 10% xp is nothing unless you are tweaked to the chin with lokarr’s set + wilhelm’s gem and potions.
- everything is very very spongy, and takes a long time to whittle down. Progress through vanilla mc lasts far longer than before.
I got almost oneshot (lost about 80% of my health at once) from an unlucky hit of Ronaprax’s arcing projectiles, (In veteran), and that was around levels 20-22, where getting your resists up is a crapshoot, and this makes every or almost every non-resist affix on an item secondary.
I also lost about a third of my health from a single, yellow-tier on-level shambler’s rock toss. On normal. And I was stunned.
Alkamos at level 30 had some 220k health, it was a pain to damage him with my canister+grenado, but at least he dropped a warsword, so I could embrace my cold side. I can’t imagine fighting him in veteran with the approx 2x damage buff.
Amalgamation was easy prey to grenado+canister+bwc’s triggered devotions.
Bloodlord hit me hard despite my resists.
That is about it. On veteran, the trashy mobs feel fine, but bosses have a little more health than healthy. Perhaps reducing their health and damage from 2x to 1.5x of current normal health and damage would be better on the long run.
Amalgamation could use some health/defense boost however.