Wait you mean build a specific character just so you can use that for farming? But building up a character to max takes months. I don’t get to sit and play all day. And if I make a character to the max I prefer to do it for fun, not for grinding. Grinding is work, if I wanted to make my spare time into work I might as well play an MMO, LOL… 
I prefer to make fun builds and once I levelled them up to be powerful, use them to get more set items for other potential builds I want to try (easier now thanks to transmuting).
The Dark One set… I never got why people like it. It boosts Bloody Pox, but then what? You use that skill as your main damage dealer? Does not seem like fun gameplay.
Also I think the highest waystone opens into the 45th shard. Doing it to 75th would take a lot of time just with running through 4 levels of each shard up to 30 more… and at the end you get the same amount of stuff as if you quit after 10 shards. Only the potential quality of the items changes, not how many chests you get. I found that most of the time for investing this much time in running the shards, I could have cleared out most of the Ugdenbog and Malmouth, ran into Cubacabra and Alexander, and ported over to catch Iron Maiden and Fabius, and likely found a few monster totems on the way that also drop good loot. To me doing the shattered realms seems more tedious and repetitive - and also slower, but it also forces you to rush to beat the timer. It’s why I never liked the Rift system in Diablo 3
The thing is as caster you can avoid facetanking at all and still dish damage. Take a look at @dmt casters for instance. They are more skill dependable but have great SR records. Pure melee builds are much rare in deep realms, minus few exceptions ofc.
Other than kiting, casters have huge % CDR, which mean you can have great uptime of your defensive skills/devotions and casters usually are classes with damage absorb/mitigation. Spellbinder can chain Mirror /Torment, Sorc have Mirror+Blast Shield boosted by Star Pact and Maiven on top. Mage Hunter can count on Maiven, Mirror, with Censure and Seal on top. So caster is more versatile archetype than melee.
No.
Agreed. The number of people who do this MinMaxing and gamebreaking builds and try to get to beyond the planned end of the Shattered Realm are a rather small bunch compared to all the players who - usually casually - play this game. However since it is also the same subset of people who are obsessively playing the same game for years now over and over and posting here, they are also the most vocal and most often heard by the developer - even if they do not in any way represent the average GD player, IMHO. And I say this as someone who has been playing this game for years obsessively (yet casually as I prefer to make up my own playstyle and builds rather than base them on those posted on the forums).
I see this same aspect in many other games. Age of Wonders Planetfall has a very small multiplayer group -maybe 50 people at most - but they are the most vocal on the forums and their outcries against ridiculously complex exploits (like only buying one type of unit and using a unique selection of mods makes them unkilleable)… stuff that normal players playing against the AI would never experience in their lives, nor would they use them even if they came up with the idea because frankly it would be rather boring to do in a strategy game to always use the same strategy against everything…
However because these players are so vocal, we often had changes to the game forced by them that were frankly, detrimental to those who only play single player - which is the vast majority of the players.
I am not saying this particular decision is similar, because most causal players will never reach these high level Shattered Realm levels so this would not matter to them. I am just speaking in general, because we have seen sets and skills nerfed for exploits that most casual players would never have thought of…
I had to check quickly on the crafted/quest items table and them being level 1, they were all over the place. Okay, so then you just run 1 level or what? Or 5, up to 80? Does anything drop above 80? I never went that far, only knew that these Deathly Waystones exist but did not check the mechanic.
Versatile is a nice thing but when you have super fast melee enemies literally charge into your face or unleash area off effect hell on you, it helps little… and in most of the arenas - other than the Korvan one that is mostly circular -your movement is severely limited. In the other arenas you need to quickly run away from the melee enemies before you can unleash hell, and in that time you will suffer damage as you will need to run around them - and also might trigger the other bosses lurking on the map. I dunno why you guys think Mirror of Eorectes is so great. Unless you have some constellation or special item that might - I stress, might -reset the cooldowns, Mirror buys you 3 seconds, but then you need to wait like 20 for it to recharge, and in 20 seconds these bosses will tear you apart.
Melee builds? Does it exist? 
I don’t min-max or make gamebreaking builds tho 
I often accuse Zantai of not heaing our pleas (well, more like protests, but still…) 
True, since most of the balancing comes as a result of comparatively small playerbase and builds whose results others might not even get close to.
I am not sure who said it, but I am sure someone did… that because of this reason, it is better to give the devs, or Zantai in this case, as much info as possible on how a particular build achieves certain results, its consistency etc so that nerfs if made, can be made accordingly if possible, in such a way that most won’t even notice it having a detrimental effect on their games.
