The bonus round is stupidly hard. what are they think. There are like 100s of range mobs, plus exploding circles on your feet, prone/cc effect/ mobs surrounding you and blocking you from running so you can die. You can't last long enough for the 18 sec that it takes potion to cool down. Oh well, work as intended.
The bonus round is stupidly hard. what are they think. There are like 100s of range mobs, plus exploding circles on your feet, prone/cc effect/ mobs surrounding you and blocking you from running so you can die. You can't last long enough for the 18 sec that it takes potion to cool down. Oh well, work as intended.
Well. Just avoid it/bonus round. I don't play bonus round. Reward is just not worth the effort.
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
Just an extra token.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
@rikitaki i think the demon rounds were easier then the ones with devils, but i might be wrong here, right now those Zythar demons are a pain in the rear to fight against, 2+ of them can burn through the defenses of my lower IL Fighter pretty quickly, i always kill them first now, even if that might trigger another wave directly.
Demon rounds were harder... I don't have problems with this event with my fighter this time. But my fighter now is far better. What is interesting to me... We have two events for that leg. mount. One (hell pit) is hard and other one is just toooo easy. From one extreme to the other
Day 10 with my 44k Fighter, and i finally got devils as enemies, and yes, those 5 + bonus rounds were trivial compared to all the demon rounds before, even the week 1 demon fights were harder then this... go figure.
Day 8 with my 31k Fighter, also devils, and it was doable, had to use a few Healing Potions, but i got through it. I guess i have to find a way to only get devil rounds for all the next days to finish the event.
Btw. funny how they can increase the scaling IL here, but can't be bothered to fix the bloody bug that gets you stuck when the last gates open... i'm always waiting for the second gate to fully open, but i'm still getting stuck in the doorway, same as before.
@rikitaki i think the demon rounds were easier then the ones with devils, but i might be wrong here, right now those Zythar demons are a pain in the rear to fight against, 2+ of them can burn through the defenses of my lower IL Fighter pretty quickly, i always kill them first now, even if that might trigger another wave directly.
Demon rounds were harder... I don't have problems with this event with my fighter this time. But my fighter now is far better. What is interesting to me... We have two events for that leg. mount. One (hell pit) is hard and other one is just toooo easy. From one extreme to the other
Day 10 with my 44k Fighter, and i finally got devils as enemies, and yes, those 5 + bonus rounds were trivial compared to all the demon rounds before, even the week 1 demon fights were harder then this... go figure.
Day 8 with my 31k Fighter, also devils, and it was doable, had to use a few Healing Potions, but i got through it. I guess i have to find a way to only get devil rounds for all the next days to finish the event.
Btw. funny how they can increase the scaling IL here, but can't be bothered to fix the bloody bug that gets you stuck when the last gates open... i'm always waiting for the second gate to fully open, but i'm still getting stuck in the doorway, same as before.
Yeap. Devils are so much easier. Makes a mockery of it as an event tbh.
For the first time doing this event I considered my strategy to probably not be a good one for anyone else but the same thing is working exactly as before and since defense is no longer a thing for DPS in MOD 20 I have decided to upgrade it to a good strategy for this event.
Basically, I know this works well for my TR and DC. I chose not to use my DC for this because of timing differences where my TR was easily completing the first 3 rounds in the same amount of time it took for my DC to complete the first round.
In both cases it is literally just a healing and AoE DOT check for me. If you have the healing it is easy and an AoE DOT is also needed during the run to procure some your offensive healing and other buff or damage type stuff needed to survive their CA attacks.
For round one: I usually start by moving forward a little activate my Path of Blades but lately I have been just activating it so that I can get affected by the environment knockdown (is not really effective at the beginning as the monsters are still spawning and moving toward you) and then I simply start running around the ring while waiting for the special item to appear.
