Let's do this one last time...

...or 2-3-4-5 times if i have the patience for it. It's been two years since i played TQ when i made the last hardcore thread. And speaking of the last challenge, It was going well until i reach the end of the second difficulty and then i started to struggle, not with the pets' performance, but with the way monsters react to them, which makes it almost impossible to enjoy that style of play. The problem is not the monsters themselves, but the hidden stat values that cause pets to agro enemies, and the problem here is, their values are apparently lower than the player's agro values, which means monsters will almost always prioritize in attacking the player and not the wolves, and that makes them useless for tanking. And when you are a glass cannon, because you've equipped only gear with pet bonuses on, and everything is attacking you instead of your minions, it becomes super frustrating to play in high difficulty, where monsters destroy you in seconds with that kind of build. If i ever try a wolf summoner again, it will be in combination with the Earth mastery, where i can also use a Core Dweller summon, which has much higher agro values and actually tanks and keeps enemies at distance... or so i heard.

So what happened? The Druid character is actually still alive, but i just couldn't go back to it, it's not worth it. I thought i'll take a break from it and return to grinding it later, but not long after i realized that i don't want to go back. For those who followed and commented on the previous challenge, thank you and sorry for not posting more, but it was truly painful to play by the end.

So now i'm going back to my comfort zone with another melee build... but this time there's a bunch of new content in the game, that i haven't even touched yet. I'm going in 100% blind into the new expansion. Eternal Embers added a new Mastery/Class, a 7th act, more special endgame dungeons, and a new currency that can be farmed only if you voluntarily play with curses that severely nerf your character. The good thing is the curses can be added and removed whenever you want, so if i'm not wrong and i can just go back and farm areas that are below my level (once i progress a bit in the game), i should be able to abuse the system and see what this currency is all about and if it's worth wasting my time in farming it. And if you wonder why would i want to abuse and make it easier on myself... when you see how brutal and unfair it is, you'll understand.

For my build i decided to use the new mastery "Neidan" which seems to be some kind of chi master alchemist, using deadly concoctions on the battlefield. It also has abilities that grant him different bonuses by simply chugging health and mana potions... it looks very interesting. I decided to use him as support to the Defense mastery, which creates the class of "Monk". Neidan doesn't seem to provide much offense for a physical damage melee class, but it has some amazing defenses and auras for dodging attacks, reducing enemy damage and increasing resistances. It also has a default melee (right mouse) skill, but i'm not yet confident in it. I will experiment with it on a later stage, but at a first glance, i think a fully maxed (with synergy) Batter is the better skill... but i can also use them both in a combo, since Batter is on a short cooldown. If i have enough points, i might consider it.
The build should work on paper, i'm confident in it. But if it falls apart, i have a backup plan for an interesting build that i've tested a long time ago, and it was super fun - Magician Trapper (Earth/Rogue), focusing on trowing traps and poison gas bombs.

Here are my previous TQ hardcore journeys, same rules apply here:

https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=84114591&f=208

https://forums.d2jsp.org/topic.php?t=85046419&f=208&o=0

Now to the new one:

At the very start of the game, in the village of Helos, there is a new temple devoted to the new currency in the game - Electrum.



Here the hero can get from 1 to 8 predetermined curses. Killing enemies while under a curse, grants electrum - 1 electrum per curse, per kill. If you enable all 8 curses, you get 8 electrum per kill... and this is where the big question arises. What if i just don't bother with any curses right now and play until i reach the end of normal difficulty and then return overpowered in act 1, get all 8 curses, teleport to the Athens battlefield, where there's a good monster density, and just farm electrum there, completely safe and undisturbed? Seems like a broken system to me, unless THQ Nordic are much smarter that i thought and the enemy levels come into account? I guess i'll find out.



