So I’m pretty new to this mode - I’ve spent a lot more time in SR. And with good reason!
Crucible seems absolutely ridiculous. Now, excuse my vent in advance. But I actually completed 150-170 (gladiator) on 2 of my characters and I did so on the first try (or the second, I think, on one of them).
These are the 2 toons who have attempted & beat it:
(The latter is a hybrid auto-attack/caster using 2 runes, both bound to rightclick with autohotkey.)
After that I thought I’d repeat the run and see how fast I can do it, since it was originally un-timed. Big mistake! I started getting my ass kicked out of nowhere, and after a few tries I rage-quit in frustration.
What’s up with that? Is this normal? I was able to complete it pretty safely on both guys first time round. Maybe I was just being super cautious. Or maybe the mode is just full of crap. I started having trouble with that stupid asshole Aleksander on wave 160 (and he likes to respawn 161 too). So, I naturally move around to avoid his aether bombs, but something in the wave keeps giving ridiculous DOT damage. It can’t be him, surely, since aether has no DOT (and I’ve killed him dozens of times in SR to boot).
Anyway, just thought I’d vent. I’m perplexed that people can post up here like 5 minute runs of the whole 20 waves as if that is the norm. Surely not? I just see no point to this challenge once you have beaten it, since SR is actually way easier and (I think?) gives better loot…
Yes, it’s normal to be frustrated by Crucible, at least for me. But also very satisfying if you overcome difficulties by tweaking the build or improving your strategy / piloting.
Did you use buffs, storm beacons and stand in the seal?
You first character has bad Aether res overcap, it can hurt.
Your second one has bad Vitality and Poison overcap.
The point is to test builds and compare them with each other. For top builders who’ve made hundreds of builds, thousands of runs and are good at games in general it can be a norm for sure although it’s not like they can reach 5 minutes with absolutely everything, they just don’t post slower builds. Although you’d be surprise from what garbage they can cook up a 5 minute build.
Also
sometimes a character can have just a bit too little life steal and die because of it
other times killing speed is not there which leads to getting surrounded and killed etc.
It’s a fine balance and details matter a lot. You change 1 thing and suddenly a build plays great.
Maybe some other players can look at your builds and tell what can be done or maybe watch your videos.
I’m personally not experienced with shooting builds so I cannot help much especially that they look fine.
Also I like playing tankier / almost immortal builds to offset my bad piloting skills / lack of knowledge about enemies.
I was using banners (pretty much always stonewall) but I had to forego them as was running out of tribute point. I try to stay in my seal, but sometimes you have to kite - in fact, whenever there is multiple nemesis (in my experience). Or Mad Queen. Probably the one enemy who neither of these can facetank - she shotguns you in the face! Usually being a ranged build is what keeps me alive, but I’ve been getting some horrible DOT damage when moving away, usually in waves including Aleksander. Possibly the damn shards which keep zapping and damaging you at a distance…
Yeah I usually use ointments, always Aether, usually Poison, and I try to keep stocked up on Deathwhisper, although crafting can be a pain.
Maybe I’ve just been getting reckless by trying to “beat the clock”. I’ll try again tomorrow with a clearer head and more careful strategy. I suppose timing is irrelevant if rushing gets you killed.
I’m also holding out for a good Mousilike shoulderguard for my Infilitrator as that will enable me to bring RoH to 26, though I don’t know if those last 3 points will massively help kill speed… (and I will lose some OA)
P.S. what in your opinion is safe ADctH btw? I usually aim for around 15% (I’ve seen that quoted on the forum from time to time), obviously more is better but not always feasible. These guys have 15/14% base but also like 15%/20% healing increase which I suppose boosts that by an extra % or two.
I’m not sure but you can try Haunted Steel. Bloodthirster can provide you with some silly life steal when you need it the most. Also if a build dies even while using it, then you know problem lies somewhere else.
Once again, “first time lucky” - I bet if I try again I will start dying horribly I should probably restrict attempts to once per day per char.
Once I start dying I get low-level gamer rage. I suppose the axiom holds true here: “any action committed in anger is doomed to failure”
For me the hardest rounds are 160/161 and 169/170. 169/170 was extremely clutch. I realized that sometimes you actually have to be brave/aggressive to survive. At one point I was fleeing (Reaper, Fabius, Aleksander and someone else on my tail) and would have died if I had not had the thought, in that split second, “if you don’t turn and shoot back some life you are going to die”, and it saved me. Other times you do have to know when to retreat. I also had to time my heals and teleport carefully - don’t use your teleport liberally when you have both Grava Thul and Valdaran on your ass!