After that, while keeping the encounter power Path of Blades active I just keep running around the ring until the last 5 seconds or so. The way I do it all monsters always have CA on me as I never see any of them while running unless they spawn in front my running path. I only focus on killing stuff when I start taking significant damage from the ranged attacks and then I change my movement to intersect any ranged attackers in an attempt to take them out without killing off too many of the melee types. For me I find Deft Strike to be the better choice in this event than the large sideways knife thingy because with Deft Strike I just teleport across the ring to where I need to be and the melee types then have to play catch up before they can do anything and when I use a stealthed Smoke Bomb it generally takes care of them as I always make the effort to time it so that my Path of Blades is active as well. (I have also noticed, in the first week anyways that when I do this all the ranged attackers that I want to get rid of always seem to be bunched up in one location for me. In the second week if I have to do an attack run before the timer runs out I just aim for the middle of the mob use my encounters and/or daily powers and continue running)
For all successive rounds it is the exact same thing but now I use whatever special item I got in the first round so I can pick up the next one. (since they changed that boot one to be useful, I no longer try to save the shield or heart one for the end and just use whatever I get in the next round.)
My potion use is minimal (probably about 1 or 2 potion(s) per round) and as before when I get past week 1 it seems to get easier because after that I spend either the entire time or almost the entire time just running around the ring instead of me having to cut a path through the middle 2 or 3 times trying to kill the ranged attackers and I am using a lot less potions.
As far as constant control effects from the mobs in the second week as reported by others on this forum well, I have not experienced that yet although I have come close as I sometimes get caught by the environment knockdown one while activating my Path of Blades or by standing too long in one spot and all the monsters seem to choose that time to start their red area attacks while I am still on the ground.
In terms of health, as before I rarely go below 50% and I have yet to have that near death experience as well since I started doing it this way.
My rogue is about a 38K IL (reduced by 1K or so to equip the legendary mirage weapon set.)
Using an active companion this time around instead of an augment one (1 rank 15 indomitable and 1 insignia buff power = 40% on a mythic Makos). This seems like the ideal place to use an Epic+ non-healer type invoker because of the large area they cover with their attack routines.
Encounter powers in use for this event: Path of Blades, Deft Strike and Smoke Bomb
At-wills: cloud of steel and sly flourish
Artifact used: Mythic Wyvern Coated Knives (went back to undermountain and acquired this item at the beginning of MOD 20) is what I am currently using although two of the other three artifacts I have equipped would probably be a better choice for this event because they do not really require you to be accurate or anything really.
My first time through I used Shard of Orcus’ Wand or Trobriand’s Ring depending on what I felt like using or happened to have equipped at the time. (both at mythic level)
Enchantments: all rank 10s. Utility slot ones are: 4 Brutal and 1 Tymora. Armor = Barkshield and Weapon = Lightning.
Companion healing abilities equipped since mod 16 when I took a real interest in companions:
Redemption (minstrel) and Astral Deva’s Insight (Astral Deva),
Back then the minstrel was still free providing you were willing to complete the leveling quest for it and I always was so all my toons have one. The prices listed in the AH for the Astral Deva are about 4 or 5 times higher than when I was purchasing them for all of my toons and is a power that was immediately equipped on all of my DPS toons. Based on the price increase I would guess that it has become a more popular one now in mod 20.
Artifact set equipped: Demogorgon Set
Other equipment that may be making a difference for me: Blessed Divine Raid Helm, Divine Raid Surcoat, Spiked Defender Vambrace, Infernal Forged Gaiters and whatever the latest pant and shirt items are (As far as I know all are still items that any level 80 toon can easily get if they so choose.)
The divine stuff is new for this event and took some effort on my part to earn the campaign currency for it. The Bone Harvester Hood and Dark Ritual Robes are much easier to get from Vallenhas (both are pretty good healing items that I used the first time around)
New Mount abilities that make it even easier for me this time around: Cauldron Fumes and Ferocious Predator. Did not have any legendary or mythic mount abilities when I first did the hell pit event and my epic mount ability that I had equipped at the time was Armor Breaker. (armor pen.)