But what do we do with the electrum? There are three tiers of orbs that can be purchased with electrum, there are orbs for each of the acts. Each orb supposedly drops unique items from its respective act, and also a fragment of a key. To gather all fragments, you need to open all act orbs, and complete a full key to open one of the new challenging endgame dungeons... or at least that's what i think, i'll have to learn more about it later, all i know is that are new challenge dungeons in the game. How scary these dungeons are, i have no idea, but i have a feeling they're quite dangerous, so i might stay away from them for a long time. Besides, the cheapest normal orb costs 100 000 electrum. With 8 curses and 8 electrum per kill, gathering enough to buy all orbs will not be an enjoyable experience. But i still want to open at least a couple per difficulty to see what they're all about. Also, for each difficulty the electrum needs to be farmed separately, i can't buy epic orbs with normal electrum. And the legendary ones go up in cost too, close to 400 000... good god!

Oh, and how bad are these curses? With all 8 enabled, you get -100% elemental, vitality, poison and bleeding resistance, as well as -50% piercing and physical resistance, which means on higher difficulties will be even worse since epic add -40% penalty on all of these resistances and -100% penalty on legendary difficulty. The only exception is physical resistance, which doesn't get a penalty on higher difficulties. But that's not all, all mobility resistances, like stun, freeze, entrapment and so on, also get -50% from the curses. See why this system begs to be exploited? It's near impossible to play on higher difficulties with all 8 curses, at least not on a hardcore character. At the same time, running around with just one curse will require you to kill 100 000 monsters just to get enough electrum for one orb. But enough of this, time to play...





Starter quest done. As always, nothing drops from the shaman. I cleared the starting area with the 8 curses, because it's safe enough, and it's at the very start so even if i died here, it's not a big loss, and i could've just started over. I also wanted to confirm that i'm getting 8 electrum per kill. After that, i've continued the game without any curses.



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Jun 30 2023 11:16pm

And here is something i've never seen before, two strong skeleton warriors attack me on a grass field just outside Helos. Skeletons never spawn here, only satyrs and boars, i don't know if this was added in Eternal Embers, or it's just a new bug in this area (which i doubt).



I'm going for the same skill progression as in my previous hardcore threads. This mastery hides no secrets, i've played it so many times over the years. Attribute point distribution will be 1:1 str/dex and maybe some points in health later on.



I got to the Spartan war camp. Now it's time to keep the tradition of farming the first boss for a few levels, until he drops the MI rare shield "Outriders Buckler".

I don't know if i'm rusty, or they made Nessus slightly harder, because he takes longer to kill than what i'm used to, and i even had a few close calls while fighting him. One thing i can say for sure, they've increased the number of his minions.



This is a rare MI! I think i've found it on my Warden build too, but i'm not sure. I don't see it dropping very often



And it improves my damage. I don't want to use spears with this build, but for now there's nothing better and i need the extra damage to kill Nessus faster

Level 8, but i won't be taking Neidan just yet.



No Outrider's Buckler after a bunch of runs, but his chest finally dropped a unique epic ring. Nothing special, but good enough when compared with the trash i'm wearing



And one the next rune another epic ring, this time from Nessus himself.

That took some time. I started farming him at level 6, thinking i'll be done when i hit level 8, but this drop happened at 9.



Now to Tegea to get me a new weapon... By the way, that Thresher epic had level 13 requirement and i stats and attack speed weren't that great so i sold it



This post was edited by KillingIsMyBusiness on Jun 30 2023 11:39pm

Ah, here it is, i thought i forgot to screenshot it. It's actually level 15, even worse then.





Alright, time to get the Deathweaver's Legtip

First encounter with an enemy hero, earlier than i expected. No good drops from him...



Not what i wanted, but some extra attack speed and damage retaliation is always welcomed



I think i'm not going to bother with leg tip any longer, this weapon here gets two physical damage affixes. It's still not that impressive because the base is bad, but it will do for now.

Now in Megara, where i'll do the usual quests and farm the Cyclops, because i'm hoping to get the crafting formula for Shroud of Eternal Night.