Hence why 2 of the builds I ran SR with for the challenge also included post on exactly how the game played out and what sort of difficulties I had to face.
Cross posting from their own threads:
&
As you can see, both cases are not something easily replicated nor remotely possible without exploits and even then, requires a lot of luck to actually pull it off.
If on the basis of the results alone, pet builds were nerfed for eg; that would hurt everyone as the results are in no way indication of the build’s strength, but more about the pilot’s perseverance and having too much free time.
But if fixing camera exploit were to bring everything into line for eg, then no need to nerf the builds themselves.
Lost Souls set does that, gives you +1 of them. I have a Cabalist focused on that + Skeletons. You need some other voodoo to change the Hellhound damage to Vitality but from there on, they become pretty potent.
But I agree we should have other sets that maybe focus more on their fire/chaos damage. I experimented with using Veilpiercer or Dracarris with them, but the latter works mostly for hybrid summoner builds. I have plans to try to make a hybrid Chaos damage focused caster/summoner with the Unholy Covenant set (the mythical version) but I am far from trying it out, only at level 55.
I hate Gargabol, with all my heart… I have so far had every build from summoner to caster and ranged and melee and it was a major pain to fight with all of them in its natural environment. You have this gigantic mound of rock walk after you (it is faster than it looks) while the fire jets can randomly erupt from anywhere and kill you instantly even with max fire resistence unless you move, and then if you try and stop to attack, the spawned lava plants will bombard you with even more fire! I never met Gargabol in the Shattered Realm, maybe without the fire jets he is not so bad, but those plants are a major detriment to every class that needs to stop in order to fire/cast spells…
I can concur to this. Iron Maiden is somehow worse because she also stuns you and lets slower melee bosses close in and finish the job while you cannot do anything.
Heck, I noticed even just during regular play that there are certain monsters that seem to ignore your pets more than others, and rush you at the slightest provocation (meaning for me, Curse of Frailty or vines). Yetis and their Ugdenbog Leafmane cousins, and the more dangerous ones, Cronley’s Murderers. They always come and hurl that damn spectral dagger right at me, ignoring the pets, and I bet that thing does % life reduction because even with max vitality resist it does hurt.
I know about Lost Souls and it still underperforms. My point is if you play without gear as I do every 4-5 Months its kind of bad to level relying on the hellhound. Even with Lost soul the hellhound its still… how i put it… shit 
. It can clear all content though. I dont like the idea having more pets behind sets. If you had a second hellhound through skills and even a 3rd through the Lost Souls it would be for sure stronger. Still Lost Soul Set blocks so many better options for hellhound but you kind have to use it since you need the second hellhound.
I would not mind if like the Wolf in Titan Quest, getting the Hellhound (LOL almost typed Heckhound, censoring myself? :D) skill to 20 or so would get +1 summon. I was surprised when I found out Reap Spirit unlocks an additional when brought above the max (I could not test that much in the skill calculator).
I will have to experiment with the Bysmiel amulets set someday and how an Arcanist/Occultist would work with such using a hellhound that does elemental damage.
Lmao this is like when my 10 yr old brother looks at me playing minecraft and asks me how I can get full enchanted diamond set less than a day after starting a new world. I say “I play efficiently and know what to do since starting a new world”. He says “Oh. it’s not fun for me. But how do I get those diamonds easily without going to creative?”
Really taking an ssf char to 100 takes just a few days if you don’t have lokarr set. With lokarr and exp potion even faster. Then if you’re going dark one/krieg route that’s just an additional 4ish hours. Then you can start farming lower SR till you complete your build and some items for the chat your really want. Get that char to 100 (even faster than the first one) and then you’re done!
Yes I would enjoy it since you arent gonna need a Set to have more pets of the same kind . I Always wanted a second firegolem in Titan Quest . But adding Summon Limits to the Skill itself it might cost some balance issues if you dont remove them from the Set itself.
You might want to specify if you’ve tried a Hound build as of recent as it did get buffed in 1.1.8.0 and 1.1.8.1:
It’s also worth noting that non-set pet equipment is getting a review in 1.1.9 as well so it’s possible items like Dracarris that have been overlooked for a long time will hopefully get some life breathed into them.