Mount insignia abilities equipped (Since I first created this toon sometime in 2018.) Gladiator’s Guile, Opressor’s Reprieve, Survivor’s Blessing, Barbarian’s Revelry New for Mod 20 is Warlord’s Inspiration which replaced Berserker’s Rage While Knight’s Rebuke does looks to be the better choice, I have not bothered to make any changes. Although, if I had thought it was necessary to replace one for this event it would have been the Warlord’s Inspiration one.
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micky1p00Member, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 3,594Arc User
After a first not so good attempt, I just slapped the first healing companion I saw, Liliend (or how it's called), and use bait and switch to aggro the mobs.
Stealth, run around, bait and switch to refill stealth or whirlwind to refill stealth, smoke the ranged and run a bit inside the smoke, run around, repeat as needed.
You don't need to kill stuff, just spend 2 minutes. The smoke bomb will reduce the numbers, and yes, PotB if needed to cull the herd. But it's beneficial not to kill them all so not to trigger new spawn prematurely.
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I have been doing this with my 51K Arbiter DC. The first week was not too hard, but the second one has been quite a bit more challenging...unfortunately not challenging in a "fun" way - more annoying. Anyhow, a good companion and some healing potions and it's over quickly enough.
Been quite doable last time, but now, with healing insignia nerf (10 sec CD) and still not fixed meteorite rain (i'm getting bounced less than half second after red circle appear, and waaay BEFORE the hamster meteorite physically fall down) + all that CC, prone, etc + most of your casting powers that makes you unable to move... it's not challenging at all. You need to either stick to the walls, or kill casters and just run in circles while drinking pots while your companion try to kill mobs. I just wiping and waiting for shield or HoT buffs to appear
1
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,455Arc User
Fighter 42k, changed mount powers and therefore lost 2k IL, day 11 more or less easy going with devils, day 12 back to the good old grind against demons.
Fighter 31k, day 8 and 9 vs. devils, trying out different epic healer companions, testing if i can reduce the Healing Potions consumption level, no luck this far.
Not really any doability troubles with my 52k rogue during the first or second week so far (no matter if i get demons or devils), i didn't try on any of my reroll (see below why). Only had to consume some few VIP health potions which i normally sell for gold, that's an indicator for me this Hellpit is harder than the 2 first ones.
My problem with this event is the same as when it was first aired : in a MMORPG, an event purely solo still doesn't make any sense in my mind, and worse, Hellpit is basically staying in the same area killing waves after waves of the same trash monsters we already know everything about since years, nothing interesting at all but a cool environment (graph/artist teams in Cryptic are usually good/on point even if the game/engine is aged) + a funny wink at our poor Wilfred (who was erased from tutorial, CN and DT...) I still do my HellPit everyday (i will get the mount next week), but to be honest ... it's the most boring daily 15 minutes of Neverwinter ever for me (ok, ok, equal to the boredom of the 15min first invoke on my alt-army). I do prefer the Nightmare concept by FAR, though it's not much more interesting, at least I can enjoy the company of a party.
One question. What are odds to get only demons on the 2nd week (i think i got demons first week too, but i can be wrong) ?!?! Cryptic rng is everything but not "random" rng
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plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,455Arc User
I have encountered demons and devils on the 2nd week.
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
Well, pretty sure i only got demons during the first week, and it's demons and devils in the second week.
One more strange thing i noticed, the bonus round today was different on my higher IL Fighter, it only had one wave of demons and i was done within seconds, same reward as with my lower IL Fighter, that had to go through several waves of devils today.
It also feels like there are difficulty differences within the same demon/devil round, one set of enemies barely scratches my HP, while another wave hits like crazy, and i have to pull all the stops to stay alive.
At this point i'm wondering if they're messing around with the event right now, testing things on the live server, or if this whole thing is just plain broken...
I do believe in killing the messenger...
Want to know why?
Because it sends a message!
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adinosiiMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 4,294Arc User
I got my 5th token today and bought the horse. Not that I have any use for it, with 11 mythic mounts already, but still...