P.S. btw, you can choose to thicken mobs when you go to Lokarr, can’t you? Can you actually do this for 150-170? Do some people actually do this? Is there a “higher” difficulty over what I’ve just beaten that I still have to beat?
Do the monsters have their own scaling in gladiator crucible outside of the main campaign? Just tried several 150-170 runs unsuccessfully on infiltrator. Death comes suddenly & unexpectedly at some random point. On one round, during the wave with Laria the Hexxer, I was suddenly one-shotted by either her or the other mage. Next time round no problems at all. Sometimes I get suddenly one-shotted by Aleksander (not when hit by the giant aether ball), other times not. The last ignominous death came in either round 163 or 164, the one with Grava Thul. It’s a tricky one, but I was suddenly one-shotted early in it. I checked “last attacked by” and Grava had a small chance to crit me, despite 3.2k DA. How? I give up running this mode! (at least, on everything except Warlord, who hasn’t attempted 150-70 yet, but I expect to perform much better. If it turns out that way maybe I’ll just delete all my other worthless toons).
If you have no problems with it, I’d download and use the GrimInternals program. It has a function where you can see your Incoming DPS and have it broken down by type. 95% of the time, the breakpoint that determines whether you succeed or not is how much you can handle Physical damage, as that often causes incoming DPS as much, or more, than the others combined.
In Crucible specifically, there are lots of ways you can end up being deleted:
Enemy teleports right on top of you and shotguns you with 5+ projectiles (probably exactly what happened with Laria the Hexxer). Alex and Valdaran both have shotgun attacks that you have to move to dodge the worst of it.
Korvaak (him specifically, Theodin doesn’t matter too much) shotgunning you with those circling Fire projectiles while you’re trying to handle another Nemesis.
Someone reducing your resistances by 30, then eating 2 major Physical hits. Reaper’s the worst offender because the Wraiths provide stackable RR and Reaper has a WPS that gives you 30 flat RR and you have no idea which WPS he uses that will cause it.
Anasteria giving you 50% reduced resistances and then Fabius + Iron Maiden charging you there and then.
SR has it own craziness, but that’s more due to the OA & damage scaling leading to unreasonable damage spikes. Crucible is more tempered on the scaling, but it’s hard to manage piloting when you have 2 AoM Nemeses + Fabius gunning for you. Thank goodness that SR kept the 1v1 boss fighting and didn’t turn it into naked Crucible + even more mutators and scaled nonsense. How people consistently beat naked Crucible + extra spawns without consumables confounds me.
Wow some great advice there! I nearly gave up on my Pierce Infiltrator, but I’ve reworked the devotions which I think will help, and replaced Fabius Pauldron with Moosilauke’s to max out RoH (plus adds another +3 to Ring of Steel, making it 9 / 9 for 1 point investment)
I’ve dropped Unknown Solider ( ) and taken on Bat (attaching Twin Fangs to BS) and Assassin (Blades of Wrath attached to RoH, Assassin’s Mark moved over to RoK).
I’m hoping Bat will provide better sustain and that Blades of Wrath will provide some heightened offensive capability. I originally gave it a miss b/c I figured I already had enough AoE, and always wanted Unknown Soldier for the ghost summons (they’re just too cool). However I see a lot of pierce builds take Assassin, and I can only assume that, aside from increased AoE, it can also shotgun certain enemies?
In Crucible your goal is to have enough single target damage to put bosses to sleep quickly and then AoE damage against lesser monsters. They tend to shower you with debuffs, so fast kill with AoE/procs is the best scenario. That’s especially true for builds without much native AoE or DoT . Pierce (auto attackers) have strong single target damage, so they need bit of a help with rest.
Assassins have also one other perk and that’s racial against humans.
For tougher enemies, I would say wave 169 can be difficult if you allow to be hit by Anasteria Meteors+Korvaak, Kaisan’s crystals and Grava if you’re melee build with that disrupt skill. Also pay attention to Nemesis/bosses crazy resistant to your damage type, every build have it’s own archnemesis.
I should probably restrict attempts to once per day per char.
) and taken on Bat (attaching Twin Fangs to BS) and Assassin (Blades of Wrath attached to RoH, Assassin’s Mark moved over to RoK).