Yes I saw that. Dracarris never will be a thing since its a “Pet hybrid item”. If it procs on any kill it would be just stupid strong if it stays as it is. The Hellhound is still underperforming since the change was better for the survival aspect of the Summoner . You have to invest too many points for the hellhound to being able to be still bad or between bad and ok.
You know the buff numbers would just get adjusted if it procced of off any kill right? But regardless of whether that happens or not, there are ways of making Dracarris useful like recreating the skill bonuses or modifiers on it to either go hard on pet support in Demo or swapping the focus to a different mastery.
I won’t tell you to set your expectations high but at least try to stay optimistic, they can change items for the better and have done before in ways that really pay off, Corruption of Gargabol being one of the biggest that gets quoted.
Who says I am not optimistic. ?
Yes i know they might change the item. But there are items like Veilpiercer that are fantastic for Hellhound or Builds that use the Hellhound. Thats why i would prefer having Summon Limits numbers on the Skill itself instead of a set… since your choices would be much more and obviously make leveling a lot easier and more fun.
Did you check the link I sent to the hybrid pets topic at the bottom of my first post as Zantai details a few reasons why summon limit outside of pet sets/as part of the base skill isn’t a good idea. It also seems like something they want to be the defining trait for each pet set.
Edit: It’s also occurring to me that the current topic is getting way off of track with our back-and-forth 
.
Yes I did read everything couple days ago. As he mentions they will try to reduce the impact of the Sets on pet builds. That might mean adding stats for pets on certain items or Summon Limits on items(but I am sure he stated that its too much power on the item itself) . Still it doesnt change the fact that the hellhound is just a bystander on many pet Builds.
Yeah you are right lets stop it right here
The skill makes you invincible for 3 seconds, and doesn’t restrict your mobility. Use your imagination. There was also an MI weapon added to the game that reduced its CD [EDIT: it extends duration, rather than decreasing CD], I believe, and can be dual wielded. @Armored-Otter made a build around it here. My feeling is this game is so god damn good because of items like these, which can totally transform your ideas of how a skill can be used! The creative limits are nearly boundless, if you look for them deep enough, and I want to thank Otter for sharing this inspiring build.
@BB_Shockwave from your posts you sound a lot like me, I like to play my way and honestly can barely tread water with SR and CR related topics from lack of build knowledge, because i dont get a lot of joy in grinding for that top time or whatever. But I am a hardcore player (and also play a lot of HC), and as such impose a lot of self-rules and handicaps on my builds for the sake of flavor and theme, and to experience the game in different ways. Many of these ways arent traditional, or popular. One example I can give is my custom built Monk style class (character is not allowed to use weapons and must fight with bare hands). My goal becomes to just complete the MC on Ultimate under these restrictions, and then again in HC.
Part of doing this involves experimenting with every single skill I enjoy, trying to do my best to build around it and make it the purpose of the build. This requires gear, many times, particularly if I want my builds to be as absolutely thematic as possible. So? I do what @x1x1x1x2 suggested…
I did this following @Nery’s vitality caster conjurer beginner guide. This build enabled me to farm in SR, for all the items my janky noob ass could dream of.
Then, i took those items and used them on the glitchy memey eccentric characters I love the most! These were build defining items. It wasnt too hard to do solo but I will say, getting the best rolls and what not, that is a challenge… but it also makes farming exciting. Even on normal, the SR rewards for 75-76 are great, I feel. I didnt even see the point in farming SR any other difficulty (for the purpose of farming items).
So you can see how having one set character whose role is specifically to farm, can bring you great joy in the long run, providing for, and in essence carrying all your other builds. Without resorting to GDstash or any mods.
there is no planned “end” to SR. Well one can say that SR50 is the planned end “lore wise” and I think most ppl can do that with just basic knowledge of the game and reasonable itemization and skills. But still, end game should be for those who really wanna learn about the game and get better. If anyone could do SR 50 with just playing blind, I would not play this game - it would be too easy for me.
Remember that the devs are ARPG nerds themselves and like the old ARPGs. Do you remember when you hit Hell difficulty in Diablo II? Took me a looong time to figure out how to beat the game at that difficulty. Was it worth it? Yeah it felt like an accomplishment, that I have done something others and myself have thought was impossible (but that some think it is rather trivial once you know basics of game mechanics). Progression in other words. Just like math, for those who wanna solve Einsteins equations for general relativity and just not read about it in popular science magazines - you have do the the hard work, fail number of times and then eventually succeed.
Can you give an example of this? Where a game change was forced upon just because a few min-maxers broke the game that destroyed the game for casual players?