Anyhow, the point is that I do not find the event fun, so I'm just going to skip the rest of it...not bothering with the remaining days...it's just not worth it.
remining week is just 1 round, if I remember correctly no point in skipping it after you did all the work
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greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
3 weeks. Week 1, one token. Week 2, chance of a second. Week 3, the fun really starts.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
@regenerde The bonus round starts when the book appears, not when you accept the quest. So, if you wait for some cool-downs or AP to regenerate, you can actually arrive when the timer is already over. (one of the bugs that have been reported when the Hell Pit was introduced for the first time - one which no one bothered to patch...)
Well, that's good to know, thanks... i think real life was calling in that moment, and i had to step away from the PC for a few minutes, guess i came back just in time, or otherwise i wouldn't have gotten anything out of that bonus round?
I do believe in killing the messenger...
Want to know why?
Because it sends a message!
0
greywyndMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 7,158Arc User
I really love it when between the glabrezu, hezrou, and the random falling AoE that the entire floor turns red, leaving you nowhere safe.
I'm not looking for forgiveness, and I'm way past asking permission. Earth just lost her best defender, so we're here to fight. And if you want to stand in our way, we'll fight you too.
0
plasticbatMember, NW M9 PlaytestPosts: 12,455Arc User
edited May 2021
I met another version of gate bug. This time I stuck on the gate. My companion went outside. The firestone kept dropping on me but no damage to me. However, I was in 'combat' and '/stuck' refused to work. The timer kept going. Certain encounter still had effect to the mob if they were within range. My companion died, recurrent, died, recurrent, ... and eventually all the monsters were killed. The timer was long expired. However, the firestone still kept dropping. Hence, I stayed in combat and could not get out. Eventually, I chose 'kill me'. Well, I needed to start that round from scratch. Sigh!
*** The game can read your mind. If you want it, you won't get it. If you don't expect to get it, you will. ***
The basic rounds lasts 2 minutes, with 4 waves that spawns each 30 secs. If you kill a wave before the next 30-seconds one spawns, you get a respawn wave so you are never out of mobs.
Key to minimizing mob spawning is to whittle a wave down to 1-2 mobs, then let them stay alive until the next 30-seconds wave spawns. If you get a respawn wave just before a 30-seconds wave you will actually get a double wave.
Running this on my 51k wizard, one rotation of my AE encounters usually kills off most of the wave so my Xuna can play with what is left until the next 30-seconds wave spawns. I sometimes get a respawn wave because Xuna kills too fast
@regenerde No, as far as I know you always have to clear up the mobs. (you fight one batch of enemies with quest completed when you kill those) I consider it boring (and kind of unavoidable exploit), so I would not recommend to take advantage of it - but at the same time I have no intention to enter the bonus demon round without full AP gauge... The obvious downside is you can enter the arena just before new adds are coming, so you can end up fighting two batches at once. (eg. you enter when timer is 1:31)
It also feels like there are difficulty differences within the same demon/devil round, one set of enemies barely scratches my HP, while another wave hits like crazy, and i have to pull all the stops to stay alive.
Noticed that myself also, quite strange
Event is already over, but i must say that 3rd week 2-rounds challenge was much EASIER than the second week, zero wipes and zero health stones with the same 33k SW, sure shield and health helped but dunno, maybe my comp was aggroing most of the casters
Comments
Day 8 with my 31k Fighter, also devils, and it was doable, had to use a few Healing Potions, but i got through it. I guess i have to find a way to only get devil rounds for all the next days to finish the event.
Btw. funny how they can increase the scaling IL here, but can't be bothered to fix the bloody bug that gets you stuck when the last gates open... i'm always waiting for the second gate to fully open, but i'm still getting stuck in the doorway, same as before.
done all 6 rounds every day only had one death first day because i forgot about the fire bombs
51k ar
Basically, I know this works well for my TR and DC. I chose not to use my DC for this because of timing differences where my TR was easily completing the first 3 rounds in the same amount of time it took for my DC to complete the first round.
