Trash vs hero enemies

Maybe it’s just me but I find it disturbing how big of a difference there is between trash packs (white/yellow enemies) and hero (orange) enemies.
Since early game all the way up to my now level 87 toon, I’ve been 1-shoting all trash packs on all difficulties while having insane fights with hero enemies. The strength of hero enemies is fun imho, takes some good kiting, a solid build with good gear and some skill to take them down.

But all the other time I’m just mowing through trash packs like they aren’t there, even though I think it would be fun to have some difficult 1vsMany fights where you need mass CC in order to stay ahead of them and where you possibly need to attempt to focus on the squishy ranged backline before going head-on into the sturdy melee frontline. Now it just feels like all trash mobs are identical like they all have 1hp and no damage.

Was hoping to see stronger trash packs in Ultimate difficulty, but it’s more of the same. Curious how others think about this.

The Aetherial Vanguard endgame and the Chthonic forces endgame have a tonne of damage soakers mixed with healers, witb the odd Arcane heroes to keep you on your toes. I personally like the scaling in these areas and don’t feel they need to be changed.

Depends on which act you are talking about. In early acts, trash mobs are easy to kill, but in late acts they can be quite tough to kill. Specially the expansion acts.

Trash have strengths and weaknesses, so you might not notice their strengths if your build is well-rounded. For example, lots of trash explodes at melee range, which won’t be apparent to a gunslinger, for example.

I completely agree with the OP; it’s a somewhat odd feature of this game. Sounds like the expansion changes things to some degree, but I don’t have it yet. In the base game, trash may as well not exist (at any difficulty), it’s completely meaningless. Literally the most impact trash has on any fight is as a mobility aid using Blitz or Shadow Strike. I’ve enjoyed the kind of 1-vs-many mass combats Fruneiros describes in other games, but that’s not a thing here.

At this point I don’t see why Crate would change things. They surely did it this way for a reason (not sure what that reason is, exactly, but I’m sure they have one), and it’s not a big deal. It does force players to remember that not everything in Cairn is faceroll-trivial, and the player’s fingers need to remember which buttons map to the health potion and any defensive cooldowns like Mirror or Blade Barrier. :stuck_out_tongue: I’m sure I’m not the only one who’s had deaths after long stretches of trash-shredding only to run into a tough boss and fumbling for those rarely-needed buttons.

If you say so. I’ve noticed no difference in trash-shredding between my melee characters, my gunslinger, or my casters. Everything explodes from any primary attack (and many ancillary attacks, like a Flashbang triggering an item or devotion proc). Like Fruneiros said I honestly can’t tell if any trash mob has more than one hit point…

Theres some truth to OPs words.

Trash is simply trash that usually doesnt move your healthbar much, if at all. Then you run into a heropack which happens to have an unfortunate ability-damagetype-combo for your particular toon and you get oneshot or nearly oneshot, despite you steamrolling everything else for the last hour or so. :stuck_out_tongue:

At first I was a bit furious about this, but Ive come to accept, even somewhat like it. Its Grim Dawns flavour. It teaches you to always stay alert and not to rush in headlessly or leave major single gaps in your defenses.

But it is also true that expansion-trashpacks can be much more dangerous than basegame-trash, even without the presence of a hero.

Trash packs = exp

Heroes = loot.

Different enemies for different purposes.

Yeah maybe, but how exactly does that relate to the topic, which is more about the fact that trash does rarely provide difficulty? Or GDs difficulty in general?

“You have to fight hard for loot, but exp is always thrown at you.” - I dont think thats the actual philosophy at work here.

If you’re getting your feet wet at the start of the game, wouldn’t be very nice if trash mobs chunked your HP bar now would it?

Exp is not thrown at you. But it is at the beginning of the game. As Duck_King pointed out, AoM + Ugdenbog’s trash packs can be quite deadly. Especially when combined with the dangers each area brings.

I still dont get your logic. :frowning:

Why is trash in the basegame (stated by multiple people including me btw…) not allowed to pose any threat regardless of difficulty (explicitely stated by multiple people)? I mean if trash was harmless only on normal from Devils Crossing up to Burwitch or so, I could somewhat understand it. But it carries on through the basegame and all the difficulties, so it is apparently not newbie-protection, but a general design concept.

And why would this be tied to exp-/lootrewads anyway? Exp-giving enemies so very easy, lootgiving enemies much harder… makes not much sense to me.

Again, I dont have a real problem with that concept anyway, I just find it a bit weird when pretty much all the difficulty comes from hero-combos, (Super)Bosses and Nemeses. It makes for a somewhat strange flow on the “cardiogram of difficulty” so to say.

Like

flat, flat, flat, flat, flat, small bump, flat, flat,flat, HEAVY SPIKE flat, flat, flat, flat,…

This was also the case in TQIM. It was patched after 10 years =). Months ago spikes were higher so probably it will be toned down eventually. You just need early resistances that is it.

It’s been suggested in the past to increase trash mobs potential. But I feel all this really acomplishes is making the game a chore to play.

Why would you want to stay an hour in a zone that can currently be cleared in 5 minutes?

By turning each encounter into a mini battlefield there is little rewards for the player. The main campaign is designed to be finished. Why punish newcomers so severely?

Crate has introduced many optional zones and unfortunately the toughest content is in the expansion.

It really wasn’t that long ago that a buff was given to the undead. As they really were weak. Perhaps your suggestion should be to increase the difficulty of chthonic and aetherial forces in the base game but just so you know there are still players who find the game too difficult

Not related to the topic but it’d be funny if we they disguise a Loxmere/Deathstalker level enemy as a common foe but with a unique name.

No star, no nothing that helps us identify Loxmere and Deathstalker in a crowd. Just a common enemy with a unique name and preferably Shadow Strike

This is exactly why trash mobs are trash mobs… and all this has been haggled over in the past on these forums (and I’m sure countless others). They could easily make us spend several minutes per encounter killing trash, make them much, much smarter etc… but it’s an action arpg, and more specifically a Diablo-like. No one really wants to spend all that time with every damned encounter.

For those that DO want that, hallelujah, Crate gave you mod tools. If you don’t like their design choices you can go right on ahead and make it in your image. Have at it.

Yeah. This is the opportunity to make Flameond Bleu dangerous.

Sounds a lot like Toxeus the Murderer (Green version) in TQIT. Luckily people don’t run into him often, but when they do it’s usually fatal. :smiley:

I see there’s a lot of mixed feelings about this topic.

I saw it was mentioned that trash difficulty is based on act. I’m currently in the expansion act of Ultimate difficulty, and you face like these huge monsters that should make you feel like ‘‘oh my god, what is that???’’ but at this moment it feels like im a flamethrower facing off snowmans.

I have all resistances at 80% and 98% armor absorbtion with good gear. I would feel like building more offensive as my health bar isn’t moved by trash packs so I would ‘create my own difficulty’ but if I do that, I cannot handle hero enemies anymore.

In my experience, when I played expansion for first time, difficulty of trash enemies feeled ok. I had no proper gear and less than level 100.
But when I got my first set and got proper gear, trash enemies feels boring, at the point I ignore them most the time.

I would like to see a “smart enemy system”.
When you have less than level 100 and your gear isn’t the best (maybe using Average item level stat), increase number of trash.
But when you get level 100 and get proper gear, decrease number of trash enemies and increase number of heros or champions.

I meant a special boss level enemy disguised as a common foe with a unique name w/o even a star over his head i.e not a hero

It says Toxeus is an Undead Hero on the wiki so shouldn’t he be similar to Deathstalker and Loxmere?