Tuesday 9 July 2013

Getting Worse and Worse

I was reasonably happy with the skills of a level 45 Demon Hunter.  The most recent variety of Hungering Arrow was much like all the others and did the work I required of it.  Rapid Fire (High Velocity) was excellent at killing elites and even did fairly well against packs of normals.  Discipline (Focused Mind) meant that in a tough situation I could hit Smoke Screen (Special Recipe) quite often.  By far the worst variant of Turret - Chain of Torment - was still a variant of Turret and thus still great.  And lastly, Rain of Vengeance (Beastly Bombs) was a button I was happy to hit every thirty seconds.  Things were going well and I was mowing through demons.

At level 46 a Ferret Companion replaced Discipline, which was a definite improvement but I lost Beastly Bombs for Multi-shot so it was a bit of a wash.  My turrets also went out for a rune of Spike Trap which appears to be a Spike Trap that is limited to hitting three targets instead of hitting all creatures within range.  I wasn't terribly impressed.

At level 47 I got the Stampede rune of Rain of Vengeance which didn't seem as good as Beastly Bombs but which was nice to have.  Hungering Arrow got swapped out for Entangling Shot which is bad news but the rune that gave extra hatred helped to make up for it since I was still killing most things with Rapid Fire.

Then at level 48 I got Stun Grenades which are incredibly powerful but still are grenades.  I got Chakra (Boomerang) to replace Rapid Fire, so I got to do 230% damage in an awkward shape instead of 438% in a direct line.  I also lost my ferrets for a Mark for Death rune that generates additional hatred - not something I needed badly once Rapid Fire was gone, and 12% more damage to one target isn't even as much damage as the ferrets were doing.

Level 49 brought Vault (Trail of Cinders) and Cluster Arrow (Cluster Bombs) in.  Having a vault rune that did damage seemed nice because I was low on damage dealers, and Cluster Bombs was a fairly high damage attack if I could get enemies to stay at just the right range.  I could rapidly take out ranged attackers with cluster bombs and then stun lock the melee attackers with grenades.  Things weren't ideal but they were still chugging along.

Level 50 was dismal.  One active skill replacement and it took away Cluster Bombs for a Strafe variant that is still Strafe and hence is still pretty much useless.  Most of the enemies I fight I just kill with grenades.  Vault adds some damage but with a discipline cost of 8 and a 3 second duration I can't exactly spam it.  Plus it can be difficult to use because Vaulting forward can attract more unwanted archers while going backwards doesn't get the enemies in the area fast enough to make it worthwhile.  I met a group of ordinary Hell Flyers on the Battlefield and it took me so long to kill them that I had to seriously consider backtracking to level up.

Last night I knuckled down and crossed the Bridge of Krossik.  It took an hour and twenty minutes and I got to level 51 right at the end of it.  This got me Bola Shot (Bitter Pill) and Shadow Power (Gloom).  The shadow power rune is great, and I'm glad that my primary attack does more damage, though the loss of stun means I spend more time running around.  I killed the Siegebreaker after a very long battle and made it through Arreat Crater 1.  I don't know what I'm going to do about Phase Beasts other than die repeatedly.

Wizards had a difficult level in the early fifties as well, but this is just level after level of slog.  The good news is, there are only 9 more levels to go, and they can't all be this bad.

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