In both cases it is literally just a healing and AoE DOT check for me. If you have the healing it is easy and an AoE DOT is also needed during the run to procure some your offensive healing and other buff or damage type stuff needed to survive their CA attacks.
For round one:
I usually start by moving forward a little activate my Path of Blades but lately I have been just activating it so that I can get affected by the environment knockdown (is not really effective at the beginning as the monsters are still spawning and moving toward you) and then I simply start running around the ring while waiting for the special item to appear.
After that, while keeping the encounter power Path of Blades active I just keep running around the ring until the last 5 seconds or so. The way I do it all monsters always have CA on me as I never see any of them while running unless they spawn in front my running path. I only focus on killing stuff when I start taking significant damage from the ranged attacks and then I change my movement to intersect any ranged attackers in an attempt to take them out without killing off too many of the melee types. For me I find Deft Strike to be the better choice in this event than the large sideways knife thingy because with Deft Strike I just teleport across the ring to where I need to be and the melee types then have to play catch up before they can do anything and when I use a stealthed Smoke Bomb it generally takes care of them as I always make the effort to time it so that my Path of Blades is active as well. (I have also noticed, in the first week anyways that when I do this all the ranged attackers that I want to get rid of always seem to be bunched up in one location for me. In the second week if I have to do an attack run before the timer runs out I just aim for the middle of the mob use my encounters and/or daily powers and continue running)
For all successive rounds it is the exact same thing but now I use whatever special item I got in the first round so I can pick up the next one. (since they changed that boot one to be useful, I no longer try to save the shield or heart one for the end and just use whatever I get in the next round.)
My potion use is minimal (probably about 1 or 2 potion(s) per round) and as before when I get past week 1 it seems to get easier because after that I spend either the entire time or almost the entire time just running around the ring instead of me having to cut a path through the middle 2 or 3 times trying to kill the ranged attackers and I am using a lot less potions.
As far as constant control effects from the mobs in the second week as reported by others on this forum well, I have not experienced that yet although I have come close as I sometimes get caught by the environment knockdown one while activating my Path of Blades or by standing too long in one spot and all the monsters seem to choose that time to start their red area attacks while I am still on the ground.
In terms of health, as before I rarely go below 50% and I have yet to have that near death experience as well since I started doing it this way.
My rogue is about a 38K IL (reduced by 1K or so to equip the legendary mirage weapon set.)
Using an active companion this time around instead of an augment one (1 rank 15 indomitable and 1 insignia buff power = 40% on a mythic Makos). This seems like the ideal place to use an Epic+ non-healer type invoker because of the large area they cover with their attack routines.
Encounter powers in use for this event: Path of Blades, Deft Strike and Smoke Bomb
At-wills: cloud of steel and sly flourish
Artifact used: Mythic Wyvern Coated Knives (went back to undermountain and acquired this item at the beginning of MOD 20) is what I am currently using although two of the other three artifacts I have equipped would probably be a better choice for this event because they do not really require you to be accurate or anything really.
My first time through I used Shard of Orcus’ Wand or Trobriand’s Ring depending on what I felt like using or happened to have equipped at the time. (both at mythic level)
Enchantments: all rank 10s. Utility slot ones are: 4 Brutal and 1 Tymora. Armor = Barkshield and Weapon = Lightning.
Companion healing abilities equipped since mod 16 when I took a real interest in companions:
Redemption (minstrel) and Astral Deva’s Insight (Astral Deva),
Back then the minstrel was still free providing you were willing to complete the leveling quest for it and I always was so all my toons have one. The prices listed in the AH for the Astral Deva are about 4 or 5 times higher than when I was purchasing them for all of my toons and is a power that was immediately equipped on all of my DPS toons. Based on the price increase I would guess that it has become a more popular one now in mod 20.
