Thoughts on the new Crucible

Grim Dawn Gameplay Discussion
1

I just finished my first gladiator run on the new crucible and just wanna share my experiences and thoughts.

TL;DR: I died. New Crucible is friggin hard. But I like it. What you guys think?

So i started from wave 100 Crucible of the Legion with my triple meteor battlemage. Didn’t personally love the arena, mainly cause there’s a lot of roofs that can block my falling rocks, lowering my dps. Don’t know if it was the wave changes or the arena, but my clear speed was significantly slower than before. I can clear waves 100-150 in 25-26 mins with the build with buffs/banners but this time buffs expired (25 mins) just before clearing wave 140.

Waves 100-150: not much has changed. But I like the little changes i noticed. Wave 109 does not (always?) have Lagothak (hate this guy so much) + Harrath anymore. The two bosses before Shaper appeared instead. Wave 137 Valaxteria replaced Salazar, nice. But the best thing that happened here is wave 140 no more heralds. Loved it.

Waves 151-160: Not much of note, but this is much harder than 140-150. Was surprised when Kuba+Grava appeared on 154. Looks like they stopped putting nemeses on xx5 waves. You’d think Fabius+Maiden is easy with this one. Wave 160 was nuts. Had Kuba + Alex +Ben. Just ran like a retard most of the time as blood pools can quickly deplete my hp and also meteor. Got through it but drained the energy out of me. Had to rest a bit before continuing.

Wave 161: Saw 1 skull. Went there immediately to check it out when FUCKING METEOR FALLS. They put Alex on 161! Good thing I was not 1shotted. Carried on and passed a few waves.

Waves 162-169: was HARDER than anything else. You’ll get a Mad queen alongside some other boss (iirc), I got Grava + Fabius + 2 other bosses. Grava disruption is annoying. Had a 149esque wave with Sharzul, alkamos and lucius. 169 I thought was easy until I noticed that there was Anasteria and Shaper that revives to his 3rd form (the one that dives). I recommend killing Shaper first cause you don’t want a diving maniac on 170.

Wave 170: The final wave, 4 nemeses. Got Alex, Ben, Kupa and Zantarin, so just like my 160 earlier but I had no buffs anymore (last buffs were bought on 140) and Shaper from previous wave was still alive so I had to play really safe. Everything went well but I was doing unspectacular damage cause I ran a lot. The wtf moment was when I had about 60% hp, mirror on cd, potions on cd, giant’s blood on cd (i think) so I just kited and kited then Ben trapped me just as Alex cast his meteor. BAM, dead. Journey ended.

Overall it was really harder than the previous crucible. I’d say 150-170 with buffs and banners is still way harder than 100-150 without buffs and banners. I like the changes they made, though. And I also just noticed that solael pants now drop in the crucible, my first time seeing them, if my memory serves me right. I guess this is the end of ‘Crucible has become easy’ era and we’re back to pre-xpac time where only a handful of builds could farm gladiator reliably, and I like it. I imagine Zhuugus’, list will be cut by about 1/4.

That’s all for now. What do you guys think?

2

Really painful. Especially if you miss Valaxteria spawning and are engaged with either basilisk or time warped enemies and you can’t dodge her meteor which is almost a one shot to some builds especially if Grava or oppressors are reducing your life total. Melee builds are going to have an exceptionally tough time and only maybe one or two ranged builds I’ve seen might be able to cope.

3

I don’t think I’ll try it in single player anytime soon. Hope they don’t touch its difficulty till the time I get to try it with my mates. Since I am more into Multiplayer crucible.
But your info is helpful, i’ll troll my friends by using fevered rage in Valaxteria wave :smiley:

Only thing I hate about the current crucible is we get to face Reaper of the Lost, for those of you who don’t know him. He’s basically the Ravager but much weaker since he didn’t have our help to manifest. He’s stronger than Grava in my experience with him on MC on the only char I decided to make enemies with Barrowholm (regretting it btw :undecided:)

4

Oh my gosh. That is something you need to get video of because that would be amazing and hilarious to watch :smiley: Fevered rage in crucible is guaranteed wipe with these enemies and combinations.

5

I knew Crucible’s difficulty would go through the roof with all the AoM enemies because of all the shit they can throw at you.

6

Looks like the tanky DOT caster meta is back. Even Death Knights have a hard time tanking 4 AoM nemeses, hell, even Aleksander with some remotely bullshit modifier are enough to fend of most gladiator viable builds atm.

7

Slow and petrify resistance just became major important in Crucible because of the Timewarped enemies. With low slow and petrify resist, you get timewarped and that’s enough time for Alex to dump a meteor on you.

It’s gonna take a while to balance the current Crucible to something more manageable.

8

137 is now Valaxteria + Anasteria so two fevered rage targets for double the fun. Or if you get to 169 then Anasteria might not be noticed by first timers cause Theodin sometimes covers her whole and their attacks are similar.

9

Slow resistance ALWAYS was important in Crucible, actually.

10

Only if you played as a DPS and mobility focused build. If you’re a tank you could just stay in one place and laugh at everything, not anymore though.

11

But before, you could get away even if you neglect it. Nownit becomes more important because even the tankiest melee builds can easily melt with the new waves.

12

I like the new Crucible! At least the game now have a real challenge, not some BS celestial fights. =)

13

And you still suffered a major DPS loose from all those slows. Slow resistance translates into a very significant DPS boost for certain builds.

14

Does Kubra heals his allies? Because he does in the base game and is fucking broken.

Anyway this is to be expected, the new nemesis altogether are some of the nastiest combo in the entire game.

15

^

His blood pools heals every ally.

16

As someone who never plays crucible, this made me laugh out loud.

I’m a terrible person

17

Kuba confirmed female.

i’m sorry, i’m sorry

18

Nah, you’re fine. I approve.

19

I really like this crucible direction Crate is going. more refinements and harder challenges… Looking forward to more waves. wave 200? Scary indeed… My only gripe with it is that everytime we are under agony to bask under the boring presence of Lokarr . It really ruins the immersion of crucible. Thing is, we already got him figured out and trashed several times in campaign that he no longer poses much of a threat to us even as a super boss, his mocks dont mean a thing. So maybe we can get someone to replace him this time around? :rolleyes:

20

loot wise i expect (and hope) that 150 loot is untouched and 170 is MORE loot, assuming you can make it. correct?

what i am hoping they did NOT do is nerf loot on 150 and just move it to wave 170 (so IOW the 160 wave loot would be worse than 150 is now)

anyone know how the loot works? i’m hoping with massive ramp in difficulty we have a corresponding ramp in loot. otherwise no point