Artifact set equipped: Demogorgon Set
Other equipment that may be making a difference for me:
Blessed Divine Raid Helm, Divine Raid Surcoat, Spiked Defender Vambrace, Infernal Forged Gaiters and whatever the latest pant and shirt items are (As far as I know all are still items that any level 80 toon can easily get if they so choose.)
The divine stuff is new for this event and took some effort on my part to earn the campaign currency for it. The Bone Harvester Hood and Dark Ritual Robes are much easier to get from Vallenhas (both are pretty good healing items that I used the first time around)
New Mount abilities that make it even easier for me this time around: Cauldron Fumes and Ferocious Predator. Did not have any legendary or mythic mount abilities when I first did the hell pit event and my epic mount ability that I had equipped at the time was Armor Breaker. (armor pen.)
Mount insignia abilities equipped (Since I first created this toon sometime in 2018.)
Gladiator’s Guile, Opressor’s Reprieve, Survivor’s Blessing, Barbarian’s Revelry
New for Mod 20 is Warlord’s Inspiration which replaced Berserker’s Rage
While Knight’s Rebuke does looks to be the better choice, I have not bothered to make any changes. Although, if I had thought it was necessary to replace one for this event it would have been the Warlord’s Inspiration one.
Stealth, run around, bait and switch to refill stealth or whirlwind to refill stealth, smoke the ranged and run a bit inside the smoke, run around, repeat as needed.
You don't need to kill stuff, just spend 2 minutes. The smoke bomb will reduce the numbers, and yes, PotB if needed to cull the herd. But it's beneficial not to kill them all so not to trigger new spawn prematurely.
Fighter 31k, day 8 and 9 vs. devils, trying out different epic healer companions, testing if i can reduce the Healing Potions consumption level, no luck this far.
My problem with this event is the same as when it was first aired : in a MMORPG, an event purely solo still doesn't make any sense in my mind, and worse, Hellpit is basically staying in the same area killing waves after waves of the same trash monsters we already know everything about since years, nothing interesting at all but a cool environment (graph/artist teams in Cryptic are usually good/on point even if the game/engine is aged) + a funny wink at our poor Wilfred (who was erased from tutorial, CN and DT...)
I still do my HellPit everyday (i will get the mount next week), but to be honest ... it's the most boring daily 15 minutes of Neverwinter ever for me (ok, ok, equal to the boredom of the 15min first invoke on my alt-army).
I do prefer the Nightmare concept by FAR, though it's not much more interesting, at least I can enjoy the company of a party.
One more strange thing i noticed, the bonus round today was different on my higher IL Fighter, it only had one wave of demons and i was done within seconds, same reward as with my lower IL Fighter, that had to go through several waves of devils today.
It also feels like there are difficulty differences within the same demon/devil round, one set of enemies barely scratches my HP, while another wave hits like crazy, and i have to pull all the stops to stay alive.
At this point i'm wondering if they're messing around with the event right now, testing things on the live server, or if this whole thing is just plain broken...
Anyhow, the point is that I do not find the event fun, so I'm just going to skip the rest of it...not bothering with the remaining days...it's just not worth it.
Key to minimizing mob spawning is to whittle a wave down to 1-2 mobs, then let them stay alive until the next 30-seconds wave spawns. If you get a respawn wave just before a 30-seconds wave you will actually get a double wave.
Running this on my 51k wizard, one rotation of my AE encounters usually kills off most of the wave so my Xuna can play with what is left until the next 30-seconds wave spawns. I sometimes get a respawn wave because Xuna kills too fast
I consider it boring (and kind of unavoidable exploit), so I would not recommend to take advantage of it - but at the same time I have no intention to enter the bonus demon round without full AP gauge...
The obvious downside is you can enter the arena just before new adds are coming, so you can end up fighting two batches at once. (eg. you enter when timer is 1:31)
Event is already over, but i must say that 3rd week 2-rounds challenge was much EASIER than the second week, zero wipes and zero health stones with the same 33k SW, sure shield and health helped but dunno, maybe my comp was aggroing most of the casters